Monthly Archives: December 2005

Robert Novak has left CNN "by mutual agreement" (which means he was dumped) and is joining Fox News. What a surprise.

I'm sorry my father isn't around for a great many reasons. One is that he would have enjoyed seeing just about everyone on both sides of the political aisle decide Novak was low-level bottom-feeding plankton. My father used to watch Novak on CNN and say, "There's nothing that matters to that man beside making sure the rich get everything they can out of the government but that the poor pay for it all." I have yet to see any indication that my father was exaggerating.

Here's a solution I've found to a small but annoying problem. I always seem to have tons of loose change lying around my house. I am not good at taking it with me when I go shopping. It sits in an array of jars and mugs all over my kitchen.

I used to have a solution to the problem. I used to bank at a bank that had a huge, wonderful counting machine. Every year or so, I'd haul in a bag of change and have them dump it into the hopper and they'd add the total to my account. Unfortunately, I changed banks and the new one has no such device at any of their local branches. So for something like eighteen years, I've just been letting the coins accumulate.

One day in my local Ralph's, I thought I'd found the answer: Coinstar. Coinstar is a company that installs coin-counting machines in markets and drugstores. You carry in the coins, dump 'em in and the machine sorts, totes and then prints out a little certificate you can use at that merchant…less a counting fee of 8.9 cents per dollar counted.

That counting fee stopped me.

I know, I know: It sounds like I'm being cheap but we all have certain things that bring out the Jack Benny in us. 8.9 cents sounded exorbitant to me, especially since my bank used to do this for nothing. So I let the coins pile up…until I found the solution.

The solution is the Coinstar machine…only you don't take your money as credit at the store. I found out that if you take it as an Amazon gift certificate, there's no counting fee. You can also do this with several other merchants such as Starbucks, Pier 1 Imports, Hollywood Video and Linens 'n Things. Since I spend a couple hundred bucks at Amazon each month anyway, a gift certificate is like cash. You can find out more about the deal and locate a machine near you at the Coinstar website.

And while I'm near the topic, let me mention that I've decided not to shop at Ralph's Markets any more. I'm usually not a big believer in boycotts, as I think they go generally unnoticed and usually inconvenience the boycotters more than the boycottee. But every so often, a company misbehaves so egregiously that I just feel uncomfortable giving them my money. Fortunately, there are Coinstar machines in other local businesses.

It's just getting started but I have set up a new website to replace the Old TV Tickets section of this one. Over at www.oldtvtickets.com, we'll eventually have posted hundreds of images of tickets issued to grant admission to the tapings, filmings and even live broadcasts of television (and a few radio) programs. Each gets accompanied by some anecdotes and/or info about the show.

Right now, there are about 25 listings up. Each day, I'll be trying to post one new ticket or at least one ticket from the old gallery with a new, updated description. I may not make it every day but, like I said, I expect to some day have a few hundred up there. If you have some old TV tickets and wouldn't mind sharing a scan, drop me a line.

Michael Kinsley explores the logic (or lack thereof) regarding certain arguments against the banning of torture.

Here's something I should have asked Thomas Meehan about last night. It is not unusual for filmmakers to have to agonize about cutting something they love in a movie. He joked about how the big problem was that someone had to go tell Nathan Lane his opening star number was out…but the big problems were, first of all, that the folks behind the movie loved that song and felt it belonged there even when audience previews indicated otherwise. Also, of course, an awful lot of time and moola had been spent on the material that was now to be removed, and some would probably have a hard time with the admission that they'd "wasted" so much cash and effort.

So here's the question part. I'm wondering if in this era of DVDs getting to be so important and becoming the primary source of movie income, it's a lot easier to make that kind of decision.

Years ago, I escorted an actress friend to the cast 'n' crew screening of a movie she'd been in. As we arrived, the director pulled us aside to inform her that her part had been cut. Strictly for time considerations, he said. He consoled her that her scenes would be reinstated when the movie came out on home video. This was back in Beta/VHS days when it was not automatically assumed that every movie would even have a home video release and when that wasn't such a big deal. (In this case, the movie didn't come out on tape for a couple of years and when it did, my friend's scenes were not reinstated.)

These days, the DVD is almost as important as the theatrical release — with some films, more important — so there wasn't even a moment when it was conceivable that Lane's hard work in the deleted number would be lost or go unseen. In fact, it will even become a selling point for the DVD. You know: You saw it in the theaters but you didn't see all of it. Perhaps they'll incorporate it on that DVD in some way that allows you to view the entire movie with or without it…or maybe some future DVD release will put it right back as if it had never been omitted at all. In any case, it's not lost or relegated to obscurity the way some musical numbers were when they were chopped out of movies in the past.

So I'm wondering if that has changed the filmmaking process and made it simpler and less painful to cut a big scene. I suspect Meehan's answer would have been that it would have been more painful but they still would have made the same decision, and that's probably so. But it may matter with close judgment calls and it may even be that some studios tell the producers or directors, "Remember…we want a few deleted scenes to include on the DVD," thereby freeing the makers to go ahead and shoot scenes they think might not make it in. Has anyone seen any director or producer say this was the case?

On the way to see The Producers last evening — the movie based on the musical based on the movie — I suddenly expected not to like it a lot. I somehow imagined myself back here at the weblog, composing something about how I loved it as a film and I loved it on the stage…so how come I didn't love it when they put it back on the screen? And then I'd write some mumbo-jumbo-gooey-gumbo about how back in film form, the comparisons to the original are too stark and who can enjoy Nathan and Matthew when you still have Zero and Gene burned into your subconscious?

Well anyway, that's what I figured I'd be writing.

Instead, I'm writing that I had a very good time and I can tell you why in two words. One of them is "Nathan" and the other is "Lane." He is just so good in this movie, so much fun to watch, that it quickly becomes Zero Who? Not that he's better than the original Max Bialystock — in almost all cases, when a line is repeated from the earlier film, I prefer the Mostel version to the Lane — but there's so much else there, especially in terms of reactions and face work that…well, Nathan Lane ought to be the first performer to have his eyebrows insured with Lloyds of London. He does more with them than Tiger Woods can do with a nine-iron. I wasn't enraptured with Will Ferrell, who plays the Nazi, or Uma Thurman, who plays the Swede. And I liked Matthew Broderick, though not as much in his first scene where he takes Leo Bloom to unreal heights of hysteria. (He gets better.) But what won me over was Nathan Lane and the sheer energy of his performance…and I guess I also liked the effortless way the proceedings segue from dialogue to song and back again.

I have no idea what the box office will be like. Disappointing returns for Rent have people saying again, as they always do except when a Grease or Chicago has just come out, "There's no market out there for musicals." Funny how when an action film flops — and many do — no one says there's no demand out there for shoot-'em-ups. I didn't see Rent but it's a movie with no stars and tepid reviews, based on a Broadway show that lots of people saw but not a lot of people loved, plus that show has been generally ignored in the press since it opened almost ten years ago. One wonders if the film's failure to light up the Moviefone website is why most of the ads for The Producers seem to stress how funny it is without mentioning that anyone breaks into song. Regardless, I hope people do go because most of them will have a very good time.

And I hope they know enough to stick around. As the credits rolled at the end last evening, about a fourth of the audience made the faux pas of bolting for the exits. That always strikes me as rude, especially at a free industry screening where folks who worked on the film are likely to be in attendance. It was also a mistake because those who departed prematurely missed a couple of good songs (and some funny lines spoken by Mr. Ferrell) over the credits…and then they missed an entire musical number that has been placed after the credits. It has a surprise ending which I won't give away.

When you go to a movie, people, stay in your seat until the credits are over. If you don't do it out of courtesy, do it because you might just miss something good. You will if you leave before The Producers is over.

The screening I attended was followed by a brief Q-and-A session with co-author Thomas Meehan and I took the opportunity to ask him about the deletion of Lane's opening number, "The King of Broadway." He confirmed that it was filmed — "we spent seven days on it" — and that it'll be on the DVD. But when they tested the film with and without it, it made a huge difference and they had to delete it. The hardest part was deciding who would tell Nathan. Meehan added — this is a paraphrase but close — "For a while, I was sure we'd wind up cutting 'It's Bad Luck to Say Good Luck on Opening Night.' For me, it's the weakest number in the show and when we filmed it, we filmed some additional dialogue that conveyed the same information so we could stick it in if we cut the song. But somehow, it wound up staying in." In reply to another question, he said that he and and Mel are still on the first draft of a planned Broadway musical based on Young Frankenstein. Mel has completed ten songs, he says, and they're "all great."

I dunno how I feel about Young Frankenstein on stage. It sounds like a bad idea to me. Then again, turning The Producers into a Broadway musical initially sounded to me like a bad idea and even after it proved not to be, making a movie of that version struck me as a bad idea. I keep being wrong about this — as wrong as Max was when he proclaimed Springtime for Hitler "a surefire flop." So I'm going to shut up about this kind of thing.

The Internet Movie Database is a handy service and I consult it many times a week. But every so often, I look at my own listing there and wonder about their over-all accuracy. There are quite a few things I've written that aren't on my page but, okay, that's no big thing. I can't even remember all of them. What amazes me is that there's almost always a credit for me on something I didn't work on. While looking up something about Richard Pryor the other day, I chanced on my entry and discovered — much to my amazement — that I was in The Muppet Movie!

The listing, reproduced above, says that I did the role of Ernie. This would have been for the big group shot near the end where hundreds of Muppets sing the closing lines of the song, "The Rainbow Connection." In addition to the regular Muppeteers, it became necessary to recruit other puppet manipulators and since Jim Henson was probably working Kermit in that shot, someone else had to operate Ernie. That someone was my close friend, Earl Kress. Earl has a history with the Muppets, he did the part, and I got no closer to that film than seeing it in a theater.

So I'm wondering how my name got connected with the part in the I.M.D.B. Someone must have believed this and submitted it, and I'm guessing it's someone who reads this weblog. If it's you, would you drop me a line and explain? I promise I won't be mad or shame you in public. I'm just curious.

In the meantime, I've notified the I.M.D.B. that it should be Earl's name there. Let's see how long it takes them to make the correction.

I was sorry I missed The Aristocrats when it was big in the theaters. You can always catch films later on cable or DVD but this one — an 89 minute exploration of what some call the world's dirtiest joke — sounded like it warranted being seen with a big, live audience. So when I heard about a screening to be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers and some cast members…well, that sounded ideal. Which just shows you how wrong I can be.

It occurred last evening at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood under the aegis of a group called Hollywood's Master Storytellers that stages and videotapes such events — and I suppose we should be grateful that someone does it. But jeez…a theater full of paying customers had to sit through an awful lot of filling and stalling and a "warm-up" guy who proved that you can be unfunny even when you work dirty. At one point, he dragged four audience members up on stage and had a little contest in which they were to each make the sound they make while achieving orgasm. Later, four more audience members came up to tell their versions of the central joke of The Aristocrats. Between these charming moments and various other delays, they managed to get things off to a flying stop and add another hour to what was already a very long evening.

Without it, I might have enjoyed The Aristocrats more than I did…which is not to say I didn't enjoy a lot of it. There is something quite compelling about seeing a wide range of master comedians in free flight, which is the idea behind the film. In it, dozens of comedians tell and/or dissect a legendary joke that, by its basic structure, allows its teller ample room to improvise and embellish. Most versions involve some combination of incest, violence, bestiality, projectile vomiting and wallowing in feces, and it has been suggested that what the comic chooses to include is something of a Rorschach test of his or her sensibilities. (If this is true, Bob Saget should be promptly confined in one of those Hannibal Lecter cells without windows, shoes or visitors.) Interestingly, the whole joke is told, start to finish, fewer times than I'd expected…and the tellings which stand out tend to be the variations: Wendy Liebman telling it backwards, a ventriloquist telling it via his dummy, a magician turning it into patter for a card trick, the Smothers Brothers turning it into a typical Smothers Brothers "Dickie doesn't understand Tommy" argument, etc. Kevin Pollak tells it as a Christopher Walken impression and Martin Mull even manages to turn it into a completely different (and just as hoary) dirty joke.

Matter of fact, the biggest laugh at last night's screening was achieved by a white-faced mime, not because he was particularly brilliant but because by the time we got to his segment, we were sick of the story and delighted to see it parodied. Which is almost the point of The Aristocrats — to inure us to things that would offend our grandparents…and shouldn't. I know people who still think they have to react in outrage to bad taste humor; who haven't learned that it's so liberating to be able to laugh at it or, failing that, being bored. Both are infinitely preferable to getting upset. I have a friend who still turns himself in knots when someone says the "f" word in his presence. It's almost like he's trained himself to feel pain at something that doesn't bother the rest of us one bit. He wouldn't enjoy The Aristocrats. He wouldn't laugh himself sick, as I almost did, to hear Gilbert Gottfried pushing an already outrageous joke ever further across the line. That's my friend's loss.

The panel discussion that followed brought us co-producers Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, plus four folks who appeared in the film — Jason Alexander, Andy Dick, Bob Saget and Sarah Silverman. The talk was very amusing, though we learned almost nothing about the movie other than that Penn and Paul feel that the cover of the forthcoming DVD stinks beyond all belief. (You can see it and pre-order the DVD from Amazon by clicking here.) And Penn did explain how disappointed he was that both Buddy Hackett and Rodney Dangerfield declined to participate due to failing — and in both cases, terminal — health.

So I guess I'm glad I went. And in a way, I may even be glad they had that awful warm-up guy there. If nothing else, he reminded us that not all dirty jokes are hilarious. Some of them — especially in the hands of amateurs — are just plain boring.

I'm at a disadvantage trying to write about Richard Pryor. Though he appeared on a couple of shows I wrote and though I talked with him a half-dozen times, I never felt I knew the guy. You had the sense that those who did were a very small, elite group. There was always something of the "hurt animal" about him, keeping all at distance, forever looking like he was about to make a break for the door. He seemed especially troubled when someone would tell him, as many did, that he was the funniest man who ever lived. It was like a challenge for him to live up to, and he didn't seem to like being challenged. Or talked to by a lot of the people who wanted to get close to him.

I thought he was funny, though not as funny as many people did. Then again, I only got to see him perform stand-up once in person and it was a bad set. One night at the Comedy Store in the seventies, the next scheduled comic was someone loathsome and my party was moving to leave before he took the stage. A friend who had been on the bill earlier saw us gathering up garments, ran up to me and whispered, "Trust me…you don't want to leave now." He didn't say why but we had to stay and find out why we didn't want to leave now. A few moments later, the emcee said, "We have a surprise for you…" and before he could even say the name, Richard Pryor was squeezing between the tables, making his way to the front. The place exploded.

Sad to say, the entrance was the best part. Richard Pryor was not Richard Pryor that evening. He mumbled, he rambled, he started one story then changed his mind and launched into another. Finally, he realized what we all knew by then — that he was in no shape to perform just then. He did a quick old bit, got a big laugh and fled for the rear. If you'd paid to see Richard Pryor that night, you'd have been bitterly disappointed but as a surprise bonus, I guess it was okay.

At least you could tell people you'd seen Pryor perform live…though I wish I could add that I saw him at his best. I caught the stand-up films and played the albums and went to most of the movies and I laughed…but always from a distance. Some comedians transcend their pains and use them as material. Pryor did not always manage that for me and when I think of the man, I think more of the troubles than the comedy…and I felt that way even before he contracted multiple sclerosis and we all had to watch his sad, unrelenting deterioration.

So tonight, I'm thinking about that evening at the Comedy Store and of another time I met him in an office up on Sunset and then we walked down the boulevard together to Tower Records and talked a bit. I'm also thinking about being on the set of The Tonight Show when he made his first public appearance after his 1980 accident (I wrote about it here). And I'm thinking about Pryor's Place, a 1984 kids' show that he did for CBS Saturday morning. I was one of the writers and it was an odd experience: We could get anyone in show business to appear on the show except Richard Pryor. Guest stars fought to appear with him but about halfway through the production of the 13 episodes, Richard became more interested in a film project called Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. He had wanted to do a childrens' show because he felt he had some wisdom and experience to impart to kids…but after a couple of tapings, the movie was suddenly his important statement, and our producer had to press him hard to finish out the commitment. The first script done when he was persuaded to come back and do the last few episodes was one of mine and there was a joke in it Pryor didn't want to do.

Now, it's not at all unusual for a performer to refuse to do a line because he thinks it isn't funny, especially in my scripts. In this case though, Pryor didn't want to do the line because he thought it was funny. I stood in his dressing room, feeling just as awkward as I always did around him, as he told the director, "I'm doing this show because I want to speak to kids. I don't care if I make them laugh. That just takes away from what I have to say to them." The director made all the arguments you'd expect him to make and then Pryor cut the conversation short.

"I don't have to prove to anyone I can be funny," he said. No, he sure didn't. If ever anyone didn't have to prove that, it was Richard Pryor, perhaps the most acclaimed comedian ever by folks in the same line of work. I can't think of anyone who ever endured as much pain and still managed to laugh at it and to make audiences laugh along with him. I just wish there had been less pain to laugh about.

On December 13, MGM Home Video is bringing out what they're billing as a "Deluxe Edition" of The Producers…and I guess that from now on, when I refer to that movie, I have to specify which version. This is the original Zero Mostel version and here's an Amazon link to order it if you don't already have it.

I'm puzzled about something. On the old DVD of this movie, there was a photo of a sexy woman who did not appear anywhere in the film. The movie did have a very sexy woman in it — Lee Meredith — but for some reason, someone stuck a picture of some strange lady on the DVD case. I wondered about it here.

Even odder is what's on the cover of this new DVD: Gene Wilder is holding a woman's leg. Why is Gene Wilder holding a woman's leg? And he isn't even really holding it. It seems to be levitating between his hands. What is the meaning of this? How does this in any way relate to the film or convey the idea that this is a classic, much-loved comedy film? Anyone got an explanation for this? I'm waiting.

That's right, it's time to play the game that's fast putting Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right out of business…There's No Such Website! And here's how we play it: We give you descriptions of five websites and links to all five of them. Four of these websites actually exist on the Internet and if you click on the link, you'll visit them. One of these websites is a filthy lie concocted by our trained staff of filthy liars. Your job is to spot the lie. So now…for the battery-powered cheese straightener, the two-week vacation in Dom DeLuise's pants, the thong bikini fashioned from Ben Franklin's old kite string, a performance by the All-Dachsund Drill Team, the submarine sandwich made out of an actual submarine, and the entire nation of Chad, spot the phony website! The clock is ticking…

• Spamradio – Broadcasting 24/7, reading aloud the great junk mail messages we all receive for real estate deals, Nigerian banking scams, genital enlargement and low-interest home loans.
• Elmyr Danzig's Gallery of Lunch – Whenever photographer Elmyr Danzig spots someone carrying a lunchbox or bag lunch on the streets of Pittsburgh, he gets them to let him snap a photo of what they'll soon be eating. Some amazing bags of Fritos in there.
• Dehydrated Water – It's a great new product…compact, lightweight, easy to store, and perfect to take wherever you go. It's free of toxins, chemicals, lead, minerals, and almost every other dangerous substance you can think of.
• Monobrow – Glorifying the joys of having only one eyebrow.
• The Page That Turns You Into a Cabbage – It's hard to believe but there's actually a page on the Internet that can turn you into a cabbage. Or if you don't want to be a cabbage, a Brussels Sprout.

One of my favorite bits of animation on the web is a thing done for Consumers Union. It's the Progenitorovox spot all about how so many Americans are over-medicated and over-charged. If you haven't seen it, here's the link.

And I'm pleased to see the same folks are at it again, this time with a spot on credit cards called "It's Always Christmas Time (For Visa)!" You can view this one on this page. It's a very good attention-getter about a very bad problem in this country.

I recently discovered Sudoku puzzles, which is one reason I'm so far behind on answering e-mail. There are many places on the web that make them available but this website has more than you'll ever need.

Fred Kaplan discusses various proposals for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

If your neighbors are annoying you by decorating their homes for Christmas…well, just be glad you don't live across the street from this guy.