Mark Evanier's Blog, page 46

ASK me: The Kirward Derby

My piece here yesterday about Yogi Bear and Yogi Berra brought about twenty e-mails asking that I explain all about The Kirward Derby, another famous time when a cartoon show fiddled with the name of a celebrity. This was another one of those instances where a lawsuit was threatened and people think it was filed and the parties went to court…but all that happened was a threat was made and never pursued.

The show we now think of as Rocky and Bullwinkle actually began as a series for kids called Rocky and His Friends. It debuted on ABC's late afternoon schedule in November of 1959. Less than two years later, NBC bought a variation of the same show and slotted it at 7:00 PM on Sunday evenings just before Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Obviously, they hoped to lure both adults and kids to the set with what was now called The Bullwinkle Show.

The new time slot encouraged the writers to include some jokes for the parents watching. The first story arc in the (serialized from week to week) adventures of the Moose and Squirrel was about a search for a legendary hat which, when worn, makes its wearer super-intelligent. They called the hat "The Kirward Derby" — named after a TV personality named Durward Kirby who served as announcer/sidekick on The Garry Moore Show and also as co-host of Candid Camera. Those were both series on CBS.

Before long, a letter arrived from Mr. Kirby's attorney…and for the next part of the story I'm going to quote from the superb must-have book, The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose by my friend Keith Scott…

Jay's lawyer was instructed to reply by saying, "Tell Mr. Kirby that he has our permission to name any one of his hats after any character in our show." In fact, Ward actually sent Kirby a hat. Then he replied to Kirby's lawyer: "The only other names for the Derby — Kentucky and Brown — were already taken. We had toyed with the idea of calling it the Bullwinkle Bowler, but discarded this as being too chauvinistic. Please sue us, we love publicity." As he told the press a year later, "Whenever anybody says they are going to sue us, we always tell them we will send our lawyer right over to help them draw up the papers. Nobody has ever accepted the offer."

And that pretty much was the end of that. No lawsuit was ever filed. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that thereafter, Mr. Kirby would tell people who asked about it, "That was my lawyer acting without my knowledge. Personally, I was flattered by the reference." Which might be true or it might be what you say when you find yourself looking like a comedian who can't take a joke. (By the buy: You can order a copy of Keith's book at this link…and should.)

Lawyers send letters like that all the time, even when they know they have no legal legs on which to stand. Durward or his lawyer might even have thought Jay Ward might start selling the hats and they wanted to position themselves to demand a cut. Durward Kirby was actually kind of a funny fellow who had a fairly decent career, working in all corners of the broadcasting industry until his retirement. Almost none of the thousands of hours of TV and radio he did are available these days but a lot of people still remember the Kirward Derby.

FACT CHECK: Deportations, Drugs and Flying Bribes

Donald Trump keeps saying that President Dwight D. Eisenhower deported over a million people from this country. Fact-Check Guy Glenn Kessler says that ain't so.

Trump says that under this new plan to lower prescription drug prices "almost immediately." The folks at Politifact say that even if that eventually happens, it's going to take quite a while.

Trump says that other countries are to blame for high drug prices in the United States. The Associated Press says this is not true.

And FactCheck.org looks at this whole story about Trump maybe accepting the gift of a $400 million dollar airplane from Qatar and says that a lot of things being said and written about it are not true.

ASK me: Yogi Bear and Yogi Berra

Marc Levy sent me the following…

I hope you are doing well. I had a question for you about a sports subject. I know you don't follow sports at all, but there's an interesting crossover into the world of animation.

As you may or may not know, yesterday marked the 100th birthday of the late Yogi Berra. If you don't know the name, Berra was a catcher with the New York Yankees from the mid-1940's until the early-1960's, and a Hall-of-Fame inductee. While he is considered by most baseball fans to be one of the greatest catchers of all time, for the general public, he is probably known more for his "unique" aphorisms (e.g., "It ain't over 'til it's over," "It gets late early around here," etc.).

While clicking around his name online, I found myself on the Yogi Bear Wikipedia page, and read the following: "Yogi's name was similar to that of contemporary baseball star Yogi Berra, who was known for his amusing quotes, such as 'half the lies they tell about me aren't true.' Berra sued Hanna-Barbera for defamation, but their management claimed the similarity was just coincidence. Berra withdrew his suit, but the defense was considered implausible."

Given your history with Hanna-Barbera, I was wondering if you had any insight into this.

Sure. Yogi Berra never sued over the bruinification of his name — and hey, I think I just invented a new word there. Since I have no history with Mr. Berra, I can't speak to his motives for not suing but I'd guess he decided it just wasn't worth the trouble or maybe he thought he'd look like a bad guy or a bad sport taking down a beloved childrens' character. And by the way, I know enough about baseball to know who he was.

But he never sued and I'm pretty sure that lawyers advised Joe Barbera to never admit that anything like that wasn't just coincidence. There were lots of similar celebrity references in H-B shows…and of course, a few shows (and voices) were pretty damned close to other famous shows or other famous folks. Lawyers often tell you to deny, deny, deny, no matter what.

At some point, I believe it was reported that Mr. Berra said something like "I was going to sue but then I realized my first name wasn't Yogi, it was Lawrence!" And at some point, I believe it was reported that Mr. Barbera said something like "He was going to sue us but then he realized that his first name wasn't Yogi, it was Lawrence!" It wouldn't surprise me if one or both of those quotes was true…but there was never any lawsuit.

And you reminded me of the last TV show I ever worked on for Hanna-Barbera, which was one of those experiences that had me quoting the great Moss Hart, who once said, "In my life, I have had many successes and many failures. The successes were for all different reasons but the failures were all for the same reason — I said yes when I meant no."

I said yes when I was asked to write and story-edit a series called Yogi's Treasure Hunt, the premise of which would be that Yogi and all his friends (Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie, Hokey Wolf, Snooper and Blabber, etc.) would be dashing about the planet in each episode, trying to beat certain evildoers to locate and claim some exotic, valuable treasure. I said yes because I had (and still have) a great affection for the early H-B characters voiced by Daws Butler, and Daws — a man I dearly loved — would be doing all those voices for the series.

I should have said no because I didn't like the premise of the show and the money offered for my services was very, very low. I used to pride myself in not turning down something that looked like fun and/or a chance to do something good just because the money was low. Eventually though, I learned that if what they'll pay for the writing is bad, so is what they'll spend on the other elements of the show. Which can easily make the project not very much fun and not very good.

But I said yes, struggled through a couple of scripts and then butted heads with Mr. Barbera — I never could bring myself to address him as "Joe" — over the whole project. I wrote a script he thought was all wrong for the series he had in mind. It was about a rush to find that episode's great treasure…a magical jewel which causes the bearer to be able to sing and mesmerize the masses so he or she can fill stadiums with devout hypnotized fans. The first of many things he didn't like about it was that I named the magical jewel "The Neil Diamond."

Mr. B (that, I could call him) said, "I don't like puns on celebrity names" and I instantly replied, "You mean like Yogi Bear?" He gave me one of those "You bastard" grins and we had a nice heart-to-heart/man-to-man/boss-to-employee conversation which led indirectly to me deciding to leave the show and the studio a day or two later. I don't think anything I wrote for Yogi's Treasure Hunt ever made it to air.

But I departed on good terms and Mr. B was very nice to me whenever I saw him after that, including offering me several projects that, if I hadn't had better alternatives, might have lured me back. When I reflect on my decision to put Hanna-Barbera behind me, I find myself thinking of another quote I like, this one from a lyric by Hal David. It's the one that goes, "Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing that anyone can learn." I also think of that lyric any time someone mentions Neil Diamond.

Today's Video Link

This is a 44-minute clip and I think I laughed for at least 38 of them…Albert Brooks guesting on various episodes of David Letterman's show. I was privileged to see Mr. Brooks back when he was doing stand-up and there was nobody funnier. He was unique among comics and talk show guests at taking his own sweet time laying down the foundation of a bit, slowly working his way to a punch line. As in these segments, it was almost always worth the wait.

I especially like the interplay between Dave and Albert. Dave always understands the premise of the particular bit Albert is setting up but isn't always certain how to play Straight Man for the bit and help set it up — and the two of them are clearly enjoying the struggle to stay on the same wavelength…

Not the Last Resorts

A lot of websites and social media posts are saying that resort fees, especially in Las Vegas, have been outlawed and are gone. This is not so as a peek at any hotel's site or travel site will show you. There have been new laws prohibiting bookers from hiding them but pretty much everyone was already in compliance with those rules before they went into effect. They can still advertise a room for $30 but before you go to book it, you'd have to look real hard not to notice that there's also a $45.00 resort fee.

Some folks wonder: "Why don't the hotels just admit the room is $75?" And the reason is that if they did it that way, when some travel site booked you into that room and collected its commission, that commission would be calculated based on the $75 price. If they break it down to a $30 room with a $45 resort fee, the travel site collects its commission off the $30, not $75. So the hotel gets to keep more of what you pay.

Resort fees are one of the many reasons I no longer go to Las Vegas. Another is that the bigger picture is that Vegas businesses are now largely ruled by the belief that no matter how much they raise prices, someone will pay them. It's unbelievable how much prices have soared there. I'd really feel like a rube if I went there and paid them…which is a shame.

I used to go to Las Vegas a lot but when I look at current pricing, I see very few places to dine or shows to attend that I think are worth what they're asking. It's also getting harder to win there or play at modest levels…and that doesn't seem to be causing very many people to not gamble; at least not enough to get the casinos to not keep doing everything they can think of to increase their cash intakes.

Mark's 93/KHJ 1972 MixTape #49

The beginning of this series can be read here.

Resuming this series that I've long neglected here: In 1966, The Association — a popular musical group of the day — released "Cherish" and had themselves a number one hit and a record that would be played at an awful lot of wedding ceremonies ever after. I'm not sure why I had this on my mixtape except that I guess I heard it a lot at the time and it became very familiar.

I'm also not entirely certain just what the song is saying. It's kind of like "I want you, I may even love you but I'm aware that a thousand other guys feel the same way." If I ever get married, they won't be playing this at any wedding of mine.

If I could find a copy of "Relish," we might have someone perform that. That was a parody I wrote that was performed (not by me) in a talent show back at University High School. I no longer have a copy of they lyrics I wrote but I recall that the singer really, really loved relish on his hot dogs and that he loved that more than the singer of "Cherish" loved the lady he cherished. I also recall two lines that went…

I don't know how many times your choices left me flustered
I don't know how many times you drowned your lunch in mustard

The rest of my version is lost but judging from that couplet, it probably wasn't a great loss. But hey, here's something interesting about the single version of "Cherish" released by The Association and I just learned this on Wikipedia. The single ran 3:13 but they lied on the label…

For the single release, the song was sped up and one of the two "And I do cherish you" lines near the end was removed. This was done to hold the track to the three-minute mark, as AM radio programmers frowned on songs that went longer than that. However, even with the edit, the song still ran over. Instead of editing further, producer Curt Boettcher intentionally listed "3:00" on the label as the song's running time.

And it was a hit anyway, which says something about disc jockeys or AM radio programmers of the day or someone. Anyway, here's The Association performing their hit on some TV show somewhere…

FACT CHECK: Prescription Prices

Trump's newly-announced plan — which he claims will lower prescription drug prices by 90% or more — is, of course, a sham. Steve Benen explains why.

Today's Video Link

Jon Stewart's upfront segment last night on The Daily Show was so funny and on-target, I just had to post it here. What's amazing is how much of it is just the quoting of Donald Trump or one of his minions and Stewart merely reacting to what was said. You just apply a few sane reactions to what they're claiming or what they're trying to do and it's both hilarious and scary at the same time…

FACT CHECK: Different Sets of Facts

A lot of people are making a lot of claims about mifepristone, a drug that's involved in most abortions. Some of these claims contradict other of these claims so someone is lying. I don't know who but someone is. Glenn Kessler has some examples.

Turning to other matters where our leaders don't seem to be particularly honest: Fred Kaplan has much to say about Donald Trump's insistence on accepting a $400 million luxury jet from the emirate of Qatar. While we're at it, you might also want to read this piece in which Fred explains why he doubts Trump will be able to make a deal that keeps Iran from having nuclear weapons.

Today's Video Link

A gent named Danny Cashman has been hosting a local late night talk show in Bangor, Maine for a long, long time. Even though The Nite Show with Danny Cashman has long been on opposite Saturday Night Live, it has often finished first in the ratings, at least in Eastern Maine. But all good things must come to an end except, of course, The Price is Right. Mr. Cashman just did his next-to-last broadcast and his special surprise guest — a surprise to the audience, not to Danny — was his hero, David Letterman.

They've posted it to YouTube in five parts which should (should!) play one after the other in the playlist I've created and embedded below. If it doesn't work, you should at least be able to see Part One and then find your way to the others…