Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference 2013 – Page 2

October 10, 2014October 10, 2014

I Am Not Giving Up The Jet

Manka Bros., Khan Manka, Herb Allen's Sun Valley Conference 2013, Sun Valley Lodge, Bin Tran, Vin Tran, Lee S Ainslie III, Yousef Al Otaiba, Hans-Holger Albrecht, Paul G Allen, James Anderson, Marc Andreessen, Michael Angelakis, Tim Armstrong, Nikesh Arora, Neil M Ashe, Emilio Azcarraga, Manvinder S Banga, Lionel Barber, Craig R Barrett, Willow Bay, Andreas Bechtolsheim, Marc Benioff, Jeffrey Berg, James Berkus, Michael S Berman, Mark Bertolini, Gary Bettman, Jeff Bewkes, Jeffrey P Bezos, Aneel Bhusri, The Right Honorable Tony Blair, Gregory R Blatt, Anthony H Bloom, Michael R Bloomberg, Steven R Boal, Scott A Bommer, Cory A Booker, Jeffrey H Boyd, Sergey Brin, Glenn Britt, Tom Brokaw, Michael J Brown, Howard G Buffett, Susie Buffett, Warren Buffett, John Burbank, Stephen Burke, Erin Burnett, Ursula Burns, John E Bush, Jeanie Buss, John A Canning Jr., Chase Carey, Wences Casares, Mark Casey, Kenneth Chenault, Peter Chernin, Brian Chesky, Richard Chilton, Chris Christie, Lewis Cime, Adriana Cisneros, Gustavo Cisneros, Vittorio Colao, Timothy Collins, Patrick Collison, Timothy Cook, Anderson Cooper, David Corkins, Delos Cosgrove, Dick Costolo, Cristian Croitoru, Henry Crumpton, Jose Luis Cutrale, Will Danoff, Philippe Dauman, Christopher Davis, Alfonso de Angoitia, John DeGioia, Diego Della Valle, Brian Demain, Andre Desmarais, David DeVoe, Feroz Dewan, William DeWitt, Barry Diller, Daniel Doctoroff, Jonathan Dolgen, John Donahoe, Jack Dorsey, Michael Duke, Mathias Dopfner, David Ebersman, Wesley Edens, Marvin Edwards, Eric Eisner, Michael Eisner, John Elkann, Thomas Evans, Randel Falco, Jose Antonio Fernandez, Michael Ferror, Niall W. A. FitzGerald, Thomas Friedman, Michael Fries, Tommy Frist, Daniel Fulton, Michael Fux, Mala Gaonkar, Whitfield Gardner, William Gates, Melinda Gates, Julius Genachowski, Daniel Gilbert, Thomas Giovine, David Goldberg, Roger Goodell, Bing Gordon, Donald Graham, Brian Grazer, Brad Grey, John Griffin, Andreas Halvorsen, Reed Hastings, General Michael Hayden USAF, James Heavener, John Hendricks, John Henry, John Heyman, Kazuo Hirai, John Hock, Reid Hoffman, Won Pyo Hong, Lisa Hook, Ben Horowitz, Drew Houston, Robert Iger, David Ignatius, Martin Indyk, Phillip Jackson, Eli Jacobs, Paul Jacobs, Robert Johnson, Salar Kamanger, Peter Karmanos, Alexander Karp, Michael Karsch, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Keating, Brian Kelly, Muhtar Kent, Joseph Robert Kerrey, Dara Khosrowshahi, Seth Klaman, Joel Klein, Peter Klein, Philip H Knight, Victor Koo, Robert Kotick, Robert Kraft, Henry Kravis, Ynon Kreiz, Blake Krikorian, Ananda Krishnan, Stan Kroenke, Daniel Lamarre, Michael Larson, Martin Lau, Michael Leavitt, Jay Lee, Eric Lefkofsky, Theordore Leonsis, Max Levchin, David Levin, Phil Libin, Martin Lipton, Bryan Lourd, Kenneth W Lowe, Michael Lowenstein, Dan Lufkin, Dennis P LYnch, Michael Lynton, Maurice Levy, John Malone, Robert Marcus, Morris Mark, Donald Mattrick, Kathleen A McCarragher, General Stanley A McChrystal, Andrew McKenna, General Montgomery C Meigs, Lorenzo Mendoza, Ron Meyer, Roberto Mignone, Hiroshi Mikitani, Bill Miller, Kenneth Miranda, Thomas Monahan, Leslie Moonves, Luis Alberto Moreno, Dan Moskovitz, Craig Mundle, James Murdoch, Rupert Mudoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Nathan Myhrvold, Michael Neidorff, Jonathan M Nelson, Vivi Nevo, Sam Nunn, Michael E O'Hanlon, Daniel J O'Keefe, Don O'Neal, Ronald L Olson, Evan Osnos, CL Butch Otter, Michael Ovitz, Larry Page, Stephen G Pagliuca, Saul Pannell, Mark Papa, William Pappendick, MIchael Pausic, Minxin Pei, Francois-Henry Pinault, Mark Pincus, Laurene Powell, Lawrence F Probst, Rebecca Quick, Thomas Rabe, Jay Rasulo, Jerry Reinsdorf, Danny Rimer, Richard Riordan, Ambassador Charles H Rivkin, Brian Roberts, James Robinson IIi, James Robinson IV, Fernando Rodes Vila, Brian Rogers, Congressman Mike Rogers, Charlie Rose, Daniel Rose, Wilbur L Ross, Haim Saban, Karim Sadjadpour, Sheryl Sandberg, Ricky Sandler, Ted Sarandos, Fayez Sarofim, Nassef Sawiris, Eric Schmidt, John Schneider, Christopher Schroeder, John Scully, Allan Selig, Nicole Seligman, Eric Semler, William Siegel, Herbert Siegel, Ben Silbermann, Christopher Silbermann, Louis Simpson, Eduardo Sirotsky Melzer, Andrew Sorkin, Sir Martin Sorrell, Thomas Staggs, Cristina Stenbeck, David Stern, Michael Stone, Sir Howard Stringer, Robert Swan, Peter Thiel, Mark Thompson, Sebastian Thrun, Thomas Tull, Peter Ueberroth, Joseph Vacanti, Jeffrey Van Harte, Owen Van Natta, Martin Varsavsky, Leftie Vaughn, Michelangelo Volpi, Alexandre Von Furstenberg, Dian von Furstenberg, Casey Wasserman, David Weinberg, Judd Weinberg, Jeff Weiner, Harvey Weinstein, Wallace R Weitz, Robert Werbel, Michael White, Meg Whitman, Jim Wiatt, James Williams, Fred Wilpon, Jeffrey Wilpon, Fred Wilson, David J Winters, Nicholas Woodman, Major General Amos Yadlin, Jerry Yang, Jed York, David Zaslav, Dirk E Ziff, Gianfranco Zoppas, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Tony Wible, Marissa Mayer, General Stanley McChrystal, John Kerry, Michael Bloomberg

Good morning.

At Manka Bros. Studios, we have a suggestion box placed near the Fountain of Wisdom next to the 12-foot statue of my uncle – the great Khan Manka, Sr.

Normally, I don’t pay too much attention to the suggestions as they are mostly about the small portions served at the cafeteria; why isn’t gym membership free; and why we don’t give away more free stuff (like DVDs of our movies), etc.

But yesterday, I was made aware of a suggestion that I felt I should take head on:

“If Manka Bros. is currently going through a cost-cutting program which includes pretty severe headcount cuts, why wouldn’t you consider selling the Manka Bros. corporate jet in order to save a few of those jobs?”

This is a very thoughtful, but, I hate to say, very stupid and short-sighted question.

The jet stays.

Period.

I have never considered selling the jet for one very special reason – I need it. And I am the Chairman & CEO. Capische?

Without the jet, I would never have been able to take a call from COO Lloyd Grohl informing me we had won the movie rights to Cormac McCarthy’s “Rampage of the Stegosaur.”

Sure, I could have learned about it when I touched down in New York like a normal schlub at JFK or some such shit (if I was flying commercial like an idiot) – but I think it was important that I got that news an hour earlier so that I could think about what it meant for the company.

“But that movie lost $200 million,” you say.

And I say, shut the fuck up. We’re not done with that property, moron.

We have a musical coming out on Broadway that could end up making $1 billion. Nobody knows the future (though the music and lyrics need lots of work. Oy, those songs).

Without the jet, I wouldn’t have been able to fly to the Olympics in Sochi without going through security. Those lines were really long!

And do you know how hard it is to get to your house in the Seychelles when you’re flying commercial?!

Or Sun Valley? That would look pathetic to the other moguls.

So don’t tell me to sell the jet that I earned!

I’m a “MANKA,” goddamnit! Asking me to sell my plane is like me asking you to sell your child.

Go ahead, sell your child. I bet you could save a couple jobs with the money you make in the black-market-child-selling-ring.

Who looks foolish now, Ray Adler in Home Video? Oh, I mean, “Anonymous.”

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

September 25, 2014September 25, 2014

Manka Bros. Announces Huge Joint Venture In China

Good afternoon.

I have very exciting news.

Manka Bros. has entered into an exclusive agreement with The Happy China Magic Film Co. to produce and distribute up to 100 MOVIES over the next 5 YEARS.

This deal is worth up to $2 BILLION and puts Manka Bros. at the top of the entertainment pyramid in China. (Our previous deal with Mao Hollywood Moviepak failed miserably and nearly resulted in our abandoning China altogether due to an insane amount of corruption).

But thanks to all that cheap money – we are freakin’ back!

While we do have reservations about China’s dismal record on human rights and recent history of horrific abuses of its people, $2 billion was just too much to pass up!

Manka Bros. will have complete freedom to make the movies we want to make with the following exceptions:

Our first 5 films in the joint venture will chronicle Chairman Mao’s amazing rise to power through peace and non-violence (killing only those who truly deserved it). This series will cover his wealthy privileged childhood under the old feudal system of government to his ascension as Chairman of all the people following The Long March and the Chinese Civil War.

To a lesser extent (and lower budget), we will produce a series of films about Deng Xioping which will also chronicle his life and his help in creating the perfect utopia that exists in China today.

Slightly more controversial (but Award worthy) will be a film we will produce which finally addresses the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the Central Government’s Historical Truth Document (or HTD) which states that it was actually the students’ fault. What I didn’t realize (which was strenuously brought to my attention by the co-President of the joint venture Guong Fan) is that it was actually the soldiers who were killed by the students. All these years, I thought it was the other way around. I hope the movie we produce will be able to straighten up that little fact.

We’re also going to make a talking dog movie (featuring a Chinese voice actor who will impersonate Barack Obama’s voice). For some reason the kids over there love American Presidents being portrayed as talking animals! I have put my foot down on this one and got their assurances that the dog will only say intelligent and tasteful things (though I don’t speak or understand Mandarin – so it will be hard to check).

Other than that, we’ll be able to produce whatever films we feel will appeal to the modern Chinese audience. I’m thinking a karate movie or something with a cool dragon would be really big over there.

In financial terms, this deal will result in a windfall to Manka Bros.

For funding only 49% of this venture, we have secured at a minimum 10% of the gross net box office (whatever that is). When you’ve got 1.4 billion people going to the movies, 10% is a shitload of money!

We also have rights to distribute these films outside of China in certain countries and formats (to be decided at a later date).

So that’s it. This is our main focus now since the movie business in the U.S. is doomed forever.

We are deep into China – and we are in it to win it!

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

P.S. – I forgot – we also have to do a couple of films about the Cultural Revolution – which they assured me really wasn’t that bad.

July 14, 2014July 15, 2014

Manka Bros. To Produce Lots Of Event Series

Good evening from my house in the Seychelles!

I flew here directly from Herb Allen’s worst Sun Valley conference ever.

Maybe he should just stop and hand it off to Herbert Allen, Jr. Jr. (if there is such a thing).

There’s really no point to these blow fests every year.

The only thing we learned this year was that if you are powerful in business you probably suck at comedy.

It’s nearly 10pm here and I’m bored out of my mind.

Sometimes liquor is a great cure for boredom. Not this time and the internet is awful in the summer with everything being written by interns while the normal writers are on vacation. (Actually, the internet is pretty much always awful.)

I did notice on Deadline.com (which is the reason I’m blogging) that Spike TV is producing “Tut” – an event series starring Sir Ben Kingsley based on the life of King Tut.

SIR BEN KINGSLEY ON SPIKE TV?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Spike TV is the lowest of the low. Maybe a few WWE wrestlers can make cameos in “Tut” and cross-promote.

It seems like this kind of production would need muscle guys slathered in oil screaming at each other.

Is it that easy these days to get Sir Ben Kingsley in a TV series?

Or has his career sunken so low that he has to appear on Spike?

Either way – Manka Bros. is leaping into this phenomenon called “Event Series” with an incredibly ambitious slate that I just thought of in the past few minutes.

Highlights from our upcoming productions include:

“Attila” – A 20-part event series based on the life of Attila the Hun.

“Stalin” – A 15-part event series based on the life of Joseph Stalin.

“Arianna” – A 19-part event series based on the life of Arianna Huffington.

“Quixote” – A 9-part event series based on the life of Don Quixote.

“Thor” – A 12-part event series based on the life of the Norse God Thor.

“Khan” – A 30-part event series based on the life of Khan Manka (Sr.)

“Einstein” – A 12-part event series based on the life of Albert Einstein.

“Super” – A 17-part event series based on the life of Super Dave Osborne.

“Confucius” – A 5-part event series based on the life of Confucius.

“Fillmore” – A 13-part event series based on the life of Millard Fillmore.

“Wagner” – A 20-part event series based on the life of Robert Wagner.

“Wagner” – A 6-part event series based on the life of Richard Wagner.

“Picasso” – A 4-part event series based on the life of Pablo Picasso.

(Note: All of these may star Sir Ben Kingsley or actors who know Sir Ben Kingsley.)

——————————————-

The list goes on and on.

I can think up names of historical figures all day long with the best of ’em. (Are you paying attention, Ben Silverman?)

And Manka Bros. is going to own this market of thinking up event series ideas based on people’s lives (ideas that strangely didn’t appeal to anyone in Hollywood over last few decades even though the source material was always just sitting there).

I may return to the States later this week to attend Comic-Con even though they said they wouldn’t invite me back after my last keynote address.

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

July 10, 2014July 10, 2014

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014 – Improv Night

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014

Day 1: The End Of Cynicism

Day 2: Pivot

Day 3: Improv Night

You know what? F these young tech dorks!

The great John Grisham once wrote there is a “Time To Kill” (or Jesus said it in the Bible – I don’t know)… but last night was almost my time to kill several asshole billionaire millennials.

I just wanted to strangle them with those tight t-shirts they’re so proud of wearing.

Herb Allen has lost control of this conference. He has been overly enamored and completely overrun by the arrogant pricks that are the Silicon Valley t-shirt mafia.

Let me step back…

After a fucking long day of interviews and presentations from the likes of Phil Jackson and Larry Page (Larry talked about robots – that’s the pot calling the kettle black – he IS a robot!) in which they said everything and yet nothing, all we in the captive audience wanted to do was relax, have a drink and a little fun.

Every year, there is always one night that is set aside for some type of entertainment in which we, the attendees, are the entertainers.

It could be a karaoke night. A boxing tournament. Or even the controversial (and truly horrific) “Burning Mogul” event from a couple of years ago.

This year, Herb decided it would be fun to put on skits and songs like kids do at real summer camps. It sort of sounded like fun – many emails were sent back and forth from everyone and we all agreed.

Warren Buffett fought very hard to put on some sort of Broadway musical but there weren’t enough female moguls available to fill all the parts of something like that.

So short little rehearsed sketches or songs was the final decision.

Tim Armstrong was going to be at the piano (he plays better than Lang Lang, you know) and would accompany anyone that needed it.

It was all set.

Harvey Weinstein and I were going to do the “Dave’s not here” bit from Cheech & Chong. I had that record memorized when I was younger.

But then punk ass Zuckerberg decided he didn’t want to do a skit or song. He wanted to do improv and have an improv jam.

An improv jam in the Great Hall of the Moguls (The Limelight Ballroom)?

The fuck?!

And Herb Allen caved immediately and said it was a great idea. Much better than what he had planned.

So the skits were off and I witnessed what was possibly the worst display of comedy I have seen since our pilot episode of “My Wife Left Me For Bucky Dent.”

I would have preferred to sit and watch Barry Diller play video games on Twitch than to watch this terrible terrible improv show.

True horror is watching Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Weiner and Ben Horowitz improvising a rap version of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song (on an audience suggestion by Jeff Bezos).

Words can’t describe the discomfort we all felt when General Stanley McChrystal was pulled up into a scene where he was asked to get a reservation at a Mexican restaurant from an unintelligible Mexican waiter (played painfully by Les Moonves).

The General was genuinely angry and absolutely flustered by the whole experience.

It was gut-wrenching.

But the young punks ate it up.

I haven’t seen people laugh at something so awful since I was kneed in the nuts by Sumner Redstone in front of his family.

Other lowlights include:

A Charlie Rose chiquita banana bit (no further comment necessary)

A painful first date improv which took place at a laundry mat featuring Marissa Mayer (who still refuses to fix her thrashed voice – though she was the first to arrive, well ahead of schedule) and Michael Bloomberg. There was so much silence and embarrassment that people started shouting out things for them to say. They still stood, unable to come up with anything and then just stopped.

To finish, Harvey Weinstein jumped up and did a sort of one man show where he is ordering God to make some changes on Earth. It sounds funnier than it was because his changes were so stupid and it went on like 25 minutes.

It was a complete humiliation for everyone involved.

The coming together of old and new media took a huge step backwards last night.

Just a massive epic fail.

Oh well – today’s panels are dominated by old media guys talking about content. It’s our day to shine!

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

July 9, 2014July 10, 2014

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014 – Day 2 – Pivot

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014

Day 1: The End Of Cynicism

Day 2: Pivot

Day 3: Improv Night

I hate buzz words.

I don’t use them. I make fun of those that use them.

I didn’t go to business school so I didn’t learn how to speak cliches in meetings.

I went to drug-taking-son-of-movie-mogul school and we didn’t use buzz words except for “far out.”

It seems that everyone you hire from Ivy leagues schools has lost their ability to express themselves in a natural way.

Yet we keep hiring them because there are only so many drug-taking sons-of-movie-moguls in the talent pool and we can’t take a chance on someone from Arizona State (seriously).

But today, a buzz word is apt.

Manka Bros. and Hollywood MUST PIVOT!

Last night, as I got hammered with my old media buddies and talked about the houses we own and the places we’re planning to go for the summer – I noticed over in a corner a bunch of the young tech heads who weren’t getting that drunk and who weren’t talking about anything other than the products they create.

We have NO CHANCE against much younger people who want to do nothing but talk about their work.

There are too many distractions in Hollywood.

We are rich men living rich men lives.

We drink a lot of expensive wine and scotch.

If we’re just going to concentrate on our work all the time we may as well live in a fleabag apartment in Pacoima and take the bus to work.

The spoils are the reason we got in this business.

So here I am with Rupert (who is not allowed to buy my company at any price. I’m a real mogul – not a hired mogul) and Haim Saban and a few other old media guys at the bar getting lit.

Over in one corner, sporting various wearable devices (Google glasses, Oculus viewfinders, GoPro cameras, etc.) are Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and the Pinterest guy and the GoPro surfer guy… and they’re freakin’ talking about the shit they make!!

And then I spot Bob Iger wearing that virtual reality helmet.

What?! Bob Iger?!

You see, Bob is no idiot.

He knows what the Hell is going on.

Though he does look ridiculous in his high collar shirt with the Oculus thing on his face pretending to be skydiving.

All this change has been happening and we have been so ignorant and so resistant!

I left my old drunk friends at the bar and squeezed my way into the hacky-sack circle of tech punks and I learned a few things.

First of all, according to the Google guys, we need to get a YouTube channel and probably buy some multi-channel network (called MCNs) of some sort.

There is a MankaBrosStudios YouTube channel, but surprise surprise, we don’t own it.

I think we should buy it back for whatever it costs and maybe one of those gamer channels where dumb asses pay to watch other dumb asses play video games on the internet.

YouTube is buying something called Twitch and I think we need to get into that as well. Some Twitch channel that dumb asses will pay us to watch.

I have ordered my assistant, Vicky Adler-Modry, to give these instructions to the Manka Business Development group to make all of this happen immediately!

(Note: She shouldn’t have to do that because, as you know, reading my blog is mandatory and subject to termination if you don’t!)

Manka Bros. must PIVOT, DISRUPT, LEAN IN and EXECUTE!

CAPISCE?

Today, there is an endless stream of horrific PowerPoint presentations that I said I would attend. There is break this afternoon before our dinner tonight and annual variety show. FYI, Harvey Weinstein and I are doing an old Cheech & Chong bit which should surely kill in that room.

If anyone needs to reach me – the afternoon window is your only chance.

Make this shit happen or all of you are toast and I’ll restaff with new recruits from Arizona State!

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

July 8, 2014July 10, 2014

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014 – Day 1 – The End of Cynicism

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – 2014

Day 1: The End of Cynicism

Day 2: Pivot

Day 3: Improv Night

Well, fuck, it’s that time of year again.

I contemplated not going at all to the Herb Allen’s Sun Valley snorefest, but decided it was in my company’s best interest… ah, fuck that, I just wanted to get away from Hollywood which is so freakin’ boring in the summer.

But something magical happened to me on the two-hour flight up here from Burbank.

Captain Randy let me fly the plane for a bit over the mountains and it was just so beautiful that I actually started to smile. And I decided then and there to try and make this week a POSITIVE experience.

Over the past few years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), I was so negative about the pointlessness of the whole week, that I didn’t even try to have a good attitude.

(I mean, seriously, it is hard to have a good attitude when the planned events include the Mogolympics, Burning Mogul – and who could forget 2012’s acid trip experiment – see right.)

But none of that this year, I am going to be a willing participant no matter how stupid the activity.

I may even try to drum up a little business for the studio.

We haven’t done any major deals in a while and we’re just sitting on a bunch of cash which I really haven’t found any use for (except for a few personal real estate transactions).

One deal that definitely won’t happen, Manka Bros. will not buy DreamWorks Animation so stop with the texts, Katzenberg – though I will keep the champagne you sent to my room.

So, I have a arrived – one of the first ones here as always. As I sip my champagne (not the first of the day – I had a couple of belts on the plane) while dictating this blog over the phone to my assistant, I am genuinely excited about what is to come.

There are great changes happening in our business – even though my mogul brethren and I hate to acknowledge it – and we must embrace these changes or die.

We don’t want the dorks from Oculus Rift taking over the store.

WE will continue to produce and control the best content known to man (and wo-man) and no one is going to take that away from us.

Movie studios have always been the incubators of the world’s greatest creative minds and NOT relic-filled museums.

But I digress so that I may drink.

I understand the best bartender on the planet, Bin Tran is back at his post in The Drankin’ Hole after taking last year off (family emergency my ass).

Things are already looking up.

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

P.S. – I wonder whose job it is to make sure Marissa Mayer doesn’t sleep through dinner tonight?

May 6, 2014May 6, 2014

Manka Bros. Would Like To Hire Lara Logan

Good afternoon.

It was brought to my attention that CBS news correspondent Lara Logan is getting some backlash for her 60 Minutes report on Benghazi. In fact, I have heard that she may not be allowed to return to CBS News.

If that were to happen, Manka Bros. would like to hire her to run our news department.

We have several news initiatives that we are planning to launch including a documentary channel (Manka Docs) and a Vice-style guerrilla news operation (Manka Vice) in which we will be covering the major conflicts around the world.

It’s a very ambitious plan but we feel that Ms. Logan would be perfect to lead these efforts.

We don’t care if news is reported inaccurately. We just care that it’s reported and gets on the air.

So – I look forward to Ms. Logan calling my office and setting up a lunch (or dinner).

If possible, maybe this weekend (or tonight). I could be in New York in four hours. I have a plane.

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

November 22, 2013December 16, 2013

The Manka Bros. Iconic Ox Logo Is Back!

Good afternoon.

After an exhaustive design competition – and millions of dollars spent – Manka Bros., in our search for a new exciting logo for the 21st century has decided to revert to the past in order to push forward into the future.

THE ICONIC MANKA OX LOGO – designed by my uncle – the great Khan Manka (Sr.) – IS BACK!

The Ox logo appeared in front of Manka Bros. movies from 1928 to 1937.

Supposedly, the origin was that my Uncle was infuriated that Louis B. Mayer had the balls to use a lion as his logo. He would say (paraphrasing) – “I’ve never seen such a pussy try to act so tough – trotting out that lion like he’s Tarzan or some shit.”

My Uncle (and his brothers) grew up with an Ox. They were raised in a one room shack in Bulgaria.

My Uncle used to ride the Ox while plowing the field for their meager potato crop – which yielded barely enough to feed the Ox.

The Ox means survival.

The Ox means strength.

The Ox means new technologies, platforms and international expansion.

The Ox means MANKA BROS.

After Khan Manka’s death in 1937, my father – the asshole Harry Manka – said he always hated the Ox logo and tried to design several logos himself but failed miserably every time (see below).

Eventually, in 1948, my father ran into the designer Herbert Bayer in Aspen, CO.

My father attempted to have the Austrian arrested for being a Nazi in hiding – but he proved to be incredibly wrong. Bayer was actually forced out of Germany by the Nazis in 1938 and settled in the U.S.

My father never apologized but did pay him $10 to design a new logo (see right).

Bayer needed the work – so he did it – and it became the logo for Manka Bros. for 65 years.

No more.

2014 WILL BE THE YEAR OF THE OX!

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

P.S. – The company-wide Holiday party scheduled to be at the Pickwick Bowling Alley and Ice Skating Rink in Burbank has been cancelled. Details to come at some point.

September 6, 2013September 1, 2015

Original Films Fail

Summer was a disaster at Manka Bros.

We didn’t have one film that worked.

A completely… totally… unbelievably fucked up summer.

And everyone is at fault.

But mostly, the fault lies in our film slate development strategy.

The reason?

ORIGINAL FILMS FAIL

Did you morons seriously believe we’d have a global, four-quadrant hit with “Monty” (the animated praying mantis who becomes an atheist)?

Or “Flap Yo Wings”? A hugely overbudget original 1930s-era musical?

From this day forward, I do not want any of you Ivy League eggheads to think creatively again.

From this day forward, we only produce sequels of previously popular films; adaptations from popular books (preferably from our Manka Books division); and other popular IP such as board games and cartoon characters.

I do NOT want to hear about anything I have never heard about before!

Capisce?

Hey, Robin Rafe, what made you think “The End Of Daves” was a home run? And what made you think July 4th weekend was the perfect time for it?

Because of you idiots, this past summer may be the last summer I am able to spend at my house in the Seychelles.

Thanks for ruining the best three months I spend all year!

I can’t wait to see how our next original film will do – “The Beer Hunter” – sounds hilarious – only it’s NOT A FUCKING COMEDY!

Great work, guys.

Really looking forward to the failures we have in 2014.

So – to be clear – I want everyone in theatrical (and television, for that matter) development to call your agent contacts and tell them all to fuck off with their original ideas. I want only sequels of hits and other movies based on strong previously popular IP.

Hell, why don’t we just start making our own version of “The Wizard Of Oz”? Apparently, no one has the rights.

And I know we haven’t started shooting the “Captain Stoppo” movie yet – but let’s get going on a sequel as well. Or better yet, we should start thinking about five of everything before we start a project.

And if I hear of one writer or producer in a pitch meeting that tries to slip in an idea that they thought up all by themselves, I will have them thrown off the lot and ruined forever in show business.

Capisce?

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

August 1, 2013December 11, 2023

The Haunting Of Stage 8

Thirty-five years ago, an Exorcist was sent to Stage 8 on the Manka Bros. Studios lot.

Strange shit was happening there and the only logical explanation was ghosts.

The film being shot on the stage was a horrible roller disco movie called “Juggle Boogie” – a sort of “Hatfields & McCoys” story about two rival juggling families who both owned roller discos across the street from one another.

It was one of our biggest hits of 1978 – which is not saying a lot in a year that also included “Bikini Day Care” and “Billy Non-Gravity.”

I had only been on the job as head of studio for a little over a year. My father died in 1976 (and is buried underneath the Main Admin building – Bldg. 2) and left me the “keys” to the studio at the tender age of 18.

And now we, apparently, had a demonic possession of one of our sounds stages. Something I really didn’t want to deal with. At that age, I just wanted to be playing in my band, the amazing “King Khan.”

But I digress…

Initially, the reports of doors banging and food disappearing were easily blamed on cats, rats and the fat Studio Tour guide (Randy Wilcox) that used to steal all the food off of various production sets.

But when the all cats, rats and Randy Wilcox were discovered dead one morning, we knew something was afoot.

I had always heard rumors that the land where the Manka Bros. Studios currently resides was once used for a few Keystone Cops productions directed by Mack Sennett and that there was, in fact, an unsolved massacre of several Cops during a particularly grueling movie shoot.

Supposedly – and this has never been mentioned in public before – the murdered Cops were buried under the area now known as Manka Bros. Stage 8.

I happen to know for a fact that while the incident is true – it actually happened at Universal and the poor Keystone Cops who were slaughtered are actually buried in a mass grave under Universal Studios Stage 12.

What all that means is that we didn’t know what the fuck was going on at Manka Bros. Stage 8.

(And any of you Margie Louise conspiracy theorists can take a hike – that murder is unsolved, not relevant, and I will one day write about it… not today.)

So – back to the story – the Exorcist (I think he was from Tujunga) was called in. His named was Father Cain and I recognized him.

It turns out, Father Cain was an actor (Cain Montgomery) that used to audition for TV shows but never got a part. Sort of like those whack jobs who try to be actors for years and then decide to become palm readers and spiritual guides.

Father Cain said he saw “The Exorcist” and thought that would be a really cool job.

When he entered Stage 8, his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to jerk around like an acting class chicken (very unconvincing).

Because “Juggle Boogie” was already three months over schedule and nearly $1 million over budget (1978 dollars!) we continued to shoot while Father Cain attempted to exorcise the demons.

To his credit, Father Cain immediately found the demons – they weren’t very clever – and ordered them to leave the sound stage.

The demons were pretty harmless – just playing backgammon and trying to trip up the actors as they skated by.

It turns out, the “demons” were just some old character actors who my father wouldn’t let out of their “lifetime contracts” and, basically, kept ownership of their souls.

Father Cain and the Manka Bros. Legal department told me it would be very simple to rid the stage of the ghosts – just let the dead actors out of their contract obligations and they’ll ascend either into Heaven or Hell depending on the way they conducted their lives.

I refused. A deal is a deal.

To this day, there is a still a bunch of weird shit happening on Stage 8.

Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company

P.S. – Why the cats, rats and Randy Wilcox died is still a mystery. Maybe it was because of all that “demon poison” that some idiot prop guy kept putting out before they called the Exorcist.