Monthly Archives: October 2007

June Foray is, of course, the First Lady of Cartoons. Last evening, ASIFA — the International Animated Film Society — hosted a lovely birthday party for her out in Burbank, despite the fact that her birthday was a month ago. In any case, a whole bunch of her fans and friends turned out to eat cake, toast her and have a good time.

There's not much else to say beyond that but since we all love June, I couldn't let the event pass without mentioning it. I'll also mention that June's long-awaited autobiography is nearing completion (Earl Kress and I are helping her with it) and I'll announce here when there's an actual publication date.

Can Stephen Colbert get the Colbert Bump?

The vote total is in on the Writers Guild Strike Authorization Vote. A record (for the Guild) 5,507 members cast ballots with 90.3% voting for authorization. No one is surprised it passed but I think a lot of folks are surprised by that percentage. As I noted in this post, the WGA membership includes a lot of people who regard writing as a secondary or tertiary career and could perhaps be expected to vote in the interests of their other, main careers. I would have expected something more in the 80% range.

The more impressive number is the total number of members who cared enough to vote. There are around 12,000 members in the Writers Guild but many times when we're asked to vote on something, it's in the 30% range. Again, at any given time a lot of our members are simply not involved in TV or movie work and don't pay a lot of attention to Guild matters.

So does this mean no strike? Nope. At last report, the two sides were a hair closer to common ground and this may get them a few hairs closer…but we still want a number of things that the Producers seem determined to not give up. Not to us, not to the directors and not to the actors. The issues and determination are all still there for a nice, long, nasty work stoppage. The one hopeful thing here is that in the past, some of the worst strikes have resulted because the Producers grossly underestimated the Writers' resolve. Thanks to this vote, maybe they have a little better sense of what they're up against.

Any public official whose job could impact U.S. policies regarding torture should be asked if he thinks "waterboarding" qualifies as such. If he says he doesn't know, he should be waterboarded until he decides.

Let's watch (for obvious reasons) a little Joey Bishop, shall we? Here's a clip from his late night talk program, The Joey Bishop Show, from an episode that aired in February, 1968. This is the opening segment in which he banters with sidekick Regis Philbin and bandleader Johnny Mann. I doubt many people today would attempt to open a show like this without a pre-written monologue prepared by a large staff. Certainly, Mr. Carson never did except during Writers Guild strikes. (More about those later today.) But Joey sometimes came out and just did stuff like this…

By the way: One of the things that I thought harmed the Bishop show was that it was aired on a one-day tape delay. They taped on Monday the show that would air Tuesday night and so on. This killed any chance at topical humor — not that that was ever a mainstay of Joey's repertoire but guests sometimes said things that reminded you of the time lapse. Over on NBC, Johnny — who was not on a day's delay — was doing stuff straight out of that day's headlines. I always thought that must have made a major difference, especially on nights when there was some big, juicy news story that was perfect for Carson quips.

Apparently, Bishop's show had the delay because it was done on the West Coast. They did the show at 8 PM Pacific Time and I guess that cut it too close to air on the East Coast the same day. Johnny was then in New York so he didn't have that problem. When he took his show to Burbank for a week or three, he also went onto a one-day delay…until he was out here the day of a good-sized earthquake. That night, they dumped (postponed, actually) the show they'd taped the previous evening and broadcast a show taped that same day. That was the monologue where Carson opened with the famous line written by Pat McCormick, "The God is Dead rally has been cancelled." When Carson moved to L.A. on a permanent basis, he began taping at 5:30 so the show he taped could air the same day. But Joey Bishop's show was always out of sync with the country.

Here, from the same episode of The Joey Bishop Show, is a six minute segment with Joey and Sammy clowning around, having a well-planned spontaneous food fight…

After that show went off, Joey did a long stint as Johnny Carson's primary guest host. Here's a clip from a Carson Anniversary Show…

My old pal Joe Brancatelli runs Joe Sent Me, a website about travelling, mainly by air. With utter candor, he and his columnists cover what's up with the airlines, airports, hotels, etc. You need to be a member to access most of this, though there is some valuable free material available.

Even without a sub, you may be able to read his latest article. In case you can't, I'll summarize: Frequent Flyer programs are bad and about to get a whole lot worse. Over the years, the airlines have quietly modified terms and changed reward levels to make it less and less likely that you'll be able to cash in all those points you think you have to get precisely the free flight you want. Effective in December, Joe explains, Delta takes it yet another level and this is my paraphrase, not his. Their new rules seem to essentially come down to: "No matter how many points you accumulate, when the time comes to cash them in, we'll tell you what you can have and how much it will cost you, and many of our flights will not be available to you for points, no matter how many of them you have."

Joe thinks the new rules will make Delta's plan largely worthless to Delta Frequent Flyers, and that if they get away with it then all the other airlines will follow and that such programs will be useless. I was already thinking in that direction. I have points racked up on about a half-dozen airlines. More and more, they seem like more trouble than they're worth. Between e-mail and paper mail, I receive a steady barrage of reminders that my miles are about to expire and I need to do something with them, a.s.a.p. U.S. Air is always after me to swap them in for magazine subscriptions. Other airlines are offering me travel deals in which I cash in more points than I have, plus I pay $200 and I get a flight that I can purchase for $210 without the miles.

Even before Delta's new strategy to not give you anything free, I was feeling that Frequent Flyer plans were not worth the trouble. The few times I've tried cashing in mine, the bureaucracy and poorly-defined rules discouraged me. In this age of the Internet, I'd kinda like to just make my reservations instead of sending for a rewards certificate that will pay for that reservation on that airline if I qualify, if they honor their own rewards program and if I don't find a better deal at some other airline, which I probably will if I'm not paying for it with miles. I'm sure there are some freebees out there but they don't seem to be worth the hassle. So I'm looking around for a good charity where I can donate all my miles to fly soldiers to bang their spouses or something of the sort. It's not so much that I want to support some worthy cause. I just want to get rid of those points so I don't have to think about them and fret that I'm wasting something valuable.

Joey Bishop died last night at the age of 89. Whenever a famous comedian leaves us, a lot of Internet Traffic steers towards this site for anecdotes, words of tribute and tales of personal encounters…and I'm afraid I don't have much of that for Mr. Bishop. I recall liking his early-sixties sitcom, which I haven't viewed in quite some time, but I can't tell you anything else he did that amused me much. For a time there, he was a talk show star. He had his show on ABC opposite Johnny Carson from 1967-1969 and then he became Johnny's most frequent guest host for a few years, never impressing me much in either venue. When I look at the above photo of The Rat Pack, I see three very gifted entertainers and two guys (Bishop and Peter Lawford) who were in on a pass. Now, with Joey's passing, they're all gone.

So I decided to make this posting an obit for the legendary Vegas parlay of Frank, Dino, Sammy and whoever else they were then allowing into the inner circle. What exists of that act in recording and film is not all that wonderful either, though I have the feeling that to see them in person was so exciting, it didn't matter what they did. (Is there any footage of those guys performing together that doesn't include Dean picking up Sammy Davis and making the joke about thanking the N.A.A.C.P. for the award?) Still, I like the idea of The Rat Pack. It just sounds so cool and hip and fun that the reality of the performance probably doesn't matter.

I once had lunch at a Vegas hotel with a gent who'd worked at the Sands when they were playing there. I said something about how it was neat that those guys were like a "bonus" since obviously, Frank or Dean or Sammy could each have sold out the room appearing solo. You didn't need the three of them to fill all the seats. My luncheon companion informed me that I was missing the point. The idea, he said, was not to fill the seats but to fill them with the highest of the High Rollers. In Vegas, they live by the "drop," which is the total amount of cash that people convert into chips for gaming. How much the house wins is, of course, of vital concern but Casino Management is really two separate and distinct sciences. Configuring the games so they yield a decent return is one. Ratcheting up the drop is another. If you have the odds set properly then the way you maximize profits is to maximize the drop. The power of a Sinatra was not so much that the showroom was packed but that when he played your hotel, your drop went way up. He attracted Big Players.

In terms of selling tickets, booking Sinatra, Martin and Davis plus someone like Joey Bishop was not cost-efficient. Like I said, any one of the first three could have sold out any showroom in town without the others. But, the Vegas guy said, what The Rat Pack did for the drop made them quite worthwhile: "They didn't double the drop. They didn't triple it. It was more like times ten."

"So," I asked. "What did they need Joey Bishop there for? Did he please that many in the audience?"

"No," was the reply. "But he pleased Frank."

I'm sorry to say you can now watch hundreds of clips from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart over at this new site. I'm sorry to say this because you could spend hours over there and never come near my little corner of the Internet again. And also, the site was put up by Comedy Central so it probably won't work that well. I'll try embedding one of my favorite segments from that show, as posted on the new site, and we'll see if it even works…

Michael Kinsley on introducing scummy dictators. Just in case you're ever called upon to bring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad up to the podium.

The reports on comic book legend Marie Severin are encouraging, though it looks like she'll be hospitalized for a while longer. Clifford Meth has this background article on her career and this update on her condition. It goes without saying (or blogging) that we wish her a speedy recovery on account of she's one of the nicest, funniest people ever in the biz.

So what do you do if you're a General and you think the President is ordering something that won't work and which will have disastrous consequences? Fred Kaplan asks and answers that question.

Howard A. Rodman explains the main issues in what may lead to The Great Writers Guild Strike of 2007 and maybe The Great Writers Guild Strike of 2007-2008.

Here is an old article about Hanna-Barbera…

Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera old M.G.M. cartoonists have made five T.V. cartoon shows. Which have all hit the ratings. It started with HUCKLEBERRY HOUND show with HUCK, JINKS AND "THE MEECES" AND YOGI BEAR AND BOO BOO. Later QUICK DRAW McGRAW with Baba Looey, Snooper and Blabber, and Augie and Daddy Doggie. Yogi Bear got his own show then with 2 old characters, SNAGGLEPUSS and IDDY BIDDY BUDDY (NOW CALLED YAKKY DOODLE DUCK) Hokey Wolf and Ding-a-Ling COPIED AND REPLACED YOGI. Jinks and Pixie & Dixie copied M.G.M.'S Tom and Jerry (they look alike). Then the world's first adult cartoon show, FLINTSTONES (NOW IN THE MAKING, TOP CAT, ANOTHER ADULT CARTOON SHOW) El Kabong (QUICK DRAW McGRAW AS ZORRO BUT HE USES A GUITAR INSTEAD OF A SWORD.) Snooper and Blabber was the first detective cartoons. Augie Doggie was a copy of "Wendy and Breezy" (WALTER LANTZ) It is said that WALT DISNEY is jealous.

Hey, that's not a bad little article. The phrasing is awkward in places but the author knows his cartoons.

So…who wrote this article? I did. Why are some of the sentences so odd? Maybe because I was nine years old at the time.

It's amazing. Here it is, 47 years later and I still write articles about Hanna-Barbera and my writing hasn't improved that much. (I still use too many parenthetical phrases.) (Yes, I do.) (I really do.)

Here's what may be the first commercial for Quisp and Quake, two cereals that the Quaker Oats Company introduced in 1965 via a marketing campaign done in tandem with Jay Ward.

What I always thought was interesting about these cereals was that — at least for the initial campaign — they never told you what the cereals actually were. They told you they were sweet and vitamin-charged and that they tasted great and were packed with energy…but they didn't tell you if each contained corn or rice or oats or wheat or styrofoam or what it was about them that might tickle your tastebuds. Apple Jacks tasted like apples (they claimed) and Cocoa Krispies were a chocolate-flavored rice cereal and Trix were fruit-flavored something…but they really didn't tell you anything about what you'd be eating if you bought Quisp or Quake. You were supposed to try a box or two just because they had neat characters on the packaging and in their commercials, and those neat characters were feuding so you had to take sides.

I guess it worked…at least for a while. Reportedly, both sold decently for a few years but even though the two cereals were (I'm told) almost identical, their sales were not. Quisp's eventually went up and Quake's went down — just like the characters, themselves. Quake was discontinued and so was Quisp for a while, but in 1999, they began making it again, pushing it as the first "Internet Cereal." They still make it but it receives limited distribution and is promoted largely on the Quisp website. I am amused that nowhere on that site, from what I can tell, do they tell you what the cereal actually is. If you hunt around the Quaker Oats site, you can find out that it's a "saucer-shaped, crunchy corn cereal…but that's about it. They're still selling the mascot and not the product.

Here's the ad. Daws Butler was the voice of Quisp, William Conrad was the voice of Quake, and Paul Frees was the voice of the host in this spot, which was probably written and directed by Bill Scott.

Scott Dunbier, who used to be in charge of Wildstorm Comics, tells a funny story about working with comics legend Gil Kane. Everyone in the world who edits or publishes comics has had this kind of thing happen to them and it's not funny at the time but it's part of the process.