Computers in Cartoons: So '90s!

Many years ago, I was asked to draw some cartoons for a newsletter for the company I was then working for. Influenced quite a bit by the very popular strip "The Far Side," I entitled my strip "This Rave World." As everything we did involved computers, this provided inspiration for the strips I drew.

Some years later, I used the same strips for the newsletter at a different company, to some appreciation. I've not actually seen this in a few years, and though the computers themselves are the bulky boxes common in the 1990's, they still can produce a chuckle or two. (I think my personal fave is the Three Stooges-inspired one.)

The best actor in "Glitter"?

Is it time for a reevaluation of the Mariah Carey movie bomb "Glitter"? Or, at least, an appreciation for clearly the best actor in the whole movie?

Just look at the look of contempt he is giving Mariah's mean boyfriend! This cat had more range than any other actor in the movie. (Well, maybe Ann Magnuson has more range, but she's clearly slumming in this film; I hope she got a good paycheck for it, because her attempts to bring more acting-wise should have been saved for a better film.) Plus, who else can play the same character at six months, and then 20-something? Cat is brilliant! (In truth, the part was played by two different cats; one to be cuddled in Young Mariah's arms when she goes to the orphanage, the other to be cuddled in Mariah's arms when she leaves the mean DJ/record producer Dice. If only she'd listened to the cat when she met this guy, because the cat's eyes were surely saying, "Seriously? This guy is named 'Dice?' And you think he might provide the makings of a good relationship?")

And can you believe, he DID NOT receive a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance! Jim Broadbent STOLE the golden award that Cat should have gotten.

From the press release for "What's Good For Gara"

What’s good for Gara? Depends on who you ask!

“The Harrumph Girl!” -Hedda Hopper
“[About as useful as] a big plate of moldy jelly donuts.” -Elizabeth Taylor
“A guttersnipe!” -Madonna
“All I’ve had from her is twenty years of cigarette butts and chicken bones dumped on my side of the fence.” -Barbra Streisand
“Among the loveliest [of stars].” -Dorothy Kilgallen
“I wanted a beautiful blank slate for the part, but I didn’t think I’d end up with someone who erased the chalkboard herself!” -Alfred Hitchcock
“That old cow with the $1.99 legs.” -Betty Grable
“I thought Gawbo was a peasant, but that was befowah I met Gawa!” -Marlene Dietrich
“I had to worry about where to seat her during [White House] state dinners after she told the Ethiopian ambassador, ’What’s this great diet your people have? Every time I see Ethiopians on TV, they look as skinny as Sinatra back in ’44!’” -Nancy Reagan
“She’s got a mean right hook!” -Jason Bateman
“She belched throughout my big scene on purpose! Gara makes my ex look like a real charmer.” -Kim Basinger
“She’s such a has-been, no one even does her for Halloween anymore.” -Ted Casablanca

You’ll be talking about Gara St. James, too, when you dive into the new comic mystery novel WHAT’S GOOD FOR GARA!

Gara’s been a star for decades, from her days as Baby Gara, a minor threat to Shirley Temple, to her rebirth as an adult actress in ’50s Hollywood. Even though things are looking a bit precarious for Gara in the new millennium, she’s always believed in her own indestructibility. She’ll need to remember that when she journeys to London following the death of her third ex-husband, the wealthy Lord Lindale “Laddie” Bottomly.

But the lord’s angry family is foaming at the mouth and snarky starlet “frenemies” Barbara and Gloria are eager to witness Gara’s downfall. But is someone also trying to off Gara with bizarre murder attempts in order to keep that inheritance in England and keep shocking family secrets from discovery?

What’s good for Gara? Celebrating with a big financial windfall or six feet under? Depends on who you ask!

WHAT’S GOOD FOR GARA is available for purchase in print and for Kindle download through Amazon.com (also available as a Kindle download in Great Britain at Amazon.co.uk). Check out funny promos for the book online at Youtube.com by searching for WHAT’S GOOD FOR GARA.

Amazon link to the paperback edition of WHAT'S GOOD FOR GARA.
Amazon link to the Kindle edition.
Amazon.co.uk link to the Kindle edition for Great Britain.
Youtube link to 3 promo videos for WHAT'S GOOD FOR GARA, detailing media reports of press scandals for Gara, and how she inadvertently sent Lindsay Lohan on the path of career destruction.

Reality TV Programming of the Future?

With the glut of reality programming and the copycat nature of successful shows, it will take a real innovator to create something new on the reality TV front. Here's a surefire winner for the network smart enough to snap up the rights to:

Sure to be the laugh riot of the new fall season!

SEARCH ENGINES AND HOW BING COULD BOOST ITS BRAND IDENTITY

Claudia Bing of Bing, Bing, Bing & Bing ... taking over the world one internet search at a time.

More video evidence that Gara St. James precipitated Lindsay Lohan's career nosedive

My comic mystery novel, WHAT'S GOOD FOR GARA, is available through Amazon.com in both softbound print form and in Kindle e-book download format. Last month, I posted a video promo to youtube with Part 1 of a series of entertainment news items detailing how Gara St. James's actions in Hollywood helped stall Lindsay Lohan's career.

Now I've posted the other two parts, showing Gara's misdeeds against Lindsay. In the second video, the movie studio files suit against Gara for creating a situation whereby the plug is pulled on continued filming of the movie "Whazzup, Pippi?", creating a forum for renewed gossip about Gara's misbehavior on and off movie sets. With poor Lindsay at loose ends, unable to start a new movie until the existing situation is ironed out, she is easy prey to start partying with other youthful denizens of Tinseltown.

In the third installment, the movie's lawsuit is before a judge, who's flabbergasted at Gara's bizarre behavior in court. (You may never look at a roll of quarters the same way!) And with Lindsay at loose ends, the poor dear starts on a path of bad publicity herself.

From ruining Montgomery Clift's career in the '50s by causing his car accident, all the way to ruining Lindsay Lohan's career in the new millennium, Gara St. James is truly a star whose career (and shenanigans) has spanned the decades!

Check out the book at Amazon.com!

The murder of daytime soaps?

I've been a soap fan since I was a kid. My first soap memory is watching "Another World" with my mom on summer vacation sometime in the '70s because of a gothic, melodramatic storyline in which someone slashed a huge portrait of Rachel, played by the show's lead actress, Victoria Wyndham. My mom loved the P&G soaps the most, so eventually I watched "As The World Turns", "Guiding Light", and "Search for Tomorrow" with her.

Eventually I sampled almost every show in the '80s and became a fan of "All My Children" (the adventures of Greg/Jenny/Jesse/Angie captivated me a lot) and "The Young & the Restless" (Brenda Dickson was still camping it up as Jill, and the Abbotts and Newmans were on the rise), and continued enjoying ATWT and GL, which showcased some amazing storytelling in the '80s (the adventures of Tom and Margo, the machinations of Lucinda Walsh and John Dixon, the Snyders, the Doug Cummings mystery, the Frannie/Sabrina mystery, etc. on "As The World Turns"; on "Guiding Light", the Hollywood-inspired fantasies of Nola, the adventures of the "four musketeers", the outrageous Reva Shayne baptizing herself the "Slut of Springfield", the battle between Alan and Alexandra for control of Spaulding Enterprises, the Reardons and Bauers, etc.).

A lot has been said and written about the soaps dying off and the reasons for its current state (the O.J. trial did them in, fewer women are home to watch during the daytime, they're too expensive to produce in the new millennium, etc.), and those do factor into the reasons. However, what if the networks actively destroying the product is the biggest culprit?

It's been suggested by multiple theorists that micromanaging network execs have tied the hands of many shows and producers. ABC insiders have said that Brian Frons micromanaged each of ABC's soaps, with the intention of eroding viewership in order to replace the soaps with cheaper-to-produce talk shows. With the cancellations of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," and the future of "General Hospital" somewhat questionable, it would appear those theories have some validity.

Over at CBS, the P&G soaps "Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns" were driven into cancellation by poor production values, badly written storylines that raced to climaxes in weeks when such stories should have played out over months or longer (in a four or five week period on ATWT, Emily Stewart decided she wanted to be a mother again, discovered her once-frozen eggs had disappeared, only to learn her mother's ex-husband, a doctor, had stolen the eggs, had one fertlized and implanted in another woman, who gave birth to a son who, as it turned out, was working as a new hire as Emily's personal assistant -- whew!) , bad casting decisions, the refusal to exploit storylines viewers were actually invested in watching (the "Otalia" story on GL), etc.

Come January, there will only be 4 soaps left on network daytime: "The Young & The Restless", "The Bold & The Beautiful" (both on CBS), "General Hospital" (ABC), and "Days of Our Lives" (on NBC). DOOL actually appears to be on a creative upswing currently, with the return of fan favorites and the scuttling of poorly received storylines in favor of a focus on core families and familiar characters. But does it seem like the remaining shows are actually trying to drive away viewers?

Y&R is a prime example. Still the top rated daytime soap, it nonetheless is at a creative nadir. Its storylines have been dreadful, with repetitive plots (secret siblings/children/grandchildren are running rampant, there have been multiple dopplegangers running around Genoa City for the past two years, murder mysteries that start and are never solved, presumed dead characters often return to town, Victor Newman always wins, characters commit multiple felonies and never serve time for their crimes, etc.) and badly cast actors (Eden Riegel won raves and a Daytime Emmy for playing Bianca Montgomery on AMC but fared poorly as Heather Stevens on Y&R; the people in charge of Y&R continue bringing the untalented Yvonne Zima as Daisy back over and over again; they stunt-cast stars from other soaps and/or primetime shows in unsuitable roles, etc.). The show's ratings have reflected the viewership defections, but the producers and writers seem not to notice and continue creating episodes with head-scratching dialogue and stories filled with plot holes.

The situation is similar at B&B, GH, and OLTL (still on the air through January). All three shows seem to be spending too much time focusing on characters without fan appeal (OLTL has brought back a very unpopular character, Stacy Morasco, who was killed off last year, only to resurface and recast with Farah Fath, a weak actress whose character, Gigi Morasco [Stacy's sister], was herself killed off in recent months. Similarly, too much important story is currently in the hands of teen actor Andrew Trischitta as Jack Manning, one of the weakest actors ever in OLTL's history.)

Have the networks systematically made decisions to cancel the remaining shows in coming years? It could be argued ABC didn't anticipate the viewer outcry when both AMC and OLTL's cancellations were simultaneously announced in April, 2011. (Both shows appear to have been given temporary reprieves with the announcement that production company Prospect Park will continue the shows online, with eventual airings on cable to perhaps follow.) So is it within the networks's interest to space out the remaining cancellations to downplay viewer outrage?

Soap fans and network insiders speculate that GH will be canceled next year by ABC to make way for a new talk show to be hosted by Katie Couric. CBS replaced GL and ATWT with a game show retread and a talk show seemingly patterned after ABC's successful "The View". With poor stories on Y&R and B&B, are both shows being positioned for cancellation in 2013 or 2014 in order to create cheaper programming? And is DOOL's creative resurgence (ratings have not yet reflected the show's improved quality) a "blind side" network maneuver? (After all, ABC moved AMC to the west coast with new studios and sets and an updated credits sequence, extolling their faith in AMC; meanwhile they were also producing multiple talk shows and other shows aimed for potential daytime scheduling, and subjecting audiences to unpopular stories and characters.)

Only time will tell.