Sesame Street characters do impressions of other Sesame Street characters…
Actually, I believe it's Matt Vogel doing an impression of Jerry Nelson as The Count doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and David Rudman doing an impression of Frank Oz as the Cookie Monster doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and Ryan Dillon doing an impression of Kevin Clash as Elmo doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters, and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph as Abby Cadabby doing impressions of other Sesame Street characters. But you get the idea…
I've been wondering about this since the Bill Cosby scandals, but I was wondering how royalties work. Whenever I hear about people boycotting a tv show/movie/book, I wonder who else receives royalties from that work and so who might be getting more screwed than the creator/star/author. When The Cosby Show was pulled from networks, did that hurt, say, Keisha Knight Pulliam? Would she still be earning some kind of royalties when the show airs? What about production crews and such?
Well, just to be nit-picky, you're mainly asking about residuals, not royalties…but the answer is yes. There are various folks who are compensated when a TV show is rerun and when it isn't, they don't get the money they'd have received when it was. Some folks get residuals and some get royalties or various forms of back-end compensation and profit participation.
Keisha Knight Pulliam gets less…probably way less, and so does the company that owns the show and wishes to use it as a continuing source of revenue. That also happens when the star doesn't disgrace himself and go to prison but the series just plain fails to attract enough viewers for a healthy life in syndication. Some once-popular shows don't.
This may not seem fair. After all, it's not Keisha's fault that so much of America no longer wishes to watch Mr. Cosby scold others for doing the wrong thing. But that's how these things work. Producers, writers, directors, actors and folks in a few more categories share in the ongoing profitability of a show.
I just got a residual check — one of those tiny ones that cost them more to process and mail than the face value of the check — for an episode I wrote of Bob, one of Mr. Newhart's shorter-run sitcoms. If it runs, I get these checks. If it doesn't, I don't. If it's revealed that Bob Newhart has long been a serial rapist and he goes to jail and no one wants to watch this show, I stand to lose over the next few decades, maybe thirty-five dollars. I sure hope that doesn't happen.
Jim Davis, with whom I have worked since 1987, is selling off his vault of originals to his strip, Garfield. Yes, I already have a few…including one Jim sent me because it contained a sly reference to me. People have occasionally asked me how they can get one. Well, here's how you can get one.
Jim, by the way, did the foreword for the new volume of The Complete Syndicated Pogo — the sixth in the series reprinting Walt Kelly's wonderful newspaper strip. Due to distribution problems I described here, only a few stores have received their copies but in about three weeks, it should be everywhere it's supposed to be. The books for the first printing have been printed. They're just making their way to retail outlets by having a duck hand-deliver each copy…or something. Order yours with confidence…confidence that you'll receive it soon, confidence that you'll love what you read in there. You can also order a boxed set of Volumes 5 and 6 at this link.
Here's the annual TCM Remembers video noting people from the movie biz who've passed away in the past year. I don't know why they put this out in the middle of December because someone significant always dies in the last two weeks of the year and they have to go back and edit that person in.
Folks who get way too upset (in my opinion) at omissions in the "death reel" at the Academy Awards often ask why that montage can't be like the ones TCM assembles. I'd be fine with that but here's one thing to consider…
The segment at the last Oscar ceremony ran 4:21 and covered fifty names. This TCM effort runs 4:30 and covers ninety names. I would guess the difference is that the folks who assemble the one for the Academy Awards feel they have to give everyone a little more screen time, especially the really well-known faces that the live audience at the event will want to applaud. The TCM one doesn't play to a live audience — though of course, you're free to clap as much as you like as you watch this…
A longtime friend asked that I post the excerpt below from a recent message he sent me, that I respond to it here, and that I leave his name out of it. Okay, longtime friend. This is about my most recent post on Harvey Weinstein…
You had me 100% with your Weinstein remarks until I got to the part about "it's always a little sad when those people find out the rules do apply." There is nothing the slightest bit sad about what's happened to that asshole. It's a cause for celebration and there's nothing the least bit sad about it. We should all be cheering like we're in Times Square and they just dropped the New Year ball. Please explain to me, as I'm sure you can, why I should find anything sad in that prick's downfall.
Humans are capable of emotional multi-tasking. When my dear Carolyn finally stopped breathing, I was as sad as anyone could be about losing her but simultaneously relieved that her ordeal was over…and mine as well. In the altogether different case of Harvey Weinstein, I am absolutely pleased that he was nailed for his sicko misdeeds and even more pleased that he's now a big, bold example for others who'd been doing (or might have started doing) the kinds of things for which he was arrested and is now being sued the proverbial eight ways to Sunday.
But I'm also capable of being sad — and that's the right word for it: sad — that any human being could descend down the food chain to that level. When you are blessed enough to attain great wealth and/or great power, I think you have a responsibility to mankind and to yourself (in that order) to use them properly. This is only the subtext of, like, 97% of all the super-hero comic books ever written. And it's sad to me when anyone makes the wrong choice. That man could have had a really good rest-of-his-life if he'd hadn't treated others the way he did.
The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills is a lovely place that preserves the history of television and offers interesting screenings and panels and exhibits. I've never been to the Paley Center for Media in New York but I assume it does the exact same thing equally well. I shall have to get familiar with it because the one in Beverly Hills is going away in mid-2020. The institution will keep doing some of its events in other facilities as they already do, but they'll no longer have that lovely building.
Yes, it's a shame. I never quite understood why they chose one of the priciest hunks of real estate in the world in the first place…but it's still a shame. It also may be understandable because so much of what you might have gone into the Paley Center to view can now be found on YouTube, archive.org or one of several other online repositories. What you can't find are videos of most of the in-house-produced Paley events, especially the early Paley Fest programs which were about the history of television. The ones today are almost wholly to honor current programming and to declare shows "classics" early in their first seasons.
I understand that an organization like this has to always think in terms of what will bring in the most bucks and that honoring recent shows and letting the videos of those events be released commercially has been a much-needed source of income. I also understand that a lot of old shows can't be honored because everyone involved with them has died. But they did some wonderful, important seminars and panel discussions with people who are no longer around to be interviewed and I hope that material is available somewhere else than their New York headquarters.
I really like Jordan Klepper. Comedy Central gave him two shots at his own show. The first was funny but at times, it felt like a cheap foreign knock-off of The Colbert Report. The second was clever and sharp and daring and, from what I can discern, watched only by me. Now, he's back on The Daily Show and doing something he does real well: Venturing with a camera crew into what you might call "Enemy Territory" and finding utterly clueless people to interview.
I feel twinges of guilt enjoying a segment like that. I don't like prank shows because I think they're largely rigged: You either make a fool of yourself or you get edited out. This is almost that but not quite. I'm sure when Klepper went around with his microphone, he chatted with some people who didn't come off as clueless clowns. But that's not funny so that's not in the segment. To his credit though, he's done this with Democrats so he reinforces my belief that every political movement has its idiot faction. But really, what I like about him is that he usually manages to achieve smart and funny at the same time. See if you don't agree…
Several folks have sent me this link suggesting I post it. Christianity Today, a magazine founded by Billy Graham, rarely editorializes but they make an exception for Donald Trump, a man they think any good Christian should wish to see removed from office. Since I'm not a Christian, I'll just give you this link and leave you to make of it what you will.
Probably fewer than a dozen of you are interested in this but I'm interested in it, it's my blog and it's going up here. You don't like it? Go check and see if Abe Vigoda is still dead.
Not all that far from where I live, there's this wonderful little Italian cafeteria called Andre's. It ain't much in looks or luxury but it serves up great spaghetti, ravioli, chicken parm, lasagna and other goodies at low, low prices. I've written about this place before…here, for example.
It's in a shopping mall at the corner of Third Street and Fairfax here in Los Angeles. On the far right is a CVS Pharmacy which remodels their interior right after each time I stop in for something. I'm quite sure the manager gets on the P.A. system and announces, "Okay, Evanier's gone! Move everything around so the next time he comes in, he won't be able to find a damned thing!"
To the left of the CVS is a Whole Foods Market which is apparently run to disprove the rumors that when Jeff Bezos bought out the company, he lowered prices. You want to know how bad it is? Even Jeff Bezos can't afford to shop there.
To the left of Whole Foods is a little patio and Andre's is in that patio. If you're in the area, its exact address is 6332 W 3rd St. and its website with the menu, the hours and everything is here.
Andre's is built into the west side of a very big building. There were a few other shops there but they've either all closed or are about to. Most of the building was occupied for the last few decades by a very shabby KMart. As we've discussed here, outlets of KMart (and its sister chain, Sears) have been closing faster than businesses with "Trump" in their names. The KMart of which we speak closed its doors last Thanksgiving but way before it went bye-bye, the owners of the shopping center had announced a plan to tear down the entire building and erect a 26-story tower with 381 apartments and 81,000 square feet of commercial ventures.
Many folks in the vicinity protested the erection of something that large in that location. I even spoke against it at a meeting of of the Mid City West Community Council, which has some sort of supervisory role on development in the area. I was mainly interested in saving — or at least, delaying — the demise of Andre's, which would have disappeared along with the building it's in. I claim zero credit for the veto of the 26-story Goliath but they were soon talking about a much smaller project.
At the moment, Andre's is still open and serving dee-lish pasta and they have a lease through the end of June of 2020. And what of that big, ugly, empty building that once housed the KMart?
Well, yesterday, they painted it pink. Or purple. Here — you can decide for yourself…
Photo by John Plunkett
Personally, I think it's the color of Pepto Bismol, which is ironic since just looking at it could cause nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach and diarrhea. Why, you may ask, did they do this to what already was a pretty unsightly piece of real estate?
I did some sleuthing and found out that the building has been leased for one year for a "pop-up" store. Apart from the identity of the lessee, I know nothing about it. I don't know, as one might assume, if this means that since they won't be tearing down the building within that year, Andre's can get that lease extended for at least an additional six months. And I'm not clear on just what kind of pop-up business will be popping-up there, though some have suggested a clothing line.
It's a pretty big building for just that and it'll probably cost a couple of bundles to renovate the insides to make it serviceable…all for one year? Well, maybe. I suppose. I guess. Really? So that's everything I know about it except, of course, that I've got you all curious as to who it is who rented this monster of a building and had it painted to look like a 99-Cent-Only Store with psoriasis. It's this person. And I hope she's real successful because the longer she's there, the longer Andre's may be there…assuming the color of her building doesn't kill too many appetites.
I don't have a whole lot to say about The Impeachment of Donald Trump except that I don't think anyone's predictions about how this will play out — including mine, certainly — are worth a whole lot. I do agree with this piece Josh Marshall wrote last night and I'll quote just this much of it…
Here are three points that, for me, function as a sort of north star through this addled and chaotic process.
One: The President is accused of using extortion to coerce a foreign power to intervene in a U.S. presidential election on his behalf.
Two: There is no one in U.S. politics who would ever find that behavior remotely acceptable in a President of the opposite party.
Three: The evidence that the President did what he is accused of doing is simply overwhelming. The documentary evidence points overwhelmingly to guilt. His sometimes unwilling accomplices say he is guilty. His own words prove his guilt. He continues to justify what he is accused of and continues to do the same things again and again in plain sight.
This process has been so clotted with tantrums, goalpost-moving and dissimulation that it can be hard to keep one's bearings. For me, those three essential points clarify the matter and drown out the yelling and stomping.
The problem with the kind of partisanship we're now seeing in this country is that it pre-empts rational, honest thought. Imagine you went to a U.S. Senator and posed a hypothetical question about some unnamed president of the future who committed certain questionable deeds. You ask him, "Would you consider those impeachable offenses?" and the answer you might well get would be "It depends. What party is this hypothetical president?" Or some would answer that yes, those are impeachable offenses but they'd presume that if one of their guys did those questionable things, they could effortlessly modify or reverse that position as necessary.
Once upon a time, it might have been possible to look at a situation like the one that now exists and make some reasonable predictions but that was back when at least some people in power were being reasonable. Now, I dunno and you don't either. I'm going to guess that the reason Trump is so visibly furious at being impeached is that he believed his own bullshit about this being a "do-nothing Congress" and can't believe they did anything.
Deep down, the guy's gotta know a dozen things in his past that are either worse or could be spun as worse…so it's like, "My God, if they'd impeach me over this, what will they do if they get hold of my 2017 income taxes? What if they find out about the deal I made in Peru? What if they find out about that special assignment done for me by Jon Voight and our Rudy Giuliani body double?"
But that's just a guess from a guy who writes cartoons for a living. In a way, it's kinda nice that my predictions are probably just as good as anyone else's these days. I think the three above points from Josh Marshall are valid. I'm not sure much of anything else is.
I almost expect Trump to announce, "It was greatest impeachment ever! Nobody knows more about being impeached than I do! Obama wishes he could have been impeached as well as I was! Poor Bill Clinton was only impeached once and I'm going to be impeached again and again!"
Somewhere in this world, there is a person who designs the parking lots for all the Trader Joe's markets. And this person obviously believes that there are no cars in this world larger than a MINI Cooper.
Yep. Nineteen years, I've been doing this. In case you're interested, this is the 27,180th post. Well, not exactly. A few have been deleted and a larger number have been rerun. I'll guess I'm well over 25,000 unique postings. I would like to acknowledge and thank a few friends who've helped me with the tech end of this thing…friends like Josh Jones and Glenn Hauman. I must also thank the many who, when I typo, are quick to let me know…folks like Steve Stoliar, Shelly Goldstein, Jerry W. and many others.
And I really should thank those of you who send tips via PayPal and/or use our Amazon links to buy things from Jeff Bezos. A few years ago, in order to minimize the "down time" of this blog, I moved it to an expensive hosting company that has indeed eliminated most of the technical outages. I lose money on it but I lose less because of our donors. Your support is very much appreciated. Maybe we can celebrate today by impeaching the president or something.
I haven't seen a lot of movies lately that impressed me. I don't think I even wrote here about Hustlers. But last evening, a friend and I watched a "screener" DVD of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and if I were the kind of person who reviewed movies on a thumbs up/thumbs down basis, mine would be pointing towards the ceiling. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.
As I've written before here, I rarely "buy" impersonation movies where someone is playing a public figure I know so well. The impression may be as good as it could possibly be — the leads in Stan & Ollie being a recent example — but the fact that it's an impersonation rarely leaves my frontal lobes. Tom Hanks did an "as good as it could possibly be" impression in A Beautiful Day… but it was like a mad scientist kidnapped Hanks and Fred Rogers, locked them into chairs in his secret lab and used some impossible machine to fuse the two into one body. There was still a little too much of Tom Hanks in there for me.
Maybe, you might think as I briefly did, if they'd cast an unknown as Mister Rogers…but then, if that person's unknown, he probably isn't anywhere near as good an actor as Tom Hanks. And for reasons we can all understand, maybe the movie wouldn't have been made or gotten much attention without Tom Hanks in it. So my brain decided to play along and once I'd made that mental leap, I had a good time. As I wrote back here expressing my advance reservations about this film, I met the real Mister Rogers once and Hanks managed to capture exactly the guy I met.
He was aided a lot by the fine screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, spinning off the 1998 Esquire article "Can You Say…Hero?" by Tom Junod. Between those three men there was a real understanding of Fred Rogers, both onscreen and off. And of course, as everyone familiar with him in both modes has noted, one of the charming things about Mister Rogers is that there really wasn't any difference between the two.
In case you haven't seen the film or heard much about it, this is not so much a film about Fred Rogers as it is about a mythical reporter (based a bit on Tom Junod) who met Fred Rogers and had his life changed as a result. The reporter is well-played by Matthew Rhys and though you kind of see where the transformation's going about ten minutes into the picture, it's quite enjoyable watching it happen. If you get a chance, watch it happen.
There won't be much of me around here today. If you come to this blog for Trump Dumps, relax. I just checked and practically every website on the whole friggin' Internet looks like a Trump Dump. Which is unfortunate for those of us who are trying — with very little success, obviously — to not think as much about him. You can see from this blog what a bad job I'm doing there.
I will repeat my frequent advice to friends, which is to remember how long it'll be until we vote and to remember how volatile everything is about our current political scene. Everything can change tomorrow. Everything will change within the month, let alone the 321 days until we go to the polls and vote for whoever's names are on the ballots. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to find no mention on them of either Trump's or Biden's.
