Mark Evanier's Blog, page 126

Today's Bonus Video Link

And now we have two more installments of Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live. This is where it really starts to get interesting. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd decamp before the start of Season Five but producer Lorne Michaels really doesn't have a farm team. No one is "on deck" to assume the kind of spot that Belushi and Aykroyd had on the show so it's a rough season…

And then comes Season Six with an all-new cast, a new producer, mostly new writers and a lot of reviews about Saturday Night Dead…

Today's Video Link

The other night, the City of Centerville, Ohio and the Centerville Arts Commission presented "Hooray for Hollywood," a concert in Centerville Pops! series consisting of music and film clips from great movies. The program featured the Centerville Community Band, the Centerville Community Chorus, the Centerville Pops Strings, the Centerville Pops! Vocalists and students from the Ballare School of Dance performing "Hooray for Hollywood" followed by excerpts from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Batman: The Movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, some James Bond flicks and The Phantom of the Opera.

Naturally, it is the inclusion of my favorite film — It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — that interests me most. The conductor preceded this section of the program with some "trivia" about the film and managed to get an awful lot of it wrong, repeating a lot of things that my pals Paul Scrabo, Mike Schlesinger and I debunked on the commentary track of the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray. Oliver Hardy, for example, did not pass away just before the movie was to begin filming. Hardy died in August of 1957 and Mad World began shooting in April of 1962. Jack Benny was not driving a Model T Ford in the film. It was, I believe, a 1932 Cadillac. And so on.

But here is the entire program as it was recorded and uploaded to YouTube. If you'd like to just watch the segment on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, you can jump to the start of it with this link.

Today's Political Post

Wanna know where I think the election currently stands? Here's my answer — which is probably good until the polls close on November 5: It's gonna be up and down, up and down, up and down…with many moments which will, at least at first, feel like game-changers.

We've already had plenty of these. Trump getting shot at was one. Biden doing so poorly in the debate was one. Biden dropping out was a big one. Trump getting convicted of 34 felonies was one. The big Supreme Court ruling was one. There will be more. If Trump feels he's going down, he might generate a half-dozen of 'em. I think it's a roller coaster election and that may not stop on November Fifth. If Harris and Whoever win that day, Trump will probably start a campaign to try and get Vice-President Kamala Harris to not certify the election for President Kamala Harris.

I believe Trump will lose but we've got a long way to go before that happens.

If you want an answer less generic than mine, go read Josh Marshall. I think he has a very realistic assessment of where things stand at this moment.

Sunday Morning

I don't go to a lot of conventions but I seem to get someone mad at me every time I do. After the con, I get an angry e-mail from someone who says they brought a whole pile of comics for me to autograph and carried them around and couldn't find me. Once, the incensed message was from someone who'd hauled such a stack to a convention I never agreed to attend and which had not advertised my presence. I still don't understand that one.

I just got one of these messages from someone who couldn't find me at Comic-Con in San Diego and, again, I don't understand: They give you a Program Guide listing all the panels and what time they are and what room they're in…so the guy had fourteen notices of where I was. Even Groo could figure that one out. And because of my mobility problems, a Galapagos Tortoise could have caught up with me.

Instead, this fellow somehow spent his time at the con wandering around the exhibit hall I never entered, looking for a table I never sat behind. Every so often, you hear about someone who claims that reading comic books make you stupid and maybe, once in a rare while, they're right.

Today's Bonus Video Link

Skip this if you're sick of hearing about Guys and Dolls and especially about the 1992 revival with Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Peter Gallagher and Josie de Guzman. I saw it with the original cast and enjoyed it a lot. (It ran for a little less than three years and for 1,143 performances. After Mr. Lane left the show, Nathan Detroit was played at various times by Adam Arkin, Jonathan Hadary, Jamie Farr and a couple of other gents. A friend of mine who saw Jamie Farr said he was pretty good.)

This is an hour and a half of press coverage, including opening night, and various talk show appearances. You'll see a lot of snippets of numbers in here…

Today's Video Link

Here are two more installments of Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live. This series is obviously done in cooperation with — and perhaps on assignment from — Peacock or some entity that controls or markets the series but it's still very informative. Here's their overview of Season Three…

And here's Season Four…

Saturday Morning

Today's COVID test was negative so I'm going to stop testing until there's a reason to think I might have had a new exposure.  I made it through Comic-Con without infection and my sympathies go out to those who weren't as fortunate.  My left foot's a lot better, too.

I'm also pretty happy with the political news, as well.  I'm sure there will be moments between now and 11/5/2024 when I won't be but right this minute, things seem to be going in the right direction.  It's kinda fun seeing George Conway going on every single TV show and podcast to tell the world that Donald Trump is a a narcissistic sociopath. Before long, I expect to see him saying this on Sesame Street, House of the Dragon, The Price is Right and…well, just about everything except Presumed Innocent.

Gonna spend my Saturday writing but I have some posts "in inventory" which might turn up here later today.

Today's Bonus Video Link

Like a lot of films that spawn many imitations, the 1980 movie Fame doesn't seem quite as special a few decades after I first saw it. But I watched it again recently and still liked it a lot, especially this number performed by Irene Cara…

McDonald's Math

It is said that the financial empire that is Las Vegas was built on people who are bad at math. I sometimes think the same about McDonald's.

I don't like many fast food hamburgers but I enjoy theirs every so often. The pricing though can be puzzling…and I should explain here that all the prices I cite are what I presently see on the McDonald's app. They may change tomorrow or they may be showing you different pricing based on your geography.

I should also mention that I prefer my McDonald's burgers with no pickles and no cheese but that omitting these elements does not alter any prices. No matter what the size of the burger, they charge me forty cents if I ask for an extra slice of cheese but don't deduct a cent from my order if I have them leave the cheese off a burger that comes with cheese. Now then…

I can order a regular McDonald's hamburger for $2.79. That gives me a burger with ketchup, mustard and onions and one hamburger patty that weighs a tenth-of-a-pound, which I assume is the pre-cooked weight. The app will let me add a number of extra items for upcharges like bacon, mayo or shredded lettuce but it won't let me add another patty.

For that, I have to order the McDouble, which is the same thing but with two of those tenth-pound patties. That's $3.49 so the extra patty costs me seventy cents. That, as you'll see, is a bargain but this is the only time an extra patty will cost me seventy cents. If I want to add two or three more of those same patties, these will cost me $1.29 each. A McDouble with three patties would therefore run me $4.78.

Or for no good reason, I can spend eleven cents more and order the Triple Cheeseburger — the exact same thing with three patties — for $4.89. An additional patty on one of those is again $1.29. That's for the same-size patty that cost me seventy cents when I upgraded from the Hamburger to the McDouble.

Ah, but let's say I decide I don't want any of those translucent tenth-of-a-pound patties. Not for me! Feeling more carnivorous, I decide I want quarter-pound patties. Your basic McDonald's Quarter-Pounder which comes with one of them is $5.79. That's right: A McDonald's burger with .25 pounds of beef in it costs ninety cents more than a McDonald's burger with .3 pounds of beef in it.

If I decide to add another quarter-pound patty to my Quarter-Pounder, that's $2.49 more so that burger would be $8.28. Or I could save a buck twenty-nine — the same amount as one of those extra tenth-of-a-pound patties — and purchase a Double Quarter Pounder for $6.99. Both of those Quarter-Pounders are cheeseburgers but I would have them omit the cheese and, like I said, that doesn't lower any prices.

This is all very confounding. Do you ever get the feeling that this company is run by a clown?

Today's Video Links

Some of you are going to get hooked on this. Two gents named Jon Schneider and James Stephens have started a YouTube show called Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live — a history of that now-institutional late night program. Every week or so, they put up a new episode of roughly 10-15 minutes summarizing what transpired in one season: Who was in the cast? What were the memorable sketches? What were the firsts? That kind of thing.

The info seems solid and the clips are well-chosen. It's really a very well-done presentation. Here's the first episode covering, of course, Season One…

And here's their coverage of Season Two…

They're currently up to Season Seven and it gets especially interesting in Season Six when the original cast and most of the writers depart and NBC has to rebuild. I'm going to embed them all here, two a day until we catch up…but if you don't want to wait for me, you can find subsequent episodes on this page. I would suggest though going in order. It's a remarkable story about a remarkable show.