Monthly Archives: January 2013

Peter's wonderful spouse Kathleen continues to update us over at his blog and the news seems encouraging. But he has a long, costly battle ahead and as she suggests, this would be a peachy time to purchase some of his books. You'd do him good and you'll enjoy what you get to read.

This is a 1991 interview with game show producer Mark Goodson about the Blacklist in television. Goodson was like many producers of the fifties, intimidated by the pressures and demands to fire (or not hire in the first place) actors and writers who because of leftist leanings and associations were accused of being Communists. Unlike many producers though, Mr. Goodson eventually began to rebel against the practice and became one of the main forces in battling it. He discusses the pressures in this discussion and how he wished he'd fought back sooner. If you're interested in this topic, you'll find this of great interest…

Republicans like to say "We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem." Kevin Drum (him again) says that ain't so; that we aren't spending more on much except the skyrocketing cost of medical care for the aged.

Read the very wise thing my friend Kevin Drum posted. Way too many politicians can't grasp that a problem someone else has could possibly be a problem.

During the last decade of my mother's life, her eyes and legs increasingly failed her. In-between those parts of her anatomy, there were occasional problems like Congestive Heart Failure but the eyes and the legs were the ongoing problems.  There were long stretches when her heart was fine but her eyes and legs were awry every waking minute.

Her doctors told her that if she would just stop smoking, both would get better…or at least, wouldn't continue to worsen at the pace by which they were worsening. She cut back on the Marlboros but didn't stop until a few months before her passing, by which point it almost didn't matter. One wrenching day about a year before she passed, I took her to an optician appointment where she was asked, rather matter-of-factly, if she had or needed a document certifying that she was legally blind.

I can still hear her soft, stunned voice as she repeated, as if the term had never occurred to her, "legally blind." She could see but not much more than about two feet in front of her…and not well enough to read a book or make out my face unless our noses were practically touching.

Her eyes had been deteriorating for some time. Macular degeneration, they told her. And then one day while out with our mutual cleaning lady, my mother fell and sustained a big scratch on the retina of what had up until that moment been her "good eye." From that point on, she had to rely on her "bad eye" and worry that it would fail and leave her totally without sight.

Still, hearing those words — "legally blind" — came as a shock. Well, why wouldn't they?

She had what seemed like a most competent ophthalmologist at Kaiser Hospital and he struck me as properly balancing compassion with honest assessment of her situation. Some of the other eye doctors she saw there were a bit clumsy with their wordage but they told her the same thing; that her vision would continue to deteriorate. Certain treatments (like shots in the eye, which she hated) might slow things down but if she lived long enough, she would one day be totally, not just legally, blind. One of the things that tempered my sorrow at her death was the knowledge that she was approaching that day and she dearly wanted to go before it arrived.

The only thing I didn't like about her main ophthalmologist wasn't his fault. It was how little attention he could spare us as he handled some ridiculous number of patients per hour. We always had to spend long stretches in the waiting room, well past her appointment time. Then we'd finally be shown into Examining Room A while he was examining a patient in Examining Room B. Then he'd come into our room and attend to my mother while nurses loaded his next patient into B. Back and forth he'd go between the rooms, unable to spend enough quality time with anyone. At the end of each examination, he'd ask my mother, "Any questions?" And if she didn't come up with one in two seconds, he'd be out the door and on his way to the next patient.

How I dealt with this: By blocking the exit.

I'm 6'3" and something of a wide load. When the doctor came into the room, I'd subtly move to a spot between him and the exit, the better to prevent his escape before my mother had a chance to ask all her questions. The doctor knew exactly what I was doing and didn't really mind it.  Once when I finally let him go, I heard him tell the patient in the adjoining room, "Sorry to keep you waiting but the patient I was just with…her son was blocking the door and wouldn't let me out."

But once he got past me. I wasn't in position and he gave my mother a half-second to ask him anything before he said, "Exit, stage left!" and headed for the room next door.

"Oh, a Snagglepuss fan," I remarked.

He stopped and said, "You know Snagglepuss?"

My mother said — in a dry delivery that Walter Matthau would have envied — "My son knows every cartoon ever made."

The doctor eyed me with skepticism. "Oh, yeah? What was the name of Jonny Quest's dog?"

I said, "Bandit. Hey, do you think my mother should be taking Lutein?"

He said, "Can't hurt to try" and he recommended a dosage. Then he asked me, "What was the name of the Jetsons' dog?"

I said, "Astro and his real name was Tralfaz. Hey, how about Vitamin D? You think that would do anything for her?"

That was how it went, not only on that visit but every one after that. Instead of giving us the minimum time, he'd keep others waiting and we'd talk about two topics: Cartoons and my mother's eyes. I'd trade him info for info. Sometimes, he had actual questions about the industry. Other times, he just wanted to see if he could stump me. Once, he tried the latter by asking, "On the Dungeons 'n' Dragons cartoon show, what was the name of the blonde kid who was their leader?"

I told him it was Hank. He told me I was wrong and that it was Frank. I told him it was Hank and added, "By the way, if you watch that show, you'll see my name in the end credits. I wrote the pilot for it." Whack!

But that wasn't my favorite exchange. My favorite was when he asked me where Bullwinkle Moose went to college. I told him it was "Wottsamotta U." He told me I was wrong. "Aha! I finally got you! It was Moosylvania University!"

I told him he was wrong. He told me he was right. I told him he was wrong. He told me he was right. I told him he was wrong. He told me he was right. I offered to bet him.

The offer was this: If he was right, I'd give him a DVD of any cartoon show he named. Any one. If I was right, he'd give my mother a half-hour of his time. We'd come back at the end of the day after all his other appointments and he'd spend thirty solid minutes discussing things we might try to help her vision. He said, "It's a deal…but how are you going to prove it?"

Easy. I whipped out my cell phone and dialed a number. A woman answered and I asked her, "May I speak to Rocky the Flying Squirrel, please?" The ophthalmologist stared at me like I was…well, trying to phone an imaginary cartoon character about ten fries short of a Happy Meal. When a very familiar voice came on the line, I said, "Hi, Rocky. It's Mark Evanier. How's the weather in Frostbite Falls, today? Great. Hey, listen. I have a friend here. Would you please tell him where your friend Bullwinkle went to college? Here he is —!"

And I handed the phone to the eye doctor. You should have seen his face when Rocky said, "Hokey Smokes! Everyone knows Bullwinkle was a proud graduate of Wottsamotta U!" There are many advantages to knowing June Foray and that was one of them.

My mother, who understood exactly what was going on, got hysterical. I used to make her laugh a lot but I think that was the all-time best. And the doctor was not displeased about losing our little wager. He stumbled around his office for some time after in a happy daze, telling everyone, "You won't believe who I just talked to!"

He made good on the half-hour but unfortunately, there wasn't much that could be done…by him. I took her to an outside specialist — a man my own ophthalmologist said was the best retina man in the field. The best retina man in the field said there wasn't anything that could be done. After that, my mother asked me to stop. All she was going to hear from additional doctors was that there was nothing that could be done and she didn't need to hear that over and over. So I stopped.

She became increasingly reliant on paid caregivers. She could, of course, no longer drive and her walking capabilities were such that she couldn't even leave her home without considerable aid. The house had a large, beautiful back yard and she loved to stare out at the birds splashing about in the two birdbaths or feasting at a feeder I'd installed. She couldn't see them very well but she could hear them and her imagination could fill out whatever imagery she could see.

Still, even with help, she could not physically get down the back steps and so couldn't actually venture out into her own back yard. There were fewer steps in the front and I had a banister installed to help her there. In the house, she got around with a walker. When out, she was pushed around in a wheelchair. I had a good, heavy-duty one in the trunk of my car and I also bought a lightweight one that was employed when caregivers took her to the market or the beauty salon…or to the kind of doctor appointments that didn't require my presence.

The caregivers came from an agency that had been highly-recommended. It was licensed and bonded and the people there were awful nice. So were the caregivers…until one day, I went online to check my mother's bank accounts and I found some mysterious charges. The next time I write one of these, I'll tell you what happened.

I'm not sure how many cities had them but in the fifties and early sixties, we in Los Angeles were bombarded by TV commercials for Hamm's Beer. Most featured clever animation of the Hamm's Bear, a character who was quite the TV star until someone began to worry that it looked like the beer was being marketed for children. Most of the spots, after all, could just as easily have been 7-Up commercials.

This is a 1961 commercial that is most notable for its fine music contributed by the great Spike Jones and one of his orchestras…

The latest from our pal, Robert J. Elisberg. He wishes the G.O.P. took some other pledges — like the one of allegiance to their country and their offices — as serious as they take the one they all made to Grover Norquist.

Here for my colleagues in California is a list of laws that have just gone into effect regarding the operation of a motor vehicle in our state.

A lot of folks today seem way too interested in viewing the Fiscal Cliff deal as a case of one side kicking the ass of the other. Way too much of politics, especially lately, is not about achieving what is best for America but about making your political enemies moan and cry.

Back when the last (and we hope the last) President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, much of the right wing in this country went crazy to the point where he had to withdraw the nomination. It was not as if he'd nominated a Liberal. No, it was that he hadn't nominated someone who made Ted Kennedy weep. They wanted a nominee who was so ultra-right gonzo that it would say to the country, "Suck it, Liberals! You're gonna do it our way now!" Bush wouldn't or maybe couldn't give them that but he gave them Samuel Alito, who I guess was the next best thing.

Before the New Year's Eve deal and even a bit after when there was still the chance the House G.O.P. would kill it, I cruised a number of Liberal and Conservative message forums. On both, I saw a lot of messages that said, "We hold all the cards." That was the phrase: We hold all the cards. So clearly, this was the time to stick it to other side and get everything on our wish list, including the permanent castration of the other side. Except, of course, that neither side held all the cards…and neither Obama nor the Republican leaders were aiming for that kind of crush-your-foes outcome.

Ezra Klein has what seems to me like a pragmatic, balanced view of the deal. He thinks Obama got the best of it by a slight margin but any Republican should have expected that, given the outcome of the last election.

Years ago, I was heavily involved for a time in Hollywood labor relations, working with the Writers Guild on some of its efforts in collective bargaining. During that period, I worked closely with a man named Julius "Mel" Reich — as in Larry "Bud" Melman — a gentle, soft-spoken labor lawyer who I came to admire greatly. Mel was a confirmed Liberal and an ardent pro-labor advocate.

In the course of his work, he often came into contact with angry writers who wanted him not just to better their working conditions but to make the ears of Management bleed. They'd insist that this strike or that lawsuit was the time to kick the producers in the balls, remind them how important we are, take them down a few pegs, etc. "We hold all the cards" was said often, especially when we were actually sitting there with a pair of threes.

One night, Mel and I were working late at his office downtown and he was playing back voice mail messages that had come in for him earlier. One was from a writer I knew who was involved in a negotiation Mel was then handling with Universal Studios. The writer was demanding we (the WGA, which was Mel's client) "kill them." It was around a two minute message of this writer yelling (yelling!) that we had Universal by the testicles and we had to have the balls to squeeze them until they begged for mercy. Mel shook his head and turned to me…

He said, "Any time people start talking about manhood and testicles and the other side begging for mercy, you're in trouble. You're setting yourself up for a bad deal. You have to explain to them that this isn't about that. It's about negotiating a proper split of the pie." Then he added, "I have had people want to walk away from a terrific settlement deal because it didn't beat the other side into submission." I've remembered that ever since. Every time I look at possible deal anywhere — whether it's for the nation or a script I'm going to write — I try to separate how much of the argument is about the actual deal and how much is just someone trying to compensate for self-loathing and/or low testosterone.

I'm not sure if we have a lot of that in Washington, at least in the actual deals that are made. But we sure have too much in the bleachers where they're trying to cheer their teams on to victory.

If you're a fan of the 1986 movie of Little Shop of Horrors (the musical), you may want to watch this in its entirety. In the stage version, the protagonists were all killed in the end. When it was filmed, that was also the ending though they made it into a much bigger deal. Millions of dollars were spent on elaborate special effects, mostly done with well-made miniatures, showing the plants taking over the world, destroying cities, etc. It was quite a spectacular finale…

…and audiences hated it. Hated it.

The director Frank Oz explains about that in the video below and tells how they had to toss all that out and go back to shoot a new ending in which the heroes survived. Once they did that, the film became a hit.

This is a panel discussion following a recent Lincoln Center screening of the restored version. As explained in the discussion, it was very difficult to put the original ending back in place…but they did that for the new Blu-ray release.

A question I'd be curious to ask: Was there ever a thought of using both endings on the original release? They could have cut or altered the scenes where Seymour and Audrey died so the pair didn't, then used a lot of the footage of the plants rampaging in the city, then filmed some scenes in which Seymour and Audrey stopped the carnage, defeated the plants and sent them back where they came from…or something. As any comic book writer in America can tell you, it's easy to find ways to bring your heroes back from the dead and have them triumph. We all have to do it from time to time. (They'll be doing it shortly in the Spider-Man comics…)

In any case, the original ending of Little Shop has previously only been available in a grainy black-and-white workprint that was included as bonus material on the first DVD version of the movie that was issued. This reportedly irked producer David Geffen and others involved in the film's creation who hadn't wanted those scenes released to the general public. (By one account, that was because they didn't want it publicized that they'd spent so much money on something that had to be discarded. By other accounts, they were still considering making a sequel which might have included much of that footage.)

That version of the DVD was withdrawn from the market and for a time, copies went on eBay for a whole lotta money. But now the entire first ending, restored and turned into a finished product, is on a Blu-ray copy you can buy. If you want to order one from Amazon, this link will do it for you. It has both endings and you can take your choice.

At the close of this panel discussion, composer Alan Menken and star Ellen Greene perform some songs from the show for a very happy audience. If you just want to watch that part, click here. Otherwise, to see the entire 38 minute discussion and show, click below…

I'm watching C-Span…watching speeches that precede a vote on the "Fiscal Cliff" bill in, allegedly, the next hour.

Is there any record of any of these speeches ever influencing a vote? Or of even being heard by most folks who will be voting?

Yes, yes…I understand that it's just posturing for the press and for constituents. But has it ever been anything more than that?

I also wonder whether they ever impress constituents or mollify those who might be angry about the vote. Half these reps seem to be reading speeches someone else has prepared…and a few look like they're reading them for the first time. The ones who aren't reading are rambling. Rep. David Dreier was just telling a story about one of his college professors and it seemed to have the scantest relevance to the bill at hand. Rep. Jared Pols is now congratulating all his colleagues who are there today to vote.

Maybe if they got rid of stuff like this, they'd have gotten to this important vote before the last minute.

Ezra Klein has everything you need to know about the New Year's Eve deal…and probably more than you want to know. Everybody got something. Nobody got everything. And we have to do it all over again soon.

This may interest some of you. In 1931, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made a short comedy called Chickens Come Home — a remake of a silent film they'd made only four years earlier called Love 'em and Weep. Chickens Come Home was one of their longer shorts, running a little over 30 minutes.

In the early days of sound film, the studios hadn't yet mastered the art of dubbing movies for foreign release. It had been so easy to sell silent films overseas — you just remade the titles — but for talkies, it wasn't that simple. Rather than lose those lucrative foreign markets, some studios took to remaking their output in other languages. Laurel and Hardy would make a film and then they'd do one or more foreign versions, redoing the entire film (minus any scenes with no dialogue) using the same sets and costumes but with everyone, including the two stars, speaking Spanish or French or German.

Stan and Ollie spoke no other tongues so a coach would guide them through the translated scripts. Their dialogue would be written out phonetically on a blackboard just off-camera. In our clip today, they are not dubbed. They're actually speaking (in this case) Spanish…and you can sometimes catch them reading it off that blackboard. Some of the other actors (most notably in this one, Jimmy Finlayson who plays the butler) were in the American version and they too used the blackboard. Other actors you'll see were Spanish-speaking ones who were hired just for these versions, replacing actors in the English-language filming.

This, the Spanish version of Chickens Come Home, is called Politiquerias and it runs 56 minutes. Because of differences in what the Spanish distributors wanted, the film was padded out with new scenes, most of them featuring Spanish variety acts who have nothing to do with the Laurel-Hardy storyline. The most "interesting" (disgusting) of these acts is a gent named Hadji Ali whose specialty was that he would eat and drink a number of odd things and then vomit them up on the stage. That's right: Another damned vomiting act. Justin Bieber should be paying royalties. You might want to skip that part.

If you don't know Spanish, you may not be able to follow the plot which goes like this: Oliver is a successful manure merchant who is planning to run for mayor. An old girl friend shows up one day and blackmails him. She has a photo of him that would end his political ambitions and probably, if Mrs. Hardy saw it, his life. So the rest of the film is about Stan and Ollie trying to get the photo back and hide the blackmailer and a lot of it is even funny when you can't understand the dialogue…not that I expect many of you will make it all the way through this. But I even love watching those two men when I barely know what they're saying — so I did…