Monthly Archives: March 2009

Yesterday, I linked to an interview with Frank Welker, the workingest voice actor in the history of mankind. It turns out that the interview was swiped from the website of the folks who actually conducted it. I have deleted that item. This link will take you to the same interview but on the proper site. And this link will take you to Part Two of it.

That's right: I was fooled by an imitation of a Frank Welker interview.

Back when I was eating a lot more sugar than I do these days, I could sense it was healthier for me than that scariest of alternatives, High Fructose Corn Syrup. I don't ingest much of either these days but it's still nice to hear that a lot of companies are giving up the latter for the former.

I love the bounceback I get on this blog. Here's an e-mail from my friend Tony Tollin, who's an expert on, among other things, old radio shows and the character actors who worked in that medium…

Knowing your interest in animation voices and breakfast cereal mascots, I thought I'd point out that the Car 54 video features Arthur Anderson as the contest emcee. He's the second person you hear in the opening scene, and later introduces the various acts.

Arthur Anderson is probably best-known as the original voice of Lucky, the Lucky Charms leprechaun, a role he voiced for 29 years. A veteran of Let's Pretend and Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre (where he played Lucius in Welles' legendary modern-dress production of Julius Caesar and Jim Hawkins in the Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of Treasure Island), Arthur has been a regular at the annual Friends of Old-Time Radio Convention for the past 30 years.

This episode also features Leon Janney as the doctor. A former child actor in vaudeville and films, Janney moved onto the airwaves at age 15 where he starred in The Parker Family and in the title role on Chick Carter, Boy Detective. He was a regular on Ken Roberts' Quick as a Flash quiz program and was also frequently heard on The Shadow, Charlie Chan and Mr. District Attorney. Leon also served on the national board of AFTRA for 30 years. Coincidentally, the most recent volume of my Shadow trade paperbacks (#26) features a 1944 Chick Carter radio script in which Nick Carter's adopted son shares an adventure with The Shadow and Thanksgiving dinner with Lamont Cranston and Margot Lane in a rare radio crossover.

And I'm pretty sure that's Ruth Last as the butcher's wife.

What Tony's talking about regarding The Shadow is that he publishes some fine reproductions of classic pulp magazines, The Shadow included. You can find out all about them at his website. Thanks, Tony, for all the info.

I don't want to spend a lot of blogging space here on these AIG bonuses. There are other blogs on the 'net covering this in more detail, plus we have more important things to discuss on this one, like Creamy Tomato Soup and books about Jack Kirby. But Jef Peckham sent me the following and I thought it was worth a little more discussion…

Things I have learned about the AIG excessive seeming bonuses and the House bill to retroactively tax them at 90%:

(I note for the record that these do not come from places many on the left considered biased, like Fox, but mostly from NPR, who discussed them extensively on All Things Considered.)

1. The "evil" bonuses were retention bonuses, not performance bonuses. In short, the contracts stated "If you work for us until such-and-such date, we will give you a bonus of X dollars." It was an exclusivity contract, which I'm sure you understand, considering they have been a part of both Hollywood and Comic industries for years. It served to keep the clowns who caused much of the problems in place to help clean things up, operating on the theory that they were some of the only ones who even remotely understood them;

2. The pre-existing contracted bonuses were specifically allowed by the Stimulus Bill, on an amendment submitted by Sen. Chris Dodd. Dodd now claims he was 'forced' to put that amendment in the bill by the administration. (Why do I doubt this?);

3. Treasury Secretary Geithner says he only learned the "full extent of the bonuses" on March 10. (Note his careful parsing of words, much like Bill Clinton in his Lewinsky situation.) How long did he actually know about the bonuses?;

4. Problem 1 with the House Bill is that it could be considered a Bill of Attainder, forbidden by the Constitution. A bill of attainder quite simply is a law passed to unjustly deprive a person or small group of their property. What little I've heard is that this bill is directed at the AIG bonuses and its' effect on other bonuses not in the financial sector is limited, leading to the law of unintended consequences which I will explain shortly;

5. Problem 2 with the House Bill: the Constitution also forbids Ex Post Facto laws, literally "after the fact." That is exactly what this House tax bill is doing, going after the bonuses after they have been paid. From that standpoint, I would have to applaud the 87 Republicans who voted against the bill.

I mentioned the Law of Unintended Consequences. Here's my take on it. This law could make contracts with bonuses nearly worthless, as the recipient of the bonuses would get essentially nothing of that bonus. This could have a devastating effect on future contracts. Specifically, if the government is going to do this to the people who understand the financial system they are trying to fix, how many of those who know or understand the problems are going to be willing to work with the government to fix the problems? I suspect it wouldn't be very many.

Well, believe it or not, in all my years working in Hollywood and Comics, I've never had a real "exclusivity" contract. I've had hundreds of contracts, however, and I've encountered many instances of a company making a contract, then finding (or at least, trying to find) workable and maybe even legal ways of not paying off on it or modifying its terms later on, especially when the company gets into financial trouble. In this particular case, if the U.S. of A. hadn't stepped in to rescue AIG, most or all of those bonus clauses would have been worthless. They're only paying off because of the bailout. I wish contracts were sacred and I always got every dime mine said I was to get…but sometimes, I don't. And sometimes I only do when a lawyer working for me makes that happen.

Yeah, the AIG contracts were called "retention contracts" but there seems to be some debate out there over whether that's what they really were or even if all those people met the criteria of retention. And that's quite apart from the argument as to whether they should have been retained. Did those people, on whose watch the whole thing collapsed, really "understand the financial system they are trying to fix?" I dunno. But I'm skeptical of the claim that some seem to be making that since they burned down the house, they're the only ones who know how to rebuild it.

I mean, if you'd put me in charge of AIG, I could certainly have destroyed that company. That wouldn't mean I could undo my own destruction.

Why do you want to retain the services of folks you yourself call "clowns?" I mean, there may be a lovely Sondheim number there but we've already been suckered by a deal that held that if the company made astronomical profits, they kept 'em and if they had astronomical losses, we assumed 'em. I don't think it's wrong to be leery of the not-dissimilar premise that if these guys succeed, they have to be kept on because they're great at what they do…and if the company crashes and burns under their leadership, they have to be kept on because only they have the skills and knowledge to repair their own damage. What does an AIG executive have to do to warrant being fired if bringing the firm to total ruination is not enough?

Obviously, some erred big in not blocking these bonuses early on. If it was Senator Dodd, he'll deserve all the grief he'll undoubtedly get. I hope some of it is spread around amongst all who voted for the package. Right now, we're seeing a lot of Democrats trying to pin it all on Republicans and vice-versa, and I kinda doubt that either side has the cleanest of hands.

As I've suggested here, however, I'm not comfy with the constitutionality of deciding now to tax the bejeebers out of the bonuses. Others will decide if it is…and it sure wouldn't surprise me if for reasons you cite, they decide it isn't. I even suspect that some who voted for the tax fully expect it to be overturned but they figure (a) it's politically expedient at the moment and/or (b) the vote may just intimidate the AIG recipients to settle now for lesser amounts and cause others in line for similar bonuses to renegotiate them. I'm not sure those are good reasons (or that there ever are any) to vote for an unconstitutional bill. I also suspect that some or all of the 87 Republicans who voted against the new tax didn't have that in mind. Hearing some talk, they just seem to like the idea of government money being shovelled into private bank accounts…or just plain hate the concept of taxing wealthy people.

So, Jef, I probably concur with you on the constitutionality. I don't agree that only the AIG "clowns" (as you call them) can unscrew their own pooch. I also don't agree that this will destroy the concept of bonuses in contracts. There are first-year paralegals who can figure out ways around this one…ways to deliver bonus bucks under some other name, which will make them as sacrosanct as any payment ever is in any contract. I also expect there are financial experts who are already lining up to tackle the task of restabilizing AIG and other firms that bubbled their way into insolvency. There's probably a lot of money in being part of the cavalry that rides to the rescue on this one…and ways of making sure they actually get it.

Just fixed the Amazon link in the previous posting. I accidentally (yeah, sure) set it to order my book, Kirby: King of Comics, instead of the new The Best of Simon and Kirby. Not that you shouldn't buy both…

Here's a quick rave/recommendation for a book I had a little something to do with. Today, I received my advance copy of The Best of Simon and Kirby, a forthcoming hardcover sampler of the work of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Joe and Jack did some of the greatest comics ever done and the hardest part of assembling this collection was figuring out which masterpieces to include. (But don't worry: This is the first of a series…)

It's 240 pages in full color — stories from Captain America, Blue Bolt, Sandman, The Fly, Black Magic, etc…one of each from the major Simon-Kirby works. Some of this material has been reprinted before but usually not with great reproduction. For this book, for the first time, the publisher had access to Joe Simon's personal archives of original artwork and first-generation photostats. (On my trip to New York last year, I got to rummage through Joe's files. He saved an awful lot of stuff and it's all wonderful.)

Joe wrote a great foreword to the book and I wrote little essays leading into each chapter. But the reason you want to get this is because it's Simon and Kirby, the guys who made everything exciting, at their best. Which is all the reason you need.

Click here to place an advance order. They say it won't be released 'til May 12 and while I can't promise anything, I'll guess that since I have my copy, it won't take that long. Even if it does, this one's worth waiting for.

Speaking of the San Diego Con: One theme this year is to look back on 40 years of that convention. It's changed names and nature a number of times but this year is the fortieth one and I am among a teensy handful of folks who can say they've attended every one.

Many people were involved in the founding of that convention but I want to mention two: Mike Towry and Richard Alf. Why am I mentioning them? Because we're trying to find them. If you know or are the Mike Towry or Richard Alf who helped launch the con, please drop me a note.

Here's a report on the mad, often fruitless scramble for hotel rooms in San Diego during this year's Comic-Con International. One of the commenters there thinks the con oughta move to Vegas. As I've explained here a couple of times, I don't think that will ever happen, nor should it happen.

As partial evidence in the past, I've cited the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Now, it's tough to compare conventions in different venues because, for example, we have no firm idea of how large the Comic-Con would be if it did relocate to Vegas. Right now in S.D., it's around 125,000 attendees per con but that's because that's all the convention center can hold. Four-day passes are already sold out so it's safe to assume that if they had more floor space, as they would in Vegas, they'd have a lot more than 125,000 people there. On the other hand, we don't know how many people who eagerly go to San Diego wouldn't go to Las Vegas. Some folks don't like Vegas, especially when it's 110 degrees in the shade and there isn't any shade.

But consider the C.E.S., which is held every year in that town — in January, when the weather is more tolerable. Attendance got up to 145,000 or so for a few years there and hotel rooms were just as tough to get and just as expensive as they ever are for San Diego. Matter of fact, it's been suggested that some hotels deliberately jacked up prices to discourage C.E.S. attendees, who are notorious for not doing a lot of gambling. (The in-town joke was that a C.E.S. attendee comes to Vegas with one shirt and a twenty-dollar bill and doesn't change either one.) We can guess what kind of gaming profile the Comic-Con crowd would have there but I'd wager big that they'd wager small.

In any case: Late last year, with the economy doing belly-flops off the high board, there was a pre-C.E.S. panic that attendance would be way down. It was a huge news story in Vegas that any hotels were actually (gasp) dropping their prices during C.E.S. That was unheard-of but indeed, room prices at some hotels (not all) went from the astronomical to the semi-astronomical. As it turned out, attendance at this year's C.E.S. fell 23% from the previous year. 110,000 people attended.

I'm probably giving you T.M.I. here (too much information) but what I take away from this is that no matter where you go, if you have 125,000+ people attending a convention, rooms are going to be hard to get and expensive. I'm told that things should be a bit better in San Diego starting next year because (a) more hotels are opening and (b) there will be fewer "other" conventions in town.

In the meantime, if you tried to get a room for San Diego this year and failed, do not despair. More rooms should become available so check the site from time to time…and ask around, look around. A lot of folks make multiple reservations, then cancel all or all but one. Some people book outside the convention reservation system and then, if and when they get a cheaper or more convenient room, they let the less desirable booking go.

You might also consider taking the train to San Diego for a day (as I suggested here) and I should append another tip. Many folks have told me of the joy and ease of using the San Diego trolley system to get from the train station to the con…or from outlying hotels and motels to the con. I've never taken it but everyone tells me it's comfy and clean and reliable and cheap. Here's a website where you can see where it wanders. The con also, of course, has shuttle buses from many close-by hotels that will get you to the convention center.

Yeah, I know it sometimes seems like a lot of work to attend that convention. But once you get there, most folks seem to think it's more than worth it.

Obama's appearance on The Tonight Show went well enough…but those things always do. If Dick Cheney went on, he'd probably do okay. The President is probably already regretting his "Special Olympics" quip not because it was insulting to the disabled but because it gives his detractors something to scream about and try to build one of those bogus equivalence arguments. You know, all presidents make mistakes. Bush got us into an unnecessary war and ran it badly, costing countless lives and dollars. Obama may have offended some handicapped people. It's all the same.

I used to wish politicians wouldn't go on shows like that. I felt they needed to face real questions and not be allowed to come across like nice, funny guys in a safe venue. But lately, they don't face real questions on Meet the Press or other shows of that sort. So maybe it doesn't matter much anymore…

Rachel Maddow did a terrific segment on her show this evening noting the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War and all the attempts by its instigators to rewrite history. You know, that whole thing about "weapons of mass destruction" was a minor error that anyone could have made…and of course, no one suggested there was any link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks…

I'll embed the segment if and when it becomes available. On the other hand, Ms. Maddow made a big deal about the 87 Republican Congressfolks who voted against today's move to tax the AIG bonuses at 90%, interpreting that as the G.O.P. siding with the greedy fat cats. I don't think that's quite fair. For one thing, half of the Republican reps voted for the bill…and some of those who voted against it may have simply felt it was the wrong, probably unconstitutional way to go about nullifying those bonuses.

Okay, I'm gonna go watch Obama on the Leno show…