Monthly Archives: November 2011

Rick Perry went on with Letterman last night and delivered a Top Ten List about why he screwed up in the debate two days ago. This article by Steve Kornacki thinks it was a brilliant bit of damage control and includes a clip of the segment. Kornacki likens it to Bill Clinton going on with Johnny Carson to apologize and atone for his way-too-long speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention. A lot of folks thought Clinton saved his political career with that Tonight Show appearance.

Clinton may have reversed his public image but I don't think Governor Perry did himself any favors last night. When Clinton went on with Johnny, he was charming and funny and he seemed genuinely embarrassed for his clunky speech and willing to accept 100% of the criticism. He also, as I recall, had time to discuss politics and the issues, and to impress much of America as a smart guy. Thereafter, his public image was no longer that of a guy who gave boring speeches.

By contrast, Perry went on Letterman's show to demonstrate that he had a sense of humor and that he wasn't lacking in brains and authenticity. I guess he achieved the "sense of humor" part but he probably made the other part worse. He looked awkward and clueless out there…like he was reading the TelePrompter because someone told him to and wasn't sure why. This is a deduction from afar but it sure looked to me like someone backstage had read the copy for him a few times and then Perry did his best to imitate the delivery of that person, whoever it was.

Worse, Perry allowed himself to participate in a routine that trivialized him. It would have been one thing if Dave had brought him on as a guest and allowed him to sit and do what Clinton did: Apologize for one bad moment, demonstrate that he was not always like that and to then show that he was a serious political leader. Perry didn't get to do any of that. Dave gave him pretty much the same treatment he'd have given a falafel vendor if the list had been "Top Ten Complaints of Falafel Vendors." Letterman's attitude was polite but it was: "Come out, read the Prompter and get off." He didn't treat Perry like a guy who could be the next President of the United States. And Perry, by allowing that, pretty much proved he no longer is.

I said here yesterday that I didn't think Perry's performance in the debate was worthy of all the ridicule it was getting. I still don't, despite an awful lot of e-mails that disagree. On the other hand, I think his Late Show appearance made him look pretty awful.

Who was the actor who first played the character of Gordon on Sesame Street? So far, no one seems to know.

I've always liked Billy Crystal as Oscar host. Yeah, he does sometimes have a moment of self-adoration but he always manages to follow it with a self-effacing twinkle. So I suppose I should be pleased that he's stepping in to fill the void caused by Eddie Murphy's abdication.

But I was kinda hoping it would be Neil Patrick Harris or Hugh Jackman. They're both good hosts who still have the capacity to surprise us. I mean, Crystal probably already has someone writing the song parody about J. Edgar to the tune of "Goldfinger," rhyming "J. Edgar" with "Gay Edgar." And you see that tweet above? Toss in a reference to Eddie M. and you have the premise of Billy's whole opening monologue right there.

You know what I think would have been classy? If Mr. Crystal stopped hosting the Academy Awards until he's old enough to be an elder statesman of show business, having completed his long-range transformation into Alan King. Maybe he can still do it then but it would be more exciting if he didn't keep coming back to it every few years.

Why does McDonald's only sell its McRib sandwich now and then as opposed to always? Willy Staley seems to have figured it out. (Found this via the fine blog of Kevin Drum.)

In 1975, Richard M. Nixon (aka "Disgraced ex-president Richard M. Nixon) gave a long, under-oath testimony in matters relating to Watergate. The transcripts were sealed but now they're unsealed. Yesterday, they became available online. You haven't heard of any bombshells yet because, I would imagine, researchers are still wading through them. There's an awful lot and from my first looks at it, I'd say you have to be well-versed in that case and its history to understand all of it. I await the analysis of those who know more about this stuff than I do.

Also, the Nixon Library has online a new batch of Nixon's dictabelts. A dictabelt was like an audio tape. Nixon had a little machine into which he could dictate (hence the name) his recollections or orders. The newly-released ones, which I have yet to listen to, were done in 1970 and they give Nixon's version of a surreal-sounding visit he paid in the early morning hours of May 9 to the Lincoln Memorial. Anti-war protesters were camped there and for some reason, Nixon paid them an unannounced visit and…well, some say he was testing out a line of reasoning he hoped to use in public speeches. Others say he was trying to understand what was motivating the protesters. Whatever it was, we now have his recollections, plus other comments he made about the peace movement of the day. I can't wait to hear how much of it would also apply to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

In the forties and fifties, Mel Blanc appeared in a series of kids' records with the Warner Brothers characters that were released (and recorded for) Capitol Records. They were quite wonderful, what with Capitol using the same orchestra that backed up Sinatra and other "adult" recording artists, and many of the same arrangers like Billy May. The records were mostly written by the same gagmen, like Mike Maltese and Warren Foster, who were writing WB cartoons. Some of them were kind of like Looney Tunes without the visuals.

Recently, someone over at Warner Bros. Animation had the bright idea to add visuals to a couple of them. The first one is I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat and it stars, as you might imagine, Tweety and Sylvester. Mel recorded the song in 1950 and it was a best seller for Christmas that year. It's basically a three-minute song sung by Tweety and Sylvester, both voiced by Mel…and now it's a cartoon directed by Matt O'Callaghan. They located Mel's old vocal tracks in a vault somewhere and applied them lovingly to a new arrangement of the song…and that adorns some pretty funny animation of Sylvester chasing the Tweety Bird while Granny snoozes.

Last evening, I attended a screening that doubled as a party celebrating June Foray, who recorded a few new lines for the short as Granny. We toasted her, watched some other WB shorts for which she supplied voices, previewed the new short (in 3-D!) and then took in a Q-and-A with June, Matt and WB head honcho Sam Register.

So how is the new short? Well, some will have a hard time accepting those characters in CGI. Tweety has feathers. Sylvester has fur…and a frequent spray of saliva every time he says a word with an "S" sound in it. I think I've gotten past the traditionalist's objection to computer animation and especially to it being applied to characters who started life as line drawings. I've decided that if I can accept them in three-dimensional form as toys and statues, I can accept them that way on a screen. (And yes, it took me a while to get used to Garfield making the same transition, just as I've finally gotten used to Frank Welker doing his voice instead of Lorenzo Music.)

If you don't let something like that stop you, you'll probably enjoy it tremendously. It moves like crazy. It employs 3-D to maximum advantage. The Blanc vocals sound great. What more could you want? Oh, yeah: It's funny, too.

(And another nice thing: For years, Warner Brothers cartoons voiced by Mel and others only credited Mel. Daws Butler didn't get credit. Stan Freberg didn't get credit. Arthur Q. Bryan didn't get credit. Bea Benaderet didn't get credit. June didn't get credit…but on this one, she does. Finally.)

The party, by the way, was great…and long overdue since June hasn't been honored for at least a week.

If I understood correctly, I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat will reach screens as the warm-up for Happy Feet Two when it hits theaters in a few weeks.

I am informed by several members of David Letterman's staff that Dave no longer tapes the Friday show on Monday. They now tape two shows on Thursday and one airs the next day. So the show with Herman Cain will be taped Thursday to air Friday.

That is, if he shows up. Today on his show, Keith Olbermann wondered if he should be standing by to be a last-minute guest the way he was when John McCain cancelled on Letterman. I was thinking the same thing but then I had this other thought: I don't think Cain got into this race to become President. I think he was surprised as anyone to find himself at the top of the polls when all he was after was self-promotion. I don't think he'll be able to resist the opportunity to reach the Letterman audience so I think he'll show up. He may be polling about the same as Rick Santorum by then but I think he'll show up.