Monthly Archives: February 2007

Here are some Great Animal Photos. We especially like the one of the baby pandas.

One other thought about how the silliness of the poll cited in the previous message. People are asked if they'd vote for a person who'd been married three times. I guess this is to suggest that if you've been married three times, it must say something about your personality or your ability to deal with others or your devotion to your religion or something. But I know a guy who's been married three times because his first two wives died — one killed in a car crash two years after they were married; the second, taken by cancer after thirty-some-odd years of a wonderful, happy second marriage. Does getting married a third time reflect poorly in any way on this man?

Half the political blogs I'm reading this morning are linking to or reposting the above poll and noting how many people say they would not vote for an Atheist. That may be so but it may also be because the question is so overwhelmingly hypothetical. The American people have never been confronted with an Atheist who seems otherwise qualified for the office. On the question of whether they'd vote for a woman, they can think about Hillary or Elizabeth Dole or Condoleeza Rice or any of several ladies who've become mayors or governors or representatives, and say, "Hmm…some of those, I could vote for." Someone might not be inclined to vote for any specific woman but it usually isn't the gender that's the reason. I don't think anyone will not vote for Hillary Clinton just because she's a she. Even if that bothers them, they'll find another justification.

I also think there's something silly about polls that ask you to decide your vote in a vacuum. We can all imagine an alternative so loathsome that people who say they wouldn't vote for a Jewish or gay or Black or whatever candidate would hold their noses and vote for the Jew, the gay, the Black, the whatever. In this country, we rarely vote for someone. We vote against someone or we vote for the least objectionable of two alternatives. In the Bush-Kerry election, I'd bet at least 70% of all the voters on both sides wished they'd had someone better to vote for than the guy they had to select.

But none of this is why I posted the above. What caught my interest is that everyone is discussing how voters feel about blacks or gays or Atheists or women…but no one is noticing that question in there about being 72 years old. If we believe this poll, 42% of the country wouldn't vote for someone who's 72 years old…and I'm assuming that means older candidates would do even less well.

Well, John McCain is 71 years old. In the next presidential election, he'll be 72.

I don't think 42% of this country would decline to vote for John McCain because of his age. They might refuse to vote for him because of his position on the Iraq War or his embrace of the Religious Right or his stance on abortion or any number of other reasons. But his age? I don't believe for a minute that would matter to anyone unless, maybe, they otherwise had a microscopic preference for him over his opponent. That never happens in this country.

For the record, Ronald Reagan was 69 when he ran for president in 1980. He was 73 when he won a second term. Bob Dole was 73 when he ran in 1996 but that's not the reason he lost.

Hey, lemme suggest something you should listen today if you're anywhere near your computer and Internet Access. My pal Stuart Shostak is interviewing Dwayne Hickman on Stu's Show, a two-hour program heard on Shokus Internet Radio. You probably know Dwayne best as the star of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which was just about the smartest, cleverest classic sitcom that isn't yet out on DVD. It and Car 54, Where Are You?

Dwayne is a very nice guy and one of the smartest people I've ever chatted with about the TV business. Actually, I knew him for a time when he was a programming executive over at CBS and it was always fascinating to hear him talk about television because he knew it from all angles: In front of the camera, behind the camera and way behind the camera, over at the network. He'd been a child star and worked with all the biggies.

So let's see: He's an actor and a writer and a production exec…oh, and did I mention he's an artist? In addition to everything else, he's a pretty good painter. There was a period of his life — I don't know if Stu will get to cover it with him — when he worked in Las Vegas for Howard Hughes. If he doesn't, I may call in and ask Dwayne to talk about that. Or if I want to get him mad, I may ask him about a dreadful Dobie Gillis revival special that was done by a company I was working for at the time. (I am a witness. The stories Dwayne tells about how a wonderful script was destroyed by the show's producer are all absolutely true.)

Do yourself a favor and tune in. It starts at 4PM Pacific time, which would be 7PM back East. Go to the website for Shokus Internet Radio and select an audio browser. That's all there is to it. (Note, by the way, that if you're tuned in when the show begins, you might get booted off and have log in again. That's a technical glitch that sometimes happens, but only at the start of some programs.)

If you've never tried listening to Internet Radio, you're in for a treat because there's some wonderful programming available for free and with great sound quality if you have any sort of decent web connection. Do what I do: Connect to the station of your choice, then minimize that window and go on with answering e-mail or writing something or playing Minesweeper while you listen. It's one more thing your computer can do for you.

Three mice — who seem to have about one tooth among them — sell Colgate Toothpaste with the help of a Mighty one. And remember, kids: You don't actually brush your own teeth with the stuff. You use it to polish the giant tooth nearby with a happy face on it. Who wrote these things?

Several bloggers writing about George W. Bush's Iraq policy have referenced something they call "The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics." This has something to do with the idea that if we fail, it can only be because we didn't have the will. Over here on this page, blogger Matthew Yglesias explains the way others present this argument. It flows from the fact that Green Lantern's power ring is a function of his will and resolve, and that if he doesn't falter in those areas, he will supposedly triumph in any battle.

And over here on this page, my friend Denny O'Neil assesses this theory from the Green Lantern point-of-view. Denny knows a little something about Green Lantern, having written some of the most acclaimed issues of that hero's comic book.

Fred Kaplan on some of the more bizarre statements to recently come out of the Bush administration.

For those of you who live in Southern California…

Lewis Black is doing a performance on Thursday evening, August 16, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. One suspects he will have something to say about the mere fact that he's performing in a building named for Mr. Disney.

As with most Lewis Black concert appearances, the scalping mechanism has already swooped in and gobbled up all the great seats and they're asking five and six times the face value. Recent experience suggests that'll seem like a bargain compared to what those tickets will cost in July.

I believe they went on sale last Sunday but the show hasn't been publicized much yet and there still seem to be some decent seats left at Ticketmaster. If you want to see him, you might want to click right on over. Compared to this, getting a hotel room for the Comic-Con in San Diego is like getting Viagra ads in your e-mail.

I just set my TiVo for the Academy Awards this Sunday. TiVo is the only way to go with the Oscars. Record the thing and while it's on, go out to dinner at that restaurant that's always too crowded on a weekend night. Unless it's a Wolfgang Puck eatery, you'll have the place to yourself. Then come back either when the show is over or in its closing hour and start watching from the top, fast-forwarding when it gets boring. I've been known to do a three-hour Oscarcast in an hour and fifteen minutes that way and not miss anything of even minor importance. If you only skip over commercials for new credit cards and cellular service, you can save a least an hour of your life.

But you have to remember this: Pad your recording. They say three hours but it could be 3:10 or 3:20 and I think there was once a ceremony that went more than an hour over the announced time. That was back when they used to just lie and tell you the show would be two and a half hours long, knowing full well it would be at least three. They'd pre-sold ample commercials for that length. Now, they say three and try for three but it could be longer. You don't want your TiVo to stop recording just when something interesting is about to happen.

So I've padded my recording by an hour. Just in case. Wouldn't want to miss a single joke about the fatherhood of Anna Nicole's kid or Britney Spears shaving her head, or whatever really offensive thing Borat is going to do.

Also, I've set my TiVo to record Alice in Wonderland on Boomerang on Sunday but I'm not optimistic. That is, I'm not optimistic it's the show some of us want to record.

I've probably waaaay oversold this but back in '66, Hanna-Barbera produced what I remember as a pretty good prime-time animated special called Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? It was written by Bill Dana, who also appeared as the voice of Jose Jiminez, who appeared as the White Knight. Janet Waldo provided the speaking voice of Alice. (As H-B so often did, someone else sang for the star character.) Sammy Davis Jr. played the Cheshire Cat and the regular H-B voice cast did most of the other roles. The songs were supplied by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, who otherwise wrote some pretty good Broadway scores and movie songs.

It's never been out on home video but we've heard that Boomerang is running it at 4:45 Eastern (1:45 Pacific) on Sunday afternoon, though it's possible we've been misinformed. There are about eight thousand animated interpretations of Alice in Wonderland and apparently Boomerang has at least half of them in its library. Some version will be running on Sunday but don't be shocked if it isn't the Bill Dana rendition. They've advertised it before and shown another. Also, don't be shocked if it is and you watch and it isn't as fabulous as I remember. There's lots of stuff I liked in '66 that I can't stand now. When was the last time you tried to watch an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?

While I'm at it, I should mention that Boomerang's start and end times rarely coincide with any clock you might have in your home. I think the whole network is on Southwestern Bolivian Moonlight Savings Time or something.

What you won't see in this show, assuming you see it at all, are the original animated commercials for its sponsor, the Rexall company. In the sixties, they always ran a big, annual "one cent sale" — it's when my family would stock up on aspirin, Maalox and floss for another year — and it was always kicked off with some big Rexall-sponsored TV special. Ron Kurer, who runs the fine animation site Toon Tracker, has posted two of these commercials on YouTube. They're interesting because it's always been very rare for a company to spend money on animated commercials — even commercials animated on a Hanna-Barbera budget — that only ran a few times. These only ran a few times so they're quite rare.

As I mentioned, Janet Waldo did the voice of Alice. You probably know her better as the voice of Judy Jetson, or maybe Penelope Pitstop. Janet has been performing before microphones since the days of radio drama and is still at it, still sounding like a teenager. A charming lady, indeed. Howard Morris did the voice of the White Rabbit in both of these commercials and in the second, you'll hear Daws Butler as the King and as the March Hare, and that's Harvey Korman as the Mad Hatter.

The Scooter Libby perjury trial is about to go to the jury so there could be a verdict shortly. I have no idea what it might be. Sometimes, you can formulate a hunch based on the press coverage…but this time, the mainstream media has reported very little that would suggest how it's going or how it might go.

The exhaustive, in-depth coverage has mostly been from bloggers and/or via news sources that few would argue are not highly partisan. I've read some of the reporting from both sides and I don't think these people are all covering the same trial. I know these sites skew the news, possibly as a conscious, deliberate policy. As we keep saying here, there's money to be made telling some people what they want to hear, whether it's true or not.

But I can't recall the last instance of reporting that was this Rashomon. The sites that could be said to be Liberal are saying that an airtight case has been made for Libby's guilt. He'll be convicted of something and it may lead to Cheney. The more Conservative coverage says there's no "there" there; that the case is close to non-existent and should never have been brought.

Someone's going to be spectacularly wrong, at least about how the jury will decide. (This should not be confused with how the jury should decide. Remember the first O.J. case.) I'm just amazed that I can't find any reporting that delves deep into the case and finds both strengths and weaknesses in the assertions of both sides. And I'm wondering if that's because the case really is that lopsided in one direction…or if it's because reporters just don't do Fair and Balanced anymore.

We all love Wile E. Coyote, the long-suffering Road Runner chaser. But, uh, what does the "E" stand for?

I guess I don't know. I mean, none of the cartoons directed by Charles "Chuck" Jones and written by Michael Maltese ever said. Only a couple of them ever even said his name was Wile E. Coyote.

But it has just (this morning) been brought to my attention — thank you, Devlin Thompson — that more than a thousand websites say the Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert. The source for this is a 1973 story that appeared in the comic book, Beep Beep the Road Runner, published by Western Publishing Company under its Gold Key imprint. This is noted by Jon Cooke over on this page and as he also reveals, it was the question/answer to the Final Jeopardy question on the 1/18/07 episode of the game show, Jeopardy!

In the story, which was called "The Greatest of E's," Wile E. Coyote realizes he doesn't know and gathers together some of his relatives to answer the question. One is an uncle named Kraft E. Coyote who informs him and the world that the "E" stands for Ethelbert. That is, as far as I know, the only piece of fiction licensed or otherwise blessed by the Warner Brothers company that ever said such a thing.

This raises one of those moral issues that has no firm answer. What makes something like this an "official" fact in the world of animated cartoons? I mean, we know Bugs Bunny is named Bugs Bunny because…well, we just know. But what is the name of the frog that sings and dances in the Jones-Maltese masterpiece, One Froggy Evening? It's Michigan J. Frog, right? Apparently…but that name appears nowhere in the cartoon. As I understand it, the moniker was coined years later when there was some merchandising interest in the character…or maybe when W.B. decided to try and generate some merchandising interest. Chuck or Mike may have come up with it then or someone at WB may have and then Chuck and Mike endorsed and used it…but anyway, that's the frog's name. I suppose. I mean, if the guys who made One Froggy Evening didn't argue the point, who are we to say it isn't?

For that matter, even if some "fact" appears in a cartoon that doesn't make it inviolable. There were WB cartoons where Sylvester the Cat could talk and was owned by Granny. There were others where he couldn't talk and was Porky Pig's cat. Quick: If I asked you, "Who owns Sylvester?," you'd probably forget about all cartoons to the contrary and say it was Granny, who also owned Tweety. There were Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons where for no apparent reason, those characters lived in other eras. Elmer Fudd had a couple of different middle initials in different shorts and characters' appearances were often changing and we could list hundreds of other inconsistencies. The films weren't intended to have an airtight continuity from one to another. Some "facts" were meant to be forgotten.

It was the same with the comic books. Western Publishing licensed the right to do comics of those characters for around thirty years, and the editors at Western thought of the comics as separate entities from the cartoons. The Donald Duck that Carl Barks and others wrote and drew for Western's Disney comics was not exactly the same Donald Duck that appeared in the Disney cartoons. They adapted the character, rethinking and redesigning him for a different medium. (It's a funny thing: When I was a kid and read Bugs Bunny comic books, I always "heard" the wabbit's dialogue in Mel Blanc's voice from the shorts. But when I read a Donald Duck comic book, I never thought that duck spoke with the voice Clarence Nash supplied for Donald in his cartoon appearances…maybe because I understood so little of what the animated duck said and I could read every syllable of the comic book Donald's word balloons.) In some ways, the Donald of the comics was the same character but in others, he was a different but similar creature. And I never quite related the Mickey Mouse of the comic books or strips to any of his animated appearances.

While Western was doing the Warner Brothers-based comics, they changed a lot of the characters to make them — they thought — more workable for print media. They didn't think matching the cartoons closely mattered because, for one thing, those films weren't on TV every week then. During the forties and early fifties, they weren't on TV at all. Many of the kids who bought the comics rarely, if ever, saw the animated shorts and certainly didn't see them over and over and over, like they would in later years. So it didn't matter a whole heap if the comics matched the cartoons; only that they worked as comic book reading experiences. Back then in the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip, which was read by millions, Elmer Fudd rarely appeared and I don't think Yosemite Sam ever did…but Sylvester was a regular. He was a hobo who wasn't owned by Granny, didn't chase Tweety Birds and who had a British accent. Someone thought it made for a better strip that way.

This is why, for instance, the Road Runner in comic books differed so much from the Road Runner in cartoons. When I was a kid enjoying both, I was puzzled. I'd seen Road Runner cartoons. They were tough to come by then but I'd caught one or two and in them, there was one Road Runner and one Coyote and neither spoke. In the comics, the Road Runner not only spoke, he spoke in rhyme. He had a name — Beep Beep — and in some stories, he had a wife and a family of either three or four youthful road-running kids. The Coyote spoke too, though not in rhyme, though that didn't bother me as much. The Coyote had spoken in a couple of non-Road Runner cartoons.

I wondered aloud back then if the folks who made the comic books had ever viewed one of those hard-to-see cartoons — but of course, they had. As I learned much later, Michael Maltese wrote many of those comics and the early ones were drawn by Pete Alvarado. Pete handpainted all the backgrounds for the first Road Runner cartoon, Fast and Furry-ous. Almost all the other writers and artists who did the comics (Phil DeLara, Don R. Christensen, Warren Foster, et al) had worked for the Warner Brothers cartoon studio, if not in Jones's unit then right down the hall. They knew that in the cartoons, the Road Runner didn't talk — in rhyme or at all and it had been a conscious decision to change it for the comics. The editors and creators had also decided to not worry about consistency from comic book to comic book. In some, there was a Mrs. Road Runner and four kids. But there were several years there where the wife and one of the kids disappeared…except that every now and then, they'd inexplicably turn up for a story or two or in a reprint sandwiched in among new adventures.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's no more a "fact" that the Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert than it is that the Road Runner is named Beep Beep, has a wife and kids and speaks in doggerel. It said the "E" stood for Ethelbert in one comic book story but that's just one obscure comic book story…and even the guy who wrote it didn't intend it as anything more than one joke on one page of one story in one issue.

How do I know this? Because, as some of you may have guessed by now, I was that guy. I wrote that story. I think I was around twenty years old at the time. I'm pretty sure, by the way, that that one was conceived in a lecture hall at U.C.L.A. while I was simultaneously jotting down script ideas and feigning attention to what a tedious Anthropology professor was teaching. Mike Maltese had been occasionally writing the comics in semi-retirement before me…but when he dropped the "semi" part, I got the job and that was one of the plots I came up with. For the record, the story was drawn by a terrific artist named Jack Manning, and Mr. Maltese complimented me on it.

Still, I wouldn't take that as any official endorsement of the Coyote's middle name. If you want to say the Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert, fine. I mean, it's not like someone's going to suddenly whip out Wile E.'s actual birth certificate and yell, "Aha! Here's incontrovertible proof!" But like I said, I never imagined anyone would take it as part of the official "canon" of the character. If I had, I'd have said the "E" stood for Evanier.

This is sad but it's something you oughta see. It's a short bit of home movie footage shot on 11/22/63 in Dallas — John F. Kennedy and the First Lady in the motorcade, only a minute or two before shots rang out. I don't think there's anything in here that gives us any additional clues as to whodunnit but it's a piece of history.

For the record, I'm a recovered conspiracy nut. Back in the seventies, I thought the answer to "Who Shot J.F.K.?" was anyone or anything other than a lone assassin named Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. Snipers on the grassy knoll, Secret Service men programmed a la The Manchurian Candidate, the three hoboes, chickenmen from Saturn…all more likely than one loner with a Mannlicher-Carcano, thought I. But the more I read, the less I could defend any of those theories and I came around to the belief that not only did Oswald act alone but that not a one of the arguments against that scenario was valid. I further came to the view that it was pointless to discuss this with anyone so I don't. I also will not discuss the validity of any religion, where to get the best pizza, Fred Astaire vs. Gene Kelly, what's sexy, or any other topic about which no human being has ever changed another's mind.

Here's a few seconds from Dallas. If you're over fifty, you know exactly where you were when this film was shot.

The new "Conservative version of The Daily Show," The Half-Hour News Hour, debuted last night on Fox News to killer reviews and not just from Liberals, either. There are enough articles online telling you how lousy it was so I thought I'd focus on (a) why it was destined to stink, at least at first, and (b) why it might still be a big hit for Fox.

Why it was destined to stink: Well, for one thing, when someone else has an acclaimed hit and you come along and say, "We're going to do our version of that," you're setting yourself up for failure. People are not going to just expect a good show from you. They're going to, not unreasonably, expect something as wonderful as the hit upon which you're basing and selling yourself. It's like being Frank Sinatra, Jr. No matter how good he is on stage — and actually, he's pretty good — all audiences seem to do is mutter, "Not as wonderful as his father." An impossible standard.

You're also starting from scratch but likening yourself to something that's long since gotten its act together. The Daily Show wasn't all that terrific when it started, either. But The Half-Hour News Hour isn't being compared to Jon Stewart's first weeks or even to Craig Kilborne's break-in period.

More importantly, comedy does not arise from nowhere. You can't just go from zero to sixty. If someone came to me waving large sums of cash and said, "Put together a Conservative comedy show for us," my first action would be to scour the country for existing troupes and comedians…people who've been doing it for a while and who've refined their acts in smaller venues. When Lorne Michaels started Saturday Night Live, he signed performers like Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase and John Belushi who'd already been working together at Second City or in the National Lampoon shows…and a lot of what they did on SNL the first year was material (or variations on material) they'd perfected in stage appearances.

I don't know where they got the folks who write and appear on The Half-Hour News Hour. They may all be very talented on an individual basis. But as we've learned from a lot of failed SNL imitations and even from a lot of SNL seasons when new cast members from different walks were thrown together without breaking in as "featured players," it's hard to just all start all being hilarious together. You can't even find a tone or an attitude that way. The only SNL imitation that had any real critical or ratings success was SCTV, which starred a long-established troupe that had been working together for years and already had polished routines and characters.

So I'd look for, say, a comedy troupe out there already doing Right-Wing Comedy. I'd hire them and use them as the core of my new show. And if I couldn't find such a troupe already in existence…well, that would tell me something.

All of this is above and beyond the fact that Conservative comedy is, almost by definition, difficult. It's like (I've said this before) making a Marx Brothers movie and trying to make Margaret Dumont the funny one. There's plenty of phoniness and arrogance to puncture on the Left but it's tough to structure a joke which is the rich making fun of the poor, or those in power picking on those who aren't. It's not impossible but it's tough, just as it's tough to fill even a half-hour of political humor if you restrict yourself to one side of the aisle. The Executive Producer of The Half-Hour News Hour has been quoted as saying he looked around and didn't see anyone making fun of Hillary or John Kerry. Which only tells us he's never seen Jon Stewart's show, the program he's supposedly replicating.

Nor has he apparently seen Leno or Letterman or Conan or SNL or any of those shows. They all routinely rip into Liberals and Democrats and, yes, they do more about George W. Bush but that's not bias. That's because he's in power and giving them so much to work with. When it was Bill Clinton in power and Monica came to light, the jokes flowed freely in that direction.

So why do I think The Half-Hour News Hour might still be a hit? That is, assuming Fox doesn't yank it off, ratings be hanged, out of sheer embarrassment? Because it doesn't have to be funny. It only has to be mean.

There's a market out there for mean. There are people out there who'll pay good money to hear someone say Hillary Clinton is an ugly cow or Ted Kennedy is a pathetic drunk. No joke necessary. If you don't believe that, listen to some Talk Radio shows or, better still, check out what Dennis Miller now does on stage. Someone sent me a bootleg MP3 of a recent Miller live performance and I was so disappointed. The man was once so witty, not necessarily about politics. But at some point — I forget which of the many Dennis Miller Shows was on the air at the time — he adopted a kind of "I'm too hip to be entertaining you people" attitude. He goes out and just says Hillary's evil, Bill's a horny bastard, Al Gore is a fat liar, et cetera. And oh, yeah. Bush is a real man and why don't all these midgets get off his back? Some people love it.

I suspect Miller had a rocky period there before audiences knew what to expect when they paid to see the new him. But around the time he became the first professional topical comedian in history to announce he would not do jokes about the President of the United States, he found his audience…or rather, they found him. Those people may find The Half-Hour News Hour. They aren't the majority in America. They're a shrinking minority, which seems to be making them madder and madder and more likely to turn to whoever tells them what they want to hear. But there are enough of them to sell out all the Dennis Miller concerts and there may be enough of them to keep The Half-Hour News Hour afloat until its makers figure out what the show is.

This is a rerun. I linked to this commercial some time ago but the video was deleted from the website that hosted it. Here it is on another one. Nothing says "sixties" like this kind of ad.

It's one of my favorite commercials for one of my favorite products of the period — Adams Sour Gums. I was never much for chewing gum but I liked their Sour Orange and occasionally their Sour Lemon, and would pick up a pack now and then until they stopped making all four flavors. Recently, the company that now owns Adams brought back the two flavors I never liked — Sour Apple and Sour Cherry — in a limited release. Naturally, this prompted me to call up and demand they reissue the Sour Orange or at least the Sour Lemon. A nice lady on the phone said they'd look into it. That was a year ago and I'm still waiting, Nice Lady on the Phone.

Here's the commercial. That seems to be actor Barry Newman, who later starred in a fine lawyer series called Petrocelli, doing one of those jobs that actors do before they get a series.

There's a lot of talk out there about "supporting our troops," much of it from people who've confused that with supporting George W. Bush. In some cases, I think they're deliberately confusing the two.

Thinking Bush has sent them on the wrong mission — or even on the right mission but managed it poorly — is not a lack of support for our soldiers. The kind of thing described in this article is, almost by definition, a lack of support for our soldiers. And Bush loyalists ought to be furious about it even if it might reflect poorly on their side.