Category Archives: To Be Filed

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: Goofy

Other Notable Roles: Bozo the Clown (on records), Sleepy and Grumpy in Snow White, Practical Pig in The Three Little Pigs, Gabby in Gulliver's Travels and later shorts, Oswald the Rabbit.  At times, he provided the voice of Bluto in the Popeye cartoons and the sounds of Pluto in Disney cartoons.

What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Vance DeBar "Pinto" Colvig was a cartoonist for newspapers and animation, a gag man and briefly a circus clown, plus he worked in front of and behind the camera for Mack Sennett comedies and dubbed Munchkin voices for The Wizard of Oz.  He did the voice of Bozo for Capitol Records and played Bozo on-camera for the character's first live TV show but never voiced the clown for animation.

Why He's On This List: The guy had some real funny, memorable voices and he livened up whatever he was in.

Fun Fact: His son Vance Colvig, Jr. followed in Dad's clown-sized footprints and played Bozo on television in Los Angeles in the sixties.  Junior also did cartoon voices, including the gravelly sounds of Chopper the Bulldog in the Yakky Doodle cartoons for Hanna-Barbera.

Okay, it turns out that the website which proclaimed Judy Carne's death a hoax was a site that sometimes runs phony stories just to see how many other sites repeat them. Here's what I posted last night…

It is just not turning out to be a good year for women I had crushes on back in the sixties. Judy Carne died last Thursday in Northampton in the U.K. She was 76 and had been hospitalized for pneumonia.

I apparently need to explain to some people what constitutes a "crush." It's not in most cases a basic sexual desire for a certain object of lust; more like a schoolboy fascination for someone you find attractive…and usually someone unattainable, viewed from a distance. I never got any nearer to Judy Carne than watching a Laugh-In taping from the bleachers — and before, when I first got my little interest in her, I never imagined I'd get even that close.

For about eight months starting in the summer of 1970, I was able to roam the halls of NBC Burbank studios and watch folks like Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Flip Wilson rehearse or tape their shows. It now seems like an unworldly fantasy existence but I still somewhere have one of Mr. Hope's cue cards to prove it.

Laugh-In taped in Studio 3 and I'd drop in and watch whatever they were doing at that moment. One time, happily for me, it was Judy Carne doing "sock-it-to-me" bits. She had left the show by this point but was back to guest star.

I always thought she was rather special — physically attractive (obviously) but also a good comedienne, singer and dancer. At the taping, I learned she was also pretty damn expert at cussing and telling dirty jokes. And that was about all the insight I got.

I was not the only person who thought she was talented. In the sixties, she was a regular on no less than four TV series on America TV: Two on CBS (Fair Exchange, The Baileys of Balboa), one on ABC (Love on a Rooftop) and one on NBC (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In). She was also in a couple of pilots that didn't sell, plus she guest-starred on dozens of programs. That's an amazing career just in that one decade.

After about the mid-seventies, she didn't work as much and there were stories about her involvement with drugs and what the tabloids sometimes call "sexual debauchery." She was also in one or two ghastly automobile accidents and had some legal probems. I have no idea if the lack of work was a result of the mess she seemed to be making of her life or the cause of it. All I know is it seemed like a very troubled life from there on and we didn't see much of her as a performer after then. Her autobiography was pretty sad up until the end when she wrote, with a strong suggestion of fingers crossed, that she had put it all behind her.

I hope she did. At least on my TV screen and my one hour or so watching her tape Laugh-In, I really liked her.

We're still waiting either for some credible news source to say that Judy Carne has passed away or that she hasn't. In the meantime, I thought I'd note the passing of another actor who was in one TV series after another, Martin Milner. Mr. Milner had an interesting film career in which he set some sort of record for being decent (if not pretty decent) in movies that were otherwise pretty awful. He was good in good films like The Sweet Smell of Success or Compulsion and you can see him briefly in Mister Roberts. But it was in pictures like 13 Ghosts or The Private Lives of Adam and Eve or Valley of the Dolls where he proved how skilled he was.

He worked constantly in films and TV but no one really knew who he was until Route 66, which aired from 1960 to 1964. Good series. Then he was back behind the wheel from 1968 to 1975 as the veteran cop who drove Adam-12. I got hooked watching the latter on MeTV not long ago and I really enjoyed most of them, in large part because of Milner. The show raced from cop story to cop story and rarely had time to tell us much about who those two officers were. It didn't have to because Milner and his co-star Kent McCord had such great rapport and personality.

I really don't have that much else to say about him. I never met the man. If I had, I would have told him how much I liked watching him when he had a good script and how I even liked him when he took a weak one and made it work. The premise of Adam-12 was that veteran cop Pete Malloy (Milner) was teaching the ropes to new cop Jim Reed (McCoy). But when you watch then, you get the sense that veteran actor Milner was tutoring new actor McCord. But maybe that wasn't so. Maybe it just felt that way because they were both such good actors.

Matt Taibbi believes that an election dominated by Donald Trump is an election that's really about race…and I did get e-mails from a couple of Trump supporters who seem to think (happily) that the slogan on his cap actually means, "Make America White Again." As usual, I think Taibbi overstates his case but his case is not fundamentally wrong.

This guy…

Walter Palmer, the Minneapolis dentist who killed Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, has resurfaced and granted what he says will be his one and only interview. Dr. Palmer, as you know, has been the target of much vitriol. Regarding the amount of it directed at his friends and family, he says, "…I don't understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all."

He's right that that's wrong. But like you, I couldn't help but read that line statement and think, "I don't understand that level of humanity to think it's sport and a matter of great pride to go out and kill an animal like that."

I believe Dr. Palmer is the victim — and I'm not using that word in a sympathetic way here — of a sudden change in public opinion. People like him go out and hunt and kill and stuff animals all the time. Things about this particular kill — Cecil's age and fame and protected status and such — made a lot of people decide that killing any animal like this was kind of repulsive and that maybe there was something wrong with a person who would do it.

Dr. Palmer may well be right that it was entirely legal. The interview suggests no charges or extradition are in his future. But he's wrong if he thinks Big Game Hunting hasn't suffered a severe wounding in the court of public opinion.

It's interesting to me how values and views change. I remember when smoking was cool and even admirable. Or when wearing fur coats made of real fur was attractive and glamorous. Or when public drunkenness was a lot funnier than it is today. At some point, much of the world began looking at those things in a different way and now, a lot of people who do smoke are ashamed of it and a lot fewer fur coats are sold or worn and there's no new Foster Brooks out there. I think hunting — all hunting for recreation — is joining that list.

My friend Roger thinks it's some form of imposed Political Correctness. I see it as people changing their minds the same way they get sick of certain kinds of TV shows or music or styles of clothing. McDonald's hasn't changed but a lot of people are deciding it isn't their kind of place anymore.  That happens.

The interviewers apparently didn't ask Dr. Palmer if he intends to display the mounted head of Cecil among other trophies of which he is or was very proud. I'm guessing he won't…and that in the years to come, he'll be less proud of those others. And while he may keep all those dead animal heads on his wall and regard them with pride, I'd bet a lot of other hunters won't. I think an arrow has been shot into that "sport" and we can all just track it for a while and watch it die a slow, painful death.

Just before bed last night, I wrote a post here about actress Judy Carne who, several newspapers were saying, had passed away at the age of 76.  I awoke this morning to messages that some sources are now saying the announcement was a hoax and that Ms. Carne is still with us.  I dunno which it is so I've taken down the post until this thing gets settled.  Sorry if I contributed to her premature burial and I'm sure pleased that she might still be around.

I came across this quote on a political site that I thought was worth putting up here. It's from Steve Schmidt, who was one of the main guys behind John McCain's campaign in 2008. He was on a show and he was asked to explain why Donald Trump was doing so well and he replied…

We're at the moment in time when there's a severability between conservatism and issues. Conservatism is now expressed as an emotional sentiment. That sentiment is contempt and anger.

I don't think that's true of everyone but I think it's true of some people. The anti-immigrant thing especially seems to be driving some folks. A few months ago — and I forgot to mention this here — I was behind a fellow in line at the CVS Pharmacy and I sure hope he was there for something that calms rage.

He was carrying on and on about how it used to be that when you called Customer Service at some company, you spoke to someone in America and now you find yourself talking to someone in the Philippines or India or somewhere else. He seemed to think that this has something to do with immigration and foreigners taking our jobs.

And he seemed unable to respond when I pointed out to him that that's just American business finding a way to increase profits by employing cheaper labor. He's in favor of lifting all restrictions that get in the way of the Free Market and companies making as much money as possible.

No real discussion was possible on this point because the guy was just angry…it didn't matter at what, though if it could be at foreigners and people who weren't Caucasian, so much the better. (I don't like that kind of outsourcing but for another reason. Customer Service folks in other countries rarely seem sufficiently trained, nor do they usually have much power or even the ability to re-route your call to another department. About all they're allowed to do is to apologize to you that you're having problems.)

The fellow wasn't wearing a Trump button at the time. But it wouldn't surprise me if he is now.

One of the last surviving performers in Our Gang (aka The Little Rascals) and one of the last surviving actors from silent movies has died. Jean Darling had just turned 93 when she passed a few days ago in Germany. She had been living there the last few years after moving from Ireland, which had been her home since 1974.

Unlike a lot of child stars, Jean had a very active career after her initial stardom. She had film roles after Our Gang. She appeared on Broadway in several shows including the original production of Carousel. She worked in radio and had her own television programs in the fifties. And for many years after, she was a popular radio performer in Ireland and a prolific author of mystery stories for most of the popular mystery magazines.

Born Dorothy Jean LeVake, she first appeared in Hal Roach's kid gang comedies in 1927 when she was five but she'd been on the screen before that, reportedly making her film debut at the age of six months. She appeared in 46 silent Our Gang shorts and six talkies before going off to do other movie work, including roles for the Roach studios. (Among others, she was in the Laurel and Hardy feature, Babes in Toyland.)

We mourn her passing but we also mourn the passing of a couple of eras. It won't be long before every single person who ever appeared in silent movies is gone. I have heard film historians argue over the precise numbers but we have between twelve and eighteen silent film actors still alive, the youngest of whom is probably Our Gang's Dickie Moore, who is 89.

There are actually around 35 Our Gang performers still alive, though that number includes several who merely had bit parts in one or two of the shorts. I'm not sure which one had the most appearances…maybe Robert Blake (yes, that Robert Blake). He was in forty of the shorts. Most of those who are alive were in the sound Our Gang films which were made until 1944. Jean was one of the last four performers — all women — who appeared in the silent Our Gang shorts. And now there are three…

Today is the birthday of my best friend in the male division, Sergio Aragonés. Sergio is, of course, responsible for the clever cartoons which adorn the mastheads on this website. This is his main line of work and the one which I'm sure brings him most of his fame and popularity. When he has time between drawing me sitting at my computer, he has been known to draw a comic book called Groo the Wanderer and many, many other things. He also seems to have done something for MAD and whatever it is, he's been doing it for them since the Kennedy Administration.

I have known this man since either late 1968 or early 1969. During that time, I have known him to be funny and serious, happy and sad, calm and angry, up and down, left and right, to and fro, horizontal and vertical, and even back and forth. Especially back and forth.

But I have never known him to be mean and I have never known him to be dishonest. If he's been sneaking around at night and mistreating small animals and helpless old ladies, he's kept a darn good secret of it. Since he always seems to be able to do the impossible, I wouldn't put it past him.

Jason Abbruzzese calls John Oliver "America's social justice warrior" and discusses how Oliver's Last Week Tonight show is good at turning the spotlight on outrages that haven't yet gotten enough people outraged. Have I mentioned how much I love this program?

Because on a hot day, there's nothing like a nice, warm Diet 7-Up.

There are petitions out there to have Jon Stewart host one of the presidential debates, preferably a Republican one. As much as I admire Mr. Stewart and already miss him on the air, I don't think that's a good idea. The debate's supposed to be about the candidates and that one would wind up being primarily about Stewart. All the moderator is supposed to do is ask good questions and then jump in if anyone filibusters or goes over their time or anything.

I would love to see him have a back-and-forth dialogue with some of those candidates about the issues but that's not what a moderator's supposed to do…and can't with ninety-six people or however many they'll have on stage.

I also don't think Republican candidates should have the "out" they often employ when they can't answer basic questions or answer them poorly. They complain the questioner was asking things designed to make them look bad. If some of them bitched about Fox Newscasters doing that, what would they say about one of the nation's most prominent Liberals? He'd ask them if they were ready to start and they'd call it a "gotcha" question.

In China, when a driver hits a pedestrian in the street, what do they do? Why, they back up and run them over again to make sure the person they hit is killed, of course! At least, that's what this article says.

Here's a brief walkthrough of the Jack Kirby Art Exhibit out at Cal State Northridge. It was shot by Kevin Shaw at the opening reception last Saturday evening and along with the nifty drawings, you'll also see — among many, many others — Jack's daughter Lisa, Bruce Timm, Len Wein, Buzz Dixon, Paul Power, Steve Sherman and me. The exhibit is there through October 10 and if you want to go see it, you want to consult this page as to where and when you can do that. It is, as Jack was and still is, very impressive…