3-D Diatribe

I agree with everything in this piece by Jerry Beck about how 3-D movies are an overhyped fad that will soon dissipate. Jerry's especially right that one of the motives in making them is to encourage movie theaters to go digital.

The Host(ess) with the Most(ess)

My comrade Aaron Barnhart complains that the NBC Tonight Show Experience webpage is missing someone. In its celebration of Tonight Show hosts — Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and the incoming Conan O'Brien — the name of Ernie Kovacs is omitted. Mr. Kovacs was the regular Monday-Tuesday host for several months late in the Allen era. Researchers don't seem to concur how long Kovacs did it but he did it. Shouldn't, Aaron wonders, his name and face be up there, too?

I dunno about this. Maybe. But it does raise the question: If you include Ernie Kovacs, shouldn't you also include Joan Rivers? She was the Monday host and did many full weeks, probably totaling a lot more broadcasts than Ernie Kovacs did. I've never seen anyone mention her in a list of past Tonight Show hosts, nor do they date Leno's stint from when he began sitting in for Carson on a non-temp basis. If Jay had not gotten the job after Johnny left, he would still have hosted more Tonight Shows than Jack Paar ever did.

And hey, what about the hosts of the short-lived Tonight: America After Dark that filled that time slot between the going of Allen and the coming of Paar? That was a different format but it was called, at least in part, Tonight. Raising this question would force us to define the program in question. Steve Allen hosted a show called Tonight (just Tonight, not The Tonight Show) that ran in the late night slot on NBC. So did Paar. The programs had somewhat different formats and staff. What makes them both the same show is the name and the approximate hour…and if that's the definition, then the flop that came between them pretty much qualifies too, doesn't it?

In which case, why not list Jack Lescoulie and Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins as past Tonight hosts? They weren't even guest hosts or Monday hosts. Lescoulie was the permanent, every-night host of Tonight: America After Dark and when he quit/was fired, Collins took over for the rest of the run. I actually met Mr. Jazzbeaux once — I'll do a post one of these days telling that story — and he was quite rankled that his name was always missing when folks listed past Tonight hosts.

Getting back to Joan for a second: I suppose the reason some would argue she shouldn't be listed as a past Tonight host is that she was identified as a Guest Host. Johnny's name was still on the show and the opening announce said she was sitting in for him. But is that more significant than the sheer number of times she hosted that program? Isn't what makes you a Tonight Show host the mere fact that you hosted The Tonight Show? And how sure is anyone that Ernie Kovacs wasn't billed as Steve Allen's guest host? I don't think any of those shows still exist.

Okay, I've officially driven this topic into the ground, taking it way too far. That's all I have to say. Goodbye.

Today's Video Link

Some time ago, I linked to a thirty-second version of this commercial I always liked. Here's the full one-minute version…

The Latest

Several folks have already e-mailed me that they have Len Wein comics they'd like to send to Len Wein. This is good. Hold onto them for a few more days. I'm setting up a web page with all the info on where to send them and what we need. When it's up, I'll ask you all to spread the word throughout the comic community.

In the meantime, I need help with something. This site has many readers who participate in the Grand Comics Database Project, a wonderful endeavor that is attempting to list every single funnybook ever done. Would one of you like to volunteer to compile a Len Wein checklist I can post? You have access to aspects of the database that I don't and it would be a lot easier for one of you to do it. Please drop me a note if you can help.

Len Wein News

I just spoke to Len, who seems to be in a lot better humor than most of us would be if we'd lost our homes to fire. He has okayed me to begin collecting donations of comics on which he worked. All the copies he had were either burned or hosed down by firefighters.

Insurance will restore the house. I think it would be great if Len's many fans and friends restored his shelves of comic books written and/or edited by Len Wein. In a day or two here, I will post an address to which they can be shipped…and I'm thinking of posting a checklist (if I can put one together) and of appointing folks to accept donations at comic book conventions. Watch this space for details. But in the meantime, you might want to look around. If you read comics, you probably have a lot of Len's in your collection. You may even have duplicates you'd be willing to part with or you can ask your local comic shop owner if they'd be willing to send a few.

Start seeing what you can donate to the cause. I'll tell you where to send it shortly.

Quack in Business

To little notice, the movie of Howard the Duck came out on DVD recently. My pal Steve Gerber was both frustrated and perversely amused by the fiasco that was the film made of his greatest creation. He was largely excluded from the conversion job but he saw enough that, about halfway through its filming, he smelled a possible flop coming, mainly due to the filmmakers' inability to deliver a convincing duck. I remember a lunchtime discussion we had. I'd seen nothing but Steve had seen enough to believe that whatever the merits of the script and other performances, the star just came off as a midget in an unconvincing duck mask.

The topic was whether his reaction was because they really hadn't created a on-screen duck you could accept or if Steve was just being too proprietary because they weren't replicating "his" version from the comics. He was trying so hard not to cause trouble for the project that he leaned towards the latter, figuring that the producers must know what they're doing; that it couldn't be as wrong as it seemed to him. As it turned out, it was…and Steve's hopes that the film would succeed and a lot of that success (and revenue) would rub off on him were for naught.

That day over lunch, I suggested that what the producers should have done was to engage Frank Oz to create and maybe perform the title character. Steve didn't much care for that thought. Nothing in any of Mr. Oz's famous puppet characters reminded him of his Howard's voice or manner. Still, he later told me that even if Howard had wound up looking like Cookie Monster and sounding like Miss Piggy, it would have been closer to what he had in mind than what he got.

In this article, Keith Phipps takes a look back at Steve's duck and what Hollywood did unto it. And this might be a good place for me to insert an Amazon link in case you want to order a copy of the DVD for some reason. I can't imagine what that reason might be but people do a lot of things I don't understand. It came out four weeks ago with a $14.98 pricetag and has already been marked down to eight. The insults continue.

Recommended Reading

It's Fred Kaplan again, this time discussing our options with North Korea's Kim Jong-il. One seems to be not to worry a lot about the guy.

Today's Video Link

The animation on the first dozen-or-so Disney features is considered a high watermark in its category…its category, of course, being Disney-type animation. Many of the later features are quite splendid as well, but one of the ways they made the animation so good (and saved a few bucks) was to trace and reuse animation from earlier Disney masterpieces. Don't believe me? Here's a little montage. Thanks to Mickey Paraskevas, illustrator of The Green Monkeys, for pointing me towards this.

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Monday Evening

I've been trying to focus on other work and other topics but my mind keeps coming back to today's tragic news…the fire at the home of my friends, Len Wein and Chris Valada. I've been in that house and seen a wonderful, lived-in shrine to their respective passions. The place was delightfully full of fun stuff which, I'm told, is now all gone.

You feel helpless in moments like this, wishing you had some brilliant idea that would magically undo all the damage. There isn't, of course…but we're all sending "If there's anything I can do" messages, knowing full well there's not much any of us can do. The insurance company can and will do plenty but all the rest of us can do is to just be there for our friends.

I feel a special note of…I don't know if you'd call it guilt or what. About six weeks ago, I had a tiny fire at my home, also caused by a faulty heater. All that happened was that a wall was charred and an outlet melted but it made me realize it was about time I had some rewiring done here. That's why my power was out today…and because of the work here, I didn't hear what had happened until many hours after it had happened. Nobody phoned to tell me. They all sent e-mails, unaware that my Internet connection was out while my electricity was off. Meanwhile, several of Len's friends ran over there to help and I feel bad that I wasn't among them. I doubt I could have done much there but it might have made me feel better. (And I also feel a little guilty for thinking that way…)

Harlan Ellison was over there wielding a shovel and he described the loss to me a little while ago on the phone. It sounds pretty total. To those who ask, "What can we do?" the answer seems to be "not much right now," though Len and Chris must know they have a lot of friends they can turn to. At some point down the line though, when they're settled into new digs or a rebuilding of the old digs, I'd like to see if we can restore some of Len's book collection — particularly copies of things he worked on.

I haven't spoken to him about this or anything because, goodness knows, he's got plenty to think about without me demanding his attention. But I'm guessing he will welcome this — and it certainly makes me feel better to think there might be at least something we can do.

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan on what Robert Gates is doing with the defense budget. It has long struck me that a certain segment of those who comment on or lobby for certain expenditures are eager for us to buy and build the "coolest" planes, as opposed to those that might be useful. Gates seems to not be doing that so good for him.

Today's Bonus Video Link

Keith Olbermann's mother passed away the other day. On tonight's Countdown, he did one of the loveliest tributes I've ever seen, avoiding all the clichés and mawkishness that you so often get with these things. I know there are some folks who read this site who hate Mr. Olbermann and there are times when I even think he goes too far in some area where I essentially agree with him. But I can't think of another broadcaster working today who could do something quite this classy…

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Dreadful News

Much of the home of Len Wein and Chris Valada was destroyed in a fire this morning triggered by a faulty heater. Len is, of course, the creator of many famous comic books and an award-winning writer, and much of what was lost was valuable and irreplaceable artwork he'd collected over the years. I'm told Len and Chris are more upset over the death of their beloved dog, Sheba. (No humans were injured.)

That's about all I know at the moment. Friends are rallying to be of aid but I'm not sure what anyone can do at the moment. About half of the house is gone and they're still assessing the precise loss of contents. What an awful thing to happen to two great people. I talked to Len just last night to get some info for the Frank Springer obit I posted.

Soup Time!

mushroomsoup137

And to further exacerbate the problem discussed in the previous posting, a nice electrician who's rewiring my home is about to shut off the electricity for most of the day. So my Internet connection will be off too and I'll be laptopping it as long as the battery holds out. Be back later…I hope.

New Policy

I'm hereby announcing a new policy here. Whenever I post or even link to something even vaguely political, I get a slew of e-mails from folks who want to rebut or engage me in long, back-and-forth discussions.

One of the few downsides to doing a blog like this is that it brings a lot of messages…more than you might think and more than I can ever possibly answer. I mean, I suppose I could give up my career and do nothing but respond to e-mail all day but that doesn't seem like the wisest of options. For a time, I answered what I could and moved the rest into a "answer when I get the time" folder…and one day, that folder had more than 2000 messages in it. Obviously, a problem.

This bothers me more than it probably should. It reminds me of one time when I briefly worked on the TV show, MacGyver. One of the show's producers had idly said in a TV Guide interview, "We're always looking for good scripts" and the next thing he knew, there was an entire room at the office filled with "spec" submissions — at least three thousand, one intern estimated.

The studio lawyers wanted none of them read. The following situation is very common: A writer in Idaho submits a script that's set in a bowling alley. Two seasons later, someone on the show has an idea and writes an episode set in a bowling alley. The guy in Idaho sues. That happens an awful lot and it can be very expensive to deal with those threats and lawsuits. It helps a bit to be able to say, "No one here read the submission."

I'm not sure how the MacGyver show eventually dealt with those piles — I didn't get along with the folks there and went elsewhere after a month or so — but I can't imagine what they could have done other than to simply not read many…more likely any of the scripts. Even if the lawyers said it was okay, how do you begin to evaluate three thousand scripts? With more arriving every minute? Even if you could find and hire a couple of extra story editors with the wisdom to find gold amongst the pyrites, how many could those folks read per day and retain any sense of balance? Ten? Fifteen? Do the math. Most were at least fifty pages and I was told that there were some, written by folks who didn't know how long an hour script should be, in excess of 100 or even 200 pages.

The scripts in that little room represented a lot of effort and passion and dreams…and just by the law of averages, there was probably some great, undiscovered talent in there. I just can't imagine how anyone could locate it.

It's not exactly the same situation but my unanswered e-mail situation reminds me of that one. Some very bright folks have written me and received either brief replies or none at all. After mulling the problem a lot, I've decided to deal with it as follows…

First of all, I'm going to ignore all e-mails not signed with what at least looks like a real name. You have every right to be anonymous on the Internet but if you sign yourself "Beefhead" or "Socrates" (two recent correspondents), you should expect your mail to go to the bottom of the stack, never to be seen again. I have my real name on everything here. I don't feel the need to be that courteous to folks who want to not be actually responsible for what they write.

Secondly, I'm going to just delete all the nasty messages — I do, anyway — and thirdly, the ones that seek to alter my entire worldview and debate every aspect of it…well, those require way too much time for a worthy response. I feel the same way about them that I feel about strangers who come to my door and think that a brief chat on my porch will cause me to adopt their religion. You might convince someone of something small that way but there will be no major life conversion and abandonment of everything previously believed.

Those steps will get rid of about half the messages. I'm also going to ignore a number of guys who spent the last few years writing me that George W. Bush would capture Osama, win a glorious and inarguable victory in Iraq and leave the economy in such great shape that America would never again elect a Democrat to anything that did not involve dog-catching. One or two such correspondents have had the class/sense to send apologies and mea culpas but a couple still think their fantasy has almost come true. No point discussing anything with those boys.

That still leaves quite a stack that will have to go unanswered. I'm sorry about that. I don't know what else to do but I do read them and every so often, someone (never an anonymous or hostile person) writes something that causes me to rethink a position or view something in a different light.

Still, please don't spend a lot of energy writing me a message if you'll feel cheated by a lack of response. I have to change my approach to my e-mailbox and treat it less like a collection of communications that, spam aside, etiquette demands I answer. There's no way to do that so I'm just going to try to stop feeling guilty about it. If this sounds unreasonable or arrogant or pigheaded to you…well, fine. Just don't write me as much and expect a reply.

Today's Video Link

I featured some Limeliters clips the last few days. Here's a classic from The Kingston Trio…

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