Monthly Archives: October 2014

During the last election, Mitt Romney said Barack Obama "gets full credit or blame for what's happened in this economy, and what's happened to gasoline prices under his watch." That's not really true since there's not much the president can do about either of those things, especially when Congress blocks almost everything important he tries to do. So it would be interesting for someone to ask Mitt — who's sure making noises like he thinks he can be the nominee again — if Obama gets full credit now that gas prices are trending downward.

Isaac Asimov asks and answers the musical question, "How Do People Get New Ideas?" Actually, that probably should be in the past-tense — asked and answered — since Doc Asimov ain't around no more. He died 22 years ago. If he were still alive, he would have written 88 more books.

Here's a story I don't think I've told here before. It occurred around 1983 when I was writing a lot of pilots for cartoon shows. I'm going to change a few names but this actually happened…

There was a Korean animation studio that did a lot of sub-contracting work for American cartoon companies. Several Hanna-Barbera shows, as well as programs for other U.S. producers, were largely animated at this studio owned by a man we'll call Mr. Woo. (If there is a studio in Korea owned by anyone named Woo, this isn't that one.)

Mr. Woo decided to try to sell some shows into the American marketplace on his own. He hired some writers. He hired some artists. Most of all, he hired a Development Exec we'll call Hermione. She was an American who worked out of his Southern California office, trying to put together something that an American TV network would purchase directly from Mr. Woo's studio.

One of their artists came up with something they thought had real potential if (big IF) they could find the right writer to develop it and write some outlines and a pilot script. Someone suggested I might be that right writer. Hermione called and asked if I could come in so they could get a look at me and I could get a look at their idea. I said sure. What time and where?

This was back when I believed in going in to meet with anyone who wanted to meet with me. It didn't always result in a job but it usually resulted in me learning something, including what kind of people not to go meet with. That was not without its value. So I went in and met Hermione but not Mr. Woo. Mr. Woo, it was explained to me, was not in the country at the time.

I gave their idea the once-over, thought it was a pretty good one and told Hermione that, yes, I could do something to push it closer to a network sale. She said they wanted to hire me and she started to mention dollar amounts. I said, "Whoa, stop, halt. I don't talk money. That's why I have an agent." I gave her contact info for that person, who was then Stu the Agent. But the numbers I'd heard before I put an end to that part of the conversation struck me as pretty low. When I got home, I called Stu and warned him we were about to get a very low lowball.

When she called him, that's what she pitched. Stu told her my established price for such work. She said that was way too much. Stu said, "Hey, the last time a studio paid him that, the material he produced got CBS to buy the series. That's what you want, isn't it? You can find writers who'll work cheaper but see how many of them did work that got CBS to buy the series."

This is why writers have agents: So they can say things like that. And I should add that the dough we were asking for was not that high. Hanna-Barbera, Marvel, Ruby-Spears, Filmation…they all paid me that without complaint. Even, I think by then, Disney.  It was just high for Mr. Woo's operation.

There was some haggling, wholly from their side. Hermione came up in their offer. We did not come down. As Stu and other agents taught me, negotiation is not always a two-way street. Imagine you go in to price a new Infiniti and they tell you the model you want is $50,000. You offer a dollar. They laugh in your face. Then you say, "Okay, let's compromise. Meet me halfway!" See how far that gets you. Finally, Hermione said, "I'm not authorized to go any higher. If you want more money, you'll have to speak with Mr. Woo."

Stu said, "Okay. Let me speak to Mr. Woo."

She said, "I'll see if I can arrange it" and she hung up. A half-hour later, she called back and said, "How about two weeks from Thursday? At 4:00 PM? That will be 9:00 AM in Korea."

Things had started to be odd. She'd been saying how eager they were to get this thing going; how they'd need the bible and script done quickly. Suddenly, she wanted my agent to wait 16 days to speak to the one person with whom he might be able to make a deal. "I'll talk to him right now," Stu said. "Or tomorrow, or whenever you like." That was a great thing about Stu. He'd chase a potential deal like Javert pursuing Jean Valjean right into the sewers.

"Let's say two weeks from Thursday at 4:00 PM," Hermione confirmed. Stu wrote it on his calendar, but he didn't understand why he had to make an appointment two weeks in advance to talk money with Mr. Woo.

Then Hermione phoned me. "Mark," she said, for indeed that was my name, "I need your assurance on two points. One is that, if we're able to make a deal with your agent, you'll be able to jump on this right away. We're way behind our schedule."

"I'll start the minute we have a deal," I said. "Matter of fact, if it's that urgent, I could start writing right now. Can't you have Mr. Woo call my agent today?"

"No, they'll speak two weeks from Thursday…which brings me to my other concern. I'd like some reassurance from you that you think we'll be able to make a deal."

"Beg pardon?"

"Mr. Woo will get very mad at me if he has a conversation with your agent and we can't go forward with you. Tell me you think we'll be able to make a deal."

I didn't know what to say to that. When you're negotiating with someone, the last thing you want to do is to assure them that you'll settle. They have no incentive to meet your price if they know you'll lower your price.

Finally, I said, "You should know the answer to that better than I could. You know what my agent was asking for…and you have a clearer notion of how high Mr. Woo will go…"

"Yes, yes, I understand that," Hermione insisted. "But do you think we'll be able to make a deal?"

"I don't know."

"This is troubling," she said. "But I guess I have no choice. I have to let the call go ahead."

Later, I recounted all that to Stu who didn't get it, either. Why the fuss over one phone call with Mr. Woo?

Two weeks from Thursday at the precise moment, Stu's phone rang. "Please hold for Mr. Woo," a voice said. Mr. Woo came on the line and, with no formalities, made a terrible offer for my services. In fact, it was less than the last offer we'd turned down from Hermione.

Stu said no. Mr. Woo said, "Look…if Mark writes the script that sells this show, I will see to it that he benefits in many ways. I will reward him but I cannot go any higher with my offer."

Stu said, "Your offer is lower than any of your competitors have paid him for the same kind of work. It's even lower than your Development Person offered him. If anything, you should be paying him more. If he's successful, he's not only going to sell this show for you, he's going to establish you as a network supplier, capable of selling more shows in the future."

Mr. Woo was starting to get a bit peeved. "I understand all of that. I just cannot pay more than what I just offered. But if Mark succeeds, he will be rewarded further. You will just have to trust me."

That baffled Stu: A man he'd never met in person…a man he'd been speaking to for under a minute…saying, "You will just have to trust me." Stu told him, "It's very simple. I gave you Mark's price. If you're not prepared to pay him that, other studios are."

Mr. Woo was not happy. "This is very disturbing," he said. "If you were not going to make a deal with us, I wish you had told us before so I would not have wasted this call."

That was the end of the conversation. Without so much as a "bye-bye," Mr. Woo clicked off. Bewildered, Stu phoned me and recounted the odd exchange. "What I don't get," he said, "is why it was so horrible that Mr. Woo phoned me from Korea. I checked with the phone company and the call only cost a few dollars." I was also sans clue.

An hour later, Hermione phoned to moan how awful it was that we hadn't been able to make a deal. "Mr. Woo is very mad at me," she said.

"Listen," I said. "You have to explain to me what's going on here. I get the feeling there's some vital piece of information that I am lacking."

"Mr. Woo gets very upset when he wastes his daily phone call," she explained.

"Daily phone call?"

"Yes…didn't you know? Mr. Woo was convicted of tax evasion. He's running the company from prison and he only gets one phone call a day."

Hello. I have much to do today, a good portion of it relating to the big Stan Freberg Tribute on Sunday, November 2. If you're thinking of going, order your tickets now.

What's the hardest part of assembling something like this? Well, deciding what not to include is a biggie. Stan has done so much that my co-organizers (Howard Green and Arthur Greenwald) and I are debating what we don't have time to show. I just watched some Freberg clips I'd never seen before in a lifetime of following the man and his work and if we put in everything good we have, you'll be there 'til some time late Tuesday. Today, we're working on getting this thing down to time.

Anyway, please continue to spread the word and to link people to www.tinyurl/freberg where they can order tix. And thanks to all who've done this so far.

My normal pace of blogging will resume shortly…about the same time as my normal pace of sleeping.

Ian Crouch on the arguable decline of Saturday Night Live. My problem with the show, on those rare occasions when I watch it, is how much it looks like any random moment on Comedy Central or a half-dozen other venues on TV, plus the fact that the cast of players seems to be quantity over quality.

As a guy deeply interested in Watergate, I had to have John W. Dean's new book on this subject, The Nixon Defense. Dean listened to a lot of those White House tapes that no one else had listened to — or at least, no one who knew enough to know the significance of most of what was said about them. It's amazing that, this long after Nixon was almost impeached, we're still learning reasons why he should have been. This review by David Greenberg gives a good summary of what Dean found on those tapes.

Tickets are on sale for the Stan Freberg Tribute! Click here and buy several!

It's November 2nd at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood and it starts at 7 PM!

Guest stars! Funny commercials! Cartoons! Film clips of great satirical masterpieces by a master of satire! Plus Stan and his wife/partner Hunter, in person! And it's all hosted by Harry Shearer!

We're getting a late start selling these tickets so please…help us spread the word on social media! Here's a real easy URL to remember: http://tinyurl.com/freberg.

Last May, my friend Carolyn and I attended the annual meeting of the National Cartoonists Society, a hallowed organization of which I am now a member. I've been poaching at N.C.S. events for decades now and figured it was about time to pay dues and get a pin.

The meeting was held in San Diego at the Omni Hotel, right across from where Comic-Con is held every July. The high point was the formal dinner on Saturday evening and the presentation of the group's annual awards. For the first time ever (I believe) a video of the entire ceremony has been posted online. It runs two hours so you may not want to sit through all of it but you might want to move the slider bar ahead and catch a few highlights…

• At the beginning, current N.C.S. President Tom Richmond welcomes the members and extends a special welcome to Stan and Pauline Goldberg, who were not expected to be there. In fact, they were not expected to be anywhere. Not long before, the two of them were seriously injured in an auto accident and no one thought they'd ever be well enough again to travel…but there they were. You don't see them on camera in this video nor do you hear the full, loving applause for them, but it was there. Sadly, Stan passed away less than three months later but it was so good to see him again…and it made him so happy to be there.
• Around 12 minutes and 30 seconds in, Tom introduced the Master of Ceremonies for the night — TV writer and cartoonist Tom Gammill, who favors us with an opening musical number that would make Neil Patrick Harris give them up forever. Any name in the lyrics you don't recognize is probably a cartoonist who was in the room.
• At 42:45, Tom introduces Sergio Aragonés to present the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award to Russ Heath…whose pants were literally falling down.
• That's followed at 49:00 by the "In Memoriam" reel honoring members and prominent figures in the world of cartooning who left us in the preceding twelve months.
• And that's followed at 52:30 by a film Tom Gammill made to kick off the post-Intermission festivities. It starts as a visit to the home of Bunny Hoest, the widow of cartoonist Bill Hoest and still the writer/supervisor of his comic strips, including The Lockhorns. The film is full of cameos by famous folks in the world of comic strips.

Amidst those highlights, there are many presentations of awards including, at the end, Mell Lazarus bestowing the coveted Reuben Award on Wiley Miller, creator of the comic strip, Non Sequitur. Somewhere in there — I won't tell you where — you might find me in a tux presenting Sergio with his ten-thousandth award and some of us cavorting with a life-size cutout of Ernie Bushmiller, the gent who drew the Nancy strip for many decades. There were many other moments of note, as well. Enjoy…

Steve Iverson came up with a good explanation for that graphic on Saturday Night Live that wrongly claimed what you were about to see was Christopher Walken's first time hosting. The previous week, a graphic like that correctly identified that week's episode as Alec Baldwin's first time hosting. Apparently, when someone changed the name and date, they forgot to take out that line about first time hosting.

Several folks have written to me with tales of when some comic book creator was handed a comic to autograph and he or she had to tell the person, "I didn't work on this." To which the person then said, "I don't care…sign it, anyway." Since it's easier to sign than to argue or disappoint someone, the person signed. I think I've done this a few times.

Well, that would explain a kid having Stan Lee sign something he didn't work on at a convention…though given what Stan has been charging for his autograph for several years now, I'm not sure I believe that. If you were paying a guy that much for his autograph, I think you'd make sure it was on something he'd actually done.

This reminds me of an incident a few years ago at a Comic-Con. A person came up to me with a page of original art and asked me, "Was this done by Sam Pencilpusher?" (That's a name I just made up to disguise the true identity of a popular artist who was at that convention.)

I told the fellow no, the page he'd purchased — which its seller had represented as being by Sam Pencilpusher, was not drawn by Sam Pencilpusher. Dejected, the kid wandered off. An hour or so later, he came back to me with the page. "I took it up to Sam Pencilpusher and asked him if he'd drawn it. He said yes so I had him sign it!"

Whereupon I grabbed the page from the kid, marched over to where Sam Pencilpusher was signing things for people, waved the page in his face and told him, "You did not draw this!"

He looked at it more closely and said, "Hey, I think you're right…"

A firm called Geekroom is running an online auction now of a copy of Strange Suspense Stories #53 signed on the cover by Stan Lee. What's the part of this I don't get? Well, for starters, how come Stan Lee signed a comic book he had nothing to do with?

This was a comic book published by Charlton Publications. Stan Lee never worked for Charlton in his life. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd never read a Charlton comic book in his life.

So the first thing I don't get is why Stan signed the thing. I mean, I know they probably paid him a nice piece o' change for his autographing services that day and he probably signed many, many items. But did he say to the people paying him to sign this, "Hey, you know I didn't do this one"? Or did he just not notice? Then the other thing I don't get involves the description in the auction listing…

Strange Suspense Stories was a comic book published in two volumes by Fawcett Comics and Charlton Comics in the 1950s and 1960s. Starting out as a horror/suspense title, the first volume gradually moved toward eerie fantasy and weird science fiction, before ending as a vehicle for the superhero Captain Atom. The title's second volume was more in the horror/suspense vein. Altogether, 72 issues of Strange Suspense Stories were published.

It contained science-fiction mystery/suspense stories written primarily by editor-in-chief Stan Lee and his brother, Larry Lieber, with artists including Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Don Heck.

The first paragraph is correct. The second is a somewhat-accurate description of the monster comics like Strange Tales that Marvel was publishing at the same time. Obviously, someone found this info online and put them together. Did they not understand that Strange Tales from one publisher was not the same comic as Strange Suspense Stories from another? Steve Ditko had work in both but not those other guys. Maybe that confused someone.

Or maybe this is a joke that someone at Geekroom decided to try to see if anyone would spot it…but if so, why? Just another piece of stuff that I don't get.

Tony Mendez, the longtime cue card wrangler at Late Night with David Letterman, was fired after a physical altercation with Bill Scheft, one of the show's longtime writers. Very bizarre.

Each Saturday evening now, NBC is rerunning an old Saturday Night Live episode cut down to 60 minutes. Last night, they ran one hosted by Christopher Walken that first aired April 8, 2000. This was announced on a title card along with the statement that "It was his first time hosting."

It wasn't. As you can see here, it was his fourth time hosting. How does a mistake like this get made? I mean, if someone in Lorne Michaels' office didn't know it, couldn't they take the five seconds it took me to Google and verify they were wrong? The show had to be edited so someone had to watch it. Didn't someone notice that Walken's monologue began with him saying how happy he was to be back hosting Saturday Night Live again?

This has been another episode of Stuff I Don't Get. Why do I even bother doing this? Well, that's something else I don't understand…

As I mentioned here a week or two ago, I'm one of the organizers of a big, upcoming tribute — a salute to one of my heroes, Stan Freberg. This press release will tell you a little about the man and the event…

"THE GENIUS OF STAN FREBERG: 70 YEARS OF CREATIVE ENTERTAINMENT" SET FOR NOVEMBER 2 IN HOLLWOOD. HOSTED BY HARRY SHEARER WITH SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC, MICKY DOLENZ AND OTHERS

American Cinematheque at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater will showcase the astonishing versatility of beloved humorist Stan Freberg in "The Genius of Stan Freberg: 70 Years of Creative Entertainment" on Sunday, November 2 at 7 pm.

This special evening of tribute will be hosted by actor-satirist Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, Le Show, This is Spinal Tap) and will feature special appearances by "Weird Al" Yankovic, Micky Dolenz, award-winning filmmaker Bob Kurtz, animation experts Jerry Beck and Eric Goldberg, and many other Freberg colleagues and celebrity fans.

In addition to spontaneous humor and live musical performances, the program will present a dazzling array of favorite clips chosen by Freberg fans, as well as rarely-seen examples of Stan's ground-breaking writing and performances in radio and records, television series and specials, animated films and of course his hilarious TV ads. Stan will also explore his own career and legacy in a lively exchange with his wife and partner, Hunter Freberg.

Celebrated as much for inspiring others as for his own creativity, Freberg has been named as an important influence by a wide range of artists. In addition to Harry Shearer and Al Yankovic, Freberg is revered by director Steven Spielberg (who has referred to him as his boyhood muse), Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, and actor-comedian Billy Crystal. Perhaps the greatest tribute to Freberg's gifts came from another genius, Albert Einstein, who once famously apologized for leaving a Cal Tech meeting by explaining, "You'll have to excuse me gentlemen, but it's Time For Beany."

A clip from that classic kids show, Time for Beany, is just one of the timeless Freberg performances to be showcased on November 2. Others include excerpts from recorded comedy classics "John and Marsha," "Saint George and the Dragonet," "Banana Boat," and "Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America." Also featured are rare segments from Freberg's television specials, The Chung King Comedy Hour and The Federal Budget Revue, as well as Stan's hilarious Clio-winning TV ads for Sunsweet Prunes (featuring sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury), Jacobson Lawn Mowers, ("Faster Than Sheep!"), a dazzling production number for Great American Soup, and because his fans demand it, The Lone Ranger and Tonto promoting Jeno's Pizza Rolls.

Among his other notable achievements, Freberg is credited with creating the word "Grammy," and Ad Age has dubbed him "the Father of the funny commercial."

Information about the evening is available at the American Cinematheque website and advance tickets can be purchased at www.fandango.com. Ticket prices are $15 for general admission, $13 for students, and $11 for American Cinematheque members.

That last paragraph contains a lie: Tickets are not available right now online. They were supposed to be there last week but someone has erred or something. The event is two weeks from tomorrow and you can't yet order tix. I assume that will be fixed Monday morning and when it is, I'd like you to all do me a favor, especially if you know and love the work of Mr. Freberg. That favor is to spread the word on other websites and via all manner of social media. But don't do it yet. Wait until tickets can be ordered.

We have some wonderful film clips from Stan's career, both familiar and rare. And not only have you probably not seen a few of them but we have a couple that even Stan hasn't seen. We have guest speakers and we have surprises and now, if we only had tickets, the evening would be complete.

So if you live in or around Los Angeles, save the date (November 2) and check back here for a link to purchase tickets whenever that becomes possible.

In other Freberg News…

Tomorrow morning (Sunday, October 19) the Profiles in History auction house will accept bids on five items of Frebergian history: The typewriter and the piano on which Stan wrote the greatest comedy album ever done — Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America — as well as other compositions; the prop suitcase Stan carried on that record's iconic cover; a copy of Fahrenheit 451 signed to Stan by his friend, Ray Bradbury; and an original Charles Addams cartoon. Click here to see these items and to consider bidding thereupon. Great stuff.

Stay tuned to this website for more Freberg News. I'm hoping the next bulletin will have something to do with tickets being on sale.

37 minutes of Stephen Colbert going into great detail about how The Colbert Report is put together four days a week…

A writer I know suggested I relate the following true story. This is probably the first in a series of postings that will convey the following advice: "When something is late, don't always assume you know who is at fault." Here is but one example…

Some years ago, an artist friend of mine (a very talented, popular guy) was approached about drawing a mini-series for a major publisher. The artist had other commitments so he said to the editor who called him, "Look, I can fit it in between my other assignments for this other publisher. I can draw an issue for them, then an issue for you, then an issue for them and so on."

Everyone agreed on a timetable and work began on what we'll call The Deluxe Mini-Series. The plan was to have the first issue out in July, the second issue in August, the third in September and the fourth in October. Based on when the artist would be completing each issue, that left ample time to get each one to press on time.

The artist had just completed the first issue of The Deluxe Mini-Series when the company suddenly decided they needed the series to come out earlier. Some other big project had fallen through for May and they felt they needed to give their retailers a big event in May. So they solicited orders for #1 of The Deluxe Mini-Series to ship in May, meaning that if it kept to the expected monthly release schedule, #4 would be out in August.

On the old, agreed-upon timetable, the artist wouldn't even be drawing #4 until August. To get it out that month, he'd have to draw it by the end of June…which he couldn't do and still meet his obligations to the other publisher. When he pointed this out to his editor on The Deluxe Mini-Series, he was told, "Then you'll have to get out of what you're doing for them or postpone it." He said no, he wasn't going to leave them stranded like that.

Various pressures were applied. Various veiled threats were made. The artist refused: He would adhere to the timetable they'd agreed upon in the first place…and he did. As a result, the later issues of The Deluxe Mini-Series shipped late. When its publisher was asked why it was late, the answer that was given was: "We were waiting for the artist to deliver." That was technically true but everyone who heard that assumed that meant the artist had blown his deadline.

A year or so later, I was talking to another editor at the same company about a possible project. I mentioned this artist as someone who'd be great for it. The editor, who had been uninvolved in The Deluxe Mini-Series but around at the time, said, "Oh, no. Not him. He couldn't meet his deadline on something here last year."

I have more of these stories.