Monthly Archives: February 2008

At this very moment, lawyers are madly trying to finalize the language of a proposed deal 'twixt the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America. As we've been telling you here for some time, a key concern in this negotiation has to be the precise wording so that there's no wiggle room…so that the strike doesn't end and then the studios say, "No, we never agreed to that." This weblog post over at United Hollywood tells what's going on, and it matches what I'm hearing from other sources.

Assuming there's a deal to announce tomorrow night, it will be presented to the membership and discussed and debated. If our leadership recommends it, it will almost certainly be accepted. I mean, it's not like our negotiators can tell is it's an acceptable deal and then go back to the other side and say, "It's not an acceptable deal." My hope would be that when we vote, it doesn't pass overwhelmingly. If the number is 80%, the boys over at the AMPTP are going to say, "We could have got them cheaper." If it passes with 51%, they're less likely to lowball us the next time we meet at the table. (The mere fact that we sustained this strike for so long and didn't fold has already probably convinced them but a little more learning wouldn't hurt.)

I'll have more to say about all this after the meeting.

The reviewer for the L.A. Times liked the new production of Li'l Abner as much as I did. So did the reviewer for Variety.

I'm hearing all sorts of things that may happen at the Writers Guild meeting tomorrow night. Yes, I will be there. No, I won't be live-blogging from it and that's because I want to pay attention and also not violate the sanctity of what obviously will be an important gathering. Rumors abound about what's in the offer that will be discussed and I'm trying to not formulate an opinion until I actually know what I'm formulating an opinion about. I think it's fair to say though that the offer will be good enough for some and not good enough for others.

I will pass along one rumor, though. It's that the current proposal is for a deal that would expire in May of 2011. That sounds odd to me because the Screen Actors Guild traditionally makes contracts that expire at the end of July and if they make a new three year deal without a strike, that one would probably expire in July of '11 and the AMPTP could again be in the position of facing both unions with linked arms. One of the Big Stories of this Writers Strike, and the reason it's been so effective, has been the unbreakable solidarity with SAG. I don't know why the studios would risk having that happen again. Perhaps they think they can move SAG's expiration month to December.

The above, I should underscore, may not be true. None of the rumors may be true, including the one that has all the lawyers on both sides still scurrying to commit to paper some terms that can be discussed tomorrow evening. About the only thing I'll predict for sure about the meeting is that there will be a lot of arguing and that the parking at the Shrine Auditorium is going to suck. If you're getting there, get there early.

As I've mentioned here before — to little apparent interest — I was a big fan of the cuisine at the old Love's Barbecue Restaurants. Alas, there are no more Love's except (according to the company website) for an alleged one in Jakarta, Indonesia. I'm dubious it's there and when I get a moment, I'm going to run over and check. In the meantime, all of the ones in this country have definitely closed. The only place that I believe still serves what is essentially the Love's menu is a former Love's situated in Brea, California. It's called Riley's.

My favorite thing on the Love's menu was their barbecued beans. When it became apparent to me that all the Love's were going away, I began searching for their recipe to see if it was possible for me to replicate these beans in my home kitchen. It doesn't take a lot of Googling to find two different recipes, both of which are presented as The Love's Recipe, sometimes with a little tale about how a friend who worked in one broke the Barbecue Code and divulged the secret. Here's one of these recipes…

• 5 pounds canned pork and beans
• 1 pound brown sugar
• 1 (14 oz.) bottle ketchup
• 2 bell peppers, chopped
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke, to taste
• 8 slices bacon

Combine all ingredients except bacon in a large casserole or baking pan. Top with bacon strips. Bake at 325 degrees for 2 1/4 hours.

You'll find that recipe on at least a hundred websites and it may even yield a great pot of beans…but there's no way that's the Love's recipe. Love's beans did not contain bell peppers (I hate bell peppers) and were not topped with slices of bacon…and what's this about starting out with some arbitrary brand of canned pork and beans? Wouldn't the output of this recipe vary a lot depending on which brand of canned pork and beans you started with? Also, Love's beans tasted an awful lot like Love's barbecue sauce, and there's nothing in the above about adding in Love's sauce or any of the same spices. So phooey on this recipe.

A little more Googling and you may come up with the following putative recipe for Love's beans. This one is usually represented as having been exposed by an article in the L.A. Times…

• 3 (1 pound) cans pork n' beans
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1/4 cup dark molasses
• 1/2 cup bottled chile sauce
• 2 tablespoons vinegar

Combine all ingredients in bean pot or crockpot with lid, mix well. Cover and bake at 400 degrees F for 1 hour for thin bean mixture, or 1 1/2 to 2 hours for thicker bean mixture. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon bits to serve.

That sounds a little more like it but even without testing, I know that's not it. Again, we're starting with some random brand of canned beans, which means we have some arbtitrary sauce going into our concoction. Again, we have those bacon bits. I don't believe Love's beans had much, if any chili flavoring in them (I hate chili) and again, I don't see the elements in there that would convey or approximate the taste of Love's sauce.

It's still possible, by the way, to purchase Love's sauce via their website. It's a sweet BBQ sauce and usually I don't like sweet sauces…but I like this one and I sometimes use it in cooking. In case you're interested, the label on the bottle says it contains water, tomato paste, brown sugar, corn syrup, vinegar, salt, modified food starch, sucrose, spices, natural flavorings and a couple of chemicals.

One night recently, I actually had the following dream. It is rare that I remember dreams after I awaken and maybe the reason I recalled this one was that it came with a decent punchline.

A restaurant opened nearby that advertised itself as featuring the best dishes from now-defunct restaurant chains. Not a bad idea when you think about it. The proprietors, they said, had tracked down the owners of the extinct eateries and made deals to use their recipes and also their logos, so you could go in and get a simulation of some meal that you used to love at a chain no longer in business.

On the slim chance that they had included Love's in their repertoire, I raced to the restaurant and on the outside saw a display of the logos and names of the long-gone dining establishments whose menus were involved. As happens in dreams, the specifics were fuzzy…but I saw all these famous logos and in the middle of them was the one for Love's.

Ecstatic, I raced inside and took a seat at the counter. A waitress offered me a menu but for some reason, I declined. "Just bring me one of everything from the Love's section," I told her. "We only have one item from Love's," she said. "Whatever it is, bring me five of them," I said. Again, I have no idea why I did this in my dream but, you know, you do things in dreams that don't make a lot of sense. Some of us do things when we're awake that don't make a lot of sense, too.

So I sat there in this dreamed-up restaurant, drooling and anticipating and wondering which of the wonderful Love's entrees would soon be placed before me in quintuple helpings. Their ribs? Their chicken? Their ribs-chicken combo? Whatever it was, it surely came with a side of Love's beans and that's what I was really there for…to eat Love's beans. I waited and waited and waited for what seemed like months…and finally, just when I was beginning to give up hope, the serving lady came over and placed my order on the counter…

It was five vanilla milk shakes.

I'm not making this up. I really dreamed this, punchline and all.

Li'l Abner is one of my favorite musical comedies. I never got to see the Broadway original but the movie is very close to it and has been watched many a time in my house.

Since no full scale stage revival is imminent, we have to settle for "concert" versions which use minimal sets and smaller casts. I've seen several and last night, I was at the opening for the one currently being mounted by the Reprise! group, which stages shows up at U.C.L.A. This one's there through February 17 and if you're anywhere in the area, get yourself some tickets and perambulate on down to Dogpatch Country and catch it. Abner and his kin are in the very best of hands.

In the above pic, you see Eric Martslof, who has the title role…and the voice and physique to carry it off. So does Brandi Burkhardt, who plays Daisy Mae. Robert Towers and Cathy Rigby play Pappy and Mammy Yokum, and that's Fred Willard, who is properly sinister as General Bullmoose. (Not in the photo: Several other cast members who do outstanding work, including Michael Kostroff, who plays Marryin' Sam, and Larry Cedar, who plays Rufus T. Finsdale, the scientist.) Michael Michetti directed, Lee Martino did the choreography and Darryl Archibald is responsible for the musical direction.

I was struck by how great the show sounded. I always liked the score but the songs were especially lush and melodic last night. And the dancing — and this is not always the case with these "concert" performances — was amazing. Given how little rehearsal they get, it's an achievement that people are up there dancing at all, let alone this good. The hoofing was energetic and athletic and an awful lot of fun, especially a sequence where Ms. Rigby put her gymnastic skills to good use.

Yeah, the story's kinda silly. (Near the end, the police arrest General Bullmoose and haul him away. I defy anyone who sees the show or movie to explain to me exactly what they're going to charge him with, especially given the fact that they don't arrest Evil Eye Fleagle.) But if a cast hits the right joyous tone, it works well…and it worked well last night on the stage of Macgowan Hall. Which is where you'll hightail it before the 17th if you have a lick o' sense.

If I haven't done a sufficient selling job on it here, take a gander at a preview over on this page. And if you want to order tix — as of this afternoon, there will still some left — this page is where you want to go.

One other thing! There are two Saturday matinees ahead and each is preceded by a lecture on the history of the Broadway show. Each starts at Noon and runs an hour. Then, if you have tix for the matinee, you have to kill an hour…which is easy to do on the U.C.L.A. campus. (I killed several years there.) They clear the house and then the matinee performance commences at 2 PM.

This coming Saturday, February 9, the lecture will be delivered by my friend, the eminent historian of the theater, Miles Kreuger. And then on February 16, the lecture will be delivered by me. Both of us will have one or more special guests from the original Broadway production in attendance…I hope. For more information and the number to phone for reservations, check out this page.

Jay Huber tipped me off about this interview with John Cleese. You might enjoy reading it.

Yesterday in the class I teach in Humor Writing at U.S.C., we somehow segued from talking about the current Writers Strike to discussing the Great Comedians Strike of 1979. That was when the comics working The Comedy Store, the Improv and a couple of other L.A. clubs decided it was time to demand payment for appearances which had previously been pro bono.

This article, excerpted from a new book by Richard Zoglin, will give you the basics. It's an accurate portrait to which I would add one point. If you're going to read it, read it first and then come back and read the rest of this post.

Okay, you're back. The thing I'd add is that at the core of the comedians' complaint was that they felt what they did — their product, if you will — was being seriously devalued. It's very much like the way cartoonists are always asked for free drawings by people who think it doesn't cost them anything to give away what they do for a living. The Comedy Store, which then as now was/is run by Mitzi Shore, was big news at the time — a lot of careers had been made there — and every newspaper article or TV feature seemed to be driving home the point that comedians worked for free; that professional comedy was not something a club owner or talent booker had to pay for.

Imitations of The Comedy Store were popping up all over the place. Entrepreneurs thought there was a gold mine there, especially since they wouldn't have to lay out money for their star attractions. There were all sorts of stories about night clubs that had previously hired musical acts, and now the owner thought, "Hey, let's stop paying musicians and bring in stand-up comedians. Comedians work for free!" I heard one comic telling others how he'd received an offer to go play a club that was opening in Bakersfield. The money offered was insulting and when he told the proprietor that, the guy responded, "Hey, you should be grateful I'm even offering anything. The Comedy Store doesn't pay you a cent."

If it had just been a matter of The Comedy Store not paying, it might not have been much of an issue. There was an undeniable value to playing there for some. But it was a matter of stand-up comedy everywhere being viewed as something that didn't warrant payment, no matter how much cash the club was raking in when you were on stage.

I was even affected by it. I was writing for a comedian friend who, to put it simply, couldn't afford to pay me. In fact, after he performed, we'd go down to Carney's just down the street from The Store for burgers, and I'd have to pay for us both; that's how broke the guy was. A year or two later, he began getting paying gigs and making a decent living…but for a time there, it was just insulting that he had to live the way he was living, having to promise me that some day, he'd pay me what he owed me. (He did, by the way.) During this poverty period, he had a hard time explaining to his family and friends why, if he had what looked like a job and if they had to pay to go see him, he had to borrow the money to just get some new clothes to wear on stage.

The strike was a nasty thing, as most strikes are. Ten years later at a party, a comedian who'd crossed the picket line and one who was on that picket line almost came to blows over it, and I can think of a few combinations I still wouldn't want to gather in the same room. And as with so many strikes, the outcome seemed inevitable…and you had to wonder why they had to go through all that to get to that point. Alas, because of human intransigence, it is sometimes necessary. When the current Writers Strike ends, we'll be pondering why they couldn't just have given us that same deal back in November and made it easier on everyone…including themselves.

By the way: Several folks have written to ask what I think about the premise that the current shows hosted by Leno, Stewart, Colbert and a few others are really being ad-libbed or written by their stars, and that no scabbing is going on. I think the premise is absurd and I'll write more about this in the next couple of days.

I'm back from opening night of Li'l Abner, as staged up at U.C.L.A. by the Reprise! group. When I have time tomorrow, I'll post a review but I just wanted to mention that if you're within commuting distance, get tickets and go. It's very good.

(By the way: I'm swamped with yet another deadline so the next few posts here are ones that I wrote some time ago. If you're the guy I'm working for, don't think I'm writing on my weblog instead of your project.)

Above is a photo I took at one of the Hollywood Collectors Shows. The guy with the glasses is my pal, Earl Kress. Forget about him for the moment. He always seems to have a sheep of one kind or another on his head. The one he's wearing in this picture is, of course, Lamb Chop, the adorable puppet made famous by the late Shari Lewis. The woman who has her hand inside the adorable puppet is Shari's adorable daughter, Mallory…or Mally to her friends.

I've been meaning to write a piece here about how Mallory is carrying on the family tradition with amazing skill and taste. A fellow named James H. Burns, who reads this site and often sends me interesting e-mail, beat me to it. He wrote this up and offered it to me for inclusion here. I'll meet you on the other side of it and add a few comments. Here's Jim…

Over the holidays, I caught a show with Mallory Lewis and that great American kids-TV icon, Lamb Chop.

Mallory is carrying on the great act and tradition begun by her mom, Shari Lewis, for decades, with such puppets as Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy…

I feel strange calling this "an act." Almost as strange as it seems to call Lamb Chop a puppet. Because while Shari Lewis was a spectacularly talented ventriloquist, she was also a terrific actress. And the reason I think she clicked with kids and adults both, beginning in the 1950s, was that she had that inner glow and charm that is almost imposible to capture in words, but which when it's there and glimmers, manages to transcend the TV, or whatever medium the performer inhabits.

And Lambchop lives in the hearts of millions.

Mallory Lewis' show, is terrific. It turns out she co-produced the last several TV shows her mom did, many of which are still available on video, over at Amazon. But no one knew, apparently, that she also, somewhere along the way, picked up her family heritage for performing —

And, as our pal Paul Winchell might have said, "Ventrilliliqui…"

Lovely and a good singer, Lewis' neatest attribute was her immediate, and warm, rapport with the kids in the audience. The show was a Chanukah party/concert in Manhattan.

And when Lewis appeared center stage, with Lambchop, I was moved. How could this be?

I'm not old enough to have seen the TV shows that first made Shari Lewis a household name. And I was too old for the PBS shows of the late 1980s that returned Lamb Chop and Company to fame. (And, to be honest, I got a little tired of hearing tykes singing that show's theme, "The Song That Never Ends…")

But the Shari Lewis show had become legendary in my home. Older relatives had grown up with her, and still loved her. And my father had been entirely taken with the winning gamine from the Bronx. As I became entirely enthralled by the later 1960s shows of Soupy Sales and Frank Nastasi, Chuck McCann, and Paul Winchell, folks would tell me how great the Lamb Chop series had been, and how great it would be if Shari would return to TV.

I must have seen Lamb Chop and the gang on some variety show appearance of some kind, because I had memories of the characters by the time they resurfaced.

But what was the power in that New York theatre, as Mallory Lewis began bantering with whom I guess one could even say is really her sister? I think it's the emotion that's palpable when people encounter artists and characters that they've loved since childhood. The ten year olds there had also grown up with Lamb Chop. And the joy in their minds was as strong as ours would have been, when tots, if encountering one of our childhood heroes.

By the end of the hour, at least a couple of the grandparents had tears in their eyes. But that's what happens when an icon comes to life, at least as marvelously performed by Mallory Lewis. (Lewis also hosts, and has written, a new DVD/video series for toddlers, Phonics for Babies, featuring a new conglomeration of puppets and characters.)

Afterwards, chatting with Joseph Giangrasso, the show's producer, I suddenly remembered that extraordinary episode of Love, American Style that Shari Lewis did with Paul Winchell. Lewis and Winchell play two ventriloquists waiting in a talent agent's office. Their dummies are on their knees. But the two of them are too painfully, way too painfully, shy to even talk to each other.

I mean, the ventriloquists.

So the two of them start chatting with their puppets. And fall in love.

It was one of the best vignettes produced on American television, in the '70s.

The great punchline to all this, was that Giangrasso then told me something I never knew…that that episode was written by Jeremy Tarcher, a celebrated book publisher, Shari's husband…

…and Mallory's Dad.

It's Evanier again. Mallory is just as good as James says, and the mood in the room when she performs is just as chilling…in a good way. I second everything he says.

I was fortunate to work with Shari Lewis on a project that, alas, never materialized. It was a Saturday morning pilot for CBS — a series that would have been not unlike Welcome Back, Kotter but with Shari as the teacher…and the only human in the show. The class would have been a grouping of new puppet characters. We spent several weeks working together on it before someone on high at the network decided against it. Them's, as they say, the breaks.

But I was pleased that I got to spend some time with Shari. One of those lost treasures of television history — I don't know how many of its episodes even exist today — was the show she did for NBC Saturday morning from 1960 to 1963. It was a wonderful and musical little affair that tapped into the New York theatrical community of the day for both its performers and writing talent, and I suspect it would hold up very well if it could be rerun now or issued on DVD. Later on, Shari was always a welcome presence on my teevee in everything she did.

Shortly after our project fell through, I ran into her at the V.S.D.A. in Las Vegas, which was a big convention of companies that put movies and shows out on VHS tape. You may remember VHS tape. Shari invited me to sit with her at a booth as she signed hundreds of posters and photos for a company that was putting some of her work out on tape and the reaction from the autograph-seekers was fascinating. Everyone talked to her about Lamb Chop but not one person said anything that would indicate that Lamb Chop was not a living creature, let alone that Shari manipulated that creature and provided the voice. I'm sure they all knew but didn't want to fiddle with the illusion, just for themselves. I'm delighted that Mally Lewis is keeping the illusion intact.

Let the record show that the Zogby Poll missed on its prediction of the California primary race by — and this could be a new world's record for polls that are generally well-respected — about six miles. Their last, pre-election projection was Obama with 49% and Clinton with 36%. The final total was Clinton with 52% and Obama with 42%.

How bad is that? My guess is that if I'd asked every reader of this site to just take a wild guess without doing any polling or research gathering or anything…if you'd just plucked numbers out of the "hunch" part of your brain…almost all of you would have been closer than Zogby. I would have guessed Obama to beat Clinton by a point or two.

Mr. Zogby has occasionally been accused of slanting his polls towards one candidate over another, either because he personally favors that candidate or because he's being paid by a news organization that does. Leaving aside fake polls that a campaign may commission just for its own p.r. value, I don't think any of the major pollsters ever intentionally give us anything but their best possible estimate. It's too embarrassing when they're wrong and, besides, one poll skewing towards a preferred candidate wouldn't have any impact. Zogby's last poll in California couldn't have looked much better for Obama, and Obama still finished below all expectations.

I think the polls still have a value, especially when viewed in consensus. The consensus this time was probably, generally right…although it's interesting that so much of the exit polling was way off, causing several TV networks to say X was likely to win when Y won, and to even actually call one state for the wrong candidate. I don't know if it's this election in particular or if something about our national approach to voting is changing…but something's amiss.