Monthly Archives: September 2012

As Michael Kinsley notes, a certain amount of the Romney campaign is based on the dubious premise that Mitt's success in business easily translates to the idea that he would make a dandy president. Obviously, a lot of people are not buying that.

Here's an eight-and-a-half minute interview with June Foray. In it, June is asked why it is she never won an Emmy for her work on the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. There's a simple answer: They didn't have Emmys back then for cartoon voice work…

Matt Taibbi is amazed that anyone but for the ultra-wealthy would ever consider voting for Mitt Romney. I don't agree with all he says and I'll bet you won't, either. But I also suspect you'll find some points worth considering.

One of my best friends, Paul Dini, wrote a piece on his blog about dealing with bullies.

I never had it quite as bad as he did in this capacity, though I probably should have. I skipped a couple of grades so for much of my schooling, I was younger than the kids around me, uninformed about certain social conventions and — worse! — pegged by some as Class Brain. If you have a youngster and you want to do everything to promote an unhappy childhood for him, just encourage him to be known as Class Brain.

Everything Paul writes is, I'm certain, valid. I would just append that I found it was sometimes possible to at least outwit the bullies and usually to out-mature them. My role model was more often Bugs Bunny than Popeye and I often found myself able to say or do something funny or clever and to triumph that way. The following is an absolutely-true story.

Around fifth grade, I had a problem with a kid in my class named Lewis — spelled like that but pronounced (he insisted) "Louie." I didn't understand at the time why he was always picking on me and only later came to the theory that it had something to do with a classmate named Elizabeth. He liked her. She thought I was so cute with my cartoons and funny remarks. His anger towards me was rooted somewhere in that, I'm sure.

He was always threatening me with physical violence and calling me names. One afternoon at lunch, he unleashed an especially loud tirade on the subject and I found myself facing off with him in the center of a crowd. Every kid on the playground it seemed suddenly gathered to see if he was going to slug me or I was going to slug him. Either option struck me as a losing proposition for me.

So he was calling me names and talking about extracting my newly-grown teeth. I was looking around at all my classmates and some pupils from other classes. Not a teacher in sight. Everyone's waiting for me to say something back or take a swing. And my brain, oddly enough, summoned up an Abbott and Costello movie.

I'm not sure which one. They did this line in several. Costello said to some antagonist, "What makes a balloon go up?" The other guy said, "Hot air." Costello said, "What's holding you down?" I took a gamble that Lewis wouldn't answer "Helium" and I asked him — loudly so all could hear — "What makes a balloon go up?" I have never been as happy as I was when he responded with a puzzled look, "Hot air."

I delivered the zinger. All the kids around howled with laughter…and that was the end of my problem with Lewis.

Matter of fact, nobody messed with me for a long time after that and the exchange was quoted all over Westwood Elementary. A few teachers even complimented me on it. As Karma would have it, Lewis later turned out to be an okay guy and we became semi-friendly. I don't think that would have happened if I'd balled up my fist that afternoon and tried to shove it into his face.

That kind of thing doesn't work all the time, of course. Sometimes, it makes them madder. Sometimes, they say "Helium" or don't otherwise follow the script in your head. But it worked that time and others, including times I could employ some dialogue or at least the cool, cocky attitude of my occasional role model, Bugs Bunny. I was unlikely to ever be able to beat someone when it came to physical brawling but I could sometimes outclever them. Sometimes.

And in a way, I also did a lot of what Paul did, which was to steer my life away from where I was unhappy and chart a path towards where I felt I belonged. A good way to get bullied is to be where you don't belong and one reason kids get bullied in school is that they aren't in control of where they are. Also, some of them haven't seen nearly enough cartoons and Abbott & Costello movies.

Fred Kaplan compares two major foreign policy speeches — one by Romney, one by Obama. Every time I hear Romney talk about anything other than domestic economic issues, he reminds me of me back in college when I had to write an essay on something I didn't know anything about.

While I've got you here: Nate Silver explains why Republicans are not going to win the White House and David Weigel explains why Democrats are not going to win the House of Representatives.

A very talented man named Billy Barnes died the other night owing to Alzheimer's Disease. He was 85.

Billy was a songwriter and a very good one, and for many years he was the most in-demand writer of what they call Special Musical Material. That means songs — usually funny ones — penned for a specific act or show. He wrote them for all the major variety shows of the sixties and seventies but was best known for composing practically everything that was sung or played for the first time on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Before that in the early sixties, he was famous for a series of shows that ran sometimes in New York but more often in Los Angeles in mid-sized theaters. They had different names but were generally referred to as The Billy Barnes Revues. I was too young to attend any of them but the cast albums, if you can find them, are a wonderment of clever lyrics and catchy tunes.

I was pleased to work with Billy on a couple of specials I wrote for Sid and Marty Krofft and we even sometimes collaborated on lyrics. When we first did this, he was a thousand times better than I was but I learned from the man and eventually, he was only about 800 times the lyricist I was…and am. He was charming and funny and everyone I knew who was familiar with his work just respected the hell out of him.

Here's the L.A. Times obit which will tell you more about him and here are two videos of songs Billy wrote. In the Laugh-In one, you can catch a brief glimpse of him playing piano in a routine. A lot of us miss that man already…

As you've probably guessed, I've been swamped with things I'd less rather be doing than tending to this blog. Then again, some of them pay so I'm not complaining.

The old pace of updating should resume tomorrow. In the meantime, how about going and supporting the Big Daddy Kickstarter? I don't ask you folks for much but I really want to see this thing happen and it's going to take more backers.

In case you don't understand how this works — and I didn't either until recently — this is not a donation to something that might not happen. If it doesn't happen, your credit card is not charged and it doesn't cost you a cent. If it does happen, you get all the goodies offered for backers at your chosen level…plus bragging rights that you helped some talented guys produce what I'm sure will be a great CD. It's a most worthy cause and I haven't asked you to contribute to one of those lately. Heck, I haven't even asked you to donate to me. If you've been thinking of "tipping" this website, go back Big Daddy instead. Thanks.

The Kings of Retro-Rock Musical Mash-Ups are still trying to raise $35,000 via Kickstarter so they can produce their first new album in years. If you don't know of Big Daddy, you owe it to yourself to learn of them…and once you learn of them, you'll want to pledge as a backer of this new endeavor. The lowest pledge level isn't much when you consider you'll get a copy of the CD which will be, like all their past albums, terrific.

But please go to their Kickstarter page and back these boys! They're a third of the way through the fund-raising period but they don't yet have quite a third of the money. Let's not let this opportunity fall through. You can listen and see how good they are over at their website. This will not be the last time I tell you but don't wait 'til the last time.

The folks who put this clip up say it's from a 1962 episode of The Edie Adams Show…but Allan Sherman didn't release "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" as a record until late July of 1963 so '62 is wrong. Nevertheless, it's him singing one of the best-selling comedy records in history — so ignore the watermark and enjoy…

I have this friend who passionately supports Mitt Romney. We've spoken at some length about this and by his own admission, he can't give me a good reason other than "He isn't Obama." I've voted for candidates just to vote against the other guy but they were always joyless votes. "He isn't Obama" doesn't make Romney good or competent or anything. If that's all there is, he's just as qualified for the presidency as I am. Or you are. Or Charles Manson is. None of us is Obama, either.

My friend has not given up hope. The other day, he was citing 1980 when (he said), Ronald Reagan went into the debates with an eight-point deficit and so trounced Jimmy Carter that he went on to topple a sitting president. All Romney has to do, he says, is slaughter Obama in the debates. I'm not writing off the possibility that Romney might do well in that arena but the whole Reagan come-from-behind tale is a myth. The Romney forces are out spreading that tale and it's a lie.

Then again, everyone should keep this in mind: Unprecedented things do happen in politics. Four years ago this week, there was no precedent for a black guy to beat out a white guy for the presidency.

Here's a big reason Romney is losing this election. Read this over and see if you can tell me with any certainty how he thinks Health Care should work…

I can't embed it but you'll want to go watch the latest installment of the new web series starring Jerry Seinfeld, who obviously needs the money. The show is called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and the new episode features Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Go see it here and make sure you watch the Spare Parts.

Fifty years ago tonight, The Jetsons debuted on ABC. It has been a long time since I looked forward to any TV show the way I used to look forward to them when I was ten. Some of that is youthful enthusiasm. Some of it is that my world has grown a lot larger since so no broadcast — including those of programs I write — is that important to my life. And of course, some of it is the technology of VCRs and TiVo which has made the when of seeing a show insignificant. If I wanted to experience the first telecast of a new Hanna-Barbera series, I had to be there at the appointed hour. If I wasn't…well, who knows when or if there'd be another opportunity?

"There" in this case was not in front of the family TV at home. It could have been but The Jetsons was the first series on ABC to be broadcast in color and we didn't have a color TV set. Not everyone did then…but Mrs. Hollingsworth did.

Mrs. Hollingsworth was an elderly widow who lived five doors down from us with a cat and no one else. She was a sweet little old lady, at least towards me, but she had some odd ideas. One I remember discussing with her a few times was her belief that actors on TV had to be a lot like the characters they played. She didn't believe that Vincent Price (to pick but one example she'd cite) was really a mad scientist who tortured women in his castle…but he simply couldn't play such parts if he wasn't at heart an evil, cruel human being. Those articles that said he was a lovely, gentle man had to be lies. Years later when I worked with the lovely, gentle Vincent Price, I told him about Mrs. Hollingsworth and he chuckled and said, "There are more people out there who think like that than you imagine."

TV was about all she had in her life so she'd spent the then-extravagant sum of few hundred extra to have a color set. It seemed like a luxury in 1960 since not a lot of TV programming was even broadcast in color so most of what she watched on that set was in black-and-white. She agreed to let me come down to her home that evening to watch The Jetsons there.

Since she lived alone, she didn't eat well. Whenever we had a holiday dinner at our home — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, someone's birthday (we celebrated everything) — my mother would make up an extra plate and I'd walk it down to Mrs. Hollingsworth. There was no official holiday the night The Jetsons debuted but it seemed appropriate to eat like there was one. My mother made us a brisket and potato pancakes and when I hiked down to Mrs. Hollingsworth's at 6:30, I took her dinner.

The show started at 7 PM and I could have left at 6:55 and made it with time to spare but I wanted to be there early. Just in case. I had a little drawing pad and pencil with me because one of the important things to me about cartoon characters, especially Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, was that I had to learn to draw them. This mattered so much that I couldn't wait for the probable Jetsons comic book that would be along sooner or later. I had to whip out a few sketches during the show…and indeed, I had Elroy mastered by the first commercial. I still draw him about that well.

I remember being thrilled by the opening shot of the Jetsons' space cruiser bursting onto the screen, then being slightly disappointed that unlike previous H-B shows, it didn't have a singable theme song with rhyming lyrics. I remember recognizing the voice of Daws Butler as (his boy) Elroy and wondering who those other people were. I remember loving the program and wondering how Mrs. Hollingsworth could sit in the next room eating brisket and latkes when she could have been in there with me watching The Greatest TV Show Ever. It was that for me that evening. I loved The Flintstones and other H-B shows but I really loved The Jetsons.

And I remember wondering if they'd ever make an episode in which the Flintstones met the Jetsons. I do not remember thinking, "Gee, maybe fifteen or sixteen years from now, I'll be writing the Flintstones comic book and I'll be able to make that happen." I wasn't that prescient.

Most of all, I remember thinking the show was so wonderful it would last forever. It did and it didn't. Competition from Mr. Disney on NBC drove George, Jane, Judy, Elroy and Astro out of production after one season but the reruns resurfaced on daytime TV and the comic book lived on and the characters endured. Around 1984 when I was working at Hanna-Barbera, one of the execs there called me in and told me they were about to launch a Jetsons revival and Mr. Barbera, knowing of my enthusiasm for the series, wanted me to be the Story Editor and main writer.

I started to scream yes but I'd worked for H-B a while by then. I'd learned it was prudent to not lead with your heart and that you needed to get all the details in advance. (Another writer there advised, "Always get a pre-nup before you fall in love.") The details turned out to include at least two deal-killers for me. One was that they were doing the show for syndication on a shoestring budget. At Hanna-Barbera, they could destroy anything by cutting corners…and they were talking about script fees around a half of the barely-acceptable amounts paid on the Richie Rich series I was then story-editing.

I felt a strong affinity for Bill and Joe but it did not extend to doing charity work for them. And if they paid what they said they were going to pay, they'd get scripts that would require a lot of rewriting…probably by poorly-paid me.

The other problem was that they said they were not out to replicate the old series. The idea was to "modernize" The Jetsons. I asked if that was really necessary, "modernizing" a show set in the future. Someone thought it was. They wanted new supporting characters and a new "look" for that world and edgier humor and lots of alterations I didn't want to make. When I asked the exec about voices, they said they'd be all new. "Most of the original actors are dead," he told me. That was not true. None of them were. He then added, "…and the ones who aren't are too expensive." That was true of Mel Blanc and maybe Daws. Either way, they didn't want to bother with the 1960 cast, which meant they didn't want to bother with the 1960 show I loved…just use its rep and skeleton to build something new.

I thought about the offer for an evening, then passed. As it turned out, they soon realized they didn't want something new. They wanted to make another 41 episodes to add to the original 24 and create a 65-episode package they could strip and syndicate forever. So they'd all blend more-or-less together, they wound up spending a tad more on the animation and scripts (though not enough more), hiring the original voices and making the stories more faithful to the 1960 season. They eventually did not 41 more but 51 more…and I was glad I didn't work on any of them.

It seems to have been a decent revival but this was one childhood fave where I'm glad I kept my distance. If I'd gotten involved, I suspect this article today would have been about all the fights I'd had, many of them with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. It's much more fun to be writing about sitting in Mrs. Hollingsworth's den, watching a cartoon show in actual color and just loving every damn thing about it except the theme song. Which I eventually came to also love.

You hear a lot these days about people who don't pay tax. Bruce Bartlett thinks you ought to hear more about corporations that don't pay tax.

And if corporations are going to be people, shouldn't they pay like people do?