Yesterday was a Killer Deadline Day and today's another so there won't be a lot of postings here for a while. Also, everyone has said everything there is to say about the election so I doubt I'll find anything on that topic worth linking to. No matter what happens tomorrow though, America will endure, one side will scream the election was stolen and the price of gasoline will go up.
I neglected to mention what I didn't like about that Al Jaffee book. For the price I paid, it was a bargain and I'm glad I ordered two — one for a friend. It's a big four-volume hardcover reprinting all of Mr. Jaffee's wonderful, clever fold-ins — but you're not going to open a book, look at one or two, then close the book and open it again the next day. You're going to look at a lot of them and…well, some things just aren't meant to be experienced in that concentrated a dose. It makes them seem ordinary and you also start to learn Al's bag o' tricks. It's like watching a magician's act over and over again until it seems utterly unremarkable that he pulls that dove out of the secret compartment in his tux.
The reproduction is not all that grand, either. The sheer skill of Jaffee's artwork deserved better. In fact, what it and most of MAD deserved was for the publisher to save better copies of the work in the first place. This was the shortsightedness of most comic book publishers, and even though MAD stopped being a comic book, its publisher William M. Gaines thought and acted like one. In most houses, it was a matter of "Why spend the money now to shoot and archive good negatives on this stuff on the possibility that someday, there may be an opportunity to profit from its reprinting?" In some, they didn't even think far enough ahead to consider the possibility…so now when those pages are reissued in fancy collections with better repro, the proper source material doesn't exist. I believe MAD sometimes does its reprinting off old copies of the published issues because that's all that's available. And their printing was never very good in the first place.
Al Jaffee's work deserves a fancy hardcover with good printing. Dumping all his fold-ins into one slipcase somehow diminishes them and the printing takes it all down another notch. But if you can get it like I did for under twenty bucks, go for it.
In other news: I've been doing this weblog since December of 2000 and there have to date been around 18,100 posts. I've deleted some — certainly less than a hundred — for various reasons…usually linking to something that's no longer at the other end of that link. But the rest are all now on this site. I've imported them from the various permutations of the blog and they're all here now. Along the way, a few received upgraded images and spelling corrections and a lot of old links don't work…but you can read and click at your own risk. In many cases, when I link to another post on this blog, the link will take you to one of my old blogs but I can't do anything about that in the moment. I think I have to go in and fix those, one at a time by hand. Maybe someday.
Back to paying work right after a video link that'll consume an hour of your life…
Bruce Bartlett discusses the obstacle to raising revenue in this country by disallowing deductions: Every deduction is absolutely essential to some group. And to explain how, he even paraphrases Pogo.
Singer-composer Paul Anka liked to recycle. Some time in the late fifties, he wrote an instrumental called "Toot Sweet" that didn't get much attention. Then in 1959, he set lyrics to it and it became a song for Annette Funicello called "It Must Be Love." In 1962, much of it became "Johnny's Theme," the song that opened The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for more than three decades. Officially, the last of these was authored by the one-time-only team of Anka and Carson but no one ever thought Johnny had contributed a note. What they thought was that Paul had made a deal: Use my song and I'll credit you as co-writer so you'll get half the royalties. A good deal for both of them. Over the life of Johnny's Tonight Show, each of them cleared more than a million and a half bucks for its use…
Here's the version with Annette…
And here's an instrumental version of "Toot Sweet" that the folks at Disney's record company issued in 1960 on one of its many labels…
And just to remind you, here's how it sounded when it became Mr. Carson's theme song. This includes the part that rarely made it onto air…
Dick Cavett writes of his friendship (and a sad recent encounter) with Muhammad Ali. I think Mr. Cavett is underestimating the physical skills and punishment involved in even a rigged pro wrestling match but he's right about the effect that Ali has long had on people around him. We had "The Champ" (as we were directed to call him) on a show I worked on and then we took him to a wonderful dinner at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. I can't imagine ever being in a room with someone whose sheer presence excited so many people.
My mother was a pretty good cook with a limited repertoire. My father didn't like new foods. In every restaurant we went to repeatedly, he'd find one thing he liked on their menu and he would just order that one thing each time he went there. I inherited that trait from him and in my case, it's kind of a necessity. I have so many food allergies and intolerances that trying new things can be dangerous. So we both urged my mother to just make the same things over and over. I liked her Meat and Rice dish and her Tuna Noodle Casserole and her Split Pea Soup and her Beef Stew…but I really liked a dish called Lamb Hot Pot.
It was one of those labor-intensive dishes so she didn't make it very often — and just for us, never for company. The recipe yielded about enough for three people and the size of her oven and her casserole dish didn't permit her to scale things up to serve four or more. So it was just for the three of us. Here's how she made it…
3 shoulder lamb chops
¼ cup flour
1 tsp salt – dash of pepper
¾ can chicken broth, undiluted (Swanson)
1½ tsp A-1 sauce
2 onions peeled and sliced
3 carrots and 3 potatoes – pared and sliced
Trim fat from chops – heat fat in large heavy skillet.
On a plate combine flour, salt and pepper. Dip chops in flour coating lightly. Reserve remaining flour.
Brown chops in hot fat on both sides. Remove and set aside.
Drain off excess fat leaving 2 tablespoons drippings. Stir in rest of flour.
Beat until smooth. Gradually add broth and A-1. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat – simmer 1 minute.
In large casserole dish, layer half of onions and carrots. Cover with chops, add half of the potatoes and remaining onions. Overlap remaining potatoes and carrot slices over top.
Pour broth mixture over all. Bake covered at 350 degrees for two hours or until meat and potatoes are tender.
I don't know where she got that recipe but I know where I got a copy. About twenty years back, before my mother's eyesight really began to desert her, there was a December when she asked me her usual pre-Christmas favor. She asked me to tell her something she could buy me for Christmas. I'm darn-near impossible to buy for since I have modest wishes and a tendency to immediately fill them for myself. Each year, my mother would say, "The only gift I want you to give me this year is to tell me something I can buy for you." One year, I asked her to write down all her recipes for me and she was delighted with the project. She had them all on little slips of paper and cards stuffed in a kitchen drawer…and she'd altered many of them but never written down her alterations.
She bought a decorative notebook, filled it with handwritten cooking instructions and presented it to me on December 25. The star of the book was her Lamb Hot Pot. Also in this one-of-a-kind binder were some of her Jewish recipes like how she made latkes and how she made brisket. These, I already had.
As I mentioned here a month or so ago, my mother was not of Jewish heritage but my father was. When they wed, she had to learn to cook at least a few semitic dishes and this was achieved with the aid of a book she bought: The Art of Jewish Cooking by Jennie Grossinger. Ms. Grossinger was of the family that owned Grossinger's, the famed Catskills resort which served a Jew or two in its day. My mother had the small paperback edition seen above right. She made us a number of dinners as per that book and they were all delicious.
Years later, I found out why. Her copy had been ruined — I think she spilled boiling oil on it or something — and had gone unreplaced since by then she'd learned all her recurring preparations by heart. About twenty years ago on a whim, I decided to locate a copy just to have and found it was out-of-print. No problem. eBay had since been invented and it didn't take long to find, bid for and win an exemplar of the same pressing. (The book is no longer out-of-print — you can order one here — and it's even available on Kindle. If you get it that way, try not to spill boiling oil on your tablet computer.)
When I received my copy, I opened it and instantly realized why everything my mother made from that book was so good. Almost every recipe in it called for a pound of chicken fat. You could sweep up the confetti left after Rip Taylor performed, bake it in a pound of chicken fat and it would be very tasty. Not good for you but tasty.
The only recipe my mother ever made from that book that didn't require a pound of chicken fat was the one for latkes. That just called for pan-frying in boiling corn oil. You could sweep up the confetti left after Rip Taylor performed, pan-fry it in corn oil and it would be very tasty. Not good for you but tasty…and not as bad for you as if you'd baked it in a pound of chicken fat.
Latkes were a big production. Potatoes had to be peeled, then grated. When I was living at home, I usually assisted with peeling/grating duty and we did it all by hand. The last few batches she ever made, the spuds were shredded with a food processor I bought her. The resultant latkes were not quite as perfect that way owing to a change in texture…but they were still wonderful and it seemed like a fair trade-off for avoiding so much of the manual labor. Here's how Ms. Grossinger said to make them…
2 eggs
3 cups grated, drained potatoes
4 tbs grated onion
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
2 tbs cracker or matzoh meal
½ cup oil
Beat the eggs and add the potatoes, onion, salt, pepper, and matzoh meal.
Heat half the oil in a frying pan and drop the potato mixture into it by the tablespoon. Fry until browned on both sides.
Keep pancakes hot until all are fried, adding more oil as required. Serves eight.
My mother only made latkes as an adjunct to brisket, pot roast or a concoction she made that could have passed for either…and she only made them for holiday-type family dinners. That meant that she stopped making them once we stopped having family dinners owing to loss of family. We had one or two after my Aunt Dot died but it felt too obvious that someone was missing that it cast a light gray cloud over the dining. Also, Aunt Dot used to always come over early and help grate potatoes so the latkes became more work. After my father died, I think my mother made latkes one more time — for her, me and my Uncle Nathan. Then Nathan died.
I found this photo on the web. That's how my mother's latkes looked and how the ones you get in restaurants don't.
I missed those pancakes. For a time, I tried ordering latkes in our nation's top delicatessens and finally gave up. None of what I got in delis in any way resembled the wondrous ones my mother had made…and since they didn't, what was the point? Hers were crisper and tasted fresher and always contained just the perfect amount of shredded onion, which was more than was decreed by Jennie Grossinger. (She used 6-8 tablespoons.) I believe I abandoned my quest for latkes as good as my mother's when the Carnegie Delicatessen in New York failed the test. Theirs resembled hers about as much as The New Munsters resemble The Old Munsters.
The waiter at the Carnegie noticed mine had gone largely undevoured and asked if something was wrong with them. I said, "Yes, they're not the way my mother made them." He said that was a common complaint of diners there though he rarely heard it about anything besides the latkes and/or the matzo ball soup.
He said, not loud enough for the manager to hear, "My mother made them better, too. She put in more onion and her latkes were incredible…and she wasn't even Jewish." I guess that's the secret. Or maybe it's all the caring and love that our respective mothers added to the recipe. Oh — and the extra onion, too.
The TV series Up All Night is switching procedures. Up 'til now it's been shot with one camera with no live audience. It's moving to multi-camera with a live audience. Over on his blog, my pal Ken Levine notes that this is not unprecedented. A number of shows including The Odd Couple and Happy Days made this switch. In fact, it's believed that both those shows went from probable cancellation to Top Ten status because of the change.
From the stash of trivia that I pass off as a brain, I'd like to note that a classic sitcom — one that makes most "all-time greatest" lists — did something of the opposite. The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko) didn't go from multi-camera to one but they did dispense with a live audience…and it doesn't seem to have made a bit of difference in their series.
In the middle of their second season, show #60 of 143 was called "Bilko Goes Around the World." It was inspired by the then-current movie, Around the World in 80 Days and it featured scenes with that film's well-known producer, Mike Todd. In the midst of rehearsal, Mr. Todd suddenly announced that he couldn't stay until the scheduled filming night; that pressing business elsewhere beckoned and he had to go. The producers made the decision to just film the show a few days earlier, sans audience. It was still done multi-camera but with no one in the bleachers…and it turned out fine.
I'm not sure if it was immediately after Show #61 or if it happened a little later but the Todd episode convinced them that a live audience was a needless expense. Phil Silvers thought it even made the show better. Without one, they could do retakes easier so it wasn't necessary to rehearse every line and move in every scene to within an inch of its life. Silvers felt free to improvise more and to do each scene a few times, plus they could film when he and the director thought they were ready, not when the audience was scheduled. They could film scenes out of sequence if that seemed appropriate. The writers could write scripts with scene and wardrobe changes without worrying about how fast they could be accomplished. The mood on the set got looser because the actors could cuss and ad-lib and screw up without an audience there.
They could also edit out mistakes or reshoot more easily. If you watch the first season and a half of Bilko, you'll see a lot of them left in. There are places where actors (especially Paul Ford) forget what they're supposed to say and Silvers ad-libs around this or prompts them. Because so much of TV then was broadcast live and those moments happened so often on those programs, there was a tendency to not do much editing on film done in front of an audience.
When an audience-free episode had been cut to time, it would be taken and shown to warm bodies…often at some sort of military facility. A cast member — one of the supporting players — would go along to welcome and "warm up" the house before it was shown. Legendary was the one time they sent Joe E. Ross, who played Sgt. Rupert Ritzik. Ross was a burlesque comic with a very raunchy act and virtually no sense of judgment about what was appropriate to say before a given audience. He got up in front of a room full of elderly women and even a few nuns and launched into jokes about hookers and rapists. Enough people walked out that it was necessary to schedule another "sweetening" screening of the episode he was hosting…and they did not send Ross out with it or any other one.
Anyway, the recorded laughs of those audiences were layered onto the shows and according to Mr. Silvers, "Nobody could ever tell the difference." If you watch them, you probably won't. Once in a while, a laugh continues over someone's line and it's obvious the actor speaking that line wasn't hearing that laugh so you may figure it out. Interestingly, the performer in such a situation is almost never Silvers, even though he had close to half the dialogue in some episodes. He just had such a good sense of timing that he knew how long the pauses for laughter should be. I'm not sure you could do that with most situation comedy actors today.
Matt Taibbi has a long and, I think, perceptive piece about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on this nation's politics. I was especially struck by this line which I believe is true…
In the abstract, most Americans want a smaller and less intrusive government. In reality, what Americans really want is a government that spends less money on other people.
When most folks these days talk about their government getting rid of "non-essential services," they mean "non-essential to me." That's kind of what the Ryan budget is all about: Stop spending on things that don't benefit me and my people.
Speaking of Marty Feldman as I was recently here, here's a sketch with him and John Cleese from At Last…the 1948 Show.
It reminds me a bit of another sketch he did…with Cleese and other folks on several occasions. I first saw it with Charles Nelson Reilly on that Dean Martin summer replacement series I mentioned…any my friend Paul Dini also mentioned it in an e-mail. Reilly played a dapper gent waiting at a bus stop. Feldman played a little beggar who came up to him and said, "Gimme five bob, guv'nor. Gimme five bob." When Reilly refused, Feldman announced, "Give me five bob or I will take off all me clothes."
Anyone remember that? It was one of the funniest sketches I ever saw in my life and I'd wager big that it was something Mr. Feldman had done elsewhere and then reused on that Dean Martin placeholder. I saw him do it — I'm thinking with Cleese again — on one of those Secret Policemen's benefit shows or somewhere like that…and I remember liking the version with Charles Nelson Reilly better. Anyway, does this ring a bell with anyone?
Here are Mssrs. Feldman and Cleese in another sketch about a little, annoying man…
I just read this interview with Grover Norquist, the guy with the "no tax increase" pledge. I've long felt that he doesn't get called enough on something, which is that while he talks about how taxes must not be raised, what he means is that they must not be raised on rich people. He doesn't seem bothered at all if they're raised on the poor or middle class, especially if that makes tax cuts for the wealthy more possible. Here is one exchange I thought was telling…
SK: What about the payroll tax cut? Do you think that should be extended for another year as well, to keep people's taxes from going up, or should it expire?
GN: Either way — We could replace that with other tax cuts…I think the Republicans are looking for revenue neutral tax reform — make sure you don't increase the total burden. Whether that means a Social Security tax cut or income tax cut, there are plenty of ways to do it.
The payroll tax cut affects poor and middle class folks mainly so he's fine with trading that away. My guess is he'd prefer it because, you know, we've got to get the Koch Brothers some relief.
Here's an article about cartoon voice actors getting more recognition. While I would never deny anyone their right to have fans and be noticed, I'm guessing the folks who are happiest in this line of work are those who've made a conscious decision not to expect that. I'll write more about why I think that is in a few days.
As mentioned, Carolyn and I went to see The Book of Mormon the other night. Finding a place to stow one's auto around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood has never been easy and it got a whole lot worse recently when they started erecting an office building on what was formerly the largest nearby parking lot. So we went by subway. It was my first time ever on a Los Angeles subway but not Carolyn's so she steered us through what turned out to be a comfortable, easy way to get there and back. The train let us out directly across the street.
I think I heard too much about how wonderful the show was to the point where I was expecting something more than a good musical. Years ago, I had an adolescent friend who had been so inundated with imagery and others' enthusiasm for female breasts that when he finally got to touch one, it had to be and was a disappointment. Utter enchantment did not happen. He was not transported to a new level of ecstasy. It just felt good the way a lot of things in life feel good. That's how I sometimes feel with things that are too hyped and therefore too anticipated. So I won't tell you Book of Mormon is the greatest thing ever put on stage because, well, it's not. But it's real, real good.
My problem with it, and this is sure not a reason to not go, is that I really disliked everyone on stage. Not the actors…the roles they played. There's not one character in this show you wouldn't do everything possible to avoid in the real world. Apart from The Life (maybe), I can't think of a single other show where I so little wanted to spend time with "those people." Which I guess was the authors' point. I also felt a little bad for a few Mormon friends I have because the premise of this show is that their religion is a fragrant pile of crap and that you have to be a colossal idiot to not see that.
Still, I laughed a lot, especially in the first two numbers in Act Two. I liked the songs and I was never bored or fidgety in my seat, even for a moment. This was a National Touring Company which is at the Pantages through Thanksgiving, then it heads to San Francisco for a month, then to Portland for a few days. I believe a second N.T.C. is about to open in Chicago for six months. Given the size of the Cancellation Line the other night, the one at the Pantages could probably park there for another six months but it's a tour and the theater has this huge subscription season with many other plays and events lined up to come in. One is a Christmas show with Donny and Marie Osmond, which I guess is kind of the rebuttal to this one.
The two male leads at the Pantages are Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner…and I couldn't help but thinking that if I had to make up fictitious names for the characters they play, I'd name the Mormon played by Gavin Creel "Gavin Creel" and the Mormon played by Jared Gertner "Jared Gertner." Nevertheless, they were both terrific…and Mr. Gertner gave one of the best curtain speeches I've ever heard, urging us to donate on the way out to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. It wasn't quite as funny as Jackie Hoffman's when I saw Xanadu in New York but it was probably more effective in prompting folks to cough up and shell out. If this guy had sold Mormonism the way he sold that charity, he'd have had a lot of converts.
Also, there was something very nice about meeting so many cast members who were out in the lobby in full costume after the performance, selling tote bags and collecting donations with fervor and passion. We bought two tote bags from a lady of stunning talent, Samantha Marie Ware, who played the female lead and was about as good in the part as I could imagine anyone being. Then we went and got on the subway.
I can think of a couple of folks who'll read this who probably shouldn't go see The Book of Mormon. Some of the language is pretty rough and the bringdown of a religion in which a great many people believe is rougher. I think it's healthy to not flinch in the least at that kind of thing and it's very American that a show like this can exist and thrive and win the Tony and play to packed houses that love it. A friend wrote me that he doesn't think it will have the staying power of a My Fair Lady or a Music Man and I wouldn't bet that it would. It's lacking in the "heart" department and I somehow don't see a lot of high schools and community groups staging their own productions. Still, it's damn funny and that sure counts for a lot.
As I think I just said, I'm all for Obama. I think he's been a good president and that Romney would be a bad one. (Actually, I think the worst part of a Romney president would be the empowerment of the rabid right-wing and guys like Paul Ryan.)
In the interest of fairness, I'm going to do something that few bloggers would do. I'm going to link to a rational endorsement of the guy I hope loses. Here's David Frum on why he wants Romney to win. Yes, Frum is not a mainstream Republican and a lot of them loathe him. But he does not do the "my guy is perfect, their guy is evil and incompetent" routine which means he actually says something.
