Category Archives: Uncategorized

Back in this item, I linked to a Fred Kaplan article about how the Army was cooking the books (sort of) when it reported on its success in recruitment. Fred has now issued this article which corrects, clarifies and amplifies on his earlier piece. If you read the first one, you oughta read this one.

Our pal TV reporter (and late night authority) Aaron Barnhart addresses the question of who's the current King of Late Night. His answer is my answer: No one.

I suspect there's very little chance, as Aaron speculates, of Letterman retiring soon. I also suspect that Craig Ferguson would only get a shot at the time slot if an awful lot of other folks turned it down or proved to be unavailable. But I also can't tell you who the front-runner would be.

I wrote most of what I have to say about Soupy in this article but I want to underline a few points. One is the incredible rapport he had with his viewers. I can't think of a TV star today who had the ability to "connect" with folks at home the way Soupy did on the kids' show he had here in Los Angeles in '61. My friends and I didn't just want to watch him. We wanted to hang out with him and have him as a brother. Some of us even wanted to be him…even if everyone he met did smack him in the puss with a shaving cream pie. He was just the coolest, funniest guy we ever saw, and lines of his still come out of my mouth now and then.

Also impressive was that he built his little show out of practically nothing. The budget was pocket change and they blew it all on shaving cream, anyway. He had one co-star, a couple of puppets and (usually) no writers. Sometimes, for long stretches of his show, he had no script…just energy and sheer ingenuity. There have been TV shows that had a thousand times the money and were a thousandth as entertaining.

At conventions the last few years, Soupy was surrounded by guys my age. It was sad that he was in no shape to really be the old Soupy and respond to our praise and fawning in that spirit. But you could tell that he "got it" and knew how much he meant to so many. May he rest in peace and may there not be too many political cartoons showing St. Peter getting hit with a pie.

This recent article lamented the decline of delis in New Jersey. But as David Sax reminds us, the fine art of delicatessening is thriving in Los Angeles. If one ignores former New Yorkers who are too stubbornly biased to admit that it's possible to get good deli (or good pizza) more than twenty miles from the Empire State Building, you can find perfectly fine deli chow in L.A. (You also have to avoid any establishment with "Jerry's" in its name.)

Canter's is great…and Sax's article makes note of the superb pea soup you can get there on Wednesdays. If you make a lunch date for me on a Wednesday and it isn't one of those rare weeks when Souplantation has its Creamy Tomato Soup, we're going to Canter's. Nate 'n Al's is good, especially during the hours that Larry King is on CNN because then he isn't in the booth next to you, talking so loud that everyone around is forced to watch Larry King Live live.

Mel Brooks, as noted in the article, favors Factor's and Junior's. They're not my first choices but they're good places for when you're in the area. I've been dining at Junior's since I was a junior. My family ate at Junior's when it first opened in another building, two blocks away, in 1959. I do like their mini-latkes which in the article, Mr. Brooks describes thusly: "I don't know what they are but they're deep-fried and you got twenty minutes to live after you eat one. You might as well give it a name. You might as well call it Murray, because it'll be with you for days after you eat it."

Greenblatt's is fine. Art's is fine. The article doesn't mention it but there's a deli called Brent's out in Northridge that's surprisingly good. For sandwiches only, Label's Table over on Pico is great…and better than Factor's, a couple blocks away. I like Langer's down near MacArthur Park but differ with those who swear their pastrami is the best on the planet. Then again, I prefer corned beef to pastrami so maybe my opinion doesn't count for much. (I think the best corned beef sandwich in town is not, oddly enough, served at a deli. It's at Magee's in the Farmers Market at Fairfax and 3rd.)

Don't write me and tell me that New York delis rule, all others suck and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I've eaten in New York delis, including the Stage, the Carnegie and Katz's. They're terrific places…but Canter's is just as good, plus it has the added advantage that you're not likely to run into Jackie Mason.

When I go to delis in Manhattan, I have the unfortunate tendency to run into Mr. Mason and once in the Carnegie, though he was several tables away, I had to suffer through an extended monologue about how it was a foregone conclusion that Bill and Hillary Clinton were heading for prison. There was so much evidence, in fact, that they were already secretly plea-bargaining for reduced sentences. Shortly after that, Hillary became the junior senator from New York, which I guess was part of the plea bargain. On that same trip, a "friend" took me to see Mason's then-current Broadway offering…and I put "friend" in quotes because real friends just don't do things like that to you. I once loved seeing Jackie Mason on stage but that night, his humor was about as sharp as his political reporting.

Mason is going to be in Los Angeles in January for a couple of live shows. I'm thinking of going to Nate 'n Al's during that week, just to see if he's there. It's not that I want to eat with him. What I want to do is to get a booth right between him and Larry King. I'll say, "Hey, guys! Tell me what kind of person Frank Sinatra was," and then I'll get the hell outta there, quick. Because an entire delicatessen will explode.

Greg Ehrbar, who knows absolutely everything about this kind of stuff, tells us about Jimmy Johnson, the unsung hero of Disneyland Records.

Interview with John Cleese. That's all you have to know.

My partner Sergio mailed me something today…and couldn't resist enhancing the stamp.

Regular readers of this site have learned…in some cases, the hard way. When we suggest you do something without delay and it's something you want to do, do it without delay. In that spirit, we are suggesting you hurry up and order your signed copy of Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?, the autobiography of June Foray.

June, seen above with the extremely improbable John Cleese, is the inarguable queen of cartoon voiceovers. You already know that, just as you know how much you've loved her as Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Tweety Bird owner Granny and so many more. She's had an amazing career and with a little help from Earl Kress and myself, she put it all down on paper. You're going to want a copy of this book and you'll feel like a foole (spelled with an "e" on the end, even) if you pass up this chance to get one that she has signed with her very own hand. She comes by my house every week or so to autograph more copies but at some point, she's going to stop doing this.

So don't come whining to me then. Don't write to me and go, "Uh, is there any way I can one signed by June?" You can get one signed by June right now by ordering at this website. If you miss this opportunity, you'll rue it 'til the day you croak.

21 News Caption Mistakes.

If the Washington Post poll is to be believed, 56% of Americans support a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, either getting it from work, buying it on their own, or through eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid. 41% opposes it…but even that number drops by a third when folks who are against it are told that low-income families will receive government subsidies that will help them to afford this insurance that they'd be required to purchase. That's a pretty solid majority of this country that's behind individual mandates.

In other news, Newt Gingrich makes what he calls a "straightforward promise;" that if any of this stuff passes, Republicans will make repealing Health Care Reform a major campaign issue in 2010 and 2012. I can't wait.

Next Monday, The Garfield Show debuts on Cartoon Network in the U.S. of A. This is the all-new series that I've been working on for the last couple of years as a producer, writer and voice director. It began airing some time ago in other countries and did so well that we're already into production on our second season. Cartoon Network begins airing the first season on October 26 and then each episode will run twice a day, Monday through Friday. On my set, the two telecasts are at 7:30 AM and Noon but it'll probably be 10:30 AM and 3 PM where you are. Consult, as they say, your local listings.

The show features Frank Welker as the voice of Garfield, Wally Wingert as Jon, Gregg Berger as Odie and Squeak the Mouse, Jason Marsden as Nermal, Julie Payne as Liz, and Audrey Wasilewski as Arlene. All those folks also speak for other characters, plus they've been joined by a number of guest actors including Laura Summer, Tress MacNeille, Stan Freberg, David L. Lander, Melissa Disney and Susan Silo. The shows were animated by Dargaud Media and Ellipsanime Productions, directed by Philippe Vidal. I tell you all this because unless they've remade the end credits without telling me, they'll be unreadable on your set.

But that's about my only complaint. I was initially leery of CGI animation but as I've come to realize, there's good CGI and bad CGI just like any other kind of animation. I think we got some very good CGI. This guy Vidal really knows how to make cartoons…and that's about all the hard sell I'll give it. Hope you'll catch some of them and I hope you'll enjoy what you catch. On the first episode, you can see what happens when Earth is invaded by people from another planet where everyone looks like a piece of lasagna. And don't think that couldn't happen.

The above is not a photo of Chico, Groucho and Harpo, nor is it a picture of Chico, Frank Ferrante and Harpo. It's actually Chico, Irving Brecher and Harpo. The late Irving Brecher (he died last November at the age of 94) not only wrote two of the Marx Brothers movies but one time when Groucho was ill and publicity pictures had to be taken, they stuck the screenwriter in a Groucho suit and used him in the photos. Brecher also wrote movies that didn't have any Marx Brothers in them — films like Meet Me In St. Louis and Bye Bye, Birdie and he even did a dialogue punch-up on The Wizard of Oz. He created the TV series, The People's Choice and the radio and TV series, The Life of Riley. He worked with all the great comedians but especially Milton Berle. And he was a very funny, clever man.

I have just read his newly (posthumously) published autobiography, The Wicked Wit of the West, which is aptly subtitled, "The last great Golden-Age screenwriter shares the hilarity and heartaches of working with Groucho, Garland, Gleason, Burns, Berle, Benny and many more." I dunno if he's genuinely the last but he did fraternize with all those folks and boy, has he got stories to tell. Some of them, I even believe — stories of how Berle discovered him. It happened when Brecher put a little classified ad in Variety offering to sell "Positively Berle-proof gags. So bad that not even Milton will steal them." Berle just had to hire a guy who'd advertise like that…and from there on, Brecher just kept getting more and more work until he was one of the leading comedy writers of his day.

You can see why since the book oozes humor…and Brecher's memory is pretty good, though a few tales feel invented to me and there are odd factual lapses. For instance, he keeps insisting that Ernie Kovacs was killed in a car accident on his way home from a New Year's Eve party. That had to have been some party because Kovacs died on January 13, 1962. But if you can get past lapses of that sort, you'll find the book hilarious and regret you didn't know its author. I met him briefly on a few occasions and it sure made me wish those occasions hadn't been so few and far between. Here's an Amazon link to order.

As we've explained here before, the key to Jay Leno's continuance on the air rests with the key affiliates. Their post-primetime newscasts (11 PM in most markets) are a key profit center. The reason that Conan and Dave start at 11:35 instead of 11:30 is to allow these shows to squeeze in another lucrative commercial break.

This article suggests that some NBC affiliates are pretty darned unhappy with the numbers Jay is delivering; that his lead-in is so weak that it's costing them a lot of bucks. The thinking was always that they'd wait to see how new Jay shows would fare against the CSI reruns before they made any changes…but then the thinking was always that Jay wouldn't lose by as wide a margin as is presently the case. It's looking like the network may not be able to keep affiliates on the reservation until such time as the competition is in reruns.

From 1919: A newspaper profile of the handsomest of all leading men…Ben Turpin.

Later today (Monday), Michael Chabon is a guest on Tavis Smiley's show and Last Call With Carson Daly is rerunning an episode with Stan Lee.