I think we've fixed the problem that was causing some browsers to skip over messages on this site…and by "we," I mean that I fixed 5% of it and Glenn Hauman fixed the other 95% of it. Thanks, Glenn!
If you still have the problem, try reloading the page or flushing the temp files on your browser. Which is something you should do every day or so anyway.
The L.A. Times has a good obit up on Dick Beals, who died the other day. It mentions something I totally forgot about Dick: He was a pilot. He liked to get away from Los Angeles for long periods and would sometimes fly his own plane back for recording sessions.
Our pal James H. Burns sends in this remembrance of Dick…
Back in 1999, at the Old Time Radio Convention in Newark (now, no more), I was chatting with Ed Hulse (he, the master of pulp history and a major film buff) outside the hotel's entrance, when Dick Beals showed up from the airport, exiting the hotel courtesy shuttle. We nodded Hello, and Dick went to enter the hotel. He stood in front of the "automatic" glass door —
And nothing happened.
I was about to see if the door was broken or something when Beals simply walked to a side panel that he knew must be there, pressed it, and the door slid open.
I still don't understand how the door's weight sensor, or electric eye, wasn't adjusted to account for what would be the equivalent of a child's size. Maybe it was just out of whack.
But there was this kind of look of sadness in Beals' eyes, this impression of something that had happened many times before, but it was an annoyance — out of no other choice — he knew how to deal with. That look has stayed with me all these years.
(It's far more important, of course, as you point out, to remember all the joy that Beals' talents helped create!)
And maybe I just read too much into the moment. Beals might simply have been annoyed that he was in Newark…!
I've worked with a number of folks who were very short (Billy Barty, Herve Villechaize, Dick) and also very tall (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hulk Hogan). One can usually sense a certain amount of mixed feeling about how nature made them "different." There are the obvious pains of trying to fit into a world built too small or too large for you. I'm not that tall and there are plenty of times when I feel like Gulliver…and wonder how Kareem at 7'2" deals with situations that cramp me at 6'3". On the other hand, if Kareem were 5'8", a lot of the best things that have happened to him in his lifetime would probably never have happened.
Would Billy, Herve and Dick even have been in show business — a field they all loved — but for their physical conditions? I can't speak for how they viewed the trade-off but there had to have been moments when they considered the "up" sides. Billy at least used to joke and say to people who took unwanted pity on his size, "Hey, if I were your height, I'd be working at the Safeway Market."
By the way, James…I'm sad to hear that Newark is no more.
From an old Muppet Show: Dr. Teeth sings a song written by Stan Freberg…
Hey, where did ketchup come from, anyway?
Like Billy Pilgrim, this blog has suddenly become unstuck in time. At the bottom of the first page, there's a link that says "Older Posts" which should take you back to the post from immediately before the last post on Page 1 here. In most cases, it will. Sometimes, it leaps back a day or two.
On my main computer at the moment, it works fine in Firefox but leaps back a few days when I browse the same material in Internet Explorer. One or two other people have reported the problem no matter what browser they use. On my secondary computer, it works fine in any browser.
I have no way of repairing this but am reporting it to folks who might. In the meantime, here's the workaround. When you get to the bottom of Page 1 and want to read the item before it, click on the subject line of the last message at the bottom of Page 1. That will take you to an individual page for that item. Use the links at the bottom of that page to move back to the item before it and then the item before that one and the item before that one, etc.
I apologize for the inconvenience. I expect it will be fixed one of these days.
Number two hundred and forty-five in a series…
Our friend Frank Ferrante — oft-mentioned on this site for his uncanny portrayal of the brother of Harpo, Chico, Zeppo and Gummo — dropped by my recording session the other day to show his lovely daughter Lucy how cartoon voices are done. Frank makes his debut doing that kind of job in a third season episode of The Garfield Show…and no, I don't know when it will air in this country. But he has the title role in an hour-long special called Long Lost Lyman. (Note to longtime fans of the Garfield comic strip: Yes, it's that Lyman. You'll find out where he's been all this time and no, he wasn't locked in Jon's basement.)
Frank won't be doing his Groucho show anywhere for the next few months. But folks in Southern California may be excited to know they can spend An Afternoon with Groucho — it's a 2 PM matinee — at the Richard & Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach on Sunday, October 14. I know it's a ways off but you can order tickets now. I'm going.
There was a bit of a controversy when cartoonist Mike Peters was invited to deliver the commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis. I don't know why and I wonder if anyone knows why after this fine speech he delivered. This runs 24 minutes and I bet if you start watching, you won't be able to stop. Here's my wonderful friend Mike Peters…
This poll says that in California, 50% of "voters" (I assume they mean "registered voters" oppose the legalization of non-medical marijuana whereas 46% favor it. The headline says, "Most California voters don't support legalizing pot, poll finds" but since the poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, it sounds darn close to a tie to me. Personally, I'm in favor of legalizing it even though I've never used the stuff and am more likely to try bungee-jumping without a cord. I just think that if alcohol's legal, marijuana should be too.
I always remember a guy on the old Joe Pyne Show back in the sixties. They were doing, as they often did, the old "Why is pot illegal when bourbon isn't?" debate and the one anti-pot hardhat type said, "I'm against legalizing marijuana because it's the drug of choice for the kind of people I hate." I thought that was a pretty honest statement…more so than the other folks on that program arguing on his side, insisting that if you start smoking pot on Thanksgiving, you'll be shooting heroin by Christmas.
Frank Oscar Larson took some real nice photos of New York City back in the fifties.
Number two hundred and forty-four in a series…
Years ago, a very funny character actor named Billy DeWolfe used to go on with Johnny Carson and when Johnny asked him how he was, he'd exclaim, "Busy, busy, busy!" in a very funny way. To this day, I hear his reading of those three words in my head all the time. Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't been posting more.
Among the many things that have kept me from doing this is that yesterday, we recorded an hour-long episode of The Garfield Show, the first recording date of our fourth season. We had quite a cast: Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert, Julie Payne, Stan Freberg, Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, Laraine Newman and Misty Lee. You want to know how to voice-direct a cartoon show? Hire people like that and stay out of their way.
Then in the evening, I had a lovely dinner organized by my pal Neil Gaiman and his all-seeing, all-knowing assistant Cat Mihos. Also around the table were Drew Johnston (Cat's S.O.), Farley Zeigler (who produced The Artistocrats) and Dave Foley (from Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio). Good folks, good food, a good way to wind down from a day of directing. Thanks, Neil. Maybe I can transition back to regular blogging now…
The legendary Dick Beals — a star of radio, cartoons and more commercials than just about anyone — has died in a Southern California nursing home at the age of 85.
Dick stood 4'7" due to a glandular problem which also gave him his youthful voice. He was playing ten-year-old boys well into his seventies and was often called upon to loop (i.e., dub in the voice of) live-action child actors in movies or on TV programs.
He started in radio dramas in 1949 while attending Michigan State University. Several popular radio programs emanated from Detroit at the time and Dick wound up being heard on all of them but most notably The Lone Ranger, Challenge of the Yukon and The Green Hornet. His later cartoon credits include his being the first voice of Gumby and the first voice of Davey on the Davey & Goliath cartoon series. He was a loyal team member on the Roger Ramjet cartoon show and was heard throughout many Hanna-Barbera shows.
But his main line of work was commercials and he did thousands of them. His best remembered ones were probably the many he did for the Alka-Seltzer people as their mascot, Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Below, I've embedded a film of three of them, all with Buster Keaton. (And by the way: Was there ever a man who looked more like he needed an antacid than Buster Keaton?)
I worked with Dick a few times, the first being on the Richie Rich cartoon show where he voiced Richie's rival, the stuck-up rich kid named Reggie. Dick was always highly professional, showing up for recording sessions in a suit and tie, and carrying an attaché case. No one else ever wears a suit and tie to record cartoon voices and for a while, I didn't quite understand why Dick did. I finally decided it was his way of reminding everyone that he was an adult and not a little boy.
His last few years, he was a much-sought-after guest at Old Time Radio conventions and other such events. He was always surrounded by fans because he sure had a lot of them. I was one too and tonight, we're all sad to learn of his passing.
Rick Newman is writing a series of articles about why the two main guys running for President this year are campaigning on false premises. Here's his piece about how America's economic problems are not exactly the fault of the kind of businessman that Mitt Romney is or was, as the Obama folks are claiming. Here's an article about how Romney is promising budget cuts he cannot possibly deliver. And here he discusses how Romney is painting a false picture in his attempts to demonize China.
I'm afraid Mr. Newman has taken on a very big job for himself here.