Happy Birthday, Vikki Carr!

I think I must have discovered the music of Vikki Carr back when I was about 13 years old. She was my first favourite female vocalist, and still ranks up high on my list of top singers to this day. The first time I saw her was when she was a guest on The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was off that night, and I remember that the show was being guest-hosted by McLean Stevenson, who was Colonel Blake on M*A*S*H at the time. When Vikki was introduced and came on stage to perform her song, I was smitten. A petite woman with a big powerful voice, Vikki also has one of the warmest smiles I've ever seen. I was an immediate fan and soon set about to collect her LP records.

Any time I noticed in the TV Guide that Vikki was appearing as a guest on a variety or talk show, I made sure I had my trusty VCR set up to record her performance. I still have all those taped appearances, now transferred to DVD for posterity (I hope!) I was also a member of her fan club for many years, and looked forward to the quarterly newsletter. One time in 1979 or so, while reading the newsletter, I was thrilled to learn that Vikki would be appearing in Hamilton as a guest on the show, The Palace, a revival of sorts of The Hollywood Palace from the 60s, that was being produced in Canada and hosted by singer Jack Jones. I talked my parents into a trip from Ottawa to Hamilton for the taping of the show and sent away for tickets.

Before heading out, I had painted a caricature of Vikki and had it framed up in the hopes of finally meeting her. My folks and I went to the box office to make enquiries as to maybe meeting her after the show that evening so that I could present her with my artwork. I remember the woman at the desk being very nice and summoned Vikki's manager to find out if that would be possible. He smiled when he saw the caricature and said they were currently in rehearsal inside the theatre, but thought she might be able to take a break to meet me right then.

Sure enough, he came back with Vikki Carr herself and I was in heaven. She seemed thrilled with the art and gave me a big hug and kiss in accepting it. She was as sweet as could be as she took the time to chat with me and my folks for several minutes before she had to be back on the set. Yep, I was a pretty happy guy at getting to meet this warm, wonderful lady!

As the times were changing, and traditional vocalists were finding it harder and harder to compete with pop/rock types for radio airplay by the mid-80s, Vikki Carr, along with so many others, found her career in mainstream music being severely challenged. Being of Mexican descent and always having proudly maintained a warm relationship with her latin audience, Vikki managed to find new success in concentrating all of her energies on the latin market, releasing many albums of Spanish songs over the years hence. I always felt it was a shame that, through no fault of her own, Vikki came along just as the final wave of the truly great vocalists of our time was being phased out, and quite frankly, the pop music industry has not appealed to my tastes since. I'll continue to listen to my alltime favourite vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Peggy Lee.... and lovely Vikki Carr! Happy Birthday to you, Vikki!













(PS: One of the trickiest things in drawing this caricature of Vikki was her hair. I think she's had more different hairstyles over the years than any other woman I know of! This caricature was drawn from a guest appearance she made on The Dean Martin Variety Show in 1971, and as such, the hairstyle may not be her typical look.)

Death Takes No Holiday Last Week

It would seem that the whole world is now in mourning for "The Gloved One", despite the fact that Michael Jackson had been largely forsaken by the public in his latter years, reduced to a sad joke, most tragically of his own making. To give him his due, Jackson certainly was a phenomenal solo talent back in his prime years of the 1980s, but he just couldn't seem to sustain it for more than a dozen years or so. While I could admire his technical skills as a dancer, that kind of high energy pop/rock performer so typical of "The MTV Generation" never appealed to me. Remember, I'm a Sinatra guy myself, so Michael Jackson just didn't measure up. For the record, I deplore all contemporary pop music, as I've never liked the rock influence. Sorry...

So instead, here in The Cartoon Cave we're going to celebrate the other two big names of the entertainment world who left us this past week:



Farrah Fawcett is certainly the more tragic loss of the the two, by virtue of her being only 62 and having been in so much physical agony from the cancer that had wracked her body for so long. When I was a teen in the 1970s, this beauty with the big blonde mane of hair was the reigning sex symbol of the day, with her blue eyes and that million dollar smile blazing forth from the ubiquitous poster that became an iconic image of that era. As Marilyn Monroe was to the 50s and Raquel Welch was to the 60s, so Farrah Fawcett became the feminine ideal of the 70s, inspiring many a teenage girl's hairstyle while inspiring something else in we guys! It's ironic really that she made as big a splash as she did, as her greatest claim to fame as the breakout star on Charlie's Angels only lasted the first season, before Farrah decided to leave the show to try her luck in movies. It's a shame that she never did achieve the fame in film that she had strived for.

Admittedly, I was not a huge fan of Farrah, being only a casual viewer of Charlie's Angels back in its day. I found the show entertaining, but a bit too fluffy and silly for my tastes. I preferred my crime shows to be more plausible, favouring Columbo and The Rockford Files at the time. Still, the three gals were very cute and appealing, although truth be told, Jaclyn Smith was my favourite Angel, with her soft dark eyes and warm honey voice. But I certainly admired Farrah and Kate Jackson as well. Having recently revisited the show on DVD, I find their portrayals rather refreshing in retrospect, in that they're not the badass, butt kicking action girls so prevalent in movies and shows today, but are instead still allowed to be very sweet and feminine while solving the dastardly crimes. The 1970s was still a more innocent time on TV!




And not to be forgotten, we also lost Ed McMahon this past week, who was in fact a big favourite of mine. In the 70s and 80s I was an avid viewer of The Tonight Show, back when Johnny Carson was the king of television and the show itself had so much more class than in its later incarnation with Jay Leno. Big Ed was more than just a sidekick to Johnny, in my opinion. His hearty laugh and always affable manner was a very comfortable presence to be around, and I felt that he and Johnny operated more as a team than we see with any of the second bananas working on TV today.

I remember back in 1982, I was in New York City freelancing for the Disney office there. While I was in town, a friend and I got tickets to see the then very late night version of Late Night With David Letterman, which ran on NBC following The Tonight Show. I recall the audience being herded like cattle into the theatre, then having some very crass fellows come out to instruct and nearly threaten us into obeying the applause sign. Overall, I found the experience of that TV show taping rather demeaning and wasn't too impressed at all. About a year or so later, I was out visiting my friend Bryan Stoller in LA and Bryan knew somebody at NBC who was able to secure us very good seats near the front of the theatre to see The Tonight Show. In contrast to the experience at the Letterman taping, I found the taping of The Tonight Show to be very warm and friendly. I recall that Ed McMahon and Doc Severinsen came out before the show to warm up the audience before the taping was to start. They had a very inviting manner about them, putting the audience at ease with their good humour and taking a few questions from the people in the stands. When the show started up, it was just magical to hear Ed's familiar intro of "Heeeeere's Johnny!", bringing forth the king himself. I remember being so impressed with the consummate professionalism of Johnny, Ed and Doc, and their obvious respect for their live audience.

In recent years, Ed McMahon had shown unfailing loyalty and respect for his former boss, even after Johnny Carson had passed away, speaking with great affection of their years working together. At some point I'm planning to do a fuller post on the subject of Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, but in the meantime I'd just like to pay my respects to that gentle giant, Ed McMahon.