Category Archives: Uncategorized

As I've mentioned here, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles is hosting an exhibit called "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950." It opens today and is there 'til August 9. Between now and then, there will be some special events…such as the one on March 5 when I'll be interviewing Golden Age Great Jerry Robinson. You can get tix for that event at this link and I suggest you do.

This afternoon, Skirball curator Erin Clancey and I were interviewed on Patt Morrison's show on KPCC radio and we talked about the exhibit for around 17 minutes. If you have Real Player installed and really want to hear it, there's a link on this page.

As Conan O'Brien winds down his successful run hosting Late Night for NBC (and prepares to Step Up To Big Pay), radio superstar Paul Harris recalls how outta-left-field the whole selection was. I remember that, too. When Letterman fled the time slot after The Tonight Show, we had rumors that it would go to Garry Shandling or Dana Carvey or Paul Provenza or Paula Poundstone or one of a dozen other folks, known quantities all. The notion that the gig would go to someone 99%+ of America had never heard of before was unthinkable.

As things turned out, it's hard to imagine anyone being more successful than Conan has been, though it didn't seem that way at first. To the credit of all involved, when things got off to a rocky start, they didn't panic and start wildly revamping the show and trying different things. They just kept doing the same show and did it better and better until finally it was good enough for enough of America to watch. Actually, I never thought it was as weak as some did but it did substantially improve.

Paul Harris was, as he notes, the first broadcaster to announce anywhere that this person named Conan O'Brien was getting the job. In the post I just linked you to, he explains that he got the information from me and suggests I blog about how I knew it before the rest of the world outside NBC. Alas, there's no tale there of brilliant detective work on my part. A friend of mine who was writing for Mr. Leno's Tonight Show just called me up and told me.

Like Paul, I'm a little skeptical about how Mr. O'Brien will fare at 11:35. Frankly, the last 3-4 years, I haven't liked any of the late night shows as much as I once did and I don't think it's just me. I think they've all settled into a too-comfortable groove of repeated bits and catch phrases and general déjà vu. Maybe this shake-up will do them all a world of good. In any case, it's a good idea to remember how wrong folks were to underestimate Conan O'Brien…and Jay Leno, as well.

I agree with this article that says the U.S. Mint is getting way too creative with our money. There was nothing wrong with the nickel the way it was.

Quick story. Remember when they made the big change in paper money? When suddenly, all the presidents had larger portraits and there were different style numbers in the corners? The first time I saw a new $20 bill was one morning in Laughlin, Nevada back in the days when I had this hobby (that's all it ever was) of counting cards in Blackjack and usually but not always winning tidy sums of loot. I gave it up because of the "usually but not always" part.

So one morn, I went to an ATM to withdraw $300 and out it came in these new twenties I'd never seen before. I don't think anyone in town had. After staring at them for a few moments, I strolled over to a 21 table and forked them over to a dealer to convert to chips. The dealer had never seen money like that either and looked somewhat troubled. She called over the Casino Host and showed him the pieces of paper I'd laid down, whereupon they had a brief private discussion about whether to accept it.

They quickly came to their senses and gave me my chips…but for a minute or so there, they were concerned that I had perhaps manufactured this alleged money. The thought process apparently went something like this: "My God…not only has this man printed up counterfeit money but he's taken it upon himself to completely redesign the twenty dollar bill!"

I will not be Live Oscar Blogging this year but my pal Gary Sassaman will be watching the whole thing, hunched over his computer and typing furiously throughout. You may wish to check in with him for his running commentary, which is always perceptive.

For 25 years now, there's been this annual event in Los Angeles called The William S. Paley Television Festival. For the first 15-20 years, it was a glorious thing that trotted out guests and rare footage to salute the early days of television and folks who'd had long, productive careers in the medium. Now, granted, a lot of those folks have passed away or been covered and it's a little late for another Jack Paar tribute. But the festival events used to be about history and now they're about current or pretty recent programming…in some cases, about shows that have been on the air for months, not years.

Think I'm exaggerating? Here's a page of photos of 24 years of these seminars. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and work your way up to the more recent Paley Fests. See if you don't notice the change of focus.

The line-up has been announced for this year's salutes. The projects being honored are It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 90210, The Big Bang Theory, The Hills, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica/Caprica, Fringe, True Blood, The Mentalist, Desperate Housewives, Big Love and Swingtown! Some of those are very good shows and if the PaleyFest folks were going by the old standard, I'm sure some or most of them would warrant having evenings devoted to them. I just think a show oughta be on the air an entire week before someone pays tribute to it.

My buddy Bruce Reznick sends me this link to an article that answers a question that I'm sure has been keeping you all up nights: Whatever happened to Bozo the Clown?

My favorite barbecue empire in my area, Porky's, has closed one of their three locations due to lease problems and high rent. Unfortunately, they closed the one I frequented. They're looking for a new place on the west side but unless and until they find one, I'm making do with lesser (but still pretty good) BBQ. There's still a Porky's in San Pedro and another in Long Beach but I dislike driving long distances a little more than I like great ribs. (I'm not linking to the Porky's website, by the way, because it's not updated to reflect the new addresses…and also I haven't eaten at the remaining locations so I don't feel right in recommending them.)

I mention this because Steve Billnitzer, a reader of this site, took my recommendation and drove to the now-closed location. Fortunately, he had the good sense to Google-map his way to the San Pedro outlet. I'll try to suggest some other rib joints in the coming weeks.

Well, it's started working…sort of. I'm going to play with it for a day or two and then write a report for this site. Stay, as they say, tuned.

Who's the most popular stand-up comedian in the business today? If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have guessed the person so designated in this article. But the case it makes for him is not a far-fetched one.

On a whim last week, I ordered me one o' them Magicjacks. This is a new invention that plugs into the USB port of your computer. You then plug any telephone into it and, assuming you have a good cable or DSL Internet connection, it gives you a new phone line complete with a new phone number, voice mail and other features. The Magicjack itself costs about twenty bucks and then you have to pay for phone service. At the moment, the first year is another twenty bucks, though they hustle you to order additional years now and offer big discounts if you do. I just went for the first year. During it, I will receive unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada, which is quite the bargain.

That is, if the thing ever works.

It doesn't, so far. I get a dial tone but that's about it. When you go to their customer support site, you have to type to a Customer Service rep in "live chat," even though those folks presumably have free unlimited phone service. It takes a long time to get an answer that way and the answer always seems to be either (a) unplug the Magicjack, wait 15 seconds and restart or (b) wait 1-2 hours as they're making fixes on the service. So far, neither has resulted in a functioning Magicjack but I'll try again later.

All may work out fine but right now, I'm at best a guarded optimist. I'm also a little concerned by articles I'm reading online that says the Magicjack software installs all sorts of things on your computer that can be used to spy on you. I need to investigate that further but right now, I'm more interested in seeing if it the device will function properly. I'll let you know what happens.

And here's a link to listen to that BBC Radio documentary on the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, which I haven't done yet but will when I get the chance. The link probably won't be active for more than a week so listen now…or if you're going to do what I do, which is to capture/download the audio for later listening, do that.

There was a movie made in '68 called The Night They Raided Minsky's. It's not a great film in some ways. The studio at one point thought it was unreleasable but its producers (Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin) and a film editor named Ralph Rosenblum performed major surgery, somewhat turning it into a different and better movie. I find it enormous fun, especially the star performances by Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom.

Some time in the last decade, it was announced that The Night They Raided Minsky's was being turned into a Broadway-style musical. I thought that was a good idea, especially since they'd be engaging the fine composer, Charles Strouse, who wrote some songs for the movie. Michael Ockrent was announced to direct…but then Ockrent passed away, as did Evan Hunter who was writing the book, and the project floundered. It has recently resurfaced as a new show called simply Minsky's, which is now playing down at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles.

It says it's based on the movie and maybe 4% of it is. It's still about the Minsky's burlesque theater and about the efforts of a local community leader to close the place down…but that's darn near it. Even the roles that Robards and Wisdom played have been eliminated. Now, it's all about Billy Minsky fighting to keep his show open. His opponent is a local city councilman and by a too-contrived coincidence, Minsky happens to be in love with the councilman's daughter and vice-versa.

The art direction of the show is terrific. The staging is great. The dancing and dancers are great. The costumes are wonderful. The cast is mostly excellent, especially Christopher Fitzgerald as Billy Minsky. (Fitzgerald is the gent who was so good playing Igor in the Broadway version of Young Frankenstein. Other folks in the cast you might know include Rachel Dratch, formerly of Saturday Night Live, and George Wendt as the evil city councilman.) The dancing ladies are gorgeous and they don't wear a whole lot of clothing. Here. Take a look…

So it sounds like a great show, right? Well, you'll notice I haven't mentioned the book, music or lyrics.

I wanted to love this show, really I did. I love the era. I love the traditions and the nexus of old Jew comedians and barely-clad chorus girls. I love Christopher Fitzgerald and most of the members of the cast and I especially love the energy with which they perform the hell out of the material. But I couldn't love the material. The songs are largely forgettable…and I don't mean the next day. I mean by the time one song starts, you've forgotten the one before. (One exception is an Act Two duet by Rachel Dratch and an actor named John Cariani that's everything you wish all the other numbers could be.)

The book by Bob Martin, the man behind The Drowsy Chaperone, is just too full of illogical turns. The councilman's daughter is named Mary (played well by Katharine Leonard) and she wants a man who's, above all, honest. Her ideal guy is Abraham Lincoln but for no visible reason, she falls in love with con-artist Billy Minsky in about nine seconds and the feeling is mutual. She doesn't know he's Billy Minsky, the guy whose business her father is out to shut down. Then later, Minsky does something rotten to her father so to get revenge and find a way to close down the burlesque house, she and dad go undercover as new chorus girls in the show. Why does a woman who values honesty above all else disguise herself and lie about who she is? I dunno. Why does her father go along with this? Because someone thought it would be funny to have George Wendt in drag, I guess. Apparently, a good way for an upstanding moralist to show that a burlesque house is a den of sin is to dress up as a woman and go to work there.

The whole show's full of things like that, making the plot seem awfully forced. Maybe some of it will get fixed. Work is still being done on it as evidenced by the fact that the program book lists a musical number — "I Could Get Used to This" — that is no longer in the proceedings. Minsky's is playing here 'til March 1 and then, the producers have announced, they'll "take a fresh look at the show" but Broadway is definitely in their plans. I'll be surprised if it makes it that far but I've been surprised before.

In fairness, I should admit there are many funny moments and I'll repeat that Christopher Fitzgerald is terrific and that a lot of the dance routines are quite well done. Much of the audience last night, including my friend Carolyn, had a good time. There's an air of fun about the show and it sure tries hard. Like I said, I wanted to love it. I'm sorry I couldn't.

Nate Silver, who's had a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting elections, has crunched some numbers and come up with his picks for the major Oscar categories. Most of these are in line with Conventional Wisdom…so know that there are a lot of people around who have made the same forecasts without all the statistical analysis that Mr. Silver uses. Personally, I'm sticking with my belief that at least in the acting categories, the winner is the one that Academy members think will give the most passionate acceptance speech. I haven't seen either Milk or The Wrestler so I'm not judging the merits of either performance. But Mickey Rourke would give a more emotional acceptance speech than Sean Penn so Rourke will win.

Greg Ehrbar, whose fine book on Disney records you should own, informs me of a documentary that airs later today on BBC2 Radio and sounds interesting. It's called Life with Lucy and Desi. I can't figure out what time it's on right this minute but they usually keep these things online for at least a week for later listening. As soon as there's a link, I'll post it…and some of you may want to tune in live. Personally, I'd rather hear about Ethel and Fred but that's just me.

Within the Broadway community, one occasionally finds a basic prejudice against performers and writers who are best known for their work on television. Every so often, some producer casts a "TV actor" and noses are quickly elevated. Remarks are made that the show in question is despoiling the grand tradition and standards of the Great White Way by booking someone for their name…someone who is presumed not to have the credentials or chops to trod the sacred boards. If you don't have an extensive background in stage work, you're kind of presumed unworthy until proven otherwise and some people won't even allow you the chance to prove otherwise. Should a complete unknown be cast…well, that's fine. The producers obviously discovered someone of great talent. But hire an actor who used to be on a sitcom or other TV series and clearly they've "sold out" and are pandering to exploit the star's reputation.

I'm not particularly in the Broadway community but I sometimes find myself in those arguments saying things like, "Why don't you wait until the actor actually starts performing the role until you decide they can't do it?" Often, it's a matter of the critic just not knowing. When it was announced that Bebe Neuwirth was going to Broadway in a revival of Damn Yankees, I found myself at a party of stage actors, all of whom were sneering that a "TV actor" had been handed such a plumb role just because she was on Cheers. I informed them that Ms. Neuwirth had done a lot of stage work, including roles on Broadway…but even if she hadn't, so what? If she can do the part (she was terrific in it), what difference would her past credits make?

I'm a big believer in not reviewing work that hasn't even been done yet. I also believe that most people can do more than one thing and it's silly to "type" them forever based on the first thing you knew them for. Steve Allen used to tell the story of being in some South American country in the fifties and being asked who was the number one comedy star on U.S. television. He told them, "Probably Jackie Gleason" and they were startled. People asked, "The bandleader?" because that was the sum and total of his reputation down there. The Honeymooners hadn't been imported but his records had been.

So when I read that someone who's famous for being on TV is going to do a play or musical, I don't race to assume they can't possibly handle it; that some shameless producer has engaged them because, even though their performance may suck, their fame will sell tickets. "Give them a chance," I say. "Maybe they'll be wonderful in the role."

Every so often though, it's really tough to be that open-minded. Jerry Springer playing Billy Flynn in Chicago?