Monthly Archives: March 2008

One more reminder that later today — between the hours of 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific (7 PM and 9 PM Eastern) — I'll be talking about myself on Stu's Show, which you can hear on Shokus Internet Radio. Click on the above banner and follow instructions that are so simple, even John McCain couldn't get them confused.

In fact, if you're reading this between 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific,click right here now and listen in.

While I was composing the previous post, the following arrived in my "press release" mailbox. I reproduce what they sent exactly, including the misspelling of the show's name…

The Mammia Mia! film fansite is NOW live! This is THE place where fans of the worldwide smash hit musical merge with movie buffs from all of over the country to discover a new world of friendship, conversation, support, and
community… Universal Pictures cordially invites you to join the Mamma Mia! fansite today! Join fans worldwide, swap information, trade trivia facts and learn more about the upcoming film version of the musical starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried. "My My, how can you resist that? …" Check out the film's official Mamma Mia! fansite and sign up today!

And there's also a link to this video preview. In the tradition of the recent Sweeney Todd film, it doesn't make the product look like a musical and certainly doesn't say "based on the smash Broadway show." In this case, they've decided to pass it off as a teen sex comedy starring Meryl Streep. Or maybe that's the movie they made.

This article in the New York Post says that the Young Frankenstein musical can be considered a "flop" and that it may vacate its theater sooner than some are admitting to make way for the forthcoming Spider-Man musical. (Thanks to James H. Burns for the link.)

Speaking as an utter layman and outsider here: I liked Young Frankenstein and think it's paying a certain price for the overhype. Its ticket prices and promotion have grown humbler. I would also hope they still don't have so many people in the lobby being quite so pushy about selling you t-shirts and other souvenirs. (I really think that harmed the show a bit for some folks. It did for me. Made it feel like you were filing in to a ride at Disneyland, not a Broadway musical.) I assume they haven't changed a few of the musical numbers that ended with a soft thud but there's still enough in there that you can leave humming something.

But I don't know the math on this kind of thing and it may well be in trouble. If so, I wonder what this means for the future of the show. The New York production is so expensive and elaborate, I can't imagine any regional theater ever mounting a comparable production. That might be a good thing because in some ways, the show is diminished by its size. I actually think the show could lose its rough edges if its creative team — or others they empowered — did some more work on it.

Alan Jay Lerner once wrote that the reason Camelot was not as fine a show as he wanted it to be was that they had too large an advance sale. Coming as it did from the same crew that had just done My Fair Lady, the show could not delay its New York opening long enough to fix all that needed fixing. They'd sold too many tickets for the Broadway run. Also, the show was so costly with its lush sets and costumes that it was difficult to rewrite and in many ways a prisoner of its technical needs. They actually wound up making some significant changes, including cutting two songs, several months after the show had begun playing in New York.

That almost never happens. If a show is changed after it opens on Broadway, it's usually only to scale back its budget, not to improve things. I don't think they've done either with Young Frankenstein. Maybe they could.

The other night at the Sondheim event, the introductions were done by a gentleman whose name I didn't catch. But I do remember something he said and I've been thinking about it. Here's an approximation of his words…

Later, there will be a Q-and-A session and I'm sorry to say I need to explain to people what the "Q" means. It means you ask a question. A question is a sentence that begins with an interrogatory pronoun and it ends with a question mark and your voice goes up at the end. And it's one sentence. If it's more than one sentence, it's not a question. This is not an audition. It is not about you. We don't need to hear what the first Sondheim show was you saw and how it forever changed your life. Just ask a real question and sit down.

As you know, I moderate a lot of public events and while I occasionally say a little of that, I never go that far. I think I'm going to start…or, better still, consider skipping the "questions from the floor" portion entirely. It's been clear to me that many audiences do not want the kind of audience participation that usually occurs these days.

The folks at the Sondheim interview cheered the admonition. An open mike at a public event has increasingly become a magnet for people who should not be allowed near open mikes at public events. Audiences have begun to dread that portion of the program and to regard it as the signal that the event they came to see has come to an end. Thereafter, they can either leave (many do at that point) or sit there and cringe as control passes from the person they wanted to hear and goes to some stranger who, but for this opportunity, would never be speaking in front of a real audience and/or to someone of importance.

This seems like a new trend to me. I don't recall it happening much at lectures and panels I attended in the sixties, seventies and eighties, but it got going in the nineties and has sadly become the norm in this century.

There are always tip-offs, always danger signs. One is when someone camps out at the microphone in the aisle for the entire talk, waiting for their chance. That guy, you just know is there to hijack the attention. The person who gets up and starts with "On behalf of everyone here…" or "And I know I speak for everyone…" is about to say something just to force the audience to applaud, and they probably think that applause is for them.

I have also seen great gymnastics of segue performed to formulate a question that seems to make it natural for the question-asker to mention their own current projects or even perform a bit. One time, I was interviewing Ray Bradbury. The first guy at the mike — who'd been poised there since before Ray and I arrived on stage — just wanted to say how much Ray's work had inspired his own, beginning efforts and he wanted to read aloud a passage from one of those stories to demonstrate this. If I hadn't stopped him, he'd have turned the rest of the hour into a books-on-tape recital.

I see the worst of it when I host panels about Cartoon Voicing. We always seem to get an audience member who aspires to that profession — not that there's anything wrong with so aspiring — but wants to ask for advice in a couple of different voices and accents. The panels themselves are always great and no one leaves…up until the moment when I say, "Let's take some questions from the floor." That's when people figure it's over and they start trudging out…so I'm going to stop saying it. Or at least, I'll be much ruder if I do say it and the first lady at the mike has a question she's been dying to have answered but which can only be asked in her Bart Simpson impression.

Anyway, that's what I've been waiting my whole life to say, and I know I speak for everyone when I say it…and by the way, my new book is available from Amazon. Thank you. Oh, and one more thing — on behalf of everyone here, I really want to thank you for everything you've done…and is it okay if I give out my website address and pass out some flyers I happen to have along?

Tomorrow (Wednesday) between the hours of 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific, you'll want to click on the banner above so you can listen to Yours Truly when I guest for the eleven thousandth time on Stu's Show, the flagship program on Shokus Internet Radio. That's right. I'm doing it again and for a change, we're going to talk about me! We'll probably spend a little time on my new book, Kirby: King of Comics, but Stu wants to spend most of the show discussing my work for eight years as writer, co-producer and voice director on Garfield and Friends…the job that has put me where I am today: Writing more Garfield cartoons.

We'll not only be chatting about that show but there may even be a phone call from one or two folks involved in that show, plus there'll be the golden opportunity for you to phone in and ask questions. Sounds like a plan.

Just to make sure everyone understands: This is not a podcast, not something you can download and listen to whenever it pleases you. This is like radio only it's over the Internet. You have to tune in when the show is broadcast, which is tomorrow at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM on the East Coast, other corresponding times in other places. It repeats, usually in the same time slot, throughout the following week but you won't have the fun of listening to it as we do it and you won't be able to call in.

So listen tomorrow, which will mean clicking on one of the links here and following the brief instructions. You can actually tune in to the channel right now and hear something you'll enjoy even if it isn't me. Go test and see how easy it is and notice how you can go right on working on your computer, downloading porn or mass-mailing Cialis ads or
whatever you do all day, while you listen.

The latest catastrophe in news of the environment: The cost of popcorn is going up.

One good thing about driving up north to the memorial service for Dave Stevens: Bill Stout found what may be the best barbecue restaurant I've ever been in. This recommendation won't do most of you a bit of good because it's in Modesto and when in hell are you ever going to be anywhere near Modesto? For that matter, when in hell am I ever going to be anywhere near Modesto again? Our glee at finding a great place for BBQ was tempered by the knowledge that there is no conceivable scenario that could ever bring either of us close enough to consider another meal at Doc's Q'in Pit Stop.

That's the name of the place and I gather it hasn't been there for long. Should you find yourself in Modesto some day soon, stop in. If you don't have the address, just roll down your car windows and cruise the town until you smell the greatest smell in the world coming from the big woodfire cooker out front.

I never know how to write about funerals. You can't really say "I had a good time," at least not in the sense you can have a good time at a great movie or play. You're there because a loved one died and even if — as in the case of our pal, Dave Stevens — death means an end to the agony of dying, it's still not a festive occasion. Try as you may to think of it as a beginning of something better (or of anything), your mind keeps coming back to the loss of a friend…and in this case, the untimeliness of it all. Dave was only 52 and when it was my turn to speak, one of the things that spilled out was, "Like all of you, I don't understand why we have to do this now, instead of forty or fifty years from now, as might make sense."

Obviously, you now know where I was today. It was quite a journey. The memorial for Dave was in Turlock, California — a little more than 300 miles north of Los Angeles, and we drove up in the morning and back in the evening. "We" in this case is myself and the fine illustrator, and Dave's close friend and former studio-mate, Bill Stout. And actually, Bill drove while I navigated and regaled him with anecdotes. It's fortunate I have a lot of anecdotes because it was five hours each way.

We weren't the only ones who made the trip. A number of Dave's comrades in the comic art community converged on Turlock, including Mike Richardson, Bob Chapman, Bud Plant, Bernie Wrightson, William Wray, Kayre Morrison, Jim Silke, and Richard and Alice Hescox. We were all made to feel quite welcome by the Stevens family and their local friends, who arranged a totally appropriate and moving tribute, complete with a fine display of Dave's artistry. I shouldn't write too much about this because it was, after all, a private ceremony…but we go to funerals, at least in part, to say with our presence that the deceased mattered a lot to us. So I wanted you all to know that Dave mattered a lot to a lot of people.

We also go for a sense of closure…and while I will never be entirely comfortable with the whole concept of losing a great guy like Dave Stevens, nor should we ever be, I am a bit more at peace with the idea than I was before. (For those of you in Southern California who need a similar release: There's talk of a local, public memorial in a few weeks. I'll announce it here if it happens.)