Search Results for: Garfield

The above photo from the Macy's Parade preparations ran in this morning's New York Times. I know just how that man feels.

I got two messages today from folks asking me if Garfield and Friends (a show I done wrote years ago) is coming back to TV. It's back…on the Boomerang network. Every weeknight at 8 PM on the East Coast, 5 PM on the West. Yes, they're still only running 74 of the 121 episodes but they're back on the air. All 121 are available on five DVD sets and some selected episodes will soon be available on single DVDs. Fox Home Video is currently assembling two discs that will be issued separately, though they haven't told me when. One will be called All About Odie and will include episodes that spotlight the empty-headed pooch. The other will be made up of the episodes in which Garfield lectures about how cartoons are made. This one is going to be called something like Behind The Scenes With Garfield but it should be titled Garfield: The Episodes They Didn't Like Over At The Network.

A great animator and an old friend of mine, Berny Wolf, has just passed away at the age of 95. Berny had a long career in cartoons that included stints with Paramount, Max Fleischer, Ub Iwerks, Disney, Tex Avery and Hanna-Barbera. Historian Mark Kausler lays out the broad strokes of Berny's animating years in this piece over at Cartoon Brew and I don't think it's even close to complete. I seem to recall Berny telling me, for instance, that he worked for Van Beuren and (briefly) for Paul Terry. It would probably take less time to list the great cartoon studios where Berny never worked.

His credits are, of course, amazing. Just having animated on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo puts you up there in a rarefied strata of cartoon history. But you'll notice Mark's quick bio jumps from the fifties to the eighties and I can fill in a few of the missing years there. For instance, Bern worked closely with Walt Disney designing attractions for Disneyland, most notably some of the first walkaround character costumes. Through a series of companies he set up, Berny made those and produced industrial cartoons and educational materials for a wide array of clients.

In the seventies, his firm was called Animedia and it was located over on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, doing art services — some, animation-related, some not. Among many other projects, he produced hundreds of employee training films for the Toyota company and also handled all the graphics and design work for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. When I edited and wrote Tarzan comic books back then, I did so through Berny's company. I also worked with him on some cartoon mascots for the Olympics, some educational materials involving the Woodsy Owl character, and a couple of animated commercials. He couldn't find anyone else to storyboard one of the commercials before the deadline so, though admittedly rusty, he sat down and drew it himself. It showed he still had it. Even though he'd been away from the drawing board for years, he was still a terrific cartoonist.

He proved it again a decade later when he folded Animedia and went back to animation where (he said) he was happier in every way except financial. Along with the shows Kausler mentions, Berny produced a series for Hanna-Barbera called The Paw-Paws. In the nineties, when he himself was in his eighties, he did some directing work on Garfield and Friends and other shows for Film Roman.

We had a brief e-mail correspondence a few years back and then he suddenly stopped writing. Soon after, his website disappeared and I heard no more from him. The last message he wrote me said he was "…working on some drawings and limited-edition cels." I hope he got some of them done for he really was a great artist. He told me more than once that he'd always regretted he couldn't make the same kind of living as a cartoonist that he made when he produced those training films for Toyota.

Here's a classic cartoon Berny worked on in 1933, when he was a mere lad of 22. In fact, you'll even see his name in the opening credits. It's "The Old Man of the Mountain," one of the Betty Boop cartoons made at the Max Fleischer Studios that utilized the skills of the great Cab Calloway. As you watch it, please think of Berny Wolf…a helluva talent and a true gentleman.

The Boomerang Channel is about to begin rerunning Garfield and Friends, a cartoon show I wrote years ago. I think it might play better if they had the show translated into Finnish. See if you don't agree.

Alas, I have awakened too late to do much con blogging this morn. Have to scurry over to the convention center, machete my way through the masses and keep business appointments and do panels. Friday didn't seem as crowded as some feared but I've got a hundred bucks that says today more than makes up for it. As usual, I was happy with all my panels yesterday…but especially with the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. Wait'll you see the transcript of this one in The Jack Kirby Collector.

Had a nice talk last night with Frank Miller. The biggest news out of the convention so far, I guess, is that Frank's signed to direct a forthcoming movie based on Will Eisner's The Spirit. I knew about this weeks ago but the announcement was embargoed, as they say, 'til now. Can't think of anyone better for the job.

Also, it was announced yesterday that the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series, on which I worked eons ago will be coming out — all three seasons in one high-quality DVD set plus extras — in November. This is another one of those things I've known about for some time (and so did you if you read between the lines here) but was not allowed to announce. (One thing I learned and didn't know is that Garfield and Friends reruns are returning to TV. They join the Boomerang schedule in November.)

Have to get going. I'll try to write more tomorrow.

Here we go, here we go, here we go…

• Several folks have written to point out to me that Stevia is a natural sweetener, not an artificial sweetener. They're right. I don't particularly like it but it is from a natural herb. At the moment, I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I may not be the best judge.
• Jim Korkis sends this link to a good interview with Dick Beals and notes that Dick's autobiography, Think Big, is available on Amazon. True…but I'm going to order my copy from the address on that interview page so Dick makes a few more bucks off it. The man has had an astounding career, popping up in the darnedest places. The other day, I was watching an episode of the TV series, Captain Nice, and there was the sound of Beals in the theme song.
• Two people wrote to ask why I didn't also mention that Ross Bagdasarian (aka David Seville) did the voices of the Chipmunks in that commercial. Well, I'm not sure he did. He probably did at least one of them but contrary to popular belief, the sounds of Alvin, Simon and Theodore were not all done by Mr. Bagdasarian with a sped voice. I used to think they were all him, and perhaps some articles said so…but folks who've slowed down Chipmunks records and TV shows have noted others in there, even in the original hit, "The Chipmunk Song." And it isn't always even consistent within one project. I'm told (I haven't studied this myself) that Bagdasarian is usually Alvin, frequently Simon and rarely Theodore. Or sometimes he does the singing voices of all three but the speaking voices of only one or two — this, along with doing David Seville in his natural, unsped voice.
• As a P.S. to the above item: I never really appreciated the skill Mr. Bagdasarian put into those recordings until I decided to have some characters on Garfield and Friends sing and talk in sped voices. It takes a fair amount of engineering skill and creative direction to blend voices in that situation and to keep them understandable. There have been a lot of imitations of The Chipmunks over the years and I never thought any of them were as good because, among other reasons, they didn't have someone with Bagdasarian's skill as a record producer and performer.
• As a P.S. to the above P.S.: When we tried speeding up Lorenzo Music on the Garfield cartoons, we discovered that his voice sounded like the same guy. It just plain refused to speed up.
• I really, really enjoyed the new Lewis Black special last night on HBO. It reruns many times to come.

Lastly, a continued thanks to the folks who've sent in cash donations this weekend. I'm quite stunned by both the volume and by some of the amounts. I'm thinking of having a big party when I hit the "100 pounds lost" mark and inviting everyone who helped. If we do, we'll hold it in my old pants.

You may have already seen this. It's been e-mailed more times than that photo of George W. Bush playing the guitar during Hurricane Katrina, plus I linked to it about two months ago. But every day, six or seven people write to me and suggest I put up a video link to Chris Bliss and his incredible juggling finale, so here it is.

An interesting controversy is brewing about this in some circles. I don't know Mr. Bliss but he's a very successful comedian who closes his stand-up act juggling three balls to a Beatles medley. He put a video of it up on his website so that potential clients could see what he did and perhaps hire him…but non-bookers found it, loved it and it's being forwarded and reposted all over the World Wide Web. This has upset a number of professional jugglers who feel that what Bliss does in it, at least from a technical standpoint, isn't all that impressive, especially because he only uses three balls. If you scan the many public forums on which this is being discussed, you'll find an amazing number of irate jugglers writing things like, "My own mother sent me this video and asked why I don't do something wonderful like that."

There's obviously some petty jealousy at work there but there's also some honest (if misguided, I think) upset that people who practice for decades to master more complicated routines are not getting this kind of grass-roots attention. And it's certainly true that the rewards for an accomplished juggler these days are not great. There aren't even all that many places you can do it and make a buck. Then again, it's not Chris Bliss's fault that folks love the clip and are forwarding it to each other. As far as I can tell, he's making no claims other than that audiences enjoy his finale. Which they obviously do.

Recently, a championship juggler named Jason Garfield did his own version of the Bliss routine. He calls it a "parody" while others are suggesting that Garfield, who has apparently been quite outspoken against jugglers who rip off others' routines, has committed that very crime. If I were doing my own parody of someone's act, I don't think I would use his soundtrack, nor would I take bows at the end in response to the standing ovation that he received. I'd also try to parody what he does instead of trying to prove that I can do it better.

The two performances are not really comparable. Bliss did his in one take in front of a live audience. Garfield did his sans audience in a gymnasium somewhere and the tape appears to be edited together from multiple takes. My own reaction, just going by these two videos, is that Garfield is the more skilled of the two but his performance is cold and impersonal, and his juggling doesn't connect with the music the way Bliss's does. But it's not fair to judge either man by what they did under different conditions. Perhaps in front of a packed crowd, Garfield would have given a warmer performance. Perhaps with the luxury of editing, Bliss would have attempted more elaborate feats.

I admire both but if forced to choose, I'd rather watch Bliss. What's impressive to me is not that he can keep three balls in the air for four and a half minutes without dropping one but that he moves them (and himself) with the rhythm and emotion of his accompaniment. I'd also rather watch Michael Goudeau or Charlie Frye or Anthony Gatto or the Flying Karamazov Brothers or the Passing Zone or any of a number of other great jugglers out there who do what they do with style and personality, even if they aren't always keeping five balls aloft.

Jason Garfield's performance is our non-embedded video link today. Our embedded video link is Chris Bliss…

There's a group I may have mentioned here called Yarmy's Army — a social club for veteran comedians and actors that convenes once a month. I have been privileged to be an invited guest for several of their meetings and at almost every one, I found myself seated next to Don Knotts.

It's tough to get a word in edgewise in a roomful of comedians and I sure didn't try. At one meeting, I recall sitting there as Pat Harrington, Tom Poston, Shelley Berman, Howie Morris, Chuck McCann, Gary Owens, Pat McCormick, Harvey Korman, Jack Riley, Jerry Van Dyke and about a dozen other funny men swapped anecdotes and insults at a pace that made the Daytona 500 seem lethargic. People talked over one another, interrupted one another, topped one another and kept the conversation relentless for about two hours.

Of all the members, only one hardly said a thing. Don just sat there and enjoyed the show.

Which is not to say he remained absolutely silent. At one point in each meeting I attended — and I'm told this was typical — Don would think of something he wanted to say. He'd raise a finger, gesturing to indicate this and someone would notice and yell, "Hold it! Don wants to say something!" Suddenly, miraculously, everyone else would shut up and let him say his one thing, which would always get the loudest laugh of the night.

They wouldn't shut up for anyone else. But they shut up for Don.

Because they loved him. Everyone loved him. In a business where even your best friend can have some small resentment at your success, Don was utterly undespised. No one didn't like him, either as a performer or as a person.

When Yarmy's Army did benefits, as it has done for many worthy causes, many of its members would get up and perform. Don was not up to performing much. He hasn't been well for many years and — I don't know how many people know this about him — his eyes have been bad for quite some time. When he has acted in the last decade or two, someone has had to read the script to him and help him memorize and prompt him when he couldn't. That's how we did it when we had him as a guest on the Garfield cartoon show. I had another actor read each line to him and then Don would repeat the line, giving it that wonderful Don Knotts inflection.

So Don couldn't perform at these benefits but he could sure do his part to raise money. After the performance, it would be arranged to have him just sit in the lobby. There'd be a photographer, and you could have your picture taken with Don Knotts for ten or twenty dollars. I don't recall what they charged but there was always a line around the block. When he showed up at those Hollywood Collectors Shows, it was the same way. The line of people who wanted a picture or wanted an autograph — or just wanted to be able to say "I met Barney Fife" — was out the door and well into the parking lot.

I don't have to review his career and his many awards for you. There are many fine obits up, including this one over at the Los Angeles Times site, where you may have to register. I also don't have to tell you how good he was because you've seen The Andy Griffith Show and Three's Company and The Incredible Mr. Limpet and all those appearances with Steve Allen. I just wanted to get on here and tell you that the most beloved person in all of show business has died. Because that's what he was: The most beloved person in all of show business.

He doesn't seem to need them but we're sending "get well" wishes anyway to the Amazing Carl Ballantine, a great comic actor and the uncontested king of funny magic. Carl was recently hospitalized and a few Internet forums erupted with dire word about his health. What's the matter with you people? The guy's only 83 years old, after all. It's not like he's an old man. (And I'm only half-kidding. I have lunch with Carl every so often. Wish I had half his energy.) They slapped some sort of pacemaker in him the other day and sent him right home. That's where he is right now, figuring out when he can next get to the racetrack or to his favorite dining establishment, In-n-Out Burger.

Carl's one of the most wonderful comic talents I've ever had the honor to work with. I hired him a couple times to do voices on the Garfield cartoon show and boy, did he make me look like I knew what I was doing. Everyone adored him. I wish he was on television more often because there's no one who's funnier.

That's right: Two for the price of one! Not only is today the 80th birthday of Soupy Sales but Larry Storch is 83 years old today…or maybe tomorrow. Depending on which source you consult, the star of TV's F Troop was born either January 8 or 9. There's no doubt though that he's one of the funniest comic actors to ever work in television…and did you know he also did a lot of cartoon voice work in the sixties? He was on Tennessee Tuxedo and The Groovie Goolies and a whole batch of other shows. I even brought him in once to do some voices on Garfield and Friends, partly because I thought he'd be great (he was) and partly because I just wanted to meet him and tell him how terrific I always thought he was in everything.

Legend has it that Storch's big break came when he got a role on a radio show starring Frank Morgan, who was best known for playing The Wizard of Oz in The Wizard of Oz. Morgan, the story goes, lost his reading glasses during a rehearsal — or in some accounts, just before going on the air live. Storch, who was a fine mimic, came to the rescue and not only did his own role but also read Morgan's lines in a perfect imitation. (That was his Frank Morgan impression you heard when he voiced Professor Phineas Whoopee on Tennessee Tuxedo.) He went on to a grand career on stage, in clubs, on TV and in the movies. He's still performing, mostly in theater…so happy returns of the day, Larry Storch. Either today or tomorrow.

Last year around this time, I pointed you to one of the cleverer bits of web animation I'd come across — a daily "Twelve Days of Christmas" cartoon with Garfield the Cat over at the Garfield website. Well, it's back up again and up to Day Seven. Take a look between now and Christmas. I had nothing to do with this.

Kim Thompson gives us a little preview of the fifth volume in the Complete Peanuts series. He also writes to me…

I too collected the Holt, Rinehart books religiously as a teenager and ended up with at least the first 20 –most of those original copies are still sitting under "S" in the Fantagraphics library, in fact– and to be honest, if my house was burning down and I had to choose between the HR books and the new Fanta books I might very well pick the HR ones myself, even though they omit part of the opening Sunday panel and are missing a bunch of strips, etc. I think all Peanuts fans my age and older have a permanent sentimental attachment to those books.

The matter of which strips were "killed" by Schulz or anyone else for later reproduction is endlessly intriguing. Based on the fact that (as we've found out) there are significant holes in both United Feature Syndicate and the Schulz Estate's files of proofs, it's possible that some of the missing strips are missing simply because they didn't have any copies of them when they were putting together the HR books. (I particularly suspect this is the case when an entire week's worth of perfectly good strips were never reprinted.) As for the others…

I recently picked out several examples from our upoming fifth volume — strips that have never, so far as I (and, more importantly, my cadre of Peanuts experts) know, been collected since their ephemeral appearance in daily newspapers around the world nearly 50 years ago — and offered a few educated guesses as to why that might be.

Those are the ones posted at the above link and it gets me to wondering: Does anyone have any solid info on how the Holt, Rinehart books sold? And more interestingly, how did they impact the syndication of Peanuts? I know there have been cases where a top-selling reprint collection prompted a lot of editors to say, "Hey, that strip's popular. We'd better pick it up for our paper." That was a big factor in the success of Garfield and Dilbert, and I think maybe with Doonesbury, as well. Also, both Charles Schulz and Lee Mendelson told me how the popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas (which Mendelson produced) had an astronomical impact on the merchandising of the characters. Does anyone know if the rise of Peanuts to 2600+ newspaper clients was slow and steady or if it spiked because of the books and/or TV special?

Here, through the courtesy of a reader of this site, is another photo from the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Phil Silvers. The gent at far left is Carl Ballantine, better known to the world as "The Amazing Ballantine" and performer of what is easily the funniest magic act ever to grace a stage. Carl played Marcus Lycus the Procurer in this production and he's still around, still being very humorous. I used him to voice a recurring character on the Garfield and Friends show and —

Hey, you're not running anywhere. I might as well tell the story. When we were doing the show, I had this idea about introducing a con-artist character who'd pop up from time to time as a foil for Jon and Garfield, and I cast Jesse White to do the voice. You all remember Jesse White. That would have been brilliant casting if I'd done it a few years earlier but sadly, the day he came in to record the character's first appearance was not long before Jesse passed away. He was in poor health and he really didn't sound much like Jesse White. We went ahead with the episode but I decided on the spot that the character was not my recurring con-man.

During a break, I wandered out to the lobby and I was thinking who would be a good person to play a sharp, Bilko-type operator. Sitting there, reading a magazine and waiting to record a radio spot for someone in the next studio, was Carl Ballantine. I said aloud to no one, "Perfect," went over and introduced myself…and a few weeks later, Carl recorded the first of several Garfield cartoons as Al Swindler, master charlatan. I still see Carl from time to time. I take him to lunch or run into him at the Magic Castle and he's always hilarious. Lovely man.

Okay, back to the photo: To the right of Carl is Larry Blyden, who played Hysterium (the Jack Gilford role) in the show. Blyden was a long-time Broadway star, TV actor and even a game show host. When this production of Forum went to Broadway, he was the main instigator and organizer. He prodded the producers and dug up backers and made it all happen. For it, he also won a Tony Award. In fact, on the Tony Award broadcast that year, Silvers was more excited about Blyden's Tony than about his own and he started raving on about it and Larry and he plumb forgot he was on live television and went way over in his acceptance speech. This is why the "thank yous" from winners are now rigidly timed…because of the night they couldn't shut Phil Silvers up.

Next over, we see Lew Parker kneeling. Parker was an old-time radio comedian who became an old-time Vegas comedian who became the father of Marlo Thomas on That Girl. I think the New York production of this Forum was the last thing he ever did, as he was in failing health. He missed opening night on Broadway…something most actors wouldn't do if it meant performing in an oxygen tent. Soon after, he was replaced by actor Mort Marshall, who animation buffs may know as a voice actor on New York-based TV cartoons of the sixties. (He played the zookeeper on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, for instance.) Parker died a few months after leaving the cast.

Lastly, of course, we have Phil Silvers. I guess I don't have to work very hard to convince most people that he was terrific in the role. He was terrific in just about everything he did. As I mentioned, I was privileged to dine with him once at Nate 'n Al's delicatessen in Beverly Hills. I wrote up some moments from that brunch/lunch and posted them here and here. One of these days, when I find the rest of the transcript, I'll post some more of our conversation.

I had nothing to do with it but my occasional employer Jim Davis has set up a new educational website for kids. It's called Professor Garfield and while I didn't have time to browse the whole site, what I saw seems quite well done and, yes, even educational. Some nice music, some excellent Flash animation, some clever games and presentations. The budding cartoonist in your family will enjoy the Artbot section where Jim and three other artists give drawing lessons. There's also a trivia game and I'm ashamed to admit that I got beaten. (I'm not up on my SpongeBob lore.) Recommend it to someone young.

Okay, I'm gonna plug some shows I worked on. The folks at Fox Home Video are in the home stretch of releasing all 121 half-hours of Garfield and Friends on DVD. Needless to say, you want to own all five volumes but just in case you're going to pick and choose, here are some of the highlights of each, plus Amazon links…

• Volume 1 features guest voice work by Larry Storch, Chuck McCann, Lennie Weinrib, Stan Freberg, Dick Beals, Pat Buttram, Robin Leach and some other fine people. (There's a story about the Robin Leach episode over here and I swear, it's true. I have witnesses.) My three favorite episodes on this set are "Garfield Goes Hawaiian," "The Lasagna Zone" and "Magic Mutt."
• Volume 2 includes voices by Chick Hearn, Frank Buxton, Jesse White, Shep Menken, Carl Ballantine, Stan Freberg, Kenneth Mars and others. This set includes "Invasion of the Big Robots," which is the one where Garfield makes a wrong turn and finds himself in an episode of a show that looks a lot like The Transformers. We hired Transformers artists to do some of the graphics and Neil Ross, the voice of Slag and Springer from that show, to do the extra voices and the whole thing went waaaay over budget. Also on this set is "Video Airlines," which is one of the ones people keep asking me about. It's the one where Jon and Garfield go to see the movie, "Kung Fu Creatures on the Rampage II."
• Volume 3 contains episodes with guest voices by Jonathan Winters, Jack Riley, Marvin Kaplan, Paul Winchell, Rod Roddy, Pat Buttram and others I'm forgetting. The "budget buster" in this set was "Mistakes Will Happen," which was the episode where we tried to see how many errors we could make in one cartoon. We actually had to redo some scenes because the animators screwed up and did them right. Also on this set is a U.S. Acres cartoon called "Big Bad Buddy Bird," which is the one where I got the Standards and Practices department of another network (not CBS, which aired the series) mad at me because I criticized the silly "pro-social" values they had been forcing us to put into cartoons.
• Volume 4 includes guest voices by Victoria Jackson, Paul Winchell, John Moschitta, June Foray, Jewel Shepard, Bill Kirchenbauer, Don Knotts, Buddy Hackett, Carl Ballantine and others I'm leaving out. This is the volume that includes "Picnic Panic," which is the episode with the ant song that everyone asks me about. (I wrote the lyrics and Ed Bogas wrote the music and did the voices of the ants.) This set also includes "The Garfield Rap," the animation for which was so complicated that the guy in charge of budgets at the studio glared at me every time I went in for a month.
• Volume 5 is scheduled for release on December 6 but you can order now. When you get it, you'll find the rest of the episodes — and by the way, the ones on Volumes 4 and 5 and a few on Volume 3 have never been syndicated since their original network airings. This last volume includes guest performances by, among others, Shelley Berman, Brinke Stevens, Bill Saluga, Mark Hamill, Imogene Coca, Eddie "The Old Philosopher" Lawrence, Arnold Stang, George Foreman, Kevin Meaney, Tracy Scoggins, Rip Taylor, Harvey Korman and John Byner. There's a sequel to the "ant" episode and one where we parodied Barney the Dinosaur (voiced by Stan Freberg) and got an angry letter from that character's proprietors. It also has "The Man Who Hated Cats," which is my all-time favorite episode — a mini-musical with the great George Hearn in the title role.

In addition to the guest voices, all of the sets feature the superb vocal acting of the late, wonderful Lorenzo Music as the title cat, plus Thom Huge as Jon, Gregg Berger as Odie and hundreds of other people and animals, and the talents of Frank Welker, the also late and wonderful Howie Morris, Julie Payne, sometimes Gary Owens and Desiree Goyette, and other folks not mentioned here. There are no special features apart from some ads, including some for the live-action/CGI Garfield feature…and by the way, a sequel to that film is in the works and no, I'm not working on it.

I might also point out that Amazon has these tremendous package deals if you look around a bit. For instance, Volumes 1 and 2 bought separately cost $31.98 each. Purchased in a bundle, they go for $63.96, which saves you…well, let me call up the calculator since I've forgotten how to add and I'll do the math on that for you. Aha! I see that if you order both at once, you save…absolutely nothing. Well, I guess you have to click one less time so that's something. Anyway, if you order any, I hope you like 'em. This show was the most fun I've had in close to 30 years of writing animation.