Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:40 PM

Per this gossip column, Fox's lawsuit over Watchman may be intended as a bargaining chip to get the long-delayed release of the Batman TV show on DVD.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:19 PM

Charles Krauthammer, who (per Wikipedia) coined the phrase "Bush Doctrine", says Charles Gibson's question was ambiguous (there are at least four possible definitions) and the definition Gibson used hasn't been used in foreign policy circles since 2005. Article here.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:27 PM

I was looking for the "June Moon" episode of Campbell Playhouse (Orson Welles's Mercury Theater show after it got a sponsor) starring Jack Benny. I found this great site featuring all the episodes of Mercury Theater and Campbell Playhouse. Notice that Welles got a sponsor two months after the War of the Worlds.

The coolest thing on the site is this MP3 of Orson Welles meeting H.G. Welles in 1940. The meeting took place in San Antonio, of all places.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:17 PM

This Slate article describes Walter from The Big Lebowski as a neo-con. The article marshals a mess o' characteristics that Walter shares with neo-cons but leaves out the important one: Jooooooo.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:59 PM

Watch sausage being made as camcorders pick up Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at Comicon here and here.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:35 PM

Coming to a theater near you (probably in January): Baby Geniuses III!!!!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:23 PM

If someone were writing a paper about the crap amateur athletes had to put up with in the mid-20th century, a great source would be old episodes of I've Got a Secret. Every time they had an Olympic athlete on, after his appearance, the host would bring the show to a dead stop to explain to the audience that, in order to keep his standing as an amateur, said athlete will not be keeping the eighty dollars he just won. Instead he would be donating the money. To whom? The Amateur Athletics Association (that is, the people who decide whether keeping eighty bucks from a game show appearance is OK).
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:14 PM

Speaking of mid-60's spy shows, I Spy season sets are $12.99 a piece at Best Buy. A bargain at twice the price.

I mocked Robert Culp for referring to himself and Bill Cosby as "Culp and Cosby". However, in the first season, he wrote an episode called "The Loser". In this episode,

1. His character is only around for a few seconds in the first 20 minutes.
2. Cosby's character gets a love interest
3. Cosby gets to do some acting because the girl is a drug addict.

This would be the equivalent of William Shatner writing "Amok Time".
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:11 PM

When Don Adams died, I obsessed over a Bob Hope special he did in 1966 called "Murder in NBC" starring a mess o' comedy stars. This special has been posted in its entirety on the YouTube. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:09 PM

A humorous parody of Boing Boing
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:07 PM

Three months later...
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:24 PM

I've heard of long tails but come on Dept.: I've mentioned before the upcoming publication of collections of Trump and Humbug, the magazines Harvey Kurtzman did after leaving Mad magazine. Now also upcoming is a collection of Get Lost, a 1953 MAD ripoff that got sued out of business by William Gaines. I don't know if this proves that we're living in the Golden Age of comix reprints or that the bubble is going to burst from too much product.

UPDATE: Mike Esposito's website in the bio section on Get Lost doesn't mention the Gaines's lawsuit and blames a failed attempt at 3-D romance comics for the death of Get Lost. Interestingly, Ros ANdru and Mike Esposito also tried a MAD ripoff in the 70's called Up Your Nose and Out Your Ear. More on that book here.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:18 PM

There is a show that I have not seen nor have I gotten around to purchasing its DVD set but I hereby declare it the greatest show in the history of mankind. From the TVShowOnDVD item:

[T]he 1966 series Europe's Big Top Circus Stars Live From The Hippodrome brought all the fun of various circus acts right into your own home, hosted by different guest stars such as actor and comedian Jack Carter, singer/comedian Allan Sherman ("Hello, Muddah! Hello, Fadduh!"), Woody Allen, Tony Randall, Merv Griffin, singer and Las Vegas legend Trini López, Jimmy Dean, Bill Dana and Eddie Albert.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:15 PM

From a Reader's Digest interview with Tina Fey:

RD: What pleases you more, applause or laughter?

Fey: Laughter. You can prompt applause with a sign. My friend, SNL writer Seth Meyers, coined the term clapter, which is when you do a political joke and people go, "Woo-hoo." It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] The Daily Show.

UPDATE: The item is covered in Defamer and predictably the commenters say she's just jealous about how great Jon Stewart is. Also funny are the theories that it's a cover-up for how her Hillary thing on Weekend Update bombed which assumes that Reader's Digest doesn't have a five-month lead time.

Myself, as longtime readers know, I've always attacked "applause lines" and always thought Craig Kilborn was a better Daily Show anchor.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:07 PM

This is perhaps something everyone but me knew about but Internet Archive (home of the Wayback Machine) has old-time radio shows which one can download to one's iPod or iPhone or Zune or YouTube or whatever the kids are using these days. In some cases, like the Jack Benny Show, someone was nice enough to set up seasons sets like this one for 1937 and 1938 which features the beginning of the Jack Benny - Fred Allen feud. This link has the 1973 Carnegie Hall Evening with Groucho.

UPDATE When I said that 1937 was the start of the fued, I didn't realize how much. The very first episode of '37 ends with Jack Benny thumbing his nose at Fred Allen for the Bee crack.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:26 PM

Juno wins Best Screenplay. New backlash in five..four..three..two
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:07 PM

For an audience that got self-righteous for the "How come Vanity Fair don't invite writers" joke, I didn't hear a lot of applause for the dead writers?

No love for Moneypenny?

Miyoshi Umeki got into the death montage but she never got a dinner.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:58 PM

Jon Stewart lets someone cut off have her moment; good on him.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:28 PM

Bourne Supremacy has won three minor Oscars. That means it's going to win Best Pict...D'oh!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:52 PM

If it's secret, how come there's a camera from the accountant's POV? Ha! I've wrapped rings around you logically, lighthearted film!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:32 PM

The Bee introducing his "previous work" is different from Oscar's Salute to Binoculars how exactly?

(Speaking of the salute to binoculars, kudos for including the Top Secret joke where the cow walks out of the binocular shape).
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:17 PM

Red Buttons got a Best Support Actor Oscar but he never got a dinner.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:00 PM

Would it have blown the budget for them to put showgirls in rat and cockroach costumes?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:57 PM

Oscar audiences love falling surfing penguins!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:56 PM

It would be so cool with Persepolis being nominated if they did the "cartoon characters waiting in the audience" shtick for Best Animated Feature.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:50 PM

They acknowledge the existence of the Rob Lowe/ Snow White number. A few years ago, in an homage to Oscar musical numbers, they didn't
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:48 PM

"Hundreds of millions"? No longer claiming a billion?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:40 PM

Spike Lee and Wesley Snipes are apparently this year's designated "camera on the black guy".
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:12 PM

Miley Cyrus is going to present. For The Kids, the Young People!

Then we'll do a video of that song "Milkshake" (the kids still dance to that, right?) but it'll be "I drink your milkshake".

Speaking of "I drink your milkshake", here's a hypothetical conversation in the Oscars Writers room:

[BRUCE VILLANCH enters wearing a T-shirt reading "I drink your milkshake"].

WRITER: Hey, from the movie. Very funny.
VILLANCH: Movie?

Because he's a large gentleman who enjoys a milkshake now and a...Bahhh!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:11 PM

Regis is taking credit for the concept of the Red Carpet show.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:08 PM

I should grab a picture of John Travolta for the next time I'm tempted to invest in Just For Men hair dye.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 9:07 AM

A news item from the usually reliable tvshowsondvd.com says that I Spy is getting newly remastered season sets on April 29th (all three seasons!) for $20 each. I'm slightly concerned that the only thing I see on Amazon is a "Email me when something's announced" entry.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:53 AM

An op-ed piece on Los Angeles's Proposition S: "Reduction of Tax Rate and Modernization of Communications Users Tax".

Here's the basic story. The city extended a 10% telephone tax to cellphones. There were lawsuits against the city saying they were supposed to get voter approval and the tax opponents won. The Proposition asks for that approval (and approval for "communication services" so they don't have to ask again) and sets the tax rate to 9%. Hence the "reduction" although anyone I've told this story immediately notes that the base tax rate is actually zero.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:22 PM

Frank Coniff on Shemp:

I’d like to take this opportunity to address one of my pet peeves about certain fans of The Three Stooges. I understand why people love Curley, and I totally get why he may be the most popular Stooge: he was indeed a comic genius. But it really bugs me when some people, disappointed when they see a Stooge short that doesn’t feature Curly, speak disdainfully about Shemp, as if the presence of Shemp means they’re getting an inferior product. Obviously, W.C. Fields thought Shemp was funny, or he wouldn’t have cast him in “The Bank Dick,” and like I said, “The Bank Dick” is the funniest friggin’ movie ever made.

Cinematic Titanic is one of two "folks-associated-with-MST3k-doing-riffs" projects (This is the other one). The trailer sold me.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:49 PM

Six Months Later...

So I'm watching Hitchocok's Foreign Correspondant and there's a character who's been hired to kill Joel McCrea but pretends to be his bodyguard. There was something very familiar about his voice so, of course, I check imdb and he's familiar because he's Santy Claus!
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