Monthly Archives: June 2003

Richard Lewis is another one of those comedians of whom I say, "If you get the chance to see him live, go." A lot of comics don't show you all that they can do when you see them in a six-minute spot on Letterman. They need time to warm-up and the freedom to ramble a bit without hitting a punch line every twenty-seven seconds. Lewis is a good example. Here's the route to his website.

I should probably just rig up some sort of automatic link to every new article posted at Spinsanity. This piece is an unemotional, factually-supported deconstruction of George W. Bush's claim that "We found the weapons of mass destruction." Go read.

If there's nothing on eBay you want, then this is the item you want to buy. (Thanks, Leonard!)

It's no longer true but once upon a time, a non-Disney animated feature was like non-Heinz ketchup: Few people knew it existed and even fewer spent money on it. When Gay Purr-ee came out in 1962, it was just such a time. It had star names providing voices — Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, for instance, though the outstanding performance was by professional voice actor Paul Frees. It had a score by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who'd written the songs for The Wizard of Oz, among many other credits. It had a script by Chuck Jones and his then-wife, and sprightly direction and animation by Abe Levitow and U.P.A. Studios. What it didn't have was much of an audience…a shame because while it's not a great animated feature, it's a good one with some entertaining songs. You can see the film for yourself on a recently-released DVD which can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here. And if you like the score, you'll want to hurry to purchase the CD version of the soundtrack album which Rhino Handmade has just released in a limited edition — meaning, once they're gone, they're gone. It's been manufactured from the original master tapes and includes five "demo" performances of songs by Arlen. Click here to go buy a copy. [Note: This site makes a small cut off purchases from Amazon but not from Rhino Handmade. I'm just recommending the latter because I'm a swell fellow.]

In 1970, I met John Pound at Jack Kirby's house and even then, you could see the talent. Later, we collaborated on a few projects but the real joy has been seeing him blossom into one of our best comic illustrators. Here's the path to his website.

The other day, I got an e-mail from someone I never heard of, telling me about a film festival I have no interest in attending…in another state that I may never visit. Someone got hold of a list of media-connected e-mail addresses (I suppose) and sent this announcement out to everyone on it. I have a pretty decent spam-filtering mechanism in place but of course, a few get through. That one did and I deleted it without comment.

A lot of other people received it and wrote back to the sender to demand that they be removed from whatever list they're on. Fine — except that the entire list, with the e-mail addresses of all the recipients, was embedded in the header of the message. This means that everyone on the list receives every reply to the original message. So if you got it and you wrote to them to demand they not send you any more junk mail, your message is copied to me. So I am now getting spammed by people who are mad at someone else spamming them.

I used to think spam was just a minor annoyance — and to me, it still is. The company that hosts my e-mail address does a certain amount of spam filtering, and a nice piece of software I use called MailWasher Pro gets rid of anything that's recurring. Oddly enough, the spam I'm now receiving from people who are demanding to be removed from the spam list is the hardest kind to filter out.

But from what I see out on Ye Olde Internet, the problem's getting really acute for some people. Someone's going to do something about it and since so much spam comes from other, ungovernable countries, a legislative solution won't help much. The answer is going to have to be technological…something that will allow you to define the names or domains of those from which you want to receive e-mail. Bill Gates and his people could wipe this problem out in a week, and I don't know why they don't do this.

I would hereby like to return various compliments from Elayne Riggs. Her weblog is on a list of sixteen I have bookmarked to check at least once a day. And it's always worth a click.

Over at Slush Factory (a fun, fine site) there's this interview with Gary Glenn, the President of the American Family Association of Michigan. This is the group that's trying to drum up outrage over comic book conventions having porn stars as guests.

And from Jim Guida comes this query…

You have mentioned how the ratings for the Tonys are always pretty low and the article to which you linked compared this year to last. I am curious as to how the Tonys' ratings compare with whatever it is CBS has on regularly in June during that time slot. I don't know how to access that information, but you, with your finger on the pulse of the entertainment world, probably do. If it's not too difficult, could you make the comparison?

Well, the previous week, a rerun of a TV-Movie (John Grisham's A Time to Kill) ranged from a 7 at the outset to a 9 in the final hour. The week before, a parlay of a Becker rerun and another TV-Movie ranged from 5 to 6. Earlier in May, the two-hour finale of Survivor got a 10.7 there. So the Tony rating of 5.4 is not wonderful but it's not a disaster. More to the point, it's probably not far from CBS's best expectation. I mean, you don't expect the Tony Awards to finish in the Top 20 or even to take its time slot…and CBS not only scheduled the show but gave it an extra hour.

Everyone assumes that the networks only care about being Number One. Obviously, they like that but the competition isn't as fierce as it once was. Once upon a time, if your show finished in third place in its time slot, you were probably dead even if (as was sometimes the case) advertisers were still eager to purchase time in your show. Nowadays, advertiser support and critical success can keep a show alive, especially if there's no viable replacement. This is probably the reason they aren't auditioning repacements for David Letterman even though he's been consistently losing to The Tonight Show by at least two points. Sponsors do seem to like to buy commercials on the Tony Awards, and it does a lot to improve the image of a network that broadcasts some pretty undignified programs. So it may be safe for now.

By the way: Another way they sometimes judge the strength of a show is not by how many tune in but on how well the show holds viewers who are tuned to that network. 60 Minutes, which was on before, had a 6.5 rating and the first half-hour of the Tonys had a 6.2, meaning that they held most of the audience of their lead-in. There was very little drop-off in the ratings over the length of the awards show — about what one would expect over a three-hour stretch.

Good article by Christopher Caldwell all about Spam.

Last Sunday night, the final Tony award — Best New Musical — was presented not from the Radio City Music Hall in New York (like all the rest) but from the stage of the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. The entire company of The Producers was on-stage in formal garb as stars Jason Alexander and Martin Short opened the envelope and announced that the winner was, to no one's surprise, Hairspray. The live audience at the Pantages clapped enthusiastically.

This particular Tony was delivered at around 10:50 East Coast time, which was 7:50 West Coast time. I suppose if anyone had paused to wonder about it, they'd have assumed that the presentation at the Pantages was done before that evening's 8:00 performance of The Producers. That would have been logical…but wrong. For one thing, curtain time for the show on Sunday evenings is 7:30.

Although no one said it on the Tony broadcast, the segment with Mssrs. Alexander and Short was pre-taped. In fact, it was done the previous Thursday evening following the regular performance of their show. They held the audience after, everyone got into tuxedos and gowns, and they taped four different versions — one each announcing the four nominees, Hairspray, Movin' Out, Amour, and A Year With Frog and Toad. I am skeptical that anyone went to the trouble of preparing all four for possible broadcast — especially the last two — but perhaps they had to, just for legal-type reasons. Anyway, at the appropriate moment, CBS ran the appropriate version, then cut back to New York for the acceptance. Clever.

As readers of my previous weblog will recall, I have no particular respect or fondness for Gray Davis, the current governor of California. I seem to be with the majority on this. Davis is unpopular and was only returned to office in the 2000 election because his opponent was (amazingly) even less popular.

Ordinarily, since I love the idea of citizens holding government officials accountable, I'd cheer the notion of recalling someone from an elected position. I think we oughta recall about half the guys in office these days. But the current effort to recall Davis looks like a very bad idea to me. For one thing, it's not like anything has changed since the last election. In a very real sense, the recall drive is the effort of losers deciding they want to re-run an election they think they should have won. If that kind of thing succeeds, it could become a very bad precedent for our nation. Whenever there's a close election, the losing side would merely start a recall drive and hope to get a do-over.

The other problem here is that the recall movement is largely being driven (and financed) by a wealthy G.O.P. representative who seems to think this is a more promising way to become governor than running in a conventional election. That's a crummy reason for a recall.

As reported in this article in The Washington Post and this column by Robert Novak, Californians have wildly-differing views of the whole recall movement. Some Republicans hate Davis and cannot see how ousting him could be anything but a good thing. But many Republicans fear that it would be a chance for the Democrats (in this Democratic state) to elect someone who'll be a more formidable opponent in the next normal election. So some Democrats see this as an opportunity for them, while others oppose it for the obvious reasons.

I don't like the whole idea. I don't think Gray Davis should be governor and I resent the fact that I may have to go vote for him again.

The overnights were up a bit but when the final ratings came in for this year's Tony Awards broadcast, they were the usual disaster. (Here are the details.) I'm not sure this means much. CBS seems to have resigned itself to the notion that they should run the show even though its ratings are what they are. They can't be expecting things to change much.

And before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to mention the website of a very funny man named Gary Mule Deer. Years ago when I was hanging out a lot at the Comedy Store, he was one of the comics I really enjoyed watching…and so did the crowd. For a long time, I didn't hear anything about him and assumed, I guess, that he'd gotten out of the business or something. Turned out, he's been out on the road for the last umpteen years, opening for Johnny Mathis and other performers, and working his ass off. Great to hear. Here's his website.

And today I'm sending you all over to visit the website of Dan Parent, a very funny artist whether working in the classic Archie style, drawing for that company, or drawing like himself. While you're over there, scope out his tribute to the late Dan DeCarlo.