The last time Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes, I wrote here…
I suspect Gervais will not host the Golden Globes again, not because they won't want him back but because he won't do it. If he does, the presenters and nominees will all come armed with scripted Ricky Gervais insults and it won't be a bad awards show. It'll be a bad Friars Roast.
Okay, so I was wrong. He'll do it again. But I still might be right about it turning into a bad Friars Roast.
Stu Shostak has a great guest today for his popular pop-culture Internet chat show. It's Joe Alaskey, one of the brightest voice talents of his generation. I first became aware of Joe when he was mainly an impressionist…and one of the best. He did the best Shatner I'd ever heard…the best Matthau…and his Gleason was so good, they had Joe come in and dub Ralph Kramden's voice in on some of those Lost Honeymooners episodes where the audio needed fixing.
The last decade or two, he's been one of the best cartoon voice actors…and one of the select few called in to fill the shoes of Mr. Mel Blanc. Joe won an Emmy for voicing Daffy on the Duck Dodgers show and probably deserved a couple for other roles. Sometimes, he does Bugs. Sometimes, Sylvester. Actually, he can do and has done about all of them. He even did Yosemite Sam in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Mel was still alive. Rumor has it that it was Mel's suggestion that they get Joe since Joe then sounded more like Mel than Mel did.
Anyway, Joe does a lot of non-Mel characters too, including Plucky Duck on Tiny Toon Adventures and Grandpa Lou on Rugrats and you'll hear all about the other ones when you tune in Stu's Show today. I've told you before how to do this but I'm going to tell you again…
That's all there is to it! Tune in and hear Stu talk with one of the most talented guys working a microphone these days. And Stu, make sure you get him to do Jack Lemmon.
Jerry Sandusky did an interview-by-phone last night with Bob Costas on NBC in which he denied all 40 charges of child abuse. I doubt there were ten people in this country listening who believed him and I wonder why his attorney allowed the interview to take place. If I were a fan of Mr. Sandusky and I was rooting for him to come up with a credible response that would cast doubts on the allegations, I would have thrown in the terrycloth and said, "That's guy's going to prison forever and several years after that."
I'm baffled as to what the lawyer thought would be accomplished by not only letting his client go on like that but, according to Costas, suggesting it at the last minute. Costas originally thought he was just going to do a live interview of the attorney but just before they went on the air, the barrister suggested getting Sandusky on the line. My initial thought was that the lawyer and Sandusky planned that — "I'll suggest just before the show starts that we have you answer questions by phone. That way it'll seem more spontaneous and honest." If that was the idea, it sure backfired.
(General rule of thumb: If you're ever accused of raping a child and you're asked on national TV about it, say the words "Absolutely not" within one second of the completion of the question. Do not let two seconds go by. It's like Jeopardy! You have to buzz in the instant Alex finishes asking and not a moment after. Also, do not act like you're wandering your way to a denial on some technicality. Whether the charge is true or not, just say "Absolutely not" without hesitation or detours.)
It's all so sad. For everyone.
I am of the opinion, by the way, that Bob Costas may just be the best interviewer in broadcasting today. Having only microscopic interest in sports, I'm annoyed that he now works almost exclusively in that area. He's smart. He's fast. He's always thoroughly prepared for any conversation. And he's willing to ask tough questions and to do so with a minimum of theatrics. I've always enjoyed his non-sports interviews and I really wish he'd gone into Larry King's old time slot instead of that British guy no one is watching. Maybe some day…
Tom Galloway writes to note that Penn & Teller are back performing at the Rio in Vegas now and that the hotel's website allows one to book tickets to see them through next April. That would seem to put the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, regarding that newspaper report that they were splitting up. Robin Leach reported that and it would seem he was having fun with the fact that they were going to be apart for a while, making a temporary separation sound permanent.
Many fast food chains have secret "not-on-the-menu" offerings. We all know about In-N-Out's Secret Menu, which is about as secret as William Shatner's hairpiece. But here are some others.
And you may be curious about McDonald's Land, Sea, and Air Burger which includes a beef patty, a chicken patty and a filet-o'-fish patty. Sounds like a joke but if it was, it isn't one any longer. People are going to go to their local Golden Arches and demand one of these.
Bruce Feirstein has dug up some of the Lost Tweets of Hollywood.
We've talked here occasionally about items McDonald's no longer has on its menu. Here's a list of five such items. The only one of them I ever tried was McPizza, which my friend Paul Dini and I sampled at the McDonald's inside Circus Circus in Las Vegas. Hey, what I can say? It was Vegas, baby. You take gambles when you're in Vegas.
Paul and I had denuded a buffet two hours earlier at another hotel. We were walking through Circus Circus. We saw McPizza. We decided to try it. We regretted it: Two bites apiece. The second ones were because we couldn't believe how bad the first ones were. We tossed the rest out in a trash receptacle we could see was filled with McPizzas, all missing two bites. Makes you wonder how this concoction got through test marketing.
A number of folks are writing me this morning about this message in which I explained the way most (not all…most) Marvel Comics were produced during the period when Bill Mantlo was doing his major work for them. Many seemed to miss that I was just talking about those comics during those years and they're writing to correct me by saying, "Here's how I currently work."
One of the things that has always fascinated me about comics is this: Writers are all a little different from one another. Artists are all a little different from one another. That's all obvious and so is the fact that each piece of work is or should be different. Where it has been allowed (and it hasn't always), folks have developed different ways of working — particularly, different ways of collaborating — that bring out the best in the creators.
There is no "one" right way to write and draw a comic book…and some bad ones have resulted because writers and artists have been shoehorned into the way that is wrong for them and/or wrong for a given project. At Marvel, for example, they developed this plot/art/script method of writing a comic that was built around the specific talents of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. The method sometimes didn't work as well with writers who weren't Stan or artists who weren't Jack or Steve…and indeed, later collaborations of Stan's with other pencillers, or other writer/penciller combos on the same comics, modified the process a bit. I don't think they always modified it enough but that's another discussion.
In the last decade or two, changes in technology have changed the way comics are done and I don't just mean Adobe Photoshop. There were many changes in the creative process because of Federal Express and fax machines. There were many because most companies went from printing in Sparta, Illinois on cheap presses and cheaper newsprint to more upscale, deluxe paper stocks and printers. In any case, the way we do comics now is quite unlike any of the many ways they were done back in the seventies. In most cases, I think the evolution is for the better but there are a few exceptions. That too is another discussion.
From Hank Kingsley (not his real name, I'm guessing) comes the following…
I read the piece on the tragedy of Bill Mantlo with great sadness and a fear that that kind of thing could happen to me or a loved one. I felt especially bad for his brother who has had to deal with this impossible problem. The same people who tell us all life is sacred and who felt that Terri Schiavo's heart had to be kept beating no matter what are unwilling to do anything to make it possible for a Bill Mantlo to afford to live. I do not know why they think that a Cigna with its responsibility to its stockholders to show a profit will not try to kick the Bill Mantlos of the world off their plans so they don't have to pay for them. I believe in free enterprise and capitalism but I believe more in life.
You said that the author's account of how a comic book is created was wrong but you didn't specify how he was wrong. Could you go into more detail about that? And could you also answer this question for me? When I hear that writers missed deadlines and caused comics to not come out or to go reprint, I just do not understand that. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people out there who would love to write comic books. Why doesn't the company just hire more of them?
Regarding the health care matter, I honestly believe that in the next 10-20 years (and maybe sooner), we're going to see something akin to Single Payer in this country. It may take a different form. It may be disguised so it looks more like a Republican-driven plan that they can claim is not "a government takeover of health care" but is. There will probably still be room in it for the Cigna and Anthem people and all the drug companies to post record profits. But this upward spiral of health costs, even with whatever controls "Obamacare" imposes, cannot continue. Too many people are dying or losing their homes because of it.
Now to the matter of how a comic book is created. Here's the description from the article…
At that time, comics were produced on an assembly line: a writer wrote a 17-page script which went to a penciller, who would follow the script to draw the panels in light blue non-repro pencil. Then the pages went to an inker, who went over the initial art, cleaning it up and adding light and shadow with black ink. Then it went to a colorist, who would paint the panels and send the page to a letterer, who would hand-write every word of dialogue and exposition. As a rule, the process worked fairly well unless the writer missed the deadline, at which point the whole show would grind to a halt.
Not only is that not an accurate description of the process at Marvel in the seventies, it's not accurate for any company I know of at any time. Here, step by step, is the breakdown…
The author's line about "unless the writer missed the deadline" is misleading, too. Yes, writers miss deadlines. So do pencillers, inkers, letterers, colorists, etc. Books have been late because they got lost in the mail or lost in the production department. (An issue of Blackhawk I did for DC shipped late because even though the artist and I got it in weeks before the deadline, someone in the office mislaid the art.) Along the "assembly line," anyone can cause a problem.
Solving deadline problems is not always a matter of hiring more people who want to do comics. First off, not everyone who wants to do comics can. In the seventies — the period when Bill Mantlo became the King of Fill-In Issues as described in the article — the problem seemed to be a shortage of artists and also an unwillingness on the part of Marvel to spend the money to double or triple the size of their editorial staff. They kept adding new comics to the line but didn't enlarge the office crew accordingly, nor did they say, "Gee, we don't have enough artists so we'd better not add more titles."
I was involved with a number of last-minute deadline crunches on comics during that period, helping writer friends who through no fault of their own found themselves waiting, past the date when the book should have been off to the printer, for the penciller to finish so they could dialogue the pages. Someday here, I oughta tell some of those stories.
The G.O.P. keeps holding all these debates. This one's staged by CNN. That one's staged by Fox News. The one the other night was by CNBC.
So I'm wondering: Why doesn't Comedy Central announce they're holding one with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and maybe some other personalities on that network asking the questions?
Most likely, the front runners would dismiss it as a stunt and refuse to show up…but what does Jon Huntsman have to lose? What, he might drop from 1% to half that? And maybe, just maybe, someone like Rick Perry would think it was a great way to get an hour of airtime in front of younger viewers (and voters) and rehabilitate his image. If no one showed up, fine. I'll bet Stewart and Colbert could do an hour on that premise alone.
And if they can do it, can Cartoon Network be far behind? Actually, I think some of the candidates would fit in well on that channel.
Sergio is in Georgia this weekend for a gathering of veteran MAD contributors. Read all about it.
The current issue of Playboy has an interview with Craig Ferguson which you can read online at the moment, though probably not forever. Beware of photos of unclad women in the margins.
There are several references to a long, personal monologue that Ferguson did one night on his show describing his problems with alcohol. I thought it was one of the most remarkable, important things I'd ever seen on a program of this nature. If you haven't seen it, here it is. It runs twelve and a half minutes and if you start watching, I'll bet you stick around 'til the end…
In the seventies, Bill Mantlo was one of the most prolific comic book writers in the business, sometimes scripting as many as eight comics a month for Marvel. He was partially out of comics and into practicing law in '92 when he was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident and he has spent his "life" since in and out of nursing homes and comas. I put the word "life" in quotes because he has obviously not had much of one in the years since the car hit him.
If you'd like your heart broken today, read this very long piece by Bill Coffin about Mantlo and his family's struggles to keep him in those nursing homes and get him treatment despite an insurance company's successful efforts to cease paying for his care. And keep in mind that this is the story of a man who had health insurance. One can only shudder at what would have happened if the same accident had happened, as it easily could, to one of the 50 million Americans who have no health insurance at all. If it was that bad for a guy with coverage…
Given the rep of the publication, the fact that the author had obvious access to Mantlo's family and that we all know this kind of thing happens, I would assume the factual recital of the insurance battles is correct. The article does try to present the insurer's side of the case in the last few pages and I think it's yet another strong argument that we need Single Payer insurance-for-all in this country. Those who still fear government "death panels" should take note of the portions of Mantlo's story where his private insurer keeps trying to cut off all payments to him because, after all, their primary duty is to their stockholders.
I'm not necessarily endorsing the account of Mantlo's career in comics. Though I was around that world then, I somehow never met Bill Mantlo. Passed him in the halls of Marvel a few times but never met him. Coffin's account of how a Marvel Comic was created is not really accurate but that's really not what the article is about. Those few paragraphs aside, it is an excellent bit of journalism…and a very sad one, indeed.
Rick Perry went on with Letterman last night and delivered a Top Ten List about why he screwed up in the debate two days ago. This article by Steve Kornacki thinks it was a brilliant bit of damage control and includes a clip of the segment. Kornacki likens it to Bill Clinton going on with Johnny Carson to apologize and atone for his way-too-long speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention. A lot of folks thought Clinton saved his political career with that Tonight Show appearance.
Clinton may have reversed his public image but I don't think Governor Perry did himself any favors last night. When Clinton went on with Johnny, he was charming and funny and he seemed genuinely embarrassed for his clunky speech and willing to accept 100% of the criticism. He also, as I recall, had time to discuss politics and the issues, and to impress much of America as a smart guy. Thereafter, his public image was no longer that of a guy who gave boring speeches.
By contrast, Perry went on Letterman's show to demonstrate that he had a sense of humor and that he wasn't lacking in brains and authenticity. I guess he achieved the "sense of humor" part but he probably made the other part worse. He looked awkward and clueless out there…like he was reading the TelePrompter because someone told him to and wasn't sure why. This is a deduction from afar but it sure looked to me like someone backstage had read the copy for him a few times and then Perry did his best to imitate the delivery of that person, whoever it was.
Worse, Perry allowed himself to participate in a routine that trivialized him. It would have been one thing if Dave had brought him on as a guest and allowed him to sit and do what Clinton did: Apologize for one bad moment, demonstrate that he was not always like that and to then show that he was a serious political leader. Perry didn't get to do any of that. Dave gave him pretty much the same treatment he'd have given a falafel vendor if the list had been "Top Ten Complaints of Falafel Vendors." Letterman's attitude was polite but it was: "Come out, read the Prompter and get off." He didn't treat Perry like a guy who could be the next President of the United States. And Perry, by allowing that, pretty much proved he no longer is.
I said here yesterday that I didn't think Perry's performance in the debate was worthy of all the ridicule it was getting. I still don't, despite an awful lot of e-mails that disagree. On the other hand, I think his Late Show appearance made him look pretty awful.
Who was the actor who first played the character of Gordon on Sesame Street? So far, no one seems to know.