Yearly Archives: 2015

Here are some more interesting takes on last night's G.O.P. debate…

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David "Axis of Evil" Frum thinks it was all about who showed the greatest ability to dominate the stage.

Over at the American Conservative site, Daniel Larison thinks that none of the candidates showed any grasp of foreign policy.

Jill LePore reminds us that most of what people say at debates is forgettable and wrong.

And John Dickerson thought the big winner of the night was Carly Fiorina. If pressed to name one, I'd agree but I don't believe she has much chance of being the nominee. Do we really think Americans will get behind someone with no track record in government? Some might — and I still think this is a slim chance — accept Donald Trump's success in business as a substitute. Ms. Fiorina's track record ain't anywhere near as good.

We continue to admire from afar (I've never met the man) the fine actor, George S. Irving who is still doing major acting roles around — though lately not on — Broadway at the age of 92. He will soon be doing them at the age of 93 and a year after that at the age of 94 and then 95 and so on.

Here's a link to a new profile of Mr. Irving. As it will tell you, he was first seen on The Great White Way in a little flop called Oklahoma! That was 72 years ago and he's scarcely been outta work since then.

The article does not mention the vast amount of work Irving has done over the years as a voice for animation and commercials. Since the sixties, he's been on about half the cartoon shows that recorded their voices in New York, including Underdog and Go Go Gophers, and he gave one of the great tour de force performances as the Heat Miser in the 1974 Rankin-Bass special, The Year Without a Santa Claus. He reprised the role in a 2008 sequel and sounded just as heat-miserly as he had in '74.

If you would like to see a few minutes of Mr. Irving doing what he does so well, here's a video of him re-creating one of his great moments on stage. This is one of my ten-or-so favorites of the hundreds of videos I've linked to on this site. He's really a superb performer. (Keep in mind as you watch it that Irving was a much younger man at the time. He was 90.)

Fred Kaplan thinks that very little of what the Republican candidates said tonight about foreign policy made any sense. I'm not sure it was supposed to in terms of what to actually do if one is elected. It probably made some sense in terms of exciting Republican base voters and big donors.

Jonathan Chait pretty much summarized my feelings about it all though I do think that Trump's act is starting to wear thin. It's becoming more and more obvious that he has no answers to a lot of the big questions; just bluster and a talent for changing the subject. I don't think he's about to plunge in the polls, partly because there's plenty of time to let The Donald Trump Show rage on and partly because none of the alternatives look that appealing. But I just got the feeling tonight that a lot of his supporters are starting to wonder.

…but I'm actually watching a half-dozen websites that are live-blogging it. My favorite comment so far came from Albert Brooks on Twitter…

My problem with this debate — with all these debates; I'm sure there'll be some of this in the Democratic ones — is that all these candidates not only have their own set of views but their own sets of facts that support them. A real-time fact-checker would go crazy trying to clarify or correct. Can a person be "pro-life" and yet believe that much of what is being claimed about Planned Parenthood is untrue? Guess not. That would show weakness, not fairness.

Tomorrow, Politifact and other such sites will list dozens of factual assertions that were just plain wrong. And not one person who has a favorite candidate will think less of their guy (or gal) or the position because of that.

If you saw the Sunday Cartoon Voices Panel at Comic-Con this year in San Diego, you were dazzled by voice actress Misty Lee. Well, actually, you were dazzled by all six performers who were up there but this item is about Misty. She's not only a busy vocal performer, she's also a terrific magician — and she and her husband Paul are two of my best friends. Here's an article about her career in magic…and though I have a few quibbles with it, they're sure right that she deserves serious attention.

Here's what Jon Stewart's doing these days. He's in Washington, urging Congress to do the right thing for First Responders (and I suppose, Second Responders and Third Responders and so on) from 9/11. It's appalling that this is even an issue…

I haven't posted much here about Bernie Sanders because…well, I haven't come across many articles about him on the 'net that I found interesting. I get the feeling that he doesn't have much chance of winning the nomination or, if by some fluke he did, the presidency. And I don't think it's true, as some say, that it's because people who think he's our best option for the presidency won't support him because they think he can't win.

But that's just a feeling on my part. Seems to me all the reporting on the Democratic race — the stuff about him, the stuff about Biden maybe getting in, the stuff about Hillary, the stuff about those other guys nobody cares about — has been pretty bad. It's like the press is trying half-heartedly to find a narrative there so they just print anything and then rush back to covering The Donald.

In any case: As you may have heard, Sanders spoke the other day at Liberty University, the college that Jerry Falwell built. I love it when politicians go before audiences that are not predisposed to cheer everything they say so here's the text of the speech Sanders delivered. I doubt he picked up any votes with it but he may have caused some people to think, "Hmm…maybe guys like him aren't as evil as I thought…"

Nate Silver on what's going wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign for president. He still calls her the heavy fave to take the Democratic nomination but…well, read it for yourself. This could still turn out to be a horse race, more likely if Biden jumps in.

You were probably wondering how I liked the first installment of Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris. I didn't…and I really (emphasis mine) don't see how they thought this show — hidden camera pranks, stunts and games — warranted the label "variety."

But then I didn't understand a lot of things…like why a live show had a disclaimer at the end that said, "Portions of this program not affecting the outcome of the competition have been edited/recreated."

And I don't understand how they did the Karaoke Game bit where three people watching at home joined in by singing in their own homes, caught on hidden cameras as they were watching the show with friends, plus they were holding microphones. I'm guessing for each of the people, the show arranged with someone to arrange a viewing party and to set up a webcam and catch an unsuspecting friend who'd been steered to the proper chair…or something.

And I don't understand why a live telecast had such a cut-and-pasted feel to much of it.

But hey, it's not my kind of show. There are a lot of very successful programs around that fall into that category.

Here's a nice little primer on aspect ratio in movies. Some of these formats present great problems (and even discussions about changing aspect ratios) when films move from movie screens to home video…

A lot of folks are writing me to say that John Oliver's show has its first airing each Sunday night at or around 11 PM, which is late night. Someone else wrote me that while that's true, so many HBO viewers have access to an earlier feed that Oliver is only a late night host by a technicality. It's really not worth worrying about.

Nor really is the exclusion of Chris Hardwick, though one person wrote to say, "Hardwick doesn't count as a late night host because he doesn't interview celebrities and he plays games." Uh, well, I don't recall us all agreeing on that as the definition of a late night host. I think it's that he hosts and is on late at night. Besides, John Oliver doesn't interview celebrities and Jimmy Fallon plays games. (By the way, I think Chris Hardwick would do great in a talk show format.)

We have another one of those cases where someone is about to be put to death for a murder on pretty flimsy evidence that many do not believe. Here's the story of Richard Glossip in Oklahoma. Years ago, I heard someone on TV say, "The State has a compelling interest in seeing that murderers are executed…and once they're executed, the State has a compelling interest in not letting anyone cast doubts on their guilt."

Rick Perry dropped out of the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination because he was polling at around 1%. How must that make you feel if you're Chris Christie (polling at around 1%), Rick Santorum (polling at around 1%), Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham (polling under 1%) or Jim Gilmore (not even listed in most polls)? How do you get up at a podium and tell your supporters — what few you have — "We're going to win this thing!" And how do you brag about your experience when the two guys clobbering you have none?

Scott Walker was once at around 11% or 12% and now he's down to about 4%. I'm trying to imagine the meeting where someone on his staff said, "We have to do something to stop this bleeding" and Walker said, "I've got just the thing! I'll announce that as president, I'll abolish labor unions!"

Yes, yes…I know Neil Patrick Harris's new show which debuts tonight is based on a British TV series called Saturday Night Takeaway. I'm just hoping it's not too based on it because I watched a little of the Brit version on YouTube and I think the pitch that sold it was, "What if we did a show designed to make sure that Mark Evanier couldn't make it past the first five minutes?" This is not to say you couldn't have a pretty successful show built on such a premise.

More later.

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: Snidely Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right cartoons.

Other Notable Roles: Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan, Professor Waldo Wigglesworth on Hoppity Hooper, parts in The Phantom Tollbooth and several animated Dr. Seuss specials and a few others.

What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Conried was a very prolific actor logging hundreds of radio, film and TV appearances, often appearing as himself on talk shows and game show panels. His most notable film appearance is probably his starring role in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and his most famous TV presence was the recurring part of Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show (aka Make Room for Daddy) or maybe as the host of Jay Ward's Fractured Flickers. He can reportedly be seen briefly in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

Why He's On This List: Hans Conried was one of those voice actors who basically had one voice but it was a great one, developed on stage and radio, including his stint as a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Company. He usually played villains and had a way of making the bad guys uncommonly human and funny. That was one of the reasons he worked so much. Another was that everyone seemed to love having him around.

Fun Fact: There's a theatrical tradition in productions of Peter Pan for Captain Hook and the father (Mr. Darling) to be played by the same actor, thereby suggesting a parallel between the two characters. In Disney's 1953 animated version, the tradition continued with Conried voicing both — which probably went unnoticed by moviegoers, especially since the characters had such different designs. Some sources claim Conried was the first actor to play both roles but that's not true. The tradition dates back to the first stage productions of Sir James Barrie's work. (Just two years earlier in 1951, Boris Karloff played both in a Broadway production starring Jean Arthur as Peter.)

An awful lot of those running for president are current or former governors and they all brag about what a great job they did managing the economy of their states. As Ben Casselman notes, some (maybe all) may not deserve as much credit as they're claiming.

Vanity Fair is spotlighting late night comedians, starting with a much-circulated group shot photo of Mssrs. Colbert, O'Brien, Noah, Corden, Kimmel, Oliver, Meyers, Wilmore, Fallon and Maher. The picture was probably shot in multiple places and on multiple coasts and then Photoshopped into looking like these guys were all happily in each others' presence. It does raise the question of why John Oliver, whose show airs at 8 PM, is a "late night host" but Chris Hardwick, who's on at Midnight most of the time and 11 PM at the moment, isn't.

Also, this may come as a shock to many but Carson Daly still has a show. In case anyone's amazed by this fact, he's been on since 2002.

Online are a couple of related articles — a profile of John Oliver, a Proust Questionnaire filled out by Seth Meyers and an essay by Conan O'Brien.

James Corden, like Jimmy Fallon, is someone I like though I'm not a fan of either gent's talk show. To me, Corden's show is burdened by the ambiance of every moment having to be super awesome and every guest having to be the most fabulous person in the world and aren't we having the most smashing, unbelievable time every single second and isn't that dress you're wearing the most spectacular dress in the universe?

Also, they've been sending him out on these remote segments, many of which strive to be in the Letterman tradition…but Corden is not Letterman and I don't just mean in terms of talent. James, unlike Dave, oozes a "nice guy" vibe and a desire to be liked that's in conflict with dragging unsuspecting people into his routines. They do this bit where he goes along on pizza deliveries and gives the people their choice of the pizza they ordered or another pizza which may have something unexpected in the box. Corden seems almost apologetic to be bothering the people with his little game.

When Letterman invaded someone's home, as he did in his earlier days, the segment was about his comments and interaction. With Corden, it's about how the people react to playing the game and not particularly remarkable.

They did one remote recently though that I thought was pretty good, though a bit long. It's all about Corden taking on a role for one evening in a touring company of Phantom of the Opera. He plays a rather petty, self-absorbed version of himself and it's quite a departure from his usual persona…