Category Archives: Uncategorized

This coming Wednesday, I'll be back on Shokus Internet Radio along with my friend, Earl Kress, to discuss great cartoons of the past. We once again will be the live guests on Stu's Show, hosted by the vivacious Stuart Shostak. We'll be taking your calls, answering questions, talking animation…fun stuff like that. It all happens for two hours commencing at 4 PM Left Coast Time, and make a note because I'll only be reminding you thirty or forty times between now and then. You can listen up via this here website.

Hey, this might interest someone. If you have a Series 2 or 3 TiVo and it's hooked up to an Internet connection and you have a V.I.P. account with Live365 radio, you can listen to us (or anything on Shokus Internet Radio) through your TV. I've actually done this. The V.I.P. account costs six bucks a month and allows you to listen to hundreds of different stations with the best audio quality and without waiting. Once you have one, you need to add Shokus Internet Radio to your presets and then go to your TiVo's Live365 page (it's under "Music, Photos & More") and log in to your Live365 account there. Once you do, Stu's channel will come streaming through your TV speakers. Try it if you don't believe me. Only then will you learn the folly of not believing me.

An actress friend of mine once described to me a nightmare that sounded very much like what you'll see in this short (four minute) clip. It's from some TV show and there's a singer — I don't know her name — singing one of Stephen Sondheim's most famous songs…with Stephen Sondheim sitting there to critique and correct her. It's fascinating to hear his comments…which do not include the fact that this singer, though obviously quite talented, is way too young to be singing this particular tune at all.

Quite a few people sent me e-mails on the topic of why they don't like Google or why someone else might not like Google. This message from Nat Gertler covers most of the points made by others…

Google censors search results in China at the behest of their government.

Google infringes heavily on copyrights, in projects like their digitization of libraries and on their video sites (Google Video and now YouTube). They're facing lawsuits from publishers and film and TV companies over that.

Until a recently-announced policy change, they kept track of your searches and other actions forever, which is of great concern to privacy advocates. On the other end of things, they were reluctant to share information about searches with the government for the feds to build their case defending some Internet porn legislation (which recently got defeated in court.)

I imagine that someone who is actually anti-Google will have a longer list of concerns. I'm generally pro-Google, although I do think they are sadly cavalier with other people's copyrights.

No idea on Johnson & Johnson.

Okay, those are pretty good reasons. And a few other folks suggested bad experiences when the Google Toolbar or Desktop was installed on their computers by some piece of software and wasn't easy to remove. I guess that could all lead to 6% of the population having a negative view of Google.

In the case of Johnson & Johnson, no one had any suggestions but I thought of one. They're a drug company. I thought everyone thought of them as a company that made band-aids and baby shampoo but it's not unreasonable to think that some amount of people are aware that they make pharmaceuticals, including some pretty expensive ones.

My doctor had me on one of them last year for a few months. He gave me four weeks' worth in free samples and wrote me a prescription to get filled when the freebees ran out. When I took it in, I found out that it was not covered by my health insurance and that another month of it would have been $400. It was something like six and a half bucks a pill and I needed two a day. I told my pharmacist not to bother filling it, then I wrote an e-mail to my doctor and he said, "Come on by and I'll give you more samples." I hadn't recalled that the medicine was made by Johnson & Johnson but when I just now looked them up on the web and saw they made it, I could see why some people might have a negative view of the company. I know I think a little less of them now that I've made that connection.

Kevin Drum, who invented Friday Cat Blogging, isn't doing any today so I will. This is The Stranger Cat, who has been feeding at my back door for many months now. Actually, there are two Stranger Cats. There's the Stranger Cat you see above, who is not shy about sitting on the porch and howling 'til fed. Then there's the stranger Stranger Cat, who asks for nothing and rarely comes near a human. They're probably related but I wouldn't presume to guess how.

The Stranger Cat demands food, eats a little of whatever is put in the dish and then wanders off. During all this, the stranger Stranger Cat is either lurking in a far corner of the yard or peeking through a hole in the fence from the adjoining property. When the Stranger Cat finishes dining, the stranger Stranger Cat sneaks up and helps herself to whatever's left. Should anyone approach, the stranger Stranger Cat stops eating and sprints out of the yard…except that once, I was actually able to go out and pet both. I don't know what made that possible that one day. Anyway, they have a nice tag-team arrangement worked out there. Sometimes, I even see the Stranger Cat standing watch as the stranger Stranger Cat eats.

We also have a couple of Stranger Possums out there and the occasional Stranger Raccoon. There are also a lot of huge Stranger Crows in my yard lately. I still seem to be the only person worrying that the crows in this area are now the size of Toyotas. Someone needs to look into this.

Yesterday, we linked to a piece about Jack Hanrahan, an Emmy-winning comedy writer who's been living on the streets of Cleveland. Here's a link to an update which tells us that his plight has brought forth many offers of assistance. And I know some folks in Hollywood are doing much to help, as well.

We're always wary of polls here, especially when they seem to confirm that which we'd like to believe is so. This new one from the Pew Research Center — which I assume never took a survey to determine if that was a good name for a polling service — is therefore to be taken with great caution. Others can analyze its findings in a lot more depth but the bottom line is that the Bush/Cheney/Rove policies are driving voters away from the G.O.P. and also from traditional G.O.P. positions. This does not seem to be a case of Democrats doing anything right but of Republicans scaring people away.

One thing that caught my eye was this item…

The public expresses highly favorable views of many leading corporations. Johnson & Johnson and Google have the most positive images of 23 corporations tested. At the bottom of the list: Halliburton, which is viewed favorably by fewer than half of those familiar enough with the company to give it a rating.

How could anyone have a bad image of Johnson & Johnson or Google? I mean, let's leave aside someone who might have worked for one of those companies and been routinely flogged and caned while there. If you're part of the general public, what could possibly bother you about either firm? All you probably know about Johnson & Johnson is that they make band-aids and baby shampoo. Google is for most people, nothing more than a free search engine that gets you where you want to go on the Internet. Where are the negatives in any of that? How did those companies get even a 5-6% unfavorable rating, which is what the survey says?

I can understand people having problems with McDonald's or Coca-Cola, feeling that the companies are too pushy in selling unhealthy products. I can understand people having bad feelings about any of the airlines mentioned due to bad flights. I can see being down on Pfizer because it's a drug company and there have been some charges of it paying off government officials to keep drug prices high…and the low ratings for Exxon/Mobil or Halliburton are easy to fathom. A lot of people probably hate Starbucks just because they're so hard to avoid.

But what's the complaint that 6% of respondents have about Google? What exactly has that company done to bother anyone?

Steve Winer, who among his other accomplishments used to write for David Letterman, shares with us the story of Calvert DeForest's unlikely leap to stardom…

As one of the two writers responsible for the film, King of the Z's, I thought you might like a little background on Calvert's rise to fame. All the obits that I've seen seem to suggest that David saw the film and then sent staffers out to find Calvert. Not quite. The film Karl Tiedemann and I made was a parody documentary about the world's cheapest movie studio of the 40's and 50's. We cast Calvert as one of the major players in the fake film clips from that studio. David and Merrill Markoe saw the film and became intersted in us as writers. During our interview with them, Merrill said "We're looking for someone like that little guy in your movie for our show," and I said, "You're not looking for someone like that guy. You're looking for that guy." We were ultimately hired for the show and brought him with us. (The Melman name was Merrill's, as was the Frankenstein bit that opened the first show).

Calvert was a very sweet man who always wanted to be a star and through this somewhat unusual crossing of personalities, became one. I have many great memories of Calvert and "Melman," but the one that comes to mind first is the night Bob Hope and Calvert were on the same show. Calvert was star struck and went up to Hope to compliment him. Hope, who had watched Calvert work from backstage, told Calvert that he thought he was very funny too. And as I watched Bob Hope compliment Calvert DeForest, I remember thinking: "Only in America!"

I'm going to miss him.

We already miss him. A lot of people have written to tell me of encounters with Calvert and how sweet he was to them. I only had two encounters with the guy, one a brief meeting up in Letterman's NBC offices. He was trying to make small talk with the office staff and I remember thinking, "My God…this man really can't ad-lib." Couldn't even say anything bright standing in the reception area. But that was okay because he had some sort of odd quality in front of the camera that made him fascinating to watch, even if he was just cluelessly reading cue cards.

I have to admit I've never been a big fan of humor (or attempts at humor) that come from putting the stagehands in sketches or counting on the utter lack of professionalism on the part of the deli owner around the corner. With occasional exceptions, I don't find these bits funny. I think they're often a substitute for actual writing…and maybe a way of protecting the host, preventing him from having to compete with someone who might upstage him a tiny bit. But Larry "Bud" Melman was a usual exception. He was genuinely funny and not just because he was awkward and inept. When they did bits like "Ask Mr. Melman," Dave's writers knew how to write for the guy and give him lines that worked when they were read right and worked even better when read wrong. The point of the bit wasn't just his clumsy delivery.

And hey, some people said that all Bob Hope did his last twenty years in show business was to read cue cards badly…

I think this is from Caesar's Hour, the series Sid Caesar starred in after Your Show of Shows. It's a pantomime sketch with Sid and Nanette Fabray miming "Argument to Beethoven's 5th." It runs about six minutes and it's a very nice piece of material.

The post office is joining forces with the Star Wars franchise. This will not change anything as far as I'm concerned because my mail is already delivered by a Wookie.

Is an expansion of Disneyland in the works? I certainly hope so. The Santa Ana Freeway isn't quite crowded enough.

I can't recall the last time I watched it…but I'm still saddened by the decision of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to discontinue the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade, a holiday tradition since 1928. Generally referred to as "The Santa Claus Lane Parade," it caused no end of traffic nightmares as floats and stars (including some you actually had heard of) marched down Hollywood Boulevard and sometimes portions of Sunset on, usually, the day after Thanksgiving. Here's an article about the decision and there's also some video and a photo gallery.

As a kid, I used to watch it every year. A local TV host named Bill Welsh often covered it live, running out to every passing car that contained a celebrity for a quick chat. I remember one year when Walter Matthau was riding in the event to promote his then-current film, Cactus Flower. Matthau had a little blooming cactus plant as a prop and I think he'd decided to see if he could set some sort of world record for the longest, most shameless plug in television history. He made his driver stop in front of the TV cameras and Matthau began relentlessly selling the film into Welsh's microphone, talking about how funny it was and how great it was to work with Goldie Hawn and how everyone had to go see it. The whole parade just came to a total halt and Welsh stood there with nothing to report on…nothing he could do but let Matthau go on and on, which he did, until a sheriff on horseback came by and ordered the driver to move it. If he hadn't, Bill Welsh and Walter Matthau would have remained on that stretch of Hollywood Boulevard until long after Cactus Flower had come and gone.

Oh, well. At least now if I have to go anywhere near Hollywood on the day after Thanksgiving, I may be able to get there.

I'm of the opinion that when people talk about the great comic talents of the previous century, they don't make nearly enough mention of Marty Feldman. We swoon over the madness that was Monty Python but the Feldman shows I've seen — sadly, not all or even most — often seem as clever and funny as anything the Python boys did. Don't go by that disappointing Beau Geste parody movie he made. See if you can find some of his British shows…and if so, let me know so I can get copies.

For now, I'll call your attention to a half-hour radio documentary that aired this morning on the BBC and which can still be heard online. In it, Gene Wilder narrates and other friends and co-workers remember the man with the unusual eyes. Here's the link and I don't think it'll be active forever so don't delay.

Feldman was a wonderful talent and, going by the one time I met him, a very nice man. I still haven't quite forgiven Sergio Aragonés for killing him.

More Spike Jones. This is his version of Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" and he does a xylophone solo in there — complete with more cowbell — that reminds you what a good musician he was. One of the reasons his strange kind of music worked so well was that the guy really knew what he was doing. Here we go…

Once upon a time — to coin a phrase — Jack Hanrahan was one half of the hottest comedy-writing team in Hollywood. I knew the names of Phil Hahn and Jack Hanrahan from MAD Magazine and I believe before that, they were among the top writers of humorous greeting cards for Hallmark. They went from MAD to very successful careers writing for TV shows including Get Smart, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Sonny and Cher and many others. They also wrote a lot of animation, including the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon show, Birdman, The Banana Splits and whatever else Hanna-Barbera was producing around then. On his own, after he and Phil went their separate ways, Jack later wrote Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, Beverly Hills Teens and dozens of other shows.

I knew Jack casually in the eighties. He was a lovely, funny man who told great stories about show business. There are some comedy writers who are among the unfunniest human beings on the planet and others who are as entertaining and flamboyant as anyone who performs their material. Jack was solidly in the latter category…and he even did occasional acting roles. A friend of mine once produced a quickie VHS tape called Video Psychiatrist, which consisted of an hour of a well-dressed man in an office welcoming you and asking you to sit down and tell him your problems. That was how it opened but the bulk of the tape was him sitting there going, "Uh-huh…well, how do you feel about that?" Jack played the psychiatrist. He was also in a movie called Up Your Alley in which he played an eccentric homeless guy.

In a tragic case of life imitating art, Jack Hanrahan is now an eccentric homeless guy. Several of you, starting with Tony Isabella, sent me this link to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. [Warning: The site may ask you for some harmless personal data.] [Second Warning: This article is very depressing.] Jack came from Cleveland and now he's returned there to live on its streets. He is sick. He is penniless. He is in a very bad way.

Among other things, the article notes that Jack's Emmy Award is in hock. Let me tell you how Jack got that Emmy. It was for the 1967-1968 season of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The writing staff that year consisted of Chris Beard, Phil Hahn, Jack Hanrahan, Coslough Johnson, Paul Keyes, Marc London, Allan Manings, David Panich, Hugh Wedlock and Digby Wolfe. Back then on the Emmy Awards telecast, all the names of nominees had to be read aloud and there were several separate nominations for the Laugh-In staff, which was essentially competing with itself for the trophy. So some presenter had to read that list several times and they stuck Don Rickles with the job of presenting, figuring he'd get rightly pissed-off and therefore funny.

Rickles was all that and every time he came to Jack Hanrahan's name, he stumbled over it, pronouncing it something like, "Harrahannahan." When the writers won, it seemed like half the audience went up to accept. Jack walked directly to the microphone and he was the first of the winners to speak. He said, "The name's Hanrahan, dummy!"

He got one of the biggest laughs I've ever heard on an award show. How does a guy like that wind up homeless?

If you have one and if your cable company or satellite dish gets the Boomerang channel, you might want to grab a season pass for Late Night Black & White, which used to be a treasure of Cartoon Network. Now it's on Boomerang every Saturday and Sunday night at 11 PM on my set. I'm sure these are reruns of the same episodes but, hey…it's a rare chance to see vintage WB and MGM cartoons that probably won't be turning up on DVD soon.

This coming Saturday night, they're running three "Captain and the Kids" cartoons, including one directed by Bill Hanna, sans Barbera. On Sunday night, we get three great WB black-and-white classics including We're in the Money, built around the Harry Warren tune. This is followed by two Goopy Geer shorts. You don't see a lot of Goopy Geer on TV these days so you have to take him wherever you can get him. He was an early, unsuccessful attempt by the Harman-Ising company (they produced the early Warner Brothers cartoons) to create a big cartoon star to rival Mr. Disney's mouse.

Cameo appearances aside, Goopy only starred in three cartoons so here's your chance to see two-thirds of the canon. Perhaps you'll be able to figure out why he never caught on…apart from the obvious fact that his name was Goopy Geer. If your name was Goopy Geer, no one would have heard of you, either.