Category Archives: To Be Filed

Just watch it. Just watch it.

Fred Kaplan watched President Obama's speech to the nation and has this to say about it. My gut tells me Obama is taking the sane approach to the situation and that the Donald Trumps don't have a clue what they'd do; only what sounds good in their speeches. By the time we get to the Iowa Caucuses, I expect Trump will be vowing to strangle every Muslim in the world to death with his own bare hands. And then force them to build a wall around Syria at their expense.

While I was digging out those panels from The Wiz comic book to scan the other day, I found a mis-filed file folder in my filing cabinet. It was full of rough sketches I did in the early seventies for covers of Gold Key comic books I was writing. I did mine tighter and more like finished art than the other folks who were designing these, even though I had no thought that they might ever ask me to draw the final covers…and indeed, they did not. Here are two examples with my pencil rough on the left and the finished comic on the right.

On the Daffy Duck one, I committed what was then considered a mortal sin: I merged Daffy's eyes together. This was the early seventies and there was no active Warner Brothers Cartoon Department. The folks who decided what those characters looked like — whether they were drawn properly — were in some sort of Licensing Division at the Warner company and they were furious if Daffy's eyes merged. There had to be black between them.

Fortunately, they never saw my rough or I might have been forbidden to ever draw (or even imagine) Daffy ever again. They didn't approve roughs; just the finished art which in this case was done by Joe Messerli.

My editor there, Chase Craig, told me horror stories of having to deal with those folks. Many of the artists he employed were former Warner Brothers animators. Tom McKimson was drawing the Bugs Bunny comic books I and others were writing. Phil DeLara was drawing Porky Pig or sometimes, it was Pete Alvarado. These were all guys who didn't take well to having someone tell them they were getting the characters wrong. At one point, someone at Warner's reportedly complained that Tom McKimson's Bugs didn't look right and they sent over some Xeroxes of old drawings that they wanted him to study to see the proper way to draw the wabbit.  Tom replied, "Tell those idiots that I did those old drawings!"

At one point, Chase informed me the company had decided to revive the old Looney Tunes comic book, though they wanted to retitle it Looney Toons. Warner okayed the new title, then changed their minds at the last minute, forcing it to be pulled off the presses so it could be changed to Looney Tunes.  Something about trademarks.

I wrote the first issue and worked up the cover sketch. Before I did, I asked Chase who was going to design the title logo for the new book. He said — with some annoyance because there had apparently been problems over this recently — that his company had recently hired an "overpaid graphics designer" (that was the term he used) to do all their logos. He thought this person, who worked for their New York office, was not very good.

Chase had been fighting to get them to not redesign a lot of the logos on his books that he thought were in no need of improvement. He told me, "It doesn't matter what you do. This fellow will come up with something we'll all dislike." So when I did my cover rough, I didn't even try to suggest a logo idea. I just wrote "Looney Toons" on it in block letters without much thought.

Chase okayed the sketch but decided to add other characters' heads onto the cover so he had the final artists do a little rearranging. (I believe the final art was penciled by Pete Alvarado and I think that was Larry Mayer's inking.) My rough and Chase's amended rough accompanied the finished art when it was sent back to New York…

…where the "Overpaid Graphics Designer" followed what I'd penciled in. If I'd known he was going to do that, I would have tried to come up with an actual idea. And that, folks, is how creative decisions have often been made in the comic book industry.

• Just read a lot of right-wing punditry. Apparently, we're doomed because Obama uses the term "act of terror" instead of "terrorism."

Lots of e-mails about NBC's live telecast of The Wiz. My pal Peter David wrote to say…

I think I may have been the first person to say that: that what was wrong with it was that it needed a live audience. I put that up on my Twitter feed 45 minutes into it. I'm pleased to see that not only did you say it as well, but so did several other articles about it. Maybe NBC will get the hint.

Apparently not. Playbill just ran this interview with Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who produced The Wiz Live! telecast. Here's the relevant paragraph…

With increasing talk among viewers about the need for a live studio audience, the duo said that they stand by their decision not to have one. "We still would like to honor the tradition where this genre was given birth and that's in the '50's," commented Meron. "We know that it's taken a while for the audience to get used to it, but in the three years we've been doing it, there's always a cry for live audience but that's not [that] special. What's special is [to] do these on a soundstage and live in the moment without that audience and to allow cameras to come in and get up close and personal and have the audience at home be the live audience."

I'm not sure what tradition they think they're honoring. Back in the fifties, there were live musicals on TV. Often, those live musicals had live audiences. Sometimes, they didn't…and when they didn't, I believe it was only because (a) the show was an intense drama or (b) it had technical considerations that made it impossible to have a live audience. To not have one for a musical, comedy or musical comedy was not a creative decision. It was because, for example, the show required so many sets that they couldn't fit it into the kind of studio that could hold a live audience.

That's not many of them.  After all, these shows were all written to be performed in buildings with a live audience watching.  When they couldn't be, it probably meant the producers were doing more elaborate sets and staging than had been seen on the stage, and had decided to trade off having an audience to achieve that.

One of the more acclaimed musicals done for television in the fifties was the 1954 adaptation of Cole Porter's Anything Goes, starring Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and Bert Lahr. Here's Merman and Lahr performing the song "Friendship" on it.  As you can hear, they're playing to a live audience…

By the way, in case you care: "Friendship" was not in Anything Goes when the show debuted on Broadway in 1934, nor was it in the 1936 movie version. That was because the song hadn't been written yet. It was created by the same composer (Cole Porter) for his 1939 musical, DuBarry Was a Lady.

In later years, lots of people wanted to revive certain Porter musicals and not others and it was not uncommon to steal the best songs from the non-revived shows and stick them into the revived shows. When Merman was asked to do Anything Goes for TV, she reportedly said, "I'll do it if you interpolate 'Friendship' into it and I can do it with Bert Lahr." And then when Lahr was asked to be part of the production, he said, "On one condition. I want you to stick in 'Friendship' and let me do it with Ethel!"

I'm not sure if they started the trend but nowadays, every revival of Anything Goes includes "Friendship" as well as a couple of tunes from other Porter shows.

Getting back to The Wiz: One of the problems with not having a live audience for these televised musicals is that it limits them to shows that aren't particularly comedic. You could do The Sound of Music and Peter Pan that way because those shows aren't big on laughs — although I did note in my review of their Peter Pan that laughter and applause could have helped certain sections. But think how truly hollow a show like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum or The Producers would be without an audience giggling every line or two.  That sound is almost part of the score.  The Wiz had a lot of lines that could have profited from audience response and to me, some of the musical numbers cried out for it, especially at the end.

Then again, Mssrs. Zadan and Meron are very successful doing it the way they're doing it, so I suppose they'll keep on doing it the way they're doing it. The Wiz Live! reruns (not live) on December 19 and as the above-linked article notes, some version of the TV production is heading for Broadway shortly. I assume they'll want a live audience there for it.

This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.

Most Famous Role: Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

Other Notable Roles: Natasha Fatale, Nell Fenwick, almost any other female or little boy voice on a Jay Ward or Walter Lantz cartoon, Granny (owner of Tweety), Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature on The Smurfs, Magica De Spell and Ma Beagle on DuckTales, Grammi Gummi on Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Grandmother Fa in the 1998 Disney film Mulan, about 80% of all cartoon witches and hundreds of others.

What She Did Besides Cartoon Voices: June was another superstar of radio shows back when we had comedy and drama radio shows, plus she has done hundreds (make that thousands) of commercials and promos and she's often heard dubbing on-camera actresses and children in movies and television.  Her on-camera jobs have been limited but she did play a Mexican telephone operator in several episodes of the TV series, Green Acres, and a serious on-camera romantic lead in a forgettable movie called Sabaka.  And then there was her work with Stan Freberg on his records, radio shows and commercials, and her dozens of childrens records and her founding of the animation society ASIFA-Hollywood and so many other things.

Why She's On This List: She's June Foray, the most prolific and in-demand voice actress who ever lived.

Fun Fact: June did the voice of the popular doll, Chatty Cathy.  And then when the TV series The Twilight Zone (the first version) decided to do an episode about an evil version of such a doll called Talking Tina, June did the voice of Talking Tina.  Who else?

Additional Fun Fact: In 2012, June received an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for her role as Mrs. Cauldron on The Garfield Show, making her the oldest entertainer to ever be nominated for and to win an Emmy.  The following year, she was honored with the Governors Award at the 65th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Watch this if you have ten minutes. It's a video of a fascinating conversation that took place recently in a Congressional hallway. On one side is Republican Senator Rob Portman from Ohio. On the other, we have Jon Stewart and a number of 9/11 First Responders who are fighting to extend health care and compensation to 9/11 First Responders, many of whom need it dearly.

As is pointed out in the discussion, politicians are not shy about saying we should honor and respect those who worked so selflessly on that awful day…but then they do a one-eighty and don't back that up by taking care of those people. It keeps coming down to the last minute and cries of "We can't find the money for that" when they seem to be able to find the money for special interest needs or lots of things that are of less urgency.

Some on the Responders' side would deal with this by threats and anger and vows to destroy those who withhold the funds…and I can't argue that that might not be necessary in some instances. But watch as Stewart and the Responders engage Portman in a firm but civil conversation, being at least outwardly respectful of his position…and it worked. Portman later signed on to be the 67th senator to back the bill, thereby ensuring its passage.

For those of you who think our government is deadlocked and dysfunctional, it might be refreshing. Then again, it might be infuriating to you that this hallway conversation is even necessary.

As I'm sure I've said here many a time, my favorite entertainers in the whole wide world have been and probably always will be Mr. Stanley Laurel and Mr. Oliver Hardy…and I'll tell you how much I love them. I'll even watch them in the late features they made for M.G.M. At their worst, I still love them.

Naturally, I want to know everything I can about them and many years ago, a devout Laurel and Hardy scholar named Randy Skretvedt put everything there was to know about their movies into a superb book called Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies.

I didn't think a better book about them would ever be written and I was wrong. A few years later, a much better book about them appeared. It was the updated version of Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies. Whereas most "updated" editions merely give you a new chapter or two and some corrections, this really was an updated edition with loads of new information. Almost everything in the first edition had been revised and improved.

So then I was sure that a better book about Stan and Ollie would never be written…and once more, I was wrong. Randy's about to bring out The Ultimate Edition, which is bigger and contains 50% more text and quadruple the number of photos as were in previous editions. It also has generous chunks of script excerpts including deleted or never-filmed scenes and there's new data on all their past movies and…well, if you're a Laurel and Hardy buff you've got to get this, even if you have previous Skretvedt volumes.

The book will be out next June but it's being offered right now on Kickstarter. They're already close enough to meeting their goal that it's surely going to happen so if you're as excited about this as I am, you'll want to scurry over there and get your order in. I did. Here's a little promotional video…

Daniel Larison doesn't think there's much foreign policy experience or even knowledge among the Republican candidates for President. He especially winces when someone like Chris Christie, citing advice from Henry Kissinger, says "Foreign policy is all about courage and character. Everything else can be learned!" And then they don't even try to learn.

NBC's live presentation of The Wiz seems to be getting mostly rave reviews this morning. I tried to love it. Oh, how I tried. The performers were well-selected — especially David Alan Grier, who was outstanding — and you have to respect the effort and planning and rehearsal time that went into doing this live with no big mistakes. But I think I just don't like this show that much. It's a cute twist on The Wizard of Oz…but then I don't like The Wizard of Oz that much and yes, I know that's heresy to some.

I think part of the problem I had with last night's presentation is the same problem I had with the live productions of Peter Pan and The Sound of Music. They're not television shows and they're not live theater. The "live" part is mitigated by the feeling that they're shot in a warehouse somewhere. Material that was designed to be performed before a live audience is performed to silence: No laughter, no applause.

Live theater — and this is especially true with musical comedy — is meant to be an interactive experience. The presence of the live audience contributes to the performance because the actors are playing to someone. The sense they get of the audience — whether communicated by laughing, clapping, silence, coughing or the unwrapping of candies — informs and alters the performances.

Not in these shows. The actors are playing to cameras that make no response.

Plays are, of course, done on TV all the time in front of live audiences. Almost all the ones on PBS on shows like Live at Lincoln Center are a matter of taking cameras into theaters and recording both the show and the audience. That's one difference. Another is that when you watched Act One or Driving Miss Daisy or any of those on PBS, you were watching performances that had been done and honed in front of live audiences, dozens if not hundreds of times before they were shot for television. The performers in The Wiz never did that material in front of anyone but stage crews. One can only wonder how much better they would have been if they'd had that.

So these shows just plain have an empty feeling to me. When they did the "Brand New Day" number last night, it just cried out for an audience to be clapping along and stomping their feet and at the end, the dancers and actors struck poses to cue and receive wild applause. But there was no wild applause. TV cameras and stagehands don't applaud.

I'm glad they're doing these shows if only because maybe they'll prompt more people to go see theater in its natural habitat. If they do, they're going to discover it's a lot like sex. It can be fine when you're all alone but it's even better with someone next to you. Or under you. Or at least in the same room.

Josh Groban sings a very serious song. You can tell it's serious because of all the ground fog…

John Kasich says he has a plan to balance the federal budget. Jonathan Chait says that John Kasich does not have a plan to balance the federal budget. He has, like all Republican candidates, a plan to explode the budget, cut services to the poor and middle class, and give wealthy Americans the biggest tax cut they've ever had.

Sunday, Turner Classic Movies has an interesting double feature. At 5 PM (at least on my TV), they're running The Twelve Chairs, the 1970 Mel Brooks movie about some guys running around Russia in 1920, searching for twelve matching dining room chairs, one of which is stuffed with money. Then at 7 PM, they're running It's in the Bag, the 1945 Fred Allen-Jack Benny movie about a guy running around, searching for twelve matching dining room chairs, one of which is stuffed with money. The former was a very loose remake of the latter. Neither is a great film but both are worth seeing once.

On Monday at 5 PM, they're running The World of Henry Orient, a low-key but charming comedy made in 1964. Peter Sellers and Paula Prentiss are in it but the film is stolen by two young ladies playing teen-agers — Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth — and also by some wonderful cinematography of 1964 Manhattan. Again, if you've never seen it, see it.

Then on Tuesday, they're saluting writer-producer Ernest Lehman on what would have been his 100th birthday by running Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest, Somebody Up There Likes Me and Executive Suite. They're all great films, especially Sweet Smell of Success and North by Northwest. One of the more memorable days of my life was when I took my friend, the great cartoonist Mike Peters, up to spend an afternoon with Ernie Lehman. Mike couldn't believe he was meeting the man who'd written some of his favorite movies. Ernie couldn't believe he was meeting the man who drew his favorite comic strip, Mother Goose and Grimm.

We sat there for hours as Ernie told stories about his films. At one point, he had to leave us for a half-hour to take an important phone call so he handed us a book and said, "You can look through this until I get back." It was a bound volume of his original screenplay for North by Northwest with studio memos and notes from Alfred Hitchcock interspersed between the relevant pages. You could read Ernie's original scene, then read how "Hitch" (as he called him) had asked him to change and then read the revised scene.

Lehman told us he was planning to publish the entire book as soon as he cleared up some rights issues and wrote a proper foreword. I don't think he did and since he died in 2005, I've occasionally wondered what became of that book.

Also for some reason, TCM is running both The Man Who Came to Dinner with Monty Woolley and the 1938 A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen twice this month. They both air on the 6th and again on the 11th. Then later in December, they're airing every movie they can find in the vaults with the word "summer" in the title. That should make America feel warm all over.

Hey, do you have any idea how orange juice is made? I think it has something to do with squeezing oranges…

Fred Kaplan says that dropping bombs on ISIS won't destroy them — and could even make them stronger — without boots on the ground and, presumably, soldiers' feet inside them. I dunno much about military strategies but Fred does and what he says sounds true to me. And discouraging.