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"Daniel Frank is a very funny guy with a funny weblog." --- Mark Evanier.

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Thursday, January 27, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:03 AM

You've probably heard the "Carson was writing the occassional monologue joke for Letterman" story. How do you know which jokes were Johnny's? According to the Daily News (scroll down), Letterman would do the Carson golf swing as a tribute.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:56 AM

Speaking of Carson, after reading Larry Miller's article about doing the Tonight Show and the metaphor of God waving Johnny over to the coach, I decided to check Slate's editorial cartoon roundup of Carson tributes to see if 1) anyone else used the waving-over to-the-coach metaphor and 2) if Cagle's preemptive strike on an obvious gag would have its desired effect. Regarding the second matter, Cagle still managed to find a page's worth (one of whom seemed to accidentally draw a picture of Dick Van Dyke).

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:50 AM

I beat Mark Evanier to a Carson link: the potato chip lady remembers Johnny.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:38 AM

Jesse Walker reports on San Francisco's proposed tax on grocery bags (paper and plastic):

Mindful of the possible effect on low-income shoppers, the commission also wants to subsidize bags for the poor. Under the current system, you may recall, the poor are already getting the bags for free.

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Monday, January 24, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:26 PM

The Washington Post writes about The Aristocrats.

UPDATE: Via this Reason Hit and Run article, the NY Observer's report on the 2001 Friar's Roast where Gilbert Gottfried told the joke. (WARNING: As with all Observer roast reports, this is filled with lotsa swears.)

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:18 PM

Speaking of Mark Evanier, right now he's Carson link central. Of interest are a cartoon that will hopefully be a deterrant for every editorial cartoonist in America, an obit by James Randi, and a report that Leno will be doing a Carson tribute featuring Ed McMahon, Bob Newhart and Don Rickles.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:58 PM

Via Mark Evanier, April is a great month for comedy on Turner Classic Movies. You got a mess o' Marx Brothers movies on the 8th, a Preston Sturges marathon on the 6th, five Hope and Crosby Road movies on the 22nd, Charley Chase on the 4th (including the one with the Mussolini joke that I asked about here and "Long Fliv the King" which features the antics of Chase's Jewish sidekick/food-taster and a dinner of ham), and, best of all, a 20-hour Laurel and Hardy marathon on the 1st featuring the first time a bunch of these films have been on the TV for years. Also every film in this nifty upcoming classic comedy DVD set and a bunch of stuff that I haven't noticed yet. The schedule itself is here.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:37 PM

Chris Rock talks about hosting the Oscars.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:15 PM

"Billionaire Bill" Sherman complains about ABC's scheduling of popular shows past the hour mark. Fox used to be and sometimes still is worse with The Simpsons running a minute early and/or late; at least ABC usually has the decency to tell people what time their shows start and stop.

Bill also asks if TBS started this precedent. Yes and no. TBS was the first to explicitly schedule in such a manner (and they admitted that, yes, they did it to force folks to stay tuned to TBS). But CBS, before then, used to be sneakier. When Mork and Mindy was going to be put up against All in the Family, CBS "accidentally" scheduled their Sunday football games so that they'd end late. So the ball game would end late, 60 Minutes would start and end late and then your average viewer's TV schedule was screwed up for the rest of Sunday.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:59 PM

Mr. Potato Head as Darth Vader (not some wacky fan construction but a gen-yew-ine licensed toy). (Via Peter David)

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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:59 PM

Brian Carnell provides something interesting to consider the next time you hear complaints about America's "high" infant mortality rate (particularly compared to other countries). Basically, the US has one of the best systems for keeping premature and low birth weight infants alive. So in the US an infant born weighing 400g (1.5kg and below is considered low birth weight) will get medical attention and if the child dies (mortality rate at that weight is >50%), that's recorded as a live birth and a death. Other countries don't treat children of that weight or count the death after treatment fails as a fetal death rather than a live birth.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:45 AM

Aristocrats Update: Regarding questions I had (in this post) as to whether the Aristocrats joke was a genuine old joke, a friend sent me this metafilter thread where people seem to have heard it prior to the thread and the film (specifically one poster had heard Buddy Hackett tell it).

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Monday, January 17, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:31 PM

Today is not only the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. but is also the 60th anniversary of the kidnapping of Raoul Wallenberg.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:20 PM

Wonka Facts, an interesting Wonka trivia site. I found this site while checking something Peter Sean Bradley mentioned in comments: The imdb page notes that a legacy of Nazism was the lack of little people available in Munich to play Oompa Loompas. Since the same page claims that Sammy Davis Jr wanted to be in the movie (which doesn't mesh with what I know of Sammy's original opinion of "Candy Man"), I'll take that with a grain of salt until I get more confirmation.

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Friday, January 14, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:36 PM

An article about how the new Dr.Who show is having trouble finding dwarf actors due to the demand for Oompa-Loompas in the Willy Wonka remake and the Gringotts Bank staff in the Harry Potter movie leads to a discussion at Reason Hit & Run of morality as depicted in the original Wonka movie. Since I saw that film so many times in my youth that I remembered Jack Albertson's name without looking it up, I had a few things to say on the matter.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:22 PM

A Penn Jillette co-directed film The Aristocrats will be screening at Sundance. The film features many of your favorite comedy stars telling the same joke. A Wall Street Journal article has been making the email rounds and is reprinted here.

The Sundance listing is here and a South Park trailer for the film (featuring Cartman telling the joke) can be found here WARNING:The joke in question is extremely filthy. This isn't a gag warning; there's a reason a documentary filled with celebrities is having trouble getting distribution. You watch the trailer at your own risk.

UPDATE: Jim Treacher asks in the comments if the joke genuinely is an old joke as claimed in the film's press materials and the article. I never heard it before the clip; this is why I didn't use the same descriptions they did as to the joke's age/underground status. I see nothing about this joke on the 'Net that predates the film (such as this Wikipedia entry) other than the reference to Gilbert Gottfried at the 2001 Hefner roast. But even with Gottfried, the film was in the works for many years so he may have heard it due to the film. There may be a Blair Witch aspect to this.

Not to say it won't be an interesting movie anyway; you're inviting comedians from a variety of eras to tell a joke that involves freestyling filth. My guess is the Robin Williams version will involve his old-Jew voice, gay-guy voice, a Ronald Reagan impression, a John Wayne impression, a black guy voice, and a reference to "Mr. Happy."

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Saturday, January 01, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:20 AM

The TV schedule says the Tournament of Roses Parade began at 8:00 AM local time. To me, the parade doesn't really start until 8:01 AM which is the first time Bob Eubanks says "Can you believe that's made entirely of roses?"

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:12 AM

A happy new year to all my readers. I'm such a dope that I'm still writing 5764 on my checks. I forget where I stole this toast from but: May your best memory of 2004 be your worst memory of 2005.

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