Monthly Archives: September 2024

Eric Idle was recently interviewed in The New Yorker and you can read the interview here if you can get past their paywall, which sometimes you can. If not, this article summarizes and quotes some of what the interview says.

It's about where the various Pythons are now and why some of them don't get along well and/or need money more badly than you'd think they would. Idle has a one-man show touring soon and I sure hope that by the time it gets near me, my leg's healed enough to attend. He's a very funny, clever man — they all are, even the two dead ones. I don't like hearing that they're not all best buddies these days. And I always think that airing these kinds of problems in public makes it a lot less likely they'll be solved.

Isn't it interesting how the two campaigns have kinda come down to two simple competing messages? Trump's is "Make America Great Again," meaning "Let's go back to a time when you were happier with your country!" Kamala's is "We're not going back!"

We seem to be talking a lot about crowd sizes these days and Trump's insistence that his are the biggest ever and hers are tiny. The New York Times sent a crew to head-count and take photos and their conclusion is that both candidates are drawing massive audiences to their rallies. Trump will probably claim they're lying and the photos are fake but that's his usual "anything that shows I'm wrong is phony" excuse.

He may be getting a bit of a bum rap with all this emphasis on how many walkouts he has at his rallies. According to the Times piece, he usually speaks for 90+ minutes, she speaks for 25 or so. Hey, any performer can have walkouts when he or she goes on too long. It would be a mistake to infer that those who leave a Trump rally before he's done don't like his politics and won't vote for him. They just think he doesn't know when to end a speech..and they're right.

As for the debate: I've said this here in a couple of ways…

It's gonna be up and down, up and down, up and down…with many moments which will, at least at first, feel like game-changers. We've already had plenty of these. Trump getting shot at was one. Biden doing so poorly in the debate was one. Biden dropping out was a big one. Trump getting convicted of 34 felonies was one. The big Supreme Court ruling was one. There will be more.

The debate was another. And none of those predictions we were hearing back in March or April anticipated any of them. Or those yet to come…

In 1963, Hanna-Barbera entered into a deal with Ideal Toys that resulted in two programs — The Magilla Gorilla Show and The Peter Potamus Show — being produced for syndication. Both were initially loaded with plugs for Ideal's line and both were decent shows, not as good (in my opinion) as what H-B had done before but better than much of what would follow. As a fan of the studio's work at that age — I was 11 — I was excited about the new shows…

…and what really got me excited was a little documentary that aired the day before the first of these shows (Magilla's) debuted. It featured clips of the upcoming series and also from the feature the studio was then working on, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear. Best of all though, it had a little tour of the then-new Hanna-Barbera studio with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera and their staff re-creating a creative meeting in which they came up with the idea for the Magilla Gorilla cartoons. I kinda doubt it actually happened that way.

The voice recording sequence is also pretty fake. They had two artists (or two someones) play the voice actors without showing their faces. Then they dubbed in the actual voice tracks for the cartoon in question. The voices were actually by Allan Melvin and Doug Young but that wasn't Allan or Doug in the mini-doc — a deception I think I even figured out at that age.

Still, now that I'd had a peek inside that magical place, I spent no small amount of time imagining what it might be like to work there…and around thirteen years later, I did for several years. In fact, I worked with Bill and Joe and some of the other folks seen in this video. Here's a shot of three artists who were very important in the look of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and the design of key characters…

Other folks in this who I knew and/or worked with are Jayne Barbera, Tony Benedict, Alex Lovy and Lew Marshall. There's also a moment with Joe Barbera's secretary Guyla, who I knew later when she was still Mr. B's secretary and was also married to artist Alex Toth.

The special was called Here Comes a Star and it aired, at least in some cities, on January 14, 1964. The next day — again, in some cities — the first episode of The Magilla Gorilla Show debuted on the same stations. The host for Here Comes a Star was TV personality George Fenneman, best known as Groucho Marx's announcer/foil on You Bet Your Life. He had recently hosted a game show for CBS called Your Surprise Package and a prime-time show for ABC called Your Funny, Funny Films.

This is not the entire show. A couple of musical scenes have been edited out, presumably because someone didn't want to pay someone else for music rights. But there's enough here you should find fascinating. I miss those days, those people and that building. The reception area when Mr. Fenneman enters looks exactly as it did the first time I set foot in that building around 1974…

Nicole Karlis explains where this nonsense about aborting babies after they're born comes from. Actually, I think it comes from the kind of politicians and political operatives who'll say anything if it prods some person into pledging donations and/or support.

Fred Kaplan on how easy it is to manipulate Donald Trump.

Jonathan Chait on how JD Vance and the right-wing conspiracy nuts sabotaged Trump's debate performance.

Steve Benen on how Trump avoided answering the pretty simple question, "Do you want Ukraine to win this war?" The former prez also declined to give an answer to "Would you sign a National Abortion Ban?" I think we all know where Kamala Harris stands on those matters.

Tim Miller on his adventures last night in the post-debate "Spin Room."

And speaking of the Spin Room: I was talking earlier today with a friend who's well-versed in politics but had somehow never heard that term. I thought the best explanation would be to show this video from after the third Kerry-Bush debate in 2004. Here's Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and I don't know how he got a press pass either…

One measure of how poorly Trump did in last night's debate is how fervently he and his backers are blaming the moderators today.  With Trump, any time he doesn't get exactly what he wants, it's unfair, the game was rigged, somebody cheated, there was sabotage, everything he did was perfect.  But if you look at what the moderators did, what they did was to ask questions that anybody could have anticipated.  There was sure to be a question or two about abortion, a question or two about Ukraine, about the Southern Border, etc.  Some of them were even challenging to Harris but she was wise and prepared.  He gave stupid answers.

A concept for a plan about health care?  This has been a major issue in this country for years.  When he was running against Hillary, Donald said he had a simple, wonderful plan and he was only weeks away from unveiling it.  That's what I would have asked him about.

Today is, of course, 9/11 — a date that will always cause folks over a certain age to remember where they were that day in 2001, how they saw what happened happen and how it was so sad and so numbing at the same time. I woke up to messages on my answering machine — remember answering machines? — from friends who were already up and in the greatest of despair. And then I watched TV in a state of horror for hours and hours.

I watched the whole TV news footage of that day again some years back, acting as a kind of tour guide for a friend who'd been too young when it occurred to really have a sense of the national state of shock. And I was shocked all over again. And saddened. And numbed.

I wouldn't blame anyone who didn't want to relive all or any part of that day. But if you do, there are a few hundred — maybe a few thousand videos online. This one runs an hour and forty minutes and like I said, I wouldn't blame anyone who didn't want to tumble into all that darkness and woe again…

I finally knocked off work on a script with a pressing deadline and made time to watch the debate. I thought Kamala Harris did great — a judgment I see all over the Internet and saw on Donald Trump's face on screen, starting around 30 minutes in. The man did not look happy.

Of course, he'll claim it was all rigged…just as he would if you beat him in a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. I thought he did himself a lot of damage by not having a better defense on the Abortion issue — one he and his advisors had to know would come up. Harris was pretty impressive talking about that and also about Ukraine. She also did a lot of pretty powerful rebutting just via facial reactions.

Heading for bed now. I may have more to say about this tomorrow.

And this time, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra favors us with a mini-symphony of tunes from old Tom & Jerry cartoons…

I'm not watching the Presidential Debate…or at least, not watching it live. I figure that if God had wanted us to watch everything live, he wouldn't have invented TiVos, streaming services, Betamax or VHS, network websites, YouTube, etc. God did invent all that, didn't He? And I figure that if either candidate says anything really smart, you can count on their campaign to make sure I see it and if either candidate says anything really stupid, you can count on the opposition campaign to make sure I see it. Over and over and over and over and over…

The slugfest will be followed by various campaign allies telling you how their candidate obviously mopped the floor with the other candidate. I don't need to see that either. Later, I may take a spin around the Fact Checkers and see what truths and falsehoods most of them concur upon.

And what I'm really not going to do is watch the debate and hang on every answer and every rebuttal, wondering if that's the one that's gonna win us the election or cost us the White House. Given Americans' capacities for overlooking or denying bullshit from the person they've already decided to vote for, I doubt any one faux pas will decide this election. What was it the semi-retired pundit Michael Kinsley once said? "A gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth."

I agree with Kamala Harris on most issues. I disagree with Donald Trump on all issues and think he's a horrible excuse for a human being. What could possibly happen in this wrestling match being passed off as a "debate" to cause me to switch my vote? Trump would have to prove he's a different person than he's been for the last decade or more. Let me know if that happens.

Let's note that of all the tributes and expressions of love being posted for the late/great James Earl Jones, no one has probably topped what Mark Hamill posted to social media…

Sorry to say, I have no real anecdotes or personal insights to go with the news that actor Peter Renaday has died at the age of 89. TMZ is reporting that "…cops did a welfare check at Peter's Burbank home Sunday after receiving a call, and they found him dead inside. The death appears to be natural and isn't being handled as a medical examiner case."

Peter had a great career to go along with his great voice. His face was seen in many a TV show and movie (Wikipedia has a list) and his voice was all over the animation world with a special emphasis on Disney movies and Disney theme parks. But that list is very incomplete and doesn't even include a couple of ABC Weekend Special and CBS Storybreak episodes that I wrote and for which Mr. Renaday did voices.

I remember him being the model of a professional actor: He was there on time and no matter what the directors asked of him, he could do exactly what they wanted, usually on the first take. We didn't talk much but he was the kind of performer who gets hired a lot because the folks doing the hiring know he'll deliver. Good man, good actor, sad loss.

It's been really hot in Los Angeles the last few days and it's made hotter, at least for me, with everyone talking incessantly about how hot it is.  The heat doesn't bother me much but it does tend to send me into weird sleeping patterns which is why I'm up writing this at four in the morning.

Assuming there actually is a Presidential Debate tonight  — this year, we take nothing for granted — I probably won't watch live.  My guess would be that an exercise like this is less about actually making someone decide for Candidate A over Candidate B than it is about ramping up or down their enthusiasm for their chosen candidate.  In November, there will be a lot of folks who will think they know who they want to vote for but not with such certainty or determination that they'll actually do whatever is involved with casting a vote for that person.  And really, I'm fine with someone preferring Trump as long as they don't actually cast ballots.

Living in a state that Trump couldn't win if he ran unopposed — in fact, which he definitely wouldn't win if he did run unopposed — is nice in a way.  I imagine it's hellish in a place like Pennsylvania with a barrage of TV ads, radio ads, billboards, robocalls and maybe even people ringing your doorbell and trying to get you to see things their way.  I wouldn't buy a box of candy from a stranger who came to my doorstep so I'm certainly not going to change my political views or my religion there.  I once subscribed that way to a service that promised to keep mosquitoes away from my home.  Later, I was tempted to subscribe to a service that kept the mosquito service away from my home.  They turned out to be the more prevalent pests.

The voice tracks for all the Garfield TV shows I worked on were recorded at Buzzy's Recording Studio on Melrose here in Los Angeles. Buzzy's, sadly, no longer exists but just about every actor you ever heard of — voice or otherwise — active during the years the studio was operating recorded something there. It had a great staff, a great mood, a great history, a great atmosphere, great refreshments and like any other recording studio in town, a terrible parking lot.

But we all loved working there and one of many reasons — apart from the owner-operator Andy Morris — was that when you there working in Studio A, you could run into just about anyone in Studio B or vice-versa. Case in point: One day while we were recording in A, James Earl Jones was recording in B.

I have no idea what he was recording but once he was finished, he heard laughing coming out of A and peeked in to see what it was. We, of course, stopped what we were doing and crowded around so each of us could tell him what our favorite thing was he'd done. There was a pretty long list from which to choose. The man had an incredible career even back then — this would have been around 1992 — and everything he'd been in had been good and often very good and award-winning.

It turned out he was a very nice man and he loved Garfield. I'm not sure I had the courage to ask him, "Would you like to do a voice in an episode some day?" if only because I was sure he got Top Dollar for saying anything in front of the microphone and we paid our guest actors union scale. That was pretty decent money but maybe not for someone used to working for ten times that or more. In any case, I didn't have to find out if I had the courage because he said, "If you ever have a part that I'm right for, I'd love to do it."

All the other actors — thinking of how thrilling it could be to act with James Earl Jones — looked hopefully at me and I said, "Well, do you have any samples of your work?"

Everyone laughed — including, fortunately, James Earl Jones. And I'm not sure you ever heard it fully on the screen but that man had a great laugh. I told him we had another recording session in two weeks and I'd have a script that was perfect for him. He said, "Great…what do I play?" I said, "I'll know as soon as I write it."

The only difficult part of arranging all this was that his agent, as you might imagine, wasn't thrilled about his client doing a voiceover job for a fee so far below his usual quote. He insisted I try to get his client more money so I went to our Executive Producer, Lee Mendelson, and told him what was going on. Lee, who I'm sure I've said here on this blog, was the smartest, most honest producer I ever dealt with the TV business. He authorized me to go back to the agent and offer double-scale and then, if necessary, triple-scale.

I called back the agent and said, "I have an offer for you." He said, "Never mind. I spoke to James and he said he wants to do this for the same money you pay everyone else. Actually, I think he'd do it for free if he could." Then the agent said, "Just out of curiosity, how much were you going to offer?" I told him and he said, "Well, I wouldn't let him do it for that but I've been outvoted."

I wrote a script that was about two ghosts — one very meek (kind of a Casper parody) and one very evil and sinister (like, say, Darth Vader in voice). To play the meek one, I booked a fine actor I knew named Will Ryan. I can't link you to a video of the cartoon but here's what the end credits look like on the version of the show currently streaming on a great many networks…

Some of those folks were in the two other cartoons that made up that half-hour of Garfield and Friends.

The recording went fine. I didn't really have to "direct" Mr. Jones because he did every line right the first time. Our recording engineer joked that it was a little tricky to get Will's meek, shy voice and James' booming monster of voice onto the same tracks. The contrast was pretty amazing.

I remember Lorenzo being very happy and saying he was going to a party that evening and if anyone asked him what he'd done that day, he was going to just grin and say, "I acted opposite James Earl Jones!" Mr. Jones was an absolute delight in every way…just like he was every time he got on a stage, in front of a microphone or in front of a camera.  He even made my stupid writing sound like it was worth something.

Very busy today but I'll post more than this later.  This is Ben Meiselas of The Meidas Touch Podcast — a real good podcast to follow if you want to know the legal status and woes of our 45th President. The predictions of Mr. Meiselas and his partners Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo — attorneys, all — have been amazingly accurate.

Here, Ben presents a medley of some of the anti-Trump commercials that you might not be seeing if you don't reside in a swing state. They're pretty potent — but then the folks making them have an awful lot to work with…