Author: Robert Greenberger

Michael McKean just can’t stay away from the fanboy realm.

The versatile star of film, television and stage continues to deviate from his mainstream roles to appear in all forms of super hero entertainment, this time lending his voice to the egomaniacal Dr. Bartholomew Wolper in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, is the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. The film arrives September 25, 2012 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD, On Demand and for Download.

McKean is a key member of a voice cast that features Peter Weller (RoboCop) as Bruce Wayne/Batman, David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie/Robin, and Wade Williams (Prison Break) as Harvey Dent/Two-Face.

McKean is best known for his portrayal of David St. Hubbins in This Is Spinal Tap, a role he’s been perpetuating along with his bandmates for more than a quarter of a century. McKean actually is a talented musician – he’s quite handy with a harmonica, guitar or keyboard. His honor role of movie credits include Best in Show, 1941, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and A Mighty Wind.

McKean initially drew the public’s adoration as the first half of the inimitable duo of Lenny and Squiggy on the 1970s favorite, Laverne & Shirley. He served as the self-centered, sex-driven boss Gibby on one of HBO’s first original sitcoms, Dream On; and he was a member of the core cast on Saturday Night Live from 1994-1995. McKean’s

prime time appearances number in the dozens on series like Friends, Curb Youth Enthusiasm, Law & Order (two different characters, eight years apart) and The X-Files.

Even within those roles, McKean found his way into fanboy fun – playing Perry White during a 1995 SNL. He would revisit the role six years later on Smallville. In fact, McKean is one of only seven actors to appear in both Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville – and the only one to also give voice to a character in a DC Universe Animated Original Movie.

McKean’s been to the Batcave before, too. The New York native voiced the 1950s Joker and a Mutant in the “Legends of the Dark Knight” episode of The New Batman Adventures, as well as voicing Sneak Peek for Batman Beyond. For Justice League, he voiced The Sportsman.

The DC Lineage dips into his personal life, as well. McKean is married to actress Annette O’Toole, who has the distinction of playing Lana Lang opposite Christopher Reeve in Superman III, and as Martha Kent for 10 years of Smallville.

McKean obliged us with a few minutes to chat about his latest animated role, and a few other subjects near and dear to fanboy hearts. Take a read …

QUESTION: How did you come to think of Arkham Asylum psychiatrist Dr. Bartholomew Wolper?

MICHAEL MCKEAN: Dr. Wolper is a very, very good shrink … if you ask him. He’s a guy who likes the sound of his own voice; he finds his ego very soothing, even though it seems a little ponderous from the outside. But he is convinced of his own genius, and definitely convinced that these poor, twisted souls who have been entrusted to his care are redeemable because he knows who the real bad guy is.

QUESTION: And that “bad guy” is?

MCKEAN: Wolper thinks that Batman is a social disease. He thinks that it is, in fact, Batman’s ego that is driving the crime wave in Gotham City. And he sets out to prove it. I don’t think he actually makes the case, but you can’t tell him that (laughs) … or anything else, for that matter.

QUESTION: How did you approach playing this character?

MCKEAN: My first impulse was Dr. Phil, but it didn’t work – it was too folksy. I think that a man whose ego is such a construct that it supersedes everything else around him, that’s kind of an interesting character to portray. There are some great examples in history. And I think a man who plays God – especially when it concerns human intelligence, human psyche, human emotions – he’s kind of like a prestidigitator. He’s the expert in the room, and when he tells you something is so, he expects you to believe it. And it’s only when he comes right up against the real world that it all falls apart.

QUESTION: In addition to acting, you also direct. And you’ve worked with Andrea Romano on a number of projects. What makes Andrea so good at what she does?

MCKEAN: Andrea Romano has a kind of a soothing, friendly personality, which of course masks a tyrant (laughs). Kidding, kidding. I think she’s an amazing talent and I trust her implicitly. Often if I’m directing, I’ll say, “Look, I won’t give you a line reading, but” and then I’ll try to make my case and get you to say what you’re supposed to say. As an actor, I actually ask Andrea for a line reading, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s been doing it a long time, and she’s the best in the business. So I utterly respect her taste and opinion. And she’s also a great cheerleader – there’s never a time when I think “Geez, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” Even if I don’t know what I’m doing, she always convinces me that I do … and then she sets me straight (laughs). It’s kind of brilliant.

QUESTION: Does being part of a Batman film have any personal significance for you?

MCKEAN: When I was a kid, I adored the Bob Kane’s 1950s Batman. I liked the Superman comics and Justice League and Flash and the Atom – nobody does The Atom anymore, and that was a cool super hero – but I did love Batman. I loved the fact that they always found a way to stage the climactic scenes in a warehouse of gigantic toys, or huge oversized stuffed animals. And even as a kid, I sort of knew, “Well, (Kane) is sort of bored. He wants to draw something new other than just a street corner and a couple of guys fisting it out.” So I was a big comic book fan, and I loved the DC stuff.

When I went to college, the ABC series began airing. I was at Carnegie Mellon and I’ll never forget that everyone was looking forward to Batman and it was going to be the best thing ever. In those days, there was only one or two TV sets in the entire dorm. So we went down to the common room at McGill Hall and the show came on – and the minute the “pows” and “bams” and sound effects came on screen, the whole place went insane. Now these were all young men of ages 17 to 23, but suddenly we were all kids again. It was phenomenal. So it is kind of nice to revisit that (memory) by being in this film.

I also had the honor of playing the Joker in one of Mr. Timm’s episodes. Mark Hamill was doing the voice at the time, but they had a flashback to the 1950s, so I got to play the Joker in one episode. That was pretty exciting, too. And now it’s nice to be in a full-scale, class production like this.

QUESTION: With all your years of comic book reading, and your interest in the super hero realm, do you have a character you’d most like to play or voice?

MCKEAN: Comics actually taught me how to read. From the age of 3 or 4, my older sister would help me along with my reading lessons, telling me how to sound out words. Then I’d sit with my comics and really develop my reading. I remember that as I was reading comics, I had voices in my head for the characters. But I honestly don’t think I have one that I’d really want to take on. Maybe Bizarro Superman. That’d be fun to do.

QUESTION: You’ve carved quite the resume of film, TV and stage performances, and yet you find time for a lot of animation voiceovers. For you, is that additional work … or working fun?

MCKEAN: It is an awful lot of fun. The only time I don’t like voiceover stuff is if I have a ton of ADR work to do. I did a film called Short Circuit II, where I had a lot of scenes with a robot. And it was a real robot – it was operated off screen, but it really was a mechanical man. And, of course, they had the motors going at all times, Every move the robot made, there would be a noise with that movement. So every scene I had with this damn robot, which was about half the film, I had to loop everything. And that drives me crazy. But when you’re working with people like Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche – I did a bunch of Animaniacs and a couple of Pinky & the Brain episodes – those guys make it such a great party atmosphere. They’re so funny and so smart – just amazing people to work with. That’s the best part of the job.

QUESTION: With so many memorable roles in your lengthy list of credits, what do people stop and ask you about the most?

MCKEAN: I guess Spinal Tap, just because we keep coming back. We made the movie 25 years ago and occasionally we “tour” and make TV appearances and put out product. So people know me from that. Occasionally somebody will come up and say “You’re Gibby from Dream On,” not very often, but sometimes. Laverne and Shirley – not so much. That’s a long time ago, and we’ve all changed (laughs). And, of course, the last few pictures I made with Chris Guest. People love Best in Show. People always say the same thing to me about that film – they say, “You know, you and your boyfriend had the best relationship of all the couples in the film.” And they’re so totally right (laughs). We were made for each other. So that’s a lot of fun, too.

QUESTION: Dr. Wolper is actually featured in both Part 1 and Part 2 of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Can you give us a little teaser of what to expect in the second half of the story?

MCKEAN: The Joker is kind of Dr. Wolper’s pet patient. He is the most irredeemable, as far as society is concerned, which Dr. Wolper takes as a challenge. He’s thrilled and delighted when he sees the Joker making such progress, and he thinks that he’s done so well that the next step is to bring him out into the public to kind of show off his own work. It doesn’t go well.

Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA (August 22, 2012) – Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the State Attorneys General and Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Counciljoined with Twentieth Century Fox Television and Twentieth Century Fox HomeEntertainment to unveil new public service advertisements (PSAs) featuring scenes from season three of Fox’s award-winning television series “Glee” to educate young adult drivers (16-24) of the dangers of texting while driving.

Earlier this year, the Golden Globe winning series made headlines when a pivotal cliffhanger episode ended with a shocking and catastrophic crash due to texting and driving. Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) was driving to her friends’ (Rachel and Finn, played by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith) wedding when a she received a text. She took her eyes off the road to read it and to type the words “On My Way” for a matter of seconds, but in her distraction she swerved out of her lane and was hit in a tragic accident by an oncoming vehicle. It was months before the audience and “Glee’s” millions of young adult viewers would know the fate of her character, but the message was clear: texting and driving can have horrific consequences.

The new television and digital PSAs employ this powerful scene to emphasize that five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting and driving – when driving at 55 miles per hour, that is enough time to cover the length of a football field. The PSAs direct young adult drivers to the Texting and Driving Prevention campaign web site, StopTextsStopWrecks.org, where teens and young adults can find facts about the impact of texting while driving and tips for how to curb the behavior.

NHTSA reports that in 2010, more than 3,000 people were killed and an additional 416,000 were injured due to distracted driving, which includes texting while driving. The “Glee” PSAs are part of NHSTA, the State Attorneys Generaland Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Council’s national Texting and Driving Prevention PSA campaign. Launched in October 2011, this campaign is designed to curb the behavior of young adults who text while driving, address the compulsion of this behavior and demonstrate to overconfident young adult drivers that it is not safe to text while driving.

“Texting and driving is an epidemic on America’s roadways, but these crashes are preventable. Distracted driving does not just happen, it’s a choice,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “The first line of defense must be personal responsibility by all drivers to put theirwireless devices away and keep their focus on the road, which is why we are working closely with our partners to build public awareness around this important safety issue.”

“This was a story we wanted to tell because we know the influence our show can have in starting conversations and raising awareness,” commented “Glee” executive producer and co-creator Ryan Murphy. “We were inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s campaign encouraging everyone to sign a pledge not to text and drive, which we all signed when we did her show a few yearsago, and we had been looking for an opportunity to tell the story of how a few seconds of carelessness could have a devastating impact on people’s lives. We’ve already heard from thousands of our fans how this story touched them, and we loved the idea of a PSA campaign to keep this important issue front and center.”

“’Glee’ has always told stories that speak to young people in an incredibly entertaining way, provoking conversation and raising awareness in the process,” said Dana Walden and Gary Newman, Chairmen of Twentieth Century Fox Television.  “When Ryan and the producers told us they were going to tackle this issue, we knew that beyond telling agreat, dramatic story about our characters, it could have very real impact on the lives of our viewers. We couldn’t be more proud of the work they and the cast have done on this incredible series.”

According to a new, national survey conducted by the Ad Council, there has been progress with the attitudes and behaviors among young adult drivers regarding texting while driving.  Fifty-one percent of young adult drivers report that they are “extremely concerned” about their peers texting while driving, which represents an increase of seven percent since September 2011.  Most notably, in regards to their current behavior, thirty-four percent of respondents said that they never text while driving, a significant increase from twenty-eight percent in 2011.

“Driving is one of the most dangerous activities for young adults. Texting while driving is a distraction that young drivers can live without,” said Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, the father of two teenage boys. “Drivers of any age should be aware that texting while driving may not only jeopardize the safety of themselves and others, but it can violate state motor vehicle laws against distracted driving and result in hefty fines or loss of driving privileges.”

“We are thrilled to join Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and ‘Glee’ to unveil a new series of public service ads to further extend our texting while driving prevention messages to their vast audience of young adult drivers,” said Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the Ad Council. “Our latest research shows a nation that is now on the right track in improving the safety of our roads, but there is still more work to be done. We will continue to broaden our campaign messages to help reduce driver distraction, prevent injuries, and ultimately save lives.”

Since 2006, the Ad Council has partnered with the State Attorneys General to address reckless driving among teens. The “Stop the Texts. Stop the Wrecks.” campaign effort has received more than $20 million in donated media support to date.  For more than twenty-five years, the Ad Council and NHTSA have worked together on consumer safety PSA campaigns. Per the Ad Council’s model, all of the new PSAs will run and air in advertising time and space that is donated by the media.

I have never warmed up to Sacha Baron Cohen’s style of satire. The concepts are great while I find the execution in Bruno, Borat and now The Dictator, to be crude and unfunny. In both cases, I found the clever marketing more interesting and enjoyable than the actual films. The Combo Pack (Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy) from Paramount Home Video came with a nice letter from Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen with bribe bucks from Wadiya. If only the film itself was as funny.

Cohen does a fine job submerging himself into his character, in this case, Admiral General Aladeen, but he then does rude, crude, and preposterous things in the name of satire. Cohen should be made to study the Mel Brooke oeuvre to see how it should be done: character-based and smart humor.

Aladeen hails from the northern African country of Wadiya, a combination if Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi and the timing is such that in the wake of the Arab Spring, these sort of larger than life world leaders are a vanishing breed., There’s nothing funny to their antics and they are such caricatures that they are hard to top, making the challenge for the filmmakers all the more difficult.

Those personality and cultural differences are put on display when the dictator comes to New York to address the United Nations, denying once more his nuclear program is for weaponry designed to annihilate Israel (so much for satire). His absence prompts a coup back home, propelling the plot. Now a leader without a country, he has to fend for himself in the world’s biggest melting pot. To retain power, he comes to count on Zoey (Anna Faris) and a fellow Wadiyan, Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), the leader thought dead. We go to a voyage of self-discovery of the pleasures in life, from masturbation to falling in love, which makes little sense when Aladeen is the most powerful figure in his country. Why is he so out of touch in this global world? Cohen doesn’t pause to explain any of this preferring to make his character simply clueless. The film goes from satire to screwball romantic comedy to biting denouncement of our country and therefore doesn’t feel like much of anything but a few sketches without a strong point of view.

We have some fun cameos from Chris Parnell, Jessica St. Clair, Fred Armisen, Nasim Pedrad, John C. Reilly, Chris Elliot, Gary Shandling, Edward Norton and Horatio Sanz.

The disc comes with the theatrical release and the “Banned and Unrated” version, fifteen more minutes of this nonsense, mostly extended bits between Cohen and Mantzoukas. The hype is unwarranted because it makes the film more boring and unwatchable. We get more scatological and sexual jokes which really aren’t that funny.

Despite the extra material in the new cut, the extras include an additional 34 minutes of deleted or extended scenes which makes me admire the editor for showing some discretion. Lots of these bits are found in the longer version. Additional material includes “Your Money is On The Dresser” (1:35), a music video with the leader; and an unnecessary extended version of the Larry King interview (2:49).

I suppose if you love this sort of sophomoric humor, the movie and disc are perfect for you. On the other hand, given the film’s poor critical reception and lackluster box office performance, it could be that we’ve all grown tired of Cohen’s brand of humor and his time as a polarizing comedic figure has finally come to an end. We can hope for this right up there with our desire for world peace.

When we saw the first image of Daniel Day-Lewis in his Abraham Lincoln makeup, we thought it was pretty impressive. Considering this is a two-time Academy Award winner in Lincoln, a film from director Steven Spielberg, we know this is one to see. That it is based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wondferul book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is all the more reason we’re more excited about this than we were with Abe the Vampire Slayer.

According to DreamWorks, which releases the film on November 9, the movie is a “revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.”

The cast includes Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln along with David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones. Lincoln is produced by Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner. The film is a coproduction between DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox film, in association with Participant Media.

Joss Whedon’s take on the X-Men is the series that keeps on giving. Winner of the Will Eisner Award winner for Best Continuing Series, it first it became a series of motion comics, adapting the 25 issue run, and in a few weeks, it will be turned into a series of prose novel adaptations (by Peter David, due out September 5). Why? Whedon understands character, action, and using larger than life people to work as metaphors for life. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was really about surviving high school and being a mutant in the comics is dealing with prejudice and fear of the unknown. But, unlike so many others, Whedon tends to leaven his work with humor and character traits that amuse and surprise.

Astonishing X-Men was created as a showcase series for Whedon but he was accompanied by acclaimed artist John Cassaday, who brought a photorealistic style to characters that have tended to be drawn with great exaggeration by artists ever since their 1963 debut. Grounding the visuals with Whedon’s writing style made for one of those magical pairings which seems to happen with less and less regularity.

Cassaday’s visuals work wonderfully on the printed page but less so given the limitations of the motion comic format. Serialized for the web, these have been collecting in a series of DVDs from Shout! Factory and Torn is the latest installment, out this week. As noted when we reviewed Dangerous, motion comics is this weird hybrid that is really a modern day version of the cardboard cutout animation first used in Marvel Super-Heroes back in the 1960s.

Wisely, they retained as much of Cassaday’s artwork as was practical and the dialogue has that Whedon ring, although as usual the voice casting leaves something to be desired. Cassaday worked with Atomic Cartoons and Neal Adams to bring some life to his four-color efforts.

Torn adapts issues #13-18 and pits the merry mutants against the less merry Hellfire Club – featuring Xavier’s twin sister Cassandra Nova, Emma Frost, Perfection, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and the deadly Sebastian Shaw. We learn that the enigmatic Emma Frost is conjuring up a psychic project of the villainous alliance because she was being blackmailed by Nova. Whedon also pauses to deepen Scott Summers by letting us learn of a childhood trauma that manifested in his losing control of his optic blasts.

Whedon’s affection for teen characters remains evident as it is Kitty Pryde who winds up saving the day this time.  He has some fun with the simmering Kitty/Colossus relationship, displaying some nice character-based humor. Similarly, when Emma plays mind games with the team, it mixes painful memories with humorous situations, giving us some fresh insights into the team.

The six chapters, totaling 81 minutes, are nicely adapted into animated installments and keeps the momentum moving even when the visuals are overly static. If you love this run in all its incarnations, then you want this. Or you could wait a bit and get all the motion comics series on a Blu-ray, coming later this year.

Related articles

• Astonishing X-Men Motion Comics to be Collected on Blu-ray (comicmix.com)

Joe Kubert’s distinct art style was one of the earliest I recall being able to identify. It seemed such a perfect fit the DC war titles and I was always pleasantly surprised to see the occasional superhero cover during the 1960s. I didn’t really get a sense of his lengthy tenure in comics until he was spotlighted in an issue of DC Special.

Then came Tarzan. I knew of the character but had not then read Burroughs or the Gold Key comics so this was an eye-popping revelation. It was my first sustained exposure to the jungle lord and Kubert’s artwork seemed an ideal fit. Thanks to DC’s expanded reprint program through the 1970s, I was exposed to more and more of his work and recognized a true artist.

In the summer of 1980, I was briefly on staff at DC prior to beginning my career at Starlog Press and I wound up spending a lot of time in Ross Andru’s office. It was small and cramped, but he sat at his drawing board working up covers or layout covers for others. At the same, all cover art was passed under his nose and it was through his tutelage that I grasped how carefully Kubert constructed his covers and he drew for color, something I had never considered before. At first I would see the artwork and wonder where the blacks were to give the cover weight but then I would see the color guide and it suddenly made sense and worked wonderfully.

Joe and I became nodding acquaintances when I finally joined DC in 1984 and he contributed pages to Who’s Who but we never did more work together and remained friendly enough. At some point, Ðìçk Giordano asked me and Mike Gold to reread the five issues that Joe had completed of The Redeemer, a project DC ballyhooed in 1983 before yanking the project for various reasons. It was a rare treat to see stuff that no one else had. Unfortunately, the conclusion was that the time for such a work had passed and it was quietly canceled and the rights returned to Joe.

I admired and respected his work and the school, which by then was feeding the comics companies’ voracious need for talent. I then learned he was doing work for overseas publishers and I really wanted to see them. Thankfully, several, such as Abraham Stone made it over here and I distinctly recall one San Diego show, I actually waited on line for something like an hour or longer to buy a copy and have the blank first page graced with a Kubert sketch. I watched as Joe made small talk with the fan as he knocked off a flawless head shot of Sgt. Rock or one of his other characters. When it was my turn, he perfunctorily opened the book, said hi and asked what I wanted then looked up. Recognizing me, he broke into a big grin and was very pleased I had waited in line. The patience was rewarded with a wonderful full figure Tarzan.

We’d see one another at cons through the years, chatting ever so briefly since he was usually surrounded by fans, friends, and other professionals he had worked with through the years. As a result, I was delighted to hear we would both be at the Grenada Convention in 2010. For several days, we would share meals and conversation, with Joe talking to me about the early days of comics and chatted with Deb about the general world. He was good natured, usually sketching when he wasn’t eating, explaining he couldn’t help himself. Despite the language barrier, he expressed his appreciation and enthusiasm for the work of artists, shyly showing the master their portfolios.

We last saw one another, the usual handshake, smile and quick “how are you?” at Baltimore Comic-Con last fall. I was looking forward to seeing him again at the show next month. And then I received the word that he had shockingly, unexpectedly, passed away yesterday after a brief illness.

Joe broke in at the beginning of his teenage years. He worked his way up, improving his craft with every passing year. Long after he retired from editing at DC and then as the work from the majors dried up, he continued to write and draw graphic novels that essentially took over from where Will Eisner left off. Look at his output over the last 20 years and it’s an incredible achievement for any creator let alone the final chapter of one man’s career. Works like Yossel and Fax from Sarajevo are must read volumes. There’s still a bunch of work out there that needs to be translated and brought here so we can enjoy fresh Kubert for a little while longer.

He rarely had a cross word for anyone, always smiling and being as encouraging as possible. His legacy is certainly one of the broadest of any creator thanks to not only the generations of graduates but his own kids, Adam and Andy, who continue to push artistic boundaries.

The likes of Joe Kubert won’t be seen again and we’re all the poorer for it.

Related articles

• Remembering Joe Kubert (bobgreenberger.com)
• Joe Kubert, 1926 – 2012 (comicmix.com)