Writers, I hope you’re happy! Jeff Zucker has threatened that if the WGA strike doesn’t end soon NBC may discontinue its lavish Upfronts parties FOREVER. That’s right. No more would NBC spend between $3 and $5 million dollars each year on huge bashes for Madison Avenue, stockholders, agents, managers, and miscellaneous television executives. Boy, that’ll
show us!Now that the Mitchell Report has revealed that F.P. Santangelo has used steroids, do you think it will keep him out of the Hall of Fame?
While on the picket line at 20th last week a fire engine entered the lot. I thought, wouldn’t this be a great scene? A studio is on fire. The fire engines arrive but won’t cross the picket lines.
I miss Hy Lit. Anyone from Philadelphia will know what I mean.
Funn
y movie to Netflix (a word that has now become a verb) – FRANKIE & JOHNNY ARE MARRIED. It’s a recreation of the nightmare that TV director Michael Pressman went through trying to mount his own Equity waiver production in LA. Alan Rosenberg proves to be the good sport of the year as he plays the most monstrous actor you’ve ever seen (and he uses his real name). You’ll laugh until you want to kill yourself. Cameos by David Kelley and – unbelievably -- Les Moonves. I should have brought him to "bring an actor buddy to strike" day.Most big stars will not be attending the Golden Globes this year. Not wanting to cross the picket line is the reason – for one or maybe two.
A furious Roger Clemens insists he NEVER took steroids and all 82 mentions of him doing so in the Mitchell Report are wrong.
How can you take the Golden Globes seriously when not one Judd Apatow movie (KNOCKED UP, SUPERBAD, WALK HARD) was nominated for “Best Comedy”? Nor was ENCHANTED.
The new AMERICAN GLADIATORS have just been announced. They are:
Fury, Helga, Justice, Mayhem, Militia, Stealth, Titan, Tor, Venom, Wolf, Crush, Siren, and Sanjaya.
My Northwestern Wildcat daughter Annie has watched numerous episodes of THE MAN FROM UNCLE with me and feels that Illya always got the shaft. Yes, he was the heartthrob in his day, upstaging Robert Vaughn, but this is what Annie says she observes every episode:
Napoleon: “Here Illya, I’ll seduce this beautiful blond woman while you climb up seven different buildings, while wearing a number of stupid disguises and inevitably get captured by Thrush.”
And Annie loves how Napoleon always is bemused, “Oh Illya, what trouble did you get into now? By the way, have you met Miss Florida?”
Talk to you tomorrow from the land where you never see a Michigan plate.
Mele Kalikimaka.
Bon voyage, Kenny boy!
ReplyDeleteWhile Illya may not have done so well in the plots onscreen, offscreen all my junior high contemporaries had crushes on him. NO ONE had a crush on Napoleon Solo!
ReplyDeleteI almost died when my father reporte he'd been on a plane with David McCallum. They hit turbulence and the actor said (imagining cute English accent) he was "scared s**tless"!
Yeah, Ilya was always the one in Teen Beat and the like. When my cousin and I played Man from UNCLE, I always had to be Napoleon because I had dark hair and a suit. But it was clear even to my six-year-old self that Ilya was the real chick magnet.
ReplyDeleteAgreed about the Globes snub of Apatow. What's a guy got to do to earn the respect of that bunch? Oh yeah -- host a big dinner party. Remember that for next year, Judd.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteSome Do's and Don'ts for a fun-filled and safe Hawaiian vacation:
Do...
...wear plaid shorts with your Hawaiian shirts.
...take pictures of Japanese tourists who are taking pictures of you.
...ask the concierge for a map to Robin Masters' Estate.
Don't...
...take any side trips on any boats named The Minnow.
...wear a grass skirt near the beach party bonfire.
...ask the ukulele player if Don Ho is going to sing the Tiny Bubbles song.
Your daughter is dead right about Ilya. Didn't Bill Cosby point out the same thing about The Lone Ranger? That as a nine-year-old he'd shout at the radio, "Don't go into town, Tonto, they're going to beat the crap out of you!"
ReplyDelete...the land where you never see a Michigan plate...
Can't be true. Occasionally a Hawaii plate is seen on the mainland, so the reverse must be true. Why people do this, I have no idea. Seems harmless but expensive.
well, if you're in the military you can have a plate from your home state (no facts to back this up, but it was an air force guy that told me this.)So Hawaii plates here and Michigan plates there may not be as pricey as you think... only a few years of your life.
ReplyDeleteIn his "Living The Romantic Comedy" blog (http://livingromcom.typepad.com/), Billy Mermit comes up with a perfect description of the striking writers with a phrase provided bt the AMPTP in one of its recent releases: "quixotic radicals." Mermit calls it a "wonderfully provocative new label," and I concur. Keep tilting those windmills!
ReplyDeleteThe globes didn't *completely* snub Apatow... "Walk Hard" got what, 2 noms? (Best actor in a comedy/musical, best song) They just snubbed the movies that have been released, that's all!
ReplyDeleteThe entire world thanks you for the visual of seeing Sanjaya beaten to a pulp with those giant leather Q-tips.
ReplyDeleteNow if only we could get Seacrest into the ring.
Have fun in Hawaii. Although don't you think that you'd sound more strike affected if you said you were spending Christmas in Hoboken because of the strike?
Amazing how you got more Ilya comments from today's comments than any other subject. Solo had better be careful he never winds up on a slab being examined by Kuryakin's "identical cousin" Ducky.
ReplyDeleteThat was a lot of setup for that Sanjaya joke. Not sure it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteEllen is right. All of my sister's friends loved Ilya.
ReplyDeleteBTW, this situation proves that T.J.Hooker was much more of a man than Napoleon Solo. When Hooker and his young athletic partner would come upon two suspects and one would run, Hooker always left the young guy with the subdued criminal while the corseted Hooker would huff and puff after the other guy.
And he'd always catch him, too.
Hy Lit, the Geator with the Heater (though Blavat was on WCAM and more of a Bandstand-type guy), Joe Niagra...
ReplyDeleteWibbage vs the Boss Jocks
Philadelphia was a great radio town in the 60s.
Coincidentally, the knockoff series "J.A.G." (Jewish American Gladiators) has also just been announced.
ReplyDeleteThey are: Potch, Chutzbah, Feh, Brisket, Kvetch, Noodge, Sugar Diabetes, You Should Live So Long, Putz, The Liquidator, The Caterer, The Shiksa, Kinahurra, Schnook, You Could at Least Call, Steven Segal, You’ll Sue Me for Whiplash, and Sanjaya.
Final episode of the season "O.J.A.G." (Orthodox Jewish American Gladiators):
Plotz, Shlub, The Antimensch, Moishe the Mad Mohle, Tsiporah the Zaftig Second Cousin, Tref, Honey Bakedham, What, It Would Kill You?, The Oy Boy, Shecky the Supervised Slaughterer, Schnook, Tsuris, Dr. Brown, The Silver Schlepper, You’re Killing Your Father, Gabe Kaplan, Schlomu the Killer Whitefish, and Debbie.
I also miss Hy Lit. While his heyday was way before my time, I grew up listening to him on the radio too, he never left the air here in town.
ReplyDeleteThis is Hyyyyyyyyyy Lit!
(I always liked him better then the Geator)
Just one more, since you opened the door.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely true. We were once in a hotel fire staying in the Yul Brynner Suite at the Copley Plaza in Boston. The same hotel where Sumner Redstone had lost the use of his right hand, hanging from a window ledge during a previous fire.
This was the suite Brynner had occupied during a run at the Schubert, after allegedly contracting trichinosis at the Trader Vics down the block in the Statler Hilton. This is also absolutely true.
We had big plans. There was a canopied bed so high off the ground that they built you three stairs to use getting into it.
The alarm sounded approximately 10 minutes after we checked into the room. I led everybody across the street to the Weston, because I knew the Weston owed the Copley Plaza three fires. All of this is also true.
The hotel would not allow the firemen in, because they didn’t have ties. The firemen said that was fine, because there were probably already enough people in the hotel rooms wearing rubber clothing.
OK,those last two were just part of the running commentary, while swaddled in blankets observing the action until dawn from the Weston picture window. But more proof that everything will happen to you if you live long enough.
Your daughter was dead-on right. I was just entering double digits when U.N.C.L.E. was on, and I crushed hard on Illya. The Solo magnetism must have been something that Vaughn had written into his contract.
ReplyDeleteNotice they were able to nominate every musical that was in wide release? Those awards people love them musicals. Superbad and Hot Fuzz should have nominated over Hairspray and Across the Universe, in my opinion. Even in the comedy section, comedies get no respect. What's up with that?
ReplyDeleteMaybe if the writers promise to replace all their regular light bulbs with energy-saving, environmentally-friendly GE® Fluorescent Bulbs, Zucker will re-think his threat. Or Al Gore will take up sponsorship of the event.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Napoleon and Illya had sort of a Kirk-Spock thing going even before Kirk and Spock were around ... even if they gave Chekov Kuryakin's hairstyle (which, being 1964, I guess because of the Beatles, though it would be nice to think there's an major coven of Moe Howard fans in far Eastern Europe).
Ken, I think you can feel confident that steroid use revealed in the Mitchell report is not what's going to keep FP Santangelo out of the Hall of Fame!
ReplyDeleteWho the hell is F. P. Santagelo? I asked T.J. Simers, and he didn't know either.
ReplyDeletea. buck short wrote:
ReplyDelete"Schlomu the Killer Whitefish," and I applauded. Fine line.
By the way, Long Beach-to-Hilo passage for a Honda: $900, one-way.
John said...
ReplyDeleteeven if they gave Chekov Kuryakin's hairstyle...it would be nice to think there's a major coven of Moe Howard fans in far Eastern Europe.
John, you may have the series confused with The Man from NYUKLE.
Keep up the good work. Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteWas there ever a Woman From A.U.N.T.?
ReplyDeleteA Buck.... what are your ties to Boston? Spent a good four years though, and saw many a movie at Copley Plaza in one of the many horrid movie theaters in the city.
How about Scientology American Gladiators (SAG): Xenu, The Auditor, Closeted and his female companion Beard, Tin Cans, Thetan, El Ron, Tax Dodge, Misdiagnosed Psycho, and Glib.
^ comedy gold, Mr. Crut! Seriously. You had me before glib (which is my all time favorite quote!).
ReplyDeleteNice.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteHy Lit is featured this week on ReelRadio.com
And Hy Lit lives on at...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hylitradio.com/
i love that you an have an expos picture up there.
ReplyDeleteSince you brought The Man from U.N.C.L.E. up again, I thought I'd let the Illya fans know that a podcast interview with David McCallum is up here. (I have no connection with it other than spotting it.)
ReplyDeleteOh, and Chekov's hairstyle was inspired by both the Beatles' hair and that of Monkee Davy Jones. (Should I be embarrassed that I know that?)