Category Archives: Video Links

Last year while many of us were down at the Comic-Con in San Diego, I missed an event at the Egyptian Theater up in Hollywood I would have liked to have attended. They ran Blazing Saddles and Silent Movie…and had Mel Brooks speak between the pics. Fortunately, someone recorded it and it's up on YouTube. Very few things I have missed in my life will never be on YouTube.

It runs 50 minutes and Mel tells a few stories in ways he's never told them before. The anecdote about hiring and firing Gig Young for Blazing Saddles is quite different from how I've heard it before, including one time when I was sitting on the floor of his office at 20th Century Fox as Mel was interviewed for some magazine. As told back then, Young was forced on him by the studio…and had a pretty ugly breakdown on the set during the first (and Young's only) day of shooting. Brooks also omits the part of the story where he previously offered the part of the Waco Kid to Johnny Carson, who thought the script was quite unfunny and a surefire flop.

But hey, it's Mel Brooks talking for 50 minutes. How can that not be fun?

This is rather impressive. An animator named Roger D. Evans was a big fan of the sixties TV show, Jonny Quest. Well, so was I…but unlike him, I didn't remake the opening in a new stop motion version with, obviously, a certain amount of computer graphics factored in.

It's a great effort and my only complaint is that I wish they'd stuck Doug Wildey's name in there someplace. Doug created and designed the show and didn't get nearly enough recognition for it. For that matter, the show has not received nearly enough credit for all the folks it inspired to get into animation and/or adventure art and fiction. Here's what it inspired Roger Evans to do…

For those of you who have twelve minutes and like to look at movie stars walking onto a stage, here's a link that Lyle Davis sent me…an event staged to note the opening of the movie That's Entertainment in 1974. I find myself wondering about all the MGM stars who were alive at the time and not present — Mickey Rooney, Ann Miller, Mel Tormé, Red Skelton, Van Johnson, Lucille Ball, Groucho Marx, etc. But it's still an impressive assemblage. Can anyone figure out how many of the folks there were also in this photo?

And speaking of old guys who are beloved: A few months ago, I saw Jerry Van Dyke and Dick Van Dyke in a production of The Sunshine Boys. Strictly as theater, you could quibble with some changes they made in the play and with the absence of a certain Jewish sensibility. But not one person in the place cared. We all had a grand time because it was Jerry Van Dyke and Dick Van Dyke. They could have just stood there and coughed for two hours and they'd still have gotten a standing o at the end.

They're taking the show to Texas for not very many performances in early September. Here's a little 90 second promo that is kinda interesting because of the relationship in it…and because though the big selling point is that it's Jerry Van Dyke and Dick Van Dyke, no one ever bothers to say those names…

Our pal Chuck McCann presents the shortest science-fiction movie ever made…

Here's a smartly-edited video of "cosplayers" at the Comic-Con in San Diego last month. The noun "cosplayers" snuck up on me. I have no idea where it came other than a guess that it came out of the gaming world…but it's come to denote anyone in costume at a convention. The nature of this video would lead you to believe they were the entire population of the con instead of less than ~2% or thereabouts. But there are some great, creative outfits there that deserve to be seen…

There's a new ride at Disney's California Adventure. And since it features Goofy, who better to tell us about it than our pal, Bill Farmer, voice of The Goof…

Jerry Leiber of the songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller has died at the age of 78. I always knew the two men gave us a lot of hits but I don't think I realized just how many until they started flying at me when I saw the Broadway show, Smokey Joe's Cafe. I somehow didn't get a program book on the way in or maybe didn't look at one I did get. In any case, I didn't know all the tunes that were coming so as hit after hit was performed, I kept thinking, "Oh, yeah…they wrote that, too" or sometimes, "Gee, I didn't know they wrote that."

It was a stunning playlist and then when I went home and looked those gentlemen up in a book I have, I noted another dozen or so chart-toppers that the producers didn't even have room for in Smokey Joe's Cafe — including, ironically, "Smokey Joe's Cafe."There are composers out there who built their whole reputations and personal fortunes on one hit of the magnitude of "Jailhouse Rock" while Leiber and Stoller had dozens.Take a look at this list on their website.

Here's a link to a brief interview with them that ran in Rolling Stone. And below, we have a clip from an episode of What's My Line? that aired in March of 1958.Though they had had many hits by then, Leiber and Stoller were still so unknown that it was okay for them to sign in as themselves. Host John Daly and panelist Dorothy Kilgallen were somewhat condescending with their remarks on rock 'n' roll but Leiber and Stoller took it in stride, especially after it was noted how popular (at least in a monetary sense) their work was…

Here's a clip from Live! Dick Clark Presents!, a short-lived 1988 variety show that I almost worked on but didn't. Mr. Clark introduces a precision cheerleading team and after they perform — about halfway through this clip — he brings on Lou Goldstein. For those of you who don't know, Lou Goldstein made what I guess was a decent career leading people in games of "Simon Says." He honed his skills at Catskills resorts and then carried his act to arenas, trade shows and occasionally television. It was an odd act but I never saw him not delight an audience with it…

Robert Reich explains it all for you…

An event called D23 is going on this weekend down at the Anaheim Convention Center. Billed as "the ultimate Disney fan expo," it's pretty much a big infomercial and Disney Store combined, catering to folks who are just fine with that and eager to attend.

Yesterday morning, they had a ceremony to induct more names into the annals of Disney Legends. I gather there's a widespread feeling among Disney purists that the definition of a "Disney Legend" is being lowered to anyone famous who's ever done anything that made the company a buck. This year's inductees included a bunch of folks who did one voice of one character on one movie…an achievement that somehow doesn't seem to warrant quite the same trophy given to Carl Barks, Ub Iwerks, the Sherman Brothers or the members of the Nine Old Men who lived into the era when they began giving these things out.

In any case, they presented one to a person no one would argue was a legend, though some might argue Jim Henson wasn't exactly a Disney legend. I'm not quite sure why it took until 2011 for Mr. Henson to make the cut. Disney acquired his major characters in 2003. Jim Henson died in 1990 and hasn't made any noticeable contribution since then. How did he suddenly become worthy of the honor now?

The award to Regis Philbin is an example of a significant difference in how the company thinks and how the fans, in general, think. To the latter, "Disney" is the company that operates the theme parks, handles the classic characters and makes movies and TV shows that are obvious extensions of the ones Walt produced. Regis, whatever his achievements, doesn't fit into that even if his paycheck does come from (and the profits from his show do go to) the Disney corporation.

Oh, well. Here are two news reports on the event that just happened (what a coincidence) to appear on a local news channel owned by Disney…

And here's a non-authorized video someone took of the performance at the Disney Legends ceremony by Kermit and Rowlf — two characters first performed by Jim Henson but now in the capable hands of others. I assume Kermit is performed by Steve Whitmire and Rowlf by Bill Barretta but am not absolutely certain…

I assume most of you watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart but every so often, they do something so perceptive and funny that I just want it on my blog. This is from last night…

This one's too complicated for me to embed it here but you might enjoy spending a half-hour watching a good documentary about Peter Sellers.

A funny moment with Johnny Carson and Steve Martin…

I haven't been to New York in a while so I haven't seen a musical called Catch Me If You Can, which opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on April 10. And if I ever do see it, I probably won't see it there since it's closing September 4th after 32 preview and 170 regular performances. A national tour has been announced for late next year.

I'm a bit surprised from afar that its run was so short. It got fairly poor reviews but so did The Addams Family, which is still running sans Nathan Lane. Catch Me If You Can was based on a popular movie, had good people behind it (most of those who did Hairspray) and a pretty sexy ad campaign. Here's the commercial they've been running…

That alone wouldn't necessarily drive me into the theater but it would make me seriously consider buying a ticket. So has one particular musical number — "Don't Break the Rules" — which got raves even from reviewers who hated everything else. Co-star Norbert Leo Butz and the troupe performed it on the Tony Awards and I thought it plus Mr. Butz's win for Best Actor in a Musical would fill a lot of seats. Here's that presentation…

Isn't that terrific, even with the awkward bleep for a line about screwing someone's wife? And I note that the show has been pretty consistently playing at 80-85% capacity, which is usually enough to stay open…but I guess not in this case.

At the first performance after Butz won the Tony, he gave a rather wonderful curtain speech that also makes me wish I could see the show, at least with him in it. My friend Shelly Goldstein, whose tastes I trust and who did see Catch Me If You Can on Broadway, said I wouldn't like it; that apart from the above number and the fine work by Butz, it is not a great show. Maybe not…but I sure like me some Norbert Leo Butz…