Quips and Quotations (Uncommonly Good Edition)

 

1946-2025

Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.

--Diane Keaton (née Hall)

 

Read All About Her

 

 

 

Joan Kennedy, the oft-troubled and soon-to-be-divorced wife of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, glances up at herself in 1981.

1936-2025

 

 

 

Quips and Quotations (Not-So-Missing Link Edition)

 

When, in the early 1960s, I brazenly used such words as "childhood", "adolescence", "motivation", "excitement", and "mood" I was much criticized. Even worse was my crime of suggesting that chimpanzees had "personalities". I was ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman animals and was thus guilty of that worst of ethological sins—anthropomorphism.

--Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

Ancient Rights

 

Norman Rockwell. It's not his birthday or anything. He just happens to be on my mind. I think as time goes by, Rockwell's work is seen as increasingly sentimental, increasingly old-fashioned. Here's one such example:

Freedom of Speech, 1943

Given the current political climate, I'm afraid this particular sentiment may be getting more old-fashioned by the minute.

 This 1976 paean to freedom of the press must be old-fashioned, too. After all, I watched it on TCM!

1936-2025

  

 

 

 

Under the Radar: Mae Questel

 

Thespian Mae Questel was born on this day in 1908 (she died in 1998.) If you don't recognize the name, you at least may recognize the iconic cartoon character to whom she lent her voice:

 

 

When Betty Boop made her animation debut in 1930, she was a dog. I don't mean that unkindly, that she was a homely human woman. No, I mean that literally. She was neither homely nor human but a member of the species Canis familiaris. Allow me to explain. At the time another anthropomorphic pooch named Bimbo was animation studio head Max Fleischer's most popular character. Fleischer came up with a story for a cartoon short that had Bimbo as a dishwasher in a nightclub in love with a sexy canine singer, and asked his leading animator Grim Natwick, to come up with a design. Natwick's Betty was similar to the later human version, except that she had droopy ears and a little black nose. The subsequent short, "Dizzy Dishes", did well, and Betty remained both a supporting player and a sexy dog (she's seen in a lacy bra in one pre-Code cartoon) for the next ten or so shorts (sources vary.) Theater operators made it clear to Fleischer that they wanted to see more Betty and less Bimbo. And that it wouldn't hurt to remove any urge towards bestiality on moviegoers' parts if they were given an actual member of the species Homo sapiens to drool over. And so Betty was humanized, her droopy ears replaced by earrings, and the dark nose transformed into a pert dash. As for Bimbo, he stuck around for a while as a supporting player, remaining a canine. Needless to say, the relationship between him and Betty from that point on was strictly platonic. Around this time (sources again vary), Mae Questel took over vocal duties from Betty's original portrayer Margie Hines and enacted the squeaky-voice flapper for eight years, longer than any other actor. However, that wasn't Questel's only acting achievement, as you'll find out in this interview from the 1980s:

 

Still sounds like Betty, doesn't she? Probably the reason Questel was asked to do the character one more time in 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?:

Recently, a musical based on Betty Boop opened and very shortly thereafter closed on Broadway. Perhaps if the show's producers had found some psychic who could have channeled Mae Questel's vocal talents, it would still be running today.

Cabinet Cabaret

 

 

Overture, curtain, lights
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtain, lights
This is it, we'll hit the heights
And oh what heights we'll hit
On with the show this is it.

"Mr President, you ARE the Second Coming!"

 

Outback Pride

 

I just didn’t believe I was up there in fishnets and high heels actually doing it...It’s one of my strengths as a performer. I’ve got a kind of more developed feminine side so it was a chance to knowingly explore that.

--British actor Terence Stamp, on playing transgender woman/drag queen performer Bernadette Bassenger in the 1994 Australian comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

1938-2025

May the Force Live Long and Prosper

 

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry shakes hands with Star Wars creator George Lucas at some science fiction convention in 1987. No hint of a rivalry between them that I can tell. I guess they figured the cosmos (as well as Hollywood) was big enough for the both of them.

The Apprentice

 

"YOU'RE HIRED!"

Graphic Grandeur (In Lieu of a Breeze Edition)

Oh, who cares how one develops? What the true entrepreneur wants to know is, how best to capitalize on it once it does develop?

Here's one chilling possibility:

 Cartoon by Liza Donnelly

Quips and Quotations (Transcendentalist Meditation Edition)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.  

--Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, a Life in the Woods, first published on this date in 1854.

 

 

Playing Platinum

 

Sure, she wanted to make it big in Hollywood, but that didn't mean she was going to...

...compromise her principles.

Loni Anderson (1945-2025) 

Best known for the highly-capable, and highly-paid, receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinatti.

 

Quips and Quotations (Ivories That Tickle Edition)

 

1928-2025

I would listen to the radio and think, 'I can write a song as good as that,' and the problem is, they already have people who can write songs 'as good as that' so what do they need one more for? What is necessary is somebody that can write something different.

--Tom Lehrer

Graphic Grandeur (Dangerous When Wet Edition)

 

Fifty summers ago, this Roger Kastel-illustrated poster made its debut on the exteriors, and in the lobbies, of movie theatres across the nation and around the world, promising filmgoers a terrifying cinematic experience. However, movie posters often promise things that the actual movies then fail to deliver. Did Jaws live up to its poster's promise? Well, if you were a filmgoer fifty summers ago--and most people didn't bother with movies during the summer until this one completely changed the business model--you already know the answer to that question, but play along with me anyway as we watch the trailer: 

Trailers also sometimes promise more than the actual movie delivers, even as it's a slicing and dicing of the actual movie. Trust me, though, Jaws delivered (with a lot of slicing and dicing of a different sort.) Personally, I've always found the film more exciting than out-and-out scary, but that's fine with me. Whatever gets the heart thumping. Based on a then-recent bestselling book by Peter Benchley (Robert's grandson) and only the second feature film by the then-still-in-his-20s Steven Spielberg, it quickly became the all-time box-office champ and remained so for the next two years until topped by another summer blockbuster Star Wars (which in turn was topped a few years later by Spielberg's E.T., the Extraterrestrial which made its debut during--you guessed it--the summer.) One thing that had no chance of topping it--at least not in the commercial sense--was some magazine parody, but that doesn't means my then-middle-school-age-self couldn't get a giggle out of this:

Looks like unsafe swimming conditions all around.

Illustration by Mort Kunstler

 

Truth Socialites

 

NEWS FLASH: Employees of the Justice Department were told to flag Trump's name in the Epstein files.

That begs the question, just what was this "flag"?

 

Below is the dirty laundry.

 

Quips and Quotations (Car Hop or Pop Shop Edition)

 

1937-2025

[The hit singles] were the least-artistic endeavor of my career. They were bubblegum songs. They were teenybopper songs. But I enjoy seeing the reaction of people when I do them.

--Connie Francis

 

(Currently an internet sensation 63 years after it was released--Kirk)

Period Pieces

 

You've read it right here in Shadow of a Doubt (actually in Wikipedia by way of Shadow of a Doubt.) To repeat, today is World Emoji Day. The general reaction to such a holiday?

Feelings are mixed.

Quips and Quotations (Web Extensions Edition)

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.”

--E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

Speculator Sports

 

Cleveland loves it sports teams, and there have been times Cleveland sports teams have loved them back.

Just not always.

The above cartoon by the late Plain Dealer sports artist Dick Dugan is from some time in the 1970s, when I grew up. Both the football Browns and the baseball Indians (today the Guardians) were in a long draught, as well were the newly arrived basketball Cavaliers (with the exception of a "miracle" year when the wins exceeded the losses.) Better (albeit not always permanent) days eventually arrived for all three teams, as well as the profits that come from better days. However, this post concerns itself not with profits per se, but with how a professional sports team manages to stay afloat, sometimes audaciously so, no matter if the days are better, worse, or somewhere in between.  

 

This is the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, built in 1931 and in service until 1995. When I was growing up it was the home of both the baseball AND the football teams, something I didn't much question. You mean to tell me there are cities that have separate stadiums for baseball and football? That's plain weird. 

I found out later that not only is it not weird but fairly commonplace. Cleveland's one-size-fits-all approach to professional sports (as well as the occasional rock concert and even more occasional Billy Graham religious revival) was what was unusual, as well as something that could serve as a scapegoat. You see, because football is played only once a week, there's more of a novelty value and thus it becomes easier to fill 80,000 seats. Since less people attend baseball games (because there's more of them), it could seem like you're watching the Great American Pastime in the Grand Canyon. Also, that the Indians were losing many of their games, thus affecting attendance, made the Grand Canyon that much grander (maybe if mules had taken fans to their seats, that would have drummed up interest.) The baseball club was owned by some kind of local consortium, one of its owners also a member of the Cleveland Board of Education, the implication being that keeping the Indians on life support was a another kind of civic duty. The duty got dowdy, and the team was put up for sale. Everyone from City Hall to the local sports radio call-in hosts panicked. Suppose the new owners move the club to a different city?

Before the team changed hands, a plan was approved by voters for a new baseball stadium (and right next door, a venue for basketball, which would free up the Cavs from playing in an arena in the middle of a corn field situated halfway between Cleveland and Akron) that would be paid for by a tax on booze and cigarettes, neither one in short supply in a working-class metropolis. You'll note I have two different pictures of the outside of this then-new (1994) stadium. The first has the last name of the two brothers, shopping mall developers, who bought the baseball club while it was still at the old stadium. Now look at that second picture. While I would like to think changing the club's name from the "Indians" to the "Guardians" is a very "progressive" thing to do, I'm afraid it's just a coincidence. An insurance company bought the naming rights (though not the team itself, which is owned by the Dolan family.) The 31-year-old stadium is now undergoing $200 million in renovations, mostly with taxpayers' dough. After all, it's city- and county-owned. The Guardians just play there.

 

Now, I momentarily want to go back to when the club was still called the Indians. Whether because they were inspired by their new digs, or, more likely, owner Dick Jacobs hired people who knew how to put a baseball team together, in its second year at Jacobs Field, the club went all of the way to the World Series. In the months leading up to that, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened. The eyes of the nation, perhaps the world itself, were on Cleveland, now justifiably dubbed The Comeback City!

"The Comeback City, eh? Well, I'll burst their bubble. Heh, heh, heh!"

OK, I don't know if Browns owner Art Modell actually said that, but announcing the team's move did clip the wings of a city that saw itself as a rock'n'roll phoenix rising from the ashes of a burning river. Modell was an out-of-towner but had lived in Cleveland since 1962. Surely in those 33 years you might have thought he had some affection for the place and wouldn't think of moving. In fact, he even made a promise not to move, until he declared the promise "null and void." Modell had his reasons, most of them mercenary, a few of them spiteful. As I said earlier the Browns and the Indians shared the old Municipal Stadium, which as the name implies, was owned by the city, a city that couldn't afford to maintain it. Modell agreed to basically lease the stadium, for $1 a year, and become responsible for its upkeep. He also constructed loge boxes that could be rented to anybody who wants whatever a loge box has to offer (I wouldn't know, I've never been in one.) The money earned from the loge boxes went to Modell, even if the person or persons boxed up were there to watch an Indians game. The Indians objected to this and it's one of the issues that led to them demanding the city or county or state build them a separate stadium. Modell was offered a chance to be part of the new stadium, but he declined, only to watch the ballpark net a whole lot of moolah when the team went to the playoffs and World Series. And of course this made Jacobs Field's own loges desirable to rent. City officials, not wanting Modell to feel too left out of Cleveland's renaissance, offered to finance improvements to the old stadium, but Modell issued a "public moratorium" on such talks. He couldn't very well talk to officials from the city of Cleveland while at the same time talking to officials from the city of Baltimore (which a decade earlier had lost the Colts to Indianapolis), now could he?

 

The whole thing landed in court, the NFL itself also becoming involved. A deal was struck. The physical team could physically move, becoming the Ravens (Edgar Allen Poe was born in Baltimore) while the Browns name and records could stay in Cleveland, as long as Cleveland agreed to build a new football stadium for a new expansion team with the old name and records attached, which it did at jaw-dropping speed. The old stadium, the site of two World Series and six NFL Championship games, was razed, much of its debris turned into an artificial reef on Lake Erie. It cost $270 million, some of it paid for by the NFL, some if paid by new owner Al Lerner (a minority owner of the Modell-era Browns who some say encouraged the move to Baltimore) and a huge chunk of it paid for by further taxes on smokers and drinkers. Another good reason to live the clean life (just as long as not too many people live the clean life, or else risk a budgetary shortfall.) Now, when the baseball team got its new stadium, it almost immediately went to the World Series, and there's been two more since then. The team didn't win any of them, but still, it got there. The Browns? There's been no Super Bowls, I can tell you that. They've been in the playoffs exactly three times. Last year they were 3-14.

The dismal showing hasn't discouraged Jimmy and Dee Haslam, an out-of-town billionaire couple who bought the Browns from the late billionaire Al Lerner's billionaire son in 2012. The Haslams appear to have extraordinary optimism in the franchise's future. The above enclosed stadium has yet to be built, but it looks like it's going to be. The Municipal Stadium was in service for 64 years. The Browns stadium, Cleveland's newest stadium, is 26 years old, and apparently that's 26 years too old for the Haslams (both of whom are in their 70s and really shouldn't be practicing ageism.) Like Modell before them, they're moving the team out of town. Unlike Modell, they're not going all the way to Baltimore, just Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb. The Haslams have just purchased a 175-acre site (which will include restaurants, hotels, and apartments along with the stadium itself), not far from Cleveland Hopkins Airport, for $76 million. Does it mean this it's all going to be privately-owned-and-operated? I'm afraid local officials, or at least their constituents, aren't getting off that easily. This past Monday the Ohio Legislature took time out from demonizing LGBTQ folks to pass a bill that the governor signed giving the Haslam Sports Group $600 million towards the 2.4 billion project (the Haslams were expecting more.) And just what is the source of this $600 million? Unclaimed funds, i.e., usually small sums that Ohioans have yet to collect from old bank accounts, uncashed checks, and security deposits. Why haven't they collected this money? They're probably unaware they're owed it and, unlike owners of sports teams and the politicians that enable them, don't have bookkeepers, accountants, and business managers around to make them aware of it.

Well, that's it. I have nothing else to say on the subject. Unless a legendary hero of medieval lore suddenly were to materialize in front of me. If he did, I'd say this to him:

Just be grateful Sherwood Forest doesn't have a professional sports team. Faster than you could rob from the rich and give to the poor, they'd be doing it in reverse!