Monthly Archives: December 2019

I guess 2019 couldn't get the hell out of our lives without forcing me to do one more obit — two, if I had anything of note to say about Neil Innes, who was kind of like an honorary member of Monty Python, which I don't. But I have some things to share with you about Jack Sheldon.

Jack was an actor, a singer, a great jazz trumpet player and a helluva cool guy. I'm sure I'm not the only person who remembers his short-lived sitcom, Run, Buddy, Run, which was kind of like "What if we made a TV show out of Some Like It Hot but removed all the drag and most of the humor?" He acted a lot on other TV shows, as well. Jack Webb used him a lot on the seventies version of Dragnet.

Jack used to tell the story — and it won't be funny if I tell it but I won't let that stop me — of one particular time when he was booked as a day player on Dragnet. Being hired on that show meant you showed up on the set without seeing a script in advance. All the lines you had would be on a TelePrompter. When Jack arrived, he found out he was playing a guy who smoked marijuana, which was kind of like casting Andre the Giant to play a tall guy.

The episode was about a dog that the L.A.P.D. had trained to be able to sniff out weed. That much of it was true and it's on YouTube if you want to see it. The scene with Jack begins around at around 20:20 and Jack's the guy in the sweater. I'm not sure if the dog you see in the show is the actual dog but the actual dog was present on the set, accompanied by a mob scene of police officers who were using the dog to bust…well, people like Jack.

When Jack arrived and found all this out, he dashed outside the studio, found a trash can and began emptying his pockets frantically.

When he told some of us that story, he said, "I got rid of all my pot and I was picking out seeds and twigs from the lining of my pockets but it was a waste of time and pot. Even if I'd been nude, that pooch could have sniffed the stuff on me. Fortunately, the cops were cool. They didn't want to bust a guy on Jack Webb's set, especially after someone told them I was a jazz musician."

Jack was a great jazz musician and he was always popping up around Los Angeles, sometimes solo, sometimes fronting a band at the Smoke House or the Catalina Bar & Grill or the old Jax Bar & Grill in Glendale. I also sometimes saw him downtown at the Music Center and I don't mean in one of the theaters there. When he had no booking, Jack would often drive down there with his trumpet, set up on the grounds there and start playing his horn for passers-by. He had a hat out to accept tips, often from puzzled folks who said, "Isn't that the guy who's on The Merv Griffin Show all the time?"

It was. That was another place you may have known Jack from. For a long time, he played trumpet in that show's band and Merv would often bring him down to chat as a kind of sidekick. And of course, you all know Jack from his greatest, most enduring performance…

One of his biggest fans and closest friends, Chuck McCann used to drag me, not at all against my will to wherever Jack was playing. I liked that Jack always played "I'm Just a Bill" as part of his show and I really liked that he'd come sit at our table between sets and tell stories. When Chuck had a party at his home for his seventieth birthday, the place was packed with celebrities. Even Hef put in an appearance. And there, set up in the living room was the Jack Sheldon Quartet performing — and all the mingling and star-humping stopped to listen when Jack performed "I'm Just a Bill."

Someone told me Jack paid his sidemen for the night but refused to take a nickel from Chuck. When Chuck offered a check, Jack tore it to shreds and said, "Hey, man! Don't you know how to accept a present?"

My favorite moment with Jack Sheldon was at the memorial service for Pat McCormick. Pat was famous for dropping his pants in unlikely places so the end of the show went as follows: All the comedians in the audience — which included everyone from George Carlin to Shelley Berman to Jonathan Winters — got up on stage. Jack played "Taps" on his trumpet and then as he hit the final note, everyone dropped trou.

I was in charge of the seating at the event and I saved a seat in the front row for Jack and his horn. When he arrived and I started to show him to it, he said, "I need to be sitting next to a hot lady. I'm leaving if you don't put me next to a great-looking lady." I said, "Give me a minute." I did some fast rearranging and I placed a lady named Debbie Boostrom in the seat next to where Jack would be sitting. Debbie was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for its August 1981 issue and she still looked great. Jack was quite satisfied with her hotness.

It was a great, hilarious ceremony and on the way out, Jack made a point of seeking me out to thank me for the seating arrangements. He said, "You know I was kidding, don't you? I always ask that and I never get it. I play a club and the guy in charge asks what I need and I always say 'a hot babe' and I never ever get one."

I said, "Never?" He said, "Never. I'm a jazz musician, man. I can't even get them to give me a room to change my clothes where someone isn't coming in every three minutes to take a shit." I hope he has one now.

We don't like to speak ill of the dead on this blog but the dead person in this case is Don Imus, who seemed to love speaking ill of everyone, dead or alive. I was not a fan of him on the radio and even if I'd wanted to be, most of his career was spent in marketplaces that did not include Los Angeles.

I first became aware of him in the early seventies because he had comedy albums out and they had Jack Davis covers. To this day, I'd buy a box of tampons if it had a Jack Davis drawing on the box, and back then, I was buying every comedy album I came across. I especially bought them when I found a copy in the 3-for-a-dollar bin at the old Rhino Records shop in Westwood, as I did with the above record. I took it home, listened and decided I'd overpaid. Imus struck me as a much-less-clever version (possibly, imitation) of my local radio fave, "Sweet" Dick Whittington on KABC and later other L.A. channels.

What I heard of him on that record and elsewhere, did not strike me as witty or funny. It just seemed sour. A lot of it was phone pranks and I'm not sure there's a lower form of anything that pretends to be humor than phone pranks. I can't recall laughing at anything in the second half of my life-to-date that could be described as a "prank." Usually, it's just being a colossal dick to someone and then onlookers are supposed to find the discomfort of the victim funny. I almost never do.

Mr. Imus was off my radar for a long time but about twenty years ago, my mother (of all people) became a steady viewer of his morning radio show as televised on MSNBC. She didn't like him — which was fortunate because I would have thought she'd gone senile…but she liked his program. This requires some explanation.

After my father died, my mother began to live her life only for herself. She would eat when she felt like it, sleep when she felt like it…and that was about it because her eyes were too bad to read or knit or watch much of what was on TV. Except when she had to be up at certain hours for doctor appointments (she had plenty of those) and caregiver visits, she might just sleep all day, be up all night and eat breakfast at Midnight and/or Dinner at 6 AM. She was often up at 4 AM or 5 AM or whenever Imus was on MSNBC so she'd tune him for four reasons…

One was that it was live and it wasn't a news program. News was too depressing and in those wee small hours, she craved a little company. Secondly, his guest list included a lot of people she liked. Thirdly, it was a radio show. They pointed cameras at Imus and his guests and put the video on MSNBC but if you couldn't see the TV screen, you weren't really missing anything. And lastly, she was fascinated by the relentless negativity of Mr. Don Imus. She said, "I think I only watch to see if anyone can get a kind word out of that awful man." She said every now and then, someone could.

But for the most part, she said, "He thinks his job is to say something mean about everyone and everything." She didn't take it seriously because, well, if you come at the world like that, your opinion of any person, place or thing is pretty worthless. Of course you don't like it. You don't think you're allowed to like it.

When she said that, it rang a bell with me. I got to thinking about a number of stand-up comedians I've seen and even a few I've known. They think it's their job to say something mean about everyone and everything. If you say, "Pass the salt," they think they have to make a smartass remark about people who ask you to pass the salt. If you say you like banana bread or shoelaces, they have to say something pissy about banana bread or shoelaces. It's not a viewpoint on the world. It's a bit.

And there's often a market for that bit. Don Imus certainly had a long and lucrative career and I think a lot of people we see on TV are not expressing honest opinions. They're like Rip Taylor throwing confetti or Soupy Sales getting hit with pies. They're doing a bit that's made them a lot of money. They're giving their audience what it wants.

About the only nice thing I can say about Don Imus on the event of his passing is that he gave my mother a lot of pleasant hours. She really enjoyed not liking the man.

When you have a moment, read this true (apparently) story by Nancy French about her impulsive marriage to a "rank stranger." There's a lesson in it but it might not be the one you see coming.

A very partial rundown of things that pissed off Lewis Black in the year now ending…

In 1934, Stan Laurel and Oliver "Babe" Hardy appeared in a movie that is now known under two titles — Babes in Toyland and March of the Wooden Soldiers. By any name, it's a wonderful film…and one which is well-remembered and often shown around Christmas time. If you have the slightest interest in it, you'll want to visit this website where Laurel and Hardy buff Ray Faiola has compiled just about everything you'd ever want to know about it.

Since I didn't know Jerry Herman, I thought it would be nice to have something on this blog from someone who did. My pal Christine Pedi is an accomplished stage performer, a host on the Broadway channel at Sirius XM radio and the best Liza Minnelli impersonator in the business. After I read this on Facebook the other day, I called her up and got her permission to post it here…

I met Jerry Herman at a press event when I was a teenager. I asked if I could interview him for my school radio station and he gave me his home phone number without hesitation. When I called to make the appointment, he said we could either do the interview at his house or at the rehearsal for La Cage Au Folles which was about to open at the Palace. He was fitting me in after a meeting with the costume designer. I opted for the rehearsal space.

There in the room where he held his meetings were sketches on the walls of Theoni Aldredge's dazzling concoctions. Jerry was impeccably dressed…casual sweater and slacks but I was willing to bet everything was made of cashmere. He was a delightful, vivacious, darling who treated me and my Swingline cassette recorder as if I were someone from the New York Times. He was exactly the life force that I had hoped he would be. He was like his songs…life affirming.

Let's not put him in a box. though. He could give voice to complex, dark, deep internal feelings just as successfully and did often…but those anthems to the "live" mantra of Auntie Mame or Dolly Levi or Zaza were scene stealers. We're all fine with that because we know that this sparkly spring of enthusiasm and joy also ran deep when he had to.

I honestly can't recall much more from the interview (which is on a cassette tape somewhere in my Mother's attic) except that at some point an assistant came in with the most civilized lunch I'd ever seen…and come to think of it, now that I've been in more rehearsal rooms than I can count, it remains the most civilized lunch I've ever seen. A piece of roasted chicken, golden brown with some healthy greens (there might have been carrots…I suspect there were, they would have balanced the color) served on an actual china plate with silverware and a cloth napkin! That's how you dine when you're in head to toe cashmere.

A few years later, I got my first lead in a community theatre show. I was Mabel in Mack & Mabel. I can't recall exactly what it was but I called him with a question we had about the show. It was licensed for the "provinces" with a different ending than on Broadway. When he picked up the phone and I told him I was doing Mack & Mabel, his voice leapt up. "Oh, Christine! You're doing Mack & Mabel! How wonderful. Who's playing Mack?"

I paused. "Well…Jeff Schlotman?" (Did he expect to know him?) With no dip in energy, he said "Oh, please tell Jeff…" and then he went on to tell me about the B'way production and how they "loved her, hated him" and it was so dark. (The real Mabel came to a very sad and pathetic end.) But the licensed production had Mack fantasizing about how their lives would end if he could turn it into a silent film comedy complete with Bathing Beauty bridesmaids and Keystone Kops as groomsmen. Jerry was, again, investing as much importance in what I was doing in a high school auditorium as he would if he were talking to…Bernadette Peters? Well, it sure felt like that to me. Just total authentic interest and support and passion for what we were doing.

When it came to writing for the theatre, Jerry Herman could really do it all. He did indeed paint with many colors but his brights were so masterful, so convincing, we tend to want to follow that light. Of course we do. It's instinct to respond positively when encouraged to fan our inner flame. His anthems ignite that in us. He led with joy. He led with heart. He led with hope. That's the first thing we remember…no. it's the first thing we feel when we think of Jerry Herman.

So as we turn into a new year and decade, we make our plans and create our expectations.  But really, "the best of times is now.  This very minute has history in it.  It's today!"

I was with Jerry Herman exactly once for about eight minutes and it was just a few years ago when he was clearly not going to be around that much longer. He seemed very small, very nervous and when I told him — honestly — how much I admired his songwriting, he acted like I was the first person to ever tell him that instead of (conservative estimate:) the one-zillionth.

This is not one of those "obit" messages like people post on Facebook where the subtext is "the deceased was a wonderful, talented, successful person and I must have been somewhere in the same category because we were close friends and he loved me so." I really didn't know the man.

I would have liked to have known him; would have liked to discuss how he came up with so many tingle-inducing musical highlights in shows like Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Mack and Mabel and La Cage Aux Folles. There was something so natural and organic about his tunes. What's more, he did his best work — arguably in those four musicals — in shows where you really don't care a whole lot about the book. Next time I attend a production of one, if they announce "We're going to skip all that talking and just do the songs," it'll be fine with me.

Here — I'll show you what I mean. Watch this video from a BBC Proms concert. It's the title song from Mame and it just might be the best first-act-closer number in the history of musical theater. Ignore the male soloist who didn't hold the lyrics in his hand and as a result, got some of the words wrong. Just listen to the excitement and the way the number builds and builds…and it's so great, it doesn't matter that in the story, there's absolutely no reason for anyone to make this kind of musical fuss over Ms. Mame Dennis…

There's also no reason for the waiters at the Harmonia Gardens to do all that singing and dancing to celebrate the return of Ms. Dolly Levi but who cares? The fact that Jerry Herman wrote a great song is reason enough.

During my eight minutes with him, he said nothing quotable, nothing worthy of reporting here. What I thought might be worthy of reporting though was how pleased he was that I, a total stranger, was honored to meet him. Again, he acted like it was something new in his life when it must have been, at least, a thrice-daily occurrence.

There's a strange kind of humility I've witnessed at times in people of extraordinary accomplishment. If you have six Tony Awards, a couple of Grammies, the Kennedy Center honor and all those rave reviews and box office records — as he did — you can't very well act like you've done nothing. That kind of modesty seems really, really phony…because it is.

You also can't say, "You're right, I'm great" because that's pretty dickish. You might think it but you can't say it. Mr. Herman gave no indication that that's what he was thinking.

What he did was what I love to see. I love it when the person seems personally moved that someone — and a complete stranger might be better than an acquaintance for this — took the time to tell them how much their work had meant to someone else's life. It's certainly better that it comes from a person with no conceivable personal motive for buttering them up…praising them because something is wanted in return.

So I'm very pleased that I got to be among the zillion who met the man and thanked him and gave back a itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny microscopic smidgen of the joy his compositions have brought to the world. They'll continue to bring joy to the world and I hope he understood that. Because now there's no way for anyone else to remind him.

Here's a nice rendition of Tom Lehrer's season-appropriate tune, visualized by John Stroud using the original recording by Mr. Lehrer…

If you didn't already read the first part of this, go read the first part of this before you read this part of this.

Now then. This happened one day when we were just beginning to produce The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years. Lee and I met for lunch and planning, then at 2 PM, we went to the big black-and-white CBS building at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax. This is where the main West Coast offices for the network were located. They still are…I think. Some of that has been moved elsewhere with the rest to follow.

We had a meeting with the Vice-President in charge of specials at CBS, who was at the time, Fred Rappoport. Fred was, and I'm sure still is, a nice, bright guy who knows his business well. He no longer has that post and I'm not sure anyone does since networks like CBS do very few specials these days. We had a very pleasant, constructive meeting with Fred, discussing what would be in the special and what would not. People who've never been in network meetings think of them as some sort of Executive Thunderdome with arguing and powerful people in suits flexing their muscles and barking orders, many of them foolish in the extreme. If my experience is typical — and few of mine anywhere are — they're almost never like that.

This one certainly was not. We liked Fred. He liked us. He had some good suggestions and he made sure it was understood that they were suggestions, not demands. He made clear that he trusted Lee to deliver a good show…and why shouldn't he assume that? Lee had been producing specials for CBS for more than thirty years, several of them among the most highly-rated programs ever to grace the network. He had numerous Peabody Awards and twelve Emmy Awards…and perhaps more impressive, he would wind up with a lifetime total of 46 Emmy Nominations.

(Brief Detour: Lee once told me that he was once trying to sell a documentary to a buyer who was not Fred Rappoport. He told the man, "My company has received 46 Emmy nominations and we've won twelve times." The buyer scowled a bit and according to Lee, said the following in dead seriousness. He said, "I don't know that we can trust a company that's lost that many times!" And the funnier part of that is that many times when a Lee Mendelson Production was nominated and lost, that's because it was beaten by another Lee Mendelson Production that was nominated in the same category.)

Back to our story — and I'm telling you this because I want you to understand what Lee meant to CBS at this time. There may have been no producer who had such a long, successful career with them. He'd outlasted hundreds of executives there in that 30+ years. He got along with everyone. He was liked and respected by everyone.

On our way out, Lee asked me if we could stop off for a few minutes down in the Business Affairs department. He said, "We haven't settled yet on what they're going to pay us to do this thing." I said that was fine with me and a few minutes later, we were in the office of a gentleman who negotiated such arrangements for the network. I do not recall this man's name so we'll call him Sammy. Sammy welcomed Lee warmly and shook my hand with gusto. There was friendly small talk which ended abruptly with this exchange…

Sammy said, "So, Lee my friend. Have you given any thought to how much you'll need to do this special?"

Lee put down the little briefcase he'd been carrying. He responded, "Well, Sammy, I ran some numbers and I think the right price is going to have to be $550,000." And with that, the mood in the room changed. Horribly so.

Sammy looked aghast, like Lee had just asked for seventy quadrillion dollars plus complete ownership of the Columbia Broadcasting System. "You're not serious," he insisted.

Lee said he was. "Five-fifty…I could maybe get it down to five-thirty…"

Sammy was almost shouting now. "Five-thirty? There's no way on God's green earth I could possibly…do you have any idea? Any idea at all how these specials are running these days?"

Lee said yes, sure. And it was at this point that Sammy began murdering his children…

'Lee, for God's sake! If you were holding a gun to my daughter's head, I couldn't give you a cent over $320! If you held a knife to my son's throat…"

"Sammy, I know what you paid for that Michele Lee special last month…"

"That was special. That was Michele Lee. She was on Knot's Landing for us all those years. If I stole from some other show's budget, I could maybe get your number up to $350,000 but not a penny more. If you had my daughter tied to a railroad track and you were going to run over her with a train…"

On and on, this went. Back and forth with Sammy ticking off increasingly-graphic ways to murder his children and occasionally coming up a bit in his offer, and Lee coming down a few nickels…

I sat there, somewhat aghast, as Sammy finally declared the show was off. There was no way in the world he could authorize the kind of money Lee was demanding, not even if his youngest one had just taken poison and Lee held the only antidote in the world…

Or if his son was dangling off a mile-high cliff and Lee was prying the lad's fingers off his last handhold before the kid plunged to his death…

Finally, Sammy said, "This conversation is over. If you were pointing a cannon at my baby daughter's heart and the fuse was burning, I could not give you one penny over $375,000. That's my final offer, take it or leave it! Even if you were strangling my son and he was about to breathe his last, that's it!"

Lee said, "If I really pushed and cut corners, there's a chance I could do it for $410,000."

Sammy said, "Deal!" He leaped to his feet, reached across the desk to shake Lee's hand and asked, "So, are you getting season tickets for the Lakers next year?"

There was a little more friendly chatter and then Lee looked at his watch and said, "Whoops! Gotta go!" The two men hugged and Lee and I made it as far as the elevator before we were alone enough that I dared speak. I said, "I can't believe he put you through all that! And all that stuff about killing his son, killing his daughter…"

Lee made a face like I was making a big fuss over nothing. "Oh, that's Sammy. We go through that on every show. He's a good guy."

I said, "Yeah, but you thought we needed $550,000 to do the show right. What's it going to be like if you have to do it for $410,000?"

"Fine," Lee said. And he pulled out a paper he had in the little briefcase he was carrying. It was a budget for the special and he pointed to the bottom line. It said, "$410,000."

"It's just a game you have to play," he said. "I always know where we're going to end up. And so does Sammy."

That's the kind of thing a producer has to do. Lee was one of the best who ever lived.

Phil Roman is one of the most important folks in animation in the last half-century, animating on many respected projects before launching his own studio, Film Roman. Many of the projects I worked on with Lee Mendelson were animated (and animated well) by Phil's studio, and so have an awful lot of popular shows involving neither Lee nor Yours Truly.

Phil's studio succeeded in part because of the support and patronage he got from Lee and the day after Lee passed, Phil posted this remembrance on Facebook. I got his permission to repost it here…and note where Phil says, "Lee was the most fair and honest person I ever met." Told ya so…

I woke up this morning to learn that Lee Mendelson, a very dear friend, passed away on December 25th.

Lee was very instrumental in helping me establish Film Roman after I left Bill Melendez Productions, where I had been directing the Charlie Brown specials as well as two Garfield specials.

Around October, 1983, I had decided to leave Bill Melendez and to open my own studio. I had always dreamed of having my own studio and decided that if I didn't make the move at that time, I probably never would. I would rather try and fail than not try at all. I talked to Bill Melendez, explained how I felt and gave him a two week notice that I was leaving.

Towards the end of my last week, Lee Mendelson flew in from Northern California and walked into my office. He said "I hear you are leaving the studio." I explained that I was going to open my own studio and give it a shot. He asked me whether I had any projects and I replied I would concentrate on that after I left. He said, "How would you like to do Garfield?" I replied: "But Bill is producing Garfield." He said that Sparky was not very happy with Bill doing Garfield and wanted him to concentrate fully on Peanuts.

So I said I definitely would be interested as I enjoyed working on Garfield with Jim Davis. I told him that I would be going to a vacation to Europe with my wife for three weeks. He told me to go on vacation and meanwhile he would talk to the network, the syndicate, and Jim Davis. He said to call him when I came back. We left it at that.

When I returned from our vacation, I called Lee and he told me that everybody had approved, that I should find some office space and work up a budget and schedule, as Jim Davis was already working on a new storyboard for the next Garfield special.

In the first week of January, 1984, I opened a small studio in Toluca Lake with a couple of employees. Within a month we started production of Garfield in the Rough with freelance animators we had used in the Peanuts shows. Lee's confidence in me paid off as I delivered the show on budget, on schedule, and it won an Emmy. Everybody was very happy and we continued producing Garfield specials.

I found working with Lee was a very pleasant experience. He had great work ethics and a good humor. Without him, who knows what Film Roman would have been. He played such an important role in my life and will be terribly missed.

Lee also deserves credit for partnering with two animation producers, Bill Melendez and I, both Mexican-Americans. He judged us not for our ethnicity but for our ability to deliver quality animation. All the shows that Bill and I produced were the highest-rated in their time slots and almost every show was nominated for an Emmy. Lee was the most fair and honest person I ever met. A big contrast to some of the Hollywood egos.

I always remember Lee warmly for the risk he took in helping me establish myself as a producer. All the gains the studio made, are directly attributable to his taking a chance on me. R.I.P.

Tomorrow will be Jerry Herman Day here at newsfromme.com. Today, our attention is on the late Lee Mendelson.

Here's a nice rendition of Tom Lehrer's season-appropriate tune, performed by the New Jersey Cantors Assembly Ensemble…

Here's a nice rendition of Tom Lehrer's season-appropriate tune, performed by Quire Cleveland. I was sure I posted this yesterday but apparently some sort of antisemitic software glitch deleted it after a few minutes…

Like all Republicans in public office — and especially Republicans in public office who are fabulously wealthy or expect to be when they leave office — Donald Trump loves cutting taxes for the rich and for large corporations. As Kevin Drum notes, this has nothing to do with helping the American economy. This kind of politician just loves cutting taxes for the rich and for large corporations.

And as Drum further notes, the kind of things Trump does that are intended to nurture the economy fall into two categories: Things Democrats would do and things only Donald Trump would do. He does not do things other Republican leaders would do. It seems to me that the items in the "only Trump would do" group are mostly to appear "tough" and/or to punish those who do not show him the proper respect. Read Drum and read the article he links to.

There are a number of obits up on all the major news sites about Lee Mendelson. They get his career mostly right but some had a little problem with the longevity of the main show I worked with him on, Garfield and Friends.

CNN says he did "over 100 episodes," which is only technically correct. Variety and People both said the show lasted from 1991 to 1994. CBR.com, which lately is vying with Donald Trump for erroneous statements, says Lee "executive produced 64 episodes of Garfield and Friends."

The Los Angeles Times didn't mention the series at all and TMZ did but didn't say how many episodes there were. With their usual flair for accuracy though, TMZ did run what they thought were two photos of Lee. One was and the other was of his partner, Bill Melendez.

The correct answer is that Garfield and Friends was on for seven years and 121 episodes, and Lee Mendelson was an Executive Producer on all of them.

But that's not the story I want to tell you here. The story I want to tell you here is about some specials that Lee did — hour-long prime-time specials that celebrated newspaper comic strips. They featured historical lessons about the form, interviews with cartoonists, musical numbers about comic strips and the last two of these specials even animated sequences of some newspaper strips that had never been animated before.

The first was called The Fabulous Funnies and it ran on NBC on 2/11/68. A description of it that I just stole off the website of Lee Mendelson Film Productions said…

Produced for NBC-TV network broadcast in cooperation with the National Cartoonists Society. The Fabulous Funnies is a one hour special on the history of the comic strip in America. It features some of the country's greatest cartoonists and their creations, from Barney Google to Dick Tracy. Hosted by Carl Reiner, the program also shows the artists at work, their characters animated, and a medley of songs from the comics performed by the Doodletown Pipers. The show is a unique combination of animation and live Action with a musical score by John Scott Trotter.

The ratings were huge and the folks at CBS, for whom Lee was producing the Charlie Brown specials, said to him, "Why didn't you offer that special to us?" Lee replied, "I did. You didn't think it would do very well and passed so I sold it to NBC. The folks at CBS said, "Well…we want the next one." It wasn't until 1980 that Lee did the next one, which was called The Fantastic Funnies and, yes, it was on CBS. According to that same website…

This 60 minute television special is a tribute to the history of the comic strip. Loni Anderson hosts with interviews of the 14 most famous cartoonists. The show features animation of all the famous comic strips along with a number of musical segments and a comedy sketch by Howard Hesseman. Music by Ed Bogas and Judy Munsen.

There were several newly-produced segments animating then-new newspaper strips that had never been animated before, including Garfield The reaction to just a few minutes of the lasagna-eating cat in that special led to a second series of award-winning animated specials for Lee.

CBS also wanted another "Funnies" special but he was busy, plus he felt — even if the network didn't — that a TV special saluting comic strips was the kind of idea that would only work about once a decade or so. He put it off and put it off and eventually decided to just wait until he could make the next one about the 100th anniversary of newspaper strips.

Exactly what year that anniversary would be is a bit arguable depending on what cartoon-in-print you believe qualifies as the first comic strip. I have seen scholars of the form almost come to blows about it. Lee decided the first was something-or-other in 1897 so in 1997, he produced The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years and he asked me to write it and co-produce with him. Quoth the website…

Using comic characters as hosts, this show celebrates 100 years of comic strips in America. From "Orphan Annie" and "Blondie" to "Peanuts" and "Shoe," cartoonists share the ideas and inspiration behind the creation of their comic strips. Cartoonists include: Chic Young (Blondie); Al Capp (L'il Abner); Dale Messick (Brenda Starr); Lynn Johnston (For Better or Worse); and Cathy Guisewite (Cathy).

Do you remember that show? If you think you did, you're wrong. It never aired. CBS paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, we produced it and delivered it and they said, "Great job! We'll find a spot on the schedule for it!" and then never found one. It was during a period when the three major networks aired very few specials and the ones that did get on had to be really, really important…like Emmy Awards important. They'd discovered that if a weekly series had a loyal following and you pre-empted it one week, not all of that loyal following remained loyal enough to not be following some other show the following week.

It had not always been like that but in and around 1997, that was the way audiences were behaving. Or at least that was Conventional Wisdom at the networks at the time.

The broadcast of The Fabulous Funnies: The First 100 Years was delayed and delayed, and at one point there was some discussion of us going back and redoing some narration to change "This year is the 100th anniversary of comic strips" to "Last year was the 100th anniversary of comic strips." Lee also thought about maybe picking something in 1898 to declare as the first newspaper strip so he could keep "The First 100 Years" in the title. Finally though, they decided they were never going to air it and that's why you've never seen it. Since you probably never will, I'll tell you a few things about it…

There was no live host. One fourth of it was hosted by Charlie Brown, one fourth by Mother Goose and Grimm, one fourth by Cathy (from Cathy Guisewite's strip of the same name) and one fourth by Momma (from Mell Lazarus's strip) — all animated. June Foray, by the way, did the voice of Momma. There were also freshly-produced segments wherein some relatively new strips were animated for the first time, including Ernie by Bud Grace and Jump Start by Robb Armstrong.

There were interviews of cartoonists — some newly-recorded, others pulled from previous specials or Lee's film archives. I did some traveling for it and interviewed Charles Schulz up in Santa Rosa, Stan Lee and Mike Peters back here, Robb Armstrong in New York, and a few others. Yes, I know Stan Lee was not a cartoonist. We cribbed a musical number from the 1968 special and it was a pretty nice end product if I do say so myself. Since I'm one of the few people alive who saw it, I have to say so myself.

Still, my most positive memory of it was working more closely with Lee than I had on other projects. He had that rare, wonderful ability that you don't always find in producers. He knew how to be there when he was needed and how to leave the other folks working on the show alone when he wasn't needed and on Garfield, he'd left me pretty much alone. It was while putting this project together than I really began to appreciate how good he was at producing television shows and I learned a number of things that I wish I'd learned a decade or two earlier. I'll tell you about all that in Part 2 tomorrow.

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