It's March, it's March…and that means that my favorite soup is on the menu at all Souplantation restaurants across the country. In some places, Souplantation goes under the name Sweet Tomatoes. A place that features this soup is by any name a good place to dine this month.
Here's a map page that will allow you to find out if there's one near you. If not, you should probably sell your house and move to some city that has a Souplantation. You can always move back when the month is over.
Beginning in 1980, Hanna-Barbera produced a Richie Rich cartoon show that aired on Saturday Mornings on ABC. The show ran through four seasons and three names. Fred Silverman, who was then in charge at the network, liked to "marry" two or more unrelated shows to create a block. The theory was that while you might be inclined to watch a half-hour of Richie Rich followed by a half-hour of Scooby Doo, you were less likely to change channels during the one-hour Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show. I have no idea how valid this theory was.
So the first and second seasons, it was The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show which ran an hour and gave each element thirty minutes. The third season, it was The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show, which was a 90-minute show with each component getting 30 minutes. And the fourth season, it was The Monchhichis/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show with the Monchhichis getting half the hour and the other half being split between The Little Rascals and Richie.
The show was developed for television by a fine gentleman named Norman Maurer, who had drawn comic books before he moved to Hollywood, managed The Three Stooges, produced movies and worked on other cartoon shows. Norman was the story editor the first season and I wrote several episodes for him. When the second season started, Norman was too busy with his ninety-six different other endeavors so the story editor job was given to a very funny man named Bob Ogle.
Bob and the folks at ABC didn't get along and after a few weeks and by mutual agreement, he was rotated to another show on another network. Replacing him was Jack Mendelsohn, another former comic book guy and another fine gentleman. I didn't work on the second season.
When the third season started, Jack was brought back as story editor and went to work but after about two weeks, CBS picked up Meatballs & Spaghetti, a cartoon show that Jack had created for Marvel Productions. Jack wanted to go work on that so he asked out of his Richie Rich contract and ABC said they'd release him if — and only if — an acceptable alternative could be signed in his place. They gave Hanna-Barbera a list of acceptable alternatives and the only one on it who might be available was Yours Truly.
"Might be" is right. At the time — this would be February of 1982 when I got the offer — I was a staff writer on That's Incredible!, which was an hour-long (and pretty popular) weekly show on ABC's Monday night schedule. By any standard, that was a full-time job but I was also still doing a few comic book scripts for various publishers as well as animation scripts for Ruby-Spears, plus occasional shows for Sid and Marty Krofft. I still don't know why I said yes except that Jack asked me real nicely.
But I said yes on one condition, which was that I wanted to be paid by the show instead of by the week. H-B usually paid their story editors by the week and that might sound like a better arrangement for the story editors. If the network started demanding lots of rewrites or they completely rejected scripts, a job that might have taken twenty weeks to complete could stretch to twenty-five or more. So didn't it make more sense to get paid per week? I decided it didn't, at least for me.
A story editor's contract there did not specify a minimum or maximum number of weeks. It just said you'd work until all the episodes for the season were declared done in the opinion of…someone. While freelancing for the studio, I had observed that Bill Hanna, who was in charge of schedules, often manipulated them to cut down on how long his company would be paying you. His right to adjust those schedules was absolute…and it kind of had to be.
Once a script was completed and approved, it went to an assembly line of artists, some in the H-B studio, others around the globe working in studios that had subcontracting deals with H-B. Wherever they were, they were being paid by the hour or the week. To Bill Hanna and his associates, there was no greater disaster in the vast H-B production machine than artists sitting around on the payroll with nothing to draw.
So let's say I was three weeks ahead on Richie Rich scripts and suddenly, the Scooby Doo show was having trouble getting scripts approved by the network. There might suddenly be a day when the artists working on Scooby — who might be in the H-B building or might be in Korea or the Philippines or anywhere — would have nothing to animate. They couldn't allow that to happen so Mr. Hanna, without consulting me or anyone, would send all the available, approved Richie Rich scripts — or whatever other scripts he could find — off to be done by the Scooby crew.
The next morning, I'd get a memo that my show was no longer three weeks ahead. It was now, shockingly, a week behind so I suddenly had to work like crazy. If I was going to be juggling so many different jobs, I needed to cut down on that kind of surprise and I thought getting paid by the show might do it. It would give Mr. Hanna some incentive to rush some other story editor since he wouldn't be saving money by rushing me.
It was not a bad idea but it led to a very messy, protracted negotiation over my fee since H-B had either never done that before or hadn't done it lately. Finally though, I got roughly what I wanted and I went to work.
This has been Part One of the story. One of these days — no promises as to when — I'll get around to writing Part Two.
Here's something that struck me as…well, not so much odd as puzzling. In 1974, Walter Matthau and Jack Benny were cast in The Sunshine Boys, the movie version of Neil Simon's play of the same name.
Benny died before the film began shooting and he was replaced by his lifelong friend, George Burns. MGM should probably have put Burns up for an Oscar in the Best Actor category but they figured he and Matthau would split the votes of those who liked the movie and neither would win or even get nominated. So they put Matthau up for Best Actor and Burns (and Richard Benjamin) up for Best Supporting Actor.
This may have been unfair to Mr. Benjamin who did not get nominated. Matthau though was indeed nominated for Best Actor but he was beaten by Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest…and how could he not be? I'll bet he also finished behind Al Pacino for Dog Day Afternoon, as well. But Mr. Burns was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and as you'll see in the clip below, he won.
We never know why the Academy voters vote as they do and it would be silly to suggest they all have the same thinking process or reasons. It did however seem like people liked the idea of an old guy finally getting recognized this way and they thought George would give a great, memorable acceptance speech.
He was indeed a favorite. The folks who seat the nominees at the telecast have no actual information on who's going to win but you'll notice they gave Burns the seat that provided the quickest access to the stage. Maybe that was because he was the oldest nominee that evening but maybe they also suspected he'd need to get up there. I remember noticing the seating at the time.
I also remember hearing Burns start his speech and I was pretty sure I knew how he was going to end it. I was certain his last line would be something like, "The only thing that would make me happier tonight would be if I was sitting home right now watching my dear friend Jack Benny win this." But as you can see, he didn't mention his best friend at all and I still don't know why…
I just watched an hour or so of Michael Cohen testimony and the reactions to it. Cohen seems like one of those guys who always sounds like he's lying. If he told you his mother was dead, you'd think, "That guy's lying." And then if ten minutes later, he told you she was alive, you'd think, "That guy's lying again." In some ways, the most damning thing evident today about Donald Trump was that he employed a guy like that to represent him for so long.
Hello from The Middle of the Night. Yesterday's episode of Stu's Show — with guests Bob Bergen and m.e. — ran an Internet-busting four (4!) hours. Three hours and fifty-two minutes of it were spent with Bob and/or me telling our host Stu Shostak why he was wrong about one thing or another. It got a bit heated at times and my e-mail suggests that a lot of folks thought it ended with someone unwilling to speak to someone else ever again. Nonsense. Everyone was buddy-buddy in the off-air post-show chatter.
One of the louder topics was the "death reels" (aka "In Memoriam" presentations) on show biz award shows which have some folks quite incensed. Stu was and remains quite ballistic about the exclusions. Bob, who sits on the Board of Governors at the TV Academy, explained some of the constraints on these segments.
My own opinion has evolved a bit on this. I think yeah, it would be great if they included everyone who has made a significant contribution to movies or TV shows or Broadway shows or whatever the medium is for the awards show in question. But I recognize that's impossible and I've decided not to get upset when 5% of the well-known performers are omitted from a montage which excludes 60% of the directors who might have been in it, 75% of the writers, 63% of the cinematographers and art directors, 99% of the animators, etc.
I made up those percentages but I'll bet they're not far off. It's everyone but the actors who get "snubbed." At least when a Carol Channing or a Sondra Locke gets omitted, people notice. Few if any of the complainers noticed they didn't include Don Lusk (who animated on most of the great Disney features) or Gary Kurtz (who produced Star Wars and American Graffiti, among others).
And I suspect Dick Miller got more attention for not being in the Oscars reel than he would have received had he been included.
Anyway, I was so exhausted from Stu's Show that I climbed into bed shortly after it. Which explains why I'm up here in The Middle of the Night. It's not a bad time to be here. As far as I can tell, I have the whole Internet to myself…
I gave up on the Michael Cohen hearing after about an hour, then checked back a few times and it was more of the same. Republicans interrogating him kept saying over and over, "You're a convicted liar, you're a convicted liar" and didn't allow Cohen much opportunity to say much more than to confirm that yep, they're right — he's a convicted liar. A few Democrats (and Chris Christie, in a brief comment I caught) noted that an awful lot of people have gone to prison in this country based on the testimony of some liar who flipped. It's the main way that folks involved in organized crime get convicted.
I didn't hear this but I suppose someone pointed out that if Cohen was lying in his testimony today, he was risking turning three years of prison into many, many more. They kept harping on whether he was going to get a lucrative book deal because, I guess, they couldn't come up with a better reason for him to lie now. (I did hear one exchange where he was asked to promise he would not run for public office. I'd have loved it if he'd said, "Well, you know, I wouldn't have thought a guy who was known as a serial liar could get elected in this country but Donald Trump's proved me wrong.")
Where all this is going, I dunno. He did deny some of the charges that have been made against Trump and I suppose the Republicans think we should believe this "pathological liar" on those statements but no others. All in all, I suspect Cohen's testimony will do damage to Trump's reputation with all those Americans who haven't made up their mind on whether Trump is a good man or a bad man. Unfortunately, there are only about eleven of those in the country…maybe twelve if you count Ivanka.
My pal Frank Ferrante goes from town to town across this great land of ours, replicating the master comedian, Groucho Marx. Every twenty minutes or so, I post a plug for this show because I think it's so wonderful and I love it when people go and then write me to say, "You were right about that guy."
I'm not a fan of impersonator shows. In most of them, I think the impersonator kinda reminds you of the person he's playing and only for five or ten minutes. That is not the case with Frank who actually manages to make you forget that you're not in the presence of the genuine article…and in his peak years, no less.
Due to other, non-Groucho commitments, Frank won't be doing the show as often in 2019 as he has in past years. He's doing it March 9 in Tucson, March 10 in Glendora (that's in California), March 22 and 23 in San Jose (also in California) and March 28 in Palm Desert (ditto). The whole schedule is here. If you go, you'll see a lot of this…
Today is going to be a very bad day for Donald Trump.
This is sad but probably inevitable. The Samuel French Theatre & Film Bookshop is closing at the end of March. The company's business has shifted largely online so they're shuttering the physical retail store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
I am probably a microscopic but real part of the reason as I haven't set foot in there in twenty-some years. But it was an interesting place to browse, usually among young actors and actresses looking for something that might boost their emerging careers: A play to be in, a scene to use for auditions, a book on acting, etc. I have several shelves of books that came from Samuel French. It was a good place for writers, too.
This Wednesday on your favorite Internet talk program, Stu's Show, there will be many topics but two main ones. One is televised award shows like the Oscars and Emmys and why they seem increasingly irrelevant and unwatched. What, if anything, can or should be done to change that? The other topic is Second-Generation Cartoon Voices — the folks who've taken over speaking for Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear, Fred Flintstone and other ongoing classic characters.
Stu's guests to discuss these topics and others will include Bob Bergen, who's now the voice of Porky Pig and who also sits on the Board of Governors of the Television Academy, and there's also one other guest whose name I forget. Oh, right: It's me. I will be on the show and since my friend (and the show's host) Stu Shostak and I disagree a lot on these topics, it might just turn into a wrestling match with body slams and hair-pulling. If you're squeamish, don't watch.
Or you can just listen to it tomorrow. Stu's Show is simulcast on Roku TV if you wanna watch it, or various radio-like sources if you just wanna listen. It starts live at 4 PM Pacific Time (7 PM Eastern) and will run at least two hours, maybe three. Go to this page to find out the various ways to tune in.
Also, let me remind you that this coming Sunday, March 3, our friend Shelly Goldstein is doing her extraordinary one-woman show at the Catalina Bar and Grill. Well actually, it's one woman plus a guest performer (Mark Arthur Miller) and a pianist but the one woman is so entertaining that it feels like she can do it all by herself.
The show is called "How Groovy Girls Saved the World" and it's about sixties stars like Petula Clark, Lesley Gore and Mama Cass. Ms. Goldstein will favor us with tunes made famous by those ladies as well as her own smart/funny song parodies.
It may well sell out so if you're thinking of getting tickets, get 'em now at this link. What ever happens happens at the Catalina Bar and Grill, located at 6725 Sunset Boulevard, a couple blocks east of Highland in Hollywood. I'll be there among the smart people. Hope they don't notice me and toss me out.
Jim Warren was a very colorful publisher of not-very-colorful magazines. He's the guy who brought us Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Famous Monsters of Filmland and many others. Depending on your age and who was in charge of those magazines when you read them, they could have been very important to you. Even at their lowest points, they stood way above most of the imitations…and boy, did they have imitations.
A lot of very talented people passed through those pages and one could make the case that, of all the publishers trying to appeal to the tastes of a certain youthful audience back then, no one had a better "read" on what the customers wanted than did James Warren. At the very least, you could argue that no one did as much with such low budgets as James Warren.
His story has been captured well in a new book by our friend Bill Schelly. Bill is a superb researcher and chronicler, and I was startled by how much he discovered about his subject that I didn't know. Warren, like so many other publishers back in the late fifties, was trying to replicate the lifestyle and financial success of Hugh Hefner without the funding. He wound up making his mark with monsters, not bunnies.
That's the tale Bill tells, along with Warren's revolving door of editors and the challenge of being a little guy on a big newsstand. If any of that sounds of interest to you, order a copy of James Warren: Empire of Monsters. It sure was of interest to me.
Sorry about the short notice. Today on Steve — which is what they call Steve Harvey's talk show — one of the guests is our pal, Disney Legend Floyd Norman. It airs at 2 PM in Los Angeles and different times in different climes.
Hey, remember the great game show, Numberwang? I posted a number of episodes like this one a few years ago and in each one, contestant Julie suffered a humiliating defeat. You'll be happy to hear that Julie's gone on to bigger and better things. Sunday evening, she won the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She now calls herself Olivia Colman, presumably because she was so embarrassed by losing at Numberwang. Maybe they can bring her back now for Celebrity Numberwang…
The 'net is awash with criticisms of the Academy Awards telecast, the show so many people love to hate each year. The overall reaction was way better than expected and the ratings were up a tad from last year. I'd be curious to know if that was because more people tuned in or because more of those who did tune in stayed 'til the end.
Usually, the initial tune-in is indicative of how much people care about who wins and about how interested they are in what the host will do or say. This year, the latter was probably how interested they were in how the show would go without a host. But I do think interest in the actual awards is like 90% of it. (When this year's show started, by the way, my first thought which I almost Tweeted was that someone said, "Let's do it without a host and turn it into the Grammy Awards!" But before I could send that, Tina Fey and friends came out and it turned back into the Oscars.)
Anyway, the measure of how many people stay with it until the end is more a measure of how much they enjoyed the show. Whether the Academy and ABC try this format again may have something to do with that statistic.
Seems to me that even some of those who dumped on the ceremony had to dig deeper than usual to find things to bitch about. My friend Ken Levine took his annual snarky slam and halfway through it, I thought he was going to have to go after the uniforms on the valet car parkers to find things to insult.
As usual, a lot of people didn't like who won in some categories and they take it out on the telecast. Not having seen it, I have no idea if Green Book was deserving of Best Picture but I'll go out on a limb here and say it just might have gotten the most votes. A lot of those complaining about that seem to think the Academy should have done something to prevent such a travesty. I know how they feel. During the last presidential election, I thought CNN's coverage was atrocious, especially that part where they announced Donald Trump had won. They should have crowned Hillary instead. Since when do we let the actual votes get in the way of putting on a good show?