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

Once I bagged six tigers

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

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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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

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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