Category Archives: To Be Filed

I'm almost to the end of my current interest in this topic but…

Friday night, Jay Leno led the three network late night shows by a handy margin in both total viewers and the coveted 18-49 bracket. When all the numbers are in, it'll probably show that Jay won the week and also won the total of the four days when Jimmy Kimmel's new show was directly opposite The Tonight Show and The Late Show. Kimmel will be in second place. Letterman will be in third.

Now, that's just the first week of this three-way contest but if Jay can keep doing it…well, the argument among those at NBC who advocate dumping him and bringing in a younger man is that the younger man will do better in 18-49. It will be hard for that argument to prevail if Jay continues to beat a younger man in that demo. Kimmel's career in TV (on his current program and also on The Man Show over on Comedy Central) was always about how well he delivered young male viewers in the 18-49 category. I'd be curious to know if the reason Jay's doing better with younger viewers is a gender-gap thing; i.e., Kimmel's snagging males and the females are going to Leno. I rarely hear anyone who doesn't care for Kimmel not use the term, "frat boy humor."

In the meantime, if you think Letterman's been ornery since he started finishing second to Leno, wait and see how he is if he trails Kimmel for a few more weeks.

Getting back to Jay: As you may recall, the rumor was around recently that NBC had decided to retire Jay and move Jimmy Fallon to 11:35. That rumor apparently was premature (at least) and a lot of folks think it'll never happen; that even if Jay got run over by one of his eighty thousand cars tomorrow, Fallon would not automatically ascend to the earlier slot. There seems to be a belief out there that there's this grand tradition and understanding that 12:35 is a training ground and that if you succeed there, they move you up.

In the history of late night talk shows, this has happened exactly once…twice if you count ABC flipping the times of Jimmy Kimmel Live and Nightline. Conan O'Brien was moved up because he was threatening to go elsewhere and compete, and NBC didn't want to lose him and thought Jay wouldn't be able to sustain the numbers he'd been doing. As we all know, that didn't work out as planned.

The problem with dropping Leno and moving Fallon up is that NBC creates two uncertainties for themselves at the same time: Will Fallon's act play as well in the earlier slot? And who do you get to replace him who'll do as well at 12:35? I am told by someone involved in the late night game that many of the NBC affiliates have told the parent network, in effect, "If you replace Leno, you'd damn well better have someone phenomenal to take over that time slot." That doesn't mean the programming guys might not come up with someone they think would be phenomenal…but I don't think they're in a rush to risk having both 11:35 and 12:35 collapse at the same time under new management. Not while both shows are winning their slots in both total viewers and younger ones.

In the house I grew up in in West Los Angeles, we had a TV star next door. Her name was Betty Lynn and she is best known for playing Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show. A lovely woman…and practically family. When my mother died in November and I had to begin phoning her friends to let them know, Betty was the first person I called. She moved out of that house a few years ago and now lives in North Carolina where, because of the Griffith show, she is a local superstar.

We had two other "industry" people on our block. One, who I wrote about here years ago, was a film editor named Martin Bolger. The other, who I recently realized I'd never written about, was Dr. William H. Swanson. He and his family lived right across the street from us for several years.

Dr. Swanson was high, high up in the hierarchy of the U.C.L.A. Medical Center and Hospital. We used to always say he ran the whole place and that may not have been an exaggeration. In any event, he was a very prominent man in his field…and the Technical Advisor on the TV series, Dr. Kildare.

Dr. Kildare was a popular dramatic program that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1966. It starred Richard Chamberlain as a young, idealistic internist and Raymond Massey as his crusty, world-weary mentor. The show was not to be confused with Ben Casey over on ABC from 1961 to 1966, which starred Vince Edwards as a young, idealistic internist and Sam Jaffe as his crusty, world-weary mentor. Out of loyalty to our neighbor, the Evaniers only watched Dr. Kildare.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the particulars but I seem to recall that Dr. Swanson got the job because he had a long-standing friendship with Richard Chamberlain. He was not only the show's Technical Advisor but when it came time to allude to Dr. Kildare's past — where he'd studied, where he'd interned, etc. — they used Dr. Swanson's own past. Or at least, that's what an article in TV Guide said.

I got interested in TV writing as a possible career in early 1965 when as described here, my parents and I attended the filming of an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Prior to that, I'd known I wanted to be a writer but I wasn't certain what I wanted to be a writer of. I pretty much longed to write everything: Comic books, cartoons, novels, songs, stand-up comedy jokes, movies, magazine articles, fortunes for fortune cookies, tags you're not allowed to rip off your mattress….and, oh yes, TV shows. After that night — after being in the presence of Rob Petrie and, more important, Laura — TV writing vaulted to the top of the list.

A few weeks later, my mother was talking to Dr. Swanson's wife and happened to mention that. Mrs. Swanson said, "Would Mark like some old scripts? Because we have a garage full of them."

They sent Dr. Swanson every draft of every script for his corrections and suggestions, and he'd kept them all. There must have been 500 scripts in that garage and I was told I could help myself. I eventually helped myself to around fifty, including all I could find from the current season. When those episodes ran, I'd watch and follow along in my copy of the script. You couldn't learn everything about TV writing doing that but you could learn something.

I actually learned something one day when Richard Chamberlain was visiting them and I was invited to come over and meet him. He was very nice and very soft-spoken and very encouraging. But when he was told I'd been considering different kinds of writing and had settled on television, he said, "You don't have to pick one. I don't consider myself a television actor. I'm an actor who is currently on television. I don't neglect the other things I can do and you shouldn't, either. It'll make you a better writer of anything you do if you broaden your horizons. It also means there will be more places where you can work."

That's advice I've been giving to others for about the last thirty years but I only recently realized where I got it in the first place. I got it from Richard Chamberlain.

The Swansons moved away not long after Dr. Kildare ceased practicing on NBC. We missed them because they were nice folks and also because there was something comforting about having a great doctor living across the street. We never had to call on Dr. Swanson for an emergency but it was comforting to know he was there.

When they were moving out, I was again informed I could help myself to scripts. Whatever I didn't take would be going into the dumpster. I didn't need any more than I already had so a friend of mine and I loaded them all into boxes and took them to a nearby second-hand bookstore where the proprietor gave us store credit for them. The store had a good selection of recent old comic books and I filled in a lot of my Marvel collection with that credit. I learned a lot from reading those comics, too…so having Dr. Swanson across the street was very helpful to that end of my career, as well.

Years later, after I'd begun working in TV, my Aunt Dot told me how proud she was of me. We discussed my path to that profession and somehow, we got onto the subject of all those Dr. Kildare scripts. She had been over a few times when the whole family was watching the show and I was sprawled on the living room floor in front of the TV, following along in a copy of the script.

"You know," she said in her Aunt Dot way, "I'm glad you got into doing something you enjoy like that…but at one point, I was kind of hoping those scripts would inspire you to get into the field of Medicine."

Hey, let's hear another song by Idina Menzel. Here she is with her earth-shuddering number from Wicked, "Defying Gravity"…

When the final numbers came in for last night's 11:35 (or thereabouts) shows, Jay Leno was in first place with total viewers, David Letterman was second and Jimmy Kimmel was third. All of those were pretty close. In the 18-49 bracket though, Kimmel had a solid lead. If he keeps doing that, he'll be around.

In an interview today, Kimmel said he expects to be the Number Three show in late night, largely because the others have such long histories, and that he'll be quite happy to be in that position. In answer to a question about taking viewers away from his hero, he replied, "I'm not killing Dave. We did not put a dent in his numbers. I don't think it will hurt him." I don't think anyone in the TV business, including Jimmy, believes that.

Preliminary ratings suggest Jimmy Kimmel is a happy man today. Looks like he won the time period last night and Leno came in third. This just shows you the awesome influence of Tom Shales.

As mentioned here, here, here, here and probably other places, I get incessant unsolicited calls from building contractors asking if I need any work done on my dwelling and if so, could they send someone right over to give me a free estimate? I seem to have gotten into some database that these companies purchase. The calls seem to come in cycles…none at all for a few weeks, then suddenly I'm getting two and three a day.

Some come from the contractors — or at least people who seem to be involved in the actual work themselves. Most seem to come from someone who is just a phone solicitor, trying to earn (I assume) a commission by finding someone who'll allow the free estimate. And lately, most are not asking me if I need any work. They're telling me…

Mr. Evanier? [neatly mispronounced] This is Rebecca with [name of some company]. I'm calling you back about that construction work you said you needed done on your home. We spoke last August and you said you weren't ready just then and I should give you a call back in January.

That's pretty much what Rebecca said about an hour ago. When the phone rang, I saw an unfamiliar Caller I.D. and figured there was a 50-50 chance or better that it was one of those contractor calls.

Now, I don't need any construction work done on my house. I just had construction work done on my house — a remodel of my detached garage that was necessitated by a sewer leak in there. The contractor, who was recommended by an architect I know, did a great job and the next time I need work, he's the guy I'm going to call. If he's not available, I'll go back to my architect friend and ask him, "Who else you got?" I never, never, never, never, never buy anything that comes at me via an unsolicited phone caller but throw in five more "never"s to know how likely I am to engage one of these contractors who calls and pretends we spoke before.

Usually, I tell them they're lying and to not phone again. Today, I decided to say that but to also lie back to Rebecca: "Rebecca with [name of that company], we did not speak last August. You're lying to me." That's all true. Now, here comes the part where I started lying…

"Actually, by coincidence, I have a dozen improvements I need to make here and I am in the market for a good contractor but I'm not going to trust one who starts our relationship by lying to me. You blew it, Rebecca. You blew it by dishonesty and deception. Please don't call here again."

We hung up and I waited to see how long it would take before I got a call from one of Rebecca's "friends." It took about ten minutes and it was the same Caller I.D…

Mr. Evanier? [mispronounced the same way] This is Bob White from [name of some other company]. We're doing some work in your area and some of your neighbors told us you'd been looking for a good contractor…

I interrupted and told him, "No, none of my neighbors told you that. Rebecca told you that. You're another liar so I'm not going to give you the job, either." Then I hung up on him and waited. It took another ten minutes and it was the same Caller I.D…

Mr. Evanier? [same mispronounciation] My name is Greg Harlow and I'm with [name of yet another company]. We're a full-service contractor and we can provide excellent references if you have any jobs we could bid on…

I told him I didn't need any work done and that the next time I did, I already had a contractor. I also told him that I'd lied to the lady who was working the same phone bank with him…so I'm guessing that's the end of that campaign. I won't be lying like that to the next contractor who phones, probably later today, because I don't need to turn one call into three. My attitude, however, towards these solicitations is evolving. I'm starting to think they're not going to cease so why not have some fun with them?

Over on Kickstarter, some folks are trying to raise loot to finish this, a documentary on MAD magazine entitled When We Went MAD. It looks real good to me and well worth your support, which you can give over on this page. Check out the trailer here or there, then go there and chip in…

My former partner Dennis Palumbo, now a top psychologist for show biz folks, writes about seeing the forest for the trees.

The advice he gives is, as always, sound. Writers worry way too much about what they write, often to the point of letting that worry prevent them from writing. Years ago, I used to tell friends with this kind of blockage, "Hey, write it and then decide if it's any good. You can always throw it away and all you'll have lost is the paper plus the time you spent writing it. You're already spending that time staring at the typewriter or finding excuses why you're not writing. So spend it writing." These days, it costs even less since if you decide the thing isn't even worth printing out, you aren't even wasting paper.

Here's an essay on Monty Python by David Free and an essay on Richard Nixon by John Aloysius Farrell. Don't get the two confused.

Yesterday, the morning after Jimmy Kimmel Live (which, by the way, is not live) debuted at 11:34, the initial reports were that he'd topped both Leno and Letterman by a hair…

In his 11:35 PM debut for his ABC late-night talk show, the host beat now-rivals Jay Leno and David Letterman in households and in the key adults 18-49 demo. In 25 markets with local people meters, Jimmy Kimmel Live earned a 1.0/5 rating in 18-49, besting The Tonight Show's 0.8/4 and Late Show's 0.6/3. Among Nielsen's 56 metered markets (with Memphis and Salt Lake City excluded), Kimmel's move from midnight to a half-hour earlier saw his show receive a 2.8/8 household result, compared with Letterman's 2.7/7 and Leno's 2.4/6.

As you can see, the numbers are very close and since it's a debut show, probably not indicative of any future trend. Nevertheless, I immediately received an e-mail from a devoted Kimmel fan in Kentucky. This gent has written me before, insisting that my lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Kimmel is in the nature of a factual error since it's inarguably obvious J.K. is the greatest late night host ever, putting Carson to shame and inevitably sending Jay and Dave off to the old folks' home. I hope they get more honest caregivers there than my mother had.

Anyway, the gent in Kentucky wrote in part…

Kimmel won the time slot and this is just Day 1. He'll win the time slot tomorrow night and the night after and the night after. He's going up and Leno and Letterman are going down, down. He will win every single night by wider and wider margins.

As it turned out, Kimmel's winning streak lasted about another hour. As you can see in plain English in the above news item, they were reporting preliminary ratings from 35 markets with local people meters and 56 metered markets. This was not the whole country. Not long after I received Kentucky's victory dance message, more numbers came in…

On its first night in its new time slot, Jimmy Kimmel Live had more viewers than The Late Show With David Letterman but fell short of topping The Tonight Show. ABC's Kimmel pulled in 3.097 million viewers Tuesday night compared to 2.882 million for CBS' Letterman and 3.274 million for Leno. The Tonight Show got 1.084 million in the Adults 18-49 demographic compared to Jimmy Kimmel Live's 887,000. But Kimmel solidly bested The Late Show among demo, getting 30% more than Letterman's 683,000.

This is still all very close and not indicative of any future trend. All it means is that Kimmel didn't crush the competition his first night. It doesn't mean his ratings won't go down next week or up the week after. But it does lead to a lot of contradictory headlines…

On his second night, Kimmel finished third in total viewers but tied Leno in the 18-49 bracket. It'll probably be a three-way race for the next few weeks though with Leno generally in the lead. If Kimmel's still neck-and-neck in two months, he'll be doing fine. But really, all he probably has to do is beat what Nightline used to get in that time slot. ABC has to look at the numbers and feel they're better off with the shows in that order than they were with the old arrangement.

I haven't watched Kimmel's show in its new berth yet but I'm tempted to. Tom Shales gave it about as bad a review as any show has ever gotten…and Tom Shales is so rarely right about anything.

In any case, I don't think either Jay or Dave are going anywhere for a while. According to some reports, Leno has just been extended for two more years. His old contract was up in 2014 and it's not clear whether a two-year extension would keep him there until two years from now or two years from when the old pact expires. Either way, he's there for a while…especially if a so-called "host with a demographic advantage" isn't doing any better in that category. In that sense, Kimmel may wind up doing Leno a great service if he demonstrates that a younger star wouldn't do any better with 18-49 viewers.

Hey, let's play a visit to The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies. If you need me, I'll be over in the Zip-a-Tone wing…

Time for another Baby Panda video! This past week was the public debut of Xiao Liwu, the newest cub down at the San Diego Zoo. Here he is at age five months, venturing out into the habitat and trying to climb his mother. I did the same thing except I was twenty-three at the time…

Matt Taibbi on this lawsuit that former AIG head honcho Hank Greenberg is bringing against the federal government. It represents chutzpah with a capital "chutz."

Our friend Robert J. Elisberg, who writes for Huffington Post, has finally set up his own blog at www.elisbergindustries.com. You might want to mosey over there and check out the first of many reports he's filing from the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Listen to Bob for he knows of what he writes.

The Comics Buyer's Guide, which has published continuously since 1971, will cease with its March issue. I haven't seen an official reason yet but I'd suspect Competition From the Internet as a pretty obvious one. Before there was a web, CBG was the first place to hear news of the industry. Now, it's just about the last. Its other main function — ads — has pretty much been usurped by the 'net, eBay especially.

I go way back with the publication, back to when it started as The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom, published by Alan Light in February, 1971. My then-partner Steve Sherman and I were, I believe, its first columnists. We did one in the fourth issue but never followed-up on it. I then became a columnist for them 23 years later in 1994 and quit in 2002. I thought at the time I was resigning because one of the publisher's staff members had been less than polite to me when I asked that my compensation be raised a penny per word so as to match another columnist's rate. In hindsight, I decided that was only my conscious reason. The sub-conscious one was that I'd been blogging more than a year by then and come to prefer the independence and immediacy of this medium.

When Alan ran it, the newspaper was a fine place to read ads and a few good articles but not much more than that. Still, at that price — free for the first years of its existence, darned cheap thereafter — it was a must-get for most of us in and around comics. In 1983, he sold it to Krause Publications, a firm which specialized in hobby-oriented material. Don and Maggie Thompson were hired to run it and the publication was quickly revamped into the central nervous system of the comic book field with timely news, opinions, articles on comic book history…and lots of ads. The ads never interested me much but I found other things to enjoy…and in every issue.

Since the Internet flourished, we've watched CBG shrink like Ray Palmer after a gastric bypass. I hardly know what to say about its termination except that this does not come as a surprise. I'll miss it…but then I've missed it the last few years as each issue arrives with fewer pages than the one before. It was a great thing in its day and I'm sorry that day is over.