As much as I've enjoyed some of the films since Sean Connery departed, I've never really "bought" anyone else in the role…and I don't think it's just because he was the first Bond I knew. I think he was just the best (or maybe I should say "most perfectly cast") actor in the part.
This collection shows a little of why I feel that way. Those 007 one-liners are often incongruous, coming at a moment when all his attention ought to be on saving his ass and/or the world, not on being funny. Connery always made them feel natural anyway. The others usually (not always) made them feel like lines someone had scripted.
Some of that may be because they were inserted at more appropriate moments in the Connery films…and I wonder if that was because he refused to do them where he didn't feel they'd fit. But for instance, there's one in this montage where Roger Moore is dangling from a building about to plunge to his death and his witticism just feels so scripted and wrong. But maybe I'm alone in this viewpoint. It wouldn't be the first time.
I might be off by one or two but little counters on this site that I can see and you can't suggest to me that as of the moment I post this message, there are 30,000 unique posts on site. "Unique" does not mean the contents of those posts are brilliant; just that I'm not counting reruns.
How does a one-person blog attain that number? Well, I started this blog on December 18, 2000. That was not that easy to do back then. Today, it like all blogs, runs on fancy blogging software. You just type in what you want to say and it formats and posts everything. Back then, there was no fancy blogging software and I had to hand-code everything. Eventually, blogging software came along and I went through two different programs before I found the one I now use. With each switch, it meant converting all the old posts to the new format and sometimes, that took a lot of…well, you don't want to hear all about that. Here's some math though that might interest you…
12/18/2000 was 7931 days ago. Doing the math, it works out to something like 3.8 messages a day. 62.3% of them have mentioned Frank Ferrante.
Like almost everything else in this world, some days it feels like a chore and some days I'm very glad I started doing it. The response to my little telethon for the month of September makes me very glad and it isn't just the cash. It's the very nice messages I'm receiving also from people who seem to appreciate it. I shall try to thank you by keeping it up and running as long as I am able.
My iPad, which I think I've had since around the time women got the vote, is a lot like Merrick Garland. At times, it doesn't seem to want to charge. I have an appointment later today at the Genius Bar at my nearby Apple Store where one of the geniuses there will tell me how much it will cost to fix and then hint, with all the subtlety of Gallagher smashing a watermelon, that it might be easier to just buy a whole new iPad. I know how this works. That's their answer if the case has dirt on it, too.
Otherwise, I plan to spend today not going outside. I'll just sit here with the fan on and work, enjoying the one day of the year when I kind of miss Jerry Lewis a little. And I'll be occasionally peeking out the window to see if the cars are melting yet. They're saying it'll be cooler than yesterday but that's small comfort when they simultaneously issue an Excessive Heat Warning for all of Los Angeles. I think "cooler than yesterday" means, like, one degree.
Oh — and this is a preliminary thanks (more are coming) to those of you who have been donating to my own, non-Jerry telethon. I'm genuinely moved, both by contributions from folks I know and by how many are coming from names I don't recognize. Even better than the money is knowing how many people out there are getting something out of what we do here.
I will not be spending the money you send me on a new iPad but I just got a residual on the episode of the Superboy TV show I wrote in 1988. It will just about pay for one of those real cheap charging cords they sell at the CVS.
With all that Donald Trump has to worry about these days — starting with all those people who want to "Lock him up! Lock him up!" — you'd think he'd have more important concerns than the fact that I haven't send him any money. I have a hunch that whoever is telling him that Mark Evanier is one of his most dedicated supporters is also the person giving him legal advice on the Classified Documents scandal.
Whatever happened to "I hire all the best people"? You know, like Bill Barr, James Mattis, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson and about eighty others used to be before they said things he didn't like and became hopeless losers and idiots. Here's what's apparently occupying Trump's mind these days: Me. At least according to this e-mail I received…
Mark,
I need you to stop what you're doing right now. I have something important to tell you.
President Trump noticed that you haven't accepted his offer to join the Trump Election Year MVP Club. To tell you the truth, he was pretty surprised. But because YOU are such a dedicated supporter, I convinced him to EXTEND your invitation.
All you have to do is contribute ANY AMOUNT before 11:59 PM TONIGHT, and you'll join the ranks as an MVP.
I know that you would be an incredible addition to this prestigious club, but I mean it when I say that I can't hold your spot any longer. If you don't join by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, you may never get another chance.
Please contribute $50 or more IMMEDIATELY to claim your 500%-IMPACT and you'll mark your status as one of the FIRST Election Year Trump MVP Club Donors.
The President really wants you to join the Trump Election Year MVP Club. Can I confirm your membership status next time he calls?
Please contribute RIGHT NOW to become an Election Year Trump MVP Club Donor and claim your 500%-IMPACT.
Thank you,
Kimberly Guilfoyle
I do not think every person who supports Donald Trump is an idiot. I actually have some Trump-backing friends who I think are smart and while none of them believe a lot of what he says, they do prefer the government they think they'd get from him to the government they think they're getting from Joe Biden and would get from the next Democrat to occupy the White House.
But anyone who'd fall for these e-mails I keep getting by the dozens from Trump and his minions…anyone who'd think "Oh, I'm disappointing Donald"…I think those folks are idiots. And I think the authors of those e-mails are writing for an audience they believe is composed of real stupid people.
Several of you who've written me about these ads say that if you did decide to send Trump a small amount — say, a one-time payment of twenty-five dollars — you have to be real careful and study all the teensy print before you click on anything because it's all designed to cause you to inadvertently authorize that your credit card be charged every month, perhaps for a larger amount.
I haven't checked that out because I'm afraid to click on anything in those messages. But someone must be clicking on them. The folks sending them out keep using the same wording and the same rhetoric and they'd be changing it if the mailings weren't yielding some decent cash. There's an honest way to solicit donations and a dishonest way to solicit donations. Here — let me show you the honest way…
The Broadway musical version of The Lion King opened in New York on November 11, 1997 and it was an immediate smash hit. Tickets were darn near impossible to get unless, say, you wanted to sell a kidney or one of your children. Or if, as in my case, you had a friend who worked high in the Disney organization and needed a favor.
I had a trip planned. I was to be a guest at Mid-Ohio Con, a fine convention that was held annually in Columbus, Ohio. Another guest was my friend, the fine actress Brinke Stevens. The con was on November 29 and 30 of that year and then we were going to fly to New York City for several days of me visiting publishers, Brinke seeing friends in town and both of us attending Broadway shows. I wanted one of those shows to be The Lion King but I didn't want to pay what people were paying for decent (or even indecent) seats. So when the aforementioned Disney exec asked for a favor, I asked about (*ahem!*) House Seats to The Lion King, maybe? Pretty please?
It was the longest of shots and I was quite prepared for an "Are you outta your friggin' mind?" Instead, I got a surprising "Let me see what I can do," followed hours later by an even more amazing "I checked with someone and I think we can arrange that.". I would have to pay for the tickets but I would be paying the price printed on the tickets, not the price that some scalper was demanding. I think the former was around $70 a seat and the latter added a zero. That's per seat.
The exec could arrange two and (amazingly) not way in the back balcony, which would have satisfied us. These would be fourth row center — one of the greatest bargains I ever scored. Ah, but there was a teensy downside: The only date he could get them for around that time was Sunday evening, November 30. At 6:30 PM. In New York. We had planned to leave Columbus the next day and fly to New York.
It was too good an opportunity to pass up so we decided to leave Mid-Ohio Con a little after Noon on Sunday. I booked plane 'n' limo reservations that would get us to our hotel in Manhattan in time to change our clothes and hurry over to the New Amsterdam Theater on W. 42nd St. by the curtain time of 6:30. It seemed tight but doable.
A few days later — the same day I received the tickets in the mail — I got a call from my old buddy Ken Gale. Ken hosted a radio show about comic books that was done live in New York on Sunday evenings and he asked when I might be back there again to do his show. Without giving the matter a whole lot of thought, I said, "How about Sunday evening, November 30?" He said that would be fine and to be at the studio by 11 PM. Again, it seemed doable.
We flew to Columbus on Friday, November 28. Saturday was a full day of Mid-Ohio Conning and we both had a fine time.
Sunday morning, I packed my bags, checked out of my room, checked those bags, hosted a panel from 11 AM to Noon, then met Brinke (with her bags) in the lobby at 12:15. We hopped into a taxi for the short drive to Port Columbus International Airport, which is now known as John Glenn International Airport. By 12:40 PM, we were in line to check in for a 2:15 flight to Newark, New Jersey. Plenty of time…we thought.
And we thought that for quite a while in that line. It was moving quite slowly and some of the folks who'd reached the check-in desk seemed to be arguing a lot. We found out why when we finally got to the head of that line and a fight attendant person broke the following to us in what was not a gentle manner: Our flight was oversold and we would not be able to fly on it.
You may be wondering which airline this was. I think I recall but since I'm not 100% certain, I won't mention a name. Whichever one it was, they said they'd try to get us on a later flight that evening, possibly on another carrier. If they couldn't, they were willing to put us up in some hotel near the airport that night and fly us to New Jersey or even New York City the next day. There were a lot of probablies and maybes in their offer. No remuneration for screwing up our lives was offered though I imagine there would have been something…an extra bag of peanuts perhaps. Or a one-time discount on a future flight just in case I was stupid enough to fly that airline again. Which I've probably done.
I, of course, began arguing…though not as severely as some of the others who were in the same boat (i.e., not getting on the same plane) had been arguing. I decided that being calm and understanding and reasonable might be the better way to go in this situation…as I find it usually is in most situations.
And maybe I shouldn't but I somehow always feel sorry for someone in the position these airline employees were in, defending and being yelled at for a problem they personally did not cause. People were cussing at them and vowing legal reprisal as they explained, over and over, that the plane only held X number of people and somehow, more than X number of us had been allowed to purchase and pay for seats on that flight.
Folks in their place usually appreciate someone who isn't acting like the Wolfman beneath a Full Moon. And also, I had something the other arguers didn't have. I had two tickets to The Lion King in about five hours.
I pulled them out of the little carry-on bag I had which also contained my laptop. I politely explained that if we couldn't use those tickets that evening, the airline was going to have to buy me two new tickets to see The Lion King on Broadway over the next few days.
The lady with whom I was talking looked puzzled for a second. This was new to her so she went off to talk to some sort of manager who, lucky for us, seemed to have been a theater buff of some sort. I actually heard him exclaim, "Tickets for Lion King? For tonight???"
He came over and asked to see the tickets…and there they were. Two for The Lion King. The New Amsterdam Theater on W. 42nd Street. For that evening. With a slight tremble in his voice, he read off the seat locations — D108 and D109 — and said, "Those sound like real good seats."
Calmly, I informed him, "Fourth row center." He swallowed hard. They were good seats. See for yourself…
Actual seating chart.
The poor man just stared at those tickets like I'd flashed the Hope Diamond or The Holy Grail or something one can go one's entire life without ever seeing. He moistened his lips and asked, with a slight tremor in his voice, what it would cost to replace them. I could tell he knew how precious they were. I said, "At least a thousand apiece. I can't be certain because the scalpers don't usually advertise seats this good."
For a second, I thought of adding, "Plus, I have to guest on Ken Gale's radio show and talk about Silver Age super-hero comics for two hours." But I figured that if the Lion King tix didn't get us on the flight, nothing would.
He swallowed hard and said those same lovely words my friend at Disney had uttered: "Let me see what I can do."
I did not think I had any legal basis to demand they buy me new tickets…and actually, Brinke and I had tickets for every other evening we'd be in New York. I just thought the man might decide this was a special matter that was deserving of special consideration. He went away and made a phone call, then came back a few minutes later.
Taking us aside so that no other complaining travelers could hear, he whispered, "I can get the two of you on the flight but your seats won't be together. Would that be all right?" By this point, Brinke and I were willing to squat on our suitcases in the cargo hold so we agreed. Making sure no one could see, he slipped us two boarding passes. And then he said — in my memory though perhaps not in reality — "Hakuna Matata!"
The folks who had been bumped from the flight but had checked luggage were getting their bags pulled off the plane. All the way to Newark, I worried that ours might have been yanked along with the others…but things were starting to work out for us. When we got to the Baggage Claim there, ours were the first things down the conveyor belt…and the limo driver I'd booked was waiting with a little sign that, like all little signs with my name on them, spelled it wrong.
We landed around 4:30. By 5:30, we were in a suite at my favorite New York hotel back then, the Rihga Royal on 54th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The hotel is still there but it's no longer the Rihga Royal and I no longer stay there. By 6:20, we were in seats D108 and D109 at the New Amsterdam Theater and from those seats, we damn well saw The Lion King.
After the show, I took Brinke for dinner at Ollie's Noodle House on W. 44th Street. It's no longer there either but there are plenty of other Ollie'ses in New York, along with thousands of better places to get Chinese Food. We walked around Times Square a bit looking at this and that, then I hailed a cab to take us wherever the hell WBAI Radio had its station then. Brinke demonstrated a patience I would not have had in her place by listening quietly as Ken Gale and I talked about comic books until the wee small hours of Monday morning.
It was quite an amazing day, starting as it had with breakfast and a panel at the Adam's Mark Hotel in downtown Columbus, Ohio. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if I'd liked The Lion King. I know almost everyone else has. It will soon celebrate 25 years of playing to packed houses and it's the third-longest-running play ever on Broadway and the highest-grossing ever. But I just didn't like it and you have no idea how much I wanted to, especially after all we went through to get to it.
If you're a fan of the 1986 movie of Little Shop of Horrors, you'll want to take the 35 minutes (!) to watch this video essay/documentary about its infamous alternate/original ending. I agree with the gent who made this video, Zack Paslay, that neither of the two endings fits precisely onto the film. I could argue for or against either of them. Still, with either affixed, it's a great and fascinating movie…
A website called Pioneer Scoop has an article up about the 1997 movie George of the Jungle which starred Brendan Fraser as the title character. Through the miracle of cut-and-paste, I shall now reproduce the text of this article…
George of the Jungle is a 1997 American live-action comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the animated television series of the same name from 1967, with additional input from Jymn Magon and Mark Evanier who were both involved in the original television show. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Christopher Walken, Leslie Mann and Thomas Haden Church.
I have no idea about Jymn Magon but I know that I did not have input into — nor did I even see — the 1997 movie, George of the Jungle. Perhaps the confusion flows from the fact that my partner/best buddy Sergio Aragonés contributed some visual gags for the film and together, we did a short George of the Jungle comic story for a Disney magazine. But no, I didn't work on it nor see it.
I also was not involved in the original television show from 1967 except as an avid watcher who was in junior high school at the time. I think Jymn is a little older than I am but I'm also pretty sure he wasn't in animation (or California) when that wonderful series was produced.
In 1984, Jay Ward and Bill Scott wanted me to write a revival of George — and also of Rocky & Bullwinkle. They were sure they were close to deals to do both but then Bill died the following year and for that and several other reasons, none of their plans finalized. As a freelance writer, I only have about two bazillion stories about this kind of thing happening in my career so even then, I was unsurprised.
There was a revival George of the Jungle cartoon show from Canada which did its first season in 2007 and its second in 2016. I don't know if Jymn was involved in either but again, I didn't work on the show or ever watch it. I call this all to you attention because it's so rare that you can't trust something you read on the Internet.
Folks are writing to ask me what I think about rumors that the NBC network will soon stop programming its 10 PM to 11 PM time slot and turn that time back to local stations to fill. One finds all sorts of speculation around that many of those stations would expand their 11 PM newscasts to an hour and move 'em to 10 PM with network programming resuming at 11 PM. That way, The Tonight Show could get a half-hour jump on its competition. Other configurations are possible.
What do I think? I think I have no inside information on how likely this is or what it would mean. I also think it's been discussed before. NBC has long had a real problem filling that 10 PM hour with shows that anyone wanted to watch. The disastrous Jay Leno Show that went in there briefly in 2009 was in part a capitulation: "We know we're going to lose with whatever we put there so let's put on something that's cheap to produce."
That was one reason for the experiment. The other was to keep Leno from going to ABC or Fox, doing a late night show for them and putting them in the late night talk show business the way Letterman put CBS into the late night talk show business. In any case, it didn't work. And one of the reasons they put Jay back on The Tonight Show was that Jay had long demonstrated an ability to win the 11:35 time slot no matter what NBC had on at 10, whereas Conan O'Brien almost instantly could not. For Jimmy Fallon's first few years hosting The Tonight Show, he could…but lately, he can't either.
There is no question that ABC, NBC and CBS are going to change a lot in the coming years. You can't keep losing audience share as they all have and not make some major adjustments. NBC giving up that hour would be a big move, especially since they might not ever be able to get it back.
If I were in charge, I'd try more programming like The Jay Leno Show before I gave up. It might even have succeeded then if NBC had let Jay do his Tonight Show in that time slot and call it something else. But in a clumsy effort to "protect" Conan's Tonight Show, they put all sorts of crippling restrictions on Jay, like he couldn't have a desk, he couldn't have a second guest and he had to do signature pieces like "Headlines" at the end of the program instead of up front where they belonged.
But maybe NBC's situation is so grave, we're past that as an option. I really don't know. I don't pay a lot of attention to NBC these days, no matter what they put on. And maybe there are so many people like me, they have no alternative. The question may not be if they'll give up that hour but when.
The Supreme Court recently struck down a law in New York that prohibited the carrying of guns. A new law has been passed which places restrictions on the carrying of guns within the area known as Times Square. This has led to a new discussion as to exactly where Times Square starts and ends.
I have no opinion on this question. If you showed me a picture of certain buildings and landmarks, I'd say, "Yep, that's Times Square." The TKTS booth, the statue of George M. Cohan and the tower from which they drop the ball on New Year's Eve are definitely in Times Square, no doubt about it. But obviously, certain streets and blocks are more arguable. Here's an article about the debate.
As Ben Franklin says in the musical 1776, "Every map maker in the world is waiting for your answer."
Here's six minutes of the stage show You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown…in Japanese. This is a translation of the version that played on Broadway in 1999 (but not for long) which revised the original script from 1967 when it played Off-Broadway…
I've received about twenty messages like this today…
Mark,
This is IMPORTANT.
We told you that President Trump wants to BROADCAST YOUR NAME LIVE during his Pennsylvania Rally tomorrow for THE WORLD TO SEE.
This will be a moment that you will NEVER FORGET. This is your final offer.
All you have to do is contribute $50 or more IMMEDIATELY to have your name proudly displayed LIVE during President Trump's PENNSYLVANIA Rally. >>
Get Your Name Displayed Live During President Trump's Rally – Contribute Now >>>
Team Trump
If you donate $100, he'll strip to the waist and have someone tattoo your name on the love handle of your choice.
So how do we think this is going to work? Will he have his own cameras and some sort of superimposed crawl on the screen? Will Fox News then take this feed and put it on the air? I thought he just gave speeches which TV networks covered. I'm not going to watch but if anyone does, lemme know how he displays donors' names live. I may try this as part of my own fund-raising drive.
As soon as I post this message, this blog will have 30,203 posts on it. I have posted 214 "encore" reruns so as soon as I put up eleven more new posts, there will be 30,000 unique posts on this blog. I think this calls for a celebration, don't you? Well, it calls for something…
Since I started this thing in December of 2000, I have turned down all outside offers to "monetize." Usually, they've been proposals to move the whole thing to some huge website to attract readers there so they might be sold all manner of merch. All such offers promised I would retain complete editorial control of what I did but when I asked, "What if I write about how some item you're selling is a piece of junk?", I never got a satisfactory answer. Come to think of it, I never got an answer.
So here I remain under no umbrella but my own. I accept no paid advertising unless you count the Amazon links. They used to pay for my outta-pocket expenses at maintaining the blog but in the last few years, those costs have gone way, way up and the income from the links and donations have gone way, way down. I just paid my hosting company in advance for the next twelve months and because my software here is getting old, I'm going to need to find someone to rewrite the code for this blog.
I wrote it myself when I first adopted this design but it took forever and a month. Since then, I've forgotten most of what I learned then and even if I remembered it all, there have since been all sorts of advances in technology that are far beyond my comprehension. I'll probably need to find someone I can pay to do the upgrade rewrite. So I've decided to run a little telethon for the month of September. I want to see if I can get enough donations this month to cover the entire operating costs of newsfromme.com for the next twelve…but I'll settle, as we all usually have to do in life, for what I can get.
If you have enjoyed this blog for however long you've been reading it, try and send me some loot. Ten or twenty bucks would be nice but please…if it makes a difference in your life, don't. This blog will not go away if I get bupkis.
From December 6, 1983: Johnny Carson gets a visit from Red Skelton and you can tell how much these two men admired each other. One of Red's big laughs will make more sense if you know that earlier in the program, Ed McMahon was talking about receiving a Christmas Card from the White House and Johnny was acting hurt because he hadn't gotten one…
Republicans are upset that President Biden referred to them as embracing "semi-fascism," just as some Democrats complained about the "semi" part. William Saletan explains why he thinks the "f" word is applicable.
And Jim Swift discusses where most Republicans are going to land on the abortion issue…that is, if they want to get elected.
