Category Archives: To Be Filed

I don't know quite what causes Global Warming but I know why it's 105 degrees where I am right now in Los Angeles. It's because I have to write a Christmas story today.

This always happens to me. Between animation and comic books, I think I've written about eight Christmas stories in my lifetime. Without fail, every one had to be done on days when it was blazing hot. (In case anyone cares, I'm doing the lead story for whichever issue of the Garfield comic book will be out in December.)

I should be finished with the story tonight so expect temperatures to drop tomorrow. And I'm really, really sorry about this.

Warning: This video cuts off abruptly in the middle of something pretty interesting. But what comes before is interesting enough (and complete) so I decided to link you to it anyway.

A lot of people will tell you that the original My Fair Lady starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews was just about the most perfect musical to grace Broadway…and maybe it was. But the show had two major problems to solve before it could get to New York.

One was that Ms. Andrews, while ideal in the portions where Liza has learned to speak non-Cockney English, was having trouble learning the "before" part of that role. For the longest time, she simply couldn't speak Cockney in a convincing manner. It was so bad that at one point, Mr. Harrison either refused to rehearse with her any longer or so threatened. His position was that she would never "get it" and that it was a waste of his time to rehearse with someone who so obviously would have to be fired and replaced. Eventually though, the director Moss Hart and a vocal coach or two managed to do the reverse of what Henry Higgins did in the play. They taught her how to sound like an unrefined flower girl.

The other problem was that Harrison had never sung on stage before and while he was okay in the rehearsal hall with a lone pianist, he was terrified of having to sing with a full orchestra. It led to all sorts of temper fits and anxiety attacks and even after he overcame most of his fears, he had to pretend the orchestra wasn't there, couldn't even look at the conductor. (One night after the show had been running a bit, he came out and noticed the conductor was wearing a white coat. The first time Harrison exited the stage, he sent a note to the conductor that read, "Please take that coat off. I can see you.")

This video is an excerpt from a 1960 TV special in which Andrews and Harrison participated in somewhat fictionalized re-creations of what they each went through before My Fair Lady opened. The Andrews segment is complete but the Harrison part ends prematurely so don't be surprised. If I ever come across a link to the full video, I'll let you know.

Your host is Henry Fonda. The announcer you'll hear at the beginning is the legendary Jackson Beck…

Tavis Smiley is airing a two-part interview with Mel Brooks tomorrow night and Friday night. Which could be Friday morning and Monday morning in some markets. Consult, as we say in the television industry, your local listings.

In an interview with Howard Stern, Neil Patrick Harris says he turned down being David Letterman's replacement on Late Show because he thinks he'd get bored with that format. He also ruled out following Craig Ferguson on Late, Late Show for the same reasons.

As you may recall, I predicted Colbert would get Late Show and Harris would get Late, Late Show so maybe I oughta do a partial victory lap and say, "See? I called Late Show right and they would have given the other show to Harris had he not made it clear he was not interested." But the truth is that we don't know exactly what was offered. There's a big difference between someone saying "Are you interested?" and someone making you the kind of firm offer where all you have to do is say yes and you've got the job.

And in-between those two extremes, there's also the matter of negotiation, which can turn what sounds like a real offer into no offer.

I'm not sure this is true but a writer for Jay Leno told me once that Jay has several times been called by the folks putting on the Academy Awards telecast and they asked him, "We're putting together a list for the network of people we want to have host the Oscars and we really want you…but we hear you don't want to do it. Should we leave you off our list?" And Jay said each time, "Yeah, thanks but I don't want to do it. Leave me off the list."

Assuming that story is true, would it be accurate for Leno to say, "They offered me the Oscars and I turned them down"? Well, sort of but not exactly. My first agent used to say, "Don't confuse interest for an offer. It's not an offer until they put real money on the table."

So we don't know if what N.P.H. said no to was a real offer or just an exploration of whether he might want such a gig. Maybe they were already talking to Colbert, weren't sure they could make a deal with him and began conversations with Harris just in case. Or maybe they felt that in order to keep Harris in "the CBS family," they should at least approach him and let him know they were thinking of him for that prestigious job.

It's been done before. Long before Johnny Carson actually did retire from The Tonight Show, there were times when it looked like he might leave and NBC dangled that job before a number of folks to get them to sign NBC contracts. It was a big reason McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H and wound up doing sitcoms for the Peacock Network. He thought Johnny's job would soon come open and was positioning himself for it. Jon Stewart once thought he was being groomed for Dave's slot as well as being offered the one on ABC that Jimmy Kimmel got.

So…with Harris out of the running, who will get that 12:35 time slot on CBS? If I had to wager right now, I'd say Aisha Tyler…but I feel far less confident of that than I did of my previous prediction. Who, let me remind you, could have had it if he'd wanted it. It also wouldn't surprise me if they went with someone who hasn't been mentioned on any of the "Who'll Succeed Craig Ferguson?" lists. After all, Craig Ferguson wasn't on the "Who'll Succeed Craig Kilborn?" lists.

And frankly, I'm more interested in N.P.H. saying that he'd like to do a prime-time variety show for CBS. If anyone could bring back that genre, I'm betting it would be him.

• Just heard Chris Christie speak. Apparently, I am more to blame for Bridgegate and the economic problems of New Jersey than he is.

It's the big five-oh — fifty years! — since the release of the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers and Peter Sellers. A masterpiece of black comedy, it was not hailed as such by everyone back in 1964 because, I suppose, some of its premises and speculations were quite close and uncomfy.

As Eric Schlosser pointed out in this article earlier this year, an amazing amount of it was prescient at least about possibilities if not outcomes. I wonder if anyone could or would make a movie like that today…a film that toyed in that way with the concept of nuclear war or something similarly dire. Global warming is starting to look like a pretty formidable threat. I don't see anyone joking about that.

And in this new article, David Denby reminds us what the world was like when Dr. Strangelove (etc.) first debuted. The film also has a value in reminding us of that era and our fears of the time. I was twelve years old in '64 and a bit too young to be worried about what it was worried about. But I sure recall adults who saw it and thought they were watching next month's newscasts. Thanks to Greg Kelly for pointing me to Mr. Denby's piece.

Today, your amiable host Stu Shostak welcomes our mutual pal Vince Waldron to his audio extravaganza. Vince is the author of The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book and…what's that? You say you love The Dick Van Dyke Show and you already own Vince's exhaustive history of that program? Well, not like this. Vince has released a new e-book version which adds buckets full of new information and photos. Ordinarily, I'd think, "Oh, he added some extra stuff to get me to buy it again" but in this case, the version I purchased and downloaded to my Kindle is absolutely worth the modest price. Vince will spend most of Stu's Show today sharing new information he's uncovered about our favorite sitcom. He thought he'd found everything but it just goes to show you: There's no telling what you'll find when Carl Reiner lets you rummage through his garage. If you're a fan of the series, listen today when Vince appears with Stu and order the new version. You'll be more than happy you did.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond.  Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.  The ones where I guest should be cheaper but they aren't.

Hey, let's all watch a dog carry a cat into the house…

Several folks have written to ask me if I can tell them anything about Casey Kasem, the popular disc jockey and voice actor who has now been reported "missing" in a family dispute. I don't know anything about this family dispute other than, like all family disputes, it is probably not made any simpler or easier to solve by becoming a public issue.

Despite the existence of a few audio tapes on which Mr. Kasem got furious over something, I always found him to be a pleasant, nice guy who was really good at what he did. The worst thing I can say about him is that he seemed to be one of those people who you couldn't dine with without being told that whatever you were putting in your mouth was going to kill you.

He has not been well for some time and it would appear that family members are fighting over who'll take care of him and what should be done for him. I hope they settle it. I hope he receives proper attention and comfort for his remaining days and that a lot remain. And I wish this stuff didn't get into the news because it probably doesn't help.

Tom Galloway sent me this link to a great interview with Mel Brooks, who's promoting the release of Blazing Saddles on Blu-ray. A couple of points of interest…

Brooks tells about how he wanted to quit the picture because Warner Brothers wouldn't let him cast Richard Pryor in the lead. I always thought he was lucky he didn't get what he wanted there. Pryor was, of course, a much funnier actor than Cleavon Little, who did get the part. But the central point of Blazing Saddles was that the town hated the sheriff strictly because he was black. He was heroic. He was handsome. He was a great guy. But he was black.

Now, Pryor was not as handsome, not as heroic-looking, not as ideal a sheriff, skin color aside. Also, he was at his funniest when he played weak, nervous, dark, troubled, hostile, etc. I think the film works because Sheriff Bart is none of those things. I can see reasons other than his race why the people of Rock Ridge wouldn't have liked Pryor as their sheriff. I can't see any why they wouldn't have embraced Cleavon Little…and that's kind of what the movie is about.

Also in the conversation, Brooks says something interesting about the original movie version of The Producers. Talking about a night spot in New York, he says, "That's where I met Alfa-Betty Olsen…who wrote The Producers with me and who helped me cast it." Interesting way to put that. Alfa-Betty Olsen was a screenwriter and author whose involvement in that film has been debated by film historians. She received no credit for writing on it, nor to my knowledge has she ever claimed she deserved any, describing her role more as secretary than co-writer. But now here's Mel talking about her like she was a co-author…

Anyway, check out the interview. Thanks, Tom.

The wondrous Laraine Newman misses Tim Russert.

In the eighties, I worked with a gentleman named Will Vinton on a TV special that never got produced. If that name doesn't ring an immediate bell, try putting the word "claymation" next to it and then remember the dancing California Raisins — just some of the amazing, imaginative creations that came out of his studio. Will was a good guy and very sincere about making good films and I was sorry that our project fell short.

Not long ago, I got to wondering what had happened to him and that great studio I toured up in Portland. By sheer chance last evening, I came across this article about how the studio expanded to the point where its founder Will got squeezed out of his own company. Not a pretty story.

I assume you're all watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver but I couldn't resist linking to this. I thought it was just so damn perfect…

A lot of folks have written to ask me what's up with my Time-Warner e-mail problems, the ones I wrote about back here. Here's a quick summary of what's not working right…

Any e-mail that anyone sends to me @ one of my domains goes to a server on my domain which instantly forwards it on to a GMail account I have and to my Time-Warner e-mail account. I've already been using a great program called MailWasherPRO to go online and give me a preview of my e-mail before I download it so I can mark and delete Spam or obviously infected messages. I have it now set to go online and simultaneously download the headers and a sample of each message in both the GMail mailbox and the Time-Warner mailbox.

If both were working perfectly, I would be getting two copies of every message. That's apart from the fact that the list of messages GMail thinks are Spam and moves to my Spam folder there varies slightly from the list of messages Time-Warner thinks are Spam and relocates in my Spam folder over there. But just looking at the messages I want to download, those should be the same.

They aren't. Sometimes, my mailboxes on Time-Warner and GMail receive the same messages within moments of each other. Sometimes, the Time-Warner version doesn't show up until hours later. And sometimes, the Time-Warner version doesn't show up at all. (And yes, I've checked. That's not because it goes into the Spam folder and I do not have any filter turned on that is causing this.)

In the week I've been monitoring this, I have yet to see the opposite happen. GMail is getting everything Time-Warner gets but Time-Warner is not getting everything GMail gets. And when they do both receive the same message, GMail gets it at the same time or before — often way before.

Allegedly, Time-Warner Tech Support is looking into this but I've decided that even if they say it's fixed or it seems to be fixed, I ain't taking any chances. I'm going to keep getting my messages from both sources. It's a simple matter to use MailWasher to delete the dupes and then download one of each into my e-mail program, which is Mozilla Thunderbird. Thunderbird has an add-on that will scan for duplicates in case I miss any.

And that's the latest. I'll let you know if anything changes but I'd be very surprised if anything changes.

In the eighties, there was a war of competing hamburger chains: Fuddrucker's versus Flakey Jake's. I liked them both but slightly preferred the latter, particularly the Flakey Jake's on the northwest corner of the intersection of Pico and Sepulveda in West Los Angeles.

The premise of both chains was simple. They sold pretty good hamburgers, a notch above McDonald's and Burger King at a correspondingly (but not exorbitant) price. They both had other menu items but you went there for the burgers, which were served on a bun cooked on the premises in their own bakery. The bakery also made cinnamon buns and other goodies which you could purchase to take home.

One thing I liked about them was the "dress-it-yourself" bar that I first encountered at Woody's Smorgasburger, which has become the major topic of this site. You got your burger nude and you carried it over to an area where they had ketchup and mustard and onions and lettuce and tomato and cheese sauces and other toppings. The hamburgers at Flakey Jake's were pretty darned good and I ate at the Pico-Sepulveda one often.

The two chains were in fierce competition to open up new locations across the country — some company-owned, some franchised. In a few cases, they competed head-to-head: There'd be a Flakey Jake's literally across the street from a Fuddrucker's. Fuddrucker's also sued Flakey Jake's charging "infringement of trade dress" (copying its format) and then Flakey Jake's counter-sued Fuddrucker's charging "restraint of trade" and in '82, they settled out of court on undisclosed terms.

Around this time, Flakey Jake's, which had been founded by a Seattle-based seafood restaurant chain, sold out to Frank Carney (co-founder of Pizza Hut) and a group of investors. Apparently, they couldn't make a go of it. Before long, all the Flakey Jake's closed…or seem to have closed. Fuddrucker's, meanwhile, continues to thrive and currently has around 200 outlets across the U.S. — few of them, I'm afraid, in areas where I travel. I'm curious why one chain succeeded and the other didn't because they were, after all, pretty much the same thing