Floyd Norman has some nice words (and photos) up about Ollie Johnston. For that matter, there are several short posts on Floyd's blog that are worth browsing. Go read 'em all.
Meanwhile, Cartoon Brew has thoughts about Ollie from Brad Bird and John Canemaker, as well as a good obit released by the Disney Studio.
Reading this news article, the following sentence kinda leaped off the screen at me…
While the pope and Bush differ on such major issues on the Iraq war, capital punishment and the U.S. embargo against Cuba, they do find common ground in opposing abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research.
"I haven't seen a word about Lydia on your site in days, Mark, and I'm worried. Please, please reassure me she is all right. I have come to care about that little cat in a way I do not care about some members of my own family." So writes Jennifer Wahl, whose e-mail was but one of many that's shown up in my e-mailbox the last day or so. Here, as they say, is the latest…
I just spoke to the vet's office and they say Lydia is resting comfortably after the surgery, which was performed last evening. She is already eating which, they say, is an excellent sign. She was pregnant. She is no longer pregnant, nor can she get that way again. She has had all her shots and is now in fine shape, but I'm going to board her there for another day of post-op, just in case, and also because I'm too busy to get out there and pick her up today. Tomorrow, I will bring her home and return her to a backyard which has not seemed the same without her. My house sitter will pay special attention to her while I'm away in the wilds of Manhattan.
And that, pretty much, is that. We can now turn our attention to getting certain members of Jennifer Wahl's family spayed so perhaps she can care a little about them.
Thanks again to all who have sent suggestions, encouragements and especially donations. I didn't start telling this story so you folks would pay the cost of fixing Lydia but that's how it turned out.
As I've mentioned here elsewhere, I used to like to go hang out on Stage 1 at NBC Burbank when a certain Mr. Carson was doing this thing he used to do called The Tonight Show. There was a little area of standing room right behind where Fred DeCordova and the other producers and staff members sat or congregated during the taping, about two yards from the edge of the guest couch. If you looked even vaguely like you belonged on the lot, and if Johnny hadn't had a bevy of recent death threats, you could loiter there during the taping and enjoy the proceedings. I probably watched all or part of a dozen Carson shows from there and there was a true feeling of magic in the room.
I was there when this clip was taped, and it's a shame the camera wasn't on Mr. Carson because I have never seen a human being laugh so hard in my life. Everyone was convulsed with laughter but Johnny looked like he was going to need paramedics to come in and give him oxygen.
The comedian is Charlie Callas, who I can't recall seeing on TV the last few years, not even on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, where he was once a regular. His website has not been updated in four or five years but his Internet Movie Database listing says he was in a Larry the Cable Guy special in '07 and that he's in a horror movie spoof currently in production.
Right after Callas did this bit on Johnny's show and they went to commercial, Carson told him how hilarious he thought it was. At that moment, Exec Producer Fred DeCordova hurried up to the desk and informed Johnny that NBC Standards and Practices was "concerned" about the routine and wanted to discuss perhaps editing the tape or doing an audience cutaway during parts of it. From where I stood, you could see steam emanating from Johnny's ears and he said, very firmly, that it was staying in and there would be no cutaways and that, by God, was that. End of discussion. DeCordova, fulfilling his role as Good Cop, returned to our area and told a worried-looking lady, "I tried." The Standards folks at NBC were occasionally able to overrule Johnny but I gather that this was one of many times they decided the battle wasn't worth the headache.
Here's one very funny minute of Charlie Callas…
If I understand the deal correctly, The New Yorker is inviting a different cartoonist to blog for a month at a time on the magazine's website. The current cartoonist is one of my favorites, Charlie Barsotti. When, oh when will someone put together a collection of a brilliant newspaper strip he did for around four years called Sally Bananas?
You know, I'm not sure if Barack Obama is looking better and better to me or if Hillary Clinton is just looking worse and worse. Feels like the latter.
Once upon a time, Mr. Disney nicknamed nine of his best animators "The Nine Old Men." They were kind of like the Yankees of great character animation but they were, alas, old. Their names were Les Clark, Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
Their animation will live forever but sadly, they couldn't. One day, there were only Eight Old Man. Then Seven. Then Six and so on. I was fortunate to meet the last three at a gathering in December of 2001. All of us present that night felt fortunate…and quite aware that these were men to be treasured and honored for as long as they could remain for us to treasure and honor.
Then there were two. Frank died in September of '04 and now Ollie's left us. We mourn not only his passing but the loss of that kind of wonderful, magical artist.
Jim Hill has a nice remembrance…the first of many I'm sure we'll see on the Internet in the coming days.
In 1959, the Kenner Toy Company of Cincinnati, Ohio introduced its Give-A-Show Projector. What this basically was was a flashlight that looked a little like a projector and which came with little six-frame filmstrips that told stories, mainly featuring licensed cartoon characters. More primitive, it couldn't have been…but in the pre-VCR days, it was kind of impressive. That is, if you were young enough. I probably got mine around '60 or '61. I would have wanted one anyway but the fact that some sets featured Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear was an added incentive.
Unfortunately, like a lot of toys with a great premise, the Give-A-Show Projector had limited fun. Each one came with around 32 of the flimsy little filmstrips and once you'd shown them all to your friends, that was it. They gave you some blank strips on which you could draw your own but that didn't work so well. Still, it was fun for a couple of days.
Looking back now, it looks so primitive…and actually it did, not long after I gave up on mine. I began collecting and running 8mm silent movies of Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, etc. Once I was into that, the Kenner Give-A-Show didn't seem so impressive. Now, it all seems positively prehistoric…and it makes you wonder what, a decade or two from now, will make our TiVos and LCD screens and Blu-ray players seem like one step above making hand shadows.
For more into on the Kenner Give-A-Show Projector, take a look at Jon's Random Acts of Geekery. I especially like the fact that over the years, the Kenner folks made the box look more modern and made the projector look a little more space-age…but the toy itself remained a technological no-brainer — a flashlight and some flimsy filmstrips.
Mel Blanc and Jack Benny guest with Johnny Carson. I think the date on this is January 23, 1974 and it was one of Benny's last TV appearances. He passed away the day after Christmas of that year.
The thing that's most interesting about this clip is what an enormous fan Mr. Benny was of Mr. Blanc. Benny was apparently that way with everyone — a wonderful audience and utterly unthreatened by someone else getting the laughs or the spotlight. That was one of the reasons his radio and TV programs worked as well as they did: He was willing to let Dennis Day get the laugh or to let Don Wilson get the laugh or to let Rochester get the laugh, etc. As long as somebody got a laugh, Benny was fine with it.
There have been a lot of great comedians who wouldn't do that because they thought — wrongly — that their career hinged on them being the funny one. And not even the example of Jack Benny would dissuade them from that belief. There have also been some comedians who for emotional reasons couldn't stand still while someone else was funny.
But Jack Benny could and did…and no one was more successful. Click and see.
The World's Foremost Authority, Professor Irwin Corey.
Today's episode of the comic strip Funky Winkerbean (you can view it here) featured a Superman-Supergirl spoof drawn by Jim Mooney, the man who drew Supergirl's strip in Action Comics from 1959 to 1968. Jim, as we noted here, passed away on March 30.
A few days ago, Tom Batiuk — the creator of Funky — issued the following statement…
I was saddened to hear about Jim Mooney's passing. About a year ago, Tony Isabella wrote a sweet little Funky Winkerbean Sunday featuring my characters as Superman and Supergirl. He suggested I contact Jim to actually draw the Superman characters. I did and found him to be one of the nicest and genuine individuals you'd want to encounter. He agreed to do the Sunday and did a wonderful job. The strip will run Sunday April 13th and quite possibly could be Jim's last published work. If so, I feel privileged to have been a small part of it.
It probably was his final work. Nice to note that it was seen by perhaps the largest readership Jim's work ever had, and that it reunited him (more or less) with one of his most famous characters.
Finally, a "top ten" list about something that's really and truly important…The Top Ten Underappreciated Cuts of Meat. Personally, if I were Ribeye, I'd demand a recount.
It's not as true as it used to be but when I broke into TV writing, comedy writers always came in pairs. If one aspiring comedy writer went to almost anyone for advice, he or she was told, "Find a partner." There were exceptions but not many and I was not among them. My co-conspirator for a couple of years was a clever gent from Pittsburgh named Dennis Palumbo. We worked well together for a while, then we decided to see if we could work well in separate directions…and I'm happy to say we've remained friends.
On his own, Dennis went off and wrote other shows and novels and movies. My Favorite Year is probably his best-known work in those categories but a lot of folks also know him from another career he embarked on after we parted ways. Dennis is an oft-quoted psychotherapist who specializes in show business folks and in the special problems of writers. He has written books and articles on those subjects, and he often lectures…plus, of course, he spends all day at his office in the valley, offering advice and aid to people in need of advice and aid. From what I can tell from afar, he has a pretty good success record in that field, as well.
He has so many patients that we've spent the last few years trying to find a free lunch hour on his schedule so we could see each other again. Recently, someone cancelled and we were able to get together…and at that meal, he presented me with an advance copy of his new book, From Crime to Crime. It's a collection of short, brain-stretching mystery stories that manage to echo the classic traditions of that genre while still being fresh, modern and witty. I have been known to finish a whodunnit by flinging it across the room if the author has cheated or otherwise led us, the readers, down a primrose path. Having finished Dennis's book, I'm delighted to report that it was totally unflung. In fact, it's a nice demonstration of how this kinda thing oughta be written.
You can pre-order a copy of it here. You can also read Dennis's new weblog over here. I suggest you do both. He's a good storyteller and unlike some, he really understands what it means to be a professional writer.
Hey, let's see what's up with the senatorial campaign of Al Franken.
I want to thank the 200+ of you who sent in suggestions about how to trap The Kitten and/or messages of interest and concern. At one point when it was looking hopeless and I momentarily thought of giving up, I was emboldened by the thought, "No, no…I have a story going on the weblog. It needs a better ending than me throwing in the towel."
I would also like to thank several of you who surprised me with donations to help pay for The Kitten's spaying and the cost of the trap and such. If anyone else would like to surprise me, here's the donation link. I thank you and Lydia thanks you.
Actually, Lydia can't thank you in person because she's still sitting in a cage out at the vet's office awaiting surgery. As we all know, there is a health care crisis in this country and it apparently extends to the neutering of feral cats. The vet had an emergency yesterday and couldn't get around to her then. I'm assured she'll be going under the knife later today and that I'll probably be bringing her home tomorrow. Also, she can't thank you because she's a cat and she doesn't have Internet access.