Yeah. it was a critique of pop music disguised by a catchy hook and nice beat. Still I sing along with it at least once a day. It's a go to shower song. I think I first heard it on a variety show performed by Sammy Davis, Jr.
I think there's some genuine complimenting going on in the song, though...they do seem to appreciate the artists in question to a point, even while looking down their noses at them.
Too young to remember this, however, I've watched several of the 'Best of' DVDs thanks to my local library. There are some good performances there. The one I would really like to see get a DVD release is 'Don Kirshner's Rock Concert'. Their website says, 'DVD coming soon'. But that was last updated in 2012. I wonder if it's a rights issue.
Back to 1972 and, according to the translation, Beat Club was given exclusive access to The Rolling Stones rehearsing for their upcoming 'Exile On Main Street' tour. Of the eight clips posted, only three are complete band performances; the rest are jams. The Rolling Stones - Shake Your Hips | Montreux (1972) - YouTube The Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice | Montreux (1972) - YouTube The Rolling Stones - Loving Cup | Montreux - 2nd version (1972) - YouTube (This one is interesting. You can hear piano, horns and backing vocals, but no one is visible. Maybe just off camera?)
All they had to go by was an off-screen gunshot. Oufkir may have had a point. Too late for me, but it was always pretty good whenever I saw it. Those are three great clips. Not a favorite, but it has a nice nostalgic sound now. Timeless Elvis. That's remarkable. I never heard about any of this before. Oddly, the later Disco version is very good. One of the Top Secret documents that The Donald absconded with was a list of secret agents. I always figured it was good-natured ribbing, but that was just an assumption on my part.
_______ 55th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing! Of Course, What Else Could It Be but 55th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing? (99, What Is 55th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing?) _______ Get Smart "The Only Way to Die" Originally aired October 8, 1966 KAOS agents Stromberg (Harry Basch) and Christopher (Alex Hassilev) meet in an outdoor restaurant to discuss how the Blaster will be coming into the country to blow up the Internal Revenue building. When they find that Max is bugging them, they confront him at gunpoint, and during an ensuing firefight he falls to the street, a bystander declaring that he's dead. We return from the credits to Max's really fake gravesite, with Fang lying on his grave. A distraught 99 is assigned to mind a visiting playboy named Antonio Carlos Carioca; after she leaves, Max shows up, disguised as a mourning old woman, to complain to the Chief about the funeral/burial arrangements. At a later meeting in Max's abandoned building hideout, the Chief reveals that the Blaster has successfully destroyed five national monuments in the preceding years, which the public doesn't know about because of a valiant workforce who reconstructed the exteriors overnight. A stir-crazy Max is watched by Agent 13, who's concealed in a mailbox outside (David Ketchum in his first of, yes, 13 appearances in the role); and, while keeping up with 99 being photographed at nightspots with Carioca (Edmund Hashim), begins to suspect how the playboy has previously been in the country at the same time as the Blaster, though Carioca has always had the alibi of having been with 99 at the time. Watching a TV broadcast about Carioca departing in his yacht, Max realizes that its name lines up with a clue CONTROL had about the Blaster, and he's unable to get ahold of the Chief, getting an operative on the phone who thinks he's dead (and Agent 13 having been arrested by a cop). Max gets aboard the boat in his old lady disguise, causing 99--who's been crying over everything Carioca says that coincidentally reminds her of Max--to faint. Carioca reveals that he's been triggering his explosives remotely from the yacht using a high-frequency sound. A fight ensues that was interrupted by a Frndly commercial, but in the coda, the Blaster has been defeated, only for Max, in a demonstration, to accidentally set off the bomb himself. _______ Get Smart "Maxwell Smart, Alias Jimmy Ballantine" Originally aired October 15, 1966 Max and 99 are staking out a barbershop with a number of government officials as customers that Mr. K, chief financial wizard of KAOS, has been seen at when they're shot at by an armored car making a pickup. The Chief subsequently arranges for Max's infiltration as Ballantine, which includes going to the prison where he's interred to take a crash course from the actual safecracker (Tim Herbert). Ballantine's assessment of his pupil isn't promising, however: "If all safecrackers were like him, banks would keep their money in cardboard boxes." By the time Max makes the scene in his bandage mask, 99 and 13 have infiltrated the barbershop as described. At the shop, barber Dobring (Howard Morton) and his assistant Popov (Vic Tayback) are capturing intel blabbed by their clients on extra-large cassette tapes in the chairs. They take Max on the vault job that they brought him in for, then try to off him as 13 has warned, but Max's bulletproof bandages foil their attempt and the Chief and 99 make the scene. It turns out that the money CONTROL was risking was fake, having pictures of President Goldwater on the bills...whom, Max asserts, missed winning the election "by that much". In the coda, Max suggests that they slip KAOS some funds to keep themselves in work; and, when he learns that the vault wasn't locked, attempts to prove that he could have opened it himself by locking the Chief inside. There's a cute sight gag in which the prison warden (Steve Pendleton) keeps tracks of how long he's been on the job via scratches on the wall behind his calendar. _______ I think they're all using studio audio, though...it's particularly obvious with Argent. I was surprised to learn that The Price Is Right was brand-spanking-new when I was watching it as a preschooler. Judging by its chart peak, I guess we've come a long way by this point in what they'll play on Top 40 radio. This is my favorite later-era Elvis song. That was the version that I was originally familiar with, though my memory of it was vague by the time I got around to adding that and the Floyd version to my collection. I've never heard him described as having orange hair before...it's his skin that's orange.
Calm down, guys, Max bugs everybody. We're seeing a surprising amount of Fang. So what happened to him in the shootout? There was an episode where he appeared to be killed, but he just got shot in the butt, but this isn't that one. How do they define national monuments? Or is the IRS a change in MO? That we know of. He was pretty good. So 99 has been assigned to watch over the playboy on all his previous annual visits? Why does he need a CONTROL bodyguard? Why does he come only once a year and risk being connected to the Blaster? So many questions. You'd think she'd get a few days bereavement leave. After all that, Max blew up the IRS? I hope nobody was inside. Mel. So presumably, in addition to foiling the KAOS agents, Max and 99 will be taking all the blabbers in for violating national security. Always listen to 13. They shot him in the face? Yowch! Too early for Nixon three-dollar bills. I was thinking that, although John Denver's ad libs seem consistent with his vocals. I thought it was both. "Trump's orange hair" brings up a bunch of hits on Google.
Today I'd thought I would post a tribute to the 'Man in Black', Johnny Cash with three of his classics
_______ Missed 55th Anniversary Viewing by That Much! _______ Get Smart "Casablanca" Originally aired October 22, 1966 Decades just skipped this one, so I guess we catch up a little faster... _______ Get Smart "The Decoy" Originally aired October 29, 1966 The Chief briefs a group of CONTROL agents (including Agent 58, an uncredited future Worst Leiter Ever, Norman Burton) regarding how their universal code has been broken and Agent X--a European agent unfamiliar to KAOS--will deliver the new code to Greenland while a more familiar CONTROL agent acts a decoy. Max enters the room and beats up Agent X, under the impression that he's a KAOS assassin. The Chief chooses Max for the assignment because the other agents are family men. Carlson familiarizes Max with some of the torture devices that KAOS might use on him (said to have been obtained from the IRS). The Chief allows his office to be bugged by KAOS between scenes so that he and Max can have a conversation identifying 86 as the courier. Max both overdelivers his lines into the mic and tries to butter up the KAOS listeners by saying nice things about them. 99 visits Max's apartment to offer a personal farewell. At the newsstand where Max is supposed to be captured, Agent 13 is hiding in a garbage can. The newsstand vendor turns out to be the KAOS agent, who captures 86 with "the old gas bomb in the horoscope trick". Max is taken to a lair manned by operatives Kimmel (Gil Green), Seidlitz (John McLiam), and Luden (Len Lesser), whose first method takes an unexpected form--the seductive Greta (Sheila Leighton). Max doesn't crack, so they give him a truth serum. When Max simply recites his multiplication tables (unable to get past 2 x 7) and a nursery rhyme, they assume that he must be brilliantly talking in code. CONTROL eventually comes to Max's rescue, to find that him overcoming Luden in a fistfight, having already taken out his other captors offscreen. (I suspect that some sort of transition between the serum and the fight may have been cut.) In the coda, 99 is seeing Max off on a vacation, and he can't come up with the number of days in two weeks. _______ [Cue laugh track.] Apparently he faked going down, aided by at least one planted bystander. The example they gave of a previous target was the National Archives. Yes, you got me, and you're thinking too hard about it. She wanted time off, but was requested by Carioca. I didn't catch if it was supposed to be night at that point, but it was established that previous targets had been struck at night. And Jojo Krako. You'd think... Yeah, going back and watching is, he definitely sounds more there than Argent.
I like that self-bleep in "A Boy Named Sue." Too bad. Sounds like a good one. Well, that opens up a can of worms. Ah, that's why Max blew up their headquarters. Like Sherlock Holmes, he only remembers the things he needs to fight crime. I guess she'll have to go with him. My Mother used to carry around her own laugh track, until the battery died. Ah, I didn't realize it was a plan. The capsule description made it sound real. Of course, they also seem to have gotten the names of the KAOS agents wrong. My specialty. Interesting, since he... no, I'll stop thinking now. Yeah, that was nice.
_______ Really Wild Post-55th Anniversary Viewing--and Loving It! _______ The Ed Sullivan Show Season 19, episode 8 Originally aired October 30, 1966 Performances listed on Metacritic: James Brown - medley of hits: "I Got You (I Feel Good)," "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," "Prisoner of Love," "Please, Please, Please" & "Night Train" Nancy Sinatra - "Strangers in the Night" & Sugar Town" Mrs. Miller - medley: "Downtown," "How Gentle is the Rain," "Second Hand Rose" and "Bill Bailey" Judith Anderson & Donald Davis (actors) - perform a scene from Maxwell Anderson's play "Elizabeth the Queen" Stan Freberg (satirist) comedy routine: A "Father Of The Year" award is presented to the father of the H-Bomb; Stan then sings a folk song about men & women having same hair lengths Rich Little - does impressions of Walter Brennan, Jack Benny, John Wayne, Art Carney, Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas, others Arthur Haynes (comedian) - Barbershop sketch (barber is rude to a customer who only wants a shave) U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Team - do precision tricks with rifles Audience bows: Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Bob Whiteman (head of MGM) _______ "The Night of the Bottomless Pit" Originally aired November 4, 1966 At a lineup to board a boat to Devil's Island, Jim pulls a shackled prisoner (Chuck O'Brien) under the dock to be minded by Artie and lets himself be pulled up to take his place. He's assuming the identity of journalist Henri Couteau, who was sentenced for writing an expose on the infamous prison, and is brought by iron-legged henchman Cochon (Fred Carson) to the concealed office of the commandant, Gustave Mauvais (Theo Marcuse), who has a violent aversion to physical contact. Jim also catches the attention of Mauvais's wife Camille (Joan Huntington). Jim befriends an inmate (Seymour Green) by helping him maintain his place in a drinking line, and questions him about the whereabouts of a prisoner named Reed. Mauvais pops onto the scene and threatens to have the inmate run over by a man-powered bulldozer, which causes Jim to spring into action, laying hands on the commandant to make him give the order to stop it. This earns Jim an offscreen lashing and confinement in a pit, where he finds the man he was looking for, Vincent Reed (Tom Drake). A code-song exchange serves as an introduction, and Jim learns that Reed is about 18 hours away from his date with the guillotine. Jim also makes the acquaintance of another pitmate, Le Fou (Steve Franken), who's been crazed into acting like a monkey. Artie makes the scene as an ex-legionnaire applying for a job. This involves being locked up with the other two applicants to see who emerges...Artie gaining the upper hand with a gas bomb, then making a ruckus by himself to make Mauvais and Cochon think he's having to put up a fight. Once on the job, he pays a visit to the pit to mock-taunt the inmates while dropping Jim a key hidden in a hard-boiled egg. Jim climbs up the rough rock wall to use it on the bars at the top, only to be caught...but brought to the other Mauvais, in her secret boudoir. He rebuffs her attempts to offer help in both of them escaping...then her husband enters the scene with his guards. Jim is staked out (fully clothed) in the path of fire ants, next to the skeleton of a previous victim. Artie makes contact with Hollinger ancestress Mrs. Grimes (Mabel Albertson) at her boutique, and it turns out she's a contact with an escape plan involving a prepared boat. Artie frees Jim in time, then escorts him through the front gate so they can free Reed. In this effort they're caught by Mauvais...again. It turns out that Le Fou is a very sane informant who's fingered Jim and Artie. Mauvais takes a seat for an exhibition match of West vs. Cochon in which Jim unexpectedly gains the upper hand, giving Artie and Reed the chance to overpower their guards and employ confiscated weaponry and concealed gadgetry to make a break. Madame Mauvais smuggles them out via her boudoir in exchange for accompanying them to the very familiar-looking lagoon where the boat waits...as does Commandant Mauvais (again!), who's intends to pick them off with a pistol, but steps into quicksand...a fate that Cochon abandons him to, walking for the boat, getting a back full of parting bullets, and becoming food for some sharks. (The underwater footage of them looks like it's from Thunderball...you can see the manmade wall of Largo's swimming pool tunnel behind them.) In the coda, Camille visits the train to introduce Jim and Artie to her new fiancé, Hubert (Theo Marcuse sporting a wig and facial hair). _______ Get Smart "Hoo Done It" Originally aired November 5, 1966 Max and 99 are posing as vacationers on the Pacific island of Towama...for a few seconds there I thought maybe actually had taken her on vacation after the last episode. They have to use a machete to hack their way to the hotel, where their contact with intel about KAOS, Colonel Forsythe, is killed by an exploding birthday cake while about to blow out the candles. Hoo arrives at the hotel and takes an interest in the murder, including Max, 99, and himself in the list of suspects. The other suspects include Ben Gazzman (Bob Michaels), who was told he had two years to live...in 1944; Von Werner (Tol Avery), a Nazi clockmaker; a contessa (Maureen Arthur); and a man named Shurok (Raoul Franck) who readily volunteers that he's a spy. 99 leaves the island on an inflatable raft during a storm in a desperate attempt to contact the mainland. Hoo is ready to accuse Gazzman of being the killer only to find him dead from a black widow bite. Hoo decides to use Max as bait for the killer, making the others think that he knows who the killer is, but that backfires when they put Max in the wrong room. Hoo then decides to keep everyone together to prevent the killer from striking, but Van Werner is killed by poisoned tea. An awkward edit that cuts off Max in mid-sentence takes us to Hoo accusing Max in private and to two shooting each other with blanks to out the real killer--hotel owner Milton Conrad (Antony Eustrel), who appeared to be leaving the island when Max and 99 arrived and set it all up for the others to kill each other. He gets the drop on Max and Hoo with his own gun, but is taken out by a returning 99. In the coda, Max, 99, and Hoo have to hack their way through the inside of the hotel to find the front door. _______ Cass returning the nod to Mary Travers for imitating her in 1967...? You have to wonder why he bothered for German television... Are you suggesting that this was Max's motivation for marrying 99 and having kids? For real? Perry Stromberg and Christopher Carter...? You do have to wonder why the summary writer bothered naming them in the first place.
That second clip is great. Come on, boots, start walking. He seems to want to be Tom Lehrer, but he's not doing it very well. Ah, Rich Little. He was great. You don't see celebrity impressionists anymore. Right off the bat, I have so many questions. "I came on the sloop John B...." The earliest recorded case of Monkey Pox. I'm glad he didn't have to resort to force again. Because why? This time the villain is a jealous husband. Good death trap. Oh, Artie. See? Useful ally. I think we may have another cloning situation on our hands. This was a good one. Lots of eccentric characters and traps and stuff. He just shows up randomly at what is apparently a run-down hotel? So was he really young in 1944 or has he not aged since he was told he was going to die? His clocks all have four bent hands. For who? That seems a little extreme and unnecessary. The Frndly Channel doesn't seem very frndly to reruns. Maybe the lack of vowels in their name should have been a clue. So I guess that original intel is a lost cause. Force of habit. No, but that's a good thought. I just meant the idea of a high-stakes spy agency choosing assignments based on who has a family. Why do guys like that even have a job like that? It was a little plastic novelty with two buttons: One for audience laughter and one for audience boos. Guess who got the boos. I'm really curious about who writes the summaries. Is it their actual job to watch the show and summarize it? Talk about being driven over the edge of insanity.
I have a couple of his songs on my Dr. Demento collections and, while I like his 'St George and the Dragonet' parody is spot on, his take on Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel' seems particularly mean-spirited; unlike PP&M's more gentle ribbing in 'I Dig Rock n Roll Music'.
_______ 55th Anniversary Viewing That Died at Bitter Creek _______ Branded "Call to Glory: Part 3" Originally aired March 13, 1966 I just discovered that it's back on INSP (a God-fearing channel that plays Westerns), and they just happened to be exactly where I left off! Now where the flying fuck was that...!?! Part 1 Part 2 While Custer (Robert Lansing) and his men ride out of Fort Lincoln, Jason convinces Chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate) to take him to speak with Sitting Bull (Felix Locher). Crazy Horse vouches for McCord's character, which includes noting how Jason helped his nephew (not son as I'd previously described him; probably played by Gary New, who's billed on IMDb as Young Hawk, though Part 2's recap referred to him as Gray Eagle). Jason tells Sitting Bull of how the Indian agent, Timothy Galvin, was killed in a way made to look like the Indians did it. Custer's forces are spotted nearby and Jason is sent out to talk with them, but is intercepted at rifle point by the scout whom Jason pummeled and replaced, Charlie Yates (Lee Van Cleef). Jason gets Yates to admit that he's working for Hazin and killed Galvin; then Yates knocks Jason out with his rifle and drags him to a bear trap that he intends to put McCord into...but Gray Eagle picks a good time to make good on his debt to Jason, putting an arrow in Yates's back from a hillside. Jason goes to Custer with what he knows, including how Hazin is out for the gold in the Indian-occupied Black Hills. Custer believes him, and Jason wants his old friend to prove himself to Sitting Bull. Cut to Jason being brought in to see Hazin (David Brian) and MacAllister (H.M. Wynant), where McCord claims that he's had an eye on the gold, too, and makes a pitch that Hazin will need his geological knowledge of the area to grab the right land. While Custer and Lieutenant Briggs (Richard Tatro) eavesdrop from outside, Jason maneuvers Hazin into admitting his ambitions and his responsibility for Galvin's murder. Custer and Briggs jump the men standing guard outside, Jason takes on everyone in the ranch house, and the brawl rolls outside, which includes Hazin trying to make a break for it only to tackled off his horse and thoroughly pummeled by the general. Back at Fort Lincoln, Jason says goodbye to Briggs, who's taken a liking to him in the aftermath of the fight, and Jennie Galvin (Kathie Browne), suggesting that the two have a future together. Custer races Jason out of the fort... ...and when they've stopped, tries to convince Jason to clear himself and come back to the Army. Jason stands his ground, and Custer gives him a pocket watch to remind him. Custer ends on a foreshadowing note that conflict with the Indians will be coming sooner or later, and just to whack us over the head one too many times, reveals that the valley they're in is called Little Big Horn. _______ Indeed, it reminds me of Brown's other nickname, "the hardest-working man in show business". He probably came up with that one himself, but he delivers on it. At first I was thinking that Camille's motivations were more carnal, but it turned out that she really wanted someone to help her escape. In hindsight, I think that Mrs. Grimes's escape plan was for Camille, as she was established to be a confidante. When I was watching, I was under the mistaken impression that Grimes was another Secret Service inside person. He had a mission, for one thing, but I think he was also being cautious. All we saw of the ants were a few in a bottle. I thought it had a few too many beats of Mauvais popping up to catch the heroes. Yep. It is said to be near Hawaii. Actually, he had a cuckoo clock with a little Fuhrer that popped out and sounded the hour by repeating "sieg heil". He didn't say. I wasn't under the impression that they were responsible this time; there wasn't a break involved, and this is Decades via Frndly. I didn't catch what it was supposed to be about; but exposing the hotel owner as KAOS was something. Well, now I know where you get you from!
I remember the "St George" one, but I don't think I ever heard the other. My Mother watches that channel for the Westerns, but even she, an elderly Irish Catholic Church Lady, is freaked out by their commercials. Weird. I wonder if he's listed in the end credits on the show, assuming INSP shows them. They have bears at Little Big Horn? "Thanks, Whatever-Your-Name-Is." Well, that was certainly an interesting and well-rounded characterization of Custer. Nice scenario, though, staked out next to the previous guy. Yeah, he was quite a busybody. Reminds me of Springtime for Hitler. Which probably makes him the best spy on the island. You should be around for our Saturday-morning retro TV viewings-- which I am headed off to in about two hours.
_______ Really Wild Post-55th Anniversary Viewing--and Loving It! _______ The Ed Sullivan Show Season 19, episode 9 Originally aired November 6, 1966 Performances listed on Metacritic: Lou Rawls - "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" & "In the Evening" Nancy Ames - "Be Ready" & "Time After Time" The Kim Sisters - "Sound of Music" medley The U.S. Air Force Academy Chorale Corbett Monica (comedian) Arthur Haynes (British comedian) Topo Gigio (Italian mouse puppet) - boxing skit The Rudas Dancers The Pollack Brothers' Circus Elephants The Sullivan account also has this: _______ "The Night of the Watery Death" Originally aired November 11, 1966 In foggy San Francisco, Jim enters the Mermaid Tavern for a requested meeting with the Marquis Philippe de La Mer, who speaks to him through a hanging ornamental fish and has him knocked out by a dart blown by the lady dressed as a mermaid on a stage behind the bar (Jocelyn Lane). Jim wakes up to find himself on the deck of a steamer named the Lady Luck with the woman, who brings his attention to a small, flame-emitting, dragon-like object approaching the ship, then goes overboard before the ship blows. Having been found adrift, Jim thinks that this may be threat to Admiral Farragut, who's due to arrive on the battleship Virginia, though Lt. Keighley (John Ashley) is skeptical. A compact that the woman left with Jim has jewels on it that can be traced into the pattern of a serpent, so he and Artie go investigating establishments that it may have come from. Jim shows it to Captain Pratt (Forrest Lewis), the proprietor of a pawn shop, who's eager to buy it for a collector who can be found at the Mermaid Tavern. (Why didn't Jim just go back there in the first place?) The people there are different, including a man dressed as King Neptune on the stage where the mermaid was, who hurls his trident to kick off a tussle with the sailors present. Jim returns to Pratt's shop to find it closed and snoop around, finds a hanging body, then falls into a pit where he's beset by several sailors and knocked out by a uniformed man (John Van Dreelen). Jim wakes up tied to a bed and being tended to by the woman, Dominique, who introduces the uniformed man as the Marquis. Jim reasons that the Marquis is interested in the compact and put him on the Lady Luck to be a witness to the dragon. The Marquis assumes that Artie must have the compact, and announces how he intends to found a water-based country named La Mer. The Marquis leaves Jim after activating a force field in front of the room's door (which emits a sound from Trek that I'm not placing). Jim gets to work on his ropes with his sleeve-sprung knife, which he throws through the field to hit its control panel. He then fights his way out of the house through sailors--including a couple who are disintegrated on the reactivated force field--only to be caught at the front door by the Marquis, who takes him down to a cellar to show him the dragon and demonstrate how it works, which includes being steerable. The Marquis boasts of how he intends to control shipping between countries from Le Mer, and Artie, who's been rounded up by the Marquis's men despite an attempt to elude them with a disguise, is brought in. The agents are trussed up, and once alone free themselves with the help of Jim's boot dagger. Artie gets out to stop Dominique, who's gone to the Virginia bearing the compact, which the agents have deduced carries a homing device for the dragon, and false instructions from Jim to take the ship closer to the Marquis's base. Jim is caught again by the Marquis, and prevented from leaving by another force field. He's taken back below but breaks free when the Marquis launches the torpedo, and swims after it. Meanwhile, Artie has arrived at the Virginia just as Lt. Keighley has started to wise up to Dominique, but she holds them off with a gun and escapes after she sees the dragon approaching. Artie smashes the compact, while Jim catches up with the torpedo and plants a magnetic, explosive coin on it, causing it to blow before it reaches the ship. In the train coda, Artie's nursing a cold after having swam after and captured Dominique offscreen, but is also preparing a speech about submarines of the future and the airships that will drop bombs on them. I found that this one was very obviously padded by too many repetitive plot beats. _______ Get Smart "Rub-a-Dub-Dub...Three Spies in a Sub" Originally aired November 12, 1966 Max and 99 sneak onto the island on a raft bearing explosives, but have trouble opening the envelope with their instructions and are found by a guard and shot. It turns out to only be a training exercise, supervised by the Chief. In his office, the Chief describes how KAOS submarines working from the island and directed by the computer have been committing piracy. A briefing by Admiral Nelson of submarine command (Jack Rigney) and Admiral Jones of destroyer command (Russ Grieve) turns into a game between the two at their planning table. Max and 99 are transported on a sub skippered by William Boyett, and once they arrive on the island via raft are quickly captured. They get away when Max pulls the pin on one of their grenades, blowing them up offscreen; then set up their weapon, locate the computer center, and destroy it. But when they return to the sub, they find that it's been taken over by Siegfried. Back at HQ, the Chief makes the call to have the sub destroyed, and six destroyers arrive and start dropping depth charges. Max tries to turn Siegfried's guards against him, and they prove to be pretty fickle, but after some back-and-forth they stick with Siegfried. After a Frndly commercial interrupts the climactic scene, we return to Skipper MacDonald taking Siegfried into custody; and learn that Max persuaded him to surrender by threatening to hit a torpedo with a hammer. When Max and 99 return to HQ, the Chief tries unsuccessfully to cover up that he's already had Smart replaced, and delivers the news that Siegfried has escaped and sent Max a telegram threatening revenge. _______ I'll have to watch them next time! INSP doesn't, but as I recall, the show's end credits list the actors without naming their characters. I got the impression that he was a poser.
Yeah, you're right, that sounds like an embarrassing drunk. Well, there we have it. I never thought of grizzlies as a prairie type of animal. I wonder if they burrow like prairie dogs. Nice. That was good. I'm not sure if I've seen them before. I wonder if Ed called them over to shake trunks. No generic music. Off to a good start. And getting better. I remember this episode, though not in detail. His last visit was so traumatic that he had to grapple with a newfound fear of mermaids. So the random pawn shop has a trap door and a pit. This means that either every building in the Old West has a trap door and a pit, or the Marquis's minions worked overtime before Jim got back. It seems like this could be accomplished without blowing things up and killing people, like the Principality of Sealand did. That's another example of of weirdly advanced technology, even for a Steampunk world-- maybe the sound effects are a hint of a Star Trek connection. Someday he's going to bump into a wall or something and get stabbed from nine different directions. Dude, just open up trade. Here's another guy who keeps popping up. That's totally nuts, but cool. Which means there was no excuse to not show Artie catching Dominique. "Gallivanting around the island is a game for the young, Max." Coincidence or homage? Wow, Siegfried must be a high priority target. A silver hammer, by any chance? Apparently it's a bunch of god, guts, and guns kind of stuff. Ah, he wanted to be one of the cool kids.