Today's Video Link

If you're grateful for today's treasure, thank Huffington Post columnist Bob Elisberg. He's the one who told me about it.

One of those hard-to-see (i.e., not currently available on home video) movies is Where's Charley?, the 1952 film version of the Broadway show of the same name. In the film, Ray Bolger reprised his acclaimed performance from the stage version…and most folks are interested in this number, which is the show's big hit, "Once in Love With Amy." On stage, the song ran much, much longer. During tryouts, Bolger started expanding it…and he would basically stop the plot and break character to chat with the audience and lead them in a sing-along each night. It became a famous theatrical moment and a lot of folks went to see the show just to see that twenty minutes or so.

The film version, clocking in at around seven, obviously does not replicate that experience but it's all we've got. It's still kinda delightful…

VIDEO MISSING

iPhone Problem

Maybe somebody here will have an idea about this…

I have an iPhone. I use it in my car via a Motorola HF850 Bluetooth "hands free" connection for two things…as a phone and to play music via its iPod functions. The phone part has always worked fine and still does. But a few days ago, the music/iPod part ceased to function the same way. I can make phone calls and hear the audio through my car's speaker system. But when I play music, the music no longer comes through the car's speakers. Both functions work fine on the iPhone when it is not connected to the car.

It feels like I'm trapped in one of those technology jurisdictional disputes. If I call the guy who installed all this for me in my car, he's going to tell me the Bluetooth is working fine with the phone so the problem must be in my iPhone. But I just know that if I take the iPhone into the Apple Store, they're going to tell me the problem must be with my car installation…and anyway, I can't replicate the problem in the Apple Store. It only occurs in my car.

An Internet source yields no info on why, though the phone plays its audio through my car speakers, the music part of the same device will not. Last week, my iPhone upgraded itself to the new 4.0 software but the problem did not pop up until a few days later. It all worked fine for a time after the upgrade so it doesn't seem to be related to that.

Anyone?

Soup's On!

mushroomsoup122

Busy like you wouldn't believe. Back soon.

Happy Returns

A few more tickets to the Comic-Con are available. These are "returned" memberships, meaning (I guess) someone bought them and then cancelled. Go here and try to get one if you need one.

Today's Video Link

Another one of these. Among other topics, Mr. Welles explains why women don't like magic (I think they do) and there's a story about John Barrymore…

Movie Palace of the Past

Hey, remember when a bunch of my friends and I went down to the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside to see our pal Frank Ferrante? I wrote or at least noted that the theater was beautiful and had a great sense of history…but I didn't know then that it was where Gone With the Wind had its sneak preview. Read this when you get a chance.

Recommended Reading

Here's a long profile of Mike Huckabee, who occasionally sounds like the kind of Republican I could maybe imagine myself voting for…or at least, I might not worry a lot if it looked like he had a real shot at being president. Even though some polls peg him as the G.O.P. frontrunner, I suspect he won't be by the time it comes to pick.

The Furry Professor

As I mentioned back here, I've been involved lately in an interesting project — a series of public service animations featuring Professor Garfield. Professor Garfield looks a lot like regular old lasagna-eating Garfield except he has glasses and his adventures teach valuable lessons. I will soon be voice-directing another batch of these but I wanted to mention that the first group, which school young kids in Internet Safety and in how to avoid Cyberbullying, can now be downloaded free to your iPad. This is assuming you have an iPad. I don't but you might.

If you (like me) have no iPad, you can view the spots the primitive, old-fashioned "online" way by going to this website. It'll feel ancient and low-tech but it'll work.

Comic-Con News

If you're desperate to get a hotel room and admission to Comic-Con, you have another chance tomorrow. That's when a bunch of package deals (hotel + 4-day-pass) open up. The hotels (there are four of them) are in Mission Valley, which is not as far as it sounds — five or six miles — and there's a shuttle bus from them to the convention center. Here are the details.

Facebook Fans

Not long ago here, we had some chatter about comedian Woody Woodbury, who sure sold a lot of funny records in his day. The discussion seems to have prompted announcer (and comedy album historian) Christopher Bay to do something about the paucity of Woody Woodbury fan material on the Internet. He's set up this new Facebook group devoted to the mirth-inducing Mr. Woodbury and it's already full of clips and excerpts and things that might make you want to visit.

And here's one of those tales of how not only is it a small world but the Internet is making it smaller every day. I joined Christopher's new group and promptly got a message from my friend, Elaine Ballace. Let me tell you where I know Elaine Ballace from. Elaine was one of the other kids in the classroom on Welcome Back, Kotter when I was a story editor there in 197something. She was one of the students who sat behind John Travolta or Ron Palillo and occasionally got a few lines. I once wrote a nice little bit for her where she played a cheerleader and when I see her, she still reminds me of it.

Anyway, Elaine saw I'd joined this group and wrote to ask me if I was a friend of Woody Woodbury's. I wrote back no, I've never met him; just admired his work is all. She wrote back that she was a friend of his. In fact, they had lunch just a few days ago…and she promises to invite me along, next time they get together. Boy, I love the Internet, if only for things like this.

Go check out Christopher's group on Facebook.

A Reminder….

If you live in or around Los Angeles and you have plumbing, you need the contact info for my plumber, Bobby the Plumber, who happens to be The Greatest Plumber in the World. This is not only my opinion. It's the opinion of several of you who hired him based on this item I posted and later wrote to thank me. If you don't have his number, go to that item and get it. Sooner or later, you'll need it. And you'll thank me.

Recommended Reading

An interview with David Boies, one of the attorneys fighting to overturn California's homophobic Proposition 8.

Barbara's Big Day

beaverairplane01

Actress Barbara Billingsley gets mentioned not once but twice in the Arts section of today's New York Times. She's in an article about a new boxed set of the complete Leave it to Beaver that's about to come out. And she's mentioned in an article about the thirtieth anniversary of the movie, Airplane, in which she speaks jive.

I'm told the Leave it to Beaver DVD set is quite wonderful. Of course, I'm told this by our pal Stu Shostak, proprietor of the oft-plugged-here Shokus Internet Radio, and he produced the special features for this set. It contains all 233 episodes of the series which, I'm afraid, is about 228 more than I was ever able to watch. This is not a case of a show I liked as a kid that now seems dated. I didn't even like the show when I was the Beave's age. Nevertheless, an awful lot of people do and if you're one and you want to sit through a 37 disc set of it, you'll want to click on this link and order yourself one.

And while we're at it, here's a link to get a copy of Airplane on DVD in case you need one. If you haven't seen it lately, you need one. It really is a laugh-out-loud funny movie and I remember that wonderful sense of "discovery" we all had in the audience when I first saw it. The film was new and there was no real buzz or word-of-mouth about it yet. Everyone in the Village Theater that night ran right home and told their friends to go see it. And none of us can use the word "surely" in a sentence now without referencing that movie. Really? Has it been thirty years?

Today's Video Link

You can now purchase Eric Idle's concert based on The Life of BrianNot the Messiah — in many forms. Here's a link to order the DVD. Here's a link to order the Blu-ray. Here's a link to order the CD. Soon, I will probably be offering a link that will arrange for Eric to come to your home and sing this little number in your patio.

The CD, by the way, is actually a CD-R, meaning that when you order a copy, they make one up special. There is apparently no mass-distribution CD release so you probably won't find it in your local CD store. That is, assuming you even have a local CD store.

Here's Eric leading us in song. Five more repackagings of this and I'm going to start to feel about Monty Python the same way I'm starting to feel about Cirque du Soleil.