Monthly Archives: January 2020

Volume 6 of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips has been out for about a month, slowly dribbling into comic book shops everywhere as copies — apparently delivered by Churchy the Turtle — made their way to retailers. I think Joe Ferrara's store in Santa Cruz got some in and sold out immediately a month ago today. But within two or three days, they should be to every dealer that ordered 'em.

Amazon got them in in dribs and drabs and has been quietly filling mail orders in an order I do not pretend to understand. But they're now promising that if you order right now, your copy will ship in 1-2 days. So order right now.

I almost never blow my own horn on this blog about my work but I'm just co-editor of these books. It's not my work that makes 'em wonderful. Long before I met his daughter, I was telling people that Walt Kelly was my favorite cartoonist and I was hardly alone in this choice of favorite cartoonists. On the walls of one room of my house, I have framed originals of Pogo, Peanuts and Krazy Kat. If I'd ever come across a good Sunday Popeye by Elzie Segar that I could afford, it would join them.

The strips in this volume cover the years 1959 and 1960 so, as I noted in an earlier plug, Mr. Kelly had plenty of world-changing topics in the newspaper to work with. Pogo and his merry mob addressed many of them but the strip was also delicious when Walt was just being silly for silly's sake.

This volume is subtitled Clean as a Weasel and it features a foreword by Jim "Garfield" Davis plus other extras. The titles come from a list we found in Kelly's own handwriting. Most are phrases he'd used in the strip at least once and he was intending to use them as titles for some sort of series of "Best of Pogo" reprints in small paperbacks…I think. The next of our volumes, Pockets Full of Pie, will be in stores well before the end of 2020.

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post about the 1966-1968 Batman TV show. This part focuses on Burgess Meredith, who played (of course) The Penguin…

In the early eighties, I worked several years on a show on ABC called That's Incredible! We did it at a studio in Hollywood, taping two shows every other week. The same company produced a kind of spin-off called Those Amazing Animals, which shared offices with us and they taped two shows each week that we weren't taping, using the same stage and most of the same crew. Burgess Meredith was one of the hosts of Those Amazing Animals.

On their tape days, I could wander down to the stage and there were long stretches when Mr. Meredith was just sitting around, waiting to be called before the cameras. Our casual friendship began with this exchange…

ME: Excuse me. My name is Mark Evanier and I'm one of the writers on That's Incredible! I thought if you weren't needed right now, this would be a good chance to meet one of my favorite actors.

HIM: By God, you aren't a fan of the Batman show, are you?

I was momentarily thrown by that but I managed to say, "A little but I was more interested in Of Mice and Men and The Twilight Zone, and I've also found that anyone who's worked with Zero Mostel has a dozen wonderful stories about him." Burgess laughed and extended his hand.

Now, they don't generally get cited here but there have been countless instances in my life of me saying the absolutely wrong thing to the absolutely wrong person at the absolutely wrong time. Once in a while though, I get it right. This, since I'm telling you about it, was one of those way-too-rare times I got it right.

His response to me…well, I don't recall for certain if he said this aloud or if I just read his mind. One way or the other, I heard, "Thank God! Someone under the age of seventy who knows I'm a serious actor!" And I noticed his face lit up when I mentioned Mr. Mostel, who had left the world stage and the world with it only a few years before.

We sat and talked a little that day and again on others. For the first few visits, I avoided the topic of Batman and instead savored his dozen wonderful stories about Zero (whom he loved) and other tales about working for Otto Preminger (whom he didn't always). He was defensive about being part of Skidoo and pleased that I had a certain fondness for Preminger's oddest film.

On Those Amazing Animals, they had a little penguin — a live mascot who'd sometimes follow Burgess around on the stage. One day when he'd just completed a brief scene with the little penguin, Mr. Meredith ambled over to where I was standing and I told him, "You know, you're lucky that on Batman, you didn't play The Rabid Hyena." He laughed and that led to us talking about that show for the one and only time.

All of these quotes are from memory but I have a pretty good memory. He said, "I was very idealistic when I entered the theater but I soon learned a necessary amount of pragmatism. Sometimes, you have to do three plays you don't want to do before you can afford to do the one you do want to do." Referring to the job he was doing that day, he said, "I didn't spend all those years studying with Eva Le Gallienne so I could introduce clips of chipmunks farting."

Later, he said, "I enjoyed doing Batman. It's rare that an actor gets a role where it's acceptable to devour so much of the scenery. But I could do without the people who think that's the length and breadth of what I do." He asked me what I thought of the Batman show and I told him a little of what I said in yesterday's post and added, "I think you were the second-best thing about it."

He asked me what was in first place. I said, "Julie Newmar and Yvonne Craig in skintight outfits." He chuckled just like The Penguin and said, "You're so very right, my boy. So very right."

I asked him if he'd ever read a Batman comic book and he said "No." Or maybe he said, "God, no." That was the attitude. He said, "Every now and then, they thrust one into my hands for some publicity picture but no. Nothing against them but I don't think they had much to do with what I was doing." He said he didn't like the make-up they slapped on him, nose extension and all, and as the series progressed, he got them to put less and less on him. He also didn't like sitting around while stunt people brawled, which sometimes took a very long time, forcing the director to rush his scenes.

For the most part, he enjoyed the show but said with a note of regret, "When I die, that will be the headline — 'Penguin Actor Croaks.'" Turned out, he was wrong. When he died in 1997, his Batman credit was usually at least secondary in the obits to his role in the Rocky movies. His importance to that series is perhaps best indicated by the fact that his character died in Rocky III but still managed to turn up briefly in Rocky IV and Rocky V.

And that's about all I remember. Nice man except for the occasionally-cranky moments. Great actor…and boy, did he work a lot. When I think back on the Batman series, he's one of the main things I liked about it…though of course, not as much as I liked Julie and Yvonne.

I'm past due to tell you about my pal who tours the world with his amazing one-man-and-a-pianist show, An Evening with Groucho. If you haven't seen it, you've gotta see it. And you can see Frank Ferrante if you're in Bellport, NY (February 1-2) or if you're in Louisa, Virginia near Charlottesville (March 21) or if you're in Morristown, NJ. which is not too far out of New York City (March 27).

And this may interest some of you: He'll be doing his Groucho thing here in California…in Solana Beach (it's near San Diego) on April 13 and 14. Why this may interest some of you is that WonderCon in Anaheim ends April 12 and Solana Beach is only 60 miles from Anaheim. I may go from one to the other and you can, too.

Later this year, rumor has it, Frank will be back in Chicago at the new outlet of Teatro Zinnzani for an extended run so there may not be that many opportunities this year to see an Italian kid transform himself before your very eyes into one of the greatest comedians of the previous century. So if you get the chance, grab it. And after the show, if you approach Frank and say the secret words — "I heard about you on Mark Evanier's blog" — he'll pose for a photo with you. Just see if that will work with Paul McCartney!

This message is just for anyone who has the occasion to phone me in the next week or so. For some reason, a few friends who do that have not been able to reach me. They get a recording saying that I have blocked their number, which I have not done. I don't think I've ever blocked any phone number except for a couple of incessant robo-callers who tried ringing me up every eleven seconds.

I've just spent way too long on the phone with the phone people being routed from one phone person to another phone person. None of them knows how to fix it. They only know how to forward me over to someone else who has no idea. The last guy said he's going to "run some tests" and call me back. I'm guessing there's about as much chance of that as there is of Trump getting that Nobel Peace Prize he's sure he deserves but right now, I don't know what else to do.

If you try to phone me and get one of those messages, e-mail or text me and I'll give you an alternate number. It's the gas station at the corner but they'll come and get me.

Jen Peikoff wrote to ask, with a note of desperation in every pixel…

Please, please, you must help me understand something. When it comes to understanding Hollywood and show biz, I figure if you can't explain something, no one can. In the Oscar nominations just out, Little Women was nominated for Best Picture but its writer-director Greta Gerwig was not nominated as Best Director. If it wins as the Best Picture, doesn't that mean she was the Best Director? Why wasn't she nominated?

Well, first of all, I doubt it will win for Best Picture. I don't get that there's a lot of "buzz" around it in that direction but that's just a hunch. You're right that it would be an injustice if it did win and she didn't win Best Director right alongside it.

Secondly, there are two very real reasons for the discrepancy here, one being that a different pool of voters vote in each of those categories…

Imagine you go to party one evening and you poll everyone at that party as to what their favorite candy is. There's some debate and a wide range of opinions but at the end of your voting, it's determined that most people at this party like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Okay, fine.

Then the next evening, you go to a different, larger party. Some of the same people who were at last night's party are there but so are a lot of other folks. Again, you poll the assemblage and this time, the clear winner is M&Ms. Would you be stunned and wonder why the two polls yielded different results? Of course not.

But that's how Oscar nominations work. The Best Director nominees are selected by the Directors Branch of the Academy and the Best Picture nominees are selected by the entire voting membership. That's how come there were two different outcomes…that and the fact that the Academy nominates five directors for Best Director and between five and ten movies for Best Picture. There's the other reason.

They nominated nine films this year for Best Picture. That means that at least four of the men and women who directed movies up for Best Picture were not going to be nominated for Best Director. Simple math. The directors of Best Picture nominees Ford v. Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story also did not make the cut.

It's a basic fact of something like the Oscars that a lot of good work doesn't make the cut. They nominate five men as Best Actor. If there are twelve outstanding performances in a given year, they nominate five of them. If some year the acting is really lousy and there are only three good performances, they will still nominate five.

This kind of thing can never be without its anomalies. Consider the fact that nominations can have less to do with what the person did than something like when the movie was released…which is out of their control. If Bohemian Rhapsody had come out a few months later and been part of this year's Oscars instead of last year's Oscars, Rami Malek probably would have snagged one of the five Best Oscar nominations this time and either Antonio, Leonardo, Adam, Joaquin or Jonathan would not have made the list even though the work they did would have been just as fine.

You can't take this stuff that seriously. If your concern is that women are getting "snubbed" (that's the wrong word but everyone uses it), that's a valid concern but probably more about being hired at all than winning awards. Greta Gerwig helmed a very successful movie that was very well reviewed, there's a good chance she'll take home a Best Screenplay statuette…and she probably already has plenty of offers, as well as a lot more clout than she had before. I would be more concerned for the women who aren't getting the opportunities to direct or write. Or at least the same opportunities they'd have if they were guys.

An e-mailer is furious at me because I didn't note here that last Sunday was the anniversary of the day the Batman TV show — the one with Adam West — debuted in 1966. I dunno why he's mad this year. I've ignored it most years in the almost-two-decades I've been doing this blog and he's the first person to flag that as a shameful omission. Besides, he won't like most of what I have to say about it here.

I had and still have very, very mixed feelings about that series. I liked Adam West and Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith and Victor Buono and a few other folks seen on it…and I lusted after Yvonne Craig and Julie Newmar. But as a kid who loved comic books and loved Batman even at his worst in those comics, I wrestled with the feeling that the makers of that show didn't; that they thought it was crap worthy only of ridicule. Later on, as I got into their industry myself, I met a number of those makers and found that I'd been right.

Throughout my early life, I often heard from fellow comic book collectors in my age bracket that they had to deal with scorn and condescension for their passion; that they had parents or teachers or colleagues who thought that comic books were trash made for and appreciated only by the mentally-impaired. The only time I recall ever really encountering that attitude was from the people behind the Batman TV show.

In 1966, I was 14 years old — young and naïve enough to even wonder why the folks at DC Comics would allow an outside company to do that to a wonderful (and valuable) property like Batman. I was probably all of 15 when I came to realize that in this world, the answer to the question, "Why would someone do such a thing?" — no matter what that thing is — is almost always "Money." Once in a while, it's "Sex" and/or "Power" and/or "Fame" but usually, it's "Money." Bob Kane, needless to say, was fine with that and because of that teevee show and the attendant merchandising, DC Comics not only sold a lot of DC Comics, they even sold DC Comics the Company.

Even as I was coming to realize that, I still watched the show but I watched it less and less. My opinion descended further and further, especially after I saw the movie based on the series. It was one thing to watch it at home alone and suspect they were ridiculing something I cared about; quite another to sit in a movie theater and hear an audience hooting and laughing at, not with the Caped Crusader.

But I had to watch because of Yvonne and Julie. I would have watched a test pattern if it had Yvonne and/or Julie in it. One of my adolescent fantasies that was partially filled decades later was getting to meet and talk with those ladies. And I also liked — for very different reasons, I assure you — some of the actors I mentioned, especially Burgess Meredith, who, as we all know, played The Penguin.

Around 1980, I got to spend a little time with Mr. Meredith. I don't think I've ever talked about it before but I will in this space tomorrow.

Here's the opening number from one of the most-performed musicals ever written — Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye in this is Anthony Warlow fronting a production done in Australia a few years ago…

Heather Digby Parton reminds us that Donald Trump and his administration are merely carrying on a grand presidential tradition of lying about a war they think we should be in. Trump and his people are just doing a worse job of it than usual.

Heather Digby Parton might well be described as a left-wing pundit. Here, right-wing pundit Rod Dreher says pretty much the same thing.

Up is down, black is white, right is left and Donald Trump is saying that he's making Obamacare better and Democrats are trying to destroy it. Read Jonathan Chait for all the details and while we're at it, here's the Associated Press fact check on the subject.

Why are crazier and crazier actions and claims coming out of the White House? Steve Benen thinks it's because everyone who could talk sense into this president has either quit or been ousted.

And lastly: William Saletan says "In foreign policy — as in morals, trade, criminal justice, fiscal policy, and the rule of law — Republicans have no firm principles. Sometimes they stand for human rights and against tyranny. Sometimes they ignore human rights and defend tyrants. But rain or shine, you can count on Republicans to attack the patriotism of Democrats."

Several of you have written in to ask me the identity of the announcer on all those openings for the TV show Cannon. That was Hank Simms, one of the most-heard voices on TV, radio commercials, movie trailers and anywhere else they wanted a male voice with a "he-man" quality. He was heard on a lot of other TV show openings including Barnaby Jones, The F.B.I. and The Streets of San Francisco. He was also heard in the opening to Police Squad!, where he basically did a parody of Hank Simms. Mr. Simms passed away in 2013 but you can still sometimes hear an announcer trying to approximate a "Hank Simms delivery."

Two or three hours ago, the Internet was awash with obituaries and tributes to the B-Movie actress Julie Strain, including an obit on the website for Hollywood Reporter. Within the hour, friends of hers were posting messages on social media that it was not true, saying that Ms. Strain, who has been quite unwell for some time, had not passed away. Hollywood Reporter and other sites are now retracting their stories.

It's something to keep in mind. In the old days of news reporting — that is to say before the Internet was as developed and expansive as it now is — news stories took many hours to reach all the places where one might read or hear them. Now, it takes like a minute and a half…though the corrections seem to talk a lot longer to reach all their destinations or even get noticed.

Michael Rankins sent me this…

Thanks as always for the brilliant work on your blog, and today especially for posting the Cannon credits video. Did that ever bring back memories!

A question, though, that you with your behind-the-scenes background can probably answer: What merits someone getting "special guest star" status? Watching the Cannon credits, it seems that a lot of the folks who got singled out for this mention weren't necessarily bigger, better-known, or more popular stars than the other actors with whom they shared an episode. So, how did that credit get apportioned? Was it just a matter of someone having a more aggressive agent, or were there other criteria involved?

Once in a while, that kind of billing is dictated by the producers when they land a biggie and want to call a little extra attention to it. There was a point in the seventies when it was known throughout the business that Sammy Davis Jr. was willing to appear on anything (A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G) for any non-insulting money as long as you treated him like he was a big deal. I would guess he always got Special Guest Star billing.

But probably 80% of the time, it's a case of they offer the actor X dollars, he and/or his reps want Y and they compromise on X dollars plus "Special Guest Star" status. Most famously, the late and lovely Jonathan Harris received "Special Guest Star" billing on every friggin' episode of Lost in Space in lieu of higher pay.

And it isn't always that the agent's aggressive. Sometimes, it's a matter of the producer doing the agent a favor. What happens is that they offer X and that's final. The agent knows that his or her client will accept that rather than lose the job…but the agent also knows that the client will bitch and/or moan that the agent should have gotten more money and maybe hint at finding another agent who can. So the agent says to the producer, "Okay, but can you give me something?"

The producer — and I'm saying "producer" here but it may be a lawyer in Business Affairs or someone else negotiating — knows there's a value in maintaining a friendly relationship with this agent and maybe being owed a favor. So they say, "Okay, tell your client you got them a star dressing room." Or "Tell your client you got them their favorite hairdresser." Or a frequent one is "Tell your client you got them Special Guest Star billing."

Good question, Michael. And I don't know who some of those "Special Guest Stars" on Cannon were, either.

I never would have imagined I'd be quoted in a magazine that describes itself as "The Jesuit Review" or that I would see Comic-Con cited as one of many "glimpses of the kingdom that Jesus imagined, a feast of friendship where all have a seat at the table." But here's an article by a writer named Jim McDermott that accomplishes all that. You could just scroll way down to the part about Comic-Con but take your time and read the entire thing. It might cause you to consider Comic-Con (and some other things) from a different perspective.

By featuring this video, I'm going to do a rotten thing to some of you because it runs 26 minutes and some of you won't be able to resist watching the whole damned thing.

Remember the TV show Cannon? The one that starred William Conrad as a portly detective? It ran five seasons on CBS — from 1971 to 1976. There were 122 episodes and someone with way too much free time spliced together the opening guest star billboards of all 122 episodes. So what you have is a visual catalog of almost every actor or actress who guested on a crime-oriented TV series between the late-sixties and the end of the seventies.

If you were an avid watcher of shows like this and you're anywhere near my age, you'll remember at least 65% of these people…and in some cases, you'll be able to put a name to a face you saw dozens of times. It seemed like some of these folks were day players on every show I watched.

You can even make a drinking game out of this if you like. Take one shot every time you see Martin Sheen, Anthony Zerbe, Marianne McAndrew, Harold Gould, Clu Gulager, Joan Van Ark, Robert Webber, John Vernon or anyone who appeared on their own crime-oriented series or Gilligan's Island. Take two for each Van Patten…

• Just looked at some polls that showed Bernie Sanders gaining. We'll know he has a good shot at the Democratic nomination when Trump starts bribing some foreign government into launching an investigation of him.

Ira B. Matetsky, a longtime reader of this site, recently e-mailed to remind me that years ago, I said I was going to tell this story here and I never did. It's probably not worth the wait but here goes…

This happened in the early-to-mid nineties and I was dating an actress. As I've learned, when you go out with an actress, it's almost impossible to buy her one meal. Wherever you take them, whatever they order, they almost always eat half of it and then take the rest "to go" for the next day. This includes one who was a regular on a hit TV series at the time and probably making a lot more money than me.

It has even been true when I've taken one to a buffet where they don't pack what's left on your plate "to go." In those instances, the actress will get a few extra items from the buffet, wrap them in napkins (or in one case, some Ziploc® bags she'd brought for just this purpose) and slip tomorrow's lunch into their purse. I think this double-dipping may be some sort of requirement if you have a S.A.G. card.

The actress in this story liked red meat and she liked milk so when we went out, we always went someplace where she could get both. Our anecdote takes place at Lawry's, a famous eatery that serves huge slices of prime rib carved tableside. These days when I go there, I order the English Cut, which is the smallest portion and I, like my date if she's an actress, eat half and take the rest home. But this story was a few years before my Gastric Bypass operation so I ordered the largest serving, which was the Diamond Jim Brady cut and I had it with mashed potatoes and creamed corn.

My actress friend ordered the same thing but she, of course, was ordering for two meals. I found on the Internet someone's photo from a Lawry's of the Diamond Jim Brady cut with mashed potatoes and creamed corn. Take a look at it. One of these, at this level of doneness is exactly what was placed before each of us…

Pretty massive, huh? If it looks familiar, you might remember when a similar portion made Fred Flintstone's car tip over.

My friend planned to eat half of hers (if that much) and take the rest home to feed herself for the next week or so. I was thinking of doing that but I ate and ate and pretty soon, there wasn't enough left to take with me. So I was just resting a bit before tackling the last two or three bites on my plate.

She was drinking milk. One thing you need to know about Lawry's is that they have the greatest service in the world. There are always men scurrying about to get you a fresh napkin or a clean fork. When you take a sip from your glass of water, there's a man there in seconds with a pitcher to top it off and replace that sip. My date finished off her second glass of milk and almost instantly, there was someone there to place a third glass of milk before her.

She picked it up and the entire bottom of the glass fell off it, splashing milk all over our table, all over what was left of our dinners, all over us.

This apparently is not that unusual in restaurants. I just Googled the matter and found this on a message board from some time ago…

This happens in restaurants more than you might imagine. The dishwashers in these places are steaming hot and glasses are sometimes grabbed before they can cool and they're filled with cold liquids. This causes the very molecules of the glass to explode in all directions and the bottom of the glass comes off in a clean break.

What happened next happened so fast I couldn't believe it. Four Lawry's bus boys or attendants or whatever you call them were suddenly on us. In a second, they took everything off our table, mopped up the remaining milk, dried the table, put down a new tablecloth and replaced the pepper, the place settings, the little jar of Lawry's Seasoned Salt, everything. And in a flash, they put two brand-new, untouched Diamond Jim Brady cuts of prime rib before us, complete with mashed potatoes and creamed corn.

It was like someone had turned back time to the moment just after we were served and before we dug in. I tried to tell them we didn't (well, I didn't) need an entire new dinner but it was done so fast I couldn't stop it. A few of the nearby diners actually applauded how rapidly they'd removed all traces of the accident. The plates we were staring at each looked exactly like this…

My actress friend was delighted. She now had enough beef to last her the rest of the month so she called for a box. I wasn't about to tuck into this one so I said, "Bring me a box, too." I paid the check — and yes, they just charged for my dinner, her dinner and a lot of milk — and we got up to go. We were just leaving the table with our little doggie boxes when I heard a man at the table opposite us say, "Nice trick there with the milk. I'll have to try that some time."

I hadn't noticed him there before but I recognized him, mostly from his voice. It might make his line more effective if you re-read it with him in mind. It was Jack Nicholson.