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DEFINITE UNCERTAINTY 2021-08 (Aug)
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EDWARD ASNER
So...
This is hard.
It's been a bit of a stressful weekend, as my father went into the hospital with chest pains. A stint that had been replaced last year had failed and was replaced again Saturday morning during an angioplasty. I've been concerned, worried. But the procedure seemed to go well, and he was set to go home today. We seemed to have dodged a bullet.
But there was a second gun.
I slept in today. I woke up to two pieces of news:
1. My dad was good. Solid. My sister picked him up at the hospital and took him straight to breakfast. (My mother was annoyed at not being included - but that's a whole other story.) He's home now. I've talked to him. He sounded cheerful. All good.
2. Ed Asner had passed away.
I spent most of the day doing laundry and other mundane tasks. Life goes on, right? It has to. But it's been difficult getting my head around the whole thing. I've gotten many calls and texts today, offering condolences as if I were part of the Asner family. Folks seem to know how close I felt to Ed. But I don't want to exaggerate. Ed was my friend. I hope he knew I was his, as well. But I haven't talked to him in at least a couple of years. (You can partially blame that on the pandemic, I suppose. There are a lot of people I've lost touch with. If anything, this is a reminder to GET in touch. And I'm going to make an effort to do that.) In any case, there are many, many people who knew Ed better than I did, who were closer to Ed than I was.
Nevertheless, at the risk of turning this post into my own self-aggrandizement, I am going to spend a few paragraphs here on the subject of the Ed Asner that I knew and loved.
I was a fan of Ed's long before I met him. Like many, many people, he first entered my awareness playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Later, I got a kick out of picking him out of reruns, where he usually played the heavy in such series as The Wild Wild West and others.) But as Lou, Ed was simply brilliant. One of the truly classic scenes in all of television is the scene in the TMTMS pilot, where Lou interviews Mary for a job. Do yourself a favor and view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj286uBKCu0
That scene had a major effect on me, even seeing it as a kid.
Now, having just rewatched it, the genius of the writing and the two performances still knocks me out. But there was something else about Lou and Mary. Watching their interactions was a bit like watching my parents. The connection in my mind between Lou and my dad was especially strong.
Ed and my father were two Ashkenazi Jews from the midwest. My dad was from Chicago; Ed, from Kansas City. They were gruff AND loving. They even had mannerisms in common. There was much more, I'm sure, that they DIDN'T have in common. But something connected the two men in my mind. And, meanwhile, my admiration for Asner as a performer knew no bounds. When I saw him in the Lou Grant series, in Rich Man, Poor Man, in Roots, that admiration only increased. When I learned of his activism - and the price he paid for it - that admiration shot through the roof.
Years later, when we had begun pre-production on GARGOYLES, I thought of Ed Asner - or of Lou Grant, at least - as the inspiration for Hudson. In fact, when we held auditions for the role, I wrote at the bottom of the character description that "Hudson hates spunk." This was, of course, a variation on Lou's classic line from the above job interview scene. Now, to be clear, I never imagined we'd get Ed to play the role. I figured he was way too big a star for us to land. But low and behold, a few days later, Ed came in to audition for the part. Later, he told me that when he read the character description, he was initially thrilled. The "Hudson hates spunk" line made him feel like he was a lock to land the role. Then a couple minutes later, he thought that if he didn't land the role it would really be awful. But of course, he immediately understood the character and nailed his audition... only for Jamie Thomason and I to throw him a curveball, asking him to do it again in a Scottish accent. He nailed that, too.
Working with Ed was a joy. He was fun and funny and so supportive. In addition to playing Hudson (and Burbank and Jack Danforth/Dane) on Gargoyles, I also cast him as recurring characters on Max Steel (Chuck Marshak), 3x3 Eyes (Grandpa Ayanokoji), W.I.T.C.H. (Napoleon the talking cat), Young Justice (Kent Nelson) and Rain of the Ghosts (Joe Charone). When casting Peter Parker's late Uncle Ben in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Ed was the only person I ever considered. He always brought so much to each and every role.
And more than that he was a great friend to me. After the first season of Max Steel, when I couldn't find a job for over a year and thought I might have to give up on my writing career, Ed was there, offering me support. We had lunch at Musso & Frank's. He looked at pictures of my kids out of my wallet and told me to laminate them. He introduced me to his son, Matt Asner, a producer. He didn't allow me to wallow in self-pity or to badmouth guys who I believed had done me wrong. He just reassured me that I had ability and would find my way through. He was, in essence, my work dad.
So today, as you might imagine, has been complicated. My dad is home and healthy. And Ed is gone. I'm grateful and sorrowful. And struggling. But life goes on. It has to, right?
Finally, I'm going to quote Hudson from Gargoyles. In "The Price," an episode that spotlighted the character, Ed as Hudson told Xanatos: "A friendly word of advice: True immortality isn't about living forever, man. It's about what you do with the time you have. When all your scheming's done, what will be your legacy, Xanatos?"
I think we all know that Ed Asner did amazing things with the time he had. And though we'll miss him dearly, his legacy is clear and shining.
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Andrew writes...
Hey Greg, got two questions for you
1. How did you meet Brandon Vietti?
2. I ask because I'm a big of the DCAU, how did Rich Fogel get involved with the series?
Greg responds...
1. Brandon and I met a couple times when I was at Sony and when I was freelancing for WB. But, honestly, we really didn't meet for real until Sam Register teamed us up to develop a new series for WB Animation. (That series was a Green Lantern series that was never made, followed by a Space Ghost series that was never made, before we finally were assigned to Young Justice.)
2. Rich and I go way back to my Disney days. He and Mark Seidenberg were partnered up, editing Gummi Bears. We've kept in touch, on and off, over the years. And more recently, we were both staff writers on Shimmer & Shine. I truly loved the Shimmer & Shine writing staff (Stephanie Simpson, Dustin Ferrer, Kevin Hopps, Cisco Paredes, Andrew Blanchette and Rich), so when YJ started up again I tried to get everyone to write an episode for Season Three and/or Four. Stephanie and Dustin haven't had the time, but the rest have all pitched in for an episode or two. (Of course, Kevin was already a YJ writer.)
Andrew writes...
Hello Greg, In YJ, what is the thought process behind each season's time jump, how do you and the creative team decide the length of each jump and how do you believe they add to the characters and the overall narrative?
Greg responds...
Again, this has been covered in the ASK GREG ARCHIVES multiple times. But generally, we think it allows us to show the growth and maturation of our young characters.
The length of the time jump is generally determined by both what we want to hide (and later reveal) about our characters and when in the timeline does the story fall that we want/need to tell.
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Todd Jensen writes...
Rewatched the "Avalon" triptych on DVD today. A few new observations.
The Magus's lyre in the "flashback on Avalon" scene looks a lot like Merlin's lyre in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time". Obviously not the same one, but evidently both wizards share a common taste in musical instruments.
Princess Katharine and the Magus's telling Elisa "Little is known of the Sleeping King" struck me as all the more appropriate since in 995, nearly all the major works on King Arthur had yet to be written (Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain", the oldest extant start-to-finish account of Arthur's life, wouldn't be written for over a hundred years). There were one or two, like Nennius's "Historia Brittonum", but that was about it.
A detail that I hadn't spotted before: a couple of gargoyle-like sculptures were "guarding" the bridge leading to Arthur's resting-place within the Hollow Hill.
King Arthur and Goliath have both used a mace while fighting Macbeth (Goliath did so in "Enter Macbeth") - one of a few points in common they share (others are awakening in the modern world from a long enchanted sleep, and having scheming illegitimate sons).
The Archmage's boast that he could destroy Goliath with "just a word" struck me as apt, since all the "enhanced Archmage"'s spells were one-word ones ("Vessel", "Revert", "Ice", etc.).
It's difficult not to smile at Elisa's "Souvenirs" question after Season One of "Young Justice". Fortunately, she was asking it in a lighthearted tone.
Greg responds...
Certain elements run through my work, I suppose...
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Sebastian writes...
English is not my mother tongue, so I wanted to ask you 2 questions
1. in Earth 16 Superboy is the best friend of the third robin Tim Drake and Kid Flash / Bart Allen as is the case of the new Earth and Young Justice Rebirth?
2. the fourth season in which month of 2020 will it leave?
Greg responds...
1. I think for Earth-16, what you see on screen is what you get. Conner is friendly enough with Tim and Bart, but they were in a younger class, and he's closer to/with the folks he came up with.
2. I think you asked this already, so I'm not sure why you're asking it again. I know English is not your first language, but I'm not sure what you mean by "leave". I can't tell if you're asking me an in-universe question about when the show is set, the answer to which would be NO SPOILERS - or a question about when the series will drop in 2020, the answer to which is obviously that it didn't and was never, ever going to be ready in time for 2020. Granted, you wrote this in 2019, so if you would want me to update the question for 2021, the answer is that the show will drop when HBO MAX decides it wants it to drop. And they haven't announced that yet.
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FusionSamurai writes...
So, firstly. Thanks for responding to all our comments, it probably gets a little bit annoying sometimes, but its really cool that you interact with your fans, and I hope you keep doing it! ^_^
So for my questions-
1. You've said you dislike how time travel works in DC. It does seem really confusing. I've flipped through all mentions in previous comments and have come up with a question regarding Bart.
So, you've said "Earth-16 had a history that Impulse thwarted. You can view his original history as Earth-16a, I suppose. Or you could just mark it up as GONE."
So, if such is the case, would Impulse be at risk of fading away? Does only the future itself fade, and Bart avoids it by not being there? Time travel is really complicated to write, so I just wanted clarity on that.
2. The team started with the original 6, being Superboy, Ms.Martian, Kid Flash, Robin, Artemis, Aqualad. Now there are somewhere around 19 members that are on the team or are associated with the team. Do you ever feel like it is hard to balance so many characters?
3.Does giving an individual character like Bart or Cassie development get harder as more characters are added?
Thanks for your time/responses, it means a ton to me. \(^_^)/
Greg responds...
0. I'm still doing it. It just took me a while to get back to it.
1. I kinda have addressed this in the past, but for now I'm going to say NO SPOILERS.
2. I do. Many fans seem to think it's even more difficult for us than we think it is.
3. Of course. But I'm basically okay with that. When the story dictates that one character or another is the lead, that's great - we'll move them into the spotlight. But until then, our leads remain Dick, Kaldur, Conner, M'gann and Artemis, with whichever two to four additional characters that the season dictates gets the spotlight.
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Aprotny writes...
I saw a message on the archives in regards to cloning and sexuality. As an identical twin, I know me and my sister do not have the same sexuality despite having the same DNA. I know there's also nature vs. nurture. Would you consider cloning to be similar to the shared DNA of twins in the YJ universe? If so, would it be possible for one of the Roys (like Jim or original Roy) to have an attraction to a guy or, say, a genomorph without a gender, in contrast to Will's clear attraction to women. I am not asking if that is the case, but rather if it is possible.
On another note, I am an avid Young Justice fan who loves your show and is looking forward to Season Four. I hope Starfire or Raven or Supergirl or other characters that are popular but have yet to show will show up!
One last question, do you ever look at the YJ fanfiction archives? Either out of curiosity or for inspiration? Just curious if you or Brandon ever peek at those!
Thanks and love your show!
Greg responds...
1. I honestly don't know enough about the science to be sure. But I suppose I could do more research. So the short answer is: "It's possible?"
2. We don't take requests. We can't take suggestions.
3. Never. It's legally dangerous for me to read fanfiction covering anything I work on professionally. The same is true for Brandon.
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CORRECTIONS
Fans pointed out some errors that I will correct here:
By the end of Team Year Zero:
Henry Fyff is 14.
Tatsu Yamashiro is 21.
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