Monthly Archives: March 2015

Over on Facebook a few weeks ago, Dale Herbest put this question to me and I thought I'd answer it here…

I agree with you that the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" has an ultimately misguided message but how do you feel about the song "Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie? While it has a similar message to WYWUAS, it doesn't seem (to me at least) to be as naïve or as overly idealistic. RC seems to have a more practical moral that has equal appeal to both the realists and idealists of the world. Any thoughts?

I like "The Rainbow Connection" but I'm not entirely certain what its moral is. In fact, back when that movie first came out, I asked a few different friends about it and got varying answers, one of which was "Who cares? It's Kermit singing so I love it."

The others ranged from "Anything can happen if you wish for it" to "Wishing is a waste of time." After discussing it with friends and thinking about it a bit, I decided the correct answer was "Who cares? It's Kermit singing so I love it."

Generally speaking, I am against telling people — especially people who will believe it and carry it to ridiculous extremes — that anything is possible in life if you want it badly enough or try hard enough. The career I have now was possible and attainable. Becoming a professional jockey — not that I ever so fantasized — was not, especially after my height topped six feet. We all have limitations of physicality, talent and opportunity. There are also numerical limitations. A microscopic percentage of those who dream and strive and Wish Upon A Star to become President of the United States will ever get anywhere near that achievement. There simply are not enough openings.

Great things are possible…and the key word in that statement is "possible." It's fine to have a fantasy but, you know, if a guy decides he's never going to settle for any woman in his life who isn't Kate Upton, he's going to get awfully lonely.

"The Rainbow Connection" asks, "Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star?" Well, a lot of people say that as they prey on people with dreams, offering to help them make those dreams come true…for a price. I've heard way too many stories of wannabes handing money they can ill afford over to teachers and coaches and agents and managers and spiritual leaders and others who profit by promising that which they cannot deliver. And the money sometimes isn't the worst part. It's raising false hopes and leading aspiring writers or actors or whatevers down false paths.

If the point of that song was that wishes do not all become reality, then I think it's a much better song (moral-wise) than "When You Wish Upon a Star." The latter is a lovely tune but back when Jiminy Cricket sang it, it did make a difference who you were. Your chances of attaining your dream were pretty low if you were black, even if your dream was just to use the same water fountain as white people in some states. There was also a cap on your dreams if you were a woman and, truth be told, a lot of white males weren't about to get their dreams, either.

I don't think most people who heard "The Rainbow Connection" paid a whole lot of attention to its lyrics which, like I said, I'm not sure I understand because the last part seems to say you'll find your rainbow connection (i.e., the path to your dream) if you hang out with the lovers and dreamers. There's certainly nothing wrong with loving. Loving is a very good thing and I don't know how anyone can survive without it.

And there's nothing wrong with dreaming as long as you don't go through life half-asleep. I just see way too many people around me who confuse wishing and dreaming with actually doing something…including facing reality.

I am once again recommending this show to those of you who live anywhere near Southern California. I have been around improv comedy and its practitioners for many years. I have never seen better than what is concocted by the players of Instaplay.

The director of this troupe, Bill Steinkellner, is one of the best teachers of this art form. Accomplished, experienced improv comedians like to "work out" with Bill because he coaches them into being even better than they already are. Every so often, he and a bunch of them do an Instaplay, which means that the live audience — and that includes you if you're there — suggests titles for a play they'd like to see. A dozen or so titles are suggested. Everyone in the hall gets to vote…

…and then the one that gets the most votes magically appears on stage.

Bill and his cast — the next one will feature George McGrath, Jonathan Stark, Deanna Oliver, Cheri Steinkellner and Navaris Darson — make up the entire play right then and there, including songs. (John Boswell will be at the piano for the April show.)

They do not do this very often. In fact, whenever they do this, we all kinda wonder if they'll ever do it again. But I will be there for the show on Saturday, April 11 at 8 PM and I suggest you join me. It's at the Fanatic Salon Theater, which is located at 3815 Sawtelle Blvd. in Culver City, and I'll warn you the place is lacking in opulence. It's a pretty shabby theater actually but with such a fine show, who cares? Tickets are only thirteen bucks each including the service fee and you can order yours right now at this website.

So what play will you see if you're there that evening? I don't know. They don't know. You'll have to show up and find out right along with the actors performing it.

Let's roll this blog back to 6/15/06 and a remembrance of what lunch was like on the schoolyard when I was but a lad…

Lunch in elementary school could be traumatic. In junior high and high school, it was no problem: I brown-bagged it, bringing in a paper sack into which my mother had inserted either a meat loaf sandwich or a tuna sandwich or a peanut-butter-and-strawberry-jelly sandwich (something of the sort) and a little baggie containing three Nabisco Chocolate Chip Cookies. Today, they call them Chips Ahoy but back then, they were just Nabisco Chocolate Chip Cookies. I'd eat, toss the bag and that would be it.

Not so easy back at Westwood Elementary. Back there, if you didn't have a cool lunch box…well, forget it. You might as well paint a big sign on your butt that read "Mock me unmercifully." I don't recall if a bagged lunch suggested you were poor or low-class or boring or just why it was such a social faux pas. All I remember is that whenever my old lunch box had to be retired, I had to get the new one before the next school day. I didn't dare go to class with my eats in a sack.

Lunch boxes had to be replaced with alarming frequency. (So did our Student Teachers.) On our schoolgrounds, both got battered about a lot — enough that I'm amazed any lunch pails from that period still exist, let alone in "collectible" condition. But what was really vulnerable about them was the thermos bottles. Today, I'm told, they're like the black box on an airplane. Back then…drop one and it was history. Heck, just nudge one and it was goner. You'd shake it, hear the inner lining rattle about like broken glass and then pitch it into a trash can. So what did you do if the thermos in your Porky's Lunch Wagon lunch box (I had one) busted? Well, you didn't replace it with a generic thermos; not unless you wanted snide remarks from your fellow pupils. Instead, you had to get your parents to buy you a new lunch box with matching milk container.

This was how it was in first through third grades while I was at Westwood. In fourth grade, they began having someone sell milk at lunchtime — a little carton for a nickel, sold from a cart behind the cafeteria building that they'd been building since I was in Kindergarten. This simplified the process since you no longer needed a thermos at all. This not only spared you replacing the whole lunch box every few weeks, it enabled all our mothers to pack more into our lunch kits. Mine took to adding in fruit and small packets of Laura Scudder's Potato Chips. I think each packet held about four chips.

Then in fifth grade, they finally got the cafeteria building up and running. I'll write about that wrenching experience in the second part of this post, maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.

Tuesday morn at 9 AM on the West Coast, hotel reservations will go on sale for this year's Comic-Con International. This page will tell you all sorts of things you'll need to know if you seek to reserve a room through this system. Good luck…and don't despair if you don't secure one right away. More may become available later via this system and there are ways of getting a room outside this system through unaffiliated booking sites.

I have a feeling most of you saw this but just in case…

I am following with some fascination two related stories. In each case, a man was convicted for murder and later shown to be innocent. In one case, the wrongly-convicted man was finally freed after 30 years in a cell that from its description sounds like the place you'd place a prisoner of war if there was a drought that prevented you from waterboarding him and you had to make him crack without it. He was the more fortunate of the two men. The other one was executed.

It used to be that people in favor of the Death Penalty got hysterical calling you a liar if you suggested that the U.S. Justice System had ever executed an innocent person. These days, after so many exonerations due to DNA testing, I don't hear that asserted much. Instead, the argument has devolved to something like, "The occasional wrongful execution is just a price we pay for the system that serves us so well."

I think it's arguable that a system that kills the wrong person is serving us well. For one thing, it means the guilty go free. You know what the Perfect Crime is? Moe kills Larry and then Curly is convicted and executed for the crime. Not only does Moe get away with it but the authorities will deny, deny, deny that they killed the wrong guy and will do everything they can to prevent Moe from being investigated or prosecuted.

And of course, killing an innocent person is wrong for other, rather obvious reasons.

Here are the two stories. In 1984, a man named Glenn Ford (no, not that Glenn Ford) was convicted of killing a jeweler. Ford was the lucky one of the innocent men in these two stories who were found guilty. He was released after 30 years.

This happened in Louisiana and there are laws in that state to compensate the victims of wrongful conviction. The state is fighting his payoff and recently, the lead prosecutor in Ford's case — the guy who sent him to Death Row — wrote a powerful apology in support of Ford being compensated. Read the above linked article if you can but be sure to read the prosecutor's apology.

It's a remarkable letter. This world would be a far, far better place if everyone who does something wrong was capable of writing a letter like that.

Here's the other story. It took place in Texas and it's about Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004. He'd been convicted of setting fire to his house to kill his three young daughters who were trapped inside. The "science" that proved at the time he did that has been pretty thoroughly debunked and other exculpatory evidence — hidden back then by prosecutors — has emerged. Which of course doesn't do Mr. Willingham a lot of good now.

You may be hearing a lot about this case in the unlikely event that Texas governor Rick Perry becomes a possible candidate for the Republican presidential ticket. Just before that execution, Perry was presented with evidence that, depending on whom you believe, either proved Willingham's innocence or raised substantial doubts. Either way, Perry declined to halt the execution and while that might never cost him an election in Texas, it might matter elsewhere.

The prosecutor in that case is currently under investigation. It is charged that he won the case by coercing witnesses to lie and by hiding that exculpatory evidence. He may well be found guilty but the punishment is not likely to fit the crime.

There have been other stories like these two lately…too many of them. It makes you wonder how many innocent people are in our prisons…and remain there because they cannot get their cases reopened.

On next week's Real Time which airs a week from tonight, Bill Maher's guests are supposed to include Mike Huckabee and Barney Frank. Now, I'm going to guess that Huckabee will not be on the panel; that he'll be the lead guest interviewed solo by Maher, and then Frank will be on the panel. But after the regular show is over, they do another 5-10 minutes just for the Internet called Overtime and for that, they usually bring every guest together at the table. Will Huckabee, the noted opponent of Gay Rights with plenty of indefensible quotes to his name, duck out on sitting across from Frank? Because Frank ain't running for anything these days and has stopped being Congressionally Polite to his opponents. Maher will be rough on Huckabee but Frank would be brutal.

Here is a story I posted here on March 5, 2006. Read it and then I have an update at the end…

One of the possible disasters at the Oscars which has often been joked about but has never (they say) occurred is this: A presenter gets out there, opens the envelope and reads or announces the wrong name. There are rumors that a couple of the more unexpected winners have been crowned that way but it has never apparently happened.

There's a safety net set up to prevent this. The ballots are tallied by an accounting firm that is now called Price-Waterhouse-Cooper and there are two men on the premises from that firm. They travel to the Academy Awards via separate routes, each with a briefcase that contains a full set of the envelopes containing the winners' names. During the ceremony, one man is at stage left at the theater. One is at stage right. Presenters enter from both sides and when they do, they receive the envelope they'll be opening from the Price-Waterhouse-Cooper person on that side of the stage.

But the two accountants have another function. They've both memorized the full list of recipients and if a wrong name is read aloud, they're supposed to sound the alarm. There's some sort of code word for this. Near them always is a stage manager and if Jack Nicholson goes out there tonight and announces the wrong winner, the accountant will turn to the stage manager and give the code word. The stage manager will then relay this to the control room and then…

Well, no one outside the Oscarcast knows exactly what would happen but it's been planned and it's been rehearsed, just in case. My guess is that the orchestra leader would be told to stop the music and the host would be hurried out onto the stage to announce that a mistake had been made. The other Price-Waterhouse-Cooper man — the one who hadn't handed the envelope to the presenter — would open the one in his custody, make sure it had the correct name and then it would be hustled out to the host. But that's just my guess since it's never happened.

But it almost did one year…or so I was told by someone who worked on the broadcast. According to this person, a Very Famous Actor was presenting one of the most important Oscars. He was an older man and he got very confused and as a result, managed to announce the winner without opening the envelope.

His speech and the names of the nominees were on a TelePrompter but in rehearsals, he had trouble reading it. Just in case he needed it, he was provided with a card that had the five names. He had the card and the envelope in his hand as he entered.

When he got out to the podium, he found he couldn't read the prompter. Flustered and confused, he stumbled through his opening remarks from memory and then reached for the card with the nominees' names. As he did, he erred and instead of saying, "The nominees are…" he said, "The winner is…" Everyone assumed that he was forgetting to read the names of the nominees and had opened the envelope prematurely.

The nominees were listed on the card in alphabetical order and he read the first name there. The orchestra began playing the appropriate music. The winner jumped up and ran to the stage to accept. The Very Famous Actor, still a bit disoriented, assumed he'd done what he was supposed to do and stepped back.

The announced winner got to the stage and launched into his speech. He was a bit puzzled when he looked down and noticed that the envelope in his category was lying there on the podium, unopened. But he figured that since no one was stopping him, he must have won.

In the wings, a stage manager realized what had happened. Frantic, he turned to the accountant and asked who had won in that category. The accountant didn't see what his panic was all about. The winner was out there making his acceptance speech. By dumb luck, the victor in that category was the first name in alphabetical order.

Nothing was ever said, so as to not embarrass the Very Famous Actor. The Academy may even have been worried that some people would think the Oscar hadn't gone to the proper nominee and that they'd just gone along with it to avoid a nasty scene. But that's the only time I've ever heard of a glitch in the system and even that one turned out all right. I kinda hope that one of these days, some presenter actually does read the wrong name. I want to see what happens.

---

Okay, I'm back. I've decided it's okay to tell you who the Very Famous Actor was and what the movie was that won the Academy Award that year without the envelope being opened. The man who told me this story has passed on. It was Larry Gelbart, who was one of the producers of the ceremony that year. The rest of it will become obvious when you watch this clip. Watch the eyes of the gent accepting the Oscar and see if you can tell the moment when he noticed that the envelope was lying before him on the podium, unopened…

I thought of this the other day. Recently when Leonard Nimoy passed, there were these silly (and sometimes, hysterical) insults of William Shatner because he announced he could not attend the funeral. He was in Florida for a charity event and felt obligated to not run out on it, especially since he believed — and no one seemed to doubt this — that Nimoy would have understood and endorsed that decision.

Still, Shatner was pilloried across the 'net by folks who insisted that he could do the charity event and then hop on a plane and be back in L.A. in time to pay his respects to his Trek co-star. Some seemed to not bother checking the schedule of flights from Palm Beach to LAX, which is not a hard thing to do online. Others insisted Shatner should have just sprung for a private jet or perhaps gotten Donald Trump, who was involved in the charity dinner, to arrange it.

These people were all wrong. Why? Because none of them knew when the Nimoy funeral was. They all assumed sometime between Noon and 2 PM. Ah, but the Nimoy family wanted to thwart the Westboro Baptist Assholes who had announced their intention of picketing the ceremony. To accomplish this, the time and place of the funeral were kept secret from the press.

The where was easy to figure out. Even I guessed it: Hillside Memorial. Nimoy was Jewish and that's where most Jewish folks in L.A. are buried. (Jack Benny was buried there. Al Jolson was buried there. Even a few Evaniers are buried there.) The Westboro Baptists were ready to gather with their stupid signs just before Noon so they'd be poised and ready to offend at a 12 PM or 2 PM memorial.

But it didn't do them any good. Only invitees knew the funeral was at 9 AM that morning.

Shatner obviously knew it. Even a private jet would not have gotten him there in time but in order to protect the secret, he didn't explain why he couldn't fly back in time. He didn't even point it out after the event. He just swallowed the attacks and whatever damage the whole thing may have done to his reputation.

We hear all these tales of arrogance and ego about William Shatner and I have no idea how much truth there is in them. Some, I assume. But this time, it seems to me the guy was a mensch. Even if he'd even Tweeted, "Those of you criticizing me have no idea when the funeral is," he'd have given it away.

Merrill Markoe writes of some of the last days of Sam Simon.

David Steinberg recalls meeting the one, the only…Groucho.

I hope nobody saw the photo and thought, "Oh no! An obit for Carl Reiner!" Because the great Carl Reiner is not the least bit dead. He's 93 today and I'd like to think that's middle-aged and that he has at least as many years left. I'm not looking forward to living in a world without Carl Reiner. He's one of my heroes…and how could he not be? He's a brilliant actor, a brilliant comedian, a brilliant writer, a brilliant director…if he ever wanted to perform surgery on me, I'd probably let him. Because he can do anything.

One of the things I admire the guy about is how he's spent his life making other people look better. He's done almost everything a person can do in show business but there has never been a program called The Carl Reiner Show. He made Sid Caesar look better on Your Show of Shows. He made Dick Van Dyke look better on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He made Mel Brooks look better on the 2,000 Year Old Man records. He made Steve Martin and a host of stars look better in movies he directed. And even at this age, he's busy and successful and every time I've seen him, he sure seems to be happy. If anyone deserves to be, it's him. Happy 93, Carl.

• Is it my imagination or are guys in college frats acting like bigger dicks than ever?

Longtime MAD magazine writer Lou Silverstone died last Monday at the age of 90. He was one of the publication's funniest contributors and also probably its tallest. Silverstone hailed from Plainfield, New Jersey and in college, majored in accounting. He got into that field for a time but longed to try comedy writing.

He began writing for MAD in 1962 with a parody of the TV series Bonanza called, of course, Bananaz. He was one of their best authors of TV and movie spoofs, and his fellow MAD scribe Arnie Kogen just told me he always envied the name Silverstone came up with for his parody of the movie, Five Easy Pieces. He called it Five Easy Pages.

His work appeared often in MAD until the early nineties when he joined the competition, writing for Cracked, which was then edited by former MAD associate editor Jerry DeFuccio. Silverstone eventually became co-editor there for several years. He also briefly dabbled in TV writing (Candid Camera), animation (authoring scripts for the Rankin-Bass studio, including for the Jackson 5ive cartoon show) and in comic books (writing for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents during its initial publication by Tower Comics in the sixties).

Silverstone's involvement in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents came about when he was writing sexy stories for men's magazines and contacted former MAD artist Wally Wood about perhaps drawing a comic strip for one of those publications.  Wood instead recruited him for the new comic he was drawing for Tower, and Lou created the character, Menthor.  He also for a time assisted Al Capp with the writing on the Li'l Abner newspaper strip.

I never met Mr. Silverstone but Sergio Aragonés and Arnie both described him as a very quiet, likeable guy who wrote some very funny pieces for the magazine. I remember articles with his byline being very clever indeed.

WonderCon Anaheim is almost upon us. It's April 3-5 at the Anaheim Convention Center and it's darn close to sold out. There are still some one-day passes available for Friday and Sunday but they may be gone soon.

The entire programming schedule can be read here. I know you're only interested in a panel or presentation if I'm on it so to save you the chore of searching for those six listings, here are the ones that involve me…

Friday, April 3 – 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM in Room 208
THE SERGIO & MARK SHOW
For years now, a Sergio & Mark panel has consisted of them promising that the new Groo would be out soon; but now there is new Groo out! It's the new limited series, Groo: Friends and Foes, starring the stupidest barbarian ever, plus a lot of folks who want to kill him. The panel will talk about it, what's coming next, and forthcoming Sergio & Mark projects. Join Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), and maybe, if he can be pried away from the computer, Tom Luth!

Friday, April 3 – 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM in Room 300DE
WRITING FOR ANIMATION
Mark Evanier has been writing cartoons since they were actually drawn on paper. He has worked on many shows including, The Garfield Show, Garfield & Friends, Dungeons & Dragons, Mother Goose and Grimm, Scooby Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, Richie Rich, Yogi Bear, Superman: The Animated Series, The Wuzzles, CBS Storybook, ABC Weekend Special, Plastic Man, and many more! If you've ever wanted to write for animation, Mark is the guy to tell you how to do it, and maybe even how to sell it.

Saturday, April 4 – 4:45 PM to 5:45 PM in Room 300DE
CARTOON VOICES
Your host, Mark Evanier, gathers together some of the best actors in the animation field to tell you how they do what they do, and demonstrate their amazing skills right before your ears. This time, the dais features Sumalee Montano (Transformers Prime, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis), Bob Joles (Spongebob Squarepants, Planet Sheen), John Mariano (Animaniacs, Hey Arnold!), Julie Nathanson (Final Fantasy XIII, Skylanders), Gregg Berger (Garfield, Spider-Man), and one more talented person to be named later.

Sunday, April 5 – NOON to 1:00 PM in Room 207
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
Covers. Every comic book has at least one. What does it take to design a great cover for a comic book? Five folks who have done it come together to discuss the secrets with moderator Mark Evanier. You will hear from Kris Anka (Uncanny X-Men, Ms. Marvel), Aaron Kuder (Action Comics, Batman), Ken Lashley (Secret Six, Superman: Doomed), Kevin Wada (She-Hulk, Adventure Time), and Kevin Maguire (Justice League International, Guardians of the Galaxy). Come and learn about this vital but under discussed art form.

Sunday, April 5 – 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 208
SPOTLIGHT ON LEN WEIN
At one time or another, Len Wein has written almost all the major characters for most major publishers. He launched Swamp Thing, The New X-Men, Wolverine and so many more. here is your chance to hear one of comics' most prolific creative talents discuss his career and work, all while being grilled by longtime friend, Mark Evanier. Sizzling revelations are promised.

Sunday, April 5 – 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Room 209
JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE
Time to salute and talk about the man some in comics call "The King." The life, times and influence of Jack Kirby will be discussed by Neal Adams, Darwyn Cooke, Fred Van Lente, Crystal Skillman, Len Wein, Paul S. Levine (attorney for the Rosalind Kirby Trust), and Kirby biographer and former assistant, Mark Evanier.

When I'm not appearing on these vital presentations, I'll be roaming the floor and poaching behind other folks' tables…though probably not long at any table. I have discovered my tolerance for sitting behind a table at a convention is about 30 minutes, 45 tops. There will probably come a day when that's all I'll be able to do but until then and even with imperfect knees, I prefer to roam. But I'll be around. As always, participants, times and my hair style are subject to change at any moment.