Probably got an AOR boost from the overall body of work. This is somehow vaguely familiar to me, but I'm not sure from where. So it was in color from the beginning. Somehow I was expecting black and white. You could call him a Pop Culture icon. The DeFrancos kind of fizzled.... It's not great, but it has a bit of a nostalgic feel. That's exactly what I have. Even better.
What I find interesting is that 'Junior's Farm' was played throughout the 'Wings Over Europe' portion of the 1975/76 tour, but when they started playing the states with 'Wings Over America', the song had been dropped in favor of 'Silly Love Songs' and 'Let 'em In'. I think room could have been made in the setlist for its inclusion. Looking over Paul McCartney's solo tours starting in 1989, he alternates this song with 'Jet' on his tours. I was lucky in that he played 'Junior's Farm' on his most recent tour which is saw.
Lost two more today. First up is Richard Tandy, keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra. Nicknamed "Magic Fingers" by Jeff Lynne, Richard started out as The Move's bass player during the band's final days as a touring outfit while they transitioned to Electric Light Orchestra. He would continue to play bass with ELO before switching to keyboards following the departures of Roy Wood, Bill Hunt and Hugh McDowell, who left to form Wizzard. Tandy taught himself how to play the piano/synthesizers and how to use the min-Moog and would remain a part of ELO through its various incarnations up until 2019 when ill health forced him to retire from touring. Richard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 alongside Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan as one of the founding members of Electric Light Orchestra. Fittingly, he passes away 50 years to the day the instrumental "Daybreaker" enters the charts at #95 and would peak at #87 on the US Hot 100. Next up is Duane Eddy Nuff said.
Oh, I remember. I was just pumping up "Junior's Farm." RIP, Richard Tandy. ELO at their peak had an amazing, unique sound. I saw this on one my news apps. RIP, Duane Eddy. That Peter Gunn theme is classic.
_______ 70 Years Ago This Month _______ May 1 The Unification Church was founded in South Korea, by Sun Myung Moon, under the name Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC). The Myasishchev M-4, the first Soviet bomber which was claimed to have the ability to reach the United States and return to the Soviet Union, was displayed to the public for the first time at the Moscow May Day parade. The 11th issue of Mad Magazine is published, featuring Basil Wolverton's iconic parody of the Beautiful Girl of the Month on the cover. May 4 Photographer Orlando Suero traveled to Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) to spend several days on a photoshoot with the recently married Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie. _______ On May 5, Johnny Guitar, starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Scott Brady, and Mercedes McCambridge, premieres in Los Angeles (listed in the National Film Registry). _______ May 6 Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four minute mile, at the Iffley Road track in Oxford, England. May 7 First Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in a French defeat. May 11 The U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, declared that Indochina was important but not essential to the security of Southeast Asia, thus ending any prospect of American intervention on the side of France. May 12 The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. The two were married in 1927. May 13 On the day after the deadline for all male British subjects and Federal citizens between the ages of 18 and 20 to register for part-time National Service, a peaceful demonstration by students turned into a riot, resulting in multiple injuries and arrests. Australia's government established a Royal Commission on Espionage to look into the "Petrov Affair", events surrounding the defection of a Soviet diplomat. The World Chess Championship was won by Mikhail Botvinnik in Moscow. May 14 The Boeing 707 was released after about two years of development. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict was adopted in The Hague, Netherlands. May 16 The Kengir uprising broke out at a Soviet labour camp for political prisoners in the Kazakh SSR. Prisoners forced the guards and camp administration out, and an internal "government" was set up. The uprising lasted for over a month until forcibly suppressed by Soviet government troops. May 17 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (347 US 483 1954): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregated schools were unconstitutional. May 17–23 One week (the so-called "Sandrewsveckan" or "Sandrews week") of experimental television broadcasts are aired in Sweden, the first such programs in the country. May 19 Pakistan and the United States signed a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement. Died: Charles Ives, 79, US composer _______ On May 19, Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, and Robert Cummings, premieres in Philadelphia. _______ May 20 Chiang Kai-shek was reelected as the president of the Republic of China by the National Assembly. "Rock Around the Clock" is released as the B-side of "Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)". The song is only a moderate success (US # 23 on May 29, 1954, for only one week; UK # 17, in December 1954) until it is featured in the film Blackboard Jungle the following year. May 26 A fire on board the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Narragansett Bay, Massachusetts, killed 103 sailors and injured many others. The first tropical storm of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season formed over Florida. _______ On May 27, The High and the Mighty, starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, Jan Sterling, Phil Harris, Robert Newton, and David Brian, premieres in Los Angeles. _______ May 29 Diane Leather became the first woman to run a sub-five minute mile, in Birmingham, UK. May 31 The 1954 Indianapolis 500 motor race was won by Bill Vukovich.[57] In Canada, Winnipeg's first television station, CBWT, broadcast its first programmes. _______ Also released in May: "Honey Love," The Drifters feat. Clyde McPhatter (#1 R&B) "Riot in Cell Block #9," The Robins (apparently didn't chart) _______ Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki pages for the months, as well as the year in film, music, television, and comics. Sections separated from timeline entries are mine. _______
It looks as though MeTV+ is going to be switching to MeTVToons on June 25 - an over the air network devoted to classic cartoons from the Hanna Barbara and WB library as well as other properties.
I wonder if it's a complete network switch or if it's just some affiliates switching from one to the other?
I hope so. I would hate to lose MeTV+. I like watching their late morning/early afternoon run of Mod Squad, The Rookies and The Streets of San Francisco on my days off from work.
That's what they did when Start TV premiered...RJ and I both had our Decades affiliates on Comcast switch to Start, but Decades was still around. Eventually my provider got another Decades affiliate. I'm currently watching on Frndly, so if the MeTV+ stays around, hopefully they'll continue to carry it. Now if it's your affiliate that's switching over, you may be SOL unless your provider picks up another Me+ affiliate.
This is why they built places like this about ten minutes from where I live. Those were the days. (If that video starts at the beginning, the good part begins around 21 minutes in.) Wolverton was great, quite a unique talent. A little less than twenty years later, he would do most of the covers for DC's Plop! comic book. A likely story. What is this word "unanimous" that I keep seeing? I don't believe I've ever seen this one. Makes you wonder what would have happened if it hadn't been used in the movie. I'm pretty sure Narragansett Bay is in Rhode Island, unless we gained some territory from them in the last war. I remember this one from the Time-Life collection. It's pretty good. This is a good one. That morning cartoon block on MeTV must be more successful than I would have anticipated. Looking at the Wiki page, it seems like MeTV+ and MeTVToons are two separate networks, so it probably does depend on the local provider.
They used to talk about this for years afterward during SeaFair Weekend. This, probably more than anything, put Boeing on the map.
A relic of a bygone era. I think rock 'n' roll was on the table at that point one way or another. You're right...and the location of Battleship Cove, which I've been to. Pretty indistinct as Drifters material goes. I thought you'd like that. The Robins were an earlier incarnation of the Coasters, who'd bring us period classics "Yakety Yak" and "Charlie Brown". They've also been showing it on Me+. Say, which show did you and your mom decide to watch next?
True, but it's interesting to think of how influential one little decision, like including a song in a movie, can be. Ah, I didn't realize. I hear it now. To replace Highway Patrol? We're actually still finding Highway Patrols that we haven't seen yet, but I think we're going to try Peter Gunn. It looks pretty cool and neither one of us is very familiar with it.
50 Years Ago This Week May 5 In the first round of voting in the French presidential election, François Mitterrand of the Parti socialiste received a plurality of the vote (over 11 million, and more than 43% of the votes dast, and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of the Fédération nationale des républicains et indépendants (FNRI) finished second (8.3 million and 32.6%). Since no candidate received at least 50 percent of the votes cast, a runoff election between the top two finishers— Mitterrand and Giscard— was held two weeks later, on May 19. The vote had been prompted in the wake of President Georges Pompidou's death on April 2. May 6 Willy Brandt, the Chancellor of West Germany, presented his resignation to President Gustav Heinemann after his personal assistant, Günter Guillaume, had been discovered to be a spy for East Germany. May 7 West Germany's President Gustav Heinemann accepted the resignation, made the day before, of Chancellor Willy Brandt and temporarily appointed Vice Chancellor Walter Scheel as head of government until Brandt's Sozialdemokratische Partei could select a new leader who would serve as Chancellor. An election was scheduled for May 16 on whether to approve Finance Minister Helmut Schmidt, Brandt's choice, as successor. In the U.S., delegates to the convention of the League of Women Voters voted to allow men to become members, favoring the measure by a vote of 935 to 433, more than the two-thirds majority required by the League's bylaws. May 9 The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, composed of 21 Democrats and 17 Republicans and chaired by Peter W. Rodino, opened hearings on whether there was probable cause for a vote of the full House on impeachment of the U.S. president, Richard Nixon. The opening of the hearing, the first on impeachment of a U.S. President since 1868, was nationally televised for 20 minutes before moving to a closed-door session for the next two and a half hours. [T-minus 92 days and counting.] May 10 G. Gordon Liddy, already convicted of crimes in the Watergate scandal, was found guilty of contempt of Congress. Because Liddy was already serving two other sentences, he received a six-month suspended sentence and one year's probation. May 11 A 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck China's Yunnan province at 3:25 in the morning local time, and killed at least 1,200 people and possibly as many as 20,000 in and around the Chinese city of Zhaotong. Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Boogie Down," Eddie Kendricks (18 weeks) "Dark Lady," Cher (16 weeks) "Eres Tú (Touch the Wind)," Mocedades (17 weeks) "Jungle Boogie," Kool & The Gang (22 weeks) "Mighty Love, Pt. 1," The Spinners (15 weeks) "There Won't Be Anymore," Charlie Rich (15 weeks) New on the chart: "Haven't Got Time for the Pain," Carly Simon (#14 US; #2 AC) "Radar Love," Golden Earring (#13 US; #7 UK) "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," Steely Dan (#4 US; #15 AC; #58 UK) _______ Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month. _______ Uncle Jack is scowling.
Ranked-choice voting has the runoff built right in. Just my little PSA for the day. Always check your staff for spies. Tick tock tick tock.... Good one. Classic Epic Rock'n'Roll. Classic Steely Dan, although it's weird how they are singing directly to me. We've given Uncle Jack his due. Mom has many sets of Dragnet DVDs that I gave her in the years before Retro TV took off.
_______ Post-50th Anniversary Viewing _______ The Mod Squad "The Connection" Originally aired September 14, 1972 Two-hour Season 5 premiere The red carpet is rolled out for this Very Special Premiere, the intro being extended for credit shots of the all-star guest lineup: With Special Guest Stars BARBARA McNAIR CLAUDIA McNEIL GENE WASHINGTON Greer's old pal, Sgt. Lassiter, is late meeting the captain, who flies in via helicopter with a prisoner being extradited from Chicago to Lassiter's division, Charlie Drango (The Hulk Hunter). Greer is met by a pair of phony cops; when one of them (Washington) pulls his gun, Greer puts up a fight, but is pistol-clocked by the other guy (uncredited Victor Campos), to be found by Lassiter after the trio squeal away in the phony squad car. Lassiter calls the Mods as Greer's apparent next of kin to inform them that he's in surgery. Drango dons a uniform to join the other two in holding up the cashier's office of the Amherst Hotel (desk manager Bill Quinn) for a quartet of suitcases that they're holding for a guest, containing $23 million in uncut heroin. The guest, Syndicate middleman Jerry Silver (a man named Brady), pops in with another guy during the holdup to be held at gunpoint, taunted by Drango, and tied up. Greer pulls through, and while he's laid up, the Mods, who busted Drango for murder, get involved in the case with Lassiter. A runner named Deak Tate is brought in, who was supposed to make a pickup from a dealer named Bolo--Drango's old partner when they were both working for Silver. Linc subs for him, dropping by the place of Bolo's girlfriend, Amanda (McNair), who lives with a Granny Marshall (McNeil). Their guests are the two phony cops, now out of uniform. Amanda takes Linc to the Hollywood Bowl, where Bolo (Sheriff Bart) is hanging with rehearsing jazz trumpeter Cat Griffin (Richard Pryor)--who happens to be an old numbers-running buddy of Linc's. After Linc reacquaints himself with Cat, he spots a glint as Drango takes aim from the top of the bowl with a sniper rifle, and foils the attempt by tackling Cat. Linc tries to pursue Drango, but after his stunt double takes a ride around the parking lot on the outside of the killer's passenger door, he's ditched into a row of trash cans. Cat, who set Drango up for his bust, suspects Bolo's involvement, and learns on the phone from Silver how Drango's gone rogue. Pete hangs out at the Amherst's bar posing as a visitor from Oklahoma, where he learns from a lady he buys drinks for named Celeste Benson (Barbara Rhoades) about a party having been held by the son of a diplomat from Paraguay named Andre Vacheya (sp?; actor?), who was the guy with Silver during the robbery. At the hospital, Greer learns from an embittered Ed how his wife recently died in an auto accident with a guy she turned out to have been having an affair with; and how their developmentally disabled child, Ed Jr., is in a state mental hospital. Posing as a welfare department caseworker, Julie visits the pad of Drango's pregnant and estranged wife, Francie. Francie's other children, Bobby and Carolyn (Ricky Powell and Mia Bendixsen), direct Julie to the apartment basement's laundry room, where she awkwardly walks in on Francie (The Girl from H.A.R.T.) with a group of junkies; though Francie vouches for her. Julie pretends to be there to fill out forms and helps Francie in the kitchen, learning that she and a sister who died as a teenager inherited their smack addiction from their father. Francie collapses in the bathroom while trying to shoot up and is rushed to the hospital, where the doctor (Ron Stokes) tells Julie how the baby will likely suffer withdrawal after birth, and will possibly suffer long-term chromosome or brain damage if it lives. Linc, who's accompanying Bolo at Cat's insistence, finds that Bolo's pretty cavalier about the attempted hit. Pete, posing as a cab driver, takes the two of them first to a recording studio, then to a ferry, where Pete tails Bolo as he meets with his connection--Drango. Pete's spotted, and Drango recognizes him as one of the cops who busted him. A ferry scuffle ensues in which Pete ends being tossed into... LSD to the rescue! (Maybe I should just nickname him Lucy.) The two of them are picked up by a private boat. The end credits of syndicated Part 1 play over not a traditional walk-off, but a close-up of the unconscious Pete being hauled aboard. Narrator: Tonight, the conclusion of "The Connection." This falls on a freeze-frame of the opening shot of the credits; following which we get some scenes from "last week". Pete seems none the worse for the wear as he visits Greer at the hospital with the others. Julie drops by the maternity ward to inform Francie that she has a 4-1/2 pound baby girl in an incubator...and to offer help in getting her on methadone treatment. In return, Francie exposits that her husband thinks that Cat set up his bust for the Syndicate, and that he won't let anything come between him and the shipment. His accomplices, now all believed to be in danger, are identified as Anthony Wilson (Washington), Cheech Avila (Campos), and Paul Rene (not even on IMDb's uncredited list). Wilson and Rene are subsequently found dead separately, the former having last been seen with Drango, and the latter believed to have OD'ed. At the Marshall apartment, Linc and Pete find Granny in a state of shock and Cheech shot. Pete pursues Drango down a fire escape, but Charlie jumps into a getaway car with Bolo. Meanwhile, Julie manages to get into the party that Pete was invited to when Silver takes an interest in her. (He has a thing for hair of gold.) After he makes some moves on her, Julie eavesdrops as Silver answers to his uncle and Syndicate superior, Frank Barton (The Clown Prince of Crime), who's not in a laughing mood, but gives Jerry one chance to make good by bringing in another shipment. Pete shows up at the party to make contact with his "sister," who gets a bit of physical business when she runs through Silver in the hall as a distraction so Pete can grab his attaché case full of plans (of the dope operation, not a new housing project). Pete is wounded in an ensuing chase and cornered on a rooftop, but Greer, Lassiter, and uniformed CLE come to the rescue via a stairwell exit. Julie learns that Lassiter's son, whom he claims to have been visiting, has been dead for a year, and that the lieutenant's been suspended for withholding narcotics evidence pending a psychiatric evaluation. The Mods eventually figure out that a badly scrawled note by the undereducated Granny points to Welfare Island. (This is a confusing bit of business as the only result I could find indicates that it was the former name of Roosevelt Island in NYC.) Linc and Pete find Drango and Bolo in an industrial complex and the stunt doubles go into action as a running chase ensues on catwalks and pipes. Once each Mod catches up with his quarry, Pete and Linc fairly easily take down Bolo and Drango, respectively. Then Lassiter arrives on the scene with Amanda at gunpoint, and she shows him where the cases are stashed. Greer follows with Julie, and while Lassiter tries to pass it off as a tip-based bust, Greer confronts Ed with how he's on suspension and accuses him of having used the Mods to find the heroin and of being in cahoots with Drango. Ed goes into a rant about having to pay for Ed Jr.'s hospital bills and needing to make 20 years to get full pension...which he only repeats verbatim after Greer asserts that Eddie's dead. Finally Greer gets Ed to snap back to reality enough to put down his gun while begging Adam for help. In the coda, the Mods are helping Francie move into her spiffy new place, with the promise of the new baby coming home from the hospital soon. (Getting her cleaned up is one thing, but who's paying for this? How much do the Mods have stashed away that they can chip in on new homes for any old guest of the week? And the timing seems suspect anyway...Francie managed to straighten herself out before the baby came home?) As the camera pans out on a shot of the Mods unloading the Challenger... This is Michael Cole. Each year, thousands of heroin babies are born in this country. If you are pregnant and a drug user, please seek prenatal care immediately, through your family doctor or your county medical service. Don't let the next heroin baby be yours. Vince Howard appears briefly as Granny's grandson; and Jason Wingreen plays a fleabag hotel manager. _______ Get in line, buddy. Carly in fine classic form. Was there a single edit? Who the hell cares? Smooth soft rock staple.
Spelling used to treat his two-hour episodes almost as standalone motion pictures. In particular, I recall "Angels in Paradise" having a very cinematic feel. This is probably the first time he did it. What made him blow his cover? From a gun butt, not a bullet-- the script shows restraint. "My name is Linc, but most people call me Linc." Good eye. She didn't make the guest credits? This makes me wonder if Jennifer was undercover, investigating Hart Industries-- or maybe she was retired and set up with a new identity. An unusual role for Stefanie Powers. She's usually all glamour. Well, it can cause birth defects. I'm not sure about actual genetic damage. "Let me get you a drink." Hey, I like that. Oh, no! Maybe he's dead! Ah, okay. Never mind. It seems like an odd creative choice to keep Greer bedridden for most of the special two-hour season premiere extravaganza. Sounds like she could be a couple of months early, or could just be underweight because of mom's drug habit. The Mods will be facing Drango Unchained. "So, do you have any kids?" Sounds like he was the Clown Prince of Cameo Appearances. Maybe his escape plans to the Land of the Lost. By gunfire? At least Greer gets some action. Creepy revelation. And yet wasn't Greer meeting him for the prisoner handoff at the outset? That is odd. Maybe there was some cut dialogue indicating that it's a code name or something. I guess Pete's not too badly wounded. Seems like he should be there already. Or maybe that's part of his delusion. Ouch. I'll bet Asner brought that home. Is it possible that Drango had any clean assets that she might have access to? Well, given that birth weight and the drug issues, and it being 1972, I can easily see the baby being in for a couple of months, especially if it was a premie. Speaking of Uncle Jack. Seems like a good episode overall, certainly a great cast. It was kind of an odd choice to sideline Greer like that, and I question Lassiter getting away with pretending he's not suspended, but those are small details. I hope the line gets longer. I don't recall ever hearing any alternate versions.
IMDb mentioned him having done the same thing for a CA season premiere...maybe that was it. That was their plan...they were springing Drango, and Greer thought he was accompanying them. Not the opening ones. Or maybe just Robert Wagner. And her credits shot was from the coda after she'd cleaned up. The better for Ed Asner. He would've made a good Greer. I got the impression that she was expecting soon, but you could barely tell that she was carrying. Y'know, Francie's lucky that Julie didn't run off with hers! His scenes were meatier than the summary got into, but he was limited to that one sequence. Apparently. He fell over clutching his shoulder while being fired at; afterward we saw a bloody tear in the shoulder of his jacket; and a doctor was patching him up in the next scene. If Ed was in cahoots, his delay would have been deliberate. They mentioned it several times, like it was a real place that people would recognize. He seems to have a mutant fast-healing ability... He said he had 18 years. "For God's sake, help me." One didn't get the impression from the squalor she was living in. Drango was just a hood. Apparently there was a single edit, but it wasn't too much shorter...a full five minutes.