And rubber masks. Well, that would be gross. Possibly, I suppose. It does seem to reference specific songs.
In an era chock full of great artists pushing the boundaries of music, they still manage to stand out for bringing something particularly fresh and tasty to the table. She wasn't the only change made to the series in Season 3...ergo all of these changes are symptoms of whatever caused the creators to make these changes...falling ratings, I gather. And the blame for the show going under anyway can't be laid solely at her feet, if she contributed to the show's demise at all. It could just as easily be argued that the show went under in spite of her rather than because of her. And the ability to omnisciently plan convoluted schemes that anticipate their targets' every move. These people could be pretty scary if not for the levity provided by the bad accents. Consider where it was coming from. History tells us that Kenny Rogers was primarily a country artist...therefore it's reasonable to postulate that he represented the view of a more conservative portion of America. _______ Decades Presents: 1968, "The Music"...this was pretty good in spite of the anticipated flaw that a lot of the episode used their own generic music...but it just made me appreciate all the more when somebody paid the fees to give us a morsel of the real thing, like showing brief clips of the "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" videos. It wasn't chronological within the year...awkwardly, they discussed The White Album early in the episode, then got around to the "Hey Jude" single that preceded it fairly late. There were other awkward touches, like Ellee Pai Hong standing in front of a set-piece collage meant to represent artists who were significant to 1968 that included a photo of the Beatles in the old moptops. They covered a lot of good highlights in terms of artists and trends (e.g., the ascendance of FM radio), but I thought they oversold the in-the-moment significance of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." It seems like they were going for a music equivalent of the year-ending Apollo 8 moment. The song was a #1 in the UK, but didn't even break into the Hot 100 in America. I was under the impression that it gained in popularity on this side of the pond with age, but wouldn't have had much of an impact in the moment.
According to the book 'The Official Prisoner Companion', in the original script for 'Fall Out', the jukeboxes would be blaring a 'wailing cacophony of sound'. The songs noted for possible inclusion were 'All You Need Is Love', 'Little Boxes', 'Toot-Toot-Tootsie Goodbye', 'Hello, Dolly', and 'Yellow Submarine'. They actually tried filming this, but it was deemed unusable; so McGoohan had it pared back to 'All You Is Love'.
That would be my view. That's a very good point. Sounds strange. I wonder who writes these Decades documentaries. Interesting. And it looks like the Prisoner Companion is only ten bucks for the Kindle. I'll have to get that.
Yes. Real innovation. Sly was almost the leader of his own genre of music--even set apart from the funk & disco that was based on his work. She was not the only change, just the most significant, as she was created for the show for the purpose of being a ratings revival. Cosmetic changes such as minimalist (cheap) sets, few two-part stories and Billy May replacing Nelson Riddle as the series' main composer were not the "silver bullet" meant to keep the series alive...Batgirl was. The TV version failed from the start, since Dozier and Horwitz wanted a sassy, hands on hips "doll" (part of how she was referred to on screen with the "Dominoed Dare-Doll") riding--of all things--a frill-trimmed motorcycle--instead of a truly breakout female character who would make (and the following is crucial) the rapidly changing late 60s audience take notice--like the oft-mentioned Cathy Gale and Emma Peel of The Avengers years earlier. Instead of returning to the more comic-book traditional feel of season one, Greenway thought a gimmick in the form of another costume..only occupied by a character that would have been more at home on The Donna Reed Show or The Patty Duke Show, than a late 60s comic-book adventure series. So, Batgirl--from intent to execution--was more than a symptom, considering what she was meant to do for the series.
But failing to save the show is a different thing from sinking the show. Had the show been perfectly healthy, then took a nosedive after the addition of Batgirl, then it would be reasonable to blame her for being the disease. Blaming her for the disease because she's the most prominent symptom is not logical. If we're arguing from a period perspective, I was under the impression that American audiences hadn't seen Cathy Gale yet.
I'll be hearing it again next year, in my 55 Years Ago This Week playlist! ETA: Edited my post above to add captions to the videos. Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week ending February 8, 1964: Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week ending February 15, 1964:
Again, symptoms are mere indicators of a problem, such as the minimalist sets or the replacement of Riddle with May's largely off-putting music (at least on Batman). Batgirl was no mere addition, but the major production decision with the sole reason to save the series through imagined ratings revival by way of a new, costumed character, and her failure meant all else would follow. That's the disease. Consider this : the Batgirl project was so crucial to Greenway that the well-known promotional film was produced in order to sell her to ABC as the right ingredient return Batman to former glory. It is incredibly rare for studios/production companies to make a promotional about a lone character addition. For example, in that era Roddenberry & Justman did not need to do that to pitch Chekov for Star Trek and decades later, the producers of ER did not need a promo short to sell Goran Visnjic when he was cast to be Clooney's all-important replacement (to ER's success model) soap-opera doc with a heart of gold. The point is that the Batgirl promo only happened because she was the foundation Batman was banking on for continued life. the entire focus of season three shifted to Batgirl as in the character taking center stage (Robin was almost reduced to footnote in the series thanks to that) who she is / Barbara's relationships to her father and Bruce Wayne, etc. In no way would all of those factors make the Batgirl character a mere symptom, but the disease--when all was invested in her on the financial and creative ends. But Dozier, Horwitz and others had. TV producers were and are aware of other productions, even before they were distributed to the United States (in fact, The Avengers was already airing in our neighbor to the north starting in 1963), thus it reasonable to think they knew of her kind of female character. Even if one takes the Cathy Gale character out of consideration, certainly, they were aware of the Honey West character, which was already breaking ground a year before Dozier talked to DC about a new Batgirl, so it all comes back to Dozier and Horwitz wanting a regressive female character, instead of one that was in the process of changing TV of the mid-late 1960s.
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing _______ Mission: Impossible "The Counterfeiter" Originally aired February 4, 1968 TOS-guesting Jon Lormer as Gant, the legitimate drug manufacturer whose product is being counterfeited. This episode includes a guest agent who's a laser surgeon. The week's overly complicated scheme involves using gadgetry to induce symptoms of heart disease in the titular character, Halder, in order to get a taped confession that he's been selling the fake drugs. Overall, this one falls into the category of episodes where all the twists and turns of the scheme don't quite gel together into a whole...but does come with the relatively unusual touch of the whole team stepping out from behind the curtain to say gotcha at the end. _______ Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Season 1, episode 3 Originally aired February 5, 1968 This is also Goldie Hawn's first episode. And I think it gives us the start of the running gag of getting John Wayne on the show that I've noticed in background viewing in the past. Cher does a comical musical number with Judy and Eileen about the week's Mod, Mod World subject, money; but she doesn't perform any of her own material. Tiny Tim, however...I was in error the other week. The onscreen return of Tiny Tim that I posted a video of, thinking it had been cut from that episode, was from this episode. Everyone's dressed the same and they're on the same set piece as before, which would support my impression that they likely filmed material for multiple episodes at the same time (hence the same guests popping up in multiple consecutive episodes doing one-liners in the same costumes, for example). Tim also pops up in a flash-gag after a Cher one-liner, singing a bit of "I Got You Babe." Signs o' the times include more than one Raquel Welch reference. The News from 1988 tells us that the President is Stokely Carmichael, a Black Power activist, which must have been a knee-slapper to the audience of the time...not as much to me because I had to look up who he was. Dan and Dick flash us a newspaper headline they'd like to see: PEACE BREAKS OUT IN VIETNAM The episode also includes a salute to censorship, and a brief Morgul pop-up toward the end. _______ Batman "The Great Train Robbery" Originally aired February 8, 1968 Batgirl invokes women's intuition here with a relatively straight face, as an excuse for assuring the Commissioner that Barbara is safe...that seems fair enough, since she's using it to cover her secret identity, as usual. Bravery tablets...! I get the impression they're spoofing a specific Western when Batman's saying goodbye to everyone in the Commissioner's office before the showdown; West seems to be doing a bit of a mock-Western accent again, and generally isn't speaking in Batman's usual style. They referenced a film at the end, which was probably the source, but I didn't catch the name. _______ Ironside "The Challenge" Originally aired February 8, 1968 The IMDb synopsis is a bit more helpful in this case: The psychiatrist, Prof. Anderson, is played by Cec Linder, who was Felix Leiter in Goldfinger. Also guesting Nicholas Colasanto as Mike Sellino, one of the suspects... who says he was a kid of 20 when he was previously arrested in 1956. Colasanto was 44 in 1968. Another psychiatrist is played by Noah Keen, whom I recognized because he was also the guest agent on M:I this week. All of the patients (including an eccentric woman who paints by tossing blobs down to a canvas from a second-floor landing while wearing a bikini and transparent raincoat) were red herrings. I suspected the true identity of the killer because the actor was the week's front-billed guest star (the one whose name appears in the brief episode-specific credits that follow the post-opening commercial). That bit of business is often a giveaway in the show's whodunnit stories. _______ "He and She and He" Originally aired February 8, 1968 Ann career update: Her picture is on the cover of a magazine this week. After expressing much concern, Donald doesn't fight Ann seeing Noel alone because he thinks "we ought to get it over with." We get the unusual touch of an opening-style freeze frame on Ann before the mid-episode commercial, when she reacts to Noel's proposal. After that, there's an extended dream sequence of Ann marrying both of them...with Ann repeatedly insisting that she loves Donald, but only likes Noel; which includes only shaking his hand at the double-wedding rather than kissing him. Lew Parker (who usually plays Ann's father) pops up in the dream as Moses, who puts Ann in the dilemma of having to choose which of her husbands to take on the Ark. At the end, Ann gives Noel what Donald describes as a "definite maybe," leaving open the possibility of further Noel Prince appearances in the future. "Oh, Donald" count: 6 "Oh, Noel" count: 2 "Oh, Moses" count: 0 _______ Tarzan "Trek to Terror" Originally aired February 9, 1968 Our two main guest stars are both TOS actors this week. Michael Ansara plays Regis, the corrupt police inspector; and Booker Bradshaw plays Kenneth Kiley, the crusading doctor, who's wanted in another territory on a charge of murder. Regis and his men are trying to off Kiley on the trek to his day in court; yet there's also talk of a reward between Regis and his men, who both conveniently get bumped off. There was mention of Regis being the one who framed Kiley, hence his interest in not allowing Kiley to testify, but we never get a detailed story that clarifies the situation. One of Regis's men is played by an actor name John Pickard, who actually looks something like a slightly heavier and more rough-and-tumble Patrick Stewart.... At one point the bad guys handcuff Tarzan to a sapling that I was expecting the Lord of the Jungle to break, because I probably could have done it. Jai and Cheeta are along for the titular trek into terror. All seems to be forgiven after last week's developments. _______ Star Trek "Return to Tomorrow" Originally aired February 9, 1968 Stardate 4768.3 See my post here. _______ Get Smart "Don't Look Back" Originally aired February 10, 1968 This is indeed an out-and-out parody of The Fugitive, including a One-Handed Man and a Voice-Over Guy. I'd caught a bit of this in the background during a Decades Binge. The premise probably could have used a two-parter to breathe a little...they spend the first half of the episode just setting up Max's fugitive status...he's only in fugitive mode for about 12 minutes including a commercial break. Here Max has no issues with lying under oath to cover up his true job; though it doesn't help his case as he has a pretty lame cover. He only digs himself deeper with his bumbling excuse for a closing statement, which is pretty funny and includes an attempt to bribe the jury foreman. The effect of the hood taking off his Max mask in the car made me do a DVR double-take, as it was almost seamlessly convincing at a glance...but it was easy to see what they did on closer inspection. Milton Berle's character is shown reading a coverless comic book. _______
I have the impression that that happened a lot in later seasons of Mission: Impossible, or at least in the 1988 revival. It was High Noon, the archetypal Western showdown movie, that they were parodying. Chief O'Hara referred to "that great old movie, Low Midnight," which was either one of the show's parody names for things, or O'Hara being an idiot. That's still true for a lot of mystery shows today. The most recognizable actor is usually the killer.
_______ 50 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Hello Goodbye," The Beatles "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Gladys Knight & The Pips "I Second That Emotion," Smokey Robinson & The Miracles "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You," Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell "Monterey," Eric Burdon & The Animals "She's a Rainbow," The Rolling Stones New on the chart: "Playboy," Gene & Debbe (#17 US) "Kiss Me Goodbye," Petula Clark (#15 US; #2 AC; #50 UK) "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde," Georgie Fame (#7 US; #1 UK) "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra & Chorus (#2 US; #1 AC; #1 UK) And new on the boob tube: The Monkees, "The Monkees Race Again" * Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 1, episode 4 The Rat Patrol, "The Field of Death Raid" * Ironside, "All in a Day's Work" Tarzan, "End of a Challenge" Star Trek, "Patterns of Force" The Saint, "Invitation to Danger" Get Smart, "99 Loses CONTROL" * To be reviewed at a later date. _______ Coming back to "Just Dropped In," having readily posted the video in the thread about the demise of Mickey Jones, I should clarify that I don't dislike the song...it just comes off to me as a sort of a straight-faced novelty song about psychedelia, rather than actual psychedelic rock. One thing that it did for me, with all its discussion of the ascendance of the album, was to wake me up that I've been missing out on that whole end of things with my emphasis on charting singles. To that end I dug up the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list to mine for highlights from this era that I don't already own. I'm planning to backtrack a bit to start at Rubber Soul (which I have, US and UK versions) and go from there, taking some time to absorb each album that I get or revisit. They did a nifty flowchart graphic on the special showing how Rubber Soul led to Pet Sounds (which I don't have...yet), Pet Sounds led to Sgt. Pepper, and Sgt. Pepper branched out to a slew of albums by various artists. The ratings were the disease. Batgirl was one of the more prominent changes made to address that disease, and neither she nor any of the other measures were successful. I'd argue that she wasn't even the most prominent change...going to one episode a week was a more fundamental change to the format of the show and the type of stories that they told than adding a third crimefighter. That's what it was...a not-quite-understood parody name.
Is the generic equivalent inferior, or do they just object to the lower copay? That would make sense. We got a Raquel Welch and Twiggy contrast-and-compare in the 3rd-season episode I saw yesterday. I saw this one recently, but I missed Morgul. Wow. Group marriage, Old Testament imagery, and choosing who lives and who dies-- now that's a sign o' the times. Is that JJ Abrams' next... never mind, I already did that. And in an episode with "Trek" in the title. Must be an ancestor of Jean-Luc. African saplings are hardier than most. Can you tell which one? I don't remember this one at all. And meh. I did remember this one after a minute or so and it really took me back when I did. I may not have heard it since it was originally on the radio. It's nice, but not great. Gave me a nice little flashback, though. I like this, and that's a cool video. Never saw that before. I generally have little interest in either instrumentals or Westerns, but this one is particularly good. That's interesting. It would be cool to see a Connections-style documentary on the evolution of the countercultural revolution in general.
Completely ineffective, and serving as an obstacle to getting people the actual, life-saving medicine. That's how they got the confession out of the counterfeiter...by threatening to use the stuff on him that he knew was fake. I could just about swear that they used that same "new talent" intro in the previous episode, but cut it after Dick mentioned bringing Tiny Tim back out. Looked like a fake prop...it seemed to be a bit too large and had no splash page...the first page looked like a newspaper strip. I suppose it might have been a coverless old Golden Age comic. Yeah, I couldn't muster up a reason to get this. The male/female first-name-only duo thing reminded me of acts from the early '60s that I skipped...the sound of the more recent Nancy/Lee pairing. I'm surprised this didn't make the Easy Listening chart. Nice. Alas, the song is aptly titled. Petula's had a good run going for the past few years, but this will prove to be her last Top 20 single...and the follow-up her last Top 40 (and only barely at that). I assume the subject matter was the result of interest sparked by the 1967 film about the outlaw couple. Georgie Fame appears to have been a bigger thing on the other side of the pond, where he had three #1's (including this number and the one below). On this side, he had one other hit single... "Yeh, Yeh," Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames (Charted Feb. 13, 1965; #21 US; #1 UK) Also noteworthy is that Paul met Linda at a club where Georgie & the Blue Flames were playing in May 1967. Speaking of dates in Beatle history, 50 Years Ago This Week is when the Beatles started departing for Rishikesh, India, to study with the Maharishi (John, George, and wives leaving a few days earlier than Paul, Ringo, and significant others). I went ahead and got it, though it's not the original film version. I should note that I recently watched A Fistful of Dollars as 51st anniversary business (its belated US release was in Jan. 1967, which came up on the Wiki timeline last year when I was doing the 50 Years Ago This Week posts in the TOS 50th anniversary viewing thread). It left me a bit cold, which is the same reaction I had when I'd tried to watch it a couple decades earlier. _______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 55 years ago last week... ...and from 55 years ago this week, to catch up a bit... _______ 12 O'Clock High "Between the Lines" Originally aired December 13, 1965 Here what I presume would be the Lily ends up not only crashing on the Eastern front, but blowing up real good, so I have to assume that the commander of the 918th is just renaming his planes. Lo-Tech Spy Fi Business: The data that must get back to England or be destroyed is about the strength of Russian forces, for use in preparing the D-Day invasion...and it's written on chewing gum that's to be chewed up and swallowed in the event of capture! The drama this week revolves around one of the passengers, the non-combatant aide of a general, being ridden by Komansky for apparent cowardice, only for the two to bond after Sandy's own fear of rats comes into play. Ultimately, the aide sacrifices himself to give Gallagher & co. a chance to flee the Germans and find their good buddies, the Russians. _______ 51st Anniversary Viewing _______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 51 years ago this week: _______ The Monkees "The Prince and the Paupers" Originally aired February 6, 1967 As can be seen in the video below, while serving as Fake Ludlow's courtier, Mike wears the same coat that Trelane wore in "The Squire of Gothos." I think that came up in a TOS thread a while back. IMDb says that the episodes were filmed within a couple months of one another. The character who's billed as "Courtier," who announces visitors to the court, also wears the same coat, sometimes in the same scenes. "Mary, Mary" Ambiguous Degree of Success Business: A gag in the coda has a reporter from a teen magazine (who's a double for the prince's bride) visiting the Monkees at their pad...but they were still having trouble getting gigs as of the beginning of the episode. _______ The Rat Patrol "The Exhibit A Raid" Originally aired February 6, 1967 The set of circumstances under which the German colonel kills his aide, switches identities with him, and frames Troy for the killing is rather contrived. One of the circumstances is that Troy had been tortured by the colonel on some previous occasion...an oddly grisly bit of business to use as throwaway backstory. The desert set's getting rather crowded with a whole Allied field base occupying it, complete with motorpool. I didn't notice any outdoor locations in this one...all set and backlot except for a brief shot of the Jeeps rolling over some dunes at the end. Dietrich? Who is this Dietrich that you speak of? _______ "Paper Hats and Everything" Originally aired February 9, 1967 I guess the opportunities for doing title freeze frames on Ann are a bit limited when the teaser takes place in the Marie home while she's not visiting. We've seen a title freeze frame of that photo before. Ann's birthday is Ed Sullivan Day! I guess this qualifies as an Idiot Premise episode, but it has heart. Of course, Mr. Marie can't eat at a NY restaurant without complaining about the service; but seeing him one-on-one with Ann does give us glimpses of his softer side. When the surprise party posse scrounges up a cake with somebody else's name on it... Guests include young Richard Dreyfuss as an actor acquaintance of Ann's, who's working as a waiter at one of the places where Mr. Marie takes her: Mr. Benedict gets name-dropped when one of the workshop students gives an excuse for why he couldn't make the suprirse party. Isn't that cute, they were still concerned about supporting character continuity...! "Oh, Donald" count: 1 "Oh, Daddy" count: 9 _______
Heather North would go on to be the second voice of Daphne Blake in Scooby-Doo, playing the role continuously from 1970-85 and reprising it three times in 1997 and 2003. Only Grey DeLisle Griffin has had a longer continuous run in the role (2001-present).
Forgot to mention that I had Decades on in the background yesterday morning and they were playing an Annie Oakley series from the '50s, which I'd never seen before, but some of the music cues it used were very familiar to me from Adventures of Superman. And there goes a good hunk of DVR space...Decades is doing a Mod Squad Weekend Binge on 02/24-02/25...skipping episodes to cover highlights from all five seasons, apparently. I'll be recording the ones from the first two. Also, Movies! is going to be playing Valley of the Dolls next month. I just might check it out...what with Paul Burke being in it, the Dionne Warwick song, and its reputation as an infamous bomb, I'm morbidly curious.