Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!

Year 18, Day 206 - 7/25/26 - Movie #5,384 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #23

BEFORE: All right, this one's going to take some time - and I worked late last night at the theater, so if this Saturday film posts on Sunday, don't be too surprised. This is a documentary in two parts, each is a little under two hours long, so I've got nearly FOUR hours of doc about Mel Brooks to get through tonight. Hey, the man is old and he's been around for a while, making movies and TV shows. He just had another birthday at the end of June, when he turned 100, so already the title of his documentary is wrong, or at least outdated. That's the chance you take. 

I spoke about the coincidence of me getting back on pop culture docs right around the time of San Diego Comic-Con, it's like my chain-making brain has muscle memory or something - well, how about this for a coincidence, they had a "Spaceballs 2" panel in Hall H at Comic-Con, and do you want to guess when that happened? OK, so it was Friday, but the NEWS broke today, that's still an amazing turn of events. Strange to say, but this only happened because footage of Paul Reubens was cut from "Overnight", if that hadn't happened then tonight's film was scheduled to be Doc Block film #30, which means I would have been off by a week. The strangest thing brought my schedule back in sync with reality, which feels a bit weird. Anyway tomorrow is the last day of SDCC, and I think I've got something appropriate, about film and art, before I go back to rock music and politics. 

Judd Apatow AND Sarah Silverman carry over from "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like", and that's no help in picking a U.S. state to profile tonight - Silverman is from New Hampshire and Apatow, like Mel Brooks, was born in NYC. I've covered both of those states already, so I'm stuck. What I did was let Google decide tonight - I did a search with his name and the name of each still-unassigned state, and I only got one usable result, so there you go. What popped up was the site of the Candlelight Theatre in Wilmington, DELAWARE, which earlier this year put on stage productions of both "The Producers" and "Young Frankenstein". Now, I'm not sure if these are the authorized touring productions of both shows, or just a local theater group putting on a show, it doesn't really matter. What counts is that there have recently been Mel Brooks shows in that state, and apparently nobody else - and that LIVE theater is alive and well in DELAWARE. So here we go: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: December 7, 1787  (1st state)

Claim to fame: The Delaware Water Gap, and Joe Biden's from there. That's about it, I think.

Nickname: The First State (and they just shove that in your face every chance they get, don't they?)

State Motto: "Liberty and Independence", also "Firsties"

State Flower: Peach blossom (really? that sounds a bit Southern)

State Fish: Weakfish (wait, what?)

State Bird: Delaware blue hen

State Insect: 7-spotted ladybug

State Tree: American holly

State Cocktail: Orange crush
State Food: peach custard pie (what's with all the peach stuff?)

Notable Sports Teams: You must be joking. 

Fun Facts: Wow, I did not know that Delaware had a secret racist history (not kidding, for once). Attempts to abolish slavery in Delaware in 1847 failed by narrow margins, and just before the Civil War southern states sent commissioners to try to get Delaware to secede, and then during the war Delaware's state government was dominated by pro-slavery Democrats, and I didn't even know that was a thing. The state rejected the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (umm, that's kind of a big deal) and didn't ratify them until 1901. WTF, Delaware? And then in 1954 the state was home to PRO-segregation boycotts - that's right, when people in the south were holding boycotts AGAINST segregation, Delaware was doing the opposite. Jeez, read the damn room, would you? 

Yes, I have been to Delaware, so my record goes up to 19 states visited out of 23, but now I'm thinking about boycotting the state in the future - let's see how THEY like it. That's right, we're going to drive straight through on our next trip to North Carolina and we will NOT be stopping at any rest areas or restaurants in Delaware. It's time to take a stand. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Mel Brooks: Unwrapped" (Movie #4,201)

THE PLOT: Follows the life, career, friendships and loves of legendary writer, director, producer and performer Mel Brooks, chronicling his early experiences and rise to superstardom. 

AFTER: So far, it feels like this Doc Block has been brought to you by "Artist Brain", it's the condition that successful people in the entertainment industry have that makes them think that their shit don't stink. Spielberg had Artist Brain young, when he office-squatted his way into a job at Universal and then made the biggest blockbuster in film history (up until that time) and the guy who ran "Earth, Wind & Fire" had a convenient case of Artist Brain when he decided that he wanted a solo career and was also tired of paying all the other guys in the band. The whole Devo band had Artist Brain when they thought they were better than any punk band and also were, at one point, the only band with a backlog music videos made before MTV was invented. Paul Anka? He might have the biggest case I've ever seen, once you're the guy who wrote "My Way" for Sinatra, that head just does not return to normal size, not ever. Both Cheech AND Chong had different strains of Artist Brain, and you can't have a lasting duo when the two people can't agree who is in charge. (It's too bad, really, they could have just taken turns, for chrissake.)

The one person profiled so far this year who seems immune is, of course, Fred Rogers. He didn't set out to make the longest-running PBS show for kids, he wasn't in it for the money or because he believed he "belonged" on TV, his interest was always the mental health of America's kids, making sure they could cope mentally with tough things like divorce and pets dying and feeling angry. He also taught kids that diversity and equality and acceptance are pretty cool things, and that wearing sweaters and feeding fish and pretending are not just activities for shut-ins. Mr. Rogers, you are hereby declared "Artist Brain Free", sorry for the delay, I guess it hardly matters now. 

So we have to now consider Mel Brooks - Artist Brain or Not Artist Brain? It's going to take a few hours (4, almost) to get to the bottom of this. First, we have the humble beginnings, being born into a Brooklyn Jewish tenement family, learning comedy as a way of survival, then serving in World War II because that was what you did back then. Sure, he found his way into the traveling entertainment unit when the fighting ended, but really, isn't that where he belonged? When he got back from the war he worked in TV production to avoid a job in the Garment District. Mostly this is NOT Artist Brain behavior, except for considering the menial labor job to be somehow beneath him, and having delusions of grandeur. We need to investigate this further. 

After years working in TV on "Your Show of Shows" and feeling inadequate, Brooks got married and had three kids, but the marriage unfortunately did not last. Still inconclusive, but he really wanted to write a movie, and would have written one with Sid Caesar if the network hadn't offered so much money to keep Caesar on TV. He also had worked his way up from being a drummer and a back-up performer in the Catskills. Still, by the late 1950's he felt that he was destined for something greater, and that led to his "2,000 Year Old Man" routine and comedy album with Carl Reiner. Having aspirations is an early warning sign of Artist Brain, perhaps. 

In the early 1960's, he wrote an animated short film that won an Oscar, and started working on "Get Smart", a TV spoof of spy films, and that turned out to be a hit, so Brooks turned his attention to writing his first feature film. This is a time in his career where it still felt a bit like he was trying a lot of different things, attempting to figure out what works and what doesn't work, what's going to attract and engage with the audience. That first feature was, of course, "The Producers" and it did win him another Oscar, for Best Original Screenplay. But it wasn't an instant hit with audiences, really it became a cult classic over time - still, I can kind of feel the old Artist Brain kicking in, because two Oscars can do that to a filmmaker... His next film was "The Twelve Chairs", which was a box-office flop. Yeah, thinking that you can turn American audiences on to Russian literature is a tell-tale sign of Artist Brain - I wouldn't say that it was a full case yet, because a box-office disaster is usually pretty humbling. 

The first part of this two-part documentary ends with the success of "Blazing Saddles", and while it wasn't exactly the mid-point of his career, I think it's an appropriate place to stop for a moment because a giant successful film, one that breaks all the rules and pokes fun at society's racism and sexism and corrupt politicians, sure, that's a wonderful thing. But I'm guessing that's also where Brook's Artist Brain affliction really kicked in. And then it got worse with the success of "Young Frankenstein" and I think when you look at the following films, "Silent Movie" and "High Anxiety", you start to get the feeling that Brooks thought he could do no wrong, he'd cracked the code of comedy and all he had to do was throw together another spoof film and his winning streak would continue. But any athlete can tell you that a winning streak can't go on forever, eventually your team is going to lose a game and you have to be ready to deal with that, too, you literally can't win 'em all, you have to take the bad with the good, and also there is no "I" in "TEAM". 

His production company decided to diversify, hiring David Lynch to direct "The Elephant Man" and then David Cronenberg to direct "The Fly". It's a very good sign that Brooks was willing to produce some films and not direct everything himself, perhaps the curative powers of a few more films that didn't gain any traction staved off his Artist Brain for a few years. A typical film director with Artist Brain would want to direct everything himself, and not allow anyone to share billing, while Brooks actually removed his name from the credits of "The Elephant Man" because people expected a certain kind of film from Mel Brooks, and it just wasn't that kind of film. But Brooks was also planning the next wave of spoof films, which led to "History of the World, Part I", "To Be or Not to Be" and eventually, "Spaceballs". This kept his film career thriving for a while, but I think if you were a "Star Wars" fan and you went to see "Spaceballs", you probably felt like you were really slumming. I mean, sure the franchise was ripe for parody, but it all seemed pretty low-rent, like below the level of a MAD magazine parody, even. 

By the time Brooks got to "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", I think we can all agree the quality level was way, way down, exemplifying a severe case of Artist Brain, and I think from there recovery was very, very unlikely. The "Robin Hood" film re-used a bunch of gags from previous Brooks movies even, so, like, was he even trying? Sure, it's another genre of film that needed the piss taken out of it, but by then his films were way too silly for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who felt that way. In some ways it was more of a take on "The Princess Bride" than a Robin Hood movie. Brooksfilms was pretty much "Dead and NOT Loving It" at that point, and it took a few years, but that's when Broadway started adapting his films into stage musicals. Sure, why not, it's not like he was planning any new breakthrough comedy films. And that Artist Brain was whispering in his ear, if only his play could win a Tony or 12, then he'd also be not just an Oscar winner, but an EGOT winner. 

Look, I'm not saying that "The Producers" wasn't a great stage musical, it was great, and I did see it on stage. The movie remake with the original Broadway cast was great, too, I liked it just as much as the original film. But believing that your past work needs to be remade, or transferred into another medium, and then re-cast, re-packaged, re-filmed and re-sold every few years is a DEFINITE sign of advanced Artist Brain. Some people make movies, and they let them get old and they just leave them alone, maybe re-watch them once in a while. Brooks has re-vamped, re-worked and re-produced his biggest successes as much as George Lucas has re-issued "Star Wars" over and over again in new mediums. And I thought maybe Lucas had the biggest case of Artist Brain of anyone, now I think Mel Brooks found ways to surpass even him over the course of his career. 

Another sure sign of Artist Brain is refusing to retire, and as yet Brooks has still not retired, not at the age of 100, because he licensed "History of the World Part II" as a Hulu series, and now they've got "Spaceballs 2" close to a theatrical release. I did watch the "History Part II" series, it was OK, I wasn't super thrilled by it - and I'm not expecting "Spaceballs 2" to be terrific, though I probably will watch it sooner rather than later. I'm curious about it, but mainly I want to see what they do with it, there have been like nine more "Star Wars" movies since the first "Spaceballs" movie came out. So I know Mel's never, ever going to retire, I just wish he'd take life a little easier, he's certainly earned it. Look, Mel, people can go back and watch "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein" any time they want, those two films are practically annually viewed in my house, just leave them alone. They don't need to be re-made or turned into 3-D films or made into Hulu series, just let them be.

Directed by Judd Apatow (producer of "Flipside" and "Pee-Wee as Himself") & Michael Bonfiglio (director of "George Carlin's American Dream")

Also starring Mel Brooks (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Scott Alexander, Andrew Bergman, Matthew Broderick (last seen in "Lorne"), Dave Chappelle (ditto), Rob Reiner (ditto), Adam Sandler (ditto), Eddie Brooks, Max Brooks, Nicholas Brooks, Samantha Brooks, Stefanie Brooks, Ronny Chieng (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Ron Clark (last seen in "The Last Laugh" (2019)), David Denby, Cary Elwes (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Peter Farrelly (last seen in "Clear History"), Josh Gad (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Dana Gould (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Conan O'Brien (ditto), Jerry Seinfeld (ditto), Nick Kroll (last seen in "Don't Worry Darling"), Larry Karazewski, Nathan Lane (last seen in "No Pay, Nudity"), Barry Levinson (last seen in "Here Today"), David Lynch (last seen in "The Fabelmans"), Kliph Nesteroff, Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Bill Pullman (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Amy Schumer (last heard in "IF"), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Adam Sandler: Funny Guy"), Susan Stroman, Robert Townsend (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Tracey Ullman (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), David Zucker (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Jerry Zucker, Daphne Zuniga (last seen in "Vision Quest")

with archive footage of Don Adams (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Charlie Chaplin (ditto), Steve Allen (last seen in "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind"), Kirstie Alley (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), Don Appell, Bea Arthur (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Kenny Baker (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Anne Bancroft (last seen in "Famous Nathan"), Sid Caesar (ditto), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "Blockers"), Florence Baum, David Begelman, Tony Bilbow, Mark Blankfield (last seen in "The Incredible Shrinking Woman"), Peter Boyle (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Gene Shalit (ditto), Dr. Joyce Brothers (last seen in "Tiny Tim: King for a Day"), James Caan (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Johnny Carson (ditto), Dan Castellaneta (ditto), Merv Griffin (ditto), Dustin Hoffman (ditto), Dinah Shore (ditto), Tom Snyder (ditto), John Candy (also last seen in "Lorne"), Ron Carey (last seen in "The Out of Towners (1970)), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Francis Ford Coppola (ditto), Colin Clive, Imogene Coca, Myron Cohen, Stuart Cornfeld, Howard Cosell (last seen in "September 5"), Billy Crystal (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Larry David (last seen in "The Strange Name Movie"), Geena Davis (last seen in "Blink Twice"), Dom Deluise (also last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Carl Reiner (ditto), Mike Douglas (last seen in "Devo"), Charlie Rose (ditto), Hugh Downs (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Fritz Feld (last seen in "The Ladies Man"), Marty Feldman (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Teri Garr (ditto), Burton Gilliam (ditto), Madeline Kahn (ditto), Cloris Leachman (ditto), Cleavon Little (ditto), Ben Mankiewicz (ditto), Zero Mostel (ditto), Barbara Feldon (last seen in "Fitzwilly"), Jeff Garlin (last seen in "Daddy Day Care"), Larry Gelbart, Jeff Goldblum (also last seen in "Lorne"), Buck Henry (ditto), Harold Gould (last seen in "Freaky Friday" (2003)), Shecky Greene (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Gene Hackman (last seen in "The Package"), Christopher Hewett (last seen in "The Lavender Hill Mob"), John Hillerman (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Gregory Hines (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Peter O'Toole (ditto), Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Lee"), Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "Playdate"), David Huddleston (last seen in "Something. to Talk About"), John Hurt (last seen in "Hercules"), Kitty Kaminsky, Boris Karloff (last seen in "The Munsters"), Alex Karras (last seen in "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"), Buster Keaton (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin"), Larry King (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Harvey Korman (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Eric Allen Kramer, Jessica Lange (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), Frank Langella (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Rick Moranis (ditto), Norman Lear (last seen in "Sr."), Jerry Lewis (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Liza Minnelli (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), Barack Obama (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Don Rickles (ditto), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Gene Wilder (ditto), Richard Lewis (last seen in "Once Upon a Crime..."), Max Liebman, Leonard Maltin (also last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Lesley Ann Warren (ditto), Marcel Marceau, Kenneth Mars (last seen in "Citizen Ruth"), Penny Marshall (also last seen in "Lorne"), Steve Martin (ditto), John Mulaney (ditto), Groucho Marx (also last seen in "When We Went MAD"), Harpo Marx (ditto), Ed McMahon (last seen in "Valerie"), Thomas Meehan, Don Meredith, Lee Meredith, Ron Moody, Kumail Nanjiani (last seen in "Life as We Know It"), Mike Ockrent, Slim Pickens (last seen in "Filmworker"), Edward Platt (last seen in "My Mom Jayne"), Matthew Porretta, Maury Povich, Burt Reynolds (last seen in "Chris & Martina: The Final Set"), Jack Riley (last seen in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"), The Ritz Brothers, Tim Russ (last seen in "The Midnight Sky"), Soupy Sales (last seen in "Groucho & Cavett"), George Segal (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Dick Van Dyke (ditto), Neil Simon, David Steinberg (last seen in "The End"), Pamela Stephenson (last seen in "Superman III"), Jerry Stiller (last seen in "Serving Sara"), David Susskind, Wanda Sykes (last seen in "Bad Moms"), Stephen Tobolowsky (last seen in "Freakier Friday"), Dick Van Patten (also last seen in "Valerie"), Mike Wallace (last seen in "Rather"), Steven Weber (last seen in "Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie"), James Whale, Estelle Winwood (last seen in "Camelot"), George Wyner (last seen in "Not Another Teen Movie"), Amy Yasbeck (last seen in "Gilbert"), Gig Young (last seen in "Call Me Kate"),

and the voice of Orson Welles (also last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie")

RATING: 7 out of 10 Grammy nominations

Mister Rogers: It's You I Like

Year 18, Day 205 - 7/24/26 - Movie #5,383 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #22

BEFORE: OK, so I had the problem of adding one more doc, somehow, either from my list or from elsewhere, to bring this year's total back up to 50, after my bad link forced me to drop "Overnight", at least until next time. Oh, I have back-ups, and back-up back-ups, I would rather just not have to use them - but I will if I have to. But I scanned the week's programming for something that would fit into my chain and also might represent a U.S. state that I haven't profiled. Now, there's no shortage on AXS and Fuse of those stock-umentaries about bands, they're running one about Prince this week and a couple about Queen, the Eagles (who I already covered) and even Cher. Umm, I'll think about it. There's also one about the cast of "The Love Boat" and like, thematically I don't even know what to do with that. 

I landed on this doc, which started running again on PBS last night (Thursday) as my last-minute replacement, so that meant adding another skip day, because it's not streaming somewhere else, of course. PBS uses it once Pledge Week starts, which seems to be every other month these days, I get it, times are tough and funding has been cut again and again. I picked this one to add because of course it represents Pennsylvania, I had something in mind for that state but that is easily re-assigned. I know from watching the two OTHER films made about Fred Rogers over the last few years that the show was produced out of the PBS station in Pittsburgh, and boom, there's the tie-in. 

So let's cross PENNSYLVANIA off the list - my apologies in advance to Reggie Jackson and Billy Joel (since I covered New York already, I was going to use his song "Allentown" as a tie-in, but I'll just have to use something else...)

Date admitted to the U.S.: December 12, 1787 (2nd state)

Claim to fame: Jeez, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and the Continental Congress and I think Philadelphia was the U.S. capital for a while, really if it was important back in 1776 it probably happened in Pennsylvania. 

Nickname: The Keystone State

State Motto: Virtue, Liberty and Independence. 

State Flower: Mountain laurel

State Dog: Great Dane

State Fish: Brook trout

State Bird: Ruffed grouse, somehow

State Insect: Firefly (Photuris pensylvanica)

State Tree: Eastern hemlock

State Beverage: Milk. (NERDS!)
State Dance: Polka (GERMAN NERDS!)

Notable Sports Teams: Umm, two baseball teams, the Phillies and Pirates, also two NFL teams, the Eagles and the Steelers, and two NHL teams, the Flyers and the Penguins. Basically there's always a Philly team and a Pittsburgh team, but somehow there's just 1 NHL team, the Flyers.

Fun Facts: It's a state full of "firsts", starting with the oldest civilization known in America, there's evidence of an agricultural settlement there that is estimated to be over 10,000 years old, formed by nomadic people who may have been descended from people who crossed the land bridge into Alaska, it seemed they kept walking until they got to Pennsylvania and said, "This'll do." First currency, first use of credit in America, thanks to Ben Franklin, who also founded the first college in Pennsylvania, U Penn. First Continental Congress, first capital, how did they end up the SECOND state to ratify the Constitution? Philadelphia hosted a Sesquicentennial Exposition back in 1926, that was 100 years ago, to celebrate 150 years since the founding of America. Very ironically, they still have Amish families living there, and they seem to still mine coal and drill for oil depend on making steel. So they seem a bit backwards and set in their ways. Just me? Where's that pioneering "firsties" spirit when it comes to solar and wind power, huh? 

Of course, I've been to Pennsylvania, when I was a kid my family took a trip to HersheyPark, then visited the Gettysburg Battlefield and had a fantastic meal in Amish Country. I think I went there once after college to shoot some promo piece for Nintendo or something - but later visited several times after getting married again, we went to HersheyPark and had a fantastic meal in Amish Country. Then there was a place in the Poconos that we'd go to every once in a while, they had a pretty mean Italian buffet, as I recall. The state has casinos now, so I wonder if I could wrangle another visit there sometime soon. Anyway I'm now up to 18 states visited out of 22.

Judd Apatow carries over from "When We Went MAD!"

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" (Movie #3,275) and "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" (Movie #3,656)

THE PLOT: Cast members  from the groundbreaking PBS series and several guest celebrities share their personal perspectives and insights that pay tribute to television's longest-running series, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood". 

AFTER: Sorry for the abrupt u-turn, if anything counts as the "anti-MAD magazine", it's probably the show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood". MAD was sarcastic and non-serious and told people to not trust the government, while "Mr. Rogers" was sincere and genuine and led kids to believe that all's right with the world, provided they had an outlet for their negative thoughts. And they do happen, those sad and mad feelings, let's not pretend that they don't, because sometimes your dog dies or your parents break up or you get polio or cancer and you have to find a way to deal with all that. Fred Rogers was the support system for kids who didn't even know they needed one, and he made it OK to "make-believe" if you just manage to keep that separate from reality. 

You can even do that now, just imagine that you can visit another land which is run by a powerful but benevolent ruler, one who's not fleecing citizens out of money by selling crypto-currency and NFTs, or disassembling the parts of the government responsible for controlling disease outbreaks and auditing billionaires' tax returns while making false claims about election interference (only the one he lost) and fixing soccer games. It would be nice, right? Just picture that and keep hope alive, and that's the first step toward maybe making better choices in the future. 

We all know this is where Michael Keaton started his career, behind the scenes on Fred Rogers' PBS show, and he came back to host this documentary and talk about his first showbiz job, making the trolley enter the set at the right time and dressing up like a circus performer to be one of the "Flying Zookini Brothers" to show kids how to pretend like they're acrobats, jumping off of platforms that were several inches off the ground.  Hey, everyone has to start somewhere. 

My memories of watching the show are quite hazy, I must have tuned in many times as a kid, but damn, the show was so square compared to "Sesame Street", which had animation with voices provided by Joan Rivers and Mel Brooks. Meanwhile in Mr. Rogers neighborhood, he was listening to music played by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. But meeting with Perlman was an opportunity to show kids that some people are differently-abled, not disabled, because Perlman walked with crutches most of his life and the side benefit was having really strong arms to help him play the violin. Meeting with Yo-Yo Ma was also an opportunity to preach family togetherness and have Yo-Yo's son play a duet with him. This was repeated 10 years later when Nicholas Ma was 16 instead of 6, but the message stayed the same. 

We also see the PBS cross-over that we didn't know we needed, the day that Big Bird came to visit the Land of Make-Believe. He could not appear in the "real-life" segments because Caroll Spinney would not remove his Big Bird costume on TV, Jim Henson would not allow him to. Mr. Rogers believed in full transparency, like he told all the kids in TV Land that he was the puppeteer and the voice for all the puppets, and now of course I realize why you never saw Fred Rogers in the fantasy realm, because he was working ALL the puppets. Watch, there will be a new "Mandela Effect" on Instagram soon, because somewhere out there people are going to SWEAR they saw Mr. Rogers interacting with King Friday and Miss Elaine Fairchild, and so now they think we're in a different timeline. No, you're just remembering it WRONG, you donut. Be an adult and admit it. 

Some of the more notable guest stars are seen here, I think in the previous documentary they also pointed out the casting of opera star Francois Clemmons as Officer Clemmons in over 90 episodes of the show, and by pretending it was a hot day and offering him the use of his kiddie pool to cool off his feet, Rogers was weighing in on the ridiculous laws in the American South that prevented black people from using the swimming pools as white people. Mr. Rogers also stood for diversity and championing the rights of the disabled and promoting small businesses and factories by doing remote segments on how everyday products like spoons and musical instruments are made. I think he wanted to know how spoons are made just as much, if not more than kids did, and that takes a certain kind of person. 

Yeah, sure, he was a Presbytarian minister, but the show never really got preachy, and he had a degree in music as well as theology, and a graduate degree in Child Development, I think this guy just genuinely loved learning and never wanted to stop. This earned him a Lifetime Achievement Emmy and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, also a spot in the Television Hall of Fame. Much like Jim Henson, he played with a bunch of puppets as a kid, but those two men couldn't have been more different as adults, Jim Henson seems more like a hippie who wanted to entertain adults with puppets, and when that wasn't a thing, he made it a thing. Fred Rogers was more like the shy kid who edited the yearbook in high school and was a member of the National Honor Society, and probably voted "Most Likely to Work in Public Television". 

There's also footage here from Mr. Rogers' encounter with Koko, the famous gorilla who could speak in sign language, and they really hit it off - Koko wanted to compare her hands and feet to Fred's, I don't know if she watched the show or not, but maybe she just wanted to see what his sneaker size was. They spent a couple hours staring at each other, Mr. Rogers couldn't believe that a gorilla could be fluent in conversation and be able to express its thoughts, and Koko probably couldn't believe that anyone could be as genuine and sincere as he was. I think maybe he restored Koko's faith in humanity, if that's possible. You know, as a long-time fan of the show I think Koko just already considered him a friend, as you do. 

Sure, there's a sick part of me that kind of wishes Koko had just ripped his head right off, because that would have raised quite a few questions about whether teaching a giant ape sign language changes its thinking, or if it retains its wild nature. You can take a gorilla out of the jungle, but can you completely take the jungle out of the gorilla? Seriously, though, it's possible that Fred Rogers acted as an unintentional ambassador between the two species, and that in doing so he somehow prevented the dystopian future seen in the "Planet of the Apes" movies. If not for him, we humans might all be robbed of the power of speech and put into primitive cages, held captive by orangutan wardens and gorilla, umm, guerrillas. 

You just could not make a show like this in New York, but that's where Fred Rogers learned about making television, being the floor director for shows like "Your Hit Parade" and "The Kate Smith Hour", then we went up to Canada for a few years to host a kid's program, and then back down to Pittsburgh Public TV to do his own thing. Which was changing into his cardigan, putting on his sneakers and feeding his fish, you know, teaching kids that there is a daily routine to life, and altering that would be very, very BAD. Hopefully you kind something you like, whether it's making music or baking pretzels or running a puppet show, and then you're going to do it again and again every damn day of your life, but we can work on your attitude so you'll feel OK about it.

Directed by John Paulson

Also starring Joyce DiDonato, Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "I Am Mother"), Michael Keaton (last seen in "Goodrich"), Chris Kratt, John Lithgow (last seen in "Love Is Strange"), Nicholas Ma, Yo-Yo Ma (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Itzhak Perlman (ditto), Joe Negri (last seen in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"), David Newell (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Joanne Rogers (ditto), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Esperanza Spalding (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Caroll Spinney (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"),

with archive footage of Chuck Aber, Betty Aberlin (also last seen in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"), Johnny Costa (ditto), Tony Bennett (last seen in "Roberta"), Billie Burke (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Francois Clemmons, Jeff Erlanger, Judy Garland (last seen in "Child Star"), Hilary Hahn, Margaret Hamilton (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Jim Henson (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Niki Hoeller, Ella Jenkins, Wynton Marsalis, Penny Patterson, Bob Rawsthorne, Bob Trow and the Empire Brass Quintet. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 fan letters answered BY HAND

When We Went MAD!

Year 18, Day 203 - 7/22/26 - Movie #5,382 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #21

BEFORE: So I made it 20 films into the 50-film Doc Block before there was a linking snag, it's all going to be fine, but it's going to cost me two days time, so I'm limited to five films this week. In trying to bump up to fifty films this year, I added a bunch of films, and one of them was "Overnight", recommended by my BFF Andy. Let me state again for the record that I do NOT do requests or take suggestions, usually any suggestion over what to watch makes me NOT want to watch that film. But I will make an exception for Andy, nobody else. And it ticked a box, because it's a film about Troy Duffy, the director of "The Boondock Saints", who is from Connecticut, another state to cross off the list. Now, where to put it? 

The only place I could put it was HERE, as Paul Reubens is listed in the cast for that film, according to the IMDB. However he is NOT in that film, as far as I can tell, and I scanned through it twice. Based on an article I read online, he auditioned for "The Boondock Saints", and I suspect that after that, Mr. Duffy had an adverse reaction to him, and that portrayed Duffy in a negative light. The section on "casting" was therefore re-edited, and now is just a montage of still photos from the casting session, which seems like a cover-up. Bottom line, Paul Reubens isn't there. OK, so it's the middle film in a three-film chain, I can drop it, no problem, and try to circle back next year, it happens. But that cost me a whole DAY. This doc on MAD! Magazine is still going to be where it always was, just the count is off. 

But now, how to replace that film? Because I still want the count to be fifty - I do have back-ups waiting in the wings, but something state-specific would be great, and I need to know the linking is solid - I scanned the PBS line-up for the next week and found something great, however it requires a little tinkering before the linking will work - no problem, there's so much redundancy that all I have to do is flip the next 7 or 8 films around, and everything will link up again, just in a different way. Except the new addition airs Thursday night on PBS, so the earliest I can post is FRIDAY - well, that costs me another day. It's fine, there's plenty of extra space in August and September, I'm assuming, so I can only hit 29 films in July and not 31, again, not a big deal. This is all just par for the course, if I hit a dead end or something, just keep rotating little bits of the main chain until I find something where everything connects, it's just a giant puzzle after all. 

So, after all THAT, Paul Reubens carries over from "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie". Now, what state to profile today? This cast of writers and editors for the magazine is almost 83% crazy New Yorkers born in Brooklyn, so that's out, we covered New York already. The MAD! offices moved to L.A. a few years ago, but we covered California already. It's too much work going through everybody's bio just to figure out who was born where, but MAD magazine was all about being crazy and random and most importantly, funny. So I feel like I should just pick the funniest state here, that would make the most (non-)sense. So probably nobody who worked on MAD was ever born in Idaho, which is perfect because it turns out that absolutely nobody was ever born in Idaho. So it all fits together beautifully. Here we go with IDAHO!

Date admitted to the U.S.: Some say July 3, 1890 but this is really a trick question, it was never officially admitted to the U.S. It would have been the 43rd state, however, it's just not. 

Claim to fame: It's where everyone passed through on the way to Oregon or Washington. Also famous potatoes. 

Nickname: The Gem State. It's just a trick to make you think there's something valuable there, really it's the Potato State. 

State Motto: "Esto Perpetua", which is Latin for "Endless Potatoes"

State Flower: It's a potato. 

State Fruit: Same, it's a potato. 

State Vegetable: Take a wild guess. 

State Bird: Mountain bluebird

State Insect: Monarch butterfly

State Tree: Western white pine

State Gem: Star garnet. For "The Gem State" that's actually pretty lame.
State Dance: Just kidding, nobody dances there. The whole state is like "Footloose".

Notable Sports Teams: You must be joking. Nobody there has any time for sports, not with all those potatoes to harvest year-round. 

Fun Facts: Nothing "Fun" about Idaho either, I'm betting. It's super Republican and abortion is restricted and they still have the firing squad for a death penalty. Their Wikipedia page is totally blank and yeah, that tracks. It is the only state that financially improved during the Great Depression, and that was because in the rest of the U.S. all that anyone could afford to eat was, of course, potatoes. During the pandemic shutdown, Idaho was the only place where nobody even noticed any difference. The state is also 73% National Park or Historic Sites or nature reserves, which works out great because nobody wants to live there. And no, I have not been there, either, so my record of visited states is now 17 out of 21.

THE PLOT: A tribute to the legacy and influence of MAD magazine, featuring interviews with MAD celebrity readers, along with MAD artists, writers and editors, affectionately known as the Usual Gang of Idiots.

AFTER: Finally, a documentary about something I know very much a lot about - like there are topics I know a bit too much about, like a documentary about beer or "Star Wars" might not hit the same to me, because I already know so much. I've been reading MAD magazine since I was a kid, my dad had a subscription and of course they did parodies of some movies I'd seen, like "Close Encounters" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and sometimes it was a movie I hadn't seen, like a horror movie, but then by reading the parody, I was able to figure out what I was missing by not being allowed to see an "R" rated film. Kids don't really care much about politics, but I learned a lot about Presidents Carter and Reagan by reading MAD. Clearly I wasn't the only one, because a whole generation of kids learned that government makes no sense and politicians are stupid or liars or both, in some cases. Hey, maybe this explains a lot about how we got where we are, if you know what I mean. 

We also had those little paperback "reader" books that had reprinted material from old MAD magazines from the 1950's, and some were collections like "The Best of Don Martin" or "The Best of Spy vs. Spy" and really, it was a lot of violence and sex and subversiveness for one kid to handle, but I was hooked, I couldn't get enough. Maybe this explains also that once I found the Dr. Demento radio show, I glommed right on to that, because reading MAD had set me up to appreciate parody, satire, ridiculousness and whimsy. But you could also tell that somebody with a brain had put together the magazine, because there's stupid funny and there's smart funny, and MAD seesawed liberally between the two. You also sometimes have to be smart to make stupid funny, if you know what I mean. 

There's still a lot I didn't know, like I knew who William Gaines, the publisher was, because they were always drawing him into the magazine. He was still alive when I went off to college in 1989, but I tried to still read MAD when I could. He passed away in 1992, in fact a lot of the original line-up of MAD editors, writers and artists have passed, this film doesn't really dwell on that, and it's hard to tell the difference between archive interviews done for, like old TV interviews and new interviews done JUST for this movie. This kind of creates the illusion that certain people who worked on the magazine are still alive, but no, a lot of them are deceased. They worked in that "fishtank" of funny people and at some point were floating belly-up, so new "fish" came in to replace them. That's just how it goes, sadly. 

Later in life, I got my own subscription to MAD, and I think I was also getting a gift subscription for my father, who of course was getting older and was fairly out of touch with pop culture, but I figured if he still read MAD he could maybe get some knowledge about what music the kids are listening to or maybe they would do a parody of some CBS show that he watched, like "CSI" or "The Big Bang Theory". (My Dad didn't care for any of MY nerd stuff, but he watched the hell out of "The Big Bang Theory", I guess he thought he could maybe understand his son a little better by watching that show?).  Anyway, two things happened in recent years that brought me in touch with the people who made MAD. Remember, I lived in NYC from 1986 until now, and I knew MAD had their office there, but I never really even thought about that until...

In 2016, animator friend of mine who lived in the L.A. area and co-wrote a feature film with my boss came to town, and he had a contact at the MAD magazine headquarters. So he wanted to bring my boss along, because everyone there knew him, or knew about him, and was eager to have him visit. Well, I wasn't going to let this happen without me, so I volunteered to come along as the newly-appointed staff photographer, I knew whatever I got would be pure gold on social media to help promote our stuff. So we met with editor John Ficarra and art director Sam Viviano. It was a successful visit, we got the pics we wanted and there was a lot of cool stuff at the office, statues of the white Spy and a big Alfred E. Neuman trophy, but it was also a very quiet place. The people who were there seemed to be having a good time, but you know, a lot of writers and artists worked in other cities and sent in their pitches and art by phone or e-mail. 

The magic was kind of gone, and then two years after that we heard they were shutting down the NYC office and the whole operation would be moving to L.A., DC Comics was going to keep making the magazine, only each issue would be mostly reprint material with maybe one or two new articles a month. I think Entertainment Weekly kind of folded around the same time, there was a general feeling in the industry that print was nearly dead as a medium, at least MAD didn't just become an online newsletter or something, but yeah, the internet really did a number on it, the new generation wasn't going to buy a paper magazine when they could just go on YouTube if they wanted to see something funny. 

I got a new gig working at the movie theater, and then like two and a half years into my time there, I heard that Al Jaffee had died, at the age of 102 - and he had been a cartoonist for MAD for probably half of his life, if not more. Well, guess where MAD alumni chose to gather, to celebrate the man's life? They rented out the theater where I worked, and I got to be a front of house manager for Al Jaffee's memorial. This was like a who's who of people who worked at MAD over the years, the old crowd and the new crowd. Sam Viviano came with boxes of leaflets and he remembered me from seven years before. I mean, not exactly, but he KNEW he knew me from somewhere, that's good enough for me. Al Jaffee, of course, created comics like "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" and also the MAD Fold-In, which was the inside rear cover of every issue, which was a drawing that could be folded (so that line "A" meets line "B") and that would create a humorous new image, the answer to the "riddle" posed by the original image. If you don't understand, you might be too young to know what a magazine cover is. Ask your parents maybe. 

We have these poster light-boxes at the theater, and the MAD Art department had sent some of Al Jaffee's most famous "Fold-In" art at poster size, to be displayed in the light-boxes. However, the staff that was there at the memorial soon realized the problem, the posters were of the "before folding" image, and there was no way to see the punchline, which required folding of the poster, and this was going to be impossible. So they asked me if they could have some space to work, and cut up some of the posters in order to have some of them display a simulation of the "after folding" image. Ordinarily this would be a big "NO" at my job, or really this wouldn't come up at all - who would order poster-size art and then want to display it all cut up into pieces? But of course I knew what a MAD Fold-In was, and I also saw the problem, so I did say, "Hey, guys, I get it, and these are YOUR posters, so if you want to cut them and display them a certain way, I'm down for it." I get the feeling that Al would have wanted people to see the punchline, and also he probably would have laughed over the fact that whoever ordered these posters didn't see the display problem coming. 

I felt more on top of things at my job than usual, I knew this crowd, I got their sense of humor, and man, 102 years old (and he had RETIRED at 95, but then got drawn back in) you have to think that maybe laughter is the best medicine after all, especially when Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke and George Burns lived so long, and now Mel Brooks has turned 100. I'm going to get to Mel Brooks in a couple days, and Dick Van Dyke not long after that. I mean, I'd better hurry, the clock is ticking. But it's a rare shift when I walk into work a few days later and thank my bosses for scheduling me for an event, I was proud to do my part to celebrate Al Jaffee, and vicariously all the MAD cartoonists from before - Don Martin, Dave Berg and so on. Some of them died before I was a fixture on the convention circuit, but those are the breaks. 

I've got a few other connections to people in this doc, like once I met Sergio Aragones at a San Diego Comic-Con, and I thought that was a big deal, and through my boss I'd also met Peter Kuper at NY cons, he'd taken over the "Spy vs. Spy" comic from the original artist, Antonio Prohias. I've connected with Weird Al a few times over the years, of course he's a huge fan of MAD Magazine, and I saw Gilbert Gottfried once at a movie theater. Gilbert died in 2022, but he's interviewed here and I kind of get the feeling that was filmed while he was still alive, so yeah, it may have taken a few years to put this documentary together. Who knows, maybe they just used a Ouija board. 

Anyways, it's all a little bit sad because MAD magazine couldn't live forever, they of course tried branching out into movies but they made "Up the Academy", which was a complete disaster. It's pointed out here that MAD Magazine probably inspired better movies like "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun", without direct involvement. Just like the Beatles inspired so many people to start bands, indirectly, and "SNL" inspired so many rising stars to come to NYC and do sketch comedy, and just like Cheech & Chong inspired so many people to smoke weed, MAD inspired so many people to realize how messed up the whole world is, and that we could all find some humor there while we're circling the drain. We're here for a good time, not for a long time, unless our name is Al Jaffee. 

EDIT: I have to believe that the universe, or at least the chain, was trying to send me a message by messing with my links. I've got memories now of meeting Sergio Aragones at San Diego Comic Con in years past - and guys, I just found out a certain annual event is scheduled to start TOMORROW, any guesses what it is?  Why yes, it's the Canyon County Fair taking place in Caldwell, Idaho. But also, it's the first day of San Diego Comic-Con, too bad I'm not part of that world any more, but if you are, please have a good time and cosplay responsibly...

Directed by Alan Bernstein

Also starring Judd Apatow (last seen in "Flipside"), Sergio Aragones, Annie Gaines Ashton, Leonard Brenner, Tim Carvell, Paul Coker Jr., Bryan Cranston (last seen in "The Phoenician Scheme"), Dave Croatto, Jack Davis, Dick Debartolo, Jerry DeFuccio, Desmond Devlin, Mort Drucker, Don Edwing, Al Feldstein, John Ficarra, Ryan Flanders, Drew Friedman, Grant Geissman, Gilbert Gottfried (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Stan Hart, Frank Jacobs, Al Jaffee, Charlie Kadau, Tom Koch, Arnie Kogen, Jay Kogen, Peter Kuper, Howie Mandel (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Nick Meglin, Hermann Mejia, Harry North, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Joe Raiola, Tom Richmond, Frank Santopadre, Irving Schild, Larry Siegel, Lou Silverstone, Quentin Tarantino (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano, Richard Williams, Weird Al Yankovic (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), David Zucker

with archive footage of William Gaines, Don Adams, Fred Astaire (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Max Baer Jr., Hugh Beaumont (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), John Belushi (last seen in "Lorne"), Candice Bergen (ditto), Dana Carvey (ditto), Phil Hartman (ditto), Bill Murray (ditto), Donald Trump (ditto), Dave Berg, Irving Berlin, George W. Bush (last seen in "Rather"), Bill Clinton (ditto), Steve Carell (last seen in "Mountainhead"), Charlie Chaplin (last seen in "Child Star"), Bob Clarke, Stephen Colbert (last heard in "Despicable Me 4"), Gary Cooper, Bob Crane, Bob Denver, Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in "One Battle After Another"), Phyllis Diller (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Tony Dow, Roger Ebert (also carrying over from "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Jimmy Kimmel (ditto), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Gene Siskel (ditto), Buddy Ebsen, Will Elder, Mia Farrow (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), M.C. Gaines, Dave Garroway, Ben Gazzara (last seen in "13"), Peter Graves (last seen in "The Night of the Hunter"), Julie Hagerty (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Alan Hale Jr., Neil Patrick Harris (last seen in "Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium"), Mary Hart (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Robert Hays, Hugh Hefner (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Conan O'Brien (ditto), Howard Stern (ditto), Jon Stewart (ditto), Jimi Hendrix (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Joe Piscopo (ditto), Jerry Seinfeld (ditto), J. Edgar Hoover (last seen in "The Alto Knights"), Peter Jennings (last seen in "Chris & Martina: The Final Set"), Russell Johnson, Harvey Kurtzman, Stan Lee (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Rob Leibman (last seen in "Norma Rae"), Tina Louise, Ali MacGraw (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Leslie Mann (last seen in "Blockers"), Don Martin, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx (also last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Harpo Marx, Joseph McCarthy,  Melissa McCarthy (last seen in "Life as We Know It"), Norman Mingo, Lin-Manuel Miranda (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Charles F. Murphy, Leslie Nielsen (last seen in "Creepshow"), Leonard Nimoy (last seen in "Boomerang"), William Shatner (ditto), Tom Nozkowski, Ryan O'Neal (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Robert Pattinson (last seen in "Marty Supreme"), Amanda Plummer (last seen in "The Wolfpack"), Antonio Prohias, John Putnam, Dan Rather (last seen in "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"), Christopher Reeve (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Jack Rickard, Mary Rodgers, Tim Roth (last seen in "The Song of Names"), Paul Rudd (last seen in "Death of a Unicorn"), Irene Ryan, Fred Savage (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), John Severin, Steven Spielberg (also last seen in "Child Star"), Lyle Stewart, Harry S. Truman, Fredric Wertham, Wally Wood, George Woodbridge, 

and narration by Patrick Warburton (last heard in "Zootopia 2")

RATING: 7 out of 10 editorial staff trips to exotic parts of the world

Cheech & Chong's Last Movie

Year 18, Day 201 - 7/20/26 - Movie #5,381 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #20

BEFORE: Well, I tried to land this one on Cheech Marin's birthday, which is July 13, but I missed it by a week. I also missed 4/20 by three months, but that's another story. I'm 40% through the Doc Block after tonight, there's still such a long way to go. But I covered sex, and now the drugs, so you know what comes next, right? It's politics, and THEN back to rock and roll. Johnny Carson carries over from "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story" - we're at the point in the Doc Block where the talk show hosts take over as the links, they're all kind of rising up through the ranks but Bill Murray is still on top, at least for a while. 

I struggled to assign a U.S. state to this one, because these guys are SO Hollywood and SO California - what's more Cali than filmmaking and weed? What they shot for this movie features the comedians driving through the desert, and I assume it's the California desert and I can find no evidence to suggest otherwise. Their backgrounds are complicated but also not helpful, because Cheech was born in East L.A., as the song goes, and Chong's originally from Canada, though he spent time in Detroit making records, and then California making movies. Again, not helpful because I've covered those states already. 

I've got a tenuous link tonight because of Chong's fourth (or maybe fifth) career doing guest spots on TV shows, and the most notable one was on "That 70's Show", where he played a 1970's burn-out character - typecasting! - and that show was set in Wisconsin. So there it is, today's "Get to Know a State" profile, to help celebrate America's birthday, is WISCONSIN. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: May 29, 1848 (30th state)

Claim to fame: The beers that made Milwaukee famous, along with brats and butter burgers. 

Nickname: The Badger State, or America's Dairyland

Prevalent language: German and Polish, Yah, you betcha

State Motto: "Forward", umm, sure. 

State Flower: Wood violet
State Fish: Muskellunge 

State Wild animal: Badger

State Domestic animal: Dairy cow

State Bird: American robin

State Insect: Western honey bee

State Fruit: Cranberry 

State Tree: Sugar maple

State Mineral: Galena
State Dance: Polka

State Cocktail: Brandy Old Fashioned

Notable Sports Teams: The Brewers in the MLB, the Bucks in the NBA and the Packers in the NFL. No NHL team which is weird because you'd think hockey would be big up there. 

Fun Facts: It's the largest cheese-producing U.S. state, really that's all you need to know and you can figure out the rest from there. Producing 25% of America's cheese is quite an accomplishment. I guess they have the Harley-Davidson Museum and Frank Lloyd Wright's home if either motorcycles or architecture is your thing. 

I have been there, the first time we went to Chicago we drove up to Milwaukee as a side-trip. We visited the Miller Brewery and had butter burgers, which are just what they sound like, regular hamburgers with a thick slab of butter on them. Served with cheese curds, probably. Anyway I move up to 17 states visited out of 20. Look, I don't know if either Cheech or Chong has ever been to Wisconsin, but considering "That 70's Show", I bet if Tommy Chong goes there, he's not going to be paying for his weed. 

AFTER: Exploring their 5-decade career performing stand-up, making records, and starring in hit films. It covers their lives, comedy partnership and lasting influence on pop culture. 

I think what we've proven during this Doc Block is that everything has to come to an end sometime. Or in Devo's case, the beginning WAS the end. But, you know, an ending can also be the beginning of something else, like it was for Cheech and Chong. Their working relationship ended a long time ago, when they each went off to do different things, each was tired of the "Pedro and The Man" routines that they explored, plus they were both fighting for creative control of their franchise. You can't have two people with "artist brain" working on the same projects, because they're not always going to agree. And as we've seen with any relationship - whether it's a marriage or a band or a comedy team, eventually those arguments take place, the losing side carries resentment, and then really, what do you even have together at that point? 

The two comedians have different backgrounds, which really is the best part of the film here, learning who they each were in the before times, and how they came to be in the same place at the same time is really quite fascinating. Cheech Marin (of course it's pronounced Ma-REEN, so we've all been saying it wrong, I think) grew up in Los Angeles, first in a black neighborhood where he was lighter-skinned then everyone else, and then in a white neighborhood where he was darker-skinned, of course. So he got bullied a lot and when he couldn't fight back, he learned to make bullies laugh. He was working as a potter when Vietnam hit, and he headed straight for Canada to dodge the draft.

Tommy Chong was half-Chinese, half-Canadian, falling in love with jazz music and, here's a shocker, marijuana. So he dropped out of school to be a musician, and had some minor success with bands like the Shades and Little Daddy & The Bachelors and then hooked up with Bobby Taylor, who'd been signed to Motown and formed the Vancouvers and his back-up band. Tommy wrote the minor soul hit, "Does Your Mama Know About Me" and they toured Chicago with the Jackson 5 as their opening act. But Chong had ambition, he didn't just want to work for Berry Gordy, he wanted to BE Berry Gordy. Meanwhile Tommy had married young, and was raising two daughters when he fell for another woman in Vancouver who moved to the same block, and he kind of started a second family at the same time. I mean, if you're a musician you always have a back-up gig, right, so why not a back-up family? 

Chong also ran nightclubs in the Vancouver area with his family members, and there were jazz acts, strippers and improvisational comic groups that took the stage on various nights. One night the draft-dodging Cheech Marin checked out the improv comedy, and thought that he could do that too, and so he got hired by Chong to write sketches for them. Somewhere in all the times they appeared together on stage, playing various characters and doing weird improv humor, they created their comedy act and the two famous characters they later played in movies. Yeah, so they're probably both a lot smarter than those characters, but while doing comedy live in stadiums opening up for bands, people really didn't care, they just thought Cheech and Chong were hilarious. It also took a few years of trying out comedy bits to learn just what audiences in the 1970's found funny, but landing on drug humor was probably a no-brainer. 

Without getting into two many details about the awkward way they started making movies (you can watch the damn doc yourself) really they really only made hit movies for six years, from 1978's "Up in Smoke" to 1984's "The Corsican Brothers", and well, generally they hit big and there was a gradual decline in quality, let's just say. They broke up as a duo in 1985, but in some ways they just never really finalized the divorce, if that makes sense. Cheech made the comedy "Born in East L.A." as a solo act, and then got a lot of movie and TV roles, while Chong made his own movie in 1990, "Far Out Man", and then didn't work much until playing that supporting character on "That 70's Show". 

They almost reunited as voices of hyenas in "The Lion King" in 1994, like Cheech was cast and they were saving one for Chong, but he backed out so they had Whoopi Goldberg take over. It's kind of like how the Beatles kept talking about getting back together but they never really did it, because they were all so busy with their solo albums or making movies or counting their money. Chong also got into a bit of trouble for selling drug paraphernalia over the internet, I think he had a business making glass bongs or something. 

Anyway, they've gotten together again, 40 years after the first break-up, to appear in this documentary where they pretend to drive across the desert, encountering various people who helped or hurt their career (or both) while they take bickering and fighting to a whole new level. Like they don't just fight, they fight over whether they fight, which, umm, is fighting. Or the other one would say they're just disagreeing. They re-hash old arguments from 40 years ago, over who should direct what and who should get credit for this or ownership of that. Honestly I can't tell if they're doing a bit or not, are they really fighting or just pretending to fight for the cameras? They're not really driving, they're being pulled on a trailer, of course, but are they similarly pretending to disagree about, umm, everything? It's like watching two older dads argue over custody of their, umm, comedy routines. 

Post-reunion tour, Chong appeared on "Dancing With the Stars" in 2014 and then on "The Masked Singer" in season one, singing Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" - I told you, everything here at the Movie Year is connected to everything else, we just need to seek out the connections and we will find them. Cheech, meanwhile, made cameos in films like "Tin Cup" and "Christmas with the Kranks" and appeared on TV shows like "Nash Bridges" and "Lost" and then franchise films like "Cars" and "Spy Kids". Then he won some money for charity on "Celebrity Jeopardy!" in 2010, his second time on the show. Hey, it's a great, big beautiful world of entertainment and maybe they just needed to figure out how to divide it up after the divorce. Well, they should know a thing or two about divorces, Chong's on his second wife and Cheech I think is on his third. 

I can't really say the format of this doc makes a whole lot of sense, unless you believe that symbolically we're all just driving through the desert of our lives, without any real solid idea of where we're going. Well, you might as well travel with a partner, at least for a time, and you might as well share some snacks and gummies, unless you've got something harder. At least it's an innovative format I haven't seen before, and at least these guys are still entertaining. I'd certain watch this again over "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", which uses a similar device. 

Directed by David Bushell (producer of "The Minus Man" and "The Banger Sisters")

Also starring Tommy Chong (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Cheech Marin (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Lou Adler (last seen in "Echo in the Canyon"), Thomas K. Avildsen, Shelby Chong, Maxine Sneed 

with archive footage of Milton Berle (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Howard Brown, James Caan (last seen in "What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?"), Dick Clark (last seen in "Madonna; Goddess of Pop"), Ornette Coleman, Anderson Cooper (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Ed Sullivan (ditto), Don Cornelius (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Roger Ebert (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Edie McClurg (ditto), Gene Siskel (ditto), Peter Fonda (last seen in "We Blew It"), Berry Gordy (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Situation"), Diana Ross (ditto), Virginia Graham, Merv Griffin (last seen in "Devo"), Paul Reubens (ditto), George Harrison (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Bob Hope (ditto), Michael Jackson (ditto), Dustin Hoffman (last seen in "Adam Sandler: Funny Guy"), Elton John (also last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Billie Jean King (last seen in "Chris & Martina: The Final Set"), Carole King (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Timothy Leary (last seen in "How the Beatles Changed the World"), Groucho Marx (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Jack Nicholson (also last seen in "Devo"), Keith Richards (ditto), Bruce Springsteen (ditto), Billy Preston (last seen in "The Beatles: In the Life"), Geraldo Rivera (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Telly Savalas (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Dinah Shore (last seen in "Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive"), Tom Snyder (last seen in "Lorne"), Bobby Taylor, Toni Tennille (last seen in "Tina"), Aisha Tyler (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Orson Welles (last seen in "Billie"),

and the voices of Dan Castellaneta (last seen in "Fantastic Four" (2015)), Ginnifer Goodwin (also last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Alex Trebek (last seen in "The Fog" (2005))

RATING: 6 out of 10 comedy singles (aka novelty records)

Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story

Year 18, Day 200 - 7/19/26 - Movie #5,380 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #19

BEFORE: We made it through this terrible thunderstorm yesterday, maybe you've seen footage about parts of NYC being underwater, which is true, and NOT A.I.  This just happens a couple times a year now, especially if rain comes down too fast for too long, or nobody makes sure that all the drains in the city are free of debris. We had a little bit of water in our basement, not as much as some other people who got totally flooded. When there's a big storm now, we go into panic mode where she clears the drain outside in the backyard while I stand by in the basement with a mop. Look, I've seen worse - we've got the dehumidifier going today so we should be all right, just over time we're ruining a few bookshelves and possibly creating a bad mold situation. 

Anyway, Sandra Bernhard carries over from "Madonna: Goddess of Pop". I'm still in the section of the Doc Block that was added at the last minute to reach the fifty-film total, it will be a couple more days before I return to the original plan. As for a U.S. state to profile today in the "Get to Know a State" segment, this one's a real head-scratcher, I mean Robin Byrd is a New Yorker, through and through, it's too bad she wasn't born somewhere else and came here. I've already profiled New York, and Sandra Bernhard is, like Madonna, from Michigan, so that's out too. I could just choose Delaware, which is first on the list of states that are NOT lined up with any film, but that feels like punting. There's a part of this film that shows Byrd's battle for free speech, and her foes are Newt Gingrich and Jerry Falwell - Gingrich is from Georgia, which I already covered, but Falwell is from Virginia, so there it is. It's a small, tenuous link but better that then no link at all. So here's the skinny on VIRGINIA: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: June 25, 1788 (the 10th state, which seems high - I mean, sure it's one of the original 13, but you'd think "The Mother of Presidents" would have jumped right on board. 

Nickname: Old Dominion, Mother of Presidents

Prevalent language: Appalachian, if that's a thing. And politics.

State Motto: "Sic semper tyrannis", which means that tyrants always fall, but since this is also what John Wilkes Booth shouted out when he shot Lincoln, it's not really a good look. Jerry Falwell was born in Lynchburg, that name's not really a good look either. 

State Flower: American dogwood
State Bat: Virginia big-eared bat

State Pony: Chincoteague pony

State Snake: Eastern garter snake

State Dog: American foxhound

State Insect: Tiger Swallowtail butterfly 

State Beverage: Milk. Really? Not whiskey or cheerwine? 

Notable Sports Teams: Surprisingly, no major league teams in any sport. I mean, the Washington DC teams are like right there, but nobody's going to claim Virginia? They've got college teams like Virginia tech and VCU, but that's small consolation. Get your head in the game, Virginia. 

Fun Fact: Virginia has the mostest history, like if you go back to Jamestown and Roanoke there's stuff that even pre-dates the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. American Revolution, Civil War, that state was front and center for a lot of it. It might be named after Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen", and yeah, I'd like to see the paperwork on that. If you're a fan of "Hamilton" then you know some of the big issues in Virginia becoming a state - slave labor, and the three-fifths compromise, and there's just no way that slavery issue isn't going to come back and bite you in the ass someday. The big ad campaign in the 1990's to promote tourism was "Virginia Is for Lovers", but they don't say lovers of what - as seen in tonight's film, the place was a hotbed of conservatism for a very long time, so the slogan probably should have been "Virginia Is for Lovers, but Only If We Approve of Who You Love and How You Love Them".  The whole state just seems a little too Evangelical, just saying. 

Yes, I've been to Virginia - as a kid there was a family trip there and we went to two theme parks, Busch Gardens and King's Dominion. I don't remember much except for eating German food at the European-themed Busch Gardens. My first wife wanted to drive down there and see the famous ponies in Chincoteague, but the most exciting time to do that is when they make them swim across the river from the island they're raised on, so of course we were there off-season, and they were all just standing around and eating grass. Lately it's just been a drive-through state on the way to North Carolina, so I know where all the best rest stops and Waffle Houses are. So my record is still great, 16 states visited out of 19.

THE PLOT: A cable TV trailblazer and sex-positive advocate who inadvertently became an AIDS-era hero and free speech defender looks back on her groundbreaking career spanning 600 episodes and decades of cultural impact. 

AFTER: It's only been about six weeks since the Tribeca Film Festival, and there was a screening of this film during that event, and I did work the event that day. So this film was a big deal, Robin Byrd was there, producer Sarah Jessica Parker was there, meanwhile on the same day we had Daft Punk appearing and Laurie Anderson and that documentary about Burning Man, so yeah, a lot going on. The Burning Man doc has been turned into an HBO mini-series, so I've labelled it as ineligible for the Doc Block, I wouldn't have been able to link to it anyway. But I'll take pride in the fact that we got the whole theater filled for "Bang My Box", no incidents, everything went smoothly, people were just there to have a good time and celebrate sex-positive programming. And it was Pride Month, so a great tie-in there. 

To understand tonight's film we have to go back to a different time - New York City in the late 1970's. Cable TV was just getting started, and it was important in NYC to get it, because the tall buildings tended to interfere with the signal to TV antennas, so if you lived in certain buildings you couldn't really enjoy TV shows until they put the cable wires underground. Also there was this thing called the sexual revolution happening, and that meant if you were in the mood you might head to Times Square to see a porno movie with other people, or in a booth by yourself if you weren't a people person, but who knows, you might meet someone there who also likes dirty movies or seeing naked people and you might strike up a connection. There were gay bars and straight bars and gay strip clubs and straight strip clubs, you just kind of had to state your preference and that would determine where to go, Show World or Show Palace. Giuliani cleaned up this whole district in the late 1990's so Disney could come in, so it went from being an indie porn cesspool to a large corporate cesspool, but one that was more family-friendly. 

At the same time people who didn't want to go out or didn't feel safe going out wondered why they just couldn't see the nekkid people at home on TV. Eventually there were video rental stores, but before that there was public access cable stations, and then Channel J. Public access meant that anyone who applied could get a 30-minute TV show to talk about wine or music or gay stuff, or anything really, and Channel J was similarly rented out to people who wanted to produce adult-themed shows, and I'm sure there were plenty who started out with ambition, but really only two stuck with it for the long haul, Al Goldstein and Robin Byrd. Robin kind of fell backwards into it, she was hosting "Hot Legs" for a producer named Bobby Hollander, and they would show a 15-minute porno and then take phone calls from the viewing public for another 15. They might discuss the movie, they might talk about something else, they might be completely insane, but hey, that's NYC. When Hollander couldn't make his payments, Robin stepped up to produce her own show, the Robin Byrd Show. 

Hmm, taking a producing job nobody else wanted, becoming the conduit for up-and-coming young stars to be on TV, dealing with all the production issues and working without a script or a net, she was kind of like the Lorne Michaels of porn, right? And she hosted that show for a long time, to the point where she kind of maybe got good at it. But the world is a giant fish-tank and so eventually the tank needs to be cleaned or the fish die off or nobody's doing fish-tank maintenance, so eventually the show had to end, but 600 episodes was a great run, now Robin faces the ongoing problem over what to do with the shelves full of video-tapes in her apartment, like they're all 3/4" tapes, which nobody even uses any more, she's literally a video-tape person in a digital world, and yeah, some of us are still out there. 

This led to appearances in some porno films, most notably "Debbie Does Dallas", because she was hanging around in that world, sleeping with porno stars on the side, and figured, why not just do that but ALSO get paid for it? Makes sense. Keep the day job, make a few films on the side, try to put some money away, but also, don't forget to have a good time along the way. Robin married Shelby Byrd in 1983, but all along he seemed pretty OK with watching his wife enjoy the company of other people, men and women. Some people just don't get jealous, you know? Like if you marry a famous person and they're any kind of stage or screen actor, it's going to happen, you might need to watch them kissing another person or being in bed with another person and if you're not OK with that, there are going to be issues. Some relationships just seem to have evolved past that, or people are able to make some separation between work sex and leisure sex, maybe after a while it just becomes one big muddle, I don't know. 

Robin made deals years ago to have a phone chat line, after her show became popular they still had the free call-in line, but she linked up with companies that gave her a 970 number, one that charged people $4.99 a minute to chat with random girls about sex stuff. Look, I don't even want to know, but if that's a legal way to make money, sure, go for it. People were horny, and nobody had invented the internet yet, and you want people to have an outlet for their pent-up desires, as long as nobody's getting hurt. Thankfully she made some money that way, and at some point she was able to buy a beach house on Fire Island, which is a community off the south shore of Long Island that is extremely gay-friendly, and Robin found her people there. Robin had come out a long time ago, as someone who liked both men and women and also had access to a wide variety of both of them.  

But the time came when she had to do something with the tapes, and that led her to the possibility of archiving her collection. This also makes perfect sense, like why are you still paying the monthly fee for TWO storage spaces when you can have someone set up an archive for you at a college or institution, they will do that in the interest of education and cultural preservation, and you get the knowledge that your life's work will live on beyond your life. Also you'll get some space back in your apartment for the first time in years. For that matter, why does Robin still have the apartment when she's got an entire HOUSE out on Fire Island? Why not just live in the house full-time, even when it's not beach season, and then you're not paying rent any more, basically throwing your money away and making some landlord rich? The apartment might be rent-controlled, sure, but still. I get it, she likes taking walks in Central Park, and being able to go to Katz's Deli or Serendipity's whenever she wants, but once you hit 70, it's just not worth it. I say archive the tapes, clear out the storage spaces, make the move to the beach house and just try to be happy with whatever time is left. 

And take care of Shelly, who, as people at the screening constantly reminded me, has dementia. Relax, I just told him where the men's room is, he'll be fine as long as he remembers the way back to the theater from there. Oh, right, he has dementia. OK, I'll go escort him back, he won't get lost on my watch. Poor guy, he's been married to a celebrity sex activist for 40 years, and they were even in a thrupple for a few years, and now I wonder if he remembers any of that. 

By all means, come for the nekkid people, but stick around for the free speech arguments and lawsuits that were filed to keep New York weird and sex-positive. I sure don't want to live in a world where the government is telling me what I can and can't watch on the internet or cable TV, it's my right as a person to watch porn, whether it's on VHS or DVD or internet or streaming. Really with every technical innovation that's come along, porn has gotten better and better - and now there's AI porn, so really, there are no limits on what you can see. Just keep it to yourself and don't use it to hurt anyone else, OK? 

Directed by Jyllian Gunther & Stephanie Schwam

Also starring Robin Byrd, Shelby Byrd, Joe Bruno, Lou Cass, Ceyenne Doroshow, Kirsten Fleming, Marjorie Heins, Sean McKenna, Bob Morris, Michael Musto, Daylon Orr, Nadine Strossen, 

with archive footage of Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Big Miracle"), David Burrington, Johnny Carson (last seen in "Lorne"), James Chladek, Vladimir Correa, Coca Crystal, Phil Donahue (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Jerry Falwell (ditto), Samantha Fox, Newt Gingrich (last seen in "Join or Die"), Al Goldstein, James Goodale, Bobby Hollander, Heather Hunter, Ron Jeremy (last seen in "I Am Sam Kinison"), Porsche Lynn, Lou Maletta, Barry Manilow (last seen in "Love to Love You, Donna Summer"), Lili Marlene, Ed Meese, Cheri Oteri (also last seen in "Lorne"), Angie Prindle, Dan Rather (also last seen in "Big Miracle"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Harry Reems, Joan Rivers (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Candida Royalle, Ken Sander, Tree Sequoia, Annie Sprinkle (also last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Betsy Superfon

RATING: 5 out of 10 protest signs