Pheaturing Bill Kopp

 

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Monday. How are you? Congratulations on having your Christmas decorations up before most people took their Halloween decorations down. I'm gonna start with a nice story. “A roast beef slider with the Swiss melted and a Coke with no ice,” is the same order that Mr. Doug Parker gets every time he walks into his favorite local Arby’s restaurant in Chandler, Arizona. The 98-year-old veteran fought in World War II and comes in so often, an Arby’s near Queen Creek and Alma School roads, not only know his order by heart, but consider him family. Over the last few months, the loyal customer has been unable to pay his Arby’s family a visit at his favorite place, but that hasn’t stopped manager Christina Gamage or the rest of this Arby’s staff from making sure he gets his favorite meal. The WWII veteran told Fox 10 Phoenix, “This is the only place I an get a sandwich or get something to anything else to eat that doesn’t hurt my stomach.” Gamage explained, “He comes in with a walker, as soon as we see him come to the doors, we try [to] grab the doors for him.” She also explained that Parker has been through many trials as a veteran and that he also has no family. She or someone from the Chandler Arby staff will drive his to-go meal to Parker’s retirement home which is only five minutes away. And it’s a free food as well. So Gamage decided to gift the veteran a heartwarming something as thank you for everything Parker has done in his lifetime. “Let’s give him Arby’s for life, I have no problem with that,” she said. It started back in 2018, when all the employees gathered their own money to give Parker a $200 gift card to the fast food restaurant to show the old man some extra love. Gamage explained that, “He was so shocked, hardly had anything to say.” And now, the chain restaurant was recognized for how they care for Parker by Run for the Wall, a veteran group. Gamage explained that giving the war veteran food for life was the least they could do to show their gratitude saying, “It was truly an honor, there are so many amazing stories about our veteran’s and I thank them for everything they’ve done for us!”

Holy shit, talk about a scary situation! A section of a bridge in North Carolina collapsed live on air, while a female reporter and a camera operator stood a few feet away. Yikes. I really don’t know how this reporter didn’t run while crying her eyes out. During a newscast for Fox 46 Charlotte, North Carolina reporter Amber Roberts, and photojournalist Jonathan Monte were standing on a bridge to show viewers the impact of flooding in the area. Footage shows Ms. Roberts kneeling down on the two-lane part of the bridge located in Alexander County showing how the road was slowly sinking in due to the torrential rain. She stated, “This bridge is literally sinking. Take a look at the ground, you can see it caving in.” As the camera moves away from Roberts to focuse on the flood of brown running flood water, the section of the bridge the reporter was standing in collapses. You quickly hear Roberts yell, as she tells the audience,  “We are backing up, we’re backing up.” The camera then turns back to show a huge section of the bridge missing. Roberts is heard saying, “Just right here live on TV, we saw the road collapse. That same road that we were just standing on seconds ago. Thank god we are backing up. We are slowly going off of the bridge, we are slowly backing up.” Luckily, neither Roberts nor the camera operator was injured during the scary incident, but man, that was a close one! You know what they say, you never know what will happen on live TV. This certainly proves that, no fake news here. Roberts went on her Twitter to update her followers on the situation and thank her news crew, posting footage of the close call. She tweeted...

The collapse comes as North Carolina has been hit with flash floods due to the heavy rainfall over the last few days. Authorities stated there have been at least three people who have died during the torrential rain. Man, oh man. 

Assaults made by presumed Trump supporters against Biden supporters have continued this week, and among the latest assaults was one by a woman who claimed that her husband was a cop. A couple of teenagers, identified as 19-year-old Alexis Hadac and 19-year-old Haylee Sandoval, were babysitting in South Loop Park in Chicago. Hadac and Sandoval were entertaining the children, including blowing bubbles and drawing pictures with wash-away chalk on the park’s sidewalk. They observed a woman and a young man, possibly her son, walk past them once and thought nothing more of it. In the meantime, there was a “Black Lives Matter” sign positioned near them, so they wrote “Biden 2020” in chalk on the sidewalk next to the sign. The woman and young man circled around again and observed the sign and sidewalk chalk. The woman confronted the teen girls, stating: “What is this bullshit?” At that time, Hadac began recording a video in case the situation got out of hand. The teens argued with the woman for several minutes, arguing for free expression. The woman stated that her husband was a cop and would not receive the same respect if someone attempted to argue that “Blue Lives Matter.” The teens continued to press for free expression, and the situation became heated. The woman walked over and hit Hadac, who was still recording the video, and then attempted to lead herself and the young man away from the scene. Hadac followed the woman, stating that she already had their conversation and the woman’s face on camera, and that she would be reporting her to the authorities. Visible on the video, the woman turned around, scowling, and struck out at Hadac. The camera then shook, catching quick flashes of scenery as Hadac struggled with the woman. There were sounds of fighting, cries, and yelling for help and for someone to call the police. Sandoval could also be heard in the background, telling them to get off of her friend. There was then a crashing sound and more pleading cries to call the police. Hadac later reported that the woman had stopped hitting her, and the young man had pushed her to the ground and began kicking her. Hadac explained, “Once he threw me on the floor, he started stepping on me, kicking and punching me, my friend jumped on this guy’s back. He started kicking and stepping on her and then he ran.” Hadac came away from the altercation with a concussion, bruising and scrapes, and pain in her ribs, leg, back, and knee. The two teens waited around for the police to show up, so they could file their report, largely because there were children involved. But unfortunately, up to this point, the woman and young man have not been identified by the police, so they have not been arrested or charged with anything. Hadac stated, “I want them both to be arrested and I want her to realize she does not have the privilege she assumes she does. She is not better than anyone else and she is not above the law.” “The way she became condescending so quickly just shows that she thought she was better than us because she feels safe that way. She feels like she is able to react the way she does to people without any repercussions.” Hadac shared the video to Facebook but appears to have turned the commenting function off. It’s unclear what will come of this woman and young man, but it’s fair that Hadac and Spanoval are expecting some form of justice for what was done. It’s clear a lot of people still need to learn that having different opinions doesn’t justify violence. Especially in the middle of a family-friendly park, with a couple of minors, who were watching small children.

It looks like The Batman just can't catch a break. Just a few weeks after it was revealed that four members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19, a stuntman has just been reported to test positive as well. According to The Daily Mail, one of the film's stuntmen has tested positive for COVID-19. The member of the stunt team is part of a bubble that already includes nine other members of the production's staff. These crew members are set to be quarantined for 14 days and will not be able to return to work until Christmas. Although this is bad news for production right now, the report also pointed out that Robert Pattinson and the rest of the main cast, as well as the film's crew, are not affected by the positive test. This isn't the first time that The Batman has been delayed by COVID-19. Filming had to be halted back in March as productions were put on hold. By the time that shooting had resumed, Pattinson was revealed to have tested positive for COVID, causing another two-week pause. The most recent delay was confirmed after four crew members got positive tests. For now, it is unclear when The Batman will resume production. However, there is a huge possibility that the cast and crew will be able to start working again early next year. 

Instead of doing this blog thing I should be listening to this album...

Ummm... maybe not. Ever see those panhandlers on the street? Some of them are very creative with their signs...

So, some NFL teams are changing their logos this year. Like this one for example...

Speaking of football... What was Ryan Clark thinking when he tweeted this? The former NFL safety turned ESPN sports analyst was trying to be funny describing a play from the Broncos-Raiders game when he inexplicably decided to use a 16-year-old being in love to make his point. He has since deleted this tweet...

If I had a TARDIS I would try and go meet Linda Lovelace but knowing my luck I'll see her as she stands the Royal Ascot race in a revealing morning suit in 1974.

It's not that revealing, right? I'd love to interview her. I think she's still alive... nope. She died in 2002. Shit. Oh, well. Being pregnant is hard for many women, and while they want to continue living their everyday lives, it can be physically difficult to do that. One pregnant woman described how she was struggling at the end of the day out with her sister in an email to the Phile and had an altercation with a passenger. She described how when she asked for a place to sit down, the passenger refused.

"Am I wrong for making a boy give me his seat on the bus? I’m pregnant. Yesterday I went to go shopping with my friends for the day. My boyfriend took the car for work so I decided to take the bus instead of getting my friends to pick me up. We all live quite far away from each other and the shopping center that we picked to go to was fairly in the middle of everyone. No point in them going out of their way to get me. By the time we finished, it was three-ish and my feet were killing me. When I got on the bus it was packed with school kids. Now I don’t know if this is everywhere, but where I live, if a bus is packed and an elderly person, pregnant person, a person with a baby, or an injured person asks for your seat, you have to give it to them and you can get kicked off if you don’t. I went to a boy sitting in priority seating and asked for his seat, he told me to fuck off. I pointed to the sign above his head that said that he has to give it to me. He still refused. The bus driver then asked him if he needed the priority seating and he said that he got on first so it’s his seat. The bus driver said that I needed it so it’s my seat. Subsequently, the boy was kicked off the bus, and he was very angry about it.” You're not wrong. That’s what those seats are for, and unless he had a disability you had priority. Those are literally the posted rules of the bus. Undoubtedly most people want to remain seated on public transportation, and the instinct for some is surely “first come, first served.” But when it comes to those in need, it’s best to help them out instead of worrying about who got there first. At least if the young man had considered that, he wouldn’t have lost his mode of transportation for the afternoon. Good luck, everyone. If you have a problem you want me to help with then email me at thepeverettphile@gmail.com. 

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Now from the home office in Port Jefferson, New York here is...

Top Phive Reactions To The News Of A COVID-19 Vaccine That's 90% Effective

5. Between the election, the vaccine interim results, and Four Seasons Total Landscaping, I'm starting to hope maybe we've turned the corner on 2020.

4. The Pfizer vaccine news has made me come alive. I can't wait to stay at home out of choice!

3. First thing I'll do when I get the vaccine is take my laptop to a Starbucks and state into space SO hard. 

2. I think that the first thin I'll do once the vaccine is actually here is to have a massive family BBQ where I just go around hugging people. 

and the number one reaction to the news of a COVID-19 vaccine that's 90% effective is...

1. Impressive to see our government who ignored the advice of scientists just six weeks ago and told us people had had enough of experts celebrating a vaccine created by scientists and experts. 

Mike Pence pots two more homosexuals in desperate need for state funded gay conversion therapy. 

If you rip a hole in a net, there’s actually fewer holes in it than it was before.

The 140th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...

Jane will be on the Phile in a few weeks. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?

It looks like a nice day there. Okay, here's a story from...

A monstrous gator was spotted lumbering across a Florida golf course as Tropical Storm Eta rolled through the region and observers across social media are stunned at its size. The Valencia Golf & Country Club in Naples, Florida has a dinosaur roaming its grounds. 

Life has found a way and it’s got to be only a matter of time before one of their golfers are ripped to pieces by this massive gator. Truly, just torn apart limb from limb like a meaty rag doll. Tyler Stolting, who is the first assistant golf professional at Valencia, said he was shocked at the sight of the gigantic gator, which looked more like something out of Jurassic Park than Caddyshack. While large alligators are a somewhat common sight in Florida and throughout states that border the Gulf of Mexico like Louisiana, this particular gator’s size is absolutely jaw-dropping. This gator is unbelievable. Though the golf course workers at Valencia say it’s not a threat to golfers unless any of them are dumb enough to feed it or mess with it, it still feels like people should be driving around this golf course in SUVs and not golf carts. Maybe keep a shotgun in the golf bag, just in case you get “clever girl’d” by this thing as you’re looking for your golf ball near some bushes or the water. In fact, if you hit your ball within ten feet of the water at this golf course, just let it go. Drop it another twenty feet away from the shoreline and call it a day. Don’t die over a Titleist.

There was a German, an Italian and an American on death row. The warden gave them a choice of three ways to die: 1. to be shot 2. to be hung 3. to be injected with the AIDS virus for a slow death. So the German said, "Shoot me right in the head." Boom, he was dead instantly. Then the Italian said, "Just hang me." Snap, he was dead. Then the American said, "Give me some of that AIDS stuff." They gave him the shot, and the American fell down laughing. The guards looked at each other and wondered what was wrong with this guy. Then the American said, "Give me another one of those shots," so the guards did. Now he was laughing so hard, tears rolled from his eyes and he doubled over. Finally the warden said, "What is wrong with you?" The American replied, "You guys are so stupid... I'm wearing a condom!"

Today's guest is an American actor, director, animator, voice actor, and writer and co-creator of the 90s cartoon "Eek! The Cat." Please welcome to the Phile... Bill Kopp.

Me: Hey, Bill, welcome to the Phile, man. I am so excited to have you here. How are you? 

Bill: I'm good, doing a bunch of writing. 

Me: Okay, so, I heard of "Eek! The Cat" hardly remember it. Eek was pretty popular, right? 

Bill: Eek's one of those things that really took off. We weren't suspecting it, it was on the air for five years... five seasons. 

Me: When was Eek on TV? 

Bill: Well, we started developing it about '90 or '91. I'm really bad at remembering the years for these things. But I do remember this... we were doing the storyboard on a two minute little short that we were making and it was one of those all nighter sessions and that was the night when that morning Stevie Ray Vaughan died in that helicopter crash and we're big Stevie Ray fans. I think that was '90 or '91. That's how I remember it, we sold the show before Stevie Ray checked out. 

Me: Okay, before we continue talking about Eek I was so excited when I found out you worked on "The Simpsons," Bill. I'm a pretty big Simpsons fan. What was it like working on that? 

Bill: Oh, wow, that was a whole adventure in itself. 

Me: So, what did you do for "The Simpsons"? 

Bill: Well, we had just finished up One Crazy Summer which was Savage's second movie. Me and Savage go back to the Cal-Arts days. That was the first time, it had to be '86, that was the first time after getting out of Cal-Arts in '84 where suddenly we had to look for work. Wes Archer had gotten in contact with Klasky Csupo who were doing these short animated segments for "The Tracey Ullman Show." Wes was one of my guys from Cal-Arts and worked on Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer. He just called me up and said, "There's an opportunity to do these shorts." It was just me and Wes in the beginning. There was a couple of different things, there was this thing called "The Simpsons." Then another artist named M.K. Brown had another segment and it was something like three minutes of animation, we had to do a minute and a half per week I have to say. It was killing us. We saw the workload and we brought in David Silverman who also I've known for a few years and worked with me on One Crazy Summer also. So we dragged him into it and he really went on to become "The Guy." It was a lot of fun and a lot of work and there was just the three of us doing the animation. Matt Groening would come in on Monday with some really crude storyboards but really funny scenarios as we all know. So we would just translate that into layouts and animation. We practically had to live in that studio. Each of us would take a 30 second segment of he minute and a half and we had a week to do the animation and the layouts. We were drawing the backgrounds and doing the animation. This was pre flash and digital so we had guys painting cells. Man, I'd love to get my hands on some of those. 

Me: Do you have anything from back then? 

Bill: I have some of the pencil roughs. 

Me: So, I still want to get Matt Groening on the Phile but had a few Simpsons related people before. What was Matt like back then? 

Bill: Matt was easy going and so much fun to work with. He loved seeing his stuff get translated to animation. 

Me: What were your hours like back then if you had to work so much? 

Bill: We would probably roll in about 10 a.m. We had little quotas, it was like we had a certain amount we had to get done every day. But we didn't care, we didn't have anything else to do. That was just our life then. We always joke when we get together its like saying, "Oh, who's this group the Beatles?" It was a challenge for us as animators and it was like a lot of hard work but we were honing our craft. We always refer it as our Beatles in Hamburg period. We'd finish up and maybe get a little bit of snooze on a Sunday and back at it again. I think that went on for a solid year. I can't remember how many we did. A lot. 

Me: Since you were there from the beginning did you create anything that we see now on the show? 

Bill: Marge's hair. It's really funny too, in Matt's early drawings it was just so short and didn't really look right with her long neck. We'd joke about the old ladies with the blue hairs. I remember some of my relatives had hair like this and I said, "Just make it like a tower!" Everybody laughed and it stuck. It really was Matt's thing, David Silverman was the one who really defined the look, he just took a hold of that thing. 

Me: So, did you work on "The Simpsons" TV show? I don't think so, right? 

Bill: It went to series and first season right about the time Disney hired me to come and do the Roger Rabbit shorts. Back in those days I was really into animation, I was really into animation, that's all I thought about, that's all I wanted to do. That opportunity was old school. They gave us a year to do a seven minute story board and we had three million dollars to make a 7 minute short. They said they were going to do three of them at least. Being a guy who was really into the art of animation and storytelling gags I couldn't pass that up. "The Simpsons" was Matt's thing and I had kinda enough of it really. I still liked it but this opportunity was so cool and we really took the animation up to the next level. But I really get a ton of crap from people who say I bailed on "The Simpsons." It's not true, I was just learning, it was like being in school and I wanted to go to the next place. 

Me: So, how did Eek come about? 

Bill: Eek's birth came out of a tragedy. Savage had a cat and Savage had brought this house in a real nice heighboorood. It was the first time anybody had a real house. It was a really nice place, and a great hang out and he had a cat I think he might've had two but he had this one cat and I can't remember if his name was Eek or not. This is really sad and horrible but one day it got taken by a hawk or an eagle or something. It was out in the driveway and this bird of prey swooped down and grabbed it and flew off with him going, "Eek!" I would imagine. So Savage told me this story, it was this coolest little cat, it had a great personality, he was such a sweetie. But it's hard to get a cat back from an eagle. That was the genesis of the character was that tragic event. Savage and I were really close, we still kinda are. We were great friends at Cal-Arts and he was the one who got me to change my major into animation. I was a painter originally. So after we have done "The Simpsons" and I haven't seen Savage in a while, I think he went off and did another movie and another TV show, we were still friends and hung out all the time and we just thought we wanted to work together again but on something that was strictly animation. At the time, I don't know if it was called Fox Kids yet but anyway savage had already done a show for the newly born Fox network, so he was like, "We should just pitch them." So we just started building the character of Eek and we thought a lot about Charlie Chaplin. We wanted someone really sympathetic and we just thought that was funny, a guy who is really nice and sweet just getting screwed all the time and not really caring, just taking it in stride. We thought that was just pathos. That's how the character came to be. 

Me: You did the voice for Eek, right? How did that happen? 

Bill: Okay, that was an accident. I grew up in a family that had a lot of animals and m family is pretty weird and very funny. Seriously at some point we had like four cats and three dogs and lizards and mice and fish and everything. Every animal had a "voice." Every member of my family could do the Eek voice. We had a great cat named Chauncy and that was his voice. I know it sounds insane but it was funny. And so in the meeting and stuff when we started fooling around with it that voice would just start to come out. We tried and tried for a long time to get REAL actors to do the voice like Gene Wilder, Jon Lovitz, I don't remember who else we tried but no one knew who we were so they weren't like coming to the auditions or anything. So we were sort of stuck and we already sold the show and it was Thursday and we had to record Monday and still nothing. Finally Savage said to me. "Screw this, just do that voice. You're doing the voice!" I was like okay... I wasn't opposed to it but it was kinda alarming. Savage was famous for that, he always had me do something that I never tried before and it ended up working. 

Me: Did you act before this?

Bill: Being an animator is like being an actor, and I have done in college plays and radio. I had done a show called "Theater of the Mind." I was a little kid, I was about nine, it was like "The Twilight Zone" kinda thing. I always liked acting, but I always thought I was much better drawing and filmmaking. 

Me: So, wasn't Tawny Kitaen part of the show? 

Bill: Yeah, she played Annabelle. That wasn't bad, showing up to work with that every day. Savage knew Tawny from something, but remember she was big like all those Whitesnake videos. She was the queen of 80s videos. She was the sweetest, she was so nice, so great to work with, a lot of fun. Everybody was. 

Me: What do you think of cartoon shows that are on TV now? 

Bill: There's a few I think that are really awesome. I think "Adventure Time" was really interesting. Here's the big difference, those characters have layers and complex relationships. Then there's the stuff they just kinda bang out, that's what it's lacking. There's no heart in it. I find their very shrill and noisy kinda bombastic. 

Me: So, wasn't Mr. T on Eek? He's in my top 10 to get on the Phile. 

Bill: Yes, Mr. T, I think he showed up a couple of times. We had Buck Henry, Phil Hartman, we had David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The Barbie Twins and William Shatner, Tim Curry. We just cast people we wanted to meet or liked. Once the show was a hit we were able to do that and they were happy to come. 

Me: So, Eek had a catchphrase... Kumbaya! Where did that come from? 

Bill: Kumbaya! Well, it came from Joan Baez, right? We just thought that was funny and dorky, something Eek would look back and think kumbaya, everything is just pretty and flowers... but it was sort of out of step where things were going. I think it just came from Eek having an ideal, but it was just antiquated sort of. But he was still into that. I think when it was first vocalized it was used in the "kumbaya" tense, but then later it became his call of alarm. 

Me: So, Disney purchased Fox, so shouldn't Eek be on Disney+ along with "The Simpsons"? 

Bill: I think it's buried under Star Wars and Marvel and everything. It's Disney, so what are we gonna do?

Me: When you worked for Disney doing the Roger Rabbit stuff what was that like? 

Bill: It's funny, the building next to us was Imagineering and I think back then they were making Pirates for Paris Disneyland so we would go through there at lunch and see these skeletons before they had their skin on. They'd be running the programs and it'll just be like creepy fun. They hired me and Pat Ventura when they started to think about the Roger Rabbit ride at Disneyland. That was really fun because they asked us not to design the ride obviously but to make the story of the ride. Oh man, it started out as completely bizarre and really funny then it got shrunk into what it is now. It's still really cool, but what it started out was this big elaborate thing. So, we got this opportunity to work with Imagineering for several months. 

Me: Anything else you did for the Disney parks? I have worked at Walt Disney Would for 32 years or so now. 

Bill: That's cool. In the It's Tough to Be A Bug show, me and Pat came up with the stink gag. If they were gonna have a live theater thing with sensory experience let's make a stink big really stink. 

Me: So, when you were doing Roger Rabbit was Jess Harnell, who has been on the Phile the voice of Roger or Charles Fleischer who was on the Phile recently?

Bill: Jess did voice of Roger on the ride. 

Me: So, why did you leave Disney originally? 

Bill: I could control the production more if I was writing it. After the Roger Rabbit shorts were done they wanted to make Mickey, Donald and Goofy shorts. Then all of a sudden they showed up with these scripts and we were like what's that? They said these are the scripts and we'd like we don't do that, we come up with the story. They were terrible, clearly not written by animators. That horrified me so much that drove me to writing. I'm not going to be the guy who is handed somebody else's cartoon to make. So I vowed I would learn how to write and that led to selling shows and concepts which gives me control. 

Me: I get that. Bill, thanks so much for being on the Phile. Please come back again. 

Bill: I will. This has been swell.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Bill Kopp for a fun interview. The Phile will be back on Friday with actress Laurie O'Brien. Spread the word, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye. Kiss your brain.

I don't want you, cook my bread, I don't want you, make my bed, I don't want your money too, I just want to make love to you. - Willie Dixon