BRIAN LIBBY

Watching Shmoo and Captain Caveman

 I have had a nearly lifelong fondness for Hanna Barbera-produced cartoons of the 1970s and 80s after spending thousands of hours watching them as a child. Although back then my favorites were some of HB's more popular cartoons like The Flinstones, Superfriends and Yogi Bear, I've developed a retroactive fondness in my adult years for some of the lesser Hanna Barbera works of that period.

Sometimes it's the earlier 60s HB work I enjoy, like Magilla Gorilla, Auggie Doggie & Doggie Daddy, and Johnny Quest. There are times I go for late 70s Hanna Barbera, like Godzilla.

But today it was two 80s HB cartoons that I watched online: The Shmoo and Captain Caveman. Although I was always rather ambivalent about that titan of Hanna Barbera fandom, Scooby Doo (meaning I watched it nearly every day as a kid but only because it was so ubiquitous, and less excitedly so), it struck me while watching the two Shmoo episodes and single Captain Caveman episode that they were very much made from the Scooby Doo template.

Part of the template is casting. There is always some sort of either talking animal or other quasi supernatural character who acts as both hero and comic relief. In Shmoo's case, he is a kind of shapeshifter who spends most of his (or her) time as a blobby bowling-pin shape, but can take on the form of literally anything. In this episode, Shmoo acted as a tire when the gang's car went flat, and then shapeshifted into a tire jack when a replacement tire was found, as well as a blanket, a pillow, a pogo stick, and a parachute, all of which were part of several life-saving actions. Shmoo also seems to delight in kissing both protagonists and antagonists alike.

What I found particularly astonishing about the Shmoo and Captain Caveman shows, though, was that nobody seems phased by the fact that there is this unearthly being of completely unknown form or origin - he's just a funny pet with almost limitless powers. I shouldn't say completely unknown, though. I've since learned, as I wrote this post and plumbed Wikipedia, that Shmoo began in the venerable Lil' Abner cartoon and has a surprisingly rich history, as the entry delineates:

"A shmoo is shaped like a plump bowling pin with legs. It has smooth skin, eyebrows and sparse whiskers - but no arms, nose or ears. Its feet are short and round but dexterous, as the shmoo's comic book adventures make clear. It has a rich gamut of facial expressions, and expresses love (often) by exuding hearts over its head.

They reproduce asexually and are very prolific. They require no sustenance other than air.

They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal."

Personally, though, I prefer to restrict my consideration of Shmoo to the 1980s Hanna Barbera cartoon, even if it's just a cheesy formulaic rendition of an actually richer satirical newspaper-cartoon character. It's ultimately this HB formula and the look and style of Hanna Barbera cartoons that I love, not some biographic history of this bowling bowl-shaped blob.

Captain Caveman is less abstract of an entity; he takes on a caricature of a prehistoric man instead of an indescribable morphing blob. But his trusted club has unexplainable powers as well: a series of Flinstones-like small animals come out of the club to provide whatever assistance the Captain needs. In the episode I watched, a small bird pops out of his club in order to bite a padlock off a mummy's coffin, which itself is acting as a secret portal from which a mummy comes and goes.

Besides the lead characters like Shmoo or Captain Caveman, they are routinely part of a small nomadic group of quasi-hip youngsters in their late teens or early 20s. It's always a mix of genders, and usually a racial mix as well. It's a kind of idyllic 70s version of Young America. One member of the group, usually the most cowardly and child-like male figure (Shaggy on Scooby Doo and Billie Joe on Schmoo), has a particularly tight bond with the pet-hero-supernatural figure. Whether it's Scooby or Schmoo or "Cavey" (as Captain Caveman's gang calls him), the title character appreciates the coward's desire to be left alone in bliss without seeking fame and fortune. It allows said title character to not only enjoy that master-dog relationship, but also act in that truly heroic way later in the episode: the role of the reluctant hero who is only utilizing his/her powers in order to save innocent lives. Shmoo doesn't just shapeshift to randomly steal or kick ass, and Cavey has sophisticated judgment despite his prehistoric brain.

There's a line on The Simpsons that also partially explains the template. Lisa says, "If there's anything I've learned from years of watching Scooby Doo, it's to beware of real estate developers." Almost invariably there is an antagonist, revealed at show's end, who is trying to scare people away from some valuable piece of land or discovery. In one of the Shmoo episodes I watched, "The Valley Where Time Stood Still", Shmoo and the kids encounter what seems to be a Texas valley where prehistoric pterodactyls and T-rexes still roam, only do discover it's merely a rancher from the bordering property who has discovered an oil deposit and is seeking to reap its fortunes without the landowner's knowledge by fabricating the appearance of angry dinosaurs (a pterodactyl turns out to be a remote-control glider) and cavemen (guys with long beards and department store leopard skins for loincloths).

By setting a multicultural group of youth against greedy devious adults, these cartoons helped act, for all their cheap animation corner-cutting and saccharine, formulaic storytelling, as a kind of ongoing series of morality plays during my youth. More than just heroes and villains, though, the collected Hanna Barbera works of this particular formula, the Scooby Doo template of a small group of youth and their supernaturally talented pet-slash-pal ham fistedly avoiding certain peril and bringing down powerful forces of corruption -- instilled in me the idealistic sense that you can and should take on the powerful with hope of success. It's a nice theme to revisit when you're older and more cynical.  Even the 37 year old version of me enjoys taking 10 or 20 minutes now or then to return to the land where backgrounds repeat every few seconds if you're running somewhere, and there's nothing surprising about the having a sexless childlike shifting blob for your companion-slash-bodyguard.

A sublime Saturday morning jingle

Growing up, I thought of Looney Tunes belonging more to the domain of after-school cartoons than the Saturday morning variety. But thanks to The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show on CBS, they had a presence on the weekend as well.

The show seemed a little strange to me then, because it took classic Looney Tunes cartoons I knew well and seemed to either redo them or somehow change the film stock and audio to polish their look. You could tell that some of Mel Blanc's voices for the characters were ever so slightly different -- the work of a man twenty or thirty years older. And the cartoons usually didn't have the intro wind-up of that familiar Looney Tunes theme with the name bursting out of a series of fat circles.

But there is one part of The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show that always stuck with me: the opening theme. "Overtures! Curtains, lights!" Bugs and Daffy Duck sang as they marched up and down the stage with matching canes, hats and beige tuxedo jackets in a sort of Vaudeville by way of the Sixties style. I also liked the instrumental mid-point of the theme, when all the supporting Looney Tunes characters march across the stage in a line, from Yosemite Sam to Pepe Le Pew, as trombones blared.

Just as satisfying is the second song that comes as part of the extended BB/RR Show beginning. "Road Runner, the Coyote's after you!" a sort of 50s rockabilly-ish jingle goes. "Road Runner, if he catches you you're through!" It also includes a montage of several botched attemts by Wiley Coyote to catch him, my favorite perhaps being the lit stick of dynamite in a slingshot that explodes before the Coyote can release it. Like a lot of my friends, at least half of me was rooting for the Coyote to catch the Road Runner, but I loved the spareness of the desert backdrop and, considering the verboseness of Bugs and Daffy and most other characters, the fact that neither pursuer or pursued ever spoke. (The exception, of course, being Wiley Coyote's appearance in a couple of Bugs Bunny cartoons in which he very memorably speaks of himself in third person: "Wiley Coyote - super genius!"

Meanwhile, all I know is that when I walk dowtown in a few minutes, there will be many renditions of "Overtures! Curtains, lights!" as I amble down the sidewalk.

Memo to Cuervo: stop saying "cola"!

Last night I woke up at about 4AM and couldn't fall asleep for awhile. The reason couldn't have been more silly: I had a TV commercial that I can't stand playing continuously in my head.

A gravelly voice kept saying between my ears, "It's perfect with cola." It's the same voice I've heard in my head while showering for several mornings in a row. I feel outright tormented by it.

Years ago, my friend Chad told me a story of how as a child his younger brother had experienced a near nervous breakdown simply because the theme to the "Strawberry Shortcake" doll and cartoon was stuck in his head. ("Strawberry shortcake, my she's looking fine/Cute little doll with the strawberry smell.") I didn't believe it at the time. How could one innocuous jingle drive you crazy? But as silly as it sounds, "perfect with cola" is becoming my Strawberry Shortcake.

Although I hate to give them any additional publicity, however modest it may be coming from a little-read blog, the commercial was for Cuervo Black tequila. Apparently this darker variety of tequila is supposed to be ideally well matched with cola. But I have this thing about the word "cola". For starters, who even uses it? The brand names Coke and Pepsi have become synonyms for cola that are actually used far more often than the generic terms itself.

In other words, nobody says "cola". Except for my mom, of course, whom my sister and I tease and laugh at incessantly whenever we go to a restaurant and she says politely to the waiter, "I'd like a diet cola, please." It reminds me of that Simpsons episode when Mayor Quimby's young son goes ballistic because a French chef won't pronounce "chowder" as "chow-dah". "Say chowda!" he exclaims angrily. I want to do the same thing to the Cuervo people, only in reverse: Stop saying cola!

Apparently people usually drink tequila straight, or at least not mixed with soft drinks. Cuervo wants to challenge the traditional "rum and Coke" cocktail with its new tequila. But if they say, "Cuervo and Coke", they're plugging Coca-Cola. Or Pepsi were they to change the accompanying brand name.

My favorite part, also known as the part that irks me the most, is at the beginning, when the voice over says, "How to order a Cuervo Black and cola..." Next, a man steps up to the bar and says, "Cuervo Black and cola." Gee, thanks for the instruction - I never would have got that on my own!

An ad expert or a psychologist might point out that Cuervo Black's commercial has already achieved its purpose. People like me are blogging about it. No such thing as bad publicity, right? But as my friend John Jay, creative director at Adweek magazine's global ad agency of the year, Wieden + Kennedy, has said many times, little in advertising, art or culture matters more than authenticity. And even though it may be my own private affair, I find the Cuervo Black ad excruciatingly inauthentic. (Incidentally, WK's Coke commercial with a giant Charlie Brown the hero was my favorite Super Bowl ad. What if they'd replaced Charlie with another bald kid?)

If you really must try this new liquor offering, I urge you to try it with 7-Up or Sprite, also known as a lemon-lime carbonated beverage. And in case you need instructions on how to order, just tell the bartender, "Cuervo Black with lemon-lime carbonated beverage."

Things I've learned about the Smurfs (or les Schtroumpfs)

Although it's not a regular part of my freelance writing work, every once in awhile I have reviewed videos in the past for The Oregonian and, before that, Willamette Week. They usually seem to wind up being releases I already had some kind of personal taste for or guilty-pleasure attachment to.

A few years ago, for example, I wrote a loving ode to Top Gun upon a "special edition" DVD release, admitting all the while that it was the most vacant kind of cheesy action movie but one with plenty of enjoyment, depending on one's attitude and, if you're the right age to have watched it as a teen like I was, a good dose of nostalgia. More recently, I reviewed a volume in the ongoing Looney Tunes "Golden Collection" series of DVDs. It was a chance to have a take not only on those cartoons within the disc, but also to wax about the genius of Warner Brothers cartoons made between roughly World War II and Vietnam.

I'm on an email list to receive press releases from a couple different video labels like WB. And today, for some reason, I found myself surprisingly susceptible to news of "The Smurfs: The Complete First Season" being released on DVD.

"The Smurfs" cartoon series was on a lot during my childhood. Yet I never considered myself a fan. It seemed too wimpy for my taste. No explosions! Not even anyone falling off a cliff! But as an unequivocally devoted Child of Television, I watched "The Smurfs" a lot anyway. Because that's what cartoon was on at that time of day. If it was a morning before school, an afternoon afterward, or a Saturday morning between about 7AM and noon, I was dutifully watching TV. And the preference was always for cartoons. Only a couple old live-action sitcoms in rerun syndication like The Brady Bunch or (to a lesser extent) Gilligan's Island could compare.

Staring at this press release about the Smurf DVD today, I'd like to think it was with more of a nostalgia-free lens than usual, because I have never yearned to be watching that cartoon again. I mean, it's actually one of the only children's cartoons from the era of my own childhood that seems weird and almost downright creepy to think about. (Strawberry Shortcake might also fit that definition, come to think of it.) Who are these Smurfs, anyway, with their blue skin and their replacement of every other word with their own name?

For some reason I can't completely put my finger on, there's something so downright surreal about The Smurfs that I find myself drawn to it in a deer-in-the-headlights kind of way. There's something so banal about the show, particularly the cartoon, yet it also had just enough of a fairy-tale theme that it could vaguely tap into our pre-existing notion of that kind of Hansel & Gretel world existing somewhere uncharted out there in the forest. Maybe because of that forest and the mixture of weirdness with banality, The Smurfs almost feel Lynchian.

Which was why, on a whim, I requested a reviewer's copy of the DVD and happened to look up "The Smurfs" on Wikipedia. Surprisingly, the Smurfs actually have much longer of a history than I would have thought. What's next, some kind of ancient Pac-Man game played in the dirt by Druids?

The Smurfs (originally Les Schtroumpfs in French) are a fictional group of small sky blue creatures who live somewhere in the forests of medieval Europe. The Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced Smurfs to the world in a series of comic strips, making their first appearance in the Belgian comics magazine Le Journal de Spirou on October 23, 1958.

At the time, Peyo created a Franco-Belgian comics series in Le Journal de Spirou titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Pirlouit (pronounced Peer-Loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick.

Johan and Peewit had the mission of recovering a Magic Flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. And in this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid creature in white clothing called a "Schtroumpf", followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and a beard. The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising.

"Schtroumpf" is an invented word. The pronunciation of "Schtroumpf" in French is quite similar to the German word "Strumpf" (English "sock"), but there is no indication that this is more than a coincidence.

According to Peyo, the word came to him as he asked André Franquin for "salt" during lunch and, struggling to find the word that eluded him, finally managed to say "passe-moi le schtroumpf" ("pass me the smurf"). It would later be translated into nearly 30 languages and, in some of those languages, "Schtroumpf" became "Smurf" (see The Smurfs in other languages). The word "Smurf" was first used in Dutch, as the comics were simultaneously published in French (in Spirou magazine) and Dutch (in Robbedoes, the Dutch translation of the magazine).

The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike — male, very short (just "three apples tall"), with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies their personality. (For instance, Handy Smurf wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat smilax leaves, whose berries the smurfs naturally call smurfberries (the smurfberries appear only in the cartoon, in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the smilax).

The male Smurfs almost never appear without their hats, which leaves a mystery amongst the fans as to whether they have hair or not.

Of course, here in America we got a much more sanitized, antiseptic version of these characters and stories. But that's somehow part of what intrigues me now. The Smurfs have always had an arresting visual look because of their simplicity and sameness: white legs and hat, blue torso, repeated in every one of them except a select few male Smurfs and of course the lone "Smurfette". Can you imagine, by the way, being the lone woman in a Medieval village, surrounded by males? No wonder NBC sanitized the cartoon.

Somehow it just figures that The Smurfs were created by a French-speaking European. It's something about the look: it's as if knickers or liederhosen are somehow implied. The Smurfs definitely are more plausible as Belgians than as Americans.

But then again, as an American in love with traveling outside the country, maybe that inherent foreignness is what attracts me. Maybe in some crazy way the Smurfs represent the desire to get out of my comfort zone once in awhile and experience people who look different from myself.

Then again, though, to intellectualize too much about these little blue cartoon characters seems like total mother-smurfing bullsmurf.

Tom & Jerry at the Air China lounge

It is still nearly two hours until my flight, but I feel as though my spirits have been lifted.

I'm writing this from the VIP lounge for Air China at Capitol Airport in Beijing. I've been here since either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on whether you mark from the day I left Portland or the day I arrived here. I entered the lounge profoundly exhausted. It's been a good trip, and I'm thankful for this incredible opportunity to see China for the first time. I am here on a press junket for the opening of the Ullens Center, a new contemporary art museum here in a renovated circa-1930s former munitions factory building. I've been to the Forbidden City, Tianmen Square, and even the Great Wall. I've been treated to countless dinners and exhibitions, whisked throughout the city as a VIP, put up in a 4-star hotel, and had the opportunity to take some five hundred pictures.

But trips like this can also be quite a long slog, even in the best of circumstances. Jet lag kept me from getting restful sleep until last night. The people running the junket have had us on the go from about 8AM to midnight most days. I'm also really fed up fending off people trying to sell me stuff. China may be a so-called 'Communist' country, but these seem to be the most naturally and most aggressively entrepreneurial people I've ever met. I even was accosted by people trying to sell me trinkets, t-shirts and copies of Mao's Little Red Book on the wall itself. And I miss my cat and girlfriend!

I'd never been in an airport VIP lounge before. And when I first entered this one, it did not impress. All the furniture seems left over from the 1970s, and the VIP meal consists of hot noodles in a paper cup. But then I sat down and was surprised to find something else on the television here than the usual ubiquitous airport CNN. On the plasma-screen TV a few feet away as I write this, Air China has a continuous loop of Tom & Jerry cartoons. And as it happens, this is precisely the tonic I needed.

As a child, I watched hours of cartoons each day. I'd begin with the local favorite Ramblin' Rod in the morning with his procession of Bugs Bunny and other Looney Tunes favorites (punctuated by smile contests and birthday songs), graduate to Star Blazers before scurrying off to school, and return in the afternoon for episodes of The Flintstones and Superfriends. In those days, I was never a huge Tom & Jerry fan. They always seemed like second-rate Looney Tunes, and for some reason I always rooted for Tom to catch Jerry even though I wasn't suppposed to. They even spelled their medium incorrectly: a cartune?

But as I sank into the worn, brown-orange seat of the lounge, clutching a Pepsi Light can with an old pull-tab I hadn't seen since the Carter administration, I found myself enraptured by Tom and Jerry's pursuits. I've heard various parents complain over the years that such cartoons as these are improperly violent and aggressive, but the absurd physicality of their exploits made me chuckle. In one, Jerry helped a seal that had escaped from the circus. Another pitted a black alley cat against Tom for the rights to a ham in the fridge. During a romp through a haunted house, Tom had nine numbered ghosts nearly sucked from his body as he clung frightfully to a stairway banister. Just now I turned from the computer to glance at the screen, and Jerry was dressed in a film noir trenchcoat and fedora while Tom negotiated barbed wire and mines in the living room (I have no idea what this means).  I can't tell you exactly what was so brilliant about any specific moments, except that they all involve a series of sight gags that are as universal as McDonald's or converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. Most importantly, they made me smile on the eve of some 18 grueling hours of transit. Even now, hearing Chinese spoken all around me, with its odd musicality of odd consonants and inflection, I feel at home thanks to Hanna and Barbera's half-century-old cat and mouse. For that, they can call it a cartoon, a cartune, or a kartoone. And I will embark on my marathon of boardings, security checks, turbulence, baggage claim and a new round of jet lag as a decidedly happier customer.

It's All Behind Me Now

Oregon Public Broadcasting has a new marketing campaign with a redone logo, slogan and commercials. The commercials were done by a local ad agency, but they were filmed by my friend Rob Tyler, a superb local filmmaker.

A couple months ago, I got an impromptu call from Rob asking if he could film me right away at a pedestrian bridge overlooking Interstate 5. (The light was good so he was in a hurry.) So I quickly drove over there and stared down at traffic for several minutes while he filmed.

And recently the result began playing on OPB. My head is the second in a montage you see of the backs of people's heads, each looking at some different urban or rural scene. The idea is that OPB is TV for people who think. The commercial is playing regularly during primetime at the beginning and end of shows, and it's also available for viewing online here.

And yes, I know I've lost some hair.

It's funny: I have no real desire to be famous, but somehow getting on television regularly but only with the back of my head seems fitting. Once several years ago I remember having a dream in which I could fly, but could only ever get a few feet off the ground.

Stream of Consciousness MNF

A few thoughts from the laptop as I nurse a cold and watch football...

Instead of listening to the game, I have the TV muted and am instead have my iPod going. I happened to be listening to a guilty pleasure song, “Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears For Fears, as the game started. Which felt kind of funny, hearing this kind of flowery love song and watching all these pituitary cases running around pumping their fists.

The home team is the Philadelphia Eagles, and before the game they were showing Sylvester Stallone being introduced to the crowd from his luxury-box seat. Stallone was acknowledging the crowd by hoisting his arms in the air not unlike how he does in the original Rocky movie. You could see the Philly fans going wild, and it seemed like kind of a cute moment, albeit of course a cheesy one. But then I remembered Stallone is currently in the midst of promoting the latest Rocky sequel, and the moment was kind of ruined. No doubt it was all pre-arranged as part of the film’s promotion.

I miss that Monday Night Football no longer does the player introductions where each player is filmed saying his name and college. (This tradition has been carried over, however, to NBC’s new Sunday night telecast). Seeing the players with their helmets off and speaking humanizes them. Plus, even within those constraints of just saying your name and school, you could see players’ different personalities come out. The only problem was, ABC sometimes allowed players to get away with saying something other than their college name, such as the name of their high school or elementary school. Or other players would name some slangy variation on their college name, like “The U” for Miami, or “THE Ohio State University” for Ohio state. That stuff used to be a real pet peeve of mine, but only because I loved the format otherwise.

The Monday Night Football broadcast team this year is announcer Mike Terico, former quarterback Joe Thiesmann, and journalist Tony Kornheiser. I love the fact that they’re using a non-player as a commentator. When they did it with Dennis Miller a few years ago, it had mixed results. Miller could be really funny or insightful sometimes and embarrassingly forced and annoying others. I like the idea of a journalist doing the show, be it a print writer or TV guy. Kornheiser happens to be both, but he comes from the print world as a Washington Post columnist.

But the only problem is that Kornheiser is starting to drive me crazy. And what's particularly weird about it, considering I’m a journalist too, is that the annoyance comes precisely from his media instincts. He tends to really harp on whatever the biggest ongoing drama or storyline seems to be involving that night’s teams or players and return to it ad nauseum. With the Eagles playing tonight, for example, there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll be talking a great deal about Terrell Owens, the controversial wide receiver who used to play there. Sometimes listening to Kornheiser on MNF, I’ve wanted to scream, “Let it go!” Hence the iPod.

Speaking of which, I’ve found that if one has the regular sound on with football, it’s just astonishing how many commercials there are. For the last couple years as Valarie and I have got in the habit of watching English soccer, where entire 45-minute game halves go by without a single commercial, it’s really hard to sit through scores of commercials over a potentially 3-to-4-hour broadcast. Granted, getting rid of or significantly reducing commercials would surely mean that the advertising would simply be moved to the players’ jerseys, as it is in soccer. And with my love of sports uniforms, that would drive me crazy. (I’d love to have an Arsenal jersey or certain other ones, but you can’t get them without the advertisement, so I refuse to do it.)

Currently my favorite NFL team uniform is the Indianapolis Colts. I’m very old-school when it comes to uniforms. I’m reminded of a great Chuck Klosterman essay for ESPN in which he came to the horrific realization that despite being politically a liberal, he was a unequivocal conservative when it came to sports. I feel the same way, and uniforms are just one example. Other uniforms that I like are the Cowboys (although they’re traditionally my least favorite team), the Steelers (my longtime favorite team), the Cleveland Browns, and the Chicago Bears. I really hate the Seattle Seahawks uniforms. Or as my dad and I have called them since I was a kid, the “Seaturkeys”.

I just saw Steve Smith score the game’s first touchdown, but I hadn’t watched one play in the entire game because I was writing this. Speaking of Steve Smith, though, it’s good to see him scoring touchdowns and not throwing up into a garbage can, as the cameras showed a couple weeks ago when the Panthers were playing. Luckily I missed that one, though. But since I’m sick with a cold, I must admit that football is the ideal TV to watch. I can pay half attention and if there’s anything good I miss there’ll be several replays.

Just One More Thing About Columbo

Last night Valarie and I revisited one of our all-time favorite TV shows: Columbo. As always, Peter Falk starred as the eponymous Lieutenant Columbo, the disheveled, cigar-smoking homicide investigator with a baggy trenchcoat and a beat-up Peugeot. While a rotating guest star as the villain in each episode means the show has always known a wide variety of actors, this 1972 episode was a particularly intriguing confluence of many personalities, personas and backstories.

The murderer was played by John Cassavettes, a friend and collaborator of Falk’s outside the Columbo series. Despite being so strongly associated in people’s minds with his Columbo role, Falk has managed to involve himself with some exceptionally interesting, quality work. Not only is there the sublime Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire, in which Falk essentially plays himself (only he's also an angel who has returned to earth--but that's a whole other line of conversation). But his work with Cassavettes, the popular Hollywood actor turned iconoclastic writer-director, is also equally if not more interesting because it constitutes more of a departure from Columbo.

Falk is particularly memorable in Cassavettes's 1974 film A Woman Under the Influence, a devastatingly emotional drama about mental collapse. He stars alongside the great Gena Rowlands in what may be her best performance as a wife and mother trying desperately to keep her marbles. Because the working method on Cassavettes films always consisted of actors improvising extensively in front of the camera, it's also the antithesis of Columbo. That kind of yin-yang to an actor's resume is impressive--especially for a shlub with a glass eye.

In Étude in Black, the Columbo episode we watched last night, Cassavettes played a classical music conductor who murders his mistress because she was trying to blackmail him into marrying her. Sneaking out of his dressing room just before a televised performance at the Hollywood Bowl is about to begin, Cassavettes seems to pull off a perfect crime by making the killing look like an accident, wherein she slipped, fell and was knocked unconscious with the oven on and the gas running. But he accidentally drops his tuxedo boutonniere on the living room carpet of the victim's apartment. That's child's play for Columbo. The real fun was watching Cassavettes and Falk play off each other, with a wink that was almost but never quite ironic. Which is the perfect way to play it.

The conductor’s adoring young wife was played by Blythe Danner, mother of Gwyneth Paltrow. In fact, Danner was pregnant with Gwyneth, the future Oscar winner, during filming of the episode. Legendary actress Myrna Loy, who had first gained fame 38 years earlier in The Thin Man and several sequels with William Powell as Nick and Nora, played the conductor’s mother in law. And Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, of Happy Days and The Karate Kid fame, had a small role as a butler.

The writer of Étude in Black was Steven Botchko, who would go on to create Hill Street Blues, LA Law and several other TV shows. And the episode was directed by none other than Nicholas Colasanto, who in addition to being a veteran TV director for series like Starsky & Hutch and SWAT, gained far greater notoriety in front of the camera as Ernie “The Coach” Pantuso on Cheers. Curiously, one of Colasanto's other roles, albeit a small one, was as a mobster in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. And just to bring everything full-circle, John Cassavettes, whom Colasanto directed in Étude in Black, was an important filmmaking mentor to Scorsese.

Despite the colorful lineup involved with the episode, they never for a moment change the fact that Columbo’s success lies primarily in its formula. Each week we watch some seemingly foolproof murder unspooled by the lieutenant, who identifies the murderer early on but engages in a cat-and-mouse game with his prey, all the while using a seemingly bashful ineptitude as his camouflage. I wouldn’t want most of the big and small-screen dramas I watch to be so predictable, but in the case of Columbo it’s reassuring and, oddly, never boring.

I suppose, also, that it’s precisely the formulaic nature of Columbo that makes it an interesting challenge to the actors. When you know the route, you can traverse its curves and straightaways with more precision. And that's true for the viewers, too -- as long as there's nice scenery along the way.

And besides its formulaic plot, the show also follows a very familiar and successful trajectory in the relationship between its two opposing characters. Columbo is the modest one who’s constantly underestimated but has determination and moxie on his side. The guest star plays an arrogant murderer who thinks this poor lieutenant has no chance of unearthing the brilliantly conceived crime. And guess who always goes down? It could be a murder mystery or classical mythology or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Funny what a fine line there is when it comes to following formula. As Joseph Campbell has noted, there’s a reason certain kinds of stories have been passed through the generations and across a spectrum of world cultures. They're elementary and elemental. They endure because they're always relevant. But there is no greater pratfall to storytellers than cliché. Somehow the key is to be rooted in a transcendent theme but to decorate the tree, so to speak, with your own unique ornaments.

Which, more than anything else, explains the row of Columbo episodes on our DVD shelf.

Rachel Ray Before & After

Often on weekdays while I’m making dinner, I have the TV tuned to Food Network’s 30 Minute Meals, hosted by Rachel Ray. I’ve always liked cooking shows: there’s something about the simple instructional aspect that makes it feel educational, and having it on around dinner time makes me feel motivated to cook creatively. 30 Minute Meals isn't as entertaining as Iron Chef or full of odd facts like Good Eats, but its mission of encouraging healthy, flavorful, easy-to-make food every day is important in an obese society addicted to take-out.

When Martha Stewart went to jail last year, Food Network replaced the 6:30PM timeslot for From Martha’s Kitchen with a second episode of 30 Minute Meals. So now a new episode of Ray's show airs at 6:00, and an older rerun from a few years back immediately follows. As a result, viewers see the 2005 version of Rachel Ray at 6:00, and what I’m guessing is the 2002 or 2003 version of Rachel at 6:30.

You’d think I would enjoy a second helping of show I’ve always liked, but watching an old episode and a new one back-to-back has made for an odd revelation.

The earlier episodes 6:30 show Ray to be a normal-looking person who would fit right in at a PTA meeting: maybe a little too perky for some tastes, but refreshingly genuine. Compare that Rachel with the modern version at 6:00, however, and you realize that she’s been overzealously glammed-out.

Rachel’s everyday brown hair is now a giant mane with more highlights than an extended SportsCenter episode. (Highlights to me are today the biggest cliche in hair care.) She loudly throws her voice as if you’re in the next room, or there's no microphone a few feet away. Her makeup is caked on like Tammy Faye (well maybe not that much, but I’d still recommend buying stock in Loreal). And what was once an endearing array of cornball expressions (“Yuh-hum”, “get some of these guys goin’ on”) has been exaggeratedly turned up to eleven.

I don’t feel completely comfortable, as a male or as a viewer in general, micromanaging another person’s personal style. I don’t want to sound like some obsessive fan who mistakenly thinks he has the right to get personal about someone who in all likelihood is very nice. But I think the point is still worth making that TV professionals have a revolting tendency toward heavy-handedness when it comes to handling grooming for people on the air—especially women. I find local TV news virtually unwatchable, for example, not just because of the general lack of substance to the reporting, but especially because the on-air personalities are presented stylistically like upper-class suburban psychos drunk on too much hairspray with a perma-grin that's more Stanley Kubrick than June Cleaver.

Rachel Ray got on national television because of her culinary expertise and her passion for getting people to make cooking a greater part of their everyday lives. I respect her and 30 Minute Meals for that. But inevitably watching a particularl TV show on a regular basis you develop a familiarity with the host. And I find it a legitimate distraction when that host is glammed-out by the handlers. If this were food, it would be revoltingly over-seasoned. I say let Rachel be herself, a simple woman from rural upstate New York, not another Nordstrom-ensconced lemming whose perfume you can practically smell through the cable box.

Say It Ain't So, Jamie!

A few days ago I was planning to write an entry called 'I Heart Jamie Oliver'. I have long enjoyed his cooking shows, which Food Network broadcasts from the original BBC telecasts. He's very jovial and friendly and unpretentious. And since we've been in London, where I'm writing this from now on vacation, I've read in the papers about how Jamie has successfully revolutionized British school lunches by campaigning and then getting the Labour government to agree on replacing horrible frozen food with fresh meals. Plus I also interviewed Jamie a year or two ago by phone and was quite taken with how genuine and friendly he was.

But then the bubble was burst. Yesterday while on the train in London I read over someone's shoulder an article in the Independent newspaper that Jamie has agreed to stand for a seat in Parliament -- as a Tory! I'm just shattered to learn that someone I admire so much has turned to the Dark Side of the Force.

I have traditionally been good about not villifying people politically right of center, especially because my parents and much of my relatives are Republican. But still. I will never think of Jamie in quite such unequivocally positive terms. He's not a hero of mine. Everyone, apparently, has their downside.

I've Just Gotta Say This: Fresh Beer Does Not (Necessarily)Taste Better

With college football’s bowl season and the NFL playoffs as well as college and pro basketball on TV, I’ve been watching a lot of sports lately. It’s been entertaining to see the Orange Bowl, the NFL wild-card playoffs, and some key early-season basketball games. But along with watching sports comes all the TV commercials one has to endure over and over. I'm definitely feeling a hangover.

Usually I am able to avoid doing the time. While flipping channels, which incidentally is a personal pastime in and of itself, I can avoid watching any commercial in its entirety by merely hitting the channel-change button . But when I’m committed to watching a good game, suddenly I can no longer run. I've got to sit through them.

What used to torment me the most among the commercials in heavy rotation during sporting events was the endless refrain of Bob Seger’s “Like A Rock”. The song accompanied a campaign for Chevy trucks running so long you’d think they comprised some kind of religious mantra—a Hare Krishna for the Red States.

But now it's Budweiser and Coors haunting me. Each has made a pathetic attempt to distract viewers from the prevailing issue of taste—because neither beer possesses much of it, one assumes. Instead, Bud and Coors emphasize the comparatively benign issues of how recently the beer was bottled and whether it's consistently been kept cold through every stage of its trip from brewery to your fridge. Sure, these things matter, but not as much as taste. It's not even close at all.

Budweiser reminds us “fresh beer tastes better”. Maybe so, but I’d rather have a bottle of foreign or microbrew beer that had been sitting in a warehouse on the equator for an extra week or two than a just-brewed Budweiser with ice crystals forming on the outside of the bottle. And Coors says that their goal “is the coldest tasting beer in the world”. What the hell does that even mean? You can take any American "macro-brews" down to absolute zero if you want, and they still wouldn’t taste any better. (The fact that I occasionally drink Pabst Blue Ribbon is of course irrelevant.)

I know this does not comprise the most important message I’ll ever bring forth, but the desire to bellow my opinion from the rooftops about these bogus beer commercials reflects how frustrating it feels being berated by them over and over through the course of the game. Yes, I could simply avoid these ads by not watching sports, but it’s not that easy. I love watching some of the games I’m watching.

Perhaps you could consider this entire passage an indirect way of  my advertising the need for Tivo.

Pulling the Curtain on Voice-Overs

Everybody has a peculiar talent or two, and one of mine has always been identifying famous people doing voice-overs on television. Valarie and I will be crashed in front of the tube watching a commercial, and I’ll say, for example, “The guy narrating that Navy ad narrated Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary.” As a result, I’ve become interested in how a lot of famous actors who presumably wouldn’t be caught dead lending their image to a TV commercial (except Catherine Zita-Jones in those T-Mobile ads) often are willing to lend their voices.

To name a few: Julia Roberts is the voice of America Online’s most recent campaign. Gary Sinise narrates Cadillac spots. John Lurie (Fishing With John, Down By Law) lends his gravelly voice to Toyota commercials. Stockard Channing can be heard urging us to drink milk. For years Donald Sutherland has hawked Volvos. Jim Belushi is the spokesperson for Johnsonville Brats. And Gene Hackman does voice-overs for Lowes, after many years with United Airlines and several others.

I’m always suspicious that these actors are hoping we won’t recognize them. That way, they can earn a hefty paycheck without the integrity of their acting careers being threatened. Sure, you could argue that by now Gene Hackman knows that we recognize him, and that it doesn’t take away from his multi-Oscar-winning career. But why is it we’ve never seen him actually appear in any of the countless commercials he has voiced? I think most actors know they’ll be perceived by many as sellouts if they appear on commercials. So is doing a voice-over for a commercial in which you don’t appear merely approaching the sellout line without crossing it, or is it just crossing it clandestinely?

I think it comes down somewhat to the product being sold. I doubt Gene Hackman has ever spent much time in the suburbs shopping for do-it-yourself home improvement products. I can, however, picture Donald Sutherland driving a Volvo. Does that make Hackman more of a sellout than Sutherland? Not necessarily, but Sutherland maintains just a hair more dignity in my book.

That said, I can’t help but want to pull the curtain from behind all of these Wizards of Oz.

I Lost On Jeopardy!, Baby

Today I logged onto the ESPN website and found coverage of Jeopardy! Champion Ken Jennings losing after being the show’s champion for 74 episodes. I’ve been a fan of the show for years and love the idea of Jeopardy! getting main coverage from sports media. I don’t think of it as being a game show getting covered, which sounds inherently silly, so much as a case where a test of knowledge is treated as importantly as, say, putting a ball through a hoop. Granted, this Jeopardy! story is an exceptional case. Since doing away with the limit on being champion of the show for only five episodes, Alex Trebek’s game show has seen its ratings increase 22 percent over the same time last year thanks to Jennings’ impressive streak. This baby-faced little Mormon software engineer from Utah actually became a damn celebrity. (And yes, he is donating 10 percent of his $2,520,700 winnings – or about $34,000 per day – to the church.) But still to me the interesting thing has been the attention the Jennings juggernaut has received. I’ve already read about the streak in newspapers and online. And there have been fans and foes of Jennings develop during his time as champion, just like a sporting event. And yet it’s because of his big, geeky brain. I love it that such an innocent dork has been given his fifteen minutes of fame, and by earning it through more than 2,700 correct trivia answers. That’s always been the genius of Jeopardy! to me, that on one hand it has this sort of kitsch-by-association by virtue of being a TV game show. I mean, debonair as he may seem, Alex’s peers are guys like Wink Martindale and Bob Barker. But on the other hand, Jeopardy! is a celebration of being smart—or at least very well informed. (There's a difference there that people forget.) And to think that the man behind this is no other than Merv Griffin, that chubby lounge singer and talk show host whose face is branded on my brain in the form of childhood memory. Back in the grade school days, seeing Merv meant my dad had co-opted the family television and I couldn’t watch cartoons.

Tony's Place

Recently while talking with Valarie I was reminded of a tongue-in-cheek idea I had in college with my friend Brian Gawronski. Everybody knows how Tony Danza seems to only act in TV shows in which his character's name is Tony, a la Taxi and Who's the Boss. So Brian G. and I came up with this sitcom called Tony's Place, in which Danza plays Tony Riggolotonio, the proprietor of a pizza parlor from which the show takes his name. Tony's motto would be, "When you come to Tony's Place, I take care of 'ya." And of course he'd get involved in the lives of his patrons, the result a combination of frequent hilarious hijincks and occasionally poignant dramatic lessons. I can almost hear the theme song (yet to be written) playing in my head. Too bad the sitcom is all but dead, becaues we'd surely have a hit on our hands.

Office Commercials and Mass Hypnosis

Lately there has been a succession of TV commercials that feature slow-motion montages of office workers going bonkers with celebration: gyrating in the air, stumbling into massive group hugs, etc. On the surface it's supposed to be an ironic parody, which would be pretty much innocuous if that were all there were to it. But I think ultimately those commercials are also really patronizing if not outright detrimental.

For years I worked at many different offices as a temp, and at each one I remember at least one person saying something to the effect of, "Boy Brian, I'll bet you've never worked with such a bunch of crazies as we have here!" But virtually any time I heard that, it couldn't have been further from the truth. Invariably the bunch in question was as exotic as a bologna sandwich on Wonder bread. So when I saw these commercials by Microsoft and Southwest Airlines with their tongue-in-cheek portrayals of offices as these unbridled fountains of emotion and fun, it immediately touched a nerve.

Of course there are countless offices where amazing work is being done. Still, the culture of cubicles can be stifling, and even in the best offices people aren't diving into each others arms for group hugs. To say so is absurd, which in turn is the basis of the parody in those commercials. But I think at the same time the advertising actually encourages people's self-indulgent and in delusional sense of what their office environments are like. It lulls oppressive office cultures into ignoring the obvious.

Then again, I haven't worked in an office in about three and a half years. Maybe I just need to talk to someone in HR at my company about taking some personal leave...at least for the rest of the afternoon.

Chapelle's Show

Although I grew up a TV junkie and still watch a fair amount today, it’s rare anymore that a new show really gets me excited. Until recently, it was only Iron Chef and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that I made a particular point of watching. But I started hearing from a friend or two about Chapelle’s Show, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t the funniest show I’ve seen in a long time.

Dave Chappelle has an in-your-face attitude about racial issues, but the show is never burdened by any kind of social agenda. He simply knows the more controversial a subject may be, the more opportunity there is for comedy. One skit this season, for example, was presented like a 1950s sitcom and shot in black and white, and the premise was a white family with the last name Niggar. Of course there was a stream of gags, but underneath was some brilliant commentary about hypocrisy. But Chapelle is just as likely to poke fun at African Americans. There’s a continuing series called “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong” that provides plenty of proof.

At the same time, it would be unfair to Dave Chapelle to only talk about his show in the context of race. He’s poked fun at Internet spam, Rick James, George Bush and countless others along the way. One of my personal favorites is the fake ad for Samuel Jackson beer, with Chapelle dressed up like Samuel Adams but yelling "Mmm, MMM, Bitch!"

So what will happen with Chapelle in the years ahead? He’s charismatic onscreen and could probably score some high-paying movie roles with big exposure. But clearly writing is among his strongest talents. I'd hate for him to abandon it in favor of some terrible movie, like so many of his peers do. And it's not a given Dave Chapelle can write a good feature-length script himself. So often people show a great talent for sketch comedy but feel compelled to graduate from that to something else if it’s a success. Just once I’d love to see a comedian like Chapelle just stick with what he does best.

Regardless, be sure to check out Chapelle’s Show if you haven’t already.

Enough about the Hemi!

Whatever TV channel I watch, whatever billboard-festooned street I'm driving on, I can't escape advertisements for the Dodge Durango SUV that brag about it having an engine christened the "Hemi". I'm sure it's a fine engine: powerful, efficent, whatever. But for God's sake, Dodge, give it a rest! It's so annoying how advertisers insist on beating you over the head with a slogan, which they feel all the more need to do in an age where media options are so diverse. Can't a guy watch a couple Three's Company reruns or the occasional football game without always being inundated with Hemi worship? It's bad enough always having to hear about those stupid Coors twins. Somebody please get me Tivo so I can edit out this drivel.

"Colombo"

Should it be considered a guilty pleasure that I love the old 'Colombo' TV show? I also feel I should qualify this by saying that while the show continues in occasional ABC network movie specials, it's really the 'Colombo' of the 1970s, and to a somewhat lesser extent the 80s and early 90s, that I particularly love. (There's an episode directed by Steven Spielberg that's awesome. And I'm not even that huge a fan of some of his movies.) But anyway, I think it's just fascinating how the show follows the exact same formula every time, but still manages to keep me watching. Peter Falk's police investigator character is on one hand almost a buffoon, with all his aw-shucks mannerisms and terrible wardrobe. (Not to mention that ancient Pugeot.) But at the same time, he's very shrewd in using that perception of him to his advantage, subtly able to go about finding more out than anyone ever reasonably expects--except us watching, and him. He's almost sort of off-radar as a threat, and yet it's like a praying mantis waiting to eat you for dinner.

Can I kill him now?

I really can't stand that guy on all those Verizon Wireless commercials who keeps going "Can you hear me now? Good!" We get it, already. Plus, I hate how a big corporation is trying to dress up their little spokesperson as this sort of hipster. I'll take Catherine Zeta-Jones anytime, as cell phone company pitch people go.