​Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr were players.

John Lennon sniffed heroin.

Sportscaster Marv Albert is into BDSM

Donald Trump sold his soul to the devil, was a Russian asset and sold out an entire country for 30 pieces of silver.


My wife says that if you do not want to learn anything bad about a person, stay away from the Internet. Sometimes you don’t have to. Sometimes it’s in the news and all you have to do is open a paper, unlock your phone or check your computer. Sometimes, someone you admire passes away and, because you think they are a genius and really miss them, you start digging around. In 99.9999 percent of the cases, my wife is right. You find something you would rather not know.

I am a great admirer of Norm McDonald; a brilliant everyman who, in most cases, called it exactly as he saw it. And, in most cases, he happened to be one hundred percent correct. O.J. Simpson is just one example. The relentless pounding he gave the murderer was hilarious. It was worth turning in to Saturday Night Live just to see what he would have to say. My favorite comment, Norm holding a copy of the New York Post that reads: Another Juror Axed. “O.J. Strikes again,” McDonald commented wryly. And so it went, week after week. Lorne Michaels called him the one of the best performers on the segment. And he was right.

I could go on and on and on. Most recently, YouTube posted his corona virus routine. The epidemic was in full swing, and he was performing at one of the Imrovs. He was nothing short of brilliant. His last performance on Letterman is legendary and his I predict his stand-up specials will be a true reflection of what humor is and was. God, I miss him.

So, I will choose to ignore that he was a misogynistic dinosaur who took pride in refusing to bend with the changing times. Still, I think it is possible to love the art and hate the artist. Sometimes it is just a matter of when to draw the line. Go back deep enough in any of our lives and you will find something we said that does not meet today’s standards.

Part of growing as a person is admitting your mistakes. Again, it is just a question of what, if anything, is too heinous to be forgiven. Right now, the jury is still out. In the meantime, I will continue to listen to my wife.

RIP

​Confession Time: I love musical theatre. I’ve performed in a few, Godspell, Anything Goes, Hair, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and 1776, twice. I have written two, I Lost Me at the Movies (workshopped only) and Wild Space A Go-Go, both co-written with Kurt Misar and the latter featuring lyrics by Brad Beaver. And, I have seen countless, both on film, television and the most preferred, live. So, while not an expert, I know the difference between good and evil, excellent, and phenomenal. Like the rest of you, I delight in being surprised, loving the discovery of something that has the potential of blowing me away. Come from Away, the new musical by married team Irene Sankoff and David Hein, is all that and much, much more.
 
 Currently streaming on Apple TV Plus, and featuring the talents of an incredible ensemble cast, this Canadian musical tells the tale of a Newfoundland community that opened their doors and their hearts to the 7000 plus anxiety plagued and weary travelers whose airplanes were grounded on their rocky shores soon after the vicious attacks of 9/11.
 
This is musical theatre at its best, able to uplift, entertain, and gently remind us that there is still an abundance of good in the world. In this case, it just happens to be Canadian. 
 
I mentioned the ensemble before, but it bears repeating, they are collectively and diversely exceptional. Playing multiple parts with deftly, dancing and singing exceptionally and most rewarding of all, proving once and for all that you do not need to be a specific “type” to make it on Broadway.
 
There are just too many highlights for me to mention, but if you held a gun to my head, I would have to say the song and dance number, In the Bar/Heave Away, was the most fun while Prayer, 38 Planes and the Dover Fault moved me.  I cannot stress this enough, this musical is worth watching for so many reasons. Chief among them, celebrating the best of us and reminding us gently to what we are capable of.
 
It just opened up back on Broadway, the national tour will be restarting shortly, and you can always see it as I did on Apple TV Plus. Just see it.  
 

​I think there’s one genre of writing that remains harder than any other. I am referring, of course, to the sitcom. There’s a reason that a situation comedy writer’s room contains more bodies than an Osmond Family Thanksgiving. Each chair at the table’s occupied with a writer who specializes. Some excel with a story. Others are comedians adept at adding spot-on jokes that can punch up any script. And, there’s the head-writer, wrangling all these talents and making sure that he delivers a fully realized script each week.
 
Above him, the showrunner. Usually, the creator (or creators) overseeing it all and attempting to make sure that it does not come as a three-episode only train-wreck. I imagine it is the most stressful, aggravating, and exasperating job in all show business. And I say all that, realizing fully that it is one job that I would like to try on for size.
 
I have written three pilots in my long career. The first, Lucky 7, was an original idea by comedian Dave Anderson and me that concerned two hapless roommates who somehow inherit a down-and-out casino. It featured a close-up magician, who housed an endless community of dead and dying doves under his tuxedo, a gangster who was always attempting to buy the place, and the world’s oldest Keno runner. We knew nothing about sitcoms but went ahead and wrote it anyway. It was a lot of fun but never went anywhere. I’ll call that the Intro to Sitcom 101.
 
The second was a comedy pilot script titled Timber. The bottom-line pitch, Barney Miller in a Ranger Station. It featured a PTSD LA Cop who’s forced to take the job to get away from the mean streets of Burbank. Trouble is, any loud, unexpected noises set the poor guy off, hopefully into fits of improv hilarity. Amongst his fellow Forest Service employees, a low-level gangster sequestered away in witness protection, a clueless supervisor, and a long-suffering female partner. The script was written by me, Jerry Lambert, and Tom McComb and made it to a table read that featured the talents of the great Jerry Lambert and a couple of well-known others. Again, we went remarkably far for people who not only had no representation but did not always know exactly what the hell we were doing.
 
There have been other attempts that were never shown to anyone until…
 
CUT TO:
 
Tuesday, August 24, 2021.
 
What can I tell you? Not much. But this is a company that has experience producing television and desperately needs content. I sent them a story bible and an outline of the first ten episodes. The fact that they immediately responded to the idea and asked to see the pilot script is excellent. And, just maybe, it brings me one step closer to my dream.  
 
I guess the lesson here is this. You want to do something, keep trying. 

​Once in a great while, you happen upon something, resulting in an unexpected and delightful surprise. And who’d have thought that I would find it buried deep in the comedy section of a Netflix queue? Not wishing to keep any of you in suspense any longer, I will let you know I refer to the Sony Pictures Animation feature Mitchells vs. The Machines.
 
Written and directed by Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, co-written by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, this is one comedy gem that does not deserve the obscurity that sometimes comes with a pandemic teamed with the streaming option. The characterizations of a dysfunctional family are spot-on. The comedy gags are robust and plentiful, and the message, which is more powerful than one might expect for a family film, is timely without being overwhelming. 
 
Clocking in at a lengthy 114 minutes (a tad longer than most animated comedies), Mitchells vs the Machines never loses its footing or pacing as it careens from one plot point to the next. The story, in a nutshell, concerns the desire of a father to get to know his filmmaking daughter with a cross-country road trip across the country to film school. Along the way, a jealous smartphone AI (sound familiar?) seeks revenge against all humanity for being replaced at a product announcement for a better and flashier version. Society is on the verge of distinction, and it is up to one family, the Mitchells, to stop the machines from disposing of the whole human race.
 
The look of the piece is the perfect blend of computer animation, live photos and old-fashioned hand drawn which makes it distinctly unique from the start and a visual treat from start to finish. It is a job extremely well done by the entire animation staff from top to bottom.
 
The vocal performances from everyone, Danny McBride and Maya Rudolph, down the line to John Legend and Conan O’ Brien, are all top-notch.  This is an excellent way for adults and kids to spend two hours of their entertainment week without the guilty feeling that you get from binging on the creative cotton candy of so-called other “tent-pole” films.  
 
To put it quite simply, Mitchells vs the Machines is as good as it gets. Go see it!