Category Archives: Video Links

My buddy Chuck McCann has done about as wide an array of roles and jobs as anyone who was ever in show business. He's starred in movies, hosted TV shows, appeared in sketches, written and directed short films, done cartoon voices, performed stand-up…I don't recall him belly-dancing or working with a trained bear but nothing would surprise me. It amuses me that every time I'm out with Chuck in public, he gets recognized by someone…and it's always for something different.

Sometimes, it's his legendary kids' show in New York. Sometimes, it's all those appearances he's made playing Oliver Hardy to Jim MacGeorge's Stan Laurel. At the Comic-Con, a fellow brought his beloved poster from the movie The Projectionist just so he could get it signed by its star, Chuck McCann. But a lot of people mention the Right Guard commercials…a whole series Chuck did wherein actor Bill Fiore would open his medicine cabinet and find Chuck inside. It all started in '71 with this spot…

Flashing way back to the earliest music videos, this is Weird Al Yankovic parodying an inexplicable hit of the day with "Hey Ricky!" That's the wonderfully-talented Tress MacNeille playing Lucy Ricardo…

Here's a must-view N.P.R. interview from a few years back…

Last night, I posted a link to a commercial for Fruit Stripe Gum and made reference to the ubiquitous (for a time in New York) singer who sang for the zebra in it. Greg Ehrbar, who knows about this kind of stuff, says it's probably Mike Stewart…and the female singer is Robie Lester, who was on every kids' record that came out in the fifties and sixties. Or so it seems.

Greg also notes that in South Pacific, Bill Lee did the singing for John Kerr. I've written before here about Mr. Lee, who was heard in a heck of a lotta movies. Greg reminded me of a few in his e-mail: Bill Lee sang for Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music and for Yogi Bear in Hey There, It's Yogi Bear. What's more, his daughter Diana sang for Samantha Eggar in Doctor Dolittle, Diana Sowle in Willy Wonka and Liv Ullmann in Lost Horizon. So dubbing other actors is apparently hereditary.

Moving on to new business: Thirty-five years ago today, Richard M. Nixon resigned as President of the United States. Here's part of the speech he delivered in prime time the night before. My father thought it was the best thing he ever saw on television and was hoping the networks would make it a weekly series…

Here's a memorable commercial from my youth…for Fruit Stripe Gum. I can't identify the voices except that the zebra is that male New York studio singer, name unknown, who turned up in half the kids' records and commercials recorded in Manhattan in the fifties and sixties…

A week or three ago here, writing about the movie Gypsy, I made the comment that among the things that spoiled the film for me was that Rosalind Russell simply felt dubbed. There was a disconnect between her speaking and singing voices that, to me, removed the credibility of her characterization. This is my complaint about a lot of movie musicals.

Here's a scene from another film where this kind of thing bothers me — the 1958 South Pacific. I'm not sure how many of the actors in this were lip-syncing to their own voices. Ray Walston obviously did his own singing. The sailor named "Stew Pot" obviously did not. In fact, his singing voice was supplied by the legendary Thurl Ravenscroft, better known as the voice of Tony the Tiger. (Though for some reason, no attempt was made to match his speaking voice, which you'll note is quite different and perhaps not his own either, to Ravenscroft's deep tones.) Some of the others, I'm guessing, did their own singing…but almost none of the voices feel to me like they're coming from those sailors…

One finds on YouTube, a lot of video clips from amateur productions of great musicals. Usually when I click to view one, I get a vivid reminder of the difference between an amateur performance and a professional one.

There are exceptions. Here's "Jubilation T. Cornpone" from Li'l Abner, as performed at Countryside High School. My Googling suggests the school's in Clearwater, Florida and I think the name of the gent playing Marryin' Sam is Nathan Daugherty. It's not a Broadway-quality job but it strikes me a whole lot better than high school. It's also a nice reminder of why this show is so popular with schools and community groups but never gets a New York revival. Reason: It requires a big cast, which makes it expensive when you have to pay actors. On the other hand, if they're not getting paid, you can fill the stage with bodies so all their friends and relatives will fill the audience.

While I was surfing around to find some info, I came across this article about a way in which the director gave the students a special bit of education. She got the original Abner, Peter Palmer, to come in and talk to the cast. It seems to have done some good…

From the episode of the Hollywood Palace for March 27, 1965: Tony Randall introduces Allan Sherman performing his parody of "Downtown." You may be shocked at the lewd, suggestive dances that the kids did back then. Hey, did I ever tell the story here of how when I was 13 years old, I wrote my own parody lyrics to "Downtown" and Allan Sherman said he was going to sue me? Remind me and I'll try to get to that story one of these days. Thirteen is not a good age to be threatened by one of your heroes.

Writer Bill Scheft on writing for David Letterman, as he's been doing, lo these many years…

Here's an amazing TV relic…one you might actually want to watch all or most of, even though it's a two-hour show, albeit with most of the commercials removed…

In 1963, back when it was the "try anything" network, ABC offered Jerry Lewis what was at the time, one of the richest deals in the history of television. The result was The Jerry Lewis Show, a live (LIVE!) two-hour Saturday night series that was founded on the following premise: Jerry, being so talented, could work all week on his movies for Paramount…then Saturday evening, he could show up at a theater in Hollywood and host a two-hour talk/variety show with almost no prep, ad-libbing his way through the program.

It was a "firm" two-year commitment but it wound up lasting thirteen very painful weeks. The above premise proved to be faulty but there were other problems. ABC bought and completely refurbished a theater for the project but by opening night (September 21, 1963), the building wasn't ready and there were tech problems galore. Years later, I got to know John Dorsey, who directed it. Mr. Dorsey was a fine, experienced pro who still had nightmares of the broadcast you'll see if you click below.

Cameras went out. Cues were missed. Radio communication between the director and the crew went out. A big screen TV that was supposed to act as a monitor for the audience went out…and half the audience left because the sound system failed and they couldn't hear the show. Steve Allen, who was a "surprise" guest, went home that night and wrote a parody of the program and did it on his own show the following week…a whole sketch of every conceivable thing that could go wrong going wrong.

I previously linked to a video of a later episode and wrote about all this to introduce it. Now, if you're yearning to see almost two hours of Jerry Lewis Flop Sweat, you can witness it for yourself. It's in ten parts which should play sequentially in the viewer I've skillfully embedded below. As you'll see, in the early part of the show, they thought it would be funny to make intentional mistakes…getting Jerry's name wrong in the opening announce, having the crew (which he insisted all be in tuxedos) crowd around him, etc. At some point, the unintentional mistakes crowded out the planned ones…

This is my buddy Marv Wolfman on a local TV show in San Diego during the Comic-Con. Marv was up way too early and faced with not-the-most-relevant questions but he did a good job.

What I really wish I could embed was a clip of the time Marv was on The Joe Franklin Show in New York. Marv had written a special Teen Titans comic book on the subject of teen drug use. As I recall, he was against it. Anyway, the issue got a lot of publicity and Marv was asked to do many talk shows because of it. I have no idea how he wound up on Mr. Franklin's program, which dealt mainly with nostalgia and old show biz.

Now, you have to picture this. Marv is about 33 years old (I'm guessing) and Joe Franklin is his usual age, which is a hundred and twenty-seven. Mr. Franklin has zero interest in comic books, drugs, titans or even teens…but being an old pro, he fires a few questions at Marv, then a few at this other guests, then a few more at Marv, then a few more at the other guests…

And it's finally getting down near the end of the show, which is live. Someone signals Franklin that he has time for one more question so he turns to his young comic book writer guest. "Marv Wolfman," he says. "Eddie Cantor…any anecdotes?"

He actually said that. Here's an appearance by Marv that went a little better than that one…

An excerpt from this year's Quick Draw! at the Comic-Con International…

Post-con Recovery seems to have sapped my blogging muscles, making it hard to get back to a normal routine here. Spending the better part of a day trying to install Adobe Creative Suite 4 on my computer didn't help, either. So my apologies that things have been slow. I do have some tales from the Comic-Con International to tell, starting (in non-chronological sequence) with what I did, first thing Saturday morn…

That was when we filled the largest hall upstairs, as usual, for the annual Quick Draw! This is the event I do where three speedy cartoonists create drawings right in front of a live audience, based on challenges hurled at them by Yours Truly. Among the "games" I've invented for this is one called Secret Words. I enlist some friend in the audience to be the contestant, occasionally against his will. I have these prepared cards, each of which contain three words that I think will be difficult to convey via drawings. One of the cards is shown to the cartoonists and to the audience. Only the contestant does not know what the three words are. He must guess them, one at a time, based on wordless sketches that the cartoonists create.

I hauled my buddy Len Wein up to play. Len had a devil of a time guessing the first one, which was BLANK. The cartoonists sketched their hearts out: Floyd Norman (this year's special guest Quick Draw! artist) drew a gun firing a question mark. Scott Shaw! (a regular) drew Mel Blanc. Sergio Aragonés (arguably the star of the show) drew a blank check and that's how Len finally got it. His other two words — HUMIDITY and FLOAT — went down a bit smoother.

Another frequent contestant is another buddy of mine, Peter David. Peter was sitting up front and to my surprise, Sergio announced that he had a one word challenge for Peter. He had a word that he wanted to try to convey to Peter via a drawing. Okay, fine. I got Peter up and had him turn his back to the screen as Sergio displayed the word. It turned out to be AVUNCULAR which, by the way, he did not spell correctly. The audience laughed at the notion that such an obscure word could be transmitted by a drawing.

The challenge began. Sergio drew a tiny leaf. Peter instantly guessed, "Avuncular!" And everyone howled at the fact that I had been hoaxed. They'd set it up in advance.

Fortunately, I was prepared for revenge. It had dawned on me a few days earlier that it might be funny, should the mood be apropos, to play a trick on one of our contestants. One of the word lists I'd prepped was no list at all. It just said, "THERE IS NO LIST. DRAW ANYTHING." I announced that we would now have Peter play the game and I showed the audience the "list" he would have to guess. The audience enjoyed that and they really enjoyed the look on Peter's face as the cartoonists drew random images with no connection to each other. To his credit, he figured out what was going on after a bit of stark horror, then expertly knocked off a "real" list that consisted of CHILI, INVISIBLE and SECRET.

Later on, we tried something new for Quick Draw! I got three cartoonists up from the audience — Bobby London, Stan Sakai and Dougie McCoy — and I had them…well, wait. I'll show you how it went in Today's Video Link, which oughta be the next thing posted here.

My friend/partner Sergio Aragonés is interviewed at that thing we all just went to…

Here, from a local San Diego TV newscast is a myopic report on the Comic-Con International. The reporter went in with the premise that it's all about dressing up (mainly as Star Wars characters) and pretending to be one for four days. To achieve that, she had to ignore an awful lot of what she saw at the convention, including the 99+% who were not dressed as any fictional characters and especially not ones from Star Wars. When you hear/read a report that thinks it's all about geeks and nerds and dressing up as Princess Leia — which I personally haven't done in years — then you know someone didn't do a lot of actual reporting.