On Thursday of this week, the race will commence to book hotel rooms for the Comic-Con International in San Diego this July. If you'll be competing, read this.
Also: As you know, one-day memberships for Friday and Saturday are sold out. Thursday will probably be sold out some time this week and Sunday won't be far behind. And no, I can't help you with admission or a hotel room.
Some of you probably know Edward Everett Horton only as (a) the narrator of Jay Ward's "Fractured Fairy Tales" or (b) an occasional guest star on 60's TV shows like Batman and F Troop. Actually, Mr. Horton (1886-1970) had a long, glorious film career that started in silent pictures and continued on up until a posthumously-released silent cameo in the 1970 film, Cold Turkey. He was a dependable character actor who seems to have been in every movie made in Hollywood in the thirties and forties and an awful lot after.
This coming Thursday would have been his 124th birthday so Turner Classic Movies is offering up an Edward Everett Horton Film Festival — five of the umpteen-zillion pictures in which he appeared: The Body Disappears, I Married an Angel, Faithful in My Fashion, Down to Earth and Her Husband's Affairs. This is one of the reasons we love Turner Classic Movies. Who else would do such a thing?
It's tough writing these about friends, especially friends dying way too young. In this case, the friend is comic fan-turned-filmmaker Mike Valerio, lost to us by heart failure this weekend. He was 51.
I've known Mike for…gee, I don't know how long. Since the mid-seventies, I guess. Mike was very active in fanzines of the day, particularly in those devoted to the Legion of Super-Heroes comics from DC. He grew up in Seekonk, MA, graduated from Rhode Island College and soon broke into the TV business on a version of PM Magazine done in Providence, R.I. and hosted by the then-newcomer Matt Lauer. Eventually, Mike moved on to Chicago (where he produced PM Magazine there) and then Hollywood. His friend Mike Flynn recalls…
In Chicago, the time came for cutbacks. Apparently, Mike or one married fellow were going to have to be let go. Mike took the axe so the family man could keep working. Yes, he took the opportunity to move to L.A., but he had nothing lined up and just went out on his moxie. After Mike told me this, I found it impossible to hope for anything but the best for him, and there were times it seemed it was headed his way.
Valerio did all right in Los Angeles. He wrote and/or directed hundreds of documentaries and entertainment projects, often of a promotional nature. His proudest (and most frustrating) project was the 1999 theatrical feature, Carlo's Wake, which he directed and co-wrote. The film received rave reviews but got caught up in legal snarls and was barely released.
Mike worked with everyone in the TV business, producing promotional films for all the major networks, and he occasionally found time to dabble in comics. He created and wrote a comic book called Stealth Force for Malibu Comics and also worked on Malibu's Planet of the Apes line and a Bruce Lee series.
He was an occasional off-the-record source for TV news on this blog and occasionally let me quote him. In this piece about the passing of Charlton Heston, he noted what a classy guy Mr. Heston was. The same could be said for Mr. Valerio. We'll miss you, Mike.
From last year's Chabad Telethon: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog makes a memorable pitch. This segment also features a brief appearance by three singing rabbis and a lot of appearances by the top of Robert Smigel's head…
The good news on the Hollywood labor front is that the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have voted to set aside past differences and to resume bargaining as a single unit. This is great but it would have been greater if it had happened before the last negotiation where they went their separate ways, AFTRA took a lousy deal and SAG was then forced to accept much the same.
There is as yet no renewed talk of a merger, though that has always made sense to most folks who aren't part of AFTRA's operating staff. At least everyone now knows the folly of dividing yourself and thereby allowing yourself to be conquered.
If you've been following Keith Olbermann's on-air tales of his ailing father, you may feel a sense of loss to hear that Theodore C. Olbermann has left us. Here is Keith's announcement, and I imagine he'll have more to say when he returns to Countdown.
I have this friend named Kim "Howard" Johnson and he knows everything about Monty Python. In fact, he knows everyone in Monty Python. Want proof? Take a look at this photo…
Kim is one of the six people in that photo. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one. Anyway, he's been talking to someone and he says that the Eric Idle concert, Not the Messiah, will be available in the U.S. of A., perhaps as a one-night-only theatrical event (as in England) and definitely as a DVD. In fact, he's currently working on bonus material for the DVD and says the show is spectacular but there's no release date yet. So fret not that you won't be able to see it. You will. We just don't know when yet.
Comic book artist Violet Barclay (aka Valerie Barclay) has died at the age of 88. Ms. Barclay was born in New York on November 5, 1922. She attended the School of Industrial Arts in that city but was unable to find work in that area after graduation. In 1941, Mike Sekowsky — who had recently begun drawing for Timely Comics (now Marvel), discovered his old classmate working as a restaurant hostess and got her a job inking for Timely. She worked there until 1949, then freelanced for other companies including Standard Comics, DC, St. John, Ace and ACG. When work became scarce in the field around 1954, she got out and worked as a model and a waitress until breaking into fashion illustration, mainly doing advertising art for some of the nation's leading clothing lines. She died February 26.
I'm afraid I don't have an illustration available that I'm sure represents Ms. Barclay's artwork. The panel above right is from a 1954 issue of Complete Love, published by Ace, and it's often offered as being both pencilled and inked by her. Is it? I don't think the pencilling is. The inking might be. She didn't have that distinctive or consistent a style and a lot of what has been identified as her work was clearly done by Chic Stone, who worked for Timely at the same time. Someone needs to research this better than I can.
Beyond her credits, Ms. Barclay is known today for a couple of reasons. One is that in his 1947 book Secrets Behind the Comics, Stan Lee introduced her as the "Glamorous Girl Inker" of several of the comics he was then editing. Women were rare in comics then and it was startling to some that there were any, let alone that one was glamorous. Another point of interest for some were the stories of romantic triangles in and around comic book company offices. Sekowsky was usually one point of a triangle and she was another. In a 2004 interview with Alter Ego and in other conversations, Barclay told some of those stories and they may well have been accurate. Then again, I know Sekowsky, with absolutely no anger towards her, remembered certain incidents in an entirely different manner.
I'm in no position to judge whose memories were more correct, nor is it much of my business. The one time I spoke to Ms. Barclay, she phoned me to ask how Mike was. She'd heard he was not well (he wasn't) and she heard I knew him (I did) and she still had great affection for him (and vice-versa). We had a nice conversation about him and about her career and she asked me to give him a big hug and a kiss for her (I didn't).
Mike told me his versions of the same history. I'm not sure I remember them well enough to repeat them and if I did, I wouldn't because he always refused to talk about her for public consumption. I did one formal interview with Mike "on background," meaning that I promised him it would never be quoted directly. He was unhesitant in telling me how certain people in comics were, to him, liars and cheaters and he even accused some of the kinds of deeds for which people go to prison. But about Violet Barclay, he would only say she was a sweet, wonderful lady. Maybe I ought to leave it at that.
Ronald Brownstein makes the point that whatever the flaws of the current Health Care Reform effort, there will be a pretty high price paid for not doing anything. Without some action, medical costs in this country will skyrocket. And they're already sky-high and unaffordable for too many people.
Back in this message, I told how in 1968, I helped a friend fish hundreds of 16mm film reels out of dumpsters outside CBS Television City in Hollywood. They were old TV shows that the network was tossing away — episodes of Amos & Andy, General Electric Theater, The Jack Benny Program, an obscure Allan Funt show called Tell it to the Camera and many more. One of the canisters was the show that is our video link for today…and for all I know, this video was transferred from the same print that my pal Mike and I rescued. (Mike kept them all and I have no idea what he did with them, except that I'm pretty sure one Jack Benny episode that is out on home video was transferred from one of those prints.)
Groucho Marx's popular radio show, You Bet Your Life, debuted in 1947. Late in '49, producer John Guedel was attempting to sell a TV version of it and so they hauled cameras into the studio and filmed a couple of episodes. This was partly so the television folks could see how much more entertaining Groucho could be when you could see him and partly to help make decisions on how to stage the show for the new medium. This video is one of those filmings. It's dated December 28, 1949 and I'm not sure if that's when it was filmed or if it's when the radio edition was broadcast. That date was a Wednesday and the show aired on Wednesdays but it sometimes also filmed on Wednesdays. The TV version went on the air October 5, 1950 and lasted until June 29, 1961.
Groucho did both versions — the radio version and the TV version — via what they then called the "transcription" method. This was at his insistence. He refused to do either program the way most others of that kind were done, which was live. Supposedly, he was deathly afraid of saying something off-color or of the show, which was supposed to rely heavily on his ad-libbing ability, just plain being dull. So they'd record (or for TV, film) a full hour and then edit it down to a half-hour. They also decided not to bet their lives (or anything) on his improvisational prowess. Comedy writers were hired — credited as Production Associates or under other titles — and they gave Groucho a pile of quips and jokes to use at his discretion. On radio, he had them on the desk in front of him, and you can see him refer to the pages throughout this video. On TV, the ad-libs were projected on an off-camera screen that Mr. Marx could see.
The great thing about this video is that it gives us a chance to see how the radio show was done. This includes all the departures and rambling that Groucho and his announcer George Fenneman were free to do because they knew it would all be heavily edited. You may not want to watch all 54 minutes and 30 seconds of this but you might enjoy a few minutes…
A lot of interesting responses to my piece earlier today about the charge that there's something evil about lawyers representing terrorism suspects. Here's what Jim Houghton sent me…
Well put, Mark. For whatever reason, the prevailing culture in this country during my lifetime — maybe it's been the prevailing culture throughout humanity throughout history, but I hope not — is that if someone has been arrested and charged with something, we can safely assume that they are in fact guilty by that simple fact. I suppose people don't want to consider that they could be wrongly charged in a serious crime, but the sad truth is, it happens.
It makes me crazy when people who don't trust the government to spend our tax money wisely or administer universal health care, apparently assume without question that the government is smart enough or honest enough to
decide who to lock up without charges, and even whether to torture them.When I watched Popeye as a kid, my mother made sure I understood that it was not real. Sometimes I worry that adults have lost their ability to understand that 24 isn't real, either.
You're right that folks tend to assume guilt if someone has been arrested and charged…and some of the lawyers now being smeared were representing suspects who weren't even charged. You know, I don't have a lot of confidence in our court system to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent…but I have even less in a system that doesn't even want to try to separate the two.
Here's an interesting take on it from a reader of this site named Don Yost…
There's yet another side to the legal representation argument. Back in the '70s I worked two years for the Shasta County Sheriff Department. There was horrible man who was being tried for raping and killing a number of girls and women here. I talked with the attorney representing him. The attorney told me that he was going to do his very best to represent the accused — not because he thought him innocent — but because he wanted to have the court make a decision where there would be no question as to whether he was represented adequately. The attorney didn't want the defendant subsequently released based upon a claim of shoddy representation.
Not much to add to that. I should say though that I do think it's possible to judge the character of some lawyers not so much by the cases they choose to take but by how they press them. For instance, I sure thought less of the attorneys who took on the O.J. Simpson defense but that was because of how they did it, trying to smear the police, confuse the jury and fan out a whole deck of race cards. I wouldn't though fault a lawyer for just defending someone. In our court system, everyone is entitled to counsel…even O.J. Simpson. And that's not just for his benefit. It's for the good of that system on which we so depend.
I'm forever plugging Frank Ferrante's uncanny Groucho show here and with good reason. This guy Ferrante really does transform himself into Julius "Groucho" Marx for two hours of gaiety, frivolity and the good kind of Marxism. The only thing wrong with the show is that he never seems to do it in or around Los Angeles.
A week from today, March 19, he'll be about as close to L.A. as he's been in years. He'll be in San Bernardino at the Sturges Center for the Fine Arts. I just Mapquested it and from the corner of Hollywood and Highland, just to pick an arbitrary starting point, it's 60 miles. They say "1 hour, 15 minutes" or "2 hours in traffic." I've driven farther and longer for worse entertainment.
The following weekend, he'll be in Easton, Pennsylvania and then Hampton, Virginia…and then in early April, he does a whole week near Syracuse, New York, followed by gigs in San Rafael, California and Newton. Massachusetts. Get the details here. I don't know anyone who's seen this show who hasn't loved it…and I know a lot of people who've seen it.
Chadwick Matlin discusses the current financial health of the TiVo company, which is losing money selling TiVos but making money suing those who infringe its patents. I have no idea what the future holds for the company — it may have everything to do with how judges rule — but I sure don't want to see it go away, even though almost-comparable products are available from others. I've had a TiVo since the days when I had to explain to every single person I knew what the hell that thing was and why they'd want one.
Those of you interested in a career as a professional writer would do well to keep an eye on the blog of my one-time partner, Dennis Palumbo. Dennis is a writer but he's also a therapist who specializes in the problems of creative people such as writers. He's smart and sane about a field which is not always either of those things. This blog post will give you a good introduction to the guy and then you can find your way around from there.
I can't think of a man, woman, child or animal alive today who's funnier than Tim Conway. Okay, you all know that. What some folks don't know is that Mr. Conway has a thriving business, playing all over the country with a wonderful live show. He used to do it with Harvey Korman or sometimes with Don Knotts. Now, he tours with the equally-mirthful Chuck McCann…and the only downside to that is that whenever Chuck and I talk about getting together for lunch, he says, "I'd love to…but I have to go to Jerkwater, Alabama [or wherever] with Tim and do two shows." My loss is your gain, Jerkwater.
Also touring with them is Louise DuArt, a terrific impressionist I met whilst working for Sid and Marty Krofft. Louise was our all-purpose actress/impressionist. She was amazing. We'd go to her and say, "We have an idea for a sketch — you as Cher and Billy Barty (another member of the Krofft Repertory Company) as Sonny Bono." And Louise, who at the time had never tried to impersonate Cher, would say, "Okay, I'll work on it." She'd go home and then the next day, Cher would walk into my office. I always thought we could have asked her to learn to do Billy Barty and the next day, Louise would have figured out some way to make herself three-foot-nine.
She appears with Tim and Chuck, doing her own stand-up and playing what one might call the "Carol Burnett" roles in some of their sketches…and it's really a wonderful evening in the theater. You might want to check this schedule to see if they're coming your way soon. You have to watch carefully because when they're there, they're only there for a night or two and those tend to sell out rapidly. Tomorrow night, they're at the Pechanga Casino in Temecula and then late in April, they hit Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Mississippi. Here's a little commercial that Tim recorded that various cities use to promote their appearances…