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The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"Live a Little...Kill a Little"
Originally aired October 15, 1965
Frndly said:
Honey traces an underworld czar's ex-girl friend to a dance hall---and so does an assassin.

Karen (Maurine Dawson) is leaving a dance hall when Honey tries to stop her to talk. Then a sniper is spotted on a roof, Honey shines a search light in his face, and he's wishing there was a drink underneath him instead of concrete. Meanwhile, Karen slips away in a taxi, wanting to talk to the cabbie's manager. Honey was hired by reputed tax attorney Arthur Strickland (Warren Stevens, who was in a film with Anne), on behalf of a client, executive Charlie French (Harry Millard), to find Karen, who's said to be Charlie's sister. When Honey reports at Strickland's Beverly Hills digs, Sam is knocked out by a heavy (Herb Edelman) while taping outside via the trusty shotgun mic. Honey goes undercover as a dancer at the club and has a talk with Karen's friend Vicky (Mary Murphy), who confirms that Vicky was running scared from someone, but clams up when she happens upon the gun in Honey's purse. Sam and Honey listen in from the van as Vicky subsequently calls an unheard man named Phil, who's concerned that this means the two of them will be marked for death.

Honey and Sam examine the tape to try to make out the number that Vicky dialed, trying a couple of possibilities, and one of them turns out to be the number of a shady PI named Phillip Moody, whom they realize fits what they saw of the man who attacked Sam in the van. Sam breaks into Moody's office by night while Honey tails the PI to a dockside rendezvous, where she finds that Moody was fatally attacked in his car, warning Honey with his last words about the danger to Karen and giving her an address. Sam finds files indicating that Charlie is a mobster named Margardo, and actually Karen's fiancé...Karen actually being a wealthy socialite. Sam's unable to reach Honey, who proceeds to the address and is taken prisoner by Charlie and tied up in a cellar with Karen, who explains that the manager of a crime committee wanted to speak to her, as she knows a lot of names of, shall we say, crooked managers. Sam finds Honey at Strickland's place and takes down Margardo in a cellar brawl, after Charlie is disarmed by Honey with a surprise karate chop.

In the coda we learn that Karen's been naming names, and Strickland and Margardo want to speak to the warden.

_______

Honey West
"Whatever Lola Wants...."
Originally aired October 22, 1965
Frndly said:
A charity ball is anything but fun for Honey, who is soon fighting for her life amid members of a worldwide bookie syndicate.

The episode opens with a man (Jerry Brutsche) running down a fire escape trying to escape from a knife-throwing gentleman (Richard Angarola), only to end up in a dumpster with a blade in his back. Honey visits the apartment where this started, to be met by the knife-thrower, who goes by the name Ramon Vargas. Ramon hires her to accompany him to a charity ball being held by socialite Lola Getz (Audrey Christie) to have her get close to one of the guests, Emmanuel Rodriguez (Johnny Haymer), in order to find out where he stashed embezzled money. At the ball, Rodriguez immediately makes moves on Honey, but is actually interested in the man who brought her in, whom a confederate working as a waiter, Gunter (Horst Ebersberg), identifies as actually being Raul Lucas from South America. Meanwhile, Honey sees Vargas being taken into a room, finds it empty, and while searching for a secret panel, is caught at gunpoint by Getz.

Honey ends up in a cell with Vargas, who tells her of how he was a member of a horse racing syndicate who changed his identity and used what he knew to go into business for himself; but he was lured out of hiding by false betting info from a contact, Carlos--the man he killed. After a thwarted escape attempt using a gas-firing pen, Honey and Vargas are taken through Getz's race-fixing nerve center and tied and gagged in crates to be shipped to Caracas. Along the way, Getz discovers Honey's necklace mic and sends Gunter out for Sam, who's posing as Honey's chauffeur. But Sam is prepared from what he heard, and attempts to storm the house looking for Honey. He ends up hopping onto Getz's getaway truck with the crates in back and making the vehicle pull over. As the police are arriving, Lola uses a concealed detonator to blow her mansion full of evidence.

Aunt Meg and Bruce do not appear in this episode. The exterior of Lola's mansion had a very familiar look to it...it was either Stately Wayne Manor shot from a different angle, or another, similar-looking piece of real estate that I've seen pop up a time or two on these shows, like Stately Cochran Manor.

_______
 
Last edited:
[Cue sultry jazz music]
View attachment 33859
Nice. I always like to see the title on screen.

That's the one.
:bolian:

A detail that I neglected to mention is that after the accident, the case was open with the wares inside smashed all over the ground, so I guess the globe that Honey got was the last survivor. And the ants and birds and whatnot really partied that night.
Possibly even a bear....

The police detective types popping up mainly seem there for exposition and friendly antagonism.
Yeah, the scenes with the cops are weird.

And again, you could always watch along...
Sadly, most of my DVDs are packed away in my storage unit now.

I was under the impression that the initial attack on Maggie was a ruse for whatever reason, committed by Not Roscoe. He was the only character in scuba gear, hence Honey finding it on her yacht being important; and hence Maggie having a convenient excuse not to use her yacht for that outing.
Hmmm, okay.

There was in fact a crack security guard whose involvement didn't extend beyond sticking his head in the room with a flashlight.
Also played by James Best.

Infinitely more chemistry than contemporaries Solo and Kuryakin, FWIW.
Hah. Those guys didn't really even like each other. :rommie:

They got Bond, FFS...
Well, with Bond (and Roald Dahl) you've got a big publisher trying to attract kiddies through virtue signalling. These independent publishers who specialize in Pulps cater to an audience actually interested in historical literature.

Then a sniper is spotted on a roof, Honey shines a search light in his face, and he's wishing there was a drink underneath him instead of concrete.
Honey is a crack shot with a searchlight. :rommie:

Arthur Strickland (Warren Stevens, who was in a film with Anne)
I know that one! :D

but clams up when she happens upon the gun in Honey's purse.
She never saw a dame pack heat for protection before?

one of them turns out to be the number of a shady PI named Phillip Moody, whom they realize fits what they saw of the man who attacked Sam in the van.
Who hired Moody? What's Vicky's involvement? Why did Moody attack Sam?

Sam finds files indicating that Charlie is a mobster named Margardo, and actually Karen's fiancé...
I'm beginning to think that the series bible requires Honey to be hired by the villain.

Sam's unable to reach Honey, who proceeds to the address and is taken prisoner by Charlie and tied up in a cellar with Karen
So Charlie sent a sniper to kill Karen, but now he just wants to tie her up? Or was the sniper working for Moody to kill Honey? Then why would Moody warn Honey with his dying words?

the manager of a crime committee wanted to speak to her
Many were the times I changed my name and became an exotic dancer to avoid committee meetings.

Sam finds Honey at Strickland's place and takes down Margardo in a cellar brawl, after Charlie is disarmed by Honey with a surprise karate chop.
Charlie has snipers but no bodyguards? :rommie:

"Whatever Lola Wants...."
Cherry Cola?

The episode opens with a man (Jerry Brutsche) running down a fire escape trying to escape from a knife-throwing gentleman (Richard Angarola), only to end up in a dumpster with a blade in his back.
The show certainly does excel at catchy openings.

Ramon hires her
Ramon's the villain. :rommie:

Meanwhile, Honey sees Vargas being taken into a room, finds it empty, and while searching for a secret panel, is caught at gunpoint by Getz.
That's what makes this a good show-- the plots are loose, but everybody has secret panels and dungeons. :rommie:

After a thwarted escape attempt using a gas-firing pen
Honey gets paid well by these villains that she works for.

Honey and Vargas are taken through Getz's race-fixing nerve center and tied and gagged in crates to be shipped to Caracas.
This is where they could have expanded it into a two-parter.

As the police are arriving, Lola uses a concealed detonator to blow her mansion full of evidence.
What th--?! :rommie: Were there people in there? Aren't mansions expensive? Wouldn't blowing up a mansion get you in more trouble than fixing horse races? Also, who was Rodriguez? What was Ramon trying to accomplish? What was his purpose in hiring Honey? What just happened here? :rommie:
 
Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"The Princess and the Paupers"
Originally aired October 29, 1965
Wiki said:
Honey and Sam investigate the kidnapping of a rock group's frontman (Bobby Sherman).

This is actually one of two episodes that Decades skipped, but it seems that multiple parties have Honey West episodes posted on YouTube, so that's not gonna stop me. And it turns out that this is the Obligatory British Invasion Episode. The featured band, the Paupers--consisting of Nicky Van (Sherman), Marv (Nino Candido), and Jingles (Michael J. Pollard, of future "Miri" and Bonnie and Clyde fame)--are actually American, but conspicuously keeping up with the times in their appearance if not the lukewarm, unmemorable tune we see them performing in a go-go club. After the performance, a couple of heavies (Don Gazzaniga and Joe Perry, I presume) bust into their dressing room, chop Nicky unconscious, and drag him away, leaving a ransom note tucked behind his guitar strings for his father, wealthy J. J. Vanderhyden (Phil Ober), who shows Honey a "before" picture of Nicky, not approving of his son's current lifestyle.

Jingles: Hey, look man, you go to your barber and I'll stay away from mine.​

Honey scopes out the band's manager, Tobias Quinn (Stanley Adams), under the pretense of negotiating a business deal on behalf of Vanderhyden...actually planting a bug that she charges Aunt Meg with listening to. She and Sam then stake out the ransom drop at a swinging party being held at a very familiar-looking lagoon about three hours from Hawaii by tiny ship. A man in scuba gear picks up the jug and slips away after discarding it. The kidnapper later calls Vanderhyden to direct him to a shack, where they find Jingles tied up rather than Nicky, and a note upping the ransom.

Honey and Sam question Jingles and Marv, who admit that the kidnapping scheme was originally a ruse that Nicky planned and Tobias was in on, but believe that the kidnappers have now gone rogue. Honey questions Tobias again, suspecting that he might be in cahoots with the kidnappers. Vanderhyden tries to pay Honey off to drop the case for Nicky's safety, though she refuses to give up, using a talk with Vanderhyden as an opportunity to "accidentally" drop face powder over the new ransom money. She then listens in on Tobias's side of a call he receives from Nicky, directing him to a ranch in a canyon, and proceeds to the address, where she's caught by the kidnappers after putting up a fight. Honey comes to tied up next to Nicky, who blames Quinn for employing authentic gangsters. Nicky helps Honey free herself by using a knife that she had concealed in her belt with his teeth. The pair then hear a commotion and gunshots in the room outside, find the two gangsters dead, and see Quinn driving away.

At Venderhyden manor, Honey shares her belief that Tobias was set up, as Nicky never made the call that the manager took. She accuses Jingles, offering to prove it by inspecting his hands under an ultraviolet light for the chemically treated powder she left on the ransom money. A tussle ensues in which Bobby's stunt double dives off a couch, and Jingles is about to escape with a gun trained on everyone when Honey literally pull the rug out from under him.

Jingles: Well I guess it's the jug for me, huh, gang?
Honey and Sam (in unison): Yeah, yeah, yeah!​

The episode ends with Honey, Sam, and Aunt Meg attending as Nicky performs a reprise of his opening song at the club with his unidentified girlfriend dancing on stage. Mr. V is there as well, having reached an understanding with his son.

_______

Honey West
"In the Bag"
Originally aired November 5, 1965
Frndly said:
A precocious child, a gang of smugglers and a jewel-filled shaving-brush handle lead Honey on a frenzied chase.

The episode opens with Honey escorting a little girl for a plane ride between custody-sharing parents. Margaret Mary Driscoll (future "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" Maureen McCormick, right around when she turned 9) proves to be a handful, claiming to other passengers that she's being kidnapped, which includes telling them that her father's a millionaire. At the airport, Margaret Mary slips off for a drink of water while another passenger, Mr. Arkudian (Robert Carricart), surreptitiously switches his flight bag for hers just before being taken in by a couple of treasury agents. Honey and Sam then find that Margaret Mary has disappeared, leaving her precious doll Maggie behind.

Back at the office, Honey and Sam open the flight bag to find that it contains mostly electric shaving gear...and Bruce chews on an out-of-place shaving brush to reveal that it's concealing a wealth of precious gems. Then a different passenger, Mr. Bartholomew (Everett Sloane), shows up with Margaret Mary--who was hiding in a phone booth--and her flight bag, wanting to swap it for the one that he claims is his. (This scene is the source of the shot of Honey and Sam in front of the private office door that appears at the end of the opening credits.) Honey appears to be cautious about confronting the man then and there because he appears to be holding something concealed in his right jacket pocket, so she and Sam attempt to track the bag afterward with the help of an agency pen that they give him, but he breaks it while meeting with his partner, Arkudian. The detectives return to the office to find it ransacked for no apparent purpose, with Bruce trapped in a bag; and a note from Aunt Meg saying that she and Margaret Mary have taken a walk.

Bartholomew then visits the office wearing a different disguise than before, posing as a prospective client who wants Honey to investigate his potentially haunted house. Sam picks up the signal so the detectives go for a ride in the van again, to be followed by yet another of the passengers (Len Lesser, a.k.a. Mr. Crimm). They track the signal down to Meg and Margaret Mary in the park, the latter having taken another office pen. That night, while Sam drives around trying to find the signal again, Honey visits the "haunted house" to be taken prisoner by Arkudian and Bartholomew. She tips off Sam via her lipstick transmitter, then slips away from a goon who's watching her (Gene Darfler) by offering him a massage for his headache and slipping him a nerve pinch; while Crimm is fought off by Sam outside. Honey and Sam meet up, then surprise Misters A and B inside, taking them prisoner. Crimm enters, identifying himself as a treasury agent who's been tracking A & B, and is about to take the gems when Honey sees scratches from Bruce on his hand and stops him.

In the coda, Honey and Sam deliver Margaret Mary to her father (James Donohue), and the girl sends them a goodbye transmission via the lipstick that she swiped from Honey's purse.

_______

She never saw a dame pack heat for protection before?
That's how Honey tried to play it, but between that and the questioning, Vicky was too wary.

Who hired Moody? What's Vicky's involvement?
That's a good question and possibly a detail that slipped by me. I get the impression that Karen hired Moody, hence his concern for her and Vicky knowing to call him.
Why did Moody attack Sam?
To listen to the surveillance in the van.

I'm beginning to think that the series bible requires Honey to be hired by the villain.
It does seem to be a thing.

So Charlie sent a sniper to kill Karen, but now he just wants to tie her up?
Well, that's TV for you.

Many were the times I changed my name and became an exotic dancer to avoid committee meetings.
:crazy:

What th--?! :rommie: Were there people in there? Aren't mansions expensive? Wouldn't blowing up a mansion get you in more trouble than fixing horse races? Also, who was Rodriguez? What was Ramon trying to accomplish? What was his purpose in hiring Honey? What just happened here? :rommie:
This one I wasn't quite following while I was watching it. Rodriguez was another member of the syndicate. Rival baddies going after one another over a horse betting ring, that's what I caught.
 
multiple parties have Honey West episodes posted on YouTube
Ah, good to know. Maybe I will be able to watch along.

the lukewarm, unmemorable tune we see them performing in a go-go club.
You're just not with it, man.

his father, wealthy J. J. Vanderhyden (Phil Ober), who shows Honey a "before" picture of Nicky, not approving of his son's current lifestyle.
"He doesn't look like this. Find him!"

planting a bug that she charges Aunt Meg with listening to.
Did this actually come to anything, or does Aunt Meg just need to be kept busy?

a swinging party being held at a very familiar-looking lagoon about three hours from Hawaii by tiny ship.
All this time, the Castaways could have hitched home.

A man in scuba gear picks up the jug and slips away after discarding it.
They're really getting their money's worth out of that SCUBA gear. :rommie:

the kidnapping scheme was originally a ruse that Nicky planned and Tobias was in on, but believe that the kidnappers have now gone rogue.
There's just no honor among thieves. So was this a publicity gimmick or was Nicky actually trying to rip off his rich dad?

The pair then hear a commotion and gunshots in the room outside, find the two gangsters dead, and see Quinn driving away.
With the money. And without freeing Nicky.

At Venderhyden manor, Honey shares her belief that Tobias was set up, as Nicky never made the call that the manager took.
So Jingles expected Tobias to turn over the ransom (or be killed), but Tobias threw a wrench into the works by turning into a greedy psycho killer? Did they ever catch Tobias?

Jingles is about to escape with a gun trained on everyone when Honey literally pull the rug out from under him.
I'm actually glad he turned out to be the villain. He's one of the most unsavory looking actors ever on TV. :rommie:

Jingles: Well I guess it's the jug for me, huh, gang?
Honey and Sam (in unison): Yeah, yeah, yeah!​
I think that lagoon rubbed off on them.

Mr. V is there as well, having reached an understanding with his son.
I expected Mr V to be the ultimate bad guy, because he hired Honey. But this means that he was sincere in trying to pay her off to protect Nicky.

The episode opens with Honey escorting a little girl for a plane ride between custody-sharing parents.
"This sucks, but maybe I won't get knocked out and tied up."

In the coda, Honey and Sam deliver Margaret Mary to her father (James Donohue), and the girl sends them a goodbye transmission via the lipstick that she swiped from Honey's purse.
So basically the inclusion of the kid has no relevance to the story whatsoever-- unless the real plot was that Margaret Mary's parents were smuggling cocaine in her doll Maggie. And the gems were a distraction. Maybe. I don't think they actually write these episodes so much as show up drunk and start filming.

To listen to the surveillance in the van.
Ah, an early example of stealing somebody's bandwidth.

It does seem to be a thing.
Luckily, they broke that pattern with these two-- unless I'm right about the cocaine.

Well, that's TV for you.
True. :rommie:

Sorry. :rommie:

This one I wasn't quite following while I was watching it. Rodriguez was another member of the syndicate. Rival baddies going after one another over a horse betting ring, that's what I caught.
They manage to pack a whole lot of confusion into these little episodes. :rommie:
 
I think this may have come up previously, but there's a fun story behind the song. The McCartneys were having dinner with Dustin Hoffman, who challenged Paul to write a song on the spot about a newspaper story that he picked out. The story was about Picasso's last hours, and Hoffman was reportedly beside himself when Paul started knocking off the song right in front of him.

You can tell that it's still really an unfinished song on the album, which they used to reprise the other songs.

Its still one of the nice low-key highlights from the Wings Over America triple album.
 
50 Years Ago This Week

April 22
  • A gunman in the south side of Los Angeles killed six people and wounded nine others in less than an hour, while on a shooting spree on Easter Sunday. William Ray Bonner had become enraged after arguing with a guest in his home, then shot people whom he knew. A security guard who pursued Bonner, Versell Bennett, became a seventh fatality when police mistook him for the gunman. Police wounded Bonner during a gun battle. Bonner was later sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders.

April 23
  • Egypt's president Anwar Sadat and Syria's president Hafez al-Assad began two days of meetings at Sadat's presidential resort at Borg El Arab to discuss in detail preparations for an October assault against Israel that would become the Yom Kippur War.

April 26
  • Died: Irene Ryan, 70, American comedian and actress most famous for the long-running sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. Ryan died after collapsing on stage on March 10 while appearing in the Broadway production of Pippin in New York City.

April 27
  • L. Patrick Gray resigned as Acting Director of the FBI after having served since the death of J. Edgar Hoover on May 3, 1972. Gray quit after admitting that he had destroyed documents relating to the FBI's investigation of the Watergate scandal. Gray, whom the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee had hesitated to confirm as FBI Director after his appointment by President Nixon, had withdrawn his request for nomination on April 5. Gray would testify later that, on June 21, 1972, he had been handed several top secret cabled reports implicating the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the 1963 assassination of South Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem as well as love letters written by Kennedy as a U.S. Senator "involving some of his peccadilloes, if you will."

April 28
  • Clifford Glover, a 10-year-old African American boy, was shot and killed by a New York City Police Department undercover officer, Thomas Shea, after running from police along with his stepfather. The shooting took place in the South Jamaica section of the borough of Queens. Outraged residents rioted over the next several days, with 10 civilians and 14 policemen injured. Shea would be acquitted of charges of murder on June 12, 1974, leading to a riot of hundreds of South Jamaica residents.


Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
1. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," Dawn feat. Tony Orlando
2. "The Cisco Kid," War
3. "Sing," Carpenters
4. "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," Vicki Lawrence
5. "Little Willy," The Sweet
6. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," Stevie Wonder
7. "Masterpiece," The Temptations
8. "The Twelfth of Never," Donny Osmond
9. "Stuck in the Middle with You," Stealers Wheel
10. "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)," Four Tops
11. "Drift Away," Dobie Gray
12. "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)," Gladys Knight & The Pips
13. "Stir It Up," Johnny Nash
14. "Peaceful," Helen Reddy
15. "Frankenstein," The Edgar Winter Group
16. "Walk on the Wild Side," Lou Reed
17. "Wildflower," Skylark
18. "Danny's Song," Anne Murray
19. "Reelin' in the Years," Steely Dan
20. "Killing Me Softly with His Song," Roberta Flack
21. "Daisy a Day," Jud Strunk
22. "Out of the Question," Gilbert O'Sullivan
23. "Break Up to Make Up," The Stylistics
24. "Funky Worm," Ohio Players
25. "Daniel," Elton John
26. "Pillow Talk," Sylvia
27. "Hocus Pocus," Focus

29. "Hallelujah Day," Jackson 5
30. "The Right Thing to Do," Carly Simon

32. "Thinking of You," Loggins & Messina

34. "Call Me (Come Back Home)," Al Green

36. "My Love," Paul McCartney & Wings

38. "I'm Doin' Fine Now," New York City
39. "Space Oddity," David Bowie

43. "Playground in My Mind," Clint Holmes
44. "Steamroller Blues" / "Fool", Elvis Presley

55. "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Alice Cooper

57. "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby," Barry White
58. "Right Place, Wrong Time," Dr. John

62. "Will It Go Round in Circles," Billy Preston

67. "Long Train Runnin'," The Doobie Brothers

69. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," Jim Croce

71. "One of a Kind (Love Affair)," The Spinners

74. "You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones

78. "Daddy Could Swear, I Declare," Gladys Knight & The Pips

79. "Why Me," Kris Kristofferson
80. "Woman from Tokyo," Deep Purple

86. "I Like You," Donovan

88. "Natural High," Bloodstone

97. "Behind Closed Doors," Charlie Rich


Leaving the chart:
  • "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)," Deodato (12 weeks)
  • "Dead Skunk," Loudon Wainwright III (13 weeks)
  • "Love Train," The O'Jays (14 weeks)

New on the chart:

"I Like You," Donovan
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(#66 US)

"You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones
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(#42 US; #100 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])

"Daddy Could Swear, I Declare," Gladys Knight & The Pips
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(#19 US; #2 R&B)

"Behind Closed Doors," Charlie Rich
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(#15 US; #8 AC; #1 Country; #16 UK)

"One of a Kind (Love Affair)," The Spinners
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(#11 US; #19 AC; #1 R&B)


And new on the boob tube:
  • Kung Fu, "The Third Man"

_______

Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month.

_______

You're just not with it, man.
Somebody wasn't.

Did this actually come to anything, or does Aunt Meg just need to be kept busy?
The latter, I think. The one time something important came through, Honey was there to listen.

So was this a publicity gimmick or was Nicky actually trying to rip off his rich dad?
I wasn't clear. Maybe both.

With the money. And without freeing Nicky.
So Jingles expected Tobias to turn over the ransom (or be killed), but Tobias threw a wrench into the works by turning into a greedy psycho killer? Did they ever catch Tobias?
No, no, no...Jingles was the killer, he set Tobias up to be seen there. Tobias just drove off when he heard the shots.

I think that lagoon rubbed off on them.
The Mosquitos Slept Will Sleep Here!

So basically the inclusion of the kid has no relevance to the story whatsoever
Pretty much...sort of a red herring in that I think we were meant to think she'd be in danger, but she ended up sidelined from the real plot.
I don't think they actually write these episodes so much as show up drunk and start filming.
Ohhh, that's cruel.
 
"I Like You," Donovan
Pleasant, but his truly "Donovan" period is over.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones
Classic Stones.

"Daddy Could Swear, I Declare," Gladys Knight & The Pips
Cute. :rommie:

"Behind Closed Doors," Charlie Rich
Good one.

"One of a Kind (Love Affair)," The Spinners
Classic Spinners.

Somebody wasn't.
Grup.
no.gif


No, no, no...Jingles was the killer, he set Tobias up to be seen there. Tobias just drove off when he heard the shots.
Ohhh, okay.

The Mosquitos Slept Will Sleep Here!
And will have a better buzz.

Pretty much...sort of a red herring in that I think we were meant to think she'd be in danger, but she ended up sidelined from the real plot.
Then they should have hired Jan.

Ohhh, that's cruel.
It's not necessarily an invalid approach. :rommie:
 
_______

Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"The Flame and the Pussycat"
Originally aired November 12, 1965
Frndly said:
Honey tries to nail an arsonist, an elusive figure clothed in asbestos.

Yes, it's the obligatory "mystery arsonist in an asbestos suit" episode! It opens with Sam and Honey trying to nab him with a net from a catwalk as he firebombs a warehouse, but he gets away. (I think this is the same warehouse they used in The Green Hornet for that lame gimmick of the villain swinging around on a rope from the catwalk.) The detectives take heat afterward from Lt. Barney Keller (Ken Lynch, whom as I recall will become the recurring character to fill the antagonistic police contact role). Honey sees Mr. Canby (Liam Sullivan), president of Confederated Insurance Company, about being hired to catch the firebomber, while also meeting their chief insurance investigator, Booth (Sean McClory), but is turned down for the job. She then approaches Mr. Flowers (Harry Basch), the manager of the warehouse...who likes to play with fire, gives her the keys, and makes a hurried call after she leaves. She and Sam discover that insurance fraud is afoot when they find that a crate that's supposed to be from a chemical company is filled with magazines. Honey calls Booth to arrange a meeting, but is knocked out in her building's parking garage and put in her own trunk.

She's driven to a junkyard, where the shadowy assailant fixes a hose to vent the exhaust into the trunk, but she forces the hatch open with her jack. Suspecting that somebody's been covering up the insurance company's investigations of the arsons, Honey dons her burglar suit (with high heels) to keep her meeting with Booth, while Sam breaks into the company's office to have a look at their files, but is knocked out by Flowers and found by Canby, following which Keller is called in. At the warehouse, Honey finds that Flowers has been killed by an asbestos-suited Booth, who's been using a dummy corporation making phony claims of burned-up medical supplies to make an illicit profit. It's gunfire vs. firebombs and a bulletproof asbestos suit until Sam and Keller arrive, and the policeman sets off the bomb that Booth is holding, causing an explosion that hurls him from the catwalk.

After a coda gag with Aunt Meg, the episode ends on a fourth wall-breaking note as a tired Honey, resting on the couch, pulls a shade over the camera.

This episode was of noticeably lower audiovisual quality than previous installments, whatever the reason.

_______

Honey West
"A Neat Little Package"
Originally aired November 19, 1965
Frndly said:
Honey tries to piece together a puzzle involving an accident victim (J. Pat O'Malley) who has amnesia---and $1[50],000 in cash in his car.

Honey pretends to be making a rendezvous with a Mr. Grady in a fleabag hotel room only to be met by an armed man named Roger (Val Avery), who's backed up by an accomplice staking out the lobby (Roy Jenson). She disarms Roger and makes a break for it, aided by Sam coming to the rescue in the van outside. It turns out that the detectives were hired by Grady (O'Malley), who's lost his memory of the previous few months after an accident eight days prior and found the hotel key on him. He then shows them why he was cautious about going to the hotel himself--the titular object, a tidily wrapped bundle of $150,000. Sam goes undercover as Grady's replacement at his newspaper stand while Honey and Grady surveil from the van, which is given an assignment-specific makeover as a Daily Gazette delivery van. Honey spots Roger, who gets into a car with his accomplice, and tails them to the closed Golden Lotus restaurant, to learn that the hoods are in a meeting with a man named Chico. Meanwhile, Sam snaps a wristwatch picture of a customer who seems particularly concerned with what happened to Grady, whom Grady later identifies as construction magnate Charles Addison (Sydney Smith), which jogs his memory that Addison may have given him the hotel key and the package. Honey and Sam try to pay Addison a visit, see Roger's accomplice leaving the apartment building, and find Addison lying face-down in his bathtub with his clothes on.

Honey dons a Polynesian-style makeover disguise to get a job as a cigarette girl at the Golden Lotus. With the help of Aunt Meg as a customer distracting the maitre'd (Clarence Lung), she gets into the office of Chico (Arthur Batanides), plants a bug, and asks about a picture of Addison that she brings with her. This loosens lips after she leaves, and she and Sam hear the name Stashall dropped, which belongs to a known loan shark. Eventually Honey is cornered and taken to the upstairs digs of Stashall, who turns out to be Roger's accomplice, who's been doing his own dirty work. Stashall explains how Addison had recruited Grady to deliver his repayment with interest, only for Grady to turn up missing along with the dough. Stashall then has his men take Honey out to the "lake"--a pond outside the restaurant--for the Addison treatment, but she puts up a fight that spills into the drink. Having heard everything, Sam fights through Stashall and joins the melee outside, helping Honey to overcome the hoods, who are taken away by conventional law enforcement in the coda.

The tightly shot pond may be yet another use of the lagoon set, now with restaurant exterior. Whoever was doubling for Anne in the fight sequence was too obviously wearing a wig, and may have been a man, baby!

_______

Honey West
"A Stitch in Crime"
Originally aired November 26, 1965
Frndly said:
Honey stitches together an odd assortment of clues as she tries to recover a $100,000 dress collection.

Transporting a shipment of gowns to a show in Frisco, Sam and Honey are accosted by a rowdy group of youths in a station wagon who almost force the van off the road. They subsequently stop at a roadside cafe, and two of the youths follow them in to pick a fight. Sam fends them off with a little support from Honey. Outside, the detectives first notice that only those two youths drive away, when there had been three; then they notice that the van is gone.

The detectives are teased by a rural sheriff and his deputy who take them to where the van was abandoned, the dresses gone. The only clues are that the tracks lead back to L.A., and a packaged guitar string that Honey finds on the ground. Back in town, one of the youths is identified as having a record--Frankie McGovern (David Pritchard). While Honey explains things to their client, Mr. Antoine (Laurie Main)--expressing extra motivation in that she was planning to use business money to buy one of the gowns--Sam visits the music store that the string came from for Frankie's address. The proprietor (Herbie Faye) volunteers a demonstration on Frankie's in-for-repair guitar...

Mr. Kessler: This is music--"Yeah, yeah, yeah; Wah, wah, wah"....When I was young, it was Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler. Now it's "Baby, baby, baby"--What is that?​

While Sam stakes out McGovern, Honey--suspecting an inside job--goes undercover at one of Antoine's shows as a German model, accompanied by Aunt Meg as a seamstress. But a suspicious rival, Gloria (Charlene Holt), quickly sniffs Honey out by insulting her in German without reaction, and shares her discovery with the photographer, Valentine (James B. Sikking). From the stage, Honey sees one of the hijackers deliver a package to Antoine. It turns out to be one of the gowns, now damaged, with a ransom note.

Sam tails McGovern to an Obligatory Beatnik Coffee House, where he and Honey don disguises to briefly go undercover as patrons. They spot Valentine going into the back with the hijackers, but lose them when they drive off from a back alley.

Sam (in character): They're like way, way out.​

Honey schemes to frame Valentine by letting him in on who she really is and her plan for the ransom delivery. While Bruce is left in the room wearing a bugged collar, Valentine makes a call to Gloria, who's with Frankie, who in turn calls Antoine to arrange the drop. Honey subsequently apprehends Valentine, and the delivery is made. With the help of a tracker in the money case, Sam and Honey tail the hijackers to the back of a cleaner's where they have the gowns hidden in plain sight and a fight ensues. Gloria gets in on the act with a gun, but Honey disarms her.

In the coda, Honey and Sam are late for a date to the opera because Honey's dressing in one of the gowns, which cost her a fortune.

_______

Honey West
"A Million Bucks in Anybody's Language"
Originally aired December 3, 1965
Frndly said:
Honey uncovers a fantastic counterfeiting ring as she probes the fiery murder of a detective.

Honey's in the bath when she gets a panicky call from a colleague named Charlie Neeley (Harry Bellaver) asking for help. She rushes to his office about as quickly as we could expect for her to be fully camera-presentable, to find him gone. While she searches around, finding an envelope addressed to her with money in it, a figure in a welder's mask wastes no time tampering with her car outside. Honey calls Sam on the car phone, and in a clever cut, he's suddenly in the car with her on the way to Charlie's house...where they're initially reassured to see his car, but it then explodes.

It's assumed that Charlie was in the car, though the remains couldn't be identified. When questioned by Lieutenant Keller, Honey insists on staying on the case, considering Charlie to be a client. Charlie's home and office are subsequently ransacked, as is Honey's office--she and Sam find Aunt Meg tied up and Bruce in a drawer, after two men in stocking masks worked the place over. (This is the brief scene shown in the promotional spot that I posted.) A number raised from a pad in Charlie's office leads to a swinging drive-in called the Tiger's Torso, where Honey takes a job as a carhop in a sexy striped outfit. They witness the owner, Mr. Garth (believe it or not, Steve Ihnat), personally delivering a package to a man in a car (Frank Scannell)--as Honey has seen him do at least a couple of times before--and Sam uncharacteristically chases the man's car and runs him off the road to find out what's in the package. The man takes off, and the package bursts open in Sam's hand to reveal that it's full of cash.

An associate named Wiley (Percy Helton) identifies the British pounds as very good forgeries that were likely the work of a Walter Miller. While Honey eavesdrops on Garth via a bug she planted in his office, Sam persuades Charlie's sister Dora (Sarah Selby) to let him search her place, where he finds a dossier on Miller hidden in the cellar. Determining Charlie to have been in on the counterfeiting, Sam tries to call Honey off the case, but she tails Garth to a meeting at a cabin in the woods, where she's caught by Garth's heavies but drops clues to her location into the lipstick mic. Sam eventually arrives and a fight ensues in which the detectives take down Garth and crew. They then spot a man outside near Honey's car and Sam goes out to tackle him and bring him in. It's Charlie, who confesses to having killed Miller in self-defense when he found him, then using his body in the car bombing and his plates--which he welded inside Honey's fender--to go into business.

In the coda, Keller is so pleased for a change that he sends a wine basket to Honey and Sam.

_______

Pleasant, but his truly "Donovan" period is over.
This will, in fact, be his last charting single. While looking for the audio clip, I found this vintage promotional video:
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Fare thee well, Hurdy Gurdy Man...

ETA: Just looked up who the woman and child in the video would be, and this is interesting...apparently Donovan's wife since 1970, whom he's still married to, Linda Lawrence; and stepson Julian, whose father was...Brian Jones.

Classic Stones.
Originally available in 1969 first as the single-edited B-side of "Honky Tonk Women" and later on the Let It Bleed album, its release as an A-side at this point may have had something to do with the 1971-released collection Hot Rocks 1964-1971, which is still on the album chart alongside its 1972 sequel, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies).

Whereas the newly arrived Red and Blue Albums, which are arranged in chronological order, gave me the opportunity to choose twelve of the Beatles' strongest tracks for my playlist; the organization of the Hot Rocks collections gave me the opportunity to choose six of the Stones' strongest tracks to date, and the six strongest among the also-rans.

Not terribly well known in my experience, but quirky and offbeat.

Good one.
I have some vague first-hand memory of this one, but I don't see myself getting it.

Classic Spinners.
Familiar oldies radio fare.

What I'm saying is that grups were responsible for the not-Invasion-worthy number.

Then they should have hired Jan.
Whose actress would have been 7 at this point.
 
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"Behind Closed Doors," Charlie Rich

Not his best song (that will be released in August of '73), but a quality song.

"One of a Kind (Love Affair)," The Spinners

Another classic from somewhat underrated Spinners.

From the list of other songs that week:
1. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," Dawn feat. Tony Orlando
2. "The Cisco Kid," War
3. "Sing," Carpenters
4. "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," Vicki Lawrence
5. "Little Willy," The Sweet
6. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," Stevie Wonder
7. "Masterpiece," The Temptations
8. "The Twelfth of Never," Donny Osmond
9. "Stuck in the Middle with You," Stealers Wheel
10. "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)," Four Tops
11. "Drift Away," Dobie Gray
12. "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)," Gladys Knight & The Pips
13. "Stir It Up," Johnny Nash
14. "Peaceful," Helen Reddy
15. "Frankenstein," The Edgar Winter Group
16. "Walk on the Wild Side," Lou Reed
17. "Wildflower," Skylark
18. "Danny's Song," Anne Murray
19. "Reelin' in the Years," Steely Dan
20. "Killing Me Softly with His Song," Roberta Flack
21. "Daisy a Day," Jud Strunk
22. "Out of the Question," Gilbert O'Sullivan
23. "Break Up to Make Up," The Stylistics
24. "Funky Worm," Ohio Players
25. "Daniel," Elton John
26. "Pillow Talk," Sylvia
27. "Hocus Pocus," Focus

29. "Hallelujah Day," Jackson 5
30. "The Right Thing to Do," Carly Simon

32. "Thinking of You," Loggins & Messina

34. "Call Me (Come Back Home)," Al Green

36. "My Love," Paul McCartney & Wings

38. "I'm Doin' Fine Now," New York City
39. "Space Oddity," David Bowie

43. "Playground in My Mind," Clint Holmes
44. "Steamroller Blues" / "Fool", Elvis Presley

55. "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Alice Cooper

57. "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby," Barry White
58. "Right Place, Wrong Time," Dr. John

62. "Will It Go Round in Circles," Billy Preston

67. "Long Train Runnin'," The Doobie Brothers

69. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," Jim Croce

88. "Natural High," Bloodstone

Almost every song a classic, with the exception of the entries from Jud Strunk, the Jackson 5, New York City, The Carpenters and Focus. The rich diversity in charting songs of the 70s is jaw-dropping, compared to today's charts.
 
It opens with Sam and Honey trying to nab him with a net from a catwalk as he firebombs a warehouse, but he gets away.
We're definitely veering into superhero territory here. :rommie:

Honey sees Mr. Canby (Liam Sullivan), president of Confederated Insurance Company, about being hired to catch the firebomber, while also meeting their chief insurance investigator, Booth (Sean McClory), but is turned down for the job.
So what was the deal with them trying to catch him before?

they find that a crate that's supposed to be from a chemical company is filled with magazines.
I'd like to get a look at that. There might be some good stuff in there.

Honey calls Booth to arrange a meeting, but is knocked out in her building's parking garage and put in her own trunk.
TV writers don't really appreciate how much force it takes to knock someone out. Honey would be dumb as a football player by now and it's not even halfway through her first season.

the shadowy assailant fixes a hose to vent the exhaust into the trunk
To make it look like suicide?

but she forces the hatch open with her jack.
Nice escape.

Sam breaks into the company's office to have a look at their files, but is knocked out by Flowers
I just wanted to quote this out of context. :rommie:

Booth, who's been using a dummy corporation making phony claims of burned-up medical supplies to make an illicit profit.
So Flowers was working with Booth, or Flowers discovered Booth's plan? Did we ever discover why Honey and Sam were trying to capture Asbestos Man in the opener?

It's gunfire vs. firebombs and a bulletproof asbestos suit until Sam and Keller arrive, and the policeman sets off the bomb that Booth is holding causing an explosion that hurls him from the catwalk.
Yup, definitely Pulp Fiction territory. :D

only to be met by an armed man named Roger
"Hi, I'm Roger."

the detectives were hired by Grady (O'Malley), who's lost his memory of the previous few months after an accident eight days prior
and found the hotel key on him.
So Roger was sitting there for eight days waiting for him?

He then shows them why he was cautious about going to the hotel himself--the titular object, a tidily wrapped bundle of $150,000.
Generally, you should share things like that with your detectives up front.

Sam snaps a wristwatch picture of a customer
Where do they get this technology, and the money for it?

and find Addison lying face-down in his bathtub with his clothes on.
Most fatal accidents occur in the home.

Stashall explains how Addison had recruited Grady to deliver his repayment with interest, only for Grady to turn up missing along with the dough.
Why was he missing? Did they ever detail the circumstances of the accident?

Whoever was doubling for Anne in the fight sequence was too obviously wearing a wig, and may have been a man, baby!
That really takes all the fun out of it as far as I'm concerned.

Transporting a shipment of gowns to a show in Frisco
Now they're doing deliveries? Last episode they were hired by an amnesiac newspaper vendor? Before that they were out on patrol and caught an arsonist in the act? Who are these people? :rommie:

Sam and Honey are accosted by a rowdy group of youths in a station wagon who almost force the van off the road. They subsequently stop at a roadside cafe, and two of the youths follow them in to pick a fight. Sam fends them off with a little support from Honey. Outside, the detectives first notice that only those two youths drive away, when there had been three; then they notice that the van is gone.
This explains why they were never recruited by the IMF.

The detectives are teased by a rural sheriff and his deputy
And deservedly so. :rommie:

Mr. Kessler: This is music--"Yeah, yeah, yeah; Wah, wah, wah"....When I was young, it was Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler. Now it's "Baby, baby, baby"--What is that?​
This show demonstrates a real animosity toward youth culture. :rommie:

Gloria (Charlene Holt), quickly sniffs Honey out by insulting her in German without reaction
"Sheisskopf!"
"Gesundheit."

Valentine (James B. Sikking)
The Excelsior captain with the riding crop.

It turns out to be one of the gowns, now damaged, with a ransom note.
The stakes could not be higher.

I love it. :rommie:

Sam (in character): They're like way, way out.
You're right, the show is definitely written by Grups. :rommie:

While Bruce is left in the room wearing a bugged collar
It's nice to see Bruce playing a substantive role, but I really wish he was trained to kill.

Gloria gets in on the act with a gun, but Honey disarms her.
See, this would have been a perfect opportunity for Honey to sic Bruce on Gloria for a frenetic finale of flying fur and fashion.

"A Million Bucks in Anybody's Language"
Now there's a nice title.

Honey's in the bath
Face up and not clothed, presumably.

a figure in a welder's mask wastes no time tampering with her car outside
Okay, that's more like it.

she and Sam find Aunt Meg tied up and Bruce in a drawer
Both Aunt Meg and Bruce need some martial arts training.

a swinging drive-in called the Tiger's Torso, where Honey takes a job as a carhop in a sexy striped outfit.
I love how Honey can instantly get a job quicker than most people can fill out an application form. :rommie:

Mr. Garth (believe it or not, Steve Ihnat)
Another time-travel crossover. Keep an eye peeled for redshirts in the background.

Sam uncharacteristically chases the man's car and runs him off the road
He's still pissed off about those kids from last episode.

Sam persuades Charlie's sister Dora (Sarah Selby) to let him search her place
That seems random.

she's caught by Garth's heavies but drops clues to her location into the lipstick mic.
That's some long-range lipstick!

It's Charlie, who confesses to having killed Miller in self-defense when he found him, then using his body in the car bombing and his plates--which he welded inside Honey's fender--to go into business.
So the frantic call to Honey and the money in the envelope were all a ruse of some kind? Or he felt his life was in danger and called Honey for help, and the murder and bombing happened while she was on the way? Was Charlie originally hired by somebody to investigate Miller?

ETA: Just looked up who the woman and child in the video would be, and this is interesting...apparently Donovan's wife since 1970, whom he's still married to, Linda Lawrence
That's nice. You don't often see enduring relationships like that in show biz.

Not terribly well known in my experience, but quirky and offbeat.
Actually, I don't think I ever heard it before at all.

I have some vague first-hand memory of this one, but I don't see myself getting it.
My Mother had the album. :rommie:

What I'm saying is that grups were responsible for the not-Invasion-worthy number.
I must agree. :rommie:

The rich diversity in charting songs of the 70s is jaw-dropping, compared to today's charts.
Ain't that the truth.
 
_______

Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"The Gray Lady"
Originally aired December 10, 1965
Frndly said:
Cesare Danova plays a master thief who matches wits with Honey.

This was reportedly the pilot episode production-wise. Repurposing pilots as regular series episodes mid-season seemed to be a thing in TV of the period. It opens with Bert Parks (himself) hosting a film premiere at Grumann's Chinese Theater. While star Nicole Bridoux (Nancy Kovack putting on an OTT French accent; wasn't clear on the character's surname--closed captioning spelled it Bridu, which doesn't look authentically French) enjoys her red carpet spotlight, a suave burglar (Danova) is working her hotel room, only for Honey to pop out of the closet with a gun. They exchange repartee and Honey gives him a judo throw, but he escapes after tricking her into turning on a lamp that has a bulb he'd planted, which produces a blinding flash. He dons a disguise in the elevator to slip by Sam as an exterminator. The thief is identified by his M.O. as Abbott, and it turns out that Bridoux hired Honey expecting him, thinking that apprehending the thief robbing her room would generate good publicity. Lt. Keith (Fred Vincent) is upset at this, but Honey sweet-talks him into changing his attitude.

Honey becomes invested in nabbing Abbott, and believes that something he said at the hotel indicates that his next caper may be stealing the titular diamond, which belongs to visiting heiress Babs Ivar (Pat Collins, a.k.a. "the Hip Hypnotist"). Honey and Sam, and Abbott separately, stake out the airport as she arrives with her "much younger" second husband, Jerry (Kevin McCarthy), while wearing the diamond around her neck. (This is a positively bizarre age discrepancy, as McCarthy was actually 21 years OLDER than Collins...!) Honey approaches Mr. Ivar about a scheme to trap Abbott, but he refuses, so Sam, posing as staff, brings the Ivars a new TV that makes their suite the program in Honey's room, complete with moving camera, close ups, the works!

Honey later watches as Abbott breaks into the suite while the Ivars are away, and rappels down to their balcony in her catsuit. Mr. Ivar walks in as Honey's holding Abbott at gunpoint, but disarms her by surprise and holds what will become known as a Five-O Special on her because he's in cahoots with Abbott for the insurance. As Ivar's trying to get Abbott on board with having Honey take a dive off the balcony, Honey plays the men against each other by suggesting that the diamond's been switched with a fake. Apparently she's right, as Ivar puts two shots in Abbott as he's about to try crushing the gem underfoot. Honey disarms Ivar and an extended fight sequence ensues, preceded by Ivar having a good supervillain moment in which he maniacally demonstrates that he's skilled enough in karate to split a desk in half. Honey nevertheless comes out on top, and makes herself more presentable before exiting the suite.

The coda has Sam--whom Ivar had the foresight to knock out while he was surveilling--in the hospital, with Honey arguing that the publicity from the case will make up for lack of a paying client.

Bruce is in the episode, but not Aunt Meg. This one had more clever, jokey scene cuts than I've noticed in the entire series thus far.

_______

Honey West
"Invitation to Limbo"
Originally aired December 17, 1965
Wiki said:
Local businessmen are being hypnotized into committing inside jobs.

Charlie Kenyon (Stacy Harris) passes through a high-tech-for-1965 security checkpoint to proceed into his office and remove plans from the safe and photograph them...while being watched by Sam from the van (complete with the usual varying camera shots), and then photographed by Honey, who pops out of a closet. Kenyon is slow to react, but eventually attacks Honey. When she fights back, he comes to his senses, not remembering anything that just happened.

This is the first episode I've noticed in which the episode title and writer and director credits are shown over a scene rather than a still shot. Honey and Sam explain to office manager Harold Sutter (Dan Frazer) that they were hired by the company's board of directors. Honey's car is tampered with outside by none other than Wayne Rogers...but she's pulled over for speeding by a motorcycle cop, who teases her about wanting to become the first female astronaut. While he's writing the ticket, the engine blows from what Lt. Sherman (Peter Leeds) determines was a homemade bomb. Honey and Sam question Kenyon about his actions, which he can't explain, and convince him to hire them. When Sam asks, he admits to having been to a club to see a hypnotist. Honey goes undercover there as a sexily clad cigarette girl to scope out the stage act of the hypnotist, Darlene (Louise Troy). After the act, Sam witnesses Not Trapper compelling one of the audience volunteers to make a rendezvous, so he and Honey surveil the suspect, Jerry, in his photo studio, where Darlene gives detailed instructions to the customer to take photographs of blueprints at his office. Jerry hears a noise from the skylight and goes up to catch Honey at gunpoint. A fight ensues, with Sam arriving in time to punch Jerry's lights out.

Honey and Sam question Darlene and Jerry, who say that they're just middlemen working for an unknown party, to whom Darlene makes drops at a sauna bath. Honey goes undercover at the sauna to witness the pickup by a woman in the locker room, then quickly slips on her trench coat and out of her towel underneath to follow the courier to a greenhouse, giving Sam a call from the car. Inside the greenhouse, the woman turns out to be Sutter's secretary, Miss Christie (Judy Lang), who's making a rendezvous with the man behind the operation, her boss. While being held at gunpoint by Christie, Honey drops some clues to the situation via a transmitter concealed in a compact, and Sam, who's riding with Sherman, has the lieutenant turn on his siren. This startles Christie enough for Honey to gain the upper hand, and Sutter is intercepted by the police car while trying to drive away.

Sam: Are you alright?
Honey: Not really.
Sam: What's the matter?
Honey: I'm a little chilly, I wonder what time that steam bath closes?
Sam: ...Why?
Honey: Forgot something.​

In the coda, Honey and Sam have drinks with Kenyon at the club, where they find that Darlene's been replaced by a juggler (Danny Reese), whose torches seem to put Sam into a trance.

_______

Honey West
"Rockabye the Hard Way"
Originally aired December 24, 1965
Frndly said:
In Mexico, Sam and Honey look into the drugging of a truck driver who was carrying a shipment of missile parts.

Honey and Sam have taken the car south of the border, where they're questioning locals about the location of a Mr. McWhorter. They're directed to a cantina, where a Laszlo Shatzi (Ivan Triesault) greets them politely but prevents them from going upstairs. They climb up from the outside to watch through a barred window as McWhorter is shot by a bald man (Larry D. Mann), who then takes a silenced shot at them. They rush down, inside, and upstairs to find a room of hoods playing cards, and hastily exit.

Honey goes to McWhorter's room to be held at gunpoint by the bald man, who's been packing a suitcase, and sees a radio transmitter. She manages to overcome the bald man, makes a break for it, and she and Sam make tracks for the border. Back at home, the detectives report to their client, Rocky Hansen (Joe Don Baker), a truck driver who recounts how McWhorter, a fellow driver, was sitting next to him when he was slipped a mickey by a man whose description matches the bald man, which caused him to lose his job even though his cargo wasn't taken while he was out. Honey goes undercover as a waitress at the diner, and Sam as McWhorter's replacement. Sam finds an expensive jacket in McWhorter's locker belonging to a John Raven (Vincent Beck), who has an alibi for Honey about how it left his possession, but when she leaves after his smooth attempts to pick her up, it turns out that the bald man is his valet, Tripp.

Honey and Sam break into Raven's place while he's out at night, finding a picture of the joint in Mexico where McWhorter was killed and equipment for night photography; then trip up a returning Tripp to make their escape. Determining that the scheme is to photograph classified materials being carried in the trucks and sell the intel via radio, the detectives listen in as Raven, who's surmised that Sam is Honey's inside man at the plant, plans to handle him the same way as McWhorter. The detectives counter-plan to have Honey slip Sam an antidote to the barbiturate at the diner, but after Swetlow (Paul Sorensen), a security guard at the plant, slips Sam the mickey, a mishap causes Honey to break the cup with the antidote, so she rushes Sam out, putting his drugged coffee in a thermos for him. Honey keeps in touch with Sam as his truck is tailed, and he pulls over to fake having been knocked out by the coffee on the drive. Swetlow drives the truck to a clearing off the road, then he, Raven, and Tripp get into the back of the truck to photograph the missile being carried. Sam uses a flare to stun them outside, and he and Honey make short work of the men.

In the coda, Sam is jealous after Honey is questioned by a secret service agent at the diner, and Rocky has gotten his job back.

:beer: MERRY CHRISTMAS! :beer:

_______

So what was the deal with them trying to catch him before?
Free demonstration gone wrong? Were hoping to sell him?

I'd like to get a look at that. There might be some good stuff in there.
There was, Sam was ogling a centerfold.

TV writers don't really appreciate how much force it takes to knock someone out. Honey would be dumb as a football player by now and it's not even halfway through her first season.
TV Fu knockout chops go down smoother.

To make it look like suicide?
I doubt it. Just a deathtrap.

So Flowers was working with Booth, or Flowers discovered Booth's plan?
I wanted to disclose up front that I wasn't clear what Flowers's role in the scheme was...just that he was clearly meant to be a red herring to us.

So Roger was sitting there for eight days waiting for him?
Maybe.

Where do they get this technology, and the money for it?
Sam is supposedly the one whipping up the gadgets.

Why was he missing? Did they ever detail the circumstances of the accident?
They might have said something, but I don't think it was meant to be important, just random.

That really takes all the fun out of it as far as I'm concerned.
We got to see Anne wet in the aftermath, though.

I love it. :rommie:
That screencap has "caption contest" written all over it.

It's nice to see Bruce playing a substantive role, but I really wish he was trained to kill.
People are generally comically wary of him nevertheless.

I love how Honey can instantly get a job quicker than most people can fill out an application form. :rommie:
She was qualified.

HW02.jpg

Sam: If you wore that around the office, we could up our fee.

Another time-travel crossover. Keep an eye peeled for redshirts in the background.
"Psst! Queen to queen's level three..."

That seems random.
They'd expositorily set up that Charlie had been staying with her in an earlier scene.

So the frantic call to Honey and the money in the envelope were all a ruse of some kind? Or he felt his life was in danger and called Honey for help, and the murder and bombing happened while she was on the way? Was Charlie originally hired by somebody to investigate Miller?
I think it was all a ruse. Charlie had been investigating Miller, but I'm not sure by whom. I wasn't clear on how Charlie was using the plates if he had them welded in Honey's fender. Was he routinely taking them out and putting them back?

I must agree. :rommie:
Did you have a listen?

Ain't that the truth.
But pales in comparison to, say, five years prior in my book.
 
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Repurposing pilots as regular series episodes mid-season seemed to be a thing in TV of the period.
Sometimes with great results, such as "The Menagerie."

The thief is identified by his M.O. as Abbott
"The Flashbulb Thief."

it turns out that Bridoux hired Honey expecting him, thinking that apprehending the thief robbing her room would generate good publicity.
What did he steal? Did they ever get it back?

Honey becomes invested in nabbing Abbott
"This time... it's personal."

her "much younger" second husband, Jerry (Kevin McCarthy), while wearing the diamond around her neck. (This is a positively bizarre age discrepancy, as McCarthy was actually 21 years OLDER than Collins...!)
Who's hypnotizing who?

Sam, posing as staff, brings the Ivars a new TV that makes their suite the program in Honey's room, complete with moving camera, close ups, the works!
Aha! This is how Honey and Sam make their dough.

because he's in cahoots with Abbott for the insurance.
It would have been good if Abbott had been hypnotized, because Mrs Ivar being a "Hip Hypnotist" as well as an heiress seems to have gone nowhere. Otherwise, this is the most straightforward plot we've seen on this show.

preceded by Ivar having a good supervillain moment in which he maniacally demonstrates that he's skilled enough in karate to split a desk in half.
Nice. :rommie:

Honey nevertheless comes out on top, and makes herself more presentable before exiting the suite.
It's always good to see Honey not need to be rescued by Sam once in a while, it being her show and all.

The coda has Sam--whom Ivar had the foresight to knock out while he was surveilling--in the hospital
Apparently those desk-splitting skills can be effective, after all.

then photographed by Honey, who pops out of a closet.
Again? She must be related to Barney Collier.

When she fights back, he comes to his senses, not remembering anything that just happened.
"What did I come in here for?"

Honey's car is tampered with outside by none other than Wayne Rogers...
Always the practical joker.

a motorcycle cop, who teases her about wanting to become the first female astronaut.
"I was skinny dipping on alien planets when you were a rookie."

When Sam asks, he admits to having been to a club to see a hypnotist.
Evil hypnotists are always supposed to include the command to forget that you've been to see the Evil Hypnotist.

Honey goes undercover there as a sexily clad cigarette girl
Another instant job.

Inside the greenhouse, the woman turns out to be Sutter's secretary, Miss Christie (Judy Lang), who's making a rendezvous with the man behind the operation, her boss.
So Sutter started with his own company, and moved on to others? Or this victim also worked for his company? Did the Board of Directors hire Honey because this has been going on for a while? If so, they should have kept Sutter out of the loop. Also, Sutter must have been selling these plans to someone. A foreign power? Did they ever say what kind of plans they were? Was it international espionage or industrial espionage?

Sam: Are you alright?
Honey: Not really.
Sam: What's the matter?
Honey: I'm a little chilly, I wonder what time that steam bath closes?
Sam: ...Why?
Honey: Forgot something.​
I like the whole sauna thing. Very suggestively sexy.

Rocky Hansen (Joe Don Baker)
I'm sure I know who this is.

a truck driver who recounts how McWhorter, a fellow driver, was sitting next to him when he was slipped a mickey by a man whose description matches the bald man, which caused him to lose his job even though his cargo wasn't taken while he was out.
So McWhorter went after the bald guy and tracked him to Mexico, and Honey was hired to find McWhorter... to stop him from doing something stupid... or to find the bald guy first... because....?

Honey goes undercover as a waitress at the diner
She probably makes more in tips than she does as a detective.

and Sam as McWhorter's replacement.
He's pretty good at landing the perfect job, too.

Sam finds an expensive jacket in McWhorter's locker belonging to a John Raven
They didn't clean out McWhorter's locker? McWhorter has no family or next of kin?

who has an alibi for Honey about how it left his possession
Which is? :rommie:

Honey and Sam break into Raven's place while he's out at night, finding a picture of the joint in Mexico where McWhorter was killed
That's odd, and pretty stupid.

Determining that the scheme is to photograph classified materials being carried in the trucks and sell the intel via radio
Kinda the same scheme as last week.

The detectives counter-plan to have Honey slip Sam an antidote to the barbiturate
Does such a thing even exist?

then he, Raven, and Tripp get into the back of the truck to photograph the missile being carried.
A missile?!? :rommie: They're transporting a missile in a truck with a lone driver? And why didn't Swetlow just photograph it back at the plant?

Sam uses a flare to stun them outside
Holy hell, Sam, no flares around the missile!

:beer: MERRY CHRISTMAS! :beer:
Happy New Year!
party.gif


Free demonstration gone wrong? Were hoping to sell him?
"Upgrade to our Pro Service where we don't fail."

There was, Sam was ogling a centerfold.
There you go. I was thinking LIFE or Look or MAD, but even better.

Sam is supposedly the one whipping up the gadgets.
He's a regular Tony Stark. He should whip up a couple of suits of armor. Or at least helmets.

We got to see Anne wet in the aftermath, though.
Thank goodness for that.

That screencap has "caption contest" written all over it.
Oh, man, I used to have so many Caption Contest awards. Those were the days.

Oh, murder.

"Psst! Queen to queen's level three..."
Er... King to Queen Level One?

They'd expositorily set up that Charlie had been staying with her in an earlier scene.
Ah, okay.

i wasn't clear on how Charlie was using the plates if he had them welded in Honey's fender. Was he routinely taking them out and putting them back?
I may have to double down on that "showing up drunk" thing. :rommie:

Did you have a listen?
No, that was just based on the general tone of the show... however, since the episode is on YouTube, I think I may just watch it over breakfast.

But pales in comparison to, say, five years prior in my book.
In my little head, I see three high points in popular music in my lifetime. The late 60s, which was not only creative musically but was infused with social consciousness, the early-to-mid 70s, which was highly innovative and diverse in subject matter, and, after a three or four year Dark Age, the early 80s, which was just kinda nuts, being informed by Punk and New Wave. After that, steady decline.
 
_______

Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"A Nice Little Till to Tap"
Originally aired December 31, 1965
Frndly said:
To get inside information for a bank heist, suave Peter Sutton (Anthony Eisley) romances Honey---who's masquerading as a teller.

Sam follows and listens in on Sutton and his driver (Marvin Brody) as they do a dry run for a bank heist. We learn that Sutton's plan involves dating a teller who happens to be Honey undercover. An expository meeting between Sam, Lt. Coombs (Peter Leeds), and bumbling insurance agent Mr. Tweedy (Howard McNear) sets up that patterns common to the previous jobs allowed them to deduce which bank would likely be next, and to put Honey in place as the latest teller to be used for information. Sam plays waiter during a date between Honey and Sutton, and intercepts a note from the driver, Mears, that a party named Durant is ready, and another, Crowley, is arriving in town. Sam tries to intercept Crowley (Chuck Hicks), an explosives expert, but he's accidentally killed when a car runs into him while he tries to flee. The other man, Durant (Lou Krugman), arrives at Sutton's place as Honey is leaving, and fingers her as Honey West, private eye.

While Sutton changes his plan to one that involves offing Honey, Sam learns from Tweedy that Durant is the name of an alarm expert that the company's been using, and Sam realizes that Durant would know Honey from a mutual court appearance. Honey is nabbed and Sam gets a ransom call for her that's actually a trap. One of Sutton's men knocks him out as he's going to the van and watches him in back while the bank crew chisel through a wall to the vault door. While Sutton handles the explosives, Sam comes to and takes out his minder. Sam arrives at the bank after the job's been done, but remembers a manhole that Sutton made a point of stopping over on his dry run. Sam and Coombs find an accomplice inside (William Benedict), and force him to take them to the ice company where Sutton and the crew have Honey. (This was a bit confusing...apparently the sewer was one contingency, and the ice house was another.) Sam and Coombs force their way in and come out on top in a firefight that ends in a brawl between Sam and Sutton.

In the coda, a still-shivering Honey is partially warmed up by the sight of a generous check from the pleased insurance company, and the episode ends on a somewhat date-appropriate note...

Sam: Cheers, Mr. Tweedy.
Tweedy: Cheers, Miss West!
Honey (unenthusiastically): Hip, hip, hooray, Mr. Tweedy.​

_______

Honey West
"How Brillig, O, Beamish Boy"
Originally aired January 7, 1966
Frndly said:
Sam is kidnapped by a man who intends to bargain with Honey for a parcel she has been hired to deliver.

Sam notices that he's being tailed by a couple of men after leaving a bank, and drops an envelope to Honey in her car following which she drives off. He then dons a disguise to try to elude the men, but is knocked out by a faux blind man (John McGiver). Honey was hired by a man named Ben Fancher to pick up a package from a safety deposit box and deliver it to him. She finds that the envelope contains $500,000, and then receives a visit from the former blind man, Mr. Brillig, who wants to trade Sam for the package and the man who hired her. As Brillig is leaving, Honey asks him to take Sam's glasses to him. She then receives a call from Fancher (Norman Alden) to meet him at a curio shop. Honey explains the situation to him and somebody takes a shot at them from a car outside. In the back of a flower shop where Sam is being guarded by a hood named Little Ardo (Howard Dayton), Brillig brings him his glasses and, when he's left alone, Sam wires them into the TV set that Ardo watches.

When Brillig returns, the glasses are discovered and he decides to set a trap for Honey. Honey follows the amplified signal to the flower shop and is caught trying to free Sam. The two of them subsequently escape together, but are tailed by Brillig and his men. While Sam nurses an injured foot, Honey keeps a new meeting with Fancher at a ghost town, and the two are pursued into a mine shaft by Brillig and company. Fancher explains that he was a former partner of Brillig who put the absconded money in the box and sat on it for a year hoping that the heat would clear. Sam arrives with a sheriff (Monte Hale) just after Honey has overcome the hoods by plowing into them with a mine car, ending up with the lantern-brandishing Brillig at gunpoint.

HW05.jpg

Honey produces the money for the sheriff, which she had hidden in a sweater worn by Bruce, whom she brought with her in the car.

_______

What did he steal? Did they ever get it back?
The jewels that the actress left in her room.

Who's hypnotizing who?
It would have been good if Abbott had been hypnotized, because Mrs Ivar being a "Hip Hypnotist" as well as an heiress seems to have gone nowhere.
To clarify, Pat Collins had a stage act in which she hypnotized volunteers (which I have to think connected with them doing another episode about exactly that). The character of Mrs. Ivar wasn't supposed to be a hypnotist.

His delivery of "Okay, Miss West...we...are gonna have...a ball!" is like Nicholson's Joker way ahead of schedule.
HW03.jpg
HW04.jpg

It's always good to see Honey not need to be rescued by Sam once in a while, it being her show and all.
Hmmm...this having been the pilot, I wonder if network suits muddled things up. "No, no, no, you've gotta have the guy rescue her!"

"I was skinny dipping on alien planets when you were a rookie."
:D

So Sutter started with his own company, and moved on to others? Or this victim also worked for his company? Did the Board of Directors hire Honey because this has been going on for a while? If so, they should have kept Sutter out of the loop. Also, Sutter must have been selling these plans to someone. A foreign power? Did they ever say what kind of plans they were? Was it international espionage or industrial espionage?
I think it was just industrial espionage in this case. I got the impression the thefts were all at the same place, and Sutter was the inside man.

I like the whole sauna thing. Very suggestively sexy.
And we didn't really see a thing...she somehow managed to put on a scarf ascot-style so there was nothing showing from the neck down.

I'm sure I know who this is.
He was an enemy of Dalton and a recurring ally of Brosnan. Also popped up here in a later Mod Squad.

So McWhorter went after the bald guy and tracked him to Mexico, and Honey was hired to find McWhorter... to stop him from doing something stupid... or to find the bald guy first... because....?
McWhorter was either another hijacked trucker, or an accomplice who crossed the other baddies, who was taken south of the border for disposing of, which is what they planned to do with Sam.

She probably makes more in tips than she does as a detective.
:lol:

Which is? :rommie:
He sells his old clothes. Why the jacket was actually in McWhorter's locker is the real mystery. They played it as a "the fool got careless" moment, but why did McWhorter have it in the first place?

Does such a thing even exist?
"Barcotoxin"...apparently they made it up.

A missile?!? :rommie: They're transporting a missile in a truck with a lone driver?
A baby missile, but yeah...
And why didn't Swetlow just photograph it back at the plant?
Too many people around?

Holy hell, Sam, no flares around the missile!
True.

Happy New Year!
party.gif
That was next week.
 
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No, that was just based on the general tone of the show... however, since the episode is on YouTube, I think I may just watch it over breakfast.
Their big hit reminded me of a bad sitcom theme. :rommie: But the episode was fun and it was good to be reminded of the campy tone.

bumbling insurance agent Mr. Tweedy
That's a bit on the nose. :rommie:

patterns common to the previous jobs allowed them to deduce which bank would likely be next
First National Bank, Second National Bank....

an explosives expert, but he's accidentally killed when a car runs into him while he tries to flee.
Please tell me he blew up. :rommie:

Sutton changes his plan to one that involves offing Honey
Wow, he slipped into murder pretty easily.

(This was a bit confusing...apparently the sewer was one contingency, and the ice house was another.)
So they just left that poor guy in the sewer? :rommie:

Sam and Coombs force their way in and come out on top in a firefight that ends in a brawl between Sam and Sutton.
So... exactly what inside information did Sutton need from Honey and the other tellers?

"How Brillig, O, Beamish Boy"
Bonus points, even though it doesn't tie into the plot at all.

a faux blind man (John McGiver)
Butterfly Hunter!

Honey was hired by a man named Ben Fancher to pick up a package from a safety deposit box and deliver it to him.
Honey is like John Carradine-- she never says no to a job offer.

Brillig brings him his glasses and, when he's left alone, Sam wires them into the TV set that Ardo watches.
Sam cares nothing for FCC regulations!

The two of them subsequently escape together
Half of these episodes are taken up by these two getting knocked out or captured. :rommie:

a new meeting with Fancher at a ghost town
Is this our second ghost town, or am I thinking of something else?

Fancher explains that he was a former partner of Brillig who put the absconded money in the box
Working for the bad guy again! It was inevitable!

ending up with the lantern-brandishing Brillig at gunpoint.

View attachment 34023
I may make this my new wallpaper. :mallory:

To clarify, Pat Collins had a stage act in which she hypnotized volunteers (which I have to think connected with them doing another episode about exactly that). The character of Mrs. Ivar wasn't supposed to be a hypnotist.
Wow, okay, I totally misread that.

His delivery of "Okay, Miss West...we...are gonna have...a ball!" is like Nicholson's Joker way ahead of schedule.
View attachment 34021
View attachment 34022
Nice. :rommie:

Hmmm...this having been the pilot, I wonder if network suits muddled things up. "No, no, no, you've gotta have the guy rescue her!"
Good point. I forgot it was the pilot.

And we didn't really see a thing...she somehow managed to put on a scarf ascot-style so there was nothing showing from the neck down.
The power of suggestion. This was probably the closest thing to the novels in the series.

He was an enemy of Dalton and a recurring ally of Brosnan. Also popped up here in a later Mod Squad.
I knew I knew that name.

He sells his old clothes. Why the jacket was actually in McWhorter's locker is the real mystery. They played it as a "the fool got careless" moment, but why did McWhorter have it in the first place?
My impression upon reading it, of course, was Gay encounter, but that didn't happen on 60s TV shows.

"Barcotoxin"...apparently they made it up.
Honey West is Science Fiction! I just realized-- Honey West must be the granddaughter of James West!

Too many people around?
Seems better than all the drugging and hijacking. Plus, better lighting.

That was next week.
The past future tense always messes me up.
 
_______

Post-55th Anniversary Viewing

_______

Honey West
"King of the Mountain"
Originally aired January 14, 1966
Frndly and Wiki mashed up said:
Eccentric tycoon Kelso King may be behind the murder of his own nurse.

The episode opens with Sam diving out of a Beverly Hills window while being shot at, having taken photos of tax records and the occupant's glasses. He and Honey then proceed to the home of Ida Bering (Allyson Ames), the nurse of a Mr. King, only to find her dead, having just been pushed down a flight of stairs by a very large hand. The detectives have been hired by a board director named Ash (Charles Lane) to investigate everyone in the company with access to confidential information. Sam returns Ash's glasses, informing him that it was his turn the night before. Ash is concerned about the billionaire behind the company, Kelso King (David Opatoshu), who suffers from a bullet wound that has rendered his body unable to regulate its temperature, and has been a recluse for eight years. He's gone especially silent in recent weeks, which is affecting stocks, so Ash arranges for Honey to pose as his new nurse.

Honey is greeted by King's secretary, Mr. Carson (Dennis Patrick in a dark, shadowy episode), and while scoping out the study of the King home, accidentally triggers a secret panel, causing a bookshelf to rise to reveal Richard Kiel (whose character is billed as Groalgo, though I didn't catch the name being spoken). King manages his temperature by moving his wheelchair between a fan and a fireplace. While Sam stakes the place out from the top of a telephone pole where he stays in communication with Honey, she snoops around, taking advantage of a two-way mirror she learned about to snap pictures of King with his shirt off. Honey makes a nighttime rendezvous with Sam with the help of a nifty bit of business--Sam fixes what look like half-tires to the middle of a metal ladder so that it can be used in see-saw fashion over an electric fence. The photos, developed in the back of the van, reveal that Kelso doesn't have the scar from his wound, causing the detectives to deduce that he's been replaced with a ringer.

Sam listens via bug as suspicions run high in the house about Honey. Her car's plate identifies her as a detective--now that's a sloppy bit of undercover work! Sam warns Honey, who tries to play mouse to Groalgo's cat, but eventually surrenders. Honey learns that Carson plans to clean up by allowing the real King's remains to be found after a plane crash, buying up devalued stock, then revealing King's miraculous survival via his imposter. Sam ziplines onto the grounds, manages to get past the armed guards outside into the house, and meets up with Honey after she fights her way through Fake King to freedom. Groalgo pursues Jim and Artie Honey and Sam through the secret panel down to an underground hot spring, where the detectives take him down (Why didn't Roger Moore just whack him with a board?) and find the real King in a cell--shirtless so that his wound can be seen. Honey has Sam put some electrical wires in the spring; then when Carson and fake King come down, she and Sam throws barrels at them, knocking them into the bubbling, electrified water.

King: Are they dead?
Honey: No, just stunned--electrocution is illegal in California.​

In the coda, Honey wants to stay on as King's nurse, as she finds him to be such a nice man.

_______

Honey West
"It's Earlier Than You Think"
Originally aired January 21, 1966
Frndly said:
A newspaper with a front page story about Lincoln's assassination, a murder victim's cryptic statement, and three men claiming to be the dead man's brother draw Honey into her most baffling case yet.

A man dressed in Lincolnesque attire (Bill Catching) is wounded escaping from a house and rides a horse through the streets of L.A. to Honey's office, where he dies muttering details about Lincoln's assassination, saying that they have to stop it, while producing a newspaper dated April 16, 1865, with a headline about the event. After a visit from a patrolman (Paul Sorensen) who notices the horse outside, Keller (now being billed as "Lt. Barney," which is what Honey tends to call him) identifies the deceased as antiquarian Paul Wycherly. After leaving his office, Honey's approached by an Englishman in Scottish attire (Maurice Dallimore), including kilt, who identifies himself as Wycherly's brother Conrad, known to be a Scotophile. She gives him a ride as he asks about whether his brother had any belongings on him. As she did with Keller, Honey stays mum about the newspaper, which she's having tested. After she drops her passenger off, Honey is flagged down by another faux Scot (Leonid Kinskey), who also identifies himself as Conrad Wycherly--this one with a more Russian accent--and asks about belongings found on his brother. At her office, Honey is met by still a third faux Scot identifying himself as Conrad Wycherly (James Griffith)--this one speaking with a Southern drawl, but distinguishing himself from the other two by specifically asking about the newspaper, which he says is an antique that his brother was having assessed for him. A scientist associate, Pringle (Bill McLean), carbon dates the newspaper as being genuine, and when pressed by Honey, roughly estimates its value at $50,000. She puts it in an envelope and mails it to herself. Then, back on the street, Honey's approached by the Englishman, Hurd, now not dressed as a Scot and training a concealed gun on her, who has her get into a car with his Russian counterpart, Roger, also now in less conspicuous garb.

They take her to the basement of a house that's for sale, Honey dropping hints to her location for the necklace mic before it's accidentally broken. They tie her to a pole and question her about the newspaper while threatening to use a gadget that Hurd says he invented, which changes the carbon-14 isotope to cause instant old age--having Roger unglove a hand that was exposed to it as a demonstration of its effect. While working on her bonds, Honey turns the conspirators against each other by telling Hurd about how Roger also posed as Conrad Wycherly. She slips loose and threatens them with the device, which causes the cement floor to crack before one of them unplugs it. (This whole bit of business reminded me of Help!) She runs upstairs and out to find Sam, who's been trying to find her because the neighborhood is full of houses for sale. They find the conspirators gone, and Honey shares with Sam what she's surmised--that the crooks are producing artificially dated forgeries for selling to collectors like Conrad Wycherly. They catch up with Hurd and Roger trying to close a deal with Wycherly for a bundle of phony letters from Lincoln to a lover, Honey bearing a photocopy of the real Washington Star from April 16, 1865, which reveals that the forgery had the number of Lincoln's box wrong. It was the sale, not the assassination, that Paul was determined to stop. The detectives tackle the con artists and a patrolman arrives.

The episode ends on the offbeat note of the patrolman bringing Paul Wycherly's orphaned horse into Honey's office, which has apparently been parked outside for the entire episode.

Whether by design or coincidence, this episode had a very Avengers-ish vibe.

_______

Their big hit reminded me of a bad sitcom theme. :rommie:
I may have to go back and listen for that.

First National Bank, Second National Bank....
Banks in industrial areas taking large payroll shipments.

Please tell me he blew up. :rommie:
Nope.

So they just left that poor guy in the sewer? :rommie:
Yep. Like a smelly Maytag repairman.

So... exactly what inside information did Sutton need from Honey and the other tellers?
When the shipments were arriving and how much, that sort of thing.

Bonus points, even though it doesn't tie into the plot at all.
At one point Sam referred to Brillig as "Jabberwocky".

Sam cares nothing for FCC regulations!
:D

Is this our second ghost town, or am I thinking of something else?
Perhaps a recent 50th anniversary M:I, IIRC.

I may make this my new wallpaper. :mallory:
:techman: Full size for your convenience:
HW06.jpg

Good point. I forgot it was the pilot.
I should note that the recent ice house rescue was the first time I've noticed that Honey was a completely passive victim when Sam came to her rescue. Usually she contributes to taking down the villains once she's freed.

The power of suggestion. This was probably the closest thing to the novels in the series.
I distinctly recall the first time I saw that episode being preoccupied with the suggestion...and was recently reminded of this bit of business before it came up when she was doing entire scenes in a trench coat in another episode.

Honey West is Science Fiction!
All the more so after our most recent installment above.
I just realized-- Honey West must be the granddaughter of James West!
I wasn't even making that connection when I wrote the joke above--and I like that idea!
 
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"You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones
(#42 US; #100 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])

A bit late to post (Sorry, dealing with my second (or third) round of Covid) - Anyway from my Rolling Stones FAQ book comes this bit of trivia.
Al Kooper mentioned to Jagger that he heard in his head a horn chart for the song and said he'd be happy to contribute it if the Stones wanted. The band would take him up on that offer but not until they had taken the extraordinary step of overdubbing onto the song the massed voices of the London Bach Choir. . . When he was flown the tape, Kooper recorded three saxes, two trumpets and a French Horn onto it but wasn't completely happy with the results. He was therefore pleased when the band decided to retain only his French Horn part (played by himself), which added on an exquisite seam of melancholy.
 
Honey West is Science Fiction! I just realized-- Honey West must be the granddaughter of James West!

I don't think you're the first person to make that connection. I've seen that idea floated about in the 'Wold-Newton' Universe by Philip José Farmer and expanded upon by Win Scott Eckert
 
The detectives have been hired by a board director named Ash (Charles Lane) to investigate everyone in the company with access to confidential information.
So they had been intending to investigate the nurse when they found her dead?

Sam returns Ash's glasses, informing him that it was his turn the night before.
Who watches the watchers? Sam, that's who!

Mr. Carson (Dennis Patrick in a dark, shadowy episode)
I don't get it, but I get it.

while scoping out the study of the King home, accidentally triggers a secret panel
It's an awesome secret panel that can be accidentally triggered by the new nurse within five minutes. :rommie:

she snoops around, taking advantage of a two-way mirror she learned about to snap pictures of King with his shirt off.
Is she in the world behind the secret panel now? Why do they have secret panels and two-way mirrors?

Sam fixes what look like half-tires to the middle of a metal ladder so that it can be used in see-saw fashion over an electric fence.
Clever. I wonder if that's a real thing or if they made it up.

Her car's plate identifies her as a detective--now that's a sloppy bit of undercover work!
Honey and Sam are not detail oriented. :rommie:

Honey learns that Carson plans to clean up by allowing the real King's remains to be found after a plane crash, buying up devalued stock, then revealing King's miraculous survival via his imposter.
The stock has already been devalued because of his silence-- no need to resort to murder. And how would he explain the remains? And how would he arrange for the plane crash? This is a way overcomplicated stock manipulation scheme.

she fights her way through Fake King to freedom
Who is Fake King? A conspirator who had plastic surgery or just some slob who happens to look like the real King?

Groalgo pursues Jim and Artie Honey and Sam
:D

through the secret panel down to an underground hot spring, where the detectives take him down (Why didn't Roger Moore just whack him with a board?)
Speaking of which, that underground hot spring is pretty Bondian.

King: Are they dead?
Honey: No, just stunned--electrocution is illegal in California.​
That's pretty Bondian, too-- both the trick and the quip.

In the coda, Honey wants to stay on as King's nurse, as she finds him to be such a nice man.
Aww, nice touch. But I have questions, aside from the ones about the secret panels and the origin of Fake King. Why was the nurse murdered? And did Ash just disappear from the story or what?

A man dressed in Lincolnesque attire (Bill Catching) is wounded escaping from a house and rides a horse through the streets of L.A.
Nice 60s-style teaser.

he dies muttering details about Lincoln's assassination, saying that they have to stop it, while producing a newspaper dated April 16, 1865
So basically too late however you look at it.

They tie her to a pole
At least they didn't knock her out. Come to think of it, that's two episodes in a row.

a gadget that Hurd says he invented, which changes the carbon-14 isotope to cause instant old age--having Roger unglove a hand that was exposed to it as a demonstration of its effect.
But... but... but...
loopy.gif


(This whole bit of business reminded me of Help!)
:rommie:

Honey shares with Sam what she's surmised--that the crooks are producing artificially dated forgeries for selling to collectors like Conrad Wycherly.
Hurd invented technology that can artificially age things and people and the best he can do with it is forge love letters? The technology alone would be worth far more than a bunch of fake antiques. I wonder if he ever tried to use it in reverse.

It was the sale, not the assassination, that Paul was determined to stop.
So why did he dress up in historical cosplay and ride a horse straight to Honey's office?

The episode ends on the offbeat note of the patrolman bringing Paul Wycherly's orphaned horse into Honey's office, which has apparently been parked outside for the entire episode.
Poor thing must have been hungry as a horse.

Whether by design or coincidence, this episode had a very Avengers-ish vibe.
Because of the steed? Hahahaha. No, you're right, the three fake brothers was definitely an Avengers-style gimmick.

I may have to go back and listen for that.
Not a particular theme or anything, just kind of a generic sitcom-theme sound.

Damn it!

Yep. Like a smelly Maytag repairman.
:rommie:

When the shipments were arriving and how much, that sort of thing.
I suppose a teller might know that stuff.

At one point Sam referred to Brillig as "Jabberwocky".
Cute. :rommie:

Perhaps a recent 50th anniversary M:I, IIRC.
Yes, I think that's it.

:techman: Full size for your convenience:
Thank you! I'll see if I can edit out that logo.

I should note that the recent ice house rescue was the first time I've noticed that Honey was a completely passive victim when Sam came to her rescue. Usually she contributes to taking down the villains once she's freed.
And they do both get knocked out with equal frequency.

I distinctly recall the first time I saw that episode being preoccupied with the suggestion...and was recently reminded of this bit of business before it came up when she was doing entire scenes in a trench coat in another episode.
We'll never look at trench coats the same way again. :rommie:

All the more so after our most recent installment above.
True! That is very definitely fantasy technology.

I wasn't even making that connection when I wrote the joke above--and I like that idea!
I wonder how much info they give about TV Honey's father.

(Sorry, dealing with my second (or third) round of Covid)
Damn, sorry to hear that. I'm glad you seem to be doing okay.

I don't think you're the first person to make that connection. I've seen that idea floated about in the 'Wold-Newton' Universe by Philip José Farmer and expanded upon by Win Scott Eckert
That's very interesting. I'm somewhat familiar with Wold-Newton, but I don't think I ever saw that connection mentioned.
 
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