Monthly Archives: February 2011

In fairness to the Spider-Man show on Broadway, I link to a review by Scott Brown in New York magazine. This is about the best notice I've seen from a major publication and even it isn't the kind of thing producers will rush to quote in ads.

A recurring theme in just about all the reviews is that the show suffers from a general disrespect for the source material; that the creators of the stage version weren't content to do the Spider-Man from decades of comic books. They had to reinvent the property, doing their vision of the character…as opposed to, say, the one concocted by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Again, I haven't seen the show but what the critics are all charging is a problem that frequently crops up when a comic book is adapted into another medium, especially a live-action one. Some adapter rethinks (and too often, over-rethinks) the concept. It's kind of like, "I can't just put a comic book on the screen. People will accuse me of putting a comic book on the screen. I have to take it to another level and put some depth in there." This is too often thought by someone who got the assignment despite not being a true fan of the source material…someone who didn't realize there was already plenty of depth in there.

Or maybe it's just ego. Years ago, I was called in by a producer who wanted to take a stab at adapting Popeye for a new animated project. I will call this producer Harry Shmidlap…

Mr. Shmidlap told me he was a long-time lover of the character…but instantly I knew he wasn't. He had just decided he was because this looked like a lucrative project. He wanted me to perhaps write the script and he sat and learned plenty as I told him the history of Popeye and what I thought the sailorman's appeal was. I asked him if he'd ever read the original newspaper strips by Popeye's creator, Elzie Segar. He said no. I said, "Well, maybe you should because I think the way to do this right is to go back to the original Elzie Segar Popeye."

He looked at me with a scowl and said, "I have no interest in doing the Elzie Segar Popeye. I'm going to do the Harry Shmidlap Popeye."

The last time Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark postponed its opening night, we predicted that critics would decide the grace/preview period was over and would begin reviewing it. The New York Times has turned its Ben Brantley loose on it and since the Times is the giant ape of Broadway reviewing, everyone else will probably dive into the game now.

Did Mr. Brantley like it? No, Mr. Brantley did not like it. He said, "Spider-Man is not only the most expensive musical ever to hit Broadway; it may also rank among the worst." Acknowledging that work is still being done on the show, he wrote, "…from what I saw on Saturday night, Spider-Man is so grievously broken in every respect that it is beyond repair. Fans of Ms. Taymor's work on the long-running musical The Lion King, adapted from the animated Walt Disney feature, will have to squint charitably to see evidence of her talent."

This is what is commonly known in the trade as a Bad Review.

Once upon a time if you were a Broadway producer and the Times said something of the sort about your show, you didn't bother even waiting to see what the other critics said. You posted the closing notice, burned the sets and looked for work in the increasingly-rewarding field of Motel Management. These days, the power of the Times has diminished. It didn't like The Addams Family and that show's still running. Then again, The Addams Family didn't get a review this bad and it has two big stars.

I suspect bad notices won't kill Spider-Man. Word of mouth will, along with its killer operating costs. (Addams Family can also apparently show a profit at 65% capacity and with half-price tickets sold at TKTS.) Spider-Man has been playing to packed houses, in part because of the curiosity factor and the enormous publicity. That might keep it open for a few more months, especially given its advance sale. But if this thing's going to run for many years, it has to have something going for it beyond the desire to see what $65 million can buy and the suspense of wondering if all the actors will be ambulatory for their curtain calls. For that to happen, someone has to like it besides Glenn Beck.

I have not seen the show and at this rate, I may not. I have received e-mails from around twenty friends who've attended and they make Brantley's pan look kind by comparison. They all mentioned a moment here or there wherein the production was what you want it to be like throughout…but all found the experience akin to watching the opening number of Springtime for Hitler on opening night but without the funny stuff that followed.

Rumor has it that the producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are not looking to pursue other theatrical productions in other towns; that life after New York, if there is one, will more likely be in the form of a touring arena show, not unlike Cirque du Soleil. One person told me that that's what the instigators of this venture had in mind all along and that someone got caught up with the idea of starting it off with a Tony-winning Broadway smash. I have no idea if the touring show idea could work but what they're doing now sure doesn't seem promising, does it?

Keith Olbermann will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce his new line of work. The Hollywood Reporter reports…

A release from the company [his new publicists] states that Olbermann and "his new partners will make an exciting announcement regarding the next chapter of his remarkable career." No further information about the call or Olbermann's decision was available.

"New partners" sounds to me like a new cable channel…or maybe a makeover of an old one into a new one. We shall see what we shall see…

AOL is buying Huffington Post for $315 million. Rumor has it they're uninterested in and may drop most of the regular columns and features. They're just buying it to get Bob Elisberg's articles.

I have been known to purchase groceries in a little mall/shopping center called the Town and Country, located at 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles, directly across the street from the world famous Farmers Market. There's a drugstore there (used to be a Sav-On, now it's a CVS) and there's a department store there (used to be an independent, now it's a KMart) and there are some little shops and a great, cheap Italian cafeteria (used to be Andre's and it's still Andre's and it's terrific). And there's a market.

When I first began shopping there, the market was a Safeway…and I guess it was a decent market. Or at least it was, up until the day it abruptly closed. As I recall, there was no warning. One day, it was open and operating. Then that evening at closing time, the manager reportedly informed the employees they were not to come to work the next day…or ever again. Moments later (I was told), an armada of Safeway trucks roared up outside and a huge crew began to denude the market of its remaining stock, starting with the most perishable and working their way down to the Lucky Charms. This was in the early eighties and those boxes of Lucky Charms have yet to reach their expiration dates.

I went by the next day and found Safeway customers milling around outside in a state of shock, asking God how he could have taken their market away like that…and in the dead of night, no less. There was one elderly woman — she looked like Molly Picon — who was muttering, "Where are we going to buy our groceries? Where?" She made it sound like there was now nowhere to get food within the county of Los Angeles.

Ever the helpful passer-by, I pointed out to here that there was a Market Basket (another chain) one entire block away. She looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Have you seen what they charge in there?" She, like a lot of folks in the area, were on fixed incomes and lacking automobiles. The one block wasn't a problem. Ten cents more for a can of Bumble Bee Chunk Light apparently was. The KMart rose to the occasion by clearing housepaints and some other hardware-style merchandise out of its basement and installing a little supermarket. Somehow, between that and the Market Basket, the neighborhood got by.

Then six months or so later, the Market Basket closed…also without warning. Again, people around there acted like they'd all starve; like there was no more food anywhere. Why, the nearest Ralphs was all the way over at La Cienega and Third, almost a mile away.

The former Safeway sat vacant all that time. Then one day, a miraculous sign appeared in its window — a notice that the forthcoming tenant had applied for a permit to sell beer and wine on the premises. If you looked closely at the sign, it told you who that tenant would be: Ralphs.

I will never forget another elderly woman of the neighborhood — not the one who looked like Molly Picon. This one looked more like Maureen Stapleton and she was practically leaping up and down with glee in front of the still-empty market. She was yelling over and over, "It's gonna be a Ralphs! It's gonna be a Ralphs!" If you'd told that lady, "Oh, by the way, you also just won the lottery," I don't think she could have gotten much happier.

So Ralphs it would be. And to tide the neighbors over until the new store was open for business, and to generate some good will in the community, they set up some sort of free shuttle bus. It went from outside the Ralphs-to-be over to the Ralphs on La Cienega and back.

Soon, the former Safeway building did indeed house a Ralphs and everyone was happy…maybe not as happy as Maureen Stapleton but happy. This happiness continued with scant interruption until a decade or two later when without explanation, Ralphs moved out and Lucky moved in. It was a well-orchestrated transition of power and turf, and all we as shoppers had to do on our end was get a new club card and continue shopping. A few years later, the Lucky became an Albertsons when the Albertsons company bought the Lucky company and switched the names over. I think it was an Albertsons for about three years until it too suddenly closed and that mall was again marketless.

By now, we were used to it, all of us. Like a much-married person whose spouses keep deserting them, we'd come to expect it. Safeway…Ralphs…Lucky…Albertsons…all of them, fickle and undependable. And let's not forget that Market Basket down the block that left us, as well. Tramps, all of them. They came. They fed us for a time. They left and broke our hearts.

So we just waited. We knew, sooner or later, someone else would come along. Someone else to toy with our affections, lead us on and then, just when we were feeling secure in the relationship, dump us. Dump us the way they all did, sooner or later.

Sure enough, a few months later another Application to Sell Alcoholic Beverages appeared on one of the empty store's soaped-up windows. This one said Mrs. Gooch was coming in…but when she arrived, she was a Whole Foods Market. It's been there a while now and seems to be permanent. They even bought out two stores on one side, knocked out walls and expanded…which made us feel good. You don't do that if there's a chance you'll be disappearing into the night like the rest of them.

No one who looks like Molly Picon or Maureen Stapleton shops at Whole Foods. I don't think they even let you in unless you look reasonably healthy. I'm apparently fit enough that they allow me in. I go there often, even though I know the food is overpriced and it never, ever tastes as good when you get it home as you think it'll taste when you see it in the store. There's a joke some comedian tells — I'm not sure who — about how someone gave them a $10 gift certificate at Whole Foods. They went in and managed to buy one lime with it…and the punch line is, "Well, at least I'm not going to get scurvy." That's kind of how I feel when I shop there. At least I'm not going to get scurvy. And it does seem to be here to stay…maybe. Because things are changing once again.

As I said, the Town and Country shopping center that houses this Whole Foods is located at the corner of 3rd and Fairfax. That's the Southeast corner. The Northeast corner has Farmers Market on it and the Southwest corner has a big office building that houses the Writers Guild of America, West.

The Northwest corner was an empty lot. For years and years, as long as I can remember, it was an empty lot. A few weeks before each Halloween, some merchant would come along and sell pumpkins there and then not long after that season was over, the pumpkins would be replaced by Christmas trees. But for most of the year, it was an empty lot — probably one of the most expensive undeveloped pieces of real estate in Los Angeles. A month or two ago though, they broke ground and began building another shopping center on that lot, on that corner. It's to house a number of little stores on its second floor, plus they're tearing down a nursery next door in order to build an appropriate-sized parking lot for the new mall.

On the first floor? They're putting in a Trader Joe's.

A Trader Joe's across the street from a Whole Foods…which was already across the street from the Farmers Market. This could be all-out war but it could also be one of those messy kind of love triangles where you just know someone's going to get hurt. You don't know who but you know someone is. I'm going to watch it all guardedly and dispassionately, waiting to see who. All I know is it won't be me…and I'm not going to get scurvy.

Robert J. Elisberg draws some obvious (but essential) comparisons between the revolution going on in Egypt and the kind of revolution that Tea Party members either think they're having or want to have.

You all know Bob Clampett, the great cartoon director of Looney Tunes fame. Wanna buy his high school yearbook?

Jonathan Sloman is the only person who's told me…

I'm sure you've been told this, Mark, but that Spamalot clip on your blog today is from that year's Royal Variety Performance, in the presence of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. A big thing was made in the papers about how much they enjoyed the extract, and the Royal couple went to see the full show soon afterward.

That makes sense. Thanks, Jonathan. I'm not sure that excerpt gives folks a real idea of what the show is like but hey, anything that entices people into theaters can't be all bad.

I see in many places on the 'net that online registration this morning for Comic-Con was maddening and slow and at times, impossible. I don't know how true that is but I do know that it won't help if you write and tell me of your experiences. Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger has nothing to do with that and cannot help you. To those who insist, "There must be a better way to do this," I will just say that it's been my observation and experience that the managers of Comic-Con are really, really sharp and competent. There may well be a better way but if they haven't found one, maybe it isn't as easy as some might think.

Let me remind you that there is another fine comic book convention from the same management for which tickets are easily obtainable, plus you don't have to wait for July to experience it. WonderCon is in San Francisco April 1-3. No, it's not as big as Comic-Con but you don't see all of Comic-Con, anyway. Something to consider, whether you make it to Comic-Con or not.

Leonard Maltin discusses the ten movies that are up this year for Best Picture.

Tickets go on sale in twelve hours for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego.

I have nothing to add to what I said earlier except that we're about to see a record set for the fastest they've ever sold out. Good luck. Don't come crying to me if you put it off and then don't get one. In fact, don't come crying to me at all. I get enough of that.

Here's a bit of comic book history I found in my files and scanned to share with you. Between around 1966 and 1968, if you sent a letter in to any of the DC comic books featuring Superman, you might get back a copy of a form letter. I sent a lot of letters so I got a lot of copies and sometimes, as you will see, someone in the office would write in a little personal note.

I believe the form letter was written in early '66. There's a reference there to Supergirl appearing in The Brave and the Bold, which happened late in '65 and there's mention of a forthcoming Superman cartoon show that debuted in the Fall of '66.

In any case, I believe this particular copy was sent to me some time in 1968, which means that some of its info was outta date when I received it. The handwritten P.S. talks about a change in the size of the original art that was made in 1968.

I'm not sure who wrote the P.S. but a likely candidate is E. Nelson Bridwell, who was the assistant to Superman editor Mort Weisinger at the time. Nelson probably authored the entire letter, too. (By the way, I don't know what he meant about their artists drawing on a special type of paper unless he meant that they used decent art board instead of the kind of paper that a kid might have available to draw upon. Artists then as now were drawing on two-ply Strathmore or some other kind of bristol board.)

That's about it. Click here to load a copy of the letter as a PDF file or right-click to download it. Hope you find it interesting.