Monthly Archives: July 2003

Would you like to see a live Monty Python stage show? Yeah, me too. But would you like to see it if it didn't feature any members of Monty Python? I don't know how I feel about this.

Garry Wills sort of reviews Hillary Clinton's autobiography but really uses it as an excuse to talk about her in a larger context. Those who want to believe she is either blemish-free or demon-possessed will not like the portrait he paints of her. But it may be the most accurate of the many that have been written.

And from Jon Belmont himself comes an e-mail…

i'd been joking in speeches and on that air that bob hope planned to get back at me by outliving me. like mark twain and — until sunday night — ole bob, i'm glad that reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated.

So am I. We've never met but I instinctively feel sorry for a newsman who is handed an erroneous report and reads it in the line of work. People forget that it was someone else on the chain-of-command who actually made the mistake. In this case, it apparently started with a speech on the floor of the House by then-Congressman Bob Stump. And it wasn't even his fault. According to this article…

The Republican had been asked by then-Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, to make the announcement on the House floor.  Staff members had alerted Armey to the news on June 5, 1998, after seeing Hope's obituary posted on the Web site of the Associated Press. The story had been posted by mistake, however. It was advance material not intended for publication until the comedian's death.

The latest confusion seems to stem from the fact that Bob Hope outlived Bob Stump, who passed away about a month ago. The person who reminded me of the incident apparently mixed up just who it was who had announced Hope's demise only to be outlived by him.

Anyway, Mr. Belmont, thanks for the note and my apologies for the error. Your colleague at WTMJ radio, Rob Hart, also wrote to tell me of his shock at your death and said he hoped it wouldn't interfere with your lunch date tomorrow. He said the tape gets frequent play in your newsroom, so apparently Bob Hope was able to provoke laughter merely by not dying.

Several folks are informing me this morning that, contrary to the item I posted, newsman Jon Belmont is not dead. He's the one who reported that Bob Hope was dead when he wasn't, but he's now the morning newsperson at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee. Sorry for passing on misinformation but in this case, it almost seems appropriate.

Ben Varkentine was a wise, perceptive critic when he reviewed my first collection of columns. Now with its sequel, he's gotten even wiser and more perceptive.

In each of the last five years, Comedy Central has televised a heavily-edited and sloppily-bleeped Friars Roast. The subjects were — and I'm not sure of the order — Jerry Stiller, Rob Reiner, Drew Carey, Hugh Hefner and Chevy Chase. The last of these was horrible. They couldn't get too many celebrities to show and most of those who did turn out didn't seem to be all that thrilled or inspired by the topic of Chevy Chase. The best was the Hefner one, which had some very funny moments. (If you TiVo it and don't want to sit through an hour of penis and masturbation jokes, do this: Fast forward to catch a little of Sarah Silverman. Then skip ahead to watch Ice-T, not because he's any good but because what he does is the set-up to Gilbert Gottfried. Then jump to the end and watch Gilbert, who is absolutely hilarious. In fact, he's almost worth wading through all the lines about how Hef sleeps with seven bimbos and still can't get it up.) The others have their moments — for instance, on the Rob Reiner roast when Richard Belzer forces Reiner to read aloud Roger Ebert's unkind review of North. Or Jason Alexander's opening musical number on the Stiller affair.

Anyway, Comedy Central has severed ties with the Friars Club and pacted with Denis Leary's production company to produce a new series of Friarless roasts. The first one, which debuts August 10, happens to be a roast of Denis Leary. What an incredible coincidence. I have no idea if it'll be any good but as they usually do, Comedy Central is using the occasion of a new roast as an excuse to rerun the old ones. If you want to be horrified, the Chevy Chase testimonial runs on Monday evening. If you want to see Gilbert, the Hefner roast airs a week from Sunday (8/9). For the others, consult your local TV listing website.

If you have three and a half minutes (and RealPlayer installed on your computer) you might like to watch this video clip of an interview that Jon Stewart did last week on The Daily Show. It's the second half of a chat with Joseph Wilson, who was the former ambassador who was dispatched to investigate reports that Niger sold uranium to Iraq. Wilson said it wasn't true but the Bush Administration cited the alleged sale in making its case for war.

Here's an article about Watergate and the new claim by Jeb Magruder that he overheard Nixon authorize the infamous break-in. As I said earlier, I'm skeptical about Magruder's delayed-action admission but I do think that it's highly likely Nixon okayed the plan, either in the abstract or the specific.

One of the things that always makes me suspicious about alleged public fibs is misplaced outrage. O.J. Simpson never went on TV and screamed, "I'm going to get the dirty bastard who murdered my ex-wife and her friend!" He never even got too upset that, to hear him tell it, the L.A.P.D. had engaged in a massive conspiracy to frame him for that crime. He was more upset over minor affronts to his image.

In presidential scandals, chief execs claim to have been misled or circumvented by their underlings but they never seem to get angry with those underlings. Misleading statements that turn up in George W. Bush's speeches seem to be everyone's fault but his, but we don't see him chastising the parties responsible, let alone firing them. Nixon never pounded the desk and declared, "Breaking into the Watergate Hotel was a criminal act and I'm going to get to the bottom of this and throw the responsible parties in prison." Instead, he said some of them might be "overzealous."

The article linked above is right: We may never know to what extent if any Nixon authorized the break-in. But he sure acted like he had.

From the New Jersey Star-Ledger…

A Mass for Warren Kremer, 82, of Bloomfield will be at 10 a.m. Monday in St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Bloomfield, after the funeral from Frank Halpins Brookdale Funeral Home, 1284 Broad St., Bloomfield. Mr. Kremer died Thursday in Mountainside Hospital, Glen Ridge. A professional cartoonist for Harvey Comics in New York City for 35 years, he was the companys primary cover illustrator and the artist for Richie Rich, Casper and Hot Stuff Comics before retiring in 1989. Born in the Bronx, he lived in Bloomfield for 47 years. Surviving are his wife, Grace; sons, Richard W. and Peter R.; daughters, Maryanne Kremer-Ames and Suzanne Petrozzino; a sister, Anita Sudol, and two grandchildren.

So he passed away on Thursday, July 24. Note that his son Richard W. is the one he said inspired the name of Richie Rich.

With all this mourning of ol' Ski-Nose, let us recall that this is not the first time the death of Bob Hope has been reported. Back in '98, an erroneous report on a website led to a Congressman announcing Bob's demise on the floor of the House. This in turn led ABC Radio to broadcast this report, complete with an obit that had obviously been prepared and was ready to go…

Doug Gamble was one of the many writers who toiled in the service of the late Mr. Hope. Here are some of his memories.

By one accounting, Warren Kremer was one of the five most prolific cover artists in the history of comics, the other four being (in no particular order) Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert and Dan DeCarlo. By any accounting, he was one of the most prolific producers of interior pages, as well. He did zillions for the Harvey Comics Group, mainly of Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Hot Stuff and Stumbo the Giant. Some said the Kremer style was the Harvey style. Born in 1921, he worked in pulp illustration and animation before discovering comic books. When he did, he plunged right in.

He started working in a more realistic style, primarily on horror comics for Harvey. As Harvey segued into the kind of comic for which they would become famous, Kremer learned he could draw that way and actually preferred it. He quickly became their keystone artist, claiming to have created or at least co-created many of their most popular characters. (Kremer's son was named Richie and he said he named Richie Rich after him. Company founder Al Harvey was known to dispute this.)

Kremer worked for Harvey for decades, drawing not only their comics but designing toys and merchandise for their characters and even dabbling in some of the TV animation of Casper. When Harvey shut down in the mid-eighties, Marvel absorbed some of their key personnel and did the "Star" line of comics for a few years. Kremer drew many issues for them, including books based on the comic strip Heathcliff and the Ewoks from the Star Wars movies. About the time the Star line folded, his health forced him to cut back his drawing. In the early nineties, he worked occasionally on merchandise projects for the new owners of the Harvey characters but eventually had to stop drawing altogether. The last time I spoke to him (about six months ago), he was dismayed that his health forced him to decline an offer to be a Guest of Honor, all expenses paid, at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. But he was elated that Marvel had found a huge stockpile of his original art for the Star Comics which they were about to ship back to him. I have conflicting reports as to when he passed away but it was in the last few days.

I did not know the man well but I am in awe of his sheer productivity over the years, and his ability to set and maintain a high standard. An awful lot of you knew and loved his work even if you didn't know his name.

Several folks have written me with suggestions of stars who might qualify as Elder Statesmen of Comedy. They include Carl Reiner (age 80), Mel Brooks (77), Dick Van Dyke (78), Howie Morris (84), Rodney Dangerfield (81), Don Rickles (77), Bob Elliott (80), Art Carney (84), Red Buttons (84), Jonathan Winters (77), Stan Freberg (76) and Alan King (75). Buzz Dixon and Fred Hembeck both mentioned Professor Irwin Corey who is, of course, 143. One could call all or some of those guys our Elder Statesmen of Comedy, if only by default. But I think it's significant that not one of the names mentioned was over 84. We used to have a lot of great comedians in their late eighties or even their nineties. Henny Youngman was 92 when he died, Berle was 94, Hope and Burns were 100, etc. Maybe I'm stretching things but it seems like there's a gap here.

Speaking of great older comedians: I just got back from my doctor's office where I was introduced to one. I was hustling past the nurse's station on my way out when I recognized an extremely short female patient there as my old pal, comedienne-voice actress Mitzi McCall. She was chatting with an older male patient she just happened to run into there in the office and she introduced me to him. She said, "Mark, do you know Shecky Greene?"

Do I know Shecky Greene? Not personally, no. But I got to tell him — and this is absolutely true — "Mr. Greene, I want you to know that not only do I think you're terrific but my father did, too. My father was a very frugal man and when he went to Las Vegas, he wouldn't spend money on shows because shows cost too much. You were the one exception. He wouldn't pay to see Frank. He wouldn't pay to see Dino or Sammy. He wouldn't pay to see Frank, Dino and Sammy. But he'd pay to see you, and he'd come back from Vegas raving about how fabulous you were and doing absolutely terrible re-creations of your best material."

Mr. Greene said, "I was getting $7.50 a seat then, probably."

I said, "Okay, so he wasn't frugal. He was cheap. But he would have disowned me if I hadn't liked you."

So there's another Elder Statesman of Comedy, I guess. Shecky Greene, by the way, is 77. I didn't see his charts but he sure doesn't look it.

So what happens if you decide to answer one of those e-mails that offers to put millions into your bank account? Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie decided to find out. Here's part one of his little experiment and here's part two. Thanks to Greg Hatcher for pointing it out to me.

Spinsanity, one of the few political websites with the integrity to criticize in both directions, dissects the Bush claims about the uranium and the criticisms thereof.