Monthly Archives: December 2002

Two of the funniest comedians I've ever worked with are currently touring in a variety revue entitled, "A Tribute to Ed Sullivan."  John Byner (left) was on Mr. Sullivan's show many-a-time, often doing a hilarious impression of the host which, one assumes, is seen to full advantage in this current venture.  Pete Barbutti (right) holds the world's record for the most appearances by a stand-up comic on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.  I've seen both gents live in the last few years and laughed my not-inconsiderable derriere off.  The show also features the lovely Annie Gaybis (Mrs. Byner), singer Anna Maria Alberghetti, The Amazing Platters, and a couple of other acts, including a trained dog.

I can't find a website listing the entire schedule but they seem to be all over Southern California the first month of 2003 — in Orange County on January 12, in Thousand Oaks on January 15, in Glendora on January 19, in San Diego on January 24, and in Palm Springs on January 25.  There are probably other gigs but these are all I could find with a fast Google search.  I'm going to try to make it to one of these.

Michael Kinsley has an article today about one of those topics that particularly interests me — plea bargaining and what it does to our justice system.  This is one of those "wrongs" that is so wrong — that will require so much correction and apology — that it's easier to just pretend it doesn't exist.  There are also people out there who seem to have an odd love of the Death Penalty, and don't want to have that venerable pastime tainted by the suggestion that maybe the wrong people sometimes get executed.  (I had an ex-friend who used to turn magenta at the suggestion that anyone on Death Row didn't deserve to be tortured and then killed in the most painful manner, then tortured again.  And if you pointed out to him that punishing the wrong guy for a crime means that the real wrongdoer goes completely unpunished, my ex-friend would refuse to hear you…because that minor detail did too much damage to what he fervently wished to believe.  If you suggested that courts ought to only convict people who are really guilty, he'd accuse you of coddling criminals and being "soft on crime.")

Anyway, read Kinsley.  However you feel about the Death Penalty and the justice system in general, this is an anomaly that isn't going away.  As DNA testing proves the innocence of more and more convicts — including many coerced into confession — the elephant in the living room will get bigger and bigger and bigger.  And a certain segment of the population will strain harder to say, in the immortal words of Mr. James Durante, "What elephant?"

In comics, we do a lot of work with other folks' creations, taking over their books and characters or just doing work clearly inspired by others.  If you have the slightest sensitivity to the notion that you're poaching on someone else's creativity — and, sadly, some writers and artists either don't, or don't care — it raises issues.  Over in his column at Comic Book Resources, my pal Steven Grant deals with some of this in this week's installment.  I agree with his views and, if anything, feel they don't go far enough.

Correction: The version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas running on StarZ is the live-action one with Jim Carrey.  You don't want to watch that.

Do you receive a lot of e-mailed photos of weird things from friends?  Then you might want to take the Hoax Photo Test.

I'm going to bitch again about the problems that network scheduling creates for those of us who record TV shows via TiVo.  (This also applies, though not as severely, to folks who employ one of those primitive, Paleolithic-era "video cassette recorders.")  How long is The Tonight Show with Jay Leno?  No, it's not an hour.  TiVo says it's 1 hour and 2 minutes long.  It runs from 11:35 PM to 12:37 AM.  How long is Late Night With Conan O'Brien?  Says TiVo, it's 59 minutes.  It airs from 12:37 AM to 1:36 AM.

Now, even these numbers are about fifteen seconds off but let's ignore that.  When I record both shows via TiVo's automatic selection, all is right with the world…that is, as long as I don't wish to record a show on another station that starts at 1:30 AM or even 1:35.  I wish to do this tonight so what I had to do was to cancel my one-touch recording for Conan, then do a manual recording from 12:40 to 1:30, with the "start" time padded by three minutes.  I'll lose the last six minutes of the show, but that's unavoidable and acceptable, since it'll just be commercials and thanking Bruce Springsteen.  Still, in a world where most video recorders work in five minute increments, why can't TV be programmed that way?

Even better would be if everything started on the half-hour but I guess the local stations will never give up the extra minutes of ad revenue they score by having the late night shows start at 11:35.  Years ago, I heard an NBC exec say he was going to push to have The Tonight Show run from 11:35 to 12:45, followed by Late Night from 12:45 to 2:00 AM, with Later and other programming to follow on the half-hour.  I'd be curious to know if that was ever seriously discussed.

You can help the Toys for Tots campaign.  After you finish here, go to www.excedrin.com and click where they tell you to click.  You'll get an ad to read and the charity will get cash from the Excedrin people.  Matter of fact, don't wait 'til you're finished here.  Do it now.

Like many of you, I have a whole list of websites that I hit at least once a day — some about media, some about the world, some so bizarre I still haven't figured out what I'm reading.  Among my favorite political visits is a stop at Talking Points Memo, a "blog" run by a fine writer named Joshua Micah Marshall.  I've recommended his site to you in the past, and I'll recommend it again.  In the last week, he was way out ahead of everyone on the "Trent Lott says something racist and/or stupid" story to the point where he was almost daring others not to report on it.  A lot of what they did report, they got from him, proving that you don't have to be Matt Drudge to have your website drive the mainstream news.  Read Marshall back a few days to see how this thing developed.

Several folks inform me that Salon offers a "day pass" to its premium section.  Apparently, you have to click past several screens of advertising but you get access to the whole site for the rest of the day.  (As a subscriber, I don't see this offer.)  Good way to read the Bill Maher interview…or any of several other interesting articles over there.

This whole brouhaha about Trent Lott's dumb remarks seems to flow from the fact that, basically, nobody has ever liked this guy.  Why Democrats don't is pretty obvious, but even Republicans are seizing on this as an opening to dump a lox of a Majority Leader, and to look like they're doing so out of principled, anti-racist sentiment.  Trent is now an obstacle to the G.O.P. dream of siphoning off some of that black vote.

Mr. Maher makes a salient point in the aforementioned interview.  It's that he got trampled for a remark on his show that was widely misinterpreted.  At the same time, Ari Fleischer made his clumsy remark about how people need to "watch what they say" — but he somehow managed to deflect most of the criticism by saying folks were misinterpreting what he said.  I think people over-reacted to both statements, reading more into them than was meant.  But somehow, it was okay for the official spokesperson for the White House to muddle his sentiments a bit but there was no wiggle room for an unelected, powerless TV comedian.  Ultimately, Maher made the same mistake Mr. Lott has now made: He gave the folks who already didn't like him something they could sell as an outrage.

I never thought much of Trent Lott but whatever he is, he's been it for a long time.  The people who are suddenly incensed that he may be nostalgic for segregation are like the piano player in the brothel who's suddenly shocked to learn what's been transpiring upstairs.  This applies as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans.  They treat Strom Thurmond as an elder statesman but condemn Lott for praising the man…

One of the most popular columns posted here seems to be the one about me going to see Barry Manilow.  In it, I decided my friends who like to think of themselves as "hip" (whatever that means, these days) would mock his show as corny and square, but that I had to recognize how much sheer pleasure he was dispensing to his audience including, ultimately, me.  We often prove — or strain to prove some sort of sophistication by disdaining entertainment: It may please the unwashed masses but I have higher standards.  That kind of thing.  If something's bad, then fine.  Say it's bad.  Or ignore it and go look for something good, which is what I increasingly do as I get older.  But don't ridicule it just because it appeals to people you'd like to believe you're better than…and don't close yourself off to the possibility that you might enjoy it, too.  At least on some level.

I have just come from a show that reminded me of what I might call my Manilow Epiphany.  I'm here in Las Vegas at the Orleans Hotel, where Tony Orlando is starring in "Santa and Me," a Christmas revue which he wrote.  Basically, it's the story of Tony Orlando meeting up with Santa, and they talk about what Christmas means, and sing "Jingle Bell Rock" and "White Christmas" and "O, Come All Ye Faithful."  There's an Elvis impersonator in the show, and a singing Christmas tree, and elves who join in a hip-hop version of "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree," and Tony spends a goodly amount of time out in the audience, leading them in sing-alongs.  If it sounds schmaltzy and syrupy…well, it is.  But most of a showroom full of people had a very good time.

What makes it work is that Mr. Orlando is a delightful, sincere man who works his butt off.  He's also a touchy-feely kind of guy.  I met him Sunday night and thanked him for a long-forgotten favor he did for me…and all of a sudden, I'm getting hugged.  By Tony Orlando.  I have friends I've had for thirty years and we don't hug.  But that's just the kind of guy he is and I decided — this is going to be an awkward phrase but it's the only way to say it — that I wouldn't like myself if I were the kind of person who ridiculed a guy just for being passionate and emotional and loving.

Did I like his show?  I don't think I did, but I liked him.  I liked the fact that he cares so much, and that he sent most of the audience out feeling not only entertained but that they'd spent a lovely hour with a lovely man.  Most Vegas-style entertainment is like fast food that's prepared by assembly line and utterly unmemorable.  This particular Vegas-style entertainment gave some people something they'll be talking about for years to come, and in a good way.

One person in particular.  In the front row, there was a gentleman in a wheelchair.  He obviously had dystrophy or some other neurological disorder.  As Tony was scurrying up and down the aisles with the wireless mike, leading us in "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," he stopped at the wheelchair.  He made a fast check to make sure its occupant was singing along and wouldn't be embarrassed, then held out the mike so the man could sing a few bars for everyone.  The audience cheered, Tony hugged the guy and kissed him on the forehead, and I saw that the fellow was crying with joy, as were the people with him.

As I describe it here, you might think it was corny and mushy and everything we don't like about the Jerry Lewis Telethon.  But Tony Orlando gave a guy in a wheelchair one of the happiest moments in what has probably not been much of a life.  I'll bet you can't do that.

Jawohl!  Here's part of an item that ran the other day in Daily Variety…

German helmer Doris Dorrie ("Naked") has reteamed with veteran thesps Heiner Lauterbach and Uwe Ochsenknecht for a Teutonic take on Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple."  Produced for pubcaster ZDF, "Ein seltsames Paar" is shooting in Munich, where Lauterbach and Ochsenknecht also can be seen on stage at the Bayerischer Hof as, respectively, Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. It's the second time Simon's play has been adapted by ZDF.  The pubcaster produced the short-lived "Felix und Oskar" in 1980 with Heinz Baumann as Oskar and Horst Bollmann as Felix.

The notion conjures up all sorts of jokes about a German Oscar ordering a German Felix out of the house mach schnell, and about brown knackwurst and green knackwurst, and of the both of them attempting to occupy The Pigeon Sisters.  But here's my big question:  The longest laugh in the play is when Oscar says to Felix…

You leave little notes on my pillow.  I've told you a thousand times, I cannot stand little notes on my pillow.  "We are all out of corn flakes — F.U."  It took me three hours to figure out that "F.U." was Felix Unger.

Since they've apparently kept the names the same, does this joke work in German?  That is, does the German language have a comparable vulgar slang term that suggests the initials, "F.U.?"  And if not, why didn't they change Felix's name?

Over at Salon, the online magazine, they have a terrific interview up today with Bill Maher.  You have to be a subscriber to read it, so I'll just offer you this one quote from the gent, which I think summarizes what makes him different from most other comedians these days.  It's self-serving but I think it's valid…

There's a big difference between the way most comedians handle George Bush, going after that obvious "dumb" line of humor and what I did, which was mentioning things like how he jumps on the bandwagon of something like the recent financial CEO scandals and stages a big photo-op and says things like, "We will hold corporate America to high ethical standards" when the reason corporate America is behaving unethically is because of politicians like Mr. Bush.  [Corporations] give him millions in campaign contributions so he can print up a sign saying he's demanding the highest ethical standards, and fools the people into thinking that when in fact he's doing the opposite.  That's what I want Jay Leno and the others to make fun of.  But they won't.  They make fun of him for mispronouncing a word.

The late, lovely Billy Barty is the subject of a much-deserved Biography profile, this Thursday (12/12) on the Arts and Entertainment Network.  He is also the subject of an about-to-be-released book, Within Reach, which includes loads of biographical material on him, plus reminiscences by friends and colleagues, including this column which I wrote about him.  You can order a copy at www.billybarty.com and, while you're there, read all the wonderful things there about Billy, some of which are left over from when he was with us and actively pursuing to right some of the injustices that folks have to endure when they are shorter than the average person.

• Republicans Can Lie, Dems Can't. Why? by Richard Cohen, New York Daily News
• Delay Tax Cut to Aid U.S. by Mario Cuomo, New York Daily News
• The Return of Cover-Up Kissinger by Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate

Present at the creation is a feature over at National Public Radio, discussing the origins of various icons.  They have a page up right now about Batman that includes video clips, an audio interview with Bob Kane, and links to various sites, including this one.  Click here to go there.

Anyone here interested in fancy network press kits?  If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you can read NBC's press handout to cover all their holiday programming for the month of December.  Click here to do so and notice the total lack of Magoo.  Looks to me like they knew a long time ago they weren't running it.

Anyone here miss the Up Close interview with Garry Trudeau?  Here's an article about it.

Tomorrow night, Late Night With Conan O'Brien features Al Gore and Bruce Springsteen.  And it isn't even sweeps.

The Washington Post couldn't find much room to report on Trent Lott's stupid/racist (pick one or both) remarks until after everyone else had jumped on the story.  They have, however, fearlessly tackled the vital issue of comic books discontinuing their letter columns.  Here's that breaking news.

The all-knowing, all-seeing Jerry Beck calls my (and therefore, your) attention to a wonderful new website that is attempting to catalog all the available info on the many cartoons produced by the Walter Lantz Studio.  That's Walter up above and the site is here. The folks responsible for it are Jack Tatay, Thad Komorowski, Pietro Shakarian and Jon Cooke, and they're providing an invaluable public service to the oft-neglected field of animation history.  I say that as someone who, after he reached around age ten, had trouble generating much interest in all but about a handful of Mr. Lantz's cartoons.  One can certainly respect the achievement and the craft even if one never thought Woody was all that funny…

Over at The Corner, which is a group weblog for the Conservative National Review, a reader is quoted as making what the editor there calls a good point…

How can a fictional character be anything but "openly" gay?  When they describe Barney Frank as the first openly gay congressman, they mean that there may have been others, but they kept it to themselves.  Fictional characters don't have lives outside of what their audiences can see.  We, the audience, know everything they do and everything they think (via those little bubbles).  It's only a comic book for crying out loud!

The easy answer, I suppose, is that the character can be "non-openly" gay in the continuity of his or her stories.  The readers, may know he or she is gay via "those little bubbles" — we in the know call them thought balloons — but the other characters don't.  So the character is "openly" gay in the sense that the plots deal overtly with that.

But a more useful answer is that, as company-owned characters get handed about from writer to writer, each of us creates our own version of the hero — one that we usually hope does not conflict with the ongoing continuity.  (I say "usually" because some writers consciously wish to leave their stamp on a classic character, which can be a good idea if they have good ideas and are there for a while; a bad idea when the writer is especially transient or just trying to grab attention.)

And in doing our versions, we project some aspects of ourselves and/or our acquaintances into the character and supply our own subtexts and motivations which may not be evident.  Certainly, when I've written Superman or some other iconic character, I have thoughts about him that never make it onto the printed page.  It's the same way an actor, called upon to display a certain emotion, may reference a personal memory in order to evoke that emotion.  You have to weep over your dead mother but since your real mother is still alive and sitting out in the third row, you privately think about that goldfish that died when you were eight.  In the same way, writers are always secretly drawing upon experiences and personal feelings, or basing some facet of a character on themselves or a friend or relative.

There have been comic book writers — openly gay or closeted — who have written classic characters over the years.  Just as gay songwriters write about loving "her" when they really mean "him," some comic book scribes have probably penned scenes of Superman loving Lois Lane when they really meant Jimmy Olsen.  They don't put it overtly into the script because they know it won't be accepted…but it's there and, once in a while, some readers pick up on it.  And it isn't just gay writers who can impose a gay subtext.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if some heterosexual writers had written Batman and decided to base their Robin on a homosexual they knew.  We've certainly seen a lot of cardboard, unconvincing lesbian tendencies imposed on female characters in lieu of more realistic characterizations.

The critic above is right that fictional characters don't have lives outside of what's on the paper.  But we don't always know everything they do and think.  At least with the more ambitious writers, there's always that which is implied between the word balloons.  And it could just be that the villain would rather kiss the hero than kill him…and is attempting the latter because he can't do the former.