If Bob Saget was here now and you told him that Bob Saget had been found dead in a Florida hotel room, he would instantly have come up with a joke in the worst possible taste about it.
I never met the man but I know how liked and respected he was by other comedians who had every reason to be jealous of his success. I did see him perform live a few times and I know that if you didn't find him hilarious, it was probably because you never saw him perform live.
He was one of those guys who needed your undivided attention for more than five minutes and your tolerance for jokes that would have never made it past Broadcast and Standards on ABC, NBC or CBS. Hell, some of them wouldn't have made it past Larry Flynt. This is not a good time for us to be losing so many funny people.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which was on CBS from 1959 to 1963 was one of my all-time favorite situation comedies — and as recent viewings have shown, one that holds up pretty well decades later. It had sharp writing with lots of clever, rapid-fire dialogue. A lot of actors couldn't have handled it but a lot of actors aren't Dwayne Hickman. He was, like Silvers as Bilko or Gleason as Kramden, perfect for the role.
Sadly, he just died at the age of 87. The cause is given as complications related to Parkinson's disease. I'd heard he was battling the disease for some time but it still comes as a bit of a shock. I first met him in 1978 and to partially quote an earlier post on this blog…
My then-employer Jimmie Komack got the job of producing Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?, which was a pilot intended to revive the old series. The show's creator, Max Shulman, had written a very funny script in tandem with Eric Cohen and on the strength of it, most of the old cast committed.
I had nothing to do with the pilot other than to be around and watch in horror as Komack decided he was going to "reinvent" the show, and that he was eminently qualified to do this because he had never been a fan of the old series. He got rid of Shulman and that script, commissioned a new one that contained none of the old charm, and produced a revamp that absolutely no one liked. Hickman was rightly furious that Dobie had been devalued.
The revival went nowhere, nor did a later attempt which Komack had nothing to do with. But I got to meet Dwayne and to commiserate with him. He seemed like a nice, smart guy who knew more about doing a comedy series than anyone else on the premises. The next time I met him, he was putting that end of his skill set to work as a development executive in the comedy department at CBS. I worked on a pilot (unrelated to Dobie) that he and everyone in his division loved.
We came as close to taping the thing as you can get — it was even cast — when folks above his tier killed the whole thing. Dwayne was nice enough to call me — and he really didn't have to do this — and tell me that he'd fought for it and that its demise was not because of the writing. Basically, the exec at CBS who had to give the go-ahead to make the pilot saw who the producer was and killed the project without ever reading the script. That's not the only time I've heard of that happening.
The last few times I saw Dwayne, he was signing pictures and his very-good autobiography at autograph shows. He liked that I could endorse his account of what had happened with that '78 pilot, which he was still sore about. In spite of that, he was a classy, clever guy. That has not been true of everyone I admired on TV and then met in real life. But it was true of Dwayne Hickman.
This is a prime time episode of the game show Password and it was broadcast on May 24th of 1965. What's unusual about it? Well, it's got Betty White on it but that was true of most TV shows. But in this one, she and Arlene Francis have as their partners, syndicated newspaper cartoonists. Playing, two at a time, are Al Capp (Li'l Abner), Alfred Andriola (Kerry Drake), Allen Saunders (Mary Worth), Lee Falk (The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey) and Leonard Starr (On Stage).
Actually, Saunders and Falk were more writers than cartoonists. Saunders did rough sketches for the strips he wrote but the artwork in the published material was always that of someone else. Saunders also was anonymous on some of his strips. He wrote Kerry Drake for decades but the byline was just Andriola. Falk reportedly drew his two strips only for their first few weeks before bringing in someone else to do the drawing.
Thanks to Craig Robin for alerting me that this was on YouTube…
Here's some serious advice to upgrade your face masks to N95 or KN95 models. You don't have to order the kind I recommend — there are lots of good ones out there — but the cloth ones, no matter how stylish, just aren't enough.
The Southern Nevada Health District is reporting a record-high 6,110 new COVID-19 cases in the Las Vegas area. The more than 6,000 cases nearly doubles the record 3,508 positive results from Friday. The health district also today reported 15 deaths.
I was a big fan of the master song parody performer of the sixties, Allan Sherman…this, despite the fact that when I was in junior high school, he once kinda/sorta threatened a lawsuit over something I wrote. I told that story back here so I needn't tell it again.
Sherman had his biggest hit in August of 1963 with a record called "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh." It was one of the last times a comedy single (as opposed to an album) topped the charts. Here he is, performing it on some TV show of the day…
Less well known is that Sherman later recorded a sequel to that hit. It was called "Return to Camp Grenada" and it came and went with little notice in 1966. Here he is performing it on The Ed Sullivan Show for April 24, 1966. This version was so forgettable that as you'll see, Mr. Sherman is unable to remember his own lyrics on live TV…
You'll notice Sherman's appearance had changed by '66. Before then, he'd been fat, he'd worn glasses and he'd had a not-too-stylish crewcut. Suddenly, he ditched all that along with his wife of 21 years. He slimmed down, let his hair grow, went to contact lenses and revised his act to include serious love songs a la Sinatra. It was a somewhat public middle age crisis and I can't begin to speculate what, if anything, it had to do with the serious downturn in his career.
He put out his last album in 1967. He spent most of 1968 writing the book and lyrics for a Broadway musical called "The Fig Leaves Are Falling." It opened in New York on January 2, 1969 and closed four days later. He spent a lot of time poaching at the Playboy Mansion and in '73, wrote an awful (and unsuccessful) book for Playboy Press about the sexual revolution and died later that year at the age of 48. His only real success of the period — and it was a small one — was doing the voice of The Cat in the Hat in two animated specials. A very sad ending for a very funny man.
One of our great comic actors is 99 years old today. I dunno when Larry Storch began doing stand-up comedy but I saw him do it a few years ago. Of course, he was a much younger man then. He was 91…still working and still funny. They say he's semi-retired now…which as close to retirement as most performers ever get. Whatever he's doing, I hope he has a great day and keeps on having them.
I wish Stephen Colbert's show — and most of the late night shows that attempt song parodies — would invest in a rhyming dictionary and a lyricist who knows how to use it. But this one's pretty good in spite of the awkward meters…
Two things that continue to baffle me have kind of converged. One of them is why people who buy from Amazon do not apparently comparison shop…on Amazon. Half the time when I go to buy something there, I find it…then I do two minutes or less of searching and I find what seems to be the exact same thing for a cheaper price…on Amazon. But sometimes, it isn't the exact same thing.
The other thing has to do with my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's a favorite movie of a lot of people and I get a lot of questions about it in my e-mail and on Internet forums. Most of those questions are answered on the commentary track of the Criterion Blu-ray and/or DVD release of the movie. Each contains two versions of the film — a reconstruction of (most of) the original release version plus a copy of the shorter, trimmed (and arguably better) general release version.
It also has many, many extras on the making of the film, interviews with people who made it or were in it, and the longer version of the film has that 3+ hour commentary track done by three experts on the movie — Mike Schlesinger, Paul Scrabo and myself. I do not understand why anyone who has the slightest love for this movie has not purchased and played every bit of the Criterion release. [FULL DISCLOSURE: I was paid in full for my contribution to it. Criterion isn't paying me another cent if you purchase a copy so this is not a post designed to up my income.] [FULLER DISCLOSURE: However, if you order it or anything through an Amazon link on this site, I get a very tiny commission.]
So why don't professed fans of this film buy it, enjoy it and stop asking if it's true that Ernie Kovacs was signed to play the dentist but when he was killed in an auto accident, the part went to Sid Caesar? No, it isn't. Kovacs was never signed, Caesar had the part from Day One and we covered this on the commentary track.
Can it be that this video is too expensive? Hardly. I think it's because Amazon ain't making it easy to get it at the lowest price and to make sure you get the Criterion version instead of one of the earlier releases from other companies that lack the special features and extended version and commentary track. The following pricing will probably fluctuate and everything may be different by the time you read this but here's what happens right this minute if you go to Amazon and do a search for "MAD WORLD CRITERION."
Criterion Versions
Criterion originally released it as a multi-format set that contained everything twice — on two Blu-ray discs and again on three DVDs. The package contained both. Then later, they put out a version that was just the Blu-ray discs and another that was just the DVDs. The one-format releases were originally cheaper than the multi-format version but at the moment, each of them costs more in most Amazon listings.
On one page, you can buy a Blu-ray version for $19.99, the DVD version for $15.38 and the multi-format version for $9.97.
On another page, you can buy the Blu-ray version for $42.99, the DVD version for $5.99 ("Only 16 left in stock – order soon") and the multi-format version for $9.97.
On another page, you can buy the Blu-ray version for $19.99, the DVD version for $5.99 and the multi-format version for $9.97.
On another page, you can buy the Blu-ray version for $19.99, the DVD version for $5.99 and the multi-format version for $36.54 ("Only 1 left in stock – order soon").
I don't know for sure but I suspect those $5.99 versions of the DVD are not the Criterion version but a "just OK" version put out years ago by another company. It lacks the special features including the commentary track and the extended version. Also, the one version of the film it includes is not as fine a transfer as the Criterion version. I don't know for a fact this is what they're offering for $5.99 but that's what I suspect.
Non-Criterion Versions
And if you try to order the cheapo multi-format version they're offering, the image on the page is of an earlier non-Criterion release that is Blu-ray only. It too lacks the special features and the two versions…if it's the product currently being illustrated.
As I post this, the cheapest way to buy what I think is the Criterion Blu-ray version on Amazon is to get it at this link for $19.99. The cheapest way to get the DVD that is almost certainly the Criterion DVD is at this link for $15.38. If you order either and what you receive is not the Criterion version, send it back. It's not as good and you overpaid for it anyway.
Assuming you own a player to play it on, owning the movie is so much better than waiting until some TV channel shows it. You can watch it whenever you want and you get to see all those special features. Best of all, you can listen to the commentary track and find out , for example, why certain great comedians were not in the movie instead of asking on Facebook or sending me e-mail questions about why Stan Freberg didn't have a single line of dialogue. He did…and we explain that and other vital facts on the commentary track.
I took some time out from writing today to read some articles about the anniversary of what happened in Washington one year ago. I saw a lot of people saying things I would have said here if I hadn't seen so many people saying them.
I have no interest in the debate over whether it was an "insurrection" or a "riot." Whatever it was, it was shameful and should never happen again. And the folks who did it should be punished as thoroughly as the folks who backed Trump would have wanted the participants punished if Biden supporters had been out there protesting a Trump win.
The ones who think Trump won remind me of that line that made the rounds back in '68 when Nixon was first elected president. Some prominent author — it may have been Pauline Kael — was widely-quoted as saying, "I don't see how he won. I don't know anyone who voted for him!"
Since 1/6/21, I have had a few occasional phone or e-mail debates with "Trump wuz robbed" people who are absolutely certain…and absolutely unbothered that every single promise of proof has turned up empty. It doesn't matter how many times Trump lawyers lost in court, even in courts presided over by Trump appointees. It doesn't matter that even the Fox News poll showed Biden ahead by 8-10 points just before Election Day. It doesn't matter how many otherwise devout Trump supporters (including his own Attorney General) say there's no proof. They're sure there's proof and they don't have to see it to know it exists somewhere.
Like me, you probably see no point in arguing with these people. Most of 'em are the ones who, when Science tells them something they don't want to believe, insist Science is deliberately lying. I liked President Biden's speech today. I don't expect it to change any minds that refuse to change but it might cause Democrats to yell back a little louder and to fight a little harder.
A couple of folks have written me — Gene Popa was the first — reminding me that Jack Benny didn't have a weekly TV show at the time he did that 1954 episode of General Electric Theater. His TV show was on from 1950 until 1965 but, as Gene wrote me, "His CBS program was actually a 'wheel show', initially appearing only once every six weeks or so when it debuted, although by the 54-55 season, he was airing every other week. It wasn't until 1960 that he consented to do his show every week."
That's true and I knew that but that part of my brain wasn't working when I posted that item last night. Benny was always worried that on television, a performer could or would wear out his welcome more quickly than when he was heard but not seen on radio. A lot of folks in television back then thought like that.
Even though he had a weekly TV series at the time, Jack Benny still found time to appear in an episode of General Electric Theater, an anthology show hosted by Ronald Reagan. This is from November 21, 1954 and it's about a man whose face was so ordinary, no one could remember it.
You'll probably recognize a few faces among the supporting players including Jesse White, Otto Kruger, Benny Rubin, Joseph Kearns and Joi Lansing. Also in the cast was Arthur Q. Bryan who was the original voice of Elmer Fudd…and speaking of Warner Brothers cartoons: This episode was directed by Frank Tashlin, who went from directing Porky Pig to directing Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis and, in this case, Jack Benny…
Movies based on the musicals Into the Heights and West Side Story have recently received (mostly) good reviews but disappointing box office results…and Cats and The Prom — both of which I kinda liked — didn't do so well in either category. The film of Dear Evan Hansen got mixed reviews and low grosses.
It's been a while since any movie based on a stage musical has really attracted ticket buyers. Nevertheless, a surprising number of them are currently poised to be turned into motion pictures…maybe.
This article lists them all and as you can see, 13, Matilda and a live-action version of The Little Mermaid (based on the stage musical based on the animated feature) have all been filmed. Wicked is in pre-production with stars attached so it's just about definite.
But there are 27 (!) stage musicals which are "in development" as movies. Here's the list: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Bare: A Pop Opera, Be More Chill, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, The Color Purple, Follies, Jekyll & Hyde, Lysistrata Jones, Mean Girls, Memphis, Merrily We Roll Along, Miss Saigon, Once on This Island, Pippin, The Shaggs, Spamalot, Spring Awakening and Sunset Boulevard. There are also planned remakes of Flower Drum Song, Guys and Dolls, Gypsy, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The King and I, Little Shop of Horrors, Oliver!, Porgy and Bess and South Pacific.
Now obviously, not all of these movies will be produced. I'm suspecting a majority of them will never go before a camera and some, especially in light of West Side Story's grosses, may already be pretty unlikely. What is the answer to the question, "If they didn't turn out for West Side Story, why would they clamor for Guys and Dolls?" (Possible reply: "West Side Story didn't lend itself to big stars in the leads but Guys and Dolls could.")
But I thought it might be interesting to list them all here. Then next year around this time, we'll come back to this list and see how many have been made or come close.
Admittedly, it does take a long time for some musicals to make it to the silver screen. They've been announcing remakes of Gypsy for a few decades now…and Lysistrata Jones has been on such lists for close to ten years. Sweeney Todd was announced and announced and announced until it finally got made.
I'm thinking that if the film of Wicked comes out and is a smash hit, that might kickstart more of these "in development" projects than if it disappoints. But let's just see what happens, shall we? And by next year, maybe Hamilton and The Book of Mormon will be on this list.
The subject line above presumes you have a TiVo and you probably don't…but you may have a Digital Video Recorder which serves the same function and you may even refer to it as a TiVo, the way we refer to all facial tissue as Kleenex™ even though most of it is not.
Tonight, TCM is running The Line King, a fine documentary about the fine caricaturist Al Hirschfeld who did many fine drawings of celebrities, most of them either in the theater or theater-adjacent. The least well-known person he ever drew was probably me but it was an honor and thrill to meet the man and sit for him. I wrote about that back here in the early days of this here blog. You will not enjoy the documentary as much as I enjoyed being with him but you will enjoy it a lot.
