Category Archives: Video Links

On the web, you can learn all sorts of stuff you didn't know before, even about your friends. One of mine — although I haven't seen him for a few years — is a comedy writer named Rowby Goren. He pronounces his first name as if it rhymed with "Moby," as in "Moby Dick." Why does he do that? For that matter, why did he change his name to Rowby in the first place? It's all just one of the many Mysteries of Rowby. We worked together on a number of TV variety shows years ago, and he wrote on even better programs, like the original Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, without me. (He won an Emmy for his work on Hollywood Squares. Once, this came up in a conversation for which I was present. Someone asked him just what he wrote on Hollywood Squares and he explained, "All those funny things the celebrities ad-lib.")

Anyway, as you may know (because I wrote about it here), one of the great regrets of my life is that I passed up an opportunity to go meet Stan Laurel, one of my two favorite performers. The other was that fat guy he used to hang around with. As a kid, I could have gone to Mr. Laurel's apartment but I cluck-cluck-chickened out and every now and then, I give myself a swift kick for my cowardice. Or should.

I was amazed to learn just now that Rowby, with whom I worked many years, had a similar invite and took Stan up on his not once but twice. Somehow, Rowby never mentioned it to me. But he put up a short video about attending Stan's funeral, which is below, and he wrote briefly on his weblog about going to meet him. Rowby, how come you never told me about this?

Here's the pilot for the short-lived 1976 version of I've Got a Secret. Bill Cullen was the host, and there's something to be said about that. Mr. Cullen was, of course, a longtime member of the panel on the earlier version of I've Got a Secret, the one hosted by Garry Moore. When Moore departed that show in 1964, Cullen seemed like the natural replacement but the producers decided to bypass him and bring in Steve Allen instead. Why? Well, it was not exactly a secret but it also wasn't publicized that Mr. Cullen had a bad limp from a childhood problem with polio. As an adult game show star, it prevented him from working "on his feet" and the producers of Secret felt that their host had to be able to do that. Too many of their best spots had required that of the moderator.

So on the panel he stayed. In '76 when they brought the series back for a few weeks to fill a time slot that needed filling, it was decided that it was more important to try and capture the flavor of the old show…and Cullen seemed like the host most likely to achieve that. So they avoided spots that would have required him to stand or move about and they installed him as Master of Ceremonies. It didn't help. This version only lasted four weeks.

The guest in this segment is Rodney Dangerfield but that's not what's interesting about it. His secret involves a gentleman named Vance Colvig. Actually, his name was Vance Colvig, Junior. His father (Vance Colvig, Senior) was also known as Pinto Colvig, the voice of Goofy and many other classic cartoon characters. Dad was also the original Bozo the Clown, initially on records and then on early television.

Later, Vance Junior became a Bozo. He was Bozo the Clown on Los Angeles TV, appearing every weekday on KTLA, Channel Five from 1959 to 1964. He was also an occasional cartoon voice, most notably playing Chopper the Bulldog on the Yakky Doodle cartoons for Hanna-Barbera. Later, he did all sorts of film and TV acting jobs and for some reason, usually wound up playing a wino or derelict. One of his last roles — as a bum, of course — was in the Weird Al Yankovic movie, UHF. Anyway, if you were a fan of anything he did, here's a rare chance to get a look at him.

Also in this clip is a gentleman named John Twomey, who billed himself as a "manualist," playing music by emitting farting sounds from his hands. He did it once on Johnny Carson's show and it was such a funny spot that offers poured in, and Mr. Twomey wound up with an actual career, playing lounge shows in Vegas and elsewhere. A few years ago, Garrison Keillor had him play "Stardust" on Prairie Home Companion…not a bad gig for a guy who did what he did.

Here's a commercial for Kellogg's Sugar Pops. Paul Frees did the voice of the deputy, Daws Butler was Sugar Pops Pete, and I'm tired and unable to place the name of the actor who did the Marshall at the moment. Might be Bob Holt. In any case, when was the last time a breakfast cereal boasted how much sugar it contained?

This is the trailer for what I think was the best Deanless movie Jerry Lewis ever made, The Bellboy. As the announcer (who I think is Alan "Fred Flintstone" Reed) says, it was all shot on location at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. If I recall the history on this correctly: Jerry had finished shooting Cinderfella and Paramount had it scheduled as their summer Jerry Lewis release of 1960. Then Jerry or someone had the thought that because of that film's fairy tale nature, it would do better business as a Christmas release. Everyone at the studio agreed…but they'd promised exhibitors a summer Lewis pic. "No problem," Jerry said. "We'll make another movie in time for summer release."

The boys at Paramount said that sounded great but pointed out that Jerry was committed to play the Fountainbleu for a month and couldn't do that and make a movie in the allotted time. Again, Jerry said it was no problem: "We'll make the movie at the Fontainebleau during the day, and I'll play their showroom at night." The hotel, well aware of the publicity value, made some big financial concessions so the film could be shot very inexpensively…so that made the whole proposition sound very good to the studio.

All they needed now was a script and a director. Jerry said, "I'll handle those." He had not written and directed a film before but he'd been edging in that direction so it was a small leap. Quickly, he came up with the idea of doing a largely plotless movie with himself as a bellhop, wrote a very long script and then — at the hotel — threw out most of it in favor of freshly-improvised scenes based on what was going on there. The majority of the other actors were either members of his crew or, like Milton Berle and Joe E. Ross, performers who were playing Miami at the same time.

Some of the jokes worked and others didn't but the whole thing had a nice, friendly energy and at 71 minutes, you sure couldn't get bored. The same cannot be said for this trailer…

Pat Paulsen was kind of the Stephen Colbert of his day. He was best known as "that comedian who keeps running for president," a bit he did with such deadpan perseverence that a lot of people probably thought he was more serious about it than he actually was.

He also did a lot of routines that came under that category of spontaneous stunts — a category later dominated for a time by a Mr. Andy Kaufman. One Paulsen effort — and you'll catch a brief glimpse of it in this video — was walking on water. Paulsen would go on TV shows and explain, with utter intensity and a face straighter than you could possibly imagine, that he could walk on water. Then, after a very long build-up (the kind Kaufman often gave his routines), Mr. Paulsen would attempt to demonstrate his skill and…well, you've never seen a human being get so wet in your life. He got wetter than wet but it never dampened his insistence that he could walk on water…and sometimes (not always), he eventually managed to do it. It was a hilarious bit even if the Mike Douglas audience didn't always know what to make of it.

Paulsen became famous, of course, for his appearances with The Smothers Brothers. He maintained such a bland, emotionless presence on camera that TV execs seemed to shy from him, presuming Americans would never love someone that cold. He did have a brief (13 weeks) series on ABC in 1969 that I remember as being quite brilliant…but when it went away, so did he to a great extent. Which was our loss because he was a very funny man, indeed.

His family (I think it's his family) has decided that Pat should be running for president again this year, and I think that's great. So what if he's dead? He'd still be better than most of them and he'll get as many electoral votes as Ralph Nader. Here's a link to the campaign website and below is a little tribute video about Pat's life and times…

In the fifties and sixties, the place to go for news in Southern California was not one of the network affiliates but KTLA, a local station. That was especially true when the news was of a local nature — a fire, a shootout, etc. When something happened, you tuned to Channel 5…and I can think of three reasons why that station achieved its standout position. One was that it seemed to have a bigger (and probably earlier) commitment to covering what was going on. Another was that they had the only helicopter equipped with a live video camera. When there was a big fire, other local stations — with permission and credit — would cut to the Channel 5 video feed of it. Naturally, there was no point in watching excerpts from the Channel 5 video on Channel 4 when you could turn the dial one notch and watch all of it on 5.

And the other reason was that KTLA had some fine news reporters, especially a gent named Stan Chambers, who is unmentioned in today's clip but who did remarkable work. When there was trouble anywhere in L.A., Stan Chambers would be there covering it sooner than anyone else and from some amazing vantage point. When we had the famous police shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Front, the joke was that every other reporter was covering it from outside while Chambers was in the house with the suspects.

Today's presentation here is a few minutes of openings from old KTLA nightly news broadcasts. You'll catch a brief glimpse of George Putnam, who fronted the news there for many years. Ted Knight's character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show borrowed much of his on-camera attitude from Mr. Putnam and also from another local news anchor, Jerry Dunphy. You'll also catch a brief glimpse of a very young Keith Olbermann and no glimpse of Tom Snyder, who worked for a few years on the KTLA news team.

Keith Olbermann awards his coveted "Worst Person in the World" awards on tonight's broadcast. The bronze (to Bill O'Reilly) is of little importance, the silver (to James Dobson) is on-target and the gold (to Walmart) is scathing and gutsy and the kind of thing more people on TV should do.

Someone posted the animated opening title sequence for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to YouTube so I might as well link to it and point out the following.

I first saw this movie (one of my favorites) shortly after it came out…a few days after John F. Kennedy was murdered. My family and I were in the front row — way too close — of the Cinerama Dome Theater on Sunset in Hollywood. If you think Jimmy Durante's nose is frightening in normal viewing, you should have seen it from those seats.

One of the eight million things that fascinated me about this movie came in the titles…at the moment when the "world" blows up and the names of the stars rain down on the screen. Sitting there in the Dome, my eleven-year-old eyes thought they saw other names in there, names other than the performers in the film. I have always read very fast but that evening, I made Evelyn Woods look like…well, fill in your own joke. I definitely spotted other names in there. When I saw the film again a year or two later in a non-Cinerama theater, I again thought I saw the mysterious other names…but of course, in those days, we didn't have VCRs and TiVos and means by which one could slow-mo or freeze frame a movie.

The day I got my first home video copy of It's a Mad4 World — in Beta! — I immediately checked and sure enough, there they were…the name of men who'd animated the title, plus the names of what I guess were friends and family members. Years later, I asked one of them — Bill Melendez — about it. He remembered the staff all inserting their monikers but didn't recall which ones he was responsible for.

Anyway, they're in there if you want to peek for yourself. The cartoon world explodes around 2 minutes and 15 seconds into the clip. Happy hunting.

Here's three minutes from a movie that as I've mentioned here before, really oughta be out on DVD. It's The Night They Raided Minsky's and it starred Jason Robards, Norman Wisdom, Britt Ekland and, briefly, Bert Lahr. Mr. Lahr passed away during the filming and his role had to be truncated (or in a few scenes, played by a look-alike dubbed by a sound-alike). The film was made in 1968, produced by Norman Lear and directed by William Friedkin. Mr. Friedkin more or less disowned it and it was heavily recut in the editing room, making it into quite a different movie. The seams show but I still like what resulted.

The blonde gentleman you'll see in this scene is Dexter Maitland who at the time of his death a few years ago, was hailed as The Last Burlesque Straight Man. In the late eighties, I got to meet and chat with him in Vegas where he spent most of his last few decades (either there or in Reno) performing in revues that vaguely recreated the old days at Minsky's Burlesque where he had once worked. In Vegas, he sang a little but mostly played opposite The Last Burlesque Funnyman — the equally wonderful Irv Benson — in comedy routines that Henny Youngman would have dismissed as out-of-date. And maybe they were but I thought they were wonderful. (To read all about Mr. Benson, go here. Better still, go here.)

Like I said, the movie oughta be on DVD…and maybe it soon will be. The oft-announced stage musical version is apparently getting its act together to play Los Angeles early in '09 with an eye on later migrating to Broadway. Now renamed Minsky, it reportedly now bears very little resemblance to the movie on which it is ostensibly based. Still, it might provide a nice external impetus to get a DVD done…and I do hope they persuade Norman Lear to do a commentary track. For now, you'll have to settle for this clip…

Yesterday, we linked to a sketch from Saturday Night Live with the late Chris Farley playing his character, Matt Foley, a motivational speaker. It's a shame Chris died when he did and took Matt with him…but at least, we still have Matt Kissane, a professional Chris Farley impersonator. Here he is in an outta-sync YouTube video…and a hat tip to "Balloon Entertainer" Smarty Pants, who told me about Mr. Kissane…

A golden moment from Saturday Night Live. It will start right after a brief word from the sponsor…

This runs 23 minutes so you might not want to click right now. But if you do, you'll be watching Charlie Chaplin's 1917 two-reel comedy, Easy Street, complete with an overpowering musical track. I'm not sure when it was done for this film but soundtracks were added to a lot of great silent comedies after talkies came in, especially Chaplin's. There was still a demand for him to the extent that it was cost effective to orchestrate and record music.

It's been about three decades since I watched a lot of Chaplin but I recalled this as my favorite of all his two-reelers. I just watched it and I can see why I felt that way. It's a nice, touching little story and it shows you why Chaplin was a "superstar" long before that word was invented.

For a while here last year and I think the year before, I was recommending that those of you in the Southern California area hurry your tailbones over to a theater where, once per week, you could see a live, fun re-creation of the old game show, What's My Line? A clever gent named J. Keith van Straaten was our genial host and he always seemed to have a panel of four witty folks, several people with interesting occupations for them to guess, and — best of all! — a famous Mystery Guest. I went more than a half-dozen times and it was always entertaining.

Alas, all good things come to an end…or in this case, they move to New York. Commencing this coming Monday night, you can see What's My Line? Live on Stage at the Barrow Street Theatre in that fine city. Keith is still the host and he has some of the same witty panelists (including, this Monday, Betsy Palmer) and he'll have Mystery Guests and I see no reason to think it won't be as great a show there as it was out here. Below is a video sampler of what it was out here and if you're in or around New York and it makes you want to go, all the details are on this page.

Here's a commercial for Clark's Teaberry Gum that a lot of us enjoyed when it aired incessantly on TV back in the sixties. By that, I mean we enjoyed the commercial. What I don't recall is any of my friends, who chewed a lot of gum, chewing this one. What I do recall though is an advertising expert on some PBS show saying that insofar as selling the product was concerned, it was a terrible commercial. Why? Because it didn't convey any message about buying Clark's Teaberry Gum. Didn't tell you what it was, even. And in a way, he's right. I still don't know what flavor one might expect from such a thing or why I might enjoy it.

The expert said, approximately, "Even then, a commercial could succeed if it embeds the name of the product into your brain and causes you, when you see it at the store, to think, 'Oh, that's the product I've heard so much about.' But this commercial doesn't even achieve that because the name is such an offhand, afterthought part of it. I'll bet this spot sold more Herb Alpert records than gum." He may have been right…but isn't it a great commercial?

One of my favorite "kid's shows" (which is to say it was not just for kids) was Hot Dog, which ran on NBC Saturday morning back in 1970. That was the year that network yielded to rather feeble public pressures and tried to program their kidvid lineup with more "enlightening" shows. The entire schedule suffered a humiliating rejection in the ratings, partly (I thought) because kids wanted comedy and adventure, not school on Saturday mornings; partly because (I thought) most of the educational shows weren't very good.

An exception was Hot Dog, which was a show about how things were made. They'd show you how things were made but before and during the presentation, there'd be little spots with three "experts" — Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen and Joanne Worley — offering their insights on the topics for that week.

Here's four and half minutes of Hot Dog, tackling the burning question of how to make a baseball glove. Ms. Worley isn't in this one but Woody Allen discusses the subject at hand (all improvised on the spot) and Jonathan Winters does a brilliant bit of mime with vocal sound effects. The off-camera voice you'll hear asking questions — and I'll bet he's one of the people you'll hear laughing at Johnny Winters, too — is Frank Buxton, a friend and frequent contributor to this site. Actually, several people involved in the making of Hot Dog read this site but only one of them, and it isn't Frank, has the power to get Hot Dog released on DVD. I wish this person would get off his ass and arrange it.