Monthly Archives: August 2024

Matthew Ohara sent me this link to an article with more on the effort to resurrect the Koo Koo Roo restaurant chain. I'm not getting my hopes up because this is still in the "too good to be true" category. I'll be a bit less skeptical if/when I hear they've actually made a deal for whatever real estate will hold their first new location.

Didn't see any of the Democratic National Convention today…though I was concerned that Kamala Harris might not accept the nomination. I had a lot of work to do and the first three days of this political Kaffeeklatsch may have left me conventioned-out.

Fortunately, we now live in a world where it you miss a TV show, it's on your DVR and if it isn't on your DVR, it's on some streaming service and if it isn't on some streaming service, it's on the broadcaster's website and if it isn't on the broadcaster's website, it's on YouTube and if it isn't on YouTube, your friend has it and he can upload it to Dropbox for you. So I'll get around to watching the highlights, probably not tomorrow but soon. Don't anyone tell me how it ends.

And here we go with a remembrance of Season 10 of Saturday Night Live. This edition of Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live tells of how producer Dick Ebersol transformed the program into (basically) The Martin Short and Billy Crystal Show. It was not a bad season but it led into a dead end and the only solution seemed to be to bring Lorne Michaels back to helm Season 11. Here's what went right and wrong in Season 10…

Okay, so Kamala seems to be three points ahead of That Other Guy and that's by polling that reflects little or none of any "bounce" she's going to get from the Democratic National Convention. Not bad. There are polls that say it's more or less than three but this ain't a bad place to be right now.

I didn't see a lot of Day Three of the D.N.C. I did watch Bill Clinton take half-an-hour to deliver what might have been a great fifteen minute speech. That man was so good at that kind of thing in his day. I saw Tim Walz deliver what seemed to me like the same speech he's been giving for a few weeks now but it still probably makes even some people who won't vote that ticket think, "Kamala made a great choice." I saw Coach Walz's old football team take the stage which was nice.

Some pundit-type people on CNN were discussing what it is that's hurting Trump. I think Trump is hurting Trump by babbling on about crowd sizes and windmills and The Great Hannibal Lecter and his micro-respect for the military and how unfair it is whenever things don't go his way…but in second place, I think it's this: The Abortion Issue. He wants to have it both ways, assuring the "pro-life" crowd he'll give them everything they want while assuring the "pro-choice" folks he won't give the "pro-life" mob everything they want. Mary Ziegler explains why that's not working.

And this last thing for now is not really political: I'm still rewatching that Roll Call segment from Tuesday's convention coverage and marveling at how ingenious it was and how well they pulled it off. I worked with variety show directors who, if you went to them and described what you wanted to do — and you wanted to do that — they'd say, "Are you outta your mind?" Technically to coordinate all those speakers and all those camera shots and all that music and computer graphics on a live telecast (!!!), they'd tell you it was — as one director I worked with would say about any idea more complicated than two people on stage standing still — "im-fucking-possible."

But they pulled it off with only one or two minor glitches. And somehow every shot of every group of delegates was expertly designed with happy, enthusiastic people perfectly positioned with (usually) the name of the state in the shot and a perfect mix of old and young, white and non-white, male and female, etc. It looked like My America, which is highly inclusive and very, very joyful. Even if you don't care for or about the messaging, they took what is usually the most boring part of one of these conventions and made it, for me, the highlight. So far.

Here's a Mel-dey — a medley of songs from all the musicals written by Mel Brooks — both of them…

If you're wondering about the songs played during yesterday's disco roll call at the D.N.C., here's the set list. A lot of someones put a lot of time, thought and effort into this.

I was not prepared yesterday to get so interested in the Democratic National Convention. I don't recall watching any of these with any intensity once we passed the stage where the nominees were in doubt before the gathering. Once that variable was eliminated, conventions basically became infomercials and very predictable. Even the speeches by folks I agreed with lacked a certain sincerity and spontaneity. But that roll call really impressed me, in part because I'm the kind of guy who watches television and is often more interested in how they did it than what they did.

That show was live — no edits, no retakes, a thousand possibilities for something to go wrong…and they pulled it off, taking what would ordinarily be a boring ritual and turning it into a moment of genuine television excitement. And then some — not all but some — of the speeches that followed were just plain good, gripping speeches. Betcha next time we have political conventions in this country, both sides study tapes of DNC 2024 and say, "Okay, this is what we have to top."

In case you missed the roll call, here's a link to watch it. It runs an hour-twenty and I couldn't turn away. The sense of happiness and excitement and the mix of career politicians and folks just workin' for a cause was stunning to me. I'm going to try not to watch much today because I have work to do but I'm not going to miss Pete Buttigieg or Bill Clinton…and I think Tim Walz, who's also turning out to be a helluva speaker, are on the schedule. So I'll probably end up watching more than I want.

I'm not going to get my hopes up yet but a Southern California real estate firm has announced they're bringing back the Koo Koo Roo chain of fast food restaurants…or maybe we should say they're trying to bring back the Koo Koo Roo chain of fast food restaurants. And maybe I should explain that Koo Koo Roo was "fast food" only in that it usually was served rather quickly. But the food they offered was somewhat healthy, non-fried and very delicious. Most folks loved their skinless but very tasty chicken.

I loved their cuisine and wrote an obit for the chain here when they closed the last one in 2014. From what I've heard over the years, it sounds like the chain was financially sound but there was a lot of financial mismanagement as they attempted to expand their locations and expand into other businesses.

I would very much like the chain to return and I'd like there to be an outlet near me and have it deliver and be just as good as it once was. I'm sure that's too much to ask. Over the years, I've had an awful lot of favorite eateries close and I've sometimes heard they were making a comeback…but I can only recall a few that actually did come back and it usually turned out it was in name only. The new versions never became favorites.

But…gee…maybe this time??? Maybe?

I planned to just tune in to see Bernie Sanders, Michelle Obama and that guy she's married to. But I peeked in early to see what was going on and they were doing the roll call, not as stodgy speeches but as some super-energized disco dance party with delegate after delegate saying wonderful things, not just about the candidate but about America and hope and optimism and about giving a damn about each other. What little I saw of the Republican convention was about Donald and only Donald.

So I got hooked watching the DNC roll call because it was so great to see such happy, energized people…so many faces of all different colors and ages. It was oddly exciting especially when you consider that the outcome was not in doubt. I'm sure there are folks out there who'll decry it as silly but it put me in a very good mood.

I wound up missing Bernie but I'll catch up to him online. I did see "first gentleman" Doug Emhoff, Michelle Obama and Barack, and I don't think I've seen three better speeches in a row at any of these things. Yes, the two Obama speeches were a bit repetitive and could have used cutting but they both did what they had to do and managed to sound like real people who cared about other real people. I don't think it's possible to do that when you're talking about Donald Trump.

Whoever put this show together did a great job. Oh — and I liked that all the signs I saw in the audience were about PEACE and HOPE and U.S.A. and FREEDOM. Nothing out there about MASS DEPORTATION.

Here are five more and these may be the last of them here. Or they may not. You never know with this blog…

In 1971, the Rankin-Bass studio made the deal that gave us Jackson 5ive — that was how it was spelled — featuring the adventures of what was then one of the hottest rock acts out there. Actual records of the Jacksons, including Michael, were used but the brothers were too busy performing (I guess) to record the speaking parts. Voice actors did that, though Diana Ross reportedly supplied her own voice in one episode in which she appeared as a character.

Many years later, I worked on a proposed Saturday morning cartoon that was to feature Michael and his little menagerie of pets. I never quite understood how this deal was made because Michael really didn't want to do it. He did not have fond memories of the 1971 show and really did not want to be a cartoon character, lest it tar his self-proclaimed title as The King of Pop for all ages. The show never happened and I assume he was happy that it didn't. So here's his one turn as a cartoon character…

Mister Magoo was developed in and around the U.P.A. cartoon studio in 1949. His cartoons were often pretty funny, thanks in large part to the voicework of Mr. Jim Backus who, it is said, would not (or maybe could not) record a track without several alcoholic beverages in him. The studio fell on hard times in the late fifties, stopped making cartoons and sold off its library and characters to a producer named Henry G. Saperstein.

Mr. Saperstein began marketing the library — mainly the nearsighted Magoo — to television and below is the opening title for a syndicated show that featured the best of that library. Eventually new Magoo cartoons were made for TV, most notably the 1962 special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and a prime-time weekly series that was covered in an earlier list here. At one point around 1997, there was going to be a Magoo animated feature and I was going to write it but that went away when Mr. Saperstein died in 1998. Still, I like the opening to the syndicated series…

The characters on The Linus the Lionhearted Show (1961) all originated on boxes of Post cereals. Linus — voiced by Sheldon Leonard — was the mascot for Post Crispy Critters, an awful cereal (I thought) with good commercials (I thought). Post had the clout to get this show on Saturday morning — new shows for one year, reruns thereafter. It was a pretty good series with voice work by, among other celebs, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Ruth Buzzi, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, and a few others whose names you won't see in the credits here.

I always thought the big unbilled cameo was in the opening song. One of the singers you'll hear is Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of that other big cat from a cereal box — Tony the Tiger on Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. I don't think they've changed the recipe since then but they took "Sugar" out of the product's name.

As the long-running Mighty Mouse Playhouse on CBS Saturday morning lost audience in the mid-sixties, the Terrytoons studio sought to stave off extinction by introducing a new segment — The Mighty Heroes, created by animator-producer Ralph Bakshi. In 1966, the show became Mighty Mouse and The Mighty Heroes and Bakshi's super team more or less squeezed the mouse out. This is not the complete mini-main-title for the team because, as you'll see, it doesn't give the title. But it was something fresh on a somewhat stale schedule…

The Amos 'n' Andy radio show was very popular in the forties and fifties. It starred two white guys playing two black guys — Freeman Gosden as Amos and Charles Correll as Andy. Eventually, a character named George "Kingfish" Stevens (also voiced by Gosden) became more popular than Amos or Andy. In the early fifties, the program was turned into a TV series with black actors playing those roles — and Kingfish becoming the real star of the proceedings. It was a funny show but various groups found it racist and eventually, CBS (which owned it) canceled the show and later on, buried the reruns.

In 1961, someone got the idea that the show could be revived as a prime-time animated series with the characters turned into animals. Andy (voiced by Correll) became a bear named Calvin, Kingfish (voiced by Gosden) became a fox and Calvin and the Colonel went on the air in October of 1961. It was an immediate flop. It was yanked off the air, then it came back with a new opening and closing, then it moved to Saturday morning and syndication where it was around for a while.

I liked the theme song so here's the original opening and closing in color followed by the second opening and closing in black-and-white…

And that's it for now…I think. But maybe not.

DC Comics just issued a facsimile edition of House of Secrets #92, the 1971 comic that introduced Swamp Thing. I haven't seen a copy of this but the ads say "Written by Len Wein, Joe Orlando and Virgil North, Art by Bernie Wrightson, Bill Draut, Dick Dillin, Alan Lee Weiss and Tony DeZuniga." This makes me think that someone thought Joe Orlando wrote the second story in that issue. He didn't. I did with some help from Jack Kirby. The story ran with no credits but it was called "After I Die…" and was drawn by Bill Draut. I think I'm owed a few bucks.

If you're in or around Los Angeles, you have a rare chance to see my pal Frank Ferrante perform An Evening With Groucho on September 29 at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. And you don't even have to wait for the evening because he's doing it in the afternoon. Get your tickets here and get them soon. Every time Frank does this show anywhere, I get an e-mail from at least one person who attended who writes to say, "You were right! He's amazing!"

Since we're remembering Groucho today, here's a little under six minutes of lines from his movies…

Well, some of it. I think those things are always too long, especially with an audience that cheers every mention of the candidate's name and any sentence about them winning. Cutting down (or out) a few speeches would have eliminated repetition, made the rest of the evening more effective and gotten the star of the night — Joseph Robinette Biden — on in prime time for the east coast.

But I listened to Biden and to Shawn Fain (president of the United Automobile Workers), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary Clinton, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ladies who talked about their lives with a lack of Reproductive Rights, Gov. Andy Beshear and Senator Raphael Warnock and I thought they were all real good. I liked the general positivity — no calls for Mass Deportation that I heard — and all the reminders of what this country is all about. Maybe if I hadn't muted the speeches I muted, I would have come away with a different impression.

And maybe I missed the part where Biden declared, as Trump told us he would, "I want my presidency back. I want another chance to debate Trump. I want another chance!" I'll check YouTube and see if that clip's there. Trump couldn't have been wrong about that, could he?

Just settling down to work on a script with one eye on the Democratic Convention. It's taking place in Chicago but when Joe Biden takes the stage, I expect to be able to hear the ovation without having my TV on. I just saw Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC make an interesting sports analogy. Biden's like the pitcher who threw a winning game for five or six innings, faltered in the seventh and just plain couldn't go on and finish the game. Kamala Harris in the relief pitcher who steps in and tries to win those last few innings.

It's one of those analogies that only extends as far as it extends but it's not bad, especially in an election year where there are close to zero precedents. So much is happening that's never happened before. And someone else just pointed out that at the G.O.P. convention, there were no former presidents or vice-presidents…not even Trump's own vice-president. It was like the Republican Party never had any president except Donald. The Democratic gathering's going to have Biden, Obama, Clinton…and the good wishes of Jimmy Carter.

Prediction: The TV ratings for this convention will be higher than they were for the Republican one…and Trump will be screaming that it's all a lie. You know, like the election he lost was a lie, Kamala's crowds are a lie, every Trump indictment was a lie, every verdict against him is a lie, every statistic that shows the economy is good or crime is down is a lie, every poll that shows her leading is a lie…