Monthly Archives: April 2021

This is eighteen minutes from the stage version of the musical version of The Producers…and what's interesting about it is that, first of all, it's the "Springtime For Hitler" number and what led up to it. And secondly, it's in German. This is from the Berlin production which was from all reports a huge hit. It's one thing for us in this country to laugh at Hitler and the Nazis. It's another thing — and arguably a good thing — for them to be howling over there.

Also, this version includes a chunk of the number that was in the show when it tried-out in Chicago but cut once they got to New York. In this section, the guy playing Roger DeBris playing Hitler is strutting about on stage and a chorus lady — the actress playing Ulla playing a Nazi — announces, "Clear the way for the challenge dance." Then one by one, actors playing Stalin, Churchill and then F.D.R. come out and try to out-dance Hitler but the Führer defeats them all.

The sequence got a lot of laughs in Chicago but not enough. At one point, they tried changing Roosevelt — who of course had to do his part of the tap-dancing contest from a wheelchair — to Uncle Sam who was free to dance upright. The actor, Jeffrey Denman, was wearing a Nazi outfit in the first part of the number with most of the Uncle Sam costume on under it. So he would dance as a Nazi, then run offstage and strip his Kraut garb off to dance as Uncle Sam, then rush offstage to become a Nazi again.

Anyway, it didn't work so they went back to Roosevelt before cutting the whole challenge dance sequence. But if you watch this video, you'll see Stalin, Churchill and F.D.R. are back in. One wonders if it was funnier to a German audience than to an American one and if so, why. One also wonders how the music score for the excised portions were obtainable…

• Some days, I feel like I'm Mel Cooley and everyone in the world is either Buddy Sorrell or Alan Brady.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by the John Moawad All-Star Big Band and it's one of those jazz versions where they play the beginning of the song, they they play a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with the song, then they play the end of the song…

Hey, if you like reading political-type articles to which I link — and some of you do — read Jonathan Chait on the Republican attitude about Climate Change.

One thing that bothers my Republican friends — and I'm not claiming they're representative of all in their party; just pointing out that I do have some — is that they want to see the Conservative agenda prevail but not the parts of it that do not deal with reality. I saw Ben Carson on TV the other day acting like Hydroxychloroquine is a proven cure for COVID-19. And you have Mike Lindell going on with Jimmy Kimmel next week to explain why Donald Trump won the election in a landslide.

Those friends don't like their party dealing with Climate Change by denying it's real, just as they don't like pretending the coronavirus was nothing more than a bad cold or that there's that mountain of evidence that Trump won. Reasonable adults can disagree on how to solve a given problem but not when they get stuck on debating whether the problem even exists.

Every time I browse Amazon, I come across at least one of these. Let's say you have the occasional jones for Campbell's SpaghettiOs with meatballs.  Don't snicker.  There are worse things you put in your body.  I usually have a few cans around because it's one of the better meals I can scarf down when I need warm chow in me and can't spare the six minutes to prepare something better.  Let's say you want to order some from Amazon.

I found these two listings side-by-side.  The photos are identical.  The contents of what you'd receive may not be because the one on the left can't decide if it contains ten cans or twelve…and you'll never know because you're smart enough to spot that the one on the right, which definitely contains twelve cans, is a buck cheaper.

And if you use Amazon Fresh, you won't order either because they sell however many cans you choose to order for 99 cents each.  A dozen there will run you $11.88.

All of these contain, let me remind you, the exact same…we'll call it "food"…in the same can from (probably) the same assembly line.  All 15.6 ounce cans of SpaghettiOs are created equal.

The great thing about Amazon is the utter convenience.  You search, you click, you buy, you get.  You don't have to rise up from your chair, put on a pair of those clean pants you aren't wearing much during The Pandemic, get in your car and spend time and gas money driving to a store that may be out of what you need and if they do have it, it probably costs more than buying it on Amazon.  There are downsides to Amazon but it does save me time 'n' money.

Ah, but if you want the absolute best price — and you do, you know you do — you have to do some comparison-shopping. Amazon may have it listed three dozen ways for a myriad of prices. Every time I order a new package of my favorite protein powder, I could just click "Buy Again" but instead, I search anew for it and often find it for a buck less, sometimes on the same page. I also once found a better price for it by misspelling its name in the search window.

I don't have a huge point to make here. I just find it odd and I wonder how much of it is intentional. Mr. Bezos is no dummy and Amazon knows a lot about my buying habits. I wonder if they track how often I don't find the best price for myself…and if they show me the same options they show someone who always does or never does. Because almost everything I purchase there, I can find there for a dollar more or a dollar less if I take some of that time they're otherwise saving me.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is a heavy metal version by Nick Protonotarios…

Oh. Before I get to that, I should mention that after I posted this saying that two people objected to these posts, I got close to a hundred e-mails from folks who love them so don't worry. They shall continue. And now, here's Nick…

• They're doing COVID vaccinations at some Costcos. Only problem is you have to get twelve of them at a time.

There's no Comic-Con International in San Diego this July but there'll be one in a four-issue mini-series that comes out this July…Groo Meets Tarzan. Much of it is set at that con so you will be able to see a frighteningly-accurate vision of what would happen at that convention if they had it.

You'll also be able to see two great warriors — Edgar Rice Burroughs' majestic Tarzan and Sergio Aragonés' moronic Groo the Wanderer — come together in a story so unbelievable that I don't even believe it and I was actually there when it happened. Sergio and I appear in the story along with our title stars. The fine illustrator Tom Yeates drew Tarzan and the scenes in that hero's world. Sergio drew the rest and there was lettering by Stan Sakai and coloring by Tom Luth. More details can be found here.

Keeping with my policy of not predicting anything about the end of The Pandemic or believing anyone else's predictions, I have no plans to travel anywhere for the foreseeable future. There's nowhere I want to go now and I'm real comfy here in my Fortress of Solitude. I guess I should be calling it The Fortress of Semi-Solitude because select, vaccinated people do get in…but not many of them.

Down the line, I might (might!) drive down to San Diego for the Comic-Con Special Edition on Thanksgiving Weekend but there are a lot of ifs in there, starting with if they even have it and if there's no surprise encore of the virus. And I'm thinking my personal lockdown might be over in time for the next WonderCon in Anaheim next April 1 — but I'm not counting on that.

The only other future event that interests me would require a trip to New York. The long-delayed revival of The Music Man — starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, directed by Jerry Zaks — is enjoying a long run on the marquee of the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway in Manhattan. It has, of course, not actually opened or even gone into production.

We who love musical theater all have a few shows we never want to miss and The Music Man is on my list. Mr. Jackman and Ms. Foster sound like ideal casting and I've liked every Jerry Zaks show I've ever seen. They're now saying it will begin previews December 20, 2021 and then open for real on February 10, 2022. Well, maybe.

When I heard the announced dates, I momentarily thought about trying to get back there in March, maybe for my 70th birthday. Then I thought: No, probably not. I'm also reticent to get on an airplane for a while. Maybe if the show's two main stars are willing to stay with it long enough — or if it's delayed again — it might still be running on my 71st birthday.

One interesting thing that has happened to this show, which was originally announced to open on 10/22/20, is a change of Producer. Scott Rudin, probably the most prolific Broadway producer of the last decade or two, has announced he will "step back" from active participation in this and his other projects. He had been accused of multiple instances of both physical and emotional abuse as is discussed in this article.

I have no idea how valid the complaints about Mr. Rudin are but a lot of folks involved in his shows seem to be happy he's doing that. So once again, The Music Man has a happy ending…this time, even before it's gone into rehearsal.

I just won a bet with myself. I got a news bulletin thingie on my iPhone that said the Senate had just voted 94-1 for the bill to do something about Anti-Asian hate crimes. So I asked myself, "Which one Senator voted no to send a 'I'm-your-guy' message to white supremacists?" And the answer, of course, turned out to be Josh Hawley.

If you are hesitant about getting vaccinated for COVID-19 or trying to help someone who is, listen to one of the smarter guys I've come across on the Internet, John Green…

• When I read that Chris Christie is running for president in 2024, I think how ridiculous it is that an ex-governor who left office with a 14% approval rating could even get his party's nomination. And then I think how unlikely it once was that Donald Trump could do that.

Jim Shegas writes that neither I nor Scott Edelman wrote the first solo Falcon story…

Actually, the first Falcon solo story was by Gary Friedrich and Gray Morrow in Captain America #144. It was produced during Marvel's brief flirtation with 25-cent double-sized comics. They changed their minds after only one month and went back to the regular format. This story had its start as a backup story to an extra-long Captain America lead story. While the double-sized story was being produced for issue #144 they found they needed to chop it into two parts with the rest going into #145. John Romita was enlisted to make some alterations to the Falcon story's first and last pages to make it fit to insert into the (now-shortened) Captain America story in #144 as a "Chapter 2" instead. But it is to all intents and purposes a separate Falcon story.

I remember that story. John Romita did more than "some alterations" to the first and last pages. And I remember it because I met Gray Morrow at a comic convention shortly after it came out and he was still quite upset that someone had ordered so many redraws, not to alter the story but because they just didn't like the way he'd drawn so many of the faces and figures.

He was not angry so much as hurt and puzzled that they felt they had to do that to a guy who'd been in the business for so long. He was another one of those artists — I could make a lengthy list — who was brimming with talent and had so much to offer…but the business never knew quite what to do with him.

Okay, I hereby remove myself from any position of authority on what the first Falcon solo story was. If anyone wants to know for sure, don't ask me.

Frank Balkin wrote me to say…

I can't speak for other comics fans, but I started reading at 8 years old in 1976, and I enjoyed back-up features. I didn't feel like "Well, I bought Detective Comics for Batman, why am I not getting 17 pages of Batman?" I thought, "Wow, this Elongated Man character isn't as interesting to me as Batman but he's fun to read about, too."

Yeah, that was how it was when I started reading comics. My first super-hero comic was Action Comics #250. Half the comic was Superman, a fourth was Tommy Tomorrow and the rest was Congorilla. I enjoyed them all and I think I enjoyed the sheer variety…but that was long ago. Folks who've analyzed sales figures more closely than I ever did came to the conclusion in the seventies that readers didn't feel that way about their comics.

They likened back-up features to if you bought a can of corn, got it home and opened it and discovered it was two-thirds corn, one-third peas. I'm not sure they were right but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Meanwhile, Michael Grabowski wrote about some back-up stories from my past…

Funny you mention back-ups in comics featuring other than title characters. I was still a single-digit aged comics reader when Hanna-Barbera comics stopped coming from Charlton and started coming from Marvel, and it was in one or more of those that I first noticed your name, and I believe I even wrote you a fan letter then! I may never have sent it, but I loved the line "Elbow macaroni sits on a poodle's nose" in what I think was a Fred Flintstone spy adventure. (My thinking was that they would never run a letter from me in The Amazing Spider-Man, but there couldn't be nearly as much competition to get in an H-B comic.)

I bought several of those Marvel/H-B comics from 7-Eleven, but rarely in consecutive order. But what really bugged me was the way each comic had a back-up story featuring other characters that set up the lead story in that other character's next comic. For instance, the Fred Flintstone spy story was probably set up in the back of Yogi Bear or Dynomutt. Thankfully, the lead stories never seemed to depend on the other comic's back-up intro, (Nice editing, there!) but it was always frustrating getting a little hook to find another comic the next month, which I never quite made happen. (I don't know why that never bugged me when hero comics had regular cliff-hangers if I never found their part 2s on the spinner rack.)

Yeah, the guy who set up that deal — who knew as much about comic books as I do about Evolutionary Culturology — had this brainstorm. Each issue of the Yogi Bear comic and the Flintstones comic would have a three-page back-up story of the other, teasing the next issue coming out. Same deal with the Scooby Doo and the Dynomutt comics. It was a bad idea, I thought, but we were stuck with it.

If you sent that letter, you wasted your time. The only address in the comics was Marvel's address in New York and they did not forward any mail to us so we did not do letter columns. A person who worked back there told me they got some and threw them away. Perhaps the thrower-awayer was the low-level individual then on staff at Marvel who let me know in no uncertain terms that he was very upset the Hanna-Barbera comics were being produced out of the Hanna-Barbera studio in Hollywood instead of out of the Marvel office back east. That meant he couldn't work on them and that bothered him a lot. He also told me that the day would come when he would run Marvel Comics…and he got about as close to that goal as I did to sleeping with all the Golddiggers on The Dean Martin Show.

Lastly, my buddy Phil Geiger was the only person who wrote to tell me…

You've probably had dozens of people tell you by now, but yeah, DC just started doing back-up stories in a lot of their books again. For example, Bibbo in Superman and Midnighter in Action Comics.

Duly noted. Hey, is anyone doing letter columns these days? I don't see a lot of current comics but the ones I see don't have them. I'm about to compose a letters page for an upcoming Groo comic, the on-sale date of which will be announced in the next week or so. How alone am I in taking the time to do these?

I have received two e-mails practically begging me to stop with the Flintstones theme videos. I have received a few dozen messages from people who love them.

I do not understand why a person is bothered by an easily-skippable item on a blog, especially one which cannot harm you even if you do somehow feel compelled to click and play it. 95% of the Internet is of no interest to me and I have no trouble avoiding it, nor do I want to take it away from those who might enjoy it.

So here we have another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by the Big Band Waidhofen…

In this post the other day, I told the story of how I wrote the first solo story of the Marvel Comics hero, The Falcon. Well, I thought I had. Turns out it was the first book-length story to feature the character. My pal Scott Edelman wrote, as one of his first jobs in comics, a short Falcon tale that appeared in Captain America #220, four months before mine saw print. Scott notes in an e-mail to me that…

My story was created as part of a different initiative to solving the lateness issue than yours. Rather than slotting in an entire fill-in issue to allow a title's regular creative team to catch up, back-ups allowed that team to deliver a shorter lead story, with the issue filled out by a back-up, giving that team some breathing space, though not as much as a full fill-in issue would have.

These back-ups gave many beginners the chance to show what they could do, and I wrote 5- and 6-page stories not only about The Falcon, but about The Vision, Nick Fury, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, and many others as well.

Do comics even do back-up stories anymore? I know they went outta fashion in the seventies. Folks like Len Wein and Dick Giordano occasionally theorized that readers resented them; that if you bought an issue of Batman, you wanted an issue of Batman and would feel cheated if you got two-thirds of an issue of Batman and then there was a Batgirl story in the back. Even worse was a back-up story that in no way connected with the lead feature…

…although when I did the Blackhawk comic for DC in the early eighties, Len (my first editor on it) and Dick (then the Exec Editor at DC) wanted there to be an occasional back-up feature called "Detached Service Diary." It was a recurring feature of previous Blackhawk runs and it consisted of solo stories of the members of the Blackhawk squadron.

We did not do it for deadline reasons. In a way, we did it to please a couple of artists who loved Blackhawk and wanted to draw some stories of it. For much of the time I did that comic, it was not only the only DC comic with back-up stories, it was the only DC comic with stories under book-length. This led to an interesting situation where the back-up stories in Blackhawk were solving deadline problems for other DC comics. I'll have to tell that story here one of these days.

Anyway, Scott Edelman wrote the first solo story of The Falcon. I am pleased to pass that distinction on to him.