As you've no doubt heard, Kevin Conroy — best known as the voice of the animated Batman — passed away recently at the age of 66. I did not know the man. Met him once. I was with Paul Dini, who worked extensively on the Batman cartoons, and we ran into him in a restaurant. Paul introduced us and the encounter was so brief that I didn't have time to tell Kevin that I admired the courage he'd shown in his writings and candid comments about being gay and struggling with all that could mean, mostly due to the cluelessness and insensitivity of others.
It is rare but not wholly unprecedented to see genuine courage displayed by an actor who gets paid for pretending to be courageous as someone else. One of many admirable things Kevin Conroy did was to author an autobiographical comic book story which I'm sure made many people more aware of what some people face to just be considered worthy of basic human respect by some. DC Comics has put that story online for free reading. It's a little tricky to navigate your way to it but if you haven't read this story, it's well worth the effort. And you probably know someone who should read it.
Obituaries are up for "the watermelon-smashing comedian Gallagher," who died today at the age of 76…and oh, how he would hate being referred to mainly for that one bit. He would have been much happier with this paragraph in the NBC obit…
Gallagher was the number one comedian in America for 15 years, with comedy specials airing on Showtime and MTV. In his career spanning decades, Gallagher hosted 14 Showtime specials and around 3,500 live comedy shows.
That's basically true, though he might have argued it was more than 15 years. He more or less did pioneer the concept of a stand-up comedian doing a special for cable television and his were remarkably successful. He also more or less pioneered — or maybe I should say "popularized" — the business model of the comedian touring and "four-walling" the venues in which he played, renting out the hall instead of being hired to perform in it. He packed arenas and auditoriums and made an awful lot of money that way.
Some pieces you may read will also suggest that he was not well-liked by other comedians…which is also true. It may have had a lot to do with the fact that he was not quiet in his contempt for most of them and that may have had a lot to do with his undisguised anger that he was not getting what he thought was his proper respect from them. But because of one performance one evening, I have a higher opinion of Gallagher as a comic — …or at least of him when he was new on the scene…
It was late 1979 or early 1980. The great voice actor Frank Welker was still doing his stand-up act here and there, and he invited me to see him perform at the Ice House, a comedy club out in Pasadena. It's still there, though I believe it closed for COVID and has yet to reopen…but it was a great place to see a show back then and Frank got us comps and front row seats for one evening he was there.
I took a young lady named Jody who also knew Frank. She worked at the Ruby-Spears cartoon studio (I was a writer for them) and she was about 4'11". Since I'm 6'3"…well, she looked like I should be buying her a balloon instead of taking her on a date. She also had a very strange, goofy laugh. She was sweet and lovely but she laughed like a mule.
When we got to the Ice House, we discovered that Frank was not going on at the announced time. His set would be delayed for perhaps an hour so that an opening act could perform…and the opening act was Gallagher, who at the time was pretty hot in the business and, you'd assume, way too big to be someone's opening act. (A year or two earlier, I'd been to the Ice House to see Frank and his opening act that time was a beginning comic I knew as a TV writer. His name was Garry Shandling.)
You might also assume that front row seats to a Gallagher performance would cause you to leave the club looking like the big loser in a food fight. In actuality, he actually smashed no watermelons that evening. He used no food or props at all. That was because he was there to record a record album.
Without any visual humor at all, just standing at a microphone and talking, Gallagher was surprisingly funny. Everyone had a pretty good time and Jody's distinctive laugh was heard often. Occasionally, she'd still be laughing after everyone else had stopped and that hee-haw sound she made filled the room. Since Gallagher on stage was well-lit and we were three feet from him, we were well-lit and everyone was conscious of the tiny lady who laughed like a burro. At times, they were laughing as much at the sound coming out of her as they were at the guy onstage with the microphone.
And of course, that guy started making comments about it and asking her (and me) questions. I have seen comedians, including some good ones, come up empty in a situation like this. Not Gallagher. He was fast on his feet and he was funny.
There was an intermission after Gallagher's set and before Frank's. Coming out of the men's room, I ran into Frank and he introduced me to Gallagher. I said, "I brought the lady who laughs like a hyena. I hope we didn't ruin your album." He said, "Ruin it? I pray for people like her in the audience. I almost want to hire her to go on tour with me and sit in the third row."
I don't think this record was ever released on CD but it's on Spotify at this link. I tried and failed to figure out how to embed the clip on this site so if you're a Spotify subscriber, you might want to take a listen. Jody can be heard laughing off-and-on during the first half-dozen cuts but especially in the beginning of the one called "Hair."
Below is a video of Gallagher from about that time. It's from the May 9, 1979 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on it, Mr. G did the kind of spot that caused other comedians to say things about him like, "He's just a prop comic…funny props, not a funny guy," Whenever I heard that kind of talk, I disagreed with them. At the Ice House that evening, I saw an hour of him without props and a lot of it — not just the parts with us — consisted of "crowd work," chatting with the audience and ad-libbing. I dunno how he was later in his career but that night in 1980, he was pretty sharp…and there wasn't a watermelon in sight.
Republicans seem to be thinking, "Maybe we oughta pick candidates who can win an election and also fulfill the duties of the position well instead of just nominating whoever kisses Donald Trump's ass the most."
If you missed out on the badge sale last week for Comic-Con 2023 — or even if you didn't — you might want to get ready to grab up tickets for WonderCon, which takes place March 24-26 at the Anaheim Convention Center, very close to that Disneyland place. Tickets go on sale next week and there's some sort of discount deal if you buy a 3-day badge early. Keep your eye on the website.
WonderCon is run by the same folks who run Comic-Con and though it's smaller, there's more than enough to see and do there for three days. I know some folks who attend both but prefer WonderCon because it's a little less tiring, a little less overwhelming, a little less elbow-to-elbow and a lot easier to get into. I also know WonderCon attendees who book a few extra days at whatever hotel they're staying at for WonderCon and spend that time at Disneyland and/or Disneyland California Adventure.
Tickets for WonderCon will probably not sell out as rapidly as they do for Comic-Con but if you wanna go, I wouldn't wait to make my purchase. I expect to be there hosting the usual panels and such…and having a very good time.
You've probably already heard about this. I have an interesting story to tell about him but I also have a phone that's constantly ringing and a whole buncha things I gotta deal with. I shall write about this man later today or tomorrow or whenever.
We were talking here about my favorite TV detective series, Harry O, and about its similarity to the longer-running series, The Rockford Files, which I liked but not as much. The two shows both started veteran TV actors — David Janssen was Harry Orwell and Jim Garner was Jim Rockford — and they both played private eyes who lived on the beach, had good senses of humor and rarely got involved in fights or shootings.
Harry O debuted on ABC on September 12, 1974 and Rockford Files debuted on NBC on September 13, 1974. And recently, my friend Scott Shaw! reminded me that they both were adapted into Gold Key comics that came out the same month and — this is the amazing part — their first issues had the same plot and the same teaser line on their covers!
You'd suspect collusion or that it was a deliberate plan of some sort but no. The first issue of Harry O was produced out of the Los Angeles office of Western Publishing. It was written by Don R. Christensen and drawn by Dan Spiegle. The first issue of Rockford Files was produced out of the company's New York office and it was written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by Jack Sparling…and yes, I was pretty upset that the editor I worked for in the L.A. office didn't give the Harry O assignment to me and —
— I'm sorry. I can't go through with this. As with certain earlier Gold Key Comics I've written about on this site — like here and here and here and here and here and here — all of this is fake. Western/Gold Key never put out a Harry O comic book or a Rockford Files comic book or any of the others.
I made up those covers in Photoshop…in this latest instance because Scott asked me to. It was all his fault. He lured me back into a life of crime. It won't happen again. I hope.
"Legal Eagle" Devin Stone has a new video up comparing 'n' contrasting the scandal about Hillary Clinton's e-mails with the scandal about Donald Trump's classified documents. If you don't have the time or interest to watch the whole thing, I'll summarize for you: Whatever Hillary did, she did a lot less of it and she fully cooperated with the investigations and none of the investigators found grounds to charge her.
There. I just saved you a half hour if you don't want to watch. I actually found it worth the half hour but, as any browser of this blog is well aware, odd things interest me.
I like the way this man explains things. At the end of this video, he makes a sales pitch for Nebula, a subscription channel via which you can get his videos earlier (well, by a few hours) and get access to quite a few that I can't post here because he doesn't post them to YouTube. I went ahead and subscribed, partly to get the exclusive videos and partly to support his efforts like this…
This is my first mention of Donald Trump on this blog in over a month and it isn't about the election yesterday. It's about one of his eighty zillion feuds, more specifically with late night TV hosts, most specifically Jimmy Kimmel. Recently, Kimmel said that his relentless Trump insults had cost him a lot of viewers and that he threatened to quit when ABC urged him to tone it down.
Trump seized upon that and told his supporters that Kimmel's program is "practically dead" because Trump supporters don't watch. He said, "The show is dead and so are the other ones." I've always found it interesting that to Trump, one of the worst things you can say about someone is that their business is failing. You'd think the guy who championed Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump University, Trump Mortgage, Trump Taj Mahal and a whole bunch of casinos (etc.) wouldn't dance so eagerly on the graves of others' defunct business ventures.
As it happens, Kimmel's program is very much alive. ABC just extended his contract for three more years and they still consider him a valuable network asset. He's going to host the Oscars again next year, for example. So Trump is just plain wrong there, what a surprise.
Also, if the premise is that making fun of Donald Trump costs a show viewers…well, I'm sure it costs them some. But that probably-unmeasurable loss of viewers has to be weighed against the probably-unmeasurable extent to which others watch a show because it does make fun of Trump. Kimmel, Colbert, Meyers and the others would likely all tell you that they think that's a great trade-off…and in a way, I think that might please Trump just as much. Because he'd see it as an indicator of his importance.
But as is often the case with Trump, there is a smidgen of truth within the greater lie. The late night shows are in decline — all of them — but it has nothing to do with him. Network shares are simply continuing to decline, as they have for quite a while now. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno drew an average of 5.8 million viewers in 1995. The top late night shows today average way less than half that number — a decline one also finds on network shows that never take any political shots, left or right. People just have too many more attractive alternatives these days.
And one should also note that the ratings on broadcast television don't tell the entire story. A lot of it is on YouTube and other online access points. A friend of mine who follows the numbers closer than I do thinks that the late night shows on networks may have the least to worry about because they're so cheap to produce…and they do have all that online tune-in.
Kimmel's three-year extension may be his last as he reportedly has said he has other things he wants to do…and heck, the guy's been on close to twenty years now. When it ends, it'll be because he chooses to end it. Unlike Trump, he won't get voted out of office.
In 2006, Martin Short appeared in a show that toured major cities and had a six-month run on Broadway. It was called Fame Becomes Me and it showcased several of his characters as it told a completely spurious story about his life. I never got to see it but the reviews were pretty good, especially when Mr. Short, who apparently had a healthy-enough ego to permit it, gave the spotlight over to a great singer named Capathia Jenkins for this one number.
The song was written by Marc Shaiman who can be seen playing the piano in this clip from a performance on The View. This version, by the way, was shortened a bit for television and some lyrics were revised to take out naughty words. I recommend you watch the video below and then click here to listen to the whole number…
For those of you who have written in concern: Yes, I have electricity. It went off in this neighborhood at 2:08 PM and was restored at 5:29 — not a bad response time given that it's rainy and windy in Los Angeles today.
It came back on just as, after a ten minute search of my home for matches, I found some, lit a burner on my gas stove and began cooking a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs. I had better things to eat in my refrigerator but I didn't want to open it during a power outage.
Anyway, thanks to all who were worried that I was still sitting here without power. And please don't write and tell me you're worried that I'm eating Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs. No, it's not great stuff but few other food items do as fine a job as it does of making me feel eleven years old again.
I'm writing this on my iPad because the electricity is out in my area. I'm pleased to say that I shall miss no deadlines because of this. (See recent post about the writer who always had a good excuse for his work being late.) I have enough flashlights and phone chargers to get through this. I even recently installed a battery back-up on the CPAP unit with which I sleep so I could go nap through this power outage…and I might.
A Tweet an hour ago told me the Department of Water and Power is aware that my neighborhood is sans power; not that they're working on the problem and certainly not any estimate as to when service might be restored. Just that they're aware of the problem. That leads me to suspect it'll be quite a while…but the truth is that I have no friggin' clue.
It's frustrating. But then again, this might be a great evening to not be able to watch the news.
Carl Cafarelli, who knows a lot more about popular music than I do, sent this message after he read this post…
Mark: regarding whatever scandalous notion your school administrator found in the innocuous lyrics of the Association's "Never My Love," I have the same conclusion I bet you have: he was hearing what he wanted to hear, not what they were actually singing.
But let's play devil's advocate. It's a stretch, but if we wanted to object to the song on moral grounds, I guess we could say it's a song of seduction rather than love, something seedier than the vow of potential wedded bliss you and I hear. If we position it as a belated answer song to, say, the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" from 1960, then we can interpret it as a guy who's just saying anything that he think will help him get laid. "Will I love you tomorrow? Of course, I will, baby! How can you think love will end when I've asked you to spend your whole life with me? Say, isn't getting hot in here? Maybe we should get a little bit more comfortable….:
I do not for a second believe this was the song's intent. But maybe your faculty advisor did.
Or maybe — and I should have raised this as a possibility in my post — our faculty advisor was one of those "I'm in charge so I have to make someone change something" persons. You meet them in the entertainment industry…or at least, I have. They think that since they're kind of the boss, they have to boss someone around. Working on network TV shows, I always encountered at least one. Often they were called network liaisons and they felt a need to prove they were contributing something…whether they had a valid suggestion or not.
I had a couple of teachers in school whose definition of teaching seemed to flow from the premise that they, being teachers, knew everything and we, being students, knew nothing. Obviously, neither was true but when some student corrected them, no matter how politely, they got enormously huffy about it. I've worked for a couple of editors and a couple of producers in my day who felt threatened by a situation where there was nothing for them to correct or overrule.
And sometimes, they're just plain afraid of being accused of not doing the job they're being paid to do.
Taking the side of the faculty advisor for a moment, he might have been right in some sense about the lyrics to the other two songs to which he objected — "Young Girl" and "Light My Fire." Those titles I just typed link to the lyrics and if you read them, remember that we're talking about underage kids on stage…and the F.A. didn't object to them until he saw a rehearsal of how those kids were going to perform them for an audience that included parents. The actual live performance could have been — and indeed was — a little steamier.
I do not recall hearing of any objections following the show. Maybe there were some, maybe not. But I'm not sure in his position, I wouldn't have been worried. One thing I had to keep in mind when I argued with network censors on shows that I worked on was that their job was not to weed out what was offensive. Their job was to weed out what the kind of viewers who live to be outraged could get outraged about. There was one lady at ABC who saw her mission as protecting America but most of them understood their job was to protect the network.
They were almost always wrong about what those who live to be outraged would actually get outraged about…but that's another matter.
That Faculty Advisor's assignment was to not let the students do something on stage that would lead to angry phone calls from furious parents. If you view that as his only concern then I think I understand it somewhat. If someone had objected to the songs — which in 1968 seemed possible — he wanted to be able to say, "You should have heard what they wanted to do before I stopped them." Or he could have said, after they performed the lyrics unchanged, "Don't blame me. I ordered them to change those lyrics!"
I'm not defending what he did more than fifty-some-odd years ago. I just think I understand it a little better now.
Not to dwell on this too long — which of course, I've already done — here's a little thought experiment. Let's say you're the faculty advisor to a show like this…today. In 2022. Let's say a 16-year-old boy wants to get up on stage and sing, with great emotion and emphasis, "Young Girl." Read the lyrics if you didn't read them earlier. Would you not think allowing this could cause you some trouble?
You can be very strongly against censorship (which I like to think I am) but still say, "This could lead to a fight that's not worth fighting for." When Saturday Night Live started, Lorne Michaels reportedly told the writing staff something like, "If we're going to have trouble with the censors — and at some point, we will — make sure it's about something of substance, not just sneaking in the 'F word.'"
I think in this situation, I would ask that 16-year-old boy if he had any other songs he wanted to sing in the show. But I would have left "Never My Love" alone.
At 2:16 this afternoon, I posted the following line here: "I have a 2:30 PM Zoom conference today and that's about as far ahead as I feel plans can be firm in the world in which I live."
Four minutes after I posted that, the conference was postponed. Apparently, 14 minutes is too far ahead to plan in the world today.
