Thought I'd dig up Gallagher's quote from the episode for comparison. It was already out of my deletion bin, so I scrounged it up on YouTube (17:35+), and included a little more Jem'Hardar-ish business.... I was also thinking that this bit of business sort of goes with Gallagher as we first met him. He was overly cautious because he wanted to survive his tour of duty, but when Savage pushed him into command of a misfit crew, his method of survival became turning them into the best crew in the 918th. He was, in effect, assuming and preparing for the worst.
I like Tiny Tim, which is why I was happy to see him participate in that one episode a few weeks ago. I checked out his Wiki page, too; he had quite a long career. True enough. Oh, yeah. Indeed, which would have been quite a history changer-- two dead presidents in a row, followed by President Humphrey (unless LBJ switched partners for his third term). Yeah, it's the song. It's cute and okay, but I wouldn't call it a classic. Interesting. It just makes my mind wander. And nightclubs. And since they were promotional, they were free-- at least at the beginning-- so MTV had minimal startup costs. It was really a quite brilliant idea. It's kind of sad to see what it's become. This sounds like a pretty rough episode. Aarrrgh! And still one of my favorites (I love the song, too, being a big fan of OTR).
...yeah, but you cite one of the last episodes as going in the wrong direction, when that lethal set of problems were creeping into late season two (on occasion) and took off like a rocket at the beginning of season three. Even Dozier knew the handwriting (of cancellation) was on the wall when season three made its debut, and Batgirl did nothing to lift the series back to its 1st season ratings glory. ..and even as part of trio, how effective are slow pirouettes / variety-show high kicks and finding conveniently placed wooden crates? If Batgirl was around earlier, would her "skills" work during the submarine fight in the movie? The wild, final fight from the pilot? The final fight against Tut's henchmen in "Batman's Waterloo" or against the Green Hornet & Kato? The character operated mainly on hunches, or and was never presented as being the detective Batman and Robin were. Being a librarian only goes so far, and I'm not writing for the series in suggesting (as at least one person in social media did) that being Gordon's daughter meant she had the same kind of investigative/police training or insight. Compare TV Batgirl as an investigator to female TV characters who already (at the time) made their significant marks such as Honey West, or The Avengers' Cathy Gale & Emma Peel. In addition to their ability to fight, they were also presented as being well trained in their fields, which included investigation, general espionage and other training which made them big standouts in the portrayal of women in those pre-Batgirl years. Next to them--or the stars of her own series--Batgirl did not come off as particularly efficient, and certainly was not breaking new ground as a female crime fighting character. Dozier and Howie Horwitz both held very sexist views of women, and consciously ignored the advanced female characters that were changing old ideas of women not getting "mixed up" in heavy action, and truly showing that they were as trained as male counterparts. Those types of videos were around long before that, and if you watch American Bandstand, Top of the Pops and other series in the previous decade, there were endless narrative-based (non-performance) musical promotional videos of everyone from Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Rascals, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and other acts besides the obvious groups like The Monkees and The Beatles.
_______ 51st Anniversary Viewing _______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 51 years ago last week: _______ The Rat Patrol "The Last Chance Raid" Originally aired January 23, 1967 Guesting Lyn Peters as a fraulein at the radio station...billed as "1st Monitor." We get what looks like some effective mixed use of the stage set here, for close-ups in the middle of otherwise-outdoor scenes. Overall, the idea of going in and taking command of the annoying propaganda radio station was a cute, entertaining idea. The a-little-too-full-of-himself radio announcer was played somewhat for laughs. Dietrich is in this episode. _______ "Gone with the Breeze" Originally aired January 26, 1967 Ann doesn't know that Donald has a copy, and has to avoid Donald wanting to know what she thought of the manuscript that she didn't have a chance to read. Ann becomes obsessed with finding it at the expense of her current job in a perfume department with an overbearing boss. It turns out that the manuscript never left Donald's office, she lost it there. It was kind of mean-spirited the way that Donald, after having found it, sets out to make her uncomfortable by systematically proving that she hasn't read the book. "Oh, Donald" count: 9 _______ They didn't dwell on the situation with Stovall's son much once they got going with his flight training. Historically, I'm well aware...I've been posting such videos. I was recounting my own first-hand experience of when I first remember seeing such a video as a child. Some didn't get the idea of the conceptual video at that point. I recall the host asking the Bee Gees if they came from a neighborhood like the one in the video.
Damn. I was getting used to breathing again. Oh, Donald! It's really a great art form with a lot of potential, and it seemed to be evolving nicely in the 80s, but it seems to have become mostly forgotten now. They do seem to share a special bond.
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing _______ The Ed Sullivan Show Season 20, episode 21 Originally aired January 28, 1968 As represented in The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show Taken from the same mixed Best of episode as last week's selection, this week gives me something more in my wheelhouse...three songs by the 5th Dimension. Dressed in funky purple and yellow costumes with decorative chains adorning them--the ladies with partially bare midriffs that expose no navel--the group uses their established hit, "Up, Up and Away," as a medley lead-in to their brand-new single, "Carpet Man": (Charted Feb. 3, 1968; #29 US) It's a pretty compatible-sounding number...at the end of the studio version posted above, you even hear a horn bit doing the melody of "Up, Up and Away." They also perform "Shake Your Tambourine," which is a little less sunshine pop and a little more funk: I couldn't find any results for a studio version of it--the above is a live version from a 1971 album. _______ Mission: Impossible "The Condemned" Originally aired January 28, 1968 Aren't they always "off-book"? The Secretary's gonna disavow them one way or the other, right? TOS-guesting Marianna Hill as Louisa Rojas. They also use a hearing aid device that emits the familiar communicator double-beep. This effectively starts as an investigation, with the team going in with less-than-omniscient intel...but even needing to partially improvise as they went along, they managed to pull off one of their trademark elaborate schemes. Perhaps not as much of a departure from the now-well-established formula as it should have been, but I'll take it over the generic spy fi business that we got in too many Season 1 episodes. Rollin and Willy as priests was good for a giggle...especially when Willy was there to smuggle building materials in his robe for for quickly constructing a false wall for David to hide in. Jim plays a layered cover--a crooked insurance investigator pretending to be a private investigator, though I think that adding the additional layer was an improvisation. It turns out that the alleged murder victim was never killed, but he ends up conveniently dead for the scheme's climax, which involves Barney remotely driving the bad guy's corpse off a cliff while the police are pursuing him. He drove that car a little too well considering that there was no monitor for first-person perspective. _______ Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Season 1, episode 2 Originally aired January 29, 1968 They make a point of describing this as the second episode in Gary's announcements and the opening dialogue. Interesting that they managed to get Tom Smothers while he was co-hosting a comedy/variety show on a rival network. A recurring gag that starts with the party sketch has Robert Culp making out with Judy Carne...at one point telling an off-camera Sheldon that it isn't working. Sheldon Leonard, who was doing one-liners as a gangster in this and the previous episode, was also the executive producer of I, Spy...which aired later the same night on NBC. Also referencing that show were outdoor bits of Culp playing tennis. Dropping references to Tiny Tim continues to be a running gag. The News from 1988 references Ronald Reagan as still being Governor of California...little did they know. Alas, I couldn't find a copy of Laugh-In's video of the First Edition's "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)". This brand-new single will be making its chart debut in the coming week. Morgul shows up in the Joke Wall. _______ Batman "The Great Escape" Originally aired February 1, 1968 Featuring an uncredited cameo by Jerry Mathers. Shame has a new posse, and I guess we're not supposed to notice. Batman reading Shame's letter with a mock-Western accent got a good laugh out of me. The Caped Crusader was so close to learning Batgirl's identity...all he had to do was ask Gordon if anyone else had just been in his office. It's cute that Robin does his Batman impression again. Fear gas...wasted on the wrong villain. This one gives us a pseudo-cliffhanger, with Batgirl being captured but not placed in any specific peril. _______ Ironside "The Lonely Hostage" Originally aired February 1, 1968 From the cockpit of the Piccadilly Lily to the back of the Ironsidemobile--It's nice seeing front-billed guest star Robert Lansing pop up somewhere other than his familiar upcoming episode of Trek...I developed a fondness for the guy watching Season 1 of 12 O'Clock High. Alas, his character Hickman isn't nearly as endearing as General Savage. Also TOS-guesting Kathie Browne as his wife, in addition to series regulars Barbara Anderson and Gene Lyons. Mark gets involved proactively for a change, trying to get a note out while he and Ironside are being held hostage, but Hickman sees through it in time to thwart his effort. The climax involves Ironside covertly constructing a makeshift miniature spear gun partly from a child's toy. _______ "The Other Woman" Originally aired February 1, 1968 That's right, the Season of Ethel isn't over! Ann, Donald, and Mr. Marie run into her at the Footlight Deli, which appears to be based on the Carnegie Deli with its iconic walls full of celebrity photos. Ann gets comically brown-nosed in Ethel's presence...and the waiter calls Donald a hippie for ordering a cheeseburger. Ann first learns of her father's alleged affair when her mother comes by carrying luggage on her way to the airport. Even with Ann knowing full well what's going on, both parents manage to be over-dramatic about the situation. Mr. Marie's WWII back injury comes into play again...good continuity with the Thanksgiving episode. There's also a running gag of Ethel misremembering Mr. Marie's name as Max, which may have started in her previous appearance. Ultimately, Ethel has a retraction printed in the gossip column that slips in a plug for Ann's acting career. The episode drops a lot of references to how glamorous Ethel is, but she isn't afraid to slip in some self-deprecating humor.... "Oh, Donald" count: 0 "Oh, Daddy" count: 2 "Oh, Mother" count: 1 "Oh, Miss Merman" count: 2 _______ The Prisoner "Fall Out" Originally aired February 1, 1968 (UK) "Of course I automatically think of 'All You Need Is Love' when I hear 'La Marsewhatchyacallit,' but they wouldn't be play--HOLY CRAP, IT'S 'ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE'!!!!!!!" I'm appreciative that nobody spoiled me on that surprise appearance. I can't recall having ever heard an original version of a Beatles song used in a period production. And I read that it was retained in the DVD releases, so this usage must have gotten the Fab Seal of Approval. Well...I was suitably warned. Nevertheless, I wasn't expecting an ending that was so utterly devoid of any literal exposition about the nature of Number One and the Village. And yeah, I guess they did move the Village, because now it's somewhere in England, a casual drive away from London. I get that they were going for surreal allegory, but on a literal level, Number Six's whole experience remains an enigma...such that it strikes me that one could go into the series watching the finale first, and it wouldn't really spoil anything, just prepare the viewer not to take anything about Six's experience too literally. It's not just me... I also read that "Once Upon a Time," filmed a year earlier, was meant to be a season-ending cliffhanger...and that McGoohan was pressed for time to come up with an ending that he hadn't planned in advance. I have to wonder what he might have come up with given the time that he expected. The question "Why?," previously used to destroy a computer, comes up again...and ultimately isn't answered. And while the episode makes a show of freeing Six from his number, we still never learn his name. _______ Tarzan "A Gun for Jai" Originally aired February 2, 1968 Well, this episode didn't pull any punches regarding its subject matter. Peter Whitney's character, Mulvaney, gives Jai a rifle that would rival his height standing on end...and the first thing that the boy does with it is to rather disturbingly tease Cheeta with shots that appear to miss...only it turns out that one of them didn't, and Cheeta spends most of the episode running away from Jai and running into a variety of dangerous animals (including a bullying fellow chimp) while nursing a leg wound...! These sequences made me genuinely sad. Cheeta's also referred to as a monkey twice by guest characters, FWIW. Lion vs. leopard--Catfight!!! Also re-guesting Geoffrey Holder as a new character, Mayko, the less-than-pleased chief of a tribe of the week to whom Mulvaney has also given rifles, while covertly absconding with their jewels. Jai ultimately learns his lesson, dramatically breaking his rifle against a tree. It must have been a theme night on NBC. Up next: _______ Star Trek "A Private Little War" Originally aired February 2, 1968 Stardate 4211.4 See my post here. _______ Get Smart "The Little Black Book: Part 2" Originally aired February 3, 1968 They get a lot of use out of "The old _______ in the _______ trick" lines in this one...including Sid and and a police chief getting in on the running gag. _______
^ Aired back-to-back! _______ 50 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week, with a Bubbling Under bonus: Leaving the chart: "Boogaloo Down Broadway," The Fantastic Johnny C "Daydream Believer," The Monkees "Honey Chile," Martha Reeves & The Vandellas "Skinny Legs and All," Joe Tex "Who Will Answer?," Ed Ames New on the chart: "Too Much Talk," Paul Revere & The Raiders feat. Mark Lindsay (#19 US) "The End of Our Road," Gladys Knight & The Pips (#15 US; #5 R&B) "Dance to the Music," Sly & The Family Stone (#8 US; #9 R&B; #7 UK; #223 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time) "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)," The First Edition (#5 US) Bubbling Under: "Nights in White Satin," The Moody Blues (#103 US; #19 UK; Reissued in 1972, reaching #2 US, #37 AC, #9 UK) And new on the boob tube: Mission: Impossible, "The Counterfeiter" The Monkees, "The Devil and Peter Tork" * Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 1, episode 3 The Rat Patrol, "The Touch-and-Go Raid" * Batman, "The Great Train Robbery" Ironside, "The Challenge" That Girl, "He and She and He" Tarzan, "Trek to Terror" Star Trek, "Return to Tomorrow" Get Smart, "Don't Look Back" * To be reviewed at a later date. _______
This was one of the episodes remade/rewritten for the 1988 revival series. They were originally going to be straight remakes due to the '88 writers' strike -- that's the only reason the revival got commissioned in the first place -- but the strike was resolved soon enough that the scripts could be rewritten into semi-new adventures. "The Condemned" was rewritten so that Jim's old friend who was arrested was Barney himself, who had a strained relationship with his son, team member Grant (Phil Morris). I'm surprised you could've gotten through the previous 16 episodes and still expect to get any kind of answers at the end. That was never what The Prisoner was about.
This is a really nice song. I wish I could hear it, but I saw a Rolling Stones tribute band last night. Just kidding, I'm not quite deaf. This song is pretty much forgotten, I'm afraid, but a very nice little poem. This one is more generic, though. I was about to say. Which also raises ominous questions about abuse of power. Ooh, nice. Perhaps Barney has access to Bat-Tech. Or maybe his other name is Lucius Fox. Coincidentally, he was in the third-season episode I saw yesterday. Hah. I don't remember that. Did you ever watch Kung Fu: The Legend Continues? I forgot. Actually, I was hoping to re-watch this one on that page you sent me before you reviewed it, but alas..... Yeah, when I originally watched the show back in the 70s, approximately age 16, I was not too pleased with the last two episodes. Keep in mind that I was (and am) a lover of surrealistic storytelling, and these were the days of Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber and Jim Starlin and the like, but, as a then-budding writer, I also felt the importance of consistency in concept and tone-- those two episodes would have been a good finale to a completely different show, but did not serve The Prisoner well. Wow, I don't blame you. This is an unusually serious scenario for this show. This is an excellent song that, unfortunately, does not get noticed as much as "Indian Reservation," or even some of their earlier hits. Okay. Catchy. This is pretty good, but, oddly, I think I would have placed it about five years later if asked. I really like this one, but I don't think I ever realized it was The First Edition. Ahh, Moody Blues. 'nuff said. Well, there are a couple of Moody Blues songs that I personally like better, but this is definitely their stone-cold classic. Star Trek To Terror. JJ's next movie?
Not enough to get me to dig deeper chart position-wise for more 5th Dimension material, alas. What power? They're basically highly skilled independent operatives who almost exclusively contract themselves to the government. When they're doing an official (but still off-book) mission, they might occasionally get a bit of help in the form of a contact in a position of authority like the local secretary of state. For a short spell, but I didn't remember first-hand that he was in it (though I have read that). That much I was able to find on YouTube after watching the episode.... There's a reprise later in the episode that's rather darkly humorous (at the end of this clip): (I neglected to note that they used the same cylindrical-control-room-that-becomes-a-rocket set as the lighthouse from a couple episodes back.) Exactly. This was not the logical conclusion to the episodes that we'd seen previously. McGoohan went into the series without a plan for ending it, was rushed to come up with that ending, and it shows. Allegory in genre fiction is usually presented in a setting that has its own literal reality, however bizarre or exaggerated. I'd previously noted how in the Western episode, they'd gone out of their way to give us exposition about the Village's latest mind-frakking technique against Six, and that at that point, I felt it wasn't really necessary because we got what was going on without the specifics. I was expecting some sort of literal revelations in-story, even if they raised more questions that remained enigmas. This episode came off as a hallucinatory experience, and that's how two continuations of the series in other media chose to interpret it. It was like watching Snoopy, Come Home when I was a kid, but Charlie Brown shot Snoopy! Well, at least they gave Cheeta a substantial role for once. Both of these are going to need more listens in the weekly playlist to make much of an impression on me. The Raiders song has a nice fuzzy guitar riff; the Pips song sounds like a deliberate knock-off of their version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". Neither is threatening to knock "La-La Means I Love You" out of my head...never mind "Dance to the Music"! In other words, they sound ahead of their time. Psychedelic soul is upon us! Multiple sources cite Sly & the Family Stone as being hugely influential in the development of funk and soul in the coming decade. For a good time, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was the first song in my 1970s playlist, later my 1970 playlist when I expanded so much that I started organizing into individual years. I thought that was perfect, because it sounded like it could just as easily have been an end-of-decade song, it so prophesied the sound of the coming years. I dug deeper into their singles than for most acts in my collection, but their next Top 40 single (their first of three #1's) won't be coming to us until late this year. They have six songs on the Rolling Stone list. It has a nicely trippy vibe in its own right, but it's really a criticism of psychedelia dressed as psychedelia, which casts it in a slightly negative light for me. Now this one would understandably be associated with about five years later, given the circumstances of its eventual success. This and "Dance to the Music" are this week's heavyweights. Recorded Casablanca last night, to be viewed with attention at a later date. Had it on low in the background while listening to music and working on my posts and was reminded of another bit that I already knew without even hearing the line: "We'll always have Paris." And somehow, I knew that flashbacks to a romance with an old flame were a Casablanca thing, hence associating the Rat Patrol episode with the film. (I also recently watched The Manchurian Candidate as a bit of 55th anniversary business, and that film used the same device.) In the interest of full disclosure, I remember having Casablanca on in the background when there was a high-profile airing in the early '80s...probably for its 40th anniversary. I'm sure that I didn't watch it with attention at the time, but I may have picked up a bit there. ETA: This (one of the cable channels I've been keeping an eye on for anniversary viewing movie business) is playing How I Won the War on the 13th. I've never seen it, at least not in full. Figure I'll give it a spin as belated 50th anniversary viewing.
_______ 51st Anniversary Viewing _______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 51 years ago last week: Leaving the chart: "Mellow Yellow," Donovan "Talk Talk," The Music Machine "That's Life," Frank Sinatra _______ The Rat Patrol "The B Negative Raid" Originally aired January 30, 1967 Guesting as the deserter, Corporal Pennell, is--Fabian!?! Are you frakking kidding me? Oh, why did I have to go and check IMDb? Does this mean I have to do a musical career retrospective for...Fabian?! I totally avoided guys like him in my collection. After sneaking into the German camp, Troy goes straight to Dietrich for help...with an automatic rifle, of course. When Dietrich leaves the tent, it's the desert set; when Troy and Hitch leave the same tent moments later, it's a location. Ultimately, Pennell chooses to do the right thing and the Patrol promise not to finger him as a deserter, just somebody who lost his unit. Oh what the hell, I'm morbidly curious to sample his wares. Submitted for your judgment, the complete Top 20 singles of...[shudder]Fabian.[/shudder] "Turn Me Loose" (Charted Mar. 30, 1959; #9 US) "Tiger" (Charted June 15, 1959; #3 US; #15 R&B; Seriously, they let this guy on the R&B chart?) "Hound Dog Man" (Charted Nov. 16, 1959; #9 US) "This Friendly World" (B-side to "Hound Dog Man"; charted Nov. 23, 1959; #12 US) Well, that wasn't quite as bad as I feared it'd be. Sort of Movie Elvis-lite, if two qualifiers are enough to separate this guy from the King of Rock 'n' Roll. But the show definitely needs to get some cooler musical guests. (Not that he sings in the episode...at least not in the syndication cut.) _______ The Fugitive "The Breaking of the Habit" Originally aired January 31, 1967 It's hard to invest in Sister Veronica's dilemma when the delinquent student, Victoria, looks plenty old enough to be making her own life choices. The actress, Adrienne Hayes, was 29 at the time, and comes off here as more of a sophisticated young lady than a J.D. What's more, it looks like she was the one wearing the habit in a 1966 episode of 12 O'Clock High! Sister Veronica drops a James Bond reference. The OAM only appears in a photograph. Gerard is not in this episode (though he's always credited). _______ "Rain, Snow and Rice" Originally aired February 2, 1967 Well, at least here they're getting more explicit about the "saving themselves for marriage" angle. The really prudish sign o' the times bit of business is that sex is never mentioned, even as being something that's off the table...it's just hanging there as the understood thing that men and women sleeping together scandalously implies. Continuity check: Jerry's getting married to a blonde named Margie...which is the name of the secretary who expressed an interest in Jerry in "These Boots Weren't Made for Walking," so presumably the same character, but played here by a different actress. I sense a retcon coming on, since his wife in Season 2+ is played by still another actress and named Ruth. That, or Jerry was a horribly bad catch for Ruth. Ann's parents assume from what the answering service told them that Ann's eloping with Donald, which is why they go up to the hotel. Donald spends the night on a love seat, but moves to the bed after Ann gets up in the morning, which is when the Maries arrive. The episode doesn't play out the explanation, just the initial awkwardness of finding the couple together in the room and assuming the worst. "Oh, Donald" count: 2 "Oh, Daddy" count: 0 "Oh, Margie" count: 1 _______ The Monkees will return as 51st anniversary business next week. _______
The power to perform these game-changing missions for personal reasons. It's an enjoyable show with a good cast. Certainly nothing like the quality of the original, but pleasant enough if you like David Carradine and Caine. Yeah, what else could they do, really? Ouch. Or if that kid from the Christmas movie really shot his own eye out. True. Well, it's an anti-drug song, I guess. But it's not the only one out there. "Mama Told Me Not To Come" springs to mind. True. My associational memories are of about five years later, but with the awareness of it being an older song. Another one came up on Saturday when I was talking to my Sister: "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...." There's one I've never seen. I was going to say, basically generic 50s. "Tiger" is making me think of Ed Sullivan, though. Was he on there recently singing that, or was it just something similar? Kids grew up fast in those days. Or as the thing you're not supposed to even know about until indoctrinated into the world of marriage!
And to fool people with really horrible accents. Only if his eye spent most of the next hour sadly limping away from him. I'd have to look at the lyrics for that one, but the First Edition song strikes more as making fun of the whole scene from an outsider's perspective. That one I didn't know. Possibly...Decades is approaching the end of its second run-through of their Sullivan package, and lately I've only been checking the schedule for ones from a certain period that I wanted to record for future viewing, not watching regularly. _______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 55 years ago last week: _______ 12 O'Clock High "The Jones Boys" Originally aired December 6, 1965 Looks like H&I just skipped another episode ("We're Not Coming Back," Nov. 29, 1965). The episode is titled after Prine's character and his protective older brother, a sergeant played by Bruce Dern who helped put his younger brother through school. Special guest star Mark Richman plays a colonel in charge of supply who's butting heads with Gallagher over shortages. Burt's playing the same character as in his previous appearance, Sgt. Chapman, though here he factors more heavily into the story. This is the show repeating itself somewhat, with Chapman scheming to have a bomber land in a neutral country to escape being caught. I guess you could say that he's a real bandit.... I think this is the debut of Gallagher's personal P-51...a step backward into Rat Patrol-style dumb action/adventure territory. Definitely gotta roll my eyes some when "Ramrod" takes on a squadron of German fighters without even a wingman. _______
The original posse were no more significant that the usual henchmen of other villains--all never making more than two appearances. This time around, Shame's crew are more personally tied to him, while the utterly racist characters F.R.E.D. and Chief Standing Pat were given special attention. As mentioned in another thread, this episode is only noteworthy for casting the late Barry Dennen as F.R.E.D.; Dennen once dated and helped launch the career of Barbra Streisand. ...but she certainly put the series in peril...
Like an anvil dropped from a rooftop, this song was a loud, forceful entry into American music, completely unlike the sounds coming from Stax, Motown, and other labels producing any kind of African American-aligned music. Adding a non-traditional, funky guitar sound would be a key influence on the instrumentation heard on endless 70s records, including groups as different from Sly's as the Bee Gees. One of the great songs of the era, from a wonderfully innovative album (Days of Future Passed). The Moody Blues were their own universe of music no one would even come close to until the emergence of E.L.O. a few years later.