Monthly Archives: December 2003

About 15 hours ago, I posted an item about a new 8-disc Abbott and Costello DVD set for under $25. Brent Seguine informs me that the Amazon listing is wrong; that it's eight movies crammed into two double-sided discs. That's still a bargain but it's not as grand.

The current plan, which presumes this release will sell well enough to warrant more, is for there to be four Abbott and Costello DVD sets which will release 27 of their 28 Universal movies, plus the 1965 compilation film, The World of Abbott and Costello. The last volume would be either be one double-sided disc or it might include some of the other Abbott and Costello features, some of which could be licensed from other companies, some of which are reportedly public domain.

The one Universal film which they presently intend to omit is It Ain't Hay, which apparently has rights problems because it's based on a Damon Runyon story. The Universal folks apparently feel they don't have it cleared to issue on VHS or DVD, though somehow they did license an outside company to put out a cheap VHS version. It's not one of the better A-and-C efforts and I'm told the picture quality of the currently VHS release isn't great but here's an Amazon link to it, anyway. Just in case there's a Bud-and-Lou completist reading this.

I used to like Abbott and Costello a lot and I guess I still do, though more for their radio appearances and the TV series they did than their movies. And of course, I still think Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a classic, if only to see Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi engage in self-parody. Perhaps my patience is atrophying as I get older but I otherwise find it hard to sit through the portions of Abbott and Costello movies that don't involve Abbott and Costello. I'm going to get the DVD set but I may keep one finger on the Fast Forward button as I watch some of those films.

Not all that many years ago, comic book conventions were mostly Boys' Clubs. There were San Diego Cons where the only women on the premises seemed to be Mrs. Jack Kirby and maybe June Foray. June, by the way, will be a featured guest at the 2004 Comic Con International in S.D. and I'm going to put together something spectacular (I'm not sure what yet) for the occasion.

Anyway, one of the things that has changed about conventions in the last decade or two is the large percentage of ladies who are present, many of them quite spectacular in appearance. There's a photographer named John Chennavasin who goes to glamour-type events and takes pictures of the models, and he's lately taken to visiting Comic Con International with his camera. Here's a link to some photos that he took at the 2002 convention and here are pics from the 2003 con. [CAUTION: Selecting some of the other links on his site could plunge you into sectors of the Internet where ladies cavort without clothing. You will be one click from porn instead of the usual two clicks.]

Molly Ivins discusses Bush's version of "compassionate conservatism" from a Texas perspective.

Here's some nice DVD news. Next February, some company is coming out with Volume 1 of The Best of Abbott and Costello, which consists of eight discs featuring their first eight films for Universal Studios. The films in question are One Night in the Tropics, Buck Privates, In the Navy, Hold That Ghost, Keep 'em Flying, Ride 'em Cowboy, Pardon My Sarong and Who Done It? (They made Rio Rita after Ride 'em Cowboy but that was for M.G.M.) The first of these is a pretty dreary film in which they have supporting roles but after that, they turn into the Abbott and Costello who became extraordinarily popular and if you ever liked them, you'll probably like them in these films. Hold That Ghost is probably the best of the lot but they're all easy to watch and manage a few comedy highlights…usually an old burlesque bit that is shoehorned into the plot. If you're familiar with the burley-q sketch known as "Crazy House," you won't believe how they managed to work it into Ride 'em Cowboy.

So it's a nice package but what's really impressive is the price for the set: Twenty-five bucks. In fact, you can pre-order it from Amazon for $21.23 by clicking here. (If your order's over $25, you get free shipping, so you'll want to find at least one other item.) Let's hope this becomes a trend. A 4-disc set of four Ma and Pa Kettle movies, also produced at Universal, will be available at the same time for $17.00.

If you don't think we're heading for the dirtiest political campaign in the history of mankind, take a look at this. It's a Shockwave video of a political spot on the Dennis Kucinich website. I liked some of the Kucinich speeches I heard a few months ago. Lately though, you get the feeling he knows he has zero chance of winning the presidency, and that his assigned role in the campaign is to throw the mud so the real candidates can keep their hands relatively clean.

Lately, Republicans have been trying to label everyone who opposes their boy as a "Bush-hater" and suggesting it's as bad as Clinton-hating ever was in this country. I don't think it's there yet. But give it time…

…to Ray Bradbury and his family on the passing of Marguerite McClure Bradbury. She and Ray were married on September 27, 1947 and he often said that he would not have had a career or a life without her. I only met her once but it was easy to see she was a remarkable, intelligent woman.

This afternoon, I was in a Costco in Tustin, which is a city about ten minutes south of Disneyland. Don't ask why I was in a Costco in Tustin. I just was.

Among my purchases was a new CD-Rom that Marvel has issued that reproduces about 100 key issues from the sixties. I'll review it later here when I get around to opening the box.

But I wanted to report what happened as I was going through check-out. A Hispanic gent who was perhaps 35 years of age was packing my items and when he came to the Marvel CD-Rom, he studied it for a second, front and back, then said to me, "These comics are mostly by Jack Kirby. Greatest comic artist who ever lived but he got screwed."

I love form letter advertising, especially the kind where they try to insert your name or address into the text to make it seem like the letter was written specifically to you. My personal corporation is named Horse Feathers, Inc. (Yes, after the Marx Brothers movie of the same name) and every week or so, I receive a letter to "Dear Mr. Feathers," or sometimes to "Dear Mr. Inc.," telling me of the joy that will greet the Feathers family when my purchase arrives at P.O. Box Avenue. One time, I got a letter from a company that charges you to research your family tree, saying that they had made some amazing discoveries, including possible unclaimed inheritances, in the Inc family tree.

The Internet, of course, finds a new electronic twist for every old scam in the world. I presently have about eight website addresses registered. They are all now receiving this form e-mail with little key words from each site dropped into the appropriate spots. The spelling and punctuation are exact, except that I have redacted the name of the company involved, which is a firm that hosts websites on its server. The letter purports to be from an individual who works with the company…

Hello, I had the pleasure of visiting your site "POVonline.com". Its interesting to see that you have created a site, which presents commendable information about a wide range of topics which includes Comedy, Animation, Cartoon Voices and so on. The links "Hollywood" and "My Comics" that you have included has been described well. The "NEWS Archives" section that you have included adds value to your site. I visited quite a lot of sites, and would like to kindly recommend a professional makeover for your entire web site (http://povonline.com). I work at [name of hosting company], and would like to offer you to redesign your complete web site absolutely free of charge. You will only be asked to pay for the monthly hosting, which is only $9.95/mo. There are no other fees, and there is absolutely no risk from your end. If you are not satisfied with our work, you will not be asked to pay anything. Please let me know if you would be interested in this offer (in fact, I can't imagine why you wouldn't be).

Well, how about the fact that you don't write English well enough to put together a coherent website? And that your e-mails are full of line-break codes that shouldn't be there? But apart from that, it's a helluva deal.

Recently, I pointed you towards this new website that Jesse Hamm is setting up to salute and chronicle the work of the late comic book illustrator, Jesse Marsh. Here's a link to another site devoted to the controversial Mr. Marsh.

Harold Meyerson says that Governor Schwarzenegger is already starting to cut transportation and aid to the disabled, the poor and their children. Guess that's what he meant when he said that the budget could be balanced by eliminating governmental waste.

Got a busy day today so there probably won't be any posting here until after dark, California time. But you can go look at bad record album covers.

Comes now a nice message from Dave Mackey, one of several one-time collectors of Castle Films who have graced my e-mailbox since I veered off onto the topic. Here's Dave…

Our family acquired an Argus 8mm projector and camera outfit in 1968. Naturally, we made our own home movies, many of which are still within the family (I think [my brother] Robair has them), and we also had the Castle Films. Of course, we had the 50-foot version of Have Badge, Will Chase yet never connected it to A&C Meet The Keystone Kops, though we all saw the A&C films over and over again every Sunday morning on Channel 11. We also had a Woody Woodpecker film, Puny Express (1951), which for some odd reason was packaged in a box advertising a later Inspector Willoughby cartoon, Phoney Express (1962). We also had representative reels from Columbia's 8mm program, which mostly featured Three Stooges shorts, and Ken Films, which marketed the pre-48 WB cartoons on 8mm.

Castle made 16mm films available too, as 16mm was also a viable home format for a while. The bane of many cartoon collectors is the plethora of Castle-titled Walter Lantz cartoons that often don't have correct opens and closes and often leave off production credits. (Some were even censored, as in the case of Abou Ben Boogie and a few other titles which had, um, modifications.)

But the 8mm format was a dream to cartoon collectors: when I worked in a department store camera department in my teens, I had access to a near-complete collection of Lantz 8mm color/sound prints, which were then marketed under the name Universal 8, with Betamax and VHS merely a blip on the horizon and DVD's not even imaginable at that point. Features on 8mm? Only if you were really lucky. Cartoons on 8mm? Oh yes!

One of the games/frustrations of collecting 8mm films was in the title changes. Castle chopped Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops into at least two short films…Have Badge, Will Chase and Hollywood and Bust.  You had to kind of guess that No Bulls, Please was a cut from Mexican Hayride or that Double Cross at Criss-Cross was a drastic condensation of The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap.

No Fires, Please, was a cutdown of Fireman, Save My Child, which was the Abbott and Costello film that Universal made without Abbott or Costello. It was written for them and some very elaborate stunt scenes were filmed with the appropriate stuntmen. Then, Bud and Lou refused to make it so Universal cast Hugh O'Brian and Buddy Hackett…a rare case of the stars being selected to match the stunt people, instead of vice-versa.

I remember a friend of mine who loved the Laurel and Hardy silent film, Liberty, and he was thrilled when he saw it listed in the catalogue of Atlas Films, which was one of the cheezier purveyors of 8mm movies. But Liberty was a two-reel film and Atlas had it in a one-reel version. He guessed that another film in their list, Trouser Trouble, might be the first reel of Liberty since Stan and Ollie never made a real film called Trouser Trouble and since the first half of Liberty is pretty much about them somehow getting each other's pants on and trying to find a private place to make the swap.

He ordered both films and was delighted to find that Trouser Trouble was the first half of Liberty and the film they sold under the name of Liberty was the second half…except that about four minutes was missing between the two reels…a scene where Hardy accidentally gets a live crab in his britches.

Further inspection of the Atlas catalogue showed that they were selling a 50-foot Laurel and Hardy film with the name, Crab Bait…another title that never existed in The Boys' official filmography. My friend sent off for it and, sure enough, it filled in the missing four minutes. He chopped off the title card footage that Atlas had created for two of the three films, spliced the main title from the one-reel Liberty onto the front of Trouser Trouble, spliced Crab Bait onto the beginning of Liberty…and he had a complete, two-reel 8mm copy of Liberty. Whew.

Just found out my pal Harry McCracken also has an online gallery of the boxes from 8mm home movies. He has some real treasures there so those of you interested in the topic might like to visit here.

The annual Comic-Con International takes place in San Diego next year from July 22-25. As always, I will be moderating a long list of panels, many of them dealing with the history of the American comic book. I can't divulge details yet but the con is presently arranging for a guest who promises to be a veritable gusher of info and insight on the early days of comics, DC especially. If you are interested in this area, plan to meet me in Room 8 at the convention center, 234 days from today.

To see what has been announced about the con, including some very fine guests, go here.