Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the twenty-or-so political blogs I visit on a regular basis is Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Very smart guy, that Joshua Micah. And today, he has up this post that I think is right on target. I'm going to quote two paragraphs…

So much of the imbalance and shallowness of press coverage today stems from a simple fact: reporters know they'll catch hell from the right if they say or write anything that can even remotely be construed as representing 'liberal bias'. (Often even that's not required.) Indeed, when you actually watch — from the inside — how mainstream newsrooms work, it is really not too much to say that they operate on two guiding principles: reporting the facts and avoiding impressions of 'liberal bias'.

On the left or center-left, until very recently, there's simply never been an organized chorus of people ready to take the Howells of the press biz to task and mau-mau them when they get a key fact wrong. Without that, the world of political news was like an NBA game where one side played the refs hard and had roaring seats of fans while the other never made a peep. With that sort of structural imbalance, shoddy scorekeeping and cowed, and eventually compliant, refs are inevitable.

Like many of our problems today, we may have Richard Nixon to thank for this. He and his aides responded to every negative news story, not by dealing with the substance of the item, but by attacking the motives and integrity of those reporting it. I believe history has shown that most of those reports were accurate — remember Spiro Agnew denouncing reports of his legal problems as "a hoax by The Washington Post?" — and that when they weren't, it was more likely a matter of reporter error, as opposed to deliberate fabrication.

These days, I think reporters know that if they write a story with any kind of significant political impact, the injured side is going to attack them for bias…and they may even get attacked by the non-injured side for not making the story stronger. So what they do is to decide which side they're more afraid of offending and lately, that's been the right-wing. Which is why much more fuss was made about Clinton maybe breaking the law by fudging his answers in a deposition about sex than we now see about Bush maybe breaking the law by authorizing spying that violates the Fourth Amendment. (Also, of course, sex stories are more fun.)

I wonder how many people these days have a source of news they respect even when it tells them what they don't want to hear. I have a friend who follows baseball but never believes his team loses fair and square. They can lose 10-0 but he'll always find some way to claim the idiot umpires made a bad call or that the winning pitcher was hurling spitters or something. There seem to be a lot of such people around so it's fortunate the umps don't seem to modify how they call a game based on who's calling them names. Wish the news business worked like that.

Molly Ivins explains why she cannot support Hillary Clinton for president. I believe Senator Clinton is a lady who has been badly wronged by lies and false accusations, and I believe the Hillary who is hated by many in the right wing is their own fantasy creation, not the real person. However, I also am not enthused about seeing her run for the White House, for most of the same reasons cited by Ms. Ivins.

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Earl Kress and I attended another luncheon staged by the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters to honor a veteran of the industry. This time, the honoree was Bill Dana, who is probably best known to everyone for his role as Jose Jiminez, the famous Hispanic played by a man of Jewish and Hungarian ancestry. Most of the talk, however, was about Bill's extensive career as a writer and producer of comedy, much of it non-Jose. On the dais were Jayne Meadows, Gary Owens, Betty White, Tom Poston, Howard Storm, Jack Riley, Hal Kanter and Shelley Berman. Shelley Berman is still one of the funniest, crankiest human beings to ever appear before a microphone.

The luncheon was emceed by the great announcer John Harlan, and began with a video montage of Dana's TV appearances. There were several clips of Jose that prompted an observation by Earl and me and, I suspect, others in the room. It's that Andy Kaufman's "foreign man" character (aka Latka Gravas) was an awful lot like Jose Jiminez with an unreal accent. There was also a very funny clip from the 1963-1965 sitcom, The Bill Dana Show, which co-starred the late Don Adams. Dana wrote most of Don's early comedy material, including many of the catch phrases and stock jokes that later became a part of Get Smart.

Funniest moment of the afternoon: Bill's colleague from many a Steve Allen Show, Tom Poston, was introduced. He got up and said, "They asked me to be here today to say something nice about Bill Dana." And that was it for Mr. Poston's speech. He sat down and never said another thing for the remainder of the event. Later, when Dana was thanking everyone, he finished the joke. He went down the dais talking about each guest but made a point of skipping Poston.

Most touching moment of the afternoon: Jayne Meadows talking about how much her late hubby loved Bill and how crucial Dana's contribution was to Steve's work. She mentioned that Bill had written the best joke ever for Steve's Question Man character. (The Question Man later morphed, without permission, into Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent.) But Jayne was afraid she'd botch up the telling so she left it to Bill to quote the line. The answer was "chicken teriyaki." The question was "Name the world's oldest kamikaze pilot."

Bill Dana has not been in the spotlight much lately. One speaker said that they'd made a movie about the last twenty years of his life: Without a Trace. So it was nice to have this luncheon and remember what a funny, creative man he was and still is. Also, they served poached salmon and it was pretty good.

Norm McCabe has passed away at the age of 94. McCabe was born in Great Britain but raised in America. In the mid-thirties, he became one of the most respected animators at the Warner Brothers cartoon studio. In 1941, when director Tex Avery left the studio and moved to M.G.M., that left an opening for a new director and McCabe — who had previously co-directed some cartoons with Bob Clampett — got the job.

The cartoons McCabe directed are all professional but not as funny as those made by his peers. Many of them were "wartime" films such as The Ducktator and Tokio Jokio that dated quickly and so were not re-released or (later) given much TV airplay. In any case, McCabe's time as a director was limited. In 1943, he went into the military and when he returned to civilian life, he moved into commercial work and the production of educational films. In the sixties, he drifted back to his old line of work to animate for Filmation, DePatie-Freleng, WB and other studios. He was one of the animators on the 1972 movie, Fritz the Cat.

In 2000, ASIFA presented him with the Winsor McCay Award. He also received the Golden Award from the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists in recognition of fifty years in the animation field.

Obviously, it is not a huge shock that a 94 year old man should leave us. But Norm McCabe was the last living director from the "golden age" of Warner Brothers animation and one of the few animators from that period who was still around. So along with condolences to his friends and families, we also have condolences to ourselves. We've just about the lost The Greatest Generation of cartoon creators.

The Miss America pageant — booted off network TV and out of Atlantic City — is being telecast tomorrow on the CMT cable channel. It'll be coming to us from the Aladdin Hotel in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The gent in charge of the pageant recently told a newspaper, "We have asked them [the contestants] to respect the values of Miss America and not to be seen gambling."

Got that? It's against the values of Miss America to be seen gambling. But it's not against the values of the pageant operators to hold the event in a casino located in a town built on gambling. One might well assume that the Aladdin gave them a good deal because it was thought that the pageant would promote the Aladdin and lure people to come in and gamble.

(Yeah, I know they have gambling in Atlantic City. But the town isn't only about that, and the Miss America festivities were held at the convention center, some distance from the slot machines. At the Aladdin, they'll never be far from Video Poker.)

So if gambling is contrary to the values of Miss America, why surround yourself with it and promote it? And how come the ladies are only being asked to not be seen gambling? Why aren't they being asked to not gamble? Could it be that the values of Miss America are only about appearance and not about what you actually do?

Naw. Couldn't be that.

Yes, I know: I'm mentioned today in the Cecil Adams Straight Dope column.

In a day or three, I'll be posting the list of panels I'll be hosting at the WonderCon in San Francisco, which takes place February 10 through 12. WonderCon is a great convention. It's run by the same expert folks who bring you the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego…but WonderCon is smaller, more intimate, more manageable and in many ways, more fun. I don't go to a lot of conventions these days. I've been to too many and experienced too much déjà vu. But I try not to miss WonderCon and you shouldn't, either.

If you're going to be in S.F. for it, you might be interested to know that the annual Chinese New Year's Parade is that Saturday night and its route takes it not far from where the convention is being held. This could be good or bad news. It could be good because it's a colorful, fun event and you might want to hike over to the parade route and enjoy the festivities. On the other hand…well, last year it coincided with Wondercon also and a batch of us tried to go to Chinatown for dinner that night. You have no idea how delightful it is to try to get a cab in San Francisco right after the parade, especially when it's pouring rain and the police have half the streets blocked-off.

Also: We'll be doing our famous Quick Draw! game at the WonderCon with Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and other fine cartoonists. But we'll also be doing a different version of it in Santa Cruz on the evening of February 9. Joe Ferrara, who runs the Atlantis Fantasyworld comic shop in that fine city is celebrating his 30th year in business so Sergio, Scott and I will be doing it there as well, along with Batton Lash, who draws the acclaimed Supernatural Law comic, and Bill Morrison, who's responsible for the comic books of The Simpsons. If you're interested in attending, here's the info.

A little while ago here, we discussed rumors that the famous hot dog stand, Tail o' the Pup, would either be moved or demolished. Here's the latest. (Thanks to David Feldman for the link.)

Michael Kinsley on why you can never believe anything a lawyer says. Especially when he's up for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Paul Krugman explains a little about why the new prescription drug plan is such an unmitigated disaster for everyone except the big drug companies. And I'd be very interested to see if anyone in the government or punditry steps forward to seriously deny it isn't. So far, all the defenses I've seen have been a lot of furious tap-dancing and attempts to change the subject.

Obits in the L.A. Times for Dennis Marks and Eldon Dedini.

Four of these really exist on the Internet. One is something we made up and as far as we know, it doesn't exist on the Internet. Your job? Spot the phony. As always, get it in one and you'll be the recipient of whatever fabulous prize you choose to purchase and bestow upon yourself. I'm thinking a new car would make it very exciting…

• SwizzleDD's Swizzle Stick Collection – There's a woman who collects swizzle sticks and she has a collection of more than 50,000 of them.
• Jeff Kaminski's Hydrant Collection – Jeff Kaminski doesn't have anywhere near as many photos of fire hydrants as SwizzleDD has swizzle sticks. But he's sure got a lot of them.
• Billbo's Major League Tetherballing – Remember playing tetherball on the playground when you were a kid? Well, "Billbo" (whoever he is) thinks it should be recognized as the national sport.
• Beedogs – You know what your dog needs? It needs a bee costume. If you love your dog, you'll dress it like a bee.
• Dogs in Cars – Here's a gallery of pictures of dogs in cars and other motor vehicles. I haven't looked through all of them but unfortunately, it would appear none of them are in bee costumes.

The sites that are real but sound like they aren't were suggested by Bill Stiteler, Tony Isabella and Joel O'Brien. Send us more addresses of those way-out and wacky World Wide Weird webpages!

Above is a ticket to attend the filming of one of the first episodes of the TV show, Our Miss Brooks. It was a fine show and it's the fiftieth entry in our sister website, Old TV Tickets. Every day or so, we add a new ticket for an old show and tell you all about it. After you get through here, go take a look.

Once upon a time, if you were utterly incompetent at your job…if you made mistakes that cost people their homes and even their lives, you got fired. But this is George W. Bush's America where the only sin is to speak against the Bush administration. Screw up but remain loyal and you can get a medal or a promotion or a no-bid contract…

…or you can even become a Keynote Speaker and a consultant in the area you couldn't handle.

We now have an Amazon link to pre-order The Laurel & Hardy Giftset which, as explained here, is a new DVD collection of three of the later films of my all-time favorite performers, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The movies are Great Guns, Jitterbugs and The Big Noise, all of which were made for Twentieth-Century Fox in the forties, all of which represent them at their not-best. Still, the not-best of Laurel and Hardy was a lot better than the best of many other entertainers.

Having said these films are inferior, I am laying myself open to several angry e-mails from Laurel and Hardy buffs who not only like these films but who react to negatives the way you'd react to someone saying your momma was funny-looking and stupid. I disagree with these folks but in a way, I envy them: They have more Laurel and Hardy movies to enjoy without reservation. There are moments in all three (though fewer of them in The Big Noise) that I can savor. Most of all though, I find myself fascinated that two comic geniuses could take such a tumble merely because they stopped making movies at a studio over on Washington Boulevard and began filming for one over on Pico. We like to believe that it's the talent that matters, not the employer, but we're all aware that the employer can shackle or misassign the talent so as to handicap it.

A lot of things went wrong with Laurel and Hardy movies after The Boys left Hal Roach studios, starting with the fact that they didn't have as fine a support team, either in terms of supporting actors or writers, nor did Stan have as much control of scripts as he'd had at Roach. But also, there is something wrong with Stan and Ollie in the films, and it isn't just that they were getting too old for slapstick. Their timing, always so superb in earlier films, is just a beat off throughout their films for Fox (and the two they made later for MGM). Even the good jokes have a heavy-handedness that diminishes them. Both men — but Hardy, especially — always had this perfect sense of scale. Every reaction, every gesture was perfectly modulated for the camera, being just broad enough without being too broad. They — and again, Hardy especially — invented a kind of character comedy on film, perfecting it in the early sound era. When everyone else was scurrying to figure out how to replace wordless pantomime with wordy banter, Laurel and Hardy found the perfect balance almost from Day One. And left it behind when they abandoned the Roach lot.

It's not surprising. No great comedian has ever gone out on top. Charlie Chaplin's last films were embarrassments. Harold Lloyd's were disappointments. The Marx Brothers went Love Happy. And after talkies came in — and not because of sound — Buster Keaton made one movie after another that seemed calculated to make us forget what everyone once loved about Buster Keaton. Only W.C. Fields didn't despoil his exit from the screen with a lot of unworthy efforts but that was probably because he had the good fortune to die when he did. If he'd lived another ten years, we would have had some really lousy W.C. Fields movies.

The three movies on this new Laurel and Hardy set are not really lousy, except maybe in comparison to their previous efforts. The Boys fit the classic definition of the True Movie Star, which is someone you want to watch even when they're in a bad film…and like I said, there are moments in all of these. I'm glad they're finally being released on DVD in what promises to be a first-class presentation of prints and extras. I just wish I could watch them without thinking, "Gee, that scene reminds me of the really good version they did ten years earlier."