Monthly Archives: August 2015

I missed this when it aired. The Sunday Morning after Jon Stewart's last Daily Show, he was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning by former Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca. It's a nice little chat…

• Why do some men refer to their genitalia as "my junk?" Isn't that one of the most precious things in their lives?

Ed Kilgore thinks that all this talk about Joe Biden jumping into the presidential race — especially on a ticket with Elizabeth Warren — is folks making something out of (so far) nothing. Sure looks that way.

I'm at least trying to not post much more about Donald Trump because I still believe his campaign is mainly about getting attention and not being too specific about what he'd do as president. This piece by Jonathan Chait though is too good to not link to. Chait points up the strong disparity between what Republican rank-and-file voters want and what their presidential candidates work for. Does anyone think Mitt Romney ever really cared about stopping abortion or anything else that wasn't about money? And yes, Democrats have a similar disconnect.

My pal Vinnie Favale is Vice President of CBS Late Night Programming, East Coast. He sent me this photo of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York which had its official lighting just the other night. Looks like this show is actually going to happen but I'll believe it's definite when my TiVo lets me take a Season Pass for it.

I'm really looking forward to doing this. You probably saw that they released the list of Colbert's first week guests: George Clooney and Jeb Bush on the first show (September 8) followed the rest of the week by SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Schumer and Stephen King. These choices suggest to me that Colbert plans to talk to his guests rather than challenge them to games where they crack eggs on their heads.

In the music department, his house band will be spotlighted the first night, followed by rapper Kendrick Lamar, country star Toby Keith and the Paul Simon tribute band, Troubled Waters. I think the Paul Simon tribute band should demonstrate a passive-aggressive attitude towards an Art Garfunkel tribute band and complain that it doesn't get the same recognition as the John Lennon tribute bands.

A press release also promised many surprise cameos on Colbert's first show. I suspect Jon Stewart will not be among them as they'll want to save that "reunion" for some future show where it can be advertised. I do wonder if Jimmy Fallon will do a walk-on as Colbert did on Fallon's first Tonight Show. They were time slot competitors then, too.

I'd really like to have a great late night show in my life. I like Jimmy Fallon but don't like his show. I don't like Jimmy Kimmel and don't like his show. Actually, it strikes me that the writing on Kimmel's show is pretty good when it gets out of "practical joke" mode but I can't stand the host.

One evening recently, I channel-flipped between the two Jimmies and it struck me that both of them were fawning over their guests to the point of practically licking their faces but the key difference between the two men was this: Fallon seems to really and truly believe in the awesome greatness of everyone in his guest chair. Kimmel seems to think everyone is an asshole but the job of talk show host requires you to say what he says. My friends who work on both shows will probably now e-mail to tell me that's not the way either of them really is and they may be right. But it's how they come across to me.

I still haven't made up my mind about James Corden. He fawns a la Fallon but is a much better interviewer. He looks awkward doing the stunts and remote bits the show attempts. When Letterman or even Leno went to strangers' doors and knocked, it seemed in character and that they were in control of the segment and its premise. Corden looks like his producers made him to do it and he's embarrassed. He's gotten a lot of acclaim for musical bits he's done and I think the reason those work is that he seems comfortable doing them.

And I've given up on Conan O'Brien. I really used to like the guy his first ten-or-so years on NBC. His show had very sharp writing and he knew how to play straight for Andy Richter, his guests and various walk-on characters. At some point, it's like his handlers slapped him and said, "No, no! The audiences want to see you. Why are you letting other people be funny?" and he became the guy at the party who won't shut up and tries to make everything be about himself. He talks at his guests instead of to them.

On top of that, all four of these shows have an odd studio vibe to them. It almost feels like the audience is full of paid extras who've been told to act like they're having a good time or they won't get their checks when they leave.

Many years ago, Johnny Carson had one of his many mini-feuds with TV Guide. The magazine didn't much like him — he wasn't cooperative enough, they felt — and he didn't much like them because of things like this. They ran an item that said his show, especially during the monologue portion, occasionally added in canned laughter when the live audience failed to sufficiently guffaw. Carson and some of his employees adamantly denied this…and as far as I know, they weren't doing that.

I don't think anyone has made that accusation against a talk show in years. If anything, the opposite is now true. Studio audiences, aided sometimes by warmup comedians who encourage this attitude, seem to feel it's their job to play the role of a wildly enthusiastic studio audience. They respond to everything like they're part of the show as opposed to being the people for whom the show is performed. (And some talk shows have been known to employ audience wranglers to fill their seats, especially with young, attractive people.) So we now usually have this environment in which every remark is hilarious and every guest is deserving of a standing ovation.

Since I usually don't think that, I find myself increasingly feeling like I'm not part of the audience for some of these programs. I think that's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Colbert's show. His show on Comedy Central didn't have that feel. The studio audience loved him but it felt to me like they really did and that the laughter was earned, not forced. Of course, I also think Colbert is more talented than anyone else doing a talk show these days so wild applause and laughter will probably not seem phony.

The Cheese Shop. It's one of those things you just can't see too many times…

Every single political analyst I've seen predicting the upcoming presidential election has said that in order to win, the Republican nominee is going to have to do a lot better with Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did. According to Gallup, Trump could not be doing much worse. He has a net favorability rating among Hispanics of -51. That's negative 51. By contrast, Hillary is at +40 with that group.

What does the Black Lives Matter movement want? Radley Balko explains. It sounds like a lot of sane policies that no one could really argue with…though some will anyway. The other night on The Nightly Show though, Mike Yard explained it a little simpler. He said, "I'd like not to be shot."

Since I like you, I'll warn you about this stuff. It's Cheez-It Snack Mix and it's really, really addictive. Do yourself a favor and don't try it because you may never eat anything else the rest of your life.

I'm talking here about their Classic variety. The Cheez-It people make several different kinds of Snack Mix like their Double Cheese version or their Cheddar & Barbecue. I haven't tried any of these. I dare not for fear I'll like one of them even more than I like the Classic variety.

The Classic, which is sometimes labelled as such or sometimes just says Cheez-It Snack Mix, consists of the following: Two different sizes of pretzels, Cheez-It crackers, teensy non-cheese crackers which they call "bread slices," cheese-flavored rice balls, some kind of not-great Wheat Chex knock-off and various seasonings including garlic powder and Worcestershire Sauce. Even with mediocre Wheat Chex replicas, it makes for a wicked, impossible-to-resist concoction.

I don't know much about how heroin is trafficked in this world but I'm guessing that if you could somehow corner the market on Cheez-It Snack Mix, you could follow the same business model and annually make an amount somewhere between what Donald Trump claims to be worth and what he actually is worth. This would involve giving unsuspecting people their first hit for free and then making them pay, pay, pay for more as they desperately struggle to recapture the feeling of that first high.

In truth, someone is already doing this. Costco is doing this.

I had my first taste via a free sample handed to me by a lady there wearing a hairnet. Since it didn't seem to be cole slaw, I ate it and I was hooked. I had to have more.

I circled back and hoped she wouldn't notice I was helping myself to seconds and then thirds, fourths and eventually ninths. But she knew what I was doing and she knew she'd succeeded in her goal. She had me.

I had a monkey on my back.  I don't mean that literally.  There was no actual monkey on my back but if there had been, he would have been eating Cheez-It Snack Mix.

Facing the inevitable, I pushed my cart to the part of the store where Costco displays the stuff and discovered that they only carry it in three-pound bags. That's a lot of Snack Mix. I didn't buy one because I knew my only hope was to slowly wean myself off the junk with smaller and smaller portions. That's hard to do when you have three pounds of the stuff on the premises.

So I forced myself to leave Costco without any…though on my way to the register, I spotted above-ground wading pools and briefly wondered how many three-pound bags of Cheez-It Snack Mix it would take to fill one of them. En route to my home, I stopped at a Ralphs and bought a normal-sized box of it. It took about a week but I've managed to eat less and less of it each day to the point where my consumption is now limited and mostly voluntary…

…although since I had to go back to Costco for someone else, I did buy one three-pound bag. But I ate it at a semi-normal rate.

I'd like to think I have my addiction to Cheez-It Snack Mix under control but it has not been easy. I thought about it more than seemed sane, devoting way too much time to pondering why it includes two different sizes of pretzels instead of just more of one. I also fantasized about how much more delicious it would be if they replaced their counterfeit Wheat Chex with genuine Wheat Chex. Perhaps it's better for all of us that they don't.

You may have read articles about how well Costco treats its employees and how it pays them better than chains like Walmart and Target. Costco also has very reasonable prices and all that makes some wonder how they're able to do it; how they're able to show a profit. I think I have the answer. I think all of that stuff — the cheap office supplies and electronics and tires and half-ton tubs of margarine — are just a Loss Leader. I think they make their money by getting people hooked on Cheez-It Snack Mix.

I'm convinced that discussing the presidential race at this point in time is largely a waste of time. Nevertheless, I do it, mostly with fellow Democrats. The ones I know seem to be divided on the issue of Donald Trump. About half of them are afraid he'll get the Republican nomination and have a shot at winning the presidency. The other half of them are afraid he won't get the nomination and that it will go to someone who won't be as easy for the Democratic nominee to defeat.

That's always a conundrum for those who want their party to win: Do you want the opposition party to nominate someone who'd make a decent president in case they win? Or someone who wouldn't and therefore is more likely to lose? I'm not sure how I feel about this. I guess I don't trust the electorate to recognize that the worst guy is the worst guy.

In any case, this is for those who are worried about Trump getting the nomination. Larry Sabato, who has a pretty good track record of forecasting elections, calls Trump "The Un-Nominatable Frontrunner." You can read the article, see why and decide if you want to believe him. Sabato thinks the race is now down to Bush, Rubio and Walker.

This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.

Most Famous Roles: (Tie:) Betty Boop, Olive Oyl

Other Notable Roles:  Little Audrey, Casper the Friendly Ghost (at times), many supporting parts in Popeye cartoons including Swee'Pea.

What She Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Lots of character roles in movies and television, including a part in the film, Funny Girl.  But where you really saw her face was in commercials.  She did hundreds of them including a long-running series for Scott Towels as "Aunt Bluebell."

Why She's On This List: A lot of the personality of Betty Boop came from Ms. Questel, who was hired to do an impression of the popular singer Helen Kane but who turned the role into a unique and adorable performance.  And acting in those cartoons wasn't easy because at the Fleischer Studio, they did the animation first and the actors had to perform with personality while matching already-animated lip movements and gestures.  She wasn't the only person who did Betty or Olive Oyl either but after her, when anyone else did those characters, they were trying to replicate Mae Questel.

Fun Fact: A number of actors filled in as Popeye for his main voice, Jack Mercer, while Mercer was in the service.  Ms. Questel claimed that one of the fill-ins was her and she often accompanied this claim with a credible Popeye impression.  No one however has identified an actual cartoon which featured her speaking for the Sailor Man…which doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Late Breaking Joyous Panda News…

So here's the deal: The Chick-Fil-A chain wants to open an outlet in Denver Airport. The Denver City Council, which for some reason can approve or block this, has blocked it because of the fast food company's history of opposing Gay Rights. At the moment, it's on hold while the issue is being debated.

I am totally in favor of Gay Rights but that should have nothing to do with this. The company's politics shouldn't even be considered. I could maybe — and this is a stretch — defend the City Council's actions if their logic went like this: "The airport operates seven days a week. Chick-Fil-A has a corporate policy of being closed on Sunday. We don't want one of those spaces at the airport to go to a business that won't be there to serve hungry travelers one day a week."

But that doesn't seem to be the justification for maybe not letting Chick-Fil-A into Denver International. And if it was, it's not a good enough reason. As the linked news report notes, a 2013 survey of airport users said Chick-Fil-A was the most desired new addition to the food service there. Even given the Sunday situation, most travelers would probably prefer to have Chick-Fil-A in that space over something else that would be there seven days a week…and they oughta get it.

I don't patronize Chick-Fil-A not because of its stance on gay rights but because none of its outlets are particularly convenient to me. The only one I pass often is at Sunset and Highland where the traffic is a mess and their parking lot looks like a bumper car ride at an amusement park. If and when it's lunchtime and I'm near an accessible Chick-Fil-A, I'll have to decide how I feel about patronizing a place that donates to causes I find inhumane. My decision will probably have a lot to do with how hungry I am and how far it is to the nearest Five Guys.

My friend and editor (at Abrams Books) Charles Kochman was in town last week and on Friday, I took him to lunch at the Magic Castle. By one of those great coincidences, I found four friends at the next table and someone took this pic for us before we dispersed. Charlie's the guy on the left. Writer Larry DiTillio is the guy on the right. Larry wrote on any number of popular animated shows including Masters of the Universe and The Transformers.

The gent in the center is Brooks Wachtel, magician and animation writer. His cartoon credits include Tutenstein and Clifford the Big Red Dog. The lady at left is Christy Marx, who was the main writer on the Jem cartoon series and she worked on Conan the Adventurer and many more. The lady at right is Wendy Pini, who along with Richard Pini, gave us the wonderful Elfquest graphic novel series and the more recent Masque of the Red Death series.

And I'm the tall guy in back. That halo over my head is not, as you might think, a reflection of a chandelier in that room. I really am that angelic though the camera doesn't always catch it.

My longtime buddy Paul Levitz has written a new book on Will Eisner. Its title? Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel. I haven't read it yet but I'll bet it lives up to this description that I just cribbed from Amazon…

Will Eisner (1917–2005) is universally considered the master of comics storytelling, best known for The Spirit, his iconic newspaper comic strip, and A Contract With God, the first significant graphic novel. This seminal work from 1978 ushered in a new era of personal stories in comics form that touched every adult topic from mortality to religion and sexuality, forever changing the way writers and artists approached comics storytelling. Noted historian Paul Levitz celebrates Eisner by showcasing his most famous work along­side unpublished and rare materials from the family archives. Also included are original interviews with creators such as Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud, Jeff Smith, Denis Kitchen, and Neil Gaiman — all of whom knew Eisner and were inspired by his work to create their own graphic novels for a new generation of readers.

I like that they called A Contract With God "the first significant graphic novel." There are several contenders for the title of first graphic novel and depending on how you define a "graphic novel," several might qualify. But Will's inarguably was one and it was a game-changing one in that you can credit most of those that soon followed as following the lead of Eisner's. Will was a fascinating, brilliant man — and not just brilliant at writing and drawing comics, either. So I'm looking forward to Paul's book.

Why am I plugging it now when it won't be out until November 10? Because Amazon is offering it at a pre-order price! It's a $40 book but if you order now — which you can do by clicking this link — you can get it for $20. That's half-off on a book that's probably worth twice the price. Act soon.