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.
*****
Monday, October 17, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Saturday, October 8, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Thursday, October 6, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
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.
******
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.
******
Thursday, September 29, 2011
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.
*****
#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.
*****
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
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.
******
#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.
******
Friday, September 23, 2011
The Top Ten List---- #10.
There has never been a show as quotable as #10 on my Top Ten list.
Therefore, I am devoting most of this page to notable quotes from this series, and I'll get to the other nine anon.
#10
The Honeymooners.
Some pertinent quotes:
Pipsqueak in the poolhall: I've got a friend named Harvey who's bigger than me.
Ralph: I've got a friend named Shirley who's bigger than you!
Norton: In the words of the immortal Pierre Francois De La Brioschi, "La Plume......"
Ralph: Aww, shuddup!
Ralph: See? That's the difference between you and me, Alice. You're the kind of person who'd bend way over on April Fools Day to pick up a quarter. I wouldn't.
Alice: You couldn't!
Ralph: Wait a minute! What's goin' on here?
Alice: Ralph, Carlos is teaching us the Mambo.
Ralph: Ohhhhh! Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo. Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo.
For a minute there I didn't know WHAT you were doin'. Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo..........
Everybody out!
Mrs. Manicotti: But Mister Kramden, it's fun!
Ralph: And YOU, at YOUR age, should be ashamed of yourself!
Ralph: (To his Mother-In-Law, after many catty remarks by her)
YOU are a Blah-bermouth!!!
Mother-In-Law: Well I never.......
Ralph: YOU! Blabbermouth! OUT!! OUT!!!
Quizmaster: And what do you do for a living, Mr. Kramden?
Ralph: Homma, homma, homma, I brive a dus.....
Ralph (to Alice): Hoo hoo, are you going to get yours! Bang! Zoom!
Alice (reacting to Ralph's balking at buying a TV set): Well I don't want to look at that sink, that icebox, that stove, and these four walls!
I wanna look at Liberace!!!!
Ralph: (Filling out a questionaire for Norton's job application) "What do you think of the applicant's overall character?"
(As he's writing) The--applicant--is--a BUM!!!!
Ralph: The first thing it says here is to take the club, approach the tee, and address the ball.
Norton: (Following instructions)......Hello ball!
Ralph: How'd you like to go sailin' over the Clubhouse, Alice??!!
Norton (As the Chef of the Past): And who, pray tell, are you?
Ralph (As the petrified-by-the-camera Chef of the Future) Homina homina homina Chef adda Future!!
Norton: So tell me oh Chef of the Future, what does your Handy Housewife Helper do? Can it core a apple?
Ralph: Ooohh, it can core a apple......hah hah!
Ralph: (To Alice) Baby, you're the greatest!
Ralph Kramden was one of the great comedy protagonists of all time.
He was played so realistically by Jackie Gleason that you always felt his pain, which was almost always intense.
Ed Norton, as played by Art Carney, was a perfect comic character.
It would be impossible to capture in quotes all the times that Norton, in attempting to line up a billiard shot, or to write something,
would flail his arms interminably, in front of Ralph, causing Ralph to completely lose it and smack Norton on the back, and yell
"Come on!!!!!!"
The acting was usually better than the writing. Whenever they went for jokes, they more often than not just laid there.
And all of these quotes can be found in the original 39 episodes.
When Gleason unlocked the vault, and exhumed the "Lost Episodes", they proved to be not nearly in the same league as the original 39.
Very little to quote there.
Still......baby, you were one of the greatest!
-------------------------------------------------
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 the second hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. The first hour is in their archives, and the second hour will be next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Therefore, I am devoting most of this page to notable quotes from this series, and I'll get to the other nine anon.
#10
The Honeymooners.
Some pertinent quotes:
Pipsqueak in the poolhall: I've got a friend named Harvey who's bigger than me.
Ralph: I've got a friend named Shirley who's bigger than you!
Norton: In the words of the immortal Pierre Francois De La Brioschi, "La Plume......"
Ralph: Aww, shuddup!
Ralph: See? That's the difference between you and me, Alice. You're the kind of person who'd bend way over on April Fools Day to pick up a quarter. I wouldn't.
Alice: You couldn't!
Ralph: Wait a minute! What's goin' on here?
Alice: Ralph, Carlos is teaching us the Mambo.
Ralph: Ohhhhh! Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo. Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo.
For a minute there I didn't know WHAT you were doin'. Carlos is teachin' you the Mambo..........
Everybody out!
Mrs. Manicotti: But Mister Kramden, it's fun!
Ralph: And YOU, at YOUR age, should be ashamed of yourself!
Ralph: (To his Mother-In-Law, after many catty remarks by her)
YOU are a Blah-bermouth!!!
Mother-In-Law: Well I never.......
Ralph: YOU! Blabbermouth! OUT!! OUT!!!
Quizmaster: And what do you do for a living, Mr. Kramden?
Ralph: Homma, homma, homma, I brive a dus.....
Ralph (to Alice): Hoo hoo, are you going to get yours! Bang! Zoom!
Alice (reacting to Ralph's balking at buying a TV set): Well I don't want to look at that sink, that icebox, that stove, and these four walls!
I wanna look at Liberace!!!!
Ralph: (Filling out a questionaire for Norton's job application) "What do you think of the applicant's overall character?"
(As he's writing) The--applicant--is--a BUM!!!!
Ralph: The first thing it says here is to take the club, approach the tee, and address the ball.
Norton: (Following instructions)......Hello ball!
Ralph: How'd you like to go sailin' over the Clubhouse, Alice??!!
Norton (As the Chef of the Past): And who, pray tell, are you?
Ralph (As the petrified-by-the-camera Chef of the Future) Homina homina homina Chef adda Future!!
Norton: So tell me oh Chef of the Future, what does your Handy Housewife Helper do? Can it core a apple?
Ralph: Ooohh, it can core a apple......hah hah!
Ralph: (To Alice) Baby, you're the greatest!
Ralph Kramden was one of the great comedy protagonists of all time.
He was played so realistically by Jackie Gleason that you always felt his pain, which was almost always intense.
Ed Norton, as played by Art Carney, was a perfect comic character.
It would be impossible to capture in quotes all the times that Norton, in attempting to line up a billiard shot, or to write something,
would flail his arms interminably, in front of Ralph, causing Ralph to completely lose it and smack Norton on the back, and yell
"Come on!!!!!!"
The acting was usually better than the writing. Whenever they went for jokes, they more often than not just laid there.
And all of these quotes can be found in the original 39 episodes.
When Gleason unlocked the vault, and exhumed the "Lost Episodes", they proved to be not nearly in the same league as the original 39.
Very little to quote there.
Still......baby, you were one of the greatest!
-------------------------------------------------
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 the second hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. The first hour is in their archives, and the second hour will be next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Top Five Honorables.
As we head into the Top Five Honorable Mentions before we get to the actual Top Ten list, you'll see some rather exotic choices.
Without further ado:
#5
It's A Great Life.
This is a show that probably most of you have never heard of.
It was on for two seasons on NBC in 1954 and 1955.
It was wonderfully funny.
I remember seeing it when I was in the fourth and fifth grade, and remember laughing my head off.
I also saw a whole lot of episodes of it on cable on something known as the Nostalgia Channel about ten years ago.
It was as funny as I remember it being in the fifties.
It starred Michael O'Shea, James Dunn, and William Bishop.
For the most part, not exactly household names.
Michael O'Shea made some minor movies, and had minor parts in major movies.
He was probably best known for being married to actress Virginia Mayo.
Michael O'Shea was a GREAT comic actor.
He talked with his hands.
In a most unique fashion.
James Dunn had won an Oscar ten years previously for his role as the father in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn".
He was wonderful in that.
He was not required to be funny in that.
If not for "It's A Great Life", no one would have had any idea how funny he was.
William Bishop was the handsome straight man who was really just there along for the ride.
O'Shea and Bishop played WWII veterans who sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
For whatever reason (I never really knew) they were boarders at Earl and Amy Morgan's house.
James Dunn was Earl, usually called "Uncle Earl", and was the laziest cheapest man on earth.
Amy was Frances Bavier, creating the mold for Aunt Bee some five years later. But much funnier than Aunt Bee ever was.
It was as good as it was because of the writing.
It was run by two of the most unheralded writers ever in the trenches-----
Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat.
They were brilliant storytellers and dialogue writers.
My other primary contact with their work was on the Phil Harris-Alice Faye radio show.
Arguably the funniest radio show ever. Certainly the best written.
I'll make that argument, anyway.
And I'll write about it more extensively at some point.
There's an episode of "It's a Great Life" on YouTube, but for whatever reason, Michael O'Shea isn't in it.
So it's not one of it's best.
But it does capture the flavor of it, and most of all, it's almost breakneck pace.
#4
I'm Dickens, He's Fenster.
John Astin and Marty Ingels teamed up as a pair of carpenters.
Both men are excruciatingly funny in it.
I think it only ran one or two seasons on ABC in the early sixties.
Leonard Stern, also responsible for the writing on "He and She", was in command here.
He did great work.
#3
Extras.
My first real taste of Ricky Gervais.
Very British, very realistic, extremely funny look at show business across the pond, from the point of view of some of it's least successful denizens.
Makes me wish I'd seen the British version of "The Office.
#2
It's Garry Shandling's Show.
Broke the fourth wall in very much the same way they did on "Burns and Allen"
He must have been highly influenced by that show.
It was quite innovative in it's own way.
My favorite episode was one they did with Red Buttons as a guest star.
I will devote an entire post to Red Buttons at some point and describe what he did on this show.
But he was hilarious, as was Shandling with him.
#1
The Larry Sanders Show.
Very much a breakthrough for how sitcoms could be done.
Hilarious on so many levels.
Realistic on so many levels.
Great cast, particularly Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor.
Really a borderline Top Ten choice.
Next time, the actual Top Ten begins, with #10 through 6.
-------------------------------------------------
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 the second hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. The first hour is in their archives, and the second hour will be next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Without further ado:
#5
It's A Great Life.
This is a show that probably most of you have never heard of.
It was on for two seasons on NBC in 1954 and 1955.
It was wonderfully funny.
I remember seeing it when I was in the fourth and fifth grade, and remember laughing my head off.
I also saw a whole lot of episodes of it on cable on something known as the Nostalgia Channel about ten years ago.
It was as funny as I remember it being in the fifties.
It starred Michael O'Shea, James Dunn, and William Bishop.
For the most part, not exactly household names.
Michael O'Shea made some minor movies, and had minor parts in major movies.
He was probably best known for being married to actress Virginia Mayo.
Michael O'Shea was a GREAT comic actor.
He talked with his hands.
In a most unique fashion.
James Dunn had won an Oscar ten years previously for his role as the father in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn".
He was wonderful in that.
He was not required to be funny in that.
If not for "It's A Great Life", no one would have had any idea how funny he was.
William Bishop was the handsome straight man who was really just there along for the ride.
O'Shea and Bishop played WWII veterans who sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door.
For whatever reason (I never really knew) they were boarders at Earl and Amy Morgan's house.
James Dunn was Earl, usually called "Uncle Earl", and was the laziest cheapest man on earth.
Amy was Frances Bavier, creating the mold for Aunt Bee some five years later. But much funnier than Aunt Bee ever was.
It was as good as it was because of the writing.
It was run by two of the most unheralded writers ever in the trenches-----
Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat.
They were brilliant storytellers and dialogue writers.
My other primary contact with their work was on the Phil Harris-Alice Faye radio show.
Arguably the funniest radio show ever. Certainly the best written.
I'll make that argument, anyway.
And I'll write about it more extensively at some point.
There's an episode of "It's a Great Life" on YouTube, but for whatever reason, Michael O'Shea isn't in it.
So it's not one of it's best.
But it does capture the flavor of it, and most of all, it's almost breakneck pace.
#4
I'm Dickens, He's Fenster.
John Astin and Marty Ingels teamed up as a pair of carpenters.
Both men are excruciatingly funny in it.
I think it only ran one or two seasons on ABC in the early sixties.
Leonard Stern, also responsible for the writing on "He and She", was in command here.
He did great work.
#3
Extras.
My first real taste of Ricky Gervais.
Very British, very realistic, extremely funny look at show business across the pond, from the point of view of some of it's least successful denizens.
Makes me wish I'd seen the British version of "The Office.
#2
It's Garry Shandling's Show.
Broke the fourth wall in very much the same way they did on "Burns and Allen"
He must have been highly influenced by that show.
It was quite innovative in it's own way.
My favorite episode was one they did with Red Buttons as a guest star.
I will devote an entire post to Red Buttons at some point and describe what he did on this show.
But he was hilarious, as was Shandling with him.
#1
The Larry Sanders Show.
Very much a breakthrough for how sitcoms could be done.
Hilarious on so many levels.
Realistic on so many levels.
Great cast, particularly Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor.
Really a borderline Top Ten choice.
Next time, the actual Top Ten begins, with #10 through 6.
-------------------------------------------------
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 the second hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. The first hour is in their archives, and the second hour will be next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Next-To-The Last Honorables
I've got 10 Honorable Mention candidates left, and I'm back on numerical track.
So I'll list and describe them over the next two posts as #20 down to #11.
Then, we will get to the actual Top Ten, numbered from #10 to #1.
Here we go:
#20
Lotsa' Luck.
Dom Deluise as bus driver Stanley Belmont, and Kathleen Freeman as his mother.
One of the funniest comic actors ever, and arguably the funniest mother ever.
Stanley is beseiged weekly by his family who lives with him.
Great writing. Simply hilarious.
#19
Dharma and Greg.
More of a salute to Chuck Lorre's brilliance.
And I was and am in love with Jenna Elfman.
It's neck and neck between her and Lisa Kudrow.
Great supporting cast as well.
#18
Mike and Molly.
Yet even more of a salute to Chuck Lorre's brilliance.
Everyone in the cast is quite appealing.
Maybe if there was more of a sampling of it, it would rate even higher.
#17
Mister Peepers.
From the early to mid-fifties.
A very gently performed, witty comedy.
Wally Cox as a shy junior high school science teacher.
He was brilliant.
It also introduced Tony Randall as one of the other teachers, Harvey Weskit, which allowed him to perfect the character he played later on in
all those Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies.
And it had Marion Lorne.
If you'd only known her from "Bewitched" or "The Garry Moore Show", mumbling her way through life, you have no concept of just how funny she was. That's where she did her BEST mumbling. What a hoot!
#16
Friends.
Ostensibly born as a "Seinfeld" ripoff, it had very finely drawn characters.
It was hugely funny.
It had everybody in love with everybody else.
In a good way.
It had Lisa Kudrow.
'Nuff said.
Numbers 15 through 11 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 the first hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. It will remain in their archives, and the second hour will be posted this week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
So I'll list and describe them over the next two posts as #20 down to #11.
Then, we will get to the actual Top Ten, numbered from #10 to #1.
Here we go:
#20
Lotsa' Luck.
Dom Deluise as bus driver Stanley Belmont, and Kathleen Freeman as his mother.
One of the funniest comic actors ever, and arguably the funniest mother ever.
Stanley is beseiged weekly by his family who lives with him.
Great writing. Simply hilarious.
#19
Dharma and Greg.
More of a salute to Chuck Lorre's brilliance.
And I was and am in love with Jenna Elfman.
It's neck and neck between her and Lisa Kudrow.
Great supporting cast as well.
#18
Mike and Molly.
Yet even more of a salute to Chuck Lorre's brilliance.
Everyone in the cast is quite appealing.
Maybe if there was more of a sampling of it, it would rate even higher.
#17
Mister Peepers.
From the early to mid-fifties.
A very gently performed, witty comedy.
Wally Cox as a shy junior high school science teacher.
He was brilliant.
It also introduced Tony Randall as one of the other teachers, Harvey Weskit, which allowed him to perfect the character he played later on in
all those Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies.
And it had Marion Lorne.
If you'd only known her from "Bewitched" or "The Garry Moore Show", mumbling her way through life, you have no concept of just how funny she was. That's where she did her BEST mumbling. What a hoot!
#16
Friends.
Ostensibly born as a "Seinfeld" ripoff, it had very finely drawn characters.
It was hugely funny.
It had everybody in love with everybody else.
In a good way.
It had Lisa Kudrow.
'Nuff said.
Numbers 15 through 11 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 the first hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. It will remain in their archives, and the second hour will be posted this week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Saturday, September 17, 2011
More Honorables.
These shows, to me, are all more honorable than the previous ones mentioned.
And to me, they are more and more prestigious as we proceed down the page.
Amos N' Andy.
I know I've written about this show before.
Let me reiterate what I feel is significant about it.
It was one of the most offensive shows of it's time. And also one of the funniest. Now that we have passed it's time by almost sixty years, the
offensive element is pretty much gone, and it's still one of the funniest.
It's hard to be much funnier than Tim Moore, who played The Kingfish.
The Bob Newhart Show, and Newhart.
An entry.
Virtually indistinguishable, as Bob essentially played the same character.
Both shows had memorable supporting cast members.
Bob has been one of the great reactive comic actors, and showed off this skill equally well in both extremely well-written shows.
Only one of them started the "Hi Bob" drinking game, so perhaps the nod goes to the Bob Newhart Show.
The Tony Randall Show
The one where he played a judge and was as great as Tony Randall always was.
The one where Allyn Ann McLerie played his tight-assed secretary, Miss Reubner.
I wonder why that one hasn't shown up anywhere?
Hey, Landlord!
The first time Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson were in charge of a sitcom.
It was 3-camera, live audience, free-wheeling, and contained some great dialogue, and some great recurring performances, like Michael Constantine's as Mr. Ellenhorn, one of the tenants in the building.
He was a whole lot funnier here than on "Room 222".
But then, wasn't everybody?
He and She
Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, a real-life husband and wife, playing husband and wife.
It was very sophisticated lunacy, and both Benjamin and Prentiss showed off their major comedy chops.
As did Jack Cassidy, as the egotistical star of "Jet Man" , a Batman ripoff, based on Benjamin's cartoon strip.
It was the first show since Rob and Laura Petrie established the mold that showed a loving married couple that respected each other.
Entourage
Would probably be rated higher, if for the fact that it's not really an out-and-out sitcom.
But it was extremely well done, with extremely well drawn characters, and had a pretty good share of belly laughs.
The Big Bang Theory
My first salute to Chuck Lorre, whom I think is one of the greats.
Extremely intelligent writng about extremely intelligent people.
Even if they are nerds.
Taxi
Great writing.
A great introduction to Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, and to many, Andy Kaufman. Rarely fell short of hilarious.
I Love Lucy
An enormous output.
Was somewhat inconsistent in quality, but there was so much that was memorable, and that transcends generations, that attention must be paid.
It was Lucy in her prime, which was tough to beat.
And you had Desi running things and being brilliant on camera.
And Vivian Vance and William Frawley bringing up the rear in grand style.
More 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.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has the first hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. It will remain in their archives, and the second hour will be posted next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
And to me, they are more and more prestigious as we proceed down the page.
Amos N' Andy.
I know I've written about this show before.
Let me reiterate what I feel is significant about it.
It was one of the most offensive shows of it's time. And also one of the funniest. Now that we have passed it's time by almost sixty years, the
offensive element is pretty much gone, and it's still one of the funniest.
It's hard to be much funnier than Tim Moore, who played The Kingfish.
The Bob Newhart Show, and Newhart.
An entry.
Virtually indistinguishable, as Bob essentially played the same character.
Both shows had memorable supporting cast members.
Bob has been one of the great reactive comic actors, and showed off this skill equally well in both extremely well-written shows.
Only one of them started the "Hi Bob" drinking game, so perhaps the nod goes to the Bob Newhart Show.
The Tony Randall Show
The one where he played a judge and was as great as Tony Randall always was.
The one where Allyn Ann McLerie played his tight-assed secretary, Miss Reubner.
I wonder why that one hasn't shown up anywhere?
Hey, Landlord!
The first time Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson were in charge of a sitcom.
It was 3-camera, live audience, free-wheeling, and contained some great dialogue, and some great recurring performances, like Michael Constantine's as Mr. Ellenhorn, one of the tenants in the building.
He was a whole lot funnier here than on "Room 222".
But then, wasn't everybody?
He and She
Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, a real-life husband and wife, playing husband and wife.
It was very sophisticated lunacy, and both Benjamin and Prentiss showed off their major comedy chops.
As did Jack Cassidy, as the egotistical star of "Jet Man" , a Batman ripoff, based on Benjamin's cartoon strip.
It was the first show since Rob and Laura Petrie established the mold that showed a loving married couple that respected each other.
Entourage
Would probably be rated higher, if for the fact that it's not really an out-and-out sitcom.
But it was extremely well done, with extremely well drawn characters, and had a pretty good share of belly laughs.
The Big Bang Theory
My first salute to Chuck Lorre, whom I think is one of the greats.
Extremely intelligent writng about extremely intelligent people.
Even if they are nerds.
Taxi
Great writing.
A great introduction to Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, and to many, Andy Kaufman. Rarely fell short of hilarious.
I Love Lucy
An enormous output.
Was somewhat inconsistent in quality, but there was so much that was memorable, and that transcends generations, that attention must be paid.
It was Lucy in her prime, which was tough to beat.
And you had Desi running things and being brilliant on camera.
And Vivian Vance and William Frawley bringing up the rear in grand style.
More 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.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
The website "On Screen & Beyond" has the first hour of a 2 hour interview I did on their podcast. It will remain in their archives, and the second hour will be posted next week.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find it if you're interested.
******
Thursday, September 15, 2011
More Kindling.
We'll get back to the Top Ten Honorable Mention list next time.
And when we do, I will begin eliminating the numerical factor until we get to the top five Honorable Mentions.
I'll be doing this because I keep thinking of other shows that I've neglected to put on the list.
Shows that rank higher than the ones already discussed.
And I don't want to have to start dealing in fractions.
The main order of business today is to inform you that I have put up another book on Amazon Kindle.
It's called "Show Runner Two. The Sequel".
Again, Cindy Williams has graced me by doing the Foreword to it.
It contains about 570 pages of blog material that will be taken down from the blog momentarily.
I am just simply going to be ravaging the blog.
The price is $12.99 for each of the two books.
And they both contain over 500 pages.
I have been given to understand that you don't need an actual Kindle device to get these books.
You don't have to spring for the hundred bucks or so.
If you get Kindle's free app, you can download the books to your IPhone, or IPad, or Blackberry.
In any case, it's certainly easier than shlepping around a 500 page book.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ravaging to do.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My paperback book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is still available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
And when we do, I will begin eliminating the numerical factor until we get to the top five Honorable Mentions.
I'll be doing this because I keep thinking of other shows that I've neglected to put on the list.
Shows that rank higher than the ones already discussed.
And I don't want to have to start dealing in fractions.
The main order of business today is to inform you that I have put up another book on Amazon Kindle.
It's called "Show Runner Two. The Sequel".
Again, Cindy Williams has graced me by doing the Foreword to it.
It contains about 570 pages of blog material that will be taken down from the blog momentarily.
I am just simply going to be ravaging the blog.
The price is $12.99 for each of the two books.
And they both contain over 500 pages.
I have been given to understand that you don't need an actual Kindle device to get these books.
You don't have to spring for the hundred bucks or so.
If you get Kindle's free app, you can download the books to your IPhone, or IPad, or Blackberry.
In any case, it's certainly easier than shlepping around a 500 page book.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ravaging to do.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My paperback book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is still available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Beginning The Honorable Mention Odyssey.
There will be roughly 35 sitcoms covered, including the Top Ten, which we will get to last.
The Honorable Mentions will precede them, and described in descending order, with the higher numbers worth less than the lower numbers.
I will cover as many each session as fills the page.
I may have more to say about some than others.
I will begin with #22, which includes all the shows I worked on intensely:
The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Busting Loose, Makin' It, and She's The Sheriff.
I enjoyed them all, enjoyed working on them all, but would find it self-serving to put any of them in the Top Ten.
And I don't really think any of them have earned it.
But they all deserve Honorable mention.
I don't want to rate them.
That's like trying to pick your favorite children.
So it's placing at #22 is not really reflective of how I feel about them.
It's just my attempt at diplomacy.
#21
Our Miss Brooks.
Eve Arden when her timimg was impeccable.
The writing was funny and intelligent.
The supporting cast was first rate.
Gale Gordon was the perfect foil.
Much better than with Lucy.
If you've never seen Richard Crenna as the teenaged high-pitched voiced Walter Denton, you've missed major comedy.
#20.
Sanford and Son.
Good writing, but it mainly had a major force of comedic nature in Redd Foxx.
I defy anyone to watch that show and not find Redd Foxx hilarious.
#19
The Burns and Allen Show.
Always funny.
Gracie was great.
Burns, particularly in his monologues, which broke the fourth wall, was brilliant.
Bea Benaderet was a major asset.
Another major innovation, particularly back then, was how George would sit in his den with the TV on and his show on the TV.
He'd watch it, and never tell any of the other characters that he was watching.
And he'd use this device to drive the other characters crazy and drive the story.
As imaginative as you could get.
A word of caution:
Don't watch too many episodes back to back.
You'll start to notice that it's essentially the same show every week.
Small doses.
The writing must have been particularly difficult.
The writers kept having to come up with straight-lines for other characters to feed to Gracie that can be taken in two different ways.
Gracie would invariably take the wrong one.
#18
All In The Family.
I thought it was hilarious, revolutionary, controversial when nothing else was, well written, and extremely well-played.
It still is.
But it hasn't dated well.
It was always very topical, and very loud.
It now seems even louder, and it's topicality does not work in it's favor any more.
#17
Web Therapy
A recent find.
Lisa Kudrow as a sham psychiatrist conducting three minute sessions with clients on the internet.
It is primarily about lying.
Lisa Kudrow is a major comedic treasure, and this show (Recently found on Showtime) already has it's shit together.
#16
The Danny Thomas Show.
This was one of my favorite shows when I was a young teenager, before Rusty Hamer got too old to be funny any more.
It was solid hardball comedy.
Very solid scripts.
Thomas was very good.
It had Hans Conreid as Uncle Tonoose.
Nobody else did.
But the last ten minutes of each episode were usually pretty deadly.
It got sentimental to the point of treacle.
And he'd usually be singing, which I myself could always pass up.
I'd usually watch the last five minutes of "M Squad".
Okay.
I think that this has been an auspicious beginning.
More next time.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
The Honorable Mentions will precede them, and described in descending order, with the higher numbers worth less than the lower numbers.
I will cover as many each session as fills the page.
I may have more to say about some than others.
I will begin with #22, which includes all the shows I worked on intensely:
The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Busting Loose, Makin' It, and She's The Sheriff.
I enjoyed them all, enjoyed working on them all, but would find it self-serving to put any of them in the Top Ten.
And I don't really think any of them have earned it.
But they all deserve Honorable mention.
I don't want to rate them.
That's like trying to pick your favorite children.
So it's placing at #22 is not really reflective of how I feel about them.
It's just my attempt at diplomacy.
#21
Our Miss Brooks.
Eve Arden when her timimg was impeccable.
The writing was funny and intelligent.
The supporting cast was first rate.
Gale Gordon was the perfect foil.
Much better than with Lucy.
If you've never seen Richard Crenna as the teenaged high-pitched voiced Walter Denton, you've missed major comedy.
#20.
Sanford and Son.
Good writing, but it mainly had a major force of comedic nature in Redd Foxx.
I defy anyone to watch that show and not find Redd Foxx hilarious.
#19
The Burns and Allen Show.
Always funny.
Gracie was great.
Burns, particularly in his monologues, which broke the fourth wall, was brilliant.
Bea Benaderet was a major asset.
Another major innovation, particularly back then, was how George would sit in his den with the TV on and his show on the TV.
He'd watch it, and never tell any of the other characters that he was watching.
And he'd use this device to drive the other characters crazy and drive the story.
As imaginative as you could get.
A word of caution:
Don't watch too many episodes back to back.
You'll start to notice that it's essentially the same show every week.
Small doses.
The writing must have been particularly difficult.
The writers kept having to come up with straight-lines for other characters to feed to Gracie that can be taken in two different ways.
Gracie would invariably take the wrong one.
#18
All In The Family.
I thought it was hilarious, revolutionary, controversial when nothing else was, well written, and extremely well-played.
It still is.
But it hasn't dated well.
It was always very topical, and very loud.
It now seems even louder, and it's topicality does not work in it's favor any more.
#17
Web Therapy
A recent find.
Lisa Kudrow as a sham psychiatrist conducting three minute sessions with clients on the internet.
It is primarily about lying.
Lisa Kudrow is a major comedic treasure, and this show (Recently found on Showtime) already has it's shit together.
#16
The Danny Thomas Show.
This was one of my favorite shows when I was a young teenager, before Rusty Hamer got too old to be funny any more.
It was solid hardball comedy.
Very solid scripts.
Thomas was very good.
It had Hans Conreid as Uncle Tonoose.
Nobody else did.
But the last ten minutes of each episode were usually pretty deadly.
It got sentimental to the point of treacle.
And he'd usually be singing, which I myself could always pass up.
I'd usually watch the last five minutes of "M Squad".
Okay.
I think that this has been an auspicious beginning.
More next time.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
Friday, September 9, 2011
More Non-Honorables.
Other sitcoms that might be considered to be on some peoples Top Ten
Favorites list, but don't even rate Honorable Mention on mine, for one reason or another:
MASH---- Loved the movie, which was extremely hip. The TV series was extremely square.
It was also badly cast, overacted, preachy, and had a one-joke character (Klinger) whom they tried to sustain
for the entire series.
The Office----Never saw either version.
Ellen----Enjoyed it until she came out of the closet. Then, it became extremely, uncomfortably militant.
Rhoda----Not bad, but her husband was a cipher. And they consistently talked about scenes that would have been much better if they were shown.
The Jeffersons---Just loud and silly.
Topper----Clever, well written, but I'm just not big on fantasies.
Ozzie And Harriet----I enjoyed it a lot, but it just didn't try very hard.
The story lines all smacked of minutia.
WKRP In Cincinnati----Sometimes very funny, like when they dropped the turkeys out of the sky because Mr. Carlson thought they could fly. The supporting cast was very good, and made an indelible impression.
But the lead actor, Gary Sandy, added nothing to it.
I basically took it or left it.
Designing Women---Written by women, about women, for women.
I had no designs on these women. It was not for me.
The Real McCoys----Almost qualifies for Honorable Mention. Many good things about it.
The writing, for one. Walter Brennan was great, as was Richard Crenna.
But Little Luke was a character who had corn coming out of his ears.
And there were soooooo many shows that I enjoyed more.
The Mothers-In-Law----The only reason I'm bringing it up is that it was one of the very few 3-camera sitcoms that went for hard laughs once Van Dyke went off in the 60's.
And Desi Arnaz was in charge, and his fingerprints were all over it.
And Kaye Ballard was a hoot.
But Eve Arden's timing had grown lethargic.
The show in general was a little too broad.
The New Dick Van Dyke Show---The writing was there, but Hope Lange was no Mary Tyler Moore.
The supporting cast in general was completely undistinguished.
The Abbott and Costello Show----They did two seasons in the early 50's.
If the second season was anywhere near as good as the first, it might even crack the Top Ten.
That's how bad the second season was. It was as if it was shot underwater.
Okay. Next time, I'll begin the actual Honorable Mention list.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
Favorites list, but don't even rate Honorable Mention on mine, for one reason or another:
MASH---- Loved the movie, which was extremely hip. The TV series was extremely square.
It was also badly cast, overacted, preachy, and had a one-joke character (Klinger) whom they tried to sustain
for the entire series.
The Office----Never saw either version.
Ellen----Enjoyed it until she came out of the closet. Then, it became extremely, uncomfortably militant.
Rhoda----Not bad, but her husband was a cipher. And they consistently talked about scenes that would have been much better if they were shown.
The Jeffersons---Just loud and silly.
Topper----Clever, well written, but I'm just not big on fantasies.
Ozzie And Harriet----I enjoyed it a lot, but it just didn't try very hard.
The story lines all smacked of minutia.
WKRP In Cincinnati----Sometimes very funny, like when they dropped the turkeys out of the sky because Mr. Carlson thought they could fly. The supporting cast was very good, and made an indelible impression.
But the lead actor, Gary Sandy, added nothing to it.
I basically took it or left it.
Designing Women---Written by women, about women, for women.
I had no designs on these women. It was not for me.
The Real McCoys----Almost qualifies for Honorable Mention. Many good things about it.
The writing, for one. Walter Brennan was great, as was Richard Crenna.
But Little Luke was a character who had corn coming out of his ears.
And there were soooooo many shows that I enjoyed more.
The Mothers-In-Law----The only reason I'm bringing it up is that it was one of the very few 3-camera sitcoms that went for hard laughs once Van Dyke went off in the 60's.
And Desi Arnaz was in charge, and his fingerprints were all over it.
And Kaye Ballard was a hoot.
But Eve Arden's timing had grown lethargic.
The show in general was a little too broad.
The New Dick Van Dyke Show---The writing was there, but Hope Lange was no Mary Tyler Moore.
The supporting cast in general was completely undistinguished.
The Abbott and Costello Show----They did two seasons in the early 50's.
If the second season was anywhere near as good as the first, it might even crack the Top Ten.
That's how bad the second season was. It was as if it was shot underwater.
Okay. Next time, I'll begin the actual Honorable Mention list.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
Thursday, September 8, 2011
My Favorite Sitcoms. The Top Ten.
After everybody's suggestions, I've given this a lot of thought.
I will be discussing far more than ten sitcoms over this upcoming series of articles.
Here are the ground rules I've set for myself as to how I'm going to approach it, and how I'm going to roll with it.
First, this is about my FAVORITE sitcoms.
That's what's been requested.
Some may also be what I consider to be the BEST sitcoms.
And the higher up the list, the more the two concepts will overlap.
The actual top ten favorites are the last thing I'm going to deal with.
What they have in common is the ability to make me laugh long and loud, on a consistent basis, and to enable me to respect the craft that went into it.
This will be preceded with a slew of honorable mentions, any of which I would be proud to put in my top ten if there were shows in the top ten that for whatever reason didn't exist.
The honorable mentions will be presented in a downward sequence on the page, going from least honorable to most.
This will take more than one article, and those appearing on subsequent days represent shows that in my eyes are worth more honorable mention than the shows mentioned previously, once again, gaining in stature in my mind as we navigate our way down the page each article.
This will all be preceded by a slew of "non-honorables".
These consist of shows that might seem to you that I could have conceivably overlooked.
These are not necessarily bad shows.
This is all very subjective.
They are simply shows I couldn't get behind, for one reason or another.
In each case, I will offer a brief explanation as to why they were overlooked.
These "non-honorables" will not be presented in any particular sequence.
To give you a taste, I will now get the ball rolling by offering up some of the "non-honorables":
"Everybody Loves Raymond"----You can always see the acting. And I hated the women.
Doris Roberts makes my flesh crawl.
And Patricia Heaton always seemed to have the rag on.
It was well-written, but I quickly lost interest.
"Cheers"----I hung in with it for about three years, until I realized that Shelley Long was really like that.
And there was an overlying tension on display to get a laugh every eleven seconds.
Very nervous making.
"Frasier"---Watched it three or four times. I never liked Kelsey Grammer on "Cheers", and found the writing on "Frasier" way too arch.
It was almost offensively unfunny.
"The Simpsons"---Watched it a few times, thought it was funny, but never felt the need or the urge to return to it.
"Soap"----Never watched it. This is true of "Benson" as well.
"Cosby"---Respected it. Never felt compelled to make sure I saw it from week to week.
"The Golden Girls"----Great pilot. Quickly deteriorated from there.
"Roseanne"-------Never watched it.
"The Andy Griffith Show"----Very watchable, but I was never bowled over by it.
And I feel that Andy Griffith completely wasted his major gifts by participating in it.
Okay. I think I've given you a taste of how this is going to shake down.
We will continue along these lines next time.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
I will be discussing far more than ten sitcoms over this upcoming series of articles.
Here are the ground rules I've set for myself as to how I'm going to approach it, and how I'm going to roll with it.
First, this is about my FAVORITE sitcoms.
That's what's been requested.
Some may also be what I consider to be the BEST sitcoms.
And the higher up the list, the more the two concepts will overlap.
The actual top ten favorites are the last thing I'm going to deal with.
What they have in common is the ability to make me laugh long and loud, on a consistent basis, and to enable me to respect the craft that went into it.
This will be preceded with a slew of honorable mentions, any of which I would be proud to put in my top ten if there were shows in the top ten that for whatever reason didn't exist.
The honorable mentions will be presented in a downward sequence on the page, going from least honorable to most.
This will take more than one article, and those appearing on subsequent days represent shows that in my eyes are worth more honorable mention than the shows mentioned previously, once again, gaining in stature in my mind as we navigate our way down the page each article.
This will all be preceded by a slew of "non-honorables".
These consist of shows that might seem to you that I could have conceivably overlooked.
These are not necessarily bad shows.
This is all very subjective.
They are simply shows I couldn't get behind, for one reason or another.
In each case, I will offer a brief explanation as to why they were overlooked.
These "non-honorables" will not be presented in any particular sequence.
To give you a taste, I will now get the ball rolling by offering up some of the "non-honorables":
"Everybody Loves Raymond"----You can always see the acting. And I hated the women.
Doris Roberts makes my flesh crawl.
And Patricia Heaton always seemed to have the rag on.
It was well-written, but I quickly lost interest.
"Cheers"----I hung in with it for about three years, until I realized that Shelley Long was really like that.
And there was an overlying tension on display to get a laugh every eleven seconds.
Very nervous making.
"Frasier"---Watched it three or four times. I never liked Kelsey Grammer on "Cheers", and found the writing on "Frasier" way too arch.
It was almost offensively unfunny.
"The Simpsons"---Watched it a few times, thought it was funny, but never felt the need or the urge to return to it.
"Soap"----Never watched it. This is true of "Benson" as well.
"Cosby"---Respected it. Never felt compelled to make sure I saw it from week to week.
"The Golden Girls"----Great pilot. Quickly deteriorated from there.
"Roseanne"-------Never watched it.
"The Andy Griffith Show"----Very watchable, but I was never bowled over by it.
And I feel that Andy Griffith completely wasted his major gifts by participating in it.
Okay. I think I've given you a taste of how this is going to shake down.
We will continue along these lines next time.
-------------------------------------------------
My book, "Show Runner" can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store in general. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Kindling.
What will turn into at least an eight part series of articles about my top ten favorite sitcoms wil begin next time.
But I have some hard news:
My book, "Mark Rothman's Essays" has been doubled in size. There are over 500 pages, and it is retitled "Show Runner, my life and opinions in and out of the sitcom trenches" And There is a Foreword by Cindy Williams.
It is available for only $12.99
There is one catch: It's only available as an e-book. And, at the moment, only at Amazon. You can easily find it and sample it at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Yuo will need a Kindle to be able to download it.
If you're paying attention, you might notice that I've removed roughly 250 more pages from the blog. This is the content that I've added to the e-book.
Within the next two weeks, there will be another 500 pages worth of blog essays, which will be called "Show Runner TWO, the Sequel"
The blog will further be ravaged accordingly..
"Show Runner" can be found at Amazon if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
But I have some hard news:
My book, "Mark Rothman's Essays" has been doubled in size. There are over 500 pages, and it is retitled "Show Runner, my life and opinions in and out of the sitcom trenches" And There is a Foreword by Cindy Williams.
It is available for only $12.99
There is one catch: It's only available as an e-book. And, at the moment, only at Amazon. You can easily find it and sample it at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Yuo will need a Kindle to be able to download it.
If you're paying attention, you might notice that I've removed roughly 250 more pages from the blog. This is the content that I've added to the e-book.
Within the next two weeks, there will be another 500 pages worth of blog essays, which will be called "Show Runner TWO, the Sequel"
The blog will further be ravaged accordingly..
"Show Runner" can be found at Amazon if you search my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Happy Days.
You might want to check it out.
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.
You might want to check out the Kindle Store. It is the wave of the future, so consider me a surfer.
******
Saturday, September 3, 2011
The Best Of Intentions.
As you might be aware, there has been a clamoring from the Comments section to have me post my Top Five favorite sitcoms of all time.
It has been echoed by e-mails that I have received.
I plan to go this clamoring at least three times better.
I want to post my top ten favorite sitcoms of all time, with a slew of honorable mentions leading up to them
These honorable mentions will help provide a framework for the actual selections, to inform you about what elements help comprise the actual list.
But I'm not quite prepared to begin this undertaking today.
I still have to sort things out about it.
But it will be addressed in short order.
I will begin next week.
It will take the form of my series "The Best Movie Of All Time".
For those of you who are interested, I will be interviewed by Brian Zemrak for his Podcast on Thursday, September 8th for airing the following Sunday.
For more info, go to his website, OnScreenAndBeyond.com
Also, if you happen to be in the Chicago area on the weekend of October 1st and 2nd, I will be appearing at the Hollywood Collectors Show.
I will be selling my book there, and will be surrounded by the "Laverne & Shirley" contingent, including Cindy Williams, Penny Marshall, Henry Winkler, Eddie Mekka and Leslie Easterbrook.
For more info, here is the website:
http://hollywoodcelebrityshow.com/Rose.htm
I hope to see many book-hungry Chicagoans.
Or Chicagoans in general.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
It has been echoed by e-mails that I have received.
I plan to go this clamoring at least three times better.
I want to post my top ten favorite sitcoms of all time, with a slew of honorable mentions leading up to them
These honorable mentions will help provide a framework for the actual selections, to inform you about what elements help comprise the actual list.
But I'm not quite prepared to begin this undertaking today.
I still have to sort things out about it.
But it will be addressed in short order.
I will begin next week.
It will take the form of my series "The Best Movie Of All Time".
For those of you who are interested, I will be interviewed by Brian Zemrak for his Podcast on Thursday, September 8th for airing the following Sunday.
For more info, go to his website, OnScreenAndBeyond.com
Also, if you happen to be in the Chicago area on the weekend of October 1st and 2nd, I will be appearing at the Hollywood Collectors Show.
I will be selling my book there, and will be surrounded by the "Laverne & Shirley" contingent, including Cindy Williams, Penny Marshall, Henry Winkler, Eddie Mekka and Leslie Easterbrook.
For more info, here is the website:
http://hollywoodcelebrityshow.com/Rose.htm
I hope to see many book-hungry Chicagoans.
Or Chicagoans in general.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The "Seinfeld" Brouhaha.
I have been taking some hits lately in the comments section and with e-mails about my underwhelming feelings about "Seinfeld".
I'd like to elaborate, and perhaps set the record straight, as it has been a little crooked:
I think "Seinfeld' is at least one of the five greatest sitcoms of all time.
I think it has, in Larry David, one of three greatest Show Runners of all time.
Present company excepted.
It has always made me laugh out loud. Hard. All the time.
It has perhaps the greatest set of supporting characters ever to support anyone.
Some of my favorite actors.
Estelle Harris, who played George Costanza's mother, appeared in a staged reading of one of my plays.
If you've seen me write about my mother and ever wondered what she looks and sounds like, just think of Estelle Harris.
She was a dead ringer for my mother.
This play was autobiographical, and several of my relatives were there.
As soon as Estelle hit the stage, my family freaked out.
Since the play starred Larry Miller, Jerry Seinfeld, a good friend of his, was in attendance.
It was most-likely the first time he laid eyes on Estelle Harris.
"Seinfeld"s main strength was it's story architechture.
They managed to weave four stories into each episode, and build them into a pyramid that paid off all four stories at the top of it.
One of the by-products of this is that you can watch any episode of "Seinfeld' and not remember that it was the one that contained
certain specific story lines.
"Seinfeld" also contained no jokes.
Except when Jerry was doing standup.
All the humor was character and attitude.
I feel that it's a much higher form than set-up punchline.
To me, it's cleverness has only been surpassed by "Curb Your Enthusiasm", which employs many of the same techniques.
And that's a high-wire act because they work without a script.
Again, that's because they don't need jokes.
On "Seinfeld"s downside, Jerry was an embarrasingly bad actor.
You could frequently see him smirking after one of his own punchlines.
I think more judicious editing might have helped.
He needed the best supporting cast ever just to get him through.
That the show was that good in spite of it was a tribute to Larry David.
It reminds me of my favorite movie, "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek", directed by Preston Sturges in the 1940's.
It starred Betty Hutton, arguably one of the worst actresses who ever became a movie star.
That the movie was that good, and starred her, was a tribute to Sturges.
There's a parallel there.
The argument about "Seinfeld" ensued because somebody tried to make the case that it represented the nineties, was the best show ever, and therefore the nineties were the Golden Age Of Television.
To which I replied and will reply again, "One show does not a Golden Age make."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
I'd like to elaborate, and perhaps set the record straight, as it has been a little crooked:
I think "Seinfeld' is at least one of the five greatest sitcoms of all time.
I think it has, in Larry David, one of three greatest Show Runners of all time.
Present company excepted.
It has always made me laugh out loud. Hard. All the time.
It has perhaps the greatest set of supporting characters ever to support anyone.
Some of my favorite actors.
Estelle Harris, who played George Costanza's mother, appeared in a staged reading of one of my plays.
If you've seen me write about my mother and ever wondered what she looks and sounds like, just think of Estelle Harris.
She was a dead ringer for my mother.
This play was autobiographical, and several of my relatives were there.
As soon as Estelle hit the stage, my family freaked out.
Since the play starred Larry Miller, Jerry Seinfeld, a good friend of his, was in attendance.
It was most-likely the first time he laid eyes on Estelle Harris.
"Seinfeld"s main strength was it's story architechture.
They managed to weave four stories into each episode, and build them into a pyramid that paid off all four stories at the top of it.
One of the by-products of this is that you can watch any episode of "Seinfeld' and not remember that it was the one that contained
certain specific story lines.
"Seinfeld" also contained no jokes.
Except when Jerry was doing standup.
All the humor was character and attitude.
I feel that it's a much higher form than set-up punchline.
To me, it's cleverness has only been surpassed by "Curb Your Enthusiasm", which employs many of the same techniques.
And that's a high-wire act because they work without a script.
Again, that's because they don't need jokes.
On "Seinfeld"s downside, Jerry was an embarrasingly bad actor.
You could frequently see him smirking after one of his own punchlines.
I think more judicious editing might have helped.
He needed the best supporting cast ever just to get him through.
That the show was that good in spite of it was a tribute to Larry David.
It reminds me of my favorite movie, "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek", directed by Preston Sturges in the 1940's.
It starred Betty Hutton, arguably one of the worst actresses who ever became a movie star.
That the movie was that good, and starred her, was a tribute to Sturges.
There's a parallel there.
The argument about "Seinfeld" ensued because somebody tried to make the case that it represented the nineties, was the best show ever, and therefore the nineties were the Golden Age Of Television.
To which I replied and will reply again, "One show does not a Golden Age make."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Golden Age Of Television. 2.
The fifties, as exciting a time as it was for television, was NOT it's Golden Age.
It was just too flawed.
Although he started in the late forties, the fifties essentially turned Milton Berle into Mister Television.
For far too long.
Early on, it was simply a matter of "Look! He's moving!"
This graduated into "Look! He's moving! In a dress!.
Berle was mostly less than funny.
Combine this with his hammy mawkishness, and it was clear that he was not an asset to the Golden Age Legacy.
There were some great game shows in the fifties, like "What's My Line?", where the panelists dressed up in tuxedos, and the women wore evening gowns.
Except maybe when Berle showed up in a dress.
Or "I've Got A Secret", slightly less formal, but far more fun and more charming, primarily because of it's host, Garry Moore.
But then came the Quiz Show Scandals, which almost put a permanent end to all Quiz Shows.
A truly ugly time.
The fifties gave us Pinky Lee.
The fifties gave us fuzzy black-and-white pictures on the TV screens.
The fifties gave us Fuzzy Knight (Remember "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion"?)
The fifties gave us "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion"
The fifties introduced the concept of "Least objectionable programming"
And that decision usually fell to the head of the household.
Because most of us only had one set.
It brought us together, but not necessarily in a good way.
The fifties gave us Bert Parks.
The fifties gave us "My Llttle Margie".
But worse than anything, the fifties gave us the Blacklist.
It was pervasive, and certainly lowered the standards of what we were able to see, aside from ruining careers and lives.
Okay.
So I think I've made the case for why the fifties was NOT the Golden Age of Televison.
But I believe that there has been one, and I'll make the case for it next time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
It was just too flawed.
Although he started in the late forties, the fifties essentially turned Milton Berle into Mister Television.
For far too long.
Early on, it was simply a matter of "Look! He's moving!"
This graduated into "Look! He's moving! In a dress!.
Berle was mostly less than funny.
Combine this with his hammy mawkishness, and it was clear that he was not an asset to the Golden Age Legacy.
There were some great game shows in the fifties, like "What's My Line?", where the panelists dressed up in tuxedos, and the women wore evening gowns.
Except maybe when Berle showed up in a dress.
Or "I've Got A Secret", slightly less formal, but far more fun and more charming, primarily because of it's host, Garry Moore.
But then came the Quiz Show Scandals, which almost put a permanent end to all Quiz Shows.
A truly ugly time.
The fifties gave us Pinky Lee.
The fifties gave us fuzzy black-and-white pictures on the TV screens.
The fifties gave us Fuzzy Knight (Remember "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion"?)
The fifties gave us "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion"
The fifties introduced the concept of "Least objectionable programming"
And that decision usually fell to the head of the household.
Because most of us only had one set.
It brought us together, but not necessarily in a good way.
The fifties gave us Bert Parks.
The fifties gave us "My Llttle Margie".
But worse than anything, the fifties gave us the Blacklist.
It was pervasive, and certainly lowered the standards of what we were able to see, aside from ruining careers and lives.
Okay.
So I think I've made the case for why the fifties was NOT the Golden Age of Televison.
But I believe that there has been one, and I'll make the case for it next time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Golden Age Of Television.
The Fifties.
Also known as "The Fabulous Fifties".
What a time it was!
At least in terms of television.
Oh, I know that TV technichally got started in the late forties, but it really took it's shape,or at least the shape that it had, in the fifties.
We got to see a lot of wonderful things.
Sid Caesar, a true artist and genius, supported by the greatest writing staff for sketch comedy ever.
Jackie Gleason---It wasn't just "The Honeymooners".
He brought his entire repertoire of characters to his variety show.
My favorite was Reggie Van Gleason.
Gleason was another true artist.
Speaking of true artists, Ernie Kovacs was the great innovator.
Steve Allen brought his free-wheeling approach, where he brought some of the best comedy sketch players to his variety show.
Ed Sullivan's main gift was that he brought families together in an America where most families only had one TV set.
If you didn't like the guy spinning the plates, or the juggling unicyclist, just wait a few minutes and there'd be Myron Cohen.
And there'd always be something for "You youngsters out there".
There was Jack Paar.
I maintain that there has never been a talk show host as interesting as Paar.
By sheer force of his personality.
He was an absolutely compelling figure.
Ther were great dramatic anthologies.
Each week, there were the equivalent of at least three new plays on TV.
And they were each an event.
When the theme music swelled for "Playhouse 90", it was spine-tingling.
The common denominator to all this was that it was all LIVE.
As it was happening, you were seeing it.
This meant anything could happen, and often did.
When things went wrong, that was often part of the fun.
That element is for the most part gone, except for sporting events, and talking head news shows.
Aside from live, there was also the incomparable "Sergeant Bilko" and "I Love Lucy".
So it was quite a time.
But I'm here to tell you that the fifties was NOT the Golden Age
of Television.
And next time, I'll be here to tell you why not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Also known as "The Fabulous Fifties".
What a time it was!
At least in terms of television.
Oh, I know that TV technichally got started in the late forties, but it really took it's shape,or at least the shape that it had, in the fifties.
We got to see a lot of wonderful things.
Sid Caesar, a true artist and genius, supported by the greatest writing staff for sketch comedy ever.
Jackie Gleason---It wasn't just "The Honeymooners".
He brought his entire repertoire of characters to his variety show.
My favorite was Reggie Van Gleason.
Gleason was another true artist.
Speaking of true artists, Ernie Kovacs was the great innovator.
Steve Allen brought his free-wheeling approach, where he brought some of the best comedy sketch players to his variety show.
Ed Sullivan's main gift was that he brought families together in an America where most families only had one TV set.
If you didn't like the guy spinning the plates, or the juggling unicyclist, just wait a few minutes and there'd be Myron Cohen.
And there'd always be something for "You youngsters out there".
There was Jack Paar.
I maintain that there has never been a talk show host as interesting as Paar.
By sheer force of his personality.
He was an absolutely compelling figure.
Ther were great dramatic anthologies.
Each week, there were the equivalent of at least three new plays on TV.
And they were each an event.
When the theme music swelled for "Playhouse 90", it was spine-tingling.
The common denominator to all this was that it was all LIVE.
As it was happening, you were seeing it.
This meant anything could happen, and often did.
When things went wrong, that was often part of the fun.
That element is for the most part gone, except for sporting events, and talking head news shows.
Aside from live, there was also the incomparable "Sergeant Bilko" and "I Love Lucy".
So it was quite a time.
But I'm here to tell you that the fifties was NOT the Golden Age
of Television.
And next time, I'll be here to tell you why not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Progress.
Progress has a way of becoming the great equalizer.
I mentioned a while back about how I used to be the world's foremost authority on death.
When famous people died, how they died, where they died, etc.
I used to impress a lot of people with this bit of morbidity.
No longer.
The Internet has rendered this talent useless.
It's leveled the playing field.
Anyone can push a button on his or her computer and have access to everything that has been rolling around my head for lo these many years.
However, progress has now turned things back in my direction.
Up until recently, I considered myself the worst driver who was ever issued a license.
Actually, my late mother was THE worst driver who was ever issued a license.
I just followed in her footsteps.
We combined the same two major flaws in our driving ability:
An inability to control the vehicle (even more incredible in my mother's case, in that she passed her road test on a stick-shift), and absolutely no sense of direction.
Then, this new invention came out. The GPS.
Ours is called a Garmin.
It allows you to never get lost.
Just by pushing a few buttons.
Yes, you have to listen to an automaton lady give you directions, but I consider that a small price to pay for the thorough humiliation that I used to go through by admitting to strangers that I was lost.
I've heard some men bemoan the Garmin as another threat to their manhood.
As if there is some pride to being able to never get lost, and not have to rely on some female voice to guide you along.
As if there is some sort of triumph in being able to get yourself unlost all by yourself.
Without any help.
Tommyrot!
At least in my case.
Any time I used to get behind the wheel, it was always even money that I would get lost.
And I'd have to rely on another device, my cell phone, to rely on another female's voice, my wife's, to guide me to where I was going.
It's nothing that I've ever attached manhood to.
If I did, I'd be too ashamed to leave the house, much less get behind the wheel.
So I am no more than half the worst driver in the world that I used to be.
Maybe I'm still the worst, but none of it can be blamed on my sense of direction.
I wonder how much this would have improved my mother's status.
Probably not much.
She had her own peccadillos that I had never before witnessed or emulated.
Upon entering a freeway from an off ramp, she would invariably come to a full stop before going onto the highway.
She would never just proceed with caution.
If that had occurred on her road test, I'm sure she'd never have passed.
But in my case, I feel the playing field leveling under me all the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
I mentioned a while back about how I used to be the world's foremost authority on death.
When famous people died, how they died, where they died, etc.
I used to impress a lot of people with this bit of morbidity.
No longer.
The Internet has rendered this talent useless.
It's leveled the playing field.
Anyone can push a button on his or her computer and have access to everything that has been rolling around my head for lo these many years.
However, progress has now turned things back in my direction.
Up until recently, I considered myself the worst driver who was ever issued a license.
Actually, my late mother was THE worst driver who was ever issued a license.
I just followed in her footsteps.
We combined the same two major flaws in our driving ability:
An inability to control the vehicle (even more incredible in my mother's case, in that she passed her road test on a stick-shift), and absolutely no sense of direction.
Then, this new invention came out. The GPS.
Ours is called a Garmin.
It allows you to never get lost.
Just by pushing a few buttons.
Yes, you have to listen to an automaton lady give you directions, but I consider that a small price to pay for the thorough humiliation that I used to go through by admitting to strangers that I was lost.
I've heard some men bemoan the Garmin as another threat to their manhood.
As if there is some pride to being able to never get lost, and not have to rely on some female voice to guide you along.
As if there is some sort of triumph in being able to get yourself unlost all by yourself.
Without any help.
Tommyrot!
At least in my case.
Any time I used to get behind the wheel, it was always even money that I would get lost.
And I'd have to rely on another device, my cell phone, to rely on another female's voice, my wife's, to guide me to where I was going.
It's nothing that I've ever attached manhood to.
If I did, I'd be too ashamed to leave the house, much less get behind the wheel.
So I am no more than half the worst driver in the world that I used to be.
Maybe I'm still the worst, but none of it can be blamed on my sense of direction.
I wonder how much this would have improved my mother's status.
Probably not much.
She had her own peccadillos that I had never before witnessed or emulated.
Upon entering a freeway from an off ramp, she would invariably come to a full stop before going onto the highway.
She would never just proceed with caution.
If that had occurred on her road test, I'm sure she'd never have passed.
But in my case, I feel the playing field leveling under me all the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Thursday, August 18, 2011
My Aviary Addiction.
Fellow members, my name is Mark Rothman, and I am an addict.
Not to any drug.
Or anything alcoholic.
Or an abusive lifestyle.
Well, perhaps it contains elements of all three.
It is a game.
And there is no athletic benefit to it as there is to Wii Boxing.
Just a game.
A very simple game.
Called Angry Birds.
I while away far too many idle moments of my life playing Angry Birds.
Making those moments even more idle.
Angry Birds is a game that has been embraced by the youth of America.
And as far as I know, the world.
This makes it one of the few things I have in common with the youth of America.
And as far as I know, the world.
Angry Birds is compelling.
I play it on my IPhone.
For the uninformed, what you do is you hurl birds of various sizes and degrees of dexterity with a slingshot towards stationary pigs of various sizes and no dexterity.
When the Angry Bird lands on the pig, or on the piece of construction that lands on the pig firmly enough, the pig is destroyed.
When all of the pigs are destroyed in the same round, you proceed to the next level.
The birds all make very angry sounds, and the pigs all make laughing grunts.
I really don't want to hear the very angry sounds, or the laughing grunts.
This is because it is annoying, and it tips my wife off to the fact that I'm wasting my time playing Angry Birds.
So I turn off the sound.
As the birds are on my side, I never get angry at the birds.
Only the pigs.
You're playing this game in the hope that you get to see pigs die.
Growing up in a semi-kosher home, this is virtually a natural rooting interest.
Each level is a sort of clever geometric puzzle, where you try to figure out how to obliterate all of the pigs with the few birds you have.
The frustration is when you try and try and can't obliterate the pigs.
The fun is when you do, and go on to the next challenge.
You always want to get to the next challenge.
Many times it is easy.
Some times it seems near impossible.
When I had my Blackberry, my addiction was Brickbreaker.
That was a pretty good game.
The main order of business there was to try to beat your personal high score.
But it wasn't really all that creative.
Nor did it make all those angry noises and laughing grunts.
Technology has improved since then.
A free app was offered on my IPhone for Angry Birds, and I downloaded it.
After a length of time during which I became thoroughly addicted, and went through all the levels, I was offered the pay version.
See? That's how they get you.
Just like a Coke dealer.
I had to shell out 99 cents for the upgrade.
I bit the bullet and shelled it out.
I went through all of those levels.
Then I was offered "Angry Birds Rio".
Another 99 cents.
I see more on the horizon.
Eventually, it's going to break me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Not to any drug.
Or anything alcoholic.
Or an abusive lifestyle.
Well, perhaps it contains elements of all three.
It is a game.
And there is no athletic benefit to it as there is to Wii Boxing.
Just a game.
A very simple game.
Called Angry Birds.
I while away far too many idle moments of my life playing Angry Birds.
Making those moments even more idle.
Angry Birds is a game that has been embraced by the youth of America.
And as far as I know, the world.
This makes it one of the few things I have in common with the youth of America.
And as far as I know, the world.
Angry Birds is compelling.
I play it on my IPhone.
For the uninformed, what you do is you hurl birds of various sizes and degrees of dexterity with a slingshot towards stationary pigs of various sizes and no dexterity.
When the Angry Bird lands on the pig, or on the piece of construction that lands on the pig firmly enough, the pig is destroyed.
When all of the pigs are destroyed in the same round, you proceed to the next level.
The birds all make very angry sounds, and the pigs all make laughing grunts.
I really don't want to hear the very angry sounds, or the laughing grunts.
This is because it is annoying, and it tips my wife off to the fact that I'm wasting my time playing Angry Birds.
So I turn off the sound.
As the birds are on my side, I never get angry at the birds.
Only the pigs.
You're playing this game in the hope that you get to see pigs die.
Growing up in a semi-kosher home, this is virtually a natural rooting interest.
Each level is a sort of clever geometric puzzle, where you try to figure out how to obliterate all of the pigs with the few birds you have.
The frustration is when you try and try and can't obliterate the pigs.
The fun is when you do, and go on to the next challenge.
You always want to get to the next challenge.
Many times it is easy.
Some times it seems near impossible.
When I had my Blackberry, my addiction was Brickbreaker.
That was a pretty good game.
The main order of business there was to try to beat your personal high score.
But it wasn't really all that creative.
Nor did it make all those angry noises and laughing grunts.
Technology has improved since then.
A free app was offered on my IPhone for Angry Birds, and I downloaded it.
After a length of time during which I became thoroughly addicted, and went through all the levels, I was offered the pay version.
See? That's how they get you.
Just like a Coke dealer.
I had to shell out 99 cents for the upgrade.
I bit the bullet and shelled it out.
I went through all of those levels.
Then I was offered "Angry Birds Rio".
Another 99 cents.
I see more on the horizon.
Eventually, it's going to break me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Wii Are Now Amused.
Okay.
So I tried the Wii Sports in my basement.
Golf.
Baseball.
Tennis.
Bowling.
Feh.
They all sucked.
My only hope for salvation was the Boxing.
It looked promising.
For one thing, you actually had to move around.
You actually had to throw punches, just like a boxer.
Exercise was beginning to take place.
Your opponents threw punches back at you, and here's the beauty part, if a punch landed on you, it didn't hurt.
That was always my fear in participating in REAL boxing.
That you could get hurt.
Here, you could get knocked down, you could get knocked out.
And it didn't hurt.
Actually, after a while, it DID start to hurt.
In my knees.
In my ankles.
Places where I've had surgery.
Or arthritis.
And this was caused by all the moving around.
I was almost ready to give it all up when my wife, a person much smarter than me, suggested that maybe I should wear an Ace Bandage on the sore parts.
Whattya know? I did that, and it stopped hurting.
Is it a matter of her being a genius, or me being an idiot?
I started by fighting easy opponents.
There are no options about how you start.
These opponents virtually never throw a punch at you if you are at all aggressive.
I felt like Joe Louis and his "Bum-of-the Month Club"
If you keep winning during the early stages, the opponents get tougher and tougher, to the point where it really gets competitive, and you can just as easily lose and get knocked out as win and knock out your opponent.
A word about the opponents: The graphics are not very sophisticated.
Even though the atmosphere and sound effects are great, the opponents tend to look like kewpie dolls.
They could do a better job there.
You choose a character for yourself.
Male or female.
And you take on all comers.
This presents a minor moral dilemma:
You occasionally face kewpie dolls who are women.
Even though they are kewpie dolls,I was raised to never hit a woman.
However, it also allowed me to act out some fantasies.
There are several women in my past whom I would have liked to have beaten up, but my sense of decorum wouldn't have allowed it.
But it's a great way to let out past aggressions.
You also take on opponents who are wearing eyeglasses.
I don't know what schmendrick thought of this, but it also flies in the face of my upbringing.
You never hit a man wearing glasses.
At least they haven't provided an opponent who is a woman and wears glasses.
That would be a double-whammy.
In any case, I invariably build up a major sweat when I participate in the Boxing.
It is great competition, and great exercise.
I particpate in Wii Boxing all the time.
And has made the purchase of Wii Sports well worth it.
Wii, Wii, Monsieur.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
So I tried the Wii Sports in my basement.
Golf.
Baseball.
Tennis.
Bowling.
Feh.
They all sucked.
My only hope for salvation was the Boxing.
It looked promising.
For one thing, you actually had to move around.
You actually had to throw punches, just like a boxer.
Exercise was beginning to take place.
Your opponents threw punches back at you, and here's the beauty part, if a punch landed on you, it didn't hurt.
That was always my fear in participating in REAL boxing.
That you could get hurt.
Here, you could get knocked down, you could get knocked out.
And it didn't hurt.
Actually, after a while, it DID start to hurt.
In my knees.
In my ankles.
Places where I've had surgery.
Or arthritis.
And this was caused by all the moving around.
I was almost ready to give it all up when my wife, a person much smarter than me, suggested that maybe I should wear an Ace Bandage on the sore parts.
Whattya know? I did that, and it stopped hurting.
Is it a matter of her being a genius, or me being an idiot?
I started by fighting easy opponents.
There are no options about how you start.
These opponents virtually never throw a punch at you if you are at all aggressive.
I felt like Joe Louis and his "Bum-of-the Month Club"
If you keep winning during the early stages, the opponents get tougher and tougher, to the point where it really gets competitive, and you can just as easily lose and get knocked out as win and knock out your opponent.
A word about the opponents: The graphics are not very sophisticated.
Even though the atmosphere and sound effects are great, the opponents tend to look like kewpie dolls.
They could do a better job there.
You choose a character for yourself.
Male or female.
And you take on all comers.
This presents a minor moral dilemma:
You occasionally face kewpie dolls who are women.
Even though they are kewpie dolls,I was raised to never hit a woman.
However, it also allowed me to act out some fantasies.
There are several women in my past whom I would have liked to have beaten up, but my sense of decorum wouldn't have allowed it.
But it's a great way to let out past aggressions.
You also take on opponents who are wearing eyeglasses.
I don't know what schmendrick thought of this, but it also flies in the face of my upbringing.
You never hit a man wearing glasses.
At least they haven't provided an opponent who is a woman and wears glasses.
That would be a double-whammy.
In any case, I invariably build up a major sweat when I participate in the Boxing.
It is great competition, and great exercise.
I particpate in Wii Boxing all the time.
And has made the purchase of Wii Sports well worth it.
Wii, Wii, Monsieur.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Wii Are (For The Most Part) Not Amused.
My wife has continually been on me to get more exercise.
She is an exponent of this.
Even as I am writing now, she is downstairs in the basement, walking her daily mile on the treadmill.
To no avail, she has been encouraging me to do the same.
Or to at least take an occasional walk around the block.
My attitude about this is the same as it has always been-------
How do you keep score?
How do you win?
It's not that I'm so competitive.
It's just that I need something to make it not boring.
I admit to being one of the most sedentary people I know, but I'm not against the concept of exercise if it can only be made to be INTERESTING.
My wife recently attempted to rise to the challenge.
She purchased, and brought home, something called Wii Sports.
What it is, is simulated sports that you play with remote control devices that you hold in your hands while the sporting events appear magically on your TV screen, once you've hooked up the equipment.
I guess that eliminates some of the magic.
Apparently, this is something that is very popular with kids.
You'd think they would be more likely to engage in the real sports outdoors, or at least outside of their homes.
Because they are young enough to actually do well at these sports in real life.
So I opened the Wii Sports box, tried hooking up the equipment, and after several hours of it confounding me, was able to install it correctly.
I was actually eager for Wii Sports to actually provide me with some interesting exercise.
I was hoping for the best.
Because I consider myself too old to actually participate in most of the sports provided for real.
And I was never that good an athlete to begin with.
I looked at the menu of sports offered by Wii.
They consisted of Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling, and Boxing.
I tried them one at a time.
1) Tennis---I figured that this would be a good one because Tennis always involved a lot of movement to cover the court.
I always used to build up a pretty good sweat playing tennis. It was a game that I used to actually be competitive with good players.
But this was doubles.
You weren't required to move much around the court.
And you weren't required to do much with your arm except make little baby swings.
It was very disappointing to say the least.
2) Golf---I was never very good at golf. But in this version, no matter how bad you were in real life, it was very difficult,if not impossible to hit a bad shot.
I've never hit a 240 yard drive in my life.
I never played a round of golf where I didn't top the ball at least half the time.
I never played a round of golf where my putts always went into the hole once they hit the green.
Here all those things happened consistently.
It was surreal golf, and of course, provided me with very little exercise.
3) Baseball----You only had control of the pitcher and the batter, which meant there was no strategy, very little arm movement and virtually no interest in continuing.
4) Bowling----There might have been some skill involved here, but there is not much exercise involved in REAL bowling.
A game that can be played while you are eating pizza.
It also involved very little exercise.
So that's four out of four disappointments.
My only hope left, before we were going to return the entire unit back to Best Buy, was if the Boxing was spectacular.
It certainly had a lot to live up to.
I was not optimistic.
What happened with the Boxing will be discussed next time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
She is an exponent of this.
Even as I am writing now, she is downstairs in the basement, walking her daily mile on the treadmill.
To no avail, she has been encouraging me to do the same.
Or to at least take an occasional walk around the block.
My attitude about this is the same as it has always been-------
How do you keep score?
How do you win?
It's not that I'm so competitive.
It's just that I need something to make it not boring.
I admit to being one of the most sedentary people I know, but I'm not against the concept of exercise if it can only be made to be INTERESTING.
My wife recently attempted to rise to the challenge.
She purchased, and brought home, something called Wii Sports.
What it is, is simulated sports that you play with remote control devices that you hold in your hands while the sporting events appear magically on your TV screen, once you've hooked up the equipment.
I guess that eliminates some of the magic.
Apparently, this is something that is very popular with kids.
You'd think they would be more likely to engage in the real sports outdoors, or at least outside of their homes.
Because they are young enough to actually do well at these sports in real life.
So I opened the Wii Sports box, tried hooking up the equipment, and after several hours of it confounding me, was able to install it correctly.
I was actually eager for Wii Sports to actually provide me with some interesting exercise.
I was hoping for the best.
Because I consider myself too old to actually participate in most of the sports provided for real.
And I was never that good an athlete to begin with.
I looked at the menu of sports offered by Wii.
They consisted of Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling, and Boxing.
I tried them one at a time.
1) Tennis---I figured that this would be a good one because Tennis always involved a lot of movement to cover the court.
I always used to build up a pretty good sweat playing tennis. It was a game that I used to actually be competitive with good players.
But this was doubles.
You weren't required to move much around the court.
And you weren't required to do much with your arm except make little baby swings.
It was very disappointing to say the least.
2) Golf---I was never very good at golf. But in this version, no matter how bad you were in real life, it was very difficult,if not impossible to hit a bad shot.
I've never hit a 240 yard drive in my life.
I never played a round of golf where I didn't top the ball at least half the time.
I never played a round of golf where my putts always went into the hole once they hit the green.
Here all those things happened consistently.
It was surreal golf, and of course, provided me with very little exercise.
3) Baseball----You only had control of the pitcher and the batter, which meant there was no strategy, very little arm movement and virtually no interest in continuing.
4) Bowling----There might have been some skill involved here, but there is not much exercise involved in REAL bowling.
A game that can be played while you are eating pizza.
It also involved very little exercise.
So that's four out of four disappointments.
My only hope left, before we were going to return the entire unit back to Best Buy, was if the Boxing was spectacular.
It certainly had a lot to live up to.
I was not optimistic.
What happened with the Boxing will be discussed next time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Half-Pink House.
For much of the time that I worked at Paramount Studios, I had an office that overlooked Gower Street.
Gower Street was usually featured in stock footage of the entrance of RKO Studios in the thirties and forties,with cars to match.
RKO went out of business, and my office, which used to be part of RKO, was now part of Paramount.
I don't know what you'd have seen if the cameras were turned around and you'd have seen the other side of Gower Street in the thirties and forties.
But if you'd looked out of my window in the seventies, what you'd have seen was a very seedy, slum-like neighborhood, populated primarily by Mexicans.
I'm not attempting to be racist here.
I'm just reporting the facts.
You didn't want my office because of the view.
It was a nice, roomy office, but the view was not one of the selling features.
I always tried to avoid driving down Gower Street to go to work.
I usually took Vine Street directly to Melrose Avenue, which at the time was also pretty seedy, but didn't seem as inherently dangerous as
Gower Street.
I did this because I was deathly afraid of finding myself stranded on Gower Steet trying to fix a flat tire.
This was NOT a safe neighborhood.
Even though it was right next to a major movie studio.
I tried very hard to ignore my exterior surroundings as much as possible.
Many days, you'd find me with the window shades pulled down.
But one day, something rather extraordinary happened.
I pulled up the window shades, and noticed that one half, (the left half, from my point of view) of a two-family house was painted bright pink.
I don't mean just pink.
Shocking pink.
The kind of pink you might associate with Pink Elephants.
Or the Pink Panther.
Or Pepto Bismol, but much more intensely bright.
The other half was gray.
This caused interesting things to enter my imagination:
The first, of course, being "Why is anyone doing this?"
The second being, "Why only half the house?"
You'd think that discussions between the two owners would have led to some negotiations and perhaps arguments as to whether this was a good idea.
And some settlement would have been reached to avoid this eyesore.
But maybe the two parties hated each other.
To quote the late, great Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one."
Now, I've never considered myself any kind of architechtural aesthete, but even I knew that this was an atrocity.
Literally two months went by.
I'd look out my window and see a half-pink two family house.
The other half remained gray.
And the owner of the gray half had to have been worried about the loss of property value of his home, being planted directly next to the pink half.
Not that the house could have been worth that much to begin with.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Would the owner of the pink half revert back to gray?
Or would the owner of the gray half bite the bullet and go pink?
A month after this, I opened the window shade to my office one morning, and the matter was resolved.
The two-family house was now entirely pink, in the exact same shade as the other half.
The concession was made.
Or perhaps the owner of the gray half found the pink starting to grow on him.
We'll never know.
In any case, it was Peace in Our Time, but the house now looked twice as atrocious.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Gower Street was usually featured in stock footage of the entrance of RKO Studios in the thirties and forties,with cars to match.
RKO went out of business, and my office, which used to be part of RKO, was now part of Paramount.
I don't know what you'd have seen if the cameras were turned around and you'd have seen the other side of Gower Street in the thirties and forties.
But if you'd looked out of my window in the seventies, what you'd have seen was a very seedy, slum-like neighborhood, populated primarily by Mexicans.
I'm not attempting to be racist here.
I'm just reporting the facts.
You didn't want my office because of the view.
It was a nice, roomy office, but the view was not one of the selling features.
I always tried to avoid driving down Gower Street to go to work.
I usually took Vine Street directly to Melrose Avenue, which at the time was also pretty seedy, but didn't seem as inherently dangerous as
Gower Street.
I did this because I was deathly afraid of finding myself stranded on Gower Steet trying to fix a flat tire.
This was NOT a safe neighborhood.
Even though it was right next to a major movie studio.
I tried very hard to ignore my exterior surroundings as much as possible.
Many days, you'd find me with the window shades pulled down.
But one day, something rather extraordinary happened.
I pulled up the window shades, and noticed that one half, (the left half, from my point of view) of a two-family house was painted bright pink.
I don't mean just pink.
Shocking pink.
The kind of pink you might associate with Pink Elephants.
Or the Pink Panther.
Or Pepto Bismol, but much more intensely bright.
The other half was gray.
This caused interesting things to enter my imagination:
The first, of course, being "Why is anyone doing this?"
The second being, "Why only half the house?"
You'd think that discussions between the two owners would have led to some negotiations and perhaps arguments as to whether this was a good idea.
And some settlement would have been reached to avoid this eyesore.
But maybe the two parties hated each other.
To quote the late, great Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one."
Now, I've never considered myself any kind of architechtural aesthete, but even I knew that this was an atrocity.
Literally two months went by.
I'd look out my window and see a half-pink two family house.
The other half remained gray.
And the owner of the gray half had to have been worried about the loss of property value of his home, being planted directly next to the pink half.
Not that the house could have been worth that much to begin with.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Would the owner of the pink half revert back to gray?
Or would the owner of the gray half bite the bullet and go pink?
A month after this, I opened the window shade to my office one morning, and the matter was resolved.
The two-family house was now entirely pink, in the exact same shade as the other half.
The concession was made.
Or perhaps the owner of the gray half found the pink starting to grow on him.
We'll never know.
In any case, it was Peace in Our Time, but the house now looked twice as atrocious.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My new book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", ones that were culled from the blog and are no longer there, along with a surprise bonus, is available for purchase.
Please e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com for more info.
******
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The Nanny Needs Her Louis.
Alas.
That's really all I can say.
Somebody decided to give Fran Drescher another TV series.
It's called "Happily Divorced" and it's on TV Land right after
"Hot In Cleveland", which I watch regularly.
Which doesn't help matters.
I can't stand Fran Drescher. So sue me.
It's not that she can't act. She can.
It's not that she doesn't have really good comedy chops. She does.
It's simply that voice.
And that laugh.
I can't get past either of them.
It's chalk on a blackboard.
It always has been.
I really thought that if anyone was going to be typecast after "The Nanny", it would be her.
Once it had left the airwaves, I had often thought "What the hell is she going to do with the rest of her life?"
I never figured "Another TV series".
And I was actually torn about watching it, at least once.
Rita Moreno was cast as a regular, playing her mother.
I love Rita Moreno.
I did a pilot with her once.
It was a joyous experience.
Mainly because of her. What a pro!
So I was, as Jimmy Durante would put it, "on the horns of a dilemmia".
One the one hand, Rita Moreno. On the other, Fran Drescher.
I Tivoed the first episode.
I started watching it.
Rita Moreno wasn't in the first five minutes.
Fran Drescher was.
So I never got to see Rita Moreno.
Five minutes was all I could take.
And I never went back.
And unfortunately, during "Hot In Cleveland", they do incessant promos for "Happily Divorced".
So I have to make sure that I Tivo "Hot In Cleveland" and only watch it that way and make sure that I'm quick on the fast forward trigger-finger.
Maybe she's a lovely person. I don't know.
I've never met her.
Maybe this is a harsh way to judge a stranger, but it's the only way at my disposal.
When "The Nanny" was in production, my friend Rick, whom I met when he enrolled in one of my writing classes, and has since become an outstanding writer, worked as a mechanic at LAX, working on the Lear Jets usually inhabited by celebrities.
Fran Drescher boarded one of his aircraft, about to fly off to somewhere.
One of Rick's other responsibilities was to help load the luggage into the baggage compartment.
Just as the plane was fully loaded, Fran Drescher's male assistant, described by Rick as overtly gay (he was probably a little more disparaging than that), went over to Rick and announced "The Nanny needs her Louis".
The assistant was referring to her Louis Vuitton travel bag.
Rick knew that this bag was one of the first things that was loaded on to the plane.
He sized up the situation, looked the assistant in the eye, and said
"Go tell the Nanny what she can do with her Louis!"
Imagining the look on her face when her assistant told her whatever he told her is my only pleasant memory of Fran Drescher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those of you in the Tri-State Area, I'm doing a reading and signing of my book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", on Tuesday, August 2nd, at the
Huntington Book Revue, Huntington Long Island, at 7pm.
I look forward to seeing anyone who wants to see me.
******
That's really all I can say.
Somebody decided to give Fran Drescher another TV series.
It's called "Happily Divorced" and it's on TV Land right after
"Hot In Cleveland", which I watch regularly.
Which doesn't help matters.
I can't stand Fran Drescher. So sue me.
It's not that she can't act. She can.
It's not that she doesn't have really good comedy chops. She does.
It's simply that voice.
And that laugh.
I can't get past either of them.
It's chalk on a blackboard.
It always has been.
I really thought that if anyone was going to be typecast after "The Nanny", it would be her.
Once it had left the airwaves, I had often thought "What the hell is she going to do with the rest of her life?"
I never figured "Another TV series".
And I was actually torn about watching it, at least once.
Rita Moreno was cast as a regular, playing her mother.
I love Rita Moreno.
I did a pilot with her once.
It was a joyous experience.
Mainly because of her. What a pro!
So I was, as Jimmy Durante would put it, "on the horns of a dilemmia".
One the one hand, Rita Moreno. On the other, Fran Drescher.
I Tivoed the first episode.
I started watching it.
Rita Moreno wasn't in the first five minutes.
Fran Drescher was.
So I never got to see Rita Moreno.
Five minutes was all I could take.
And I never went back.
And unfortunately, during "Hot In Cleveland", they do incessant promos for "Happily Divorced".
So I have to make sure that I Tivo "Hot In Cleveland" and only watch it that way and make sure that I'm quick on the fast forward trigger-finger.
Maybe she's a lovely person. I don't know.
I've never met her.
Maybe this is a harsh way to judge a stranger, but it's the only way at my disposal.
When "The Nanny" was in production, my friend Rick, whom I met when he enrolled in one of my writing classes, and has since become an outstanding writer, worked as a mechanic at LAX, working on the Lear Jets usually inhabited by celebrities.
Fran Drescher boarded one of his aircraft, about to fly off to somewhere.
One of Rick's other responsibilities was to help load the luggage into the baggage compartment.
Just as the plane was fully loaded, Fran Drescher's male assistant, described by Rick as overtly gay (he was probably a little more disparaging than that), went over to Rick and announced "The Nanny needs her Louis".
The assistant was referring to her Louis Vuitton travel bag.
Rick knew that this bag was one of the first things that was loaded on to the plane.
He sized up the situation, looked the assistant in the eye, and said
"Go tell the Nanny what she can do with her Louis!"
Imagining the look on her face when her assistant told her whatever he told her is my only pleasant memory of Fran Drescher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those of you in the Tri-State Area, I'm doing a reading and signing of my book, "Mark Rothman's Essays", on Tuesday, August 2nd, at the
Huntington Book Revue, Huntington Long Island, at 7pm.
I look forward to seeing anyone who wants to see me.
******
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