Monthly Archives: October 2008

Today is not only Huckleberry Hound's birthday, it's also 50 years since Yogi Bear first appeared on TV sets. This morning, we have the announcement that a (mostly) live-action Yogi Bear movie is in the works with Yogi and Boo Boo in CGI. Today's press release notes that Yogi first appeared in '58 but doesn't note the significance of this particular date. I have no idea what it'll be like but I hope they find a voice actor who can approximate the delivery and timing of Yogi's original voice, Daws Butler.

Here's Daws performing as Yogi in perhaps his greatest performance…an appearance on my old answering machine. If you missed the earlier ones in this series, I've posted Huck Hound (Daws), Garfield (Lorenzo Music) and Rocky the Flying Squirrel (June Foray).

And of course, John McCain is disappointing me by now suggesting that all is not copacetic with having Gwen Ifill as moderator of tonight's debate because she is the author of a "pro-Obama" book. No one apparently has seen this book and it's not officially about Obama. But it's about the role of race in politics and it comes out around Inauguration Day next year so I guess that's enough. I don't see any reason to think Ifill will favor one side…and if she did, it would probably be Palin to prove impartiality. Still, I kinda wish Ifill would withdraw so the post-debate discussions will be about what the candidates said, rather than what the moderator asked.

I think I linked to this once before but I first became a fan of John McCain's back in '96 when I read this article about McCain's friendship with peace activist David Ifshin. It's one of the most complimentary things I've ever read about a politician…although my Ultra-Ultra-Conservative friend Roger felt just the opposite. Re-reading it now, I honestly wonder if that was the same John McCain. Maybe I was just more gullible back then. It's sure starting to feel that way.

In the last month or so, Show Business seemed to have forgotten that the Screen Actors Guild is still working without a contract. Just to refresh our memory: The customary joint negotiations of SAG and AFTRA splintered this year and each went it alone. This is like if you and I had a tradition of doing well as partners in a three-legged race and we suddenly decided to split up and each run on a leg-and-a-half.

AFTRA made a tepid deal. The studios have taken the position that SAG can have essentially the same terms or they can rot but that there will be no further negotiations. And that's how it's been for months…up until the other day when the SAG Negotiating Committee decided it wants a strike authorization vote. Sadly, it sounds to me like they're doing this because they simply don't know what else to do. In a way, they're passing the buck to the union's national Board of Directors which now must decide if it will authorize such a vote.

Obviously, it's a bad time to ask the membership to threaten a walkout. I've seen no enthusiasm for it…and there wasn't even any before we started waking up to Today's Bank Failure on our homepages. A strike vote might pass but it would be like 55% or 60% so what's the point? A general rule o' thumb is that you need 80%+ to have an effective strike. If SAG voted 60% to go out, the AMPTP could just announce, "Okay, if you vote to accept our last offer, we'll throw in a free t-shirt…but this deal is only good for 48 hours." If they said that, the vote would swing the other way in a jif. Or they could just "wait out" the strike and it would collapse in two or three weeks. That would cost the studios some money — certainly more than giving away t-shirts — but they might swallow that loss in order to really humiliate a labor organization and scare others.

I feel terrible about this because I'm a big supporter of the local labor guilds and unions, and I think what SAG has been asking for is more than reasonable. But it's one of those situations where anything less than total pessimism strikes me as unwarranted optimism.

Like I said, I don't think Sarah Palin will fare as poorly in tonight's debate as some are wagering. For one thing, she's apparently had a lot of cramming. For another, the agreed-upon format limits the candidates to 90-second responses. Her side demanded this because they know that a lot of depth is not expected in a 90-second answer. Confronted with a stumper, any of us could probably run out that clock with pleasantries and generalities, leaving us — oh, sorry — no time to get down to hard specifics. It's Joe Biden who's at a disadvantage when it comes to giving short answers. Then again, I bet he knows that and has been practicing with that in mind.

A mini-fuss is being made by some over the fact that moderator Gwen Ifill has a book coming out that sounds rather pro-Obama. As Keith Olbermann noted on last night's show, this was not a secret and anyone could have found this out two months ago by Googling Ms. Ifill's name. Still, there's this sudden demand by some that she recuse herself, which apparently is not going to happen. I suspect Ifill will ask perfectly fine, fair questions and that Palin's supporters will never give up the spin that the Governor was sabotaged by a biased moderator. To his credit, John McCain was quoted yesterday as saying, "Gwen Ifill is a professional, and I think she will do a totally objective job."

I still think the host should open with the question I suggested earlier: "Are you wearing any sort of device that might enable someone to prompt you with answers or notes?" And then, since they're probably both expecting the first question will be about the bailout, I'd throw 'em off their game by saving that for later and asking them to each tell us their favorite knock-knock joke. I ain't voting for anyone who doesn't have a favorite knock-knock joke. Also, either of them could lock up my ballot by mentioning that today is the 50th birthday of Huckleberry Hound.

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the founding of Hanna-Barbera Studios — a fact which insofar as I can tell went absolutely unnoticed. I mentioned it on a panel at the Comic-Con International last July and a lot of people looked amazed that there had been no articles, no specials, no commemoration of the birth of a company that employed so many people, produced so many shows, meant so much to so many childhoods. This may be the first time it has been noted on the Internet…and even I'm a year late.

But I'm not too late to mention this: Today is the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Huckleberry Hound Show, the second H-B series. (The first was, of course, Ruff 'n' Reddy.) At least, the official date was October 2, 1958, which was a Thursday. The show was syndicated and aired on different days in some cities…but 10/2 was apparently the first day it was broadcast anywhere. It was the day the world "met" Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, Mr. Jinks, Pixie and Dixie.

The Huckleberry Hound Show was the first animated series to win an Emmy Award. Of greater significance is that it was what put Hanna-Barbera on the map and established the beachhead for animation on television. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera are often credited with inventing the whole notion of TV cartoons, thereby saving the animation business when the theatrical market fell apart. A more accurate assessment might be that they showed everyone how it could be done, both in terms of production technique and marketing. The endeavor that really demonstrated this was Huckleberry Hound.

And of course, the most important aspect of it all is that this was my favorite show when I was six, which I was in 1958. The local kids' shows in L.A. ran hoary theatrical cartoons, most of which were fine and most of which I had memorized by age five, World War II references and all. Huckleberry Hound was all new and all modern and even though the animation itself wasn't as wonderful as it was in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, that failing didn't matter to a six-year-old kid watching on a black-and-white Zenith with a small screen and fuzzy reception. In many regards, the simpler H-B graphics "read" better on the small screen.

They got away with the spartan animation because the stories were clever and also because Bill and Joe had an awesome secret weapon: The voice talents of a genius named Daws Butler. Daws was Huck, Yogi, Mr. Jinks, Dixie and many of the supporting players. Add in the considerable skills of co-vocalist Don Messick and you had more personality and humor than could be found in a lot of fully-animated productions. Later H-B shows would point up the shortcomings of their limited approach, and of course a lot of later H-B shows were simply not done very well. But I don't think it's just nostalgia for a childhood fave that causes me to still enjoy those cartoons. They really were pretty funny.

A couple of generations grew up on Hanna-Barbera shows, loving whatever was current when they were six the way I loved Huckleberry Hound. I know a lot of people care passionately about this work. What I can't understand is why the big five-oh was a stealth anniversary, unmentioned by darn near anyone.

Here's the opening of the first Huckleberry Hound show, pretty much as it looked on my little TV fifty years ago today. In fact, the screen is just about the same size…

I haven't gotten a copy for myself but I notice that Amazon is selling this 2-CD set called The Greatest Comedy of All Time. It's a bunch of old tracks, mostly from radio shows, of W.C. Fields and Bob Hope and Abbott & Costello and people like that.

You can order a copy here if you like…but me, I'm a little skeptical about this thing. I get the feeling whoever put this together doesn't know that much about great comedians. You see that photo of Groucho on the cover? That's not an old photo of Groucho. It's a new photo of our friend, Groucho impersonator Frank Ferrante.

I know no one comes to this site for advice on appliances but, hey, when something works for me, I can't shut up about it. I recently pitched my old Black and Decker toaster…the one that somehow managed to burn crusts into black styrofoam while leaving the center of my bread rawer than when it came out of the loaf. Its replacement in my kitchen, the Oster model 6335, is everything I ever wanted in a toaster. It's sturdy, it's easy to clean and it toasts whatever I want to toast to perfection. Most often, this means bagels…and it even has a special button for bagels (I think it only toasts one side of each half) and it has suitably wide slots. Better still, it has a "frozen" button which figures into the timing, the fact that the inserted item is frozen. So you can slap a frozen bagel into the thing, walk away and come back to a perfectly defrosted/toasted delight.

I've had mine about three weeks and have yet to be undelighted. Here's a link if you want to order one through Amazon but I'll warn you that prices on it seem to vary a lot. That link will let you buy one for $31.90 plus shipping but if you search the 'net, you may find it for a few bucks cheaper. You'll also notice a lot of places offering it for as much as double that. Apparently, when Consumer Reports recommends something (as was the case here), a number of merchants hike the price, figuring there will be those who will buy on that endorsement and without comparison shopping. Caveat, as they say, emptor.