Manny Woolith

As the TONY Awards ceremony swung a mallet at the great Broadway gong last night, I watched with a friend who at a certain point in the evening mentioned that he had invested a part of the previous evening watching 10,000 B.C.

"How was it?" I asked, and he went off on a fairly detailed account of that weird and strange attempt to explain... uhhh... myths... ummm.. early humans...

"And you see, " he said at one point, "there's a lot of Manny Wooliths in it."

Manny Wooliths... Manuel Wooliths?... I'm thinking of a perhaps Dominican? Puerto Rican? actor, but nothing and no one comes to mind. But as my friend's knowledge of theater, film and music is vast, I listen and he keeps on referencing this Manny Wooliths. Then I realize it's plural — there's more than one Manny Woolith in the movie. Something dimly starts to take form in my mind...

"Wait, wait," I said. "Who's Manny Woolith again?"

"You know," he said, "those huge tusky elephant things from prehistory."