Category Archives: Uncategorized

They're renaming the Martin Beck Theater in New York.  As reported here, it will be renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theater next June on Mr. Hirschfeld's 100th birthday.  You'd think they'd change the marquee now just in case the man doesn't make 100 but in any case, it's a well-deserved honor.  I just hope someone has the wit to hide little "NINAs" all over the building.

All the news: on the condition of DC Comics editor-writer Denny O'Neil is encouraging.  We're especially happy about this because Denny is one of the good guys.

That production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum I keep raving about was raved about, or at least liked a lot, in this review in the Los Angeles Times.

I spent the last few days running around to meetings, putting the finishing touches on Mad Art (a book coming your way shortly from Watson-Guptill), lunching with Stan Lee (he says hi back), prepping my speech for tomorrow's luncheon in honor of June Foray and, most of all, setting up my new computer.  It's a Pentium-4 with 512 Meg RDRAM, two 120 gig harddisks, a DVD-Rom drive, a 40X CD-RW, a 250 mb Zip drive, an automatic ice maker, a built-in toaster oven, a set of wind chimes, five golden rings, four calling birds…

Okay, I'm lying about those last few.  But it's a helluva computer and I would like to again plug/recommend Bill Goldstein to anyone in the L.A. area who's in the market for anything that computes.  I couldn't have asked for wiser or better service.  You can visit his website at www.wdgoldstein.com.  Even if you don't buy anything there, he has a good repository of virus removal tools, as well as a terrific on-line video of a segment he did for the local news.  It's about how people donate old computers to charity or sell them, thinking wrongly they've purged the hard drive of personal info.  Bill and a reporter went to a thrift store, picked out some donated computers and Bill was able to restore the donor's files…including credit card numbers, personal data and probably a lot of downloaded porn.  A good, cautionary tale.

Things will be back to normal here as soon as things are back to normal here, if you know what I mean.  Our web counter will be topping a quarter of a million hits any day now and we'll celebrate by putting up a few new (old) columns.  Or something.

New computer's running great.  So far, I like Windows XP.  Reinstalling all your software is like buying DVDs of movies you already bought on VHS.  Go read Michael Kinsley's latest column.  Having lunch today with Stan Lee.  I'll tell him you said hello.  Gotta run.

So I'm taking delivery in about a half-hour of a new, faster computer.  This will mean many arduous-but-almost-fun hours of reinstalling software and moving things around…and not many postings here.  Bye now.  Back soon.  Busy now.  Back soon.

Travelers to Vegas should beware a growing trend.  Used to be, the hotels and casinos paid big bucks to the best acts and shows to perform in their showrooms…but no more.  Now, it increasingly works the other way around.  In what some call "play for pay" deals, the hotels rent out their showrooms to producers or acts who pay for the space.  There are variations on the deals but, in most cases, the hotel demands a certain weekly fee as an advance against a percentage of the door.  The hotel also can "comp" a certain number of guests to see the show free or on tickets that cost the hotel very little.

How did this change come about?  Two things seem to have happened at the same time.  Some of the larger hotels began to notice a disconnect between their showroom attendance and the amount of gambling in the casino.  Used to be, you had to have Sinatra or Sammy or even Buddy performing to lure people in to bet.  Lately, that isn't as important as it used to be.  Caesars Palace tore down its showroom a few years ago and they've been taking their time building a new one.

At the same time, you've had a couple big success stories like Danny Gans.  Gans is an impressionist, largely unknown outside Vegas, who now appears at the Mirage.  His show costs close-to-nothing to produce: It's just him and a nine-piece band.  Six nights a week, he fills the 1,260 seat showroom at $80-$100 a seat.  (There are scalpers getting more than twice that.)  It's not public knowledge how that wad is divided up between Gans and the hotel but obviously, someone's making a hell of a lot of money.  Other acts and producers, itching for a chance to replicate such profits, are therefore willing to scrape together the investment to get into some other hotel's showroom…and they're doing it.

What does this mean to you, the consumer?  A lot of reportedly-crummy, low-budget shows have recently popped up in town, sometimes in prestigious hotels.  These pay-for-play shows are usually under-advertised and often close abruptly, with no notice.  A friend of mine e-mails me that he recently showed up for the late performance of a show and was told that after the early show, the producers had decided to fold their tent, effective immediately.  It took a few days after that for the show's name to be removed from the hotel marquee and some of its few billboards are still around.

Once, you rarely saw a bad show in Vegas.  The hotels pumped cash into them just so you wouldn't feel burned and leave with a negative feeling about the casino.  Now, they don't worry about such things…so we have to.

Here's an interesting news flash from Army Archerd's column…

News also gleaned from the Norman Lear birthday dinner: Carl Reiner will reunite Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke in a half-hour sitcom — with their characters from the Reiner-created "Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961-66, CBS) to be shown as they are today. Meanwhile, Reiner reprises his role in a cartoon version of "Dick Van Dyke" taping Oct. 3, with Van Dyke, Rose Marie guesting on the pilot.

I'm not sure what I think of these ideas but I certainly intend to find out.

One of my favorite people on this planet (assuming he is on this planet) is Mike Peters, the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist and creator of the comic strip, Mother Goose and Grimm.  You can see his work in both venues over at www.grimmy.com and you can read a good interview with Mike over at the lair of AstroNerdBoy.  Click right here to go there and pay special attention to his advice to those who want to be syndicated.

New evidence in l'affaire Sitka favors the argument that Emil was about to become the third Stooge in 1972 and again in 1975.  Leonard Maltin wrote in his book, Movie Comedy Teams, that Sitka was originally tapped for the project in '72 that fell through.  Then in late '74, producer Sam Sherman attempted to engage the Stooges to appear in an exploitation film with the working title of The Jet Set.  According to Leonard, the script was originally configured with Moe and Curly Joe participating, but with a scene where Larry would be filmed talking on the phone, which he apparently could have handled at the time.  Then Larry died and Moe persuaded Sherman to accept Emil Sitka in his stead.  That was the plan until Moe took ill and all the Stooges had to be replaced by the Ritz Brothers.  (The film was released — barely — in 1975 under the name, Blazing Stewardesses.  The Academy once again proved it has its head up its ass by giving the Best Picture Oscar that year to The Godfather, Part II instead.)

This account sounds right to me and it would explain the conflicting stories about 1971-1972 and 1975.  They were both true.  Sitka was going to take over for Larry on several occasions that failed to go forward.  Unless someone comes up with pretty compelling evidence to the contrary, that's what I intend to believe.

Last Friday night, I saw a production of the first produced musical comedy for which Stephen Sondheim wrote both words and music.  Then last night (Monday), I saw a production of his first almost-produced musical, Saturday Night, which was scheduled for a 1954 opening when its producer spoiled everything by dropping dead.  The show — with a book by Julius Epstein — went on indefinite hold and never did get a production until it was done in London in 1997.

It concerns a band of friends who live in Flatbush in 1928 and, with the market booming, decide to invest everything in a stock tip.  The plot is rather feeble (if you want to read a detailed synopsis, click here) and the reason to now stage Saturday Night is to savor early and largely-unheard Sondheim.  At age 24, he was working in more familiar, melodic forms but he still had more skill than most accomplished composers.

Last evening's performance was a "staged reading" (no sets, actors carrying scripts) put on by the Musical Theatre Guild, a fine Southland organization that does four or so of these a year.  They're usually one-nighters, but this one is getting two more performances in October, out in Thousand Oaks.  It's well worth it as an energetic cast, including Noel Orput, Kim Huber, Richard Israel and the fabulous Eydie Alyson, did full justice to Mr. Sondheim's witty lyrics.  I am continually amazed at the professionalism of this group which puts on whole musicals — usually, shows that none of them have even seen, let alone appeared in before — with only 25 hours of rehearsal.  (They don't even get to use the actual theater until the day of the performance.)  It's like how I feel about Cirque du Soleil: Just the fact that they do it at all is impressive; never mind that they also do it so well…

There seems to be some question as to just when Emil Sitka almost joined the Three Stooges.  For reference, Larry Fine had his stroke in January of 1970 and died in January of 1975.  Moe died in May of '75.

According to The Three Stooges Scrapbook by Jeff and Gregg Lenburg and Moe's daughter, Joan Howard Maurer, the Sitka plans came about in '71, while Larry was still alive.  The book details plans to shoot a Stooges feature in the Philippines, and to undertake a few other projects — all of which fell through — with Sitka filling in for the ailing Larry.  This corresponds to what the Emil Sitka site says.

However, several Stooge fans wrote me that Moe refused to try and replace Larry until after Larry's death.  The book, The Three Stooges by Michael Fleming also seems to believe that the Philippines project only came up after Larry passed away.  It states that Sitka was waiting with bags packed to get on the plane to go shoot this film but it kept being postponed due to Moe's health problems.  Finally, the book says, Sitka got the call that Moe had died and that ended that.

That would put this account in the early part of 1975…however, it inexplicably quotes Sitka's son, Saxon (who now operates www.emilsitka.com) as saying, "My father felt funny about filling in for Larry, but once he spoke to Larry about it, my dad was all pumped up."  So that would also place it before Larry's passing.

I am inclined to believe the first version.  The weight of evidence seems to be on that side…plus, I visited Larry out at the Motion Picture Country Home around '71 or '72 and I have the vague recollection of him saying something about Sitka filling in for him until he got his health back.  (At the time, no one expected him to get back to performing strength but for understandable reasons, everyone pretended that was still possible, if not probable.)  I could be wrong about him mentioning it but even if I am, I still think the 1971 scenario makes more sense.

And isn't it nice to finally have something important to discuss on this site, instead of all that trivia about bombing Iraq?

From an e-mail I receive of each night's TV listings…

THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC
Rosie O'Donnell, the world's smartest dog

Game Show Network has brought reruns of What's My Line? back to their overnight line-up.  What's more, they've reached back for the earliest shows available, back to 1952, and will proceed sequentially from there, airing whatever episodes haven't been lost to posterity.  I like these shows, in large part for the chance to see celebrities of the day (last night's Mystery Guest was Walter Winchell) and to hear everyone talk about what was going on in the world at the time.

But I find it a bit disconcerting to realize that the show was, in a way, rigged.  I don't mean "rigged" the way the later "big-money game shows" were rigged, with Charles Van Doren and others being surreptitiously fed the right answers.  What's My Line? was a low-money panel show and its fun came not from seeing folks win but from seeing the panel fumble.  It's obvious in many cases that they were steered not to win but to fail; that is, they weren't told what the contestant's occupation was but that certain misguided questions would elicit laughs.  On the episode aired last night, a lady's occupation was that she hand-painted designs on men's underwear.  Steve Allen, supposedly posing queries at random, asked her…

"Is there an end product involved?"  (Big laugh at the use of the term, "end product.")

"Could I get along without it?"  (Huge laugh, in part over Allen's seeming bewilderment at why everyone found that so funny.)

"Would you be apt to find one or more of these objects in my living room?"  (Screams)

"If friends came to visit me, would they admire it?"  (More screams)

"Could you sit on it?"  (Likewise)

None of those would have been funny if the lady had made ash trays or grandfather's clocks which, at that point in the questioning, would have been just as likely as underwear.  Clearly, Allen was briefed and it appears that the non-comedian panelists were also set up with a few of these.  In his book on What's My Line?, its producer Gil Fates admitted that they did this (he called it "gambitting") but minimized its use and said Steve Allen never required any such briefing.  I think Fates is downplaying a tactic they used much more than he later liked to admit.

I've always wondered, hearing about the Quiz Show Scandals and how they hauled Van Doren and Dan Enright before Congress, why that selected bit of televised dishonesty bothered anyone.  Pro wrestling has a fifty year history of lying to the American people, and talk shows habitually pretend a walk-on celeb was unexpected, or that the host just happened to ask a question for which the guest had a terrific corresponding anecdote.  An awful lot of what passes for spontaneity is scrupulously planned and even rehearsed.  Somehow, if you don't call it a "quiz show," you can get away with just about anything.

Raising Duncan is a fun newspaper strip concocted by Chris Browne, who also still continues Hagar the Horrible, which was created by his father, the late Dik Browne.  Both are always worth a peek but there's something of (possibly) special interest about Raising Duncan as of today.  Before, Chris drew on paper with ink.  Starting with the 9/23 strip, he's drawing on computer — on a Wacom tablet, feeding info into Adobe Photoshop 6.01.  Looks just as good as ever to me.

Speaking of verbal gaffes: You've all heard G.W. Bush's stumble the other day.  I don't think it'll have quite the lasting persistence of the footage of Bob Dole falling off the stage or the recent all-time champ…Bill Clinton wagging his finger.  But as a clip that reduces our opinion of a public figure, it will have its impact.  If you haven't seen it — and/or would like to see a funny packaging of it — check out what The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had to say.  Click here if you have a high-speed Internet connection and here if you're connecting to the web via a Dixie cup and a string.

I am of two minds about this kind of thing.  On the one mind, it's funny and the public certainly has a right to see its leaders at their worst.  On the other, I think we pay way too much attention in this country to little matters unrelated to job performance.  If someone wants to think a public figure is inept based on an economic program or specific job-related deeds, fine.  But the public discourse these days has a tendency to dwell on little slips and gaffes, or even on normal speech and deeds that can be sold as dumb or dishonest, and to characterize entire human beings that way.  During the '88 election, the previous Geo. Bush spoke of trying to "define" his opponent, Mr. Dukakis.  That always struck me as a euphemism for selling the public on an unappealing, and not necessarily accurate caricature.  Dukakis, riding around in tanks and ignoring the wilder charges, seemed determined to live down to that definition.  Bob Dole was not as old as some thought and I actually know people who didn't vote for Al Gore because they thought he'd claimed credit for creating the Internet…

I don't think George Bush is the dummy his foes make him out to be, but I also don't think he's the brain that his supporters are trying to convince everyone (themselves, included) we all want in the White House.  If there were an eloquent, committed Democrat out there speaking clearly against current policies, Bush would be two years from heading back to Texas to enjoy the perks of having made billions for crony capitalists.

Lucky for him, there's not much chance of that happening.

Emil Sitka was to the Three Stooges what Margaret Dumont was to the Marx Brothers or Jimmy Finlayson was to Laurel and Hardy: A terrific supporting player who added much to their comedies.  He almost even became a member of the troupe.  When Larry Fine suffered a stroke in '70, it was announced that Sitka would take his place in the team.  Publicity pix like the one above were taken but this configuration of Stooges never performed anywhere.  Learn more about the man they call "The Fourth Stooge" at — where else? — www.emilsitka.com.

Conan O'Brien was a fine Emmy host.  The rest of the show was the way these things always go and I've decided to stop expecting anything different.  A long award show is a long award show is a long award show.  It's best when you watch the opening, then take a walk down to Koo Koo Roo and have the turkey dinner while your TiVo records the thing.  Then go home and watch with a liberal application of the 30-second skip.

I have no other comments except that it struck me as inexplicably funny that Tom Hanks said, "It is my honor to present the first recipient of the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award to Oprah Winfrey."  I had this mental image of him handing Oprah Winfrey to Oprah Winfrey.