This runs close to an hour but, hey, if you're reading this website, you can't have that many better things to do. It's a press conference with many of the stars of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I believe it was done in 1993 to promote the big reunion TV special that aired that year. The man presiding over the festivities is the show's Executive Producer, George Schlatter.
You may recall that I spent much of last March, as I spend most recent Marches, eating Creamy Tomato Soup at my local Souplantation. They have it every March and then usually for one week in October. One week in October is probably when you will next find me at my local Souplantation.
So one day last March, I was sitting there eating Creamy Tomato Soup when a gentleman approached me to say hello and thank me for recommending my favorite soup here. He was Bill Freiberger, a top writer-producer who's worked on a wide array of shows including The Simpsons, Herman's Head, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Get a Life and Greg the Bunny. He's currently working on Warren the Ape, which is seen on MTV. He told me that he'd just written an episode in which the Souplantation's Creamy Tomato Soup was mentioned. I told him to let me know when it airs.
Well, he just let me know it airs this coming Monday evening at 10:30, which probably means different times in some time zones. He also let me know that while the Souplantation is much-discussed, the reference to Creamy Tomato Soup got cut. I plan to watch anyway and so should you.
…and one week from this moment, a lot of us will be attending Preview Night. It's coming up fast on us.
I'm going to get around to answering a number of your questions in a day or so but one thing a lot of folks are writing me to ask is how to go about approaching celebs at the con. "Supposing I see one of my favorite writers walking the aisles. Is it okay to just go up to them and say hello?"
The answer's pretty simple: It depends. If you saw them wandering at the supermarket, would you approach them? It would depend on how busy they seemed, how engrossed, how much they appeared to be in a hurry. The same rules apply at the Comic-Con. If they're not rushing to get somewhere or engaged in a private conversation, say hello and take it from there. Most folks who are likely to be approached are fine with it as long as you're not pushy or inconsiderate…
…or unshowered. Several con attendees have written me to ask that I make a pitch here for hygiene and bathing and not clearing the aisles with your body odor. There it is.
Not much more to add. Here's this again…
Lastly for now: No one seems to be lobbying any longer for the Comic-Con International to relocate to Las Vegas. Just in case, however, I'd like to point out that the current forecast for opening day of the Comic-Con in San Diego calls for a high of 73°. The forecast for Las Vegas for the same day is 107°. Anyone still want to go to Sin City? I didn't think so.
Fred Kaplan on how things are going in Afghanistan. There's good news and there's bad news…
Back in this post in December of '08, we gave you the lowdown on what happened one odd day on The Price is Right when a contestant named Terry made a seemingly-impossible perfect bid. Before you go any further, you might want to go review that post and watch the video clip there of that moment.
Now then: Chris Jones, who authored that great profile of Roger Ebert for Esquire, is back with a piece on Terry the Perfect-Bidder. As we noted, there was more to it than seemed apparent at the time. Thanks to Peter Gawdunyk who sent me the link.
Go to this page and read the thread entitled, "Clueless Secretary Prompts Hilarious Office Email Thread."
Matthew Yglesias makes a simple statement that I would think would be simple to disprove if it's not true: That while Republicans may say they think the budget deficit in this country is too high, they never actually do anything that would reduce it. This ties in with my long-held belief that we give way too much weight to what politicians say, as opposed to what they actually do. Can anyone point to any real recent example of the G.O.P. doing anything in the cause of deficit reduction other than to merely oppose anything Democrats want to spend money on?
Here we have an interview with my friend Jim Brochu, who is currently The King of Off-Broadway in New York playing Zero Mostel in the one-man show, Zero Hour. I've known Jim since the day we were hiring writers on the infamous variety show, Pink Lady. He came in to "audition" (chat) and as I was walking him out, he joked, "I live to grovel." That's a line from my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I responded with another line from the show and he did another line…and pretty soon, we'd done about half the show in the outer office there, stopping just short of singing a few choruses of "Everyone Ought to Have a Maid."
Jim told me he'd not only seen the original production with Zero (envy, envy) but had gone backstage. His mentor in the theater was David Burns, who was the original Senex in the show. We talked of the play for a while and in that moment, we bonded and I thought, "Hmm, maybe we oughta hire this guy." Remember the line in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz where Roy Scheider says, "See? That's how you get a job." Well, that's how you get a job.
Anyway, I often talked about Zero with Jim, little realizing my pal would soon become him. Jim always had an innate understanding of…well, I was about to type "performers" but it probably applies to all human beings. We are, after all, all performers in some sense. That insight is evident in his play, which is currently viewable at the Actor's Temple Theater in New York. Click here for more details on how you can go see it, which I heartily recommend. And now, here's Jim…
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Kliph Nesteroff, who brought us that great article recently about Woody Woodbury, strikes again. He interviewed and wrote about Rusty Warren, who was kind of the First Lady of Bawdy Comedy Records. There's a talent deserving of wider recognition.
The Wall Street Journal reports that theaters and other performing arts venues are making their seats larger in recognition of the fact that Americans are just plain getting larger. As not-a-small-person, I am not unhappy about this. Even when I was a lot skinnier than I am now, I had trouble with seats, particularly with the leg situation. I'm 6'3" which is tall but not that tall. The older the theater, the more impossible leg room usually is…and every so often, I find myself having to go to the usher and say, "I'm sorry…I can't sit in my seat." When booking tix, I always try to go for aisle seats since they give me a little room to stretch out at least one leg.
Obviously, it ain't good news that we're all getting fatter…but getting taller isn't so awful if the world can be adjusted a little.
As we discussed here, ratings are generally down for the late night talk shows. It's no longer that big a deal whether Leno's beating Letterman. What's now at issue is whether anyone is watching either. Here's the latest.
I'm in this — my part was shot in my dining room — but I somehow have no memory of it. It's a 8-and-a-half minute student film that a fellow named Michael Markowitz made back in '91 about Sergio Aragonés. Not much to add except that I wish I still had all that hair…
I promised a couple of folks I'd let them know when the Five Guys hamburger place opened out in Thousand Oaks. Well, it's opened. It's at 487 N. Moorpark Dr., Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 and I'm trying to think of a good excuse to make a trip to Thousand Oaks. Maybe just to get a burger…
My first thought this morning upon hearing of the death of author Harvey Pekar was that it's too bad he won't be around to write the comic book about the death of author Harvey Pekar. Harvey was a fascinating guy who wrote fascinating comic books about himself. Here's an obit straight from his home town of Cleveland. In a sense, Cleveland was the supporting character in most of his stories. Harvey, of course, was the star.
I had but one encounter with Harvey Pekar in my life. It was not pleasant but in a way, it was also refreshing because it proved that the crankiness we all saw in his comics, and in appearances like those he made for a time with David Letterman, was not an act. It was just the way the guy was.
It was around 12:45 one afternoon at a comic book convention in Chicago. There was one room in which panels and talks took place and one was in progress. I was waiting in the back of the hall to moderate or maybe just be on the one that would begin at 1:00 and then Harvey was to take stage at 2. At least, that was the schedule. Quarter to one, Harvey showed up and announced — loudly, distracting all who were trying to hear the speakers — that he was ready and he didn't see why he had to wait around 'til 2:00. He wanted just to give his talk and split; never mind that the folks who wanted to hear him wouldn't converge on the room until later. He was also upset because though there was a fine, snack-laden table of refreshments for the guests, there were no donuts on it. It seemed utterly illogical to him that you could put out cookies, crackers, finger sandwiches, veggies, pretzels, chips and nuts…and not have any donuts.
Somehow, we got into an argument which all went in one direction: Harvey Pekar versus The World. Coming from anyone else, it would have been the rantings of a rude, self-obsessed guy who couldn't grasp that everything in life doesn't work the way you want it to work, just because you want it to work that way. Coming from Harvey, it was oddly reassuring and utterly forgiveable. That was just the way he was and he wasn't going to change…so you could be repulsed by it or you could relax and enjoy it. Most readers, I think, confronted his writing with those choices and opted to enjoy.
I'll bet his work remains in print for a long time. And its standout weakness will be that, like I said, he never got to write that last installment.