Monthly Archives: June 2006

These people say the world's funniest joke was written by Spike Milligan. I'm not dubious that it was written by Spike Milligan…only that it's the world's funniest joke.

Okay, I'm satisfied that the gent in the photo (in this post) was not Whitney Ellsworth and that it's almost certainly Harry Gerstad. The above pic shows Mr. Ellsworth on the set with George Reeves and as you can see, it's a different guy. In fact, it's a different guy who looks a lot more like Whitney Ellsworth did when I met him in 1968.

Whitney Ellsworth was an interesting figure in comic book history. He was a cartoonist and a pulp writer in the thirties and when those two forms merged to form the great American comic book, Ellsworth became the chief editor at DC Comics. As such, he spent most of his time not editing comics. That was done by underlings while Ellsworth watched over the company's licensing and their deals for movies and radio shows based on their characters. In the fifties, he relocated from New York to Los Angeles to supervise the George Reeves Superman TV show and never left. He stayed in L.A. trying to sell other shows and to represent the company's interests on programs that did get sold.

He was the first person in comics I ever interviewed and I got absolutely nothing out of him. I don't think that was because I was new at interviewing. It was because he was horribly nervous, even facing a 16 year old kid with a tape recorder. He didn't want to talk about Superman in the forties because that might have meant mentioning Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and he didn't want to talk about them. He didn't want to talk about Batman because…well, I'm not sure but I think it was because he was afraid we'd get near the topic of what Bob Kane actually did and why didn't Bill Finger get credit? He didn't want to talk about Wonder Woman because he was afraid of angering the estate of William Marston, who created the character. I think the big scoop I got out of our chat was that Aquaman sometimes talks to fish…and even that, he briefly tried to put off-the-record. DC was then going through major upheavals and I think he was terrified he'd say something impolitic, I'd print it in my little 300-circulation fanzine…and someone at DC would read it and use it as an excuse to terminate his position.

I didn't think that was him in the other photo but it's nice to know for certain. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, especially Brad Ferguson, who sent the above pic.

We have a triple feature for you today. In 1977, Three's Company debuted on ABC. I was never a fan of the show but every so often, I'd catch an episode or part of one and note some fine comedic acting, especially by John Ritter. What a lot of people don't know is that Three's Company was a thrice-made pilot. All three versions had Mr. Ritter playing the not-gay roommate (though his character's name changed) and all three had Audra Lindley and Norman Fell as the Ropers, but the first had two different ladies playing Ritter's cohabitants. It also had a very different script — reportedly a much more adult approach.

You may be surprised to learn that Larry Gelbart wrote the script for that first pilot. He's credited with the words, "Developed by…" in this clip, which is the opening of that version…

ABC — which at the time meant Fred Silverman — liked some things about the pilot but not that writer's approach and not the two ladies. So they got new producers and a new script and they recast the ladies. Here's the opening of the second pilot…

Close but no, as they say, cigar. It's rare for a pilot to be filmed or taped three times. All in the Family was but those attempts spanned two networks. In the case of Three's Company, Silverman liked one of the new stars but not the other so the producers went hunting for a new Chrissy. When they found Suzanne Somers, they taped the pilot yet again and it was deemed buyable. It debuted with a short order (six episodes) in March of '77, became a hit and didn't leave the air until September of 1984. Even then, there was an attempt to spin off Ritter's character and keep things going. Like I said, I was not a fan but there were times — especially when Don Knotts joined the cast — when I couldn't resist tuning in. Here's the opening from the first season…

I received about twenty messages from folks answering my query about the man in the photo in the previous item. Some said it was definitely Whitney Ellsworth, some said it definitely was not and some in the latter group offered different names. The consensus — and it's not overwhelming — is that it's a gentleman named Harry Gerstad, who was a film editor on the show and later a director.

Alfred Walker, who thinks it's Gerstad, also reminds me that the A&E Network is debuting a two-hour special tomorrow night entitled Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman. It's a documentary about the Man of Steel and it airs tomorrow night at 8 PM East Coast time, 5 PM West Coast time. Then it reruns four hours later and runs again on later dates. I have no idea how it'll be but the TiVo is set.

Who is this man? No, no…I know the one on the right is George Reeves on the set of the Adventures of Superman TV show. But who's the guy on the left? Someone sent me this photo and asked if it was Whitney Ellsworth, who produced the show for a time after serving as Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics for many years. I only met Mr. Ellsworth once and that was in 1968, so I'm a bit fuzzy on what he looked like. He looked something like the gentleman in question but I'm not certain…so I'm wondering if anyone else is.

Here we go, here we go, here we go…

• Several folks have written to point out to me that Stevia is a natural sweetener, not an artificial sweetener. They're right. I don't particularly like it but it is from a natural herb. At the moment, I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I may not be the best judge.
• Jim Korkis sends this link to a good interview with Dick Beals and notes that Dick's autobiography, Think Big, is available on Amazon. True…but I'm going to order my copy from the address on that interview page so Dick makes a few more bucks off it. The man has had an astounding career, popping up in the darnedest places. The other day, I was watching an episode of the TV series, Captain Nice, and there was the sound of Beals in the theme song.
• Two people wrote to ask why I didn't also mention that Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) did the voices of the Chipmunks in that commercial. Well, I'm not sure he did. He probably did at least one of them but contrary to popular belief, the sounds of Alvin, Simon and Theodore were not all done by Mr. Bagdasarian with a sped voice. I used to think they were all him, and perhaps some articles said so…but folks who've slowed down Chipmunks records and TV shows have noted others in there, even in the original hit, "The Chipmunk Song." And it isn't always even consistent within one project. I'm told (I haven't studied this myself) that Bagdasarian is usually Alvin, frequently Simon and rarely Theodore. Or sometimes he does the singing voices of all three but the speaking voices of only one or two — this, along with doing David Seville in his natural, unsped voice.
• As a P.S. to the above item: I never really appreciated the skill Mr. Bagdasarian put into those recordings until I decided to have some characters on Garfield and Friends sing and talk in sped voices. It takes a fair amount of engineering skill and creative direction to blend voices in that situation and to keep them understandable. There have been a lot of imitations of The Chipmunks over the years and I never thought any of them were as good because, among other reasons, they didn't have someone with Bagdasarian's skill as a record producer and performer.
• As a P.S. to the above P.S.: When we tried speeding up Lorenzo Music on the Garfield cartoons, we discovered that his voice sounded like the same guy. It just plain refused to speed up.
• I really, really enjoyed the new Lewis Black special last night on HBO. It reruns many times to come.

Lastly, a continued thanks to the folks who've sent in cash donations this weekend. I'm quite stunned by both the volume and by some of the amounts. I'm thinking of having a big party when I hit the "100 pounds lost" mark and inviting everyone who helped. If we do, we'll hold it in my old pants.

Do they still make Soaky toys? They did as of a few years ago. I have a plastic Scooby Doo on my desk filled with bubble bath — Sergio gave it to me because he thought it was a great bit of sculpture — but it's not a Soaky-brand toy. Soaky toys were a line that came out from Colgate-Palmolive — plastic cartoon character figures filled with bubble bath. I guess the idea was that once they were empty, you could play with them in the tub…but I recall that some of them had a little groove where you were supposed to take a knife, cut a slot and then use the toy as a bank. I also recall having a batch of these toys when I was a kid, though I don't recall ever taking a bubble bath.

Anyway, here's a commercial for one of the most popular Soaky lines — Alvin, Simon and Theodore, aka The Chipmunks. In the spot, the voice of the Soaky Kid is done by Dick Beals, who is still working and who can still sound like a seven-year-old boy. This is because Dick is still about the height of one. Over the years, he's done hundreds of cartoons and commercials, and was even used often to dub voices for children in live-action movies. His most famous role was probably Speedy Alka-Seltzer but he was also Ralph Phillips in several cartoons that Chuck Jones directed for Warner Brothers. And he was a regular on Roger Ramjet and on Frankenstein Jr. and The Little Rascals and all sorts of other shows. I worked with Dick on a few shows and he's a real pro and, of course, one of the great unsung voice actors of television and movies.

This weblog post neatly summarizes how I feel about the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I'd like to believe it will do something to diminish terrorism but I suspect it will do that about as much as the passing of Colonel Sanders ended the frying of chicken. And I will always be at least a little uncomfortable at the celebration of anyone's death, even when the anyone is murdering scum. Which is not to say I don't understand why people are cheering.

I received a number of donations overnight, many of them from folks who want to hear more about my Gastric Bypass surgery. Send me cash and I'll write about almost anything…

It's been fifteen days since a skilled surgeon did his magic and I'm down 25 pounds. I haven't yet reached the stage where the change is noticeable to folks who don't see me often but the ones who do are amazed. Sergio is already figuring he'll just go back to his old caricatures of me…which will work fine since I have most of those clothes in storage and will be wearing them again.

People want to know what I eat and the answer is "not much." I have almost zero appetite. My brain tells me I'd love an In-n-Out Burger with onions and a side of well-done fries…but my stomach isn't much interested. For two weeks, I've dined on chicken broth from Canter's Delicatessen and protein drinks…and lemme tell you about protein drinks, people. It's rough out there for a guy who doesn't like artificial sweeteners. I have genuine concerns about the effects of Aspartame, Sucralose and other such chemicals on the body but I don't have to decide for certain. That's because I long ago decided that even if they aren't harmful, I don't want them in me. When someone tells me that Diet Coke is indistinguishable from The Real Thing, I look at them like they're telling me the Earth revolves around the Moon. Sometimes, I even offer to bet them large sums of cash that I can tell the difference in a blind taste test. (This was before I gave up carbonated beverages completely, which I did last February.)

Over the years, this distaste always inhibited my attempts to find a workable diet. I went to several professional dietitians, each of whom was incapable of grasping the phrase, "I don't want to take artificial sweeteners." The nutritionist who worked out of my previous doctor's office stared at me like…well, like I stare at people who say Diet Pepsi tastes just like Real Pepsi. Yeah, like fake breasts look and feel exactly like real ones.

A diet without artificial sweeteners? It was as if I'd asked this nutritionist lady to write me a novel without using vowels. She apparently decided to just pretend I hadn't said what I'd said and proceeded to recommend things loaded with Nutrasweet, Splenda and all the things I'd just said I couldn't stand. I reminded her of my requirements and she said, "Oh, okay. Then try these…" and she handed me another list of foods filled with toxic sugar imitations. You'd be amazed how often this has happened to me. It's almost like, "If you don't like Nutrasweet and Splenda, try Splenda and Nutrasweet." There are times when life is way too much like the Monty Python "Spam" sketch.

Most of the protein drinks seem to have but one goal: To make you think you're drinking a real milk shake…ergo, the vast quantities of Sucralose. After trying about a dozen, several of which reaffirmed my distaste for Splenda, I finally settled on Jay Robb Whey Protein. It contains Stevia, a relatively benign artificial sweetener which I also think does not taste anything like sugar…or even its ubiquitous successor-in-interest, high fructose corn syrup. Tastes a bit unnatural but I can get it down, which is what counts. To mix these alleged beverages and to purée upcoming foods, I bought one of these…

Yes, it's the Magic Bullet, star of every third infomercial currently running on TV. It's a small blender with interchangeable blades and cups, and it works…barely. If I get a little healthier, I'll be able to stir faster than it can. Still, it's handy to have around. The protein drink is a bit more tolerable when it's made with cold water and whipped 'til frothy. I don't recommend the machine for most kitchen uses but it serves my purpose.

This is about when I'm supposed to be sneaking more solid foods into my diet. Last night, I ate a neat thing they now sell at Trader Joe's — a package containing four egg whites which scramble right in the container, right in your microwave. I had no problem eating and digesting this. Today, I used my Magic Bullet to pulverize canned tuna (with a dollop of Miracle Whip) into something resembling baby food. The daily goal here is to get enough protein. The guidelines they gave me at the hospital said that for a guy my height (six-three), I should shoot for 125 grams per day. This is physically impossible. One of those protein shakes, each of which contains 24, and I'm full for hours. My surgeon and doctor each said I'd be okay with a minimum of 50 but 75 would be better. This will be easier when I reach the stage of eating solid foods — still two or three weeks away — but I'm coming close.

None of this is meant to sound like a great hardship. I feel great and as I say, without hunger or headaches. It's just odd to be eating only because your doctor said you had to. This must be a little like it feels in the early stages of anorexia. I'll write more about my experiences when I think of something or when some more people send me money and say they want to hear about it.

I had a very good time last evening reading the first two volumes in what I hope will be a long series from Craig Yoe — Arf Museum and Modern Arf. These are nice books from Fantagraphics in which Craig has picked out interesting items of comic art from his, and I suppose some other folks' collections. There are panel cartoons, stories, illos…diverse material that is somehow united by Craig's mere celebratory selection of it. It's hard to explain why. It may be no deeper than that Mr. Yoe likes the same kind of stuff I do. Anyway, I suggest either ordering them or at least paging through them at a store or convention, which will lead to you wanting to buy them. Great stuff.

Above and beyond the fascinating contents, there's something else very nice about these books: They're beautifully designed and totally legible. Lately, those two virtues have seemed mutually exclusive in the book world. I've gotten a lot of books that were quite lovely to page through but at some point, I found myself unable to actually read some extended section of text. Somehow, it was more important that the designer put a busy color pattern behind a flimsy type font or something…and you can almost hear someone say to someone else, "It's okay. There's plenty of other text here they can read if that's what they want."

The other day, I received a printed copy of a book for which I wrote an article and I cannot read my own text. I have 20/20 vision and I kinda already know what it says…but I still can't make out what I said in some paragraphs. This is not a trivial complaint, nor is it particularly arguable. The last time this happened to me, the company's art director had all sorts of defenses. Apparently, the aesthetics of unified thematic composition required a certain page layout and the fact that it rendered some of those pages unreadable was just nitpicking on my part. I felt so foolish.

Anyway, that's not a problem with Craig's books. Just one of the reasons you'll enjoy them.

Like I said, I haven't been to New York in quite a while. As a result, I haven't seen The Wedding Singer, a new Broadway musical based on the Adam Sandler movie of the same name. You probably haven't seen it, either. So here, for the both of us, is a little "screen to stage" promotional film that gives us a quick glimpse of the show.

I have a whole bunch of things I need to post here and I'll get them out of the way in one item…

• An attention-getting topic on this website some time ago was my encounter with a crooked tow truck driver. I got an awful lot of e-mail from folks who said they'd had experiences not unlike mine and had come to the same reluctant conclusion: That there was very little a swindled person in that situation could do. I'm happy to report (and to direct you to an article that Dana Gabbard sent me) that something is finally being done about this racket. Read all about it. The company that ripped me off is not among those named in the article but it's among the indicted, as I found out today by calling the office of one of the detectives who'd advised me at the time of the offense. I am quite happy about this and am rethinking my reservations about the Death Penalty.
• Since I haven't been to New York in a couple of years, I have limited interest in this Sunday's Tony Awards ceremony. But the TiVo's set and I look forward to a nice sampler of what's currently playing on and around Broadway. As you can see here, there doesn't seem to be a lot of doubt as to who will win, so the big suspense may be whether the broadcast will be any good. I suspect its producers are erring by not having a central host this year. In the immortal words of Rocket J. Squirrel, "That trick never works."
• My pal Joe Bevilacqua has been doing wonderful things with audio comedy for XM Satellite Radio. Now, he's making the inevitable transition to video. You can see a promo at this link.
• In the text accompanying this morning's video link, I made reference to a very old Van Johnson. Actually, he wasn't that old at the time. He was 69. Some of you may be surprised to learn that the actor in question is still with us. He's ninety years old and is now a very old Van Johnson.
• A very public thank you to Tom Stewart, whose keen articles have appeared in a number of TwoMorrows magazines lately. Tom sent me one of the nicest gifts I can recall receiving — a hardcover copy of Moss Hart's Winged Victory, autographed by the author. Tom is a fine scholar of comic book history and I'm glad to see his reputation has survived the accusation, once made by a primary industry figure, that he was just a pseudonym for me.
• Lastly, speaking of people giving me things: After a long drought, this site is again receiving donations. This comes just in time because I'm just starting to receive the bills for the Gastric Bypass Surgery I had two weeks ago today. The first bill was for $73,282.87 and this does not (repeat: NOT) include doctors. That's just for the operating room, the room in which I spent two nights and so on. Additional fees, including the tests I had to have to qualify for the procedure, will kick the whole thing over the 100 Grand mark…and while insurance will take care of most of it, I'm still going to have to come up with a fifth to a fourth of it. Given how good I feel, it may be the best bargain I've gotten in my life but it's still nice to log in and see that a reader of the weblog has sent a gratuity. So thanks to those of you who have and if you'd like to kick in, this link will gladly accept your PayPal contribution. If you're attending this year's Comic-Con International, you might want to show your gratitude for the fact that the convention hall will seem less crowded with a skinnier me in it.

This one runs almost nine minutes and if you start watching, you may have trouble tearing yourself away from it.

Back in 1982, producer Alexander Cohen whipped up a three-hour special for ABC called The Night of 100 Stars. It was quite an event with well more than a hundred stars appearing in songs and production numbers…though as I recall, some of them just walked onto the stage, received a round of applause and left. The bulk of them, in fact, just performed for a few seconds and then split…but there was still something kind of exciting about a three-hour show where every few seconds, a new surprise guest star appears. (This ties in with our discussion the other day of something I miss — genuine surprises on television. The Night of 100 Stars may have been the first show on TV with too many of them.)

It did so well that Cohen produced two more — in 1985 and 1990. Again each time, there were a lot more than 100 stars on the premises though in these two shows, the definition of "star" was lowered a bit. There are even a couple of people I never heard of in the clip below, which is from the '85 outing. Fortunately, almost everyone is identified by a chyron of their name and a number that represents a running count on the number of stars in the special. A couple of people — like Dick Van Dyke — aren't labelled this way because (I'm guessing) they had already appeared and been counted earlier in the show.

So here's a dance number with an incredible cast. Keep your eye out for a very young Christopher Walken and a very old Van Johnson.

One of the most-accessed articles on this website has been my piece on Rod Hull, a comedian who was popular in Australia and Great Britain. Rod, who died in 1999, worked with a grotesque but very popular bird puppet named Emu.

I'm happy to learn that Emu is back in business, now operated by the arm of Rod's son Toby. Here are the details with a thank you to Rob Rose for letting me know about this.

George Kashdan, who worked as an editor and writer at DC Comics from around 1946 until 1968, died last Saturday, apparently from complications relating to a stroke. He had been depressed for some time because of his failing health and that afternoon, he laid down for a nap and never woke up from it.

Kashdan was born May 17, 1928 in The Bronx. He got a B.A. at the University of Chicago and promptly secured a staff editorial position at DC Comics where his brother Bernard was among the most important people in the business division. DC put George to work editing, writing and rewriting scripts, mostly for back-up features (Congo Bill, Captain Compass, Green Arrow, Johnny Quick) but he got an occasional shot at Superman and Batman. Through the early sixties, he worked under editor Jack Schiff (and sometimes, Mort Weisinger). In a book like Action Comics, which featured Superman in the front and strips like Congorilla and Tommy Tomorrow in the back, it was not uncommon for Kashdan to edit the back-up features while Weisinger took care of the cover and lead story.

In 1961, one of the back-up strips he'd long helmed, Aquaman, graduated to his own comic and Kashdan became a full editor, soon taking on House of Mystery, Tales of the Unexpected and several others, including a strip that was a particular favorite of his — Rip Hunter, Time Master. Later in the sixties, he presided over the launch of Metamorpho and Teen Titans, and began the "team-up" format in The Brave and the Bold. Other comics he edited at times during the sixties include Blackhawk, Sea Devils, Bomba the Jungle Boy and Hawkman. He also found time to write several scripts for animated shows produced out of New York such as The Mighty Hercules (1963) and for DC's television projects, including The Superman-Aquaman Hour which was produced by Filmation in Southern California and which aired on CBS's Saturday morning schedule.

In 1968, as part of a program of editorial restructuring, Kashdan was let go by DC. Several people who worked with him said it was because he was "too nice" and had occasionally clashed with management in arguing that freelancers should be paid and treated better. Others suggested that his tenure was ended because of upper-level dissatisfaction with his work. Either way, he was let go and Dick Giordano was hired to take over most of his books.

Kashdan returned primarily to writing, most of it for the New York office of Western Publishing Company. He wrote dozens of stories for Gold Key Comics like The Twilight Zone and Grimm's Ghost Stories. He did extended stints for them writing Flash Gordon and Star Trek, and also penned several childrens' books for Western's non-comic divisions, along with freelancing for other publishers (comics and otherwise) and even doing a couple of scripts for DC. In the eighties, his freelancing slowed due to failing health and several personal tragedies. He relocated to Los Angeles to be near his remaining family.

I have to insert a personal note here. When I was a kid, I would often buy the new comics at a little store called Parnin's Pharmacy located on Westwood Boulevard near Olympic in West Los Angeles. One day in 1966, while waiting in line with my purchases, I paged through the new Aquaman I was about to buy and saw — to a numb amazement I can recall to this day — that the editor had published a note from me in the letter column. I was 14 years old and it was the first time I'd ever seen anything I'd written in print with my name attached.

This sounds very trivial but anyone reading this who's ever made a buck as a professional writer can probably relate to that thrilling moment. The editor who printed it was George Kashdan, who was then far off in New York City. But — and I swear this is true — Mr. Kashdan lived his declining days in a retirement home located in West L.A. on Westwood near Olympic…directly across the street from where Parnin's used to be.

A number of us historian-type people found him there a few years ago and he was extensively interviewed by phone. I talked to him at length…and for a man who was recovering from a stroke, he had an amazing memory for most things, though not the passage of time. Every time we spoke, I had to run over a list with him of who among his old associates was still alive. He kept hoping to recover enough to get to a Comic-Con International some day and see some of them, especially his old pal Arnold Drake, who remained in touch. My friend Jim Amash taped several more extensive talks with him and they'll be turning up soon in Roy Thomas's fine publication, Alter Ego. (Thanks to Jim for helping me with this obit, by the way.) Even though I drive by that retirement home two or three times a week, I never got to go in and visit Mr. Kashdan in person. He just never felt up to receiving visitors that way.

But I did tell him via phone how much I'd enjoyed so many of his comics. I even told him about the one I really didn't like, which was the super-hero revamp of Blackhawk in 1967, and he didn't seem to have liked it much, either. He sounded like a charming and bright man, and even though I never got to drag him out to lunch down the street at Junior's Delicatessen, as we often discussed, I feel like I've lost a buddy.