A golden moment from Saturday Night Live. It will start right after a brief word from the sponsor…
Go Listen!
A brief (5.5 minute) interview with Bob Elliott of the team of Bob and Ray. There are no startling revelations but it sure is good to hear him again.
Questions From the Floor
The other day, I wrote this piece on how "questions from the floor" at public speeches and events so often turn into some guy in the audience hijacking the attention for his own. It's received a lot of linkage and e-mail response.
A couple of folks reported on some recent gathering where Q-and-A with the audience provided a great, memorable experience. Fine. I wasn't saying it never happens…just that with what feels to me like increasing frequency, it often doesn't. In the right venue with the right crowd, it can be a joyous and enriching thing. I just think that those of us who get to play Moderator or Host should be more diligent about policing the questioners…and not so quick to assume that there must always be time for open mike queries.
Most of all, of course, I was hoping to send a message to those who commit atrocities from the aisles: You're being rude…often to the person(s) on stage you profess to honor, always to the audience around you. There's nothing wrong with asking a question…and you may well ask a vital one that will yield much enlightenment. You just have to remember that no one is there because of you. Opening the floor to questions is not an invitation for you to try and make the event be about you.
One other thing I oughta mention: I've done a couple of public interviews where the interviewee stipulated certain topics that could not be discussed. That happens. Years ago at a comic convention, I did a one-on-one with Harvey Kurtzman, who among his other achievements was the founding editor of Mad. An unannounced condition of Harvey's appearance was the agreement that he would not be asked on stage why he'd left Mad or about any of the business-type aspects of his relationship there.
He discussed it with me and others in private, and it wasn't so much that Harvey didn't want to talk about it in public but that he'd found that to properly explain it took a very long time. The chat we had about it over lunch took at least ninety minutes, maybe longer. He said that if he tackled it in front of the audience, it would have been even more difficult because he was still contemplating legal action and would have had to select his words more carefully and with less candor. (To my knowledge, he never did take that legal action but at that moment, it was still an option he wished to not complicate.)
What actually concerned him even more was the feeling that if he addressed that matter before the masses and did any sort of justice to the query, the interview would have seemed to be about nothing else. It would have been covered in the press, he believed, as if it had just been Kurtzman grousing the whole time about how he didn't make enough money off Mad and then his colleagues and the folks at Mad would have felt Harvey was running around, bad-mouthing them without hearing his actual words.
He didn't want that so it was understood that we'd sidestep that subject. Moreover, I was not to say that Harvey was declining to address the issue…and he also insisted that questions from the floor be submitted in writing so that I could screen them and not ask the ones about why he left Mad. This was wise on his part because of perhaps fifty we received, at least half were "Why did you leave Mad?"
That had been left unasked as we neared the close of what was truly, because of Mr. Kurtzman, a wonderful and fascinating discussion. Then with about five minutes left on the clock, an alleged friend of mine leaped from his seat in the fifth row and shouted towards the stage, "Why haven't you asked him why he left Mad?" Gee, thanks, alleged friend. I stammered that we didn't have time. The alleged friend yelled out, "Hey, we're not goin' anywhere! The next panel in this room can wait!" and most of the audience applauded.
Harvey stage-whispered to me, "This is why I don't like doing these," but then he said into the mike, very softly and with a note of embarrassment in his voice, "It's a long story, one I don't feel I can tell properly without giving all sides and that takes more time than we have." It pained him to say that, in part because it caused a good presentation to end on a note of disappointment.
It also pained me a bit because at least two of the folks in the house went home and wrote articles about the event, noting what a crappy interviewer I was to not leave time to ask Harvey Kurtzman the question that was on everyone's minds. One complained particularly about having to submit questions in writing and suggested it was my doing because I was on an "ego trip" (that was the term he used…anyone here remember ego trips?) and didn't want anyone asking questions of The Great Kurtzman but me. I have since come to realize that the guy in my position sometimes has to be Bad Cop and take the heat in that way. A few years later, Kurtzman's partner Will Elder did something similar to me on a panel and by then, I was more amused than annoyed by it. I just wish people would understand that sometimes, there's a reason a question isn't asked. These people are not elected officials or wishing to become elected officials. They don't have to be grilled on whatever subjects they'd rather not discuss.
One more anecdote along these lines. I interviewed Ray Bradbury in front of many thousands of people, shortly after the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11 had come out. Bradbury was outraged at the appropriation/parody of the title of (arguably) his best novel but his friends and family asked me to keep him off that topic; to direct the discussion to his work and not to politics. I figured that was what the audience most wanted to hear about anyway so while there was no explicit understanding to not go there, I decided to steer clear of the subject of Moore's documentary.
After introducing Mr. Bradbury to an ovation they probably heard in the next state, I decided to get things going with a bit of chit-chat about his health, which had been the subject of some pessimistic reports. I asked him, "So, Ray, how have you been feeling these days?"
He immediately answered, "I don't like Michael Moore."
Sometimes, there's only so much the moderator can do.
Today's Video Link
This runs 23 minutes so you might not want to click right now. But if you do, you'll be watching Charlie Chaplin's 1917 two-reel comedy, Easy Street, complete with an overpowering musical track. I'm not sure when it was done for this film but soundtracks were added to a lot of great silent comedies after talkies came in, especially Chaplin's. There was still a demand for him to the extent that it was cost effective to orchestrate and record music.
It's been about three decades since I watched a lot of Chaplin but I recalled this as my favorite of all his two-reelers. I just watched it and I can see why I felt that way. It's a nice, touching little story and it shows you why Chaplin was a "superstar" long before that word was invented.
Movie Movie
I reported in this post that the National Theater in Westwood, a favorite place of mine to see movies when I was a lowly college student, had closed.
I reported in this post that the National had been "saved," at least for a while, and had reopened.
And now I can report that they've torn the place down and there's now a vacant lot where it used to be. So I'll hazard a guess that's the end of the story.
Wilder Thoughts
James H. Burns, who sends me some of the best links I post here, sent me this one to a report on a rare public appearance by Gene Wilder. All of it's interesting but it's especially eyebrow-raising to read the following about his view of a certain musical now playing on Broadway…
Wilder regards Brooks' current Broadway musical version of Young Frankenstein as a misguided attempt to marry the director's Borscht Belt humor to the wrong kind of story. Wilder came only for the curtain call on opening night and left immediately after.
That somehow doesn't surprise me and I wonder if it speaks to Mr. Wilder's status as a gentleman or as a profit participant that he hasn't said this louder and in more places. Having met him briefly (like twenty seconds apiece) two times and having heard nothing but good about him from those who really know him, I suspect the former.
In the News Too Much
This morning on Fox & Friends, Chris Wallace "respectfully" took some of his colleagues on that network to task for what he called "two hours of Obama bashing." You can see the video here…and you might notice a little, perhaps unintended dig by Wallace when he talks about how the talent at Fox doesn't all stick to the "talking points." Good for him either way. I didn't see the whole broadcast but from the others' defensive reactions, it looks like he scored a bulls-eye with his criticism.
Someone should have said something similar to Keith Olbermann the other day regarding his coverage of the new "scandal" (which I kinda doubt will amount to anything) involving some folks snooping around in Obama's passport files. It may well be a criminal act and it sure sounds sleazy…but Olbermann devoted almost his entire hour to the story even though everything known about it was said in about the first four minutes. I like (and TiVo) his Countdown and there are times I think he's gutsy and taking expert aim, especially in calling out other news folks for sloppy research. But just as the Fox & Friends crew apparently ignored a lot of other news so they could fixate on one Obama comment, Olbermann didn't cover any number of other stories so he could say the same things over and over and over about this passport episode.
Today's Video Link
For a while here last year and I think the year before, I was recommending that those of you in the Southern California area hurry your tailbones over to a theater where, once per week, you could see a live, fun re-creation of the old game show, What's My Line? A clever gent named J. Keith van Straaten was our genial host and he always seemed to have a panel of four witty folks, several people with interesting occupations for them to guess, and — best of all! — a famous Mystery Guest. I went more than a half-dozen times and it was always entertaining.
Alas, all good things come to an end…or in this case, they move to New York. Commencing this coming Monday night, you can see What's My Line? Live on Stage at the Barrow Street Theatre in that fine city. Keith is still the host and he has some of the same witty panelists (including, this Monday, Betsy Palmer) and he'll have Mystery Guests and I see no reason to think it won't be as great a show there as it was out here. Below is a video sampler of what it was out here and if you're in or around New York and it makes you want to go, all the details are on this page.
Get Well, Jim Korkis!
I wasn't sure if it was okay to mention this in public but since Jerry Beck thinks it is, I'll trust his discretion. An old pal of ours, Jim Korkis, recently suffered a series of small strokes that do not appear to be life-threatening. This last part is good because I'm damned sick of writing obits here and Jim is just about the last guy I'd want to have to pen one about. He's not only a great fellow but he's one of the most valuable animation historians around. For no other reason than a love of the art form and the people who dabble in it, Jim has done hundreds of essential interviews and articles for the last few decades. If you study cartoons at all, you have either read Jim's articles (some of which he signs with names not his own) or you have read articles written by people who know what they know because of Jim's dilgence and passion.
Jim is the kind of person who always asks if there's anything he can do for you. Jim, if you're reading this, there is something you can do for me. You can get better. I would like that very much, thank you.
Today's Video Link
Here's a commercial for Clark's Teaberry Gum that a lot of us enjoyed when it aired incessantly on TV back in the sixties. By that, I mean we enjoyed the commercial. What I don't recall is any of my friends, who chewed a lot of gum, chewing this one. What I do recall though is an advertising expert on some PBS show saying that insofar as selling the product was concerned, it was a terrible commercial. Why? Because it didn't convey any message about buying Clark's Teaberry Gum. Didn't tell you what it was, even. And in a way, he's right. I still don't know what flavor one might expect from such a thing or why I might enjoy it.
The expert said, approximately, "Even then, a commercial could succeed if it embeds the name of the product into your brain and causes you, when you see it at the store, to think, 'Oh, that's the product I've heard so much about.' But this commercial doesn't even achieve that because the name is such an offhand, afterthought part of it. I'll bet this spot sold more Herb Alpert records than gum." He may have been right…but isn't it a great commercial?
Today's Political Thought
Last evening in rush hour traffic, I drove down Ventura Boulevard at about four miles an hour. That's low even for Ventura at that time of day where you can usually average five. One of the reasons for the slowdown was that there were two demonstrations going on a few miles apart — one in favor of a U.S. pullout of Iraq, one against. Since my car was moving at about the speed of Tim Conway's old man character, I had plenty of time to inspect the signs carried by each group.
The "get out of Iraq" folks all had signs that said what we could be spending the money on instead: "Better education instead of war," "Cleaner water instead of war," "Fix our streets instead of war" and so forth. Those are all commendable preferences but I don't think they're a particularly strong argument. The two main cases against the war in Iraq are that an awful lot of people are dying or being maimed, and that the war seems to be accomplishing the opposite of making this a safer world for us. I don't know why but it felt to me like the protest was almost trivializing the human cost by making it sound like if we weren't in Iraq, we'd be spending all that money on schools and roads. I kinda doubt that we would.
The arguments on the signs wielded by the "stay the course" people seemed even weaker to me. Every one I saw said either "Surrender is not an option" or "The surge is working." I'm not sure that us pulling out of that mess over there would actually constitute surrender…but whatever it would be should always be an option, especially when the other option seems to be staying there forever without a way out. I could buy (but have yet to hear) a strong argument that the U.S. is actually achieving its goals, or even that it stands a reasonable chance of achieving its goals. That would mean though that someone had to articulate those goals and not, when they begin seeming more remote, forget them and make up new ones.
As for "The surge is working," same difference. Working to what ends? The way some politicians use that phrase, it sounds like they admit we're stuck there with no exit strategy and no achievable worthy goal…but the death tolls have slowed, so that means less domestic embarrassment for those who got us into this war. The way William Kristol uses those four words, it sounds like that's all they mean. Or care about.
me on the radio (FINAL NOTICE)
One more reminder that later today — between the hours of 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific (7 PM and 9 PM Eastern) — I'll be talking about myself on Stu's Show, which you can hear on Shokus Internet Radio. Click on the above banner and follow instructions that are so simple, even John McCain couldn't get them confused.
In fact, if you're reading this between 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific,click right here now and listen in.
Knowing Me, Knowing You
While I was composing the previous post, the following arrived in my "press release" mailbox. I reproduce what they sent exactly, including the misspelling of the show's name…
The Mammia Mia! film fansite is NOW live! This is THE place where fans of the worldwide smash hit musical merge with movie buffs from all of over the country to discover a new world of friendship, conversation, support, and
community… Universal Pictures cordially invites you to join the Mamma Mia! fansite today! Join fans worldwide, swap information, trade trivia facts and learn more about the upcoming film version of the musical starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried. "My My, how can you resist that? …" Check out the film's official Mamma Mia! fansite and sign up today!
And there's also a link to this video preview. In the tradition of the recent Sweeney Todd film, it doesn't make the product look like a musical and certainly doesn't say "based on the smash Broadway show." In this case, they've decided to pass it off as a teen sex comedy starring Meryl Streep. Or maybe that's the movie they made.
Monster Mash
This article in the New York Post says that the Young Frankenstein musical can be considered a "flop" and that it may vacate its theater sooner than some are admitting to make way for the forthcoming Spider-Man musical. (Thanks to James H. Burns for the link.)
Speaking as an utter layman and outsider here: I liked Young Frankenstein and think it's paying a certain price for the overhype. Its ticket prices and promotion have grown humbler. I would also hope they still don't have so many people in the lobby being quite so pushy about selling you t-shirts and other souvenirs. (I really think that harmed the show a bit for some folks. It did for me. Made it feel like you were filing in to a ride at Disneyland, not a Broadway musical.) I assume they haven't changed a few of the musical numbers that ended with a soft thud but there's still enough in there that you can leave humming something.
But I don't know the math on this kind of thing and it may well be in trouble. If so, I wonder what this means for the future of the show. The New York production is so expensive and elaborate, I can't imagine any regional theater ever mounting a comparable production. That might be a good thing because in some ways, the show is diminished by its size. I actually think the show could lose its rough edges if its creative team — or others they empowered — did some more work on it.
Alan Jay Lerner once wrote that the reason Camelot was not as fine a show as he wanted it to be was that they had too large an advance sale. Coming as it did from the same crew that had just done My Fair Lady, the show could not delay its New York opening long enough to fix all that needed fixing. They'd sold too many tickets for the Broadway run. Also, the show was so costly with its lush sets and costumes that it was difficult to rewrite and in many ways a prisoner of its technical needs. They actually wound up making some significant changes, including cutting two songs, several months after the show had begun playing in New York.
That almost never happens. If a show is changed after it opens on Broadway, it's usually only to scale back its budget, not to improve things. I don't think they've done either with Young Frankenstein. Maybe they could.
Today's Video Link
One of my favorite "kid's shows" (which is to say it was not just for kids) was Hot Dog, which ran on NBC Saturday morning back in 1970. That was the year that network yielded to rather feeble public pressures and tried to program their kidvid lineup with more "enlightening" shows. The entire schedule suffered a humiliating rejection in the ratings, partly (I thought) because kids wanted comedy and adventure, not school on Saturday mornings; partly because (I thought) most of the educational shows weren't very good.
An exception was Hot Dog, which was a show about how things were made. They'd show you how things were made but before and during the presentation, there'd be little spots with three "experts" — Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen and Joanne Worley — offering their insights on the topics for that week.
Here's four and half minutes of Hot Dog, tackling the burning question of how to make a baseball glove. Ms. Worley isn't in this one but Woody Allen discusses the subject at hand (all improvised on the spot) and Jonathan Winters does a brilliant bit of mime with vocal sound effects. The off-camera voice you'll hear asking questions — and I'll bet he's one of the people you'll hear laughing at Johnny Winters, too — is Frank Buxton, a friend and frequent contributor to this site. Actually, several people involved in the making of Hot Dog read this site but only one of them, and it isn't Frank, has the power to get Hot Dog released on DVD. I wish this person would get off his ass and arrange it.