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October 25, 2002 · 10:00 AM PDT · link TWO THINGS bother me about the news coverage I'm watching about the arrest of two men in the sniper investigation. I just heard Robert Novak on CNN ask the questions, "Can these men get a fair trial? Who cares?" I always thought the concept of a "fair trial" was as much for society's benefit as that of the accused. I mean, isn't it in our interest to make sure the folks who are convicted are actually guilty? Sometimes, I think people get so eager to see crimes punished that they feel arresting the wrong person is almost as good as arresting the right one. Secondly: Newspeople are telling us that John Allen Muhammad is probably the sniper who murdered ten innocent people and that he was so crazed at one point that his wife had to get a permanent restraining order to keep him away from her. They're also telling us that the other suspect, John Lee Malvo, was linked by fingerprints to a murder and robbery at a liquor store. Okay...but the news people also keep referring to them as "these gentlemen," as in, "authorities believe they have a strong case against these gentlemen." I don't know for sure that the two suspects in custody committed the murders. But I'm pretty sure they aren't "gentlemen."
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I'm actually getting e-mails from folks asking what a "pantomime goose" is. In British parlance, the word "pantomime" sometimes denotes a theatrical impersonation. In other words, when I dress up in my antelope suit, I am a "pantomime antelope." The Python boys had some running gags on their program involving a "pantomime horse" and a "pantomime Princess Margaret," and our friend Kim "Howard" Johnson has played a "pantomime goose" in some of their stage presentations. Which is as good a time as any to mention that Kim/Howard has a website full of Python facts and features. Here's the link to (what else?) The Pantomime Goose. October 24, 2002 · 12:30 PM PDT · link THE PASSING OF Adolph Green reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Johnny Carson ad-libs. It occurred back when Mr. Green's loving spouse — singer-actress Phyllis Newman — was a regular guest on The Tonight Show. Apparently, they needed a quick cash infusion in the Green household, so Phyllis came up with an idea to boost her hubby's ASCAP rating. She had an arranger she knew assemble a medley of a few dozen songs for which Adolph had written lyrics. So she goes on Mr. Carson's program and sings this shameless montage of her husband's hits, tied together by an autobiographical theme. She sings of how she came to "New York, New York" and it was her "Never Never Land" where she found Adolph "Just In Time" and felt "Lucky To Be Me" because she'd learned to "Make Someone Happy" but now "The Party's Over," et cetera, et cetera. At the close of all this, she took her bow, went over and sat in the guest chair next to the host. Johnny turned to her and said, "It's too bad you didn't marry Irving Berlin. You could have finished with 'God Bless America.'" October 24, 2002 · 10:45 AM PDT · link
ADOLPH GREEN co-wrote the scripts and lyrics for Bells Are Ringing, Singin' in the Rain, Peter Pan, Do-Re-Mi, Wonderful Town, Applause, The Band Wagon, The Will Rogers Follies, On the Town, Good News, On the Twentieth Century and several other Broadway shows and movies that will forever endure. It was a career that would have been impressive at a third its length, filled as it was not only with successful works but with ones that were widely-respected and admired. He passed away yesterday at the age of 87, and the whole concept of "musical comedy" is a little poorer for that news. As are we all. October 24, 2002 · 1:30 AM PDT · link SPEAKING OF THE FUNNIEST sketches ever done on television, a top contender would be "This Is Your Story," a take-off on the TV show, This Is Your Life, as fractured by Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howie Morris on Your Show of Shows. If you have Real Player installed on your computer, you can view the entire thing online at this link. See why the people who don't recognize Howie as Ernest T. Bass all recognize him as Uncle Goopy. And you can view the second-funniest sketch from that show — "The German General" — by clicking on this link. And the third-funniest ("The Clock") is at this link. And here's a page with three clip montages from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The first one includes the complete "Copper Clanger Caper" starring Jack Webb and Johnny. A classic bit of self-parody by Mr. Webb.
IF THE WASHINGTON-BASED SNIPER accomplishes nothing else, he has greatly lowered the bar for what qualifies as "Breaking News" on the cable channels. Today on CNN, Connie Chung looked almost embarrassed by the feeble info she was offering under that banner...especially since it all interrupted and consumed most of an episode of Crossfire that started with the announcement that, due to popular request, they were going to get away from sniper coverage and back to politics. They didn't. I also love the parade of "experts" who start with the cautionary word that absolutely nothing is known about the sniper (or snipers, by some theories) and then proceed to speculate on his/their motives, training, master plan, shirt size and favorite color. They're almost as good as the "witnesses" who may not have seen anything that relates to the sniper but they saw something. I'm waiting for the guy who'll say, "I can confirm that the sniper was driving a white van because I was there, dressed as a pantomime goose." October 23, 2002 · 5:00 PM PDT · link
MORE ON THE DEATH OF THE DEAD PARROT: I am delighted to receive the following info from an old pen-pal, Kim "Howard" Johnson, who knows more about Monty Python than any man alive. He's authored four Python books including the best one — The First 280 Years of Monty Python — and worked on their films and concerts, and he's currently personal assistant to John Cleese. Can't get much more qualified than that. About the topic we've been discussing here, he writes... I spoke to both John and Michael about it a couple of weeks after it aired, so I believe these are the most reliable accounts — but John's memory wasn't even clear at that time, and his subsequent memories are not completely consistent. But here's what I know. John Cleese and Michael Palin were in New York doing publicity for Fierce Creatures. They had agreed to do a guest shot on SNL, appearing in, as I recall, three sketches. The first was part of the opener, a sketch parodying the then-new TV rating system. I think one or both of them appeared in another segment (possibly involving the news — I don't have any notes with me). Lorne wanted them to do a third segment. John seems to recall that since he was so busy with publicity, that he was happy to do a Python sketch, as it would involve the least work on his part. It is unclear whether John or Lorne initially suggested this, and we'll probably never know. (Incidentally, a friend of mine who was a cast member at the time had me e-mail the script of the Parrot sketch to SNL — I suspect it had more to do with putting it on cue cards, as that seems to be how SNL operates, than worries that John and Mike would forget it, although neither of them had performed the sketch in many years. So, they were rusty — I'm not even sure if they ever rehearsed it beforehand...) That Saturday, John got up around 5 a.m. and did some 40 interviews throughout the day, so he was clearly exhausted. The Parrot Sketch was performed during the final half-hour — about 12:30-12:45 am — normally used for filler and as a dumping ground for weaker sketches, and expectations are low. I recall watching it on TV and being slightly disappointed at the subdued laughter. But, what I later found out, and what would not be apparent to home viewers, was that it was also performed on a set against the back wall. In other words, the majority of the live audience at SNL sits in the balcony, and it is almost impossible to see the actors performing in this area; the relative few with main floor seats had to turn completely around to see the sketch being performed behind them. In other words, most audience members had to watch it on one of the small TV monitors in the studio — it's possible some of them didn't even realize it was being performed live... Not the best way to schedule and present one of the all-time great comedy sketches. In fact, there were rumors later that Lorne Michaels had even deliberately sabotaged the sketch out of some misguided Python-SNL jealousy (which I think is highly unlikely). When I talked to Michael and John a couple of weeks later, Michael was genuinely surprised when I asked him about the response to the sketch — he hadn't noticed any particular lack of reaction. And indeed, in the studio, there may not have been (depending on how the audience was miked and how the sound levels were set for home broadcast). I have my doubts about Lorne giving that speech to John and Michael immediately after the sketch, though, as I'm sure one or the other would have mentioned it to me. I can vouch for the reaction at the Hollywood Bowl, however (I was on stage with the group each night, dressed like a pantomime goose), and the reaction to the Python show at the City Center a few years earlier was the same. So, this is a bit of Python Rashomon. Was their timing off? Were they victims of circumstance? Were they set up? Or did the sketch receive a perfectly fine reaction in the studio? There's evidence to support any of these, so take your pick. Thanks, Kim. For what it's worth, I think the suggestion of sabotage is ridiculous. I would also presume that the reason they needed a copy of the sketch material was not so it could be on cue cards (which Palin and Cleese presumably didn't use) but so the director could have it in the script from which he called camera cuts. And they certainly must have done a couple of rehearsals, if only so the director and camera operators could have figured out how to cover it, plus they presumably did it in the dress rehearsal. My impression, as I think back on that night, was that the audience was warm to Cleese and Palin in the show's cold opening, and to Palin when he appeared briefly in another sketch. But they were far more excited about the musical guest, Beck, who got more applause than Cleese or Palin ever did that night. Perhaps that was the problem right there. The parrot routine came, as you mentioned, near the end and I felt it failed, at least in part, because it was disconnected from the rest of the program. It was like Saturday Night Live stopped for five minutes and suddenly, there was this show on that had nothing to do with SNL, its regulars, that night's host (Kevin Spacey) or the musical guest. Also, of course, there's a fine tradition of sketches that air in the last fifteen minutes not doing well, period. I think all that, plus some of the other things you mention, may be the explanation. Their timing did seem to be a bit off, perhaps because they were weary or under-rehearsed but perhaps also because they'd grown used to doing the bit with live audiences screaming in recognition over every line, and weren't quite able to readjust to the more subdued response. (I should mention that I'm dwelling on this because I think Michael Palin and John Cleese are two of the all-time great sketch performers in the history of comedy, and it was stunning to see them not be well-received in anything, let alone their best sketch.) It's interesting to hear that Mr. Palin didn't notice a paucity of laughter because I recall a certain look on his face that suggested he was thinking, "Boy, are we in trouble." On the other hand, I don't recall seeing that look when I saw the sketch rerun later and I wonder if the version currently being aired is the same one. The SNL reruns occasionally substitute a bit from the dress rehearsal when the live version wasn't as good. I have a suspicion here that the routine went better in dress than air (which is why it wasn't cut) and that what's rerun now is the dress rehearsal version. Whatever, as mentioned, that particular SNL reruns on October 26 on Comedy Central, at 4 PM in most time zones. It's also worth catching for Norm MacDonald's amazing impression of David Letterman in one of the early sketches. And don't you just love the fact that a grown man could vouch for something because he was present at the moment, dressed like a pantomime goose? That's what we need more of in all these televised trials. ("Your honor, I can testify that Detective Fuhrman could not have planted the bloody glove at the Rockingham estate. I know because I was there at the time, dressed as a pantomime goose.") October 23, 2002 · 11:00 AM PDT · link
AUTHORITIES IN LAS VEGAS are reporting that an 87-year-old man found stabbed to death in the desert has been identified as Jay R. Smith, a child actor in the old "Our Gang" comedies. Some of the reports identify him as having played the character of "Freckles," which has prompted some e-mail inquiries to this site. Just a few months ago, in this item, we discussed a gent who fraudulently claimed to have played "Freckles" in those films...a character who never existed. Jay R. Smith was, indeed, an actor in 36 "Our Gang" shorts from 1925 until just after they began making talking pictures in 1929. He had very little to do in most of these films and was not a major player but, yes, he was a cast member. The possible confusion here is that, though the kid had a lot of freckles, he didn't play a character named Freckles. (Lots of Our Gangers had freckles. Smith was more or less brought in to replace Mickey Daniels, who had just as many. In the above photo, Mickey's the tall kid at left behind Fat Joe Cobb and Jay R. Smith is the kid at far right.) Sad to hear of his death. We are fast approaching the day when there won't be one single human being alive who ever appeared in silent pictures. October 23, 2002 · 2:30 AM PDT · link E-MAIL BUDDY Cory Strode bills himself as "The Best Dressed Man in Comics." This is quite a claim until you look at everyone else in comics and see how they dress. At many a comic convention, Emmett Kelly could be a fashion plate. In any case, Cory is also wise in many things, one of them being matters of Monty Python. In response to my earlier item, he sent me the following explanation, which I believe I've heard elsewhere... Cleese and Palin came to SNL to do the dead parrot sketch as a promotion for a movie coming up...and when they came out, the audience went completely insane, cheering and applauding. They went through the sketch, and there was no laughter...they started to panic, wondering what they were doing wrong, made it through the sketch and were again greeted with thunderous applause, cheering and stomping. Cleese and Palin went off stage, went to Lorne and started apologizing for how they bombed, saying that they were horribly sorry...and Michaels said, "You're kidding, right?" No, they insisted and started to apologize more, and Michaels cut them off, "You weren't watching the audience. They were mouthing the words to the sketch along with you. They didn't hate it, they loved it because they knew it by heart. You're like a band that comes out to perform its greatest hits and the audience sings along. You've become the Beatles." I wouldn't doubt that Michaels said that to them but I was in the audience at the Hollywood Bowl when those gents performed the sketch for a stadium full of Python fans, every one of whom knew the lines, verbatim. There was riotous laughter and cheering at the close of every sentence. There was no silence because the crowd was mouthing the words along. For that matter, Saturday Night Live audiences seem to express their greatest audible glee when they're getting catch phrases and characters they already know by heart. Familiarity does not stun them into silence. (If it did, Adam Sandler would not have a career.) So I think Mr. Michaels was just being graceful and soothing. I think the sketch bombed. Nevertheless, I thank Cory for an alternate theory. He's an enormously bright guy as you'll see when you visit his website and 'blog, which you can do by clicking right, smack-dab here.
WHILE YOU'RE in the mood to think about Saturday Night Live, you might hustle over to www.harrisonline.com and take in the audio of the fine interview that Paul Harris, the pride of St. Louis radio, did with Tom Shales about his new book. Perhaps, unlike me, you can even fathom why Shales thinks Will Farrell was a better sketch player than Phil Hartman. There's also a link there for Paul's weekly chat with my pal, TV critic Aaron Barnhart, plus a rant about "the sniper media." Also, do consider ordering Paul's Harris Challenge 2003 Trivia Calendar. Paul has this terrific game show segment on his program and he's made it into a calendar that you can order through his website. I love this kind of stuff.
RECENTLY in the New York Review of Books, Anthony Lewis delivered what may be the definitive summary of the case against Bush's Iraq policy. Here's a link to it. If I can find a decent rebuttal or counter-argument, I'll link to it, as well. Like I keep saying, I'm not convinced. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LOONEY TUNE AND A MERRIE MELODIE? That's a very good question. But it's also an Incessantly Asked Question so we answer it in that section, on this new page. THE LINK via which you could order a copy of Live From New York from Amazon was broken and is now fixed. Sorry. And thanks to Tom Abrahamson for alerting me. October 22, 2002 · 7:00 PM PDT · link TICKETS TO BROADWAY shows are pretty expensive and, in the past, you've had two choices: Pay full price and book your seats in advance or brave the TKTS booth on the day of the performance you wish to see. If you do the latter, you get deep discounts but you often face long lines and the possibility that they won't have seats (good or at all) for the show you want to see when you want to see it. There is another way, though I must caution that I haven't tried it myself yet. Theatrical producers often send out ads with discount ticket codes, and one website has established itself as a central gathering point for such info. It's at www.broadwaybox.com and if you go there, you can perhaps find a code number that will save you beaucoup bucks on tickets you order in advance. Naturally, not all shows are available but it's probably worth a visit. The snag, I am told, is that some box offices try to weasel out of honoring a discount code unless they know you obtained it via the intended route. That is, on a given show, they might put a certain code only on flyers distributed in a select area or to a select demographic. Then, when someone shows up at the ticket window with the number but not the flyer, the cashier argues that the purchaser is not eligible. The solution is to use these discount codes only for telephone and online orders. Odd that this should be a concern but I'm told it is. October 22, 2002 · 4:30 PM PDT · link TRIO is a network that is available on a limited number of local cable companies but mainly via satellite. I like it for its music specials, some of which are quite excellent, and for rerunning old episodes of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. (Alas, they seem to have a limited number of episodes which they recycle.) The network is about to add reruns of Late Night with David Letterman, the show ol' Dave did for NBC. The actual airings commence in January but as a preview, they'll be running a 53-hour marathon over Thanksgiving weekend. If I'm reading the press release correctly, the total package they've acquired from NBC consists of 80 episodes, so they'll probably be rerun over and over and over, the way the same Laugh-Ins get rerun over and over and over. Which is not to say it won't be great to see those old Letterman shows again for the first few times.
October 21, 2002 · 11:00 AM PDT · link
BACK IN 1951, Phil Silvers wowed Broadway with Top Banana, a musical about a high-pressure TV comedian who was basically Milton Berle, rolled into one. Berle, in fact, did a number of things to promote it, including bogus threats to sue for slander. Since he was also one of the backers of the show, he later remarked that it was never so profitable to be publicly ridiculed. Since then, the show has rarely been produced, perhaps because stars like Phil Silvers are in short supply. Fortunately (sort of), his performance was preserved (sort of) on film. In 1953, producer Albert Zugsmith approached the producers of Top Banana about knocking out a quickie film to ride the then-current mania for 3-D movies. Zugsmith was a producer of cheap, grade-Z motion pictures (you can read more about him in Part 2 of our interview with Irwin Hasen, here) and he had a low-budget idea. Rather than really make a movie, he just wanted to stick a camera in front of the stage production, film the whole thing in three days and rush it into theaters. Apparently, they didn't rush enough: 3-D was dying out and the thing was scarcely released in that format. But it was filmed that way so the image looks muddy and strange in its conversion to 2-D. The end product is sloppy and full of mistakes, and the cast often doesn't seem to know how to time the delivery of material that they usually performed with an audience out front howling in laughter. If you want to see what Mr. Silvers later described as a "totally surreal film experience," it runs on Turner Classic Movies, the evening of October 27. Here and there, you get a sense of how wonderful this show must have been on Broadway...but only here and there.
THE NIGHT BEFORE: Another example of great humor being ruined can be witnessed on a Saturday Night Live episode that Comedy Central is rerunning on October 26 (4 PM in most time zones). It's a 1997 SNL hosted by Kevin Spacey but with guest appearances by John Cleese and Michael Palin. In it, the latter gents performed the famous Monty Python "dead parrot" sketch to tepid audience response. Maybe they'd done the routine one time too often...maybe the SNL audience is of another generation and taste...whatever. But as you watch it, you can almost see the two performers exchanging looks of panic and wondering if they shouldn't just bail out of the script and drop trou or something. Cleese later claimed that they hadn't wanted to do an old piece; that they were doing SNL to promote a movie and Lorne Michaels insisted on it. Whoever or whatever was to blame, it's rather stunning to see two such skilled comedians die with one of their (usually) funniest pieces. QUICK LINK: Alan Light (that's right...the same guy who founded what became Comics Buyer's Guide) calls my attention to this article by Tom Shales about problems with publicists and book publicity. October 21, 2002 · 12:30 AM PDT · link
I LOST MUCH of an afternoon reading Live From New York, an oral history of Saturday Night Live, compiled and annotated by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. They talked to a hefty sampling of cast and crew members, NBC execs and guest hosts and pretty much just printed what was said. Much of it is interesting in a gossipy sense as it recounts feuds and romances, and there are insights into how the show has always been assembled, though perhaps not as many as one might like. One nice thing is that it does cover the years produced by Dick Ebersol which are rarely discussed...and, since Lorne Michaels controls the repeats, rarely rerun. There is much about deceased cast members like Belushi, Radner, Farley and Hartman, though almost nothing on Andy Kaufman. There is very little about living cast members who weren't interviewed unless they were Eddie Murphy. (The book spends more time on marginal player Damon Wayans, who spoke to the authors, than on Dennis Miller and Rob Schneider, who didn't.) Some folks come off as petty; others as afraid to speak less than glowingly of Lorne. A lot of them really, really didn't like Chevy Chase. Though a hefty volume, I found the book rather incomplete, breezing over whole years and major players. Advance knowledge of SNL history may help you understand some of the anecdotes and no one seems to have the vantage point to step back and put it all into a larger context. It's all about getting on the show, getting your sketches on the show, and surviving in its environment. Still, if your interest in Saturday Night Live reaches beyond the level of casual viewer, you'll want to read this. If not, not. You can order a copy from Amazon.Com (and give us a teensy commission) by clicking here.
FOR DEEPER insights in the realm of sketch comedy, check out Bill Zehme's new interview show, Second City Presents, which runs weekly on Bravo. In each episode, Zehme does a pretty good job interviewing someone of prominence in the world of humor, not necessarily from Second City. This week's, featuring Tracey Ullman, reminds us that there may be no funnier woman alive. Up next is Martin Short.
HAVE TO recommend another Paul Krugman column. Maybe from now on, I should just tell you which ones not to read. This one should not be missed. October 20, 2002 · 1:00 AM PDT · link
AS A KID, I occasionally hung out on the set of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, watching them tape the world's fastest-paced comedy show at about the speed of a snail. It always seemed to take forever, but that was fine because you got to see the cast members screwing around between takes, and bitching as the schedule stretched into triple-golden overtime. Most of them seemed to be having enormous fun and I suspect the off-camera camaraderie had a lot to do with the on-camera success of the show. Several members of the Laugh-In cast have either set up websites or fans have set them up unofficially. Most don't have that much on them yet, but you might like to check them out. (The bio on Judy Carne's site is a pretty good summary of a pretty awful series of life tragedies.)
ONE OF OUR readers, Mark Thorson, sends in a correction: In this piece, I incorrectly identified a Nash Metropolitan as a Nash Rambler. This is one of those things that I should have known but didn't. Thanks, Mark. I MISSED THEM when they were first posted months ago but just noticed that Greg Hatcher did a couple of good articles for Comic Book Resources, covering two of the panels I did at the San Diego Con. Click here to read highlights of the one I did with Bob Oksner and here to read about the one I did with Herb Trimpe. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED in the history of DC Comics, you won't find a better repository of info than Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics, a fact-filled corner of cyberspace. According to Mike, DC has so far published 28,794 comics (I don't know as of when) and he has 82.5 percent of them. I think that's about my batting average, as well. October 20, 2002 · 12:15 PM PDT · link |
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