Category Archives: Uncategorized

I'm too upset — and occupied, writing a lengthy obit for Comics Buyer's Guide — to post the usual recommended links 'n' gossip here.  But I did want to call everyone's attention to Joe Conason's excellent article on George W. Bush in this week's New York Observer.  Here's the link.  Even if you like George W., you might want to read it.  With control of the Senate edging away from the G.O.P., a lot of Republican senators are going to be hard-pressed to explain why it was necessary to investigate every rumor about the Clintons making a dollar but we needn't look twice at The Friends of Bush-Cheney making billions off oil and electricity shortages.  (Here's the joke you'll be sick of receiving in your e-mail by this time next week: "The balance of power is shifting in Washington.  The Democrats control the Senate, the Republicans control the House, and the Oil Companies control the Oval Office.")

What a shock to hear that Rich Morrissey died yesterday afternoon of a heart attack at age 47.  I was going to write, "My pal, Rich Morrissey," but that's insufficient.  Rich was a friend of everyone who loved comic books, especially vintage comics.  He was a frequent contributor to fanzines, comic book history projects and even to newsgroups and message boards.  A lawyer by schooling — though he preferred not to practice law — he was one of the people DC often called upon to identify writers and artists in work for which they did not have credits. A lot of history is known today — and a lot of veteran writers and artists received credit and reprint fees — because of Richard Morrissey.

And among his many other contributions to our heritage was that, in '98, he arranged for veteran DC writer John Broome to attend his one-and-only San Diego Comic Convention.  Rich not only set it all up, he paid a large chunk of the travel expense, just because he wanted to pay Broome back for all the joy his work had given to the world of comic art.  (You can read a partial transcript of the wonderful panel that took place that year by clicking here.)  Rich did it, not for personal gain, but because he just believed it oughta be done.  He was a true super-hero.

That's the proprietor of this website, surrounded by two heroes: Steve Allen and Stan Freberg.  This photo, which I'm titling, "Me and the first two people I ever plagiarized" was taken by Leonard Maltin, last July when a star was dedicated for June Foray on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Leonard, by the way, could have a respectable career ahead of him if he'd just ditch that silly "film historian" nonsense and become a full-time paparazzi.  (Tech note: His camera had a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second, during which Steve Allen wrote eight songs and three books.)

Steverino is, sadly, no longer with us…but Stan is hale and healthy (and about to get married again) and he was the first of the speakers or performers at last night's tribute to Steve Allen at the Alex Theater in Glendale.  Freberg was followed — in roughly this order — by Sid Caesar, George Bugatti, Pete Barbutti, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, Don Knotts, Rich Little, Mickey Rooney, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr., Norm Crosby and Jonathan Winters, all introduced by m.c. Art Linkletter.  There were also clips of Mr. Allen's work, as well as music by "The Steve Allen Big Band," an assemblage of musicians who played with Steve.  As an evening of entertainment, it was a smash.  I thought Barbutti stole the show but everyone was terrific, and no one minded that what was announced as an intermissionless 90 minute show ran an hour over.

As a tribute…well, maybe it's just me but I would have liked certain performers to talk a little less about their own careers and a little more about Steve Allen's.  I kept thinking of Jayne Meadows, seated with her family down in the front row, enduring some pretty long stretches where her late husband seemed irrelevant to the proceedings.  And Mr. Linkletter — though a surprisingly-amusing host — kept trying to top the deceased, reminding folks of his own achievements in the world of television.

This has become a matter that bothers me a lot more than it seems to bother others.  I've attended a number of Hollywood funerals in the last few years where someone would be speaking and I'd want to hold up a big cue card that said, "This event is not about you!  Talk about the dead guy!"  Stan and a few others did speak long and lovingly about the dead guy…but otherwise, it was just a helluva good show.  Since Steve Allen was a helluva good showman, I suppose that alone is tribute in a way.

P.S. Mr. Freberg recently invited me to his upcoming, June wedding.  I told him I'd love to be there but, alas, I have tickets to see The Producers in New York that week.  He said that if he had tickets to see The Producers that week, he wouldn't be at the wedding, either.

To Roger Simon, Chief Political Correspondent of U.S. News & World Report…

Dear Mr. Simon —

As a staunch fan of your work — especially Road Show and Show Time — I should be elated that Amazon-dot-com says that your new book, Divided We Stand, is being released today by Times Books.  And if by some fluke, this turns out to be true, I probably will be elated.  I have always enjoyed your witty insights into the political process, your up close/personal views of the participants and your willingness to spare no one and to show good and bad on all sides.  I even enjoy your constant use of short, punchy sentence fragments as paragraphs.

Like this one.

However, I am understandably (I hope) dubious that such a book exists.  This is because I have now spent months scanning the Internet, hoping that my favorite political correspondent would publish a volume that made some sense of the 2001 presidential election.  This means that I have endured a lot of bizarre, conflicting misinformation, much of which is still represented as truth.

I know you have never encountered such a thing in the world of politics.  But, amazingly, one occasionally finds "facts" on the Internet that may not be entirely accurate.

For example, for months now, an on-line merchant called www.bookvariety.com has been assuring me that the new Roger Simon book is Public Affair: Bill Clinton's Allies and Enemies and the Price They Paid and that it will be published in January of 2001 by Times Books.  They have recently begun listing it as "cancelled" but that's okay, because another on-line bookseller, Greenbooks, is currently telling me that if I send them $21.49, they will ship it to me within 2-3 days.  (They have it down with a publication date of 5/01/01 from Crown Books)

Better still, A1books.com says they will ship it to me in 24 hours for $17.75 and I can also purchase it from www.nowalking.com and The Green Giant.  In the meantime, in what is obviously part of some vast right (or maybe left) wing conspiracy, Varsitybooks.com tells me that Public Affair came out in January of 2000 from Random House and is now out of print.

As if that's not all confusing enough, www.alldirect.com will ship me the new Roger Simon book in 24 hours for $15.00 — except they say it's called High Horses on a Low Road: The Race for the White House in 2000.  Wordsworth.com also has High Horses on a Low Road listed but they charge $21.45 and they've illustrated their listing with a copy of Divided We Stand.

Wait.  It gets worse.  The shopping division of www.yahoo.com will allow me to order A Public Affair for twenty bucks and they tell me it "usually ships in 1 day."  However, if I click on the button that orders a copy, I suddenly find myself at www.barnesandnoble.com and I've mysteriously placed an order for Divided We Stand.  All of this is beside the fact that most online booksellers don't know the difference between you and Roger L. Simon, who writes the Moses Wine mysteries.  Half of the above vendors treat you as one author.  No wonder all these "dot-coms" are going bankrupt.

So I'd really love to order your new book(s), whatever it or they may be called.  I may order a couple of titles from a couple of places and hope I get something.

I just think it's amazing that in this country in this century, we can split the atom, cure certain non-controversial diseases and send people who have enough money into space.  We can even convict Robert Blake of murdering his wife before the police have finished collecting the evidence.

We just can't seem to count ballots or sell books.

Yours truly,
Mark Evanier

My buddy Lou Mougin recently e-mailed me an excerpt from an old Dobie Gillis comic book that included a Hollywood gossip page.  On it was the copy above left, which announced Hanna-Barbera commencing production on its first full-length feature, then called Whistle Your Way Back Home.  By the time it came out, it was named Hey There, It's Yogi Bear, though it did contain a song called "Whistle Your Way Back Home."  The list of folks who were working on the film is interesting…or, rather, it's interesting who isn't in this press release.  Two of the main layout artists — Willie Ito and Jerry Eisenberg — aren't there, though they were responsible for many key sequences, including a musical number, "Go-go, St. Louis," which is easily the best thing in the picture.

Also absent (and uncredited on the finished film) are voice actors Howard Morris and Allan Melvin, who are heard in several roles near the end of the movie.  The film was obviously recorded in three sections with Daws Butler (Yogi), Don Messick (Boo Boo and the Ranger) and Julie Bennett (Cindy Bear) working in all three.  Hal Smith does the extra voices in the first third; Mel Blanc, J. Pat O'Malley and Jean Vander Pyl do extra voices in the second third; Morris and Melvin do extras in the final third.  Three other performers — who, to my knowledge, have never been identified — provided the singing voices of Yogi, Boo Boo and Cindy, which I always thought was a huge mistake.  Even at age 12, seeing this movie at the old Pickwood Theater near Pico and Westwood, I could tell those weren't the real voices of Yogi and his friends singing.

Also, the above press handout credits Joe Barbera and Warren Foster with the script, whereas the finished film credited the two of them plus Bill Hanna.  And the movie also credits Marty Paich for songs, including the title song and one sung by James Darren (!) who also isn't mentioned in the above, presumably because they then hadn't thought of adding that song and hiring him.  (Darren was then under contract to Columbia, which released the movie, so he probably didn't cost much.)

But the most interesting name that's not in the article — and I hadn't expected to see it — is that of Friz Freleng.  'Tis a little known fact that he was originally going to direct this particular movie and that he spent several months drawing and supervising the drawing of its storyboard.  In 1963, when Warner Brothers began closing down its animation studio, Friz was looking for a place to go.  Less than a year later, he and David DePatie would launch their own studio, DePatie-Freleng Productions.  But in-between, Friz started working on the feature for Bill and Joe.  This was kept secret at first because he was still on the WB payroll and perhaps violating some terms of his contract.  Then, before it could be announced, he and DePatie got their operation up and running, so he left and, probably by mutual agreement, it was decided he would not receive credit on the picture.

Around 1980, DePatie-Freleng morphed into Marvel's animation studio, with Marvel acquiring some of its assets, including its building which soon burned to the ground.  Shortly after that fire left him sans office, Friz briefly returned to Hanna-Barbera.  He worked there for a week or three…or, at least, they assigned him an office and also gave one to John Dunn, who had been his main writer/storyman over the years.  I'm not sure if they ever settled on any project for Friz to do there, or if they just talked for a few weeks before deciding it wouldn't fly.  One day, suddenly, he and Dunn were gone, and that was that.

The one instance where I ever got to spend any quality time with Friz was his second or third day at H-B during that stopover.  I was writing something for the studio at the time — Richie Rich, probably — and Barbera introduced me to Friz, hoping we'd hit it off and could work together on something.  They got on the topic of Hey There, It's Yogi Bear and that's how I heard, from the two of them jointly, the story of his involvement.  Friz kept saying how it would have been a better film — he may even have said, "a good film" — if he'd stayed on it.  Joe, eager to humor an old friend, kept agreeing and joking about Friz abandoning them in their hour of need.  I said I thought the end-product was a pretty good movie and Joe smiled at me, while Friz turned into Yosemite Sam and bellowed, only half in jest, that I didn't know what I was talking about.  This, of course, is often so…but I don't think it was with regard to that movie.  I think it's a pretty good film…except for when Yogi and Boo Boo sing.

If you were enthralled by the Harpo voice clip I posted the other day, you oughta pay a visit to www.marx-brothers.org, one of the better Marxian websites out there.  Matter of fact, the clip apparently originated there, and they have another Harpo audio file, along with plenty of info on the Brothers Marx.  My apologies to the proprietor of that site if he feels I usurped his file but it was e-mailed to me from someone who got it from someone else who got it from someone else, etc.  (You've all gotten those e-mails…)

And speaking of those funny boys named Marx, I recently came across a letter that was sent to me in 1972 by Alan Jay Lerner, who was best known for writing the book and lyrics for My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi and even a few shows that weren't classics.  Here is an excerpt from that letter.  The reference to Coco Chanel relates to Coco, a Broadway musical that Lerner had penned about the life of the great designer, the show Arthur Laurents wrote was Gypsy, and the show about the brothers' life was, of course, Minnie's Boys, which debuted in 1970 and didn't last long.

Groucho approached me about becoming involved in the show about his family but I declined, respectfully but with a silent note of terror.  Having endured the angst of Coco Chanel approving my version of her life, I had no stomach for the interference he would surely bring to his project.  He summoned me to his table one evening in Chasen's, told me that his show was floundering and that only I could salvage it.  He also insisted on telling me the plot, which was not wholly flattering to his mother, at least as he described it.  To this I replied that Arthur Laurents had just done a perfectly fine musical about a pushy stage mother and vaudeville, so why did the world need another?  Groucho's reply was to the effect that the Marx Brothers were important and were loved, whereas Gypsy Rose Lee was a nobody.  I did not suggest that the theatre-going public might have more interest in strippers than in vaudeville comedians.

Lerner was also probably the wrong person for Minnie's Boys because of the subject matter…though odder matches have occurred.  He came very close to doing the Broadway musical of Li'l Abner, as described here.

ABC, has, as predicted here, announced they'll be replacing Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect with a talk show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.  (Apparently, that time slot can only go to a comedian who is known for making degrading remarks about women.)

On tonight's edition of his show, Maher started talking about failings of our current president and remarked, "If I had a longer show — and I hope to, soon…"  He said it off-handedly but I suspect it was a calculated way of saying to his audience, "I can't say anything yet but we're in negotiations to do an hour-long show on another channel."

Maher's contract with ABC runs to the end of the year and it will probably be some time before the Kimmel show is ready to debut.  If a deal for Bill Maher to move to HBO or Fox or even back to Comedy Central is announced in the next week or two, will ABC keep him on for seven more months?  Especially if he no longer cares about pissing off that network?  This could get interesting…

I am about to cost you at least a half-hour of on-line time, especially if you're interested in old show biz memorabilia — Bob Hope's, in particular.  The Library of Congress is currently hosting an exhibition of Hope curios and they've put a few dozen items on their website.  Browse around and you'll find photos, scripts for monologues, Bob's packing list for his U.S.O. tours…even his old business cards from vaudeville.  There are notes and telegrams from Al Boasberg (mentioned here last week) suggesting gags to Mr. Hope.  There are rundowns from vaudeville, radio and TV shows.  There are also a number of non-Hope items you'll enjoy, including pages from radio scripts and vintage portraits and…oh, stop reading this and just go there.  Here's the link.  It'll make you want to jump on a plane, go back to D.C. and see the whole exhibit in person.  I love this kind of stuff.

The Science-Fiction news organ, Locus, is reporting that "Mr. Sci-Fi," Forrest J Ackerman is in Kaiser Hospital following either a stroke or a heart attack.  First, they said he was — quote: "Not expected to recover."  Now, they're saying he's "doing quite well."  Obviously, at age 86, there is ample reason for his friends and fans to be saddened by the news.  Forry was the man behind Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine — an odd compendium of monster photos, articles and pain-inducing puns that inspired a lot of 10-year-old kids to become filmmakers, authors and artists.

He was also a literary agent, a founding member of science-fiction fandom, an authority on science-fiction and horror, an author and many other things, including being the creator of the character, Vampirella and the curator of a house full of books and monster memorabilia.

Years ago, cartoonist Scott Shaw! launched a campaign to raise money for what still seems like a good cause.  The idea was that when Forry died, he'd be stuffed, put on rollers and delivered to every comic book and science-fiction convention.  There, a tape recorder would endlessly replay the eleven anecdotes he told at such affairs.  Scott, if you're reading this…I think you ought to get the crusade going again.  I'm in for twenty bucks.

Okay, how many of you reacted to the news that Perry Como had died with the thought, "Perry Como was still alive?"  And how many of you instantly thought of that great SCTV sketch about him?

Two articles to recommend: We previously directed you to Eric Boehlert's amazingly-accurate article that predicted why the XFL would flop.  (Here's the link again)  Now that it has flopped and flopped big, Mr. Boehlert is entitled to write an "I told you so" piece…which he has done and which you can read at this link.

Also, for those of you still straining to make sense of all the press recounts of who won Florida — and they're far from over — the most recent is well summarized and analyzed in this piece in the Miami Herald.  Essentially, it's a list of silly errors that voters made which cost Al Gore the presidency.  They don't mention it there but now that Florida has decided to stop using the punch-card "votomatic" devices, they're selling off the old machines on eBay.  Honest.  Go there and do a search if you don't believe me…but don't think of buying one.  They're about as good for tallying votes as the Fizz Nik.

For those of you in Southern California: Next Sunday evening, May 20, the Alex Theater in Glendale is hosting a one-time-only salute to the late Steve Allen featuring — among others — Don Adams, Sid Caesar, Norm Crosby, Rodney Dangerfield, Dom DeLuise, Stan Freberg, Shecky Greene, Charlton Heston, Don Knotts, Art Linkletter, Rich Little, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., Louis Nye, Jonathan Winters and a "big band" comprised of musicians who worked with Steverino.  I'll be there.  If you want to be there, you might want to hurry to the Telecharge website, where a few seats are still available.  How can this not be a wonderful evening?

Michael Kinsley has an interesting piece today about free content on the Internet — and you can read it for free either at the Washington Post website or on Slate. Here's a direct link to the article on the latter.

As mentioned here weeks ago, Eric Idle is currently making a sequel to his "mockumentary," The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.  This new one is called Can't Buy Me Lunch and I saw it this evening at a test screening/preview which Mr. Idle hosted to check for weak spots.  There weren't many.  It features leftover footage from the first, plus interviews with the likes of Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Garry Shandling, Jewel, Robin Williams and even Salman Rushdie.  At the moment, Idle can't say for sure when and where the thing will appear — but when it does, make sure to catch it.  Very funny, especially as his character of the inept interviewer from the original film grows increasingly less ept.

A company called BFS has just brought out six episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD.  The episodes are as follows: Never Name a Duck, Bank Book 6565696, Hustling the Hustler, The Night the Roof Fell In, A Man's Teeth Are Not His Own and Give Me Your Walls!  All of them are completely watchable but I would rank none of these installments among the show's finer moments.  (This is not supposed to be the "six best," but if it were and I were asked to pick, I'd include It May Look Like a Walnut, Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth, That's My Boy?, The Bottom of Mel Cooley's Heart, The Impractical Joke and then either Talk to the Snail or October Eve.  But that's just me.)  Still, there is good news in that this new DVD DVD is supposed to be the first of many releases — and at bargain prices.

This DVD goes for under ten bucks.  Matter of fact, DVD Planet has it for $7.49 plus postage…$2.50 for the first item and 50¢ for each item thereafter.  You'll probably want to amortize that "first item" cost by ordering several DVDs at the same time.  DVD Planet used to be known as Ken Crane's Laserdiscs, and it was (and still is) the best place in the world to purchase those now-antiquated items.  They also have the best prices, best selection and almost the best service for DVDs.  I say "almost" because they tend to slightly delay your first-ever order to make triple-sure your credit card is legit.  But once they deem you Kosher, they ship instantly, and you won't want to order from anywhere else.  End of plug.

For those of you who like the political-type articles I occasionally link here, I have one for you.  John Harris of the Washington Post recently published this piece about how the press is treating Bush, as opposed to how they treated Clinton, and why.  Here's one chunk that jumped out at me:

The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars.

Harris covered the Clinton White House for years, wrote many stories about scandals therein…and is now saying that the current Washington press is not holding Bush to the same standard. I suspect he's right — but he won't be, for long.

The unseemly man on the comic book covers above is Maurice Gosfield, who played Pvt. Duane Doberman on the old Sgt. Bilko TV show, also known as The Phil Silvers Show and/or You'll Never Get Rich. (There was a Sgt. Bilko comic and it did quite well for a while.  Since DC was paying a flat fee for the rights, they decided to try and get a second hit comic out of one license fee…so Doberman got his own book.

And wouldn't you know it?  It started outselling the Bilko comic!)  This weekend, the cable channel TV Land is rerunning three installments of that fine program, including the pilot and "The Face on the Recruiting Poster."  The latter is an episode about which the late Phil Silvers told me a wonderful anecdote.  I'll share it with you in the next paragraph…but first, I have to observe Internet decorum and post a SPOILER WARNING.  In telling the story, I'm also going to tell the ending of that episode.  Proceed with caution.

Now then: The premise is that the extremely unphotogenic Doberman is accidentally selected for a recruiting poster and no one has the heart to tell him that he will not be appearing thereupon.  One officer after another withers at the task until, finally, the Army calls in the toughest soldier in the service.  The punch line to the episode comes when he arrives and, since he looks almost exactly like Doberman, says, "Very good-looking soldier.  He should be on the recruiting poster!"

The Casting Director was sent forth to find a ringer for Mr. Gosfield and located a guy who worked in a carnival pulling a cannon with his teeth.  All week long, the gent practiced his few lines, invariably getting them wrong.  As Silvers told the tale, the cannon-puller kept getting more and more flustered and kept muttering, "I can't understand it…I've been in show business for twenty years…"

Finally, the evening of filming arrived.  The man playing the tough general was out of his mind with stage fright.  Just before they were about to roll film, he ran up to Phil Silvers and said, "Mr. Silvers, I just had a thought that would make me feel better.  How about if, when I make my entrance, I'm pulling a cannon with my teeth?"

Phil Silvers told me this tale over brunch at Nate 'n Al's delicatessen in Beverly Hills.  He said, "From that moment on, any time I was doing a play and I felt a twinge of stage fright, I thought about entering, pulling a cannon with my teeth — and I'd laugh and break the tension."  (By the way: The actor went on, sans cannon, and did his lines perfectly.)