Edward Asner: More than Lou Grant

Today the world lost another legend in the world of entertainment: Edward “Eddie” Asner. He died at the age of 91 in Los Angeles, California, the cause of death which has yet to be determined. Ed Asner will be forever remembered for creating the character of Lou Grant on the beloved sit-com The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977), and reprising the character for the dramatic spin-off Lou Grant (1977-1982). He won five Emmys for his portrayal of the character (three for the original show and two for the spin-off.) It’s a rare thing for an actor to receive accolades for portraying the same character in both a comedy and dramatic show, though Asner’s career consists of an incredibly wide range of roles, much more versatile than Lou Grant.

Asner made his acting debut appearing in three episodes of the series Studio One (1948-1958), each of the episodes airing on television in 1957. Three years after that, he won Broadway role in the play Face of Hero in 1960, starring opposite Jack Lemmon. Soon Hollywood came calling. He made his film debut in The Satan Bug in 1965 and El Dorado in 1966, starring with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.

When CBS was casting “Mary Tyler Moore,” both Asner and Gavin MacLeod read for the character of Lou Grant. While the network felt MacLeod was better suited for the role of Murray Slaughter, Asner’s initial reading for the role didn’t go well. He begged for a second chance, which they granted, and he was cast in the role. During the show’s run, he became close friends with each of his co-stars on the show: MacLeod, Mary Tyler Moore (with whom Asner had appeared in the Elvis Presley film Change of Habit (1969)), Betty White, and Ted Knight. And, just like Asner, Moore, White and Knight all won Emmys for their respective characters. (Moore and Asner both won Golden Globes as well!) In addition to reprising the character of Lou Grant in “Lou Grant,” the series, Asner reprised the character again in episodes of another “Mary Tyler Moore,” spin-off, Rhoda (1974-1978), and again in Roseanne (1988-2018).

The year before “Mary Tyler Moore,” ended, Asner was hired by Disney to star in the film Gus (1976) opposite Don Knotts. He won a six and seventh Emmy for his work in Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and Roots (1977) and began work in radio in L.A. Classic Theatre Work’s radio production of Babbitt in 1987. He returned to Broadway in 1989 for the revival of the play Born Yesterday. He continued various voice-over work throughout the 90s, voicing the characters of J. Jonah Jameson and Uncle Ben Paker in Spiderman: The Animated Series (1994-1998) and Disney Channel original shows, including Gargoyles (1994-1996) and Hercules: The Animated Series (1998-1999).

Asner gained an entirely new generation of fans when he cast in two different roles in the 2000s. The first: Santa Claus in the holiday cult classic Elf (2003) opposite Will Ferrell and James Caan (who had starred with Asner in “El Dorado.”) While “Elf” is arguably his most iconic portrayal of St. Nick, Asner also voiced St. Nick in the television films, The Story of Santa Claus (1996), Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999), and he even played Claus in an episode in a 2001 episode of The Ellen Show (2001-2002). Asner’s second most beloved, “modern-day” role would undoubtedly be the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Disney/Pixar’s Up (2009), a film that won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and also became the first film since Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) to be nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Before his tragic death, Asner reprised the character of Carl Fredricksen in the Disney+ spin-off series, Dug Days (2021) which will be available to stream on Disney+ on September 1st. He also appeared in the Netflix series Dead to Me (2019-present) which was executive produced by “Elf” co-star, Will Ferrell, and in the Youtube/Netflix “Karate Kid,” reboot series, Cobra Kai (2018-present).

Edward Asner was fortunate enough to act in every medium of entertainment throughout his 71-year-career. While older fans will most often recognize him as Lou Grant, younger fans will cherish him as the voice of Carl Fredricksen or as Santa Claus in “Elf.” He was a true legend who will indeed be missed!

         

The Skeleton Dance Tribute

In the year 1929, Walt Disney began producing the “Silly Symphonies.” The “Silly Symphonies,” were a series of short films created as a way to experiment with new filmmaking techniques, featuring different characters and different stories in each film. Disney produced a total of 75 “Silly Symphonies,” from 1929-1939. They won a total of seven Oscars, and the very first “Silly Symphony,” produced was a film called The Skeleton Dance, released to theaters on August 22th, 1929, 91 years ago today. I thought we could explore the intriguing history of that short.

I’ll begin with a synopsis: On a dark night at a church cemetery, four skeletons arise from their graves and begin dancing and playing musical instruments by using each other’s bodies. They play until sunrise, when they quickly rush back to their graves, forming a chimera (a mythological monster) on their way.

It’s curious that Walt Disney released a short film about skeletons dancing in August, considering that skeletons are synonymous with Halloween, in October. Walt Disney, however, was a big believer in scaring people creatively, often quoted as having said “People like to be scared,” and one could say that he made this short simply to scare people, but in an entertaining way. 

In addition to being the first of the “Silly Symphonies,” “Skeleton Dance,” was very popular, as it was also one of the first shorts Walt Disney produced with fully synchronized sound. (The “other first” was the Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie, released on November 18th, 1928). “Skeleton Dance” was produced and directed by Walt, though it was animated by Ub Iwerks, who was later asked by Columbia Pictures, Disney’s then-distributor, to readapt the short in color for Columbia’s Color Rhapsody series in 1937, and it was renamed Skeleton Frolic.

  

The skeleton characters in the short reappeared in the Mickey Mouse short The Haunted House, released on December 2nd, 1929, and they also appeared in an episode of the Disney Channel Series House of Mouse (2001-2003). They even appear in the Disneyland Paris Attraction, Phantom Manor, which is the Disneyland Paris version of The Haunted Mansion. There is also a level based on the short in the PlayStation3 video game Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, which was released in 2012.

All in all, “Skeleton Dance,” is a haunting, though entertaining short that helped Walt Disney continue to build on his success as a cartoonist. It was known for its unique blend of sound, music, and animation. Had it not been for “Skeleton Dance’s,” success, Disney never would have been able to produce the rest of the “Silly Symphonies” series, or the early “Mickey Mouse” cartoons. They both set the stage for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) eight years later, and the launch of Disney’s world of animation.