Category Archives: Uncategorized

The original, Jay Ward-produced George of the Jungle cartoons on DVD? My pal Earl Kress has the scoop.

And I'll quickly add this: There were 17 half-hours produced of the show in 1967, each featuring one cartoon of George, one of Super Chicken and one of Tom Slick. This new DVD release is purportedly coming from Classic Media, which not long ago put out a complete DVD set of The Mr. Magoo Show containing 26 half hours. So I'd guess they're thinking of just putting the 17 half-hours of G.O.T.J. out as one complete set. That's what I'd guess.

It's been over a year since we played this game so some of you may be new to it while others may have forgotten how it works. How it works is that I describe six websites and post links to them. Five of them are real websites. One, I made up. Your mission — should you decide to accept it, Mr. Phelps — is to figure out which website is the phony one. When you click on its link, you'll be taken not to the described site but to a page that will tell you you're right, the one you picked is bogus.

Pretty simple concept? Yep. Just keep in mind that when I've done this in the past, all the sites seem to get a ton of extra hits and one or two have been known to crash so you can't get to them. A non-connect doesn't mean it's the phony website. If you click on the phony website, you'll know for sure. Got it? Here we go…

• The Burger Museum – What can you do with a McDonald's hamburger if you don't want to eat it? Well, you can just put it on display for many years. Apparently, they don't change that much.
• My Cat Hates You – A collection of photos of pussycats who don't seem to like you (or anyone) very much.
• Jell-o Star Shots – Hey, doesn't that dish of America's favorite gelatin dessert look a lot like Tony Soprano? Or is that Tom Arnold?
• Gum Wrapper – Gary Duschl has created the world's longest gum wrapper chain, currently at 50,905 feet…and still growing!
• Rate My Cow – So, uh, what do you think of this one? Surely you have an opinion of this fine cow, don't you?

If you come across a website on the Internet that is real but sounds like I made it up, drop me a note with the link. If enough of you do, maybe we'll play this game more often than annually.

This other category is musical acts. These are a little harder to compare to each other because some of them are one singer with a small band and some of them are production shows which have huge orchestras and also involve dancers and special effects. Still, it might be of interest…

• Elton John — $100.00 – $250.00
• Barry Manilow — $95.00 – $225.00
• Celine Dion — $87.50 – $225.00
• Toni Braxton — $65.00 – $100.00
• Paul Anka — $71.01 – $98.51
• Liza Minnelli — $50.00 – $95.00
• Tony Bennett — $70.00 – $90.00
• LeAnn Rimes — $59.00 – $88.00
• Johnny Mathis — $60.00 – $75.00
• Tom Jones — All seats $75.00
• Tony Orlando — $22.00 – $44.00

In fairness, I should add that some of the pricing variations may have something to do with where the performers are working. Elton John is at Caesars Palace, whereas Tony Orlando is at the Suncoast, which is a beautiful hotel but it's way off the Strip. On the other hand, if Tony could sell $250 tickets, he'd still be at Caesars.

I mentioned the prices of Vegas shows a minute ago here. I think it's interesting to see what they're charging these days to go see various headliners. Generally speaking, shows in Las Vegas are priced intelligently from the hotel's viewpoint. They get as much money as they can but that's the secondary consideration. The main one is to get bodies into the seats so they'll gamble on the way out. Ergo, none of these shows are probably overpriced to the extent that they can't sell all or most tickets for each performance.

These are headliners who are currently scheduled to perform in that town some time during the remainder of this year. Some are there more or less full time…like Louie Anderson is a near-permanent fixture at the Excalibur. Some are there for a few nights here and there. Of these performers, Mr. Seinfeld is the only one I'd guess whose ticket prices have something to do with how often he performs. He's only doing two nights. The rest of these folks are there often enough that it's not that special to be able to go see them. There are probably people scheduling Vegas trips just to see Seinfeld.

I've divided the list into two categories. Although a few of the ones in the first category may sing and even have a small band there, these acts are basically one person standing on a stage with a microphone and talking…

• Jerry Seinfeld — $75.00 – $150.00
• George Lopez — $45.00 – $125.00
• Jay Leno — All seats $90.00
• Ray Romano — All seats $90.00
• Wayne Brady — $69.00 – $89.00
• Rita Rudner — $49.00 – $85.00
• Bill Maher — $42.50 – $72.50
• David Spade — All seats $70.00
• Howie Mandel — All seats $65.00
• Jon Lovitz — $39.95 – $59.95
• Don Rickles — All seats $55.00
• George Wallace — $45.00 – $55.00
• Paul Rodriguez — $29.95 – $54.95
• Craig Ferguson — $29.95 – $54.95
• Carrot Top — All seats $52.50
• Roseanne Barr — All seats $49.95
• Louie Anderson — All seats $45.00
• Steven Wright — $24.95 – $44.95
• Dennis Miller — All seats $39.95

The one pricing anomaly that leaps out at me is this: When I saw Dennis Miller there about ten years ago, I think tickets were more than they are now…and back then, he had Rita Rudner opening for him. Now she gets more than he does. I'll cover musical acts in the next message here.

What was Walt Disney's secret? Why was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs such a wonderful movie? Well, the secret would seem to be divulged in this eight-and-a-half minute infomercial for the film. It's that he hired pretty girls to paint the cels.

The Las Vegas production of Monty Python's Spamalot opened this evening at the Wynn Hotel. Here's the first review I've seen, which is of a preview performance. According to this piece, only one song — "All for One" — is cut in its entirety. They must have hacked large chunks out of other songs and lost a lot of dialogue to bring the show down to ninety minutes. The version on Broadway runs two hours and 20 minutes, including one fifteen-minute intermission.

Perhaps of interest is that tickets to the New York version run $36.25 to $111.25, whereas tickets to the shortened Vegas version are from $49.00 to $99.00. This is a bit different from The Producers. The full New York version of that show, which closes April 22, charges $31.25 to $111.25, whereas the Vegas incarnation, which was also sliced down to 90 minutes, asks $75.50 for the cheapest seats, going up to a top price of $143.50.

A friend of mine who saw the Vegas Spamalot in previews raved about it and particularly about John O'Herlihy in the role of Arthur. Unfortunately, my friend wasn't there one night when there was a technical snafu. Reportedly, there was a mechanical problem with one of the sets and it was necessary to stop the show for about twenty minutes to fix it. Eric Idle was there and he grabbed a guitar and went out to entertain the audience while repairs were done. I'll bet those playgoers had a good time that evening.

John McCain says that the press is not giving us an accurate picture of conditions in Iraq. He says that "there are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."

To prove this, he spent a little time today strolling through an open-air market in Baghdad. And apparently, he's right. It is a safe place to walk, just as long as you're accompanied by a hundred armed soldiers, you have three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships nearby, and you're wearing a bulletproof vest.

Do we think this proves anything? About Iraq, I mean. I know it proves something about John McCain. I guess what it proves about Iraq is that we need to commit to staying there forever and sending enough troops and equipment so that anyone who needs to go buy a basket of strawberries is escorted by a hundred armed soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships. Oh — and they'll need that bulletproof vest, too.

I seem to recall that back in the sixties when John Lindsay was Mayor of New York, he decided to try and dispel the "myth" that a person couldn't walk through Central Park at night without getting mugged. So he took a well-publicized stroll through that piece of real estate one evening, accompanied by about half the city's police force and a hundred reporters and camera crews. Amazingly, no one mugged him.

Less clearly, I remember that reports of crime elsewhere in town took a noticeable upswing that evening…which makes sense since all the cops were in the park, making sure no one tried to grab His Honor's billfold. It was also pointed out that the Honorable Mayor Lindsay was something like 6'4" tall and in great physical shape. Even had he been alone, he was not exactly most criminals' first choice when it comes to picking victims.

This was not the main reason that Lindsay's popularity in New York fell to what we now and forever will think of as George W. Bush levels, but it was a factor. Bet John McCain's little charade lowers his esteem a tad…though maybe not with the crowd he now seems to be trying desperately to win over.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both off this week, which is a shame. What either of them could do with that news footage.

It's been a while since we mentioned the DVD release of WKRP in Cincinnati. As you may recall, there was a problem because the original show contained many "needle drops," that being a cute Show Biz term meaning that they played a record. Jaime J. Weinman has been studying this problem and has a report on what has actually been changed for the DVD. The answer is, sadly: "A lot."

Let me toss one caveat in here, which I think I mentioned before: It's very easy to presume that the villainy in this all is that the folks who own the music want "too much" for its inclusion. That may indeed be the case. It may also be the case that the releasing company thinks almost anything over fifty cents is "too much." From the outside, you just don't know. In fact, people who worked on the DVD and are familiar with its finances may even be arguing the point. I've been involved, usually as an interviewee or commentary track person, with more than a dozen DVD releases of old TV shows. In almost every case, I see the people assembling the DVD arguing — sometimes on a friendly basis, sometimes not — over whether they can afford to include certain extras or if the budget can be raised to cover them. Usually, it can't.

This is product and the way you make a profit in this business is to maximize sales and minimize costs. On a lot of these DVD sets, someone is hired to put the thing together — often, happily, someone who cares passionately about the material and about producing a DVD release that has everything included, fully restored and perfect, enhanced with every possible special feature. And then someone else has to make certain they don't spend so much that the project cannot possibly recoup and show a decent return. I don't know anyone who's produced a DVD release of old TV shows who won't, off the record or sometimes on, tell you how frustrating it was that they couldn't afford to do this or that.

Even more frustrating — for them and for us — is that at some levels in some companies, there seems to be a mindset that it's almost preferable to not make the DVD release as fine and complete as possible. By not doing so, you make it more feasible to put out another version of the same material a few years down the road, thereby tempting those who love the material to purchase it again. As I've said here many times, I think the whole premise of Home Video is a sick conspiracy to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger. I'm so looking forward to the Blu-ray release, which I think will make about fifteen, starting with the first Betamax version. That was the first of several that were literally flawed and incomplete from the first second. They cut off the opening note of The James Bond Theme and it wasn't, I think, until the second Laserdisc that it was fixed.

This practice of planning to put out a better version later is annoying above and beyond the monetary penalty that some of us will pay for being devoted fans of something. Not long ago, a home video company issuing cartoon shows on DVD asked for my aid in deciding what to include, how to locate certain missing materials and how to contact certain folks who worked on the shows and should be included in commentary tracks and interviews. I helped with all of this but they later decided not to produce any commentary tracks or interviews. "One of these days," I was told, "we'll do a 'platinum edition' and put in all that stuff." (Beware the term, "platinum edition." It probably denotes a higher-priced release of material you've already purchased…but one that includes something extra that compels you to buy it again. There will also probably not be any platinum in it.)

I pointed out to the folks who'd made this decision that they might consider that several people they might want to interview for the DVD were over eighty years of age. These people might not be available (or as lucid) if interviews are to be conducted a few years down the pike. But we're not going to interview them for the current release because someone thinks the DVD can sell enough without it and wants to save something for another release several years from now. And we're not going to interview them now and bank the material because the cost of that can't be charged to some current budget. So it isn't done…and four years from now, someone at the same home video company is going to call me and ask me a question that starts with the phrase, "Do you know anywhere we can find footage of…?"

I keep mentioning my pal Howie Morris on this site. Howie directed a couple of movies, one of which is out on DVD. There's no commentary track because no one ever had him record one. His other films will be out someday and they won't have director commentaries, either. Nor will many movies and shows he was in, including at least two dozen cartoon series I could name. In the years before we lost him, he was available to do this. If they'd been willing to pay him, as they sometimes are, great. Having been through many a divorce, he could have used the money. But he'd have done it for free, just to do it, just to share the history and anecdotes he knew.

True, "making of" documentaries and commentary tracks may only appeal to a limited section of the audience…but they seem to be cost-effective. In the case of collections of popular TV shows, the extras give fans of the show an extra reason to buy the collections instead of just watching or recording the show off Nick at Nite or purchasing bootlegs. Other alternatives will become more viable in the future so a company seeking to exploit a library in the home video marketplace will have an even greater reason to do special features such as commentary tracks.

Let me put this in simpler terms. I keep getting calls to appear on DVDs and do commentary tracks for releases of shows that I never worked on. I'm asked because I was a big fan of the material and am viewed by some as an expert. That's fine…but the main reason they're asking people like me is because they can't get enough (often, any) interviewees who actually worked on the shows in question and no one thought to record that material when those people were still alive and available. I'd much rather buy a DVD with them on it than one with someone like me. Who wouldn't?

You've probably heard about the tainted pet food that is now making many cats and dogs sick and even killing a tragic number of them. I hope you've been hearing about it because it hasn't gotten as much attention as it might have. One of the many downsides of focusing on tabloid-style stories like the autopsy on Anna Nicole Smith is that it gives shorter shrift to news stories that might actually save lives and prevent disasters and misery. Here's a link to one of many stories you might have missed because the headlines were the latest on Sanjaya Malakar.

Friday afternoon, a friend called in absolute hysterics, thinking she'd killed her beloved dogs by feeding them the unsafe food. At last report, the dogs were still alive but very sick, and the friend had emptied her bank account to pay vet bills. I directed her to this website where the company responsible seems to be willing to reimburse people for such expenses…but even if she does get compensated for that, how can you compensate her for the emotional assault? Very sad.

Then this morning, I awoke to a flurry of voice mail messages from my friend Carolyn. At 3 AM, she'd heard on the radio or read on the Internet — I forget which — that the Purina company has joined the recall ranks. As you may remember, I feed two or more stray cats, a couple of possums and God knows how many raccoons in my backyard and I feed them two different varieties of dry Purina chow. Carolyn hopped on the Internet to determine if Purina has recalled either of those two products. If they had, she was prepared to hop on a bus at that hour and come over here to empty the overnight dish.

It turned out not to be necessary. All Purina has recalled is Alpo® Prime Cuts in Gravy, which is a wet dog food and not something I offer the nightly menagerie. Still, it's a scary thought. Glad we have the Internet to make instant checks on such matters. It conveys a lot of lies and trivia but boy, it sure comes in handy for the facts.

Here's a better video clip with Howard Morris…or at least, it's more like the Howie I knew because he's funny in it. Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner are funny in it, too. This runs a little more than eight minutes but I'll bet it makes you laugh…

Make sure you don't miss Google's new offer.

Here's an interesting article about a lucrative venue for some comedians — playing retirement communities. So that's what happened to Lonnie Schorr.

A profile of "That Announcer Guy," Don La Fontaine. One thing these articles never mention is the amazing number of voiceover actors these days who have strived — some with considerable success — to develop a "Don La Fontaine read," meaning that they get hired by someone who wants something like Don La Fontaine but not Don La Fontaine. Sometimes but not always, there's work for these guys from ad agencies and producers who think that the real thing is too expensive. But often, it's a matter of just not wanting to hire Don because they think he's overexposed.

I don't know what to think of this scandal involving the firing of U.S. Attorneys. Well, I do know something: I know that all the principals are acting like mobsters who don't want to get caught giving their versions of what happened for fear that they'll get hung out to dry when others in the mob settle on their versions. There's either an old saying or there should be that mass lies only work when everyone gets together and lies in unison. That may even apply to situations where the lie isn't covering up a crime but is masking something that was technically legal but really, really slimy.

Wasn't it Michael Kinsley who once said that the real scandal of Washington was not what's illegal but what's legal? I sure get the feeling that each succeeding generation of elected officials in this country gets better and better at doing things that should be illegal but, thanks to loopholes and/or sleazy legislation, isn't.

I miss my dear friend, Howard Morris. You all know Howie was a great comedic performer, most famously when he worked with Sid Caesar on his TV shows or as Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show. You may also know that he was a terrific cartoon voice actor and you may know that he directed TV shows and movies. You may not know (unless you read it on this site) that he directed an awful lot of the McDonald's commercials in the sixties and seventies, and he was also the voice of a couple of characters in McDonaldland.

Here we have a four minute mini-documentary on the making of one of those commercials. Much of it is an interview with Howie who looks a little uncomfortable and unhappy about it. He was usually a funny, natural presence in front of a camera or in my living room. Still, it's nice to see him again, even this way.