Category Archives: Uncategorized

I've always liked Billy Crystal as Oscar host. Yeah, he does sometimes have a moment of self-adoration but he always manages to follow it with a self-effacing twinkle. So I suppose I should be pleased that he's stepping in to fill the void caused by Eddie Murphy's abdication.

But I was kinda hoping it would be Neil Patrick Harris or Hugh Jackman. They're both good hosts who still have the capacity to surprise us. I mean, Crystal probably already has someone writing the song parody about J. Edgar to the tune of "Goldfinger," rhyming "J. Edgar" with "Gay Edgar." And you see that tweet above? Toss in a reference to Eddie M. and you have the premise of Billy's whole opening monologue right there.

You know what I think would have been classy? If Mr. Crystal stopped hosting the Academy Awards until he's old enough to be an elder statesman of show business, having completed his long-range transformation into Alan King. Maybe he can still do it then but it would be more exciting if he didn't keep coming back to it every few years.

Why does McDonald's only sell its McRib sandwich now and then as opposed to always? Willy Staley seems to have figured it out. (Found this via the fine blog of Kevin Drum.)

In 1975, Richard M. Nixon (aka "Disgraced ex-president Richard M. Nixon) gave a long, under-oath testimony in matters relating to Watergate. The transcripts were sealed but now they're unsealed. Yesterday, they became available online. You haven't heard of any bombshells yet because, I would imagine, researchers are still wading through them. There's an awful lot and from my first looks at it, I'd say you have to be well-versed in that case and its history to understand all of it. I await the analysis of those who know more about this stuff than I do.

Also, the Nixon Library has online a new batch of Nixon's dictabelts. A dictabelt was like an audio tape. Nixon had a little machine into which he could dictate (hence the name) his recollections or orders. The newly-released ones, which I have yet to listen to, were done in 1970 and they give Nixon's version of a surreal-sounding visit he paid in the early morning hours of May 9 to the Lincoln Memorial. Anti-war protesters were camped there and for some reason, Nixon paid them an unannounced visit and…well, some say he was testing out a line of reasoning he hoped to use in public speeches. Others say he was trying to understand what was motivating the protesters. Whatever it was, we now have his recollections, plus other comments he made about the peace movement of the day. I can't wait to hear how much of it would also apply to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

In the forties and fifties, Mel Blanc appeared in a series of kids' records with the Warner Brothers characters that were released (and recorded for) Capitol Records. They were quite wonderful, what with Capitol using the same orchestra that backed up Sinatra and other "adult" recording artists, and many of the same arrangers like Billy May. The records were mostly written by the same gagmen, like Mike Maltese and Warren Foster, who were writing WB cartoons. Some of them were kind of like Looney Tunes without the visuals.

Recently, someone over at Warner Bros. Animation had the bright idea to add visuals to a couple of them. The first one is I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat and it stars, as you might imagine, Tweety and Sylvester. Mel recorded the song in 1950 and it was a best seller for Christmas that year. It's basically a three-minute song sung by Tweety and Sylvester, both voiced by Mel…and now it's a cartoon directed by Matt O'Callaghan. They located Mel's old vocal tracks in a vault somewhere and applied them lovingly to a new arrangement of the song…and that adorns some pretty funny animation of Sylvester chasing the Tweety Bird while Granny snoozes.

Last evening, I attended a screening that doubled as a party celebrating June Foray, who recorded a few new lines for the short as Granny. We toasted her, watched some other WB shorts for which she supplied voices, previewed the new short (in 3-D!) and then took in a Q-and-A with June, Matt and WB head honcho Sam Register.

So how is the new short? Well, some will have a hard time accepting those characters in CGI. Tweety has feathers. Sylvester has fur…and a frequent spray of saliva every time he says a word with an "S" sound in it. I think I've gotten past the traditionalist's objection to computer animation and especially to it being applied to characters who started life as line drawings. I've decided that if I can accept them in three-dimensional form as toys and statues, I can accept them that way on a screen. (And yes, it took me a while to get used to Garfield making the same transition, just as I've finally gotten used to Frank Welker doing his voice instead of Lorenzo Music.)

If you don't let something like that stop you, you'll probably enjoy it tremendously. It moves like crazy. It employs 3-D to maximum advantage. The Blanc vocals sound great. What more could you want? Oh, yeah: It's funny, too.

(And another nice thing: For years, Warner Brothers cartoons voiced by Mel and others only credited Mel. Daws Butler didn't get credit. Stan Freberg didn't get credit. Arthur Q. Bryan didn't get credit. Bea Benaderet didn't get credit. June didn't get credit…but on this one, she does. Finally.)

The party, by the way, was great…and long overdue since June hasn't been honored for at least a week.

If I understood correctly, I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat will reach screens as the warm-up for Happy Feet Two when it hits theaters in a few weeks.

I am informed by several members of David Letterman's staff that Dave no longer tapes the Friday show on Monday. They now tape two shows on Thursday and one airs the next day. So the show with Herman Cain will be taped Thursday to air Friday.

That is, if he shows up. Today on his show, Keith Olbermann wondered if he should be standing by to be a last-minute guest the way he was when John McCain cancelled on Letterman. I was thinking the same thing but then I had this other thought: I don't think Cain got into this race to become President. I think he was surprised as anyone to find himself at the top of the polls when all he was after was self-promotion. I don't think he'll be able to resist the opportunity to reach the Letterman audience so I think he'll show up. He may be polling about the same as Rick Santorum by then but I think he'll show up.

Mike Towry was one of the primary organizers of the institution we now call the Comic-Con International. Back in the days he was chairguy, the con was small and mostly about comic books…something it can never be again. But Mike and some others are in the planning stages of a convention that would try to recapture the spirit (and the size) of the cons of the seventies, especially the memorable ones held at the old El Cortez Hotel in San Diego.

It's a great idea…and it's a shame they probably can't have it at the El Cortez, which has been in constant turmoil for years with remodellings, redevelopment, lawsuits and many changes of ownership. Around 2005, it was converted into condominiums but then they had all sorts of litigation about the contracts and the facilities, particularly with a faulty plumbing system. I know they have a big, swanky ballroom that hosts a lot of weddings and such now and that condos in the building go for under $250,000 after initially selling for twice that.

Back when we convened there, it was a great place for a comic convention — in large part because its operators really didn't seem to care what we did to their building as long as it was more-or-less standing when we left. It was kind of a dump and that was one of its good points. The one year it was not a good place for a con was the one time we were there after it had been acquired by a religious group and turned into a school for evangelism. They were grossly understaffed and unorganized and few of us had rooms with both air conditioning and a working toilet. It was like you could have one but not the other. When you went to the desk to complain, someone would mutter something about praising Jesus…and that's about all they'd do.

Anyway, I hope Mike and his crew can find a place as fun as the pre-evangelical El Cortez. You can read about their plans and hopes here.

Millions of you (well, four of you) have written to inform me that Herman Cain's appearance with David Letterman is scheduled not for this Friday but for next Friday, November 18. This raises questions. Letterman usually tapes two shows on Monday, one to air the following Friday. In fact, as John Carney writes to me in an e-mail…

This Friday's show, I'm guessing, has already been taped (which is their usual practice for Friday shows). In fact, they've had a running gag about Steve Martin comically over-promoting his appearance; he made a walk-on Monday to promote that he would be on the show Friday (presumably, both episodes were taped Monday), and then last night there was a pre-taped bit where he appeared as an on-screen bug to promote the Friday show.

So are they planning to have Cain come in next Monday and tape an appearance for the following Friday? That would seem foolish on Cain's part and also on Letterman's. The way this story is evolving, there could be eight more accusers and all sorts of developments between Monday and Friday. The questions Dave would ask on Monday might not be the questions he'd ask on Friday. The version of the story Cain would tell on Monday might not be the way he'll want to spin things by the end of the week. Hell, the way things are going, he could drop out of the race between Monday and Friday.

I wonder if anyone in the Cain camp thought, "Hey…go on Letterman's show. He's admitted to having sex with his staff members. He'll be sympathetic to your position." If someone thought that, I'll bet they're wrong.

I saw this headline — Bill Clinton Praises Rick Perry on Immigration — and I thought, "Well, that's the end of Rick Perry's quest for the Republican nomination."

Let me tell you about the lovely lady pictured above. Her name is Monica Lewis and when that photo was taken, she was a huge star in radio with many best-selling records on the charts. Among them were "Put the Blame on Mame," "A Tree in the Meadow," "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," "Autumn Leaves" and "I Wish You Love." She also provided the singing voice for Chiquita Banana, the great sex symbol of fruit commercials.

She worked with everyone: Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Red Skelton, You Name 'em.

In 1948, she was one of the performers on the first episode of a TV program called Toast of the Town that later came to be known as The Ed Sullivan Show. (Her brother Marlo was its first producer.) She appeared in several dozen movies, including many of the ones produced by the prominent film producer, Jennings Lang whom she married in 1956. The woman has had one of the most colorful, exciting careers you could imagine…

…and she'll be talking about it tomorrow on Stu's Show. For those of you who are new at this, here are the two ways you can listen to Stu's Show starring your genial host, Stu Shostak…

1. Listen live for free! Stu does his show Wednesdays starting at 4 PM Pacific Time. That's 7 PM Eastern Time and if you live in other zones, you can probably figure out what time it starts on your computer. It runs two hours. Sometimes, it runs more than two hours. Go to the Stu's Show website at the proper time and click where they tell you to click. Then you can minimize that window on your computer and listen as you do other things.
2. Listen later for 99 cents! Shortly after the live webcast, each show becomes a podcast and you can download it as an MP3 file from the Stu's Show website and hear it at your convenience. This is a great bargain and while you're over there, browse around. You'll probably find plenty of other shows in the archives that you'd enjoy hearing.

Whichever way you do it, listen to Monica Lewis. She was a great vocalist and she's got great, great stories.

A number of folks have written to ask that I comment on this article, How Celebrities Took Over Cartoon Voice Acting. Okay, I will: I don't think it's a very good article.

Its author's main thesis is that Robin Williams playing the genie in Aladdin rocked this world and changed the game. I think that's arbitrarily picking one instance when he could have cited dozens of others before, going back to Mr. Disney employing Bing Crosby, Jerry Colonna, Ed Wynn, George Sanders, etc. When UPA made Gay Purr-ee in 1962 with Judy Garland, Robert Goulet and Red Buttons (hiring Mr. Buttons right after he won the Oscar for Sayonara), how was that different from casting celebs in movies today? In 1977, long before Aladdin, Disney didn't cast full-time voice actors for the leads in The Rescuers. They hired Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor. There are plenty of other examples.

Yes, it is maddening to those who are primarily voice actors that they are often considered second-tier options when the big animated films are being cast…though I don't think the voice actors mentioned in that article (like Billy West, Dan Castellaneta and Frank Welker) are hurting for employment. In a sense, the article ignores the voice actors who don't work quite as much…the same "crime" the casting folks for those movies commit.

But there's a problem with dividing actors into these two categories — "real" voice actors and actors who are hired only for their marquee value. First off, many of the latter are really good. Ed Asner's performance in Up was universally praised. So were Mike Meyers and Eddie Murphy in the Shrek movies. Secondly, you have folks like Mark Hamill who are obviously not out of place among other "pure" cartoon voice actors. They just happen to have on-camera careers, as well. If you look back at the Golden Age of Animation, so did Hans Conried. So did Jim Backus. So did Hal Smith. So did Arnold Stang. Moving into the sixties, so did Howard Morris. So did (and still does) Chuck McCann.

I'm a big supporter of the kind of actor who doesn't have an on-camera career. I occasionally hire the other kind because a particular casting seems right but I turn down an awful lot of "stars" who are offered to me by agents. It's amazing who you can get these days for scale. Those guest roles on The Simpsons have especially made it not unfashionable for an actor who might otherwise have looked on a cartoon job as slumming to pick up a day's pay and have some fun. I'd usually rather work with the kind of actor who puts "on-camera" second…but then I'm not trying to arrange financing or pre-sales for a feature. I'm just doing a pre-sold cartoon show that only has to sound good.

I think voice actors shouldn't get as upset about the trend to celebrities as some do. Yes, a lot more "Movie Stars" are being cast in animated features than ever before. That's partly because a lot more animated features are being made than ever before. Eighteen movies are up for the Best Animated Feature category in the 2011 Oscars. Back in the alleged Good Old Days, there were four or five a year.

To the extent it is an injustice, it's a more complicated problem than the article describes. It also has a lot to do with animation producers and directors who simply would rather tell their friends and family, "I'm doing a movie with Tom Hanks" than "I'm doing a movie with people you probably never heard of." Years ago, a friend of mine who should have known better was about to produce a cartoon series for television and he said, as a way of praising his own writing, "This show requires real actors, not cartoon voice actors." That kind of thinking is something cartoon voice actors should get pissed about.

And by the way: This show employed "name" on-camera actors for many of its key roles and some of them were quite good. But in many cases, the producers found it necessary to throw away the voice tracks that a celebrity did and to bring in a largely-unknown voice actor to redo the part.

Speaking of MAD: Some time ago here, I plugged the new book by Tom Richmond, who is the magazine's star caricaturist in any issue that doesn't have one of Mort Drucker's occasional appearances. Truth to tell, I hadn't spent a lot of time with The MAD Art of Caricature when I wrote that. Well, now I have and I'm more impressed than ever.

This is not just a book about how to draw pictures that exaggerate folks' likenesses. It's that but it's also one of the best "how to" lessons on cartooning in general with a particular emphasis on faces and expressions. There are cartoonists who do not really understand how they do what they do. They just do it…sometimes, astonishingly well. Then there are guys like Tom Richmond who may well operate on a lot of instinct but if you ask them "Why did you do that?," can give you a real answer.

Tom breaks down the process in a way I've never seen before — one that strikes me as eminently useful and practical. Art teachers often have a habit of explaining theory and structure in a way that is disconnected from the act of drawing. They can leave their students wondering, "Okay…I understand what you're trying to teach me. How does that relate in any way to me sitting down at a drawing table with a pencil?" I don't think anyone who works his or her way through Tom's book will be lost in that way. To the contrary, they're likely to understand their tasks and challenges well enough to do them better.

When I wrote a blurb for the back cover, I didn't understand what an important book I was helping to sell. Now, I do. Betcha that ten or twenty years from now, a lot of the new top professional cartoonists cite this as the book that helped them to master their craft. If you'd like to be one of them, you can order a copy here.

The guys at MAD have a rapid response to the verdict in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor.

Our pal James H. Burns sent in the following and asked that I share it with you here…

Mark, Your feeding your outside creatures may have saved a few lives, three thousand miles away! At least by way of inspiration…

I've had animals almost my entire life, but in the suburbs of New York, it's considered risky to leave food outside at night, for the raccoons here, by reputation anyway, can be a bit destructive…

Don't get me wrong. I grew up in a family where we'd leave food outside each morning, for the birds and squirrels. (How can some folks be afraid of the latter? I find it rather neat that across a few different decades, I've known squirrels so friendly that they'll actualy knock on my door, when they'd feel like a snack!)

But, inspired by your columns and accounts, I started leaving some cat food out at night, about a year-and-a-half ago. (And during those wild winter storms last year, sometimes twice an evening, particularly when pulling an all-nighter!)

If you've grown up loving animals, such an adjustment is easy, and the rewards, as you know, many. Watching a raccoon eating just a few feet away from a cat who's dining just a few feet away from a possum is simply just kind of delightful.

And I was absolutely astonishted a few weeks ago, when a mother raccoon whom I'd "known," I guess, since 2010, suddenly trusted me with her five new offspring, leaving my backyard (with me and the brood standing there) for about ten minutes, to check on another calling…

The best story, though, happened at the end of last winter, when an orange tabby I'd observed for a while (but only through a window) suddenly jumped into my arms as I was placing the evening's meal. I
wrote that, ahem, tale, up for Newsday last June, but like many newspapers, their online edition is now only available to subscribers. So I was surprised to just discover that the column is now available at
their related newspaper website, AM NY…

It seems my little friend was pregnant. And all the FIVE of us can now say, is thanks again for setting one of many good examples!

Great story. And for the benefit of those who've written to ask: Yes, I still feed the same four feral cats in my backyard. There are occasional guest appearances by other stray felines but the Big Four protect their turf and they chase interlopers off. They don't, however, mind the possums that come around from time to time.

I had raccoons until just recently. I may still have them and just not have seen them…but about two weeks ago, I spotted a New Generation: A mama raccoon and four babies. I figured that before the kids learned where to go for food, I needed to break them off so I began taking the food in at night except when I was downstairs to monitor who was getting it. Some evenings, I take my iPad down and sit on the back step and web-surf while the cats have their late night meals, then I bring in what they don't eat. The raccoons usually come late and the possums, when they show up at all, come early…so I adjust the buffets accordingly and I think I'm managing to feed cats and possums but not raccoons.

I hope the raccoons find other places to dine but in this neighborhood, it's probably just going to mean someone else's pet food dishes or trash cans. Sure wish there was some way to trap them and release them in Griffith Park or something…but after many calls to local city and humane agencies, I didn't find any real solution that didn't involve hiring someone to come in and kill them. And even that would just eliminate the current batch. If I'm going to spend money on exterminators, the pests I'm going to get rid of are zealots who come to my door and try to convert me to their religion. The raccoons are a lot less annoying.

Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray was found guilty today of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the King of Pop. I have no particular opinion about the case itself but lines like this in the news coverage seem worthy of a head-shake or two…

Murray's license to practice medicine is now suspended, according to the Medical Board of California, which decides if a doctor can legally work in the state. In the light of the conviction, the board now will open an investigation to determine whether or not to fully revoke Murray's right to practice medicine in the state, spokeswoman Jennifer Simoes said.

So is this investigation just a formality? Or is there a chance that they could decide that going to prison for causing the death of a patient by supplying him with a dangerous drug and not monitoring its usage is no reason to stop a doctor from continuing to treat patients? I do know a doctor (a very good one) who lost his license over a matter that by comparison seems trivial and which did not cause anyone to die. Is there really a chance that Murray could go on being Dr. Murray?

They're in hog heaven on CNN at the moment covering three breaking stories at the same time…

• There's the new woman accusing Herman Cain not just of sexual harassment but of something more akin to sexual assault. I actually think people sometimes make the mistake of using the word "harassment" when "assault" or even "rape" is more accurate. Anyway, with even other Republicans urging Cain to "come clean" and answer charges, it looks like Herman won't be able to stick with his pledge to never again discuss any of the allegations. It also looks like he won't be the Republican candidate for the White House…but it's looked that way to most of us since he first got into the race.
• There's a verdict in the case regarding the death of Michael Jackson. It won't be read until 1 PM Pacific Time so at the moment, CNN is showing us video of the outside of the courthouse building. It's like, "Look, look! There's the building where the verdict will be read and we're across the street from it!"
• And now they're covering the allegations that long-time Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky is being accused of sexual assault on many boys, some of them horrendously young. They're showing over and over, a clip from Good Morning, America this morning in which Sandusky comes out on his front steps and declines to answer (on his attorney's advice, he says) the question, "Can you tell us if you had any inappropriate relations with young boys, sir?" When you're refusing to deny that, you're in a lot of trouble.

You can just hear the producers at CNN debating which story to go to for how long in rotation. Glad they're having a good time.