I regret to report that, first of all, Angela Lansbury has died at the age of 96. Secondly, and of vastly less significance, I don't have a personal story about Ms. Lansbury. Never met her. Didn't even see her perform as often as I would have liked. She was always a class act and very, very good in whatever she did. And while it's sad to lose her…my God, what a life. What a career. And was there anyone anywhere who didn't adore her?
From Frank Balkin, I have this…
Hi, Mark — as always I've been enjoying newsfromme.com. I enjoyed your recent columns about onscreen credits — here's one that's always confused me, maybe you'll have some insight on. On the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil, there's an odd title that says "Guest-starring Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor." How do you have a guest star, or two, in a standalone film, not a series?
I would imagine the answer is the same answer Jonathan Harris gave when folks asked him — as everyone did — why on the Lost in Space TV show, he was billed every week as "Special Guest Star." He said, "My agent got it for me, probably in lieu of better money."
Someone else whose e-mail I can't find wrote to ask me why TV shows these days have so many producer credits, way more than they used to. There are two reasons, one being that if the program wins an Emmy for "Best Show" of its kind and you were important on it, you might not get a statuette unless you had the word "producer" in your credit. (I have a story to tell about this, one of these days.)
The other is simply money and the studio's desire to pay out as little of it as possible. The agent asks that his client be paid $25,000. The studio counters with "How about $17,500 and a special credit?" Special credits are easy to give as long as they (a) don't go counter to any rules in any union's contract and (b) don't inspire everyone else to demand one.
And they cost nothing. An agent and a guy in Business Affairs negotiate the wording of that credit, caring little about what it actually suggests. It's just a deal point to them. Agents love to go back to their clients and say, "Hey, I got you a credit that no one else is getting!" And the guy in Business Affairs loves to go back to his boss and say, "They were demanding $25,000 but I got them down to seventeen-point-five!"
I would guess that's what happened on Touch of Evil. In negotiations, either Marlene or Zsa Zsa got a credit ("in lieu of more money," as Jonathan Harris said) that sounded good to them…and the other one demanded the same special credit. If that isn't the answer then I can't imagine what it would be.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Ancient Internet Custom that only I follow: When the blogger is known to post every day or almost every day…and there comes a day when he or she is so busy that they may be posting little or nothing…the blogger posts a photo of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup? Why Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup? Because Bean with Bacon would be silly.
I have stuff due that needs to be written. I may pop back in with something but I may not. Life can be so uncertain at times.
We had a wonderful voice cast on The Garfield Show and one of our players was the great actor (and great guy) Jason Marsden. He, like the other performers, made my job easy and I miss those recording sessions.
Jason occasionally shot video while we were working and recently, he edited some of it into a little video. Here it is…
Around 8:55 this morning — and remember, today's Sunday — a lady came to my door to urge me to vote for Mark Meuser…and I actually had to ask her who Mark Meuser is. Turns out he's the Republican candidate for Senate in my state, California.
Before we get to the futility of her mission, let's discuss the bad judgement shown by ringing doorbells this early on Sunday morning. I was up but I'm often not up at 8:55 AM. I would think anyone who rings doorbells before 10 or so, no matter how worthy their cause, is going to piss off more people than they convince. In fact, I think that if I wanted to get Mark Meuser elected, I'd go door-to-door even earlier, waking folks up and telling them to vote for his opponent, Alex Padilla.
Now, to the futility: The reason I didn't know who Mark Meuser is is that even though I keep better informed than most voters, I haven't seen or read a word about this race. I get tons of mail that seeks to impress upon me the critical urgency to save mankind as we know it by voting for a certain candidate or a certain way on some proposition. But neither Meuser nor Padilla has sent me so much as a postcard.
There's probably a simple explanation for this. There isn't a lot of polling of a race like this but the ones that exist all have Padilla (D) beating Meuser (R) by around 65% to 35%. That's how California is these days. Even Trump didn't spend a nickel in the '20 election campaigning here. I'm not sure he even insisted he won the state and was cheated. Meuser has about the same chance of winning as I do and I'm not even on the ballot. For Congress, I have my choice of two candidates, both Democrats.
The lady on my front porch and I had a brief conversation that we both knew was not going to swing my vote to this guy I'd never heard of. Her outstanding issue — her sign of the pending apocalypse — is the price of gas, which she blames on Democrats, though she can't explain why. Me, I've decided to blame the price of gas on the people who set the price of oil and on every politician who won't vote to regulate those prices and/or tax windfall profits…which seems to be darn near all of them.
Then she left and I came upstairs here and marked my mail-in ballot for Alex Padilla, which I would have done anyway.
She reminded me of a lady — and I don't think it was the same lady — who came to my door during the 2008 election. I know flashbacks are a thing of the past but let's have one now. It's October 25, 2008…
Last evening, I was napping — or rather, trying to nap — when I heard someone pounding on my door. Turned out, it was a McCain volunteer working the neighborhood, trying to convince folks to save the world from the inexperienced commie-terrorist on the ballot.
We have a simple policy here at Casa Evanier: We don't buy anything from or give any money to anyone who comes to the door that way. Ever. If you were going door-to-door handing out free hundred dollar bills, we'd slam said door in your face. Especially unwelcome are those who think a brief porch visit will prompt me to change my religion…and the McCain worker was perilously close to that category.
Still, she seemed like a nice, sincere person…nice enough that instead of scolding her for waking me up or mocking her for thinking she could possibly make one bit of difference, I talked to her for a few minutes. She admitted that California was a lost cause and even told me that she'd been ringing doorbells all day and didn't think she'd flipped one voter from blue to red. The few positive notes had come from other McCain backers thanking her and encouraging her…but also, she told me, declining to donate cash to a lost cause. I did say to her, "John McCain has written off this state. Don't you think it's about time you did, too?" (For some reason, possibly because I was still half-asleep, I forgot to tell her that I'd already voted. As bad as the odds of her convincing me seemed at the moment, they were actually worse.)
One of two things she said that made an impression on me came when she admitted her efforts wouldn't change the outcome but explained, "I just couldn't sit and do nothing." In other words, she was standing on my welcome mat, not so much for the nation's benefit as her own…and y'know, I could almost respect that. She's not going to swing California's 55 electoral votes over to the McCain column but she might make herself feel a little better for having tried. In a like situation, I think I'd feel like I was compounding the loss, adding a colossal waste of time (mine and others') to all the other bad things I believed to be occurring. But obviously, she and I do not see the world in much the same way.
The other lingering impression was not something she said so much as the urgency in her voice. She's scared…scared Obama might be a secret Muslim and/or radical who'll destroy America with a socialist agenda. (I said, "Yeah, he might even start partially nationalizing banks," but she didn't hear me or didn't get it.) On the one hand, I think the current McCain-Palin crusade to make people feel as she does is great — great because it isn't working. Every day, their campaign demonizes Obama by another notch and every day, another state that formerly seemed bright red moves to pink or even light blue. On the other hand, it's a shame to scare people like that. They panic, they get ulcers, they divide our country and spread apocalyptic visions of the future…and worst of all, they knock on my door and wake me up when I'm trying to sleep. That kind of thing — the waking-me-up part — has got to stop.
So my feelings about people who ring your doorbell and try to sell you a candidate, a religion or gardening services haven't changed. I wonder if that woman's feelings about Barack Obama ever changed. She was worried Barack Obama might destroy America and he was in office eight years and I think the country is still here.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 11/24/1978 — David Letterman's first appearance…
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 3/2/1977 — Jay Leno's first appearance…
And you might want to listen to the David Spade/Dana Carvey audio podcast Fly on the Wall and their two part interview with Lorne Michaels. Here's a link to Part One and here's a link to Part Two.
The other day here, I wrote about William Conrad and his job as the narrator of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. A number of you wrote in and reminded me that in an article that I wrote and repurposed for this blog, I told a story that perhaps bears repeating. As noted, those cartoons had a cast of four…and only four. No guest stars…
Some of those Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons are loaded with one and two-line incidental parts, all well-juggled by the stock company. I tallied one in which June [Foray] played six roles, Bill [Scott] played seven and Paul [Frees] played nine.
Bill Conrad usually supplied only his one, marvelous voice. It occasionally frustrated him that Jay Ward, who directed the sessions, didn't think he was capable of contributing more. One day, he told Jay, "Hey, I can double."
Jay was skeptical but he decided to give it a try. He assigned Conrad a bit part in an episode set on a tropical island. The role was a native named Sam who had only one or two very short speeches. When the proper moment came, Conrad screwed up his mouth, pitched his chords high and spoke in a voice he was sure did not sound like the Narrator.
"Cut," Jay said. "Bill, that sounds too much like the Narrator."
So they did another take. Conrad strained, tightened his larynx and performed the brief dialogue in a voice he thought sounded nothing like the Narrator.
"Cut," Jay yelled. "Too much like the Narrator. Try it again."
So Conrad tried it again and again and again. Ordinarily, actors in Jay Ward cartoons got it on the first take or, at worst, the second. That day, William Conrad set the house record.
Just how many attempts it took, no one is certain. Bill Scott used to change the number every time he told the story. Sometimes, it was eight. Sometimes, ten. Whatever, by the time Jay Ward was satisfied, Bill Conrad was hoarse and drenched in perspiration.
Jay, however, felt the situation was too humorous not to make worse. He called his publicist — a fellow named Howard Brandy, who was properly in tune with the Ward sense o' humor. The next day, Variety and Hollywood Reporter announced that Jay Ward Studios would soon commence production on a new series, spun off from the Bullwinkle series. It was called Sam the Native and the press release proclaimed it would star William Conrad as the voice of the title character.
Conrad knew it was a joke but none of his friends did. For weeks, people stopped him and asked, "Hey, congrats on Sam the Native. What does his voice sound like?" The one time I met him, it was twenty years later and I immediately told him I was still looking forward to the Sam the Native show.
Mr. Conrad's reply cannot be repeated here, this paper having certain standards relating to profanity. I can tell you though that he sounded just like the Narrator.
And I guess I should have added that he laughed while saying it. And of course, he sounded just like the Narrator when he laughed.
Arkansas was the first state to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors. Jon Stewart recently interviewed the state's Attorney General, Leslie Rutledge, asking her to explain the logic behind this decision. You can watch the entire episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart for free at this link…but watch this excerpt first. That is the face of a woman who deeply regrets having agreed to sit for this interview. And it gets worse for her in the whole conversation…
My pal Douglass Abramson informs me that the new Broadway version of 1776 — the one where genders and races are scrambled — is playing Los Angeles next April 5-May 7 down at the Ahmanson. Here's a list of where it's roaming and when.
Doug reminded me that it was originally going to be at the Ahmanson before New York but that was before COVID. And I have a vague recollection that I bought tickets for it back then and will have to dig around and see if they got refunded or what.
Here are some silent video clips from the show…
Dave Sikula sent me this easy-to-answer question about Jack Kirby…
Your discussion of Jack's work at DC reminded me of The Losers. You mentioned that Kamandi was a book that a lot of people think was some of his best work, but I felt like "The Losers" was wildly underrated. For me, it seemed like an incredibly personal comic (far moreso than, say, Sgt. Fury) that he was really pouring his own wartime experiences into.
From your timeline, I'd guess you'd already stopped working for him by the time he was doing it, but I wonder if you have any impressions of how it lined up with anything he might have said about his service. (I acknowledge here that, like a lot of WWII vets (such as my parents — who met on the hospital ship they were serving on — and father-in-law), he may not have talked about it.
You obviously never met Jack Kirby. If you had, you would have known Jack talked an awful lot about his World War II experiences…to the point where Doug Wildey, if he walked into a room and Kirby was there, would shout, "No World War II stories!" Anyone who was around Jack for any length of time heard them…and though I can't draw a direct line between any I recall and any story Jack did for "The Losers," I'm confident there was at least some connection between every issue and something that Jack actually observed or lived through. He was constantly revisiting his wartime life in wake-up-at-5AM-type nightmares.
Jack did twelve issues of Our Fighting Forces featuring "The Losers" and, Fourth World books aside, they're my favorite work he did for DC during that period. And it was especially impressive because it was a very bad assignment for him. Steve Sherman theorized that the folks at DC sat down and thought, "What book can we assign Kirby to that he'll absolutely hate doing?" I do not concur with this theory but there might have been a little of that.
It was, first of all, a book created and written previously by someone else. Jack didn't like handling or altering someone else's characters. Secondly, the "someone else" in this case was Robert Kanigher, a DC writer who was not shy about dismissing comics by others — especially Marvel's and especially Kirby's — as shit. Thirdly, Jack thought "The Losers" was a horrible name for a comic about a bunch of World War II soldiers and, fourthly, that this was a messy assemblage of a bunch of leftover characters who'd flopped in their own comics, thrown together for no visible purpose.
But it was an assignment and it was about World War II. So Jack gave it his all and his all was pretty good, I thought. Sales took a notable hike, so much so that when DC received the first reports, they upped the book from bi-monthly to monthly. When Jack left it and Kanigher returned and put everything back the way he had it before, sales dropped.
What I wish DC had done was to dump "The Losers," give the book to Jack and let him do something more autobiographical, the way they had Sam Glanzman doing those "U.S.S. Stevens" stories based on his own experiences in the war. That would have been, I think, even more wonderful.
Every single time I saw Judy Tenuta perform, she made me laugh. Every. Single. Time. And it was always fresh and original and quite unlike any other comic I'd ever seen. If the goal of a performer is to connect with the audience and make them enjoy every moment they spent with that performer, she scored 100%. So sad to lose someone like that.
Readers of this site know that I'm a big fan of the 1969 musical 1776. I didn't see the original on Broadway but the movie, which employs most of the same cast, is said to be very close to that production and I think the movie's sensational. Also, the Roundabout Theater Company did a revival on Broadway in 1997. That, I did see — twice — and both times, it was one of the best evenings I spent in a theater in Manhattan.
So now we have a new revival from the Roundabout operation. This one is different in that it's cast with an entirely female, nonbinary, multi-racial cast. And to take that one step further, their Thomas Jefferson is visibly pregnant. It is not a whole bunch of older white guys like in past productions and, of course, the original troupe of Founding Fathers in the title year.
Is this a good idea? I dunno and I'm unlikely to find out for myself. It's a limited engagement — there through early January — and I'm unlikely to get back to N.Y.C. while it's being performed. I just read a mess of opening night reviews (they're indexed here) and they're decidedly mixed, not so much on the quality of the staging and the acting, which are mostly praised, but over the whole concept.
And the ones that think (a) they understand the statement being made via the casting and (b) that it's an effective statement mostly describe a pretty simple, obvious statement: That this country was founded by a buncha old white guys. I thought we all knew that and that the original production made that statement efficiently by casting a buncha old white guys.
I'm not going to say I don't get it because you have to see the show you're supposed to get before you do or don't get it. Ye Olde Internet is too full of people who feel qualified to review books they haven't read and movies they haven't seen…and even movies that haven't yet been made. I'm just sitting here wondering aloud if it's possible to take color-blind and gender-blind casting too far.
Elia Kazan used to say you cast actors for a quality. If you're casting The Odd Couple you look for a guy who's convincing as a slob and another guy who's convincing as a neat freak. I suppose you could make a statement by casting Tony Randall as the slob and Jack Klugman as the neat freak but I'm not sure what that statement would be.
But maybe if I get back to New York before this production closes, or if other such 1776s are mounted, I'll see one and understand.