Buddy Hackett tells a joke about a duck. Watch how Johnny Carson, who knows exactly where the story is going, enjoys the performance. Thanks to Shelly Goldstein for the link.
Things I Won't Be Buying
The 6.77 ct IF Clarity, D Color Diamond Solitaire Ring…only one million dollars and available online from Costco. And the nice part is they only have one so they can't expect you to buy in lots of twelve.
Also, it says "Costco.com products can be returned to any of our more than 500 Costco warehouses worldwide" but they also warn you…
When returning unique jewelry items, or items containing a 1.00 ct center diamond or larger, Costco warehouses may require additional time to verify the diamond, in which case a refund will be approved upon positive verification and as long as the item is not damaged or changed in any way (i.e. resized or reset). This process may require two to five business days.
Also, Gift Messaging is available.
Recommended Reading
Senator Bernie Sanders has compiled a list of the Top 10 Tax Avoiders — corporations that get away not only with paying little or nothing in corporate taxes but who somehow manage to receive huge payments from the government. I'm a little puzzled by all this talk about huge refunds since a huge refund doesn't necessarily mean the recipient didn't pay taxes. But it sure looks like there's something nefarious with some of the examples on his list.
Recommended Reading
Fred Kaplan reports on the speech Barack Obama gave the other night about the U.S. action against Libya. I like the line he quotes from Gail Collins about Mitt Romney's position on this war: He "supports the current mission, except for the part where it's run by Barack Obama."
Today's Video Link
One of the events I'm looking forward to at WonderCon this weekend is a panel I'll be moderating on the history of that fine convention. On Saturday at 11:30 in room 220/224, I'll be interviewing convention founders Joe Field, Mike Friedrich and Bryan Uhlenbrock along with David Glanzer, who's one of the main folks behind the Comic-Con International. Comic-Con acquired WonderCon in 2001 (I think it was) and now operates the annual event.
WonderCon started off in Oakland as a gathering called The Wonderful World of Comics. Prior to the 1989 show, a video was prepared…and that's Joe Field you'll see acting as host. It shows you a little about the earlier conventions and promotes the upcoming show, plus there are brief interviews of Stan Lee, Will Eisner and other early guests. Have a look…
Monday Morning
I'm about to run off and direct a voice recording for The Garfield Show…day one of what looks like a pretty busy week here. The best part is that it will end with a trip to San Francisco and three days of WonderConning. If you're anywhere near San Francisco (or even if you have to drive a bit to get there), drop in at the best convention this side of Comic-Con International. WonderCon starts on Friday.
And if you're in that vicinity and interested in a career in animation voiceover work, I'll be teaching a class next Monday, April 4 at Voice One, a fine school 'n' studio where one learns such arts 'n' crafts. I think they still have room for a few more mouths in the class.
Go Read It!
For those of you who can't figure out your Time-Warner cable bill, here's a simple explanation.
Today's Audio Link
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy didn't do much radio. Some time ago, I linked you to a recording of an unsold pilot they did for their own program. Here's a sketch, reportedly written by Mr. Laurel himself, that they performed once on the air. Laurel and Hardy scholars disagree on where and when this was broadcast but the majority vote seems to be for a 1943 edition of a variety series called Mail Call.
The piece runs about nine minutes and also features Patsy Moran and Edgar Kennedy. As you'll note, there's a blooper in there (this was live radio) that causes everyone to break up. It's a funny sketch but the blooper is probably the funniest part…
The Times, They Are A'Changing…
The New York Times is about to erect a paywall which will try to charge you for reading more than a certain number of articles per month on their site. I don't think it will work, partly because folks won't understand it and partly because they'll find a dozen different ways around it. This article discusses some of the routes that have already been located.
Today's Video Link
Not long before he died, the actor Charles Nelson Reilly put his one-man autobiographical show on film. It is a wonderful, wonderful experience and the whole thing is up on YouTube in chapters, placed there I believe by its producers. They cut it into twenty-eight chapters and put it up there for all to see and enjoy.
In the player below, I've embedded two consecutive chapters about Mr. Reilly's experiences in an acting class. One should flow into the next. Unless coarse language horrifies you, you should love them and you may want to seek out the entire film and watch it, which you can do at this page. You can also order the DVD and get all this plus another hour or three of extra material, including an entire taping of another performance he gave of the show with some different material. If you think all he was was that sarcastic gay man on the game shows, you're in for quite a surprise…and treat.
Last Call!
Just to remind you: We are entering the last week of the month in which the Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants offer my fave, their Classic Creamy Tomato Soup. They have it for the entire month of March and then they usually have it for one week in October and that's it. I will eat there at least twice before the end of the month and I will get some "to go" and stash it in my freezer and when that's gone, I shall have to make do with other, lesser soups until October. Here's a link to see if there's a Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes in your vicinity.
Recommended Reading
I don't know how much stock to put in it but surveys by the Public Religion Research Institute say that a notable majority of Catholics do not have a big problem with the concept of two adults of the same gender having sexual relations or even entering into marriage or civil unions. If true, this is a very good sign.
Great Photos of Buster Keaton
Number twenty-nine in a series…
Correction
Nick Clooney's popular syndicated TV talk show in the seventies wasn't out of New York like I said. It was on WKRC in Cincinnati, not to be confused with WKRP in Cincinnati. Sorry, folks.
Today's Video Link
Here's a goody for those of you interested in game shows — five minutes from The Money Maze, which ran on ABC from December 23, 1974 to June 27, 1975. It was hosted by Nick Clooney (father of George, brother of Rosemary) who at the time also had a somewhat successful local talk show in New York Cincinnati. The premise of Money Maze (sometimes spelled as one word, sometimes two) was pretty simple. Married couples would answer questions to see which couple would get to tackle the maze. There were "prize towers" in the maze. One member of the couple would watch from an outside vantage point and direct the other to run through the maze and get to a certain tower. If the runner navigated to the tower and hit a button within a certain amount of time (often as little as 15 seconds), they won the prize.
The show was produced for at least part of its run by a man who was later a good friend of mine, a splendid writer-producer-human named Don Segall. Don is no longer with us but he did a lot of odd TV shows and also a lot of odder comic books. Those of you familiar with Steve Ditko's character The Creeper may recognize Don as the fellow who provided the dialogue for the character's debut appearance, and Don also wrote a lot for Dell and Charlton, plus he did TV shows like Ball Four and The Four Seasons. He and Alan Alda were close friends and when Alda wrote and starred in the movie Sweet Liberty, he wrote a character into the film based on Don…and even let Don audition to play himself. Don — wouldn't you know it? — didn't get the part. Bob Hoskins did…and then Hoskins moved in with Don for a week or so to study him and get him "down."
Anyway, Don and I once discussed The Money Maze…which by the way was produced by Dick Cavett's production company. I assume that was because at some point when Cavett negotiated a contract with ABC, he demanded and got a side deal for his company to do something without him for another time slot.
Don claimed that The Money Maze got decent ratings…not blockbuster but good enough that it could have been renewed. What prevented that was that the set was so costly to maintain. They would tape five a day for several days in a row, then dismantle the whole thing so the studio could be used for other shows. Setting it back up for another series of tapings took several days…and the maze had to be constantly reconfigured with new paths after each taping which added to the expense. There were, Don said, only a few studios available in New York that were large enough to accommodate the set and they were always in demand by other projects willing to pay a lot more to be there.
A few years earlier, CBS had a game show called Video Village that also had an elaborate set and therefore much the same problem. That show had decent enough ratings that when the cost of doing it in a New York studio became prohibitive, they moved it to Los Angeles. Money Maze wasn't quite popular enough for that…so off it went…or at least, that's what Don told me. Here's five minutes of what was either the pilot or among the first episodes…