Donald Trump did his now-infamous trashing of John McCain's military service at a rally staged by the the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa. According to Byron York, those remarks were the lesser of two things Trump said there that troubled the attendees.
York says the greater problem for Trump was that he failed to sound like a born-again Christian with a deep, personal relationship with God. That's what a lot of those voters came to hear. A large part of the G.O.P. base doesn't care a lot what a candidate would do in office. They care about him being properly religious their way, and presume that if he is, he'll do what's right.
That's yet another reason Trump will never be their nominee. Can you imagine him crediting all his success to anyone but himself? He'll probably try it in some manner but he sure won't convince anyone he means it.
Two years ago on this blog, I linked to a clip of a short comedy and introduced it this way…
When you think of great comedy teams, certain names come to mind: Laurel & Hardy. Abbott & Costello. The Three Stooges. Nixon & Agnew. And of course, Biffle & Shooster.
Most of you are familiar with Biffle & Shooster but just in case there's someone reading this who isn't: Benny Biffle and Sam Shooster were a popular vaudeville comedy team and they starred in approximately twenty two-reel comedy shorts in the thirties, ending with the classic, It's a Frame-Up. That last one was once thought to be a "lost" treasure but the noted film producer-historian Michael Schlesinger located and, at great personal expense, restored the film and it is now available for viewing. In fact, Mike may have done too good a job of restoration…
The print is so good that folks unfamiliar with movie history think it was shot recently; that Biffle & Shooster weren't classic comedians of the thirties but that Mike wrote, produced and directed a film in that style. And it's true that Biffle looks somewhat like the current-day comic actor Nick Santa Maria and Shooster bears more than a passing resemblance to my pal, Will Ryan. But I also know Mike and know that he has way too much integrity to phony-up a film in the classic tradition and try to pass it off as an older masterpiece…and besides, he wouldn't get away with it.
Amazingly, Mike has continued to uncover lost Biffle & Shuster comedies — so many that he's now assembling an entire program of them. Here's a preview of this fine compilation that I hope will be playing soon at a theater near you. Their comedy is so fresh, you'd think these films were shot in the last two years…
A lot of people are outraged at Donald Trump's belittling of John McCain's military service. As Joe Conason notes, some of those who are outraged have had no problem with attacks on the military records of their political opponents.
Keith Olbermann is leaving ESPN. Rumor has it he may be back on MSNBC. I dunno if I believe that…or other rumors that he'll be paired, back-to-back, with a show starring Brian Williams.
Either one might cause me to watch that channel again. I haven't for a long, long time…and neither has almost anyone else.
For some reason, I didn't warm to the 1989 film version of Alfred Uhry's play, Driving Miss Daisy. It won a ton of awards including the Oscar for Best Picture but when I saw it in a theater, it felt very talky and predictable to me. The folks on the screen seemed like actors performing a script and the emotional turns they were making seemed obvious and uninteresting.
This was obviously a minority viewpoint…but I have those about a number of acclaimed films. Sometimes, I say so out loud and sometimes, I keep my opinion to myself because it really upsets some people if you don't love that which they love. (You should see some of the outraged mail I've gotten from people who love cole slaw and apparently think I will someday get it banned so they cannot enjoy it anymore. I mean, they're right. I will. But they're just so nasty about it.)
Because I do like Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones, I made a point of TiVoing and watching the new PBS Great Performances production of the play and I did like that. I'm not suggesting Lansbury and Jones are better actors than Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman from the movie — seeing the show staged as a play before a live audience may have been the key difference for me — but I felt more chemistry and more interest in Miss Daisy and Hoke Colburn. Your mileage, as they say in automotive ads and strip clubs, may vary.
I especially liked watching James Earl Jones, an actor I've always liked — which is not to say I've ever disliked anything about Ms. Lansbury. But I thought Jones was just so good.
He's a nice person, too. One day at a Garfield voice recording session, he was working in the adjoining studio and we got to talking in the area where they have refreshments and snacks. That man has one of the greatest laughs I've ever heard — deep and rich and from the heart and belly. I kept trying to think of funny things I could say to him just so I could hear that laugh.
Then, to my surprise, he asked if we ever had a role in Garfield that he could do. I think I offered to let him play anything he wanted, even if it meant firing Lorenzo Music…but, well aware he was one of the highest-paid announcer-types in the business, I warned him we only paid scale to guest stars. He said, "That doesn't matter. You just all seem like you're having so much fun in there, I want to be a part of it." He was in town the next three weeks and if we were recording again during that time — and we were — he would be glad to come in and play any part I wrote. Guess what I wrote the next day.
What a delight. The other actors were, of course, thrilled. And I remember him being very respectful to them all and even a bit timid, since he was aware they were all more experienced at this particular type of acting than he was. Someplace in there is one explanation as to why he's such a fine actor.
So I'm recommending the PBS version of Driving Miss Daisy, which reruns several times on most PBS channels (check your listing) in the next week or three. You may have to search for Great Performances to find it…and believe me, it lives up to that name.
Oh, hell. I'll make it even easier for those of you who have good Internet connections. I'll embed the video here so you can enjoy it. I did…
Forty-one years ago at U.C.L.A., a student there named Steve Stoliar launched a drive to get Universal Studios to re-release the then-unavailable Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers. Today, the school newspaper recalls that campaign and explains what happened as a result of it.
I'm always intrigued how fate directs our lives. Steve started all this very shortly after I quit U.C.L.A. so I could spend all my time writing comic books and other things. Had I stuck around, I'm sure I would have joined his movement and we probably would have become good friends then instead of forty years later.
I first posted this here on March 22, 2006. It's all about the 1966 movie Penelope starring…well, I tell you below who starred in it. For your information, it runs tomorrow (Monday) afternoon on Turner Classic Movies but before you rush to set your TiVo or whatever device you have, read what I wrote about it and then there'll be a follow-up after I quote the old posting…
In 1966, my father and I went to a movie at the Crest Theater, which was on Westwood Boulevard just south of Wilshire. I forget what the movie was but the trailer was for a film called Penelope starring Natalie Wood, Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and Jonathan Winters. I, of course, instantly noticed that it was a reunion of three of the leads from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. What interested my father was that Jonathan Winters was in it. (He may also have been interested in the scenes in the trailer that had Ms. Wood running around in her underwear. Come to think of it, so was his son. I was fourteen and I was interested in any woman running around in her underwear. If it was Natalie Wood, so much the better. But when you're fourteen, you're not that fussy.)
My father thought Jonathan Winters was the funniest human being on the planet — a not-uncommon opinion, then or now. "We'll have to see that," he said to me. A week or two later, we were back at the Crest seeing that. My recollection is that, underwear scenes aside, neither one of us liked the movie much. You got the feeling that a lot more thought had gone into Natalie Wood's wardrobe — she seemed to go through about ninety-seven outfits in 97 minutes — than into the script.
We especially disliked the paucity of Mr. Winters. Though billed as a star, he was in the film for what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops. It was certainly not an appearance commensurate with his billing. His name on the marquee of the Crest was just as large as Natalie's. What's more, about half of his performance was obviously done by a stuntman…and most of it had been in that trailer. If you'd seen the Coming Attractions, you'd pretty much seen Jonathan's contribution to Penelope.
On the way out that evening, my father felt swindled and it wasn't because the movie wasn't very good. It was because he felt it had been misrepresented. A man who I guess was the manager of the Crest said to us at the door, "Hope you'll come back soon," and my father blurted out his dissatisfaction. He pointed to the marquee and said, "We came to see Jonathan Winters. You shouldn't have his name up there if he's only in the movie for three minutes."
Immediately, the manager whipped out four free passes, almost like he'd had them ready for us. "Please accept these with my sincere apologies," he said. Then he turned to an employee and said, "Go get the letters for the front and the ladder. I want to change something." Sure enough, the next day when we happened to drive down Westwood, the name of Jonathan Winters was no longer on the Crest marquee. Dick Shawn's was in its place.
I'm sure this all sounds trivial today but I remember the incident vividly. It was the first time I was ever acutely aware that you ought to speak up when things aren't right…and not just because you might get something (like free passes) out of it. You do it because few things that oughta be fixed ever get fixed if no one says anything.
It is, of course, possible to overdo this. I broke up with one lady friend because she seemed to go through life, finding fault everywhere and demanding that the world be corrected to her liking. It got very tiresome, especially when I found myself fixing things that really didn't need to be fixed, just so she'd stop telling me they did. A lot of people criticize because they like the attention it gives them and the feeling of power to make others jump through hoops to please them. There have been times in my life when my biggest complaint has been people with complaints. Still, it's just as wrong, if not more so, to suffer in silence.
So that's the memory I associate with the movie Penelope, which I haven't seen since '66. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing that it was running on TV or available on home video…but it's on Turner Classic Movies this Friday evening and I'm setting a TiVo. This is not a recommendation that you do likewise since I barely remember anything about it except for how quickly Jonathan Winters disappeared and that I didn't like anything except Ms. Wood's undies. Then again, how bad can a movie with Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and (briefly) Jonathan Winters be? Plus, it also has Lou Jacobi and Carl Ballantine…so right there, you have five of my favorite comic actors.
Still, tape or TiVo it at your own risk, especially if you want to see what Ms. Wood is and isn't wearing in it. I'm just watching to see if it's any better than I remember…and also, I want to run a stopwatch on Jonathan Winters's screen time. I have the feeling you could use it to time a boiled egg.
Okay, this is me in the present-day again. Three days later, I posted this follow-up…
The other day here, I noted that I would soon be watching the 1966 movie Penelope for the first time since 1966. I said that I remembered it not being very good and that my father and I felt cheated because Jonathan Winters, though billed among its stars, was only on the screen for — and I quote myself: "…what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops."
I have now seen Penelope for the first time in forty years. By an odd coincidence, I won't be watching this movie again for another forty years. What a non-entertaining piece of celluloid. The single interesting thing about it is Peter Falk, playing a cop and apparently warming up to play Lt. Columbo many years later.
As it turns out, I was wrong about the length of the appearance of Jonathan Winters in the film. Leonard Maltin says in his indispensable Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide that Winters is on screen "less than three minutes." That's correct but Leonard, you may want to change that line in your next edition. In fact, I insist upon it. The actual, measured-by-a-stopwatch length of time from when we first see Jonathan Winters to when we last see Jonathan Winters is one minute and thirty-one seconds. Exactly.
If by some chance you doubt me — if you can't believe a major motion picture studio would give star billing to someone who was only in a movie for 91 seconds, watch it tomorrow afternoon on Turner Classic Movies. Or if you don't want to wait, get out whatever watch or app you time things with and time the scene in this. This clip contains every moment of the movie in which Jonathan Winters appears. This is apparently sped slightly from when it was on TCM because in here, it comes out to 87 seconds.
And while you're at it, you might consider how a scene of a college professor trying to rape one of his students — even a student who clearly is way over college age — somehow isn't quite as funny as it was in 1966. Not that it was a laugh riot then…
I have a few friends who are worried about the fact that Donald Trump is at or near the top of the polling for the G.O.P. nomination. Every election cycle, we have this concern: Yeah, you'd kinda like the opposition to nominate the candidate who'd make the worst president because he'll be the easiest to beat…but what if the worst guy wins?
These friends all seem to forget how long we have before the primaries, let alone the actual election. Voters now have the luxury of saying they back the guy who puts on the best show in the press and on the news and, in Trump's case, have the best name recognition. Who the hell even knows who George Pataki is these days?
(Funny Typo: I just typed "Michael Pataki," then went back and corrected it. Michael Pataki was a character actor. George Pataki is the former governor of New York. Even I forgot who he is.)
As Daniel McCarthy notes over at the American Conservative site, Trump is leading a very weak pack and if you look at the actual numbers, ain't doing so good. If anything, he's an indicator that Republican voters don't know who most of the folks running are or don't see any reason to favor one over the other. Eventually, they'll have to get serious about picking a candidate but they have a long time to window shop before that moment.
In the meantime, it's kind of fun watching Trump piss off one group after another. But right now, it's not about becoming President of the United States. It's the same strategy he employs in the business world: Making sure his name is all over the place. It takes a lot more than that to win an election.
I've checked in at a few websites that had previously defended Bill Cosby. I wanted to see if recent revelations — that he'd admitted under oath he'd obtained quaaludes to prep at least one woman for "sex" — had changed any minds. Some folks have given up their defense of the man while the others have doubled down or even bet the house. (The New York Times has even more from his deposition.)
And by the way, I put "sex" in quotes because when one party doesn't consent, it isn't sex. It's rape or molestation or some term that doesn't imply any sort of love.
Some folks now admit they backed a loser and I don't think that necessarily speaks ill of them. To me, there were more than enough accusations — and enough of them with no visible motive to lie attached — to conclude he was guilty of at least some of them. But erring on the side of demanding more evidence or sticking by a person who's been good to you…well, that's not the worst trait in this world.
Sticking by him in light of this and practically declaring that no evidence ever will change your mind, as a few have, is something else. And it's a something else that has little to do with the facts of the case. To repurpose a line I've used here before about politicians: Some people think that never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right. Not if you live in the real world, it isn't.
It's all such a shame because I used to love Bill Cosby as a performer. One of the greatest evenings I ever spent in an audience was watching him do stand-up (sitting down, actually) at Harrah's in Reno. He amused me on TV and records but seeing him live doing about an hour…that was amazing. Five minutes in, you understood why he had the stature he had. Without doing anything you could really classify as a "joke," he had us laughing and hanging on his every word from the moment he took stage to the moment he exited.
I remember that evening and I absolutely understand why people didn't want to believe the stories…why they still went to see him performing live even after the Tales of Rape began coming out. I might even understand why his wife (since 1964!) is sticking by him, denying that which seems undeniable.
I may have mentioned this before here but years ago, I worked for a TV producer who cheated relentlessly on his wife…and she knew it. He wasn't, insofar as I know, consorting with anyone who did not gleefully consent but he was cheating constantly. He had his own apartment just for such activities and would spend two or three nights a week in it. The other nights, he spent in the huge mansion he shared with his wife where he was, trysts aside, an absolutely wonderful husband.
He cared for her. He loved her. He gave her everything she might have wanted except for fidelity. If she called him at work with a problem, he dropped everything and ran home to take care of her.
Now that I think of it, does the word "cheating" apply if she knows and agrees, as this wife did, to go along with it? She did because she decided the alternative was worse. She was at an age where she didn't want to be alone in life and didn't want to start dating…and like I said, he was apparently a great partner in her life in so many ways. Divorcing him, she decided, would be worse for her than putting up with the adultery. A friend who knew them better than I did told me, "She figures that sooner or later, he's going to lose his sex drive and that stuff will go away. Plus, she really loves him."
I don't pretend to know what's going on in the Cosby marriage. I cringe at all the theories from people who've never met either one but know exactly how it must be. Maybe it's like what went on with this producer I knew…but maybe it's not. My point — and I really have one — is that relationships come in all kinds and what works for some couples may make zero sense to other couples. We don't know…and that part of the story is really none of our business.
What is our business is that we're seeing a great comedian destroy himself and his legacy. Others aren't doing it to him. He's the one who slipped the quaaludes into the drinks — an action, as I think I once pointed out here, that is despicable even if no molestation follows it.
At one point, I thought he might be able to ride it out…disappear for a while, then ease his way back into the public eye. No way. Too much proof has now come out. He might dodge the civil suits but he'll never escape public wrath and I think that's a good thing and not just because he deserves it. It's a good thing because a lot of people need to be reminded every now and then that rape is not a harmless prank.
Also, there are a lot of very famous, rich people out there who think they're untouchable; that they can do equally loathsome deeds and their money and celebrity will protect them. They need to be reminded that if Cosby can get caught, anyone can get caught.
Anthony Tollin tells me that Alan Kupperberg's first job in comics wasn't in 1974 at Continuity Associates. I got that from a copy of Alan's own bio but Tony says "Alan was Jack Adler's assistant before Rick Bryant, who held the position before Steve Mitchell, who was succeeded by Carl Gafford as Assistant Production Manager in July 1974, followed by me in 1976. I believe Alan was on staff at DC circa 1972." I think Tony may be right.
He also sent me a note about the weather today in San Diego, where thunderstorms struck with street flooding and more than 500 lightning strikes. As of 3:30 PM today, 1.03 inches of rain had fallen, shattering the old July record which was set in 1902. One can only speculate what would have happened if Comic-Con had been this weekend instead of last weekend.
In July of 1932, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy went on an ocean voyage to England. On their way there, they stopped off in New York and wound up in a newsreel film…
I have never been bothered by "those words" and I think the world is coming around to that point of view. Those who are bothered need to hang out with folks who use those words casually and to good effect in conversation.
But I will admit I do have one prejudice in this area. Whenever a man uses the word "bitch" to refer to a woman, unless it's clearly a joke, I always think that man has a problem with all women, not just with the one he's so labelling. For a long time, any male I heard refer to a female that way obviously was angry that she was not being subservient and less-than-equal the way he believed a female ought to be. I am willing to admit that there may be exceptions but every time I hear a guy say it, that's what I think. And it may still be valid in a majority of cases.
Bill O'Reilly has joined Donald Trump's campaign to demonize immigrants and to make sure that no Hispanic person ever again votes Republican. I have Liberal friends who are not displeased by this because they believe analysts who say it's mathematically impossible for any G.O.P. nominee to win the White House without substantially improving on how Romney did with Hispanics. It's puzzling to hear loud voices in the party treating them as rapists and the source of all crime. Matt Taibbi has more.
Lost another friend, damn it. Alan Kupperberg died last night at the age of 62 due to thymus cancer, a condition he'd been battling for many months. He was an artist, letterer and occasional writer of comic books with credits that included The Invaders, Justice League of America, Star Wars, Marvel Two-In-One, Blue Devil, National Lampoon and Spider-Man. And he wouldn't like it if I didn't mention that he created, wrote and drew Obnoxio the Clown.
Alan got into comics in 1974 working for Neal Adams at Neal's studio, Continuity Associates. He was kind of a utility infielder and his hand is evident in many of the comics and commercial jobs that came out of that studio then. Not long after, he began working for Marvel where, again, they deployed him as a "he can do anything" kind of guy, assigning him often to fill-ins and emergency jobs on a host of comics. At times, he drew the Hulk and Howard the Duck newspaper strips and later, away from Marvel, he became the artist of the Annie strip, aka Little Orphan Annie.
I doubt anyone — including Alan — could itemize all the different comics and strips and art jobs he did during his career. He was really a prolific, versatile talent.
I last saw Alan…oh, maybe two years ago. He had moved his life to Palm Springs to kind of "start over" in a new environment and we had a mutual friend, Geoffrey Mark, who lived there. He and Geoffrey were making field trips into Los Angeles to visit folks so the three of us had dinner. We talked about comics and other topics — and if he knew then that he was sick, he certainly didn't let on. I learned about the cancer later via his Facebook posts and followed what appeared to be a brave but losing struggle.
Alan was a good man and a good talent…and while the news this morning was not unexpected, it still comes as a shock. Good thoughts to all his friends and family.
