Monthly Archives: August 2015

Larry Wilmore is interviewed about his first hundred episodes of The Nightly Show. I like but do not love the program. The best parts for me have just been Larry sitting at the desk talking to us. The weakest parts for me have been…well, the group discussions on almost any subject except Bill Cosby or black people being shot by cops. When other topics are on the table, it often doesn't feel to me like the panel has a whole lot of interest and is just saying something because they're supposed to. But I'll keep watching.

This is going to cost you an hour but it's worth it. In 1961, KPFK radio in Los Angeles arranged a panel on comedy with Groucho Marx, Steve Allen and Carl Reiner. The moderator is George Fenneman, who was Groucho's sidekick on You Bet Your Life and also participating in the conversation were Cecil Smith, who was an entertainment reporter for the L.A. Times, and Robert Young, who was the star of the series, Father Knows Best. I'm not sure why Mr. Young was on the panel and it sounds like he wasn't sure, either.

It's a pretty good discussion, especially during those rare moments when someone asks a question and someone else actually answers it. Give a listen…

More questions about spec work. This one's from Ed Smith and here's what Ed has to say…

One thing I think makes the prospect of spec work harder to evaluate for a beginner artist versus a writer is that for the most part they don't know the value of the work they are being asked to do. The Writers Guild does a great job of giving pricing guidelines for various types of writing work, but I've never seen anything similar for artists. Obviously the time spent on the work doesn't necessarily correlate to the value, i.e., a comic book cover and a character design for a cartoon might take roughly the same time to draw, but they have nowhere near the same use or value to the company. Do you know of anyplace that does give any sort of guidance along those lines?

There are a lot of artist organizations like the Graphic Artists Guild that can help, though I suspect your best source would be to get acquainted with artists who are established in the specific arena where you yearn to work. Just out of sheer camaraderie, most artists are not reticent to share that info with new folks. Also of course, most of 'em recognize that it is not in their own interests to have good new kids roaming about their business naively undercharging for their services.

I also think you can figure out a certain amount of this yourself if you just dump the "dream" part and fixate on the practical aspect of a job. The amount of time you spend on something is a factor in the price but generally only as a bottom line.

Most commercial artists I know have a certain, secret hourly figure below which they will not go except in extreme financial emergency. They might share that figure with a colleague but they'd never share it with an employer. A few years ago, a comic book artist I knew told me his was $60 an hour. It's probably more now but let's say it's still $60. When he's offered a job, he does a quick mental calculation.

He estimates how long the job will probably take him. Learning how to gauge that only comes with experience but even an amateur can learn how long it takes him to finish a given drawing. If this artist friend of mine decides it's ten hours, then $600 becomes in his mind the least he'll accept for it. He never quotes that number to the buyer. He asks for as much as he thinks he can get but $600 is as low as he'll go.

How much above $600 he'll feel is proper can depend on many factors, the main one being the value of his work to the buyer. If his contribution will be an important element of a multi-million dollar project, the price for it shoots a lot higher than if he's an expendable, interchangeable component of an endeavor that might only gross $15,000. Also, is this a drawing they're going to use once or many, many times? As you note, a character design might have a long usefulness to them.

Beyond that, there are dozens of factors to consider — the prestige of the job, the odds of it leading to other jobs, the promotional or educational value to him, how wealthy or cash-poor the buyer seems to be, etc. The likelihood and richness of other offers he might otherwise do in the same time period is also a big concern. But the main one is the value of his work to the buyer. That's the main consideration as to how much above that bottom line price of (in this example) $600 he'll quote as his price.

The trick, he told me, is to get out of that mindset whereby you say, "Well, since they'll only pay $400, I'll take it. $400 is still higher than zero." Unless it's a matter of his electricity being turned off or him not being able to afford the $350 to fix that toothache he has, he'd prefer to not take the $600. He'd rather spend that time practicing or studying or even doing drawings he might sell somewhere at a later date — say, at a comic convention.

And of course, the secret to being able to turn down the $400 offer is to not be financially desperate. You know the old saying that wealth leads to more wealth? Well, an artist or writer with money in the bank usually makes even more money because they can afford to turn down the lousy offers without the slightest hesitation. They even get fewer lousy offers in the first place because it's known they aren't desperate and can say no.

If I were an artist now who felt clueless about what to charge for my work, I'd talk to other artists and I'd investigate entities like the Graphic Artists Guild and I'd do whatever I could to get more information. But when I got into a haggling situation, I'd also do my best not to appear clueless. In this world, acting like you're well-informed can often be just as good as actually being well-informed.

I'd keep this in mind: The person offering me the deal has as few resources as I do to know that the going rates are for our kind of work. He may even have less. It is quite possible that he's looking for me to give him a "tell" (the poker term) for what the price should be.

So to the extent it's possible, I'd try to act like one of those guys who's done a lot of this and knows exactly how the prices run. And even if I wasn't one, I'd try to behave like someone with enough cash in my checking account — and other offers — that you wouldn't dare offer me bad money. Don't announce you are what you aren't because that usually sounds bogus and obnoxious. Sounding like you're bluffing is worse than sounding like you're desperate.

I hate talking money. Whenever possible, I leave that to agents and lawyers because it always makes me uncomfortable. When I have to do it myself though, I remember that in any negotiation, the one who gets the better of it is usually the one who seems more likely to be ready, willing and/or able to walk away from the whole deal. If you can keep that in the back of your mind, you can usually — not always — get the best possible terms. Even when you don't know what they should be.

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 Role: Winnie the Pooh

Other Notable Roles: Mr. Stork in Dumbo, The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Kaa in The Jungle Book and countless commercials, plus he was the original voice of Woodsy Owl.

What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: He was a great character actor appearing on-camera in hundreds of movies and TV shows. You can catch him in several episodes of the Superman TV series George Reeves, playing — as he did in many appearances — an eccentric scientist and on The Life of Riley.

Why He's On This List: He was a Walt Disney favorite for his ability to infuse a character with personality without ever sounding like someone "doing a voice." He really wasn't doing a voice. He just had the one and it had depth and texture and humanity and the moment you heard it come out of some character, you paid attention.

Fun Fact: Mr. Holloway had a brief career performing on Broadway where he introduced at least two songs by the team of Rodgers and Hart that quickly became standards: "Manhattan" and "Mountain Greenery."

GQ has a long interview/profile of Stephen Colbert as he readies his new late night show. I'm quite eager to see what it's going to be like and I hope everyone (including me) isn't expecting a finished product the first night.

Here's another one of those "I don't get it" things…

Last week, a judge in New Hampshire overturned a law that made it illegal to take a picture of your completed election ballot and show it to others or to post it on social media. As the New York Times explained, "The law was meant to combat vote buying and coercion, which were common before the adoption of the secret ballot." Three voters had challenged the law as a restriction of their First Amendment rights.

I don't get why this is ever illegal. I vote by absentee ballot, as do about 20% of all voters in every national election. The states of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado conduct their voting entirely by mail.

Now, let's say you either bribe me or threaten me to cast my vote a certain way. I'm not sure this is really a problem in this country but let's say it is. A law that prevents me from taking a photo of my completed ballot might prevent you from being able to verify that I voted as ordered or promised. But you could also threaten me or pay me to request an absentee ballot and to show it to you before I mail it in. Hell, I could just sign the ballot and hand it to you to mark and mail in and no one would ever catch us.

Come to think of it, I could screw you over by showing you the ballot marked as you like, then on Election Day, I take it into my polling place and say, "I mismarked my ballot. Please void it and let me vote here now." They do that in my state and I'll bet they do it in most others.

Also come to think of it, I could do the same workaround if I go in and vote in person. You come to me before the next presidential election and offer me $100 to vote for Donald Trump. It wouldn't take that much to buy my vote especially in California. Since no Republican can possibly carry this state, I'd sell out for ten bucks.

But let's say you're dumb enough to pay cash for my vote and you say, "Take a photo of your completed ballot in the voting booth before you deposit in the ballot box. Then e-mail it to me when you get home and I'll PayPal you the money!" That's what these laws are supposed to prevent, right?

So I go in the booth, vote for Trump and take a clear picture of my ballot. Then I tell the polling place workers, "Oops! I punched the wrong hole!" They destroy my ballot and give me a new one. I vote for someone else and cast that ballot, then when I get home, I send you the photo and you send me my money.

This whole idea of preventing voters from being intimidated or bribed sounds like a crime which almost never happens…and if it did, a pretty easy one to foil. So what is it I'm not getting here?

We love John Oliver. The piece he did last night on televangelists who prey (as opposed to pray) on the desperate and gullible was one of the best things I've seen on television this year…and it was probably just the beginning. If you didn't see it, see it here…

I'm getting a lot of questions and comments on my latest piece against working on spec. Here's a question from Roger Belkin…

I completely understand your point that many offers to work on spec lead to auditioning for a non-existent job. However, let's say you have a chance to submit to a solid company for a real opening. Let's say it's DC Comics. What's wrong with writing something and letting them add it to the slush pile?

Well, for one thing, it's called a slush pile. Would you see something wrong with it if they called it the garbage heap? When you get into that pile, you've probably already lost. Ideally, you'd like the folks at that company to think of you as someone whose work rises above the level of those who wind up in that stack.

Also, the pile of cold submissions does not get a lot of attention in any office. The folks with actual hiring/buying capability rarely wade through it, instead using that task as busy work for interns when there's absolutely nothing else for them to do. It could be months before they get to your submission. And I don't know who does it now at Marvel — or even if anyone does — but there was a point where the staffers there assigned to look at those scripts were folks who wanted the real writing jobs for themselves. They sure didn't want to find someone wonderful in that stack of competitors.

Yeah, once in a while, someone submits something that way and it leads to a real job. It happens so infrequently that I wouldn't count on it.

Jack Kirby's granddaughter Jillian never knew her famous relative but she seems to have inherited his tendency to care about others. At age 16, she launched Kirby4Heroes, a project that raises money for the Hero Initiative, a charity that assists comic book creators who are in need of financial aid. He would have been proud of her. You can read all about the effort in this article.

Filmmaker Ian Wood uses a drone camera to take us on an amazing tour of Los Angeles. The locations visited by the drone can be identified via this map…which was helpful because when I watched the video, I recognized so many places I couldn't quite identify. If you're from around these parts, see how well you do…

Maki Naro created a very nice comic strip about why artists — and it applies to writers and other creative folks as well — should not work for "spec" (i.e., you do the work and then they decide if they're going to use it and maybe pay you for it).

I've written about this here many times but I'm probably overdue to say it again. Yeah, once in a while doing spec work leads to a real job just as once in a while, buying a lottery ticket leads to 45 million dollars. It's not a good idea to gamble your life and career on those odds. I understand the temptation when no one's buying your work to gamble on a longshot but it's almost certainly a longer shot than you imagine.

One reason is that quite often, there's really no contest there to win. The people asking you to submit spec work may not really be that serious — or in a position to buy anything. I can think of a dozen guys who in the last dozen years were going around trying to get folks to write and draw stories of their characters on spec. Each of them made it sound like he was launching a new comic book company and if he liked what you did, you could get a lot of great-paying work for his new line.

But the thing was that not one of the dozen or so guys I'm thinking of really had a new company. What they all had was a dream and no funding. Oh — and also the hope that if they amassed some great pages of their characters — which would cost them nothing — they could use those pages to impress potential investors. That was what was going on there but it's not what those who did spec work for them thought was going on.

Think of it this way: If one of those guys had approached you about investing $1000 in his alleged company, you would have run the other way. So why would you ever want to do $1000 worth of free work for him?

Also, remember this: When a publisher or producer has no investment in a project, it's real easy for them to drop it. When those guys failed to get their companies launched, they went on to other dreams 'n' schemes. If you'd decided to do spec work for them, you might have finished it, sent it in and then found out they'd abandoned the whole project. That happens a lot.

So is all spec work bad? No. But all spec work is not the same. There's spec work you do for others and there's spec work you do for yourself. The latter is usually fine. The former is not. If someone announces they're looking for submissions of graphic novel proposals or ghost stories for an anthology…well, that's spec work you can do for yourself. If this publisher doesn't buy it, you can submit it to plenty of others.

If the publisher of Crotch Monster Comics solicits stories for that book and you sit down and create one, that's spec work for them. If they say no, you're probably stuck with the material because they're the only ones buying Crotch Monster stories. (And of course, if they do want it, you've made it easier for them to offer you low money for it. They know you have no other way to get paid for that work you've already done than to take their offer.)

And it is occasionally (note the italics for emphasis) possible to do spec work in a benevolent and mature situation. When I started out in comics, I wrote Disney comics for Disney that were published overseas, as well as American Disney comics and other books based on Warner Brothers characters and Hanna-Barbera characters and other licensed properties for Western Publishing's Gold Key line. This was all technically spec work because if I wrote a Bugs Bunny story and the editor didn't like it, he could reject it and I didn't get paid for it.

I would not work that way today but back then, it was an acceptable arrangement. The firm was honest (and very professional) and my editor liked my work and bought about 90% of what I submitted, plus I was able to place some of that 10% elsewhere. For instance, if he bounced one of my Super Goof stories, I could usually sell it to the Disney foreign comics program…and I have a twelve-page Daffy Duck script I'm still hoping to sell to Crotch Monster Comics. I just have to do a minor rewrite to change Elmer Fudd into the Crotch Monster…or as I'm calling him, the Cwotch Monster.

That said, it'd also possible to get an unreal offer from a legitimate company and even for real work to mysteriously turn into spec work. I don't think I've told this story here before…

About twenty-five years ago, I was contacted by a producer at a big animation studio. This was a real company with many shows on the air. I had worked for the firm before, though not for this particular producer who was new there. She was a nice lady who said she liked my work. They had just sold a new series and that was absolutely true. She called me in, showed me the characters and the pilot script and said she'd like me to write the second episode. I usually try not to talk money and to let a lawyer or agent handle that but she mentioned a price and it was fine.

I went home and wrote an outline for an episode. I sent it in. She loved it and asked me to proceed directly to script and to please hurry. I hurried and wrote the script and sent it over to her. She called and said she loved it and she couldn't wait for her boss to read it.

A few days later, her boss called to tell me he thought it was superb and he was sorry I went to all that trouble because they'd decided to save money by having the scripts for that show written in Canada by Canadian writers. He said my "spec script" (he pointedly described it as such) could not be purchased.

I told him it was not a spec script. It was an assignment. His producer had commissioned it and his firm owed me the agreed-upon amount. He said that regardless of what that producer might have led me to believe, she was not authorized to purchase any scripts on behalf of his company. Only he could and he hadn't. He added, "Our janitor can't commit to pay anyone for a script either."

Well, you can imagine how much I enjoyed this conversation. It ended with me telling him my lawyer would talk with his lawyer. An hour later, the producer called me in tears. She said she was certain she'd been told to go ahead and purchase scripts and they'd even told her the price she could pay…the amount she had promised me. But then she said, "I guess it was all one of those misunderstandings. I'm really, really sorry about it. I hope we can work together soon on something we're having written in this country."

In other words: "They've decided to get the writing done for less money in Canada so they're reneging on the script deal we had and because I want to keep my job here, I'm going to go along with it. Oh — and I hope you'll give us the chance to do this to you again!"

Lawyers conferred and mine told me, "They're lying but I don't think this one's worth pursuing. Even if we win it, it'll wind up costing you more than you'd collect and you might not collect." I deferred to his wisdom and wished I'd had more of that precious commodity in the first place. The point, of course, is that sometimes even an established company can weasel out on paying for spec work. They can even occasionally do it when it wasn't spec work by insisting it was. (What I should have done: Have my agent call their Business Affairs person to verify the assignment before I began writing.)

I have also been screwed over a few times on genuine spec work and have learned not to do it. It's not just a matter of not wanting to work for free. In many cases, it's also a matter of not wanting to do work that you slave over and then you submit it and then nothing ever becomes of it. No one produces or publishes it. No one may even read it. When they have one of those "contests" that Maki Naro rails against, I'll bet a lot of submissions are never considered.

An agent for voiceover actors told me a story recently: A client of hers was the spokesperson for a big, national advertising campaign. His voice was very much identified with the product and when his contract expired and they began negotiating a renewal, he asked for a significant raise. The company refused. They threatened to replace him. He said, "You wouldn't dare." They had someone go post notices on Internet forums where aspiring voice actors gather. The notices said they were looking for a new voice for this national advertising campaign.

They posted some ad copy and an e-mail address for submissions. Anyone who wanted to audition could record the ad copy and send an MP3 file to the address. Hundreds if not thousands of demos resulted. I don't know exactly how many were received but I know how many were listened to: Zero. By the time the first arrived, they'd already settled on a new contract with the old voice.

You'd be amazed how often this kind of thing happens and not just in voiceover. Sometimes, a contest or open competition is what it is but sometimes, it's just a way of reminding the folks they do want to hire that there are legions of wanna-bes out there who are so eager, they'll work for almost nothing…or less.

As I said, I know it can be frustrating when you have the passion and you think you have the talent…but no one is buying. I understand the temptation to roll the dice and produce something on spec for someone else but unless you know the potential buyers and really trust them, it's too often a colossal waste of time and energy.

You're better off doing spec work for yourself. I mean, doesn't that make sense? Do stuff you can sell to a lot of different markets instead of just one. The better the odds, the better your chance to win. Besides, who the hell wants to write for Crotch Monster Comics, anyway?

Last March, the Emmy-winning cartoon voice actor Maurice LaMarche challenged me to come up with a list of the All-Time Great folks in his profession and I said I would do so once I figured out what form it would take and I set down some rules. I decided to break it into two lists — one to cover the first forty years of the art form; the other to cover everything since.

The first forty years began with Steamboat Willie in 1928 so it ended in 1968. (The first cartoon voice actor was, of course, Walt Disney…and though Mickey Mouse is probably the most popular cartoon character ever, I still decided Walt wasn't a good enough voice actor to make this list.) I will explain at some point why 1968 is a good cut-off year for the First Generation.

Frank Welker is not on this first list. Frank is by far the "workingest" voice actor who has ever lived and probably, among his peers, the most respected of anyone working today. So why didn't I include him? Because he started his animation voicing career in 1969. That is not the reason I picked '68.

My list only covers motion pictures and television cartoons that were made primarily for the American market employing American actors. I mean no disrespect to foreign performers. I simply am not qualified to do a worldwide list.

My criteria? How good they were, how memorable their work was, how influential they were and how "in demand" they were. Working a lot was not the major consideration but if it had been, the list would not have been that different. All of these folks did an awful lot of cartoons.

In case you'd like some hints on who I put on the list: There are 18 men and two women. All but five of the twenty did a substantial number of roles in theatrical animation and all but three of the twenty were in the regular casts of very popular animated TV shows. Most, of course, did both. I directed eleven of them at least once…and only one of them is alive.

I will post little pieces about each of the twenty here, one per week for the next twenty weeks, starting tomorrow. The list will not be in any particular order but I will tell you that if it was, the top five would include some arrangement of Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Paul Frees and Don Messick. And now you know who one of the women is and who the only person is on the list who's still with us.

A little while after I get through this list, I will start listing actors who got into the industry after 1968 and distinguished themselves in the next forty years. That list will require more than twenty names and may go on for some time.  You may not agree with one or both of my lists.  If you don't, you're free to ignore mine and make up your own.

My favorite TV show of all time is The Dick Van Dyke Show, a fact I've probably mentioned a thousand times on this blog. There are many reasons for that but one of them is the lady you see above in the photo with me. That's, of course, Rose Marie — the talented singer and comedienne and show biz legend. I love people in the entertainment field who've done darn near everything and Rose is the best example I can find.

It's tough to talk about how much she's done without alluding to her age…so let's just say that today, she turns (mumble, mumble) years young. Despite what a high number (mumble, mumble) is, she's still sharp and if you ask her about working with W.C. Fields in the thirties or Milton Berle in the forties or Phil Silvers in the fifties or Dick Van Dyke in the sixties or Doris Day in the seventies (etc.), she has anecdotes she can tell you with crystal memory and, of course, expert delivery. It's fun to sit with her and just say "Jimmy Durante" or "Frank Sinatra" and hear what comes out.

I've met other people who've been entertaining audiences for a long time but she's the only one I believe I've met who starred in the one of the first "talking" (in this case, singing) pictures ever made. Happy birthday, Rosie! Here she is in — can you believe it? — 1929…

Hilary Kissinger attended the final taping of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and she writes of the experience. She's right when she says that Stewart and his colleagues not only did political comedy but expanded the definition and possibilities of political comedy.

While I've got you here: Lots of folks are commenting about the sudden shot of extra outrage in our political discourse in this country. People have always said stupid or offensive things but we seem to have an unprecedented wave of them…like Jeb Bush acting like everyone thinks the Iraq War was a smashing success or Mike Huckabee promising six percent economic growth when he becomes president or whatever Ted Cruz says tomorrow.

The popular explanation is that the current poll numbers for Donald Trump are dictating that trend. Maybe. But maybe it's also that the folks saying such things are no longer worried about being a target for Jon Stewart.

Stephen Colbert explains — or maybe his ghost writers explain — why he and his new late night show are on the side of women.