I would love to see the American economy rebound and do better and better…but I'm not going to believe that's happening until Trump has some real quotes to share from respected economists and industry leaders who aren't inclined to smooch his buttocks. As the Associated Press points out, claims that liberal skillionaire Warren Buffett has praised the current financial strategies are bogus.
We haven't had any barbershop quartet on this blog for some time so here's The Bank of Harmony with a medley of three Hanna-Barbera theme songs…
Back here, I wrote that I do not believe that it was ever a close contest between Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Carson as to which of them would star in what was eventually called The Dick Van Dyke Show. This prompted a note from my pal Vince Waldron, author of a great book on that series…
I enjoyed your post about the mistaken impression in some circles that Johnny Carson had ever been a serious contender for the role of Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which — as you correctly surmised — he most certainly was not. When I asked Carl about his search to find a leading man for the show, he noted that Johnny Carson's name was briefly floated in one very early conversation. "But," Carl was quick to add, "that was just a passing idea."
In fact, Carl's producing partner on the project, Sheldon Leonard, had pretty much made his mind up to offer the role to Dick Van Dyke from the minute he read Carl's first script. Sheldon had first spotted Dick in the 1959 Broadway revue The Girls Against the Boys, where the lanky comic actor so impressed the producer that Sheldon resolved then and there to find a television project worthy of Dick's considerable talents. When Carl's script about a witty TV comedy writer named Rob Petrie landed on his desk a year or so later, Sheldon knew exactly who he wanted to play the leading role. "There's a guy in New York," Sheldon told Carl. "He's doing Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway. His name is Dick Van Dyke."
And a fine choice it was. One of the many things that went right on that show is that it was so expertly cast. Everyone was so right for their parts and if they weren't when the show first went into production, Mr. Reiner made them right in a hurry. I remember him saying that when they cast Mary Tyler Moore, they never imagined she'd blossom into such a strong comedic performer.
I can't think of too many women on situation comedies then (or even much later) who proved able to handle so much funny dialogue and action; not unless like Lucille Ball or Joan Davis, the show was built around them. Usually, wives in supporting roles didn't so much more than tell their husbands about the problems their kids were having or causing.
By the way: Recently here, I was skeptical that one of the dancers in a Jimmy Durante clip was, as some thought, Mary Tyler Moore. I have been convinced that it was and in the next day or two, I'll run the e-mail from a friend who convinced me.
Trump and his supporters — especially Marjorie Taylor Greene — like to cite "The Fentanyl Crisis" as justification for much of what they're doing or want to do to immigrants. There is a crisis there, though perhaps not as severe as they make it out to be, and a lot of it doesn't have much to do with their actions. U.S. News and World Report has an article up explaining just what this crisis is and how it relates to many recent deeds and proposals by our government. You may be shocked to learn that someone is not telling the truth.
Another segment I liked on a recent Daily Show…
Jan Wagner of The San Diego Union-Tribune was at WonderCon and seems to have enjoyed everything — especially our Cartoon Voices panel.
FactCheck.org discusses how misleading Trump's chart about his tariffs was. And the folks at Snopes explain some of the math in those charts.
Trump is citing a number of economists as being optimistic about his tariffs. According to Glenn Kessler, they don't think so much of it. I'm not seeing many people who do like the plan who seem to know what they're talking about.
More sad news this morning…the passing of actress Elaine Ballace who, I believe I read on Facebook, had been battling pancreatic cancer in recent months. Elaine was not only an actress but also a model and a writer and a producer and a director and an activist for various worthy causes and, much earlier in her life, a championship ice skater — one of those gifted folks who could do anything and everything.
I don't know her age but she was at least 18 in October of 1976 when I went to work on the TV series, Welcome Back, Kotter. On the first Tuesday after my then-partner Dennis Palumbo and I were hired, they taped an episode called "Sadie Hawkins Day" in which Elaine had a bit part. She had already been on the show several times as a classroom extra with no lines and in this one, she was given something to say. (This was the infamous episode for which Groucho Marx came to the set to tape a cameo guest spot but once he arrived, it was decided that he was in no shape to perform. He just had some photos taken with the cast and then departed.)
Elaine's role on Kotter was as Juanita Levine and she was more or less the girl friend of Juan Epstein, the "Sweathog" played by Robert Hegyes. After the main taping was done that Tuesday evening and the audience had been discharged, they were taping pick-ups and I was sitting in the bleachers watching when Elaine came up and introduced herself. She was friendly and funny and cute and before long, we were dating. Here's a photo I took of her in my old apartment next to some badly-painted statues of Laurel and Hardy…
We stayed friends after the dating part of our relationship fell away…but she was still intermittently in my life. I was always running into her at some show biz event or spotting her on some TV show or movie. Mel Brooks used her in some of his films and she always seemed to have about eleven projects going. The last time I ran into her was at the funeral of Marty Krofft last December.
I said a few paragraphs back that she was friendly and funny and cute. I could have added "industrious," "stellar, "full of energy" and other positive adjectives. Just a lovely lady…
So: Trump announces tariffs all over the place and the next thing you know, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 1679.39 points and Fox News stops showing the little "How's the stock market doing at the moment?" ticker on their screen.
Here's Paul Krugman explaining just some of what's wrong with the plan. He's a lot nicer than some economists, including the Economist magazine which says of these tariffs, "They will cause economic havoc and take America's trade policies back to the 19th century."
I can't wait to hear how this is all Joe Biden's fault.
Marvel by the Month is a monthly podcast which, each month, takes an interesting look at a month in the history of Marvel Comics. Jamie Wenger, Bryan Stratton and Robb Milne are behind it and in the latest installment, they're looking at October of 1975 when Jack Kirby, who fled to DC Comics in 1970, returned to the house that some would say he built. That "some" includes me and I'm a guest on this installment.
If the embed below doesn't work, try this link. I come in at around the 28-minute mark…
I kinda assume — and maybe I'm wrong — that most folks who stop by to read this blog are also devout fans of The Daily Show. I am but I wasn't watching it very often when Jon Stewart wasn't behind the desk doing segments like this one from last Monday…
But lately, I've been watching episodes when he isn't there, especially the ones hosted by Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic and Michael Kosta. I haven't been wowed by most of the correspondents they now have doing the faux remote segments and such but the host material has been pretty sharp. Here's a lead segment from this past week hosted by Mr. Kosta. I thought it was very smart and very funny…
Around the 'net, you can find many sites which say that when Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard were casting the program that eventually came to be called The Dick Van Dyke Show, it came down to deciding between Johnny Carson and Dick…and of course, Dick won out. I can absolutely believe that in their hunt for just the right guy to play Rob Petrie, either Reiner or Leonard or someone else said, "Hey, how about Johnny Carson?" They probably at some point had a whole list of names.
But I have trouble believing it ever came down to a choice between Dick or Johnny, Johnny or Dick. In various places, Mr. Van Dyke, Mr. Reiner and Mr. Leonard may have said it did but I don't believe it was that close a contest. Why? Because in December of 1960 when they were casting the pilot and in January of '61 when they filmed it, Johnny Carson was not available. He was hosting the game show Who Do You Trust? on ABC's daytime schedule…and you don't film a pilot with a star who is not under contract to appear in your series if a network orders a batch of episodes.
No network would ever even consider a pilot for The Joe Blow Show if the producers didn't have a contract that ensured they could deliver Joe Blow…and not just one season but for several should his show be a hit.
Now, I suppose it's theoretically possible that Carson's current contract to host the game show was coming to an end around that time and it's possible he was willing to take the gamble that the sitcom pilot would sell even though at no point in his career did he show the slightest interest in starring in a situation comedy…
…but I really doubt that. Most bios of Johnny say that after failing on any number of previous TV projects, he was delighted to have a hit with Who Do You Trust? He reportedly turned down several seemingly-better offers to leave it, including saying no to the first offers he got to host The Tonight Show.
And when he finally did decide to take the Tonight Show offer, the producer of the game show, Don Fedderson, refused to let Johnny out of his contract. That's why after Jack Paar left Tonight, they had six months of guest hosts until Carson's contract finally expired and he could take over. I just don't see any real possibility that he could have been a serious contender for the lead in Carl Reiner's situation comedy. Does anyone think that? No matter what anyone says?
I woke up this morning and almost my first thought was "I bet there will be fact-checks I can link to about Trump's speech yesterday on his tariffs." And sure enough, here's Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Daniel Dale of CNN covering a lot of the same ground.
Here's another video of those gents who go out and rescue seals who've become entangled in fishing lines or nets or other encumbrances. It makes me very happy to see that there are people who do this. Here again is the link to donate…
That's a photo that I took of Patty Maloney outside the studio where we were taping some TV show I wrote in the seventies…and if Patty was here, she'd say, "And it's actual size!"
Patty was 3 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed about the same as one of my shoes. I don't remember which TV program we were doing at the time but it was certainly for Sid and Marty Krofft's company. Patty was a regular Krofft cast member, appearing in many of their shows, though you often didn't know it. For them and for other producers, she was often inside some full-body costume.
For example, she once played portrayed a robot waitress named Tina on the series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. But one time when I was on the set of that show, she was in the costume of the regular male robot, Twiki, because the actor who usually did that role, Felix Silla, was out sick. Mr. Silla was the same height so when you see him credited for any job where you couldn't see who was in the suit, it was sometimes Patty — and vice-versa.
Patty also stunt-doubled for children and was often cast where you could see it was her and she acted with her voice instead of just her compact frame. She also did voices for cartoons from time to time.
Often, including twice on shows I worked on, she was cast as Billy Barty's spouse or lady friend. There was an episode of the sitcom, Phyllis starring Cloris Leachman. Forgive the possible height-shaming but it was a very funny episode. Phyllis's daughter Bess was dating a boy of normal height and it made Phyllis uneasy that the boy's parents were…well, the heights of Mr. Barty and Ms. Maloney, who played them. In one scene, Phyllis poured out her worries to the character played by Richard Schaal, who wasn't the brightest character on TV and it went something like this…
LEACHMAN: I don't know what to do. Beth wants to date a boy whose parents are midgets.
SCHAAL: Well, I hope she finds one.
LEACHMAN: No, no. Beth is dating a boy whose parents are midgets.
SCHAAL: Well then, problem solved!
These days, some folks might be uncomfortable with that joke but it got a huge laugh. More importantly, both Billy (I worked with him, too) and Patty loved it. They both had great senses of humor and were happy to build their careers around such material.
Patty was just delightful — they both were — and I was sorry to hear a few years ago that she was ill and had lost most of her sight. She passed away on Monday at the age of 89.
