I was surprised by two items in the newspaper this past weekend that brought up distant memories from my childhood. Unbelievably, goateed bandleader Mitch Miller, who I think once had his own TV show in the Lawrence Welk mode, was celebrating his 97th birthday—who knew he was still kicking? While my parents once enjoyed his easy listening/big band sounds, my most vivid memory of the man was that we called the aliens from the “Zantee Misfits” episode of The Outer Limits the “Mitch Miller ants.” I have no idea why this has stuck with me for so many years, but anyone who’s seen that classic episode and is familiar with the hip-in-his-day bandleader will get the connection.
The sad news was that Larry Harmon, the man credited with making Bozo the Clown “the world’s most famous clown,” died at the age of 83 of congestive heart failure. Harmon wasn’t the original Bozo (the character was launched as a Capitol Records recording artist in 1946), but from the early 50’s on he bought the rights to the name, developed it into the children’s icon we all knew and loved, and licensed it to television stations around the country. He cloned and trained over 200 local Bozo Show hosts the world over, and supposedly there was as many 183 individual live shows on the air at the same time in the U.S. Incredibly, the live Bozo Show was on the air without interruption for 47 years, making it the longest running family program in television history.
Growing up in the pre-Sesame Street era of the late 50’s and early 60’s, Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis, and Bozo the Clown all helped shape our very impressionable minds while educating and entertaining. It was a great time to be a kid, and Larry Harmon helped make it that way. R.I.P. to the man who was called “truly the goodwill ambassador of the world”—you’ve earned it.
Flippin’ channels the other night and I happened to catch Dennis Leary on David Letterman. When the subject rolled around to FX’s brilliant series about post-9/11 NYC firefighters, RESCUE ME, Leary mentioned that as a result of the writers’ strike the full new season won’t air until next April (ouch!). But he also mentioned the concept of “mini-sodes” or mini-episodes which will be airing on FX soon, little 5 - 7 minute vignettes featuring characters in the show to tide us over. And sure enough, Tuesday night’s 10 PM broadcast of a new episode of Morgan Spurlock’s 30 DAYS will be preceded by the first of these RESCUE ME appetizers. I have no idea how many of these exist or how long they’ll be running prior to FX shows this summer (and Fall?), but this is good news indeed.
Unfortunately, not for very long. Last week’s season premiere (I think) of TV’s “Last Comic Standing” reality/comedy competition show featured an appearance by none other than the Florida Film Festival’s “Queen of Midnight,” Amber Tozer. The unrepentant stand-up comedienne was the writer-creator of two classic, Gill Holland-produced Midnight shorts—THE TOZER SHOW: BOMBS AND BLUEBALLS and THE TOZER SHOW: THE URINE BOMBER—that world premiered at FFF 2005 & 2006. These raunchy and hilarious works, animated by Onur Tukel, offered Amber’s brilliant assessments of sex, politics, drunken make-out sessions, the war on Iraq, Bush, and the complications of getting locked in your own apartment bedroom and waste removal.
Consistently outrageous and cute as can be, Amber auditioned before two members of “The Office” cast and they really liked her schtick about growing up and her Mom finding out about her lesbian make-out moment at a Halloween party—funny stuff. But once she got to the group of 20 finalists, they neglected to include her in the final 4 that were chosen to move on in the competition—boo! But what a pleasant early summer surprise it was to get at least a small blast of the Tozer perspective once more—as we eagerly await the next film, we can only hope that perhaps she can find a stand-up gig in Orlando sometime soon.
Since Gabe and I may have been the only ones in the country to even care (besides the filmmakers and their families of course), it’s time to put this disaster of a reality show to bed for good. Despite the preening and idiotic banter of hostess/spokesmodel/Gary Marshall lust-object Adrianna Costa, and typical technical snafu of internet votes not getting counted due to a systems crash or some nonsense after Part 1 of the season finale aired last Tuesday (was this show cursed or what?), they somehow still managed to receive “a record number” of votes via telephone and text messages to determine a winner of the $1 million production deal at Dreamworks—and at least they got that right!
Congratulations to FSU Film School grad and Florida Film Festival veteran Will Bigham! To emerge from this 12,000 submissions competition with a considerable production deal, an office at Dreamworks, and Steven Spielberg as you new boss is a terrific achievement. From his very first film (LUCKY PENNY) to his last (THE YES MEN), with stops for a brain surgery comedy, a dog swallowing it’s owner’s glass eye film noir, and a touching romance between two office lamps (an homage to Pixar?) among others, Will’s work was consistently imaginative, charming, clever, and often very, very funny with a silent film comedy sensibility. He is clearly a talented man with a lot of stories to tell—I’m excited for his future as a filmmaker, and not at all embarrassed to say I was rooting for him all the way.
Now can someone explain why they went through all the trouble and expense of creating one-sheets for every film in the final weeks, yet hardly ever showed them to the TV audience? I sure hope the studio audience got a good look cause I didn’t—one of the many things that got progresively more annoying as the show went on. But at least Fox didn’t pull it before they finished…
Gee, I knew it was bad, but did Fox actually pull this trainwreck of a reality series after just two weeks? The “Film Premiere” nights are supposed to be on Monday, with the results show on Tuesday. And even though my Sunday newspaper TV Guide insert says it’s supposed to be on tonight (Monday), today’s paper and the Brighthouse Cable system guide show a repeat of “House” scheduled to air. Ouch!
Despite the sometimes witty and entertaining feedback from the celebrity judges (particularly the old-school compassion/wisdom of Garry Marshall), all the signs were there: dropping a challenge (or not airing it anyway); changing hosts from one week to the next (where’d the blond go?); a majority of mediocre-to-awful short films (maybe 3 or 4 showed some creative inspiration); the incessant plugging of Dreamworks and the $1 million dollar development deal that would get fake applause from the studio audience every single time; and the excruciating results show with Eva Longoria-clone Adrianna Costa painfully doing her Ryan Seacrest “American Idol” schtick. There just seemed to be a cheesy, lame element to all of the proceedings here that was hard to shake.
But yet I watch. Partially because I want to see what this so-called cream-of-the-crop selected from 12,000 submissions can do, but also because I have a rooting interest. Will Bigham (“Lucky Penny”) is a graduate of FSU Film School, and acted in two past Florida Film Festival favorites: Todd Schulman’s “The Plunge,” winner of a Special Jury Award for Best Student Film and a Bronze Medal in the Student Academy Awards, and Dana Buning’s “Zeke,” the neutered cat-seeking-revenge-on-its-owner comedy that went on to win the Silver Medal in the Student Academy Awards after its North American Premiere at the FFF. Will now lives in Texas with his wife and two kids, and is talking like this is his last shot. He’s a talented director, actor, and editor, and I hope this exposure helps out even if he doesn’t win.
Now the trick is whether or not “On The Lot” will be on long enough to find out. Perhaps it’s been moved, perhaps it’s on “hiatus,” but that would be odd for a summer replacement, no? I guess we’ll discover its status soon…or maybe Fox just doesn’t give a shit.
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