Monthly Archives: January 2013

On the set of the 1966 Batman TV show…

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Many political type forums are reporting today that 64% of all registered Republicans believe Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Justin Green points out that this is not exactly what the survey said. It merely asked if they thought Obama was hiding something about his past.

I have this belief that when most people are quizzed by a pollster, they feel momentarily empowered and what goes through their mind is not, "What is the most accurate answer?" It's more like, "What answer should I give that will most help my side?" That may or may not be the same reply. I can well believe that 64% of registered Republicans hate Obama, wish he'd never been elected and maybe even fantasize that something will come out that will retroactively void or at least tarnish his victories. And yes, Democrats no doubt do this too though Democrats never hated George W. Bush for as many imaginary, theoretical actions as Republicans have against Obama.

Last night, a batch of June Foray's friends gathered at the new screening room at the Dreamworks Studio for the world premiere of a new documentary called (I think) The One and Only June Foray. This is not a Dreamworks project. It was the long-time effort of an artist and filmmaker named Gavin Freitas. You may recall that we previewed it back here.

Gavin did a Herculean job assembling audio and video clips of June's marathon career, telling the story of a sweet little girl from Springfield, Massachusetts who grew up to become the preeminent female voice artist of film and television. As some of you may know, I assisted June in writing her autobiography. She asked me because she figured I knew more about her career than anyone else alive. And even if that was true…well, once we got into the book, I became aware of so much I hadn't known about all the work she's done.

The documentary covers all the major points. It would have to be about ten hours to cover everything. Narrated expertly by Gary Owens, it's quite a love letter to the First Lady of Cartoon Voices, and you should have the opportunity to see it soon.

Those who saw it last night had a grand time…and June, of course, was there. She recently sustained an injury to her arm and shoulder but she's an amazing trooper and so was present to feel the love. In the mob of folks from the animation community last evening, there sure was a lot of it.

William Saletan argues that regardless of their stated concerns for reducing "unnecessary" deaths and murders, if you look at the actions of the N.R.A., they have a very simple goal: To make sure no American is ever unable to have as many guns of any kind as he wants and to make sure no seller or manufacturer of those guns ever misses out on a sale.

And while you're programming your DVR or VCR, you might want to note that overnight, Saturday into Sunday, Turner is showing an awful lot of movies that Danny Kaye was in: Up in Arms, Merry Andrew, The Kid From Brooklyn, The Inspector General, Me and the Colonel, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Hans Christian Andersen, The Court Jester, A Song is Born, Wonder Man and The Man From the Diner's Club.

It kicks off at 3 AM with a 1963 episode of The Danny Kaye Show, the star's variety series that I enjoyed so much back then. I believe they're running one with Gene Kelly and Michele Lee but don't hold me to that. Later in the mix, TCM is sharing a 90-minute episode of The Dick Cavett Show with Mr. Kaye…and then there are all those movies, some of which are quite splendid. If you have to pick just one to watch, go with The Court Jester. If you don't love him in that, there's no point trying any other Danny Kaye movie.

Speaking of being a jester: At the Danny Kaye tribute at the Paley Center last month, I got to meet David Koenig, author of an expertly-researched new book on the man, King of Jesters. There are a number of books around that make Kaye out to be a pretty miserable human being…and indeed, a lot of those who worked with him reported great conflict. They loved the guy when performing and loathed him when not performing. Koenig's book seems to me to strike a good balance and to give its subject the benefit of most doubts while not attempting to whitewash his shortcomings. Here's an Amazon link to order a copy if you'd like to read what may be the best book anyone will ever write about the wondrous (if mercurial) talents of Danny Kaye.

And while we're at it: Monday night, TCM is running five Dick Van Dyke movies. You've no doubt seen Bye Bye Birdie and perhaps Cold Turkey. Ah, but have you seen Divorce American Style? Or Fitzwilly? How about Some Kind of Nut? Well, now you can. The last two aren't quite worthy of their star but they have their moments…

Jimmy Carter, the best ex-president this country has ever had, pens an article on why after six decades of faithful adherence, he is distancing himself from the Southern Baptist Convention. It's because its leaders persist in mispresenting scripture to sell their idea that women must be second-class citizens of the world. I didn't always agree with President Carter's principles but I think he had more of them than anyone we ever put in the Oval Office.

A friend of mine named David Jablin produced this around '83 or '84…and if that name seems familiar, it's because he was also the producer of Mastergate, which I linked to here and which a lot of you told me you enjoyed. The little film below was created by David Wechter, who I believe was more recently one of the folks behind Penn & Teller: Bullshit and several other reality-type shows.

What you're about to see, assuming you click, was done for Likely Stories, an early made-for-cable series that showcased a number of very clever short comedy films. I loved about 80% of what was on it and wish there had been more episodes than there were.

This film — School, Girls and You — runs 15 minutes and is recommended for mature audiences due to brief nudity, the appearance of a singing cartoon penis and a surplus of jokes about masturbation. But it's very funny and it features a familiar voice — Dick Tufeld as the narrator — and some familiar faces. The faces include those of Paul Reubens not playing Pee-wee Herman and Patrick Macnee not playing John Steed. Mr. Reubens might have done well to heed some of its cautions.

Here's another one of those examples of how foods you eat in restaurants often have a lot more calories than you imagine. Is there anything on the Cheesecake Factory menu that's under 2000? I think the Diet Coke may be a bit under if you get it with enough ice.

For lunch today, I just microwaved a Lean Cuisine frozen Four Cheese Pizza…350 calories, 6 grams of fat, 19 grams of protein and I'm quite full. Hard to believe that if I'd somehow eaten eight of these, I'd still have gotten less calories than are in one serving of the Cheesecake Factory's Bistro Shrimp Pasta.

Bob Elisberg on the Greatest Screenplay Never Made. Or one of them. I, like most writers, have several.

I'm still watching the whole Gun Control argument from the "nothing meaningful will change" vantage point. Obama put out some proposals and executive orders today, none of which is that we take the guns away from law-abiding citizens. But as Dave Weigel and others have noted, the pro-gun forces instantly responded with rebuttals that appear to have been largely written before they knew what the proposals would be.

I not only don't think anything meaningful will ever change, I don't think the debate on guns in this country will ever be sane. Those who are fearful of not having weaponry at their disposal will never accept that there are laws that could be passed that would allow that but perhaps lessen the incidents of massacre and murder. There are also things the Gun Control forces could stand to learn or admit, which is not to suggest the two sides are equivalent in their misrepresentation. The N.R.A. side has about 90% of the hysterics on this matter…and I suspect some of their members (the Ted Nugent kind) like that.

On Facebook, Craig Peters posted this video and reminded me that Hello, Dolly! opened on Broadway this day in 1964. It ran for 2,844 performances — or until every single person in America who was willing to sit through a musical comedy had seen it once.

It's Carol Channing and (perhaps) the original chorus performing the monster of all title songs. I'm not a huge fan of the show but it has a couple of great musical moments and this, of course, is one.

Craig wonders where this clip is from. From the sparseness of the stage — and its size with no room for dancing — it obviously is not the original Broadway presentation. Channing did a series of tours, some of them overseas for the U.S.O., for which a stripped-down, bus-'n'-truck version of the show was created…smaller cast, shorter show, simple sets, etc. I'm assuming this is from one of those engagements, possibly even the time they took the touring version to the White House. I suspect the music is all pre-recorded and it wouldn't shock me if the voices were, as well. This clip has pretty good sound given that no microphones are in evidence.

But what the heck? It's Carol Channing, performing to some extent a legendary Broadway tune. Enjoy…

So now we're hearing from the "Sandy Hook Truthers," who think the killings at that school were faked for some purpose…to justify gun control, I guess. Boy, those grieving parents are good actors.

I guess we should have expected this. No important event can happen in this country now without its conspiracy theorists emerging from the primordial ooze and making the slight leap to cable news and the Internet. In fact, I have a conspiracy theory about most conspiracy theorists.

I think most of them are, knowingly or unknowingly, foolish and ineffectual people who feel important when they're angry…and when they think they know something that the masses do not. That's my theory and don't bother showing me proof to the contrary. Even if it's true, that doesn't get us anywhere.

Hey, it's time to plug tomorrow's live webcast of Stu's Show! Tomorrow, Stu Shostak has a return engagement with two of the most important producers and creators of animation for television, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. The last time they were on, Stu only managed to cover the portions of their career where they met in an editing room, teamed-up and were soon the showrunners for many of Hanna-Barbera's top TV shows. Scooby Doo was just one of the properties they introduced.

In Part Two tomorrow, Stu will get into the story of how these two gents set up their own studio, Ruby-Spears, which challenged Hanna-Barbera for Saturday morn supremacy. I'm not sure most animation buffs understand the constraints and problems under which cartoon shows were produced back then. You had terrible budgets, terrible schedules, terrible censorship and (sometimes) terrible network executives. A lot of us wound up working on shows that almost by definition could not have been as wonderful as we wanted them to be. When I worked for Joe and Ken, I thought we/they generally managed to a better job than the competition, triumphing over some (not all) of those handicaps. Perhaps on the show tomorrow, they'll discuss the problems and how they overcame the ones they overcame with shows like Plastic Man, Thundarr the Barbarian and Alvin and the Chipmunks. I will be joining them via phone for a while at the top of the program.

You have a choice as to how you'll listen to Stu's Show and the way most of you will prefer will be the free way. Tune in while they do it live at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM in the East, other times in other climes. The show runs at least two hours and sometimes goes longer. This is the best way to hear it because not only is it free but it somehow seems more participatory even if Stu doesn't get around to taking phone calls. Listen in at the Stu's Show website.

You can also listen to it the pay way. Go to that very site a half-hour or so after the live webcast. From it, you can download it or any of hundreds of wonderful episodes for a measly 99 cents each…and to get the real deal, order four for the price of three. Either way, I'm sure you'll enjoy Stu's Show tomorrow.