Category Archives: Video Links

How to make matzo balls. I wish my Aunt Dot could have seen this video. She used to make the steel-belted radial version. I think I still have a few of hers around from 1965.

One year — this part is true — she made them for a family dinner we had on Christmas Day. After struggling gamely with them, I had to go deliver presents to some neighbors and as I walked outside, I saw Fred MacMurray getting out of his car, on his way to visit one of those neighbors. My immediate thought was that he'd come to get some of Aunt Dot's matzo balls to use as Flubber.

Here's the right way to do it. At least, according to this lady. You may have to watch a brief commercial to get to her…

This is a clip from a Bob Hope special in which he showed a clip from The Tonight Show. Don Rickles is the guest host, Hope does one of his famous "surprise" walk-ons…and is joined by two other friends. I don't know how much of this was planned in advance but I do know that true surprises are verboten on today's talk shows.

My blog isn't happy unless it has a little Laurel and Hardy on it from time to time. Here's the trailer from the last film they made for the Hal Roach Studio before decamping for Twentieth-Century Fox, Saps at Sea. As a kid, I owned — and come to think of it, still own 'cause it's in a closet here somewhere — an 8mm silent print of this movie. A company called Blackhawk Films released it, adding in title cards here and there to make up for the absence of sound. I'm not sure why I bought it or if I ever watched it all the way through that way. As much as I love Stan and Ollie, their sound films kinda need sound…and this one, which is about how Hardy goes nuts whenever he hears a horn, needs it more than most. I guess I just love to watch these guys…

It's Cartoon Time, kiddies!This is one that's embedded in my brain from having seen it 7,448 times between the ages of 4 and 8. Sheriff John Rovick on KTTV here in Los Angeles used to run Tom & Jerry cartoons on his daily noontime show, Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade.The Sheriff was a genial, gentle man who put on a great show even if he did only have about eight cartoons to run over and over and over.

This is, of course, not the famed cat 'n' mouse duo named Tom & Jerry.This is an earlier pair whose cartoons were animated between 1931 and 1933 by the Van Beuren Studios.They made 26 of these and among the folks responsible was a young gagman named Joseph Barbera. Years later, of course, Mr. Barbera would team up with Bill Hanna to make the cartoons of the other Tom & Jerry.Thanks to Sheriff John, I've always had a warm spot for the human versions and particularly remember this film, which was released on December 9, 1932. I'm about to watch it for the 7,449th time…

I continue to be intrigued by local and regional productions of The Producers. Here's a promo reel for a version that was done in May of '08 at the North Shore Music Theatre, which is located in Beverly, Massachusetts. And what's interesting to me is that that's a theatre-in-the-round, where the audience sits on all sides of the performers.That means that the director had to reinvent all the staging and work with minimal sets which could be hustled on and off stage, usually up the aisles. Obviously not easy to do.

I think that's Jim Stanek playing Leo Bloom. He was Hero in the Nathan Lane revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum a few years back. He was good in that and he was probably a very good Leo.

Hey, let's sing along with Popeye!This is a little short that the Max Fleischer studio cobbled together in 1934 when the squinty sailor and his theme song were getting popular. It uses animation that was done for Popeye's first short (entitled just Popeye the Sailor and produced the year before) and the voice is by Popeye's first voice, William Costello.

Some sources say that the one line where Popeye says "Sing along with me, everybody" was done by Jack Mercer, who took over the job of voicing the spinach-eater after Costello departed…and it does sound more like Mercer than Costello.The trouble with that deduction is that every single source says that Mercer didn't replace Costello until 1935. So if any of this matters to you, you'll have to figure it out for yourself…

Say, what if Irving Berlin, instead of writing Annie, Get Your Gun, had written West Side Story? I think this is the last of these, which is not to say it isn't one of the best…

Since we've been talking about Jack Benny here, here's a memorable clip from a 1955 episode of his TV show. Groucho Marx was then doing his game show, You Bet Your Life, and he went on the Benny program to do this sketch. Jack has disguised himself to get on the quiz show and maybe win some money and…well, you'll see…

I can't embed this clip here but you might want to click and watch it. It's from the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony. Jack Lemmon presents an honorary Oscar to Julius "Groucho" Marx. Go watch it.

And while we're at it: At the 1977 ceremony, the Best Actor award went to Peter Finch for his performance in Network. Since Mr. Finch had passed away, someone had to be designated to accept on his behalf. (They stopped doing this at some point, at least on the lesser awards. I'm not sure if they still do it on the major ones.) Anyway, the Finch family and all his friends wanted the accepter to be his widow, Eletha. The Academy said that was not possible. After 1972 when Marlon Brando dispatched Sacheen Littlefeather to accept — actually, decline — his award for The Godfather, the Academy made a rule: A substitute accepter had to be a member of the Academy. Eletha Finch was not.

So Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote Network and was an Academy member, was selected to accept. When Finch won, Chayefsky did a smart and classy thing. He got to the podium and called the widow to the stage to accept the trophy. On some interview show the next day, he said, "What were they going to do? Have Security tackle her on her way to the stage and wrestle her to the ground to stop her?"

But I've always been a tad suspicious about whether Chayefsky did this on his own accord. I suspect the producers of the telecast knew about it in advance and perhaps suggested it. After all, it enabled them to get that nice, emotional moment for their show without violating the Academy's rule. Notice how quickly the camera is on her. The director sure knew where she was sitting. (And you may notice that when she's led down the aisle, she passes our old pal, Pat McCormick.) Here's that clip.

One more: George Burns in 1976 winning Best Supporting Actor for The Sunshine Boys. I remember being surprised that he didn't mention Jack Benny in his acceptance speech but it was still great to see him win. Go see him win.

Finally! An accurate, understandable explanation of the entire Jay/Conan mess…

We have reached the time when The Producers (the Broadway musical) is available for local and community productions. It's currently being staged at the DMTC Hoblit Performing Arts Center in Davis, California…and I don't envy the folks who have to stage the thing on a shoestring budget. Here's a little commercial for this production…

Since we're on the topic of late night TV here, let's look at a capsule version of Mr. Carson's last show. The date was May 22, 1992…and pay attention to what Johnny says at the end. A lot of people think that when he left, he took a vow not to perform again on television. That came later. When he left, he said he was going to look for something else to do on TV…

Okay, this one is Beauty and the Beast mashed into Phantom of the Opera. Funny, clever stuff from Bruce Kimmel, with fine vocalizing by Alet Taylor, Susanne Blakeslee, Paul Haber, Ryan Raftery and Tammy Minoff…

In 1973 when the Watergate hearings were Must See TV for myself and my friends, a catchy little novelty record came out called "Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean."Those were, of course, the names of the four main Watergate conspirators, all of whom were soon behind bars.The record was a teensy hit — I think it briefly reached like #110 on the Billboard Top 100 — and it was written by someone named Bob Warren and performed by "Creep."That was a common acronym/nickname for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, which was the group that ran Nixon's '72 campaign.The tune was issued as a 45 RPM record by a company called Big G Records and both sides had the same song pressed onto them.

And that's everything I know about this record and who made it. I have no idea who the four singers were, who Bob Warren was, any of that. If you do, lemme know.

Meanwhile, I find that someone has made a little music video out of it. Here it is for your dining and dancing pleasure…

Many moons ago in another link, we showed you the changing face of the female movie star. Here's the male version…