MY KID'S BIRTHDAY

I did this photo story as a kind of card for my kid's birthday. It occurred to me that  Theory Corner readers might be interested to see it.

The pictures chronicle my kid's imaginary grand entry to her birthday party. It's patterned after Cleopatra's famous entrance into Rome.

Of course the Emperor officiates.

It starts with a fanfare.

The Emperor's mascot makes an appearance, symbolising the real presence of royalty.

Girls rush in with lowered banners.

They raise the banners and an exotic dancer comes out. She doesn't stay long, though...she's just a teaser.

  Chariots race out in a zig zag path to clear the area of stragglers.

Bowman run out from every direction and shoot what appear to be arrows into the sky. The crowd gasps.

But no, they're harmless red streamers.

Tahitian vaheenies run out, do a killer dance to a Polynesian drumbeat, then they scatter. 

They're replaced by dancing Ashanti warriors who also dance and scatter, taking care to set off red smoke bombs as they leave.

Out of the red smoke emerges the sultan's elephants. They perform quick elephant acrobatics then disappear into the crowd, leaving behind them yellow smoke.

From out of the yellow smoke emerges a beer wagon pulled by Clydesdale's. The crowd cheers the appearance of beer.

Equestrians trot into sc., put their beautiful horses through their paces. 

Next, a show of one-of-a-kind autos drive through, honking one-of-a-kind horns.

I'll be present in my car. That's it above.

More elephants.

Next comes a Scottish bagpipe band playing military music.

Tanks roll through, followed by marching soldiers.

I don't know why these women soldiers are wearing miniskirts.

 If a dragon can be had this would be the time to bring him out.

 Another fanfare.

Trees with perfumed, golden leaves are marched out. Pigeons are released and take to the air.

Waves of mounted soldiers clear the streets...

...revealing a giant sphinx on wheels.

The sphinx is slowly, inexorably pulled in by hundreds of swaying laborers.

Don't feel sorry for them...they're getting paid well!

On a throne near the top sits my kid.

It's a pricey way to celebrate a birthday, but I figure...what the heck...it's only once a year.

There she is, looking very regal.

Finding a Sphinx to rent wasn't easy.

The statue comes to a halt

 in front of the emperor.

Nubians lift my daughter's throne.

A carpet is laid down. 

And my daughter....descends. She'll pay her respects to the emperor then inside she'll join her friends for a night of dancing. 

POETRY READING BY THE MILD UNCLE EDDIE

Holy Cow! Lalalizabeth has reposted her Naked Vlog which makes it possible for me to repost mine. I loved this post when I put it up a while back and was heartbroken when Lalalizabeth took her part down. I had to follow suit...the two videos only make sense when posted together.

Anyway here's the full blown original in all its naked glory!

HOW IT WORKS

To get the effect you have to WATCH BOTH VIDEOS SIMULTANEOUSLY, AT THE SAME TIME. Arrange the framing so both are visible, one almost on top of the other. 

Turn on the bottom (B&W) video first, let it run for four seconds, then turn on the top (color) video. Voila! 

Thanks to Lalalizabeth, whose videos can be viewed on YouTube.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND MORIARTY

I'm reading a couple of books now. One is an anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories which includes this little gem by Nick Pollatta, called "The Really Final Solution." It only takes a couple of minutes to read. See what you think. 

DRESSING TO DANCE

I'm not much of a dancer myself but I regret not learning how. It looks like fun and in the movies everything connected with dancing looks interesting.

I like the clothes people wear to a dance (above). I like the "What's-your-sign?" type dialogue you're supposed to use to chat up a dancing partner. I like the bass-thumping speakers, and the tough guy way of smoking cigarettes and flicking the butts while taking a break outside.

The custom of dressing weird for a dance goes way back. Something about moving to rhythm makes you want to do that.

Even when imitating an animal, as in this Turkey Trot (above), you have to dress up to do it. Dancing in ordinary street clothes is out of the question.

Everywhere in the world (above) dancing is something you dress up for. Nobody would be so uncouth as to gyrate in their street clothes.

Even if you want to watch an Apache dancer beat up his girlfriend, you have to dress up for it. 

I wish I had a tux so I could cakewalk.

I'm told the cakewalk originated with blacks making fun of the way upper crust white people used to strut.

BAD STORYBOARDING

Carl Reiner (above, left) was indisputably one of the funniest people ever to work in television. The best sketches he did with Sid Caesar may never have been matched. In view of that it's hard to account for why his own sitcom pilot, "Head of the Family" was so...so not happening.  

I don't mean it was conceptually flawed. The germ of something valuable was there right from the start, and the show succeeded beyond expectation when it was reworked as "The Dick Van Dyke Show." I just wonder how it could have come about that a talented guy like Carl could have made so many mistakes at the outset. 

The answer I'm going to give is almost certainly wrong, but for the purpose of this blog I'll assume that Carl crashed because he was a victim of bad storyboarding. 

Here's (above) the intro to Carl's show. I'll assume it was done by an evil storyboarder who was hell-bent on sabotage.

The boarder has Carl dash out of his house and into his car. The music is generic, wacky, suburban music. Being evil, the boarder makes his human star a tiny speck. In this shot the car and the mailbox appear to be the true heroes of the show.

On a reverse angle (above) Carl pulls out of the driveway. You can't really see him. Geez, everything in this shot is light grey.

Above, the light grey car disappears into the light grey morass.

Now it's (above) the grey city's show. Carl doesn't stand out very well.

When he comes up to camera (above) he's covered by other people.

At last (above) we finally get to see our star. He enters his light grey office...

...and ceremoniously gives his hat to one of his writers. I forgot to say that Carl plays the role of a story editor for a TV show. This is where he works.

The title comes on and it's about a family, except we haven't seen a family yet. I'll add that Carl looks a little smug and unfriendly here.

He (above) removes the legs of one of his writers from his desk...

...then he takes his coat off while his credit comes on. Too late Carl is seen to be wearing dark clothes so that he he stands out from the grey. Fade out/fade in to...

...to his home (above) where we see his wife preparing food. Er, actually what we see first is the distant room behind her. The storyboarder made all the perspective lines point to it. Carl's wife is wearing...what else?...light grey.

The titles go on with his wife and son both getting a credit, but I'll end the intro here and switch to the reworked version of Carl's show (below), the later one that starred Dick Van Dyke. See what you think of it.

In the reworked show the title quickly fades on and we get a moment to read it. This intro is all indoors on a beautifully lit set. I presume the evil storyboard man has been killed and replaced with a good storyboard man.

Then the star comes in.

He's met by his wife and son. Since they seem likable, and they like Dick, we assume that Dick Van Dyke must be likable, too.

Dick's wife points to their guests...

...and that motivates a cut to a wider shot showing Dick's writer friends. Notice the perspective lines point to Dick.

Dick walks towards them and does a broad, funny trip over the ottoman.

We dolly in as everyone helps him up.

Dick comes up smiling. He probably tripped on purpose as a gag. In other words, he liked his friends enough to play a little prank on them. The good storyboarder has twice showed us that Dick is a funny, nice guy who's loved by his friends. Fade out. This is the end of the intro.

An interesting comparison, eh?

Carl stayed on as executive producer and the real life story editor of the show. On the advice of Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard it was shot at Desilu, which had the best TV facilities of its day.

So, was Carl an idiot for goofing up his first pilot? No, not at all. The later one works much better but who's to say that we wouldn't have made the same mistake in his place?

Carl's original intro understandably tried to drive home the point that the star was a family man who commuted every day to a glamour job in the big city. The later intro took a different tack and tried to make the point that the star was a funny, likable guy who the audience would probably like to spend time with. The latter point turned out to be the right way to go.