Monthly Archives: December 2011

The seating at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood is even screwier than I thought. The front row in the orchestra is "A" and the last row is "ZZ." So wouldn't that make you think they have 52 rows? Yeah, but they don't.

Row "Z" is not followed as I thought by "AA." It's followed by "NN." So wouldn't that make you think they have 39 rows? Yeah, but they don't.

They skip rows "I," "O" and "OO." So they have 36 rows downstairs.

It's only slightly less confusing in the Mezzanine where it runs "A" through "Q" but skipping "I" and "O." Actually, "J" through "Q" are called the Balcony. Remember how I said no one should sit in the Mezzanine? That goes triple for the Balcony. I didn't notice if there was anyone up there for Wicked but I know they've closed off the Balcony for many of the shows that have played in that building. As well they should. You can see the stage from those seats but you'll need the Hubble Telescope to do it.

Thanks to readers Brian Monte and Jessica Bellman who sent me e-mails that helped straighten this out as much as it can be straightened out.

Before we end a year in which we lost a number of great veteran comic book creators, let's salute one who's still with us and still outputting fine work. Here's an article about Russ Heath, who has been drawing comic books since (to the best of my knowledge) 1946. And you know what? He's still terrific.

Douglas McEwan came up with an answer that had not occurred to me as to how those autograph-seekers knew to be outside with Star Wars posters after the play last night…

There's no mystery to how those people found out Harrison Ford was there. Twitter. No, as you said, he didn't tweet where he was going, but I'd guess somewhere between 10 and 100, or given the size of the Pantages, maybe 1000, people inside the theater did tweet: "OMG Harrison Ford is HERE!" All their followers retweeted it, and it spreads like wildfire.

Twitter is a disaster for celebrities hoping to go out in public unmolested. Also, Wicked's huge success is due in large part to it connecting with teenage girls. It gets the Twilight audience. When I saw it, several years ago (From the back row of the top balcony. It was Wicked's first L.A. engagement and tickets were hard to come by. Fortunately, I was dead center, so at least I had a good view of Eugene Lee's work.) and I had never before seen so many teenage girls in a theater audience. Every single one of them would be carrying a phone, and tweeting their brains out. Every one of them that spotted Harrison Ford undoubtedly tweeted about it.

You think Wicked is a prequel to the movie? I don't, though it's just an opinion, not any kind of factual knowledge of what Gregory Maguire had in mind when he wrote the book. It struck me as a prequel to the book far more than to the movie. I had read the novel first, which is darker, more complex, and more of a downer. The novel definitely reaches to be a prequel to the book, I think, but it's really more related to Maguire's now four-book series of adult Oz Books, and they've strayed so far from Baum or MGM that it can really only be consdered a prequel to his own Oz saga.

I tried to read the second, but got bummed and bored quickly, and abandoned it around Chapter Three. Have not read the other two. I was very impressed with how extremely well Winnie Holzman (married to Paul Dooley) managed to winnow down that sprawling, complicated book into a plotline that worked. I think the musical improves a lot on the book. And I agree that the look of it was magnificent. Given how extreme its popularity is, and that the stage production was partly financed by a movie studio (Universal, if I remember right), I can not fathom why they haven't filmed it yet. They should do it before their core audience outgrows it. Tweens can be fickle fans.

You may be right about the Twitterings but the folks who showed up outside last night were not Harrison Ford fans or teenage girls or anyone you'd think would be wired into a network with the kind of folks inside. The more I think about it, the more I think there was one person who'd passed around the posters for others to get signed, probably (as I theorized earlier) for small fees if they succeeded. From where I could see/hear, the signature-cravers did not even have anything fannish to say to Mr. Ford. No one said, "Oh, I'm such an admirer of your work" or "I loved the Star Wars movies." They just stood there with the posters and pens muttering, "Will you sign this?" It would not surprise me if some of them didn't know who Harrison Ford was.

I'm not really sure what Wicked was intended to be a prequel to — book or movie. I'm guessing that for legal reasons, they'd say it was the book (which is public domain) and opposed to the movie (which isn't) — but most of the attendees were obviously referencing the movie even if some of the plot details suggested the book. Actually, I haven't read Maguire's Oz books and it's been a long time since I read Baum's.

I can sure fathom why they haven't filmed this show yet: The play is still raking in money and they fear a movie will interfere with that. But once the show closes on Broadway and the touring companies go away, they'll get to work on it. That day may be a while off. Even in the huge Gershwin Theater, the Broadway play is still playing to 90%+ capacity after more than eight years. And in addition to the New York company, there are two touring companies in the U.S. that are scheduled through early 2013 and there are at least four international productions. It could easily be another eight years before that revenue slows to a trickle and Universal decides it's time to make a movie.

Someone who signs his e-mails "Jethro" writes to ask…

So why do some theaters put row AA in the front and some put it way in the back behind row X? Why isn't that kind of thing standardized?

It's probably not standardized because there's no controlling authority to standardize it. As for why they do it, I'd assume the problem is that some theaters have rows of seats in the front that can be removed if they need space there for performing or for an orchestra. So they name the front row of fixed seats "Row A" and then when the removable rows are inserted, the only way they can suggest they're closer than "A" is to call them AA, BB and so on. But then you have a place like the Pantages that has 52 fixed rows in its orchestra…and I think you can see the problem.

The Internet has made all this less of a problem — or it should have — because all the seating charts are online and sometimes, you even click on one to select your seats when you order tickets online. That's how I got pretty good seats to Wicked. I've learned the hard way to check before I buy.

You're looking at a photo of my long-time friend Tony Isabella. We met via mail around (I'm guessing) 1967. We met in person at my first comic book convention in New York in 1970. I took the above picture in a hotel room at another New York Con in either 1975 or 1976. We'd brought a pizza back to the room and in so doing, actually managed to find lousy pizza in New York. Being Jewish, I had an excuse…but you'd think an Italian guy could find decent pizza.

Tony was at the time working for Marvel as a writer and assistant editor. He was pretty good at it, just as he's been pretty good at all the writing and editing he's done for other companies in the years since. He's recently been writing a comic called The Grim Ghost for a new incarnation of the seventies' comic company, Atlas. I've only read two issues but if they're all that good, this book deserves a lot of attention. And I need to pick up the issues I don't have yet.

During all the years we've been pals, I don't recall Tony and I ever having a fight. Disagreements? Certainly…plenty of 'em. But good friends have a way of resolving disagreements without becoming disagreeable and we've somehow managed that. I can't speak for Tony but I intend to keep it that way for another 44 years.

Happy 60th birthday, Tony. Hope the next sixty are even better.

Since Stu Shostak was nice enough to send me that great link to the Santa Claus Lane Parade video, I'm going to thank him with a quick plug for today's episode of his Internet radio extravaganza, Stu's Show. Today, he's chatting with Barry Livingston from My Three Sons and with Dick DeBartolo. Dick is otherwise known as "The Giz Wiz Guy," talking about all sorts of new inventions you didn't know you needed until he told you they existed. He has also been a great writer of game shows like The Match Game, and he's been writing for MAD Magazine since about the time they fired their original cover artist, Leonardo daVinci, and brought in Norman Mingo. Leonardo drew a crappy Alfred anyway. He could never get the smile right.

It all starts today at 4 PM Pacific Time which is 7 PM in New York and other times in other places. Listen live as they webcast for free by going to stusshow.com at the appointed hour or go there later and download the show for a mere 99 cents. Stu is still running his big Xmas Sale. Download any four vintage episodes of Stu's Show and the checkout software will only charge you for three. Such a bargain.

Some time ago at a party, I heard a Very Big Star explaining (with great regrets) that he'd stopped attending live theater and concerts. He'd had a number of bad experiences where fans and autograph seekers had paid way too much attention to him to the extent of ruining the event for him, his family and others around them. Getting in, he said, was a problem. Getting out, he said, was a bigger problem. Being in his seat at Intermission or just before the show commenced was, he said, the biggest problem. At one play, he'd made the mistake of signing one autograph for someone. That had triggered a hundred more requests and the theater had actually had to delay the start of Act Two because so many folks were in the aisle, thrusting their Playbills and scraps of paper at him for a signature.

He'd tried, he explained, the "presidential" way of attendance. He'd arranged with the venue to have guards get him and his family to their seats just after the lights went down and get the party out just before they went up. "I felt stupid," he said, "like we thought we were the Royal Family or something." What's more, it didn't work. The sneaky entrances and exits had just made the audience more aware that Someone Important was in the house. So he'd stopped going, he explained…with real regret.

I thought of that last night during Wicked. I was sitting in the aisle seat in the center section of Row J. Sitting in the seat across the aisle in Row I was Harrison Ford and he was with about seven people, mostly young children. I noticed he made a point of taking the aisle seat so (I'm guessing this was his reason) he could protect his group from fans who'd try to crawl across them to get to him. Everyone else in his entourage was either too young or too old to play bodyguard.

But I also didn't see anyone bother him. A lot of folks recognized him and some nodded and smiled and waved to acknowledge they liked him…and he'd nod and smile and wave back to acknowledge their acknowledgement. Not one of them, insofar as I could see, trampled on his or his group's theater-going experience.

Until they got outside. Waiting right outside the Pantages Theater were two limousines — one, a long white stretch that I think was for someone else; the other, a big black SUV-model that seated eight, I think. Mr. Ford steered his party towards that one which meant braving about six photographers who were snapping picture after picture, sometimes right in their faces, preventing them from getting to the vehicle.

He did not respond like Indiana Jones barrelling through a phalanx of ninjas, though I suspect the thought crossed his mind. He just made his way through, ignoring the cameras as much as possible and looking rather pained. He also ignored about a half-dozen folks waving Star Wars-related posters and pens…and these were clearly not loyal fans looking for treasured keepsakes. It was pretty obvious that Ford was being expected to sign stuff they could sell on eBay or wherever.

I'm still trying to figure that out. Presumably, Mr. Ford did not tweet earlier in the day, "Heading for Pantages Theater in Hollywood tonight." How did those folks who had the posters know he'd be there? They probably don't carry pictures of Han Solo with them everywhere they go. I'm guessing one or more of them had staked out the theater for any celebrities, saw him enter and then rushed off to buy the posters from a nearby memorabilia shop, of which there are many down that boulevard. All the posters looked like they were from the same source. I'm guessing one person bought them all, then passed them out to folks loitering outside the Pantages and said, "I'll pay you ten bucks if you get him to sign it." Ford, of course, signed not a one of them.

None of this is to suggest that anyone should feel sorry for poor Harrison Ford. No one becomes that big a star against his will and this kind of thing is a pretty small trade-off for fame 'n' fortune…and hey, you know, I didn't have a limo waiting for me in front of the theater. I was just impressed with how little fuss was made by anyone apart from the paparazzi at the curb. Everyone inside who recognized him respected a little zone of privacy. I'm sure there were loads of people who would have wanted a signature or a handshake or to just be able to tell the man they loved all his movies. But they didn't. They left him and his folks alone to enjoy the play. I liked that almost as much as I liked Wicked.