Monthly Archives: October 2016

• People keep saying "Trump has no respect for women" as if he has a whole lot for men who are not (a) fabulously successful or (b) him.

• Just had root canal work. More fun than watching the first and second presidential debates. About the same as the third.

Nate Silver obviously found out that I sent off my vote-by-mail ballot yesterday because he's ready to declare that Hillary Clinton has all but cinched the election. I wasn't going to claim sole credit for that but the timing is a little hard to overlook.

Worth quoting is when he says…

Clinton's win will have come by rather conventional means. Her big surges in the polls came following the conventions and the debates. She got the largest convention bounce of any candidate since at least 2000, and she won the debates by a clearer margin than any previous candidate in the six elections in which there were three debates that CNN polled.

Of course, this overlooks the release of the notorious Billy Bush tape which not only made Trump look like a sexist pig but also unleashed (because it made credible) a series of accusations by women…and I see the series continues with another one today. I'm curious to see how much of Hillary's victory the analysts say can be attributed to that. She was ahead before it came out but did it make a difference of one point? Two? Three?

Here's one more post about that musical number from the 1958 episode of The Steve Allen Show. If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it here before you watch the video below.

In 2013, a broadcast engineer named "Bob Z" who used to work at NBC Burbank took a video camera and attempted to replicate the path the performers followed from Stage 1 to Stage 4. Naturally, a lot of the geography there had changed since '58 with new walls erected but it's still a clear path. You'll see that in the video below which replays the old video with the new video as an inset. Take a look…

The amazing thing about this is that the '58 version was probably shot with an RCA TK-41 camera. Those old color cameras were heavy and bulky and they required a lot of light, especially for color — and this number was originally telecast in color. Still, the cameraman — probably with the help of a lot of crew members — moved it flawlessly backwards at a steady pace and it was properly lit almost every step of the way with only the tinest flash of cables. I still don't know where they had some speaker to play the pre-recorded audio back for the performers but they somehow pulled it off…on live TV.

One thing that puzzles some folks is which shows were in which studios. It was not always consistent. Stage 1 was where Johnny Carson taped and I don't think he was ever anywhere else in that building. Remember the famous time when Johnny took a camera across the hall and barged in on Don Rickles taping CPO Sharkey? CPO Sharkey was on Stage 3. In the video, you see Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme emerging from the corridor between Stage 1 and Stage 3. The make-up room and wardrobe department that served both stages was in that corridor along with some dressing rooms.

When I was prowling and trespassing at NBC in 1971-1973, Bob Hope was usually taping a special — the portions with an audience on Stage 1 and the portions without on Stage 3. Laugh-In used Stage 4 as its main stage but sometimes set up on 3. The Flip Wilson Show and The Dean Martin Show were usually on Stage 4, occasionally on Stage 2. The game shows taped on whatever stage was available. The original Hollywood Squares at one time or another was probably in every studio there except the one used for the local news. So was Tom Snyder when he did the Tomorrow show from there.

NBC Burbank was kind of a magical place in those days. The facility opened in March of 1955 and the network sold the place to a real estate firm in 2008 whereupon it was renamed Burbank Studios, which is what it's called today. The plan was to move all the shows then produced there over to the new NBC facility on the Universal Studios lot. Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show was done on Stage 1 at Universal but Ellen DeGeneres instead moved her afternoon talk show to the nearby Warner lot and Days of Our Lives remained at Burbank in Stage 4 which NBC leased back from the new owners.

Jay Leno started his Tonight Show in Stage 1 at Burbank where he'd guest-hosted for Johnny. Later, they decided he needed a new layout where he could be closer to the audience for his monologues. Since the seats in Stage 1 were fixed, they moved him across the hall to Stage 3 for the remainder of his first Tonight Show stint. He then did his short-lived 10 PM show on Stage 11, which had just been erected on the other side of the Burbank lot. Again, NBC leased space on its old lot from the new proprietors. When Jay returned to The Tonight Show, NBC wanted to move him into the stage Conan had used at Universal but (a) he was already set up with offices on Stage 11 in Burbank and (b) there was all that anger at Leno displacing O'Brien in that time slot and it might have made it worse had Jay displaced him in the studio that was sort of built for him. So Jay stayed on Stage 11 at Burbank.

The last time I was at the Burbank facility was one day when I had lunch with my buddy Wally Wingert, who was announcing The Tonight Show on Stage 11. I'll tell you when this was: One of Jay's guests that night was presidential candidate Ron Paul. Wally and I toured 11, then went to lunch at the commissary — formerly the infamous NBC Commissary and still not a good place to dine. Then I walked Wally through Stages 1, 3 and 4 and showed him where Johnny's desk had been, where Bob Hope did his monologues, where the Laugh-In joke wall was, etc. 3 and 4 were vacant that day but 1 was being used for an infomercial of some sort. It was a bit sad to feel the "ghost town" atmosphere of the place and to realize that nothing was going on there that was in the same league as what Carson, Hope, Dino, Steve Allen and so many others had done there. I doubt there'll ever be a studio like that again.

Jonathan Chait on "rigged elections" in this country. Actually, I don't think it's that horrendous that Trump refused to say whether or not he would respect the outcome of the election. True, there is a fever dream out there among some that any election that doesn't go their way is a fraud, a cheat, a crime, a theft of democracy, etc. Seeing a lot of lawn signs and bumper stickers and knowing how all your friends voted is, after all, an infallible way of knowing how the entire country voted.

But if you want to increase some folks' belief that their votes are not honestly counted, just spread the notion that they have to the accept the outcome without question, no matter what evidence might turn up of incompetence or skullduggery. Trump was wrong to say that he's sure it's rigged and that a million dead people are already in line to cast ballots or whatever he said. He's especially wrong when he defines "rigging" to include the media being against him since, first of all, it isn't as unanimous as he makes it out to be and secondly, to the extent it is, it's his own fault for attacking them, blatantly manipulating them and giving their fact-checkers so many fibs to itemize.

Also, lots of newspapers saying he'd make a dreadful president is legal. And not the same thing as deliberately miscounting ballots or manufacturing spurious votes.

Still, I think it's okay to wait until you see if there's any actual evidence of voter fraud before you promise to say the outcome in legit. What if Hillary somehow gets eighty zillion votes in Alaska? And anyway, Trump promising to accept the outcome of the voting is pointless since if it's closer than the polls now suggest, he won't validate it no matter what he says now. And he may not no matter what the official total says. This is Donald Trump, remember.

Ben Casselman offers a good recap of where the two candidates stood last night on certain key issues. And yes, I'm as amazed as anyone that they even talked about key issues.

Boy, am I glad that's over with. This one bothered me a bit less than the first two. Maybe Trump was a bit less interested in thrilling the Hillary haters or maybe he's numbed my ability to cringe at childishness on the part of someone running for the presidency.

I tried to think "If I were undecided, would anything here make up my mind?" but Trump seemed so unqualified and dishonest that I couldn't put myself in the place of someone who didn't see a clear choice. Even if I liked some of the things he proposes to do, I don't think I would trust him to feel any obligation, once in office, to do a single one of them. In any case though, I didn't hear anything new tonight and I'm pretty sure Trump needed something new.

• Trump accused Hillary of being "nasty." She must be thinking, "What next? Being fat-shamed by Chris Christie?"

Here's a good interview with Bernie Sanders. And here's a paragraph in it that seems worth quoting…

One of the great crises we face — and what the campaign demonstrated — is how far out of touch most Democratic leaders are with their constituents. That we can go into state after state and take on the entire Democratic establishment, in some cases win landslide victories, tells you that the gap between the Democratic leadership and grassroots folks is very, very wide. It is enormously important that we revitalize American democracy, that we get people thinking about the issues that impact their lives and their families' lives and their neighbors' lives, and start figuring out the route forward to address those issues.

Now, you may think that's pretty simple. If you are not feeling well, you go to the doctor, right? The doctor makes the diagnosis and provides the treatment. And yet that is not what we do in talking about politics. That is certainly not what television does in talking about politics, and Americans know it. What are the problems facing the country? Do we really even discuss them? One of the successes of our campaign is that we hit a nerve and said, "Yeah, these are the issues. Why isn't anybody talking about them?"

Take a look at the political websites for the last month or two. Do you see a lot of discussion about issues? I don't. I see people talking about whether Donald Trump is a molester, whether the election will be rigged, whether Hillary's e-mails say what some want to say they say, whether Trump is mentally unstable, etc. Not a lot there about what to do about Syria, income inequality, creating more jobs, controlling health care costs and getting insurance for more people, etc.

We aren't even arguing much about Gay Rights, Abortions and Gun Control and we always argue a lot about Gay Rights, Abortions and Gun Control. They may not be resolvable issues but at least they're issues.

• I'm beginning to think that what Donald Trump calls "rigging the election" is what anyone else would call "fact-checking."

My pal Jim Korkis writes book after book on Disney history, always coming up with something new — or new to me, at least. I haven't received a copy yet of his newest one, which is called Walt's Words: Quotations of Walt Disney with Sources! but I'm going to recommend it sight unseen. It's Jim compiling things Walt said, and Jim is not only very accurate but he's also great at digging up obscure information. How could this book not be worth having on your shelf and even reading? Order one today at this link and you too can learn what the man who once said "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing" said when he wasn't doing.

Tonight's the last debate. You all know that but I figured you'd enjoy reading those words. In fact, I'll type them a few more times just because it feels so good: Tonight's the last debate. Tonight's the last debate. Tonight's the last debate. Tonight's the last debate. Tonight's the last debate.

Trump lost big in the polls after the first one because, I think, Hillary looked like a leader while he looked like someone on a bad reality show, ginning up phony emotion and anger. He obviously didn't see it that way because for the second debate, he ramped up the nasty, thrilling his base but probably not attracting anyone new to it. Depending on which pollster you believe, he either lost a little more ground or merely didn't gain. And when you're running behind, not gaining is losing.

So you'd think he'd try something different. Scowling, hurling threats and practically stalking his opponent on stage didn't help him so for a brief, delusional moment, I thought he'd stop hating on the Clintons and President Obama and would instead try convincing America that he has the disposition to deal with conflict and a lot of solid ideas. Then I read this…

President Obama's Kenyan-born, half-brother Malik will be in the audience in Las Vegas Wednesday night when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off in their third and final debate. Malik — an American citizen who lives in Washington, DC, when he's not in Kenya — says he will be a guest of Trump, the Republican nominee he supports for president.

Looks like we're in for more stunts and personal accusations. What was that definition of "insanity" again?

By the way: Tonight's the last debate. Maybe ever with anyone.

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I'm getting more e-mails from folks who've been to NBC who question my assumption that that clip from The Steve Allen Show (this one) started and ending on Stage 1. They may be right. The fine announcer-person Randy West thinks…

They leave 1, parallel the midway, then make a 90-degree right-turn where the cable was being pulled, and where the cable will now be fed out. They walk through what later became studio 10 (local news) and out to the hallway and into 4, where Dinah was.

Quite possible. I'm not all that familiar with that section of the building. I did shows on Stage 1 and Stage 3, and am pretty sure that the action starts in 1 and that Steve and Eydie emerge from the corridor that runs between 1 and 3. I visited the other stages — I think The Flip Wilson Show was on on Stage 4 — but I don't remember the numbers that well. Then again, it's also possible that some of the layout of that place was altered between the time Steverino did his show there in '58 and when some of us were there.

By the way: As noted, that episode of The Steve Allen Show aired on February 9, 1958, which was a Sunday. Steve's show was on from 8 PM to 9 PM and then it was followed at 9:00 by The Dinah Shore Chevy Show — so this was not only a neat bit of video magic but it was also a cross-promotion to stay tuned for Dinah. Wonder if Steve or any of his guests were part of Dinah's program that night.

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Last night, Stephen Colbert had an odd parlay of guests: Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly. Obama took part in a sketch recorded somewhere else at some other time so he wasn't in the studio when O'Reilly was. Jeri Kline wrote to ask me why Colbert, who clearly does not share O'Reilly's political viewpoints, keeps having that man on.

Well, I think that's part of the reason. A variety of opinions is not a bad thing. Also, though O'Reilly does not appear to be a particular fave of Conservatives, having him on does do something to counteract the claim that Colbert's show is just left-wing propaganda. It forces the folks who'd say that to instead say, "Almost all left-wing propaganda."

But I also think he has O'Reilly on because he likes the banter that results and he also seems to have a certain respect for the guy. Folks in show business often respect someone else just because they've been able to build a successful franchise. Letterman felt that way about Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly and a few others. Didn't agree with them but he couldn't pretend they hadn't done a great job of amassing a following and connecting with those followers. And I also suspect that O'Reilly's past appearances probably registered enough of a ratings uptick that someone said, "We've got to have that guy back."

There was one interesting moment near the end of the interview. It was time to plug O'Reilly's new book and of course, they were playfully insulting each other. O'Reilly said of his book, "You desperately need to read this book…or have someone read it to you!"

I don't claim to be able to read minds but I have the feeling that the retort that flashed into Colbert's mind at that moment was: "Well, maybe I can get the guy who actually wrote it for you!" Then, I'm guessing, he instantly decided that was a bit nastier than the level at which he keeps his verbal jousting with O'Reilly so he said what he did say, which was: "Will you?"

Of course, I could be wrong…

• The total number of women who claim Trump harassed them just passed the total number of non-white people voting for him.
• Trump planning to end third and final debate by bringing out watermelon, smashing it with Sledge-o-Matic. Chris Wallace bringing poncho.
• Melania Trump sez Billy Bush tricked Donald into talking dirty. If that's true, imagine what Vladimir Putin could trick Donald into doing!

John Green explains the differences between Donald Trump's plans for healthcare in the United States and Hillary Clinton's proposals. You'll never guess which one I think is better…