Mark Evanier's Blog, page 189

Rudywatch

That's right, we're on Rudywatch today. The jury is still out deliberating on the compensation he's going to be slammed with for defaming Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss and all the reporters seem sure there'll be a verdict any hour now. They're also sure it'll be so big that Rudy will never pay all and probably not most of it.

I'm curious as to how much it will be but here's what I'm really curious about. At every turn, the man who was once America's mayor has found a way to insist he is never wrong and then to do something incredibly self-destructive. What is he going to do after this verdict?

Today's Video Link

Hey, here's a really nice cover of one of my favorite Paul Simon songs. The lead guy is Joshua Lee Turner, who I think did that nice rendition of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" I featured here last year…

Rudywatch

Boy, I'd love to have heard the discussion when Rudy Giuliani's lawyer told his client how much money he [Rudy] might have added to the judgement against him [Rudy] when a guy who couldn't keep his mouth shut [Rudy] began defaming Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss just a day or two before a jury was about to begin deliberating how much money he [Rudy] should have to pay them [Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss] for defaming them in the first place.

I kinda get that Rudy, like his owner Donald Trump, doesn't want to do anything to lose face with the "We love Trump" mob. They can be a valuable asset to someone in public life if only as donors. But that was a bad time to choose to play to them, Mr. Ex-Mayor — and to claim you had proof they were guilty. That was the day before your own lawyer was going to go out and praise those poll workers and tell the jury that they were innocent.

That jury will probably return a verdict tomorrow and then will come endless appeals and Rudy railing about the unfairness of it and using it to spur donations. And we can all make bets on who'll see some actual damage money first — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss or the Sandy Hook families that Alex Jones is trying to stiff.

ASK me: MAD does Marvel

"Tam" wrote to ask…

Obviously those great early MAD parodies of DC superheroes, such as "Superduperman" and "Bats Man" from the 1950s are pretty well known but did MAD ever parody Marvel comics (prior to them appearing on the screen) and if so, what were the earliest examples?

Nope. MAD pretty much gave up parodying comic books of any sort when MAD became a magazine and when Al Feldstein took over from Harvey Kurtzman as its editor. For those who don't know, MAD was a 10-cent comic book sold on comic book racks for its first 23 issues and in those issues, Kurtzman as editor-writer did "Superduperman" (MAD #4), "Black and Blue Hawks" (#5), "Melvin of the Apes" (#6), "Bat Boy and Rubin" (#8), "Woman Wonder" (#10), "Starchie" (#12), "Plastic Sam" (#14") and a few others, plus a number of parodies of newspaper comic strips.

There were no Marvel parodies because in those years, Marvel wasn't publishing anything worth parodying. When MAD became a magazine, they began aiming at more widely-read (or widely-watched) targets. Newspaper strips were okay. Comic books weren't. Feldstein, in fact, was very pleased to be out of the comic book business and didn't even look at what other companies were publishing. When they did spoof something like Superman, it was the Superman newspaper strip they were parodying, not the concurrent comic books. They did almost nothing about Marvel until, long after Feldstein had retired, they took on a few Marvel movies.

If you'd asked Al just before he left why they didn't do comic book parodies, I suspect he'd have said something like "MAD is selling over a million copies per issue. The best-selling comic book sells 300,000 or less. Most of our readers won't be familiar with what we'd be making fun of."

Today's Video Link

I've decided that my new favorite singing group is the Semonski Sisters — Diane, Donna, Joanne, Valerie, Audrey and Michelle — as seen here on The Lawrence Welk Show and introduced by Myron Floren…

P.I.G.I.N.

We have a three-way tie in today's contest to be a Person I'm Glad I'm Not. The first two are Rudy Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani's lawyer. The third, of course, is Donald Trump. Trump has a permanent spot on that list.

Happy Dick Van Dyke Day!

Hey, the guy's 98 years old today…and I hope I'm in as good a shape when I'm 88, let alone a decade later. I don't remember who my first "favorite entertainer" was but I'm pretty sure when The Dick Van Dyke Show came on, the guy with his name in the title knocked all others out of the competition. And he was great in lots of other things…which you can name just as well as I can.

I have met a lot of my heroes and a few of them — shall we say? — disappointed me as human beings. Dick did not. If anything, he turned out to be nicer, funnier and more worthy of admiration than I'd imagined. I hope he lives along enough for this to be considered "middle-age."

How I Spent Today

Sid and Marty.

I spent today at a memorial service for Marty Krofft, who died on November 28 — a man I knew very well, a man I worked for on and off from 1978 until…well, a little over a month ago, he asked me to write a new project he has pending. I have no idea what, if anything, will become of that project now but that's not important. What's important is that today an overflow crowd of friends, family and folks who worked for the Kroffts gathered to pay a much deserved tribute.

By "overflow," I mean there weren't enough seats for them all in The Old North Church at Forest Lawn. The service there was warm, emotional and so moving that no one who couldn't find a place to sit down minded standing. We went from there to the burial site at Forest Lawn and from there to a wonderful gathering with food and more speeches and a lot of hugging, all on a big studio soundstage. I got to see some old friends and co-workers and to spend a little time with Marty's brother/partner Sid Krofft. Saying you had a "good time" at a memorial/funeral for someone feels odd but you know what I mean.

Would you like to see some or all of what transpired at the Old North Church? Marty's three wonderful daughters arranged to stream it online and it's still there. I don't know how long it will be up but right this minute, you can watch the entire thing at this link. It runs about 96 minutes and if that's too much for you, there's a lovely video of Marty's life that starts at around the 6:40 mark and a moving speech by brother Sid that starts at 1:06:20. Marty had an amazing life and he was very good to me…most of the time.

Tuesday Morning

I said in this message that there were rumors that someone was trying to set up a streaming channel that would run, over and over and over, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon that I developed in the eighties. Well, it shows you what I know. Someone has. It's on the Freevee and Plex services.

Looking for info on this online, I find a lot of articles about the series, many of which don't seem to understand that I developed the show for television, I did not create it. And I certainly did not create the game. I took an existing idea and changed things around and reworked it into the series that CBS bought and then I wrote the pilot script and part of one other episode.

What's going on with Rudy Giuliani has become one of those traffic accidents that you can't not look at. At least, I can't. He lost a defamation suit for claiming that those two campaign workers in Georgia has been tampering with ballots. Today, on his way into the trial to determine how much he's going to have to pay them in damages, he stopped to tell news cameras that he was not wrong; that they really did tamper with ballots and when he gets on the witness stand, he's going to prove it.

In other words, he defamed them again. And he intends to use his time under oath to try to convince the jury that those ladies did what it's already been proven they did not do. Good luck with that, Rudy.

I have a busy day ahead. Gotta run.

Recommended Viewing

My pal David Jablin produces and directs movies and in 1981, he was the man behind Likely Stories, an anthology show on HBO that ran some audaciously clever short films. Most were the work of filmmakers and actors who later went on to greater heights. You will recognize a lot of names and faces in the montage below of segments that appeared on Likely Stories.

David's Likely Stories should not, by the way, be confused with Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories…which were also audaciously clever.

Much time and expense has been spent recently to remaster David's for the higher-definition televisions on which we now watch things. And David has set up a website on which you can spend many hours viewing these films. Here's a little overview of them and then I'll recommend some to watch and give you a link…

See? I told you you'd recognize a lot of people.

All of these films are worth your time but I'd recommend you start with "Focus on Fishko," "Mastergate," "School Girls & You," "The Selling of Vince D'Angelo" and "Public Enemy #2." A few of these are a bit R-rated but you can handle it.

This series was one of the first things I ever loved on cable TV, well before I met David. I've plugged these films before and I'll probably plug them again…and they've never looked better. Here's the link. Now go enjoy yourself.