Category Archives: Video Links

I love the annual Chabad Telethon…and I doubt the folks behind the recent ones will be offended if I say that I liked it better back when Jan Murray was its host. Here's a clip from 1991 with Bob Hope making one of those pitches that was read right off the cue cards with zero comprehension. At the end, Murray says the obligatory kind words about Mr. Hope taking the three minutes to do this but Jan can't resist pointing out that pronouncing Jewish names was not Bob's strong suit.

Just consider this. One day back in the sixties, someone was put in charge of producing a TV commercial that would urge people with Arthritis not to squander their money on quack "cures." That's a noble endeavor, making something like that and if you'd been in that position, you might have gone looking for some celebrities to appear in this commercial. And who better to carry that message to America than…the Three Stooges!?

Here's a clip of John Daly interviewing Harpo Marx, who's promoting his autobiography, Harpo Speaks. This is supposed to be from The Today Show for May 3, 1961 but I wonder if it really is. Mr. Daly hosted What's My Line? on CBS and throughout the late fifties, was otherwise employed as one of ABC's star newsmen. So what would he have been doing hosting the morning show on NBC in 1961?

It's possible, of course. But the full, longer clip is making the rounds of film collectors and I wonder if anything in it confirms that it's from The Today Show. In any case, here's a little more than a minute of it. Always nice to see a little Harpo…

As I've mentioned here elsewhere, I used to like to go hang out on Stage 1 at NBC Burbank when a certain Mr. Carson was doing this thing he used to do called The Tonight Show. There was a little area of standing room right behind where Fred DeCordova and the other producers and staff members sat or congregated during the taping, about two yards from the edge of the guest couch. If you looked even vaguely like you belonged on the lot, and if Johnny hadn't had a bevy of recent death threats, you could loiter there during the taping and enjoy the proceedings. I probably watched all or part of a dozen Carson shows from there and there was a true feeling of magic in the room.

I was there when this clip was taped, and it's a shame the camera wasn't on Mr. Carson because I have never seen a human being laugh so hard in my life. Everyone was convulsed with laughter but Johnny looked like he was going to need paramedics to come in and give him oxygen.

The comedian is Charlie Callas, who I can't recall seeing on TV the last few years, not even on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, where he was once a regular. His website has not been updated in four or five years but his Internet Movie Database listing says he was in a Larry the Cable Guy special in '07 and that he's in a horror movie spoof currently in production.

Right after Callas did this bit on Johnny's show and they went to commercial, Carson told him how hilarious he thought it was. At that moment, Exec Producer Fred DeCordova hurried up to the desk and informed Johnny that NBC Standards and Practices was "concerned" about the routine and wanted to discuss perhaps editing the tape or doing an audience cutaway during parts of it. From where I stood, you could see steam emanating from Johnny's ears and he said, very firmly, that it was staying in and there would be no cutaways and that, by God, was that. End of discussion. DeCordova, fulfilling his role as Good Cop, returned to our area and told a worried-looking lady, "I tried." The Standards folks at NBC were occasionally able to overrule Johnny but I gather that this was one of many times they decided the battle wasn't worth the headache.

Here's one very funny minute of Charlie Callas…

Mel Blanc and Jack Benny guest with Johnny Carson. I think the date on this is January 23, 1974 and it was one of Benny's last TV appearances. He passed away the day after Christmas of that year.

The thing that's most interesting about this clip is what an enormous fan Mr. Benny was of Mr. Blanc. Benny was apparently that way with everyone — a wonderful audience and utterly unthreatened by someone else getting the laughs or the spotlight. That was one of the reasons his radio and TV programs worked as well as they did: He was willing to let Dennis Day get the laugh or to let Don Wilson get the laugh or to let Rochester get the laugh, etc. As long as somebody got a laugh, Benny was fine with it.

There have been a lot of great comedians who wouldn't do that because they thought — wrongly — that their career hinged on them being the funny one. And not even the example of Jack Benny would dissuade them from that belief. There have also been some comedians who for emotional reasons couldn't stand still while someone else was funny.

But Jack Benny could and did…and no one was more successful. Click and see.

This is another one of those playlist embeds where the little window plays part one of a multi-part video and then it plays part two and part three and so on. This one runs about 47 minutes but you may find it worth that much of your life.

The original production of A Chorus Line closed on Broadway in April of 1990. Shortly before then, Phil Donahue somehow got members of the original cast to come on his show, talk about their experiences and perform a couple of numbers from it. Here's an amazing bit of theatrical history…

I'm a 30+ year member of The Magic Castle in Hollywood…and before I go any further, do me a favor. Please don't write and ask me for passes. I know you have a once-in-a-lifetime event or a dying relative whose last wish is to go to The Magic Castle and I'm your only hope. But I once gave a pass to a stranger who embarrassed me up there so I don't do that anymore.

Now, then: One evening in the early eighties, I took a group of my fellow comic book writers up there for an evening. Steve Gerber was in the group and Marv Wolfman and maybe Len Wein and some others. At the Castle, you wander from showroom to showroom seeing different magicians, and we all went into the Close-Up Gallery to see a performer named Richard Turner.

Richard Turner bills himself not as a magician but as a "card mechanic." He can fix a card game the way a good automotive mechanic can fix your Honda Civic. He can shuffle the deck, let you cut it, and he can then deal you whatever hand he wants to put in front of you without you being any the wiser. Before I go any further, let me give you a short (40 second) demonstration of what this man can do…

Pretty amazing, huh? Here's the kicker: Richard Turner is blind. Not totally blind but legally blind.

Watch the video again. He doesn't even look at the cards. It wouldn't matter. He can't see them. But after handling cards constantly all day for 40-some-odd years (he has a three-pack-a-day habit), he's developed an extraordinary touch. It is not magic. He just has these amazing hands. One demonstration of many he did that night was to have someone place either a deuce or a face card in his hand and he'd tell them which it was.

How? Simplest thing in the world. The face card has more ink on it so it weighs more. Can't you feel the difference when you pick up a card?

That night at the Castle, we were all astounded at what he did and simultaneously, we all came to the same realization: We had found Daredevil. In the comic book, blind Matt Murdock has developed his sense of touch, among others, until it can do the impossible. He also developed his physical strength and agility…and Richard's done that, too. He's a black belt karate champ. Almost everyone in our party had written Daredevil at one time or another (I'd just written a TV pilot of him for Marvel) and we were all agog at the parallels.

At the time, I was a writer for a TV show called That's Incredible! Right after Turner's demonstration, I went up to him and asked if he'd like to do that act on national television. He said yes and a few weeks later, he did. It was a very popular segment and I especially enjoyed the show's technicians in the editing room, playing and replaying the video we shot of Turner doing false shuffles, dealing from the middle of the deck or dealing the second card and making it look like the top one, etc. You couldn't catch him cheating. If you'd been in a game with him, he'd have had your wallet, socks and undies in ten seconds.

Richard works mostly in and around the San Antonio area but he also tours and if he's ever performing near you, run and get a front row seat. Also, if you're interested in learning about how to cheat at cards, he has a set of videos you can purchase through his website that you'll want.

Lastly, here's a little promotional film (nine and a half minutes) about Richard…and it even includes a few seconds of his appearance on That's Incredible! And that's all I have to say about him. I just wanted you to know about the guy and to insert into the collective wisdom that is the Internet, just what I think of him. I think he's the most amazing handler of cards I've ever seen.

One of the funniest comedy sketches ever done is the "Dead Parrot Sketch" as performed by John Cleese and Michael Palin of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It really is quite a joy and a thing of beauty, combining crisp and expert comedy writing with stellar performances. Let's take a look at it again, shall we?

Buster Keaton in some 1964-1965 TV commercials. He was 69 years old in '64 and still one of the funniest men on this planet.

While I'm out stalking pussycats, you can watch the trailer for Billie, a 1965 movie that starred Patty Duke. Ms. Duke was, as the trailer generously informs us, the star of The Patty Duke Show. I'm sure that cleared things up for many puzzled moviegoers.

This is maybe the most "sixties" movie ever made and I'm not recommending you seek it out; just that you watch the trailer, which I believe was voiceovered by Mason Adams. I think Patty Duke was (and still is) an amazingly skilled actress but there was a time there when someone who didn't have her best interests at heart was trying to market her as Annette Funicello or I don't know what. It was probably the same person who picked out the wig she's wearing.

Billie had a terrific supporting cast which included Jim Backus, Warren Berlinger (in his teen heartthrob days), Billy DeWolfe and our favorite character actor, Charles Lane. That's Charles Lane playing the coach at the beginning of this…in scenes, by the way, shot on the campus of University High School in West Los Angeles. I ran around that track many a time in my day…a few years after Patty Duke but with much the same hairdo. It's quite an odd film but remember — if you ever get the chance to see it — that I did not recommend you do any such thing.

Has anyone here been watching the prime-time Price is Right lately? This version is the special Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular…aptly named because they've been giving out million dollar prizes the way Larry King gives out alimony checks. They've had three winners of that amount-plus since the end of February. (By that, I mean these people won a million bucks in cash plus whatever cars or washing machines they also won.) Here's the most recent win, which involved an amazing bit of dumb luck…

Remember what an event it was the first time they gave out a million smackers on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Notice how even though it's been on since the end of '05, Deal or No Deal still hasn't given out the million dollar top prize? I'll bet they will soon, no matter how easy they have to make it.

Ratings are down on the daytime Price is Right since Bob Barker left…and not just because they can't match the "surge" in numbers during Bob's final weeks. Anywhere from 13 to 15% fewer viewers are turning in as matched against comparable weeks from the Barker years. This is no surprise to most of us and I don't think it's even a reflection on Drew Carey's hosting abilities. I think the show had just gotten stale and the changeover of hosts just afforded some folks a simple stopping point in their viewing.

But the nighttime Price, the one where they give away the millions, is doing great in the ratings. Since the money is the only real difference, that's the message to programmers: You want numbers? Create millionaires. I dunno how long that will be cost-effective but we'll probably see a lot more of that before America grows bored with the big wins. (Another thing I'm thinking is that it's probably a lot harder than it used to be to get into the audience for Price is Right tapings so you can be eligible to "Come on down.")

And I can't help but point something out…

The Price is Right is a non-Writers Guild show. The show is written, of course. There are words on cue cards, words on TelePrompters, little sketches in the Showcases at the end, etc. Someone writes that but the producers don't want that someone to join the WGA so they claim that person is not a writer. All the old Goodson-Todman game shows (I've Got a Secret, Match Game, What's My Line?, etc.) were always non-signatories and the firm that now owns The Price is Right has continued that tradition.

The amounts of money it would cost for a show like that to become a WGA signatory are always pretty small. Unless they're really paying slave wages to the folks doing the work, we're talking a microscopic percentage of the budget. On a show that's throwing around million dollar checks, even the word "microscopic" seems insufficient to describe how insignificant it would be to the program. Might mean something to the writer, though…and might even yield a better program. The daytime show, which can't afford to dole out millions, could especially do with a little cleverness. And so will the prime-time one when viewers get jaded from watching the money.

Here's a remarkable bit of video. In 1963, Jerry Lewis launched a new, vastly oversold prime time talk/variety series for ABC. It was on Saturday nights for two hours and it was done live from what had been the El Capitan Theater on Vine Street in Hollywood. For the new program, it was completely refurbished and renamed the Jerry Lewis Theater.

Some (but not all) of the problems The Jerry Lewis Show had resulted from the newly-remodelled theater not being quite finished when the first telecast had to be done on September 21, 1963. Monitors didn't work, microphones didn't work, technical cues were missed, etc. A decade or two ago, I discussed that first, legendary episode with a man named John Dorsey, who directed it. Mr. Dorsey was a fine director. In the seventies and eighties, he did most of the Chuck Barris shows, and regardless of their taste or lack thereof, those were not easy to direct. Still, he had facial tics and icy chills when he recalled debut night of the Lewis program…the most important TV broadcast of his life and there he was, unable to communicate with the headsets of the stage manager, cameramen or just about anyone.

Amazingly, all that was only part of the problem. The premise of the show was that Jerry didn't need to prepare or rehearse; that he could work on his movies all week and then on Saturday evenings, he could just show up at his theater and ad-lib something very entertaining. Opening night, ABC and America discovered that he could not. Dick Cavett, who was among the show's writers, felt that the basic problem was that Jerry's brilliance only worked when he was a guest and not the kind of authority figure you have to be to host a TV show, especially one with everyone in tuxedos. (And Jerry insisted that everyone — even the stagehands — be so attired.) Later on, his ex-partner had considerably more success doing a weekly TV series without rehearsing.

That first episode, which I have on a DVD here somewhere, was just a fiasco…almost painful to watch unless you enjoy flop sweat, and I don't. There were genuine surprise guests and one of them was Steve Allen, who was then hosting a competing talk show for syndication. On his next program, Allen did a parody of Jerry's opening night with every possible disaster occurring, and later said that in all his years of broadcasting, he'd never seen such a mess. Subsequent Lewis shows were somewhat better but the damage was done, and Jerry never managed to look like he was really enjoying his own show. The series was terminated after thirteen episodes.

Someone has posted Show #11 in ten parts on YouTube. It aired on 12/7/1963, by which time the cancellation was known and Jerry actually seemed more relaxed about things. The guests included Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali (who was then still going by the name, Cassius Clay), Patrice Munsel, Señor Wences and the Marquis Chimps, plus the usual surprise guests. I made up a playlist which will play one part after another. You probably won't want to sit through the whole thing but it's all there if you want it.

Young Frankenstein had its public debut in Seattle in August of '07. (Obviously, I'm talking here about the musical version which has since moved to Broadway.) Here's a news story that ran on some local channel there at the time, previewing the show.

A panda cub was born last August at the San Diego Zoo. Here's a report on the kid at seven weeks. You weren't this cute at that age.

Last November, I saw and very much enjoyed the Broadway version of Xanadu, which was adapted from the 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. Here's a news story about this new production, which is still doing quite well from what I hear.