Monthly Archives: April 2013

Here's the amazing a cappella musical group Pentatonix with a four-minute history of American music. Like all YouTube musical videos, it adheres to the current requirement of a minimum of ten seconds of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and there's a lot of other good stuff in there as well…

They opened a George W. Bush Library this week, prompting many to employ a joke I remember out of David Frye's act. When he did it, he was George Wallace saying of his own library, "They're putting both of my books in there, including the one I haven't even gotten around to coloring!" I sure hope one of the books in the Bush Library is The Pet Goat. It would be nice if they all were.

Bush's approval rating seems to be on a bit of an upswing and all sorts of reasons are being offered. The public likes that in retirement, he hasn't done anything bad, which he's largely accomplished by not doing anything. He seems moderate compared to the current G.O.P. And we just don't like staying mad at people, which is why all former presidents gain points with us after they're just human beings again. I would imagine there's some truth in all of those reasons. I would imagine further that if you asked people if they wished he and his policies were still in office, you'd see a different reaction. (Actually, more of his policies are still in office than some of us had hoped…)

But then we have this whole discussion going on today on the 'net about whether Bush was (and presumably still is) stupid. Keith Hennessey, a former Bush aide, says the man he worked for was a lot smarter than people think. Jonathan Chait says he wasn't. To me, both articles miss the point. My question is not how smart the guy was but what did he do with whatever smarts he had?

Smart people in power can do disastrous things, either because they weren't as smart as they thought or because they had a bad (for most of us) goal. Bush presided over a massive transfer of wealth in this country from the poor to the already-rich. That may have been stupidity or it may have been exactly what he intended…and it doesn't really matter which. The money follows the same pathway. He also presided over the Iraq War which took way more lives and money than anyone intended, all in search of stated goals that were never realized. Bush still says it all went almost according to plan. Is that stupidity or did he really get what he wanted out of it? Again, it doesn't matter which it is. The Americans who died in that war are still dead, either way.

We judge our elected officials not by whether they could pass an I.Q. test but on the results they get, given the reality of the world in which they govern. Obviously, I think Bush failed that test big time. My suspicion is that he was and is a smarter man than many critics and comedians give him credit for…but the test of his presidency is what he did, not whether he was sharp enough to figure out how to do it.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has apparently used chemical weapons — "against his own people," as we used to say to prove what a monster Saddam Hussein was. I never quite understood why "against his own people" was included. Would he have been any less of a monster if he'd used them against someone else's people?

Barack Obama has said that if the president of Syria did that, the U.S. would take action…so what's he going to do about it? Here's Fred Kaplan with the latest…

Dean Obeidallah is a political comedian and a former attorney — and isn't that a nice combination of careers? He's also a Muslim-American who condemns terrorism. The overwhelming majority of Muslims do but we have people in this country who won't accept that until all 2.2 billion Muslims in the world write this article.

One of the lucrative aspects of animation is that it travels well. Cartoons produced in America are easily dubbed into other languages and sold around the world.

Here's the beginning of a 1967 episode of Braccobaldo, which is Italian for "Huckleberry Hound." What's unusual about it is that this particular bit of animation was done in Italy and never aired in the United States. I gather the rest of each program was translated American product but they seem to have generated some local footage, probably to make the show seem less foreign. The female dog is Kitty, Huck's girl friend in the Italian comic books of the character…

Here's a real nice article about my friend, voice actress Saratoga Ballantine. Sara's father was the *AMAZING* Carl Ballantine, one of the funniest men I've ever met — and if you have any idea of how many great comedians I've met, that's saying a lot. She took great care of him and it's nice to see it being so noted.

A fellow who once interned with Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is facing federal charges for hacking into female college students' e-mail, copying their nude photos and then threatening to distribute them if they didn't send more. This is pretty sleazy behavior and if it's true, the guy oughta do hard time in a place where the view out his window is lessened by metal bars.

However, it's also a little sleazy to try and suggest something about his past employers, even if they didn't pay him. Newt, Mitt and Paul aren't responsible for this jerk even if there are photos of them posing with him. (Heck, there are photos of me posing with all sorts of people I either don't know at all or do and don't approve of.) However tempting it is to try and score points against a foe with something like this, it's possible — probable, even — that the "boss" didn't hire the man, didn't do a background check and certainly didn't know the kind of person he was. Every company in the world sometimes hires people they wish they hadn't.

Guilt-by-association is the kind of thing you charge against an opponent when you don't have any evidence that they themselves are guilty of anything. In the case of Romney, Ryan and especially Gingrich, there's plenty without resorting to this kind of thing.

Almost forgot to alert you to this: Frank Ferrante, that great Groucho doppelgänger I'm always mentioning here, is performing in Pasadena, California on Saturday, May 11. It's at La Salle High School out there and it's a benefit for that institution of learning, which is Frank's alma mater. It's also the only time he will be anywhere near Los Angeles for quite a while. Tickets (and full info) are still available over on this page.

For those who just joined us: Years ago with great skepticism, I went to see this guy who was doing a one-man (plus pianist) show as Groucho Marx. My skepticism was because to me, "impersonator" shows are usually good for about ten minutes, fifteen tops. After that, all you see are all the ways in which the actor doesn't resemble his subject. But Frank was different. He walked out onto stage as himself, put on the makeup…and faster than you could say the secret word, the Ferrante guy was gone and there stood Julius H. Marx in his stead. And he didn't just stand there. He danced and he sang and he recited known Grouchoisms and made up plenty of his own…and now due to my constant plugging, I get several e-mails a week from folks thanking me for telling them about this fellow.

If you want to see if and when Captain Spaulding comes your way, here's his current schedule. He's in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin this Friday…in Bloomington, Illinois this Saturday…and Burlington, Iowa on Sunday. How he does it, I dunno…but he does it and he does it very well.

Master monologist Billy Connolly is having trouble with his memory.

Hey, let's listen to a record I had as a kid. In 1959, Golden Records was putting out albums and songs of the Hanna-Barbera characters I loved. What I didn't love was that the voices on the records weren't the voices from the show. Daws Butler was Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Snooper and Blabber, etc. on TV, performing voices he originated. Golden Records employed other actors to imitate him. It is commonly assumed that this is because Daws was under contract to the Colpix company (which put out other H-B records) and that may have been the reason. I suspect though it may have been because (a) Daws was in Los Angeles and Golden Records was in New York and/or (b) Daws wanted more money than the guys Golden could get in New York.

In any case, I sure felt cheated when I bought a Yogi Bear record with my hard-earned money — it wasn't easy being so cute that relatives would give me cash — and then I'd get it home and hear a Yogi Bear impersonator. But a few of them weren't that bad. One I liked was this record of the Augie Doggie theme. The tune was heard on the Quick Draw McGraw show where Augie appeared each week but the lyrics weren't and of course, the record version was much longer. I suspect the lyrics were written by Bill Hanna, who at least claimed to have authored all the major early H-B theme songs. Maybe he did or maybe he used his position to grab the royalties due the real songwriter.  I'd like to think the former.

Anyway, I liked this song because it was just a chorus with no one attempting to imitate Augie Doggie or his dear ol' Doggie Daddy. It's a pretty bouncy tune which you may enjoy…

The Carnegie Deli in New York is a great and wonderful place…and probably more prosperous than ever since its neighbor, the Stage Deli, recently closed. The Carnegie Deli in Beverly Hills was not a great and wonderful place, which explains why it isn't there any more.

In the early eighties, the Stage opened an outlet in Century City — also a pale imitation of its Manhattan ancestor but not quite as pale as the west coast Carnegie would be. In 1988 when the Schwab's Drug Store at the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset was razed, it was announced that the forthcoming shopping complex there would include an L.A. version of the Carnegie. Later, the plan was shifted to 300 N. Beverly Drive at the corner of Beverly and Dayton Way.

The buzz was that billionaire Marvin Davis had had a standing order every day at the Century City Stage Deli for a half-pound of lox, a half-dozen bagels, a pint of cream cheese and four bags of potato chips to be delivered to his office each morning. This did not satisfy him and he decided to open his own deli. (Another rumor was that he opened the Carnegie in Beverly Hills after he was made to wait too long for a table at Nate 'n' Al's down the street.)

The opening on August 9, 1989 was a huge media event with celebrities including Don Rickles, Carol Channing, Billy Wilder and George Burns. Burns was so impressed with the place that he booked it for his 100th birthday party, which was to be held on January 20, 1996. George made it to that date but the deli didn't. The opening was also attended by pickets as Davis and his partners had elected not to sign with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 11. And there were also restaurant critics present, that evening and in subsequent weeks. Few of them liked what they ate.

The place shut its doors on August 26, 1994 and someone had to call George Burns and tell him to find someplace else for his party. There were many reasons for the deli's closure but the big three probably went something like this…

1. Nate 'n' Al's, a long-established local tradition, was right down the street.
2. The food at the Carnegie cost more than the food at Nate 'n' Al's.
3. The food at the Carnegie wasn't as good as the food at Nate 'n' Al's.

Why couldn't they at least replicate the quality of the original in New York? Probably some combination of management and suppliers not being as good. All I know is I ate there twice — once by choice and once because an agent I was lunching with insisted we meet there. I didn't care for the meal either time and I didn't care for that agent.

UPDATE, YEARS LATER: And now, there is no Carnegie Deli in New York anymore.  It was a great place to eat.

It's 84 days until Preview Night of Comic-Con International in San Diego. That's right: Eighty-four — and I'm as surprised as you are. It felt to me like it was getting close to 100 and I went to look it up so I'd know when to write a post that began, "One hundred days from today…" Turns out I missed that opportunity. It's 84 days.

A number of folks have written to ask me if Sergio Aragonés will be there and if he'll be Quickdrawing at the Quick Draw! event. Yes, Sergio has mended nicely from his recent hip-replacement surgery. He practically danced into my house last week and I'm sure he'll be in San Diego. Our competitors this year for Quick Draw! will be Sergio, the ever-hilarious Scott Shaw!…and our "guest" player, a gent whose participation will surely excite many. Wait'll you see who it's gonna be.

Also, I want to thank everyone who submitted names for the annual Bill Finger Award. Our blue-ribbon panel, all of whom wear blue ribbons in their hair, has selected two excellent choices and they'll be announced shortly. So will the usual mess of panels I'll be hosting. I'd rush to start packing but I haven't gotten around yet to unpacking from WonderCon.

25 Photos You Need To Really Look At To Understand.

If you're in the Los Angeles area and are free this Saturday night, I have a recommendation for you. This is for the cheapest, best thing you can possibly do in this city on a Saturday evening short of staying home and reading this blog…

Back in the eighties, I got involved (kinda) with a project that some friends were doing. It was called Instaplay and every Saturday evening for a few years, I tried to attend and help out. Instaplay was improv in its purest form. A batch of skilled improv comedy performers would convene and invent on the spot an entire musical comedy (songs, included) based on a title suggested by someone in the audience. There are other troupes that do that now, some of them very well…but at the time it was unique and revolutionary.

So every week it was different…and I won't say they batted a thousand but every one was worth attending and an amazing percentage were sensational. I dragged friends there and they, in turn, dragged other friends…and so on and so on. What they saw was Real Improv…and let me explain what I mean.

There's improv comedy and there's improv comedy. A lot of it works like this: You're on stage. You find yourself in a scene about ocelots. Your mind races back to that sketch you did once about grasshoppers and your improvising thereafter consists of doing as much of that bit as you can, switching the grasshoppers to ocelots. If you do a lot of alleged improv, you develop a whole repertoire of routines that can be easily adapted. Sometimes, it's like an on-your-feet version of Mad-Libs, inserting the new name into the old scenario. You also learn a lot of stalling tactics to give yourself time to think ahead.

That's still technically improv but there's a better, purer kind. For that kind, you work "in the moment" and really do say it as you think of it and vice-versa. Instaplay is that kind.

Helming all Instaplays was a friend o' mine named Bill Steinkellner, who's widely hailed as one of the best teachers of improv comedy in the business. He's been responsible for a lot of careers and had a dandy one of his own. Before long, Bill and his brilliant wife Cheri (a key Instaplayer) were busy writing TV shows including The Jeffersons and Cheers, plus unimprovised musicals like Sister Act. Most of the other Instaplayers began working extensively in TV, some in front of and some behind the camera. Eventually, everyone was too busy/successful to take Saturday nights out to Instaplay and the shows ceased.

A few years back, Bill began teaching a Master Class in improv comedy — the kind of thing where skilled performers go to work out and practice. That led to someone saying, "Hey, for old time's sake, let's do another Instaplay." They did one and it went so well, they did another…and another and another. But they're running out of "anothers" so this coming Saturday evening, they're doing the last one for a while. The troupe will include Cheri Steinkellner, Jonathan Stark, Deanna Oliver, George McGrath and Navaris Darson, with Bill onstage directing things to the extent they can be directed.

As I write this, there are tickets available but not many of them. That's because the theater is tiny. It's also really crummy but we don't care as long as the performances are, as I'm sure they will be, brilliant. Also, the tickets are, like I said, ridiculously cheap. I'll be there and I thought you might wanna be.

BTW: The little hunk of ad above was adapted from an ad I designed back around, I'm guessing, 1983. I had laid it all out and put in the lettering and I was just about to start drawing silly people when my doorbell rang. It was Sergio Aragonés and I thought to myself, "Aha! Better artist!" Sergio wanted to go to lunch. I said, "Sure. But I have to change my clothes and while I do, finish this drawing for me!" Sure enough, by the time I'd changed, the whole thing — it was much larger than the piece you see here — was done and we went to lunch. It was more appropriate that he draw it since Instaplay requires an Instacartoonist.