Here's the video montage of Pat Harrington's career that was shown at this afternoon's memorial. The early clips are from Pat's appearances on Steve Allen's programs. The last ones are from his long run on One Day at a Time. In-between, you'll be amazed at how much this man worked…and this is just a tiny fraction of what he did.
The video was assembled by Pat's family — Mike, Terry, and Tresa Harrington — along with Stu Shostak, and it was edited by Paul Bunnell.
Today, I attended a lovely (and often funny) memorial service for the late Pat Harrington Jr., who left us in early January. Pat was both a comic actor and a serious one who appeared in countless TV shows, movies and plays but was probably best known for playing Schneider, the building superintendent on the long-running situation comedy, One Day at a Time.
The hall was packed with industry folks for a long presentation expertly hosted by one of Pat's sons, Michael. To steal a joke from the great comedy writer Gary Belkin, I was the only person there I'd never heard of. Many of those who spoke were members of Pat's family but there were also speeches about him from — among others — director Howard Storm, producer Norman Lear, actor Ed Asner and the comedy team of Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall. Charlie and Mitzi, who were among Pat's dearest friends, were indecently funny and touching.
Actually, all the speeches were touching. Pat was loved the way everyone should be loved — by all the people around him and unconditionally. Especially inspiring were the tales from the later stages of his Alzheimer's. Pat was twice married and when his second wife Sally needed a break from the 24/7 caregiving he required, his first wife Marge stepped in to take over. The two ladies were very close friends — and how often does that happen? What extraordinary women.
As I said, the whole place was filled with show biz folks including, I believe, all the surviving cast members from One Day at a Time, as well as an awful lot of comedy writers.
Of all the stories told, my favorite was the one related by Michael Harrington. Pat's father was a popular entertainer who did not encourage his son to follow him into that business. Instead, Pat wound up in the advertising department at NBC where he often amused his co-workers with brilliant dialects and characters, almost always improvised on the spot. His most popular identity was as a great Italian golf pro named Guido Panzini.
One night, Pat and a co-worker were in a bar and they spotted Jonathan Winters, who was a pretty big star. The friend approached Winters and asked if he'd mind meeting this golfer he had never heard of. Somehow, this led to a half-hour of Pat — introduced as Guido — entertaining Jonathan with anecdotes and hilarious stories.
After a while though, Pat began to feel guilty about hoaxing Jonathan Winters that way and he finally dropped the accent and said, "Mr. Winters, I can't lie to you anymore. My name is Pat Harrington and Guido is just a character I do." Pat was momentarily afraid that Winters was going to be pissed and maybe slap him or something. Instead, Jonathan grabbed him by the lapels and said, "I'm guest-hosting the Tonight show this week while Jack Paar is off and I'm putting you on Thursday night's show."
That's how Pat Harrington, who'd barely performed before a real audience before, made his network television debut.
The man had guts and he had talent. And I guess we all knew he had a great family and a great circle of friends. It was a joy today to be among them, to feel a part of that family and those friends, and to remember a fine gentleman. That he was, that he was.
Groucho Marx did his quiz program, You Bet Your Life, on radio from October 27, 1947 until June 10, 1960 and on TV from October 4, 1950 until June 29, 1961. It was retitled The Groucho Show for its final season and it was called The Best of Groucho in reruns. The program started life on ABC radio, the moved to NBC radio and the televised version was on NBC.
Six months after the game show left NBC prime time, Groucho and most of the same staff were back at work. They were on CBS with a new series called Tell It to Groucho, which was basically the same show but with a fancier set and a different game, plus they'd replaced Groucho's old announcer George Fenneman with a former beauty queen (and You Bet Your Life contestant) named Patty Harmon. The show didn't attract an audience and it was gone in five months.
I think it went off for the same reason as its predecessor: Audiences had just grown weary of the same old same old. Also, I think it had become pretty obvious that very little that was said on either show was truly ad-libbed. Between that and the obvious editing, some of the shows have a kind of phony air. Groucho was still funnier than all other game show hosts but he was still far from his best.
Ms. Harmon, by the way, changed her stage name to Joy Harmon and enjoyed some modest success with her acting career. She was the lady who provocatively and memorably washed the car in Cool Hand Luke. Oh — and the off-camera announcer was Johnny Jacobs, who announced zillions of TV programs, including almost all of the Chuck Barris game shows.
Here's a truncated version of an episode of Tell It to Groucho with special guest Rod Serling. This is from April 2, 1962…
Now that Antonin Scalia has been buried, genuine criticisms of the man and his impact can begin. People who thought he was a horrible, politically-motivated jurist no longer have to hold their tongues, lest they be accused of insensitivity to his friends and family.
Jeffrey Toobin summarizes what is probably a widely-held view of Scalia. Scalia claimed to be an "originalist," ruling according to what the framers of our Constitution intended. I don't think interpreting the Constitution that way is what those framers intended. That's why they made ample provision for amendments, started amending the document themselves even as it was being ratified, and left many phrases — like what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" — for each assemblage of the Supreme Court to define based on current mores.
But even if "originalism" is what they wanted, it's not what we need. Those guys didn't think women or minorities were human beings. It's also not what is practiced by most (maybe all) of those who claim to be applying originalism as their standard. Certainly, Scalia did not.
What he was doing was finding ways to argue that what James Madison had in mind was exactly what he, Antonin Scalia, wanted the law to say. Like a con artist claiming to be conversing and therefore speaking with God, Scalia insisted his rulings came from a higher source no one could question. And don't tell me that isn't the way Scalia was because Ben Franklin told me and he oughta know.
Work to do, work to do. I won't be paying much attention to this blog and even less to primaries and caucuses. I'm especially not going to read political articles online.
One arguably-nice thing about the Internet is that on it, you can almost always find an authoritative-sounding article to confirm that which you wish to believe. So if you want to believe that there's no way on Earth that Bernie Sanders can get the Democratic nomination, let alone win the White House, there are pundits who will tell you that's so. And if you want to believe he not only can but definitely will, it won't take much Googling to have someone tell you that's so. Same with any other candidate.
I sometimes think I know where all this is headed but then I remind myself that there's no way I would have expected some of them — Sanders and Trump in particular — to be where they are today…and there's a long way to November with plenty of twists 'n' turns ahead. If Marco Rubio could do as much damage to his political future with one poor debate performance as he did, who's to say tomorrow Bernie or Donald (or Hillary or Ted or any of 'em) won't suddenly self-destruct — or have someone help them do that? One wrong tweet sent public instead of private can do a lot of damage…or maybe not. A lot of things Trump had said to cheering crowds are things which not so long ago would have torpedoed a campaign.
I do think some folks have tremendous advantages and others never had a chance. Still, it wouldn't amaze me that much if come Inauguration Day, we see the new President of the United States, Lena Dunham, being sworn in by Chief Justice Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
In other news: Membership badges for Comic-Con International 2016 sold out in a little under an hour, I'm told. There's usually another brief on-sale period later on as they offer badges that were for one reason or another returned for refunds. If you wanna go and can't get one that way, your best bet is probably an exhibitor. Those who rent booths in the hall get a supply of badges and don't always need them all. Whatever you do though, don't write me. I can do nothing to help you.
Haven't watched Craig Ferguson's new show yet but the first two episodes are among the thirty-or-so hours of unviewed programming on my TiVo. I liked Stephen Colbert a lot this past week and caught some of Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, which was broadcasting from out here — from the studio on the Universal lot which was made over for Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show.
Wednesday night, they did a bit they did once before in New York. Fallon started the monologue, then feigned an injury and had to ask someone to "tag in" for him and finish it — and Jay Leno walked in and took over. The audience loved it and it reminded me how I always thought Leno was the best monologist in late night…not coincidentally because he's one of the few who ever did stand-up outside a talk show situation.
Jay did the balance of the monologue, then left to go home. Later in the episode, a scheduled guest (Snoop Dogg) didn't show so Jay was hustled back out to be the guest for one segment. He said the producer caught him at the gate and got him to return. It seemed genuinely spontaneous because Fallon had no questions for him. Jay just came out, sat down and began telling stories, filling the time quite nicely with Fallon barely participating. But then Fallon rarely has much to do in his interviews even when he's sitting there with pre-written questions on a card in front of him.
If you want to watch the monologue segment, it's here. And part of Leno's sitdown with Fallon is here. Notice that Jay doesn't wait for Jimmy to ask him something that might lead to a funny anecdote. He plays it safe and just starts telling one and manages to tie it in with something that went before. You too can host The Tonight Show if your guests can all do that.
The Ford Motor folks recently commissioned three cartoonists — Al Jaffee, M.K. Brown and Bill Plympton — to write and design little animated spots on the topic of paying attention while you're driving. Supervising the project was animation producer and director J.J. Sedelmaier, whose company has been responsible for some of the best animation of the past twenty years. If you see a cartoon segment on a very funny TV show that is not otherwise animated, it's probably their work.
Here, J.J. chats with Al and at the end, you'll see the finished video that they created. Al is still at age 94 creating his MAD Fold-Ins (and occasionally other things) for MAD but he took time out from them to do his first-ever work in the field of animation…
A 10,000 square foot replica of the Haunted Mansion building at Disneyland. For that price, it ought to come with Paul Frees included.
As we just tweeted, Steve Martin performed stand-up comedy last night, the first time he's really done such a thing in 35 years. Here's a report.
Wanna go to Comic-Con in San Diego this July? Online registration is tomorrow. Here's a tutorial on how to do it…
Watching the third part of The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, I got to wondering: Are there people watching this who think Simpson wasn't the murderer of those two people? And if so, do these folks think that the case as presented in the mini-series is accurate or flawed?
Back when the case was current, I found myself debating Simpson's guilt at a few parties. In some cases, it was with one of those people — you know the kind — who always believes the opposite of what "most people" believe. It makes them feel smarter or superior, I guess. I met an awful lot of them back when I was a lot more interested in the Kennedy Assassination than I should have been.
These folks never seemed to have any real facts or logic. Usually, it was a matter of connections. They always knew people who could give them the real story, as opposed to the pablum fed to the masses. One told me that Simpson's Dream Team was sitting on incontrovertible proof as to who the "real killers" were. (It's always a grand conspiracy with these folks — one that involves hundreds if not thousands of conspirators, many of them very well-known, and it always ties into larger, seeming-unrelated matters. The revelations would "blow the roof off" matters of international intrigue.)
Anyway, despite his assurances, the incontrovertible proof of a world-wide conspiracy never emerged. You'd kinda think it would if there was such proof, wouldn't you?
Then there were the "O.J. is innocent" people who were operating from the premise that the L.A.P.D. was corrupt and you couldn't believe anything it said, especially when there was the chance to frame a black guy. I never bought the concept that Simpson was innocent but framed…or even, as many opined, that he was guilty but framed.
I thought some of the anomalies in the case were simply poor or inefficient police work, not treachery. For what it's worth, every contact I've ever had with the L.A.P.D. has left me with the sense that they're mostly honest and dedicated but horrendously understaffed and underfunded. (They still haven't done anything about those two separate caregivers who robbed my mother back in 2012. Our "open and shut case" is still, as far as I know, sitting in a very large pile in a detective's office at the West L.A. Division.)
And of course, there were those who thought O.J. didn't do it because they thought it was about time a black guy — which is kind of what O.J. was, in a way — beat the rap the way white guys so often do. This new mini-series started with the Rodney King Riots because in a way, the story of Simpson's trial did, too.
I did encounter a few folks who felt, as per a logical and factual argument, that Simpson was not guilty or maybe that there was a big part of the story missing — like Simpson's son had done the killings and O.J. was taking the rap for him. To think any of that though, you had to write off an awful lot of the evidence as bogus, contaminated, not to be trusted, etc., and then fill in with speculation. A lot of people clearly didn't want it to be true.
Articles about the mini-series said that its writers and producers chose to not take a position on whether O.J. dunnit but clearly so far, they think he did. The third part has his lawyers deciding to play the proverbial race card, not because they think it's valid but because it's all they've got…and boy, are those lawyers sleazy. I couldn't help but feel that this was the story of a man who viciously hacked two human beings to death with a knife — and he was not the worst human being in this drama.
I still don't buy Cuba Gooding as the Juice. I still think Nathan Lane is too nice a person to play F. Lee Bailey. I still don't know what the hell is up with John Travolta's performance or his makeup. I still like everybody and everything else. And I still may stop watching as we get deeper into the gross miscarriages of justice and the success of some really sinister, immoral lawyering. Hey, maybe this will do so well that they'll make a sequel about the civil trial. That would all add up to way too much O.J. Simpson but at least the second one has a happy ending.
A fine and much-loved magician, Tom Mullica, died earlier today at the age of 67. For a long time, Tom's specialty — which you'll see in the video embedded below — was cigarette magic. He'd smoke twenty at a time, take them all inside his mouth, seemingly swallow them all and other items, etc. It was really an amazing act — one he did all over the world and on TV shows including appearances with David Letterman and Penn & Teller.
Before you ask: No, he did not die from a smoking-related disease. He had gone into a hospital for what was described as a fairly-routine hernia operation. There were unexpected complications due to blood clots leading to multiple strokes.
Tom had actually given up the smoking routine many years ago, focusing instead on other kinds of magic, a ventriloquist act and his main source of income during the last decade…his Red Skelton tribute show.
Once upon a time, Tom did his magic (cigarette and otherwise) at a nightclub he owned in Atlanta called Tom-Foolery. He was often more comedian than magician, sometimes taking 20-30 minutes to locate a spectator's chosen card and keeping the crowd in hysterics as he snuck up on it. Red Skelton, who often played a local concert hall, was occasionally in that audience, which led to Red and Tom becoming good friends.
When Tom talked about doing a little Skelton impersonation in his act, Skelton encouraged him and gave him permission to use some of his material. In recent years, Tom was very proud to proclaim that of all the Red Skelton impersonators out there — there are several — he was the only one to be personally endorsed by Skelton and to have received permission from the great clown's estate. The act played all over the continent with a long residence in Branson, MO.
I was privileged to see Tom on several occasions. He was quite entertaining and in performance, joyously mad — as this video of his old cigarette act will prove. And yes, I posted this here before, long ago…
What happens on Jeopardy! when there's a tie or no winner? Hey, let's go to the rule book.
In case you're sitting up nights worrying about Kanye West's finances, Jordan Weissmann says they aren't that bad. Which makes the performer's public appeals for money all the more ridiculous.