Monthly Archives: August 2003

You know…if this happened in California, I think people would drag Gray Davis out of the governor's mansion and beat him to death.

Here is the actual text of the lawsuit that Fox News has filed against Al Franken for co-opting (or ridiculing, as the case may be) their phrase, "fair and balanced." You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in order to read a document which suggests that the Fox guys were more interested in insulting Franken than in winning their point.

With Franken's as-yet-unreleased book topping the charts at Amazon, we are reminded of the time The Bullwinkle Show featured a storyline about a hat called The Kurward Derby. TV personality Durward Kirby announced his intention to sue. Bullwinkle producer Jay Ward immediately announced that he would pay all of Kirby's legal expenses to do so. "The publicity," he said, "would be worth a fortune to me." (Kirby, alas, never filed…)

If you have 6 minutes and 17 seconds (and RealPlayer installed), here's the link to Tracey Ullman's guest spot on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. This is a funny woman.

Daniel Frank points out to me that the second season of The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD is scheduled for release on the same date as the first one. Great! Here's a link to order that one from Amazon. Or order both on the same visit there and I still get a cut.

All of the listings say that this one contains a whole bunch of extras plus 31 episodes, but they do not list the 31 episodes. This raises an eyebrow or two because there were actually 33 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show in its second season. If anyone can shed any light on this, shed it in this direction.

Also: I see that the same DVD company (Image Entertainment) has just brought out Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? on DVD. There don't seem to be any extras on this, which is a shame. Would have been nice if they could have given us Alternate Audio with the original soundtrack.

Since I mentioned Daniel Frank: Over on his fine weblog, he points out that one thing which has delayed the SCTV episodes on home video (and even killed some of their televised reruns) has been a problem with music clearances. When you use someone else's song on a TV show, you have to clear the use of it, which can sometimes be complicated, especially if you want to use the song in an odd context or with parody lyrics. In some cases, parody lyrics are absolutely forbidden. Back when I wrote variety shows (back when there were variety shows) we often had to drop a sketch because we couldn't clear a certain song. I remember, at least back in the eighties, the Music Clearance people would laugh at you if you asked about doing anything odd with a Gershwin song or something from the Lerner and Loewe catalog. One of them said to me when I inquired, "I don't even have to make that call. The answer is always no. You use it exactly as written or you don't use it."

Or sometimes, a given song would just be too expensive. At least back then and probably still, Johnny Carson's famous theme song cost four or five times the going rate for a few bars of a comparable tune. That is why, when you see folks impersonate Carson, they so rarely use that song. (In the Saturday Night Live segments where Dana Carvey played Carson, they always skipped the monologue and started with a bit at the desk, as if returning from a commercial. That was, at least in part, because you couldn't do the show's opening without the theme and even NBC didn't want to pay the fee.)

Anyway, the relevance of all this to SCTV is that on at least a couple of episodes, I recall seeing them do something silly with a Gershwin tune, and they once did a parody of My Fair Lady. I asked one of our old Music Clearance people how they could get away with those, and the reply was, "They don't ask." Which is admirable in some ways but not others.

Neither comic book dealer Barry Short nor comedian-writer Don Novello appear on the final list of candidates for Governor.

A shame, really. One or both might have brought some dignity to the proceedings.

Salon interviews political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. And when you're done there, pop on over to Tom's website, which I've just decided is our Comic Art Webite of the Day.

Admittedly going out on a limb, Michael Tomasky of The American Prospect predicts that Cruz Bustamante will defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think he's wrong but I think Tomasky is out on an interesting limb, and the reasons he gives as to why Arnold won't win are probably valid reasons why he won't win by much.

Then again, I still think it's too early to count out Gallagher.

Speaking of The Dick Van Dyke Show: Those of you who know it mainly as a comic book will be excited to know that there was a TV show, as well, and that the entire first season is coming out on DVD. The set, which is set for release October 21, features 30 episodes: "The Sick Boy and the Sitter," "The Meershatz Pipe," "Jealousy," "Sally and the Lab Technician," "Washington vs. the Bunny," "Oh How We Met the Night That We Danced," "The Unwelcome Houseguest," "Harrison B. Harding of Camp Crowder MO," "My Blonde-Haired Brunette," "Forty-Four Tickets," "Tell or Not to Tell," "Sally Is a Girl," "Empress Carlotta's Necklace," "Buddy Can You Spare a Job?," "Who Owes Who What?," "Sol and the Sponsor," "The Curious Thing About Women," "Punch Thy Neighbor," "Where Did I Come From?," "The Boarder Incident," "A Word a Day," "The Talented Neighborhood," "Father of the Week," "The Twizzle," "One Angry Man," "Where You Been Fassbinder?," "The Bad Old Days," "I Am My Brother's Keeper," "The Sleeping Brother" and "The Return of Happy Spangler."

There are a few lesser episodes in there and a much lower batting average than they'd have in subsequent years. Most in the cast thought "The Twizzle" was the worst show they ever did with "The Bad Old Days" a close second. But I really liked some of these, especially "Oh How We Met the Night That We Danced," "Empress Carlotta's Necklace," "Buddy Can You Spare a Job?," "The Curious Thing About Women," "Where Did I Come From?" and "The Return of Happy Spangler." And as Winston Churchill once said, even poor Dick Van Dyke Show is better than no Dick Van Dyke Show at all.

You can pre-order the collection from Amazon (and give this site a tiny cut) by clicking here.

And don't close that wallet just yet. According to this report, the first collection of the SCTV shows will be coming out in January. In this case, they won't be starting with Season #1 but with the later, stronger shows. In this case, since some of the early SCTV programs were pretty weak (and light on the stars we associate with SCTV), I think this is a good idea.

Texas schools have reported a record low instance of students "dropping-out." How have they managed this? By lying about the numbers. Here's a report on one of those things that ought to become a big issue but probably won't.

This coming Friday is Fair and Balanced Day on weblogs all across the Internet. But of course, it's always Fair and Balanced Day here.

Good article by John Rogers about Stan Freberg. (Minor quibbles: Friz Freleng's name is spelled wrong, and Chuck Jones was always diligent about correcting people who cited him as the creator of Bugs Bunny. Other than that, good piece.)

Eric Idle's sequel to The Rutles is having its world premiere this Saturday night at a film festival in Los Angeles. One hopes it will soon receive wider distribution or airing.

(I love the fact that I can ask a question here at three in the morning, go to bed, and then when I get up, my e-mailbox is filled with folks answering it. Thanks, everyone.)

A few weeks ago, I posted an item about how a revue of Monty Python material, performed by actors not of the Monty Python troupe, might be making its way to Broadway. I was later informed by a good source that though it had been announced, it was probably not going to happen.

So now, how do we feel about a Broadway show, written by Eric Idle and based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail? For some reason, this sounds like a much better idea to me.

Say, while we're at it: Has anyone heard anything like a release date for Mr. Idle's sequel to The Rutles? I saw it at an invitational preview in May of 2001 and it seemed very funny and very close to done. Since then…not a word.

As most folks know, the animation business — even the part that programs for adult audiences — likes shows featuring young characters. There have been studio and network execs who have explicitly spread the word that they aren't interested in any show where the major characters are over 16 years old.

So it's interesting that as this article points out there are currently cartoon shows in production where the lead characters are Carl Reiner (age 81), Robert Evans (age 73) and Hugh Hefner (age 77).

I don't think there's any "new trend" here. It's just nice to be able to point out the exceptions.

Here's something funny I just found that will probably only amuse people who are in the TV business, especially on the technical side. Go to this page at the TV Land website. It's a page that leads to pages about each of the shows they air on their channel. Then select "Bars and Tones." Then check out all the little sub-pages featuring Characters and Episodes and such. (Well, I liked it…)