Revisiting Disney's "The Strongest Man in the World" or When Disney comedies were awful

 So I get Disney Plus which is worth it for WandaVision and The Mandalorian, but when I feel nostalgic, it's great for having childhood memories ruined when I revisit Disney comedies from the '60s and '70s.

When "The Strongest Man in the World" came out in 1975, I saw the commercials, wanted to see it in a theater, but never saw it until it was on "The Wonderful World of Disney" a couple years later. And I vaguely remember liking it then.

But I watched it last night, and wow, what a terrible film!

First, some background: In 1959, Walt Disney produced his first live-action comedy, "The Shaggy Dog." It was made on a TV budget, and pulled in movie blockbuster returns.

And, it would become the template for Disney comedies for the next two decades: Every comedy would have the magic/science hook (turning into a dog, Flubber, invisibility), sight gags galore, some manner of  peril ("the college is about to be sold to an evil real estate developer!), ending with a slapstick police chase. Then sequels which would feature recurring villains. Some villains would show up in other films. Oddly enough, The Shaggy Dog didn't get its own sequel until some 27 years later, appropriately bookending the whole genre.)

The formula had gotten pretty old by this point, but the big surprise for me that I didn't notice the first time was Kurt Russell, the top-billed star, is hardly in this movie at all! He disappears for large chunks and instead we have an interminable scene of Joe Flynn comically impressing the board of directors (all doughy white guys, except for a welcome Eve Arden) with feats of strength. Then an interminable scene of Cesar Romero getting stuck on a ladder. Then Russell's sidekick Schuyler gets kidnapped by Romero, and gets hypnotic accupuncture (?!).

Very little of this has anything to do with the plot, and worst of all, none of it is funny.

I'm guessing Kurt Russell, in his third go at playing Dexter Reilly, was more interested in expanding his career and had it in his contract that he didn't have to show up. So pretty much, the old vets had to (ironically) do the heavy lifting.

A lot of missed opportunities here. If it wanted to really satirize the university system in America, there would have been many more opportunities (big money student athlete scandals, slobs vs, snobs, legacy entrenchment) instead of Joe Flynn doing a trapeze act.

In fairness, in the last ten minutes, this low-energy comedy gets its act together and starts being funny. It finally realizes the comic possibilities: Russell uses his strength to fight off a room full of Cesar Romero's thugs, the (inevtitable) police chase where Russell  has to push his feet through the floorboard of a super-charged car to keep it from speeding away, the total disintegration of the car just as it reaches its final destination (later stolen by "The Blues Brothers," but I suspect in had been stolen from the silent comedies), and Russell swallowing the last of the super serum from behind a closed curtain and the curtain opens and we just see the smoke in the air. Subtle for once.

But, if it wasn't the end of an era, it was clearly winding down. It would be Russell's last live-action film for Disney for decades (when Disney became cool again), The old-time studio system of reusing the same character actors had been dead for a while, Disney just hadn't caught on, and then 'Star Wars' came along. Disney could no longer make family movies that only appealed to children while boring their parents.

So if you're a certain age, call it up on Disney Plus and fast forward to the last ten minutes.

Some notes:

The Dexter Reilly comedies really screwed me over as far as my expectations for what college would be like. 

Disney was extremely loyal to its character actors, they'd show up again and again for decades.

I counted one black person in the whole film. An Asian guy played a villain, so I'll take it. Two little Asian kids were seen.

Joe Flynn died before the movie came out, but his voice would be heard a couple years later in "The Rescuers."

It's amazing how much Kurt Russell here looks like de-aged Kurt Russell in the first five minutes of "Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2." The SFX guys must have used his Dexter Reilly films as a template.

Mandalorian Season 2 finale. Spoilers galore, stop now!

In 1977, when the paperback novelization of "Star Wars" came out, the subtitle wasn't "A New Hope." The subtitle was "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker."

Let's think about that. Maybe it was Georgie Lucas' idea , maybe it was from the publisher, but at some point in time, the focus point of the Star Wars universe wasn't the dysfunctional Skywalker family, it was Luke! Further adventures were perhaps planned. Luke heading off to different galaxies to face different (non-Empire) bad guys each film. It wasn't going to be all about Anakin Skywalker, the Empire and an ever growing collection of characters.

Imagine a series of films where Darth Vader doesn't even show up! Imagine "Star Wars II" where Luke leaves Han and Leia to roam the galaxy dispensing justice with his badass light saber, like some intergalactic Clint Eastwood. Each film a new adventure!

That didn't happen.

I loved "Empire Strikes Back," but I sheltered a little disappointment in the back of my mind, especially as all the prequels and sequels never got away from the Skywalker family's problems.

Luke as a standalone badass would never happen ...

Until the second season finale of "The Mandalorian." 

Finally, the promise made in 1977 is fulfilled, we finally get to see Luke be a real Jedi Knight, kicking asses and taking names.

Overdue, but it makes up for his crappy treatment in the last few Star Wars films.

Tales from the Bronze Age

This is mandatory viewing for anyone who grew up reading DC Comics in the late 60s, early 70s. Longtime comic writer/onetime Jack Kirby assistant Mark Evanier interviews DC writer/editor/onetime publisher Paul Levitz about going from 14 year old fan to publisher. It's two fanboys-turned-pros who discuss their early disillusionment with the industry and how they made things better for artists.

Levitz has some horror stories about how DC treated its talent; but there's also some hope toward the end when Levitz (and others) worked to give neglected artists their due (and royalties).

Due to the time difference (Evanier is in LA, Levitz is in NY) Levitz seems to be getting sleepy toward the end, and some of the questions from viewers that Evanier introduces aren't questions at all, just comments, leaving the low-energy Levitz to just give one-word non-answers.

But there are a lot of stories about your favorite DC artists an inkers from the silver/bronze age and what the staff at DC really felt about them. (most cringe-worthy: DC executive tells Evanier to tell Kirby to try to draw more like Curt Swan.)

Keeping up with the times ... or not

I was impressed by Blondie on Sunday because Dagwood was working from home, and I thought, wow, Blondie's going to acknowledge and satirize the current pandemic. Pretty brave for a strip from 1930. Then the following week's dailies ignored the whole thing until Thursday when Dagwood made a "Social Distancing" joke, which actually, isn't bad. But, if they're all in the office are they not quarantining Dagwood? They seem to want it both ways.

To Dean Young I say: Sin boldly! Keep the Bumsteads home like the rest of us. Let Dagwood slowly drive Blondie mad until she's plotting his murder! Let Dagwood show up at an office Zoom meeting while in the bath tub, eating a sandwich!

Blondie's been slowly keeping up with the times and not doing a half bad job. This isn't a crisis, it's an opportunity.

Not everyone can grapple with changing times....

Which leads me to today's Beetle Bailey. Another strip where a character participates in a technological activity and that is the sum of the joke.

Here Gen. Halftrack says he hasn't had any complaints since he took down the suggestion box, and he's pleased with himself until Gizmo tells him that people complain on Twitter.

Yep, that's the joke, people complain about things on Twitter.

That's all they got.

Let's look at others in this astonishingly out-of-touch vein: Here and here.

I imagine the next jokes will involve people using their iPhones to call their friends, and people using TikTok to post videos.

Dagwood in Quarantine

Some props must go out to  Stephen Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" for being the first or among the first comic strips to acknowledge, and satirize the Covid-19 pandemic. I kind of expect a strip as subversive as "Pearls" to tackle  a pandemic, but most cartoonists could be forgiven for pretending it's not going on for the sake of keeping things light on the comics page.

So the Blondie team should be doubly congratulated for keeping the strip's characters home. Think about it, a beloved strip that has kept one foot firmly in 1930 should be given a free pass during a global crisis, but no, Dean Young managed to wring humor out of a crisis without even mentioning the crisis!

They didn't have to do it, but I'm glad they did.

(Addendum: Life is back to normal in the dailies that followed this strip, so I'm hoping they had been done well in advance, but once they've run, the Bumsteads will be in quarantine every day of the week, we'll see.)

Beetle Bailey why have you forsaken me?

Once again, I hate to be one of those negative bloggers. The world doesn't need more negativity. But really what's going on in the Beetle Bailey writer's room?

Have they just given up?

Are they just using a random dialogue generator?

Plato is standing between two women, so Beetle surmises that it "looks like it's a good time to be a nerd."

Based on what? Two women chatting with Plato? That's it. So we set up the faulty premise.

In the next panel, Killer dressed like a stereotypical nerd to pick up women at the library because, you know, that's where nerdy women hang out. And nerdy women love nerdy men.

You can tell he's dressed like a nerd because he's wearing a bow tie and even his sweater has a pocket protector. And plaid pants. And he's carrying a book.

And it's funny because ...

No, it's not funny at all.

Film review: Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

It's another greatest hits package from the Disney/Lucasfilm factory. New characters doing the same thing. Kind of like "Home Alone 2" and 3.

It's the same, just bigger. We get a "I find your lack of faith disturbing," scene but instead of simply the officer getting strangled, he gets thrown into the ceiling. We get the little guy rises up against the big empire scene again, but instead of Ewoks, it's a kazillion little space ships; we also get Emperor Palpatine taunting the hero at his/her darkest moment, AGAIN with Palpatine.

I kept thinking of the commentary track on "The Phantom Menace" where a special effect guy is bragging about how they got a hundred ships passing by the window in the background of a scene, and I'm thinking, y'know, three ships would have been fine.

I'm a little disappointed, I really thought when Disney announced they'd wrap up the Star Wars trilogy of trilogies, they would have planned the whole thing out *before* the cameras started rolling. No, no, they just made it up as they went along with no forethought into foreshadowing or comprehensibility.