Monthly Archives: June 2005

I am occasionally amused/fascinated by the spectacle of news people having to fill time with nothing to say. They don't say a lot when they do have something to say but it's even worse when, for example, a high-speed chase is entering its second hour and all the known information could be summarized in about five minutes. Drawing it out and pretending to have new angles and perspectives is something of an art — one many of us dabbled in back in school when we had to write a 1000 word essay on some topic where we knew one measly fact.

The last few days, I've been peeking in on Court TV's "Verdict Watch" and, boy, those people are good at talking for hours and saying nothing. The situation around the Michael Jackson case has changed little since the case went to the jury a week ago. You could list every significant development in under two minutes: The jury sent out a note, contents unknown. Michael dropped by a hospital again. His lawyer said that he has not authorized anyone to speak for the family despite the (until yesterday) constant presence on the news of Jesse Jackson and/or some woman named Ramona Bain as spokespersons. And that's about it. I just watched ten minutes of speculation on whether a long deliberation bodes well or ill for the defense. Each "analyst" says it can mean anything…and then itemized all the different things it could mean.

As I write this, the "Jury Clock" is at 27 hours, 24 minutes and change…and Gloria Allred has joined the throng of Talking Heads who don't know anything but won't let that stop them. An awful lot of sentences begin with, "If Michael Jackson is convicted…"

This morning, the Court TV analysts were trying to suggest that Friday is often "Verdict Day" in a trial and that while nothing had been announced, there was something in the air. Now, passing 1:00 PM, they seem to be talking more about how this jury is so diligent that they could take a lot longer.

A little while ago, one gent explained that they'd tried and failed to get a glimpse of how the jurors were dressed this morning, operating on the premise that a well-dressed jury is one that expects it might be giving interviews later in the day. But of course, no one saw the jurors when they arrived for today's deliberations. I think it would have been great if they'd all marched in this morning dressed as various barnyard animals. It wouldn't have meant anything to the case but it would have given the trial analysts plenty to talk about. ("I once covered a case where they were all dressed in cow costumes and that jury voted to acquit…")

I finally have enough info to post about John Albano, the veteran comic book writer and cartoonist who passed away last Monday in an Orlando hospital near his home in Altamonte Springs, Florida. His sister-in-law says the cause of death was a heart attack followed by a stroke. He was 82 years old.

Albano had a long, varied career that included stints as an editor for The National Enquirer (for seven years) and magazine cartoons for an array of clients, including Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post. Comic book fans know him best for his time at DC in the seventies where he wrote for Joe Orlando's ghost comics (House of Mystery, etc.), Plop!, Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Swing with Scooter,, the revival of Leave It to Binky, and many others. He won the A.C.B.A. (Academy of Comic Book Arts) award for Best Humor Writer in 1972.

His most famous work probably was when he co-created — with artist Tony DeZuniga — the long-running western character, Jonah Hex, who originally appeared in All-Star Western in 1972. Albano wrote the first eleven tales of the scarred gunfighter when a dispute arose over the film rights to his co-creation. A lawsuit was settled with Albano receiving money but his relationship with DC Comics was effectlvely destroyed, and others wrote Jonah Hex for years after.

Albano also worked for the short-lived Atlas comic line of the seventies (Phoenix, Planet of Vampires, etc.) and for Gold Key comics on Underdog, Heckle & Jeckle and other comics produced out of the firm's New York office. He wrote for National Lampoon, authored some children's books and did a lot of work for Archie Comics beginning around 1984. He was writing for Archie as recently as a year ago, and had recently been devoting himself to the script for an off-Broadway play.

My thanks to his friend Michael Browning for gathering information and the photo. I don't think I ever crossed paths with John but if I had, I would have told him how much I enjoyed his work.

Proving that eventually, every TV show that has ever existed will be out as a DVD set, you can now order Season 1 of the 1968 series, The Doris Day Show. I am not suggesting you do this, as I do not recall it as being a great show, but I will provide an Amazon link if you want to see for yourself.

More interesting than the show is its history, especially of that first season. In the sixties, Ms. Day was married to an agent named Marty Melcher, who proved the old Show Biz adage that one should not manage one's spouse's career. It works once in a while but it usually doesn't, and the Melcher-Day saga is as fine an example as you'll find of the "doesn't" variety. For a time, the damage Melcher did to his wife's stardom consisted of signing her up to do movies that she didn't want to do. She'd read a script like the one for the 1967 Caprice and say, "Well, thank God I don't have to do garbage like that," and Melcher would tell her, "Uh, I already signed you up for it. You have to do it." And do it she did…under duress.

Doris was one of the highest-paid movie stars in the world but she was seeing very little of that loot. Melcher was then in partnership with an investment manager named Jerome Rosenthal, and every cent she made went into some new oil drilling scheme, or a hotel or some other venture "guaranteed" to yield mega-bucks. Onlookers would later wonder why the Melchers didn't just live comfortably, as they could have, off what she made: Why plunge it all into risky investments? The answer, it was suggested, had something to do with Marty's ego and his determination not to let it be said that he just lived off his wife. The investments were to yield money that he could claim as his income, even though they were being funded by her money.

The trouble was that, unbeknownst to Doris, those investments were wiping out her money, not increasing it. It would never be clear to what extent this was because the ventures were uniformly unsuccessful or if Rosenthal was just pocketing the bucks…but Melcher found himself in the position of a losing gambler who was desperately throwing more cash on the table, trying to get even. In his panic for funds, he turned to television.

CBS was, at the time, worried that Lucille Ball would soon retire and they saw Doris Day as the star of a sitcom that could be cultivated to take over Lucy's exalted place on their schedule. Even if Lucy stuck around, Doris had proven she could draw an audience. They pursued her for a weekly series and despite Melcher's urging, she said no. She was a movie star, she argued, and couldn't handle the rapid pace of TV filming. Melcher argued back that her kind of movie (i.e., clean) was on its way out and the CBS deal was a lifeline. When she continued to say no, Melcher just ignored her wishes. Without telling her, he committed her to a sitcom and took a huge advance from the network. That money went directly into the Rosenthal investment program, never to be seen again.

Then Melcher got sick…very sick. He died in April of '68 and one day not long after, Doris ventured into his office to tidy up. There, she came across several completed scripts for a TV series called, chillingly, The Doris Day Show. CBS, she soon discovered, expected her to begin filming the show the following month. Further investigation yielded the horrifying revelation that her investments were not worth the millions of dollars Melcher had claimed. They were practically worthless and she was very close to bankruptcy. Somehow — despite depression over her husband's death and the subsequent disclosures, plus the fact that she hated the format of the series to which he'd committed her — she got through the filming of Season One of a TV series she didn't want to do. Those are the episodes that comprise this first DVD set.

The show lasted five seasons and went through four distinct formats and a wide selection of co-stars. Friends said it was amazing that she got through it at all. To further complicate her life during this period, her son Terry Melcher was mixed up with Charles Manson, plus there was a grueling lawsuit against Jerome Rosenthal. (Day eventually won a $22.8 million malpractice suit against him but settled for $6 million.) After the series was over with, she pretty much retired. A producer I know spent something like ten years offering her scripts and huge sums of money but she declined every one of them.

Like I said, I'm not recommending the show. Despite a good cast and the enduring charm of its star, it was a bland little comedy that is largely forgotten…so I guess, just for the sake of history, it's good that it's coming out now on DVD. At the very least, it gives me the chance to tell this story, which I find much more colorful than the show itself.

The Animal Planet network is rerunning a couple of shows that may be of interest to cartoon fans. Animal Icons has an episode tonight (and it reruns Saturday morning) called "Animated Animals" that includes interviews with June Foray, Billy West and other great voice folks. There's also an episode about Garfield, which I haven't seen, which runs tomorrow and again on Saturday afternoon, and one on Star Wars creatures and one on Japanese movie monsters. Thanks to George Karlias for reminding me about this stuff.

Recently, when Howard Morris passed away, I directed you to this video link to watch what some have called the funniest sketch ever done on television — The Sid Caesar take-off of This is Your Life. If you remember the sketch (or go watch it now), you'll note that before Carl Reiner "surprises" Sid in the audience, he briefly hovers over a slim gentleman seated in an aisle seat. That man was David Tebet, who was then the publicist for Mr. Caesar's program.

Not long after, Mr. Tebet was hired by NBC where he quickly became Vice-President in Charge of Talent. He was the guy in charge of luring Big Stars to the network and keeping them happy once they were there. His job involved stroking large egos, fielding complaints, distributing compliments and keeping out of the ugly side of negotiations. Rumor had it he was empowered to bestow an endless array of gifts whenever he thought appropriate, and RCA products were the most frequent present. Johnny Carson once joked that at his funeral, the graveside services would be interrupted as a truck pulled up and delivered a Color TV from Dave Tebet. As far as I know, this did not happen.

Tebet was often credited with being the guy who suggested Carson for the Tonight Show post. Others claimed it as well, but Tebet seemed to have the strongest claim. In the seventies, when Johnny negotiated for ownership of that show (for the length of his tenure) and set up his own production company, he hired Tebet away from NBC to help him run it. The network, it was said, suffered for the loss. When a star was irate about something, they no longer had Dave Tebet to go in and smooth things out. This especially applied to disputes with Mr. Carson.

Dave Tebet died on Tuesday at the age of 91. If Carson were still around, he'd probably send a Color TV to the funeral.

Nice to hear that Bob Costas will be an occasional substitute host for Larry King. Costas is one of the best interviewers in the field and I'd love to see him graduate to a regular daily show where he could get the kind of guests that Mr. King is able to get. Maybe that's what this will lead to.

Andrew Barkus writes to ask…

That is, indeed, an interesting statistic about GWB's approval rating. Could you cite a source for the stat? Friends that I have mentioned it to seem to think it is a bit far-fetched.

Sure. In fact, I said Bush's approval rating was 20 points lower than Clinton's was on the day he was impeached. It could actually be said to be more like 25. Bush's current approval rating is at 48% according to both the ABC News/Washington Post Poll and the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Some polls, as you can see on this page, have him even lower.

As you can see here, right after Bill Clinton was impeached, his approval rating was at 73% in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. (There were other polls that had it more like 68%, which is where the 20 point gap comes from.)

By the way: I don't think approval polls tell the whole story, especially at only one moment in time. There were certainly points where Clinton's ratings were lower than 68% and Bush's have been higher than they are now, and may well go up again. I don't think though that Clinton ever got below around 55% in the major polls. Here's a rundown of Clinton approval numbers.

This morning, GSN reran another episode of the 1990 To Tell the Truth. One of the segments was about a priest who gave up the priesthood to marry a nun. One of the impostors who were impersonating the ex-priest was a young entertainment lawyer named Tom Mesereau. What is Mr. Mesereau doing these days? Well, today he's waiting for a verdict on his client, Michael Jackson.

Speaking of the National Cartoonists Society shindig: Scott Shaw! provides a thorough and accurate report on the proceedings.

Yes, it's another photo from the National Cartoonists Society gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona. On the right is Lalo Alcaraz, who does a very funny newspaper strip called La Cucaracha. On the left is Sergio Aragonés, proving once again that anyone can look good if they have a tux.

I mentioned in my Tony Awards review that with the exception of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, none of the musical numbers presented on the broadcast made me want to see the shows. I dunno if this is proof but it comes close: La Cage aux Folles, which won the Tony last Sunday night for Best Revival of a Musical, has just announced it will close later this month. Obviously, there was no stampede to the box office in the last few days.

(On the other hand, this article says that ticket buying for Spelling Bee, Light in the Piazza, Doubt and Spamalot were up. It's just odd to see a show win Best Revival and then close.)

So how were the ratings for the Tony telecast? It depends who you ask…

• "If last year's Tony Awards slumped among viewers 18-49, Sunday night's show positively bombed. It was down 7 percent from last year's already anemic 1.5 adults 18-49 average to a 1.4 for CBS, according to Nielsen overnights." (Media Life Magazine)
• "The bad news for last night's Tony broadcast on CBS was that ratings did not increase from 2004. The good news was that they didn't really shrink either." (BroadwayWorld.com)
• "CBS, which broadcast the three-hour show, was cheered Monday by the overnight ratings, which climbed a bit, attracting 6.62 million viewers, up from 6.46 million last year." (Chicago Tribune)

So they were down, they were unchanged, they were up. However you score it, they still got beaten by a lot of reruns of cop shows.

The prevailing theory about the Watergate break-in seems to be that Nixon and his men were paranoid/worried (pick one) about revelations involving Howard Hughes. Nixon had been embarrassed before about his connections with the eccentric billionaire, most notably in the 1962 California gubernatorial election. So, the assumption goes, the Watergate burglars were dispatched to wiretap the phones of Democratic honcho Larry O'Brien, who was a former Hughes aide and was therefore in a position to know a lot of Hughes-Nixon dirt.

I've never completely bought this bit of conventional wisdom. Maybe it's true but it seems to me that Richard Nixon didn't need a specific reason to spy on his enemies. The mere fact that they were his enemies was reason enough. In any case, one of the major articles on his relationship with Hughes and how it may have figured into Watergate ran in Playboy magazine in 1976 and it's available, probably for a limited time, on that publication's website. Here's the link and remember that if you click in the wrong place, you might catch a glimpse of a naked woman.

If you own a TiVo, this page may be of interest to you.

It's five weeks until this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Remember how jammed everything was last year with 87,000+ people in attendance? Well, every year has had a bigger turnout than the year before…so what does that tell you?

I don't want to scare anyone but last year, the streets and parking lots and restaurants were jammed…and that was with nearby Petco Park standing empty. This year, the San Diego Padres are playing the Arizona Diamondbacks there Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, and I wouldn't count on a low turnout. Those two teams are currently neck-and-neck for the championship in the National League West. So if you're a Padres fan, that's the match-up you want to see.

If you're going to need a parking space at the con, I'd start looking now.

You're going to want to get there early so you can see all or most of the fifteen panels I'm moderating. (Fifteen panels? In four days? Is this man crazy?) I'll try to get the schedule up here soon but know that the Golden/Silver Age Panel will focus on DC Comics from 1940 to 1970 and will feature Gene Colan, Arnold Drake, Sy Barry, Ramona Fradon, Nick Cardy and Murphy Anderson. We'll have our annual Cartoon Voice Actor panel, including a number of folks who've never been there before — Charlie Adler and E.G. Daily, f'rinstance. There'll be a game of Quick Draw!, a couple of tributes to the late Will Eisner, a panel on Comic Book Weblogs, one-on-one interviews with a number of veteran comic creators, a 40th Anniversary look at A Charlie Brown Christmas, a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel that will make news, a spotlight on Gary Owens, and a number of other fun events. If you want to have the best possible time at the San Diego Con, just follow me around.

Do not ask me about procuring a hotel room in town during the convention. There may still be some but I don't know where.

I'll post some tips in the next few weeks. It's going to be terrific. Crowded but terrific.

George W. Bush's approval rating is now a full twenty points lower than Bill Clinton's was on the day he was impeached.