Monthly Archives: August 2019

Scott Marinoff wrote me with this question…

I enjoy the Carson Tonight Show reruns on AntennaTV and after watching dozens of them, I have a question about the seat to Johnny's immediate right, where the current guest is seated when he/she comes out.

Over the years, while the style and upholstery of the seat have been updated, something that all of the seats seem to have in common is a noticeable lack of "give." That is, the cushions don't appear to be anything like something found in most homes. It's as if they're made of wood, with a little padding perhaps, and covered with whatever fabric that is current at the time. I'd guess that this is for appearance's sake, but maybe also to help the guest be slightly uncomfortable and more alert (for lack of a better term) during his/her segment(s).

You've mentioned that you used to visit the set while a taping was in progress and maybe a time or two, when the show wasn't in production. Most sets are usually covered by sheets or tarps when not in use, but on a visit to the Carson set, were you ever able to sit in the "hot seat?"

Neither this question nor your response will be news breaking, but this is something I've wondered about.

Yes, I sat in the chair next to Johnny's twice — about five years apart and it was a different chair the second time. Mr. Carson, of course, was not on the premises either time.

Once was when a comedian friend of mine, Jeff Altman, and I snuck into Johnny's stage one morning before any of the crew had arrived. Jeff was doing his famous Johnny Carson imitation throughout. He stood on the star from which Johnny delivered his monologues and delivered a somewhat scatological one. Then we slid the tarp off the desk, all the time fearing we'd be caught and summarily banned from show business forever. Jeff sat behind it, I took the guest chair and he interviewed me about writing comic books.

We did this until the musical guest for that afternoon's taping wandered in, apparently an hour or so early for rehearsals. It was Barbi Benton and as I recall, she didn't act like anything was odd. Maybe she thought Jeff was Johnny's stand-in and I was the rehearsal guest or something…although, come to think of it, the episode she was there for was to be guest-hosted by Richard Dawson.

Anyway, that was one time I sat in The Chair. The second time was earlier on the day when Rod Hull made the appearance with Johnny that I linked to in this recent post. Rod and I were on the set a few hours before tape rolled. He was studying the set-up, deciding how he'd make the moves he needed to make in his act.

I recall the chair both times was firm and placed on marks that, I assumed, put it at the proper angle for the cameras that would be trained on the guest. It was angled lightly towards Johnny so the guest didn't have to turn too far to address him. They wanted a three-quarter view of the guest not a profile. The back encouraged you to sit up straight and not sink back in it. And there was a strange little motorized footstool which Johnny, at the touch of a button, could cause to emerge for guests whose feet wouldn't have otherwise touched the ground.

I probably should recall some sensation of how sitting in that chair made me feel like all eyes across America were trained on me and how I broke out in flop-sweat and was unable to speak…but I felt no such thing. I was just sitting in a not-terribly-comfy chair, glad I was under no pressure to be glib.

A brief interview with Randy Rainbow…

• At this very moment, Donald Trump is sitting at the G7 conference on France's Atlantic coast and thinking, "What outrageous thing should I say to make sure the news coverage of this gathering is all about me?"

• I just know that any minute now, Trump will send out a tweet saying, "Our great American families are hereby ordered to immediately STOP ORDERING Chinese Food delivered and to begin making Shrimp Chow Fun at HOME in the USA."

76. The word "hack," used to describe a writer or artist is sometimes intended to suggest that there is something seriously wrong with the person's attitude towards their work and in that sense is usually really wrong and really insulting.
77. The word "nerd" used to describe a reader of comic books is sometimes used as a term of affection and sometimes as a genuine insult. To avoid confusion as to which I mean, I've stopped using it.
78. In the history of comics, way too many people got their jobs not because they were suited for them but because they were related to someone with hiring power…and that person may well have gotten his or her job because they were related to someone with hiring power.
79. Some of the people who did poor work in comics may not have been very talented but they were the best person the editor could get at the time…and better than the alternative.
80. When a cover was drawn and rejected, 95% of the time it wasn't because the artist did a poor job drawing it but because someone (possibly not that artist) did a poor job deciding what scene or arrangement of elements should be on that cover.
81. Many writers in comics do their best work on a book where at the moment, they are the only writer handling the characters in it.
82. When there are too many different interpretations of a character out there, none of them is the "right" one, especially when it's Batman.
83. If the writer of a comic has trouble figuring out what's happening on a finished page, it's poor artwork no matter how exciting some of the individual images are.
84. If the artist of a comic doesn't understand the story he's drawing, it's a poor script no matter how exciting some of the copy is.
85. The best editors are the ones who understand going in that if the finished comic is great, no one's going to give a whole lot of credit to the editor.
86. If the comic you're working on is done in "assembly line" manner where the next person can't do his or her work until you do yours, being late is a really awful thing to do to the others on that "assembly line."
87. When a comic is deemed uncommercial and canceled, everyone should remember that once upon a time, the publisher of Marvel Comics made that decision about Spider-Man, The Hulk and The X-Men.
88. When you first hold in your hand a copy of a printed, for-real comic book that you worked on, you will have a little tingle of thrill that you will never again experience on anything else you do for the rest of your life.
89. Too often, to get a great cover or a sensational special storyline, the makers of a comic will violate the "reality" of that comic — for example, inserting outer space aliens into a world where there are no outer space aliens — and while that might boost sales for a time, eventually that comic will pay for it.
90. One of the worst ways you can resolve a super-hero story is to give the super-hero a power or strength he or she never had before.
91. Often, an artist will complain that the scripts they've been given are "too wordy" and when that artist is later given the chance to write his or her own scripts, that artist will be "wordier" than anyone they ever worked with.
92. Often, the best compliment you can get out of your editor is "Get to work on the next issue" and you should not take that lightly.
93. If your character wears a cape, it should be more or less the same length in every panel and it should not get shredded more than twice a year.
94. When working on a comic you don't own, be cautious when infusing characters with experiences from your own life. Remember that someone else will probably be writing those characters some day and they may just decide to change that character who to you represented your father into a psychotic serial killer and pedophile.
95. If you work a lot in comics, you will encounter many, many people who think the work of which you're least proud was the best thing you ever did and who couldn't care less about what you think is the best thing you ever did. Learn to say "Thank you" instead of gritting your teeth.
96. At least one writer or artist whose work you admired as a reader will turn out to be a colossal jerk when you finally meet them. But it may not be much more than one.
97. Anyone who puts you down for what you do is probably jealous of what you do.
98. If the main reason you love going to conventions is having people praise you and ask for your autograph, you might need to reassess your sense of security in this world.
99. And be honest with yourself about how many of the people who ask you to autograph your work only care about enhancing that book's resale value.
100. Lastly: It can be a wonderful thing to be a Comic Book Writer or a Comic Book Artist but it's always better to be a Writer or Artist who does many things, one of which is comic books.

This concludes a list I started here long ago. The full list of 100, including the ones you just read, can be found here.

From Saturday Night Live in 1992: Jerry Seinfeld, Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider all more or less parody Jerry Seinfeld…

A small celebration of some folks who work behind-the-scenes at late night talk shows. It's kind of amazing how hard some of these folks work and how little credit they get for what are sometimes vital contributions to what gets on the air.

Here is a look at the music of Sesame Street and over here, we have an article about sound effects for Sesame Street, especially in the song "Rubber Duckie."

Several of you have written me to note that the statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle — which used to be in front of Jay Ward's animation studio on Sunset Boulevard — is returning to the Strip after a long absence and much time spent in storage. As explained here, the West Hollywood City Council has voted to give it a permanent home, which I assume will be as permanent as anything in Hollywood can be.

It's on a triangle of land where Sunset Boulevard crosses Holloway. I went to Google Maps and found the spot which you can see here. It's across from where Tower Records used to be and not too far from its original spot. I think they made a good choice. Congrats to all the folks who rallied for it…and if I'd known about it, I would have been at the hearing with you. Special thanks to Alison Martino of Vintage Los Angeles for continuing her great crusade to put a lot of things in this city back the way they should be or to not change them in the first place.

The statue has a special meaning to me. I wrote about it back here.

We have two questions to answer here, one of which leads pretty seamlessly to the next. First up is this one from Al Grasshoff…

I saw an old ad about a company named Cannon Films announcing they were making a Spider-Man movie. This is years ago. Did this movie ever come out?

It was never made and if it had been made, it might not have been about the Spider-Man we know and love. What in hindsight was probably a very bad deal for Marvel stemmed from the fact that until fairly recently, Marvel was generally desperate to sell the movie rights (and at times, the TV rights to certain properties) to anyone who seemed like they'd actually get a film made or a TV show on TV. This was true regardless of who owned the company or ran it at any given moment, dating back to 1944 when then-owner Martin Goodman gave Republic Pictures the right to make a Captain America movie serial (which they produced) for either zero dollars or a token amount that wasn't much more.

Goodman got much the same terms for those Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons made in the sixties. The thinking (if you can call it that) was that the films would enhance the merchandising value of the characters — more toys, t-shirts, etc. In the sixties, Goodman also was out to sell the whole friggin' company and he felt that a Marvel-based TV series, even if it wasn't lucrative for the company, would seriously up the sales price of the whole firm.

He may have been right about that. In any case, subsequent owners tried the same strategy. In 1985, the movie rights to Spider-Man were acquired — for "next to nothing," Stan Lee told me — by a low-budget/lower-prestige company called Cannon Films. This was probably a very dumb move on Marvel's part because even if Cannon had made a Spider-Man movie, it wouldn't have been very impressive and might not even have been about the character we all know as Spider-Man.

I'm serious. At one point, they decided to just use the name and they developed a screenplay about a guy (not Peter Parker) who turns into an actual giant spider the way David Hedison turned into a fly in the movie, The Fly. That idea was finally abandoned and they tried to put the comic book Spider-Man on the screen…but that hadn't happened by the time the company went bankrupt in 1988. This led to all sorts of lawsuits and court battles over its assets and for over a decade, when a lot of studios wanted to, no one could make a Spider-Man movie.

Which brings me to a question that my old pal Joe Brancatelli sent me…

So how does Sony have the rights to Spider-Man films and not Disney, which owns Marvel? Can you write us a primer explaining it all? Signed — Confused ex-comics fan in New York…

Real simple. After many legal proceedings and fights, Marvel reclaimed the movie rights to Spider-Man in 1999 — a period when Marvel was in a lot of financial trouble. To raise fast cash, they turned around and sold said rights to Sony for, if we are to believe the press reports, $7 million. Further revenue was raised by also selling the movie rights to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox.

So the answer to your question, Joe, is that that Spider-Man deal is still in force. Since Marvel got into the business of making movies themselves, all sorts of co-production deals have been arranged like the one in 2015 which allowed Spider-Man to turn up in some Disney/Marvel-produced movies…but Disney and Sony are always renegotiating or talking about renegotiating or calling the deal off or not calling the deal off and…who knows? By the time I post this message in five minutes, it could all be different.

But Sony has the rights to Spider-Man because Marvel sold them…a move that many regret. They also regretted the sale of the X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox but those rights have come back in-house since earlier this year, Disney bought the film and TV assets held by what is now called 21st Century Fox.

One of these days, Sony will buy Disney or (more likely) Disney will buy Sony and all the Marvel movie rights will be in one place. I expect some fans of the movies will rejoice but to me, it will be small comfort. Whichever company acquires the other will essentially own the world and all of us in it. There's no telling what kind of crossovers they'll devise for us.

That's the great comedy writer Larry Siegel, the way he might like to be remembered: Surrounded by Laker Girls. A three-time Emmy winner (seven-time nominee), Larry wrote for — and this is a very partial list — That Was the Week That Was, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, Good Times, That's My Mama, Chico and the Man, CPO Sharkey, Playboy and a helluva lot of stuff for MAD magazine.

In fact, he was one of MAD's most prolific contributors. His first published byline appears to have been in MAD #46 (April, 1959) but Larry said he had work in there earlier. He and his frequent partner Stan Hart (another longtime MAD writer) also worked on The Mad Show, which was a successful off-Broadway production, and on some of the various attempts to turn MAD into a TV show. No matter how busy he got in television, Larry always found time to write for MAD and was the author of some of their most memorable movie and TV parodies.

Before MAD, he was a writer for Harvey Kurtzman's magazine Humbug and he worked with Kurtzman on other enterprises, including Little Annie Fanny for Playboy. He had previously worked for Playboy in its sales department and graduated from there to writing humorous pieces for the magazine.

Larry was born in 1925 and he received a Purple Heart and a fistful of other medals for his military service in World War II. He died yesterday at the age of 93 following a long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. He was a very funny man who wrote an awful lot of things that made people laugh. It's always bad to lose people who know how to do that, especially when they did it as well as Larry Siegel.

• Sean Spicer is going to be on Dancing With The Stars. He's not going to actually dance. He's going to lie and say he did dance and that the press is lying if they said he didn't.

Alton Brown is back with his fine cooking program, Good Eats, this time in an online version. I like watching this guy because I think he uses television very well and I always learn something about something. Often, the lesson is that I don't know enough about cooking to cook whatever he's cooking, or don't have the time or patience or kitchen space or utensils or spice rack. In this first installment of his new series, he makes one of my favorite dishes — chicken parmesan — and pretty well ensures that I will never try to make it at home.

Which is fine with me…honest. I'm not a very good cook and I will never do enough of it to become a very good cook. Every time I toy with the idea of cooking something, I watch some online video, see an experienced chef make it and am disabused of the foolish thought that I can do that. That, to me, is what cooking programs are for. I'm going to follow Alton Brown's new show and I hope real soon he makes potato latkes because I have this idea in the back of my head that I could do that and I need to be shown how wrong I am. Here's why I won't even attempt chicken parm…

What's all this about Trump buying Greenland? Matt Yglesias explains but the bottom line is that Greenland is not for sale, Trump is not going to buy it and he sure wouldn't want to make it one of the United States. There's more chance of you buying Massachusetts.

We have here a kind of glossary/guide to the cultural references in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. For some reason, it makes no reference to the one that most delighted me, which was the inclusion of Seymour, a local horror movie host who was on KHJ TV and later on KTLA. I knew "Seymour" — his real name was Larry Vincent — and visited his set and even wrote some lines he used on his program.

Here's a link to an article I wrote about him back in 1999. The photo above is one I took on his set at KTLA around 1973 or so. For a long time, it was the clearest photo you could find of him on the Internet so lots of folks borrowed it for their websites and remembrances. I'm glad the guy is still remembered because he was the best I ever saw at what he did. His intros and interjections even got me to watch movies like The Mummy's Curse and Man-Made Monster which today, I wouldn't sit through if you paid me $500 and fed me Souplantation Tomato Soup throughout.