A whole bunch of his friends — and he had a lot of them — said farewell to Jerry Van Dyke today. It was a by-invitation-event on the Universal Studios lot in Stage 43 where he (and many of those in attendance) spent many years doing the TV series, Coach.
His older brother Dick spoke and lightly hosted. His wife of many years Shirley produced and performed. There were film clips of his career, most of them expertly selected and edited by Shirley and our pal Stu Shostak. Announcer Christopher Bay skillfully introduced speakers from offstage and narrated clips. A great Dixieland band — the Hollywood Hot Shots — played highly appropriate (i.e., banjo) music. And Wolfgang Puck did the catering. (Well, not Wolfgang himself…)
Shirley led off the proceedings with a well-selected song — appropriate since she was a singer when she and Jerry met in Vegas in the seventies and they often performed together. They were married in 1977 and many folks there spoke of what an ideal couple they were and how she took such loving care of a man who could be…we'll be polite and say "disorganized."
Then came the speakers amidst the film clips: Mike O'Malley and Greg Garcia from the series, Yes, Dear; Barry Kemp, Craig T. Nelson, Shelley Fabares, Bill Fagerbakke and Kenneth Kimmins from Coach; Eileen Heisler, DeAnn Heline and Neil Flynn from The Middle. If I'd been running things, they would have rolled in the 1928 Porter from My Mother, the Car to say a few words.
Early in the program, they showed Jerry's TV debut appearing with his brother on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Late in the program, they showed Jerry's last TV appearance, which was with his brother on The Middle. It was a nice bit of bookending for a long, lovely career. And then Dick closed by reading "God Bless the Clowns," a piece that he famously read at the funeral of his hero, Stan Laurel.
Everyone on stage and everyone I spoke to during the pre-show and post-show mingling spoke of Jerry being a natural clown — a fellow who was funny, on-stage and off. And they had the anecdotes to prove it. A fine afternoon.
Some time ago here, I brought up a movie called The Man Who Had Power Over Women which I first saw upon its release in 1970. I couldn't make up my mind then if I liked it or not. Turner Classic Movies ran it last August and I said then that after I'd watched it, I'd report back here and tell you if I made up my mind about it…but then I didn't. Didn't make up my mind about it and didn't report back that I hadn't. It's still on my TiVo so one of these days, I'll watch it again and try to decide. In the meantime, a fellow named Rod Barnett has taken a stab at the question. My thoughts so far are not unlike his but may change.
We love Laurel and Hardy so of course, we love the famous Laurel and Hardy theme, which was written by an eccentric gent named T. Marvin Hatley. BBC Radio has an audio documentary up about this smile-causing song. It's available for your listening pleasure for a limited time at this link.
I try not to think much about Donald Trump on the weekends. I figure if I can master that, I can start working, one by one, on the weekdays. But take a moment to read this piece by Matt Yglesias. Short summary: Trump sees his job as firing up his base and keeping them mad at his enemies and therefore madly in love with him. If this requires a major disconnect with the actual policies and actions of this administration, fine. In this sense, he's a lot like many of our leaders who talked tough, acted weak but who were still viewed by many as tough.
I'm off today to attend a memorial service for a funny man named Jerry Van Dyke. Tell you all about it when I return.
Every few hundred years, the California Department of Motor Vehicles refuses to renew my driver's license by mail and I have to go into one of their offices, take an eye exam and pose for a new photo. The one good thing is that I always — always! — get an interesting anecdote about the experience. Here's the last one which occurred ten years ago.
That time, as you can see, I was in and out in twenty minutes. This time, it promised to be a lot longer because when I called up to get a reservation time, I found out there was a three-week wait. That would put it two weeks after my birthday and the expiration of my current license. I called a number for D.M.V. info, waited a half-hour for a question-answerer-person and asked what I should do. I don't want to drive with an expired license and I don't want to be unable to drive for two weeks.
The lady said, "You'll just have to come in and take your chances with the line…but I warn out, it could be at least an hour wait. Maybe two hours." Her warning seemed prescient. Yesterday, my assistant John and I went to the D.M.V. office in Hollywood. The line there was long enough that had I decided to wait in it — which I did not — I would have gotten to the clerk just in time to do the next renewal or even the one after it.
Instead, we left there and drove to the West Hollywood D.M.V. and I don't know how long the wait would have been there because we never got to it. I'm not sure it was possible to get to it. Every route we tried to take was closed for street repairs. We hit so many detours that we finally gave up and went home. Apparently, this is the new driving test in the state of California. If you can actually figure out how to drive to the West Hollywood D.M.V., you qualify.
This morning, determined to wait as long as it took, I loaded my Kindle with a few books to pass the time, drove to a different D.M.V. office…and I was out in six minutes. That included the time for the eye test and photo. But that's not the anecdote I got.
As I was heading for my car, I witnessed an accident in the parking lot. A teenager trying to maneuver his car into a space tried backing up to approach it from a different angle — and in backing up, he backed into someone else's car — happily, not mine. There were no injuries but I'm guessing $500 worth of damage to each car.
A man I'd guess was the kid's father got out of the passenger seat, assessed the breakage and I heard him tell the young driver, "You're not ready to take your driving test." And then within seconds, the father-guy was back in the car and they pulled out and drove off. No note. No nothing. But I got both license numbers.
I went back into the D.M.V. office and explained to a clerk what had happened. She paged the owner of the bruised auto, he came over and I took him outside to show him what had been done to his vehicle. He was most displeased. I gave him the license number of the dent-and-run car along with my business card and offered to stick around if he wanted to call the police.
That turned out not to be necessary because just then, the car with the teen and his father rolled back into the lot. The father got out and began apologizing and suddenly, I was (happily) no longer needed. When I left, they were discussing whether the father would pay for repairs out of his own pocket or whether it would go through his insurance. I'd like to think they came back because of conscience but I suspect it was because one of them noticed me jotting down their license number.
Hey, remember how last June, John Oliver did a segment on Last Week Tonight about coal and said some pretty uncomplimentary things about Bob Murray, the CEO of the coal mining company that bears his name, Murray Energy Corporation? Remember how Murray then responded with a big lawsuit for defamation? Well, on Wednesday, a West Virginia judge dismissed the suit.
I dunno if Murray has some way of appealing the dismissal or if so, if he intends to do so. That might prevent Oliver from mentioning it or mentioning it a lot on his show this Sunday. Then again, it might not.
If you'd like to read more writing by someone named Evanier, here's a fine piece by my cousin David. It's about "the scholarly art film entrepreneur," Max J. Rosenberg. Well worth your browsing time.
I usually watch every new game show at least once but The Wall was on for close to a year before I even knew it existed. Why? Because it's on NBC and I watch almost nothing on NBC on my TV set. What I do watch on that network — highlights of Seth Meyers' show and occasionally Jimmy Fallon's — I watch on YouTube. So I never saw a commercial for The Wall and I missed any mentions of it on the 'net.
If you haven't seen it, it works like this: They bring on two contestants who have some sort of bond between them — they're best buddies or they're related — and who are extraordinary people who have done good things for the world and/or each other. The show spends a lot of time telling you how extraordinary they are and what good people they are and how much they love each other. And when the show isn't telling us how much they love each other, the contestants are telling us how much they love each other.
Sometimes, it has a very rehearsed feel and sometimes it sounds spontaneous. I suspect it's all sincere but that the players have been seriously coached to present all that sincerity in a way that will work better on television. Some of them — well aware they've been given the opportunity to maybe go home as millionaires — are probably trying way too hard to give the producers what they want.
The game itself involves a giant Plinko board and dropping red balls and green balls into its slots. When a green ball goes into a slot, the players win the amount of money associated with that slot. When a red ball goes in, the players lose that amount. Since the amounts escalate throughout the show and near the end, one slot is worth a million dollars, it is literally possible to win a million one minute and lose it the next.
Most players at one point rack up a total of well into seven figures but most do not keep all of it. A few keep none of it. So it's often an hour of wild mood swings.
Most of the ball-dropping is done by one contestant while his or her loved one is off in isolation, racking up bucks by answering questions. Then that person in isolation is given a contract which says that their team will accept the prize money they've accumulated answering questions plus what they won in the first ball dropping. They can do that and take home that amount or they can tear it up and accept the unknown-to-them amount that their partner has won on The Wall. So it's kind of a question of "How much do you trust your partner's luck?" Most of the time, they seem to tear up the contract.
In each show's finale, the player who was in isolation is brought out to go face-to-face with their partner and tell them whether or not they tore up the contract. But first, they make a little speech to their partner about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them. Then they fake out their partners and this is where things sound almost scripted to me. If they tore up the contract, they have to start speaking about why they decided to sign it…so for a moment, everyone thinks they did. But then they make a switch and reveal that they tore it up after all and they're really, really unsure if that was the right thing to do.
Or it sometimes works the other way: They start telling their partner about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them and then they start speaking about why they tore it up and then they do the switcheroo and reveal that they signed it instead. Then their partner makes a speech about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them before revealing how they did on The Wall.
On one recent episode, there was a father/daughter team. The father, sent off to isolation, had to choose between accepting "the guarantee" — which he thought might be around $35,000 but was actually around $95,000 — or tearing up the contract and accepting what his daughter had won on The Wall. He had no way of knowing if that amount was more or less than the guarantee. For all he knew, it could have been zero.
Before I go any further, here's the clip of the finale…
It's kind of a strange situation where, if they'd left with $35,000 or even $95,000, he and his daughter would have been regarded as losers. I can remember the day when winning ten grand on The $10,000 Pyramid seemed like all the money in the world…and it's not just inflation that has changed the definition of Big Bucks on game shows. The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! all now occasionally dispense prizes that make the prizes dispensed on earlier versions of those shows look like a case of Turtle Wax and a copy of the home game. They have to to keep up with the trend.
Anyway, as you just saw if the video embed is still there and you clicked on it, the father made his speech about how much he loved her, no matter what the outcome, then he made his speech that made it sound like he'd signed the contract and accepted the 95 thou on their behalf…then he finally said, "I tore it up."
They cut to the other daughter in the audience — the who hadn't come onstage and dropped balls — and that daughter reacted a bit (quietly) because she now knew they'd won the $1.4 million. The daughter onstage knew too but she had to remain expressionless. I can't think of any other game show in history where if you won mega-money, you had to not show emotion for a minute or two. She had to deliver her little "I love you, no matter what" speech first. It actually makes that winning moment more meaningful.
If you think Big Money game shows are stupid or contrived or you resent the emotional roller coaster they put you and the players through, it could be agony. I'm fine with that if it seems genuine and there's enough on The Wall that seems genuine that I'm watching it. I occasionally fast-forward through some of the padding but I am watching it. It works for me in a way that most of these shows don't and one big reason I haven't mentioned yet is its host, Chris Hardwick.
He's real good. Real, real good. I liked him on @Midnight and I like him here because he's a person hosting a game show instead of playing the role of Game Show Host.
Unlike most in that job description, he doesn't seem to be reciting lines that were drilled into him and doesn't seem to believe that the show is about him. He's either a darn good actor or he really cares about the contestants and he has a way of saying just the right thing when, as often happens on this program, things don't turn out the way anyone would have liked. He's also sometimes pretty funny but he knows when not to be.
Years ago when I was working with Dick Clark, I was brought into a meeting about a game show proposal. The proposal never went very far but at one point, they were discussing potential hosts and Dick, who was a terrific game show host himself, vetoed one suggestion. I'll change the name of the suggested host to Johnny Giveaway and what Dick said was, "You don't want him. Instead of servicing the game, he'll spend every minute in front of the camera trying to turn it into The Johnny Giveaway Show."
The host of The Wall is wise enough not to do this…which is one reason I suspect we'll soon see The Chris Hardwick Show. Until then, I'm going to watch The Wall, occasionally throttling through with the FF button.
Hey, you know the song "Coffee Break" from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying? Well, in case you've been wondering how it played in the Japanese production…
I don't know about schools now but in my day, I never had a teacher I would have trusted to be able to use a gun. If we arm them, all we're doing is telling the crazies, "When you start shooting up a classroom, start with the teachers."
Trump doesn't want to arm teachers because it's a good idea. It's actually a dreadful idea. He wants to do it because it's the only thing that might pass for "doing something" that will please the NRA.
Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2018 at 11:10 PM
Here's a piece that ran on The History Channel a few years ago about the origins of MAD magazine. It's interesting because despite on-camera interviews with two people who knew better, it manages to get the history all wrong and it makes no mention of MAD's founding editor-writer, Harvey Kurtzman. Publisher William M. Gaines, who deserves some of the credit gets all of it.
It makes it sound like ol' Doc Wertham single-handedly created the anti-comic book hysteria of the fifties (he had a lot of help) and it repeats the errant notion that MAD went from being a color comic book to a black-and-white magazine to escape comic book censorship. Here's what really happened…
Harvey Kurtzman wrote and edited the comic book issues. He probably should also be acknowledged as the creator of the publication since the most Gaines used to claim was that he suggested that Kurtzman whip up a humor comic…and sometimes, Gaines would kind of vaguely say he came up with the title. No one has ever suggested that the contents, format and underlying philosophy didn't come from Kurtzman.
Harvey loved doing comic books but he hated the cheapness and the low status of the form. Mingling as he did with people involved in what he saw as "real publishing," he was embarrassed to admit what he did for a living. And if people said that the crime and horror comics Gaines published were disgraceful, Kurtzman was inclined to agree. Comics paid badly, they were printed badly, they were targeted at children. That was how he felt and he suggested to Gaines that MAD, which was enjoying great sales as a comic book, be turned into a magazine. It would be a way for Harvey to do comics without being in the low-prestige comic book industry.
Gaines said no at first. Gaines was anti-expansion and preferred to keep his business small and simple. But then Kurtzman got an offer to go to work at Pageant magazine — then, a successful and more prestigious publication — and he told Gaines he was taking it.
Bill Gaines was then-convinced that Kurtzman (the guy not mentioned in this documentary about the beginnings of MAD) was irreplaceable and he countered with an offer to make Harvey's idea a reality and turn MAD into a slick magazine. Kurtzman stayed on — until he later got a better offer from Hugh Hefner — and presided over MAD's conversion. The move was not done to escape censorship, which was not then a serious threat. Not long after though, the change became a happy side effect. When such banning did happen, MAD was safe.
This history has never been a secret. If the History Channel was owned by Time-Warner, which has occasionally preferred to forget Kurtzman, I could understand his omission here…but the network is a joint venture of Hearst and Disney. So I don't know why this is so wrong…
Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2018 at 10:05 AM
I've decided that from now on, anyone who says anything I don't want to deal with is a paid actor who I can therefore ignore and anything that happens that I can't cope with is a False Flag hoax. So much easier than living in the real world.
Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2018 at 12:49 AM
I have a Season Pass on my TiVo for The Opposition With Jordan Klepper — a show I enjoy very much. But said TiVo didn't record it last evening and I just figured out why. For some reason, the program guide has some listings as The Opposition W/ Jordan Klepper and my TiVo thinks that's a different show…one it's not programmed to record.
I took a Season Pass on the abbreviated name and it'll pick up last night's episode on the next replay but only because I caught it in time. I wish they wouldn't do things like that.
Are you reading Written By, the magazine published by the Writers Guild of America? You should. It's a real good magazine and any aspiring writer who isn't reading every issue is missing a valuable resource. So is anyone who just wants to know more about the making of television shows and movies.
As a member, I get every issue in the mail but if I didn't, I'd pay. I think it's available on some newsstands and non-members can subscribe. Better still (and cheaper), you can read it or download it as a PDF over on this page.
The current issue is the February/March one with Greta Gerwig on the cover. There's a nice tribute to our friend Len Wein in it and I also enjoyed an article by Richard Stayton, who investigated the claim that William Goldman did not write 90% of the movie, All the President's Men. SPOILER ALERT: He says it isn't so. And there's plenty of other material in there you'll enjoy.
