Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

Considering the time of year it is, and in this specific instance, you bet your ass it should.
You are catching me today with my dander up.
If you were to look upwards, you would undoubtedly see my dander.
I am in particularly high dudgeon.
Again, if you were to look upward, that would be MY dudgeon you'd be staring at.
This one requires major backstory, and most-likely much expansiveness on my part.

When I was growing up, in public school, junior high, and high school, I had a very good friend.
Now he is simply an old acquaintance whom I'm now convinced should totally be forgot.
I'm only going to half out him.
I'll give you his last name.
It is Zisser.
I'm only doing this because after the major figurative slap in the face he gave me, my only other choice would be to physically confront him, literally slap his face, and challenge him to a duel.
And physically, I'm really not up to that.
So, figuring on the likelihood that he has Google Alert, his last name should be enough to call this to his attention.
I mean, what's the point of having a blog if you can't use it to settle scores with?

As a child, and as an adolescent, Zisser was always my stalking horse.
He was always a much better student than me.
He always got better grades than me.
I swear that by the time he was eleven years old, he had his career choice mapped out.
He was going to be a lawyer, just like his way-older brother.
I, of course, into my early twenties, had no idea what I wanted to be.
Zisser was the example I was supposed to follow, according to my mother.

Hanging on the foyer wall in his parents' apartment in Queens was his Bar Mitzvah picture.
Next to it, in his handwriting in magic marker, was his name, followed by, in quotes, "The Best Boy In The World".
I really couldn't argue with that.
As far as I could tell, he WAS the best boy in the world.
And he wasn't embarrassed that it was still hanging there throughout his college career.
I suppose I should have suspected then that this was the first sign that he would become a full-fledged terminal braggart.

With my mother, it was always "Why couldn't you graduate college in four years, and go on to law school, like Zisser?
Why is it taking you six, and you still don't know what you want to do with yourself?"
I had to explain to her, more than once, "Well, you see ma? It's simply because I am not the best boy in the world.
Zisser is. I don't stand a chance."
I would be met with "Well, don't you WANT to be the best boy in the world?"
I'd reply "Desperately. With all my heart. (And I meant it) But that title is already taken. I can't wrest it from him."

After college, Zisser and I kind of drifted apart.
He went on to law school, and I went on to nothing, until I
fell into writing.
We went to each other's weddings, each involving much travel, because we lived in different regions of the country.
I always sensed that there was some lingering competitiveness between us.
Particularly after I had made it big in TV writing.
And Zisser probably figured that even though he was now a successful lawyer, I could probably buy and sell him five times over.
And he'd have been right.
And it probably didn't sit well.
He followed all the rules. He got out of college in four years. I was headed for bumdom.
It didn't compute.
He should have been in a position to say "I told you so."
But I never gave him that opportunity.

The last time I saw Zisser was at his daughter's Bat Mitzvah, about ten years ago, in Florida, where they still live, and where that
fackockta "Best Boy in the World" Bar Mitzvah picture is probably still hanging on some wall in his house.
The event turned out to be a two-day orgy of self-congratulation and homage to this little girl of thirteen, who apparently was the greatest scholar and greatest humanitarian the world would ever see.
More and more examples of this were shared during this orgy.
I wonder if Zisser gave any thought to his guests, who also had daughters who were his daughter's contemporaries, who were perhaps not as scholarly or humanitarian as Zisser's.
Any thought that he might be rubbing their noses in it?
Like his "Best Boy In The World" picture was rubbing my nose in it?
So the title of "Best Girl In The World" was bestowed on her.

I think the mold of "Best Boy In The World" was first cast by
Zisser's way-older brother.
He became a major star defense attorney in Florida.
Zisser then joined his law firm, becoming an attorney specializing in divorce cases.
Cashing in on human misery, as it were.
Cleaning up, and cleaning up on, messy divorces.
His way-older brother was once featured on "A Current Affair", depicted as the crafty Jew lawyer who got his obviously guilty client off on a murder rap by outsmarting the other lawyer.
That was his job.
But maybe if he actually was the original "Best Boy In The World", he might have turned his talents to becoming a D.A.
What am I thinking?
That would require a major pay cut.
He's a member of my tribe.
So that would be out of the question.
These were my first indications that they both were perhaps not worthy of their titles.

Next, how I got slapped in the face, and why I'm slapping back.

I'll give you a hint.
It has to do with yet even more recent and substantial nose-rubbing.

Happy New Year, all!

Well, almost all.......

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Old Bread, Old Rolls. Part Five.

Frank Capra directed some really great movies.

"It Happened One Night"
"Mr. Deeds Goes To Town"
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington"
"You Can't Take It With You"
"Lady For a Day"
"Meet John Doe"
"Arsenic and Old Lace" (Cary Grant at his funniest)
and of course, "It's a Wonderful Life".
There was another great one, "American Madness", from 1932, which, upon viewing, seems to be the basis for "It's A Wonderful Life".

Capra was a major voice in the anti-colorization crusade that began when movies started being colorized.
As someone who shot most of his movies in black-and white, I suppose you can understand why.
Capra was always wrapping the American Flag around himself.
With colorization, he was wrapping "artisitic integrity" around himself.

Now, I've seen the colorized versions of "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Arsenic and Old Lace"
Not harmed artistically in the least.
They lost none of their integrity.
I think they were even improved.
There was nothing particularly aesthetic to their black and white nature.
But with Capra, it was a matter of "artistic integrity".
That's not the way he made them.

Funny, how when the two movies Capra made in color, the very good
"A Hole In The Head", and the absolutely stinking, in spite of Peter Falk's great performance, "Pocketful of Miracles", both showed up on televison a few years after they were made, when most viewers still had black and white TV sets, and the movies were cut up, and broken up for commercials, you didn't hear a peep out of Capra and his "artistic integrity".
He just scooped up his "Pocketful of Residuals" and kept his mouth shut.

Capra also made a slew of movies in the really early 30's that I've never seen, and would really like to.

There was an even bigger stinker, right out of the "Old Bread, Old Rolls" playbook, which showed where Capra really stood on "artistic integrity".

In 1934, Capra made a pretty good movie called "Broadway Bill".
It starred Warner Baxter as a down-on-his-luck horse trainer who invested his entire future on the outcome of a horserace, that included his horse, Broadway Bill.
Hence, the title.

In 1950, Capra decided to do a remake of "Broadway Bill".
It was called "Riding High"
He got Bing Crosby to do Warner Baxter's part.
And what Capra did was the cheapest-looking, chinciest, cheesiest example of "Old Bread, Old Rolls" that anyone can imagine.
He literally used at least half the footage from "Broadway Bill", not just racetrack stock footage, but complete scenes, with actors and dialogue, and cut it together with the new stuff he shot with Der Bingle.
The result was a schizoid looking movie, half of which looked like it was shot in the early 30's, with 30's looking automobiles, and telephones that required two hands to use them, intercut with footage that was obviously shot in the 50's.
One-handed telephones.
50's-looking automobiles.
Much clearer looking footage than the graininess of the early 30's footage.
There has always been a distinct difference between movies made in the 30's
and movies made in the 50's.
And it constantly kept bouncing back and forth between the two eras.
It was really jarring, and completely took you out of the story.

Many of the same supporting cast was used: Ward Bond, Margaret Hamilton, Douglas Dumbrille, Charles Lane, Raymond Walburn, Clarence Muse, Paul Harvey, Irving Bacon, and others.
And in the latter footage, they all looked significantly older.
So they kept looking older and younger. And younger and older.
You didn't need a trained eye to notice this.
There was even a scene where Capra, aware of the problem, staged it so that Crosby was talking to all these actors. who were facing him,
wearing hats, with their backs to the camera.
You only saw Crosby's face.
Why this movie was done with this overall approach is a mystery.
Maybe Capra owed the studio a picture, balked at the prospect, and wanted to deliver it as lazily as possible.
Or maybe they gave him a larger budget and he'd gain a "Pocketful of Extra Cash" he wouldn't have to spend making an entirely new movie.
Anyway, it was completely grotesque.
"Artistic Integrity" did not raise it's head in this instance.

Your honor, I submit that this was the most egregious example of "Old Bread, Old Rolls" ever perpetrated.
The equivalent of the Nuremburg Trials would have been appropriate.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Old Bread. Old Rolls. Part Four.

Today's incident is the one that inspired this whole series of articles.
It's the one that reminded me of the original "Old Bread, Old Rolls" story, because it is so strikingly similar.

A couple of weeks ago, it was once again Pledge Week on your favorite and mine, my local PBS station in Detroit.
My wife had Tivoed a musical special called "Moments To Remember", a traipse down early 1950's Memory Lane.
I remember seeing it quite a few years ago, and enjoying it.
I even wrote about it here once, at some point.
So when my wife put it on for her mother to watch, I started to get caught up with it again.

Before they got to the body of the show, the hosts, Nick Clooney (Georgie's father) and Patti Page, informed us over and over that this was, in fact, NOT a rerun of the show that was on several years ago.
That it was in fact, an entirely new show.
Because they had had so much positive response from the first show, they decided to come out with an entirely new version.

This certainly peaked my interest, and had me hooked.
After a few new numbers that were not included in the original show, they started including retreads of numbers that were.
They had Julius La Rosa singing "Domani", using the same piece of videotape where his pocket handkerchief started out on the right side,
then magically switched to the left side.
Then he once again sang Eh, Cumpari".
Same piece of video.

Then, they once again shlepped out a 94 year-old Frankie Laine, to sing "That's My Desire".
Making no allusion to the fact that the man had died six years ago.
This was not part of a new show.

All in all, I'd say that at least 40% of the material was recycled from the previous special.

And the stuff that replaced it was decidedly inferior.
Stuff that obviously didn't make the cut for the original show, because that stuff lacked the quality of the stuff that did.

They shlepped out The DeCastro Sisters, whose one and only hit was "Teach Me Tonight", which they sang.
These were three women with ancient faces, each wearing wildly inappropriate teased jet-black wigs.
They were, in short, child-frighteners.

And they now have all since died.
One, as early as 2004.
So this number was shot back then.
They had simply gone to the vault of what was left over and exhumed it.
Again, not exactly new.

And, of course, no mention of anyone now being dead was mentioned.
They did an interesting interview with the pianist Roger Williams, who is now also dead.
No reference to that.

They had groups on that I had never heard of, who did cover versions of other people's hits.

We were not getting a "totally new show".
We were getting the dregs of what was left from the previous show, with filler from stuff we'd already seen.
Because they didn't HAVE enough material to put together an enirely new show.

PBS must have figured that the demographic was so old for this show that nobody would know the difference.
You know.
Just like "Old Bread and Old Rolls".

I have since thought of one more glaring example of "Old Bread, Old Rolls", perpetrated by the usually great director, Frank Capra.
He wasn't great this time.

More about it next time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Old Bread, Old Rolls. Part Three.

As advertised, today I will reveal why the last two posts have had this somewhat cryptic title.
One of my friends from college, a Jew, told me this story from his childhood:
He and his family lived in Queens, as I did.
In the summer, for the entire summer, every year, they would go to a Catskill bungalow colony known in Yiddish as a "Kuchalein"
I'm not sure of the exact English spelling.
I'm not even sure that there is one.
"Kuchalein" literally meant that you had your own kitchen facilities in your bungalow.
You cooked alone.
That was the literal translation.
It wasn't like Grossinger's or the Concord, where the main object was for the management to stuff you with as much food as humanly possible, and for the guests, to be stuffed with as much food as is humanly possible.

For the younger female guests, another main goal was to meet a doctor who she could convince to marry her.
On an episode of "The Odd Couple", where Rob Reiner played Penny Marshall's boyfriend and felt the need to go on retreat, we had him go to a Kuchalein called, appropriately, "Cucky's Lane".
That name didn't make it past the Wednesday run-through.
It was replaced with a name with far less character---"Imglick's Lodge"
Our efforts at tribute went unappreciated.

So these Kuchaleins were definitely somewhat downward on the social scale, and far more family oriented.
There was a somwhat primitive quality to them.
Not the best plumbing facilities in the world.
Nobody had their own telephones in their bungalows.

The way the denizens of the Kuchaleins were able to make contact with civilization was with the one telephone available to all, which was located in Mr. Lipschitz's "Canteen", which was another way of referring to what was basically a General Store.
The Canteen was the 7-11 of it's time.
With overinflated prices to match.

And the bungalow guests were at Mr. Lipschitz's mercy, pricewise.
Mr. Lipschitz also had a microphone, attached to a public address system, so that if anyone received a call, they would be paged by Mr. Lipschitz over the loudspeaker.

Now Mr. Lipschitz was an "Immie".
A Concentration Camp survivor with tatooed numbers on his arms.

This, as in the other instances I related, caused the first generation American born Jews to resent him, along with his generally foul nature.

Mr. Lipschitz had a first generation American-born son named Warren, whom Mr. Lipschitz, with his thick foreign accent, called "Vodding".
As did everyone else there, usually mockingly, behind his back.

On what turned out in retrospect to be a typical day at the Canteen, "Vodding" cautioned his father that the expiration dates had been reached on many of the baked goods Mr. Lipschitz offered for sale.

Vodding suggested that they be replaced by the new shipment that had not yet been put on display.
Lipschitz countered with "Old bread, old rolls, they won't know the difference".

What Lipschitz was not aware of was that the microphone was turned on and that last sentence of his was heard over the P.A. system by everybody in the bungalow colony.
Within a matter of minutes, the entire population of the colony amassed in front of the Canteen, shouting "Old Bread, Old Rolls, they won't know the difference!"
Over and over.
Now I really don't know that this was "Immie Bashing".
It coulld just mean that Lipschitz was simply a contemptuous old cuss.
The bungalow denizens went on strike, never to enter the Canteen until it was "Under New Management"

This took place in about a week after Lipschitz had fled.
He probably beat a hastier retreat than he had when he fled the Nazis.

Stay tuned for Part Four, next time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Old Bread, Old Rolls. Part Two

There will be no further mention of "Old Bread, Old Rolls" in this post.
You might be wondering why the last post and this one bears that title.
It will become more than apparent when we reach part three.

As in part one, this post also relates to Jewish anti-semitic "Immie Mistrust", and also relates to my upstairs neighbors, the Freitags, when I was a kid growing up in the Bronx.

It also intrinsically involves my mother, Bella.
I don't recall if I mentioned this previously, but perfect casting if someone were to make a movie about Bella would be Estelle Harris, the brilliantly funny actress who played George Costanza's mother on Seinfeld.
The spitting image, in every detail.
Looks, voice, character, everything.

Estelle appeared in my first play in Los Angeles in the late 80's, before anyone knew who she was.
Many members of my family attended opening night of this highly autobiographical play.
When Estelle made her entrance and began speaking, my family members were absolutely stunned.
Bella had died about five years previously, and it was as if Estelle had brought her back to life.
So as I relate this story, it helps if you picture Estelle Harris as Bella.

As I mentioned previously, Bella had this attitude about "Immies", particularly the Freitags. Particularly Tamara, Mrs. Freitag.
But it also extended to their son, David.
David, as I mentioned, was one of my closest friends.
Mainly because I found him to be very good natured, and extremely funny.

But Bella, for no apparent reason at the time, except for the fact that he descended from "Immies", considered him a bad influence on me.

As even the best of friends do, David and I got mad at each other for some insignificant reason that I can't even remember.
We were at least momentarily on the outs with each other.
During this very brief period, a note was slipped under our apartment door.
It read "Tomorrow, your house will be bomed"
That was the spelling.
B-O-M-E-D.
And immediately, based on absolutely nothing, save "Immie-Mistrust", my mother suspected David of placing that note under our door.

Now I had gotten into lots of fights with other friends of mine, and I'm sure if I was on the outs with any of them, my mother wouldn't have jumped to a similar conclusion.
And there were certainly more than a handful of genuine Anti-Semites who lived in our building who who easily more likely suspects.

I know this because I remember when the Rabbi from my Hebrew School sent us all out to sell raffle tickets for the upkeep of the shul to people in our building, only for me to be met more than once with "Get away from me, you dirty Jew"
That put an end to my Door-To-Door salesman career.
I told the Rabbi as much.
It was like talking to a wall.
But I stuck to my retirement guns.

Also, David was far from illiterate, much less a bad speller.
It just didn't make any overt sense that he was the culprit.

But this didn't stop my prejudiced, lunatic mother from trying to prove David's guilt in the matter.
She approached it much in the same way that Captain Queeg tried hanging the Caine Mutiny on the theft of the strawberries.
With Geometric Logic.
She decided to ostensibly "Patch things up" between David and me by having us sit down together and write out "Peace Treaties" that my mother would dictate.
Yes, Peace Treaties.
I'm paraphrasing, but here's the gist:

"I promise that we will never fight with each other about anything ever again.
And that we will be brothers under the skin. Always together.
Through thick and through thin.
We will always remain together.
Even if we were in one of our houses and it was BOMBED, we would man the fortress together..."
Pretty subtle, hah?

So this whole charade, right out of a bad episode of "I Love Lucy", was designed to prove that David would misspell the word "Bombed".

But of course, he didn't.
It failed.
Just like Captain Queeg.

In Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint", one of Alexander Portnoy's complaints to his psychiatrist is that he was raised by Hottentots
and Zulus.
I think I should be joining Portnoy on the couch.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Old Bread, Old Rolls.

This is going to be either a two or a three-parter, depending on how expansive I feel.

There was something mortifying about my heritage when I was growing up, that I, as a child and an adolescent witnessed firsthand.
I'm not the only one of my peers to have witnessed it.
Maybe it was just a small sampling.
I don't know for sure.
But it sure was rampant in my parents' and their friends' inner circle.

My parents and most of their friends were first generation American Jews.
Their parents all came from "The Old Country"
Russia, Poland, Rumania, Germany......

I was a second generation Jew.
But sprinkled among my parents friends, or, rather, co-apartment dwellers, were contemporaries of theirs who were, in fact, immigrants.

They still spoke with foreign accents, like our grandparents did.
Some of them had tattooed numbers on their arms.
Evidence that they had spent time in, and had survived, Nazi Concentration Camps.

Our upstairs neighbors, Leo and Tamara Freitag, were two such immigrants, or "Immies", as my parents disparagingly called them behind their backs.
Their son, David, first generation, with just a trace of an accent, was one of my closest friends.

See, that's the thing.
The first generation Jews were almost invariably disparaging toward the "Immies" behind their backs.

I don't know if the "Immies" deserved this disparagement.
I'd had no direct evidence that Leo or Tamara did.
But disparagement is what they got.
And it seemed to be simply because they were "Immies".

It was a form of Jewish Anti-Semitism.

Case in point:

One evening, my mother and all of her women friends (I guess they felt they had to include Tamara) went into Manhattan to see a Broadway Show.
So far, so good.
After the show, they all decided to go to Lindy's.
This was when Lindy's was the Show Business mecca of New York Restaurants.
It had a reputation of being expensive, at least for it's time.
It also had a reputation for having the best Cheesecake in the world.
It no longer does, but apparently it did then.

It was determined before they went in that the check would be divided equally among the "girls".
One after the other, each "girl" ordered Cheesecake and coffee.
The Cheesecake and coffee cost around two dollars and fifty cents.
Pretty big money in those days.

It went around to Tamara.
Tamara ordered a Turkey Leg and a bowl of Borscht.
Water on the side.
Seven Bucks.
A fortune.
And they were dividing the check equally.

Tamara got stares from the entire table.
But she was oblivious to them, or at least feigned obliviousness.

For literally the next three years, all I ever heard about was that friggin' Turkey Leg and the bowl of Borscht.
You didn't even have to mention Tamara's name to hear about it.
But of course, any time anyone did, out of Tamara's earshot, it came pouring out of somebody's mouth.
Usually my mother's.

I don't know how anyone would have reacted if it was anyone but Tamara who got the aforementioned Turkey Leg and bowl of Borscht.
I doubt that the reaction would have been that harsh.

I, myself, think in hindsight that maybe if that's what she wanted to eat, she needn't have been a slave to conformity.
I'm sure I would have been met with "Then why didn't she kick in with the extra $4.50?"

I guess I'm on the fence with this one.
I mean, she was always nice to me.
And maybe she should have been cut a little slack for puttin' in all that
time in Auschwitz.

Next time I'll offer up more "Immie Mistrust".

I can already see that this will be a four-parter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Report Card---"Trying To Get Good".

"Trying To Get Good" is a documentary that has been around for a couple of years.

It is NOT one of the ones I received recently from the West Coast.
It's one that I received from Amazon, after a long fruitless search for it.
I actually paid retail for it.
That's how much I wanted it.

The subject of "Trying To Get Good" is perhaps our greatest living jazz trumpet player, Jack Sheldon.

Some of you may be most familiar with Jack Sheldon, if not by name, as the voice of the bill languishing on Capitol Hill on Schoolhouse Rock----
"I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill......"
He also traded much banter with Merv Griffin on the latter's show, and was probably the best thing on it.

But he has been so much more than that.
I referred to him as perhaps our greatest living jazz trumpeters.
This, of course, takes Louis Armstrong out of the equation.
He was the greatest jazz trumpet player of all time.
And Jack Sheldon will be the first to admit it.

More about Louis Armstrong next time out.

On to the scoring:

Is it interesting?

Sheldon has lived a fascinating and surprisingly torture filled life.
Many personal tragedies, drug and alcohol addictions, and he has come out the other end surviving it all in remarkably good spirits.
And there is much of him in performance, and it is joyous.
A+

Compelling, even?

Very much so. His main compulsion is to constantly practice and get better with the trumpet. He lives for his instrument, many say to the complete and utter disregard of the rest of his personal life.
A+

Is it controversial?

I learned many things about him that I didn't know beforehand.
A+

Do you think about it after you've seen it?

Yes. to the point where I want to watch this film over and over.
A+.

Is it funny?

It is hilariously funny because HE is hilariously funny, particularly in performance
A+.

Is it a story worth telling?

To everyone.
A+.

Is it good storytelling?

Consistently revealing, all along the way.
A+.

Is it well written?

On a documentary like this, you don't really notice the writing.
The fact that it was unobtrusive is obviously a plus.
A+

Is it well cast? Well played?, Well shot?


Certainly well shot, Casting takes the form of interviews.
Clint Eastwood puts in his eight cents.
Merv Griffin was interviewed extensively here shortly before his death, and had many interesting things to say.
A+.

Is it too long? Too short?

Could have gone on at least another 45 minutes.
A+.

Is it believable? Do you care about the characters?

It's life. If you didn't care about the characters, you have no movie.
Sheldon is so lovable that he forces you to care about him.
A+.

Is it predictable? Does it surprise you?

Never predictable, full of surprises.
Unless you know that much about his life going in.
A+.

Is it worth the 22 dollars and fifty cents (the retail price)?

Every hard-earned penny.
A+

Is it an impressive film?

Nothing but.
A+.

Overall grade: A+.

Treat yourself to this, or wait for some better deal than what I found.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Our Lady Of Penn State.

I've heard a lot of talk about how last Saturday's football game between Penn State and Nebraska should have been cancelled, because of the horrendous child molesting scandal that went on in the locker room showers several years ago.
And how they should not be allowed to go to, or accept any Bowl Game appearances this year.
Or how the entire football program should be placed on a long probation, or be eliminated entirely.
And how the least that should happen to coach Joe Paterno is his being fired.
And what a disgrace that there were a huge throng of fans rallying and cheering him at his house the night of his firing.

The first and loudest voice in support of all these things is Ed Schultz, a major voice of left-leaning reason on MSNBC.
I agree with everything he has said on the subject.

But there is a disturbing parallel to this situation that I've heard nobody address in the same manner.
And I think it should be addressed in exactly the same way.

Anyone remember what went on with priests and altarboys in the Catholic Church?
It wasn't that long ago.
It was rife throughout the Catholic Church in many many venues.
Remember?

When that scandal broke big, I didn't hear anyone call for Church services to be cancelled anywhere.
And people kept showing up on Sundays as if nothing had happened.
And the Deacons and Pastors kept passin' the plate, and fillin' them coffers.
Nobody made even the teeny-tiniest suggestion that at least some of that money be used to help their victims.
No. Lawsuits had to be settled for that to happen.

And nobody suggested that any major Church events, like Christmas, Easter, or Ash Wednesday be cancelled that year.
Or forever, for that matter.

And nobody would even dare suggest that the Pope should be fired.
Or should even resign.
After all, it happened under his watch.
As far as we know, he totally swept it under the rug.
And nobody thought it was a huge disgrace that his huge throng of supporters rallied and supported him at his house (I believe it's called The Vatican), and still do, every chance they get.

And there were far more victims here than at Penn State.

If we're not letting Joe Paterno off the hook, then why the Pope?
This was only football. Just a game.
Catholicism is supposed to be about teaching morality.

Now, don't get me wrong.
You and I both know that I am a Jew.
And that this may have the smell of my being anti-Catholic.
But if it turned out that there was a mass child-molesting scandal among Rabbis and their young flock, I would be the first one calling for the closing down of shuls and synagogues.
And, if I had anything to say about it, there would be no more Chanukah, Pesach, or Purim .

It's the least we could do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Not-So-Buried Treasure.

W-a-a-a-a-y back when I wrote about a DVD bio of the lyricist-composer-singer Johnny Mercer,it caused me to do an all-out YouTube hunt for everything I could find on Mr. Mercer.
That's how much I loved this DVD and his work.
And probably him if I knew him.
He was one of our greatest lyricists, singers, and, to me, above all, duet artists.
On the DVD, you got to see Mercer performing duets with quite a few people.
The best pairing by far was with Bing Crosby.
Both of their easygoing styles complimented each other's, and the result was divine.
An attempt to recapture that particular brand of magic was turned out by Mercer and Bobby Darin in a 60's album called "Two of a Kind".
It does a very good job of recapturing.
And is easy to find on Amazon.
I recommend it highly.
Mercer and Darin both died in the mid-seventies, both on the operating table.
In both instances, this was very sad.
If Mercer had lived on, I'm sure he would have been included in those duet albums turned out by Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
And it would have been glorious.
By the way, this is another posting that I had intended to make shortly after the Report Card on the Mercer DVD.
Some things just get lost in the files.
But I managed to retrieve it, because I heard something just the other day to remind me of it.
As I said, a YouTube search was launched for everything Mercer.
And I found a duet by Mercer and Bing of a song that seemed new to me.
It was called "May I Have the Pleasure of Your Company?"
It was great.
Information was provided for it's origins.
It was from a show called "The Good Companions", with lyrics by Mercer and music by Andre Previn, which opened in London, was not particularly successful, and never made it across the pond.
My first reaction was "Gee, I hope they made an Original Cast Album of "The Good Companions".
My second reaction was "Gee, I hope it's available somewhere".
My third reaction was "Gee, I hope that if there is an Original cast Album of "The Good Companions", and it's available, I hope it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to get my hands on it".

So I go to Amazon. There it is:
"The Good Companions": Original Cast Album. It is available.
Price: $129.99 New. $39.99 used.
Borders was just about the same.
Limbs would be lost. I had to regroup.

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning:
"What a major dumbbell I am! I think I've already bought this CD. I think I've heard it. Mercer wasn't on it, and maybe that's why I dismissed it after one listening, but I have definitely purchased this CD and listened to it."
I still wanted to hear it again.
But my CD collection is strewn over many rooms in several residences.
Good luck trying to find it.
I was sitting in my den in Michigan at the time.
You know how whenever you look for something and you find it, it's always in the last place you can possibly look for it?
I went upstairs to my office, opened my closet full of CDs, and sitting on the very top of the very first box of CDs was the Original Cast of "The Good Companions".
Kismet.
I listened to it, and it is far more wonderful than the first time around that I spent with it.
John Mills was it's star, and has some very touching numbers.
The show is about vaudeville, and there are great up-tempo numbers, and numbers that are heartbreaking.

The three or four heartbreakers are handled by a young English actress. They are more acted than sung, and really get to you.
I had to read the fine print on the CD cover to realize that the young English actress in question was Judi Dench, who turned out to be another not-so-buried treasure.
All of this came back to me in a rush because I was listening to Bing Crosby's last concert at London's Royal Palladium.
And he opened the concert with revised lyrics to "May I Have The Pleasure Of Your Company?", which he sang directly to the audience. He couldn't have sung it to Mercer, who had died the year before on the operating table.
I'm sure this was his way of providing tribute to his old friend.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.


******

Flippin' And A Floppin'

Now, you might think I'm referring to Mitt Romney, or Herman Cain, and you certainly wouldn't be very far off-base.
But that's not what I'm referring to.

Or you esoteric old-time classic TV fans may think I'm referring to Sid Caesar's trio, The Haircuts, a takeoff on the Rock and Roll
group, The Crewcuts.
The Haircuts' "Big Hit Record" was "You Are So Rare To Me".
The "flip" side, of all things, was called "Flippin' Over You".
I thought "Flippin' Over You" was much funnier than "You Are So Rare To Me".
The "release", or middle part of "Flippin' Over You" involved Carl Reiner and Howard Morris laying out so Sid could handle it by himself.
And he sang, at breakneck speed, "Flippin' and a floppin' and a floppin' and a flippin' and a flippin' and a floppin' and a floppin' and a flippin'
Flippin' and a floppin' and a floppin' and a flippin', yop pop pop pop pop pop pop, pow!"

That's not what I'm referring to either.
Nor I'm I referring to old time character actor Jay C. Flippen, whom to my knowledge, was never involved in floppin'.

What I am referring to is a filmic device that I've only seen employed in sitcoms.
I first became aware of the term by Garry Marshall.
It was a device we employed occasionally on his shows.
Probably most often on "The Odd Couple".
It involved the actual optical flipping of the picture that was used when a character indicated some resistance to doing something.
The "flip" implied that time has passed, and the character's resistance has been broken down.
The set-up line most often associated with "flips" is a male character saying "You're not going to get me into a dress"
Flip to: that character all gussied up in a dress.
Not the most sophisticated device ever conceived of.
And I've never seen it employed in a movie or in a theatre.
But done with good timing, it can be at least somewhat effective.

Lately, the flip has been used without the optic device.
It used to be often accompanied by a musical slide up the scale of a xylophone.
Now, it has been refined to a straight cut, but it's effect is the same.

And lately, it has been overused by of all people, my hero Chuck Lorre.
Last week, Alan Harper was in his bedroom with his girlfriend.
He said something untoward towards her.
Flip to: Alan leaving the bedroom, blanket in hand.
They used it as a running gag in the episode, and in that context, it was kind of funny.

The following week, Alan's mother (Holland Taylor) invites Ashton Kutsher in for a drink, assuring him that she has no designs on him.
Flip to: The two of them under the covers in the after-glow.
It was quite predictable, and that's when they lost me.

In the very next half-hour, on "Mike and Molly", it was their Halloween Show,
Molly was all dressed up to go to a party as the Bride of Frankenstein.
She wanted Mike to go as Frankenstein.
And we actually had a minute and a half of "You're not getting me into that costume"
Flip to: The two of them in their car, Mike behind the wheel, covered in green makeup, all decked out as Frankenstein.
I can't imagine that there was anyone who did not see this coming.
So Chuck Lorre has become enamored of the Flip.

Flipping in itself is not an atrocious idea.
But one must be judicious about it.
You can't use it too often, or your audience will be waiting for it.
And not happily.

And your flippin' will be floppin'.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

In-Tuh-Gray-Shun.

My mother fancied herself quite the interior decorator.

This was quite fancy on her part, as nothing in our apartment when I was a teenager, or any other time since, ever matched anything else in it.
And her taste ranged from gaudy to gaudiEST.

And she didn't react well to criticism about her handiwork.
When we lived in a medium two-and-a-half bedroom apartment in Flushing Queens, there was a dining area.
Not quite a dining room.
And my mother decided that what the dining area table needed over it was as large and as glitzy a chandelier as could be found.
And she found it.
And she hung it over the table.
And there was this constant fear among the rest of us that the weight of it would cause it to come crashing down
on us during the main course.
Alluding to it, my sister said one of the funniest things ever attributed to her:
"This thing should be hanging in the lobby of the Loewe's Valencia".

This is a line that plays best in New York, where the Loewe's Valencia was known as the most lavish movie palace this side of Grauman's Chinese.
But you get the idea.

The emitting of this line from my sister's mouth not only caused me to do a spit take with my potato latkes,
it also reduced my mother to tears.
So my sister, of course, had mixed feelings about saying it.

Shortly after that, undaunted, my mother offered to have my sister's room repainted.
There was nothing spiteful about this.
She was simply looking to exercise her creative muscles once again.
And she had a concept.
Knowing that my sister was a young teenager, and aspired to be "cool", she offered up the bold notion
of having two of the opposing walls painted stark black, and the other two walls painted stark white.

My sister, in spite of my mother's track record, indulged her.
This may have had something to do with feeling bad about the "Loewe's Valencia" remark.

So, much as Picasso approached a canvas, my mother approached the bedroom walls.
Once again, the word "monstrosity" would have been charitable.
My sister was appalled.
But the deed was done, and she lived with the horrendous result.

And I only added salt to the wound by, upon each and every entrance to my sister's room, saying "In-tuh-gray-shun".
The natural implication that this was a heavy-handed statement about
racial equality.

Recalling this, and posting about casting as I have the last few outings, reminded me of some ongoing racism that I don't think you hear too much about in public, but I used to hear about all the time in private.

It is not a particularly well-kept secret in Hollywood that actors, particularly actors who haven't broken through to stardom, but are working on regular series, would much rather be the only black actor on a predominantly white show, or the only white actor on a predominantly black show.
Simply because there is a better chance that they'll get noticed.
Their agents were always advising them that if they had a choice, to go with the one with the racial contrast.

Think about it: Would Jim Carrey have broken through after kicking around all those years if he wasn't Fire Marshall Bill on "In Living Color"?

Would Sherman Hemsley have become a star after kicking around all those years before George Jefferson on "All In The Family"?
What about Esther Rolle? Around forever until she was Florida on "Maude".
You might notice that they weren't offering any spinoffs to Rue McLanahan or Adrienne Barbeau.

For most working actors, the most they want is token In-tuh-gray-shun, where they are the tokens.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Invasion Of The Pod People. 5.

"WTF with Marc Maron" was my introduction to Podcasts, shortly after my introduction to the IPhone, thus introducting me to ITunes, thus offering me the challenge of figuring out what the hell to do with Itunes. Or, as Marc Maron would say, WTF to do with ITunes.
WTF stands for exactly what you'd think it stands for.
And if you have no imagination, he regularly spells it out for you.
Marc Maron is, first and foremost, a comedian.
A very good one.
And his subject matter on the Podcast is, first and foremost, comedy.
He talks about it directly to the listener.
He talks about it to his guest, who is usually one of his contemporaries, in a studio.
He also, in about one out of five shows, does a live podcast at a Comedy Club venue, where there are about five comedians who do stand-up, along with talking to Marc.
In these shows, there is much interaction between the comics.

In all of the above, Maron bears his inner soul.
He wears his heart on his sleeve.
He can be excruciatingly honest.
Especially about his personal failures.
But in a very entertaining way.

The usual dynamic casts you, the listener, as a psychiatrist, and him as your very entertaining patient.
But none of it seems contrived.
He just needs to share his pain with the immediate world, and he does it in a very funny way.
Listening to Marc Maron got me through last night's excruciating World Series game. (Yes, I had money on St. Louis.)
Because what he was going through was a lot more excruciating than what I was.
If you're at all interested in the inner workings of comedy, you should really give him a try.
And if there are other Podcasts out there that I have missed, that you think I or my other readers might be interested in, don't hesitate to let me know about them.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Invasion Of The Pod People. 4.

The other Pod Person I was referring to as one of the three I listen to regularly is Stephen Tobolowsky, a very steadily working character, who hosts "The Tobolowsky Files" as his Podcast.

I first discovered Stephen Tobolowsky when he was a guest on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, and realized, that to my knowledge, I had never seen him before, and was totally unfamiliar with his work as an actor.

Being one of the few who has never seen "Groundhog's Day", in which he had a significant part, my only subsequent sampling of his acting work was on an episode of "Law and Order:Criminal Intent", which is now the show that fills up my Tivo.

Once the regular "Law and Order" and "Law and Order L.A." went off, I was ready to give uo the ghost.
But my wife strongly recommended "Criminal Intent" as a show I would glom onto.
I was hooked from the first episode I saw, and have built up a collection on the Tivo.
One of the first episodes I saw was one where Stephen Tobolowsky guest starred.
And I recognized him from Kevin Pollak's show.
I haven't seen him in anything else acting-wise, but now, I have been on a constant lookout.
Maybe I'll get my hands on "Groundhog's Day".

When he did Pollak's show, he told stories that were totally mesmerizing, and quite structured.
He is also a writer, and for many years was romantically linked to the wonderful playwright and screenwriter Beth Henley.
It would not shock me if some of his writing talent came from hanging around with Ms. Henley and having osmosis seep through.

But he is a brilliant writer in his own right.
On his show, he works with a co-host, who primarily serves to introduce Stephen, and Stephen takes it from there, talking directly to his audience.
And what he provides is literature.
He makes no bones about having prepared what he's going to say by writing it out first.
I identify most closely to what he does than what the ones in the other Podcasts do.
I like to think that what he does verbally is closest to what I attempt to do on the page.
I think that I approach things with more overall humor, and he approaches things with a little more darkness and irony.

But at our best, I think we both indulge in telling ripping yarns.
He has a warmth and charm that I don't nearly possess as much of, at least on the page.
And his is a very friendly experience.
The Podcast runs just about an hour.

I recommend it highly.

I have also realized that there is a fourth podcast that I listen to just as regularly, and I will discuss that one next time.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Invasion Of The Pod People. 3.

Continuing on with the Pod People, today I'll be talking about "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show"
Kevin Pollak is a great comedian, and an extraordinary mimic.
For the uninformed, his current specialties in that regard are Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, Albert Brooks, and Christopher Walken.
There is a major visual component to each of these impressions, which he will launch into at the drop of a chapeau.
He is very big on chapeaus. Always wearing one.
So the fact that this podcast is also televised is very helpful.

Unlike Larry Miller's which runs approximately 35 minutes in length, Pollak's runs between two and two and a half hours.
And it is primarily an interview show.
He has one guest per show, ranging from fairly well-known actors to Giants of the Industry.
But it is always about Show Business, and this appeals to me.

In a previous post, "Why I Miss Tom Snyder", I bemoaned the passing of interview shows where the idea is to have extended interesting conversation.
This is what Pollak provides, and is primarily why it is worth your time.
Pollak is a first-rate interviewer.
He works in the rarefied air of expecting his audience to know almost as much about Show Business as he does.

The visual trappings are very similar to that of the Charlie Rose Show, without the somnambulistic similarities.
Aside from his guest, he has two other people filling two other seats that are on camera quite a bit: his young girlfriend, Jamie Foxx (yes, there is another one) and a young actor/friend named Samm Levine (yes, there is another one, for you old Jewish theatregoers out there).

Pollak spends very little time talking directly to the audience, preferring to talk directly to Jamie or Samm or his guest.
Much like Howard Stern does.
This does not rob us of any entertainment value.

There are, in my view, some minor excesses.
He likes to indulge in a patronizing game called "Who Tweeted?", where the object is for he and his guest to determine who, among Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks, and Justin Bieber, made the mindless Tweet that is quoted.
This doesn't imply that they don't deserve to be patronized.
I suppose this was funny the first time, but they do it every week.

He tends to fawn over his guests.
The bigger the guest, the bigger the fawning.

He shows some mock (I THINK it's mock) contempt for his viewers, having no trouble telling them individually to go fuck themselves at the drop of another chapeau.

He closes each show with his catchphrase,"Get out of my face".

But I am a fan of well-done mean-spiritedness, and that's what this is.
For regular readers here, I'm sure you notice that I indulge in it my own self fairly often.
So if Pollak should perchance read this, I would wear the "Go Fuck Yourself" hurled in my direction as a Badge of Honor.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Invasion Of The Pod People. 2.

I mentioned last time that I was going to discuss the three Podcasts that I listen to regularly.
I'm going to start off with, admittedly, my favorite, "This Week With Larry Miller"
It would only be fair to point out that I'm somewhat prejudiced, because of the three, Larry Miller is the only one of the Podcast hosts who is actually my friend.
I've never met the others.
Maybe if I knew them, I'd like their shows just as well.
But such is not the case, and maybe I just don't know what I'm missing.

However, Larry and I go back more than twenty-eight years, ever since he appeared in one of my plays.
He is a master comedian, actor, and more important, for Podcast purposes, storyteller.

Listening to his Podcast is very much like an experience I've shared with him many times: having lunch with him.
In a broadcast from last March, entitled "Cracking Spines..." he referred to me by name, and talked about my play, and how terrific it was.
This was the only time it didn't feel like we were having lunch.
But it was certainly nice to hear.

Unlike the other Podcasts I listen to, Larry is the only one who talks directly to you.
It's unscripted and never needs to be scripted.
Larry is hilarious off-the-cuff.

One of the others is in fact scripted, and sounds it, but it is scripted very well.
The other is the host talking to a guest and his two cohorts, very much in the Howard Stern style.

Larry is the only one who flies solo and a capella.

The major tone here is joviality.
When you simply want to feel good about things, you listen to Larry.
He is always upbeat, and always respectful of others.
Far more than I am.
I spoke to him on the phone yesterday to alert him that I was going to be writing about him today.
I did the math, and figured out that we hadn't spoken in eight years.
But as it is with so many friendships, we picked up right where we left off.
We didn't miss a beat.

I reminded him of the funniest thing I remember him saying to me.
When we were in rehearsals for the play, I had recently acquired a new girlfriend.
She had coerced me to start wearing cologne.
A cologne that she picked out.
Now, I really didn't want to louse up this relationship this early, so I indulged her.
And if you knew or know me, you'd know the words "Rothman" and "cologne" rarely appear in the same sentence.
So my flirtation with cologne was a brief one.
But when it was ongoing, I had returned after lunch to the rehearsal, with my girlfriend in tow, and the cologne drenching my pores.

Immediately upon our entering the theatre, Larry sidled up to me and said, "Ah!!!! I see you've just returned from the Cologne Store!"

The ensuing laugh I got from it, and the embarrassment I felt, are what made the experiment short-lived.

At Larry's website, he has an Amazon banner, so if you ever feel the need to purchase anything from Amazon, it would be nice if you clicked on Larry's banner first.
It helps line his pockets with silver, and I can't think of anyone more deserving.
It can take you to the Amazon Kindle Store, where, as you know by now, my books are available for purchase, or if you have the need, it can always take you to the Amazon Cologne Store.


*****

The Invasion Of The Pod People.

Part of the reason that this is the Golden Age of Television has to do with the Internet, and in fact, radio.
There is this fairly recent development that has shown up on the Net, and on Itunes called Podcasts.

I'm sure many of you are aware of them.
Maybe you even listen to some of them yourselves.

They are another version of Talk Radio, sometimes simulcast visually.
But the accent isn't on politics, as so such Talk Radio is.
Rather, the accent is on comedy.
I suppose their nearest antecedent is Howard Stern.
But the ones I listen to and/or watch are more for adults.
For generally Show-Biz hip adults.

At this point, I pretty much just listen, whether they are televised or not.
That's why it makes Television better.
It allows you to multi-task.
You can listen to these Podcasts while you have the sound off on your TV.
I particularly do this when I'm watching some sporting event.

I can't recall the last time I needed to hear anything a sportscaster was saying during a ballgame or a fight.
Unless I was dealing with Vin Scully.
But most of the time, I'm not.

So the Podcasts win out every time.

I guess I could have always just listened to the radio during a sporting event.
But in the past, there wasn't anything I necessarily wanted to hear.

But these Podcasts are archived.
You can listen to any episode of any one of them any time you want to.
No least objectionable programming for me.

The three main ones I listen to these days are "This Week With Larry Miller", (hosted by, of all people, Larry Miller) "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show", and "The Tobolowski Files", hosted by a character actor who has a ton of credits but whom I was unfamiliar with until he appeared on "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show", Stephen Tobolowski.

What these Podcasts have in common is that they are all hosted by working actors, all out of Los Angeles, and all mesmerizing, and for the most part hilarious, storytellers.

If you like what I do on these pages, you'll like what they do verbally.

Over the next few posts, I will discuss each of these Podcasts in some depth.
In the interim, you should seek them out yourselves.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

A Close Encounter With Robert Evans.

On the Current Channel, the one that houses Keith Olbermann these days, there is a program that follows it every night,
called "50 Documentaries You Should See Before You Die".
Mixed in with most of Michael Moore's movies is one called "The Kid Stays In The Picture".
This is a documentary biography of movie mogul Robert Evans.
I saw it not too long ago.
It is very entertaining, as was the book it was based on, which was an autobiography.
Evans narrates it himself.
Is it a documentary I should see before I die?
Not necessarily.
This, by the way, is how Evans talks throughout the picture.
It could have also been called "The Kid Asks Himself Questions And Answers Them Himself Throughout The Picture".

On Ali McGraw: "Did I want her the first time I laid eyes on her? You bet I did".

You get the idea.

Evans was Head of Production at Paramount Pictures at the same time I was working on "The Odd Couple" there.
Was Evans, in fact, instrumental in getting the "Odd Couple" movie made there?
You bet he was.
Was Evans responsible for putting together such classics as "Rosemary's Baby". "Love Story", "The Godfather" and "Chinatown"?
Was he ever.
He had quite a successful run.

Did things start going sour for Evans with "Popeye, "The Two Jakes" and "The Cotton Club"?
Did it ever.
There was even talk, though unsubstantiated, that he was involved in the "Cotton Club Murder Case", in which others were sent to prison for the murder of potential producer/investor Roy Radin.

As a sidebar, when I was producing "New Odd CUPPle", I used to see this big overweight shlubby-looking guy with stringy hair,who walked around in a raincoat, regardless of the fact that this was Southern California, hanging around the set.
Turns out, he was Roy Radin, and he was Demond Wilson's manager.
This accounted for his presence.
That was my close encounter with Roy Radin, who didn't survive much longer after that.

As for my close encounter with Robert Evans, it was common knowledge, when he ran Paramount, that he drove around in this gaudy black-and gold Rolls-Royce. Or maybe it was a Bentley.
Whichever, it certainly was gaudy.
And you knew it was his, because it was parked in the parking space with his name on it.

His office was on the other side of the lot from mine.
I had a used, beat-up light blue Volkswagen Beetle at the time.

For whatever reason, I was about to leave the lot in my Beetle one late afternoon.
Reaching the turn to the main gate at the precise moment was Evans in his gaudy Rolls or Bentley.
I mean THE precise moment.

But I had the right of way.
I had a right turn to make, and he had a left turn.
He started to edge into the turning space ahead of me.
I quickly darted in ahead of him and cut him off, proceeding to the main gate.

Was I proud of myself? You bet I was.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Chocolate Milk Pecking Order.

First, let me rank the specialty items, in descending order.

1) A New York Luncheonette Egg Cream.
Pure Heaven.
2) Any smoothie you can make in your blender, customized to taste.
3) Dairy Queen's chocolate shake. A superior store-bought product.
4) In-N-Out Burger's extremely cheap and extremely good chocolate shake.
5) Bottom of the barrell: McDonald's chocolate shake with whatever the hell they put in there.

Those were the prelims.
Now, for the main event.

The rankings of chocolate milk, in descending order.

1) Chocolate milk made with Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup.
Fox's U-Bet is primarily a New York thing.
The best chocolate syrup on the market.
Most, if not all Egg Creams are made with Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup.
Out here in Michigan, and in California, Fox's U-Bet can be found in the Kosher section of most supermarkets.
And it costs a pretty penny.
But it's worth it.

2) Yoo Hoo Chocolate syrup. Again, big in New York.
Not to be confused with Yoo Hoo chocolate drink, which is decidedly watered down.
I'm not even sure if the syrup still exists, but if it does, and it has retained it's quality, it's just about as good as Fox's U-Bet.

3) Hershey's Chocolate syrup.
Decidedly a comedown from the first two mentioned, but nevertheless acceptable.

4) Any gallon jug of chocolate milk you can get in any supermarket.
Usually quite tasty, but cannot be found in a non fat version, for you weight watchers.

5) Bosco. A triumph of childhood marketing. But a vastly inferior product.

6) Cocoa Marsh. Three steps below Bosco. Heavily advertised when I was a kid. Don't believe they make it any more.
Claude Kirschner of "Super Circus" used to hawk the hell out of Cocoa Marsh.

7) Nestle's Quik. Didn't taste bad, but always tasted powdery.
Who needs anything that tastes powdery?

8) Ovaltine. Didn't quite taste like chocolate. Could only be drunk when hot.

9) Flav-R-Straws. The bottom of the barrel. You pour a glass of milk, stick one of these straws which contains something resembling chocolate in it, shake it up and down, you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, the "chocoate" substance is released into the milk, and provides a less than satisfying experience.

I suppose that the reason for this exercise is to expose the unenlightened to the glories of Fox's U-Bet.
Check it out and you will immediately upgrade your chocolate milk experience.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Importance Of Chocolate Milk.

Occupying Wall Street.
Occupying D.C.
Occupying Boston.
Occupying L.A.

This is important stuff.
Maybe these are revolutionary times.

You can go to all the major news outlets and hear everything there is to hear about those occupations.

But you can only come here to hear about chocolate milk.
And that's what has been occupying my mind lately.

I love a good chocolate milk.
Or chocolate shake.
Or chocolate malt.
Or chocolate smoothie.

If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?" I could be counted on to say "I would like some chocolate milk."

I also hate a bad chocolate milk.
And there's plenty of that to go around.

So let me amend that last statement: If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?", I could be counted on to say "I would like some good chocolate milk".

Just exactly when is it appropriate to have chocolate milk?
This is a subject of much debate.
Although, in my mind, it is an open and shut case.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with scrambled eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs, but not egg salad.

Any cheese is an OK accompaniment.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with a tuna fish sandwich, with mayonaisse, with or without lettuce, but definitely without tomatoes.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk as a dessert item a cappella.
But it is much more preferable to have it as a dessert item in the form of a shake or a malt, or a smoothie.

It is definitely inappropriate to have chocolate milk with something else sweet, like cake or cookies.
This is sugar overload, or overkill.

I don't believe that these are just my rules.
I think just about any Jew will tell you the same thing.

Speaking of Jews, particularly Jews from New York, we think we know more about what constitutes good chocolate milk than anyone else does.
New York City was where the Egg Cream was invented.
The Egg Cream was first found in candy stores there known as Luncheonettes.
I don't know if Luncheonettes still exist, but they certainly did in the Bronx and Queens, when I was growing up there.

The interesting thing about Egg Creams is that they contained neither eggs nor cream.

You made an Egg Cream by pouring two fingers worth of chocolate syrup into a glass, adding two fingers of milk, and filling up the rest of the glass with seltzer.

Then you stirred the glass vigorously.
The result was heaven.
Next time, I'm going to go through the litany of distinguishing good chocolate milk from bad.
In a descending pecking order.

As I see it, this too is important stuff.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

My Kind Of Town. 2.

The celebrities who showed up at the Hollywood Collectors Show essentially fell into three separate categories:

1) Those who looked extremely good, in spite of their advancing age----
I got to meet James Darren, "Moondoggie" from Gidget, who quite naturally looked like his own grandson.
It was astounding how young he looks.
I serenaded him with a chorus of "Goodbye Cruel World, I'm off to join the Circus", to which he replied "You wound me".
He was quite gracious.
Ron Ely, TV's original Tarzan, looked extremely dapper and distinguished.
As did Barry Bostwick.
As did my friends Dawn Wells and Leslie Easterbrook.

2) Those who were victimized by some bad plastic surgery.
No sense naming names here.
And

3) Those who Time decided to take into the back of an alley and beat the shit out of.
There were quite a few of them.

I sat directly across from James Hampton, whose foremost claim to fame was as the fifth lead in "F Troop"
He wasn't Larry Storch, or Ken Berry, or Forrest Tucker, or even Edward Everett Horton as Chief Roaring Chicken.

He apparently was the bugler.
I never watched "F Troop" very often.

I had hired James Hampton on an episode of "She's The Sheriff", in which he was quite dandy.
I approached him and reminded him of this and my feelings about his performance.
You've never seen a more grateful man in your life.
It even made it palatable to hear him blowing on his bugle to attract attention to himself every once in a while.
As the second day wore on, and it was becoming apparent that the goods weren't being moved as quickly and as profitably as many had hoped, the celebrities representatives started hawking their client's wares at severe discounts.
It was rather sad to watch.

A minor mystery was solved on this trip.
The actress Diane Baker had her own table.
Diane Baker was stunning when she was younger.
She is still quite a handsome woman.

I have a cousin-by-marriage who is a wonderful actor.
His name is Michael Lerner.
The lineage is that he is my father's sister's daughter's husband's brother.
Michael has specialized in roles where he plays characters who are morbidly obese.
That is because he had always been morbidly obese.
I feel that I can talk about him like this because he is my Couisin. By marriage.

He played the morbidly obese version of Arnold Rothstein in the film "Eight Men Out", in which he was wonderful.
I've never seen him not be wonderful.
I have also never seen him not be morbidly obese.
When he was much younger, the word "pudgy" would have covered it.
But he grew into himself in later years.
Michael was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film "Barton Fink".
He was magnificent in that.
I would have voted for him.
But the Award went to Jack Palance for "City Slickers".
Palance went up on stage to accept his award, and startled the audience by doing one-armed pushups.
Michael Lerner wouldn't have been able to do ANY pushups.

Along the way, Michael hired a publicist, and the publicist managed to wangle "Entertainment Tonight" to do "A day in the life of an Oscar nominee on the day of the event".

I got to see my actual cousin, who was married to Michael's brother, and when they got into the limo, there, sitting next to Michael, was Diane Baker.
Still looking stunning.
While Michael was still looking like Michael.
Not exactly a dreamboat.
This did not quite compute.
Maybe it was a studio-arranged thing?
I couldn't imagine that they were an actual item.

So when I met Diane Baker, I hit her with a barrage of questions about all of this.
According to her, she and Michael had been good friends forever.
Seemingly nothing more.
She informed me that Michael has since dropped over a hundred pounds.
Your proverbial drop in the bucket.
But at least it's a start.

I hope he's doing well, and if the family reads this, I hope they don't object to the fat jokes.
But as family can be, he has been merciless towards me in the past.
And probably will be again.

Let's hope for the best.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

My Kind Of Town.

Thought you may like to hear some of the more telling moments of my trip to Chicago for the Hollywood Collector's Show.
One of the first things I noticed when I got there is that my nameplate at my table was placed directly between Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams.

My first reaction to this was "How flattering! This should probably help me sell a lot of books.

I arrived about a half-hour before they did, and immediately sold three books.
Then the girls arrived, and all hell broke loose.

They took their places, and neither Penny or Cindy could comprehend why I was seated between them.
I was having trouble trying to figure out that one myself.
Then, they unlocked the zoo.
People came swarming out of he woodwork to pay to get their pictures taken with Penny and Cindy and Henry Winkler.
And stepping over my face in the process to get to them.
And I kept getting in everybody's way
I was completely bypassed in the deluge.
Nobody from the zoo had any interest in noticing me.
I don't think any of them were at all literate, thus wouldn't have thought to have bought a book even if they did notice me.

It's quite comforting to know that the fan base for the show that you had so much to do with it's creation were not even vaguely interested in anything but having their picture taken with the girls.
Reading anything about how the show was created could not have interested them less.
I felt that the only chance I had at selling more books would be to get the hell away from them.
I did, and book sales improved rapidly.
They do these shows in L.A. and Chicago, and I imagine that it's easier to do it in L.A., because you don't have to fly the celebrities in and put them up in hotels.
I understand that for this last show in Chicago, except for maybe one or two celebrities, the rest had to make their own way to Chicago and pay for their own accomodations.
So they already have a pretty steep nut that they have to dig themselves out of.
They were significantly in the hole before they trotted out their merchandize.
There is new management there now, so I don't know how this is going to be handled in the future.
Because I drove from Detroit and my wife is a member of the Hilton Diamond Points club, it cost me virtually nothing to make this trip.

And after selling those first three books, I was already in the black.

Next time, I will talk about some to the cee-lebs I spent some time with.

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Top Five.

Okay, sports fans, here we go!

#5
Seinfeld.
I've already written fairly extensively about it.
It's negatives are Jerry's inability to act convincingly, and the buy that you have to make that any character could quite easily run into any other character within the Metropolitan area of New York without it seeming to matter that it smacks of major coincidence.
But, as is true of every entry in the Top Five, it is gut-busting funny.
I place this entirely at the doorstep of Larry David.
"Seinfeld" was a mastery of story architechture, and Larry David is the Frank Lloyd Wright of sitcoms.
He managed to take four story lines in each episode, weave them together, and build a pyramid out of them, placing the final block on top at the end, much like one would put a maraschino cherry on top of a beautifully formed cake.
One of the results of this is that you can watch a rerun of "Seinfeld" and not recall that a particular story line was in that episode.
It was never not funny.
When it wasn't slugging you with roundhouse rights, it was peppering you with jabs.
It really never missed.

#4
Two And A Half Men.
Probably makes me laugh harder and more consistently than any other show currently on television.
I don't miss Charlie Sheen at all.
To me, it never was about Charlie Sheen.
It was always about great, punchy, imaginative storytelling and dialogue.
Chuck Lorre's best work so far.

#3.
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
A real high wire act.
Larry David working without a script.
A real further tribute to his architechtural abilities.
I'm in awe of the process, and how hard he can make me laugh with it.
He is a major comedic presence.
And it scares me how much I am like his character in real life.
Unlike "Seinfeld" and "Two and a Half Men", this is one show where the star can not walk away from it successfully.

#2
The Dick Van Dyke Show.
The first show to successfully work well in two arenas: the office, and at home.
And you wanted to go to both places.
It was one of two shows that had a great Show Runner and a great star. Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke.
It had the license, which it used liberally, to have the characters sound like comedy writers, and not cause there to be a layer of believeability missing.
That's because they WERE comedy writers.
When Van Dyke was at home, they pretty much stuck to character writing.
And you had Mary Tyler Moore in those Capri pants.
What more could a young adolescent lke myself want?

#1
Sergeant Bilko.
The other show that had a great Show Runner and a great star.
Nat Hiken and Phil Silvers.
And I think they were both more overtly great.
Never was there a show with more positive energy.
I am in awe of Nat Hiken for another reason: years later, I was in a position to cast the sitcoms I worked on.
We brought in all the old Bilko regulars to read for me at one point or another.
The only one we used consistently was Billy Sands, who played Private Papparelli.
But we also brought in people like Joe E. Ross and Al Lewis.
How Nat Hiken was able to drag acceptable, much less hilarious performances, out of them, is beyond me.

Phil Silvers was really in his prime, and Hiken gave him pretty much free rein to improvise within the context of tremendously well-crafted scripts, and he only improved upon them.
They shot thirty-nine episodes a year for five years, and to my recollection, only slightly missed on maybe two episodes.
What a tremendous batting average!
And what a high slugging percentage!
The largest overwhelmingly positive output in sitcom history.
There is no show that I would rather watch, even though I have seen them all over and over again.
Most of the others, at this point, I have no reason to go back to.

So that's it.
Feel free to disagree and express yourselves about the overall list.
Just be aware that I'm not easily swayed.

-------------------------------------------

I'm on my way to Chicago for the Hollywood Collector's Show, and will be away from my computer until next Tuesday.
Hope to see you all then.

*****

More Of The Top Ten.

Continuing on:

#9
Car 54, Where Are You?
The second greatest show from the all-time greatest show runner, Nat Hiken.
Probably among the best single-camera sitcoms ever produced.
Hiken had a great sense of editing technique.
Always knew how to cut to the joke and away from the joke, to make the jokes even funnier.
The show had a very New York Jewish sensibility.
It had great imaginative storytelling.

One entire episode was devoted in trying to convince one of the patrolmen that it was Thursday instead of Friday.
This requires imagination.
It had great dialogue, which was Hiken's signature.
The only thing it didn't have was a major star to carry the proceedings, like he had with Phil Silvers.
It's two leads were essentially supporting players.
More help was needed.
But Hiken so outclassed the competition in all other respects, then and now, that I rank "Car 54" this highly.

#8
The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
A true groundbreaker.
It gave every young woman something to aspire to.
The writing was top-notch.
The surrounding cast was first-rate (except for Gavin McLeod, often referred to as the world's luckiest white man).
Great storytelling.
Who knew before this that Ed Asner was funny?
The "Chuckles The Clown Bites The Dust" episode deserves all the accolades it received.
Mary even transcended Laura Petrie, and that's saying something.

#7
The Jack Benny Show.
The real shame of it all is that every year, fewer and fewer people remember him.
His show was brilliant.
Brilliantly written, brilliantly performed.
It relied heavily on the use of "callbacks'----setting up a joke early in the script, and paying it off unexpectedly later on to hilarious effect.

Benny created such an indelible character, someone so vain, so cheap, so petty, such a crappy violinist, and made you love him for it.
He invented the concept of making sure that everyone else was funny around him, often just playing straight to the other characters.
And this worked because all the other characters' jokes were essentially about HIM.

That he has faded from America's consciousness is a disgrace.
I have a cousin, a smart kid, whom twenty years ago, when he was a teenager, engaged me in a conversation about sitcoms.
I asked him what he thought about Jack Benny.
He replied, "Oh, he's pretty funny. The way he chases around those English girls and they speed up the tape...."
He thought I was referring to Benny Hill.
He had never heard of Jack Benny.
And that was over TWENTY YEARS AGO.
Jack Benny should be forcefully re-injected into the public's consciousness.

#6
Louie.
Louis C.K. is perhaps the most inventive performer on the current scene.
Easily the best stand-up comic we have.
He is very much the auteur of "Louie".
Besides writing, producing, directing, and performing in it, he even edits it.
A man in total control.
It started out being what "Seinfeld" started out being----a way to show that his real life was distilled into his stand-up routines.
Except on "Seinfeld", I never believed a word of it.
It was a concept that they gave up on rather early.
Louie has been doing the same thing.
Except with Louie, you believe EVERY WORD of it.
As a result, you often see a man in pain going through life, wishing it was something else.
This makes it darker than most sitcoms.
It has the ability to be gut-busting funny.
It also has the freedom which he takes to virtually NEVER be funny during the entire half-hour.
But it is always fascinating, as is he, and you are always in total awe of what he is doing.
He did an episode with Joan Rivers this year, which, if there is any justice, she should win an Emmy for.

Next, we approach the top five.

-------------------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******