Monthly Archives: April 2002

Richard Nixon (seen above with his choice for the post of Drug Czar) was brought down by many factors, most of them Richard Nixon.  One minor contributor received more attention than he was due, largely because we didn't know who he was.  We're speaking of Deep Throat, the shadowy "insider" who tipped Bob Woodward of the Washington Post to various Nixon skullduggeries.  Because his identity has been so zealously concealed, lo these past three decades, there has been much speculation as to who he was, why he did what he did, why he has held Woodward and his partner, Carl Bernstein, to secrecy as to his identity, etc.

As a source, Deep Throat has probably been overrated.  At least as he is quoted in the Bernstein-Woodward memoir, All the President's Men, he wasn't that huge a help and much of the info he divulges in that book is either just plain inaccurate or falls under the general heading of Good Guessing.  At one point, he passes along to Woodward the hush-hush info that the FBI was very concerned about leaks to the press.  Well, gee, I was writing Daffy Duck comics for a living at the time and I could have told them that.  But he also seems to have given the reporters enough valuable info to win the trust of their editors and to keep the Post in pursuit of the story.

Many guesses and theories have been offered as to the true name of the 20th century's most celebrated snitch, along with at least a dozen instances where someone has said they know for certain; that they have solid info that Deep Throat was actually…and then, at this point, they all give different names.  For a time, Alexander Haig seemed to be the leading candidate but, at his request, Woodward and Bernstein announced that it was categorically not him — the only person they've ever so designated.

Recently, another celebrated Nixon snitch — his former counsel, John W. Dean — announced that thirty years is long enough; that he knows who Deep Throat was and will reveal it in June of this year.  I'm a bit skeptical that he knows.  In Dean's second book, he devoted several chapters to the detective work he did at the time, named  Haig as The Man, then admitted that it was just a theory and that a lot of the clues didn't fit.  Does Dean have the goods this time?  I dunno.  He's a pretty smart guy, and it would seem somehow poetic if that Deep Throat story came to a close the same year that Linda Lovelace passed away.  We'll see…

In the meantime, the only hint Dean has offered as to who he'll name is that Judge Antonin Scalia will be very surprised to find out that a friend of his was the Post's notorious informant.  Call me reckless but I'm guessing it's not Clarence Thomas.

Once upon a time, National Lampoon was a very funny, sometimes brilliant magazine.  Today, it's just a brand name that's slapped on products of indeterminate quality.  I suppose it's supposed to suggest that the movie or merchandise has something in common with the hipness of the Lampoon of yore, or its more successful film tie-ins, even though no one involved in them is contributing in any way to the current stuff.  Anyway, I thought it might interest someone to know that the spirit of the old NatLamp is hailed and indexed on a very thorough website.  It's Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site.  I'm not the Mark that maintains it, though it inspires me to haul out my old issues and browse.  Which I'll do as soon as I get
past current deadlines.

1776 is one of my favorite musical comedies.  I've loved it the several times I've seen it on stage but I only liked the movie the first time I saw it.  That's because the movie, as initially released, was hacked down from its original director's cut.  Under pressure from Richard Nixon (honest), studio mogul Jack L. Warner cut 40 minutes of mostly political content and the film suffered for it.  We summarized this in this article here on this website and it was also covered last year in The Los Angeles Times in this piece.  The mostly-restored version was released a few years ago on Laserdisc and it finally comes out on DVD on July 2nd.  It's still a bit "stagebound" in this format but it's a much better movie.

The DVD is already available for advance ordering from Movies Unlimited for $26.99 plus postage and if you click on that link and give 'em your credit card info, my site gets a tiny percentage.  However, the DVD oughta be up for advance ordering any day now from Amazon and, if I understand the two companies' pricing systems correctly, it'll be two bucks cheaper there…plus, depending on the size of your total order, Amazon could cost you less in shipping.  (For standard, domestic shipping of videos, Movies Unlimited charges $5.00 per order plus 50 cents an item; Amazon charges $1.99 per order plus 99 cents per item.  This means that, looking just at postage charges, Movies Unlimited is cheaper when you order 9 or more items; Amazon is cheaper if you order fewer.)  So wait and order it via the link on this site when we tell you and we'll both profit.  Better still, wait until you have a whole lot of things you want to order.  After all, you have two months.

Article in The Los Angeles Times about Steve Ditko.  Here's the link.  Don't believe that part about how they stuck Spider-Man in the last issue of Amazing Fantasy because they knew it was going to be cancelled anyway…but otherwise, it's a pretty good piece.

It's not quite his tenth anniversary but NBC is celebrating ten years of Jay Leno hosting The Tonight Show this week.  I happen to be a major fan of both him and Mr. Letterman and have never quite understood why folks who prefer one show over the other can't just watch and enjoy it without praying for the demise of the competition.  The whole "Late Night Wars" thing, after all, really came down to a battle over which of two already-successful men would get paid millions of dollars for hosting a talk show at 11:35 on NBC and which one would have to settle for getting paid millions for hosting a talk show at 11:35 on CBS.  (Yes, there's a secondary, ongoing "war" over which one dominates the ratings but, unless you're involved in one program's advertising revenues, I can't imagine why you should care who's #1.  Neither show is going off until its host quits or dies.)  Was being able to say your show was a tenuous extension of Johnny's really worth all that fuss and sending agents out to try and destroy others?  Apparently so…but, with a decade's hindsight, it all looks pretty silly, especially the one-time assertion that the choice of Jay over Dave was the greatest mistake in TV history.

Sure doesn't look that way now, does it?  The two of them probably have the two most secure jobs in the entire television business.  Matter of fact, a friend of mine at one of the networks — formerly, a major Leno detractor — recently called to say he wants to pay off on our bet.  It involved lunch at the restaurant of the winner's choice that Jay would or wouldn't make ten years.  I remember no such bet but, hey, if he's buying…

None of this is to suggest that I like everything about both shows.  Many nights, I find myself fast-forwarding through the "Act Two" comedy bits, especially when it's predicated — as too many are — on the theory that it's hilarious to put non-professionals on camera in situations that will allow us to laugh at how stupid and/or awkward they are.  A little comedy writing in that slot would be nice.  There are also times when Jay's a bit too merry and Dave's a bit too cranky for me to believe I'm not just watching an act.  Of course, I have my chronic complaint that both shows are too scripted where they should be spontaneous…and I guess my complaint about the "Act Two" spots is that they should be scripted when they try to be spontaneous.  So if they could just reverse the two, I'd be an even happier late night TV consumer.

You can name just about any comic book artist who's done a substantial amount of work and I have met (a) someone who thinks that guy is the all-time best artist who ever lived, and (b) someone who thinks he stinks and that anyone who likes his work must be blind and probably an idiot, to boot.  One exception is that I've never met anyone who didn't like the output of the late Wally Wood, who drew for MAD, for EC Comics, for DC, Marvel, Tower, everyone.  His artwork was and is almost universally loved — this, despite the fact that there also seems to be general agreement among those who knew him that he rarely had the opportunity to give us his best.

He was a tragic, quiet man whose life was plagued by cluster headaches, editors who misused and mistreated him, and extended periods when he was simply unable to meet his own high standard.

Some of this is true of many great comic artists of the past, but Woody's life seemed like 40-some-odd years of losing battles against The System.  You can sense some of that if you read a collection of his correspondence which someone has posted here.

One comment: In one dispatch, Wood bitches about the pencil work of Ric Estrada, saying how difficult it was to ink.  I suspect he was misplacing the blame on this.  Estrada — a wonderful artist who, happily, is still with us — was another guy who got misused in comics, back when he did them.  In this case, much against his own wishes, he was drafted to do rough layouts (not full pencil art) for some comics that he didn't especially want to work on.  One suspects that someone, aware that Wood could turn almost anything into superior finished art, commissioned Estrada to do layouts and then paid Wally as if he was working over tight pencilling.  In any case, it's a splendid example of two fine illustrators not being used to do what they did best…

If you live in Southern California, you have the chance to hear a superb singer and comedienne, Shelly Goldstein, who describes herself as "a gay man trapped inside the body of a straight girl."  She's performing this Wednesday and the two Wednesdays that follow at the Gardenia, up on Santa Monica Boulevard, just on the outskirts of Hollywood.  The Gardenia is an intimate supper club with pretty good food and, at times, wonderful entertainment.  Shelly is providing three of those times this month.  For reservations, dial (323) 467-7444.

A few folks have e-mailed me about my little discourse on the Death Penalty, explaining about "special circumstances" and how the Death Penalty is not applicable without them.  Sorry I didn't make it clear that I understand about that.  My point is that, in both the Blake and Simpson cases, the applicable prosecutors announced, "We have decided not to seek the Death Penalty" and, at least in Simpson's case, it was reportedly because they thought a jury would be reticent to send a handsome sports hero to his death.  Apparently, they could have gone for the ultimate penalty but opted not to try.  They did not come out and say, "We have determined that this crime does not qualify."

So my question stands: Certain folks are outraged when a judge or governor could fry someone and doesn't, even if it's for some silly reason like evidence that the person might not have received a fair trial.  Why are they not outraged by anything — a law or a D.A.'s decision — that prevents a Simpson or Blake from facing execution at all?  Does anyone buy the notion that what they did (or are alleged to have done) is less worthy of the Ultimate Penalty than, say, if one of those "special circumstances" applied?  A drive-by shooting qualifies for the Death Penalty but hacking your ex-wife and a friend to pieces with a knife doesn't?

I am not convinced there should be a Death Penalty, if only because I think our Judicial System is enormously sloppy about making sure the right people face it.  But if we're going to have one, shouldn't it be less arbitrary?  And aren't the folks in favor of the Death Penalty misdirected to be focusing their wrath on judges and governors?  Shouldn't they be protesting whatever laws or decisions prevent the Death Penalty from even being sought when a guy allegedly plots and carries out the murder of his wife?

I really liked the old, classic game show, Press Your Luck, but I've told the TiVo to stop recording its new, updated incarnation, Whammy!  I tried to like the new version — really, I did — but it just doesn't hold even the limited amount of my attention it takes to enjoy a game show.  My main problems have to do with how frenetic the whole thing is.  The show is too loud and too fast for me to care about the players, and the strategy components of the game are lost amidst the high-tech shouting.  In the old version, contestants were up against a constant decision: Do I take another spin and Press My Luck or do I pass?  The game board was configured to put them in this position repeatedly with dire and ever-changing consequences.  That part's buried somewhere in the new format but we don't get to know the contestants as well; ergo, we care less about how they decide what they decide, and I even find myself wondering if some of them even understand that there are strategies involved in playing this game of chance.

The new host, Todd Newton, is nowhere near as good as Peter Tomarken, though that may not be his fault.  You get the feeling someone off-stage is constantly screaming at Newton, "Keep it moving, keep it moving!"  I could also do without the animated Whammy dumping pizza dough or Silly String™ on the contestants' heads…but the thing I like the least is the new game board.  The old one was designed to let you easily see the amounts and the contestants' faces as they played.  The more stylish design of the new one fills your screen with dead area, making the important things smaller and harder to see.  All of this conspires to yield a show that is loud and fast but strangely remote to me.  And I'm sorry because, like I said, I really wanted to like this.

Joe Bob Briggs wrote a good article about the recently-deceased Linda Lovelace for National Review.  Here's the link.

Okay, so they're not going to seek the Death Penalty for Robert Blake.  Frankly, I don't care much if they do or they don't have mixed feelings about the notion of our government putting people to death, especially given how appallingly fallible our court system seems to be…but let's leave that aside for now.  (I don't think that's a small thing, by the way.  I think proponents of the Death Penalty are turning backflips to ignore the fact that folks on Death Row keep being found innocent.  But that's not germane to the point I want to make…)

If we are to have a Death Penalty in this nation, I assume we're all in accord that it oughta be administered impartially, without regard to the race or wealth of the accused, only the nature of their crime.  With me so far?  Okay.  And we think it ought to be applied in the most extreme, inhuman crimes, right?  Fine.

Now, when a judge or a governor shows some hesitancy to fry a convicted killer, the Death Penalty folks howl, scream about recall petitions, accuse the official of disrespecting the memory of the victims and denying their loved ones closure, etc.  And if we believe in the Death Penalty, that's probably an appropriate response.  Now, here comes the But…

But!  When the D.A. decided not to seek the Death Penalty for O.J. Simpson, I don't recall any outcry whatsoever about that. Not a peep, not a protest.  Why?  The man was accused of driving over to his ex-wife's home with a big knife and hacking her and a friend to death.  Is that not a crime worthy of the Death Penalty?  I mean, if that doesn't warrant it, what would? Killing three people that way?  Five?  How about if he'd killed them and then jaywalked to the Bronco?

Robert Blake is accused of taking a gun and shooting his wife to death.  This is plain, old-fashioned, generic-brand murder, isn't it?  The D.A. spent eleven months investigating and, aware that the case would be examined with an electron microscope, appears to have nailed down the facts and evidence with uncanny precision.  Is there a reason this isn't a Death Penalty offense apart from the fact that the guy's famous and can afford a good lawyer?  And if they aren't going to seek the Death Penalty in a case like this or Simpson's, why should they seek it in any premeditated murder of one or two human beings?

Just a thought.

Most people think lawyers are weasels who will claim darn near anything to help their clients.  This viewpoint will not be alleviated by the attorney representing TV Psychic Miss Cleo.  He claims (in this news story) that "she is a shaman.  She has the gift."  Of course, he adds, it would be a legal impossibility to actually prove, as she and he claim, that she actually has the ability to predict the future.  This is amazing since even I can predict Miss Cleo's future.  I see a plea bargain…some admission of deception and token remuneration to her callers, followed by new commercials that are plastered with disclaimers.

All of this will put an end to Miss Cleo's little enterprise, which is kind of a shame.  Better it should end with a televised, one-on-one "test" by James Randi…who, by the way, has posted our Peter Hurkos article on his website with our blessing.  Randi's weekly commentaries are on my Internet "must-reading" list.

Another example of the kind of odd trivia connections that interest me:  Someone sent me the photo at left of Julie Newmar taken backstage at the Li'l Abner Broadway show, which is discussed here on this website.  Obviously, Ms. Newmar's physique is of paramount importance but I was also interested in that newspaper in the lower left corner.  The show opened in November of 1956 but this snapshot was taken some time during '57, as revealed by the headline on The Daily News.  As you'll see, the newspaper headline reads, "DIO GETS 4½ ??? ACID TRIAL STAY."  The word we can't read is probably "years" or "yrs" and the person referred to as "Dio" is Johnny Dioguardi, one of the toughest members (though not by blood) of the Lucchese crime family.  Dioguardi specialized in union manipulation and the Feds spent many years trying to pin a wide array of racketeering charges on him — to his increasing anger, every time his integrity was questioned.

Once, on the way out of testifying before a Senate subcommittee, he didn't like the questions reporters were shouting so he turned around and belted a photographer — a fine way to get the press to lay off you.

The "acid trial" was a notorious, horrifying affair.  In April of '56, a newspaper columnist named Victor Riesel was the substitute host of Barry Gray's late night radio program in New York.  Riesel, who covered the labor scene in his column, had made some accusations against Dio in print, though the mobster's name was barely mentioned on that broadcast.  After the broadcast, Riesel and his secretary had a late night dinner at Lindy's restaurant and, as they left, a man ran up and threw sulfuric acid in Reisel's face.

Reisel lost his sight.  The assailant, a small-time hood named Abe Trevi, was later found with a couple of bullets in his head.  He had apparently gone back to his employer and demanded more money for the job.  Investigators located two witnesses who would help establish that Johnny Dio had ordered both the assault on Reisel and the murder of Trevi but, soon after, the witnesses suddenly decided they, uh, hadn't actually witnessed what they said they'd witnessed.  That probably was the reason for the stay in the trial that was reported in the headline.

As a result of those witnesses retracting, the D.A. was unable to secure a conviction.  Associates of Trevi went to prison but not Dio…yet.  The crime horrified the public and the press (including friends of Reisel) kept a certain amount of pressure on the authorities who, in turn, kept the pressure on Dio.  For a time, he went merrily on his Mafioso way, running scams and helping his friend, Jimmy Hoffa, rise to power in the Teamsters Union.  Eventually though, the law caught up with Johnny Dioguardi and, in 1967, he went to prison for the first of several stays, eventually dying in a prison hospital in '79.

I read up on this story some time ago, so the headline in the photo caught my eye, and I couldn't help thinking: It was taken at the St. James Theater — then as now, located on 44th, just up from Broadway.  Lindy's delicatessen, where the attack occurred, was then at Broadway and 50th — just six blocks away.  It was a favored hangout of actors performing in shows, so the headline was very much "local news" for the members of the Li'l Abner cast.

Well, apart from a sound system that yielded all the fidelity of a cell phone in a bathysphere, a good time was had by all at the Evening with Stan Freberg which was held last evening under the auspices of A.S.I.F.A.  (That's Mr. Freberg at right in this vintage silly photo from Art Linkletter's People Are Funny program.)  A hall full of animation fans and creators — mostly, the latter — gathered to watch old cartoons that featured Stan's vocal stylings, and to hear him interviewed by m.e.  Stan was witty and informative on a range of animation-related topics, ranging from working with the likes of Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett to the problems of servicing his clients as a maker of funny commercials.  I'm not sure folks realize how many cartoons Stan appeared in over the years.  Since 1944, when he started, through the sixties, he was heard in the output of every single Hollywood-based cartoon studio that produced theatrical animation.  (He was even in the one cartoon — which we showed — that resulted from Republic Studios' short-lived attempt to get into the animation field.)  Since the sixties, he's been in countless TV cartoon shows, but we never even got around to them.

I'm too tired right now to report anything Stan said, and it wouldn't be the same coming from me, anyway.  But, since I use these pages as a kind of personal diary, I did want to put down the following: There was an amazing sensation of love and respect in the auditorium this evening in Glendale.  The folks who turned out didn't just want to hear a funny man or see funny cartoons.  They came to meet a personal hero or, at the very least, a man whose work has always been very special to them.  On the way out, someone said to me, "I just met Stan Freberg and I still can't believe I just met Stan Freberg."  As long as I've been in this business, and as many people as I've met, I still understand that feeling.  I hope I always do.

Catching on game shows on the TiVo, I enjoyed a couple of old episodes of What's My Line? that ran recently on Game Show Network.  One featured, as a contestant, Bud Sagendorf, who was then the writer-artist of the Popeye newspaper strip.  Another had Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the book and lyrics for My Fair Lady, Camelot, Paint Your Wagon and many others.  It's probably silly to form an impression of someone based on a five minute game show appearance but Lerner certainly seemed like the brooding, troubled soul that biographies (and his own autobiography) paint him to have been.  Somewhere in storage, I have two or three letters I received from Mr. Lerner in the early seventies and even then — before any of the books — I could sense a certain joylessness in his rhetoric.

Another thing that's interesting about these old shows are all the plugs and mentions of projects that never came to pass.  The other day, they ran a Hollywood Squares on which Mel Brooks was a celeb, plugging (seriously) a movie he said he was about to start — a remake of She Stoops to Conquer.  No such movie was ever made.  I don't know the original air date of this episode but it was prior to Blazing Saddles.  Wally Cox was on it and he died early in '73.  Blazing Saddles was made the following year, so it's likely that this Hollywood Squares was made at one of those times Brooks has spoken of when he couldn't get arrested in the movie business…ergo, the project that never came to fruition.