Monthly Archives: June 2007

The Frontier Hotel in Vegas, which has sometimes been known as The New Frontier Hotel, closes July 15. Some time in September, it'll be blowed up real good so construction can begin on — surprise of surprises — a luxury mega-resort. These are about as scarce in Vegas as Blackjack dealers who draw to 21 when you're sitting there with two tens and a big bet out.

The only surprise about the Frontier being imploded is that it didn't just fall down on its own. The place has been a shabby presence on the strip for years. It was a dump when I stayed there on my first trip to Las Vegas in the early eighties. From 1991 through 1998, it was crippled by a nasty, messy strike that took it down a few more notches…and since then, it's just kind of been there, waiting for the right deal to go away.

Still, it's a shame to lose a place with such a rich history. It was the second real casino-hotel to open on The Strip and the first venue in town where Elvis played. Howard Hughes owned it for many years but (reportedly) never set foot in the place, though he could see it from his suite in the Desert Inn across the boulevard. Siegfried and Roy became famous when they opened a show there and I believe that was the hotel where George Carlin, as he later put it, was fired for saying "shit" in a town where the big game is called "craps."

I don't have any great anecdotes about the hotel. I happened to be in Vegas when the strike ended in '98 and there was a wonderful celebration in the street outside, and I guess I'd prefer to remember that. I certainly don't want to remember my room there, which made one long for the comparative luxury of a Skid Row flophouse.

Which raises the question: What's the oldest hotel in Vegas? That's not as easy a question to answer as one might think because in many cases, the whole building has been rebuilt at least a couple of times. None of the structures they'll be imploding when the Frontier is demolished later this year were there when the place opened in 1942. The Golden Gate, which is downtown, could be said to be the oldest but it's changed names a few times and it's been completely rebuilt more than once. They claim to have opened in 1905 but that business has a different name and a different building. The El Cortez, which opened in 1941 still incorporates part of the original structure so you might say that's the winner. The Golden Nugget and the Flamingo opened (again, in different buildings from what they now have) in 1946.

But in a lot of cases, it's like the story of George Washington's ax. You know the story. A guy says he has George Washington's ax, which consists of a handle and a blade. He's had to replace the handle a few times and every so often, put a new blade on it. But he still insists it's George Washington's ax.

I'm getting the last bits of art scanned for the forthcoming book on Jack Kirby, Kirby: King of Comics. (That's an Amazon link, hint hint.) I'll tell you more about the book when we get closer to its release but right now, I have a public appeal…and I guess this applies to folks in or around the Los Angeles area. I'm not happy with a few of the art scans that have been done for the book and I'm looking for the best way to redo them. I need to find somewhere or someone with a scanner that can scan artwork around 12" by 18" or even a bit larger and do it at 600 DPI. This would probably have to be a flatbed scanner as several of the pieces are on heavy illustration board so they can't wrap around a drum or bend. I know there are a lot of computer artists who read this site and I'm wondering if one of you has access to a scanner that can do that kind of work or knows a good place where one can take pieces for scanning. Anyone? You can reach me here.

Time for a classic commercial. Here's the Chatty Cathy doll, complete with the voice of June Foray, who's another kind of talking doll…

Last night, I embedded a video here with a sing-along to the Magilla Gorilla theme song. It was from AOL/in2TV, which is a new Time-Warner project designed to eventually control every aspect of our lives.

There's something about the coding of their embeds that does odd things to weblogs. In particular, it seems to "take over" when you load the page. Even if the embedded in2TV video is at the bottom of the page, most browsers go to it instead of the top of the page. I don't like them doing this to my weblog and I even tried fiddling with the coding and couldn't figure how to get it to stop doing that. So I've taken out the embedded video and no more AOL/in2TV embeds until they fix that.

You can reach the Magilla sing-along on this page and watch it there, complete with the slightly incorrect lyrics. (You'll probably have to watch an ad first, by the way. That's if you can even get the thing to load, which it may not. One day, Corporate America will figure out that the fancier you make the website, the more likely it is to not load for people or to load so slowly that they abort and go elsewhere.)

While you're hanging out in the neighborhood, you might like to sing along with the theme from F Troop. Or at least see if you can catch the funny spelling mistake in the on-screen lyrics. Other lyrics are also slightly misheard, too. It's "While pinning it on…" not "But pinning it on…" and "know their morale can't droop…" instead of "know their morale can droop…" This is important stuff, people. Let's get it right.

Here's the opening and the closing to It's About Time, a sitcom that lasted one unsuccessful year — from September of '66 'til August of '67. If the theme reminds you of the one from Gilligan's Island, there's a reason: Same producer, same songwriters. Back then, there was kind of an unwritten rule in network television. If you had a hit show on a network, your production company got pilot commitments for new shows and had a real good shot at getting one on the air. Sherwood Schwartz used whatever Gilligan clout he had to get this one on…with limited success.

In fact, the show inverted its premise mid-season to try and combat low ratings. Originally, it was about a couple of astronauts (played by Jack Mullaney and Frank Aletter) who somehow, via shaky science, wound up back in the Stone Age. There, they interacted with a clan of cave people played by Joe E. Ross, Imogene Coca, Mike Mazurki, Cliff Norton and others. The hilarity was supposed to be about these two modern-day guys trying to cope with prehistoric life. That didn't work…so after the first thirteen, they changed the storyline: The astronauts travelled back to present day and brought along a couple of the cave people to try and cope with modern life. That was a little better but it didn't save the series.

Another alteration was made earlier. As you'll notice in the titles, Imogene Coca's cave lady character was originally named Shag. At some point, CBS Standards and Practices decided that was a naughty word…so the name was changed to Shad.

The best thing about the show was probably Joe E. Ross, who was already well known from the Sgt. Bilko series and from Car 54, Where Are You? Mr. Ross was very funny in front of a camera and, from all reports, impossible to deal with off-camera. In fact, he was fired a couple of times from Car 54 and if the show had returned for a third season, it would have returned sans Ross because the producers couldn't stand him any longer. I have long been intrigued by Joe E. Ross anecdotes and when I met Imogene Coca, I asked her if she had any. She just blushed, muttered something about "that awful man" and changed the subject.

You will notice in the end titles, reference to "Gladasya Productions." That was pronounced like "glad to see ya" and that was Phil Silvers. Another aspect of TV deal-making back then — and this still goes on but not as often — is that stars get pilot commitments that wind up getting folded into others' deals. In order to sign Phil Silvers to star in The New Phil Silvers Show in '63, CBS not only let his company, Gladasya, produce that show but also gave Gladasya commitments for other, non-Phil shows. When Sherwood Schwartz pitched Gilligan's Island to CBS, the network agreed to commission a pilot on the condition that it be done under one of Gladasya's commitments…so Phil Silvers wound up being a partner in Gilligan's Island and made more money off that than he did off The New Phil Silvers Show. (The same principle explains why Bing Crosby was a partner in Hogan's Heroes and Robert Wagner had, you should excuse the expressison, a piece of Charlie's Angels. There are many other examples of this.)

Phil didn't make much, if anything, off It's About Time but I thought it was a fun show. And as you'll hear, it had a pretty catchy theme song. Here it comes…

As we speculated here, Tony Danza is joining the Las Vegas production of The Producers as of a date to be announced. Danza played Max Bialystock in New York and will presumably play the same role in Vegas. Rumor is that attendance has dipped seriously since the departure of David Hasselhoff, who was playing Roger DeBris. (He was replaced there by Lee Roy Reams, who I saw doing the role in the production that starred Jason Alexander and Martin Short. Reams was terrific in the part.) I still haven't seen the condensed Vegas version of the show and I doubt I will.

Some time ago here, I advocated the view here that people who drive under the influence of alcohol should be tossed behind bars with a lot more frequency than they are. I still believe that, though I must admit the whole Paris Hilton matter has given me a bit of pause. The other day, the Head Sheriff (or whatever his title is) said that she wound up in the hoosegow because of her "celebrity status," not in spite of it; that a "nobody" caught doing what she did would not have had to settle in behind bars. This article in the L.A. Times would seem to bear that out.

Which causes me to refine my attitude a bit, not so much about drunk drivers but about her. I think anyone caught behind the wheel with serious alcohol in their system should be in jail and I don't buy the idea that we can't do that because of overcrowded jails and courts. Stop locking up people for possession of marijuana or similar substances and make room for the drunk drivers. Let out all the folks who have been shown via DNA testing to not have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. Between those two moves, you oughta clear out a lot of cells. Then treat everyone, famous or not, the same way.

The same part of me that feels unease when people cheer a Death Penalty execution in this country is uneasy at all the schadenfreude out there about Paris Hilton's pain. Both may be necessary for society to function but I don't think someone's death or pain is ever a good reason to party, and I'm really uncomfortable about the slipshod court system. I also wonder how many people cheering Ms. Hilton's ordeal know or even care why she's in the slammer. If the 'net and cable news channels are extracting a representative sampling, most people seem to believe she was convicted on three counts of being a rich, stuck-up bitch, two counts of being stupid and five counts of getting to be more famous than she deserved.

Which is a shame. The one positive thing that might come out of all this is if people realize that if you get caught driving while intoxicated and then you lose your license and persist in operating a motor vehicle, that could happen to you. I don't see anyone making that connection. They're too busy savoring the fact that someone who is richer than they are, more famous than they are and probably more attractive than they are is in agony.

Let's sing along with the theme song from Magilla Gorilla! And make sure you sing the product placement reference to Ideal Toys good and loud…

UPDATE, THE NEXT DAY: I've taken the video out. Go here to read why and to get a direct link to it.

A Conservative friend of mine sent me this link to Michael Kinsley's latest column and added, "I don't know why you haven't linked to any of his pieces lately but I think he's absolutely right. I don't like that he's absolutely right but I think he is."

What he thinks Kinsley is absolutely right about is his view that America is coming around — faster than anyone would have once imagined — to accepting gay folks into our society as equal, unshunned participants. Just in my odd, diverse circle of friends, I see a lot of people who I never thought would do anything but cringe at the whole notion of homosexuality decide it's no big deal for them. (I mean, it's no big deal for them if others are gay; not that any of them are eager to try it.)

One of the interesting things Kinsley sometimes does is to read the platforms of our major political parties. I'm not sure anyone else does, including — and I am not kidding about this — the candidates who take an oath to run on those platforms and uphold them. George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and at least a few others I'd imagine (probably Kerry, too) all took positions contrary to the platforms they had pledged to uphold…and no one really noticed. The platform reflects the hardcore wing of the party and you can't win elections by siding with them.

This morning, CBS aired the last episode of The Price is Right hosted by Mr. Barker and I believe it repeats this evening. There was a time when I kinda liked that show. It moved quickly, it had a nice sense of "family" about it, the prize models were sexy and Barker's self-adoration was right on the edge, as was his condecending attitude towards the contestants. He probably meant it for real but you could take it as self-satire and it didn't get in the way. Slowly but certainly, most of those things began to change, especially the last one. It also harmed my enjoyment of the proceedings that I began to hear all these tales of Mr. Barker not being the nicest man in the world.

Hosting a show as long as he has is amazing achievement; no doubt about that. But I can't help but compare it to the other great endurance record in Monday-Friday network television: Johnny Carson's 30+ years of The Tonight Show…and like Barker, Carson hosted another successful show (a game show) before that. It's quite a contrast. Johnny kept his marathon going for so long by continually freshening his act. Perhaps he didn't do that as often or as thoroughly as he should have but he did approach every broadcast like it was opening night, sweating over a new monologue and comedy spot, fighting for the hot guests. Bob, on the other hand, has stayed on the tube for so long by finding a formula and slavishly replicating it, day in and day out. Yet another reason I stopped watching The Price is Right was the sheer, stultifying repetitiveness of it all. I never felt that way with Johnny.

CBS still hasn't announced who'll take over for Bob Barker once the summer reruns are over. It sounds to me like an impossible mission. The audience for The Price is Right has devolved to a pool of viewers who want to see ol' Bob do the same thing, over and over. If the new guy does the same show, it'll just point out how stale the whole format has gotten. If they freshen the show and reinvent it for a new host, people will feel a beloved tradition has been despoiled. If I were in charge, I'd look into constructing a CGI Bob Barker and letting it host the program. That's almost what they've had for the last twenty years.

I was thinking of linking today to a clip from the Broadway puppet show, Avenue Q. And then I changed my mind and decided to link to a clip from the recent production of Fiddler on the Roof. And then I changed my mind and decided to link to a clip of the two shows combined. Thanks to Steve Montal for suggesting this one. It's from the 2004 Easter Bonnet Celebration, which is a show put on each year to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. It runs a little over eight minutes and should probably carry a Parental Advisory Warning due to language. Parents should always be advised when there is language.

A short story by some guy named Woody Allen.

Fred Kaplan tells us all about Sunni insurgents. We're apparently down now to trying to make deals with people we once considered our enemies.

Like it says here, the Kellogg's people are going to stop targeting very young children to buy cereals loaded with sugar and/or sodium. What the new policy means is a bit undefined but it looks like things like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks will either be reformulated or at the very least will lose their cartoony mascots. Or something. If they're doing it because they fear lawsuits relating to making children obese, they may be doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Yeah, a lot of us are too fat and it doesn't help if you start life that way. But I'd hate for a generation of kids to think that the government is sufficiently monitoring all this and getting harmful foods off the shelves. I used to have a line that I quoted every time I heard nonsense on my television: "Well, if they say it on television, it must be true." Needless to add, I said this a lot. I'd hate to think kids would be saying — and believing it — that if they sell it in the stores and advertise it, it can't be bad for you.

My friend Sergio is on his way over here with Groo pages. He's been on his way over here with Groo pages for at least an hour longer than it usually takes. A few minutes ago, he called me on his cell phone to say he was stuck on a freeway where traffic was literally not moving and he had no idea why. So I decided to hop over to a website that monitors traffic and accident reports in real time and see what I could tell him.

The above is a screen grab of what I found. Sergio is stuck in traffic because there are ducks on the freeway. In fact, as any fool can plainly see, there's a duck and ducklings.

Isn't the Internet wonderful? If Sergio showed up and said, "Sorry I'm late…there was a duck with ducklings on the freeway," I'd never have believed him.