Monthly Archives: January 2022

Since I have zero interest in tennis, I should have had zero interest in King Richard. This is the movie in which Will Smith plays the father of Venus and Serena Williams and raises them to be two of the greatest athletes of all time. I'm not sure why I liked it as much as I did. It might have had something to do with how convincing and natural Smith and all the lead actors were. The film was brilliantly written in that it didn't feel written. It just felt real…and well worth the journey.

At the end of the screener, I looked up how long it was and was surprised to find it was 2 hours and 24 minutes. It sure didn't feel like that. By contrast, I recently watched the eighty-seven jillionth James Bond film, No Time to Die and it was "only" 2 hours and 43 minutes. It felt like twice that and more…though I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and suggest that maybe it would be better on a real screen instead of the 43" one in my office. Since I ain't goin' to no movie theaters these days, that's how it's gonna be for a while.

Anyway, I recommend King Richard even if you couldn't care less about competitive tennis. And I guess I'd recommend No Time to Die if you really enjoy beautiful scenery and something blowing up every 60 seconds. Or so it felt.

My pal Bob Bergen is not only one of the best voiceover actors working today — in animation and elsewhere — he's also one of the best teachers of his art 'n' craft. You may not be able to get into one of his classes but you can go to his Instagram page and watch the little videos he posts about tricks of the trade. Better still, follow him.

Here's a piece that will give you some deep insight into Rogers: The Musical, better known to some as the Broadway show about Captain America and The Avengers. The story about how it came to be and almost didn't exist is as gripping and real as the show itself…

Referencing my piece on Louie Anderson, Jerry W. wrote to ask…

Once a comic was big enough to get inserted into the Comedy Store lineup, wasn't he or she much more likely to be working out new material than hoping to impress Jim McCawley?

My observation was that if a comedian had never been on with Mr. Carson and it was likely his scout, Jim McCawley, was on the premises, most comics would treat their stage time as an audition for The Tonight Show. They would go with their strongest material. If they had a 1 AM slot, no, they wouldn't assume there was anyone there they wanted to impress. But they sure didn't want to bomb in front of McCawley or someone from the network or a big agent.

They generally knew. Someone would tip them off that So-and-So was in the audience. Budd Friedman at The Improv — the other comedy club frequented back then by industry people — would sometimes make an extra effort to provide a good showcase for a specific comic who'd shown loyalty to the club.

Let's say you were a comedian working his room and someone had arranged for some V.I.P. from NBC to come see you. Budd or his staff would make sure you got the time slot you needed and that your V.I.P. was treated like one. They might even make sure the comic on before you was someone strong — but not too strong — and wouldn't hog the stage and cut into your time. They might even offer/suggest a time slot the night before so you could practice the set you'd be doing for the V.I.P.

Some comics didn't need Carson (or other) exposure so they might break in new material at the Store. But I once heard a comedian say, "That's what Igby's is for." Igby's was a small comedy club over in West L.A. where few industry people went and where no one ever got discovered. Mitzi Shore, owner-manager of The Comedy Store, might feel betrayed if someone she regarded as one of "her" comics did a set at The Improv but she didn't get too angry if they occasionally went on at Igby's. She was especially forgiving if they said, "I just went there to break in some new stuff I wasn't sure was good enough to do at The Store."

I had a passing friendship with McCawley. I may never meet another human being who had his butt kissed so much and so obviously. He was a nice guy, though I don't think his talent was that he knew what audiences would like so much as that he knew what Johnny would like.

Here's a nice piece on Louie Anderson by Peter Sobczynski. Mr. Sobczynski makes a point I wish had occurred to me when I wrote what I wrote here. Anderson's comedy was rarely if ever mean or hostile…and this was at a time when a lot of the newer comics seemed to be trying to outdo each other in those categories. We need more comedians like that.

It's 11/20/84 and a new comic is making his network debut on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. His name is Louie Anderson and I think he "won" a career with his very first joke.

To not have to pay use fees, Mr. Carson's company has edited the music out of clips like these. I understand the reasons but it's a shame that you don't get to hear the sensational ovation that Louie got at the end of his act…

No, I'm not writing or posting an R.I.P. for Michael Lee Aday, aka "Meat Loaf." I can see he was loved by many, but I don't know that I ever saw or heard him perform. That might have nothing to do with his success and everything to do with my sometimes-narrow tastes. So I have no insights, no observations, no anecdotes. This is true of most famous folks whose passing goes unmentioned on this blog.

The one thing I remember about Meat Loaf is from one of the times Tom Snyder had him on the Tomorrow Show and kept addressing him as "Meat Ball." Mr. Aday looked annoyed but didn't seem inclined to say anything about it. And I think if I'd asked everyone to call me "Meat Loaf," I wouldn't get that upset if they called me "Meat Ball."

Sadly, Pauly Shore was right. And once again, the comedy community is is mourning the loss of a really nice, funny man.

I was impressed at least three times with Louie Anderson. One was the first time he did stand-up on Johnny Carson's program. You instantly knew a star was born. He had a fresh, honest approach, talking mostly about his weight…but wisely, about other topics, as well. It wasn't all just fat jokes. He was instantly endearing and you knew this guy was going places.

He'd been appearing in all the local comedy clubs but somehow, I'd missed him. It wasn't until he was "hot" that I caught him one night at the Comedy Store. I was backstage with a female comic for whom I'd written some material and she was waiting to go on. This was in the big room. One of the house managers came by to inform her that she would not be on next. Louie Anderson had dropped by and he wanted to do an unbilled set…so he was going next.

This was not a sexist thing. It was because he was better known than she was and that was how it worked at The Store. The next time I was backstage there, she was bumped because Roseanne Barr walked in and said, "I wanna go on."

Louie showed up backstage and the first thing he did was seek out my friend and make sure she was okay with him going on before her. Most "better known" comics didn't do that. Roseanne didn't do that.

I was introduced to Louie and we had a nice conversation — nothing memorable — but I remember thinking he was friendly and polite and (jokes like the following are unavoidble) concerned she'd think he was throwing his weight around. Couldn't have been nicer. And then he went on stage and he couldn't have been funnier.

A lot of comics working a club like that view it as pure audition. It's probably not the case when they play Yuk-Yuk's Comedy Cave in Sparrowfart, Pennsylvania but at the Comedy Store or The Improv or any club in L.A., you never know who's in the audience who can or may soon be able to hire you. Many comics will not go out there and do anything but the set they want that elusive Talent Scout From The Network to see. You never know when he or she might be at Table 1A.

Not Louie, at least not that night. He was there to practice, not audition. He went out to the kind of thundering welcome that occurs in such places when there's a surprise appearance by someone they've heard of. He did a few prepared lines just to establish a connection and then he launched into what some call Crowd Work.

Crowd Work is ad-lib chatting with the audience. It's inventing on the fly. There are some comedians like Paula Poundstone or Jimmy Brogan whose time on stage is mainly that and they're great at it. Whenever I hear a comic say to someone in the front row, "Where ya from?," I think, "He's doing Brogan's act."

Mr. Anderson hit gold right away. Most of the front of the house was an office party of folks who worked at the corporate offices of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream company. I don't remember exactly what he said but the first line, almost instantaneously, was something like, "And you're all here to thank me for single-handedly keeping your company profitable for years." Huge laugh — as much for the speed as for the content.

And then he chatted for maybe fifteen minutes with them about the ice cream business and how he felt sorry for the flavors nobody ever orders. More huge laughs…and none of it was written in advance by him or any writer. There have been a lot of successful comedians who couldn't do that — not for that long and not for that many laughs.

He did it until he'd just about worn out the topic and then he seamlessly segued into a prepared bit that he knew would give him a strong closing. He then gave a strong recommendation that they stay for the next comic — my friend, the one he'd bumped — and left the stage to more thunderous ovation. Like I said: Couldn't have been nicer, couldn't have been funnier.

In truth, there are stories about Louie Anderson not being that nice or not being that funny but I prefer to think of them as outliers. We all have bad days. I prefer to think that what I saw that night was the real guy, the one who just died way too soon.

I usually can't sit through the acts on America's Got Talent but every so often, they bring on one like Andy Rowell…

Four hours ago, comedian Pauly Shore tweeted that he'd just come from a hospital in Las Vegas where he visited Louie Anderson to "say my goodbyes." Yesterday, a spokesperson for Anderson announced that Anderson was being treated for Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma which news stories described as "a common and potentially curable version of non-Hodgkin lymphoma."

So either Pauly Shore is exaggerating the seriousness of Anderson's condition or we may be about to lose another very funny man. This is no time for us to be losing so many people who can make us laugh.

I think John Oliver's show was supposed to return from its hiatus on Valentine's Day but now it appears February 20 is the date. Here's a trailer…

I left out one thought that I meant to include in my piece last night about why I've lost most of my interest in going to Las Vegas. I planned to make this observation: The Powers That Are in Vegas seem to have decided that they aren't that interested, the way they used to be, at the kind of tourist who is attracted by discounts or coupons or ridiculously-cheap shrimp cocktails.

They appear to have decided that there are plenty of folks out there who aren't alienated by price increases. There's a sense of "Gee, we raised the price of that by $10.00 and didn't lose enough business to regret it. Let's raise it another ten and see what happens."

And someone I know who isn't very rich told me this morning that they don't care how much Vegas costs. They just want to play Video Poker. They seemed a bit startled at the concept when I told them that you can play Video Poker day and night and night and day and not lose a cent if you play it at home, not for money. There are only about 17,398,772,044 Video Poker games available for any computer.

In fact, you don't need to even buy or download anything. The big rage in casinos these days is Ultimate X Poker, a brand of Video Poker where you wager on ten hands at the same time but you play one and…well, it's a little tricky to explain but you can learn it as you play it for free on this page. You won't win anything there but then again, you won't lose anything…except many hours of your life because it's so addictive.

• Every day is a good day to not be Rudy Giuliani but some days are better than others.

Adam Ragusea discusses the origins of words we use to denote food.  I found this a lot more interesting than I expected…

I used to go to Las Vegas a lot. I liked exploring the city and all its attractions. I liked going to shows — occasionally two the same night — and I liked hanging out with friends who were in those shows. I liked the 24 hour nature of the city. When I went alone, as I did much of the time, I could eat when I wanted to, work when I wanted to, sleep when I wanted to, be alone in my room when I wanted to, etc.

I liked some of the unique fast food options…like Lobster Me, which can be found in the food courts of a couple of hotels. They run it like a McDonald's but what they serve is very yummy lobster rolls. I liked the cheaper buffets for two reasons, both having to do with my many food allergies. Cheap buffets usually offer very simple food — carved roast beef, mashed potatoes, baked chicken, etc. So I get to see my food before I commit to it and at a buffet, I rarely have to ask, "What's in that?" And if I do, there's usually an attendant standing right nearby who can tell me.

Also, I really like freshly-roasted turkey sliced right off the freshly-roasted bird. Most Vegas buffets offer that and most other places I eat don't.

And the rooms were cheap and I used to play a mean game of Blackjack and…well, I had a lot of reasons to like Vegas. Almost none of them apply any more. The shows are beastly expensive and very few of them these days interest me. And I'm not talking about shows like Adele's upcoming 24-show residency where the cheapest tickets are now close to $1000 and ones up front are going for $30,000 each. And no, I did not mistype the number of zeroes in those amounts.

I'm talking about shows like Carrot Top (tickets start at $53.10 and go up to $91.25) or Rich Little ($62.18 to $83.98) or no one you've ever heard of (the same range). The cheapest Cirque du Soleil show in town wants almost $100 for its cheapest seats and then the prices go higher than the trapeze artists. And I don't know anyone in the current shows so no hanging-out backstage.

I gave up gambling and I ain't going back. I don't want to relearn Blackjack, especially in light of certain rule changes that increase the house advantage. There are a lot fewer buffets now and none of them are cheap.

And the room prices may seem reasonable at first glance but then they add on "Resort Fees" that can double or triple the price that lures you in. Here's a list of these fees.

Because of COVID — which is soaring in that town — I haven't been thinking of going there. But I'm now thinking that even when COVID is no longer a threat, I don't think I want to go to that city. Even if they will have a Peter Luger Steak House by then.