Just looked at the weather forecast for the Los Angeles area. There's a slight chance of a little rain on Thursday morning and then a person at the National Weather Service wrote…
A quick look at the ten day models show no rain through the 26th but no wise man ever truly believes the day 8-10 forecast.
That's true. Which makes you wonder why they even put out a ten-day forecast and don't just make it seven.
If you're checking here for obits and anecdotes about Peter O'Toole, Joan Fontaine, Tom Laughlin or any of the show biz celebs who died in the last few days, sorry. Didn't know any of them. Have little to say about any of them…though it's tempting to write about some of Mr. Laughlin's tirades against film critics and also the studio that released his best-known film, Billy Jack. The film was a modest success but Laughlin managed to wrest control of it away from Warner Brothers and he got it re-released with ads that touted it as "One of the most popular motion pictures of all time." It wasn't when he started saying it but his blitzkrieg pretty much made it true. He took some of the money he made from it and bought full-page ads in newspapers to lambaste film reviewers from not recognizing its and his greatness. It seemed in keeping with the movie's schizophrenia. It's been a long time since I saw it but I recall Billy Jack preaching pacifism while karate-chopping people.
My knees seem to be getting better, thank you. Every once in a while, one or the other decides to ache like crazy for twenty minutes, then it reverts to just feeling a bit odd. I can't find any reason why the pains start or stop. I just hope the overall improvement of the left one continues and doesn't stop when the cortisone shot wear off in a week or so.
Last night, I was sitting here at my computer about 3 AM finishing a had-to-be-in-before-I-slept assignment and I suddenly heard an awful car crash outside. In fact, it sounded like several crashes. I couldn't see anything out the window but I grabbed up my iPhone, my house keys and a big flashlight and ran outside…in time to see two cars way, way down the block that had obviously been involved. They both revved up and drove off. A motorist pulled over and said in an amazed voice, "Did you see that?" I told him, "No, but I heard it. What happened?" He said, "Those two guys were driving around, crashing into each other. It was like a game of some sort!"
The driver said he'd phoned 911 and reported it, then asked me if I'd seen which way they went. I said, "Yeah, north!" He said, "Well then, I'm going south!" And he drove off that way and I went in and went back to my script. I'd love to know what that was all about but doubt I ever will.
While Fox News is lecturing people that it's anti-Christian for one person somewhere in America to not be allowed to put up a nativity scene on government property, Andrew Sullivan thinks that channel is getting somewhat anti-Christian itself. That's what happens when they take on the Pope…
Jeffrey Toobin on The Death Penalty. Apparently, it's getting harder and harder for the government to kill people.
There's a new book out called Inside MAD that features much of the wonderfulness from past issues of America's leading humor publication. At least, it's Number One if you don't count the Congressional Record, which some of us do. You can order a copy of Inside MAD here.
Inside Inside MAD are many treasures but pay attention to one in particular. They commissioned my B.F.F. Sergio Aragonés to draw a fold-out poster of MAD history…and he did, including darn near every major contributor to the magazine for its 61 years of existence, along with dozens upon dozens of references to memorable articles and moments in the life of the magazine. I have seen everything Sergio has drawn in the 45 years I've known him and nothing has impressed me more. Matter of fact, it's a lot better than it will appear in the book if you buy the book.
I held the immense original in my hands and studied it for a half-hour or so. They were able to publish it only because I was conscientious enough to drool on myself instead of it. The folks at MAD would be brain-dead stupid and guilty of the kind of incompetence that their magazine attacks if they didn't bring out a full-size (the same size Sergio drew it) poster-print of this artwork. They can do it with or without the superb and Herculean coloring job that Tom Luth did on the poster…but either way, it should be published and sold in its full dimensions.
I know a lot of MAD guys read this blog so let's get to it, fellows! You know how you often refer to yourselves as "The Usual Gang of Idiots"? Well, put this out as a full-size print or that will no longer be said of you with any sarcasm whatsoever. We will mean it.
The rest of you: Want a peek at it? Entertainment Weekly has it up…and they even have a handy-dandy magnifying glass for you to examine it in greater detail. It's especially good when viewed on an iPhone or Android screen. And don't rush through it, for God's sake. This thing took Sergio over twenty friggin' minutes!
A lot of folks wrote in reply to my ponderings on Saturday Night Live performers with little or no hair. Lots of people mentioned David Koechner and Chris Elliott, neither of whom lasted long there, and Paul Shaffer. Shaffer was hired as a musician and angled his way into Featured Player status for a while. No one mentioned any other cast members so I guess there haven't been any. A few guest hosts were noted like Charles Barkley, Bruce Willis and Patrick Stewart…all big-enough stars to trump anyone's concerns about the show looking too old or too bald or something.
Jason Czeskleba wrote…
Regarding the SNL cast and baldness, I recall that in Jay Mohr's book he tells an anecdote about discovering (during a pickup basketball game) that one of his castmates was "completely bald" and wore a toupee. He doesn't say who it was, but he says that it's someone who had been in the cast "a long time." He says that person kept his baldness a secret (and still does), but that some of the writers and cast were aware of it. He also mentions that Chris Elliott wore a hairpiece and that this was commonly known. Assuming Michaels was aware of both these things (which seems likely) then his aversion to baldness must not be as extreme as you've heard.
I think I've spent just about enough space on this matter. Jay Mohr's book, which I wrote about here, may be one of the things that caused me to remember what that other cast member said about the obsession with hair on Saturday Night Live. Mohr was "candid" in a way I'm not sure I'd want one of my co-workers to be about a shared employment experience. (He didn't make it too difficult to figure out who the secretly-bald cast member was.) I respect the heck out of Lorne Michaels for his accomplishments but I suspect that once he's gone, we're going to hear a lot from people who couldn't get on that show — or could and didn't profit much from the experience — and harbor some anger towards him. The thing about hair may be the least of it.
In other news: I've received a lot of info on the orchestra situation for that Sound of Music telecast and I'll be getting it up here in a day or three. And I'm even happier than I was yesterday about the donations rolling in for Bob Kahan. Some questionable donations notwithstanding, he's over five and closing in on six thousand smackers. I Facebook-chatted with Bob yesterday and told him not to get cocky; that the money wasn't for him. It was for his cats. I notice the volume has increased since he took down the photo of himself and put up one of his pets. Cats, as you may have noticed, are very big on the Internet.
Every time Paul Rudd goes on one of Conan O'Brien's talk shows, he shows a clip from his current movie. And it's always the same clip…
Lorne Michaels has been under criticism for some time for a certain lack of racial diversity on Saturday Night Live. Recently, he did a marathon of auditions of potential black female cast members and he's told the press he will hire one in the next week or so. That sounds to me like the wrong way to achieve the right goal. I mean, how about just hiring one because she's funny? But here's what the article about this made me think of…
Years ago, a then-former member of that show's cast — someone from its "middle" era — said something to me. I said something that this person thought was unlikely and she said to me, "That's about as likely as Lorne Michaels hiring an SNL cast member who didn't have a full head of hair." At the time, he hadn't. Has he since?
I must admit I haven't followed the show closely enough to notice if that's ever changed. When I see sketches, I can't tell who half the cast members are anyway, and many of them seem to be wearing wigs as part of being in character. I get that they don't hire older performers to join the cast…but there are some pretty funny young guys around who are losing their hair or have shaved what's left off to make it appear they wanted to be bald.
She said — and again, this could have been disproven since — that Michaels didn't even like guest hosts or musical acts who were thinning or hairless. Years ago when Sinead O'Connor performed on the show, the crew joked that she was the first and last bald performer Lorne would ever allow on the premises. And around that time when Kelsey Grammer hosted, he came out in a wig and the whole monologue spot was about how he wanted the world to think he had more hair than he did. I seem to recall that Michaels was on-camera in the segment and he brought on Sy Sperling, the "president" of the Hair Club for Men to counsel Mr. Grammer on follicle restoration options.
I'm not sure I trust my source here. Can anyone cite evidence that Mr. Michaels either has stopped caring about hairlines or never did?
Thanks to a number of generous, caring folks — many of them readers of this here blog — Bob Kahan may have achieved in two days of donations, the amount of loot he needs to not get tossed out of his apartment for Christmas. I say "may have" because a few of the donations may not be legit and Bob has wisely increased his target amount so he can take in enough to make certain. Please…go over there and let's get him over the five grand mark so when he goes to court next Friday, he absolutely has the cash he believes will keep him in his home.
And while we're at it: I have worked with a lot of editors in comics, ranging from the legendary (Archie Goodwin, Julius Schwartz, Chase Craig) to guys who couldn't find the Men's Room unless a freelancer told them where it was and what to do in it. Bob was very good at putting together books and getting them off to press…and there are plenty of publishing houses — not just of comics — that could profit from having him on the premises. A guy like that shouldn't be out of work for a week, let alone a year. Spread the word, people.
I kept getting invited to advance screenings of Saving Mr. Banks but deadlines and my knee kept me away from all of them. Finally, it's come to me: A screener DVD arrived in my mailbox yesterday and I'll probably watch it here this weekend instead of limping to a theater near me. I'm curious. The trailers and advance footage I saw made me think that Tom Hanks had way too much of the performer about him to be convincing as Walt Disney, a man who was famously awkward in front of a camera. But both Floyd Norman and Richard Sherman told me they thought Hanks was a perfect Walt…so what's my opinion compared to theirs? They worked with the real Walt. I just watched him on TV.
Being a writer, and having a natural belief that a writer's work should not be tampered with or wrested away by others, I've always been a little uncomfy with the notion that Walt took Ms. Travers' creation and did things with it that she hated. I think it's a great movie made from an unimpressive work, and I have no doubt that P.L. Travers profited mightily in many ways from the experience. Still, all the stories I've heard about the making of Mary Poppins leave me with an image of Walt saying to his staff — this is not an actual quote, just a figment of my imagination — "I'm gonna do what I want to that woman's work and I don't care how much it pisses her off." Given my profession, I have a bit of a hard time rooting for that attitude to succeed, even if it does result in a classic motion picture that I love very much. So I want to see how I feel about that after I see the movie.
I'm also curious to see how much, if at all, the Disney organization allows worries about its (and Walt's) image to get in the way of the real story. Back in the mid-eighties, I was hired by the studio to write a TV movie called The Duck Man. They had that title and a simple premise: One of the famous Nine Old Men (the legendary "A" Team of Disney classic animation) is about to be retired. This was not to be one of the real Nine Old Men. I was to make up one and we'd say he was one of the Nine Old Men. The whole film was to be a celebration of folks like that.
He was to be an eccentric old guy who talks to Donald Duck the way Elwood P. Dowd talks to his invisible rabbit friend in Harvey. In this case, Donald would be animated — and seen only by this one old animator — in an otherwise live-action movie that dealt with him coming to grips with his retirement. That was all they had story-wise, apart from the idea of having Fred MacMurray (or if he wasn't up to it, Dick Van Dyke in old man make-up that he would still need) play this animator being put out to pasture.
I still suspect I wasn't the first writer on the project and I may not have been the last. If there were others, I'll bet they encountered the same problems I did. I think I did six drafts of the script — for about the fee that should have bought them two — and each time, many folks at the studio loved it but it eventually made its way to one who was terribly, terribly concerned with how the Disney organization was portrayed. Comic books aside, I worked for Disney on three separate occasions, all of them major projects, and I had the same problem each time…
You'd hand in your script and if the person who read it liked it, he or she would pass it on to someone else to read and if that person liked it, they'd pass it on to someone else…and eventually, they'd find someone who hated it or who would at least say, "We can't make this!" That person would give you notes. So you'd rewrite to please that person and then the process would start all over again with everyone who liked it passing it on until they found someone on the premises who'd say "We can't make this!" And so on.
One of the three projects wound up getting made pretty much as I wrote it, but largely because the network insisted on that. One got made but not until I'd left it, removed my name and they brought in another writer to rearrange things. And The Duck Man didn't ever get off the pages. It was the only one of the three that was set in the reality of the Disney world and therefore subject to concerns about the company's rep.
The problem was that if the old guy is being retired against his will, then it makes the Disney Corporation look callous and ungrateful. Basically, it makes them the Bad Guys. But if the fellow is retiring on his own accord…well, then what's the story? What's so interesting about a guy who wants to retire retiring? They'd somehow all okayed my outline in which the studio was nudging him out the door but once I made it into a whole script, this became an issue.
So then I did a draft where there's one officious, by-the-book Disney exec who insists on an obscure clause in some Disney Employee Manual that forces the old gent's ouster and at the end, with the aid of young Disney animators who worship the elderly artist and an assist from Donald, the senior Disney execs hear what's happening and immediately overrule the one zealot who insists on retiring The Duck Man. Six or seven mid-range Disney execs liked this version and some even congratulated me on solving an unsolvable problem.
Then it passed to someone who thought it still made the company look bad. This person actually wrote a memo that said, "Could we lose the part where even one Disney executive doesn't appreciate him?" I responded by asking, "Well then, why is he retiring against his will?" The answer was, "That's for you to figure out." I tried a draft where the old man has a daughter, one he can't communicate with (that's why he talks to an animated duck all the time) and she's forcing his retirement. The studio didn't like that because…well, I still don't know why they didn't like that. It was something like, "Even an evil daughter who doesn't have his best interests at heart should recognize how good it's been for him to be part of the Disney organization."
At some point, I had to do one draft where The Duck Man himself feels it's time to retire but the studio, aware of his valuable contributions, is pressing him to stay and the whole film is about them trying to talk him out of it. I don't know how they did it but they managed to find someone on the lot who thought even that made the studio look bad.
My last draft was a mess where I tried to do a story about the old man retiring without him retiring and with his employers trying to keep him on but not if he wanted to retire and…oh, it was hopeless. It was like trying to write Snow White without the queen wanting her dead, lest it reflect poorly on royalty of any kind. I spent ninety pages trying to resolve a conflict without establishing one in the first place…and I was not surprised they gave up on me and maybe the whole idea. We should have given up four drafts earlier.
That was some time ago and I gather Disney the Corporation is no longer as worried about anyone believing they have skeletons that are not in the Haunted Mansion. So I look forward to Saving Mr. Banks. If they did it back when I was working on what felt like Draft #7846 of The Duck Man, it would have to end with P.L. Travers admitting Walt was right about everything, begging him to forgive her for ever doubting he could improve on her creation and asking, "Could you take me to Disneyland so we can ride those delightful teacups together?" I gather it doesn't.
Jerry Lewis made his Broadway debut playing The Devil in a revival of Damn Yankees in 1995. My friend Paul Dini and I were in the fifth row on his official opening night and we liked him…with reservations. Later, after that production closed in New York, he toured with it.
Here's three minutes from one of those tour performances. The lady playing Lola is Susan Ann Taylor. Unfortunately, the clip ends just as she starts to sing but you'll get a little taste of Jerry as Applegate…
In an interview today, NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt says his network is looking at three possible musicals to do live for Christmas of 2014, the way they did The Sound of Music. He didn't name them but did say, "We're looking for another show, a well-known title, something that people already know and love that can interest kids and adults and can be produced live, which is no small feat." I'm guessing it'll be something like The King and I, Oliver!, Annie, Guys and Dolls, Camelot, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Mame or Hello, Dolly.
Grease and The Music Man have probably been performed too recently on television. Fiddler on the Roof might evoke some charge of trying to crowd Christianity out of a month that belongs to Christmas. One thing seems likely: Whatever show they pick is probably going to involve a lot more dancing than The Sound of Music.
Mame would be an interesting choice. It's not as well known as the others but it does have a kid in it, a strong "family" theme and some of it's about Christmas. Best of all, it has a couple of songs in it that are rather well-known. Greenblatt does note that there may be rights problems with some of the shows they want to do.
By the way: I wasn't that serious about A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It's not really for kids, it doesn't have songs the whole world knows and loves and it isn't a family/Christmas thing. And I forgot to mention the biggest argument against doing it on TV like that: It would be harmed a lot by commercial breaks. The whole show plays pretty much in real time with no change of setting, no dissolves to later the same day or the following weeks, etc. There's no room for a word or ten from our sponsor.
Meanwhile, Mr. Greenblatt was also asked about the situation with Jay Leno and he said…
I've made it clear to him and all of his reps that we'd love him to stay. He's been very focused on the final months of the show and has said he's not going to make any decisions about his post-Tonight Show life until after the show. But nothing would make me happier than to find ways to keep him involved with this network. That's really up to him.
I would translate that as follows: There's nothing we can offer him that he really wants. If there were, we'd have made a deal by now. Jay's going to wait until his contract with us permits him to accept offers from other seekers of his services and see where he is then. If and only if he can't find a deal he wants to take elsewhere will he come back and accept some sort of contract with us.
Or at least, it means something like that. I have heard that the buzz about The Tonight Show is that Jay has received if not other offers then at least communications from parties that have said the equivalent of, "Don't sign with anyone else until you hear what we have in mind for you!" He is saying nothing. Two interesting aspects of this are…
In other words, he could work in the same place with a lot of the same folks. In Bill Carter's last book on the Late Night skirmishes, he said that one of the reasons Leno opted for that 10 PM deal on NBC over, say, going to ABC at 11:30 was that he liked the idea of staying on the NBC lot and keeping the same crew and the same offices and the same parking space. Just a point of interest for the folks following this story.
I'm not sure how much of this piece by Amanda Marcotte I agree with. She says that the current positions of the extreme right are driven by a belief that if America doesn't function the way they want it to, then it isn't America and might as well be destroyed. I'm sure that's true of some. It's even true of some people I know and they don't deny it. I'm not sure it's as widespread though as Ms. Marcotte makes it to be.
Bob Kahan is a good guy who, like many good guys these days, has fallen on hard times. He's bright and talented and a nice person, and I know this because I worked with him when he was editing terrific reprint collections for DC Comics. Unable to find work for way too long, he is now facing eviction from his apartment and has had to ask for donations. I'm sure this was not easy for him to do. Why not help him out? If everyone who bought and enjoyed books he worked on gave him 5% of what they spent on them, it would probably keep him in his home until he finds employment…which can't be too far in the future.
Here's where you donate. It only takes a moment and you'll feel better if you help out. Try it and see.