Damnit, I keep running into material on Bob & Ray that I wish I'd found before I started writing this threatening-to-become-widely-disseminated article. First there were those Baillett New Yorker profiles, and now Gerald Nachman's Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, which contains a chapter on B&R as an adjunct to Jean ( Read more... )

 So Bob Elliott, currently one-half of the reason I have a deal to provide liner notes, turned 87 the other day; his partner would've turned 88 a day or so before that. Asked in an interview awhile back what getting older felt like, Bob said: "It feels like getting older." The interviewer characterized this as a 'wry' response, and, well, good for ( Read more... )

OK, clearly I need some cheering up. On top of everything else it's wet & miserable out, so my big plans for this afternoon are on hold until such time as I can get up the courage to go out there. Next year I think I may plan my winter oliday vacation in August.

Meanwhile, have a Bob & Ray skit, from Boston circa fall 1949.

Both halves of that ( Read more... )

No, really, I'm on a roll here. Somebody at the NY Times' weekly Magazine got the bright idea of profiling the Elliott, erm, comic dynasty. The result's a surprisingly likeable take even on Chris, whom I may have to reconsider my vague dislike for after all ( Read more... )

And I'm not even sure why, exactly. The vacation's going fine, in fact personal things generally are more peachy than usual.

Perhaps it has something to do with the material a fellow Facebook fan kindly sent me from Bob & Ray and Tom. Basically a little pamphlet put out by their principal outside writer Tom Koch, in an effort to ensure credit that ( Read more... )

So I finally managed to slip the credit card out of Shoemom's sight long enough to purchase the Bob & Ray movie. (On the principle of making hay while the sun shines I also bought the Not Always Right book, and am loving it, but that's another post).

At any rate, yes, the B&R movie. An Award-Winning Film.... all twenty minutes of it. Plus a lengthy ( Read more... )

Yep, it's transcript time again. In this outing, circa summer 1949, our intrepid duo is taking one of their rare early stabs at creating an ongoing serial.

Most of their elaborately specific takeoffs -- The Gathering Dusk, Tippy the Wonder Dog, Elmer W. Litzinger: Spy -- came on the scene much later, and were in fact written for them, by a Mad ( Read more... )

The science of meta-marketing - the kind of knowingly ironic ad that sells by acknowledging its own absurdity - wasn't anywhere close to being invented in 1948. Back then, your sponsors gave you copy, and you read it. As solemnly as possible, because no matter how pompous they might be they were still your financial backers...

...and then, as you ( Read more... )

Kitteh has finally collapsed on the bed behind me, having tried for a good  ten minutes to figure out how to work the keyboard. As near as I can make out, this is the message she wanted to send: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm [crash browser].

If I don't update for a while, send help.

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( Read more... )

This would have been an even rougher week, but I have a boss who can make the fine distinction between problems I caused but could not have foreseen. This is a rare and precious skill among managers, and I am thinking of sending him flowers.

Meanwhile, I've been sitting here ('cause frankly I do not feel at all like walking around) trying to work ( Read more... )