Tag Archives: Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

I Love Lucy Premiers ► Throwback Thursday

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On this date in 1951 “I Love Lucy” premiered on the CBS network. Although it went off the air in 1957, it has run virtually non-stop in syndication ever since.

One of the reasons we have all those episodes of “I Love Lucy” is because, unlike other sitcoms of the era, it was shot on 35mm film in front of a live studio audience, and edited into a half hour show for airing. It’s ground-breaking technique was eventually copied by all sitcoms, right down to having a live studio audience, as opposed to a canned laugh track. 

According to the WikiWackyWoo: 

Another component to filming the show came when it was decided to use
three 35 mm film cameras to simultaneously film the show. The idea had
been pioneered by Ralph Edwards on the game show Truth or Consequences, and had subsequently been used on Amos ‘n’ Andy as a way to save money, though Amos n’ Andy
did not use an audience. Edwards’s assistant Al Simon was hired by
Desilu to help perfect the new technique for the series. The process
lent itself to the Lucy production as it eliminated the problem
of requiring an audience to view and react to a scene three or four
times in order for all necessary shots to be filmed. Multiple cameras
would also allow scenes to be performed in sequence, as a play would be,
which was unusual at the time for filmed series. Retakes were rare and
dialogue mistakes were often played off for the sake of continuity.

However, if I Love Lucy didn’t feature the incomparable slapstick comedy of Lucille Ball, no amount of film would have saved it.

The Internet Movie Data Base tells us:

She entered a dramatic school in New York City, but while her classmate Bette Davis received all the raves, she was sent home; “too shy”. She found some work modeling for Hattie Carnegie‘s and, in 1933, she was chosen to be a “Goldwyn Girl” and appear in the film Roman Scandals (1933).

She was put under contract to RKO Radio Pictures and several small roles, including one in Top Hat
(1935), followed. Eventually, she received starring roles in B-pictures
and, occasionally, a good role in an A-picture, like in Stage Door (1937) or The Big Street (1942). While filming Too Many Girls (1940), she met and fell madly in love with a young Cuban actor-musician named Desi Arnaz.
Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was
six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance,
they eloped and were married in November 1940. Lucy soon switched to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (1943); Best Foot Forward (1943) and the Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love
(1945). In 1948, she took a starring role in the radio comedy “My
Favorite Husband”, in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a
Midwestern banker. In 1950, CBS came knocking with the offer of turning
it into a television series. After convincing the network brass to let
Desi play her husband and to sign over the rights to and creative
control over the series to them, work began on the most popular and
universally beloved sitcom of all time.

Laugh all over again at these famous clips, all involving food:






Join the I Love Lucy facebookery HERE.

All Hail the King of Late Night Talk Shows ► Throwback Thursday

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The undisputed King of Late Night is — and forever will be — Johnny Carson. On this day in 1962, Carson took the helm of The Tonight Show, and nothing was ever the same again.

Carson didn’t invent the modern talk show. That honour goes to Steve Allen. However, Carson reinvented the talk show and kept reinventing it night after night for 30 years, racking up nearly 5,000 shows. But it wasn’t his endurance that made Johnny Carson a star. According to Biography:

Audiences found comfort in Carson’s calm and steady presence in their living rooms each evening. Revered for his affable personality, quick wit and crisp interviews, he guided viewers into the late night hours with a familiarity they grew to rely on year after year. Featuring interviews with the stars of the latest Hollywood movies or the hottest bands, Carson kept Americans up-to-date on popular culture, and reflected some of the most distinct personalities of his era through impersonations, including his classic take on President Ronald Reagan. Carson created several recurring comedic characters that popped up regularly on his show, including Carnac the Magnificent, an Eastern psychic who was said to know the answers to all kinds of baffling questions. In these skits, Carson would wear a colorful cape and featured turban and attempt to answer questions on cards before even opening their sealed envelopes. Carson, as Carmac, would demand silence before answering questions such as “Answer: Flypaper.” “Question: What do you use to gift wrap a zipper?”

In August I was thrilled when Variety announced Johnny Carson Returns: Antenna TV to Air Full ‘Tonight Show’ Episodes starting January 1st:

Antenna TV has struck a multi-year deal with Carson Entertainment Group to license hundreds of hours of the NBC late-night institution. Antenna will run episodes that aired from 1972 through the end of Carson’s 30-year reign in in 1992. Because NBC owns the rights to “The Tonight Show” moniker, Antenna TV’s episodes will be billed simply as “Johnny Carson.”

“This is not a clip show. This is full episodes of Johnny Carson, the man that everyone in late-night agrees was the greatest host of all time, airing in real time as he did back in the day,” Sean Compton, Tribune’s president of strategic programming and acquisitions, told Variety. “Tuning in to ‘The Tonight Show’ is like taking a walk down Main Street in Disneyland. The minute you step in there, you feel good and you know it’s a place you want to stay. We cannot wait to bring this show to fans who remember Carson and to a new generation of viewers who have never had the chance to see Johnny in his prime.”

Starting January 1st we’ll see more comedy brilliance like this:









Playing Checkers or Chess?

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Happy Anniversary!!! It was 62 years ago today that Richard Milhous Nixon cemented himself into the national consciousness with his Checkers speech.

Oh, sure, Nixon had been in the news before. He already had a reputation for dirty politics and anti-Communism, linking his opponent in the 1946 campaign to communists. As a Congressman he used his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, and access to secret FBI files, to push himself as Chair of the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) investigating the Alger Hiss spy ring. He was even allowed to accompany FBI agents to the Pumpkin Patch, where secret microfilm was discovered inside a hollowed pumpkin. No. Really!

He used this press to catapult himself into the Senate in 1950. And, even that election had its share of dirty mudslinging on Nixon’s part. Running against Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, he accused her of being “pink right down to her underwear.”

Just 14 years after entering national politics Richard Nixon was tapped as Dwight D. Eisenhower running mate in the 1950 election. However, there was a little wrinkle. The Backroom Boys back in California — the ones that had originally pushed for him to run for Congress and later Senator — were quietly supporting him on the QT by topping up his salary.

The press got wind of this slush fund. There was nothing illegal in it, of course, but it gave off a terrible stench. Was there any Quid Pro Quo? Conflict of interest? Nixon was about to be dumped from the ticket. In order to save his political life Nixon went on tee vee to deliver what became known as The Checkers Speech.

It was a cloying speech, watched by more than 60 million people, but it saved Nixon’s ass. The ‘Merkin public sent in telegram after telegram in support of Nixon for Veep. However, Eisenhower kept Nixon dangling on whether he still had the general’s support. Nixon came this close to withdrawing from the ticket, but was urged to hold on. Eventually Eisenhower felt the groundswell of public support and backed Nixon wholeheartedly.

I was only 3 months old when Nixon gave his Checkers speech, yet there are whole passages I can practically recite by heart. Why is it called The Checkers Speech? Because this:

Let me say this: I don’t believe that I ought to quit because I’m not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat’s not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and you know the Irish never quit.


One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.


It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.

IRONY ALERT: Nixon also said, “Let me say this: I don’t believe that I ought to quit because I’m not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat’s not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and you know the Irish never quit.” 

What amazes me is everything that came AFTER the Checkers speech. In point form:

• Nixon runs and loses against John Kennedy in 1960′
• Nixon runs for the governorship of California and loses, resulting in “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore speech to the press;
• Everyone counts him out as a political force;
• Wins the 1968 Republican nomination;
• Goes on to win the presidency
• Becomes the first, and so far only, president to resign in disgrace.

You have to admit Nixon’s entire story has the arc of a tragic opera. Yet, had it not been for his success on the Checkers speech, Nixon might have just been a footnote in the history books.

Video created by author from public domain photographs

Further reading: All my writing on Watergate and Nixon can be found HERE.

See how I memorialized the 60th Anniversary in Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech ► Another Magical Tee Vee

Ed Sullivan Changes Rock and Roll Forever ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Animation by author from White House still photo archives

I was 4 years old when it happened, which is why I don’t remember. However, on September 9, 1956, when Ed Sullivan brought Elvis Presley on his show, the world of Rock and Roll changed forever.

It wasn’t Elvis’ first time on the tee vee tube, nor was it even his first time on network tee vee. Presley had already been signed to a year’s worth of Saturday Night shows on the radio show Louisiana Hayride, a competitor of the Grand Old Opry, when that august body passed on the Rockabilly artist. He made his first tee vee appearance on March 3, 1955, on local Shreveport station KSLA’s version of the Louisiana Hayride, after failing his audition to appear on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a network show. At this early point Elvis was still releasing his earliest 45s on Sun Records.

But, there was no stopping Presley. Sun Records sold his contract to RCA Records and in January of 1956 he made his first recordings for that company.

On January 28th, the day after Heartbreak Hotel was released, Elvis made his first network appearance on CBS’s Sound Stage.

Then came two odd appearances on The Milton Berle Show on NBC. The first (April 3) was from the deck of the USS Hancocock. However, it was his 2nd appearance on the Berle Show that made the Headlines Du Jour of the day. The WikiWhackWoo, as always, tells the story:

Berle persuaded the singer to leave his guitar backstage, advising, “Let ’em see you, son.” During the performance, Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of “Hound Dog” with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow, grinding version accentuated with energetic, exaggerated body movements. Presley’s gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. … His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub. … His one specialty is an accented movement of the body … primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.” Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”. Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”. To Presley’s displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as “Elvis the Pelvis”, which he called “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin’ from an adult.”

Making the Headlines Du Jour is always good for business, so Steve Allen booked Elvis on his show. However, Allen was not a fan of Rock and Roll. Elvis was used, mostly, as comic fodder. He would later call this the most ridiculous performance of his career.

The Steve Allen performance, however absurd, beat the Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings. Ed had earlier vowed not to have Presley on his show, but he relented, signing Elvis to three appearances for a record $50,000. These are the appearances that catapulted Presley to national fame. Ironically, Sullivan was not around for Elvis’ first appearance on September 9th. He was resting after a car crash and actor Charles Laughton took over the hosting duties. However, Ed made his views known:

According to Elvis legend, Presley was shot from only the waist up. Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley “got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants–so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. … I think it’s a Coke bottle. … We just can’t have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!” Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, “As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.” In fact, Presley was shown head-to-toe in the first and second shows. Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut, with leg-concealing closeups when he danced, the studio audience reacted in customary style: screaming. Presley’s performance of his forthcoming single, the ballad “Love Me Tender”, prompted a record-shattering million advance orders. More than any other single event, it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions.

It was Sullivan’s tacit approval that Rock and Roll was ready for prime time that opened the floodgates to all the other shows booking the earliest acts in a still nascent Rock and Roll. Nothing was ever the same again. And, that’s how Ed Sullivan changed Rock and Roll forever.

Elvis Scandalizes ‘Merka ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Dateline June 5, 1956 – Elvis Presley appeared on the Milton Berle Show. Coming during his first brush with national fame, his pelvic gyrations were so suggestive that it became a national scandal. No, really!

In March of ’56 Elvis had released his eponymous debut LP on RCA. The label bought out his contract from Sun Studios the previous year. This LP would go on to become the first #1 Rock and Roll album, topping the Billboard charts for 10 weeks. Some 50 years later it ranked #56 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. However, Elvis was barely known at this point in his career. All that would change within the next six months.

Just a month after the LP’s release, Elvis appeared for the first time on the Milton Berle Show, singing an extremely hot version of Heartbreak Hotel from the deck of the USS Hancock. (Don’t ask.) When the performance finished, Elvis continued his tour. There was no public outcry. Watch:


To show how much Show Bidnezz has changed since then: Heartbreak Hotel wasn’t even on the LP Elvis had just released. He wasn’t promoting his new LP; Elvis was still promoting his January single, which had already topped the Billboard charts for 7 weeks. The music industry still thought of 45s as the money-makers, with LPs often an afterthought. Heartbreak Hotel would go on become the biggest selling single that year.

Elvis was just on the cusp of national and international fame. He had recently signed a 7-year Hollywood contract to star in movies and was still touring extensively. Milton Berle, who was trying to save his show from cancellation (unsuccessfully, as it turned out), booked Elvis for a return visit to his show in June, this time appearing at NBC’s studio in Hollywood. Before the show began Milton Berle, the show biz veteran of Vaudeville, radio, and tee vee, gave Elvis some advice; five words that changed history.

“Let ’em see you, son,” Milton Berle reportedly told Elvis, successfully convincing him to leave his guitar behind when he performed Hound Dog, a song he hadn’t even recorded yet. Without his guitar to hide behind, Elvis’ dancing was more exaggerated than his previous visit. While some girls screamed, much of the audience is confused, laughing and tittering. Clearly, they’ve never seen anything quite like this before:

‘Merka clutched its metaphorical pearls. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

Presley’s gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. … His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub. … His one specialty is an accented movement of the body … primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.” Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”. Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”.

Ed Sullivan was brutal in his assessment of Elvis Presley:

Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley “got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants–so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. … I think it’s a Coke bottle. … We just can’t have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!” Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, “As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.”

Which is exactly what he did.

Sullivan was forced to book Elvis when Steve Allen’s show with Elvis singing Hound Dog to an actual hound dog, beat Sullivan’s show in the ratings. Elvis has called this the most ridiculous performance of his career:

Quickly reversing his principled stand to obtain boffo ratings, Sullivan offered Elvis the unheard of sum of $50,000 for three appearances. In case anything went terribly wrong on the first Sullivan performance, Ed Sullivan made sure that he could not be blamed. He had guest host Charles Laughton filling in while he recuperated from a car accident. Elvis performed Love Me Tender for the 60 million viewers who tuned in.

While his first Sullivan appearance cemented Elvis Presley’s fame, it was his appearance on the Milton Berle Show that earned him the nickname of Elvis the Pelvis. He hated this phrase the rest of his life, calling it, “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard comin’ from an adult.”

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Johnny Carson’s Last Tee Vee Appearance ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Johnny Carson got his start in Show Biz as a magician

Dateline May 13, 1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last tee vee appearance ever, fittingly on David Letterman’s show.

Carson was a tee vee institution for over 30 years. While other people hosted the Tonight Show both before and after him, Carson will always be the gold standard against which all others are judged. Carson retired from his show on May 22, 1992.

Johnny Carson always felt that David Letterman was the natural heir to the Tonight Show seat and was sorely disappointed that the show was given to Jay Leno instead. “Some people say” that’s why Carson declined to appear in NBC’s 75th Anniversary Special. “Other people say” that Carson never forgave NBC for destroying all the early Tonight Shows to make shelf room for newer shows. It very well could have been both.

Either way, it’s so appropriate that Carson’s last appearance was on Letterman’s show, almost 2 years to years to the day after his retirement. Letterman sprung Carson’s appearance as a surprise and the audience gave him a sustained standing ovation. After waiting out the applause for a while, Carson left the stage without saying a word. It looked like he had some lines, which he decided not to deliver at the last minute because anything he said would be an anti-climax. Remember: Carson was the master of Show Biz Timing™. Later Carson said he pulled his Marcel Marceau act due to acute laryngitis. This clip makes it clear he was going to say something.

This was one of the rare post-retirement appearances Carson made on tee vee, and the very last. On January 23, 2005 Johnny Carson died of respiratory failure from emphysema at the age of 79. After his death David Letterman did a Johnny Carson tribute show, which included an entire monologue written by Carson. It turned out that Carson regularly faxed jokes to the Letterman show just for the thrill of having then delivered on air.

Johnny Carson was the Comedian’s Comedian to the very end.

Here’s David Letterman’s tribute show to Johnny Carson:

Further Reading at Not Now Silly

Last Tonight Show with Johnny Carson ► Day In History
I’ve Got A Secret ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment
Andy Kaufman ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Another Magical Tee Vee Moment ► KKKarl Rove Blunders Badly

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While he’s mostly as serious as a festering boil, there was unintended comedy from KKKarl Rove during the Fox “News” election coverage last night.

Rove was, once again, in the catbird’s seat. Once again, Fox “News” was allowing him to spout election lies without ever once — during the entire election cycle — revealing his MASSIVE conflict of interest. For, you see, Rove’s 2 SuperPACs spent an estimated $300,000,000.00 to influence the 2012 elections. Yet, Fox “News” neglected to mention that the billions of times that KKKarl Rove was on the network.

Last night, as KKKarl Rove was watched his money swirl around the bowl for the last time, he couldn’t accept the inevitable. When the network called Ohio, the deciding state, for President Obama, KKKarl Rove’s head finally exploded. He challenged the Fox “News” Decision Desk and demanded Fox “News” to get a second opinion, from the same people who made the 1st decision.

To quote Chris Wallace, who understood he was in the middle of a train wreck, “Awkward.”

Not as awkward as doing what KKKarl Rove says. I guess if you’re spending $300,000,000.00 to help Fox “News” elect Mendacious Mitt, it gives one certain liberties. Clearly you can call the shots.

However, it wouldn’t be Bret Baier who will get a second opinion; it will be his blonde sidekick. Poor Megyn Kelly. She suddenly found herself on a Forced March, in which she was had to ad lib without a teleprompter. It wasn’t pretty.

When Meggy finally arrived at the Brain Room Decision Desk, she challenged them as gently as possible. “Hey, hey, hey, kids. KKKarl says you’re full of crap.” The Katzenjammer Kids merely replied, as politely as possible, “Karl Rove is full of shit.

It must be watched to be believed. In Part I: KKKarl Challenges the orthodoxy; followed by Part II, in which Meggy takes her long, lonely walk.

Maybe there are some things that money cannot buy, KKKarl. That’s why this is truly another magical tee vee moment.

Andy’s Gang ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Dateline October 7, 1905 – Andrew Vabre “Andy” Devine is born in Flagstaff, Arizona. With his trademark raspy voice, Andy Devine went on to become one of the great character actors in Hollywood. He appeared in more than 400 hundred flicks, often playing the sidekick. He was Cookie alongside Roy Rogers and appeared in several John Wayne movies, including the original Stagecoach, Island in the Sky, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, where he played the cowardly marshal. Among his other movie credits are Romeo and Juliet, the original A Star Is Born, the original Geronimo, the Jack Benny comedy Buck Benny Rides Again, Pete Kelly’s Blues, and dozens of others.

However, there’s a whole generation of kids, who are now my age, that know him for the phrase “Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy” when, in mid career, he hosted the children’s show “Andy’s Gang.” Each show began with Andy leading the kids in a song that parents would go nuts if they heard it today:

♫ ♪ ♫
I got a gang,
You got a gang,
Everybody’s gotta have a gang,
But there’s only one real gang for me, 
Good ol’ Andy’s Gang.
♪ ♫ ♪

Here are some wonderful excerpts from Andy’s Gang, when children’s programming on tee vee was still in its infancy.



Jimmy Buffett name-checked Andy Devine in his song Pencil Thin Moustache, which is as good way as any to play out this blog post. Enjoy:

Another Magical Tee Vee Moment ► Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech

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Jackie Gleason keeping Richard Nixon from falling in the
drink in Inverrary, Florida, a few miles from where I live.

Dateline September 23, 1952 – Under fire for taking money from his private backers to pay expenses, Richard Nixon went on national tee vee and delivered what has come to be known as The Checkers Speech.

At the time he was Senator Richard Nixon, having won over Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950 after accusing her of being a Communist, who was “pink right down to her underpants.” Tapped to be General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice presidential running mate, Nixon ran into trouble two months later when the press learned of a fund that ‘topped off’ Nixon’s salary of $12,500 (which was about $150,000 in 2009 dollars, according to the WikiWackyWoo). As demands grew for Nixon to resign from the ticket and his senate seat, Eisenhower started to distance himself from the party’s GOP pick. To save his position on the GOP ticket, not to mention his seat in the Senate, Nixon convinced Ike to allow him to go on tee vee and make his case directly to the ‘Merkin people. However, Nixon wanted Eisenhower to make a decision on whether to keep him on the ticket immediately after the broadcast. Eisenhower wouldn’t agree to that, so Nixon famously said to the General who saved Europe for democracy, “[G]eneral, there comes a time in matters like this when you’ve either got to shit or get off the pot.” Even at that, Eisenhower said it would take a few days to determine which way the wind was blowing.

At 9:30 PM EST Nixon gave the following speech to all of ‘Merka:

The speech was both maudlin and heart-warming. It became known as The Checkers Speech, a term Nixon hated, for this passage:

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something—a gift—after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.

Nixon ended the speech with direct appeal to the ‘Merkin people to let their views be known:

I am submitting to the Republican National Committee tonight through
this television broadcast the decision which it is theirs to make. Let
them decide whether my position on the ticket will help or hurt. And I
am going to ask you to help them decide. Wire and write the Republican
National Committee whether you think I should stay on or whether I
should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.

But just let me say this last word. Regardless of what happens I’m
going to continue this fight. I’m going to campaign up and down America
until we drive the crooks and the Communists and those that defend them
out of Washington.

The ‘Merkin people did as Nixon had asked. They inundated the GOP with letters and telegrams, Eisenhower decided to keep him on the ticket, and Senator Richard Nixon lived to fight another day, going on to become Vice President of the United States for the next 8 years.

Another Magical Tee Vee Moment ► Chuck Jones

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Dateline September 21, 1912 – Cartoonist extraordinaire Chuck Jones is born in Spokane, Washington. According to Jones, he credits his father, a failed businessman, with his love of drawing. Says the WikiWackiWoo:

His father, Jones recounts, would start every new business venture by purchasing new stationery and new pencils with the company name on them. When the business failed, his father would quietly turn the huge stacks of useless stationery and pencils over to his children, requiring them to use up all the material as fast as possible. Armed with an endless supply of high-quality paper and pencils, the children drew constantly. Later, in one art school class, the professor gravely informed the students that they each had 100,000 bad drawings in them that they must first get past before they could possibly draw anything worthwhile. Jones recounted years later that this pronouncement came as a great relief to him, as he was well past the 200,000 mark, having used up all that stationery.

Like so many children of my generation, Chuck Jones entertained me endlessly. While his cartoons were made for movie theaters, they were all over the tee vee dial when I was growing up and the cartoons are all that matter. Here are just a few:

“Great Performances,” on PBS, profiled Chuck Jones in one of its previous seasons. The program included some terrific behind-the-scenes descriptions of how cartoons are created and clips of some of the great cartoons. [Unfortunately PBS has removed this from its web site. I searched hard to find one with the proper aspect ratio, but could only find bits and pieces and not the entire documentary. Here is the full documentary with the aspect ratio skewed.]

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