Monthly Archives: January 2003

American Movie Classics used to be a great channel, filled as it was with vintage movies — including many rare treasures — aired uncut and with loving annotations by true film buffs.  Then something happened.  I don't know what but something.  They now have a much more limited library and the films air with commercial interruptions.  Someone there also doesn't seem to know much about the movies they're running, either.  This month, they're advertising the 1987 motion picture version of Dragnet.  They announced it, they put it in all the TV listings and today, their announcer said to stay tuned for "Dragnet, starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks."  But instead, they showed the 1966 Dragnet with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.

It's interesting, but it's hardly an "American Movie Classic."  It's the TV-Movie/pilot that led into the 1967 series revival.  You might find it worth a look, especially if you like that odd delivery that star-producer Webb insisted on for all his actors.  (He wouldn't allow them to see a script in advance or memorize lines.  He wanted everyone reading off the TelePrompter so he could keep speeding it up after each take, thereby speeding up the actor.)  The TV-Movie also had a slightly higher budget than the series, which often looked like they were trying to see how little they could spend on a half-hour of network television.  Mr. Webb was said to be very happy when his profits were high.

At least, the AMC website knew which version they were airing, though they list the film as Dragnet 1966 and then give its date as 1969.  That's not wholly their mistake.  Most sources seem to have it wrong despite the fact that the real date is right there in the title.  We just want the facts, ma'am.

New York Magazine picks Mad Art as a "best bet" in its new issue and on its website.  Just thought I'd mention it.

I am amazed to find this morning no Internet consensus that the debut Jimmy Kimmel Live! was a train wreck.  Maybe there was something there that I missed.  I have the TiVo set for all episodes this week and thereafter, even though it means only catching the first half of Letterman.  I hope I can report that I'm enjoying Kimmel more because, as I've said, I think he's one of the freshest comedy talents to emerge in some time.

As I mentioned here, I still have the original costume that Deidre Hall wore when she played the senior member of ElectraWoman and DynaGirl.  I haven't decided what to do with it yet.  I might donate it to a TV museum if one seems appropriate.  I might give it to Ms. Hall if I ever meet her and she seems to want it.  I might do a number of things with it. However, I have decided that I will absolutely not give, rent or loan it to any drag queens who are just dying to see how they look in it.  So you can all stop writing me.

This week and next, I'm doing a whole mess of radio interviews to speak of the book that all the online booksellers fear, Mad Art.  I won't bother listing them all here but don't be surprised if you hear my stammering tones on your Bose.  And if you do and they're taking call-ins, call in and ask me anything.  Except whether you can wear the ElectraWoman suit.

In 1963, Jerry Lewis launched a two-hour live ABC talk show from the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.  The first outing was a disaster with tech screw-ups, clumsily bleeped words, and a host who was nowhere near as funny as even his most fervent fans thought he would be.  With Jimmy Kimmel Live! — broadcast live on ABC from the El Capitan Theatre — history has repeated itself.

Okay, it isn't the same El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.  Jerry's El Capitan was over on Vine.  But otherwise, Kimmel's first outing was the same kind of fiasco.  And I say that as someone who thinks Kimmel is usually very funny.

Is it fixable?  Of course.  And they may well fix it.  But the thing which has to have ABC officials removing large clumps of follicles from their executive scalps is that in no way did their star look like a star.  He did not take command of the proceedings.  He did not attempt to build anything out of the wreckage.  He did not even look like he belonged there.  (His co-host, Snoop Dogg, sure looked like he wished he wasn't, and the two of them could not have had less rapport.)  Conan O'Brien didn't look half that awkward his first night, and Conan had logged a lot fewer hours in front of TV cameras than Jimmy Kimmel has.

Ted Koppel had the best line of the evening.  He launched things by announcing, "There will be no special post-Super Bowl edition of Nightline tonight so that ABC may bring you the following piece of garbage."  If Jimmy Kimmel Live! is going to live, it's going to require a lot more comedy and a lot less attitude.

And, speaking of Jerry Lewis…

I was negligent not to note the recent passing of Norman Panama, the comedy writer-producer who racked up so many amazing credits working with Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and just about everyone else who was funny in movies in the fifties and sixties.  Here's a link to an obit that recounts just a tiny bit of what he did, but we have to underscore one credit: He co-wrote the musical — on Broadway and the subsequent film version — of Li'l Abner.  We wrote about this here and here.

Interviewing Mr. Panama for those pieces was a sad, frustrating affair.  It had to be done over the phone since he was ill and "wasn't seeing anyone" and I was warned that his memory came and went, and that it might take four or five calls before I caught him at a moment when he even recalled doing the show.  It took around seven and even then, almost all he could do was to confirm and slightly expand on anecdotes I'd obtained elsewhere.

The one thing he did remember was getting Jerry Lewis to do a short, unbilled cameo in the film.  Panama told me what I reported in the article but what he didn't recall just then was that, probably apart from union scale, Jerry was paid a hefty $1.60 for his appearance.  There seems to be no way for me to link to the specific page but if you go to The Official Jerry Lewis Comedy Museum and Store and hunt about, you'll find a copy of the check (signed by Panama), the invoice, and a cover letter from Panama's collaborator, Melvin Frank.

Sorry to hear of Mr. Panama's passing, but I have the feeling it was a blessing in its way.  He truly had an impressive, superb career.

My spies inform me that, yes, Game Show Network is about to air the final network I've Got A Secret from 1967 (Friday night/Saturday morning) and that they will then go back to 1955 and rerun all the episodes they've run before.  That will involve again skipping over some episodes that do exist in their library but which would require heavy and costly editing before GSN would want to rebroadcast them. Mostly, this involves the removal of cigarette commercials that (I assume) are integrated into the show itself.  God knows we can't have America watching Winston ads at 4:00 in the morning.

I have no listings for what airs the two nights following the rerun of the last CBS show, but Monday night/Tuesday morn, they're scheduled to air the 12/2/53 show with special guest George Raft.  The next night, they run the 12/23/53 show with guest Paul Hartman, then that's followed by 10/13/54 with Boris Karloff and 2/2/55 with Ed Sullivan.  The debut episode was June 19, 1952 so they're only running about a half-dozen shows from the program's first three years.

Among those omitted is the episode where the celebrity guest was actor Monty Wooley, whose secret was "I sleep with my beard under the covers."  The panel failed to guess it and, when it was revealed, panelist Henry Morgan asked, "Now, Mr. Wooley, tell us.  Do you really sleep with your beard under the covers?"

Wooley replied — on live TV and referring to the producer of the show — "No, but some damn fool named Allan Sherman told me to say that."

I'm not trying to shove these Dick Van Dyke Show DVDs down your trachea but I thought someone out there would be interested to know that (as I just found out, watching it) Volume 1 contains an extra, unadvertised bonus.  It's the complete Head of the Family, the unsold pilot Carl Reiner did before The Dick Van Dyke Show.  He starred as Rob Petrie (pronounced with a long "e"), head writer of The Alan Sturdy Show.  The whole cast was different and the show wasn't very good.  It even has that kind of forgettable theme music that all unsold pilots of the sixties seemed to have.  Fortunately, the premise was later resurrected with Mr. Van Dyke assuming the role that Reiner had created for himself.  That worked out okay.

Stan Freberg had to move his Manhattan engagement from this coming week to May but someone apparently didn't get the message before arranging for a little "welcome."  He's 31 across in this morning's New York Times Magazine crossword puzzle.

Whether or not you agree with its point, you may enjoy this article by Monty Python's Terry Jones.  It's about Bush's policy towards Iraq.

I may be one day off on this but it seems like, early this coming Friday morn, Game Show Network's Black and White Overnight series will air the final network episode of I've Got A Secret.  The series took a big hit in the ratings when Garry Moore departed as host and was replaced by Steve Allen.  GSN has been airing shows in sequence (with occasional exceptions) and is nearing the end.  They still have I've Got A Secret listed indefinitely after that, so perhaps they're going back to the beginning and running those programs again.  Hope so.

Folks write me all the time to ask if I know where they can obtain videos of certain antique TV shows.  I write back and tell them to check out the website of my longtime (close to 35 years) friend, Bruce Simon.  If Bruce don't got it, no one got it.  Here's his banner ad, and you can order with confidence because he's an honest guy…

Several of you have written to inform me that Penn Jillette is not the first person on TV to call John "Crossing Over" Edward a douche.  Apparently, South Park has already made the point.  Okay, but it bears repeating.

I finally saw Mad Art in a bookstore.  The huge Bookstar over at La Cienega and Beverly Boulevards had a nice shelf-full.  They also had one in the window, right next to a sign announcing that this store is closing forever on January 30.  Maybe that's why Amazon is afraid to have copies.

Jimmy Kimmel's new show debuts after the Super Bowl, then starts its regular run on Monday night/Tuesday morn.  I have no real idea how it will do but if forced to guess, I'd say a big first week, and then it'll depend on how much ABC/Disney allows him to get away with. Kimmel is very funny and he seems to want to make his show as spontaneous as I've long wished Letterman or Leno would try to be.  If he were going into the slot Bill Maher will soon be inhabiting on HBO, I'd predict a very good shot at a very big hit.

Perhaps I'm hesitant because, as long as I've been in the teevee biz, I've heard folks talk about "flow" and how you want to program back-to-back, shows that are compatible so that each delivers audience to the next.  The increase in cable channels and delayed (i.e., taped or TiVoed) viewing has somewhat diminished that concept but still, Ted Koppel to Jimmy Kimmel is about as jarring a hand-off as you could construct.  Koppel didn't even want to mention Politically Incorrect, which featured some of the same topics and guests as does Nightline.  Do we think the words, "Stay tuned for Jimmy Kimmel as he welcomes Snoop Dogg" will ever escape Mr. Koppel's lips?

Kimmel's show is live, a decision I assume was made partly because they were worried about ABC affiliates bumping the show to a later slot.  (That was the main reason Saturday Night Live was live — to discourage affiliates from delaying it, as they were doing with the Carson reruns it replaced.)  Live could give the new show a welcome distinction from the carefully-planned hijinks of Dave and Jay — but if things get too raw, affiliates may be hard-pressed to explain why Maher had to go, but Kimmel remains.  Jimmy starts with only about 80% live clearances and may live or die depending on if that percentage goes up or down.

Before he lost a couple of key stations, Maher was averaging 2.5 million viewers a night in the time slot.  It'll be a little difficult to compare Kimmel's numbers since his show is an hour, and all late night shows experience a drop-off as folks go to bed.  (When you hear that Jay or Dave had a 4 rating, that probably means they had a 5 at the beginning of the show, dropping to a 3 by the end.)  It will further complicate ratings evaluations if Nightline runs over, as it occasionally has.  My guess would be that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will ultimately be judged more by its advertiser support than its ratings.  During the time Letterman's numbers were down in the high twos and low threes, what kept him afloat was that certain sponsors — beer companies, in particular — loved the demos of the audience he delivered.  ABC is saying that they don't expect Kimmel to take much away from Letterman or Leno; that they expect him to bring a new audience to late night.  That may just be talk to lower expectations, but to the extent it's true, it would mean they think he'll sell a lot of Gap jeans and Budweiser.  If he does that, regardless of the numbers, he could have a very long run on ABC.  That is, if no one says the "f" word.

I really liked the first episode of the new Showtime series, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!  Each week, they tackle some con routine for which the unsuspecting and gullible fall.  The show commenced with the claim that one can communicate with the dead and did a good job of nuking that scam.  Basically, they demonstrated how a so-called intuitive can employ "cold reading" to extract info from his or her victim and appear to be divining it from unearthly sources.  Those who desperately want to believe — and, Lord, how some do — will probably remain unconvinced; will probably not even watch Bullshit!, lest it challenge what they know.  But it's rather entertaining to hear Penn call John Edward (the Crossing Over guy, not the senator) the "biggest douche in the universe."  About time someone did.  Here's a schedule of when the show airs.  My TiVo is set for a Season Pass.

Here's an odd site.  Someone has set up a kind of "shadow government" for Saturday Night Live.  It's called Saturday Night You and it features scripts for SNL written by anyone out there who wants to submit.  The premise is that these people think they can write a better show than what they see on NBC.  I have no opinion on how often they succeed but I will point out the following: To write sketches that do not have to win the favor of producers, cast members and other staff members to reach the audience is only about eight thousand times easier than what the real Saturday Night Live writers must do each week.

This is so funny: For some months now, the weblog community has been abuzz with revelations that the Republicans have been organizing some very hokey "astroturf" movements.  These are campaigns designed to make it look like some point-of-view is originating with The People and spreading across the land when it is, in fact, being planted by the party leaders.  (It's called "astroturf" because it's a simulation of a genuine "grass roots" movement.)

One of the big weapons in this cause is www.gopteamleader.com, where you can not only sign up to try and plant news stories and such, you can actually earn points that can be redeemed for caps, t-shirts, etc.  For instance, you get points if you take one of their pre-written letters of support for George W. and e-mail it, via their site, to some local newspaper that will print it.  Dozens of papers have printed letters-to-the-editor which looked like they were studiously composed by average Americans who took the time to research stats and write about their support for the Republican agenda.  In fact, those folks just did a couple of on-line clicks to send a form letter, and collected those valuable G.O.P. points in the process.

This article over in Slate summarizes the whole process.  It also suggests that Democrats log in and use the site's e-mailing capabilities to send Bush-bashing letters.  Let's see how long the Republican site stays up and allows folks to do this.

Mad Art is currently up to #36,789 in the Amazon rankings, and they still say it's not coming out until December 12, 2002.  It is out.  I'm getting e-mails from folks (including a number of the MAD artists chronicled within) who say it's in their neighborhood shop.  It's just the online booksellers who seem to be having problems.

This is the first of several rave recommendations of the sculptures being manufactured by a company called Electric Tiki — and let me give you the link to their website right now: www.electrictiki.com.  A fellow named Tracy Mark Lee started it not long ago and he's already issued a number of lines of must-own statues of comic book, TV and fantasy characters.  My old pal Richie Rich is part of the Harvey Comics line, which also includes several others currently residing in my display case — Richie's girl friend Gloria and Jackie Jokers,  f'rinstance.  You can see the photos over at their site, along with others they have, like terrific sculpts of the heroines of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.  But take it from me: They look even better in person.

There's also a wonderful statue of my pal Paul Dini's popular Jingle Belle.  But I'll save that recommendation for another time.