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December 24, 2001 · 9:30 PM PST · link

IT'S ONLY BEEN 104 days since 9/11...since everyone was saying, "Things will never be the same again."  And I'd be the last to suggest the tragedies of that day are forgotten or ever could be...but, sitting here on Christmas Eve, doesn't it feel a lot closer to "normal" than you thought it would back in September?  We are a much more resilient people than we sometimes think.

THE PICTURES ABOVE depict Sneaky Pete's Magic Show, a Remco toy that was among the favored Christmas/Hanukkah (we celebrated everything) gifts of my youth.  I'm guessing I was eight the year I got mine and I loved it, though I can't recall ever using it to put on a show for anyone.  It was just knowing how to do the tricks — knowing I could do them — that mattered, though I was never quite able to master the cups-and-balls.  There was no gimmick to the cups-and-balls, apart from the fact that you actually had one more ball than an onlooker might think.  The cups-and-balls required practice and dexterity and at that age, I was looking for more immediate gratification and easier answers to the mysteries of the world.

There was also the disappointment of the sawing-a-lady-in-half trick promised on the box and in the commercials.  The set came with a little plastic harem girl, a rack on which you'd place her, and a special sword.  The figure was made with some kind of internal wheel that allowed the sword to actually pass through the stomach seam without damaging the doll.  It was surely the greatest feat of engineering managed by the Remco folks (the other tricks were pretty basic ones) but it was the least satisfying to me.  It didn't relate to the way I saw Mark Wilson sawing women in half on his TV show, The Magic Land of Allakazam, didn't show me how he bisected his wife/assistant, Nani Darnell.  She didn't have one of those little wheels inside her.

Believe it or not, that's just about my most painful Christmas memory.  I had it pretty good.  I wish the same for you.

December 23, 2001 · 7:30 PM PST · link

I PUT UP A "tipping" box the other day, fully expecting that, within a year, it might net me the price of a box of Fig Newtons.  Amazingly, quite a few of you have "tipped" in the last day and a half...and I thank you all.

One thing I learned in setting this up is that, if you tip websites, you oughta tip big.  This is because PayPal — which is what I'm using to pass the hat — takes too big a bite out of tiny payments.  Their fee is 30¢ on each payment plus 2.9%.  This means that on a ten dollar transaction, they only get 60¢ but on a one dollar tip, PayPal takes a third.  (They take a smaller percentage with their merchant accounts).  Amazon-dot-com, which some folks use for this purpose, charges 15¢ plus 15%.  This means that they get 30¢ on a dollar tip and $1.65 on a ten dollar gratuity.

Learning this has changed the way I tip when I web-surf.  Instead of making a lot of little $2 payments, I'm sending $10 to a fifth as many sites.  It may not be as fair but it gets more money to folks who operate the websites I like.  (This is not intended as a hint but, if the urge seizes you, our "tip box" is in the left-hand column near the bottom of this page.)

There are a couple of transaction services that charge smaller fees (or none) but from what I can tell, they force your "tippers" to open accounts and/or to give credit card numbers to firms that are less well-established than the two mentioned above.  So for now, I'm avoiding them and you probably should, as well.

December 23, 2001 · 12:30 PM PST · link

GOOD ARTICLE in the L.A. Weekly about the ongoing (and unfortunately rancorous) attempts by the Writers Guild of America, West to organize animation writers at Nickelodeon.  (Here's the link.)  My sympathies are about 110% with the writers, natch, and I spent many years of my life working with the WGAw on earlier attempts.

During those efforts, we found that sentiment among animation writers was nearly unanimous.  Apart from one or two who probably (one, admittedly) sought to court favor with their employers by offering token resistance, all who wrote cartoons wanted desperately to have the WGA represent them.  To understand why, one only has to work, as I and others have, for the same company with and without WGA coverage.  I wrote live-action for Disney and animation for Disney and, believe me, it was like the difference between being treated as a person and as some sort of low-grade industrial droid.  It is not, as some might believe, merely a matter of money.  I would say it has more to do with simple human decency with regard to business dealings.  When you work under the WGA contract, it's a lot less likely that they're going to waste your time and get you to spend days thinking up or even writing up ideas for projects that are not going to go forward.  There is a reasonably-mature mechanism in place to deal with business disputes that may arise.  You are reasonably assured of getting proper credit for your work.  (I could go on and on...)

Having put in my time in the salt mines of union organizing, and suffered considerable losses (both personal and financial) for it, I have opted to curtail my activism in the current crusades.  However, in case it matters to anyone reading this, I — like just about everyone else who's ever written a cartoon — am firmly on the side of the Writers Guild.  And I doubt that anyone on either side seriously doubts they will prevail.  The folks at Nick know the WGA will triumph; they just want to get as many shows as possible done before that happens.

December 23, 2001 · 1:15 AM PST · link

OBITUARY for Dan DeCarlo in The New York Times.  Click here.

December 22, 2001 · 5:00 PM PST · link

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TONY ISABELLA!  Just noticed that today is the big five-oh for my friend of 30-some-odd years, Tony Isabella.  And some odd years, they've been.  Tony is a fine writer, critic, defender of creator's rights, snappy dresser...okay, forget snappy dresser.  But he's an all-around goodguy and someone I've been proud to call paisano for all this time.  He writes two on-line columns for comic book sites and, like me, occasionally talks about comic books in them.  You can find one of them at www.perpetualcomics.com and the other at www.wfcomics.com and they're both worth a regular mouse-click or two if you can tear yourself away from the porn sites for five minutes.

December 22, 2001 · 11:00 AM PST · link

NICK CARDY LIVES!  Michael Sangiacomo writes a good comic book review column for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.  In today's column, he has a brief-but-rave review of The Art of Nick Cardy, a splendid volume that has just been reissued following a sold-out pressing a year or two back.  Here's a link to the review but ignore that line about Cardy, "who died earlier this year."  The lovely Mr. Cardy is alive and well and surprised to hear of his demise.

FOSTER BROOKS DOESN'T!  However, Foster Brooks — aka "The Lovable Lush" — has passed away at the age of 89.  They said it was "natural causes" which, in his case, should have meant alcoholism, which he portrayed so well on stages for decades.  That is, it would if he really drank, which he reportedly didn't.  But he sure played a funny drunk.  I don't usually find that all that amusing — and less so as I get older — but I do recall the first time I saw him.  There was a brief time on The Tonight Show when Mr. Carson was occasionally booking fake guests to come out and be silly.  He'd bring them on with serious, deadpan intros and then, once they were seated in the chair next to him, they'd say or do something outrageous.

Brooks, who was then an unknown actor, was introduced as the Mayor of Burbank.  This was back when Johnny was based in New York and occasionally doing his show from "Hollywood," which on NBC meant Burbank.  Out came Brooks, looking for all the world like a Mayor of Burbank, and the first few exchanges were sober and somewhat boring.  Mayor Brooks was sipping nervously from a cup and, around the third or fourth question, you started to notice him slurring his words.  He got more and more tipsy and he did it so well that I suspect a lot of viewers actually thought, "Oh, my God...the Mayor of Burbank is getting drunk on The Tonight Show and embarrassing himself."  By the end of the spot, he was practically falling off his chair and so was Carson, who was finally unable to keep a straight puss.  He had Brooks on again a few weeks later, introduced as some other dignitary, and Foster was launched on a new career.

He embarked on a stand-up act that was, I thought, pretty awful — old, slightly blue jokes that would have gotten tossed off the Playboy Party Jokes page for sophomoric content — but he did have that funny, intoxicated delivery.  It kept him working, especially in casino rooms, for a long time.  I saw what I think was his last Vegas engagement — at the Sahara, as part of Milton Berle's Comedy Roast of Sid Caesar (mentioned in this column) — and he got around 10 minutes of solid laughs from pretty dreadful material.  The one joke I remember was how Tang, the breakfast drink, now came in different flavors and he liked the prune, because "every man loves a little Prune Tang."  I suppose we should have a certain respect for a comedian who can build a whole career on one drunk act and jokes like that.

December 22, 2001 · 3:45 AM PST · link

HERE'S A BOOK that oughta have a big SPOILER WARNING on its cover.  The Producers: The Book, Lyrics, and Story Behind the Biggest Hit in Broadway History! by Mel Brooks and Tom Meehan contains the complete libretto and lyrics to the hottest show in years, along with tons o' photos and anecdotes and historical notes and stuff.  It not only reveals every joke in the show but some very funny ones that didn't get in.  The "Making of..." parts are a bit too self-congratulatory but the volume is a great memory piece for anyone who's seen the show.  And if you never will — or, at least, never will with Mssrs. Lane and Broderick in the leads — reading this and listening to the cast album is a not-completely-worthless substitute.  Click here to buy a copy.

Not seeing Lane and Broderick is becoming increasingly-likely for many as their contract expiration date — mid-March — looms and the show remains sold out for months after.  Lane is reported to be still nursing throat problems and committed to play Jackie Gleason (great, if obvious casting) in a movie.  Broderick is contracted to play Harold Hill (strange casting) in a TV-movie remake of The Music Man.

The rumor mill says that both are still haggling to return to their roles — individually, if not collectively — at various times in the future.  Since so much cash is being made there, the haggling is probably complex and includes a lot of arguing over how much of the show's success is attributable to its leads.

And I have no inside info on this but I can't believe someone hasn't discussed hauling in cameras and taping the proceedings for pay-per-view and eventual video release while the original stars are still ensconced.  That would presumably complicate negotiations further...though it could also represent most folks' only shot at seeing Nathan and Matthew together.  In the past, the taping of a Broadway show was never considered until it was nearing the end of its New York life...but the producers of The Producers are willing to give everything away in a book like this.  Maybe they'd be unafraid to put the thing on TV while it's still at the St. James.

December 22, 2001 · 1:00 AM PST · link

IF I'VE CONFIGURED things correctly — always an unlikely occurrence — I've just uploaded a major upgrade/redesign of this site containing a number of new articles and sections, plus some new material has been added to old departments like My Backyard, The Cartoon Voice F.A.Q. and Incessantly-Asked Questions.  The Laurel & Hardy Filmography is still under construction but we added columns about a TV cartoon I wrote called Mama Don't Allow, nude scenes in movies, my brief fling at being a TV Weatherman, plus three columns about visiting Disneyland.  I've also added The Official POVonline Comic Convention Guide, a section about Other Comics (i.e., other ones I've written besides those covered in My Comics, which has also undergone an update) and a couple of other things you'll have to hunt around to locate.  Merry Christmas.

December 19, 2001 · 1:00 PM PST · link

ONLY A HANDFUL of men have drawn as many comic books as Dan DeCarlo.  He was widely recognized as the supreme Archie artist.  Didn't create the character, didn't even invent the broad strokes of the art style.  But he did it so well that others were told, "Draw like Dan," and they all tried.  He did create Josie (of Josie and the Pussycats) and co-created Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch.  At the time of his death — alas, this morning — he was fighting a losing legal battle over those two successful properties.  This is a hell of a thing to see happen to a man who drew such sexy girls and funny guys.

Dan was a charming man, impossible to dislike unless, perhaps, he was suing you.  But maybe not even then.  He lived cartooning and did it so well — and so often with little reward or recognition — that you couldn't help but love the guy.

Actually, in the last few years, he was starting to get some of the recognition he deserved.  At comic conventions, the feeling towards him from his fans and fellow professionals was one of genuine love and respect.  I'm sorry to see his life end when the recognition he deserved had so recently begun.

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