The Real Thing

                          I'd like to teach the world to sing...

Allow me to make this perfectly clear before we even get started. Coca-Cola is the BEST soft drink that there is, bar none. I'm not even all that crazy about soda pop, truth be told, but this one is different. It dances across the taste buds with an intensity equal to that of a good strong beer, but without the alcohol content, of course. Yeah, I know all about Pepsi. Joan Crawford used to have something to do with that, I think (put that coat hanger DOWN, lady!), but on it's best day Pepsi poses no challenge whatsoever to its number one competitor. In fact, there's probably scores of other name-brand  pop products we could run through, and not one of them can compare to the delight of an ice-cold bubbly glass of COKE. 

The confection millions of people the world over recognize today as Coca-Cola was invented by a struggling pharmacist named John Pemberton at a drugstore in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886. Incredulously, the mixture was initially conceived not as the tasty thirst-quencher we know and love today, but as a sort of "cure-all" elixir, of the type that consumers in those days would have been well-acquainted with. The marketplace of the day was flooded with these bogus concoctions targeted towards a largely gullible public, and Pemberton wanted a piece of that market. This early Coke prototype promised to cure all kinds of ailments, including morphine addiction (!), dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. That's right, impotence. Shortly thereafter, by way of a series of underhanded maneuvers too exhausting to go into in great detail here, Pemberton screwed around and had legal ownership of the unique syrup he created wrested from his control by a man named Asa Griggs Candler in 1888. In 1892, Candler founded The Coca-Cola Company, which continues to produce the beverage (or rather, its modern variant) and other assorted spin-offs to the present day. 

According to public radio host Ira Glass, the formula for Coke is "one of the most famously guarded trade secrets on the planet", and that is not mere hyperbole. As it turns out, though, a lot of what you hear about the extreme and patently ludicrous lengths the company will supposedly resort to in order to protect the legitimate recipe of the soft drink is mostly hype, exploited to great effect by the company to enhance the product's cachet. This is most likely no different from the way any manufacturer handles its own trade secrets, but it simply adds to the overall mystique of the product, maintaining its grip on the popular imagination. But of course that never stopped a guy from trying. On a recent broadcast of Glass' popular program This American Life, he recited the recipe that a writer named Mark Pendergrast claimed in 1993 to be John Pemberton's genuine formula for production of the base syrup and of the drink itself. Glass and company even went so far as to whip up a batch of something or other, which, alas, was not The Real Thing or anything that resembles it. The issue is moot anyway, as the company doesn't actually produce the original formula anymore for original Coke, modifying either the recipe or the process by which it is made to a considerable extent over the decades.

There is also one KEY reason you or I will never have the wherewithal to accurately duplicate this item. Yep, you guessed it. It's the thing that gives the drink its kooky brand name: the coca leaf. And yes, the stories you have heard are probably true; the original version of Coke the public would have enjoyed back in the 1880s did in fact contain processed cocaine. Quite a healthy dose from what I understand, which may go a long way to explain why the beverage caught on in the manner that it did. But by the 1920s, the company had since replaced actual coca leaves in the formula with a cocaine-free coca leaf extract, still in use today. 

Now critics of the brand will argue, among other things, that Coke is mostly a triumph of shrewd and aggressive marketing campaigns over actual taste or aesthetic value, and they might have a point there. Anybody born prior to about 1980 can probably remember when the company tried to radically alter the formula for the popular drink in the mid-80s, and the public simply went apeshit. It was actually a matter of controversy for awhile, so much so that the company had to go so far as to reintroduce the "original" drink (yet another variant, naturally), and remove the "impostor" from the American market. It's also true that the soft drink has a high (I mean, UNGODLY high) content of artificial sweetener. The original formula called for thirty pounds    of real sugar; the modern version features a pretty high dosage of high fructose corn syrup and other chemical sweetening agents, so moderation is probably not a bad idea. 

Me, I was born prior to 1970, so my fondness for this product may be directly traceable to one of their most memorable television ad campaigns. The "I'd Like To Teach" commercial spot from 1971 left such a positive impression on the public consciousness that the jingle was re-recorded and released as a successful pop record by two different vocal groups in the U.S. and the U.K. The company would revive and recycle this spot any number of times over the years.

Love it or hate it, it is easily the most recognizable brand name in North America, if not the world, and stands alone as perhaps the most formidable symbol of American pop culture. Coke adds life, indeed.

                                  ...in perfect harmony.

...And The Winner AIN'T!

It has been suggested that Hollywood big shot Louis B Mayer created the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927 as a marketing gimmick for the picture racket in general, and maybe for his studio, MGM, in particular. Officially though, he sought to create an organization that would mediate (read: quash) labor disputes and put a shiny veneer on the film industry's image, the underbelly of which guys like Louis B Mayer had to pull a lot of strings behind the scenes to keep off the front pages of the nation's leading newspapers. The seamier side of Tinseltown was bad for business.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr, perhaps the biggest movie star there was at the time, was elected as the first president of the Academy, and shortly thereafter somebody, maybe Fairbanks himself, decided it would be a nifty idea to stage a big, overlong awards gala, not unlike the one we encounter today, for the purpose of handing out "awards of merit for distinctive achievement". Or something. The first Oscar awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929.

If you haven't guessed already, I don't take the Oscars all that seriously, as they tend to amount to little more than a complete waste of everybody's time. I pretty much quit watching the telecasts years ago, if I ever in fact did watch them anyway. I've never bought into the idea that there really is such a thing as a "best picture" or "best actor", etc., since there typically are any number of deserving candidates for most of the categories voted on every year. But it's the ones where the Academy voters clearly screw up in their decision making that will often stick out like a sore thumb and drive one to distraction, like the Chicago film critic who is NOT Roger Ebert who had the temerity to question Oscar wins for Martin Scorsese and THE DEPARTED back in '07. The following are some of my picks for the most egregious "upsets" in Oscars history, by which I mean GREATEST OSCAR RIP-OFFS EVER.

How Green Was My Valley def. Citizen Kane (February 26, 1942)
Prior to that year's ceremonies, the Oscars more or less came and went without a whole lot of surprises, but I would submit this as the Academy Awards first true ream job, and maybe its most tragic. It's also significant for the impact it had on the career of the director in question, Orson Welles, meaning that this one actually had far-reaching consequences beyond merely cheating one guy out of an award (or two) that he probably deserved. Welles was the director, co-screenwriter, and star of the aforementioned "Kane", a THINLY disguised fictionalization of the life and career of one William Randolph Hearst, a big-time newspaper magnate at a time when being a newspaper magnate actually meant something. W.R. was especially piqued at the reference to his pet name for his mistress' genitalia (a "secret" that EVERYBODY in Hollywood was aware of at the time), which went on to become the most famous one-word line in cinematic history. The Old Man did everything his power and influence could afford him to insure that the Welles opus flopped at the box office in 1941, thereby likely changing the course of filmmaking history. But Welles would ultimately have the last laugh. "Kane" is typically ranked at the top of most film scholars' "best ever" lists, as relevant an achievement today as it was at the time of its initial release. Not that "Valley" is a "bad" movie, per se. Scholars of director John Ford will certainly make their case for it; but is it really "superior" to Citizen Kane? Uh....no. No, it's not.

Rocky def. All The President's Men and Network (March 28, 1977)
Okay, look. Rocky is a perfectly decent enough little picture. I understand that it's an underdog movie about an underdog character, who through sweat and tenacity and hard work beats the odds! What's not to like about that? Well, nothing; just that it's not the "better" of either one of these two movies, that's all. Not to go all conspiracy theory on you, but here is my guess as to what happened with the voting that year. Hollywood for some reason has always enjoyed this reputation as some kind of bastion of "liberalism" (maybe it's from all the partying, I don't know), but the truth is, the guys who get to vote in the Oscars are all industry insiders. And in 1977, that demographic would have been largely populated by middle-aged, (mostly) conservative white guys who likely would have deeply resented a movie about the investigative journalism exploits that ultimately toppled the presidency of Richard Nixon. Heck, Nixon was from California; any number of those guys were probably friends of his. Not only would they have hated this movie's very existence, but handing it the Best Picture statuette would have been very much out of the question. And this would pretty much account for the other Oscar snub victim that awards season, Network. That same brand of insiders more than likely would have frowned upon a mainstream film that satirized with rapier-like precision the evils and excesses of Corporate America using a fictitious television "network" as its metaphor. The late Paddy Chayefsky probably had no idea how prescient this film would look to people nearly forty years later, and this movie hits its mark so unerringly that it's scary. 

Ordinary People def. Raging Bull (March 31, 1981)
Let me just say this up front: Raging Bull is one of the very few mainstream Hollywood films I've seen that actually gives Citizen Kane a run for its money, and that's saying something. In fact, Scorsese even utilizes some of Welles' own visual and narrative techniques to tell this story of a boxing champ who through sweat and tenacity and hard work beats the odds and talks the mob into giving him a shot at the big time despite his steadfast refusal to take a dive. Then, having reached the top, there's nowhere to go but down, and down he plummets. Robert DeNiro delivers the performance of his life in this film, for which he won a well-deserved Oscar, but Scorsese got--what's the delicate way to put this?--SCREWED. NO Best Picture, NO Best Director, awards Raging Bull so richly deserved. As for the movie that "won"? Thirty years later, I don't hear anybody talking about how wonderful Ordinary People is; for that matter, I don't hear anybody talking about that movie period. Except for bloggers at a loss as to how anybody could look at these pictures side by side and conclude: Yeah, this tortured, overwrought two-hour soap opera about a suburban American family "coming apart at the seams" beats that boxing movie all to hell! It's all the more ironic in that director Robert Redford, who got the gyp as producer on "President's Men", somehow slips one past the goalie on this film for which he in no way, shape, or form deserved winning.

Forrest Gump def. Pulp Fiction (March 27, 1995)
We saved the best for last. There is no nice way I can put this: Forrest Gump is a stupid movie about stupidity which centers on a mind-numbingly stupid character played by Tom Hanks. Yeah, I had forgotten all about it too, until I sat down to write this piece. Now proponents of the book upon which the film is based, written by  Winston Groom, will argue that it's actually a terrific book; you just would never know it by the unsubtle, heavy-handed treatment it suffers at the hands of Robert Zemeckis, the hack director's hack director. Aside from the fact that this movie ripped off Pulp Fiction (and to a lesser extent, The Shawshank Redemption), it stinks all the more in that it also ripped off the guy who wrote the damn novel! The aforementioned Winston Groom was paid peanuts in light of the volume of currency this movie printed upon its release in 1994 (we're talking a disgusting amount of money here, folks), whereas the production's star and director each netted some 40 million bucks for their endeavors. The studio, whose name rhymes with Schmaramount, walked off with all the rest. Not a bad paycheck for a piece of shit, but that's Hollywood accounting for you. As for Pulp Fiction? Either you get that movie or you don't; I once knew a guy who didn't, and as far as I'm concerned that was just his loss. The Tarantino film obviously stands in a class by itself, all the more impressive in light of the litany of futile  and genuinely lousy attempts to copy him and his movie over the years. Thumbs down, WAY down, for Forrest Gump!

Venus in Furs

Silk-screening his little elfin heart out, framing for posterity some classic American cultural icon--Marilyn, Jackie O or Elvis-- in a signature style every bit as distinctive as the figures he was idolizing, stands ANDY  WARHOL, the counterculture's answer to Ed Sullivan. Or maybe P.T. Barnum. Like the Beatles, Warhol was a pure product of the 1960s (the dynamic simply would not have evolved in any other context), and inasmuch as the Beatles articulated what the swinging 60s  was supposed to sound like, Warhol showed people what that era was supposed to look like.

Before I actually learned anything about the guy, I had always assumed he was from New York, a logical assumption  given how closely Warhol was identified with that town, but the truth is he was from Pittsburgh. Not my first guess, either. He was born Andrew Warhola, Jr. on August 6, 1928. For reasons not entirely clear, he would later drop the "a" from his last name. By most accounts, Warhol was raised in a perfectly "normal" working-class household; look for clues to inform the lifestyle he would later adopt as impresario of the avant-garde Factory and you will not find them. He was, however, something of a "sickly" child, spent a lot of time in bed under the care of his mother, and it was during those periods of relative inactivity  that Warhol would take an interest in drawing. Hardly some primitive savant, Warhol studied the fine points of graphic design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. In 1949 he moved to New York City, and quickly made a name for himself in the field of commercial art. Though well-paying corporate gigs were a great way to earn a living, they hardly satisfied Warhol's personal ambitions, so as the 1950s wound down, he began the transition to the "serious" world of fine art.

It's fair to say Andy Warhol put his name on the map with his 32 Campbell Soup Cans series. Produced in 1962, the piece simultaneously marked Warhol's debut as a fine artist and the West Coast debut of "pop" art in Los Angeles. Priced at $100 a canvas at the time of their premiere, today the series is valued at many, many millions of dollars, and that's not counting the myriad of variations on the soup can theme Warhol would produce over time.

During this period, the loose aggregation of  "artsy" types, speed freaks, drag-queens, socialites, musicians, free-thinkers, hustlers, wannabes and various other assorted groupies and hangers-on that collectively made up The Factory grew out of a lot of partying, hanging out, and experimenting. Warhol took inspiration from this motley crew that tended to overpopulate his studio and occupy much of his free time to crank out a wide range of artworks in assembly line fashion, hence the studio's famous namesake. It was also around this time that Warhol began to cultivate his reputation as both a self-made celebrity and celebrity-pimp, mentoring the small stable of young, attractive, and dynamic personalities whom he dubbed Superstars, many of whom became well-known, marketable public figures in their own right--Nico, Joe Dellesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn,  Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling.

              I'd like to turn the whole world on for just a moment.  
                                        Edie Sedgwick


When painting and silkscreen production began to bore him, Warhol turned his attention to independent film production. He didn't bother taking the time to study any of the technical aspects of the medium, and though the films were generally interesting, they were also exceptionally amateurish, but of course that was the whole point. Warhol never fancied himself  the 60s reincarnation of Erich von Stroheim. He was just experimenting, and he was blessed with a roving eye for talent and for whatever looked good. As the Factory was a natural meeting place for artists of all stripes, it also attracted its share of musical luminaries, including Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger. Reed's groundbreaking new band The Velvet Underground was more or less the Factory's house band, so it only made sense that Warhol would produce their debut record, in which Nico was featured prominently as a backup vocalist. Warhol knew as much about the business of music production as he knew about producing films, but what of it? An original Warhol motif adorned the cover of the Underground's first LP, and one could argue that mainstream American punk-rock, for all intents and purposes, was invented with this record.

Naturally, the sense of utopia that the Factory crowd epitomized was inevitably doomed to failure much like that of the decade itself. A delusional, self-styled feminist and would-be playwright named Valerie Solanis walked into the Factory as it existed on June 3, 1968, and critically shot Warhol at point-blank range. His recovery was nothing short of miraculous (close friends would assert he suffered physical ill-effects for the rest of his life), but the event had a profound effect on Warhol's life and his art. In its heyday, The Factory studios essentially enjoyed an open-door policy. Warhol had been surprisingly accessible for a big-name commodity, and it wasn't all that difficult at one time to have an audience with him when he felt like seeing somebody, or simply had nothing better to do at the moment, but that relaxed atmosphere came to an abrupt halt after the Solanis assassination attempt. The freaks and the crazies would have to find some other outlet for their creative energies.

And so, for the most part, would Warhol. He made no secret of the fact that he fed off the creative inspiration of his entourage every bit as much as they fed off the 24-hour party people vibe that was the Factory itself. Warhol cultivated a much more conservative (so to speak), quieter life in the years since the sixties. He continued to produce interesting objets d'art to be sure, but his creative focus was noticeably more business-oriented than it had ever appeared to be in the past; as the seventies gave way to the eighties, Warhol had long since morphed into a big-time entrepreneur. He continued to mentor prolific young talent--Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle, to name a few--but something was missing. The Pied Piper quality that Warhol personified in the sixties was no longer in evidence. The whirlwind sense of making stoned merriment while neatly encapsulating what was in the air and quite obvious to everybody that was equally Turned On and Tuned In had pretty much run its course. The problem for Warhol was that for every Candy Darling or Edie Sedgwick, there also had to be a Valerie Solanis. And confronted with such an alternative, Warhol did what anybody else probably would have done: the party, such as it was, was over.

In the various interviews Warhol would submit to over the years, he liked to confound the banality of the interviewers' questions with equally banal and often stupefying responses. His artwork and his whole sense of style in general could have the equal effect on his detractors, of which there were many. Without a doubt, Warhol was a somewhat polarizing figure in the art world; naysayers would argue his technique was fundamentally lacking, and that he clearly valued commercial success at the expense of artistic integrity. Personally, I think the people who badmouthed Warhol's work were just threatened by how accessible it was, like it was too easy. He was certainly nothing if not prolific; in today's parlance, we would probably describe him as a workaholic, but Tom Wolfe neatly articulated the legacy of the man. Prior to the pop artist, and particularly Andy Warhol, the reigning attitude in the world of art was that of the abstract expressionist, and the idea was that America was a benighted, crassly commercialized, rather horrible place and the artist could only turn his back as best he could and avert his eyes from this side of the modern world. Warhol came along as part of a slightly younger generation, and his idea was, "Oh, it's so horrible, I love it!"

 Andy Warhol died in his sleep of cardiac arrhythmia at 6:32 AM in New York City on February 22, 1987, following routine gall bladder surgery.

My Ears Are Bleeding

Friends, the subject of today's sermon is pretty straightforward. I call it WORST POP RECORDS OF ALL TIME. I didn't bother to rank these things because frankly, badness is--well--badness, and I didn't want to attach any further import to them than they are already not entitled to So,  let's delve into it, shall we?

Wannabe by The Spice Girls
This irritating little piece of perfiffle was dropped on an unsuspecting American public in January of '97. I hate this record as God is my witness, but that didn't stop the sumbitch from peaking at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. NUMBER ONE? Really? I know the Spice Girls were "hot" at the time, but goddamn. It's not like they were Kylie Minogue or some fuckin' body. These ladies may have been okay to look at for a minute, but as a friend of mine pointed out to me recently, "Five members, none of whom play musical instruments, and they had backup singers. Brilliant!"

Surfin' Bird (a.k.a. Bird Is The Word) by The Trashmen
I know I said I wouldn't rank these records, but if I had to pick the one track I would NOT want to be stranded on a desert island with, it would be this one. This is without a doubt the SHITTIEST lead vocal on a pop/rock record I have ever heard, and that is saying something. There is a kind of masochistic thing happening when you hear Surfin' Bird, like being tickled against your will, or being forced to watch BabaWawa on THE VIEW every damn day. (Whew! That is harsh). I think that point was not lost on Seth MacFarlane, as he utilized it to hilarious effect on an old episode of FAMILY GUY. It was released in 1963 and reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 for reasons that are not at all clear to me.

Chantilly Lace by The Big Bopper
The Big Bopper's real name was J.P Richardson, and he was a popular disc jockey during the 1950s when rock & roll was in its infancy. Novelty records were a lot more common in those days, which probably accounts for this tune's very existence. As I'm sure you are well aware, Mr. Richardson met a very tragic end in a plane crash that was the subject of one of the BEST pop records ever made from another bygone era, so I cannot emphasize enough that it's not a personal thing with me. I just hate the record. It reached #6 on the pop charts that year, and was (incredulously) the third most played song of 1958.

Walking On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves
Progressive talk-show pundit and Obama Administration apologist Stephanie Miller is currently using this record as the theme song of her show, and I hate it. The song, that is, not the show. I love Ms. Miller and her show, but I remember when this record was brand new back in 1985 when it peaked at #9 on the US pop chart. I hated every second of the damned thing then, and I still hate this MoFo, and I wish Stephanie would quit playing it as the opening to her broadcast. She used to use an old TWISTED SISTER record as her theme song, and while that record is also a piece of crap, it's not such a piece of crap that it belongs on this list. Jeez. Check out Stephanie's show here: www.stephaniemiller.com

Hal Sparks' Taste In Music
Er, this one isn't a pop record per se, I understand that, but it is sort of relevant. For those of you who may not know, Hal used to appear on a cable show called Queer As Folk, which I have not seen. He was also the guy in the elevator in SPIDER-MAN 2 who asked Spidey if his suit was uncomfortable. He presently has a guest slot on the aforementioned Stephanie Miller radio program every Wednesday. While I generally don't disagree with Hal's political takes, I have one specific problem with him concerning his taste in popular music. You see, Hal is a huge fan of Heavy Metal music, and even plays it himself. Okay, fine. But he has stated publicly that he hates The Beatles. You hate the freaking BEATLES?! Now, arguing the strengths and weaknesses of the various Heavy Metal genres and sub-genres is an undertaking for another day (me personally, I lost interest in the genre right around the time Ozzie Osbourne left the original BLACK SABBATH), but somebody check this guy into a music appreciation course, PLEASE!

M.A.SH. THE MOVIE vs. M*A*S*H THE TV SERIES

The pop culture phenomenon that is M*A*S*H was invented in 1968 when an unknown writer named Richard Hornberger, writing under the pseudonym Richard Hooker, saw the publication of his debut novel, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The book was an instant smash, thus launching what would prove to be one of the most enduring franchises in the history of show business in America. Unfortunately for the author, when approached to adapt the book into a Hollywood movie, he sold the film rights for a few hundred bucks. I said, for a few. Hundred. Bucks.

Richard Hooker's lack of business acumen, however, was not the concern of a then-obscure television director named Robert Altman. Handed a shot at the big-time, Altman knew exactly what the hell to do with it. Discussing the production of the film in interviews over the years, Altman would claim that the studio responsible for the film, 20th Century Fox, was so preoccupied with the other war picture they were putting out that year, PATTON, that Altman wound up with virtual free reign to put the movie together however he wished. Consequently, MASH , based (pretty) loosely on an adaptation by Ring Lardner Jr set a new standard for satire in American cinema, as "subversive" a work from that period as anything that catchall term could ever apply to. A story about medical personnel posted at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, a 1970s audience would have immediately understood the picture as a thinly disguised referendum on the Vietnam War. Arguably the biggest box office hit of 1970, grossing an ungodly amount of money for its time, Altman's career and reputation as one of Hollywood's top filmmaking talents was assured. Several of the film's principal cast became major stars as well, enjoying long, successful careers in film and television.

But the ride was hardly over. Obviously not having made enough money, 20th Century Fox's television division gave the go-ahead to adapt the movie for the small screen. Developed by veteran comedy jokesmith and playwright Larry Gelbart, M*A*S*H debuted on the ABC television network  in 1972. It somehow failed to attract an audience (!) initially, and was promptly snapped up by CBS after ABC dropped it. Of course, the rest is history. At its new home, the show quickly established itself as one of the highest rated series on network television, missing the top ten ONCE in ten years. The final episode was the most watched television program in the history of American television, a record which stood for  nearly 27 years.

Clearly both the movie and the TV show were of the highest quality, but I must confess that I have always been partial to the Robert Altman film. If CITIZEN KANE had been the hit that MASH was, Orson Welles more than likely would have been the original Robert Altman: nothing spells "clout" in Hollywood like a movie that is given license to print currency. Like Welles' best work, this film bears the unmistakable signature of its director through and through. Muddled dialogue, rapid-fire editing, ludicrous voice overdubs, eccentric to its core, beloved Altman stylistic flourishes. It functions as a war picture, and as a satire of war pictures, all the more ironic in light of the "serious", Oscar-winning PATTON released that same year. The film also holds up exceptionally well to repeated viewing. Most "counterculture" works from the Woodstock generation have a tendency to date pretty badly; MASH, on the other hand, is timeless.

This is not to say that I disliked the TV series. The show was equally brilliant in its own medium (despite that damned laugh track), and could also deliver belly laughs in equal measure. The only problem with the series is that it clearly--I mean, CLEARLY--overstayed its welcome. Timing is everything in comedy, and the cardinal rule might well be to know when to move on to the next bit. Instead, the show suffered a myriad of personnel changes as the years piled up, and with that came a tangible shift in tone. Truth be told, M*A*S*H kinda sucked after they killed off Henry, replaced Trapper with B.J., and replaced Frank with Charles. And then Radar just up and left altogether. And they got all nice to Hot Lips. They were still dedicated alcoholics to the very end, but by then, what was the point? For my money, M*A*S*H was always on its most solid footing when it served as an effective note-for-note rip-off of the Altman film. Good, bad, or indifferent, the gags trumped all else those first two or three seasons. And they were damned funny gags, too, even more outrageous on some level than the movie. But that more than anything reflected the influence of Larry Gelbart, who cut his teeth in the business writing material for Sid Caesar on YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, one of the most over-the-top zany sketch comedy parodies ever seen on American television. Alan Alda has stated in interviews that he felt the movie displayed a certain callousness towards its characters. Well, so did the WAR, Alan. As Alda assumed greater creative control of the show, that point of view would manifest itself in no uncertain terms.

But be that as it may, the series surpassed the movie in one key respect. It marked the last time that the folly and horror of warfare was dealt with in any meaningful way on prime-time American network television. When the movie premiered, the war in Vietnam was openly covered and broadcast into America's living rooms every night. In a major way, that fact contributed to the country's overwhelming disapproval of that war. When the series debuted, a sitcom about an ugly war was practically an afterthought, so inundated were the viewers to having witnessed the real thing for nearly a decade. By the time the show ended, the Reagan Revolution was in full swing, and with perhaps the notable exception of Oliver Stone, Hollywood was mostly attempting to rewrite the Vietnam experience for the dawn of the teenage multiplex crowd and its short attention span video game mentality. And one need look no further than today's evening news to notice a BIG difference between the way wars are covered today versus forty years ago. When Phil Donahue had the temerity to question the war in Iraq in 2002, his comeback bid was cut short by MSNBC when they abruptly axed his show despite good ratings. The frankness of both the movie and the TV series seem naive by today's standards; no doubt they both would be ordered to "tone it down" by the current crop of studio and network executives.

So in the final analysis, who's to say which version is the more worthwhile? The Larry Gelbart  Gene Reynolds Burt Metcalfe Alan Alda confection certainly has its adherents, as well it should. It was a hit for a reason. But I think it would be a lot more fun to tie one on with The Pros From Dover.

Waiting for George

He was born George Keefer Brewer on January 5, 1914, became George Bessolo when his mother remarried in 1927, became George Reeves in 1939 as a contract player for Warner Bros. Made his feature film debut that same year in GONE WITH THE WIND, became the idol of millions of little kids as the star of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN in the 1950s. And it all came to a tragic end in the wee hours of June 16, 1959.

So what exactly took place in George's house the night he died, anyway? The world may never know, but there are three prevailing theories as to what may have happened. George, under the influence of a copious amount of hard liquor and depressed over his slumping career (he had long ago been typecast as Superman), in a moment of despair and drunken impulse, put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Or, George was the victim of a mob hit ordered by either Hollywood studio bigshot Eddie Mannix or his attractive wife, Toni. Mannix had the juice to do it, too: as a well-connected, executive "fixer" for MGM, he had access to that kind of muscle, and no misgivings about using it. Or, George was shot and killed by his new fiancee Leonore Lemmon, more than likely by accident, in the heat of a drunken argument that spiraled out of control and turned violent.

At first glance, the suicide theory looks persuasive. The only reason George's agent managed to talk him into accepting the Superman role in the first place is that George's acting career had pretty much tanked by 1950, and George needed the money. In fact, George didn't even know who the hell Superman was until his agent explained it to him. The rest was history, of course. The show became an instant hit after it premiered in 1951,  and George suddenly became a major television star, a relatively new phenomenon at that time. But the show's success all but sounded the death knell for George's career ambitions. He was hopelessly typecast as Superman, and comic-book adaptations in those days didn't carry the kind of gravitas (or salary) that they do today. For that matter, neither did television work in general. Streaking across TV screens in tights and a cape week in and week out was something a proud man like George would have to live down.

According to Leonore Lemmon, George was under a lot of pressure due to increasing financial problems. Little if any meaningful work outside the Superman milieu ever materialized. George talked about moving into directing feature films and developing and producing other TV series, but those things never came to fruition either. And he was being harassed by his ex girlfriend, Toni Mannix, in the aftermath of their breakup. After a ten-year affair, George dumped Toni to take up with Leonore.

And there are other salient points. George's blood-alcohol count on the night in question was 2.5 times the legal limit. If he was as depressed as some reports indicate, that level of alcohol consumption could be a dangerous combination, especially as George was taking prescription painkillers at the time. Furthermore,  reports that George's hands showed no traces of gun powder residue--which would determine whether or not he had discharged a firearm that night-- are false, as the LAPD in those days did not test for powder burns in cases of apparent suicide.

That George was the victim of a contract killing, by one or both Mannixes or others, is ludicrous on its face. Nobody out there would ever mistake me for Mariska Hagitay, but I do know the first rule of mob hits is to eliminate the witnesses. If a bunch of hired wiseguys busted into George's house in order to do him in, nobody else in that house at the time would have been left alive to tell that tale, or any tale, for that matter. Including George's femme fatale fiancee, arguably the key witness in the case.

My main problem with this case is that a significant amount of time had passed from the time George was shot until the police were finally called. What the hell was she doing in that house during that time? Years later, Leonore told an interviewer a completely different story from the one she told the cops that night in '59. I think what she was doing was staging what investigators would assume to be a suicide scene. First, it would be necessary to move George's body from wherever it lay to his bed. Then, firing a shot into the ceiling would leave the impression that George, sitting on the bed with gun in hand, but too inebriated to sit up straight, slumps over to his right, head meeting gun barrel. That would leave at least one bullet hole too many in that room, so to camouflage the fact , Leonore fires an extra shot or two into the floor. She can then tell the police she was "horsing around" with the pistol a few days earlier, which would presumably account for any additional bullet holes that looked suspicious. A spent shell casing is placed underneath George's body to complete the illusion that George shot himself while lying in bed.

Does my theory prove George did not kill himself? No, but it makes about as much sense based on the evidence as any of the other theories. Many of the people who knew and worked with George expressed strong doubts about the notion that George would take his own life. George's broken-hearted mother, Helen Bessolo, dismissed the idea out of hand, even going so far as to launch her own investigation into her son's mysterious death. Results of that investigation proved inconclusive.

And what about George's career and money problems? Yes, it's fair to say he was disappointed about a failed film career. By most accounts, he clearly hated playing Superman, the role that he is most closely identified with. It's also fair to say George liked to drink too much, and could have been a borderline alcoholic. But it's also clear that George was not some naive Hollywood hopeful wannabe. He was an experienced film and television actor who had been around the block a time or two, and understood how the business worked. Maybe Superman was not something he needed to live down so much as to find some other way to profit by it. That might explain why George enthusiastically agreed to return to the series one more season, under the condition that he receive a hefty salary increase and be given greater creative control, which would have included directing many more episodes. Many a B-list film and TV actor has made the transition to success on the opposite side of the camera. Furthermore, at the time of George's death the Superman series had already made it to reruns, which meant George had generous residual payments to look forward to for years to come.

As for Leonore Lemmon? It's fair to say that Ms. Lemmon made for an unreliable witness. She more than likely lied to the LAPD the night George died, and continued to contradict herself over the years whenever questioned about that night. Four other people were present in George's house the morning of  June 16, 1959: Leonore, writer Robert Condon, neighbor Carol Van Ronkel, and a casual acquaintance of George's by the name of William Bliss. While the official story given by Leonore to police places her in the living room with the other house guests at the time the fatal shot rang out, Bliss is said to have told his wife a different story afterwards. In that version, Leonore was upstairs, either inside or in close proximity to George's bedroom. While Bliss was having a drink, he and the other guests heard what sounded like a gunshot. Leonore then hurries downstairs and allegedly says, "Tell them I was down here, tell them I was down here!" If Bliss' story is true, then who the hell knows what took place in George's bedroom?

So who you gonna believe? For their part, the other witnesses essentially backed up Leonore's story to   detectives, thus confirming her alibi. That would make them accomplices after the fact in a murder case, so why would they jeopardize their own lives to help her? Who knows? Maybe to help keep their friend out of the death house should the cops suspect foul play. Friendship is funny like that. At any rate, if the four of them are downstairs at the time of the shooting, investigators have little choice but to conclude suicide.

Whatever secrets Leonore Lemmon may have kept surrounding the untimely death of TV's Superman, she took them with her to her grave. She died in 1989 at the age of 66.

With Great Power Comes Pointless Sequels

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, cats and kiddies, hippies and squares! Welcome to this, the inaugural post of America's premiere pop culture blog (and other assorted odds and ends). Let's get right to it.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for all you classic comics fans out there, but I've given the matter a great deal of thought, and I've finally come to the inevitable conclusion: the new Spider-man movie, due out next summer, is gonna SUCK!

That's right, you heard right, and you heard it here first, folks. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012) is gonna suck great big buffalo nuts.

To begin with, a little backstory. We all remember with a certain degree of fondness (some of us less so, perhaps) the Sam Raimi trilogy. It almost seems quaint now, so quickly are Marvel Comics and Columbia Pictures moving to reboot the series already, but that wasn't how the story should have transpired. Raimi was actually on board to direct what would have been SPIDER-MAN 4. Series stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst had made it known that they would only re-up if Raimi was attached to direct. So far so good. But Raimi was having trouble putting together a script to his liking, and between that and general creative differences as to what direction the series should go, Raimi ends up leaving the franchise. With his departure, that meant the whole thing would not only need to be recast, but the decision was made to reboot the series entirely.

REBOOT??!! Jesus, SPIDER-MAN 3 is only FOUR YEARS OLD for fuck's sake! Are you kidding me?

Now don't get me wrong; I'm not one of those nostalgia obsessed guys that's stuck in the (recent) past. Sometimes a reboot is a great idea. The 80s/90s version of the BATMAN franchise was mostly in the toilet when along comes Christopher Nolan to transform the corny Caped Crusader into, well, CINEMA. But unfortunately, for every DARK KNIGHT, there has to be a SUPERMAN RETURNS. And that Bryan Singer travesty probably offers more than a few clues as to what will be wrong with the new Spidey.

As a general rule, if they fuck up the suit for a comic book character, that tends to mean they're gonna fuck up the rest of the movie. SUPERMAN RETURNS and DAREDEVIL are the poster children for that theory, as both movies were pretty much disasters and they did things to their characters' costumes that bordered on the obscene. We've all seen the new outfit photos leaked over the net, and the results are, well, not too good.

Now, I'll give 'em credit for employing what appear to be web-shooters. Hey, at least they're trying. But if this is what the new Spidey is supposed to look like, we're in trouble. Even the Nicholas Hammond version from the 70s got the damn suit right!

Then, there's the matter of what appears to be a dramatic shift in tone. I'm aware that there's a contingent out there that found the Raimi films a little too "cartoony". For my taste, Raimi's movies brought Stan Lee's characters to life in live action about as effectively as I've ever seen. Yeah, they completely screwed up the Green Goblin's outfit, and they deleted the bit about the web-shooters altogether, but these were tweaks that I found easy enough to live with since they got so much other stuff right. But this new crew looks like they're doing a complete 180 with regard to the look and feel of these characters. 

Think dark. No, REALLY dark. Like SUPERMAN RETURNS dark. Now that's pretty fuckin' dark. Bryan Singer took the Richard Donner movies and extracted every last ounce of warmth and naive wonder that those films had to offer. What we got instead was a sterile, cold, overlong, miscast, self-indulgent mess. All the CGI magic that money could buy could not disguise the fact that that movie essentially had no point of view and nothing to add to the Superman mythology. Judging by the new SPIDER-MAN trailer, we might be in store for the same thing here.

Sheesh. I could be wrong, and folks are more than welcome to disagree with me, but I have the sinking feeling that this film will turn out to be a visually good-looking yet spiritually empty artifice when it hits every single multiplex in America summer 2012. Bring back STAN LEE and STEVE DITKO!