Some time ago, Jerry Lewis announced that his 1963 movie, The Nutty Professor, would be transformed into a Broadway musical with him as the director. With a mix of rooting interest and skepticism, we've been watching for any trace of it…and lo and behold, there is one. An industry reading was recently held — cast members, friends and investors in a rehearsal hall, performing the material as it currently stands, minus sets or costumes or big orchestra. I'm not going to link to it but one of the investors recently posted to the net a gallery of photos taken that day. They show Jerry, of course…and also Marvin Hamlisch, who's doing the music, and actor Michael Andrew, who has the lead. Paul Shaffer and Richard Belzer were also in attendance as, one assumes, friends of Jer's.
So something's happening with it. Stay tuned for the next installment. I'm starting to think there may be one.
The latest Gallup Poll says approval of Congress is creeping up slightly…from the previous 21% approval to a whopping 26% approval. If you had a restaurant where only 26% of your customers approved of the food, you'd burn the place down for the insurance money.
But the thing is: I don't know what the 68% disapproval rating means because the pollsters don't ask that question. How many of the disapprovers are mad about the direction Congress seems to be heading in and how many are mad about that they aren't there yet? My friend Roger is pissed at Congress because he thinks it's going to pass Health Care Reform. I'm ticked because I think they're going to pass a watered-down, ineffective bill that will help the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies a lot more than it'll help people who are suffering. I'm also annoyed they haven't done even that so far.
We both disapprove and if asked by a pollster, that's what we'd say. Why don't more pollsters try to separate out those kinds of disapproval?
As several of you have informed me, the strip club in Las Vegas has discontinued its stripper-in-a-box promotion. No longer are they driving trucks up and down The Strip with bikinied women dancing for the pleasure of passers-by. This is a shame. I mean, what else is there to look at in Vegas?
A couple of folks have written in to say they're highly allergic to peanuts so it's a good thing more restaurants don't fry their french fries in peanut oil. Okay, fine. But as one who has dozens of food allergies — though not that one — I still wish a few more restaurants did their fries that way.
My friend Joe Brancatelli writes, "The best way to fry a french fry is in olive oil. You just haven't lived until you've had fries done in olive oil." I guess I haven't lived, then. So where do they do their french fries in olive oil?
I'm probably not going to write anything here about Sarah Palin's new book. It's not even out yet and the consensus seems to be that if you love her brand of politics, then every single word is sacred and that those who suggest otherwise are just trying to suppress her free speech because she's a Conservative and a woman. And if you don't like her politics, even the punctuation marks are full of lies. I don't see anyone moving very far off either position.
Lastly: Several folks have written to say there's a key difference between the two beauty pageant winners we noted who might well have parlayed scandal into lucrative careers. Unlike Carrie Prejean, they note, Vanessa Williams has demonstrated some genuine talent. Probably true…though I'm even willing to give Ms. Prejean the benefit of the doubt and admit that she might still find some place to show she can do more than parade about in a bikini and give embarrassing interviews.
As noted here, my pal Sergio Aragonés had an exhibit of his work for several months up at a museum in Ojai. The folks there were smart enough to ask him to do it and also to let him draw on the walls.
In conjunction with the showing, Sergio did some lectures there about his work. We have here a long (about an hour) video of a talk he gave there on August 30. The video isn't the greatest and you may not understand everything he says…but that's okay. He's been my best friend for over 25 years and I don't understand everything he says. Still, if you're an aspiring cartoonist, you couldn't spend a better hour of your life than trying to figure it out…
R.C. "Bob" Harvey has a fine website on which he covers the world of comic books and strips, and if I haven't recommended it here lately, I should have. He's just posted a remembrance of our friend Shel Dorf and if you knew Shel or are interested in him, it's a must-read. He talks about Shel's attempts to sell a syndicated newspaper strip (one of which was nicely drawn by Bob) and offers up some samples of those strips, plus other Shel-related visuals.
Getting to it may be a bit tricky but it's well worth the effort. Bob ordinarily charges a modest fee for access to his articles…also well worth it, by the way. But if you don't want to shell out the cash right now, you can still read the piece (and sample his other fine articles) as long as you do it in the next two weeks. Go to this page and start reading. When you reach the point where you have to be a subscriber to continue, enter the following and make sure you type it with the capital letters but without the quotation marks. For User Name, enter "Jingle" and for Password, enter "Jangle" and that will get you in…for the next two weeks or so.
By the Way Department: One of the visual treats Bob has put up is a poster for the 1977 San Diego Comic-Con — a drawing of Shel and committee chairman Richard Butner in a scene out of Don Quixote as drawn by the great Filipino cartoonist, Alfredo Alcala. There's kind of an interesting story behind this ad. No one asked Alfredo to do it. He just, on a whim, sat down one day and drew it, expecting (and receiving) no compensation. He sent it to Shel and it became the main advertising art for the convention that year…
Click above to see the whole thing.
At the time, the great animation director Chuck Jones was making a brief foray into the world of syndicated strips. He was writing and drawing a feature called Crawford. One day, an exec from his syndicate was visiting Chuck and an associate of his, a writer named Marian Dern. They were discussing business-type matters when the syndicate exec received a phone call from his office informing him of a problem with one of the syndicate's other strips, the western feature, Rick O'Shay. The problem — and it was a biggie, obviously — is that its creator-writer-artist Stan Lynde had just decided to quit.
The syndicate had the right and desire to keep the strip going so when Chuck asked, "Something wrong?", the exec said, "Yeah, I've got to find someone to write and draw Rick O'Shay."
Chuck pointed to his friend Marian and said, "How about having her write it?"
This was discussed for a few minutes and the guy from the syndicate said, "Well, that might work…but who could we get to draw it?"
Chuck looked around his office and spotted the poster Alfredo had drawn, pinned up on a bulletin board. He had no idea who Alfredo Alcala was or if the artist was available…but Chuck said, "How about that guy?" The syndicate fellow liked the drawing so Chuck phoned Shel Dorf and got Alfredo's phone number.
Now, if you look back a few days on this site, you'll see a photo I took of Alfredo with a man named Zeke Zekley. Zeke for a time had produced the hallowed PS Magazine for the U.S. Government…the army comic once done by Will Eisner. To get it drawn each month, he had sponsored Alfredo's immigration to the United States. Alfredo was perfect for the project but even with him on the team, Zeke found the magazine too much work to get done every thirty days. After a while, he sold the government contract to someone else…which left Alfredo in America but without work.
So Alfredo was sitting in his little apartment, about two miles from Chuck Jones's office, worrying about finding a job. He had to because based on the conditions of his immigration, he'd be deported if he couldn't show gainful employment. Then the phone rang and it was the fellow from the syndicate asking if he was interested in drawing the Rick O'Shay newspaper strip. Alfredo was, of course, extremely interested…and that's how the Rick O'Shay strip came to be produced for a year by the parlay of Dern and Alcala. (Eventually, Mel Keefer took it over, Alfredo secured enough work from DC Comics to stay in the U.S. and Ms. Dern married Mr. Jones.)
One of the many things I love about that big annual convention down in San Diego is how it puts people together…how careers and friendships and relationships, both long-term and short are made. Here's a great example of how even the convention's advertising did that. Amazing.
Last evening, I journeyed with two buddies of mine — Alan Burnett and Gordon Kent — to the city of Cerritos, which is located about thirty miles south of Los Angeles.
First stop was an outlet of the Five Guys hamburger chain. As I've mentioned here, these places are popular in the East and South but almost non-existent (so far) in California. There are three in the state, one of which is on a Naval Base that is not accessible to the general public. But they serve the best "fast food" burgers I've ever had and the best french fries of any kind, so when I'm in any city that has 'em, that's where I head. Alan, Gordon and I were going to see Lewis Black at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and, knowing there was a Five Guys about four miles from there, I persuaded my friends that was the place to dine.
They agreed with my opinion of the hamburgers and especially of the fries. Five Guys uses fresh potatoes at each of its locations and fries them in peanut oil. They're so good, I can't understand why every restaurant doesn't do that. When you taste one, you just know that's the way a french-fried potato is supposed to be.
Then it was over to the Performing Center. As usual, comedian John Bowman had the thankless task of opening before an audience that hadn't come to sit through an opening act. He easily won the crowd over by talking about, among other things, the fact that he wouldn't get paid unless he did his twenty minutes…so we were stuck. He also did a great impression of Lewis Black.
The genuine article then took stage and held a full house captive for about 75 minutes, all of which was new to me. Topics included the economy, why he thinks marijuana should be legalized, why he thinks anyone who supports either the Democratic or Republican party is an idiot, what it's like to follow Vince Gill on stage, Sarah Palin, Lew's parents, and what his (my) generation is leaving for the next one in line. None of it was particularly quotable but all of it was either funny or too painfully true to be funny.
Black's delivery is, of course, half the show. Someone else delivering the same lines wouldn't have the same impact, in part because Black sounds so sincerely indignant about it all. He has a way of connecting with the audience, getting us all on the same wavelength of outrage and cynicism to the extent where the audience starts laughing at the setups, never mind where he's going. If you've never seen the guy in person and you get the chance, don't let it pass you by. I try to go every time he's in Southern California — especially when he's near a Five Guys.
Here's a newspaper article from 1959…an interview with Carl Reiner done while he was a regular on Dinah Shore's weekly variety program. He did that post-Caesar and pre-Dick Van Dyke Show.
Hey, remember the item a few days ago about how Apple had rejected an iPhone application featuring political caricatures by Tom Richmond? Well, they're reversed their decision. Good for them.
A few weeks ago here, the surviving Monty Python guys gathered in New York for, among other activities, a half-hour Q-and-A session. I embedded a video here at the time but it was fuzzy and not altogether in sync. Here's a clearer version…
My pal Nat Gertler writes to remind me that Carrie Prejean was not Miss California. She was Miss California USA. Nat also adds…
Oh, and I should follow that up with a note that if you ask anyone to name a Miss America from the 1980s, odds are pretty dang good that they'll name Vanessa Williams…the one who was made to resign due to nekkid photos. She's a successful actress with Grammy, Emmy, and Tony nominations, and, a regular on Ugly Betty. I just looked down a list of the rest of the names from that decade, and only recognized one other (a Fox News host). Scandal works.
That was kinda my point. Whatever her sincerity or intent, the fact is that Ms. Prejean has turned a "who cares?" beauty crown into a ticket to celebrity…and, it wouldn't surprise me, some lucrative jobs. She may become the role model for most future beauty pageant winners.
The other day, I posted a link to the great folk singing trio, The Limeliters, on The Ed Sullivan Show. The clip was promptly taken down by the company that controls the rights to the Sullivan show…which is, of course, their absolute right. So let's instead give you this clip to one of the group's first TV appearances, which occurred on The Dinah Shore Show…
Ah! Jeffrey Trexler explains to me how it is that the photo of Shel Dorf accompanying his New York Times obit sports a copyright for DC Comics even though the photo contains no DC properties. I've been looking at the online obit. The one in the print newspaper — apparently, they still have those — has two photos, the other being a shot of Himon, a character Jack Kirby based on Shel and inserted into an issue of the Mister Miracle comic. That panel should display a DC copyright since it is a DC comic book. For the online obit, they omitted one photo but kept the caption that went with both photos. Thanks, Jeff. I knew there was an explanation.
I figured that when Lou Dobbs departed CNN (apparently not by choice), he was still dickering with Fox News for a job there. His spin on the day's events would fit right in, plus he'd have the added value to them of being able to denounce his old employers as commie news-slanters. But Joe Conason thinks it's not out of the question that Mr. Dobbs may have his eyes on the White House.
So what happened was that it was announced that Dame Edna Everage would return to Broadway in a one-man…er, one-woman…uh, one-person show. Dame Edna creates great pronoun trouble for those of us who write about him or her. The show was to be called It's All About Me.
But then it was also announced that Michael Feinstein would be returning to Broadway at about the same time in a one-performer show called All About Me.
Arguments supposedly flared about the similar titles. Claims and counter-claims were made. Broadway insiders got suspicious because both shows had announced opening dates in March but hadn't announced theaters…and there aren't that many theaters that might be available then.
Simple conclusion: It's a publicity stunt.
And sure enough, this morning on The Today Show, Mr. Feinstein announced that he and Dame Edna will open in a two-person show called All About Me on March 23. Which was apparently the plan all along.
Cute trick. I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer to see one or the other stretch out for the full evening but that could be quite a presentation. And they're off to a good start, publicity-wise.
