A holiday tradition is A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and we pretty much have a Mad Man to thank for it. John Allen was a Don Draper at McCann-Erickson in the mid 60s. On behalf of Coca-Cola he was lobbying for Charlie Brown. It would be the first animated adaptation of Charles M. Schultz’s classic PEANUTS comic strip. But Allen had to really twist arms because in typical fashion, CBS hated it.
They thought the animation was awful, the story too thin and depressing, the jazz score inappropriate for kids, and of course wanted a laugh-track. I'm surprised they didn't require a laugh-track on THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
And CBS was especially opposed to Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Bible. What the hell is that doing in a Christmas Special?
Oh, and they didn’t like that children were doing the voices of the…uh, children. In other words, all the things that made it distinctive; all the things that made it great. One high-ranking CBS program executive/visionary said it was a “piece of shit”.
And CBS had a lot riding on this. It was going to pre-empt THE MUNSTERS and follow GILLIGAN’S ISLAND. The quality had to be top notch to join that pantheon of excellence.
But John Allen pushed and pushed and finally persuaded the reluctant program chief to air the special. A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS premiered 44 years ago this month.
And got a 50 share.
It won an Emmy and a Peabody and became an instant holiday classic. I guess children doing the voices of children did not result in a viewer revolt.
CBS began running the special every year (taking credit for it of course). And it achieved the almost unheard of feat of getting higher ratings year after year. By 1969 it was scoring a 53 share.
CBS continued to air the special until 2000. ABC then took over. It was supposed to air again Tuesday night -- digitally remastered -- but is being pre-empted by the President's speech. It will play later this month. CBS meanwhile, will still air its holiday special this evening -- THE VICTORIA SECRETS FASHION SHOW.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CHARLIE BROWN.
You know it’s the holiday season when there are James Bond marathons on every cable network except Oxygen. Caught one I hadn’t seen in years – THUNDERBALL from 1965. I saw it originally at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on the big BIG screen. I remember loving it at the time. From the stirring THUNDERBALL theme sung by Tom Jones I was hooked. So I wondered, did it hold up after all these years?
Well, the theme song sure does. And there’s no question that Sean Connery was the best Bond. There is just a level of insouciance in Connery’s Bond that none of his successors had – even light-comedy master Roger Moore never had that twinkle. Connery’s Bond enjoyed the gig, and why not? He sure got laid more than the later Bonds. Too bad it was in the 60s though and most of these women had helmet hair and raccoon make-up.
Note to PLAYBOY magazine: NEVER do another layout showing Bond girls as they are today. No one wants to see Octapussy as octogenarian.
The dialogue, which seemed so sparkling at the time, now comes off as cringeworthy.
Bond Girl: What sharp eyes you’ve got. Bond: Wait til’ you get to my teeth.
Yikes! Since when did Bob Hope become a British Secret Agent?
And the sensibility was soooo sexist. Women were objects, easy, submissive, disposable, or evil. In the world of James Bond, Gloria Steinem is as much a super villain as Ernst Blowfeld.
The chief baddie in THUNDERBALL is Emilio Largo (these guys never have names like Mike or Skip) and you know he’s evil because he has a black patch over one eye. In typical Bond fashion, when he’s not trying to kill 007 he’s inviting him to lunch (women always refer to him as “James”, super villains call him “Mr. Bond”, M always uses “007”, and U.S. military officers call him “Jimbo”.). When I say they try to kill Bond, that of course means through some elaborate contraption only Wile E. Coyote would purchase instead of just taking out a gun and shooting his sorry ass.
As a kid I never let plot holes get in the way of a good James Bond yarn. I remember first seeing THUNDERBALL and having no idea what the hell was going on? Now someone is trying to kill him in his hotel room, now he’s taking pictures of a boat and dodging hand grenades, now he’s in a car chase and the evil Spectre woman blows up the car that’s trying to off him, now he eludes four gunmen during a big Junkanoo celebration and the next morning just strolls through town unnoticed, now he’s in a tuxedo, now he’s in an underwater battle, now he’s shot and the next day he’s completely healed. What the fuck??!!
A plane on a routine training mission has two atomic bombs on board and takes off from a NATO base conveniently located right next door to the health spa where James just happens to be staying at the time. The plane is hijacked and lands in the shallow water outside of Nassau. It can land in water without giant pieces splintering off? Really? There’s no radar to track this? And no one in Nassau sees or hears a fighter plane land in the ocean just off the coast? Now scuba divers move the bombs. On the side of one hydrogen bomb it says (and this is absolutely true, you can see for yourself) “handle like eggs”.
But I didn’t care.
Other minor story points didn’t bother me either like how do super villains amass large armies and trained scuba divers? How clueless are the British Intelligence and CIA that they have no knowledge of 200 henchmen being recruited? And where do all these people sleep? How do secret compounds with launch facilities large enough accommodate Gemini rockets get built incognito? If Spectre is a secret society why do their agents wear rings that have its logo?
These issues didn’t concern me then and they still don’t. In later movies he goes to the moon and shit and that crossed a line but a yacht carrying one of the atomic bombs crashes into the shore and explodes and doesn’t set off a nuclear explosion that wipes out three million people – sure, why quibble?
THUNDERBALL did hold up in the sense that it was still fun to watch and now because of all the cheese there were way more laughs then when I first saw it in 1965.
And now for an unexpected treat. I went to YouTube to see if it had the opening titles so I could play Tom Jones’ theme for you. And I discovered this – an alternate theme, written and performed by Johnny Cash. I guess no one told the Man in Black that THUNDERBALL wasn’t a Western. You won’t believe this.
A question I’m always asked is “how do you find a writing partner?”. I met mine in the army but I sure don’t recommend that method. The WGA has come up with a nifty idea. Speed Dating. Just like the social version with the same success rate of getting laid. Every so often the Guild sponsors evenings for writers looking for that perfect scribe mate. I’ve never been to one of course, but I imagine you hear some pretty wacky responses. As a public service, so you don’t make these gaffes, here are few of the responses I would not want to hear. (I'm sure you can think of some more yourself.)
Dennis Miller is funny now. He never used to be but he is now.
We can work at my place. I live in Bakersfield. Hey, hey, don’t touch my Naomi Watts photos! They’re not bothering you.
I can work anywhere any time. In fact, if you’ve got a couch I could crash on, that would be sweet.
If I could go back and work on any classic sitcom from the past, it would have to be MAMA’S FAMILY.
You would be…let’s see…my eighth partner.
I’m really good at editing. You pitch me ten ideas and I can tell you which is the good one.
It's nothing personal. I don't look anyone in the eye.
Do graphic comics count as books I’ve read?
Look, if you didn’t go to an Ivy school I don’t even know why we’re talking.
Everyone who’s read my script thought it wasn’t funny. That’s why I need a partner.
I do my best work between 2 and 4 A.M.
First things first -- who gets top billing?
Let’s work at my place. That way I can watch my twins. They just started walking!
You don’t remember? You slept with me at the Sundance retreat and never called me back, you shit!
I have a spec ELLEN I could show you.
This rubber band? Whenever I start feeling this building smoldering rage my shrink says play with this rubber band. Does it bother you?
There’s a British version of THE OFFICE?
You have beautiful hair. Can I touch it?
Do you have a cigarette?
How long have I fucking been writing? Fuck knows. But I guess it was, fuck, I dunno, some fucking time around the end of last fucking year or some shit.
The only thing is… I don’t drive.
I took Robert McKee’s class twice. So I kind of see myself as an expert on story.
Would you take my hands and join me in a prayer?
Okay, well…if you’re here and I’m here it’s pretty clear our partnership isn’t working.
Accidentally bought this to ease the combine shipping in ebay, but without realizing it has becomes one of my favourites!
i do have JGTC cars from tomica but this one here is definitely a step higher with its detailing..and most importantly, open-able doors! lol later i found out that it is using the same casting of the Tamiya JGTC series like shown below;
but sold under the brand Muscle machines in US..really love the detailing done to these cars..while the Tamiya version are no more in production, have to find the rest now from Muscle Machines while its still there! yet another brand to collect then..lol p(^o^)q
This is believe it or not, a Levine Thanksgiving tradition. It began one year when we had too many desserts and I made the mistake of asking my wife what she wanted to do with the cream pie.
Our family table on Thanksgiving night… Did anyone notice the Sears commercial on MODERN FAMILY this week? An African-American couple is standing before a store clerk and asking, “Is it Black Friday yet?” Between that and Fizbo the Clown on MF I had my two biggest laughs of the month.
Don't know about your town but here in mellow LA we had full-out brawls at two Wal Marts among shoppers on Black Friday.
HuffPost headline: “Mackenzie Phillips Uninvited From Family Thanksgiving” It’s that old “Your dad didn’t really sleep with you” argument that is so prevalent among families.
I know it’s tradition for the Detroit Lions to play on Thanksgiving but Jesus, they’re atrocious. Start a new tradition and have anyone else play?
The Lions’ old stadium, the Pontiac Dome, sold recently for $580,000. In L.A. you can’t buy a one-bedroom condo in Pacoima for that.
Remember when Al Roker used to interview the big NBC stars before the Macy’s Parade? This year he was hob knobbing with the winner of WORLD’S BIGGEST LOSER.
NBC wouldn’t let the cast of GLEE perform at the parade because they were “competition” and yet they showed the SpongeBob Square Pants balloon even though SpongeBob actually beat Jay Leno in the ratings one night last week.
How come Bullwinkle’s no longer in the parade?
I’ve received screeners of A SERIOUS MAN and 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. Both are GREAT movies that I’m sure I’ll vote for! And I’m not just saying that because I got screeners (hint hint studios).
Another thing to be thankful for: Earl Pomerantz's team of twenty cardiologists have cleared him for resuming his blog. New posts begin Monday. Welcome back, Earl!
How the mighty have fallen: The big UCLA-USC game is not even nationally televised.
OLD DOGS must be great!! Their newspaper ad quotes "CBS Dallas" liking it.
Typical Wednesday night scene: Mom in the kitchen preparing for Thanksgiving. Dad/hubby enters and asks what’s for dinner tonight? Mom: “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re going out!” The Cheesecake Factory probably had a two-hour wait.
My dad just got back from a Princess cruise to Hawaii. There was some excitement on route. A fishing boat was stranded and they were the closest ship. So they veered off course and rescued the two fishermen and two dogs. The next morning the gift shop was selling pictures of the rescue.
I wish I had known about MacKenzie Phillips. She could have had Thanksgiving dinner with us. Our family argument was over what was the best season of ONE DAY AT A TIME?
It’s Friday Question day – something to read on your cellphone while you stand in line at 5 A.M. waiting for Sears to open.
From Ref:
The cast of "The Office" consists in large part of many of the show's writers. Is this kind of doubling common? What would the chemistry be like between the writer/actors and those who just get paid to act?
It seems rather uncommon for sitcoms. On sketch shows like SNL writers often double as on-camera talent, a la Tina Fey and Senator Al Franken. If writers have supporting roles I don’t imagine there’s much resentment from the cast. It’s not like they’re taking big jobs away from working actors.
I actually think it improves the chemistry because writers learn first-hand just how difficult it is to be a good actor.
Doug DeRoo wonders:
"have either of you guys (me and my partner, David Isaacs) ever had an exec say, "this totally blows...get outta my office!" I seriously doubt it!!"
Uh, yeah... it happened. In a BIG way. When we had a development deal with Lorimar we once wrote a pilot for HBO back in their embryonic days. Our mandate was to write something very different from a traditional network sitcom, which we did. Lee Rich, the President of Lorimar hated it, called us into his office, and ripped us a new one. He hated it so much he wanted to get out of the development deal. But he didn’t hate it enough to pay us off the remainder of that deal so two days later we were his “boys” again.
By the way, it was a good pilot. We’ve written MUCH worse shit.
Quisp or Quake asks:
I loved Stephen Bach's Final Cut (about the making of Heaven's Gate); Lillian Ross's "Picture" and "The Devil's Candy," ("Bonfire of the Vanities."). Do you have any behind the scenes favorites?
Yes. INDECENT EXPOSURE by David McClintick. It’s the David Begelman story. Begelman was the President of Columbia pictures in the 70s and was forging checks as Cliff Robertson. It’s insane. We then did a rewrite on a project for him in the mid 80s and he wanted to pay us in television sets.
And finally, from Ed O.:
When a sitcom has an opening that is an isolated joke not always related to the main story, are these written separately at all? For example, on CHEERS, did you guys ever just sit around for an afternoon and write Norm jokes for when he walked in the bar? And then keep a notebook with 50 Norm jokes in it, and just pick one when you needed it?
That’s EXACTLY what we did. When there was time to kill we’d either sit around and try to bang out some teasers (that’s what we called those opening bits) or send off story editors to do that. Same with Norm entrances. But that was just to have things in the bank. When you got a script assignment on CHEERS you were required to write your own teaser.
Since teasers were independent of the stories that followed we also shuffled teasers from show to show to fit time needs. I remember once watching a show David and I had written and it opened with a teaser I had never seen before. It was kind of odd to be watching something for the first time that had my name attached as author.
What’s your question, besides what’s the warranty on that new Kenmore washing machine that’s on sale today only?
We all have our own cherished Thanksgiving traditions. Enjoying Grandma’s famous stuffing recipe (which oddly tastes a lot like Stove Top), the game of touch football on the lawn (they still talk about the year Uncle Ed’s stitches came loose), weird cousin Marla’s holiday decorations (festive paper turkeys with hatchets), everyone bringing their favorite dish, renewing the argument over whether cousin Marla should be hospitalized, etc. My fondest tradition was watching THE HOONEYMOONERS marathon on one of the local LA channels. The last few years it’s been discontinued but thanks to DVD’s, I now own all 39 classic episodes and can gleefully watch them again for the nine millionth time.
Produced in 1955 for one season only, THE HONEYMOONERS remains my favorite all-time sitcom. I don’t think there’s ever been a more inspired cast than Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows. And Joyce Randolph was okay too.
I wonder what people in their 20’s would think of the show. Would it seem too retro? Would the black-and-white cause a disconnect? Would the comedy still hold up? I’d like to think it would. I’d like to think any generation would marvel at Art Carney demonstrating a golf swing, or Jackie Gleason learning to mambo.
If you’ve never seen THE HONEYMOONERS, or haven’t in a long time, I invite you to get the DVD collection and have your own Thanksgiving marathon. But JUST the classic 39 episodes. The collected sketches from Gleason’s variety show or the “lost episodes” don’t hold up. But those 39, for my money, are sitcom perfection. I’d be interested to hear what you think.
Some of my favorite episodes are:
The Golfer Better Living Through TV Oh, my Aching Back The $99,000 Answer Young at Heart Unconventional Behavior Hello, Mom
I bet as you read this I’m watching one of them right now.
A lil bit about hajj :the journey of a lifetime...
The Hajj is associated with the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad from the 7th century, but the ritual of pilgrimage to Mecca is considered by Muslims to stretch back thousands of years to the time of Ibrahim (Abraham). Pilgrims join processions of hundreds of thousands of people, who simultaneously converge on Mecca for the week of the Hajj, and perform a series of rituals: Each person walks counter-clockwise seven times about the Ka'bah, the cube-shaped building which acts as the Muslim direction of prayer; kisses the Black Stone in the corner of the Kaaba; runs back and forth between the hills of Al-Safa and Al-Marwah; drinks from the Zamzam Well; goes to the plains of Mount Arafat to stand in vigil; and throws stones in a ritual Stoning of the Devil. The pilgrims then shave their heads, perform a ritual of animal sacrifice, and celebrate the three day global festival of Eid al-Adha. source : wikipedia.
it has been 2 years now since my journey of hajj..it really was quite an experience. all the moments of hardship and calmness still live strong in my mind.
^ Masjid Nabawi in Madinah
the place in the pic above was known to be the house of Saidina Abu Bakar As-sidiq.. now is the KFC..hehe
The Kaabah
Mina
Night in Muzdalifah
View of Arafah from the Mountain of Mercy
the camp in Arafah
the people O_O
craving for carl's in Mecca? heh
those were some of the pics to show how it was...though the hajj is over for me, day by day im trying to improve myself to be a better Muslim..so that my Hajj will not be just a waste of time, but a truly meaningful one..
The Holy Prophet of Islam (S.A.W.) says: In 4 occasions the doors of sky are opened and prayers will be accepted ; on the occasion of coincidence of the rows of fighters in the cause of God, when it rains and in the time of getting up for saying prayers and at the time of looking at the great Kaaba. source : www.duas.org
hope u guys get the chance to experience it one day!
i really have a spot for sport cars with matt colors..not only they look good on real cars but to scale models too..coincidentally, this year there's a bunch of nice matt color model releases..
the first one is corvette c6r which i got last month thanks to Alan for keeping one for me..it came with '34 Ford TH..which im yet to get a hold of..soon maybe..heh
then comes the Ford GT-LM..been aiming for this one since i saw the video of a visit to HW factory..its really cool and i think tampo-wise, this one stands up most..it came with Boneshaker TH.
and lastly the exotic looking Lamborghini Gallardo..the black looks so cool that u feel like buying more n more everytime seeing it on the peg..lol..this one came with Fire Eater TH.
there's another one that im still looking for which is the Lamborghini Reventon that came in matt grey color and together with Neet Streeter TH..the wave didnt managed to reach KL area thus i missed the chance to own it..hope my fellow members can spare me one..hehehe
Thanksgiving. I look forward to the holiday, never writing about it. Every sitcom I’ve ever worked on, we’ve had the obligatory Thanksgiving episode. How many variations can you have on the big family dinner going awry? I think I’ve written the “turkey gets burned”, “relatives clash”, “nutty friends invited”, “can’t find a restaurant”, “kids break something”, “Guess who’s Coming to Dinner variation, “Meet the Parents variation”,“football gambler loses big”, “tofu turkey substitute”, “someone accidentally gets dragged seven blocks by the Mr. Potato Head balloon”, “mom’s a terrible cook”, “relative accidentally not invited”, “someone is allergic to something in the stuffing and has a funny seizure”, “power outage”, “thawing frozen turkey last minute”, “food fight”, and “the pilgrim re-enactment” episode fifteen times.
Hopefully, none of these things will happen to you this turkey day. And if they do, at least you’ll have your BILL ENGVALL SHOW spec script halfway written.
Got this together with the purchased of ALTER Yoko preview earlier on. This one here is manufactured by FuRyu. I bought it for collection because I am a big fans of Terminator Movies, especially the Arnold versions. The new one is not up to par of the older one but nevertheless their T-700 looks damn awesome.
A holiday tradition is A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and we pretty much have a Mad Man to thank for it. John Allen was a Don Draper at McCann-Erickson in the mid 60s. On behalf of Coca-Cola he was lobbying for Charlie Brown. It would be the first animated adaptation of Charles M. Schultz’s classic PEANUTS comic strip. But Allen had to really twist arms because in typical fashion, CBS hated it.
source : wikipedia.
it has been 2 years now since my journey of hajj..it really was quite an experience.
all the moments of hardship and calmness still live strong in my mind.
now is the KFC..hehe
those were some of the pics to show how it was...though the hajj is over for me, day by day im trying to improve myself to be a better Muslim..so that my Hajj will not be just a waste of time, but a truly meaningful one..
The Holy Prophet of Islam (S.A.W.) says: In 4 occasions the doors of sky are opened and prayers will be accepted ; on the occasion of coincidence of the rows of fighters in the cause of God, when it rains and in the time of getting up for saying prayers and at the time of looking at the great Kaaba. source : www.duas.org
hope u guys get the chance to experience it one day!