Game Show Legend Bob Stewart Has Passed Away at 91
By Carrie Grosvenor,
About.com Guide
More sad news for game show fans, I'm afraid. Randy West
has posted on
Facebook that Bob Stewart, legendary game show producer, has
died at
the age of 91.
None of the mainstream media has picked
up the story as I write this,
so there's not much else to share yet.
Stewart created some of the most beloved game shows of all time,
including To Tell the Truth, Password, Pyramid, and The Price is
Right.
He retired in 1992, and in 2009 was recognized with an
induction into the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of
Fame.
Our
thoughts go out to his family and friends--he was one of the most
innovative
minds in this industry, and will be missed.
http://gameshows.about.com/b/2012/05/04/game-show-legend-bob-stewart-has-passed-away-at-91.htm
Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died
at the age of 48, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been
in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after
discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.
Yauch sat out the Beastie
Boys' induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, and his treatments
delayed the release of the group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt.
2. The Beastie Boys had not performed live since the summer of 2009, and Yauch's
illness prevented the group from appearing in music videos for Hot Sauce
Committee, Pt. 2.
Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike "Mike D"
Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz in 1979. The band started off as a hardcore
punk group, but soon began experimenting with hip-hop. The band broke big with
their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986, and further albums Paul's
Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication cemented the band as a true
superstar act.
In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was
heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet and co-organized the Tibetan
Freedom Concerts of the late Nineties. In 2002, he launched the film production
company Oscilloscope Laboratories.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-co-founder-adam-yauch-dead-at-48-20120504
Animation producer Buzz Potamkin died recently (I heard April 28) following a
long battle with cancer. Buzz was like the Johnny Appleseed of animation
companies, running, founding or co-founding many over the years including
Perpetual Motion, Southern Star Productions, Visionary Media and Buzzco. His
tenures with each outfit were highlighted by innovative, acclaimed production,
much of it in the area of advertising but plenty in the category of TV series
and specials. As one example, he received credit and praise for a lot of the
splashy animation that the cable channel MTV employed in advertising and imaging
when it debuted.
Though I worked with Buzz and considered him a good
friend, I'm not up to itemizing all his credits. I'll have to leave that
formidable task to someone else and just write about the work we did together in
the eighties. We met when I wrote a prime-time animated special that one of
Buzz's companies in New York (I was never sure which one) animated for CBS.
Shortly thereafter, Buzz relocated to Hollywood for a time and you might be
interested in the story of how that happened. I guess this is okay to tell
now.
Hanna-Barbera was doing shows for CBS in the eighties and at one
point, they delivered a string of notably substandard shows, well below the
level that was expected of them. Angry CBS execs told H-B, "We're not buying any
more shows from you!" H-B execs understandably panicked at the thought of losing
about a third of their marketplace. They begged, pleaded, cajoled and promised
to do much, much better next time if CBS would grant them a next time. In
particular, they pledged to not send any more CBS shows to a particular lousy
subcontracting firm overseas.
CBS gave them one more chance and bought
another show from Hanna-Barbera. For reasons which were never clear (I heard a
half-dozen explanations) H-B sent that show to the particular lousy
subcontracting firm overseas.
When the first episodes were delivered, CBS
exploded. They said that not only would they never buy another series from
Hanna-Barbera, they weren't even going to accept or pay for that one that was
currently in production.
Again, there was much panicking and grief in the
executive offices on Hanna-Barbera. There was more pleading, more cajoling and a
lot more promising. When it all settled down, CBS agreed to continue with that
series if (big, expensive IF) H-B would pour megabucks into producing the show
and if they would hire an animation producer CBS trusted to spend all that
money, spend it wisely and deliver a quality show. That producer was Buzz
Potamkin.
He moved to L.A., set up an operation, finished that series and
produced several others, mainly for H-B but some also on his own and a few in
co-production with CBS. Probably the best one he did was The Berenstain Bears,
which was on from 1985 to 1987, winning much critical praise and several award
nominations. He was later involved in several of the more popular shows
developed for Cartoon Network including Johnny Bravo, 2 Stupid Dogs and Dexter's
Laboratory.
Someone else will have to list all the other shows he did. I
just wanted to tell that story because it speaks of the Buzz Potamkin I knew,
who was a man of utter integrity both in handling money and in handling the
creative reins of a show. I wish we had more like him and am sorry to lose the
one we had.
Friday, May 4, 2012
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