I was talking about The Big Sleep, and we noted that it's one of those movies that sort of seems to make sense right up until you're finished watching it, at which point you realize that there were a million things that went unexplained.
It's not just the famous story (mentioned in the Wikipedia article above) about how neither Howard Hawks nor Raymond Chandler knew who committed one of the murders; it's that the movie builds toward a big revelation -- who killed Sean Regan -- that never really comes, at least not in a satisfying way. The way the final scene is played, the murderer could have been one of two people, and I've gotten into arguments about who the killer was supposed to be. (The obscurity of the final scene may derive partly from Production Code requirements: murderers had to be punished, so it had to be said that Eddie Mars, the villain, was the murderer, even if we were left free to believe that he wasn't. A lot of the obscurity in the film comes from the convoluted ways in which the filmmakers have to imply drug dealing, or nymphomania, or a lot of other stuff, without actually saying the words.)
But the other thing that has always struck me about The Big Sleep, and which I haven't seen a lot of other people mention, is that the whole movie comes off as Hawks's excuse to feature as many beautiful women as possible; not until the James Bond movies would an action-adventure movie lean so heavily on eye candy. The first scene is primarily focused on how good Martha Vickers looks in shorts. (The original script called for Bacall to show off her legs in her first scene, too, but either it was changed or she didn't want to do the scene that way.) Then there's the famous bookstore scene with Dorothy Malone, where Hawks turned a bit part into a long -- and mostly pointless -- scene because, by his own admission, he thought Malone was hot and he wanted to give her more to do.
I've always thought the iconic scene of The Big Sleep is the one where Marlowe gets into a cab to do the follow-that-car scene, but his driver is a good-looking woman. Obviously women are an important part of the Raymond Chandler world, but Hawks overdoes it to an extent that we wouldn't see again until Frank Tashlin came along. I'm still not sure what possessed him to do the movie that way, though of course I am grateful for Vickers and Malone.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Baer Necessities
Not much time for posting today, but here's something I stumbled on that seems like it could be interesting. Richard Baer, who has been writing for television since the '50s and worked on just about every TV comedy you can name, has written his memoirs at the age of 89. The book is called I Don't Drop Names Like Marilyn Monroe Just to Sell Books. (The semi-ironic title comes from the fact that before he started in TV writing, he was a production assistant on the Fritz Lang film Clash By Night, which had Monroe in a supporting role; the excerpt on the website is, inevitably, a Monroe anecdote.) I haven't read the book, but Baer was a good scriptwriter (he wrote weaker scripts when working under weaker producers, but that's true of any screenwriter) who had a long career; he was writing prime-time situation comedies well into his '60s. I would think there would be some good stories in the book; I'll try and get a copy and give a fuller report.
Shorter Daniel Henninger: Don't you realize "heck" is a four-letter word, you rebel?
See Roy Edroso's Alicublog for more on Henninger, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page's most unintentionally hilarious member of the prematurely-cranky-old-man club.
See Roy Edroso's Alicublog for more on Henninger, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page's most unintentionally hilarious member of the prematurely-cranky-old-man club.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Happy Beethoven's Birthday!
Here's the slow movement of the seventh symphony, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado. I don't know whether I'd consider it one of the very best versions available online, but unlike the YouTube clips, this one (from DailyMotion) is in stereo, allowing you to hear stuff like Beethoven's penchant -- similar to Haydn's -- for giving very different material to the first violins and second violins. (This is emphasized because Abbado, unusually for him, uses divided violins.)
When I say "slow movement," of course, that's kind of a misnomer; Beethoven rarely wrote actual "slow" movements in his symphonies except for the funeral march in symphony # 3. This particular movement is much more propulsive and rhythm-oriented than the typical second movement of a symphony; usually this part of the symphony is a relaxing or soothing interlude between two fast and loud movements, but here it's as neurotic, unsettling, as the rest of the piece. It also became very influential for the very stripped-down version of theme-and-variations form which Beethoven used here: it's really just one theme repeated over and over and over again without a whole lot of actual variation, and somehow that becomes hypnotic instead of boring. Ravel's Bolero and the Minimalists wouldn't exist without the example of this particular movement.
And leave us not forget Schroeder and Lucy.
When I say "slow movement," of course, that's kind of a misnomer; Beethoven rarely wrote actual "slow" movements in his symphonies except for the funeral march in symphony # 3. This particular movement is much more propulsive and rhythm-oriented than the typical second movement of a symphony; usually this part of the symphony is a relaxing or soothing interlude between two fast and loud movements, but here it's as neurotic, unsettling, as the rest of the piece. It also became very influential for the very stripped-down version of theme-and-variations form which Beethoven used here: it's really just one theme repeated over and over and over again without a whole lot of actual variation, and somehow that becomes hypnotic instead of boring. Ravel's Bolero and the Minimalists wouldn't exist without the example of this particular movement.
And leave us not forget Schroeder and Lucy.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Low Blood Sugar
Tenor Roberto Alagna blames his La Scala walkout on "Low Blood Sugar."
The fun thing about the Italians -- especially at La Scala -- is that they still treat opera not as a source of highbrow boredom but as a sort of sporting event. Opera singers are as close as musicians get to being athletes; they have to perform amazing feats every night. So in Milan, the audiences react as they would to athletes: you cheer when the athlete/singer scores a point/hits the high note, and you boo for a bad play or a bum note.
The fun thing about the Italians -- especially at La Scala -- is that they still treat opera not as a source of highbrow boredom but as a sort of sporting event. Opera singers are as close as musicians get to being athletes; they have to perform amazing feats every night. So in Milan, the audiences react as they would to athletes: you cheer when the athlete/singer scores a point/hits the high note, and you boo for a bad play or a bum note.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Closing Theme Songs
I'll have more on WKRP in Cincinnati as more information trickles out about the DVD release, but for now I wanted to add just one little thing. I was surprised, looking at a comment on a message board, to discover that people are still asking about the lyrics to the closing theme song. So I will link to this interview clip with the guy who wrote and sang the closing theme, Jimmy Ellis, who explains very clearly that the whole thing is gibberish.
And speaking of closing theme songs, what are some other shows that have a different theme in the closing credits than in the opening? All in the Family is one that comes to mind. Arrested Development, Remington Steele after the first season... others?
Here, by the way, is the WKRP closing theme, complete with the MTM kitten and those MTM picture credits for cast members:
And speaking of closing theme songs, what are some other shows that have a different theme in the closing credits than in the opening? All in the Family is one that comes to mind. Arrested Development, Remington Steele after the first season... others?
Here, by the way, is the WKRP closing theme, complete with the MTM kitten and those MTM picture credits for cast members:
Down With Python!
Want to know what BBC network executives thought of Monty Python's Flying Circus? The Daily Telegraph has the story.
The article reviews "new documents" -- a term normally reserved for the secrets of government departments other than the BBC -- to find out what was going on behind the scenes while Python was on the air. Highlights:
Actually, most of the article isn't as much of a scoop as previously thought, because the sketch to which these comments refer -- about a cannibalistic undertaker -- was already known to have been extremely controversial at the BBC. The network was reluctant to approve the script in the first place, and finally agreed that the cast could do the sketch on condition that it ended with the studio audience expressing its disgust over the bad taste. Which, as network censorship goes, is pretty post-modern.
One thing I wasn't aware of is that John Cleese, who finally did leave after the third season (or "series," I should probably say), considered leaving after the first 13 episode run and had to be talked into returning for a second year.
Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that this info is even older than I thought:
The article reviews "new documents" -- a term normally reserved for the secrets of government departments other than the BBC -- to find out what was going on behind the scenes while Python was on the air. Highlights:
The minutes state: "Aubrey Singer (the head of features group) said that he had found parts of this edition disgusting. Controller BBC1 said the programme was continually going over the edge of what was acceptable: this edition had contained two really awful sketches – the death sequence had been in appalling bad taste, while the treatment of the National Anthem had simply not been amusing.
"The Managing Director Television said it must be recognised that in the past the programme had contained dazzle and produced some very good things but this edition had been quite certainly over the edge and the producer Ian McNaughton had failed to refer the show to the BBC when he should have done.
"Stephen Hearst (the head of arts features) was critical of the fact that the values of the programme were so nihilistic and cruel… Bob Reid (the head of science features) felt the team seemed to wallow in the sadism of their humour. Controller BBC2 thought they also shied away from their responsibility. D.P. (the director of programmes) Television said the episode had been a sad end for the series. Bill Cotton (the head of light entertainment group) said it would be sad if the BBC lost the programme; the team seemed to have some sort of death wish."
Actually, most of the article isn't as much of a scoop as previously thought, because the sketch to which these comments refer -- about a cannibalistic undertaker -- was already known to have been extremely controversial at the BBC. The network was reluctant to approve the script in the first place, and finally agreed that the cast could do the sketch on condition that it ended with the studio audience expressing its disgust over the bad taste. Which, as network censorship goes, is pretty post-modern.
One thing I wasn't aware of is that John Cleese, who finally did leave after the third season (or "series," I should probably say), considered leaving after the first 13 episode run and had to be talked into returning for a second year.
Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that this info is even older than I thought:
The memo you quote from was printed in Robert Hewison's "Monty Python: The Case Against" published in 1981.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Noir Gang
DVD Beaver has a list of the films that will be in Warner Home Video's Film Noir Collection, Volume 4. It looks to be an improvement over the last two volumes in two ways: a) It'll have ten films instead of five, and b) It'll include more of the grungy little "B" movies, or relatively inexpensive, under-the-radar films, that have more of the real noir spirit than some of the star-studded "A" pictures included in previous volumes.
The movies are:
- Act of Violence (MGM, 1949) - an MGM "A" picture directed by Fred Zinnemmann before he got really boring.
- Cornered (RKO, 1945) - the team that made Murder My Sweet -- director Edward Dmytryk, writer John Paxton and star Dick Powell -- followed it up with this post-war noir thriller about Nazis who are alive and well and living in Argentina.
- Crime Wave (WB, 1954) - it's got Sterling Hayden and the young Charles Bronson, it's only 73 minutes and it's a violent little crime movie about how one mistake haunts you for the rest of your life. Late noir, but noir nonetheless.
- Decoy (Monogram, 1946) - very strange, very cheap, very implausible and very entertaining "B" picture about a very bad woman.
- Illegal (WB, 1955) - Edward G. Robinson (who was making a lot of "B" movies in the mid-'50s because the political situation made it harder for him to get hired for "A" pictures) plays a D.A. who gets an innocent man executed for murder, quits out of guilt, and then gets all sorts of shady problems in private practice.
- Mystery Street (MGM, 1950) - an early film from John Sturges about the investigation into the murder of a prostitute (Jan Sterling).
- Side Street (MGM, 1950) - before Anthony Mann started mostly directing Westerns, he mostly directed crime thrillers. This, with Farley Granger as yet another guy who makes one stupid mistake and finds he can't escape the consequences, is one of them.
- Tension (MGM, 1950) - Richard Basehart works out a plan to murder the guy who ran off with his wife (Audrey Totter), but somebody else kills him first and he's the suspect for something he planned to do, but didn't actually do. Cyd Charisse is in it somewhere as well.
They Live By Night (RKO, 1949) - The pick of this particular litter, directed by Nicholas Ray. Robert Altman later remade it as Thieves Like Us.
Where Danger Lives (RKO, 1950) - Obligatory Robert Mitchum movie. Faith Domergue is the woman who, you'll be shocked to hear, leads him astray.
It says on the site that Eddie Muller has recorded commentary tracks for Crime Wave and (with comments by Farley Granger) They Live By Night.
The movies are:
- Act of Violence (MGM, 1949) - an MGM "A" picture directed by Fred Zinnemmann before he got really boring.
- Cornered (RKO, 1945) - the team that made Murder My Sweet -- director Edward Dmytryk, writer John Paxton and star Dick Powell -- followed it up with this post-war noir thriller about Nazis who are alive and well and living in Argentina.
- Crime Wave (WB, 1954) - it's got Sterling Hayden and the young Charles Bronson, it's only 73 minutes and it's a violent little crime movie about how one mistake haunts you for the rest of your life. Late noir, but noir nonetheless.
- Decoy (Monogram, 1946) - very strange, very cheap, very implausible and very entertaining "B" picture about a very bad woman.
- Illegal (WB, 1955) - Edward G. Robinson (who was making a lot of "B" movies in the mid-'50s because the political situation made it harder for him to get hired for "A" pictures) plays a D.A. who gets an innocent man executed for murder, quits out of guilt, and then gets all sorts of shady problems in private practice.
- Mystery Street (MGM, 1950) - an early film from John Sturges about the investigation into the murder of a prostitute (Jan Sterling).
- Side Street (MGM, 1950) - before Anthony Mann started mostly directing Westerns, he mostly directed crime thrillers. This, with Farley Granger as yet another guy who makes one stupid mistake and finds he can't escape the consequences, is one of them.
- Tension (MGM, 1950) - Richard Basehart works out a plan to murder the guy who ran off with his wife (Audrey Totter), but somebody else kills him first and he's the suspect for something he planned to do, but didn't actually do. Cyd Charisse is in it somewhere as well.
They Live By Night (RKO, 1949) - The pick of this particular litter, directed by Nicholas Ray. Robert Altman later remade it as Thieves Like Us.
Where Danger Lives (RKO, 1950) - Obligatory Robert Mitchum movie. Faith Domergue is the woman who, you'll be shocked to hear, leads him astray.
It says on the site that Eddie Muller has recorded commentary tracks for Crime Wave and (with comments by Farley Granger) They Live By Night.
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Cultural Identity of the Late '90s
I was watching a Pinky and the Brain episode where the lab mice appear on a parody of MTV's The Real Life. The episode, written by Jed Spingarn and directed by Kirk Tingblad (whom I'll always think of as the guy who animated the scene in Animaniacs where Slappy Squirrel lipo-suctions lard out of Roger Ebert's stomach), aired in 1998, and I was enjoying all the late-'90s stereotypes in the show: the depressed female wanna-be poet, the backwards baseball caps, the grunge rock, the fashions.
And then it occurred to me: the late '90s are, by simple mathematics, less than a decade old, and yet they already seem to belong to a distant past -- and they have a cultural profile that is much stronger than many other eras.
I can barely remember what the early '90s were like, in a cultural/fashion sense, even though I was in high school then and, in theory, I should have been noticing stuff. But boy, do I remember the music, fashions and cultural obsessions from about 1996 right up to the dot-com bust.
We can all think of stuff that symbolizes that era. Internet cartoons. Alanis Morissette (and I'm not talking about the teen pop queen Alanis, either). The cable news channels caught up in Monica Lewinsky fever. Titanic. Austin Powers. Anything whatsoever to do with the term, or aimed at the people considered to be, "Generation X." Bad Friends ripoffs on every network. Mawkish tributes to the "Greatest Generation" (that would be the World War II generation, or so said Tom Brokaw). The debuts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and the general ubiquity of empowered kick-ass females in popular entertainment. The march of Starbucks.
And, above everything else, an absolute obsession with people in their '20s who don't know exactly what to do with their lives.
This particular era was killed stone dead by, first, the dot-com bust, which killed the mystique of the 20-something by making it clear that we would, in fact, never get rich and there wasn't anything cool about us. And second, September 11, 2001, which ushered in a bunch of new, different worries.
So what are some other things -- shows, clothes, things like those -- that you associate with that particular cultural moment?
And here's an excerpt from the Pinky and the Brain episode that started this whole post; see how many late '90s things you can spot that already seem like ancient history. The guest voices, by the way, include Pamela "Milhouse" Hayden, Scott "Nick on Family Ties" Valentine, and LeVar Burton.
And then it occurred to me: the late '90s are, by simple mathematics, less than a decade old, and yet they already seem to belong to a distant past -- and they have a cultural profile that is much stronger than many other eras.
I can barely remember what the early '90s were like, in a cultural/fashion sense, even though I was in high school then and, in theory, I should have been noticing stuff. But boy, do I remember the music, fashions and cultural obsessions from about 1996 right up to the dot-com bust.
We can all think of stuff that symbolizes that era. Internet cartoons. Alanis Morissette (and I'm not talking about the teen pop queen Alanis, either). The cable news channels caught up in Monica Lewinsky fever. Titanic. Austin Powers. Anything whatsoever to do with the term, or aimed at the people considered to be, "Generation X." Bad Friends ripoffs on every network. Mawkish tributes to the "Greatest Generation" (that would be the World War II generation, or so said Tom Brokaw). The debuts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and the general ubiquity of empowered kick-ass females in popular entertainment. The march of Starbucks.
And, above everything else, an absolute obsession with people in their '20s who don't know exactly what to do with their lives.
This particular era was killed stone dead by, first, the dot-com bust, which killed the mystique of the 20-something by making it clear that we would, in fact, never get rich and there wasn't anything cool about us. And second, September 11, 2001, which ushered in a bunch of new, different worries.
So what are some other things -- shows, clothes, things like those -- that you associate with that particular cultural moment?
And here's an excerpt from the Pinky and the Brain episode that started this whole post; see how many late '90s things you can spot that already seem like ancient history. The guest voices, by the way, include Pamela "Milhouse" Hayden, Scott "Nick on Family Ties" Valentine, and LeVar Burton.
WKRP on DVD - A-OK
Fox appears to have finally spilled the beans: they're going to release WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD.
I've been hearing about this for a while but I couldn't say anything until it became official (for one thing, it might have fallen through and then I'd have looked like an idiot).
I'll have more to say about the music issue when more news starts coming out. It will fall short of having all the music, but my guess for now is that it'll be a lot better than the atrociously re-dubbed versions that ran on Nick at Nite (in the U.S.) or The Comedy Network (in Canada). More later.
While I'm not making threats, I will say just this: if, when the first season comes out, you have some money to spare and choose instead to spend it on some other DVD, I will find out about it and I will be very, very annoyed with you. Not that I'm making threats.
The point is that the first season needs to sell as well as it possibly can or we won't get the other three seasons.
I think it will sell, though. For one thing, while the first season of WKRP wasn't the very best in my opinion, it did produce a huge number of fan-favorite episodes, episodes that people still think of immediately when they remember watching WKRP in Cincinnati. One of them, of course, was the Thanksgiving turkey drop (which was much-viewed on YouTube a week ago), which I'm assuming Fox will call attention to when they promote the DVD. But the first season also had:
And so on. One of the possible reasons that show did so well in syndication is that the first season was very strong; that meant that the episodes people liked were turning up as soon as it hit syndication, whereas with some shows, people have to wait through 22 or 44 episodes to get to the seasons they like best.
Finally, here's a short scene from the first season where the DVD producers really will need to do everything possible to retain the music:
I've been hearing about this for a while but I couldn't say anything until it became official (for one thing, it might have fallen through and then I'd have looked like an idiot).
I'll have more to say about the music issue when more news starts coming out. It will fall short of having all the music, but my guess for now is that it'll be a lot better than the atrociously re-dubbed versions that ran on Nick at Nite (in the U.S.) or The Comedy Network (in Canada). More later.
While I'm not making threats, I will say just this: if, when the first season comes out, you have some money to spare and choose instead to spend it on some other DVD, I will find out about it and I will be very, very annoyed with you. Not that I'm making threats.
The point is that the first season needs to sell as well as it possibly can or we won't get the other three seasons.
I think it will sell, though. For one thing, while the first season of WKRP wasn't the very best in my opinion, it did produce a huge number of fan-favorite episodes, episodes that people still think of immediately when they remember watching WKRP in Cincinnati. One of them, of course, was the Thanksgiving turkey drop (which was much-viewed on YouTube a week ago), which I'm assuming Fox will call attention to when they promote the DVD. But the first season also had:
- The concert by the "hoodlum rock" group, Scum of the Earth
- Les Nessman's news report about "Chi Chi Rodriguez"
- Mr. Carlson mistaking cocaine for foot powder
- The episode where Johnny's reflexes get better with every drink
- The episode about Venus Flytrap the army deserter
- The "Ferryman's Funeral Homes" jingle
- The tornado episode
And so on. One of the possible reasons that show did so well in syndication is that the first season was very strong; that meant that the episodes people liked were turning up as soon as it hit syndication, whereas with some shows, people have to wait through 22 or 44 episodes to get to the seasons they like best.
Finally, here's a short scene from the first season where the DVD producers really will need to do everything possible to retain the music:
Oh, Chuck!
I have nothing to say about the moving candle scene from Abbott and Costello's Hold that Ghost, except... well... it's the moving candle scene from Abbott and Costello's Hold that Ghost. Enjoy.
Friday, December 08, 2006
In Defence of Very Special Episodes
Over at Maclean's I have a post that amounts to an apologia for "Very Special Episodes" of TV comedy shows.
I now recall that Larry Gelbart (not my favorite writer, but certainly important in the development of the VSE) said something to the effect that the reason M*A*S*H stood out was because nobody else in the '70s was doing actual drama. He had a point. Most of the episodes of '70s hourlong drama shows revolved around plot, not character: the resolution of the episode would come when the murderer was caught or the disease was cured. The comedy shows, like Barney Miller and All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore, were the shows that did stories that depended on character, where the resolution of the episode depended on a character learning something or two characters making an emotional connection.
And a thing to understand about "Very Special Episodes" is that in the '70s and '80s, so-called TV drama was mostly not very good -- you had a lot of cop shows and medical shows and stuff, but very little serious character development. If you wanted to see characters grow and change, or see the lead character of a show go through any kind of emotional development at all, you mostly had to go to sitcoms, and that's why shows like M*A*S*H or Family Ties would do serious shows where a character grew up a little -- because hourlong dramas weren't doing this kind of thing. Now they are, so there's less need for sitcoms to do them.
I now recall that Larry Gelbart (not my favorite writer, but certainly important in the development of the VSE) said something to the effect that the reason M*A*S*H stood out was because nobody else in the '70s was doing actual drama. He had a point. Most of the episodes of '70s hourlong drama shows revolved around plot, not character: the resolution of the episode would come when the murderer was caught or the disease was cured. The comedy shows, like Barney Miller and All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore, were the shows that did stories that depended on character, where the resolution of the episode depended on a character learning something or two characters making an emotional connection.
Clown Zombies
I'm glad to have volume 2 of Animaniacs in my hot little hands... well, more accurately, on my hot little shelf. I probably should do a longer post about just how popular that show was in its first season. It was to a lot of us what the first season of Ren and Stimpy was to a lot of others: the TV cartoon that finally got it right. (I know it makes real animation fans very angry to hear people talk about Animaniacs as if it's on a level with Ren and Stimpy. And maybe they're right. But the impact it had on its fans was quite similar.) It was pulling together a lot of stuff that TV cartoons had been slowly trying to do throughout the '80s: get a little funnier, a little more pop-culture-savvy, a little less socially-responsible, a little less weighed down by network standards and practices.
You could see even bad late Hanna-Barbera cartoons at least trying to get some funny stuff through the muck, and it often turns out that those semi-funny episodes were written by people who went to Warner Brothers in the early '90s. Anyway, Tiny Toons came close to breaking through, but a lot of the scripts still had the old '80s Saturday Morning Cartoon problems, especially the need to tell socially responsible stories with uplifting messages. Animaniacs was the first cartoon to do this kind of stuff and be almost totally amoral. It was a heady mix, and for many of us, the first time we saw a good Animaniacs cartoon was a "eureka!" moment.
All that said, I won't feel satisfied that the '90s WB legacy (for better or for worse) has been properly represented until Freakazoid! comes out on DVD. There's been no announcement of that yet. Hopefully it will come sometime, and if you want to know why I want that show most of all, here are two reasons why.
Freakazoid tells the story of an after-school special he saw about what happens when friendships go bad:
And Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, explains their fascinating ratings system:
You could see even bad late Hanna-Barbera cartoons at least trying to get some funny stuff through the muck, and it often turns out that those semi-funny episodes were written by people who went to Warner Brothers in the early '90s. Anyway, Tiny Toons came close to breaking through, but a lot of the scripts still had the old '80s Saturday Morning Cartoon problems, especially the need to tell socially responsible stories with uplifting messages. Animaniacs was the first cartoon to do this kind of stuff and be almost totally amoral. It was a heady mix, and for many of us, the first time we saw a good Animaniacs cartoon was a "eureka!" moment.
All that said, I won't feel satisfied that the '90s WB legacy (for better or for worse) has been properly represented until Freakazoid! comes out on DVD. There's been no announcement of that yet. Hopefully it will come sometime, and if you want to know why I want that show most of all, here are two reasons why.
Freakazoid tells the story of an after-school special he saw about what happens when friendships go bad:
And Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, explains their fascinating ratings system:
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Preminger Centennial (But Not Centennial Summer)
I should have highlighted this on the day, but December 5 of this year was the centenary of the birth of Otto Preminger. In his honor, the Academy of Arts and Sciences held a tribute to him last month.
Preminger's a guy who had erratic taste in scripts -- he seemed to pick projects based on how much publicity the title or subject-matter would generate, and publicizing the project sometimes seemed to matter more to him than getting the writer to come up with a good script. But for most of his career, his movies are a pleasure to look at for his preference for long, expansive takes and his use of every inch of the frame. Look at this scene from Advise and Consent, where he has Peter Lawford in the distance at the very edge of the Panavision frame while George Grizzard (as the evil Senator Fred Van Ackerman) is speaking; finally Lawford says something, but Preminger doesn't cut to him, just leaves him there at the edge and expects our eyes to go to him. That's why this is one of those movies that makes absolutely no sense on TV. And you may recognize the person making a cameo as the tart-tongued Senator from Kansas:
And then, of course, there's the bad Preminger. And there's nothing badder than his 1968 attempt to stay relevant and controversial, Skidoo. To be fair, though, the clips posted online make the movie look even worse than it is, because they're in pan-and-scan.
Oh, and this remake of Preminger's last good movie, Bunny Lake is Missing, starring Reese Witherspoon? I guess Witherspoon's a better actress than Carol Lynley, but I greatly fear the new version will force the whole thing to make sense, and there would be no point to it that way.
Update: One other thing about Preminger is that for most of his career, his movies were distinguished by unusually good musical scores. Many prominent directors either didn't seem to care who composed the music, or struck up semi-permanent partnerships with certain composers whether or not they were any good (like Robert Aldrich's incessant use of easy-listening schlockmeister Frank DeVol). But Preminger used the great David Raksin for most of his films at Fox, and when he went independent, he used a succession of different and often very distinguished composers. He also would sometimes make unusual and good choices for the composer; on Advise and Consent he gave Jerry Fielding his first assignment for a big budget movie.
Preminger's a guy who had erratic taste in scripts -- he seemed to pick projects based on how much publicity the title or subject-matter would generate, and publicizing the project sometimes seemed to matter more to him than getting the writer to come up with a good script. But for most of his career, his movies are a pleasure to look at for his preference for long, expansive takes and his use of every inch of the frame. Look at this scene from Advise and Consent, where he has Peter Lawford in the distance at the very edge of the Panavision frame while George Grizzard (as the evil Senator Fred Van Ackerman) is speaking; finally Lawford says something, but Preminger doesn't cut to him, just leaves him there at the edge and expects our eyes to go to him. That's why this is one of those movies that makes absolutely no sense on TV. And you may recognize the person making a cameo as the tart-tongued Senator from Kansas:
And then, of course, there's the bad Preminger. And there's nothing badder than his 1968 attempt to stay relevant and controversial, Skidoo. To be fair, though, the clips posted online make the movie look even worse than it is, because they're in pan-and-scan.
Oh, and this remake of Preminger's last good movie, Bunny Lake is Missing, starring Reese Witherspoon? I guess Witherspoon's a better actress than Carol Lynley, but I greatly fear the new version will force the whole thing to make sense, and there would be no point to it that way.
Update: One other thing about Preminger is that for most of his career, his movies were distinguished by unusually good musical scores. Many prominent directors either didn't seem to care who composed the music, or struck up semi-permanent partnerships with certain composers whether or not they were any good (like Robert Aldrich's incessant use of easy-listening schlockmeister Frank DeVol). But Preminger used the great David Raksin for most of his films at Fox, and when he went independent, he used a succession of different and often very distinguished composers. He also would sometimes make unusual and good choices for the composer; on Advise and Consent he gave Jerry Fielding his first assignment for a big budget movie.
More Evil Than The Shark
Just a follow-up to my post below: if you want to see how far Happy Days fell, and how fast, you need look no further than Fonzie's first confrontation with Mork From Ork. The one thing that always interests me about these Paramount shows of the late '70s is that even though the studio had given up on one-camera filming, in favor of loud, obnoxious studio audiences, they were still resistant to the prevailing '70s method of shooting comedy shows. That is, most comedies by that point were shot and staged like little plays. Paramount was still putting in the mood music and cheesy optical effects familiar from their one-camera shows like The Brady Bunch.
And, for those of you who weren't traumatized enough by the above, there's always the Saturday morning cartoon The Mork and Mindy Laverne and Shirley Fonz Hour. Thanks again, Fred Silverman.
And, for those of you who weren't traumatized enough by the above, there's always the Saturday morning cartoon The Mork and Mindy Laverne and Shirley Fonz Hour. Thanks again, Fred Silverman.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Pre-Shark
Wow, never count out a series when it comes to DVD releases. After two years of waiting, Season 2 of Happy Days will be released in April 2007.
Those who remember my posts from way back in 2004, when the first season was released, will remember that I'm a big fan of the early Happy Days, when it was filmed with no studio audience and Richie was the lead character. The second season was the last one filmed that way. There's actually one episode where they experimented with the live-audience, three-camera format ("Fonzie's Getting Married"). It was one of the weakest episodes of that season, so naturally they switched full-time to that format starting with the third season, and Happy Days became more successful, more popular, and much, much less good.
Those who remember my posts from way back in 2004, when the first season was released, will remember that I'm a big fan of the early Happy Days, when it was filmed with no studio audience and Richie was the lead character. The second season was the last one filmed that way. There's actually one episode where they experimented with the live-audience, three-camera format ("Fonzie's Getting Married"). It was one of the weakest episodes of that season, so naturally they switched full-time to that format starting with the third season, and Happy Days became more successful, more popular, and much, much less good.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Good Morning, Mr. Briggs
What I find ingenious about Mission: Impossible (the first season finally came out on DVD today) is that creator Bruce Geller figured out how to provide a TV equivalent for a genre that normally doesn't adapt well to TV: the caper story.
Caper movies were all the rage in the '60s, but as we've seen this past season (with the almost instantly-canceled Smith), capers don't usually work in a television series format, because audiences don't usually come back to root for the criminals week in and week out. A movie like Rififi or Topkapi or even The Lavender Hill Mob only expects us to follow the criminals until this one job is done. But you can't ask people to cheer for the crooks week after week, not until The Sopranos anyway.
So what Geller did in Mission: Impossible was to take all the familiar devices of the crime caper -- the elaborate plan, the team members with different specialties, the suspenseful twist when it looks like the plan has gone wrong -- and create a format where the devious team was, if not on the side of the law, at least on the side of goodness and decency. But there was still that element of outlaw-ishness, because these characters weren't officially sanctioned; the American government hired them secretly, promising to disavow any knowledge of their actions, and they violated international law just about every week. So although the members of the Impossible Mission Force were more sympathetic than the purely selfish characters in most caper films, they weren't squeaky-clean either; unlike, say, the guys in The Guns of Navarone, their plans had an air of rebelliousness about them because they weren't playing by normal rules or working for anyone recognizable as an authority figure (except that mysterious voice on the self-destructing messages).
Here's the opening scene from the pilot (where Wally Cox was the guest star as a safe-cracker; remember that many of the episodes, especially early ones, would have an additional member who wasn't part of the regular team). You'll notice that this was one of the few prime-time filmed shows of its time that made occasional use of a hand-held camera; in this case we see a hand-held shot when the team is introduced playing cards.
Caper movies were all the rage in the '60s, but as we've seen this past season (with the almost instantly-canceled Smith), capers don't usually work in a television series format, because audiences don't usually come back to root for the criminals week in and week out. A movie like Rififi or Topkapi or even The Lavender Hill Mob only expects us to follow the criminals until this one job is done. But you can't ask people to cheer for the crooks week after week, not until The Sopranos anyway.
So what Geller did in Mission: Impossible was to take all the familiar devices of the crime caper -- the elaborate plan, the team members with different specialties, the suspenseful twist when it looks like the plan has gone wrong -- and create a format where the devious team was, if not on the side of the law, at least on the side of goodness and decency. But there was still that element of outlaw-ishness, because these characters weren't officially sanctioned; the American government hired them secretly, promising to disavow any knowledge of their actions, and they violated international law just about every week. So although the members of the Impossible Mission Force were more sympathetic than the purely selfish characters in most caper films, they weren't squeaky-clean either; unlike, say, the guys in The Guns of Navarone, their plans had an air of rebelliousness about them because they weren't playing by normal rules or working for anyone recognizable as an authority figure (except that mysterious voice on the self-destructing messages).
Here's the opening scene from the pilot (where Wally Cox was the guest star as a safe-cracker; remember that many of the episodes, especially early ones, would have an additional member who wasn't part of the regular team). You'll notice that this was one of the few prime-time filmed shows of its time that made occasional use of a hand-held camera; in this case we see a hand-held shot when the team is introduced playing cards.
A TV Cinematographer
This is why I love the web: where else would people like me have access to an interview with George Spiro Dibie, a veteran director of photography for television? and not just any interview, but a long, long, long interview with lots of technical stuff about shooting a series. If you like to know about why Barney Miller looked different from other videotaped shows, or what kind of film was used for Buffalo Bill, then you'll enjoy this interview as much as I did.
Dibie also seems to share my shameful affection for Growing Pains:
Dibie also seems to share my shameful affection for Growing Pains:
Like you said, there isn’t a lot of recognition from the industry, so you find satisfaction in your own feelings about your work. You have a different script to shoot every week with no time to rehearse, maybe a couple of days to prepare each episode, almost always with a different director. There are also times when writer-producers seek you out, and actresses and actors insist that you shoot their shows. One of my most memorable sitcoms was the Halloween episode of Growing Pains. It was a one-hour episode, and we had four days to shoot it. We had to create moods and looks that touched on all of the emotions in that one show. The camerawork was an important part of the story-telling. We had an important interior scene mainly motivated by a fireplace with some night light coming through a window. There was a black and white sequence and one where colors were very important. We had interior and exterior scenes, and one where a Steadicam was important. If someone said to me, Dibie give me an hour that represents your best work, I’d probably pick that show.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Grudge Matches I'd Like To See: Batman vs. The A-Team
The A-Team is hiding out in Gotham City, and Colonel Decker asks Batman to track them down and capture them. Batman, with his sour view of human nature, doesn't believe that the A-Team is innocent, and assumes that they're just another group of quirky criminals that he needs to hunt down.
Can Batman capture the A-Team? Or will he fail to handle the combined power of Hannibal's planning, B.A.'s helluva-toughness, Murdock's craziness, and... uh... whatever the heck it is that Face does?
Can Batman capture the A-Team? Or will he fail to handle the combined power of Hannibal's planning, B.A.'s helluva-toughness, Murdock's craziness, and... uh... whatever the heck it is that Face does?
"It's Not the Coffee, It's the Bunk"
From Preston Sturges' Christmas in July, Dick Powell comes up with what is either the worst or the greatest advertising slogan of all time.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
It's Frankie (Tashlin)!
The Looney Tunes Golden Collections include a lot of Frank Tashlin (a documentary on vol. 3, and a full disc of his cartoons on vol. 4), but they aren't able to include many clips from his live-action movies, since his best live-action movies are owned by Paramount or Fox. So as a Tashlin maniac, I thought I'd randomly link to one of the great Tashlin scenes: Julie London's cameo appearance singing "Cry Me a River" in The Girl Can't Help It.
The set-up of the scene is that the talent agent played by Tom Ewell used to be in love with Ms. London; he lost her when she became successful, and now he's haunted by her every time he listens to her big hit. The odd thing about the scene is that Tashlin plays it both funny and straight: it's an over-the-top parody of a certain kind of movie melodrama (it takes a standard device -- having a character's lost love appear as a ghostly memory -- and keeps it going so long that it becomes absurd), but Ewell is being directed to play the character's pain and sadness as quite real, and you do sort of feel for him by the end of the scene.
Also, while I linked to this a few months ago, I figured I should put it up again for those who missed it the last time around: the ultimate Tashlin scene -- combining music, fetishism, parody and old-movie references (to Lubitsch's "Beyond the Blue Horizon" number in Monte Carlo) -- "A Day in the Country" from Hollywood or Bust.
A number in which, as Jenny Lerew once remarked, the women all look like "Elvgren pinups come to life."
Update: I forgot to mention, with regard to the scene from The Girl Can't Help It, that this is a perfect example of Tashlin importing animated cartoon gags into his live-action filmmaking. The overriding joke here is a very standard cartoon joke: no matter where one character goes, the other character is always there. It's like a cartoon except that the role of Daffy Duck is played by Julie London.
The set-up of the scene is that the talent agent played by Tom Ewell used to be in love with Ms. London; he lost her when she became successful, and now he's haunted by her every time he listens to her big hit. The odd thing about the scene is that Tashlin plays it both funny and straight: it's an over-the-top parody of a certain kind of movie melodrama (it takes a standard device -- having a character's lost love appear as a ghostly memory -- and keeps it going so long that it becomes absurd), but Ewell is being directed to play the character's pain and sadness as quite real, and you do sort of feel for him by the end of the scene.
Also, while I linked to this a few months ago, I figured I should put it up again for those who missed it the last time around: the ultimate Tashlin scene -- combining music, fetishism, parody and old-movie references (to Lubitsch's "Beyond the Blue Horizon" number in Monte Carlo) -- "A Day in the Country" from Hollywood or Bust.
A number in which, as Jenny Lerew once remarked, the women all look like "Elvgren pinups come to life."
Update: I forgot to mention, with regard to the scene from The Girl Can't Help It, that this is a perfect example of Tashlin importing animated cartoon gags into his live-action filmmaking. The overriding joke here is a very standard cartoon joke: no matter where one character goes, the other character is always there. It's like a cartoon except that the role of Daffy Duck is played by Julie London.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Shirley Walker, RIP
The composer and conductor Shirley Walker died Wednesday. She was 61.
Walker (1945-2006) was probably best known as supervising composer for Batman: The Animated Series. She'd previously been a prolific orchestrator and conductor for various movies, and came to the attention of the Batman producers because she'd orchestrated and conducted Danny Elfman's score for the 1989 Batman movie, as well as composing the music for the short-lived live-action series The Flash. For the Batman series, Walker arranged Elfman's main title theme (based on, but superior to, the version of that theme in the movie), composed the music for dozens of episodes, and supervised the work of the other composers to make them fit in with the style she'd set for the show.
She could also depart from that basic style, quite brilliantly, when needed; for the episode "The Laughing Fish" she did a spooky, Bartókian, modernistic score, and in the tribute to Dick Sprang's Batman comics in "Legends of the Dark Knight," she went to great lengths to make the score (and the recording of it) sound like a parody of canned music in early '60s TV cartoons.
Here's a website devoted to Walker's work, which includes a full list of her many credits.
I wrote a bit about Walker in an earlier post, which included a link to this article on Walker and the other Batman/Superman composers. There was also a recent two-part interview with her in Film Score Monthly.
Walker can also be heard on two audio commentary tracks on volume 3 of the Batman series.
Walker (1945-2006) was probably best known as supervising composer for Batman: The Animated Series. She'd previously been a prolific orchestrator and conductor for various movies, and came to the attention of the Batman producers because she'd orchestrated and conducted Danny Elfman's score for the 1989 Batman movie, as well as composing the music for the short-lived live-action series The Flash. For the Batman series, Walker arranged Elfman's main title theme (based on, but superior to, the version of that theme in the movie), composed the music for dozens of episodes, and supervised the work of the other composers to make them fit in with the style she'd set for the show.
She could also depart from that basic style, quite brilliantly, when needed; for the episode "The Laughing Fish" she did a spooky, Bartókian, modernistic score, and in the tribute to Dick Sprang's Batman comics in "Legends of the Dark Knight," she went to great lengths to make the score (and the recording of it) sound like a parody of canned music in early '60s TV cartoons.
Here's a website devoted to Walker's work, which includes a full list of her many credits.
I wrote a bit about Walker in an earlier post, which included a link to this article on Walker and the other Batman/Superman composers. There was also a recent two-part interview with her in Film Score Monthly.
Walker can also be heard on two audio commentary tracks on volume 3 of the Batman series.
Ah, Good
Somebody finally uploaded the (short) title sequence of Peter Gunn:
That's one show that could have used a minute-long title sequence, but shows in those days didn't spend a lot of time on the titles (what was important was to get as quickly as possible to the name of the sponsor).
Speaking of shows with iconic theme music, DVD Beaver has a review and screenshots of season 1 of Mission: Impossible.
That's one show that could have used a minute-long title sequence, but shows in those days didn't spend a lot of time on the titles (what was important was to get as quickly as possible to the name of the sponsor).
Speaking of shows with iconic theme music, DVD Beaver has a review and screenshots of season 1 of Mission: Impossible.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Evening, Morning and Afternoon At the Improv
Ken Levine wonders whether improvisation is really all it's cracked up to be.
I think that's a terrific observation. There are a lot of great things about improvisation, but very few of them have to do with getting the big laughs. Think back to the comedy troupes that helped establish the importance of improv in comedy, like Second City. The point of improv in the Second City stuff was not, primarily, to make the sketches funnier; it's not like conventional sketch comedy was so short on big laughs or funny jokes that the younger performers thought they could do better by making stuff up on the spot. What improv lent to sketch comedy was a sense of depth and characterization; by acting more naturally, by forcing performers to really watch each other (because neither knows exactly what the other is going to do next), by incorporating awkward pauses and stammering and backtracking just like in real life, characters in sketches became more like real people than joke machines.
That's largely the point of the improvisation on a show like Curb Your Enthusiasm. That is actually a heavily scripted show; Larry David writes out what's going to happen in every scene, all the plot points, the subject of each conversation, all the big gags. The only thing that he doesn't write out are the actual words that the characters say, but those aren't the source of the biggest laughs, at least not directly. The improvisation helps give the show a naturalistic feel and it's also necessary to the theme of the show, because the show is about awkwardness and embarrassment. You can't write out and rehearse awkwardness and embarrassment; that, as Irving Berlin said, comes nat'rally. But when it comes to comedy, the actual choice of words is almost the least important part; the success of a show with improvised dialogue is perhaps a rebuke to joke writers who spend hours crafting the sound of each line (add more "K" sounds, quick!"), but it doesn't change the fact that good comedy needs a good writer. It just means that good comedy writing is about more than just funny dialogue.
If you go back even farther than that, some of my favorite movie directors of the Good Old Days (which I still call GOD for short) used improvisation that way: they'd plan out the scene and they'd write out the big jokes, but let the actors improvise the peripheral things. Leo McCarey did it that way; he didn't like to use a finished written script, but that didn't mean he relied on the actors to come up with the jokes. The biggest laughs in a movie like The Awful Truth come from things that were clearly planned and rehearsed in advance, like Cary Grant leaning back and falling off his chair. What the improv does is to give the performances a sense of naturalism that more tightly-scripted movies don't have, but it's still the responsibility of the writer and director to come up with the actual jokes.
Same with Gregory La Cava, whose film Stage Door is heavily improvised but still filled with great scripted punchlines ("Could you possibly see an older woman in the part?"). Improvisation is great in these movies, but they're not funny because of the improvisation; the best jokes are scripted, and the improv provides the depth and context for those jokes.
This post has gotten a little rambling and repetitive, but my point is this: I love improvisation in TV and film comedy. But what's good about it has very little to do with what makes those TV shows and movies funny. The funniest stuff tends to be planned out, which is why you need writers like Larry David or directors like Leo McCarey. But a good comedy needs more than laughs; it needs a sense that these are actual people, with lives and feelings and responsiveness to one another. And that's the element that improv can add.
Even the same TV critics who hail this new form admit in their reviews that the shows are quiet, amusing in spots, the tone is more naturalistic, the actors are likeable, but there are very few big laughs. And that’s understandable because unless your cast includes Robin Williams, Sasha Cohen, Elaine May, Will Ferrell, or the Christopher Guest road company you are putting too much comedy burden on the actors. It’s not their job. It’s not their gift.
I think that's a terrific observation. There are a lot of great things about improvisation, but very few of them have to do with getting the big laughs. Think back to the comedy troupes that helped establish the importance of improv in comedy, like Second City. The point of improv in the Second City stuff was not, primarily, to make the sketches funnier; it's not like conventional sketch comedy was so short on big laughs or funny jokes that the younger performers thought they could do better by making stuff up on the spot. What improv lent to sketch comedy was a sense of depth and characterization; by acting more naturally, by forcing performers to really watch each other (because neither knows exactly what the other is going to do next), by incorporating awkward pauses and stammering and backtracking just like in real life, characters in sketches became more like real people than joke machines.
That's largely the point of the improvisation on a show like Curb Your Enthusiasm. That is actually a heavily scripted show; Larry David writes out what's going to happen in every scene, all the plot points, the subject of each conversation, all the big gags. The only thing that he doesn't write out are the actual words that the characters say, but those aren't the source of the biggest laughs, at least not directly. The improvisation helps give the show a naturalistic feel and it's also necessary to the theme of the show, because the show is about awkwardness and embarrassment. You can't write out and rehearse awkwardness and embarrassment; that, as Irving Berlin said, comes nat'rally. But when it comes to comedy, the actual choice of words is almost the least important part; the success of a show with improvised dialogue is perhaps a rebuke to joke writers who spend hours crafting the sound of each line (add more "K" sounds, quick!"), but it doesn't change the fact that good comedy needs a good writer. It just means that good comedy writing is about more than just funny dialogue.
If you go back even farther than that, some of my favorite movie directors of the Good Old Days (which I still call GOD for short) used improvisation that way: they'd plan out the scene and they'd write out the big jokes, but let the actors improvise the peripheral things. Leo McCarey did it that way; he didn't like to use a finished written script, but that didn't mean he relied on the actors to come up with the jokes. The biggest laughs in a movie like The Awful Truth come from things that were clearly planned and rehearsed in advance, like Cary Grant leaning back and falling off his chair. What the improv does is to give the performances a sense of naturalism that more tightly-scripted movies don't have, but it's still the responsibility of the writer and director to come up with the actual jokes.
Same with Gregory La Cava, whose film Stage Door is heavily improvised but still filled with great scripted punchlines ("Could you possibly see an older woman in the part?"). Improvisation is great in these movies, but they're not funny because of the improvisation; the best jokes are scripted, and the improv provides the depth and context for those jokes.
This post has gotten a little rambling and repetitive, but my point is this: I love improvisation in TV and film comedy. But what's good about it has very little to do with what makes those TV shows and movies funny. The funniest stuff tends to be planned out, which is why you need writers like Larry David or directors like Leo McCarey. But a good comedy needs more than laughs; it needs a sense that these are actual people, with lives and feelings and responsiveness to one another. And that's the element that improv can add.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Best Movie Theme Ever?
Random question to encourage reader participation: what's your favorite instrumental/orchestral theme from a movie (that is, non-vocal music)? Some movie scores don't have one big tune that's recognizable as the "theme," but it's fair to say that many if not most movie composers try to include one big melody that will define the picture. The themes for Star Wars or Kings Row or Superman (wait, they're all basically the same theme) stand for those movies in our heads; they are much more important to the image of the movies than, say, poster logos, which can change many times and be forgotten rather quickly.
I think I would pick David Raksin's theme from The Bad and the Beautiful. A long melody (it really just keeps going and going without a clear resolution, like musical perpetual motion) that's hauntingly beautiful but has that slightly unsettling edge that all Raksin's music has, it's the stand-in for the character of Jonathan Shields and the movie's attitude to Hollywood: tough but ultimately rewarding. Here is the final statement of the theme, from the closing scene -- as usual with Vincente Minnelli, all in one take -- and the closing credits (note that John Houseman, the producer, who'd worked on Citizen Kane, does something similar to Kane by showing clips of all the main actors at the end).
I think I would pick David Raksin's theme from The Bad and the Beautiful. A long melody (it really just keeps going and going without a clear resolution, like musical perpetual motion) that's hauntingly beautiful but has that slightly unsettling edge that all Raksin's music has, it's the stand-in for the character of Jonathan Shields and the movie's attitude to Hollywood: tough but ultimately rewarding. Here is the final statement of the theme, from the closing scene -- as usual with Vincente Minnelli, all in one take -- and the closing credits (note that John Houseman, the producer, who'd worked on Citizen Kane, does something similar to Kane by showing clips of all the main actors at the end).
Monday, November 27, 2006
Don't Touch That Dial!
Somebody's uploaded a bunch of segments from the cult flop show that helped revive funny cartoons: The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse. Produced by Ralph Bakshi and involving the talents of John Kricfalusi, Eddie Fitzgerald, and many other now-familiar names, it revolutionized what a Saturday morning kids' cartoon could do in terms of experiments with design, adult-oriented humor, cartoony animation, and all the other stuff you hardly ever saw in the '80s. The show didn't succeed, but its influence is all over Ren and Stimpy and Tiny Toons and any other early-'90s comedy cartoon you can name.
This is one of the best cartoons from the show, "Don't Touch That Dial." It was written by Tom Minton, who went on to write a number of similar cartoons for Warner Brothers (like the great "Toby Danger" segment from Freakazoid); it's a rather vicious parody of television animation, taking shots at not only the obvious targets of Saturday Morning TV (Scooby-Doo) but also more respected shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle. It also mocks the kids in the audience, and even The Adventures of Mighty Mouse itself.
This is one of the best cartoons from the show, "Don't Touch That Dial." It was written by Tom Minton, who went on to write a number of similar cartoons for Warner Brothers (like the great "Toby Danger" segment from Freakazoid); it's a rather vicious parody of television animation, taking shots at not only the obvious targets of Saturday Morning TV (Scooby-Doo) but also more respected shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle. It also mocks the kids in the audience, and even The Adventures of Mighty Mouse itself.
Betty Comden
Betty Comden, of Comden and Green, died a few days ago. Here's the New York Times obituary.
Time,
I'm just taking my time,
I'm just strolling along
While the world's on the run.
I
Once went hurrying by,
Never hearing a song,
Never seeing the sun.
What a surprise,
When I opened my eyes,
There was sunlight and skies,
And beginning that day
I discovered a world,
Such a wonderful world,
Every day is Thanksgiving
Now that I'm living
My way.
-- Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Subways Are For Sleeping (1962)
Time,
I'm just taking my time,
I'm just strolling along
While the world's on the run.
I
Once went hurrying by,
Never hearing a song,
Never seeing the sun.
What a surprise,
When I opened my eyes,
There was sunlight and skies,
And beginning that day
I discovered a world,
Such a wonderful world,
Every day is Thanksgiving
Now that I'm living
My way.
-- Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Subways Are For Sleeping (1962)
Friday, November 24, 2006
Paul Harrison's Prescience
Here's something else I posted on a message board earlier but am only getting around to reproducing here. I searched Newspaperarchive.com to see if there was any press coverage of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies while they were still in production; as expected, there wasn't much. But I did find one entertainment journalist who was singing the praises of these cartoons before anyone else. This would be Paul Harrison, whose syndicated entertainment column (for "XEA Service Inc.") appeared in some of the smaller newspapers. I know nothing else about the guy; I don't know how well-known he was or if he was considered particlarly good. All I know is that in 1937, before Daffy Duck was known to anyone, before Bugs Bunny, he was writing an article about how good the Leon Schlesinger/Warner Brothers cartoons were. The article, dated July 3, 1937, also goes into various details about how animated cartoons are made. Plus it features Schlesinger predicting doom for Walt Disney's crazy idea of making an animated feature -- a common view at the time.
An animated cartoon factory is a much quieter place, and more efficient, than an ordinary movie studio. Without bellowing assistant directors and bleating players, life is pleasanter, if more purposeful.
It didn't take long for the animators to introduce machine-like efficiency into their realm of pure fantasy. I used to think that all such films were turned out painstakingly, picture by picture, by a lot of busy little gnomes named Disney, sitting cross-legged in a grotto somewhere.
Instead of that, the pen-and-ink and water-color epics represent just about the highest development of the unit system of production in Hollywood.
There are budgets and shooting schedules and production charts. There are producers and directors and art directors and story departments. From inception to preview, each picture has its own full staff of executives and technicians.
The man who makes the most animated pictures is Leon Schlesinger, a veteran showman who has been in practically all branches of the stage and movie business, but who can't draw a straight line.
In 1930, when he had a prosperous little studio turning out titles and trailer ads and such, Jack Warner suggested making cartoon films.
So Schlesinger started "Merry Melodies [sic]" with a staff of 36 people. Now he has two studios, a staff of 170 workers, and a payroll of nearly a third of a million dollars a year.
This year he will make 20 Merry Melodies in color and 16 Looney Tunes in black and white. That's twice the number of cartoon shorts issued annually by Disney.
Schlesinger is a pleasant, solid man who reminds you a little of Hal Roach. He likes his work and gets a kick out of his own pictures, although with a modesty that is particularly non-Hollywood he says he's just a businessman, and acclaims the artistry of Disney.
As a businessman, though, he doubts that full-length cartoon features ever will make money. Disney has 575 employees and will spend nearly $1,000,000 producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Schlesinger's current pride is Porky, a pig that stutters.
"I discovered Porky two years ago," he said. "We had a picture about a schoolroom, and the pupils were a cat, a turtle, an owl, and all sorts of animals, including a pig. Well, the minute we saw that pig we knew we had something. It was just like spotting a promising personality among the extras or bit players in a regular movie. So we got busy and gave Porky screen tests and changed him a little in developing his character. And now he stars in 16 pictures a year, the 'Looney Tunes.'
A stuttering character actor does the Porky dialog for a recording; then the record is speeded up so that the voice is about an octave higher when it reaches the film. Before they attained acting prominence, Rochelle Hudson and Jane Withers worked for Schlesinger, dubbing in their voices for those of cartoon characters.
Hollywood has scores of people capable of imitating voices, and the producer never has any trouble finding talent for impersonating, in sound, the Crosbys, Stepin Fetchits, Garbos and other celebrities whom he frequently satirizes in "Merry Melodies."
If you saw "Coocoonut Grove" you'll recall that Katharine Hepburn was caricatured as a horse. Schlesinger has heard that she was delighted with the impudence and went to see the picture three times.
In cartoon shorts, he explained, the animators are the real actors. They're the artists who sketch the action and the expressions of the characters, and they work from complicated scripts, or charts, plotted by the directors.
On these charts the notion of each scene is minutely described and a certain number of "frames," or individual pictures, is allotted for each bit of action. On the screen you see 24 of these frames a second.
Also on the animator's chart is written the dialog, divided into syllables and each syllable indicated for a certain group of pictures so that the characters' lip movements will synchronize perfectly, as though they're actually speaking.
In fact, the animators actually try to reproduce the true lip movements; they use themselves as models, looking into mirrors to see how certain sounds are formed.
After writing that column, Harrison didn't stop plugging the Schlesinger cartoons; two years later he wrote a short item on Schlesinger's attempt at a serious patriotic cartoon, "Old Glory," and in 1940 he raved about the Schlesinger studio's mix of live-action and animation in "You Ought to Be in Pictures."
With Walt Disney devoting his talents to features and allowing his short subjects to sag under artistic emphasis which neglects story values, I'm becoming still more of a fan for the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies of Leon Schlesinger. The producer is one who believes that cartoons should be made just for laughs.
I've just previewed a Porky Pig and Daffy Duck vehicle called "You Ought to Be in Pictures" which is the first film in more than 20 years, as far as I know, to combine cartoon characters with real people. Of course the effects are many times better and different than away back in the days of the "Out of the Inkwell" series.
This isn't a series, anyway. Schlesinger never does a stunt more than once. It deals with the ambitions of Porky, who decides he'll quit cartoons for higher dramatic art -- maybe as Bette Davis's leading man.
He trots into Schlesinger's office, gets a release from his contract, drives to Warner's studio, eludes the gateman, crashes a busy sound stage, is tossed out on his ear and after some further disillusionments finds himself back at his old job and glad to be there.
All these things happen with the hand-drawn characters of Porky and Daffy mingling with normally photographed people and backgrounds. The process is too tricky for description.
Notice that bit at the beginning where Harrison says that he prefers WB's short subjects to Disney's. This is a normal enough sentiment nowadays, but it was close to blasphemy in 1940 to say that Schlesinger's factory was making better animated cartoons than Disney. It's often said that Manny Farber of The New Republic was the first "mainstream" journalist to make such claims for the WB shorts, but Harrison beat him to it by at least two years. Of course he attributes the cartoons to the producer, Schlesinger, rather than the directors; this was inevitable, because Schlesinger's name was more prominent on the cartoons than anyone. Still, Paul Harrison, whoever he was and whatever else he did, seems to have been ahead of the curve when it came to cartoons.
An animated cartoon factory is a much quieter place, and more efficient, than an ordinary movie studio. Without bellowing assistant directors and bleating players, life is pleasanter, if more purposeful.
It didn't take long for the animators to introduce machine-like efficiency into their realm of pure fantasy. I used to think that all such films were turned out painstakingly, picture by picture, by a lot of busy little gnomes named Disney, sitting cross-legged in a grotto somewhere.
Instead of that, the pen-and-ink and water-color epics represent just about the highest development of the unit system of production in Hollywood.
There are budgets and shooting schedules and production charts. There are producers and directors and art directors and story departments. From inception to preview, each picture has its own full staff of executives and technicians.
The man who makes the most animated pictures is Leon Schlesinger, a veteran showman who has been in practically all branches of the stage and movie business, but who can't draw a straight line.
In 1930, when he had a prosperous little studio turning out titles and trailer ads and such, Jack Warner suggested making cartoon films.
So Schlesinger started "Merry Melodies [sic]" with a staff of 36 people. Now he has two studios, a staff of 170 workers, and a payroll of nearly a third of a million dollars a year.
This year he will make 20 Merry Melodies in color and 16 Looney Tunes in black and white. That's twice the number of cartoon shorts issued annually by Disney.
Schlesinger is a pleasant, solid man who reminds you a little of Hal Roach. He likes his work and gets a kick out of his own pictures, although with a modesty that is particularly non-Hollywood he says he's just a businessman, and acclaims the artistry of Disney.
As a businessman, though, he doubts that full-length cartoon features ever will make money. Disney has 575 employees and will spend nearly $1,000,000 producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Schlesinger's current pride is Porky, a pig that stutters.
"I discovered Porky two years ago," he said. "We had a picture about a schoolroom, and the pupils were a cat, a turtle, an owl, and all sorts of animals, including a pig. Well, the minute we saw that pig we knew we had something. It was just like spotting a promising personality among the extras or bit players in a regular movie. So we got busy and gave Porky screen tests and changed him a little in developing his character. And now he stars in 16 pictures a year, the 'Looney Tunes.'
A stuttering character actor does the Porky dialog for a recording; then the record is speeded up so that the voice is about an octave higher when it reaches the film. Before they attained acting prominence, Rochelle Hudson and Jane Withers worked for Schlesinger, dubbing in their voices for those of cartoon characters.
Hollywood has scores of people capable of imitating voices, and the producer never has any trouble finding talent for impersonating, in sound, the Crosbys, Stepin Fetchits, Garbos and other celebrities whom he frequently satirizes in "Merry Melodies."
If you saw "Coocoonut Grove" you'll recall that Katharine Hepburn was caricatured as a horse. Schlesinger has heard that she was delighted with the impudence and went to see the picture three times.
In cartoon shorts, he explained, the animators are the real actors. They're the artists who sketch the action and the expressions of the characters, and they work from complicated scripts, or charts, plotted by the directors.
On these charts the notion of each scene is minutely described and a certain number of "frames," or individual pictures, is allotted for each bit of action. On the screen you see 24 of these frames a second.
Also on the animator's chart is written the dialog, divided into syllables and each syllable indicated for a certain group of pictures so that the characters' lip movements will synchronize perfectly, as though they're actually speaking.
In fact, the animators actually try to reproduce the true lip movements; they use themselves as models, looking into mirrors to see how certain sounds are formed.
After writing that column, Harrison didn't stop plugging the Schlesinger cartoons; two years later he wrote a short item on Schlesinger's attempt at a serious patriotic cartoon, "Old Glory," and in 1940 he raved about the Schlesinger studio's mix of live-action and animation in "You Ought to Be in Pictures."
With Walt Disney devoting his talents to features and allowing his short subjects to sag under artistic emphasis which neglects story values, I'm becoming still more of a fan for the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies of Leon Schlesinger. The producer is one who believes that cartoons should be made just for laughs.
I've just previewed a Porky Pig and Daffy Duck vehicle called "You Ought to Be in Pictures" which is the first film in more than 20 years, as far as I know, to combine cartoon characters with real people. Of course the effects are many times better and different than away back in the days of the "Out of the Inkwell" series.
This isn't a series, anyway. Schlesinger never does a stunt more than once. It deals with the ambitions of Porky, who decides he'll quit cartoons for higher dramatic art -- maybe as Bette Davis's leading man.
He trots into Schlesinger's office, gets a release from his contract, drives to Warner's studio, eludes the gateman, crashes a busy sound stage, is tossed out on his ear and after some further disillusionments finds himself back at his old job and glad to be there.
All these things happen with the hand-drawn characters of Porky and Daffy mingling with normally photographed people and backgrounds. The process is too tricky for description.
Notice that bit at the beginning where Harrison says that he prefers WB's short subjects to Disney's. This is a normal enough sentiment nowadays, but it was close to blasphemy in 1940 to say that Schlesinger's factory was making better animated cartoons than Disney. It's often said that Manny Farber of The New Republic was the first "mainstream" journalist to make such claims for the WB shorts, but Harrison beat him to it by at least two years. Of course he attributes the cartoons to the producer, Schlesinger, rather than the directors; this was inevitable, because Schlesinger's name was more prominent on the cartoons than anyone. Still, Paul Harrison, whoever he was and whatever else he did, seems to have been ahead of the curve when it came to cartoons.
Grudge Matches I'd Like To See: Apollo Creed vs. Clubber Lang
In honor of the upcoming Rocky Balboa, here's another Grudge Match I'd Like To See:
APOLLO CREED (Carl Weathers) vs. CLUBBER LANG (Mr. T). Rocky's most formidable opponents. Both of them beat Rocky once and got beaten by him once. (This is Apollo in his prime, not the wimpy Apollo who got killed by that Russian dude.) Who wins this battle of the Rocky also-rans?
APOLLO CREED (Carl Weathers) vs. CLUBBER LANG (Mr. T). Rocky's most formidable opponents. Both of them beat Rocky once and got beaten by him once. (This is Apollo in his prime, not the wimpy Apollo who got killed by that Russian dude.) Who wins this battle of the Rocky also-rans?
Note On Comments
Haloscan for some reason stopped working with my blog, so I've switched back to regular Blogger comments. Note, however, that you don't have to sign in to a blogger account to comment; anonymous/pseudonymous commenting is fine and encouraged (I've done it, you've done it, go nuts).
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Sonny, Sonny, Sonny, Sonny
Ah, that's more like it: Bosom Buddies, the complete first season, on DVD.
I have said my say about why I love Bosom Buddies in an earlier post. Shorter version:
a) Chris Thompson, the creator, was one of the most original and interesting sitcom writers to come out of the Paramount factory in that period; he came up with very strange and funny stories and off-kilter lines. He's never had a successful show -- his most recent creation was the memorably nasty cult series Action -- but his stuff is always worth seeing.
b) Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari were brilliant, improvising and ad-libbing like crazy and playing off each other impeccably; you don't often see great comedy teams on sitcoms -- usually everybody just kind of does their own thing -- but they were a true team.
c) The late Wendie Jo Sperber, as I wrote earlier, was successful in "turning what could have been a degrading, stereotypical role (the young overweight woman with an unrequited crush on the Peter Scolari character) into a very human and attractive character."
d) Holland Taylor is never less than great.
I actually think the second season was better than the first, because the dressing in women's clothes was de-emphasized. The original idea may have been to do a sitcom version of Some Like It Hot, but it quickly became apparent that Hanks and Scolari were funnier just doing their own thing in regular clothes; the drag gimmick actually detracted from what made them funny. But there's a lot of good stuff in the first season too.
One other thing about the show is that the pilot was shot on film, like all the other Paramount sitcoms of the era, but the series was shot on videotape. I don't know if they were trying to save money or if they decided that tape suited the series better -- but it did, in fact, suit the series better; tape made the show look looser, rougher and less cute than the other sitcoms from the Miller/Milkis/Boyett factory, making it a little more apparent that this wasn't Laverne and Shirley with guys.
No word on whether the DVD will use the original theme song, a cover version of "My Life" by Billy Joel, or the alternate theme song (with lyrics by Thompson) that was used in some syndication versions. Here's the original song, with the season 2 title sequence.
Update: I might as well re-post some of the Bosom Buddies quotes that someone else assembled on a message board. Few shows have had so many lines that make no sense out of context but are completely hilarious when you're watching:
I have said my say about why I love Bosom Buddies in an earlier post. Shorter version:
a) Chris Thompson, the creator, was one of the most original and interesting sitcom writers to come out of the Paramount factory in that period; he came up with very strange and funny stories and off-kilter lines. He's never had a successful show -- his most recent creation was the memorably nasty cult series Action -- but his stuff is always worth seeing.
b) Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari were brilliant, improvising and ad-libbing like crazy and playing off each other impeccably; you don't often see great comedy teams on sitcoms -- usually everybody just kind of does their own thing -- but they were a true team.
c) The late Wendie Jo Sperber, as I wrote earlier, was successful in "turning what could have been a degrading, stereotypical role (the young overweight woman with an unrequited crush on the Peter Scolari character) into a very human and attractive character."
d) Holland Taylor is never less than great.
I actually think the second season was better than the first, because the dressing in women's clothes was de-emphasized. The original idea may have been to do a sitcom version of Some Like It Hot, but it quickly became apparent that Hanks and Scolari were funnier just doing their own thing in regular clothes; the drag gimmick actually detracted from what made them funny. But there's a lot of good stuff in the first season too.
One other thing about the show is that the pilot was shot on film, like all the other Paramount sitcoms of the era, but the series was shot on videotape. I don't know if they were trying to save money or if they decided that tape suited the series better -- but it did, in fact, suit the series better; tape made the show look looser, rougher and less cute than the other sitcoms from the Miller/Milkis/Boyett factory, making it a little more apparent that this wasn't Laverne and Shirley with guys.
No word on whether the DVD will use the original theme song, a cover version of "My Life" by Billy Joel, or the alternate theme song (with lyrics by Thompson) that was used in some syndication versions. Here's the original song, with the season 2 title sequence.
Update: I might as well re-post some of the Bosom Buddies quotes that someone else assembled on a message board. Few shows have had so many lines that make no sense out of context but are completely hilarious when you're watching:
"I was quite the bohemian at Vassar."
"It was a perfectly normal day at the Susan B. Anthony Hotel, except everyone had become the undead."
A bird with a hat - a very powerful aphrodisiac."
"I'll cherish this gift for...as long as it lasts. Does anyone have 15 'D' batteries?"
"But we were gonna live on Cheetos and develop respiratory infections!"
"What do you think of this piece here?...mm-hmm...uh-huh...It's the flag of Japan!!!"
"I ate my albino snake."
"Sven, you crazy Viking!"
"Mint donut?"
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Altman
You've probably heard that Robert Altman died.
In his honor, the memorial service will feature three eulogists, all delivering their eulogies simultaneously.
One thing I admire about Altman is that even though he was an acclaimed auteur, he was an auteur who actually liked to work. A lot of directors, once they get famous, start getting so picky about projects that they let several years go between films, and wind up taking years to create a disappointing movie. Altman made a movie (sometimes two) every year; some of them were great, some of them were OK, some of them were terrible, but the upshot of it was that he wound up making more great/good movies than the directors who treat every project as the challenge of a lifetime. Moviemakers make movies; Altman didn't develop projects or shepherd properties through the production process -- he made movies. Lots of 'em.
Another thing I like about Altman is that, compared to the other directors who became famous in the '70s, he didn't seem to have the same kind of extravagance, either with budget (M*A*S*H isn't a favorite movie of mine, but it's impressive that it looks as good as it does as a low-budget movie shot entirely on the Fox backlot) or technique. He'd worked in episodic TV for years before he broke into features, and he sort of retained the lessons of episodic TV filmmaking: don't over-think things, don't take too long. When he does go for a really extravagant shot, it's sort of a joke, like the opening shot of The Player -- a parody of the way Hollywood movies will spend immense amounts of time and money on over-elaborate shots that nobody will notice, while neglecting the importance of a good story.
In his honor, the memorial service will feature three eulogists, all delivering their eulogies simultaneously.
One thing I admire about Altman is that even though he was an acclaimed auteur, he was an auteur who actually liked to work. A lot of directors, once they get famous, start getting so picky about projects that they let several years go between films, and wind up taking years to create a disappointing movie. Altman made a movie (sometimes two) every year; some of them were great, some of them were OK, some of them were terrible, but the upshot of it was that he wound up making more great/good movies than the directors who treat every project as the challenge of a lifetime. Moviemakers make movies; Altman didn't develop projects or shepherd properties through the production process -- he made movies. Lots of 'em.
Another thing I like about Altman is that, compared to the other directors who became famous in the '70s, he didn't seem to have the same kind of extravagance, either with budget (M*A*S*H isn't a favorite movie of mine, but it's impressive that it looks as good as it does as a low-budget movie shot entirely on the Fox backlot) or technique. He'd worked in episodic TV for years before he broke into features, and he sort of retained the lessons of episodic TV filmmaking: don't over-think things, don't take too long. When he does go for a really extravagant shot, it's sort of a joke, like the opening shot of The Player -- a parody of the way Hollywood movies will spend immense amounts of time and money on over-elaborate shots that nobody will notice, while neglecting the importance of a good story.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
1946 Article on Friz Freleng
Probably the best special feature on the fourth Looney Tunes Golden Collection is a new documentary on Friz Freleng, which includes lots of archival interview footage of Freleng (as well as one of his top animators, Virgil Ross). In honor of that, I'd like to re-post something I already posted on a message board a while back: while searching through Newspaperarchive.com, I found a 1946 article on Freleng in his hometown newspaper, the Kansas City Star. It doesn't say a whole lot that you wouldn't know from watching the documentary, but it's just interesting and surprising that it exists at all, since the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies directors didn't usually get press coverage at the time they were making these cartoons.
Spelling mistakes or factual mistakes are from the original:
Spelling mistakes or factual mistakes are from the original:
Kansas City Star, August 20, 1946
FUN IN A VISITOR'S PEN
Isadore Freleng, Cartoon Creator, Returns “Home.”
A Director, for Warner Bros. Studio, the Master of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck Renews Friendship Here.
One of a half-dozen cartoonists who left Kansas City in the early '20s to become animators and producers of pen and ink motion pictures, Isadore (Fritz [sic]) Freleng, returned to his “home town” this week for a visit.
As a director in the Warner Brothers cartoon studio, Freleng created the popular “Looney Tune” series and now controls the antics of such “Merry Melodies” characters and Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck.
When Freleng lived here at 4543 Mercier street, he attended Westport high school. Some of his cartoons appeared in school publications during his 1919 to 1923 high school career. To earn pocket money he caddied at the Kansas City Country club and recalls that one of his fellow mashie-toters was now-famous professional golfer Jug McSpaden.
“After school I worked at Armour & Co. as a visitor's guide for a while, then went out to United Film Service, Inc., at 2449 Charlotte street as an animator.”
It was here that Freleng became acquainted with Walt Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse; U.B. Iwerks, creator of “Flip the Frog”; Fred Harmon, originator of the “Red Ryder” strip; Hugh Harmon, his brother, who, with Rudy Ising, another United man, later made the “Harmon-Ising” musical cartoons.
Disney was the first of the Kansas City group to strike out for Hollywood. Later, the others followed, all becoming Disney animators. In 1931, Freleng became associated with Warner Brothers, where he has been ever since.
Another Kansas Citian in the Warner office is Carl Stalling, musical director of the animated cartoon section, who formerly played the organ at the Isis theater here.
“Bugs Bunny, the most popular character of 'Merry Melodies,' was created as a combined result of several directors and artists,” Freleng said. “I began Porky Pig in a 'bit' part in my third picture. He's jumped to stardom since.”
Musicals, of the “Rhapsody in Rivets” and “Three Pigs in a Polka” type, whre the action of the characters is timed to the exact note of some well-known piece of music instead of to a set rhythmic tempo, are a Freleng innovation.
Friends at the Warner studio term Freleng the original “worry wart” because of his pessimistic view of each new picture. The slightly-built, balding, blue-eyed man assures everyone that “this is my worst, and probably last, cartoon.” So far, the strips happily have proved Freleng wrong.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Placeholdin'
While I try to come up with an animation-related post for the weekend, you can check out my post about How I Met Your Mother. I speculate -- even more ramblingly than usual -- about the possibility that young, pretty people are over-represented in today's sitcoms.
Also, here's the ultimate video clip for moments when you don't have any new material to offer, the "Signing off the air forever" message from Joe Dante's masterpiece, Gremlins 2.
Also, here's the ultimate video clip for moments when you don't have any new material to offer, the "Signing off the air forever" message from Joe Dante's masterpiece, Gremlins 2.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
In a Dicky and a Collar and a Tie
I've been trying to get through the films in Fox's Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection, but while Fox has done a commendable job in packaging these films -- lots of special features, commentaries, TV excerpts and other interesting bits -- it's just hard for me to be very enthusiastic about these movies. The '50s were the start of a new approach to filming Broadway musicals; whereas once they were used as very loose source material (it was standard practice for every studio, except possibly Warner Brothers, to replace most of the songs when they filmed a Broadway show), by the '50s there was an increasing sense of reverence for the original material. The good side of that is that you don't have to sit through inferior replacement songs like you got with the film version of, say, On the Town. The bad side of it is that these movies are stiff, slow and static.
Which is too bad, because a lot of these shows had real cinematic possibilities. Imagine an Oklahoma! movie that felt more like a movie Western, or a film of Carousel that had some of the spirit of Fritz Lang's non-musical version of the source material (which, happily, is included as a DVD extra), or a shorter, tougher, more war-movie-ish South Pacific. If The Sound of Music works better than most of the R&H movies -- I may not like what it's doing, but it certainly works -- it may be partly because the movie possibilities of the material were a little more exploited, with more ideas that were specific to moviemaking (and actually good ideas, not something stupid like those color filters in South Pacific). That might have had something to do with Roger Edens, the MGM Musicals veteran, who helped shape Ernest Lehman's script and came up, uncredited, with some of the most famous ideas in the movie, like the opening shot (this is according to the book The Fox That Got Away).
I also have a problem with some of the musical arrangements in these movies; Alfred Newman was a very talented arranger, conductor and composer, but he always made everything as big, loud and overblown as possible. (No man has ever loved wordless "aahhh" choruses as much as Newman did.) And Rodgers and Hammerstein's songs work better when given less syrupy arrangements; that's why the most musically satisfying of these movies is Oklahoma! because it used the original Broadway orchestrations (Robert Russell Bennett) and the conductor of the original Broadway production (Jay Blackton, who also created the famous vocal arrangement for the title song). A song like If I Loved You from Carousel -- the most ambitious and longest musical scene that Rodgers and Hammerstein ever undertook, and possibly the best scene in the history of Broadway musicals -- works a lot better with a less bombastic orchestra. You can get a sense of that in these mid-'50s clips from "The Ed Sullivan Show," which reunites the two stars of the original 1945 production, John Raitt and Jan Clayton.
Update: A commenter offers these corrections:
Which is too bad, because a lot of these shows had real cinematic possibilities. Imagine an Oklahoma! movie that felt more like a movie Western, or a film of Carousel that had some of the spirit of Fritz Lang's non-musical version of the source material (which, happily, is included as a DVD extra), or a shorter, tougher, more war-movie-ish South Pacific. If The Sound of Music works better than most of the R&H movies -- I may not like what it's doing, but it certainly works -- it may be partly because the movie possibilities of the material were a little more exploited, with more ideas that were specific to moviemaking (and actually good ideas, not something stupid like those color filters in South Pacific). That might have had something to do with Roger Edens, the MGM Musicals veteran, who helped shape Ernest Lehman's script and came up, uncredited, with some of the most famous ideas in the movie, like the opening shot (this is according to the book The Fox That Got Away).
I also have a problem with some of the musical arrangements in these movies; Alfred Newman was a very talented arranger, conductor and composer, but he always made everything as big, loud and overblown as possible. (No man has ever loved wordless "aahhh" choruses as much as Newman did.) And Rodgers and Hammerstein's songs work better when given less syrupy arrangements; that's why the most musically satisfying of these movies is Oklahoma! because it used the original Broadway orchestrations (Robert Russell Bennett) and the conductor of the original Broadway production (Jay Blackton, who also created the famous vocal arrangement for the title song). A song like If I Loved You from Carousel -- the most ambitious and longest musical scene that Rodgers and Hammerstein ever undertook, and possibly the best scene in the history of Broadway musicals -- works a lot better with a less bombastic orchestra. You can get a sense of that in these mid-'50s clips from "The Ed Sullivan Show," which reunites the two stars of the original 1945 production, John Raitt and Jan Clayton.
Update: A commenter offers these corrections:
Robert Russell Bennett wrote the orchestrations for the film version of Oklahoma (and won an Oscar® for them), but they weren't the same as the original stage version. Unlike most movie-musical orchestrations, they are tasteful, restrained, colorful, and stylistically faithful to the original.
Per his autobiography, Bennett (not Blackton) is also responsible for the "second special chorus" vocal arrangement of the "Oklahoma" title song.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Odd But Endearing
Here's a weird YouTube find: somebody put up a clip from an episode of Dinah Shore's talk show ("Dinah!") where Shore and guest Jane Russell sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" from Stephen Sondheim's Company. Russell actually played this part in the show after Elaine Stritch left, and she's just right for the song; the weird part is that Shore, who is totally wrong for this song, also participates in it, and seems to have no idea that it's supposed to be ironic.
There are other clips from "Dinah!" on YouTube, and interviews from her show occasionally turn up as DVD extras; her interview with Paddy Chayefsky is on the Network DVD. I have to say that it seems like it must have been an enjoyable show -- totally without any attempt to be hip or ironic or make fun of her guests, it's a show for people who just unabashedly love showbiz and celebrities, and don't we all?
One other thing: growing up after Shore's talk show was off the air, I first heard of her as a singer, and only many years later discovered that she'd had a talk show. But a commenter at YouTube, apparently older than I am and therefore with some experience of her talk show, writes: "I never knew Dinah Shore's voice was so pretty."
There are other clips from "Dinah!" on YouTube, and interviews from her show occasionally turn up as DVD extras; her interview with Paddy Chayefsky is on the Network DVD. I have to say that it seems like it must have been an enjoyable show -- totally without any attempt to be hip or ironic or make fun of her guests, it's a show for people who just unabashedly love showbiz and celebrities, and don't we all?
One other thing: growing up after Shore's talk show was off the air, I first heard of her as a singer, and only many years later discovered that she'd had a talk show. But a commenter at YouTube, apparently older than I am and therefore with some experience of her talk show, writes: "I never knew Dinah Shore's voice was so pretty."
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
One-Season Wonders That Lasted More Than One Season
Can you think of any long-running TV shows that, in your opinion, were only really good for one season?
My pick is, and long has been, "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," whose first season is finally going to get a DVD release. This show premiered in the 1996-7 season, the same season that saw the premiere of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," and I honestly couldn't tell you which one was better at the time.
No one really expected it to be good; the comics were never any good (except for the few that Bob Bolling did in the early '80s), and the Filmation TV cartoon was, well, a Filmation TV cartoon. But Disney/ABC made a really smart hire for the live-action TV sitcom version: Nell Scovell, a veteran TV comedy writer who'd worked on shows like "Late Night With David Letterman," "Newhart," and "The Simpsons." Scovell took the basic premise and some of the character names from the comic, but for the most part she made up the whole show from scratch, re-imagining some characters -- Sabrina's aunts, Hilda and Zelda, became a couple of hip, attractive 40-ish women -- and inventing some new characters; she got a "created by" credit for the show, and deserved it.
The setup of the show was your typical fantasy-sitcom setup: every week, Sabrina tries to solve some problem using magic, gets into trouble, and learns some kind of lesson about friendship or responsibility. What made it special was that Scovell's writing was extremely smart and funny -- she and her staff didn't for a moment write down to the young audience, instead doing the same kind of humor that they'd use on "grown-up" shows -- and that the guest casting was highly imaginative and quirky, like a recurring guest role for Scovell's friends Penn and Teller:
So what happened in the second season? Scovell left the show. In the wake of Scovell's departure, there were some cast changes: Sabrina's friend Jenny was replaced with a new character, Valerie (who didn't last all that long herself), and Paul Feig -- whom you know as creator of "Freaks and Geeks" -- lost his role as Sabrina's teacher, being replaced by a sullen Martin Mull as a sullen Vice-Principal. Feig wrote about this on his web page:
There's not much of an ending for this story: "Sabrina" continued to do well for several years, anchoring ABC's TGIF lineup (which, quite honestly, I miss: it was a surprisingly relaxing way to kill a Friday night after a tough week). But it was never anywhere near as good as it had been in that first season with Scovell running it.
My pick is, and long has been, "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," whose first season is finally going to get a DVD release. This show premiered in the 1996-7 season, the same season that saw the premiere of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," and I honestly couldn't tell you which one was better at the time.
No one really expected it to be good; the comics were never any good (except for the few that Bob Bolling did in the early '80s), and the Filmation TV cartoon was, well, a Filmation TV cartoon. But Disney/ABC made a really smart hire for the live-action TV sitcom version: Nell Scovell, a veteran TV comedy writer who'd worked on shows like "Late Night With David Letterman," "Newhart," and "The Simpsons." Scovell took the basic premise and some of the character names from the comic, but for the most part she made up the whole show from scratch, re-imagining some characters -- Sabrina's aunts, Hilda and Zelda, became a couple of hip, attractive 40-ish women -- and inventing some new characters; she got a "created by" credit for the show, and deserved it.
The setup of the show was your typical fantasy-sitcom setup: every week, Sabrina tries to solve some problem using magic, gets into trouble, and learns some kind of lesson about friendship or responsibility. What made it special was that Scovell's writing was extremely smart and funny -- she and her staff didn't for a moment write down to the young audience, instead doing the same kind of humor that they'd use on "grown-up" shows -- and that the guest casting was highly imaginative and quirky, like a recurring guest role for Scovell's friends Penn and Teller:
Penn Jillette: Very simple story: The producer the first year, the year that it was stunningly good, was Nell Scovell, who's one of the funniest people alive. She wanted us in the show, and she was willing to really work for it, which means she was willing to look at our schedule—we're all over the place—and work with our office to find out what days we could shoot, and then write the whole script based around that. It was really a great deal, because she's a close friend, and she was very conscientious to try and write no lines for the character that she had not heard me say in day-to-day life. Which was really funny, considering that I was playing Satan and there were no line changes from my day-to-day life. [Laughs.] Al Pacino cannot say the same thing.
So what happened in the second season? Scovell left the show. In the wake of Scovell's departure, there were some cast changes: Sabrina's friend Jenny was replaced with a new character, Valerie (who didn't last all that long herself), and Paul Feig -- whom you know as creator of "Freaks and Geeks" -- lost his role as Sabrina's teacher, being replaced by a sullen Martin Mull as a sullen Vice-Principal. Feig wrote about this on his web page:
Yes, you heard correctly, friends. Mr. Pool received a little phone call after the end of the first season from the executive producer of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and was informed that the new producers felt that kids wouldn't follow the same teacher for two years in a row and so they gave Mr. Pool and Paul Feig (rumored to be the same guy) his marching orders.
I guess they're right, you know. I remember how boring it got watching that same Mr. Kotter year in and year out. And all that same old group of teachers on "Room 222" season after season. And that dern White Shadow himself, Ken Howard. Oy, if I had to watch him coach those inner-city kids for one more year, I think I might have gone insane. But what did I know?
All I can say is, thank God they changed Darrens halfway through the run of "Bewitched."
There's not much of an ending for this story: "Sabrina" continued to do well for several years, anchoring ABC's TGIF lineup (which, quite honestly, I miss: it was a surprisingly relaxing way to kill a Friday night after a tough week). But it was never anywhere near as good as it had been in that first season with Scovell running it.
Monday, November 13, 2006
A Lost Starlet Before the '60s
I'm always making list of '60s actresses who should have become stars, but why limit myself to the '60s? A starlet of the '40s and '50s whom I always thought should have had a bigger career was Janis Paige. (It seems a bit random for me to be talking about her, but I was just re-watching Silk Stockings, where she plays a supporting part and almost steals the movie from Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.) She was a likable performer and exceptionally good-looking; she could be a heroine, a vamp, or a wisecracking best friend. She also had an adequate singing voice (though she suffered from pitch problems sometimes) that allowed her to do well in musicals, like the original Broadway production of The Pajama Game. For some reason she never made the leap to leading-lady status on the screen, maybe because her versatility worked against her -- she could play heroines, but she didn't have to, and when an actress doesn't clearly fit into one particular category, the studios don't always know how to cast her.
This page has a good biographical piece on Paige.
This page has a good biographical piece on Paige.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Is "Tortilla Flaps" a Better Speedy Gonzales Cartoon Than "Here Today, Gone Tamale?"
Don't forget that this Tuesday brings the release of the fourth Looney Tunes Golden Collection, which is very much worth getting despite the overabundance of Speedy Gonzales. Consulting Producer Jerry Beck has a preview of the set, including a screenshot of the restored opening titles to Chuck Jones's first cartoon, "The Night Watchman."
Thursday, November 09, 2006
DIC!
If Fox has really made a "multimillion dollar pact" to distribute DIC animated titles, that can mean only one thing:
CARE BEARS.
The article explains something that had confused me: I'd been seeing a bunch of "Strawberry Shortcake" DVDs from Fox and wondering who the heck remembered Strawberry Shortcake (except people like me who remember every bad '80s cartoon). It turns out that DIC and Fox have revived the character -- in computer-animated form -- for a market I wouldn't have expected:
To be honest, I never thought there was much religious content in Strawberry Shortcake, but what do I know? It's entirely possible that I was missing the religious undertones in Rainbow Brite, too. Seriously, though, with most "kids" cartoons today being far from wholesome -- good or bad -- it might make sense to reach back to some of those innocent '80s properties for parents who want to show their kids something less nudge-nudge-y than, say, Shrek.
Here's what those of us who grew up with the original Strawberry Shortcake had to go through:
Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I originally wrote "DC" instead of "DIC."
CARE BEARS.
The article explains something that had confused me: I'd been seeing a bunch of "Strawberry Shortcake" DVDs from Fox and wondering who the heck remembered Strawberry Shortcake (except people like me who remember every bad '80s cartoon). It turns out that DIC and Fox have revived the character -- in computer-animated form -- for a market I wouldn't have expected:
Fox's success with Strawberry Shortcake at Christian outlets particularly impressed DIC, and DIC hopes the studio can break its Madeline property into the Christian market as well.
To be honest, I never thought there was much religious content in Strawberry Shortcake, but what do I know? It's entirely possible that I was missing the religious undertones in Rainbow Brite, too. Seriously, though, with most "kids" cartoons today being far from wholesome -- good or bad -- it might make sense to reach back to some of those innocent '80s properties for parents who want to show their kids something less nudge-nudge-y than, say, Shrek.
Here's what those of us who grew up with the original Strawberry Shortcake had to go through:
Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I originally wrote "DC" instead of "DIC."
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Pointless James Bond Notes
I had a chance to look at the new James Bond DVDs -- the special features are mostly duplicated from the earlier releases (though there is some new stuff, like uninformative but charming audio commentaries by Roger Moore), but unfortunately it's still worth replacing the old DVDs with these, because the picture quality is much better than before, especially for the earlier films.
The one thing that jumps out at you when you watch a bunch of James Bond movies is how few of them really can be called good movies as a whole. Most of them have some memorable scenes, or memorable stunts, or something. (Even a turkey like Diamonds Are Forever has the justly-celebrated scene of Bond getting his ass kicked by women named Bambi and Thumper.) But because Bond movies are entirely a collection of set pieces, with just a hint of plot to get from one set piece to another, most of the movies don't really have any individual identity. It's like a variety show; you remember individual sketches, not whole episodes. The only movies that have some kind of cohesion are the ones that are actually based on the Fleming books, like Goldfinger (which is in this set) and Dr. No, From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (which aren't).
Thunderball is sort of an in-between film -- a little more cohesive than most Bond movies, less cohesive than the first three or OHMSS -- but despite the weakish head villain (Adolfo Celi), I kind of like it, as it was one of the first Bonds I saw, and it was probably the last film to preserve some degree of Spillane-esque nastiness in Bond. (On Her Majesty's Secret Service is great but George Lazenby isn't exactly menacing.)
But the other thing that jumps out at you when watching a '60s Bond film like Goldfinger or Thunderball is how well-dubbed they are. Many movies, especially big productions with international casts, were at this point shooting many scenes without sound and re-dubbing actors who couldn't speak English. (Or, as in the case of Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger, didn't have the voice the producers wanted for the character: so they combine her body with a different voice to get the composite character they were looking for.) A lot of this dubbing, especially in American movies, was very obvious and distracting, but the dubbing in the early Bonds -- mostly supervised, I think, by the editor, Peter Hunt -- mostly sounds like it's taking place in the right acoustic for the scene and sounds natural coming out of these characters; even when Sean Connery post-dubs his own lines, as he frequently does, it doesn't sound like ADR unless you're really listening for it.
Finally, I put the question to you: which Thunderball song do you think is better: the original, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," or the title song that the producers made John Barry write and record as a replacement? I have no problem in saying that I prefer "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," mostly because of the lyrics: the lyric of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is one of Leslie Bricusse's better efforts, whereas the lyric of "Thunderball," by Britain's worst lyricist, Don Black, makes absolutely no sense.
Version # 1 ("Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang")
Version # 2 ("Thunderball")
Update: A commenter asks why the song was replaced. John Barry explained in an interview:
The one thing that jumps out at you when you watch a bunch of James Bond movies is how few of them really can be called good movies as a whole. Most of them have some memorable scenes, or memorable stunts, or something. (Even a turkey like Diamonds Are Forever has the justly-celebrated scene of Bond getting his ass kicked by women named Bambi and Thumper.) But because Bond movies are entirely a collection of set pieces, with just a hint of plot to get from one set piece to another, most of the movies don't really have any individual identity. It's like a variety show; you remember individual sketches, not whole episodes. The only movies that have some kind of cohesion are the ones that are actually based on the Fleming books, like Goldfinger (which is in this set) and Dr. No, From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (which aren't).
Thunderball is sort of an in-between film -- a little more cohesive than most Bond movies, less cohesive than the first three or OHMSS -- but despite the weakish head villain (Adolfo Celi), I kind of like it, as it was one of the first Bonds I saw, and it was probably the last film to preserve some degree of Spillane-esque nastiness in Bond. (On Her Majesty's Secret Service is great but George Lazenby isn't exactly menacing.)
But the other thing that jumps out at you when watching a '60s Bond film like Goldfinger or Thunderball is how well-dubbed they are. Many movies, especially big productions with international casts, were at this point shooting many scenes without sound and re-dubbing actors who couldn't speak English. (Or, as in the case of Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger, didn't have the voice the producers wanted for the character: so they combine her body with a different voice to get the composite character they were looking for.) A lot of this dubbing, especially in American movies, was very obvious and distracting, but the dubbing in the early Bonds -- mostly supervised, I think, by the editor, Peter Hunt -- mostly sounds like it's taking place in the right acoustic for the scene and sounds natural coming out of these characters; even when Sean Connery post-dubs his own lines, as he frequently does, it doesn't sound like ADR unless you're really listening for it.
Finally, I put the question to you: which Thunderball song do you think is better: the original, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," or the title song that the producers made John Barry write and record as a replacement? I have no problem in saying that I prefer "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," mostly because of the lyrics: the lyric of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is one of Leslie Bricusse's better efforts, whereas the lyric of "Thunderball," by Britain's worst lyricist, Don Black, makes absolutely no sense.
Version # 1 ("Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang")
Version # 2 ("Thunderball")
Update: A commenter asks why the song was replaced. John Barry explained in an interview:
The Bond team had even chosen the singer - Dionne Warwick, who sang her own arrangement, after Shirley Bassey's original version had failed to impress. Barry takes up the story: "Dionne's was a marvellous song and she did a great arrangement for it. It was a really strange song. I had about twelve cow bells on it with different rhythms, along with a large orchestra, and thought it a very original piece. Then, at the last minute they got cold feet and decided to have a song called 'Thunderball'." The official reason for the change of mind was that the original song-title may have been considered to have sexual connotations in conservative America, but rumour has it that there may have been a threat of court action from Bassey following her replacement by Warwick. Obviously if the song wasn't used at all, there could be no case to answer!
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Going Audio-Visual
For some reason, one of my old posts that gets linked to the most after all these years is my post on The Stan Daniels Turn -- a joke that depends on someone instantaneously, and unwittingly, contradicting what he has just said. I've finally been able to update it with an actual example of a Stan Daniels Turn, but here it is in this post too -- a joke from the Mary Tyler Moore episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust":
Grudge Matches I'd Like to See: Buffy vs. The Count
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Version) meets The Count (Sesame Street). Since he is a vampire, and not hot, she takes it upon herself to slay him.
Can Buffy beat the Count, or will the Count rain thunder and lightning upon Buffy?
Can Buffy beat the Count, or will the Count rain thunder and lightning upon Buffy?
"Despite the Easy Jack Webb Comparison, I Always Considered Jack Lord My Spiritual Forbear."
Hawaii 5-0 coming to DVD; season 1 comes out in February.
The quote above is from Cornfed the Pig on Duckman (which, frankly, I wish Paramount/CBS had put on DVD before 5-0).
The quote above is from Cornfed the Pig on Duckman (which, frankly, I wish Paramount/CBS had put on DVD before 5-0).
The Keatons Revisited
Yes, sorry, I am obsessed with the U.S. mid-term elections and suffused with nagging fears that vice will be rewarded (Tradesports says differently, but Tradesports can be wrong too). But instead of making pessimistic predictions, I want to revisit something I wrote two years ago in explaining why Ohio was a Republican state. Noting that Family Ties took place in Columbus, I did my own poll of the Keatons and came up with this:
But this year, Ohio is widely favored to go in a different direction, with both the Governor's and Senator's races heavily Tradesported to go Democratic. If this turns out to happen, what changed? Whose votes changed?
Well, obviously, Stephen and Elyse stayed the same. I think Jennifer would stay the same too. Andrew would continue voting Republican because, well, he's Andrew and I've always thought he would wind up to the right of Alex. Mallory could go either way depending on which candidate she thought was cuter; she's what we call a "swing voter." And Nick, another swing voter, could also go either way depending on what he was on at the time. Finally, as you know, Alex is a Democrat now.
And Skippy? There's still not a single county around that would count Skippy's vote.
Stephen: Democrats
Elyse: Democrats
Alex: Republicans
Mallory: Didn't want to vote, but she decided to go to the polls to meet a cute guy, and while she was there, she voted Republican because they were promising to lift restrictions on imports of foreign makeup
Jennifer: Democrats
Andrew (who would by now be old enough to vote): Republicans
That makes it a 3-3 split. Who cast the tiebreaking vote? NICK. He went Republican at the last minute because Laura Bush said something nice about his art. When Stephen finds out, he chases Nick around the state with a baseball bat with a nail in it.
And Skippy? Skippy's vote wasn't counted. As if you had any doubt.
But this year, Ohio is widely favored to go in a different direction, with both the Governor's and Senator's races heavily Tradesported to go Democratic. If this turns out to happen, what changed? Whose votes changed?
Well, obviously, Stephen and Elyse stayed the same. I think Jennifer would stay the same too. Andrew would continue voting Republican because, well, he's Andrew and I've always thought he would wind up to the right of Alex. Mallory could go either way depending on which candidate she thought was cuter; she's what we call a "swing voter." And Nick, another swing voter, could also go either way depending on what he was on at the time. Finally, as you know, Alex is a Democrat now.
And Skippy? There's still not a single county around that would count Skippy's vote.
Monday, November 06, 2006
The Just-Us League of Supertoons
I haven't done an animation-related post in a while, for which I apologize; meanwhile here's my take on "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited".
The subject heading is the title of an episode of "Tiny Toon Adventures" written by Paul Dini, around the same time "Batman: the Animated Series" was starting up.
The subject heading is the title of an episode of "Tiny Toon Adventures" written by Paul Dini, around the same time "Batman: the Animated Series" was starting up.
WB Strikes Again
Wow, that was fast -- the two Busby Berkeley numbers found on YouTube have now been un-found because Warner Brothers pulled them off the net. Apparently they've been so energized by their quest to get every single Looney Tunes clip off YouTube that they're now going after clips of musicals as well.
So forget about those clips (or get the DVD set and watch them there); here, from the more live-and-let live (so far) 20th Century-Fox, is another Berkeley freak-out from The Gang's All Here -- "The Polka Dot Polka."
So forget about those clips (or get the DVD set and watch them there); here, from the more live-and-let live (so far) 20th Century-Fox, is another Berkeley freak-out from The Gang's All Here -- "The Polka Dot Polka."
Saturday, November 04, 2006
More Busby Berkeley
You know, when I was a younger movie-musical buff, I had kind of a snobbish attitude to Busby Berkeley. I thought of him as kind of a one-trick pony -- put a bunch of chorus girls on an enormous stage with some bizarre gimmick like neon violins or giant rocking chairs -- and was over-conscious of the fact that he wasn't a very good choreographer (he couldn't dance all that well himself, and his choreography tended to consist of having people do the same step over and over). I thought of him as kind of a camp icon rather than a genius.
Now I am older, and I am wiser, and I have the Busby Berkeley Collection on DVD, and I know I was wrong: Berkeley really was a genius. For one thing I've come to realize just what an incredible imagination the guy had, what an ability to make art out of visual ideas that no one else would try; "The Shadow Waltz" may sound kind of goofy in description, but when you see the lights go down and reveal the line of glowing violins, it's magical. I've also come to better appreciate his technical sophistication; his use of the camera and of special effects was beyond a lot of directors today, never mind in 1933. And I've come to appreciate his outlandish sense of humor, the fact that he's being intentionally funny a lot of the time. And of course I appreciate that he had the good sense to work with Harry Warren and Al Dubin and get great work out of them.
(An aside: the only studio for which Harry Warren didn't do great work, oddly enough, was MGM; he gave them one hit, "On the Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe," but most of Warren's songs for Arthur Freed musicals are not up to his usual standards before and after his stint at MGM. I suspect this might have had something to do with Freed's generally less-than-optimal taste in songs; his biggest flaw as a producer of musicals was that he often picked songs that were pleasant but bland.)
Here are two Berkeley numbers from his WB prime, both to songs by Warren and Dubin. "Pettin' in the Park" from Gold Diggers of 1933, with Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, cops on roller-skates, women in iron dresses, and Berkeley's favorite horny midget, Billy Barty:
And from Gold Diggers of 1937, "All's Fair in Love and War," with Dick Powell and Joan Blondell leading opposing armies of guys and gals:
Now I am older, and I am wiser, and I have the Busby Berkeley Collection on DVD, and I know I was wrong: Berkeley really was a genius. For one thing I've come to realize just what an incredible imagination the guy had, what an ability to make art out of visual ideas that no one else would try; "The Shadow Waltz" may sound kind of goofy in description, but when you see the lights go down and reveal the line of glowing violins, it's magical. I've also come to better appreciate his technical sophistication; his use of the camera and of special effects was beyond a lot of directors today, never mind in 1933. And I've come to appreciate his outlandish sense of humor, the fact that he's being intentionally funny a lot of the time. And of course I appreciate that he had the good sense to work with Harry Warren and Al Dubin and get great work out of them.
(An aside: the only studio for which Harry Warren didn't do great work, oddly enough, was MGM; he gave them one hit, "On the Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe," but most of Warren's songs for Arthur Freed musicals are not up to his usual standards before and after his stint at MGM. I suspect this might have had something to do with Freed's generally less-than-optimal taste in songs; his biggest flaw as a producer of musicals was that he often picked songs that were pleasant but bland.)
Here are two Berkeley numbers from his WB prime, both to songs by Warren and Dubin. "Pettin' in the Park" from Gold Diggers of 1933, with Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, cops on roller-skates, women in iron dresses, and Berkeley's favorite horny midget, Billy Barty:
And from Gold Diggers of 1937, "All's Fair in Love and War," with Dick Powell and Joan Blondell leading opposing armies of guys and gals:
Friday, November 03, 2006
Cancelled Though Not Necessarily Brilliant
Denis McGrath has a great post about the four crime shows on a "Brilliant But Cancelled" disc (sort of tying in with the series of reruns of obscure shows on the Bravo network in the U.S.). I basically agree with his observations about all four shows, especially that "Johnny Staccato" is the only one of the four that is really totally watchable.
More On Bass vs. Binder
Michael Sporn has some good comments on my Bass vs. Binder post:
My problem with Ferro's Strangelove titles is that while the visuals are great -- funny and subversive just like the movie -- the credits are kind of ugly and sometimes hard to read, and I think that a good title sequence needs to have legible credits.
Bass started designing titles earlier than Binder, and he made an art of it.
Binder's work was always lightweight in comparison. The graphics weren't as gemane to the film; they were pretty pictures.
Check out Bass's idea of funny in That's Entertainment. He parodies movie titles of the past.
Pablo Ferro was also brilliant. His titles for Dr. Strangelove are classic.
My problem with Ferro's Strangelove titles is that while the visuals are great -- funny and subversive just like the movie -- the credits are kind of ugly and sometimes hard to read, and I think that a good title sequence needs to have legible credits.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Finally, Family Ties!
What took them so long?
This is another one of those shows where the first season wasn't as good as the others but we still have to buy it ('cause if we don't buy season 1, we don't get the better seasons). The first season wasn't bad, but it was too tied to the basic high-concept premise -- ex-hippie parents vs. soon-to-be-yuppie kids -- and didn't take full advantage of its two biggest assets: Michael J. Fox's charisma and the great comic timing of Michael Gross. In the first season, Gross was playing the part more as the slightly goofy ex-hippie who has to deal with the fact that he's grown-up now. In the second season, he grew a beard, gained a little more dignity, and became one of the best, funniest sitcom dads: able to get the most out of any line ("There was a kangaroo in my living room") without trying to hog the scenes. Meredith Baxter[-Birney] never seemed to adjust quite as well to the fact that Fox's Alex became the show's central character; whereas Gross adapted and learned to get big laughs by playing off Alex, Baxter always seemed a little sullen about not being the star of the show, and always seemed to be trying a little too hard to dominate a scene, especially when she was in a scene with Fox.
The one thing I always wondered about this version of the title sequence (season 3, I think) is why it looked like Meredith Baxter was slapping somebody, and if so, who she was slapping. And yes, "There ain't no nothing we can't love each other through" is one of the worst lines in the history of lyric writing, and probably is single-handedly responsible for bad grammar in people of my generation.
This is another one of those shows where the first season wasn't as good as the others but we still have to buy it ('cause if we don't buy season 1, we don't get the better seasons). The first season wasn't bad, but it was too tied to the basic high-concept premise -- ex-hippie parents vs. soon-to-be-yuppie kids -- and didn't take full advantage of its two biggest assets: Michael J. Fox's charisma and the great comic timing of Michael Gross. In the first season, Gross was playing the part more as the slightly goofy ex-hippie who has to deal with the fact that he's grown-up now. In the second season, he grew a beard, gained a little more dignity, and became one of the best, funniest sitcom dads: able to get the most out of any line ("There was a kangaroo in my living room") without trying to hog the scenes. Meredith Baxter[-Birney] never seemed to adjust quite as well to the fact that Fox's Alex became the show's central character; whereas Gross adapted and learned to get big laughs by playing off Alex, Baxter always seemed a little sullen about not being the star of the show, and always seemed to be trying a little too hard to dominate a scene, especially when she was in a scene with Fox.
The one thing I always wondered about this version of the title sequence (season 3, I think) is why it looked like Meredith Baxter was slapping somebody, and if so, who she was slapping. And yes, "There ain't no nothing we can't love each other through" is one of the worst lines in the history of lyric writing, and probably is single-handedly responsible for bad grammar in people of my generation.
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