Monthly Archives: June 2009

Before I get back to a script that should have been done yesterday…

• Yes, I know a lot of white people have recorded "Shout." I was making what is sometimes referred to as a joke…though among the many recording artists who have been cited to me as having covered it, I'm not sure The Beatles really qualify as white people. Musically, at least.
• Many of you had suggestions as to why some links I click on open in Internet Explorer rather than my default browser, Mozilla Firefox. The most relevant seem to be that some links employ JavaScript that has I.E. encoded as preferential. Some of the others may apply, as well.
• I may have overstated the lack of fame of Robert Walker, who starred in the movie, Ensign Pulver. Then again, several of you who wrote to tell me of his grand film career have him confused with his father, who acted under the same name. The son has had a pretty good run of acting jobs and he was very good in Ensign Pulver. I just thought following Jack Lemmon in a part like that is like trying to follow Tiger Woods around the golf course. You can hit a great game and still look like a runner-up.

Okay, back to that assignment…and fretting because I have to go downtown tonight. One hopes the massive Lakers victory parade will be gone by then. One does hope.

The whole dust-up 'twixt David Letterman and Governor Sarah Palin seems to be about 98% over. That 2% will linger because there are some loud activists out there who vowed to never rest 'til Dave was fired and they seem to be the type who'll keep a crusade going to no effect rather than admit it failed. They should have taken a cue from Sarah and quit when they could claim victory.

If their protest had any chance of endangering Letterman's employment, it would have had to turn out a meaningful demonstration in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater the other day. Instead, reporters there to cover the picketing outnumbered the 40-50 folks with placards…so of course, the story became about the protest effort fizzling, not about a growing demand in this country for Dave's rather unimpressive scalp. A couple of the interviews with the demonstrators made them look pretty hateful. There was one woman yelling about Letterman's bastard child and the "whore" he finally married. Good way to claim the moral high ground, lady.

Throughout this squabble, Dave's ratings have generally gone up. Makes you think Conan O'Brien oughta consider trashing the Palin daughters a little. But actually, Letterman's ratings were edging upwards even before this all started.

A lot of folks writing about this have talked about Sarah Palin being "Dave's Hugh Grant," meaning that she'd catapult him into back into the lead. That's the wrong way of looking at this. Way too much has been made of the impact Mr. Grant had on the late night ratings. When he went on The Tonight Show to speak about his arrest for soliciting sex, it was indeed the first night that Jay Leno beat Dave Letterman…the first of a nearly-unbroken 13-year winning streak. But Leno was edging upwards before that. All Grant did was start that streak a month or so earlier than it would have without him.

People did not thereafter watch Leno in larger numbers because he'd once had Hugh Grant on. It was just a matter of them liking one show more than another. In subsequent years, there was the occasional night when Dave would beat Jay, usually because of some "one-time" event — having Hillary Clinton as a guest, Dave's return from surgery, etc. Some of those outlier broadcasts yielded huge tune-ins for one episode and occasionally a smaller, lingering excitement for the following one. But within two days, the numbers were always right back where they'd been before…every time.

The Palin Controversy has helped Letterman, no doubt. But what will be more significant — because it'll matter in the long run — is if more people are deciding they'd rather watch Dave than Conan. Which is all the ratings contest is really about.

This item over on Roll Call pretty well summarizes why the important issues confronting this country go unfixed and unaddressed for so long…

House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn't know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.

But of course, it was important to issue the outline so they could say, "We have a plan!"

With MAD Magazine down to quarterly publication, a lot of funny people have time on their hands. To fill the void and generate bucks, MAD is resurrecting a lost art form…original MAD books. Once upon a time, MAD reprinted its best articles in rack-size paperbound volumes but also issued all-new books, as well. We treasure especially the ones by Don Martin, Al Jaffee, Dick DeBartolo, Frank Jacobs and that Aragonés guy.

Well, MAD is getting back into that business and will soon release (in hardcover!) Bo Confidential: The Secret Story of America's First Dog. It's written by the editorial staff and drawn in record time by Tom Richmond. Tom has a little preview over on his website and you can pre-order your copy at this link.

I often recommend that you tune in Stu's Show, the web-only radio show that my buddy Stu Shostak hosts on Shokus Internet Radio. I'm going to give a special recommendation for today's (Wednesday's) show, especially for those of you with an interest in game shows.

Stu has scored a major coup by landing Roger Dobkowitz for a two-hour interview. Roger worked his way up from a lowly post at Goodson-Todman to a longtime position as show runner on the most successful game show in the history of mankind, The Price is Right. He was there for the glories of that show, the controversies, the successes, the failures…all of it. And I think this is the first time he's spoken about his years there since he left the show. Perhaps he will even explain why so many people on the crew thought Bob Barker was the one who should be spayed or neutered.

Now, here's where I explain again about Internet Radio. This is not a podcast. Got that? Not a podcast. You can't download it and listen to it whenever you feel like it. You have to "tune in" when it's on…which in this case is from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern. Stu's Show is done live on Wednesday and that's the best time to listen because that's when you can call in and ask questions. To hear the show on your own computer, go to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appointed hour and click where you're told to click. And if you can't make it then, fear not. The show reruns on other days, usually in the same time slot. Check out the site for a full schedule…and while you're there, take note of their other fine, free programming.

Here's the front page of the Los Angeles Mirror News for Tuesday, June 16, 1959. The headline is the suicide of George Reeves. Some of the "facts" in the news story — like the description of the actor's current career and prospects — are at odds with what others believe.

Speaking of Burl Ives — and I was speaking of Burl Ives — Greg Ehrbar sent me this link to a half-hour BBC radio program about his life and times. If you want to listen, hurry because it'll only be good for another day or two.

And, hey! If my friends at Turner Classic Movies are reading this, it's been a while since you've run Ensign Pulver, the 1964 sequel to Mister Roberts that Jack Lemmon turned down because he thought (rightfully) the script was weak. It's far from a great movie but it's kinda fun to watch, especially because of all the now-familiar faces and/or great character actors in the cast. There's Larry Hagman, Walter Matthau, Jack Nicholson, Peter Marshall, Tommy Sands, Dick Gautier, Al Freeman Jr, James Farentino, a skinny James Coco, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Kay Medford and George Lindsey in his pre-Goober days. In fact, everyone in that movie became famous except Robert Walker, the guy who drew the thankless task of replacing Lemmon as Pulver. He's darned good in it but how can anyone follow in those footsteps and be properly appreciated?

I mention it because Burl Ives was just wonderful as the despicable Captain that everyone loathes. He was a great singer but he was also a darn good actor. How about it, Turner Classic Movies? Double-feature with Mister Roberts?

Better still, how about it, Warner Home Video? Ensign Pulver is not out on DVD. It was out on VHS once upon a time and you can still find that but no one buys VHS tapes these days. If you guys can't sell a product with the names of Matthau, Nicholson and Hagman on the packaging, it's time to close the department. There are Andy Griffith Show fans, mostly female, who'll buy this for the three seconds of Goober shirtless.

Come on. If I can't get Skidoo released on DVD, maybe I can get this one out of the vaults. And then we can do something about The Flim-Flam Man and Pretty Maids All in a Row.

I thought David Letterman's second apology to Sarah Palin went way beyond what the joke warranted…but I guess I understand why certain of her supporters insist it didn't go far enough. They're empowered by their outrage. People who would never get quoted in the press have a bit of attention so they want to keep it going as long as possible. Saying Dave has evened things up would be the end of it for them. Staging protests and demanding he be terminated proves their power and keeps the clock ticking on their fifteen minutes of fame.

To the extent they're genuinely incensed, it's not Dave. It's that Sarah Palin has largely become a laughingstock in this nation, shunned even by much of the Republican Party. If you've cast your lot with her and the things she stands for — if you fantasize about her booting that birth-certificateless Muslim Socialist out of office in 2012 — well, you can't admit that maybe she's a joke because of her own words and actions. It's those damn late night comedians and their hateful, unfair remarks. Maybe if you can give Letterman enough grief, he and others will be afraid to utter her name with anything less than reverence.

This will go on for another day or two. Apology 2.0 should have drained most of the fuel from the fire and it'll become old news. (It's amazing it ever became news at all…but I guess it's not like there's anything important happening in the world at the moment.) CBS is not going to fire David Letterman or suspend him or anything of the sort. The only lasting impact of the protests might be measured next time — and there will be a next time — Sarah Palin says or does something really, really stupid or dishonest. If Letterman and other comedians go easy on her then the terrorists will have won.

Fifty years ago this morning, actor George Reeves died from a gunshot wound in the head, apparently self-inflicted. I don't know any more about what really happened than you probably do. All I have to go on is what others think. In the late sixties, when I met Whitney Ellsworth, who produced the Superman TV show that starred Reeves, I asked him. Mr. Ellsworth, who was one of the most nervous men I've ever met, lowered his voice to a whisper as he told me…this, despite the fact that we were alone in his office and no one could have heard him if he'd screamed what he was about to say.

But acting like he feared the KGB was listening in, he told me in quick, hushed tones that George Reeves had committed suicide, possibly because he'd gotten mixed up with an unsavory situation in his personal life, possibly because he'd been drinking heavily and taking pain pills. Pretty much everyone I've met since who either knew Reeves or who studied the case closely came to much the same conclusion. Still, the rumors persist. They are, after all, more interesting.

We were making them up on the playground of Westwood Elementary School the day after it happened. The theories popped up all across the country at the same time. Reeves got carried away with the role and thought he could fly and jumped out the window. Or he thought the bullets would bounce off him so he shot himself that way. Or someone thought he was Superman and thought they could shoot him without harm. Or something of the sort.

I remember that and I remember the great sense of shock my friends and I all felt. It wasn't the first time we'd heard a favorite TV person had died. Lou Costello had passed away three months earlier. But Mr. Costello's death was pretty normal and anyway, he wasn't Superman. The death of Superman cried out for twists and turns and a surprise ending…and while you played with all that, it was easy to forget how dreadfully sad it was. There was something about George Reeves on TV…some little twinkle and sense of humor that underscored his acting. When I've interviewed Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane to his Clark and Superman, I always ask her, "Was he as nice a man as it seems to us watching at home?" She always replies, "Even nicer." I think I'd rather remember that than the way it ended.

Okay, can some tech-head explain this to me? I run a PC and I have Mozilla Firefox installed as my default browser. I also have Microsoft Internet Explorer installed because…well, because you have to have it installed. Windows will go into anaphylactic shock if it doesn't find I.E. installed.

As I read e-mail and surf the web and do other things, I often click on links that cause browser windows to open and display webpages. Usually, these are windows generated by Firefox but sometimes, they're Internet Explorer. My question is why. Why aren't all my browser windows Mozilla windows since that's what I have installed as my default brower? Somebody write and clue me in.