Monthly Archives: February 2019

Folks are complaining (of course) about certain names being omitted from the "In Memoriam" reel on the Oscars. We're going to be discussing that this Wednesday when I guest along with Voice Actor Bob Bergen on Stu's Show. I'll tell you shortly how to tune in and view what I expect will be a brawl with chairs being hurled and general mud-wrestling. My view is that, yeah, it's unfortunate but not worth the outrage that some folks (e.g., the host of Stu's Show) have about it.

The big omission so far among the outraged seems to be the great director Stanley Donen, who died the other day. I'm reasonably sure that there is a firm deadline for inclusion in the montage: You have to die by such-and-such a date or wait 'til next year…and Mr. Donen merely missed the deadline. But that doesn't mean I can't salute him here.

When the Oscars do, they'll doubtlessly stick in a clip from Singin' in the Rain or they could even opt for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Two for the Road or several other films. I would go for the little noticed Movie Movie, which disappeared from cinemas in about the time it takes to say "Movie Movie." Here's a moment from that fine, funny film. That's George C. Scott as the producer of a 1930's Broadway revue and Barry Bostwick as his accountant…

Here's my verdict on this evening's host-free Oscar ceremony: From the standpoint of the folks who produce the telecast, this is about as good as the show can be.

When we think back on past memorable moments from ceremonies, what are we remembering? Well, a lot of what I recall are times when some win and acceptance speech provided a great, emotional few minutes…like Peter Finch's widow accepting for her deceased husband or Jack Palance being so charming in his thank-you remarks.

Fine…but the producers of the show don't make that happen. It's just like we can remember a thrilling moment in a baseball game when some batter hit a game-changing home run or an outfielder made an impossible catch and an even more impossible throw to home. Again, great…but the folks who covered that game and brought it to you on TV didn't make that happen.

Or we remember the Academy Awards show when some movie or star we dearly loved snagged a totally-unexpected win. That was thrilling but guess what? The producers of the show can't make that happen. They don't sit around and say, "Y'know, the show gets really dull around the two-hour mark. Let's give the Oscar for Best Sound to someone no one expects who'll thank all his dead relatives in an adorable way."

They have this problem: The awards are the awards and the winners are the winners. I don't know how you could give an award for Best Cinematography any faster or any other way than they did this evening. Some presenter has to make an entrance. He or she has to say something. They have to read the nominees. They have to announce the winner. The winner has to make his/her way to the stage and you have to give them time to say something. Then they have to exit and you get on to the new award.

It's simply going to take X minutes…and as we've just seen, people would get real angry if you tried to save 45 seconds and said, "Hey, let's give that one during a commercial break and just show the acceptance speech when we come back."

Getting back to our baseball analogy: If nothing happens in the third, fourth and fifth innings, it's beyond the telecast producers' power to make those innings interesting. And don't even think of editing them out.

There have also been some memorable times on Oscar shows because a host was very funny or because someone whipped up an incredible musical number using one of the nominated songs. But with the songs, the producers of the show are stuck with whatever's nominated and most of the nominees the last few years have not lent themselves to spectacular presentations. They're songs we almost never hear anywhere but in the films and we sometimes barely hear them in the films.

And while some hosts have been great, what this evening's show demonstrated is that maybe it ain't worth the risk of having one. It's not a necessity. A host tonight would have added 15-25 minutes to a show that was too long without one. If he or she wasn't funny — as some usually-funny folks haven't been in that tough, tough room — all the host does is make a long show longer.

I think we should stop viewing the Academy Awards (or the Emmys or the Tonys, etc.) as big variety shows and start thinking of them more like sportcasts. It's the televising of a game…and sometimes, games are boring. And sometimes, your favorites don't win and there's nothing the producers of the telecast can do to change that except maybe cut out the padding. They did that tonight and got a much better show than most folks expected. If you think they didn't, tell me what they could have done that was within the producers' power to do.

Not having a host is working out better than anyone expected. Now, if we could just get rid of all that envelope-opening and the giving-out of awards…

The female voice you hear introducing everyone is Randy Thomas, who has been part of more awards shows than Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Bob Hope combined. She's great at it and someday, someone else will introduce someone else who will present an award to her.

On the 'net, I see a lot of folks on the web complaining about "politics" on the Oscars. I haven't heard a lot of that in the show, though admittedly I've been fast-forwarding here and there. I have two responses to that complaint, one being that a lot of the films being honored are political. If you produced a movie about some grand racial or gender-related injustice and it won and you had your 45 seconds (or however long they get) to speak to the world, you could talk a bit about that injustice or you could thank your agent. What's it gonna be?

And maybe I'm too cynical about these things but I don't see most of the folks complaining about "politics" complaining if the "politics" matched their own viewpoints. They might have a valid point if they'd just admit that's what bothers them.

On with the show…

This is from a Jeff Ross, who I assume is neither the TV producer Jeff Ross, nor the stand-up roastmaster Jeff Ross…

You've been in comics long enough to have worked with guys from comics' first generation like Jack Kirby and Dan Spiegle. You were part of the next generation like Marv Wolfman and Len Wein. And now you've seen one or two other generations of guys and gals who got into the field after you. I don't know how many generations you'd call that but I got to wondering what you see as the primary differences between them. And what do you think they all have in common?

Ooh. Good question, Jeff. I'll answer it but I reserve the right to amend or add-on to the following answer if I think more about it.

Off the top of my head, I would say that the thing they all have in common is or was the desire to create work that an audience might want. Creative people are motivated to create. Those of us who could draw wanted to draw and if we could make a decent living at it, great. Same with those of us who could write. That seems like a silly, obvious answer but in fifty-some-odd years of intermingling with other folks who create(d) comics, I have seen so many of us bond over this common motive.

What I think was unique about the First Generation of Comic Book Creators was that they were all Depression-era kids or they grew up in a family that had been severely impacted by the Depression. They were all about making a decent living. They did not for the most part* think it was possible to ever get really rich doing comic books but you could raise a family and live to a ripe old age. Even better, you'd be doing it by doing something you liked a lot better than the alternatives open to you. You would never become famous and most did not ever expect to hear any applause from their audience…but it would put food on the table for now. Maybe — and this was a Big Maybe — you could luck into another kind of writing or drawing that offered more in fame and/or fortune.

*The asterisk in the previous paragraph was to note that a few — and of course, Jack Kirby was one of them — envisioned that it would become possible to become really rich in comics. Jack just wasn't able to manage it for himself.

The Second Generation of Comic Book Creators — roughly anyone who got in between about '65 and '90 — got in because they loved comics by the First Generation and wanted to be part of that world. The guys in the First Generation had loved newspaper strips and most of them accepted comic books as a reasonable, albeit less lucrative alternative to becoming Chester Gould. Still, the "making a sufficient living" goal was more vital with them. The Second Generation, being well aware of how unrewarded Siegel and Shuster and others had been, didn't expect riches but more of them thought they'd do comics until something more rewarding came along. Unlike Generation 1 though, they started in an era of conventions and fan publications so they expected and maybe craved more in the way of celebrity.

The Third Generation — everyone since — saw the Image founders and certain others get really wealthy and well-known. For many who work in comics now, it's a dual profession: Do the comics and do the conventions. They have more alternatives because if you're good enough to work for Marvel, you're good enough to work in many different fields. Some view comics as an entryway to Hollywood, gaming, etc. Some love the form and the ultimate goal is to do more in it and ride it to new levels. To too many, telling a story is less important than being noticed — and what better way to get noticed than to take comics (or just some established properties) somewhere they've never been before? We'll be able to write a better, more accurate overview of this generation around the time the next one displaces it.

This is a fast answer to a question that deserves some slower ones. You could, natch, carve the generations into four or five or almost any number.

I got into comics in roughly 1970 so I should be solidly in Generation Dos. But in my case, I never expected to get in, never expected to stay, never allied with one publisher, nor stayed anywhere long enough to get invited to most of the Christmas parties. By '75, I was making less than a quarter of my annual income from comics and it's largely stayed that way. I feel privileged to have known and worked with so many in Generation 1 but most of my friends are in Generation 2 and I'm not sure where to apply for membership in 3. Maybe I need my own Generation but Jack Kirby deserves one more. And Stan Lee should be made an honorary member of all three.

If you shop at Costco — as I did yesterday — this video will tell you something about their stores that you may not know. At least, I didn't know it…

In e-mails and forum posts, I've gotten a lot of response to my negative thoughts about Stan & Ollie, the new film that purports to tell us the story of the latter days of Laurel and Hardy. A number of folks have agreed with me, though some of them said something like, "Everything you said about the film is true but I enjoyed it anyway." That's fine. I'm not out to change anyone's mind about it. In a way, I envy those who liked it because a couple of hours of their lives were happier than the corresponding hours in my life.

And a couple of folks didn't get the fact that my displeasure was not all about how the film departed from the truth. I understand that movies do that, especially biopics. I love Yankee Doodle Dandy despite the fact that its storyline resembles George M. Cohan's actual life about as much as it resembles mine. I just didn't like the story that Stan & Ollie presented and thought it did not make The Boys look as good as anyone who knew them said they were.

I acknowledge my views seem to be that of a teensy minority. They occasionally are.

Unlike what feels like a lot of people on the Internet, I am fine with you liking a movie that I don't like or vice-versa. I do not understand why anyone thinks that opinions of books, TV shows, movies, pizza or anything need to be unanimous.

As you may know, my favorite movie is probably It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Note that I always say "my favorite," not "the best." I love the film in part because of what it is and in part because of what it meant to my life and in part out of love for the cast list. About four times a year though, I seem to run into someone on some forum who wants to argue that it isn't funny the same way they'd argue that the square root of 25 is not 11. If we've all learned nothing from the World Wide Web, we should at least have learned that whatever your opinion of something is, there are plenty of people out there who disagree. Why, there are even people who profess to like cole slaw.

I mentioned the other day how Shelly Goldstein and I and two friends had lunch one afternoon with Lewis J. Stadlen, who was then in town to star in Hello, Dolly at the Pantages Theater. The two friends were Mike Schlesinger and Steve Stoliar, and we lunched at the Musso and Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard if you must know. Lewis was a delightful presence and here's a video of him telling a couple of theater stories he didn't tell us that afternoon. This is from a celebration of the venerable Broadhurst Theater, which is on W. 44th Street in New York…

This is another one of my posts that suggest we don't know as much about what's happening as we think. Multiple sources are reporting that Robert Mueller's long-awaited report will be turned in next week to Attorney General William Barr. As far as I can tell, Mr. Mueller hasn't said this and even if that's his plan at the moment, he could probably delay it further if he suddenly came upon some new bit of evidence. So let's just say it seems likely but maybe it won't be turned in next week.

Whenever it's submitted, we don't know how long the Attorney General will take to read it, digest it and what exactly he will do with it. We can say with some certainty that there will be fights by the press, Congress and perhaps other parts of government to get their mitts on it. This is such volatile, uncharted territory that no one has a clue what will happen.

I do think it's safe to say that someone will be pretty unhappy with it. You might have those who've been waiting for it to drive a stake through the heart of the Trump administration feeling it doesn't pound a big enough stake. You might have those who back Trump condemning it as a fact-free partisan hit job. If I absolutely had to bet, I'd say we'll get a certain amount of both but we really don't know.

Some people are suggesting that Trump's increasing attacks on the press (i.e., "The Enemy of the People," which in this case means "The Enemy of Trump") mean that he knows it'll be really bad for him. But Trump strikes me as a guy who explodes at any criticism…or even anything that doesn't say he's wonderful and perfect and couldn't be any better. He might well damn it if all it says is that his ties are too long. So I don't think Trump's "Don't believe anything except what I tell you" posture tells us that he knows the report will be bad.

People have so many unwarranted expectations about this report. You have people saying Mueller has proven Trump is guilty of some kind and others saying he hasn't. We haven't seen a word of this report yet but, well, if you love or hate Trump enough, you already know what you want it to say so why wait?

That's a statue of John "Duke" Wayne that I see often. It's in front of an office building at the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Wilshire, just on the outskirts of Beverly Hills. I see it often because my dentist's office is nearby, as is the Saban Theater which I occasionally visit.

The statue was erected in 1984 to celebrate Wayne's career in films but probably more to note his years doing TV commercials for Great Western Savings and Loan, aka Great Western Bank. That was their building at the time, back when Great Western was one of the largest savings and loan operations in the nation. It has since changed owners and undergone serious restructuring and downsizing.

In 1994, that building and the statue outside were acquired by the noted pornographer Larry Flynt. His name now adorns the building outside of which John Wayne stands guard. We can only imagine what Duke would have thought of that.

As if everyone these days didn't have plenty of things to be outraged about, a lot of folks are presently mad at Mr. Wayne. Some comments he made in 1971, which were no secret all these years, are suddenly getting attention for being way outta sync with some current sensibilities. I wish I could say he was outta sync with all current sensibilities but if you read about this controversy on any website that allows comments, you'll find plenty insisting that his remarks about believing in "white supremacy" are still right on target.

I for one have not lost any real respect for John Wayne. Didn't have much then, don't have much now. I love the great actors of his era but not him to any serious degree. Certain films in which he starred are still beloved but most of them were directed by John Ford and I think I was way more impressed by Ford than by anyone in those pictures. And I say that knowing it will lead to an argumentative phone call from at least one film buff friend.

Okay…but even if he's right, it would only move me to think Wayne was a competent actor who expounded that shallow "I got mine" kind of patriotism. You know the type: "I got rich in America so there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with America." That's galling when it comes from people who seem to have lucked into their wealth…like being born with it or striking some kind of freakish luck. But that doesn't mean I see any point in condemning Mr. Wayne now.

The interview was 1971. He passed away in 1979 and it seemed to me like in his last years, he realized the world was changing and that he was alienating a younger generation who'd control the way he'd be viewed posthumously. He tried to back off some of what he'd said and he did a few talk shows, speaking of the essential dignity of the American Natives and their struggles.

One of those times was a Dick Cavett special that aired in '76. Cavett wrote about his encounter with Wayne in this article which he prefaces by saying "Good friends have refused to believe a word of what I'm about to relate. Your credulity is about to be strained." I'm not one of his good friends so I believe it but it doesn't change my opinion of the man. I already knew Wayne was an actor, not a cowboy. I just didn't think he was a good enough actor to make me believe he wasn't reciting a script by a good public relations consultant.

But I'm also willing to give him the benefit of a large doubt. There were stupid things I said in 1971 that I wouldn't try to defend today. Few among us are incapable of pulling an Ebenezer Scrooge and regretting the way we acted long ago or even before those three ghosts dropped by for a chat. Late in life, Bob Hope stopped defending Nixon and the Vietnam War. I know less famous people who, either because they were genuinely enlightened or just saw the wisdom of switching to the right side of history, underwent serious conversions. Or at least learned to drop certain words from their vocabulary.

Who's to say John Wayne wouldn't have? Heck, just the realization that he would wind up as Larry Flynt's welcoming committee could have made him change his act.

The Internet is flooded with articles about Bernie Sanders' chances of winning the Democratic nomination and going on to defeat Donald Trump. I wouldn't bet a dime right now on anyone's chances of being on the ballot next year and that includes Trump's. There are surely indictments, convictions and other revelations to come and many of them will make it a Brand New Ball Game. What I would bet on is that between now and that Election Day, we're going to have a lot of Brand New Ball Games.

I say that to friends and they say, "You're absolutely right." But then that's followed by "But that aside, what do you think Bernie's chances are of beating Trump?"

Randy Rainbow…

There are only about 92,566 articles on the Internet about why Donald Trump's "State of National Emergency" is an unconstitutional sham. This one by Bruce Fein is as good as any and it has the advantage of coming from a solid conservative legal authority. The problem with it of course is that none of this law mumbo-jumbo matters to Trump. It never has; not in business, not in government, not in life. If it gets him what he wants, he does it, end of argument. You might as well explain to a lovesick cocker spaniel why he shouldn't hump your leg.

The thing is: I don't think what Trump wants is to build his fakakta wall. I think he just doesn't want to be blamed by his base for not building it and also doesn't want to be seen as inept at delivering on his promises. In his little speech about how it would be challenged in court, he was assuring his supporters that while the wall will probably lose in lower courts, he'd win in the end once it got to the Supreme Court. That's another way of saying, "Don't fault me if it takes a while. It's because of those evil Socialist Democrats."

In the meantime, here's William Saletan shredding the various arguments Trump backers are using to defend his actions.

A parrot smarter than you were at his age…

On the campaign trail and at post-election rallies, Donald Trump promised over and over to revive the dying coal industry in this country. Later, he bragged that he had fulfilled that promise, saved the coal industry and it was here to stay. And it now looks like he has flopped about as badly as he could. Read Jonathan Chait. Trump has never quite grasped the concept that claiming you accomplished something is not the same thing as actually accomplishing it.

One more thing about the touring company of Hello, Dolly. The ads, as you can see below, proclaim it was the winner of four Tony Awards…and it was. Bette Midler won for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Gavin Creel won for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, Santo Loquasto won for Best Costume Design of a Musical and the entire production won for Best Revival of a Musical.

If and when you go see this touring production, you're seeing some but not all of those winning achievements. You're seeing most of the Costume Design. You're seeing 0% of Bette Midler and Gavin Creel 'cause they ain't in it. And since the Best Revival prize was for the overall presentation at the Shubert Theater in New York and it's been modified a bit for the road, you're seeing some unmeasurable percentage of what won for Best Revival.

Everyone does this kind of thing and I understand why. It's just not the most honest advertising claim in the world.