More About Dick Clark

Posted on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 5:49 PM

This article lists five ways in which Dick Clark revolutionized the TV business. It does not include "Paying Mark Evanier low money."

Incidentally, a lot of pieces that have appeared about Dick in the last 24 hours have said or implied that his production company was responsible for The $10,000 Pyramid and its successors, the The $25,000 Pyramid and The $100,000 Pyramid and so on. I don't think so. I believe those were all done by Bob Stewart's company and Dick was just a hired hand on them, albeit (I'm sure) a well-compensated hand. He was a very good host for that show and it's interesting that they selected him since when it first went on, it was taped in New York and Dick was living in Los Angeles. He commuted to Manhattan and as I recall, it was something like this: He'd fly into N.Y. Friday night, stay over, tape shows all day Saturday, stay over, tape shows for much of the day Sunday then head for the airport to go home. He'd do that about half the weekends of the year and usually tape American Bandstand on the other weekends. You'd think, "Gee, they should have been able to find some New York-based personality to host Pyramid who would have been just as good as Dick Clark." But apparently not.

Recommended Reading

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM

David Frum on why this presidential election is like a Penn & Teller routine. I agree with the point he's trying to make but I don't see that the analogy to Penn & Teller applies. For one thing, in this election no one is going to remain silent.

John Tebbel, R.I.P.

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 2:06 PM

Another one. John Tebbel was a clever, nice man I met when he and his wife Martha Thomases were publishing Comedy, a magazine about a subject near and dear to us all. It should have lasted a lot longer than it did…and might have, had they not made the apparently-fatal mistake of having me contribute to it. But I got two friends out of the project and later when Martha went to work at DC Comics, the three of us would sometimes lunch together.

John was actually a good person to do a magazine called Comedy because he was terribly knowledgeable and passionate about great makers of comedy. I suspect he was terribly knowledgeable about everything and passionate about a great many topics. I wish he was still around so we could delve into more of them.

My condolences to Martha. Heidi MacDonald has more.

Dick Clark, R.I.P.

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 1:24 PM

Most of what I have to say about Dick Clark, I've said before here, like in one post which is not easily accessed at the moment so I'll quote from it…

I worked a lot with Dick over a brief period, including producing a show that he hosted but which was not done through his company. If you can set aside a fierce determination to pay everyone as little as possible, my memories of him are all good. I liked the man and I really admired his professionalism and work ethic. He worked like a madman yet still managed to be utterly accessible. If you just walked up to him and said, say, "Little Richard," he'd drop everything that was droppable and tell you ten minutes of Little Richard anecdotes. Or Elvis. Or Ray Charles or anyone. He had, of course, worked with everybody and he had real sharp insights into every aspect of show business.

Great sense of humor. Very little ego. Always on time for everything. Very respectful of the talents and expertise of others. Worked like a dog. Easy to get along with. I can tell you hours of stories of producers, execs and stars who were maniacs and a-holes. I have only good stories about Dick Clark. That is, if you could get past the underlying fear that he wouldn't make every possible dime on every project.

I should add that there was something about him that set him apart from many other producers I worked for and with: He was Dick Clark. He didn't flaunt it but it was tough to be around him and not feel that sense of television history: He'd been everywhere, done everything, met everybody. One time when I was working for him and we were taping, my friend Steve Gerber phoned me on the set. Dick was the nearest person to the phone when it rang so he answered, heard it was for me and called me over. When I picked up the phone, Steve was stammering on the other end: "The person who answered the phone…was that…was that Dick Clark?" By that point, I'd been working with Dick for several months so I thought of him mainly as my boss. But to Steve, it was like he'd dialed a phone number and Santa Claus had answered. Later that day, he came to the set and I introduced him to Dick. Steve was a pretty sophisticated guy but we all have certain people who impress the hell out of us and reduce us to giggling adolescents. For Steve and many others, it was Dick Clark. (And for some, it was Steve Gerber…)

The main points I should underscore about Dick are his professionalism — always on-time, always well-aware of the costs and problems of production — and his graciousness. Oh, and his cheapness too…but I almost didn't mind that. Because he was Dick Clark. His struggle to keep being Dick Clark after his stroke was both sad and inspirational, and I'm sure most who write about him will say something about how New Year's Eve won't be the same without him. Just as television was never the same after he came along. He was one of the greats.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 12:12 PM

Here's a brief chat with the late Arthur Marx, the son of Groucho and a rather successful writer. I knew Arthur a little and liked him. When I was around him, I was semi-afraid to ask him about his father because I figured, probably correctly, that too many people did that. So we talked about his life as a champion tennis player and later about his work in television and on the stage. I probably could have asked him questions like these but I didn't.

The person asking him these questions is Skip E. Lowe, who's kind of a legendary Hollywood figure. He was a child star and entertainer but he's probably best known for his long-running cable access TV show on which he chats with just about everyone in show business at one time or another. It is said that Martin Short's Jiminy Glick character got his interviewing style and maybe his voice from Mr. Lowe. Here's Skip E. talking with Arthur…

From the E-Mailbag…

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 12:11 PM

From Gary Cundall comes this question of the greatest importance…

I did a search for this before I wrote this and I didn't find the answer. I'd like to know how did you meet Sergio Aragonés and how did you start working together?

Back in the late sixties, we had a comic book club that met every Saturday at the Palms Recreation Center in West L.A. I was the president and we had about 50-60 members over the three or so years of the club's existence. During that time, the one and only guest speaker we ever had was Sergio. One of our members spotted a piece about him in Life magazine that mentioned he lived in Los Angeles. It turned out Sergio was listed in the phone book so this member called him up, secured an interview for a fanzine he was then trying to publish and arranged for Sergio to come to a meeting. So I met him at that meeting, albeit briefly.

Over the next few years, I ran into Sergio a number of places and to my amazement, he remembered me. So we got to be friends that way. Together with a wonderful writer-editor named Don Rico, we founded the Comic Art Professional Society. At the time, Sergio was beginning to do some comics of his own creation and copyright, and at first, he teamed with Don to supply the dialogue. That didn't work out to the satisfaction of either so he turned to me and there was really no grand decision. He just came over to my apartment one day and said, "Hey, will you help me with this thing I'm working on?" and I (of course) said, "Sure," and suddenly we were collaborators. Groo started soon after that, followed by other endeavors…and I guess this is a pretty boring story but that's how these things sometimes come about. Maybe one of these days, we'll make up a better story and I'll write it and Sergio will draw it and we'll both swear that's how it happened.

Recommended Reading

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 1:40 AM

Fred Kaplan fears that things are going to heat up in the Middle East…like, say, Israel launching an attack on Iran. Ah, just what we need: Something more to worry about…

Today's Political Musing

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 12:37 PM

CNN has Obama nine points ahead of Romney. Pew has him four ahead. Gallup has Romney in the lead by four. I can't find Rasmussen at the moment but I gave up following them in November of 2010 when they said Daniel Inouye would win re-election to the senate by 11 points and two days later, he won by 40 points. I don't know how you miss by that much and remain in the same line of work. Imagine if your weatherman missed the forecast by 29 degrees. Would you listen to him tomorrow?

Anyway, what all these polls have in common is that they don't mean much now. I mean, they're interesting but we don't even know who Mitt's running mate will be or what the economy will be like in November or what wars we'll get into or out of. I'll betcha that the day before Election Day, you'll be able to name ten "issues" that are much-talked-about with regard to why this guy would be a better Chief Exec than that guy…ten "issues" that aren't even on the radar at the moment. At this point in the last election, Sarah Palin wasn't even a factor.

Barring the revelation that he's actually a Nazi War Criminal (see Drudge Report around early October), I expect to vote for Barack Obama. I have many complaints and disappointments about his presidency — most recently, revelations about Gitmo policies — but the current Republican agenda is just too scary. What I think I'm going to work on for myself is not paying too much attention to the campaign until…oh, around early October. I did something wise — for me, anyway — when the whole O.J. Murder Case started. I said to myself, "This could consume a lot of my time and passion if I start following it now."

So I didn't start following it then, which was the beginning of the case. I joined it in progress about two weeks before we got near a verdict. That was more than enough and it spared me all the ups and downs and ups and downs and caring about a matter that seemed unlikely to result in a sane, satisfying outcome. To invest my emotions in that one seemed like an unwise investment and I'm starting to feel like this presidential election is something I want to avoid, at least until it becomes unavoidable. I think Obama's going to win but, you know, there will be people voting against him because they have solid, inarguable proof that he's from the planet Remulak and each of their votes cancels out one by someone sane. I don't think I want to ride that roller coaster for that long.

I'll follow the election. You can't not follow the election. But just for my own sake, I don't think I want to think anything has much meaning until around Columbus Day.

Recently Tweeted by me

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 3:00 AM
  • Definition of an eternal optimist: Just got an e-mail from a Ron Paul supporter who's convinced his guy has the presidency in a bag. #

Today's Video Link

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 12:16 AM

Okay…today we have two minutes from the Broadway musical, Memphis. I watched the PBS presentation of the show and liked it a lot, and this is the best song in it…

What's My Beef?

Posted on Monday, April 16, 2012 at 11:10 PM

Have you ever tasted Kobe beef? Well, you may think you have but Larry Olmsted says you haven't; that what's sold and served in the U.S. as Kobe beef is not really Kobe beef.

This is getting very confusing. First, we were told that our "100% beef" burgers included something called Pink Slime…and by the way, if you ever want to do away with a product, just get folks referring to it as "Pink Slime." I don't care what it really is. I can't bring myself to put anything in me that others refer to as "Pink Slime."

And now we also have a problem with something called "White Slime"…which I always thought was a nickname for the kind of people who voted for Pat Buchanan.

But you know what the funny part of this is? If Kellogg's put out a cereal called Pink Slime or the Topps Bubble Gum folks put out a candy called White Slime, kids would eat it up. They wouldn't eat their carrots but they'd eat the Slime.