Monthly Archives: August 2006

It's Walt Kelly Day and you know what that means: We celebrate the birthdate of one of the world's great cartoonists by singing songs, dancing dances, drawing drawings, painting paintings, chanting chants and feasting on feasts. On this planet, we encounter so few talents of that kind…where everything they did, everything they left us, just makes you feel better and happier and maybe even a little smarter. The creator of Pogo Possum was one such talent, and we thank him for a lifetime of wondrous work.

And a reminder: Don't put the hats and horns away so quickly. Next Monday is Jack Kirby Day.

Last night, I posted this item telling you that all Fantagraphics Books are 20% off so this would be a great time to buy, for example, The Complete Peanuts. The first five volumes retail for $144.75 so a 20% discount takes them down to $115.80. That's a good deal for you and probably a nice profit for Fantagraphics. I like the idea of, where feasible, buying books directly from the publisher (or even better, the author), thereby allowing more of the purchase price to go to folks who'll use the bucks to publish more. I'll often buy something that way, even though it would be a bit cheaper to order from a serious discounter.

However, under the oath I took when I became a Weblogger, I vowed to always tell you the best possible deal I could locate for an item. This requires me to mention something that Nat Gertler reminded me about. You can get those five Peanuts books even cheaper if you buy Volume One and Volume Two as one boxed set, and Volume Three and Volume Four as another. You get the same books plus you get the neat little slipcase that miraculously transforms two separate books into one boxed set.

Over at the Fantagraphics site, the two boxed sets retail for $49.95 each. Add in the as-yet unboxed Volume Five ($28.95) and the list price for all five is $128.85. Take 20% off that and your cost is $103.08.

But as they say in infomercials…"Wait! There's more!" Cole Odell reminds me that Amazon routinely discounts the most popular titles from Fantagraphics up to 37%. Right now, they sell the individual volumes for $18.24 each and the boxed sets for $32.97. So two boxed sets plus Volume Five equals $84.88. And it's even better than that because if you order from Fantagraphics, you'll need to pay shipping, which will tack another $22.50 onto your order, whereas Amazon will ship for free. I'm all for supporting publishers but the total Fantagraphics price works out to $125.58, whereas Amazon will sell you the exact same thing for $84.88, a savings of more than forty bucks. My sense of honor requires that I mention this.

And my sense of industry requires that I provide this Amazon link to order. That link will take you to the ordering page for the first boxed set and from there you can navigate easily to pick up the other books. If you go to the Amazon site via that link, this site receives a small cut of anything you order while you're over there…and not just Fantagraphics books or Peanuts books.

However, do not forsake the Fantagraphics 20% discount altogether! It has its useful qualities. As Mr. Odell notes in his e-mail, "…where [it] comes in handy is with the part of the list that isn't discounted better, elsewhere: any items not distributed through the book trade, plus items like Roberta Gregory's Bitchy Butch TPB, Feiffer, The Collected Works Vol. 1, and probably a slew of titles that didn't turn up in my cursory Amazon search."

Good point. Wherever possible, support the folks who create the books and those who publish them. But hey, forty bucks is forty bucks.

If you're been reading this weblog, you know my pal Jim Brochu has been starring in a play up in Hollywood in which he somehow turns himself into Zero Mostel. I don't know how he does it, either…but he sure does it well.

The play closes tomorrow night and the last performances are long since sold out so this isn't a plug. Well, maybe it is, because I'm sure Jim will be doing it again in other cities, probably even in future decades. I have a feeling he'll be doing this show for the rest of his life, except that I'm suggesting that in about twenty years, he convert it to Nathan Lane.

If he does it near you, go see him. For now, you'll have to be content with this sampler of four minutes from the play…

If you haven't started collecting the new series of Peanuts books yet, now would be a great time. It would also be a great time to pick up on a lot of other great books published by Fantagraphics. They're having a 20% off sale. From now 'til September 30, if your order totals $40 or more, they'll lop a fifth off your tab. The first five volumes of The Complete Peanuts, for example, would ordinarily run you $144.75. Ordered during the sale period, you'd pay…wait, I'm doing the math…

Looks like $115.80 to me. That's five for the price of four. And it isn't just Peanuts. It's all the Fantagraphics books, Eros titles excluded. There are a lot of goodies there that would look splendid on your shelf and are even more fun to read. Go for it.

Jonathan Alter on one of the many things making us less safe than we oughta be from terrorists: The FBI is still handling its data on computers not that much more sophisticated than the one I used to write Scooby Doo comic books in the early eighties.

Why is it so difficult to get this kind of thing upgraded? You'd think Dick Cheney must have one buddy in the computer business who'd gladly sell us $100 million worth of computers for a no-bid $2 billion government contract.

A great jazz trumpeter is gone. Click below to be reminded how good he was…

I made it through all 4+ hours of When The Levees Broke, an HBO documentary by filmmaker Spike Lee. Much of it is tough going because it means witnessing the pain that so many people felt when their homes and lives were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and — as the film makes clear — the incompetence (and sometimes indifference) of those we count on in a time of emergency. Parts of it also made me angry. I find that in the face of such devastation, I get angry at government officials of all kinds, of all parties, who spend time on comparative trivia like flag-burning amendments, pork projects for their home districts and buddies, and impeaching Bill Clinton.

The story is told through news footage, newly-shot footage and — most compelling of all — the personal accounts of a vast number of locals and witnesses. Lee found some articulate and perceptive people to interview and he let them talk, in some cases at considerable length. The stories and observations often cover the same ground and there are moments when you may be tempted to grab for the Fast Forward button and say, "All right, already. We get it." Part of me wishes Lee had made the film shorter, not because any of the tales are unworthy of telling, but because a lot of people who need to see this account won't clear the four hours. And if they do start watching, they won't make it to the last hour, the message of which is that the system is still broken with regard to helping people down there.

On the other hand, it is an important story…one of the most important ever told about life in these United States. Maybe four hours isn't too long.

Early Sunday morning (3:01 AM in some time zones), NBC is rerunning the full, 90-minute version of the Saturday Night Live originally broadcast on October 3, 1981. It was not a great episode but it was somewhat important in the show's history.

As you may recall, when Lorne Michaels departed the show after Season #5, all the cast members and writers went with him. A former talent coordinator named Jean Doumanian was inexplicably appointed Producer and assigned the impossible job of rebuilding the show, almost from scratch. Among those who were around the show at this time, there seems to be a consensus that no one could have succeeded in the situation (not much lead time, lower budgets, network expectations of an instant classic, etc.) but that it didn't have to be quite that bad.

Anyway, Ms. Doumanian was fired and a man named Dick Ebersol was handed the job of building something out of the wreckage. He didn't have a lot of money to do it with and he had even less time. Ebersol produced an episode or two…but then he caught a break. The Writers Guild called a strike and NBC agreed to end that season of Saturday Night Live early. Ebersol suddenly had until the Fall to remodel the show, and he did. The 10/3/81 episode was the first of the new season and while not great, it was a huge improvement. Eddie Murphy especially blossomed with a sketch in which he played an amalgam of the legendary rocker, Little Richard, and the legendary exercise instructor, Richard Simmons.

There was no real host but Rod Stewart did some musical numbers and performed in sketches so he almost functioned as host. You'll also see juggler Michael Davis do a nice turn, from back in the days when SNL used to book acts like that. The entire cast consisted of Brian-Doyle Murray, Robin Duke, Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross, Tim Kazurinsky, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo and Tony Rosato.

The following week in the same time slot, NBC is running the 1/30/82 episode from the same season. John Madden was the guest host and Jennifer Holliday was the musical guest, singing two songs from the Broadway show, Dreamgirls. Most of the show was Eddie Murphy but somewhere in there, there's one of Andy Kaufman's odder appearances.

One of my many correspondents on this site, Phil Conley, sent me this link with the message, "I don't like auto racing, but…well, just watch."

I don't like auto racing either, but…well, like Phil says. Just watch.

Back in this message, I mentioned a new video processing technique called Live Feed. It can take an old, grainy kinescope of a TV show and transform it so it looks like it's being shot on modern video equipment. I've seen several examples of it in action and it's stunning.

If you watch the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, you'll see a few seconds of it. In the "death montage" I just mentioned, there's some footage of Jan Murray hosting one of his many game shows. This footage was processed by the Live Feed people, who were given a very bad kinescope to enhance. Watch and see what they did to it.

I may have said this last year but I'm glad I don't have the job of preparing the "In Memoriam" montage that runs on the Emmy Awards, especially this year. Someone has to go over a list of who in the history of television has passed on in the preceding twelve months and then decide who to leave out…knowing full well the family of the omitted will be sitting there, disappointed at the slight. Some loved ones have even been known to send in formal protests describing their hurt and/or anger.

Someone also has to decide who's the "biggie" that they'll use to close the montage. Another tough decision.

Want to play? Here's a partial list of folks in the TV business who've died in the last twelve months. I've left out between 20 and 30 people who might have made the rundown in a lean year. I skipped over movie people like Shelley Winters and recording artists like Gene Pitney and just left in those I think have a shot at it because they did a lot of television. There are 38 names here. Tell me which ones you'd leave out.

Don Adams, June Allyson, Lloyd Bochner, Red Buttons, Jean Byron, Hamilton Camp, Franklin Cover, Bob Denver, Robert Donner, Mike Douglas, Ralph Edwards, Tony Franciosa, Curt Gowdy, Skitch Henderson, Barnard Hughes, Don Knotts, Al Lewis, Pat McCormick, Darren McGavin, Pat Morita, Jan Murray, Sheree North, Louis Nye, Buck Owens, Richard Pryor, Lou Rawls, Charles Rocket, Nipsey Russell, Vincent Schiavelli, Wendie Jo Sperber, Maureen Stapleton, Robert Sterling, Harold J. Stone, Amzie Strickland, Jack Warden, Dennis Weaver, Lennie Weinrib and Jack Wild.

Difficult to pick, right? Ah, wait. It gets worse…because I was only listing performers there. The Academy has been making an attempt to also acknowledge the behind-the-scenes people. The list they had to pick from also included producers, directors, writers, composers and many others. There are potentially fifty more contenders in these categories but I'll be nice and only give you 13 more names to consider. You probably have to get at least a few of these in so as to not slight their professions…

Harvey Bullock, Dan Curtis, Marty Farrell, Bud Freeman, Bruce Johnson, Douglas Hines, Jerry Juhl, Gloria Monty, Michael Piller, Rick Rhodes, Richard Snell, Aaron Spelling and Mickey Spillane.

Now, some of those folks aren't all that well known but the Academy would be demeaning itself and its awards to skip over them. Rick Rhodes, for instance, was a composer who received 27 Emmy nominations and six awards. Are you going to not mention his passing on the Emmy telecast? How about Jerry Juhl, who received seven nominations and one statuette for his work with the Muppets? Make-Up Expert Richard Snell, editor Douglas Hines and game show producer Anne-Marie Schmitt all received multiple nominations and awards. Gonna leave them out? (Irony Alert: One of the names that probably will not be included is Marty Farrell…and the irony here is that Marty often wrote the Emmy Awards and in some years, may have had a hand in this decision.)

I am told that Aaron Spelling will be the subject of a separate tribute. The rest will all go into one montage and while I don't know how many people will be in it, there won't be 50. I'm guessing 20…25, tops. Beyond that, I have no predictions other than that I probably left out someone important…and the segment will probably end with Don Knotts. Everyone loved Don and he took home a load of them Emmy thingies (five!) in his career.

So study the list. You still have time to place a small wager.

Want to listen to another interview with Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón talking about their graphic novel journalism version of The 9/11 Report? There's an audio segment with them over on the National Public Radio website at this link. The segment runs a little under eight minutes. Thank you, Quinton Buckley, for telling me about it.

Bob Harris offers another bit of insight on Bush's press conference the other day. Harris peeks at the man's notes.

As I mentioned here, I was appalled by George W. Bush's August 21 press conference. I don't think the guy's a very good president and I think almost every policy he's pursuing is exacerbating, not easing, the problems it was intended to solve. But this time, I was really stunned by his demeanor, his inability to defend his positions via coherent sentences and above all, his leaden attempts to josh with the press corps and to avoid serious answers via lighthearted faux friendliness. I kept waiting for at least one reporter to get up and say, "I don't mind the folksy banter, Mr. President, but I would like a real response to my question."

I think the Democrats are missing a bet (and there's a clause that's about as rare on the Internet as porn) by not opening up a website and just posting, without comment, videos of everything this man says and does. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's a link to the White House record of that press conference. There's a written transcript but it doesn't capture the panic in Bush's eyes or the desperation with which he tries to sell the Same Old Lines to a nation that has long since decided it ain't buying. You'll have to watch the video, which is also available on that page.

And while I'm at it: Am I the only one who can't get the videos on the C-Span site to play? I'm pretty good at navigating websites and I even understand the technologies involved in embedded and streaming video clips. I've now learned how to capture just about any clip and download it to my hard disk for posterity…but I can't even get the C-Span videos to open, and I've attacked them with three different browsers. I know C-Span operates on a budget of about eleven dollars a week, and that's including gas and electricity. But you'd think they could do better than to hire the guy who ran Joe Lieberman's website. Yeesh.

Here's a follow-up on this item about the new graphic novel interpretation of The 9/11 Report. Yesterday, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón appeared on a five-minute Today Show segment, interviewed by NBC newsman David Gregory. Gregory introduced them as having created Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich (which they didn't) and challenged them a little with the notion that their depiction of what happened on 9/11 is offensive to some who lost loved ones on that day. I thought Sid and Ernie did a good job of rebutting that idea. (By the way, I haven't seen Ernie in a while. When did he turn into Christopher Walken?) A shorter version of the segment also ran last night on NBC Nightly News.

What's that? You want a link to the online video of The Today Show? Well, let's see if we can do this for you. I think this will connect you to it, at least for a day or two. I don't know how long they keep these up.