Monthly Archives: March 2004

Bill Sherman reminds me (and you, I suppose) that when Lester Maddox walked off the Cavett show, the event inspired Randy Newman to write some songs about rednecks.

Last night, writing about the witty guests who frequented The Dick Cavett Show, I wrote but deleted a partial list which started with Peter Ustinov. I never got to see as much of Sir Peter as I would have liked, but every time I saw him on anything, he made me laugh, almost always by saying or doing something that no one else would have said or done. He was, of course, a playwright and an actor and an author of books and a director and an educator and a humanitarian and he even, on occasion, displayed an uncanny flair for impersonations. Most of all, he was a funny man. Here's a link to one of hundreds of obits that are on the web today.

John Ashcroft isn't the only one feeding the Bill of Rights into a shredder these days. There goes that nonsense about the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

A couple of folks wrote to ask about the famous incident where Georgia governor Lester Maddox walked off The Dick Cavett Show. Here's what I recall about it: It was a night when the other two guests were author Truman Capote and football player Jim Brown. Cavett asked Maddox a question that suggested that some of the famed segregationist's political support had come from bigots. The conversation veered off and wasn't answered, then Cavett threw to a commercial. When they returned, Maddox demanded an apology for "calling all the people of Georgia bigots" and said, "You've got one minute to apologize or I walk out of here." Cavett responded he'd said no such thing but then said, "If I called anyone a bigot who isn't a bigot, I apologize." (I'm writing this from memory so the exact words may have been a bit different.)

"That's not good enough," Maddox announced and bolted from the stage. The audience gasped and then Capote said, "You know, I went to his restaurant [in Georgia] and the fried chicken wasn't finger-licking good."

Cavett then said, "I'm sorry the governor left before we had a chance to talk about the beauty of the South." Someone in the audience yelled out, "Don't back down" and Cavett responded, "Shut up! I'll tell you when I'm backing down." He then pointed out that Maddox was a canny politician who knew the value of TV air time, choosing to walk off a scant 88 minutes into a 90 minute show.

The show got a huge rating that night, especially in the South, apparently due to Maddox's people alerting the media. A few weeks later, Maddox returned to the show, came out onto the stage and then Cavett walked off. Maddox picked up a hand mike and, as planned, began singing "Georgia on My Mind" or "Stars Fell on Alabama" or some other Southern-themed song. Cavett came back out and joined him for a chorus, and that was the end of the feud.

The whole event felt to me like Maddox decided it would get attention and garner support in Georgia to do what he did, but that he went a bit out of his way to be offended on behalf of the people of his state. A lot of folks though thought he'd "evened the score" for a time not long before when Jerry Lewis was guest-hosting Mr. Carson's show and announced that whenever he flew cross-country, he enjoyed "going to the bathroom over Mississippi." The telethon didn't get a lot of donations from the South that year.

One of the more insensitive moments I've ever seen on a TV interview show occurred on the old Tom Snyder Tomorrow program when he was chatting with Dick Cavett. I thought they were the two best interviewers of their day but all broadcasters occasionally phrase things wrong and that night, Snyder did. Cavett's late-night show had gone off the air and Tom, trying to ask how Dick felt about that, actually asked him, "How does it feel to be a flop?" Cavett's various programs were on ABC for almost five years, won numerous awards, and often finished a strong second in its time slot to Mr. Carson.

Cavett answered the question about as you'd expect, but I wish he'd asked Snyder, "Do you really think five years on the air to great critical acclaim constitutes a flop?" I'm sorry anyone remembers that show in a negative light because it was a wonderful program, crammed full of interesting guests. I can't think of anyone prominent at the time who didn't sit with Cavett, sometimes for the full 90 minutes, and he was good at jarring them off the same old anecdotes they told on every show and getting them to be candid and fresh.

His show was cancelled in increments. Top execs at ABC were unhappy to not be winning the time slot so someone there came up with a lame idea called ABC's Wide World of Entertainment, which was a series of rotating elements, nicknamed within the industry, "ABC's Wide World of Indecision." One week out of four, Cavett did his show but the smell of death was in the air and it was no longer the same. Another week out of the four, a disappointing talk show was hosted by Jack Paar, who came out of retirement but not out of the sixties, and the other two weeks were a jumble of pilots and low-budget specials that also failed to lure viewers away from Johnny Carson. After less than a year, it all went off…and the buzz around ABC reportedly was that they'd have been much better off to leave Cavett in place since they had nothing there until years later when the hostage crisis begat Ted Koppel and Nightline. I wish they had kept Cavett on longer…and I wish someone would re-air those old programs.

I'm currently watching C-Span 1 where they're running a 1971 Dick Cavett Show on which John Kerry, then a Vietnam activist, debated a fellow Navy veteran, John O'Neill. The thrust of it is that Kerry charges that a vast amount of war crimes were committed in that conflict by American forces, while O'Neill is there to charge that Kerry is wrong. It reruns (I think) later tonight at 12:30 Eastern and 9:30 Pacific. And if you miss it there, there's a RealVideo file on the C-Span website.

It's kind of an interesting reminder of the tensions of that time. I think history has not been kind to the claim that the war protesters were generally in the wrong but it also has not supported a lot of their specific charges, and Kerry's charges of extensive war crimes seem to be among those. One of the things that made the protests so ugly and unconstructive was the gross exaggeration and the unwillingness of both sides to acknowledge the slightest nugget of merit to the other faction's position. I was, at different times, on both sides of that debate. And in both cases when I marched, I marched among people to whom "the enemy" meant not the Viet Cong but other Americans who saw the war differently. In both cases, I was among people who got hysterical if you suggested that the other side was, say, only 99% wrong.

I presume this old program is not being resurrected because someone thinks America now wishes to revisit that debate. I presume it's on now because someone thinks it tells us something about John Kerry. I don't know that this is true or that it has any more to do with the guy currently running for president than revisiting George Bush's days of cheerleading and drunk driving tells us about the guy running for a second term. But it's fascinating to see this program and I wish some channel would buy and rerun all those old Dick Cavett Shows.

On the other hand, I've just seen a great example of the problem of discussing important issues on network television: In his opening statement, O'Neill called Kerry a liar and every other insult just short of traitor. But then before they could get to Kerry's response, Cavett had to stop for a commercial from Calgon Bath Oil Beads.

Why was U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq, particularly about Weapons of Mass Destruction, so stunningly wrong? This article in the L.A. Times tells why. Assuming this report is true, it's amazing how our top officials put so much trust in a third-hand account by someone they didn't even know.

Coming your way at the end of June: The 30th Anniversary DVD of Blazing Saddles. It will include a documentary on a recent cast and crew reunion and another on the late, great Madeline Kahn. There will be "scene-specific" audio commentary by Mel Brooks, plus the unsold 1975 Black Bart TV pilot inspired by the series, and a collection of deleted scenes. (There were several, like the one where Bart tricks Mongo into going down a well in a deep sea diver's outfit, which didn't make it into the theatrical release but which occasionally turn up in TV prints.) This all sounds fun and we're hoping that somewhere on the disk, someone acknowledges the late Bob Ridgely, who played the Karloff-style executioner and whose name was accidentally omitted from the screen credits.

It's easy to forget how ground-breaking Blazing Saddles was when it debuted. I saw it the second or third night after it opened at a theater in Westwood with Mel Brooks lurking in the back of the house and occasionally heckling the coming attractions that preceded his feature. (During an ad for the L.A. Times, he yelled out, "Get this crap off the screen and show my movie!") No one present knew what to expect. We hadn't seen the best scenes or even any scenes on talk shows. We hadn't seen previews. We had no idea what kind of movie it was except that it was a western and it was Mel Brooks. And when Cleavon Little began singing, "I Get a Kick Out of You," we started laughing and never stopped.

I love typography and clever graphic design, and am a fan of many folks who do this kind of thing and do it well. For umpteen years, I've admired the output of a gent named Leslie Cabarga, whose work you've seen in many venues. He's also the world's foremost authority on the Max Fleischer cartoon studio but that's more like an interesting sidelight. Mostly, he does graphics and does them quite well…including but not limited to the kind of thing some folks call "the retro look." I always think that's an odd term since today's retro look is tomorrow's current look and then later on, it will again be a retro look for a while, then current again, etc. Whatever you call it, Leslie's a champ…as you can see over on his website wherein you can purchase some of his books and fonts. And he doesn't seem to have it there yet but I'd highly recommend his new book with the long title, Logo Font & Lettering Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Design, Construction and Usage of Alphabets and Symbols. Profusely illustrated (of course), it explains common sense basics in a crisp, logical manner. I've recently come to know Leslie (big fan of Groo…he even has a font in the book whose name is an obscure Groo reference) but even if I didn't, I would still be suggesting you pick up a copy. Since you can't yet order it through his site, you'll have to get it through Amazon, which you can do by clicking here.

Go read the letter near the bottom of this page.

If your cable or satellite receives The Biography Channel…and if you're a fan of Sesame Street and/or the Muppets, you might want to set your TiVo or VCR for the wee small hours of next Saturday morn. They're rerunning a two-part "Biography for Kids" that Harry Smith did, visiting the set and interviewing the folks behind, in and under the Muppets. Special attention is given to Kevin Clash (who performs the role of Elmo), Carroll Spinney (who plays Big Bird and Oscar) and Steve Whitmire (who took over the roles of Kermit and Ernie after the death of Jim Henson). It's a really good look at how the show is made. Part One airs at 4:00 AM on my satellite dish with Part Two following at 5:00 AM. Your time zone or cable company may differ.

As my e-mail buddy Ben Varkentine notes on his blog, a lot of the publicity surrounding Al Franken's new liberal radio show is coming from right-wingers complaining that Al Franken's new liberal radio show is getting too much publicity. One such complaint comes from Hugh Hewitt setting up the (false, to me) premise that if the show doesn't succeed, it can only be because America really isn't interested in that message.

Why I think that's a false premise: A radio show can succeed or fail for any of a number of reasons, including whether or not the parent company can clear enough powerful stations. Most new radio endeavors do fail, regardless of their political message, and some take years to become viable. The odds are that Franken's show will tank, at least at first, because too many established radio franchises have all the key stations locked up. There are plenty of cities where it and the rest of the Air America Radio line-up won't be on at all.

Also, Al Franken might not be very good or very effective on radio. A lot of folks who are funny and successful in one venue do not translate well to another medium. There's a skill to being effective on the radio and it often requires years of practice — which Franken hasn't had — in small, unnoticed markets. Rush Limbaugh was on radio for years before he had any sort of following. And now, whatever else you may think of him, he's very good at what he does…very good at keeping people interested and listening. Hundreds of Rush imitators offering the same political rhetoric have failed. There was nothing uncommercial about their message but they didn't have the broadcasting skill to succeed.

Years ago, I did a TV show with Vince McMahon and a batch of W.W.F. wrestlers including Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Piper was the big star at the moment despite the fact that, by his own admission, he wasn't much of a wrestler. He wasn't huge, he wasn't brawny, he couldn't even lift his opponents off the mat…but he sure could fill arenas. I remember McMahon (who certainly knows his industry) remarking that Roddy was a star because of his showmanship. It was easy, Vince said, to find a guy who was 6'10" with rippling muscles and the ability to do all the physical moves. It was rare to find someone who could work the crowd as well as Piper, getting them fired-up and excited and entertained. It had nothing to do with wrestling and everything to do with selling tickets. I think Talk Radio is the exact same business.

Just got an e-mail from a reader of this site who happens to work at the Mirage. He says the big Siegfried and Roy sign is still up but that — rumor has it — it will be changed next Wednesday to Danny Gans, the impressionist who headlines the hotel's other showroom. The person who told me it was already changed told me that had occurred last Wednesday. So apparently there was some breakdown in communication somewhere along the line.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (that's the commission before which Richard Clarke testified) has a website where you can read various reports and materials as they release them. You'll need Adobe Reader for most of what's there.