Category Archives: Video Links

One of the most-read articles of mine I've posted here is the one about the late Rod Hull, and the time he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and, on the couch, Richard Pryor. Here's a tiny part of the episode I wrote about…

The player below should run three clips in a row — excerpts from an interview that Frank Rich did in San Francisco in March of '08 with Stephen Sondheim. The video's the wrong size for the frame but the audio's pretty good and that's what matters. Rich did a number of these conversations with Sondheim (I saw one at UCLA) and tapes abound. They're quite interesting but I find myself wishing that the inquisitor had been someone who'd be a bit more challenging and not so willing to prompt Sondheim for anecdotes that the composer wished to tell. Still, the ones he wished to tell are pretty interesting…

Here's another one of those commercials that I saw eleven times a day for much of my childhood. I never played the game because it never looked like it would be the least bit fun…

Back when I had a family — we're down now to just my mother and me — family dinners often revolved around the latkes. The entree, which was usually some permutation of brisket, was never as important as the elaborately-prepared potato pancakes that accompanied it. My mother was in charge of the kitchen but Aunt Dot would often assist, and I'd sometimes go out and grate spuds for a while. I was darn good at it, if I do say so myself. And since Aunt Dot's gone and my mother doesn't blog, I guess I do have to say so myself.

The latkes had to be cooked just so, and in accord with a book called The Art of Jewish Cooking by Jennie Grossinger. Ms. Grossinger was the founder of the famous Grossinger's Hotel in the Catskills…a temple (with schmaltz herring) for a couple generations of my people. She probably did not personally author this book, which was a bible for those who had to learn to cook knishes and kasha and such, but everything made according to it tasted very, very good.

My mother's copy disintegrated some time in the seventies and the book appears to be long outta print. A few years ago, I spotted one on eBay, bought it and for the first time ever, gave it the once over. That was when I learned why everything in it tasted so good. Darn near every recipe called for a cup of chicken fat. You could make asphalt taste good if you mixed it with a cup of chicken fat.

I don't know where my copy is at the moment. If I find it, I'll post the recipe for latkes…but it was a lot like what the lady does in this video, though she omits the most vital element. No matter how you cook latkes, it's essential that you have one or more Jewish people hovering around and saying, "That's not how you cook latkes."

The video may be preceded by a brief commercial announcement. Whatever they're selling in it, buy it and try mixing it in when you make latkes…

This one runs a little over a half hour but you might want to watch all or most of it. It's an episode from Great Britain of That Was The Week That Was, a satirical review that ran in the early sixties. It was hosted by David Frost — who's now Sir David Frost to the likes of you — and it featured a bevy of the best British comic actors and writers, including at times, John Cleese and Graham Chapman. This installment seems to be from around January of 1963.

The show lasted 'til the end of that year, which was about the time an American version (also hosted by Sir David) got going on NBC. It was not a big hit and it got a lot of Republicans angry. Back then during our elections, it used to be fairly common for political parties to buy an hour or a half-hour of prime-time TV for their advertising. During the '64 elections, the G.O.P. arranged to preempt TW3 (as everyone called it) almost every week, not so much because they wanted the time slot for their Goldwater ads but because they wanted to keep the show off the air. Amazingly, there wasn't a lot of outcry that this was censorship or suppression of anything of the sort. Imagine what would happen today if an advertiser bumped even one broadcast by Sean Hannity or Keith Olbermann.

I remember the U.S. version as a great show. It certainly had incredible talent involved. Along with Frost, you had at times Tom Lehrer, Elaine May and Mike Nichols, Henry Morgan, Alan Alda, Buck Henry, Woody Allen and many others. Puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, who'd been responsible for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, invented a new art form — a thing he did called "Hand Ballets," in which you just saw his hands miming a little story.

Of course, I haven't seen an episode since '64 so maybe it wouldn't seem as wonderful today. I hear conflicting things about whether tapes of those old broadcasts even exist. If they do, I wish someone would make them available. In the meantime, here's that episode of the British version…

Here's a pretty clear video of the famous Martin and Lewis Reunion from the 1976 Reunion. There's such a wonderful jolt when Dino strides out with that big grin on his face…but watching it, I find myself wishing that Mr. Sinatra had realized that the moment wasn't about him; that he should have just brought Dean out and gotten the heck outta the way.

I know Dean and Jerry had nothing prepared or rehearsed but you can almost hear audiences across the nation groaning when Jerry gets shoved aside so the other two guys can perform. Yeah, I know a Sinatra/Martin medley was a big deal but seeing Martin and Lewis together was a bigger deal…and it's not like they had to keep it short because Norm Crosby's appearance couldn't be delayed. If an 18 hour telethon has nothing else, it's plenty of time.

Still, it's one of those moments…

This is for those of you in the Los Angeles area…or at least, the part that isn't on fire…

You all know the actor-cartoonist Dick Gautier. Dick starred in a great comedy show called When Things Were Rotten, and he played Hymie the Robot on Get Smart, and he's done more guest shots on comedy shows than anyone I can name. I always thought that when he was younger, he was the perfect guy to play Will Eisner's character, The Spirit.

But he has played some great heroes. He was the voice of Serpentor in the G.I. Joe cartoon series. And he was, briefly, Batman. In 1974, long after the Adam West series was off the air, a public service announcement was filmed that revived the roles from that show. Burt Ward played Robin again, Yvonne Craig returned as Batgirl and producer William Dozier, who'd served as narrator of the series, did the honors once more. Mr. West, however, declined to don the cowl again. Dick Gautier took over and did such a fine imitation that most folks didn't realize it wasn't Adam West. You can see this spot below.

But before we get to that: There's this monthly event down at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A., right across from USC. It's the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention and next Sunday, September 13, Dick will be a special guest as part of a G.I. Joe voice cast reunion that will include B.J. Ward, the voice of Scarlett, and Zack Hoffman, the voice of Zartan. Also appearing will be Gregg Berger (Spirit, Iron-Knife, Ripcord, Firefly, Cutter and Sparks) and Michael Bell (Duke, Major Bludd, Xamot, and several others). Furthermore, there will be an appearance by Larry Hama, writer of 149 of the 155 issues of the Marvel comic book G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. It says here in the press release that he will also be signing autographs and doing sketches at a reasonable rate. The voice actors will, I assume, be selling photos and autographs, as well.

And Dick Gautier will be signing a newly-discovered photo of himself as Batman. How's that for another reason to go? Wouldn't you like a signed picture of someone who was Batman for about forty seconds? Hey, don't knock it. That's forty seconds longer than you were Batman.

Speaking of Sesame Street, as we did here the other day…here's a musical number from early in the show's run. If you saw this when it first aired, you've had this tune running through your head ever since. If it's new to you…well, just try getting rid of it after watching this…

That's right…it's Big Daddy time again! In case you weren't paying attention, Big Daddy was a musical group I liked very much. They don't seem to be around anymore but when they were, they took the hits of today and artfully rearranged them to sound like they'd been recorded in an earlier time. This is their version of "Dancing in the Dark," the Springsteen tune. This is how The Boss shoulda done it…

A couple of folks sent me this. It's the Salute to Sesame Street from the Daytime Emmy ceremony the other day…a nice eleven minute segment, though you can zip past the opening remarks if you don't have the eleven minutes.

At the end, the Muppeteers come out for bows. The gent operating Cookie Monster is, I believe, David Rudman, and it's nice to see him get on camera. It's regrettable though that Caroll Spinney is mostly hidden. Spinney has been performing Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird since Sesame Street started — the only Muppet guy of his era still filling a role he originated. Someone else, obviously, is in the Big Bird suit on the Emmy stage but that's Spinney holding Oscar, straining to be seen. He deserved a special ovation.

What we have for you today, Intelligentsia, is a half-hour episode of This is Your Life from March 10, 1954 which saluted the life 'n' times of Mack Sennett. This is of interest not just because you get a chance to see a bit of the kind of person Sennett was but because they rounded up a lot of his old associates, including Heinie Conklin, Chester Conklin, Vernon Dent, Hank Mann, Andy Clyde, Minta Durfee, Harold Lloyd and even Franklin Pangborn. I don't want to start any rumors but the way Mr. Pangborn acts, you'd almost get the idea that he might possibly have been gay. Which is silly because we all know there were no gay people in the fifties or before.

Some of these This is Your Life shows are a bit hard to take with their rushed and melodramatic narratives but sometimes they provide actual history. And it's always nice to see the opening where the subject is allegedly surprised. I say "allegedly" because there are some where it seems pretty obvious to me that even if the show didn't let the person know they were going to be caught, someone did. Mack Sennett's reaction looks pretty phony to me. Still a fun show, though.

Hey, let's go back to 1964 and visit a shopping center. This is for those of you who've never seen one…

From around '64, this is a commercial for four talking toys from Mattel…and I might as well identify the actors who did the voices for the puppets. Mister Ed was voiced, there and on the show by former cowboy star Allan "Rocky" Lane. That's a photo of him above from his cowboy star days. Mel Blanc, of course, did the voice of Bugs Bunny. Cecil and Dishonest John were voiced by Irv Shoemaker, who did the honors on the then-current Beany & Cecil cartoon show.

More interesting is the lady you hear and see in the commercial. That's Janet Waldo, best known as the voice of Judy Jetson and Penelope Pitstop, among other characters. We've mentioned Janet often here — a lovely lady who's had an amazing career in radio and live-action TV as well as cartoons. She did this commercial around a half-century ago and via some secret power that I wish I had, she still doesn't look or sound all that much different.

Recently, we featured a great "barbershop" group with about eleven hundred people in it. Here's a more traditional-sized quartet…but with a Star Trek theme. Some of the lyrics are from the works of Allan Sherman…

There's a long, long list of things I can't do. One of them is ride a bicycle. When I was eight or so, my parents got me one with training wheels…and even with training wheels, I kept falling over and injuring my little self. After way too many bruises and skinned joints, I decided that I'd just have to get through life without bicycling…and I've somehow managed to this day.

So I'm at least a bit impressed with the balance and physical skill of anyone who can ride a bicycle at all — though not always their common sense. I dunno what it is but lately, an awful lot of cyclists seem to be trying hard to cause my car to strike them, weaving in and out of traffic, driving unlighted at night, etc.

Still, I'm impressed with the ability to ride a bike. And I'm really impressed with two ladies in Germany who can do this…