Monthly Archives: October 2022

Jeff Howard writes to ask…

Maybe you can help me out with something. Like you, I like to read the end credits on TV shows I watch, especially on old shows where you sometimes see names you recognize from other, later programs. On a lot of old shows when I see them, the end credits have weird spacing on them. The names at the top of a title card and either centered or flush left whereas the names at the bottom of the card are all indented to the right. Was there a reason they did this?

Yes. You're referring to a show where a blank space was created in the lower left of one of those title cards like this…

That was because when the show was first run on network television, it was linked to a particular sponsor and the sponsor wanted to display its product on the show for which they were paying. So on the original prints they made up for exhibition, they'd put an image of their product on the lower left of the title card and then the credits would be formatted around that image like this…

Later on when the show was rerun and that sponsor was no longer funding the enterprise, they would use prints that didn't display the sponsor's product.  Sometimes, they'd leave the space blank as with the image above. Sometimes, they'd replace it with an image relevant to the show…

These images, in case you haven't figured it out by now, are from The Dick Van Dyke Show and some of the prints of the show have that smiling image of Dick where a sponsor's product used to be.  On others, they'd leave it blank. What they usually wouldn't do (because it cost money) was to go back and redo the credits to fit the whole area.

These days, you don't see anything like this because, first of all, sponsors rarely sponsor an entire show. And second of all, most channels want the credits done so fast and so small, there's no time to read them, let alone see a product displayed along with the names.

A lady I know who works on the new Press Your Luck told me she had to record an episode on her DVR, freeze-frame the half-a-second her credit was on the screen, take a photo of the image and enlarge it so her father could see his daughter's name on the screen. It was impossible for him to see it while watching the actual show. I wish all the networks would get together and agree to make all credits legible.

On Saturday, October 15, the folks who run Comic-Con International in San Diego had what they call Returning Registration, offering a portion of the admissions for their 2023 event. Returning Registration was open to anyone who'd been a paid attendee of Comic-Con 2022 and/or Comic-Con Special Edition 2021. A lot of folks got online that morning. Some (not all) were able to purchase admissions to the '23 con which will be held July 19 to July 23 with a Preview Night on Wednesday, July 18

On Saturday, November 5, commencing at 9 AM Pacific Time, they will have what they call Open Registration. This is open to absolutely everyone who has a Member I.D. number. Another big batch of admissions will be available…and before someone asks, I have no idea how many, nor do I have any idea how many people will be vying for them. All I know is that some folks will get what they want and some will not.

The helpful folks over at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog have prepared this visual guide to explain the process including how to get one of them Member I.D. numbers. If you want to be among those who attend the 2023 Comic-Con, study what they tell you here.

One of those "don't use my name" folks wrote to ask me…

I know you often speak to aspiring writers and voice actors. What are the three most important pieces of advice you give to them than applies to all of them?

Hmm. If you ask me this next week, I might give you a slightly different answer but the three things that occur to me at the moment are as follows — and these are not necessarily in order of importance…

One: Have an attainable goal. I don't buy into this "You can achieve whatever dream you have if you try hard enough" stuff. I think that's a false, dangerous approach to take. If you decide "I want to pitch for the Dodgers and I will be satisfied with nothing else," you're setting yourself up for probable failure. Even if you're good enough to pitch for the Dodgers — and you just might not be — there's a very small number of people who can ever attain that dream. I always tell students that they need to find that sweet spot between idealism and pragmatism.

Two: Be there and be there on time. You can't win if you don't show up and participate. That will (not "may" — will) involve occasional failures before you get to the occasional successes. Every accomplished gymnast has landed on their ass hundreds, if not thousands of times…and they show up. I know several people who I think have destroyed not just careers but important aspects of their lives by always being late for things. Many of them think that's not a problem if they have a good excuse but being late puts everyone around you in a dysfunctional situation even when you have a good excuse. So be there and be there on time.

Three: It's not enough to think you know what you want. You have to understand why you want it…and sometimes, that leads to you realizing you don't want what you thought you wanted. Perhaps you want just one aspect of it. I know a guy who thought he wanted to be an actor…but through a series of events, he came to realize that he really didn't want to do all the hard work that's necessary to succeed as an actor. What he really wanted was to be famous. Once he'd discovered that, he realized (a) that there were better ways to achieve that, and (b) that there were downsides to being famous. And realizing all that caused him to decide that (c) he really didn't want to be actor or famous. Today, he's really happy that he didn't pursue either of those goals. But he wasted many years of his life before he got on track.

That's three. I think they're good advice and they apply to everyone — especially the one about being on time. People who are late for everything usually don't realize what they're doing to their lives…and the lives of those around them.

Carl Cafarelli is a gentleman who writes me from time to time, occasionally about comics but more often about popular music — a topic on which he seems to be rather well-versed. He just wrote this to me…

It's worth noting that the COVID-benefit reunion of That Thing You Do! participants was prompted in large part by the death of the title song's author Adam Schlesinger. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were among the first famous people reported to have contracted the disease in the early days of the pandemic; Schlesinger was among the first celebrities killed by COVID.

Schlesinger's death devastated our rockin' pop community. He was well-respected and well-liked for his work with Fountains Of Wayne, Ivy, Tinted Windows, for his production of the Monkees' 2016 album Good Times!, and for "That Thing You Do!," the title song from what some of my peers and I consider our all-time favorite movie.

I don't want to get into the habit of sending you links to my blog — I do indeed recognize that you have more important things to do — but this is what I wrote when Adam died. It was part of a blog series (and potential book) called The Greatest Record Ever Made!, dedicated to the notion that an infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.

This one hurt.

Thank you for this, Carl. I didn't know much about Mr. Schlesinger but based on what's in my e-mailbox at the moment, you aren't the only person who felt a great sense of loss when he went away. I'm going to read more of your blog posts and see what else is there. Others may want to join me.

Remember when talk shows used to book guests who could do more than talk or maybe sing? Once upon a time, Johnny Carson booked guests like The Passing Zone — not to be confused with The Twilight Zone. Here's their first appearance on his show, which was on 9/7/90…

A number of you have written me about That Thing You Do, 50% (so far) to tell me you prefer the original version to the extended version; 50% (so far) to tell me you prefer the extended version to the original. Fine. This is high on my list of Things That Aren't Worth Arguing About.

John Trumbull (who's in the first camp) told me something that fans of this movie might like to know. At one point during the worst of COVID, the four guys who played The Wonders — plus a few guest stars — did an online Watch Party to raise dough for COVID relief. You watch the movie on your own DVD or Blu-ray or whatever in sync with them and you have a nice commentary track. You can watch it here.

By the way: If you watch the movie again, there's a guy onscreen for a few seconds playing a plate-spinner who precedes The Wonders' appearance on Hollywood Showcase. That's my buddy Charlie Frye, the magician-juggler whose videos I often feature on this site. And the announcer in that sequence is Bob Ridgely, a wonderfully-funny man I've mentioned on this site. Bob was the voice of Thundarr the Barbarian on that animated series, and was on other cartoons, as well. He was also featured in a lot of Mel Brooks movies. He was the Karloff-like hangman in Blazing Saddles, for instance. Like I said…a very funny man. His funeral was one of the funniest events I've ever attended. People just got up and told Ridgely stories.

Daniel Bonner wrote to ask:

I recall reading that Jack Kirby's Forever People was inspired by/influenced by/a tribute to the shootings at Kent State. Discuss, please.

Not "inspired by." The Kent State Shootings were on May 4, 1970. Jack had already written and drawn the first issue of Forever People not long before that…I would guess about a month before.

"Influenced by?" I don't think so. Jack thought the shootings were one of the most shameful acts ever committed by any government, American or otherwise…but Forever People was inspired by a bigger picture. Jack was acutely aware in the late sixties that "his" generation was slowly stepping (or being shoved) aside by a new generation. It was that way everywhere, including in comic books with the influx of folks like Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, me and so many others.

I suppose you could say that his vision of the societal changes were influenced by Kent State but also thousands of other things. We talked a lot about what going on in the world then. I was going to U.C.L.A. during much of the time I worked for Jack and he was always asking me about the mood on campus, what seemed to matter to the students, etc. Jack also had a lot of young people visiting him in his studio along with his own kids.

And lastly, I don't think "tribute" is the right word to apply to Kent State, especially if you had Jack's reaction to it. I remember that he was pretty incensed at a statement that Al Capp made after the shooting; something about how the real "martyrs" at Kent State were the guys who fired the rifles. Jack fumed about that for a few days, then made some comment like, "Capp doesn't say those things because he believes them. He says them because they get attention."

Our second question is from Robert Grover…

I have been re-watching the '67 Fantastic Four Hanna-Barbera show and wondered if you ever discussed it with Jack Kirby. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the comic, down to taking actual issues and using the characters, plots, some designs even. Knowing how the comic industry worked back then, work for hire, etc, it's extremely doubtful Jack received any sort of compensation for the use of his designs or stories.

Given what I've read of the man that must have been a sore point, but aside from the Captain America movie serial this is one of the first instances of his comic book work being adapted for another medium (yes, the Marvel Super-Heroes preceded it by a year or so, but those were such a bargain basement production by comparison they are best forgotten). Did the Fantastic Four give him any sort of gratification? I hope so. Sure, the cartoon is targeted for a younger audience, but it is recognizable from the source material and he is named in the credits. For a man working largely in isolation seeing your name on TV must have been an ego boost. Thanks in advance for sharing what you know.

We did talk about the show a bit…but only a bit because Jack couldn't stand to see things like that. You're right: He received no compensation from it…and to hear him tell it, some pretty rude responses when he suggested to Marvel management that such a thing might be in order. I don't think he received any gratification or ego boost from it either…just the feeling of being exploited and underpaid. I doubt he watched it much. Long after that show was on and off the air, I mentioned to Jack that Alex Toth had done the main design work on it and that came as news to Jack.

I liked That Thing You Do, the 1996 movie that Tom Hanks wrote, Tom Hanks directed, Tom Hanks wrote some of the songs for, Tom Hanks appeared in and Tom Hanks was probably the guy at the movie theater who made your popcorn and didn't put enough of that phony butter on it. In case you don't remember, it told the story of a short-lived rock band, its one hit record and why they neither stayed together nor recorded another record. Recently, I got to thinking about the film and thought it might be fun to watch again…

…whereupon I learned something that you may already have known. A few years ago, an "extended" version was released of the film restoring quite a bit of footage that didn't make what was, in 1996, the "final cut." The 1996 release was 1 hour and 47 minutes. The new one is 2 hours and 27 minutes. What's been added back in? Mainly scenes and dialogue that deepen what we know about the characters. Some of the lines from the shorter version take on new meaning in light of events that were cut or speeches that were trimmed.

A friend of mine and I watched the extended version last night and we enjoyed it a lot. All the characters are more fleshed-out and the role played by Liv Tyler (Faye) especially benefits from the added-back footage. The story arc where she moves her affections from Jimmy to Guy is more credible because of the new inclusion of earlier exchanges between Faye and Guy. The only major story change from the original release is a new reason why Guy elects to remain in Hollywood when all the other band members don't. It seemed a bit forced to me but it also gave the film a little more sense of closure.

One could argue that some of the restored footage was best left in the cutting room but some of it does make a good film better. If I were teaching filmmaking, I'd assign my students to watch both versions and discuss which scenes they'd put back in and which they'd omit. I'll bet most would opt to add back about half of the resurrected 40 minutes but you'd probably have some interesting discussions about which 20 minutes.

Some folks I've known would tell you shorter is always better…and from a commercial standpoint when That Thing You Do was first exhibited, that's probably so. But the nice thing about a release like this is that length doesn't have to matter, especially when you have your choice of either version.

Both versions are available for streaming on Amazon and there are a couple of different options for Blu-ray and DVD. See here and here and here and here and here and probably other places. And read the fine print to make sure you get the version(s) you want.

From 8/5/1988, comedian Richard Jeni makes his first appearance with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. I always found Jeni brilliantly funny while being derivative of just about no one. He deserved more attention as well as a better end…

• If the January 6 committee wants Trump to show up, they shouldn't send him a subpoena. They should send him a projection of how huge the ratings will be if he testifies on live, prime-time TV.

They've raised prices at Disney Theme Parks again and I don't know why the press even thinks they have to tell us this anymore. Breaking News would be if they didn't. In the unlikely event they ever lowered them, the network carrying the Super Bowl could interrupt the last quarter with a bulletin and no one would think that was unwarranted.

Many of the press reports about the price increase have delved into discussions of The Cost of Living and spiraling inflation but I think they've missed a very simple point which was made in this article about the increases. The person being quoted here is Pete Werner, CEO of wdwinfo.com, one of the oldest Disney fan websites…

The bottom line is "make more money with fewer people. And we don't care who we price out to do it." And I'm going to tell you that the quality of the product is less, in my opinion, is less now than it was prior to the pandemic, yet the price has gone up considerably.

For 25 years, I've heard that "I'm not going to Disney World" on one hand, while they're handing them their wallet with the other.

Inflation and rising prices in so many areas can explain certain money squeezes and increases. But sometimes, people who set prices for their products just say, "Y'know, I think we can get more money for this." This has happened a lot in Las Vegas since they reopened after the COVID shutdown. Many a hotel discovered it was cost-effective to raise the price of a buffet or a show or a weekend suite. Sometimes, you didn't lose a single customer when everyone was told they had to pay ten or twenty dollars more. Or if you did lose a few, that loss was more than made up for by the folks paying more.

But for some reason, the press treats a lot of these increases like they're forces of nature…Disney had no choice but to up the price of playing in their playgrounds. The folks who own the company gotta eat, right?

I have not been to Disneyland in many years. The last time I was there, it was with an executive with the Disney Channel who wanted to walk around with me and discuss the feasibility of taping a show there which I would write and maybe produce. Even though I just about talked her out of the idea — and therefore myself out of a job — I had a mostly-good time. Everything was free and we didn't wait in any lines. She kept saying, "We're going in through a Michael Jackson entrance," meaning it was some secret route that bypassed the main line for The Haunted Mansion. I guess that's how Michael used to get around The Magic Kingdom.

That, obviously, was quite a while ago.

Maybe I got a bit spoiled by that visit. Maybe it also has something to do with knee problems that do not make walking and standing in line as simple as they once were. But in the past few years, I've occasionally been given free passes to the place and I've allowed them to expire, unused. This was well before the need for masks and six-foot-distancing. COVID was an ideal excuse to not use the last batch of passes I had. By letting them lapse, I avoided the physical challenge and I also avoided the expense.

About that expense: My friends (I hope) would tell you I am not a cheap person. It's just that there's a difference between spending money for which you feel you are receiving something of roughly-equal value in return…and spending money where you feel like a Cash Cow being milked for all they can get out of you. Even with free entrance passes, Disneyland can make you feel like the latter.

And when I have been there, it always kills the joy for me a little to see children practically ordering their parents, "Buy me that!" I once saw a father who looked like he was about to tell his demanding son, "Sure…if you'd rather have a Pluto hat than go to college!" Perhaps if I was a parent, I'd feel differently.

People often say of some exorbitant expense, "It's not the money, it's the principle." That can be valid but so can, "It's not the money, it's the feeling of being played for a sucker." Even when I've had a great time in Disneyland — which has happened and which I'm sure will happen again someday — I was never able to totally view it as a day of pure fun.

Even when that lady from The Disney Channel was getting us into everything a.s.a.p. and charging our food to her expense account, I kept looking at all the families, some of whom had spent thousands of dollars for Disneyland vacations, and I just couldn't enjoy the place as much. And when I'm paying, I sometimes feel like they should send the guy playing Dopey home because I'm doing his job for him.

Hey, watch this 27 minute interview with one of my boyhood heroes, Stan Freberg. This only covers part of Stan's long, clever career — doing cartoon voices for Warner Brothers, working with Bob Clampett and Daws Butler on Time For Beany, and getting into the business of making funny commercials. He barely touches upon his wonderful comedy records and radio shows. Stan was one of a kind and it was an honor to know him and work with him…

My longtime buddy Pat O'Neill wrote to ask…

No comments on the long-held theory that the human characters of Scooby-Doo are based on the cast of Dobie Gillis?

I kinda dealt with that theory back in this message in 2002…for which I made the graphic that I'm reusing below this paragraph. Basically, the theory is true…or at least, they used the Dobie Gillis show as a starting point. Everyone understands the connection between The Honeymooners and The Flintstones or Sgt. Bilko and Top Cat or Masterpiece Theater and The Wacky Races but they should also know (a) that other cartoon studios besides Hanna-Barbera did this, (b) that other non-cartoon studios and many writers do this and (c) often, the development of a show starts with the template from some pre-existing property but it evolves so much that little of the source from which they "borrowed" winds up in the final product.

For instance, it's kinda obvious that the H-B series Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels used Charlie's Angels for the "angels" part but not so obvious that the "caveman" part of it started with someone's decision to do a character like Yosemite Sam. In sketches and discussions, he got hairier and hairier until someone suggested making him a caveman instead. (I didn't work on that show but folks who did told me of its evolution.)

It's like if you and I decided to write a story for kids that was something like Little Red Riding Hood and you said, "But let's make the main character a guy" and I said "Fine…and I think wolves have been overused so let's make the villain a bounty hunter because they're popular on TV these days!"  And we both agree that if the villain is a bounty hunter, Big Bad Bart (that's what we rename Red) shouldn't be transporting a basket of goodies and you say, "How about if Bart's a driver for Amazon and he's bringing Grandma a new computer?"  And I say, "That's good…but a Grandma wouldn't need a new computer and we could use some romance in this story so let's make her a young woman that Bart can fall in love with…"

…and before long, there's very little trace of Little Red Riding Hood in our story — certainly not enough to be called plagiarism.  This happens a lot with committee-created projects and most cartoon shows have been committee-created projects in some sense, even if there was one person who clearly deserved the credit, "Created by…"  Of course, sometimes there are enough remnants that a connection is visible.  If Shaggy didn't have the beard of Maynard G. Krebs, I don't think anyone would ever notice any similarity to The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which is what that series was actually called.

But if we're going to note that at one point in the development of Scooby Doo there was such a parallel, it's interesting to point one thing out.  Fred kind of started out with Dobie in mind, Shaggy came from Maynard, Daphne came from Thalia and Velma was vaguely based on the character of Zelda…

…and Zelda was played by a fine actress named Sheila James who is now Sheila Kuehl, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.  As Wikipedia notes — and this is one time it's right — "Kuehl was California's first openly gay state legislator, having previously served in the California State Senate and the California State Assembly, where she was the Assembly's first female speaker pro tem."

This is obviously a real stretch. The connection between Zelda and Velma is very, very remote and hardly worth talking about. But if people are going to say that Velma "was always" gay…well, maybe there's something there worth noting. Maybe.

This three-year-old video of comedian John Fugelsang is suddenly trending all over Twitter. The last few times I was in New York, I was a guest on John's show on Sirius XM radio and when I wasn't actively involved in the conversation, I sat there in his studio, marveling at this man's ability to out-Bible callers who thought they knew what was in the Bible.

Unlike a lot of folks who do political talk radio, he never raised his voice, never insulted his opponents…he never even disrespected them when he was politely explaining why what they thought was in the Bible was not in the Bible. I've seen and heard an awful lot of folks in our national debates who should learn how to disagree with people or correct them without turning into Joe Pyne or Alex Jones.

And what he has to say here about Christianity is something that a lot of self-described Christians could stand to learn…

Last Saturday while I was in the chat room with folks vying for badges to Comic-Con 2023, a number of folks were complaining about how the floor in the Exhibit Hall is uncarpeted and the concrete can be very hard on the feet. That's true not only of the San Diego Convention Center but of most convention centers I've been in throughout my silly lifetime. I assume most of these places have carpeting available for rent if some group that's meeting there wants to pay but I believe I once heard a convention chairman (not in San Diego) explaining how carpeting creates many problems for the load-in by the exhibitors and the load-out. And it costs money, probably more than we think.

So I'm wondering aloud here if recent incidents at the TwitchCon, held in the San Diego Convention Center earlier this month, will cause any changes. Several people — including a lady who broke her back in two places — were injured in a "foam pit" which "attendees reportedly noted was simply not deep enough." From the videos and photos, it doesn't look like a pit at all; just blocks of foam piled on that concrete floor.

I have no idea who's legally liable in a situation like this — the convention, the convention center or the particular exhibitor — but I'm reminded of one time I heard a lawyer asked by a client who they were going to sue in some matter at hand. The attorney's answer was "Everyone in every direction who has serious money." One assumes all three of those businesses carry significant insurance.

I'm also wondering if the convention industry has done any sort of analysis on the cost-effectiveness of carpeting. I know I've left the floor of some cons earlier than I might have because my feet and legs couldn't take much more time on cement. In a carpeted hall, I might have stayed another hour or two and spent more. Some exhibitors at Comic-Con do bring in carpeting for their spaces. Do they do that to be decorative or because they think it'll cause you to spend more time in the area where they're selling stuff? Even some carpeting does little to spare your lower extremities from the hard, cold flooring below.