Monthly Archives: June 2004

The "Cliff Notes" version of Bill Clinton's book.

Okay, let's forget about the Iraq War. Let's get to a more vital, pressing matter: The folks at Warner Home Video are putting the finishing touches on a DVD collection of all the original episodes of the 1961 Hanna-Barbera series, Top Cat. This will be a dandy set complete with a "Making of…" documentary with recent interviews of voice actors Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan and Leo De Lyon, among other goodies, and a squad of video experts is almost finished with a restoration of all 30 Top Cat cartoons…but there is one problem. The original end credits are missing. Many years ago, back when the shows first went into syndication, someone had to go in and chop the sponsor plugs out of the opening and closing credits.

In so doing, they threw away the original end titles (which varied each week to reflect the folks who'd worked on that particular show) and spliced in the end credits from one episode. That is, they took the end credit sequence from one episode and put that on every episode. This means that the actual writers, animators and voice actors have not been properly identified all these years. The great voice actor, Paul Frees, appeared as a guest performer in one or two episodes but you'll see his name on every rerun of every Top Cat and you won't see the names of the actual guest stars.

So far, rummaging through the film vaults, the folks at WB have been unable to locate copies of the original end credits. They may turn up someday but time is running out before the Top Cat DVD Collection has to "go to press." This brings us to our Important Public Appeal. There are collectors out there with original 16mm and even 35mm prints of the show. Are you one and if so, are you willing to loan these materials so that the original end credits can be restored for the DVD release? If so, please get in touch with me and I'll pass you on to the appropriate (and appropriately grateful) archivists.

You will want this DVD collection anyway. But it'll be even better if we can somehow locate those missing credits.

Michael Moore may have some valid things to complain about but one will not be that his new movie is debuting unnoticed. Between the ubiquitous commercials and all the interviews and attacks on his integrity and appearance, I'm hearing more than I care to hear about Fahrenheit 9/11. Among the reasons I always thought "Campaign Finance Reform" was kind of a crock were the many ways any set of rules can be circumnavigated. There are rigid restraints as to how much Harvey Weinstein can donate to the Kerry campaign but no one's suggesting or would suggest limits as to how many ads he can buy to promote a movie that makes George W. Bush look like an idiot.

As I've mentioned here before, I have mixed feelings about Mr. Moore. I like a lot of things he's done and when I heard him speak a few years ago, he left little doubt in my mind that he is at least sincere in his efforts. For some reason, that judgment on my part infuriates at least one of my Conservative friends, just as Liberal friends want to insist that every inaccuracy that comes out of the Bush administration is so egregious, it has to be deliberate, conscious and premeditated. I don't necessarily agree. I rarely agree with the old "you can't believe a word he says" attack on anyone. People of good intention can be spectacularly but honestly wrong. In the absence of an obvious motive to lie, I prefer to think that faulty info is not intentional. In Moore's case, he must know that he's going to have to defend every frame of film he disseminates and that every error or semi-error is just handing a bullet to discredit him. I feel this way about most politicians. I don't think they intentionally lie in the first place. What I think they do too often is to lie rather than admit past errors.

My past postings on Moore have brought a wide array of response to my e-mailbox, ranging from an accusation that I am subverting Moore's campaign by not backing him 100% to the claim that by not disavowing him, I am making a tacit endorsement of whatever he happens to say. I think these views are both nonsense. It is not only possible but probable that a polemicist could be right about some things and wrong about others…and I mean "wrong" in not only an opinion sense but a factual one, as well.

My mixed feelings about Moore got a workout this morning when I watched online clips of two recent video interviews he did, both at this MSNBC site. I agreed with most (not all) that he said in his interview with Katie Couric but thought he came off as disingenuous (and none too concerned with accuracy) in the Matt Lauer interview. He's also lost a few points with me via his silly threats made in other venues that he will sue anyone who disparages him or his movie. Where I do agree with him generally is where he talks of how disappointed he is with our leaders. I think a lot of his fans often feel the same way about him.

While I have your attention, assuming I ever do: Comedy Central has been lax about updating its online clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If they weren't, I'd be linking to an awful lot of them because I not only find it the funniest show on TV but also, insofar as covering real issues with some insight is concerned, one of the most interesting. Yesterday, Stewart had on Stephen F. Hayes, whose book — The Connection — is oft-cited by people who argue that there was a very real, dangerous-to-ignore collaboration between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Stewart essentially got Hayes to agree that it isn't so much a matter of "we had to act because this was absolutely true" as it is "we had to act because there was some evidence that this might be true." (My paraphrase) I suspect a lot of the friction we're currently witnessing in this country over the Iraq invasion flows from how much that distinction matters to some people.

Anyway, Stewart is very good at not asking guests the kind of questions for which they have stock, pre-packaged answers. As such, he occasionally gets the person on the couch to say a lot more than they ever say on so-called "real" news shows.

We're big fans here of folks who do (or did) kid shows, so it's sad to hear of the passing of Frank Nastasi. Not having grown up in Detroit or New York, I never got the chance to see much of Mr. Nastasi's work but he had a pretty big credential on his list of credits: He was the guy who replaced Clyde Adler as the "other" cast member of the Soupy Sales program. As I discussed in this article, Soupy started his legendary show in Detroit, employing Clyde to play White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, Hippy and all the odd folks who came to the door. Clyde was the entire cast apart from Soupy himself.

Whenever Clyde was ill or on vacation, the void was filled by Frank Nastasi, who was then appearing on Wixie Wonderland, another kids' show produced at the station. Soupy and Clyde soon relocated to Los Angeles where their show went from local to national and became quite popular for a time. In 1965, Soupy had an offer to do a new version of it out of New York but Clyde didn't want to live back there and a new co-star was needed. Fortunately for Mr. Sales, Frank Nastasi had moved to Manhattan by that time and he quickly and efficiently assumed all the supporting roles. If you've seen the famous clip from Soupy's show of a pie fight with Frank Sinatra, Trini Lopez and Sammy Davis, Nastasi is the other guy in that sketch.

When he wasn't hurling shaving cream at the Soupman, Nastasi had a solid career as a character actor both on stage (including a role in Golden Boy opposite Sammy Davis) and on TV and in commercials. Here's an obit from a newspaper in Detroit where they still remember Frank fondly as a part of many childhoods. [Thanks to Mike Kuypers for the link.]

Here's Michael Kinsley on the constant chatter about optimism and pessimism in the current political climate.

I know lots of terrific writers. Two good writers (and good friends I don't see nearly enough of) are Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, who at various times have been responsible or semi-responsible for Cheers and The Jeffersons and most recently the excellent cartoon series, Teacher's Pet. They just answered questions — most of which were variations on "How do I get your job?" — in this online chat.

Over on Salon, which requires you to either subscribe or watch commercials, there's an article that's worth doing one of those two things to read…that is, if you want to be amazed that this kind of thing goes on in our Congress. Here's an excerpt…

On March 23, the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin — the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him "none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."

Somewhere between 12 and 81 U.S. Congressfolks (from both parties) attended this ceremony to honor a man who, though a convicted felon with rabidly anti-gay and anti-Jewish views, claims to be the Second Coming and to be destined to bring about world peace.

To repeat: This took place in the halls of Congress. With many of our elected representatives in attendance. And as far as I can tell, though some of those Congresspeople deny they were there or claim they didn't realize the nature of the event, it is not in dispute that this occurred.

If you have enough money, you can get away with just about anything in this world. But you knew that already.

I never thought Flip Wilson was that wonderful a comedian. He struck me as a guy with about three good bits and four good catch phrases, plus his Geraldine identity, which was fun in limited doses until he started getting into drag to play her. In interviews, he used to talk about his various characters like the Reverend Leroy and Freddie the Swinger, and I wondered if anyone ever told him that, Geraldine aside, they were all the same person: Same voice, same look, same attitude, etc. But I will say this for the guy: He knew how to work an audience and make them love him, which is sometimes better than actually being funny.

So why am I mentioning this now, years after this death? It's because TV Land is about to start rerunning the 1970-1974 Flip Wilson Show, starting with an all-day, all-night marathon the weekend of July 3-4. I remember not liking Flip but liking his show, which usually had good writing and a fabulous array of guest stars. What TV Land is airing are cut-down versions which trim the hour shows to 30 minutes, presumably dumping the lesser moments. Here's the schedule and as you'll see, there aren't many people who were big in show business in the early seventies who didn't put in an appearance. Which is why I'm setting the TiVo to grab a bunch of episodes.

I didn't think much of this evening's 60 Minutes interview with Bill Clinton. Some of that was because Dan Rather so overhyped a rather unremarkable chat, both in his teases and an appearance the other night on Larry King Live. It mostly consisted of Rather seeing how many ways he could tell us we had to tune in and hear what Clinton says about this or that, while King kept reminding everyone over and over that Clinton will be on his show on Thursday.

But Clinton, as he so often has, left me disappointed. When he's "on," he's an incredible speaker and a very, very smart man. Tonight, perhaps because Rather confined the on-air exchanges to "headline" issues and asked the obvious questions, we got short, surface replies. It was almost like Clinton rehearsed speaking in quick sound-bites. I hope his book, which I intend to read, isn't like that.

It's fascinating how, via the Internet, you "meet" people all over the world and in different walks of life. It's been that way ever since I got my first modem and began logging onto 300 baud bulletin board systems. It happened more often as the speed of my connectivity increased, and took a quantum leap when I set up my own website. I now have a few dozen "friends" whose weblogs I check every day or every few days.

I just added Sam Johnson to my list. Sam lives down in Savannah, Georgia where he works as a disc jockey in a nightclub. His reflections on that, his life, his ongoing dialysis treatments and his general outlook on the world are well worth perusing. If you go there, you'll note that Sam and I just straightened out a little misunderstanding, which is fine since it led to me reading and enjoying his blog. You will, too.

Comic book news sites (like this one) are reporting that Crossgen Comics has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

I occasionally get messages asking me if the comic book industry is healthy, if it's rebounding from its major downturn, etc. There are many ways to measure that kind of thing, and certainly the fortunes of one company could be an exception. But I suspect this announcement tells us a lot that is not optimistic. As with an awful lot of previous crash-and-burns — anyone remember Tekno Comics? — the business model seems to have been to use the publishing of comic books not for standalone profit but to promote characters who might be made into lucrative TV shows or movies or toys. In theory, that is not a bad idea but if you're not at least breaking-even on the comics, it puts you on a very critical time limit: You have to get someone to make the movie or the toys before the losses from loss-leader publishing takes you down.

That's what has killed a lot of comic book companies and no small number of Internet Content Providers. Entrepreneurs look at the grosses of the Spider-Man movie, forget it took decades to get that thing made, and think they can engineer a deal before the money runs out. Some can but many can't, and Crossgen has apprently landed in the "can't" category, at least so far. One report says they've gone more than 30 million in the hole, which is a staggering amount to lose, given how relatively modest their publishing efforts were. (Last December, I reported that though I am pretty well-connected in comics, I had never seen one of their books. That has since changed. As of now, I have never seen one of their books unless a free copy was handed to me by the guy who wrote it.)

I have no idea if Crossgen will survive, though pessimism is probably not unwarranted. That's based on my observation over the years that when you hear that a company is not paying its artists and writers or is paying horribly late, said company is not long for the world. Marvel has recently announced that they've managed to retire the debt that drove them into bankruptcy protection so it's not impossible…but I don't think Marvel ever did miss a payment to its freelancers, which is one of the points of bankruptcy protection.

It is also important to note that Marvel did not crawl back out of the hole just by (or even largely by) publishing comic books. Movie, TV and toy deals were the big factor in their rebound. As I said, there are many ways to measure whether or not the comic book business is healthy but a good one might be to assess how many publishers are actually making a profit publishing comic books. Clearly, there are not enough of those these days.

Ventriloquist Jay Johnson is doing a one-man (plus dummies) show in New York that I hope he'll do out here, or still be doing next time I get to Manhattan. Here's some info about it. I met Johnson briefly at a party for the legendary Señor Wences on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Jay and his monkey puppet had done a very funny performance…and seated in the front row were his two heroes, the Señor, plus Paul Winchell. It clearly meant a lot to Jay to do well in front of that audience with those men seated there, and he had. Even the monkey puppet looked a bit emotional over the experience.

Anyway, it's nice to see him doing well off-Broadway, too. And nice to see that the show's co-director, Murphy Cross, is getting kudos, too. And just in case she blunders onto this website: Murphy, the neighborhood hasn't been the same since you moved away from here.

Back when Clarence Thomas was being nominated to the Supreme Court, a lawyer friend of mine said, "It's a shame they got involved in all that crap about Anita Hill and Coke cans and renting porn. They should have just refused to confirm the guy because he's completely unqualified and not very bright." That may have been a harsh judgment but I haven't seen anyone — even those who are happy when the majority votes their way and Thomas is in that majority — seriously argue that this man is a wise scholar of the law.

I just read over the decision in the case involving the mention of God in the Pledge of Allegiance. (Here's a PDF file of it.) I noticed a tiny, perhaps telling reference in Justice Thomas's opinion on the matter. It's in this sentence…

The Establishment Clause provides that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. [Amdt. 1] As a textual matter, this Clause probably prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion.

"Probably"? How much clearer could it be stated? There is absolutely no wiggle room in that language, at least with regard to Congress being able to establish a national religion.

Thomas goes on to state that it would be okay for the states to establish state religions since it says "Congress shall make no law…" Gee, that's just what this country needs to pull together. Let's start telling folks that in any given state, one particular religion is better than theirs. I mean, it's not like people in other countries ever fight bloody wars over such things.

Larry King had a "tenth anniversary" broadcast tonight about the O.J. Simpson case, chatting with members of the victims' families and some of the officers who investigated the case. At one point, Tom Lange, who was one of the latter, said this…

One thing of interest that hasn't come out that also should have during the trial is another bit of evidence that wasn't introduced, and that was the fact that Nicole had reported her house keys stolen some ten days before this ever happened… she said, "I think O.J. has the keys." Well after the chase, guess what we find in his pocket? The keys.

I followed the case more closely than I now like to admit, and I read all the books, though not Lange's. I never heard that.

Lange didn't explain why this was never introduced in the trial but I can guess. The prosecution made a decision to omit all discussion of the famous slow-speed Bronco chase. There were a number of incriminating elements to it but the prosecutors apparently feared Simpson's lawyers could spin some aspects of it to drum up sympathy for the guy, and they figured they had more than enough evidence without it. That might have made sense at some level but…jeez. He had her stolen keys in his possession? That's a heck of an incriminating fact to throw away.

Yeah, I know: You don't care about this any more. I don't either, most of the time. Now and then, I have lapses…

Someone screwed up. Sundance Channel was supposed to run the 1970 movie, The Projectionist, this morning. And right there on the TiVo listing, it says that it's that movie, starring Chuck McCann, Rodney Dangerfield and Ina Balin. But if you were sharper than some of us, you'd have noticed it gave the running time as 20 minutes, which is not the length of that great movie. Turns out, what they actually ran was a short film from 2002 that happened to have the same title. We are not happy.

Fortunately, you can purchase what I think is the right version from the folks at Amazon by clicking this link. At least, they give the running time for the DVD as 85 minutes, which is correct. If you're unfamiliar with this clever film, you might want to take the gamble that the one they're selling is the one with Chuck and Rodney. It's the story of a nerdy projectionist and it utilizes clips from old films and…well, you kind of have to see it to understand what the filmmakers had in mind. And I'll be talking about it and many other things when I interview Chuck on Friday afternoon at the Comic-Con International.