Number two hundred and seven in a series…
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- Betcha the budget for movie with fake Stooges is 10 times the budget for all the movies ever made with the real guys. #
- The Stooges movie is a big hit. And another hit. And another hit. And a poke in the eyes. And a vase broken over the head. And… #
- What's this about Newt Gingrich bouncing a check? Who does he think he is? A comic book publisher? #
- The Three Stooges are hotter than they've ever been. Apparently, the only thing they needed was to be three other guys. #
Today's Video Link
Ten minutes of really odd things people have said in movies. This seems to include every line ever spoken on film by Arnold Schwarzenegger…
Tales From The Script
Gavin Polone reveals what gets read in Hollywood…and he oughta know. Mr. Polone is a top producer with recent creds as an agent and manager. (He represented Conan O'Brien when Conan got and lost The Tonight Show.) He is absolutely right that folks in the TV and movie business who have the power to do anything good with a script receive way too many of them to ever read.
I don't think I've ever mentioned it here but I briefly worked on the TV series, MacGyver in its second season. It was not a happy month of my life — that's all it lasted before they wanted me out and I wanted out and I'm still not sure if I managed to quit before they officially fired me. Anyway, a few weeks before I was hired, one of the producers made a remark in TV Guide along the lines of "We're always looking for good stories." Something innocuous like that. I mean, isn't every TV series always looking for good stories?
An awful lot of people — most of them, I suspect, not already in the TV business — took that as an open invitation to write a script and submit it to the show. The deluge was beginning about the time I arrived: "Spec" MacGyver scripts arriving every day by the hundreds. A large room there that otherwise might have been my office became the storage place for them. Each day, a guy from the mailroom would come by with a hand truck and deliver the latest arrivals…and I'm sure that by the time I left, there were well over three thousand scripts in there. I am not exaggerating.
They were largely ignored, at least while I was around. Every so often, someone would peer into the room, gasp and ask, "What the [f-word] are we going to do with all these?" There was the obvious fear of lawsuits. If we broke a new story for the show about MacGyver cooking a meatloaf…well, there was probably a script somewhere in those piles about MacGyver cooking a meatloaf and its author would never believe no one had read his submission before we came up with our story.
But that aside, how could the show ever deal with all those scripts? If there's a gem in there, how do you find it?
The producers and story editors might at best each have time to read two or three a day. That's on a day when the workload on that week's script and next week's script was light, and at least during my brief stay on that show, there were no such days. It may seem unfair that someone could go to the trouble of writing an entire 60 page script and have no one on the show read it…but tell me how to arrange that. (By the way: I never opened any of those scripts but one of the secretaries there told me there were quite a few in excess of 100 pages or even 200.)
Anyway, read what Mr. Polone has to say. It's a pretty honest appraisal of the way at least some producers and agents operate. Not all. But a lot.
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number two hundred and six in a series…
From the E-Mailbag…
A reader of this site who signs him- or herself "d abston" writes…
I'm definitely one of the people who is "just reacting to the idea of a white guy killing a black guy."
More specifically, I'm one of the people "just reacting" to the idea that an armed adult shot and killed an unarmed kid.
Even more specifically, I'm one of the people "just reacting" to the idea that an armed adult was stalking an unarmed kid and was told by the 911 operators to stop it just before he shot and killed said unarmed kid.
Personally, I would like to see George Zimmerman now get the sort of KKK justice he so easily dispensed. Of course, I'm "just reacting."
Personally, I would like to see George Zimmerman get a fair trial — an odd ritual that we sometimes have in this country but rarely when tabloid-style interest reaches the level where Nancy Grace is weighing in on a case. On the other hand, I have to admit that if the matter hadn't become such media fodder, Zimmerman might never have been arrested at all. I will agree with you that it doesn't look good for Zimmerman but I also don't trust the press reports of what exactly happened.
If he gets that fair trial and it yields the outcome that he's guilty of second-degree murder then I'd like to see him receive the prescribed punishment for second-degree murder. I'm not sure what that would be in this matter but I'll bet it isn't "KKK justice."
I'm not one of those folks who believes The System always works but I figure it can't work if we don't try.
Barney's Bionic Buddy
On Easter, I recounted here a memory of going to the May Co., the L.A. department store, and seeing a robot Fred Flintstone. A reader of this site named Tony Redman found this image on the photostream of an animation historian who calls himself slappy427 (he has lots of neat Hanna-Barbera stuff there). Anyway, slappy427 was nice enough to give me permission to post it over here.
That's not exactly how I recall the Fred Robot I was describing but it's close enough that that's probably it. The text accompanying this press clipping says the robot wound up in the Hanna-Barbera offices. I first visited those offices in 1975 and began working there steadily in '76 and I never saw it. I'm going to call a couple of H-B veterans and ask them if they remember it.
Today's Video Link
This is one of those "Don't ask what it's about, just click and watch" videos. So don't ask what it's about, just click and watch…
Friday Morning
I just read this on — well, it doesn't matter what website…
A Rasmussen poll released Friday found that a large number of Americans surveyed are still undecided on whether George Zimmerman should be found guilty of murder in the killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The survey said 46 percent those surveyed were still not sure. Meanwhile, 30 percent said he should be found guilty and another 24 percent said he acted in self defense.
Here's my take: I think 54% of the people who responded to this survey don't know enough about the case to make those judgments.
And I wonder what percentage of the 54% who think they do are actually weighing the "facts" (which may not be facts) that have been reported in the press and what percentage is just reacting to the idea of a white guy killing a black guy.
Go Listen! Quickly!
Throughout the Magic Kingdom some of us call Earth, my friend Jim Korkis is one of the foremost authorities on Walt Disney. So when he recommends a BBC radio documentary on The Man…well, that's something I want to hear. Here's the link and here's the catch: It's only online for two more days. Hurry. And ignore the three or four minutes of news that starts the audio clip. BBC radio links are like that. Thanks, Jim.
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number two hundred and five in a series…
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Go Read It!
I thought I'd linked to this the other day but I didn't. Neal Kirby, son of Jack Kirby, writes a nice remembrance of his father.
Today's Video Link
Oh, look: Here we have a trailer for a forthcoming documentary about voiceover artists. This would appear to be something I'll want to see…
It's That Time Again…
Each year at Comic-Con, we present an honor called The Bill Finger Award For Excellence In Comic Book Writing. The award, which was conceived by Mr. Finger's friend Jerry Robinson, is for a body of writing work by an individual who has not received a fair amount of recognition and/or reward. In fact, we present two awards each year: One to someone who is still with us, one to someone posthumously.
I'm hereby asking for suggestions and nominations as to who should be this year's honorees but before I do, let me remind you of the past recipients. The ones not marked deceased were alive at the time the award was bestowed though sadly, Mssrs. Drake, Schwartz and Connell have since left us…
- 2005: Jerry Siegel (deceased) and Arnold Drake
- 2006: Harvey Kurtzman (deceased) and Alvin Schwartz
- 2007: Gardner Fox (deceased) and George Gladir
- 2008: Archie Goodwin (deceased) and Larry Lieber
- 2009: John Broome (deceased) and Frank Jacobs
- 2010: Otto Binder (deceased) and Gary Friedrich
- 2011: Bob Haney (deceased) and Del Connell
Please, if you're going to suggest a worthy candidate, notice two things about the list. These are all men who were primarily writers. A few were also editors but they all had a large body of work as writers.
For some reason, every time I solicit nominations here, a lot of folks send me the names of their favorite comic book artists and when I point out that this is an award for writers, they either complain we're discriminating against artists (yeah, the same way the Best Actor Oscar discriminates because they don't give it to camera operators) or they say of their artist nominee, "Well, I think he did write a couple of scripts once so technically, he qualifies as a writer!" Perhaps…but he doesn't have a body of work as one.
And the other thing to note is that the above winners are all folks who did not receive a lot of recognition or reward during their careers. Some didn't even get their names on most of their work. I have great admiration for so much of what Stan Lee has done but each year, a lot of people submit him and ask, "How can you have an award for writing comic books and not give it to Stan Lee?" To which I ask back, "How can anyone think that Stan Lee has been overlooked?" He may well have accrued more fame and maybe even more fortune than all the other writers who've ever worked in comics combined.
(Next week, I've been invited to attend the world premiere of that big documentary about him — which I'm in, by the way. If you want to argue Stan is under-recognized, meet me there at 7 PM when I'm supposed to be on the red carpet. We can debate the topic between pre-screening interviews about him.)
With all that in mind, is there someone you think the Blue Ribbon Committee should consider? We have a number of names to bat about but one thing about an award for being unnoticed: It's real easy to not notice those people. Please help us honor the insufficiently-honored and drop me an e-mail if you have a name in mind.