Monthly Archives: March 2022

I continue not to look at most of the news out of Ukraine, not because I don't care but because I can't do a damn thing to change it, whereas I can get a script finished. But I did peek at this article by Fred Kaplan about how he sees this whole thing ending. Many scenarios are possible. None of them are pleasant.

• That guy who always brags about how incredibly wealthy he is wants his supporters to all chip in and buy him an airplane.

Over at the site for Multiversity Comics, Drew Bradley has a short article about how Groo the Wanderer went from being an independent comic book not sold on newsstands to being a Marvel comic sold on newsstands. This was back at a time when that was a severe handicap to the sales of any comic book to only be in the Direct Market ("D.M."), which is no longer the case. Anyway, Mr. Bradley writes…

Over the next few years, Pacific found itself in progressively deeper financial trouble. Their struggles were known through the industry, opening the door for other publishers to woo their talent. Marvel's response to the rapid growth of the DM was to create their Epic Comics imprint, which was an effort to combine independent publisher flexibility with the benefits of big publisher infrastructure.

With the promise of newsstand sales, Epic editor Archie Goodwin persuaded Aragonés to move Groo away from Pacific. This was the first time a DM-exclusive property moved to the newsstands, a rare reversal of the prevailing practice at the time. Groo remained with Marvel for ten years and 120 issues.

That's close but not exact. What persuaded us to leave Pacific was the near-certainty that Pacific wouldn't be able to publish Groo (or anything else) for very much longer. It was not that we wanted to leave Pacific. It was that Pacific was leaving us…and everyone.

And the main person who persuaded us that Marvel was the place to go was not Archie Goodwin. It was a wonderful lady named Carol Kalish, who was Direct Sales Manager and Vice President of New Product Development at Marvel Comics from 1981 to 1991. Carol was very instrumental in developing that new means of distributing comic books when the old method was dying out. She was a true lover of comics and one of the smartest people I knew in the business. Here's what she looked like…

And here's how the move came about. I was friends with Carol but even better friends with her life-partner, artist Richard Howell. One evening when Richard and I were on the phone together — me out here, the two of them back in New Jersey — I asked him to put Carol on the line for a minute. I told her Pacific Comics was not long for this world. She agreed and said, "I want to find a way to get Groo to Marvel." And she did.

I don't want to suggest that Archie Goodwin had nothing to do with it. Archie was a guy we and everyone trusted and he had a lot to do with making us feel welcome, as did Jim Shooter, who was then editor-in-chief (I think that was his title) back then. But Carol deserves the most credit for engineering that peaceful transfer of power.

Archie was the first in a very long list of people in the comic book industry to have the dubious title of being editor of Groo. At Pacific Comics and with one issue we did with Eclipse, no one had that title. I'm not kidding. Sergio and I just produced the comic book, sent it in and said, "Here…send this to the printer" and they did. Someone might give it an unnecessary proofread on their end and/or do mechanical work to prep it for the printer but no one was the editor of Groo.

Gary Grossmann, who is the Official Historian of Groo (a much coveted honor) informs me that there have been 25 different people listed in the credits of Groo comics credits with a title containing some form of the word, "editor." These titles include editor, associate editor, assistant editor, editor-in-chief, editorial director, consulting editor, and executive editor. Amazingly, a few of these people are still in the industry. (And also according to Gary: When the fourth issue of the next four-issue Groo mini-series comes out later this year, it will be the 200th Groo publication — 196 regular comics, 2 specials, and 2 graphic novels. So that'll be eight issues for each person with "editor" in their job title.)

Archie once told me he never read an issue of Groo until it was on its way to the printer or perhaps already printed. When you serve your stint as editor of Groo — and don't worry, we'll get around to everyone eventually — just do what Archie did.

Getting back to Carol: She was an amazing individual. One night when she was in L.A. on business, we had dinner and then I asked her a small favor. Within walking distance of my home, there was a small, floundering comic book store that I occasionally visited. The fellow who'd opened it was a devout lover of comics and he'd sunk every cent he had into this place and was on the verge of losing every cent he had. Just loving comics does not mean you have the skills and knowledge necessary to sell them.

I asked Carol if we could stop by his store to perhaps give him a little advice. She instantly agreed and we were there for well over an hour with her explaining to him how to sell comics. The lesson was not how to sell the comics of her employer, Marvel, but how to sell all comics…and she even touched on why he should not sell only Marvels. If the fellow had followed all her advice, I'll bet he'd have made a go of the place. As it was, he applied about a third of what she taught him and his sales went up somewhat…and then he had a heart attack and died. His wife sold the shop and the laundromat next door expanded into what had been his space.

But the point was she took the time. She always took the time…and we didn't know it but she didn't have that much left. A few years later, she died from a pulmonary embolism. She was 36 and some of us are still getting over that shock. Helping Groo survive the demise of Pacific was one of her minor accomplishments but mentioning it here gives me a chance to tell you about her super-heroics and I didn't want to pass up that opportunity.

I wish someone would the revive the 1986 musical Smile, which had a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and a score by Marvin Hamlisch. The show was based on the 1975 movie of the same name written by Jerry Belson and while that all sounds like a nice package, the Broadway production had a pretty short run — 11 previews and 48 performances.

I never saw it but I know a few folks who did and they thought it deserved more success than it had. Apparently, it might have run longer but it ran into money problems, owing in part to a pretty large cast. That's probably one reason it hasn't been revived much — too many actors to pay…a fate that has befallen a number of shows. For the same reason, Li'l Abner is rarely revived in any situation where the cast has to be paid.

But a number of the songs in Smile have endured. Here's one that turns up in a lot of cabaret acts, sung here by Lilla Crawford. It's usually sung by women over the age of twenty but it has a special poignancy when performed by someone the age Ms. Crawford was in this video…

Many people on my TV and a few on my phone seem incapable lately of forming sentences without mentioning the soaring price of gasoline.  Of course it's bad.  And of course we'll pay it because we have no choice.

And of course it has something to do with the fact that we're kinda/sorta/almost in a war — two wars, actually. Just as the War Against COVID seems to be winding down, we now have that thing going on in Ukraine that you may have heard about. Prices always go up when we're in a war.

They often go up when we're not in a war, too.  As Eric Boehlert points out in this article, sometimes prices go up because the companies that supply our necessities just plain decide to raise 'em so they can make more money. One of the more obvious examples of that is in Las Vegas where the prices of just about everything — food, shows, hotel rooms, probably hookers too — have soared. And since people seem to have no problem paying those prices, they'll soar some more. Why charge ten bucks for a pizza when people will pay twenty?

I think that's the cause of rising prices way more often than we admit.  We too often blame the government, especially when that means we can blame people we'd personally like to see voted out of office. That's the semi-political part of this comment but the main point is the reason so many businesses are raising so many prices: Because they can.

That's me with my pal (and birthday-sharer) Laraine Newman. Even before I met her, I thought she was the most skilled performer on the original Saturday Night Live and I knew she was an important, driving force in the improv comedy scene in Los Angeles. She has been a busy actress and writer for many years on stage, on screen and even in front of a microphone doing voices for cartoons, including many of mine. One of my favorite people on this or any other planet.

Her life and career have been fascinating and this coming Sunday, March 13, she'll be discussing that life and that career in a live interview you can watch on Zoom. It starts at 11 AM Pacific Time (which is 2 PM Eastern Time) and it's free, though the organization hosting it gives you the option of getting a free ticket or paying for one to help them out. You can do either of those things over on this page. Either one will get you a link to watch screenwriter-producer Arlene Sarner chat with the lovely and talented Laraine.

Here are two questions about my experience directing voices for cartoons. The first is from Dale Herbest…

I know you voice direct primarily for animation but have you ever directed V.O. sessions for a video game and if not, is there a personal or professional reason why?

I never have and there's a very good reason why. No one's ever asked me.

The next question is from Marlie, who doesn't seem to have a last name…

On the various cartoon shows, you employed a number of veteran voice actors. Was there anyone you wanted and you couldn't get?

A few. Paul Frees died around the time we went into production and by then, he'd moved out of Los Angeles and only came down to work for projects that paid way more than we did. Thurl Ravenscroft agreed to do the show and we had a couple of delightful phone conversations. He was living in Orange County and I was going to send a limo to bring him up to L.A. and take him home but he finally decided his health wasn't up to it.

Sterling Holloway was going to do an episode and then he wasn't and then he was and then he wasn't and it stayed that way. Doug Young, who was Doggie Daddy on the Augie Doggie cartoons was living up north and while he said he'd be delighted to do a cartoon on one of his occasional trips to Los Angeles, we were never able to coordinate the timing on that.

I booked Janet Waldo ("Judy" to you Jetsons fans) for a cartoon once, then got a call from her agent who told me she had a chance to do the first in a series of national commercials if I would let her out of the booking om that day. Of course I did. In fact, I replaced her with another veteran Hanna-Barbera voice actress — Julie Bennett, who was the voice of Cindy Bear, Yogi's main squeeze. Janet was on other shows I did but I never found another role for her on a Garfield project.

On one trip to New York, I recorded a couple of voice actors who lived and worked there, including Arnold Stang and Eddie Lawrence. I was going to do a cartoon with Jackson Beck the same day but he got called for one of those Little Caesars "Pizza Pizza" commercials he did so I lost him. I later recorded that script in Los Angeles with Bill Woodson doing the role Mr. Beck would have played. You know Bill best from the opening narration on the Klugman/Randall Odd Couple TV series.

There were probably a few others. I'll write about them here when they come to mind. And by the way: I could use more questions.

In October of 1964, the British comedy troupe called Cambridge Circus played a three-week engagement in New York. On 10/18/64, four members of the group performed this number on The Ed Sullivan Show. The performers are, left to right, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Jonathan Lynn and David Hatch. In the show but not in this sketch were John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Jo Kendall…

As you've probably heard…

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt to reinstate the sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby, which was overturned last year by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The justices provided no comment in their routine denial of a bid by local prosecutors to revive the 2018 conviction of the 84-year-old actor and comedian.

The rest of the above-quoted article explains that the justices decided that Cosby was wronged by prosecutors pressing ahead with a case against him after he'd been assured there would be no such prosecution, and using as evidence against him admissions he had made in light of that assurance. Yeah, I understand that. I don't like it but I understand it.

Many people are dismayed by the verdict but it's not like the man went utterly unpunished for his horrible deeds. He spent some time in prison and a whole lot of money on lawyers. He lost most of his reputation and career…and when he dies, you can bet the first paragraph of the obit will have some mention of him as a rapist. Is it enough? Certainly not but it's also not nothing. There was a time when a lot of us thought he'd never be spanked in the slightest.

Here's another excerpt from the article…

Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt told the Associated Press…that Cosby remains in good health despite being legally blind. He said that "many people are calling for projects for him" and that he is considering a final stand-up tour.

I can believe he's getting offers. If there's a buck to be made in this world, someone will try to make it. I doubt though he'll be back hosting shows for children or selling Jell-O Pudding Pops. And can he be crazy enough to go out and try a stand-up tour? If so, I want the concession for selling protest signs outside. And what's he going to talk about?

I've probably allowed myself to think about this man way more than I should but I've been puzzling over that question about separating the Art from the Artist. I finally decided I can't. Can't watch his TV shows. Can't listen to his records. Can't even praise him for the good he did. I'm going to try and stop thinking about him and just hope I can be satisfied with his big loss in The Court of Public Opinion.

My favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was released on November 7, 1963 in what were then called "roadshow engagements." This meant that it played only in big cities and only in one theater in each big city. Tickets were somewhat pricier than at your neighborhood movie house and the film might be at that big theater for many months — maybe even more than a year — before moving on to smaller theaters for smaller prices.

Tickets for roadshow presentations were handled more the way we now buy theater tickets. You usually ordered well in advance and bought tickets to sit in certain seats for a certain performance on a certain date. There was always an intermission and in the lobby, you might purchase a souvenir program book or other goodies.

Mad World opened at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a couple blocks west of Vine Street. The theater is still there, though it closed for COVID reasons and while its reopening has been rumored, that hasn't happened yet. If/When it does, I hope they run my favorite movie there again soon. I've seen it there four or five times and it's the perfect place — big screen, good sound, comfy seats…and always, an enthusiastic audience. I'm not kidding when I say that theater was built to show It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It really was.

That, in fact, is where I saw it for the first time…on November 23, 1963. I tell people I saw it the day after Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy and the day before Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. There was understandably a strange mood in that theater (and probably everywhere in the country) that night. In the Cinerama Dome, the mood lasted until the picture got going and we forgot all about the real world for over three hours. The movie was longer then than it is if you see it now.

The reviews were generally positive but a few critics complained that it could have used some cutting and a few weeks later — fortunately, after I'd seen it that first time — a lot of footage was trimmed from the film. The business guys at United Artists had always wanted it to be shorter so there could be more showings of it per day, especially when it reached those smaller theaters. Armed with those reviews, they "persuaded" producer-director Stanley Kramer to lose a number of scenes.

Mad World fans debate whether this was an improvement or a desecration. Kramer usually said he thought the film was the better for the cuts, though he regretted a few of them.

One that some of us regret is a scene, about a minute and sixteen seconds long, with Spencer Tracy on the phone to Buster Keaton. It's Captain Culpepper (Tracy) planning his getaway with Jimmie the Crook (Keaton). I can certainly make the case that the scene is unnecessary and note that it keeps the audience in a little more suspense as to whether Culpepper is actually going to go through with it.

Then again, it's Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton.

Some film buffs feel Buster Keaton was the greatest comic actor who ever lived. I'd call it a tie between him and a few others but Buster's gotta be in my Top Five, maybe right between Stan and Ollie. I feel the same kind of tie when someone calls Mr. Tracy the best dramatic actor ever in films. How can you cut one of the only scenes ever filmed of two men with that much greatness in their field? And the other such scene, later in the film, lasts mere seconds and in it, Keaton only says three words and Tracy says two.

Its absence reduces Keaton's small role in the film to almost nothing. But it was cut…and lost. In later years when attempts were made to restore the cuts and reconstruct the original, Opening Night length of the movie, the Tracy/Keaton scene was nowhere to be found.

A few years ago, a number of folks helped make possible the restoration that is on the DVD and Blu-ray versions of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World released by the Criterion Collection. What they issued contains two versions of the movie — the "General Release Version," which is the shorter version, and a reconstruction of the longer version. The reconstruction is not perfect but it's probably the most complete version that will ever exist. It also includes a commentary track by my pals Mike Schlesinger and Paul Scrabo, along with me. (Ordering info, if this article makes you want it, is here.)

For the Tracy/Keaton scene, the best the searchers could do was to locate a copy of the scene with almost-unwatchable video but the soundtrack was pretty much intact. So the audio was spliced into the proper space and illustrated on the DVD/Blu-ray with some production stills taken at the time. Interestingly, it is followed by a great scene that pairs two of the greatest comic actors of all time — Phil Silvers and Don Knotts.

Part of the joy of that film, I think, is seeing famous funny person after famous funny person pop up, one after the other…though of course, the fun of those discoveries really only works the first time you see it. That night in the Cinerama Dome when I first saw it, I remember noting that the first appearance of Keaton in the film was followed 90 seconds later by the first appearance of Knotts. The rhythm of that one-two punch was delightful.

If you watch the reconstruction on the Criterion set and have the commentary track on, you'll hear me describing how the video is unavailable but we have the audio…and I also describe a few other scenes in the film where still photos are standing in for lost footage. I had nothing to do with the hunt for such material or the restoration of so much that was happily restored but I still hear now and then from people who are upset that suddenly, there are stills on their screen instead of the actual footage.

Some of them simply don't grasp the concept of "The video is lost so we had to illustrate this scene with photos." One person a year ago wrote, "I don't understand this. Wouldn't it have been simpler to put in the actual scene instead of locating pictures?" Usually though, they refuse to believe the footage could not be located. Someone, they insist, just didn't try hard enough to find it.

There is this rumored collector who allegedly owns a full, complete, missing-nothing 70mm print of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. No one has seen this print. No one knows who he is. No one knows how to reach him. Some people have heard he's in Australia but they don't know where in Australia. They also assume this alleged print is in perfect condition despite the fact that it must have been struck from the original negative in 1963 and almost all film deteriorates as years pass. Entire movies — lots of 'em — have disappeared off the face of this planet, some in a lot less time.

At the last WonderCon I attended in Anaheim, I met a fellow who claimed to be the World's Biggest Fan of this movie — a title for which he has much competition. He told me how disappointed he was with the DVD/Blu-ray set because it was "only" 99% perfect. I don't know how anyone can be disappointed with anything that's "99% perfect." Wouldn't you be thrilled with a pizza that was 99% perfect? Most things in this world fall far short of 100% and we ought be delighted with anything that gets over around the 80% mark. But some people are just like that.

This self-proclaimed World's Biggest Fan told me the 1% problem was the absence of video in those scenes and he asked me about the mythical guy in Australia with a print. I told him I didn't believe there was any such guy or any such print. "Well," he replied. "They should have held off putting the set out until they did locate that video."

I told him that might mean that the DVD/Blu-ray he loved so much might not have come out for years…if ever. He said, "I believe in life it's important to strive for perfection in everything we do." We changed subjects, talked a little more about our favorite movie and then he walked away. And so help me, he had a string of about eight squares of toilet paper stuck to one of his shoes.

I'm assuming most people who read this site also watch John Oliver. But just in case there's someone who doesn't, his show tonight took a deep dive into a topic that I think about a lot: Wrongful convictions…

• When I read Twitter, I occasionally long for the days of the 140 character limit…and sometimes wish they'd cut it down to 70.

At your local comic book shop this week — March 9, they tell me — is the trade paperback edition of Groo Meets Tarzan! This collects the four-issue mini-series of the unlikeliest crossover in the history of comics — The Lord of the Jungle, who's used to hanging out with apes, encounters a man with considerably less intelligence than any of them!

It was written by Sergio Aragonés and me. It was drawn by Sergio Aragonés and Tom Yeates. It was lettered by Stan Sakai and Adam Pruett. And it was colored by the hardest-working man in comics, Tom Luth, who upon finishing this most arduous of all assignments, decided to retire from coloring comic books. That is not a joke. He really did and we wish him well in his further endeavors. (The nice thing about coloring Groo is that once you stop doing it, absolutely any other job you get is a step up.)

This handsome paperback contains all four issues, the covers that appeared on them, the Rufferto back covers that appeared on them and a new, not-published-anywhere-else introduction written by Yours Truly. Copies may not be available on Amazon or in conventional book stores (the kind that foolishly don't carry comic books) for another month or so. For more info on where to get yours, consult this page.

And hey, while I've got you here: Various places on the Internet where one can buy copies of the mini-series — like the listing below on Amazon at this moment — will tell you that the first issue is "Book 1 of 15," the second issue is "Book 2 of 15" and so forth. There are so many laughs and moments of chilling suspense in Groo Meets Tarzan that it will probably feel like fifteen issues for most of you but we managed to cram all that into four.

So there were only four issues, not fifteen. Sergio and I intend to conduct an exhaustive investigation and find out who keeps making this mistake. This person will be severely punished right after we get through with whoever it was who didn't give this comic five stars.

I like a lot of current music but I figure the Internet has eighty zillion places where you can hear that. On this blog, I like to feature music of earlier times…especially performers who, I'm delighted to say, are still out there performing like Petula Clark or Barry Manilow.

Back in 1996, I published this article about how I went skeptically to see Mr. Manilow perform in Las Vegas and was surprised to have as good a time as I had. The audience reaction was as strong as it could be or could have been for any performer and I was very happy to be among so many people who were having the time of their lives. So did I.

Since then, I have granted permission several times to various Manilow fanzines and organizations to reprint without compensation, that article. One of them offered to arrange free V.I.P. meet-and-greet passes to see Barry the next time he played Las Vegas and I gave that person permission even though I knew he'd never come through with them…and, sure enough, he didn't.

I didn't care. Well, I did care because I'd like to go see Manilow perform again one of these days. He's still doing it! He was on stage earlier this evening at the Westgate Hotel in Vegas and I'll bet you every seat in that showroom was taken up by someone who enjoyed the hell outta what they saw and heard. (I just checked his ticket prices for his next residency there, which is in April. You can be seated in a box onstage for $330.29 per person. That includes "a glass of champagne in an exclusive Manilow champagne flute, a commemorative Barry Manilow gift and an exclusive 'Copacabana' souvenir cup" but, alas, no meet-and-greet.)

We can't be there but we can enjoy this complete video of a 1982 concert he did for Showtime. I can't figure out any way to include the champagne, the commemorative gift or a souvenir cup but look at it this way: You don't have to shell out $330.29 for a seat. All you have to do is click…

I just found and watched a few episodes of an interesting TV series. The news division of KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles is producing a series of short shows called I Was There When… in which their reporters relive and narate memorable (usually tragic) news events of the last few decades. So far, the episodes they have up are about (1) The O.J. Simpson Bronco Chase, (2) The 1994 Northridge Earthquake, (3) The North Hollywood Bank Shootout, (4) The Atlanta Olympic Games Bombing, (5) A Wildfire Incident, (6) The Death of Prince and (7) Kobe Bryant's Death.

You will not find these on Channel 4, though. I watched a few of them on NBCLA's app on Roku and they're said to also be available on Fire TV and Apple TV. You might find them worth the time and effort of locating a place to view them.