Category Archives: Video Links

My pal Bob Bergen occasionally tours with his one-pigman show in which he relates how he grew up to become the voice of one of the world's most beloved cartoon stars. He's going to be doing it for two nights in New York — at Don't Tell Mama on April 22 and 23. If you're around there, catch him. If you're not close by, or if you need a taste first, here's his promo video…

Back in '75 when TV producers were wrestling with the idea of The Family Hour and having their shows laundered to fit, the cast of All in the Family taped this short song parody. It reportedly never aired and I'm not completely certain why it was done…maybe just an in-house joke or something. But I saw this on Lee Goldberg's website and since Lee hasn't found the time to have lunch with me lately, I thought I'd just steal it…

My favorite "brother dance act" is the Nicholas Brothers…but when it comes to the tango, the champs seem to be Enrique and Guillermo DeFazio…

Most great magicians have a "signature" trick. They may or may not have invented it but if they didn't, they made it their own with clever twists and just plain doing it better than anyone else. I'm not sure if Bill Malone invented the trick called "Sam the Bellhop" but if you mention it around other magicians, they all say, "You gotta see Bill Malone do it." And if you're not a magician…well, you've gotta see him do it, too…

Hey, you know what today is? It's International "Talk Like William Shatner" Day. And don't worry if you don't know how to. My pal Maurice LaMarche, who invented this most holy of holidays, will teach you. (If you can't master the voice, just get yourself a bad toupee and say yes to every single job anyone ever offers you…)

I mentioned Jan Murray here the other day and someone wrote to ask me a little more about him. Jan Murray was a comedian and TV host who was quite prominent in the fifties and early sixties, usually starring in some comedy series or game show. I always liked him in those but I especially liked him in a guest star role on one of my favorite TV programs, Car 54, Where Are You? If you have 25 minutes to spare, click and watch it. Many episodes of Car 54 were fall-down funny but this one made me laugh more than any other…

Terry Jones of Monty Python fame on his new line of work. This is just a video of him reading a column of his that I linked to a few months ago but it's more fun to see him read it.

This runs eleven minutes. It's from Rachel Maddow's show last night and it's about responsibility for six years of a war that has led to 4,259 American dead, several hundred thousand Iraqis dead and $3 trillion in costs. I don't know what will eventually happen with Iraq but it's hard to imagine a scenario that will cause us to say, "Boy, that was sure worth it."

I don't think I've embedded this particular clip of George Carl before but even if I have, so what? He's worth seeing again and again and even again. The late Mr. Carl was a brilliant clown who spent his life playing showrooms in France and Nevada, perfecting an act that could properly be described as "Twenty minutes of getting tangled in the microphone cord." When I go to Vegas now, I miss a lot of things that aren't there anymore but I think most of all, I miss not being able to go see George Carl. Here he is in one of his appearances on The Tonight Show. You can hear Mr. Carson howling with laughter in the background…

Let's go back to 1989 and the annual Chabad Telethon, back when it was hosted by Jan Murray. He was terrific even though, as you'll see in this clip, he sometimes mangled the names of the acts he was introducing.

This is a number by the original Limeliters plus one. The original folk group (formed in 1959) consisted of Alex Hassilev, Lou Gottlieb and Glenn Yarbrough. Yarbrough left the act in 1963 but would "guest star" occasionally in their appearances thereafter, as he did with this one. Several different musicians filled the third slot after '63 but in this performance, it's John David. Give a listen…

Okay, how about some funny pussycat clips?

We love Laurel and Hardy here so naturally we want to link to everything we can about those wonderful gents. This is actually more of an audio link with pictures…part of an interview that was recorded with Mr. Laurel on August 14, 1957, which was only a week after the death of Mr. Hardy. The interviewer is someone named Arthur B. Friedman and the conversation was recorded in Laurel's apartment, which was in the Oceana Hotel, located on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica — not Malibu, as Mr. Friedman says in his introduction. (The Oceana, by the way, has recently been completely renovated into a rather plush facility. Here's its website which mentions that Stan lived there.)

The chat is in two parts which total a little over 21 minutes. Part Two should play right after Part One if I've set the player up properly, which I occasionally manage. There are a few interviews of Laurel that were made in his retirement days and they all ask pretty much the same questions as this one and therefore get pretty much the same answers.

By the by: The photo above is of Mr. Laurel receiving the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in December of 1963. It was presented to him in his apartment at the Oceana by SAG's then-President Dana Andrews and its 2nd Vice-President, Charlton Heston. That's Andrews in the photo with him. Now, here's that 1957 interview and I have to thank Charlie Glaize for letting me know it was online…

I haven't mentioned it in a long while here but for year or two, I've been working on a new Garfield cartoon show that's being produced in France for the world market. We did 26 half-hours and they've started airing in select parts of the world…to sufficient success that we're starting on 26 more. The Cartoon Network folks have the rights to air them in America (the show is produced in English) and they say they're going to debut it some time in '09…and you now know as much about that as I do.

Frank Welker supplies the voice of Garfield, which you won't hear in the clip below. Nor will you hear Gregg Berger, the longtime voice of Odie and other supporting characters, but he's in the cast, too. So are Wally Wingert and Jason Marsden, who are now performing the roles of Jon and Nermal, respectively. The animation is CGI and it's under the supervision of a masterful director named Philippe Vidal, whose work makes me very happy. I dunno when anyone's going to get to see the show in this country but when they do, it'll look something like this…

Here's a very odd musical number from a special that Bea Arthur did for CBS in 1980. The song is from the Broadway show, I Love My Wife (lyrics by Michael Stewart, music by Cy Coleman) and no, your senses are not deceiving you. This really is Ms. Arthur and Rock Hudson in formal attire, singing the praises of recreational drug use.

Ricky Gervais and friend…