Vital Viewing (Sultry Subtlety Edition)

 

Lusciously low-key song stylist Peggy Lee was born on this day in 1920 (she died in 2002.) She sits down with Johnny Carson in this 1977 clip:

 

Peggy comes across as very likable in her chat with Johnny, and that trait is fine in conversation. However, when she does the thing she does best, it's not likeability so much that I want from Peggy Lee as a certain moodiness:

She runs from hot to cold. How's that for a mood swing?

 

 

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

   

In 1969 Elvis Presley was enjoying a career resurgence when this photo was taken of him with the then-host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson, the latter visiting backstage at whatever Las Vegas hotel the former was playing at the time. Then as now, but more so then when there were much less in the way of viewing options, the late-night talk show was the first choice of celebrities who wanted to go on TV and promote their latest book, movie, record, or just themselves. Elvis, however, was such a big star at the dawn of the 1970s that the mere fact that he walked the Earth was promotion enough, and thus never appeared on Carson's show. That's not to say Johnny couldn't find another way to capitalize on the King of Rock and Roll's great success.

An up-and-coming comedian named Andy Kaufman turned out to be that other way. His act consisted of several comic characterizations, the most popular of which was the fresh-off-the-boat Foreign Man, which eventually became Latka Gravis on the hit sitcom Taxi. However, the character was still nameless when Kaufman was booked on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in March of 1977.  The following clip isn't the entire appearance, which means I have to do the mundane job of setting it up. The Foreign Guy comes and does some very poor impersonations of various celebrities, but then strikes paydirt:

The real Elvis Presley died about five months later. Andy Kaufman passed on in 1984, and Johnny Carson, who otherwise would have turned 98 today, took his leave in 2005. Of the three, only Carson's death remains undisputed. And even he's got his own streaming channel.

How to Talk With Practically Anybody About Practically Anything

 

 

Here's Barbara Walters, who died just yesterday at age 93, with Manhattan socialite Cheray Duchin at a 1976 New Year's Eve party at Tavern on the Green in the aforementioned Manhattan. I make no great claims for Walters as a journalist, and the above pictures illustrates why. Hobnobbing with the elite can get in the way of reporting on the elite. Yet I can't totally dismiss her either. For one thing, she was fun to watch. Walters' idiosyncratic personality guaranteed, if not a particularly incisive, at least an idiosyncratic line of questioning. You never knew what to expect in a Barbara Walters interview. Except for tears from the interviewee's eyes, and even that was probably unexpected the first time it happened. The more it happened, the more it seemed it was preplanned on the interviewees part--after all, these were actors used to crying on cue--and even Walters herself seemed suspicious of it. The Boston native handled that, and other criticisms as well as occasional mockery from the likes of Gilda Radner for Elmer Fuddishly rounding off her "Rs" when speaking (as did Marlene Dietrich, putting her in good company) with good humor, probably because she was laughing all the way to the Federal Reserve. For many a December there was a TV special titled Barbara Walters 10 Most Fascinating People. She never did, but Walters very well could have interviewed herself.

 

  

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.

Vital Viewing (Multiple Grammys Edition)

Comedian Steve Martin was born on this day in 1945. Back in the 1970s when he mostly did stand-up, Martin often used props, such as an arrow through the head or a banjo that most of the time just hung from his neck. Or when he did play the instrument, it was just more comic shtick, as when he couldn't even get through the first line of  Stephen Foster's "The Old Folks at Home" ("Way down upon the Swanee River..." as, say, Bing Crosby sang it) because he played the wrong melody ("Way down upon the Swan...")  

But none of this means Martin couldn't play the banjo, and play it well, if he wanted to. In fact, he's a lifelong aficionado of the instrument, and about ten years ago, finally decided to let everyone know this, putting out a few albums, and playing seriously in front of an audience (albeit with a little comic schmoozing between numbers.) In the following clip, Martin explains why he likes the banjo so much:  

Even though you can play anything on it, maybe even Mozart for all I know, the type of music one probably most associates with the banjo these days is bluegrass. And without a doubt, the most recognizable bluegrass composition (thanks to it being the background music of Bonnie and Clyde as well as numerous 1970s rural car chase movies) is "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". In this next clip from 2011, Steve Martin and several others (including James Taylor, that's him in his trademark cap) rehearse Flatt's and Scruggs' famous instrumental for an upcoming celebration of Carnegie Hall's 120th anniversary:

Pretty god, huh? And that's just the rehearsal!

You know, I said before that "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" was without a doubt the most recognizable bluegrass composition, but it just occurred to me that Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs may have composed one that's even more well-known: 

 I guess it depends if you spend more time at Carnegie Hall or watching Nick at Nite.

 Anyway, it's time to bid Steve Martin adieu: 

I wonder if Tommy Newsom ever played bluegrass.

Vital Viewing (Late Night Swing Edition)

Jazz trumpeter and bandleader Doc Severinsen was born on this day in 1927. If the opinion of the fellow on the right is any indication, he seems to have been very good at his job. In the following clip from a little more than a year ago, Severinsen, still in his 80s, talks about his upcoming birthday:

   

He looks in great shape for his age, but I don't think I've ever seen Severinsen that casually dressed before. He usually looks something like this: 

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

--Genesis 37:3

(Actually, Doc's real first name is Carl, not Joseph.)

In the following clip, Doc gets high:

 Anything to please the boss. 

Now for some Cole Porter, but first, in case you're not familiar with the term:

be·guine

 (bĭ-gēn′)

n.

1. A ballroom dance similar to the foxtrot, based on a dance of Martinique and St. Lucia.

2. The music for this dance.

---

[French (West Indies) béguine, from French béguin, hood, flirtation, from beguine, Beguine; see Beguine.]

 
And just think, Doc managed that not in Martinique and St. Lucia, but a TV studio in Burbank.

For those of us who were around back then, here's the beginning we most associate with Severinsen:

Just think, Doc had to play that theme five nights a week and still make it sound fresh. He succeeded.

Graphic Grandeur (Hockey Puck Edition)

During his long career, comic book artist Jack Kirby drew a number of memorable villains.

The Red Skull

Doctor Doom

Darkseid

Galactus

DON RICKLES?!?!

 

For comparison's sake, here's the real life Don.

 

Don Rickles 1926-2017