If you didn't already read the first part of this, go read the first part of this before you read this part of this.
Now then. This happened one day when we were just beginning to produce The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years. Lee and I met for lunch and planning, then at 2 PM, we went to the big black-and-white CBS building at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax. This is where the main West Coast offices for the network were located. They still are…I think. Some of that has been moved elsewhere with the rest to follow.
We had a meeting with the Vice-President in charge of specials at CBS, who was at the time, Fred Rappoport. Fred was, and I'm sure still is, a nice, bright guy who knows his business well. He no longer has that post and I'm not sure anyone does since networks like CBS do very few specials these days. We had a very pleasant, constructive meeting with Fred, discussing what would be in the special and what would not. People who've never been in network meetings think of them as some sort of Executive Thunderdome with arguing and powerful people in suits flexing their muscles and barking orders, many of them foolish in the extreme. If my experience is typical — and few of mine anywhere are — they're almost never like that.
This one certainly was not. We liked Fred. He liked us. He had some good suggestions and he made sure it was understood that they were suggestions, not demands. He made clear that he trusted Lee to deliver a good show…and why shouldn't he assume that? Lee had been producing specials for CBS for more than thirty years, several of them among the most highly-rated programs ever to grace the network. He had numerous Peabody Awards and twelve Emmy Awards…and perhaps more impressive, he would wind up with a lifetime total of 46 Emmy Nominations.
(Brief Detour: Lee once told me that he was once trying to sell a documentary to a buyer who was not Fred Rappoport. He told the man, "My company has received 46 Emmy nominations and we've won twelve times." The buyer scowled a bit and according to Lee, said the following in dead seriousness. He said, "I don't know that we can trust a company that's lost that many times!" And the funnier part of that is that many times when a Lee Mendelson Production was nominated and lost, that's because it was beaten by another Lee Mendelson Production that was nominated in the same category.)
Back to our story — and I'm telling you this because I want you to understand what Lee meant to CBS at this time. There may have been no producer who had such a long, successful career with them. He'd outlasted hundreds of executives there in that 30+ years. He got along with everyone. He was liked and respected by everyone.
On our way out, Lee asked me if we could stop off for a few minutes down in the Business Affairs department. He said, "We haven't settled yet on what they're going to pay us to do this thing." I said that was fine with me and a few minutes later, we were in the office of a gentleman who negotiated such arrangements for the network. I do not recall this man's name so we'll call him Sammy. Sammy welcomed Lee warmly and shook my hand with gusto. There was friendly small talk which ended abruptly with this exchange…
Sammy said, "So, Lee my friend. Have you given any thought to how much you'll need to do this special?"
Lee put down the little briefcase he'd been carrying. He responded, "Well, Sammy, I ran some numbers and I think the right price is going to have to be $550,000." And with that, the mood in the room changed. Horribly so.
Sammy looked aghast, like Lee had just asked for seventy quadrillion dollars plus complete ownership of the Columbia Broadcasting System. "You're not serious," he insisted.
Lee said he was. "Five-fifty…I could maybe get it down to five-thirty…"
Sammy was almost shouting now. "Five-thirty? There's no way on God's green earth I could possibly…do you have any idea? Any idea at all how these specials are running these days?"
Lee said yes, sure. And it was at this point that Sammy began murdering his children…
'Lee, for God's sake! If you were holding a gun to my daughter's head, I couldn't give you a cent over $320! If you held a knife to my son's throat…"
"Sammy, I know what you paid for that Michele Lee special last month…"
"That was special. That was Michele Lee. She was on Knot's Landing for us all those years. If I stole from some other show's budget, I could maybe get your number up to $350,000 but not a penny more. If you had my daughter tied to a railroad track and you were going to run over her with a train…"
On and on, this went. Back and forth with Sammy ticking off increasingly-graphic ways to murder his children and occasionally coming up a bit in his offer, and Lee coming down a few nickels…
I sat there, somewhat aghast, as Sammy finally declared the show was off. There was no way in the world he could authorize the kind of money Lee was demanding, not even if his youngest one had just taken poison and Lee held the only antidote in the world…
Or if his son was dangling off a mile-high cliff and Lee was prying the lad's fingers off his last handhold before the kid plunged to his death…
Finally, Sammy said, "This conversation is over. If you were pointing a cannon at my baby daughter's heart and the fuse was burning, I could not give you one penny over $375,000. That's my final offer, take it or leave it! Even if you were strangling my son and he was about to breathe his last, that's it!"
Lee said, "If I really pushed and cut corners, there's a chance I could do it for $410,000."
Sammy said, "Deal!" He leaped to his feet, reached across the desk to shake Lee's hand and asked, "So, are you getting season tickets for the Lakers next year?"
There was a little more friendly chatter and then Lee looked at his watch and said, "Whoops! Gotta go!" The two men hugged and Lee and I made it as far as the elevator before we were alone enough that I dared speak. I said, "I can't believe he put you through all that! And all that stuff about killing his son, killing his daughter…"
Lee made a face like I was making a big fuss over nothing. "Oh, that's Sammy. We go through that on every show. He's a good guy."
I said, "Yeah, but you thought we needed $550,000 to do the show right. What's it going to be like if you have to do it for $410,000?"
"Fine," Lee said. And he pulled out a paper he had in the little briefcase he was carrying. It was a budget for the special and he pointed to the bottom line. It said, "$410,000."
"It's just a game you have to play," he said. "I always know where we're going to end up. And so does Sammy."
That's the kind of thing a producer has to do. Lee was one of the best who ever lived.
Phil Roman is one of the most important folks in animation in the last half-century, animating on many respected projects before launching his own studio, Film Roman. Many of the projects I worked on with Lee Mendelson were animated (and animated well) by Phil's studio, and so have an awful lot of popular shows involving neither Lee nor Yours Truly.
Phil's studio succeeded in part because of the support and patronage he got from Lee and the day after Lee passed, Phil posted this remembrance on Facebook. I got his permission to repost it here…and note where Phil says, "Lee was the most fair and honest person I ever met." Told ya so…
I woke up this morning to learn that Lee Mendelson, a very dear friend, passed away on December 25th.
Lee was very instrumental in helping me establish Film Roman after I left Bill Melendez Productions, where I had been directing the Charlie Brown specials as well as two Garfield specials.
Around October, 1983, I had decided to leave Bill Melendez and to open my own studio. I had always dreamed of having my own studio and decided that if I didn't make the move at that time, I probably never would. I would rather try and fail than not try at all. I talked to Bill Melendez, explained how I felt and gave him a two week notice that I was leaving.
Towards the end of my last week, Lee Mendelson flew in from Northern California and walked into my office. He said "I hear you are leaving the studio." I explained that I was going to open my own studio and give it a shot. He asked me whether I had any projects and I replied I would concentrate on that after I left. He said, "How would you like to do Garfield?" I replied: "But Bill is producing Garfield." He said that Sparky was not very happy with Bill doing Garfield and wanted him to concentrate fully on Peanuts.
Phil Roman
So I said I definitely would be interested as I enjoyed working on Garfield with Jim Davis. I told him that I would be going to a vacation to Europe with my wife for three weeks. He told me to go on vacation and meanwhile he would talk to the network, the syndicate, and Jim Davis. He said to call him when I came back. We left it at that.
When I returned from our vacation, I called Lee and he told me that everybody had approved, that I should find some office space and work up a budget and schedule, as Jim Davis was already working on a new storyboard for the next Garfield special.
In the first week of January, 1984, I opened a small studio in Toluca Lake with a couple of employees. Within a month we started production of Garfield in the Rough with freelance animators we had used in the Peanuts shows. Lee's confidence in me paid off as I delivered the show on budget, on schedule, and it won an Emmy. Everybody was very happy and we continued producing Garfield specials.
I found working with Lee was a very pleasant experience. He had great work ethics and a good humor. Without him, who knows what Film Roman would have been. He played such an important role in my life and will be terribly missed.
Lee also deserves credit for partnering with two animation producers, Bill Melendez and I, both Mexican-Americans. He judged us not for our ethnicity but for our ability to deliver quality animation. All the shows that Bill and I produced were the highest-rated in their time slots and almost every show was nominated for an Emmy. Lee was the most fair and honest person I ever met. A big contrast to some of the Hollywood egos.
I always remember Lee warmly for the risk he took in helping me establish myself as a producer. All the gains the studio made, are directly attributable to his taking a chance on me. R.I.P.
Here's a nice rendition of Tom Lehrer's season-appropriate tune, performed by Quire Cleveland. I was sure I posted this yesterday but apparently some sort of antisemitic software glitch deleted it after a few minutes…
Like all Republicans in public office — and especially Republicans in public office who are fabulously wealthy or expect to be when they leave office — Donald Trump loves cutting taxes for the rich and for large corporations. As Kevin Drum notes, this has nothing to do with helping the American economy. This kind of politician just loves cutting taxes for the rich and for large corporations.
And as Drum further notes, the kind of things Trump does that are intended to nurture the economy fall into two categories: Things Democrats would do and things only Donald Trump would do. He does not do things other Republican leaders would do. It seems to me that the items in the "only Trump would do" group are mostly to appear "tough" and/or to punish those who do not show him the proper respect. Read Drum and read the article he links to.
There are a number of obits up on all the major news sites about Lee Mendelson. They get his career mostly right but some had a little problem with the longevity of the main show I worked with him on, Garfield and Friends.
CNN says he did "over 100 episodes," which is only technically correct. Variety and People both said the show lasted from 1991 to 1994. CBR.com, which lately is vying with Donald Trump for erroneous statements, says Lee "executive produced 64 episodes of Garfield and Friends."
The Los Angeles Times didn't mention the series at all and TMZ did but didn't say how many episodes there were. With their usual flair for accuracy though, TMZ did run what they thought were two photos of Lee. One was and the other was of his partner, Bill Melendez.
The correct answer is that Garfield and Friends was on for seven years and 121 episodes, and Lee Mendelson was an Executive Producer on all of them.
But that's not the story I want to tell you here. The story I want to tell you here is about some specials that Lee did — hour-long prime-time specials that celebrated newspaper comic strips. They featured historical lessons about the form, interviews with cartoonists, musical numbers about comic strips and the last two of these specials even animated sequences of some newspaper strips that had never been animated before.
The first was called The Fabulous Funnies and it ran on NBC on 2/11/68. A description of it that I just stole off the website of Lee Mendelson Film Productions said…
Produced for NBC-TV network broadcast in cooperation with the National Cartoonists Society. The Fabulous Funnies is a one hour special on the history of the comic strip in America. It features some of the country's greatest cartoonists and their creations, from Barney Google to Dick Tracy. Hosted by Carl Reiner, the program also shows the artists at work, their characters animated, and a medley of songs from the comics performed by the Doodletown Pipers. The show is a unique combination of animation and live Action with a musical score by John Scott Trotter.
The ratings were huge and the folks at CBS, for whom Lee was producing the Charlie Brown specials, said to him, "Why didn't you offer that special to us?" Lee replied, "I did. You didn't think it would do very well and passed so I sold it to NBC. The folks at CBS said, "Well…we want the next one." It wasn't until 1980 that Lee did the next one, which was called The Fantastic Funnies and, yes, it was on CBS. According to that same website…
This 60 minute television special is a tribute to the history of the comic strip. Loni Anderson hosts with interviews of the 14 most famous cartoonists. The show features animation of all the famous comic strips along with a number of musical segments and a comedy sketch by Howard Hesseman. Music by Ed Bogas and Judy Munsen.
There were several newly-produced segments animating then-new newspaper strips that had never been animated before, including Garfield The reaction to just a few minutes of the lasagna-eating cat in that special led to a second series of award-winning animated specials for Lee.
CBS also wanted another "Funnies" special but he was busy, plus he felt — even if the network didn't — that a TV special saluting comic strips was the kind of idea that would only work about once a decade or so. He put it off and put it off and eventually decided to just wait until he could make the next one about the 100th anniversary of newspaper strips.
Exactly what year that anniversary would be is a bit arguable depending on what cartoon-in-print you believe qualifies as the first comic strip. I have seen scholars of the form almost come to blows about it. Lee decided the first was something-or-other in 1897 so in 1997, he produced The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years and he asked me to write it and co-produce with him. Quoth the website…
Using comic characters as hosts, this show celebrates 100 years of comic strips in America. From "Orphan Annie" and "Blondie" to "Peanuts" and "Shoe," cartoonists share the ideas and inspiration behind the creation of their comic strips. Cartoonists include: Chic Young (Blondie); Al Capp (L'il Abner); Dale Messick (Brenda Starr); Lynn Johnston (For Better or Worse); and Cathy Guisewite (Cathy).
Do you remember that show? If you think you did, you're wrong. It never aired. CBS paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, we produced it and delivered it and they said, "Great job! We'll find a spot on the schedule for it!" and then never found one. It was during a period when the three major networks aired very few specials and the ones that did get on had to be really, really important…like Emmy Awards important. They'd discovered that if a weekly series had a loyal following and you pre-empted it one week, not all of that loyal following remained loyal enough to not be following some other show the following week.
It had not always been like that but in and around 1997, that was the way audiences were behaving. Or at least that was Conventional Wisdom at the networks at the time.
The broadcast of The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years was delayed and delayed, and at one point there was some discussion of us going back and redoing some narration to change "This year is the 100th anniversary of comic strips" to "Last year was the 100th anniversary of comic strips." Lee also thought about maybe picking something in 1898 to declare as the first newspaper strip so he could keep "The First 100 Years" in the title. Finally though, they decided they were never going to air it and that's why you've never seen it. Since you probably never will, I'll tell you a few things about it…
There was no live host. One fourth of it was hosted by Charlie Brown, one fourth by Mother Goose and Grimm, one fourth by Cathy (from Cathy Guisewite's strip of the same name) and one fourth by Momma (from Mell Lazarus's strip) — all animated. June Foray, by the way, did the voice of Momma. There were also freshly-produced segments wherein some relatively new strips were animated for the first time, including Ernie by Bud Grace and Jump Start by Robb Armstrong.
There were interviews of cartoonists — some newly-recorded, others pulled from previous specials or Lee's film archives. I did some traveling for it and interviewed Charles Schulz up in Santa Rosa, Stan Lee and Mike Peters back here, Robb Armstrong in New York, and a few others. Yes, I know Stan Lee was not a cartoonist. We cribbed a musical number from the 1968 special and it was a pretty nice end product if I do say so myself. Since I'm one of the few people alive who saw it, I have to say so myself.
Still, my most positive memory of it was working more closely with Lee than I had on other projects. He had that rare, wonderful ability that you don't always find in producers. He knew how to be there when he was needed and how to leave the other folks working on the show alone when he wasn't needed and on Garfield, he'd left me pretty much alone. It was while putting this project together than I really began to appreciate how good he was at producing television shows and I learned a number of things that I wish I'd learned a decade or two earlier. I'll tell you about all that in Part 2 tomorrow.
Back in the eighties, DC Comics published a very fine series of comics of their character, Hawkman. It was written well by Tony Isabella and drawn the same way by Richard Howell. Both of these gents are longtime friends of mine and before you think I'm posting this because of that, stop. You already know that I know almost everyone in comics, especially from this era. Have you ever seen me ask you to sign a petition to urge the reprinting of any of my other friends' work? No.
But I'm pushing this campaign here because it was a very good body of work…much better than most of the stuff DC has reprinted from that decade. So go sign the petition pushing for its reissue. Unless you make a voluntary donation, it won't cost you anything and you might just help get a real good body of work back into print…where it should be.
Back in this post, we told you about a stage production based on the great animated Xmas special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. It was a one-time performance this year done in New York on December 16 and we showed you some moments from a one-time performance in 2014. Here's almost the same video except these scenes are from this year's. That's Gavin Lee as Magoo…
This will amuse fans of classic Tom & Jerry cartoons. An artisan in Japan has taken some of the character-distorting images from those films and turned them into sculpture. Go take a look.
I just noticed that as I was posting the obit on Lee Mendelson, ABC was rerunning two of his Charlie Brown specials. In death, he's still more successful than most live producers.
Producer Lee Mendelson, winner of a dozen Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. One of each of those trophies was for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired in 1965. CBS expected it to bomb in the ratings but it turned out to be one of the highest-rated specials ever and its annual viewing became a vital tradition in households not just in America but around the world. It also led to more than forty subsequent Peanuts specials produced by Lee and his animation partner Bill Melendez as well as two movies. Lee Mendelson Productions also produced award-winning documentaries and animated shows not featuring Charlie Brown and his friends.
I worked with Lee on several of them including the Garfield and Friends cartoon show for CBS Saturday morning. He was — and I've said this before many times — the smartest, nicest and most honest producer I've encountered in the television industry. Once you knew him, you understood why cartoonists like Charles Schulz and Jim Davis were so willing to trust him with their beloved children.
Even though I knew he'd been ill in recent years, the news still comes as a jolt. I have so many memories of working with this extraordinary man, I have to decide which ones I should share here so this will not be the last post about him. And the recent airings of A Charlie Brown Christmas will not be the last that we will see of his screen credit. For one thing, that show will rerun forever.
Here's a nice rendition of Tom Lehrer's season-appropriate tune, performed by Anthony Vila. That's right. As some of you have figured out, I'm doing this for eight days and nights…
I'm thinking that if I ever wrote something that caused more than half the people in the country to think I should lose my job…well, I might still defend it but I would stop insisting that it was "perfect."
