6
Friday, November 18, 1977
University Daily Kansan
=UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Ramblin' guy
Comedian Steve Martin and a selftion crowd sang about putting live chicken in their underwear last night in Hachi Auditorium. Martin delighted the audience with new
Staff Photo by ELI REICHMAN
combinations of old material and a screening of his new short comedy movie. Preceding Martin was John Sebastian, former lead singer with the Lovin' *Spoonful*.
Martin and Sebastian wow them in Hoch
By JERRY SASS
Reviewer
How often can one find Hoch Auditorium filled with people all singing about putting a guitar on?
Arts & Leisure
Try a Steve Martin concert.
Where can one find people standing in line two hours before a performance with fake arrows through their heads and plastic nose-scapes on?
Steve Martin hit the KU campus last night, gurgling, waving and mugging his way through nearly two hours of insane hupor.
Martin is becoming one of the most popular comedians in the country. He has attracted a large group of followers with a language all its own.
Martin cultists were lined in front of Hoch last night, and their greetings to each other were invariable Martin one-liners. I was invited GUY! "or" Well, EXCUUUUUE ME!"
It IS EASY to understand why Martin is so popular. His humor is impossible to label. He uses a mix of sight gags, one-liners, slapstick, and pregnant pauses. But his
trademark is the bizzare quality of his jokes.
Minton spoils his way through a men's cologne commercial, complete with a sort of French accent, ending up by admitting that the name of his scent is "Big Mac."
He talks about finally getting something he has always wanted: hostages.
"I've got them outside, in a sack, hanging from a flagpole," he says. "I'm going to see."
He stands back from the microphone and *strikes* the English language "I'll be here."
His voice changes, he nearly swallows the microphone as he intones in a deep, dangerous voice. "Unless I get my three phones," $100,000 in cash. Then a getaway car . . .
THE·EMPORIA·GAZETTE
Martin's act opened last night with the short comedy short comedy movie that he wrote and starred in.
William Allen White 1895-1944
I had read about the movie, but didn't expect to see it. The title was "The Absent-Minded Minder," and it was a refreshing glimpse of a lot of new Martin material.
William Lindsay White 1944-1973
Sister-in-law reads 'White'. . .
Bv DAVID ALFORD
Staff Writer
EMPORIA—The office engulfed the silver-haired woman behind the desk. She has long hair and peered through bifocals at a sheet of paper in front of her.
She noticed me in her doorway, "I don't know where those people at ABC Television get the nerve to edit William White's
The woman was Mrs. W. L. White, widow of William Lindsay White, daughter of Eleanor Allen White and the current Emporia Gazette
She was, in fact, very busy. She said she had discovered that an advertising agent had possessed the audacity to make slight alterations in the editorial William Allen White wrote when he learned of his 17-year-old daughter's death.
I asked whether she was busy because I wanted to talk with her about the Gazette. William Allen White called it "just a little country daily," but many journalists consider it the classic example of a small family-owned newspaper.
MRS. WHITE WAS reading a promotional poster that publicized tonight's televised move, "Mary White."
The large sheet turned out to be a "proof" copy of the front page in today's Gazette. Mrs. White said she had been asked to run the survey.
She asked me in, pointing to a large chair beside her desk. She handed me a newspaper-sized sheet with the famous editorial emblazoned in large type on it and said, "I'm down to the third paragraph. Start there and please read all of the punctuation."
"A man from IBM, the sponsoring company, called and wanted to run an ad with the editorial printed in it," she said. "I told him that would be silly because the editorial is already taking up the whole front page."
The editorial appears only once in today's edition of the Gazette on the front page.
AS WE TOOK TURNS reading copy to each other, every error drew a grime and brought a deep draw on her cigarette. She winced and groaned at each deviation from her famous father-in-law's original conv.
A visit to the Gazette provides a glimpse into its proud past. Autographed photographs of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt smile down from the walls. Copies of editorial carl prism will praise William Allen White's campaign against the resurgence of the Ku Kux Klans in the 1920s are inexclusively displayed.
Inside the lobby is a massive brick fireplace with an old brass type-drawer on the mantle. An oak roll-top desk, the one used by William Allen White, sits next to the fireplace. Ray Call, managing the store, recalls a time when the desk was not just a showpiece in the lobby.
"WHEN I FIRST came here, the desk was still covered with the magazines, letters and papers of William Allen White," he said. "His son cleaned it out a few years ago, before we moved it into the lobby."
The typography of the Gazette is old-fashioned also. Call thinks the newspaper's conservative appearance implies the Gazette's
"We won the Inland Press Association's contest one year with this typography," he said.
"It's very light, very airy, very grey, very New York Timesime. But it is done deliberately. I think it captures the Gazette's approach to things. Just like this building, the same old gracious approach. That is how we try to edit the stories. We use that old
Mrs. White, who moved to Emporia from New York when her husband died in 1973 and assumed his role as publisher, said she had been very busy lazy checking the movie script to be sure it was accurate.
"THOSE GUYS in Hollywood keep tryng to change things," she said. "They wanted to say, 'Mary's fallen from her horse again.' Mary never from her horse. Her death was caused by a blow to the head from an overhanging limb."
Mrs. White said that although Hollywood had offered to pay, the Gazette was not interested in making any money from the movie. Mrs. White said that although Hollywood had offered to pay, the Gazette was not interested in making any money from the movie.
"I don't want to make money off 'Mary White.' "' she said. "I just want the final say."
During the filming of the movie in the Emporia area, townpeople were used for small parts and extravail. She thought she would be able to provide them with some experience.
"I think it will cause an increased awareness of the past for Emoriorans," she said.
... as ABC makes it into movie
Mrs. White was one of the first staff members of Life magazine but, despite her family ties and her own professional success, she always found herself at odds with her peers.
"My name is not on the editorial page," she said. "The only time I let them use it is when the law says we have to."
Mary White died in 1921, just one month before her high school graduation. The night of her funeral, her father, William Allen White, wrote an editorial tribute to her. "He was a man of great compassion," the Emporia Gazette, White's gentle personal memorial became an American classic.
Reviewer
In the last 66 years, schoolchildren have read the story of Mary White. Tonight an ABC television movie will dramatize the famous story of the White family of Emporia. The film will be broadcast at 8 p.m. on channels 2, 9 and 13.
BvLYNN KIRKMAN
"Mary White" is a recreation of a remarkable young woman who struggled to be independent and was notorious father. Although William Allen White characterized his family as "just plain folks," Mary was quite aware that not everyone's father was a child.
THE SCRIPT, written by Caryl Ledner, relies heavily on White's editorial for continuity. Ed Flanders, who appears as a guide in the book, will be placed as he walks from the Gatehouse to his home with the just-completed manuscript. This technique of having White speak directly to the viewer enhances the familiar image of the famous author—and its famous author.
Mary White's story is told through a series
of flashbacks that reveal the character of a free-spirited girl who gloried in riding as fast as the wind and worried about the problems she found in her home town. She discovered that she had a paradox of innocent determination that inspired her father to call her "Peter Pan."
BELLER, FLANDERS and Flinnaulle Flanagan, who is Sallie White, took on a formidable task in attempting to make real people of legendary figures. Kansas viewers, especially, may be tempted to watch the film with a critical eye to the portraits of these native sons and daughters in history, to people with the conflicts and problems faced by all parents and their adolescent children.
Robert Raditz, the film's producer, filmed the picture on location in Emporia and the surrounding area. Many of the original sites were used, including Red Rocks, the White family home. University of Kansas viewers will spot William Kuhlke, professor of theatre, in the role of John J. Rice, pastor of the Congregational Church.
Kathleen Beller as Mary is charming as the energetic girl who confronted her family and fellow citizens and helped her succeed. Her Beller's performance is remarkably effective and affecting as she portrays the happy child who became a woman, almost without realizing what was happening.
A scene in which Mary's brother, Bill, attempts to convince his parents of the relative merits of Harvard over KU may also draw some local response.
Despite a few small chronological deviations, the script and the performances are true to the work that inspired them. The film tells a tragic story without being depressing or maudlin. Indeed, there is much humor in the piece, which is a tribute to the joys of life in the same way as was White's editorial.
Floyd Ecord attended a preview screening of "Mary White" in Lawrence on Wednesday. Ecord is a former general manager of the Burlington Republican. In 1921, as editor of the Emporia Normal School annual, he asked Mary White to do the writing for a book written by William White Recorded Mary's pleasure at Ecord's request in his editorial.
"MARY WHITE" is a moving dramatic interpretation of the editorial. It also is an accurate representation of the characters of the niece.
When the film ended, Ecord said the picture brought back many memories for
He turned away quickly as tears came to his eyes.
This Week's
Highlights
"That's just how she was," he said. "It's just the way they all were. It really takes me home."
*THE TINGELARY BIRD*, a children's play by Mary Malwell, will be performed at 8 to night at the Lawrence Arts Center, Ninth and Vermont streets. The production is for junior high and high school students, but the public is welcome to attend.
Theater
"CAMELOT" will be presented at 8 p.m. to
tomorrow and at 2 a.m. on Sunday at
the Eldridge Theater.
Martin is a shrewd performer. He rarely follows the same order in his routine, and he offers some of the fastest labs in the world to the blind. His dream-of-consciousness that few can predict.
The SEEM-TO-BE PLAYERS will present two children's productions, "The Three Billy Goats Grut" and "The Adventures of Nyrmir," at 10 a.m. on Monday, 40 p.m., tomorrow at the Lawrence Arts Center.
ALBERT GERKEN will present a concert on the University Carillon at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Music
JOSAN K. SMITH, trombone, and XOCHITI DENNIS, hill, will present a student recital at 8 p.m. Sunday in Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall.
SEQUEIRA COSTA, pianist, will present a benefit recital at 8 p.m. Monday in the University Theatre. Proceeds will benefit music scholarships.
THE BALLET FOLLORKOI MEXICAN will appear in concert at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25, at the Music Hall, 13th and Central streets, Kansas City, Mo.
The KANSAKS CITY PHILHARMONIC and SARAH VAUGHAN will present a Saturday Night Special all-Gershwin program at 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 28, at the Music Hall in Kansas
MIRIAM STEWART GREEN, soprano, will perform a faculty recital at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
(Susan P. Blankenship)
THE KANSAS CITY PHILHARMONIC, featuring JAIME LAREO, violinist, will perform at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, and Wednesday, Nov. 30, at the Music Hall in Kansas City, Mo.
At the LAWRENCE OPERA HOUSE, 644
Nightclubs
ulette St : Echo Cliff, a country rock
Massachusetts St. Echo Cliff, a country rock band from Topeka, is on the main stage tonight and tomorrow in the Seventh Spirit ballad tonight and tomorrow night. South of the Tracks, country rock from Manhattan, will be on the main stage Friday, Nov. 25. The Lee Moebel Blues Band, with Lee Goering, a folk artist, will perform in the Seventh Spirit celiritary Friday and Saturday, Nov. 25 and 26. The Exceptions, a rock band from Topeka, will be on the main stage Wednesday, Nov. 30, and will be on the main stage Thursday, Dec. 1
At PAUL GRAYS 'JAZZ PLACE, 926
at Museumsets St. Emir Orl, a Dixieland
trombonist from Memphis, Tenn., will play
tonight and tomorrow night, accompanied by
the Gasite Gang. A jam session begins at 8
am every Thursday.
J. A. WATSON'S, Ninth and Iowa streets; Hootoff will play tonight and tomorrow night. At the OFF THE WALL HALL, 737 New Hampshire St. The Kansas Foster College Center, located at 1050 West 42nd Street, or drums allowed, is held from 7:30 p.m. to midnight every Wednesday.
Films
"DOG DAY AFTERNOON," directed by Sidney Lum, starring Al Pacino, will be shown at 3:30 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. today and tomorrow. (SIA, $1.25)
All SUA films are shown in Woodruff
Austinium the Kansas Union, unless
otherwise noted.
**FLESH GORDON**, starring Jason
Williams is be show in midnight tonight
"ISLAND OF LOST SOULS," the first adaptation of "H. G. Wells" "The Island of Dr. Moraure" starring Charles Laughton and Bela Kassavoff, to be shown at 7:30 p.m. Monday, (GUA, $1)
There is some new material this year, however. Martin has added to his most popular jokes, and has found new ways to lead into some of them.
Again, he is playing tricks with the audience, almost challenging them to think faster, to guess where his fertile mind will be off to next.
IT IS FLATTERING to an audience when a performer matches wits with them like that. And it is challenging when some of the students need to know the material as well as Martin does.
There was a more serious side to last night's show. John Sebastian had the difficult task of providing a warmup act for Martin.
If the seating has to be general admission, why not open the doors a few hours in advance?
But then campus security wouldn't be able to stand in the road and give useless directions with luminescent flags, would they? A big Bronx cheer for SAU.
One final point. SUA tried hard to ruin a good show. Why do they insist on selling $7 tickets and not making them reserved seats? The howling crowd that gathered around the door to Hoch could easily crush someone in its mad rush to the door.
I had expected the audience of Martin cultists to give Sebastian a hard time. But he has wisely chosen songs that complement Martin's act. His songs can be funny, like when he sings about winter in New York, "Freezing from the Inside Out."
Sebastian, former lead singer for the Lovin' Spoon, is known for his theme from the television show *Welcome Back*, and he sings in the acoustics in Hoechid the song justice.
SEBASTIAN closed his act with some inspired harmonica work, and the audience gave him a standing ovation. He said the audience gave him that many waiting audiences gave him a hard time, and said the KU audience had knocked him out with courtesy. It is nice to see a polite audience
Sports fans following the House Communications subcommittee hearings into network improprieties in sports broadcasting may be asking where it will all end. I guess my question is, "Where and why did it begin?"
At the center of the sports controversy is the testimony of ABC and CBS sports executives about the "winner-take-all" tennis match that was not really a "winner-take-all" tournament and the ABC boxing "championship" broadcasts that featured a bunch of mediocre boxers who had to pay the promoter to set on television.
The phosphorous dot
by Paul Smeyak
It really turns out to be a sordid maze that belies sports clichés such as "it's not if you win but how you play the game." It's an easy one, and it's very difficult.
If you can believe the testimony of the ABC and CBS sports executives before the House subcommittee, it was really an "error" or "oversight" that led to the public. Both CBS and ABC executives say they did not read crucial memos or contracts that would have justified their warrisonal claim to the legal or legal "overwritings." (I think "overwriters" is a puemphism for pulling a fast one.)
I get the mental image of this hot little memo that everyone knows about but everyone avoids reading. This is so these executives can later say with a clear conscience that they didn't remember something that was important for someone he didn't read and didn't know about?
PART OF THE problem has been exposed in the hearings but no one has really said how or why it happened. It happened because some sports executives obviously felt that the sporting events they were involved with needed greater audience appeal, drama or audience involvement. So, they "hyped up" the events by saying they were going to play, it was a "winner-take-all" situation. Someone was going to win big and someone was going to lose everything.
At the heart of the problem is that program executives who are experts at creating or finding fiction to fill our evening hours are turning their talents to other areas. These executives find out what the audience wants to see and then they tailor the program content to fit audience desires. That's why a tennis match becomes a "winner" of court-tournament. The phrase tennis has a large amount of excitement and helps a "winner-take-all" tournament has more appeal than a tennis match that has no financial drama because the players already know how much they'll make before they play.
FOR THE Old-TIMERS (those who can remember back to 1957) all this has a shade of deja vu. There were a number of television quiz programs back in the late 1950s that had huge audiences and made lots of money for the networks. Just about the same thing happened back then as is happening now. It came out during congressional hearings that many of the quiz programs were fixed. Program producers started developing new quiz content to the excitement and drama in the situation. A lot of bright young people got their reputations tarnished and a few older people shipped off into retirement or less sensitive jobs.
The motivation in both the quiz and sports scandals was basically the same. Some people felt that reality was not enough of a draw to pull in large audiences and make lots of money. Maybe they were right in the case of the boxing matches. The sin is not in making a lot of money off a television show, but rather in creating a movie that looks better than it actually was. In both the quiz and sports scandals there were major distortions of fact and by some network people a conscientious policy of deception.
I WOULD FEEL a lot better if ABC and CBS cleaned up the mess instead of trying to hide it from the public. I think a thorough investigation of the network sports promotions needs to take place by an outside agency or person of high moral standards. Those involved in the deceptions should be fired and not promoted and given hefty salary increases as ABC has done in at least one instance. I also think the networks should be warned that failure to read hot memos and avoid unpleasant "oversights" are not excuses that will get them off the hook.
Even now it may be late to save the image of televised sports programs. The bad taste of deception is present and even a network purge may not be able to clean out the system. There are no easy solutions. You can see televised sports saddled with the same type of image that surrounds the afternoon quiz programs where celebrity contestants are fed questions in advance so they can think up cute witticisms. Sports programs on television have a bet-etting value that that. I hope the network sports executives feel the same.
Paul Smeyak is an assistant professor of radio, television and film.