Two great musical moments from the career of Robert Morse. First, the big save-the-day number from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I saw this song on stage when Morse did a revival tour of the show in the seventies. It was one of those moments when the audience had trouble remaining in its seats and we all wanted to get up and dance in the aisles. The choreography here was adapted from the original staging by Bob Fosse…
And now here's Morse many years later, near the end of his stellar career, in a sequence from the show, Mad Men. His character has died in the series but, hey, everyone deserves one encore. As a couple different folks wrote me, he had the cool, clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth…
The few times I got to speak with Robert Morse, I knew enough to not mention How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It was the show (and movie) that really put him on the map and I did see him do it in a revival tour once and he was sensational. But I figured, "Everybody talks to him about that" and I thought he might appreciate that someone was aware of what else he'd done.
So I steered the conversation to The Loved One, which was one of the greatest "dark" comedy movies ever made. And I steered it to A Guide for the Married Man, which was like the quintessential, now-kinda-sexist sixties comedy film. And we talked about That's Life!, a short-lived ABC series that amazingly managed to present an original hour-long musical comedy every week.
And I asked him about things he'd done that I hadn't seen…like the Broadway show of Take Me Along. He was the juvenile lead and all through rehearsals and try-outs, his part kept getting whittled down because Jackie Gleason was the marquee star. Mr. Gleason was not about to let the reviews say that a young unknown stole the show from him…but it didn't work because they said that anyway. And I asked him about Tru, his then-recent Broadway triumph playing Truman Capote, which I wish I'd seen.
Mr. Morse was charming and engaging and very pleased to talk about all those other achievements. I suppose if I'd run into him more recently, he'd have been pleased that someone talked to him about gigs other than How to Succeed or Mad Men. It wasn't hard to do because he was terrific in so many things.
I wish the mask mandate had been ended by an expert on communicable diseases on the grounds that it was no longer necessary instead of by a judge on the grounds that she had the power to end it.
So I remembered from '59 and '60, the May Company department store chain advertising that you could phone a special number and here Bugs Bunny (a key role model in my life) come in and get a special gift. David Grudt, a follower of this blog, dug into some online newspaper archives and found the ad for this which I reprinted in a message yesterday.
I also recalled the May Company doing something similar with a robot version of Fred Flintstone a few years later. David searched and could find no trace of this. But another follower of this site, Hunter Goatley, found an ad in the March 8, 1963 issue of the Independent, a newspaper published back then in Long Beach, some miles to the south of Los Angeles. And later yesterday, a gent named Clark Holloway also located and sent it to me. Here's a little piece of it…
Click above to see the whole, very long ad
…and like it says, if you click on it, you can see the whole ad, which is very long.
The ad is for the May Company in Lakewood, which is about eleven miles from Long Beach. We never went there. I saw the Flintstone Robot — I'm assuming they only built one — at the same May Company at Wilshire and Fairfax, That's the one where my parents shopped and where we went for the Bugs Bunny gift, and which is now the Motion Picture Academy's museum. I guess they just moved Robo-Fred from May Company to May Company, trying to sell the Pebbles Flintstone dolls which Ideal Toys issued.
I never thought this doll looked like the character in the show…or like anything which could have come from the union of Fred and Wilma.
The "Great Electronic Fred Flintstone" I saw at the May Company was about five feet tall and nowhere near as versatile as the ad would have you believe. "In action" meant that its mouth opened and closed, not necessarily in sync with what you were hearing, and one of its arms went up and down. I think the "exclusive interview" was one of the cavegirl attendants asking it questions as per a script and trying to time things so the pre-recorded voice of Alan Reed would sound like it was answering her questions. I did not see it/him sing anything or change its/his expression. And I don't recall getting a bubble gum cigar…or anything. I would have liked something that was Flintstone-specific.
You may be wondering what became of this Fred Flintstone robot. I asked both Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera when I was working for them and neither knew what the hell I was talking about…a not uncommon situation during my employment at Hanna-Barbera. I just assumed it was long gone. Then one day a couple years ago, I was driving down La Brea Avenue and I passed this weird mostly-outdoor business at the corner of La Brea and 1st Street.
It's an old antique/prop place that sells a lot of things like old signs from fast food places and I believe a few years earlier, they were selling some of the set pieces used for games that The Price is Right no longer plays. They always had interesting goodies there but I never stopped to browse because I didn't have the time and I may have feared I'd find something expensive which I absolutely had to have but couldn't afford and had no room to display.
This one day, I spotted some sort of five-foot figure of Fred Flintstone which might have been the 1963 Flintstone robot I saw at the May Company. Might have been. It also might not have been. I thought, "One of these days, I'll stop off and see if it's what I think it might be." And then I forgot all about it and hunkered down for COVID, not going anywhere near La Brea and 1st. One afternoon last week, I took that route down La Brea and not only is the Fred gone, the whole business is gone. They're putting a new building up on that corner.
So that's all I know, which of course isn't much. Thanks, Hunter and Clark, for finding proof of what I remembered. And if anyone ever comes across info on where that robot Flintstone is or was…well, it would be nice to know but I'm not spending a lot of time wondering about it.
I feel lately like posting fun, politics-free material on this site. There are plenty of serious and sad issues out there and we can't make them go away…but I don't get much done in my day when I dwell on them too much. This video is just fun to watch.
It's the finale of a Neil Diamond concert at the Greek Theater here in Los Angeles in 2012. The keyboard player, who you don't see in this video, is probably my pal Tom Hensley. The song, of course, is Mr. Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," which is one of the most beloved tunes of my (or anyone's) generation. And I love watching how outrageously, wonderfully happy the audience is to be singing along with Neil. It's just six and a half minutes of pure joy.
I don't care if you don't like the song. Isn't it just pleasing to see so many people having such a good time?
Back here on Easter Sunday, I flashed back to a memory from my childhood. The local chain of May Company department stores did a promotion with Bugs Bunny. You could call a special phone number they advertised — and you could dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial nineteen more times to get through and hear a recorded message from Bugs Bunny telling you to come in to your nearest May Company where he'd have a special Easter gift for you and another message.
Dialing a phone number to hear a recorded message from anyone was a big deal when I was a wee laddie. That it was a message from was my dear and beloved friend Bugs Bunny was a special thrill. So I dialed and dialed and dialed and…well, you can read the whole story here and you probably already did.
When I posted the memory here the other day, I kinda hoped some reader of this site would dig up the newspaper ad for it and, sure enough, David Grudt did. He found this ad in The Los Angeles Times for Wednesday, April 6th, 1960 (when I was eight) and it apparently also ran the year earlier (when I was seven). I'm pretty sure I called in both years and that I got my parents to take me to the department store in '59.
Apparently, the downtown May Company — to which we did not go — also had a little display of "live easter animals." I'm guessing two chickens, a baby goat and some kind of lamb. That wouldn't have mattered to me. I just wanted to get as up-close and personal with Bugs Bunny as I could. (Possibly Interesting Fact: Twelve years later, I was writing the Bugs Bunny comic book. And a decade or two after that, I was voice-directing Mel Blanc doing Bugs' voice for a TV special I wrote and co-produced.)
I also recalled a similar promotion with Fred Flintstone but David was unable to find anything in the online newspaper archives about that. But thank you for what you did find, David. And I must say that the phone number, which I dialed ad infinitum 63 years ago, looked awfully familiar.
My virus checker warns me if I'm about to go to a web page that's really, really dangerous. Why can't it warn me when I'm about to go to one that's really, really stupid?
The Four Lads were a popular singing group that had their first hit in the early fifties and their last in the late sixties…though they stayed active for many years after that. Here, they sing the title song from my favorite movie. And they sing it in Japanese…
When you worked for Jack Kirby, it seems like you knew that he was this great artist (in terms of the legacy of comic books). But when you (and Steve Sherman) showed up to work on a day-to-day basis, and maybe you saw that he was creating some brand new character…was that really stunning? I guess what I'm asking is, did you realize that you were seeing something being created from scratch by someone important? Was it amazing? Or was it just, "Well, this is who I work for, this is what he does."
You have said that you had something to do with the colors of Miracle Man's costume. So at the time, was it thrilling that you might have been contributing to the next Captain America? I'm just curious because, I can't imagine being around a genius you know is a genius, and yet see him as just a nice, talented guy…and then go about your day-to-day job. It seems like it would be a constant "Pinch me, I'm dreaming" moment!
This is worded kind of stupid, but maybe you see my curiosity here.
The following is worded kind of stupid, Brian, but maybe you'll find my answer here. I met Jack Kirby when I was about seventeen years and four months old. He asked us (Steve and me) to become his assistants when I was just shy of eighteen. During that period — and I think this is true of most humans when they hit that age, everything in my life was changing…and when your life changes, you have a lot of "Pinch me, I'm dreaming" moments, especially if you recognize that dreaming can include the occasional nightmare.
I was well aware of what a unique, special ability it was to be around someone as gifted as Jack Kirby and if I hadn't been, I would have known because so many people told me so. In 1970, Steve and I took a trip back to New York where we visited the DC Comics offices, the Marvel Comics offices, the MAD magazine offices, Steve Ditko in his studio and a few other places before attending our first comic book convention. I met a staggering number of the people whose work I'd known and loved in comic books and with only a few exceptions (DC editorial folks), every one told us what a genius Jack was, how he'd created more wonderment than anyone else ever in comics, how fortunate we were to be around him, etc.
So I knew. And as I've gotten older and learned more about…well, about everything in the world, I'd like to think…my admiration for Jack has only grown. So I guess my answer to your question is that, yes, I knew I was around a man of great brilliance and accomplishment and with hindsight, that appreciation has only intensified.
Regarding "Miracle Man" — you're talking about Mister Miracle, actually — one of the many clashes Jack had with the DC staff was with the coloring folks who really weren't that fond of him or his work. The feeling was mutual. They fought him on every aspect of coloring on every character.
The only time he got his way was when he insisted on dumping the color scheme they came up with for Mister Miracle. I wrote about what Steve and I did back here.
No, neither of us thought we were contributing to the next Captain America or anything like that. We just thought we were being useful to Jack. We both would have done anything to please that wonderful man.
More of The Muppets on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember this one vividly from this performance and a few other places they did it. This was on Ed's show on November 27, 1966…
In the few hours since I reported that sales on the Comics For Ukraine benefit book had hit $13,222, sales have more than doubled to $28,761. And why not? What person who cares about humanity — or even, almost as important, good comics — would pass up a book with the following lineup of contributors?
Alex Ross, Arthur Adams, Dave Johnson, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brent Anderson, Sergio Aragonés, June Brigman, Kurt Busiek, Howard Chaykin, Joshua Dysart, Emil Ferris, Dave Gibbons, Pia Guerra, Rob Guillory, Peter Kuper, John Layman, Gabriel Rodriguez, Stan Sakai, Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, Chris Sprouse, Jill Thompson, Matt Wagner, Mark Waid, Yours Truly and more.
You can order your copy or some affiliated merchandise over on this page.
One of the many reasons I'm excited about the project is that every cent of profit is being placed in the capable hands of my favorite charity, Operation USA, to direct to the points where it'll do the most good. You may have seen me write about Operation USA on this site and a little ad for it has always been in my right-hand margin here. It's the main place I send my money when I want to see it help people in need and I would remind you that you don't have to just buy the book to get funds to them. You can send them whatever you can spare right this minute. Here — I'll even give you a nice, clickable banner…
The only silver lining I can come up with regarding the passing of Gilbert Gottfried is that the Internet is suddenly full of Gilbert clips. And if you're wondering what that man was really like, it is evident in the documentary about him, Gilbert. It's also in a podcast interview that Leonard and Jessie Maltin did with him back in 2017. Plus, you get to hear Gilbert and Leonard duet on the theme song from Car 54, Where Are You?
Announced this morning was Comics for Ukraine, a comic book anthology to help those whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing war in Ukraine. My buddy Scott Dunbier is assembling it and I'll let him tell you about it…
Among the many writers and artists contributing to this effort are Sergio Aragonés and myself. We're doing a new Groo story that will be included. You can see the whole list of contributors here and you can get your order in for a copy of this historic volume on this page. As I post this, orders have already been placed totaling $13,222 and we aren't even halfway through the first of thirty days when people can order.
But don't wait. Get your order in now. This is a book you'll be proud to own supporting a cause you'll be proud to support.
