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Scottish Sun
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Telly icon Glen Michael gets last laugh with Looney Tunes moment at touching funeral
THAT'S ALL FOLKS Telly icon Glen Michael gets last laugh with Looney Tunes moment at touching funeral SHOWBIZ legend Glen Michael was given a final farewell by a crowd of well-wishers as he was laid to rest today - bowing out with The Looney Tunes catchphrase: 'That's all folks'. The telly favourite, who presented Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade on STV for 26 years, passed away at his Ayrshire cottage last week following a short illness. He was 99. Advertisement 7 Glen Michael was laid to rest at Masonhill Crematorium in Ayr today 7 His family paid tribute to the telly icon 7 Glen fronted his iconic show for 26 years 7 The star was 99 when he passed away But Glen was given a send off with the Cavalcade theme tune as his final committal music, before Porky Pig had mourners laughing with the iconic phrase. Earlier in the service Glen's son Chris Buckland, 66, caused more hilarity when he recalled one of the birthday cards a viewer had sent in of Wile E. Coyote with both hands around the Roadrunner's neck with the speech bubble: 'Try and 'beep beep' now, you bastard.' While his daughter Yonnie, 74, recalled a time that her famous dad tried to tart up the family car with a coat of varnish. She said: 'A few hours later, he took mum and I out for a run along the esplanade in his lovely, shiny car, only to realise that when they got out, it resembled a huge flycatcher.' Advertisement Born Cecil Edward Buckland on May 16, 1926 in Paignton, Devon, he came to Scotland in 1952 to try his hand as a stand-up comedian, and stayed here for the rest of his life. In 1966 he launched Cartoon Cavalcade on STV, featuring favourites including Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry which ran until 1992. It became essential Sunday tea time viewing for generations of Scots with Glen accompanied by his companions including Paladin the talking lamp, Totty the Robot and dachshunds Rudi and Rusti. But son Chris revealed that after his father left STV he had taken Cartoon Cavalcade on the road, performing live shows at schools across Scotland - but disaster struck when one night thieves broke into his van. Advertisement He said: 'Instead of finding power tools they had scattered across the garden balloon animals, 300 woof club badges, 157 photos of dad, Paladin the lamp, Totty the robot and a large cardboard cut-out of Spider-Man shouting, 'it's spidey time.'' One Glen's proudest achievement was winning a BAFTA award for the Best Children's Programme in 1975. Glen Michael speaks to the Scottish Sun ahead of 99th birthday While his dancer wife Beryl died 10 years ago. He is survived by his two children, three grandsons and two great granddaughters. 7 Touching badge worn by funeral directors at the service Advertisement 7 Music was hand-picked for the day
The Herald Scotland
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Why I'll never forget Cartoonland's Glen Michael
The first two are obvious but the power of Michael was immense. Here was a man with a foreign voice (Devon English) with the ability to transport a 10-year-old to a place he had never even imagined existed. To Cartoonland. This was a world of cheeky, friendly ghosts, wily coyotes and a cute mouse who made his feline housemate's life an unrelenting misery. Glen Michael introduced us to a sailor man with a cute South Pacific hat and much less cute tattoos, and a love for tinned spinach. And through the presenter the youngsters of Scotland were given direct access to traditional Americana via a very loud rooster, a canine sheriff's stolid but stupid deputy and a couple of bears that lived to steal from the picnic baskets of gullible and undeserving humans. And of course, we didn't catch on straight away that the greatest cartoon of all, Top Cat, was a cartoon copy of Phil Silvers' Bilko. But Glen Michael certainly did. Read More: And we loved Glen Michael almost as much as we did the cartoons he showed us when we came home from school. To be honest, aged 10 in 1966 when the presenter's stint began, I was a little too sophisticated to be captivated by Paladin the talking lamp with the dark voice that hinted at something of a pernicious soul. But thanks to the great selection of material – who couldn't laugh at the sheer malevolence of the Roadrunner – the children of the time were happy to go along with Michael's broadening of the programme, to turn it into a mini-variety show with a sense of theatre in which he revealed performing dogs (Rusty and Rudi), used bluescreen to enable him to walk into cartoons and join the action and invited star guests. Glen Michael (Image: Andy Buchanan) It was many years on interviewing Glen Michael that it became obvious how – and why – he had turned a cartoon screening show into variety television. He was variety. Born Cecil Buckland in Devon, his father was a high society butler who once worked at the real-life Downton Abbey. Michael learned by osmosis the power and the need to maintain a fixed smile. Yet, his parents were also part-time performers. "My father was a good singer,' he recalled. 'My mother was a cabaret singer. In those days they would go around doing dinners.' There is no doubt Glen Michael was compelled to become an entertainer. He recalls walking five miles down a country lane at the age of 12 to see a show. "I sat in the audience and was stage struck. From then on, there was nothing else I wanted to do but go on stage. I would come back from school and go up to the bedroom in front of a long mirror and would act things I'd seen in the pictures - Humphrey Bogart and such.' On leaving school, with just £4 in his pocket, the teenager took off for London to pursue a career as a performer. He heard about ENSA, the Forces entertainment service and after a stint driving trucks, he landed a 'spot', in which he performed solo for the first time. (It was also where he met future wife Beryl, a singer and actor. The couple married in 1946, when Michael was 19 and Beryl 23.) His acting career developed, landing a role in a part in the 1950 classic Ealing film, The Blue Lamp, starring Jack Warner and Dirk Bogarde. I didn't know at the time but the director Basil Dearden reckoned Michael could be the next Ian Carmichael. Glen Michael at STV (Image: Scottish television) However, Glen Michael took a bold chance and changed his name and headed north, "On November 15, 1952, I turned up at the Victoria Theatre in Paisley to start rehearsals with Jack Milroy and I didn't know what the hell I'd come to. I didn't know anything about Glasgow or Scotland - and I never went back [to England]. I loved it, I loved the people." I never did see Glen Michael in theatre, but I did see him in television in the early sixties when he appeared as a straight man in the Francie and Josie Show. And he proved to be a perfect foil. (The fact he became friends with the immensely difficult Fulton suggests Michael featured as much grace as he had tolerance). And he proved to be quite perfect as the presenter in Cavalcade. The viewers certainly thought so, at one time receiving over 2,000 letters and postcards a week and he achieved a staggering 98% of Scotland's television audience. Glen Michael loved the adulation. He was showbiz. But when it all stopped, the demand for the personal appearances, the panto runs (surprisingly often cast as the baddie) the broadcasting stints dried up, the man whose cartoons made us laugh 'till we were sore wasn't laughing at all. He didn't enjoy retirement at all. 'Not really. Because I was forced to stop." In later years he enjoyed daytime detective programmes. And football. He didn't much rate children's television today – perhaps a little too fruity, given he sometimes censored the action in the cartoons he fronted. And there was an aura of sadness about the man who felt he could – and should – have performed forever.
Boston Globe
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Their Martha's Vineyard wedding wasn't big, but it sure felt easy.
Olivia Rochman had just flown from Boston to New Orleans for a long weekend. She planned to attend the anniversary party for a good friend's jewelry brand, Olivia had largely called New Orleans home since graduating from Tulane University in 2013 (with a three-year stint in Austin in between.) But after Hurricane Ida wrecked her Nola rental, she'd moved back home to her parents' in Newton temporarily in 2022. Her fintech job was remote, plus, it was nice to spend time with family: '[My father] was like, 'When we said go south , we meant Connecticut.'' Related : Coby Venable, a real estate attorney from Georgia, planned to attend the He'd moved to New Orleans after graduating from law school at Emory University in 2015. But even with years of overlapping social scenes and circles, he and Olivia had never officially met. Advertisement Coby, pictured with his mother Lisa Waldrop, went to Mr. Sid in Newton for his custom suit. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film The party was in a two-story showroom near Jackson Square; there were oysters, a champagne luge, and a fashionable guest list, including hoteliers Jayson Seidman and Paris Neill, Olivia's close friends, now also her would-be matchmakers. While chatting with Coby, Jayson called Olivia over to introduce the two. She was intrigued by Coby's dry humor and quick wit. 'He was giving professor ‚" Olivia remembers. Advertisement Feeling exuberant to be back in town, Olivia interrupted the conversation to go upstairs for an ear piercing. (The store offers piercing services.) 'I was like a bat out of hell,' she says. 'He is an excellent listener, and I am an excellent talker.' Olivia, pictured with her parents, Dr. Guy and Deborah Rochman, wore a gown by Mariana Hardwick, and a necklace with the name of her beloved late dog, Raisin. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film Coby, charmed, waited for her to return: 'I don't remember exactly what the conversation was about, but I just remember laughing a lot.' As 'the stragglers at the end of the party,' Coby suggested a date before she left town: 'Why don't I give you my phone number and we can meet up.' Olivia's response: 'Absolutely not.' 'You're going to ask for my number if you want to see me again,' she remembers saying. 'He rapidly course corrected.' Their first date was the next night at 'He's very sincere,' she says. 'He was being thoughtful and transparent ... we both knew we wanted to get married. We both knew we wanted to have kids.' Many wedding guests arrived earlier that week and stayed on the property for the wedding. 'It felt like summer camp with all [our] favorite people,' says Coby. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film Olivia emphasized the importance of family — Coby learned what that meant when he visited her in Boston two weeks later. They went to Newbury Street and Harvard Square, Foals at Roadrunner, and Sunday dinner with Olivia's family, whom she fondly describes as 'a lot.' 'We're a Boston family,' she explains. Coby was woefully unprepared for the single-digit temperatures, but the dinner didn't spook him. He remembers thinking, 'Why not meet them now? If it works out, I've known them since the beginning.' 'My dad's a great storyteller,' says Olivia. 'Coby just loved listening to the stories.' After dinner, her father told her: 'That's the first man you've brought home in 32 years who has the potential of being a keeper.' Advertisement During the ceremony, the couple read vows they had written. Their recessional song was a strings arrangement of "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young, performed by Navi Strings. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film Olivia and Coby traded visits and texts, and it wasn't long before her return to New Orleans felt inevitable. 'I was really living for those next times we were going to see each other,' says Coby. In February 2023, she, Coby, and her cat (Gator) and dog (Raisin), packed into her car for the 30-hour drive south. She moved back into Paris and Jayson's now-restored carriage house, which, it transpired, was only blocks from Coby's, where the couple now reside. It soon became what Olivia calls a 'really nice life together.' 'Love doesn't always arrive with fireworks,' she says. 'Sometimes it's a steady hand, or a calm knowing, or just your body being finally at peace ... what I found was the more time we spent together, that I was sleeping really well. I felt safe in my body... I had thought, 'If it's safe that means it's boring,' and I never want boring. But I learned that safety is not necessarily complacency. You should feel safe.' For their ceremony, Krishana Collins of Tea Lane Farm had asked the couple for three words to describe the floral atmosphere they wanted to create. They chose "Timeless, Artful, and Wild," hoping to emulate the organic, overgrown nature found up-island on Martha's Vineyard. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film Coby had begun to embrace 'type 2 fun,' and two-step at the White Horse in Austin. 'It felt like she'd opened a door to something I didn't even know existed,' he says. 'And I was just happy to be there, along for the ride.' Advertisement He proposed in June 2024 at Porter Lyons, where they first met, with a re-creation of her mother's heirloom ring that she had long-admired. That month, the couple took a day trip to Martha's Vineyard during a Cape vacation with Olivia's family. They had made a list of potential wedding locations, but Olivia's childhood Augusts were spent up-island, and when nostalgia hit, she knew there was no better place. Olivia, 34, and Coby, 37, wed on Friday, June 6, in an outdoor ceremony at the Related : 'We wanted the weekend to feel like a vacation that people got to take,' she explains, 'and there just happened to be a party and some casual dinners thrown in.' They had 53 guests and no wedding party; Olivia's logic being 'if you're here, you're as close to us as a bridesmaid or groomsman would be.' As the one who introduced them, Jayson officiated. Their first dance was to New Orleans roots artist Anders Osborne's "Life Don't Last that Long"; the band East Coast Soul performed during the reception. Olivia's sister Dana had attended Berklee with one of the band members and performed with the group later that night. Dominique Holliday | Castillo Holliday Photo + Film They chose the hotel for its proximity to the ferry and its unfussy aesthetic. There was not a 'manicured blue hydrangea' in sight. Instead, Krishana Collins of ranunculus and wisps of greenery. Olivia and her parents walked toward her groom, through the grass, to a string arrangement of Tom Petty's 'Wildflowers.' And while the wedding was unforgettable, for Coby, marriage already felt familiar. 'When you find someone that you want to be with and you make that decision way before you walk up the aisle,' he says. 'It formalizes it, puts the stamp on it. But I felt like we were married and going to be together from that time I went to Boston and had no jacket.' Advertisement Read more from , The Boston Globe's new weddings column. Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at
San Francisco Chronicle
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
How do you make a 'Jurassic World' movie? With these 'commandments'
NEW YORK (AP) — If you're going to let dinosaurs run amok, it's good to have some ground rules. That's how screenwriter David Koepp saw it, anyway, in penning the script for 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' which opens in theaters July 2. Koepp wrote the original 'Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel, 'The Lost World. But 'Rebirth,' the seventh film in the franchise, marks his return to the franchise he helped birth. And Koepp, the veteran screenwriter of 'Carlito's Way' and 'Mission: Impossible,' saw it as a chance to get a few things in order for a movie series that had perhaps strayed too far from its foundational character. Inspired by the animator Chuck Jones, Koepp decided to put down a list of nine commandments to guide 'Jurassic World Rebirth' and future installments. Jones had done something similar for the Roadrunner cartoons. His 'commandments' included things like: the Roadrunner never speaks except to say 'meep meep"; the coyote must never catch him; gravity is the coyote's worst enemy; all products come from the ACME Corporation. 'I always thought those were brilliant as a set of organizing principles,' Koepp says. 'Things become easier to write when you have that, when you have a box, when you have rules, when you agree going in: 'These we will heed by.' So I wrote my own, nine of them.' Koepp shared some — though not all of them — in a recent interview. 1. The events of the first six movies cannot be contradicted 'I hate a retcon. I hate when they change a bunch of things: 'Oh, that didn't actually happen. It was actually his twin.' I don't like other timelines. So I thought: Let's not pretend any of the last 32 years didn't happen or happened differently than you thought. But we can say things have changed.' 2. The dinosaurs are animals, not monsters 'On the first movie, anyone working on the movie would get fined for referring to them as monsters. They're not monsters, they're animals. Therefore, because they're animals, their motives can only be because they're hungry or defending their territory. They don't attack because they're scary. They don't sneak up and roar because they want to scare you.' 3. Humor is oxygen. 'You can't forget it.' 4. Science must be real 'The tone that Steven (Spielberg) found and I helped find in that first movie is really distinctive. I haven't gotten to work on a movie with that tone since then. So to go back to that sense of high adventure, real science and humor, it was just kind of joyful.' 'And then there were a number of other rules that I would define as trade secrets. So I'll keep them to myself.'
Hamilton Spectator
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
How do you make a ‘Jurassic World' movie? With these ‘commandments'
NEW YORK (AP) — If you're going to let dinosaurs run amok, it's good to have some ground rules. That's how screenwriter David Koepp saw it, anyway, in penning the script for 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' which opens in theaters July 2. Koepp wrote the original 'Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel, 'The Lost World. But 'Rebirth,' the seventh film in the franchise, marks his return to the franchise he helped birth. And Koepp, the veteran screenwriter of 'Carlito's Way' and 'Mission: Impossible,' saw it as a chance to get a few things in order for a movie series that had perhaps strayed too far from its foundational character. Inspired by the animator Chuck Jones, Koepp decided to put down a list of nine commandments to guide 'Jurassic World Rebirth' and future installments. Jones had done something similar for the Roadrunner cartoons. His 'commandments' included things like: the Roadrunner never speaks except to say 'meep meep'; the coyote must never catch him; gravity is the coyote's worst enemy; all products come from the ACME Corporation. 'I always thought those were brilliant as a set of organizing principles,' Koepp says. 'Things become easier to write when you have that, when you have a box, when you have rules, when you agree going in: 'These we will heed by.' So I wrote my own, nine of them.' Koepp shared some — though not all of them — in a recent interview. 1. The events of the first six movies cannot be contradicted 'I hate a retcon. I hate when they change a bunch of things: 'Oh, that didn't actually happen. It was actually his twin.' I don't like other timelines. So I thought: Let's not pretend any of the last 32 years didn't happen or happened differently than you thought. But we can say things have changed.' 2. The dinosaurs are animals, not monsters 'On the first movie, anyone working on the movie would get fined for referring to them as monsters. They're not monsters, they're animals. Therefore, because they're animals, their motives can only be because they're hungry or defending their territory. They don't attack because they're scary. They don't sneak up and roar because they want to scare you.' 3. Humor is oxygen. 'You can't forget it.' 4. Science must be real 'The tone that Steven (Spielberg) found and I helped find in that first movie is really distinctive. I haven't gotten to work on a movie with that tone since then. So to go back to that sense of high adventure, real science and humor, it was just kind of joyful.' 5. The tone must never been ponderous or self-serious 'And then there were a number of other rules that I would define as trade secrets. So I'll keep them to myself.'
