Good article on the cancellation of Politically Incorrect over at The American Prospect.  Here's that link.  I am hearing that Bill Maher is in serious talks elsewhere for a new show with an expanded format — kind of half P.I., half Leno/Letterman.

I finally got around to finishing David Brock's book, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.  Brock is — do I have to tell you? — the former Conservative journalist/"hitman" who has renounced his past reporting on, among other newsmaking topics, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill skirmish and the claim that Bill Clinton had a quick tryst with a woman named Paula.  Whether or not you believe The New David Brock will probably depend on whether or not you want to.  Clearly, most pundits and participants are out to spin this to their advantage but if I had to vote, not so much on what happened but on how history will record it, I think I'd side with this article by Jane Mayer that appeared in The New York Review of Books.

Interesting to learn that the forthcoming DVD release of 1776 will not be the 3-hour restored version that has only been released on Laserdisc.  Nor will it be the truncated 141 minute version that has been available on VHS or cable TV.  As you may recall, the Laserdisc material was reassembled from prints of varying quality and, at the time, folks though it was a miracle that even those scratchy prints still existed.  Well, it turns out that someone — bless 'em — found the original negative of the whole thing.  This has prompted director Peter Hunt to do a new cut, which he considers definitive and final.  It's 166 minutes and includes all the musical numbers.  I'm told the video and audio are stunning and that Hunt's commentary on the audio track tells the amazing story of how this movie was made whole.  Click here to order it from Amazon.Com.

We've lost another funny man.  Most folks first knew of Avery Schreiber either as (a) half the comedy team of Burns and Schreiber or (b) the gregarious Captain Mancini in the legendary sitcom, My Mother, The Car.  (The good Captain was an automotive fanatic always trying to wrest Jerry Van Dyke's 1928 Porter — i.e., his mother — away from him.  It was ironic casting since Avery hated cars and driving.)  And he was great in both those roles, and the hundreds of others he portrayed in a rich, full career.

But those who came near him also knew him as one of the best acting teachers — especially in the area of improvisational comedy, the specialty of his alma mater, Second City.  One of the many routines he developed there was a Samurai Landlord that a later student, John Belushi, seized upon and made his own.

It was at Second City that Avery met Jack Burns and they developed the cab driver routine that soon made them famous.  A lot of us fondly remember their TV appearances, including Our Place — a wonderful, short-lived variety series in which they starred in 1967 — and the 1973 Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour.  They remained teamed until the mid-seventies when Burns turned more to writing, Schreiber to acting and teaching.  Within the community of actors who specialize in comedy, voiceover and improvisation, Avery was a much-loved, universally-respected presence.  He passed away this morning and tonight, a lot of very fine improv actors, trained by him to think on their feet, don't know what to say.

Several folks — first and foremost, ace writer Joe Adamson — have e-mailed me about this paragraph in the obit for MCA mogul Lew Wasserman that appeared in The New York Times.  (Here's a link to the entire obituary.)

…for "Jaws," Mr. Wasserman took out prime-time television commercials for weeks before the movie was screened, and then had it released simultaneously in nearly 1,000 theaters nationwide.  The same type of sweeping national publicity campaign was used with equal success for other MCA blockbusters, like "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" and "E.T."  Rival studios took notice and began marketing their big films the same way.

Yes, MCA (Universal) put out E.T.  But Star Wars was a Twentieth-Century Fox release…and the Indiana Jones movies (none of which has yet been named Indiana Jones) have been from Paramount.  Y'know, there once was a day when The New York Times didn't make this kind of mistake…

Another paragraph in the obit is, alas, correct.  It has to do with how Wasserman went from representing actors as an agent to being a producer whose company was soon able to purchase Universal Studios…

In time, he decided to involve his agency directly in film and television production. "I felt our organization was capable of earning more than 10 percent, and that we could do better on the other side of the table," he said of his strategy to The New York Times.  This represented an obvious conflict of interest because MCA would be hiring actors and directors whom it was supposed to be representing.  But in 1952, Mr. Wasserman obtained from the Screen Actors Guild a blanket exemption from union rules that forbade talent agencies from involving themselves in production. It helped that Ronald Reagan was president of the guild at the time: he was an MCA client grateful to Mr. Wasserman for having recently negotiated a long-term million-dollar contract for him with a studio.

In 1959, MCA/Universal purchased a number of film libraries, including Paramount's, to put on television.  In 1960, the Screen Actors Guild went on strike over residuals and wound up making one of the worst deals in Hollywood history — one that meant billions to MCA and nothing to actors whose pre-1960 films were run on television.  The head of the actors' negotiating team who rammed the deal through SAG was Ronald Reagan.  (And Reagan performed other services for Wasserman: In 1962, when MCA was the subject of a government anti-trust probe, Reagan was called as a witness and developed total amnesia.  Shortly after, MCA got involved in a number of real estate transactions with Reagan that made him a multi-millionaire.)

This is why we have dishonest government in this country: Because guys like Reagan not only get away with such deals but wind up claiming that they stand for honor and integrity.  This also applies to various deals by presidents named Bush, our current vice-president and many others including — to be fair — a hefty number of Democrats, as well.  I think I would have been more willing to believe that Bill Clinton was morally unfit to be president if any of the folks claiming this had any problem with the way some of our other elected officials have become very, very wealthy.

Tomorrow (Friday) evening, The Learning Channel is running Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour — 6 PM in most time zones.  It's a series of under-publicized specials in which The Bad Boys of Magic — lo, how they must hate that nickname — tour the world and swap tricks with the locals.  The one in China a month or two ago was terrific.  I believe this one is India and I haven't seen it yet but have already set the machine to grab it.  You might want to do likewise.  They have an amazing capacity to bridge the language barrier via their shared skills.  (Not that it inhibits Teller's part of the act…)

The Orange County Register recently ran an article on Neal Kirby, son of Jack Kirby, which used as its hook the notion that Jack was the first artist on Spider-Man.  Neal is a helluva good guy and very bright, so I don't know why the article contains about eleven inaccuracies per square inch.  (Jack did not draw the first eight Spider-Man stories, he did not sue Marvel, he did not create or even claim to have created Skull the Slayer, etc.)  This is not at all uncommon when the mainstream press writes about comics…and not even all that unusual when people in comics write or talk about comics.  As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, Jack Kirby was a brilliant, talented and very honest man who was just not very good at organizing his thoughts when he was being interviewed.  His memory was not so much bad as it was disconnected: The truth was usually in there but you sometimes had to assemble it like a jigsaw puzzle and recognize when Jack got his nouns confused.

And once in a while, he just plain said the wrong thing, as witness one oft-quoted interview wherein Jack said he'd designed Spider-Man's costume.  Jack did not — Steve Ditko did — and Jack was embarrassed that such a thing had emanated from his own mouth.  (In another interview once, Jack said that I'd created Captain America — a stunning pre-natal accomplishment, if true.)

In truth, Jack did not believe he'd designed Spider-Man's famous costume.  He did believe that he'd suggested to Marvel the notion of doing a character named Spiderman (no hyphen) who walked on walls and had spider-like senses and lived with his aunt, although the particular hero that Jack developed or helped Stan Lee develop as per that premise was quite different from the final version.

There are other accounts from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko of the character's inception.  Based on my discussions with all three and a few other folks who were lurking on the premises, I take none of them at full value, though I decided all three versions were honestly-remembered and, if one tosses out the more outrageous parts, they sorta fit together into a "here's what probably happened" scenario.  One of these days, for whatever it's worth, I'll publish what I believe transpired…but even if I'm right, it still leaves certain questions of semantics as to which man or men "created" the hero.  Depends a lot on your definition of "creation," which is a concept that has been defined in many ways by many people, some of whom have configured their definitions in odd and inconsistent ways.  Ultimately, I don't think "Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko" is inaccurate but it may not be the entire story.  If this had been a screenplay written under Writers Guild rules instead of a comic book, the credit would probably read, "Story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Screenplay by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko."  And even that would leave ample room for debate.

Here's something for you to read.  Shelley Berman is, as we all know, one of the great comedians of all time.  A very funny, innovative man.  Many years ago, in a clever book called A Hotel Is A Funny Place…, he set down a series of letters describing his war with the staff of a hotel in which he was residing.

The war was about the distribution of little soaps in his room.  It was very funny in the book and even funnier, later, when he performed it on stage.  For some reason, the text of it became one of those stories that people pass around on the Internet, claiming it actually happened to a friend.  A year or three ago, someone e-mailed it to me claiming it was the actual, no-kidding correspondence of his pal, Harvey…this, despite the fact that the person authoring "Harvey's" half of the letters clearly signs his name, "S. Berman."

Anyway, as many of you know, the site, www.snopes.com, does a fine, fascinating job of debunking, verifying or clarifying popular rumors and urban legends.  They have this one therefore, properly identified, and therefore you have the chance to read the entire text of it by clicking here.  (It was also on Mr. Berman's most recent comedy CD — Shelley Berman Live Again — which is, alas, outta-print and hard to come by.  If you glom onto one and hear the routine on it, one of the audience members you'll hear howling is me.)

By the by: Mr. Berman is still performing and still as funny as ever.  A few years ago, when I was writing/voice-directing Garfield & Friends, we had him in once to play a role and he was terrific.  We also had Stan Freberg and Jonathan Winters on the show.  Once upon a time, my entire collection of comedy records consisted of Stan Freberg, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman.  And, but for a scheduling conflict, we would have gotten Bob, too…

P.S. (Added at 3:45 AM)  Just noticed that Shelley Berman has it posted on his website.  Much better place for you to read it…and check out his message board.  Here's the preferred link.  Good night.

Don't expect any updates here for a few days.  I had a computer crash last night.  Didn't lose any files but I lost about a day just getting things back to normal.

Also: In what I'm sure is an unrelated event, one of my domains (evanier.com) got "spoofed" by a spammer.  This means that he sent out thousands — probably, hundreds of thousands — of e-mails to people offering some sort of loony investment deal and giving them a link to a website that explains all.  But he set it so that the e-mail appears to come from an address at my domain.  This means that recipients will think they're being spammed by someone from my domain and, if the recipient's address is invalid, the spam e-mail bounces back to me.  Before I arranged to filter them out, I'd received several hundred messages telling me that the e-mail I "sent" was undeliverable.

Between the two problems, I'm thinking of chucking the computer and hauling out my old manual Olivetti-Underwood.  A friend of mine once told me that, after spending three days purging his system of a virus, he was thinking much the same thing.  Said he, "If I could figure out a way to download porn on an IBM Selectric, I'd go back to it."

Another plug for a friend's website: Daniel Will-Harris knows more about computers and page design than anyone else I know, and there's loads of interesting stuff about fonts and layout on his site, which is at www.will-harris.com.  However, what I really want to refer you to is his other site, which is www.schmoozeletter.com, which is full of interesting writings, mostly of a non-computer nature.  And I especially want to call your attention to this installment of his Schmoozeletter, which is the extraordinary story of how he responded one recent evening when he smelled smoke.  Knowing Daniel, I have no doubt his account is totally honest and accurate.

Well, last Sunday's Tony Awards are now being pegged as the lowest-rated ever.  The show averaged a 5.6 household rating and 9 share which, according to Nielsen fast nationals, is down from last year's 6.3/10 and even beneath the previous record low 6.2/10, which was the year before.  By contrast, the NBA game opposite notched a 16.9 rating and a 27 share.  I'm not sure any supporter of the Tony Awards can spin this one as anything but a disaster.

I got to thinking: What would I do with the broadcast?  The best solution I can come up with would be quite a change, and it would certainly offend some members of the Broadway community.  But if they're determined to keep this thing on one of the major networks, it may take something of the sort.

My idea would be to do the show in two parts, both on the same day.  Nominees and important members of the theatrical community would be able to get tickets to both and the extra tickets, if any, would be distributed to enthusiastic theatre fans.  Sunday afternoon, starting around 2:00, they'd give out 18 of the 23 awards in a show that would be televised live on PBS (or some cable network) and allowed to run two hours, plus a little overage, thereby allowing plenty of time for presenters to present and winners to thank.  There would be "behind-the-scenes" and historical clips, such as are seen on the current PBS "first hour" and there would be a minimum of production numbers. This would end by 4:15.

At 8:00, the second show — the one done for CBS — would take place in the same theater.  Most of this show would consist of generous helpings of scenes from current Broadway offerings and perhaps a few "re-creations" of great moments from the past.  The latter might make it possible to secure some important stars whose presence might matter to the more casual viewer at home.  In any case, the mix of the evening show would be more entertainment than awards show.  In the first hour, two awards would be presented and then there'd be three more at the very end.  The rest of the show would be entertainment, plus two or three long montages that would summarize the 18 awards from the matinee.  They do a montage now that recapitulates the PBS hour but what I have in mind would show more of each acceptance speech.

Notice also that I'm suggesting starting the evening ceremony at 8:00 even though it doesn't go on the air until 9:00 in the East.  The delay would allow a bit of on-the-fly editing if someone takes an unanticipated hunk of time.  That way, no scene would have to be dropped and it wouldn't be necessary for everyone to talk like a tobacco auctioneer at the end to get it all in.  The tape delay, along with the afternoon broadcast, would of course kill any suspense about who wins but I'm assuming that hardcore theatre fans would watch anyway, and the casual fans aren't wagering on who's going to be named Best Choreographer.  The five awards presented on the air would be Best Musical, Best Play, Best Revival of a Musical and then the two most interesting of the remaining competitions, probably in Leading Actor/Actress categories. (This would not be completely unprecedented in the annals of televised awards shows.  The Daytime Emmy Awards select certain categories to be on the broadcast, whereas others are not televised at all.)

There would be some moaning, of course.  There always is.  But under this plan, every award would be televised and, if winners kept their acceptance speeches short, most of what they say would get on in prime-time.  Someone who wanted to (or had to) attend both sections would be sitting quite a long time.  Still, I'm not sure four hours — with a long dinner break in the middle — is that much worse than the current three hours with no break.  The last two hours would be a lot more fun than they are now.  The biggest complication would be that shows that do a Sunday matinee would be asked to move that performance to whatever evening they're dark…but they'd have plenty of advance notice and they already do things like that to accommodate holidays.

Would this make the Tonys into a ratings smash?  No.  I don't think even full frontal nudity could make that occur.  The overwhelming majority of Americans don't go to Broadway shows, aren't going to go to Broadway shows and don't have the slightest interest in seeing people they never heard of win for shows they never heard of.  That is why, if the broadcast is to remain on CBS, they ought to trim that aspect of it to the bare bones.  Most people still wouldn't watch but I can't see that the plan I've outlined here could possibly hurt.  And if it makes for a more entertaining show, it might even help.

One last note about Elaine Stritch getting chopped off during her acceptance speech.  While writing the above, I had David Letterman on and heard him scolding CBS for their actions.  He was doing a bit — he ran a clip they'd edited so that Stritch got to say nothing at all — but he did seem to think it was rude of the network.  One might note that Mr. Letterman's new contract limits the network's freedom to let a prime-time show run over, thereby delaying the beginning of his program.  He's not the reason the Tonys have to end sharply at 11:00.  (They're on Sundays, he isn't and, besides, local news shows also insist.)  But Dave probably wouldn't let her speech nudge his show to later than its usual 11:35 start.  He also probably wouldn't book Elaine Stritch as a guest.

The newly remastered CD of the Li'l Abner Broadway show has been released.  Why am I telling you this?  Because it's an excuse to run another picture of Julie Newmar on this site and every time I do that, I get a load of donations which I then blow on something really, really stupid on eBay.  As good a reason as any.  It's a darn good CD with a number of extra cuts, and if you click on this link, you can order it from Amazon.Com and this site will get a tiny percentage of your purchase price, which I will also spend to buy something really, really stupid on eBay.  (And while I've got you here, some more thoughts on the Tony Awards: If the overnight Nielsens are to believed — and in the TV biz, they always are, especially when they show you winning — the broadcast drew about half the audience of the NBA Playoff and slightly outpointed the feeble competition on other networks.  My chum over at CBS who read me the numbers wasn't sure if these will be considered disastrous ratings because, he says, "expectations are always so low."  In other words, these are bad numbers but not as bad as some feared, so it could go either way.  Those who are inclined to keep the Tony Awards on CBS for moral/cultural reasons may be able to spin them as encouraging, while those who think it's a drag on the schedule certainly have the ammo to argue their case.)

Bolstering the latter side, the preliminary numbers would also indicate that the audience skewed extremely old, though perhaps that's to be expected opposite a big basketball play-off.

Inherent in the Tony Awards, you have a basic problem, which is that various factions want the show to be different things.  Those concerned with the heritage and artistry of Broadway decry the time constraints and the tendency to favor stars with TV and movie recognition. They'd like an open-ended broadcast over on PBS where Elaine Stritch can take five minutes to deliver her surly thanks.  Against this, you have those more concerned with Broadway's box office who think it's an annual chance to "sell" the glory of Broadway to that large part of America that doesn't attend…and also doesn't know or care who Elaine Stritch is.  Catering to them means a faster-paced show on CBS and trotting out Mary Tyler Moore and Alec Baldwin to present.  Doing the first hour of the show on PBS was a compromise move that arrested the big complaints…though one occasionally hears grumbling from folks whose categories have been relegated to the less-watched part of the telecast.

But you know what the real problem is?  It's a problem that infests all awards shows and much of television.  It's that terror of allowing ten seconds of non-interesting material to occur, lest viewers grab up their remotes and go elsewhere.  It's why, on all awards shows, it's become standard to have a voice-over announcer giving trivia facts about the winners as they make their way to the stage and having little pop-up windows on the screen showing you something more interesting than a happy person heading for the mike.  God forbid we should lose your attention for half a second.  Another manifestation of the same concern gives us those crawling headlines on all the news channels and even on some sitcom reruns, and it prompts Leno and Letterman to pick their reruns from not months but weeks back.

That problem works against the Tonys because so much of it doesn't matter to those who haven't seen the shows and, like I said before, I don't have a solution to this dilemma.  That's becoming the nature of commercial TV and the Tonys seem to need commercial TV.  And, of course, you have the other end of the problem, which is that commercial TV doesn't need the Tonys.  Maybe the answer is for the Tonys to find something that's guaranteed to grab attention — like, say, pictures of Julie Newmar in her Li'l Abner outfit…

I just browsed some Theatre Chat Boards and found the expected wailing about how last night's Tony Awards Ceremony was dreadful: Nobody who sang could sing, everyone's gown was ghastly, most of the speeches sucked, the winners shouldn't be so rushed, yadda yadda yadda.  Such remarks were expected because (a) most everyone says, of every awards show, "this was the worst ever" and (b) no one can be as bitchy about theatre people as other theatre people.  They all seem to be out tonight, bashing last night's event, which I thought was okay: Not wonderful but certainly watchable.  I liked most of the singing, the gowns, the speeches, etc.  I thought the main problem with it was that it's an awards show.  That's what awards shows are…and they usually only rise to memorable status if memorable people win or memorable unpredictable events occur.

Yes, the presenters and winners shouldn't be cut off after 20 or 30 seconds but, unfortunately, the deal with CBS requires that the show not spill a moment over its allotted two hours.  The broadcast does so poorly in the ratings, it doesn't have the clout to get that changed.  So they do the first hour on PBS and the last two on CBS, and theatre buffs moan that it should all be on PBS where — presumably — it could run a bit longer.  (But only a bit.  I can't believe even the greatest lover of theatre would sit through a 4-hour Tony telecast.)  That would make sense except that the Broadway community wants it on CBS where it'll get a larger audience and serve as an infomercial for theatre-going.  So there it stays, getting lousy ratings but — theoretically — helping sell a few tickets.

Several folks were upset that Elaine Stritch was cut off in mid-acceptance speech.  That kind of thing's regrettable but she knew how long she was supposed to go and chose to prattle on as if the rules didn't apply to her.  The reason for the rule is that they only have so much time and they want to get all the awards and musical numbers in.  (Three years ago, an overage of thank-you orations forced them to decide, in the middle of the telecast, to eliminate a planned/rehearsed musical number from a show called Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, which closed soon after.  Being bumped might not have been fatal to the musical but it was sure rude.)

I don't think there's a real solution to this.  You have X number of awards to present and, even with presenter chatter and entrances cut to the bone, it takes Y minutes per award.  You also want to have the numbers from the shows and, if you do the math, it just makes for a cramped two hours.  I can't see any way to make it go faster and, for all the kvetching everyone does every year about how awful they thought the show was, I don't see any workable suggestions.  We may have to face the fact that the show is what it is, and if it's dull…well, so are some sporting events.  That's not the fault of the folks who produce the broadcast, either.

Due to a ridiculous number of aspiring voiceover actors e-mailing me their demos — or even writing to ask if I'll hire them just because they ask — I have had to institute one of those silly, hardass policies.  I will never (repeat: NEVER) hire or refer anyone who approaches me via e-mail.  Please don't do this.  You can ask legitimate questions but not, "Will you hire me?"  If you ask, the answer is NO.