From a recent Today Show: Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette discuss the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in which they're appearing in New York and then lip-sync the finale with the cast. So far, ticket sales are reportedly brisk but I'll bet producers are worried that what they're getting now are the Harry Potter fans and there may not be enough of them — or at least enough that want to see Harry performing show tunes — to yield a long run.
Here's a gold strike on YouTube: Someone has posted in four parts, a pretty good copy of a 1960 episode of The Steve Allen Plymouth Show. This was another in the long line of Steve Allen programs…and I may be wrong but I think this was the first series he did on videotape as opposed to live. Nevertheless, I'll bet they shot it pretty much as if it was live.
It appears to have been done on Stage 1 at NBC Burbank, which is the studio Johnny Carson used for The Tonight Show years later. The steep rake in that studio (i.e., the way the audience was set up) was reportedly a suggestion/demand of Bob Hope and any time he did something in front of a live audience at NBC Burbank, he insisted on using that stage for it. On most of his specials — at least the later ones — they taped everything except the monologue and the closing across the hall on Stage 3. Then a night or two before the special aired, he'd appear on Mr. Carson's show to plug it and while he was there, they'd fly in a different curtain and Hope would tape his monologue and closing spot for the special using the Tonight Show audience. (Just before tape would roll, he'd make some reference to Carson being his opening act and say, "Thanks for warming them up for me, Johnny.")
The Steve Allen show you're about to see if you click features Tony Bennett as the main guest and the last fourth or so is mostly Bennett performing with Les Brown's orchestra. There are two special treats to look for if you want to scan through the hour. In the second of four parts, there's a very long sketch with Steve Allen as Dr. Frankenstein, Louis Nye as the Monster, Jayne Meadows as the Bride of the Monster and Gabe Dell and Bill Dana in supporting roles. It will remind you somewhat of Young Frankenstein, though I would imagine every variety show that was ever on for more than one season did a sketch that would remind you of Young Frankenstein.
In the third quarter of the episode, Steve does a long (about 10 minutes) segment of just chatting with members of the studio audience and passing out salamis. It's very funny and it's the kind of ad-lib situation that guys like Letterman and Leno would not dare attempt without prepared lines, planned routines and maybe even some advance coaching of the interviewees. If you only have time to watch a little of this, watch that.
As I said, it was uploaded in four parts. They should play one after the other in the player I've embedded below…and you should be able to figure out how to skip ahead to the later chapters if you like. You may also enjoy the Plymouth commercials, especially the one Steverino does. Thanks to Craig Robin for calling this to my attention — and now, enjoy…
I recently wrote here about Farmers Market, a fixture of Los Angeles since 1934 and a part of my life as long as I can remember. It's a nice aggregation of merchants, a few of whom still sell fresh produce. In '34, most of them did and a few sold hot food. Over the years, the ratio reversed and you also got gift shops, souvenir shops, a toy store, a couple of jewelers, etc. The main attraction is that you go there, you get something to eat at one of the stalls and then you sit outdoors at a table and eat with your friends…or you can just watch all the interesting people pass by.
For those of you who don't know the Market: I'd recommend the chicken teriyaki at China Depot (yeah, I know Teriyaki is Japanese), the barbecue sandwiches at Bryan's Barbecue, the open face turkey sandwich and the corned beef sandwich at Magee's, anything fried at Tusquella's Seafood, the spaghetti at Patsy's Pizza, the donuts at Bob's and almost everything at the Pampas Grill but especially the chicken stroganoff. A lot of folks think The Gumbo Pot has the best cajun food in Los Angeles and that Loteria has superb Mexican chow but I don't know from those cuisines.
My parents probably took me there when I was an infant and my actual memories of the place begin around age 5 or 6. There was a pet store there that had a talking parrot and later a mynah bird on display outside its door. You would not believe how many tourists clustered around the current bird, whichever it was at the time, waiting for it to say something. Greatest crowd-attracter you've ever seen.
I also used to see celebrities there all the time, starting around age eight with Chuck Connors. I mean I was eight, not Chuck. I told him I always watched him on The Rifleman and he told me to go away because he was busy.
I have hundreds of stories about Farmers Market, above and beyond my infamous near-encounter with Mel Tormé. For a couple of years there, an actor named Chuck Mitchell was a fixture at the tables where folks sit and eat and lounge. Mr. Mitchell was famous for playing Porky in the Porky's movies. He actually had a pretty long, active career, usually playing rednecks and mobsters but no one knew him from those gigs. They knew him as Porky and for a few years there, he was always at the Market, signing autographs as Chuck "Porky" Mitchell and posing for photos and loving every minute of his late-arriving celebrity.
It seemed to me he got there early in the morning so he could grab a certain table where tourists were most likely to pass. At least, he was usually at that table, chatting with actor pals, making like it was an unexpected but tolerated inconvenience when some tourist approached to ask for an autograph and/or pic. Once in a while, he'd just "happen" to have a spare eight-by-ten glossy he would let them have because they seemed like real fans.
When I dined at the Market, I'd sometimes sit where I could watch him in action. He was great at making those who approached feel welcome, telling them little anecdotes about the business and giving them the chance to go back to Idaho and say they'd met someone from the movies. I recall parents shoving their children into place for a snapshot with "Porky" and it never seemed to matter to anyone that he was famous for playing a nasty whorehouse owner in a film the kids were too young to see. He was a star…and as far as I was concerned, a much bigger one than Chuck "I'm busy" Connors.
One time, I was at the barbecue stand waiting for a sandwich and I heard Mr. Mitchell, as he picked up his lunch, remind the counterguy of where he was sitting and that it was okay to tell tourists who he was and to send them his way. I got the feeling he'd told this to the lady at the donut stand, the man at the ice cream counter, the folks at the sushi place, etc. — and I didn't see anything wrong or unbecoming about it. It made him happy. It made visitors happy. If I'd been a manager at Farmers Market, I'd have paid him to sit there all day, drink Bob's Coffee and pass out signed pictures. When he passed away in 1992, his usual table was vacant for a while. Someone put a funeral bouquet on it and an eight-by-ten of Chuck as Porky and it all seemed very warm and appropriate.
Things like that happen at Farmers Market. Here's a little video that the operators of the place put up on YouTube. It's mostly recent footage but they intercut some scenes of the Market in, I'm guessing, the late fifties. It hasn't changed all that much, which is nice because most everything else has. You'll get some sense of what the place is like…though they somehow missed including any footage of the place that makes the great Hot Turkey Sandwiches. They're probably saving that for a Special Edition.
From a 1966 episode of Hollywood Palace: Carl Reiner interviews a man who is actually two thousand years old. Hey, they couldn't claim that if it wasn't true…
A new revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying recently opened on Broadway. It stars Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette and the reviews have been all over the scale, positive and negative. Here's a little more than eight minutes of the show — and I have to say that nothing in here makes me want to see it. The choreography especially looks like it's from the "Let's make our dancers do real difficult physical stuff for no particular reason" school, which seems to be the trend these days…
Here's a few seconds of Stephen Colbert and Martha Plimpton rehearsing for the recent limited-run production of Company in New York. The show was recorded on video and will be exhibited much in the coming months, starting with some sort of shown-in-movie-theaters distribution, I believe. I'm more than a little curious since I heard such conflicting things about it. About a dozen people wrote me that they'd seen it and some said it was wonderful while some said it was, "Let's bring in TV names who don't have time to rehearse or really learn their roles instead of lesser knowns who do." And what really intrigues me is that one friend who feels as I do about Company — that it's a lot of fun scenes that don't add up to a coherent experience — said that this time, for him it did. Anyway, here's a brief snatch of rehearsal…
This blog has gone too long without any Laurel and Hardy on it…and I suppose I should have clarified that Dick Van Dyke is my favorite contemporary performer. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were my favorite all-time performers…and probably Dick Van Dyke's, as well.
This is a clip from Los Calaveras, which is one of the films they made in a foreign language — in this case, Spanish — for the foreign market. Before it was technically feasible to dub or subtitle American movies, this was how they were exported overseas. Stan and Ollie actually filmed several of their films in English, then went back and did the dialogue scenes again in Spanish, German and/or French.
For the foreign versions, some new actors were brought in who were fluent in the language in question. Stan and Oliver spoke naught but English so a translator-coach would write their dialogue out on a blackboard just outside of camera range and The Boys would read the equivalent of phonetic cue cards. Apparently, the awkwardness of their speech was endearing to many audiences in other lands. In this clip, you can see Hardy especially glancing over to where the words are. You also see a brief appearance by Charlie Hall, a British actor who turned up in a lot of made-in-English Laurel and Hardy comedies and who probably had to learn his few words in a tongue he didn't speak.
Los Calaveras was, by the way, a short feature made for Spanish-speaking audiences by linking together two shorts made for America — Be Big and Laughing Gravy — along with some newly-written scenes that connected the two. The scenes below were all a part of the Be Big section…
More Muppet madness…
Here's a short video of a baby penguin. Baby penguins aren't as cute as baby pandas…but then neither are you.
Got twenty minutes? You might want to spend it watching this video of a "talk" Roger Ebert recently gave, assisted by his wife and two friends, about his loss of speech. Thanks to Gordon Kent for suggesting I embed this one…
A few years ago, the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas went away…largely unmourned, I suspect. There was a lot of history there but long ago and far away. The building — the first hotel I stayed in in Vegas, by the way — had gotten pretty grungy even before the big labor strike there that lasted six years, four months, and 10 days.
For a long time, everyone knew it would soon be imploded. The questions were When? and What would replace it? The first question was answered when it went kaboom in November of 2007. The second question is still to be answered. New resorts are announced for the property every year or so but funding is tight and lots of plans are falling through. Here's a nice little video about the implosion…
Hey, what's on The Learning Channel this week?
I was a big fan of Dean Martin's variety show. It was sloppy in its production values and sloppier in its edits and direction, and if I'd been a writer for it (a job I came semi-close to getting), I probably would have winced at how little rehearsal and polish went into the delivery of the material. But watching the show was often a pleasure, mostly because Dean was just so comfy and cool. It's difficult to take your eyes off him when he's on the screen alone…and when there was someone else there with him, it was usually someone interesting or gorgeous or both. Even though some of them were pretty big stars, Dean always seemed utterly unthreatened by them and totally devoted to making them look good.
A couple of times, I got to poach on the set of The Dean Martin Show and it all seemed like enormous fun…the kind that bleeds right through the TV screen to the home viewer. I never got to meet Dean but that was okay. A friend of mine who wrote for the show, the late Nick Arnold, told me he never met Dean, either. Every week though, he would ask the producer-director Greg Garrison, "How's Dean?" And every week, Garrison would give the same answer: "Dean's beautiful."
More DVDs are on their way. Here's a promotional video for them…
Take the next eight minutes of your life and just watch Zero Mostel being Zero Mostel…
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