Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema

Year 18, Day 220 - 8/8/26 - Movie #5,397 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #36

BEFORE: I've been contacted once again to write about my previous life, and once again, it's in conjunction with the release (next year) of an animated feature that I worked on, and once again, it's an essay that will appear in the "special features" booklet of added material for those who purchase the Deluxe Limited Edition. That's right, people will need to pay extra to hear what I remember about the making of that film. Right now I'm waiting to hear if what I submitted is any good, like my wife liked it and my producer friend liked it, but I'm not sure yet if it's exactly what the Blu-Ray releasing company wants. Maybe I'll hear, "Cool stories, bro, but we were hoping to hear more about the change in production processes that took place during the switchover to digital filmmaking, could you maybe write some more about THAT?" We'll see. 

But I'm reminded of it today because most of the films I worked on never got major distribution, it's not that they were "B" pictures but it was more due to the fact that there's not much of a market in the U.S. for animated movies aimed at adults, it's largely thought of as a way to make movies for kids, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way, it's not like that in Europe or Japan. Most  attempts to make cartoons in the U.S. with adult themes never even get off the ground, because of the unwarranted fear that children will somehow be drawn to a cartoon and actually see an animated character drinking alcohol or smoking a cigarette or having sex, and that will be the moment that the world ends. But come on parent, your kids have to grow up and learn about the world at some point, wouldn't you rather they learn about sex via a cartoon porno, rather than a live-action porno? I'm kidding, because we have a thing in America called a ratings system, kids are not going to get into an "R"-rated movie, even a cartoon one. (Our work-around for this was to not have films reviewed by the ratings board at all, it turns out that entire process is voluntary.)

Anyway, my time spent working for the "Roger Corman" of animation will be well-documented one day, I just don't have the nerve to make that doc myself, but I have a feeling that the phone will ring one day, and it will be some enterprising filmmaker who wants the straight dope. I've got another film today that is NOT easily linking up with any particular U.S. state for my "Get to Know a State" feature, Corman was born near Detroit, but I've already profiled Michigan. And he made some films based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, who was from Maryland, but I did that state, too.

But now I know what to do, just Google "Roger Corman" along with each of the five as-yet unassigned states, and take the best result. That leads me today to the filming location of TWO Roger Corman films that were shot back-to-back in 1960, "Ski Troop Attack" and "Beast from Haunted Cave", which were filmed in the Black Hills of...SOUTH DAKOTA! So there you go, not a bad connection. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: November 2, 1889 (either the 39th or 40th state, the Dakotas were a package deal and twinsies)

Claim to fame: Well, sure, Mount Rushmore. It's not like anyone's flocking to South Dakota to see the shooting location of "Beast from Haunted Cave".

Nickname: The Mount Rushmore State. See? I told you.

State Motto: Under God, the People Rule.

State Flower: American pasque flower

State Bird: Ring-necked pheasant

State Fish: Walleye

State Animal: Coyote

State Insect: Western honey bee. Come on, isn't it always?

State Grass: Western wheat grass 

State Fossil: Triceratops

State Mineral: Rose quartz

State Tree: Black hills spruce

Notable Sports Teams: The state sport is Rodeo, so unless there's a rodeo team, no dice. 

Fun Facts: Let's see, the Missouri River divides the state into two parts - nah, that's no fun. Dust Bowl, Great Depression, no, no. Custer found gold in the Black Hills, nah, who cares? Really, the most fun thing about the state is that Grover Cleveland shuffled up the statehood papers so nobody could ever tell which state was the 39th and which was the 40th. Hah hah, what a card, that Grover Cleveland, most people just go alphabetically and list North before South though. South Dakota clearly has "lesser Dakota syndrome", which explains why somebody was asked to carve President faces into a mountain, right? OK, so it's been 100 years, isn't anyone ever going to finish that damn sculpture? Every attempt to add more faces has never gained enough support, not for Kennedy or Reagan and (let's hope) Trump too.

Ron Howard carries over from "John Candy: I Like Me" and I'm going to send out a rare DocBlock Birthday SHOUT-out to his "Happy Days" cast-mate, Don Most, born August 8, 1953. Jeez, it's been a while since I landed a birthday...

THE PLOT: The exploitation career of maverick producer Roger Corman, covering his heyday as a director, touching upon subjects that major studios wouldn't allow that appealed mainly to youth audiences at their local drive-ins. 

AFTER: Roger Corman made a lot of films, sure, as a producer he's got 490 credits on IMDB and 56 as a director, but were any of them, you know, GOOD? As I mentioned, as a kid I got into his Poe-based movies like "The Raven", "House of Usher", "The Black Cat" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". Oh, yeah, and "The Masque of the Red Death", I was probably reading collections of Edgar Allan at the same time, junior high school let's say, and the local Boston TV UHF station had Saturday programming called "Creature Feature", it was a big hit bit of programming in town, often with very crappy movies. "B" pictures, but also probably "C" and "D"-level. 

After that, Roger Corman and I kind of parted ways, and though I probably saw other films he produced, he didn't direct too many films after that. He was, however, very influential on the next wave of directors younger than him, giving jobs, assistance and advice to Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Bogdanovich, among others. Joe Dante and Ron Howard also were "students" of his school of filmmaking, which I take to mean a very loose set of rules, not an actual classroom where they could go and study the craft of filmmaking. Ron Howard needed to learn from someone that time is money, and daylight only lasts so long, so right after one shot on a movie set is completed, you've got to go RIGHT into the next shot, call it out so the team of people can get working on whatever that requires. You don't stand around congratulating yourself until the entire film is in the can, so to speak. 

Roger Corman seemed to have more luck with people who wanted to remake his films, at least he made a lot of money from selling the remake rights to "Death Race 2000" (funny, I just watched the remake with Jason Statham earlier this movie year) and also "The Fast and the Furious", though I suspect that Corman's version doesn't look a thing like the films in the more recent franchise with that name. Funny, I heard that you can't copyright a title, like if I wanted to make a movie about tornado chasers and call it "Gone with the Wind", I could do that, but maybe the filmmakers just wanted to go above and beyond, and not risk getting sued by Roger Corman. 

I never saw "The Wild Angels", but since it's a biker movie with Peter Fonda, I get the feeling somebody just ripped Corman off and made "Easy Rider" and that was a much, much more successful motorcycle film, at least it meant something to the hippie generation, Corman just made a film about a biker gang, however, and I guess forgot that it should tap into the zeitgeist of the culture, too?  And Corman made the original "Little Shop of Horrors" film, which was a minor cult classic, but then after being a Broadway musical it was then a MUCH bigger hit when that musical was re-made as a film. And I guess that's why we got a new "Matilda" movie and also a new "Mean Girls" remake, they were both Broadway musicals in-between. I guess that was the secret sauce, Corman should have had "Sharktopus" turned into a stage musical, then somebody would have likely turned it into a better, more successful movie. 

Corman, of course, founded New World Pictures, and over the years many directors were in and out of working for that studio, and a lot of films got made, probably a lot of BAD films got made, but there became a market for all of them once people were standing in Blockbuster Video stores, desperate for entertainment when all of the copies of "My Cousin Vinny" were rented out. Ok, ok, we'll watch "Big Bad Mama II" instead, it's fine. But see if you can get "Sorority House Massacre" too, because the weekend's coming up. 

Yes, at some point New World made the switch-over from quality productions to quantity ones, films that were made on the cheap JUST to have something showing at the drive-ins next summer. As Ron Howard said here, sometimes the movies at the drive-ins were more interesting than the company, and other times you just wanted an excuse to fool around with your lover in the car (like, with everybody watching?) and that was way more exciting than the movie.  But hey, if the drive-in's playing "The Young Nurses" that could help your boyfriend get in the mood, just saying. 

I'm still glad somebody made this documentary before Roger Corman passed away in 2024, it's important to hear him talk about his filmmaking process, by way of explaining also WHY those films got made the way they did, if we didn't hear him talk about it future generations would be scratching their heads wondering what a "B-picture" was, whether there really was a man who had X-ray eyes, or a planet of prehistoric women. Corman talks here about doing his own research for a film called "The Trip" about using LSD, however using acid only made him very happy, and the film needed to have some conflict in it, so they had to invent some kind of down side to using drugs, otherwise the film would never pass the censors or the court of public opinion. 

It's not mentioned here in this documentary (which ran on Turner Classic Movies), but Corman's distribution company brought many foreign films to screen in American theaters, like the works of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut and Kurosawa, among others. That's nothing to sneeze at, film fans can't become fans of films that they can't see, and for him to deliver those amazing films to American audiences, that's a mitzvah for sure. This film was only 52 minutes long, so you can't tell me there couldn't have been a mention of this, even if it made the film three minutes longer, who cares? 

The most expensive film Corman ever made was the "Star Wars" rip-off film, "Battle Beyond the Stars". It seems only fair for him to rip off George Lucas, when so many other filmmakers, Lucas's contemporaries, were ripping off Corman. Then it seems Corman sold New World Pictures to a group of lawyers in 1983 (that's not mentioned in this film either) and kind of cashed out, but stayed on as a consultant to the company (another cash grab, probably). But the whole affair ended up in a bunch of lawsuits, with each side claiming the other wasn't holding up their end of the deal, and as a result Corman didn't direct another film for a very long time, like seven years. Let's also remember that Corman was the first person to direct a film version of "The Fantastic Four" in 1994, and sure, it was terrible, from what I hear. It was made cheaply only to be able to retain the rights to the characters, and then it was so bad that Marvel paid him even more to never release it. Another case of somebody making a BETTER version of a Roger Corman film, years later, with him out of the picture. What the heck does THAT tell you? 

Directed by Bertrand Tessier

Also starring Roger Corman (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Paul W.S. Anderson, Allan Arkush (last seen in "Rock 'n' Roll High School"), Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Gene Corman, Julie Corman, Joe Dante (last seen in "Eating Raoul")

with archive footage of Paul Bartel (also last seen in "Eating Raoul"), David Carradine (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Francis Ford Coppola (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Boris Karloff (ditto), Bruce Dern (last seen in "Old Dads"), Angie Dickinson (last seen in "Valerie"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Jonathan Haze (last seen in "East of Eden"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Jackie Joseph (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Don Most (last seen in "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"), Anson Williams (ditto), Jack Nicholson (also carrying over from "John Candy: I Like Me"), Tim O'Kelly, Gregory Peck (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Vincent Price (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Shane Schoeppner, Martin Scorsese (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), William Shatner (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Nancy Sinatra (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Jason Statham (last seen in "Death Race"), Mamie van Doren, Mary Woronov (last seen in "The Velvet Underground")

RATING: 5 out of 10 "Corman's Cult Classics" released on DVD in 2010.

John Candy: I Like Me

Year 18, Day 219 - 8/7/26 - Movie #5,396 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #35

BEFORE: Ryan Reynolds carries over from again from "I Am: Celine Dion". Yes, my Doc Block that was supposed to be all U.S.-themed has been invaded by Canadians. I mean, they're very FUNNY Canadians, for the most part, except for Celine Dion and Paul Anka, so I'm trying very hard to be OK with it. A bunch of people from around the Toronto area ended up on SNL, or producing SNL, or on SCTV, which also kind of aired on NBC late on Friday nights, and that's what I watched as a kid, SNL and SCTV. 

However, all these Canadians are quite problematic when it comes to assigning U.S. states to these documentaries. Canada, it turns out, is NOT part of the U.S. - not yet, anyway - so this is forcing me to be very creative when finding states to profile each night. But I looked up where 'Stripes" was filmed, and it turned out the army training scenes were shot in KENTUCKY, like in and around Fort Knox. So there you go, we know that John Candy spent some time there, so tonight's "Get to Know a State" state is KENTUCKY!

Date admitted to the U.S.: June 1, 1792 (15th state)

Claim to fame: I just said it, Fort Knox is there, OK I'll throw in the Kentucky Derby as well.

Nickname: The Bluegrass State. Sure, why not? 

State Motto: Either "United we stand, divided we fall" or "Deo gratiam habeamus". Your pick. 

State Flower: Goldenrod

State Bird: Cardinal

State Fish: Kentucky spotted bass

State Horse breed: Thoroughbred, because nobody likes a non-thorough horse. 

State Insect: Western honeybee

State Mushroom: Indigo milkcap

State Fossil: Mitch McConnell

State Dance: Clogging

State Tree: Tulip poplar

Notable Sports Teams: None that I'm aware of. Who has time for major league sports, what with all the horse racing and the clogging? Sure, there's triple-A baseball and college football, but who gives a shit about that? 

Fun Facts: Except for the excitement of that Kentucky Derby, there's no fun in Kentucky, I'll bet. That's why they need to make all that bourbon and moonshine. Do they even know that the Civil War ended? I'm not sure. They have both kinds of wild turkey, the animal kind and the alcohol kind. Mammoth Cave might be fun if you like that sort of thing, I can't do caves myself, there's that deep-seated fear that as soon as I go in, TODAY will be the day that the cave collapses, even it's been solid and non-collapsing for thousands of years. Mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, hiking, yeah those are not my idea of fun, either. 

Which is why I've never been to Kentucky - so I'm still holding at 23 states visited out of 35 now.

THE PLOT: Explores the life of iconic funnyman John Candy, who died of a heart attack in 1994 at age 43. 

AFTER: OK, so I had to work for just a few hours today, the health services group that rented the theater for their annual staff meeting suddenly decided the other day to rent the small theater in addition to the big theater, so I got called in just to oversee the team-building exercises in the small theater. Great, I SO LOVE corporate B.S. and team-building exercises and I don't consider them a waste of everyone's time AT ALL. But hey, it's a shift, and a short one at that - I can come in on a couple day's notice and pick up a few more hours. After the meeting they put out a bunch of food in the lobby from several prominent local food chains - Popeye's, Shake Shack, Insomnia Cookies. I was offered a chance to eat, but I didn't take much, because my wife was cooking dinner. If there's any of that food left in the staff fridge tomorrow, well, that's another story. 

I got off at 6 pm and headed home - only to encounter a real jerk on the subway who was using the elevator for a full-on moped, not a simple scooter or electric bike, which would be legal, he brought a full-size moped into the subway, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. His perception was that I did not back up enough to allow him to get his moped off the elevator, however I maintained that I DID back up, he had plenty of room to get his illegal vehicle off the elevator, however I was standing close by, as you do, because once he did get his moped out of the way, I needed to board the elevator before the doors closed. We exchanged words, obviously we disagreed about whether I backed up as requested, which I did, and he came back onto the elevator to try and have the last word, sticking his finger in my face and threatening to slap me. 

This guy was looking for a fight, no doubt, but I wasn't going to take the bait. Every time I've ever been in a fight it's ended badly. I just maintained that he was wrong, I did back up, and suddenly I was a "cracker" who had "white privilege" and I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. Dude, I can show you my bank balance, trust me, there's no "privilege" to be found there. He left and still I had to yell at him again, my need to get in the last word was my downfall. He came BACK on the elevator again and slapped/punched me. I did not retaliate, I did not escalate, I just wanted him to go away at that point, thinking he'd won. I went straight to the police and filed a report, because he had bent my glasses, pushed them into my face and I was bleeding a bit. Look, I don't expect the police to track this guy down, most likely he'll go unprosecuted, hopefully he'll pick a fight very soon with someone who actually can punch back. 

Oh, I wanted to, but really, I'm a big guy who's no good in a fistfight, I know this from experience. Doing nothing when someone punches you is very, very tough to do, but even if I had punched back and somehow won the fight, how would THAT have looked? A big white guy beating up a smaller black guy, not a good look, in addition to being impossible. Let me use my "white privilege" to report him for assault and a hate crime, sure, elder abuse too, let's see how he likes that once the cops review the camera footage. 

I'm going to give this pacifist thing a try, it doesn't really sit well - but for all I know, this guy had a knife or a gun and if I'd escalated things, or taken his picture, or thrown his moped on to the subway tracks, who knows, maybe I never would have made it home, I could have been in jail or a hospital or a morgue. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for, no permanent damage and only my pride is sore. I have to think it's what John Candy would have done, taken the hit. Not Dewey Oxberger, but John Candy probably. 

Nobody here really had anything bad to say about John Candy, and really, that's a rarity. He was in a bunch of great movies, he had a wife and two kids, and he was really really funny. OK, so he had addictions of his own, probably, drinking and food, but nobody said anything about drugs, also he seemed to get depressed a bit, but who doesn't? He had a fear of dying early because his father died at the age of 35, but if anything that should have motivated him even more to get and stay healthy, which it didn't. Once John Belushi died he kind of figured his days were numbered, but I guess if I'm looking for any kind of positive spin he made it to age 43, while Belushi only made it to 33 and the same goes for Chris Farley. If he thought he wasn't going to make it to 35, he did get 8 years beyond that. I know, that's little consolation. 

But look at that track record - "Stripes", "Splash", "Spaceballs", "Uncle Buck", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", supporting roles in "The Blues Brothers", "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Home Alone", "JFK", "The Great Outdoors", "Cool Runnings", "Brewster's Millions" and "Little Shop of Horrors". That's a phenomenal resume, but you can't take the good without the bad, of course there were missteps like "Nothing but Trouble", "Who's Harry Crumb?", "1941" and "Once Upon a Crime..."  And you know, "Canadian Bacon" isn't a terrible film, it was just a fiction film made by a documentarian, which just created a weird result. 

He was also in NINE John Hughes movies, I think that's more than Molly Ringwald even. At some point after he and Hughes crossed paths, there was a close friendship there and their families even went on vacations together, and not to Wallyworld. I think the montage of other films by John Hughes went on a little too long here, because some of those films didn't have John Candy in them, and that's really why we're here, but it's a minor quibble.  All that great work on SCTV, too, developing all those great recurring characters like Johnny LaRue and the Schmenge Brothers and Doctor Tongue and of course the mayor of Melonville, Tommy Shanks. 

Really, he was like the Chevy Chase of "SCTV", the first cast member to break out and appear in feature films. He couldn't really believe it when Steven Spielberg approached him and wanted to cast him in "1941", but when Spielberg comes and find you, you should probably go with him and do what he wants, even if he cheated his way into the industry. That brought John Candy into movies with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, and he was in "Stripes" with Bill Murray and "Vacation" with Chevy Chase, so for years he was SNL-cast adjacent, and it turned out to be a great thing, one that led him into bigger and bigger movies. And was there any bigger movie than "Splash" in 1984? Co-starring with Tom Hanks was also a very smart thing to do, and he did that twice, and also had great chemistry with Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". 

He fulfilled his lifelong sports dream (he was cut from football after a knee injury) by becoming a co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League, along with Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall. From the look of things this was more than just a side hustle for him, he really found himself involved in the operation of the team and celebrated when they won the Grey Cup in 1991, however, of course there was a downside, this doc suggests that flying all over with the team and spending so much time and effort to help run things, that this may have contributed to health problems in his final days. Did the CFL kill John Candy? It's not for me to say - maybe it was the stress of making "Wagons East", in addition to all the other stress factors in his life. 

Anyway, we're celebrating the life of John Candy tonight, it's inspiring that there can be funny and decent and well-meaning people in entertainment once in a while, that they don't all have terminal cases of "Artist Brain" after all. 

Directed by Colin Hanks (producer of "Say Hey, Willie Mays!")

Also starring Steve Aker, Andrew Alexander, Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Steve Martin (ditto), Bill Murray (ditto), Martin Short (ditto), Mel Brooks (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Chris Candy, Jennifer Candy-Sullivan, Rose Candy, Chris Columbus (last seen in "Child Star"), Macaulay Culkin (ditto), Rita Davidson, Tom Davidson, Robin Duke (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Terry Enright, Ennio Gregoris, Tom Hanks (last seen in "Freaky Tales"), Pat Kelly, Don Lake (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Eugene Levy (last seen in "Once Upon a Crime..."), Andrea Martin (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3"), Catherine McCartney, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Lorne"), Dave Thomas (ditto), Kelvin Pruenster, 

with archive footage of John Candy (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Matthew Broderick (ditto), Charlie Chaplin (ditto), Larry King (ditto), Rick Moranis (ditto), Bill Pullman (ditto), Orson Welles (ditto), Daphne Zuniga (ditto), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (last seen in "What's My Name: Muhammad Ali"), Karen Austin, Dana Barron (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), John Belushi (ditto), Johnny Carson (ditto), Chevy Chase (ditto), Beverly D'Angelo (ditto), Anthony Michael Hall (ditto), Paul McCartney (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Gilda Radner (ditto), Jim Belushi (last heard in "Belushi"), Joe Flaherty (ditto), Harold Ramis (ditto), Milton Berle (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins"), Valri Bromfield, Michael Caine (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Evangeline Candy, Jim Candy, Sidney Candy, Dick Cavett (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Oliver Hardy (ditto), Stan Laurel (ditto), Carl Reiner (ditto), John Chancellor (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Kevin Costner (last seen in "Draft Day"), Richard Crenna (last seen in "Sly"), John Diehl (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Bob Dylan (last seen in "Roy Orbison Forever"), George Harrison (ditto), Ringo Starr (ditto), Roger Ebert (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Joe Piscopo (ditto), Steven Spielberg (ditto), Emilio Estevez (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Victor Garber (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Jackie Gleason (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Paul Gleason (last seen in "Brats"), John Hughes (ditto), Demi Moore (ditto), Judd Nelson (ditto), Molly Ringwald (ditto), Ally Sheedy (ditto), Ronny Graham (last seen in "The World's Greatest Lover"), Wayne Gretzky, Daryl Hall (last seen in "Devo"), John Oates (ditto), Brianna Hildebrand (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Shioli Kutsuna (ditto), Gaby Hoffmann (last seen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere"), Ron Howard (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Ernie Hudson (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Kevin Kline (ditto), Sigourney Weaver (ditto), Anjelica Huston (also last seen in "Child Star"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Meryl Streep (ditto), Joey Lawrence, John Lennon (last seen in "Stevie Nicks: Wild at Heart"), David Letterman (also last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins"), Ray Liotta (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Peter Sellers (ditto), Bruce McNall, Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Richard Nixon (last seen in "John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls"), Maureen O'Hara (last seen in "Jamaica Inn"), Warren Oates (last seen in "The Old Man & the Gun"), Sydney Pollack (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Judge Reinhold (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Alan Ruck (last seen in "The Burial"), Betty Thomas, Terry Thomas (last seen in "How Sweet It Is!"), Tony Todd (last seen in "Candyman"), Steven Williams, and the voice of Seth McFarlane (also last seen in "Music by John Williams")

RATING: 7 out of 10 animated characters with John Candy's voice

I Am: Celine Dion

Year 18, Day 217 - 8/5/26 - Movie #5,395 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #34

BEFORE: I've been working both jobs this week, so I need sleep, I think I need to skip a day just to catch up again - I've got extra days to work with, so if I took a day off during the Doc Block it wouldn't be the worst thing, but I'd have one less day to work with when it comes time to connect the Doc Block to the Shock Block. We'll see, I'm only human and I need to rest often. 

Celine Dion is another Canuck who has invaded my attempt at a very U.S. themed documentary block, so, umm, what state can I link her to, what would make the most sense here? By now I know the drill, I'm going to Google her name along the names of those still-available states and go with the most relevant response. And today that turns out to be NORTH DAKOTA, because when she got back into touring in 2019 after a period of NOT touring, she announced her first-ever concert in Fargo, ND, to take place October 30, 2019 at the FargoDome. And hey, North Dakota is close to Canada, right? Close as I can get...So here we go with today's "Get to Know a State" feature: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: November 2, 1889 (39th or 40th state?)

Claim to fame: The northernmost of all the Dakotas, for sure, yeah, you betcha

Nickname: The Peace Garden State. Sounds nice but probably a bunch of BS

State Motto: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable. Great guys, but that's not going to fit on the license plates. 

State Flower: Wild prairie rose

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Fish: Northern pike

State Fruit: Chokecherry

State Insect: Convergent lady beetle

State Grass: Western wheatgrass

State Fossil: Teredo petrified wood

State Dance: Square dance

State Tree: American elm

Notable Sports Teams: The state sport is curling, that should tell you all you need to know.

Fun Facts: Ugh, it's all Native American and fur-trading history stuff, isn't it? Like even the "Fargo" movie and all the seasons of the "Fargo" TV show all find a way to mostly take place in other cities, and I can't say I blame them. Well, the states annual murder and violent crime rates have regularly been the lowest in the country for decades, so even their CRIME is boring. Come on guys, let's turn that around, OK? Their most precious resources are soil and minerals, and that just makes me want to take a nap, right now. No lie, it is the LEAST visited state in the U.S., because it has no major tourist attractions - people are staying away in droves. All across the country, the response to "Where do you want to go on vacation, Honey" is always, "Well, anywhere but North Dakota!"

Ryan Reynolds carries over from "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not". And I've never been to North Dakota, or does that go without saying? Holding at 23 states visited out of 34.

THE PLOT: A raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar's struggle with Stiff Person Syndrome, a life-altering illness. 

AFTER: I have become a very cynical person, it's true, and whether this is from a combination of old age, experience, or the news over the last few years is perhaps a debatable point. We all went through COVID, with everyone stuck at home and weighing in on what to do about the pandemic situation, while only 1% of the people screaming about it were actually qualified to know what the hell they were talking about - and then THOSE people, like Dr. Fauci, are still somehow being held responsible for what they said that was wrong, or perceived to be wrong but still factually correct. Then we've got our lying SOS President, who has more difficulty NOT lying about things, so you know, he's just going to go with what's worked in the past, which is to claim that Rosie O'Donnell is a fat pig and John McCain is not a war hero and we've won the war that we just started, however the war also needs to continue and that is not a contradiction. And thousands, thousands of lies in-between. Then we've got people on social media who are living their best lives, like ALL the time so they can humblebrag about it and make the rest of us feel like we're commoners by comparison. Sure, you post your vacation photos, I get it, but then to be fair and give us the whole picture you should also post pictures from that weekend you didn't go anywhere, you just stayed in and made a fried bologna sandwich for lunch and doom-scrolled for six hours. 

There's a person posting on Instagram who's convinced that he's got the dirt on Guy Fieri, famous for his "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show, where he travels the country in search of funky joints serving delicious and off-beat food that you really, really should check out if you find yourself in that city. Guy has parlayed that hosting gig into a solid job hosting THREE other Food Network shows, at least, and a mega-chain of his own restaurants across the country, which I will have to try sometime in the future - is his BBQ restaurant in Atlantic City still a thing? But now this internet researcher claims that Guy does NOT EAT the food from the diners and dives he visits, because we never see him swallow food on camera. He infers or implies, therefore, that Guy spits out the food off-camera. Look, there could be a dozen personal reasons and another dozen editing/artistic reasons why we never see this - it's unattractive to watch people swallow, it takes too long and interrupts the fast-paced editing of the show, it's time wasted watching him chew and swallow which could be devoted to him telling us more about the restaurant, which he can't do when his mouth is full. Or if he DOES spit out the food, and I'm not saying he does, I don't know, it could be due to an allergy or a personal preference, or he doesn't like the food (that contrary to the message of the show, that this joint is banging) or he has to visit four different restaurants in that city on that day, and if he really ate all that food, he would get full too quickly and also weigh 500 pounds eventually. My educated guess is that for time and artistic editing reasons, we just never see it. But once someone raises the question, now everything is suspect, and people with too much time on their hands are now watching the show more carefully than ever before, picking out clips where it LOOKS LIKE the food was still on the fork when it came out of his mouth. Therefore, I don't know, he's some kind of charlatan or criminal mastermind and he'll have to give back his Emmy or be replaced as the host of T.O.C. Why don't you people do something more worthwhile, like demand that Spielberg give back his Oscar for "Schindler's List" because he was never officially hired by Paramount, he just walked in and set up a fake office and began his directing career? 

Anyway, that brings me to Celine Dion and her diagnosis of Stiff People Syndrome, a rare and mysterious disease that affects up to one out of every 8 billion people in the world, in other words, maybe just her. There's no known cause, there are treatments which seem to help but ultimately no known cure, either, really I think more research needs to be done, but she claims it started with vocal spasms years ago, she simply couldn't hit some of the higher notes, and from there it just got worse and worse to the point where now if she gets too excited or works too hard her whole body would seize up and shut down, and so she's got a whole team of doctors and experts on hand to care for her when this happens - and she put her touring schedule on hold for about 10 years, which just happened to coincide with time spent watching her twin boys grow up between the ages of like 6 and 16. You know, when they're easy to deal with and haven't started rebelling yet. Also her husband died in 2016, and sure, I can see how that would be tough to deal with, probably anyone who went through the death of their spouse would have days where they didn't want to leave the mansion, complete with its outdoor boxing ring, pool area and indoor bowling alley and recording studio. 

I can't find it now, but I remember hearing some stand-up comedian make a joke about her condition, how she definitely DID NOT come up with this syndrome herself in order to get out of her contract for her Las Vegas residency which was set up by her husband/manager who was much older than her and possibly groomed her for a relationship while managing her career. No, of course not, that couldn't possibly be the case - but we find humor in sarcasm, and in every joke there is quite possibly an element of truth. So therefore I am definitely not saying that she for sure faked her illness, but I want to confirm that she's definitely for sure suffering from the condition known as "Artist Brain". Again, I'm not a doctor, but I happen to be one of the world's foremost experts on A.B. and it comes from my experiences dealing with film and TV directors, the kind who are very full of themselves, think they are very entitled and that the rules don't apply to them. And I keep seeing people who suffer from this condition again and again in these documentaries, they need to be the center of attention at all times, they have a succession of failed marriages (I know, who doesn't) and many of them have drug or alcohol problems as well. A side effect of A.B. is thinking that they're above getting addicted, they've got a handle on their addiction and also their career. No, they don't. 

Right or wrong, sick or not sick, Ms. Dion did start canceling and re-scheduling shows at some point, and this led to her greatest fear, that someone who paid hundreds to see her in concert, and had to get a refund, would see her out in public, like in a restaurant or something, having a nice time with her family, and approach her and be very upset with her. That's the fear, like I get it, I have stress dreams now where I'm serving ice cream to a long line of people and I can't quiet get the hang of making the ice cream look nice in the cone, or I can't get the lids on the soda cups, and also I may have forgotten to put on my pants. But you do you, Celine - that did lead to her being something of a shut-in, unable to leave the house - let's be real, she wasn't exactly going to go out grocery shopping herself, she's got staff for that. 

Let's also be real about this - fame is a drug, too - she talks about getting that feeling from performing on stage for a crowd of thousands, like really letting loose and feeling that power, and then she says it, once you feel that you can't wait to feel it again, like WHEN IS THE NEXT SHOW? That's an addict talking, and they will do anything to keep the supply coming - what she did when she could not perform at a high standard was say that she had a sore throat, or an ear infection, and now she says those were little lies told to deal with "Stiff Person Syndrome", or maybe just to kick the can down the road a little longer and stay famous for another year before retiring. There's no shame in retiring, she clearly has enough money to do that, only she doesn't want to - and that's not for our benefit, it's for hers. There are plenty of actors and actresses who retired and stopped making movies just because they got old, and they didn't want to be seen as old on screen. Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, they basically disappeared from sight at some point, as is their choice to do so - it's always a valid option when you have money.

The documentary also shows Dion dubbing lines for her appearance in the movie "Love Again", which I watched in February. Her character there, a semi-fictional version of herself, functioned as the "love expert" in the film. The main characters kept seeking her advice on how to handle their relationship problems, and yeah, I don't know. Again we have to wonder about the circumstances of how she got into a relationship with her manager, who again was much older than her, and how vulnerable as a person she might have been at the age of 21 or 24 or whatever. She got famous and she got three children and she certainly got rich, I'm just not sold on the idea of that being love, or the kind of love that would make her an expert on love. But I'm not going to speak directly about things that I do not know about first-hand, because then I would be part of the problem and not part of the solution. 

There's no question that she's talented, there's no question that she's famous and has zillions of fans, and that her albums and tours have been enormously popular and successful over the years. But like with any career, the question does eventually become, when is it time to call it quits? And will retirement be self-imposed, will it be the result of outside forces or changing tastes, or will it come due to age or an illness? I'm just kidding here, because the first one almost never happens, just look at Paul Anka and Mel Brooks and Dick Van Dyke and Roy Orbison and David Lynch and so money others. Nobody wants to quit, but we all do understand if you HAVE to quit. It's not failing if you just can't do it any more, and you go out on top. 

All that being said, I noticed during this documentary that Ms. Dion seemed very energetic when she took the film crew through a tour of the giant warehouse that stores every dress, every pair of shoes and every piece of every costume she's ever worn on stage. So, umm, where was her SPS that day when she spent the day walking around, opening boxes, digging through pairs of shoes that weren't even in her size? Sure, she's going to need to archive all of this someday, or somebody will, but if she's got four of each dress that she's never going to wear any more, why not donate some of those items? Or sell them or auction them and give the profits to charity? She was also RIGHT THERE with the vacuum when her son dropped some coconut husks on the TV room floor. I guess the Stiff Person Syndrome comes and goes, I'm just saying.  

The big confession here is that she has the disease - which is kind of backwards and non-PC because people shouldn't have to "confess" they have a disability, however this does mean that she lied about having those smaller illnesses when she was really covering up the larger illness. OK, so she lied then, but she's telling the truth now, got it. Come on, we all know that once you start lying and you get away with it, it's a slippery slope. Like I didn't keep my animation job for 31 years by admitting that I made mistakes, I kept my animation job for 31 years by covering up my mistakes, or by pointing out how they were NOT mistakes, it's what we all do. And we all call in sick from time to time, and sometimes we're really sick and sometimes we're not. So all I'm saying here is that I'm not sure she's really sick, or if she's telling another lie. I'm certainly not in a position to make that call - but I have every right to be cynical about it.

Directed by Irene Taylor

Also starring Celine Dion (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Eddy Angelil, Nelson Angelil, Terrill Lobo, Dave Platel, Denis Savage, 

with archive footage of Rene Angelil, Priyanka Chopra Jonas (last seen in "Love Again"), Sam Heughan (ditto), James Corden (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Rick Dees (last seen in "Beatles '64"), Jimmy Fallon (also carrying over from "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), John Farnham

RATING: 3 out of 10 video birthday messages (is Celine Dion on Cameo?)

I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not

Year 18, Day 216 - 8/4/26 - Movie #5,394 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #33

BEFORE: I know, I keep coming back to "SNL" cast members, and I'm not done yet...there's one more I'm saving for the end doc. But in the meantime those ever present Not Ready for Prime Time Players keep popping up in everything. Bill Murray is still in the top spot of the leader board, with 10 appearances (both in docs and non-docs), while Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin are tied for second place with 8 appearances, tied with Johnny Carson, John Lennon and Conan O'Brien. I've still got 17 more docs, so there's still no clear winner, Johnny Carson could easily rise to the top, or maybe John Lennon, I'll know in just a couple weeks. 

Searching for another U.S. state to profile tonight, and we are getting further and further from America's 250th birthday, but I'm determined to stick with it 46 days past the occasion, but that's it. So a bit of non-logic here, since Chevy is not his real name, but I know there is a city named "Chevy Chase" in the great state of Maryland. I am honestly not sure if the man is named for the city or vice versa, perhaps the documentary will explain. But in the meantime, today's "Get to Know a State" feature will be on MARYLAND. Has Chevy Chase ever been to Chevy Chase, MD? This is also unclear. It's weird, right? Like imagine if your name was "Las Vegas" or "Grand Rapids" or something. Anyway...

Date admitted to the U.S.: April 28, 1788 (7th state)

Claim to fame: A little thing called the Star-Spangled Banner, which was a reference to the flag over Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, flying during the War of 1812. Take that. 

Nickname: "Old Line State" or "Free State"

State Motto: "Fatti maschii, parole femine" which I think is Latin for "Fat guys and women in prison" Right? 

State Flower: Black-eyed Susan - well, sometimes Susan just doesn't listen.

State Bird: Baltimore oriole

State Fish: Rock fish

State Food: Smith Island cake. 

State Insect: Baltimore checkerspot butterfly

State Cat breed: Calico

State Dog breed: Chesapeake Bay retriever

State Reptile: Diamondback terrapin

State Tree: White oak

Notable Sports Teams: Baltimore Orioles in the MLB and the Ravens in the NFL. I'm not counting Washington DC teams because I already counted those separately. At the college level are the U. of Maryland Terrapins, which is a kind of turtle I think. 

Fun Facts: Maryland started as a safe haven for Roman Catholics, a religion that was once in the minority compared to others like Protestants and, umm, others. The state provided land for the Washington, DC capital district, so did Virginia but their land was returned at some point, I guess they forgot to call "No Backsies". Maryland stayed in the Union during the Civil War even though it's below the infamous Mason-Dixon line that separated slave states from non-slave states. So there were a bunch of Civil War battles there, like Antietam and, umm, others. Famous people from Maryland include Spiro Agnew and Thurgood Marshall, also Nancy Pelosi in politics, writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Upton Sinclair and Tom Clancy, musicians David Byrne, Philip Glass, Ric Ocasek and Frank Zappa, and comedians Lewis Black, Whitney Cummings, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Goldie Hawn. Wait a sec, Goldie Hawn? She's in tonight's movie, OK so there's a back-up reason to profile that state today.  Let's not forget John Waters and Divine are from there, too - hashtag "Keep Maryland Weird". 

Another fun fact, the city in Maryland was named Chevy Chase in 1725, so it predates the comedian. The name comes from French, a "cheivy" is short for a chevauchée, or a border raid and a "chace" was a word for hunting grounds and together it refers to an event that happened in 1388. I mean, Chevy is old but not THAT old. Cornelius is Chevy's real first name, but his mother was familiar with an old English ballad about the Chevy Chase incident. So both the comic actor and the Maryland city are named after the same thing, but neither is named after the other. I'm glad we cleared that up. 

And yes, I've been to Maryland - we tend to sleep there on the way to North Carolina, but I must have been there before that, like my family went to Washington DC when I was a kid, so we must have passed through Maryland to get there. I'm up to 23 states visited out of 33 profiled. 

Carol Burnett and Steve Martin carry over from "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion". 

THE PLOT: Chevy Chase rose to fame in SNL before becoming a movie star in the 1980s. Known for physical comedy and deadpan delivery, his career later declined amid reports of difficult behavior. 

AFTER: Wow, we're dealing with another MASSIVE case of the condition known as Artist Brain tonight. Chevy Chase was the first member of the SNL cast to leave the show, believing that a sketch show was transitory and he was destined for a larger career in movies. He wasn't wrong, exactly, I mean he did make some HUGE big big big movies, but he also made some terrible ones, and reached a point where he couldn't make another one. So SNL stayed relevant longer than he did, in a way, and at some point he came to his senses and regretted leaving the show, but you know, he set a precedent and so thereafter it's everyone's time to leave SNL at some point, except maybe Kenan Thompson, he'll be there forever. Maybe he learned what not to do from seeing what happened to people like Chevy and Belushi. They go made movies, made money, got addictions, and came crashing down. 

Chevy Chase kicked a cocaine addiction only to develop alcoholism later on, I mean, who said there are no second acts in people's careers? We saw with Stevie Nicks, you can quit cocaine by taking Klonopin and then get hooked on Klonopin, it's a weird wild world out there and some people cycle through a wide variety of addictions. Some people who join SNL also might be addicted to fame, like they get used to being seen on TVs across the country once a week, and they'll do anything to keep that going. So maybe for once Chevy quit something fun and vibrant BEFORE getting addicted to it. Of course, he was known for doing pratfalls on the show, and that led to various back injuries, for which pain pills were no doubt required, and you know, it's a slippery slope. All the people who were on the show back in the 1970's, though, freely admit the place had various drugs all over the place, some drugs to get through writing sessions and be "up" for the show, and others to calm down after Saturday night - wait, I mean Sunday night because they all partied like hell after every show, right? 

Chevy's co-workers and even family members talk about him having giant pyramids of cocaine just hanging around, and what's even worse, he didn't like to share it. And here I thought it was a social thing, like a party drug. Nope, he kept it all for himself. Like every other comedian, there were painful moments in his past, and he needed something to get him through. If you've seen him doing comically huge amounts of cocaine in the film "Modern Problems" you might wonder if any of that was a fantasy, or just based on his lifestyle. But let's back up just a bit. 

In high school and college Chevy was known as the class clown, practical joker and got expelled from several places in the Bronx before graduating from a boarding school in Massachusetts. Then he attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania before transferring to Bard College in upstate New York, which is in the town of Annandale. That's right, the place mentioned in the Steely Dan song "My Old School", and Chevy played drums in a band called The Leather Canary with the Steely Dan guys, Becker and Fagen, before they came up with the better band name. Chevy was in a pre-med program, but graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, and never went on to medical school. This meant he was eligible for the draft in 1967, but apparently pretended to be homosexual to avoid being drafted. Maybe a lot of people did, others just headed up to Canada like Cheech Marin did. 

Before SNL he wrote a bit for MAD! Magazine and the Smothers Brothers TV show, but of course joined the National Lampoon Radio Hour when that became a thing. That group of comics also included John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray, and Lorne Michaels poached them all for the first season of SNL. And of course we know Chevy opened almost every SNL show he was on, with the trademark phrase, and hosted the first incarnation of "Weekend Update", which is STILL GOING, over 50 years later. Chevy was the last cast member to join, just hours before the premiere, but the first one to quit. 

And he certainly HAD a movie career, with "Foul Play", "Seems Like Old Times", "Caddyshack" and then came "Modern Problems". But he rebounded with "National Lampoon's Vacation" and its sequels, that was definitely a thing. "Fletch" was a big hit film, too, and "Spies Like Us" less so, but it still made money. And "Three Amigos" came out just one year after "Fletch", and that's a pretty fantastic movie, all things considered. But then of course, that leads us to "Funny Farm", "Caddyshack II" and "Fletch Lives", which were all considered disasters. But as we see at the end of this documentary, people are still watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", and Chevy and his third wife have spent a few years going out on tour with that film in December, making appearances and doing Q&A's after for the loyal fans. It's almost enough to make people forget about films like "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" and "Cops & Robbersons". 

A lot of ups and downs came after that, mostly downs, until he got cast on the NBC show "Community", this was his third act, at least, and I don't know, his fourth or fifth comeback project since the demise of his late-night talk show, and the less said about THAT, the better. Geez, you'd think he was Dick Van Dyke, failing so many times before succeeding, and vice versa. "Community" was enormously popular, part of that NBC Thursday night line-up as "Must-See TV" and it developed a cult following. However, success there wasn't meant to last, especially when the show's creator, Dan Harmon, went a bit off the rails and ranted about Chevy being difficult to work with, or to be around, and that guy and Chevy were both battling alcoholism at the same time, and that was really a dangerous mix. The writers were making Chevy's character out to be more mean-spirited and bigoted, and by speculating on what the ultimate endgame of that was, Chevy accidentally insulted a few cast members who were people of color. Even though he was just making idle speculation and not racially insulting them directly, it still was not a good look. 

He still had another couple of comebacks in him, like the Netflix movie "The Last Laugh", which I watched, and also "The Last Movie Star" with Burt Reynolds, in addition to cameos in films like "Hot Tub Time Machine" and its sequel, plus the most recent "Vacation" reboot/sequel. Really it's all considered extra innings in some sense, because he had heart failure in 2021 and was put into a medically induced coma for eight days so his body could recover. Since then he's suffered memory loss and now that he's over 80, really every day's a gift, isn't it? That still couldn't stop him from feeling left out of the SNL 50th Anniversary program when he didn't have a very big role in the special, but Eddie Murphy did. Well, you make your bed and then I guess you have to lie in it, don't you? 

Bear in mind that NOBODY from the cast of "Community" agreed to be interviewed here, and even Steve Martin and Christopher Guest declined. Which doesn't really help fight the Asshole/Artist Brain label, it kind of reinforces it. He seems to be doing well, overall, living upstate with his wife and being older Dad to three daughters, so I guess what's done is done and he's just going to run out the clock at this point. 

Directed by Marina Zenovich (director of "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic" and "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind")

Also starring Chevy Chase (last seen in "Lorne"), Dan Aykroyd (ditto),  Andy Aaron, Peter Aaron,  John Cederquist, Jay Chandrasekhar (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Caley Chase, Cydney Chase, Emily Chase, Jayni Chase, Ned Chase, Beverly D'Angelo (last seen in "Violent Night"), Johnny Galecki (last seen in "Dear Mr. Watterson"), Patrick Ganino, Alan Greisman, Goldie Hawn (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Erik Kritzer, Lorne Michaels (also last seen in "Lorne"), James Andrew Miller (ditto), Garrett Morris (ditto), Kevin Nealon (ditto), Rosie Shuster (ditto), Alan Zweibel (ditto), Michael Ovitz (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "IF"), Paul Shaffer (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Michael Shamberg, Martin Short (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Kevin Smith (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force")

with archive footage of Dana Barron (last seen in "Happythankyoumoreplease"), Walter Becker (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Donald Fagen (ditto), John Belushi (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Bill Murray (ditto), Bruce Bodner, Alison Brie (last seen in "Spin Me Round"), Christie Brinkley (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Yvette Nicole Brown (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), George Carlin (also last seen in "Lorne"), Jane Curtin (ditto), Joan Cusack (ditto), Jacqueline Carlin, John Carpenter (last seen in "The Fog" (1980)), Sabrina Carpenter (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Merv Griffin (ditto), Ed McMahon (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Adam Sandler (ditto), Nell Carter (last seen in "Modern Problems"), Bill Clinton (last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins"), Rodney Dangerfield (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Redd Foxx (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), Blythe Danner (last seen in "The Myth of Fingerprints"), Tom Davis, Robert De Niro (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), Robert Downey Jr. (also last seen in "Lorne"), Nora Dunn (ditto), Jimmy Fallon (ditto), Al Franken (ditto), Anthony Michael Hall (ditto), Miriam Flynn (last seen in "Self Reliance"), Donald Glover (also last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Danny Pudi (ditto), Christopher Guest (last seen in "Belushi"), Dan Harmon, Susan Hewitt, Dennis Hopper (last seen in "Roy Orbison Forever"), Paul McCartney (ditto), Gillian Jacobs (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), Ken Jeong (last heard in "Over the Moon"), John Kerry (last seen in "John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls"), Ronald Reagan (ditto), Ted Knight (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Diane Ladd (last seen in "Citizen Ruth"), Jon Lovitz (also last seen in "Lorne"), Laraine Newman (ditto), Randy Quaid (ditto), Gilda Radner (ditto), Chris Rock (ditto), Paul Simon (ditto), Terry Sweeney (ditto), Kenan Thompson (ditto), E.G. Marshall (last seen in "Creepshow"), Joel McHale (last seen in "Queenpins"), Burgess Meredith (last seen in "Sly"), Sam Neill (last heard in "Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway"), Michael O'Keefe (last seen in "Too Big to Fail"), Queen Latifah (last seen in "The Secret Life of Bees"), John Randolph (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Jim Rash (last seen in "Long Weekend"), Geraldo Rivera (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Doris Roberts (last seen in "The Night We Never Met"), Dana Wheeler-Nicholson (ditto), Ken Shapiro, Raquel Welch (also carrying over from "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), and the voice of Marina Zenovich.

RATING: 6 out of 10 fan letters answered with the help of his post-COVID friend and assistant, Patrick

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion

Year 18, Day 215 - 8/3/26 - Movie #5,393 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #32

BEFORE: OK, tonight's film was another last-minute addition to bring my Doc Block total up to the very round number of fifty - I honestly don't know much about Mr. Mackie or fashion in general, but remember, I'm here to learn, so teach me, HBO Max!

I'm also quite stuck for a U.S. state to profile today in conjunction with the film - Bob Mackie is a California guy, born in Monterey Park and went to City College in Pasadena, but I've done California already. The film also shows him attending the Met Gala in NYC, but I covered New York, too. And he designed outfits for showgirls in Las Vegas - well, guess what, I profiled Nevada, too. I wish I'd known that the doc shows him visiting his great-grandchildren in Idaho, I could have saved Idaho for tonight instead of comically linking it to "When We Went MAD!" 

I was thinking about Rhode Island, it's a pretty fashionable state, plus I think Taylor Swift has a house in Newport, and she shows up in this doc - by now she probably has a house in every state so that's ultimately a bit meaningless. I'm just going to Google Bob Mackie with the name of the seven random states and pick the one where the most meaningful or random result emerges. Ah, here we go, the Canady Creative Arts Center at West Virginia University has hosted theatrical productions of "The Cher Show" which features his Tony Award-winning costume designs. That's definitely an odd but perhaps meaningful (to somebody) result. So tonight's "Get to Know a State" feature will be on WEST VIRGINIA. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: June 20, 1863 (35th state)

Claim to fame: Probably that John Denver song about "Country Roads"

Nickname: Mountain state, or "Mountain Mama" if you like that song

State Motto: "Montani semper liberi" which is Latin for "Mountaineers Are Always Free", well, they may not always be free but they're a heck of a bargain.

State Flower: Rhododendron 

State Bird: Cardinal

State Fish: Brook Trout

State Mammal: Black bear

State Insect: Honey bee

State Firearm: Harpers Ferry M1819 Hall Rifle. I am not joking.

State Rock: Bituminous coal

State Tree: Sugar maple

Notable Sports Teams: Nope. Just the WVU Mountaineers and some minor-league teams.

Fun Facts: In the 17th century, the territory was the site of the Beaver Wars, which was not as sexy or funny as it sounds. It was a conflict between Native American tribes, I guess over beaver pelts? The original attempt to create a state there, due to social conditions being very different from the eastern part of Virginia, would have created a stated named "Westsylvania", I guess because it would have taken a chunk out of Pennsylvania, too. Anyway the first attempt didn't work so I guess they waited 100 years and tried again. In the late 18th century, saltpeter miners found a bunch of animal bones in some caves and they turned out to be from a prehistoric sloth, which eventually became known as Jefferson's three-toed sloth and was later declared the official state fossil in 2008. Yeah, tell me these people don't know how to have fun!

I don't think I've been to West Virginia ever, so I'm holding at 22 states visited out of 32.

Carol Burnett carries over from "Starring Dick Van Dyke"

AFTER: Bob Mackie, a six-decade costume designer, received a Lifetime Achievement award and a Tony nomination for The Cher Show. His unique, unfiltered style has been showcased in this new documentary. 

There's a big focus here on two TV shows from the 1970's, which Bob Mackie did all of the costuming for - one is "The Carol Burnett Show" and you don't really think of Carol Burnett as a fashion icon, maybe, but Bob Mackie sure tried to make her into one!  She did wear a number of gowns on the show, I think I remember she was always dressed very well when she took questions from the audience. But Mackie also did ALL of the costumes in ALL of the skits on that show, not just the famous "Gone With the Wind" parody of Scarlett O'Hara turning her drapes into a gown - on Burnett's show Scarlett left in the gigantic curtain rod, and it's one of the best sight gags in TV history, and this doc certainly will not let us forget about that. 

But he also worked on "The Sonny & Cher Show", remember that variety TV was very big back then, and when the famous couple split Cher kept that show going in her own name for a couple of years. And of course Cher had to have a new outfit for every show, the more colorful the better, getting more outrageous as the show went on. So if you add up all the years, he created about 17,000 costumes for the entire cast of "The Carol Burnett Show", and then for Cher's shows probably another 20,000 at least. Nothing for Sonny Bono, though, because nobody gave a shit about what HE was wearing. They probably said, "Umm, just bring something from home, Sonny..."

That got Mackie a gig on two episodes of "The Love Boat", playing himself. Well, geez, it's all gravy after that, isn't it? I mean, you know you've made it when you get to go on a pretend cruise to Puerto Vallarta without ever leaving a Hollywood soundstage. PLUS you get to be in the montage at the start of the show, before Ted Lange did his famous "double finger-guns salute". If you know, you know. 

But it turns out Mackie had a longer and more varied career than all that - he worked on the iconic dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she serenaded John F. Kennedy at MSG, he designed costumes for the Supremes and the Temptations, and Oscar-nominated for "Lady Sings the Blues", starring Diana Ross. The burlesque shows "Hallelujah Hollywood" and "Jubilee" in Las Vegas featured his designs, and I think so did the infamous "Star Wars" holiday special. And yet he still found work after that. All the crazy outfits that Cher ever wore to the Oscars - yes, even THAT one - and evening gowns for Whitney Houston, too. Special weeks on "Wheel of Fortune" when Vanna got the glam-up, and special outfits for Barbie dolls, too. 

The really funny thing seems to be that Bob Mackie gowns were once considered to be so over-the-top that they were almost too wild, too crazy - and now with what we're seeing at the Met gala each year, by comparison those old designs by Mackie are quaint or tame. Society as a whole went crazy after social media started, with everyone famous trying to out-do the other, and some people went so beyond with it they ended up light years past where Mackie started. Does that make sense? Anyway, this film shows Mackie attending the Met gala (or approaching it, at least, I'm not sure if he ever got there and was allowed in...) and also getting a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and I have to also wonder if they've always been on his side over the years, or if they came around over time. 

Then there's that trip to Idaho to see his great-grandchildren. Yes, the very gay Bob Mackie, whose business and life partner was costume designer Ray Aghayan, was once married to a woman named Lulu Porter, an actress and singer, and they had a son, Robert Gordon Mackie, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1993, following drug use. Bob and Lulu had divorced in 1963, but remained close friends, they grieved their son together, then learned years later their son had a daughter before he died, and so they now share a granddaughter and some great-grandchildren. It's a perfectly normal thing unless you want to make it seem weird. If Bob Mackie wants to be a late-life grandparent that's certainly within his rights. 

Mackie is also a character in "The Cher Show", a jukebox musical that has THREE actresses performing as Cher in different stages of her life. They rejected the title I suggested, which was "Cher and Cher Alike" - I get it, not everybody loves puns as much as I do. Still, it's a problem that Cher was given so much screen time here, she basically hijacked this documentary and made it all about herself. Did somebody forget whose name is in the TITLE of this film? Sure, I get that if you get the chance to interview Cher, you interview Cher, but this was really supposed to be all about the OUTFITS she wore, not her personal vendetta against The Academy.

Directed by Matthew Miele (director of "Always at the Carlyle")

Also starring Bob Mackie (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Gregg Barnes, Michael Berresse, Cher (last seen in "Child Star"), Miley Cyrus (ditto), Tom Ford, Mitzi Gaynor (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Bill Greening, Jenelle Hamilton, Steven Kolb, Vicki Lawrence (last heard in "The Fox and the Hound 2"), Fern Mallis, Joe McFate, Booth Moore, Martin Nolan, Mel Ottenberg, Bernadette Peters (last heard in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Pink (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Lulu Porter, Zac Posen, Law Roach, Hal Rubenstein, RuPaul (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), George Schlatter (last heard in "Sid & Judy"), Jeffrey Seller, Jan Strimple, Flody Suarez

with archive footage of Fred Astaire (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Candice Bergen (ditto), Lucille Ball (also carrying over from "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Tim Conway (ditto), Beyonce (also last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Bette Davis (ditto), Chaz Bono, Sonny Bono (last seen in "Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer"), James Caan (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Liza Minnelli (ditto), Diahann Carroll (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Terry Crews (ditto), Whitney Houston (ditto), Gene Kelly (ditto), Prince (ditto), Carol Channing (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Farrah Fawcett (ditto), Bette Midler (ditto), Brooke Shields (ditto), Taylor Swift (ditto), Joan Collins (last seen in "Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie"), Marlene Dietrich, Sam Elliott (last seen in "Draft Day"), Sally Field (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "The Luckiest Man in America"), Judy Garland (last seen in "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like"), Whoopi Goldberg (ditto), Lillian Gish (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Betty Grable (last seen in "Follow the Fleet"), Fred Grandy (last seen in "Devo"), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (ditto), Bernie Kopell (ditto), Sean Hayes (last seen in "Sr."), Rita Hayworth (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), John Michael Higgins (last seen in "Big Miracle"), Michael Jackson (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Elton John (ditto), Diana Ross (ditto), Andy Kaufman (last seen in "Lorne"), John F. Kennedy (also carrying over from "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Harvey Korman (ditto), Steve Martin (ditto), Heidi Klum, Ted Lange, Jared Leto (last seen in "Haunted Mansion"), Carole Lombard, Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Atlas"), Jane Lynch (last seen in "A.C.O.D."), Gavin MacLeod (also last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Ann-Margret (also last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Raquel Welch (ditto), Jill Whelan (ditto), Eric McCormack (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Michael McKean (last seen in "Love to Love You, Donna Summer"), Debra Messing (last seen in "The Alto Knights"), Carmen Miranda, Marilyn Monroe (last seen in "My Mom Jayne"), Jack Nicholson (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Marty Supreme"), Ginger Rogers (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Tina Turner (ditto), Meryl Streep (last seen in "ABBA: Super Troupe"), Barbra Streisand (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Anya Taylor-Joy (last seen in "Dune: Part Two"), Zendaya (ditto), Diana Vreeland, Vera Wang, 

RATING: 5 out of 10 musical performers who have worn his designs in concert (from Elton John and Tina Turner to Miley Cyrus and P!nk)

Starring Dick Van Dyke

Year 18, Day 214 - 8/2/26 - Movie #5,392 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #31

BEFORE: The original plan was to watch the Mel Brooks documentary right before this one, and that way about 9 or 10 people would carry over. But then my plans changed and a portion of the chain had to be flipped around, so originally I was going to link from "When We Went MAD!" to the Molly Ivins doc, but then that bad link meant I had to flip around a 9-movie section, but today I'm back where I always intended to be, we're linking back up with the original, non-flipped plan.

Dick Van Dyke was born in MISSOURI in 1925. This was very considerate of him to be born there, because it's a state that I have not profiled yet in this year's 50 Doc Block countdown's ongoing feature, "Get to Know a State". 

Date admitted to the U.S.: Some say it was admitted on August 10, 1921. Others admit nothing, except that it's the 24th state. 

Claim to fame: I dunno, Branson? That giant Gateway arch? Or probably just baseball and BBQ?

Nickname: The "Show Me" state. Bunch of exhibitionists and peeping Toms, most likely 

State Motto: "Salus populi suprema lex esto", which is Latin for something. I'm tired. 

State Flower: White hawthorn 

State Bird: Eastern bluebird. In the Central U.S.? Wouldn't it then be the Central Bluebird? 

State Fish: Channel catfish

State Mammal: Missouri mule

State Instrument: Fiddle

State Food: Ice cream. What, no BBQ? 

State Tree: Flowering Dogwood

Notable Sports Teams: It's the Pennsylvania of the Midwest, I'm betting there are two of everything, like I know they have two baseball teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals. Or are they in Kansas? It's very confusing, isn't it? Huh, they only have one NFL team, the Chiefs. I think the St. Louis team moved somewhere else? And just one NHL team, the St. Louis Blues. Go figure. Basketball is apparently not allowed. 

Fun Facts: "Show Me" is not even the official nickname of Missouri, there is NO official one. Some of the others include the Cave State, the Ozark State, the Iron Mountain State, the Lead State, the Mother of the West, and "that state with the giant arch thing that serves no purpose and is, I don't know, a gateway to something but I don't know what". Hey, what about "we're always in the middle of something" because they're in the middle of the country, and over the years the state has been right in the middle over slavery, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, and then segregation and civil rights issues, I'll bet. A bunch of musicians also come from Missouri, like Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Josephine Baker, Sheryl Crow, Michael McDonald, rappers Nelly, Chingy and Akon, and most recently Chappell Roan - along with like a zillion country singers, but you know, that's not really music in my book. 

I have NOT been to Missouri, not ever. But since they have TWO distinct BBQ cities and styles, I would be down if we ever do a BBQ Crawl #4. Hey, North Carolina has two BBQ styles, and at least one of them is good. Now how do I convince my wife we need to drive across Missouri someday, like besides the Gateway Arch what is there to even DO there? Anyway, I'm holding at 22 visited out of 31, I might have peaked. 

Conan O'Brien carries over from "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins". 

THE PLOT: Celebrating the life and career of legendary actor Dick Van Dyke, known for his iconic roles in "Mary Poppins", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and his classic CBS sitcom. He has delighted audiences on screen and stage for eight decades. 

AFTER: I was kind of born at the right time to be a Dick Van Dyke fan - my mother made SURE that I saw both "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" as a small boy, so I could learn to appreciate the classics. Now, "Mary Poppins" was released four years before I was born, but there were repeat screenings or classic movies shown at the local library or something, because this was still years before VHS was a thing and LONG before DVDs. So I must have seen a revival showing or a re-release or something. I was born the same year as "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"'s release, so same deal, I was probably shown both when I was 6 or 7. 

I want to thank the makers of this documentary for not including any footage of the terrifying "Child Snatcher" character, because I might have been triggered. I was terribly scared of this character as a child, an evil person who could smell where children are and was trying to capture them for some reason - I don't remember the reason but it could not have been good. I guess the upside maybe is that I learned to be very afraid of child snatchers and other predators, only later I found out there are people like that, and they're harder to spot, but they likewise need to be avoided. Yes, this was a character created by Roald Dahl, even though he did NOT write the book this movie was based on, he did work on the screenplay. 

I think with all of the ups and downs presented here in Dick Van Dyke's career, and considering I kind of came in at a high point, I think I'm going to declare him one of the rare profiled subjects, like Fred Rogers, found to be free from the condition known as "Artist Brain". First off, he just seems really humble, like across the board. Kind, generous, very funny, a great dancer and singer, and very very funny. Sexy, too, if you believe all of his female co-stars from over the years. But he did go through a divorce and alcoholism and it took a few years for him to become an overnight success with his eponymous TV show. Even that wasn't really a super smash hit when it aired, but like "I Love Lucy" it got syndicated and reruns ran for DECADES and that's really how you become a household name. 

Well, that and "Diagnosis: Murder", because in this third act he served on a procedural, all the older stars at the time were doing it - Andy Griffith, Angela Lansbury and umm, Gary Sinise. Part comedy, part drama and part crime show, that's what the old folks want to watch on CBS - the formula still holds true today with Kathy Bates taking over as the new "Matlock". And then for his unbelievable career resurgence at the age of 98+, he did a run on "Days of Our Lives", appeared on "The Masked Singer" and made a video for Coldplay. Oh, and he reprised his role of the very old banker, Mr. Dawes, in "Mary Poppins Returns", only he didn't need as much old-person make-up this time. OK, that's enough dancing, let's get you to bed, grandpa. 

There's a whole middle act in this man's life that kind of got skipped here, and I'm talking about movies like "What a Way to Go!", "Divorce American Style", "Fitzwilly", "Some Kind of a Nut", and "Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N." - I mean, he worked in a lot of movies in the 1960's, but this doc would have you believe he didn't do a damn thing between "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", which is not true. That's only true in MY childhood because those were the only Van Dyke movies I was allowed to watch! But let's not forget that he also starred in the Broadway musical "Bye Bye Birdie", and then carried over to the movie version, only he and Paul Lynde were in both. 

Sure, we don't have three hours to discuss every little thing he did in his career, but I don't think we should skip over an entire decade just to fit everything in. Just saying. Sure, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was a significant TV milestone, I just don't think it's the be-all and end-all of his career, which was much more varied than I ever realized. I mean, just listen to the interviews here with all of the comedians he inspired, many of them copied his style of physical comedy - Martin Short and Jim Carrey, for example. Sure, every teenager who bought that Velvet Underground record started a band, but every young awkward kid who watched "The Dick Van Dyke Show" got into prop comedy. 

Directed by John Scheinfeld (director of "What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?")

Also starring Julie Andrews (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Jim Carrey (ditto), Emily Blunt (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Pat Boone (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Carol Burnett (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Ted Danson (last seen in "Big Miracle"), Eric Deggans, Karen Dotrice (last seen in "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth"), Colin Firth (last seen in "ABBA: Super Troupe"), Larry Mathews, Steve Martin (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Lin-Manuel Miranda (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Victoria Rowell (last seen in "Eve's Bayou"), Martin Short (last seen in "Lorne"),

with archive footage of Dick Van Dyke (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Morey Amsterdam (ditto), Richard Deacon (ditto), Rose Marie (ditto), Desi Arnaz (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Bea Arthur (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Sid Caesar (ditto), Dick Cavett (ditto), Anthony Hopkins (ditto), Buster Keaton (ditto), Jimmy Kimmel (ditto), Harvey Korman (ditto), Groucho Marx (ditto), Carl Reiner (ditto), Scott Baio (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Lucille Ball (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Warren Beatty (last seen in "Madonna: Goddess of Pop"), Ken Berry, Gower Champion, Tim Conway (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), James Cromwell (last seen in "Species II"), Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Ed Sullivan (ditto), Richard Dawson (last seen in "The Running Man"), Sam Denoff, Walt Disney (last seen in "The Electric State"), Charles Durning (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Buddy Ebsen (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Phil Erickson, Matthew Garber, Andy Griffith (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Adrian Hall, Oliver Hardy (also last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Stan Laurel (ditto), Rob Marshall (ditto), Sally Ann Howes, John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Devo"), Martin Luther King Jr. (last seen in "Roberta"), Hope Lange, Angela Lansbury (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Sheldon Leonard, Chris Martin (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Mary Tyler Moore (also last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Emily Mortimer (last seen in "Jay Kelly"), Bill Persky, John Rich, Heather Ripley, Chita Rivera (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Arlene Silver, Fred Silverman, Danny Thomas, David Tomlinson, Ben Whishaw (last heard in "Paddington in Peru")

and narration by Fred Applegate

RATING: 6 out of 10 daily workout sessions - thank God that he believes that his longevity is due to his positive outlook, because that means I don't have to exercise like him.