Monthly Archives: June 2002

We had a system crash last night that wiped out this page.  It has now been successfully reconstructed back to its old self with nothing lost.  This was made possible by the kindness of several readers of this website, including Carolyn Kelly, Bob Heer, "DRG4," Rephah Berg, David M. Lynch and Kurt Pirmann.  Thank you all.

I never particularly liked Bill Maher as a person but — and these rarely go together for me — I've always liked him as a stand-up comedian.  And I've really liked him as the host of Politically Incorrect, which has just aired its last original show, at least on ABC.  The show has included a lot of wrestling (in the Vince McMahon "put on a show" tradition) and has given air time to a lot of pundits who never convinced me they weren't just saying what brought them air time.  Still, I generally enjoyed his issue-based chat show and usually heard enough honest, perceptive commentary — mainly from Maher — to make it a must-see for nine years.

I especially marveled at his ability to kick-start tepid conversation and to, more often than most "hard news" guys, nail an interviewee for evasion or outright fibbing.  If I were a weasel politician, I think I'd rather face an army of Tim Russerts than one Bill Maher.

I don't know if this still works but, about two years ago, I did a newsgroup search on the guy and was amazed at the range of hatred he engendered.  Some called him a fascist; others, a communist, a misogynist, a ladies' man, etc.  Often, someone would agree with him on most issues, then dismiss him as Satanic-possessed scum the second he took one "wrong" position.  A self-described Libertarian who voted for Ralph Nader is a tough guy to pigeon-hole, but many tried.  None, I think, really succeeded…and I admire that about the guy, as well.

I always thought "politically incorrect" was a silly, meaningless term.  But if it applies to anyone, it applies to him.  The conventional wisdom seems to be that Maher was cancelled for some awkwardly-phrased remarks he uttered, a bit too soon after 9/11.  In interviews, he seems to be saying that, as well.  My friends over at ABC claim those comments — widely and deliberately misinterpreted, I believe — were merely the excuse.  One, in fact, told me months ago that Maher had ridden out the controversy and was no longer in jeopardy.  When I asked him recently what happened, he said, "It wasn't that.  It's that no one on the 10th floor ever liked Maher.  They never thought he was an ABC star or that Politically Incorrect was an ABC show."  I find it hard to believe that Jimmy Kimmel and his forthcoming program will pass those tests but there you are.

I will miss Bill Maher's show, and I look forward to his return some day soon.  Rumor has it he's dickering for a long-term deal on some cable channel for a show that would incorporate elements of Politically Incorrect but also showcase the host's talents for stand-up and sketches.  As I've said here before, I think Mssrs. Leno and Letterman are way too afraid of real spontaneity on their stages, and go to elaborate lengths to eliminate any chance of it.  If Maher is going to roar back with an unexpurgated show that is as unplanned as P.I. was, he could have a very long, successful run.  He'd certainly have a Season Pass on my TiVo.

Had a lovely time this afternoon at the Hollywood Collectors Show at the Beverly Garland Hotel in Studio City.  (The event continues tomorrow.  If you want to attend, further details can be located here.)

If you've never been to one of these, it's basically a ballroom full of celebrities selling autographed pictures, autobiographies and other collectible items — a wonderful chance for them to make some bucks and for their fans to meet them.  I got to see some old friends — Teresa Ganzel, Susan Silo, Greg Berg, Bob Bergen and others — and say hello to some folks I'd met only briefly.  For instance, the only other time I ever chatted with Warren Berlinger, it was on the set of a short-lived TV show he did in 1971 called The Funny Side.  (Anyone else remember that?  Gene Kelly was the host and I used to sneak into NBC to watch them tape and to pester Mr. Kelly with questions when he wasn't busy on the set.)  Last week, I saw Berlinger playing the party host in the production of Follies I mentioned then, so I got to tell him how good it (and he) was.

Also told Roy Stuart how good he was in a play in which I saw him.  Roy is probably best known for playing Corporal Boyle on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (that's a shot of him at left on the show) but I recall a wonderful production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple I saw back in the late sixties at the Ivar Theater in Hollywood.  Stuart played Felix, Jesse White was Oscar and the two of them managed to wring every possible laugh out of a very funny play.  I never got to see the original combo of Walter Matthau and Art Carney on stage but I can't believe it's humanly possible to laugh harder than we laughed that night at White and Stuart.

The production was directed by Neil's brother, Danny, upon whom the character of Felix was somewhat based.  Roy told me that, throughout rehearsal, Danny kept saying to him, "That's not how I'd do that," and he [Roy] had to keep reminding him, "I'm not playing you, Danny. I'm playing Felix."

Across the room, Bruce Kimmel was doing a brisk business selling copies of his novel, Benjamin Kritzer, and the newly-released DVD of a wonderful little film he directed wrote and starred in, The First Nudie Musical.  In recent years, Bruce has turned his talents more often to producing some of the best Broadway-type CDs and he also has an unnatural relationship with Guy Haines, a camera-shy vocalist who appears on some of them.  Matter of fact, Bruce writes a daily journal over at Guy Haines's website and it's full of fun info about show biz and the theater.  While you're over there, order the novel and or the DVD.

The biggest line at the entire show was for Barbara Eden, about whom every male in the place and most of the women remarked, "God, she still looks great."  She does.  She was there all day, signing pictures and I Dream of Jeannie memorabilia (one guy brought a crate of toys) and feigning laughter at all the ha-ha hilarious remarks about her navel.  Nearby, Jamie Farr was hearing other fans ask, ad nauseam, "Where's your dress?"  I wonder if folks will ever realize that, when you meet a celebrity who's known for something special, it's nearly impossible to make a wisecrack they haven't heard 3,000 times before, often from the guy just before you.

As always, the "celebs" with the shortest lines were some of the most interesting and the ones who weren't selling anything, who were roaming about to see friends, were especially fascinating.  Chuck McCann was there and he introduced me to one of the great impressionists of all time, Will Jordan, who was telling stories in the aisles.  Every time I'm around comedians like that, I realize someone could do a helluva great low-budget TV show by just pointing a camera at guys like McCann and Jordan and having them tell show biz anecdotes.  You could probably do a solid 26 weeks just on tales of Milton Berle's penis.

As reported here last week, four comedy shows did the same joke — three of them on the same night.  Your obedient website has assembled the precise texts of these jokes…

THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO – June 19, 2002
Starting next week, Southwest Airlines says they'll begin charging passengers two seats…charging you for two seats if you're too big to fit into one seat.  Of course, the problem with that is, you're paying for two seats, you know what that means?  Two meals.  Now, you're making the problem worse…

LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN – June 19, 2002
Southwest Airlines is charging heavy-set people, fat people, people who are overweight…charging those people for two tickets whenever they fly.  And as you can understand, the fat people were stunned and they were outraged and they were really angry and then it occurred to them, "Wait a minute, that's two meals."

LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN – June 19, 2002
This is a weird story but I swear it's true.  Starting next week, Southwest Airlines will begin charging overweight passengers for two seats.  It's a true story.  Yeah, and at first, overweight people were really offended by the announcement.  Then they realized they'll get two meals.

DENNIS MILLER LIVE – June 21, 2002
Southwest Airlines announced this week that it will begin enforcing a new policy where obese passengers will have to buy two tickets if they can't fit into one seat.  On the positive side, they would be entitled to two meals.

As has been noted, Southwest Airlines does not have meal service on its flights.

I'm really sick of people impugning one another's patriotism — especially based on gestures as simple as flying an American flag or saying you love your country or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  I don't think you should get even the tiniest bit of credit for "patriotic acts" that cost you less than five bucks or 45 seconds.  True patriotism involves at least a little sacrifice — or, at least, taking a stand that could conceivably cost you in some meaningful way.  In fact, it's kind of insulting to real patriotism to suggest that singing the Star-Spangled Banner before a ball game is in any way comparable.

The whole brouhaha over the words "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance will probably trivialize the concept of real patriotism further…plus, we'll have to listen to the suggestion that to not utter those four words makes you not only a bad American but a heathen, to boot.  Never mind that the country somehow survived a couple of World Wars, a depression and other tests of its endurance when the Pledge did not include those words.  We will see politicians — and I include the Supreme Court in that category — climb all over themselves to be the ones who save America from not having that clause in the recitation.  It will return or perhaps just remain, with only token opposition.

Frankly, I think the problem is not in those four words; it's all the others.  Why does a country that values Freedom of Speech feel that its children must be ordered — or, at least, pressured — to recite a pledge?  Has anyone who was ever inclined to do something unAmerican ever said, "Uh-oh, I'd better not.  After all, I took that pledge back in fifth grade"?  Someone once wrote that the U.S.A. shows the courage of its convictions when we allow people to advocate extreme views, counter to that of the government and/or its people.  Seems to me it would be supremely American if we just ashcan the whole Pledge and tell the world, "We trust our people to be loyal without compulsory vows of allegiance."

And while we're at it, I think the pizza down at Johnnie's on Wilshire should taste exactly the same but contain zero calories.

Still fighting Mr. Deadline. I would, however, like to call your attention to this article by William Saletan over on Slate.  It's about the inherent flaws in our president's "vision" for the Israel/Palestine nastiness and why his recent speech is all spin, no substance.  I think so, too.

Flying somewhere soon?  Here are two terrific sites (this one and this one) you might want to bookmark.  They feature diagrams of most of the airlines and how the seating arrangements on their planes are configured.  You may need to check out both pages to find the craft on which you are about to fly.

My longtime pal Gordon Kent is writing gags for the new Pink Panther newspaper strip being offered by Universal Press Syndicate.  Here's a link to a page that's hawking it to potential buyers.  There, you'll be able to see a number of samples and you'll see that it seems like a clever, funny strip so far.  This is probably because Gordon is clever and Gordon is funny.  When he isn't doing things like that, he's directing or producing some of the better animated shows for TV.  The guy's certainly come a long way from those humiliating days when a so-called "friend" conned him into coloring the first Groo story and didn't pay him one red cent.  Lately, he's done a number of shows for Disney where they pay better…though not by much.

Your obedient webmaster is trapped in Deadline Hell for the next day or so.  As always, don't expect anything new on this page for a while, barring another damn obit or time-sensitive matter.  But when we return, we'll make it up to you.

And remember that Late Night With Conan O'Brien is scheduled to run that segment tonight — the one in which Triumph the Insult Comic Dog poops all over Star Wars fans.  (Hint to people on the street who find themselves in front of the camera of some comedy show: Don't try to be funny or clever.  He who controls the camera and editing process controls the thrust of the piece as it will be aired.  If the premise of the segment is — as it usually is, especially on late night comedy shows and The Daily Show — that people who get stopped on the streets are clueless dorks, you will either come off as one or be cut from the tape.  I'm amazed how many people who find themselves before Letterman's camera — or Jay's or Conan's or any of those boys — think they can "top" the comedian or even just not look at least a little foolish.  The game is rigged, people.  If you want to be on TV, fine…but know that this will be the likely result.)

Okay, back to the salt mines…

This site was off-line for the last day or so, for reasons I cannot fathom.  Apologies from the crack tech team, which is me.

The one-time editor of Timely Comics (aka Marvel), Vince Fago, has passed away from stomach cancer.  He was 88 years old and had devoted his entire life to cartooning and comics.  Fago was born in New York and got into the animation field there in 1933.  He worked for an array of small commercial houses in New York and Detroit before settling in briefly at Max Fleischer's operation, where he worked on Betty Boop, Superman and Popeye other cartoons, as well as the feature, Gulliver's Travels.  When World War II broke out, most of the animation studios shifted over to making films for the military and Fago, who found such work boring, went out to try and get work in comic books.

Timely was plunging into "funny animal" titles and when editor Stan Lee saw Vince's work, he knew he had a good source of them.  Fago drew strips with names as odd as " Frenchy Rabbit," "Dinky and Rudy Rooster." and "Floop and Skillyboo."  Soon after, when Stan entered the service, he had to pick someone to take over the editor's job in his absence.  He chose Vince Fago.

Fago held the job until soon after Stan returned.  Thereafter, Vince worked for Timely as well as other companies as a writer, editor and artist, usually of "funny animal" comics.  He dabbled in newspaper strips, magazine publishing, animation, commercials and just about any field where you could make a buck drawing silly pictures.  Roy Thomas's fine magazine, Alter Ego, recently published a number of exhaustive articles and a long interview with the man, conducted by his friend, Jim Amash.

Joe Raiola is a senior editor at Mad Magazine and when he's not doing that, he delivers impassioned, entertaining speeches about Censorship and the First Amendment.  My pal Lou Mougin e-mailed me to tell me that one of Joe's addresses was on C-Span this weekend.  (I'd have alerted you folks via this page but my site was down — a high-tech form of unintentional censorship.)  If and when it reruns, I'll try and announce it here…but I found it very interesting.  I agree with Joe's belief in the sanctity and importance of Freedom of Speech, disagree with him on some of the particulars, and respect the hell outta him for going out and speaking his mind.  In any case, here's a link to a website that books speaking engagements for the guy.

I don't agree with a lot of reviewers so I expected to quibble a lot with the notices for Neil Simon's Oscar and Felix: A New Look at the Odd Couple.  But I disagreed with almost none of this review in the L.A. Times or the one that ran in Daily Variety, which is available on-line only by subscription.  And at this page over at the Times, you can see two on-line clips from the show.

On his show this week, Dennis Miller did the same Southwest Airlines joke, and I have to wonder why.  Leno, Letterman and O'Brien all did it the same night — Tuesday — and none of them could have seen the other shows when they taped.  But Miller does his show live on Friday nights.  Hard to believe no one on his staff had seen Dave, Jay or Conan.  (I am not suggesting theft here; just that someone needs to be a little more careful.)

And, yes, I have seen this article about the guy who ripped off royalties for Garfield & Friends.  No wonder I haven't gotten a check lately…

A company called Wilson Research Strategies does all sorts of polls to gauge the American public.  Recently (May 5-8), they conducted one that asked 1000 registered voters, "Who is your favorite super-hero?"  This poll has a margin of error of ±3.2% and I offer it here for whatever it's worth, with the suspicion that Spider-Man's stock has probably risen since the movie came out.

• Superman – 27%
• Spider-Man – 15%
• Batman – 14%
• Wonder Woman – 11%
• The Incredible Hulk – 7%
• Flash Gordon – 4%
• The Bionic Man – 4%
• Other/Don't Know – 20%

The Reprise! group in Los Angeles stages short-run, stripped-down, no-frills (i.e., minimal sets and costumes) versions of great Broadway musicals — usually three a year at the Freud Playhouse up at U.C.L.A. and one slightly-bigger production at the Wadsworth Theater over on the grounds of the Veterans Administration.  I am just back from the sixth of eleven performances of this year's "slightly-bigger" event at the Wadsworth — Follies, book by James Goldman, songs by Stephen Sondheim.

Yes, Follies again.  It was not so long ago that I saw the recent New York production done by Manhattan's Roundabout Theater Company.  That one was criticized by some for not being lavish enough in its art direction and staging.  The Reprise! version offers even less and, in some ways, less is more.  Take away the staging tricks and glitter and all you have left are the skills of the performers and their very formidable personal histories.  That is more than enough to make for a very enjoyable event.

For those who don't know: Follies in the story of the closing of a great theater and a last reunion therein of the showgirls who once paraded across its stage.  It is often cast with lead performers who have rich show biz histories themselves, making it a showpiece for the great ladies of the stage who have been around a while.  The cast for this Reprise! incarnation is most impressive and includes Carol Lawrence, Carole Cook, Amanda McBroom, Stella Stevens, Mary Jo Catlett, Justine Johnson (who was in the original Broadway production in '71), Liz Torres and Donna McKechnie.  The male leads are Bob Gunton and Harry Groener — both of whom are incredible — while the two main female roles are filled by Patty Duke and Vikki Carr.

The latter two choices were deemed controversial when announced — Ms. Duke because it was felt she couldn't sing; Ms. Carr, because folks wondered if she could act.  Apparently, the early performances were a bit awkward (these shows are always woefully under-rehearsed) but tonight, both ladies proved the skeptics wrong.  Patty Duke is still a helluvan actress and that makes up for any slight deficiencies in her singing.  Vikki Carr is still an amazing singer and I thought she was wonderful in the difficult role of Sally.  And I have to say just one more time how good the men were, especially Harry Groener.  You want to know what a good song-and-dance man looks like on stage?  He looks like Harry Groener.

A tiny minority of folks left at intermission.  There are rough edges in this kind of production — bobbled lines, missed notes — and it seemed like a few people let that kind of thing get to them.  Those of us who remained jumped to our feet at the end to applaud a truly memorable, emotional production of a truly memorable, emotional show.

Although I almost wish a few more had left.  The folks sitting directly behind us seemed unable to grasp that all their favorite musical performers weren't up on the stage there.  One man kept paging through his program book, asking over and over which of those ladies on stage was Lainie Kazan (answer: none of them).  His wife was equally certain that at least one of those women had to be Connie Francis or maybe Connie Stevens.  But maybe such mistakes add to the charm.  Follies is about fantasy and nostalgia.  Maybe it's appropriate to let one's imagination run rampant at such an event.

In a few days, I'll be posting the list of panels (twelve of 'em) I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego.  However, I wanted to mention one thing that delights me; that our annual Cartoon Voice Actor Panel will be graced by the presence of the legendary Gary Owens, along with other folks of amazing voice.  You can also expect a Golden Age Panel, a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, a tribute to the late Dan DeCarlo, another Marvel Bullpen Reunion (including a tribute to John Buscema), panels celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mad Magazine and the 20th of Groo the Wanderer, and many others.

There will even be a couple that may look more like low-budget (but fun) game shows.  If you're thinking of going to the con and ain't got your hotel reservation yet, you may be commuting quite a distance, as all the lodgings for some distance around seem to be booked.  Hustle over to the convention's website — www.comic-con.org — for more info.