Monthly Archives: February 2010

David B. Rivkin and Lee Casey explain why the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in our military is going away. Their reasons are all sound but they omit the basic one: It was always a policy built on lying.

My good friend Frank Buxton is telling gullible people that he's hitting the big eight-oh today. Those who know him know what a crock that is. I'm not sure how old he is…but eighty? Not in this world possible.

I guess he's older than me. When I was a lad, I first saw him as the host of a great TV show on ABC called Discovery, which was that rare example of a show for young folks that managed to be both entertaining and educational at the same time. The only other show I can think of that ever accomplished that was a 1970-1971 Saturday morn series on NBC called Hot Dog. By an amazing coincidence, Hot Dog was produced by Frank Buxton.

Frank has also been an actor, a game show host, a musical comedy performer, and cartoon voice actor (Batfink!). He wrote, produced and/or directed situation comedies like The Odd Couple, Mork & Mindy and Happy Days. He's authored books. He and his pal Woody Allen created the movie, What's Up, Tiger Lily? I could probably save a lot of bandwidth here by just listing things he hasn't done. As far as I know, he has never been a hula dancer, a trapeze artist or one of Larry King's wives. But that's about it.

I admire him in every way except for this stupid lie he's spreading about being eighty years old. If he'll just knock it off, I'll wish him a Happy Birthday. I don't know why he's saying it but I do know that I ain't buying it.

Bruce Bartlett discusses the budget-balancing program put forth by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Being a Republican, Ryan is against raising taxes for anything so his idea is basically to slash spending, mainly by gutting Social Security and Medicare. This has about as much chance of passing as I do of getting a gold medal in figure skating at the 2010 Olympics. But read what Bartlett has to say about the mistaken notion of many Americans about how easy it would be to balance the budget by doing things like eliminating pork and foreign aid.

A bevy of illustrators and creative artists tell what they do when they hit their equivalent of Writer's Block. Some good ideas in there.

I don't have that problem often but when I do, I spend some time in utterly self-indulgent writing, writing (or just thinking through) a story not for sale or publication that has special meaning to me…and maybe only to me. That seems to unjam me enough to the point where I can then write whatever I can write. Another method is to just look at my American Express bill.

A new, interesting fact has reached us in the matter of Morey Amsterdam and Pat Carroll being replaced as the voices of George and Jane Jetson. Reader-of-this-site Bill Mullins has found an old newspaper article in the Oxnard Press-Courier for January 27, 1965…and let's note that this is several years after the two actors were removed from the cast of The Jetsons. Heck, The Jetsons had long since been removed from the ABC prime time schedule by January of 1965. The article says…

Comedian Morey Amsterdam and actress Pat Carroll are seeking $12,000 each from Hanna-Barbera Productions, charging the firm signed them to provide voices for an animated television show called "The Jetsons" — but used their services only once, not 24 times as called for in their contracts.

The case went to trial Tuesday. Amsterdam and Miss Carroll said their contracts called for them to get $500 each for each of the shows, planned for the 1962-1963 season.

So apparently, one show was recorded. This makes us suspect — does it not? — that the main problem here was that someone (Hanna and Barbera, the network, the sponsors, some combination thereof) just plain wasn't wild about the voices of Morey and Pat. That is not uncommon. Not only was Michael O'Shea replaced as Top Cat after the first few shows were recorded but before that, Hanna and Barbera had to replace their original Fred and Barney voices on The Flintstones. Bill Thompson and Hal Smith recorded several episodes before the producers changed their minds and recast with Alan Reed and Mel Blanc. (There seems to be some debate among H-B scholars as to whether Thompson was Fred and Smith was Barney or the other way around. There's also some evidence that there may have been another cast at one point that featured Cliff Norton in one of the roles…and this is all after Daws Butler did the original presentation pilot as both Fred and Barney.)

Changing casts after one or more episodes were recorded was almost the norm. So that would make you wonder why H-B would give Amsterdam and Carroll a contract that didn't make it clear that if the studio changed its mind, it didn't have to pay the actors for an entire season.

In any case, the date of the trial suggests that H-B and the actors' reps spent some time haggling over a settlement, couldn't come to terms and so the lawsuit was filed. It may still have been settled out of court for some percentage. And I guess that's all we know about it…but it's more than we knew last night. Thanks, Bill. Maybe somebody can come up with a clipping about the outcome or settlement.

Fred Kaplan Time again, folks! This time out, he's discussing how we should view the news that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons.

Albert Brooks thinks Barack Obama is being punk'd.

Several of you have written me about the TV show Queen for a Day, which I mentioned here earlier. A couple of folks thought it was unfair of me to refer to the program as "one of the most ghastly shows ever produced" when it was, in fact, far worse than that.

If you'd like to see how horrible a television series can be, there's an episode from 1960 that can be watched online at this link. This was late in the show's run — it was cancelled in '64 — and my sense is that they'd toned it down over the years and that it was once even worse than this. But this is still pretty awful.

The "winner" of this episode seems stunned and maybe even displeased by the whole thing. Usually, they cried and got hysterical and you can sense a little frustration on the part of the host, Jack "not Goofy" Bailey, that this one didn't. (I am not bothering to put up a Spoiler Warning since none of you will make it all the way through to the end. I skipped ahead.)

But as you'll see, the show was tasteless, demeaning to women, demeaning to anyone who watched it, cheap, insulting and utterly degrading to the human spirit. And like you, I have no idea why it hasn't been revived as a reality show on NBC.

Nate Silver discusses whether the public sides with Obama or the Republicans on many key issues. The numbers would indicate that Obama is more in tune with the nation. Or maybe that the nation is more in tune with Obama.

Above is a shot from one of the most ghastly shows ever produced — Queen for a Day, which ran quite successfully on radio and then on television for something like two decades. The gent at right was its host, Jack Bailey. Mr. Bailey, who passed away in 1980, was a very busy TV and radio personality and he even had a successful career on the local stage. But every so often, I come across an article that says — matter-of-factly, like it's common knowledge — that he was at one time the voice of Goofy for Walt Disney. Here's a link to Bailey's 1980 obituary in the L.A. Times which says such a thing.

There are those reading this who know more about Disney voices than I do but I don't think that's so. A person named Jack Bailey did some minor voice work in Pinocchio. Maybe it was the same guy. Maybe it was one of several other Jack Baileys who were running around Hollywood then. There was an animator named Jack Bailey who worked for Disney for a while and it could even have been him. In any case, that was not Goofy.

The Queen for a Day Jack Bailey narrated one 1955 episode of the Disneyland TV show that strung old Goofy clips together. As far as I know, that was the only connection that that Jack Bailey had with the character…and unless that was him in Pinocchio, his only work for the studio. And yet you still see things like this piece about Bailey's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: "…Bailey alternated with character actor Hal Smith as the voice of Goofy in the Walt Disney cartoon series."

Here is what I know about the voice of Goofy. The voice was originated by Vance "Pinto" Colvig in 1932 and he did it off and on until his death in 1967. During some of this period, a man named George Johnson was the back-up voice, doing the role on radio and a few other places, and he did Goofy in a few cartoons when Colvig was unavailable. During the long period when Pinto was off in another state working for Max Fleischer, Goofy usually had no voice at all. They did those cartoons where someone narrated and the Dawg remained mute or maybe they'd grab a yell or laugh from an old Pinto track. Eventually, he returned to the studio and Goofy got his full voice back.

After Colvig passed, there wasn't much call for Goofy voicing but when they needed a few lines here or there, that's when Hal Smith would be called upon, or occasionally Walker Edmiston, Will Ryan or Tony Pope. Around 1986, it was decided that Hal could no longer give them the vocal range they wanted so they did a search for a new first-string Goofy vocalist…and that's when Bill Farmer got the gig. Bill is quite amazing and perfect in his Goofiness.

I don't know of anywhere Jack Bailey spoke even a syllable as The Goof and he certainly never alternated with Hal Smith in the job. If any Disney expert can correct me on this, please do. And let no one say we're afraid to tackle the vital issues of the day here at newsfromme.com. Here's a short look at the career of the original Goofy — the guy all these other folks were imitating — Pinto Colvig…