Monthly Archives: February 2007

It's official. The Broadway run of The Producers will close on April 22 after a run of 33 previews and 2,502 regular performances. That's a lot, of course…more than South Pacific, Oklahoma!, Man of La Mancha or Annie. Still, I think a lot of people in the theatrical community are surprised it wasn't more.

The original Hello, Dolly! ran a little longer — 2,844 performances — by continually bringing in new stars. After Carol Channing left, producer David Merrick hired some pretty big names to fill the role of Dolly Levi: Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, Ethel Merman, etc. Ethel Merman was a huge star then, at least on Broadway. At one point, he had the whole thing restaged with a black cast toplined by Pearl Bailey and that added another year or two to its New York run.

By contrast, after Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left The Producers, the only big names brought in to replace them were…Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. They came back for a reported $100,000 each per week for a return engagement. You'd think that if it was cost-efficient to pay them that, the show could have afforded some other huge stars…but that never happened. There were rumors of John Goodman and others being wooed. Jason Alexander and Martin Short starred in a West Coast production and everyone assumed one or both would go to New York. Never happened. Tony Danza is currently in the version at the St. James Theater in Manhattan and he's as close to a "big name" as was ever engaged.

I guess I'm curious why more wasn't done to sell tickets and keep the show running. Was it just that there weren't any stars available they thought would make a difference? Did they think the show was destined to run out at a certain point regardless of who was on the stage? Or are they just so in need of an empty theater — in which to open the forthcoming Young Frankenstein musical — that they decided to let The Producers expire prematurely? Just wondering.

And wouldn't it be neat if without advance fanfare, just to surprise and delight those who buy tix to the last performance, Nathan and Matthew suddenly reappeared in the roles? It won't happen but wouldn't that be neat?

I seem to have just gotten a new, unexpected channel on my DirecTV satellite dish. In fact, it's so new, it doesn't even have any shows on it yet.

Something called "Chiller" is now on channel 257. Looking ahead, I see it starts early Thursday morning with episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, followed by Night Gallery, then the Friday the 13th TV show, then more Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then Tales from the Crypt, then more Hitchcock, then more Tales from the Crypt. Then at some point Thursday, they run the movie, The Shining, followed by more Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Further down the line, I see episodes of Twin Peaks, plus they're running other scary movies including all the ones in which Abbott and Costello met monsters.

Sounds like Universal to me. I think I'll do a Google search and see if I can find out more about this channel. Here — you watch this video clip of one of my favorite moments from David Letterman's old NBC show. While you do, I'll have me a look around and then I'll report back.

Okay, I'm back. I found the Chiller TV website but there's nothing much on it yet except to say the new channel launches on March 1 and they dare us to watch. Also found this article from last month telling about the new channel and, yes, it's from Universal. Interesting to know. I may even TiVo a few of those Alfred Hitchcock shows.

All right…so we have Sleuth rerunning old detective shows and Chiller rerunning old spooky shows. Don't we need a couple more old sitcom channels? No one's rerunning Bilko or Car 54 or McHale's Navy or Dobie Gillis. Wouldn't it be great to have a network that ran those and even lesser-known shows like He and She or The Good Guys or Good Morning, World or The Bill Dana Show or I'm Dickens, He's Fenster or The Danny Thomas Show or Hennessey or —

Well, you get the idea. You could probably add to that list, too. I don't think anyone's planning such a channel…but then, I didn't know about Chiller until about twenty minutes ago. Maybe one of these days…

B. Baker corrects me. Tales of Manhattan wasn't the final screen appearance of W.C. Fields. He had cameos as himself in Follow the Boys, Song of the Open Road and Sensations of 1945, all of which came out in 1944. I knew that but made the mistake of cross-checking my memory with his listing at The Internet Movie Database, saw they had Tales of Manhattan listed as his final film, and assumed I was confused.

I should have known better. The I.M.D.B. has recently been reformatted and now they credit someone's appearances as an actor (where they played characters) separately from appearances where they played themselves. Fields played himself in the last three films.

I don't know why they're making this distinction and certainly many of these assignments are arguable. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were apparently actors in their films even though they played Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Jerry Lewis is listed as an actor in Mr. Saturday Night even though he played the great screen comedian, Jerry Lewis. But in Defending Your Life, Shirley MacLaine played herself.

Anyway, B. Baker also disagrees with me that the Fields chapter in Tales of Manhattan is the best one in the film and favors the Edward G. Robinson vignette. I don't think so but I wouldn't argue the point. It's a pretty good piece of film.

The folks who bring you The Price is Right are still looking for someone to take over when Bob Barker retires in June. We told you here that they were doing a non-broadcast taping to try out three potential replacements — Doug Davidson, Todd Newton and John O'Hurley.

Apparently, none of those three nailed the job. On March 12, they're doing another non-broadcast taping to try three hosts. One is Mario Lopez from Dancing with the Stars. One is Mike Richards, former host of the reality show, Beauty and the Geek. And one is George Hamilton. That's right. George Hamilton. The guy with the tan.

Hamilton is a surprising choice even for an audition. He's 68 years old and you'd think CBS would want someone much younger for two reasons. One is so there's a chance that the new host might do the show for a long time. The other is that advertisers — even daytime advertisers — are supposed to yearn for younger viewers, the kind who might be attracted by a younger host. (Bob Barker was 49 when he took over The Price is Right, and the trend for younger demographics has only gotten worse since 1972.)

But good for him, good for them. I still think The Price is Right in its present form won't survive the loss of Barker but it's nice to see they're at least considering someone older than the show.

Rolling Stone has a gushy profile up of Keith Olbermann. They also have a page that has video clips of five of Olbermann's hairier "Special Comments."

In 1942, Twentieth-Century Fox released an anthology film called Tales of Manhattan featuring four or five stories, all about the same black tuxedo as it passes through different lives.

The discrepancy between four and five is because five vignettes were filmed but one was trimmed from most prints for reasons of time. Oddly, the sometimes-missing one was easily the best and it starred W.C. Fields in his final screen appearance. [Correction.] It was absent when the film was released in America but turns up on most home video versions. Our clip today is a little less than three minutes from it.

It's not particularly funny but it's worth seeing just to witness the on-screen meeting of two of the all-time great comic actors of film. Cast as the clothing salesman who sells Fields a coat was a then-new comedian named Phil Silvers. That's him with the bad wig on.

Phil Silvers and W.C. Fields in the same scene. How great is that?

When I interviewed Silvers, he told me a story about working with Fields. Though he was quite ill at the time, Fields kept drinking. The film's producers pleaded with him not to and offered to take him on the drunk of his life after shooting was completed. Fields swore he wasn't drinking but they caught him taking nips from a thermos bottle he'd brought to the set. "We thought you said you weren't drinking," they scolded him.

Fields pointed to the thermos and said it didn't contain booze. "It's just a little lemonade to soothe a stomach condition that's been ailing me." Then he turned to Silvers, handed him the thermos and said, "Sir, if you please. Take a sip of this and tell these gentlemen what it is."

Silvers took a sip and tasted straight gin. "It's lemonade," he told the producers. "I'm as surprised as you are but it's lemonade." The producers shrugged and walked off.

According to Silvers, he and Fields were the best of friends after that. Here they are in the scene. Forgive the foreign subtitles.

Who's going to win what on Oscar night? No one knows. But I do know that there's never one reason for any award. After Joe Shlabotnik wins as Best Supporting Actor, pundits say things like, "They gave it to him because they felt he got robbed two years ago when he was beaten by a guy in a pigeon costume." Or "they gave it to him to show their support for the fine charity work he's doing, trying to equip the world's kangaroos with pocket protectors."

But "they" are a disparate bunch of strangers about whose past motives, nothing is really known. There's no exit polling, there are no "why did you vote that way?" questionnaires…there is no meaningful data for analysis. After a political election, we can say with some level of certainty that Candidate X captured 71.3% of the vote from Caucasians under the age of 65 who rank Social Security as their most important concern. But about any given vote at the Oscars, we know zip. We don't even know if someone won unanimously or it was close to a five-way tie. You could say, "They all voted for Clint Eastwood because they loved the appearance he once made on Mr. Ed," and nothing could ever prove you wrong.

So my point is that there isn't one reason…and even if there were, we'd have no way of knowing it.

That said, I'm going to go against my own, absolutely valid point and suggest a couple of simple reasons, not because I think they're right but because no one can prove me wrong. If you insist on viewing the voting mass as a homogenous body acting of one mind, here's what may be on that mind…

One thing is that sometimes, it seems like some voters want to reward someone for a little career gamble, taking on a project that looked like anything but a guaranteed money maker…something that might actually damage a career if it didn't turn out well. If you made a zany sex comedy or a big, special effects action thriller, you might entertain the masses but you wouldn't have really risked a whole lot. A small, sensitive film that tackles a controversial subject and/or pays scale is deemed more deserving of an award. When it works, at least.

And in some categories, I think people vote a certain way because they think it will result in a great acceptance speech. This brings us to the question of who'll win on Sunday night. I didn't see the film Peter O'Toole is up for and I have no idea if his performance deserves the Oscar or not. But I think I'd like to hear that speech. Of the five nominees, I think he'd give us the most interesting turn at the podium. He'd act a little drunk, whether he was or not. He'd be overcome with emotion because he's made so many movies without this kind of recognition and this could be his last shot at one of these. He'd say something wickedly charming and the audience would just love him. And I'll bet the broadcast's director would let him ramble on for some extra time before cuing the orchestra to begin playing the "hurry up and get off" music.

So I'll say a lot of people voted for him because they want to hear that speech.

Of those up for Best Supporting Actor, I think Eddie Murphy would give us the most captivating Oscar moment…and also, some people might think he took a bit of a career gamble to do a supporting role like that. You and I know it wasn't risking anything but I suspect some voters will think it was. I'll also predict that if he loses, pundits will say he soured Academy members on him with that Norbit movie he has out now. That's a good, succinct reason that no one can disprove.

I don't know about Best Actress. Everyone seems to think Helen Mirren so I'll guess Helen Mirren. I don't see any clear winner in that category if one applies the "who'll give the most interesting speech?" standard. They might just have to give it to whoever gave the best performance and people are saying it's her.

Best Supporting Actress might be Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls or Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine. Either one is the kind of Cinderella story that makes for a great acceptance speech moment.

And of course, it's about time — it's long past time — for Martin Scorcese to win for Best Director. Some years, that would work against him. Some years, it feels like the voters are saying, "Everyone thinks we have to give it to Scorcese. Well, we'll show them! We'll give it to Kevin Costner or Clint Eastwood instead!" This time, I think they'll decide they've proven their independence on Scorcese and he'd give the most interesting speech — kind of a Susan Lucci experience — so there's no reason not to give it to him.

Best Picture, I have no idea about. I don't think the "most interesting acceptance speech" rule applies to this one, at least not this year. Which of the five made the most money?

And Best Documentary? For reasons I should explain here some day, I don't think Hollywood is as overwhelmingly Liberal as many people think. I think there are a lot more local denizens in the Bruce Willis/Charlton Heston/James Woods political wing than it seems. Still, I don't think politics is what will cause the Academy to give the award to An Inconvenient Truth. I think there will be three dynamics in play. One is that everyone who cares what wins for Best Documentary likes the idea of one of those films making some actual money. That's a dream that every documentary filmmaker, regardless of his or her politics, has so they'll reward a film that accomplishes that. A documentary that makes serious cash empowers everyone out there who has a non-fiction film in need of financing.

Secondly, everyone who cares about documentaries likes the idea that a movie can have some impact and actually change the world. That's another dream they all have. We don't know what members of the Academy think about a whole raft of issues (including Global Warming) but I think it's safe to say that they believe in The Power of Film. In fact, five bucks says that phrase is used by either a presenter or winner in this category Sunday night. An Inconvenient Truth is making a difference, reinforcing the notion that the world's problems can be changed by someone making a movie. Even some people who would argue the message of Al Gore's film like that idea.

And lastly, we return to our thesis: They want to hear the acceptance speech. They want to hear Gore get up there and make a quick self-deprecating remark about how great it was that this vote wasn't counted in Florida or however he'll put it, then segue into a fast pitch to save the planet. I haven't seen any of the other nominees — I haven't even seen Gore's film — but I don't think anyone expects an important, headline-making event at the podium if one of the others wins. Just thinking like the producer of the Oscar telecast, it'll make for a better show if An Inconvenient Truth wins. Which is why it probably will.

If the voters apply my "who'll give the best speech?" theory, we could be in for quite a show. On the other hand, rumor has it that Ellen DeGeneres will kick things off by dancing with a line of CGI animated penguins and that there are other "musical surprises" planned. Better pad that TiVo recording by another hour. It could be an interesting evening but it could also be a very long night.

Christopher Cook just sent me an e-mail pointing out who did the voiceover for the Matty's Funday Funnies clips I just posted. It's Johnny Olson, who was most famous for shouting "Come on down!" on The Price is Right. Just thought someone would like to know that.

In 1959, the Mattel toy folks put a show on ABC called Matty's Funday Funnies — a half hour of old Paramount cartoons and new commercials for Mattel toys. The name came from the fact that the show was supposed to run on Sunday afternoons but they didn't change it when ABC decided to move it to Friday nights and then Saturdays.

In 1962, they dumped the Paramount cartoons and replaced them with newly-animated exploits of Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil.

Our clip today is actually four clips from the Paramount period — two promos for the show, two vintage Mattel ads. You will enjoy them all but you'll especially enjoy the toy spots. And you'll wish you still owned your old Popeye ukulele.

New, lower TiVo service rates. For those of you who didn't have the wisdom to order Lifetime Service back when they used to offer it.

Would you like to buy Ed McMahon's house? They're only asking $6,750,000 for it, which means they'll take — what? Six twenty-five? It has six bedrooms and five bathrooms and it's 7,013 square feet.

Maybe you'd just like to take a look at the place. You can take a virtual tour over at this site. See how many images you can spot of Johnny and Frank. I think I saw three Carsons and one Sinatra.

If the realtor had any sense of humor, he'd have decorated the place with thousands of empty Budweiser bottles before he took the pictures.

This is a tough one for me. Walker Edmiston, a wonderful actor, cartoon voice, puppeteer and kids' show host, died on February 15. I just found out this afternoon.

If you look back, you'll see me talking about him in this post of the day before. At the time I wrote it, I didn't know he was hospitalized and not expected to survive for long.

I first knew of Walker as a kids' show host here in Los Angeles. He'd been a performer on the original Time for Beany puppet show. In fact, for a while after Daws Butler left, he was Beany. He'd done other puppet shows as well, including The Walker Edmiston Show, which he hosted on KTLA here in town. The still below is of him on that program, posing with his main puppets. Left to right, they were R. Crag Ravenswood, Calley the Cat, Barky the Dog and Kingsley the Lion. The show, which he ad-libbed every day, was as hip and funny as anything ever done for children or even most adults. You'll have to take my word for that because few episodes (if any) survive…but I would stack it up against the best of Soupy Sales and Chuck McCann. It was that good.

It was also a small part of Walker's career. He did hundreds of movies, hundreds of cartoons, hundreds of on-camera appearances, thousands of commercials. He was part of Red Skelton's stock company on his TV show. He was a recurring character (an expert in replicating voices) on Mission: Impossible. He did the voices of many creatures and aliens on the original Star Trek.

I first worked with Walker on shows for Sid and Marty Krofft. He was one of their main voice people. On H.R. Pufnstuf, he did the voices of all the male characters who weren't done by Lennie Weinrib. On Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, he was Sigmund and many of the other creatures. On The Land of the Lost, he was Enik the Sleestak and dozens of others.

You heard him constantly without knowing it was him. He did dozens and dozens of movies where they brought him in to imitate and redub another actor. For example, he looped Orson Welles in Start the Revolution Without Me. Once, when one of Mel Brooks's movies was being released, the studio wanted Mel to do the radio commercials but Mel was out of town so Walker went in and did an imitation, and everyone thought it was Mel Brooks. He was the announcer for years for the Stater Brothers market chain in Southern California. He was several of the Keebler Elves.

He did cartoons — Top Cat, Spider-Man, Plastic Man, The Flintstones, The Transformers and many more. Walker took over the role of Ludwig Von Drake after Paul Frees retired from it…and being an ethical person, he only agreed to take it on after talking to Paul and getting his blessing.

He was also — and I don't want this to get lost among a list of credits — a very dear, lovely man.

This is not a formal obit. I'm helping the L.A. Times assemble one and I'll link to it when it's up, probably next week. This is also certainly not an overview of his entire career because I wouldn't know where to start. These are just some quick thoughts about a fine actor and fine gentleman…and someone I already miss. I'll post more details of his extraordinary life here shortly.

Here's a tip for folks who are thinking of purchasing animation cels…

Every so often, you see some dealer selling "color model sheet" cels from old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Sometimes, they claim these were used in the production process. Sometimes, this is implied. Sometimes, it's even true.

But about 95% of the time when you see a hand-painted, full-color model sheet cel, what it means is this: Some person who may never have worked for Hanna-Barbera or even in the industry got hold of a Xerox copy of a black-and-white model sheet. Then they had this line art Xeroxed or otherwise copied onto a cel. Then they painted it themselves. Usually, this was all done a decade or two after the cartoon show in question ceased production.

The dealer now selling this cel may not have done this. He may have acquired the piece from someone who recently manufactured it…or from someone who acquired it from someone who recently manufactured it. But the point is that most of these pieces were not produced in or for the H-B studio. If I had a set of the right cel paints here, I could whip up one that was just as "authentic."

There's a lot of fake cartoon and comic art out there. eBay always seems to have at least one "original Charles Schulz drawing" up for bids that the Six Blind Men of Hindustan could spot as bogus. Common sense should tell you which ones would be the easiest to fake and among the easiest would be shaky sketches of Snoopy done in Flair pen, and alleged cels that anyone could have painted. They're not all fake but a lot of them are. Be wary.

Yesterday, we had a Mighty Mouse commercial. Here's a Mighty Mouse cartoon. Yeah, I know. I stopped liking Mighty Mouse cartoons when I was around seven, too. But there's some funny animation in here of goofy wolves…and it's the early, skinnier Mighty Mouse instead of the later, pumped-up one who always looked like he was getting steroids in his Velveeta. It's worth six minutes and eleven seconds of your time and besides, it's free.

Mighty Mouse, in case you didn't know, was called Supermouse in his first seven cartoons. The name was changed not because of litigation from the Superman people — although that might have come eventually — but because there was another Supermouse in existence in a comic book. When those first cartoons were rereleased later, the name was overdubbed and otherwise changed. As a kid watching them on TV in the fifties, I used to always wonder why the sound was so weird on some of them. That's why.

This was the twelfth in the series. It was released 6/22/44, it's called "Wolf! Wolf!" and what more can I tell you? Oh, yeah. The announcer is Tom Morrison, who was the big house voice and also a storyman at the Terrytoons Studio, from whence this came. He often did the voice of Mighty when Mighty had a voice but sometimes it was a guy named Roy Halee. Also, you should know that the opening titles you'll see were put on when the cartoon played on TV. The original cartoon opened with much classier title cards which probably got this one off to a better start when it played in theaters.

Stand back. Here it comes…

Another post for folks who live in Southern California…

If you're venturing anywhere near Hollywood and Highland in the next few days, be aware that streets are already closed because of the Academy Awards. This webpage tells you where and when.

Also: The Reprise! folks, who stage those wonderful musicals up at U.C.L.A., will present a one-night-only staged reading of It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman! on Monday, May 17. Tickets are now on sale and can be ordered through Ticketmaster.