Mark Evanier's Blog, page 185

Tom 'n' Lorenzo

Speaking of Tommy Smothers and Lorenzo Music, as I was: There was a brief period when Lorenzo was not the voice of Garfield and Tommy was. It had to do with a contract dispute and money and I was somehow in the middle of it, which is a place I always hate to be.

Eventually, everything was worked out and no friendships were harmed in the making of several commercials for Alpo Cat Food. Alpo no longer makes cat food, by the way. When they did, they occasionally sent me crates of it, gratis, and the feral cats I was feeding in my backyard loved the stuff. Maybe giving it away for free like that is the reason they didn't show a profit.

Here's one of the commercials in which Tom Smothers spoke for the cat…

Tom Smothers, R.I.P.

One time in a Garfield recording session, Lorenzo Music (the voice of said cat) got into a discussion with another actor about Tommy Smothers. They were talking about the years when the Smothers Brothers had their popular variety show on CBS and the news was filled with stories of Tommy fighting with the CBS execs…leading to the program's eventual cancellation. The other actor said something about how Tom was too dumb to be trying to run a network television show, apparently confusing Tom's screen character with the real person.

Lorenzo, who'd been a writer on that series, corrected him and said, "You have to be real smart to play stupid that well."

I had a few contacts over the years with Tommy Smothers — not enough to call him a friend but enough to see that Lorenzo was right. Tom was a sweet, funny guy who in person was impossible to dislike…and very much unlike the stammering clueless fellow he usually portrayed. He and his brother Dick were also examples of comedians, and there are several, that I didn't fully appreciate until I saw them perform live. They were real, real good.

ASK me: The Travels of me

This post about snow led to Jennifer R. sending me this question…

I read your piece about the places you've been where it snowed. I'm always curious about how much people have traveled. How about writing a post for the blog which lists all the states you've lived in, all the states you've visited a lot and all the states you've visited at all? I'd also be interested in hearing your travel plans for 2024.

Sure…but as you'll see, I am not a well-traveled individual. I like being certain places for certain reasons but I've never been one of those people who yearns to travel just for the sake of being somewhere I've never been before. Because of my numerous food allergies, I'm leery about new restaurants and while I have no fear of flying, I don't like sitting in a car or on a plane for very long. Here's a map…

Click here to enlarge the map if you need to.

The orange shows you the state where I was born and all the different states in which I've lived. As you can see, that's just one state. The green identifies the states I've visited more than ten times. And the yellow indicates all the other states I've visited. I'm not counting states in which I spent some time in an airport while changing planes.

I have nothing against the states I've never visited. They're all probably wonderful in their own way. I just never go anywhere unless I have a reason and I've never had a reason to go to these states.

The map doesn't tell you this but I've also never been to Alaska, Hawaii or Mexico. I have been to Victoria on Vancouver Island (twice) and Calgary in Canada (once) and the District of Columbia (once) and nowhere else. That's right: I've been totally faithful to one continent. Never been to Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, Australia or Antarctica. I've turned down invites to conventions in most of these and shall continue to do so.

A few of the states in yellow are states I only visited to be a guest at a comic book convention. That means I saw the airport, a hotel, a convention center if the con wasn't in the hotel, a couple of nearby restaurants and whatever streets I had to travel on to get between these places. So I didn't really see much of those states.

I would not expect my reticence to travel to change. COVID and some knee problems have made me more comfy than ever staying home. The outta-state place I am most likely to visit is New York City, which I have not set foot in since 2018 when Amber and I took an 11-day expedition to Vegas, Philadelphia and Manhattan. It was fun — you can read about it here — but I don't see myself ever attempting a trip like that again.

Amber wants to go back to New York in the coming year and we'll probably do that if my knees allow. Other than that, it'll just be WonderCon Anaheim and Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Today's Video Link

It's my fave a cappella group, Voctave, with a song from West Side Story. I really like this…

Tuesday Afternoon

I very much enjoyed the CBS special tributing Dick Van Dyke…and like you, I didn't know who some of those performers were, either. The best part of it was how utterly delighted the Birthday Boy was with every moment of it. I've been around the man enough to know that that was in no way feigned; that he really was overwhelmed and surprised by so much of it.

If you missed it, it's rerunning tonight on CBS and it's also available for viewing on the CBS website.

Last Friday night, I went to the newly-refurbished Egyptian Theater in Hollywood for a screening of my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World offered by the American Cinematheque. The film — which I have now seen more times than I've seen my next door neighbors — never fails to make me feel good…even when, as was the case here, it was not the best print and there was an unscheduled intermission when the sound went out during the third reel.

I am going to greatly upset certain movie buff friends of mine with the next part of this post…

I understand the loyalty to seeing movies actually projected on film rather than by digital means but it's starting to remind me of my friend who insists on only listening to recorded music on vinyl. It may be a noble battle in some ways but it's also a losing one. Film prints of great movies on film are becoming scarcer and scarcer and as those prints wear out, it is increasingly not cost-effective (and in some cases, not possible) to generate new ones.

DCP — Digital Cinema Package — is the standard and will be until someone comes up, as is inevitable, with something better. I understand there are only two 70mm prints of Mad World in existence, at least in English. The Cinematheque ran one of them and it had a lot of dirt and scratches and uneven sound, whereas the DCP version I saw a few years ago at the Cinerama Dome was flawless. It will always be that flawless.

The notion that a movie that was shot on film should stay on film — or is at least best viewed on film — is arguable. And if we're arguing, I could argue that a good DCP version of a movie yields a viewing experience closer to how the movie looked at its premiere than most film prints around. If that's not the case now, it will be.

Anyway, I still enjoyed seeing my fave film again the way it's best seen: On a big screen with a big, appreciative audience. But it was also a long night. We got in line at 6 PM, the speeches started at 7 PM, and then the film was followed by a Q-and-A session with Karen Sharpe-Kramer (widow of director Stanley Kramer), Kat Kramer (daughter of Stanley and Karen), Sandy Hackett (son of Buddy), Barrie Chase and our host, screenwriter Scott Alexander. We didn't get out of there until Midnight.

Barrie Chase is the answer to the question, "Who's still alive who was in this movie?" She's not only alive but she's gorgeous even at the age of 90 (as is Karen) and Ms. Chase had wonderful stories about dancing with Dick Shawn…

She seemed to not be able to explain why they'd picked her for the role. I think I know. There were hundreds of attractive women around who could have danced and looked good…but put most of them in a scene with Dick Shawn and they'd have largely disappeared. Shawn was so magnetic and fascinating with every word he said and every move he made. Most dance partners would simply have vanished from the screen.

Dancing is not just about moving. It's about acting with your body, exuding personality, saying things with your hips…and being a presence. At the time this movie was made, Barrie Chase was probably best known for being Fred Astaire's dance partner in a series of TV specials (like this one). My guess is that someone said, "If she can hold her own on a stage with Fred Astaire, she can hold her own on a stage with Dick Shawn."

She did. And now she's The Last Cast Member Standing.

I Don't Like Snow

This ran here on December 26, 2014. About time for a rerun…

That, believe it or not, is me and as you can see, I'm reading a Little Golden Book of Frosty the Snowman. I don't know when the book was issued but I was issued in 1952.

I have a vague recollection of this book and of being mystified by the whole concept of snow. We lived in Los Angeles and I did not see snow in person until I was around eleven. One Winter afternoon, feeling I should experience it, my parents dressed me in my warmest clothing and my father drove us up to the mountains, a few hours from L.A.

I was not particularly impressed with the stuff. What was around had fallen a few days earlier and it was more like crushed ice by then…and for the most part, not all that clean. I remember trying to make a small snowman and realizing within seconds that all those Christmas specials had deceived me as to how simple that was. I'd somehow expected something more like cold, firm mashed potatoes.  My folks assured me it was easier right after the snow had fallen but I still felt misled.  On TV, it always looked like white Play-Doh.

We planned to spend the whole afternoon in this mountain area and a friend had loaned me a sled which we brought along in the trunk. My father hauled it out and placed it atop a small incline so I could lie down on it and sled my way down the incline. I did, found it unremarkable and then turned to my parents and asked, "Can we go home now?"  We ate lunch and then did.

Maybe if I'd had some friends along to lob snowballs at or something, I'd have enjoyed the snow more but I decided I could live without it. Matter of fact, on the drive back, I thanked my parents for moving to Southern California before I was born.

Yes, yes…I understand snow can create beautiful, picture postcard scenery around you. So can a clear, sunny day and no one has to shovel it.

Years later in traveling, I occasionally found myself surrounded by snow for a few days at a time. There was one year in New York when a major, airport-closing blizzard hit the day I was scheduled to leave so I had to stay. Fortunately, I had the right clothes along and was at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel with someone else paying. It was fascinating to watch how New Yorkers and their city employees handled it but that was the only upside of the whole experience.

Over that weekend alone, I had enough of snow to last anyone a lifetime. I also experienced snow once when I was in Detroit, once while I was attending my grandmother's funeral in Hartford, a couple of times in Muncie and even once — for about twenty minutes — in Las Vegas.

Snow in Vegas was interesting because there were tourists in Hawaiian shirts, sandals and shorts who treated it like, "Oh, look what the hotels here arranged for our amusement!" As a phenomenon of nature, it seemed about as credible as the volcano that used to go off hourly outside The Mirage. And what it mainly did was to force people off The Strip and into the nearest buildings, which were almost all casinos. So the brief snowstorm probably boosted profits at the craps tables and I think I saw one hooker in a parka.  (It's getting harder to identify the hookers in Vegas not because they don't look like hookers but because everyone else does.)

I'm not knocking where you live because it snows there…and I'm sure you can come up with reasons aplenty why you'd rather live there than where I do. Fine.  I'll even admit I might have more affection for it if it had been part of my childhood. I just don't like snow…not as much as I don't like cole slaw but I don't like snow. If you want to change my mind, arrange for it to be more like white Play-Doh. That might make it fun.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I've run this several times before and folks keep asking for it…

Christmas was never that big deal in our house, at least not after I hit age 10 or so. This was not because we were mostly Jewish. We observed every holiday we could find. If we'd known what it was, we would have celebrated Kwanzaa…but like all our holidays, with great restraint. We just never made that much fuss about any day.

My Uncle Aaron had been in the business of manufacturing store window displays and he gave us crates of leftover Christmas ornaments. So each year when I was a kid, we bought and decorated a tree, in part because we had twenty cases of decorations in the garage and it seemed like a shame to not put some of them to use. Eventually though, it began to feel more like an annual obligation than a pleasure…so we gave all the balls and snowflakes and garlands to a local charity and I'm sure the holiday baubles thereafter yielded more joy for more people than they'd ever given us. By the time I hit my teen years, we'd managed to whittle Christmas down to a family dinner and a brief exchange of presents.

I had friends who somehow managed to devote most of every December to Christmas…and often, it required a running start commencing shortly after Halloween. For them, the yuletide seemed to come with great excitement but also with all manner of stress factors relating to buying gifts, decorating homes, throwing parties and consorting with relatives who fell into the category of "People You'd Avoid At All Costs If They Weren't Family." So all the merriment was accompanied by a lot of angst and expense. A classmate once told me his father had found it necessary to arrange a bank loan that year just so he could afford a proper Christmas. That didn't sound like a holly jolly time to me.

We had none of that. No one felt pressure. No one went into debt. Everyone would somehow convey a few suggestions as to what they might like as a gift, and always an affordable one. That meant no one had to agonize too much to decide what to buy…and no one wasted their money on something the recipient didn't want or would never use or wear.

It all worked well but for a long time, I saw the huge productions that others made of Christmas and felt like I was missing out on something. Christmas was a special day but it wasn't as special to us as it seemed to be to others. I was well into my twenties when I figured out what was going on there. I was then going with a lady who dragged me into her family Christmas arrangements that year. Hours…days…whole weeks were spent planning the parties, the dinners, the gatherings. She spent cash she didn't have to buy gifts and purchase a new party-going outfit for herself…and the decorating took twice as long as Michelangelo spent painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

It seemed to me more like a chore than a celebration, and one night I asked her why she went to so much trouble. She said, "Christmas is important. When I was a kid, It was the one time of the year when we all got along…or came close to getting along."

There it was. She'd come from a large and dysfunctional family. Siblings were forever fighting. Parents drank and split up and got back together and screamed a lot and separated again. There was much yelling and occasional violence…

…but not as much at Christmas. Christmas was when they managed to put most of that aside. Christmas was when they generally managed to act the way they should have acted all year. That was why, when it came around, they made so much of it.

We never had to declare a holiday cease-fire in my family. We always got along. There was very little arguing between my parents or between them and me, and what little occurred never lasted long. I never had fights with brothers or sisters because I never had brothers or sisters. And my folks and I were known to give each other gifts for no special occasion and to occasionally get the whole (small) local family together for a big meal. So Christmas wasn't that much different from the way we lived all year.

A year or two ago, I told a friend all of the above and his reaction was on the order of, "Gee, too bad for you." Because in his household, Christmas was wondrous and festive and the source of most of his happy childhood memories. I never saw it that way. I have loads of happy childhood memories. They were just no more likely to occur around Christmas than at any other time…and I liked it that way. I mean, you can have Christmas once a year or you can have it 365 times a year. Peace on Earth, good will towards men doesn't have to stop later tonight and you can even add women to the mix.

Mark's Xmas Video Countdown – #1

Reclaiming the top spot this year is what resulted when cartoonist Joshua Held took The Drifters' recording of "White Christmas" and animated to it. The sheer simplicity of the design and the fact that he didn't muck it up with "clever" visuals that would have distracted from the record make this a winner in my book…

A Christmas Eve Thought

If I were Joe Biden, I would issue the following statement…

"If the courts rule that the President of the United States is immune from prosecution, I'm going to go out and start robbing liquor stores."

Mark's Xmas Video Countdown – #2

Every year when I do my little countdown here, this is either #1 or #2. This year, according to the sophisticated and infallible system I use to rank the videos, it's #2. This was designed by the cartoonist R.O. Blechman for a station break for CBS back in 1966 and you can read all about the man at his website but it may be enough to just know that he's the man who gave us this…