Be it his work with Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows, the creation of The Dick Van Dyke Show, numerous “2,000 Year Old Man” pairings with Mel Brooks, Steve Martin’s classic comedies, or any number of accomplishments too long to list, Carl Reiner is a true comedy legend.
He’s penned quite a few books (his Enter Laughing is a must-read), plays, and films. He’s like a Renaissance man sans the puffy shirt. He even made a return to films as a key member of the gang in the Ocean’s 11 franchise.
I leapt at the chance to chat with Carl, even if it was originally intended to be a fluff piece on the short-lived Dreamworks CG show Father Of The Pride. Would you pass up an opportunity like that just because the show it was attached to was an unwatchable mess (through no fault of Carl’s, it must be said, as he just provided a voice).
It was a truly memorable experience talking to Carl – particularly memorable was the technical gaffe that erased the last 10 minutes of our conversation. I would have been disappointed if I had walked away from it without at least one embarrassing anecdote.
KEN PLUME: It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you…
CARL REINER: Yes, how are you!
PLUME: I’m doing well – hope you’re doing well…
REINER: Yes, but just give me your name again…
PLUME: Ken Plume…
REINER: Ken! That’s all I need… I’m not gonna call you Mister….
PLUME: Should I call you “sir” ?
REINER: Yes, please… Absolutely…
PLUME: Well, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you, sir…
REINER: Thank you… You’ll have to amend that after we finish – you’ll say, “I was mistaken at the beginning,” or “It’s just what I figured.”
PLUME: Even if I was mistaken, I would never admit it…
REINER: Never! You’re an honest man… An honest man! A man who wants to be honest, anyway…
PLUME: I try… I often fail, but I try… You’re one of two people that I’ve wanted to interview for years…
REINER: That’s what you say every time you open a conversation…
PLUME: No, honestly! I’m being truthful now…
REINER: Oh, okay…
PLUME: You and Mel Brooks…
REINER: Oh, well, I agree with that. I would rather speak to Mel Brooks than anybody I know. I’m not kidding! I mean, we speak on the phone once in awhile… A couple of days ago, he was going to London… and I never come away from the phone after speaking with him that I’m not laughing.
PLUME: I’ve tried for years to get interviews with both of you, to little success…
REINER: Well, you’ve got the second level…
PLUME: Right now, you’re tops…
REINER: The best you can do right now!
PLUME: Touché! So I have to ask – is there anything left that you haven’t done, that you’d still like to do?
REINER: Yes… It’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever do now. When I was very young, and I heard Enrico Caruso sing “Pagliacci,” I said, “That’s what I want to do with my life! I want to be an opera singer!” I was 7 or 8 years old, and I had a wonderful voice. As a matter of fact, I sang in Broadway musicals. The only thing I’m missing is I have no rhythm and I sing off-key often, if there’s no music helping me. So if I had different genes or if someone could infuse a gene – or maybe the stem cell thing will find a gene for me – to make me so that I could sing. I would probably have a different career than I think I would want, and if I did have it, I’m sure it wouldn’t be as good as the one I have!
PLUME: Maybe you should just get a small electrical device implanted to shock you into tempo…
REINER: (laughing) Yes! As a matter of fact, in my first Broadway musical – Call Me Mister – the show opens on a bunch of guys, G.I.s, onstage in a military formation, and offstage you hear, “Sound off!” and they have to go, “One, two!” But I have to hit the right note, because they’re going to sing in the key I give them. I said, “Jesus Christ, I’m gonna goof it!” So they arranged for a trumpet to hit that note right before – “BAAA-RUUMPH” – so I never missed it. But if that trumpet weren’t there, I don’t know what would have happened…
PLUME: It would have been a whole set of keys…
REINER: Yeah!
PLUME: In listening to the opera music, was it the performance that drew you in, or just the music in general?
REINER: You grow up with what’s in the house, and your tastes are honed by that, and my father liked classical music. He listened to the Saturday afternoon operas from the Met, and he had these red seal records – one-sided records – and Caruso was one of the ones he had. And this was a soaring song – if you know “Pagliacci,” it soars. It makes your hair stand up! And I was thrilled by it, and I never lost the interest in hearing a good tenor belt opera.
PLUME: Do you in any way regret not being able to pursue that?
REINER: No, I don’t regret it. As a matter of fact, I had the best of two possible worlds – comedy and opera – when I did Your Show of Shows. I could always sing opera recitative, fake recitative, and when we got Earl Wild as the pianist, and he found a way that we could do operas – because you can’t follow recitative. I mean, how are you going to get an orchestra to play in the key you’re singing? But he did a brilliant thing… He said, “We’ll do the operas in the style of…” In other words, say if we did a Verdi opera, he d said, “We’ll take a song…” I remember the first one he suggested, which was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” done in the style of either Verdi or Mozart. (Click here to hear the clip) The orchestra could be playing the key and we’d be singing gibberish, but “in the style of….” So I got to sing opera on Your Show of Shows, and it was very satisfying for me and, I think, for the audience! Did you notice I was singing fairly on key?
PLUME: (laughing) I did notice that…
REINER: (laughing) Yeah, okay… Just checking…
Continued below…
When it comes to kitchen sink filmmaking, the grandmaster of them all is Stanley Kramer’s larger than life comedy It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Criterion, Rated G, Blu-Ray-$49.95 SRP), and it’s been given a fitting treatment from the fine folks at Criterion, who have not only beautifully remastered the theatrical version of the film for high definition, but have also crafted the most extensive restoration yet of the long-missing extended road show version of the film, which while still incomplete, is as close as we’re probably ever going to get. Bonus features include a brand new documentary, an audio commentary on the extended cut, and much more.
You could never do a show like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (Shout Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$249.95 SRP) today. A daily serialized play on soap opera tropes, its sly satire was only made possible by the fact that it was also the brainchild of TV powerhouse Norman Lear. And thanks to the miracle workers at Shout Factory, you can now own all 325 episodes in one massive box set packed with bonus features, inclu8ding featurettes and a handful of episodes from its brilliant spin-off assault on middling talkshows, Fernwood 2 Night. Here’s hoping a Fernwood 2 Night box set is on the way.
After years in the wilderness, it’s nice to see Woody Allen continue his latter-day winning streak with his latest, Blue Jasmine (Sony, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP), about the titular east coast socialite (Cate Blanchett) making a go at a new, less glamorous life in San Francisco in which she tries to reconcile her troubled past with her lower class future. Oh, and it has Louis CK. So, win. Bonus materials include a featurette and the cast press conference.
I’m still not entirely sure if I like Comedy Bang Bang (Anchor Bay, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP). I mean, I think I do… And then it just gets slightly more bizarre than actually funny bizarre, and I have to reconsider my position. Your mileage may vary. The complete first season set contains character audio commentaries, alternate interviews, supercuts, test shoots, and more.
If you’re looking for a pair of fascinating documentaries this weekend, the Smithsonian Channel is serving up the unsung heroes of the space program with Space Voyages (Smithsonian Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) and the unsung staff that make the President’s residence livable in White House Revealed (Smithsonian Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP).
The fine folks at Mill Creek have a mighty batch of economy-priced TV collections for anyone hoping to dive in to some classic series on a budget, including Married With Children: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), the uncut debut of The Cosby Show: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), Just Shoot Me: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), Dilbert: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), Charlie’s Angels: Season 1 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), Bewitched: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), Good Times: Season 1 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), and Wings: Seasons 3 & 4 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP).
Shout Factory has become the last great hope for many TV series whose DVD releases were cut off short of completion, as they turn their benevolence towards Sipowicz and Simone for the complete fifth season of NYPD Blue (Shout Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$34.99 SRP). The 6-disc set contains all 22 episodes, but sadly no bonus features.
Join Grover, Abby, and Elmo as they learns the ins and outs of sportsmanship in Sesame Street: Be A Good Sport (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), featuring over 2 hours of thematically linked furry fun for youngsters.
Disillusioned by the direction he sees professional wrestling headed, Steve Scarborough decides to take matters into his own hands and founds the Platinum Championship League, whose origins and development are chronicled in the documentary The Booker (Indiepix, Not Rated, DVD-$19.95 SRP).
The second volume of the second season of History Channel’s Counting Cars (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP) has arrived for those of you who have finally succumbed to History Channel Stockholm Syndrome and understand there is nothing there any more but these “reality” series full of people doing things in a “real” way. Bonus materials include 35 minutes of additional footage.
The latest in the line of quickie joke-a-second pop culture lampoons has come down the pike in the form of The Starving Games (Ketchup, Rated PG-13, DVD-$20.99 SRP), which takes on The Hunger Games, The Avengers, Avatar, Angry Birds and much more.
