Monthly Archives: June 2015

• The new definition of Religious Freedom: The freedom from having to live in a world that isn't run in strict accord with your religion.

You notice how every time I say I won't be posting the rest of the day unless I have to post an obit, I do? I'm going to stop taking days off…

The fine comic strip writer-artist Leonard Starr died today at the age of 89. He did a great many things in his day but is probably best known for the newspaper strip, Mary Perkins On Stage and for taking over the Annie (aka Little Orphan Annie) feature, as well as his work on the ThunderCats cartoon series.

Starr was born in New York where he attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art followed by Pratt Institute. It was while he was studying at Pratt that he began working in the earliest comics books, more or less around 1942. His first accounts seem to have been with Harry "A" Chesler and Funnies, Incorporated but before long, he was drawing and occasionally writing for all the major New York publishers including Timely (now Marvel), Fawcett, A.C.G., E.C. and DC, plus he was a frequent contributor to comics produced by the Simon and Kirby studio. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby both considered him a first-rate talent.

Around 1955, as business began faltering in comic books, Starr began assisting on various newspaper strips and working harder on a long-held dream to have one of his own. In 1957, he achieved it with the debut of On Stage. Some newspapers billed it as Mary Perkins (the title character) and some called it Mary Perkins On Stage and that eventually became its official name. The strip was very popular with the public and much admired by his peers. The National Cartoonists Society gave it awards in 1960 and 1963 and then gave Starr their prestigious Reuben Award in 1965.

The strip lasted until 1979 when he dropped it and instead took over writing and drawing Annie, putting a fresh spin on Harold Gray's long-running feature. Some comic strip scholars will argue this but I always thought Gray's strip was an unreadable bore but Starr's take on it was quite wonderful. Still, Annie's time had passed and while he built up the following on a fading property for a time, it eventually lost enough subscribing papers that Starr gave it up in 2000 when he more or less retired.

In the meantime, he'd begun writing scripts for animation and was the main showrunner for ThunderCats, a popular cartoon series produced in the late eighties. He also, in tandem with fellow strip artist Stan Drake, created a series of popular graphic novels named for their title character, Kelly Green.

As noted, Starr was widely admired by his fellow cartoonists. His Mary Perkins strips are currently being reprinted in a series of books which I highly recommend. He was truly one of the greats and it's always sad to lose one of those.

I keep starting and aborting posts about the fallout from last week's Supreme Court gamechangers. Too many people are writing and talking about it for me to have an original thought, plus I have a comic book script that's due. So I'm putting up another of my unique soup can graphics and taking a break from blogging for the rest of the day. If, as too often happens, I have to to come back to do an obit, I will. But otherwise, this is all you're getting here for a while.

I will note that Chris Christie has — surprise, surprise — announced his candidacy, therefore increasing the number of folks who'll get no more electoral votes than I.

Also: I am all for "religious freedom" as I understand it. But I'm starting to get real tired of folks who seem to define it as the freedom from having to live in a world that isn't run in strict accord with their religion.

I'll be back soon.

Last Wednesday, I was a guest on Stu's Show and the topic was Late Night Television. We started with a discussion of Mr. Letterman's departure, then began slogging through the history of that time slot, starting with Broadway Open House. That episode of Stu's Show lasted three and a half hours (!) and we only made it up to the early years of Carson.

We shall continue the topic on some future episode but in the meantime, if you'd like to listen to what we said ("we" being Stu, me and his resident TV critic-historians, Steve Beverly and Wesley Hyatt), you can download the program from the Stu's Show Archives for a measly 99 cents…but don't do that. Make it one of four shows you order and you'll get them for the price of three. I highly recommend Stu's past interviews with Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Dick Van Dyke, Carl Reiner and many, many others.

One thing we talked about last Wednesday was the six month transition between the time Jack Paar left The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson started. Why this happened was explained on this site back here and I also listed the interim guest hosts who included Art Linkletter, Soupy Sales, Merv Griffin, Groucho Marx and others. Jerry Lewis hosted one week and it led to ABC offering him his own talk show, which turned out to be a two-hour live flop on Saturday nights.

I said in that piece and I said on Stu's Show that all those shows were probably lost. I knew of only about eight minutes of one of the Jerry Lewis episodes that had survived. Then a listener wrote in — I'm sorry I don't have his or her name — to say that the entirety of that episode was not only not lost but was on YouTube! I have placed its five parts into the player below. The guests are Jack Carter, Nancy Dussault and Henry Gibson. Skitch Henderson came in in to replace Jose Melis (Paar's bandleader) to lead the NBC Orchestra but Paar's announcer, Hugh Downs, stuck around to announce for the temps. I believe they're working on a slightly redecorated version of Paar's set.

Before you click: Remember that in those days, The Tonight Show was an hour and 45 minutes long. Since some stations aired a 15 minute newscast at 11 PM then and some had a 30-minute newscast, Tonight was configured to accommodate both. The show would start at 11:15 and they'd billboard the guests and introduce the host…and then at 11:30, the show would start again and they'd billboard the guests and introduce the host. You'll see the two openings on this video.

I believe the show was only called Tonight during the Steve Allen and Paar eras but was sometimes referred to casually as The Tonight Show. It doesn't seem to have been until the fill-in shows began that it became officially The Tonight Show. Art Linkletter was the first of the guest hosts so if you wanted to split follicles, you could say Linkletter was the first host of The Tonight Show. (Paar's version, as I understand it, started as Tonight, then became The Jack Paar Show for a time. When he announced his retirement, NBC decided to re-establish the Tonight name and the show became The Jack Paar Tonight Show for the remainder of his run.)

Here's the whole show. It's interesting that with 105 minutes to fill, they didn't book more guests…and bigger ones. Nancy Dussault, who had taken over the lead in The Sound of Music on Broadway, was not hugely famous. Henry Gibson, several years from appearing on Laugh-In, was largely unknown. The loose, "we don't know what we're doing" style is fairly typical of late night TV in those days…

This is in five parts which should play one after the other in this viewer. That's assuming I've configured things correctly, which is always assuming a helluva lot…

If you wish I'd stop writing about this, fear not. I will…and way sooner than Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum will stop using it to raise funds, promising a Constitutional Amendment that will never get anywhere. Those who think it will do not realize how much of the country you have to have on your side to amend the constitution.

I continue to be fascinated by how feeble the argument against Gay Marriage turned out to be when thrust into courts of law. On talk shows and at parties, its opponents could insist that "God is against it" and "We all know it's wrong" and other insistences that are inadmissible before a judge. It pretty much came down to a claim that allow gays to wed would have some vague, impossible-to-prove adverse impact on Straight Marriage…or be bad for any children who were birthed as a result of Adam marrying Steve.

On the children issue, they made some claims that might have had a place in an argument for Gay Adoption…but very few people who oppose Gay Marriage seem to care one way or the other about Gay Adoption. They also don't care enough about kids being raised by two loving heterosexual parents to do anything about the high divorce rate among straights. It's only gay people who have to sacrifice for the children.

If you're still rankled about the decision, I suggest you seek out and actually read some of the arguments from various states and also from the Supreme Court that led to judges ruling that same-gender wedlock could not be outlawed. Stripped of all that "God Stuff," the case was pretty empty. I keep looking for a good one.

One of my favorite political writers, Jonathan Chait, thinks Conservative Super-Columnist Ross Douthat is the best that side has to offer and that Douthat's arguments are almost vaporware. If you come across a stronger case that doesn't rely on "Because the Bible says so," please let me know.

Veteran comedian Jack Carter has died from respiratory failure at the age of 93. He had an amazing career and made many, many people laugh but I'm afraid I was not among those many, many people. There was something very abrasive and frantic about his performing that rubbed me the wrong way. He always seemed to me angry and not angry the way Don Rickles is funny when he's angry or Lewis Black is funny when he's angry.

I felt this before the first time I met him, which is when he was called in to do a voice on a cartoon special I wrote in 1982 called Bunnicula. It's on YouTube and it did great in the ratings…but I wasn't happy with the way the network insisted I depart from the book on which it was based. That's another story.

The plot concerns a serious dog and a high-strung cat and we initially cast an actor named Joe Silver as the dog and Howard Morris as the cat. At darn near the last minute, Mr. Silver had to go shoot an additional scene for a movie he was in and the producer was trying to think of someone with a similar deep voice. He turned on the TV and a game show was on with Jack Carter on it. One phone call to an agent later, Mr. Carter was booked.

It seemed like a good selection but as we learned the next morning at the recording studio, there were no two people in show business who hated one another more than Jack Carter and Howie Morris. I have no idea of the backstory to their feud but when Jack walked in and saw Howie, he turned magenta and yelled, "I'm not spending two minutes in a studio with that prick!" Howie fired back with something equally complimentary and the battle was on. Since they were both professionals, they did their jobs but every time one of them screwed up a line, the other would say, "Get it right, moron" or caustic words to that effect…and during breaks, they got even nastier.

I was not the director of that session. I had a more important job. I had to keep our two stars from killing each other.

Somehow, we got through the day. Later on, I got to know Howie better and discovered what a wonderful, sweet man he was when Jack Carter (or five or six other people) were not on the premises. I ran into Jack Carter several times and saw no nicer side of him for a long time.

One time though, he told me and some others a joke that went roughly like this…

This fellow who's never made a movie before announces to all his friends that he's about to produce one. He says, "It'll be great! We got Simon to do the screenplay!" His friends are all impressed. They say, "You got Neil Simon to do the screenplay?" He says, "Well, no…this is Charlie Simon. He's my gardener but he types really well. Oh — and I got Sondheim to do the music!" His friends gasp and say, "You got Stephen Sondheim to do the music?" He says, "No, Bruce Sondheim. He's a butcher but he likes to make up little tunes as he cuts meat. Oh — and we got Spielberg to direct!" The friends say, "You got Steven Spielberg?" He says, "No, Agnes Spielberg. She's a neighbor but she's done some interesting things with her camera. And finally, to star in the film, we got Goulet!" His friends say, "Really? You got Robert Goulet?" And he says, "Certainly!"

That's the joke — and of course, the premise of it was that Robert Goulet was famous in the business for never saying no to anything.

Less than a year later, I was in Las Vegas. A comedian I knew was opening for Robert Goulet at the Desert Inn and when I went backstage to see my friend, we joined a small group of folks who were in Goulet's dressing room. There, I heard Robert Goulet tell the exact same joke except that in his version, the punchline was, "Really? You got Jack Carter? And he says, "Certainly!"

I remember thinking, "It works either way."

Most of the time when I encountered Jack Carter though, he wasn't telling jokes. It always went like this: I'd say hello, remind him of my name and tell him we'd worked together on that Bunnicula cartoon. He'd ask me what I was doing now. I'd tell him about the show I was working on. He'd say, like he was genuinely pissed, "Why haven't you written a part for me on it?" Discussion was not possible on any other topic. If I wasn't going to get him hired for something, he had no use for me.

I ran into him a number of times after that and I'd look the other way and make like I didn't recognize him. I absolutely respected his career and how hard he obviously worked to cut himself away from a herd of thousands of comedians who never gained his fame or stature. I just didn't like him on or off screen.

Then one night around ten years ago, I was in the Porterhouse Bistro on Wilshire Boulevard — a great restaurant that is no longer there — and I found myself waiting for someone, standing alongside Jack Carter. He seemed cheerful and was joking with the hostess so I took a chance and said hello. He was charming and friendly and I don't know if old age had changed him or if our previous encounters had been atypical but it was a very pleasant encounter. I was very glad I gambled and spoke to him.

A few years later — in 2009 — Mr. Carter experienced an awful tragedy. He was standing in the parking lot of the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, talking with Toni Murray, the widow of comedian Jan Murray. A driver who somehow didn't see them backed her car into the two of them. Carter suffered severe injuries that kept him pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Ms. Murray's injuries were worse and ultimately fatal. A very sad story.

The last time I saw Jack Carter, it was a little over a year ago in a Costco. I told that story here.

Like I said, he had a great career and a lot of fans. We've lost so many comedians from his era that I'm saddened even at the passing of one I didn't particularly like.

Oddly enough, Jack Carter is in the video clip I'd planned on posting later tonight. As a matter of fact, he's pretty good in it. Check back here later for it.

I'm going to tidy up my language here. Earlier today, I wrote with regard to Obamacare…

…people are better off than before they had it, and no one has yet proposed a better alternative.

Several folks have wrote to suggest that Single Payer would be better…or "Medicare for All." They could be right. I meant…well, you know what I meant. Also, I meant to say "a lot of people are better off" because obviously, no change in the healthcare system could possibly work for everyone. Again, you probably knew what I meant but I should have been clearer.

Paul Krugman celebrates how well Obamacare is working. Yes, I know it's not perfect…but people are better off than before they had it, and no one has yet proposed a better alternative.

• Gay marriage foes hysterical…Obamacare saved…Confederacy ending…Trump fired…all God's way of telling Jon Stewart he can't quit.

This is from the year 2010. All this talk about the legalization of Same Sex Marriage reminded me of it and I should have put it up on Friday…

The New York Times has an article on the business side of Comic-Con International. I would quibble with this paragraph:

The group began almost by accident, with 300 friends and acquaintances meeting in 1970 to swap notes and artifacts under the aegis of the comic strip artist Sheldon Dorf in the basement of San Diego's U.S. Grant Hotel.

The 1970 event — I was there — was open to the public. It was not just friends and acquaintances. I also wince a bit when Shel Dorf (no one outside his family called him Sheldon) gets sole credit for the con…and Shel was not really a comic strip artist.

But I thank Tom Galloway for telling me about the article. And it's nice to hear that negotiations are in progress to keep the convention in San Diego for 2017 and 2018. The current contract expires after the 2016 gathering. I remain confident that the con ain't goin' nowhere.

As you are well aware if you read this site much, I am a big booster of the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. One of the happier "jobs" (more like "pleasures") I've had lately was appearing with my friends Mike Schlesinger and Paul Scrabo on a very, very long commentary track for the recent, wonderful DVD/Blu Ray release of the film by Criterion. One can order a copy here.

However! I suggest that if you haven't seen the movie before or if you want to introduce it to someone who hasn't, the best place to view it for the first time is in a movie theater…a movie theater with a big screen and a good print and a packed, enthusiastic audience. It really is a film that is diminished by being seen in the TV in your den, no matter how big your screen is.

If you live in Los Angeles, the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood is running it on Saturday, July 11 at 7:30. I will not be there since I'll be in San Diego at Comic-Con but maybe you can be there. Here's the info you need to do that.

If you live in New York, the Museum of Moving Image in Queens will be screening it as part of their 70mm festival on Saturday, August 15 and again on Sunday, August 16. I won't be there because I won't be in Queens and may still be recovering from Comic-Con but maybe you can be there. Here's the info you need to do that.

If you have kids, take them but explain to them first that what they'll be seeing is a gaggle of the greatest comedians who ever lived, few of whom are around today. There aren't many places where they can be introduced to people like Milton Berle and Sid Caesar and Jonathan Winters and Dick Shawn and Phil Silvers. That's one of the many wonderful things about this film.

And before someone writes to ask — and someone always does when I mention this movie — here is the (sadly) short list of cast members who are still with us: Marvin Kaplan, Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, Barrie Chase and Nicholas Georgiade.

Also, the California Incline — a key filming location on Pacific Coast Highway — has been demolished as part of a year-long reconstruction project. This link currently will take you to a Google Map view of the bottom of the ramp as it stood in March of this year before the work started. You can click and "drive" up it and look around until such time as Google Maps updates its photos. You might want to take a last look.

Thursday July 9, 2015 at 3:30pm – 4:30pm in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
The men who bring you Groo the Wanderer show their faces and explain just how and why it is they bring you Groo the Wanderer, as well as other silly comics. It's the award-winning duo of SERGIO ARAGONES and MARK EVANIER, accompanied by the equally heralded STAN SAKAI (creator of Usagi Yojimbo), and coloring whiz TOM LUTH (if he can get away) holding court, answering your questions, and doing what they do best, which obviously is not writing little blurbs like this for the Comic-Con Events Guide.

Saturday, July 11 at 11:45am – 1:00pm in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
Once again, three supercharged cartoonists duel to their dooms with Sharpies, each attempting to outdraw all opponents. It's one of the most popular Comic-Con events, and this year it's personal. Our returning champion SERGIO ARAGONES (MAD, Groo the Wanderer) goes mano a mano against SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons, The Flintstones) and Disney legend FLOYD NORMAN. Plus, you can expect a few other cartoonists to get their licks in. Presiding over it all is your Quick Draw! Quizmaster, MARK EVANIER. No wagering, please.

Saturday July 11, 2015 at 1:00pm – 2:30pm in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES 1
The fine art of giving voice to animated characters is again demonstrated by a dais of the best. This year, join KEONE YOUNG (Star Wars Rebels, G.I. Joe), PAT MUSICK (Rugrats, Extreme Ghostbusters), ERIC BAUZA (Ben 10, The Adventures of Puss in Boots), JESSICA DiCICCO (Gravity Falls, Pound Puppies), PHIL MORRIS (Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Ultimate Spider-Man) and JOSH ROBERT THOMPSON (Family Guy, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson). MARK EVANIER, as usual, gets these talented folks to demonstrate what they do so well.

Saturday July 11, 2015 at 4:30pm – 6:00pm in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
Once again, this panel talks about what was so special about comic books in the 1970s, starting with all the new talent that entered the field and bonded with the old talent. Discussing those days will be CHRIS CLAREMONT (X-Men, Wolverine), BOB LAYTON (Iron Man) DON McGREGOR (Black Panther, Sabre), DEAN MULLANEY (Eclipse Comics), and others. MARK EVANIER, who was writing Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo, will officiate.

Sunday, July 12 at 10:00am – 11:15am in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's been 21 years since we lost him and we still can't stop talking about the man some called The King of the Comics. Jack Kirby may have been the greatest creative talent the field has ever seen and once again, some of his friends and fans will be discussing why. This time, it's ROB LIEFELD (Youngblood), MARV WOLFMAN (Tomb of Dracula), J. DAVID SPURLOCK (Vanguard Productions) and PAUL S. LEVINE (attorney who represented Jack). Naturally, your moderator is Kirby assistant and biographer MARK EVANIER.

Sunday, July 12 at 11:30am – 12:45pm in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES 2
Another panel of experts at voicing animated characters convenes for your edification. They'll tell you what they do, show you what they do and probably fracture a fairy tale in the process. This time, we have JULIE NATHANSON (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man), BOB BERGEN (Porky Pig, Star Wars), MISTY LEE (Ultimate Spider-Man, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH), WALLY WINGERT (Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Garfield Show) and CHRIS EDGERLY (The Simpsons, Dreamworks Dragons). Hosting and directing is MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).

Sunday, July 12 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
Forget about the insides! What makes for a great cover on a comic book? This topic will be discussed and debated by some artists who've been responsible for some of the best. With KEVIN WADA (She-Hulk, Adventure Time), DAVID AJA (Hawkeye, Immortal Iron Fist), LORA INNES (The Dreamer), STEVE LIEBER (Quantam & Woody, Road to Perdition), and CHIP KIDD (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Batman: Death by Design). Your host is MARK EVANIER, and that about covers it.

Sunday, July 12 at 3:00pm – 4:30pm in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
How does one get into the business of doing cartoon voices? Well, careers have been launched by folks coming to this panel and listening to some serious free advice from people actively engaged in the process from all sides. Explaining the industry this year is PAUL DOHERTY (secretary-treasurer of the Cunningham-Escott-Slevin-Doherty Talent Agency), actors BOB BERGEN and MISTY LEE, and your moderator (and voice director/supervising producer of The Garfield Show), MARK EVANIER. Only serious students need show up.

As always, participants and times and everything is subject to change. I suggest that if you want to get into the Cartoon Voices panels or Quick Draw!, you get there well before their start times. The line may be forming at this very minute.