THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
This new HBO documentary asks a simple yet provocative question: What determines the value of art, financially if not aesthetically? (True story: I asked this same question firsthand as a young TV critic in the late 1970s. I visited the then-extant Dudley Do-Right Emporium on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood then, and saw a Rocky & Bullwinkle animated cel on sale for $50. That seemed a high price to pay for a simple group shot of Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, so I passed. Upon my return home, I received a catalog from that same emporium, run by animator Jay Ward and his wife, and the same cel was now priced at $200. I phoned the store in a panic and bought the cel – but asked, since it was about to become the most expensive work of art I owned, if Jay Ward could please sign the cel. His wife asked him, he thought it was a funny request, and] did. The last time I had the signed cel appraised, with its rare Ward signature, it was worth something like $7,000 – and that was more than 20 years ago. So yeah, the price of everything is really weird. And no, Jay Ward is not one of the artists in this documentary. I digress...)