Monthly Archives: May 2014

Penn Jillette tells you how to do the fire-eating trick and makes it sound like the stupidest damn thing you could ever do in your life.

Meanwhile, Teller tells you how most other magic tricks are done.

Longtime readers of this site — I think I have some — know that I am a huge fan of the musical, Li'l Abner. I was too young to see it the first and only time it was on Broadway but I loved the 1959 movie of it which everyone says was very close to what was done on stage. I wrote about the Broadway version here and about the movie here.

(Quick aside: The DVD of the movie is out of print. There's a rights dispute about the movie and it might be some time before it's straightened out and someone can put out a new DVD or reissue the old one. If you see a copy around at an affordable price, you might want to grab it but beware: There are a lot of cheap public domain versions around of the 1940 non-musical movie version and some of them are packaged to look like the '59 version, even using stills and cast lists from that one.)

I have seen seven or eight stagings of the musical. It has never been revived for Broadway because, among other reasons, it's not a cheap show to do. It takes a very large cast…which oddly enough makes it the ideal show for a college or community theater that doesn't pay its performers. In those venues, the more actors you get on stage, the more friends and relatives of the cast buy tickets. In fact, some productions have flooded the stage with people for that reason…and costuming can be done on the cheap since most performers are, after all, dressed as hillbillies.

Wednesday evening, I saw what was easily the best production I've ever seen of the show…with a pretty large cast in a pretty small theater on the campus of Los Angeles City College. There were 33 people — a mix of students and Equity performers. They also had a five-piece orchestra that more than did justice to the fine Johnny Mercer-Gene DePaul score.

I had reservations about seeing the show in such a small auditorium…and the fact that they were doing only seven performances did not bode well for great production values or polished performances. Then again, I was hopeful because the show was being staged by my pal Bruce Kimmel, who is very good at this kind of thing and who shares my fondness for the material. Bruce has always wanted to direct a production of Li'l Abner and he did a great job.

It started with terrific casting. The four lead roles — Evan Harris as Abner, Madison Claire Parks as Daisy Mae, John Massey as Marryin' Sam and Barry Pearl as General Bullmoose — set the high bar for the evening…strong presences and the ability to deliver the over-the-top dialogue with utter sincerity.

Abner is a tricky role to cast. It demands a certain type — tall, muscular, handsome — that lets out about 95% of all actors. The producers of the original show had a devil of a time finding the right Abner and once they found Peter Palmer, they never did the show without him. Evan Harris fits the physical requirements, sings well and manages that "twinkle" the character needs to say outrageously egotistical things and still make you root for him to succeed and get the girl.

That girl can be a thankless role if not approached properly. Oddly enough, though Edie Adams campaigned to land it (before she saw the script) and won a Tony for her performance as Daisy Mae, she didn't like the show or what she had to do in it. Madison Claire Parks really made the part into something by nailing its inherent sweetness…and I suppose it didn't hurt that she's beautiful and has an astounding singing voice.

I was really impressed by John Massey who got every single laugh there is in the Marryin' Sam role plus a number that weren't in the script. We were sitting second-row center and it was a joy to watch all the subtle reactions and expressions on his face. (Actually, it's such a small theater than I'm sure everyone saw them.) Mr. Massey also sings quite well and did full justice to the best song in the show, "Jubilation T. Cornpone." The audience would not have minded a dozen encores.

And then you have Barry Pearl as the bad guy, General Bullmoose, delightfully chewing up and spitting out the simple, handpainted scenery…again getting every laugh in the script plus more. Some of the character's blustery, avaricious rantings sounded especially funny and pointed as delivered by Mr. Pearl in the era of Wall Street excess. People sometimes talk about updating the book of this show to make it more modern…but it seemed pretty timely Wednesday night, especially when General Bullmoose was talking.

I single out those four actors but really, everyone was good. Everyone. The show calls for a lot of speaking parts — too many to itemize here — and I don't know how Kimmel did it but every one was filled by someone who pulled theirs off. Most of those on the stage were drama students at the school and you could feel the talent and potential. You could also see that sparkle and happiness that occurs when young folks are doing something they love. Richard Sherman, who was sitting with us, remarked on that. It was one of the things we in the audience most enjoyed about the show: How much the folks on stage were enjoying the show.

Sets were simple but effective in two-dimensional comic strip style. The arrangements by David Siegel served Gene DePaul's score well, dialing it down for the five-piece band so effectively that no more instruments were needed. And I don't know what they spent on costuming — for these few performances, it couldn't have been much — but designers Roxanne De Ment and Natalya Shahinyan saw to it that each actor went out there perfectly dressed to be whoever they were supposed to be.

Which leads us to the one bad thing about this show, which is that it opened on Wednesday and plays its last performances tomorrow. I suppose it's tough getting people to traipse to this little theater on the campus of L.A. City College, even to see a show as good as this one. My town sadly doesn't have a lot of great performance venues into which one might move a show of this size but I sure hope they find one.

As I said, I really know and love this musical and have sat through a lot of productions that tried hard and couldn't quite manage to be what they should have been. You need a really large, talented cast and operation. It was amazing that Bruce Kimmel could do it at all, let alone in a small theater with what I'm sure were limited resources.

There may still be seats for the one show this evening and the matinee tomorrow. (The last performance, which is tomorrow night, is sold out.) Here's a link in case you're local and want to have a real good time on the cheapest theater ticket you'll ever purchase. I hope the last performance isn't the last performance because I'd like to visit Dogpatch again.

More on that That's Singing special. My pal Geoffrey Mark writes that it had a strange history…

Ethel Merman's and Mary Martin's parts, along with about two-thirds of the show, were taped in 1980. Some of the other numbers were taped separately a couple of years later for a PBS thing that never aired. They were cobbled together and shown in 1983, after Merman had her stroke but before she died in 1984. It was then repeated on PBS a couple of times after she died.

And then Michael Frank writes to say that IMDB says it aired on PBS on May 24, 1985. Thanks to both of you.

Since we're talking about Merman on that special, here she is, boys…

If you're interested in the family tree of Walt Disney — and I'm not sure I am — some of them are fighting over money. If nothing else, you may enjoy the photo of Michael Eisner wearing mouse ears.

Paul Whitefield writes about rising admission prices at Disneyland and says they won't stop folks from flocking there. I agree. The sheer act of deciding to go to a place like that is to decide to spend a large chunk of cash for the experience…and the price to get in is only a part of that. Most people, if they even paused to think it through, would decide, "Okay, so it's two bucks more to get in. I'll just spend two bucks less on souvenirs." Or something. I suspect for most folks, the financial obstacle to going to the Magic Kingdom or some place like that is not the ticket prices. Those are at least predictable. It's all the difficult-to-estimate costs of transportation, lodging, food, etc.

Last evening was one of the best nights of live theater I've had in I-don't-know-how-long. I had not expected to see a fabulous production of Li'l Abner in a tiny auditorium on the campus of a city college here in Los Angeles. The tickets were $15 each so that further drove down my expectations. I mean, what do you expect for that money?

As it turned out, I would not have felt cheated to pay ten times that. In a room where the audience barely outnumbered the size of the cast (33 people plus a five-piece band), I saw a great production with an awful lot of care and cleverness in the design and costuming, especially when you consider they're only doing a half-dozen performances.

Opening night was last night. There's a matinee today at 3 PM and an evening performance at 7:15. On Friday, it's up at 8 PM and then on Saturday at 2 PM and 8 PM and that is it…for now, anyway. I think they're hoping to move it somewhere else at some point but that's not easy to do in Los Angeles, even with a show as good as this one.

I intend to write a big, enthusiastic review praising the excellence of the cast members and the staging. The direction, by the way, is by my pal, Bruce Kimmel who has always wanted to stage this show. He did an amazing job. Anyway, I have a deadline tonight and I'm waiting for some photos Bruce said he'd send me to post here…but I wanted to get this much up a.s.a.p. because you can't afford to waste a second if you want to see this.

I understand there are many seats available for both shows today and a few for Friday and Saturday. Here's the link to order. Trust me on this one, folks…and besides, it's $15 a seat. How can you go wrong? (And if you don't want to believe me, the group I was with included the great composer Richard Sherman and he had nothing but raves about it.)

I will write more about this show very soon because the folks responsible deserve to read some high praise. Just know that I had a great time and I really hope this thing has an afterlife. Just in case it doesn't, if you're in the L.A. area — it's at Los Angeles City College on Vermont near Melrose — hurry to see it while you can.

In the previous item, I said the That's Singing special was either done in 1982 or 1985. A perceptive reader of this site named Andrew Smith writes to note that Ethel Merman was in that show. She died in February of 1984 so that kinda lets out 1985. Merman was the kind of trouper who never missed a performance but even she had her limitations.

A blast from Broadway past. Ray Walston originated the role of Applegate (aka Satan) in the show Damn Yankees in 1955. Mr. Walston was a fine actor and he had appeared in musicals before, most notably as Luther in the touring company and London production of South Pacific. People think he originated the role on Broadway but he didn't. He did however play it in the movie.

Still, the folks behind Damn Yankees felt he had a limited capacity as a vocalist so Applegate only got one song in the show, and it was written for a performer of limited singing capacity. Nevertheless, he turned it into quite a star turn. In either 1982 or 1985 — reports differ — he re-created the number on stage for a TV special called That's Singing: Best of Broadway, which does not seem to have made it yet to DVD…

Our pal James H. Burns informs me that film historian John Cocchi is missing. He wandered off on April 16 and his family members have not heard a word from him since then. If you have any information on his whereabouts, there's a link on this page to let someone know.

Randy West is a great announcer of game shows…or just about anything. He sent me the following…

Enjoyed the kudos for Dave Barry. When I worked for Wayne Newton, 1978-1981, I often saw Wayne's show in Vegas. Something like 50 times total. That means I also saw Dave Barry about 30 times. The other 20 I only heard Dave because I was backstage with Wayne.

"I almost didn't make it out to the stage tonight. I was putting on toilet water, and the seat fell on my head." I loved his stuff, but I didn't fully understand why Wayne had Dave as his opening act for so many years.

I came to believe it was, in part, because Dave was a solid performer. Good, but never "too good" to steal any starshine from Wayne. When I asked Wayne's bodyguard/assistant why Wayne liked Dave, the answer was something like, "Because when Wayne cues the booth to turn on the red light, Dave is off the stage in less than 5 seconds."

It was probably that plus a few other things. Dave had the rep of being 100% dependable and cooperative — always there on time, always able to stretch if he had to or get off the stage early with no issues of ego. He had genuine TV credits so he was a minor celebrity but he probably wasn't beastly expensive.

Someone once said of another comedian who opened for headliners in Vegas, "He's good enough to keep the audience in a good mood but not very famous. So if the show sells out, the star would get 100% of the credit for that and if the show didn't sell out, the star and his people can blame the opening act."

I only spoke to Mr. Barry two times but I got a pretty solid feel that he was the kind of performer whose main goal was to keep working and make a steady living. I'm sure he would have liked his own series, his own talk show, to star in movies, etc., but the primary goal was to avoid unemployment. He seems to have done that pretty well for something like forty years without ever becoming that well known or having a role on a sitcom or anything. He had a few acting roles but what kept him going really was stand-up and occasional voiceover gigs, mostly the former.

Years ago, a wizened acting coach (someone way older than me) told me that she had two kinds of wanna-bes in her classes. One was the kind that really, really wanted to be Very Famous and make millions per movie even if that meant they'd burn out in 5-10 years. The other kind was the one who would be very content to just make a decent living until they were ready to retire. She said that with each passing year, a higher percentage of her new students were in the first group.

Some of that, I'm sure, is because a top star today does make a lot more moola than they used to, even when you adjust the amounts for inflation. Jerry Lewis got rich but not Adam Sandler rich. Some of that is because we're far, far from The Great Depression when guys like Dave Barry grew up. The same divide can be seen in the comic book business. The guys who got into it in the forties and fifties didn't care about being famous — most didn't even sign their work — and there was really no way to get rich in the business then. All you could hope for was to always have steady work on something…anything. Not a lot of guys who get into comics these days would be happy, like the first generation was, to stay in one place for the rest of their careers.

Barry probably opened for Wayne Newton for ten years…and since Wayne always worked, Dave also worked. Today, there are comedians who if you offered them a steady ten-year gig like that would run from it in horror. Opening for a Wayne Newton like that would be a great way to freeze your career. No one ever gets "discovered" for a TV series that way. No one ever parlays it into their own stardom. Gary Mule Deer, who's pretty darn funny, has spent most of the last twenty years opening for Johnny Mathis. It takes him almost completely off the radar for most TV networks and keeps him on the road a lot…but I'll bet he's got a nice home and bank account. There's something to be said for that.

Today, your enthusiastic host Stu Shostak welcomes Warner Brothers studio publicist Gary Miereanu to his show. What does a studio publicist do? Well, the first rule is not to publicize yourself, the second is to publicize whatever your studio is selling and the third rule is that there is no third rule. So you may not have heard of Gary but you've heard of many of the projects he's promoted which means he's good at his job. He'll be telling you more about that job when Stu interrogates him. And as an added bonus, comedian-actor Ronnie Sperling will be co-hosting and joining in.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. 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 ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.  The ones where I guest should be cheaper but they aren't.

Hey, you all remember the great number in the movie Royal Wedding where Fred Astaire literally danced on the ceiling. Let's refresh our memories and watch it again, shall we?

Now then. A fellow named Galen Fott, who I believe I first met when he was working as a puppeteer for Jim Henson, took it upon himself to "unskew" this number. Obviously, what Mr. Astaire was doing when they filmed it was dancing in a room that rotated on some sort of axle. The camera was locked-down to the room so it rotated in sync with it, making the room seem stationary. Well, Galen decided to create a video of…well, you'll understand what he did when you watch it. Here's a page on how he did it and some observations he had…

One thing that briefly confused me: On the unskewed video, you'll see a lot of traveling matte dissolves and wipes. Those were not there in the original. They're things that Galen had to do to re-create the entire room for each shot since the camera shooting Astaire was not showing the entire room. Ignore them and just focus on the skillful dancing by Fred and the technical wizardry of the folks at M.G.M. who made this all work in a day before C.G.I.

Also, credit should go to Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the movie and who claimed the idea for the dance came to him in an actual dream. He said he saw Fred dancing on the walls and ceiling while asleep, woke up remembering it and went to the producers and said, "Can you do that?" They could and did — and here's how they did it. Take this full screen on your monitor…

Frank Rich asks the question, "Can Conservatives be funny?" I'm not sure he answers it.

I suspect the reason there aren't any great right-wing comedians does have to do with the comedy-killing premise of siding with the wealthy against the poor. I think it also has to do with the talent pool just not breeding that kind of person just as it doesn't seem to breed successful left-wing talk radio hosts. What I don't think is the reason is that Conservative comedians don't have the same opportunities. If anything, the marketplace would love a right-wing Jon Stewart but that person just plain hasn't come along. Yet.

Kevin Drum notes that wildfires are becoming larger and more frequent in this country but that Congress is not allocating sufficient funds to deal with the increase. Why? Because Republicans do not want to acknowledge that Global Warming is having this effect on our country. They'd rather underfund the fire-fighting and pretend that the increase is not happening.

Y'know, up until a few years ago, I kinda fought the idea that Climate Change was happening. I wanted to believe that the naysayers were saying nay correctly because…well, wouldn't life be better on this planet if they were? But I've given up that childish hope and one reason is that the arguments against Global Warming are just so lame and they seem to come from folks who make their living telling Conservatives what they want to hear.

Moreover, they are almost all political arguments, not scientific ones. A few years ago, a right-wing friend of mine — I'm using a loose definition of the word "friend" here — told me what to him was the convincing argument that the world was not getting hotter. It pretty much came down to: "Al Gore says it is and Al Gore is an asshole."

Well, that is a whole lot easier than studying and understanding the science.

I have decided to declare a Mushroom Soup Monday here at newsfromme. I've been working way too hard and have too much to do so blogging today will be confined to matters that just won't keep 'til tomorrow. Until I return, I leave you with the immortal words of the great comedian Jackie Vernon who once said, "Never spit in a man's face unless his mustache is on fire." Words to live by.