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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina

4 Responses

  1. Allen Wilson says:

    I think it was Spike who, absent minded, light a cigarette in the middle of the night at Dover, and drew German cannon fire from across the channel. Then you hear someone yelling, “Where’s me legs! Where’s me legs!” Then there was that bit about the bluebottle fly.

    It’s good to know that some of the Goon Show is on You Tube now.

  2. Vince Cornell says:

    I used to enjoy the lunatic Daffy Duck but disliked the later “jealous” Daffy Duck, but, as I grow older, I find myself more and more sympathizing with the “jealous” Daffy Duck. I will second the vote for the early Popeye cartoons, too. The original 1930s Popeye cartoons were fantastic, and very cutting edge with the music, humor, and 3D backgrounds. After the Fleischers moved from New York to Florida, the quality seemed to drop, and after the voice for Bluto changed it was never the same. But the chemistry of the 3 voice actors in those early shorts – just fantastic. I think our favorite is “Clean Shaven Man” – but really they’re all little classics. The Goon Show is something I’m still unfamiliar with. I’ll have to check it out on YouTube. The only thing I know of theirs is the “Ying-Tong” song which I enjoy, but it really is nuts. I only heard about it after John Derbyshire referenced it as going high on the popular charts in Britain in 1956.

  3. Raymond Olson says:

    Very nice! It may interest you, Tom, to know that I have changed my assessment of William Holden, whom I used to think was pretty dismal in Billy Wilder’s movies and others (I’ve often called him the Tom Hanks of his generation). I’ve since seen him perform excellently in less flashy fare–above all, as a cynical reporter trying to wise up a D.A. played by Edmund O’Brien who is fighting the Mob in The Turning Point (1952). A slight correction about Popeye: Dave Fleischer was in charge of the cartoons’ production; E. C. Segar created the comic strip on which the films were based. Segar is positively venerated by subsequent generations of cartoonists (at least one of whom is a friend of mine). The Fleischers lost control of Popeye in 1941, when Paramount acquired control of their studios and kicked the brothers out.

  4. Ken Rosenberger says:

    Ah yes, Holden in The Moviegoer certifies the sad, young couple, allows them to reclaim their sovereignty from the jaws of everydayness. Binx also talks about the time he went to a screening of Panic in the Streets (good film for right now, I suppose) with his cousin Kate Cutrer, at a theatre in the very neighborhood in which the film was shot. When it’s finished, as Binx takes a good look all around the neighborhood, Kate says, “It’s certified, isn’t it?”

    I have always enjoyed the discontents of the eloquent Daffy Duck, greatest of the Looney Tunes. I feel his pain. A close second was Sylvester, who should’ve got that bird early on. His strutting rendition of Charleston, prior to running into Spike and Chester, is perhaps the finest moment in animation, at least until the Bullwinkle Show came along.