CHARLES OSGOOD: Good morning. I`m Charles Osgood, and this is SUNDAY MORNING.
As you may have heard, Congressman Anthony Weiner asked for a leave of absence yesterday, so that he can seek help for his online compulsions. He was yielding to wave of pressure that got a start on the internet. In other words, welcome to the blogosphere. All that you need to make your mark in this field is a rudimentary grasp of the technology and some opinion you feel compelled to share with the rest of the world. Rita Braver will be reporting this morning`s cover story.
RITA BRAVER: When New York Congressman Anthony Weiner finally came clean about sending inappropriate internet messages--
REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER: To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it.
RITA BRAVER: --it was all because a blogger broke the news online, proof of the growing impact of blogs.
ANDREW BREITBART: Everything that we reported was true in that story.
RITA BRAVER: Later on SUNDAY MORNING, we`ll go into the blogosphere.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Tonight is Tony night on Broadway and here on CBS as well. One play that`s up for multiple awards has an actor on stage who`s probably more widely known for roles he`s been playing on TV. This morning, Seth Doane will pay him a visit.
JIM PARSONS: Hello.
CROWD (in unison): Hello.
JIM PARSONS: How is it going?
SETH DOANE: He`s the star of one of television`s most successful sitcoms.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: But this summer Jim Parsons has decided to do something seriously different.
JIM PARSONS: There`s nothing like it, you know. There`s no experience like doing a play.
SETH DOANE: A geek goes to Broadway, later on SUNDAY MORNING.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Jimmy Fallon is a comic with a great gift for making people laugh and making himself laugh, too, which is one of his most enduring qualities. But he sure does enjoy his work, which makes Fallon the envy of everybody including our Russ Mitchell.
RUSS MITCHELL: Whether creating memorable characters on Saturday Night Live or hosting his nightly talk show, Jimmy Fallon always has a good time, sometimes too good a time.
It`s tough for you not to laugh, right?
JIMMY FALLON: Yeah, yeah, I have a problem with that.
RUSS MITCHELL: Later on SUNDAY MORNING, turning the tables on Jimmy Fallon.
You like that?
JIMMY FALLON: It feels weird. Can I sit there, please?
RUSS MITCHELL: We`ll see. That`s coming up.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Don`t try this at home is the very least that can be said about the event our Bill Geist has attended.
BILL GEIST: Now you might think Saturday night in Omaha sounds a little dull. But when they start lighting the roller derby girls on fire, you`ll think again.
Whoa.
One recent Saturday night was an absolute blast that you`ll see for yourself later on SUNDAY MORNING.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Michelle Miller marks a big birthday for Big Blue. Serena Altschul shows us how to attend to a terrarium. Mo Rocca heads off to a summer camp for young performers, and lots more. But first, the headlines for this SUNDAY MORNING, the 12th of June, 2011.
We`re getting our first look at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot in the head in a mass shooting in Tucson in January. Congresswoman`s Facebook page features two pictures. In one she`s seen with an aide. Giffords might be released from a Houston rehab center as early as later this month.
As you heard, the New York Congressman Anthony Weiner has gone off to seek professional help in the aftermath of his sexting scandal. But Democratic leaders in Congress yesterday called for Weiner to leave Congress for good. Here`s Nancy Cordes in Washington.
(Begin VT)
NANCY CORDES: The calls for Congressman Weiner to resign came from four top House Democrats, who released their statements one after the other to make it clear they were acting in concert. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called Weiner`s behavior sordid and indefensible. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi said he should seek help without the pressures of being a member of Congress.
REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER: Good morning. How`re you today?
NANCY CORDES: The move came hours after Weiner informed them he was taking a leave of absence from his congressional duties to get help. In a statement, the New York congressman said he planned to get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well. He did not say where. Senior aides tell CBS News Democratic leaders had tried for days to convince Weiner privately to step down because the lewd tweets and e-mails he sent to several women were becoming an embarrassing distraction. Weiner declined. And polls show a majority of his constituents still support him.
WOMAN: As long as he does his work for his constituency, that is the only thing that anyone should care about.
NANCY CORDES: Until now, most House Democrats had avoided commenting on the scandal. But now that their leaders have made their wishes clear, it`s likely that the calls for Weiner`s resignation are going to start piling up.
For SUNDAY MORNING, this is Nancy Cordes on Capitol Hill.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: That two-week old wildfire in Arizona is spreading now into New Mexico. Spot fires have been seen across the state lines and officials are warning that smoke from the growing blaze could soon be a health threat as far away as Albuquerque. The fire has now consumed six hundred seventy- two square miles.
The al Qaeda operative believed to be behind the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania has been killed in Somalia`s capital. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 bombings that killed two hundred and twenty-four people.
The government has issued health warnings about two commonly used materials. Scientists say repeated exposure to formaldehyde--widely used to make resins for household products--poses the risk of cancer. They also say that styrene used in products like plastic cups and plates may cause cancer but that it`s generally found in such small quantities that the risk is comparatively small.
On a sloppy track in New York yesterday, long shot Ruler on Ice pulled away just yards from the wire to win the Belmont Stakes. That victory marks the third straight year that each Triple Crown race has been won by a different horse.
Now the weather, storms across the Northern Plains and much of the East. And dry and mild in the Great Lakes. Looking at the week ahead, rain in the Northwest, hot and humid in the South. And after a rainy start in the Northeast, by week`s end you can pack in the umbrella and pack up a picnic.
Next up, the blogosphere.
And later, The Big Bang Theory`s Jim Parsons.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Welcome to the blogosphere. For the uninitiated that`s the nickname for the rough-and-tumble online world that anyone with a laptop and a strong opinion can enter and sometimes get into trouble. Our cover story now reported by Rita Braver.
(Begin VT)
RITA BRAVER: The whole nation may be talking about Congressman Anthony Weiner`s sexually suggestive internet messages.
REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER (Monday): To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it.
RITA BRAVER: But it was one man, Andrew Breitbart, who posted the story online in his blog and forced the New York Democrat to finally own up to his actions.
REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER: I apologize to Andrew Breitbart. I apologize to the many other members of the media that I misled.
ANDREW BREITBART: I think we were vindicated at first after a three-day frenzy of trying to attack my journalism.
RITA BRAVER: What a week. And what a clear sign of the growing clout of bloggers.
Blogging has a short history. In the early 1990s, sharing personal observations on the internet became known as writing a weblog, later shortened to blog. Before long, the world of bloggers was so big, it was dubbed the blogosphere.
Today there are more than fifty million active blogs on the web. Some are under the auspices of major companies or larger websites. Others are run by individual. Many are chatty personal-style reflections and they usually encourage readers to respond. Blogs cover everything you can think of from architecture to zombies. If you know about it or even think you know about it, you can blog.
How important do you think bloggers are to the national conversation these days?
DEANNA BROWN: Oh, I think they`re-- they`re paramount. I think they`re real authentic communities of people talking about really important subjects and really frivolous subjects.
RITA BRAVER: Deanna Brown is CEO of Federated Media, which represents thousands of bloggers.
DEANNA BROWN: I mean, I think we`re seeing blogs in general make a huge difference in everything from what products people are buying across the board to who`s being elected into public office.
RITA BRAVER: Which brings us back to Congressman Weiner`s woes. What started on conservative activist Andrew Breitbart`s blog is now being reported by mainstream news organizations nationwide. But it was the same Andrew Breitbart who last year posted an edited video that falsely indicated Shirley Sherrod, an Agricultural Department employee, had discriminated against whites. She`s now suing him. That episode illustrates a problem. Blogs can be a law unto themselves.
There doesn`t seem to be any way that anything catches up with bloggers or anyway of addressing when a blogger really does something or says something that`s not true.
DEANNA BROWN: It`s their communities and the community in the web in general will actually correct facts on particular blogs if they feel they`re unfactual. And believe it or not those are actually the least desirable blogs from a business perspective.
RITA BRAVER: And business is what drives many blogs. With all of Broadway gearing up for tonight`s Tony Awards, no one is paying closer attention than Robert Diamond, founder of the website broadwayworld.com.
ROBERT DIAMOND: We`ll have several blogs going simultaneously on Tony night from backstage with the winners, from behind the scenes, from rehearsal, as well as the broadcast itself.
RITA BRAVER: While his main website offers straightforward information-- like what`s playing and where to get tickets--Diamond says the blogs he features, including one he writes himself, have become a big draw.
ROBERT DIAMOND: I get hate mail when they disagree with me. I get nice things when people agree with me or, you know, thank you, I wouldn`t have seen that otherwise. So there`s a nice amount of-- of feedback here.
RITA BRAVER: And that`s not all the most successful bloggers are getting.
ABBY LARSON: I attended a class out at Stanford and the professor said you will never make money writing a blog, never. And that made me mad. I thought, oh, you better wait.
RITA BRAVER: Indeed. Thirty-two-year-old Abby Larson makes enough money from Style Me Pretty, her multi-million-dollar-wedding blog, to employ her husband and twelve other people full time.
In the early days what-- what was the blog like?
ABBY LARSON: The blog was this, like, really small, like, we`re talking ten people maybe reading at any given moment.
RITA BRAVER: But word got out that she was offering personal attention to brides.
ABBY LARSON: Readers would write in. And they would say, you know, I`m having this great wedding at a vineyard but I really can`t figure out my style and how to bring it altogether. Then I would write details as to how to they could articulate this vision in real life.
RITA BRAVER: Just four years after starting out she said she draws about seven hundred thousand readers per month. That`s more than the circulation of most bridal magazines. She openly admits that she blogs about some of her favorite advertisers.
ABBY LARSON: Let`s go. What a pretty day.
RITA BRAVER: It has added up to a dream life in a leafy Boston suburb.
ABBY LARSON: I didn`t want to leave my couch, you know? And that was, um, I wanted to have a family. I wanted to do something in my home. I wanted to roll out of bed, pick up my computer, pour my coffee, and go. And that`s what I did.
RITA BRAVER: So no wonder so many people are trying to blog their way to success.
WOMAN: Bloggers of all shapes and sizes are-- are making, getting command of blogging.
RITA BRAVER: More than fifteen hundred hopefuls came to this recent conference in Manhattan.
DANIELLE LISS: My blog is called Kitten-a-Go-Go.
RITA BRAVER: Kitten-a-Go-Go.
DANIELLE LISS: Mm-Hm.
RITA BRAVER: What-- why?
DANIELLE LISS: You know what? I don`t even know why.
RITA BRAVER: They blog about self-fulfillment.
DAVE URSILLO: And I try to encourage people to pursue their passions and follow their dreams.
RITA BRAVER: They blog about their hobbies.
SRINIVAS RAO: The underlying motivation for all of this amazingly is just so that I can surf more; that`s how big a part of my life it is.
RITA BRAVER: And like Srinivas Rao, they are well aware that few bloggers ever hit the big time.
SRINIVAS RAO: I think the reason you have so many people who start it is because the barrier to entry is so low. But the thing is that so many of them just drop off after the first ninety days.
RITA BRAVER: But it doesn`t stop bloggers from dreaming of stardom. Just ask this twenty-nine-year-old celebrity-obsessed computer geek.
JARED ENG: Well, first of all, I didn`t know a single person in Hollywood. I started doing the blog off in my parents` house, in the bedroom. And I would chain myself to the computer, I would not leave. I would constantly be updating the site.
RITA BRAVER: Now he writes his JustJared blog from a penthouse office, provided by his sponsor, LaCoste--the clothing brand. But Jared Eng has not forgotten the days when he trolled the web for tidbits about stars, and desperately tried to get his own interviews.
JARED ENG: Well, first I started with the red carpet. You know I`d spend six hours on the red carpet trying to get one quote. And--
RITA BRAVER: And just go there and hang out.
JARED ENG: Exactly.
RITA BRAVER: Soon people started feeding him tidbits. He posted the first official photo of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt`s daughter Shiloh.
How did you get that?
JARED ENG: I can`t reveal my sources. A blogger never tells.
RITA BRAVER: In fact, he may get some scoops because his blog provides a stark contrast to sites known for skewering celebs.
Why have you chosen that route?
JARED ENG: It wasn`t necessarily a decision.
RITA BRAVER: That`s just you?
JARED ENG: It is just Jared. I`ve always been a nice guy.
RITA BRAVER: And sometimes, nice guys finish first. With fourteen million viewers a month, JustJared`s become a celebrity himself.
Do you believe it even today mostly?
JARED ENG: I don`t. It`s very surreal.
RITA BRAVER: Just like so much of the blogosphere.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Ahead--
MAN: Would you like paper or plastic?
CHARLES OSGOOD: --in the bag.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: And now a page from our SUNDAY MORNING almanac. June 12th, 1883, a hundred and twenty-eight years ago today; the day papa and everyone else got a brand-new bag. For that was the day a patent was issued for a machine that made a paper bag with a flat bottom and pleated sides, a bag that would stand upright and stay open all on its own. Labeled the SOS, the Self Opening Sack, it was the technological breakthrough the world had been waiting for. Before long shoppers all over the world were bringing home the goods in that ubiquitous bag. And playful pranksters were constantly figuring out clever ways to have fun with it, a tradition that endures to this day. The paper bag has even played an unlikely role in a Seinfeld episode.
TODD JEFFRIES (1997): What do you want to see?
JILL HOLDEN (1997): How about a sack lunch?
TODD JEFFRIES: How about the English Patient. It`s up for all its Oscars.
JILL HOLDEN: Oh, come on, Blaine, I mean look at the poster for sack lunch.
TODD JEFFRIES: It`s a family in a brown paper bag.
JILL HOLDEN: Don`t you want to know how they got in there?
TODD JEFFRIES: No.
CHARLES OSGOOD: But in recent years the paper bag has been punching it out with an upstart competitor, the plastic bag. The rivalry, which has made this--
MAN: Would you like paper or plastic?
CHARLES OSGOOD: --one of the most divisive questions of our time. Some have gone so far as to call for a ban on the plastic bag. While many environmentalists point out that the manufacture and disposal of both sorts of bags can cause pollution and that shoppers should actually opt for reusable bags instead. Still, after all these years, it`s safe to say the brown paper bag isn`t going anywhere anytime soon. Unless it`s to school with somebody`s lunch inside.
Up next, under glass.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Nothing brings the outside in quite like a terrarium. Serena Altschul now with the in`s and out`s.
(Begin VT)
SERENA ALTSCHUL: We love nature here at SUNDAY MORNING, so much so that every week we leave you in a place of natural beauty.
TOVAH MARTIN: It is something that helps us to cope.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Mm-Hm.
TOVAH MARTIN: It`s just calming that we--
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Right.
TOVAH MARTIN: --you know, think about nature and-- and sort of our roots.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Tovah Martin loves nature, too. But what she really loves is nature in miniature.
TOVAH MARTIN: This is your opportunity to be a landscape designer. And I think that`s one of the-- one of the main beauties of terrariums. So let`s just--
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Martin is a missionary for the Lilliputian world of terrariums. She writes about them, creates them, and she gives workshops to convert others to their miniscule beauty. This one was held at the Terrain at Styer`s garden center in Pennsylvania.
TOVAH MARTIN: What is a terrarium? It is a closed environment where the condensation dribbles down and the plant is self-watering.
WOMAN #1: That`s good.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Tovah insists that anyone, with or without a green thumb, can create a beautiful terrarium.
TOVAH MARTIN: You can do it with the mason jars you find in your attic. You can do it with that old fish bowl dumped in your basement. You can probably look around your house and find something that works as a terrarium.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: So pretty.
What`s made you attracted to come take this class? How did you hear about it?
WOMAN #2: I just heard about it from a friend, just sounded fun, kind of a creative way to get some nature into the house.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Do you feel like anybody could do this?
GIRL: Pretty much, yeah.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: And this is your first one?
GIRL: Yeah.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Wow, I need to have a look from up here because that is amazing. Are you proud?
GIRL: Yes, I`m very proud.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: I was pretty proud, too.
So nice, I really love it.
Terrariums came to life in 1830 when Nathaniel Ward, a British surgeon and naturalist, accidentally discovered that a plant would stay alive indefinitely with almost no care when put in an enclosed glass case. There was a boomlet of terrarium making in the sixties and seventies mostly as science projects for grade school kids. Today, grown-ups and kids alike seem enthralled. Sales of terrarium supplies here at Styer`s have increased twenty-five to thirty percent a year over the last couple of years.
TOVAH MARTIN: There really are no rules and whatever your inner gardener is asking you for design wise--
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Right.
TOVAH MARTIN: --that`s what works for you. That`s what you should do.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Paula Hayes`s inner gardener is asking for this.
PAULA HAYES: Open.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: --an original hand-blown container for each terrarium; no mason jars, please.
PAULA HAYES: This is all little creeping fig.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: Hayes is the high priestess of terrariums and her creations of living art as she calls them sell for between four thousand and sixty thousand dollars.
WOMAN #3: Where do you want me to focus the blob? Is it okay to put it-- if-- what if it goes towards the lip? What if it goes towards the back like?
PAULA HAYES: I-- I prefer it back here.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: The blob in question, a seemingly impossible glass-blowing technique, creates a unique effect.
How does it look?
PAULA HAYES: Now what`s really, really beautiful about this particular piece of glass is that it has this magnification so you can like-- the seaweed down deep inside.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: It`s so-- so pretty in there. You could say for a Paula Hayes` terrarium the maintenance is magnified as well. Hayes will tend to the plants for as long as three years before putting them in a container. And when each terrarium is complete, she will tend to it for at least a couple more years before she allows an owner to claim it.
Is it hard to let them go?
PAULA HAYES: It is. You-- you-- you know, you can-- it is.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: But she does let them go to private collectors as well as galleries and art fairs around the world.
PAULA HAYES: So I think we can easily lower it like three inches.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: This past winter, these two huge terrariums created by Hayes in partnership with her husband, Teo Camporeale, graced the lobby of New York`s Museum of Modern Art. One is fifteen-feet wide. The other weighs a hundred and thirty pounds.
PAULA HAYES: There are few aspects of the architecture of the-- of the pieces themselves that lend themselves to either something that is crawling and growing this way or is more vertical.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: And how about these out of the box terrariums: an architect-designed cactus chair that can be yours for three thousand dollars; or these Icelandic pieces created by a company called FurniBloom. So here`s to terrariums.
PAULA HAYES: It`s like I can take this home and I can take care of this. And it`s not going to go away.
SERENA ALTSCHUL: The perfect way to bring the outside in.
(End VT)
JIMMY FALLON: People don`t enjoy this chair. I don`t know why.
RUSS MITCHELL: Is that by design. Is that--
JIMMY FALLON: No.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Ahead talking the talk with Jimmy Fallon.
And later trouble in paradise?
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
ANNOUNCER: It`s SUNDAY MORNING on CBS and here again is Charles Osgood.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Jim Parsons has been getting lots of laughs on the TV series The Big Bang Theory. But right now he`s also performing a very different sort of role in a play that`s been nominated for five awards at tonight`s Tonys to be broadcast here on CBS. Our Seth Doane tracked Parsons down on Broadway.
(Begin VT)
JIM PARSONS: Hello.
CROWD (in unison): Hello.
JIM PARSONS: How`s it going? How`s it going? Is this recess?
CROWD (in unison): Yes.
JIM PARSONS: What would I sign?
SETH DOANE: He`s the geeky star of The Big Bang Theory--
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: --one of the most successful comedies on television.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
JIM PARSONS: You look up and down the street and there`s Billy Elliot, there is Jerusalem. There is the--
SETH DOANE: But this summer something else entirely has got actor Jim Parsons excited.
JIM PARSONS: That`s what I`m in. That`s what I`m doing.
SETH DOANE: This is a Broadway show--
JIM PARSONS (overlapping): I`m literally on Broadway. This street has tons of Broadway shows up and down it and I`m in one of them. And there`s nothing like it, you know. There`s no experience like doing a play.
SETH DOANE: The play is The Normal Heart, a searing revival of the 1985 drama about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
(Excerpt from The Normal Heart)
SETH DOANE: Parsons plays Tommy Boatwright, a gay activist giving comfort where he can.
JIM PARSONS: It`s very hard-hitting. I think it`s a real slap in the face. I think it`s a real slug in the gut.
(Excerpt from The Normal Heart)
JIM PARSONS: We`ve been blessed with beautiful reviews. We`ve been blessed with five Tony nominations. And suddenly, it`s-- it`s a real event.
SETH DOANE: And right now Parsons can`t get enough of Broadway.
JIM PARSONS: It`s an absolute addiction right now. I`m quite swimming in it.
SETH DOANE: It sounds a little Sheldon Cooper-esque.
JIM PARSONS: It-- you`re right. It`s obsessive.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: And obsessive is surely one way to describe Sheldon Cooper.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: The role that`s made the thirty-eight-year-old actor famous.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: Though Parsons says in real life shy was the way to describe him as a child growing up in Houston.
JIM PARSONS: My first role ever was in first grade. The Elephant`s Child was the play and I was the Kolakola Bird.
SETH DOANE: What is Kolakola Bird?
JIM PARSONS: Hell if I know. For me, it was something with wings and yellow tights and a black mask on my head that my mother built. You don`t forget your first experience in pantyhose.
SETH DOANE: Was there a point that you thought, I want to be an actor?
JIM PARSONS: Yeah. I had act-- I had been in plays through elementary school. I had been in plays through high school. And I had a very torn relationship with it. I-- I-- My own realistic side thought this is-- this is a fool`s errand.
SETH DOANE: Three, two, one.
Still he took the plunge.
JIM PARSONS: No problem at all.
WOMAN: Thank you.
JIM PARSONS: Thank you.
SETH DOANE: This happens a lot?
JIM PARSONS: Umm, yeah. I mean, it happens a fair amount. It`s happen.
SETH DOANE: Earning a theater degree and then taking work wherever he could find it like this Quiznos commercial.
(Excerpt from Quiznos ad)
JIM PARSONS: The main thrust of the audition, fifty of us lining in and out to do this, was, what do you look like suckling at the teat? And--
SETH DOANE: Of a wolf.
JIM PARSONS: --and that`s literally how I got this.
SETH DOANE; You just really--
JIM PARSONS: I nailed it.
SETH DOANE: --nailed it.
JIM PARSONS: I mean, who knew? I don`t think it was a talent. I think it was a willingness.
SETH DOANE: Did this Quiznos commercial break you into the acting stratosphere?
JIM PARSONS: Well, no. But, it broke me into the rent stratosphere. It did get some attention. It certainly gave me a conversation piece. It-- it was half the battle, and I`m not kidding, in certain casting sessions and everything, are you-- well, you have something interesting to say. And-- and then if you`ve suckled at the teat of a Siberian Husky, you have something interesting to say. Maybe not good, but it`s interesting.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: It was at one of those casting sessions five years ago that Parsons landed the role of a lifetime, Sheldon, a brilliant if awkward physicist.
JIM PARSONS: It`s always exciting to me. It`s always a stretch.
SETH DOANE: Why is it a stretch to play?
JIM PARSONS: He`s a genius, which-- I`m just not. He`s got-- his mind works in these ways that I don`t even have the first way of understanding.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: Complete with great gusts of geek speak--
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
SETH DOANE: How do you memorize Sheldon`s lines? You look at some of the words that you`re saying some--
JIM PARSONS: They are terrible.
SETH DOANE: --speeds out of your mouth, it`s amazing.
JIM PARSONS: It`s terrible. One of these days they`re going to break me. I`m positive. But in the meantime, I`m a big note card fiend.
(Excerpt from The Big Bang Theory)
JIM PARSONS: Yeah, I have to know-- I have little cue on the first side. And on the next one will be my entire line I`ll have written out. And I will pace around my house and I just-- that`s what I do for hours on end. And I`m telling you, it is-- it`s like memorizing the symbols on the periodic table.
SETH DOANE: The show is popular.
JIM PARSONS: Popular. Yes.
SETH DOANE: You have won a Golden Globe. You`ve won an Emmy for your portrayal of Sheldon. You are so well-known for this character.
JIM PARSONS: Yeah.
SETH DOANE: Is-- is there a danger in that?
JIM PARSONS: I`m sure there is. I`m sure there is. And-- and here`s why I don`t worry. I will find a way to work, whether it`s back in my mother`s backyard, making my sister put on in a show with me, although she probably wouldn`t be willing now. She has two kids. Anyway I`m going to keep doing it. In what form I`ll be had in-- whatever project they`ll allow me to work. That`s-- that`s where I`ll end up being.
SETH DOANE: Even if it`s your mother`s backyard.
JIM PARSONS: That sounds sad. So maybe not that far. But something will happen.
SETH DOANE: For Jim Parsons, it`s safe to say something probably will.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Next, a dog`s life.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: It happened this week. Belated word of the death last December of a dog named Trouble, a multi-millionaire Maltese who used to belong to the late Leona Helmsley`s who vowed in the tabloids as the Queen of Mean. Leona Helmsley and her husband Harry were really real estate tycoons. They owned the Empire State Building along with several of New York`s swankiest hotels.
MAN: Morning.
HARRY HELMSLEY: Morning.
LEONA HELMSLEY: Morning.
CHARLES OSGOOD: In 1989 she was convicted of tax evasion after a trial in which a former employee quoted Helmsley as saying, "We don`t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Leona Helmsley served eighteen months in prison. But after Harry`s death in 1997, she lived a reclusive life with Trouble as her most devoted friend.
LEONA HELMSLEY: I try to be a nice person to people. I really do.
CHARLES OSGOOD: And upon her death in 2007, it emerged that she had left Trouble a trust fund worth twelve million dollars. Outraging many of Helmsley`s critics and moving two of her grandsons to contest the request in court. A judge reduced Trouble`s take to a mere two million, more than enough it turned out to fund her one-hundred-ninety-thousand-dollar-a-year lifestyle. A spokeswoman says the balance of Trouble`s trust will revert to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley charitable trust which has assets of more than three billion dollars. Trouble was twelve years old.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Ahead, summer on stage.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Across the land the curtain is rising figuratively on another season of summer camp. Literally in the case of a camp our Mo Rocca has seen in action.
(Begin VT)
MO ROCCA: If Greasepaint is in your blood and you`ve always dreamed of a life on Broadway--
WOMAN #1: Hey guys. Welcome to Stagedoor.
MAN #1: Hello.
MO ROCCA: --this is the place for you.
(Man #2 singing)
MO ROCCA: Welcome to Stagedoor Manor--
WOMAN #2: All right. Welcome home.
MO ROCCA: --a theater camp for kids nestled in the Catskill Mountains of New York with show tunes sing-alongs, costumed counselors--
WOMAN #3: Hey, who we got?
MO ROCCA: --and yes, where funny girl reign supreme.
JONATHAN GAMOCA (ph): I`m a big Barbara Streisand fan.
BEANIE FELDSTEIN (ph): Since the age of two, I`ve always been Barbara Streisand fan.
(Girl singing)
MICKEY RAPKIN: This is probably the only summer camp you`ll find where-- where the kids would say it`s all about the craft.
MO ROCCA: Not long ago, Mickey Rapkin, author of Theater Geek, spent a summer chronicling the high drama of theater camp.
MICKEY RAPKIN: So here we go then.
(Boy #1 singing)
MO ROCCA: Two hundred eighty campers, aged ten to eighteen, coming from as far away as Australia, for the chance to tread the boards in one of thirteen shows, ranging from the musical Cinderella, to the holocaust drama, And A Child Shall Lead.
GIRL #1: Someone`s coming.
MICKEY RAPKIN: There is a-- a very different kind of social hierarchy here. You know, the most popular kids are not the kids whose parents have the most money or the prettiest kids. It`s-- you know, it`s-- it`s the kid who could hit the D above middle C.
MO ROCCA: First-time campers, Isabella (ph) and Kelly (ph)took to the stage like mice to cheese, not surprising. When we first met them they were chomping at the bit.
ISABELLA: I`m just really excited for my first year here at Stagedoor.
MO ROCCA: Now, Kelly, where are you coming from?
KELLY: San Antonio, Texas.
MO ROCCA: Are you-- you came all the way from Texas?
KELLY: Yes.
MO ROCCA: Now, how did you find out about this camp?
KELLY: Umm--
MO ROCCA: Dad?
MAN #3: That`s me, yeah, for the most part. I`m a stage dad apparently.
MO ROCCA: Get it.
But stage parents are barely allowed pass the Stagedoor. After move in, they`re banished till the end of session performances.
WOMAN #4: Please don`t you use your cell phone this week. Please hand it here--
MO ROCCA: And for the first week, campers` cell phones are confiscated.
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: It kind of sucks that you can`t call your parents right when you get your part.
MO ROCCA: It`s old hat for six-time returnee Beanie Feldstein.
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: But other than that I don`t need to talk to my friends all my friends are here so.
MO ROCCA: If it all seems a little niche, it`s really not. In the 1970s, there were fewer than a dozen performing arts camps in the United States. Today, there are more than eight hundred. But Stagedoor maybe the best- known. Since its start more than thirty years ago, it`s churned out cavalcade of A-list alums like Robert Downey Junior, Natalie Portman--
(Natalie Portman singing)
MO ROCCA: --and Glee star Lea Michele.
(Lea Michele singing)
JON CRYER: When I was an early teen, this was in the late seventies, early eighties the least cool thing you could possibly want to be involved with is musical theater.
(Jon Cryer singing)
MO ROCCA: When Jon Cryer of CBS`s Two and Half Men, sang and danced his way through Stagedoor, theater camp didn`t have much buzz. And back then boys had to be actively recruited.
JON CRYER: When I went there it was for people who just wanted nothing better than to sneak into the second act of Dreamgirls on a Wednesday afternoon, you know, and sad to say that was me.
MO ROCCA: Today, there`s a waiting list for boys and girls alike. Even agents lineup to see in array of shows where the casting isn`t just colorblind, it`s age blind.
What role did you end up with?
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: I am Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
(Beanie Feldstein singing)
MO ROCCA: What`s the role like?
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: She is an actress dressed up as a old Chinese women who enslaves young girls.
MO ROCCA: Multilayered.
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: yes.
WOMAN #5: I`m an orphan.
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: Are you? Sad to be on your own in the world but--
JONATHAN GAMOCA: I kind of have like an epiphany I guess.
MO ROCCA: But for some at Stagedoor, it`s not only about the work. After all these really are just kids.
(Jonathan Gamoca singing)
MO ROCCA: Thirteen-year-old first timer Jonathan Gamoca came looking for more than a good part.
Are you hoping you make friends here?
JONATHAN GAMOCA: Yes. That`s a-- yeah. I guess a lot of people sometimes feel uncomfortable around me or even at school. So I think that a place like this I fit in and I belong here I guess.
MO ROCCA: Jonathan was cast in the musical Once on this Island in the role of the Demon of Death. And as the curtain came down on Jonathan`s first Stagedoor summer, what was his review?
Did you feel like over last three weeks to kind of came out of your shell?
JONATHAN GAMOCA: I think I have-- I-- when I came here, I think that my self esteem was not that high. It was kind a low and like after like our sneak peek everybody was like, oh, my gosh, you did so well. Oh, you`re such a good singer. I think that-- that`s really given me of a-- a boost.
MO ROCCA: And you think you`ll come back next year?
JONATHAN GAMOCA: Oh, definitely. I had the time of my life.
MO ROCCA: Well, you know what, you`re positively glowing. You`re carrying yourself like a star.
JONATHAN GAMOCA: Thank you.
MO ROCCA: A star of tomorrow, shining bright on a summer`s night.
(End VT)
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Remember this? It`s a Selectric typewriter, cutting-edge in its time, manufactured by IBM, one of America`s legendary corporations, which this week reaches an historic milestone. Michelle Miller will do the honors.
(Begin VT)
MICHELLE MILLER: It`s a logo known the world over, three letters and a sleek, simple design representing one of the largest, richest, and most powerful companies in the world. It is also, you may be surprised to learn, one of America`s oldest. The company--that brought us into the computer age, helped put a man on the moon and gave us among other things the Selectric typewriter, the universal bar code--
(Excerpt from Jeopardy!)
MICHELLE MILLER: --and a machine that can beat humans at Jeopardy!--turns one hundred years old on Thursday.
PAUL LASEWICZ: Essentially we`ve been doing the same thing for a hundred years and there`s not a lot companies that can say that.
MICHELLE MILLER: IBM archivist Paul Lasewicz says even in the beginning it was about storing information more efficiently.
And this did what?
PAUL LASEWICZ: This is the equivalent of the central processing unit for our tabulating system.
MICHELLE MILLER: It began as the Computing Tabulating Recording Company-- making time clocks, food processors, and this machine, the Hollerith tabulating system that recorded information as a series of holes punched on cards. Those punch cards would revolutionize and globalize American industry.
PAUL LASEWICZ: Virtually every major enterprise by the 1930s was using systems like this: railroads, retail, oil companies.
MICHELLE MILLER: In 1935 when FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, IBM was ready.
PAUL LASEWICZ: We actually had to invent a machine that enabled them to do the Social Security account.
MICHELLE MILLER: The man who engineered IBM`s meteoric rise was Thomas Watson Senior.
KEVIN MANEY: He very intentionally, which I don`t think many people before him did, he very intentionally created a culture at IBM.
MICHELLE MILLER: IBM`s culture, says Watson biographer Kevin Maney, would become as recognizable as its name. Adopted in 1924, and its iconic slogan: Think.
KEVIN MANEY: IBM had this bizarrely quirky culture that the press actually couldn`t get enough of. These guys all wore the stiff white shirts, legendary (INDISTINCT) suits. And they sang company songs at meetings.
CROWD (singing): We`re the IBM Go-Getters, All the live-long day. We are--
MICHELLE MILLER: There were trips and conventions to award top salesmen who were encouraged to write down their thoughts on this, the originally think pad.
PAUL LASEWICZ: They`d be able to jot down notes soon and an inspiration whenever it came to them.
MICHELLE MILLER: and right here you listed goals.
PAUL LASEWICZ: Yeah. A little bit of motivation.
KEVIN MANEY: During the late 1930s, Tom Watson Senior was the highest paid executive in America so he was sort of a Bill Gates of his era.
MICHELLE MILLER: But there was a dark side to IBM`s global reach. One of its tabulating machines on display at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, was used its German subsidiary to help the Nazis identify and track Jews. Whether Watson himself knew about it is a matter of debate. Kevin Maney thinks not.
KEVIN MANEY: The machines were already there. They were taken. There was no-- the idea that there was anything more than that, any kind of collaboration is actually grossly unfair.
MICHELLE MILLER: Is it fair to say that once he found out what was going on, he pulled his company out.
KEVIN MANEY: It is fair to say that, yes, absolutely.
MICHELLE MILLER: In the 1950s, Thomas Watson Senior handed over the reins to his son, Thomas Watson Junior, who would put all the company`s resources into developing the world`s fastest and best computing system.
THOMAS WATSON JUNIOR: This begins a new generation of computers.
KEVIN MANEY: They essentially stopped R&D on every other product they were making and for two years just worked on this and spent what was the equivalent today of about thirty-four or thirty-five billion dollars developing this thing. If it wasn`t this gigantic success IBM was going to be ruined.
MICHELLE MILLER: Gigantic success doesn`t even begin to describe IBM`s System/360.
PAUL LASEWICZ: It was one of the machines that we used to put men on the moon.
KEVIN MANEY: And it basically helped IBM just absolutely dominate the computing industry for the next twenty to thirty years.
MICHELLE MILLER: That domination didn`t last forever.
MAN: It was known as the giant. But yesterday old number one reported giant`s second-quarter losses of eight billion dollars.
MICHELLE MILLER: In the early nineties overinvested in mainframe computing and overtaken by Microsoft and Apple in the personal computer field, IBM laid off tens of thousands of workers. Kevin Maney, who was a technology reporter for USA Today during that time, says it was a question of survival.
KEVIN MANEY: The only way to save the company was to essentially chop it in half. IBM survived and is actually back up to the size that it was when it had to cut all those people.
BERNIE MEYERSON: IBM has lived this hundred years by constantly reinventing itself.
MICHELLE MILLER: Bernie Meyerson is vice president of innovation at IBM. As a young engineer, he came up with a smaller, more powerful computer chip.
BERNIE MEYERSON: The funny thing is that it was a basic piece of science we did back in the early eighties that found its way in 2010 into literally every computer now that`s out there, literally every hand set. There`s a bit of it almost everywhere.
MICHELLE MILLER: The kind of innovation Meyerson hopes that will keep IBM around for the next one hundred years.
BERNIE MEYERSON: IBM had this unending optimism about science and technology. We`ll put the money into this and it`s going to create some new and great stuff. And, you know, so far it always has.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Coming up, Bill Geist driven to the extremes.
But first, Russ Mitchell laughing out loud with Jimmy Fallon.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: We got to know him on Saturday nights as one of the headliners on Saturday Night Live. But these days you can see Jimmy Fallon Monday through Friday on his own late night TV show. Here`s Russ Mitchell with a Sunday Morning Profile.
(Begin VT)
JIMMY FALLON: This is the backstage where I would go right before I go on the show.
RUSS MITCHELL: Mm-Hm.
JIMMY FALLON: I come in here, look in this mirror, and make sure my hair-- may piece is on right. You see the spotlight hit the curtain, from the outside. And you`re just on the outside like. You get announced, like Jimmy Fallon.
MAN: And here he is, Jimmy Fallon.
JIMMY FALLON: And the curtain opens. And then you just walk out to the monologue mark. And that`s when you get nervous. That`s-- that`s when it`s, like, oh my God, is it good? Is it going to be good? Is it going to be-- who knows what it`s going to be?
RUSS MITCHELL: Jimmy Fallon is having way too much fun. When he`s not singing with Justin Timberlake or Paul McCartney, he`s playing Password with Betty White.
JIMMY FALLON: And I like being the last thing you see before you go to bed. People watch our show, and they fall asleep, to me. So that`s a good feeling, to know, like, hey, you don`t have to worry about anything. I`m going to make a joke. You don`t have to do any work. I want you to go the bed with a smile on your face and go to sleep. And you`re like, ha.
(Excerpt from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)
RUSS MITCHELL: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon broadcasts from historic Studio 6B in Rockefeller Center, former home to Milton Berle, Jack Paar, and the king of late night.
JIMMY FALLON: And this is the studio where Johnny Carson did the first ten years of his Tonight Show run.
RUSS MITCHELL: Yeah.
JIMMY FALLON: So Johnny was-- was there, on that monologue mark, there. And his desk was there.
RUSS MITCHELL: Rockefeller Center has always been Mecca for Fallon. He grew up two hours away, in upstate New York. When he wasn`t playing the guitar, he was watching a certain TV show.
(Excerpt from Saturday Night Live)
RUSS MITCHELL: Is it fair to say you were obsessed with Saturday Night Live as a kid?
JIMMY FALLON: That`s very fair to say, yeah. I used to get paper plates and fall down my steps of my-- of my childhood home, and then say, Live from New York, it`s Saturday Night, you know?
RUSS MITCHELL: He would tape record SNL, then lip-synch routines by Richard Pryor and Steve Martin.
JIMMY FALLON: My sister and I would do, "We are two wild and crazy guys. Here we are. And we would just do a sketch in front of our grandparents. And be like, we have to go to Statue of Liberty, to get birth control devices, you know, not knowing, what is that? I thought it was a remote control device. I mean, what--
RUSS MITCHELL: Right. Right. Yeah. What did your grandparents think about that?
JIMMY FALLON: They almost walked out. I mean, that was probably my first walk out-- out of night club. They did not appreciate that humor.
RUSS MITCHELL: But his mother did appreciate it. She convinced him to enter a comedy contest at a local club at the age of seventeen.
And what-- and what happened?
JIMMY FALLON: I won.
RUSS MITCHELL: You won?
JIMMY FALLON: It was the craziest thing. I ended up winning the-- the-- the contest. And I think the prize was, like, seven hundred dollars or something. It sounds like I just made seven hundred dollars in two minutes. Like, this is my career. This is the best.
RUSS MITCHELL: He honed his standup act, and then came his big chance: a personal audition with Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels.
JIMMY FALLON: This is a celebrity walkathon.
RUSS MITCHELL: But the SNL staff warned him.
JIMMY FALLON: And they said, well, just-- just to let you know Lorne doesn`t laugh at everything. So don`t feel bad if he doesn`t laugh at your stuffs. So, no problem. And I went and they got my makeup on. The guy put my makeup, and he goes, Jimmy, good luck. I just want to let you know, Lorne doesn`t laugh at these things, a lot of the times. So don`t be thrown if he doesn`t laugh. I go, okay. I-- I just heard that. But yeah, okay. So he`s not going to listen. The audio guy came and put his microphone on me, and he put the microphone on, and he goes, Jimmy, I just want to let you know, you know, Lorne-- Lorne doesn`t laugh. I go what`s this guy`s problem? This guy doesn`t laugh at anything? He`s runs a comedy show. He`s in the wrong business. What is this guy`s deal?
Why we`re all walking? We`re all going to the same place. I mean why don`t we just take a bus? It`s a busathon.
And I get through Seinfeld. I get to the end and I finish with Adam Sandler.
(Excerpt from Saturday Night Live)
She used to say I want to thank she say why don`t you go to the store with your mother?
And I remember Lorne started laughing and put his head in his hand. And he was like-- he was laughing. And that`s why the rest was slow motion.
RUSS MITCHELL: He joined the SNL cast at the tender age of twenty-three and became known for characters like Barry Gibb, Jimmy Fallon-style.
(Excerpt from Saturday Night Live)
RUSS MITCHELL: Fallon also became known as the guy who couldn`t keep a straight face.
(Excerpt from Saturday Night Live)
RUSS MITCHELL: It`s tough for you not to laugh, right?
JIMMY FALLON: Yeah. Yeah, I have a problem with that.
JIMMY FALLON: I-- I like to laugh. I think things are funny. So I don`t do it to break up on purpose, you know, but I-- I do it because I`m having fun.
RUSS MITCHELL: Finally, after six seasons at SNL, Fallon decided it might be fun to make some movies.
(Excerpt from Fever Pitch)
RUSS MITCHELL: While shooting Fever Pitch, he actually met his wife, producer Nancy Juvonen--a good thing that came out of a film career marked by some not-so-good reviews.
JIMMY FALLON: I think it`s like people do this a lot where they always want to do something that they`re not good at just to challenge themselves. Like it`s dumb for me to do that. I`m not-- I`m not, you know, a dramatic actor. This is not what I`m good at. But no one can tell you that when you`re in that zone.
RUSS MITCHELL: Right.
(Excerpt from Saturday Night Live)
RUSS MITCHELL: Here`s the thing about Jimmy Fallon. He always seems to be thrilled with whatever he happens to be doing. Especially if he is taking a few minutes out for his favorite hobby, bowling.
JIMMY FALLON: Ugly.
RUSS MITCHELL: Nothing seems to bring him down, even if his opponent opens the game with a strike.
JIMMY FALLON: What was that? What was that?
RUSS MITCHELL: I don`t-- I don`t know.
JIMMY FALLON: You`re a ringer.
RUSS MITCHELL: I don`t know.
JIMMY FALLON: I`m going to tell Osgood about this.
RUSS MITCHELL: All right. All right.
JIMMY FALLON: I`m going to tell Osgood about this.
RUSS MITCHELL: Beginner`s luck. The beginner`s luck.
JIMMY FALLON: He will not be happy.
RUSS MITCHELL: You got it this time.
Fallon might be having fun but he also clearly likes to win. And on this night, I`m sorry to say he did.
JIMMY FALLON: Oh, man. Yes.
RUSS MITCHELL: The same applies to his show. When he took over late night two years ago, it took him a while to find his groove.
Some of the reviews were not so kind.
JIMMY FALLON: Yeah.
RUSS MITCHELL: Did that bother you?
JIMMY FALLON: No. They were pretty much right. I was nervous. And I--- was I wasn`t calm. And, you know, you are going to kind of be in that moment. And you`ve going to be like breathing and let the interview happen. And you know it`s not easy. I mean the first couple interviews have to have been bad, right?
RUSS MITCHELL: Oh, yeah, well. Actually if you know that I`m not so proud of.
JIMMY FALLON: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you we`ve been here this is our rehearsal.
RUSS MITCHELL: These days Fallon road-tests his material. A few hours before the show, he invites tour group into the studio and tries out jokes for that night.
JIMMY FALLON: This is cool. The Obama administration is buying one hundred and sixteen electric cars for government use. They`re also buying one remote control car for vice presidential use.
RUSS MITCHELL: He`s proud of the show`s skits like thank you notes, which he`s turned into a best-selling book.
JIMMY FALLON: Thank you. Hard taco shells. For surviving the long journey from factory to supermarket to my plate and then breaking the moment I put something inside them.
MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, Neil Young.
RUSS MITCHELL: But it`s his musical parodies that have really taken on a life beyond his show.
JIMMY FALLON: Tell me what if Neil Young sang "Whip My Hair" by Willow Smith, you know, I whip my hair back and forth.
RUSS MITCHELL: Yeah.
JIMMY FALLON: I whip my hair-- what if Neil Young sang that with Bruce Springsteen?
RUSS MITCHELL: Right.
JIMMY FALLON: It would never happen in real life.
(Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen singing)
RUSS MITCHELL: But we made it happen here and Bruce Springsteen actually came and dressed up and did the whole song. He even put on a wig and sunglasses. It was like, what?
(Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen singing)
RUSS MITCHELL: If that weren`t enough, lately he takes it up a notch by doing both voices.
(Jimmy Fallon singing)
RUSS MITCHELL: So will Jimmy Fallon ever get serious? Don`t count on it. He`s having so much fun, he just can`t help himself.
That serious, dramatic role, still in your head anywhere at some point?
JIMMY FALLON: I`m about to start crying now. And this will count. I knew this was going to happen. I can`t do it. I`m laughing--
RUSS MITCHELL: This will definitely get on TV. If you start crying that`s--
JIMMY FALLON: I know, I know, I know.
RUSS MITCHELL: --that`s the first thing we`re going to show.
JIMMY FALLON: Come on, Fallon, start crying, come on. Think of bad memories, think of something, come on. I can`t do it.
(End VT)
RUSS MITCHELL: What is easier sitting in that chair or sitting in this chair?
JIMMY FALLON: I probably would say I like-- I like sitting in that chair.
CHARLES OSGOOD: The conversation continues live. Join us online at noon eastern. Go to cbssundaymorning.com.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Mark Updegrove is director of the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. But his commentary this morning is not about our thirty-sixth President but a birthday tribute to our forty- first.
(Begin VT)
MARK UPDEGROVE: The winter years have been warm for George Herbert Walker Bush, who turns eighty-seven today. A vascular disorder has compromised his mobility, relegating him to a motorized scooter, and bringing an end to his skydiving days. But Bush has lived long enough to see a new appreciation of his one-term presidency. In January, he reunited the top players of his administration to recognize the twentieth anniversary of the Gulf War, as the media noted the focus and precision with which the war was planned and executed. In February, President Obama awarded Bush the Medal of Freedom. Then in March, three former Presidents, including the forty-first President`s son, George W., paid tribute to him at a Kennedy Center gala. But what may have been even more satisfying for Bush was a Newsweek article that appeared that same month. Entitled "A Wimp He Wasn`t," the piece repudiated its own 1987 cover story on Bush with its infamous headline, "Fighting the Wimp Factor," offering a truer view of Bush that has emerged with the passage of time. That`s often how it is with our former Presidents. As we see the forest for the trees and as passions we held so deeply recede-- a truer view comes to light. It was that way, for instance, with Harry Truman, who left the presidency with an anemic approval rating of thirty-two percent. Today, he`s considered one of our "near great" Presidents. Bush, lambasted for a lack of domestic vision and a broken pledge not to raise taxes--
PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH (August 18, 1988): Read my lips. No new taxes.
MARK UPDEGROVE: --was driven out of the White House by Bill Clinton.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON (January 20, 1993): I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear--
MARK UPDEGROVE: Now we`re beginning to revalue, among other things, the quiet diplomacy President Bush summoned to ensure that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe didn`t slip into chaos after the fall of the Berlin Wall. When he campaigned for the presidency more than twenty years ago, Bush promised us a kinder, gentler nation. Now, history seems to be extending him a kinder, gentler verdict. Not a bad birthday present.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Next, gentlemen, start your engines.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: The saying "don`t try this at home" sure does apply to the sport our Bill Geist has been to see.
(Begin VT)
BILL GEIST: Frankly, I thought Saturday night in Omaha might be a little dull. That was until they started lighting Roller Derby Girls on fire. It was part of a daredevil spectacular, hyped as the greatest ever by its producer Doctor Danger.
DR. DANGER: This is the best guys in the business and they`re all in one place. They want to entertain. They want to please the fans. And they`re willing to risk their life doing it.
MAN #1: Welcome to the world of insanity.
MAN #2: Spanky Spangler making his way down track side for you, ladies and gentlemen.
BILL GEIST: The star of stars was the incomparable Spanky Spangler, who`s been defying death for decades with twenty-two thousand daredevil stunts under his seatbelt.
Where did you get the idea to land on trucks and cars?
SPANKY SPANGLER: People like crunch. You know, when you`re doing a thriller show, they like the crunch.
(Crowd cheering)
SPANKY SPANGLER: I hold the record for the longest car jump. I hold the record for a triple spiral in the air over two hundred feet. I hold the record for a car jump into water.
MAN #3: After two hundred and twenty-five foot mark--
BILL GEIST: Spanky began this unusual career as a Hollywood stuntman. Then one day, he met the all mighty.
SPANKY SPANGLER: I met Evel Kneivel and that kind of changed my life. When Evel came around and started doing these live shows and I started doing them I said that`s-- that`s where I wanted to be.
MAN #4: You`re ready to meet the super stars, (INDISTINCT) let me hear you make some noise, Omaha, Nebraska.
BILL GEIST: This live show was special. Evel Knievel`s very own granddaughter Krysten sang the national anthem.
(Krysten Kneivel singing)
GENE SULLIVAN: Bless these stunt people. Keep them safe. And give us a good show in Jesus` name. Amen.
BILL GEIST: Gene Sullivan, who heads the Jump for Jesus ministry, delivered the invocation. Then all hell broke loose.
MAN #5: That`s right. It`s time to smash the metal, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Rock `n` roll. Yeah.
BILL GEIST: Sensational, stupefying. This was only the beginning.
MAN #6: Are you ready to blow something up tonight, Omaha? Let me hear you.
BILL GEIST: Ambulances were standing by.
MAN #6: One, two--
BILL GEIST: Stunning. These folks really know how to have a good time.
MAN #7: It was awesome, man. That was the best time of my life.
MAN #8: And they want to walls get burning good here.
BILL GEIST: And this is not pro wrestling, folks. This is real.
MAN #9: Bang.
DR. DANGER: Well, I probably have about three hundred thousand dollars in hospital bills that I`m working on.
BILL GEIST: Broken a lot of bones?
DR. DANGER: Broken a lot of bones. Been on Life Light helicopter four times. People could die here tonight.
BILL GEIST: Mister Dizzy, for example, who raced around the track inexplicably dragging a trailer of burning hay, bound for a high-speed rendezvous.
MAN #6: Yeah.
SPANKY SPANGLER: That was fire. That was for you. Love you, Nebraska.
BILL GEIST: Oddly, many daredevil offspring choose to enter the family business.
BRIAN SPANGLER: I`m Wiley. I`m nineteen. I plan to fall into my dad`s tracks.
BILL GEIST: Dizzy.
BRIAN SPANGLER: Dizzy, Mister Dizzy. I just recently started doing stunts, blowing myself up and everything. So--
BILL GEIST: Spanky`s son Brian follows in his father`s foolhardiness--the two sometimes performing stunts side-by-side.
So you recommend this to young people?
SPANKY SPANGLER: No, I-- you know, I don`t recommend stunts to anybody. I`d never ask anybody to do a stunt. There`s a certain breed of people that want to do this.
MAN #10: Spanky Spangler in the big car getting ready to go high, high, high in the sky.
BILL GEIST: In his signature stunt, the car drop, Spanky is raised as high at a hundred and ninety feet in the air--
MAN #10: Spanky, Spanky.
BILL GEIST: --then launched to earth. Think of him as sort of John Glenn in reverse.
MAN #10: Spanky. Here we go. Yeah. Here we go. Yeah.
BILL GEIST: Spanky`s luck had held one more time. And from the wreckage emerged a man with a message, and perhaps another concussion.
SPANKY SPANGLER: When you`re an American daredevil, it`s a sign of freedom. We`re lucky to live in a country like this where you have freedom.
DR. DANGER: Being a daredevil doing what you want to do no matter how dangerous it is, it`s freedom, it`s freedom.
(End VT)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Our own free-spirited correspondent Bill Geist. Now to the relative safety of Washington, DC, and Bob Schieffer who has nothing to face but the nation. Good morning, Bob.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Good morning, Charles. We`ll be talking about the trouble with Mister Weiner, and the dismal economic outlook.
CHARLES OSGOOD: Thank you, Bob Schieffer. We will be watching.
And a reminder of our online webcast, later on SUNDAY MORNING.
(Jimmy Fallon singing)
CHARLES OSGOOD: Jimmy Fallon and Russ Mitchell making beautiful music.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
CHARLES OSGOOD: We leave you this Sunday morning in Rocky Mountain National Park, where there`s still plenty of winter snow left to melt.
I`m Charles Osgood. Please join us again next SUNDAY MORNING. Until then, I`ll see you on the radio.
END
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