Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:13 PM

The last issue of New X-Men had a huge revelation (which I won't spoil since I know I have at least one reader who reads the trades). This Usenet post goes through past issues and demonstrates that the revelation fits everything we were told since Grant Morrison's run on the title started.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:07 PM

A site all about Bring Back Birdie, the four-performance sequel to Bye, Bye Birdie that starred the late, great Donald O'Connor. And an article by a gentleman who remembers seeing the first preview of the show.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:30 AM

The Time-to-Make-the-Donuts-Guy has a name, dammit! Michael Vale and the character was apparently Fred the Baker.

And this page from Commercial Closet has a QuickTime film of the Fred-in-drag commercial as well as analysis of the ad in context of society's homophobia. Yeah, I rolled my eyes too.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:28 AM

Kenan Thompson of Kenan & Kel is joining SNL according to this article. If nothing else, you may remember him from commercials for the movie Good Burger where he, in a dress, asked "Could you kindly point us in the direction of the little girls' room?" Watch said commercial here.

I falsely remember him saying that line in a silly, high-pitched voice but appear to be mistaken. I may be mixing it up with my memory of that commerical with the Time-to-Make-the-Donuts-Guy in a dress tricking the grocery store clerk into confessing that grocery store donuts have neither the variety nor the freshness of Dunkin Donuts.

And here's the Good Burger fan site.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:15 AM

Author George Plimpton died yesterday...or he's researching for an article about what it's like to be dead.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:32 AM

A corn field picture of David Letterman. This can be done by people but circles are impossible and must have been done by aliens.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:30 AM

Tonight's episode of Saturday Night Live is "The Best of Chris Kattan". No word yet on what they're going to do for the other one-hour, twenty-five minutes.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:39 PM

Do you think that when Adrian Brody was cast as the lead in the movie Dummy that there were complaints on ventriloquist email lists and ventrioloquist Usenet news groups that they cast an actor rather than a real ventriloquist? Or perhaps a dummy would post a complaint and then his ventriloquist would post a follow-up scolding him for being mean to the nice people who are making the movie.

I was disappointed to find out from a friend that a screening of the movie was not filled with people holding puppets.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:30 PM

Life imitates the Simpsons as Red Lobster is forced to lower current-quarter earnings estimate due to losing money on an all-the-crab-you-can-eat promotion. Story here (and hat-tip to my brother for sending this to me).
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:28 PM

There's a movie starring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK and nobody had the decency to tell me?!?!?
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:53 PM

Joe Rogan breaks the omerta surrounding Dennis Leary's stealing from Bill Hicks's act. Page Six article here and audio excerpt from the Stern show here. Hicks's biographer also confirms it here.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:42 PM

I did not leave Anything Else with the level of hostility I felt towards Hollywood Ending, just the level of indifference I felt towards Woody Allen's two movies before Hollywood Ending. There are laughs in places but none that I can actually quote off the top of my head.

One thing that makes Anything Else a great bargain is that you get not one, not two, but three Woody Allens in this movie. You have Woody, of course. You get Jason Biggs as the Woody-esque protagonist. And Danny Devito as Biggs's ineffectual manager does a Broadway Danny Rose impression.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:01 PM

Jim Henson's alma mater dedicates a statue of him with Kermit the Frog. Article with accompanying picture here.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:00 PM

This Newsday article confirms the suspicion that the corner Aaron Sorkin painted The West Wing into was his "screw you" to his successors:

Wells recalled that while on vacation in Hawaii last spring, he watched the show's two-episode finale (the kidnapping of President Bartlet's daughter). In what he described as a "self-pitying moment," Wells wondered to his wife, 'Well, how am I supposed to get out of that?'"

He later had conversations with Sorkin about the plotline, although "he felt I should go off and do what I want to do." Wells even "begged" Sorkin for some guidance on the season's first two episodes, "but he felt it was time for us to do it on our own."

# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:00 PM

"Police are currently investigating the death of police detective Leroy 'Encyclopedia' Brown, 49, whose body was discovered in a Dumpster behind the Idaville Public Library Monday." Heh. At one point, I was looking for the obvious joke, didn't see it and gave up and was thus floored when it did appear.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:17 PM

In honor of the recently-departed Gordon Jump, here's a site which has pictures and sound files of the "Dudley gets molested" episode of Diff'rent Strokes.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:41 PM

From the For What It's Worth Dept: If you look at the polling data of the "Was Hussein involved in 9/11" poll, the number of people who think Hussein was likely involved has gone down by 9% in the last two years and the number who think he wasn't likely involved has increased by 16%. (Thanks to Justin Katz)

Katz also points out something I noticed when I read the question: What's missing is a category for those who know the evidence doesn't exist but aren't willing to dismiss the possibility entirely.

And speaking of poorly worded questions, the fourth question of the poll asking if Hussein "had already developed weapons of mass destruction" doesn't indicate if it means ever or recently. If it meant ever, one wonders if the 19% not likely (either "very" or "at all") think Hussein gassed the Kurds in 1988 with his mind.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:32 PM

Mark Evanier wrote to tie together the origins of my obsession with the Richard De La Font Agency by telling me that Bill Kirchenbauer owns The Legends of Comedy show. He also says that he enjoyed the Legends show.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:57 PM

From the Richard De La Font Agency the folks who book Bill Kirchenbauer comes The Legends of Comedy, a tribute act or as I call it, "my future in ten years."

They also book Joe Piscopo. My friend who pointed the Legends link to me thought it was a Joe Piscopo imitator which, of course, brings up the question "Is Joe Piscopo really that much more expensive to than a Joe Piscopo imitator?"

UPDATE: Further examintaion of the site reveals the Richard De La Font Agency claims to book David Letterman. My suspicion is that they just list anyone who is or was ever a comedian.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:48 PM

I can't decide which comic book cover is better: This one for JLA/Avengers #3 featuring every hero ever on both teams (and considering that Justice League and Avengers membership have been handed out like nickels, that's a lotta heroes) or this one for JLA/Avengers #4 with Superman holding Captain America's shield and Thor's hammer (answering the question "Is Superman worthy to lift Thor's hammer?")
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:49 AM

Howard Dean's Trent Lott line in last Tuesday's debate was given to him during the filming of the HBO show K Street. Details here.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:46 AM

My Harry Morton replacement story is corrected:

Blanche Morton is mad at Harry and is standing in her kitchen holding an iron skillet to hit Harry over the head. She calls him into the kitchen. George off-stage calls out hold it. Blanche freezes in place and George walks on-screen and explains that Fred Clark has left the show to go to NY and from now on Harry Morton will be played by Larry Keating who he brings on and introduces in front of the frozen in place Blanche. He asks Larry if he has ever met his TV wife and calls Bea into the foreground to meet Larry Keating. They exchange pleasantries. Then George says it is time to go on with the scene. He and Keating walk off and the scene resumes and the new Harry Morton walks in and gets hit with the skillet.

That's what happens when you basing a story off a vague memory of reading it in book. I did some heavy web searching and found two or three sources who claimed both actors in the transition episode. Ah well.

I may drop by the Museurm of Television and Radio and see if they have the episode.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:10 PM

On a semi-related note to the post below, comedian Bill Kirchenbauer starred in a sitcom called Just the Ten of Us about a family with eight kids. During contract renewal time, he was demanding a huge pay increase and at one point a producer told him "You know, we can just as easily call the show Just the Nine of Us."
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:08 PM

Mark Evanier discusses the factors that will determine whether John Ritter's show will continue. Evanier left out how the Burns and Allen TV show went through four Harry Mortons, the next-door neighbor. The most famous transition was between Fred Clark and Larry Keating, Mortons number three and four respectively.

George Burns interrupts a scene with Clark. He introduces Keating to the audience and explains that he will now be playing the role of Harry Morton. Clark and Keating shake hands; Clark leaves and Keating continues with the scene.

UPDATE: Mark comments that actors dying are a different problem from actors leaving. Which I knew, I just wanted an excuse to tell that story. Mark also notes that killing off characters is a legitimate creative decision on M*A*S*H*. I agree but it's also a good negotiating tool. Jamie Farr (TV's Klinger) has said that at contract time producers claimed to have scripts at the ready to kill off his character.

UPDATE 2: Story is corrected here.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:35 AM

Snopes sums up what is known of the "controversy" of the late John Ritter flashing in an episode of Three's Company.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:01 PM

In Foreign Policy, Fouad Ajami debunks the idea that America squandered 9-11 goodwill, including the most famous example:

Much has been made of the sympathy that the French expressed for the United States immediately after the September 11 attacks, as embodied by the famous editorial of Le Monde's publisher Jean-Marie Colombani, "Nous Sommes Tous Américains" ("We are all Americans"). And much has been made of the speed with which the United States presumably squandered that sympathy in the months that followed. But even Colombani's column, written on so searing a day, was not the unalloyed message of sympathy suggested by the title. Even on that very day, Colombani wrote of the United States reaping the whirlwind of its "cynicism"; he recycled the hackneyed charge that Osama bin Laden had been created and nurtured by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Colombani quickly retracted what little sympathy he had expressed when, in December of 2001, he was back with an open letter to "our American friends" and soon thereafter with a short book, Tous Américains? le monde après le 11 septembre 2001 (All Americans? The World After September 11, 2001). By now the sympathy had drained, and the tone was one of belligerent judgment and disapproval. There was nothing to admire in Colombani's United States, which had run roughshod in the world and had been indifferent to the rule of law. Colombani described the U.S. republic as a fundamentalist Christian enterprise, its magistrates too deeply attached to the death penalty, its police cruel to its black population. A republic of this sort could not in good conscience undertake a campaign against Islamism. One can't, Colombani writes, battle the Taliban while trying to introduce prayers in one's own schools; one can't strive to reform Saudi Arabia while refusing to teach Darwinism in the schools of the Bible Belt; and one can't denounce the demands of the sharia (Islamic law) while refusing to outlaw the death penalty. Doubtless, he adds, the United States can't do battle with the Taliban before doing battle against the bigotry that ravages the depths of the United States itself. The United States had not squandered Colombani's sympathy; he never had that sympathy in the first place.

In other words "Nous Sommes Tous Américains mais..."
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:46 AM

The tale of Abe Zelamnowitz, a Brooklyn Orthodox Jew who stayed on the 27th floor of the second tower to collapse to provide comfort to a paraplegic friend, even urging the friend's nurse to save herself:

At Mr. Zelmanowitz’s funeral, the story was told that, a few days before the attack, he attended a Sabbath lesson. The rabbi talked about sacrificing oneself for the love of God. Mr. Zelmanowitz asked the rabbi how a simple man, like him, could show his love of God. Apparently, he was not satisfied with the answer, for he asked the same question a few more times. He remained dissatisfied with the answers he received. As the person telling this story commented: "A few days later, he got the reply."

# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:10 AM

How bad was this past weekend's box office? The #1 movie, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star made about seven million dollars. To put that number in perspective, if they produced Hooray for Captain Spaulding: The Movie, it would have grossed five million. If the friends and relatives of the people involved with the production of the David Spade movie had gone to see it, it would have made nine million.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 1:17 PM

One bit of rhetoric I found extremely offensive is the comparison of a President of the U.S. to Hitler, whether done by the left or the right. Jonah Goldberg writes an excellent column on why such a thing is effectively Holocaust denial:

If your son is murdered and I claim that it never happened, I am denying the existence of a crime. But if your son is murdered and I compare that tragedy to losing your car keys, that is a form of denial, too. And this is precisely what the "Bush equals Hitler" crowd is doing.

The Nazis murdered millions of men, women and children. Their victims weren't "collateral damage" in a war, and they were not executed after a long and fair trial. The Nazis sent their victims to gas chambers and ovens in boxcars. Nazi scientists injected dyes into the living eyes of small children to see if they could be made "Aryan." They made soap out of people.

What on earth has George Bush done that deserves such comparisons? [...][W]hen you say he[Bush]'s no different from Hitler, you are also saying that Hitler is no different from George Bush. And that means that Hitler's crimes were no worse than George Bush's "crimes." And whatever you think of what George Bush has done or might do, if you think any of it is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, you are in effect saying the Holocaust really wasn't that bad.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:42 AM

Not only is TCM running Airplane! (uncut, I presume), it is also showing Zero Hour!, the movie whose main plot Airplane! was spoofing.
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:05 PM

Another might-have-been movie: Walt Disney planned to do a comedy based on former Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev's tantrum that he couldn't go to Disneyland:

It recounts -- in a light, breezy manner -- how the Soviet leader had flown all the way to America to meet with President Eisenhower. But -- in reality -- Nikita had come to the U.S. just because he wanted to go to Disneyland.

So Khrushchev flew into Southern California, all excited that he was finally going to get his chance to visit "The Happiest Place on Earth." Only to discover that -- due to safety concerns -- the State Department had canceled his trip out to Anaheim. Moviegoers were then supposed to see a slightly comic take on the Soviet Premier's infamous tantrum at 20th Century Fox. And then ...

Well, then the film morphs into your typical Walt Disney Productions live action comedy of the 1960s. First Khrushchev is seen moping around his hotel suite in downtown Los Angeles later that evening. Then the Premier realizes that Disneyland is only 30 miles away. More importantly, that the theme park is open 'til midnight that night.

So Nikita decides that he's going to sneak out of his hotel and somehow make his way out to Anaheim. Using a goofy disguise, he gives both his Soviet security detail as well as his State Department handlers the slip. Then Khrushchev somehow makes his way out to Disneyland, with all of his handlers in hot pursuit ... and hilarity ensues.

The full article (which also details what happened in real-life) is here. The link came from another article on the same site detailing Bob Hope's dealings with Walt, including Hope's spurious claim that he incited the Disneyland tantrum by telling Mrs. Kruschev "You should really try to go to Disneyland. It's wonderful."
# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:12 AM

I understand that comic strips have a two-three week lead time. But how could any one involved in humor not know that the "A lot of people are running for governor in California! It's crazzzzzy!!!!!" joke would have been played out by now? Garry Trudeau not only didn't foresee that possibility but thought the joke was worth doing not once, not twice, not thrice but four times!
# | |