Category Archives: To Be Filed

The McDonald's company has a problem. Sales are plunging and they don't seem to know what to do about it. They're reportedly experimenting with a new gimmick where you can go in, tell a touch screen what you want to order, component by component, and your burger or sandwich will be made to order.

Will this work? I think not. People don't not go into McDonald's because some burgers come with pickle chips on them. They don't go in because they feel stupid eating at McDonald's or want something better than you can ever get at a McDonald's. I suspect "feel stupid" is more prevalent. It's why every time they've tried to make McDonald's feel like someplace you'd take an adult to dinner, it's failed miserably.

Hey, Ronald! You serve food that's for kids and/or convenience…nothing else. That's all you are. That's all you'll ever be.

I confess. I patronize the chain occasionally and when I do, it's for only one reason: I need to get something to eat in a hurry and that's my best option. Nothing else is around or open or if something is, it's either (a) something much slower, (b) something quite unfamiliar or (c) a chain I like less including but not limited to Burger King, Carl's Jr, Jack-in-the-Box, anyplace that serves tacos or KFC.

I like chains. Having as many food allergies as I do, there's something very comforting about predictability in my food. I like that no matter where I am, I can go into a McDonald's and know exactly what I'm going to get. ("Predictability," by the way, is still one of my two reasons noted above why folks go there. It's a sub-category of "Convenience." So is the fact that often, it's safer for me than any nearby alternative. And unless there's a Five Guys — and I might not have time for a Five Guys — better.)

So I patronize Mickey D's but I rarely dine there. I drive-thru because, well, I feel uncomfy eating at those little plastic tables. Between those and the general ambiance, I feel like I'm snacking in a nursery school.

Some of it is being waited on by teenagers…or worse, by adults you know are being paid like teenagers. And some of it is…well, it's McDonald's. I'm wondering if the main reason their sales are down is that decades of McDonald's jokes — remarks about how it's tacky and low-class and exploitive of its help and there's no meat in their burgers — are just finally catching up with them.

Okay, I'm really going to try not to blog today after I post this. Too much to do. I also have a whole bunch of these soup can graphics to use up. Here are a few quick thoughts before I go…

I watched Peter Pan again, albeit with one eye while training the other on computer maintenance tasks. I liked him (Mr. Walken) a bit more and I liked her (Ms. Williams) a bit less. One of my problems with Walken though is I like a Captain Hook you can hiss and boo and then feel some joy when he's defeated. There was something kinda sad about Walken's Hook. He was acting defeated before he was defeated. Also, I think there's something wrong with a musical in which wires get more screen time than Kelli O'Hara.

Today is the first weekday in a while when I haven't seen a new bit of bad news for Bill Cosby. Then again, it's still morning.

There are settings in most browsers that will allow you to filter out porn on the Internet. I'd like a setting that prevents me from seeing offers of boxed DVD sets of TV shows I liked until such time as I've watched the boxed DVD sets of TV shows I liked that I already have.

The internal injuries to my knee, sustained a week ago this evening, are healing nicely. The epidermis, however, is not so it's off to the Dermatologist this afternoon. I seem to have found the only Dermatologist on Wilshire Boulevard who's more concerned with the health of one's skin than its appearance. See you later.

Hogan's Alley is, as I hope you already know, a fine magazine devoted to the Comic Arts. Recently, I was interviewed by its proprietor, Tom Heintjes, about my new book, The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio. You can read that interview here and if it makes you want to immediately order a copy, you can do that here.

It's Cookie Monster. What more do you need to know?

Longtime pal Joe Brancatelli writes…

Check it out: the difference between a Ph.D. and Ed.D in education is one without a distinction now. In fact, there no longer are any substantial standards between universities about what constitutes a Ph.D. track and an Ed.D track.

Bottom line, though, Cosby is a Doctor of Education. As far as we know, he earned it. (That's one of the real problems with these kinds of accusations. After a while, you start questioning everything about the guy. I gotta check to make sure he was actually in I Spy. Maybe it was a doppelganger…)

Okay, I officially drop all discussion of college degrees, a topic about which I know nothing. And I'm trying to stop thinking (and therefore, writing) about the Cosby matter but boy, that's difficult. It's just getting worse and worse for that guy.

Well, since I brought it up, I got this from a reader named Briggs…

It bothers me that The Cosby Show is off the air. Doesn't that hurt a lot of people who aren't Bill Cosby? They didn't stop running those Police Squad movies when the public turned against O.J. Simpson. Do you think The Cosby Show will be seen again?

Yeah, as soon as advertisers are willing to have their commercials appear in it. That might take a while but I think it'll be back. (By the way, the Aspire channel, which programs for a black audience, is still running episodes of I Spy and Cosby's 1969 sitcom.)

You're right that there are other people who profit from the rerunning of The Cosby Show and they're losing some income. Then again, some other show is now airing in its old time slots so someone else is profiting. That's kind of the way the game is played. And it's very difficult to boycott anything without some innocent party getting harmed.

Kevin Drum notes that the "Obama recovery" (in an economic sense) is way better than the "Bush recovery" and by a wide margin. I note that the people who don't want to believe this are just plain never going to believe it.

Back when he was running against Obama, Mitt Romney said the president "gets full credit or blame for what's happened in this economy, and what's happened to gasoline prices under his watch." Next time Romney is interviewed by someone, I'd like to see him reminded of that and then asked, "Well, gas prices have dropped more than anyone imagined. Does Obama get full credit for that?" It would be fun watching Romney reverse himself, as he'd have to do if he wants to have any future in his party.

By the way: I don't think any president is wholly to blame or credit for the economy or gas prices or anything of the sort. I don't think anyone who says they are really believes it, either. Public servants probably all deserve less credit than they'll take and more than their opponents will ever give them. I just wish that game didn't get in the way of people admitting when things are going well…or not.

Here's your chance to buy Burt Reynolds' Emmy or one of his many People's Choice Awards or his old American Express card or all sorts of things. The man sure had enough belt buckles. The auction catalog is online.

Time to start filtering in the Christmas videos. I prefer this song as performed by Thurl Ravenscroft but this version is pretty cool…

A reader who signs himself "Shill" writes, "Bill Cosby received a Ed.D. (Doctor of Education) not a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) in education. There is a big difference." Yes, there is. I stand corrected.

Reader Yacov Freedman doesn't think Ray Bolger lied about his age. He thinks Bolger misspoke; that the script he was performing said "forty-eight years" and he accidentally said "forty." This was the 48th annual Academy Awards ceremony so it had been 48 years since "it all started." Had Bolger said the correct number then his line about his age would have been accurate. Yacov is probably right.

Okay, I guess I didn't succeed in not blogging much today. I might as well post a video link…

This is worth coming back for. In the clip I posted from the 1976 Academy Awards, Ray Bolger says, "It all happened forty years ago. Forty years ago, I was twenty-four years old." That would lead one to believe Mr. Bolger was 64 years old at that moment, right?

Wrong. Ray Bolger was born in 1904 so he was 72. I should have caught that.

I never understood why people fib like that about their ages. Granted, it was harder to check out in the days before Google but it was still not difficult to get caught. And Bolger's dance number would have been even more impressive if people had been aware it was being performed by a guy in his seventies.

I knew an actress once who though well into her eighties, kept telling everyone she was in her sixties even though it meant she would have made her screen debut playing an adult two years before she was born. She wasn't fooling anyone. She did however briefly panic a much younger actress I was dating who looked at her and said, "You mean I'm going to look like that when I'm sixty?"

My knee continues to heal. I'm guessing by Monday, it should be pretty much back to normal but tending to it has put me behind on a few things…ergo, we have the soup can alerting you to a reduced rate of blogging for the day.

The New York Times really liked that televised production of Peter Pan but my pal Robert J. Elisberg did not. My views are closer to Bob's but I don't feel particularly strong about it.

At least Bob was respectful of the effort. I'm saddened by some of the nastiness voiced by those who thought it was not good. Talented people made an honest attempt to do something wonderful and they succeeded wildly in the eyes of many, and succeeded somewhat in the views of others. I am amazed how upset and insulting some people get when they encounter a TV show or a movie or anything that doesn't strike them as wonderful. It's not like we're starved for media in this country. You can go watch something else you will like.

By the way: If you missed it, NBC is rerunning Peter Pan Live! on Saturday, December 13 when kids can stay up later. I hope the network has the decency to retitle it Peter Pan Not Live! Once again, it will probably have more Walmart commercials than there are Walmarts.

In other news: I was kinda joking when I asked how long it would be before Bill Cosby had his doctorate revoked. My ol' pal Bruce Reznick wrote to remind me that Cosby earned a PhD in education from the University of Massachusetts. As Bruce noted, "They don't take those away, unless there is evidence of plagiarism or fraud in the process of the degree." Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan and it was apparently never revoked.

(By the way, did I ever mention that at the time of his Unabombing, mail from Mr. Kaczynski turned up in my mailbox? He wasn't writing to me and his correspondence contained no explosives. But I was then sharing my P.O. box with the lovely actress Jewel Shepard and she was getting honest-to-God fan mail from the guy! She was not worried nor was he the creepiest guy writing to her.)

I'll be back later today if there's Breaking News. Otherwise, I'll see you Sunday.

Well, on the web actually. Joe Stuber has a great comics-oriented website called Comic Book Central and it's full of podcasts interviewing interesting people in and around the world of comics. As of today, it's fuller because he's posted one with me. It runs a little over an hour and I mostly talk about my experiences in the world of teevee but there's some stuff in there about comics.

You can find it on this page. And while you're looking for mine there, check out the one from a few weeks back with my pal Judy Strangis. Judy is a wonderful actress who you'll recognize from dozens of TV shows and commercials and other appearances.

This is the opening of the 1976 Academy Awards featuring an elaborate opening number with Ray Bolger who was 64 years old at the time [The hell he was!] and still a pretty good dancer. The first part of it was pre-taped a day or two before and then there comes a point — you'll spot it easily — when they switch to a live performance in the auditorium.

It was during this that a small but noticeable error occurred. As you may know, the Director of a show like this is in a booth somewhere watching a bank of monitors that show what each camera is seeing and he (or she) decides which view to show the home audience. Next to the Director is a person who usually has the title of Technical Director who sits before a bank of buttons and punches the one the Director specifies. So the Director calls, "Camera 3, take" and the T.D. punches the button for Camera 3 and then the Director says, "Camera 8, take" and the T.D. punches the button with the "8" on it. And so on.

Now, if you touch-type, you've probably had the experience of typing with your fingers "one off." That is, you had your hands in the wrong position so when your fingers went down to hit an "S," they actually hit an "A" and every other key was off one and you typed some gibberish before you realized it. Well, that's what reportedly happened to the T.D. during this number.

As the story is told, the Director — I think it was the legendary Marty Pasetta but I'm too lazy to look it up right now — was very enthusiastic, waving his arms as he called out shots. He accidentally bumped the T.D., knocking that person's hands off the "keyboard" for a second. When the T.D. put his hands back in place, he was one off. So there's a point in the number when the Director calls for Camera 4 and the T.D. punches 3 and then the Director calls for Camera 7 and gets 6 and so on.

It only lasted about twenty seconds until almost the last shot of the song and not all the "wrong" shots look wrong.  Still, when I was doing variety shows not long after this, I heard this story from everyone I encountered who worked in a control room. You'll notice when it happens…

Monday evening when I fell and found myself sitting on a curb nursing an injured knee, I actually thought to myself, "At least I'm having a better week than Bill Cosby." If you're alive and able to read this, I assume you are, too.

I keep trying to imagine a way Dr. Cosby — and how long before he loses that honor? — could climb out of his current scandal with some part of his reputation intact. The best I've been able to muster would require hard evidence of an evil Cosby Impersonator who likes to sneak into Bill's hotel rooms and offices to drug and molest women.

What I'm waiting for are a couple of real polls (i.e., not online ones) that tells us how many people out there think Cosby is guilty of the accusations. So far, the only one I've found is Rasmussen, whose polls on politics are sometimes wildly inaccurate…and anyway, it's just one poll. It said nearly half of Americans think it's likely the recent allegations of sexual assault are true and also…

42% of American Adults have a favorable impression of Cosby, including 16% who have a Very Favorable impression of him. Thirty-six percent (36%) view The Cosby Show star unfavorably, including 14% with a Very Unfavorable impression. Another 22% are not sure what they think of Cosby.

The survey, which has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points, was conducted a week ago. Betcha Cosby's numbers have gone down a notch or two since then.

The survey also said a majority of respondents felt that it was wrong to yank reruns of The Cosby Show unless or until until he is officially charged with a crime. That's kind of a dodgy question since the show's not off because stations think he's guilty. It's off because either advertisers were withdrawing sponsorship or because the stations knew that was coming. Stations probably also didn't want to deal with the inevitable protests if they left it on but that's a secondary reason.

The primary one is that advertisers were moving their commercials to other shows. I don't blame them. There's no upside for them in continuing to support that show right now. All they can do is get people mad at them. A lot of people are real angry at Bill Cosby right now and some of them have to take it out on someone.

Ratings for Peter Pan Live! were down considerably from The Sound of Music…and viewership declined a lot last night throughout the show. That may have been a function of it airing on a school night when kids just couldn't stay up that late. Or maybe they found it as tedious in the middle as I did. I don't think this will stop networks from attempting more specials like this but if the next one drops as much…

It's interesting to see this morning how many people on the 'net saw quite a different show last night than I did. I'm wondering if Comcast subscribers got a version where Allison Williams was a lot more butch and expressive, whereas us Time-Warner Cable folks got the one where she didn't seem all that upset when she thought Wendy died, Tinker Bell was going to, Wendy went and grew up, etc. I hope Christopher Walken knew all his lines in the Comcast version.

But my friend Ken Levine liked it a lot and he is not an easy audience. Go read how he found dozens of things to fault but still gives it high marks.

I am told that if you omit all the commercials in the three-hour time slot, the show ran 2 hours and 12 minutes so that means 48 minutes of commercials. It felt like the other way around. By contrast, the last time Mary Martin did it for television, it ran in a two-hour slot with 20 minutes of commercials. The Cathy Rigby version ran one hour and 43 minutes.

I still like Rigby's best of all and I'm not trying to make a direct comparison. Rigby, after all, did it hundreds of times in front of live audiences before they ever committed it to video, whereas what we saw last night represented — what? Six weeks of rehearsals?

The DVD of Rigby's version was out of print for a while but it seems to be back, though Amazon is currently out of stock and awaiting more. No doubt, interest in the new version has caused a run on her version…and her version is six dollars. It was not videoed live. They apparently shot it repeatedly during a few performances in front of real audiences at the La Mirada Theater (its home base) one of the eighty million times it played there, then shot it some more without an audience and edited it all together. The wires were digitally removed from the video and some of Ms. Rigby's singing was redone by her to create definitive — as opposed to live — versions of key songs.

But it works really well, I think. If you have kids and you want to show them Peter Pan on TV, I'd go with that version over Martin or Williams. It's too bad you can't actually take them into a theater to see it anymore.