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The “good death” of Carl Reiner

Denny O’Neil, David Mazzucchelli, and me

**It appears that Carl Reiner had a good death on June 29. The 98-year-old was productive and vital until the very end.**

This is very clear as I was watching If You’re Not In the Obit, Eat Breakfast, the 2017 documentary for which Reiner was nominated for an Emmy. I caught it on July 3.

He “tracks down several nonagenarians [and older] to show how the twilight years can be rewarding.” The participants included Fyvush Finkel, who died before the release; the recently deceased Kirk Douglas; Betty White; Dick Van Dyke, with his much younger wife Arlene; Norman Lear; and naturally, his friend of 70 years, Mel Brooks. Here’s the preview.

I’m pleased to note that my daughter has watched all five seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which Carl Reiner created, and which I love. Of course, he played the irritable TV star, Alan Brady, as well as the budding English anti-existentialist Yale Sampson, and several other annoying characters.

Not like his characters

But as Mark Evanier noted: “Carl Reiner was the friendliest, most talented person in show business… He was a guy I admired not just for his fine work as a writer, producer, director, and performer but for just the way he was as a person. Every time I was around him, he was an absolute delight – funny, engaging, willing to talk with anyone about anything. He was just what you’d want an idol to be. He was a role model for how to be truly successful and sane in show business.”

Yes, Carl Reiner was an actor (Ocean’s 11 franchise, Hot in Cleveland) and director (Oh, God; The Jerk; All of Me). But mostly he was a writer, going back to 1950s television, with Sid Caesar and Dinah Shore. He co-wrote and directed Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) and The Man with Two Brains (1983).

I had wished he would have been selected for the Kennedy Center Honors, like his friends Mel Brooks had been in 2009 and Norman Lear in 2017. It may be that he was underappreciated as the straight man, such as the interviewer of Brooks’ 2000 Year Old Man.

Other recent deaths of note

Dennis O’Neil, who died June 11, was a comic writer who I admired greatly. His Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Neal Adams made the book relevant. He also did work on Iron Man and The Amazing Spider-Man.

Somewhere in my possession is a photo of O’Neil, David Mazzucchelli, Augustus Manly (Matt at the time), me, and a fifth person at the comic book store FantaCo in Albany. Denny and David were working on Daredevil at the time, so this had to be 1984 or 1985. He was quite pleasant, but I might have been a bit awestruck.

Hugh Downs, who passed away on July 1, was a constant presence in my television watching the last third of the 20th century. He hosted the game show Concentration (1958-1968), which BTW I was very bad at. Downs also co-hosted The Today Show (1962-1971).

With Barbara Walters, he co-hosted the news show 20/20 from 1978 until his retirement in 1999. In 1984, “he was certified by the Guinness World Records as holding the record for the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (15,188 hours).”

The reference to the “good death”, incidentally, comes from Paul McCartney explaining the song The End of the End from his 2007 album Memory Almost Full.

May rambling: Mount St. Helens + 40

Many per capitas

U.S’s oldest living WWII veteran celebrates his 110th birthday. Sometimes, when people talk to Lawrence Brooks, he has to tell them “there’s no need to yell, I can hear you just fine.”

Conservative victimhood complex has made America impossible to govern.

John Pavlovitz Official YouTube channel, including An Honest Conversation About Disciples of the MAGAChurch.

You Can Have A Black Friend, Partner, Or Child And Still Be Racist.

Leonard Pitts: When a child goes missing, you call the police. You don’t grab a gun and try to push your way into the wrong house.

Larry Kramer obituary: American playwright, author and Aids activist best known for The Normal Heart.

Jelle’s Marble Runs, sponsored by LastWeekTonight with John Oliver, starts again June 21.

Ken Osmond & Eddie Haskell & Insincerity As an American Art Form.

I was aware that Phyllis George, who recently died at age 70, had been crowned Miss America in September 1970. The pageant was a whole lot more culturally relevant then than it’s been this century. Still, I was surprised when she became a sportscaster in 1974, and joined the cast of The NFL Today a year later. She was a trailblazer, and many women now cover major sports in the United States.

Mount St. Helens, 40 years later.

Messed up things you never noticed in your favorite ’80s movies by Mick Martin.

Mark Evanier is now interviewing tons of his friends on his YouTube channel, including Cheri Steinkellner, Scott Shaw!, Paul Levitz, and a Cartoon Voices Panel.

Catherine O’Hara: The Queen of Schitt’s Creek.

Top TV ratings from 1951-2019.

Former White House employee who served 11 presidents dies of coronavirus at 91. Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, who began working at the White House in 1957.

Trevor Noah and The Daily Show Aren’t Just Surviving—They’re Thriving.

COVID-19

100,000 dead in America and Earlier Lockdowns Could Have Saved 36,000 Lives.

Universal Testing Is the Answer to Social Distancing.

Inflamed brains, toe rashes, strokes: Why the weirdest symptoms are only emerging now.

Huge Study Throws Cold Water on Antimalarials such as hydroxychloroquine; Remdesivir Data — “Not a panacea” or a “cure-all”, seems more effective when given to patients who weren’t as severely ill.

Masks, Men, and the Exhausting Pursuit of Desperate Masculinity.

JESUS IS MY VACCINE has a millennum-long history rooted in anti-Semitism.

Amy Biancolli: faith, fear of death, and fatheads.

Me and we: Individual rights, common good, and coronavirus.

I Think You May Be Wasting Freedom.

Getting richer during the pandemic.

Double bubble buddies: How to choose the first household you’ll socialize with. SO Canadian.

New Zealand went from Level 4 to Level 2 lockdown, and Arthur reports it all.

Alas, the last of the posts from Notes From The Pandemic.

Donnybrook

Running America ‘Like A Business’ Is A Road To Ruin.

How he became the GOP’s ‘new normal’

Many per capitas.

He tried to troll Michigan’s Secretary of State on voting laws. It didn’t end well for him.

Nine Questions For The White House Physician On His Use Of Hydroxychloroquine.

He Has No Endgame.

Promoting Posts From Racist and Sexist Twitter Feed.

It Shouldn’t Take A Disaster For Us to Recognize a Disaster.

Fortunately, there is the Environmental Protection Network.

Distraction – Randy Rainbow.

Now I Know

The Poison Squad and The Silvonze Medalists and Music in the Key of K and The Speed Trap That Trapped Itself and Les Gardiens de Zoo Accidentels and The Big Brick Loophole.

MUSIC

This Too Shall Pass – Mike Love with John Stamos.

You Can Close Your Eyes – James Taylor and family.

At Times Like These – Live Lounge Allstars.

Mother – Roger Waters.

Symphony No. 50, Mount St. Helens, by Alan Hovhaness.

Coverville 1309: Tributes to Kraftwerk and Little Richard and 1310: The Devo Cover Story III.

Overture and incidental music from Rosamunde, by Franz Schubert.

Shakespeare In Love composed by Stephen Warbeck.

RIP: JIMMY COBB, LEGENDARY JAZZ DRUMMER (1929-2020).

Wrong Hands: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Unported License.

Comic actors Jerry Stiller, Fred Willard

mockumentaries

Jerry Stiller.Thom Wade — Art by Thom Wade c 2020. Used by permission.

When I read that Jerry Stiller, died at 92 recently, I didn’t first think of the 1990s. I went right away to Stiller and Meara. They were on The Ed Sullivan Show over 30 times between 1963 and 1971. I probably saw most of them.

Their schtick was that Jerry Stiller’s character was Jewish and the late Anne Meara’s character was Irish Catholic. You can see them from June 14th, 1964. Except that their characters mirrored their real-life status, though Anne converted to Judaism. In fact, they broke up the act in the early 1970s because they couldn’t always tell where their act ended and their lives began.

Yet their example was a very light-hearted way to talk about breaking down ethnic barriers. In a Theater Talk interview around 2010, Part 1 and Part 2, Jerry mentioned their biggest controversy in those days. They did a joke their son marrying one of the Supremes, a bit that didn’t go over well in certain parts of the country. Jerry told Sullivan that the couple was taking a bit of flak over the joke. Sullivan said not to worry about it, that he’d take care of it.

A couple more bits: The Carol Burnett Show and an ad for the National Safety Council.

Of course, a younger generation knew him better as George Costanza’s dad Frank in 26 episodes of Seinfeld. The character famously created A FESTIVUS for the rest of US!. I never watched The King of Queens, but here is The Best of Arthur Spooner. Stiller’s character eventually was matched up with a character played by Anne Meara.

Jerry Stiller had over 100 other credits, in comedy, dramas, game shows, and talk shows. He was 92 when he died, the father of an up-and-coming actor named Ben Stiller.

He was the Best in Show

Art by Thom Wade c 2020. Used by permission.
Fred Willard has over 300 credits in the IMBD, from guest appearances going back to 1966, to his breakthrough as Jerry Hubbard on over 100 episodes of Fernwood Tonight/America 2-Night. He’s had recurring roles on Roseanne, Mad About You, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Modern Family, as Phil Dunphy’s dad, Frank.

I best know him from that series of Christopher Guest mockumentaries, Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000) and A Mighty Wind (2003). Here’s a clip from the latter.

The New York Times called him, “The king of the deadpan cameo, the guy who makes a one-shot appearance as an office manager or furniture salesman and ends up stealing the scene.” Hollywood Reporter called him the Master of Comic Cluelessness. Watch The New WKRP in Cincinnati: Nancy’s Old Man episode.

Here’s the Fred Willard Collection on Letterman, 1982-2007. I saw this bit years ago, and I’m still going to post it: The Worst Video Will. His proudest achievement and biggest regret. He was 86.

Holes in the commercial TV schedule

cricket

How_to_Marry_a_Millionaire With all the cable and streaming services out there, I’m nevertheless still fascinated by the programming choices on the three commercial TV networks I grew up with, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Most recently I noticed that Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of five movies filling the CBS Sunday night lineup in the month of May 2020.

Once upon a time, showing movies on prime time commercial television was de rigeur. According to my TV bible, How To Marry a Millionaire, starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable, was the first, airing on NBC on September 23, 1961. Gone With The Wind aired in two parts in early November 1976 and received at least a 47 rating/66 share of the market, comparable with Super Bowl broadcasts, percentage-wise.

Of course, the Wizard of Oz was shown on CBS for years. I watched it several times. But it wasn’t until I finally saw it in color in 1970 that I finally GOT it. The 1964 and 1965 airings were in the top 20 of the most viewed films on television. It’s why so much of the dialogue pops into my conversation: “What have you LEARNED, Dorothy?”

Now, I’m talking about theatrical releases. there were also a ton of made-for-TV movies, such as The Day After (1983), Helter Skelter (1976), and The Burning Bed (1984), all of which I watched at the time. There was also Little Ladies of the Night (1977), which I never even heard of, but was #2 on the list, at least as of 2009.

Play-by-play

The schedule for CBS seems to have been most impacted by the coronavirus because their schedule has been most dependent on sports. Instead of showing the March Madness of college basketball, they’ve shown reruns of previous games. The Masters golf tournament in April provides the opportunity to see last year’s final round AGAIN, but with Tiger Woods doing the commentary. Nah.

As John Green pointed out, a lot of the thrill of watching a sporting event is NOT knowing the outcome. Back in the day – i.e., last year – I would DVR the World Series games and watch them in the early morning, being sure not to look at my email, the Internet generally, or live TV.

John Green found himself watching the 2012 Italian rugby finals because who knows who won the 2012 Italian rugby finals? I’ll admit I viewed the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series recently. Instead of that, maybe I should watch cricket, which I haven’t seen since my honeymoon in 1999. Or Australian rules football. Hey, they’re playing baseball in Taiwan; I’d watch that!

Actor Martin Short turns 70

The Associates

My favorite thing featuring comic actor Martin Short was not a sketch comedy or a movie. It was on something called The Associates.

The writer Ken Levine recently answered a question on his blog. The inquiry was about “sitcoms that lasted a single season that nobody watched that, in your estimation, showcased a certain or unusual style of humor that gave it a little something atmosphere-wise that made them little lost gems?” Levine included “THE ASSOCIATES created by the TAXI team” that starred a young Martin Short as “a standout in the late ‘70s.”

That was my recollection too, but I hadn’t actually SEEN it since that single 13-episode 1979-1980 season. The IMBD describes it. “Three young law school graduates who had just joined the prestigious firm of Bass and Marshall as associates… Tucker [Martin Short] was a Midwesterner slightly out of step with his Ivy League Colleagues, a little naive but very charming.

“Daughter of a poor New York family, Leslie [Alley Mills, Orson Bean’s widow]… felt for the oppressed… Sara [Shelley Smith] was a Boston blueblood, bright as well as sexy.” The “formidable but slightly dotty Senior Partner Emerson Marshall” was played by Wilfrid Hyde-White. The “dedicated junior partner Eliot Streeter” who wanted “to take over the firm” was future Murphy Brown star Joe Regalbuto.

Is it as good as I remember? Do any of you recall it? Here are episodes one and two and three and four and five, at least for now.

SCTV, SNL

After that, Martin Short co-starred on the SCTV network in 1982-1983, with folks such as John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, and Andrea Martin. Then he appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1984-1985. This was an unusual move because SNL tended to pick unknowns, but that season, in addition to Short, the show featured Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest.

He went on to do movies such as the Three Amigos and Father of the Bride. But most recently, I know him best as the voice of the Cat in the Hat cartoon that was on PBS.

Presently, he’s been performing live with Steve Martin. They’d make a great JEOPARDY! “Before and After” clue. “This frequent SNL ‘wild and crazy’ host gigs with an SCTV and SNL star.” Who is Steve Martin Short? Short has a 2014 autobiography, I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend.

Martin Short turns 70 on March 26.