Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 10:53 AM
It's hard today to think about much beyond those poor folks in Florida, which is being battered and/or submerged by Hurricane Ian. It's going to be sunny and 90° in Southern California today and I really hope I don't hear anyone complaining about the weather. Since this blog can do nothing to help Tampa and the surrounding communities — except suggest donations to Operation USA — we shall try to be a place to get your mind off that. But don't pretend it isn't happening.
If you're interested in attending Comic-Con International in San Diego next July (the 20th through the 23rd to be exact), keep an eye on their website and pages like this one. They're making some changes in the procedure via which folks can obtain badges and it certainly won't hurt for you to understand the process and to keep aware of key dates.
Because I get this question a few times a week in e-mail: I have absolutely no plans to attend any conventions anywhere the rest of this year, nor does my partner Sergio Aragonés. The Pandemic has instilled in me a great love of not being far away from home for very long. I expect that attitude to fade but it'll take time. Also, the invites I've received lately from conventions all expect me to go to a lot of trouble and expense to get there…and then they'll give me a table where I'll sell so much merchandise and so many autographs that it'll be well worth my investment. Trouble is: I don't sell merchandise or charge for autographs and the current business model for convention appearances presumes I do. Which is fine, especially when I don't want to travel. The next con at which Sergio and/or I may appear might be WonderCon Anaheim, next March 24-26.
The next part of the Blackhawk and me series — probably the next-to-last installment in that series — will be posted here later today. Hope you like it. I honestly didn't expect it to run half this long.
In 1965, the Quaker Oats Company introduced two sugary cereals — Quisp and Quake — with a series of animated commercials produced by Jay Ward's studio. Bill Scott. who was more or less the creative head of the operation, wrote, produced and did voices in most of them. I do not recall tasting either product but I sure liked the commercials, which were produced with the same comic sensibilities that Ward's crew had brought to Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle and not nearly enough others.
The commercials also employed the main stock company voice actors from the Ward cartoons. Paul Frees was the announcer. William Conrad, who usually was the announcer, was the voice of Quake. Daws Butler was the voice of Quisp. Scott did many voices and if there was a female in the commercial, it was June Foray. Even back then, I was impressed that they spent the money to have five actors in a one-minute cartoon. Frees, Butler and Scott could each easily have done all the male roles by themselves.
Neither cereal was that huge a success. In 1969, the Quake character was redesigned, slimmed-down and given an Australian accent. Three years later, the commercials asked kids to vote which one they liked better and Quisp trounced Quake. Quake cereal was discontinued…or rather, replaced by Quake's Orange Quangaroos which featured a kangaroo character on its boxes. It barely lasted four years before disappearing from shelves.
Quisp was on most shelves until 1979 or thereabouts. Since then, Quaker brings it back every now and then for a while and it's available online from the factory. If you're dying for a box, you can order it here.
There's plenty of disturbing news around, much of it weather-related…so I get angrier than I might otherwise at the pain that's man-made, like Ron DeSantis's stunt shipping immigrants to Martha's Vineyard. It was born of the same infuriating mindset one sees in some of the comment threads on news stories about how those people were treated. DeSantis and those commentators don't seem to think those people were people, just props.
Here's an account that purports to be from one of those who were tricked into going to Massachusetts with the expectation of jobs, salaries and a place to stay. It's ugly to think that the stunt DeSantis masterminded (or at least endorsed) would get someone votes in today's America. I'd like to think this is still the country that embraces what The Statue of Liberty stands for.
And it's also turning into a very good week to not be Roger Stone…proving that you should never trust a guy who has Richard Nixon's face tattooed on his back.
Everyone seems to have something to say about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his "stunt" (that's what it was) of moving Texas immigrants to Massachusetts. The wisest thing I've heard was said by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg…
I usually agree with everything my pal Paul Harris writes but I'm not sure if I agree or not with this article of his. It's about how Apple has a not-yet-released movie starring Will Smith and if and when (it's probably a when) they're going to release it. I don't think it's a question of how long Smith should be "canceled" because of that Oscar slap. It might be a question — which no one can answer for sure until they do release it — of how much Smith has lowered himself in some eyes and how much his box office power has been diminished.
We have no proof that it's been diminished at all. And if/when it is released, its box office returns may not be an indicator of that.
Maybe I'm atypical of moviegoers — I know I don't see as many as some people — but I never had the slightest desire to see a Will Smith movie. I think he's a terrific actor and I thought King Richard was a great movie and he was great in it. But I wanted to see the movie, not Will Smith. There are certain movie stars who define the kind of movie they're usually in. That happens less and less these days. It's been a long time since Clint Eastwood made the kind of movies that caused people to say "Let's go see the new Clint Eastwood movie" because his name meant an action film with lots of shooting and brutality. "Let's go see the new Steve Martin film" once denoted a certain kind of comedy.
Whether people will go to see the next Will Smith movie will depend on a couple of things but a big one is whether it's any good. Every big star makes some that don't attract an audience and if Emancipation (about which I have heard almost nothing except that Apple's afraid to release it) comes out and its box office disappoints, that might be because audiences are shunning the slapper…or it might for the same reason that no one went to see Moonfall. It wasn't because Halle Berry had slapped someone at the Oscars. It was because no one wanted to see that movie.
But it might just be because some people just have a more negative view of Mr. Smith than they used to. If Bill Cosby were to do a new tour with his comedy act, a lot of people might boycott him on principle but a lot might just say, "I don't think I can laugh at that man anymore." Which is everyone's right. I think less of Will Smith as a human being because of his actions but I'm not sure that would stop me from seeing a movie he was in which I heard was real good. I wouldn't go to see it because he was in it and I wouldn't not go to see it because he was in it. I'm sure I've enjoyed a lot of movies whose casts included people who'd done things I thought were awful. I even liked the Naked Gun movies O.J. was in.
I guess I agree with Paul because I think Apple should just release the film and be done with it. I just don't think, not that Paul seems to, that its ticket sales will be any kind of referendum on how America feels about an actor slapping another human being. Maybe it'll stand or fall on its own merits as a film.
I don't know who made this or who's in it. I only know this is the right time for it. "Shanan Tovah U'Metukah" means "Happy New Year!" (Thank you, Shelly Goldstein!)
Over two dozen readers of this site have sent me some version of this photo of a piece of candy corn (my least favorite thing to eat) decorated to resemble my least favorite former president. I am posting this here in the hope that doing so will stop people from sending this image to me.
Alex Toth was one of the ten-or-so best artists ever in comics. He may even have been in the Top Five. But he was a difficult man to work with, which is why he never worked for one editor or one employer for very long. It was that way with his career in comic books and also in his more-lucrative career in TV animation. Three times during my own, briefer period of working for Hanna-Barbera, I walked down to Alex's office to see if he wanted to go to lunch and I found out he'd quit.
When he was at his best, no one was better…and even at his worst, he was better than a lot of folks at their best. But, well…
As I mentioned eight hundred chapters ago here, Alex was in genuine awe of the work Dan Spiegle was doing on Blackhawk. Alex did not like most of what was then being done in American comic books and would go on long tirades about terrible artwork he saw on certain books, some of which looked jes' fine to me. But he sure liked Spiegle, a contemporary of his who worked in some of the same traditions. There was a period when both men were working on similar material for Dell Comics. Until experts straightened it out, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide identified a number of Dell books drawn by Dan as by Alex and vice-versa.
Alex Toth by Alex Toth
After Wildey and Sekowsky began working on Detached Service Diary stories for Blackhawk, Alex told me he wanted to do one…but he had conditions. He wanted to pencil-only, which was okay, even though there was a good chance he'd hate whatever the inker did. I asked him to give me the names of a few inkers he liked and I'd try to get one of them but he said, "No, I want to see what someone new will do with my pencils. DC always gives my work to Frank Giacoia and I love Frank but I'm tired of him. You pick someone new you think will do a good job." He also wanted to do the story "Marvel Method."
Others will tell you there are two ways of writing a comic book. There are actually quite a few but some people in the field only know of "The Full Script Method" and "The Marvel Method." In "The Full Script Method," the writer composes a script that specifies the number of panels on each page, and what the artist is to draw in each of those panels. Then the writer also writes out the captions, word balloons and sound effects. The artist then follows those instructions…not that he or she can't occasionally fiddle with this or that to make it better.
"The Marvel Method" is called "The Marvel Method" because, though it was employed here and there earlier, it was popularized when Stan Lee worked with guys like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in the early sixties. It's usually described roughly as follows: "The writer writes out a plot outline and then the artist decides how to tell that story in panels, draws it out that way and then the writer composes the dialogue to fit the pictures." That's how a lot of writers who were not Stan Lee have since done it, and sometimes their written outlines are very detailed.
Stan's weren't, especially when working with Kirby or Ditko or any artist he thought was really good at plotting out a story. Often, he'd let them devise the entire plot and then, verbally or with notes, they'd explain the story to him and he'd write the copy. And when he did have input before drawing commenced, it would usually be in a story conference with the artist, the two of them exchanging ideas, and then the "outline" would often be verbal, not written.
There are pros and cons of both methods and of the others. I am of the opinion that the effectiveness of each has everything to do with the particular strengths of the writer and artist involved…and often with the nature of their relationship. I think a lot of poor stories have resulted from a tag-team employing the wrong method.
There are artists who do not do well working "Marvel Method" and any writer who's worked a lot that way can tell you painful tales of trying to dialogue pictures that simply weren't telling the story he or she wanted to tell. I have occasionally been placed in the position of having to write dialogue on pages that did not display any story I could fully comprehend but I didn't have the time and/or the power to have the pages redrawn. I was not Stan Lee, the editor-in-chief of the company, and not every penciler is Jack Kirby.
Actually, no one is Jack Kirby these days and some people who can draw very nice pictures don't have a great sense of plot or storytelling. And every so often, you encounter one who doesn't care. I once had to write the copy on pages drawn by an artist who admitted to me that all he cared about was the art looking cool so he could sell the original art for more money. If the story didn't make a lick of sense, readers would blame the credited writer, not him. (Don't try to figure out which story it was. I was happily not the credited writer on it. I was ghosting for a friend who couldn't figure any coherent narrative either but didn't have the power or time to demand redrawing.)
In these articles, you have seen me rave about the skills of the main Blackhawk artist, Dan Spiegle. He was amazing. But he did not do well working, as some writers and editors tried to force him into, "Marvel Method." Some of the best artists in comics were roughly analogous to Laurence Olivier. Lord Olivier was hailed as one of the greatest actors of his century but he had no gift for improvisation. He could brilliantly interpret any script he was given but he had to have it all written down for him.
I got the best out of Dan by giving him a complete, full, everything-spelled-out script with occasional rough sketches. I did not specify camera angles very much because he was better than me or anyone in his selection of them. But it was like they tell young film directors: There's such a thing as giving your actors too much direction and such a thing as giving them too little. A good director knows how much to give and it may not be the same amount with every actor.
Toth was on a kick to work "Marvel Method." A few years earlier, we'd done one successful (I thought) collaboration with him working off my full script. This time at his insistence, I gave him an outline and then I discussed the story with him. He assured me he liked the plot and then went off to draw it all out in pencil. Soon after, he turned it in to me, saying he had a great time and was eager to do another.
Here's where it all went off the rails. When I sat down to go over it…well, it was the story I'd outlined and it was the story we'd discussed…but only sort of. There was, of course, nothing wrong with the drawing. Alex Toth simply did not do poor drawings. But it was what he'd drawn that gave me a problem. To tell a certain story, you need to convey certain information and he had just not conveyed certain story points in his staging, nor had he left me opportunities to insert them into the dialogue. To make what I hope will be my last movie analogy here, it was like he'd filmed my screenplay but he'd replaced certain key scenes with improvisations of his own.
I went painstakingly over the pages and made notes of panels I felt I needed Alex to revise. It wasn't much — way less than a half-hour of work for a guy as fast as he was — but I was somewhat scared to ask him. I'd heard him carry on about idiot editors and stupid producers who demanded what he thought were inane changes. But what had to be done had to be done. I drove to Hanna-Barbera, all the time mentally rehearsing the calm, respectful way I could explain to Alex why he had to redraw what I needed him to redraw.
When I got there, his office was empty and someone told me he'd just quit again. I'd missed it by minutes.
I decided that on my way home from H-B, I'd stop at Alex's house and make my little speech. But before I left to do that, Don Jurwich came into my office. Don was the current producer of Super-Friends, a series Alex had largely designed and for which he still did a fair amount of artwork — model sheets and storyboards. He asked if I was available to write an episode of the show and before I could even answer, he told me what had happened with Alex.
Alex had been drawing storyboards for the series. Storyboards, in case you've never seen them, are like comic books with the dialogue under the panel instead of in word balloons. They're a visualization of the material and every artist who thereafter works on that episode is following the staging and camera angles indicated by the storyboard artist. Alex was a very, very good storyboard artist.
But in this case, he'd also taken it upon himself to play story editor. He found major faults with the script and in boarding it, he'd rewritten a few large chunks of the story including the dialogue that went with those chunks. Let us call that "Script A." He handed in that storyboard for Script A and before he went over the board, Don gave Alex the next episode, which we shall call "Script B."
Alex read it over, thought B was worse than A, and sent it back to Don with the following note…
In the meantime, Don had examined the board for Script A. Thirty minutes or so before I found Alex's office empty, Don was in it telling Alex that he'd have to redo most of the storyboard for Script A. The network had approved it as written and much Hanna-Barbera money had been spent to have the show's large voice cast come in and record all the lines, including the ones Alex had then changed. Everything had to be put back the way it was…
…and it was, though not by Alex. He'd started yelling at Don and Don had started yelling back…and I later heard the story from Alex and his account matched exactly, differing only in recollections of which of the two men had hurled which profanities and threats of physical violence at each other.
As Don told me his version, I suddenly decided this might not be a great day to go to Alex's home and ask him to redraw pages on that Blackhawk story.
If I'd had a week or two to let him cool down, I might have but I didn't. I had an inker waiting and before it went to him, I had to get it lettered. I'd promised Alex someone who wasn't Frank Giacoia and hadn't inked his work before. There were plenty of good people in that category and one of them was Steve Leialoha. Steve was (and remains) a superb artist and as such is always in-demand. But when I called him in San Francisco and offered him the chance to work with Alex Toth, he couldn't say no. He told me, "I have a little window of opportunity open." If I could get him the pages by a certain date, he would be thrilled to ink them.
So I went home and did the best job I could at writing captions and balloons that would make the story make sense. I just read it again for the first time in many years and I did a worse job than I remembered…and I remembered doing a pretty poor job. I also — with a chutzpah I couldn't summon up today if my life depended on it — did a little repenciling of a few things. No one has ever noticed but I, an artist about a thousandth as skilled as Alex Toth, changed a few things Alex drew.
I would not do that today. I did a lot of things back then I would not do today, along with some I couldn't do if I wanted to.
I sent the pages and my script off to DC Comics in New York with a note to have them lettered and sent to Steve Leialoha and I gave them his address. An assistant back there had them lettered and then gave them to Frank Giacoia to ink.
No one told me this. I found out on the day before Steve's "window of opportunity" opened and he phoned to ask me when he'd be getting the Toth pages to ink. I called New York and found out that Frank had already done that. When I asked the assistant there why Frank and not Steve, I was told, "Frank came by and he really needed work. That was the only thing we had around to give him." Ernie Colón was still the editor of Blackhawk then and he'd okayed it even though he'd also okayed sending the job to Steve Leialoha. Steve, thankfully, forgave us both.
I don't think I ever made those mistakes again, at least not all on one story. I also never wrote an episode of Super-Friends. The regular writer had a contract to write them all and that was fine with me. I'm not so sure I could have lived up to Alex's recommendation in that drawing so even later when that writer didn't have all the episodes locked up, I declined other offers to write for the show.
And perhaps because of that, I managed to stay friends with Alex after that Blackhawk story, though I don't think we ever mentioned it. Maybe that's another reason we stayed friends. My visits with him increased for a time after his wonderful wife Guyla died in 1985 and he went through periods of wanting to be alone, alternating with periods of very much wanting not to be alone. But the more we talked, the more we had arguments — often about politics — and I increasingly felt a friendship-ending one was coming.
Also, Alex had enablers for his darker hermitic periods — fans who did his shopping so he didn't have to actually leave his house. I was thinking that those of us doing him favors like that were not doing him any favors, and that those who were telling him over and over what a friggin' genius he was were making it harder and harder for him to just sit down and draw a comic book. I finally decided to end our conversations and my visits before things turned ugly.
Some time after Alex passed in 2006, Howard Chaykin wrote in an article, "I am and have been for many years an avid admirer of the work of Alex Toth. I knew him — not all that well, but well enough to realize at a certain point that avoiding contact with Alex Toth was a positive and healthy lifestyle choice." I knew Alex for a longer time than Howard did and it took me longer to arrive at the same conclusion. But I think I also had some better times with Alex. The non-complaining Alex could be as fine a human being as he was an artist.
In 2015 as the first step in fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming Robotman, I had my right knee replaced. During the operation, I somehow picked up an infection and they had to go back in and change out the metal gizmo they'd put in there. This was about as much fun as you'd imagine. And then after I was discharged from a rehab center, a male nurse came to my home every day for two weeks to give me a shot of some antibiotic I couldn't pronounce. Naturally, he noticed all the comic books on the shelves and on the walls and everywhere.
He said to me, "I had a patient ten or fifteen years ago who had comic books all over his home. I think he wrote or drew them or something. But he was the angriest man I ever met in my life. Every time I was there, he was yelling and cursing about something."
I then asked this male nurse, "Uh-huh. And how long did you treat Alex Toth?"
He laughed, amazed that I'd guessed correctly. Then I told him, "That man just might have been the most talented human being you will ever meet. Or at least inject."
I seem to be binging old 90-minute Tonight Shows here. This one is from November 7, 1975 and the guests are Gene Kelly, Shecky Greene, Ronnie Graham and Stockard Channing. This is before Stockard had done Grease and she wasn't on the show to plug anything in particular. Johnny would have on guests just because he or someone thought they'd be amusing conversationalists.
I call your attention to Ronnie Graham, who was a comedy writer and cabaret performer…and a very funny man. For a while, Johnny would have him on often to just play his silly songs. I met Mr. Graham briefly on a few occasions and he was just delightful to be around. This link will take you directly to his performance which I think is quite wonderful. (In case you don't know, his second song is about Abe Beame, who was the mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977. In '75 when this show aired, the city was in the midst of a huge financial crisis and Beame's popularity rating was somewhere below that of flea-and-tick season.)
Or you can watch the whole show from the start below…
Could Donald Trump declassify classified documents just by thinking about it? According to this article and this article, legal experts say no and they point out that he didn't seem to think that when he was president. One should remember that when Trump explains in interviews and speeches how he really won in 2020, he is advancing theories and claiming facts that his own lawyers rarely (if ever) bring up in court.
He's got one set of explanations for his followers and another, very different one for judges…or anywhere he or his lawyers could be charged with perjury. If they ever do assert in court that Trump could declassify via the Vulcan Mind Meld (or whatever he claims), it'll probably just be a stalling tactic, as opposed to something they think is a winning tactic.
Here's a pretty good explainer of how Trump and his attorneys screwed-up by demanding a Special Master and nominating Senior Federal Judge Raymond Dearie to fill that position. Judge Aileen Cannon, who initially ruled in Trump's favor about the classified documents, has been overruled and slapped down pretty hard for her decision…and you wonder if any further Trump-appointed-or-favoring judges are going to think thrice before they bend his way.
This is not a prediction but it's sure looking like the chances of Trump winning the presidency again are getting slimmer and slimmer. But he might just run because of all that donation money he'd be able to pocket. Lately, it sometimes feels like he cares about that as much as he cares about, say, staying out of prison. And I'm sure we all would enjoy a debate among Republican candidates that included Donald and also Mike Pence.
And finally and non-Trumpian, here's some solid info on the new COVID booster shots. I'll be getting one soon. And a flu shot.
Posted on Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 12:22 PM
Ah, yes…Saturday morning. When I used to get up, scamper out to the living room and watch cartoons on CBS, ABC and NBC — with the volume set just low enough that it wouldn't awaken my parents in their bedroom. Actually, it wasn't all cartoons. There were shows with real human beings in them. I remember watching Captain Kangaroo's first show. Many years later, I got to meet Bob Keeshan, who of course played that role, and I of course told him I'd seen his first episode. He nodded as if (a) he believed me and (b) he was pleased. He later told me everybody he met claimed to have seen that first episode.
That meeting took place on Stage 33 at CBS Television City where, years later, I went to see Red Skelton tape his TV show and Carol Burnett tape her TV show and I saw Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher there and many other shows. Its main tenant for many decades now has been The Price is Right and at some point — probably because they didn't want to give its host a raise — it was renamed "The Bob Barker Stage."
Amazingly, other shows still tape in there when The Price is Right doesn't need it. I think Real Time with Bill Maher may still be in there on Fridays. I was there on a Saturday morning (appropriately enough) in 1985 because we were taping the wraparound intros for a season's worth of a Saturday morn series I worked on called CBS Storybreak. Mr. Keeshan had flown out from New York to host them as himself, not the Good Captain. Captain Kangaroo had been recently cancelled after almost thirty years on CBS. This and other jobs he did for them were the network's way of keeping him "in the family," which usually means "off the competition."
It only took a few hours to record thirteen intros and thirteen outros that morn. It could probably have been done faster but Mr. Keeshan declined the use of a TelePrompter. He said, "I have to use those from time to time but I don't think I ever sound genuine. I think I always sound like I'm reading."
And then I said, "Well, we certainly don't want to inspire kids to read" and everyone laughed including Keeshan/Kangaroo. The stated premise of the CBS Storybreak series was to encourage the reading of books.
Before each intro or outro, he'd read the script out loud and someone would time it and then say something like, "We need to lose fifteen seconds" and the producer and I would cut whatever lines needed to be cut. Once we had the script down to time, Mr. Keeshan would read it aloud a few times, then step in front of the camera. We'd roll tape and he'd do it from memory. Having done five hours of television each week for thousands of years, he'd gotten to be pretty good at this.
There were a number of breaks for technical problems so there was plenty of time to talk to this man who I can't bring myself to refer to as "Bob," even though he politely asked all of us to stop with the "Mr. Keeshan." One of the first things I asked him about was Mr. Mayor. Years ago on this blog, I wrote the following…
During the 1964-1965 season, he turned up on CBS Saturday morning with a show called Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor looked and sounded exactly like Cap'n Kangaroo but he was a different guy in a different outfit and with a different set and supporting cast. (The set had a wonderful, elaborate toy train layout.) At the time, I wondered why Bob Keeshan was playing one guy Monday through Friday and a different but similar character on Saturday. When I finally met him, it was one of the first things I asked about and he told me the following story…
It seems that when Captain Kangaroo was launched, Keeshan had an unwanted partner. I think (but am not sure) he said it was related to the fact that the Captain had evolved out of the Tinker character [which he had done for another station] so someone who had a business interest in that show wound up with a percentage of Captain Kangaroo. As he explained it, Keeshan was having trouble with this partner and finally decided he wanted to have total ownership and control of his character. He tried to buy out the partner's interest but when the guy declined, Keeshan threatened to give up Captain Kangaroo and to create a new character…one in which the partner would not share. The partner said, "You wouldn't dare," and Keeshan decided to go ahead with his bluff. When CBS decided they wanted to add a Saturday morning installment of Captain Kangaroo, Keeshan insisted he would do it as Mr. Mayor.
And he did. It was essentially a way to convince the partner that he was serious about abandoning Captain Kangaroo. "I was prepared to do that and continue as Mr. Mayor," he told me. "But what I really hoped was that it would convince him to sell out his interest in Kangaroo." That was how things played out. The partner sold out his share and the following season, the Saturday morning hour of Mr. Mayor was replaced by an hour of Captain Kangaroo. I always thought this was a fascinating story…how close Captain Kangaroo came to disappearing due to a business dispute.
All the CBS Storybreak intros were done by about 1 PM, which was just in time to avoid the producers having to break for lunch or pay a meal penalty. Mr. Keeshan, who'd flown in the night before and was flying home the next morning, had an appointment to be interviewed by someone for something after we were done. Our producer asked him what he had planned for that evening. He said, "Oh, I'll probably just get room service at my hotel, read a book and then turn in early." I suddenly found myself asking him if he'd like to go to dinner.
To my delight/surprise, he said yes. At 6 PM, I met him in the lobby of his hotel and we walked two blocks to RJ's, then one my favorite restaurants…now, a nearly-forgotten memory of Beverly Hills. I was curious if anyone would recognize Captain Kangaroo in his street clothes and no one did…visually. But our server and the party in the next booth recognized him by his voice. He said that he was rarely recognized in public but when he was, it was by his voice.
He quizzed me as much about what I did as I quizzed him about his career, including the years he spent playing the non-speaking role of Clarabelle the Clown on the original Howdy Doody show. What amazed me was him telling me that during the years he did that show, he assumed it was the end of his show business career and when that gig ended, he'd be going into the insurance business…or somewhere. "There's not much room on television for someone who can't talk on camera," he said. "And back then, I couldn't and didn't think I could learn."
Somehow though, he did. I said, "For a guy who couldn't talk, you seem to have done pretty well." He sighed and mentioned "Buffalo" Bob Smith, his boss on Howdy Doody and its star. "And you know, he still refuses to admit that Captain Kangaroo was any sort of success."
We talked a lot about the current state of programming for children. It did not please him and his views on what children should be watching did not coincide with mine. I kept saying things like, "I watched tons of shows that feature what you call hostility or violence and I think I turned out all right. It's been almost a month since I knocked over a liquor store and shot the manager."
That's what you do when you find yourself in a debate with someone you really like. You try to make them laugh. At least, that's what I do.
But it was a respectful and friendly debate…and he really liked the restaurant, which in addition to great food had a happy, festive mood. The only real fight we had was over the check — a battle he won by pointing out that CBS was paying all his expenses for the weekend. Then I walked him back to his hotel and that was the end of my relationship with Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan.
It was a very nice evening and I got to thinking about it when I woke up. I thought it might be a good story to post here on a Saturday morning…which I would have done if I'd finished it before Noon.
I can't embed today's video on this site but you can click the link below and go watch it on YouTube. You should.
It's another complete Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from back when the show was ninety minutes. This one's older than the last one I posted and it even has commercials in it. The guests include Alan King and Raquel Welch (who join Johnny in a sketch mid-show) and Pigmeat Markham. This one aired June 19, 1968 and you'll be impressed with how good the picture is on this video.
Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham was a popular comedian for many years, mostly on the "Chitlin' Circuit" of night clubs and theaters that catered mostly to black audiences. He enjoyed a national notoriety in the late sixties when the Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In TV show usurped his "Here comes the judge" routine and for a while, added him to their cast.
You'll notice a couple of different things about the Tonight Show format. For a time, each episode started with Ed McMahon welcoming viewers and promising Johnny would be right out…and then throwing to the first commercial break. This got a commercial break out of the way so they didn't come quite as often during the show. Johnny stopped doing that when he started getting more competition and the shows opposite him started with the show itself.
Also in '68, Johnny's show wasn't followed by anything that he or the network cared about. Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show didn't start until October of '73. Before that, local stations either programmed reruns or old movies after Johnny…or signed off the air. As a result, the mood of the last part of The Tonight Show sometimes had a kind of "time to go to bed" mood, as this episode does, ending as it does with the band playing a sleepy rendition of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix…"
The pace of the whole show is a bit slower than later years but there are some fun moments in it, including a Rexall commercial with Louis Nye. Enjoy, won't you?
I just fixed a real stupid mistake in the most recent chapter of the Blackhawk journal. I wrote a paragraph about how I wished Dick Dillin, who drew Blackhawk for several centuries, was still around when I did my silly little run on the comic. Then I decided to delete that segment but I only deleted part of it and then I merged it with another section about writing a story that Gil Kane was supposed to draw but didn't and…well, I wound up writing that I wrote it for Dick Dillin. Which I wouldn't have done because he passed away a few years before. I have fixed the text so it is now correct. Sorry.