Monthly Archives: February 2010

Just watched Bill Maher's new HBO special, But I'm Not Wrong. The jokes are fine but I'm more fascinated at the evolution of this man's delivery. When I first saw him years ago, he was doing a respectable simulation of Johnny Carson's timing and pace. Now, he seems to be trying to turn himself into Red Skelton. He keeps breaking himself up, laughing like he's never heard his own material before. Two more of these and he's going to be dressing up as Clem Kadiddlehopper and doing jokes about Gertrude and Heathcliff, the two seagulls…

As you may know, my favorite musical is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I've seen an awful lot of productions of it, good and bad. I'm looking forward to the version that the Reprise! group is doing up at U.C.L.A. from March 16 through March 28 because they usually do very fine work, even if their shows only run for a handful of performances.

David Lee is directing and they've announced the cast: Lee Wilkof, Larry Raben, Michael Kostroff, Alan Mandell, Ron Orbach, Erich Bergen and Ruth Williamson. The ensemble will consist of Annie Abrams, Stuart Ambrose, Bradley Benjamin, Matthew Patrick Davis, Meg Gillentine, Tonya Kay, Laura Keller, Mercy Malick, Russ Marchand, Candace Olsen and Justin Wilco. I'm not sure exactly who's playing who but there are some terrific people in there and you might want to get tickets now before they're all gone. Here's a link to do that.

On two Saturday afternoons — March 20 and 27 — the 2PM matinees will be preceded at Noon by a free lecture on the history of this show. They are open to all, even if you don't attend the performances, and they will be conducted by that eminent authority on Forum, me. When I agreed to do these, it was partly because the show's co-author, Larry Gelbart, told me he'd be glad to come in and let me interview him. Then, a few weeks later, he reneged on that commitment by dying. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do…maybe just babble on for an hour as I did when I lectured there last year on Li'l Abner. I will not be wearing a toga or singing so it's safe to attend.

The Lion King is about to become the eighth longest-running show in Broadway history. Here's the way the Top Ten will break down as of this Sunday…

1. The Phantom of the Opera (9,179 performances)*
2. Cats (7,485)
3. Les Miserables (6,680)
4. A Chorus Line (6,137)
5. Oh! Calcutta (5,959)
6. Chicago (5,508)*
7. Beauty and the Beast (5,461)
8. The Lion King (5,125)*
9. Rent (5,124)
10. Miss Saigon (4,097)

The three with asterisks are still running. As you can see, it may be decades before anything catches Phantom of the Opera. First of all, the show would have to close for that to happen. Some think that may happen soon as it has lately been playing at around 66% of capacity and its touring company is finally folding in November after seventeen (!) years. But the Broadway version has been doing that two-thirds kind of business for quite a while and since all its start-up costs are long since paid off, it's surely turning a tidy profit with those numbers. Even if Phantom shut down tomorrow, Chicago (which hasn't been doing much better) would have to stay open for around nine more years to snatch the #1 spot. No one expects that to happen.

Lion King, which has been filling around 85% of its seats probably stands a better chance of making it to the top slot, though I wouldn't put money on it. In less than a year, it'll almost surely elbow Beauty and the Beast aside and take the #7 position. It might well outlast Chicago and hit #6…and after that, it's hard to say. It would be kinda ironic if Lion King someday toppled Cats from its perch.

My guess is that neither of the two immediate contenders that are still running will ever see #1, nor will any of the still-running hits farther down the list like Mamma Mia, Wicked and Jersey Boys. To give you some idea of how incredible the run of Phantom is already, it has now played more performances on Broadway than the original productions of My Fair Lady, Hello, Dolly and Fiddler on the Roof put together — and each of those was at one time, the longest-running show ever on The Great White Way.

Have you been shelling out $70 apiece for the DVD sets of the early seasons of Saturday Night Live? Well then, you won't be overjoyed by this post that tells you you could have gotten them a lot cheaper if you'd waited. Over at Amazon, prices have been slashed to what seem like closeout levels.

At this moment — knowing Amazon, it could change any minute — you can pick up Season One for $16.99. Season Two is $22.49. Season Three is $22.99. Season Four is $19.49. And Season Five is a whopping $47.49, which I think is what Amazon sold each of these for when they first came out. So Season Five will probably get down near the twenty buck level before long.

Clicking on the above links will take you to where you can order. This site receives a tiny commission on each one you buy through our links. If anyone does, I will use the money I receive to take my friend Vince Waldron to lunch at Souplantation next month. Vince is the one who told me about these bargains so he is deserving.

And by the way, I have no idea why Amazon lists the stars of Season Three as "Don Pardo, Lenny Pickett, Darrell Hammond and G.E. Smith." It may have something to do with being disoriented from selling all those $999 Groo books.

Several folks have e-mailed me with the information that company called Olive Films has licensed a batch of esoteric or little-known movies from Paramount Pictures for DVD release. Among these is Otto Preminger's Skidoo.

We have waited a long time for a bonafide DVD of this bizarre movie. I think I'll wait a little longer before I assume it's actually going to happen. I'm just sorry Otto isn't around to do a commentary track.

My pal who practically lives at airports, Joe Brancatelli, tells us where to find the best chow at many of the major ones. One of the few places he recommends that I've tried is Ike's in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I told you about Ike's back in this post. It was the only airport restaurant I've ever been in that I would consider going to again by choice, not because I was at an airport and therefore had limited options.

Joe also mentions some top restaurants that aren't far from airports in case you have a layover and feel like a short cab ride to superior cuisine. These days, once I'm past the TSA people, I don't feel like venturing out and in again. I wonder how many people besides Joe do.

And he may not have heard this yet but they're about to open an outlet of Pink's Hot Dogs in the Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX. If it's anything like the world famous original outlet of Pink's on La Brea in Los Angeles, it will not make Joe's list. I have friends who when visiting L.A. say, "I've absolutely gotta try Pink's." Disabuse yourself of this idea right now. It is neither obligatory nor a good idea. Pink's is, at best, an average hot dog stand with a grand, inexplicable reputation. Bad parking, mile-long lines, clumsy service, unspectacular franks. At LAX, they might be an okay alternative to other airport food…but so is anywhere that isn't Burger King or Sbarro's.

I send you to a lot of Fred Kaplan articles but this one's especially good. It's about how the line that Dick Cheney is currently selling — the one about how the Obama administration makes us less safe by treating terrorists as criminals — is really at odds with both the policies and the successes of the Bush-Cheney administration in that area. Even the guys Cheney worked with there didn't agree with him on how these matters should be handled.

As I mentioned in this post from just last August, I take one very expensive prescription medicine. (And I take two cheap ones. Before I lost all that weight, I used to take nine prescriptions of varying price tags.) At the time of that posting, I said the medicine cost me ten bucks a month through my insurance and that if I didn't have that insurance, it would cost me $320 a month.

Things have changed in five months. The prescription now costs me $25 a month and the pharmacist tells me that if I didn't have insurance, it would be $525. And again, that's per month, which (assuming no further increases, which is probably a silly assumption) is $6,300 annually. The monthly cost if one were to buy the exact same thing in Canada — made in the same factory with the same formula — is $280.

There are a lot of things wrong with our health system but there's a biggie right there. Some people, pure and simple, cannot afford $6,300 a year, even for medication on which their health depends. Republicans want people to be able to shop around and buy health insurance from any state in order to get the best price. How about letting us shop around and buy from Canada if that gets us the best price?

And this is even too later to be up writing scripts.

A lot of you were moved by (and forwarded and tweeted) the article I linked to about Roger Ebert's current condition. If you read that, you'll want to read Ebert's latest journal entry in which he discusses the article and the reaction to it.

Thanks to Shelly Goldstein for telling me about this. Shelly, by the way, is resuming her cabaret career after too long a hiatus. Sunday, April 18, she'll be singing songs of the sixties at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. I'll post details here soon but if you're in Southern California, you might want to enter that date in your Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar or whatever you use. Some folks, I hear, still have calendars on paper.

Joe Conason reminds us that there's nothing surer: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Wealthy folks have never done so well.

The thing I find most interesting is that this information comes from a report that the Internal Revenue folks prepare each year on the incomes and tax liabilties of the 400 richest taxpayers. According to Conason, this report was available to the public when Clinton was president and is available under Obama…but George W. Bush did not allow it to be distributed during his terms. Gee, I wonder why.