Monthly Archives: April 2010

The Conan O'Brien tix for tonight have been sold.

Brian Stelter introduces us to the Mikkelsons, the folks behind Snopes.com. I hope there's at least one thing in this article they'll have to debunk.

I enjoy (and generally accept) Snopes and several other fact-checking websites. There should probably be some Internet definition of being a blind fanatic for your cause. It would involve you believing something that neatly serves your political beliefs but refusing to believe that there is such a thing as a non-partisan site telling you you're wrong. I don't think Snopes is infallible (nor is Factcheck.org or Politifact.com) but their errors are errors not conspiracies. The fanatic, confronted with a discrepancy between what he says and what they say, will either denounce them as working for the enemy or pretend they don't exist.

A friend of mine has two tickets for tomorrow night (Saturday evening) to see Conan O'Brien at the Universal Amphitheatre here in Los Angeles. She can't use them and would like to sell them to someone who will. If you're interested, drop me an e-mail and I'll forward it to her. But do it quickly because the show's tomorrow night!

Tomorrow evening, WLIW (a PBS station in New York) is premiering a special called Soupy Sales: The Whole Gang is Here, a tribute to everyone's favorite pie recipient. I gather this is an hour-long version of this DVD that came out several years ago which drew mainly not from Soupy's classic kids' shows of the fifties and sixties but from his less-well-remembered 1978-1979 series. I assume the special will eventually turn up on PBS stations around the country and it's probably worth a peek.

This is from Douglas McEwan…

I have to thank you for posting that notification two days ago about the unveiling of Mel Brooks's star in front of the Egyptian Theater. I am just home from attending it. I had met both Mel and Carl before, Mel a couple times in 1973 and 1974, including sneaking onto the set when he was shooting Young Frankenstein at the Mayfair Music Hall (the "Puttin' on the Ritz" scene), and spending a day watching him shoot that wonderful movie. Carl, I got to work with in an ever-so-humble capacity in 1980 and again in a different minor capacity in 1984, and both times he treated like an equal and a friend. Look up mensch in the dictionary; it will say "Carl Reiner."

Well today, I watched Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner hugging and cheek-kissing from about six yards away. I laughed at the many funny things they said. (Mel: "A few minutes ago they said: 'Mel Brooks to makeup and hair.' Then they said, 'Carl Reiner to makeup.'") When the guy with Johnny Grant's old job was thanking Mel for all the laughs he's given us, Mel interrupted him to say: "And we have to thank Adolf Hitler, without whom I'd have had no career."

But the best moment of all came when, while signing my stuff, he had another Hitler attack, pulled out the black comb he carries for this sole purpose, stuck it under his nose, and began sig heiling us. He was two feet away from me. I called out: "Look! It's the Pope!"

AND MEL BROOKS LAUGHED!!!!!! I made Mel Brooks laugh!

I am so happy right now, I am euphoric. A great day. I made Mel Brooks laugh!

I wouldn't have been there, nor even known about it if you hadn't posted it, so I owe this great day entirely to you.
So thank you. Thank you very much. What a great day.

Thanks for the report, Douglas. Those star ceremonies are often fun but they aren't well-publicized since most can barely accommodate the crowds that hear about them from word-of-mouth. The next one up is Julia Louis-Dreyfus on May 4. And I'll add that my own encounters with Mel and Carl have been like yours…two very nice, funny men.

David Sirota discusses something that Bill Clinton's been doing that our leaders don't usually do: Admit their mistakes.

You may have heard of a war going on within the family of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. As a matter of fact, you may have heard about it here. We're all delighted to read an announcement, posted by J. David Spurlock of Vanguard Productions on his company's Facebook page, which says that all has been resolved and the family is once again a family. All of his four children will be working with Frank to promote and protect his work. Good to hear.

The item before this is a link to a Reuters article that accuses the Wellpoint Health Insurance folks of unspeakable greed, yanking the policies of women who contract breast cancer because, well, it costs money to honor those policies. I received an e-mail from a reader of this site whose name I'm going to withhold, even though he didn't request anonymity. He wrote, in part…

I currently work at WellPoint, and I want to make sure you are aware that WellPoint is saying that the Reuters article you link to is mostly false. I don't remember all the details of the memo, but for instance, Patricia Reilling is not a member of WellPoint.

Speaking entirely on my own behalf, I and everyone I've interacted with at WellPoint do our very best to follow the rules and act ethically.

I admire your voice of reason in the cacophony of all the brain dead people on the internet and other media. I trust that you will consider the rebuttal and not automatically go along with (what seems to me to be) the scapegoating of WellPoint. I'll see if I can get you a link tomorrow.

Here's a link to Wellpoint's statement and if there's another piece the gentleman feels should be noted, I'll gladly link to that. I'd be delighted to reach the conclusion that the article does not present an accurate picture of the situation. It's awful to think that kind of thing might be going on.

This statement does not say Patricia Reilling is not (or was not) a member of WellPoint. It does say that Robin Beaton, who was also portrayed as a victim in the story, was not a member of WellPoint. The statement does not say that what was allegedly done to Ms. Beaton was not done by some insurer. It also does not say that that insurer was not in some way affiliated with WellPoint.

But the gent is right. Let's keep open minds on this one. My own experience with health insurance (not with Wellpoint) has involved no treachery of the kind described in the article…but a lot of errors that one could easily view as treachery. I'll confess though that I have a deep distrust of insurance companies. It flows from hearing of some friends' experiences but mainly from hearing my once and future doctor tell me how often insurance firms make it difficult for him to provide the best possible treatment for his patients. (He's my "once and future" doc because he's currently on assignment for the government and has suspended his practice until that job is done. I not only trust this man with my life, I have trusted him with my life.)

Like I said, I'd be glad to hear that Wellpoint is not guilty as charged. I'm curious as to whether the defense is going to be, "This kind of thing doesn't go on in the industry" or "It does but we don't do it." If the latter, maybe they can undo the damage this report may do to their rep by suggesting how to stop it.

Here's Murray Waas with one of those reports on things insurance companies do that shows why we needed Health Care Reform in this country and probably still need a lot more of it.

In his latest column, my friend and former partner Dennis Palumbo discusses the tendency for a writer to hold onto a line and to keep trying to find a place for it. This is absolutely true with most of us who write for a living.

And Dennis's piece reminded me of a joke that Evanier and Palumbo once wrote, managed to get into a script…and then we couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Every writer has a couple of these, too.

It was while we were working on Welcome Back, Kotter. There was an episode in which Vinnie Barbarino (the Travolta character) was making his acting debut. Around 3 AM one morning, a day or two before we taped, Dennis and I found ourselves punchy from lack of sleep and desperate from lack of a funny line for Mr. Woodman, the surly vice-principal. We needed to have him say something, get a laugh and then get out of the scene. We had to come up with it before we could get out of the office and go home.

One of us said, "Let's have Woodman say something about how he used to be a great actor."

The other one of us said, "Yeah…He could say, 'Y'know, Kotter, I used to be a pretty good actor. In college, we did Of Mice and Men.'"

And then in unison, we finished the line: "I played Mice."

We laughed for about six minutes. If you'd been that tired, you would have laughed, too. Then I typed it into the script, we laughed for three more minutes and we finally got the hell out of there. We thought it was the funniest line in the world…and at 3 AM, it was. In fairness to us, the next day the cast and the rest of the staff liked it a lot — enough that it stayed in, all the way through Tuesday afternoon. That was when we did the "dress rehearsal" — the first of two tapings that day — in front of very live audiences.

Mr. Woodman was played by a lovely little man named John Sylvester White. John was very funny on the show but he suffered through moments of pure stage fright. About ten minutes before he had to go before the cameras, he would become convinced that none of his lines would work, that the audience would hate him and that his career was but seconds from total ruination. This never came close to happening but it was often necessary to reassure him that he'd get laughs, that the audience would love him, etc. That afternoon, just before the show was to be performed the first time, Dennis and I wandered onto the set and John, in a state of panic, grabbed us.

He was in full make-up but he still looked pale. "That Mice and Men joke," he said. "Is that really funny?" We promised him the viewers would howl and he took us at our word and went out to do the show. Things went pretty well up until that moment, the moment when Mr. Woodman turned to Gabe Kaplan and said, "Y'know, Kotter. I used to be a pretty good actor. In college, we did Of Mice and Men. I played Mice!"

And then there was silence.

Absolute, dead silence. Not a laugh, not a chuckle, not a snicker. You would hear more noise if you were floating in the orbital path of Mars…and wearing earplugs.

And then because, I guess, he felt he had to say something before his exit and didn't particularly want to take the rap for the Mice joke, Mr. Woodman announced to Mr. Kotter, "Evanier and Palumbo told me that would get a laugh." The audience exploded in hysterics. Maybe the biggest laugh I ever heard on that stage. They didn't know who the hell Evanier and Palumbo were but they knew exactly what had happened.

Needless to say, the line was changed before the final taping…changed to something that the second audience actually laughed at. In-between the two tapings, there was a dinner break and everyone on the crew looked at Dennis and me and shook their heads, though a few were kind enough to say, "Well, I thought it was funny." When we worked on the following week's script, Dennis talked me out of a line I wanted to put in. I wanted Woodman to say, "Y'know, Kotter. I used to be a pretty good actor. In college, we did Of Mice and Men. I played Men!"

Like Dennis said in his article, some of us just don't know when to give up. I still think the Mice line would have killed if we'd aired the show at 3 AM.

"d abston" writes…

Maybe you can go into this a little if the opportunity arises, but just how does one get a "star" on the Walk of Fame? I was always under the impression that the process wasn't exactly "pure" — i.e., if a studio, for example, put on some pressure and put up some case, a "star" would become available. Is there a nominating committee or is my first impression right?

Your first impression is generally correct, although there seem to be limits. I actually wrote about this back here and I don't think anything has changed. The honoree, if alive, still has to agree to show up before they'll consider the nomination and someone has to be willing to pony up the $25,000 it costs to install the star. And it still helps a lot to have a major studio or company behind you.

If there's someone you want to nominate, do it soon. They entertain nominations and decide the next year's worth of honorees in June.

By the way: In that posting from 2007, I noted that Stan Lee had been selected to receive a star. This has not happened yet and next time I see Stan, I'll try to find out why. As I understand it, once they vote to give one to someone, that person can pretty much decide when they want to have the installation and ceremony, and they have five years to get around to it. Guess Stan's been kinda busy with all those cameos he does. Three more and I believe he beats Hitchcock's record.

Stephen Sondheim sat for a pretty good, long (47 minute) interview that aired today on Fresh Air on NPR. Here's the link…and you're welcome.