This coming Sunday, I'm teaching a class in how to do voiceover work for animation. It's a function of Women In Animation, a non-profit organization established in 1994 to promote the advancement of women working in the art and industry of animation. The class will more or less be in three parts. Part One will be a discussion of the business and we'll talk about demos and agents and getting work and most of all, how to arrive at a realistic view of what's possible and what ain't. I have this theory that the secret to success in any field is to find that sweet spot between Idealism and Pragmatism. Tip too much in either direction and you're in trouble. So we'll talk about how things really work instead of how you want them to work and that'll be the first part of the class.
Then Act Two will be reading scripts and discussing how to shape a character and how to work the material for all it's worth. Sometimes, you have to work it for more than it's worth, too.
For the grand finale, we'll have a little reception and maybe some Q-and-A with the person who is certainly the most important female voiceover artist in history and one of the most important in animation in any capacity…June Foray. We'll celebrate her recent win of her first Emmy Award and I'll try to get her to replicate the look on her face when they opened the envelope.
I have no idea how many have signed up for the class yet. Hopefully, somebody. But they haven't told me it's full so if you're in Los Angeles and interested, Click here for more details.
Someone sent me a disc filled with photos of old Las Vegas and while many images on it intrigue me, I find myself looking mainly at Who's Playing. This is from around 1964 (it says) and at the Sahara Hotel, you could go see Johnny Carson in the main room. This was back when he took week-long vacations from The Tonight Show and played Vegas. His act, they said, was quite unlike his Tonight Show monologues in that he went in for long stories and even closed with a sketch as "Deputy John," a kid show host who shows up for a live broadcast drunk one afternoon and ready to tell the kids some things they didn't expect to hear. His opening act, January Jones, is no kin (I assume) to the actress current on Mad Man. This January was a popular singer of the day who often played Vegas and was known for her sexy outfits and for the rather spectacular physique with which she filled them.
Before or after you saw Johnny, you could enjoy the $2.95 buffet (one of the higher-priced ones in town) or go catch insult comic Don Rickles in the lounge where he did four shows a night, ending about three in the morning. And if you didn't like Johnny or Don, just wait around. Pat Boone would be along in a week or so. Wish I could have gone to Vegas then…although since I would have been 12 years old, I don't imagine they'd have let me in.
One of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid was Yancy Derringer. Mr. Derringer, played by Jock Mahoney, was a gentleman in New Orleans in 1868, shortly after the end of the Civil War. To maintain peace in town, he worked as an unpaid special agent of the City Administrator, handling delicate matters and criminal investigations. Accompanied by his silent Indian companion, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah, Yancy had a knack for running into folks with problems and solving those problems before the half-hour was up. The show ran on CBS for two seasons, 1958-1959, but I think I discovered it in syndicated reruns right after it left the network. Here, in case you have a half-hour to spare, is an episode…
I mentioned here the other day that physicist Richard Muller, once the darling of those who insist Global Warming is bogus, now says it's real and that human activity is its main cause. Kevin Drum makes a good point…
…as near as I can tell, climate skeptics, including those who said they'd trust Muller's results no matter what they showed, haven't budged an inch since he published his initial papers last year. I doubt his new paper will change their minds either. That's no surprise, since this has long since ceased being a scientific controversy. Climate skeptics are skeptics because they don't like the idea of global warming, not because there's truly any evidence that it doesn't exist. It's politically inconvenient, economically inconvenient, and personally inconvenient, so they don't want to hear about it.
I think that's it. This is not about science. It's a battle between reality and denial. One friend of mine will never admit Climate Change might (might) be happening because that would mean Al Gore was right and we can't have that. As near as I can tell, the only basis my friend has for disbelieving Climate Change is Gore's advocacy. If Gore became a vocal crusader against man-on-dog sex, my friend would probably marry a cocker spaniel.
As you probably know if you care, I think the drive to block Gay Marriage (and full civil rights for anyone of any sexual persuasion) is a shameful exercise in fear and bigotry — fear, mostly. I also think it's being driven to a great extent by people who really don't care if folks with the same genitalia wed but find it a useful — and to a great extent, lucrative — crusade to promote. Does anyone think Mitt Romney really cares if gay people marry? Of course not. But there are votes and campaign contributions to be harvested there so he says what he says.
So maybe I should rush to join the boycott of Chick-Fil-A, the fast food chain whose owners donate beaucoup bucks to anti-gay causes and who serve tasty chicken sandwiches with a subtle undertext of Bible Thumping. But no. First off, one cannot boycott that which one does not patronize. Haven't set foot in a Chick-Fil-A in at least five years. I liked the few I visited in other cities enough but when they finally opened one in my neck of the woods — Sunset and Highland, to be exact — I decided I didn't like their food enough to brave the parking situation up there. So I drive by all the time with no yearning to stop in for a bite. Looks like it'll stay that way.
Also, I'm not big on boycotts and I usually feel they hurt the innocent bystanders — like in this case, minimum-wage Chick-Fil-A employees who didn't set these policies — more than they bring the bosses to their knees. Or they penalize suppliers or other businesses that became involved with Chick-Fil-A when this was not an issue. I guess I also don't like that folks are going to look at Chick-Fil-A reported sales the next few months and try to parse that data as some sort of valid referendum on Gay Marriage, which it won't be.
In an odd way, I like that the Chick-Fil-A people are at least open about their views. I'm sure a lot of the profits realized by my purchases at other business establishments find their way to causes I do not champion. Supposing I did have business with Chick-Fil-A and in protest, I took it away and started spending that money at Arby's. How do I know that Mr. Arby doesn't tithe 10% of the chain's profits to a group that wants to lower the age of consent to three? It's possible. I mean, we know they're not spending all their proceeds on meat.
So I'm against boycotting Chick-Fil-A and I'm really against the levers of government being used to prevent them from opening someplace just because of their owners' political views. I think people are wrong to oppose Gay Marriage but they have every right to oppose Gay Marriage. On the other hand, if they try to open a Carls Jr on my street, that should be blocked…not because its management supports right-wing causes but because their food is really, really awful. The last time I was in one, I asked if a certain sandwich on their menu could be made without the cheese. The kid at the counter said, "Oh, but the cheese is the only edible part of that one."
Many years ago, I was strolling down The Strip in Las Vegas around 3:45 in the afternoon and I was passing a grungy little casino called the Westward Ho, which was next door to the Stardust. As a point of reference, neither the 'Ho nor the Stardust are there anymore. There are Ho's in Vegas but not the Westward kind.
Outside the smaller casino, there was a man imploring passers-by to come in and see the 4:00 show they had there. As another point of reference, there are no good shows that perform at four in the afternoon. I don't mean just in Las Vegas. I mean anywhere.
The one in question was "A Tribute to Wayne Newton." In Vegas, the way you pay tribute to someone is to do their act. They had a guy who kinda looked like Wayne Newton and he probably sounded a little like Wayne Newton. That, by the way, is pretty much the popular description of Wayne Newton these days.
Anyway, the barker (I guess you'd call him) outside stopped me and told me what a wonderful time I'd have if only I'd plunk down the bucks to come in and hear this guy performing all of The Midnight Idol's hits. He closed his sales pitch with "So, how about it, Sport? Show starts in ten minutes. There are some good seats available." I had the feeling all seats were available including some in the band and maybe "Wayne's" but I didn't have the time or the interest.
Plus there was this: Standing there in front of the Westward Ho, I could turn my eyes about 20 degrees and see the Stardust next door. And on the huge Stardust sign, it proclaimed the name of the superstar then appearing in the showroom there: Wayne Newton. Presumably, the real one.
In this world, there are some questions you just have to ask. I knew I was not the first person to ask this question or the second or the five hundredth…but I had to ask it because I knew the man had to have an answer for it and I wanted to hear what it would be. I asked the barker, "Why should I pay to see your Wayne Newton when I can walk across that parking lot and buy a ticket to see the real Wayne Newton?"
He said, "Our Wayne Newton is $14.95 and includes a buffet, Sport."
And I thought: You know, that's a pretty good answer.
I mean, the buffet was usually $5.95. The real Wayne was getting $49.95 per ticket. With tip, we'll call it fifty bucks. Now, let's say the imitation Wayne was only 20% as good as the genuine article. I don't think it would be that hard to be 20% as good as Wayne Newton. I can't sing at all and I'm at around 14%. If he's one-fifth as good as Wayne, you're getting $10.00 worth of Wayne Newton plus a $5.95 buffet — a $15.95 value — for $14.95. That's a better return on your money than Keno.
But that's only if you want to see Wayne Newton and I didn't. Didn't want to see the real one and didn't want to see a reasonable facsimile. I also wanted him to stop calling me "Sport" so I needed a way out. My eyes scanned a photo of the Newton doppelgänger and on it, his image was surrounded by the names of some of Wayne's big hits like "Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast," "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" and "Shangri-La." I turned to the salesman and said, "I'm sorry but I can't go see a Wayne Newton impersonator who doesn't sing 'Danke Schoen.' That's, like, malpractice."
The barker looked around to make sure no one could hear him. No one could. Then he whispered to me, "He does 'Danke Schoen' as his surprise encore!"
I was telling this story to someone the other day and I wasn't sure if I'd told it here or not…but if I have, it's been a while. And it prompted me to try and figure out who that Wayne Newton impersonator was. I did a little Internet sleuthing and it might have been Rusty Davis, who still performs in casinos and other venues around the country. Here's a sample of Mr. Davis. I think he's more than 20% as good as Wayne Newton was then…and probably better than him these days…
Fred Kaplan on Mitt Romney's overseas escapades. The odd thing is that if Romney had intentionally insulted several nations over there, pissed on their protocol and mooned the Queen, he probably would have raised his favorability ratings with a certain portion of the electorate here.
Richard A. Muller is a physicist who's been going around for years now saying that Global Warming is a hoax and that the teensy amount of climate change that may be occurring is not caused by human activity. He's the kind of guy global warming deniers cite when they want to say, "Look, look! We've got some scientists on our side!"
Or at least they did. Last year, he changed his mind and said Global Warming was real and now he's saying it is being caused by what we do, mainly in the area of carbon dioxide emissions. This is kinda like Eric Cantor suddenly deciding "Obamacare" makes good financial sense. So you might want to read this article that Muller just wrote entitled "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic."
Pat Buchanan has had a pretty lucrative career frightening whites about how the world will end when they are no longer the majority race in this country. If ever there was a pundit (and occasional candidate) on the national scene viewing everything through that "them or us" prism, it's Buchanan.
In his latest column, he's predicting doom for the G.O.P. as the Hispanic population increases…and maybe it will be if the face of the Republican party continues to be guys who talk like Pat Buchanan. Somehow, I think the subtext of this column is Buchanan's fear that his party will have to give up on his kind of condescending attitude to non-whites. Matt Taibbi has more to say about the column.
I didn't see Stan Lee down at the Comic-Con but I saw the next best thing…his doppelgänger, Fake Stan Lee. Fake Stan Lee is kind of a goodwill ambassador for himself, roaming the con and presiding and getting people to yell "Excelsior!" into his camera. He also loves for some aberrant reason to trash Scott Kurtz's booth.
Anyway, if you haven't caught any of Fake Stan Lee's earlier con reports, check 'em out. There's a link to a couple at this end of this year's video here, which also features some moments from his very funny guest appearance at our Quick Draw! game…
My piece on legibility the other day brought a lot of response, all of it on my side. Since I'm not opposed to quoting folks who agree with me, here are some excerpts starting with Jim Hanley…
You're not alone in thinking that art direction is often inimical to readability of books and magazines. I think, though, that it's been an issue for a lot longer than you think. David Ogilvy was particularly critical of bad art directors, as far back as the mid-sixties. His Ogilvy on Advertising is a book of which I've given away many copies, over the years. In it, Ogilvy speaks about the disregard he encountered among art directors about making copy readable. He cites a large body of research he did that sans serif fonts, all caps, reverse type, and italics were more difficult for people to read. Still, he described a constant battle to keep them out of work that came from his shop.
I don't know if he was active long enough to see the abominations that desktop publishing brought to publishing, but I have no doubt that he'd be equally appalled by the yellow type on a green background you described. Or pretty much every page of Wizard Magazine, when it was still around.
His dictum was that if these type choices worked, The New York Times would use them. And, to date, I'm pretty sure they don't.
Boy, I'm thankful every day that I don't have to look at Diamond's Previews anymore.
From John B. Traylor…
I could not agree with you more. I worked in the printing industry for over 45 years and with the rise of self-publishing and art directors as you mentioned the quality has really suffered. When I began my career in printing everything was still hot metal (at least where I worked) and the Linotype operators who were setting type actually would catch errors in the copy. By the time I retired all the copy came in either over the internet, disk or thumb drive. By that time we were supposed to print it just as it came in warts and all.
Jan Kasick wrote a very long message of which this is a fraction…
The last book I brokered was assigned to the kind of art director you can't stand. He looked at every page and practically wondered out loud, "Hmm, what can I do on this page to get people to notice my contribution?" If this had been an art book, he might have been justified although if he'd been assigned your Jack Kirby book, what he would have been wondering was, "How do I get everyone to notice me more than Kirby?" We had to keep rejecting pages that were not legible and every time we did, he grumbled that we were insisting he "dumb down" the book's design.
Jim Houghton writes…
You're 99% right, Mark. "Real" designers are actually interested in communication through design — which means, among other things, being able to read the words. And you are 150% right about designing onscreen. Us old fogeys had to actually know that 5 pt. type is not readable, but them young-ass designers are looking at a screen that's blowed up real good. I get sent ads all that time that are gorgeous — if they were actually going to get printed that large.
You're also right about not getting designy at the expense of the work that you're supposed to be showcasing, especially if it's Jack Kirby.
But you're wrong about reversed type. Okay for small bold headers, if you don't mind being mildly tacky, which I can live with. If you mean it's okay for body copy, though — okay, it's not as bad as lime green text on a middle grey web page. But nobody should be asked to read quantities of reversed body copy. Says the old fogey. Who knows about dot gain.
I can live with reversed type in small quantities. I can even put up with text over graphics on rare occasions. One person who didn't want their message quoted here told me a story about a time he called for the text to be in bright yellow over a very dark photo in a magazine article about espionage and spying. Then they decided that didn't work so he picked a bright yellow picture and indicated that they type should be in black. Then his assistant changed the photo but forgot to switch the type back. You had to hold the page at a certain angle with bright sunlight bouncing off it to be able to read the text. He received praise from one of his peers for the clever statement he was making about those paragraphs, turning them into a hidden message in keeping with the theme.
More on this another time. I just noticed what time it is. Thanks to all who wrote even if I didn't quote you.
In 1978, following the triumphant end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Ms. Moore returned to CBS in a variety series called Mary. It featured a "family" of performers — Michael Keaton, Jim Hampton, Swoozie Kurtz, Judith Kahan, Dick Shawn and David Letterman. Some sources erroneously report that Merrill Markoe was one of the cast members. Merrill, who later was involved professionally and personally with Mr. Letterman, was a writer on the show but not a performer.
Things did not go well and the program was terminated after three episodes so that Mary could have a do-over. Six months later, she came back in a different variety series called The Mary Tyler Moore Hour that didn't succeed, either. I knew a few of the writers on each version and they all felt that the problem was Mary. I suppose Mary felt the problem was the writers.
I was working on variety shows at the time and was asked to come in and talk to someone about joining the staff of Version #1 but I had another job that conflicted. At the time, I was disappointed as I'd once had a massive crush on Ms. Moore. A week or so later, a writer I knew who did work on it, Jeffrey Barron, told me I was fortunate. He'd once had a crush on Laura Petrie and all the good feelings he'd ever had about her were gone by the end of the first run-through. By the second, he said he'd never be able to watch The Dick Van Dyke Show again.
Our clip is from that first version and you can see a lot going wrong here, starting with their taking a tune that had a little soul in it when Wings recorded it and giving it the Lawrence Welk treatment. It's also a musical number performed by folks who weren't singers or dancers and seemed to even know it. You can especially feel Mr. Letterman's dislike for what he's doing out there. Then again, Dave's had a pretty good career acting like he hated everything he was doing in front of an audience…
The musical version of The Nutty Professor is currently in previews in Nashville. Here's a gushy but not-uninteresting profile of its director, Mr. Jerry Lewis.
The mystery person in today's Laurel and Hardy photo has been identified! His name is (or more likely, was) Fernando G. Toledo. a writer for the Spanish movie magazine, Film Selectos. He was visiting the set when Stan and Ollie filmed the Spanish language version of their feature film, Pack Up Your Troubles and he wrote an article about it. The I.D. was sent to me by Myles Lobdell, who found it on a forum where it was figured out by Laurel and Hardy experts Dick Bann and Piet Lindner.
As you may know, the early Laurel and Hardy sound films weren't dubbed for foreign markets. They actually filmed each movie several times — once in French, once in Italian, once in Spanish, etc. — bringing in actors who spoke the language in question for each version. Stan and Oliver read their dialogue from an off-camera blackboard that showed phonetic translations. That's what they were working on when that picture was taken.
By the way: I'm going to continue posting photos of Laurel and Hardy but after we pass #300, they'll become a once or twice a week feature and they'll be bigger. I may also repost some old ones in larger versions. For some reason, I really like it when I can look at my blog and see Stan and Ollie looking back.
Tonight, Jimmy Fallon's guests are Bill Cosby and Fred Willard. Mr. Willard was booked before his recent arrest and is enough of a mensch to not cancel because of it.
