Monthly Archives: January 2022

• One of the occasional joys of watching Jeopardy! is when a champion has been on for weeks, has amassed more than a million bucks in winnings…and they lose on a Final Jeopardy question that you knew the answer to and they didn't.

Late Night with David Letterman debuted on NBC on February 1, 1982. It later turned into Late Night with Conan O'Brien and then Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and now it's Late Night with Seth Meyers. I think those were/are four pretty good shows. I haven't linked lately to one of Seth's "A Closer Look" segments but I think most of them are excellent.

Next week is the fortieth anniversary of Late Night and Meyers has David Letterman as his guest for that episode…and it wouldn't surprise me to see one or both of the others make an appearance. Fallon's working in the same building. Why would he not drop by?

The announcements say it's the episode for Tuesday, February 1. This gets us back to something that used to bug me in the Letterman days. I wanted to record every broadcast of the show on my VHS recorder but that recorder had an option to take a "season pass" for each each episode on individual days and it had an option to record a show Monday through Friday…but in my time zone, as with most, Late Night was not on Monday through Friday.

It starts after Midnight so it's on Tuesday through Saturday…and that VCR had no option for that. So I could either set five separate season passes — one for each night — or a Monday through Friday pass plus another one for Saturday, then I'd just delete whatever it recorded Monday morning at 12:30 AM.

Yeah, I know. Not the biggest problem in the world. But often when they referred to the episode that would air Wednesday night, it was the one that was technically on Thursday morning.

Right now, my TiVo says that the episode for Tuesday, February 1 features Ike Barinholtz, Bridget Everett and Hayley Brownell. There's no programming information yet for the show that — according to TiVo — airs Wednesday, February 2 but I think that's the one with Letterman. It may feel like Tuesday night when it airs but to TiVo, it's Wednesday morning…I think.

Speaking of late night TV: Howie Mandel, like everyone these days, has a podcast and his guest this week is Jay Leno. Howie is quite adamant that Leno was unfairly criticized for "stealing" The Tonight Show from Letterman and later for doing something treacherous to O'Brien. I happen to share these viewpoints. Howie almost scolds Jay for not doing a better job defending himself and it makes for an interesting discussion…if you're still interested in that kind of thing. If you are, you can listen to it here.

• So Stephen Beyer is retiring from the Supreme Court. I can't wait to hear Mitch McConnell explain why it's wrong and unprecedented to try and confirm a replacement this year.

So we became intrigued about this mystery. In the latest New Yorker, author Adam Gopnik reviewed two new books about Buster Keaton and offered a quote about Keaton from — and I quote: "His brother-in-law, the cartoonist Walt Kelly." That would seem to be the cartoonist Walt Kelly who created and drew my favorite comic strip (and yours if you have a lick o' sense), Pogo.

Walt Kelly scholars — like, say, me — were amazed at the claim that Kelly was Keaton's brother-in-law. So were folks who knew Walt personally — like, say, his son Peter. We all began puzzling and puzzling 'til our puzzlers were sore…and I'll single out a couple of folks who went to work on this mystery and came up with some solid clues: Maggie Thompson, Harry McCracken and Mike Whybark.

We thought we had it solved when someone discovered that in Keaton's autobiography, My Wonderful World of Slapstick, there are several mentions of a performer named Walter C. Kelly, who was one of Keaton's father's best friends.  He's also mentioned in Rudi Blesh's authorized biography of Keaton (entitled Keaton).

This Walter C. Kelly was an actor on the vaudeville circuit when The Three Keatons — Buster being one of them — were touring on that circuit. He portrayed a character called The Virginia Judge, who appears to have been quite the redneck, spouting jokes that might go over big at a Ku Klux Klan rally. He was popular enough to make it to Broadway and movies. The above lobby card is from a 1935 film he made as his stage character, three years before he died in a traffic accident. He was the uncle of Grace Kelly, who went from being a movie star to being the Princess of Monaco.

There is no evidence yet that this Walter C. Kelly was a cartoonist or that he was related to Buster Keaton. But we were thinking maybe the answer to this riddle was that someone had that Walter C. Kelly confused with the Walter C. Kelly who drew Pogo. The Pogo guy's full name was Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr.

That seemed to be the answer but it was, of course, dead wrong. As it turns out, Buster Keaton had two Walt Kellys in his life, neither one of whom did Pogo. One of the two Keaton books that Adam Gopnik was reviewing was by James Curtis. Here's the cover of the book and a picture of the author…

And here's an e-mail that I received this morning from James Curtis…

I think I can clarify the matter regarding Buster Keaton and Walt Kelly, but only somewhat.

I am the author of the upcoming book Adam Gopnik was referencing, and Buster Keaton did indeed have a brother-in-law named Walt Kelly. But why Gopnik made the completely unnecessary assumption that the Walt Kelly who was married to Eleanor Keaton's younger sister Jane was the same Walt Kelly who created Pogo is beyond me. As you know, that Walt Kelly died in 1973. As of two months ago, the Walt Kelly I interviewed was still alive and living in Southern California. He is certainly not identified as the other Walt Kelly in my book.

The review appeared on line yesterday morning, and Leonard Maltin wrote to congratulate me. I mentioned this odd situation of confusing a career military officer with a world-renowned cartoonist. He said: "So much for fact-checking!" I also heard from a gentleman in Seattle who was writing on behalf of a Facebook group called "I Go Pogo" asking if I could throw some light on the matter. I told him what I knew, and he thanked me for the clarification. "It's sort of amusing," he commented, "even if it's disappointing to read it from a pen of such a high caliber. I've been pondering this all day…"

I wonder how many others have been pondering it as well.

To be fair, Adam Gopnik didn't say the Walt Kelly that he was quoting was the cartoonist who produced Pogo; just that he was a cartoonist. But a lot of us were doing a lot of pondering. Thanks to Mr. Curtis for his quick clarification and I have already ordered a copy of his book. If you'd like to get your order in, here's a link.

By the way: Several people wrote to remind me that Walt Kelly (the Pogo guy) worked for several years for Walt Disney here in Southern California so he could have crossed paths with Buster Keaton. Yes, he could have…but there's no reason to assume he did. And of course, I did know about his Disney work. One of the things I inherited from his daughter Carolyn was a folder with all his Disney pay slips, his Disney contracts, inter-office memos, invites to Disney debauchery parties, the samples that got him his job there, etc. I even have this…

Next time I go over to the lot, I'm going to flash it and see if they'll let me in. With my luck, they'll probably think I'm one of the other Walt Kellys.

• Why is it that people who use the phrase "long story short" can never make that long story short?

And here we have sixteen minutes of scenes that were shot for Young Frankenstein but which Mel Brooks wisely did not include in the final release.

I once sat through a screening of The Producers which contained about eight minutes of scenes that were eventually deleted, including several failed attempts by Max, Leo and the Kraut to blow up the theater before they got to the one that succeeded. The film was way better without those scenes and I suspect Young Frankenstein was way better without these. Still, it's nice to see more of those actors…

• Lately, any day I don't have to write an obit for someone I knew is a good day. Today has been a good day. So far.

Sometimes, you just can't resist a sale. When The Complete Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In — all six seasons of it — was released on DVD, it cost $250. Now, it's down to $61.60.

That buys you 126 hours and 4 minutes on 37 discs. You could watch them for more than five straight days and when you finished, we could send men over to take you away to a very small room with very soft walls for the rest of your life. I just ordered one so guess where I'll be headed 126 hours and 4 minutes after it arrives.

Actually, I'm not sure why I ordered it. I know the shows seem very dated now and repetitive and if I do watch them, it'll be something like one episode every few weeks. But I have a certain affection — and maybe a lot of it is my nostalgia and my brief crush on Judy Carne — but…well, it's like I said: Sometimes, you just can't resist a sale. If you're like me in this regard, and I certainly hope you aren't, here's a link to order.

The New Yorker has a nice article about the enduring appeal of Buster Keaton's work. Adam Gopnik wrote it reviewing two new books on Buster and it's worth reading but some of us are puzzled by this one passage…

In 1933, he was fired by Louis B. Mayer, essentially for being too smashed, on and off the set, to work. Keaton's M-G-M experience, despite various efforts by Thalberg and others to keep his career alive as a gag writer, ruined his art. The next decades are truly painful to read about, as Keaton went in and out of hospitals and clinics, falling off the wagon and then sobering up again. His brother-in-law, the cartoonist Walt Kelly, recalls that "nobody really wanted to put him under control because he was a lot of fun."

Walt Kelly was Buster Keaton's brother-in-law? I consider myself something of an authority on both men and I never heard that. I checked with Walt Kelly's son Peter and he never heard it either. You'd think he'd know.

One might also note that during the period discussed — the years Keaton was in and out of hospitals and clinics — he was in Los Angeles and the cartoonist Walt Kelly who drew the Pogo comic strip was in Connecticut and/or New York. And nowhere in Kelly's voluminous writings have I seen any mention of Buster Keaton. So what's the deal here?

If you watch episodes of the old game show Tattletales, you'll see a lot of celebrity couples bickering and arguing and you may wonder how their coupling, married or otherwise, could endure. In many cases, it hasn't. A lot of those couples separated or got divorced or otherwise uncoupled. It might even be most of them.

But a few didn't. I caught an episode a week or three ago and two of the three couples are no longer together but the third couple is. It was the comedy team of Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall.

Charlie and Mitzi met in 1959. They were both students in a comedy workshop at Paramount Studios that was run by Jerry Lewis. They teamed up professionally and personally. By 1964, they were a hot enough act to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Unfortunately, the episode they were on was the one on February 9 that year when the audience was full of teenage girls who were there to see some act called The Beatles make its first appearance. Things did not go well for Charlie and Mitzi that night.

But if they could survive that, they could survive anything…and they have. Today is their 62nd anniversary.

They're still together. They're still performing. They're two of my favorite people. Happy Anniversary, Mitzi and Charlie! I think it's for keeps.

And now here's another photo that I took on a walk. This was a few weeks ago but I didn't get around to posting it here before.  It was on the side of an AT&T repair truck that was parked directly across the street from where I saw the Jetsons truck in the previous post.  It of course raises the question: You and I should be wearing masks when we're around others…but do these seven people need them? Really?

Some of them can breathe in outer space or underwater. I suppose Batman might be capable of getting or transmitting COVID…but Superman? Really?

It's the year 2022 and Mr. Spacely finally fired George Jetson, once and for all, from the Sprockets company. So what does George do? How will he make a living and feed Jane, Judy, Elroy and Astro? How can he afford Rosie the Robot? How will he keep the Foodarackacycle filled with protein pills?

The other day on a walk, I saw what he was doing and I took this photo…

Sheldon Sturges saw the previous item on this blog, noticed the credit "Produced by Allan Sherman" and sent me this e-mail…

My Dad had that Cosby record and played it all the time when it first came out, so I used to say "rightttt" a lot in the first grade, which confused my teacher, the lovely Miss Jolicoeur. Just curious: what does a producer do on a comedy/spoken word record?

Well, it could mean many things on other records but I believe on this one, it meant they paid Allan Sherman some money to let them put his name on there. He was the hottest seller of comedy records ever at the same time while Cosby — then largely unknown — was putting out his first and for the same company. Someone there probably thought it would help sales and it probably did.

Speaking of Allan Sherman: I will be in the next day or so. Fans of his work will enjoy what is to come here.

Stephen Colbert has this thing he does on his show — The Colbert Questionert, pronounced "Colbaire Questionnaire" — in which he asks guests fifteen questions that supposedly enable us to "know" them. A friend made me answer it the other day and one of the questions is: "Name something you own that you really should throw out."

My answer? My Bill Cosby records.

Actually, I should probably throw out all my records. There are a thousand in my living room and among those, there are maybe ten I might want to listen to again but don't have on CDs or as MP3 files. I also do not have a working record player.  But "My Bill Cosby records" sounded like a clever response…and I probably will never listen to them again. It's not just that I think he's guilty of heinous crimes.  I just never found his records — or him on TV — uproariously funny.

My qualified admiration for him as a comedian all flows from seeing him perform live at Harrah's in Reno in the early eighties. Had he not done it all sitting down, I would call his act one of the three-or-so greatest stand-up performances I've ever seen. (Albert Brooks would be one of the others and I'm not sure who'd fill out the list…probably Carlin, maybe Klein.)

But I still kinda have that quandary about separating the art from the artist…and not just about him. There are comic book guys and authors and other kinds of folks who produce creative work who disappointed me as human beings for one reason or another. I dunno how many of you could look at their work and enjoy it just as much after that disappointment. I don't think I can.

If you told me Mr. Cosby was performing down the street from me doing the same kind of show he did in Reno and doing it just as well, I don't think I'd go. Even if my attendance would not put another dime in his pocket and would not be taken as forgiveness or denial of his misdeeds, I don't think I'd go.

I've been thinking about this since I read about a four-part documentary that is soon to commence on Showtime. It was written and directed by comedian W. Kamau Bell and — well, here: Watch this trailer…

It starts next Sunday night and I just set my TiVo to record all four parts. I'm not sure what it will tell me about William Henry Cosby Jr. that I don't already know. I'm just thinking it might help me figure out how to deal with the kind of disappointments I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. I'll let you know if it does.

Vanity Fair's website will sometimes let you read an article or two for free, then pounce on you to subscribe to read more. You may be able to read this article by Michael Riedel about the revival of The Music Man. It covers how the show came to be, how it was almost done in by COVID, how it survived the loss of its producer in an employee-abuse scandal and on and on. Worth your time.