I haven't posted a George Carl clip here in a while and I don't think I've featured this one before. It's hard to be sure because Mr. Carl did pretty much the same brilliant act for many decades so any hunk of video featuring him seems familiar to me. But as Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent used to say, "What the heck?" Even if this is a repeat, he's still worth watching. Again and again and again…
Here, not that you're going to watch it all the way through, is Chapter One of the 1944 Captain America serial made by Republic Studios. This runs about 26 minutes, whereas the other fourteen chapters clocked in around sixteen each. As serials go, it was one of the better ones…and reportedly, the most expensive Republic ever made. The problem with it for some of us is that name and costume aside, it has nothing to do with the Captain America of the comic books. He has a different other identity, a different modus operandi, none of the same supporting characters, he uses a gun, etc. Legend has it that the script was written for another comic book hero, most likely Mr. Scarlet, a less-than-stellar crimefighter who appeared in Fawcett Comics.
There are two theories about what happened next, both of which presume that the guesses are right that it was Mr. Scarlet. One is that Republic discovered that Mr. Scarlet wasn't as popular as they thought; that Fawcett had decided to give up on the character and instead of cover-featuring him and giving him his own comic, they were about to relegate him to second-string backup status. This, some suggest, caused Republic to start shopping around for another, more popular comic book hero who could fit the existing script. The other theory is that Republic optioned the property from Fawcett, then got into a quarrel with them over the final contract.
Whatever the reason, Republic approached Martin Goodman at Timely Comics, publishers of Captain America. Mr. Goodman was not only agreeable, he apparently thought that getting a movie made of one of his properties (his first such offer…and maybe his last for more than twenty years) would hugely enhance the character's merchandising potential. He let the rights go for darn near nothing and demanded no approvals of the product.
He did send some copies of Captain America comics to Republic so they could get "his" character right but they weren't interested in that. They just changed the name of the hero in the script they were already developing and made pretty much the same serial they'd planned before it was going to be Captain America. I have never seen the actual correspondence but I'm told that someone unearthed some letters that flew back and forth between Goodman and Republic and they were along these lines: Goodman (or his people wrote), "Captain America never uses a gun," to which Republic responded, "Well, you didn't send us any samples that established that he never uses a gun."
The serial was modestly received but there was no clamor for a sequel, nor does it seem to have done a thing for the popularity of the star-spangled hero. One of many reasons for the latter was that Goodman does not seem to have known enough to demand, as did other proprietors of adapted comic books, a screen credit that said something like, "Based on the character appearing in Timely Comics." The creators of Captain America, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, were of course annoyed that their creation had been put on the movie screen with them receiving neither money nor credit. They were also both mystified that the serial so altered their great character.
So here's Chapter One. The other chapters are findable on the 'net with minimal Googling but I'm betting you won't bother. To watch all fifteen parts would take a little more than four hours. You have much better things to do with your life even if you do come to this site. Heck, you won't even make it a third of the way through this…
Two "Berts" from Mary Poppins: Dick Van Dyke (who originated the role) and Gavin Lee (who's starred in the musical) take a walk around the Disney lot…
I'm a big fan of the off-Broadway (and often, off-off-off-Broadway) show, Forever Plaid. There are a lot of shows around these days that seek to replicate its success by replicating its structure and even financial model…but few seem to have the singularity of purpose and heart.
A year or two ago, I somehow managed to completely miss a feature film version which, I guess, didn't get a wide release. It starred Stan Chandler, David Engel, Daniel Reichard and Larry Raben. Larry is the fellow I thought was so good playing Hysterium on that production I saw last Friday of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Anyway, the movie seems to have slipped away and is not yet on DVD. If you hear it will be, lemme know since I'd like to see it. Here's the E.P.K. ("electronic press kit") for the film…
From the same 1972 episode of The Flip Wilson Show: One of the first stand-up routines of the remarkable Albert Brooks…
From a 1972 episode of The Flip Wilson Show, Albert Brooks shows us what would happen if we decided to rewrite our National Anthem…
The other day, we favored you with a look at Al Kelly, master of double talk comedy. John Sinclair, who writes teevee shows in the U.K., tells me about Mr. Kelly's British equivalent — "Professor" Stanley Unwin, who seems to have gotten his title at whatever institute of higher learning also gave us "Professor" Irwin Corey. Here is Prof. Unwin in action. This clip will be meaningless to those of you who think that everyone with a British accent is utterly unintelligible. Oh, why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
The late Al Kelly was one of the most underflent comedians who ever strunned in the business. There were others who had the fane of his pin but only Al, of all the krelms in the drub, rose to the pinnacle of kleep. Comic journalist Barry Mitchell was krebulent enough to timpur this vole of Mr. Kelly in all his masterflutch glory. Watch it. Enjoy it. Glump it. But most of all, remember that the true measure of a man is not whether he yumps his fob but whether he can fern the last chubs of his berf…
In 1966, when ABC was in its "try a little of everything" mode, they had an ambitious, short-lived weekly anthology series called ABC Stage 67. Each week, it presented an original play, usually a musical comedy.The most notable entry aired on 11/16/66 — Evening Primrose, a spooky musical with a book by James Goldman and songs by Stephen Sondheim. It was a quirky little tale of a poet named Charles, played by Anthony Perkins, who renounces society and goes to live in a department store.
There have been a few recordings of the Evening Primrose score since then but the video itself has not been easy to come by. Grainy bootleg videos abound…and today's clip is from one. But we will soon have a pro-quality, restored DVD. It comes out in May and this is an Amazon link to pre-order your copy. Here's a poor video sample…
The late 'n' lovely Madeline Kahn sings with Grover — while you try to figure out exactly what position Frank Oz is in…
Our pal Maurice LaMarche, voice artist supreme, is one of the main commissioners of International Talk Like William Shatner Day which, by an amazing coincidence, happens to be today. If you have a decent bone in your body, you will spend the day talking like William Shatner, taking oddly-placed pauses in your sentences…and you get extra points for a chorus of "Rocket Man." So do your part. Participate. Do not sabotage the system.
We have long groused about the inefficiency of the C-Span website and how their video clips were great except for the teensy-tiny problem that you could never get any of them to play. Well, someone there may have redeemed themselves because they've now set up a whole online library of darn near every video clip they have lying around. What's more, it's easily searchable so you can just lose yourself for days, weeks, months watching politicians speak out of both sides of an online player. I haven't even begun to dig around in there…but if you find a great clip, send me a link to it.
Their embeddable player is, as you can see below, a little large for its size but I thought I'd give it a try here.This is an 8-minute press conference conducted by Stephen Colbert on October 28, 2007 when he was presented with the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina…
Yesterday's video link reminded me of this film that I linked to four years ago but have never embedded. It's the full version (I think) of Truth in Advertising, a short film made in Canada back in 2001. A gentleman named Tim Hamilton directed and co-wrote this look at the inner workings of the advertising industry…and some of you will recognize Colin Mochrie in one of the lead roles. I should warn certain readers of this site that it contains some naughty language, and that's about all you need to know…
And now, a trailer for an Academy Award-winning movie…
Actor Peter Graves has died at the age of 83. I never met Mr. Graves nor have I ever heard any interesting anecdotes about him. Still, he was in some fine things, including the TV show, Mission: Impossible, and the movie, Airplane!. I always thought Airplane! was the quintessential example of a film that couldn't be appreciated unless you saw it in a theater with a large, hip audience.This is the trailer for it.There isn't a lot of Peter Graves here but you do get to hear him deliver his famous line and get one of the biggest laughs in the history of the cinema…