Because of the new documentary on him, folks are talking a lot online about Albert Brooks and the films he made. I liked all the ones that didn't have the word "Muslim" in the title but my favorite is probably Defending Your Life. I've seen it a few times and I sometimes wondered where they'd filmed certain scenes. I recognized the Federal Building over on Wilshire in Westwood and a few others but I felt like I should be able to recognize more. A couple of 'em looked so familiar…
Well, a gent who goes by the name Jordan the Lion tracked down some of those locations and he takes us to them in this video. If you haven't seen the movie — or haven't seen it in a long time — don't watch this. Instead, watch the movie and then watch this…
A number of folks have written to ask me if I had anything to do with the new Garfield movie, the trailer for which is now online. Typical is this one from "Frank D"…
I saw a trailer for a new Garfield movie and immediately thought is this something Mark has done? I know you have thoroughly refrained from plugging any of your current work but as soon as I saw the trailer you just came to mind.
No, I had nothing to do with the new Garfield movie…nor, to answer a question others have asked, am I bothered by that. I mean, I loved writing that cat for all those years and I'm sad if that was the end of it…but I always knew it would end and am surprised/pleased it lasted as long as it did. I'm the guy who coined the oft-quoted-within-the-industry line, "Never get possessive about characters you don't own."
When we write others' properties, we're baby-sitters. We are not the parents nor, even if we do a great job of baby-sitting, do we become the parents. We're baby-sitters and it's real easy to change baby-sitters or even for the parents to not need one any longer. Name almost any character who's been around long enough to be passed from writer to writer to writer. I know someone who wrote that property for a long time and was very proud of the work they did on that property…
…and then it came as, if not a shock then at least a little jolt to realize someone else was suddenly in charge of "their" character. I had a friend who was so "into" writing Superman that for a time whenever anyone else did, he reacted at least a little like a man discovering that his wife was sleeping around.
I was maybe the fortieth or fiftieth person to write Scooby Doo and never for a moment the only one. There have been hundreds since and there will he hundreds more. You have to think of these kinds of assignments in that context.
Josh Woolf sent me these two very simple questions…
Would you please list all 13 Marx Brothers movies going from your favorite to your least favorite? And what is your favorite scene in any of their films?
And here are my simple answers as of this moment. It could change within the hour…
Please note that any film on this list could easily swap positions with the one over it or the one under it. I'm not strident about my Marx Brothers rankings.
And of the many scenes in them I love, if you force me at gunpoint (or even squirt gunpoint) to name a favorite, I would have to go with the Maurice Chevalier scene in Monkey Business. It's one of those scenes that's funny just to consider the premise of it: "In order to get off this ship, we will all have to pretend to be the same person even though everyone knows that none of us could possibly be that person and to prove we are that person, each of us will have to sing one of his songs." And they kind of get away with it. They do get off the ship.
Las Vegas used to be my second home but even before COVID, my interest in being there was diminishing due to it becoming way more expensive, way more "tourist-trappy" and way more crowded. I'm especially glad to not be there this weekend when the big Formula 1 event is taking place. Much of the town — the areas where I'd be if I was there — has been completely remodeled with grandstands and new roads and structures designed to prevent you from getting even a glimpse of the race through the streets unless you've purchased a very expensive ticket.
On Vegas chat boards, I see a few people saying this is or will be the greatest thing to happen to Vegas ever…but the majority seem to hate, hate, hate the whole thing and there are oodles of complaints about what it's doing to the town. My favorite Vegas reporter, Norma Geli, went to the Thursday night festivities and somehow managed to have a full video report up on YouTube this morning at about 8:30 AM — a feat of speed more impressive than anything that's liable to take place on the track this weekend.
She thought the first night was a disaster. But being a Vegas disaster, it still had massive crowds and plenty of food and drink. Here is her report…
In 2013, Billy Joel was doing a Q-and-A (and played a few numbers, I think) at Vanderbilt University. A student named Michael Pollack raised his hand and asked if he could accompany Mr. Joel on "New York State of Mind" and to the delight of the audience — and one supposes, to the shock of Michael Pollack — Joel said "Okay." This video is of that unplanned moment and I've gotta say: Billy Joel looks like the greatest of sports for going along with it and praising the kid for his piano playing.
I posted a link to this video here shortly after it happened but YouTube took it down. So who put it back up? Billy Joel. It's on his personal channel. So here it is again…
And now you might be wondering whatever became of Michael Pollack. Well, he hasn't done much…just written or co-written songs recorded by Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5, Ari Leff, Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, Backstreet Boys, Lizzo, Jonas Brothers, Meghan Trainor, Demi Lovato, Michael Bublé, John Legend and Selena Gomez. You can read more about him on his Wikipedia page. Here he is talking about that moment that changed his life…
I was about to write a post about how meaningless I think the current polling is about the upcoming presidential election. I was going to write about how this far out, the polls are so often quite different from the final outcomes, how too many people are not yet paying attention to the race and how an infinite number of game-changing events can happen between now and Election Day…and yes, I've written this post here before. But I don't have to write it this time because my buddy Paul Harris did on his site. Go read him.
So you don't find anything morally or ethically troubling when a celebrity (who has a large following) monopolizes someone else's poll for their own personal ends? To him (and to some of his followers) the billboards etc and ramifications may appear as one big joke. But to others who take these things more seriously….
Polls are designed to gauge people's reactions to items. Surely you would be unhappy if a project you enjoyed working on was downgraded in a poll, because of a situation similar to the above. The New York Times' latest poll shows that writers of Groo and Garfield love cole slaw.
Remember, not all polls are conducted by Dick Morris.
So let me get this straight: You're telling me that people take a poll to name The Bird of the Century seriously? And I don't think this was even a poll. It was a competition in which anyone could go to a website and vote. The word "poll" suggests some sort of effort is made to hear from people who represent a cross-section of the population.
And according to all the articles I've seen, the organizers of the contest were thrilled that John Oliver mounted his campaign and thrilled with the response. The idea of the vote was — and I quote — "…to raise awareness for native New Zealand bird species, of which about 80 percent are threatened or at risk of extinction." Oliver's stunt led to them receiving "…more than 280,000 votes in a contest that had previously seen a maximum voter turnout of about 56,000 in 2021."
It was a campaign to raise awareness for what actually is a serious matter. And Oliver raised a whole lot more awareness. I think that's great.
And I also think it would be great if the New York Times poll said that I love cole slaw. That would remind people that they shouldn't take the New York Times poll seriously when it comes to less important matters…like who'll be our next president. That might be important when we're close to Election Day…but now? Personally, I'm thinking that when that time comes, I'm voting for the pūteketeke. Unless he's convicted of one or more felonies.
John Oliver, star of my current favorite TV show, has succeeded in his campaign to have the pūteketeke named as Bird of the Century in a national poll in New Zealand. Apparently, it wasn't even close with the pūteketeke receiving more than 290,000 votes. The kiwi (with 12,904) and the kea (with 12,060 votes) placing a distant second and third. Next Sunday when Mr. Oliver takes his well-earned victory lap, he will probably announce that the kiwi is claiming the vote was rigged and has hired Rudy Giuliani to contest the results in court.
I'm hoping Oliver can drum up the same kind of landslide for the Democratic nominee in the next presidential election. I still have this strange hunch it will not be Joe Biden but I wouldn't mind seeing Oliver make the rounds of the talk shows in a huge Joe Biden costume.
A question from Brian Dreger, who sends me a lot of good questions…
You've apparently been around stand-up comedians a lot…know a lot about the business, etc. One thing I've always been curious about is how they decide what the last joke will be.
Often when I watch a standup special, towards the end of the show, I get a bit of anxiety because I'm wondering if the joke they're going to tell last will generate a loud enough laugh that they can say "Thank you, you've been a great audience. Good night!" and then walk off comfortably to a great round of applause. I've seen many performances when the last joke generates just a tiny little dud of a laugh, but they still have to say "Thank you, good night, you've been a great audience!" It's very awkward to me, and I would think that if you were on stage it would be somewhat demoralizing. Is it? Do you know if there is much thought put into what the last joke will be?
Sure…but it isn't thought so much as trial-and-error. When you see someone doing a standup special on TV, you're almost certainly seeing them do material they've done dozens, if not hundreds of times before. The last joke is what they've found is the best joke for that moment. Comics are always moving things around in their acts and trying this or that to determine what works best.
A standup comedian may also use what magicians call "Multiple Outs." Magicians have tricks where they can change course in midstream because you don't know what the final "miracle" is supposed to be. If the selected card doesn't turn up where they want it to appear the first time, the trick goes on until it does turn up and they act like that's where they always expected it to be. A comic on stage might have several jokes to tell near the end of his or her set and as soon as one of them gets a huge-enough laugh, he or she ends on that one. If it gets that "tiny little dud of a laugh" that you mention, they go on to the next joke and, if necessary, the next one.
As for the moment when the comic says, as you quote, "Thank you, good night, you've been a great audience," a lot of comics don't want the last thing they say on stage to be a joke. They want to drop the "funnyman" posture and say something sincere to the audience. Again, this is a matter of doing it night after night after night and finding what works for them.
Lastly, I should point out that a lot of standup specials you see on TV are edited. In many cases, they record several performances and take the best moments from each. I would imagine in some instances, if the last joke doesn't get the desired response, it's edited out of the show and they just cut from the last joke that did get a big laugh to the comic saying "Thank you and goodnight." So thank you and goodnight, Brian.
The photo above is of the house I grew up in…but not really. The house I grew up in was considerably larger, it wasn't green, it wasn't plastic and while real estate was pretty cheap in 1953, my father paid considerably more than $180 for it. But it was on a street called Tennessee Avenue. Also, there were other houses on our Tennessee Avenue and no one acquired four of them and then replaced them with a red plastic hotel.
My father was not wealthy, then or ever, but in 1953, he had what it took to buy a two-bedroom home in a fairly nice neighborhood. What it took was a steady job. Wouldn't it be nice if that's all it took today to make the down payment on a house and get a reasonable mortgage via which to pay the balance? For that matter, wouldn't it be nice these days if everyone had a job as steady as they wanted?
I first played the game of Monopoly® at my grandparents' home in Hartford, Connecticut. This was in the summer of 1959 when I was seven years old. My mother took me on a trip back east — to New York, Hartford and Boston in that order — partially to sight-see and partially so I could meet some of my relatives and they could meet me. In Hartford, we stayed with her parents and they had a very, very old Monopoly set with wooden pieces. Today, that set would probably sell for more than the cost of rent on Park Place with a hotel on it.
I picked up on the game right away and became so good at it that I won almost every time. Yes, I was very smart at that age…though not smart enough to realize that Grandpa, Grandma and my mother were often letting me win. Still, I might have won anyway because of my strategy. I always managed to acquire the three properties in the orange group — St. James Place, New York Avenue and Tennessee Avenue. I wanted it for two reasons, one being that it included Tennessee Avenue, the street upon which I lived.
And the other reason I wanted it was simple: It was orange. As I've mentioned here in past Tales of My Childhood, orange was my favorite color and it still is. There are a number of things I own for no absolutely no reason except that they're a nice shade of orange.
But as I found out years later when several different people wrote articles and books about How to Win at Monopoly®, buying up the orange group of properties is a pretty wise strategy. One reason of several: You can pretty much count on everyone going to jail one or more times during a game. One way you get out of jail is to roll doubles…and if you roll two threes, you then land on St. James Place (which is orange) and if you roll two fours, you land on Tennessee Avenue (also orange). And if I own the orange group and I've built hotels on it, you owe me $950.
I was so expert at it that at age seven, I got to experience the sublime joy of bankrupting your grandmother. I think I did that every single time we played…and little did I know then that someday, I would do that for real.
What I just typed there is not a joke. When my grandmother was 89, via a series of deft financial maneuvers, I managed to acquire enough of her assets to render her indigent. I actually did that…
…and she was very happy I did. At that age, she was widowed, living alone and unable to take care of herself. She wanted to spend the rest of her life in a certain assisted living home where several friends of her resided but there was a waitlist that could have meant years before there would be an opening for her.
An 89-year-old woman can't wait forever. She needed a new place to live a.s.a.p. so I got a lawyer. He investigated and he found what good lawyers are supposed to find. He found a loophole.
There was some law in Connecticut which I won't pretend I understood. All I needed to know was that if Grandma had fewer assets — house, bank account, investments, etc. — she would qualify for some special program and we could get her in there faster. We had to get her net worth under a certain level so we did. With her trust and just enough understanding to okay the whole thing, I acquired enough of those assets to get her into the place where she wanted to spend her remaining years. She spent the rest of her life there and I paid for everything.
Some months after she passed, I thought to ask a question of my Business Manager Person who had arranged most of that great financial maneuver. I asked him if I made a profit from bankrupting my grandmother. He said, "It's a matter of perspective. You could have incurred a significant loss if she'd lived another year or two. As it was, you made a little money on the deal but since years earlier, she'd made you the sole beneficiary in her will, it's money you would have received anyway."
I think I'm remembering that correctly. All I'm sure of is that he agreed with me when I said, "So I didn't really make a profit bankrupting my grandmother — not in playing Monopoly® and not in real life." He said that basically, I had it right. So I pass on to you this simple lesson: If you have a grandmother and you're thinking of bankrupting her, don't bother. There's no money in it.
I've always been curious. When sitcoms are filmed in front of a studio audience, are they done so in continuity so the audience knows what's going on? In other words, do they go from the scene in home #1, then to home #2, then to the workplace set, and then back to homes #1 and 2? Or do they film all of the the home #1 scenes, all of the workplace scenes, etc.
Okay, here's my answer — and remember, we're only talking here about sitcoms filmed "three camera," which are sometimes done with more than three. These are sitcoms done in front of a live audience.
To the extent possible, "three camera" sitcoms go in order. In most cases, the live audience is seated in wide bleachers and in front of them are the sets for the various scenes placed side by side. This can mean that if you're seated way to the left, you might not have a great view of the action on the set at far right…but sometimes, there are monitors so you can watch those scenes on them. Of course, back in the fifties and sixties when most sitcoms were shot on film, there were no monitors.
When I went to that filming of The Dick Van Dyke Show in February of '65, there were three sets side-by-side. As you faced the stage, the set farthest to the right was the office in which The Alan Brady Show was written. It was probably there for most filmings. The other two sets were new to us because this episode was mainly a flashback sequence: Rob Petrie, sitting in his office with his accountant, told that accountant the story of how he and Laura had bought their house.
There was a scene in that office at the beginning of that episode in which Rob started telling the story and then they dissolved into the story he was telling which took place on the other two sets — the kitchen in which Rob and Laura then lived (the middle set) and the basement of the house they were thinking of buying (the set on the far left). So they started filming with the first office scene, then Dick Van Dyke changed his clothes and they filmed the flashback scenes in order in the other two sets.
Then Dick got back into the wardrobe of the first scene and they went back to the office set and filmed the last scene. Everything in sequence.
By contrast: In 1972, a bunch of my friends and I attended the filming of an episode of The Don Rickles Show…a short-lived sitcom he had that year. You may not remember this Don Rickles Show and neither did its producer, Sheldon Leonard. When Mr. Leonard wrote his autobiography, he mentioned every TV show he ever worked on except this Don Rickles Show. It was very similar in format and "look and feel" to The Dick Van Dyke Show which Mr. Leonard also produced and which he did remember.
I have never seen an episode of this show since it went off the air but here's the opening. They show the audience bleachers though I don't think this was from the night that my friends and I were there…
And now here's the plot of the episode we saw that night. I stole this off an online episode guide to the series…
Don becomes his own defense attorney in court when he pleads guilty to stealing a TV set and bases his defense on a "terrible explanation".
As aired, the episode started with Don being arraigned in a courtroom and he began a lengthy explanation of how he had purchased a TV set in a store and it hadn't worked. He took it back to the store and when they wouldn't take it back or fix it, he got mad and tried to take another set of the same model and that was when he was arrested. The first scene was him in the courtroom as he started explaining to the judge.
Then the flashback scenes started. This was similar in structure to an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show called "The Case of the Pillow" in which Rob Petrie had to explain to a judge (played by Ed Begley Sr.) how Laura had bought some faulty pillows. That Van Dyke episode was written by Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. If you looked closely at the above opening of the Rickles show, you saw that it was created by Sam Denoff.
For the bulk of the Rickles show as aired, they cut back and forth between scenes in the courtroom and flashback scenes in Don's home, office and the store where he bought the TV. The last scene was in the courtroom.
At the filming, they did not do these in sequence. Mr. Leonard, who did the warm-up and hosted for the audience explained that they only had room on the stage for three sets and this episode called for four. So they filmed all the scenes in the home, office and store, then there was a fifteen-or-so minute break while they moved the office and store sets out and rolled in the courtroom set. Rickles changed into a different outfit and they filmed all the courtroom scenes.
And then, Sheldon Leonard asked us to stay and laugh it up as they filmed a new end scene to the episode they'd filmed the previous week. Rickles and Louise Sorel (who played his wife) changed into the clothes they'd worn in that episode and the filming also involved an actor named Henry Jones who had been in that episode. As they filmed that new scene, we all laughed even though we had no idea what was going on or why we were laughing.
This is not how "three camera" situation comedies are supposed to be done…but every once in a while, they are. It also became trendy in the last decade or so for a sitcom to do an occasional exterior scene which is shot without an audience and then they play it on the monitors for the live audience. I suspect that the closer they get to having the audience see everything in sequence, the better it always goes.
Richard Chamberlain had the title role in the TV series Dr. Kildare which ran on NBC from 1961 to 1966 — or, making this personal, from when I was nine until I was fourteen. I think I was around twelve when I began watching this series regularly for a personal reason. The man who moved into the home directly across the street from us was a very important doctor at UCLA Medical Center and he was the Technical Consultant on Dr. Kildare.
I've written about him here before but it's been a while. His name was Dr. William H. Swanson. I found the following obit online and while there might have been another Dr. William H. Swanson in the world, I believe this is the one I'm writing about here…
Dr. William H. Swanson, medical director of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for 33 years and former associate dean of the UCLA School of Medicine, died July 13, 2019. He was 85 years old. Dr. Swanson completed his residency in internal medicine at UCLA, after graduating from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He was known as a humanitarian and philanthropist, who championed equal rights and freedom of speech, and he was an advocate for environmental causes.
Assuming it's the same guy, we can add another somewhat-less-important item to his list of heroic deeds: He was the first person to show me what a script for a television show looked like.
Once he heard that the Evanier kid across the street wanted to be a writer, Dr. Swanson invited me to help myself to scripts. He had crates of them in his garage — in some cases, multiple drafts of Dr. Kildare episodes. They'd send them to him and he'd type out memos correcting facts or terminology. Occasionally, he'd find himself on the phone with some actor teaching him or her how to pronounce "phenolphthalein" or "leishmaniasis."
The scripts I got from Dr. Swanson were often for episodes that hadn't aired yet. When they did, I'd watch with the script in front of me, following the action and dialogue, noting where they differed from the mimeographed pages. Sometimes, a whole scene would be rewritten or truncated or omitted altogether. It was my first "lesson" in how to write a script, not just for a TV medical show but for anything.
Recently, for no visible reason, I got to thinking about that series and I got the urge to watch some episodes of it. I recall it as being a very good show when I was thirteen years old and I was wondering if it still would be a very good show now than I'm seventy-one. Alas, though I now have about a billion and eight streaming channels available to me, I can't find one that is streaming Dr. Kildare.
Occasionally, that would mean that the series no longer exists. Or it might mean that some company has film or tape of all or most of the episodes but the shows are in need of major restoration work that no one wants to pay for at the moment. In this case though, there are apparently excellent quality prints of all 191 episodes. I could order the complete set from Amazon for $238.76. I do not want to do this. It can't be so good I'd want to devote 191 hours of my life to it. That's like eight solid days of watching Dr. Gillespie give sage, experienced advice to the young, learning-the-ropes Doc Kildare.
Oh — and this is interesting. Between the time I typed the above paragraph and now — about four minutes — Amazon has lowered the price to $238.17. This was obviously done to tempt me and only me but I still don't want to pay that. I may order one season but I thought I'd ask first here and see if anyone knows where it's streaming. If it isn't now, I have the feeling it will be soon. Some of those channels are getting desperate. They can't all be running I Love Lucy nine thousand times a day indefinitely.
Here's a scene from Season 1 of Dr. Kildare that features a very young William Shatner. It's amazing how long that man has been working. This was 61 years ago. To put that in the proper context: THIS WAS SIXTY ONE YEARS AGO!!!
And remember how recently, I told you about an actor named Eddie Ryder and said he popped up in dozens of TV shows in the sixties? Well, he had a recurring role for a while on Dr. Kildare and he's in this scene too. He's the doctor on the right…
I used to title these items "Set the TiVo" but I no longer set a TiVo so I'll have to come up with a different subject line. I'm recommending, though I have not seen it, Defending My Life, which debuts tonight on HBO…and come to think of it, maybe you don't have to set anything and snag its first airing because it'll be streaming all over the place for a while.
It's a film by Rob Reiner profiling his best friend, Albert Brooks, one of the funniest men who ever turned up on TV and movie screens. Need I say more? I don't need to but I will. When I'm asked what show or presentation made me laugh the most in my life, it was an evening when I got to see one of the last times Albert Brooks stood on a stage and did good, old-fashioned stand-up. It was mostly just him telling stories from his life and I hope Mr. Reiner got him to tell some of them in this film.
The documentary is 88 minutes and it includes interviews with many of his peers telling us how hilarious Albert Brooks was and is. If I made a film like this, I would just point the camera at Albert Brooks for 88 minutes, let him talk and everyone could see for themselves how funny the man is. The two negative things I might include are that, first of all, after Brooks exploded on the comedy scene, there were an awful lot of terrible, terrible comedians trying to do what he did.
One of the things that made him unique before others tried to replicate it was that he'd come out on stage and do a deadpan, not-funny-at-all three-minute set-up for the bit…and then there would be a hilarious two-minute pay-off that was way more than worth the wait. Others who attempted this only managed to get the first part of it right.
And the other negative thing is that he stopped doing stand-up, stopped performing in one. I love most of his films and he's certainly the best judge of what he should be doing. But if you'd been at that late (maybe last) performance I saw, you wouldn't blame me one bit for wanting more. If you're still using a TiVo, set it.
It's been a while since we took a look at the list of long-running shows on Broadway and a few things have changed; mainly that Phantom of the Opera, which we often predicted here jokingly would never close has closed. It still has the Number One spot though and will for some time. The revival of Chicago, which most Broadway pundits were sure would close first, is still running and it's only 3,420 performances behind Phantom.
A Broadway show typically does about 400 performances a year but if Chicago does continue on for another eight and a half years, it might claim the top spot. (The shows in boldface are the ones that are still running.)
The Phantom of the Opera – 13,981 performances
Chicago (1996 Revival) – 10,561 performances
The Lion King – 10,179 performances
Wicked – 7,718 performances
Cats – 7,485 performances
Les Misérables – 6,680 performances
A Chorus Line – 6,137 performances
Oh! Calcutta! (1976 Revival) – 5,959 performances
Mamma Mia! – 5,758 performances
Beauty and the Beast – 5,461 performances
Rent – 5,123 performances
Jersey Boys – 4,642 performances
The Book of Mormon – 4,575 performances
Miss Saigon – 4,092 performances
42nd Street – 3,486 performances
Grease – 3,388 performances
Aladdin – 3,347 performances
Fiddler on the Roof – 3,242 performances
Life with Father – 3,224 performances
Tobacco Road – 3,182 performances
Hello, Dolly! – 2,844 performances
Hamilton – 2,789 performances
My Fair Lady – 2,717 performances
Hairspray – 2,642 performances
Mary Poppins – 2,619 performances
As you can see, Hamilton will soon pass Hello, Dolly!, The Book of Mormon will soon pass Jersey Boys, and Aladdin will soon pass Grease and 42nd Street.
Worth noting is that Disney has four shows in the Top 25, whereas Stephen Sondheim, Neil Simon, Richard Rodgers (with or without Oscar Hammerstein) and Mel Brooks have a combined total of none, though if this was a Top 30 list, The Producers would be on it. Andrew Lloyd Webber has two shows on the Top 25 list, both in the Top 5. And not one of these shows ever had Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Audra MacDonald or Hugh Jackman in it, though every night at Lion King, the guy playing the meerkat is probably doing an impression of Nathan.
Also worth noting: All the shows on this list are musicals except for Life With Father and Tobacco Road.
The oddest presence on this list would seem to be the revival of Oh! Calcutta!, a show that no one liked in this version or the original. Why this ran so long is pretty obvious: It had naked people in it. Also, it was a very cheap show to put on with a cast of eight, none of whom probably got over scale and it was in a small theater.
The theater was The Edison, a converted ballroom inside the Edison Hotel. It only had 541 seats and I once heard an actress who was in Oh! Calcutta! there say that they could show a profit if the place was half-full, which was often accomplished by booking tour groups, often from other countries. Even then, she said, they had people walking out in mid-show most nights and once in a while, they played to less than 50 people. Eventually, so few seats were being filled that the show closed. A few other plays inhabited the theater but they didn't last long, possibly because all the actors in them were clothed…whereupon the Edison Hotel turned the theater back into their ballroom.
So that explains why that show ran as long as it did. How though do we explain why The Phantom of the Opera lasted longer than the expiration date on a box of Wheat Chex? Perhaps if we're willing to invest two hours and forty minutes watching this video, we'll get a clue. This is a performance of Phantom done in 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall. It was jazzed-up with extra production value and a larger-than-usual cast and orchestra, plus special appearances…all to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show. Still, whatever made this juggernaut a success is probably in there somewhere…
This commercial for Shasta Orange Soda ran incessantly on TV around 1977. A lot of folks who saw it thought, "Hey! That's Barry Williams from The Brady Bunch!" But I couldn't watch it without thinking about the crummy rhyme. They got the rights to an old song — or maybe it was public domain, I don't know — that went…
I'm looking over / A four leaf clover
…and they changed it to…
You're looking over / An orange soda
…which doesn't rhyme. "Over" and "soda" do not rhyme. They never have. They never will. You can't even mispronounce one of them, Bert Lahr style, and make them sort of rhyme. You could, however, change it like this…
Come get a load a' / An orange soda
Even better, they could have done…
My soda has ta / Be Orange Shasta
When I first heard this commercial, I thought of that in maybe five seconds. Half the people reading this could have done that in approximately the same time and Sondheim could have done it in two. Why did no one involved with this commercial think of that? Or if someone did, why didn't they use it? I don't drink soda anymore but when I did, I always insisted that the jingles rhyme.
