Monthly Archives: May 2005

Michael Chabon writes about one of Jack Kirby's greatest creations, the beautiful but very strong Big Barda. And he's right that Jack modelled her fighting spirit (and protective qualities) on Mrs. Jack Kirby, better known as Rosalind. But the visual was inspired by the 1970 Playboy appearance of singer-actress Lainie Kazan.

Yesterday, a group of Senators assembled what everyone is describing as a "compromise" regarding the filibustering of judicial nominees. I have no particular opinion about this compromise, or about what might have happened if they hadn't reached this compromise.

What amuses me is browsing websites of various political stripes. Some on both sides are angry, some are doing victory dances…and almost none of them seem to grasp the concept that in a "compromise," neither side gets everything it wants.

The Los Angeles Times [gotta register] has a good obit on Howie Morris. As it says in there, the funeral is Friday morning at 11 AM over at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.

The Associated Press has moved another obit of Howard Morris, this one by veteran entertainment writer, Bob Thomas. It's much better than the others but I am amazed Thomas made the following mistake…

He joined the cast of "Your Show of Shows" a year after it debuted in 1950, often playing the ambitious little guy whose grandiose plans go awry. The 90-minute show, with scripts written by such luminaries as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen, was one of the most heralded of television's Golden Era.

Woody Allen did not write for Your Show of Shows. Neither did Larry Gelbart, who is often credited with that program by people who should know better. Your Show of Shows was written by Mel Tolkin, Mel Brooks, Lucille Kallen, Neil Simon and Danny Simon, with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and sometimes Howie as unofficial, uncredited writers.

After Your Show of Shows, Mr. Caesar starred in a show called Caesar's Hour, which was followed by one called Sid Caesar Invites You, which was followed by a raft of specials. Gelbart started on Caesar's Hour. Allen didn't start until the specials. I have heard that Mr. Allen is embarrassed to be wrongly credited in this regard since his contribution to the Caesar oeuvre was pretty minor and in no way comparable to the work of the Mels, the Simons and Ms. Kallen.

This is for those of you who tape or TiVo the Black and White Overnight bloc on Game Show Network. This morning, they bumped their usual parlay of To Tell the Truth and What's My Line? for a one-night Frank Gorshin tribute, consisting of one Password and one I've Got a Secret. Tomorrow, I am told, they go back to To Tell the Truth and What's My Line?

However, for some reason, most of the online guides have Password and Secret replacing those two shows for the whole week, or even for two weeks. My TiVo's program listings have Password and Secret every night and I think that's wrong. So I've set it to record whatever's on in that time slot.

GSN has an odd policy on preemptions. They've been running the primetime What's My Line? in sequence but Saturday, they dropped in an episode of the syndicated What's My Line? as a part of a rather limp "Salute to Star Wars." (The mystery guest was James Earl Jones.) You would assume that the next day, they would run the primetime episode they otherwise would have run on Saturday but no. They just skipped it. They're presumably skipping another rerun (an episode with Charlton Heston) to run the Frank Gorshin tribute. This means that the early Wednesday morning rerun should be one with Bea Lillie, and the Thursday A.M. entry will still be the one with Jerry Lewis and Walt Disney. I don't understand why they do this but they do this.

Jesus Christ, it's been a bad week or two for voice people.

Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials, has died at the age of 91, the cause being reported as prostate cancer. His rich, bass voice was also known to audiences from his many years as a singer, plus you could hear him all over Disneyland. (That's Thurl singing, "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion, and one of the busts along that ride was fashioned to look like him.) He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on the animated TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and appeared on hundreds of records and radio shows and other cartoons over the years.

Thurl was, in a way, the oldest working cartoon voice actor in the business. During the thirties, he was heard on radio as part of several different singing groups that eventually came to be known as The Sportsmen and later, he was in The Mellomen. One of his groups recorded voice tracks for a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons, such as the 1939 Sioux Me. Soon after, he began appearing in shorts for Mr. Disney, such as The Nifty Nineties (1941) and Springtime for Pluto (1944). Walt evidently liked the Ravenscroft sound because not only was he heard throughout the theme parks but he was also a voice in Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and many more.

All of this was in addition to Thurl's many, many credits as a studio singer. His most famous hit may have been backing up Rosemary Clooney on "This Old House," but he was also heard in many records for Spike Jones (like "Wyatt Earp Makes Me Burp," a Dr. Demento fave) and The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby and even Elvis. He was also called upon often to dub singing voices for other actors. All throughout the 1958 movie of South Pacific, there's a handsome sailor with a rich, deep singing voice. The voice is that of Thurl Ravenscroft. In the seventies, he did a lot of work for arranger Johnny Mann and was featured often as "Pappy" on the TV show, Stand Up and Cheer.

I never had the honor of working with Thurl, as he was semi-retired by the time I was in a position to cast him…but I sure tried. We spoke on the phone a few times and he always politely, and with some expressed regret, declined. He was living in Orange County and even though I offered to send a limo for him, he said that it would be too tiring, plus he was having too much trouble walking. The only times he went out to record, he said, were "doing the tiger" and his many spots for religious groups close to his home. I was disappointed, but it sure was amazing to hear That Voice over the phone, especially when I'd mention one of his old songs and he'd wistfully rattle off a few bars, a cappella.

You can learn a lot about Thurl and even hear some of his songs and commercials over at his website. And here's a link to an obit in The Orange County Register. True to their name, they make you register.

The obituaries for Howard Morris are just now appearing in the press. I'm always a little amazed at what gets mentioned in these things and what's left out and what they get wrong and such. The Associated Press obit, for instance, includes this paragraph…

In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including "Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour."

Yeah, and I think that "comedy sketch group" was headed up by a guy named Sid Caesar, who was the star of those shows. You get the feeling the guy who wrote this piece didn't know who Sid Caesar was, or how those programs have been honored and recognized over the years? Then over here in a piece in The New York Sun, it says…

While his face was less known to later generations, Morris's voice popped up all over the airwaves. He could be heard in cartoons, as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate…

Uh, no. As ten seconds over at Google would have shown, John Stephenson played Mr. Slate. Howie played a wide array of non-recurring supporting roles on The Flintstones.

And of course, both leave out darn near everything he did since the mid-sixties, plus things like The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the movies he appeared in and all his stage work. Maybe I'm quibbling but, hey, Howie sure would have bitched about it. One time, we were in the parking lot of Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax and a man who was walking past noticed Howie and thought he recognized him. "Hey, you're that funny guy on that show," he said. And then the man mimed a short cigarette and said, "Verrrry interesting."

I had to stop Howie from killing him.

Nice article by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post about Walt Kelly's Pogo. You can see some nice samples of said newspaper strip over at The Official Pogo Website.

I feel like posting some photos and facts about Howard Morris over the next few days. Here's Howie in the 1962 movie, Boys' Night Out. It's one of those not-wonderful movies with a wonderful cast. The main thing it meant to Howie's life, apart from his near-encounter with Kim Novak, was that it convinced him his future was in Hollywood, not New York, and it prompted him to move out here. He immediately got busy with loads of TV work and animation voiceover jobs. His first Hanna-Barbera gig was playing interplanetary rock star Jet Screamer on an episode of The Jetsons, and he wound up in almost every H-B show for the next few years until the day he told Joe Barbera to perform an anatomically-impossible feat. Maybe I'll tell that story in the next few days.

In the sixties, Howie worked darn near every day, and turned down three jobs for every one he could squeeze in. Working on camera in his first three years in Hollywood, he did episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ensign O'Toole, The Twilight Zone, Alcoa Premiere and The Dick Van Dyke Show, to name but a few. I'm told his Van Dyke Show ran this morning on TV Land. It's the one where Rob and Laura go to an auction, accidentally buy a painting by "Artanis" and then call in an art expert named Holldecker (Howie) to appraise it. He also directed several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as directing and appearing on The Andy Griffith Show.

Howie also directed a number of episodes of Hogan's Heroes. He told me once that he originally got involved with the show when he was asked to audition for the role of Colonel Klink, which at that point was a somewhat different role than it became. The way Howie explained it, they wanted him to play Klink until Werner Klemperer came in to read for a different role. The producers decided to install Klemperer as Klink and Howie wound up directing instead, which he preferred. Now, I can't swear this story is true. At least, I don't think it's the way they recount it in the "official" histories of the show. But it's the way Howie said it was, and the one time I met Werner Klemperer, he seemed to think that's how it happened. He also added that as a director, Howie was invaluable in helping actors who needed to feign a German accent and he said that if you listen to the episodes Howie directed, you can hear some of the actors "doing" a Howard Morris dialect.

And not only that but didja know Howie directed the pilot of Get Smart? And that he was largely responsible for the casting of Ed Platt as The Chief in that series? I told this story back on this page.

I'll post more about Howie in the next few days…and don't think for a moment I'm doing it for your benefit. It's for me. I miss the guy.

Want to see what a brilliant comic actor Howard Morris was? Got seven minutes? Then go to this page and click where they tell you to click.

And then, if you want to see him in an even funnier sketch, go to this page and click where they tell you to click. This one's eleven minutes but they may be the funniest eleven minutes in the history of TV sketch comedy.

You'll need to have Real Player installed to view them. Navigate through the links where they try to get you to buy the pay version and find where you can download the free one. I know it's a pain but do it for Howie.

I don't know where the above photo of comedian and character actor Howard Morris is from. Perhaps it's a picture from when he was on Broadway in Call Me Mister or Finian's Rainbow. Perhaps it's from one of the many TV shows he did with Sid Caesar, starting in 1949 with the Admiral Broadway Revue. Caesar was the greatest, everyone agreed, and Howie was able to match him note for note, dialect for dialect, playing support and sidekick on several programs, including the legendary Your Show of Shows. It could even be a still from one of his early movie appearances…maybe Boys' Night Out, where he co-starred with James Garner, Tony Randall and Kim Novak. How many times did we, his friends, hear the story of how one weekend during the shooting, he chickened out on an invitation to spend quality time with Ms. Novak?

Most of us called him "Howie." He was a fiery, funny little man who got mad and married easily, sometimes both at once. He was very proud of a lifetime of acting but very insecure about everything he did…which was amazing because he did so many different things and did them so well.

He was a director of TV shows including The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hogan's Heroes, Get Smart and Bewitched, and of feature films, including With Six You Get Eggroll, Don't Drink the Water and his favorite, Who's Minding the Mint? (But he actually made the real money helming commercials — hundreds of them, including many of the classics for McDonald's in the sixties. They made one of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was a voiceover actor, speaking for many characters including Jet Screamer and other roles on The Jetsons, Beetle Bailey, Jughead on the Archie shows, Atom Ant, Mr. Peebles on the Magilla Gorilla show, Wade Duck on Garfield and Friends, and hundreds of others. (But he actually made the real money voicing commercials. Remember the little koala who said he hated Qantas Airlines? That was Howie, and the role made another of his many ex-wives very wealthy.)

He was an on-camera actor, with credits ranging from The Nutty Professor with Jerry Lewis to High Anxiety with Mel Brooks and Splash with Tom Hanks. (But the thing everyone remembers is Ernest T. Bass, the rock-tossing misfit on The Andy Griffith Show. Howie was only in five episodes but he made such an impression that everyone thinks he was on it all the time…a lucky circumstance. The last decade or so, Howie's main source of income was signing autographed photos and making personal appearances for fans of that classic series. And no ex-wife got much of that loot.)

Howie was just a gusher of Show Business History and to sit with him was always an amazing experience. He worked with everyone and near as I can tell, always had their respect. He worked with me, off and on for close to two decades, and always had mine. He was a brilliant, spontaneous actor who could read the same line of dialogue ten times and do it a minimum of eleven different ways. On Garfield and Friends, my big insight as a director came when I realized that the less Howie knew about what he was reading, the more likely he was to do something stunning. So I'd explain the script to all the other actors before we rolled tape, and I'd keep Howie largely in the dark. Often, on that first take when he was reading Line 1 without any idea of what he'd find in Line 2, he would do something that neither he nor any other actor could have devised in a thousand attempts.

Howie died yesterday at the age of 85. It was not a surprise — he'd been in poor health for some time — but it still hit me like a stone lobbed through the window of the Mayberry Sheriff's Station by Ernest T. There will be formal obits up in the next few days. I'll link to them and you'll see what else this man did, even beyond what I've mentioned here.

But what they might not tell you is how much we adored this man — "we" being those who were honored to be around him and to work with him. He was not an easy person to know but once you got past that fake abrasive exterior that represented perhaps his finest acting job, you encountered a wonderful interior, filled with passion and compassion and I'm sorry if this all isn't cleverer and pithier, but the more you loved the deceased, the harder these things are to write. I'll post more about Howie when it finally sinks in that I can't call him up for lunch, take him to Canter's and watch as he insults the waitresses, the busboys and everyone dining within earshot…and they all love it, every one of them. If I'd been an actor when he was, I'd have wanted to do everything he did, except I would have gotten married a few less times, and I wouldn't have said no to Kim Novak.

(Quick Aside: I just spoke to his terrific son David, who took such good care of him between and sometimes even during his many marriages. No funeral arrangements have been made yet. I'll let you know when I know something.)

Among the possible medical breakthroughs that (we're told) might flow from stem cell research is a cure for Parkinson's Disease. Michael Kinsley, the editor of the L.A. Times editorial page, suffers from this and so has more than a passing interest. [Registration may be required. Come on. Sign up. It's free.]

Frank Rich is a little late to the party with his views on the Newsweek mess but I think his comments are spot-on.

That's a New York Times link which, like most of the ones I post here, I've encoded in a way that enables you to read it without having to register. I don't know why people balk at registering for a free site but some do, so we gladly provide this service.

As some of you may have heard, the Times has announced that later this year, they'll begin charging $50 a year for access to certain sections of their website, including the editorial page. I'm not sure how this will go, especially considering that many newspapers have tried things like this and wound up going back to free. The Los Angeles Times just gave up charging for its entertainment section, f'rinstance. What I'm waiting to see is how thorough this will be. Many of the New York Times opinion columns are syndicated elsewhere and so may still be available on the 'net via other pages. Even if they aren't, I have a feeling they'll be bootlegged in enough venues that no one who wants to read Paul Krugman or David Brooks will have to look far to get them for free. Some of you will probably take that as bad news.

In case you haven't been following the case, a gent named David Rosen is currently on trial in Los Angeles, accused of misleading the Federal Election Commission about the cost of a campaign gala held in Hollywood back in 2000. Rosen was a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton, and a lot of right-wing folks are hoping that a conviction of Rosen will somehow harm Ms. Clinton's future electoral prospects…and I guess there are left-wing folks who also would not be unhappy if she did not get the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, as well. I suspect both these groups will be disappointed. The prosecutor in the case is after Rosen, not Clinton, and even told the jury in his opening statement, "You will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved [in the alleged crimes] in any way, shape or form." The other day, the judge in the case indicated he would probably dismiss one of the three remaining charges next Tuesday, and some think he might throw the entire case out of court.

Even if Rosen is convicted of something, I doubt it will impact the future of Hillary Clinton. I don't think very many people in this country desert the candidate of their choice because of fund-raising violations. Most, I'm guessing, believe that everyone who runs for office is at least a little dirty in that regard, and that if you let that influence your ballot, you'll wind up with no one to vote for. People lose elections because their opponents define them as politically extreme, liars, cowards or on the wrong side of issues like abortion, guns or defense. But because one of their aides played fast and loose with campaign finance laws? I don't think so. That's the kind of reason you give for not voting for the person you weren't going to vote for, anyway.

What interests me about the trial is that the fund-raiser in question was arranged by Peter Paul, who was then the head of Stan Lee Media, a firm for which I was working at the time. I never really heard anything about the event while I was there, so I'm following the case as a spectator, albeit one who knew some of the folks involved. Peter has spent a lot of time lately behind bars and may soon be sentenced to his third spell in prison, this time for stock manipulation.

Stan Lee has pretty much avoided any of the legal nastiness that has lately surrounded Mr. Paul. But yesterday, Stan testified in the trial and said that he loaned Peter $225,000 to help put on the event and that he has yet to be repaid a dime of it. If I'd known he was that soft a touch, I'd have hit him up for a couple hundred grand.

Also of possible interest is that it would appear that the whole fund-raising gala cost $1.2 million instead of the $400,000 that was originally reported, and that it netted a whopping $57,820 for Ms. Clinton and another million or so for other Democratic causes — in other words, it brought in a little less than it cost. If so, that makes it a great example of what's wrong with politics in this country. And it kind of gives you a hint as to why Stan Lee Media didn't make any money, either.

Henry Corden, a veteran character actor best known as the second voice of Fred Flintstone, has died at the age of 85. He had been in poor health for some time, suffering from emphysema (and sometimes from failing vision that made it difficult to read scripts) and many of the recent recordings of Fred were performed by another actor, following Henry's decision to retire. Henry had a long career in front of the camera that started with a small role in the Danny Kaye movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and continued with numerous film and TV roles. For a time, he was part of Jack Webb's "stock company" of players on Dragnet, and people often stopped him on the street, recognizing him from his appearances on that show. But it was as a voiceover actor that Henry found his steadiest income, especially in the sixties and beyond.

Hanna-Barbera began using him as, for example, the voice of Paw Rugg on Hillbilly Bears (a segment in the 1965 series, Atom Ant) and playing bit parts on Jonny Quest and The Flintstones. Henry's voice had a natural similarity to that of Alan Reed (who played Fred Flintstone) so Henry became a kind of "back-up" Fred, doing the role on kids' records when Reed was unavailable, and doing the singing voice for Fred here and there because the folks at H-B felt he was a better singer than Reed. When Reed died in 1977, Henry took over the role in all aspects and did it for even longer. (Reed and Corden also shared another interesting role. Both were hired at different times to redub Jackie Gleason for screen appearances. In the TV version of Smokey and the Bandit, for instance, a lot of Gleason's dialogue was looped by Corden to eliminate cuss words. It sounds like Ralph Kramden is imitating Fred Flintstone instead of vice-versa.) And Henry did other roles in animation. He growled for Ookla the Mok on Thundarr the Barbarian, and guested often on Scooby Doo, The Smurfs and many other shows.

Henry was a charming, funny man who was just a joy to be around. I remember him telling me a long story about working with Bud and Lou in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion. He played an Arab in the film — he played Arabs and sometimes Germans in an amazing percentage of his screen appearances — and apparently Lou kept forgetting that Henry wasn't of Arabian descent. "There would be some Middle Eastern name or word in the script and Costello would ask me, 'Hey, you're from there. How's this pronounced?' And I'd have to keep telling him, 'How the hell should I know? I'm from Montreal!'"

Here's a link to an obit that will tell you more about Henry. I just wanted to tell you how much some of us will miss him.