March 14 – March 20 (2022) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Green means go. Red means stop. Did anyone in the Star Wars universe ever consider that, maybe all they had to do to stop Darth Vader was simply push the “off” button on his chest? Simple!

When I was a kid the radio/TV personality Wolfman Jack was all the rage. For some odd reason I started humming the Guess Who’s “Clap For The Wolfman” this week. Then that got me started down the rabbit hole of on-line information searches for Wolfman Jack. His real name was Bob Smith (yup, Bob Smith) and his Wolfman Jack persona helped him to be a ubiquitous personality in 1970’s media. He had his own radio shows, his own TV shows, and he even appeared on records, like this one!

Monday the 14th – NAPPING WITH FROGS! – Thanks to that utterly stupid, pointless and idiotic time change we are forced to endure twice a year, I had difficulty sleeping. I kept waking up earlier than necessary and looking at the clock in an attempt to ascertain the time. As a result, I woke up a full two hours earlier than I needed to. So I drove to CVS to get some supplies, grabbed some lunch-to-go at Panera, and got a few grocery items. Since I’ll be in the studio four hours a day, five days a week for the next five weeks, I had a few items I needed for the job. One of the most important things was my Pure Leaf iced tea, which I love to drink at Voice Over sessions. I went home to do a little work and then drove to the studio in Burbank to begin the first full week of my new “full time” job dubbing a foreign sitcom for a big streaming company. (See last week’s Wally’s Week) The first day on the job was last Friday, and I was getting my bearings on how to dub a live-action sitcom, versus dubbing an anime show. The dubbing process is quite different between the two, but the adjustments came fairly easy. It was nice too, because the director and I are free to craft line adjustments and ad-libs in the script along the way. We are free to try jokes and bits that might work better in the English translation, so we’re able to craft jokes on the fly. It’s a blast! On the second day we got a lot farther along than the first day. Last Friday, in addition to getting our footing in a performance sense, we also had a fair amount of technical issues tripping us up. The studio where we’ll be working for the next five weeks is brand new, and they’re still working out a few bugs. Since the character I’m dubbing is the lead character in the sitcom, I have a ton of lines to record. According to the director, this character has an incredible amount of words, compared to your average dubbing job. But, being a comedy, there won’t be a lot of action scenes, or long segments where nothing is being said. It’s very “wordy.” After a second, successful day I headed home to feed the kids and relax. And relaxing came easier than usual thanks to our “seasonal frogs,” who seem to appear this time every year in the L.A. River behind my house. They’ll swim downstream and stop for a bit, and croak all night to try and attract a mate. It sure is nice opening up the window and napping in the Puppet Room to their gentle sounds. Later I got up and worked around the house, and prepped for my Tuesday session.

Tuesday the 15th – PREP IS THE KEY! – Once again I woke up way too early. This is probably going to be the case for the next week or so, thanks to that insane seasonal time change we’re forced to do. I did a bit of work around the house, got my drinks and snacks prepared for my Voice Over dubbing session, and put the top down on my Mustang to enjoy the beautiful day! With my iPod blaring, I rolled over to McDonald’s to get some lunch before my session. Then I did another 4 hour session dubbing the foreign sitcom. We’re almost to the end of the first episode. Like I said, it’s a very verbose project with a ton of lines. Since we only have a few scenes left until we’ve finished the first episode, we’ll start on the second episode on Wednesday. This means I’ll need to watch the subtitled version of the show tonight to prep for what’s to come tomorrow. I got home and fed the kids, but Roxy’s not been eating much these days. I put little pieces of cheese in her food to entice her, but she’s at that point in her life where she’s just not very interested in food any more. I took another restful nap to the sounds of my frogs, and got up later to do my auditions. I also watched the second episode of the foreign sitcom, which looks like a lot of fun. I can’t wait until I can tell you more about it! It sure helps a lot that the casting company who cast me has sent me all of the subtitled episodes to preview before we go into the studio to work.

Wednesday the 16th – CROAKERS AND HOOTERS UNDER A FULL MOON! – Since I was up too early (again!) I had some time to get some work done and drive to Taco Bell for a bite. I prepped for the afternoon session on the foreign sitcom, and then drove to the studio in Burbank for my four hour session. We finished up episode one, and moved on to episode two. It’s so much fun crafting some of these lines on the fly; coming up with better, funnier lines in some cases. Most of the time it’s just the simple case of how humor translates from the foreign language to English. We usually do one take of each scene as written, but on the second take we’re free to try things using alternate lines, jokes and gags. We’ve found that some lines that don’t work in the show are direct, literal translations of the foreign language – and they simply don’t make narrative sense, or just aren’t very funny. As a side note, it was also VERY nice to see that food service has returned to studios, as the studio where we’re working had plenty of snacks and drinks available for the production staff! It’s been a LONG time since that’s been the case! In fact, it’s the first bagel I’ve had in many, many years. I don’t ever remember to buy them for my house, and I only used to have them when working at a studio. Since food service at studios has been suspended for over two years, it was nice to enjoy a nice bagel with extra cream cheese again! After the session I drove to Alex in Wonderland’s shop to pick up my Roosevelt Franklin replica Muppet. The next step in his fabrication is for me to trim and attach the fabric around his mouth. Then I can return him to Alex to have her stitch everything up and start creating his hair piece and turtleneck sweater. I got home and relaxed, and laid down in the Puppet Room for more “napping with frogs.” But when I woke up a few hours later I noticed that they weren’t croaking any more. Odd. Either they weren’t finding suitable mates and moved on, or they had gotten eaten by a predator. I was hoping it wasn’t the latter! I recorded a few auditions, and then started working on attaching Roosevelt’s mouth fabric to the mouth plate. It was delicate work, particularly since the puppet is smaller than most of the ones I’ve done. I also made a pattern for his hair piece. I took Roxy out for our late-night stroll through the neighborhood under a gorgeous full moon, and we heard a chorus of owls hooting all around the area. Is that why there weren’t any frogs croaking anymore? Do owls EAT frogs? I checked with Dr. Google, and he said YES. Ugh.

Thursday the 17th – DRIVING WHILE HIGH! – During the first part of the day I spent some time on the phone with my bank to try and ascertain the origin of a mystery debit on my business checking account. After many frustrating tries attempting to get through to a real person, I finally did. I did some more investigating and realized the debit was legitimate, but was a mystery due to a miscommunication with my accountant. Mystery solved! I did some more work and had planned on making a salad before work. But my salad mix had wilted too badly, so it was time for plan B. I made some pizza rolls and chicken tenders and headed off for the studio. I did another four hour dubbing session and then drove back to Alex in Wonderland to drop off Roosevelt Franklin for the next step in his completion. On the way home from her studio in Burbank, it was a warm, pleasant, slightly breezy evening. The air was warm and dry, just how I like it. I put the windows down and stopped at Del Taco to get a burger. Yes, the best fast food burger in L.A. is at a taco place. It was the first evening where it dawned on me that summer is coming! That excited me. I drove home eating my burger, fries and strawberry shake with the warm air blowing through my car. And then “Promises” by Def Leppard came on my iPod. Between being in Burbank, feeling the warm, summery air, and hearing this great song – I was starting to get very high. It all reminded me of the summer of 1999, a WONDERFUL summer! I was working on a live game show on the Game Show Network; five days a week for about 3 months. I was living quite a ways away at that time, and I had a fairly long drive to and from work every day. So I’d load up my car with great CDs for the drive, and the new Def Leppard album at the time was one of my favorites. It was a great summer, a great job, and a very creative show! I was driving home feeling very high! But the experience got even better as I pulled down the street to get to my house. To my left was a huge full moon rising over the horizon. It was dusk and night was approaching, and the moon looked fantastic. I was totally buzzed with all sorts of wonderful feelings, tastes, sounds and visuals! Life is rich! But when I got home to feed the kids, Spook wasn’t there to greet me as usual, to remind me that it was long past his dinner time. I thought that was odd. Concerned, I ran through the house calling his name. I found him sleeping in his little bed on the window seat of my bedroom; in the exact same spot I had left him several hours earlier. This was very unlike him. Then I began to spot a few spots around the house where he had thrown up little watery patches, obviously due to an empty stomach. But I leave plenty of food down for him so he can graze during the day and keep his tummy full. But he wasn’t eating them for some reason. He’s clearly not feeling well. I fed him some of his wet food, but he just took a few bites and then went back to bed. But I’ve felt that way before too. Luckily, my frogs returned for the evening, so I took advantage and napped in the Puppet Room again. When my five week dubbing job is completed, and I have some time, I’m going to buy a new mattress for that bed, as the one that’s on the bed now is pretty old. I’ll get the smaller version of the mattress I bought back in 2020 for my master bedroom. Spook slept through the evening, and I could tell he really wasn’t feeling very well. I hand fed him some chicken, recorded my nightly auditions, and watched the third episode of the foreign sitcom to prep for my Friday Voice Over session.

Friday the 18th – WEEK ONE IS IN THE BAG! – After a stop at Weinerschnitzel for some lunch to go, I was back at the studio in Burbank for another four hour dubbing session. One week down, four more to go! I drove over to CVS to pick up a prescription and some supplies, and then went home. Spook was feeling much better and even ate a little something and drank some water. Roxy still wasn’t eating much though, unfortunately. I guess I’m running a senior center for pets at Planet Wallywood! It had been a very long, busy week and I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend! I napped to frogs again in the Puppet Room. When I got up, not only was Spook interested in eating, but Roxy was eating as well! I recorded some auditions, made some buffalo mac and watched a few episodes of “The Lone Ranger” before bed. Between the stupid time change and all of the work in the studio this past week, I hadn’t had a chance to watch anything before bed. It was nice!

Saturday the 19th – 3D OZ! – My maids usually come every other Friday afternoon to clean Planet Wallywood, but since I’ll be working every weekday for the next four weeks, I’ve had to alter that schedule temporarily. Instead of Fridays, I’m going to have them come on Saturdays to clean for the next several weeks. So that means it’s not my usual crew, since my usual crew doesn’t work on Saturdays. This crew was pretty late in arriving; a full 45 minutes later than their scheduled arrival window. So I spent a lot of time just waiting around for them to arrive. Spook was clearly feeling better, though the pink hadn’t fully returned to his nose and ears. I did some work around the house, and after the maids left I got cleaned up and ready for dinner with my friend Sabrina. I hadn’t seen her in about a month so there was a lot of catching up to do. We drove to Barone’s and I told her she was in for a treat! We had a nice leisurely dinner, and then drove back to Planet Wallywood. I told her she was in for another treat. I surprised her with the 3D version of “The Wizard of Oz!” Like me, she loves that movie, but had never seen it in 3D before. As she and I we were walking Roxy, I could hear the rushing water in the L.A. River. We had a little rain earlier in the evening, so the river was full and flowing. Unfortunately, that meant “no more frogs.” Yup. When the frogs take up residence outside my house to croak for mates, their residency usually ends when water flows down the river and washes them downstream. Sure enough, no more croaking. They had moved on down the line to try to find mates in another location, and treat a different neighborhood to their gentle and soothing sounds.

Sunday the 20th – WONDERFUL WEEKEND! – It’s been about 8 years since I’ve had to be at a job five days a week for an extended period of time. In fact, the last time I think I had a schedule like that was when I was working on “The Tonight Show.” It wasn’t a schedule I was used to anymore (especially given the craziness of the past two years) so it was taking a bit of adjustment; psychologically, organizationally, and physically. I’m going to really appreciate the weekends over the next month! It was a fairly exhausting, but rewarding first full week on the new job. My pal Sara and I enjoyed some dinner at Ernie’s Taco House, and then I returned home to do some work and prep for the new week. There are supposed to be a few really warm days mid-week, so I’m planning on swapping out the Mustang for the Gran Torino soon!

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

As I’ve often said before, sometimes God will tell you a joke, but not give you the punchline until decades later. He’ll give us little, clever hints of what’s to come in our lives – and we’ll be completely oblivious to their meaning until years later. I posted a few examples of this recently from my own life, but I found this shot of my pal Daniel Roebuck taken at the “screamiere” of my comedy pilot “Uncle Davver’s Really Scary Movie Show” back in 2004. All of my celebrity guests arrived in the famous George Barris Munster Koach. Now that it’s public knowledge that Dan will be playing Grandpa in the upcoming Munsters feature film by Rob Zombie, this photo provides a bountiful amount of foreshadowing into Dan’s future.

It’s been several years since the passing of Adam West, and we still miss him today! Back in the early 2000s, he was kind enough to shoot a quick little video for me that would be included in a video compilation to be shown at one of my birthday movie parties at the Silent Movie Theatre. My dad shot this picture of Adam as he was doing the video.

Speaking of Adam, one Halloween my “Invader Zim” pal Richard Horvitz and I dressed as Batman and Robin to attend the world-famous Halloween carnival in West Hollywood. THAT was an amazing time!

And what would Batman and Robin be without their villains? This shot was taken backstage at the old Fox talk show that Ross Schaefer hosted back in the late 80s. Little did I know at the time that my camera would be capturing a former Riddler and a future Riddler hanging out together. Again…a punchline that takes decades to understand.

I prepared to trim the fabric around Roosevelt Franklin’s mouth.

Then I pinned and trimmed his mouth, glued down the fabric onto his mouth plate, and put on his temporary hair piece.

Though the sample hair piece is much too big, I cut and pinned on a pattern for what the real hair piece will look like (it’s the little white patch under his hair). Stay tuned for more progress shots!