Bob Clampett did a lot of things in his life but he's remembered for two biggies: He was one of the key directors of Warner Brothers cartoons in their heyday…some would argue the best. And he was responsible for the puppet show Time for Beany and its subsequent animated version, Beany & Cecil. Either one of those all by itself would be enough to get you into a couple of Halls of Fame.
He was also in his later years, a wonderful convention guest and a friend to many in the new generation of animation creators. I have extremely fond memories of Bob calling (sometimes on the spur of the moment) and saying, "Hey, come on up to the house tonight. We're going to bring in pizzas and watch cartoons!" There were few things in my life I couldn't or wouldn't drop to take him up on those invites. Pizza and cartoons with Bob Clampett? I'll be there! I'd even have gone without the pizza. And the great thing about watching Clampett cartoons with Clampett was that you could say, "Hey, how was that scene done?" and he remembered. Sometimes, he'd even excuse himself, go into a mysterious room where he stored memorabilia and return with the actual cels or timing sheets or story sketches to use in his explanation.
Anyway, I miss Bob. He died in 1984 but I'm happy to say that his fine family has kept his name and work alive…and they've even put some of it out on DVD. They've also set up a new website which I highly suggest you visit, as much for what's going to be there as what's already up. It's beanyandcecil.com and it has some great interviews and artifacts of Bob. Go there. Order the two volumes of DVDs they have out, both of which are magnificent. Visit often. So come on, kids — let's flip our lids higher than the moon, 'cause now here's Beany and Cecil in…a Bob Clam-pett cartooooOOON…
Hey, what do you say we watch the theatrical trailer for Diamonds Are Forever? It's one of those trailers that makes you (well, me anyway) think, "Hey, I don't have to see this movie. I've seen it all in the trailer!"
You all know my pal Frank Ferrante, who often tours in a show where he does an uncanny recreation of Groucho Marx in his prime. If you're anywhere near Bainbridge Island in Washington, he'll be performing as the legendary gent on July 26…and then later in the year and next, he'll be popping up in the darnedest places across the country. You might want to consult his schedule to see if he's coming your way. Every time he plays anywhere, I get a couple of e-mails from folks thanking me for the recommendation.
Also through the end of August, he'll be playing his other character, Caesar, who serves as the ringmaster/host of Teatro ZinZanni in Seattle. Teatro ZinZanni is something you must experience once in your life…and if you go once, you'll want to go again and again. It's a dinner theater event that some describe as a Cirque du Soleil for adults but with gourmet dining. I went to the one in San Francisco last time Frank played there — there are two — and I had a great evening indeed. Frank was great but so was everyone and everything else. (By the way: The current host at the one in San Francisco — hostess, actually — is Joan Baez.)
Our video today is a little promotional spot for the show…one of Teatro ZinZanni's many skilled mixologists shows Caesar how to make a Vesper. Inasmuch as the one alcoholic beverage I've ever had in my life was a dose of Nyquil 35 years ago, the instructional value of this video is lost on me. But it's nice to see Caesar and it's nice to see his Cleopatra, an exquisite actress-acrobat named Dreya Weber who lights up Teatro ZinZanni with an aerial act of great beauty.
Frank also recently made his debut as an animation voice actor in a special hour-long episode of The Garfield Show but I'll tell you all about that when it's closer to airing, which will be some time next year. For now, here's Cocktail Time With Caesar…
There are certain Broadway shows that weren't exactly hits but they had too much going for them to be written off as flops. More to the point, people who love their better aspects keep feeling that the show can be "fixed" to bring the weak elements (usually, the book) up to the level of the good elements (usually, the songs). A few of Mr. Sondheim's faster closures — especially Merrily We Roll Along — particularly entice those who think they'll find the magic alteration or interpretation that will unflaw a flawed masterpiece. And I don't know how many times I've heard that someone is reshaping or wants to reshape Mack and Mabel or Minnie's Boys or They're Playing Our Song or several others.
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever opened in New York on October 17, 1965 for the first of 280 performances there. That's not a terrible number but there seems to be a consensus that audiences weren't wild about it and that it only lasted as long as it did because of a big advance sale…and the big advance sale was because its book and lyrics were by Alan Jay Lerner. Lerner's two previous shows were Camelot and My Fair Lady and in between them, he'd done the movie, Gigi. So a lot of folks raced to grab tickets for his next musical before it even opened. Once it did, mixed reviews and word of mouth slowed down the stampede to the box office.
It did manage a movie sale, plus you have that wonderful title song that people love a lot…so it's remembered and it gets revived often…and revised officially and unofficially. The feeling seems to be that the songs are great but the book is lacking. Lerner himself presided over several different stage versions, plus he changed things around a lot for the 1970 film. In 1980, his last (I assume) version of the script ran a few weeks down at the Music Center in Los Angeles with an eye towards going to New York if it clicked. It didn't. It had Robert Goulet and Joanna Gleason and they were very good and the songs were very good…but the story just seemed to not excite anyone, at least the night I saw it. Yet another new version is reportedly heading for Broadway later this year with substantial revisions to the book, this time not by Mr. Lerner, who died in '86. Let's hope it works this time.
The following is a 14 minute sampler from the original production with Barbara Harris and John Cullum. The man doing the introducing is Cyril Ritchard, who's probably best known for playing Cap'n Hook to Mary Martin's You-Know-Who. This is from an episode of the Bell Telephone Hour TV show broadcast February 27, 1966. That would have been around the time the advance Broadway sale was petering out and the show was starting to have a lot of empty seats so I offer the following theory…
Lerner's previous show, Camelot, received very mixed (and a few hostile) reviews when it opened but it too coasted along on an advance sale. Writing My Fair Lady can buy you an awful lot of good will for a time. During the first few months, a lot of folks reportedly walked out on Camelot or didn't even use the tickets they'd purchased…but those who went and stayed saw an increasingly improving production. Most shows don't change much after they open. If it's a hit, no one wants to tamper. If it's not, it usually closes before major renovations can be done. Because of the advance though, Camelot had the rare opportunity to stay open while it was reworked.
Then came what Lerner later called "The Miracle of Camelot." He and his then-collaborator Frederick Loewe were to be honored with an entire hour of The Ed Sullivan Show devoted to their work. At the time, it was not customary to show much of a current Broadway production on TV for fear that people would think, "Well, I've seen the best moments…no need to buy a ticket." With the box office staff at Camelot getting awfully lonely, Lerner and Loewe decided they had nothing to lose so they offered Ed a large chunk of Camelot, as performed by Julie Andrews, Richard Burton and the aforementioned Mr. Goulet. The next day, the box office employees weren't the least bit lonely and those who saw the improved version spread the word that the show was pretty darn good. It wound up running 873 performances and there were big tours and the cast album was a smash. Lerner credited Camelot becoming a hit to the gamble of doing so much of it on the Sullivan program.
So anyway, my theory is that this was his attempt to do the same trick with On A Clear Day. It didn't work as well and the show closed June 11 but maybe this bought them four more months. I'll bet if the whole thing had been as good as these fourteen minutes, it would have run a long, long time…
Not long ago, I had an unpleasant time trying to park in the lot for a Whole Foods Market.They kind of presume there that everyone has a Compact and that we can somehow park 300 of them in 250 spaces. Anyway, when I got home from that ordeal, I found that my pal Dawna Kaufmann had coincidentally sent me a link to this…
Just for you: Five minutes of one of my favorite standup comedians…the late Jackie Vernon.This is a shortened version of a great routine he used to do showing "slides" from his vacation.
Not long before he passed away, which was in 1987, I saw him live for the first and only time. It was at the old Marina Hotel in Las Vegas — the one they tore down to build the current MGM Grand. Mr. Vernon was the lead comic in a burlesque revue called "Babes Ahoy!" because it had a bit of a navy theme, as did the hotel-casino. Mostly, he did old Minsky's-type routines with women whose shirts mysteriously disappeared…but at one point, he came out and did about fifteen minutes of pure standup with no topless ladies on the stage with him. It was his "vacation slides" routine with all new (to me) lines and I probably laughed as hard at that fifteen minutes as I ever have at anything in my life.
I wish I could show you more of Jackie Vernon but you'll have to settle for these five minutes…
There's a saying in the theater that everyone looks good in a hit and no one looks good in a flop.The 1967 musical Henry, Sweet, Henry was pretty much a flop. Despite the participation of many top talents, it closed after 80 performances and has rarely (like, once or twice) been revived since.
The reviews weren't good and it's sometimes cited as a show that audiences liked but the critics killed. Not having seen it, I have no idea how true that may have been…but back then, that was quite possible. It isn't as possible these days as witness the fact that The Addams Family and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are still running, the latter to capacity audiences. Anyway, both the critics and Word of Mouth did agree that the best thing about Henry, Sweet, Henry was the performance by an actress named Alice Playten. It didn't make her a big star but it got her a lot of attention and a lot of work…and for a long time, she appeared quite often on TV shows and in commercials. I never met her but I sure knew who she was and thought she was very, very good in everything she did.
The above is in the past tense because, sadly, Ms. Playten passed away the other day of heart failure at the age of 63. Here's an obit.
And here's Alice Playten.This is from an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show sometime during the brief run of Henry, Sweet, Henry. Don Ameche was the star and he introduces the number. The song isn't great but the singer sure is…
Hey, it's the opening number from The Great Muppet Caper but guess what! It's in German! Andrew Leal sends me the following info on the folks who dubbed the track…
Andreas von der Meden (Kermit) has voiced the frog on Sesamstrasse (the German Sesame Street) since 1973, although unlike the other voices here, he was not in the Muppet Show dub. Bruno W. Pantel (Fozzie) appeared in Fritz Lang's 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, he was the German voice of Peter Falk and Jack Benny. Gonzo is voiced by Werner Abrolat, who appeared in many international co-productions, usually as villains, working with Christopher Lee in The Castle of Dr. Fu Manchu and he was in Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More (as gang member Slim).
All good to know. Around the world, there are actors who specialize in dubbing specific American actors. Years ago, I met a gentleman who spoke for Jack Lemmon in most Spanish-language releases of Mr. Lemmon's movies. He was hired by different distributors in Spain and (I think) Mexico to do this and it intrigued me that those distributors would seek him out and pay whatever his price was, rather than just use anyone.They perceived some value in giving audiences a consistent voice coming out Lemmon's mouth even though it was obvious to all that it wasn't really Jack Lemmon's voice. So here's what Kermit and his friends sound like in Germany…
Time for another battle royale between Milton Berle and the King of the Hecklers, Sidney Spritzer. As ever, it's Irv Benson playing the guy who insults Uncle Miltie from a box seat. In this clip, Berle does a famous burlesque bit sometimes called "Sticky Fingers." I'm not sure who the guy is he does it with. It looks a lot like Vance Colvig Jr. but I don't think it's him. Anyway, take a peek…
Here from the old ABC Schoolhouse Rock series, we have "I'm Just a Bill," sung by a great musician (and a very funny man) named Jack Sheldon. Mutual friends are e-mailing me to say that Jack passed away yesterday and since I'm hoping it's not so [UPDATE: it is not) and I don't have another obit in me tonight, let's just enjoy the vocal stylings of Mr. Jack Sheldon, shall we?
This runs twenty minutes but it's well worth your time. It's a commencement address that Stephen Colbert recently gave at his alma mater, Northwestern University. The first fifteen minutes are very good comedy and the last five are very good advice. In fact, it's one of the smartest things I've ever heard anyone say in a setting like this.
You probably caught the opening number of the Tony Awards last Sunday night but just in case, here it is. I thought the whole show was terrific but the opening was a real standout…