As this is a 20th century pop culture blog, today's post will pay tribute to three giants, one in comics, the second in music, the third a San Francisco Giant. We begin with Stan Lee of Marvel Comics, who passed at 95 earlier this week.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, he's one of our favorite Stans, with Laurel, Kenton, Musial and Getz.
Martin Goodman's Timely Publications, based in the McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street in New York City, published the first Marvel Comics, appropriately titled Marvel Comics #1, in October 1939.
Stan Lee and ace artist Jack Kirby ultimately would join forces and build Marvel Comics into a powerhouse.
They first worked together at Timely Comics in the early 1940's. Lee's first story there was Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge and first character was the Destroyer.
Once running his own company, Lee had the good sense to hire the best - and the best was Jack Kirby. After launching the superhero series Captain America for Timely Comics with another frequent and brilliant collaborator, Joe Simon, Kirby joined Marvel.
Together, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four, with Stan concentrating on stories and dialogue. They subsequently collaborated on many more characters and series, before Kirby left Marvel for DC Comics in 1970.
On the Jack Kirby Museum website, there are, among his numerous artworks, a selection of cover stats that Marvel Comics sent to Spanish publishers, along with the Fantastic Four covers Marvel published.
Over his lengthy and prolific career, Lee co-created countless comics and characters in collaboration with Kirby and many more stellar artists: Dick Ayers, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Don Heck and Larry Lieber. These include Spider-Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The X-Men, Iron Man, The Avengers, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Hawkeye, The Silver Surfer and Black Panther, to name a few. Ditko and Lee, another stellar team, created The Amazing Spider-man.
In addition to his work with Marvel Comics, Stan Lee also hosted a wonderful series, The Comic Book Greats, featuring interviews with innovative artists.
Even the low budget animated TV shows based on Marvel characters are pretty darn wonderful. The one, the only Spiderman, helmed by former Screen Gems and Walter Lantz Studio cartoon-meisters Sid Marcus and Grant Simmons with former Disney director Clyde Geronimi in 1967? Bring it on - that's entertainment!
A cartoon directed by Ralph Bakshi on the origins of Spiderman? Yes, indeedy!
In an odd way, I find these 1967-1970 shows as entertaining as the big budget special effects and CGI-packed 21st century silver screen spectaculars.
Stan Lee continued well into the 21st century with the still ongoing series of big screen epics starring Marvel characters. Stan does cameo appearances in many of these Marvel movies.
Of the Marvel big screen spectaculars, this blogger's favorite, ands-down, is Iron Man. starring Robert Downey, Jr.
Hugh Jackman, the celebrated actor, dancer, accomplished musician and film producer from Sydney, new South wales, like Mr. Downey, has brought panache to 21st superhero lore in the X-Men movies.
Shifting from comic art and movies to the art of music, we remember the remarkable multi-instrumentalist and recording artist Roy Clark.
A fixture on such programs as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Late Night With David Letterman, as well as an entertainer who understood that music is supposed to be fun, Roy Clark passed away at 85 on November 14.
Since Roy sang "Folsom Prison Blues" in the previous clip, it's fitting that he made music with The Man In Black, Johnny Cash.
On television, Roy co-hosted Hee Haw with country-western star Buck Owens, while Glen Campbell's summer replacement show showcased such musicians as Jerry Reed and John Hartford. Both were ace country-western musicians profoundly influenced by the masters of string swing, Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. They sound great together.
Nothing if not versatile, Roy brings a touch of Carlos Montoya flamenco flair to the steel string acoustic in this appearance with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple television series.
Jazz? No problem for Roy. Here he is with Joe Pass.
Country & western meets jazz when Roy Clark and Joe Pass play Hank Williams.
While it is no fun to write an R.I.P. Blog and we have resisted that (mostly) at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the passing of Baseball Hall Of Famer Willie "Stretch" McCovey at 80 on October 31 gets us in a big way here.
This writer found myself with a lifetime membership in the order of San Francisco Giants fandom.
This is a direct result of witnessing the likes of Mr. McCovey, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, Gaylord “The Dry Look” Perry, Jim Ray Hart, Mike McCormick, Jimmy Davenport, Bobby Bonds (Barry’s dad and the Mookie Betts of the late 1960's and early 1970's), Jack Clark, Darrell Evans, Joe Morgan, Chili Davis, Jeffrey "The Hackman" Leonard, “Will The Thrill” Clark, Kevin “Boogie Bear” Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, Rod “Shooter” Beck, "Rapid Robb" Nen, Matt Williams and Barry Bonds (and more) repeatedly do amazing things in a misbegotten, cold and windy baseball park named Candlestick many moons ago.
Mr. McCovey was not only known for his heroics on the field, but his kindness, consideration and decency off the field. Giants pitcher and longtime announcer Mike Krukow speaks eloquently for all of us here.
Thanks for making the world a better place, Stan Lee, Roy Clark and Willie McCovey.
Today, composer-saxophonist-educator Jeff Sanford leads his nonet of virtuoso musicians through a rip-roaring performance at Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco's Glen Park.
Selections from the Cartoon Jazz Nonet's eclectic repertoire of compositions by Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton, John Kirby and other geniuses of mid-20th century music share the bill with new compositions by composer Lenny Carlson and a host of more modern-day movie music classics as well.
The Place: Bird & Beckett on 653 Chenery Street Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
Presented by the Jazz Philanthropists Union and the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project with support from Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund! $25 cover charge. $10 for students, musicians, low income.
The following is a complete performance of Tom Lehrer's from September 10, 1967. For this writer, it's only surpassed by a group of Copenhagen concerts jazz geniuses John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy headlined in the early 1960's.
Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. . .
Can Tom's great songs be topped? Well, not really, unless performed by Marty Feldman and Derek Griffiths!
Tom Lehrer did appear on the 1964 American version of That Was The Week That Was, the 1962-1963 English television program that offered a satiric take on the news and jabs at hallowed sacred cows. Lehrer's guest appearances on the show were compiled into a record album, featuring his well known tunes, along with a few new topical additions to his songbook.
With that, the perpetrator of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog shall deposit a carefully filled-out November 6, 2018 absentee ballot in the mailbox at San Mateo County headquarters and then plaster a cheesy I Voted sticker on his forehead. Quality time with standup philosopher videos by 20th century satirists/social commentators Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, Bill Hicks, Robin Williams and George Carlin will be spent later.
This Halloween, we ponder the passing of John Zacherle, one of the greatest and funniest TV horror hosts ever, on October 27.
The horror host's recorda, "82 Tombstones," "Dummy Doll" and "Dinner With Drac" actually precede Bobby "Boris" Pickett's hit The Monster Mash. That is appropriate, given that Zacherley rose out of a coffin to introduce the Grateful Dead at Fillmore East.
Must tip that battered top hat worn by John Carradine in countless low-budget movies to Zacherley.
Joining Zacherley in today's Halloween post will be current horror host Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia.
We'll raise that, and the dead, with Halloween blackouts from The Ernie Kovacs Show and Take A Good Look.
And, of course, the one, the only Auntie Gruesome, with a version of Cinderella this writer prefers to both Disney's Cinderella and Jerry Lewis' Cinderfella.
We finish today's post off, appropriately, as the great John Candy's birthday was on October 31, with an episode of Count Floyd's Monster Chiller Horror Theatre. OWOOOOOOOOO!!!
We wish all the readers of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog a Happy Halloween! As Tallulah Bankhead, chain smoking and hoisting a shot while wearing a designer witch costume would say, Happy Halloween, dahhhlings!
This is a 20th century pop culture blog, and somehow, 12 years and 1034 posts in, the topic of Golden Throats, celebrities and TV stars who tried their hand at crooning, with mixed results, has never been the topic of a post, until now. We'll start with the romantic sounds of Telly "Kojak" Savalas. Bill Medley, Bobby Hatfield and Phil Spector, eat your hearts out!
Jack Webb was married to the super talented songstress Julie London. Why shouldn't he give singing a try?
Lorne Greene was the star of the #1 rated television hit Bonanza. Why shouldn't ultra-macho patriarch Ben Cartwright perform Bonanza's theme song, as well as two-fisted western ditties in French?
This semi-scholarly ride through pop culture tumbleweeds also extends to crooners who, in hopes of boosting record sales, waxed tunes that could not be a worse stylistic fit. For example, this Beatles cover by Der Bingle.
Teenage pop star from the 1950's, songwriter and subsequent Vegas entertainer Paul Anka sounds a lot like Richard "Dick" Cheese in this Nirvana cover.
Actually, Frank Sinatra Jr. sounds fabulous delivering the theme song from Gumby cartoons. Really.
Do we like James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock from the first Star Trek, both of whom clearly had aspirations to sing like Bing? Yes. We even like the Filmmation animated Star Trek produced in 1973-1974 and wish there could have been at least one cartoon in which the cast members double as crooners.
Now imagining DeForest Kelley as Dr. "Bones" McCoy singing "Got To Get You Into My Life," we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, as big fans of Spock n' Kirk as anyone, note that both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy did their very best to either sing pop songs or deliver their lyrics as dramatic readings. There was even a music video produced to promote the 1968 album Two Sides Of Leonard Nimoy.
We admit it - the William Shatner records are not-that-guilty pleasures. Tough for us to make fun of them - we like them, if nothing else for Shatner's undeniable chutzpah.
Shatner's rendition of the Elton John-Bernie Taupin 1972 pop hit Rocket Man is quite enjoyable. It's 3 Sides of William Shatner!
Others must agree with this blogger, as Shatner has revived his recording career and done some interesting stuff along the way.
Much of this focus on TV star pop recordings and veteran showbiz mega-stars trying to "get hep" to appeal to youth started with the extremely funny Dave's Record Collection segments from Late Night With David Letterman, mostly from the 1980's NBC version of the show. Has this once cutting-edge cult hit, now completely unknown to those under the age of 40, still hold up well? You be the judge.
Someone has done us the favor of posting compilations of all the Dave's Record Collection segments.
Dave's Record Collection 2
Dave's Record Collection 3
Dave's Record Collection 4
Dave's Record Collection, Part 5: 1988-91
Dave's Record Collection, Part 6: 1992-93
Dave's Record Collection: It's Time For Regis!
Very likely heavily influenced by the Dave's Record Collection segments, Rhino Records staffer Gary Peterson, pop culture historian Pat Sierchio and writer Irwin Chusid collaborated on four Golden Throats compilations, chock full of questionable celebrity decisions and songs that in some respects transcend what used to be called "camp".
At times when absolutely nothing can get the grey skies to lift in these dark days, it's time for the heavy artillery: ALL FOUR Golden Throats collections from Rhino Records.
On Saturday, October 20, my frequent and frequently inspired cohorts in classic film presentations, Sci Fi Bob Ekman and Scott Moon, will present a Halloween Psychotronix Film Festival.
The evening shall present a spooky selection of B-movie trailers, commercials, short subjects, film clips, cartoons and advertising films (Eldon and Ideal Toys), Castle Films monster movie excerpts, Ted Cassidy doing the 1965 dance craze "The Lurch" and more.
There will also be plenty of Halloween-themed commercials from the 1950's and 1960's, as well as Scopitones and Soundies.
Looks like a fabulous show will be forthcoming and a blast will be had by all who attend. Big screen fun shall ensue at Nightmare Island in Vallejo's Mare Island.
Today's topic is not The Kinks' You Really Got Me but - as this blogger watches The Damned Don't Cry on TCM'S Noir Alley - movies that, via incendiary brilliance or indelible imagery, left a powerful impact on the individual and collective psyche. Most were genuinely good films, others influential strictly as a result of having been run over and over and over on television in early childhood days, the late 1950's and early 1960's.
A few movies and/or cartoons turned out to be both frequently shown and fantastic. First and foremost, there would be Buster Keaton, getting chased by what appeared to be the entire L.A.P.D. in Cops, the movie that made this correspondent a classic film buff for life.
This tour-de-force for Keaton (as director, actor and death-defying acrobat) propelled this correspondent on his merry way to the universes of silent films and film collecting.
Another silent film that really got me - and got me laughing - was the Charley Chase comedy
Limousine Love, first brought to my attention in one of the Robert Youngson silent comedy compilation features.
In this 1928 classic, which has been reviewed on the Magnolia's Musings website, Charley ends up unknowingly driving to his wedding with a nude woman in the back of his car. (Note: frame grabs from Limousine Love are courtesy of Dave Lord Heath's website, Another Nice Mess: The Films Of Laurel & Hardy)
Charley's car is out of gas, and while he walks to and from the gas station, the nubile Mrs. Glanders, having fallen in a massive mud puddle, ducks in his car to change clothes. While Mrs. Glanders' clothes - all of them - are outside the car, Charley jumps in and drives off, totally unaware she's in the back seat.
How the storyline resolves this very tricky situation adds up to ingenious comedy. Co-starring Hal Roach Studio stalwarts Edgar Kennedy, Edna Marion and Viola Richard, this is brilliant, sophisticated, funny and a harbinger of the pre-code era that was just a couple of years down the road.
Charley would continue to make great comedy short subjects, frequently teamed with comedienne Thelma Todd, well into the talkies, but Limousine Love would never be topped.
Stop-motion animation invariably packs quite the emotional wallop and is imbued with an emotional immediacy rarely found in 21st century CGI. This may be due to the uncanny ability of such innovative animators as Willis O'Brien to breathe life into their creations.
As far as visual and emotional wallop goes, the entomologist turned stop-motion filmmaker Ladislas Starevitch (Wadislaw Starewicz) had multiple haymakers.
THE MASCOT may be the most wonderfully harrowing of the dreamlands from Starewicz' five decades in filmmaking - and a vividly surrealistic piece that invariably gets audiences riveted to the screen. The Starewicz adventures, in silents and talkies, are the stuff fever dreams are made of.
Way back when stop-motion animation (and animation in general) was still considered the kiddie department and looked down upon, saw one of Preston Sturges' Paramount features, Sullivan's Travels, in a college film history course. Found it devastatingly great.
While there are numerous clever lines, including many regarding "Ants In Your Pants Of 1939," throughout Sullivans Travels, the sudden shifts from comedy to road picture to stark drama absolutely floored this film buff - and led to a mission to see every film Preston Sturges ever was involved in. Was not disappointed!
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog still love Citizen Kane, as fashionable as it is nowadays to not profess love for Orson Welles' 1941 "let's show 'em how to make movies" opus, but found his 1965 film Chimes At Midnight a stunner. This dyed-in-the-wool moviegoer was blown away and sitting silently in the theatre seat 15 minutes after the lights went on.
Orson inhabits the character of Falstaff and demonstrates astonishing filmmaking creativity from start-to-finish.
While Chimes At Midnight is available on Blu-ray in a beautiful transfer - if you must watch it at home, get the most massive and sharp big screen TV possible - this expansive and ambitious epic is best seen in a movie theatre, on the big screen with an audience.
In this writer's opinion, even Welles' lesser efforts demonstrate incredible imagination, originality and ingenuity. Like Ernie Kovacs, Mr. Welles was always 15 years ahead of everyone else.
Since we like our music here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the above ad for Philco's Port-O-Sound Cart (turntable + tube amp + two-way speaker on cart = COOL) definitely struck a Bb13 #9 chord and confirmed that Mrs. John Q. Public in the suburbs was listening to those classic Charlie Parker Dial records while cooking the roast. In 1948 and 2018, music just makes dinner taste better.
Selling state-of-the-art audio technology to the home market was nothing new in the 1950's. Two decades earlier, the stop-motion animation geniuses of the George Pal Studio were selling Philips radios - the last word in 1930's audio - with elaborate, imaginative and painstakingly produced animated films. This one illustrates how Philips radios bring music and entertainment from all around the world to one's living room.
Yes, the Dutch loved American jazz and, in the latter portion of the following George Pal Puppet-toon, as was frequently the case in movies made before World War II, paid homage via 1920's vaudeville/minstrel show stereotypes . . . all part of a boiling cinematic bouillabaisse featuring incredible stop-motion animation, expert use of color, deft matching of sound to image and the ever-buoyant dance music by Bert Ambrose & His Orchestra. The music has got me ready to buy a top-of-the-line Philips radio right now!
Philco's Port-O-Sound Cart would not be its only high tech in the home product. The futuristic and state-of-the-art swivel screen Predicta TV, origially designed for the Holiday Inn hotel chain, was, like the Edsel, expected to take the world by storm. It didn't. The commercials were very cool, nonetheless.
At one point in the 1960's the stereo reel-to-reel tape deck was the height of audio coolness.
The ultimate version of the Port-O-Sound Cart would arrive decades later, at the end of the 1970's, as the Sony Walkman, The writer of this blog very sincerely hopes he didn't look as ridiculous as the actors in this 1980 TV ad for Sony Walkman did when he took his frequent constitutionals, every step tuned into Charlie Parker recordings, dubbed from vinyl and CDS to that wonder of technology, the cassette tape.
Thankfully, during lousy 21st century times, 20th century comedy heroes are, at long last, getting some love in several recently released (or soon to be released) movies. The Great Buster: A Celebration, on the festival circuit now, was covered in last weekend's post.
A movie about Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy's 1940's touring years will be out in January. Love, Gilda, remembering the most endearing of comediennes, Gilda Radner, was released last weekend.
Love, Gilda profiles the life and times of the actress-comedienne-singer and stalwart activist on behalf of those suffering with cancer. For more about Love, Gilda, listen to Alan Zweibel, her friend and frequent writing partner on Saturday Night Live, discussing the film on a memorable and highly recommended episode of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.
It is unfortunate that Gilda's husband Gene Wilder, who passed in 2016, did not live to see this film.
Tough to pick a single favorite Gilda sketch (for this writer, that would be The Judy Miller Show). There are lots of very funny sketches both from her five SNL seasons and in the Gilda Live show from 1980.
Another memorable appearance was one of her last, on Late Night With David Letterman in 1986. Gilda's megawatt personality and impromptu musical comedy mojo light up the proceedings - and she brings her neighbors from Connecticut there to Studio 8H to share in the fun.
To be shown at the British Film Institute in October and to be released by Entertainment One UK across the pond in January, Stan & Ollie, about the post-moviemaking touring days of Laurel & Hardy. Film historian Trav S.D. has penned a post about the film, The Buzz on Stan & Ollie.
John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan star as the comedy team of comedy teams. Here's the trailer.
While Laurel & Hardy fans and dyed-in-the-wool classic comedy buffs are not thrilled with the bit in the trailer regarding Zenobia, which is totally inaccurate, the scuttlebutt from those who have seen Stan & Ollie remains that, for the most part, the film is historically on point. L&H and Hal Roach Studio experts Richard L. Bann and Randy Skredtvedt were consulted in the making of the film. We'll see Stan & Ollie, hopefully on the big screen, when it gets an official theatrical release in the states.
In Stan & Ollie, the leads clearly do their best to get beyond impersonation and into the hearts, minds and souls of two iconic actors of a previous generation. This, and the recent passing of comedian-actor Will Jordan, got the pop culture vultures at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog thinking about professional mimics and impressionists, many of whom were hilarious.
Those who are soon approaching retirement age in 2018 will remember seeing impressionists and stand up comics regularly on such programs as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace and The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. Impressionists were all over TV in the halcyon 20th century days of olde, as were WB cartoons featuring Hollywood caricatures!
Mimicry is rapidly becoming a lost art, due to such 21st century realities as a conspicuous lack of larger-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 - as were found from the 1930's into the 1960's. Now those who remember these 20th century entertainment icons are dwindling in numbers - unless they watch Turner Classic Movies and/or have a strong interest in movies, music and books created before their birth.
One of the best mimics, Will Jordan, known for, among dozens of impressions, his very funny take on the not larger-than-life Ed Sullivan. Alas, his routines were so good that other comedians were known to "borrow" material from Will, as noted in Kliph Nesteroff's book The Comedians. As much of Jordan's living was made performing his act for sales meetings and corporate events, there's not that much footage of his impressions, other than Ed Sullivan.
Another one of the greatest of impressionists - when he wasn't singing, dancing, acting, playing the piano, drums and vibes - was entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr.
Also in the old school showbiz universe, Bobby Darin, who used the Sinatra concert staple One For My Baby and One For The Road as a framework for his movie star impressions. His Clark Gable is tops, even better than George Clooney's Gable-inspired performance in Brother Where Art Thou.
At one point, those who did dead-on impersonations got their own TV show, The Kopykats. Beginning as an offshoot of Kraft Music Hall, the impressionist-packed variety program ran from 1970 through 1972 and featured a rotating cast of extremely talented mimics.
Among the last impressionists standing would be John Byner and (Jay Ward Productions historian) Keith Scott, who keep coming up with new celebs and politicians to impersonate, and are as funny as ever.
As many of us need laughs big time, it's fabulous that loving tributes to 20th century comedy heroes (Love, Gilda and Stan & Ollie among them) have been produced and are now opening in festivals and movie theaters. Doubly pleased to hear that Peter Bogdanovich, one of our favorite film historian authors and movie directors, has made a documentary, The Great Buster: A Celebration, about the one, the only Buster Keaton.
Does this pique the interest of those at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog (even if we're not quite as deadpan as Buster)?
YES! Seeing Buster's 1922 film Cops on television's "Silents Please" was the experience that instantaneously made this writer an avid film buff and a Buster Keaton fan for life. The official press release elaborates:
The Great Buster celebrates the life and career of one of America’s most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians, Buster Keaton, whose singular style and fertile output during the silent era created his legacy as a true cinematic visionary.
Filled with stunningly restored archival Keaton films from the Cohen Film Classics library, The Great Buster is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, a filmmaker and cinema historian whose landmark writings and films on such renowned directors as John Ford and Orson Welles have become the standard by which all other studies are measured.
Keaton’s beginnings on the vaudeville circuit are chronicled in The Great Buster, as is the development of his trademark physical comedy and deadpan expression that earned him the lifelong moniker of “The Great Stone Face”, all of which led to his career-high years as the director, writer, producer and star of his own short films and features.
Interspersed throughout are interviews with nearly two-dozen collaborators, filmmakers, performers and friends, including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, Dick van Dyke and Johnny Knoxville, who discuss Keaton’s influence on modern comedy and, indeed, cinema itself.
The loss of artistic independence and career decline that marked his later years are also covered by Bogdanovich, before he casts a close eye on Keaton’s extraordinary output from 1923 to 1929, which yielded 10 remarkable feature films (including 1926’s The General and 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr.) that immortalized him as one of the greatest actor-filmmakers in the history of cinema.
The Great Buster: A Celebration was an Official Selection for the 2018 Venice, Telluride, Mill Valley and L.A. Film Festivals.
This is not the first comprehensive documentary about the legendary and innovative movie career of The Great Stone Face. Atop the list of documentaries we'd love to see on DVD or Blu-ray would be the sensational Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow, created by Kevin Brownlow and the late David Gill for Photoplay Productions.
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow is one of the great documentaries about movies. Was floored upon first viewing it on PBS on its original airing, and hope that other Brownlow & Gill films (Hollywood, Unknown Chaplin, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius and Cinema Europe) will eventually see a DVD or Blu-ray release. It's too bad Mr. Brownlow, an expert among experts in the field, is not among those involved in the new documentary. Have watched all the Brownlow and Gill documentaries. This one on Buster is one of those documentaries that demands repeated viewings.
Positives? #1 - The Great Buster: A Celebration will not be strictly a straight-to-DVD proposition. It is now hitting the festival circuit and will open in select theatres. #2 - Any attention to the filmmaking genius of Buster Keaton, over 50 years after his death, is to be commended. Negatives? The emphasis on celebrities and big names over experts on silent movies and Buster Keaton's films, no doubt with high hopes to attract young viewers and inspire people who are not classic movie buffs to learn more: all understandable, albeit annoying to silent movie aficionados and film geeks such as this correspondent.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we have found that many of the cheesiest of cheesy retro print ads are not actually real. The above ad for celery is a very clever fake from Jack Pollock's 1994 Devil Chef comic book. The following looks like an actual print ad from the Soda Pop Corporation of America, but one wonders. . . Cola for babies? Are you kidding? Really?
A surefire way to earn emphatic, appalled and mortified thumbs-downs from many movie blog organizations is not just to veer off from the silver screen beat into music, comedy and other various n' sundry topics, but by forgetting all about movies and posting cheesy print ads instead.
The usual gang of idiots at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog thought those wildly inappropriate (even by 1950's standards) Griffin Microsheen print ads which promoted an unsexy product, shoe polish, via ample cleavage were fakes. They're not - these ads were real and very likely successfully sold gallons of the stuff to lecherous guys who inhabited The Heartbreak Hotel wearing shiny shoes.
An actor not exactly shy with starlets and fashion models who promoted Griffin Microsheen Shoe Polish and other products, Mickey Rooney tried all kinds of wacky business ideas. Did Mickey actually own a chain of spud-laden "Potato Fantasy" restaurants?
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog thought the Mickey Rooney's Potato Fantasy print ad was fake, a ruse and that the restaurant did not actually exist. . . Potato Fantasy? REALLY? No Tipping Allowed?? Don't know who created the above ad, which we thought was a parody, but it is, in fact, not far afield from other businesses Mickey launched over the years. While wondering what the heck besides spuds were ingredients in a "potato shake," we note that Mickey Rooney's Star-B-Q and Weenie World, indeed, were actual ventures.
But. . . according to the following article from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, there was a fire that destroyed a Mickey Rooney's Potato Fantasy restaurant! So, did at least briefly, a Mickey Rooney's Potato Fantasy restaurant exist (albeit without the success of Minnie Pearl's Chicken)? Read the following article; it is stranger than fiction, and since the Herald Examiner correspondent's name is Otto Pinkpig, it's extremely likely this reportage IS FICTION - and that there never was a Mickey Rooney's Potato Fantasy restaurant to begin with. That said, the question remains, were we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog fooled by this bogus story (and at least briefly by the Potato Fantasy ad)? Until we noted the name of the author, yes!
And, speaking of potatoes, the following 1950 style ad was actually a very clever hoax, which we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog fell for! Don't know who did the clever Photoshop work to create this Potato Fudge ad (one suspect would be graphic artist and king of fake retro ads Cris Shapan), but, alas, there was no such product as Kraft's Potato Fudge - and it's just as well.
Thus far, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has not found any cheesy print ads for any of Mickey Rooney's various restaurants . . . well, not yet.
This writer loves baseball as much or more than psychotronic movies, jazz music, classic rock n' roll and a strong hot cup of coffee. Reside in Ulster County, NY now but still follow the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics.
Love baseball and baseball movies as much as watching The Day The Earth Stood Still, watching Ernie Kovacs, Monty Python or SCTV, listening to Jaki Byard playing the piano or Mel Torme singing "Born To Be Blue".
The first baseball movie the blogmeister ever saw was the 1937 Fleischer Studio cartoon THE TWISKER PITCHER, which confirms that Popeye The Sailor had a devastating four pitch arsenal and would easily command a $200+ million contract as a free agent now.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog covered the MLB in films and cartoons topic in a post penned on this blogger's 60th birthday. Today, for the most part, we'll spotlight a few baseball movies we either didn't get to in the April 17, 2016 post - starting with the 1951 version of Angels In The Outfield (not the 1994 film) starring Paul Douglas.
While there was a terrific movie made of Bang The Drum Slowly in the 1970's, it was preceded, two decades earlier (during the heyday of live TV and anthology series) by a version co-starring Paul Newman and Albert Salmi.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we are big fans of the films about two of the most incredibly talented and over-the-edge characters to play baseball, Jimmy Pearsall and Dock Ellis.
I don't know how Jimmy felt about seeing Anthony Perkins playing him and serial killer Norman Bates, but Fear Strikes Out is a terrific movie.
And then there was Dock Ellis, a brilliant pitcher and something of a rock and roll star among athletes.
Saw Dock face off against the Giants a few times in 1970's.
Even if Mr. Ellis, then with the Pittsburgh Pirates, was, as he described "higher than a Georgia pine" on the mound, he was a helluva talent and fun to watch. Not unlike another super-talented guy this writer saw in person, the great Robin Williams. . .
Have not seen it, but hear there's a documentary about former Red Sox and Expos pitcher Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, wackiest left-hander and best interview in MLB.
What's the greatest film about the national pastime ever made? No contest - Baseball Bugs, just one among several devastatingly funny cartoons Isadore "Friz" Freleng and his ace animators at Warner Brothers produced in 1946.
In 2018, the San Francisco Giants are a banged-up, bandaged-up M*A*S*H unit, while the Oakland A's, possessing blazing lightning bolts in a bottle this season, will be going to the playoffs. And we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love baseball, win or lose, good season or bad!
