News from me - September 5, 2001

September 5, 2001

BACK IN THE DAYS of silent comedy, it was not uncommon for cartoonists to write gags for films, or even to get in front of the camera and perform them. The great Harry Langdon once drew cartoons for a living and so did Larry Semon and several others who worked only as gagmen. One of the behind-the-camera gents was Ernie Bushmiller, who wrote for a number of comedians — most notably, Harold Lloyd — before settling down to this life's work. That life's work involved writing and drawing a comic strip that we now know as Nancy.

He did not start the strip; not exactly. In 1922, a cartoonist named Larry Worthington launched Fritzi Ritz, which was about a flapper (i.e., a single, fun-loving lady of the twenties). In 1925, Bushmiller began writing and drawing it and, a few years later, introduced the into the feature, Fritzi's frizzy-haired niece. As Elzie Segar found when his squint-eyed sailor character began crowding all others off the stage of his Thimble Theater, a great supporting player has a way of taking over. Increasingly, the jokes in Fritzi Ritz were about the niece and, by 1938, the quiet takeover was complete. Just as Segar's strip became Popeye, Ms. Ritz's feature was renamed for its new star.

Bushmiller produced his strip until his death in 1982, although the last few years were a morass of recycled or reprinted gags, many of them redrawn by ghosts. Al Plastino drew it for two years imitating Bushmiller, then it was handed off to Mark Lasky and Jerry Scott and from them, to its present proprietors, Guy and Brad Gilchrist. I like the work of the latter two regimes but something is missing...some core simplicity that made Bushmiller's Nancy a favorite, especially of the very young. Elsewhere on this site, Charles Schulz is quoted as saying:

Something amazing happens every time a newspaper tries to drop Nancy. Readers don't just get angry...they get militant. When a paper drops Li'l Abner or Brenda Starr or Dick Tracy, they get a lot of complaints. No matter what the strip is, it's someone's favorite and they complain. But when a paper drops Nancy, they don't get complaints. They get death threats. People get so upset, the paper has to put it back immediately. That strip is such a part of people's lives...their childhoods. For a lot of them, it was the first strip they were ever able to read. It's like your old playground. You may not want to go back to it and swing on the swings or climb on the monkey bars...but you like the idea that it's still there. Everything in this world changes so much it's nice when something doesn't...

I believe that. It was, in a very odd way, a great strip...and it also makes for a great game. My pal Scott McCloud has a great website at — where else? — www.scottmccloud.com. Somewhere in there, and I'll let you find it for yourself 'cause everything there's worth a browse, he has the rules for Five Card Nancy, a card game that uses Nancy panels to build non sequitur (or sometimes even sequitur) continuities. I've played it and it's really quite fun...though once, I played against a fellow who cheated. He had a couple of Sluggos up his sleeve.

If reading Scott's explanation makes you eager to get into a game, Dave White has invented an online solitaire version. You can get to it by clicking right here. It's not as good as playing with actual clipped panels but it's a lot cheaper and less sacrilegious than cutting up old Nancy comic books.

SPEAKING OF addictive games: Game Show Network has started running old episodes of Press Your Luck — a program I found almost impossible to not watch during the few years it graced CBS's daytime schedule. The game is a bit complicated and, if you're coming to it fresh, you might want to brush up on the rules, which you can do at the website of one of its many fans. What you'll find, not every day but quite often, is that the rules yield an amazing cliffhanger of an ending. Someone did a real clever job of configuring this one.

By the way: If they keep running 'em two-a-day from where they started, Game Show Network will get to the infamous Michael Larsen episodes some time in mid-October. Those are the ones where an unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio figured out a "pattern" in the game show and walked off with more than $110,000. It made for one of the most amazing moments I've ever witnessed on teevee — one that so embarrassed CBS that they refused to allow the two half-hours to be rerun. Just in case they're in the package GSN is airing, I'll alert you when we get closer to when they might pop up.

ONE OF THE essentials to the production of a good cartoon show is a good recording studio and a good sound engineer. The studio where I've always preferred recording shows I produced or directed is Buzzy's, which is located on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. They have a great crew that really knows its business.

Unfortunately, that crew is one person smaller today. Larry Lantz, who was at the console for thousands of cartoon shows, radio commercials and promos, died yesterday due to complications of Diabetes. He was also a producer, a casting director and one of the truly nice men in our business. You've heard many, many programs and ads that were as good as they were because Larry was as good as he was. Which was pretty damned good.

TERRIFIC ARTICLE about Nathan Lane in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Here's a link that oughta be good for at least a few more days. (You have to register for access to their site but it's free and well worth the time 'n' trouble.)

I'M WATCHING the Jerry Lewis Telethon and Mr. Lewis just said — and I quote:

I just looked in the front row and I realize that my nine-year-old daughter is here, and my six grandchildren, and each and every one of them are so healthy, they would make Vic Tanny look sick.

That's pretty healthy, to be able to make a guy who died in 1984 look like he's only sick. Somebody, anybody — get Jerry a list of this century's topical references!

FOR THOSE OF YOU interested in the aspect of the Gary Condit mess that interests me: Bob Somerby, over at The Daily Howler, is running some of his terrific-as-always commentaries on the press coverage. Pay special attention to the quotes from the police that Mr. Condit was cooperative and did not in any way impede their search for Chandra Levy. These may or may not reflect the true situation but I'll betcha more Americans have heard that Chandra was pregnant — apparently, not true — than have heard that a cop said Condit told them everything they wanted to know.

And just to remind you: I don't know if Mr. Condit did something foul (beyond cheating on the missus) or didn't, nor do I much care. But an awful lot of folks seem to have made up their minds based on some pretty questionable news reports. And that's a bad way for the public dialogue to be conducted, even if it turns out that Condit did some or all of the bad things of which he's been accused.

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