California Governor Gray Davis recently named Haim Saban, known
as Hollywood’s “cartoon baron,” to the prestigious University of
California Board of Regents.
Saban’s educational expertise is deeper than one might first
think. He has produced such classics of children’s education as
“Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
He is also credited with sparking a veritable renaissance in
Japanese cartoons in the United States. After striking gold with a
9-year-old “Israeli-French Donny Osmond,” the Los Angeles Times
reports,
the producer “began buying obscure Japanese cartoons and
repackaging them for U.S. markets.”
The University of California at Berkeley may do well to
introduce a course in Saban’s cartoon canon to its De-Cal
(Democratic education) program. “Blackjack” and “Copwatch,”
student-taught De-Cal primers on cards and cops respectively, do
not sufficiently exhaust the riches of egalitarian education.
Saban, who modestly refers to himself as a “cartoon schlepper,” has
much to offer a university system devoted to student-initiated
entertainment.
Gray Davis, according to the Times, became acquainted with
Saban’s thoughts on higher education after the former Israeli rock
performer donated money to his campaigns. Those donations total
over $600,000.
But not everyone in the party is as impressed with Saban’s
scholarship as the governor. Bill Simon, Gray Davis’s gubernatorial
opponent, may want to clip for his debate files the comment of
Brentwood fundraiser (and former economics professor) Stanley
Sheinbaum about Saban’s elevation. “Can you believe Haim Saban was
just made a regent?” he told the Times. “What are we talking about
here?”
Saban is certain his deep convictions, not pockets, account for
this plum of establishment respectability. “I don’t think that the
fact that I am supporter of the governor had much to do with it, to
be honest,” Saban said in the Times. “The governor and I spend a
lot of time together and we exchange views. He saw my concern for
education, and it is his job to put in place people who have
passion for the issues he’s responsible for.”
Such as? “I never want to see a woman’s right to choose go away.
I want to see a universal health care system.”
Campaign finance reform also animates Saban. “I am all for
campaign reform,” he said. So much so that he donated $7 million to
the Democratic National Committee before John McCain’s fist came
down on soft money this week.
“You’re the man!” declared campaign finance supporter Terry
McAuliffe, the DNC’s chairman, when he heard of Saban’s
largesse.
McAuliffe also found it hard to resist a recent surplus of soft
money from Steve Bing, a Hollywood writer and producer who brought
to the nation “Missing in Action,” “Missing in Action 2,” and “Why
Men Shouldn’t Marry,” among other works. Careful readers of the
British tabloids may also know Mr. Bing from a controversy
involving model and actress Elizabeth Hurley. She says he sired her
unborn child, a charge Bing disputes on the grounds that his
relationship with Hurley was not “exclusive.” The British Mirror
isn’t persuaded, however, labeling him “Bing Laden,” reports the
Los Angeles Times.
Bing no doubt shares Saban’s passion for a “woman’s right to
choose.” And if Dianne Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum doesn’t
work out as a UC Regent (also recently added to the board), Bing
could certainly use that feather in his fedora to drive away any
doubts about his integrity.
These are certainly heady days for all of them, but particularly
Saban. He has gone from directing Japanese cartoons to directing
Japanese scholars. Let’s hope he doesn’t forget the Orient as the
UC Board of Regents continues to backdoor affirmative action at the
expense of Asians, the one minority group Gray Davis isn’t eager to
promote.
Who knows, maybe one day the UC system will wrap egalitarianism
in a full embrace and make this nouveau riche cartoonist its
chancellor.
