News from me - August 3, 2001

August 3, 2001

SATURDAY EVENING (Aug. 4) and Sunday morning (Aug. 5), TV Land is rerunning Inside TV Land: Get Smart, a fine documentary on the making of a sitcom that was very funny, at least for its first few seasons. The TV Land presentation interviews most of the surviving cast members and creators and gets into the story of how the thing came to be. Mel Brooks is conspicuous by his absence but the rest are there, including Don Adams (who played the bumbling Maxwell Smart, Agent 86) and Barbara Feldon (who played his comely sidekick and — later — spouse, Agent 99). And while I highly recommend catching the show, I have to wonder about a few omissions from the history that is reported...

The first "cone of silence" scene was one of the funniest moments ever in television comedy. Unless I missed it, the special doesn't explain how that scene was shot a week or two before the rest of the pilot and, basically, sold the series. (By the way, if you ever catch a rerun of that scene,, note that the voice on the intercom is that of Howie Morris, who directed that and the whole pilot.)
Speaking of Howie: Mention is made of how Ed Platt, who was so wonderful as The Chief, was not an experienced comedic actor. They might have mentioned that Platt was recommended for the part by Mr. Morris who, a little more than a year earlier, had directed Platt in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. (It was the episode where the Petries accidentally play poker with marked cards.)
And mentioning Howie reminds us of Sid Caesar, whose sidekick he was for years on television. Inside TV Land mentions that Get Smart was the show that pretty much knocked Lawrence Welk off the air. But they might have mentioned that Welk was the one who knocked Sid Caesar off the air, thereby catapulting Howie (and future Get Smart co-creator Mel Brooks) into unemployment. So there's some kind of nice karma/revenge thing working there.
Lastly, Buck Henry was the other co-creator of Get Smart. In past interviews, he has not been reticent to suggest that Mr. Brooks contributed very little and was undeserving of co-credit. Does he not say that here because he has changed his mind, buried his anger or because TV Land cut it out?

Despite these curious omissions, you might want to give a tune-in to Inside TV Land. Better still, catch some real, vintage episodes of Get Smart. Starting early Saturday morn (Aug. 4) and continuing through the day, TV Land is running the first few seasons, starting — unfortunately — with the second episode. It commences at either 3:00 AM or 6:00 AM, depending on where you're watching it...but, hey, that's why God invented the VCR, right?

MY LONGTIME PAL, Ken Gale, is the anchor of the premier radio talk show in the country devoted exclusively to comic books. 'Nuff Said has been broadcasting since 1993 with guests from the world of comics (including, three or four times now, Yours Truly) and it's presently heard every Tuesday night at 10:00 pm, Eastern Time, on station WBAI (99.5 FM) in New York. You can also tune in via Real Audio and get additional info at the 'Nuff Said website.

LOOKING FOR the truth about this "Code Red" virus? If I were you, I'd take a gander at what Steve Gibson of Gibson Research has to say about it. He's a fiercely independent expert on this kind of thing, and his overview can be read here. It's a bit technical but you oughta be able to get the essence of it, which is that this security breach is real, that it's far from gone and that, if Microsoft issues Windows XP without fixing certain things, this kind of thing will happen again and again and again...

WE ALSO RECOMMEND Michael Kinsley's latest column, which is about the recent report by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform. It was headed up by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford (who, let us remember, managed to win one federal election between them...and only because they ran against each other) and Kinsley does a great job of shredding its findings. But he misses one point of trivia: The commission is indignant about the networks "calling" an election before the polls have closed all across the continental U.S., right? Isn't it worth mentioning that in 1980, President Carter actually conceded before the polls had closed in California? Didn't that do a lot more damage to Democracy than the networks calling a few Eastern states? Anyway, here's a link to Kinsley's piece.

I'M UP TO MY pupik* in deadlines and next week, I have to spend a few days in a dark editing room and then emerge to appear on a panel at the World Animation Celebration. So updates here may not be as plentiful as I'd like...but things'll be back to normal as soon as I get around eleven scripts and articles written.

*It's Yiddish for belly-button.

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