Monthly Archives: January 2007

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, writes an interesting essay about torture. He says that there's no real evidence that it's effective in gaining useful information and I suspect he's right. But I also think there are some people who, for reasons I won't pretend to fully understand, just plain like the idea of their government torturing people who are either the enemy or who kinda look like the enemy.

George W. Bush has said he would not change his Iraq policies even if the only support he had came from his wife and his dog.

He's getting darned close to that. He's losing Utah.

When I posted the video link last night, I knew that when I woke up, someone would have sent me more info on its original airdate. Jon Delfin tracked down some info that says it's from 1984, which seems about right to me given the way Soupy looks. Alan Kupperberg also says 1984.

Also in the morning mail, Ray Arthur reminds me that tomorrow will be the 81st birthday of the pie-encrusted Mr. Soupy Sales. He asks if I have an address to which folks can send cards and if I have any updated info on Soupy's health. I have a current address for the man but don't think I should be posting it on the 'net or giving it out to strangers. You'll have to settle for me reporting what Chuck McCann told me; that he'd seen Soupy on a recent trip east and that Soupy seemed more like his old self than he has in years. Good to hear and we all wish him well in his 81st year and beyond. (And before anyone asks about an address for Chuck: Wait. I'll be helping him put together his own website and announcing it here when it's open for business.)

Oh, is this going to make some of you so happy…mainly those of you who grew up watching TV in New York in the sixties. It's an interview conducted by Stewart Klein and he's chatting with three veterans of kids' shows on WNEW…Fred Scott, Sandy Becker and Soupy Sales. I don't know how long ago this was done but Mr. Klein passed away in 1999 so it's at least that old.

The whole chat runs around 26 minutes and it's been cut into three parts and posted to YouTube. Here's a direct link to Part One, here's a link to Part Two and one more click will get you to Part Three. And now I'm going to embed the first part below and thank Marc Thorner for letting me know about these videos.

In October of '02, 77 United States Senators voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. ABC News recently asked them if they'd vote differently, based on what they know now. Here's what they said.

Chevy Chase (of all people) remembers Gerald R. Ford.

It's my favorite bandleader, Spike Jones. He and the City Slickers recorded their biggest hit, "Cocktails for Two," in 1944 and sold billions of copies, much to the ambivalence of songwriter Sam Coslow. He penned the tune and got a royalty for every copy sold…but he hated what Spike and the Slickers did to his tune. I don't know when this little music video was done but it's a pantomime to the original record with many of the same performers.

Again? Yes, again. I'll be the guest on Fanboy Radio this coming Sunday at 4 PM Pacific Time, 6 PM Central Time and 7 PM Eastern Time. What will we be talking about? Beats the heck outta me, other than that it'll probably be My Life in Comics. Over on their webpage, you can find out how to listen live and how to download a podcast later and even how to call in during the show and ask some vital, can't-live-without-the-answer question. That's Fanboy Radio, The Voice of Comics. Give a listen.

Is the idea behind this "troop surge" that George W. Bush, despite the advice of everyone he's said he trusts, honestly thinks 20,000 more U.S. soldiers will really make a difference? Or is it that he's hoping the newly-Democratic Congress will stop him and then he can say, "I could have won the war if not for those craven Democrats"?

Or is he maybe just doing it because he can't admit his war has failed, can't continue to Stay the Course and doesn't know what else to do?

That's what I wanna know.

We love Turner Classic Movies. Sure, they run a lot of the same films over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Any time I get the urge to watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I can either go downstairs and get my DVD of it or just turn on TCM where there's around a 1-in-3 chance of it being on. Nevertheless, in those odd moments when it's not, a lot of interesting things are. Every so often, someone at TCM creeps into the metaphorical vaults and hauls out some lost treasure.

Next week, they're running one of the worst movies I ever saw and later in the month, they're making up for it with one of the best…and neither one has been easy to see, lo these many years. One — the bad one — wasn't even easy to see when it was current. It's called Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, and it stars half the cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show: Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. Made around the time that great series was ending, the film was produced and co-written by Mr. Amsterdam, whose Human Joke Machine capabilities weren't working so well that month. On the plus side though, he did manage to arrange surprise cameo appearances by a number of his friends, including Danny Thomas, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Carl Reiner, Irene Ryan, Forrest Tucker and Moe Howard.

You know the old joke, "This movie wasn't released…it escaped"? This one didn't even escape. As far as I know, it never played most of the major cities in this country. I'm pretty sure it never appeared on any Los Angeles theater screen. I saw it in 1966 when my parents and I were vacationing in Pismo Beach, a nice beachside town which is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. We had nothing to do one afternoon so we went into town and it was playing on a bargain-priced double-bill with the James Coburn film, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? One thing I recall that did not bode well for Don't Worry… being a cinema classic: The posters for it that were on display outside were not printed. They were hand-lettered, apparently by some local sign-painting company.

The one time I met Rose Marie, I asked her about the film and from her reaction, I'd obviously touched a very sore spot. She said something about how when it was announced that The Dick Van Dyke Show was shutting down after its fifth season, she turned to Morey and said, "Well, what are we going to do now?" And Morey said not to worry. He had these friends who had financing and he had an idea for a movie…and I'm guessing it did not lead to a new line of work for the two of them, or much cash.

It's an awful movie but like some awful movies, it's enjoyable in a way. The cameo bits are all pretty good, and it's fun just to watch some of those actors — including supporting players like Henry Corden — performing, even when they're trapped in weak material. The plot, which you suffer through waiting for the cameos, has something to do with Morey and Rose Marie, who work in a diner run by Deacon, getting mixed up with spies who are looking for a defecting cosmonaut. I'm suggesting you tape or TiVo the thing but not that you try to watch it all the way through in real time. This is the kind of movie for which they invented the Fast Forward button.

Still, I'm glad I saw it in '66 in Pismo Beach, even though I couldn't skip ahead in that theater. I'm glad I saw it because for many years, my friend Leonard Maltin hadn't. This is close to humanly impossible since Leonard has seen every movie ever made. Name the most obscure Monogram one-reeler travelogue ever made and Leonard's not only seen it, he's written about it in one of his books. For many years, the one thing I could lord over him was that I'd seen this one movie that had eluded him…and it was a movie with a Stooge appearance, no less. And lord it over him, I did…until a few years ago when it inexplicably turned up on the TCM schedule. I caught it in mid-broadcast by accident and immediately phoned Leonard who said, "I'm watching it now and it's everything you said it was…and less." In Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, he gives it a rating of "BOMB," which isn't fair but it's the lowest rating he has.

Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title runs on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, January 10 at 9:30 AM Eastern Time. Perhaps to make up for it, later in the month they're running one of my favorite good movies, Billy Wilder's The Big Carnival, also known as Ace in the Hole and couple other names. This may be the first time it's been on TV in decades and I'll tell you about it when we get closer to the date. In the meantime — and sad to say — you missed this month's airing of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was on yesterday morning.

From 1960, it's a two-minute commercial for that year's new model Ford automobiles…with Charlie Brown and the gang, along with Tennessee Ernie Ford. I think I remember these spots from my childhood and I understood the connection of Tennessee Ernie Ford to Fords…but never "got" what the Peanuts comic strip had to do with new cars. And you know what? I still don't.

I keep the entire archive of this weblog available online and I hope some of you admire my courage in doing this. It means that all my predictions which don't come true are still there, smirking at me. If you look back, you'll find me fearlessly decreeing — among other bad calls — that Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't run for governor of California and that Ellen DeGeneres won't be asked to host the Oscars. But hey, I'm still right more often than a lot of public officials. (Then again, so is Captain Peter "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz…)

Back there also somewhere, you might find me thinking that Schwarzenegger would be a pretty bad governor…and for the first year or so of his term, I was right. He was terrible, his poll numbers were worse than the reviews for Jingle All the Way, and even a lot of his prominent supporters were talking about another recall election. At some point though, he seems to have wised up and managed to turn things around. He won another term partly because his opponent was a lox but also because even his one-time detractors suddenly didn't have a lot of beefs with Governor Arnold.

Some of us may be taking the last bit of our negative feelings back if he comes through with his newest proposal. It's Universal Health Care, which is an idea whose time I think came in this country a long time ago. People are dying every day from the high cost of medical treatment in this country. Even people who are covered are paying too high a price, financially and from the inefficiency of the system. There are a lot of lethal things in this world we can't do anything about but we can sure fix the clogged emergency rooms, the sky-high costs of prescriptions, the unavailability of certain equipment, the spread of some diseases, etc. Just worrying about getting and keeping health insurance is taking a lot of years off some lives.

Schwarzenegger is about to announce a plan that will guarantee health care for all children in the state of California. As this article explains, some of the details are still unknown and for all we know, the program may have problems or may not pass. Still, that a governor of a highly-populated state — and a Republican governor, in particular — could get behind such a thing is another of those small steps for man, giant leaps for mankind that you occasionally hear about. It's going to make it that much harder for the idea of U.H.C. to be dismissed by a certain crowd…you know, the ones who think the only thing the government can do with great efficiency is invade other countries.

And isn't it going to be an interesting press conference? Arnold — one of the relatively small group of Californians who can afford first-rate medical care — sitting there with his broken leg, announcing that even the children of illegal aliens are going to be able to get treatment for things like broken legs? I sure hope he throws in one of those movie line quotes like "I'll be back" or a Terminator joke because if he pulls this off, that may be the only thing some of us will have to complain about.

The Des Moines Register has been writing lately — with understandable pride — that the "new Superman" (Brandon Routh) is, like the "old Superman" (George Reeves) a native of Iowa. The other day, they touted a third Superman from Iowa: John Frederick.

Who's John Frederick? Good question. Here's a link to the article and here are the most relevant paragraphs of it…

Actor John Frederick swears it's true: He played the role of Superman on film, thus joining Iowa-born George Reeves and Brandon Routh, who also claim the role.

Frederick, now busy in retirement in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., says he filmed 18 episodes of the popular television series in the late 1950s as a studio threat to Reeves, who was increasingly unhappy in the role and felt he was being type-cast and excluded from better parts. Reeves allegedly was threatening to walk out on the series, Frederick says in his autobiography, "Name Droppings on Your Head."

"A muddled message came…the producers of the 'Superman' series would like to see me as soon as possible.

"It was at a little studio on the street just south of the Paramount gate. It was a tiny office with two men in it. Hanging on a rack was the Superman costume. 'If it fits, you've got the part,' one said."

The costume handed to Frederick did fit the brawny, square-shouldered actor, so he went to work.

He writes: "The part I remember the most vividly was lying stretched out on something that looked like a barrel on my stomach, feet and arms outstretched, and wind machine blowing. I guess I was flying. God knows where. I didn't."

Frederick adds: "Later I was told that the current Superman was making waves. I eventually figured it out that I was supposedly the threat that just might bring him back into the fold and hopefully his senses."

Frederick says he never knew where the episodes he made ended up, but "I was Superman! And it paid well too!"

Frederick says his work came to an abrupt halt with Reeves' mysterious death in 1959. Reeves allegedly shot himself, but many today say he was murdered and did not commit suicide.

I must admit to being utterly baffled by this. I never heard of John Frederick or of any scab Superman…and the story as reported does not make a lot of sense. The producers of the Superman TV show were notoriously cheap. No one who worked for them thought the job "paid well" and they certainly wouldn't have filmed one episode, let alone eighteen that were never shown. An awful lot of people involved with that series have been extensively interviewed and they sure haven't mentioned any other Superman or any unaired shows.

I also don't understand the logic here. The claim is that Frederick was hired and he did eighteen episodes replacing George Reeves. But everyone, including Frederick, knows that Reeves continued on the show until his death. So why were these eighteen alleged episodes done? And what was the job that Frederick lost when Reeves died?

It sounds to me like the man is claiming he was Reeves' stand-in or stunt double. That's possible. It's even possible the producers had him in mind at some point to replace Reeves if they needed an alternate Man of Steel. But I can't believe the man filmed eighteen "lost" episodes as the star. Further compounding the puzzlement, over on the website, there are tiny photos Frederick supplied of himself as Clark Kent and as Superman…only the Superman photo is of a homemade costume with no Superman insignia, not a costume used on the show.

Mr. Frederick's autobiography seems to be for sale on this page. If anyone has any additional information, lemme know. And thanks to John Wells, a reader of this site, for alerting me to this oddment.

Here's another episode of Paul Winchell's variety show from (probably) late 1955 or thereabouts. Like our pal Pinky Lee from the other day, Winch was sponsored by Tootsie Roll, which is one of those products I always felt represented a triumph of advertising over actual consumer satisfaction. I never liked them but I think I bought them or asked my parents for them because Paul Winchell was always telling us how wonderful they were. And a man that talented wouldn't lie to children now, would he?

This episode features musical guest stars Lonnie Donegan and Denise Lor, plus many antics by the show's bandleader, Milton DeLugg. Many of you will remember when Mr. DeLugg was the bandleader on The Gong Show. They dressed one of his musicians up as a gangster so that the program's first host, Gary Owens, could refer to the ensemble as "Milton DeLugg and his band with a thug."

One thing I remember about these Paul Winchell shows is that when I was four or so, I figured out that Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff sometimes had "live" hands. Winch was a clever man and he knew that his dummies needed to be able to do more than just talk in order to do real sketches and comedy bits on a regular basis. I was always fascinated to figure out where the live person was hidden…and often, the ingenuity of how it was done ratcheted up my respect for Winchell another notch. Once in a while, Jerry would even have actual legs which obviously belonged to a tap dancer with pretty small feet. (Paul later told me it was usually a child.) All of that cleverness plus Winchell's brilliant acting skills made Jerry and Knucklehead into two of the most colorful people on television. They were sure a lot more human than Ed Sullivan…

Here's another piece about Gerald Ford and his pardoning of Richard Nixon. This article by Douglas Brinkley says that the two men had a closer relationship than has previously been reported.

There's one thing that I'm skeptical about in all these discussions. Ford is continually quoted as saying that he didn't expect the strong negative reaction that the public had to the pardon. Well, maybe. But he knew it was going to be unpopular. He announced it without much advance fanfare on a Sunday morning…a good time to make an announcement that you don't want to have get a lot of attention.