Monthly Archives: October 2007

This is Jon Stewart's conversation with Chris Matthews on last night's Daily Show. Every so often, and this is an example, Stewart just talks to his guests in a candid, non-formula way that is honest and refreshing and therefore sadly unique in broadcasting today. He clearly didn't like Matthews's book and unlike most hosts, didn't feel he had to pretend otherwise. (He also clearly read it and didn't have to pretend he had, which is what too many hosts do.) I thought it was such a remarkable discussion that even though it's one of those flaky Comedy Central links, I'm going to take my life into my hands and embed it for you here.

Incidentally, I was also impressed, though less so, with Matthews's sportsmanship, sense of humor and ability to rise to the occasion. A lot of guests on book tours go on a show like this armed with their canned, rote responses which are sufficient because the hosts are asking canned, rote questions. I don't always "get" Matthews on his own show. He seems all over the map on some issues…like he thinks most of what Bush does is phony and hurtful but every so often, he seems to have this odd man-crush for the guy's macho swagger. He's often very good at changing the subject just as a guest is nearing a substantive point. It'll be interesting to see what happens if and when he has Stewart on his show.

Mike Hagan, a reader of this site, writes to ask…

I've been reading your blogs about the seemingly pending strike by the writers. I find it interesting to follow what happens as my parents were both teachers and members of the teachers union. While prohibited from striking (state law in Missouri because they were teachers), they did get the "blue flu" and try other tactics during negotiations with administration. So, the topic is interesting to me.

But, I've discussed the idea of the strike with friends and they keep asking me, "What is the point of having a writer's union in today's world?" I don't have a good answer. So, as part of your series, I think it would be great if you could address the issue of why the union is still relevant and why it is still necessary. Because, it seems as well, that there would be enough other writers out there willing to cross picket lines and replace current writers.

I think the point of having a writer's union in today's world is sharper than ever. With all the new technologies and the rapidly-changing business models out there, it's harder than ever to figure out the math. Could you dope out what would be fair compensation for the use of your work in "webisodes?" Or direct-delivery DVD rentals? Or the means of marketing that they're going to invent in five years to exploit the material you're writing this year? The folks who control the finances of this business — the Producers — have row upon row of highly-paid experts to research these strategies and the companies consult with one another and enter into cooperative ventures and partnerships. You can't negotiate with them on a one-to-one basis. They're too big and you, all on your own, are too small.

Actually, the point of a writer's union is crystal-clear to those of us who've worked in both animation (which is often not covered by the Writers Guild) and live-action (which is). I've worked for some studios like Disney under both arrangements and the difference is staggering. On the animation deals, my agent had to spend days negotiating terms that are standard in a WGA deal…even things like a clause governing screen credits. In the absence of one, they can just about put any damn name they want on the material so on a non-WGA project, we have to work all that out and it isn't easy. Because the WGA has a whole credits manual and a well-established arbitration process and a committee and precedents…and on a non-WGA project, we have to figure out a system that's fair without being able to access all that.

Even when I've had a lot of clout, the resultant deals — the ones we were able to negotiate without WGA coverage — lacked certain basic protections, like enforcement. Several times on animation projects I've written, the studio I was working for violated my contract in a way they would never have attempted on a WGA show. On a WGA-covered show, they knew, the guild would step in for me with its lawyers and handle matters. To do it on a non-WGA show meant that I'd have to go out and pay my own lawyer which, in two cases, I did. In one, I spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees before they paid me off — the full amount plus my attorney expenses. An exec there who left the firm later admitted to me that they often tried to get out of paying writers that way and that it usually worked. They presumed — correctly — that most writers wouldn't or couldn't spend that kind of money to go to court and would instead settle for lesser amounts. Around the office, they called it the "post-negotiation." After you'd done the work, they'd negotiate with you how much of the agreed-upon fee you were actually going to receive.

Most TV and movie writers — and by "most," I'm guessing upwards of 97% — are quite solidly behind the whole concept of the Writers Guild. Even if they haven't written animation, they've written something for a crooked publisher, a weasely editor, a slimy non-union producer. It can be shattering because the kind of work we do causes us to often lead with our hearts and therefore become quite vulnerable to exploitation. Often, we have to expend more energy on getting paid and protecting our legal rights than we expend to create the work…so we're delighted to have an entity like the WGA that's there to do all or most of that for us. If and when we strike this time, the Producers will spread the claim, as they always do, that the membership of the Guild isn't really behind its leadership. They always claim that and it's never true.

As for non-guild writers: Sure, there are plenty of them out there. But they're not interchangeable with the folks who walk off the job when there's a strike…just as if there's an actor's strike, the studio that's producing the next Tom Hanks movie is not going to replace him with an unknown who'll cross a picket line. They're going to wait for Tom because Tom is who they want, who they believe they need. They wouldn't pay Tom Hanks umpteen million per movie if he could be replaced with that unknown guy. And they wouldn't be paying mega-salaries to the folks who write The Office or the CSI shows or Desperate Housewives or any top show if they thought they could get by with the kind of writer who'd come in and do scab work. They would already have hired that guy if they felt he could do it because he'd be a lot cheaper.

There's a little more to it than this but I need to get back to an assignment. So I expect there'll be more here in the days to come on this topic.

I love "consumer protection" investigative reporting and wish this nation's local news teams did more of them. Some time ago, I called your attention to a series that the Los Angeles NBC affiliate, KNBC Channel 4, did on the Jiffy Lube chain. Armed with hidden cameras and hard questions, they revealed dozens of cases where Jiffy Lube employees had charged customers for unnecessary repair work that often was not even performed.

Well, Channel 4 is at it again. This time, their target is the Home Depot chain, specifically their home repair and construction services. If their report is to be believed, Home Depot often does the same thing to homes that Jiffy Lube does to cars. This page will take you to transcripts and video of the five segments that KNBC has done so far on this investigation. It's about what you'd expect — consumers getting ripped off — but it's still shocking.

You'd think that after the Watergate and Whitewater scandals, people would learn the following: That if you're starting a government-related enterprise that might someday get investigated, don't use "water" in its name. The Blackwater company oughta get dumped by the government just for not being smart enough to know that.

Y'know, I'm getting sick of the writing business. Especially with this strike coming, I've been thinking of giving it all up and pursuing my real dream in life which is, of course, to work at my local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and wear the giant mouse costume. The only thing stopping me is that I'm not sure I know how to do it. How could a person possibly learn the ins and outs of portraying America's favorite pizza-selling rodent? Oh, if only there was a training film I could watch.

Hey, wait a minute. Maybe if I check YouTube…

As the Writers Guild attempts to negotiate a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, I'm going to report here occasionally on what's happening and I'll attempt to reduce it to simple terms.

The old contract expires October 31 and both sides would dearly love to negotiate a new deal before that happens. So far, what's happened is that the WGA has come forth with a list of proposed increases and new benefits…and the Producers have said, "No, you can't have any of that" and have instead presented a long list of rollbacks and rate cuts that they want us to accept.

The WGA is now asking its members for a Strike Authorization vote that will allow our leaders to call a walkout on October 31 or at any time thereafter if they believe the negotiations have hit an impasse. Ballots are due October 18 and the size of the vote (and the "buzz" within the industry) will presumably have some impact on the bargaining. There will undoubtedly be a sizeable majority voting to authorize but by what margin? And how many members will even return ballots at all? A tepid strike vote will embolden the Producers. A strong vote will add clout to the WGA side.

At this point, there are a number of possible scenarios but the most likely would be one of these two…

1. If the Producers perceive that the resolve is there for a long, serious WGA resistance, there will be enough movement in their offer to keep talks going past October 31. We keep working. They keep talking. I don't think it's possible for the two sides to come to a happy compromise without some grenades being hurled but it's not impossible. More likely, alas, is Scenario #2…

2. Just before Midnight on Contract Expiration Date — perhaps only an hour or two before the old pact expires — the Producers will present what they will term their Absolutely Final Offer. They will tell the press that the business is hurting; that they have gone as far as they can possibly go in an effort to prevent a strike and that the Writers are being unrealistic and reckless to think that they can get another nickel. We will point out that the same studio execs who say there's no more money are elsewhere bragging about record profits and taking home seven, eight and even nine figure annual salaries. And then we'll threaten to strike and they'll threaten to lock us out.

Will there be a strike? I think so, and I don't think it will be a brief one. The Producers are acutely aware that they will have to negotiate next year with the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and that any increases won by the WGA will be multiplied by similar concessions to those unions. To the extent they do have to improve terms for the WGA, they'll look for ways to make those gains non-precedential; to configure them in ways that will not benefit the other guilds. But you can only do so much of that. For the most part, the AMPTP knows that every dollar they give us means another dollar they'll wind up giving the Directors in some form…and because there are more actors on any project than there are Writers or Directors, it usually means three or four dollars to the Screen Actors Guild.

One small, hopeful sign is that the WGA is taking its Strike Authorization vote before the Producers could present an Absolutely Final Offer. In the past, that sometimes has not happened so the AMPTP has drastically underestimated the resolve of the WGA members and has gotten stuck with an Absolutely Final Offer that they (The Producers) later wish had been higher. For both internal reasons — the various employers who comprise the AMPTP have to all agree on any offer — and because they don't want to create the precedent of raising offers too much — they have trouble moving off an Absolutely Final Offer. The WGA strike in '88 was as long as it was, in part because the Producers were stuck with a too-low offer out on the table. We all hope they won't make the same mistake again but they probably will.

Personally, I think the whole process is silly and non-constructive, and that they should pitch the whole thing and bring in Howie Mandel and twenty-six models with briefcases…but the game is played the way the game is played, even to the detriment of both sides. So stay tuned.

This is the long-awaited Part Four of my series on how the character Scrappy Doo came to be. Before you read it, you might want to go back and read Part One. You might want to go back and read Part Two. You might even, just to get really current with this, want to go back and read Part Three. But now here's our latest installment…

Okay, so where are we now? Oh, right: We had a script for the first Scrappy episode of the Scooby Doo series. It was an adaptation I'd written, in the grand Hollywood tradition of stealing from one's self, of a story I'd done a few years earlier for the Gold Key Scooby Doo comic book…a story about a comic book artist who is "haunted" by the super-hero he draws. But before it could be recorded, they had to find a voice for Scrappy Doo. Not as simple as you might expect.

For reasons noted, everyone's first thought was to have Mel Blanc play the scrappy one. Mel was contacted. Mel was interested. Mel was too expensive. The great Mr. Blanc did not come cheap and at times, by whatever decision-making process he used to manage his career, he'd suddenly decide to up his price a few notches. One day, Joe Barbera said to me, "We should have no problem getting Mel. He just did Captain Caveman and a couple other jobs for us." The next day, Mr. B. told me, "Forget about Mel."

We forgot about Mel. Auditions were held. Actors tried out. One of the many who read for the role of Scrappy Doo was a gentleman named Frank Welker, who has done more cartoon voices than any three other people in the business combined…and yes, even if one of those three is Mel Blanc. Frank was already a member of the regular Scooby Doo cast, playing the role of Fred. He gave a pretty good audition and during it, he ad-libbed a little bit where Scrappy yelled a few fanfare notes and proclaimed, "Puppy power!"

Joe Barbera thought this was a great little catch-phrase for the character. He recalled how in the audition for the part of Fred Flintstone, actor Alan Reed had ad-libbed the immortal phrase, "Yabba dabba doo!" It didn't sound to me like the same kind of lightning strike but I was told to insert the rallying cry of "Puppy power" into the script. Then, to thank Welker for his brilliant idea, the part of Scrappy Doo was assigned to…Don Messick. Messick, who was also the voice of Scooby, had given the best audition, they decided.

Okay, fine. So Don would play Scooby and Scrappy, and my script was recorded.

Everything fine, right? Nope. A few days later, the folks over at ABC listened to the track and decided that Scrappy had the wrong voice. Talented as Don Messick was, he just wasn't the perfect Scrappy. So they listened to all the other auditions again and I think they even did some more…and they decided that the right voice for Scrappy was one that Daws Butler had done. Everyone concurred so they called in Daws, and they called back all the other actors (including Messick to play Scooby) and they re-recorded the entire script with Daws as Scrappy.

So now they were done, right? Nope again. After the track for that cartoon was edited, they decided that Scrappy still wasn't right. Again, they listened to all the past auditions. Again, they had a few more done. This time, they decided that a lady named Marilyn Schreffler had the perfect sound for Scooby's nephew. So everyone trudged back into the studio and they recorded my script for a third time. That went so well that three days later, they were back doing it again, this time with Frank Welker playing Scrappy.

And then…

Well, around here is where I lost track. I'd go to the studio, walk into the producer's office and say, "Don't tell me…let me guess. Laurence Olivier? Marcel Marceau? Jayne Mansfield?" Scrappy was well on his way to becoming the first network TV cartoon character to have more voices than fans. There was one morning when they told me Paul Winchell had been chosen as the voice of Scrappy and then later, when I came back from lunch, Dick Beals was going to be Scrappy. I don't think Paul or Dick ever recorded because then, Mr. Barbera decided it was time to bite ye olde bullet and see if they could make a deal with Mel Blanc (who hadn't even auditioned) and they spent a few days haggling with him and simultaneously auditioning more actors.

They even went so far as to ask me who I'd cast…and back then at Hanna-Barbera, they had to be pretty desperate before they'd ask a writer anything like that. I had two suggestions, the first being Howie Morris. This was before I worked with Howie on another show and we became close friends. I thought he was a brilliant actor and from what I could observe, having him play Scrappy Doo was like casting Dom DeLuise to play a fat guy. Barbera loved my idea and I still don't know why it didn't happen. True, it was during a period when Mr. Morris considered himself banned from Hanna-Barbera for telling J.B. to have an intimate relationship with himself…but Barbera wasn't the kind of guy to let a little thing like that get in the way of getting a show into production. (A few years later, Howie was back working for the studio again.)

For whatever reason, he did not become Scrappy Doo and neither did my other suggestion, which was a writer-performer named Marshall Efron. I had a tape of him auditioning for another show and when I played it for everyone who had a vote, they all agreed he was ideal for the role of Scrappy Doo. And then they gave the job to Lennie Weinrib.

I still don't know why, although Lennie was pretty good in the part. He was so good that a whole week later, when I asked the producer who was Scrappy Doo now, he said, "Amazingly, it's still Lennie Weinrib." In fact, it continued to be Lennie Weinrib for the entire season…all the way until the moment when Lennie asked for more money, at which point the world went full circle and all of a sudden, Don Messick was Scrappy again. As he would continue to be for the rest of the little guy's animated life. All it took to make a firm decision was someone asking for above scale.

This concludes Part Four of The Secret Origin of Scrappy Doo. Tune in some day for Part Five in which the lady at Standards and Practices decides that Scrappy is a bad role model for children and must change his evil ways.

A lot of folks seem unaware of them but several recently-released DVDs contain interesting documentaries on great cartoonists and comic book artists. The new Josie and the Pussycats DVD has a 20-minute featurette on the life and times of the great Dan DeCarlo. It features Casey Kasem, Bill Morrison, Scott Shaw!, Paul Dini, Dan's widow Josie, some folks from the Archie company and one or two other people…oh, yes. I'm in there, too. We're all talking about Dan and his work and it's very nice for what it is. The DVD, The Fantastic Four: Extended Cut, features a documentary on Jack Kirby. I'm in that one, too.

Not long ago, Warner Home Video put out Space Ghost and Dino Boy: The Complete Series 4-DVD set that offers all of the original cartoons of those characters. Most of Disc 4 is a long (72 minute) documentary about the great comic artist, Alex Toth, who designed most of the Hanna-Barbera adventure shows of the period. Alex was a fiery, controversial presence in our field and in some of our lives…and to its credit, the feature on him does not gloss this over or sidestep the fact that he was, at time, an angry and difficult person. Testifying to this are a number of Toth colleagues — Joe Kubert, Irwin Hasen, Bruce Timm, Mark Chiarello, John Hancock, Paul Pope, Ruben Procopio and others, as well as Alex's four kids. It's a very good, detailed portrait of Toth and if you've ever been interested in his work, you oughta see it. (If you've never been interested in his work, you ought to see his work.)

You can order the entire Space Ghost and Dino Boy DVD set here but if you have no interest in the old cartoons and just want to see the Toth documentary, see if your local DVD rental place will just let you just check out Disc 4. You can rent individual discs via Netflix.

Seymour Hersh on the Bush Administration's (i.e., Dick Cheney's) plans for Iran. If you can't get one war right, start another.

And here, since we've been discussing it, is a trailer for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein…

I love the fact that I can ask a question here on my weblog and get an answer. John Giriat sent the following…

I enjoyed your tribute to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and wanted to add what information I know about Glenn Strange injuring himself during filming. I was lucky enough back in the late 1960's to correspond with Glenn while he was working on Gunsmoke. I asked many questions about his film with Bud and Lou and this is what I found out. Near the end of the film, Glenn Strange picks up Lenore Aubert, who plays Dracula's assistant Sandra, and throws her (really a stuntman) through the laboratory window. The first time this was filmed the stuntman came tumbling back into the set and Glenn, in trying to catch him, broke his foot. The second time they filmed this, you can see Glenn take a step back when it looks like it may happen again (you can see the stuntman's foot bounce back up a bit). Lon Chaney Jr. put on the Frankenstein make up and appeared in only one scene, where the monster is running amuck in the lab and knocking over things. If you look close you can tell its not Glenn. The rest of the film shot on the dock, Glenn is playing the monster again but he has a cast on his leg under the monster's pants. This is why he seems to be walking awkwardly. Glenn told me they worked all through the night to film that last sequence on the dock because Bud and Lou had to be in court the next day. By the way, I really enjoy your website. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, John. And for those of you who are now eager to see this movie again, I posted this link some time ago to the eight-and-a-half minute Castle Films abridged version which, amazingly, manages to tell a rather coherent version of the story. It includes the scene where Strange throws "Lenore Aubert" out the window, as described above.