To further complicate matters, there's a poll out today that shows Bush and Kerry tied in Colorado.
Tales of Terror
Here's a nightmare scenario. Colorado is placing on its November ballot, a proposition which would have its nine electoral votes divided in a proportionate manner — no "winner take all." If passed, it would go into effect before the next Electoral College convenes in December to pick the winner of the Bush-Kerry contest.
Now, this would probably be good for Kerry. At the moment, Bush is polling at 48% in that state with 43% for Kerry. Bush will probably win in Colorado so in the absence of this change, he'd get all nine votes. If this new rule goes into effect, Bush would probably get 5 votes and Kerry would get 4…or it might be 6-3. The point is that Kerry will probably get a few votes that he would not be receiving without the change.
The "nightmare" part of this would be if it goes through and Kerry wins the country by a few electoral votes. Does anyone think the Republicans would then not sue to invalidate the change and demand that all nine votes go to Bush? And suddenly, we're back in the Supreme Court.
Obviously, I hope that Bush loses in November. But what I really hope is that we have a clean election where the losing side doesn't have ample reason to think they were robbed, and the winning side doesn't have to pretend that their guy won fair and square.
More on Colorization
Kevin Boury writes a response to my message about the colorizing of Moe, Larry and Curly…
Mark, Mark, Mark…I can only imagine your furor if someone went back and changed the entire color scheme of, say, New Gods#1 to make it more appealing to today's youth. While they are at it, how about some new backgrounds for Groo #20 so that there won't be as many people in the crowd shots to distract today's readers with their shorter attention spans?
I've got it… Let's rewrite It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to make the jokes more relevant to today's younger markets. And then we'll add some digital performers, like Brittney, to some shots so the kids will pay to see their hottest stars in a cameo role. Ooh, laser beams. What that movie needs is laser beams. Howzabout instead of a group of palm trees, the lasers make a big "W" in the sky and then a lot of cool effects and some smoke and change the soundtrack to Jessica Simpson. Or better yet…It's a Mad, Mad, Mad. Mad World with the Kids from American Idol. I am sure you would have no problem with that.
Or when they start to colorize The Dick Van Dyke Show so that today's children will be enticed to watch it. Too bad they can't just watch it for the writing and the acting. That's why I did.
Taking the last of these "suggestions" first: I'm not sure anyone has suggested that colorizing The Dick Van Dyke Show will attract consumers who were avoiding it just because it was black-and-white. Once upon a time in the Great Colorization Debate, that kind of notion was batted around but I don't think anyone is currently colorizing old films with that as a motive. Rather, the idea now seems to be that colorization can create a kind of variant edition. Remarketing what you've already marketed is a big thing in many industries these days but nowhere more than in home video. You know…they put out your favorite movie on DVD and you buy it. Then a few years later, they put out the new, improved version with the better transfer, audio commentary, documentary on "the making of…" and deleted footage. That gives them the chance to get you to buy it again, plus they can proclaim a "new" $29.99 event which might snag consumers who haven't bought the old version which is now marked down to$9.99, anyway. Colorizing, by and large, is a way of offering a new incarnation of something you already own.
I now have all the episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD in their pristine, black-and-white state. I don't think they'd make much more money by releasing colorized versions but if they did, I don't see how this harms me. I ain't gonna buy 'em. The only way I can see myself objecting is if (a) the colorized versions replace the originals and make them hard to acquire or (b) if Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke raise a stink. I doubt either of these will happen. If it's done, it will probably be done with their consent…and if they aren't outraged, why should I be?
When someone discusses altering a piece of creative work, I think you have to go on a case-by-case basis and ask what aspects of the work should be sacred. Then you have to consider whether it's being done well or not. Your Mad World example sounds lousy to me, just as you intended. Recoloring New Gods #1 sounds like a wonderful idea. Jack Kirby hated the way it was colored in the first place. Obviously, if someone recolored the book and made it worse, that would be bad but I don't think that's an argument for not recoloring it at all. To me, insisting it should be just the way it was in 1970 is like saying that if you reprint a novel, you shouldn't fix the typos. Moreover, if you reprinted New Gods today, you'd almost certainly be printing on whiter paper with brighter inks and a wider palette, and the old color scheme might look even worse than it did originally. So it's not going to be faithful to the original either way, which is often the case when you transfer work from one medium to another.
As for your suggestion of altering Groo, that's an easy call. Sergio Aragonés drew that material and he owns it. So whether or not to make the change is his decision, and I don't see that anyone else's opinion even enters into it.
For the most part, I like to see things as originally intended and I doubt I'll buy the colorized version of anything unless some colorizer creates something very special. In the meantime, since colorized versions don't seem to be knocking the originals out of existence, I don't see the process as the threat that some once thought it was. If it's done and it's done badly, it's just a bad repackaging that I don't have to buy or even look at. It's like when they did that color, shot-for-shot remake of Psycho that most of us ignored. It didn't diminish the original one bit and probably, somewhere, there was someone who really enjoyed it. If someone gets a bang out of seeing the Stooges in color, I say let 'em enjoy themselves. My big gripe is still that it raises the price.
Recommended Reading
Over on Slate, Kim Masters has an article on the current lawsuit involving Disney's hiring and firing of superagent Mike Ovitz. We're gonna hear a lot more about this.
Recommended Reading
Jonathan Rauch offers an interesting piece on gay marriage and how it relates to the sad story of James E. McGreevey, the abruptly outgoing governor of New Jersey.
Recommended Reading
If one wishes to understand John Kerry's position on Iraq, one should read this article by William Saletan and then follow it with this somewhat similar article by Fareed Zakaria. I don't think Kerry's view is difficult to understand but every time he explains it, it's almost like he's trying to make sure he gives them a sound bite that states the opposite.
Original Cast Crisis
If we are to believe this article, the original Broadway cast album may be on the endangered species list. I know of no significant recent Broadway musical that has gone unrecorded but they're claiming it's going that way. We'll see.
Sunset Stripped
Where does the Sunset Strip begin and end? I'm a little puzzled by this article which addresses this vital controversy. According to the piece, the West Hollywood Convention and Visitors Bureau is insisting that the name only applies to the portion of Sunset Boulevard that is within West Hollywood. The report says that if this standard is upheld, a number of places like the Chateau Marmont and the big Virgin Megastore — which have always been referred to as being on "The Strip" — will lose that distinction. The Virgin Megastore and attendant mall are on the site where the world famous Schwab's Drugstore once stood. Once upon a time, Schwab's was probably the most famous thing on the Sunset Strip…but they're now saying that plot of land isn't part of that boulevard of tinsel 'n' glamour. How could this have happened?
Well, I'm in an investigatory mood tonight and this page on the website of the West Hollywood Convention and Visitors Bureau says the Strip is "Crescent Heights to Doheny." That would exclude (by a matter of inches) the Virgin mall, which is on the Southeast corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights. But the Chateau Marmont is a couple blocks west of Crescent Heights so it is along the stretch from Crescent Heights to Doheny.
The Times article suggests that the Chateau Marmont is east of the point where West Hollywood leaves off and plain ol' Hollywood begins. But on this page of the Visitor Bureau's website, you'll find a link to a map they drew up which shows West Hollywood extending all the way east to La Brea. So not only is the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, so is the Virgin Megastore and the Laugh Factory and all the businesses which the article says are complaining about the newly-defined cut-off point. (They seem to be a little confused on that page of the website, by the way. There's a link that says it will take you to "a detailed city map through MapQuest." And it does take you to a detailed city map…of the middle of Kansas.)
So it sounds like someone is playing fast and loose with the geography…or maybe they're just shaken up because the Dudley Do-Right Emporium, a gift shop on the site of the Jay Ward Studio located on Sunset one block west of Crescent Heights — is closing down. The Bullwinkle statue's being moved too, I'm told. That's enough to confuse anyone.
Curly Colorized
Perhaps I will get tossed out of some gathering of film buffs for saying this but I find myself unable to drum up any real objection to the "colorization" of old movies — especially things like Three Stooges comedies. Yes, there is a certain implied insult of us, the buying public; like we're all so shallow and teenage that we'll pass up a great film because it's in black-and-white, whereas we'll patronize it in color. Since most TV and movie marketing panders to that kind of consumer, I don't see the point of getting incensed over it as it relates to colorization.
I would love it if every movie ever made was available in the full, complete form that its makers intended. That's never going to happen. In the real world, a lot of changes are made to movies, including trims for TV time limits and broadcast standards, recropping for TV format, insertion of commercials, restoration of deleted scenes, exhibition of alternate endings, remixing of music, reformatting for airline showings, plus all sorts of adjustments of color and image during film-to-video transfers. Some of those are done not by mercenary exploiters of the material but by well-intentioned film historians…and they're not always for the worst. Of the changes that I think are not for the better, colorization strikes me as one of the lesser offenses, especially since I seem to always have the option of viewing the non-colorized version.
That's a key point. Back in the eighties when colorization first reared its controversial head, a lot of the upset seemed to flow from the premise that the colorized Casablanca would supplant the genuine, black-and-white article and we would never again be able to see Bogie in the original monochrome. That has not happened. Maybe it's because colorization has never become as popular as some hoped/feared but at no point has anything more important than the first season of Gilligan's Island ever become available in only its colorized edition — and even there, the black-and-white quickly became available again. So that argument has pretty much gone away, and it is less true than it once was to say all colorization is hideous. A lot of it wasn't very good when it started but it's improving. I have yet to see a case where it makes a movie better but I don't think that's outside the realm of human possibility. At its very worst, it's just something you can ignore, like you don't have to listen to the commentary track or watch the deleted scenes they include on the DVD.
So I guess I should be happy about the newly-released Stooges DVDs (like this one and this one) which offer both b/w and colorized versions of the same films. After all, they give you a choice, right? Well, not really. You can watch either but you have to pay for both. Sony-Columbia Home Video previously released DVDs which each contained five Stooges shorts for $20, marked down to $17.36 on Amazon. They also had this collection of 18 shorts for $45.86 (Amazon price). Each of the two new collections contain four shorts in color and the same four in b/w for $22.46 each…or you can buy both discs for $31.47. Unless you think having two copies of the same short is just as good as getting two different ones, that's a substantial price increase.
The shorts on these two new sets are pretty well chosen but most of them have already been on recent, still-available DVD sets. So if you're a Stooge Completist, assuming there is such an animal, you're going to buy a lot of material you already have in order to get a few items that aren't already on your shelf. I don't know about you but I'm really sick of seeing things I already own repackaged in an attempt to get me to buy them again. (Which reminds me: Aren't they about due to force another edition of Goldfinger on me? I haven't bought a new, improved version for months.)
Lastly, I will say this for the new Stooge sets: The colorization is pretty danged impressive. It still has that "lobby card" look but it's quite pleasant. I have no idea if it's "historically accurate," as they claim, and don't think it matters…but it was no hardship to see Moe in full color as he jabbed his fingers in his brother's eyes. It was also no better than seeing it in black-and-white. Ultimately, I don't think colorization is, as some put it, "a desecration" of a great art form. I think the main thing wrong with it is that it raises the price.
Recommended Reading
Michael Kinsley discusses the attitudes of Laura and George W. Bush on stem-cell research. Kinsley suffers from Parkinson's Disease so his viewpoint is of special interest.
Charley
A number of folks have written to ask me if I've heard anything about any of the many comic book artists and cartoonists who live down in Florida. Gene and Adrienne Colan escaped damage from Hurricane Charley…and I haven't heard about any of the others. If you have, drop me a note so I can share it with others.
Game Show Stuff
It's been a long time since I mentioned Game Show Network's Black-and-White Overnight bloc. That's because it hasn't been all that interesting. On weeknights, they've been running old episodes of Password (which I find generally boring) and old episodes of What's My Line? (which they've run many times before). On weekends, it's Beat the Clock (which I find unwatchable) and more What's My Line? But things will soon be changing.
The week of September 20, Password gets bumped for a week of Winner Take All, a long-forgotten show which is most notable for the fact that it was the first TV game show hosted by Bill Cullen. (They're running two episodes hosted by New York radio personality Barry Gray, then three with Cullen.) At the end of that week, September 24, they'll be up to the last network episode of What's My Line? This was one where host John Daly signed in as the Mystery Guest.
September 25, the weekend What's My Line? reruns will be replaced by Play Your Hunch, a long-running show which was hosted for most of its run by Merv Griffin. Based on what I remember of it as a child and the few I've seen since, this was a pretty good show.
On September 27, Game Show Network will begin offering cable companies a West Coast satellite transmission of its programming. At the moment, it looks like this will not be available on Dish or DirecTV. Also on that date, the Black-and-White Overnight time will shift to an hour earlier. This will screw up those of us on this side of the country who TiVo Letterman from 11:35 to 12:37.
So what's going to replace What's My Line? on weeknights as of September 27? I don't know yet. Rumor has it we may get another run of I've Got a Secret or To Tell the Truth, both of which have aired before on GSN.
But enjoy the current What's My Line? reruns while you can. The one that's on tomorrow morning should be the 9/4/66 episode with Buddy Hackett on the panel and Joey Bishop as the Mystery Guest. Sunday morning's is from the following week with Warren Beatty as Mystery Guest. This was the first episode of the show broadcast in color but apparently only black-and-white kinescopes of the prime-time What's My Line? survive. In a week or two, I'll give you a Head's Up when they rerun the one with Judy Garland as Mystery Guest, which has a lot of history in it.
Garfield Question
Here's a question that a number of folks have sent me…
We've been enjoying our new Garfield and Friends DVDs. However, one thing baffles us. U.S. Acres seems to have turned into Orson's Farm. Do you know how or why this happened?
Yes. When Jim Davis did the U.S. Acres newspaper strip (on which the cartoons were based), the strip was distributed in certain other nations as Orson's Farm. The "U.S.A." pun didn't translate and even in some English-speaking countries, they wanted to change it to not remind readers that it was a foreign feature. When we did the cartoons, each title card was filmed twice, once with each name, so that when the shows were distributed overseas, they could air with the same name the strip had in each country. The DVD set was made off a set of negatives that had Orson's Farm title cards.
And to answer another oft-asked question: The second set of Garfield and Friends DVD is scheduled for December and the third for May of 2005. The second will not have any special features and I don't yet know about the ones to follow.
Badtime Charley
I'm watching CNN coverage of Hurricane Charley as it slams into the much-maligned state of Florida. I worry for my friends down there and I feel sorry for everyone in the path of this monster. I wish we spent less time in this country sniping at one another and fighting, and more time working together to minimize the destruction from this kind of disaster.
And not that it's in the same category but I wish TV news would get over the notion that you have to send reporters to stand out in the wind and rain to report that it's windy and raining. It's not "on the scene" news coverage. It's cheap theatrics.
Set the TiVo
Debuting this Sunday on the Travel Channel: The Marvel Super Heroes' Guide to New York City. Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Joe Simon, John Romita and other great creators of Marvel Comics participate in a tour of Manhattan. The emphasis, as I understand it, is on locations where great scenes from comic book stories were set. It airs at 8:00 PM and again at 11:00 PM on my satellite dish. Check your local listings.