I lived in a "Pleasant Valley" for a while. It was about as far removed from the place in the song as one can get.
Mowing would probably involve a tractor.
New York?
I think this was the last of his handful of hits, and it's really nice.
Yep, his last Top 20 at least. He barely got a couple more in the Top 40 within a year of that.
It's been said that one either really loves or really hates The Monkees
Can't say that holds true for me. I don't love them, but whoever was playing the instruments, they did churn out some good, classic pop tunes.
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50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing
What was going on the week these episodes aired.
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Batman
"King Tut's Coup"
Originally aired March 8, 1967
Xfinity said:
Seeking a queen, King Tut grabs a socialite.
"Batman's Waterloo"
Originally aired March 9, 1967
Xfinity said:
King Tut plans to boil Robin in oil.
There's a good gag at the beginning with the reactions to Alfred openly telling Bruce that the commissioner is on the phone. (You'd think that Gordon would have overheard Alfred telling Bruce that the call isn't for Batman...or at least that the World's Greatest Detective might have noticed for himself which phone was off the hook.) The bit with the victim at the crime scene being left in the noose was also a good one...that's the sort of thing that
Get Smart should be doing more often. And the part with Batman wearing an earphone is the ear of his cowl. (But notice that's not where he puts the earpiece of a phone.)
John E. Carson? That's a little on the nose, isn't it? And at 31, Lee Meriwether seems a bit mature to be playing a rich girl waiting for her daddy to marry her off, particularly by the age standards of the times.
Not only is the Suzy Knickerbocker appearance obscure to modern viewers, but she also describes Bruce Wayne as "one of the hippies," using an older, more general meaning of that term that was becoming outdated at just about the same time that this episode was made. In addition, the pull of gravity on her earrings attests to the camera orientation trick used for the climbing scenes.
The Caped Crusader said:
The size of the package, Alfred, is in no way an indication of the value of its contents.
Holy unintended innuendo, Batman!
Speaking of, Robin sure is mum after he's captured by Tut.
The excuse for referencing Barbara really is thin, but it's still an interesting bit of setup if they were conceiving the character at the time.
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The Wild Wild West
"The Night of the Colonel's Ghost"
Originally aired March 10, 1967
Xfinity said:
West and Gordon fear an attempt on President Grant's life while they are escorting him to a conference.
It seems like President Grant would have some sort of entourage with him, not just West and Gordon. Though I suppose there must be people in other compartments of that train, operating it and such.
A passenger pigeon makes for a far better bit of 19th-century spy tech than paintings serving as portals to other dimensions. There's also a bit in which Gordon conceives of the tank as a wood carving.
The mystery of this story was a bit half-baked, what with the gold that everyone was looking for having been in the most obvious place, the statue.
TOS guest: Kathie Browne (Deela, "Wink of an Eye")
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Tarzan
"The Perils of Charity Jones: Part I"
Originally aired March 10, 1967
Xfinity said:
A missionary enlists Jai's help to fulfill her father's last wish and deliver an organ to a primitive tribe.
This is the first half of a Jai-centric two-parter which involves the titular missionary petitioning the government to take Jai out of Tarzan's custody so she can take the boy to her school. It conveniently forgets how Jai was originally in the custody of a tutor, or how after that character disappeared, Tarzan was once shown sending Jai off to a school.
Tarzan gets more than bookend duty this time, though, playing a substantial role in the setup and then on the sidelines. Of particular note, he gets to show off his savage side when he gets inaccurate news that Jai's been killed and smashes up the office of the government official who allowed Jai to go with Charity (TOS guest Abraham Sofaer [Thasian, "Charlie X"; Melkotian, "Spectre of the Gun"]). After that, he gets pretty nasty with the bad guys in his pursuit of Jai and Charity, threatening to carve one interrogatee's skin into drumskins.
Jai gets to show his stuff while traveling in peril with Charity, professionally handling a lion in one early scene (though we don't actually see him and the lion in the same shot) and proceeding to become Charity's survival guide as they flee their pursuers.
Charity: You didn't answer me when I asked you...what'd you do with your trousers?
Jai: I threw them in the river.
This might have been a better episode to title "Cap'n Jai", as he puts in some time helming the riverboat before they're forced to take to land.
It's noteworthy how the show isn't afraid to put a character like Charity in an antagonistic role and to play her up as a jungle-impractical civilized person, but doesn't mock her faith or convictions.
The bad guys' scheme that put Jai and Charity in their situation didn't make a lot of sense, such that I went back and rewatched a couple scenes to make sure I didn't miss something. Their plan to obtain ammunition that was on the riverboat involved attempting to sink the boat with an explosion...seems like that involves two ways of rendering the ammunition useless.
In the cliffhanger, Jai and Charity are caught by a fearsome tribe. Tune in next week--same Jai-time, same Jai-channel!
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The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
"The Hot Number Affair"
Originally aired March 10, 1967
Xfinity said:
A fashion cutter (Sonny Bono) and a model (Cher) are caught between U.N.C.L.E. and THRUSH agents searching for a master plan.
Well, they certainly didn't hold back on playing up the episode's special guests (billed together in the opening credits on one card). In addition to the blatant (and slightly dialogue-overpowering) use of "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On" in a couple of their scenes together, the episode uses an instrumental version of the "The Beat Goes On" in the teaser; drops a reference to "the Sonny & Cher look"; and makes the obligatory crack about Sonny's character needing a haircut. The reliance on Sonny & Cher songs and gags makes me wonder why they didn't write a story around the duo appearing as themselves.
Making a running story point of Cher's character jetting to other countries between scenes, which includes Illya tracing her steps via phone, just underscores how low-budget and claustrophobically set this episode actually is. One gets the sense of an episode with higher production values happening just off-camera.
This appearance serves as the first acting credits for both Sonny and Cher, though they'd been on numerous shows as themselves (most or all as performers, no doubt). Around the same time they also did a film called
Good Times, which was released in May 1967. I have to wonder how much of a part this stint may have played in kicking off a career direction that resulted in their variety show phase in the 1970s and Cher's later work as an Academy Award-winning actress (which you'd never have predicted from her performance here).
Sonny & Cher produced eight Top 20 hits as a duo, including the three top tens below and two more top tens in the early '70s. Also included below are their only solo-credited Top 10 hits as of 50 years ago today. While the entry below would prove to be pretty much it for Sonny Bono's solo career, he'd become better known in the later years of his tragically short life for his four years as Mayor of Palm Springs, CA, and three years as the congressman representing California's 44th district. Cher, OTOH, would enjoy a total of sixteen Top 20 solo hits between 1965 and and 1998, including four #1's: "Gyspies, Tramps, and Thieves" (1971), "Half-Breed" (1973), "Dark Lady" (1974), and "Believe" (1998).
"I Got You Babe," Sonny & Cher
(Charted July 10, 1965; #1 US the weeks of Aug. 14 through Aug. 28, 1965; #19 R&B; #1 UK; #444 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time)
"Baby Don't Go," Sonny & Cher
(Released in 1964, charted Aug. 21, 1965; #8 US; #11 UK)
"Laugh at Me," Sonny
(Charted Aug. 21, 1965; #10 US; #9 UK)
"Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)," Cher
(Charted Mar. 12, 1966; #2 US; #3 UK)
"The Beat Goes On," Sonny & Cher
(Charted Jan. 14, 1967; #6 US; #29 UK; At #18 US, on the drop from its peak, during the week that the episode aired)
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Get Smart
"How to Succeed in the Spy Business Without Really Trying"
Originally aired March 11, 1967
Xfinity said:
The KAOS leader, Siegfried, plans the world's biggest kidnapping scheme.
So, apparently Bernie Kopell's Siegfried was a recurring nemesis, this being his fifth of fourteen appearances. His underling Starker is also a recurring character, having made a total of ten appearances.
There's a nice physical gag when they escort a KAOS agent who's operating in a decoding machine disguised as an insurance machine out of an airport (she sticks her legs out of the machine and walks out); and another when the Asian CONTROL chief demonstrates the speed of his hands by hitting Max while motionlessly holding his award.
Max said:
The old "gas mask in the false nose" trick!
Spotted in Siegfried's office: Yet another iteration of
THE CLOCK!
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ETA: Just caught an interesting bit of business in a
Swamp Thing episode that's playing in the background on H&I...there's a scene in which a young lady's just taken a dunk in the water and they make a point afterward of blurring out a couple of key spots on her shirt...have to wonder if the blurring was part of the original broadcast....
