Yearly Archives: 2015

Back in the early sixties, former heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano had a syndicated interview show called Main Event. Each episode consisted of several conversations which drifted in and out of talking about boxing and show business. I believe the show was offered to stations in multiple formats: A half-hour version, an hour version and the option of using the interviews individually to fill holes in the schedule, say after a movie or during a baseball rain delay.

Marciano was a great fighter I suppose but he was not a champion interviewer. Still, he had on a lot of the kind of guests no one can make uninteresting. Here are chats with Jersey Joe Walcott, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jackie Gleason. The Gleason is the main reason I'm posting this…

The wickedly clever Merrill Markoe examines the "FAQ" page on the McDonald's website and comes away less likely to eat at one than before she waded through all those answers to tough questions and culinary transparency.

McDonald's is attempting to stop its declining sales by being more open about what's in their food and how they prepare it…and I suppose that's a good thing for consumers. It may not, however, be a good thing for their revenue. (I found this link, by the way, on the most excellent blog of the fine broadcaster, Mr. Paul Harris.)

The SNL40 special killed in the ratings. The "day after" reaction seems to be quite mixed and everyone is outraged about some omission. The more I think about it, the more annoying it is to me that the only way a writer seems to get any recognition is if they also became well-known as a performer. But then the show has too often measured the success of its creators by what they did after they were part of Saturday Night Live.

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Registration for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego begins this week. If you want to attend, I suggest you hustle your cursor over to comic-con.org and make sure you know what you have to do and when you have to do it. Understand that con will sell out and it will sell out quickly and that many folks who want to go will not get in. He who hesitates is badgeless.

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The second issue of Groo: Friends and Foes comes out this week. If you didn't get #1, you may still be able to find a copy. It's very silly stuff. I'm spending today working on #8.

Steve Daly wrote this article which is sort of a defense of Brian Williams, though not a particularly flattering one. I'm not sure I buy it but I'm also not sure I care that much about this whole scandal.

Boy, that was long and self-congratulatory.

Gee, some people haven't aged well, either in terms of age or comedic ability. I was pleased that Laraine Newman looked so good because she's the same age I am. (Well, actually I'm about twenty minutes older.)

I think there were more technical errors in this special than they have in an entire season. It must have been a nightmare to service all those celebs, rehearse the ones who did things that needed rehearsal, get the ones who needed hair and makeup through hair and makeup, etc…

I'm not sure why they felt they needed musical numbers from Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and a few others. I hope the Pauls were just having a bad night and that's not what their voices are like these days.

Shelly Goldstein messaged me that if anyone needs proof that Sarah Palin is focused on celebrity (as opposed to holding public office), you needed only to look at her participation and especially her gown.

You get the feeling Eddie Murphy had the limo double-parked outside with the engine running?

They gave about as little attention as possible to the period when Jean Doumanian produced the show…and Eddie Murphy aside, to the Dick Ebersol years. I think they missed a bet: Bring Gilbert Gottfried out and let him spend three minutes yelling about the period he was on the show. He would have stolen the evening.

I'll bet a lot of the folks who've written for this program weren't amused at the joke about not devoting any time to the writers. The inattention to them was really a slap in the puss.

Some of the clip packages remind you how highly SNL has always valued catch phrases. To some extent, the measure of a cast member is how many they manage to accumulate.

I kept waiting for them to bring Jon Lovitz out as his liar character and introduce himself as Brian Williams. But Seinfeld got to do the Brian Williams joke.

Some odd picks as to who got camera time and who didn't. There are folks who did 5+ seasons who got less attention than Jerry Seinfeld, Betty White, Louis C.K. and a dozen other stars who haven't been a particularly important part of the show.

I actually kept thinking about this: They reportedly invited everyone who was ever a cast member to be in the audience. For some, that was an invite to spend their own money for travel and lodging, plus expenses for dressing up and grooming, to sit in the back, be mostly ignored and maybe experience the awkwardness of being asked, "So, what are you doing these days?" Some of them had to be sitting there during the obit reel thinking, "I would have gotten mentioned if I'd died." (Which reminds me: Uh, Jim Henson?)

A friend of mine who was a regular on Laugh-In once told me (Oh, hell, I'll tell you who it was. It was Larry Hovis.) that those reunions were uncomfortable in the same way high school reunions can be uncomfy but ten times as much. Once upon a time, you were all more or less equal and making the same money. Now, one of you is getting a million bucks a movie and one of you is auditioning for laxative commercials.

Careers in show business can be capricious things having a lot to do with management and timing and factors that have little to do with how good you are. After Larry was off Laugh-In and Hogan's Heroes, he actually made a very good living for himself as a producer and writer and was in many ways happier…but he said there were folks who treated him like he was a derelict because he was no longer on a series. That must be the case with many former cast members of SNL. I'm sure some didn't show up for the special because they didn't want to subject themselves to an evening that made it clear the show didn't rate them as worthy of a mention, especially if they did their best work during the years Lorne Michaels wasn't in charge.

I understand why the special did that. Show Business does involve a kind of Natural Selection. When those folks were on SNL, they had to battle for screen time against peers who seemed to be eclipsing them in heat, if not in talent.

Still, I just have to wonder. Some former cast members weren't there because they're working. (Hey, did you know Tim Kazurinsky is playing The Wizard in the national touring company of Wicked that's still at the Pantages in Hollywood?) I wonder how many who weren't there weren't there because they're actively employed or happily retired…and how many weren't there because they didn't need the reminder that they're no longer a part of the most important comedy show ever on television?

I've been writing a lot about Gary Owens, who died the other day. I probably didn't post enough about the other fixture of Los Angeles media who died the other day, Stan Chambers. Here's Keith Olbermann with an excellent (and a bit emotional) farewell to that man…

A little over two years ago here, I posted this story about how my mother, not long before she left this world, was victimized by two separate caregivers. Both charged items to her credit card without her knowledge and one forged three checks on her checking account. My mother was at the time legally-blind but she had me monitoring her bank accounts.

I caught the crimes, got the caregivers fired by their agency and went to the police with what the detectives there described as "open and shut proof." Alas, as thievery goes, this was one of the less-pressing cases for them. My mother was not out on the street. She was not really hurting because of the financial loss, especially because she had me…so our cases went to the bottom of a very tall pile. As far as I know, they're still there.

Still, these outrages have something of an ending. The police may be too swamped and short-handed to go after the two ladies but I had my demon attorney, Paul S. Levine, go after the caregiver agency. I believe they lied to me when they told me this had never happened before in the history of their business, and that they also did not do enough to prosecute the thieves. They had been advertised as "bonded" and I believed this entitled me to reimbursement even though they told me it did not.

Since I told you the first part of this tale, I felt I should report that we just settled out of court for an amount of money I would describe as satisfactory. I would gladly give it back if that meant the two criminals would be properly prosecuted but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

For all I know, they are still caregiving and perhaps even stealing from the aged and ill. If you have an aged or ill person in your life and they have a caregiver, you might do them a big favor by monitoring their financial transactions. Based on my experiences, about 97% of caregivers do not steal from their clients but that 3% can do a great deal of damage…and the victims are usually not in any position to realize it until that damage is done.

Oliver Morrison wonders why there's no Conservative Jon Stewart. I think the answer, as the piece suggests, dovetails with why there's no Liberal Rush Limbaugh.

New York Times reporter David Carr died the other day of lung cancer. His last essay for that publication was this piece comparing what's happening with Brian Williams and what's happening with Jon Stewart.

When this was first posted on April 31, 2002, the E! Network was about to rerun the first episode of Saturday Night Live. Well, NBC is rerunning it tonight in the show's usual time slot so that's a good time for me to rerun this post…

The E! Network is rerunning the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on Monday. Actually, it wasn't even called that on its first broadcast in October 11, 1975. The now-forgotten Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell had prior claim on the title so the new late night program was called NBC Saturday Night. Didn't matter. For some reason, everyone — fans, TV critics, everyone — just started calling it Saturday Night Live and a few months after the Cosell show evaporated, the SNL name went on the NBC show officially. (I believe some prints of some of the reruns were altered to slap the name on them.)

What I find most interesting about that first NBC Saturday Night is that the idea seemed to be to throw everything at the wall and then see what stuck. Today, we think of the show as 90 minutes of sketch comedy with one guest host and one musical act. But when they started out, the sketch comedy was but one of many elements and not even the most important. In addition to comedy sketches, the first episode featured…

• Stand-up comedy. George Carlin hosted and he did three stand-up spots. There was a monologue by Valri Bromfield and Andy Kaufman did his record pantomime to the theme from "Mighty Mouse." (An additional stand-up spot didn't get in. Just before airtime, a kid named Billy Crystal was told he'd have to trim his routine to the bone and at the advice of his managers, he walked.)
• Two musical acts: Janis Ian and Billy Preston performing two numbers apiece.
• "The Land of Gorch" featuring the Muppets.
• A film by Albert Brooks.
• A spot with Paul Simon plugging his appearance the following week.
• Five pre-recorded parody commercials.
• Weekend Update with Chevy Chase.

The Chevy Chase spot was probably the biggest hit. The other sketches — the kind of material that would become the core of Saturday Night Live — were few in number and short in length. There was the cold opening with Chase, Michael O'Donoghue, and John Belushi. (Although he would not be counted as a member of the original cast, O'Donoghue had more to do in the first episode than some who were and was billed as one of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players." So was character actor George Coe, who quietly disappeared from the troupe soon after.) There were a few other short skits, the longest of which — a courtroom scene — was an old routine that had been done almost precisely the same way on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Then the second week, Paul Simon hosted and the show was devoted primarily to music. In addition to Simon, they had Art Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow, Randy Newman and the Jesse Dixon Singers. Add in another Muppets spot and another film by Albert Brooks and there wasn't much time for sketches.

It wasn't until the third week, hosted by Rob Reiner, that sketch comedy had a significant chunk of the show. Even then, the longest comedy segment was the Albert Brooks film, which was so long they had to insert a commercial break in the middle of it.

Producer Lorne Michaels was later quoted as saying something like, "I had the ingredients from the start but it took me a while to figure out how much of each to include." If you watched the episodes in sequence, you'd see it take around four episodes (over five weeks) before they decided they had a sketch show, and a while longer before they began to subordinate everything else to that. That was a quick discovery process. Michaels had originally negotiated a deal with NBC that gave them 17 shows and with it, an understanding that they'd tinker with the format and probably not solidify things until around Show Ten. Ordinarily, one of the great lies of network television is when they say, "We won't even look at the ratings for the first few weeks" but in this case, they seem to have at least been sincere about giving the show room to develop.

That would probably not happen today. Despite the history of shows like SNL and Seinfeld that were given time to grow and which became insanely profitable, a TV show is now expected to debut in pretty much its finished form. Not long ago, a producer sent the following to me in an e-mail. It's from an article he was writing about a recent, unhappy experience…

What I learned was that nowadays, a show goes on the air and based on the ratings of the first one, it's declared a provisional success (if they're good) or a provisional flop (if not). If you're a provisional flop and your ratings go up the second week, you might have a fighting chance at proving yourself. If you're a provisional flop and you go down the second week, it's pretty much over. You're a bomb and the smell of death rises into the air. Your promotion disappears, your guest stars drift away, and advertisers write you off. It's a premature verdict but it has a way of coming true from its own momentum.

Lorne Michaels' new show had some things going for it when it debuted. For one thing, it had no competition. For another, NBC was looking to open up that time slot for new programming and it would have been embarrassing and injurious to that effort not to stick with the new show for a time. They also had nothing else to put on.

As it happens, the first Saturday Night did pretty well and it was hailed as something innovative. Looking back on that first episode, it's hard to see why. So much of the show was George Carlin's stand-up act…funny but hardly a major breakthrough in television programming. Apart from Weekend Update, the freshest bit of material on the first broadcast was probably Andy Kaufman's "Mighty Mouse" routine…and he wasn't even a regular.

No matter. The show appealed to a generally-neglected, younger audience. It felt new, even if it wasn't, and in TV, that can be the hard part. In a few more weeks, it would actually start to be innovative. One can only wonder how many hastily-cancelled shows might have managed that if they'd had a few more weeks.

Most of the obits aren't mentioning a short-lived series that Gary Owens hosted for NBC. It was a daytime show called Letters to Laugh-In that replaced the original Match Game on the afternoon schedule. Each episode, a few stars from the evening Laugh-In show plus a few guest celebs would read jokes sent in by viewers and those viewers were eligible for unimpressive prizes.

This is the second episode, which was obviously taped during the one week in America when Nehru jackets were in style. The show was not a hit, debuting on September 29, 1969 and leaving the air the day after Christmas. I think you can see the problem with the format but you may also see that Gary was a good, genial emcee. (Sorry about the poor video but it's amazing that this show exists at all. I believe Gary thought that no tapes at all had survived…or maybe he hoped.)

I've received a lot of mail about Gary Owens. Here's one from Pete McNall…

When I found out that Gary Owens was dead, it was another nail in the coffin of my youth. My Dad and I listened to him on KMPC as we drove home from work. As a 16 to 18 year old, I worked summers at Dad's workplace. This would be 1971 to 1973. On the drive home from South Gate to Walnut, California, on the AM dial, we would listen to Mr. Owens. Gary had a little audio clip clip called (I think) "The Nurney Song." He had some random audio clips, I don't know, silly tunes, but this is what I remember. There was a bunch, and lots of craziness!

And what about Laugh-In? It was a bonding experience, as I was really trying to relate to Dad, and have something to laugh about with him. I know he liked Gary Owens, too. I was learning to drive, and relations were a bit shaky. To say nothing of getting out of bed during the summer at 5:30 in the morning, and then getting my surly teenage ass to relate to real working people.

Mr. Owens helped a lot. Thanks, Gary. You are missed.

This reminds me of a story I can't believe I haven't told on this blog. It occurred about 10-15 years ago, during one of Gary's last gigs as a local radio personality. He had an afternoon show each day on KGIL where he played real oldies — a lot of Sinatra, Dino, Tony Bennett, etc. As with most music-type disc jockey gigs these days, Gary was not doing the program live as he did at KMPC and other stations for so many years. He'd go in, record all his spots for a three-hour show in about an hour and then the engineers would edit him, the songs and the commercials together. He probably worked one or two afternoons a week and was then broadcast Monday through Friday.

I was driving my mother home from a doctor's appointment one day and I put Gary's show on. My mother was about half-listening to it, enjoying the show but not paying serious attention. During it, I got a call from Gary and as in many cars, the audio from the call displaced the radio sound and came out of the same speakers. Gary on the phone sounded exactly like Gary on the radio.

My mother hadn't noticed that the call had come in and I'd switched over…so suddenly, her son was having a two-way conversation with the guy on the radio. Gary was talking directly to me. I was talking directly to him. She looked at me with amazement. Then Gary and I said our goodbyes, the call disconnected, the radio sound came back on and from the same speakers, she heard — seamlessly — the same voice saying, "And now, here's a great tune from Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme —!"

She looked at me and said, "Wow…the inventions they're installing in cars these days!"

Here's a nice piece on Gary Owens in the L.A. Times, though I don't believe Gary was ever a writer for Rocky & Bullwinkle. My understanding is that his work for Jay Ward was on a couple of projects that never made it to animation or air.

And here's Ken Levine writing about Gary. Remember how I told you he'd given a lot of writers and performers their first break? Case in point.

Oh, no. Gary Owens had been ill for some time and I guess we all knew we were close to losing him…but it's still a kick in the tummy. He died yesterday at his home in Encino. He was 80 years old and didn't have an enemy in the world…or a person who'd met him who didn't love him. Gary hailed from South Dakota and once upon a time, wanted to be a cartoonist. He drew quite well actually but with that voice, how could a person not get into radio? He was truly a witty gentleman and I mean gentleman.

I guess I knew of him first on KFWB radio in Los Angeles and then at KMPC where for a long time, he did the afternoon "drive-time" broadcast, chatting with guests, talking trivia and often doing very funny comedy bits between the occasional records he played. He had no need of them but he employed writers, giving important breaks to a great many folks who went on to become top comedians and comedy writers…and even to people like me. That career alone would have much of Los Angeles mourning him today but Gary had three other aspects to his performing life…

One was as an voiceover actor for animation. He was Space Ghost and the Blue Falcon and Roger Ramjet and Powdered Toast Man and the announcer on Garfield and Friends and so many more. He did an amazing number of cartoons when you consider that the guy really only had one voice. When it's a voice that good, all you need is one.

He was also very much in-demand as a commercial and promo announcer, doing network and radio spots. He was so good at this that he became an archetype. In the v.o. industry, it is not uncommon to hear bookers say they're looking for a "Gary Owens" type voice, especially in the last few years when poor health sometimes made it difficult to hire Gary Owens. I have even heard directors tell an actor to "give it a little Gary Owens." That meant that while you should sound very announcer-like and macho and intense, there should also be a big smile and friendliness in your delivery. He did that better than anybody.

And then there was his on-camera work which pretty much started in the men's room at a great Burbank restaurant called The Smoke House. One day, Gary was in there washing his hands (or something) and so was producer George Schlatter, who was casting his new TV gig, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Gary started playing with the acoustics in the lavatory there, saying silly things in his serious announcer tone and allowing the reverb to make them sound even more serious and therefore sillier. Schlatter instantly decided to make him a part of Laugh-In…which made the face famous along with the voice.

Gary worked all the time both on and off camera. People wanted to hire him for two reasons, one being that he was a thorough professional. He was always on-time. He was always good. He took direction. If a director asked Gary to do a line fifty times — and yes, I saw this happen — Gary uncomplainingly did it fifty times even though the first one was probably perfect. It is the fear of just about everyone who books talent for commercials or cartoons that you'll hire someone and then your superiors (the folks at the network, the client for the commercial, whoever) will bawl you out yelling, "Why did you hire that untalented jerk?" Gary was an absolutely safe hire. No one ever got in trouble for having booked him.

But like I said, there were two reasons and the other was that everyone liked him. It was fun being around Gary. He was so funny and so polite and so humble and so supportive of those around him. There were moments you could tell that a little of that was an act…the kind of politicking you have to learn to survive in radio where kissing up to the advertisers is part of the job description. But only a little. Most of it was genuine.

I hired Gary several times for voiceovers and once for an on-camera job. He always acted like I was doing him a favor but honestly, it was the other way around. He made the voiceover jobs better, delivering the lines as well as humanly possible. The on-camera job was for a show I co-produced that was a nightmare of logistic and schedule and talent problems. I was so glad we'd thought to hire Gary because he caused absolutely zero problems. Amidst much chaos, he was the one element of the show I didn't have to worry about.

The last time I saw him — I think — was at a CAPS Banquet when I was asked to present an award to him. He was with his wonderful wife Arleta and she was taking such good care of him…but you could tell he was failing and it was an effort for him to make his acceptance speech and sound (pretty much) like the old, classic Gary Owens. Still, it was also obvious that it was good for him to get out of the house and have to do that…and the audience loved everything he said and did.

I may have seen him one more time after that. There's a group of comedy writers and comedians that meets Saturday mornings for breakfast — a group Gary helped organize. I sometimes go when I'm up early enough and he was showing up less and less frequently. But he made it to one and he sat there, listening and laughing at the others, unable to make much of a contribution besides being a great audience.

On his way out, some people recognized him and thanked him for all the wonderful entertainment he'd provided and he instantly turned it around. He was thanking them for listening and watching and allowing him to do what he loved for so long. I think he convinced that couple that he was more grateful to them than they were to him and that it was a bigger thrill for him to meet them than it was for them to meet him. I also think he meant it all. He was really a wonderful man.

There's an old superstition that I just made up: It's bad luck to do a lot of blog-posting on Friday the Thirteenth. Actually, it's bad luck to do a lot of blog-posting when you have pressing deadlines but I like the first excuse better. Either way, I won't be around much here today.

I keep reading all sorts of different conspiracy-type theories why Jon Stewart has decided he wants to do something else with his life besides The Daily Show. He's furious that everyone agrees John Oliver's show is better. He's sure the show's going down in flames and he wants to bail before that's evident. He has an offer to replace Brian Williams. Stuff of that sort. Has it really come to this, people? We no longer take anything a public figure says at face value?

I see odd names being mentioned as possible replacements for Stewart…names like Craig Ferguson or Chris Rock. I can't imagine Comedy Central wanting someone who is so well-established in what they do that they'd alter The Daily Show to fit that. The network must want someone who'd come in and continue the program that's been so successful for them. I mean, I love Craig Ferguson but he'd turn it into The Craig Ferguson Show.

If I were in charge: Well, let's assume John Oliver is lost to HBO. My next thought would be to see if any former correspondents, like Ed Helms or Rob Corddry, were tired of being well-paid movie stars. Assuming none were, I think I'd give some consideration to not beknighting one new host but to instead let the Daily Show "news team" rotate: Jason Jones, Samantha Bee, Jordan Klepper, Jessica Williams, Assif Mandvi, etc. If one of them becomes so adept that you want him or her to have the host's chair full-time, great. If not, I think the show could do fine with this approach. I am not suggesting though that Comedy Central will think that way.

Good luck to those in storm territory. If there were a way we could redirect some of that precipitation our way, I'm sure the population of Southern California would gladly take it off your hands. And roofs. And streets.