Monthly Archives: March 2001

I've always loved my TiVo but, now that they've upgraded the software, I love it even more.  The new version lets you "prioritize" Season Passes, meaning that you can tell it to record your favorite shows every time they're on but if one is opposite another, the higher-priority one gets recorded.  You can also search its database by actor, director or keyword, and you can tell it to start recording a show 1-10 minutes early (for shows that don't start precisely on the hour).  It's wonderful and, two years from now, it will seem as primitive as a 300 baud modem.  More details at www.tivo.com.

My favorite play and I'm working on a column that will explain why — is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I've seen at least 30 productions of it over the years, ranging from the superb (Phil Silvers as Pseudolus) to the ghastly (a Vegas incarnation that cut songs and added Liberace jokes; it was almost as awful as the movie, which was pretty awful).  This evening, I saw one of the oddest — a presentation of the East West Players, a company of Asian actors who have a lovely theater in Downtown Los Angeles, not far from Little Tokyo.  The program book and dialogue say it's Ancient Rome but the sets, costume and some of the staging are pure Polynesian.  Amazingly, the book by Burt Shevelove & Larry Gelbart, and the songs by Stephen Sondheim all survive the relocation effort.  That is to say, none of what's wrong with it is because all the Roman citizens look like they're about to go and sacrifice someone to a volcano.

The problem is that the cast is wildly variable — some great, some not — and they never come together and capture the proper pace and vaudevillian delivery.  (In fairness, some of this may have been because the star, Gedde Watanabe, best known for E.R., was out and his stand-by was in.)  It's playing at the David Henry Hwang Theater — around the corner from Little Tokyo — through April 15.  If you want more details, here's a link to the website.

I don't necessarily recommend this, especially if you haven't seen a traditional mounting.  But if you know and love the show and can tolerate a weird variation, you might find it, as I did, fascinating.

Ratings for Week 8 of the XFL: They got a 1.8, which was up a hair from the previous week's 1.6.  Given that it was still the lowest rate prime-time show of the week — even below everything on the WB network — I doubt anyone is uncorking the bubbly.  To the surprise of no one, NBC execs seem now to be floating the idea that they will soon bail.

Turner Classic Movies has been running It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World lately, in part as a tribute to its director, the recently deceased Stanley Kramer.  Unfortunately, the version they persist in running is what is often passed off as the "restored" version, but it really isn't.  The original release ran 192 minutes, not counting overture, entr'acte and exit music.  It was then cut to 162 minutes and then 154 minutes.  For years, it was the shortest of these that was shown on TV and released on videotape.  Then, a few years ago, a 186 minute edition was released, first on Laserdisc, then on VHS.

This incarnation incorporates some lost footage that was found…but it is not footage that was in the original release.  It's scenes and trims that Kramer threw away before the film opened…in Los Angeles, at the Pacific Cinerama Dome, which is itself being restored at the moment.  The result is that we now have this "restored" version which includes a lot of scenes that Kramer rightly discarded as boring and needless.  I'm all for restoring lost footage and I love what was done for the Laserdisc of 1776, putting back vital material.

But longer is not always better and, in the case of Mad4 World, it's certainly not more faithful to what the filmmakers had in mind.  The lost footage remains lost and is, sadly, likely to remain that way.  Until and unless it is found, I think they oughta go back to the longest available version which actually ran in a theater.  (You can read an article I have here about my fondness for this film by clicking here.)

In the photo above, the guy on the right is Jackie Kahane.  I assume you recognize the guy on the left.  The last five years of Mr. Presley's life, his opening act was Mr. Kahane, a comedian who also, in his day, opened for the likes of Wayne Newton, Tony Bennett and just about every other singing headliner.

Amazingly, this was a side job for Jackie, whose main income then came from managing comedy writers.  A lot of them were, like Jackie, Canadians…but he also managed American writers and was often urging me to join his stable.  I never did, but I enjoyed lunching with Jackie and hearing colorful (often, unquotable) tales of Elvis and Wayne and Tony and Show Biz in general.  He seemed to do well for his clients…and he also performed a special service for some.  He was a "front."  You see, TV shows produced in Canada like to hire Canadian writers because it qualifies them for special investment credits from the government which can make it a lot easier to produce something.

Sometimes, they'd hire one of Jackie's American writers but Jackie, who retained Canadian citizenship, would be the official writer of record.  As a result, he got screen credit on an awful lot of shows that were actually written by other folks.  (Bizarre, which starred John Byner, was one)  I thought that was kinda sleazy but otherwise, Jackie — who died Monday at the age of 79 — was a class act all the way.

One of the best voice actors working today — cartoons, announcing, and he even does on-camera at times — is Gregg Berger, not to be confused (though he often is) with Greg Berg or Greg Burson.  One of my goals in cartoon voice-directing is to someday do a session with those three guys, plus Bob Bergen and Corey Burton, just to confuse the hell outta whoever has to make out the SAG contracts. In the meantime, Gregg BERGER has set up a wonderful website with on-line samples of his exquisite voice work.  It's at www.greggberger.com.  If, like many visitors to this site, you're wondering about a career making funny and not-so-funny voices before a microphone, you may want to visit and hear what a top-grade voice demo sounds like.

I thought Steve Martin was the best Oscar host in many years…better even than Billy Crystal.  I always liked Crystal but felt that when he hosted, the show — which oughta be about the awards and their recipients — was a bit too much about Billy Crystal.  Martin was funny, unobtrusive and managed to treat the event with the limited seriousness it deserves.  And I find the response to him interesting.  Today's Variety review is a rave, whereas the guy at the Hollywood Reporter was apparently watching a different Academy Awards broadcast, on which Martin bombed big-time.  Reaction across the Internet — not that that's ever indicative of anything — seems generally positive, though one finds the usual unwarranted assumption about comedy material.  It's the old, naïve audience belief that the jokes which flopped were all because of the lousy writers, whereas the jokes that succeeded were all a matter of, in this case, Steve Martin being brilliant.  I still think the odds are against there being a Writers Guild strike in May (or, at least, a long one) but if there is one, maybe it'll remind America that there's a reason that writers get paid all that money.

I haven't seen a copy yet in person but I'm told that The Groo Kingdom, our latest collection of old Groo stories, is now in book shops.  If you're collecting these, you'll want to race right out and purchase at least one copy.  If you're not collecting these…well, we all do dumb things in our lives.  You'll wise up someday.  Some day, you'll suddenly have a moment of revelation and you'll say to yourself, "How could I have been so foolish?  How could I have gone through life, thinking I was happy, ignoring the massive void in my soul that was created by my failure to collect all those wonderful Groo paperback books and put money in the pockets of Mark and Sergio?  What a dolt I was.  If only I could go back in time and rectify this tragic error on my part!"  Don't let this happen to you.  There's still time to redeem yourself.  Rush out.  Buy books in mass quantity.  If you want to really save your self-esteem, you can read them but this is not necessary.  We'll settle for you just buying them.

I'm not sure what, if anything, I want to write about Bill Hanna, who died — not unexpectedly — this morning.  Like many who will read this, I was reared on Hanna-Barbera cartoons and loved at least the early ones — Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones — dearly.  And before that, he and partner Joe produced and directed millions of Tom & Jerry theatrical cartoons, most of which compare favorably to any animation ever done.  My feelings about the man are more varied when I look at the latter half of his career.  He became the "production" half of the team: For the most part, it was Joe Barbera who sold the shows and supervised — sometimes from afar, sometimes not — the creative end, such as it was.

Hanna was in charge of getting the episodes made on time and on budget.  Way too often, there wasn't enough of either to do the job properly.  Most of my personal encounters with Bill when I worked there were of the kind that prompted many a staff artist to caricature him yelling, "Faster!  Cheaper!  Faster!  Cheaper!"

But there is one evening that sticks in my mind.  I was toiling way after hours on the Richie Rich show and figured I was alone in the building.  I wasn't, as I discovered when Mr. Hanna came into my office.  (He and Joe both worked very hard, even long after each had a bank account that made Richie look like a pauper.)  He wanted to put a script into production before I thought it was ready and, when we argued — politely — he said that if he didn't send something to the studio in Korea by a certain date, dozens of artists over there would get laid off, and he might even have to cut a few working there at the H-B Studio.  He got to talking about how proud he was of all the employment he and Joe had provided for people, and how they'd kept the animation industry up and functioning when theatricals died out.  As a Depression-era child, that was very important to him.

Historians of the future will view and assess the incredible body of work that bears the co-credit of William Hanna.  My guess is they'll find it wildly variable, including some of the best and worst animation of its day.  But I hope they'll also give a little weight to the staggering number of people who bought homes and groceries for 30-some-odd years working for Bill.  And I hope they'll give him some credit for an entire generation of us who got into writing and/or drawing because, back when we were small, we loved watching The Flintstones.

Whenever we write about Las Vegas here, we caution you about trying too hard to save money in that city, as it can lead to extreme discomfort and/or ptomaine.  However, if you're egregiously cheap — or if you just want to browse a rather funny travel guide — check out Las Vegas on 25 Cents a Day.  It's brutally honest, and one of the few websites that has ever made me laugh out loud.

Wondering what became of Chuck Barris?  Here's a link to an article in The New York Observer about the current activities of the man who gave us The Dating Game, The Gong Show and the song, "Palisades Park."  (If that link doesn't work, go to the Observer's website and do a search for "Chuck Barris.")

I have a new definition of a good interviewer.  A good interviewer can grab your interest even when interviewing someone you don't care about, about something you don't care about.  By this measure, Bob Costas is a great interviewer.  I have next-to-no interest in sports but I've gotten hooked watching his new HBO series, On The Record with Bob Costas.  Each week, he interviews a couple of sports figures, or non-sports figures discussing sports.  And even when the focus is one of those games I never follow — which is just about all of them — he's got my attention.  If you're by-passing it because you have zero interest in athletics, you might be surprised.

Speaking of sports: Two days ago, I reported that the overnights for last Saturday's XFL game gave it a 2.0 rating which would probably drop further when the nationals came in.  Well, the nationals took it down to a 1.6 rating, believed to be the lowest-ever prime-time night in the history of the three major television networks.  (Mr. Leno noted this evening that they were getting more of the male audience at The Vagina Monologues…)

How secure is your computer? If you'd like to see if someone can hack into it, go to Gibson Research and run the "Shields Up!" test.  Steve Gibson is a world-class expert at matters of Internet security and his independent research has forced many software makers to fix loopholes in their products.  He has also alerted the world to the dangers of "spyware," which is software that — unbeknown to you, its user — is recording and transmitting information on your buying or browsing habits to some company out there.  Gibson's Opt-Out program, which you can download at his site, will identify some of the spyware, if any, on your computer.  And if that matters to you, you might also want to download and run Ad-Aware (which you can do here) which is from another maker and which locates and removes other spyware.

The latest of the XFL Ratings: Well, we were told they couldn't go any lower than a 2.7 but somehow, they managed.  Week #7 got a 2.0 in the overnights, which will probably drop further when the nationals come in.  This is less than a fifth of the first week's numbers and less than half the guarantee to advertisers.  Vince McMahon was making the rounds of the talk shows last week, saying that it takes time to launch a new brand name and that the quality of the playing is finally where they want it to be.  It may be…but unless NBC signed the stupidest contract in the history of television and can't bail out now, they've got to be picking out what's going on in its stead.  A 2.0 rating would get you cancelled on the WB Network.

That's a picture of Groucho Marx above, not of Frank Ferrante.  But you might get the two of them confused after you watch Groucho: A Life in Revue, a special which is running on PBS stations this month.  This is the biographical play by Groucho's son, Arthur, and Arthur's longtime writing partner, Bob Fisher — and it's been slightly revised from the earlier video version, which starred Gabe Kaplan.  It's on in Los Angeles, on KCET, this coming Thursday evening, and if you're not in L.A., consult your local listing or phone your local PBS station and make trouble.  Mr. Ferrante is, by the way, wonderful in the role.  It ain't easy to do justice to Groucho but he sure does.

While you're at it, start keeping your eye on PBS listings (which you can do at www.pbs.org, among other places) for the Great Performances series.  They've been running some amazing shows — that is, if you can get past the constant 5-minute commercials wherein they urge you to support PBS because it has no commercials.  Last season, they aired a wonderful concert taped at Carnegie Hall which featured a host of wonderful "divas" singing show tunes.

It was called The Leading Ladies and it reruns next week on many stations and is also available on DVD and VHS.  This year, they did a similar show called Broadway Love Songs which had some wonderful moments but wasn't quite as good, up until the end.  The last number — which commences with Michael Crawford singing "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" — is an absolutely thrilling moment for any Broadway theater buff.  (Oh, hell, I might as well tip the surprise since the PBS promos did: Julie Andrews, who has been unable to sing since a botched throat operation, enters and manages to warble a few, perfectly-appropriate lines.  The audience goes absolutely and justifiably crazy.)  Broadway Love Songs does not seem to be scheduled for imminent rerunning, at least on the PBS stations I receive, but it may be on yours one more time soon.  It will certainly be rerun at some point, and it's also out on DVD and VHS.  If nothing else, at least catch the last ten minutes.

I'm not going to do a real obit column on Morton Downey, Jr., who died the other day because I didn't really (a) know him or (b) like him.  Matter of fact, I disliked his on-air routine so much that I wrote a Garfield cartoon in which I parodied the guy.  To do the voice, I hired someone I did like — a gravelly-voiced actor (also a writer and producer and restaurant critic) named Stanley Ralph Ross.  About a week after the episode was recorded, Stanley met Downey at a party and told him about it, whereupon Downey asked him for my phone number.  Ostensibly, it was so he could call and ask for a drawing from the show but, the next day, Downey phoned and tried to convince me to dump Stanley's performance and to re-record the episode with him playing himself.

He said we could even call the character "Morton Downey, Jr." and treat him as a total idiot.  I declined…but that almost caused me to dislike the off-camera Downey as much as the on-camera guy.  This feeling was reinforced a few months later when I happened to sit near him at the Lawry's Restaurant on La Cienega, and watched him be needlessly rude to the waitress and bus boys.  Still, I was sad to hear that all that smoking caused him to die of lung cancer this week.  Oddly enough, his death came almost a year to the day after Stanley Ralph Ross died from the exact same thing.