Category Archives: Uncategorized

I haven't listened to it but authorities have released tapes of the 911 call that summoned paramedics to the home of Billy Mays the other morning. And the 911 call for Michael Jackson is all over the web. Why do they do this?

I'm all for the public's right to know but we don't have a right to know everything. There's such a thing as attorney-client privilege. And doctor-patient confidentiality. And your right to talk to someone else without them recording it and posting it on the Internet without your consent.

A person finds a friend or family member passed out and not breathing. In panic, they call 911 and that's often one of the worst moments of a life. They're scared. They're overcome with emotion. Sometimes, they're facing the very real possibility that the person they love the most has just died or is about to die…

Why is it anyone else's business what they said or what the operator said in reply?

Okay, yes, it's amusing to hear when some mother calls 911 because her daughter won't eat her asparagus. And I suppose if some death was under suspicious circumstances, that 911 call might be evidence…but then, it belongs in a courtroom, not on TMZ.com.

Am I missing something here? When "authorities" release such things, is it ever on the authority of the caller? Is the family consulted? Or do they, as it would seem, just put it out there for public titillation without regard to anyone's feelings?

Damn. Another one of these.

For the last few months, it was a hush-hush secret that master impressionist Fred Travalena was in and out of hospitals, battling cancer again. It had come and gone in various parts of his body but was back, attacking his precious throat. At the beginning of May, Sperdvac — which is the local old radio show society — had its annual convention and Fred was supposed to appear and play George Burns in a re-creation of an old Burns & Allen radio show. When he cancelled, that was a bad, bad sign. Fred was a trouper in every show biz sense…and if he was letting someone down, it had to be for a dire reason.

He died yesterday of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 66. This obit will give you the details of his career but basically, he bounced around in early life between the possible careers of singer, impressionist and commercial art before finally settling on the first two. He was a darn good mimic, especially his replicas of Sinatra and the other members of the Rat Pack. He did a darn good Jim Nabors, too. And just about anybody else you might request.

I first worked with Fred when he supplied voices for an animated special I wrote for ABC called The Secret World of Og. It was one of the first times he did a cartoon, if not the first and as you might imagine, he was quite good at it. Later though, when he was offered more work of that sort, he usually declined. "I like being in front of an audience," he told me once when he courteously turned me down. He was also bothered that most cartoon jobs pay union scale. That's more than enough money for most people. I have friends who've gotten very wealthy doing animation gigs for union scale.

But Fred was uncomfy with the whole concept of working for minimums as a matter of principle. He didn't like doing it and he didn't like hearing that others did it…and this was not out of greed. No performer I can think of did more pro bono work than he did, lending his talents to every charity and noble cause that asked him. He placed a high value on what entertainers supply and when you saw him supplying, you could understand why. I hope you got to see him live, at least once. He sure did like being in front of an audience…and audiences liked having him there.

Here's a repeat of a clip I linked to a year and a half ago of Fred in front of audiences…

Mega-Swindler Bernard Madoff is to be sentenced today…and I love that grown men and women are actually arguing for the full 150-year sentence. Like it's a slap on the wrist if a 71 year old man only gets, say, a 100-year sentence. Those extra fifty years will teach him not to do it again. The L.A. Times article actually includes the statement that "In papers filed late Friday, prosecutors argued for the full 150-year term or at least a lifetime sentence."

That's kind of like saying of a convicted serial murderer, "We really think you should execute him twenty times but for God's sake, at least kill him once or twice!"

They also quote a lawyer — I don't think it's one of Madoff's — saying, "This isn't a guy who murdered people, who raped people or who sexually abused children. This is a guy who stole money, and it's terrible. But when you climb down through the hysteria, we don't generally give life sentences to people who steal a lot of money." That's true. Then again, criminals don't usually steal amounts equal to the entire gross national product of Uzbekistan.

"A lot of money" is kind of the key phrase here. A few days ago, I believe I used that term to describe the full retail price of Adobe InDesign. The amount Mr. Madoff made disappear is a wee bit more than "a lot of money."

What would I do if I were the judge? Easy. We throw the guy in prison for an indeterminate time. We give him a job in there…working in the laundry or making license plates or something. And we pay him for this at the full minimum wage, which is presently $6.55 an hour.

Then he stays in prison until he pays back the full $13 billion. With interest.

Tim Dunleavy writes…

I read your pal Bob Ingersoll's take on the recent Guys and Dolls revival, and I agree with what he wrote — although I found the delightful performances by Lauren Graham and Craig Bierko partially redeemed the production. But I must point out one error in his review. He wrote: "[Oliver] Platt was actually taller than Kearran Giovanni, the actor who played Big Jule." In fact, Kearran Giovanni is a lovely African-American woman who appeared in the ensemble; she was one of the Hot Box Girls, and also played the role of "Carmen." (No, I don't remember which role is Carmen, either.) Big Jule was actually played by Glenn Fleshler — although, at the performance I attended, the role was played by his understudy, William Ryall. (Ryall, incidentally is taller than Platt, and was appropriately intimidating in the role.) I can see how Bob made the mistake — Giovanni and Fleshler's names are one line away from each other on the cast list page of the Playbill.

I don't think that's how he got them wrong. Here…take a look at these two people…

See? Almost identical. Matter of fact, I'm not even certain that I haven't mixed up their photos.

My apologies (and I'm sure, Bob's) to Ms. Giovanni and Mr. Fleshler. And as I was formatting the above to post, a fellow named John Platen wrote to say he also saw the same production and thought the company was wonderful; that the problems were just in the casting of Mr. Platt and in the director (or whoever) doing things different just for the sake of doing things different. Like I said: Wish I'd seen it.

Now, here's something you don't see every day, Chauncey: Six legends from the world of animation, all together in one photograph. We have three great producers (Joe, Walter and Bill) and three great voice actors (Don, Daws and June) and they sure don't make 'em like that anymore.

And before I forget…there's something nicely characteristic of the way Hanna and Barbera are dressed. Bill Hanna always looked like he was running a factory (and I guess he was) and Joe Barbera always looked like he was about to go out on a date (quite possible). This was taken in Barbera's office…I'd say around 1986 and no, I have no idea why all these people were there together.

This photo may or may not appear in June Foray's autobiography, which I mentioned here earlier today. What I didn't mention was that (a) Earl Kress and I are helping her assemble it and (b) it goes to press this coming week. It just this minute occurred to me to ask here if anyone has any fabulous photos that oughta be in June's book…preferably high-resolution photos that she's in or which feature shots of characters she voiced. Do you have anything like that? If so, drop me a line a.s.a.p. Might get you thanked in the book. Might even get you a free copy autographed by June.

The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced another change in the Oscar ceremony. They're going to set up a separate, non-televised ceremony each November at which they'll present the special Oscars — the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and any Honorary Awards they see fit to bestow. These honors will be mentioned on the telecast but that's about it: A quick mention.

Rough translation: We just realized that those awards usually don't help the movie studios promote current product so there's no point in wasting valuable television time on them…plus the recipients are usually old and we don't want people on the Oscars who are old and aren't Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood. Oh and by the way, is it possible to get some hotter celebs into that boring Death Montage?

Yow. It looks like the guy with that website is going to have to find someone else to sell it to.

Well, at least Abe is still with us.

It's about time for my annual joke about how if you want to get a parking space for the Comic-Con International in San Diego, you'd better leave now. Hard to believe it's — what? — like twenty-six days away? Didn't we just do this, week before last?

I will, as usual, be hosting more than a dozen panels. They'll include one where Marv Wolfman and I mercilessly grill the great comic book artist Gene Colan about his work, and another where Marv and creators who shaped comics in the seventies will be grilled by me. There'll be a panel with the last three surviving Golden Age Batman artists where they'll discuss what it was like to be Bob Kane. The annual Golden and Silver Age Panel will feature Ramona Fradon, Leonard Starr, Gene Colan, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Jerry Robinson and Murphy Anderson. If you read comics before 1970, I'll bet several of your favorite artists are on that list.

Sergio Aragonés and I will do our annual panel which usually consists of us explaining why no Groo has come out lately. But this year, we actually have several Groo projects heading to press so that'll be a nice change. Sergio, Scott Shaw! and Disney Legend Floyd Norman will be competing in our annual game of Quick Draw! on Saturday morning…and I don't have to plug that one because we always fill the room and turn hundreds away.

My pal Earl Kress and I will be hosting a buncha panels about Cartoon Voice acting. Among the vocal thespians who've agreed to participate this year are Bill Farmer, Charlie Adler, Laraine Newman, Greg Cipes, Susan Silo, James Arnold Taylor, Vanessa Marshall, Tom Kane, Hank Garrett and everyone's favorite TV legend, Chuck McCann. There are a few more names I should be able to announce soon. On Sunday afternoon, we'll have our special panel for wanna-be voice actors with one or two casting directors, an agent or two, a couple of actors…and a lot of free info that some coaches will charge you a fortune to hear.

I'll be introducing one of my heroes, the great Stan Freberg, along with his spectacular spouse-partner, Hunter. And Earl and I will be hosting a spotlight on the First Lady of Cartoon Voicing, June Foray.

In fact, this is a good place to announce that June's long-awaited autobiography should be published in time for the Comic-Con. If you ever loved Rocky & Bullwinkle or any of the countless animated classics in which June starred, you're going to want to buy a copy and get her to sign it. A few people have already told me this is at the top of their "must-do" list.

And I'm involved in a few other events which you'll learn about when the full schedule is posted in a few weeks. Whether you attend my panels or not, I suggest you study the schedule when it's up and jot down a list of what you want to see and when it is. Every con, I hear a lot of whining that includes the phrase, "I didn't know about it until it was too late." I'm getting to the point where I tend to reply with some snide remark that includes the phrase, "Tough toenails, fella. You should have studied the schedule."

I'll nag you again about this before the convention begins. But I won't be able to nag much. Twenty-six days. Good grief.

Everyone seems fascinated with the public demonstrations relating to Michael Jackson's death…and by the way, aren't we about due for a serious round of rumors that he faked his death and is really living on a ranch somewhere with Elvis, Andy Kaufman and several people who owe me money?

David K. M. Klaus just sent out an e-mail to a couple of us that read…

With regard to the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson, the New York Times reported: "In Los Angeles, hundreds of fans — some chanting Mr. Jackson's name, some doing the 'Thriller' dance — descended on the hospital and on the hillside house where he was staying."

So, outside the house in which he was stricken, and the hospital where he was pronounced dead, his fans were dancing the dance he created for his role as a zombie, an undead creature come back to a shambling semblance of life, which had climbed out of its grave. Even setting aside the poor taste, that's way too creepy for me.

And me…although in fairness, it's not like Michael never creeped anyone out. Meanwhile, as many have e-mailed me, fans of Michael Jackson are holding candlelight vigils and placing flowers on a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that bears his name. The problem is they're worshipping at the star of the wrong Michael Jackson.

As I've mentioned, I didn't get to see the recent revival of Guys and Dolls that just closed on Broadway. I wanted to, because I really liked Craig Bierko in the 2000 version of The Music Man, and also because it's been interesting to compare and contrast the ninety thousand different interpretations of Guys and Dolls I've seen. I've probably averaged one version per year since I became a theater-goer…and yes, I already have tix for the open-air staging they'll be doing this summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

It's always seemed to me a bulletproof show, in part because of its simplicity. There aren't a lot of choices possible to some aspects of it. One production of Guys and Dolls tends to resemble all other productions of Guys and Dolls in a way that is not true of most oft-mounted shows. So I've been intrigued about this one that reportedly did a lot of unconventional things…and closed a lot faster than revivals of Guys and Dolls usually close. What, I wondered, went wrong?

Well, like I said, I didn't see it. But my pal Bob Ingersoll did and he filed this report…

The show got off on the wrong foot immediately. Guys and Dolls, which is how I will, hereinafter, refer to the original version and every version of the show I've seen until the revival I'm analyzing, opens with a pantomime ballet played out over the overture called Runyonland. In Guys and Dolls, Runyonland is a fairy tale representation of seedy side of Times Square in a kind of timeless time that's supposed to represent Broadway during Prohibition and the Depression, but isn't quite. (After all, the title song has a line about someone watching a "television set.") Runyonland is populated by grifters, pickpockets, gamblers, and other small-time crooks and conmen. In the production I was in where I played Hymie Banjo Eyes (our director gave everyone, even chorus members, actual names pulled from actual characters of Damon Runyon stories and because of my bright blue eyes, I became Hymie Banjo Eyes) my Runyonland con was to pretend to be a photographer who would take pictures of tourists and collect money from them with the promise that I would send them their pictures as soon as I developed them. I, of course, discarded their contact information on stage as soon as they weren't looking.

In other words, Runyonland is seedy but not really dangerous. Yes, Sky Masterson is quick with his fists, but he's not violent. The only character who is supposed to represent any real danger of real violence is Big Jule, a Chicago gangster who is in town to participate in Nathan Detroit's floating crap game. At one point in Guys and Dolls, he even tries to pull out a gun. But Sky Masterson dispatches Big Jule with one punch and does so with such speed that even the East Cicero, Illinois gangster isn't truly a menace.

The revival, which is how I will, hereinafter, refer to the version of the show that I saw this year, starts with Damon Runyon, himself, sitting at a typewriter banging out a the start of a story and then crumpling it in disgust. Runyon then goes out into the city and wanders around it observing. This wandering is played out in the revival's version of Runyonland.

We are, of course, to believe that what he sees inspires the stories for which he will be known later, as we are shown at the end of the revival, when Runyon is shown writing a story and quite happy with the result. The trouble is, what Runyon sees isn't the kind of idealized, fairy tale seedy New York that he would write about, and which was incorporated into Guys and Dolls. He sees a tougher world with hints of actual violence. One of the cons he observes, for example, involves a poker game in which one player accuses another of cheating. They get into a fight and one of the players shoots another of the players. All of the other players then scatter, leaving their money in the middle of table. Then the "dead" player gets up and splits the money with the player who "shot him."

Okay, there wasn't any actual violence, but the hint of a more violent world than Guys and Dolls ever showed definitely exists. And it sets the wrong tone for the show.

This more-violent world is shown even more dramatically later, in the scene when Nathan Detroit is talking with Joey Biltmore about using his garage for the crap game. While the conversation goes on, Biltmore also supervises two of his henchmen, who take a bound-and-gagged man, put him in the trunk of a car, and drive it away.

That, of course, means that this poor man is about to be "hit," killed. This is more than a suggestion of violence. It is real and true, life-and-death violence. Oh, the violence may not happen on-stage, but everyone knows what's going to happen. That sequence makes it impossible to believe that Runyonland is set in the charmingly seedy but non-threatening New York that Runyon wrote about or which Guys and Dolls needs in order for its characters to be likable.

Second problem with the revival is the dialog. Runyon wrote a very specific kind of dialog. A combination of formal speech and slang, always spoken in the present tense. Here's an example from Tobias the Terrible in the story "More than Somewhat," an example which was nicely copied onto Wikipedia, so that I could cut-and-paste it here easily. "If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much."

Such dialog requires a certain cadence. If spoken with the proper cadence, Runyon's dialog is bright and distinctive. When it's not spoken with the proper cadence, Runyon's dialog sounds strange and stilted. The revival was full of people who sounded like they were trying to speak with the Runyon cadence rather than actually speaking with it. They were trying too hard to speak Runyonese properly. As a result, the dialog never sounded proper. It sounded forced.

This was nowhere more apparent than with Oliver Platt, who played Nathan Detroit. He never really captured the Runyon cadence and, as a result, almost everything that came out of his mouth sounded painful.

The other problem with Platt is that he was literally and physically big for the role of Nathan Detroit. Detroit is a little man, one who is physically intimidated by the imposing size and bulk of Big Jule.

Oliver Platt is 6' 3½"

Platt was actually taller than Kearran Giovanni, the actor who played Big Jule. The whole dynamic of Nathan's character never worked with the very tall Platt in the role. It worked when in the movie where 5'7" Frank Sinatra played Nathan Detroit or on Broadway when the even shorter 5'5" Nathan Lane played Detroit.

That's, anyway, where I think the revival failed. The way it handled the setting of Runyonland didn't work. The way the actors delivered Runyonese didn't work. Oliver Platt and Nathan Detroit didn't work on any level. All of those things made it difficult for me to buy into the concept that I was in Runyonland as opposed to seeing a bunch of people trying to make me believe I was in Runyonland. As a result, the show never pulled me in. I felt distant and detached from it and, ultimately, dissatisfied. I suspect other people who watched the show felt the same. And I suspect their detached dissatisfaction was communicated to others, either in reviews or by word-of-mouth. So, as a result, people didn't go to the show, because who wants to spend the hundreds of dollars a night out on Broadway costs nowadays to be dissatisfied?

I saw Nathan Lane in the role and he was quite wonderful. So was that entire production, especially Faith Prince as Miss Adelaide. I suspect from afar that it hasn't been long enough since that version to mount a new Guys and Dolls unless you're going to do something quite different with it…and if you do something quite different with it, it ain't Guys and Dolls. A lot of old shows can stand some rethinking but this one is just too familiar. Everyone knows where it's going and how to get there so deviations are distracting.

The only really awful production I ever saw was a 1980 touring company in which Milton Berle played Nathan Detroit and did everything in his power to turn the evening into The Milton Berle Show. Mr. Detroit has but one song in Guys and Dolls — the result of that role having been originated by the non-singing Sam Levene. When Sinatra played the role in the movie, they added a couple of new tunes for him — not very good ones — and stuck him in the "Guys and Dolls" number even though its theme is completely contrary to Nathan Detroit's attitude at that point in the story. Berle didn't get the extra songs but his Nathan not only sang in "Guys and Dolls" but darn near turned it into a solo.

It was that way the whole evening. Sounds like what you saw could challenge it in the category of Getting It Wrong.

A week or two ago on his show, Bill Maher startled some by saying that he wished Barack Obama would take a little more after George W. Bush in one regard: That attitude of "I won the election so I'm going to ram through my agenda and if the losers don't like it…well, screw them." The Bush administration always had that annoying view that since they'd ostensibly won a hair more than 50% of the vote, they were entitled to their way 100% of the time. Maher said he wished Obama would be more aggressive in the same way about pushing his own legislation and policies.

I'm drifting ever-so-cautiously towards the same viewpoint. I still have the hope, naive as it may someday feel, that what Obama's doing is being pragmatic about working with the opposition, horse-trading his way to a more effective coalition. If he wants a second term, we'll have to be able to see that he delivered most of what he promised and made it really work this way. Elected officials always on some level disappoint those who put them in office and there's something about Obama that makes me feel that the folks who voted for him will be less forgiving than the ones who voted for Bush were for the guy they picked.

For now, I look at what seem like reversals of rhetoric — hedging on eliminating "Don't ask, don't tell," suppressing torture pics, allowing infinite detention and (now) using signing statements to overrule Congress — and I have to wonder. And content myself that even if the worst is true, he's still a lot better than the guy he replaced.

Drew Carey only has one TV series at the moment so he has enough time to start a weblog.

The last few days, I've been learning a new piece of software — new to me, anyway. It's Adobe InDesign CS4, and it's something you'd use to create a book or magazine or pamphlet. You lay out pages with text and graphics, and it does a lot that Microsoft Word or any word processor just can't handle. Since there are eight thousand books in print about how to use Adobe InDesign and a thriving industry selling video tutorials, I feared it would like trying to learn how to trisect angles or something…but I was able to format a simple publication my first day. And since I'm not that bright, you should be able to pick it up in a snap if you're of a mind to master and use such a thing.

I'm using the 30-day free trial, which I downloaded from this site and I think I'm going to want to use it past the thirty days. The program retails for seven hundred smackers and I, of course, am not going to pay that. If you pay retail more than twice in one year, you lose the right to say you're Jewish. There are discounters who can get it down to around $400 but I'm wondering if anyone knows of a cheaper source…maybe a free copy that's sitting around your office unused? I am, as you may have observed, about as subtle as the end of Gallagher's act.

And before anyone offers: Thanks but I don't want a torrent bootleg or "warez" or whatever cute name they're giving lately to copyright infringement. A few years ago, I briefly (I confess) used a few of those, mainly to test out software that didn't offer a trial version. I decided that that didn't work for me ethically…just as the programs usually didn't work for me at all. They were just too much trouble…in accord with my oft-stated maxim that few things are as expensive in life as those that are free.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is complaining about the Federal Government gathering information about U.S. citizens, suggesting that what you tell the census takers might somehow be used against you. This is the same Michele Bachmann who was a fervent supporter of every wiretapping and domestic spying program that the Bush administration wanted. Apparently, it's fine for the government to listen in and hear everything you and your friends and lovers say to one another…but no one had better ask how many flush toilets you have in your home.

She was just on the news complaining that the government is asking for everyone's phone number. I guess it's okay to tap your telephone just so long as they don't try to call it. Then she asked just what they planned to do with all those phone numbers. I'll tell you, Madame Congresswoman…

They plan to add them all together. Then they'll divide by the total U.S. population. And then, at long last, we will finally know the average American phone number.

Dick Cavett offers more memories and another delightful video embed of Dr. Jonathan Miller.