Category Archives: Uncategorized

So…what is The Most Pirated Movie of All Time? And I guess I have very different tastes from film pirates because I haven't seen any of the films in that Top Ten. (Though I do like the fact that the tenth most-pirated movie is about pirates…)

Stu Shostak has a great guest on his show today…Lou Grant himself, Ed Asner. Ed is one of the most respected actors in the business. I even know a thespian who loathes Asner's politics but admits the guy is about as good a performer as has ever trod the boards or stepped before a camera. That says something. Ed was also a darned good president of the Screen Actors Guild for a while.

Of course, he and Stu will talk about The Mary Tyler Moore Show where I always believed he contributed a lot more than just his role as Mary's crusty but benign boss. It just felt like the presence of Ed Asner in the cast elevated the whole standard of acting on that program, making everyone else have to come up to his tier, and he also inspired the show to move more towards character comedy than line jokes. I'm not sure he ever had a line on that show that would have been funny read by any other actor…but they were funny coming out of his Lou Grant.

To hear Stu's Show live and for free, go to www.stusshow.com today at 4 PM Pacific, which is 7 PM Eastern and other times in other zones. The program theoretically runs two hours but Stu has been known to run over and it wouldn't surprise me if the chat with Ed Asner did. If you miss the live webcast, you can still hear it. Soon after, it will be available there as a podcast download for a mere 99 cents, which is a bargain price to hear the conversation and to have it on your computer forever. While you're at it, download the previous two episodes which were all about The Dick Van Dyke Show.

In 1971, Esquire magazine ran an article by Rob Rosenbaum about "phone-phreaks" — a network of folks who'd learned how to hack the phone system and make calls anywhere without paying a centavo. I remember reading the piece at the time and finding it amazing…and it captured a lot of imaginations. References to it pop up in so many books and other articles I've read since. This link will allow you to read the original piece.

And this one will take you to a new piece by Mr. Rosenbaum about the article's impact on one of the imaginations it captured: That of Steve Jobs. I'll bet there are a lot more among folks of great accomplishment in the world of electronics and technology.

The Washington Post is featuring a brief but click-worthy interview with the esteemed Joe Simon. At age 98, Joe is probably the ranking Living Legend of the comic book field…not because he's that old but because he's Joe Simon.

More Wonderful Words with No English Equivalents.

They do a lot of "reunions" at the Hollywood Show. They had present everyone they could find who'd been on the sixties' Batman TV show or movie including Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Yvonne Craig, Malachi Throne and Francine York. I said brief howdys to Adam and Julie during the rare moments they weren't writing their names on photos for their fans.

There was also a reunion of folks who'd been in the movie Grease, plus its director, Randall Keiser. I have odd connections to just about everybody in that film. Eddie Deezen, for example was there. I don't know of too many people who've been in more movies than Eddie, who may be the most cheerful person on this planet. I directed him one season when he was in the voice cast of a cartoon show I did called Mother Goose and Grimm. The show came and went with nary a notice but we had an awfully good time doing it, in large part because of Eddie. (Also in the cast were Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, mentioned in yesterday's anecdote.) In addition to the best portrayer of nerds in cinema history, Eddie is a fine historian of pop music and I'm going to be linking to some of his articles.

Seated next to him was an old friend of mine — Susan Buckner, who played Patty Simcox in Grease. Susan is a former Miss Washington, a former member of Dean Martin's Golddiggers, a former Krofftete and before she married some guy and moved out of L.A., she was just about the workingest actress I know. (A Krofftete, by the way, was a dancer on a variety show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in the seventies. Sid and Marty were at the show too but I won't get to them for a few more days.) I used to have a long story somewhere on this website about something that happened to me on the set of The Love Boat when Susan was a guest star on it but it was a section of the site I took down. I'll try and put it back up one of these days.

The two photos above are of Eddie Deezen and Susan Buckner. I'm guessing most of you can figure out which is which.

Seated next to Susan was Dinah Manoff, who was also in Grease and who went on to become a pretty big star in movies like You Oughta Be in Pictures and TV shows like Empty Nest. You know how she got her start? She had one line (a line written by me) in an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter. Susan introduced us because we never met back then and we talked about that taping. It was the night (which I wrote about here) when Groucho Marx came to the set. I also got to tell her how good I thought she was in the stage version of You Oughta Be In Pictures. I saw her when she was playing opposite Tony Curtis before he had his infamous meltdown and walked off the job.

Frankie Avalon was also there. Mr. Avalon once guested on an unsold sitcom pilot I wrote but we didn't meet then because the director, deciding he was going to rewrite my script, barred me from the set. I wanted to say hello and tell him he was the only good thing in the finished show and that I wasn't responsible for one particularly dreadful scene they made him perform. Alas, his autograph line stretched all the way from Burbank to the beach and I didn't want to wait in it or cut in. So I passed him by, then ran into Chuck McCann who was roaming the aisles. Chuck asked, "You meet everyone here you wanted to?" I told him why I wasn't going to intrude on Frankie Avalon and the next thing I knew, Chuck had dragged me over, stopped the line and thrust me into Mr. Avalon's surprisingly well-preserved face. He remembered the show, remembered hating the director and wondering why there was no writer around to fix that one particularly awful scene. After I explained, he told me a story about the producer but I only half-heard it because I kept eyeing the angry faces of folks who'd been waiting in line for more than an hour for Frankie Avalon's signature and were further being denied by our invasion. I hate people who cut in line and don't like being one of them. My apologies to anyone who was in that line. You trying saying no to Chuck McCann.

And I guess that's all I have time for today. Tune in tomorrow for more Tales of the Hollywood Show. There are a lot more names to drop so this series may run until the next one.

You may have heard that there was a dispute threatening the future of The Simpsons. The main voice actors receive salaries that sound astronomical, at least when you compare them to what a guy gets for digging fence posts all day. When viewed as a percentage of what that show earns, the paychecks don't seem that unreasonable. Recently though, we had a flurry of articles that said that if the actors wouldn't take drastic cuts, there might be no more Simpsons.

At least one actor, Harry Shearer, made a public statement that he'd gladly cut his paychecks by a hefty amount but in exchange, he wanted a piece of the "back end," meaning a share in this…probably the most profitable enterprise ever crafted for television. Someone from Fox reportedly responded as if he was asking for a moon and a half, stating they would never ever share ownership or profits or whatever he was asking for. Anyway, there was some mud hurled and a lot of threats and finally, last Friday some sort of deal was made and The Simpsons will continue.

I have absolutely no inside info on what happened or who blinked or whatever. I know folks involved in this and spoke to none of them about it. But in answer to several e-mailed queries, let me tell you what this kind of dispute is all about.

There is this huge, wonderful pie. You and I divide it up. You get a small slice. I get a huge slice. One day, I decide I want an even bigger slice. I want part of yours for no other reason than that I'm greedy. So I demand you take less and I might even leak to the press how big a slice you get to try and make you seem like the piggish villain for selfishly trying to hold onto your small slice. I could even try to spin the story so it'll say that if you won't give up part of your slice, the pie will cease to exist and the bakers will all go unemployed and their children will starve and that'll be all your fault.

But of course it's a bluff because I'm not about to let that pie go away. My slice is too large and too tasty.

Always be suspicious of this kind of story when you're hearing numbers quoted…salaries, offers, etc. That information is not public knowledge and it usually comes from someone close to the negotiation who thinks they will gain some leverage and advantage by leaking it. The numbers may also be inaccurate but even if they're true, keep in mind they came from somewhere, presumably because someone thought it would put pressure on the other side. The articles are not reporting the story so much as becoming a part of it. And they probably had something to do with the fact that it's all been settled.

I had an absolutely wonderful time yesterday at The Hollywood Show out in Burbank. For those of you who've never attended one of these, let me describe what these are. There's a huge ballroom full of tables. At some of the tables are dealers selling movie memorabilia — posters, photos, books, toys, etc. They are not the show and I don't think anyone comes to buy from them. What they sell they sell to folks who come to meet the folks behind the other tables.

Behind the other tables are stars — some big, some small, some current, some very much a part of the past. One of those present yesterday was Carla Laemmle, whose uncle founded Universal Pictures. She reportedly made her first movie in 1925…a small role as a dancer in the original Lon Chaney version of The Phantom of the Opera. If you want to talk movie history, it doesn't get any more historical than that these days. Later this month, Ms. Laemmle will celebrate her 102nd birthday but I actually met her when she was a much younger woman. She was 98 at the time and we talked about her later work…in the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi.

There were other people in the room with more recent credits. All were available to sell you photos of themselves and/or sign autographs and/or pose for photos for a small fee…usually $20, though a few like Adam West charge more. I'm not a big collector of autographs but there were an unusually high number of celebs there I'd either worked with or had some reason to want to meet so I made the rounds. To limit the dosage of Name Dropping, I'm going to serialize my report over the next few days. I will mention here and now though that it's a two-day show and the second day is today. So if you're reading this Sunday morning in the Los Angeles area, you might want to stop reading and scurry on out there. Among those signing today are…well, here's the list. There's probably someone on there you always wanted to meet.

One of the people I met yesterday there was Sivi Aberg. Ms. Aberg is a former Miss Sweden and during the late sixties and seventies, any time a movie or TV show needed a stunning blonde who if she had lines would deliver them in a Swedish accent, they'd try to hire her. I thought she was about as good-looking as human beings got. Here's photographic proof…

I rest my case. Around 1978 or so, she was living next door to two comedian friends of mine, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. Charlie and Mitzi were hosting a daily radio show on KFI here in Los Angeles and they'd asked our mutual pal Larry Hovis (remember him on Laugh-In and Hogan's Heroes?) to help with material. Occasionally, they'd ask me to sit in. Charlie or Mitzi would call and say, "Larry's here and we're writing jokes. Wanna come by and give us a hand?"

I'd say, "Gee, I'd love to but I have a killer deadline on this comic book I'm writing. There is no earthly way I can stop working on this and come over to your house to write jokes all day. Im-possible."

Charlie or Mitzi — whichever one was calling — would say, "Too bad. We're having trouble getting work done here because Sivi is sunbathing nude in her back yard and we're in our dining room which looks right into her yard and…"

"I'll be right over," I'd say.

And I would be right over, each time arriving just in time to hear them say, "Aw, too bad. Sivi just went inside…" But don't think I'm stupid. I only fell for this about twenty times. Anyway, yesterday at the show I got to meet Sivi Aberg and tell her that story. She thought it was a lot funnier than I ever did. Stay tuned to this weblog for more Tales From the Hollywood Show.

Where does your favorite animated superstar fall on The Cartoon-Character Color Wheel?

Andy Ihnatko, the reporter I trust on matters relating to iPhones and iPads, says he didn't write all of that article on the new iPhone…just portions of it. But he did write all of this one.

Playboy has posted their 1985 interview with Steve Jobs, conducted shortly before his 30th birthday. It's especially interesting to read what he said then when you're aware of what he did later. You can read it here but you may have to ignore undressed women in the margins.

Through the time-suspension powers of TiVo, I just watched the first episode of Penn & Teller Tell A Lie, which aired the other night on The Discovery Channel. I liked it. The premise, in case you haven't heard, is that they present seven little stories about incredible things. Six are true. One is an outright lie. During the show, you use your computer or some handheld device invented by Steve Jobs and you vote on which one you think is bogus. At the end, they show you how America voted…and I'm a little fuzzy as to whether that's just one time zone or what.

First time out was obvious enough that 50% of the voters nailed it and no other story got more than 14%. When they show you that total, Penn does a V.O. and says, "Right now, Teller and I are sitting at home in our living room, watching the show just like you." I think that's a lie. I think they were on stage at the Rio Hotel in Vegas when this aired. But anyway, the pre-taped show then reveals which of the seven segments was the fraud and half of us get to go, "I knew it." It'll be interesting to see if future installments are harder to guess. This one held my interest sufficiently that I'll be watching.

This is amazing. A few minutes ago, I wrote that no one would have had the wisdom and prescience to do a great biography of Tony Bennett that came out just as he became the hottest new singing sensation. Then I went to Amazon to check, knowing full well there would be no such book…but it turned out there was! It's called All the Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett and it's getting great reviews. Matter of fact, I just realized that I read it the other day and enjoyed it tremendously.

And here's the really stunning thing: I was shocked to realize that this fine book was written by my cousin David. That's right: There are two Evaniers who write. I do the stuff about the talking cats and inept barbarians. David handles the acclaimed biographies of superstar Italian singers…this, along with the many successful articles and novels he authors. So if you want to know all about Tony Bennett — and get a good idea of why he's survived so long in a field where few can sell records a tenth as long — order a copy of my father's brother's son's new effort. Never thought I'd see that last name on a book this good.

Want a lot of e-mail? Tell people you don't think Frank Sinatra was all he's cracked up to be. You'll get a lot of arguments, some of which will insist you must be unaware that the Greatness of Ol' Blue Eyes is an inarguable settled fact. I doubt these folks would argue that someone doesn't have a right to his own opinion about anything else…but Frank is different. Frank, after all, is Frank.

Oh, you'll hear from a lot of folks who concur and are glad you said what you said…but you'll also hear from a lot of irate Sinatra fans. Some will even ask if you even like any singers of that era and genre. I certainly do. I've said here before that Mel Tormé is my favorite male vocalist and I also like Nat King Cole, Jack Jones, Dean Martin and several others…

…and Tony Bennett. Is there a happier success story around these days than the fact that Tony Bennett, the Betty White of pop singers, has the number one album in the country? Tony Bennett — who started as a singing waiter in the nineteen-thirties — is a hit all over again at age 85. I think that's great.

It's too bad nobody has written a fine, definitive biography of the man that's just now reaching bookstores. That would be great timing but it's not surprising no one did that. I mean, who would have imagined how hot Tony Bennett would be these days?

The National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc. is holding a workshop called "The Audio Art of Animation" in Los Angeles October 21 through 23. On Saturday, I'm conducting a five-hour class/seminar in how to do cartoon voices and there are also classes that weekend with teacher/actor Lucien Dodge and voiceover superstar Corey Burton. I'm not sure if there are any openings but if there are, you can find out about them here.