Monthly Archives: September 2006

Just back from doing something I haven't done since 1988: Picketing. My first thirteen years as a member of the Writers Guild of America, West found me pounding pavement three separate times…or was it four? Whatever it was, we were striking more than some of us were working. In the '88 strike, I even got involved with helping to organize the picketing and the demonstrations.

When I have more time, I'll write more about why we had to strike then, why we haven't had to strike since, and why I fear next year will be the greatest year of Labor Unrest that Hollywood has ever seen. At the moment though, the immediate battle is over the "reality" show, America's Next Top Model. As explained here, its writers are seeking to be recognized as writers and to have the WGA recognized as their collective bargaining representative.

This morning, maybe a thousand WGA members — most of them clad in red WGA t-shirts — assembled at Pan Pacific Park, which is more or less adjacent to what they used to call, at the start of many a CBS show, "Television City in Hollywood." (It's not really in Hollywood and neither is anything done at NBC Studios in Burbank. But when you're on television, you're allowed to lie…at least about things like that.) We heard about an hour of speeches by our leaders, by prominent writers in the industry and by the striking "reality show" writers. Then we marched around the CBS building, effectively picketing the people waiting to go into a taping of The Price is Right.

I have to go off and do things this afternoon so I'm going to have to serialize this post and continue it later. But I have to say before departing that I was enormously impressed with, first of all, my Guild's organization of the event. Everything we did wrong or were unable to do in '88 from the standpoint of logistics and physical set-up, they did right this morning. Secondly, the mood was strong, the unity was almost tangible and the members who turned out — many of whom seemed too young to have been involved in earlier strikes — seemed to not only "get" what it was all about but to ready to march for any just cause. I sure felt better about the future for having been there today. I'll write more about why that is later today.

Eric Boehlert writes about the press and the way it's dealing with the unpopularity of George W. Bush. Basically, his thesis — for which he makes a pretty good case — is that there are reporters out there who are determined to write stories that say Bush's approval rating is bouncing back and on the upswing. So they keep writing that story even though it's unsupported by the numbers they're quoting.

I will be a guest at this year's Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus, Ohio. This is an always-wonderful convention that takes place on the weekend following Thanksgiving…in this case, November 25 and 26. Also on the roster of folks appearing there are Al Feldstein, Dick Ayers, Herb Trimpe, Don Rosa, Tony Isabella and many others, including Joyce DeWitt and Richard Kline from Three's Company. I'll let you know more about it as the date draws nearer.

Here's one of my favorite commercials. It's for Kellogg's Raisin Bran and the voice of The Sun is done by the late, great Daws Butler. I was never much for raisin bran but this spot almost made me run out and buy a box…just because of Daws. I believe the little "SV" on the screen stands for Shokus Video, run by my pal Stuart Shostak. If you ever need film or slides transferred to tape or DVD, he's the guy — honest, fast, conscientious, reasonably-priced…and he even appreciates a good delicatessen. Browse around his website and find stuff to buy.

I said somewhere on this site that I didn't like "hidden camera" TV shows. Let me amend that. I've never liked alleged comedy shows that play tricks on people. (Or which purport to play tricks on people. Some of them these days are obvious frauds where the supposed victim is clearly in on the gag and playing along. I'm not sure which is worse.)

I do like one kind of "hidden camera" show and I wish we had more of them. Those are the investigative reports that some TV news crews do, mostly in the area of consumer fraud. I know it's a stunt and I know most of 'em are hyped as far more dramatic than they are. Still, if some business is ripping off customers, I love the idea of them getting nailed like that…and of all businesses worrying a bit if the next person they cheat is an undercover TV reporter.

KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles has a reporter named Joel Grover who's doing some fine work in this area. As you can see in this report (and the follow-ups on the same page), they sent hidden cameras into nine Jiffy Lube stores in Southern California. In five out of the nine cases, they were charged for repairs that were simply and deliberately not performed. In another report (this one), they found out that many taxis in the Los Angeles area had their meters adjusted to charge more than the legal rate of $2.20 per mile. Grover and his crew caught the guy who configured a meter that way admitting that he did it and that it was illegal.

I wish TV did more of that. I also wish they aimed higher up. One thing that bothers me about some of these "investigations" is that, like many of the films for which Michael Moore became famous, there's a tendency to target the folks at the bottom of the corruption — the clerks, the security guards and so on. What impressed me about Grover's Jiffy Lube exposé was that he made it clear that it wasn't a couple of rogue servicepeople swindling the customers…it was almost Company Policy. Guess where I'm never taking my car for servicing.

Fred Kaplan discusses the chances of the U.S. attacking Iran.

Take two minutes and sixteen seconds and watch this trailer for the movie, Blazing Saddles. See if you notice something I noticed…and try not to peek at the paragraph below the video box where I'll explain what I realized…

Okay, done? Good. Now then, did you notice what I noticed?

Right: The trailer isn't funny. I thought the movie was pretty funny but the trailer is amazingly unfunny. I've seen trailers that by excerpting everything that was remotely amusing in a 90 minute movie made you think the whole film was like that. Remember that movie, Partners, with Ryan O'Neal and John Hurt? Screamingly funny trailer, not-so-funny movie. How about Pure Luck with Martin Short and Danny Glover? People howled at the preview of that one, little suspecting that those two minutes were all there was to laugh at in the full movie.

But you rarely see it work the other way around. It's almost like the person assigned to edit and assemble this Blazing Saddles trailer was determined to cut out punch lines and make sure that jokes didn't have payoffs. There were plenty of mirth-filled clips they could have taken out of the film, starting with most of the stuff with the Mongo character played by Alex Karras…but Mr. Mongo is nowhere to be seen in these Coming Attractions, not even when he punches the horse. Nor do you see the campfire scene or the scene where Cleavon Little takes himself hostage or any other material that made the film memorable to those who loved it.

The essence of the movie is that you have this black sheriff who's in charge of a town where the people are afraid of a black man. That's a funny premise but they didn't even establish that in the trailer. In fact, none of the townspeople, all of whom were quite funny, are really in the trailer.

In the scene in Harvey Korman's office with Slim Pickens, there's a funny gag where Korman is fondling a statue. They cut most of it out — enough so you have no idea what he's doing — but they left in a shot of Slim reacting in disgust to it.

Then they tried to create a joke by cutting from Korman saying "See 'snatch'" to a shot of Madeline Kahn. I can almost hear the editor saying, "Naw, I don't want to put in one of those crude funny moments…I'll invent a crude one that isn't funny."

After that, there's the bit where Ms. Kahn looks at a cowboy with his hat on his lap and says — in the movie — "Is that a ten-gallon hat or are you just enjoying the show?" If you cut out the second part of the line, as they did in the trailer, you nullify most of the joke. Nice going, Tex.

Then we see Mel Brooks in his governor character (although there's no inkling of who he is) in the scene where he's sitting next to the lady with the enormous melons. In the film, he turns to her chest and says, "Hello, boys!" It's a big laugh so naturally, they had to cut the shot before his line. They'd already gotten what they wanted. They showed us that the movie contains about twenty seconds of huge breasts.

The editor cuts from the breasts to a shot of the fake town…which makes no sense at all if you haven't seen the movie. And from there it's onward to further incoherence but — God forbid — no humor.

Would you have any idea what this movie was about from the trailer? Would you think it was funny? Very odd. Oh, well. Nice narration job there by Marvin Miller, by the way. When is someone going to put his old TV show, The Millionaire, out on DVD or up on cable?

Over on the New York Times website, George Gene Gustines has assembled what they call a "slide show" to discuss Jack Kirby's artwork on a particularly fine issue of Fantastic Four.

I have two quibbles, one being that they've opted to reproduce from one of the deluxe reprints of the story, not from the original. Remember what I said a few messages back about how short-sighted movie studio execs often allowed the treasures in their library to rot rather than spend money on preservation? Well, Marvel Comics did that. In fact, they were doing it long after they were making beaucoup bucks on reprints. There were years there where some in the office — those who cared, which was not everyone — were tearing out follicles by the fistful over this. They simply did not have good stats or negatives or reproduction copies of 10-year-old issues of their books they wished to reprint at that moment so they had to print them off bad stats with faded linework. Incredibly, at the same time, no one wanted to spend the money to make extra negatives or stats to ensure that the current issues could later be properly reprinted in ten years or whenever.

With very few exceptions — most of them due to a handful of caring staffers who went way beyond the norm to do so — Marvel's reprints have lost serious linework and detail from the artistry of some very talented illustrators. This is another one of those matters about which there should be more outrage. (There are also some examples for which DC Comics should be whomped upside the head but not as many.)

So that's one of my quibbles. The other is that nowhere is the name Joe Sinnott mentioned. Joe inked the material that's being presented and with his fine linework made a major contribution to The Art of Jack Kirby.

Other than for those points, it's a great little tribute. Always so good to see classy venues catch up with Kirby.

Earlier today in a piece about cartoons, I made reference to "runaway productions done in Mexico for twenty pesos." This brought a call from an old friend of mine, cartoonist Roman Arambula, who was a little upset about it. He took it as a slam at Gamma Productions, which was the most prominent studio in Mexico that did work for U.S. television…and I guess he took it personally since he worked there for several years before relocating to Los Angeles. Gamma most famously did work for two studios in the U.S. — the West Coast operation of Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hoppity Hooper, etc.) and the East Coast firm, Total Television (King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog, et al).

Roman feels that historians have misrepresented Gamma as a studio filled with untrained talent pulled in off the street. That may have been true to some extent when it started but by around '60, which I think is also around when Roman went to work there, it was becoming pretty professional. Everyone can decide for themselves how good the animation was but I meant no offense to Roman or anyone who worked at Gamma. My point was that the rules changed when cartoon production segued from theatrical animation done on one kind of budget to TV animation done on another.

And there's probably an interesting history of Gamma to be written if someone will only interview Roman and the others who are still around who worked there. Is any good animation historian up for the challenge?

While I'm at it: I recently read How Underdog Was Born, a "how we did it" book by the creators of that show, Buck Biggers and Chet Stover. It's an interesting overview of Total Television and a unique look at what one had to do to sell a cartoon show in the sixties. According to Biggers and Stovers, their entry into the cartoon business came about as follows: General Mills was funding the Jay Ward Rocky and His Friends show on ABC and had Gamma Productions in Mexico doing the animation. Jay was always fighting with General Mills and/or the network about jokes that the latter entities thought would sail over the heads of the target audience, i.e., kids.

This had led to delays in scripts and storyboards being sent to Gamma, meaning that sometimes the artists there were sitting around…on the payroll but with nothing to do. That's just about the worst thing that can happen at a cartoon studio. When I worked at Hanna-Barbera, Bill Hanna would do anything, up to and including waterboarding the layout artists, not to have that happen. In the case of General Mills, they told Biggers and Stovers they wanted to have another operation producing cartoons so that Gamma would have always something to work on. (The book doesn't say this outright but the implication is that they also wanted to have another cartoon producer on their team in case Ward had to be dumped or if he demanded more money or anything of the sort.)

Biggers and Stovers went to work and came up with a show called King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, which was the first thing either man had done in animation and the first Total Television series. It's interesting how they went about it, studying the (then-short) list of cartoon shows that were on television because, for example, they felt their lead character had to be an animal that had not appeared on any other cartoon show. They "cast" the show by deciding on famous voices that would be replicated. Leonardo, for example, would be an imitation of actor Eugene Pallette and his loyal aide, Odie Cologne, would sound like Ronald Colman. Later, when it came time to hire actors, they looked for actors who could do the designated impressions.

At the last minute, just before the final presentation to General Mills, they discovered the company was expecting to see artwork. They didn't have artwork, nor did they have an experienced cartoonist available to do artwork…so Stovers, who drew but had never done that kind of thing before, designed the characters. Somehow, it all worked out and King Leonardo became a pretty big hit…with more shows to follow.

Another point of interest: At one point, Jay Ward and Total were both developing new shows at the same time. The one Total came up with was Underdog…and you may remember that in that show's opening, there's a line where onlookers go…

"It's a bird!"
"No, it's a plane!"
"No, it's a frog!"

And then Underdog soars past and in the lilting voice of Wally Cox, he says, "Not plane nor bird nor even frog…it's just little ol' me — Underdog!"

Well, if we believe this book, that was an inside joke because Biggers and Stovers had been told that they could develop any kind of show they wanted…except a show about a frog. This was because Ward was developing a show about a frog. His would also sell and it would be called Hoppity Hooper.

The book's narrative takes some odd detours but if you're at all familiar with their shows, it's quite interesting. You can order a copy here. If you'll notice, Amazon has one of their great "package deals" where they take two related items — in this case, the book and an Underdog DVD — and sell them for exactly the same price you'd pay if you bought them separately. Wonder how many people don't stop and do the math so they think they're getting a bargain.

In response to some recent political-type postings here, Christopher Cook sent me a message that included the following sentence: "Now if we can only get Bush fanny smoochers like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to take off their rose-colored glasses as well."

That would be nice but I think it's a waste of perfectly good hope. If an act makes you rich and famous — and all prominent pundits are to some extent doing an act — you don't change it. I hear people ask, "Why does Ann Coulter say such things?" Answer: Because saying such things has made her a ton of money. She says what she says and she sells books, she gets on TV shows to plug those books, she gets talked about (which sells more books) and her speaking fees go way up. Moreover, when she gives those speeches, a certain kind of person packs the place and cheers her on and tells her she's the salvation of capital-D Democracy.

So why should she change? What exactly is her incentive to not demonize Liberals?

She may even believe some or most of what she says. Years ago, I produced a TV special with a bunch of professional wrestlers — Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, Cap'n Lou Albano — and I learned a number of interesting things about their line of work. One was that while the blood feuds and personal hatreds may have been scripted, there was a tendency for them to become real. Roddy Piper (a very smart man, by the way) told me how the "scenario" would designate that his ring character had a particular hate on for a certain wrestler. It was phony at the start but after weeks of living the scenario and playing it and having arenas full of fans cheer him for beating the crap out of that certain wrestler, it was hard not to really hate the guy. Or maybe he said it was just easier to find reasons to really hate him.

I don't think the problem in our national discourse is really Rush or Sean or Ann or even anyone of the opposite stripe who gets as shrill and devoid of facts as they do. I think the problem is the tabloid nature of cable news and talk radio, glorifying anger and extremism, faulting no one for occasionally distorting the truth. There's fame and money in it and maybe even a certain feeling of power. You may feel that in the same situation, you'd retain your sense of balance and fairness and be able to admit when your side is wrong, as all sides occasionally are. But I think it helps to acknowledge that not everyone can or would. Hannity and Limbaugh will stop smooching Bush fanny if and when they decide it no longer bolsters their careers…and not a minute before.

Former G.O.P.-Congressman-turned-annoying-MSNBC-host Joe Scarborough suggests that Republican candidates who are running this year run as fast and as far as they can from George W. Bush.

Also in The Washington Post is this news story by Rajiv Chandrasekaran which says (basically) that one of the reasons the Iraq War has gone so poorly for us is that the Bush administration picked its officials based on blind loyalty to Bush rather than on, say, competence. Stories like this are why Scarborough may be right.

Perhaps because I'm hungover — yeah, that's a good excuse — I neglected to mention that Jerry Beck is the co-brewmaster of the must-visit animation website, Cartoon Brew. I often think of something I should post here about cartoons. Then I see that Jerry and his partner, Amid Amidi, have beaten me to it…so I don't.

Amid has two new publications out that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in cartooning. Cartoon Modern is a new book that spotlights, with wonderful examples, the UPA/modern/retro (call it what you will) style that many dabbled in during the fifties. Animation was moving away from the ornate Disney look and hadn't yet encountered the spartan, very-little-moves era of Hanna-Barbera or of runaway productions done in Mexico for twenty pesos. During that time, some amazing work was done with, as I think I mentioned in the obit on Ed Benedict here, artists getting more expression out of simpler drawings. Great to look at, great to learn from. You can order a copy of Cartoon Modern from the Amazon empire by clicking here.

Amid also sent me the new issue of Animation Blast, which is his magazine of 'toon history and wonderment. There are many fine articles in this one and you can preview them on this page or just trust me and order a copy by clicking here. While you're at it, check out the remaining back issues. Not all are available and the ones that are won't be for long.

I mean all this even though I am still a bit loopy. In fact, as I sit here at my computer, I'm still afraid that the police will pull me over and arrest me on a B.W.L. — blogging while loopy — and toss me in a cell with Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton.

Lemme tell you about Jerry Beck and why we need one. We need one because people who run film studios usually can't see very far…usually not past this year's budget and what they have to do to keep costs down. They can't see into the past either, often being shamefully unaware of their studio's heritage. They are incapable of imagining that people would pay good money to see some of that stuff…that is, assuming the negative hasn't rotted or been lost because some previous studio head didn't want to spend sufficient money on preservation. In the area of animation, it is often necessary to call in someone like Jerry Beck and ask them, "What do we own?" and even, in this era of home video, "What can we do with it?" Sometimes, Jerry also has to help them track down viewable copies. We all get to see a lot of classic animation these days, in theaters and on DVD, because of Jerry.

Yesterday afternoon, he pulled together a minor miracle…a major one if you love 3-D animation. He arranged at this year's 3-D Film Fest in Hollywood, a screening of all (I think all) of the 3-D animated theatrical shorts. For technical and contractual reasons, this has never before been possible and it may never be possible again. A sell-out crowd of cartoon buffs packed the Egyptian Theater, put on the funny glasses and watched the two 3-D cartoons Disney made, the two from Paramount, the one from Warner Brothers, the one Woody Woodpecker, etc. It was about ninety minutes total and included some surprises such as a bizarre, inexplicable thing called The Adventures of Sam Space that starred stop-motion puppets that all had voices by Paul Frees.

It was all fascinating and expertly presented, with Dan Symmes and Jerry hosting and the two projectors necessary running flawlessly in sync. (Did you know it takes two projectors to run one 3-D movie? I didn't.) Oh, the Casper cartoon — Boo Moon — was kind of lame…but hey, it was in 3-D. They say the best cartoons appeal to audiences on different levels. Well, 3-D cartoons all have different levels. If you don't like what's happening in the foreground, you can always look at the background or just sit there and wait for something to fly off the screen and into your face.

So was there anything that didn't work for me? Yes! The 3-D didn't work for me. It made me loopy and more than a little sleepy and I probably didn't see the depth effects as well as I should have. I've been blessed with excellent vision but I found out yesterday it's somehow incompatible with 3-D motion pictures…or at least it is now. These were the first ones I'd seen in over 25 years if you don't count the MuppetVision presentation at Disney World in Florida. That worked for me and the 3-D epics I viewed a quarter-century ago worked for me…but the parade of shorts at the Egyptian literally put me to sleep twice and made me identify with the title of the Woody Woodpecker short they ran, which was called Hypnotic Hick. That was me. At intermission, I was staggering about like Otis the Town Drunk and when I got home, following a lovely post-screening dinner across the street at the Musso & Frank Grill, I fell into bed and slept four hours. I'm not sure but I think in my dreams, people kept throwing things at me.

I enjoyed the afternoon tremendously, especially the delight of the local animation community gathering together for such a historic event, and I'm glad I was there. But earlier in the day, I spoke with Alice Maltin (wife of Leonard) and she told me they'd sat through four 3-D movies at the festival and the next morning, she woke up with a hangover. Never having imbibed, I don't know quite what a hangover feels like but I wouldn't be surprised if it feels a lot like I do right now.