Monthly Archives: June 2013

Willa Paskin thinks John Oliver is just as good a host of The Daily Show as Jon Stewart. Based on the man's first week — and acknowledging it was just his first week — I'd say Oliver will do fine holding down the fort…but he lacks a certain warmth and wink. I like the material as much but I don't like him as much. Stewart comes across as such a nice guy that even people who disagree with the politics being presented have a hard time feeling as hostile to him as they might like. (Every time Stewart has Bill O'Reilly on, he makes this point out loud and O'Reilly just grins or hides his fondness/admiration for the guy behind an obviously-unmeant insult.)

This was the problem that faced the show when they decided which of their correspondents to stick in the host chair. All of them play hostile or abrasive roles, caricaturing newspeople who don't know what they're talking about but report nonetheless. Stewart played straightman and Voice of Reason to their eccentric and illogical reportage. Now, they had to rotate one of their Lou Costellos into the Bud Abbott role and it works okay because Oliver is so funny and the writing is still strong. But a little something is still missing for me. Maybe it'll reappear before Mr. Stewart does. There was a bit of downward trend in the preliminary ratings reports this week and it wouldn't surprise me if that became something significant.

And we await the probable ratings-hyping crossover with The Colbert Report when Mr. Colbert bursts in and tries to rescue The Daily Show from some damn foreigner…

Dick Cavett attends his high school reunion.

As any reader of this site knows, I'm a big fan of the late, great Allan Sherman. I loved his records and I was fascinated by his story. It was basically the tale of a man who fumbled about show business, writing and producing, for a little under twenty years, occasionally getting a great job and usually managing to get himself fired from it before long. In 1962, he was outta work in the TV business but, in a move that no one expected would yield more than a few bucks, Warner Brothers Records agreed to put out an album of him singing somewhat-Jewish song parodies. That kind of thing never did that well and Sherman was, of course, an utter unknown to the public. So it startled everyone — most of all, Mr. Allan Sherman — that My Son, the Folk Singer became one of the fastest-selling records of all time, making him suddenly very rich and suddenly very famous.

Neither lasted long. Mr. Sherman's self-destructive capacity was strong enough to triumph over all that success…and within just a few years, he was back in the land of failure. He died in 1973.

Still, the records he made were quite wonderful and I wasn't the only kid in America who took up writing song lyrics and parodies because of him. I listened to his records over and over and can sing most of his tunes from memory. As a favor to you, I won't. I liked him so much that I didn't even lose my fondness for the guy when he threatened to sue me. And I felt very bad when he passed away.

I thought I knew a lot about Allan Sherman but after reading Mark Cohen's new book about the man, I feel like I knew nothing. Mr. Cohen has done a superb research job…the kind of thing where you constantly wonder how he found out what he found out. The footnoting tells you how: He interviewed everyone he could, dug up every bit of paperwork he could. I can't imagine anyone doing a better, more thorough job of it.

Two main narratives emerge in Overweight Sensation. One is that of Sherman and his role in bringing Jewish humor into the American mainstream. He could have been like Mickey Katz, doing Jewish-themed material for Jews and no one else. But Sherman's astounding success had to do with crossing over; of getting goyim to laugh at jokes about knishes and Hadassah. Cohen exhaustively charts Sherman's childhood and family and summarizes their impact on his humor. Then the author places Sherman's humor in the context of the times and his peers and….well, you rarely come away from a portrait of a comedian understanding so totally why he and his work mattered…and how they mattered.

The other topic (and it's a sad one) is Sherman's self-loathing and his determination to ruin all that he built. Once rich and famous, he dumped the wife who'd stood with him through the lean years and plunged himself into a world of excess, overeating and over-womanizing. This part is almost hard to read but I know it's true…and again, Cohen's research is exemplary.

If you have the slightest interest in this fascinating, often-funny man named Allan Sherman, I highly recommend the book, which you can order here. Then after you do that, watch another "lost" Allan Sherman song that Mark Cohen has unearthed and shared. This was from back in Sherman's early days when so many of his punch lines were merely to rhyme an unexpected Jewish word or name. His work evolved such that it was no longer about that, which is why he was able to make that crossover. But it's still a funny tune…

In my continuing quest to link to every article that quotes me, here's a fine article by Todd Leopold on Superman.

Also, I wasn't interviewed for it but here's a good piece on Marc Toberoff, the attorney who's been representing the estate of Jerry Siegel in its quest to reclaim some of the rights to Jerry's co-creation, The Man of Steel. You can read a lot of nonsense about Toberoff on the 'net or you can read this article, which pretty well coincides with things that I observed first-hand. (Full Disclosure: I was what they call an Expert Witness in this case. In fact, the judge who ruled in the Siegels' favor in 2008 wrote in his opinion that I was "credible and persuasive" and that I "…attempted to answer directly and honestly the questions…without equivocation or evasion." Remember that the next time you doubt anything I write here.)

From Craig W. comes this question which I've received before in various forms but which I don't think I've ever really answered…

You say you've been a freelance writer since 1969. I don't really understand how someone can make a living that way. As I understand that, it means you write things and sell them to different customers but you don't really have an ongoing job. Is this by choice? Wouldn't you rather have a staff job at D.C. Comics or at a studio or someplace like that? I've been working for my present employer for twelve years now. Before that, I had little temporary jobs like working at Arby's or a summer I spent handing the stock room at a drugstore. I knew those were temp jobs and was happy when they went away and I got my permanent one. I can plan my life around that because I know what my income will be and when I'll be getting vacation time. Can you have any stability in your life when you don't know what your income will be six months from now?

I'm going to answer Craig in two different ways — the way I would have responded to him if he'd asked me this in 1983 and the way I'd answer it now. First, let's go back to 1983, Mr. Peabody…

Craig, I chose to work in creative fields…mainly comic books or television. These are fields that never have much stability and to get into them and expect stability is like becoming a beekeeper and assuming you'll never get stung. I have actually never found jobs like a staff position at D.C. Comics to be very stable — there have been times the position had the life expectancy of a fruit fly — and when you're in such a gig, you're usually either contractually or effectively exclusive to that job and that firm. When I freelance, I usually work for several companies in several areas. I have personal and creative reasons for not wanting to get locked into doing one thing for one employer…and times when I just plain don't want to commute to an office each day. But I've also found that for financial reasons, it's usually wise of me to diversify and to not put all my eggs into one of those straw things that people put eggs in.

Okay, that was how I'd have answered in 1983. Here's my 2013 reply…

Craig, the way the economy has been going the last ten or so years, we're all turning into freelancers and temp workers. Some of us just don't know it. I know very few people who currently work a job with any reasonable confidence of being in it three years from now. The ones who do usually have some sort of ownership position there so it's kind of like if the business is there in three years, they'll be there with it. Maybe it's not as acute in fields other than the ones in which I labor…but, you know, I used to have friends who had staff jobs at Disney that didn't pay particularly well. They'd say, "Yeah, the money may suck but at least I know with Disney, I'll still be working here in twenty years." Not one of those people is still with Disney and most of them didn't make twenty years. We're in a world where companies change ownership (or management teams) rapidly…or the marketplace changes due to technological innovations so the job descriptions there keep changing.

I suppose it would be nice to be able to look ahead and know what I'll be doing and what I'll be making next year but I'm used to not knowing. I'm also spending a lot of time holding the hands of friends who are not used to it. It's kinda like C.P.R. You may never need to use it but you oughta learn it…just in case.

I can't quite get over that opening number on the Tony Awards on Sunday night. It wasn't just the bravery and skill of all those in front of the camera. It was also the bravery and skill of all those operating the cameras and the lights and seeing that 100+ performers hit their cues precisely. (Were you impressed by the magic trick where Neil Patrick Harris vanished from the stage and appeared in the audience? Credit magician Ed Alonzo…but also nod to the one cameraman covering it and to whoever cued the lights at the proper split-second.)

And let's salute director Glenn Weiss, who had to "cut" the show live, making instant decisions as to which of about a dozen cameras should be feeding to your home TV…with no chance to change his mind later. What he did was amazing and it looked very much like this…

Sorry…been dealing with my knee and related problems. I think I have a new date for the surgery but I'll believe it when they administer the anesthetic.

I've been enjoying John Oliver as host of The Daily Show. That bit they did his first night where all the other correspondents were pissed at his promotion was as funny as anything the program has ever done. The bit they'll do when Jon Stewart comes back and they're all pissed that he left that #%@&!!# limey in charge will be just as funny.

I've figured out how the government can win back the trust and hearts of all Americans over this phone-spying thing. They use the data they've collected to winnow out all the unwanted calls we get from Heather at "Account Services" or people who want to refinance our homes or contractors who want to rebuild our homes, then they use that data to throw all the people responsible for those calls in prison for the next few centuries. That would do it for me.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the Snowden matter. It's complicated because as I read different opinions online, I see very few folks who seem to be looking at the overall ethics and ramifications; just at immediate political gains. One fellow who wrote me seems to think that Snowden is a hero because what he revealed might harm Barack Obama. It would not have been okay with this guy for Snowden to do the exact same thing during the Bush administration…which he probably could have. One of the other things that makes it all murky is that so many people are easily reversing how they felt about the same tactics when it was "the other side" employing them.

My view — and this is not set in granite — is becoming a lot like the thoughts of Josh Marshall. I'm against government secrecy but I'm also against anyone who gets his hands on classified papers just deciding that he can overrule the little "Top Secret" stamp. I don't think one side of the argument has 100% of the moral high ground or the constitutional points. But I do think there's a legal/moral basis for some government secrecy and it can't be discounted just because some guy has a copier and an agenda.

If you're anywhere near Seattle, you might like to know that the ubiquitous — on this site — Frank Ferrante will be walking around on the stage of ACT Theatre's Bullitt Cabaret, talking and walking like Groucho Marx, from June 13 to June 30. That's right…a three-week run at the ACT Theatre located at 700 Union Street.

If you've never seen his show, you might want to get your posterior over there and see why I keep raving about it and people keep writing me to tell me that they went and for once, I was right. Frank actually manages to make you forget it's some Italian guy playing a Marx Brother (as opposed to Chico, which was the other way around) and you find yourself spending a delightful evening or matinee with the one, the only…Groucho. For tickets and info, visit this website. And tell 'em Marko sent ya!

David Kelley on how to build your creative confidence…

Fred Kaplan thinks Obama ought to fire James Clapper, our Director of National Intelligence. I think so, too. And let him find out by listening in on someone else's calls.

My views on this whole phone surveillance thing are murky…and they probably should be, given how much we don't know about it all. But I do keep thinking of Michael Kinsley's famous line about how the outrage in Washington ought to be not about illegal actions but rather things that are legal and shouldn't be.

Jeffrey Toobin explains why Edward Snowden is not a hero. John Cassidy explains why he is. Me, I'm having a little trouble here making up my mind but leaning towards "hero."

One of the many things that impressed me about that opening number at the Tony Awards last night was the sheer bravery of it all. They did the whole thing live…and I counted at least two dozen points in eight minutes where something (the vanishing act, N.P.H.'s leap through the hoop, etc.) could easily have gone wrong. I didn't see more than a few minor missteps by the dancers — not even the many children — and there were a lot of them on that stage. With a whole three-hour show to plan and prep and with so many people involved in the opening, I'm wondering how much rehearsal they could have gotten. Neil Patrick Harris's Twitter feed says he arrived in New York on June 2, one week before the telecast.

So in front of America — with much of Show Business right there in the hall with them — Neil Patrick Harris and his crew attempted this one-time-to-get-it-right performance. I'm going to guess that about 90% of the people in television who call themselves professional entertainers would never have risked it. That was one of the things the pros in that audience were applauding last night: The sheer guts of it. And, of course, the fact that everyone was so good at what they did that everything worked.

The willingness to take chances…we don't see that a lot on TV these days, least of all on so-called "reality" shows. Most are taped and heavily-edited…and when reality fails, not above a bit of staging and second (or third or fourth…) takes. The few that go live have every possible option scripted and what's left to chance is whether they'll go with Prepared Scenario A or Prepared Scenario B. This is because the networks and producers want control but it's also because today's stars are terrified of winging it and of not knowing exactly what's going to happen.

Often on this here blog, I've lamented the lack of spontaneity on the late night talk shows. Craig Ferguson is the only host who seems to me to ever ask his guests that which they do not expect…which may explain why he rarely gets the biggies. It is not necessarily the fault of the others that they don't ad-lib more. Ratings have shown that what the viewing audience wants is not Witty Conversationalists but Hot Stars — people who have a hit movie, a hit TV show, etc. To book those people, a talk show has to practically guarantee them that they won't be in for any surprises. That can include questions for which they do not have planned replies. The revered Mr. Carson did rely on pre-interviews of most guests but he could and did stray from the notes on the cards at times.

A friend of mine suggests part of this is the YouTube generation in which we all now dwell. Once upon a time, if something went amiss on TV, it just aired once and was never seen again. Now, it's instantly uploaded all over with the word "fail" on it. Another friend of mine (a manager of talent) told me, "Everyone is aware of how one bad moment caught on video, like in the Michael Richards incident, can utterly destroy a soaring career." If Neil Patrick Harris's opening number last night had collapsed on him…well, it might not have destroyed his career but it could have been a turning point in one that has been heading only upwards. We need more of that on television.

You probably saw this but just in case you didn't, here's last night's opening Tony number. The best part of it is that you can feel the delight of the audience…

And here's a link to what purports to be the lyrics but I think these were just transcribed by someone watching a clip and that a few of the lines are wrong.

Joe Conason reminds us why the current "scandals" in the White House — and I think they'll all pretty much die out except in the hearts and minds of those who already loathed Obama — are a far cry from Watergate.