Yesterday's video link was, as I mentioned, a kinescope. Just as folks were writing to ask me what the heck a "kinescope" is, my buddy Jerry Beck dropped me a note to tell me about this wonderful short film from 1949 that explains about the process with examples. I think the footage of Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra was done in Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, which is where they now do Saturday Night Live.
Sorry I haven't posted anything since last night. Busy day here.
Eighty-seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-three of you have e-mailed me to ask if I (a) know about the heirs of Jack Kirby filing for reclamation of a number of Marvel copyrights and (b) will be commenting here or anywhere? The answers to those questions are yes and no…in that order.
The mystery of the Colbert Report start times seems to have been solved. Comedy Central is simply jamming more commercials into certain of their more-watched shows and they don't care that it messes up those of us who record via TiVo or VCR for later viewing. Or so I'm told by a person who works for Comedy Central.
Several folks, by the way, were bewildered that I watch The Colbert Report at 11:00 PM since it doesn't air at that time on your set. Well, I do. I have DirecTV and on this coast, one can watch Dr. Colbert at 8:30 PM, 11:00 PM, 6:30 AM, 11:00 AM and 4:30 PM. The 11 PM showing follows an airing of The Daily Show at 10:30 PM and both are apparently crammed with extra commercials.
Lastly for now: I'm a big fan of Jay Leno but I'm growing disenchanted with The Jay Leno Show. Before the week is out, I hope to write a piece here that explains why. (Another "by the way" — I was trying to figure out who the show's so-far anonymous announcer is. I just did. Here's a hint for those of you who like to identify voice actors and announcers: He's been on one or more of my Cartoon Voices panels at the Comic-Con in San Diego. And I'm embarrassed I didn't recognize him the first night.)
We have a solid gold nugget for you today, fun seekers — a slightly-abridged episode of This is Show Business, a panel show that ran on CBS from 1949 'til 1954. It was an odd affair. Performers would come on and seek help in dealing with some silly problem they had. Sometimes, they would perform…and I suspect some performing was edited from this kinescope. But the main part of the show was when they sat down next to host Clifton Fadiman to solicit advice from a panel of show biz experts.
The panel consisted of two regulars and a guest who changed each week. At the time of this broadcast, the two regulars were Sam Levenson and the great playwright, George S. Kaufman. (Levenson's seat was filled for a long time by Abe Burrows.) The guest panelist is Betty Furness…and the performers who come on with lame, phony problems are Larry Storch, Mel Tormé and the dance team of Bud and Cece Robinson.
The treasure here, of course, is the chance to see Kaufman, who reportedly relished his brief forays into television — mostly here and on Jack Paar's show. He's awkward in posture and gestures…and like the host, he keeps forgetting to talk towards the microphone. But he's George S. Kaufman and this is an unusual view of the man who was hailed as one of the great wits of his century. You even get to hear him plug his upcoming play, The Solid Gold Cadillac. (He says it's opening in Hartford on October 1st. That would be October 1st, 1953 so that helps us roughly peg the date of this broadcast. The tryout in Hartford, by the way, was a disaster…but Kaufman and his co-author Howard Teichmann managed to rewrite it into a solid gold hit by the time it opened in New York a month later.)
At the end, you'll hear host Fadiman mention that the following week's guest panelist would be the actress, Jackie Susann. This is the same Jackie Susann who later wrote best-selling potboiler novels like Valley of the Dolls. She was a frequent guest on This is Show Business, not because anyone knew who she was or cared but because she was married to the show's producer, Irving Mansfield.
One week on the show — perhaps the very next week — she told an anecdote about auditioning for a play Kaufman directed and being treated unprofessionally. The point of the story was apparently to embarrass Kaufman…but Susann wound up being the one who was embarrassed. Kaufman responded to her tale by saying it was "…entirely spurious." And in the ensuing discussion, it became apparent to all that Miss Susann had no idea what the word "spurious" meant.
Mr. Kaufman isn't all that witty in this clip but hey. How often do you get to see and hear George S. Kaufman?
Just to repeat here what I Twittered earlier: We oughta pass a law that Neil Patrick Harris will host all awards shows from now on. He was great on the Emmys…funny, brisk and well aware that the evening was not all about him. I don't have a lot to say about the awards themselves; just that there didn't seem to be any ghastly oversights or grave injustices. I thought the guy (I forget who it was) who thanked the agents who got him his award-winning job…and then thanked his new agents…was making a joke that would have gone over better with the crowd if it hadn't been so true.
This is currently up on some sites as part of the Associated Press Emmy coverage…
Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" was named the best comedy or variety show in the annual Emmy Awards. Blessed with an abundance of material during a presidential election, the show beat out David Letterman's "Late Show," "Saturday Night Live," "Real Time With Bill Maher" and "The Colbert (col-BEAR') Report (rap-PORE')"
I guess they put that in because some TV or radio newscasters use material from AP. But shouldn't anyone who's got a job reading press copy aloud know how to pronounce the name of that show? And isn't it "rep-PORE?"
Maxine Marx, daughter of Chico, passed away in her sleep early Monday morning, September 14, at the age of 91. She was a lovely lady with a nice background in acting and in teaching acting. Maxine was always accommodating to the many Marx Brothers fans who sought her out for interviews and info, and an awful lot of them became fans of this charming woman. I spent an evening with her about twenty years ago and while she had many great stories of her father and uncles, it was more fun to hear her talk about her own life and the many talented friends she'd acquired. Folks just liked Maxine and her legacy includes a lot of actors who cherish her tutelage.
It's times like this I wish I had an extra $60,000 to throw about. That's the opening bid (at this hour, unoffered) in an online auction of Walker Edmiston's Beany & Cecil memorabilia.
The late Mr. Edmiston was a brilliant actor, voice performer and puppeteer and in the fifties, he spent some time puppeteering for Bob Clampett on Time for Beany and Thunderbolt the Wonder Colt. His estate (or someone) is selling off all the neat stuff he saved from those gigs, including actual hand puppets and set pieces. Wonderful stuff.
In other news, you can also own the Emmy Award that Fred deCordova won for producing The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. You can also bid on many of the original stop-motion figures built for George Pal's Puppetoon series…
There are many priceless TV artifacts over there, especially to please a Star Trek fan. Thanks to Phil De Croocq for letting me know about some of this.
What do we have here? Hmm…looks like seven and a half minutes from the original Tonight with Steve Allen. It wasn't called The Tonight Show back then — a fact that absolutely every single person who ever writes about TV history overlooks…and probably should. But as far as I know, it wasn't called The Tonight Show until the Monday after Jack Paar left. That first non-Paar show was guest-hosted by Art Linkletter…so if you want to get real nit-picky annoying about things, the answer to the question, "Who was the first person to ever host an episode of The Tonight Show?" is Art Linkletter.
Note: If you're ever on Jeopardy! and you're in Final Jeopardy! and everything is riding on your response to "The first host of The Tonight Show," don't answer Art Linkletter. Say Steve Allen.
Anyway, gang — as Mr. Allen used to say — footage of any pre-Carson Tonight is very rare and Johnny's early years are about 98% lost, as well. So this clip is nice to see, even if not a lot happens in it. It's mostly Steverino playing with a doll and then singing a forgettable song with Skitch Henderson at the piano…
Here's one of the most useless lists you'll ever come across: A list of fifty great places to eat a specific food item. Like, it's real handy for me to know that if I ever decide I want to try suckling pig — and I've somehow made it to age 57 without having such an urge — the place to go for it is the Montimar in Estellencs, Mallorca. I'm sure whoever designated that as the best suckling pig in the world has tried suckling pig in every other eatery that serves it. (Note that they also seem to love the suckling pig at the Lighthouse Restaurant in Cebu, Philippines. The two restaurants cannot both have the best suckling pig in the world. I sense a duel-to-the-death looming…)
I've been to exactly one of the restaurants listed here — Katz's Deli in New York where, the list says, one can get the best pastrami sandwich in the world. And when I have been to Katz's, I've always had brisket or corned beef which, by the way, were terrific.
So it's a useless list but an entertaining one. You can even fantasize about the perfect meal: Oysters as an appetizer from Strangfor Lough in Northern Ireland…then a "surf 'n' turf" composed of the steak at El Carpicho in Jimenez de Jamuz, Spain plus prawns from Casa Bigote in nearby Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain. Add in the fried potatoes from the Bomba Bar Cova in Fumada, Barcelona and finish off your meal with chocolate cake from Pierre Hermé in Paris. Or if that's too much trouble, you can go grab an In-n-Out Burger, which is what I may do. Yum.
Just came across a photo I took at the same party where someone took that photo of me with Henry Gibson. Here are three men who played judges on Boston Legal — Henry, Shelley Berman and Chuck McCann. The gent at right is Richard Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles. This was taken at Gladstone's in Malibu, a seafood restaurant that Mayor Riordan owns. Henry lived in Malibu and he told us he hadn't been well lately and wouldn't have come if the party hadn't been so close to his home. This was taken on June 9.
This article claims — and I don't see anyone rushing to correct it — that as many as 45,000 people die each year in this country due to a lack of health insurance. I would think that number's low…and of course, it doesn't take into account people who have health insurance but it doesn't sufficiently cover the treatment they need. It also probably doesn't measure folks who don't directly die from not being insured but whose lives merely get wiped out by hospital bills.
I've had to post a lot of obits on this site for folks I know. I can think of several where I could have listed the cause of death as "couldn't afford to see a doctor." Seriously. If you want to know why I'm so militant on this topic, there you go.
Here's a link to some excerpts from what's being billed as the last in-depth interview of Larry Gelbart.
Note that in it Larry confirms that he never was a writer on Your Show of Shows. Sid Caesar had a succession of different TV series and Gelbart worked on the one Sid did after Your Show of Shows. It was called Caesar's Hour…but folks have a way of lumping all the Caesar programs together under the general umbrella of Your Show of Shows and often say that Larry (and Woody Allen and Sheldon Keller and Gary Belkin and a couple of others) worked on that series. Not so.
Also, here's a speech that Larry prepared and apparently never delivered anywhere.
Recently here, I posted an item about comic book dealer-historian Bob Beerbohm, who's having a big sale to raise money for a desperately-needed dual hip joint replacement.
Intersecting with a constant topic here, Bob is a classic example of the failings of our present health care system. He had health insurance but just when he reached the point where this surgery was mandatory — to alleviate constant pain and to keep him able to walk — his HMO dropped him. It was one of those "undisclosed prior condition" deals. If there's any humanity in Washington, we will soon see the day when human beings will not be in this horrible situation…but that will not help Bob. He needs money now.
He was originally going to have the surgery next week but his doctors have delayed it for two weeks. This is fortunate for Bob because to get the "deal" he's going to get on the procedure (a substantial discount from what it usually costs), he has to pay cash up front…and he doesn't quite have all the money. So this would be a great time to go to this page or this page and find some treasure to purchase. You'll get a bargain and you'll be doing a good deed at the same time.
When I was a kid, I loved Danny Kaye. My parents once took me to see him do "An Evening With…" at the Hollywood Bowl and he was just enchanting. He sang all his famous numbers…and he had a lot of famous numbers. This was before the Bowl had the big jumbotron video screens so if you were sitting in the cheap seats, as we were, you couldn't see the face of a performer on the stage…but with him, it almost didn't matter. Even from row ZZZ in the eleventh mezzanine or wherever we were, you could sense the sheer joy in his performance.
I still love Danny Kaye, I guess, but it got harder as a couple of books came out that said, in effect, that he was not a very nice human being. And it became even harder to love him when I started meeting performers who'd worked with the man and did not have good things to say. This kind of thing shouldn't make a difference with your enjoyment of a performer but I'm afraid that with me, it does.
Still, I can enjoy what he does…like this clip from his 1963-1967 variety show on CBS. Harvey Korman is the interviewer in the sketch. Mr. Korman was a regular on the series and when it was cancelled, he was hired by Carol Burnett for her new variety show, which taped in the same studio. So Harvey didn't even have to change parking spaces…
Bruce Bartlett on why it's so difficult to cut federal spending. It's easy to say, "Let's slash the budget," he says, but not so easy to do.