​The Andy Griffith Show had a lot of musical numbers in it, but two always stood out for me (not counting the classic theme song, of course).

The first one is my favorite, by far -- a song they sang a few times on the show, and included it, as well, I believe, when they did a reunion show.  I tried to find a clip of that because it included Ron Howard singing along, but alas couldn't.  It's the fight song for the local high school, Mayberry Union High. I always found it very wistful, most especially in how it's used in an episode where they used it for the first time, coming at the very end of a bittersweet high school reunion.  Things hadn't gone the way Andy had hoped, as a former girlfriend came back to town, though they resolve things in a tender way.  As the two men clean up afterwards, Andy starts to sing and Barney joins in.  They brought the song back for this later episode below, which I believe was a class reunion story, as well.  If memory serves, Barney comes back to town (Don Knotts had left the show by then), thinking that the news his former long-time girlfriend Thelma Lou wants to tell him is that she wants to reignite their relationship, only to find that it's to tell him she has gotten married. And at the end of the show, a reflective Andy and Barney find themselves alone on the front porch.  

This is just one of those kinds of little songs that I dearly love -- helped further because I also happen to love harmony.

The other day, I posted a song I like from the musical Shenandoah, which opened in 1975 and was a big hit, running for 1,050 performances, which is about 2-1/2 years.  I came across a fun video related to the show, which I thought I'd pass along.

As I mentioned at the time, Shenandoah was written by the same team that had written Purlie a few years before, -- music by Gary Geld, with lyrics by Peter Udell, -- and was an even bigger hit.  It starred John Cullum, who won a Tony Award for his performance as Best Lead Actor in a Musical, though he's probably better despite all his stage work, for playing "Holling Vincoeur" on the TV series Northern Exposure.  

(Three years later, Cullum won his second Best Lead Actor Tony for On the Twentieth Century.  Early on at the start of his Broadway career, he had been in a small role in the original production of Camelot), 

This is a series of three TV ads that they made for Shenandoah at the time, The first and last feature Cullum, while the middle ad is that song I posted the other day, "Freedom."  Rather than set their ads on stage, the producers decided to give them more a sense of what the show is -- and a sense of its roots, as a classic film that had starred James Stewart.  So, they filmed these all outdoors.

I suspect that because most people only know of John Cullum through his TV work, they have no idea that he has such an impressive Broadway musical career -- including the male lead in the big hit, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.  And no idea what a glorious singing voice he has. (My friend Jeff Melvoin -- the aforementioned "First Father" of new L.A. School Board member Nick Melvoin who I wrote about earlier today -- was a writer and producer of Northern Exposure.  He told me once that they all knew what a great singer Cullum was and dearly wanted to figure out ways to get him to sing in the show, but they insisted that they would never do it until there was an absolute necessity for it in the story.  They refused to just toss in a passage for him to sing for the heck of it.  The result was that Cullum didn't sing much in the series, but -- there were two episodes I recall where they wrote things such that singing was an absolute necessity.  And they were great.

Anyway, for people who don't know John Cullum can sing -- here he is, about to knock your socks off.  Plus that "Freedom" song again.
​

​I finally figured out what Trump means every time he claims that CNN has "fake news" -- I believe that he's referring to when Katrina Pierson, Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany are on, pulling stories out of their various bodily orifices and making up "alternative facts."

Here are a couple of folks sitting down for a chat with Larry King back in 1999.  A half-hour with Dick Van Dyle and Mary Tyler Moore.

One interesting side note.  Late in the interview they get asked about working together, and bemoan never have been able to find something in recent years.  Dick Van Dyke mentions a played that they'd be great in, but that they never were able to pull it off.  The play is The Gin Game.  They pulled it off -- made it for TV four years later, in 2003.  Whether that would have happened without their being on Larry King Live, who knows?  But I suspect this had a lot of do with it.
​

Okay, I guess we might as well continue this thread to its logical conclusion.  We started with a posting about a documentary on Frank Loesser.  That brought about a video of a classic song that most people didn't know Frank Loesser wrote the lyrics for.  And today?

Today, we have the song that Mel Brooks wrote for his 1974 film Blazing Saddles that parodied the Loesser number.  Plus, a bonus.

The original song in question is "The Boys in the Backroom" which Marlene Dietrich sang in the movie Destry Rides Again, that had lyrics by Frank Loesser and music by Frederick Hollander.  And Mel Brooks parodied it with his song, "I'm Tired," for which Madeline Kahn knocked down the room with her take-off on Marlene Dietrich.

And here's the bonus.

In 1986, Madeline Kahn recreated the number for Comic Relief.  I have to believe that she watched and rewatched and then watched the movie again, because it's seriously impressive has spot-on she did the number a full dozen years later.

The video quality is lousy.  But that's the only thing that isn't a hoot.  And it's especially a joy watching her do the song with a theater audience because it means this time, she gets the very-deserved laughs.
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Back in 2006, the Turner Classic Movies channel produced a documentary about Frank Loesser, titled Heart & Soul.  I don't recall if I wasn't aware of it until a few days after it was on, or if I knew but missed the airing, figuring I'd catch up with the the next time.  In any event, I didn't see it – and to my continued surprised, as far as I can tell they didn’t repeat it.  At most, they repeated it once that same day or the next, and I missed that.  But I'm pretty certain that that's been it, because I’ve been checking ever since, to see if they’d have it on their schedule, or if it would show up on Netflix.  And it never has.
 
On Friday, I had a brain storm to do a search for it online, in general, just to see if there was any information about it where it might be tracked down.  (I don't know why I didn't have this belated brain storm until Friday, but my best excuse is that I felt certain that TCM would indeed air it again -- I could see no reason why they wouldn't -- or sure it would eventually be available on Netflix, so there was no need to check elsewhere.  Except that after a decade, it finally became clear that there now, at least, was a need.)  Well, to my amazement, I not only found some very good information about it (for one thing, I found out the full name of it, Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser), but there was a website that has the full documentary embedded for viewing online!  So, that night, I finally got to watch it.
 
It's quite enjoyable – not great, but done well enough, with of course great material.  It's largely on positive, though not a puff piece since at least, to its credit, it touches on his dark side, which I'd heard reports of, a pretty explosive temper.  Mainly, it celebrates some really wonderful songs, from his early days writing the lyrics only in Hollywood through his Broadway year with both words and music.  

Among his movie songs, for which he only wrote the lyrics are such classics as "I Don't Want to Walk Without You, Baby" and the number Marlene Dietrich made famous, "The Boys in the Backroom," that Mel Brooks parodied with Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.  

​If you never saw the documentary (which is probably highly likely), or want to see it again, unfortunately I can't embed it, but happily you can watch it all here.

One thing I'll add is that I was always a bit surprised by the title of the documentary, since the song "Heart and Soul" was written by Hoagy Carmichael.  Or so I wrongly believed.  But it turns out that he only wrote the music, and the lyrics were written by...Frank Loesser!  In fact, there's a very funny sequence in the film about how arguably the most-famous song by the man who wrote the scores to Guys & Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Most Happy Fella and the movie Hans Christian Anderson is a number that most people have no idea he wrote -- including (in a very amusing on-camera interview, Frank Loesser's oldest daughter, who talks about playing the song and "Chopticks" all the time when growing up at piano recitals and parties, and even she did not learn until much later that it was written by her father.)

So, in honor of perhaps his most-famous song (lyrics only...), here's what has now probably become the most-famous version of it, (music only -- except for one word, "Madly" at the 1:20 mark...) performed on their feet by Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia from Big.
 
​

But, okay, that's just the music, and this is about Frank Loesser who wrote the lyrics.  So, to be fair and to round the whole thing out, this is the original version of the song, "Heart and Soul" -- words included.  It's from the 1939 Paramount short, sung by Bea Wain and with Larry Clinton, who I assume is the bandleader -- music by Hoagy Carmichael, and lyrics by...Frank Loesser.
​

You may have read about John Oliver being sued (along with HBO and Time-Warner) by the very litigious Bob Murray of Murray Energy over a long segment that the comedian did on the coal industry.  

Good news for you!  We have it here below.

Among the issues that Mr. Murray sued were Last Week Tonight's "intentionally, falsely, and outrageously" erroneous claims that Murray had no evidence that an earthquake caused a mining disaster, and that the show ignored other evidence and used quotes out of context.  It should be noted that the evidence Oliver does present is a U.S. government study that says an earthquake did not cause the mine collapse.

The show also presents an outrageously funny story on how Murray Energy was founded -- a story that the company insists is not true...though the story comes from Murray himself, and Oliver repeatedly says he too does not believe the story.

The suit contends, as well, that the show presented "meticulously planned" and "ruthless character assassination" for financial gain and to hurt his mining company.

Watching the segment, these appear to be massive hurdles to prove, though no doubt they'll provide their side or the argument.  But given that Oliver and Company knew going in that Murray was highly litigious (as the host explains) and that they had even received a "cease and desist" letter before airing the piece, I suspect they were incredibly careful to get their i's dotted and t's very-well crossed, and vet the thing through corporate lawyers and then re-vet it.

Besides which, it would seem they made it more difficult to prove damages to the business and Mr. Murray himself since they sued only days after the piece appeared.  Add to that the burden that, as much as Last Week Tonight presents material in a news-story way, at heart they are a satiric comedy show which, while it doesn't let them off the hook at all, does provide a much, much much higher bar to prove damage, especially against a public figure -- which Mr. Murray is through his many TV and public appearances.

HBO has released a statement standing by the program.  After watching the piece, it's easy to see why.  

And not only is it very strong, it's also extremely funny.  And in the best tradition of Last Week Tonight, do be sure to stick around and watch to the very end.

One of the fun sketches that Saturday Night Live would occasionally run in the past, when Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler hosted "Weekend Update" was their "Really!?! with Seth and Amy" segment.  Well, as it happens the other night, Amy Poehler was a guest on Meyers' Late Night show, and to the wild and enthusiastic delight of the audience, they brought it back.