News From ME - Mark Evanier's blog

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Comic-Con ApproachethPublished Monday, November 22, 2021 at 5:19 PM

The Comic-Con Special Edition in San Diego takes place this coming weekend in San Diego. It will be taking place without me but I'm still interested and hoping it's a success for the attendees and for the folks running it. One of the folks running it is David Glanzer, who holds the title of "Comic-Con Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer." For our purposes, that pretty much translates to Spokesperson and Planner. Rob Salkowitz spoke to David about the event and here is what was said.

One More Odd Couple PostPublished Monday, November 22, 2021 at 12:37 PM

My longtime buddy Jim Brochu knows everyone who has worked in the legitimate theater in his lifetime and has seen every show. I should have expected the following e-mail from him

Before I totally lose my powers of recall, I wanted to add a couple of things to the discussion of the original Odd Couple. I think I'm in a very unique position in that I saw Matthau and Carney do it five times together.

One of my high school jobs was selling orange drink at the back of Broadway theaters and my usual theater was the St. James when Ginger Rogers was appearing in Hello, Dolly! But my father took me to see The Odd Couple a few weeks after it opened and it was the one play where he almost got thrown out of the theater for laughing so hard. Truly, when everyone else had stopped laughing, my father was howling and still rolling in the aisle.

Then I became the substitute orange drink boy at the Plymouth for four weeks during the summer of 1965. Every Saturday afternoon, I got to watch art Carney and Matthau go through the play. Carney was like watching a movie. Every performance was so close to the other and it was magical that he kept it looking absolutely spontaneous. Carney was a heartbreaking Felix. Totally vulnerable. Matthau was the slob and did what Matthau did best. The one revelation was the last Saturday when I got to the theater and Carney was out.

Paul Dooley was going to play Felix. Of course, everyone was disappointed after the announcement but quickly it became apparent that Paul Dooley was going to be brilliant in the part. As good as Carney and maybe an edge better in some scenes. It was a great experience to watch those actors. It was like going to a master class.

Of course, I remember the famous story about the rehearsal where Walter Matthau turned to Art Carney and said, "You need to put some balls in this scene!" to which Mike Nichols yelled, "Props!"

Wish I'd seen that show. I did get to see Mr. Carney star in Prisoner of Second Avenue and he was perfect.  I mean really perfect.  I was told that Neil Simon loved Peter Falk in the role and loved Carney even more.

Never got to see Walter Matthau on stage unless you count the time that you and I, Jim, went to a one-night-only benefit performance of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It opened, you will recall, with Matthau coming out in a toga and reciting the opening speech — "Playgoers, I bid you welcome, et al" — and then handing the play off to Danny Dayton to play Pseudolus for the rest of it. I offered to bet you afterwards that by the time they got to "Everybody Ought To Have a Maid," Walter was home in bed.

And here's one of those weird examples of how, as you know, people in my life keep intersecting with other people in my life.  A few years later, I became good friends with a comedy writer named Don Segall not to be confused with the film director who had a background writing comic books. Don was the producer of that benefit performance of Forum and I asked him how he persuaded Walter Matthau to learn a few lines, go down to the Variety Arts Theater, put on a toga and appear for as long as he did so that the charity could exploit his name to sell tickets.

Don said, "I promised him he could be out of there and home in bed before the first act was over."

Today's Video LinkPublished Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 10:12 PM

This is the trailer for the 1970 re-release of my favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It is not one of the trailers produced by Stan Freberg for that film.

One odd thing about it is that Peter Falk gets better billing than he had in the movie and its original advertising. I have no idea how that came about. It might have made sense a year or so later when Columbo was a Top Ten TV show and Falk was a much bigger star than he'd ever beenbut when this trailer was made, Columbo was a couple of as-yet-unsold TV pilots.

And the other odd thing about this trailer flows from the fact that Mad World was filmed in a super-widescreen format called Ultra Panavision 70. It was described at the time as Cinerama but some would argue it was not. I have no particular opinion on this.

But whatever you call its screen format, it's probably why this trailer was done in a little-used format called "Smilebox." The premise of Smilebox is that the screen gets distorted in a way that simulates the way you'd see the film if you were sitting in the middle of a Cinerama theater with the screen somewhat wrapping around you. I don't think it does that. I think it just looks weird.

I also think this trailer shows too much of the ending and the surprises in the film. If you've never seen the movie, don't watch this

My Latest TweetPublished Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 6:28 PM I spent most of today changing channels over and over on my TV, trying to find a show that didn't have Chris Christie on it. The only one seemed to be a rerun of To Tell the Truth. Sunday MorningPublished Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 10:08 AM

We have confirmed that Art Carney did at least one production of The Odd Couple in the role of Oscar. Intriguingly, Felix in that production was played by Don Knotts. Wouldn't you have loved to have seen that? The fine artist Drew Friedman has a whole page of ads and playbills and photos from various mountings of The Odd Couple including Carney/Knotts and a lot of them sound like fun. Ernest Borgnine as Oscar and Don Rickles as Felix? Tom Poston as Oscar and Tim Conway as Felix?

I have a lot of e-mails about that. I also have way too many about the Groo animation project that was announced Friday some asking me what channel it will be airing on; others, wanting to work on the show or do the voice of Groo or something. Please. If this happens, it won't happen for a while.

Today's Video LinkPublished Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 11:02 PM

I love looking at old Las Vegas. This video is black-and-white footage that has been restored and colorizedso the colors are just someone's recent guesses. But hey, wouldn't you have liked to go to the Sands to see a double bill of Alan King and Mel Torm? And Louis Prima appears to have been performing elsewhere on the premises.

The video is labelled to say it's in the seventies but the marquee for the Stardust has "Lido '67" on it and the one for Caesars Palace offers the afternoon show, "Bottoms Up '67" produced by and starring Breck Wall. I wrote about Mr. Wall and my one encounter with him in this post.

At the Desert Inn, you could have seen a touring company of Hello, Dolly! with either Dorothy Lamour or Ginger Rogers. Their names are both on the marquee and they took turns. On eBay and elsewhere online, you can find all sorts of photos and souvenirs from that engagement like the postcard above and they all say it was 1967. As a point of interest, Hello, Dolly! didn't close on Broadway until December of 1970.

All of this leads me to the fearless conclusion that all or most of this footage was shot, not in the seventies, but in 1967. And hey, Don Rickles was playing at the Sahara. That might have been welcome news if you were in town then and eager to sit in the front row and be called a hockey puck

True Groo NewsPublished Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 9:01 PM

This is the first part of a piece that ran in yesterday's Hollywood Reporter

'Groo the Wanderer' Eyed for Animation Adaptation

Entrepreneur Josh Jones has acquired the animated film and television rights to the long-running comedic comic from legendary Spanish cartoonist Sergio Aragonés.

Groo the Wanderer, the long-running comedic comic from legendary Spanish cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, is on its way to animation.

Entrepreneur Josh Jones, who counts businesses in venture capitalism, cryptocurrency and airlines among his portfolio, has acquired the animated film and television rights to Groo, with the intent of producing the character's first-ever animated adaptation via his film company, Did I Err Productions.

Sergio, Groo and Josh.

Jones and his Did I Err partner Scott Nocas will serve as executive producers on the possible projects along with Aragonés and Groo writer Mark Evanier.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

More on Will RyanPublished Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 4:43 PM

Our pal Greg Ehrbar has written a long, fine history of Will that covers a lot of things I didn't mention about him. You can read it over on the Cartoon Research website.

As far as I know, no plans have been made for any sort of memorial gathering. I've spoken to a lot of Will's friends (and Will had a lot of friends) and they all seem to want one. That's an indicator of how much we don't want to let him out of our lives.

Will Ryan P.S.Published Friday, November 19, 2021 at 10:02 PM

Actress Katie Leigh, who worked closely with Will, says he was 72 years old. Sounds about right to me.

Will Ryan, R.I.P.Published Friday, November 19, 2021 at 8:18 PM

How I hated typing that subject line. My friend everybody's friend, actually Will Ryan died a few hours ago. The cause was Cancer. His Wikipedia page says he was born in 1939 which would make him 82 but I don't know anyone who knew Will who believes he was anywhere near that old. He was so full of energy and talent and he sure didn't look 82. He was also one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet.

He was an actor, a historian, a voiceover specialist, a songwriter, a singerin fact, he was a singing cowboy. There aren't many openings these days for singing cowboys but one day, Will decided he wanted to be one and danged if he didn't become one. He and his posse the Cactus County Cowboys could often be found at local theaters and nightclubs playing songs that sounded like they could have been from the days of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry but which were freshly written by Will.

Will hailed from Cleveland where he and a pal, Phil Baron, formed a comedy music act called Willio and Phillio. They played local venues and recorded some songs that Dr. Demento played on his radio show in the sixties. When Will relocated to Los Angeles, he began writing funny songs for the Disney company and performing on Disney records and eventually in films. He voiced the seahorse in The Little Mermaid and Willie the Giant in Mickey's Christmas Carol. He voice-matched a lot of classic Disney voices, especially for various Winnie the Pooh projects. And he was heard in a lot of non-Disney shows like G.I. Joe, Family Guy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and so many others.

I had him on Garfield and Friends several times. Once, we had an episode about a very bad, evil ghost and a very timid, meek one. Will voiced the meek one and his performance was a perfect contrast to the bad, evil ghost who was voiced by James Earl Jones. He was also heard in hundreds of episodes of the radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey.

And he played ace straight man Sam Shooster in the Biffle Shooster comedy shorts

The producer/director/writer of those shorts, Michael Schlesinger, sent me this

Everyone knows Will from his remarkable musicianship and his incredible voice work, but not enough is said about what a splendid comedy actor he was. The chemistry between him and Nick [Santa Maria, who played Biffle] was something to see. They reacted to each other in real time, almost as if they could read each other's thought process, and remained in character even when something went wrong. I soon learned not to yell "Cut!" at the end of a scene, because they often just kept going, ad-libbing on the spot. They could have played these characters full-time if they'd wanted.

There's so much more I could write about Will but since he touched so many lives and always for the better I'm sure others will say what I can't. They'll all talk about what a great, talented man he was; how he always seemed to be doing eleven things at once and all of them well.

So condolences to his splendid wife/partner Nancy. In fact, condolences to all of us who knew the amazing Will Ryan. We were so fortunate.

Friday MorningPublished Friday, November 19, 2021 at 11:18 AM

This, obviously, is the perfect day to get attention for a press release that you'd like someone to read. There's one that should be on the Hollywood Reporter website after Noon that may be of interest to fans of Groo the Wanderer.

My Latest TweetPublished Friday, November 19, 2021 at 11:15 AM And one day soon, someone of a different political view and/or race will do what Kyle Rittenhouse did and all the folks cheering today's verdict will be screaming,"Rule of law!" Today's Video LinkPublished Friday, November 19, 2021 at 9:51 AM

The American Dance Machine is attempting to re-create some of the best-remembered dance numbers from past Broadway shows and to do it while folks who knew and maybe performed the original choreography are around to participate. This is the "Favorite Son" number from The Will Rogers Follies, which had a Broadway run from 1991 to 1993 and has lived on in other venues.

Keith Carradine originally played Mr. Rogers and Cady Huffman played a showgirl referred to as "Ziegfeld's Favorite." Here, Ms. Huffman steps into the role of Will Rogers and performs along with a line of dancers, some of whom were in the show way back when. Tommy Tune did the original staging

Today's Video LinkPublished Thursday, November 18, 2021 at 7:48 PM

Sorry to hear about the passing of songwriter Dave Frishberg, who was also an accomplished jazz pianist and performer. Here's an obit in The New York Times.

Never met the man but I've long admired the sheer cleverness of his work. The song of his you probably know the best would be "I'm Just a Bill," one of several that he wrote for the Schoolhouse Rock TV spots on ABC Saturday morning. My favorite would be "My Attorney Bernie." Here's Mr. Frishberg singing it once on Johnny Carson's Tonight Showand charmingly forgetting his own lyrics at the end

From the E-MailbagPublished Thursday, November 18, 2021 at 7:14 PM

We're still talking Odd Couple here, people. Richard Gersh writes

I agree that seeing the original Broadway cast of The Odd Couple must have been great. Have you heard the story that Matthau wanted to switch roles with Carney at some point into their run, to keep things interesting? I think I recall hearing Matthau say such a thing on a talk show many years ago.

I did see The female Odd Couple when it premiered on Broadway, and for me the highlight was Lewis J. Stadlen and Tony Shalhoub as the Costazuela brothers. I envy the Canadians who saw — according to Wikipedia — a 1970 production with Martin Short as Felix, Eugene Levy as Oscar, and Dave Thomas as Murray.

Here is what I understand: When Neil Simon approached Walter Matthau about appearing in the play, Matthau said he wanted to play Felix and to invest in the play. He was allowed to invest but not to play Felix. There are people who claim that they saw a performance where Matthau and Carney switched roles. Simon said that never happened.

The Odd Couple opened on Broadway on March 10, 1965. Carney left in October and Matthau left a few weeks laterso the period of time when you could see the two of them together was about seven months and in the last month or so Carney was in the show, he is said to have missed many performances. Paul Dooley, who was playing Speed in the show, was Carney's understudy. Eddie Bracken took over as Felix in late October.

So there really wasn't time for Matthau and Carney to get so bored that might have switched roles. And Matthau, who said a lot of things that weren't true in an impish kind of way, may have been kidding.

It's been said that Carney did play Oscar in one or more regional productions years laterbut though I've seen dozens and dozens of program books and posters for different mountings of the play with interesting leads, I've never seen one for Carney without Matthau. I'm not saying I don't believe it but I'll believe it when I see it.

I saw the female Odd Couple when it was in tryouts at the Ahmanson here in Los Angeles in 1985. Rita Moreno played the sloppy one, Sally Struthers played the neat one and I thought the gender swap was pointless and the play didn't work. I agree with you that the Costazuela Brothers were the best thing in the show.

I also saw Simon's 2002 rewrite of the original male version which played here in L.A. with John Larroquette (Oscar) and Joe Regalbuto (Felix) and I thought it was very weak. I'm not sure it ever played anywhere else. The Costazuela Brothers became the Costazuela Sisters and, again, they were the best thing in it.

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