Category Archives: Uncategorized

George W. Bush keeps saying that the Democratic Congress must send him a funding bill without "artificial" timetables for withdrawing troops from Iraq. I don't understand the repeated use of the word, "artificial." What would a real timetable be and does he have any of those? How might a real (as opposed to "artificial") timetable emerge? The only thing I can think of is that at some point, our military could be so exhausted and in disrepair that it will create a timetable out of a sheer manpower shortage — i.e., we withdraw on a certain timetable decreed by a lack of troops.

Maybe I'm overthinking this but it seems like the word he really means there is "arbitrary" or maybe he just means "Congressionally-dictated." I'm assuming that if at any point, he and the military leaders decided some sort of withdrawal schedule becomes prudent, that one would not be artificial in his view. Perhaps a real timetable would be one we arrive at because of a heightened ability of the Iraqi governing forces to, as they say, "stand up as we stand down." In that case, the adjective Bush should probably be using is "imposed." He doesn't want an imposed timetable.

But really, isn't a timetable imposed by the Democrats in Congress the least of Bush's worries? Seems to me that if he wants to stick to his plan — and he always seems to want to stick to his plan for anything, no matter how poorly it seems to be working — he should be more concerned about a timetable forced on him by Republicans. Because Republicans are the ones worried about having a timetable forced on them by voters who are sick of this war. And that one won't be artificial.

In 1982, there was a short-lived sitcom on NBC called One of the Boys. Mickey Rooney was the star but if the show is mentioned at all today, it's probably because the then-unknown co-stars included Nathan Lane, Dana Carvey and Meg Ryan. It advanced none of their careers. About all any of them got out of it was that Carvey developed a great Mickey Rooney impression.

Here's a one minute promo for the show with a voiceover by Casey Kasem. For some reason, it's called The Mickey Rooney Show on this clip but as far as I know, it was never called that on the air or anywhere else that mattered. This was probably done well before the show debuted using scenes from the pilot, and they decided to change the name before its debut. Here it comes…

Sad to hear that director-writer Bob Clark and his son were killed in a car crash this morning. Actually, it's sad when anyone's killed in a car crash but it's especially wrenching when (a) it's a guy who directed a couple of your favorite movies and (b) it was because of a drunk driver. As you may recall from past postings here, I think people who drink 'n' drive should be spanked hard. It's truly a reprehensible thing to do, getting behind the wheel when you're tipsy. I don't believe it should be easily forgiven, even when the culprit doesn't kill anyone.

Clark directed and co-wrote A Christmas Story, of course, and I don't have to tell anyone who's seen it what a treasure of a film it is. But he also directed two other movies I like a lot…the 1980 Tribute, starring Jack Lemmon and based on Bernard Slade's play. It came and went with little notice but I thought it was a fine film.

And I'm sorry…I like Porky's. I laughed a lot at it, especially the scene in the principal's office. If you don't think it was a well-made movie, just watch any of the 7,000 imitations that were made in its wake. You can even watch the two excrutiating sequels, only one of which Clark worked on. If you do, you'll see that the original Porky's hit a note that all the others missed. It's the only one of those pictures about horny high school memories and fantasies that seems to depict someone's actual horny high school memories and fantasies.

I never met Bob Clark but I liked his work. So it feels like I've lost yet another friend to drunk driving.

I've been writing a lot lately about one of my favorite topics, Jack Kirby. In the last month, four separate pieces about the man some call the greatest comic book creator of all time have made their way through my copy of Microsoft Word…and for four separate publishers. Here's a rundown of them in no particular order…

DC Comics is bringing out a complete, hardcover, fancy, lovely (I expect) series of four volumes that will reprint all of Jack's "Fourth World" material in a format that would have made him very happy, indeed. When Jack launched The Forever People, The New Gods and Mister Miracle, it was on the premise that someday, the series would be collected in real — as opposed to comic — books. This was then a radical, almost inconceivable idea. Of course, he imagined a much longer storyline with a more developed ending but he'd still be delighted. I know I am.

Anyway, I'm consulting on these and writing Afterwords, which means that I turn up in the rear of each volume to tell you what you just read. This fine article by Ian Brill in Publishers Weekly will tell you more. It comes out early next month and if you can't wait, you can order a copy of Volume 1 by clicking here. You can also pre-order Volume 2 while you're at it. Amazon is offering another one of their exciting package deals where you can purchase two books at once for exactly the same price you'd pay to order them separately, thereby saving yourself one mouse click.

Neil Gaiman — despite the fact that I took him to a mediocre Chinese restaurant a few years ago or perhaps because of it — asked that I pen the foreword to Marvel's forthcoming collection of his (and John Romita's) take on Mr. Kirby's 70's series, The Eternals. I was delighted to do so because Jack's brainstorm was in fine hands and I got to write a little about him and the history of that comic along with blessing the Gaiman/Romita extension. This book comes out the same time as the one above and you can snag your copy by clicking here.

I just wrote yet another installment of my ongoing column on J.K. for The Jack Kirby Collector. I don't have to tout this publication to anyone with the slightest interest in Kirby so I'll just mention that you can order the latest issue here. My piece in this one is about Jack's speed in producing comics and about his relationship with a young artist named Joe Maneely who was killed in a tragic train accident in 1958.

Lastly, but hopefully not leastly, I'm putting the finishing touches on Kirby: King of Comics, a very fancy book by Yours Truly which comes out before the end of the year from Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Here's a page on that company's website with not much more information than I've given you here. And here's some exciting news: There's a place there you can pre-order at the full price if you have a yearning to pre-order and can't wait until you can pre-order from Amazon for less. I'm very pleased with how this book is coming out and I won't say any more now because I expect to become a bore and a nag (both at the same time) about this project.

So there you have them: Four times lately when I've written about Kirby…five, if you count this item. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish my income taxes. Maybe I can sneak a mention of Jack in there, too.

I'm going to reprint this news article in full…

Richards Denies Snorting His Dad's Ashes

April 04,2007 | LONDON — Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father's ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday. "It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool's joke," said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones. Doherty declined to say any more about why Richards made the statement in an interview with NME, a pop music magazine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," the 63-year-old guitarist was quoted as saying. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Uh, why was the earlier report a news item? Didn't reporters and editors understand it was a joke? You did, right?

Since we've been talking Popeye here lately, let's make today's feature a Popeye cartoon. This is Little Swee'pea, which was released to theaters on September 25, 1936. Jack Mercer and Mae Questel provide the voices and that's all you need to know…

Oh, yeah. I should mention that this print starts with the A.A.P. logo. Associated Artists Productions was a company that acquired theatrical material and distributed it to television. They got a mess of Popeye material in 1956 and slapped their own title cards on the front of the cartoons to replace the Paramount logo. I'm not sure what they did but you'll notice that these Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons (most of 'em) start with the ship's doors opening and closing…and somehow, when the A.A.P. logo went on a lot of them, the music was adjusted so the sound of the doors closing was out of sync. On this print, it's okay but on a lot, it ain't.

Anyway, after you get past the A.A.P. title card, it's all original equipment. Here we go…

As this article explains, Garry Trudeau is now doing a Doonesbury sequence about the many and varied positions of Republican presidential wanna-be Mitt Romney. The storyline points out that Romney has reversed a lot of his past opinions about things like gay rights and stem cell research. He has now moved to positions more in keeping with the hardcore Republican base for, I suspect, the same reason John McCain now shamelessly panders to that group. You may not be able to win the presidency with those positions but you sure can't win the Republican nomination without them.

I haven't paid enough attention to Romney to have an opinion as to whether he's sincere in his "evolved thinking" or not. I'm just wondering aloud if "flip-flopping on the issues" is going to be a serious charge against anyone in the next election. After eight years of George "Stay the Course" Bush, even the staunchest Republicans may be a little leery of a guy who brags about never changing his mind.

When I was eight or so, my favorite non-cartoon TV program was a game show on CBS called Video Village, hosted (at first) by a man named Jack Narz. Later, he was the host of — this is by no means a complete list — Seven Keys, Beat the Clock, Concentration and Now You See It. And before he hosted Video Village, he was the emcee of Dotto, which was one of the first game shows to be axed in The Great Quiz Show Scandals of the fifties. Mr. Narz was in no way responsible for the fact that certain outcomes on that show were occasionally manipulated.

I could never stand Beat the Clock…not with him hosting it, not with anyone hosting it. But the other Narz shows were all pretty good and he was a key reason. Unlike a lot of hosts, he hit that perfect note of respect for the game and its contestants, never taking things too seriously but never acting as if his own show was beneath him. He also seemed like a witty, nice man and the few times I've encountered him here and there would seem to bear out that evaluation.

I'll be tuning it tomorrow when he's a live guest on Stu's Show, which is heard from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time on Shokus Internet Radio. Another fine host, Stuart Shostak, will be quizzing the quizmaster about his career — which, by the way, included a brief stint as an announcer on the George Reeves Superman show. Tune in and listen by clicking on this link and selecting an audio browser. You may even hear me calling in to ask a question or three.

Several years before they began producing the Popeye cartoons we're talking about here lately, the Max Fleischer studio made this little educational film that explained to movie audiences how the "talking" part of talking pictures was accomplished. I'm not sure audiences of the day understood it but they probably enjoyed the odd characters and odder animation of them. This runs a little less than eleven minutes…

Mort Sahl turns eighty next month. A number of celebrations and tributes are planned, and I'm going to try to mention them here…but if you just want to see Mort in more-or-less his natural habitat, he'll be doing a stand-up performance next week. It's the evening of April 12 at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. If you live in Los Angeles, you might want to head on down there. It's not as far from L.A. as it sounds.

The Comedy and Magic Club is a pretty nice room and a great place to take friends, especially friends from outta town. Most Sunday evenings, you can see Jay Leno there doing essentially the same act he does for $90.00 a head in Las Vegas. I'm not sure what tickets cost in Hermosa Beach but they're a lot cheaper, plus he has Jimmy Brogan opening for him. Jimmy is a very funny man.

Fred Kaplan on the game of "Chicken" that Bush is playing with Congress over the Iraq War funding. I don't think Bush can win this one with the majority of the American people but he may be able to "win it" in the sense that his ever-dwindling base will become even more convinced that everything that hasn't worked or won't work can be blamed on Bush's enemies.

That's the forthcoming Popeye DVD release that excites us so. It also, judging from my e-mail, upsets a few folks on account of its announced price tag of $64.92. Even though the set includes sixty great cartoons, lovingly restored and joined by commentary tracks and documentaries and other extras, that sounds steep to some people. One person wrote me, "You don't care about what it costs since you're on the DVD and you're getting paid, plus you'll get a case of them free."

This person is wrong about the last part. There's a little coterie of animation and TV buffs, of which I am a part, who get called upon to help out with these things and who do so out of fannish devotion to the material. I probably have about three dozen friends who have assisted DVD companies in finding footage, researching history, locating interviewees and doing commentary tracks and interviews. Sometimes, one of us is paid for our services. I've never been but sometimes, people are paid…a little. We always get promised free DVDs — one or two, never a case — and I'd say that promise gets honored about half the time. By that time, they don't need us.

This is kind of a sore spot with some of us — make that, "with all of us." You feel stupid buying a DVD you're on, especially because if you do, the free one will arrive the next day. On the other hand, if you don't buy it, the free copy never arrives. I don't know why it works like this but it does.

Back to Popeye. Yeah, $64.92 is kinda steep but keep in mind that's the official price, the one nobody pays. It'll probably be $55 or so when it first comes out, then drop down to around fifty bucks. Secondly, there's a ton of material on this and it all went through a painstaking (I'm sure) restoration process. By comparison, some of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets list for the same price and contain 320 minutes of material as opposed to the 550 minutes of content you'll get with the spinach-eater's collection.

While you're at it, save some cash for three more releases which have just been announced in the Walt Disney Treasures series. When I think about how difficult it was to see — forget about "to own copies of" — just to see this stuff years ago, I have to conclude it's the best time ever for animation buffs. The collecting can get expensive…but hey, the work is available and it's not only being restored for us but for all posterity. Very happy news.

Back in this message, I mentioned that friends of mine in Los Angeles were happy to hear that Vito's Pizza, which was once down on Vermont across from L.A. City College, has reopened on La Cienega in West Hollywood. I also said I was going to try it after April 1 and the disappearance of Creamy Tomato Soup at the Souplantation.

Well, yesterday I took Carolyn by for a couple of slices…my second visit, to be honest with you. I went once in March. The verdict? As good as ever. Vito has a little hole in the wall restaurant with fast food ambience…but he also has the best pizza in town. The pasta bologonese is pretty darn good, too. If you're looking for "New York style," here it is…Vito's Pizza.

Note: Vito makes great Italian food but he's not all that great on websites. His may not open in some browsers. If it doesn't open in yours, know that the address is 846 N. La Cienega Boulevard, situated between Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard. It's in a little strip mall and it doesn't look like much. Here's a PDF file of his menu. By the way, if you do get the website to open, that's a picture of Vito himself in the apron.

I'm going to bed. Good night, Internet. I'll see you in the morning.

And another pal, Jerry Beck, has posted the info that Warner Home Video is bringing out a DVD set of the first sixty Popeye cartoons produced by the Max Fleischer Studio. They have been, we hear, lovingly restored so this is going to be quite a treasure. The DVD will also include commentary tracks and interviews with knowledgeable animation experts…or at least, that's what I'm telling people since I'm one of them. The whole thing comes out on July 31 and you'll want it, you'll want it. I'll post an Amazon link as soon as that's doable, since this is wonderful material. Congrats and thanks to Jerry and all those who made this possible.

Rick Rogers referred me to this video of the smartest dog in the world. I know people who graduated college who couldn't have figured out how to do what this pooch does…