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On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, co-hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild welcome the Emmy-winning TV writer and producer Mike Scully about his long and impressive career working on shows including "The Simpsons" (for which he was the showrunner for four years), "Parks and Recreation," and with Phil on "Everybody Loves Raymond." With great stories about Conan O'Brien, Yakov Smirnoff, Don Knotts, Mick Jaffer and Keith Richards. And a lot about “The Simpsons.”
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This is the Halloween broadcast of Kukla, Fran & Ollie I mentioned the other day that aired 76 years ago tonight, on October 31, 1949. It follows up on the episode a few nights earlier, when Beulah Witch was preparing for her fellow alums and teachers from Witch Normal college coming to town for a Halloween convention – but a small crisis comes up that she has to avert. As things develop, the other Kuklapolitans excitedly prepare for trick-or-treating, and sing a bunch of songs along the way – my favorite being Beulah Witch’s rendition of “That Old Black Magic.” The episode also shows off Burr Tillstrom’s artistry well – though it’s subtle because he does it with such ease. The first is the opening of the show when music director Jack Fascianato plays the KF&O theme “Here We Are Again,” and he’s joined by two Kuklapolitans accompanying him on toy pianos. It’s amusing and generally just plunking on the keys, except if you listen closely he actually is getting some of the theme music correct. (And made all the better because one of the two is my fave, the lunatic Cecil Bill.) And the other comes later in the episode when Kukla, Fran and Ollie sing a trio – with Tillstrom going back and forth with the two voices. As I said, it’s comes across with such natural ease, but it’s no small trick singing a duet with yourself. By the way, I noticed a bit of information posted with this video. Over 700 episodes of the show were transferred to digital thanks to funding from the Burr Tillstrom Copyright Trust and fans of the show – as well as, most interestingly, the Jane Henson Foundation. As I’ve written in the past, Jim Henson always said that Burr Tillstrom and Kukla, Fran and Ollie were one of his big inspirations to get into puppetry and ultimately create The Muppets. And his wife’s helping to fund this clearly supports that. Special thanks were given, as well, to the Chicago History Museum for its invaluable help in the process. And now – trick or treat! As we near Halloween, I figured it would be nice to join the Kuklapolitans as they too get ready for the holiday. And appropriately so -- because this is broadcast of Kukla, Fran and Ollie went on the air October 28, 1949...76 years ago tonight. It's a low-key affair, not overly funny but with a lot of charm and a couple of songs, as Beulah Witch gets ready for a bunch of her fellow alums from Witch Normal to arrive in Chicago for a Halloween convention. One other thing I like -- the episode opens with Beulah Witch doing some preparation work along with Cecil Bill, my favorite character who is lunatic (speaking a "ta-toi-toi-toi" language unintelligible to anyone but other Kuklapolitans) and only appears on the show on rare occasions, and generally briefly. Happily, this is one of those brief times. And happily, too, upcoming in a few days we'll have their Halloween episode. This is a wonderful rarity. As part of one of the TV series that Harry Secombe starred in, this is from a 1966 episode of Secombe and Friends. And it reunited his Goon Show compatriots – Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan (who wrote pretty much all the Goon Show episodes, which ran from 1951 to 1960) – as they recreated one of the old radio broadcasts for television. As such, it’s not great television (in fact, the full episode they did got edited down for broadcast, interspersed with interviews), but nonetheless, the nine minutes here are a treasure to have a record of. Also reunited is Ray Ellington, who was the singer on the show, but here he fills in as the announcer. One other change – in the original Goon Show, the character that Harry Secombe played was named ‘Neddy Seagoon,’ but here they call him ‘Harry Seagoon.’ The characters who the other two play won’t mean as much to those who don’t know them from the radio. But much of the humor should come through. And a bit odd, too, that the script they chose to do doesn’t give Spike Milligan much to do (at least in this segment), other than sort of direct the others and joke around – though we get to seem him do his beloved character ‘Eccles,’ who was always referred to as The Original Goon, a sort of ‘Goofy’-like character, whose catchphrase upon entering the first time was usually, “How’s yer old dad?” Irving Berlin has a song in the movie Holiday Inn titled, “Let’s Start the New Year Right.” I don’t think he had Rosh Hashonah in mind, but it fits. Because yesterday, just hours before the start of the holiday, it was announced that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to his late night TV spot. It must have been quite the slap in the fact to FCC Commissioner Bernard Carr who had posted on social media a GIF clip from The Office of ‘Michael Scott’ and ‘Dwight Schrute’ doing a “Raise the roof” signal, pushing their hands up in the air. In gracious reply on TwiXter, I wrote back to him how nice it was to hear the news that “He’s back”. And included the same GIF clip. And wrote to Trump, who had been doing a regular dance about getting Kimmel “fired” and wondering whose next, how disturbing it must be for the most powerful man in the world to find that he didn’t have the power to get a late night talk show host fired. And included the same GIF.  Quips aside, it must be galling to those two men who had thought their fascist move would be so easy to accomplish permanence, and didn’t count on the massive national pushback from people who actually cared more about the First Amendment than their base cared about the Second. What I also liked – tremendously – is how the onus was now put on both Nexstar Media (who wanted government approval on illegal expansion) and Sinclair Media, who together own 450 TV stations who had both pushed ABC to drop Kimmel – in part because they were okay with government interference with the First Amendment over a comedian they didn’t like. Because now, rather than the focus being on ABC, the two media groups will have to explain to angry viewers on their 450 stations – a great many in blue cities, but also in purple and red (where interest in the First Amendment still exists) -- why they are not getting to watch Jimmy Kimmel's show like most of the rest of the country. Sinclair even put out a statement that they are in discussions with ABC on how to handle the situation, and that instead they will be area news in the late night slot. My immediate reaction was – Well, that will be an interesting discussion that isn’t likely to go how Sinclair wants since the show is going back on the air, and also that their ad revenue for late night seems like it’s going to plummet. Same with Nexstar, if they drop carrying the show. Though both might have to hire some extra phone operators to handle all the calls from likely far more viewers irate that the TV show they love isn’t on than those irate that it is. (By the way, while Sinclair and Nexstar try to figure out how to handle the situation, someone should let them know that the viewers they're blocking from watching Jimmy Kimmel Live! can still watch the show. They merely go to the Kimmel show website which posts the show in full, the day after it airs. Here's the added twist: though there are commercials, they aren't from those companies who pay money to advertise on the Nexstar/Sinclair TV stations. Or viewers may find they prefer just watching the show's individual clips there on the Kimmel website or by going to its YouTube Channel -- the very same night after it airs, because there are no ads at all. I believe these online options officially falls into the Sinclair/Nexstar "Oops" category.) Furthermore, what Trump and Carr also did was open the Pandora's Box of government interference with the First Amendment, and we saw how the public reacted. And by "we," I mean the public itself who saw that pushing back at fascist actions by Trump -- especially those that attempted to undermine the Bill of Rights, which turned out to even offend far-right people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul -- was something that might now be a foundational response to all such future actions. The Trump team showed how far it really would go to erode the core features of democracy and freedoms, and they can't put that back in the Box. And they got pummeled for it in just a week. And corporate America, too, saw how the public responds if business go too far in acquiescing to Trump and his MAGOP fascism. And that might embolden them, too. As Disney saw that they were hurting themselves more by doing something that reports showed they knew was wrong in the first place. In fact, now that Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air, this whole Trump/FCC escapade may even backfire on them by reminding TV companies, if the FCC actually tries to remove any station's broadcast license because there was a joke Trump didn't like, that only last year this very same Roberts Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that "Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” All this might embolden companies. And the public. We'll have to see about all that. Though with the public and weekly rallies, they've been leading up to this for a long time. And showing in polls and even Special Election results. But sometimes, all it takes to push back is seeing that sometimes when you do so, it's a whole lot easier the second time once you've seen how it works. But it does take pushing back. Though as one caller said, when cancelling her Disney+ subscription, "I feel bad about losing my favorite TV shows. But I'd feel worse about losing the First Amendment." If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, it will still not shock you to learn that his Main Story was on Jimmy Kimmel and the FCC's involvement getting his show suspended indefinitely. All I will say is that the segment was wonderful -- pointed, detailed, funny and angry. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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