Yearly Archives: 2015

In the last few weeks, most of America seems to have finally admitted out loud that the Iraq War was a colossal, spectacular mistake. The debate is no longer if it was a screw-up but if it was an understandable screw-up, one that anyone could and did make, given what was supposedly the best intelligence at the time. In other words, was it anyone's mistake or everyone's mistake? — the implication being that if it was everyone's, then no one in particular is to blame.

Personally, I think it was someone's mistake, starting with the guy whose desk should have still had Harry Truman's little plaque about how "The buck stops here." And I think it was the mistake of most of the guys around him, all of whom should be deemed too incompetent to ever be allowed near our foreign policy again. Alas, many of them are now advising his brother in his quest to sit behind that desk.

There are a lot of articles around about how disingenuous and weasely it all is but the best I've seen is this one by Matt Taibbi. He reminds us not only how full of manure our "leaders" were about it all but how eager the press and the alleged Opposition Party were to help spread said manure.

Are there still ice cream trucks? Apparently, so…but when I came across the above photo, it suddenly occurred to me that I've never heard one in my neighborhood. In the last 35+ years, I've spent a lot of time at this computer next to a window that faces the street and I don't think I've either heard or seen an ice cream truck.

They were a daily presence in my childhood even when I didn't flag one down to make a purchase. There was something comforting about knowing they were there; that there were people in this world who drove around with delicious treats. The cute little jingle would remind you that it was there if you wanted it. I seem to recall that there were times when some friend was over and we did want it…so we'd wish real hard and like a genie with slow response time, the Ice Cream Truck — not always the same one, of course — would appear before too long.

Today, if I made up a list of Jobs I'm Glad I Don't Have, driving a truck around like that would be very near the top, just below Cole Slaw Taster and handling public relations for Bill Cosby. Back then, there was something magical about it. I can't imagine how low the pay must have been and how mentally non-stimulating the job must still be…but everyone was so very glad to see you. That must have been the appeal of that profession for some people.

I rarely bought ice cream from the Ice Cream Man. I was more often interested in procuring one of these:

That's right: It's the dictionary definition of empty calories — the orange popsicle. I liked the way they looked. I liked the way they tasted. I liked that nothing bad ever happened to you while eating an orange popsicle and I regretted that that time period lasted such a brief time. Sadly, you couldn't draw it out and make the "safe" feeling last because the popsicle would melt at a rapidly-accelerating pace and drip all over you and become more of a problem than a joy. Still, it was great while it lasted.

This feeling, by the way, only applied to orange popsicles. A grape popsicle or a red one was just a hunk of frozen flavored water. I was never sure what the red ones were. I think they were whatever you wanted them to be. If you asked for strawberry, they gave you a red one. If you asked for cherry, they gave you the same red one. Or raspberry. Or one time, even apple. I'm sure that if I'd asked for a tomato popsicle, they would have handed me one of those red ones. It tasted as much like tomato as it did any of those other flavors.

As wonderful as they were, there was another downside to orange popsicles: The two sticks. I could rarely get the one-stick variety in my area. which was silly. Think how many trees they could have saved by only inserting one…but they gave you two on the faulty premise that some folks might want to split the popsicle in half and share it with a friend.

First thing wrong with that concept: Share it with a friend? Never. Let my cheapo friend get his own orange popsicle. Even if you were eight, it wasn't a significant expenditure.

Second problem: Splitting one of those things in half was about as easy as splitting the atom and almost as dangerous. I certainly never successfully accomplished either.

Usually, attempting it would send one entire half of your beloved orange popsicle plunging to the pavement. Or one stick would come out, making the popsicle impossible to share and awkward to eat. In the TV commercials, some trained ninja popsicle-divider would grasp the two sticks, give an artful twist and bisect the popsicle perfectly. They should have put up a little disclaimer: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME — because it never worked like that in reality.

So you'd just eat the popsicle with two sticks, which would put you perpetually off-balance. Whichever one you held was the wrong one. But I still loved them…up until about the age of twelve or thirteen.

When you're in that age range, much changes in your world. Certain toys you own seem childish and you toss them out as a rite of passage. You have to start seriously thinking about a career or at least a way of start making spending money. If you're a boy, girls suddenly seem a lot less yucchy. And orange popsicles lose a large chunk of their magic.

At least, that was my experience. I gave up all sweet edibles a few years ago but I gave up orange popsicles about the time I started sneaking peeks at Playboy. I believe there was a connection. Miss August looked a lot more tempting than an orange popsicle…and that's about as far as I want to go with that analogy. Keep your snide remarks about licking or being frigid to yourself.

One day when I was about twenty-eight or so, I was over visiting my parents and as I left, I heard the familiar song of The Ice Cream Man. There was one rolling down the street in my direction.

On a whim, I flagged him down and asked if he had any orange popsicles. He did. I bought one and, sure enough, two sticks. Right on the spot, for they don't travel well, I began consuming the orange popsicle.

The first lick was like heaven. The second was about half as good. The third? Eh. Even before it showed the first sign of melting, my interest in it was starting to drip. By the eighth or ninth slurp, I was just doing it because I'd paid for the thing. That was when I decided to try the ninja twist. I wouldn't have chanced it if I'd cared about finishing the popsicle but I had nothing to lose.

I grasped the sticks just as I'd recalled the hands did in those commercials. I pulled up with one hand, down with the other and attempted to wrench the popsicle into two equal pieces. Instead, the stick burst out of the left side, the popsicle split and the enough of the right-hand side ruptured to open a gap around the right stick. So both halves of it fell to the street.

Once upon a time, that would have made me very sad. Now, I was relieved that my fruitless (and given the ingredients in one, I mean fruitless) attempt to revisit my childhood was over. Thomas Wolfe was right: You can't go back to your home and eat an orange popsicle again.

Well, at least he said something like that.

And here's a good interview with Merrill Markoe, a very smart person indeed. There's some very good advice in there for writers.

I had a piece here the other day about Merrill Markoe. Steve O'Donnell is another person who was once David Letterman's head writer…another person who thought up jokes and ideas for bits that prompted people to say, "Isn't Dave brilliant?" For this article, he was interviewed about the creation and making of the Top Ten lists.

In the piece, O'Donnell makes mention of a Top Ten list that had to be written in just a few minutes due to a sudden emergency. It was "Top 10 Numbers Between One and Ten" and I thought it was one of the funniest ones they ever did. They must have too because they later repeated the premise — with different numbers and with Casey Kasem handling the countdown…

The first version aired on NBC on September 22, 1989. The one with Mr. Kasem was on CBS on September 3, 1993.

Speaking of the Top Ten list: Its invention has been credited to several different folks on the staff at the time and I have no reason to favor one account over another. But I wonder if whoever came up with it was influenced — even subconsciously — by an unsold pilot that ran on NBC five years before — on July 10, 1980. It was called Top Ten and it was like Solid Gold, counting down the current hits, interspersed with both serious and funny Top Ten lists. The funny ones were very much like the ones featured for years on Mr. Letterman's shows from 1985 on.

On Top Ten, they used the lists as premises for sketches and comedy blackouts but sometimes, someone just stood there and read a list. The show had a troop of comic actors that included Bill Saluga, Rick Dees, Julie McWhirter, Marcie Barkin, Mark Holden, Joyce Jillson, Edie McClurg, Chris King, Diane Steinberg, Paul Ryan, Ted Zeigler, Willie Curtis, Mike Fullington and a very young Phil Hartman. It was produced by Chris Bearde and written by Monty Aidem, Jeffrey Barron and others. Here's a photo of most of the cast members…

I haven't seen it since 7/10/80 but I remember it as being quite funny and musical. I knew Jeffrey Barron and I phoned him after it aired and asked, "Why didn't that become a series?" He said he didn't know. Jeffrey has passed away since then but yesterday, I e-mailed some other folks involved with it who I knew then or have met since and asked them for their recollections. Chris Bearde — one of the best comedy producers I ever worked with — wrote me back and said…

It was a precursor to MTV. Jim Aubrey and i were execs. I just took a bunch of promotional videos at that time…put Rick Dees as the D.J., got the Village People live and did all the hits of the day. It was also before Dave's Top Ten. I hired a fresh young Dave as writer on a Bob Hope Show I produced before he was big time Dave!! It was a first TV appearance for Phil Hartman also…Lotsa firsts…Bruce Jenner and Graham Chapman were guests. Graham did "The top ten people you think are dead!"

Monty Aidem wrote back…

You know, I don't remember much about the Top Ten special. A few things, though: There was another writer named Mara Lideks. And the director was a British guy named John Robins, who had directed Benny Hill, I believe. Bill Saluga added a lot as his character Raymond J. Johnson who was apparently hot at the time. All in all, it was a more memorable cast than George Schlatter's Laugh-In revival of the time.

And then I wrote Marcie Barkin, who I met when I was writing and she was guesting on Welcome Back, Kotter. Marcie's the adorable lady in the leopard-print outfit in the photo above — a wonderful comic actress…

It was an NBC pilot — skits, etc. Comedy ensemble format. It didn't have anything to do with Letterman's Top 10 though…

Okay, so Marcie doesn't see a connection to Letterman's lists and I'm not saying I do…but I wonder. Hey, does anyone have a copy of this special?

Once upon a time, TV networks kept trying to find a weekly series to star Don Rickles. Johnny Carson said, "Don's had his finger in more pilots than an Air Force proctologist." Some projects never made it onto the air. Others were on but not for long. His longest run was as the title character of C.P.O. Sharkey, which was producer Aaron Ruben's brainstorm. Ruben had worked on Sgt. Bilko and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (among others) so I guess he thought military sitcoms were lucky for him or something.

I was a big fan of Mr. Rickles but the first few episodes of C.P.O. Sharkey did not inspire me to watch more and I don't think it was the show. I think it was putting Rickles into any scripted format where he played someone other than Don Rickles. It was not him doing what he did best. Still, I'm glad they're putting the series out on DVD and I'll probably get around to purchasing it after I work my way through about seven other sets of other shows I have sitting here. If you want it now, here's an Amazon link.

The set includes the video from The Tonight Show — the famous moment when Johnny Carson went across the hallway at NBC with his camera and barged in on a C.P.O. Sharkey taping. I've written about it there a few times, most recently here. I'm pretty sure it was planned in advance but Mr. Rickles did not know. He says that in today's New York Times in this brief interview about the new DVD release.

Later this week, I'm going to write about my favorite TV show that has never been released on DVD. And no, I was not among its writers.

One thing that has struck me about David Letterman's last shows is that Dave's kind of lost in them. He has this parade of guests who have always been a source of reliable entertainment in his guest chair…but with one exception, they're there to talk about Dave instead of themselves. Dave isn't that good on the subject of Dave, at least as a positive and competent force — so he doesn't know what to say. He seems a little overwhelmed by it.

Friday night was interesting because of that one exception. Oprah Winfrey was the lead guest and she artfully steered the narrative away from the awesomeness of Dave and to the more important topic of the awesomeness that is Oprah. I usually like that lady but the self-importance was a little much to take. Fortunately, the second guest was Norm MacDonald, performing what I guess will be the last stand-up spot on that program. He was genuinely emotional about being a part of Letterman's finale…I think. Maybe he was really choked-up to think of the fine work Oprah is doing to arrange college educations for "her girls."

My favorite guest of the week was George Clooney, who came out Thursday night and handcuffed himself to Dave to prevent him from leaving. I like that they carried the joke through the entire show…and then when Dave came out Friday night, there was George Clooney right alongside him, the two of the still handcuffed together until Paul Shaffer came over with a bolt cutter. If that was all Mr. Clooney's idea, good for him. He said "We don't want you to go" with a clever bit in the Letterman tradition as opposed to mere words.

Monday night, Dave has on Tom Hanks, who since the passing of Robin Williams has inherited the mantle of Most Reliably Funny Talk Show Guest. Tuesday night, there's Bill Murray, who I'm sure will delight the audience though his appeal has generally escaped me. For the latter half of both episodes, I will be fast-forwarding through more important musical guests than usual.

Voice actor John Stephenson died Friday night at the age of 91. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's for some time and living in a nursing home. Several years ago, reports of his declining health somehow led to a series of erroneous Internet reports that he had passed. This time, sadly, it's so.

Stephenson's long, prolific career began in 1948 when he moved to Hollywood from his native Wisconsin. He quickly became a working actor on radio dramas and began landing roles in film and on television. In fact, it would be hard to find a TV show filmed in Hollywood between 1953 and about 1968 that he didn't guest on. You can catch him on reruns of The Lone Ranger, The Beverly Hillbillies, F Troop, Get Smart, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, Perry Mason, That Girl, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, The People's Choice, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and so many more. In the sixties though, he was getting so much work in voiceovers that he abandoned his "on camera" career.

He did hundreds of commercials and announcing jobs. His was the voice that announced the verdicts at the end of the sixties' Dragnet series.

And he worked incessantly in cartoons, mainly for Hanna-Barbera. He was heard often on the original Flintstones series, voicing Fred's boss Mr. Slate and dozens of supporting characters. On the series Top Cat, he spoke for the character Fancy-Fancy and, again, dozens of supporting characters. On Jonny Quest, he was Dr. Benton Quest. On other H-B shows, he played recurring and guest roles to the extent that he may have been the most-heard actor in their productions. Joe Barbera loved him and the feeling was mutual. (I took the above photo of him at a party for Mr. Barbera.)

The Internet Movie Database lists 232 credits for him as both an on-camera and voiceover actor. I would bet that's less than a tenth of all he did.

John was heard on many of the shows I worked on for H-B but I only met him briefly a few times. He was efficient and professional and a very good actor, much respected by his peers. We will all miss him but we will continue to hear him.

This post ran here on September 9, 2002 and I have to confess that it contains one untruth. Near the end, you'll see me tell how I took a lady named Liz to the Palms Theater to see the film, Blue Water, White Death. This is a lie. Shortly after I posted it, I realized I actually took Liz to see something else (I forget what) at the Palms and we saw Blue Water, White Death at the Cinerama Dome up in Hollywood. Since everything else I wrote was true, I didn't bother correcting it but I should have. This is how Brian Williams got in trouble.

Also: I said in it I hadn't seen Liz since that night. That was true when I wrote it but it's not true now. Among the many amazing things the Internet does for us is that in enables us to reconnect with folks from our pasts. That's not always a good thing but in this case, I was delighted to hear again from Liz, who now lives in San Diego, and I see her almost every year at Comic-Con. I don't understand why she has aged so little since the seventies but I guess it's just one of those mysteries of life like how bumblebees are able to fly and why Chelsea Handler has a career. Here is the otherwise accurate post from 2002…

It isn't there now but there used to be a wonderful old movie house in Culver City called the Palms Theater. It was a friendly place to see a film — not fancy but comfy, not plush but cheap. The big, first-run movies went to the fancier theaters in Westwood, all of them affiliated with national chains. The Palms, fiercely independent to its dying day, usually offered up two second-run pictures, with a few trailers and a cartoon sandwiched between.

The best thing about the Palms was its recorded announcement. I don't know who recorded them but he always commenced with "Shalom, Bubala," and he was always hysterical. My favorite, which I shall now attempt to re-create, came when they booked a double-feature of Walter Matthau pics. It went very much like this, and it will probably be funnier if you read it aloud…

Shalom, Bubala. This is the exotic Palms Theater on picturesque Motor Avenue in beautiful Culver City. This week, we are featuring Plaza Suite, starring Walter Matthau and Lee Grant, Walter Matthau and Maureen Stapleton, and Walter Matthau and Barbara Harris. We are also featuring A New Leaf, starring Walter Matthau and Elaine May. In other words — Walter Matthau, ad nauseum. Here's your chance to get so sick of Walter Matthau you'll never have to see another Walter Matthau movie as long as you live.

Drive up to the theater where our parking lot attendant, Walter Matthau, will show you where to park. Then buy a ticket from our box office attendant, Walter Matthau, and have it torn in half by our ticket taker, Walter Matthau. Visit our refreshment stand where our counterman Walter Matthau will gladly sell you a large, Walter Matthau-sized soft drink and a box of Jujubees, every one of them in the shape of Walter Matthau. You will be seated by our usher, Walter Matthau, and then our projectionist (Walter Matthau) will start the program, commencing with a Walter Matthau cartoon, a Walter Matthau newsreel, and coming attractions of more than seventeen thousand Walter Matthau films.

Next week, we're featuring two more movies. We don't know what they are yet but we can guarantee you that they won't have Walter Matthau in them. In fact, we will give you a double-your-money-back No Walter Matthau guarantee.

If you read it the way the guy on the phone read it, it's hysterical. (And here's an interesting example of how just the right word is important in comedy. If you read the same speech with Jack Lemmon's name in there, it's only about half as funny. Try it and see.)

I used to go to the Palms about once a month — sometimes with my parents, sometimes with a date — but I made a point of phoning each week to hear what the "Shalom, Bubala" guy had to say. I wasn't the only one. People who had no interest whatsoever in going to the Palms Theater used to call in sufficient quantity that the Palms had to install extra phone lines.

I can remember some of the movies I saw there — Airport, Paint Your Wagon, The Odd Couple…(This last was obviously before the "No Walter Matthau" policy went into effect). I even remember the first time I took a date to the Palms.

It was Blue Water, White Death, a documentary about sharks that I'd have passed on, had it not been for Liz. She wanted to see it and I was willing to take Liz anywhere, just as long as I could sneak my arm around her.

I was just buying two General Admissions at the Palms (not from Walter Matthau) when Liz said to me, "I feel I have to see this movie. I have a terrible fear of sharks."

I stopped in the doorway, right by the non-Matthau usher. "Why do you have to see this movie if you're afraid of sharks?" I asked.

"I'm hoping that if I confront my fear, I will get over it," she replied.

Well, it sounded good in theory but she spent the entire movie with her nails dug into my arm and/or thigh, and left the Palms so upset that she asked me to take her straight home. This was not what I'd had in mind for the balance of the evening. I haven't seen Liz since that night. I have, however, seen her fingernail marks on my arm and thigh.

And I haven't seen the Palms Theater since shortly after that. One day when I drove past, the marquee proclaimed, in lieu of movie titles, that it was "Closed until further notice." The next time I cruised Motor Avenue, it said, "Closed forever." And the next time, there was no marquee…or Palms Theater.

It looks like Walter had the last laugh.

Penn Jillette on the pending implosion of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.

Merrill Markoe was the original Head Writer — and some would say "person who had most of the ideas which people credit to David Letterman" — for David Letterman's talk shows. She has certainly been woefully undercredited for his success, which may not be surprising. A lot of people just plain want to believe that all the funny comes from the person who speaks it aloud. (I once dated a lady who, in much the same manner, knew but did not want to believe that her favorite actors in action movies had stuntmen and that the stars did not actually do those spectacular feats themselves.)

Also, I suspect that Ms. Markoe has been shorted on recognition by some folks' unwillingness to accept that all those funny ideas came from a woman. But everyone who was around Letterman's shows in the early days seems to recognize how essential she was to all that success. Here's a recent interview with her.

And here she is picking some of her favorite moments from those shows.

Harvey Kurtzman was one of the most talented creative talents who ever worked in comics. Sadly, since he did his best work before about 1980, that means he was not compensated at a level commensurate with the financial impact of that work. He didn't make that much more money than someone whose work did not make its publisher a multi-millionaire. He also had trouble attaining and maintaining a work situation where he could do his best work with some measure of control over how it appeared.

He created MAD, of course, and served as editor-writer (and occasional artist) of its classic early issues in comic book format and the first few when it became a not-very-slick "slick magazine." Before that, he'd done the same duties on a couple of highly-regarded war comics for the same publisher, EC Comics. Neither job paid that well, given the time and care Kurtzman put into his work.

He was a slow 'n' steady creator who was known to spend hours on one panel, doing it over and over just to get it right. Some of Kurtzman's associates felt that this was not a function of perfectionism so much as anxiety; that all the extra time and care did not substantially improve the work and may even have done a bit of damage. That's probably an unprovable premise and even if true, it doesn't change the fact that this great talent never quite found the right gig…never quite found a place where he could both do the work as he wanted to do and be paid the way he wanted to be paid. It always seemed to be one or the other.

He left MAD because he wanted a piece of the gold mine he'd located and more control over the product. He then did a magazine called Trump for Hugh Hefner. It was too expensive at a time when Hef couldn't afford it so it lasted two issues. He then did a magazine called Humbug that he and his associates more or less published themselves. There were problems with the package, the printing, the distribution and maybe to some extent the content. It failed. He then did a magazine called Help! and it was seriously underfunded, its best material lost in a chintzy package that never caught on.

Though he did other things — you might be surprised how many Schelly names — Kurtzman largely paid the bills after Help! crashed producing the Little Annie Fanny strip for Playboy. It was a body of work (or maybe a work of body) that sometimes showed flashes of the Kurtzman brilliance between more frequent flashes of the title character's physique. It may also have been the most micro-managed comic strip ever done. Though the pay was there, it could not have been a particularly joyous experience for someone who in his previous ventures had enjoyed so much creative freedom. It was certainly a lot less than Harvey had to offer the world.

I have always found Kurtzman's story fascinating and frustrating, and wished I'd had more than our few encounters to learn more about this extraordinary talent. Well, I learned a lot more reading the new, most enjoyable biography by my friend, Bill Schelly. I highly endorse and recommend Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America, which you can order from Amazon via this link.

Though 644 pages long, it reads like a breeze and I was sorry it was over when it was. It is scrupulously researched and filled with grand insights into its subject without forcing you into one particular interpretation. I find many of Kurtzman's decisions, both creative and financial, highly arguable. That he was a better writer-artist than career manager seems incontestable but it's often hard to see what he should have done instead and I came away from the book feeling, "Gee, what a shame that the industry never had the proper place for a guy as talented as Harvey Kurtzman." You may or may not arrive where I did.

If you're interested in comic book history and especially the comics Kurtzman did, you've probably already ordered this fine book. It should also be of note to those intrigued by the problems of being a creative talent — then and even now — balancing the twin needs of making a living and doing work of which you can be proud. Those brief times I had with Harvey (and long talks with some of his associates) led me to believe that many of his problems flowed from his disquietude about declaring a given piece of work finished and ready for public inspection.

Jack Kirby — a man misused by his industry in mostly-different ways — could finish five pages a day and without a moment of hesitation, send them instantly off into the assembly line for publication. Kurtzman could not. He shared Jack's inability to get paid what he was worth but he had other complications, toiling in a field that expected work to be produced at a Kirby (and not a Kurtzman) pace. Schelly also captures well the human side of his subject — a very nice man who loved the form of comics and did so much to advance it despite his struggles. Do yourself a favor and read all about him.

Folks who once said the survival of our country depending on us invading Iraq are now saying, "Okay, it was a mistake but it was an understandable one based on the faulty intelligence we had at the time." Josh Marshall reminds us what really happened and how it was all built on a lot of deception.

Matt Taibbi thinks the recent scuffle between President Obama and Elizabeth Warren on the trade deal is just cynical triangulation. He may be right. "Progressives," these days, seem to go out of their way to not be too progressive.

So let me see if I have this straight…

Jeb Bush was asked if, given what we know now, he would have authorized the invasion of Iraq. He said yes.

Then he said he misheard the question and did not know what he would have done.

Then he said he would not answer the question because that would be a "disservice" to our troops.

Then today he answered the question and said that given what we know now, he would not have authorized the invasion of Iraq.

Okay, is that it? And if so, is there a more inept way to handle that question? A way that makes people think you're trying to give the answer that your advisors tell you best matches the polling data and you can't even get that right?

Here's the thing I can't help thinking about this. I remember when the Vietnam War was in its later stages. To criticize the handling and wisdom of that war was to open yourself to attacks that it was (a) treasonous to even suggest the war was not a necessary and noble cause and (b) tantamount to spitting in the faces of those who'd served and desecrating the graves of those who'd died.

It was an insult to those who'd fought because you were saying they'd fought and/or died in vain and it was an insult to your country because you were saying it made mistakes. Jeb started to go there with his "disservice" answer but obviously, someone told him he couldn't take that position for very long. The Iraq War is now officially indefensible.

So now we have Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and a few other candidates seeking Republican votes and saying, "If we'd known then what we know now…" And we have Jeb Bush joining in.

George W. was nowhere to be seen at the last two Republican National Conventions. I have the feeling we're not going to see him at the next one, even in the unlikely event his brother is the nominee. In fact, that unlikely event got a whole less likely today.