Monthly Archives: February 2007

Congrats to R.C. Harvey who has posted the 200th edition of "Rants & Raves," a website feature that covers comic books, comic strips, editorial cartoons and other venues where grown men and women draw silly pictures. I've been a subscriber for some time and have always enjoyed his views and reporting. There's some free stuff to be read over at his website but you really oughta subscribe.

About once a month, I check my Spam filter to see if it's caught anything that shouldn't be in there.

I didn't count but it actually looks like I've received more messages in the last few weeks trying to sell me Windows Vista than I have from folks who want me to buy Viagra from them.

When you think about it, they're kind of the same thing.

Showtime is running How To Murder Your Wife, a 1965 movie that Jack Lemmon, it is rumored, very much regretted making. It's kind of an interesting film because it has a good, fun feeling and a lot of great performances. Terry-Thomas is quite splendid as Lemmon's "Man" (i.e., butler-valet) and Eddie Mayehoff, a very underappreciated comic actor, walks off with every scene he's in. Lemmon twinkles, Virna Lisi is stunning, the music is great…and somehow, the whole thing falls apart from a stupid story with a stupider resolution.

Lemmon plays a comic strip artist who's a confirmed bachelor. His art imitates his life and vice-versa so when he accidentally gets married to Lisi, his comic strip character (Bash Brannigan) gets married in the strip. Both creator and creation undergo changes, not necessarily for the better, and the cartoonist finally decides to murder the wife in the comic strip…only this gets confused with murdering his real wife. When the real wife runs away, Lemmon is charged with her murder…and in order to make that part of the story happen, screenwriter George Axelrod and director Richard Quine have to just ignore how the actual judicial system works. For example, it is somehow decided that Lemmon can be charged with First Degree Murder even though there is no physical proof that anyone has been killed, thereby suspending habeas corpus years before anyone had ever heard of Alberto Gonzales.

Lemmon goes to trial — and I'm going to go ahead and blow the ending in the next paragraph because it's so lame, so consider this your SPOILER ALERT…

Lemmon goes to trial and decides that his only chance of not being sent to the electric chair is to (a) confess to a murder that never happened and (b) convince a conveniently all-male jury, in a five minute speech, that murdering your wife is a good thing. I was thirteen years old when I saw this movie and even I was sitting there going, "Come…on!" Easily one of the silliest scenes ever to appear on the screen, and I don't mean that in a good way. The whole film, if you think about it with the slightest bit of logic, is quite ridiculous and it's a testimony to Mr. Lemmon's charm (and Mayehoff and Thomas) that it's still almost worth watching…once.

Cartoonists love it, not for the plot but for the absurd life style of one of their own, and the occasional shots of comic strips and of "Lemmon's" hand drawing them. Obviously, a real artist had to be engaged to do this and when Mr. Lemmon was signed, he told the producers that as a kid, his favorite comic book was a strip called The Sub-Mariner and he wondered if they could get that feature's artist. They tracked down Bill Everett but he was then coping with too many alcohol-related health problems and he reluctantly declined the job.

Instead, they hired the great Alex Toth and his first assignment, which he did, was to whip up several newspaper-style strips that ran in the Hollywood trade papers to announce various signings and the upcoming commencement of filming. Toth was also supposed to "stunt double" Lemmon's drawing hand for some shots in the film until someone noticed a teensy problem: Lemmon was right-handed and Toth was a lefty. Alex also began arguing with the producers over something-or-other (Alex was always arguing over something-or-other) and he walked off the project. His replacement was Mel Keefer, who did all the artwork in the film and played Jack Lemmon's drawing hand.

At least, this is the way Alex told me the story. Mel Keefer told me a slightly different version years ago and we'll be discussing both accounts, along with his extraordinary career as a cartoonist in strips and comic books, when I interview Mel at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. He's a Guest of Honor and it's about time.

In the meantime, you might want to watch How to Murder Your Wife on Showtime, February 5, 9, 13 and 16. Each airing is in the middle of the night so the scheduling folks obviously know this is not a cinema classic. They're right.

There's a Broadway show currently playing called The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. As part of each performance, at least one person is summoned out of the audience to become a participant in the on-stage spelling competition and whenever possible, it's a celebrity.

At the January 30 performance, one of the audience members who was dragged up on stage was Julie Andrews, and they gave her a word that she had to spell. The word was "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." To her eternal shame, she got it wrong.

Wanna get real depressed today? Read the summary of the National Intelligence Estimate, which is titled, "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead." Then, if you have a gram of optimism left in your soul, get rid of it by reading the new U.N. Report on Global Warming issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Two more foreboding, troubling documents have never co-existed.

Here's a quick summary of The N.I.E. Report: Things over there are a mess. The Sunnis and the Shiites are killing each other (and our guys) in record numbers. There's no solution, there's no flicker of light at the end of any tunnel…and — oh, by the way — that "surge" thing isn't going to work.

Here's a quick summary of the U.N. Report: Things everywhere are a mess. We must act now but even if we do, glaciers will continue to melt, oceans will continue to rise and there will be disastrous effects everywhere and for everyone.

You can read the N.I.E. paper in PDF form at this link. You can read a summary of the U.N. report, also in PDF form, at this link. And then you can go hide under your bed for the next month or three, hoping they're both wrong. Or at least, that they're making two bad situations sound worse than they are.

A lot of Republicans and Democrats have announced they're running for president, even including some people you've heard of. How many of these people actually think they have even a 1% chance of getting elected? I mean, come on. Mike Huckabee will get as many electoral votes in 2008 as I will.

I'm not even talking about people like Mike Gravel who seem to be running only for Harold Stassen's old position as perennial laughingtock candidate. I mean folks who are actually in or around government like Dennis Kucinich or Tom Vilsack or — over across the aisle — Tom Tancredo or Tommy Thompson. How many of these folks really think they have a shot at going the distance and how many are merely candidates the way Pat Buchanan sometimes is, the way Al Sharpton always is, the way Ralph Nader persists in being?

There's obviously a value to running. Mr. Buchanan, to pick one of them as an example, enhanced his fame and raised public awareness of his causes by running for an office he could never come close to winning. He may even have forced some electable Republicans to pay more attention to his issues or lean a bit in their direction. People who believed in his message donated millions of dollars to Buchanan's candidacy and there were reports that via legal means, he found ways to direct much of the cash into his personal accounts. Even if he didn't, I'll bet running for president raised his fees as a speaker, commentator, author, etc. In short, it was a good career move and I don't believe he ever thought he'd win a single elector, let alone 270. Sharpton obviously doesn't but he runs.

The distinction matters, I think. One of the many moments when Ross Perot seemed to take a solid running start and leap the shark was when, in 1992, he seemed to believe he was not only going to win but that he was going to carry every single state. Near as I can tell, all Perot got out of that run for the White House was a brief moment in the spotlight. He didn't enhance a political career, advance a political cause or increase his income. Many of those who won't win in '08 will achieve one, two or all three to some extent.

We all know they aren't going to win. What I wanna know is how many of them know it?

That's what I wanna know.

See those covers above? The issue of Adventure Comics came out in 1939 and the Detective Comics was two years before that. Both covers were drawn by Creig Flessel, a fine gentlemen who is 95 years old today. Congrats and good thoughts to Mr. Flessel.

Here's one more George Carl clip. This one's from The Hollywood Palace and it's his dance routine, which he sometimes did when he wasn't getting himself tangled up in microphone cords. This is from an episode hosted, as you'll see, by Jimmy Durante. It aired on December 10, 1966 and you can view a ticket for its taping over on this page at our sister site, Old TV Tickets.

I stole this one from the weblog of Earl Kress. It's a link to an eBay auction where someone is selling 15,000 toys. You might want to bid. At the very least, you'll enjoy looking at the photos and going, "I used to own one of those…I used to own one of those…"

Fred Kaplan on where we are now with regard to Iraq and Iran. Mr. Kaplan seems to be one of the few people writing about these topics who understands the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni.

Also over on Slate: Jack Shafer claims that despite legend, there were no documented cases of returning Vietnam veterans being spat upon by anti-war protesters. For what it's worth, I was swept up for a time in those protests — working both sides of the street in a way as my viewpoint morphed from supporting to opposing the war. I met people who were passionate, emotional, sometimes even hysterical. I saw folks who would not have hesitated to expectorate on (or do worse to) Nixon, L.B.J., Kissinger and others who directed that war. But I never encountered anyone who had the slightest anger or resentment of the soldiers for serving in it…just as I've yet to see anyone who has anything but compassion and gratitude for those who are now serving in Iraq.

People sometimes ask what I'm working on. Okay, so most of them are people to whom I owe money. The point is that they ask. In a week or so here, I'll announce another project that I have in the works…something involving a comic book artist with the initials "J.K." In the meantime, the folks at Paws, Inc., makers of all things Garfield, today put out the following press-type release…

Paws, Inc. is thrilled to announce that they have entered into an agreement for Dargaud Marina S.A. (Paris, France) to produce and distribute a new fully animated half-hour television series beginning with 26 episodes for the first season.

The series will be produced in the English and French languages, and animated in CGI with 3D tools. The television programming is intended for worldwide distribution.

Mark Evanier will write the series in collaboration with French nationalist writers. Evanier wrote the highly successful Garfield and Friends series. Garfield and Friends started its first season on CBS-TV in 1988. The half-hour program was so popular, it was expanded to one hour for the second season. Garfield and Friends stayed at the top of the ratings chart for Saturday morning shows for 7 years. In fact, the show was the most popular children's program on television in 1993, with an audience that was 40% adult.

The new series will be animated and produced by Ellipsanime, under the direction of Robert Réa, Director General, and Philippe Vidal, creative director.

Paws has worked with Dargaud Editeur S.A., managed by Claude de Saint Vincent, on Garfield books, albums, journals, calendars, etc., for over 24 years.

Before anyone asks: I have no idea where or when you'll be able to see these cartoons. I haven't even written the first one yet. I will be voice directing, as well. Yes, the new voice of Garfield has been selected. No, it is not Bill Murray and no, Garfield will not look look like he does in those movies. He'll look more like he did in his other cartoon appearances. Also, no, I'm not listening to voice demos for non-recurring parts at this time. And you now know almost as much about this show as I do. I'll post more details here if and when there are any.

My activities were interrupted twice yesterday for radio-type interviews on (mostly) other topics. If for any reason you have the burning desire to listen to me babble, here are two places on the 'net where you can do this.

Aaron Barnhart is the TV critic for The Kansas City Star and a special authority on late night talk shows, Mr. Letterman's in particular. He is also the proprietor of TV Barn, a fine site where he offers news and links to TV-related articles, plus he posts podcast interviews and chats that he does with people, most of whom are more impressive guests than me. Here's the latest podcast, which you can listen to or download in MP3 format by clicking below. It's 24 minutes of the two of us discussing the significance of David Letterman having achieved 25 years of late night TV programming…

Then later in the day, my friend Earl Kress and I were guests for two hours of Stu's Show, which is heard on this Shokus Internet Radio I keep telling you people about. We spoke of Earl's career, animation history and obscure TV cartoons. This is not a podcast that you can download any time you like. This is a radio-type broadcast where you have to tune in at a specified hour and listen then. That episode reruns every day for the next week: From 4 PM and 6 PM on the West Coast or 7 PM and 9 PM on the East Coast…except on Sunday when the rerun starts at 10 AM out here and Noon back east.

If you live somewhere else, you can probably figure out the local time from this schedule. And you can tune in to Shokus Internet Radio by going to their page and selecting an audio browser. There's plenty of good stuff to listen to over there 24/7.

The other day, I linked to a clip of the master mime/comic George Carl on The Tonight Show. Here in two parts is George Carl on one the Jerry Lewis telethons.

You know, it dawns on me: I think I saw George perform twice, not once like I said, both times at the Stardust. They're tearing the place down in March but even in its mid-to-latter glory days, that was a great place to see him. Why? Because the Stardust was then the last of the major showrooms with a production show and live musicians. They had an actual orchestra — maybe the last of its kind in that town for a show that featured dancers and variety acts. That was important for Carl's act because…well, listen to the drummer here and on the Carson clip from the other day. You couldn't do that with a pre-taped track and the routine would be so much less without that kind of punctuation and accompaniment.

Further thinking back, I seem to recall that Carl was briefly the headliner in a small revue at (I think) the Riviera around or about 1988. It was him and a line of almost-naked dancing ladies and when I saw it advertised, I thought, "Next time I get to Vegas, I have to go see that." But the next time I got to Vegas, I couldn't see it. It had closed, apparently without much notice. I was disappointed at the time but now that I mull it over, maybe it was for the better. Because he was in a tiny showroom and almost certainly working without a live band so it wouldn't have been the same.

Anyway, here's Part One of George Carl, extracting all the poetry there is to be found within total clumsiness…

That's the first part. Here's the second part. And by the way, what the hell am I doing up at this hour? I had a very busy day. I should be in bed.

Sorry. Here's Part Two. Good night…

I wanted to note the passing of three important writers — columnist Molly Ivins, novelist and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon, and TV writer-producer Bob Carroll. All left us in the last few days and I'm sure you can learn all about any or all three with a minmum of Googling.

Of the three, the only one I ever met was Bob. He was a man who wrote many things during his long career, most of which don't get mentioned a lot because we're all too impressed with the fact that he was one of the main writers of I Love Lucy. A credit that impressive tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room, and I think Bob liked the fact that I talked to him about his other projects like The Mothers-In-Law, a sitcom in that "oughta be on DVD" category. It's probably the obvious cliché to say that his work will be rerun and loved forever but it's also probably true.

As for Sidney Sheldon and Molly Ivins: I never made it very far into any of Mr. Sheldon's novels, not even the one with the thinly-disguised portrait of Groucho. But I sure liked The Patty Duke Show and I Dream of Jeannie. And I sure liked Molly Ivins's writing, especially when she was in high outrage about something Texas-related. I have the feeling we'll really miss her, especially throughout the rest of the Bush administration.