Monthly Archives: September 2014

eBay has long been a place where original comic art is sold, some of it even real. Yes, some of what's offered there is counterfeit and I'm often amazed at how bad some of the forgeries are. I haven't searched there today for "Charles Schulz drawing" but that usually yields a few that are almost certainly real plus a few that a blind aborigine could identify as forgeries. There was a forgery up there one time that was signed "Schultz"…and I believe that like many a fake drawing, its authenticity was confirmed by some agency that sounded like they knew what they were doing.

At present, sellers seem be offering an unusually high number of "Jack Kirby drawings" that Jack had nothing to do with. It's shocking to think that there might be someone who loves Jack's work enough to pay megabucks for a sketch…but can't tell that the sketch is not only a tracing but a really bad tracing.

I refuse to get involved in authenticating drawings, especially when requested to view a small scan instead of the original piece. There's no upside for me in doing that and too many people want to kill the messenger when told that the drawing they purchased — with money that might otherwise have put braces on their kids' teeth — is not what it was made out to be. But use some common sense, people. Go to eBay and if you can't spot some obvious fakes, maybe you're not qualified to be sure that the one you want to purchase is real.

I really like those guys in yesterday's video link singing a cappella tunes. Here's two of them undergoing musical mitosis to sing four-part harmony on the song that frog sings in the cartoon about the frog that sings. You may not know the whole tune but here it is…

It may not look it from the quantity of posting but I'm spending a lot of time on this blog this weekend. It's mostly of a "tech" nature, some of it maintenance and some of it relating to our recent change of hosting companies. Until I'm done, you may notice graphics missing here and there around the site and maybe a missing page or two. All will be well soon…I hope.

There are a lot of articles on the 'net at the moment suggesting that Mitt Romney might well be the Republican nominee in 2016. I don't believe any of the predictions about '16 have much validity at this moment but this one strikes me as especially wrong.

Here's why I don't think Mitt has a chance. He lost by a pretty wide margin last time. A lot of us think it isn't so much that he lost but that a majority of Americans rejected the Republican platform and the G.O.P. approach to government. Republicans, naturally, don't see it that way. They think the platform and approach were just fine…or at least, a lot better than what the Other Side was offering.

So how do they explain that big loss? Easy: Right message, wrong messenger. They believe Conservatism couldn't have failed, Mitt must have. And he's not going to change very much. I mean, if Mitt was a bad candidate in 2012, he's going to be just as bad a candidate in 2016. Romney can't get the nomination if a substantial part of the G.O.P. believes that he gave them four more years of Obama by being a crummy candidate who couldn't even beat someone as obviously flawed and failed as Barack Obama.

Somewhere on the 'net — I'd link to it if I could find it again — I once saw a chart that listed who the front-runners were for the two parties' presidential nominations were, two years before the conventions. If you left incumbents out of the mix, it turned out to be largely a list of people who at one point looked like they'd probably get the nomination…but didn't. (Remember when Newt anounced he had it sewed up? And that was months, not years before it was final.) So no matter who the polls suggest has the inside track — or even a lock on it — as of this week, I don't think you can say with any real confidence who'll be the nominee.

But you can sure name some people who won't be. I won't be on either ticket. You won't be on either ticket. Justin Bieber won't be on either ticket. Donald Sterling won't be. SpongeBob SquarePants won't be.

And Mitt won't be. All the chatter that he's a possibility is just people who have to write about something writing about something. As reporter Jack Germond once said and as I often quote, "The trouble with reporting is that we're not paid to say 'I don't know' even when we don't know." But I know that Mitt will not be the candidate. SpongeBob has a better chance.

I've had millions of (well, actually, no) requests to hear The Beatles' "When I'm 64" performed "barbershop" style. Okay, in answer to many (actually, no) requests, here it is…

Last night on HBO, Bill Maher did an interesting stunt. He did his usual Real Time show live…but from Washington, D.C. At its conclusion, cameras followed him as he ran offstage to his dressing room, closed the door and changed clothes and presumably hit the bathroom and maybe did a few other hits, as well. Then we saw him come out and followed him into a waiting limo outside. The limo — with a police escort or what looked like a police escort — drove him to another theater where another audience was waiting to see him run in and do an hour stand-up special.

(Well, actually, the limo didn't drive him all the way there. A little old lady was being helped across the street by a Boy Scout and this impeded the limo's progress. So Maher hopped out and ran the last three blocks. A very funny idea.)

The getting from one venue to another was covered, play-by-play style, by Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore. What they did was a little awkward because Mr. Moore didn't have any experience in doing that kind of thing. I thought Olbermann, who I bet would have handled it perfectly solo, looked a bit annoyed at Moore at times.

But I thought it was a great idea. The particular episode of Real Time wasn't one of their best. It looked like Maher brought on his last guest, Jerry Seinfeld, earlier than planned because the conversation with the panel wasn't going great. But the stand-up was pretty good and Maher did a good job dealing with audience members yelling out and interrupting his monologue. I wish TV did more things live like this.

I trust you're all checking in regularly at Jerry Beck's fine website on animation history, Cartoon Research. People think I know a lot about cartoons but every time I go to Jerry's site, I learn something I never knew.

Today, Mike Kazaleh tells us about a 1967 cartoon that I never knew existed. Morey Amsterdam, who had recently ended his run on The Dick Van Dyke Show and produced that cinema classic, Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, was involved in the start-up of a new cartoon studio that never started. It produced, to our knowledge, but one cartoon that was never sold and probably never seen by many people. But you can see it now and find out what Mike's uncovered about it. Just go here.

I must be the only author on the Internet who forgets to remind you when he has stuff out you can buy. Not long ago, I wrote a four-issue mini-series of Rocky & Bullwinkle for IDW. It was expertly drawn by Roger Langridge and the four issues have now been collected into a nifty paperback. If you're fond of the old Jay Ward cartoons and want to read a comic book adaptation by guys who are just as fond of those shows are you are, this is the book for you. It can be ordered from Amazon here.

Also on sale now is the second issue of the long-awaited (and I mean long) mini-series of Groo Vs. Conan. I'm not sure what I did in this series but I did something and I seem to be a character in it, along with my partner Sergio Aragonés, the world's greatest barbarian hero and the world's stupidest barbarian hero. Pick one up wherever you buy comic books…and if they don't carry it, insult the owner to his face, walk out of his shop and never go in there again.

I have more things coming out which I'll probably forget to plug here because I'm too busy getting you to go see Frank Ferrante.

Here's a clip of Fred "Mickey" Finn, who has had a remarkable career. I'll tell you just about everything I know about it and I may have some of this wrong…

Fred and his wife Mickie ran a very successful nightclub in San Diego in the sixties. He played piano and fronted a jazzy, energetic Dixieland band. She played the banjo. People packed Mickie Finn's, as the club was called, drinking beer and singing along with the very loud music. It was so popular that in 1966, NBC put on a series called Mickie Finn's, which was just them and their band playing jazzy tunes for a half-hour. I remember watching and thinking that it was just about impossible to feel depressed or listless listening to them play. I was disappointed when it was replaced by a sitcom that didn't do as well.

In the early seventies, the club in San Diego closed and around that time, Fred and Mickie got a divorce. I'm a little fuzzy on the timing but I think at that point, Fred began billing himself as Mickie Finn or sometimes Mickey Finn or Fred "Mickey" Finn. He married again — to another woman who looked somewhat like his first wife and could also play the banjo — and the act went on, headlining for years in Las Vegas and later touring.

I saw them in Laughlin, Nevada in the mid-eighties and if you'd been in Arizona at the time and opened a window, you probably heard them there. They were real good but real loud…and again, so lively and happy they could have put a smile on Buster Keaton, even in his present condition. After the show, I tried to go over and meet Fred (or Mickey or whatever his name was that week) but a neckless casino guard wouldn't let me anywhere near the performers.

I believe The Mickey Finn Show still tours now and then, probably in venues I will never visit. Aside from the decibel level and the part where Mr. Finn asks everyone in the audience to pinch, tickle or hug the person sitting next to them, I'd love to see him again. The guy was (and I presume still is) a really fine player of the piano and a showman extraordinaire. Here's a little of what he did or does…

As my weight has gone up and down over the years, I occasionally have to abandon an entire wardrobe as Too Small or Too Big. When it's Too Small, I don't usually give them all away. I go through and pick out the items I like least and then my former cleaning lady joyously ships them off to El Salvador, which is where she is from. At this moment, entire families are living in pants I wore before Gastric Bypass Surgery.

I put the items I like best into storage, optimistically believing I will one day be the right size for them again. Since the operation in 2006, I have again donned many of those items. I have even watched them go from being The Right Size to Too Big.

The other day, I once again decided it was time to stop wearing trousers that were a little too big on me and switch to trousers that will be for a time, a little too small on me. So El Salvador gets my old jeans and the former cleaning lady is very happy. I sometimes feel I'm losing the weight just for her.

When I was gaining and going from size to size, I sometimes didn't realize what was happening. This is because of something I call The Creeping Trouser Self-Deception. Here is how it works…

You go in to buy new pants and you tell the sales clerk, "I have a 36 waist." He fetches samples and you try 'em on. The Levis and Dockers fit fine but the Haggar slacks are a little snug.

"The Haggars run a little small," the clerk tells you as he hauls out a pair of them in 38. You try them on and they fit exactly like the size 36 Dockers you just selected. Okay, fine. You take them all home, not pausing to wonder if maybe you've put on a few pounds around the mid-section. After all, you're still wearing a 36.

But what you forget is that you're also wearing a 38. And next time you go in for jeans, you're buying Levis that size, and the time after, the Wrangler jeans seem tight in 36 so the clerk suggests a 38…

…and up and up you go.

Further complicating all this are pants with elastic waistbands which allow you to think you're wearing a 36 when it's really being stretched to a 40. I used to have a pair of jeans that had that plus they were made out of some sort of stretchy material…and no matter how large I got, they fit. It's hard to take your weight gain seriously when you're wearing the same pants you were wearing two years ago.

I don't know where those pants are now. It wouldn't surprise me if Cirque Du Soleil is staging a show inside them at this very moment. Next time I go to one of their tents, I'm going to see if we enter through a zipper in the front.

So here's what happened at the Comedy Store this evening. A lot of Larry Storch fans packed the place. The evening's producer Matt Beckoff and emcee Wally Wingert brought out a bunch of Larry's friends and admirers — comedienne Helen Hong, Hank Garrett (who appeared with Larry on Car 54, Where Are You?), Marion Ross (from Happy Days), Bob Burns (who co-starred with Larry on the live-action Saturday morn series, The Ghost Busters), Peter Marshall (from The Hollywood Squares), Ted Lange and Bernie Kopell (from Love Boat) and Ken Berry and Jackie Joseph (who appeared with Larry on F Troop).

Fine, good, fun. Some very funny stories were told.

Then came Larry, who at age 91 is still able to stand on a stage and make the audience laugh a lot. He didn't have to be that funny. The people in the house loved him and would have been happy just to see him walk erect. But as it turns out, he was very funny. He told a couple of jokes that I fully intend to steal and put to my own use…not that I'll be able to tell them as well as he did. He looked like he was having a very good time, too.

The audience arrived adoring Larry and left adoring him even more. There were some great anecdotes about his long, wonderful career. Here's something I didn't know: Ken Berry told how he was cast first in F Troop, then brought in to read in auditions of actors for the role of Sgt. O'Rourke. At this point, the role of Agarn did not exist in the script. Storch came in to read for O'Rourke and Berry was thrilled at the prospect of working with such a fine comic actor.

Then Forrest Tucker read for O'Rourke and it was obvious to all he was perfect in the part. Berry thought, "Well, there goes my chance to work with Larry Storch" but as it turns out, the producers were so impressed with Larry's audition for the wrong role, they decided to add the right role to the script. That was how Ken Berry got to work with Larry Storch. For our sake, I'm glad he did.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger is dealing with a computer crash and a telephone outage at the moment so Guess What. That's right: Not much blogging here today. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

One of the things I'll be telling you about then is what I'm doing tonight. Many years ago, in a Sunset Strip nightclub called Ciro's, a brilliant comedian named Larry Storch made his Los Angeles debut. Now, Ciro's is the big room at the Comedy Store and tonight, Larry Storch (age 91) is making his farewell (to L.A.) appearance in the same room. Gotta be there.

(And by the way: If you want to be there, I'm hearing there are still tickets left.)

Here's an article about Larry and his appearance tonight. You will also note that among those appearing with Larry this evening is his old co-star from Car 54, Where Are You?, Hank Garrett. Hank is an amazing actor — a former wrestler who could still probably get in the ring and pin anyone reading this. I've worked with Hank a number of times — he's done voices for Garfield and other cartoon shows among the many things he does — and he's a very funny, talented man who's been in dozens of movies. People seem to remember him for a showy dramatic role in Three Days of the Condor but I like to point out that he had one line in The Producers.

I mention Hank because it fascinates me that everyone in my life intersects with everyone else in my life. I meet someone from one walk of life and find they have a connection to someone from another walk of life. I've known Hank for years and he used to be a neighbor of mine. One day when he was here, he saw all the comic books around and said, "Hey, when I was in high school, my best friend was a guy who became a comic book artist. Maybe you've heard of him."

I had. It was our good friend Stan Goldberg.

I have to get back to data recovery and waiting for the phone guy. Back later…eventually…I hope…

Fred Kaplan on President Obama's plans to deal with ISIS. I find myself unable to get too interested in all this…not that it's not important but I keep thinking this: It's one of those problems we can't ignore but nothing we do is going to make much difference.

In the previous message, I said I wrote a pilot for Tom Dreesen in the "early eighties" that would have had Leonard Barr in it. Mark Thorson, one of the readers of this site who keeps me honest, points out to me that Mr. Barr died November 22, 1980. I went and looked up the pilot script in question and I see that it's dated July 12, 1979. That was an interesting experience and one of these days, I'll write a long post about what happened.

I always liked Leonard Barr, a veteran vaudeville comic who got a lot of attention because he was Dean Martin's uncle. I thought he deserved a lot of attention because he was funny. This clip shows you his deadpan delivery but does not, alas, close the way he closed most of his stand-up performances…with a funny, eccentric dance.

In the early eighties, I wrote a sitcom pilot for CBS that was to star comedian Tom Dreesen. The whole thing was a real roller coaster experience: One day they liked it, the next day they didn't and so on. They ultimately decided against taping it but through the process, the one element of it that everyone at the network loved was a casting idea of Tom's. One of the characters was a crotchety old man who is hated by everyone on the series and in the neighborhood where it took place. I had imagined Charles Lane in the role but Tom suggested Leonard Barr…and from that moment on, that's who it had to be.

I'm sorry the show never got made. It would have been fun watching Mr. Barr steal it. Here he is in a badly-edited clip…