It's been really hot in Los Angeles the last few days and it's made hotter, at least for me, with everyone talking incessantly about how hot it is. The heat doesn't bother me much but it does tend to send me into weird sleeping patterns which is why I'm up writing this at four in the morning.
Assuming there actually is a Presidential Debate tonight — this year, we take nothing for granted — I probably won't watch live. My guess would be that an exercise like this is less about actually making someone decide for Candidate A over Candidate B than it is about ramping up or down their enthusiasm for their chosen candidate. In November, there will be a lot of folks who will think they know who they want to vote for but not with such certainty or determination that they'll actually do whatever is involved with casting a vote for that person. And really, I'm fine with someone preferring Trump as long as they don't actually cast ballots.
Living in a state that Trump couldn't win if he ran unopposed — in fact, which he definitely wouldn't win if he did run unopposed — is nice in a way. I imagine it's hellish in a place like Pennsylvania with a barrage of TV ads, radio ads, billboards, robocalls and maybe even people ringing your doorbell and trying to get you to see things their way. I wouldn't buy a box of candy from a stranger who came to my doorstep so I'm certainly not going to change my political views or my religion there. I once subscribed that way to a service that promised to keep mosquitoes away from my home. Later, I was tempted to subscribe to a service that kept the mosquito service away from my home. They turned out to be the more prevalent pests.
The voice tracks for all the Garfield TV shows I worked on were recorded at Buzzy's Recording Studio on Melrose here in Los Angeles. Buzzy's, sadly, no longer exists but just about every actor you ever heard of — voice or otherwise — active during the years the studio was operating recorded something there. It had a great staff, a great mood, a great history, a great atmosphere, great refreshments and like any other recording studio in town, a terrible parking lot.
But we all loved working there and one of many reasons — apart from the owner-operator Andy Morris — was that when you there working in Studio A, you could run into just about anyone in Studio B or vice-versa. Case in point: One day while we were recording in A, James Earl Jones was recording in B.
I have no idea what he was recording but once he was finished, he heard laughing coming out of A and peeked in to see what it was. We, of course, stopped what we were doing and crowded around so each of us could tell him what our favorite thing was he'd done. There was a pretty long list from which to choose. The man had an incredible career even back then — this would have been around 1992 — and everything he'd been in had been good and often very good and award-winning.
It turned out he was a very nice man and he loved Garfield. I'm not sure I had the courage to ask him, "Would you like to do a voice in an episode some day?" if only because I was sure he got Top Dollar for saying anything in front of the microphone and we paid our guest actors union scale. That was pretty decent money but maybe not for someone used to working for ten times that or more. In any case, I didn't have to find out if I had the courage because he said, "If you ever have a part that I'm right for, I'd love to do it."
All the other actors — thinking of how thrilling it could be to act with James Earl Jones — looked hopefully at me and I said, "Well, do you have any samples of your work?"
Everyone laughed — including, fortunately, James Earl Jones. And I'm not sure you ever heard it fully on the screen but that man had a great laugh. I told him we had another recording session in two weeks and I'd have a script that was perfect for him. He said, "Great…what do I play?" I said, "I'll know as soon as I write it."
The only difficult part of arranging all this was that his agent, as you might imagine, wasn't thrilled about his client doing a voiceover job for a fee so far below his usual quote. He insisted I try to get his client more money so I went to our Executive Producer, Lee Mendelson, and told him what was going on. Lee, who I'm sure I've said here on this blog, was the smartest, most honest producer I ever dealt with the TV business. He authorized me to go back to the agent and offer double-scale and then, if necessary, triple-scale.
I called back the agent and said, "I have an offer for you." He said, "Never mind. I spoke to James and he said he wants to do this for the same money you pay everyone else. Actually, I think he'd do it for free if he could." Then the agent said, "Just out of curiosity, how much were you going to offer?" I told him and he said, "Well, I wouldn't let him do it for that but I've been outvoted."
I wrote a script that was about two ghosts — one very meek (kind of a Casper parody) and one very evil and sinister (like, say, Darth Vader in voice). To play the meek one, I booked a fine actor I knew named Will Ryan. I can't link you to a video of the cartoon but here's what the end credits look like on the version of the show currently streaming on a great many networks…
Some of those folks were in the two other cartoons that made up that half-hour of Garfield and Friends.
The recording went fine. I didn't really have to "direct" Mr. Jones because he did every line right the first time. Our recording engineer joked that it was a little tricky to get Will's meek, shy voice and James' booming monster of voice onto the same tracks. The contrast was pretty amazing.
I remember Lorenzo being very happy and saying he was going to a party that evening and if anyone asked him what he'd done that day, he was going to just grin and say, "I acted opposite James Earl Jones!" Mr. Jones was an absolute delight in every way…just like he was every time he got on a stage, in front of a microphone or in front of a camera. He even made my stupid writing sound like it was worth something.
Very busy today but I'll post more than this later. This is Ben Meiselas of The Meidas Touch Podcast — a real good podcast to follow if you want to know the legal status and woes of our 45th President. The predictions of Mr. Meiselas and his partners Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo — attorneys, all — have been amazingly accurate.
Here, Ben presents a medley of some of the anti-Trump commercials that you might not be seeing if you don't reside in a swing state. They're pretty potent — but then the folks making them have an awful lot to work with…
Here we have the the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and what are they playing? Beethoven? Bach? Mozart? Nope, none of them. They're playing Hoyt Curtin…
I keep coming across the above list on Facebook and elsewhere so I thought I'd take one entire minute to take inventory…
Yes, I've used a rotary phone, a floppy disk, a typewriter, an encyclopedia, a phone book and a paper map. I've taken pics with a film camera, listened to music on a CD and a Boombox, made a mixed tape, owned a Walkman, watched a movie on VHS and even rented some from Blockbuster. I've learned Cursive, played an Atari, both sent and received Faxes, ordered from Columbia House, had an AOL address, accessed the Internet via dial-up, sent a postcard, uncurled a telephone cord and I still own a couple of dictionaries and I sometimes write checks.
The only thing I've never done from that list is have a MySpace account. So I guess at the age of 72, I'm old, at least by the standards of whoever compiled this list. If so, I'm glad I've lived long enough to see most things on this list be replaced by something newer and better. So I don't really feel it's about me getting older. I think it's about things around me improving.
Here's a nice mini-doc on Joe Besser's days with The Three Stooges. It takes the viewpoint I have — that he has been unfairly unappreciated. Yeah, the sixteen films he made with Moe and Larry were not great…but I don't think they were not great because of him. They were not great because Columbia was making these films for a buck and a half with a deliberate intention to shoot them in a day or three through the use of old scripts and old footage. Also, Larry and Moe were getting older and the Stooges' act was also getting older. Joe just had the misfortune to join the act when it was on its way out, at least insofar as the short subjects market was concerned. He brought a new energy to old material as this video shows…
Much must be done today so I won't be around a whole lot. As always, I will make it up to you later…especially you nice folks who contributed to our annual "Help Mark Pay For Keeping the Blog Online" campaign. We covered my annual outlay with enough left over for dinner for two from my fave L.A. Chinese restaurant…so I thank you all and hope you always think you're getting your donation's worth.
This December, newsfromme starts its twenty-fifth year and I'm trying to think of some way to make it special. Maybe if Trump wins, I'll try blogging from a bunker somewhere near that watering hole in Namibia. I wonder if my fave L.A. Chinese restaurant delivers that far. It might be nice to share their Double Mushroom Chicken with a couple of warthogs.
Seth Rudetsky introduces and accompanies my talented friend, Christine Pedi. This is what the show Evita would be like if various divas had the title role…
I don't post a lot of Happy Birthday wishes here because just about every day is the birthday of someone I know but I usually make an exception for my collaborator and best friend Sergio, who is AGE REDACTED today. He sure doesn't look or act like he's AGE REDACTED or even AGE MINUS 5-10 YEARS REDACTED. I guess drawing silly pictures keeps you young.
I have known Sergio since YEAR REDACTED so we've been friends for IMPRESSIVE NUMBER OF YEARS REDACTED and in all that time working together, we've had about five fights, one of which was about how many fights we'd had. Whatever the precise number, they all total up to about three minutes and then we were friends again.
I once wrote a particular issue of a comic book and had literally — and yes, I know what "literally" means and I'm using it correctly — more arguing with its artist, NAME OF ARTIST I WILL NEVER WORK WITH AGAIN REDACTED , than I have with Sergio for NUMBER OF ISSUES WE'VE DONE REDACTED on Groo the Wanderer. In fact, you can toss in all of our non-Groo collaborations and we still had fewer difficulties than I did with the artist of that one issue of that one comic, the name of which was NAME OF NOT VERY GOOD COMIC BOOK REDACTED.
What else can I write about this guy? You know how talented he is. You know how beloved he is. You probably know approximately how much work he's done…although I'd bet there's way more that you don't know about. Did you know what a fine cook he is? There, you see? You didn't know that. So I'll just wrap this up and say, "Happy Birthday, Sergio! You don't look a day over AGE MINUS 20 YEARS REDACTED."
As a founder of C.A.P.S., do you have any info on the "Steve Canyon"-inspired logo and who drew it?
Yep. William Stout drew it and I think it was his idea to somewhat ape the style on Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon strip. Mr. Caniff was briefly a member from afar. I don't recall him ever attending a meeting but I think he paid dues for a little while to support the group.
There are an awful lot of stories to be told about the group, at least from the days when I was active with it. I'll try to get around to posting some in the coming weeks. One of the things I discovered early-on was that when you start a group and decide you're going to restrict membership to "professionals only," there are some people who get really, really mad that someone has decided they don't qualify as professionals. There are also a few people who are inarguably professionals who get really, really mad when the group admits someone they don't consider a professional.
I'll try to tell some of the nicer stories. Some really wonderful things happened because of that group including folks making some sort of connection that really helped their careers.
As I've mentioned here, I was very impressed with the Democratic National Convention as a piece of television. I'm not talking about whether it helped Kamala Harris get a lot of votes. I have no idea how many of the people who tuned in were inclined to support her anyway and how many people who weren't were watching and transformed. But just as a very difficult-to-do TV show, I thought it was especially well done — and especially that Tuesday roll call vote.
I also had no idea who had been behind the production but Vince Waldron sent me this link to an article by Andrew Rice who went behind-the-scenes on that end of things. Turns out it was a number of folks who usually produce or direct the Tony Awards each year. You might want to read a little about how they did what they did.
In 1975, there was a significant community in Los Angeles of folks who created comic books, comic strips and related forms of print media…but who did not know one another all that well. They didn't meet at "the office" because they all worked through different offices, often in other states. They didn't meet a lot at comic conventions because there weren't many of them and most professionals did not attend the ones that existed. It just felt like there was a void there.
I occasionally had dinner with two friends at a Numero Uno pizzeria on La Cienega Boulevard…within walking distance of where I then lived. One was Don Rico, a comic book writer, artist and editor whose credits stretched from 1939 until the present day. The other was Sergio Aragonés, then best known for his work for MAD magazine. It was over one of those dinners that we got the idea to start a kind of social club for local professionals in the field.
I think — I can't swear to this but I think — the impetus for this idea was me complaining about so many people in the field calling and asking, "Do you know a good letterer?" or "Where's a cheap place to buy art supplies?" Calls like that. Regardless of the flash point, I recall — and may still have somewhere — a Numero Uno paper placemat with Sergio doodles on it and me writing out possible names for the organization. We settled on "The Comic Arts Professional Society" or CAPS for short. In July of that year, we held an organizational meeting at a "street church" on Hollywood Boulevard that Don Rico and his family sometimes attended.
They had a community room that was available to just about any group and that would donate any amount to the church. I went up there and gave them $40 and the minister was delighted. He penciled us in on his calendar between two other groups that met there. One was "Alcoholics Without Partners" and the other was "The Lesbian Softball Team." I may have those adjectives reversed but I saw him write "Comic book artists" on the calendar and I wondered if someone was going to think, "Well, now you're letting some weird fringe group meet here!"
The first meeting was a success. The moment I most recall was when a fellow who'd been writing comic books for Western Publishing met an artist who'd been drawing his scripts…for something like twenty years. It was the first time they ever met.
CAPS had monthly meetings thereafter. It kept changing where it met. It kept changing who ran it. I was President for a while, Sergio was President for a while, Don was President for a while. Members came and went including Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Milton Caniff, Dan Spiegle, Roger Armstrong, Don R. Christensen, Alfredo Alcala, Stan Sakai, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Rick Hoberg, Dave Stevens, William Stout, Christy Marx, Willie Ito, Scott Shaw!, Jerry Eisenberg, Tom Luth and I shouldn't have started this list because I'm leaving out several hundred people. Quite a few were folks who made very good livings in their field but whose names you might not know.
The focus of the group changed a lot over the years. At one point, I was very unhappy with some of the things some current leadership was doing and I resigned. Sergio resigned almost every month for a time there but I don't think anyone knew it because he kept attending meetings. There were banquets and awards and projects and I remember some meetings being a lot of fun and others having some angry disputes.
I will probably tell more stories about CAPS in the future but, as you may have figured out from the subject line, this is an obit. I've received an e-mail from someone in the current leadership (someone I don't think I know) saying, in part…
CAPS is ending. There's a lot of reasons for this decision but the most prominent ones are the clear ones — Leadership has not been good and participation has been waning for some time. With the most recent update of the current president stepping down, the board had a discussion and found that no one would like to take the position, so we found it best to thank everyone for being a member but to dissolve the organization by the end of this year (2024.)
There will apparently be one more in-person meeting at a time and place to be named later. Frankly, I think the organization lost all reason to exist once we had an Internet and frequent comic book conventions. Everyone who did comics seemed to know one another without attending monthly meetings. I'm sorry to see it go but I've kinda felt that way for the last 20+ years.
Here's a prediction I doubt anyone will argue: Until the evening of Election Day — and maybe not even then — neither Harris nor Trump supporters are going to have a reason to feel comfortable that their candidate will win. Someone may be significantly ahead in either the projection of the Popular Vote or the Electoral College Vote but it's going to be a nail-biter. Furthermore: If Trump prevails and there's evidence of fraud, Harris is going to say the vote was rigged. And if Harris prevails, Trump is going to say the vote was rigged.
I know I've been tracking polls here but I'm thinking I've been taking them too seriously, waiting for the possibility of one candidate or the other opening a big lead. That, me thinks, is not gonna happen.
Here's an interesting piece by Heather Digby Parton on why Trump does not seem to be campaigning with the vigor and frequency of his previous presidential runs.
Oh — and here's New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat with an article called "How Harris Wins (and Trump and the Republicans Blow It)" and here's New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks with an article called "How Trump Wins (and Harris and the Democrats Blow It)." Personally, I don't think either guy knows what he's talking about.
We're almost done with these so if you'd gonna donate, please do so now. Thank you…
I cannot believe that I just had to make up a banner for Comic-Con International 2025. It feels like I just got back from the 2024 one and I know I still have bags to unpack. But this is your early warning that on September 21, there will be Returning Registration for those of you who purchased badges for the last one. If you qualify, here's what you need to know. If you don't, stay tuned for further announcements.
And you might want to jot these dates down on your calendar: July 24-27, 2025 at the usual place…with the usual exhibitors in their usual locations in the usual hall and the usual me upstairs doing my usual panels. The only thing that won't be the same is what the dealers are charging for that item you hesitated to purchase when you could at this year's con. Let that be a lesson to you.
In March of 1994, a revival of the musical Damn Yankees opened at the Marquis Theater where it played for 519 performances, though not continuously. At one point, it closed for two months while the show was retooled to bring in a new star. I wound up seeing it four times, which I believe beats my record for seeing a Broadway show on Broadway more than once by about two times. Two of those times were on consecutive nights.
It was one of those revivals that changed the original a lot…in most cases for the better, I thought. Starring initially were Jarrod Emick as Joe Hardy, Bebe Neuwirth as Lola and Victor Garber as Applegate, aka The Devil. They were all sensational. So, but in different ways, were their replacements who I saw the fourth time I saw the show.
I shall now attempt to explain why I wound up seeing it four times. This article is mostly about TIME #3.
TIME #1 was just to see it. This was very shortly after it opened and I liked it a lot but did not leave the theater with any particular yearning to see it again.
A couple months later, I was back in New York on business and TIME #2 occurred because I was dating a lady who lived in that fine city and she wanted to see it. No, let me amend that: She really wanted to see it. No, let me amend that further: She really, really wanted to see Victor Garber, who had been on some TV show or something she'd loved. I decided if it would please her that much, I could sit through it again so I got tickets for a certain night and we arranged to meet at the J.R. Steakhouse for dinner at 6 PM before the show.
When I got to the restaurant that evening, the hostess had a message for me from My Date. She was very sorry but there was a family emergency…a dire family emergency. She could not meet me for dinner or the show. Okay, these things happen. But I had the tickets and nothing else to do that evening so I decided to go anyway.
I remembered that my friend Jerry Beck was then living and working in New York…working out of an office about a block (literally) from the Marquis Theater. I called him there and asked if he wanted to see Damn Yankees with me. He did and we wound up having dinner first — not at the very expensive J.R. Steakhouse but at the cheapest place in the world to get what purported to be a steak…a chain that was then in New York called Tad's. Anyone who ever ate at a Tad's is now chuckling over the very mention of its name.
When I got back to my hotel that evening, there was a message to call My Date. She had just gotten home from a hospital where a close relative was in serious trouble and she apologized over and over for standing me up. I forgave her for doing that…and I was really good at it because in my dating life, I'd had a lot of experience being stood up. At that, I was a seasoned pro. She asked me if there was any way I'd be willing to get another pair of tix to Damn Yankees and she swore that no matter what, she'd be there. She would even reimburse me for the tickets, she said.
I agreed and that brings us to TIME #3. We'd meet at 6 PM the next night at the J.R. Steakhouse, just as we hadn't the night before. Oh — and I need to explain here that the lady I'm referring to as "My Date" was very active in the comic book business. You'll see in a second why that's relevant to this story.
The next day, I procured the tickets and that afternoon, I had lunch with a longtime editor at DC Comics, Julius Schwartz. If will surprise no one who knew Julie that he insisted we go to a particular diner that he frequented, not so much for the food but because of the waitresses. They were all pretty cute and they liked to engage in a certain amount of flirting with the customers…or at least didn't mind it if the tips were generous. This was 1994 and that kind of thing was a little more acceptable then than it is today.
Julie knew that while in New York, I liked to go to Broadway shows and asked me if I was going to one that evening. I thought but did not say out loud, "If I tell him yes, I have tickets for one this evening, he's going to insist I tell him who I'm taking and it's really none of his business." I wasn't sure that My Date wanted others to know we were going out, even though it was just dinner and a show, nothing more. So I fibbed a bit. I said, "I might if I can find someone to go with."
Longtime readers of this site are probably aware that my life abounds in weird coincidences. Julie said, "Hey, I know who'd just love to go out with you tonight!" and he mentioned the name of My Date. That's right: It was the lady who'd stood me up the night before and was promising to show up that evening. Before I could say anything, he called over to one of the waitresses, "Bring me a phone" and began thumbing through a little address book he always had with him. It contained contact info for damn near everyone in the industry.
This diner had phones that could be plugged in at any table if a customer wished to make a call. In half an instant or less, he had My Date on the line and he said to her, "I'm sitting here with Mark Evanier. How about going to a show with him tonight?"
I could hear a little of her end of the call and she sounded confused but said, "Well, I really want to see Damn Yankees!" Julie turned to me and said, "She wants to see Damn Yankees. Do you think you can get tickets for Damn Yankees tonight?" I — sitting there with tickets to Damn Yankees that night in my pocket — said, "I can probably arrange that."
Julie covered the mouthpiece of the phone and asked me if I wanted to take her to dinner first. I said, "Tell her 6 PM at the J.R. Steakhouse." Julie uncovered the mouthpiece and told My Date, "And he wants to take you to dinner first." I could hear her say, "Right, 6 PM at the J.R. Steakhouse." Julie said, "Fine," and when he got off the phone with her, he said, "Wow, that's an amazing love connection. She thought of the same restaurant that you did and the same time." And then he made me thank him about fifteen times for getting me a date for that evening and fantasizing out loud about post-show recreational activities that I knew were not going to occur.
That evening, My Date showed up at the J.R. Steakhouse around 6:20 — close enough — and the same receptionist as the night before said to her, "Good, he's been waiting for you for twenty-four hours and twenty minutes." When she was escorted to our table, the first thing My Date said to me was, "What the hell was that call from Julie all about?" I explained it to her over supper and then we went to see Damn Yankees, which she loved. No, let me amend that: She loved Victor Garber. After the curtain came down, I volunteered to take her someplace for dessert but instead she said, "Take me backstage to meet Victor Garber."
I told her I had no credentials or "ins" or any way of getting us backstage but she said, "Just tell them you're in show business!" Yeah, like that was going to work.
Well, it kinda did. We went to the Stage Door and I talked with the fellow guarding it. I didn't exactly lie but I stretched a few truths and dropped a name or two…and to my surprise, we got backstage and chatted with some of the performers. One was Victor Garber, who couldn't have been nicer.
A dancer in the show asked me if I was there to meet Mr. Abbott and I gasped, "George Abbott?" If you know who George Abbott was, you can skip the next paragraph which I copied off some website…
George Francis Abbott (June 25, 1887 – January 31, 1995) was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, screenwriter, film director and producer whose career spanned eight decades. He received numerous honors including six Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1982, the National Medal of Arts in 1990, and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Among the many shows for which he was responsible were Pal Joey, On the Town, Call Me Madam, Wonderful Town, The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, Once Upon a Mattress, Fiorello! and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
That is a very partial list — about a third of all Mr. Abbott did — and it includes my favorite show, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the original production of which he directed. It also includes Damn Yankees, the original staging of which he directed and he also he co-wrote the book and co-directed the film version.
The dancer invited us to come with her to a rehearsal hall where there was some sort of photo-op taking place with Mr. Abbott. He was seated in a wheelchair and she introduced me to him and told him I was "a young playwright."
If you're wondering why Mr. Abbott was in a wheelchair, there's an easy explanation. Mr. Abbott was 106 years old. And the thought did occur to me at that moment that compared to him, Neil Simon was "a young playwright."
He shook my hand and while it was hard to make out all that he was saying, I'm pretty sure he told me to keep working on whatever play I was working on and to get it in front of "hot bodies." I figured out that meant "paying customers" — people who've purchased tickets. "Until then, you never know what you've got," he said. Then he added, "Don't give up even if it takes 35 years."
I replied, "If it takes 35 years, will you still come to the opening?" He chuckled and promised to be there.
This was thirty years ago so I still have some time to finish a play…but that was my entire exchange with the legendary — and that's an adjective I don't use loosely — George Abbott. Others were waiting to meet him and I probably shouldn't have been there in the first place but I was glad I was. I was thrilled to meet him…almost as thrilled as My Date was to meet Victor Garber. (And no, I didn't take the money she offered me for the tickets.)
TIME #4 of me seeing that production of Damn Yankees was after Mr. Garber was replaced in the role by Jerry Lewis. I wrote about that trip back to the Marquis Theater — for Jerry's opening night, no less — in this blog post long ago.
Recently, I was reminded of this whole story because our friend Shelly Goldstein sent me a link to the opening number from the 1994 Tony Awards and I've embedded it below. Victor Garber — in his guise as The Devil from Damn Yankees — hosted a medley (I guess you'd call it) of numbers from that season's musical revivals.
If you watch it, you'll see him, you'll see some numbers from Damn Yankees and other shows…and at the end, you'll see Mr. Abbott, age 106. This show was telecast on June 12, 1994 — several weeks after I met him and a little over seven months before he died at the age of 107. Make sure you watch this all the way through…
P.S. because I know some of you are wondering about this: Yes, Julie Schwartz did call me the day after TIME #3 to find out if I'd gotten laid. I told him (truthfully), "No but I got to meet George Abbott." He didn't seem to think that was much of a consolation prize.
