A welcome to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a far less friendly welcome to Wander Franco, a welcome to Isiah Kiner-Falefa, eh, the mob has spoken about the Substack bugout, stealth musicals, and Tommy Smothers
I always find it fascinating how much hate some have for musicals. I guess because when you are from NYC, you think of musicals as this mighty engine that drives the Great White Way and not some novelty. Not, mind you, that I have much idea what is actually on Broadway or if Broadway is making any money. That said, I don't entirely get the need to turn everything into a musical now.
I first encountered the Smothers Brothers on a revival of their show on CBS in the 80s. The show was filler during a writers strike, but that strike didn't include variety shows. So they were back on the network that screwed them. And it was okay, still funny but generally fluffy. nothing like what they did the first time around. It would be a long time till I saw what had been, and learned the whole thing. (There is a great book about them from maybe 20 years ago.) There is one other odd place I encountered them. In an episode of Benson where the cast was in Las Vegas, the brothers were performing in an elevator while Benson was riding between floors. He was really impressed that in Vegas, it's not just elevator music. After he left, one brother turned to the other and said, "we really need to get better bookings." RIP Tommy.
I’m too young to have any memory of the Smothers Brothers show. Seeing it after the fact is just not the same. But with that massive caveat, I felt it was lesser Tom Lehrer stuff. Tom is still alive at 95 and has released all IP claims on his musical work.
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For largely the same reasons people are leaving Substack, I doubt I will support anything Roald Dahl had anything to do with. An admitted antisemitic and his literary heirs don’t need my money.
...
In my little attempt at baseball talk during a dead time some notes on our birthday boys.
You want counterculture? I give you Bill Lee. Happy 77th to the Spaceman.
You want names? Let’s start with Count Sensenderfer. An outfielder in the 1870s, he played bits of four seasons in the original Major League Baseball, the National Association.
And the first player - at least that I knew of - with all of the vowels in his first name, super fielder Aurelio Rodriguez would have turned 76 today but passed away at a young age nearly two dozen years ago.
I should really get Melvin Nieves a gift. He was the centerpiece of ATL’s trade for Fred McGriff.
Last but not least, a starter on the All My Wife is a Better Athlete than Me Team, Mr. Nancy Lopez turns 71 today. Ray, Nomar and Dansby can form a club. No word if NFL’s Jonathan Owens is allowed to audit the group.
Another thing about migrations: sauropods. Yes, they're moving in herds. They do move in herds. Unfortunately, in the process they squished little proto-hominid mammals who, left unsquished, might have evolved into hominids millions of years earlier. But life finds a way, right? We still got Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini, even if she hasn't been stuffed and mounted at the La Brea museum yet. So, when you watch the next Republican debate, remember that however stupid and primitive the candidates appear to be, they are trying to evolve, and there are no sauropods left to squish them.
99.99% of commenters want you to wait for the comment section to work.
I think they also represent the basic dislike for change. The fear that COC might not survive. (It’s insane to think that it worked in the first place and now you have to do it again.)
And substack wouldn’t have to do much at all to not be the nazi bar. But here we are, hanging out at a stupid nazi bar. Having just all left Twitter because it’s all Nazis, what the fuck is wrong with everyone? Why are there Nazis everywhere?
I was in high school when the Smothers Brothers were on CBS. Every Monday morning began with a discussion of what we'd seen last night -- the jokes, the music, the stuff we KNEW our parents didn't get. Thank you, Tom, for pushing the envelope, even though it cost you your job and I think the lining of your stomach, too.
Pat Paulsen was a regular on the Smothers Bros show. He ran for President of the US. I've still got a couple of the Brothers' albums. I can still hear them in my head, but I may pop them on the phono. Haven't heard the 'Measles Song' in a long time.
Tommy Smothers. I'd missed that news. I grew up on them, and Tom Lehrer and Spike Jones, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jone Baez, Harry Belafonte...the Smothers Brothers were a couple of my best history teachers.
I consider myself a very frequent movie watcher and I had no clue any of those 3 were musicals until I was chatting about their upcoming releases a few weeks back with some other movie pals (I think the Mean Girls one surprised me the most even though some part of me remembered that it had been on Broadway) so consider me almost stealth musicaled.
Personally I have no problem with musicals (caught Some Like It Hot on Broadway last week, excellent) but it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch to me when the trailers are cut to obscure what would otherwise be the main driver of the film / what differentiates it from simply another cash grab IP reboot (which is what I thought they were doing with Mean Girls). I'd probably be more inclined to see it actually now that I know that it's a musical, even if the trailer's reference to being 'not your mother's Mean Girls' has me feeling absolutely ancient given that the original came out when I was in HS.
My son and I were that guy in the movie theater when we settled in to watch Spirited with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds last year. In fact, I believe I uttered the same sentiment verbatim. We even stopped the movie to rewatch the trailer to see if we missed that it was a musical. The trailer didn’t have a note of music in it. Nevertheless, we rewatched it again this year, and wish each other “good afternoon” frequently. 😬
I too discovered The Smothers Brothers as a child listening over and over again to a couple of their albums that my dad had lying around (along with Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Shelley Berman, and Bob Newhart). For anyone at all interested in them or that era of comedy, I cannot recommend more highly David Bianculli's book "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I knew they spawned some big names, but I had no idea how many. If you found anything funny from the '70s through the '00s, there's decent odds that it came from the mind of someone who got their break due to The Smothers Brothers.
Not sure about the javelin, but make it an Oldsmobile 442 and I’m in
I still refer to “the Norman Abernathy Choir” 😂
I had no idea whatsoever that these were musicals! None of them! I hear you about the sneakiness and, man, did it work on me!
☑ Wonka
☑ Mean Girls
☑ The Color Purple
I feel duped. And kinda dumb. 🤷♀️
I always find it fascinating how much hate some have for musicals. I guess because when you are from NYC, you think of musicals as this mighty engine that drives the Great White Way and not some novelty. Not, mind you, that I have much idea what is actually on Broadway or if Broadway is making any money. That said, I don't entirely get the need to turn everything into a musical now.
I first encountered the Smothers Brothers on a revival of their show on CBS in the 80s. The show was filler during a writers strike, but that strike didn't include variety shows. So they were back on the network that screwed them. And it was okay, still funny but generally fluffy. nothing like what they did the first time around. It would be a long time till I saw what had been, and learned the whole thing. (There is a great book about them from maybe 20 years ago.) There is one other odd place I encountered them. In an episode of Benson where the cast was in Las Vegas, the brothers were performing in an elevator while Benson was riding between floors. He was really impressed that in Vegas, it's not just elevator music. After he left, one brother turned to the other and said, "we really need to get better bookings." RIP Tommy.
In your NyQuil-induced stupor, you did happen to miss some important news:
Alex Verdugo is looking for a “fresh start” with the Yankees
I’m too young to have any memory of the Smothers Brothers show. Seeing it after the fact is just not the same. But with that massive caveat, I felt it was lesser Tom Lehrer stuff. Tom is still alive at 95 and has released all IP claims on his musical work.
...
For largely the same reasons people are leaving Substack, I doubt I will support anything Roald Dahl had anything to do with. An admitted antisemitic and his literary heirs don’t need my money.
...
In my little attempt at baseball talk during a dead time some notes on our birthday boys.
You want counterculture? I give you Bill Lee. Happy 77th to the Spaceman.
You want names? Let’s start with Count Sensenderfer. An outfielder in the 1870s, he played bits of four seasons in the original Major League Baseball, the National Association.
And the first player - at least that I knew of - with all of the vowels in his first name, super fielder Aurelio Rodriguez would have turned 76 today but passed away at a young age nearly two dozen years ago.
I should really get Melvin Nieves a gift. He was the centerpiece of ATL’s trade for Fred McGriff.
Last but not least, a starter on the All My Wife is a Better Athlete than Me Team, Mr. Nancy Lopez turns 71 today. Ray, Nomar and Dansby can form a club. No word if NFL’s Jonathan Owens is allowed to audit the group.
Another thing about migrations: sauropods. Yes, they're moving in herds. They do move in herds. Unfortunately, in the process they squished little proto-hominid mammals who, left unsquished, might have evolved into hominids millions of years earlier. But life finds a way, right? We still got Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini, even if she hasn't been stuffed and mounted at the La Brea museum yet. So, when you watch the next Republican debate, remember that however stupid and primitive the candidates appear to be, they are trying to evolve, and there are no sauropods left to squish them.
On Phil Ochs:
"Here's to the State of Mississippi"
Almost 60 years later the state is actually worse off.
99.99% of commenters want you to wait for the comment section to work.
I think they also represent the basic dislike for change. The fear that COC might not survive. (It’s insane to think that it worked in the first place and now you have to do it again.)
And substack wouldn’t have to do much at all to not be the nazi bar. But here we are, hanging out at a stupid nazi bar. Having just all left Twitter because it’s all Nazis, what the fuck is wrong with everyone? Why are there Nazis everywhere?
I was in high school when the Smothers Brothers were on CBS. Every Monday morning began with a discussion of what we'd seen last night -- the jokes, the music, the stuff we KNEW our parents didn't get. Thank you, Tom, for pushing the envelope, even though it cost you your job and I think the lining of your stomach, too.
Pat Paulsen was a regular on the Smothers Bros show. He ran for President of the US. I've still got a couple of the Brothers' albums. I can still hear them in my head, but I may pop them on the phono. Haven't heard the 'Measles Song' in a long time.
Tommy Smothers. I'd missed that news. I grew up on them, and Tom Lehrer and Spike Jones, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jone Baez, Harry Belafonte...the Smothers Brothers were a couple of my best history teachers.
I consider myself a very frequent movie watcher and I had no clue any of those 3 were musicals until I was chatting about their upcoming releases a few weeks back with some other movie pals (I think the Mean Girls one surprised me the most even though some part of me remembered that it had been on Broadway) so consider me almost stealth musicaled.
Personally I have no problem with musicals (caught Some Like It Hot on Broadway last week, excellent) but it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch to me when the trailers are cut to obscure what would otherwise be the main driver of the film / what differentiates it from simply another cash grab IP reboot (which is what I thought they were doing with Mean Girls). I'd probably be more inclined to see it actually now that I know that it's a musical, even if the trailer's reference to being 'not your mother's Mean Girls' has me feeling absolutely ancient given that the original came out when I was in HS.
Tommy is one of the more notable alumni of my college fraternity.
My son and I were that guy in the movie theater when we settled in to watch Spirited with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds last year. In fact, I believe I uttered the same sentiment verbatim. We even stopped the movie to rewatch the trailer to see if we missed that it was a musical. The trailer didn’t have a note of music in it. Nevertheless, we rewatched it again this year, and wish each other “good afternoon” frequently. 😬
I too discovered The Smothers Brothers as a child listening over and over again to a couple of their albums that my dad had lying around (along with Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Shelley Berman, and Bob Newhart). For anyone at all interested in them or that era of comedy, I cannot recommend more highly David Bianculli's book "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I knew they spawned some big names, but I had no idea how many. If you found anything funny from the '70s through the '00s, there's decent odds that it came from the mind of someone who got their break due to The Smothers Brothers.