The TV show came before Crisis? That surprises me.
Hall looks like the 80s, but Oates still looks like the 70s.
I was saying that the '78 movie was taking cues from the '50s TV series.
Okay, I didn't even think of that. I think the Kents were only in the premiere episode. The only thing I remember with any clarity from that episode is Jor-El firing off the torpedo rocket through his window as the building crumbles around him.
50 Years Ago This Week Gets More Cowbell!
July 25
- The Viking 1 orbiter took photos of the Cydonia region of the planet Mars, capturing the now-famous picture of the Face on Mars, which NASA released six days later.
- A computer won a chess tournament against human opponents for the first time, when the Chess 4.5 computer's moves and responses defeated all five players in the Class B (1600–1799) division of the annual Paul Masson chess tournament in Saratoga, California.
- 30-year-old taxi driver Chester M. Plummer was shot and killed after scaling the fence surrounding the grounds of the White House and advancing toward the Executive Mansion with a long metal pipe. Plummer attempted to strike U.S. Army PFC Charles A. Garland of the Executive Protective Service after being ordered to stop. President Ford was at home at the time of the shooting at 9:35 at night, but was unaware of it until he was informed later.
July 26
- In Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announced his choice of liberal Republican U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker as his vice presidential running mate, in an effort to woo moderate Republican delegates away from front-runner President Gerald Ford in advance of the Republican National Convention.
- George Harrison missed the contracted delivery date for his first album for A&M Records.
July 27
- The record for fastest airspeed was broken for the first and second time in more than nine years, as Captain Eldon W. Joersz and Major George T. Morgan Jr., both of the U.S. Air Force, reached a maximum speed of 2,193.167 miles per hour in an SR-71A Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance jet flying out of Beale Air Force Base in California. Earlier in the day, the same jet flown by Major Adolphus H. Bledsoe Jr. and Major John T. Fuller had set a new record of 2,092.29 miles per hour. The official record has stood for more than 45 years.
- On the same day, Captain Robert C. Helt and Major Larry A. Elliott set the record for the highest absolute altitude on a sustained flight in a manned aircraft after departing from Beale AFB, as they reached 85,069 feet (more than 16 miles) in altitude in SR-71 serial number 61-7962.
- The United Kingdom broke diplomatic relations with Uganda following the hijacking of Air France Flight 139 and the murder of one of its hostages. The decision "was the first time Britain had severed relations with a Commonwealth nation."
- Delegates who had attended an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia began dying from a form of pneumonia that would eventually be recognized as the first outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.
- The United States men's basketball team won the Olympic gold medal, defeating Yugoslavia 95 to 74. The Soviet team, which had won the 1972 gold medal in a controversial game, had been defeated by Yugoslavia the day before in the semifinal, 89 to 84, preventing the expected and long-awaited rematch between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. teams.
- Soviet chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi defected to the West while in Amsterdam, where he received political asylum from the Netherlands government. Korchnoi had competed in a tournament while in the Dutch capital and was scheduled to fly to Frankfurt, West Germany, and then to return to the Soviet Union.
- English rock musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was granted permission by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to become a permanent resident alien of the United States. INS Judge Ira Fieldsteel, who had rejected a previous resident-alien application in 1973 because of Lennon's 1968 conviction on cannabis possession, reviewed affidavits from a number of celebrities and noted that the federal government had dropped objections, and granted Lennon green card number A17-597-321. Brandishing the card, John remarked, "It's great to be legal again." The judge informed John that he would be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship in 1981. A commentator for The New York Times summed up the event with the words, "Yesterday, all of John Lennon's troubles seemed so far away and now it looks as though he's here to stay."
July 28
- A pair of massive earthquakes killed over 650,000 people in and around the northeastern Chinese city of Tangshan in Heibei province.
- The Viking 1 lander began the first experiment to find signs of life on another planet as its robot arm scooped up a sample of the fine-grained soil on Mars and poured it into its "automated biological laboratories" built into the spacecraft. Only one of the three samples reached the organic chemical analyzer.
July 29
- In New York City, the "Son of Sam" pulled a gun from a paper bag, killing Donna Lauria, who had been driven home to her apartment building at 2860 Buhre Avenue in the Westchester Heights section of the Bronx. The driver, Lauria's friend Jody Valenti, was wounded in the thigh by the killer, who "walked up with a long-barreled pistol, looked directly at them then fired without saying a word." The attack was the first of a series that would terrorize the city for more than a year. David Berkowitz would be arrested on August 10, 1977, after five murders.
- Died: John Roselli, 70, American mobster who had testified before a U.S. Senate Select Committee in 1975 about his involvement, along with the late mobster Sam Giancana, in a CIA attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. Roselli departed from his sister's home in Plantation, Florida, to play golf and never arrived at his destination. His car was found a few days later in a parking garage at the Miami International Airport, with his golf clubs still in the trunk. On August 7, two fishermen found his decomposing body in a metal oil barrel that was floating in Biscayne Bay. Although the barrel had been chopped with holes and weighed down with chains to sink to the bottom of the sea, gases formed by the decomposition process and trapped inside Roselli's body tissue brought him to the surface.
July 30
- Bruce (later Caitlyn) Jenner won the gold medal in the men's decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
July 31
- Flooding of the Big Thompson River in north central Colorado killed 151 people, after a downpour of 10 inches of rain fell in the evening.
I just realized a few days back that I completely missed the 50th anniversary of someone's 36th birthday...
Belated Peace and Love, Ringo! 
Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
Leaving the chart:
- "Making Our Dreams Come True," Cyndi Grecco (12 weeks)
New on the chart:
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper," Blue Öyster Cult
(#12 US; #16 UK; #397 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
"Still the One," Orleans
(#6 US; #6 AC)
And new on the boob tube:
- NBC's Saturday Night, Season 1, episode 24, hosted by Kris Kristofferson (season finale)
Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month and Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles Day by Day, with editing as needed.
I'm curious what you did think I was saying.
Last edited:
And regrets to this day.
They will beat no computer before its time. Or something.
Could have thought that one through better.
I wasn't aware of this. It could have set up an interesting alternate timeline.
Fifty years at this point. I wonder why it's never been broken. There's been tons of advances in materials science.
Things were hoppin' at Beale that day.
I guess we know why Professor X ordered one of these things.
Yep, that turned into a big deal.
"Am glad to be in New York."
Sellout.
Ouch.
Referencing a song written by Paul McCartney, if I'm not mistaken, and it doesn't really make sense anyway.
That's an awful lot of people.
I guess I jumped the gun commenting on that.
Something else that would dominate the news for quite a while.
I guess I can't complain about TV shows if real mobsters can't get it right.
I just realized a few days back that I completely missed the 50th anniversary of someone's 36th birthday...
Great song. Strong nostalgic value. I like a few of their songs, but I'm not sure if they had any other singles.
ABC used this song to promote their Fall season this year and it's all I can think about when I hear it.
I was thinking about a Superboy TV series, but now I'm not sure if that might have been in the 90s.
Post-58th Anniversary Viewing
The Invaders
"The Miracle"
Originally aired February 27, 1968
Edited MeTV/Frndly mashup said:
One of them (Rayford Barnes) drives into a wooded area with a ruined shrine at a spring. Bearing something in a small fabric bag, he loiters around waiting while Beth Ferguson (Barbara Hershey) and her boyfriend, Ricky (Robert Biheller, Corky-to-be from Here Come the Brides), make out nearby. While Ruth's going to the spring for some water, she witnesses the man being bitten by a rattlesnake. He stumbles to her, gives her the sack, and tells her, "She will come for this"...then glows up before her eyes. She gets down on her knees before a small statue of the Virgin Mary and declares it to be a titular happening.
The QM Narrator said:
After visiting the shrine, David proceeds to the dusty town of Lagrimas, where a local urchin named Johnny (Christopher Shea) teases "Saint Beth"--now effecting a plainer look than when she was making out with Ricky--as she's leaving the apartment above a bar & grill run by her father, Harry. While Johnny tries to sell the just-arriving David a car wash or shoeshine, David proceeds inside to talk to the proprietor...
Harry shows David the crystal given to his daughter, which now sits on a pool table in a glass case, with local Indians gathered around it as if it were a shrine. David offers to buy the crystal for $50, and while Harry haggles for $100, a scraggly townsthem named Merritt (uncredited) sneaks around through the back and tries to steal the crystal. David brawls with the man, who runs out into an alley and reports Vincent's involvement by FIND to an alien boss (also uncredited), at which point we learn that it's a laser crystal without which an arriving weapon will be useless. David catches up with the man and unsuccessfully struggles to prevent him from taking a suicide pill and ultimately glowing up. Harry locks the crystal in a safe and Beth returns from a visit to the shrine, where she was confronted by Ricky, whom she's been avoiding. Beth refuses to let her struggling single parent sell what she sees as a holy object to fix up his establishment a little. When David returns, Harry reneges on their deal for his daughter's sake.
David intercepts Beth as she's leaving the local mission church to warn her of danger from others who are after the crystal. He's at the point where he doesn't want to get into exactly whom, but he connects with her about having experienced things that others won't believe. We also learn that she has an issue with being touched, which is later elaborated on to be from working in her father's saloon. Back at said establishment, Beth's showing the crystal to a group of local workers when Father Paul (Arch Johnson) drops in--brought by David--to admonish her about declaring miracles not being her business. David then offers Beth to donate $500 to the church in exchange for the crystal. After she leaves, Harry offers to go around Beth to sell David the stone...now for $1,000, a transaction big enough that David needs to go to a bank in Santa Fe and call New York. (Kent Smith does not appear in this episode.) Back at the shrine, Johnny sets up that Beth has a better-to-do uncle in Denver whom she met once, who has no kids and might take them both in...and that Beth dreams of getting away from her father's saloon. She's then approached by a nun (Marion Thompson) who declares that she's come for the gift.
Beth returns to the saloon excited to retrieve the crystal, to be told by her father that he can get $1,000 for it, which could mean renting a small house. Their conflicting issues with Beth's mother come out here--Harry deludes himself into thinking that she might return to him after running off with a whiskey salesman ten years prior; whereas Beth, who'd led David to believe that her mother was dead, considers her to be "no good". Harry, who's been drinking, refuses to open the safe unless somebody can match Vincent's offer, and Beth runs out. Beth intercepts David in the lobby of his hotel to plead with him not to fuel her father's delusions. We learn that her mother's behavior plays into her own self-worth issues, and that she sees her "miracle" as an opportunity to purify herself--while Beth makes a bit of a scene for the extras. David's starting to get into the crystal being part of a weapon when Johnny runs in to tell them that Harry's been robbed of it.
Beth assumes that David's responsible, refusing to believe that the nun would be responsible. But later the alien on the phone slips into David's room, chloros him while he's sleeping, and searches the place, reporting to the nun afterward that he couldn't find the crystal. Johnny, who's seen some of this, tails the nun to a burned-out barn outside of town. Beth subsequently pays a visit to David's room, now dressed and made up like she was in the intro, and very forwardly comes onto him in her desperation for the crystal. Motivated to change the subject, David tells her of his group "of about six people" who need the crystal to prove to the government that her man at the stream and nun are flying saucer people...which is enough to send Beth on her way, declaring him to be either evil or insane. In the lobby, Johnny informs Beth that David doesn't have her "piece of junk"; and takes her to the barn, where they spy on the nun getting a regen; and are seen by one of them when they run off.
Meanwhile, David has gotten a call from Harry, offering him a proposition. Beth and Johnny run back into town to fetch David, who drives with them to the barn, which is now cleared out, of course. Beth, perhaps symbolically still in her come-on clothes, is now a little-b believer. Harry subsequently sends her on an errand so that a heat-packing David can meet him to buy the crystal, the robbery having been a ruse. David's tailed by a pair of them, who sneak into the saloon, but not without setting off David's Kooky-Sense. An altercation ensues in which both of them are shot into glowing up, which sets off propane from an unintentionally severed hose. We get our final signal that Harry is a bad man when he socks David to run back into the flame-engulfed room for his money, followed by an explosion signaling his fate.
In the Epilog, Beth--now back in repentant mode--is happy to let David take the crystal to Washington. When David learns of her plan to take Johnny with her to Denver, he gives her some extra cash that he'd brought along in case her father tried to raise his price again.
The QM Narrator said:
This one went in a more disturbing direction that I'd expected from the show. It seems like normally their M.O. would be to end with a reaffirmation that Harry and Beth's love for one another was more important than money. Here Harry had to burn with his money to buy Beth what was set up and played as a happy ending.
If you felt like they were setting up Ricky and/or Beth's aversion to being touched for another story beat, apparently there was a scene of them in the saloon that got cut for syndication.
The Invaders
"The Life Seekers"
Originally aired March 5, 1968
Frndly said:
Near Redstone, Indiana, patrol officer Joe Nash (recent obsessed ensign Stephen Brooks) pursues and pulls over a speeding car that's passengers are a woman, Claire (Diana Muldaur), tending to an ailing older man, Keith (you may have seen Special Guest Star Barry Morse on another QM show). The driver (Donner [Scott Graham]) claims that his uncle in back is having a heart attack and has to get to a hospital, but when Keith's face glows bright red and Nash wants to know what's going on, Donner puts a bullet in him. Their car starts to pull away, but for some stupid reason, Donner gets out a little way down the road so that the still-conscious Nash can retaliate, glowing him up.
BUMMMMM-BA-DUMP!BUMP!The QM Narrator said:
When Doctor Stark (Herb Armstrong) brings in David to see Nash, the officer retracts things that he said when he was brought in, clearly not wanting to attract the kind of attention that it would bring. This is hinted to have something to do with protecting his superior and surrogate father, police captain Bill Battersea (R. G. Armstrong), in relation to an earlier incident. Declaring David to be a crank, Bittersea sends him out, but is motivated to get the people responsible for shooting Nash. As he coordinates the dragnet, he's visited by Captain Jim Trent (Arthur Franz) and Lieutenant Rawlings (Morgan Jones) of the state police. Meanwhile, at their facility, Keith, feeling that only Vincent can come to the saucer people, persuades Claire to call David at his hotel against her better judgment. (Yes, their HQ has a phone.) Claire claims to have seen a half-human monster, so David arms up and heads out to pick her up at a gas station.
He's wary as she leads him down a dirt road, and when he deliberately drops a reference to having brought oxygen with him, she grabs the wheel and pulls the car off the road to get out. He pursues her into a ruined farmhouse, where he finds their facility in the basement--a regeneration chamber from an earlier phase of the alien infiltration that uses gases.
Keith tells David that he's been marked for death by his own people because, when he and five other leaders were brought to Earth to help plan the final assault, he came to see that humans were too advanced a species to slaughter. (The implication here is that Mr. Ryder was one of the six leaders.) He wants help getting past the police roadblocks to make a rendezvous with a friendly saucer so that he can take an attaché case-contained memory bank back to the home world, full of information about human civilization, philosophy, and science.
David justifies Claire's concerns when he's more interested in bringing the two of them in; though Keith warns that if they're exposed, his people will be left with no option but a direct assault on humanity.
Knowing where Keith would have to go for regen, a pair of them approach in a car, triggering an alarm. Keith and Claire come out to meet Dorsey (Barry Cahill) and his uncredited sidekick. After Keith and Claire refuse an offer to spare them if they name his collaborators, Dorsey pulls their weapon and David pops out of the barn, shooting both visitors into glowing up. When Keith offers to give David the case so he can hold it to be given to other like-minded aliens, David agrees to go along with their plan; and calls Scoville from his hotel to discuss the opportunity. David subsequently brings their license plate to Bittersea as bait to come with him. The captain gets the two of them past the roadblock, and anticipates that David's taking him to the farmhouse. David forces Bittersea into the basement chamber at gunpoint, where Claire uses CTP on him. When Bittersea's car returns through the roadblock, the officer manning it, Sgt. Leeds (recent alien-hating lieutenant Paul Comi), is suspicious at the captain's trance-like behavior. The station nevertheless gets through--Keith and Claire having been smuggled in the back under a blanket--to switch to David's car. Bittersea resists the CTP, and when Claire attempts to reapply, the captain pulls the Windom Maneuver, whacking the crystal out of her hand so that it smashes on the ground. David holds his gun on Bittersea again to force him to go along with them.
Trent and Rawlings are in charge of the dragnet when Scoville--who's an old friend of a name-dropped police chief this week--arrives at the station to advocate against hunting down David like a dangerous criminal, while not letting on that he's a kook himself. David and Claire hole up in a backroad motel room with Bittersea loosely trussed up in a chair. Claire brings to light how a year ago, a couple of teenagers named the Tanners came to the captain with a story about seeing a man burn up and disappear outside the farmhouse, which Bittersea was quick to dismiss. Later the Tanners came out after reading about David, only to die in a house fire--a source of guilt that drives the captain's denial of aliens, which Claire breaks through by cutting her arm.
DRINK!
At the hospital with Trent, Nash retracts his retraction and briefly mentions Bittersea's close encounter--which is enough to motivate Trent to FIND him dead. After calling Scoville to bring another car, David sits with Claire outside the motel. She asks him about his motivations for going to such extremes and asserts to him that some of them feel with their minds as deeply as humans do with their hearts; following which David, clearly turned on since she cut herself, plants a kiss on her. Battersea, who now wants the aliens to be killed without regard to their intentions, struggles out of his chair and is caught making a phone call giving his location. Meanwhile, Rawlings intercepts Scoville on the road to arrest him and keep him from helping David.
The next morning, the fugitives have to risk using David's car in broad daylight despite chopper patrols in order to make the saucer rendezvous. Claire screeches a u-ey when they come upon a police roadblock, following which David holds Bittersea hostage to keep Leeds and his partner at bay. Then Trent, Rawlings, and a uniformed officer arrive on the scene, and Rawlings fires their weapon at the fugitives, disintegrating Leeds's patrol car instead; following which Trent promptly does the same to the two witnessing roadblock officers...all clearly opening Bittersea's eyes. David and company flee through the wilderness to hide in a nearby stable, where Bittersea shoots Trent into glowing up, while David does the same to Rawlings and the uniformed officer who came with them. In the aftermath, Bittersea signals that he's on board with making the saucer rendezvous, which is only minutes away.
In the Epilog, the party uses their patrol car to make it to the clearing where the saucer lands. Claire gives David a peck and declares that she won't be returning before climbing with Keith into the craft, which promptly takes off.
The QM Narrator said:
Had to do a confirming look-up of that...I remembered the commercials, but not the name.
He brought a lead pipe to a Marine fight.
Reagan probably would've completely sidelined his running mate once they were in office.
They may not have ever made an aircraft faster than the Blackbird, though. (Apparently the experimental X-craft like the X-15 aren't counting toward this record on technicalities.)
Highly modified to accommodate passengers. The real craft only seats two in tandem, which is a much narrower fuselage.I guess we know why Professor X ordered one of these things.
There were more details about it in the Wiki entry, but the news items were running long.
Skippered.
Yeah. But at least he didn't live to get rounded up and deported to Venezuela.
It fits with something I've read in Beatle bios about how the general public often erroneously associated John with that most famous of Beatle songs. I recall one account of how a violinist played it for him at a restaurant, and he laughed it off with, "I couldn't have expected him to play 'I Am the Walrus,' could I?"
Or could it have been the CIA...or the BBC...B. B. King...?I guess I can't complain about TV shows if real mobsters can't get it right.
A very distinctive classic rocker. Were you familiar with the linked-to SNL sketch or the meme that spawned from it?
I have three of their songs that I was familiar with. One of them is their only other Top 40 single (and only barely at 40), which will be coming up in a handful of years. The third is a track about a giant monster native to 70th Anniversaryland that was regularly played on album rock stations in the day, but apparently wasn't a charting single.
It was actually in the '77-'78 and '78-'79 seasons, which I looked up because that's the association burned into my brain as well.ABC used this song to promote their Fall season this year and it's all I can think about when I hear it.
Indeed, that ran from '88 to '92. I didn't catch much of its first couple of seasons because it was a syndicated show that wasn't regularly airing in the market where I was living at the time.
Last edited:
CRISIS was in '86. Byrne's Man of Steel was in '86. Superboy TV show was '88. Lois and Clark was in the 90s. Smallville was 2001.
Wiki says Ma Kent (Sarah in that version) was alive in The Adventures of Superman (1952) So Superman (1978) might have used that take.
The '50s TV show is what I was referring to. The '78 film took some cues from its version of Clark's origin.
A nice beginning.
A familiar character actor, both genre and otherwise.
They have no blood, yet They're vulnerable to snake bites.
"You got spunk, you kook."
If Harry charges a cover, it's worth a lot more than that.
Why it was going to be passed off in the middle of the woods near an abandoned shrine, we'll never know.
Maybe that's what God intended, Beth, didja ever think of that?
Ricky seems to be immune.
Does he ever give a reason why he wants it so much?
He would take in some random urchin?
Where'd that priest go?
There's some evidence to support that.
But lets him live. You'd think David would take more precautions.
"That'll be two Our Fathers and one Hail Mary for you!"
"I'm just a religious fanatic, not a flying saucer kook!"
A ruse to what end?
He could have used that when he was sleeping.
He was not entirely unsympathetic, with his hopeless devotion to his wife and trying to base his decisions on his daughter's well being.
It's kind of amazing that he was successful in obtaining it.
There might be some legal issues to address here, like her inheritance of the saloon ruins and custody of the urchin. This might have been a good time to call Scoville.
It was kind of grim. Her mommy issues went unresolved as well. And we don't know if Mr French will be willing to put up with two more kids.
It seems like there were a few loose ends. In addition to that, Johnny was just kind of there, with no indication of how he came to be an urchin or how he was surviving.
Multiple Trek offender.
Not to mention a certain Gerry and Sylvia Anderson show.
He wanted to finish him off, but got finished off himself.
"The story you are about to see is true in the sense that it's completely fictitious."
And sure enough, David Vincent shows up.
"No, I'm a kook."
The Thems have a strange fondness for David. Have we ever seen David bleed? We must have.
Interesting....
Very interesting indeed. This means that there's four more out there somewhere.
The alien underground has resources.
So he must think there's some reasonable chance of convincing the Them Powers-That-Be.
Which is similar to what Ryder said.
Wouldn't they have had to pass David's abandoned vehicle, putting them on their guard?
"Can we borrow your photocopier?"
It's not as impressive if anybody can do it.
Scoville is the Charlie Townsend of the alien invasion scene.
What's the point of dragging Bittersea around? They want him to see the saucer?
Well, that sucks, after surviving the shooting and everything.
"Well, see, Claire, the idea that the heart is the seat of human feeling is an ancient myth that dates back to...."
"Zzzzz....
She's a creature that's not of this Earth, David! You've seen the X-rays! She's a wiggly tentacled alien!
"You'll be hearing from my army of lawyers."
Better late than never, kind of.
Why didn't they just do that to begin with?
That's cool. They actually set up a few interesting things in this episode, especially those four other leaders.
"Only the women who want to kill you come back."
That was also a meme for a while. "We will sell no Ovaltine before it's time."
Sure, but if it had worked that would have made Reagan the third Republican term in a row in a political climate that was strongly anti-Republican-- rather than the first term in a more pro-Republican climate. He very likely would have been a one-termer, which would have altered the events of subsequent decades quite a bit.
Oh, I figured it was all the same sort of thing.
I didn't even think of that.
He would have written quite a song about it, though.
True.
Maybe it was the UFO CIA.
I missed the link before, but I just found it. I was actually familiar with the sketch and the meme, which I quote fairly often. Did I ever mention how I used to strongly dislike Christopher Walken before he was in that Fatboy Slim video?
The giant monster one is my second favorite.
I vaguely wondered about that but didn't bother to check.
I don't think I ever saw it at all, but I probably knew about it from Starlog or something.
I remember her showing up on Kung Fu, when she was David Carradine's S.O.
Yeah, I wondered about that, too.
I think it was Franklin Lake again, but I wasn't 100% sure this time.Why it was going to be passed off in the middle of the woods near an abandoned shrine, we'll never know.
I get the impression that those threads may have crossed in the apparently edited-out scene. They were alone in the saloon, it was dark, he was desperate....
If you mean a cover reason, yes--stone collector.
Yeah, that whole uncle angle seemed very contrived and something of a stretch. I had to rewatch that expository scene to make sure I wasn't missing something.
He's come to take his plot armor for granted.
Touche.
To sell the thing without Beth knowing.
He became less sympathetic as the story went on. This previously posted cap was when he was refusing to get the crystal out of the safe unless someone could match David's offer, I think:
Never mind that, we've got the star coming up again...
But did anything come of it? Hard to tell when we're this close to the end; but had the show gone on, I'm sure we'd never have heard of it again. Insert Raiders meme here.
Not David's problem.
"Okay, kids, hour's up. Good luck, I'm outta here!"Her being back in her plainer look at the end seemed to signal that she was sticking to good girl mode.
The uncle didn't already have any, though.He was an orphan who was doing those odd jobs, which also included things like cleaning the saloon.
And other stuff that just came up real recently (when discussing the Charlie's Angels pilot, I presume).
Ah, yes. I might be starting that a bit after I'm done with The Invaders, but I'm not sure how far into it I'll get before the new 50th anniversary season starts.
Probably. He's been winged at least a couple of times, people would have noticed. Just as he'd have noticed if he didn't have a pulse or heartbeat.
Whom we're very unlikely to meet at this point.
He specifically cited that he had other leaders as his allies. They seemed to be using the "leaders" title with the same exclusive prestige as with Ryder, hence the implication.
Or at least swaying his allies; or possibly sharing the information with the masses.
It ended up far enough off the road that they may not have noticed it.
Wouldn't have been the right tool for what was inside the case:
That, and to use him to get through the roadblocks.
That much hasn't been confirmed.
They were trying to make their tightly timed saucer rendezvous. They said that it wouldn't stick around for more than five minutes.
I remember Carson spoofing it, cutting to a wino saying, "It's time!"
The Republicans probably didn't have much of a shot at that point outside of their incumbent. It was a pretty close election.
I'm not overly familiar, but it may have had to do with flying at higher altitudes and using different propulsion systems.
Heh, true.
And Yoko's presumably still taking in royalties for "Yesterday".True.
Bunkered.
Nope, and I can't say that I'm familiar with that.I missed the link before, but I just found it. I was actually familiar with the sketch and the meme, which I quote fairly often. Did I ever mention how I used to strongly dislike Christopher Walken before he was in that Fatboy Slim video?
Would've been too soon for promoting the '76 fall season, the song's brand new and they're probably already doing that.I vaguely wondered about that but didn't bother to check.
Last edited:
Oh, right, I forgot about the SO part.
A hotbed of alien activity.
But I mean if they were making out in the opening scene, her touch-o-phobia didn't apply to him.
Pretty straightforward.
Right.
Hmm. And then he would have had a bunch of unexplained money. She probably would have figured it out.
Yeah, but he talked about getting a house with it, which was presumably for his daughter's benefit.
True. There's a few things that Top Men are working on by this time.
Aw, she was instrumental in getting the crystal. I'm sure Scoville would have sent lawyers, guns, and money.Not David's problem.
What happened to his parents? Where did he sleep? The townspeople just let an orphan wander around without calling child welfare services or something?
Oh, yeah.
Interesting show. I won't say anything yet.
True, there was that time with William Windom, for one.
Yeah, it's a shame. Maybe if they had started ramping things up in the first season it would have lasted longer.
It could have been half and half. That would have been cool.
Which could have led to the interesting situation of the show being a Vietnam metaphor, with Earth as Vietnam and the good aliens needing to win over the hearts and minds of the common Them back home. Which probably would have led to taking Vincent back to Their homeworld.
Ah, so that's what John Travolta and Samuel J Jackson were carrying around.
I know, but I like to believe it.
Ah, okay.
True, but Reagan had that charisma and Ford had some serious baggage. A moderate partner on the ticket could theoretically have done it.
Talk about easy money.
Bunkered.
Well, it's out of sync with the timeline, but here it is:
Walken used to really creep me out, to the point where I didn't like to watch anything with him in it. Then my Brother showed me this and it completely changed my opinion.
Well, there theoretically could have been some behind-the-scenes deal to release the single and the ad campaign at the same time. But I guess not.
50th Anniversary Viewing
The Midnight Special
July 23, 1976
Hosted by the Spinners
Featuring Captain & Tennille; Eric Carmen; Henry Gross; Starbuck; Salute to Jim Croce
This one has a clickable index
NBC's Saturday Night
Season 1, episode 23
Originally aired July 24, 1976
Host: Louise Lasser
Guests: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
The cast is assembled onstage for the cold open, noting that they've been on vacation. Chevy and John make up over an unseen incident, but some playful hand-slapping turns into John socking Chevy, causing the fall.
Louise was the star of the reportedly satirical nighttime soap Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. I recall it existing and seeing bits of it at a grandma's house, but knew nothing about it. The cast members make various attempts to lure Louise out of her dressing room...a visit from the landshark does the trick.Wiki said:
Garrett plays General Idi "V.D." Amin doing a PSA about syphilis.
There's a spoof of Swedish cinema or something, narrated with captions, starring Chevy and Louise as lovers cheating death.
Laraine and Jane play Squeaky Fromme and her cellmate selling human hair potholders from prison. They're wearing red robes with X's marked on their foreheads.
Louise tries to make up with her dog at the table over tea, which turns into a one-sided relationship argument.
An in-character intro from Dan about the early development of television turns into Laraine, Gilda, and Jane as a girl group performing a song about the cathode ray.
Weekend Update covers presidential election politics, then switches to the Olympics:
There's also footage of Viking 1 landing on and crushing some tiny Martians holding up a welcome banner.
Gilda and Jane play teenagers discussing how far Jane went on her third date with a guy. Gilda questions Jane about whether she saw "it" and what it was like; then tries to make Jane feel insecure about her breast size.
A filmed segment credited to Louise stars her as half of a couple at a diner trying to have a discussion about a vague subject. It comes down to both having to ask a nearby waitress to feed them their lines, which results in Lorne coming on camera to discuss the situation with them. She ends up taking a seat next to Wiki-identified Michael Sarrazin at the counter, still having trouble with her lines.
John advertises his new men's clothing line of things that he's wearing and costume props, in addition to his albums and a radio.
Dan does his first sketch as Jimmy Carter, delivering a campaign message from his ranch in which he acknowledges mannerisms like his avoidance of eye contact and pauses.
Louise introduces the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans, who performs an instrumental number called "Panama". The biracial members tend to be on the elder side.
Louise comes onstage to give a pre-final bow monologue about getting the part of Mary Hartman; the show's rise to success and how it's affected her, including her arrest; and issues with being identified with her character. At the mention of her character, she routinely breaks into a song that I assume is from the show.
And a future regular locale for Corky.A hotbed of alien activity.
She was in bad-girl mode then, which I'm sure was informed by her experiences at the bar. That she had a problem with guys touching her at a place run by her father was another bad light cast on Harry.
"This crystal contains a track that they haven't released in America!"Pretty straightforward.
Insurance. Harry's way ahead of you.
In the Epilog, Beth handwaved that in the end, he didn't want the money for her, he just wanted it.
They died.
Abandoned subway tunnel?
Hey, it was the '60s.
I've read things. I know that the Moon is their FTL vehicle.Interesting show. I won't say anything yet.
Interesting idea, but I don't think they ever would have crossed that last line, unless it was a finale thing.
And Johnny was the wino.
But it didn't.
Let me get this straight--you're into vampires, werewolves, zombies, alien pod creatures, etc., but Christopher Walken creeped you out?
Nah. They picked it up after it was a proven hit.Well, there theoretically could have been some behind-the-scenes deal to release the single and the ad campaign at the same time. But I guess not.
Last edited:
That's a nice lineup. And nobody deserves a salute more than Jim Croce.
I saw a couple of episodes, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. Fun fact: The show inspired a newspaper comic strip called Vera Valiant, which was written by Stan Lee. Yup, truth is stranger than fiction.
She was known for her odd behavior, but I didn't know about any of this SNL stuff. You've got to give them credit for adapting to it and even incorporating it into the show.
That could be interesting.
That's certainly in bad taste.
That has kind of a Laugh-In vibe.
To be fair, that would explain the test results.
It seems to me they've done this kind of awkward-yet-poignant childhood memory skit at least a couple of times before.
I don't remember it well enough to know.
That's true.
That sounds like it could be a line from Men in Black.
Good for him. He got that covered. Haha.
Sorry, Mr Grant, I did my best.
Ask a silly question....
I was picturing a more rural environment. Or am I not Capping something?
Joe Friday woulda got that kid off the streets.
That about sums it up.
It would have been a good finale.
Of course.
It's just a lost episode of Sliders.
Yeah, go figure.Let me get this straight--you're into vampires, werewolves, zombies, alien pod creatures, etc., but Christopher Walken creeped you out?
Yeah, apparently.
Didn't know that. I wonder if I may have seen the strip in the day.
A third character was a personification of death.
It definitely came off as a successor to the slumber party sketch.
Weak, dude.Good for him. He got that covered. Haha.
Rudy can't be bothered.Indeed, you're not Captain Marveling (original recipe).
I just finished The Invaders, and without getting into details ahead of the write-up, the last episode surprised me by being more of an eventful wrap-up than I was expecting.
It was in one of the local papers, so I read it-- it only takes five seconds to read a comic strip and it was by Stan Lee-- but at this point I only have a vague impression. I wonder if it was every collected. What the heck, I'll take a look. A brief search tells me there were two paperbacks in the late 70s, but they only collected a fraction of the strips and they're way out of print. Too bad, an archive edition probably would have gotten an impulse buy out of me at that moment.
Now I'm really interested. I know nothing about Swedish cinema.
Cute. I love that background. That's probably more books than Dan has seen in his entire life.
I wonder if it was meant to be the same characters or just the general concept of kids.
It was weak. It was actually unintentional and I was going to rephrase it, but I decided to lean into it instead.Weak, dude.
Right, right. I completely forgot about the subway angle. I wonder if they ever elaborated on that.
That's cool. I'll have to watch for it coming up on MeTV.
Keep in mind that I don't know if that's what it was supposed to be. The story was conveyed primarily through narration.
What makes you say that?Cute. I love that background. That's probably more books than Dan has seen in his entire life.
They didn't do anything to signal that they were supposed to be the same kids, and these kids were older--dating age.
I think Power of Shazam! may have gotten into that, but if so, I don't recall the details.
I don't know if I mentioned this when the series came up before, but they had Fawcett City as being supernaturally influenced to be retro-style...lots of art deco and whatnot.
If they're running them uninterrupted, it should be coming up October 11...the week after our second Suzanne Pleshette episode.
Okay, gotcha.
He doesn't strike me as the most well-read individual ever. But then again, Brian May is an astrophysicist and Keith Richards is an avid historian, so I might be surprised.
Just kids anyone can relate to.
Cool. I like it when they build on stuff like that-- assuming they do it well.
I also like that sort of thing.
I'll try to catch both of those. I'm assuming Suzanne Pleshette is a different character.If they're running them uninterrupted, it should be coming up October 11...the week after our second Suzanne Pleshette episode.
50 Years Ago This Week
August 1
- Trinidad and Tobago became a republic, with the Governor-General, Sir Ellis Clarke, becoming the first President. Clarke, who had previously served as the head of state as representative of Queen Elizabeth II, said that he would hold the office of president until the Caribbean island nation could elect a successor.
- The United Nations High Commission on Refugees arranged for the evacuation of 49 U.S. citizens and their dependents from Vietnam, as the new Communist government allowed a chartered Air France flight from Tan Son Nhut airport near Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) to Bangkok. The group of 23 U.S.-born Americans and 14 spouses and 14 children had been stranded in South Vietnam when Saigon fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975, and most had waited for more than a year for permission to leave. A few of the Americans said that they "had pleaded to no effect to be allowed to stay in Vietnam," while three others had been held in the Chi Hua Prison.
- The 1976 Summer Olympics ended in Montreal. Among the events that took place on the final day of competition, Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany won the marathon. Teófilo Stevenson of Cuba (who had beaten his other opponents in two rounds or fewer) won the heavyweight boxing gold medal in the third round against Romania's Mircea Șimon, and East Germany beat Poland, 3 to 1, to win the soccer competition.
August 2
- Died: Fritz Lang, 85, Austrian-born film producer known for Metropolis and The Big Heat.
August 3
- U.S. Congressman Jerry Litton of Missouri won the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator, then died in a plane crash while flying to a victory party in Kansas City. Litton, his wife, their two children, and the pilot and co-pilot were on a twin-engine Beechcraft airplane that lifted off from the airport in Chillicothe, Missouri, shortly after 9:00 p.m., then crashed 19 seconds later after a crankshaft broke in the left engine. The airplane plummeted into a soybean field and exploded on impact, killing all six people on board.
August 5
- Big Ben, the largest bell within London's Clock Tower of Westminster, failed to ring and the clock stopped at 3:45 in the morning after metal fatigue caused the machinery to stop running. Although the hands of the clock's four faces were soon operating again after the repairs made by Westminster's chief engineer, Geoffrey Buggin, a winding drum fell off, breaking the 110-year-old chiming mechanism. The bells of Big Ben—which had operated regularly since 1859—would require multiple repairs over the next nine months, but were restored in time for the silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's coronation in May.
August 7
- Viking 2 entered into orbit around Mars.
Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
Leaving the chart:
- "Get Up and Boogie (That's Right)," Silver Convention (21 weeks)
- "Hot Stuff" / "Fool to Cry," The Rolling Stones (6 weeks)
- "Love Hangover," Diana Ross (18 weeks)
- "Today's the Day," America (12 weeks)
New on the chart:
"One Love in My Lifetime," Diana Ross
(#25 US; #31 AC; #10 R&B; #52 UK)
Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month, with editing as needed.
Coulda been Swedish soap operas, I don't know.
Do tell.
Yeah, though in both appearances she plays a mutation who's capable of feeling emotion.
Last edited:
Hopefully they won't be invaded by an aggressive neighbor in the next five minutes.
That's interesting.
He certainly left a legacy.
Talk about bad luck.
It's nice that it was fixed in time for the event, but kind of a shame to break that 117-year streak.
"Hold my beer, Viking 1, I'll find some life for ya."
I might vaguely remember this or maybe it's similar to another song, I'm not sure.
Now I'm picturing the Swedish Chef having a torrid affair with Ingrid Bergman.
Yeah, pretty amazing. I also recently found out that Tim Russ is an avid astronomer, although that's somewhat less surprising.
Thank goodness for mutants. Where would evolution be without them?
70 Years Ago This Month (Part 1)
August 1
- The UK's Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, U.S. Ambassador Robert D. Murphy and French Foreign Affairs Minister Christian Pineau meet at 10 Downing Street to discuss the Suez Crisis.
August 2
- UK Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell, says of the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt, "It is all very familiar. It is exactly the same that we encountered from Mussolini and Hitler in those years before the war."
- Died: Albert Woolson, 106, last surviving Union veteran of the American Civil War.
August 4
- Columbia Pictures releases its 57th and last film serial, Blazing the Overland Trail, starring Lee Roberts.
Charting the week of August 4:
"The Flying Saucer (Parts 1 & 2)," Buchanan & Goodman
(#3 US; #4 R&B)
"Hound Dog," Elvis Presley
(B-side of "Don't Be Cruel"; #1 US the weeks of Aug. 18 through Sept. 15 [Best Sellers in Stores], Sept. 1 through 15 and 29 [Most Played in Jukeboxes]; #1 Country; #1 R&B; #2 UK; #19 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
August 5
- KUAM-TV becomes the first television station in Guam.
August 6
- Final telecast of the DuMont Television Network. The United States will not have a fourth major network until the launch of the Fox network in 1986.
August 7
- U.S. baseball player Ted Williams spits at a mocking fan during a game. He would be fined $5,000 for his conduct.
- Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, France's Defence Minister, obtains support from Israel for a joint attack on Suez.
August 9
- About 20,000 women join a protest march in Pretoria, South Africa, directed against the country's pass laws.
August 11
- Jackson Pollock, U.S. artist, 44, is killed in a car crash along with a passenger while driving under the influence of alcohol.
Charting the week of August 11:
"Rip It Up," Bill Haley & His Comets
(#25 US; #4 UK)
"Let the Good Times Roll," Shirley & Lee
(#20 US; #1 R&B)
"Don't Be Cruel," Elvis Presley
(#1 US the weeks of Sept. 22 through Oct. 27 [Best Sellers in Stores], Sept. 8 through Oct. 27 [Most Played by Jockeys], Sept. 22 and Oct. 6 through Nov. 10 [Most Played in Jukeboxes]; #1 Country; #1 R&B; #197 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
August 12
- Hurricane Betsy makes landfall in Puerto Rico, the first Atlantic hurricane to strike the island for 24 years. Extensive damage is caused in Aibonito, Comerío, and Jayuya; the worst damage is in Yabucoa. Sixteen people are killed.
August 13
- Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident: Air bases in eastern England belonging to Britain's RAF and the U.S. Air Force experience a number of suspected UFO sightings.
- British swimmer Brenda Fisher swims Lake Ontario in a record time of 18 hours 51 minutes.
August 16
- Representatives of the major countries that use the Suez Canal meet in London to discuss its future ownership and operation. Egypt does not attend the talks, which last until August 23.
- Died: Bela Lugosi, 73, Hungarian actor best known for playing Dracula
Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month, as well as the year in film, music, television, and comics, with editing as needed. Sections separated from timeline entries are mine.
Timored?
It's interesting how the Vietnam aftermath lingers on. It wasn't on my radar as a little kid.
I've never watched Metropolis, I probably should.
I didn't realize that the name properly referred to the bell rather than the tower, which is how it's usually referenced.
It's an invasion from Earth!
I was completely unfamiliar with this. It comes on what had been a "skip week" in my chronological playlists. Its sound is somewhat catchy.
Last edited: