Monthly Archives: June 2016

I almost feel like I shouldn't link to this…almost. Everyone who's seen it says the Jerry Lewis film The Day the Clown Cried is horrible. What might make it even more horrible? Well, how about if someone took 31 minutes of scenes and outtakes mostly either silent or in German and edited it all together in a package other than what its director, Mr. Lewis, intended? If you must have a look at this, here it is.

In light of the Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History — and how long will Orlando hold onto that title? — the U.S. Senate seems about to do something about so-called assault weapons. What might they be doing? Not much. As Greg Sargent explains, it does not mean that if you're on the "No Fly" list, you can't buy a gun that would enable you to shoot dozens of people per minute. It means that if you've been investigated recently for suspicion of being a bad person, they might deny you that right.

Actually, they probably would deny you that right, erring on the side of caution. This would not be because you were an actual threat. It would be because someone, perhaps wrongly, thought you might be. This is a far cry from Due Process of Law and, of course, not something that might have stopped most recent mass murders. It's an even farther cry from actually banning those weapons, as was once done in this country with the approval of Saint Reagan. What may get passed strikes me as one of those laws that is worse than doing nothing because it will make people think something has been done.

The Aero Theater out in Santa Monica is running a Marx Brothers festival. Even as I type this, I'm missing A Night at the Opera and Room Service. That's one of my favorite Marx films and one of my least favorite.

The more interesting shows are tomorrow night and Saturday night because those are full digital restorations and I'm told these movies have never looked better — including maybe the way they looked when they first came out. Friday is the double-feature of Duck Soup and The Cocoanuts. Saturday is Animal Crackers and Monkey Business. Then on Sunday, they have the digital restoration of Horse Feathers and a plain ol' 35mm print of A Day at the Races. The restoration of Animal Crackers includes a little more than a minute of footage that you've probably never seen because it was deleted from most prints back in the thirties.

I'm too busy to get out there for any of these but if you aren't and you're local, these films — good as they are — are even better when seen with a good audience. And the Aero usually gets great audiences.

So the latest theory Out There, as expounded by Charles P. Pierce, Jonathan Chait and others, is that Donald Trump has never really wanted to be President of the United States. What he's really been after all along is a media empire like Rupert Murdoch's.

I know the world is dying to hear what the guy who does the words for Groo the Wanderer thinks of this premise so I won't keep you in suspense any longer: Even in this "Anything Can Happen Day" we call a presidential election, it seems unlikely to me. Whatever Donald Trump has accomplished in the last decade or two, it's been based on the premise that people — make that some people — look at him and go, "There's a man who always wins." It's certainly why people invest cash in his projects, oblivious to his bad record. (I'm convinced the main reason he's the presumptive nominee of his party is because so many voters, eager to see any Republican in the White House, thought all the other candidates looked like losers.)

Would any part of Donald's business model work if instead, people looked at him and said, "There's a man who lost the presidency in a landslide!"? Seriously.

He couldn't even launch a clone of Fox News then. If you think Liberals hate this man now, wait'll you see his approval numbers with Conservatives if he's the guy who allowed Hillary Clinton to waltz into the White House while the G.O.P. also lost the Senate, the Supreme Court and maybe the House, as well.

No, I think he's in it to win it. So why is he running such a bad campaign and alienating voters he needs? I am reminded of an interview with Michael Dukakis a few days after he lost the presidency to the less destructive of the two George Bushes. The interviewer listed a number of moves he might have made when the polls began showing him going down to defeat. There were mudballs he could have flung, charges of wrongdoing he could have leveled, different campaign techniques he could have employed. I can't find the text of his actual response online but as I recall, it went something like this…

You're asking me why I didn't abandon certain techniques and principles. Well, those techniques and principles had worked. They made me Governor of Massachusetts and got me the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. So you're asking me to give up everything that had ever proven successful for me, the style that got me there.

I'm guessing something like that is the case with Trump. He's sticking with the style that has unofficially gotten him the Republican nomination. This is not to say he will until November. IF he sinks much lower, he's going to have to try something different. But he's not there yet. He has to sink a few more points for that to happen.

If you haven't seen Samantha Bee yell about Gun Control, you need to. I get the feeling that something will actually change this time. It won't be much but it'll be something…

With the not-insignificant caution that June polls can be way, way wrong about November, we note that Hillary Clinton seems to have a huge lead over Donald Trump. This prompts four questions in my mind…

1. How far would Trump be behind if he was running against a Democrat that didn't have a large unpopularity rating?
2. We know how nasty Trump was when he thought he was winning. How much nastier will he be if everyone is saying his campaign is collapsing?
3. How much lower will any increased nastiness drive his vote totals?
4. Are Trump's numbers lower than they really are because people are embarrassed to tell pollsters that they support Donald Trump?

Don't write me, my Trump-supporting friends, and tell me that you're proud to back the guy. You might be now but you won't be by Election Day. Heck, the way he's going this past week, you might be peeling that sticker off your fender by the Fourth of July.

Last year when I suddenly had to have my knee replaced, I also suddenly had to postpone jury duty. They don't let you serve while under an anesthetic.

Then when I had to go back into the hospital to have that surgery redone, I had to postpone jury duty again. That's twice. In L.A., they let you have three postponements and then that's it.

Today, I went down to the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, joined the jury pool, heard that all the pending cases might last a minimum of seven days…and decided to use my third postponement. I just have too much to do next week. So I deferred my service to a week in August where I can plan for it and when I hopefully won't need any medical treatment.

Before I left, I sat through a welcoming speech and lecture by a Superior Court Judge who spoke a lot about Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez and who tried to draw a connection between that those folks did to achieve justice and what we, as jurors, would be doing. The comparison seemed forced to me. Those three champions made justice happen by defying the law. Jurors are supposed to enforce the law. I whispered to the man next to me, "I think he's saying that as jurors, our job is to go out and organize bus and grape boycotts."

It all sounded very much like pandering to minorities — which was curious since there didn't seem to be many in a room of about 300 people. I saw no blacks at all, perhaps thirty Hispanics and the rest of it could have passed racially for a Donald Trump rally. This is a court that handles civil cases and I wonder if there was a different composition down the street in the courts where they handle criminal matters. Maybe it was just a fluke of the lottery system today.

My obituary for Janet Waldo brought a number of questions about the 1990 film, Jetsons: The Movie. Most folks wanted to know why —

Well, let me quote this paragraph again…

She continued voicing Judy Jetson in many incarnations of The Jetsons but in the 1990 animated feature, a controversy erupted. Janet recorded the speaking role of Judy and it was expected that the then-current pop sensation, Tiffany, would only supply the singing voice. Tiffany was signed but she and/or her managers reportedly insisted that Tiffany also replace the spoken lines. At the insistence of Universal Pictures, which was releasing the film, this was done. Janet was upset, though comforted by an incredible outpouring of support from her many fans. In 1997 at a retirement party for her frequent co-star Don Messick, Joe Barbera spoke and took the opportunity to apologize in front of most of the voiceover community to Janet for letting that happen. She forgave him and that more or less buried that matter.

So I got a lot of messages asking me why Joe Barbera would allow such a thing to happen. The explanation I heard was pretty simple, along the lines of: "The studio that was financing and distributing the film gave me two choices: Make the substitution or cancel the whole thing." That's close to a direct quote.

In a perfect world, you'd find some way around this but sometimes there isn't one. I argued this point a few years ago with an animation buff who was enough of a purist to insist that Barbera should have told the studio to take a flying something and find some other deal to make the movie. This kind of thing is easy to say when you don't have to go out and find a perfect deal.

There might have been one but I doubt it. Hanna-Barbera wasn't good at such deals and didn't get many of them. While I was there, I saw dozens of features developed with scripts and art and even sample animation and then go nowhere.

When you make a movie and you don't have the clout of a top star or filmmaker — and in that arena, Joe Barbera did not — you usually have to make compromises. I don't like the compromise that Hanna-Barbera agreed to in this case. It hurt Janet and it hurt the film. But if I were in the position of having to agree to Tiffany or kill the whole film and hope I could place it somewhere else and soon…

Well, I'm glad I didn't have to make that decision. I like to think I'd have said no.

Thanks to Greg Hatcher over at Comic Book Resources who declared last Saturday "Mark Evanier Day" over there and wrote something nice about me. I was disappointed to find that the banks were all open on my day and the big parade was pretty anemic: Just a couple of homeless guys pushing their shopping carts down my street. But, hey, I'll take what I can get.

Also, there's a podcast online where you can hear me talk about myself for forty-one minutes and seventeen seconds, which is around forty-one minutes longer than the topic is worth. It's over at My Comic Crush, a fine new show to listen to, hosted by the delightful Vickie Sebring and co-hosted by her lucky spouse Scott Sebring. We spoke mostly about Groo the Wanderer and have I mentioned that the first issue of a new Groo mini-series will be out on or around the first day of Comic-Con in San Diego? If I haven't before, I just did.

Lastly: If you're anywhere near Pasadena, you might want to hustle over to Vroman's Bookstore the evening of June 24 — and this one isn't about me much. It's about my good buddy Paul Dini, who'll be there that evening at 7 PM to sign his new graphic novel from DC: Dark Night: A True Batman Story. It's a chilling (because it's true) story about a brutal mugging that Paul experienced and how the incident intersected with his then-current work of writing Batman. I have an advance copy and it's likely to be the most talked-about comic novel of the year. It's powerful, it's honest and it's a must-read.

What do I have to do with this? I'm the host/M.C. of the event and I'll be interviewing Paul there before he sits down to autograph copies of it. You'll want a copy and you'll want it signed by the guy who wrote the story and lived the story. See you there.

Some of you will love this. Recently, I attended and plugged mightily a revue about the city I grew up in. It was called L.A. Now and Then and no, you can't go see it…now, anyway. It closed but there are rumors it will be coming back. This is a number from that show, which was largely the work of writer-director-producer Bruce Kimmel.

Other folks who wrote songs and sketches for it, though. This one was written by Disney Legend Richard Sherman, who with his late brother Robert wrote all the songs for Mary Poppins, many of the songs for Disney theme parks and other movies, and even a lot of non-Disney things. It's a tune about the Disney Studios and the extraordinary man he worked for there and it's performed here by Robert Yacko.

This video is not from opening night. I was there opening night and so was Richard Sherman. At one point in the video, you'll see an ancient photo of him and his brother and when it was projected opening night, the audience broke into a loud, loving ovation. Even without that moment, it's still a touching number…

Last night's Tony Awards show got the highest overnight ratings in 15 years. No doubt that had a lot to do with all the fervor over Hamilton, which was wisely exploited by the telecast's producers. They teased a brief flash on it at the top but saved the actual number for rather late in the proceedings. Betcha if they'd done it in the first hour — and not had Barbra to close — they'd have had a lot more tune-out over the (long!) length of the program.

Still, those ratings must have had something to do with James Corden. He may turn out to be the biggest winner there last night.

Jonathan Chait on Mr. Trump's exploitation of the tragedy in Orlando yesterday. I don't think it'll work to base his campaign on the premise that he'd be tough on terrorists, whereas Hillary Clinton would be weak. Trump's credentials in that area are nothing but a lot of tough talk, whereas Hillary Clinton has some experience. Besides, I don't think the swing voters — the ones who haven't decided yet which candidate is the lesser of two evils — perceive Hillary Clinton as weak. They have other issues with her relating to honesty and ambition. And I think Trump already has all the support he's going to get from people who want to deport all Muslims and keep any more from getting in.

So last night, they had Barbra Streisand present the final award. As is her custom, she was not seen in the audience before. She hid out backstage or maybe didn't even get there until just before she made her grand entrance. I wonder if they risked trying to get her into the Beacon Theater — past hordes of rabid theater fans — during the live telecast.

But at some point, she's backstage and so is James Corden, who would be derelict in his duty as star of the show if he didn't formally greet and thank his famous last presenter. What are the odds Mr. Corden wouldn't seize on the opportunity to try and persuade Barbra to do one of his Carpool Karaoke segments? I'd say roughly zero, wouldn't you? They showed part of one during the telecast so Ms. Streisand could see what it involved and how much the audience loved it and how even Lin-Manuel Miranda — the biggest star in the building that night but for her — participated.

Barbra has a new album coming out. She has a new movie in the works. She needs to remind a new generation what a sensation she is.

I'm just wondering…

Hey, didn't James Corden do a fine job as host of the Tony Awards last night? As a talk show host, I find him way too fawning and wildly in love with everyone around him…though I must say I met him briefly last year at Academy screening of Into the Woods and decided it was utterly sincere. That's just who he is. If you can get past that, he's really a fascinating, talented performer and he sure showed that last evening.

Much of the broadcast was boring but that's the nature of the Tony Awards, I'm afraid. It is, after all, about giving awards to people and shows that even a moderately engaged theater buff such as myself has never heard of. It's not fair to judge the host and the folks who assemble the telecast for that. It is fair to judge them by what they wrap around all that award-bestowing and I thought they did quite well, especially in paying proper reverence to the mass murder in Orlando without allowing it to drag down the program. I wonder what kind of announcement, if any, they made to presenters and recipients about mentioning it or not mentioning it.

But back to Corden. He was just delightful, as he always seems to be when he isn't wedged into a recycled Letterman remote bit or telling someone who's on a CBS sitcom how super and marvelous and super and wonderful and positively super they are. His show is doing well too and the rumor is about that certain folks at CBS wish he was on at 11:35 and that Mr. Colbert, if he was on at all, followed him. Some of that is due to Corden's staggering success in having his clips go epidemic-level viral on YouTube. Some of that is due to a general disappointment with Colbert not doing as revolutionary a show on CBS as he did on Comedy Central.

I still think Stephen Colbert may be the most gifted performer who ever got a late night talk show but I'm liking his show less and less with each passing week. I have no inside info there but I'll tell you how it feels to me as a viewer. It feels like when they started out, they accepted the arguable premise that Colbert couldn't bake from scratch; that he had to balance any desire to reinvent the form and do things no one has ever done before with the recognition that certain things have just plain been proven to work in that format lately. The fact that he took over David Letterman's slot in David Letterman's studio with some of David Letterman's crew may also have contributed to the latter consideration.

So it feels — and again, remember this is my sense as a viewer — like they said, "Well, we'll do one-third innovative stuff and two-thirds of the show will be the kind of bits and interviews that worked for Dave, that are working for Fallon and Kimmel and other shows. Then as things progress, we'll ramp up the former and tone down the latter."

And then as the ratings failed to soar as much as was hoped, it's gone in the other direction. More latter, less former.

Colbert is a terrific improviser. He proved that on his old show when each night, he not only conducted a largely-unscripted interview with a guest — who often was not a seasoned performer or particularly skilled at verbal banter. And not only that but Colbert did it in character. Johnny Carson in his prime could not have done that. Not and made it funny.

But increasingly on his current show, Colbert might as well be reading the whole thing off the TelePrompter, including the jokes about Donald Trump reading off a TelePrompter. Every so often, Stephen has on a guest — usually an old friend of his — for an actual spontaneous conversation. Here's one from a few months ago when he had John Oliver in the guest chair. This clearly was not a re-creation of a pre-interview by some Talent Coordinator or a semi-scripted chat based on input from Oliver's publicists…

Just two funny, witty men talking without much, if any prearrangement. This does not occur often on talk shows today. It has become obvious to all in the business that the guests who drive ratings are mainly the kind of guests who have a new movie or TV show or book to plug. That's always been true to some extent but it's truer these days. And another thing that's changed is that those new movies or TV shows (sometimes even those new books) have so much money riding on them that the guest appearances are more rigidly planned. Publicists for the product won't let the guests do Fallon or Colbert or Kimmel without exerting controls to make sure the plug is properly delivered and "on message."

Once upon a time when Jack Lemmon had a new movie coming out, he'd go visit Johnny Carson for a chat and they'd talk about various things, some of which concerned the upcoming movie. Johnny had notes and planted questions but Jack was a charming, funny man and they might well depart from what was in those notes. The segment with Lemmon would also be longer because the presumption these days is that viewers (especially the ones in the younger demographics) have much shorter attention spans. Shorter interviews mean you have to get to the sales pitch faster.

When Colbert started, I predicted he'd do well. I assumed his show would be configured to let him do the things he did so well. It's not working out that way…and by the way, I don't mean to suggest he's being victimized here. He obviously is complicit in all of this, possibly even believing it's the way to go. It would not be the first time a performer, in moving from the small time to the big time, abandoned too much of what worked for him in the old venue. I think that was one of the mistakes Conan O'Brien made when he took over The Tonight Show.

You know, everyone who does talk shows gives props to Steve Allen, Johnny Carson and David Letterman for being masters of the form. Some include Jack Paar, as well. But no one seems to want to do what made those men masters, which is to do a talk show that presumed the host could ad-lib and handle unplanned situations…and then allow those unplanned situations to occur. Even Dave's show didn't do much of that its last decade or so.

Colbert could do it. Since Craig Ferguson became a game show host, Colbert may be the only guy with a talk show days who could, which is why it's maddening that he's doing so little that everyone else can do — and does.

• Congrats to Hamilton, the musical for people of all races, all genders, all walks of life…as long as they can afford $850 for a ticket.