Monthly Archives: March 2011

Believe it or not, a TV network is now airing old episodes of The Soupy Sales Show — a mix, I'm told, of surviving black-and-white kinescopes from this New York show from the sixties and color episodes of his syndicated series from the seventies. And also believe it or not, the network is Jewish Life Television, a somewhat new (launched in '07) channel that also broadcasts programs like MenschLifeTV, The Shalom Show, Everyday Kosher Cooking and reruns of The Goldbergs. How Soupy fits into this lineup is, uh, obvious.

JLTV is viewable in a lot of cable lineups across the land. Here's the list. It's also available on DirecTV satellite on Channel 366 so I should be able to get it on my set but I can't. It seems — and I didn't know this until I called up and inquired — that some DirecTV channels are only on certain of their satellites and you can't get those channels on older receivers such as the one I have. I don't feel like upgrading just so I can get Soupy. But if you can get him, enjoy. I didn't think the shows they're reportedly airing were his strongest stuff but even his weaker work always made me laugh. You'd think though that for Jewish Life TV, they'd go in and do some digital fixes so that instead of whacking him with a pie, White Fang hit Soupy with a pound of Rugalah or maybe a nice Hamantashen.

Usually, when a comedian makes an album (or now a CD) of stand-up material, it's a recording of an act that he or she has performed for months or years around the country in front of hundreds of audiences. He's tested, refined, rewritten and perfected the routines and the album is the culmination of all that perfection.

This was not the case in 1960 when a then-young comic named Bob Newhart recorded what quickly became one of the best-selling records of all time. In no time at all, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was number one on the Billboard Pop Album chart (beating out some guy named Presley) and it won Album of the Year at the 1961 Grammy Awards — the first comedy album to do that. Newhart also won as Best New Artist…still the only time a comedian has notched that honor.

This would have been an amazing achievement if it had been well-honed material. It was not. It was an act Newhart had recently written and he had very little experience performing it or anything in front of a live audience.

The whole story is told in a half-hour BBC radio documentary which you can hear at this link for the next six or so days. It's hosted by Paul Gambaccini, a popular broadcaster in the United Kingdom. Longtime comic book fans may recall his name from a lot of letter pages in the sixties, mainly in DC comics edited by Julius Schwartz. I was in some of those letter columns too and that still may turn out to be the greatest achievement of my life. Nice to see Paul has gone on to better things. And thanks to Jon Delfin for the link.

Galen Fott, who told us so much about the Disney World Beauty and the Beast mini-musical he was in tells us more…

Thanks for the coverage! Indeed, there are many who started in entertainment at Disney World and went on to bigger things. It might have been Leanza Cornett that you saw as the Little Mermaid at Disney World; she opened that show in 1991 or 92, and was crowned Miss America in 1993. Will Swenson, Berger in the recent Broadway revival of Hair and the lead in the upcoming Priscilla, Queen of the Desert did his time as Gaston at Disney World as well.

At Disney World, most actors and singers are hired under Actors Equity contracts, and the money really isn't too bad, comparatively speaking. It is a great place for young people with an interest in theatre, on either side of the footlights.

That's very good to hear…and it probably goes a long way to explain why so many people like that show and maybe even why it developed into more than a short-term theme park attraction.

Wikipedia — which as we all know is never wrong about anything — says the attraction "Voyage of the Little Mermaid" opened at the Disney-MGM Theme Park (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) on January 7, 1992. I think I was there around March or April of that year so perhaps I did see Ms. Cornett. Whoever it was, she was quite wonderful.

In honor of March at the Souplantation, I should probably make a special graphic with Creamy Tomato Soup instead of Mushroom but I haven't the time for that…or for answering all my e-mail promptly…or for blogging in general. I will be back at full strength soon.

Here's a test to see how much you know about the basics of our government. I got 28 out of 30.

…here's a list of 83 Gut-Busting Restaurant Challenges for Free Food. These are those places that serve you a cheeseburger the size of the Graf Zeppelin and you don't pay for it — plus you get your picture on the wall — if you can eat the entire thing in one hour or before your lower intestine explodes, whichever occurs first. I don't see a single thing on the list that I could eat if you gave me a week…and there are an awful lot there that I wouldn't eat at any size for any reward. For instance, there's a corned beef sandwich there that contains 2.5 pounds of corned beef, 1 pound of swiss cheese, two sliced tomatoes, half a head of lettuce, 1.5 pounds of water roll, a half pound of mustard, 1 pound of sliced pickles, 1 pound of cole slaw and 1.25 pounds of french fries. Cheese, tomatoes and lettuce on a corned beef sandwich? That alone horrifies me almost as much as the pound of slaw.

What I always think of when I see news segments about these deals is: Is the food any good? How many restaurants on this list are known for fine cuisine? I dunno…I figure if a place gets famous for serving a burrito that takes three men to lift, they might not be cooking up the tastiest burrito in the world. Or let's say you order the fifty-pound Mt. Olympus Burger at the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, New Jersey and you want it medium rare. How likely do we think the inside will be warm pink and the outside will anything less than charred into shale?

I can't even imagine wanting to eat something larger than me. What's the thought process here? "You know, Elmer…eating ten or fifteen orders of ribs at one sitting just isn't filling me up. What I need is a chicken fried steak that has its own area code!" Or is it, "Gosh, I've never really accomplished anything in life…but I'll tell you what would make me feel right proud. If people could walk into a truck stop and see a Polaroid of me on the wall just after I consumed the world's largest chicken parm sub without puking!"

Even before my Gastric Bypass, I could never have finished a tenth of any of these. Now, the double burger at Five Guys is one patty too many for me. In fact, just from reading the list, I feel full. So maybe it has its advantages.

The New York Times has announced a new limited "pay wall" subscription plan. Visitors to the site will be able to read 20 articles per month and after that, they'll have to pay.

My prediction: A lot of people will discover they don't need to read more than 20 articles per month on the New York Times website. A lot of others will discover places on the web that bootleg articles and offer ways to access those articles while avoiding the 20-per-month limit. Subscriptions will be way less than expected and the whole idea will seem like way too much trouble and so will be abandoned. That's what I think.

Galen Fott writes…

Great to see the Beauty and the Beast stage show on your site! I originated the role of Gaston in this production, so I know a bit about it and its history. I performed in the show from November of 1991 to May of 1992, and then as a substitute every now and then around 1996-97. All during my time at Disney (through 2001), the actors playing Belle and Gaston both sang and spoke live, and as far as I know, that's still true today.

The video you link to, however, is a bit strange. It does show the revised (and greatly improved) version of the show, which happened sometime in the late 90s. The original version opened with "Be Our Guest", had an odd sequence with dancing bats (!), and generally didn't make a huge effort to tell a coherent story. The revisal added the David Ogden Stiers opening narration, put the scenes in the correct sequence, and added some brief dialog scenes as well. Much better.

What's odd about the video you posted is that while it was shot in 2010, it features my voice as Gaston, singing and speaking, everywhere except the brief scene with Belle and the book. And I think it's often (but not always) original Belle Andrea Canny you hear as well. Disney had Andrea and me record an "emergency track" of our voices in case the current Belle or Gaston were unable to perform vocally. I believe this track was once commercially available on a CD somewhere. So, I think the person who posted this video on YouTube has edited in this soundtrack wherever possible, and that explains the wildly out of sync audio in places.

So, while it doesn't exactly depict an actual performance of the show, the picture quality is quite good, and it gives a nice look at the show. If you want to see a bit of the original (with me and another original Belle, Trudie Petersen), here's a link from the 1991 televised Disney Christmas Parade:

To complete the history of the show, a stage version opened in Disneyland sometime in 1992, which was directed by Robert Jess Roth, who eventually directed the Broadway version. The Disneyland version had the scenes more in sequence, and it and the Broadway production greatly influenced the late 90s revisal of the Disney World version.

Quite possibly more information than you wanted to know, but thought you might be interested!
Useless information is always welcome on this site, Galen, and yours is actually useful. I think you're right that the YouTube poster laid in different audio in some places.

I never saw the stage show in person on my few visits to Disneyland or my fewer to Disney World, but I was impressed with the live Broadway-lite entertainment in both venues. Years ago at Disney World, I saw a lady playing the Little Mermaid in a small stage show they had there and I thought, "Wow, that woman is way too good on stage to be doing (whatever it was) ten shows a day for twenty dollars and no billing." It wouldn't surprise me if she's since gone on to Broadway stardom or at least something better than Disney pay, as you certainly have. I also suppose there are some who are happy just to do that kind of work for a few years, then move on from performing to something else.

I really enjoyed the full Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast. I think I saw it twice in New York and once out here at the Shubert Theater and I thought it was much better than The Lion King and much, much better than Mary Poppins. Until fairly recently, I was unaware it had evolved out the 25-minute theme park presentation. I wonder how many parents introduced their offspring to live theater at Disney World, then took the kiddos to see the super-sized version…and now those kids are interested in theater of all kinds. Betcha there are some.

Voting is currently open (and soon to close) for this year's Hall of Fame inductees. This is a big part of the Eisner (and other) Awards Ceremony each year at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. Each year, the judges select a few people and nominate others. The selections this time out are Ernie Bushmiller, Jack "Jaxon" Jackson, Marty Nodell and Lynn Ward. The nominees, from which four will be chosen by qualified voters, are Bill Blackbeard, Chris Claremont, Kim Deitch, Rudolph Dirks, Mort Drucker, Jenette Kahn, George McManus, Dennis O'Neil, Harvey Pekar, Cliff Sterrett, Roy Thomas, Rodolphe Töpffer, George Tuska, and Marv Wolfman.

The qualified voters are professionals in the comic book and strip field, as well as retailers. If you are one, go to this page and cast your ballots for four of the nominees. Stop reading here if you don't want to see me persuade you how to cast those ballots.

All of these folks are deserving and all will get in, sooner or later. What I suggest is that you view these matters as a bit time-sensitive. Dirks, McManus, Sterrett and Töpffer are all long-deceased and I don't think they have any close family members still around who will be thrilled to see their relative inducted. Tuska and Pekar, however, are recently-deceased and do. Voting for George and Harvey might be a nice way to say farewell to two men who gave us a lot of fine comics.

Of the remaining/alive nominees, the most deserving is clearly Mort Drucker. Heck, I think he's more deserving than about 90% of all the artists who've already been inducted and I suspect he's been overlooked because everyone assumed he was already in. So definitely vote for Drucker.

So that leaves one more slot. I'm inclined to either vote for someone on the long-gone list or for the oldest of those left, who is comic strip historian Bill Blackbeard. I think the next oldest is Dennis O'Neil, followed by Roy Thomas and then Kim Deitch. If you think as I do about this, that information may be useful. I don't mean any of these people are likely to drop dead on us before next year's awards; just that a Hall of Fame award seems to me to be about history.

While I have your attention: Also to be presented at that ceremony is the annual Bill Finger Award, of which I am the Administrator. This award goes to a writer of comics whose body of work deserves greater recognition and reward. In other words, it's goes to a writer who has perhaps not received sufficient due.

Every year, I ask for suggestions and every year, I get a lot of nominations from nominators who seem unclear on the concept. A lot of the names I get are for artists and when I write back and say, "That person is great but this is a writers' award," the nominator will write back and say, "Yeah, well I think he wrote a script once for something." The artist in question may have but the idea here is to honor someone for a body of writing work. A lot of folks also overlook the part about having not had sufficient recognition and they just suggest their favorite writer.

That said, we need to come up with two winners — one who's alive and can be invited to the ceremony…and one who's not and therefore cannot be. If you have some names to toss out for consideration, you know where to reach me. Thanks.

Robert Spina sent me this. It's an article that lists America's fastest-growing restaurants (actually, restaurant chains). Numero Uno is not Numero Uno. It's my fave fast food burger chain, Five Guys which is expanding all over the place. (Note to friends near me: The one in the Westfield mall in Culver City is supposed to open by the middle of May.)

I'm curious to see how the arrival of Five Guys in California will impact the sales of the other chain that sells never-frozen hamburgers, cut-on-the-premises fries, drinks and not much else, In-N-Out. I think Five Guys is better — an admission that to some of my fellow Angelenos borders on treason. It's like a New Yorker saying they have better pizza in L.A. But I've become disenchanted with In-N-Out the last few years. Used to love 'em, now don't particularly like 'em. I haven't figured out how much of that reversal of fortune is them and how much is me.

By the way, folks: When I recommend something to eat here, be it Five Guys or Creamy Tomato Soup, I'm just giving you my opinion based on the examples I've tasted. Don't write to me like I've made some sort of scandalous factual error if you don't love the Five Guys burger at the outlet near you. I assume everyone grasps the concept that you may not like what I like…and maybe that one Five Guys makes better burgers than another or one Souplantation has a better tomato soup maker than another. Some of the nastiest mail I receive is not over whether Barack Obama and/or the Tea Party will be the ruination of mankind. It's about soup. Which is not to say good soup is not important…