Monthly Archives: April 2004

We were talking here the other day about seeing Blazing Saddles when it first came out. That brought this message from Ben Herndon…

I am 50 years old now, but back in 1974 I was attending U.C.L.A. Warner Brothers scheduled a free midnight sneak preview of Blazing Saddles on a weekend night and the Avco Cinema was packed with rowdy U.C.L.A. students.

Westwood Village had been plastered with those great old posters of Mel as an Indian Head nickel type chief — but we still didn't know what to expect. As you may recall, Mel wasn't really "hot" in 1974. The Producers had been released six years earlier, but was still considered by many to be something of a cult favorite.

Anyway, when Cleavon Little launched into that Cole Porter song, the audience went totally crazy. I have never seen an
audience react to this new type of raunchy humor like this audience did. Mel had a unanimous, unqualified, smashing success at the preview. It was the talk of Westwood for weeks.

Twenty years later, I went with Leonard Maltin to interview Mel. He told us that even as the cheering at the end of the film was still going on, the Warner Bros. suits were clustered around Mel at the rear of the theater telling him…"Okay, they loved it, but you'll still cut out the campfire fart jokes, and the Lili Von Schtupp sex scenes, and the n-words…?"

Mel was blithely answering them, "Yes, yes, sure, of course…" but he never changed a frame of film or dialog. The release print was the same as we all saw that historical night in Westwood.

The rest, as they say, is history…

I had a friend who was also in that audience and his report on the audience response was about the same as yours. I saw it a short time later…also at the Avco. As I mentioned, no one really knew what to expect so it was a grand experience. I really enjoy movies more when I haven't already seen half the film in trailers and the other half in talk show clips. (Another such experience I recall was a Writers Guild advance screening of Paddy Chayefsky's Network. The film was not quite as impressive in later viewings but that night, when no one in the house knew anything about it, it was amazing. I happened to be sitting next to Ray Bradbury and at the end, he looked around the packed theater and said, "There isn't one person in this room who wouldn't give his left arm to have written that movie…including me.")

Back to Blazing Saddles. The gag I remember everyone talking about on the way out of the theater was when Cleavon Little's character is riding across the desert to rather jazzy music…and it turns out that it's coming from Count Basie's band, which is playing out there. The joke no longer seems that clever since some variation on it turned up in about half the comedy movies made during the rest of the seventies. Mel even did it again in High Anxiety with a symphony orchestra in a bus. I'm guessing the bit from Blazing Saddles that is most often quoted these days is when Little puts the gun to his head and takes himself hostage. How often have we heard someone compare some real world action to that moment?

Thanks for the message, Ben. When I get a moment this week, I'll post a fun excerpt from the script to Blazing Saddles that never got filmed. If it had, I'd still be back in that seat at the Avco, laughing my butt off.

Eric Boehlert discusses the way the Bush administration has rammed through funding for both the Iraq war and its Medicare program by floating incorrect figures and only later revealing the true costs. This is a Salon.Com story, which means that if you're not a member, you'll have to watch some advertising.

A reader of my websites, Ray Barrington, calls the following to my attention. In this post on my other weblog, written back in December of '02, I was talking about how some companies like to change what their initials stand for. I predicted that the KFC company would begin denying that their initials stood for "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and would come up with some other name. Well, as Ray points out, their commercials are now claiming it stands for "Kitchen Fresh Chicken." Yeah, right.

Over on one of the theater chatboards, there was recently a discussion of cell phones going off in the middle of a performance. There is no disagreement that this is a bad thing. I am still embarrassed over one time when mine did. It was in New York while my friend Carolyn and I were taking in the recent Broadway revival of Follies. I had diligently remembered to turn my little Motorola off before the show started but during the second act, there was a moment when a lady sitting next to Carolyn was so touched that she began sobbing. I usually carry a little pocket-pak of Kleenex with me and being a grand gent, I extracted a tissue and offered it to her. Apparently as I was doing this, I accidentally nudged the "on" button on my phone and at a key dramatic point about ten minutes later — the worst possible moment — I was suddenly ringing.

Fortunately, we were far enough from the stage that it did not distract the players. Humiliated, I grabbed out my phone, ripped off the back and yanked out the battery. Even though my new phone (a Sony-Ericcson) has a "lock" option on it, I don't trust the thing. When I go into a play or movie now, I always remove the battery. Just to be absolutely certain.

Some on the boards are talking about laws that would make it a crime to bring a cellphone into a theater, even one turned off or set on "vibrate." Cities may experiment with such legislation but I doubt it's a real solution. Some people really do need to be reachable during a show — doctors, people with baby sitters, pimps, etc. Others need to be able to check for messages during intermission. Generally speaking, I think most folks who rely on their phones that way know how to use them. The problem is that a lot of folks learn no more about their phones than how to dial and how to answer.

This is not, obviously, a world-shattering problem nor is it ever 100% solvable. But I have an idea I'd like to throw out there in the slim hope that it will reach someone who can make it happen. Cellular companies like Cingular and T-Mobile spend staggering sums of cash to promote their services. I think one of them could drum up some cost-effective good will by setting up an "800" number, free to all, where anyone could call up and speak to someone who would talk them through (a) how to turn the ringer off on their cell phone, (b) how to turn on "vibrate" and (c) how to "lock" the phone off so it doesn't do what mine did and accidentally turn on. (Actually, my Motorola didn't lock. When I picked out its successor, I made sure to get one that did.)

I can imagine a series of commercials in which someone is in a theater during a tense, dramatic scene and their cell phone goes off. The surrounding audience members then beat the guy up while a voiceover says, "Don't let this happen to you…call (800) Whatever and a kind, understanding person will teach you the proper way to turn your cell phone off." If there's time, the voiceover might add, "And if you don't call, remember — you can definitely silence your phone during a show just by removing its battery." It's amazing how many people don't think of that.

When a hapless cell phone owner calls the "800" number, they reach someone with a little database of the pertinent instructions for every current model, and they can look up that phone and explain to the caller what to do, and maybe even call them back to test that they've done it correctly. It wouldn't take a lot to set up such a database or to train a crew to field calls. If I were thinking of which cellular service to sign up with, it would certainly make me think well of the one that set up such a service.

I don't expect this to happen but I thought I'd toss it out there. Just an idea.

Sir Sean Connery has a website…and a very handsome one, I might add.

Here's a long but important article in the New York Times magazine section about the Bush administration's attempts and occasional successes to roll back environmental protection laws. Pretty scary stuff.

Bill Carter, who reports on TV for the New York Times and especially on late night, files this long piece on Conan O'Brien. The quick summary of it is that Conan wants to move up to a show at 11:30 and since Jay Leno ain't going anywhere, O'Brien may be going elsewhere.

Like several of Carter's past articles on late night teevee, this reads like someone's agents are about to open negotiations on their client's future and to put pressure on the network, someone said, "Let's plant a story with Bill Carter." The next probable step in Conan's situation is an auction with Fox, syndicators and maybe ABC or some of the cable networks offering huge sums to wrest Conan away from NBC…though NBC may hurriedly make some kind of mega-deal involving prime-time commitments to keep the guy right where he is. The odds are that's what will happen…but things could get interesting. (While we're at it, here's a link to Carter's recent article on Leno's new contract.)

While working this afternoon, I have some DVDs on the player, including the movie version of A Chorus Line. The best thing about this DVD is that it has a special feature, an interview with Marvin Hamlisch in which he discusses how the Broadway show came to be and says not one single word about the movie. It's hard to not assume this was because he didn't have much good to say about it…and neither did anyone else, as I recall. Given that about 80% of it follows the show precisely, it's amazing how the other 20% or so jerks things so far from what we saw on stage. I already wrote about this adaptation (here) but I felt like mentioning that repeated viewings — and this is may be my last — have not improved my view of it.

Oh, yeah…and here's an Amazon link in case you want to purchase it but trust me. You don't.

HBO and Showtime have this strange way of rotating shows where, for example, Real Time With Bill Maher does a batch of shows and then it goes off for a while and On the Record With Bob Costas returns for a spell. Showtime has just brought back the Penn & Teller program which I liked but with reservations. (I don't think a guy who claims that second-hand smoke can harm you is as deserving of contempt and exposure as a guy making millions claiming to talk with the dead.)

Anyway, I highly recommend the Costas program, which keeps moving farther and farther from its original concept as a sports show. The first new outing, which reruns several times before a new episode next Friday, features Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Billy Bob Thornton, Josh Groban, and Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Whether the topic is sports or show biz, Costas is one of the best interviewers ever on television.

William Saletan nails what I suspect is a key element in the debate over George W. Bush's leadership capabilities or the lack, thereof. An awful lot of folks, both Democrats and Republicans, have sided with Bush and come to regret it. Unfortunately for sane discourse, when they change their minds, the immediate accusation is that since they said one thing then and now say another, they can't be trusted.

While we're at it, The Center for American Progress, a liberal site, has posted this list of Bush "flip-flops." I have never bought the notion that if a politician changes his position, it is a sign of weakness or insincerity. In many cases, I see it as a sign of being open to new evidence and willing to change with the times. But those who cite it as a negative about John Kerry ought to be willing to admit that Bush has often taken both sides of an issue.

Things seem to be stablilizing in the Writers Guild. We haven't changed Presidents for two whole weeks.

My pal Carl Gottlieb has stepped in as Vice-President. Carl is a very intelligent man who knows more about negotiations and the Guild than any man alive. But I'm still skeptical that the current drive to increase writers' revenues from DVDs is going to get anywhere.

Let's discuss more upcoming DVDs you may want to purchase. On June 29, Twentieth-Century Fox will release the first in a series of Garfield goodies. Garfield as Himself will feature three of the prime-time specials: Here Comes Garfield, Garfield On The Town and Garfield Gets A Life. There will be more Garfield DVD releases before the year is out and I'll tell you about them and provide links soon.

Also on June 29, the complete first season of the Wonder Woman TV show (the one with Lynda Carter) will be available. Here's an Amazon link if you'd like to pre-order that one. And earlier that month, you'll be able to purchase a 6-disc set of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show. Here's an Amazon link to pre-order that one but I should warn you: One of those disks features a documentary on the making of the show and I'm in that documentary as an authority. That's right: You spent all that money on a DVD player and you have to look at me. There's still time to switch back to Beta.

Let us recall a key moment from The Producers (the movie). Max Bialystock and his co-conspirator Leo Bloom go to the apartment of Franz Liebkind, the Aryan author of "the worst play ever written," Springtime for Hitler. To obtain Liebkind's signature on a contract, they repair to his flat where he denounces Winston Churchill for his rotten painting and makes Bialystock and Bloom join him singing German songs. Eventually, he signs — but not before insisting that they join him in a secret ceremony and take something he calls the Siegfried Oath. He makes them don helmets and costumes suitable for a Wagnerian Opera and act out his silly ritual, eventually signing the contract in blood.

You may not recall this scene from the movie. That's because it never made it into the movie. When Brooks was trying to sell his idea to producers, he would act out much of the screenplay and he always convulsed his audience when he performed the Siegfried Oath. The scene was filmed with Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Kenneth Mars but excised in the editing process. The film's editor, Ralph Rosenblum, wrote about it in a book called When the Shooting Stops in which he describes how he cut (and from his viewpoint, usually saved) a number of movies. The way he tells it, he decided that the Siegfried Oath should be dumped. Mel, remembering the incredible laughs the scene received when he'd performed it in pitch meetings, refused. They fought and eventually Mel gave in and the material was excised. The only remnant in the finished film comes when Franz bursts into Bialystock's office late in the action and yells, "You haf broken the Siegfried Oath!" The first few times I saw the movie of The Producers, I didn't think anything of it. (I also thought he said, "secret oath.")

This is the way I've always understood things. However, my friend Marv Wolfman is sure that when he saw the movie — in New York, shortly after it opened — the Siegfried Oath was in there. Does anyone know if this is possible? Does this scene still exist and if so, how come it hasn't been an extra on some video release of The Producers? Yes, I know a version of the Siegfried Oath is performed in the Broadway musical but Marv says that's not what he's recalling. He says he saw it done by Mostel, Wilder and Mars in the movie. Did he?

Here are two more of these obscure Gold Key comic books based on popular TV shows of the day. The one-shot Barney Miller comic book was drawn by Dan Spiegle and is almost impossible to find these days due to the thriving interest in "Good Abe Vigoda art." (By the way, did you know that Abe Vigoda's brother Bill was a comic book artist? He worked mainly for the Archie books.) This issue features a book-length story in which Wojciehowicz arrests a man who turns out to be a prominent TV producer. While in the slammer, the producer "discovers" Fish and offers him a big part in an upcoming series. For a brief time, Fish has stars in his eyes but soon realizes it's a kind of bribe when the producer tells him, "Of course, if I go to jail, I won't be doing the show." The veteran cop's sense of civic duty overcomes his dreams of Hollywood, and he refuses to persuade the judge to go easy on the guy. A pretty good issue but we didn't see enough of Barney or the other squad room dwellers.

The Three's Company comic book lasted only two issues, both of which were released in 1978. A story that makes the rounds says that a third issue was prepared and sent to press but that when Suzanne Somers was abruptly dropped from the TV series, that third issue (which centered around her character of Chrissy) was hurriedly aborted. A quick check of the dates shows that this is obviously not so, since Ms. Somers' problems with the show occurred in 1980, long after the comic had ceased publication. Another spurious account says that the third issue was scrubbed because it featured the Ropers and they could not contractually appear in the comic book once they'd been spun off from Three's Company to their own series. The dates almost work out for that to be possible but given that they appeared for some time after on other Three's Company merchandise, this seems unlikely.

During this period, a lot of Gold Key's TV-based books (including the impossible-to-find one issue of The Waverly Wonders) were being cancelled so it's probable that the expiration of the Three's Company comic book was due to natural causes. This is a shame since it really was a fun comic, drawn out of Western Publishing's New York office by Jack Sparling. The first issue, pictured above, has Chrissy inheriting a mansion which (at first) is cause for jubilation among the roommates because they can finally move out of the apartment and away from the constant moaning of Mr. Roper. But then it turns out that the mansion is reportedly haunted and that a clause in the will of Chrissy's late Aunt Hortense says she will forfeit her inheritance if she does not spend one full night in the place. Jack and Janet go with her to help her through a rather chilling evening…made all the more difficult by a disgruntled relative, Cousin Frank, who stands to inherit the place if Chrissy doesn't stick it out until dawn. Cousin Frank happens to be a movie special effects artist and…well, you can figure the rest out from that.