You might want to add an addendum to your post today on Monty Python's last show to the effect that their final performance is being broadcast live to theaters all over the world. (Which, basically, is their international tour). Tickets are available from Fathom Events. Because it is live, that means that here in California, it will be seen at 10:15 AM on July 20. I already have my ticket.
It's certainly not the same as seeing them in person, as I did when I was in the live audience at Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl back in 1979. One can't go backstage afterwards and meet them, as I did back then, but it's better than not seeing at all what may well be (or may not be) their final performance together ever.
Speaking of which, Barry Humphries will be bringing his final tour [as Dame Edna] to the Ahmanson for six weeks beginning the last week of January, 2015. I'm very, very sure that will be our last opportunity to see Barry perform live onstage in Los Angeles ever. He'll be onstage at the Ahmanson on his 81st birthday.
As big a fan as I am of Python, I really have no desire to go to a theater — especially on a Sunday morning — and see a live feed of their show. If anyone reading this does, here's a link to find out where it'll be and to purchase tix.
Like you, I was at the Hollywood Bowl and it was exciting to see them in person…but really, that's the whole point of this kind of performance. It's so you can say, "I saw John Cleese and Michael Palin do the parrot sketch in person." The excitement is not about seeing the material since we know it all and have seen them do it many times, usually much better and without audience participation. It's about Being There.
I assume whatever is broadcast in the theater that morn will be available soon for purchase on a disc. No disrespect to the Python guys but it doesn't look like they ever turn down anything that would wring another dollar out of the same material. A friend of mine who has purchased all the home video releases, starting on Beta and progressing through VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray, claims he has now paid for "Nudge, Nudge" more than one hundred times. "Are you selling something?"
I am, however, all for seeing Mr. Humphries in his final go-round as Dame Edna Everage. Here's the schedule so far which only includes Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Desert, Toronto and Washington, D.C. If you've never seen him/her, it's a great evening and unlike Python, it's not just about seeing it live…though there is that.
One last thought about the Python show. In the interviews I linked to, several of the fellows said that they'd be doing the Spanish Inquisition sketch on stage for the first time. I wish they hadn't revealed that. Now, everyone expects the Spanish Inquisition.
MeTV has lately been running episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter which I worked on in 1976 and 1977, several lifetimes ago. I have had a request to tell a story about one which I've told at conventions but never told here. The episode in question ran last week.
My then-partner Dennis Palumbo and I were on staff, which meant we did a lot of rewriting and adding jokes and rewriting the rewrites of the previous rewrites. At the same time, I was asked to take over the scripting of the Welcome Back, Kotter comic book which DC Comics was then publishing. I really didn't have time for it but (a) I had stopped writing comics while working on the TV show and I missed it and (b) I thought it might be fun to write Kotter without arguing over every line with the producers, the other writers, the network and the actors.
I sent in my first script and then I got a message that the editor had "a few problems" with it and wanted me to call him to discuss them. I decided to phone from the studio from their WATS line. I don't think they have them anymore but a WATS line was a special kind of phone service a business could purchase that gave them all their long-distance calling at a flat rate. Calling the other side of the country was costly then so I opted for the ABC WATS line and I called from the reception area at the studio, just outside our rehearsal hall.
The editor told me a few minor things in my script that he thought needed fixing. They were reasonable notes, easily rectified. Then we got to one line he really didn't like.
At the time, a man named Evel Knievel was in the news often for his daring motorcycle leaps. Every time you turned around, he was either vaulting his bike across some famous landmark or over a new world's record number of Buicks or something. He was also promising he would one day conquer the Grand Canyon that way. So in my script for the comic book, there was a scene where some loud individual says something outta-line to the character Arnold Horshack, whereupon Horshack turns to him and says, "Hey, Evel Knievel just called. He wants to know if he can jump your mouth!"
Not the funniest line I ever wrote — I would hope — but, hey, it's just one line in one panel of comic book, right? Well, the editor wanted it out because according to him, "Horshack wouldn't say that."
I said, "Of course, Horshack would say that," and I reminded him that I was a story editor of the TV show. Part of my job description was writing lines for Horshack. The editor said, "No, that's out of character for him. I've seen the show and Horshack is a sweet little guy who is never mean."
I thought but did not say, "No, no…you have your TV on CBS instead of ABC. The show you're watching is The Waltons!" We argued a bit and were soon trapped in one of those endless loops. I kept reminding him that I was writing the TV show. He kept saying, "Horshack would never say that."
Just then, Ron Palillo was walking through the reception area. Ron, of course, played Horshack. I asked the editor to wait a minute and I called out, "Hey, Ron! Would Horshack say this line?" and I told him the line. Ron said, "Oh, that's great! I love that! Could we use that in the scene we're rehearsing right now?"
I realized it would fit in fine so I said, "Sure," then I told the editor in New York, "Okay, I'll cut it out of the script." I did. It was on the show, it got a tremendous laugh and the network used it in the promos for that episode so it ran dozens of times on TV that week. But it wasn't in the comic book because, you know, Horshack would never say that.
I do not tell this tale to embarrass the editor in question, who was beloved by many who worked for and with him. I'm sure when I've been in an editorial position, I've made miscalls of far greater magnitude and density. But the incident stuck with me a long time and shaped my unique view of editors and producers, which is that they're human beings.
Yeah, I could tell you stories of a few where that seemed arguable. Every so often, you run into one who for reasons of rampant megalomania and/or paranoid insecurity — usually both — feel they have to be right all the time even when they aren't; the kind who corrects you on subjective issues the way a third grade teacher tells you that no, Johnny, three plus three does not equal nineteen. Such bosses are few, far between and usually don't remain bosses for very long.
The guy in charge is just the guy in charge. He's infallible the way baseball umpires are infallible: Because even when he's wrong, he can throw you out of the game for arguing too much with him.
I have this one friend who writes and draws comics and he follows a simple pattern: He does a job. He calls me to complain about the idiot editor. He does another job. He calls me to complain more about the idiot editor. He does a job for someone else. He calls me to complain about how that idiot editor is even worse than the other idiot editor. And so on and so on…
I keep telling him that, yes, the editors may be wrong in each and every instance. Maybe, maybe not. Even the most inept editor I've ever had would occasionally say something to me like, "Hey, how come this character is named Joe on page eight and Jason on page twelve?" and I'd go, "Uhhh…" And sometimes, what editors contribute can vary wildly from active particpation to benevolent neglect.
But whether you're the editor of your own work or someone else is, there has to be a person to make the call, just as there has to be that person, blind though he may be, to say what's a ball and what's a strike. Don't get too crazed about it when it's someone else and you think they're wrong. Eventually, if all goes well, your work will be judged by a higher authority — the buying public. And you know something? They aren't right all the time, either…and sometimes, they remind you that you're the same way.
See that guy? That's my good buddy Michael Schlesinger, one of the great authorities on motion pictures and, in his past life as an exec for what is now Sony Pictures, a guy who saved many great films from disappearing forever and got many released on home video. Film buffs in the know were always very happy to hear that some new DVD or VHS release was supervised by or approved by Mike Schlesinger. What's he been doing lately? Well, he was heard along with Yours Truly and a gent named Paul Scrabo on the commentary track of Criterion's release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He's also been hosting film festivals and making his own: He is responsible for the wonderful Biffle & Shooster comedies I've mentioned here before and I'm sure he'll be talking about them and many other fun things when he joins another good buddy of mine, Stu Shostak, for today's episode.
Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there and then. 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. Then shortly after a show concludes, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three. Where else can you get a deal like that? Go to your nearby Lexus dealer. Buy three cars and see if they give you a fourth one free. Stu is much more generous.
The five surviving members of Monty Python are interviewed about their upcoming "farewell" performances in the U.K. next month…plus, you also get some real ugly photos of them.
Two points of interest. I follow these gentlemen a lot and am always a bit amazed at how they alternate between acting like bosom buddies and airing hostilities in public. I understand them not getting along at times. I don't quite understand what the point is of insulting your partners in the press. I mean, it's not like any of them could ever be certain they wouldn't want to work together again…and here they are, regrouping for ten performances that will pay them an awful lot of money — in some cases, maybe the money that they'll live off for the rest of their lives. Their legacies may also profit from this reassociation. Why say some of the things they say about each other?
Secondly: When they announced what was originally to be one "final" performance in England, everyone assumed it would be followed by a "final" performance in New York, a "final" performance in Los Angeles, other "final" performaces elsewhere. Then the one performance in England became ten and they got more serious about those being the last performances anywhere, anytime, forever. Do we think this is so? I mean, some of them may think it's so but do we think it's so? Barring ill health or another one of them ceasing to be, I don't. It's probably though the last one on this scale and there probably won't be an immediate tour.
I'm getting a wee bit annoyed at Avast, my main virus-checking program. It seems to do its job very well but it has suddenly developed this new feature. Every so often, it will tell me that one of my browser add-ons has a "bad reputation" and that Avast highly recommends I allow the program to uninstall it. Today, it went after the one from Adobe that lets me read PDFs online. Adobe has a "bad reputation?"
But that's not the annoying part. If I say, "Sure, go on, delete it," it won't do that unless I allow it to change my homepage to www.yahoo.com and select either Bing or Yahoo as my new primary search provider. That's just extortion because, of course, your homepage and primary search provider have nothing to do with uninstalling a browser add-on.
My primary search provider is Google and my homepage is that wonderful website, www.newsfromme.com. I can almost hear Avast saying, "You want us to keep you safe, fella? Well then, you'd better not use your own website as your homepage. You've got to use the one that pays us! Nyah hah hah!" Instead, of course, I can just uninstall the add-on myself if I so choose. Or take the five seconds to switch my homepage and search engine back.
I'm used to other programs trying to get me to install their toolbar or use their site as my homepage. I just wasn't prepared for my virus checker, which reminds me constantly how it's there to protect me, trying to control me like that.
My feeling is that Rick Perry will get the Republican nomination for President in 2016 only if the G.O.P. decides not to waste a real candidate in that election. The key thing is that they have to find someone who has at least a shot at attracting some of the Hispanic and African-American vote. I somehow don't think that's Rick Perry.
This profile is kinda funny. Perry lunched with a reporter at "Nate 'n Al, the Jewish Deli in Beverly Hills" and told his dining companion, "I'm more Jewish than you think I am." Nate 'n Al is a great place to eat but it's probably less Jewish than Rick Perry thinks it is. I am somehow reminded of a friend of mine from the midwest who seems to think the defining thing about Judaism is eating corned beef and bagels.
Hey, remember that problem I've been having with Time-Warner e-mail? Messages take hours — sometimes, days — to get to me and when I call up to complain, I wind up on hold for hours.
The problem hasn't gotten any better but somehow, it's comforting to know I'm not alone.
There's no paucity of folks out there with ideas about what the U.S should do with regard to Iraq…and of course, the folks who think we should go to war everywhere especially think we should go back to war there. Fred Kaplan discusses some options including an alliance with Iran. Then later, I guess we form an alliance with Iraq to deal with the Iran problem…
Just back for a moment to mention that Ensign Pulver (1964) is on Turner Classic Movies very, very late tonight. This is another movie that I recommend not because I think it's good — portions are but the totality is not — but because I think it's interesting. Josh Logan had a huge triumph with the play and movie of Mister Roberts. Several years later, he wanted to do a cinema-only sequel spotlighting Jack Lemmon's character and he wrote a script that Mr. Lemmon respectfully declined. If you see the film, you'll understand why.
Logan got the film made anyway, sticking Robert Walker with the thankless task of replacing Jack Lemmon in an Academy Award winning role. Mr. Walker is probably the least-known member of a cast that included Larry Hagman, Walter Matthau, Jack Nicholson, Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall, Tommy Sands, Dick Gautier, Al Freeman Jr, James Farentino, a skinny James Coco, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Kay Medford and George Lindsey in his pre-Goober days. And there was also Burl Ives, who walks off with the movie as he plays the rottenest, nastiest captain you ever loved in a movie.
Had it been a standalone film, unrelated to its predecessor, it might have fared better. Then again, had it not been a sequel to Mister Roberts, it probably wouldn't have gotten made. It's really a sad follow-up to a great movie but there are some fine performances and great moments and am I making clear that I don't think this is a great movie but that it is one you might want to watch anyway?
I am about to submerge for the remainder of Mushroom Soup Monday and work on pressing assignments. As usual, I'll be back if something urgent happens.
My "to do" list for this week on newsfromme.com includes a round-up of some of the e-mail I've received about the O.J. Simpson case, some tales from The Battle of the Network Stars and another story or two from my days on Welcome Back, Kotter.
I may or may not write a piece I've been mulling about what it was that always worried me about the Iraq War. Briefly, it was that the people urging us to invade and involved in planning said invasion didn't seem to (a) comprehend the existing situation there involving the Sunnis, the Shi'ites and the Kurds and (b) didn't seem to think that mattered. I didn't understand it either but I wasn't committing American lives and dollars to the effort and promising to reconfigure how that country worked.
Nice to see William Kristol telling us what the U.S. should do about Iraq. Maybe the Sunday news shows can bring Dick Morris on again to explain how Mitt Romney is certain to win in a landslide.
One of these days, I may also write a piece about how Costco seems to be adopting the main business principle behind Trader Joe's. The way it works at Trader Joe's is that I go in and they track what I purchase and take home. And then via some means that I've been unable so far to determine, they find out if I like it or not and if I do, they stop carrying it in their stores. I'm not sure how they do this but they do this and now Costco apparently has the same surveillance equipment.
Okay, if you need me the rest of the day, I'll be hiding behind the soup can…
Here, from The Pete Holmes Show, is one of my favorite magicians, Karl Koppertop. Like Mr. Holmes, I too saw Karl up at the Magic Castle recently. In fact, I saw him do this trick about two feet from my eyes…
Pundit George Will has recently been bolstering my theory that it's impossible for a male Republican to speak or write about rape without looking insensitive and naive. There always seems to be this subtext of "What's the big deal?" and often they're way more worried about men being falsely accused than about women being subjected to an act of violence. Here's a letter to Mr. Will from a rape victim trying to set him straight. It won't do any good. In contains a link to the column that triggered the response.
And no, I have no comments about the end-of-life struggle within Casey's family. I don't think I know enough about what happened to have an opinion. And yes, I know that usually doesn't stop me or anyone on the Internet.
I have written here many times of how my father hated his job. He spent twenty-five years working for the Internal Revenue Service, loathing every nano-second of it. He was bothered by the grief he sometimes had to bring upon people who were in serious financial trouble. He was annoyed at the way his superiors sometimes treated him.
He was frustrated at how there seemed to be two sets of rules as to who had to pay delinquent taxes. Rich folks with "friends in Washington" (i.e., Richard Nixon) or sometimes "friends in Sacramento" (i.e., Ronald Reagan) often did not. Poor folks with no "connections," of course, always did. They were treated like criminals whereas the Friends of Dick and/or Ron had to be coddled like royalty and remain unthreatened. On several occasions, after my father made a routine call on a Friend of Dick and/or Ron about owing vast amounts to Uncle Sam, the bill would be torn up and my father would be ordered to apologize to the Rich Guy for upsetting him so. But the Poor Mother always had to pay…or else.
You'd have to be a bit of a psychopath not to hate being in his position…but it had to be done and my father had to earn a living. Before that, he had an array of short-term jobs that weren't as stable — the I.R.S. was nothing if not stable — and which he didn't like a whole lot more. He'd worked for a time in the administrative office of a hospital and couldn't stand having to take paperwork to people who were injured and suffering.
None of them were the kind of careers you dream of having. They were all the kind of jobs you take because you can't get one of the kind you dream of having.
And I think the thing he liked least about them were that they all had a firm, concrete ceiling. When you fantasize about what you want to do with your life, you usually pick something that could, at least in theory, make you very, very wealthy. My father never had one of those jobs. He had ones that by their very nature excluded that possibility. They were jobs where if you did them better than anyone else had ever done them, you might at best be able to get a $10 raise next year. Might. It was tough to accept that limitation on your life.
None of this should suggest that he was not, on balance, a happy man. He loved — not necessarily in this order — his home, his wife, his son and our cat. He had a life that was largely free of tragedy and disaster. Once he signed on with the I.R.S., he never had to worry about paying the mortgage, buying food and clothing, affording a car, etc. He had a wonderful health insurance plan that covered him, his spouse and his kid and the only thing wrong with it was that it didn't cover the cat. Apart from paying off the house — and for a time, my orthodonture — he was free of debt.
There's a lot to be said for all that.
My father and me. Even at an early age, I was very good at not paying attention to authority figures.
In the early seventies, he hit retirement age with the I.R.S., grabbed his pension and got the hell out, just in time to spend all day watching the Senate Watergate hearings. I have vivid memories of him sitting in front of the TV watching the Dodgers or the Lakers, yelling at the screen like he was managing from afar. He was very happy doing that but he was even happier watching the Senate investigate the Nixon Administration.
After it all ended, he missed it. If they'd rerun the hearings like old Star Trek episodes, he'd never have missed one. A lot of I.R.S. abuses were exposed for all the world to see. Years later when I met John Dean, the former Nixon aide who blew the whistle on much of that, I thanked him. On behalf of my father.
Once the hearings were over though, my father had a problem: What to do all day?
It was a small problem at first. He had my mother around. I still lived at home. He had his friend who still worked at the I.R.S. to lunch with, once a week. Then the friend went to prison for accepting bribes. Then my mother took a part-time job at a local gourmet grocery shop. Then I moved out. Then my mother's part-time job turned into a full-time job.
For a while, my father had a portfolio of stocks — nothing that was likely to ever make him wealthy. Following them was more a spectator sport than an investment. They'd go up a dime or two. They'd go down a dime or two. It was not unlike following the Dodgers or the Lakers but without Vin Scully or Chick Hearn.
It was also a place to go. Once a week, he'd go to his brokers' office where there was an entire wall covered with a stock-tracking scoreboard and a gallery where you could just sit and watch. You might sit for hours before you saw any activity on one of your stocks…and then it might only be up or down a penny or so. But it was a pleasant place to sit, read the newspaper, sip the free coffee and maybe chat with other investors and your personal broker if he wasn't busy, which he always was.
Then Channel 22 happened. Today, that UHF station runs programming in Spanish but back then, it ran stock market reports all day. Two lines of crawl ran across the bottom of the screen and my father would sit and stare at both for hours, hoping to spot one of his stocks and learn it was up a half a cent. He missed the camaraderie of the brokers' office but thanks to Channel 22, he could follow his investments without shaving and while wearing his pajamas.
One day when he did shave, dress and go to the broker's office, his broker gave him some advice: "This would be a good time to sell." My father's stocks were all of a kind that had peaked, the broker told him. "Get rid of them all now," he said. "And if you want to stay in the market, I'll advise you on others you should purchase with what you get for them." My father got out and didn't get back in. He couldn't bring himself to follow a new team. He did make some money but he didn't have that to help fill his days.
What he hoped for was Jury Duty. Jury Duty, he was sure, was the remedy for his boredom.
He kept waiting for it, longing for it. He thought it would be interesting and would give him a feeling of accomplishment — having a place to go each day, hearing the cases, pondering them, rendering a just and rational verdict. If you could have signed up to be a full-time juror, he would have done it, no pay necessary. He may even have called up and asked if there was anything he could do that would make him more likely to be called.
He was a few times but it was disappointing. He was never picked to serve on a jury…not once. It was because of his background. Lawyers would ask him his profession and when they heard he'd worked for the I.R.S., they didn't want him. I guess they figured he'd naturally side with the government.
So no jury duty, no stocks to follow, no friends to lunch with…my mother was at work and I was living somewhere else, busy with my career. What could he do all day? Well, he could come visit me from time to time. And he could ask me to send him on errands. I don't know how many times he offered to do things for me.
I understood why, of course. He'd feel useful and he'd feel more a part of my life…so I gave him what I could but I simply didn't have many things I could send him to do. And with some of them, things didn't work out well.
He loved to shop. When it was time for him to buy a new (used) car, he would take weeks. When I bought a new (new) car, I'd decide what I wanted, go to a showroom or two, haggle a bit and buy it. My first new car purchase took, I think, three hours.
My father would spend three weeks or more trading in his ten-year-old Buick for a five-year-old Oldsmobile. He would make charts and consult Consumer Reports and he'd visit ten or more lots, often several times each. Then he'd narrow it down to three possibles and go around and test-drive the potential acquisitions and see if this salesman would come down twenty bucks or that one would come down fifty…
He enjoyed the hell out of it. I think he even looked forward to things going wrong with whatever he was driving because they would hasten the moment when he got to say, "I think I need to trade it in for something newer." (He never bought an absolutely-new car in his life and that first time I did, he was so proud of me…and also disappointed that I bought it in, like I said, three hours. He would have loved it if he and I could have driven from dealer to dealer for months, making a joint decision, negotiating in tandem, etc.)
One day, I decided I needed a new TV so I decided to let him find it for me. I decided on the brand I wanted, the screen size and certain features. I wrote them all down and sent him off to find me the right set at the right price. What I would have done was to walk into ABC Premiums a few blocks away, bought the set there and just carted it home, in and out in under an hour…but this gave him something to do.
He made it take weeks. He consulted ads in the newspaper. He drove to stores all over the city. He called others. After the eighth time I told him I needed the set sooner rather than later, he came to me with the results of all his research and scientific inquiry. A set that filled all my requirements could be purchased, he proudly revealed, at Frandsen Electronics for $139.50. I asked, "Where is Frandsen Electronics?"
He said it was in Downey. Downey was — and as far as I know still is — 22 miles away.
I asked if, uh, there might possibly be a closer place? "Yes," he said, consulting his lists. "But it's more expensive and I'm trying to save you money." I asked what the next cheapest place was.
Answer: ABC Premiums, a few blocks away from me. The exact same TV for $139.95.
When I told him I'd decided to buy it from ABC Premiums, he registered a letdown, then bravely said, "Well, son…it's your money." (Yes, it was…all forty-five cents of it.) I could see he was worried about what would happen to me if I went through life indulging in such reckless extravagances.
There were other chores and errands that did not go well…and this brings us to the story of my Leather Sport Coat. I no longer wear things like that but for a time, I was often seen in this great leather sport coat I bought somewhere for around the same price as that TV. Back then, that seemed like a lot of dough to spend on one garment but it was a great addition to my wardrobe. It was more casual than your basic sport coat but it was a little dressier than a windbreaker. Here's a very old photo of me with the folks who still do the Groo comic books. Forget how much younger we looked then and check out the coat…
Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, me and Sergio Aragonés. The comic Sergio is holding came out in January of 1984 and this was probably taken not long after.
I wore it often and one day, it was in need of cleaning. My father was quite pleased when I assigned him the task of finding a place that did that kind of thing, taking the coat in and picking it up. What, as they say, could go wrong?
Well, this: When he went to pick it up, he found the laundry closed tight in the middle of a workday. A sign on the door said they were out of business.
Panicked, my father went to other stores on the block to ask if they knew what happened and how one might retrieve a leather sport coat that was being cleaned there. No one could help. The laundry was the subject of lawsuits — partners suing one another, one neighbor had heard. There was some reason to believe it would never reopen.
My father was almost trembling — no, he was trembling — when he came to me and reported what had happened. Near tears, he said, "I lost your leather coat, son. I promise…I'll buy you a new one." He acted like he'd done something horribly, horribly wrong and no matter how many times I assured him it wasn't his fault, he kept repeating his vow to replace the coat.
This went on for a week. At least once a day, sometimes twice, he'd phone to ask if we could go shopping together so I could pick out a replacement coat and he could pay for it. He would not believe that he was not responsible and he did not owe me a new coat. One night, my mother took the phone into their bedroom so he couldn't hear and she called me…
"He's so depressed about this. Isn't there something you can do?" I thought and thought but the only solution seemed to be a good, old-fashioned lie.
I went out and purchased a new leather sport coat. It wasn't exactly the same but it was close enough that I figured he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Then I called him and said I was coming by the house and I had something to show him. When I walked in, I was wearing a leather sport coat though it was ninety degrees out. Here is the lie I then proceeded to tell…
The most amazing thing happened. This afternoon, I was driving by that laundry, the one where you took my leather sport coat. I saw trucks outside…they were loading clothes on hangers into them. I parked and ran up and told them I had a coat in there and they let me go in and search and I found it. There weren't that many leather goods on the racks so it was easy. The tag said "Evanier" on it and I had I.D. that proved I was Evanier and since the coat fit, they let me have it. See? You didn't lose my coat after all.
He was overjoyed…so overjoyed, in fact, that he didn't remember he'd never told me where the laundry was. My father slept well that night and the next night and the next night…
And then someone called him from the laundry to say they were closing the place down for good and he should come in and pick up that leather coat he left there. "Oh, we already got it," he told the caller. The caller said, "No, you didn't. I'm looking at it right this moment." He drove over, picked it up and showed up at my apartment with it.
I felt like Lucy when Ricky Ricardo finds out she hoaxed him. He was angry at me for about as long as Ricky was ever mad at Lucy, which is to say around thirty seconds…maybe less since he understood I'd fibbed for his own good. I asked him if he would forgive me. He said yes…on one condition. I asked what that condition was.
He said, "That you give me something else to do for you."
I said, "Take my new car in to be serviced. And try not to lose it."
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the legendary disc jockey, announcer and cartoon voice actor Casey Kasem has died. He was 82 and this sure sounds like one of those "glad it's finally over" deaths. He had been in terrible health for some time with his family fighting over what was best for him. It sure gave you the feeling that this is what was best for him.
There are some tapes that circulate of Mr. Kasem losing his temper during a couple of recording sessions and being less than a nice person. In fairness to the guy, let's remember these are three or four sessions out of tens of thousands that he did. I've never heard anyone else in his profession, when his name has come up, indicate that kind of thing occurred when they worked with him. My friend Frank Welker was in every one of the million-and-a-half episodes of Scooby Doo, the series on which Casey played the role of Shaggy. Frank said on several occasions that Casey was a joy to work with.
I was around him on a half-dozen occasions and that was sure my impression, too. What I didn't want to do was eat with the guy because he had very firm beliefs on what humans should and should not consume and he could get a little scolding in his expression of these views. When Hanna-Barbera set up a retirement dinner for Don Messick (the voice of Scooby), Casey insisted on dictating the menu at the Chinese Restaurant. We were all served huge platters of food some of us could not eat.
That was the most negative thing I can write here about Casey Kasem. The positive things would all have to be amazement and admiration for how much he worked and how good he was at what he did. For decades, you heard him everywhere — cartoons, network promos, commercials, radio shows, movie trailers, etc. He ushered in a new style of voiceover guy who favored personality over sheer testosterone. Someone once called him "The most successful off-screen announcer who wasn't trying to sound like God." If that's so and if there's a Heaven, he's probably finding out about now how far off he was.
