Neil Gaiman writes, "There's been a worrying lack of baby panda videos on your blog recently, Mark…" Neil is always right and he helpfully sends along a link to a new baby panda video which I can't embed but which you can watch here.
As you watch, try not to be too depressed by the realization that while you may be very cute, you'll never be as cute as a baby panda. I've come to terms with that and so should you.
Meet my magical buddy Mike Peters, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist and the creator of the newspaper strip, Mother Goose and Grimm. This clip has obviously been carefully edited to make Mike seem somewhat coherent…
Back in this post, we linked to an appearance Albert Brooks made with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. I didn't mention it then but that clip was from February 24, 1983. This is Albert's next appearance with Mr. Carson, which occurred on May 17, 1983.
The clip is in two parts and the player I've embedded below should play one right after the other. Very funny stuff — and you can see the sheer delight on Johnny's face. Here it is…
This isn't a very clear copy but it's the only one around…the opening to Yancy Derringer, a western series that was on for one season back in 1958. I didn't see it then but it reran a lot on local TV in later years and I was a big fan of it when I was around ten or eleven…and I don't think I've seen one since.
Jock Mahoney played a gentleman adventurer…a former Confederate Officer who returned to New Orleans after the Civil War and began acting as a kind of special agent for an official in the city government. His base of operations was his riverboat and his sidekick was a mute Indian named Pahoo. Pahoo was played by an actor named X. Brands, and there was a great deal of publicity about his odd name and about the fact that he co-starred in this TV series but never had any lines.
It was a half hour show and I recall each episode being jammed pack with unexpected twists and turns and clever storylines. I hope when I finally get to see a couple again, they're still that way. In 1975, Mr. Mahoney was a guest at the San Diego Comic Con (that's what they called it then) and I got to have lunch with him and tell him how much I enjoyed this show. Everyone at the con was asking him about his work on Tarzan movies — he played the villain in one, Tarzan in another — and he was happy that someone remembered ol' Yancy.
Here's the opening. Actually, I recall that there were two openings — some episodes had a different theme song, one with lyrics. This is the one I remember best…
As I don't think I've mentioned here lately, I teach a Comedy Writing class down at U.S.C. once a week. We do things like read Henny Youngman jokes aloud and discuss which ones are funny and why…or we watch and critique clips or the students write assignments which we read in class. I spend a lot of time discussing my aberrant philosophies not only on how to write something but how to shepherd it through the process of reaching an audience without losing all amusement value in the process.
At today's class, we're going to watch an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show — the one I've embedded below — twice. First time through is just for enjoyment. Second time through, we'll be following it line-by-line in the script (I have copies) and we'll be pausing and discussing how this or that worked. I did this last semester and the students seemed to profit from the experience.
One reason I picked this episode, apart from it being one of the best installments of maybe my all-time favorite TV show, is that Carl Reiner wrote it and then it was performed and filmed, pretty much as written. There were very few changes made, mainly for clarity or to eliminate redundancy. During the era when I wrote sitcoms, it was pretty much assumed that the script on the first day of rehearsal was meant to be beaten and pummeled and rewritten many times, stem to stern, before it went before the cameras. In fact, if you had a great line, you learned not to put it into the script until later in the week. That way, it stood a chance of survival.
They reportedly had weeks on The Dick Van Dyke Show when the scripts underwent extensive renovation but they were not the norm. Most weeks went as this one must have, where they pretty much filmed the script the writer wrote. Here's one week when they did about walnuts and things turned out fine…
I've lost track of which Tom Lehrer videos I've put up here but I don't think this one's been a link yet. Mr. Lehrer favors us with "National Brotherhood Week" and "When You Are Old and Gray."
From The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball, a 1989 charity event, we have Peter Cook and Dudley Moore with a sketch and a song. The sketch is their famous "one leg too few" bit. The song is called "Goodbye" and also features the rest of the cast. Nothing else needs to be said.
Here you go: Election Day 2008 in two minutes…
Continuing our celebration of Lerner and Loewe, we have Myron Floren from a vintage episode of The Lawrence Welk Show. An-a-one, an-a-two…
Another clip from that Lerner and Loewe special we discussed yesterday. This is the scene at the end of Act One of Camelot, as performed by Richard Burton and, I suspect, other members of the original company. I don't know when this show was taped but it first aired on February 11, 1962. Camelot opened on Broadway on December 3, 1960 and I believe Burton did it for a year, so this was probably taped about the time he left the show…but with the original sets and supporting cast, one might assume. Here it is…
No professional, alas, ever hauled in cameras to record most of the great theatrical events of the previous century. Nowadays, most shows get taped at some point but there's no full, real video of 99% of what has appeared on the great stages of the world. We have to settle for the few snippets that exist here and there.
Here's a great snippet — Julie Andrews performing a number from the original My Fair Lady. This is not a video from an actual performance of the show but it's darned close. Ms. Andrews appeared in My Fair Lady from its opening in March of '56 'til August of '59 with a few extended vacations during that period. In early 1962, while she was still appearing in Camelot with Richard Burton and Robert Goulet, the three of them participated in a TV special, The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe. On it, she performed this number from My Fair Lady, which was still running at a theater a few blocks away. They borrowed the sets and costumes and, I'm told, the actor who was then playing Freddie (sorry I don't know his name) and recorded Julie doing the number exactly as she'd done it on stage a few years earlier. Great stuff.
You'll notice, by the way, this video is in color. I have The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe on DVD but in black-and-white. Anyone out there know where to get a color copy? It's a great special full of gems like this. I'll link you to another one tomorrow if I think of it.
Here's another video with me in it but you'll want to watch it for the other guy, which is fine. He's a lot better with a microphone in front of him than I am. Rob Paulsen is one of the top voice actors in the cartoon business and he's also heard on countless TV commercials. (He's Mr. Opportunity and he's knocking.) At the Anthrocon in Pittsburgh back in '07, we addressed a roomful of folks who admired Rob and/or wanted his career, discussing what's involved in cartoon voice work. This is an artfully edited condensation of that discussion. It's in three parts and the player I've embedded below should, if I've done my job right, play one right after the other. The whole thing runs about 26 minutes…
Here, from 1971, is the original (I think) Coca-Cola commercial based on the jingle, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing…" It seems dated now but still a pleasant way to spend a minute…
Do you know about Strike.TV? It's a website that was set up after the recent Writers Guild strike. Some of Hollywood's top talents create little videos and the revenues it generates are going to the Actors Fund's Entertainment Assistance Program, a very good cause. There are a number of great concoctions over there and I'll tempt you with this one starring Mr. Bob Newhart…
Today, we're linking you to five minutes from an unsold pilot for a Li'l Abner TV series allegedly written by Al Capp. I'm supposed to be an expert on this comic strip and its many dramatizations but I don't know a whole lot about this puppy. It bears a 1966 copyright date but it aired on NBC on September 5, 1967. My understanding is that it was prepared for the syndication market, it didn't sell and NBC agreed to run the thing as filler during one of those weeks when they don't measure Nielsen ratings.
I have the vague recollection that when I researched the Abner Broadway show and movie, someone I spoke with told me that there was talk of hiring many of the same actors for a series like this but it never happened. I'm guessing that when they assembled this pilot, they decided to avoid using any of the same casting (or other elements, like the music) because then those with a financial interest in that version could have claimed financial participation in this one.
The cast ain't bad. Sammy Jackson, who'd starred not long before in the short-lived TV series, No Time for Sergeants, played Abner. Jeannine Riley, who'd appeared on the (then) recently-cancelled Petticoat Junction was Daisy Mae. Larry D. Mann — who seems to have played a guest role on every TV series ever produced — played Marryin' Sam. Judy Canova played Mammy Yokum and Jerry Lester played Pappy Yokum. In the role of Jack S. Phogbound, who you'll see a lot of in the clip, was comedian and cartoon voice actor Dave Barry. We wrote about Dave back in this post when he passed away. Robert Reed, who was a few years from starring in The Brady Bunch, had a guest role.
But it's a pretty dreary affair, starting with that generic theme music that doesn't fit a comedy, especially one with a country/hillbilly motif. There's no tangible evidence that Mr. Capp didn't write it but it sure feels like a typical, Hollywood-scripted sitcom of the day and it lacks the sparkle of his strip. Capp was known to complain that the rural sitcoms of the sixties, especially Beverly Hillbillies, were written by "rummaging around in my wastebasket." Maybe he should have rummaged in theirs.
Here's the clip. Thanks to "louis59" who e-mailed me the link…