Yearly Archives: 2015

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.

The sub-head on this article said "McDonald's is doing something it hasn't done in 45 years" and when I saw it, I thought, "They're going to buy another cow to make hamburgers out of?" But it turns out the thing they hadn't done in 45 years was to close more stores than they opened.

Why is McDonald's crashing so? I can think of many reasons, including the fact that many people want to eat healthier…or if they do want fast food, they've found a place they like better. But I think a big factor is that it's gotten kind of embarrassing to walk into a McDonald's if you're over the age of nine.

Alan Brady Carl Reiner has written a new book — his eleventh, this month I believe. This one's about the making of The Dick Van Dyke Show. It's not out yet so I haven't read it but I can't imagine not wanting to read it so I just ordered a copy here. You might want to order a copy here because Mr. Reiner is autographing all copies that you order here. Considering that his signature alone would go for at least $40 at a collector show, it's a bargain to get it and the book for that price and he will even personalize the autograph.

While you're at that site, browse about. You can also order other Carl Reiner books as well as Dick Van Dyke's and get signed copies. I will report on the new book once I have my copy which I gather will be in a week or three.

Jon Stewart, for some reason, got on a kick of slamming Arby's on his show. I gather he had no huge beef (pun slightly intended) with them. He just did a joke once, it got a laugh so he did more of them. I like that the Arby's chain decided — I guess — that looking like a good sport was the way to play it and they started responding in kind. When Stewart announced his retirement from The Daily Show, they reminded him that they were hiring.

Here's a little spot they prepared which ran on his next-to-last telecast, presumably assembled with the help of The Daily Show. It's funny and I sure don't think less of the chain (which as you'll recall, I like better than many fast food outlets) because of Stewart's needling. There are probably politicians and pundits out there who could learn a thing from Arby's…

Here we have an article about one of the funniest people I've ever known, Jeff Altman. I'm not sure where he's performing these days but if it's near you, go see him. There are comedians who need to be seen live in order to fully appreciate how good they are. He's one of 'em.

Here's another article on why it's way too early to think that Donald Trump's current lead means he'll be the Republican nominee. About the only indicator that he might be the nominee is that no one else looks especially likely.

You know, it's still possible for someone else to get into the race and grab the nomination. Trump reminds us of that today when he says he thinks the Democratic nominee will be Joe Biden.

I apologize for not giving you more advance notice but today, Turner Classic Movies is running a Groucho Marathon — just about every movie in which he ever showed his face except Copacabana, Love Happy, A Night in Casablanca and Skidoo. Here's the timetable. These are all Eastern times so you probably need to subtract three hours for Pacific Time. I have marked what I consider the five best films with asterisks…

• 6:00 am: Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937)
• 6:30 am: Double Dynamite (1951)
• 8:00 am: A Girl in Every Port (1952)
• 9:30 am: Room Service (1938)
• 11:00 am: At the Circus (1939)
• 12:30 pm: Go West (1940)
• 2:00 pm: The Big Store (1941)
• 3:30 pm: The Dick Cavett Show (1969)
• 4:30 pm: The Cocoanuts (1929)
• 6:15 pm: Animal Crackers* (1930)
• 8:00 pm: Monkey Business* (1931)
• 9:30 pm: Horse Feathers* (1932)
• 10:45 pm: Duck Soup* (1933)
• Midnight: A Night at the Opera* (1935)
• 2:00 am: A Day at the Races (1937)
• 4:00 am: The Story of Mankind (1957)

Sunday Night at the Trocadero is a short in which Groucho is seen briefly. Double Dynamite and A Girl in Every Port are pretty weak features with Groucho added to the cast for comedy relief…which he occasionally provides. The episode of The Dick Cavett Show needs no explanation (you can probably figure out that Groucho is on it) and The Story of Mankind is a bloated episodic spectacle in which Groucho, Harpo and Chico all play cameo roles in separate scenes. The few moments they're in there do not justify sitting through the rest of the film.  It really feels you are watching The Story of Mankind…in real time.

The rest all have Groucho, Harpo and Chico, and some have Zeppo along to do very little. For what it's worth, if you have kids and you want to introduce them to the Marx Brothers with one of these films, I'd try Horse Feathers on them or maybe Go West.

Sorry I didn't post this sooner and I'll end this so you can go turn on TCM or maybe set your DVR. Because at this very moment, you may be missing something you'd like to see or record.

The next Republican debate is on CNN September 16th. Debating (if you can call it that) will be any candidate who has reached an average of 1 percent or more in three national polls: Rasmussen, Fox News and Bloomberg/BusinessWeek. For some reason, CNN is not considering the CNN/ORC poll. Make of that what you will.

At the moment, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore has not reached that mark and most reports are presuming he won't make it. In other words, it's unlikely he's going to improve from 0% support to 1% support in a month. If that's his pace — if he's going to grow at less than 1% a month — why, he might just make it all the way to 5% by the time the Republican primaries roll around.

I'm always curious as to the ways in which a person benefits if he or she spends months running for president and winds up, as they should have known they would, at the bottom of the heap. I'm sure they are many which is why we have all these candidates who don't have a prayer of becoming Commander in Chief. Some of them undoubtedly are following Max Bialystock's business model of trying to make money off a flop but there other rewards besides that or a job at Fox News.

It looks like Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki will all be included in the CNN event. They're each polling at about 1%, though Fiorina is expected to rise a bit as the polls taken after the G.O.P. debate mount up. Isn't there something a little bizarre about the concept that Gilmore is out because he hasn't proven yet that he's a serious candidate but those four others are in because 1% support proves it?

Keep in mind, that's 1% support according to polls that have margins of error greater than 1%. The margin of error on the Rasmussen Poll is +/- 4 percentage points. The margin of error in the Fox News poll is +/- 4 percentage points. And the margin of error on the Bloomberg/Business Week poll is +/- 4.4 percentage points. So is the difference between 0% and 1% really significant? Theoretically, Gilmore could have more support than the four one-percenters combined.

In the 2012 presidential election, Obama beat Romney 51.1 to 47.2. Rasmussen predicted Romney would win by 1 point. Fox News predicted a tie. Bloomberg predicted Obama would beat Romney by 6 points. They were all correct but only if you applied a four point margin of error. If you took the numbers literally, they were all wrong.

A reader who shall at his own request remain anonymous writes…

I was delighted to read that classic episodes of The Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson will soon be airing on Antenna TV but I was upset to read that some of them may not be airable in full due to music clearance problems. I watched a few old episodes on YouTube and it was infuriating when they cut a guest's walk-on because they couldn't afford the music or when a whole musical number was cut. I know Antenna TV says they think they can clear it all but they're hedging their pledge and I'm sure there will be some music owner who will try to hold them up for big money and then they will not be able to air that episode or they will cut things from it.

This bothered me a lot with WKRP in Cincinnati. The complete set Shout Factory put out managed to clear most of the music but not all and that seriously mars the shows for me. What is it with these greedy music owners? Don't they realize that getting paid something is better than getting paid nothing?

I think you're making the mistake of presuming that the fault in these cases is always with the music owners. There are instances when the company trying to license the music goes to them, makes a real insulting offer and says, "We're not paying another cent. Take it or leave it!" If you're in the business of licensing the rights to something you control, there are cases when you just don't want to empower those who use those tactics or you just don't want to lower your price too often.

If you're routinely charging $500 for the rights to something and you start getting offers of $100 ("Take it or leave it!") and you give in to enough of those offers, eventually the folks who were paying you $500 are going to start offering $100 ("Take it or leave it!"). In fact, sometimes you've assured the guy paying $500 that that's your absolute bottom line so a bit of your honor and ethics are at stake.

Very often, it works like this: Harry the Business Affairs Guy comes to you representing a company that wants to license a piece of music or a story or something you own. You tell him the price is $1000 and that's firm. He goes to his boss and says, "If we want this, it's going to be $1000. They won't sell us the rights for a cent less." The boss okays it and the fee is paid. Later, the boss hears that someone else got the same thing from you for $300…so you've made Harry look bad to his boss. That's not nice, it's not really ethical and it may cost you money the next time you have to deal with Harry.

All that said, there certainly are rights holders who are greedy or who think that in the long run, holding firm on a high price will yield more revenue even if it sometimes means losing out on some small amounts. Also, it has been known to happen that the rights holders are warring partners who can't agree on a lower price…or any price. I just wouldn't leap to assume that when a deal can't be made, the fault is always with the seller. Sometimes, not always.

Someone assembled this video of Famous Comedians Dealing With Hecklers. I have seen many comics do this and the all-time world class champ was Sam Kinison one night in the big room at the Comedy Store.

A guy in the audience was there with a group of friends, all somewhat tipsy. The guy briefly declared himself a participant in Sam's act and for a few minutes, Sam bantered back and forth with him. Then Sam started a long set piece — the kind which one should not interrupt — and when the guy kept yelling things out, Mr. Kinison decided it was time to shut him up.

In fact, I think a little light went off in Sam's brain and he decided the time had come to not only shut the guy up but to drive him from the room in tears. Sam started with the exact same line you'll hear him use in this not-safe-for-workplace video but he did not stop where the clip stops. He continued on the same topic for some time, discussing various sex acts — some I'd never heard of — performed on or by the heckler's mother.

The guy in the audience realized he was outgunned and shut up. Sam kept at him. The guy in the audience apologized. Sam yelled, "You're sorry? Like your mother was sorry when…" and he listed various anatomically-impossible feats the mother had supposedly attempted.

The heckler finally had had enough of it and he got up and started to walk out. Sam jumped down from the stage and started to follow him out, yelling more and more about what an inept whore the guy's mother was. When Sam reached the limit of his microphone cord, he threw down the mike and continued outside. His voice, as you might remember, carried. We were actually sitting there in the Comedy Store main room listening to the headliner standing outside on Sunset Boulevard screaming at a departing audience member that his mother was wasn't worth the fifty cents she charged for sex. In the meantime, the hecker's friends awkwardly gathered up their things and fled from the room, exiting via a route which they hoped would allow them to avoid Sam.

About a minute later, Sam returned from outside, pausing to pick up the microphone as he returned to the stage. He waited out a huge ovation from the audience, then he grinned at us and said, very politely, "Okay…so anyone else want to fuck with me?" Amazingly, no one did.