Monthly Archives: August 2023

Here on newsfromme, we love a cappella singing and one of our favorite groups is VoicePlay. Here are they with a medley from The Little Mermaid…

Whenever Trump-prone acquaintances tried to convince me that there was "massive evidence" that the 2020 election was stolen, they'd cite those two black ladies in Georgia that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump said had been caught stuffing or altering ballots. Well, Mr. Giuliani just lost a huge defamation suit that those two black ladies filed against him.

Best wishes to all whose lives are being affected by Hurricane Idalia. How many more unprecedented weather disasters do we have to have to convince some people this country needs to do more to combat Climate Change? And that even if we can't change the weather, we need to do more for disaster preparedness?

My piece on Bob Barker brought two e-mails from folks who said, in effect, "He was very nice to me the one time I met him" and a number from folks who worked at CBS who did not like working around him. I was not suggesting that my brief encounter with the man — which lasted well under a minute — was evidence that he was always like that. You should never judge a person by a one or two-minute encounter unless, for example, they use that time to shoot someone.

An anecdote like mine may be just an anecdote and not an overview of an entire, complex human being. I know of prominent folks who I consider treacherous or just plain evil…but they can still be charming and polite for a minute or three, especially if you represent to them a gushing admirer who is in no way a threat to them. Pick whoever you think has to be the worst person who ever lived and insert their name into this sentence: "Even __________ could be a great guy (or gal) for 180 seconds." And of course, the inverse is also true.

I also heard from many who, like me, felt a certain insincerity in Mr. Barker's on-camera persona. That's fairer game for criticism. I just felt he had a little too much delight in himself and a tendency at times to treat contestants like they were fools placed on this Earth for the amusement of others. And I'm probably overreacting because all those folks who won refrigerators and other goodies on The Price is Right when he was hosting probably thought their moments onstage with him were the greatest moments of their lives.

I have writing which must be completed before I sleep tonight. So there may not be much posting here until it's done.

P.S. AFTERTHOUGHT, added after I posted the above: Yes, I understand that Giuliani didn't clearly admit that he had lied about the two ladies in Georgia. He tried at one point to simultaneously admit it and not admit it via some stipulation that the judge decided was gibberish. The point is that he forfeited the case rather than go to trial and defend his remarks. Now back to that deadline…

This is Your Life was a popular show broadcast on NBC radio from 1948 to 1952 and then it moved to NBC television where it ran until 1961 with several short-lived revivals here and there thereafter. Ralph Edwards was the host while it was on NBC and the producer of its later incarnations. Each week, the show would "surprise" a theoretically-unsuspecting celebrity and for a half-hour, the host would run down the celebrity's biography and bring out significant people from his or her past.

You may or may not have ever seen an episode of the program but you've probably seen the spoof that was done of it on Your Show of Shows in 1954. Carl Reiner played Ralph Edwards' part, Sid Caesar played the ambushed celebrity and Howard Morris stole the whole damn skit as Uncle Goopy. I've posted this before here and I'll post it again. It really was one of the funniest sketches ever done on television.

At Howie's funeral in 2005 — has it been that long?  I guess it has — they opened the proceedings by showing this sketch.  Everyone in the room was hysterical with laughter and the man seated directly in front of me was laughing so hard he was crying.  The man seated directly in front of me was Carl Reiner…

Not long after this sketch first aired, Your Show of Shows was carved up into a couple of different programs. Sid Caesar went off to do Caesar's Hour from later in '54 until 1957 and Reiner went with him. When that show went off, Carl went over to become head writer and frequent on-camera guest on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. As you will see in the video below, in one episode he joked about how he wanted to be a "principal subject" (as Ralph Edwards called them) on This is Your Life and a week or so after — on March 23, 1960 — that happened when Carl was so surprised…

…except that he wasn't. As you watch the video of that episode, know that Reiner later admitted that he knew in advance about it and only feigned shock and surprise. I've always been skeptical that all those celebrities were really and truly unaware that they were suddenly going to be dragged into an unagreed-to appearance on live television that would include meeting up with folks from their past. Edwards always maintained that with one admitted exception, they never informed the principal subject in advance….and that's probably true.

But I think they counted on the subject's agent and/or family telling the person…at least some of the time. The alleged surprise couldn't have been arranged without their involvement and some celebrities might not have wanted to do it at all. In one of the later revivals, Angie Dickinson flatly refused to participate and the whole taping — for which folks in her past had flown to Hollywood — was called off. Since it was a taping, as was by then standard, it could be called-off…but what if that had happened in the fifties when the show was done on live television?

And some of the stars who did want to go through with it might have wanted to make sure certain acquaintances from their past weren't brought on or that certain facts of their lives weren't mentioned. They might have wanted to be prepped and ready for the appearance. Not everyone in this world likes surprises. It also wouldn't surprise me to learn that some stars told their agents, "Try to arrange for me to be 'surprised' on This is Your Life" or "If This is Your Life ever wants to do me, you'd better tell me in advance."

I don't remember exactly how Carl Reiner found out…and the bit you'll see of him on Dinah's show the week before sure looks like he was trying to encourage it. But as you watch this if you watch it, keep in mind that he knew. Also: If you're a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show, you'll notice some names of people and places that later turned up on the Van Dyke program. One of Carl's close friends who appears was named Joe Coogan and a few years later, Laura Petrie had an old boy friend named Joe Coogan who had turned to the priesthood…

Joe Frank sent me this today…

Do you really get comments that too much of your blog is Kirby-oriented? To me, you don't "talk about Jack constantly" enough.

I got to chat with him in his later years but that, while a privilege, has a downside. I wasn't smart enough, when he was around, to inquire how he'd have tied up New Gods, OMAC and The Eternals. I was too laser-focused on the Fantastic Four.

That brings me to my question. You were around him for almost a quarter century. Were their any questions that now, in retrospect, you wish you'd have asked him?

Well, I wasn't around him for quarter of a century. From the time I met him until we lost him was 25 years but in the last decade or so, I saw him a couple times a year. I wish it had been more often because it was always educational and enlightening…and even if Jack got off a conversational journey that didn't interest me at first, it always did before long. I didn't feel this way when I was younger but now that I'm older, I wish we'd talked less about comics and more about his view of the entire world.

A lot of my views came not because I was accepting or rejecting some conclusion Jack had reached but because he asked questions and tossed out possibilities, thereby allowing the listener to make up his or her own mind. He just had ways of looking at people and at circumstances in a unique way…a way that no one else could have come up with. There were also things that Jack said to me that I didn't understand at the time and I think — note the emphasis indicating I'm not 100% certain — I understand now but I'd like to make sure.

But no, I can't think of anything I wish I'd asked him about comics. And if I'd asked him how he'd have tied up New Gods, OMAC and The Eternals, that might not have told me how any of those would have happened. I'm sure Jack would have given me answers but then when he got around to doing those issues, even if he'd done them the next day, he might have done something altogether different. That was one of the mind-boggling things about the man — the way he created story and art as a single act and was always revising what he did to replace good ideas with better ones.

He had an amazing brain and I'm glad I got to tap into it as much as I did. It would be sheer greed to long for more.

I believe I am the only person alive — and one of the few who ever lived — who worked for both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I liked both of them but I was sometimes disappointed in Stan for, to put it bluntly, taking credit for things that others did. Jack never disappointed me in any way and I believe he was the major creative force behind the Lee-Kirby creations. Even Stan would sometimes admit that, though not in print or anywhere it could be heard by those who might keep him employed or negotiate his future contracts.

Jack, who was born this day in 1917, was the greatest creative force in comic books…or at least the kind of comic books he did. And the kind of comic books he did turned out to be the kind of comic books most people did, following the influence of Jack and often working on characters and concepts that began with him. That influence was not just confined to super-heroes. When I walk around a comic book convention these days, I see Kirby everywhere — not just books he started or the way he drew anatomy but his whole approach to design and storytelling and infusing energy into any kind of creative work.

He was also an amazingly nice and ethical man as well as being the hardest worker I've ever known. He could have made way more money in comics if he'd spent less time drawing a page and less time thinking about what could appear on that page that would thrill readers and boost sales for his publishers. He was not always paid or credited for that extra effort but "knocking it out" would not have taken comics to the next level and that's what Jack was all about: Taking things to the next level. When I hear someone say, "Well, I liked the way Someone Else drew the Silver Surfer better," I think, "This person is missing the whole point of Jack Kirby." Jack didn't just draw the Silver Surfer.

If it sounds to some of you like I talk about Jack constantly, that might be because I do. I certainly think about him every day. He had that kind of impact on my life as he did on so many others, including many who never had the honor of meeting him. But the work sure endures. Even comics he did that were proclaimed failures at the time are in their umpteenth printing, often with the kind of fancy reproduction and binding that Jack predicted would happen. He really was an extraordinary man.

Simone Biles — doing what she does best…

"Don't Kill Your Friends" is a 1943 Navy training film starring Huntz Hall. Not killing your friends can be very good advice depending, of course, on who your friends are.

In 1943, Huntz Hall had stopped appearing in Dead End Kids comedies and had begun appearing in East Side Kids comedies. He was a pretty reliable comedy talent who appeared in an awful lot of films and TV shows during a career that stretched from 1937 to 1993.

The Internet Movie Database and the fellow who uploaded this video to YouTube identify the uncredited narrator of this film as Daws Butler, the great cartoon voice actor and one of the nicest men it was ever my pleasure to know. They're wrong. I dunno who the narrator was but it ain't Daws, who didn't really get started in voiceover until he moved to Hollywood in 1948.

In '43 when this film was made, Daws was in the Navy but like I said, that ain't him. I've had very little luck correcting the IMDB over the years but if some reader of this site is better at it than I am, please let them know…

Here is the problem I have with so many people who quote The Bible in support of some political cause: They often aren't quoting The Bible. At best, they're finding some phrase they can spin as inarguable support of their beliefs and if you disagree with that spin…why, you're arguing with God, for God's sake!

And sometimes, they just fabricate the line they wish was in The Bible. The book says nothing about abortion and there are no lines that can be quoted to say it's forbidden. That, however, doesn't stop men like Mike Pence from making one up.

I'm fascinated by how the phrase "fake electors" is even being used by those who are claiming no laws were broken. This is from the Fox News website…

Fake electors met in Wisconsin and six other battleground states where Trump was defeated in 2020, attempting to cast ballots for the former president even though he lost. Republicans who participated in Wisconsin said they were trying to preserve Trump's legal standing in case courts overturned his defeat.

How could someone be a "fake elector" without breaking some law? You could be an "alternate elector," I suppose though in this case, there doesn't seem to have been any formal, official way of becoming one. Each of the seven states designated a slate of real electors. A "fake elector" is by definition "fake."

By now, you've no doubt heard of the passing of actress Arleen Sorkin at the age of 67. She was best known as the first voice — and in a way, model — for the popular character Harley Quinn who debuted in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992, the creation of my pals Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. Arleen was also known for her role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives and for her work as a writer and comedy improv performer. Her closest friends seem to have all been aware of her recent struggles with the lung cancer that took her life.

"Her closest friends" did not include me. I met and talked with Arleen on several occasions but never for very long and not in recent years. She seemed charming and funny and witty and that, I'm afraid, is the extent of my in-person observations. Those closest friends of hers all loved her dearly and, like all her many fans, are saddened by the loss.

I'll get my one Bob Barker story out of the way first: It was I-don't-know-how-long-ago-it-was…maybe not even in this century. It was after January of 1983. I was at a car wash that is no longer on Highland Avenue in Hollywood, a few blocks south of Sunset. My car had just gone through the gantlet of sudsers and sprayers and it was now out in the area where a bunch of sweaty, underpaid men dried it off with blue cloths.

Bob Barker's car — which was bigger and more expensive than mine, of course — had gone through the same process and was next to mine, being dried off by other sweaty, underpaid men with blue cloths. Bob Barker in casual sportswear was standing next to me, watching them dry his car, waiting for them to be done with it. I recognized him and felt I oughta say something to him. So I said, "You know, they don't like it when you tip them with Plinko chips."

I was hoping for a laugh…or at least a smile. Instead, I got a look that clearly said, "Why are you talking to me?" And without uttering a syllable in my direction, he turned away, waited until they signaled his car was done and then he walked over, handed a sweaty, underpaid man a buck or two and drove off.

That's my Bob Barker story and it had to be after January of '83 because that's when they introduced Plinko to America's longest-running and still-on-the-air game show. I was kind of a fan of The Price is Right for a while, not so much of its host but I sometimes enjoyed watching that well-oiled machine operate. As I wrote here once before, "If that show had never existed and you walked into a network today and pitched it, describing what they are able to accomplish taping two a day, you'd be told it was utterly impossible to mount a show that gives away so many prizes and that it would take three days to tape one hour of what you're describing."

As you may have heard, The Price is Right has left Stage 33 (aka "The Bob Barker Stage") at CBS Television City in Hollywood and is presently relocating to a new facility in Glendale. It was amazing that they could do it at all at CBS but especially in a studio that was not built for that kind of show and where there was little room to house all the cars and living room sets and boats they had on display each tape date. A few times, I got to prowl around backstage and was impressed by how terrific the stage crew was. I also couldn't help but note how terrified they seemed to be of doing even the teensiest thing that might upset Mr. Barker.

My pal Stu Shostak and I have an occasional (but friendly) argument based on my belief that what Bob Barker did hosting that show forever (it felt) was impressive but nowhere near as impressive as what, say, Johnny Carson or even Jay Leno or David Letterman did. Talk show hosts have to do all-new shows with mostly-new material on a daily basis. Game show hosts go out and do essentially the same show over and over and over. Even that's not the easiest thing in the world but being on so long is a matter of endurance, not creativity. In a sense, Barker's job was to not "keep it fresh," just reliable.

And yes, I think Drew Carey is just as good in the job…maybe a little better because he understands that the games and the contestants are the stars of the show, not the guy with the microphone. Barker, especially in his later years, had a little too much self-adoration for me. There was also the fact that my favorite models on the show all went away suing Bob and/or the program.

I respected the endurance. It takes a certain talent to do anything for that long…and I also admired him for his stands on Animal Rights. But I guess I never really liked him that much. Then again, I may be projecting from his previous long-running game show, Truth or Consequences, which I thought was one of the more detestable shows ever on TV. It was all about bringing contestants on stage to be embarrassed and have the audience laugh at (not with) them. I thought Barker, who acted as the ringleader of all that, was a pretty slimy on-screen presence.

Yeah, I think I may be blaming him unfairly for that because to then do a hit show as long as he did is, no matter what you think of the guy, an astounding achievement. Or maybe I'm still pissed that he didn't laugh at my Plinko chip joke.

Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone weighs in on the question of what things D. Trump is saying or might say are protected by the First Amendment and which ones can be restricted by court order. A lot of people in this country seems to think that the First Amendment gives them the right to say absolutely anything they want at any time in any venue. Some even go so far as to think their First Amendment rights include forcing us to listen to them. This is one of the more interesting discussions The Eagle has posted…

I love photos and video of old Los Angeles and here we have a few minutes of uncolorized, silent footage of a drive down Wilshire Boulevard around 1935. According to the description on the post, this starts at Canon Drive in Beverly Hills and goes east. I do slightly recognize a few things but not enough to be sure that that's what we're looking at…and I have no idea what the last minute of this film is all about. But if nothing else, enjoy looking at all those beautiful cars…

I surprised myself — because I believed me when I said on this blog I wouldn't do this — by watching some of the G.O.P. Presidential Debate. I didn't see every minute but I saw enough to have a clear opinion of who won it: Donald Trump.

Trump's consistently high polling among Republicans is, I believe, a result in large part of the members of his party not seeing any viable alternative — a belief that no one else has a chance of winning and putting the presidency back under their party's control. The debate, I think, reaffirmed the idea that there's no alternative. None of those folks on stage looked like they could win a game of hopscotch, let alone the highest office in the land. So by not showing up, Trump won.

Chris Christie looked like he was struggling hard to find a "take charge" moment that never came and they all looked befuddled. And I was befuddled as to what that party stands for these days.

Is it the Pro-Life Party? Apparently not because Mike Pence, who once was for banning every abortion everywhere at any time, is now saying "A 15-week ban is an idea whose time has come." Since about 91% of all abortions occur in the first trimester, I guess a lot of those abortions are now okay with Pence and others.

Is it the Law and Order Party? Apparently it's not that either since most of those candidates would support a candidate who'd been convicted of a felony.

Is it the Straight Talk Party? Apparently not since so many questions were dodged with Ron DeSantis as the leading dodger…and the fact-checkers have been pretty busy. See here and here and here and here and probably many other places tomorrow morning.

In fairness, I really think this debate format is a great way to fill the air with words, most of them pandering to the live audience, without really saying anything…but I don't think anyone who participated "won." If I had to pick the candidate on that stage who was the most impressive, it would probably be Nikki Haley but that's kind of like being the most dignified of The Three Stooges…or in this case, eight.