Monthly Archives: July 2010

About That Pie Fight…

Posted on Friday, July 9, 2010 at 5:23 PM

battleofthecentury

Something else I should have mentioned about this morn's clip of The Battle of the Century: I think I met someone who was in it.

When I was a kid, there was an elderly couple who lived just down the street from us…Mr. and Mrs. Martin Bolger. Mr. Bolger was a retired film editor who'd worked at many different studios but for a long time at Twentieth-Century Fox. Twentieth-Century Fox was also in our neighborhood, a few more blocks away, and Mr. Bolger had purchased that home in the late forties to be near work.

Anyway, when I started getting interested in old movies and especially in Laurel and Hardy, it was arranged for me to walk down there one day and spend about an hour talking with Mr. Bolger. He had worked at the Hal Roach Studios for a time…on Laurel and Hardy movies, among others. He was the first person I ever met who'd ever known the men who are still my two all-time, no-close-runner-up favorite performers. Among other things, he mentioned being an extra in The Battle of the Century and getting a couple of pies in the face and one on the seat of his pants.

Of Stan and Ollie, he said that Ollie was an absolute joy to be around, a dear and funny man, but he was less fond of Stan. By then, I'd devoured and memorized the John McCabe book on The Boys, Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy, and I told him what it said about how Laurel was always heavily involved in the editing of their films to the point of practically controlling it. Mr. Bolger's view was that Laurel had meddled a lot in an area about which he knew little, and that his suggestions had been routinely ignored.

I was about twelve or thirteen at the time. Needless to say, it was a little unsettling to hear someone speak ill of Stan Laurel. I later learned it was not a common view among those who'd worked with Stan, even though the opinion of Hardy seems to have been unanimous.

And I later learned almost nothing about Mr. Bolger. He passed away a few years later, followed closely by his wife. There is almost no record of his history in the motion picture business. IMDB, for example, has but one listing that might be him — this one, for a Martin Wall Bolger, who edited a 1927 feature called Their First Auto. I have occasionally asked Laurel and Hardy scholars about him and no one has ever heard of the man. From all he told me, I'm sure he worked there and he probably was in that pie-hurling orgy. But I'd love to find out a little more about him…

13 Days To Comic-Con!

Posted on Friday, July 9, 2010 at 11:46 AM

Here's a link to the Friday programming at the Comic-Con International. I was going to make some snippy remark about how there's nothing to see here, move along, since I'm not hosting any panels that day. But the truth is that there's some real interesting stuff and I may get to go play Audience for a change.

I'm getting e-mails from folks who are agonizing about the convention, fretting about parking and where to eat and whether they're going to get into the events they yearn to see. The main worry seems to be about the sheer size of it all; of being in a room with that many people and with so much to choose from. In a general policy that I admit I'm not always able to make work for myself, I try to embrace such situations; to appreciate the fun and the uniqueness and maybe even the challenge of such an environment. It's like any travel situation in that you need to organize and prepare, and also to pace yourself and have some realistic sense of what you can and cannot do. At Comic-Con, you cannot (for example) see everything you want to see, meet everyone you want to meet, buy everything you want to buy.

To go in presuming otherwise is to set yourself up for disappointment. So is failing to appreciate The Art of the Possible. The greatest disappointments probably happen unto those who — and I know people who do this every damn year — think they're going to make some grand career/employment contact that will change if not their lives forever than at least the next year or two of those lives. That does happen at the con. I've seen it happen at the con. But maybe the surest way to make sure it doesn't happen at the con is be too desperate to have it happen at the con.

The convention is like going to Disneyland or Las Vegas…which, by the way, is a strong reason why it should never move to or near either of them. I'm quite serious about this. You can't have one magical place in or around another magical place. (If there isn't a law against that, there should be.) And as in any magical place, there's way too much to see and do…and this is important to remember: It's bigger than you are and not going to change for you or even come to you. Stuff you will enjoy is in there and you have to find it. It's not hard if, as I say, you pace yourself and set some reasonable expectations and do a little planning. Every single year without fail, I get to be part of some wonderful panels and events…and every year without fail, people come to me afterwards and say, "Hey, I heard about that great panel. Sorry I didn't know about it." Well, whose fault is that?

Don't let the whole idea and scope of the convention overwhelm you. It's like being frightened by a banquet. You don't have to try everything. Just look at what's there, decide what you want and help yourself. And — oh, by the way — don't try to eat too much.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Friday, July 9, 2010 at 3:32 AM

A lot of folks probably assume that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, being slapstick comedians, threw a lot of pies in their movies. Not so. Whatever urges they had in that direction were pretty much satisfied in The Battle of the Century, one of their earliest two-reel silent comedies. This is the last four minutes…the biggest pie fight staged in movies for many years. I think the one in the 1965 movie The Great Race may have been the one that usurped the title. The only other strong contender is the meringue massacre in Half-Wits Holiday, a 1947 short with The Three Stooges. Footage from that pie fight was reused in several other Stooges films.

There's kind of an interesting story as to how the Laurel and Hardy brawl even manages to exist. In 1957, a man named Robert Youngson was assembling a compilation feature called The Golden Age of Comedy using clips of great silent movies. He got access to the negative of The Battle of the Century, duped the big fight at the end and used it in his film. What he didn't know was that in so doing, he was preserving that footage for all eternity. The negative was in bad shape and within a few years, it had completely decomposed. There was no other known copy of the film anywhere.

So for a few decades, The Battle of the Century was a "lost" movie. Only the last few minutes still existed in any form, thanks to Mr. Youngson. Finally in the seventies, a copy of the first reel turned up. It's an extended boxing match in which Mr. Hardy shoves Mr. Laurel into the ring, and it's most interesting because among the extras who played spectators, one can spot a very young Lou Costello.

No full copy of the second reel has ever been located so all we have of it are these four minutes. They're four pretty memorable minutes…

VIDEO MISSING

Superman Research Question

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 3:39 PM

Someone needs to know the answer to this puzzler: When was the first time that someone referred to Superman as "The Big Blue Boy Scout?" I was asked and I didn't know. Do you? Drop me an e-mail if you think you can help.

14 Shopping Days Left Before Comic-Con

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 12:19 PM

Here's the programming schedule for Thursday at the Comic-Con International.

The whole thing will be up as of Sunday. I suggest that if you're going, you take the time to sit down, study the schedule and make notes about what you'd like to see…including back-up selections in case your first choice picks are filled to capacity. The con website has an online tool this year that may help you do this. One of the reasons I think I enjoy the con so much is that I arrive with a printed schedule that tells me where I have to be at every moment for panels, meetings, meals, interviews, etc. And when I don't have something firm to do, I have notes suggesting events or exhibitors I may wish to visit. That website is full of helpful information and it will get fuller as we get closer to Preview Night and what follows.

M.E. on the Emmys

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 12:03 PM

The Emmy nominations are out and the big news for some is that Conan O'Brien's short-lived Tonight Show got one, whereas Mr. Leno's did not. I suspect the following…

  • That while it may have been some voters' way of flipping the bird to Mr. Leno, most were more interested in flipping it to — in order of ascending targets — Jeff Zucker, NBC and network programmers in general.
  • That the voters who voted the Coco ballot were voting for him being cancelled, not for what he actually did on the program…or maybe just for what he did on the program its last week or so.
  • That Mr. Leno is not bothered much, if at all, about this. He's used to it by now. (Jay is, I'm told, more bothered when reporters say he's never been nominated or won. He was nominated a number of times, albeit a while back, and his Tonight Show won for Best Musical or Variety Series in '95.)
  • That Mr. Letterman is more upset that his show wasn't nominated.
  • And that Mr. Stewart and The Daily Show will win in that category…or if he doesn't, a Mr. Colbert will.

I came across one site which said that this will have some impact on whether Jay survives on The Tonight Show. It will have none whatsoever. It didn't have any impact that he wasn't nominated for 10+ years. The only thing that will matter there is if (a) the numbers go up and down and (b) if a more promising alternative seems to be possible.

One of these days, I'll have to write a piece on the Emmy Awards. In Hollywood, there is one sense in which they mean a lot because everyone loves to get awards, if only for the potential career/salary boost. In another sense, I don't think anyone really thinks the process is configured to select the best…and the more you know about how that process works, the less likely you are to believe that.

Unless, of course, you win one in which case you might briefly convince yourself that the system is momentarily, and only in your category that year, infallible. But like the Oscars, no one can really say for sure what any particular "win" means…and one seems to care about that.

Pop Culture

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 10:36 AM

sodataxchart

The above chart is making the rounds and it says that if we slapped a big tax on sugary, carbonated beverages, our nation's revenues would go way up while a lot of waistlines went down. Sounds like win/win at first glance but it seems to me like Voodoo Economics…to borrow a phrase that George Herbert Walker Bush once correctly applied to the financial theories on which he later based much of his administration. I started to write a post about why this didn't make a lot of sense but I see Kevin Drum has, as usual, beaten me to it. Basically, there's too many theories in this theory, starting with the assumption that if you got fewer calories from Dr. Pepper, you wouldn't feel okay with eating more Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

And even presuming the logic is sound, there is the question of how much government should try to regulate this kind of human behavior. You know, if we slapped a huge tax on the making of Brittney Spears CDs, people might stop making them…and while we all might like that result, is that a legitimate function of our elected officials? Well, okay, maybe that's a bad example. But yes, obesity harms people. So does alcohol and we saw how well it worked to try and force everyone in The Land of the Free to stop consuming that stuff. Those folks are not consuming oceans of calorie-rich cola because there are no other available liquids. It's a choice, arguably a bad choice but not necessarily one Uncle Sam should be trying to stop us from making.

I'm not fighting for my freedom on this issue. I gave up carbonated drinks, with sugar and without, fifty months ago. It just seems like an excessive intervention into our lives. If (major "if") we feel that national obesity is a public concern that needs to be addressed, maybe we oughta address that problem head-on rather than to pin it all on one of the eighty zillion ways people get fat. There are skinny people who drink Pepsi and fat ones who drink Diet Pepsi…so if the idea is to punish people who get fat drinking non-diet Pepsi, the effort is misdirected. And if the idea is to just raise revenues, we oughta look into curtailing into the kind of tax/farm subsidies that brought us those gushers of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the first place.

Victor de la Fuente, R.I.P.

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 2:11 AM

I am not up to the task of writing this but the passing of one of the world's great comic artists must be noted here. Victor de la Fuente, often called the master of the form in the Spanish comic art community, passed recently at the age of 83. The obits merely say it was after "long years of illness."

He was a master of realism on the comic page, especially in westerns such as Tex Willer and Les Gringos. Not nearly enough of his work has been published in English but there's much to be said for admiring the pictures he drew. Tom Spurgeon has a much better piece on the man than I am capable of writing.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 1:46 AM

The great Spanish tenor Placido Domingo began his career with small roles, including a part in the first Mexican production of My Fair Lady, in which he did not get to sing this song. But he sang it later in many later venues and here he is singing it in English and then in Spanish…

VIDEO MISSING

From the E-Mailbag…

Posted on Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 1:45 AM

The other day here, I linked to a letter from Watergate conspirator John Ehrlichman to cartoonist Garry Trudeau. This brought the following message from the fine comic book creator, Paul Chadwick…

I know you're a fellow Watergate aficionado so you might find this interesting.

After resigning, Ehrlichman moved his family back to Bellevue, Washington, where his daughter Jody became a classmate of mine. Nevertheless, I was startled to find this villain from my newspapers appear as a guest speaker in my American History class. To talk about Watergate? No. To recount his experiences as a navigator on American bombers flying missions over Germany in WWII.

He was so charmingly self-deprecating, casting himself not as a war hero but as a terrified kid struggling to do his job, that I couldn't help liking the guy. His modesty, intelligence and depth messed with my political cosmology. It made me a follower of his subsequent tribulations, if not exactly a fan.

After all, he actually put into writing — checking a box next to "approve", if I recall correctly! — his go-ahead for Liddy's crew to burgle the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, looking for private agonies with which to destroy the whistleblower. A dirtier political trick is hard to imagine.

I remember that after his divorce, Ehrlichman gave up on his legal appeals and simply reported to prison. He wrote novels, producing a decent Washington potboiler, The Company, that was made into a TV miniseries with Jason Robards playing a Nixon-like President Richard Monckton. I recall the scene where Monckton laughs with raspy glee at his mechanically elevating desk on Air Force One, supposedly installed by LBJ. I wonder if that bit was true.

Ehrlichman also, I recall, wrote an article for an art collector's magazine about art in the Nixon White House. He recounted an anecdote about being seated next to painter Andrew Wyeth at a state dinner. He boned up on Wyeth's work in order to make conversation. But Wyeth had learned Ehrlichman practiced Land Use law before working for Nixon, and spent the dinner discussing a zoning dispute in which the artist was entangled.

He eventually remarried, tried to syndicate a radio commentary (I never heard it, and I was seeking it out), and Wikipedia tells me he worked for an Atlanta hazardous materials firm. It also has this tidbit:

Shortly before his death, Ehrlichman teamed with novelist Tom Clancy to write, produce, and co-host a three hour Watergate documentary, John Ehrlichman: In the Eye of the Storm. The finished, but never broadcast, documentary, associated papers, and videotape elements (including an interview Ehrlichman did with Bob Woodward as part of the project) is housed at the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Now that apologia would be a treat for us Watergate geeks.

Google results seem to suggest that Ehrlichman's immortality rests on his poetic comment on the Oval Office tapes about how it would be a good distraction from the widening Watergate scandal to let FBI director-appointee L. Patrick Gray's confirmation hearing drag on — that they should leave Gray "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind." Fair enough, but that line came first from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, describing a hanged man.

A well-read fellow, Ehrlichman.

Well, nobody ever said he was stupid…although he may have seemed so when he appeared at the Watergate hearings and tried to justify some of the things he tried to justify. In all my readings, Ehrlichman always came off as a smart, efficient fellow who played the Washington game precisely the way he believed it was supposed to be played, and certainly the way Nixon wanted it to be played. In many ways, he went to prison because someone had to, and even Nixon's greatest enemies weren't about to put him behind bars. I do think the man broke the law and I have no problem believing the theories that he specifically ordered the infamous Watergate break-in.

But in his post-prison appearances, he did come across as a bright, sympathetic guy…at least when he wasn't trying to justify past behavior. His Watergate book, Witness to Power, was a mixed bag. He dumped on Nixon but must have known a lot more than he included. At least it felt like he was attacking his former boss just enough to sell books, not enough to give historians a true, unfiltered peek into the Nixon White House. I never read his roman à clef novel but I made it through much of the mini-series made from it and thought it was just dreadful with Robards struggling to portray Nixon without portraying Nixon. Richard Monckton? Yeah, that couldn't possibly be the same guy, could it?

Thanks, Paul. I've only had the opportunity to meet two Watergate figures. One, on a couple of occasions, has been John Dean who struck me as the smartest of the bunch — the one who figured out first that the jig was up and it was time to make a clean breast of it and turn state's evidence. The other was Charles Colson. I met him soon after he got into his Christian Fellowship line of work and sat horrified through a lunch where he talked about how much money there was to be made off anything that could be properly marketed to that audience. I'll have to write about that lunch one of these days.

Language Barrier

Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 11:20 PM

The new Google toolbar keeps asking me if I want to translate this page into English. This is the worst thing anyone's said about my writing since…well, I have a lot to pick from…

The Big Con Game

Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 7:12 PM

Heidi MacDonald summarizes the current state of play in the ongoing saga of whether the Comic-Con International will move from San Diego when its current contract expires. As I've said (and as Heidi quotes me as saying), I think it would be an enormous mistake. In fact, she didn't use one of the harsher remarks I gave her, which was something about how if the con does leave S.D., the local officials down there who let it get away will be guilty of staggering, stupid incompetence. A huge chunk of that city's convention trade and urban revitalization is due to the Comic-Con.

I have no more news than she does as to how and when this will all get decided. She quotes the con's David Glanzer as saying he hopes a decision can be made before this year's convention convenes in two weeks. Well, maybe. As I understand it, there's still some time before that absolutely has to be finalized and the convention can afford to wait past this year's opening bell for the right situation. Glanzer and the others who run the con are very wise and I'm sure that's what they'll do if it's necessary. They're even willing to relocate the con if it's necessary…and I sure hope it isn't.

By the way: Tomorrow, the con website will have the Thursday Programming Schedule with Friday's to be posted the following day and so on. Thursday at the convention, I'm on one panel, introducing another and featured on a third. But the real shocker will come with what I'm doing there on Friday: Nothing. Not on any panels, not moderating any panels, nothing. I'm presenting an award in the evening at the big Eisner Ceremony but this is the first time in about 15 years I've had my day free at a Comic-Con. I make up for my sloth and inactivity on Saturday with five events and then do four on Sunday but I'm not sure what I'll do with myself all afternoon Friday. I may wander down to the skid row part of town and interview vagrants and inkers.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 6:33 PM

Just because I felt like watching this again…

VIDEO MISSING

Recommended Reading

Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 1:28 PM

Hendrik Hertzberg on what Americans think of soccer. Apparently, the main problem for many is that other countries sometimes win.

The (Late) State of the Union

Posted on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 12:29 PM

jayleno04

A lot of folks in the press have been dying to write the story about how Jay Leno's ratings have collapsed and to say it now doesn't look like it was such a wise idea for NBC to oust Conan O'Brien and reinstate Jay in the time slot. You can certainly spin the current numbers that way, though I'd imagine NBC's spin would be along the lines of, "Hey, if you think Leno's doing poorly now, take a look at our estimates of where O'Brien would now be if we'd left him on." And you could interpret the numbers that way, too.

What's lost in the shuffle is what I think oughta be the lede: All the late night shows, except maybe Nightline, are way down in audience share. Most of the headlines will tell you, for example, that in the second quarter of this year, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno posted its lowest-rated numbers since The Late Show with David Letterman launched on CBS in 1993. This is true. Farther down in the article, they might mention that Letterman is also getting some of the worst numbers he's had on CBS. Also true. Put simply, America is presently bored with that kind of show…and I don't think I'm just projecting because I am.

Back some ways on this blog, there are posts where I extolled my fondness for both Jay and Dave and explained that I TiVo both, watch both, like both. Over the last few years and especially in the last few months, that has changed. Both shows have simply become too predictable, too repetitive, too plastic. Maybe some of it's me but obviously, I'm not the only one who's no longer tuning in. I started getting bored with Letterman some time ago and took him off my TiVo Season Pass list during his mean-spirited, unsportsmanlike rants against Leno. I still believe Jay was fragged by his own network, then swift-boated by his competitors; that he didn't do anything particularly unethical in returning to a job he should not have lost the way he did. What he has been doing wrong, I think, is not doing as good a show as he used to.

I haven't officially given up on that show yet but I have 25 episodes of it sitting on my TiVo, unwatched. Lately, all the other things I TiVo seem more appealing, though every now and then, I watch the monologue of one Tonight Show and then if there's a guest that interests me (and there usually isn't), I jump ahead to view that segment. The monologues used to be sharper, the comedy spots used to be cleverer…and Jay looked less like he had a car waiting outside to speed him off to a private jet and a 10 PM gig in Vegas.

Recently, bandleader Kevin Eubanks departed. The reason, as originally reported, was that Eubanks was tired of the grind and eager to get back to a full-time career in music. That's possible or at least it's believable. What surprised me was that on one of Kevin's last shows, Jay awkwardly mentioned that the entire band was leaving at the same time; that new guy Rickey Minor was bringing in a whole new crew with him. I gather that was not because those musicians all decided at once that they were tired of the grind and eager to get back to a full-time career in music. Kevin may well have left on his own impulse but someone there has to have said, "We need a new sound for this program." Well, they've got it but it isn't making a bit of difference…because what's been wrong with The Tonight Show for some time has not been the music.

My sense is that the program is suffering from a bad case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." On a show like that which needs material every night, it's real easy to find something that works and beat it to death…and then when it stops working, the instant thought is, "Well, we need to do more of it." Mr. Carson's longevity had a lot to do with being willing to turn loose of old bits…and also that was a different era where folks didn't watch YouTube and get as instantly oversaturated with things. And also, Johnny wasn't on five nights a week, most weeks of the year.

One of Carson's long-time writers keeps making a point to me whenever I see him: "All these new guys —" (He's including Letterman and Leno amongst the new guys) "— will tell you Johnny was the master, Johnny did a talk show better than anyone. But they're all confident they can do their shows without an Ed McMahon…and Johnny thought Ed was an absolute necessity." I think there's some wisdom there.

I liked Conan O'Brien better, the more involved Andy Richter was with his show…and I don't mean just that I liked the show better. I liked Conan as a person better. I always felt he came off as a bit of a show biz phony when he was talking to the audience and as a real nice, funny guy when he was bantering with Andy. I call this the Ed Norton Syndrome. If you take Ralph Kramden alone, he's a loudmouthed guy who lies to everyone and threatens to belt his wife. But put Ed Norton next to him and you see the human side of Ralph. I liked David Letterman better when he seemed to have a closer relationship with Paul Shaffer, too.

Anyway, Leno may develop some solid, on-screen relationship with Rickey Minor but now, when Jay's had so much bad press, was a bad time to lose what he had with Eubanks. It's also a bad time to be doing Pumpcasting for what feels like the eight thousandth time. Those "remote correspondent" bits in which Jay disappears completely from his own show for ten key minutes may be funny the first time or two but they have a short expiration date and I don't think they even serve the outside performers who are brought in to do them. Ross the Intern has become a bit of a celebrity from his spots but the show keeps introducing other folks who do a spot or three, then wear out their welcomes and disappear…in many cases, completely from television. That should be telling the producers something.

The whole show just has a feeling to me of being on Auto-Pilot. Jay runs in and does the monologue — and they've all started to sound alike. He intros the comedy spot that follows. Once a week, it's Headlines, and they've all started to sound alike. Much of the time, it doesn't even involve Jay. Then he goes through interviews with performers who are momentarily hot. Once in a while, it's someone with whom he has some rapport. Most of the time, it's almost-scripted q-and-a right off the cards. Then he intros the band and by that point, he might as well have his car keys out and be edging towards the door.

I'm afraid I don't find Letterman any more interested in his own show…or Kimmel. Or Fallon. The only one of those guys who looks like he ever wonders, "What can I do tonight I haven't done before?" is Craig Ferguson.

So are any of them in trouble? Not right now because at the moment, there's nobody else.

Someone wrote to ask me if I thought Leno would get fired (how many times would this be?) if his numbers don't pick up. They'd probably have to fall for a long time before that happened. First of all, his track record for bounceback is still not one to be quickly dismissed…and secondly, who would you put in there? I haven't heard any names mentioned by anyone in or around NBC and that's how you'll know if and when Jay is in trouble. You'll hear a name and it won't just come from some outside observer. It'll be sourced from somewhere within. That hasn't happened yet.

Letterman's not doing that well either but with him, it's different. He's David Letterman, the only thing CBS has ever had that's worked at that hour. He won't leave until he's good and ready. The next change that's going to happen in late night will be when Conan O'Brien debuts his new show on TBS. The industry consensus, which is not always right about this stuff, seems to be that he'll get a lot of initial tune-in, then settle down to a small but loyal audience that will be profitable but which will not threaten Jay or Dave. If Conan does essentially the same program he did at NBC, that sounds like a safe prediction. If he does something that revolutionizes that kind of show…well, somebody's going to have to.

The Jay vs. Dave battle has been fun in some ways but the real outcome is that the audience out there seems to be bored with both shows. If the respective hosts were more engaged — if this week's shows didn't seem so much like reruns of last week's shows — they could be doing better but I don't think they can ever be Must-See-TV again. At some point, someone is going to come along and reinvent talk shows the way Mr. Letterman once did. Until then, I've got a TiVo and plenty of other channels and DVDs. And I've learned, as so much of America is learning, that you don't absolutely have to watch a talk show after the 11:00 news. Hell, you don't even have to watch the 11:00 news anymore…