Monthly Archives: April 2010

Volcanic ash is disrupting transportation throughout Europe…but it won't stop John Cleese.

Charles Addams' ghoulish clan got its start in The New Yorker. Here's what that magazine's current Broadway reviewer, John Lahr, had to say about the new musical of The Addams Family.

Weather got you down, Bubbie? Well, just think what it would be like if you lived in Antarctica. Go take a look at the current forecast…and check out the "length of visible light" they have each day. (Thanks to Merlin Haas for pointing this out to me.)

Andrew Leal writes…

I know you're getting tired of it by now, but turns out Mike Tiefenbacher is wrong. The actual voice of Scrooge on that album was not Alan Young (and Young himself has always mentioned the Christmas Carol album as being his first time in the role, and all sources confirm it). Scrooge on that album was played by the late Dallas McKennon (sourced by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar's authoritative book Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records, as well as copies of album snippets that have surfaced online; the album itself may or may not actually include voice credits on the jacket or label, I don't have a copy to check). Then Bill Thompson played Scrooge in the 1967 featurette Scrooge McDuck and Money, and then Alan Young.

You're probably right but I'm going to wait until I hear from Mr. Hollis or Mr. Ehrbar, both of whom follow this site. And now that I think about it, Alan Young was starring in Mister Ed at the time that record came out so he probably didn't have a lot of time to go make records for Disney.

I'm sorry I started this. Mike Tiefenbacher writes to tell me that the first time Alan Young provided the voice of Uncle Scrooge was on the 1963 Disneyland record album, Donald Duck and Friends. In fact, Mr. McDuck is there on the cover. Mike also believes that this was the first appearance of the World's Richest Duck on a licensed Disney product not produced by Western Printing and Lithography, the company that produced the Dell Comics and Whitman coloring books and such. Scrooge, of course, debuted in a Dell Comic and later became part of the world-wide Walt empire.

So that would easily give Young the record as the longest-running Disney voice who's still alive…unless you count Kathryn Beaumont. Jeff Peterson informs she got the role of Alice in Alice in Wonderland in August of 1949 and then the movie was released in 1951.

In other dangling news, several folks have written me with examples of other movies that were shot on tape prior to Norman, Is That You? so I withdraw whatever I said in that area. I do recall though that there was some innovative, never-used-before technique involved in the transfer to film.

My pal Sergio and I watched a little of it (his scenes, mostly) the other day. He says that all or most of the interiors were shot not in a movie studio but at NBC in Burbank. A couple of the exteriors look to me like parts of that building, too. And I was struck by how bad the print was that Turner Classic Movies aired, full of dropouts and odd color tweaks. If this movie's ever coming out on DVD — and even Sergio isn't clamoring for that — it's going to need a major restoration. That is, assuming TCM didn't just get a bad print and there's a good one squirreled away somewhere.

Off to a meeting. More later.

Daniel Gross explains just what it was that Goldman Sachs did to prompt the charges filed against it for fraud, corruption and cheating at Monopoly®. No doubt many crooked things were done but I have the feeling that this trial is going to prove Michael Kinsley's remark that the real scandal in Washington is not what's illegal but what's legal.

Sad to report that the veteran comic artist Gene Colan is ailing, hospitalized with a broken shoulder. This is above and beyond other ailments which have worried us all for some time. A busted shoulder on anyone is bad. On an 84 year old man, it's even worse. And on an artist (it's his drawing arm), it's worse than worse.

Gene has been one of the most prolific and admired illustrators of comic books since 1944. That is not a typo. 1944. He's been doing it for 66 years and just recently did a special issue of Captain America that was wonderful enough to be nominated for an Eisner Award. I don't know what it is you do for a living but let's see you do it well enough and long enough that someone nominates you for an award after you've been doing it for 66 years.

Alas, what Gene needs now is not accolades, as nice as they are. He needs bucks since drawing commissions, which he can no longer do, has recently accounted for most of his income. Our pal Clifford Meth is helping organize a benefit and you should visit his weblog for details on that, as well as the latest news about Gene's condition. Cliff has also done a fine job squashing some of the uninformed rumors that have been making the rounds. (I know it's hard to believe but folks on the Internet do sometimes get things wrong.)

If you have ever been a follower of adventure-type comics, you have probably enjoyed a lot of stories drawn by Gene Colan…Tomb of Dracula, Daredevil, Batman, Night Force, Nathaniel Dusk, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, Howard the Duck…if the guy had a few dollars for every great comic he's done, his problems would be over. Unfortunately, that's all the business paid guys like Gene Colan…a few dollars. I love it that the community of comic fans and professionals will rally around one of our own who's down on his luck and health, and I can't think of a better person to rally around than Gene.

It's always nice to check in and make sure that Abe Vigoda is still alive.

I am, as readers of this here blog know, a big fan of a fast food burger chain called Five Guys. I've only been to three of their outlets — one in Virginia, one in Ohio and one here in California — so the rest may all be stinky with inedible burgers and limp fries. But the three I've been to were spotless and friendly. The burgers were good and the fries were the best I've ever had anywhere. At the same time, and I'm prepping a blog post on this, the cuisine at my old fave, In-n-Out Burger, no longer pleases me the way it once did.

I'll explain about that in a few days. Right now, I just want to direct you to this article by Jerry Murrell, the main "guy" behind Five Guys. And I want to thank Dan Sweeney for pointing it out to me.

If you have or know small kids who frolic about the World Wide Web, you might want to point them this way. That link'll take you to a new web cartoon project featuring Professor Garfield. Professor Garfield is a lot like Non-Professor Garfield except that he wears glasses and occasionally stops eating long enough to teach somebody something…and now he's spearheading a project done via a four-way collaboration: The Professor Garfield Foundation, The Virginia Department of Education, The Attorney General's Office in Virginia, and the Verizon Foundation. The goal is to teach children to watch out for online predators, cyberbullies, scam operators and other virtual nastiness.

The animation over there was produced by Jim Davis's Paws, Inc. The animation was done by Glenn Zimmerman. Lynette Nuding did the sketches for the backgrounds, Jon Barnard did the post editing and Tom Howard worked on the PDF support documents. The scripts were by Scott Nickel and Bob Levy coordinated the project. I directed the voices which were performed by Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Audrey Wasilewski and Jason Marsden. We're all quite proud of this effort and are hoping there will be more.

In honor of Income Tax Day, David Leonhardt explains about the oft-cited statistic that 47% of American households pay nothing in income taxes. Not the entire story.

Several of you have written to say that 200 Motels, the 1971 British musical starring Frank Zappa, was shot on tape and transferred to film. Now that you mention it, I think a number of concert films were, even before that. But Norman, Is That You? was a first for several new processes which, at the time, some said would make shooting on film obsolete. That didn't happen…or at least, didn't happen with regard to tape.