Splitting today's post between noting the flurry of classic movie screenings going on right now, celebrating National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day - yes, I'll repeat, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day - and a favorite topic of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, comedians and comediennes who happen to also be impressionists.
The past year has had at least one prominent thing going for it: the full-fledged return of film festivals after an extended lockdown-related hiatus. The 2024 version of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival opened earlier this week at the Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre, in San Francisco's Marina district. Do we seek a Star Trek teleportation device that would make attending these screenings a breeze? Yes.
In NYC, on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. our friend Tommy Stathes of Cartoons On Film will present a stop-motion animation matinee at the Roxy Cinema. In Hollywood, the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival begins next Thursday.
A few of the 2024 San Francisco Silent Film Festival programs that shall rock the Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre are definitely in our wheelhouse.
The Laurel & Hardy Show - Saturday, April 13 at 10:00 a.m.
Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr - Saturday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m.
The Gorilla 1927 version starring Charlie Murray - Sunday, April 14 at 10:00 a.m.
Harold Lloyd in The Kid Brother - Sunday, April 14 at 12:15 p.m. Live music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
For more info, go to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival webpage.
Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. Roxy Cinema NYC, 2 Avenue of the Americas (lower level) and Cartoons On Film presents Peculiar Puppets vol. V (16mm)
The press release elaborates: Roxy Cinema hereby presents a fifth retrospective screening featuring various peculiar examples of puppet films from the 1920s through the 1950s. Warning: You may find some of the offerings to be rather unsettling, possibly even creepy!
This event is programmed by early animation archivist and historian Tommy José Stathes, and prints are hand-selected from his personal 16mm film archive. The 90 minute film program with intermission will be followed by a live Q&A session with Stathes. Click here for more info & advance tickets.
On April 18-21, 2024, TCM Classic Film Festival returns to the Holly-woods. Venues include the Egyptian Theatre, the Chinese Multiplex House 1-6, and, of course, Club TCM at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. It is the 15th edition of this epic festival and features lots and lots of classic movies along with more recent fare which, by this point, April 2024, were definitely long time ago. . . make that a very long time ago. Many special guests, still living movie stars and various favorite scholars and historians we know will be on hand. Still miss Robert Osborne! For way more on past TCM festivals, check out the TCM YouTube channel.
Still thinking of the late, great Joe Flaherty, who did excellent William F. Buckley and Kirk Douglas impersonations and whose fellow SCTV cast members were also incredible mimics, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog now turns to the topic of impressionists. Rang in 2024 on the blog with a January 1 post largely devoted to old school impressionists - John Byner, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr and Australia's best, Keith Scott, included.
Those of us who have long since passed retirement age, such as this "ok, boomer" blogmeister, remember seeing impressionists regularly on TV. Such popular and ubiquitous stand-up comedians of the day - Jack Carter, Shecky Greene, Guy Marks - featured impersonations prominently in their acts.
The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and The Dean Martin Show featured superlative impressionists.
Way back in the 1950s and 1960s, it hadnt been that long since arger-than-life movie stars - Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Jack Benny, Greta Garbo, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, Jimmy Cagney, Groucho Marx, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum - dominated both the silver screen and the cathode ray tube. Many of the aforementioned Hollywood stars were very much still with us then and could either love or despise the impressions. Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett would book the likes of Jack Benny and Groucho Marx on their late-night shows whenever they could.
A memorable TV variety program, The Kopykats, an offshoot of the Kraft Music Hall series, was entirely devoted to impressionists and ran from 1970 through 1972; it featured a rotating cast of extremely talented mimics, including Frank Gorshin, George Kirby, Rich Little, Marilyn Michaels, Will Jordan and Fred Travalena. Guest hosts included Steve Lawrence, Orson Welles - and Raymond Burr.
Along with The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show, it was arguably the last TV variety program to provide mimics a showcase. The late 1970's On Location series by HBO did at least gave impressionists an extended opportunity to do their standup comedy acts.
And, speaking of The Dean Martin Show, how this blogmeister actually forgot to include the aforementioned Guy Marks (1923-1987), one of the very best and funniest of the old school impressionists back in the 1960's, we'll never know! Let's rectify that error now!
Since the demise of the TV variety program and such showcases as The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1970's, the last place where actual impressionists could be found is late night TV: SCTV (a.k.a. Second City Television), Late Night With David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and to a lesser degree Fridays, In Living Color and Mad TV. Frank Caliendo was the impressions guy on Mad TV.
Saturday Night Live has explored that "improv meets impressions" space from John Belushi's Marlon Brando as The Godfather impersonation to Gilda Radner's Lucy to the dead-on mimicry and comedy acting genius of Eddie Murphy, uncrowned and unheralded king of celebrity and politician voices Darrell Hammond - and the "micro-impressions" of the great Dana Carvey.
The Saturday Night Live casts have featured numerous stand-up comedians who do impressions over the decades - the infamous Season 6 featured three, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo and Gilbert Gottfried - and a favorite 21st century SNL stalwart and new school impressionist is Bill Hader.
Sometimes Jimmy Fallon's musical impressions make it into The Tonight Show; we would also occasionally get a glimpse of them, along with very funny music-related sketches, during his SNL stint in the early oughts. He's a musician who happens to be an improv comic and clearly most at home with a guitar in his hand. Jimmy Fallon's impressions of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen are my favorite bits of his.
Fellow SNL alum Melissa Villaseñor is also an amazing new school impressionist.
As is the case with Maya Rudolph, we have the impression that Melissa Villaseñor has many, many more impressions yet to be heard.
Melissa's celebrity impersonations (musical and otherwise) are a highlight of the current version of The Tonight Show, especially the Wheel of Musical Impressions feature. Now, has anyone gotten Melissa and Dolly Parton together?
The current SNL cast features two bonafide impressionists in James Austin Johnson and Chloe Fineman.
While eating a delicious sandwich on National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day and checking Ebay daily for Star Trek teleportation devices in good condition (even knowing it's likely that Bill Shatner and Patrick Stewart have cornered the market on them), the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog also yearn to see more showcases for comedians and comediennes with the gift of mimicry - and the gift of gab.
No comments:
Post a Comment