Monthly Archives: November 2013

A rather well-known comedian who asked to remain nameless wrote to ask…

I watched the Carson show you had on your site this morning. I understand why they cut out some of the music but there's a big, ugly edit between the time Ed McMahon does his "Here's Johnny" and the moment when Johnny walks out from behind the curtains. Any idea what the deal was with that?

Yeah. I'll bet the deal was that after the show was finished, they had Ed redo the opening so they could drop out the name of the guest who was bumped. He's mentioned at the end of Johnny's monologue and again later in the show…but the fact that he ain't in the opening billboard means they redid it and edited the new version into the tape.

Last night, you could have found me at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, watching Carol Burnett trying to interview Tim Conway about his new book which, at times, he didn't seem to have read. It was another fine, treasured evening staged by the Writers Bloc group that puts together these wonderful events. In each case, a celebrity author is there to promote and sign his or her new book, and another celeb (who may or may not have a book of their own to hawk) is there to interview them. And these events tend to attract other celebs. In the house last night, one could spot Bob Newhart, Stan Freberg, Queen Latifah, Jack Riley, Pat Boone and plenty of others.

Mr. Conway was, of course, very funny. I don't know that the man is capable of not being very funny. He did seem a bit weary and unfocused and at several points, Ms. Burnett — who did a great job as host-interrogator — had to walk him through his own anecdotes. One would like to think this was because Conway is now slogging through a Bataan Death March of book promotions and was just tired…though he did seem to spark up whenever he found himself on the topic of Harvey Korman.

There was much talk of the halcyon days when the Burnett show seemed to be all about how far into the sketch they'd get before Tim got Harvey to break up. Burnett even said that sometimes, the staff would run a pool not on if Harvey would start chortling but when. Whenever it occurred, from that point on, the sketch was not the least bit about what it was about. It was about Harvey Korman being unable to keep a straight face. Among folks who make their living in comedy, this is still controversial.

They used to tape each episode of The Carol Burnett Show twice on tape date in front of two separate audiences — and as Carol noted, they'd tape an entire hour show in around 90 minutes, whereas there are sitcoms today that take 5-6 hours to tape a half-hour — a practice, she says, that drives her crazy.  In any sketch with Mssrs. Conway and Korman, the first of the two tapings would be pretty much per the script with everyone well aware of what was coming and Harvey remaining in character.

Between tapings, Tim could go to the director, Dave Powers, and ask, "Did you get it all, Davey?" — meaning: Did you get all the necessary shots so as to make the first taping airable? If Powers said yes, then Tim knew he could screw around the second time and if it didn't work, they could just broadcast the first one. Assuming they'd gotten all the necessary shots, Conway would then add things to the second go-round intended to set Korman to breaking up and he usually succeeded. Later, the producers would decide which version to broadcast.

My friend Gary Belkin, who was one of the writers, used to grumble that they too often opted for the latter. He said, "It was usually a choice between a well-written sketch and a Bloopers episode and they decided audiences would rather see the Bloopers version." He admitted the Conway/Korman gigglefests were funny but felt they were a betrayal of what had made the Burnett show special in the first place. (Lorne Michaels always discouraged that kind of thing on Saturday Night Live. He felt it made for cheap, easy laughs and that it prompted writers to go for laughs that way instead of by earning them with clever material.)

Anyway, I enjoyed the evening though as is usual for these things, I winced a bit when Carol said, "Let's take some questions from the audience." There were a few great ones but there were a lot of folks who seized on the opportunity to talk about themselves and to try to have their public moments with the Big Stars. I kinda wish Newhart had walked down the aisle, waited his turn at the mike and said, "I don't have a question. I just wanted some of this undeserved attention."

Afterwards, Tim stayed a long, long time signing books for a long, long line. If you can't get to one of his many signings and would like an unsigned copy of his new autobiography, here's an Amazon link. And while I'm at it, here's a link for Carol Burnett's latest book. She was especially (but not surprisingly) wonderful last night. And best of all, here's a link to the Writers Bloc site. If you're local to Beverly Hills, you'll want to keep an eye on that page for upcoming events. I've enjoyed every single one I've ever attended.

Another full episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, this one from 11/13/79. Well, they're almost full: There are some music edits in these, no doubt due to the understandable wishes of Carson Productions not to pay high usage fees for certain tunes. There's a glaring edit in this one when comedian Pete Barbutti makes his entrance but do watch his spot. I know Pete and he's one of the funniest humans I've ever been around. I wish someone would do the kind of talk show where they could just have him on for an hour and let him tell some of the anecdotes he told me when we were hanging out in Vegas.

This episode also features the first appearance with Johnny by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I believe Arnold's first time on the Tonight Show was with Guest Host McLean Stevenson and it was so early in Arnold's career that they were able to get him to take his shirt off and flex for the camera. McLean interviewed him for a while with shirt on, then sent him backstage to remove it. Then McLean did something I can't imagine would ever be done by any human being who in the last decade or so has had the job description of Talk Show Host. Mr. Stevenson took his own shirt off to demonstrate what a "normal" male physique looked like. Then on came Arnold, stripped to the waist, and the two of them did side-by-side muscleman posing. It was kind of a forerunner to that Saturday Night Live sketch where Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze played Chippendale dancers auditioning except McLean was bony, not flabby. He was very funny that night with Arnold and I'll bet it was his idea. How fast would a writer have gotten himself fired if he'd suggested it to any other host?

Anyway: Heeeeere's, as Mr. McMahon used to say, Johnny…

One more link about Obamacare. Jonathan Cohn explains how things are supposed to work and why they probably will.

You know, one of the factors that I think is in play here is that most people in this country don't really know what's in their health insurance policies. For years now, the main complaint I've heard about insurance, apart from the fact that premiums keep going up and up and up and up, is along the lines of "What do you mean, that isn't covered?" Too many people think anything that's called a Health Insurance Policy protects them from anything that could possibly happen…and of course, no policy does. I have about as good a plan as you can get and I'm often amazed by what I have to pay for…and how it keeps changing. I'm currently fighting them over not covering something they used to cover — and this has nothing to do with Obamacare. They just changed the terms on me. Insurance companies like to do that.

Matthew Ygelsias on why it's good that under Obamacare, some people won't be able to keep their existing plans. One fact that critics of the Affordable Care Act overlook is that before it, you had no guarantee you could keep your existing plan. In fact, you had a great likelihood that if you suddenly got really, really sick (and therefore really, really expensive for your insurer to cover), they'd try to find some way to boot you out or not pay all the benefits you thought you had coming.

Ben Blatt tells you how to win on The Price is Right even if you don't know the price of anything.

I'm always fascinated about how certain anecdotes take on lives of their own and get embellished and changed and retold. In the commentary track of the forthcoming Criterion release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, you'll hear one of my co-commentators, Mike Schlesinger, speak of a famous (in Hollywood) incident that occurred during the casting of that film. There was talk of hiring the great character actor, Ed Brophy, for a role. A prominent agent and/or casting director promised Director-Producer Stanley Kramer he could deliver Brophy…and a whole series of incidents ensued as the agent and/or casting director discovered Mr. Brophy had died several years earlier and without telling Kramer this, tried to convince him to book someone else.

In the commentary track, Mike relates two of the many variations on this story — I've encountered a few others — though they all end with Kramer yelling at the guy, "You sold me a dead actor!"

Here's one that intrigued me. In his autobiography, Rewrites, Neil Simon writes glowingly of his friend and frequent hire, Maureen Stapleton. Ms. Stapleton had a fondness for alcohol and a tendency to say outrageous things under its influence. In one section, Simon says…

Maureen was a star on Broadway by virtue of appearing in outstanding supporting roles for years, and then finally with her name above the title as everyone recognized her superb talent. She was equally at home in comedy or drama. She was also one of the funniest women offstage that I ever met. Outrageous sometimes, belying the soft-spoken, warm, and caring woman she was. She costarred in the film of Bye Bye Birdie with Ann-Margret, in Ann-Margret's first major screen role. Legend has it there was a large wrap party at the end of shooting and one of the executives got up and made a toast to Ann-Margret, predicting she was going to be a major star. This was followed by similar toasts by others involved with the production, all men and all mentioning Ann-Margret. Then they asked Maureen to get up and say a few words. After much appreciative applause from the crew and company, Maureen said, "Well, I guess I'm the only one here who doesn't want to fuck Ann-Margret."

First time I read that, I wondered if maybe Simon — who, let's remember, was not present at the event — got it wrong. It's a funny line but wouldn't it have been funnier if it had been uttered by her co-star in that movie, Paul Lynde? Later, in some other book, I read that it indeed was Paul Lynde who said it. Well, maybe that book was wrong. When anecdotes evolve into other versions, they have a tendency to go from accurate to funnier. Just because it's a better story with Paul Lynde doesn't mean it was Paul Lynde.

So at a dinner a few months ago with Dick Van Dyke, I toyed with the idea of asking him about it. I mean, he was the star of the movie. He was at that event. He is the nicest person in show business, apart from me. (Okay, you're right: He's nicer.) I figured, if you could believe anyone about this, you could believe Dick Van Dyke. As it turned out, we got to talking about that movie and before I could ask him, he told the story on his own…and he said it was Paul Lynde. So as far as I'm concerned, it was Paul Lynde.

Dick did tell a couple of other stories about things Ms. Stapleton said whilst inebriated. They could make you understand why Neil Simon believed she'd said the line about Ann-Margret.

It's another full episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson! This one is from 11/02/79 and the guests include Bo Derek, jazz great Pete Fountain, Joan Embery from the San Diego Zoo, Charles Nelson Reilly and political activist Mickey Ziffren. Ms. Embrey's spot includes a marmoset who gave Johnny one of his more memorable animal segments. Any time an animal pisses on a star…

I forgot to mention that at the CAPS Banquet, Floyd Norman was presented with the prestigious (I suppose) Sergio Award. That's the thing that the real Sergio is presenting to him in the photo. The Sergio Award looks like Sergio and for the story of it, you might want to read this story from when they presented the first ones. They're kinda neat-looking. So is Sergio.

The Disney folks have announced they're going to turn William Goldman's fine book and screenplay, The Princess Bride, into a stage production. They don't have a creative team to announce yet and they aren't sure if it'll be a musical. Seems to me this is a good idea and it oughta be a musical…

My name is Inigo Montoya
It's time for the attack
And I don't mean to annoy ya
But I want my father back!

And there should be a song called "Inconceivable!" and one called "As You Wish" and if they can do it without sounding like a tune in Spamalot, a number called "Only Almost Dead." They can buy all the leftover Shrek costumes from Dreamworks, spray them and use them for the Andre the Giant part. Oh — and they can round up all the ticket scalpers on Broadway, deslime them a bit and have them play the Giant Eels.

Seriously, it's a great notion and I'll bet they cast some great old "name" actor to play the Grandfather who, while one scene is being struck and the next is being set up, narrates a hunk of the story to his Grandkid. I wanna be there when this thing opens. Heck, I wanna be there when they have the open casting call for a "Mandy Patinkin type." Bet Mandy shows up and is told he's all wrong for it.

Saturday night, the Comic Art Professional Society honored Floyd Norman and Gary Owens. Floyd is a great talent from the world of animation who started his career in comics. He assisted artist Bill Woggon with the Katy Keene comic books. About half past Sleeping Beauty, he was hired by the Walt Disney studio, thereby becoming the first black man hired in a true creative capacity. He worked on all the Disney features up through The Jungle Book (the last one Walt himself supervised), then soon departed for other venues. He and several partners had their own animation studio for a number of years, then he went back to work for others. I worked with him at Hanna-Barbera but he intermittently returned to Disney, working on their films and also their newspaper strips. He can pretty much do anything in cartooning and it was about time CAPS honored him as they did. (If you'd like to know more about Floyd and learn a helluva lot about animation history, check out his blog, which I believe has moved since the last time I sent you there.)

Gary Owens, of course, has been a fixture of broadcasting for decades. If you grew up in Los Angeles when I did, you grew up with his voice coming out of your radio. He was always one of those personalities who played records and disappointed you when he did because you'd rather have heard him. Animation fans know him as the voice of characters like Space Ghost and Roger Ramjet. Other TV watchers know him from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and hundreds of network promos and commercials. He is also, as I explained in my speech about him, one of the nicest human beings in his fields of endeavor.

I spoke about Gary. A buncha folks — Scott Shaw!, Jerry Beck, Bob Foster, Ken Mitchroney, me again, Floyd's longtime partner Leo Sullivan and Floyd's wife — spoke about Floyd. Adrienne (that's Floyd's wife) revealed that on their first date many years ago, he took her to a CAPS Banquet. The lovely Kayre Morrison favored us with a medley of Disney songs, accompanied at the keyboard by Gary Calvin. And the current CAPS President Pat McGreal and our evening's M.C. Bill Morrison kept things moving even when the servers of the putative dinner could not. Others present for the evening included June Foray, Bill Stout, Tim Burgard, Dean Yeagle, Tom Luth, Todd Kurosawa, Mike Kazaleh, Don Jurwich, Tone Rodriguez, David Folkman, Jim McQuarrie and Chad Frye. A good time, to coin a phrase, was had by all.

I love domino stunts. These are a bit of a cheat since each shot is obviously a separate set-up but they're still amazing…

This whole mess with 60 Minutes basing a story on a now-discredited source reminds me of an incident about 20 years ago that involved me. A fanzine published a story that said, roughly, "Mark Evanier has announced he will story-edit a New Gods cartoon series for Warner Animation." I still have no idea where that came from. I was never approached about any such thing, I certainly never announced such a thing and Warner Animation never produced any such thing. My friends over there confirmed that no New Gods show was then under consideration. In other words, the item was as false as false could be.

I became aware of it when I began to get calls from writers seeking work on this non-existent series. That really bothered me. A few of those folks were desperate for work and I sure didn't enjoy turning them down. I didn't even enjoy turning down the former editor who had never offered me work, told others he hated my writing and was now trying to convince me that we were old pals and he'd always loved what I did.

So I wrote a note to the fanzine and told them there was no such show so I had not been hired, had not announced I was hired, etc. I didn't receive a reply but in their next issue, they ran a short, hard-to-spot item that said something like, "Mark Evanier will not be working on the New Gods cartoon series for Warner Animation." Actually, the way they phrased it, it made it sound like I'd been hired, had announced it, and had then been fired. And of course, they left intact the assertion that Warner Animation had this show in the works despite the fact that the only source they had for that claim had now evaporated.

Some folks are really stubborn and irresponsible about retractions and admitting error. Years ago, I did a comic book called DNAgents with a great artist friend named Will Meugniot. A gaming magazine ran a story about it that claimed Will and I had had a behind-the-scenes business dispute that never happened. I don't recall if it said I'd screwed him or he'd screwed me but one of us had egregiously wronged the other…and like I said, it never happened. Not a semi-colon of truth in the claim. Will wrote to the guy denying it and I phoned him up…so he now had categorical denials from the only two parties who could have known if there was such a screwing-over. He listened to me, then said, "Well, my sources tell me otherwise."

I said, "Gee, Will and I are the only two people who could know what went on. Who could these 'sources' be?" He replied, "I'm sorry but as a journalist, I have a responsibility to not divulge my sources." And then, just when I thought he couldn't sink lower into a-holishness, he added, "Listen, I want to be fair. You FedEx me copies of all the paperwork on your financial arrangements with Will and when I get the time, I'll evaluate the situation."

• John McCain says he's received a "spate" of requests to run for president again. "Spate" is apparently now a plural denoting Democrats.

I am not the only Writing Evanier. My cousin David produces acclaimed, best-selling biographies of folks in show business, most recently Tony Bennett. A top publisher currently has him working on one about Woody Allen and you'll hear more about it here when we're closer to its publication. In the meantime, he sent me this link to an interview Mr. Allen did in the previous century to promote his then-current film, Manhattan. I have a great story about the last time I saw David's father, AKA my Uncle Seymour. Now that I've turned to mining my family for blogging material, I'm sure I'll get to it before long. In the meantime, here's Woody…