Actually, this one's more of an audio link. It's almost ten minutes of an interview that Stan Laurel gave in 1959. It's interesting to me for many reasons, one being that there's nothing in his voice or what he says that would give you any hint you're listening to one of the greatest comic minds of the previous century…
Working all day on a script and staying pretty much off the web, I missed the news that Joe Biden had announced Kamala Harris would be his running mate. I figured it out when I looked at my iPhone and a message popped up that Tucker Carlson had delivered a scathing attack on the personal integrity of Kamala Harris.
So natch, I thought, "Biden must have announced she's his running mate." It could have just been a rumor at that point but I didn't think Tucker Carlson would waste a perfectly-good scathing attack on someone's personal integrity on a rumor. He might then have to deliver another scathing attack on the personal integrity of the real choice.
Remember when elections were about explaining why your opponent's plans for the country were wrong? Now you just say that their plans would completely destroy America (and maybe the planet) and every single thing folks care about — motherhood, religion, free speech, Netflix, chocolate fudge sundaes, etc. — and you spend the rest of the time talking about how corrupt and dishonest they are.
Senator Harris seems like a decent choice to me. So did most of the other names that were mentioned. I think this election is going to come down to whether voters want Trump or Not Trump and the Democratic ticket is just as Not Trump as it was without her. But she's a good speaker and because she's from California, her seat would remain with the party. Frankly, I can't think of anyone Biden could have picked who would have moved many votes. Maybe Dr. Fauci.
I wonder if there even are many left that are movable. The press keeps posting these comparisons of where Biden is in the polls as compared to Hillary Clinton four years ago. It just feels to me like it's a different kind of election. The people who are dead-set on voting for Trump are deader-set this time than last time. The folks who think he's been the worst president ever are surer of that than the ones four years ago who thought he would be.
One thought about the debates: It looks like they're going to be with the candidates and questioners in separate locations all on-screen in little boxes like a Cable News roundtable. They'll probably have to draw up special rules to cover this format and wouldn't it be interesting if it went like this…?
In the Trump/Hillary debates, Trump liked to talk over her, say things like "Wrong!" before she'd finished the sentence, and just generally try to knock her off each message. Might be interesting to see neither guy be allowed to do that and the other allowed to finish a complete thought. This is even assuming there even are debates and that either man has a complete thought. With these guys, who knows?
George T. Conway on what you have to believe in order to believe Donald Trump deserves four more years in the White House instead of a longer stretch in prison.
A stunning number of "layoffs" (nicer word than "firings") was announced today at DC Comics. I've received a number of calls and e-mails asking if I know what happened and what the company will be like in the future. No, I don't know and I wonder if anyone does, especially about that second part.
I don't even know that I care except, of course, that I hope the folks I know there land somewhere safely…hopefully on more secure terra firma than DC has been lately. The last time I was up there, it felt peopled with folks who were temps, whether they knew that or not. I also had a hard time holding it in my brain that I was in the DC offices because absolutely nothing about that company, apart from the trademarked names of some of the characters they publish, connected for me to the DC Comics I read in the fifties and sixties and worked for in the seventies and a few decades after.
I understand that companies change. They have to. And among the folks who've worked there in this century we've clearly seen great talent and some real good ideas. It's just been too long since I felt it all coalesced into a firm with a firm direction and a unified idea of what comic books should be. I'm not sure any two people on the payroll even agreed on who Superman or Batman were.
Once upon a time, an explosion of this sort at DC Comics would have shaken my world, even if it came at a time (like now) when I wasn't working for them. DC was always there and relatively stable. It was my old neighborhood, a place that gave me a certain comfort, an institution with a fascinating lineage and history. Maybe it will be again but I stopped recognizing it long ago.
Randy Rainbow continues with his Man Crush…
Kevin Drum looks at Trump's new "executive orders" and explains why "the stuff that's legal is unimportant and the stuff that's important is illegal."
The Paley Center for Media used to hold these great festivals to celebrate and discuss great television shows of the past — night after night for a couple of weeks. I attended some wonderful ones with pioneers and show creators of programs that had endured a test of time.
But at some point — one suspects a need for the kind of funding that would come with promoting current product — they turned into festivals about shows that were still on the air. In some cases, they were saluting shows that had just debuted and had only generated the kind of interest that might cause the tickets to those events to sell out quickly. I don't fault them for this so much as I miss the events about shows that weren't currently in production.
This year's PaleyFest is being held, for obvious reasons, online. Here's a chat with Seth Meyers and the folks behind Late Night with Seth Meyers, a show I think is very well-written. This qualifies, by PaleyFest standards, as saluting an older series…
…read William Saletan's meticulously-researched-and-footnoted history of the way Donald Trump has dealt with the novel coronavirus. It's a mind-boggling account of, at every juncture, making the decision to lie, deny and do whatever was best for business (as opposed to The People) and his reelection prospects. He was wrong every friggin' time…and for that, we are paying dearly.
We had a great Cartoon Voices Panel last night. It should be watchable in full just below this message and you can find it on YouTube if you rummage around among the piano-playing cat videos…and all my webcasts can be viewed on this page. They're in chronological order with the newest at the top.
Two things happened that took matters out of my control. We had a lot of enthusiastic folks in the chat room who kept posting the same questions over and over and over and over and repeat that about forty more times. I finally had to use the "time out" function to block some of them from posting for five minutes. As a result, a lot of people who had legit questions that they asked once or twice went unnoticed amidst the deluge.
Something that I think needs to be explained to some Internet users — especially younger ones — is that enthusiasm is great but often, less is more. If you keep screaming, what you're saying goes unheard. People just notice that you're screaming. Anyway, I apologize to those of you who sent great questions that I didn't see until the show was over because…well, I have a lot of things to pay attention to during these webcasts. It's easy to miss something.
Meanwhile, the Steve Sherman interview was briefly taken offline due to a comment thread, wholly unrelated to anything in the video, that violated rules or common decency. That's all gone and the video is back.
Featuring Corey Burton, Kari Wahlgren, J.P. Karliak, Kimberly Brooks and Jon Bailey…
They keep writing me…
Have you always wanted one of our ICONIC Make America Great Again Hats?
Well, you're in luck. President Trump just hand-signed one of them and, because you've always been one of his best supporters, he specifically requested that it go to YOU.
All you have to do is contribute ANY AMOUNT before 11:59 PM TONIGHT and you'll automatically be entered to win this BRAND-NEW 2020 Make America Great Again Hat that was signed by YOUR President.
We're only offering this exclusive opportunity to 700 Patriots — make sure you're one of them.
So let me see if I have this right: Donald Trump signed a hat and said, "Here — make sure this gets to Mark Evanier. He's one of my best supporters!" This makes me think that maybe the president isn't very well-informed or aware.
But instead of sending me the hat he wants me to have, his campaign staff has decided to put it into a raffle and let 700 people compete for it — and we all have to make some sort of donation before Midnight tonight. That doesn't seem fair.
What they should have done, so as to not waste this man's precious time — time he could be spending on the golf course or selling beans — is to tell him, "Mark Evanier is not one of your best supporters. He thinks you're a terrible incompetent and an awful human being who belongs in prison." I hope they do this but I hope they break it to him gently.
In the item preceding this one when I wrote about Stan Freberg, I thought I was typing "Stan was a huge influence on my sense of humor…which at times seems like the most precious thing I own." The "c" is next to the "v" on the keyboard and I accidentally wrote, "…which at times seems like the most previous thing I own."
Every human being on this planet (it seems) wrote me to point out the error and I fixed it. But there are times lately when my sense of humor is feeling kind of previous.
Ah, Day 150. I wish I could say we're nearing the end of this or even the halfway mark but I think you just frustrate yourself when you set a mental end-date and then have to keep moving it and moving it. I've usually been a big Advance Planner of Life but I've given that up. Last night, I got a grocery delivery including a lovely roast turkey breast which I expertly carved and Tupperwared. I'm thinking it'll be good for about four days, maybe five before what remains of it goes into the food processor and then to the cat dishes. Murphy is already asking when she can expect to see it there.
That's the kind of Advance Planning I do these days. My calendar is devoid of things like planned trips or theater tickets. There's no theater and I don't plan to travel — at least on a plane — for a very long time. About the only thing that lies ahead is an election which promises to get nutzo crazy in ways we never imagined. Eventually, I think, everything will move towards normality but I have no idea how long it'll take to get close to it. How close we'll get is also another good question.
I can make a very good case for myself that's it's not so bad right now, at least around here. I have things to eat, things to do, friends to talk to — mostly from afar, a select few from anear — as we all wait for some light at the end of the tunnel and I can endure it. I just wish we had some better sense of how long that tunnel is.
Yesterday would have been Birthday #94 for Stan Freberg had we not lost the guy in 2015. Stan was a huge influence on my sense of humor…which at times seems like the most precious thing I own. There was a time in my life where if you'd told me I would become friends and/or co-workers with most of the folks whose work I loved, I would have thought you were banana-wackie. Stan was high on that list. He was high on the lists of many people.
Stan meant so much to many of my friends that they've been bidding in the Heritage Auctions sale of some items from his estate — books, scripts, photos, keepsakes, etc. The last of these auctions is up now and it closes in a few days. Take a peek.
James Curtis wrote me to say…
I think you're wrong about The Joey Bishop Show. If I remember correctly, when the show premiered (Baxter Ward covered it on his 11 PM newscast) the gimmick was that it was live to the east coast and shown by tape delay out here the same night. And Regis' opening line was, "Live! From Hollywood!" At some point they apparently decided the "live" part wasn't doing much for them, and it may well have been seen on a day's delay in New York from then on.
My memory is also that the Carson show was seen on a one-day delay on the West Coast when it was based in New York. The story I remember reading was that it was taped and shown on the East Coast, then the tape was put on a red eye and collected at LAX for showing the following day. That may be why so many of the early Carson shows got erased — they were sent to Burbank and it was cheaper and easier to record Truth or Consequences or maybe Let's Make a Deal over them than to send them back.
I think the reason so many of Johnny Carson's shows got erased was that no one — and that included Mr. Carson — thought, "Hey! There might be some value to those things in the future." Johnny complained mightily that NBC had erased or simply thrown out his tapes but he might have said something before it was too late.
Carson's show was day-and-date (taped the same day it was aired) when it was from New York and when he made his occasional visits to Burbank, it was on a one-day delay. As I wrote on this blog before…
Johnny's show stopped being on a one-day delay whenever it emanated from Hollywood on February 9, 1971. That morning, there was a 6.6 earthquake in the city and Johnny called NBC Mission Control (or someone) and said they had to go "same day" that evening so the show could talk about the quake. Whatever had to be arranged was arranged and Johnny came out that night and started his monologue by announcing, "The God is Dead rally has been canceled," a much-quoted joke that has been credited to Pat McCormick, who was then on his writing staff. Thereafter, the show always aired the day they did it.
Before that, I don't know if they shipped tapes out or what. Someone who reads this will write it and tell me. I think Joey Bishop may have been live to the East Coast for a brief time when he first went on but they stopped. One problem with doing the show that way from Hollywood is that it means doing it at 8:30 PM. A few years before he retired, Johnny announced that they were going to start doing The Tonight Show live. I think he thought it was a stunt that might energize the show a bit in its waning days.
They never did it. And what I heard was that when they started talking to guests and their agents, they discovered it would interfere with a lot of good bookings. A desired guest star could tape a spot on Johnny's show at 5:30 PM and then go off to a premiere or a performance that evening. A lot of folks on Johnny's crew weren't that wild about not getting home from work at 11 PM also. I'm guessing maybe that was why Joey stopped doing it…if indeed he ever did. I don't understand why if they could do it live to the East Coast, they couldn't just replay a tape of that three hours later. But you might be right.
Someone who didn't include his or her name led me to this: It's from 1953 and it's a thirty-minute tour of CBS's then-new facility in Los Angeles called Television City. This was not, as you'll see, made for broadcast. It was an in-house thing and it was hosted by the esteemed newsman Edward R. Murrow. Television City opened on November 16, 1952, erected on real estate that had formerly been Gilmore Stadium. The Gilmore family owned a lot of the land around there and still owns Farmers Market which is on the same block as Television City.
Television City was and to some extent still is an amazing place. I only got to work there a few times but it's where I went to see Red Skelton do his dirty rehearsals and I also saw the final taping of one episode of that show and one of All in the Family and one of Sonny & Cher, etc. There's a lot of history in that place.
The Price is Right is still done there when it's done at all. Bill Maher's show was done there before he had to move it to his backyard. James Corden's show is there, The Young and the Restless is there…
…and it's been sold. An investment realtor recently bought the whole place and while many new mall-type businesses will be opening, it is said that much of the TV production will remain there. We shall see. In the meantime, enjoy the tour. There's a really fake script meeting scene in there with Jack Benny, two of his writers and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson…
This is a second encore for this item I posted here originally on October 31, 2003. Many of you watched my Conversation with my one-time partner Steve Sherman, part of which detailed our first visit to the offices of Marvel Comics in New York in 1970. But in the video, I left out a key part of that story. Here 'tis…
One day back in 1967, I was home from school with the flu and to pass the time, I decided to write some letters to comic book letter pages. This, of course, was back when comic books had letter pages.
Back when they did, I sent in a lot of letters and amazingly (for a time) had about 85% of them selected for publication. I told myself with grand pride that obviously, my prose was of such wit and insight that it stood out from the piles of what must have been hundreds, even thousands of letters. That track record stopped being so amazing when I started working in comics and saw the volume and quality of the mail that was received. Even a comic selling 250,000 copies only received about 25 letters, of which maybe eight might be printable, some with judicious rewriting by the editors. The rest were in Crayola® or said nothing deeper than "I love this comic!"
But I didn't know that back in '67. I just knew it was fun to open up a comic book and see your words — and better still, your name — staring back at you. So in a moment of fever-induced inspiration, I wrote the following letter and sent it off to Stan Lee. Months later, I was surprised to find it not in the letter page of one Marvel Comic but in Stan's Bullpen Bulletins page, which meant it ran in every Marvel that month. You can click on the image below and see a scan of the printed page or you can just read the transcript that follows it…
STAN'S SOAPBOX!
While we're waiting for your letters telling what you'd like us to editorialize about, we thought you'd get a charge out of this note which we just received:Dear Bullpen: Enough! I have sat idle too long! I have watched the M.M.M.S. turn into disorganized chaos. (And that's the worst kind!) As a solution, I suggest we have some officers. By buying his first Marvel mag, a fan is automatically entitled to the rank of RFO (Real Frantic One). His first published letter elevates him to QNS (Quite 'Nuff Sayer). A no-prize raises him to TB (True Believer). Each additional no-prize raises one level: From JHC (Junior Howling Commando) to RH (Resident Hulk) to AAT (Associate Assistant Thing) and finally to the penultimate, the utmost status a fan can attain: MM (Marvelite Maximus)! Naturally, the artists all have the rank of DDD (Definitely Dizzy Doodlers), the editorial assistants are IPR (Illiterate Proof-Readers), art associates are VOD (Victims of Doodlers), the letterers are IWP (Indefatigable Word Placers), and Stan himself is at the summit – MEO (Marvel's Earthbound Odin). Each person would use his title at the start of his name – as I've done. (Signed –) RFO Mark Evanier
Y'know something, gang – we kinda dig Mark's idea. Let us know how it hits you and maybe we can really get the thing rolling! Fair ‘nuff?
And sure enough, they modified my titles a bit but soon, there were official ranks of Marveldom. To this day, when I run into Stan Lee, he rarely fails to mention that I came up with that and he treats it like it's the only important thing I've done in my life. Which it may well be. (The letter, by the way, was somewhat edited…as were most letters I had printed in comics back then. I don't believe I even knew the word "penultimate" at age 15. One of the reasons I stopped writing letters to comic books was that they were often rewritten, sometimes to the point of significantly altering my intended message.)
But it was not to be my only time in the Bullpen Bulletins. In 1970, I worked for a while for an outfit called Marvelmania International, which was selling posters and decals and other merchandise of the Marvel characters. Well, let me amend that: The mail order firm, which was disguised as a fan club, was taking orders for such items and cashing the checks, and once in a rare while, they'd actually produce an item and ship it out. But a lot of kids were shamelessly ripped-off and when it became apparent that this was happening, I quit, as did my friend Steve Sherman, who was also working there. A few months later, the guy who owned and operated the company upped and vanished to avoid a legion of creditors, and has not been seen since.
Before that happened, back when we and everyone still thought the company was legit and functioning, Steve and I paid a visit to New York City and spent a few days hanging around the Marvel offices, meeting everyone and gathering material for the "club" magazine. This was in July of '70 and even though we, like everyone else who ventured near Marvelmania, never got paid what we were owed, there were certain perks to our association with it…not a lot but, hey, you take what you can get.
One was that we spent a few hours with Stan Lee and he stuck a little notice in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins, which appeared in every Marvel title each month. Some of the later Bullpen pages were written by others imitating Stan but he wrote this one, which ran in comics dated January, '71. I know because I saw him sit down at the typewriter and begin banging it out in his inimitable style, which included forced nicknames and chatty familiarity. No one ever called Steve "Stevey" and no one else thought we were young, zingy with-it guys but, hey, he's Stan Lee. If he says you're young, zingy and/or with-it, you don't ask questions. Here's the way it appeared in all the Marvel books a few months later. And whether you click on the image to see the scan or read the transcript that follows, take note of the item after the one about Steve and me…
ITEM! Just thought you'd like to know – the outspoken young fan who gave us the idea for the Ranks of Marveldom a few years ago (R.F.O.'s, F.F.F.'s, etc.) is now a full-fledged editor, turning out possibly the greatest fan mag of all for our own MARVELMANIA INTERNATIONAL! His name's MARK EVANIER, and he and his assistant editor, STURDY STEVEY SHERMAN, came to visit us the other day from sunny California where Marvelmania has its headquarters. They're a couple of young, zingy, with-it guys, and after yakkin' it up with ‘em for a while it's easy to see why MARVELMANIA has become the toast of fandom! They were in town to attend the famous ComicCon '70, and speaking of conventions —
ITEM! We just have to tell you that our first open meeting of the ACADEMY OF COMIC-BOOKS ARTS, held during the summer, was really somethin' else! One of the cleverest entertainers of our time, none other than WILL JORDAN, the great monologist and impressionist (you've seen him break up the Ed Sullivan show a zillion times), provided some of the most hilarious routines we've ever howled at. Our most heartfelt thanks to Will, and to all the panelists and guests who made it such a memorable and meaningful affair.
Most of the comics Stan worked on in the sixties have been praised to Asgardian proportion and I certainly agree there was wonderment aplenty in there. But I also really liked the friendly editorial "voice" he established in his letter columns, house ads and especially in the Bullpen Bulletins. He put himself on a first-name basis with the readership at a time when the rival DC editors generally came across not only as adults but stodgy adults. He simultaneously bragged about the greatness of Marvel and expressed such humility that when they screwed up, as they occasionally did, you were willing to cut them a lot of slack. I will never forget the issue of Tales to Astonish where in the letter page, Stan admitted that the Giant-Man story had been done in such a rush that he wasn't sure it made a lot of sense (it didn't), nor will I forget the way he made it sound like he and the Mighty Marvel Bullpen lived to serve us 14-year-old consumers.
And there's a reason I included the item after the item about me. While I was in Stan's office that day in 1970, he got a call from Jim Warren, publisher of Creepy and Eerie. They were on the planning committee for the Academy of Comic Book Arts, a group that was then trying to elevate the form in cursory ways. Warren was calling to say he'd arranged for Will Jordan to entertain at the upcoming meeting and Stan replied, "That's great! He'll be terrific! Good work, Jim!" Then Stan hung up the phone, turned to me and asked, "Who's Will Jordan?"
I explained that Will Jordan was a comedian-impressionist who was best known for his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and Stan proceeded to write the entry you see above, talking about how great Will Jordan was, and how great he'd been at the meeting…which took place after this page went to the printer. Some would call this a bit of trickery but I thought it was a fine example of Stan's imaginative writing. Anyone can write a report on an event after it happens…