Yearly Archives: 2015

Stephen Colbert discusses what his new late night show will be like. Not a lot to go on there.

A covey of G.O.P. presidential nomination seekers were asked to name the greatest living president. Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump all named Ronald Reagan. Rick Perry refused to answer, Ben Carson said "I don't know" and Rick Santorum came the closest to actually answering the question when he said, "Probably a Bush."

Why did they have to dodge or go off the board and ignore the "living" part of the question? Because as Jonathan Chait points out, they couldn't name a Democrat…and no one with a different surname wants to be put in the position of defending a Bush.

Chait also notes that the Reagan they're hailing is not the same person by that name who was the 40th President of the United States. But we all knew that.

My pal Marc Wielage told me about this. It's a short home movie (with pretty good picture quality) of someone's trip to Las Vegas in 1962. So it's a good chance to see a lot of hotels and casinos that either are long gone or have been changed completely. We also get to see what I love to see in films and photos of past-tense Vegas: Marquees.

Brenda Lee and Dick Shawn were at the Flamingo…and before someone asks me, "Hey, wasn't Shawn filming It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1962?": Yes. He started in May of that year and finished in December but he had weeks off during the filming. One marquee in the home movie says Alan King is opening on October 16 so Shawn was obviously playing Vegas during a time Mad World didn't need him.

Stan Irwin is presenting Ray Bolger and Judy Garland (separately!) at the Sahara. Irwin was a comedian who became a Vegas entertainment director. Animation fans are interested in him because he supplied the voice of Lou Costello when Hanna-Barbera made their Abbott and Costello cartoons with Abbott playing himself. Our pal Kliph Nesteroff interviewed Mr. Irwin a few years ago, not long before Mr. Irwin passed away.

Also on the marquees, you'll see the name of Hank Henry — a great old burlesque performer who spent his last days as a Vegas comedy superstar — Arthur Ellen. Mr. Ellen was a very prominent hypnotist who did stage shows and also became rather well known for helping athletes and actors with the quitting of alcohol, smoking, stage fright, etc. Frank Gorshin said he wouldn't have been able to perform if not for Ellen helping him "unlock" repressed voices within himself. There's a lot of history on old Las Vegas marquees.

This is the big Rolling Stone article on David Letterman and his imminent retirement from late night TV. It talks a lot about how Dave decided the time had come but it makes no mention of at least one thing that had to have been a key factor: The declining ratings and the fact that when Leno departed, the predictions that Dave might pick up a chunk of that audience — or that Fallon's initial popularity would soon fade — turned out to be wrong.

People keep asking me, "Did he get fired or did he quit?" The answer is he quit but that doesn't mean that there wasn't some subtle nudging — say, in a one-on-one phone call with Les Moonves to which there were no witnesses — that it was time. Or maybe Dave just looked at the numbers and knew that call would be coming soon.

No matter why he's departing now, it's the capper to an amazing body of great, innovative work.

Bill Carter, the journalist who most often covered late night the last few decades, writes about David Letterman. Carter makes the guy seem like a very brilliant but very unhappy human being. I'm not in a position to fully believe that last part and I wonder if he isn't conflating the early Letterman with the current guy, just as some of Leno's detractors seem to dismiss the possibility that 20+ years in a very hot seat can change a man. True, Letterman's on-air manner sometimes has made you believe that quote of his about only being happy that one hour of the day he's doing his show…but I'm still not sure it's as simple as all that. And didn't he say that before he had a son?

I think I disagree with Carter that Letterman "bombed" hosting the Oscars because "Letterman had been Letterman, not doing a show that sucked up to Hollywood." I think the problem was that Dave didn't really try to host the Oscars. He tried to do a prime-time version of his late night show and treated the awards as intrusions. I also don't think he did as badly as legend would have it. I further don't believe that the fact Leno had the Tonight Show label on his late night show meant that much to the ratings. It sure didn't help Conan O'Brien.

On the other mitt, I do agree with all the stuff about legacy and influence, and I like that Carter mentions how much of Dave's success was because of some terrific writers. Years ago on a newsgroup, I was attacked by one hysterical lady for suggesting that every single word that came out of Dave's mouth didn't come wholly from Dave's brain.

Frankly — and this may just be my profession showing — I think the show went into decline when Dave decided, as he seems to have done some time ago, that he didn't want to do the prepared material that some very fine, well-paid writers were creating for him each week, and just wanted to rely on what came out of the aforementioned brain. I've complained here that talk shows these days are too well-scripted and lack spontaneity. Yeah…but Letterman could have used a little help out there some nights.

I get a ridiculous number of press releases sent to my press release address from folks who want to see something of theirs plugged on this blog. This is the first one in a long time that caught my interest…

Hi Mark,

I wanted to get in touch with some news about world record-holding competitive eater, Takeru Kobayashi.

Terminix, the country's leading provider of termite and pest control services, put Kobayashi up to a unique challenge: eat tater tots for an entire day, while going about his daily routine.

You can watch this quick video to find out how he does:

THE RESULTS:

• Kobayashi consumed 259 tater tots in under four minutes, defeating the existing record of 250 tots in five minutes.
• He ate a total of 857 tots over three hours and 22 minutes, all while doing his daily activities.
• While his totals were impressive, termites came in as the winner as they never stop eating — they're on-the-job 24/7, eating through more than $13 million worth of property damage every day. That's $5 billion per year!

If you are interested in a story on this video or sharing it on your social channels, I'd be happy to share additional assets.

In 1958, journalist Bob Thomas authored one of the first books on how Disney artists did what they did. It was called The Art of Animation and I have a copy in my library. My copy, however, is lacking one thing that's in Floyd Norman's copy.

Bill Cosby did the final show of his current tour last Saturday night in Atlanta. He entertained a room with more empty seats than there would have been were it not for the many allegations of "inappropriate conduct" (i.e., rape) that have been made against him. One of the seats that was occupied was occupied by Joshua Alston, who reports on the evening.

Is this how it ends? Cosby just slinks off into retirement and the world forgets about him? I dunno. That doesn't feel very satisfying for the folks who think he's innocent or the folks who think he's guilty. But they all may have to just accept it…

I just saw last night's Letterman show with Howard Stern and Don Rickles. Stern wore out his "I'm here to make trouble" routine with me long ago and there were moments there when it looked like Dave was feeling as I do…but maybe not. I mean, you book Howard Stern, that's what you get. Dave couldn't have been surprised that Howard took control of the conversation, wouldn't let Dave run his own show and asked questions designed to make the host uncomfortable. That's what the guy does.

But Rickles…well, we've heard that for the last few years, he's had trouble walking. This is the first time he seemed to be having trouble talking. The mind seemed pretty sharp for a guy who just turned 89 but there was a definite speech problem there. Let's hope it's just wobbly dentures instead of something less fixable.

From 1963: Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett sing one of my favorite showtunes at Carnegie Hall…

We're flashing back to September 20, 2002, back to the prehistoric Internet where discussions were done primarily in things called "newsgroups." Much time was spent lamenting the axing of some favored comic book and it led to this posting here…

I have this friend named Pat O'Neill.  We get along fine in person and on the phone.  Nice guy.  On various discussion forums on the Internet, however, I rarely agree with him and often strenuously disagree to the extent where people write me and say, "Boy, you must hate Pat O'Neill."  I don't.  I don't think I "hate" anyone in this world…but if I did, it would have to be for something a lot more offensive than posting things I utterly disagree with in newsgroups.

I mention this because I'm about to disagree with Pat again.  The other morning, over in the rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe newsgroup, he posted the following…

Most commonly on these groups any decision a publisher makes that cancels a "critically acclaimed" title whose sales are in the toilet is derided.  In general, these groups act as if publishers were in business to publish the GROUPS' favorite comics, as opposed to publishing the comics most likely to be profitable.

Pat is right and wrong about this…and I should add that I was, as well, since I used to say almost the exact same thing in fanzines when someone would start weeping that their favorite funnybook had been axed.  But I think I was at least partly incorrect for two reasons, one large and one small…

One is that, first of all, a fan has every right to complain when something he likes is taken from him.  Such passions ought to be balanced with a little pragmatism and awareness of how things have to work in the Real World, true.  But I think it's unfair and probably unwise to demean or attempt to change that passion.  You can't expect someone whose only relationship to a work is as Enthusiastic Audience to suddenly snap to the mindset of one of the bean-counters in the accounting department…nor should they.  What a cold, unenjoyable media it would be if we all had to hook our sympathies up to the financial end of things and to accept every decision as a calculated profit/loss reality.  If I love something, I shouldn't have that love trampled by the business department expecting me to view it through their eyes.

That's the small reason.  The larger is this: When a publisher cancels a "fan favorite" comic book due to poor sales, there's a very good chance that publisher is wrong…often in the long term and sometimes even in the short term.

An amazing number of times — too often to dismiss as flukes, I believe — a publisher has cancelled The Invincible Flurp and all the Flurp fans get up in arms and protest, and the publisher says, "Don't you [idiot] fans realize that this is a business?  That Flurp sales are in the crapper and we're losing money and that we're not in business to lose money?"  And in the long run, with hindsight, there is ample evidence that the publisher simply gave up too quickly on a comic that might have built a new and profitable audience had the company stayed with it longer or done a better job of marketing.  (It has also been the case, though some have denied it, that someone in the office simply misread the numbers and terminated a profitable title, or killed one deliberately because of personal issues with its makers.  I don't think anyone will ever admit that in print, at least about themselves, but almost anyone who's been in the business for any length of time will tell you it's happened.)

Throughout comic book history, publishers have often been way too short-sighted and timid and terrified of losing even a very modest amount of money on new product.  At times, the financial risk in publishing the established sellers becomes so non-existent that they cannot bear to assume even a microscopic risk to publish something new.  Something different comes along and they don't know how to sell it and are afraid to try.  Usually, it works like this: Super-hero books are selling decently and, in a moment of uncommon wisdom, someone says, "We need to expand the audience and reach folks who don't like super-hero comics," so they launch some non super-hero comics, often with great confidence and a determination to build and nurture another marketplace.

That's until the first sales figures come in on the non super-hero comics and they don't immediately yield the guaranteed profits of the super-hero books.  Then someone has a panic attack and, without waiting for the folks who don't like super-hero comics to have time to find the new, non super-hero books, the publisher says, "Wait a minute!  Why am I publishing these when I could sell more comics per month by replacing them with super-hero titles?"  That has happened way too many times, despite the fact that the potential loss, even if the new books never catch on, is not all that great.  It also happens despite the facts that…

A. There are dozens of cases where a new comic was declared a flop and then, for reasons other than the publisher believing in it, it was brought back or continued a little longer…and it became not just a hit but a huge hit.  Marvel Comics' two biggest properties — Spider-Man and the Hulk — were both initially and prematurely declared failures and were cancelled.  And had we been around then and protested those cancellations, someone at the company could have said precisely what Pat O'Neill said above.  Later on, the publisher declared the then-new Conan the Barbarian comic an utter failure and actually did say what Pat said when fans protested its probable cancellation.  But as with Spidey and Greenskin, the Barbarian stuck around long enough to develop and show a following.

B. Sometimes, the sales of the comic book itself are only part of the story.  All the major companies have published comics that were, going strictly by this month's sales, unprofitable…but because the property was licensed for a movie or toy deal, loads of cash rolled in.  There were many years where Wonder Woman was technically losing all kinds of money on the newsstand but that comic served as a very effective loss-leader for very lucrative merchandise.

C. There are also dozens of cases where, years later, a cancelled comic still has a loyal following.  No one can ever prove that Bat Lash (to pick one example of dozens) would or would not have found an audience had it run another year or so but, given the extent to which people still recall it fondly, you have to wonder.  More to the point, some abruptly-cancelled comics are probably analogous to a movie that is declared a flop at the time of its debut but which, in re-release, proves to be enormously popular and profitable.  DC, for instance, has made an awful lot of money reprinting the old Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams issues of Green Lantern-Green Arrow which, back in 1971, was declared a money-loser that had to go.  Some don't think it was unprofitable then but, even if it was, the foreign sales and reprints have since made it one of the more lucrative things DC published that year.  Had they kept it going, it would have been a very good investment.

This is not unique to comics.  TV networks are often too quick to cancel a show if its initial ratings do not soar.  Seinfeld, which may turn out to be the most profitable live-action TV show of all time, was — like Spider-Man or Hulk — an "immediate flop" that many of the business-types wanted to junk, and might have.  The TV version of M*A*S*H, which may be the current holder of the "most profitable of all time" medallion, was definitely in that category, as well.  (I once worked for a producer who kept on his wall, a framed memo from a high executive at Paramount.  Going by early ratings, the exec was declaring Cheers a bomb and asking if the studio's lawyers could extricate them from having to produce any more episodes.  Next to it was framed a then-recent statement of the show's grosses, which of course made the first memo look even stupider.)

Fact is — and I'll bet it's the same in almost any field — business decisions are not always firm, intractable judgments.  A creative field like comic books is probably especially subjective.  The folks who have to decide what to publish and what to cancel might like to pretend that they have no choice…that they're only going by the numbers and you can't argue with them.  But you can.  Like William Goldman says of the movie business, "Nobody knows anything."

If you love a comic book and the publisher kills it, don't let anyone tell you you're naïve to protest or lament its passing.  Worrying about the profit or loss of the company is the company's job, not yours.  And besides, there's a very good chance that even as a dollars-and-cents decision, they're wrong and you're right.

Ezra Klein says cable news is in trouble and we may need to invade Iran (or something) just to save MSNBC.

On the other hand, he notes that Fox News made $1.2 billion in profits last year. That doesn't sound like an industry in trouble to me. It sounds like the answer to the question, "Why doesn't Fox News stop spreading bogus information?"

Mike Huckabee is one of those folks who I think will get as many electoral votes in the 2016 presidential election as I will. Others on that list include Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsay Graham, Mitt Romney, Lincoln Chafee, Bernie Sanders and Woody Woodpecker. Well, maybe not Woody Woodpecker.

Reporters are now pressing Huckabee to defend his involvement in selling a diabetes remedy that sounds like outright quackery. Huckabee's reponse on Face the Nation yesterday was, and I quote: "I don't have to defend everything that I've ever done."

Utterly fair question for Mike Huckabee: "If you were the Republican nominee running against Hillary Clinton — yeah, like that's gonna happen — would you accept that answer from her on a question involving her financial dealings?"

If he says no, he looks like a massive hypocrite. If he says yes, he's throwing away half the campaign the Republicans intend to mount against her.

Here's a pretty rare clip. It's The Tonight Show for New Year's Eve of 1965. As you can see, Woody Allen is in Johnny's guest chair but this is a segment with the Muppets, who were then pretty new to network television. The bearded gent you'll see in there is Skitch Henderson, who was Johnny's bandleader at the time…

Here's a list — not complete but still impressive — of old restaurants in Los Angeles that are still in operation. This is not to be confused with the splendid website run by the proprietor of the one you're reading at the moment. Old L.A. Restaurants covers ones that are no longer in operation.

I have not been to the oldest one on the list of those still serving but I have been to the next two. Cole's and Phillipe the Original both opened in 1908 and both claim to have invented the French Dip sandwich, which is still their specialty. I don't know which one to believe and I doubt there's a way to ever settle that one. I do know that I have a small preference for the sandwiches at Phillipe. Also, the parking. The next oldest one listed that I've been to is one I visit often — the Musso & Frank Grill and then maybe a fourth of the rest. If you're of the area, you will probably want to check off the ones you've patronized, too.