The current Writers Guild of America contract expires May 2, 2004 (or May 1, depending on how you count) and folks are starting to whisper the "s" word, meaning "strike." As I've mentioned here in the past (see here, here or here), I have been pessimistic about the chances of the WGA obtaining a new deal with significant gains without a strike, and I've also been pessimistic about our ability to sustain a meaningful strike.
Last week, talking to a couple of writers who are closer to the negotiations than I am, I became a little less pessimistic…which is not the same thing as becoming optimistic. This afternoon, I attended an "informational meeting" in which a few Guild officials discussed what's up with the negotiations. There are many issues but the two main ones seem to be Health Insurance and DVDs, not necessarily in that order. Health Insurance is, of course, a major issue in most employment situations across the nation. And the deal under which WGA members share in the proceeds when their work is released on DVD is a rotten deal. Several folks at the meeting recommended the reading of this article about the current DVD market.
Negotiations are underway at this very moment — and I mean this very moment when I'm posting this. With the contract expiration looming large, both sides are meeting sixteen hours a day. Can a strike be averted? Can the WGA make some headway? After today's meeting, I became a little less pessimistic than I was when I went in. But I'm still some distance from "optimistic."
Several weblogs are currently discussing whether some of the questions asked of George W. Bush in his recent press conference were prearranged. The premise here is that certain White House correspondents, to curry favor with the Oval Office, agree to ask certain questions to which Bush has scripted answers.
I don't think that's true. But I'll tell you what may be true.
Back in the famous Quiz Show Scandals, the horrifying revelation was that certain contestants had been given the questions and the answers in advance. That actually occurred on a small percentage of the shows that were "rigged." The way it worked on most fixed shows was like this…
You apply to be a contestant on a game show. They put you through a series of written tests, asking you hundreds of questions to see if you know enough to compete. Let's say you pass the test and get on the show. They can keep you from getting knocked off merely by asking you questions you got right on your test. When the time comes that they want you to lose, they can look back at your tests, see what you got wrong and ask you one of those, or something in that category. They can also get to know you and your areas of expertise, then formulate questions accordingly. You'll still be able to swear, "No one gave me the answer."
My suspicion is that some reporters discuss with White House aides, the question they intend to ask. Most presidents rehearse for press conferences with those aides. It would be very simple for the aides to know that the president has a good reply for a certain question and to suggest that he call on a certain reporter who will ask it. And the president can honestly say he hasn't been given the questions in advance.
I further suspect this situation has been the case with most presidents.
As you probably know, the voice actors on The Simpsons are currently holding out for substantial raises. This is upsetting some in the animation community who fear that this will halt production and that the artists who work on that show will suffer. And of course, there's an underlying outrage because when you compare what those artists make per hour to what the actors already make per hour, it seems disproportionate. Over at Cartoon Brew, Amid Amidi addresses some of this.
As I keep saying here, I am wholly on the actors' side. I think the artists also deserve more but that has nothing to do with what the actors receive. Artists' salaries are always set at the lowest level that the hiring entity believes it will take to assemble a crew that can produce the show. Those numbers will not change if the vocal performers receive less.
The Simpsons is an enterprise of staggering success, well on its way to becoming the most profitable thing ever done on television. If you look around, you will see various estimates of its worth. Even those are probably low because they don't take into account things like the overall success of the Fox Network, which is due in part to Marge and Homer and Bart and all the other yellow people. In the grand scheme of this, what the actors are demanding is a pretty tiny percentage.
Some who are upset at these demands are saying, "Look how few hours they work for it." That always strikes me as a silly way to address this kind of thing. On a successful TV show, you have interchangeable, replaceable folks and you have those that aren't so easily replaced, and the compensation for the latter is never based in any way on punching a timeclock. A guy who stars in a flop syndicated sitcom puts in the same kind of hours (or more) that Jerry Seinfeld worked on his show. When their fees are discussed, no one even mentions how hard the two men work; only how much money each show earns, and how impossible it would be to replace the star. For that matter, no one discusses how many hours the various Fox execs and investors put in to "earn" the share of Simpsons profits they take home. I'll bet that even if the Simpsons actors get every dime they're demanding — which they won't, and which they certainly don't expect — there will still be people who've contributed a lot less to the show's success but who earn ten times more.
I understand why artists resent how little they get out of this, but anger at the voice actors is misdirected and even self-destructive. If we start basing everyone's compensation on how many hours they put in, as opposed to the value of their contribution, that's a wonderful argument for paying artists even less. I mean, do you know how much more they get per hour than someone who flips burgers at Burger King? That's not the way the worth of a creative person should ever be measured. If one of the Simpsons artists goes home, does a painting in ten hours and offers it for sale in a gallery, its price tag will not say, "10 hours @ X dollars per hour." The price will be based on the quality of the work and, more significantly, the demand for it. If that same Simpsons artist goes home and creates a comic strip, his compensation will be based on the success of it, not on how many hours it requires to draw. I don't know why creative folks are ever eager to reduce what they do to the terminology and fee scales that apply to someone you hire to mow your lawn.
One of three things will happen regarding the Simpsons actors' demands. The most likely is that there will be some compromise and everyone will scurry back to work. Another is that Fox will decide not to share any more of its vast profits with the actors and will hire sound-alikes. They're probably reticent to do this because (a) it might harm a show that is bringing in oceans of cash and (b) it might trigger lawsuits. The legal situation if you fire Nancy Cartwright and hire someone else to imitate Nancy Cartwright is unexplored territory, which many cartoon producers have strenuously avoided in the past. Usually, there has not been enough money involved to warrant a displaced actor going to court over it but this time, it's possible.
The third scenario is that Fox decides they have enough of a library that they don't need any more episodes of The Simpsons. This also seems unlikely but it's a decision that they might make at any time, regardless of the actors' fees. A number of cartoon studios have shut down production on the premise (which is often proven incorrect) that they can stop investing in new product and just make money off perpetual reruns. Fox might choose this moment to try that with The Simpsons so they can blame it on the actors. If they do, it will be a shame because that's a great show and its success-to-date has been based in large part on its remaining fresh and current. If the Golden Goose gets slaughtered here, it won't be because the actors wanted a larger piece of the success they helped create. It'll be because Fox wants it all.
Still busy with that deadline so there won't be much here for a little while.
I started "blogging" before that term was in popular usage, on December 18, 2000, with an every-so-often page that I updated manually. I changed over to this almost-daily page with real weblog software on April 23 of '03, so this Friday is its one year anniversary. I'll try to get back to normal posting by then.
Not long ago on this site, I nominated Christopher Walken for the role of Applegate (i.e., The Devil) in the forthcoming film remake of Damn Yankees. I'm now hearing it'll be Billy Crystal. That doesn't sound like a terrible choice to me.
Just got a spam e-mail from Beverage P. Dope. That's the best name yet. I may order some genital-lengthening creme just because I like that name so much.
Beverage P. Dope. If you went to vote and you saw "Beverage P. Dope" on your ballot, wouldn't you vote for him? Of course you would.
Here's a great example of why Dennis Miller isn't very funny these days. It's very hard to be funny when you take the side of those in power. It's like trying to do a Marx Brothers movie and have Margaret Dumont top Groucho. Anyway, here's a monologue joke that Jay Leno did last week about the White House Easter Egg Hunt…
The White House Easter Egg Hunt will be open to the public but President Bush will not be there. Well sure. How embarrassing would that be? It's bad enough he can't find weapons of mass destruction, what if he can't find any eggs either?
And now, here's pretty much the same joke a few days later but as rearranged to suit the sensibilities of its teller, Dennis Miller…
The White House held its annual Easter Egg Roll on Sunday. The traditional Easter Egg Hunt portion of the event was cancelled, however, because the administration didn't want to yet again be accused of hiding something.
In case it isn't clear, these are actual examples from their respective monologues. Leno's joke picks on Bush. Miller's picks on unspecified people who criticize the president. Unless you're pretty rabidly pro-Bush, Leno's is funnier.
I was told not to announce this until it was definite but a number of websites that cover new DVD releases are now reporting…
GARFIELD AND FRIENDS – VOLUME 1 – DVD — From Fox Home Entertainment, featuring the cartoon antics of everyone's favorite fat cat, Garfield, joined by Odie, Jon, and the barnyard crew of U.S. Acres, this DVD set collects all 13 1988-89 first season animated episodes of Jim Davis' Garfield and Friends. Scheduled to ship in July 2004. $39.98
I think the above may have the contents listing wrong but it is true that they're about to start releasing Garfield and Friends, written by Yours Truly, on DVD. And wait'll you see what a pain I'm going to be about trying to get you to buy this one.
Photo courtesy of Pam and Bob Martin from CEL-EBRATION! Gallery in New Jersey. That's Pam sitting with Pete.
Damn. I needed to work tonight but this is too important not to post about…
Pete Alvarado, one of the most prolific comic book and animation artists of all time, passed away January 30 at the age of 83. He worked for almost every animation studio in existence including a long stint for the Warner Brothers cartoon studio during its Golden Age. The Animation Guild's newsletter, via which I learned of Pete's passing, notes that he worked for Warners, MGM, UPA, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Krantz, Sanrio, Ruby-Spears, Filmation, Marvel, Disney and Hyperion, and that he was awarded the Animation Guild Golden Award in 1987.
That doesn't even begin to describe the long career of Pete Alvarado. Born in 1920, he attended Chouinard Art Institute and was soon hired as an assistant animator by the Walt Disney Studio where (he said) he worked on Snow White and Dumbo, but mainly on shorts. His Disney stint was interrupted by a 1939 trip to New York when he decided to travel and explore the market for other kinds of work. In Manhattan, he hooked up with a couple of artists working in the then-new comic book industry, and Pete labored for several months for different "shops," pitching in on assembly lines to produce comic book stories for an array of publishers. In later years, he could never remember what he did then or where it appeared but researchers have suggested he did some comics for Funnies, Incorporated, the firm which supplied Marvel (then Timely) with its earliest comics, and also worked in a shop that supplied material to Fawcett, publishers of Captain Marvel. Pete did recall that what he did was mainly in an adventure style and not the "funny animal" genre he would work for most of his career.
After eighteen months in New York, he returned to Hollywood and to Disney, then went to work for Warner Brothers in 1946, receiving his first screen credit on the second Pepe LePew cartoon, Scent-imental Over You (1947). He worked mostly in backgrounds until around 1950 and was especially proud to have designed and painted all the backgrounds on Fast and Furry-ous, the first Road Runner cartoon, directed (of course) by Chuck Jones. Later, Pete was a key layout man, primarily in director Robert McKimson's unit, and you can see his screen credit on most of the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons and many others.
Robert McKimson became a close friend, as did the director's brothers, Tom and Charles, who also drew. All three brothers were moonlighting for Western Publishing Company doing work on their activity books (coloring books, kids' books, etc.) and comic books, and Charles later became an Art Director for the firm. Starting around 1947, Charles and Pete drew the Roy Rogers newspaper strip which Western helped assemble, and which was signed "Al McKimson." Contrary to published reports elsewhere, there was no such McKimson. It was just their names put together. Later, Pete did a stint on both the Gene Autry newspaper strip and comic book, as well as drawing the Roy Rogers comic book, but he came to dislike the more illustrative work and soon switched over, pretty much forever, to the cartoony stuff. He later did the Mr. Magoo newspaper strip for its entire run, a long period of the Little Lulu newspaper strip, and many many weeks worth of the Hanna-Barbera newspaper strips (The Flintstones and Yogi Bear), as well as fill-ins for almost all the Disney newspaper strips, including an extended period as the main artist on Donald Duck.
But as impressive as all these credits may be, they represent a small part of the Alvarado output. Starting in the late forties, Pete was a mainstay of Western Publishing's comic books for Dell and later Gold Key, penciling somewhere between 20 and 40 pages a month for them through the late seventies. He drew stories for almost every Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera and Walter Lantz title. Most notably, he did long runs on Chip & Dale, Andy Panda, Scamp, Yogi Bear, Tweety & Sylvester and Beep Beep the Road Runner. Up above, I included the cover of one of Pete's best-remembered Gold Key efforts — the adaptation of the movie, Gay Purr-ee — but I could have picked dozens of others, including most of the adaptations of the later Disney animated films like The Rescuers and Robin Hood.
I always thought of Pete as the archetype artist for the Dell/Gold Key funny animal comics. As I said, he was in all of them — even the Three Stooges comic for a while — and he was especially adept at drawing "on model," which meant that the characters looked like they did on the TV show or in the movie, but usually with more expression and flair. When I began working for Gold Key in the early seventies, I was delighted to have several of my scripts for Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and other books drawn by Pete. I absolutely remembered his work from some of the favorite comics of my childhood.
Later, when I was editor-writer of some Hanna-Barbera comics, Pete was the first guy I tried to hire. He did a few shorts and one entire issue of Hanna-Barbera Spotlight. That's a Pete Alvarado cover above, with inking by Scott Shaw!, who was just as thrilled to be working with the guy as was I. Interestingly, when Pete found out we had credits, he asked to use a pseudonym, claiming that his name had never appeared on any of the hundreds of comics he'd drawn and he wasn't sure he wanted to start now. He couldn't explain why that was, and after a bit of coaxing, he relented. He got credit on a lot of the kids' books he illustrated for Western Publishing but I think the few jobs he drew for me then were the only comic books on which his name ever appeared until Gladstone reprinted some of his old Disney material and identified the artists.
Pete continued working in animation until his last few years, primarily doing storyboards and layout work. We had him for a while on Garfield and Friends, and his work also appeared on Bobby's World, Ghostbusters, She-ra, The C.O.W.boys of Moo Mesa and many other shows. He also worked on the Fritz the Cat movie and also on its sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat. He was a lovely gentleman who truly loved cartooning, and he was loved and respected by all those with whom he worked. And trust me on this: In the above piece, I haven't begun to itemize all that he did in his incredible career.
I'm still hacking away at that deadline so I've decided to post the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup can. For those of you who are woefully unhip to the ways of the Internet, this ancient tradition (adhered to by almost no one but me) means that the proprietor of the weblog is swamped and won't be posting much for a while. We'll be back as soon as we finish our current assignment or when a flood of donations (hint, hint) convinces us that this is almost as important as paying work. Hasta la vista, baby.
Well, this brings us to the end of Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Standups of All Time. Their Top Twenty consisted of Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Chris Rock, Steve Martin, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Cosby, Roseanne Barr, Eddie Murphy, Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Bob Newhart, David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres, Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison, in that order.
I was right that their Top Two would be Pryor and Carlin…though I would have reversed the order. Matter of fact, I might have put a couple of folks ahead of Pryor, but it isn't an unreasonable choice at all. My pal Daniel Frank theorized they'd put Carlin first since Comedy Central just acquired all of Carlin's HBO Specials. I thought of that but then noted that immediately following the broadcast on which they revealed their #1 pick, the network scheduled a Richard Pryor Special. In any case, I hadn't noticed either of these facts when I predicted Carlin and Pryor. They're just obvious choices.
Also as predicted, they had Bill Hicks in the Top Twenty. I thought there were two names unknown but as it turns out, they teased 19 of their picks instead of 18. I accidentally dropped Steve Martin from the list of those previewed, and Lord Buckley didn't make their list at all.
The tricky thing with a ranking like this has to do with what's being considered. A lot of the folks there are beloved for what they did apart from standup. Most of the clips they showed of Jonathan Winters, for example, were of him guesting on shows where he was being interviewed. He's always been brilliant at that but I don't think I'd consider that "standup." I don't think most people who love Jonathan Winters have even seen him do standup…but I also think that if Comedy Central had used a stricter definition, they'd have left out a lot of Big Stars. If I'd been assembling a show like that, I think I'd want to get clips in of Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal.
Yeah, one can quibble. I can't imagine any criteria by which Roseanne Barr places higher than Bob Newhart…or Ellen DeGeneres above Robert Klein. And while I think Chris Rock is terrific, I also think I'd want to see him be terrific for a few more years before I put him above Cosby and next to Woody Allen. But we can all come up with arguments like this, and I still think it's not a bad list. Someone put a good amount of thought into it and there's some nice recognition there for some folks, plus a good overview of how diverse the standup talent pool has been — and how non-diverse in some areas.
The next thing I'd like to see them do is to take this list, send it to everyone who's alive and on it, plus everyone who might qualify in the second hundred, and ask them to vote their twenty favorites. I have a hunch it would yield a very different Top Twenty…but Carlin and Pryor would still probably be in the top two slots.
It apparently hasn't made the wire services but the great glamour photographer, Pompeo Posar, passed away on April 6. He was quite an artist with the camera…and guys in my age bracket owe him big for all the fine, adolescent fantasies. There's an obit posted over at the Playboy site. [Caution: Mild naked women photos.]
I have a funny story about the one time I met Mr. Posar but I'm still on that deadline and it'll take a while to type it out. Maybe next week some time.
The overnight edition of Saturday Night Live that airs early Sunday AM on NBC (3 AM in most timezones) seems to switch back and forth between recent shows and very old ones. This coming Sunday, they're running an episode hosted by Jay Leno — with musical guests, The Neville Brothers — that originally aired February 22, 1986. This was the season when the cast consisted of Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr, Nora Dunn, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney and Danitra Vance, with "featured players" Al Franken, A. Whitney Brown and Damon Wayans. It was one of the periods in the show's history that is generally forgotten…but when you see them now, there's occasionally some real good stuff in there. At the very least, a lot of it is interesting in a historical sense.
What I recall of this episode is that Leno did a very strong monologue at the outset and then they stuck him in a lot of sketches that seemed calculated to show what he couldn't do: Accents, singing, playing characters, etc. I have a hunch Jay will not be plugging this on The Tonight Show but the opening spot is a good example of how good a standup he was at the time.
This was also the period during which A. Whitney Brown was doing very sharp commentaries during the Weekend Update segment — material that often sailed way over the heads of the studio audience. If this is the episode I think it is, his commentary was about Iran and Iraq, and is still sadly relevant.
