The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by The Old Mixer, Jan 11, 2016.

  1. TREK_GOD_1

    TREK_GOD_1 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    [​IMG]

    ...well, maybe not!


    Yes--Peter left as the TV special wrapped on November 27, 1968, by buying out his contract. He had variously claimed it was due to exhaustion (they just returned from a big tour of Australia and Japan in September/October, then jumped right into production of the TV special), while on other occasions, he said he wanted to do other kinds of music that was not going to be accepted within the Monkees framework. Either way, Peter was a Monkee no more at the end of the year, making his departure significant, as he was leaving one of the biggest/best selling bands of the decade--something that did not happen often.


    All I could think of when reading that was this culinary monstrosity--

    [​IMG]


    Gossett's character being involved would not have removed a parallel to the Mississippi case, since that state's infamous Sovereignty Commission had a black man in its employ once known as "Agent X"--but in reality was R.L. Bolden--vice president of the Mississippi NAACP, who turned movement information (details from meetings, names, plans, etc.) over the Commission, including the license plates of vehicles registered to workers--among them, the Ford station wagon assigned to then-future victim Michael Schwerner. Although Bolden's true identify would not be officially revealed until decades later, at the time, groups like CORE were aware that some members or select individuals in the communities they canvassed were working against them. To that end, Gossett's character would fit into that role, although for 52-minute TV drama purposes, he was openly hostile from the beginning.

    Regarding the method of killing the Squad: shooting them was exactly the way the Mississippi trio were murdered.

    I cannot recall if Julie ever wore thigh-high boots, but where surfing is concerned, in the pilot, the Woody had surfboards mounted on the roof, and there's one scene where Greer grilled Pete, telling him he could "climb back on that surfboard" if he could not follow orders, or something to that effect, so that could have been all the inspiration Aurora needed to add surfboards the model kit.

    Typical of Aurora, some of the parts--specifically the Pete & Linc figures--were repurposed for other vehicle kits in 1970--
    [​IMG]
    Well, if it saves a buck instead of new sculpts and tooling....
     
  2. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    I'm not sure. Love Boat maybe? I don't have it on on Sundays.

    Hmm. Yeah, I suppose Captain Dorchester doesn't have quite the same gravitas.

    Nobody dies but Spucky. :(

    Yeah, that definitely has the same feeling. The connections may or may not go both ways, and can depend on mood and other things-- and some are stronger than others. "Something" is a particularly strong one.
     
  3. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    _______

    55 Years Ago This Week




    Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

    Leaving the chart:
    • "My Boyfriend Got a Beatle Haircut," Donna Lynn (2 weeks)
    • "Surfin' Bird," The Trashmen (13 weeks)

    New on the chart--More British are coming! More British are coming!

    "From Me to You," The Beatles
    (#41 US)

    "Hippy Hippy Shake," The Swinging Blue Jeans

    (#24 US; #2 UK)

    "Needles and Pins," The Searchers

    (#13 US; #1 UK)

    "White on White," Danny Williams

    (#9 US; #3 AC)

    "Dead Man's Curve," Jan & Dean

    (#8 US)

    Total Beatles songs on the chart: 6

    _______

    Not that they still were at that point.

    "Readings, Mr. Spock?"

    For my money, making both the lynch mob and would-be victims multiracial changes the optics of the situation.

    That, and the Beach Boys.

    Nope, that's on at 6.

    How about...?

    CAPTAIN CHOWDAH and SPUCKY, the DORCHESTER KID!
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2019
  4. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    The what by the what? :rommie: And they think they're imitating The Beatles, don't they?

    Very nice.

    This sounds vaguely familiar. It's sweet. I'm surprised it got that far.

    Yeah! Classic 50s-- er, I mean early 60s.

    Yeah, that's why I think so. Everybody else gets multiple episodes, so I think they took one away from Love Boat.

    Holy Local Cuisine! It's the Dining Out Duo! :mallory:
     
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  5. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    _______

    50 Years Ago This Week





    Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

    Leaving the chart:
    • "Hooked on a Feeling," B.J. Thomas (16 weeks)
    • "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Marvin Gaye (15 weeks)
    • "I Started a Joke," Bee Gees (11 weeks)
    • "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," Diana Ross & The Supremes and the Temptations (13 weeks)

    New on the chart:

    "Sing a Simple Song," Sly & The Family Stone
    (B-side to "Everyday People"; #89 US; #28 R&B)

    "I Can Hear Music," The Beach Boys

    (#24 US; #10 UK)

    "Hawaii Five-O," The Ventures

    (#4 US; #8 AC)

    "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," The 5th Dimension

    (#1 US the weeks of Apr. 12 through May 17, 1969; #1 AC; #6 R&B; #11 UK; 1970 Grammy Award for Record of the Year)


    And new on the boob tube:
    • The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 21, episode 20, featuring Paul Anka
    • Mission: Impossible, "The Bunker: Part 1"
    • The Avengers, "Who Was That Man I Saw You With?"
    • Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 2, episode 22
    • Ironside, "A Drug on the Market"
    • Star Trek, "The Savage Curtain"
    • Adam-12, "Log 152: A Dead Cop Can't Help Anyone"
    • Get Smart, "Leadside"
    • Hogan's Heroes, "The Big Dish"

    _______

    You noticed! While "Hippy Hippy Shake" was originally recorded by Chan Romero in 1959 (and not a hit here, but big in Australia), the Swinging Blue Jeans' version sounds more than a little like they're aping the way that the Beatles performed it more than once on the BBC in 1963...not that American record buyers of 1964 would have known anything about that.

    I should also note that I came upon an erroneous assertion about the Swinging Blue Jeans single on the song's Wiki page:
    Somebody overlooked the Dave Clark Five; that the Beatles had scored multiple songs on the chart at this point; and Dusty Springfield. I've never contributed edits to Wiki pages before, but I'm sorely tempted to straighten this little mess out.

    The Searchers have a nice sound and are a welcome addition, though their string of major hits will be too brief.

    This likely would have been deemed "too Easy Listening" for me, but it was on a collection that I bought for other songs, so I decided what the hell, I've got it, might as well toss it in. And its success isn't surprising at all...recall that prior to the Beatles, the top spot on the chart had been dominated by the Easy Listening trifecta of Dale & Grace, the Singing Nun, and Bobby Vinton...seems like 155 years ago now, doesn't it? I'm probably making the 55 Years Ago era sound cooler than it was by leaving out the pure crap.

    And Danny Williams was also British, though born in South Africa.

    And in this case, part of a distinct trend that was peaking in this era, the "splatter platter"--songs of teen tragedy often involving motor vehicle accidents. The leader of this pack of songs will be coming to our Shangri-La later this year. (VROOM! VROOM!)

    Well, if they cut their Love Boat airings in half, I say good riddance!

    But should it be spelled "Dorchestah" for consistency?
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2019
  6. GNDN18

    GNDN18 270 Rear Admiral

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    812A1EBF-996B-4436-B865-094711857411.jpeg
     
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  7. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    Last edited: Mar 2, 2019
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  8. GNDN18

    GNDN18 270 Rear Admiral

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    Nice! Christmasy.
    17BF64C0-5DB9-449B-8FBA-5D68C48D2D2B.png
     
  9. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    Just thought to check if the erroneous fact was cited in other related entries. The entry for The Searchers has a slight variation that's factually true.
    Emphasis mine. It's all about the qualifiers.
     
  10. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    I've never heard this before. Sounds like they're channeling The Jackson 5 a little bit.

    A beautiful song, of course.

    Classic! Four out of five Squiggies agree-- no lyrics needed! :rommie:

    Sooo groovy. This is where it's at, man. :mallory:

    Wow, didn't expect any of that. :rommie:

    I was thinking that the subject matter of a guy singing about his daughter's wedding isn't very Top 40-- but I suppose even when I was a kid there was a song about a guy saying good-bye to his baby girl as he goes off to work.

    A wonderful sub-genre. :D

    Heh. The first season was good.

    Indeed, that is the correct pronunciation.

    Sweet. How does one become a Wiki Elf?
     
  11. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    Oh, I almost forgot: We were watching one of the Ed Sullivan DVDs that I gave to Mom for Christmas yesterday, and I saw the most disturbing and hilarious sequence that was ever on the show. He had Clyde Beatty the Lion Tamer on and the guy lost control of the lions. So, in order to distract the audience, Ed walked up the aisle and just started interviewing some of the celebrity guests. In the background, as they chatted amiably, you could hear the roar of the lions punctuated by random gunshots. We were in tears of laughter. :rommie: I wish I could find it on YouTube.
     
  12. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    _______

    50th Anniversary Viewing
    (Part 1)

    _______

    The Ed Sullivan Show
    Season 21, episode 19
    Originally aired February 23, 1969
    As represented in The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show

    Oddly, they're not plugging their about-to-chart new single. "California Soul" kinda grew on me with playlist listening, but it's a Lilliputian next to "Aquarius". Here's the video, but not the original performance audio. The ladies in the group are looking good as always.

    Henderson does a routine in which he demonstrates how it's not easy to imitate what Sinatra does while singing "One More for the Road". This low-quality video doesn't include Henderson's long spoken intro in which he explains what he's about to do.

    Bernardi sings a song called "Life Is" while holding and occasionally picking at what a quick Google tells me is a bouzouki, accompanied by three instrumentalists in his immediate vicinity and either a canned or offstage orchestra.

    On Best of, Ed then does a mumbly, rambling audience bow intro for Broadway producer/director Hal Prince. tv.com indicates that this and the Bernardi song were parts of a larger tribute to Prince.

    Next it's "comedy star Myron Cohen," who does a routine about a player dying in a gin rummy game...then switches with no transition to speak of (likely sacrificed by a Best of edit) to a man going to a bakery on a miserable winter night.

    Closing the Best of edit, they perform a medley consisting of an overly uptempo, swingy lounge rendition of "What the World Needs Now," combined with a more straightforward cover of "All You Need Is Love," during which the show gets trippy by indulging in some kaleidoscope effects on the band members. The part where they sing lyrics from the two songs on top of each other works best, as they're not doing the former song as fast. I think this video has the original audio, but the poster is confusing things by tossing in an image of a cover from a live album:


    Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
    _______

    Mission: Impossible
    "Live Bait"
    Originally aired February 23, 1969
    Selby, the agent the IMF is trying to help maintain his cover (John Crawford, a.k.a. Commissioner Ferris from "The Galileo Seven"), is having an interagency dispute with Kellerman (Zerbe) over custody of Marceau, the operative currently being interrogated by Kellerman who might be able to identify Selby as a double agent. Rollin is brought in as an investigator to settle the dispute, and Selby seems to know that they're on the same side.

    Kellerman seems to think that Rollin is on his side, and conspires with him to feed false information to the Americans through his own man, Brocke (a very young-looking Sheen, though he was pushing 30 at this point). Meanwhile, Barney doctors some footage so that it looks like Kellerman has been conspiring with Jim, and nobody seems to miss Willy, who isn't in the episode. Cin plays the part of an American agent who takes the false information from Brocke. Jim plays the contact to whom Cin passes the information, making Kellerman think that he's the big fish on the opposite side.

    Brocke's girlfriend, Stephanie (Diana Ewing, appearing the same week that her episode of Trek is airing), is held captive by Jim and allowed to see the doctored footage through a peephole, projected in a way that it looks like it's happening in the next room. Stephanie is allowed to escape and she calls Brocke and tells him that she was being held by Kellerman, and shares things that were being said in the doctored conversation about Brocke being Kellerman's pawn. Brocke goes to Selby with his newfound belief that Kellerman is a double agent. Brocke fears that Kellerman will try to silence him, but Selby leaves Brocke to his own devices.

    Meanwhile, Kellerman takes Rollin to see Marceau in his interrogation cage. Rollin learns that Marceau is rigged to blow up real good if somebody tries to free him. Rollin conveys this info to Jim on the phone via code phrases.

    Brocke is caught trying to run and tries to convince Rollin that Kellerman is a double agent. Stephanie points the finger at Brocke for some reason that escaped me. The IMF use some gas for which they have immunity pills to knock everyone in the facility out and free Marceau, with Barney using liquid nitrogen to freeze the explosive. As they're making away with Marceau, Brocke is revived early by Rollin, and Brocke and Rollin find Kellerman unconscious outside of Marcaeu's now-empty cell. Rollin promises to smooth things over with Selby and leaves Brocke to shoot Kellerman as he's coming to.

    This one had a much more complicated scheme than last week, such that I was having trouble following everything that was going on. At the same time, though, it felt a lot closer to standard spy vs. spy espionage fare than the next IMF scheme.

    _______

    The Avengers
    "Stay Tuned"
    Originally aired February 24, 1969 (US); February 26, 1969 (UK)
    The episode takes place in October, for whatever that's worth! I thought this would be a formula-defier, but there are three incidents of Steed losing his memory, after each of which he repeats the same leaving-for-vacation routine as is shown in the teaser, which fits the "series of attacks/incidents" bit.

    This episode we meet Father (Iris Russell), a blind woman who's more intriguing in one episode than Mother has been in however many he's been in.

    Tara, of course, believes in Steed, and there's a cute scene of Steed and Tara dictating messages to each other on tape recorders simultaneously. Despite the premise of Steed being a victim, Tara still gets captured investigating.

    The bad guys' scheme involves an enemy operative whom Steed has been conditioned not to see; he kills a fellow agent right in front of Steed. Steed was being programmed to kill Mother, who turns up in the climax for that purpose. Mother does get a good moment when Steed fires a revolver at him four times, and we're teased into thinking that he's killed Mother until it's revealed that the four shots hit the wall behind Mother, aimed neatly around his head.

    In the coda we get a parallel scene of Tara preparing for a holiday.

    Despite being yet another use of the same ol' story template, this one was a bit more intriguing than the next. It almost could have been an episode from the black & white Peel season.

    _______

    Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
    Season 2, episode 21
    Originally aired February 24, 1969
    This one opens with a full-cast Vaudeville musical number, and includes a new segment that looks like it's going to be a regular feature, Quickies:


    The Fickle Finger of Fate goes to the Auditor of the city of Dallas, TX:


    We only get a middle-of-episode Cocktail Party this time around.

    Continuing a theme from last week, more reflection on the Good Old Days:


    The Mod, Mod World of Offbeat People:


    _______

    The Mod Squad
    "A Reign of Guns"
    Originally aired February 25, 1969
    I got a bit of deja vu at the opening...a group of warehouse thieves is loading crates of guns onto a truck when a middle-aged night watchmen comes on the scene, and instead of doing something sensible like calling the police, he goes all action hero, fires his handgun at the truck, and pursues a straggler on foot over rooftops and up a water tower. But instead of killing the watchman, a sniper among the thieves take out the straggler.

    Greer has reason to believe that an inside man was involved, and the most likely suspect was the regular watchman, for whom the watchman at the scene that night was subbing.
    Hurm.

    Except that next thing we know, the Squad are tailing some other guy at a gun club who isn't the watchman, but is an ex-Army sharpshooter named Coles (Sean Garrison). I'd like to think that something was inadvertently cut for syndication, because I couldn't make any sense of this. Pete and Linc approach Coles as illegal gun dealers. In the meantime, somebody's assaulted a cabbie who knows where the watchman is, specifically to find out where the watchman is. So they know who the watchman's cabbie is, but can't find the watchman? Huh?

    Anyway, Coles sets up a meeting between Pete and the guy that he works for, a shipping magnate named Marney (J.D. Cannon). There's definitely a race angle in this one...Marney makes his displeasure known that Pete's partner is a [then-considered-more-polite version of the N-word].

    Another bit of deja vu...Greer has the Squadders pulled over again to make contact, only this time, instead of riding shotgun, Greer is in the role of the patrol car cop. The Captain is particularly alarmed at the prospect of a bigot who's hoarding guns. When Greer gets a call on the radio, it's addressed to "Car 144" (or whatever the number was)...I suspect that Jack Webb's police radio protocol is more authentic. Greer gets info as to where the watchman is, but finds him dead.

    Julie is only in this one sporadically. Greer draws attention to her absence in the initial briefing scene. After that, she mainly appears in meeting scenes with Greer, several of which seem to have been shot at the same location, and only gets involved in the actual operation when she plays Pete's date at a meeting with Marney, where she and Pete witness Marney receiving info from a man who turns out later to be a guy named North who works at City Hall (John Harmon). From that point, she's on a mostly off-camera and unsuccessful side quest to tail North. I have to wonder if something was up with Lipton's availability at the time. This one had more than one scene of Greer noting that she looked sad and making gestures to lift her spirits...perhaps covering for illness?

    Assembled with Pete and Linc present, Marney's group of uniformed militia men looks particularly Aryan, and Linc doesn't pretend not to notice. Pete helps Marney set up a robbery from an armory that involves the Mod Duo and Marney's men posing as soldiers, and Marney as an Army officer. That all seems...a little unlikely. Later Pete and Linc sneak around Marney's place and find that--Was this supposed to be a surprise at this point in the story?--he's hoarding a shitload of guns. Then they get caught.

    Marney goes by the Bond Villain Handbook and shares his plans with the Mods, which involve sign-o-the-timesily picking up the pieces after all the radicals, militants, and whatnot running amok in the country kill each other off. When Marney says that he plans to expand his private militia to a total of 10,000...
    But the episode pretty much drops the race angle at that point, with Marney claiming that he's not excluding anyone, and the Mods establish enough benefit of the doubt that he lets them come along when his men hijack a truck of arms by posing as state troopers at a roadblock. But North spots Julie with Greer, having seen her previously with Pete and Marney, so he calls Marney's mobile phone in the middle of the heist with the info that Pete's a cop. Pete and Linc, in the cab of the hijacked truck, manage to overpower Coles and drive the truck into a gully, bailing out before it goes over and getting the drop on Marney and his men.

    They have another little philosophical moment in the coda when Julie wishes that all the guns in the world were going to be dumped in the sea like the ones from the heist (Don't they belong to whoever Marney was stealing them from?), and Linc offers that it wouldn't make a difference, because it's not the guns, it's the people who use them.

    Overall, this one suffered a little too much from holes in story logic, and Julie popping in and out randomly didn't help things.

    _______

    Channeling the...who at this point? Any influence more likely goes the other way.

    Funny, how this group has the same name as the one that did Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations".... :p Whoever these guys are, this will be their last Top 40 single until the mid-to-late-'70s, when they start scoring sporadic chart success from milking the nostalgia angle.

    Coming from 80% of Squiggies, that's high praise indeed. But it is the Coolest TV Theme Ever.

    One of those seminal sign o' the times tracks.

    I was planning to get into that one way or the other, but you handed me the perfect launching point! It is gratifying to know that even somebody who isn't familiar with the history of the song can hear what the Blue Jeans are doing there.

    Lotsa sappy crap that I ignored was still doing well on the chart through most of the decade.

    LOOKOUT!LOOKOUT!LOOKOUT!LOOKOUT!!!

    It's surprisingly easy, though it took me a bit of trial and error to figure out the link coding.

    Holy crap--that definitely didn't make it onto Best of!
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2019
  13. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

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    I mainly remember him from a sitcom called Arnie in the early 70s, in which he played Arnie. I loved it then, and remember nothing about it now.

    I think Martin Sheen was about 103 before he stopped looking young.

    I'm sure you were very disappointed. :rommie:

    Ah, this is the one where people are hypnotized to not be able to see a particular person. I always thought that was a clever gimmick.

    :rommie:

    He's had no cause to grow less alarmed over the years. Maybe he went to work for the SPLC when he retired.

    It's a Spelling show, so they could have used Zebra One. :rommie: I wonder what the call signs were in The Rookies.

    That's odd. It sounds like foreshadowing, but that didn't happen in those days.

    Maybe we can get the IMF to manipulate the Klan, Nazis, Identity Churches, et al, into killing each other off. :rommie:

    "Last night I had the strangest dream...."

    Ah, right. Didn't even think of that.

    So you don't like this one?

    It's definitely at the top, although it has a few competitors-- Mission: Impossible being one of them.

    :rommie:

    It's got the same, or a similar, opening sequence, so it must be produced by the same people. This is the set that it's on
     
  14. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    _______

    50th Anniversary Viewing
    (Part 2)

    _______

    Ironside
    "Moonlight Means Money"
    Originally aired February 27, 1969
    While out on a date, Ed sees Ray Leonard (Linden Chiles), a friend in the force who's moonlighting as a cabbie, and insists on taking his cab even though Ray already had a fare waiting. Ed's date finds a package under the front seat and Ed discovers that it's a bag of dope. Ed has Ray lead him to his last fare, whom they chase on foot into an alley, where Ray shoots the man multiple times, insisting that he thought the unarmed man had a gun. The entire time, Ray's behavior suggests to the audience that he was in on the drug deal. Ed and Ray are both suspended while a Lt. Simon (future Hulk's dad John Marley) investigates the shooting. Ironside forbids the pair from conducting their own investigation to find the man who would have been Ray's next fare, but of course starts looking into it himself...as does Ed.

    The guy who would have been Ray's next fare is found dead, and Ed finds an extra trunk key that doesn't belong to his car. We see that a car wrecking yard run by a man named Dameron (Skip Homeier) is involved. Team Ironside finds out about a large deposit that Ray made, which he and his wife maintain was from his father-in-law for their kids' college. While the team is questioning Ray's wife, their children are prominently mentioned, but we don't see them. Meanwhile Ray has run off, which makes him look all the more guilty. Ray tries to investigate the junkyard via a fellow cabbie who is involved in the drug racket; the cabbie and Dameron attempt to crush Ray in the car they've been looking for. Team Ironside gets there just in time, and Ed takes out Dameron.

    Ray still has to face a board of inquiry for the shooting, and announces that he's quitting the force. Ed protests this decision, but Ironside feels it's for the best.

    This was a pretty meh crime story. I'd say that the drama got off on the wrong foot by turning us against Ray. There wasn't really any payoff to finding out that he wasn't guilty. Are we supposed to feel happy that he's not a criminal, just a homicidal fuckup? I also would have expected Ed to act a little more professional and not just keep investigating with no consequence. They tried to suggest at the end that Ironside and Simon were looking the other way and letting Ed and Ray investigate for some reason or another, but it felt weak.

    _______

    Star Trek
    "The Cloud Minders"
    Originally aired February 28, 1969
    Stardate 5818.4


    See my post here.

    _______

    Adam-12
    "Log 102: We Can't Just Walk Away from It"
    Originally aired March 1, 1969
    The episode begins with Reed telling Malloy a story that probably sounded a lot more innocent 50 years ago, about having let a 17-year-old girl in the house while his wife was gone. They get a call for "juvenile narcotic suspect, see the doctor". They go to a medical facility where teenage Harvey Franklin has just had his stomach pumped. Harvey is accompanied by his dad, who identifies a jacket that was in Harvey's possession as belonging to a friend named Larry Harris--whom the father considers to be a bad influence--and finds a bag of pills in it.

    Reed and Malloy pay a visit to the Harris's apartment, where Larry's mother lets them in. As they approach Larry's room, the sound of Eastern music can be heard through the door. Larry shoots a gun through the door and threatens to kill himself. The father comes home, gets irate with everyone, and tries to take control of the situation. He mentions a girl downstairs named Annie whom Larry had been seeing, though he didn't approve of it. Reed and Mrs. Harris go down to find her listening to music on headphones in the dark--I think they wanted to tease us into thinking she'd OD'ed when we initially just saw her hand limply sticking up from over the back of the couch. Annie immediately assumes their visit has something to do with the drugs Larry's been taking, and indicates that they broke up over that, not because of his father.

    While they're gone, Malloy has some tough words for Mr. Harris....
    Sgt. MacDonald arrives, and when he finds that Larry has threatened to kill himself in a few minutes, he advises that their best option is to break down the door, as Larry has either resolved to go through with it, in which case he'll be dead in minutes if they do nothing, or he hasn't, in which case they might stop him. Annie comes up and tries to talk to Larry, but Larry responds to her angrily, and in doing so indicates that he'd been selling to Harvey. The officers proceed with forcing open the door, and find that Larry's a bespectacled young man in hip clothes with a pretty ordinary-looking bedroom, and that he's left the gun on the bed. The episode ends on a positive note from Malloy that Larry will be getting the help that he needs.

    I think this would be the first time we've gotten an episode that just focused on one call.

    _______

    Get Smart
    "Shock It to Me"
    Originally aired March 1, 1969
    The Chief's phone out in the field is in the radiator cap of the car that he's using.

    The KAOS hijacker stops Max by pretending to have car trouble; while Max is checking under his hood, he disconnects the cab so that when Max drives off, he leaves the trailer behind. Max identifies the hijacker as a dead KAOS agent; the Chief finds that all of the recent hijackers are dead KAOS agents, and every body had been claimed by Dr. Zharko.

    Max and 99 proceed to investigate Zharko's island, where the doctor is assisted by hunchback named Bruce (Sid Haig). When they're captured and put in manacles, it's pretty obvious that Feldon could slip out of hers. Zharko explains how his process of reviving the recently deceased works...

    Zharko: ...as long as I receive the bodies before rigor mortis sets in.
    Max: Well, that lets Ed Sullivan out.​

    Zharko wants to experiment with putting Max and 99 in suspended animation. During their escape, Bruce temporarily gets straightened up, hits his head on low cave ceiling, then gets slapped on the back by Zharko, causing him to resume his original posture.

    _______

    Hogan's Heroes
    "The Witness"
    Originally aired March 1, 1969
    IMDb tells me that this is Nita Talbot's fourth of seven appearances as Marya, but the first in the episodes that I've seen. Gavin MacLeod guests as General von Rauscher, who's learned from Marya that Hogan is an operative and that by sending him to the States as a witness to the rocket test, he'll be killing two birds with one stone.

    Hochstetter shows up at the rocket test and tries to take control of the operation. Marya's plan is to have the Russian scientist, Zagoskin, smuggled back to Russia. Hogan has the guys summoned to sabotage the rocket, which they do dressed as Gestapo...even Kinch! Granted, they're working in day-for-night lighting and at a distance from the other Germans...except for Schultz, who gets a good, close look at all of them. "Nothing! No-thing! NO-THING!"

    When the rocket fails, Hogan persuades Hochstetter to have Zagoskin sent home to work on their rocket program, and isn't sent home himself.

    At one point in the episode, Marya tells Klink:

    DIS!Missed!

    _______

    It was only Steed not being able to see one particular guy in this one. Could they have used the same gimmick in another episode?

    Sly & the Family Stone are recognized as being the seminal artists of that style of funk.

    When the Beatles and the Stones went "back to basics" after their forays into psychedelia, they did so in ways that moved their sounds forward. The Beach Boys, in contrast, seem to have become their own tribute band.

    And I see that they do have a set with the full Beatles episodes. I've never actually seen a full episode of Sullivan, as it was originally formatted.
     
  15. scotpens

    scotpens Professional Geek Premium Member

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    [​IMG]
     
  16. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

    Joined:
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    RJDiogenes of Boston
    Do his friends call him Moon Knight? :rommie:

    Now there's a good way to impress your date.

    As it should be.

    He does seem to make a better cabbie than cop.

    Because....?

    Apparently the music isn't working.

    Interesting. It seems like there are other stories that deserved the full-episode treatment, too, like the one where the guy was trying to save his girlfriend and the landlady prevented him.

    Now we're talking.

    If she wanted to....

    So this technology actually works? You'd think that Control would be able to make some use of it.

    I wonder what happened to Schultz after the war. Maybe Hogan arranged for leniency and US citizenship for all his unwitting assistance. :rommie:

    It must have been. I don't remember a lot of details, but I'm pretty sure there was more to it than that.

    That's true, I suppose. Still a nice song, though.

    I did when they were first on, but not since. It would be pretty cool to see the uncut episodes, but The Complete Ed Sullivan would be a massive project.

    Hah! :rommie:
     
  17. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2002
    Location:
    The Old Mixer, Somewhere in Connecticut
    _______

    Dragnet 1967
    "The Shooting"
    Originally aired March 30, 1967
    This is ahead of my intended schedule, but the cable info had misidentified this episode as an early one from the next season titled "The Shooting Board," which is coming up on Cozi this weekend. I discovered that my DVR was planning to skip that episode and had to set it to record manually. Not wanting to take my chances with what would happen to this episode when the DVR thought I was recording the same episode twice, I figured I'd better get this one out of the buffer to be safe. I could curse Xfinity, but I didn't need my arm twisted too hard to watch another Dragnet.

    I got a little geekily distracted when they showed the communications center...it's the first thing we see in the Season 1 opening credits of Adam-12.

    Tuesday, April 28 (1964?): Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of Homicide Division, wrapping up another case when they hear a call over the radio about a police officer who's been shot during a routine traffic stop. (I'm not sure why their previous case was a wife-beating incident that ended with the victim dropping the charges when they're supposed to be working out of Homicide.) The officer is Dave Roberts (Don Marshall, a couple months after "The Galileo Seven" aired). The perps are believed to have been responsible for a liquor store robbery in the area. When the suspects' car is found abandoned, the detectives start questioning nearby business proprietors and find one who saw them switch vehicles. They also take an opportunity to briefly question Roberts at the hospital, but his memory of the details is sketchy. Taking the detectives aside, the doctor notes that they've saved Roberts's life, but not him.

    Six months later, the detectives haven't turned up any further leads on the case when they see a report about another robbery whose suspects match the general description of the ones they've been keeping an eye out for. They have a police artist draw up sketches based on the liquor store owner's description, but neither Roberts nor the prior victim can make a positive identification. Underscoring what the doctor had told the detectives, Roberts says that he's not even sure who's President.

    Tuesday, January 16 (1962???): Roberts is going home the next day, "if he can find his way," as the Captain puts it. The next lead turns up when a contact offers Friday the identities of the suspects in front of an unconvincing projection of the inside of the Los Angeles Coliseum. The first liquor store owner is able to positively identify them from actual mugshots. The suspects are tracked down and Friday and Gannon bust into their room and arrest them. Needing a confession, they decide to take a gamble. After Friday verbally reconstructs the events of the previous April in great detail, they bring a uniformed Officer Roberts into the interrogation room. At the sight of him, one of the suspects starts spilling the beans. The job done, Roberts tells Friday outside the room that he still can't remember them.

    Dragnet19.jpg
    (a.k.a. Hal Baylor and Dick Miller)

    I found it interesting that this one took place over roughly the same span of time as "The LSD Story," but I may stop checking the dates against the calendar if they're going to be so random about them that they don't even match up within the same episode!

    _______

    A questionnaire or something.

    I was disappointed when he didn't have a more groovily decorated room. Very plain, the odd sports banner on the wall...Generic Clean-Cut Teenager Room.

    I don't think the landlady could have held off Reed and Malloy with her broom for thirty minutes....

    Max had to blow the Doctor up as a spur-of-the-moment thing.

    But there are full episodes to be viewed on special sets like the Beatles and Stones episode sets.
     
  18. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

    Joined:
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    RJDiogenes of Boston
    I'm not sure if it was a good idea to broadcast that the bad guys outnumber the cops seven to one. :rommie:

    Maybe they're experimenting with Preventive Homicide.

    What were his injuries?

    If they keep doing episodes that are six months long, there's no way they can be in real time-- unless other episodes took place within that six-month span.

    I'm sure he thought of himself as a big-time subversive. :rommie:

    Not unless they brought in Endora. But there could have been more lead up, more aftermath....

    Ah. Well, it's there waiting to be rediscovered, I guess.

    Yeah, but imagine the whole run being available. It should be a Library of Congress project or something, it's such an amazing time capsule of Americana, both classic and obscure.
     
  19. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2002
    Location:
    The Old Mixer, Somewhere in Connecticut
    Dammit, RJ, I'm a couch potato, not a doctor! Shotgun blast at close range, that's all I remember.

    Nine months...the "six months later" part was in October, which I neglected to specify. But as with "The LSD Story," I'd assume they would be working on other cases during the stretches when the longer-term cases went cold.
     
  20. RJDiogenes

    RJDiogenes Idealistic Cynic and Canon Champion Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2003
    Location:
    RJDiogenes of Boston
    :rommie: I was just wondering if his memory loss was due to brain damage or trauma. Sounds like mild damage due to blood loss.

    So... was the beginning of the episode a flashback or the end of the episode a flashforward? :crazy: