Monthly Archives: May 2014

No, Stu Shostak has not landed an interview with Walt Disney…or even Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney.  But Walt will be the topic as Stu welcomes Didier Ghez, an authority on Walt, his company and his legacy. Ghez is the author or editor of several books on Disney history including two new ones: Disney's Grand Tour, which chronicles the trip Walt and his brother Roy took to Europe in 1935, and Life in the Mouse House, the autobiography of Homer Brightman, who worked for Walt from 1935 to 1950. Mr. Brightman was quite outspoken about his fights with his boss and I'm sure Stu and Didier will be talking about those battles and how much of what came out of that studio in its Golden Years was because of Walt Disney and how much was in spite of Walt Disney. If you're interested in that studio and its people, you'll want to hear this one.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there and then. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond.  Shortly after a show is over, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.

The Enemy has a new weapon in the campaign to annoy me with unsolicited phone solicitation calls. It's the recorded announcement that denies it's a recorded announcement. Here's how the calls go…

ME: Hello?

VOICE ON PHONE: Hello, this is Jennifer. How are you today?

ME: I just murdered an entire Little League Baseball Team.

VOICE ON PHONE: Wonderful. Now, have I reached the home owner?

ME: Jennifer, are you a recording?

VOICE ON PHONE: No, I'm not a recording.

ME: Hey, Jennifer. What's two plus two?

And then there's silence on the line and after a few seconds, it disconnects.

I've gotten four of these so far — three from different female voices, one from a male voice. I haven't gotten far enough into any of the conversations to find out what they're selling but whatever it is, I don't want one. I mean, even if it's something I desperately need, I don't want one. I ain't buyin' nothin' from someone who's too stupid to know what two plus two is.

This is the second half of an episode of the old TV show, Adam 12. It ran the other day on MeTV. I like watching those shows, in part because interesting actors always turn up in small roles.

In one scene in this installment, Officers Reed and Malloy are driving along and they come upon a car towing a large pumpkin. They pull the driver over and interrogate the lady doing the towing. Some of you might be interested to see this person.

You can view this scene in the video below by moving the slider ahead to 2:25, which is when the scene begins. Or this link will take you to YouTube where it should start playing with that scene.

Who is that woman driving the pumpkin? She didn't get many acting jobs in her career but her name is still well known to film historians, especially those interested in great comedians. If you don't recognize her, here's a link to an obituary I wrote about her.

• Why don't we make John McCain happy and just go to war against every other country on the planet? It always works so well.

On our trip last weekend, Carolyn and I were stuck — I believe that is an accurate way to put it — dining at a Coco's Restaurant and Bakery. That was the only late night option in an area where every other place to eat was either closed or (worse) Carl's Jr. I've eaten at Coco's — in fact, at that Coco's — before and while I never thought it was great, I didn't think it was as bad as what we experienced Sunday night.

Carolyn started with a cup of vegetable soup.  She took a sip and sneezed.  She took another sip and sneezed.  She took a third sip and sneezed.  By that point, the pattern was clear: Something in there was making her sneeze.  She exchanged it for a cup of their Chicken Tortilla Soup without the tortilla chips and it was the kind of thing you only eat when you're as hungry as she was.  Even then, she only got through about a third of it.  Her entree was a piece of broiled fish that came with unannounced breading and variable levels of defrosting.  Portions were overcooked.  Portions were near-frozen.  At one point, she turned to me and asked, "Should the tartar sauce be bubbling like that?"

I ordered a cup of tomato bisque soup, a top sirloin steak and mashed potatoes.  My soup, to be fair, was okay. Not great but okay. The steak, I think I recognized. In the early eighties, a Sizzler Restaurant in Santa Monica burned down and I believe someone fished this particular steak out of the ashes and had it laminated and preserved so it could be popped into a microwave for fifteen seconds and served to me in a Coco's on Sunday evening. I'd ordered it cooked medium rare but I'd foolishly neglected to specify a decade. Which brings us to the mashed potatoes.

I know I've said this before here but I don't know why there is such a thing as bad mashed potatoes. Several companies make instant mixes where you boil water and sometimes butter and/or milk, then you mix these little flakes in and stir…and voila! Mashed potatoes. They're not great mashed potatoes, mind you, but they're edible and a child of twelve can make them.

That should be the minimum standard. A place that calls itself a restaurant should be able to improve upon that. If they can't, they should just make that.

I am not a great cook. I am to recipes what Sarah Palin is to facts. There's something really, really wrong with a dining establishment that can't cook better than I do.

I'm not sure if the mashed potatoes at Coco's came from a mix but I think not. I think actual potatoes were involved, though perhaps not cooked 'n' mashed on the premises. I also suspect that whatever was done to them and wherever it was done, it was not on the same day or even in the same month they were served to me. They could have been from that Sizzler in Santa Monica.

The server was a cheery lady and when she asked how everything was, I couldn't bring myself to tell her. What was wrong seemed beyond her ability to rectify. I didn't see the point of saying to her, "No, could you arrange for a much better restaurant to be built in this area? And make sure it's open late." I did think of sending her over to the Carl's Jr. for a to-go order for us but that might have been rude. It also would not have been an improvement.

Coco's is famous for their pies and they did look good. If I ate that kind of thing, a slice might have possibly redeemed the meal a little. When she asked us if we were interested in pie, I came very close to perusing the menu and asking her, "Hmm…which kind would you recommend for throwing in the chef's face?"

Fred Kaplan thinks the crisis in Ukraine may be over. This is good news for those of us who were afraid we were going to have to understand it.

Yes, for the rest of today, it's another Mushroom Soup Monday. This means that Mark is taking the day off and will not be blogging unless something comes along that's too important (or just too funny) not to post. Tomorrow morning, I have to direct Garfield cartoon stuff and after that, you'll have my undivided attention.

Oh, before I go: A couple of folks read my little piece about Norm Macdonald and somehow saw an invisible sentence or two in there where I said I thought Norm wouldn't do a good job hosting The Late, Late Show. I wrote no such thing and in fact, believe the opposite. I don't think CBS will just flat-out hire him…but they could sure do worse and there's at least a 50-50 chance that they will.

What I was trying to say was that they wouldn't just add him to the list of folks to consider, then decide he's their best option and hand him the assignment. He hasn't been on too many radar screens lately. Apart from being very funny in Conan O'Brien's guest chair, which probably counts for zip, he hasn't really been anywhere. That's a strike against him. In Show Biz, there's usually a very strong sense of, "Well, if he's so good, why isn't anyone else hiring him lately?" Another strike is that he can be a bit abrasive. Look at the kind of guy NBC (which is winning handily) thinks America wants to watch in late night.

And I think there's an "it's about time" sense that if they're aren't going to go with a superstar, it's time to give a break in that daypart to someone who isn't a white male which, last I looked, Norm was. That's not an absolute disqualifier. If John Oliver or Louis C.K. suddenly said, "Hey, I'd like to have a talk show that airs after Colbert," they'd be signed within the hour. But all other things being equal, networks used to break ties by ruling in favor of the white guy and now, I think it would go the other way.

No, what I thought I was saying was that the only scenario I can see that gets Mr. Macdonald that job is that CBS decides to let a lot of different folks tryout in that time slot and Norm's little "hire me" campaign lands him one of those auditions, which is possible, and then he's so good, they award him the grand prize. That's also possible. I don't think it's likely but, hey, I'd watch a Norm Macdonald talk show. Maybe one of these days, someone will give him one.

Okay, now I'm outta here…

Damon Linker explains why he is not so much a Democrat as he is an anti-Republican.

Back in '97, Carolyn and I saw a show on Broadway called The Life, which was all about hookers and pimps. I chose it because the score was written by Cy Coleman and I've always liked Mr. Coleman's work…and I did like many of the songs. What I didn't like was the book, which seemed to me to about people who didn't interest me acting rather self-destructive, all of it leading to…well, by the time we got to the ending, I didn't care. I just wanted out.

There were nice moments here and there and as I said, some of the songs were pretty good. But by the time we got to the end, I was not sure what was happening. I was just thinking, "Why did I want to see a show about hookers and pimps?" Not everyone felt as I did. The show ran more than a year in New York and got a mess of Tony nominations (two supporting actors won) and the Drama Desk Award named it Best Musical. But after it closed, it pretty much disappeared with few subsequent productions anywhere. Here are some musical moments from the original production…

Norm Macdonald is campaigning for the 12:35 talk show slot on CBS. I can't see them just handing him the job but if they try auditioning different hosts by having them each do a few nights or a week, Norm could easily rally himself into a tryout.

A friend of mine over at CBS wrote to me the other day that the in-house buzz is that the execs there had someone in mind for the job before Craig Ferguson's departure was announced but that things fell through. I don't think he's talking about Neil Patrick Harris. He may be talking about John Oliver, who reportedly turned the job down. So on-air auditions may be in the cards.

I've always found Norm Macdonald to be a very funny guy. I first saw him one night at the Improv. I was there with Victoria Jackson, back in the days when she didn't think folks like me were destined to burn in Hell for destroying America. She wanted me to see this new comedian she'd "discovered" so we saw Norm…and he was quite good. He did 15 strong minutes around 9 PM and then we joined him at the bar and talked a bit. He had to be at the Laugh Factory up on Sunset at Midnight and didn't have a car…so the three of us went to my house to talk, then Victoria and I drove him up to Sunset and watched him do the same material to even better response.

But as funny as he was on those stages, he was even funnier in my living room. It has never surprised me that he's attained such a following.

Victoria was on Saturday Night Live at the time and she said she was going to get Norm's material to Lorne Michaels to perhaps fill an open slot on the writing staff. The next thing I knew, Macdonald was not only writing for SNL but he was in the cast…and Victoria was not. I never heard what happened or if he got the job because of her. Never heard him mention her in interviews, either. If you ever hear anything about this, let me know.

Hey, I didn't tell you where I am. I'm in San Diego, attending the annual meeting of the National Cartoonists Society. It's weird to be so close to the convention center where Comic-Con is held and not be there for Comic-Con. Yesterday morning, by sheer force of habit, I went over there to a convention of gas station operators and moderated panels on petroleum futures, how to avoid providing service and new technology in hourly price-raising. For some reason, Sergio was on two of these.

After decades of poaching at N.C.S. events, I have finally joined and paid dues. This could mean that I assumed some level of responsibility for my actions. Or it could mean they'd let me poach no longer. I'll let you decide. The N.C.S. has a grand and glorious tradition — so grand that it cannot be diminished by the inclusion of me. At least, they seem to think so.

The N.C.S. has regional chapters and does much good throughout the year, both for cartoonists and for people who are not cartoonists. Today, for example, members are being bused to a nearby Naval hospital to draw for patients and to a nearby aircraft carrier to entertain the folks aboard. Once a year, on or about Memorial Day weekend, there's a convention attended by as much of the membership as can get away to wherever the event is. It rotates all around the country.

Yesterday, I attended the business meeting, about which I am not allowed to blog. In the afternoon, there were seminars, one of which involved me interviewing Russ Heath, who is this year's recipient of the prestigious Milton Caniff Award. Russ was funny and interesting discussing his work before a hall of fellow creators.

In the evening, we all put on tuxedos and evening gowns — I opted for a tux — and attended the gala Reuben Awards banquet. My friend Carolyn looked stunning in a "copper maroon" (that's what we decided it was after extensive discussion) dress with beads and…well, she just looked great in it. TV writer (and creator of The Doozies) Tom Gammill was a superb M.C., right up there in Neil Patrick Harris territory. Lots of important people presented awards and so did I. The winners are listed here.

High-points of the weekend: Well, seeing Stan and Pauline Goldberg walking around was a big one. Stan, who's drawn more comic books than you've read, and his wife were in a terrible auto accident last November — the kind from which you'd think people of their age would never recover. They recovered. Seeing Russ Heath honored was great, even though his acceptance speech was mostly about how the tuxedo rental place hadn't given him suspenders so his pants were falling down. It was great to see folks like Mell Lazarus, Sam Viviano, Charlie Kochman, Wiley Miller, Grant Geissman, Nick Meglin, Bill Janocha, N.C.S. President Tom Richmond, John Reiner, Bill and Kayre Morrison, Greg Evans, Greg Walker, Cathy Guisewite, Weird Al Yankovic (another honoree) and I'll think of at least ninety more names after I post this.

A great event. I just can't get over the experience of coming to this part of San Diego and not hosting a dozen or more panels. I'll have to make up for it in July.

We're spending an awful lot of time on this old That's Singing TV special but here's Dave Sikula…

Just some personal memories of the show. It was taped at the La Mirada Theatre in those days when they did a lot of stuff for cable. (I remember a particularly gruesome Charley's Aunt with Charles Grodin. One of the most foolproof comedies in the canon just laid there. Transplanting it to Yale did not help it.) The IMDb tells us it was made for "The Entertainment Channel," whatever that was. I was there — and my laugh is even audible at one point. On the night, Tom Bosley found it so unique, he actually stopped tape to comment on it. (In my defense, I wasn't trying to be obnoxious; I just have a distinctive hooting tone.)

I was able to knock seeing a lot of performers off my bucket list that night: Merman opening the show; Mary Martin, Glynis Johns, Len Cariou; Donna McKechnie (whom I'd already seen six times in A Chorus Line at the Shubert; student rush was $20 in those days); Jerry Orbach; Chita Rivera; Barry Bostwick; Bosley himself. I seem to recall a few performances that didn't make the tape, but I'd have to dig through too many boxes to find the program to verify that feeling.

Being that this was the theatre where — in its original incarnation as a movie house — I'd seen The Three Stooges in the early 60s, had seen Cary Grant do his one-man Q&A show in the 80s, and had performed one of the most memorable shows of my life — a Paint Your Wagon in 1980 that had more on-stage insanity than any other show in which I've participated — the house holds a lot of memories.

In memory, Mr. Walston did not give the finest performance that evening. He was consistently behind the orchestra, and I seem to recall he even went up in his lyrics once — which would have been surprising given how many times he'd performed it by that time. (Again, this may be faulty memory.) He still seems behind the music in the clip, but I don't know if that was the original performance or a retake.

All in all, one of the great theatre-going nights of my life.

It was said that Ray Walston was a musical comedy performer in the Rex Harrison tradition. That means he would just ignore the conductor and start singing whenever he felt it was the right moment. Same with Harrison. He did not follow the music. The music had to follow him. It's why most of Rex Harrison's numbers in the movie of My Fair Lady were sung live on the set and not pre-recorded.

Harrison also said that he had problems performing songs from My Fair Lady out of the context of the show. He was never happy with his performances and he sometimes forgot lyrics. Perhaps that was true of Mr. Walton, also.

The La Mirada is a great theater but a bit of a drive for me. Every time I go there, I see something good, though not always good enough to justify the bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic going to and fro. I wish we had more places like that…and more centrally located. When people lament the decline of live theater in Los Angeles, I don't think they always realize how difficult it is to get to some places and park. When I go to the Pantages now, I park far away and take the subway because to park nearby is [fill in your own joke]. Alas, few theaters have a subway stop directly across the street. Wish the La Mirada did.

Politifact debunks reports that Barack Obama is planning on running for a third term. There are apparently people out there who believe this kind of thing despite the fact that it is legally impossible, there's no way to make it legal in time and that Obama has not lifted a finger to make it happen.

And as Politifact notes, this story was circulated back when George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were in their second terms. I also recall a version that has popped up every time any president, going back at least as far as Lyndon Johnson, was nearing the end of his term. It was that the president and his advisors had whipped up a secret plan to declare Martial Law in the country for some reason — even to stage a bogus terrorist attack here if necessary — and then suspend the election so the Chief Exec wouldn't have to leave. A quick Googling shows that there are currently folks convinced Obama will do just that. I'd say the odds are less than one in three.

Last week, Mel Brooks did two pretty good half-hour interviews with Tavis Smiley on PBS. Here's the first half hour…

And here's the second…

Film historians, note: I seem to recall that in interviews long ago, Mr. Brooks said that the casting of Gig Young in Blazing Saddles — in the role Gene Wilder eventually played — was forced on him by the studio over his objections. Now, he talks like it was his idea. My understanding is that it was first offered to Dan Dailey, who was in no shape to tackle it. Then on some mad whim, Brooks offered it to Johnny Carson, who not only turned it down but told Brooks he didn't think the script was at all funny. Then Mr. Young was cast by somebody and filmed for about an hour before being taken away to a hospital, which is when Mel called Gene.

A charity called Save a Panda, which I am all for, has set up a 24-hour live panda cam so you can watch pandas from the comfort of your computer chair. You're there and the pandas are in the Bifengxia Panda Center, which is near the city of Chengdu, China. I'll have to drop in and see them live the next time I'm in that neighborhood. I hear they have some great pizza places in Chengdu.

So far, I haven't seen much but pandas are always worth waiting for. Thanks to Mark Thorson for the tip and also for all the messages he sends me pointing out typos on this site. I thought it would be funny to make a deliberate one in that last sentence but I'd just be making more work four Mark.