From a 1968 Ed Sullivan Show, here's a gent who was one of my favorite comedians back then…Jackie Vernon. This isn't one of his best appearances but I thought he was funnier than the audience did.
As he usually did, Vernon tossed in the name of Sig Sakowicz, who was a longtime radio and TV host in Chicago and later in Las Vegas. Apparently, there's no great story about why Mr. Vernon did this. He just thought it was a good funny name…
This is a rerun from 9/8/13 and I should warn you it has a sad ending. Proceed at your own risk…
I mentioned here once about some unpleasant encounters in my life with folks who owned dogs. Here is the story of the unpleasantest. I tell it not to demean all dog owners or even any but just this one guy who I assume is either very old or very deceased by now. He was about 35 when this story took place in 1960. I was eight.
The house I grew up in had a rather large back yard. In the center of this yard was a set-up for tether ball, a popular sport of the day. You don't need to know how tether ball is played to understand what I'm about to describe. All you have to know is that we had a small hole in the yard into which concrete had been poured around a metal ring. The tether ball pole was inserted into the ring so the pole stood erect in the yard like a flagpole. Sometimes, as in the incident I'm about to describe, the pole wasn't set up so you just had this little circle of concrete and metal in the middle of the yard.
The back fence of the yard was metal links covered with a thick blanket of ivy. It was about six feet tall and on the other side of the fence was the back yard of a neighbor who lived on the street to the south of ours. I do not remember this neighbor's name so for reasons that will soon become apparent, we'll call him Jerko. Jerko was married but from all indications, he didn't love his wife half as much as he loved his Irish Setter. The Setter — he was called Duke — was pampered and hugged and combed and generally treated like royalty. Jerko was so proud of that dog. Another neighbor remarked that Jerko chose not to have children because if he did, he might have to spend as much as five minutes a day on them — time better spent brushing and petting Duke.
Duke caused us some problems. There was a terrible, foul smell that came from over the fence. It was so bad that I couldn't go too near that side of our yard. There were also awful noises. Whenever Jerko went somewhere and left Duke alone in the back, the pooch would spend the entire time howling as if in pain. It was so agonized that at least once, another neighbor called the police to report that an animal was being mistreated. Cops came to investigate and they reported that the dog was not being harmed. He was just lonely.
Duke continued to howl much of the day and he began trying to scale the fence and get into our yard. Sometimes, he did that when Jerko was home, too. But it was a high enough fence that the Setter couldn't climb over it and so what you heard was the repeated sound of Duke hurling himself against the fence — over and over, sometimes for hours at a time. My parents and I were all concerned about it but when we told Jerko, he said it was nothing to worry about. And when we called the City Animal Shelter, they told us basically that since the police had been out and had reported that the dog was well cared-for, there wasn't sufficient cause to send someone else.
So day after day, Duke would howl and hurl himself against the fence. One day, he made it over.
I was playing alone in the yard when it happened. I looked up, saw the dog get his front paws over the top of the ivy and haul the rest of himself over. Then he tumbled into our yard. I was scared and I started to run towards our house. Duke galloped towards me. I turned towards him to try and shoo him away but he jumped on me, knocking me backwards. The back of my head hit not the dirt but the metal-and-concrete setting for the tether ball pole.
I didn't know what the pain was but I'd sustained a small crack on the back of my skull. What I did know was that something back there hurt like hell and I couldn't get up because Duke, who was not a small animal, had his front paws and most of his weight on my chest.
So I began screaming — partly in pain and partly in the hope that someone would hear and come help me. My father was at work and my mother had gone to the market but there were neighbors all around us. So I just screamed and screamed, and all the time the Irish Setter was licking me and drooling on me as he sat on me.
Finally, someone else came over the fence: Jerko. I don't think he emerged from his house in response to my screaming. I think he went to check on his beloved, found the hound to be missing and only then heard the sound of an eight-year-old boy shrieking in agony. He climbed over the fence, walked over to where the dog was still sitting on me and I was yelling, and he said, "Don't yell. That's his way of showing affection!"
I yelled, "Get him off me! He hurt me!"
Jerko made no move whatsoever to get his mutt off my chest. He stood there and said, "No, Duke would never hurt you! He's a good dog!"
This went on for several minutes. I was yelling for him to get the dog off me because I was injured and he was refusing to do this because his wonderful Duke would never, ever hurt anyone. Pinning me down to the ground was his way of showing he loved me. (Years later, I had a girl friend who…)
Finally, my mother got home, heard the commotion and ran outside. She ordered Jerko to get his dog off her son and he finally did, all the time muttering, "He's just showing affection." When she got me up and found blood on the back of my skull, she called Jerko a very nasty name, then scurried off to get me to a hospital. I have this vivid memory of her leading me into the house and of Jerko standing in our backyard with his Irish Setter. Jerko was still saying, "Oh, Duke would never hurt anyone."
She drove me to a hospital emergency room where they did a little bandaging and, I think, a bit of stitching. My mother asked the doctor if he thought there had been any permanent damage. With a solemn stare, the doctor said, "I'm afraid so. Your son has suffered sufficient brain damage that all he'll be able to do with the rest of his life is write silly cartoons and comic books…and some day if and when they invent the Internet, he may even start 'blogging,' whatever that is." And yes, I'm lying. He said nothing of the sort. What he did say was that the injuries were minor and would heal quickly.
That evening, Jerko called and asked if he could come over. My father told him yes, assuming the man wanted to see how I was and to apologize for his dog and, more importantly, for himself. Instead, Jerko came in, sat down, and without even asking how I was, he began explaining that Duke was shaken up but seemed fine. "He would never harm anyone, especially a child, so I have to assume your son did something to provoke it all." My father turned the color of Libby's Tomato Juice and told Jerko off but good, including a few threats involving lawyers and/or law enforcement. Jerko left, still convinced that somehow his fine pet was the victim in the whole matter.
That is not the end of the story but I have to warn you: From here on, it gets rather sad and ugly. The dog dies a pretty awful death and if you can't handle that, stop here.
A few weeks later, there were a couple of very rainy days in Los Angeles. Throughout them, as usual, we heard Duke howling as he always did. Then one afternoon, the howling took on a different tone — sadder and more desperate. It almost sounded like a human crying. My mother came into my room and asked, "Do you hear that?" I did.
It had stopped raining so I put on my little slicker and ran around to the other side of the block. Outside Jerko's house, there was a car stopped awkwardly in the street. An elderly man and woman who'd been in the car were out of it, standing next to it and looking very upset, trying to decide on some course of action. The first thing the man said to me was, "I didn't see it. It came running right out in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes but it's so wet and I skidded and…" And then I saw in front of his car, a pool of blood. There was a trail of it that led up Jerko's driveway and towards his back yard. "It was a big, red dog," the woman said. She was trembling and crying.
They had no idea what to do. They'd knocked on the door to Jerko's house and there was no answer. They'd knocked on a few neighbors' doors and there was no answer. They were standing there in the street by the car, hoping either a policeman would drive by or maybe the owner or some neighbor would come home. I asked if they'd followed the trail of blood into the backyard. They said no, that was private property and they didn't want to trespass. I think now as I did then that that was just an excuse because they didn't want to see the dog. It seemed cowardly but at least they had enough integrity to not hit-and-run.
I decided I would trespass. I followed the blood droppings through an open gate that I guessed Duke had somehow opened, and I crept into Jerko's yard where I'd never been before. I realized the agonized howling had stopped just as I came across the source of the dreadful odor we'd been noticing for months. The yard was full of dog excrement. Full. It was everywhere and since it had been raining, its aroma was enhanced by moisture. It was also squishy and to follow the blood trail, I had to delicately walk through a lot of it. I remember thinking we might have to throw away the shoes I was wearing.
I found Duke curled up in a corner of the yard, covered in blood and whimpering. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen in my life. It may still be the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life. He was alive but it didn't look like he'd be alive for long.
I ran out of the yard, nearly slipping in muddy dog excrement, and I told the older couple that I was going to go call someone. I still don't quite understand why they could do nothing but wait for an eight-year-old kid to come by and take action. I ran back around the block to our house, doing my best as I ran to scrape the soles of my shoes as I ran. When I got home, they were still clumped with unpleasantness so I took them off and left them in the patio. We actually did wind up throwing them away.
In the house, my mother called some city department that seemed to cover such matters. She put me on the phone so I could describe what I'd seen. A lady at the other end of the line told me that they would send police because there was no one else they could send at just that moment, and because the animal control people couldn't on their own enter private property without the owner present. I put on other shoes and ran back around the block while my mother got dressed so she could join me there.
When I got back to the street outside Jerko's house, the elderly couple was gone. I waited a few minutes and about the time my mother arrived, a police car showed up and I flagged them down and explained the situation. The officer I spoke to said, "We'll go take a look but there's probably nothing we can do and there's no way we can get anyone out here from Animal Control for an hour or two." I warned them about the lake of liquid dog poop in the back yard and they donned some sort of plastic covers for their shoes and went back. Soon, they returned and said the dog had apparently died.
They asked us if we were aware of the dog being mistreated. That was not a simple question to answer but we did our best. We told the officers that Jerko seemed to love his pet and pamper him…but the dog did, after all, spend most of his life howling and trying to get out of that yard.
We went home after that. I have no idea what happened next between the police and Jerko but later that evening, we had a visitor. It was Jerko and he was very upset. My father, who sensed trouble was looming, sent me to my room while he and my mother met with Jerko in our living room. When I heard yelling, I came out anyway.
Jerko was basically accusing me of having let his wonderful dog die as revenge for that silly incident wherein I "wrongly" believed Duke had injured me. I still do not know what he expected me to do, aside from what I did, that might have saved the dog's life but he was furious that I hadn't done it. He was also mad that I hadn't gotten the license number of the car so he could track down the murderers…so much so that I half-expected him to accuse me of having been behind the wheel.
Oh — and though he was furious I hadn't done more to save Duke, he was also upset that I'd caused the police to enter his private property. The officers had cited him for a health hazard in his back yard and he had something like ten days to clean it up or face jail time. I remember thinking, "Oh, I hope he doesn't clean it up."
My parents yelled a bit at Jerko, then I yelled a little at Jerko, then my father told him to get the hell out of our house and never come back. Jerko announced we'd hear from his lawyer and then he stormed out of our home and we never heard from his lawyer or from him again. Within days though, the smell from his yard went away and within a month or two, so did Jerko. He moved out. Another family soon moved in…and they didn't have a dog but they did have a son, a bit older than me, who became a good friend.
The whole thing left an emotional scar, along with the one on the back of my skull. In the years that followed, I would flinch and cringe when we were out and someone came by with a big dog on a leash…anything larger than, say, a Scottish Terrier. Everyone but my parents thought I was afraid of dogs but really, I was afraid of dog owners. Eventually, my feelings about them went away. I met some nice, responsible ones…folks who seemed to place human beings on a level at least equal to their canines. I still feel an occasional twinge of anger at Jerko — you should see what I called him in this piece before I decided to soften it down to "Jerko" — but I accept he's atypical of those who own dogs.
So now I'm fine with dogs and dog owners…though I really do prefer cats and by a significant margin. I don't feed stray dogs but I feed every stray cat that comes within a couple blocks of me. The cats may have Jerko to thank for that.
I sometimes link to Adam Ragusea videos — to the annoyance of a few friends of mine who complain, as one did, "They guy acts like he knows more than anyone else." I don't think he does think that but if he did…well, I like to listen to people who know more than I do. What's the point of listening to someone who knows less if there even is such a person? Anyway, I found this video about corn fascinating…
I haven't been out to Burbank much since The Pandemic descended on us so I was unaware that Simmzy's, which I wrote about in the previous post, is now a restaurant called Brew Brothers. As dozens of you have now informed me.
Turner Classic Movies is announcing some sort of new look or new policy or new something for their channel beginning September 1. What is it? I haven't the foggiest. Maybe they're going to institute a rule about not showing Run Silent, Run Deep more than once every three weeks. I looked at what I could see of the September schedule and it looks like any other month at TCM — a mix of films I've never seen, never heard of or already own on DVD. So we'll see what the Big Change is.
And William Saletan has a good article up about how the people complaining about what the Biden Administration has done in Afghanistan are arguing the opposite of everything they advised when it wasn't the Biden Administration doing it. We're living in an era where it's okay to reverse everything you ever said if it'll help you slam your political opponents.
The other day here, I mentioned a restaurant/bar called Chadney's and a couple of folks wrote to ask some variation on "Why have I heard of that place?" There were at one point three Chadney's — one in Burbank, one in Studio City and one in Santa Monica and there was briefly one across from Universal Studios. They're all gone now.
I never went to the one in Santa Monica or the one near Universal. I went to the other two and the one you heard of was the one in Burbank. It was located across the street from the NBC Studios in that city so it was mentioned a lot on Johnny Carson's show. That Chadney's was a handy place for NBC stars and employees to dine and/or drink. Among the ones I saw there on various visits were Bob Hope, Mac Davis, Flip Wilson, Ed McMahon, most of Mr. Carson's band and various celebrities who were doing Hollywood Squares that day.
I believe both Mr. Carson and Mr. Leno did a couple of stunts there sending someone or maybe just a camera crew across the street for their respective Tonight Shows. That's a photo of the Burbank one above, obviously taken after it closed and before it got remodeled into a lively (meaning it's loud in there) restaurant called Simmzy's. It may have had another identity between when it was Chadney's and when it became Simmzy's. I have occasionally dined at Simmzy's with either people who work in the building that used to be NBC or folks who work a block or three away at DC Comics.
My recollection of when it was Chadney's was that it was a good place for a steak or seafood, a great place to see celebrities, a bad place to have to park and — apparently — a terrific place to drink. Every TV and movie studio had a terrific place more-or-less across the street where the folks at the studio could dash out for a cocktail or a better-than-the-commissary meal…and the cocktails always seemed more important than the chow.
At Paramount, there was Nickodell's. At CBS Television City, there was Kelbo's. Near CBS's Studio City lot, there was a restaurant — I don't remember the name of it — where the food was the third most important offering and the alcohol was of secondary concern. The main enticement was very attractive women — probably all aspiring actresses — bending over a lot in very short skirts.
A certain producer I did some work for who was housed on that CBS lot would not meet with me except over lunch and he would not have lunch anywhere but at this restaurant. And of course, he would not pay much attention to anything I said because the servers were too distracting. It was more than a little creepy to me.
Most of those "watering hole" places went away as production in studios and on lots declined. Chadney's Burbank went downhill in the late eighties, went through multiple owners in the nineties and closed in 1998. I can't say I miss it but it was great to be sitting there eating one of their burgers and to glance over and see Burt Reynolds or Angie Dickinson at the next table. I rarely felt like I was in Hollywood when I was in Hollywood but I often felt that way in Burbank, usually at Chadney's.
I just gave some bucks to Wikipedia and maybe you should too. Yeah, it's occasionally the dispenser of inaccurate information but usually not for long. I was skeptical about it when it first appeared but it's proven to be a very valuable resource and now, when they run one of their fundraising drives, I realize it helps me more than a lot of online stuff for which I have to pay. Next time you go to some Wikipedia page — which if you use it as often as I do will be soon — use one of their donate links.
Today's song from my mixtape is "Spooky," which was recorded by dozens of artists but the best known version was a 1968 hit by…well, I'm not sure precisely what name was on the label when it first came out. A gent named Dennis Yost was the lead singer and his band went under the name "The Classics" or more often, "The Classics IV," the "IV" meaning "four." So I've seen the record attributed to Dennis Yost, to Dennis Yost and the Classics, to Dennis Yost and the Classics IV or sometimes just to The Classics IV. Most likely, all those names were correct at some point.
This video appears to be Yost and his band singing it on some TV show where they were billed as "Classics IV" with the number four all over the set. But someone has dubbed in the actual record so the sync doesn't match exactly…
I don't know much about Mr. Yost except that he had a lot of medical problems in the seventies and eighties that impaired his singing…and then in 2006, he fell down a flight of stairs and suffered severe brain injuries. A lot of performers rallied to his aid and staged one or more benefits to help him and he died a few years later. But a lot of radio stations still play "Spooky," especially around Halloween.
More interesting to me is a gent named Harry Middlebrooks, who I've met briefly on a few occasions, though never for more than a few words. Middlebooks co-wrote "Spooky" but I knew him as a local performer popping up at clubs and occasionally on television. In the late seventies, I was dating a lovely lady who always wanted me to take her to see Middlebrooks performing at a steakhouse/bar on Ventura Boulevard called Chadney's. He was almost always joined by a fine lady vocalist named Terry Gregory who went on to become very popular in the world of country music.
Every time we saw Middlebooks and Gregory, Harry would at some point play "Spooky." If you were a piano bar-type performer and you'd had a hit of that magnitude, you'd play it every night too…or at least every time your ASCAP check arrived. Here's a fairly recent (I think) video of him playing it at some club somewhere…
John Oliver's eclectic art collection may be coming your way. Okay, so "eclectic" isn't exactly the right word but I can't think of what would be. In any case, it's going on tour, winding up in January in the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco…
Since the day I got my first TiVo, which was way before anyone else I knew even knew what they did — the way I watch television has continually changed. It was so liberating to be able to watch a TV show when I wanted to watch it instead of when "they" wanted me to watch it. I could also pause it, rewind it, freeze-frame it, skip ahead in it, etc. I finally felt like I owned a television set instead of it owning me.
The way it's evolved, I program my TiVo to catch shows that I think I might want to watch. Once they're recorded and on my Now Playing list, I can not only decide when to watch but also if. I sometimes have a show that resides there unwatched for months because I'm never quite motivated enough to actually play it…and I eventually decide "Maybe I don't want to watch that" and I just delete it. Or I watch one episode of many, then delete the rest of the many.
I just deleted, largely unwatched, CNN's History of the Sitcom. Given their History of Late Night TV produced by much the same crew, I knew it was tackling way too much history in way too few hours and that it would be maddening in its omissions. Also, there's such a thing as Too Many Commercials and CNN achieves that oversaturation way too often. I guess since they sometimes have to air some Breaking News Story with commercial-free coverage, they figure they can make up for it during other, more interruptible news.
I made it through one episode and even skipping through ads, it was annoying…though not as annoying as the "history" consistently missing the joy and point of most of the shows they chose to cover…and wincing at so many important ones they omitted. All of it seemed to be done in service of a message, which was that situation comedies of the past often did not reflect the attitudes we perhaps should take in 2021 towards women, racial minorities, gays and other groups. I think we all know that.
Perhaps we can separate the way people are depicted on TV from the way we treat them in real life. I never thought Get Smart reflected the way America's intelligence system ought to operate or that psychologists should act more like the star did on The Bob Newhart Show. There is and always will be comedy that can be viewed as insensitive to someone and there's a time and a place for it, especially if it's funny.
Anyway, I don't know if all the episodes of The History of the Sitcom were as joyless and clueless about its subject matter as the one I viewed but I had no desire to watch the others and find out. Whenever they get around to doing it, I look forward to not watching CNN's History of Everything Else on TV, which I expect is coming someday. I'm guessing they'll give it twelve hours, 11.5 of which will be commercials.
For years and years, one of your best online sources for Disney news and history has been Jim Hill Media and he also covers other theme parks and related forms of entertainment. Recently, Jim happened upon the above postcard which is a scene of the backlot at Universal Studios in Southern California. In teensy type on the back, it says, "Panoramic view from Hollywood Visitors Village looking north over the New York street area." Jim thought I'd like to have this postcard and he was right. Thanks to him, I was able to purchase it.
So now you're wondering why I want it. It's because if you look real closely on the left side of the "panoramic view," you can see some exterior sets for the finale of my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Which means this photo was shot in late 1962.
If you click above on the postcard image, you can see an enlargement of a section of the entire image. And yes, it's grainy but that's how how something like this looks when you blow it up as much as I blew this up. I'll guide you through a little of it…
See that red thing in the postcard image? That's the fire engine that figures big into the climax of the film. It's parked in front of a building for Santa Rosita Savings and Loan. Here's a frame grab from the movie…
That's the building "Milton Berle" crashes through. You can match it up with the enlarged image of the postcard. And then here's another frame grab…
There's the pet store that "Spencer Tracy" (obviously doing his own stunts) crashes into. You can't see much of the pet store in the postcard image but you can see the awning of the business next to it on the right side of the postcard detail.
There are some other identifiable items there. The tall structure atop the fake Savings and Loan building might have something to do with shots of the folks on the fire escape but I suspect it's mainly a camera platform from which to film the view from the fire escape or ladder looking downwards. Or maybe to throw things off of.
I think this is a neat "find" and I thought I'd share it with you. If it tickles you a little as it tickles me, don't thank me. Thank Jim Hill. Thanks, Jim Hill!
Here's a complete episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from near the end of that fabulous run. Mr. Carson did his last episode on May 22, 1992 and this hour is from March 5, 1992. It will perhaps remind you, as it reminded me, of Johnny at his best in his final years. The guests are Don Rickles and author Calvin Trillin, plus they have the cast of the Broadway musical, Five Guys Named Moe.
This was two weeks before that show started previewing in New York and the cast performed about ten minutes from it and, I suspect, sold a lot of tickets. Really great stuff. The show, which had its origins on London's West End, opened in New York on April 8 of that year and ran about thirteen months and 445 performances before going on tour for a long, long time.
If you just want to see the numbers from Five Guys Named Moe, click here. If you want to see this whole Tonight Show, click below unless there's one of those little banners there than I put up when a video embed becomes unavailable…
Amanda Marcotte on how some — I don't think she means all — of those who refuse to be vaccinated or wear masks are doing so because they see it as a way of sticking it to their political enemies.
If she does mean all, I think she's exaggerating. But sure, there are people who are anti-mask/vaxx just because they despise the folks who are so vocally advocating for mask mandates, vaccine passports and maybe even vaccine mandates. "You can't tell me what to do" is not an unreasonable position as long as you are open to the possibility that the person trying to tell you what to do might be right. When it causes you reflexively to do the opposite just to show your independence, it becomes a stupid reason to do anything.