I don't know if you've seen this but it's a brief look at Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, including some footage I've never seen anywhere else…
(By the way: Another actor in the show has been injured. It doesn't seem to be widely reported, maybe because it's no longer news.)
Michael Barrier has just posted a must-read for anyone interested in the history of animation. For most of his career, Roger Armstrong was a comic book and strip artist — and a darn good one — but he made one brief detour into working in animation. Many moons ago, he tape recorded his recollections of working at the Walter Lantz studio in the mid-forties and Barrier has transcribed and annotated these recollections.
Roger was a sharp guy so apart from some confusion about dates, I think what he remembered is probably the way it was.
Charlie Bassett just wrote me and asked…
While watching It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on PBS, I noticed that they cropped Joe DeRita out of the shot of the Three Stooges. Do you know why?
Well, I can think of three possible reasons…
Take your pick. Me, I'm leaning towards the last of these.
The programming schedule is now online for this year's WonderCon, which takes place in San Francisco from April 1 to April 3. You can wade through the entire thing and pick out the exciting events you wish to attend…or you can make it easy on yourself and just consult the list of panels that I'm hosting. Either way, you'll have a great time at the convention. I know I always do.
Here's a rarity…a brief chunk of The Morning Show, which ran on CBS starting in 1954 as that network's unsuccessful attempt to compete with NBC's Today show. The Morning Show featured news, interviews, games, songs, cooking demonstrations, the Bil Baird marionettes and just about anything else they could think of to throw in there. It was done live from a studio in Grand Central Terminal in New York and was originally hosted by Walter Cronkite before Jack Paar, who you'll see in this clip, took it over.
Paar always loved to tell the story of how after he replaced Cronkite, the network kept a running tally of letters — how many wanted Cronkite back, how many preferred Paar. One day, one of the talliers came to Paar and said, "We don't know how to score this one. It says, 'I wish you hadn't gotten rid of Walter Cronkite.'" Paar said, "Well, that's easy. Put it in the pro-Cronkite pile." The staff member replied, "Okay, but it's from your mother."
We've been talking here about the problems of doing TV out of New York in those days. The Morning Show aired for two hours a day but it wasn't the same two hours in every time zone. Cronkite and then Paar actually did three hours every morning. The Eastern Time Zone got Hours 1 and 2. The Central Time Zone got Hours 2 and 3. I have no idea what they did out here on the West Coast. In the third hour, the host would repeat much of the material from Hour 1, including re-interviewing people he'd interviewed in the first hour. Paar used to say he got very confused at times when he'd refer to something that occurred earlier in the program…then realized the time zone he was currently addressing hadn't seen that segment yet and it was coming up later.
Paar did it for a while, then CBS moved him to an afternoon show and tried other hosts including John Henry Faulk and Dick Van Dyke. In October of '54, CBS cut the show to one hour and gave the other hour over to a new show for kids, Captain Kangaroo. The Good Captain had his own problems with the time zone thing. He would do his show live every morning for the East Coast and at the conclusion, they would have two minutes — the length of the station break — to reset everything so they could perform the entire show again for the Central Time Zone. They actually did it twice every day for several years before tape became feasible…and again, I have no idea what they did for other time zones.
So here's a little sampler of The Morning Show from back when Jack Paar hosted it. I don't know how typical this is but it does look like they were trying to beat Today at its own game…and Today already had its act together and a tremendous head start…
Ed O'Toole sent me this and I thought it ought to be posted here…
Mark, I can remember that somehow, even though I was only nine years old, I discovered that there would be no Shari Lewis Show anymore. I refused to believe this and resolutely turned on the TV at the regular time, convinced that Shari would appear. She didn't, and life went on, but I was changed, and life was very different.
Every Saturday since I could remember, she had charmed, enchanted, engaged, and delighted me. Looking back, I must have had a crush on her a mile wide…and who wouldn't? Shari Lewis was one of a small company of performers who respected and valued kids and knew what made them tick. (The wonderful Chuck McCann was another.) She's one of the few entertainers I wish I could have had a moment with to tell her, however feebly, how much richer she made my young life. Seeing that bit of video only makes me miss her more.
She was a very nice lady and when I worked with her, nothing about her disappointed me. The same is true of Chuck McCann, by the way. And in his own way, he's kinda cute.
Quite a few people have written in with theories about the live/tape/kinescope question regarding The Shari Lewis Show. A number reminded me that by the time the show debuted, NBC did have videotape capability. Shari's program replaced Howdy Doody and the last episode of that series exists on tape — a tape that was saved because of its historic nature.
The Shari Lewis Show may have been done live but probably wasn't. They probably did the show whenever it was convenient — though with very little editing — and taped it. The thing was that videotape was expensive back then and once a show didn't seem to have immediate rerun value, the tapes were erased and used for something else. So once Shari's series was cancelled, someone at NBC made the decision that they wouldn't need those episodes again and the tapes were wiped. They may have then transferred the material to kinescopes just in case they needed it…or they may have been making kinescopes all along to service markets that weren't equipped to run videotape — overseas, especially. Only a handful of Tonight Show episodes exist from the fifties and sixties and around half of them are kinescopes that were made so the programs could be shown to U.S. troops stationed in other lands.
Johnny Carson, of course, used to complain often that so much of his work had been erased to save a few dimes on tape, and others who worked in TV then have had similar complaints. One night on his show, Carson got visibly angry on the topic, speaking of the "idiots" in the business affairs department. The next afternoon, I had lunch with one of the heads of that division and someone (not I) brought up Johnny's remarks. The Biz Affairs guy readily admitted that his predecessors had been foolish, both in terms of heritage and profit. But then he added another view of the situation by quoting a speech that he wanted to make to Mr. Carson but didn't dare. He said, approximately…
You're right, Johnny. People here were stupid to throw your old shows out. Why didn't you ever ask for them? Every time we make a new deal with you, you hold us up for more money and you demand more promotion for the show and a higher budget and more parking spaces for your staff and fresh basil in the NBC commissary and every other thing you can think of. Why, in all those negotiations over the years, did you never say, "I want custody of the old tapes" or even "I want you to make sure you're preserving all my old shows"? Yeah, the guys here were short-sighted and it was mainly their responsibility…but how come you let them erase all those tapes and you never stopped them?
An interesting point and I wonder what Johnny would have said. I mean, after he had the guy who said that to him fired.
The UCLA Film and Television Archive does vast amounts of good work preserving and restoring old movies and TV shows that would, were it not for their efforts, probably cease to exist. I'm delighted to learn that one of the treasures they've been saving is The Shari Lewis Show which replaced Howdy Doody on NBC on Saturday mornings when I was a lad — from 1960 'til 1963. I generally preferred watching cartoons to watching real people at the time but I made an exception if the people did magic or were Shari Lewis or Paul Winchell. Shari and Paul did their own kind of magic.
I've not seen a Shari Lewis Show since they aired on Saturday morns but I remember it fondly. It was kind of a weekly half-hour musical comedy…and they did it in New York, tapping into the talent pool of folks then working in and around Broadway. The first time I saw Jerry Orbach in a show (the original 42nd Street), I wondered, "Where have I seen that man before?" Took a while but I figured out he was that guy who, a decade or two earlier, had appeared often on The Shari Lewis Show.
The series was, of course, all about Ms. Lewis and her fabric friends, Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy…and I remember having two distinct reactions to her. I was kind of an amateur ventriloquist then — not that I ever thought of pursuing that as a career — and at age nine, I resented that a "girl" (say that with a note of disdain as a nine-year-old boy would) could do it so well. On the other hand, she was awfully, awfully cute.
It wasn't until I was in my mid-thirties that I got to meet and work with Shari. CBS hired me to write and develop an idea she had for a Saturday morning series. It took place in a classroom and the idea was that she would play a strict, rather humorless teacher…and all the kids in the class would be puppets. We met a few times on the project and talked less about it than about her career.
Among the things I remember is that in her home in Beverly Hills, the front hall was pretty much filled by a huge, stuffed Lamb Chop doll. It was about six feet tall and when she stood next to it, it looked even bigger because she was a pretty tiny lady. I had this mental image of a burglar breaking into the house in the middle of the night, worrying that there might be a dog…and being scared off by a seven-foot Lamb Chop. I also remember her being quite smart and enthusiastic about the project…and disappointed when the network decided they could only have one live-action show on Saturday morning and it would be Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
I was disappointed, too. I was hoping we could recapture or maybe reinvent a little of the magic of The Shari Lewis Show. Here are two brief clips. The first of these is the opening of one episode. I am a little puzzled by the line in the lyrics about how you should throw your willie way over your thistle. Sounds to me like a good way to get a warning about going blind…
And here are two minutes from that episode which aired April 8, 1961. I wonder if what we got out here was a taped replay (in which case, why was NBC making kinescopes, which is what UCLA is restoring?) or if we got the kinescope a week later after it had been developed. Could they have been doing the show twice for broadcast? Anyone know?
Senator Al Franken explains why we need Net Neutrality. He is correct about this.
Details are emerging about the new WGA-AMPTP deal. Doesn't sound good.
Number twenty-seven in a series…
The Negotiating Committee of the Writers Guild of America West has announced a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new three-year contract. That news will prompt deep exhales on the part of some who perhaps feared a long battle and threats of a strike. I don't think that was ever possible but these days, folks worry about a lot of things that aren't going to happen.
The announcement members received says in part, "The Negotiating Committee will meet tomorrow to officially vote on sending the tentative agreement to the WGAW Board of Directors and WGAE Council for approval prior to member ratification." I'm not sure I understand this. Why are they telling us they have a deal when they haven't even voted among themselves to submit it to the two Boards? Maybe this is some kind of protocol that's above my pay grade.
Precise details of what's in the deal have not been released but there seem to be no shocking improvements and it doesn't seem to be out of line with what the Directors Guild and the actors have already accepted. This means that several vocal members of the WGA will decry it as a sellout and the charge will be made that the increases are way too low and the gains, few and far-between. Even the triumphant press release admits that many crucial areas remain unaddressed.
Those who say it's not good enough will probably be right. They usually are about any deal made without a strike and even some that are. The question though is whether the resolve and resources are there to reject this offer and to say we will go out if a better one doesn't come along. I don't think anyone really believes that this guild at this time is ready to picket rather than accept a deal not unlike what the directors and actors went for.
Here is the strange, strange story of the statue of Stan Laurel.
Here's a real treasure. One of the greatest people I ever had the honor of knowing was a man named Daws Butler. I grew up on his voice, which was heard in most of the good cartoons produced for television in the fifties and early sixties. He spoke for many characters including Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snooper and Blabber, Hokey Wolf, Snagglepuss, Mr. Jinks, Wally Gator, Augie Doggie, Elroy Jetson…and the list goes on and on. He was a wonderful actor and a wonderful man.
He was also a wonderful teacher. He turned a guest house behind his Beverly Hills home into a workshop and a studio…and there he would teach aspiring voice actors. It was a building that overflowed with enthusiasm and talent, for Daws wouldn't take just anyone on as a student. You had to audition and he had to think you had promise. If you passed, the lessons were not expensive but they were priceless.
Daws did not teach, as some teachers do, by regurgitating what others had taught them or what they'd read in books. He taught that which he had learned throughout decades of work and he taught in his own terms with his own theories and his own vocabulary and his own standards. There are some great actors who do not quite understand what it is they do or how they do it. Daws knew exactly what he did: Why he took this pause, why he accented that syllable, etc., and he could explain it in a useful way.
He was largely above ego. He knew he was among the best at what he did but he knew it in a kindly, non-arrogant way. He loved watching talent emerge and he talked to you like you were an equal, even though you both knew you weren't and you knew you probably would never be.
Having zero flair for acting, I did not study with him but fortunately, he also loved writers and would have me over to just sit and talk about writing and creativity and anything that popped into anyone's mind. I was occasionally intimidated and once in a while, I'd just get lost in the realization that that voice — the one I knew so well from all my favorite TV shows as a kid — was coming out of the little man sitting eighteen inches from me. And it was telling me how much he hated Richard Nixon.
This video was shot by Bill Simpson on April 3, 1986, a little more than two years before we lost Daws. It's a brief tour of his workshop…and perhaps out of humility, he doesn't dwell on how many younger actors had their lives forever changed for the better in that building. Trust me. There were a lot of them, including many who are among the top voice actors of today. (The pride he had in his students does show through, though. He had their photos all over the place. I see my pal Earl Kress's eight-by-ten is next to the coffee urn.) Thanks to another of his students, Joe Bevilacqua, for posting this so I can share 14 minutes of Daws Butler with you. It's not nearly enough. Fourteen years wouldn't be, either…
So I'm thinking of buying an iPad 2. I played with one owned by my friend Mickey Paraskevas for about one minute before I decided this.
I didn't expect to get one without a wait but I was wondering just how long that wait might be. I went over to the AT&T store near me. A man there said, "We were supposed to have received a batch of them by now but they're shipping them all to the Apple Stores and not giving us any. I have no idea if we'll ever have them. I'd try the Apple Store if I were you."
So I went over to the Apple Store and asked when they might have one in I could buy. A man there said, "We get new ones in every morning and we sell them on a first-come, first-served basis to folks who line up outside. We open at 9 AM and I think the line starts forming around 6:00 or so. Of course, you could wait for three hours and then discover that we didn't get in enough of them or didn't get the model that you want. I'd try ordering online if I were you."
So I looked online and it said that if I ordered now, my order would ship in 2-3 weeks. I went back to the site an hour later to stare at it and decide if I wanted to do that but now it said 4-6 weeks. I'm afraid to look again.
I think I'll wait until the Apple Store has enough of them so you can just walk in, buy one and take it home. My logic is that by the time I can go in and do that, there'll be something else out I want more and I won't have to buy the iPad.