I Tried to Watch "The Ladies Man" (1966).

In an effort to step up the inclusion of my own writings on this blog (rather than my beloved nostalgia bullshit), here is a "note" from my phone (just a smidge longer than yer typical note, but you'll manage). The title explains it all. The impetus was a stranger on Facebook, a Jerry Lewis fan, suggesting this movie to me as a superlative example of his films.

I Tried to Watch “The Ladies Man”

(un film par Jerry Lewis)

I doubt the young people of today were thinking of Jerry Lewis when they came up with the adjective “thirsty,” but by god, when I first heard of it, I sure did. Jerry was the King of Thirst. Desperate for approval, but in his case, somehow smug in its flailing idiocy.

Listen, I enjoy a buffoon as much as anyone (a comical one, that is, not one dictating national policy), but his character, Herbert H. Heebert (can you guess what the H. stands for? Herbert! Yoink!) exists in a universe separated utterly from reality. It’s one where everyone and everything is mere foil. Not to Herbert, but rather to Jerry’s junkie-like need for laughs, wringing every last comedy molecule for all it could never be worth.

For instance, Jerry can’t simply be revealed to also be playing his own mother in this one, a sight gag telegraphed (for any modern viewer with a knowledge of Jerry’s critical mass, patient zero Jerryness) by the fact that we only see her from behind for several scenes, wearing a large, conspicuously obscuring hat. As the mother, Lewis is compelled to pull goofy faces while plastered in weird, smeary makeup. He does this for several long seconds, saying nothing really, just vamping while the audience in his head roars.

As with the other Lewis movies I’ve endured, “long seconds” is a good way to describe the duration of most of the gags. (Let’s call them “Lewis-seconds.”) You see the joke coming… and coming… and you think, okay, let’s get this over with already. Then, the delayed, inevitably disappointing payoff is lingered over, as if to let you know you haven’t laughed enough yet.

Conversely, other shtick is like drive-by absurdity, usually leaving me thinking, I don’t know what that was, exactly, but I can tell you absolutely what it wasn’t.

The sets look like sets whether busy or sparse, and all are poorly photographed. If a description of the dull direction required an adverb, “clumsily” will do.

I confess, I turned it off in the fifteenth minute, after the “you gotta have faith” kicker. I'll further admit that I did not see that particular punchline coming, but I knew his reaction even before he reacted. Again, it went on for a very long time, escalating without getting any funnier.

So I can’t do it. I tried, sort of: I told myself five minutes ago—the second or third time I considered bailing—that I could make it through the whole thing... but I was wrong. It’s painful. It can’t possibly get any better. I could maybe watch it as if it’s the first part of a documentary on meta-cringe, but I don’t want to.

If a dimwit comedy of the “Delta Farce” variety is like 88 minutes of someone waving their farts at you and giggling, “The Ladies Man” is like Jerry Lewis waving his farts at himself and exaggeratedly gagging and staggering and crashing about, then somehow getting caught in a ceiling fan for what feels like a hundred rotations, and then thrown from it, landing for some reason in China, where he is greeted by Jerry in coolie yellowface, waving his farts at his other self with an eggroll (comically oversized to the point where you’re not 100% sure what it’s supposed to be) while repeating “OH, SO SOLLY, CHOLLIE!” in a shrill, nasal voice through two-inch buck teeth. No, make that three-inch buck teeth. No, four-inch… No, to the floor! And he trips over them! And then the teeth break through the Great Wall in a really dubious special effect!

For 106 minutes.

(That’s like a thousand in Lewis-minutes.)

[two days later]

Okay, I recovered and watched some more. The dollhouse-like set is impressive. Not remotely funny or relevant to anything, but it looks cool. 

Oh, the pain. I needed to abandon ship and attempt to cleanse my humor palate to determine if it was me, if I had somehow forgotten what comedy looks like. I switched PlutoTV to the live channels, and happened to catch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel during a showing of “Parts: The Clonus Horror." I turned it off within a minute, fearing my unsuccessfully stifled laughter would awaken my wife. Nope, not me, funny bone intact.

I went back to my playlist containing “The Ladies Man” and pondered the “resume” button.

I went to sleep.

[the next day]

I was in a mood, just a general pissy mood, and it suddenly occurred to me, hey lady! This might be the ideal time for Jerry, like maybe some what-the-hell, off-the-charts silliness was just the ticket.

Although the multiple Herberts running up the stairs was a neat sight-gag, the dollhouse set novelty is wearing off already, like Jerry at some point became worried it might upstage him. By the time Mrs. Welenmelon (spelling according to the captioning) is telling Herbert that it’s important to eat breakfast--random! Will there be a call-back? I suspect not--I’m back to wondering if this movie could possibly have had a script. Every scene moves like the plot propulsion is dictated solely by how much yo-yo business Jerry can violently cram into it and then pile on top of it. Usually it’s a lot, like pouring a steaming stockpot of chili into a thimble on your lap.

[couple weeks later]

I watched literally two more minutes. It’s so bad. The dollhouse conceit just seems stupid now. Off.

[months later]

I decided I should give it another go, but I can’t find it. It must have been removed from the free streaming service’s library. Upon discovering this, I wondered if the French have a word for being relieved that you don’t have to suffer Jerry Lewis anymore. Whatever it is, I was positively awash in that feeling.

[today]

I have just now discovered it's back. I feel like I'm peering into the shticky abyss. It beckons, like a cross-eyed siren in flood pants and an oversized bow tie.

[to be continued, unless I come to my senses]

Newsday TV Book, January 13-19, 1974.

Here's a fifty-two-year-old NTVB that I've only published the cover from previously (with the next paragraph, about the accompanying story by the late Bill Kaufman), so let's take a closer look, shall we?

In the article for this week's cover story, Bill Bixby claimed to have become an accomplished magician under the tutelage of Mark Wilson. Bixby's show, The Magician, was retooled after folks found part of the premise too far-fetched: in early episodes, the title crime-fighting character traveled around in an enormous jet which served as his base (and garage for his Corvette), flown by a single pilot. This conceit was scrapped and his home became a mansion, reportedly based on the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

At the end of the article, Bixby considers a return to the sitcom form--which did happen later, but in the meantime he became the iconic David Banner for five seasons of The Incredible Hulk (and related TV movies until 1990, three years before his death).

The TV Line gives us the deets on Peanuts, where to procure Tarot cards, the theme to the ABC Wednesday Movie of the Week, and the new Romper Room host, Miss Mary Ann (Pedersen, replacing my host, Miss Louise).

Sunday morning, for your Abbott & Costello/Bowery Boys fix. (Oh, and that Super Bowl thing was on, too, with a cartoony close-up that's uncredited but probably by Art Sudduth.)

Newsday readers could always count on Gary Viskupic to deliver the freaky factor with his illustrations, and his take on the first Night Stalker TV movie did not disappoint.

Thursday night brought Bud & Lou back for an atypical mid-week double-feature.

And now, here's all day Friday and Saturday!
The lost, lamented Joya's Fun School stood in for The Magic Garden at 12:30.

For some reason, The Midnight Special gets an afternoon shout-out.

Other rock 'n roll artists appear in the wee hours, including Jerry Lee Lewis, so I am compelled to mention that I once saw the Killer's genitals live and in person.

Saturday morning finds reviewer John Cashman damning films with his familiar faint praise: "sitthroughable," "buy the premise, buy the flick," and "passable."

The Children's Film Festival on CBS was a Czech offering called "Six Bears and a Clown."
SPOILER ALERT: the sequel was called "Six Bears."

Cashman also advises viewers not to miss Witness for the Prosecution, a recommendation I have always found rewarding (although I haven't watched this one yet).

That's it! Next week's issue is one I began scanning pages from, intending to present the whole shebang. Well, that unfinished post was a mere 17 years ago (!!!), so maybe I'll take a crack at finishing it...

Even More Viskupic! And Lots of Him!

Happy New Year, my loyal Non-Paraders! For the inchoate annum (I’m just tired of saying New Year), I thought I'd pick up a project that I've considered on-going: reproducing the Newsday (Long Island, New York) illustrations of long-time staff artist Gary Viskupic. I had been thinking he died last year, but I just double-checked and nope--it was the previous year, July 2024! To further accentuate this distressingly swift passage of time, I just looked at the last time I published some of his work, thinking it was just a couple of years ago... and it's been ten-and-a-half years!

So, if you're new to this blog, and are unfamiliar with his mesmerizing and often unsettling work, here come a few links:
My first post serves as a nifty introduction (well, nifty enough, I guess), with most of his color covers of my collection;
The second post has one more cover, some regular close-ups plus Christmas-themed illustrations;
The third and most recent post has all close-up features and one editorial piece.

This time out, I'm going for broke. Everything I can find by Visk will end up right here. I'm proceeding chronologically, and I'll try to provide a date when it's not evident in the scan.

I probably could have contacted Viskupic at some point, but it just felt strange. I’m not a journalist, not even a student of art, particularly. Why would I bother this poor guy with questions—to publish it on my dopey blog that no one looks at? I was afraid it would seem insulting.

I think there are more and more of his pieces for sale online. There’s a print I occasionally think of getting for my Nerd Room.

If you dig the reviews that go along with the movie close-ups, that's the work of Newsday writer John Cashman. And wouldja lookit that--I also have a whole dang blog devoted to his work! Enjoy!

First, here's a couple I already had scanned but I forgot to add the dates, first for Beauty and the Beast. I love how, without actually seeing his eyes, the light on the eyelids evokes the sadness of the Beast.
(Don't forget to click on or tap the pic to make it larger and clearer.)

The other one (apparently from 1979--unusual for GV to add a date) is for Paper Moon.

Johnny Cash co-hosts Opryland, USA in May 1972.

A PBS special (local?) on busing programs.

June brought the 104th Belmont Stakes.

Also from June, a simple sketch of George Washington for D.W. Griffith's silent America...

...and a much more expressive one for the 1961 Indian film Two Daughters.

Two from July, a Democratic fundraiser and golf's British Open.

Two from August, an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D....

...and an NBC White Paper examining the "deepening involvement in the Vietnam War."

September brought several famous faces, including Dizzy Gillespie...

...Justice William O. Douglas...

...Bill Cosby on Prejudice...

...and finally, Charlie Chaplin on The Toy That Grew Up, a Chicago PBS series at the end of its ten-year run.

October: George C. Scott in They Might Be Giants.

The jazz doc 'Til the Butcher Cuts Him Down.

On Playhouse New York, "The Rimers of Eldritch," described as a "comedy-drama about the human remnants of a once-prosperous mining town." Sounds like a hoot!

Two for November: Patton and Salome.

As the year came to a close, Viskupic memorialized the specials of the day (including Joe Franklin's!), and drew the pic for the cover story about Guy Lombardo, et al (actually a two-page spread I edited together).

1973 kicked off with Antonioni's China, Jack Paar and Dick Cavett getting teed off, and Nixon's inauguration.

February brought a Viskupic Bogart, a face he seemed to enjoy portraying.

"Freedom of the Press," an episode of America '73.

The 1966 Peter Pan with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard.

March is represented solely by this heady, leggy take on Liza with a Z.

April makes up for last month's dearth by offering seven awesome entries, beginning with Elvis and Ann-Margret, together again (on the same network, anyway).

Dick is back--and he's got the VD Blues!

The Forbidden Desert of Danakil.

Easter services are televised, with local stations WOR and WABC coming from St. Patrick's.

1948's Oliver Twist.

Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy was dramatized in 13 episodes.

An All-Star Swing Festival brought out the stars.

For May, a semi-portrait of Peter Ustinov as George III, and lovely depictions of Barbara Bel Geddes and Irene Dunne in I Remember Mama.

In June, Dean Martin hosted Jonathan Winters.

Now Dick's got Marlon Brando.

For art lovers, Rembrandt was on the tube as a poor old man...

...and classical lovers enjoyed Music from Ambler, although I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this illustration.

On to July, with an episode of Not for Women Only called "Fat Isn't Funny," although Viskupic clearly takes issue with this notion.

The Queen has a big hand and an even bigger ball for that year's British Open.

Another Playhouse New York, this one adapting a Broadway play about Harriet Beecher Stowe for TV.

Lastly for July, a striking if not overly inspired piece for NBC's Music Country.

Cavett now had Norman Mailer, who thought Marilyn Monroe was murdered. 

(For a little while, anyway.)

"The Cave People of the Phillipines" refers to the Tasaday (who, it turned out, were not the primitive savages the government portrayed them to be for their own gains).

Heading into September now with another DNC fundraiser; then, on the 16th, the infamous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis tournament between King and Riggs.

A couple of movies: Bonnie and Clyde, and Kelly's Heroes (with a creepy anthropomorphic tank).

October brought this drawing to go with the TV series adapted from the movie Shaft. I've always found it odd. His head is a gun?

A rather stunning portrait for a Chinese opera adaptation on Festival of Lively Arts for Young People.

Opera meets Opry.

Viskupic is in his World War II element--he was an ardent buff--with these simple but distinctive helmets to illustrate The Bridge at Remagen.

In November, a "Tribute to Louis Armstrong" was broadcast on PBS.

For a network airing of Airport that month, Visk took the infamous National Airlines tagline "I'm Cheryl. Fly me." quite literally.

For December, the Hallmark Hall of Fame gave us "The Borrowers."

Viskupic created a massive Nelson Rockefeller noggin worthy of Easter Island for CBS Reports.

Christmas at Pops and the big day's religious services put GV in an angelic mood.

Now we're on to 1974, with these amusing drawings for the college football bowl games of New Year's Day.

NBC Reports looked at "College and the Middle Class."

Here's a goofy one for The Way West, with another funny Cashman take.

From the silly to the chilling, Viskupic presents an intense-looking vampire for the first Night Stalker TV movie.

Cousteau's penguins.

Two weeks after The Night Stalker, more blood-sucking from producer Dan Curtis, and a re-tooled illustration for the re-scheduling of his Dracula with Jack Palance. (See the original version here.)

Viskupic literally roasts Jack Benny.

Raquel Welch gets strung up for working with Sid and Marty Krofft on Really, Raquel.

The World You Never See gets seen by Hugh Downs.

I hate to accuse Gary of phoning it in, but sometimes I'm compelled to assume he was too busy with other projects to make the TV Book close-up a priority.

Here's a star-spangled movie camera for a docu-series on the history of American cinema.

The depiction of Jesus for this Easter presentation always, at first glance, looks to me like he's not wearing a Crown of Thorns so much as a Santa Hat of Thorns.

I wonder who Viskupic had in mind when he drew the woman in this cash register bed. I looked up the portrayer of Nana in this production, and it definitely ain't Katherine Schofield.

This mini-series about the prosecution of wartime atrocities was named QBVII after the courthouse where the fictional proceedings take place. Who the hell decided QBVII would be a good name for a TV show? It's not even a good name for a courthouse!

Gert Frobe gets a hand (or becomes one, really) as Goldfinger.

Another Nazi, this time for The McKenzie Break.

This one for the "California Jam All-Day Music Festival," seen on ABC for their late night In Concert series, is nothing all that special, but I'll note that co-host Don Imus will get his own Viskupic portrait, coming up...

Another benign topic, another Viskupic creep-out: a young woman sheds her old self, cicada-style.

The end of May brought out the gearhead in Viskupic. In fact, here's a literal car-head, or head-car...

...followed a few days later by a winged racecar for the Indianapolis 500.

June found GV working overtime, with ten contributions to the NTVB for that month. First up, The Anderson Tapes.

A half-cow (unlivestock?) representing feast and famine.

The actual "Tiger of Malaya" gets portrayed with flags for eyes.

Elizabeth Taylor and her viper's tongue for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The dollar was shrinking, and so was George Washington.

Renoir gets framed.

It's ladies' night on Public Television. The big decision for Joyce Chopra, I guess, was if she really wanted to film herself giving birth for the doc Joyce at 34.

Visk doesn't get much more literal than this take on Downhill Racer.

More Curtis/Palance horror, yet another interpretation of the Jekyll & Hyde story. It was actually released in Canada five years earlier (according to Wikipedia, which is not infallible but still more reliable than anyone you know).

Amerasian orphans become medals in this one for an NBC News special.

A 60 Minutes piece on little people inspired this salient negative-space drawing.

An elegant visual representation of Gordon Parks' The Learning Tree.

I always see an aged Johnny Carson in this one for The Grapes of Wrath.

It's a cornucopia of grapes and gas for a CBS report on the energy crisis.

Finally for July 1974, two celeb likenesses: Garbo is key to Grand Hotel;

...and Stella holding Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire (not signed, but I'm pretty sure it's GV)

A Nazi sub surfaces for The 49th Parallel.

Another CBS News report, with a graphic perfect for depicting today's twisted ammosexuals.

Shake Hands with the Devil. 100% nightmare fuel.

I imagine that's Tom or Huck growing out of Mark Twain's mustache, or it could be young Sam Clemens himself.

Lincoln becomes his own cenotaph in this drawing for a syndicated MetroMedia special.

FWIW, I don't think that's meant to be Olga Morozova.

Cavett interviewed Tennessee Williams, and Visk photocopied him.

Another winged vehicle, a motorcycle for On Any Sunday.

Two women in profile, for a report on the still-nascent civil rights revolution.

Peter Sellers and the Union, Jack.

Finally for August, Viskupic comments on the serious money involved in tennis tournaments.

Here's a super-cool one for the debut of the Planet of the Apes television series.

If the Navajo deputy of Nakia indeed had a gun that shot arrows, I would totally watch it.

I'm not sure why this rat has a butt that looks like Pat Hingle, but I like it.

I prefer the Bonnie and Clyde impression from a year ago, but this one is still pretty cool.

Yet another eerie TV movie, The Strange and Deadly Occurrence.

I love this one because it's for a local program on WABC, and features their familiar circled 7 logo (also employed by other stations across the country). Here it graces the nose of Emmett Kelly Jr.

Cloris Leachman gets spotlighted in this close-up on The Last Picture Show.

Check back! More to come!