Monthly Archives: November 2003

When Walter Matthau was first offered the script of The Odd Couple, he said he'd do it but he wanted to play Felix. He was quickly talked out of this silly notion. Later on, when they made the movie, he again announced that he wanted to play Felix and he was again talked back into the role for which he was most suited. At least once, he told an interviewer that during the Broadway run, he and Art Carney had occasionally swapped parts. This is apparently not true, though it spawned a minor urban legend. Indeed, one occasionally encounters someone who swears they went to see the original Odd Couple and saw Matthau playing Felix and Carney playing Oscar, which apparently did not happen.

At other times, Mr. Matthau told reporters that it was among his life's greatest regrets that no one had ever allowed him to play the role that would have truly challenged him as an actor…Felix. It's not hard to deduce that he was kidding. After the movie, he was a superstar and there were thousands of productions of The Odd Couple everywhere, including some pretty large, lucrative ones. If he'd called any theatrical producer anywhere and said he yearned to do a run as The Neat One, they'd have sent limos full of cash. But he never did that, and he never chose many movie roles that cast him much against "type." Jack Lemmon once said of his frequent co-star, "Walter gives due consideration to every script submitted to him and then does the ones that pay the most."

As I said an item ago here, I wish I could have seen Matthau and Carney do the original Odd Couple…and especially back then, when everyone in the audience didn't already know the play by heart. It has definitely lost a lot for being so familiar. Still, I can't imagine better casting than the originals…and while the notion of Matthau as Felix doesn't interest me, I have a hunch Carney would have made a great Oscar, too. We'll never know, of course, but he had quite a range as an actor. It is said he often received scripts that described his role as "an Ed Norton type," but he was never Ed Norton anywhere but in The Honeymooners. I thought he was quite convincing as a private detective in The Late Show and as the doctor in House Calls, to name two. It's real easy for a second banana, as he was with Gleason, to get typed at that level and in those kinds of roles, but Carney made it out.

I'm thinking back on when he won the Oscar for Harry and Tonto in '74. No one expected that win, up against Nicholson in Chinatown, Pacino in Godfather II, Dustin Hoffman as Lenny, and Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express. When they called the name of Art Carney, he had a reaction I don't think I've ever seen from anyone else on the Academy Awards. It was kind of a stunned "Really?" not just at the name but at a sudden roar of approval from the audience. They liked that choice even if the recipient couldn't quite wrap his brain around it for a moment. You kind of got the feeling that he was used to being first runner-up in life and couldn't quite grasp that he'd climbed out of the "also starring…" pit. Still, being a pro, he rose to the occasion (and his feet) and did a little victory gesture that I can't describe but which seemed to say, "Hey, I did it." I don't recall what he said, other than that he was charmingly unprepared. But I remember that little gesture which said more than any acceptance speech by anyone I've seen before or since. Next time you watch anything with Art Carney in it, don't even listen to whatever he says. Just watch the way the guy moves. That's where the real show is.

I always thought Art Carney was the reason The Honeymooners was a great show. Take him away and what you had was a show about a loud-mouthed bus driver who kept lying to people and threatening to smack his wife. You would have hated Ralph Kramden. The reason you didn't was that he had this friend named Ed Norton, and Ed Norton was such a great, lovable guy that you just knew: If he was Ralph's buddy, Ralph couldn't have been that bad a guy. Carney made Norton work and Norton made the series work. He was also funnier than Gleason.

All the obits for Mr. Carney are probably dwelling on his Norton days and perhaps mentioning his fine film work, including the Academy Award for Harry and Tonto. Perhaps in passing, they'll mention that he was the original Felix Unger, playing opposite Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple. Boy, I wish I'd seen that production. I did see Carney years later in another Neil Simon play, The Prisoner of Second Avenue. He was, no surprise, superb in the part and I recall that he got some enormous laughs just from his body language — the way he stood, the way his entire frame reacted to things. Carney was one of the few comic actors of his generation who just moved in amusing ways. He could also, as that play and others proved, break your heart with a single look.

There's a great story about one time Carney got in trouble on live TV. It was a "Honeymooners" sketch on the Gleason show, and Gleason exited a scene and ran off to his dressing room to change clothes — which he should not have done. He forgot that the scene had been rewritten and extended. He was supposed to go back in and engage Art/Ed in more dialogue but he forgot, leaving his sidekick sitting at the Kramden dining table, waiting for Ralph to return and play the rest of the dialogue. When Ralph didn't come, Art realized he had to fill — this is live TV, remember — so he walked over, opened the ice box and found there was nothing in it but an orange. He took it, sat down and did two minutes of orange-peeling. A stage manager finally got Gleason back so the scene could resume but as Jackie himself told the story, those two minutes were the funniest two minutes in the entire hour, maybe the entire season. The kinescope is apparently lost but I'm sure it was wonderful. Because Art Carney didn't know how to be anything less.

…and the great evening was had by my friend Carolyn, Richard and Wendy Pini and myself, all of us wide-eyed and clapping our fool heads off for Varekai, a touring production of Cirque du Soleil. It's camped out in downtown Los Angeles through November 23, then it heads for Pomona, Orange County, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver and elsewhere. If you've never seen a Cirque production, go. If you have seen one and this one's coming your way, you already want tickets. You can get them and the schedule through the Cirque du Soleil website.

Let's see…how do I describe a Cirque production to someone who's never seen one? There's music…live music, which adds a special note to the occasion. Acrobats often perform to recorded music and it makes a great difference, not only to the ambience but to the performance, as well. When the music is canned, the performers must perform to its rhythms and their timing is constricted. With real musicians on the premises, the performer can be more spontaneous and trust that the conductor will follow them. In Cirque, if a performer misses (as happened twice this evening), he or she will usually immediately attempt the feat again, and the conductor will adjust to accommodate it. The music is quite lovely but the best part of it is that though it is sometimes augmented via synthesizer, it is played anew for each performance.

There are costumes. Odd but beautiful costumes. I can't claim that I like or understand them all but at least you don't sit there going, "Oh, that old outfit again."

There's a storyline — in this case, something about Icarus falling to Earth and losing his wings. I haven't really understood the storylines of any of the Cirque shows I've seen…Dralion, O, or two viewings of Mystere, and I wonder if anyone does. Or cares…

…because there are incredible feats: People leaping, flying, tumbling, bouncing, spinning, falling, swinging, balancing and just generally doing the impossible. You sit there thinking to yourself, I could not possibly see what I just saw. Human beings cannot do that. But these can. My favorites were the juggler who juggled five or six balls at once, the troupe who juggled each other, and the closing in which performers swung on large swings and were flung across the stage, into large sails, onto each others' shoulders and even onto other large swings. (I also enjoyed the clowns, who were surprisingly clever.)

There are no animal acts. That's always been a policy of Cirque du Soleil and I kind of like it. In light of a certain recent occurrence, I think I like it even more.

I have to admit I don't fully comprehend a lot of what's happening on the Cirque stage…people writhing on the floor in odd costumes that I guess symbolize something…other performers wandering out just to stare at the ones in the spotlight. I also have to admit it doesn't matter. Every time I see a Cirque du Soleil production, I walk out thinking, "Gee, I want to go see another one of their shows." Right now, there are five touring, three in permanent residence in Vegas (with another on the way) and one in Florida, so I have a lot of opportunities. So do you.

A few weeks ago, a lawsuit by Fox News against author Al Franken was laughed out of court. This transcript of the court proceedings doesn't denote where the laughter actually occurred…but you can guess.

Paul Krugman lists some of the ways in which the Bush administration has been slicing military pay and benefits. I don't know how anyone can claim to "support our troops" and not be outraged at this kind of thing.

Here's a pretty good article on Zanies, a comedy club in Chicago. The piece, which was called to my attention by Bruce Reznick, is notable for a good overview of that business, and for an extremely goofy photo of Jay Leno. (Free registration is required. It's the Chicago Tribune site.)

My mention the other day of the Plastic Man cartoon show brought a lot of mail asking me about it, including the inevitable question of why the animation studio placed the stretchable hero with such an odd supporting cast. I'll write something about it when I have more time, maybe later this week. But, yes, I think all of us who worked on that series were a bit mystified by that decision, even after the reasoning was explained to us. (Hint: It had to do with a lady at the network who insisted that the purpose of a cartoon show was not to sell sugar-frosted cereals and exploding toys but pro-social values…a concept that has done more damage to kids than the toys and the cereal.) I think we'd all rather have done something closer in spirit, if not format to Jack Cole's original comic books, and I'll try to explain why that didn't happen. In the meantime, I'd like to recommend this article by the wise and sage R.C. Harvey to anyone in need of a good overview of Mr. Cole's funny comics and tragic life.

I'm starting this feature up again. One of the joys of this year's Comic-Con International was meeting Frank Bolle, a prolific artist for comic books (Dr. Solar, Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery) and newspaper strips (Apartment 3-G, Winnie Winkle, The Heart of Juliet Jones). Mr. Bolle's had one of those quiet careers, producing fine work for comics that weren't always in the spotlight but are now getting recognized. Here's a link to his website.

What do you get if you combine 64 Jay Leno monologues, 64 David Letterman monologues and 64 Conan O'Brien monologues? Answer: You get this. (Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for the tip.)

Terry Teachout, who covers theater for The Wall Street Journal, offers the opinion that the drop in audience attendance for The Producers represents the end of an era. Here's the whole article and here's a key excerpt…

What struck me about "The Producers" when I first saw it was how unabashedly old-fashioned it seemed, from the right-between-the-eyes overture to the Milton-Berlesque acting. It stands to reason that the show should be old-fashioned, its creator having been born in 1926, but it occurred to me that what I was witnessing was not so much a new musical as the last gasp of a dying comic language. Strip away the naughty words and self-consciously outré production numbers and "The Producers" is nothing more (or less) than a virtuoso reminiscence of the lapel-grabbing, kill-for-a-laugh shtickery on which so much of the stand-up comedy of my youth was based.

I disagree with most of the above. Some of the trappings of Jewish humor such as the accents and Yiddish asides may be dying out due to the passage of time. (Mel Brooks once predicted that some day, people would listen to his "2000 Year Old Man" albums just to hear a dialect that no longer existed.) But look at Comedy Central and what the up-and-coming stand-ups are doing and you'll hear endless dick and ass jokes. The fart jokes that once seemed like "kill-for-a-laugh shtickery" in Blazing Saddles are now showing up on NBC primetime. Comedy is getting no classier; it's just losing its accent.

I'm not knocking the change, understand; just pointing out that most popular comedy has always involved grabbing the audience by the lapels and killing for the laugh. The number one comedy film in the country at the moment is Scary Movie 3 and the number one comedy star is probably Adam Sandler. I see them as a natural evolution from Young Frankenstein and Jerry Lewis, not necessarily better but certainly, apart from the new gentility, working out of the same tool chest.

I think what happened with The Producers was that about three years' worth of audiences all wanted to go the first year so they could see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. A certain percentage of theatergoing is built around the "event" nature of a show, and it's a bigger event with the bigger names. If you had a Broadway Time Machine, you'd want to go back and see Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady or Robert Preston in The Music Man, not the guys who followed them. That would in no way reflect on the content of the shows. Teachout notes that The Producers has only been playing at 69% capacity lately. Yes, but there are two big and obvious reasons, one being that Lewis J. Stadlen, who has been highly acclaimed in the role of Max Bialystock, left the show a few weeks back with a sudden hip injury. So recently, true unknowns and understudies have been carrying the proceedings, which will hurt any box office at any production. Secondly, it's been known for months that Lane and Broderick were probably returning. If you wanted to see a given Broadway show, would you go see unknown quantities in the leads or wait until you could maybe get in to see the original, well-reviewed stars?

Teachout predicts that the show won't last much longer than the second departure of Nathan and Matthew. I think it will depend wholly on who steps into those roles. Rumor has it that Jason Alexander and Martin Short, currently in the L.A. company, are unavailable for New York. But if they were, or if comparable names could be secured, I bet the show could keep running the way David Merrick kept Hello, Dolly open for several centuries, casting a succession of legendary performers. It's not that the style of comedy is outdated. It's that if people are going to pay $100 a seat, as they do for The Producers, they want the best they can get for their money, and think that means Big Stars.

By the way, I should mention that any day now, Teachout will probably have a chance to express the above opinion again. Jackie Mason is about to open a new musical in New York. For the last decade or so, Mason has been repackaging a very tired stand-up act and booking it into Broadway houses and regional theaters with steadily-decreasing returns. Throughout his career, every single thing he's touched — TV shows, films, other plays, everything except his pure stand-up — has been a spectacular flop. This new show is supposed to offer "cutting edge" and hip comedy complete with risqué jokes and nudity…just what the world wants from a former rabbi. If it goes the way of most of his projects, we'll probably hear that it represents the death of "Borscht Belt, in-your-face" humor. But it won't. It'll just represent another Jackie Mason failure.

I'm in no great hurry but I've decided to sell my fabled 1957 Thunderbird convertible — the same one driven by the heroes of my comic books, Crossfire and Hollywood Superstars. It's a wonderful car but I think I've wrung all possible fun out of it and I could use the garage space. Just how one sells something like this, I have no idea…so I thought I'd tell its story here and see if anyone has any suggestions.

I purchased the car around 1982 from the legendary actor, Anthony Perkins, star of Psycho and many other movies. Mr. Perkins told me he was its original owner and that he'd driven the car in several of his movies, occasionally repainting it so it would better fit his "character." Since most of Mr. Perkins' films were black-and-white, I don't really understand why it had to be repainted. But sure enough, when I later had the body redone and all the old paint stripped, there were at least seven layers of sometimes-garish paint. Someone sent me this still of Perkins and a '57 Thunderbird (with New York plates) and while I can't swear it's mine, it seems possible.

Around 1970, Perkins decided to have it completely restored and he gave it to a gent who was famous for fixing cars for Italian movie and singing stars. The guy was so busy with Sergio Franchi's Porsche and Tony Bennett's Jaguar that he didn't finish Perkins' T-Bird until the early eighties. Part of the long restoration time was because Perkins had moved into a dwelling where he had no place to house the car and so was in no rush to get it back. When it was finally done, he decided he really didn't want it, nor did he want to pay the bill, which was about what the car was then worth. He told the mechanic to sell it for the cost of the restoration, which he did — to me.

This was in 1982 and at that point, the odometer said the car had around 10,000 miles on it. I have no idea if or how many times it had been rolled over or back but I've never touched it and it now shows a little over 14,000 miles. I've only driven it now and then, mostly on short trips for fun.

During those years, I repeatedly allowed it to sit undriven in the garage for long-enough spells that the battery went dead and I had to have it towed, serviced and detailed. I had planned to do all the servicing and repair work on it myself but I've never really had the time. The car has been fixed up by a succession of good mechanics but one after another, they all went out of business or moved or otherwise became unavailable. So the car occasionally sat in the garage for a year or two until I got around to finding someone who knew how to fix the thing. That is its current condition: The battery is dead and it needs servicing…but it ran fine the last time I started it, three years ago. Since I've lost interest in taking care of it, I figured it was time I passed it on to someone who would drive it and love it and pay the insurance bill on it.

I've had three major restorations done on it, including the major body job where we stripped off old paint, removed tons of Bondo and pounded out all the dents, and repainted it its original "baby blue" color. As far as I know, everything visible on the car is original equipment: Original radio, original hubcaps, original seat, etc. I have both tops — the hardtop and the soft — and have used neither. The hardtop is on a shelf in my garage. The softtop is folded down behind the seat and the canvas has probably gotten so brittle that it will need to be replaced. Under the hood, all original T-Bird parts were used in the restorations except for expendable items like the carburetor and the battery. I also installed a couple of fuses that weren't there in the original design. The last time I had it appraised, the expert said he'd never seen a '57 Thunderbird that was closer to its original state.

Right now, I'm looking for advice on the best way to sell it…maybe for someone local (Los Angeles) who knows a lot about old cars and would help me get it running and auctioned in exchange for a commission. I just don't have the time to run around with it, find a new mechanic, show it to dealers, etc. If you have interest or an idea, drop me a note.

About twelve hours ago, I mentioned that the recently-deceased Joanna Lee might have been the first-ever female animation writer. Dave Mackey reminds me that a lady named Barbara Hamner (about whom I know almost nothing) was credited for story on a number of UPA cartoons, some starring Mr. Magoo. There may have been one or two other ladies with that occupation, I suppose…but not many.

Last week, National Public Radio did a segment on Jim's Big Ego, which is a rock band fronted by a musician named Jim Infantino. During the piece, Jim mentioned that when he needed someone to draw a cover for his new CD, he called on his Uncle Carmine. That's right: Carmine Infantino, the acclaimed artist of umpteen comic book heroes, including The Flash, Adam Strange, Batman and his favorite, Detective Chimp. The CD, which is entitled They're Everywhere, also features a song called "The Ballad of Barry Allen," which is dedicated to Carmine. (For those of you who've forgotten: Barry Allen was the other identity of The Flash. And will be again, if there's a just and loving God in the heavens.)

You can order the CD over at the Jim's Big Ego website. You can also download an MP3 of any song from it for a buck, plus there's a link to listen to the NPR segment. (Thanks to Rob Means for calling my attention to this.)

The best thing I've seen on the Internet lately is Eric Idle's Greedy Bastard Tour Journal. Mr. Idle and a small troupe are traipsing about this continent for a series of one and two-night concerts, performing material from his days with Monty Python, plus other equally-smart songs and sketches. Throughout the ordeal, he has been posting a diary of his experiences, complete with flashbacks to other moments in his life. I expect all of this will be compiled into a book at some point but you can read it for free, one day at a time, by going to this page and scrolling about halfway down. If you start reading at the beginning and go forward, you will probably get hooked and not budge from your monitor for about the next hour. So don't click on that link until you've been to the toilet…unless, of course, that's where your computer is located. As Merv Griffin used to say of every single guest on his show less serious than Everett Dirksen, "He's a funny, funny man!" (Oh, yeah. There's also a tour schedule on that page, plus links to order tickets should The Greedy Bastard be roaming your way.)