If anyone has any interest in Verdon or Fosse, I KIGHLY recommend the FX limited series, Fosse/Verdon. It is crazy good.
Bob Newhart and Red Skelton didn't make the best-of cut? I really hope the full episodes are made available some day. I know the timeline is wrong, but it would have been hilarious if Victor-in-Drag was played by Maureen McCormick. In the anticlimactic moment that follows, Jim goes into the other room and fires off a gun, just for the sense of closure. Oww! That's what I figured. Too bad. I don't think it's so easy to fool the men about something like that, but it does give Jason a noble motivation for taking the abuse. Oh, sorry to be the one to break it to you. Happy Beatlesversary!
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2) _______ "Ugh, Wilderness" Originally aired February 5, 1970 So it's kind of like that Incredible Hulk two-parter, but the pilot lives and Ann isn't amnesiac with her face wrapped in bandages and pulling Donald around on a makeshift sled. After finding a spot to land, John, the pro pilot, strikes out to find help while Ann and Donald try to stay warm in the plane, having been unsuccessful in building a fire. They were heading to Vermont to stay at Mr. Marie's cabin with him, so Lew starts making calls trying to find them. When John hasn't returned for a while, they strike out on their own, but shortly after John returns to the plane with rangers. They try to camp by the plane but don't have any matches either. (Some rangers!) Ann and Donald find a cabin, break into it, find matches, and get a fire going, which they fuel by breaking chairs. They try to keep themselves occupied with word games and fed with the contents of Ann's purse--chewing gum, soda crackers, and mints. When they wake up late the next morning and are ready to set out into the wilderness, a bellboy comes in with a couple who are renting the cabin. They learn that they were only two minutes from the hotel where Mr. Marie was making his calls! "Oh, Donald" count: 10 (including the first words in the episode--no recap!) "Oh, Daddy" count: 2 _______ Ironside "The Wrong Time, the Wrong Place" Originally aired February 5, 1970 Team Ironside is staking out an airport for an arriving suspect named Riker (Ken Drake) when they're annoyed that actress Vivian Page (Tiffany Bolling) is debarking from the same plane, resulting in lots of unexpected press. Riker makes a point of bumping into Page before attempting to flee from a group of shady-looking types (one of whom, Maxon, is instantly recognizable as Paul Carr) and getting run down by a runway vehicle. TI searches his luggage and clothes and can't find the key to a safety deposit box that contains $250,000 in stolen money. The Chief deduces that the former pickpocket must have planted the key on Page, so he sends Ed to check her out. At Page's hotel, Ed finds Vivian disarmingly down-to-earth, and when he doesn't find the key, she makes it clear that she's open for an invitation to dinner. While they're dining, her general dislike of cops comes up, though Ed tries to explain what he gets out of his job--helping people, protecting the city, that jazz. When they return to her suite, they find that it's been ransacked. Ed draws his gun while verifying that the perp isn't still there, and she's disturbed at the sight of it. Meanwhile, the rest of TI review some film and recognize two of the three shady types, Walker (Frank Maxwell) and Maxon, so the Chief deduces that they must have been his double-crossed partners in the robbery. They proceed to Page's hotel to follow up with Ed, and Page's countercultural sensitivities come out--how she doesn't believe in violence or putting people in cages, and welcomes the suspects to whatever they want. The Chief takes the opportunity to call out her naivete regarding their motives and methods. A gossip columnist, Maggie Winstead (Peggy Stewart), drops by at Ironside's invitation, and he shares the information that he wants her to print about the affair, attempting to lure the robbers with the possibility of the key being in a coat that was being serviced at the time of the ransacking, which Ed had already checked. Winstead sees through the Chief's ploy, but plays along with the promise of getting the real story when the time comes. The suspects read the column and Maxon smells the trap, but comes to the assumption that Ironside must know where the key is. Vivian insists on leaving her cocoon of police protection, so Ed takes her on a sightseeing tour of rear-projected Frisco. Meanwhile, the Chief has deduced from reviewing the film that Riker only made a show of bumping into Page, but actually slipped the key into the breast pocket of her manager, Michael Webber (George Petrie). I'd just been thinking about how we weren't getting enough LOL-worthy gruff moments from Ironside these days when... Vivian: Ed says I should forgive you, that sometimes you're gruff but you don't really mean it. Ironside: Ed is sometimes inaccurate--I'm always gruff and I do mean it. The Chief has Vivian wear the coat with the key in it to a premiere that she's attending, and the baddies hijack her limo and take it from her at gunpoint, assuming that Ironside must not have found it in the coat. The Chief makes it clear afterward that this is all according to plan, but Vivian is pretty shook up about the experience and finds herself feeling very mixed up about Ed, because of the conflict between how she feels for him and what he does. Maxon makes his attempt at retrieving the money from the safety deposit box and is nabbed by police waiting for him, Ironside having tracked the box from the manufacturer's number on the key. Vivian has a last meeting with Ed in front of the rear-projected Golden Gate Bridge and reveals that she's going back to New York, presumably to return to stage acting (mentioned earlier in the episode), as her experience with Ed forced her to take a look at herself and admit that the star her manager was trying to shape her into wasn't really her. There's an interesting effect as the last scene closes...the picture gradually shrinks, as if a camera were zooming out from a movie screen. _______ Get Smart "Witness for the Execution" Originally aired February 6, 1970 When KAOS operative and mortician Vogel (Joseph Bernard) hires the Exterminator, a.k.a. Earl Kibbee, we learn that mentioning CONTROL makes him lose control--what a crazy hitman! Dietrich (Fabian Dean) is brought into Max's apartment through the window disguised as a firefighter, and underneath his coat is disguised as a woman for purposes of his cover...but Kibbee is already in the apartment, posing as a plumber. Kibbee tries to kill Dietrich with a gun hidden by a picture, a bow and arrow from the apartment across the street, and "the old bomb in a bon-bon box trick," but Max tosses the bomb out the window and it detonates near Kibbee. He survives, looking like a cartoon character who'd been in an explosion, to confront Max and Dietrich in the parking garage. Max manages to get the drop on him, but a falling piece of plaster hits Dietrich in the head, causing him to lose his memory...where all of his information was stored. _______ The Brady Bunch "The Big Sprain" Originally aired February 6, 1970 Alice also has to miss the Annual Meat Cutters' Ball, for which she bought a dress. The first morning, the boys don't even want to have breakfast because the girls are such a mess in the kitchen. (The possibility of the boys or Mike making food doesn't come up.) Mike won't eat anything either when he finds out that it's all been on the floor. That evening, Alice gets pretty concerned when she finds out that Greg has flooded the dog house with the sprinklers and Jan has caused her own flood with the washing machine. Mike makes a business call at Sam's shop and tells him the news. Sam later comes over with flowers, but Alice is upset to learn that he plans to go to the ball anyway because he's on the entertainment committee. She makes some calls to try to find out who he's taking in her place. When Carol calls, Mike makes an effort to hide the chaos from her. This motivates Marcia to approach Greg about organizing the kids to try harder. Their effort shows results and Mike is proud of them, but they feel that they're also responsible for messing up Alice's love life, so on the night of the ball, they unsuccessfully try to take her mind off of it...but then Sam shows up with a carnation, having skipped the ball despite his union status to spend the evening with her. By the time Carol returns, Alice is back on her feet, but trips over her own vacuum cord...fortunately only injuring her pride. Florence Henderson is nearly absent from the episode, appearing in only one scene on her end of the phone conversation. _______ Adam-12 "Log 54: Impersonation" Originally aired February 7, 1970 Reed and Malloy are eating at Duke's (though somebody else is manning the counter) when they're approached by Freddy Rivers (James McEachin), who runs a gym, about a police detective named Forest who bilked him out of $350. They quickly suspect an impersonator, but Reed doesn't understand why Lt. Moore and Sgt. MacDonald won't just approach the real Forest (John Hudson) to clear things up. They explain that if he is guilty, then he's a thief, not a police officer, and he'll be investigated at least as thoroughly as any other suspect. On patrol, the officers respond to a 415 involving a woman (Virginia Gregg in curlers and a house robe) bashing up her car with a baseball bat out on the backlot, so that her drunk husband can't use it. All they can do is ask her to take the car around back so she's not creating a nuisance and a traffic hazard. Afterward they're approached by a pawnbroker (John Harmon) whose shop is across the street, who tells them how Forest took a gun from his shop, ostensibly because it was stolen, and threatened him to keep silent about it. Next the officers see a woman about a 459 suspect, whom she saw climbing into the upstairs window of a neighboring house from a truck parked under it. They catch two men climbing out with valuables, but the burglars can't get away because Malloy has taken the keys from the ignition. After this, they get called to the gym because Rivers won't talk to the detective from Internal Affairs after the Forest incident. Then the officers respond to a 484 at a garage, and spot a car that's been reported as stolen. They talk to the man picking it up, who calls himself Two Bits (Morris Erby), and claims that he's taking care of the car for Forest. Two Bits was going to meet the detective at Duke's, so Reed and Malloy go there and pretend to just be on a code seven, but get under the impostor's guard and grab him before he can pull a gun. At the station, Rivers identifies the fake Forest (William Hudson), and the real Forest starts to investigate. (Seems like that might be a conflict of interest.) I think the gamble of rerecording from Me is paying off...they seem to be showing the commercials in the right spots, as well as the end credits. _______ How's the timeline wrong? This was during Brady Bunch's first season, if that's what you mean. But the Bradys were still new to American households, so people may not have gotten the joke. I'd seen Williams coming up on other shows in previous seasons, but found this guest appearance particularly noteworthy because he had his Brady gig at this point, so you'd think he would have been less available. A gun was fired in the climax, FWIW. For once the IMF's plan involved setting up a shooting but preventing it from happening.
Why even bother watching then? Because they are actually... Yeti in disguise! And they don't like humans infringing on their habitat. So they pose as rangers and lead them back to civilization. Turns out Yeti are nice. The guy's dead and they know where the money is-- can't they just get a warrant and a drill? "Computer, run program Ed Beta 2." And with a new respect for the Fuzz. He should have made a backup. 99 seems absent from this episode. Sounds like an 80s Grindhouse flick. If the girls can't do it..... Must have been having a girls night out with 99 and Peggy Lipton. I guess they can't see the Forest for the trees. Right, 50th not 55th-- my bad. They're getting soft.
55 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Come See About Me," The Supremes (14 weeks) "I Feel Fine," The Beatles (11 weeks) "I'll Be There," Gerry & The Pacemakers (10 weeks) New on the chart: "If I Loved You," Chad & Jeremy (#23 US; #6 AC) "Go Now!," The Moody Blues (#10 US; #1 UK) "Eight Days a Week," The Beatles (#1 US the weeks of Mar. 13 and 20, 1965) "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," The Beatles (B-side of "Eight Days a Week"; #39 US) "Stop! In the Name of Love," The Supremes (#1 US the weeks of Mar. 27 and Apr. 3, 1965; #2 R&B; #7 UK) And new on the boob tube: Branded, "The Rules of the Game" Gilligan's Island, "Big Man on Little Stick" _______ They didn't know where the money was until they traced it through the key. She was in it, just on the sidelines. She was the one actually watching the twins...at her mother's, I think...while Dietrich was holding dolls in front of the window. And do the Smarts have air conditioning in that apartment? It seems like they'd narrow down KAOS's opportunities for attacking them if they didn't have open, evidently screenless windows. M:I is still about a year and a half ahead of us in 55th Anniversaryland...and then it'll be early installment weirdness with Dan Briggs and the show trying to nail down its formula. BLAM! "But Jim, weren't we supposed to save the boy?" "Sometimes we have to make the hard calls, Willy."
I can generally take or leave the Moody Blues, but their cover of Bessie Banks’ Go Now, their first American hit, is one of my all time favorite songs. It has a multi layered melody that is never not good. The song’s lyrics are straightforward and emotional. The lead singer on this recording also toured with McCartney for years and they would do this song. Song live. I swear, the live version of the song by the Moody Blues lead singer with McCartney’s band sounds just as good as the one highlighted here. This song swings in a way Beatles songs did. Loved it. The Beatles’ burnishing their country roots. I always thought Holland Dozier Holland wrote better songs for the Four Tops than they did for the Supremes, but I liked Stop well enough. But what is interesting to me about the song, it does one of those little tricks that some pop songs do in order to get the song into your head. In the chorus after the word “Stop,” the music pauses ever so slightly to embellish the song’s hook. Having the music match the song’s lyrics is something other writers and arrangers have done. James Brown used to do it all the time in his usual unsubtle style — “in order too get down, I got to get in D.” Sure enough, the song drops down into the key of D for the bridge before returning to Fm.
If I liked this song, that would be a completely different opinion. Nice enough song from a future great band. Classic. I like this. It's got those charming Beatlesque lyrics that they make look so easy. Another classic. Ah, I see. And, speaking of screening, they should probably screen their plumbers.
50 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Early in the Morning," Vanity Fare (13 weeks) "Jam Up and Jelly Tight," Tommy Roe (14 weeks) "Leaving on a Jet Plane," Peter, Paul & Mary (17 weeks) "Winter World of Love," Engelbert Humperdinck (11 weeks) "Wonderful World, Beautiful People," Jimmy Cliff (11 weeks) New on the chart: "Gotta Hold On to This Feeling," Jr. Walker & The All-Stars (#21 US; #2 R&B) "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)," Edison Lighthouse (#5 US; #20 AC; #1 UK) And new on the boob tube: The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 22, episode 21, featuring Santani Demon Mission: Impossible, "Terror" Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 3, episode 22 That Girl, "The Night They Raided Daddy's" Ironside, "Ransom" Get Smart, "And Only Two Ninety-Nine" The Brady Bunch, "The Hero" Hogan's Heroes, "Standing Room Only" _______ It is a bit of a snoozer. It's a good, classic bit of business. Denny Laine has the distinction of being the only member besides Paul and Linda to be in every incarnation of Wings. Band on the Run was just the three of them. "Eight Days" and its B-side are from the British album Beatles for Sale, appearing for the first time in the US in single form before being put on the American album Beatles VI, which is coming mid-year. "Eight Days" wasn't released as a single in Britain, so I don't think the Beatles would have intended it as one when recording, but it has that distinctive trait of their singles in this era--having a gimmicky, attention-grabbing intro...in this case, opening with a fade-in, which was unique at the time. Also, that video is giving us a preview of a major milestone in Fab history that will be coming our way later in the year. That's a good way of putting it. This John song fits well alongside "No Reply" and Dylan-inspired "I'm a Loser" on BFS. The Beatles weren't the only ones who had a way with a gimmicky hook! Definitely one of their signature hits, and given their singles output, that's saying something. I think you can thank the mostly absent 99 for that one.
Yeah, I still couldn't tell you how it goes at this point, but we'll see. A cute oldies radio staple...has a nice hippie-era vibe to it. I'm a bit behind in my viewing, so the review posts for this week's shows will probably be coming a bit into the coming week.
Oh wait, I've got this... 55th Anniversary Fly-on-the-Wall Listening While Capitol in the States is still in the process of doling out material from Beatles for Sale, across the pond on February 16-20, the Fabs have begun the sessions that will produce the album Help!...which include a couple of songs here that won't be officially released in any form until Anthology 2.
Should have been simple enough. Helium is non-flammable, while hydrogen burns like a sonofabitch. Backus also played Hubert Updike III -- basically an earlier version of Thurston Howell -- on Alan Young's radio show in the 1940s.
Well if we're going back to Backus's pre-GI work, he was also James Dean's dad in Rebel Without a Cause! That's a movie they showed us in high school in my day.
Are you referring to the last two, the Ringo and Paul songs? Yes It Is. I’d forgotten how pretty this song is. As for this recording, I was prepared to hear John’s solo vocal through the whole song. Having the harmony kick in like that surprised me. Is there a story behind this? Was this take supposed to unfold this way? Hide Your Love Away. What I like about this recording is that I seem to be able to hear George and John’s guitars better. I can make out every chord change. If You’ve Got Trouble. Never heard this song before. I usually really like Ringo songs but this one is pretty forgettable. That Means A Lot. I’v never heard a McCartney song that I thought was all bad and this one is no exception. There are small parts I like and a lot that is bland. I can see why it ended up on the anthology. Another one I’v never heard before.
Yep. As I recall from the Anthology 2 liner notes, the original outtake broke down shortly after the part that we hear--I think John broke a string--so Anthology did what '90s online Beatles forum pundits termed an "outfake" and transitioned into the finished version of the song, rather than let us hear the full outtake, warts and all. This is one of the songs often cited for demonstrating Dylan's influence on John's songwriting...but that's getting a bit ahead of things, as I'm about to post a review for an album that includes an earlier song that does so. I think it was a decent effort that might have been made to work, and like the idea of giving Ringo an original song rather than another cover. IIRC, Mark Lewisohn speculated in the A2 liner notes that the song was probably abandoned because the arrangment was more than a little similar to that of "Ticket to Ride," which was already in the can at this point. I think this is an example of how stuff that the Beatles saw fit to toss in the vault could be better than many an artist's hit singles. And if you haven't gotten the Beatles' Anthology albums...Jesus, go out and get the Beatles' Anthology albums already!
55th Anniversary Album Spotlight Beatles '65 The Beatles Released December 15, 1964 Chart debut: January 2, 1965 Chart peak: #1, January 9 through March 6, 1965 For clarity, the track listing of the British album Beatles for Sale, which is the standard place to find most of this material in the digital age: Side one of Beatles '65 follows the familiar-to-me running order of the first side of Beatles for Sale, sans its last track on the British version. Both albums open strongly with John's "No Reply": Following this is an even stronger and more memorable John contribution, "I'm a Loser"...the first display of Dylan's influence in Lennon's songwriting: On a trivial note... On an even more trivial note... Next is a shared John/Paul contribution, "Baby's in Black," notable for its waltz timing. Beatles for Sale was the last UK album to feature nearly as many covers as original songs. The cover ratio on Beatles '65 is a little lower. In both case, Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" is the first of those, featuring yet another lead vocal by John: It was only in listening to Beatles '65, with one of his contributions left out, that I realized what a Paul-light album side this was. The first full-on Paul contribution on both albums, and the only one on side one of '65, is "I'll Follow the Sun": It's a nice-sounding number and could have been somebody else's hit single, but this one never really popped for me, what with there being so many stronger soft Paul numbers in the years ahead. To his credit though, Paul reportedly wrote this very early on...by his own account, when he was about 16. Side one of '65 closes with another cover featuring another lead vocal by John, "Mr. Moonlight" (written by Roy Lee Johnson and originally recorded by blues artist Piano Red). Add me to the chorus for that assessment. Side two of '65 differs more significantly from its counterpart on Beatles for Sale. The opening track of the American album is the third on the British one; and the first of two Carl Perkins covers as well as Ringo's lead vocal contribution on both albums..."Honey Don't". The American album next gives us that last holdout from the UK version of the A Hard Day's Night LP, the distinctive-sounding, John-led "I'll Be Back": It sounds weird to hear it here in the middle of an album side when it seems much better suited as the closing track of its original British home. Next for the American album buyer of the day is the only Paul track on side two of '65, "She's a Woman," originally released on both sides of the pond as the B-side of the following track on the album, the chart-topping "I Feel Fine". The American and British albums both close with the second Carl Perkins cover and the only George-led contribution, "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".
"If You've Got Trouble" is kind of funny. Interesting. I wonder if making him Thurston Howell the third was a nod to that. A classic cry of despair. These days it would be "looser."
"Ah, rock on, anybody!" For more in that vein, look out later this year for an obscure little number called "Help!"
We know Don Adams missed one terrible episode of Get Smart due to "illness," and Robert Reed's hissy fit with Schwartz (one of many) led to him not being in The Brady Bunch's series finale, but I cannot recall any of The Mod Squad's male cast members ever being completely absent from an episode. How dare you! One of the essential recordings of the "British Invasion" output, and certainly placed the Moodies on the map. You mean Denny Laine. Yes, he sort of wandered after leaving the first version of the Moody Blues, and as far as I'm aware, never had much to say after the group's new configuration and sound made them one of the biggest/innovative UK groups. Once he joined Wings, he was not necessarily distinguishing himself (typical of others who have worked with McCartney) but when he performed "Go Now" as part of the Wings tours, he left the audience with one of the most memorable songs from the set.