Vital Viewing (Comedy 2 Night Edition)

1943-2024

Comedian, actor, musician, and, having spent part of his childhood in the area, Cleveland booster Martin Mull died this past Thursday. Here he is sometime in the 1980s as a guest on David Letterman's NBC late night talk show. As it turns out, Mull was something else other than just a comedian, actor, musician, and Browns fan:

"Representational" doesn't quite describe Mull's retro-photorealistic collage-like paintings. Not that "retro-photorealistic collage-like" describes the artworks all that much better, but I like 'em:

The Ides of August

Sunday Morning

Carpe Diem

Self-Portrait

Band on the Run

Some noted celebrities have taken notice of Mull's artworks, and used them for their own endeavors:

So was painting just Mull's hobby? Actually, it was his main line of work. Or rather, it's what the Rhodes Island School of Design Bachelor of Fine Arts (1965) and Master of Fine Arts (1967) graduate would preferred to have been his main line of work, but fine art doesn't always pay the bills, thus the comedy, acting, music, and boosting. A closer look at how he paid those bills:

Martin Mull first came to public attention in 1977 playing wife-beater Garth Gimble on the late-night black comedy soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Doesn't sound too pleasant, I know, but if it's any consolation his character got his comeuppance when he was fatally impaled on an artificial Christmas tree. Mull's stint on MHMH didn't end, however, as he soon returned as Garth's identical twin show biz brother Barth. This led to the spinoff Fernwood 2 Night, the titled small town's local TV station's misguided attempt at a talk show that had host Barth spending as much time fending off announcer/sidekick/buttinski Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard) as he did interviewing guests:

Fernwood 2 Night eventually morphed into America 2 Night, which had Barth and Jerry moving to California and interviewing real-life celebrities but with the same disastrous results. That show ended its run in 1978, but it wasn't the end for Mull or Willard, who nearly two decades later would make...

...sitcom history. Martin Mull had for some time been appearing on Roseanne where he played the title character's boss and later business partner Leon Carp, who was eventually revealed to be gay. Fred Willard played Scott, Leon's old flame, and the two eventually decided to get married (some 20 years before the Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples could do so.) Now, Mull and Willard were straight in real-life, but here at Shadow of a Doubt we hold no objection to heterosexuals playing homosexuals as long as it's done with some understanding of what that state of being must be like (or at least as much understanding as you're likely to get on a sitcom.). And they did. Unfortunately, all I could find on YouTube was the following clip in which someone very obviously pointed a video camera at a TV screen and started recording. It's still very watchable, but just not listenable. Turn up the volume all you want. All you'll hear is a mutter. Undaunted, I went to the website IMBd and found out just what  muttering went on between Mull and Willard. It's just below the video. Watch (that's Norm Crosby officiating) and then read:  

• 
  
• Scott: I love you in a way that is mystical and eternal and illegal in 20 states.
• Leon Carp: That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
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 Martin Mull did a lot of movies and TV guest shots in his lengthy career, but it was as a stand-up, or rather sit-down, comedian that I found him at his funniest:

That ended kind of abruptly, but who else but God always leaves them wanting more?

Finally, a hometown promo:

That was from the early 1990s. These days we have two downtown stadiums, one for the Browns and one for the Guardians, as well as a casino and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but even if we didn't, Mr. Mull still would have convinced me to stay, just as long as he made me laugh in return for doing so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quips and Quotations (Better Be Good to Her Edition)

 

 And I won’t stop until I get that respect. I may not ever get it completely, because my life has been too hard so far. But I’ve gotten a taste of what that respect is probably like, and I like it. I may not be able to get that class, because I didn’t act my life, I lived it. I am Tina Turner. I am raunchy. But I know I’m a lady and that deep inside of me there’s a craving for class. I know I’m accepted, but what I always wanted was the principal’s daughters’ world. And maybe that was my lesson in life...Maybe I had to learn something from wanting that and then not being able to have it.

--Tina Turner

  

1939-2023

Vital Viewing (Finishing Off Edition)

 

British actor Albert Finney was born on this day in 1936 (he died, unforgivably unbeknownst to me at the time, in 2019.) In 1982 he sat down for a chat with the utterly American talk show host David Letterman: 

Suaveness to spare. Finney, I mean. As for Letterman, he must have known he couldn't compete in that area, and so didn't even bother putting on a tie. Cute, indeed!

The hit 1963 film, based on Henry Fielding's 1749 novel, consumed much of Letterman's and Finney's discussion, but as you'll see in the following clip, the consumption doesn't stop there. Joyce Redman is Albert's/Tom's dinner companion. Watch:

Now, what are we to make of that?!

"Here’s one thing you can try on your own that might do the trick (assuming that you’ve seen a doctor and ruled out anything that requires treatment). There’s a French saying, l’appetit vient en mangeant which describes the situation of not being hungry, but then sitting down to eat and finding that your appetite has kicked in. This has probably happened to you so you’re familiar with the effect. Well, it can work with regards to sex as well as food."

 In his introduction, Letterman also mentioned this 1974 movie based on Agatha Christie's 1934 novel. Released a mere 11 years after Tom Jones, Albert Finney himself was a mere 38 years old when he played Christie's famous late-middle-aged Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. 

 .

Prothetics. It's got to be prosthetics.

Since it's a murder mystery, we may as well go to the bloody heart of the matter. Here's Finney, along with Martin Balsam, John Gielgud, George Coulouris, and, in repose, Richard Widmark: 

So, whodunnit?

"I couldn't tell you. I haven't seen the movie."

Vital Viewing (Free as a Winged Rodent Edition)

 

Actor Michael Keaton was born on this day in 1951. He was best known for appearing in movie comedies when filmmaker Tim Burton, who had earlier directed him in the movie comedy Beetlejuice, tapped him to play this dour figure:

Batman was released onto and into the nation's movie theaters in June of 1989, and somewhere around that time Keaton went on Late Night with David Letterman to promote it. I must say, as impressed as I am with Keaton as an actor (loved him in Night Shift), watching this clip, I may be even more impressed with him as a talk show guest. Earlier in his career Keaton had moonlighted as a standup comedian to make ends meet, and his talent for ad libbing  allows him to deftly counter Letterman's wisecracks while getting out the basic information on the film he's there to promote:

Hmm...Maybe too much information is gotten out. As you just heard, it's supposed to be a surprise that the Joker killed young Bruce Wayne's parents. It certainly would have been a surprise to several generations of readers of the comic book. In the 1939 origin story, it's an unnamed mugger who murders the tyke's mom and dad. Finally, in 1947, the cretin's name is revealed to be Joe Chill, whose move up the ranks from street criminal to Mafia boss comes to a lethal end when his gang finds out his role in creating the superhero and thorn in their collective side in the first place. As for the Joker, according to the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke, he was just an unsuccessful standup comedian who couldn't get a booking, not even on Letterman.

Here's the opening scene of Batman. As film scholars will note, Gotham City owes a little something to Metropolis. Not Superman's Metropolis, but Fritz Lang's:

Even if they were somewhat nonplussed by the liberties taken (which included giving the Joker an actual name), fans of the comic book mostly greeted the movie with a sigh of relief, along with high hopes that the film's success at the box office might finally replace and erase the legacy left behind by...  

...this actor, whose campy portrayal on the 1960s TV show these same fans felt defamed the reputation of their beloved Dark Knight. So that you can compare the two actors, I'm going to show you this clip not from the actual TV series, but a 1966 theatrical film rushed into production to capitalize on the TV series. You should still get the basic idea what that show was all about:

The riffraff of the world thanks you, Batman.

Honestly, I'm not so sure that Adam West's take on Batman and Michael Keaton's take on Batman were as far apart as those comic book fans would have liked. For one thing, both men talked in hushed tones when they put on that mask. And regardless of whether the surrounding atmosphere was dead-serious or tongue-in-cheek, both men played the character as an anal-retentive moralist who just couldn't enjoy life as long as there was somebody somewhere doing something that they weren't supposed to. And I guess that's to be expected. Hip, laid-back types rarely become masked vigilantes.

OK, this particular masked vigilante is indeed hip and laid-back, but, curiously, only when he's in life-and-death situations involving the criminal element. Otherwise, his alter-ego is quite...

...straight-laced.

As long as we're on the subject of alter egos...

The biggest difference between Michael Keaton and Adam West is not how they played Batman but Batman's alter ego, millionaire Bruce Wayne. We'll look at West first: 

Bruce Wayne's championing of capitalism would be more impressive if all his money wasn't inherited (as for Dick Grayson, aka, Robin, look what a difference an adoption makes.) But that's neither here nor there. What I hoped you took from the above clip is that the difference between Adam West's Batman and Adam West's Bruce Wayne is, well, no difference at all. Costumed or not, it's the same old (um, 30-something) hushed-tone pontification that you might think would actually bore a criminal into signing a confession just to get him to shut up. Speaking of criminals, I think if the Penguin or the Riddler was in that room just now, it would take them all of two seconds to figure out that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. For that matter, Aunt Harriet should have figured it out by now. Of course, it could be she never met the Caped Crusader. Society matrons and superheroes don't necessarily attend the same soirees.

Now here's Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne: 

Did I just hear the Joker fart?

First off, Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne talks in a regular voice when in civvies, saving the hushed tones only for when he's in mortal combat. Also, he got very emotional there, didn't he? At worse, Adam West might blush if he came across a jaywalker, but otherwise he kept his cool. Then again, Keaton's temper tantrum might have just been a ruse to get the Joker to shoot him (a serving trey hidden in his shirt allows him to survive.) I don't think anything like that would have happened in the 1960s TV series because, frankly, I don't recall ever seeing bullets on that show. Unlike Dallas, Memphis, or Los Angeles, 1960s Gotham City seems to have had rather strict gun control laws (but as you just saw, that was all over with by 1989--the NRA must have bought off some local Gotham politician.)

For our final Michael Keaton-Adam West comparison, we look at affairs of the heart, or the groin, or--just watch the clips and figure it out for yourself.

Twenty-five years later:

Licking may even be more natural--to the point of being animalistic. Pur-r-r-r-r.

Thus ends my Michael Keaton-Adam West comparison. There's no winner because it's not a contest. You're allowed to like them both (I do.) And anyway, the comparison is as much between filmmaker Tim Burton and television producer William Dozier and television writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. as it is between any two actors. The funny thing is, even though the two Burton-directed movies, Batman and Batman Returns, were together seen at the time as a sudden break with the superhero's franchise TV past, if I compare the Burton films with the later, 21st century-but-1970s movieish Christopher Nolan trilogy, Burton's take seems more like the TV version, not less. Sure, one's lighthearted and the other's definitely not, but both versions never forget that it's all based on a comic book and not The French Connection or Taxi Driver. 

As for the various others actors who played Batman--Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, whoever's in that one Legos movie--it's not their birthday today. As I said earlier, it is Michael Keaton's, so lets get back to him. In case you haven't heard, Keaton's going to have one more go as Gotham City's favorite crimefighter, though this film's actually about another superhero, the Flash, who lives in another fictional metropolis, (though not the fictional Metropolis.) Keaton turns 70 today. Is that too old to play Batman? Maybe, maybe not. When it comes to superheroes, it matters not the age of the actors that play them as long as...

...the garments remain forever young.

Vital Viewing (Riotous Repartee Edition)

 

1935-2021

Truth be told, I never enjoyed watching Charles Grodin in any film he appeared in as much as I did when he was the guest on some TV talk show. Movies seemed to diminish, almost mediocritize his talent whereas jawing with Johnny, Merv, Dave, Jay, Conan, and whoever else enhanced it. So I'm not going to bother with clips from Beethoven or Midnight Run and instead show you examples of Grodin being himself--or is he? You decide:

 

The general consensus is that Grodin is just kidding around in the above clips, and Johnny, Dave, and Conan are all in on the joke.

In 1995, Charles Grodin went from guest to host when he got his own talk show on the CNBC cable network. In the beginning, as you might expect from him, the whole thing had a tongue-in-cheek feel to it, with Grodin almost parodying the traditional TV interview program. One amusing recurring segment had him leaving his own studio and going elsewhere in the CNBC building, where he chatted with the hosts of the network's daytime business shows, expressing utter (and probably mock) confusion at such subjects as the Dow Jones Average and Standards and Poor's Index. The show might have continued in that humorous vein if not for a certain courtroom miniseries that began airing around the same time. The summer before Grodin's talk show debut, Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of former NFL star O.J. Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her home in Los Angeles' tony Brentwood neighborhood. As I'm sure most of you are aware, O.J. was accused of the crime. The trial began in November 1994, with the bulk of it taking place throughout 1995. At first Grodin took a somewhat lighthearted approach to the whole thing by making fun of the media circus that surrounded the trial, once interrupting guest Marvin Hamlisch in the middle of a show biz anecdote to ask, "What does any of this have to do with the O.J. trial?" However, as the trial wound on, and as Simpson's high-priced legal team exploited tensions between the African-American community and the LAPD, claiming O.J. had been framed despite massive DNA evidence that suggested otherwise, it seemed to many people (including yours truly) that a rich man just might get away with murder. This outraged Grodin, and he shared his outrage with his CNBC audience, opening many a show with an angry tirade--quite real this time as opposed to the act he put on for Johnny Carson--about the latest developments in the trial. Charles Grodin's newly-serious side didn't end once the trial did in O.J.'s favor. Now every show opened with a Grodin editorial. His views were mostly liberal, but he occasionally took the side of conservatives, such as when he called for the end of the estate tax. I don't know if you'd call it liberal or conservative, but instead of seeing him as a fellow provocateur, Grodin basically picked a fight with Howard Stern (a rare role-reversal for the radio shock jock), calling for the FCC to take him off the air. That went back-and-forth for a while. As for Grodin's fan base, I'm sure he lost some admirers who admired him mainly for being funny, but he must have gained as many as he lost, for while the talk show ended in 1999, the editorials didn't. In a surprising career move, Charles Grodin became a pundit. 

From 2000 to 2004, Grodin was a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. While most of these commentaries were of a serious nature, humor began creeping in as time went on. Grodin had finally figured out a healthy balance between the two. His commentaries moved to the radio, and one obituary states he had a newspaper column as well. All this punditry, much of which ended up in a book (he was a very prolific author), made him a guest on the talk show circuit again. However, unlike the Carsons and Lettermans of yore, this time the talk shows were more issues-oriented. Here he is as a guest on one of the mainstays of the Fox News network: 

Sean Hannity may have thought he was in on the joke, but I'm not entirely sure Grodin was kidding this time.

Pet Tricks

Big controversy brewing over David Letterman. He's admitted to sleeping with a couple of his female staffers. Some wonder if it was sexual harassment, that he forced himself onto his subordinates.

Well, sexual harassment is not unheard of in the workplace.

But then neither is sucking up to the boss.