Steve Benen summarizes a lot of what the whole Glenn Beck rally thing is about. It's about freedom…but not the freedom of gays to marry or Muslims to build community centers or poorer Americans to not be destroyed by medical bills. It's about my freedom to get what I want at the expense of anyone else's freedom.
And oh yeah, let's all be free to watch Glenn Beck's show and buy overpriced gold from his sponsors.
Hey, here's an idea I had that's working. Every so often, one has to.
The Archive of American Television has recorded hundreds and hundreds of hours of videotaped interviews with important folks from the history of TV. You could sit at your computer the rest of your life practically and watch these videos — all wonderful stuff — but who has the time for that? I don't…so here's what I did…
Step one: I captured most of the ones that interested me to a little folder on my computer. By now, you probably know how to do this…there are about ninety ways. If you're using Mozilla Firefox as your brower, there are several plug-ins that'll do the trick, saving them as FLV files.
Step two: I extracted the audio from them into a separate MP3 file. There are plenty of utilties out there that'll do this, at least for the PC. I used a free one called FLV Extract, which I downloaded from here.
Step three: Then I put some onto my iPhone to listen to like podcasts in my car or when travelling. On the planes to and from Indiana, I heard my pal Lee Goldberg interview Dick Van Dyke. You don't lose that much on these by losing the visual and if I'd waited 'til I had time to watch it, I'd never have gotten around to it.
Most of these interviews are fascinating. There are a few where they just got to the people too late in their lives — the one with Howie Morris is sad because of how much he could no longer remember, though I'm glad they did it. If you're a professional writer (of TV or otherwise) or want to be one, I suggest experiencing the Larry Gelbart conversation in its entirety. It's really a trove of great, important material and moving it to my iPhone for listening is about the only way I'll have a chance to mine enough of it.
This runs about two minutes and you can ignore the first half, which is an overlong title sequence someone made. The second half is a minute from On the Wrong Trek, a 1936 comedy starring the wonderful, underrated comic, Charley Chase. Mr. Chase was working on the Hal Roach lot at the same time as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy with overlapping crews and much interchange, and many of his films are as wonderful in their own way as theirs were. In this film, Stan and Ollie made a brief silent cameo and here it is in full…
Here's the New York Times obit for Gloria Winters of Sky King fame.
But then, you didn't know I was gone, did you? Well, I was. Wednesday morn, I flew to Indiana. Why did I do such a fool thing? For meetings to plan the third season of The Garfield Show, a cartoon-type series I write, produce and voice-direct.
"Third season?" I hear some of you asking. "Isn't Cartoon Network still running the first season?" Well, yes, they are…several times a day on account of it's their number one show in daytime. The second season is just now starting to come off the assembly line. It'll be airing soon in France and other nations, and they're telling me we'll see 'em in America around October but I'm not sure that's definite. October, by the way, is also the tentative release date for the first DVD of episodes from The Garfield Show. It'll have six cartoons all featuring Odie, and I'll post a link for ordering when it's possible.
Some of you may have noticed that there's a list of episodes for Season Two over on the Wikipedia page for The Garfield Show. And what you don't know is that those aren't the real episodes. Someone — I have no idea who — made up a bunch of plots and put them up there. And what that person doesn't know is that he or she did some good guessing and got two or three close-to-right. I'm not going to correct Wikipedia just yet. I kinda like leaving it there as a reminder that you can't believe everything you read on the Internet.
Anyway, on Wednesday I hopped a Southwest flight to Indianapolis — and up to a point, it was a darn near ideal flight. Took off twenty minutes late but got in fifteen minutes early…the plane was half-full so we could all spread out…and there was a very funny flight attendant. Southwest apparently encourages their crew to "dress up" the little speeches they have to give about turning off your cell phone and not disabling a smoke alarm in the lavatory. I didn't catch this lady's name but I've paid a two-drink minimum to hear people who got fewer laughs. The plane had a stopover in Las Vegas and as we neared that fair city, she got on the P.A. to announce that those of us on the right side of the plane were about to get a glimpse of an important landmark. Everyone strained to watch as she said, "Not yet..it's coming up…almost…there it is! That house with the pool and the tile roof! That's my house!"
Well, it was funny on approach.
Just as I reached the baggage claim in Indianapolis, our bags started rolling out for claiming and mine was the first one off. I thought, "Boy, everything went perfect on this flight. I don't have anything to blog/bitch about." Then I noticed that one of the four wheels on my suitcase was missing and the whole section around another was cracked and caved-in, rendering the entire piece o' luggage eminently discardable. Spoke too soon.
Hertz promised me a full-sized sedan but instead gave me something larger…something that suggested they thought I planned to spend my time in Indiana moving sofas. It had that special feature they build only into rental cars: At least twenty mysterious dashboard lights, warning displays and audible alarms that cannot in any way be identified and which go off at random. There was a little flashing blue light that I finally decided meant either "low on windshield washer fluid" or "this vehicle is about to explode." I checked into an Indianapolis Hyatt that had nice rooms but a "high speed" Internet connection that Barney Rubble would have complained was antiquated. Then I went out to buy Drinking H2O and supplies at a nearby Kroger and stopped off for a burger.
Invariably when I carry on here at newsfromme about my favorite fast food hamburger, which is at Five Guys, eleven people write to say that I've obviously never been to a Steak 'n' Shake. And when they said that, they were right. I hadn't. So I stopped into one Wednesday eve and had a steakburger and fries. Very good. The burger was terrific — maybe a shade less tasty than Five Guys but only a shade. The french fries were a far cry but hey, if they had Steak 'n' Shakes where I live, I'd go to 'em. If I was still drinking milk shakes, you probably couldn't keep me away because theirs looked mighty tempting, even to a guy who's given up that kind of stuff.
Thursday morn, I headed for Muncie, which is where Garfield HQ is located. I made two stops along the way. One, for a mid-day meal, was at a B.D.'s Mongolian Barbecue in Northeastern (I think) Indianapolis. This is another one of those chains that is maddeningly unrepresented in my neck o' the woods. Then I went to a store that you can find in L.A. — a Costco, wherein I purchased a new suitcase to replace the one Southwest Airlines used in a game of Bocce Ball. I almost didn't go there because I was afraid that at Costco, they'd make me buy a package of twelve. I must say it felt odd walking out of that store without twenty-seven items including the obligatory case of toilet paper.
Spent Thursday evening and all day Friday in Muncie, which is a lovely little town. (If you ever go there, e-mail me and I'll tell you a great place to stay.) It was all business meetings and socializing and I'm not sure where or if one left off and the other began. Then Saturday morn, I packed my old belongings in my new suitcase and hit the road, Jack. I stopped off for lunch at a Five Guys in Fishers, Indiana…right across the street from a Steak 'n' Shake. It's not fair that Fishers has one of each and Los Angeles has neither. If Barack Obama is truly a Socialist, I expect him to do something about this right away, redistributing the wealth of good burgers. Then it was on to Indianapolis International Airport where I turned in that Rose Bowl float the Hertz people gave me. Then I checked my new suitcase and found a table to set up my laptop, then wrote everything in this message up to this point.
Now I'm home after an uneventful flight…which is to say nothing bloggable occurred. If I owe you an e-mail, and I probably do, I'll try to catch up soon. Right now, it's just nice to be back in L.A., even if we don't have anything better than In-N-Out.
My then-partner Steve Sherman took the above photo in 1970. We had one of those Don Post full-head rubber masks they used to sell in the back of Famous Monsters and we spray-painted it red and took it out with us to Jack Kirby's house. This was a few months after he'd hired us to do, as it turned out, very little on the new comics he was producing for DC. But we thought (correctly) it would amuse him to have the head of one of his favorite villains, the Red Skull, in his studio. That's me wearing the mask. And as I recall, just before Steve snapped the shutter, I said — in a very bad German accent — "So, Kirby…I am told you are a Jew." Jack waited until after the flash had gone off to burst out laughing and reply, "Only my hairdresser knows for sure." Whatever that meant.
Jack would have been 93 today. If you got to meet him, you probably treasure that encounter. If you never got to meet him, I'm sorry you never got to meet him. He was a delightful man with a mind that galloped off in all directions, all of them charging irrevocably towards the future. Even when Jack hauled out an anecdote from his bottomless stash of World War II experiences, he was speaking about the future. I'm sorry he didn't get to spend more time in it. I think he would have liked most of it and I know we would have liked having him around longer.
This video was made because the Tom Tom company, manufacturers of Global Positioning Systems for cars, is releasing a series of GPS packages with famous voices. There's one coming with Warner Brothers characters and I recently listened in a bit as the Emmy-winning Joe Alaskey recorded some of the voice tracks for that offering. (There's a certain irony to that since Joe does not drive.) Also one in the works is one with a famous lasagna-eating cat and there are others. And the current promotion is for your opportunity to be guided to your destination by characters from Star Wars. Here's a little of what they allegedly went through recording Darth Vader…
And as a dozen of you have told me, 64 episodes of Sky King can be viewed online over at this webpage. When I get a moment, I'm going to watch a couple and see if I still like whatever it is I once liked about that show.
As loads of folks have informed me, one can purchase the complete Sky King on DVD if one wishes to spend $258 for it. I liked the show but I don't think I liked it anywhere near that much. If you did, or if you just want to know more about it, there's info on the series and info on ordering over at the Sky King website.
People often ask me, "Where did you get your sense of humor?" Depending on my mood, I may give them the real answer, which is that I ordered it from a supply house in Pittsburgh…which reminds me: Mine wore out around late 2003 and I'm overdue to send off for a new one. Or I may tick off a list of influences that includes Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, MAD magazine, Jay Ward cartoons, Warner Brothers cartoons, a whole bunch of other stuff and, usually in first position, Stan Freberg. The comedy records Stan Freberg made in the fifties are still brilliant and I can still recite darn near every word in every one of them from memory.
Every now and then, I have to prove it…to Stan. He likes to hear that I really do know them and I like to show off and prove it to him. If you're familiar with his work, you know what I love about them, and you may be able to recite a couple, yourself. At the very least, lines from them probably turn up in your everyday speech often.
The last album Stan made of new material was in 1996 and the last one before that was 1966. So it's not like he's been flooding the market with them. I am pleased to say that he and his wonderful partner (in life and work) Hunter Freberg have a new one out. It's called Songs in the Key of Freberg and it features ten brand-new silly songs they composed and which Stan performs with an assist from Hunter. You can sample them on this page. You can download them for a modest fee from that page. You can even order them on a CD from that page…and as far as I know, that's the only way you can get Songs in the Key of Freberg at the moment.
I am delighted that Stan is still creating new musical humor and as you can hear, he's still wickedly relevant with his satire. Stan and Hunter played some cuts on their panel at the Comic-Con a few months ago and the audience roared with guffaws. You'll roar as they did…and you'll have a very special album. So don't delay. I plan on ordering several just as soon as I send off for my new sense of humor.
I can't yet find much of an obit online for her but I wanted to note the passing of Gloria Winters, who was so sweet and crushable when she played the role of Penny on the TV series, Sky King. And hey, I haven't looked to see if there is one but I'd like to find a DVD set of that show. It would probably look cheap and contrived today but I remember the performances and simplicity more than making up for that.
Ms. Winters was 78. Some news items just make you feel old.
We mentioned this here a day or so ago. Here's news coverage of Jim Henson's early Muppets being donated to the Smithsonian…
Half the Internet — the half that isn't busy downloading porn — is speculating why the increase in the number of Americans who think Barack Obama is a Muslim. (I'll leave it to you to fill in the snotty-but-true comment on which half is doing something more productive.)
Kevin Drum thinks it's simple: More people believe the lie because Obama's political enemies are spreading it with increasing gusto and frequency. And I'm sure Kevin's right. But shouldn't we append that Obama's opponents are also becoming more and more nutso about the economy and paranoid about everything? No one in this country cared much where mosques were built a few years ago. The more paranoid you get, the more you're willing to believe (or at least tell pollsters you believe) any stupid thing that might weaken your foes.
Also, they've been running out of insults. They called him a Communist and a Socialist and now that's getting old. They called him Hitler but, hey, these days everyone is Hitler at one time or another. For a while, they were calling him the Anti-Christ. So why not try calling him a Muslim? Hell, by this time next year, they'll be telling us he's a broken table lamp, the resurrected corpse of Jeffrey Dahmer and The Brain From Planet Arous.
Have you been watching Pawn Stars? I admit: I got kinda hooked on it and I have my TiVo grab all new episodes off the History Channel. I find it rather entertaining, mostly due to the personal charisma of the folks who run that hock shop in Las Vegas, and to the curiosity factor in the items they buy and sell. But when I see it referred to as a "reality show," I instantly respond with: "I don't think so."
I haven't spent much time in pawn shops. Long ago, when I was a kid getting interested in photography, I found them to be great places to buy cheap camera equipment so I hit up a couple. Then one time when I was in Vegas in the mid-eighties, I went into one downtown, just off Fremont Street. I was walking past and I noticed a framed Milton Caniff original in the window. It was a nice illustration of Steve Canyon done for I-don't-know-what-purpose and I couldn't read the sticker with the price on it. Intrigued, I went in and wound up having a nice conversation about comics with the proprietor. I didn't buy the piece — he wanted way too much for it — but I learned what having a pawn shop in Vegas is all about. It's all about people who split tens at the Blackjack table or are sure they have a foolproof system for Roulette.
I also noticed the owner had one framed celebrity photo on the wall behind the cash register. It was a photo signed personally to him by Redd Foxx.
No one is ever desperate for cash on Pawn Stars except, every so often, a guy who needs to make $X to marry the lady of his dreams. Maybe that's because folks who are in financial trouble won't go on camera or maybe it's because the show wants to offer up a benevolent, scrubbed image of the business. As it is, it's kind of like Antiques Road Show with an occasionally-dysfunctional family. The show's star Rick, who runs the pawn shop, is either the nicest, most honest pawn shop owner in America or he's been carefully sanitized for our (his?) protection. Here's a scene that happens over and over again…
Fella walks in with an item. Rick says, "Well, what have we here?" The seller says, "This is my pearl-handled, transistorized veeblefetzer from the Ming Dynasty." Rick asks some stock questions about where'd you get it, why do you want to part with it? Then he asks, "Do you know anything about veeblefetzers?" and the seller either knows very little or nothing. Whatever he knows, Rick knows more and delivers a quick history lesson that sure sounds like he's reading it off a TelePrompter hooked up to Wikipedia. Then he asks, "So what do you want to do with it? Sell it or pawn it?" 95% of the time, the seller wants to sell.
Now, one of two things happens. Either they proceed straight to the haggling or Rick says, "Well, I don't know enough about veeblefetzers to make an offer but I got a buddy who knows everything about them. If it's okay with you, I'd like to get him down here to take a look at it." The seller says sure…and then later in the same episode, we have the following scene. Some buddy of Rick's, who's an expert and who apparently has nothing better to do than drive over and tell Rick what it is he may buy, comes in, sees the veeblefetzer on the counter and says, "Is that it?" Assured it is, the expert immediately tells Rick and the seller exactly what it is, when and where it was made, the name of the person who first used it for veeblefetzing and what it's worth —
— and unless that worth is "almost nothing" or less, the seller believes him. He doesn't pause to wonder if maybe because this "expert" is Rick's buddy, he's lowballing in order to lower what Rick will have to pay for the veeblefetzer. "Hey, thanks for stopping by," Rick says. And then the expert leaves and it's on to the haggling…
Rick asks, "How much did you want to get out it?" and the seller names a price that's about 90% of what the expert cited. Rick says, "Hey, I have to be able to resell this thing and make a profit." He offers 25%. They meet somewhere closer to 40% unless the item is among the one in three that Rick says is "One of the coolest things I've ever had in the shop," in which case it's more like 65%. Then they shake hands and the $100 bills are dispensed.
That's one scene that they do almost every week. Another is where Rick buys some old item that needs serious repair and then takes it over to a buddy (Rick has lots of buddies) to refurbish. Rick's a great businessman in the store but he keeps taking pieces of junk out for restoration without putting a limit on how much he'll pay for the work. In the last scene of the episode, he goes over to see the finished product. It always looks incredible and the price for fixing it up is always low enough that Rick will be able to get his money out and then some. The other way some episodes end is that Rick or his son bought some really odd gun and they go to see if it can be fired.
That the show is this repetitive and artificial but I still enjoy it says something, hopefully not about me. It taps into our natural interest as to whether that junk we've had out in the garage forever is worth anything. Rick seems like a smart, honest guy and we'd like to believe that's how people are in this world, even those who operate pawn shops. And everything moves at a fast clip and gets tied-up, neat as a bow. If you haven't sampled Pawn Stars, give one a peek. You might enjoy it. And if you have watched it and didn't like it, don't bother tuning in again. If you've seen one…
More info will be here soon (maybe a couple of weeks) on the various/sundry running times of one of our fave films, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. One of the things you may learn from that info is that there's not nearly as much "lost footage" as some folks think. It's true that the movie was trimmed after its initial release. It's not true that there are hours and hours of what Mad (the magazine) used to call "Scenes We'd Like to See."
Another fine historian of the movie is my pal Paul Scrabo. Now, let's see if I can type the following with a straight face. He (ahem) recently found an important "lost" sequence — the (cough) legendary fantasy scenes with Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett…