Nature's Winter etch-a-sketch displayed on a pane of glass.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
-Carl Reiner-

Ice crystals form on widow screen.

“Merry Madagascar”
a review by Darby O’Gill

DreamWorks Animation released their second holiday special this year, the only problem is they may have jumped the shark a little this time. Now, I’m not a big fan of the Madagascar movies. Truth be told, I only saw the first one and hated it. But, I did try to watch this special with an open mind. My biggest problem with Merry Madagascar is that they aired it a week before Thanksgiving, and not a week before Christmas! I know that everyone is always saying Christmas is starting earlier and earlier each year, but come on! Look, I don’t want see a story about Santa before I even get to eat some turkey. NBC really dropped the ball on this one. I guess I spoke too soon when I praised the first special, Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space. Merry Madagascar reunites the original voice talent from the films, and has the gang filling in for Santa after he gets a case of amnesia. It’s a fun holiday special, but I wouldn’t call it a classic by any means. I’m glad DreamWorks Animation is keeping the holiday special tradition alive, but I just wish they would have aired this one a little closer to Christmas. With that and my dislike for the film series, I’m afraid I have to give this one a lower rating. But, overall it works for what it is. I’m just hoping for a Kung Fu Panda New Year special.

Rating:

Terry, I can’t predict the future. I pay professionals to do that, and even they get it wrong sometimes.

– Reuben

After the massive success of the first movie, Soderburgh and company came back together for Ocean’s Twelve. This setting and story are dramatically different from the glitz and glamour from the first incarnation. Instead of the bright lights of the Las Vegas, the Eleven are focused their attention on Europe. I think that this was a mistake, because it hurt the caper aspect of the story.

When the Eleven successful pilfered Terry Benedict out of his $150 million dollars at the ending of the first movie, (spoiler alert) the beginning show how the gang was doing during the three and a half since the heist. Most of them spent some or all of their $13 million dollars cut.

They get a rude awakening when Benedict tracks them all down wherever they were hiding. He offers them a chance to correct their mistakes by stealing his money. Benedict gives them two weeks to return the money with interest, which is roughly $200 million dollars, or he will kill them.

The gang has a pow-wow to discuss how they could get the money is that short amount of time. They decide to go to Amsterdam to meet up with Matsui (Robbie Coltrane), who gives them an assignment to steal the world’s oldest stock certificate from 1602 worth $2.5 million Euros.

When they do, they realize that a famous cat burglar named “The Night Fox” (Vincent Cassel) got the stock first. Not only that, but the team realizes that The Night Fox made the call to Benedict that ratted them out.

The Night Fox issues a challenge to the Ocean’s Eleven to steal a Coronation Faberge Egg from exhibit in Paris. They want to beat The Night Fox at their own game. Eleven becomes Twelve when they enlist the help of Roman (Eddie Izzard) to help pull off the switch-a-roo.

This movie as a whole is not well executed. The dialogue was not up to par. The scenes dragged on way too long. I was bored to tears. The movie looks grainy. The interaction with the members felt clunky and stagy. There wasn’t the synergy from the first outing. I was disappointed with this movie, especially the last thirty that fell off the tracks.

Judgment: This is one of the instances that the sequel is not better than the original.

Rating: **1/2

You guys are pros. The best. I’m sure you can make it out of the casino. Of course, lest we forget, once you’re out the front door, you’re still in the middle of the fucking desert!

– Reuben

Breaking away from his trademark quirky sensibility, Steven Soderbergh remade the 1960s Rat Pack classic heist film, Ocean’s Eleven. Instead of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammie Davis, Jr., the main leads are George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Quite a departure. Soderbergh has some success with mainstream movies; I think that his subsequent Ocean’s trilogy exposed himself more to the mainstream consciousness.

Re-channeling his Out of Sight persona, George Clooney plays the titular Danny Ocean that is recently paroled after four years. When he is released, he goes to old stomping grounds to reconnect with his former crewmembers, travel across the country to reconnect with the poker teacher to the stars, Rusty (Pitt).

Ocean’s plan is to steal “x” amount dollars from three casinos, the Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand all of them owned Las Vegas casino owner, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). He would need a large crew at least a dozen to pull off the multiple cons needed to pull off the heist.

Seeing that they need a way inside the way, Danny and Rusty pay a visit to a former casino owner that was wronged by Benedict and knows the ins and outs of the security system, Reuben (Elliott Gould). After he is in, the rest of the crew is assembled like Frank (Bernie Mac), two drivers the twins, Virgil and Turk (Casey Affleck, Scott Caan), electronic expert Livingston (Eddie Jemison), explosives Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), a “grease man” Yen (Shaobo Qin), Saul (Carl Reiner) and last but not least, master of disguise, Linus (Damon).

They have pow-wow to lay out the foundation of this impossible feat. If they succeed, they stand to get 150 million dollars when the casinos are distracted from an upcoming fight between Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko that same day. In order to let the heist run slowly, they have to lay the groundwork like plant a device on the casino’s closed circuit camera, recreating the vault to practice, the daily routine of their mark.

While relaying the routine of Benedict, Linus thought it would be a good idea to enlist the help of Benedict’s main squeeze, Tess (Julia Roberts) who was also Danny’s ex-wife. Danny’s ulterior motive becomes clear that steals the money is not his only motivation. He wants to get Tess back.

The movie is slick and a little too polished. I had the same problem with this movie as I did with Spike Lee’s Inside Man. I don’t like it when a filmmaker talks down the audience. We don’t need to know every single detail that needed to be explained. When the heist was taking place, I didn’t believe that these people would be able to pull that off. The only person that I liked was Andy Garcia. He has a permanent stoic look on his face that works well with his dickish Terry Benedict.

Judgment: Have a good time with Ocean and the gang in this solid remake.

Rating: ****

When I think of what God looks like, I know I don’t think about George Burns.

Buttonholing venerable comedian George Burns for the title role was certainly a divine inspiration! God, in the guise of a wisecracking old gent, decides to makes his presence known to a harried grocery clerk (John Denver) so he can get the message out that “everything on earth can still work if we want it to.”

Going into this film I was expecting to hear a bunch of little rants about religion and how God isn’t real and how he is. Well I didn’t get that, and instead what I got was a very true, if not careful look at the world of religion.

There are plenty of one-liners that make this film very funny. By the end you have this feeling that God isn’t just a funny guy, but probably a really chill guy that you wouldn’t mind hanging out with. The film is directed by Carl Reiner, who instead of making this film very silly and dumb, he brings up this smart and quietly funny story, that all of us can connect to.

But what i really found interesting and it is still so true today, even more so, that even when we do see miracles in our lives right in front of us we still tend to ignore then and credit it to something else. This movie does carry a timeless message that WE are creating our life, that we all have a choice to live a certain way and that everything that is happening in our world is created by us and actually is a reflection by us. But again, it is all our choice to believe it or not. And the only things that we complain about, is truly and simply about ourselves and nothing else.

However, although the humor was there at points it really wasn’t in the film all the way through. For some of these parts I was bored and uninterested until God came back on the screen and made everything funny. Also, this film really doesn’t get strong and effective until the very last 20 minutes. I feel like with a strong message that I basically just stated above, this film could have benefited from that throughout the whole film, but instead choose to use it at the end of the film.

I really did like George Burns as God however. He doesn’t play this stereotypical image we have of God instead he just plays himself, and makes the film a whole lot more funnier with this representation. Surprisingly, John Denver does a better job than I expected. He doesn’t seem too cheesy and more believable as an actor than a country artist. If only he didn’t die too young, or else he could have been in better films. Some guys just don’t have all the luck.

Consensus: Oh God! is good but not terrific. It features a heart-felt message, with good acting, and a smart script, its just that its message wasn’t as effective until the very end of the film.

8/10=Matineee!!!!

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Good news for Mel Brooks fans — his Grammy-winning comedy collaborations with Carl Reiner, The 2000 Year Old

MIRREN: seeing Red

Man, have been remastered and repackaged for a 50th anniversary four-disc reissue (three CDs and one DVD), The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History, due in stores this week. Not only that, Toronto audiences well finally get to see Mel’s Broadway musical version of Young Frankenstein, now slated to play March 16 – April 18 at the Princess Of Wales … Helen Mirren is set to co-star with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman in a new thriller, Red, after she brings the National Theatre production of Phedre to Broadway with Dominic Cooper, the Mamma Mia boy toy currently on view with new scene-stealer Carey Mulligan in the hit TIFF star-maker An

MERCER: Rodeo daze

Education … 40-year CHUM radio veteran Roger Ashby will be inducted into the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame at a Canadian Music Week dinner March 11 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel … and talk about yer urbane cowboy! Rick Mercer goes a-ridin’ and a-ropin’ at the Edmonton Rodeo tonight, and actually lives to tell the tale, on CBC’s Rick Mercer Report at 8 pm.

FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES: He became David Frost in Frost/Nixon, shone as Tony Blair in The Queen, and plays legendary maverick U.K. rugby coach Brian Clough in The Damned United. So what does Michael Sheen have to do with that mess of a man pictured beside him? Yup – that’s

SHEEN: he sucks, but only in THIS movie

him. Sheen plays the vampire leader Aro in last weekend’s top boxoffice sizzler, The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And he makes no bones about why he took the role. “I knew it would make my 10-year-old daughter, Lily, very happy,” he confesses. And it has. “She’s got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere in her bedroom,” he notes. “And now, she’s put her dad up there as well.” Just wait ‘til she sees him as The White Rabbit in Tim Burton’s bound-to-be-peculiar re-telling of Alice In Wonderland.

MAY IN NOVEMBER: Toronto Western Hospital’s Fracture Clinic and Medical Imaging Waiting Room is a happier place this morning after renowned

KARP: a gift to last

Toronto photo artist May Karp gifted 22 pieces to TWH. Karp’s uplifting photography is already on view in a number of Canada’s larger hospitals. In 2004 she donated 27 framed images for Toronto General’s new Surgical Centre waiting room, adding warmth and a new visual focus for the families of surgery patients. After seeing the impact of her photography in the Surgical Centre, Tennys Hanson, President and CEO of Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, asked her to consider a similar project for Toronto Western Hospital. “Hospital waiting rooms are for patients, sometimes for their relatives or friends,” Karp notes. “Most visitors are frightened and anxious. Time passes very slowly as they wait for results or treatment. One can almost ‘taste’ the emotions. Over 20 years ago I spent a lot of time in rooms like this. I experienced all the emotions many times since then.” Which is why her colourful, eye-catching and blissfully distracting works are brightening TWH this morning.

TOMORROW:

Glee & Nine go on the record.

-/-

Tell Me Another Scary Story…But Not TOO Scary!

By Carl Reiner, Illustrated by James Bennett

Published September 1, 2009 (Hardcover) Dove

When I was a kid, I watched Carl Reiner on The Dick Van Dyke Show, wishing that Dick was my father, and that I would grow up to be like Mary Tyler Moore.  Now that I’ve grown up, some have said I do look like Mary Tyler Moore, and here I am,  reading a kids’ book by Carl Reiner.  There’s an odd symmetry to this, but it makes sense to me.

The book — thank you for asking — is Tell Me Another Scary Story…But Not TOO Scary! A CD accompanies the book, and  Carl Reiner himself reads the story about something that happened to him as a kid.  His kind old neighbor — whose last name spells Halloween backwards — calls young Carl on the phone, and invites him over for hamburgers to see a scary costume Mr Neewollah was creating just for Carl.  But when Carl arrives at his neighbor’s house, something more frightening than he can ever imagine happens.  Ketchup is involved.  And blood.  Real blood.

I love Halloween, even though I only wear one type of costume.  Witch.  It’s a black costume, although I imagine myself to have good powers.   I can wear Lycra, I’m happy.

When I was a kid, my stepfather – who was very creative — made our Halloween costumes.  We did boxes a lot.  We were cereal boxes a few times.  Not particularly easy to see out of, although we were protected somewhat from the typical Halloween weather, which, in Jersey, was either very cold or rainy.  I was Minnie Mouse one year, with an amazing head he had crafted out of chicken-coop wire.    I guess my brother would have been Mickey, but I don’t remember.  I just recall that I loved wearing a short skirt, black tights, and little white gloves.  I haven’t changed a lot over the years.

I had a friend, Luanne, whose parents hired people to create her costumes every year, expensive, lavish costumes, like a coffee pot that looked completely real.   She won the contest at the high school one year, when we were all in grade school.  My stepfather flipped out.  He was furious that the money beat him.  It was a bloody night, when we got home.

That kind of thing is scary.  Carl Reiner is just sweet, and a bit cranky, but not scary.  So go ahead and read the book to your kids, or pop the CD in and listen and turn the pages.  Sound effects are really cool.

But not too scary!

Instead of the Germans its the Russians, so hilarious!

A Russian submarine runs aground near a small New England town, and it’s up to Lt. Rozanov (Alan Arkin) as the Russians’ second-in-command to covertly secure a towboat to avoid an international confrontation. When he hooks up with residents such as Walt Whittaker (Carl Reiner) and the police chief (Brian Keith), all hell breaks loose.

I will say one thing about this film is that although it is an old film, it still does hold up some comedy that you can still laugh at till this day. The film is a very gentle comedy towards the Russians. I was expecting a film that was going to be bashing the Russians and basically making them look like fools, however this is not the case. Much of the film shows the culture clash but shows how the Russians are just as gentle as us, and we shouldn’t be afraid of them.

I just didn’t think that this film was all that funny as I was to believe. Many of the jokes are catchy but most of them can be very flat, and really stiff. Now this is a good film don’t get me wrong, but I just think that there are better ones out there, that would be a lot more funnier than some of the jokes they had in this film.

I will say that despite the over 2 hour time limit the film was very sharp. The direction of the film was quick and went from one place to another so I wouldn’t get bored too easily of these jokes.

The performances are OK but would be nothing without Alan Arkin. Arkin does the best job as he still does the great Russian accent and it doesn’t slip one bit. He was funny but also very vicious, and you could tell that’s what he was having coming out through this performance.

Consensus: Though not amazingly funny, Russians Are Coming boasts a great performance from Arkin, memorable quotes, and a timeless message of “why can’t we all just get along?”.

8/10=Matinee!!

Just Desserts

By Carl Reiner

Buy on Amazon

Published September 1, 2009 (Hardcover) Phoenix Books

I’ve never been one for slapstick, but maybe Carl Reiner is convincing me.   His heart is in the right place.  Mostly.

In Just Desserts, Reiner magically creates a world where sinners and other cruel people are instantly punished.  In this world, is a novelist, influenced by an author whose name is unnervingly similar to Carl Reiner’s — try Rhyne Karlner.  And that novelist, Nat Noland, is a plagiarist.  Yeah, that part I don’t like.  I wouldn’t even open a Cliff’s Notes in school, so opposed was I to unoriginality and what I thought was cheating.

Nat — an avowed atheist — begins this adventure by writing to God in an email.  He was goofing.  But, he is stunned when he gets an immediate reply.  He is further stunned when the GodGod emails, as he calls them, begin answering questions Nat has posed in his mind.

At the point when the romance author Nat Noland shows up — with a New York Times press pass — at the UN, I finally throw in the towel of my resistance.   And I roll with Reiner’s Novellelah.  Good timing, because this is about the point when the noses of world leaders at the UN grow, Pinocchio-like, with their lies.  Including George W.

Just Desserts is a deliciously funny book — with lessons and depth if you enjoy its profoundness. And its slapstick, if you don’t.

We have lost several notables so far this month, one of whom, was directly involved with writing some well-remembered old time radio shows.

09-11-2009
Larry Gelbart, 81, American comedy writer (M*A*S*H)
died of cancer

This is the first of an 8 part interview.
Click here to see the remaining videos on Youtube.

Although Larry Gelbart will be most remembered for M*A*S*H, during the 1940s, Gelbart began working as a writer for Fanny Brice’s radio show, and as a gag writer for Danny Thomas.  After a brief stint in the army, where he wrote for Armed Forces Radio, Gelbart joined the writing staff of Duffy’s Tavern, a popular radio program.  He also wrote for Bob Hope, whom he followed to television. . . . . In the early 1950s, Gelbart became part of the extraordinarily talented crew of writers on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. This group, which included Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, in addition to Gelbart, helped define the medium in its earlier days. Shortly after becoming head writer for The Pat Boone Show, Gelbart became disgusted by broadcasting’s communist witch-hunts and moved to England.  While in London, he continued to work in British film and television.  Read more

 
09-12-2009
George Eckstein, 81, American television writer
and producer (The Fugitive)
died of lung cancer

09-14-2009
Patrick Swayze, 57, American actor (Dirty Dancing, Ghost)
died of pancreatic cancer

09-16-2009*
Henry Gibson, 73, American actor (Laugh-In, Boston Legal)
died of cancer

09-16-2009
Mary Travers, 72, American singer
(Peter, Paul and Mary If I Had A Hammer; Puff, The Magic Dragon)
died of leukemia

*At the time of this posting, Wikipedia is stating that henry Gibson died on 09-14-2009.  All other Google hits are claiming 09-16-2009.

" I'll miss you more than all the others / and I SALUTE YOU , Brother..."

Poet. Rocker. Punk. Junkie. Jim Carroll, who was all of these,  passed away at his desk while working on new material. He first became famous for his novel The Basketball Diaries, but I didn’t discover that until after his album Catholic Boy blew my doors in. I can still sing “People Who Died” from memory and was fortunate enough to have seen the man himself do the honors. Many people believe he was the poet of our generation, a post-Beat Beat writer. Now he’s gone. Wicked, wicked gravity.

Larry Gelbart is probably best known as the creator of M*A*S*H, an accomplishment which would outshine many people’s career resumes. But his writing spanned generations – he started writing for Fanny Brice and Bob Hope, wrote jokes for Red Buttons and Danny Kaye, hit his stride in the incredible writer’s room for Sid Caesar (a crew that included Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon and Carl Reiner) and capped it off with M*A*S*H and Tootsie. His work is so good that I forgive him for AfterMASH.

The typewriter is mightier than the sword

My comments on these two is certainly no slight by omission on the recent passing of others. I just had more invested in the works of Carroll and Gelbart.  But over the past seven days the Grim Reaper has been working overtime:

• Pierre Cossette, a TV and Broadway producer I had the pleasure of working with when I was in Artist Management. Total pro, as was his team.
• Army Archerd, whose news items in Variety predated today’s gossip rags and TV shows…except Army had ethics and didn’t just blast rumors to get attention.
• George Eckstein, a producer/writer for some great early TV shows.
• Paul Burke, star of Naked City and 12 O’Clock High
• William Beck, the owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, who at least was saved from witnessing Michael Jordan’s embarassing Hall Of Fame speech.
• Frank Batten, creator of The Weather Channel, saving millions of people from having to rely on that antiquated tool of looking out the window.

This idiot died last night, but only on stage. (I’m no fan of Beyonce’s music, but that was a class move at the VMAs.)

Christopher Kelly- hmmm, not suspicious at all, right?

And if the Universe had a better sense of irony,  this jackass would have died a day earlier.

***

Awww crap…11pm update. I knew this was going to happen but not this soon.

And damn, Reaper – Wednesday update – you socked it to him, too?

***

Jim Carroll Wikipedia entry

Larry Gelbart page at IMDB.

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, Al Pacino, and Ellen Barkin
Director: Steven Soderbergh
The Verdict: We had as just fun watching Ocean’s Eleven as George Clooney et al. clearly had working over that creaky Rat Pack crime caper. But no joy was to be had from the horribly self-conscious Italian job that was Ocean’s Twelve. So it was inevitable that Ocean’s Thirteen would find the heistmeisters once again taking their act to Vegas—and the result is the only “threquel” released so far this summer that improves upon its immediate predecessor. This time the motive is revenge, with Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his cohorts plotting to bring down high-powered businessman Willy Bank (Al Pacino) after he screws over Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould). Everyone’s back to ruin the soft opening of Banks’ new hotel and casino, with the notable exception of Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones. “It’s not their fight,” Ocean quickly explains away. And that’s just fine. There was nothing more Roberts could do with Tess, not after she had to embarrassingly play herself in Ocean’s Twelve. And sparks hardly flew between Zeta-Jones and Pitt. Not that Ocean’s Thirteen is an all-boys club. Ellen Barkin predictably turns up the heat as Pacino’s right-hand woman—a nice touch, reuniting the Sea of Love couple—and the target of Matt Damon’s less-than-honorable affections. Pacino’s in full “hoo-ha” mode, and that’s all the incentive we need to root against the entrepreneur whose love of gold and diamonds inevitably leads to his comeuppance. How Bank is taken down doesn’t matter—there’s no plot to speak of, just another masterplan that’s seemingly impossible to pull off. The details are certainly not as important as the execution, so thankfully director Steven Soderbergh abandons the pretentious approach he took with Ocean’s Twelve in favor of the crisp wit and effortless sophistication of Ocean’s Eleven. But it’s the easy camaraderie between our noble thieves that makes the heist such an enjoyable romp. Clooney, Pitt and Damon obviously take center stage, but the Zapata-quoting Casey Affleck finally grabs our attention as he heads to Mexico and incites poorly paid factory workers to go on strike. “The nose plays,” Pitt tells Damon of the rubber beak he wears as part of a disguise. And, quite surprisingly, so does Ocean’s Thirteen.
Release Date: June 8, 2007
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 122 minutes

Debuting last week on Tuesday, August 11, 2009, the United States Postal Service made available for sale of 50 million 44-cent stamps, available in sheets of 20 individual designs, commemorating the “Golden Age of Television.” On that day last week there was a dedication ceremony in North Hollywood, hosted by TV legend Carl Reiner who is NOT commemorated on any of the stamps for the simple reason that he is still alive. As you may know, only the deceased may be commemorated on a U.S. Postage Stamp; but in fact you not only have to be dead to get on a stamp, but you have to have been dead for FIVE years. The Committee that oversees who gets to be on stamp won’t even consider someone for future commemoration until they’ve been 3 years deceased. Probably have to do some heavy background checking. It would be pretty embarrassing to have a guy put on a stamp only to discover a year later when someone publishes his biography, that “Holy Smokes he molested his kids!” or “WTF!? He had sex with sheep?!” 

You definitely don’t want to be licking the backside of a guy on stamp who had sex with farm animals. Or any animals for that matter. Come to think of it, I’m not crazy about the idea of licking the backside of a stamp of anybody who sex with anybody.

Nevertheless, that rule got me thinking about these new TV stamps. Really? All those TV stars depicted have been dead for at least 5 years? Really? Where the Hell is the time going? I woke up this morning out of a dream in which I imagined they had Andy Griffith depicted on a stamp from “The Andy Griffith Show.” I woke up thinking, “Hey! Sheriff Andy’s still alive! He’s an old lawyer named Matlock now, but he’s still alive! Alert the USPS!”   But of course after checking, I found that The Andy Griffith Show is NOT one of the TV shows commemorated. Thanks for nothing stupid dream!

The one exception though to the five-year restriction is in the case of a deceased U.S. President in which case, he (or she) may be honored one year after their death. That investigative committee better switch into high gear because one year is not a whole lot of time to uncover a lot of shady dealings.

Anyway, these TV stamps were designed by art director Carl T. Herrman of Las Vegas, and joining emcee Carl Reiner at the ceremony were several spouses and descendants and co-stars of some of the performers commemorated. Jayne Meadows for instance, the wife of Tonight Show host Steve Allen was there, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson’s grandkids were there, and… oh what’s this….one of the stars depicted on one of the stamps was there! In person! Alive!  Stop the Presses! Call the Postal Police! Somebody get postal on this violation of the rules!! WTF?

Okay okay, you’re way ahead of me. It was Lassie. Hah hah.  Yes, Lassie was there, or the 10th generation of Lassie as it turns out. He’s on one of the stamps, and June Lockhart who starred with Lassie on the show was at the ceremony too. Unfortunately, poor June is still alive and thus wasn’t allowed to be depicted on the stamp with Lassie. Howdy Doody has a stamp too, but Buffalo Bob Smith isn’t depicted alongside him! Why? Bob Smith’s been dead since 1998–why couldn’t they put him on the stamp next to Howdy Doody? How the Hell are we supposed to believe that freckled little puppet is standing up by himself? This isn’t a Twilight Zone stamp after all! Which by the way is also commemorated on a stamp with a big close-up of Rod Serling (deceased in 1975). I would like to have seen a shot of that episode where William Shatner is on the airplane and sees the creepy gremlin on the wing tearing it up! That was great. That shocking revelation where Shatner pulls back the window curtain and BAM! Big frightening close-up of the scary looking creature peering in at Shatner!!  Why couldn’t they put that weird looking face on a stamp? Or maybe even the creature’s face? Hah hah. But Shatner’s still alive so that’s a no-go. He looks dead I know, but I just saw him on TV the other day and he was definitely walking and talking.

So then, what are the 20 TV shows depicted? They are: Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; The Dinah Shore Show; Dragnet; The Ed Sullivan Show; The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show; Hopalong Cassidy; The Honeymooners; Howdy Doody; I Love Lucy; Kukla, Fran and Ollie; Lassie; The Lone Ranger; Perry Mason; The Phil Silvers Show; The Red Skelton Show; Texaco Star Theater; The Tonight Show; The Twilight Zone; and, You Bet Your Life.

And who is the most recently deceased star depicted on one of those stamps? By my calculation it is the great Art Carney, as sewer worker Ed Norton, depicted with Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners stamp. Carney died November 9, 2003. He just made it by one year!  If he died one year later the rules would have prohibited his depiction. Lucky guy.  Milton Berle who died March 27, 2002 was the next closest.

The Post Office will even mail the stamps to your home if you want to order them online. Only from the sound of things lately, pretty soon we may not be able to receive them on Saturdays. In that case, I’ll just watch some TV instead of eagerly awaiting my stamps.  Oh man, I just had this flashback memory…I actually used to collect stamps when I was a boy. My Aunt Virginia would sometimes send me some. Hm.  I think I still have them in a draw at my parent’s house. Well well.  I guess stamp-collecting is for cool people after all.

(Sources:  USPS.com; and wikipedia.com)