More like a nasty second alarm clock. Everybody on the show, male and female, seems to be wearing a variation of the same, big, pouffy feathered mullet. Hair like that should have made helmet laws obsolete.
I think the problem with the "composite cops" idea is that they are only drawn from the Webb Conservative Cop side of the street, as opposed to the kind of law enforcement types portrayed on Naked City. I watched Adam-12, but at times Malloy was too "Joe Dry Wit" and Reed "Joe Eager / Naive" just the kind of boxed-in categories established by Friday & Gannon on Dragnet, and carried beyond Adam-12 with Emergency's Roy DeSoto & John Gage. Really have to be in a mood to sit through this one. Wait a second--did you reach the TV listings of September 22, 1968 yet?
Malloy was generally a lot warmer and fuzzier than Friday. If you mean the 50 Years Ago This Week post that lists what I'm watching this week, it's here. I also always have the latest 50th Anniversary Viewing and 50 Years Ago This Week posts linked in my signature.
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing _______ The Avengers "Game" Originally aired September 23, 1968 (US); October 2, 1968 (UK) Armor intro! This episode's villainous scheme involves using life-size mock-ups of games to kill five people (not three): a racing set, a game of Snakes and Ladders (the actual original Indian name of the game, and also how it was titled in the UK), some sort of stock market game with dice in a cup for the stockbroker, a game called Battle Stations for the war game-playing Brigadier (disappointingly played on an oversized board rather than at full scale), and a vaguely Scrabblish game called Wordmake for the Professor. All the while the villain leaves the bodies on playground rides and leaves clues for Steed, the intended sixth, in the form of puzzle pieces. Steed's game is "Super Secret Agent," played on a somewhat Batmanesque life-sized game mock-up with a variety of challenges and Tara trapped in a giant hourglass (albeit an unconvincing one...more of a clear box with an hourglass cutout in front of it). The villain is ultimately defeated when Steed uses a gun with one live bullet meant for one of his challenges to free Tara, then deflects an oversized, razor-sharp playing card back to the villain. The coda has Steed conning Tara with a game of "Steedopoly". Overall, a more entertaining than usual variant of the old "series of killings" formula, in that each killing has its own colorful motif. _______ Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Season 2, episode 2 Originally aired September 23, 1968 Judy gets a sock it to me from Herb's trumpet. Pigmeat does "Tiny Tom". Not included in the Wiki list, the Choir Director of the Beautiful Downtown Burbank Glee Club is apparently a Zappa associate called Wild Man Fischer: Dan: Have you seen any of the shows on television this week? Eve: No, this is the weakest one I've seen. Patrick Wayne joins in on the running gag about his father: Charlie Brill & Mitzi McCall seem to be regulars this season. Here they do a briefer, gender-swapped variation of the sketch they did on Sullivan: At one point somebody drops a reference to Captain Billy's Whiz Bang. Laugh-In salutes old Mother Bell. "Saki to me". A gag about a man who got injured at the Democratic Convention. Herb's about to start "A Taste of Honey" when he realizes that he's holding a trombone. The episode closes with a line from Arte Johnson's German soldier indicating that Dr. Pepper commercials may have been imitating Laugh-In at the time. _______ The Mod Squad "The Teeth of the Barracuda" Originally aired September 24, 1968 Series premiere The teaser has the trio being apprehended while acting all OTT hip only to reveal that they're already cops in training. There's a training montage after the credits, and the episode milks some drama out of establishing something about the backgrounds of each of the trio. The Squad is put into action to investigate the murder of a colleague of Greer's named Wheeler, who was seemingly killed by kids. To that end the Squad members use personal connections with some of the people in Wheeler's file. Along the way we're introduced to other fixtures of the show, including Julie's apartment and Pete's woody. What's really going on turns out to be a scheme to blackmail a politician that involves photos of his LSD-using daughter (Brooke Bundy), who happens to be an old friend of Pete's. Sign o' the times: During the climax, Julie has to drive a mile to find a phone! I didn't catch what the title refers to; nor did I catch Harrison Ford or Richard Pryor; if they were in it at all, their parts were very blink-and-miss-'em. I got my Mod Squad episodes from a Decades Binge that skipped quite a few, so the show won't be coming up every week. The next one I've got is the fourth-aired. _______ "Sock It to Me" Originally aired September 26, 1968 The story plays up Barry Sullivan like he's Ethel Merman or something! Ann's ineffectual fake slaps are pretty funny. Meanwhile, Barry really gets socked, first by Mr. Marie and then by Donald, both due to misunderstandings when he's trying to rehearse with Ann. Ann finally comes through on stage, but her slap actually knocks Barry out and she has to deliver his lines for him. "Oh, Donald" count: 2 "Oh, Daddy" count: 4 "Oh, Seymour" count: 2 "Oh, Mr. Sullivan" count: 2 _______ Ironside "Split Second to an Epitaph" Originally aired September 26, 1968 This originally aired as a double-length episode, split into a second for syndication. This episode makes extensive use of origin flashbacks, which I suspect are footage from the pilot movie that I didn't see. I was always under the impression from the opening credits that Ironside was shot on the street, but apparently it was in his apartment. After Ironside's run-in with a hospital pharmacy robber, he begins to experience feeling in his legs, but he's reluctant to undergo potentially fatal spinal surgery because the thief killed a guard, and the Chief is the only one who saw his face. Meanwhile, the thief and his accomplice, an inside woman at the pharmacy, make attempts on Ironside's life, including switching his medication with poison and planting an oxygen tank full of cyanide gas in his operating room. The episode has its share of filler to pad out its length. Troy Donahue occupies a high place in the credits, but his Father Dugan is a fairly minor role; and there's a subplot about Andrew Prine as an expectant father whose wife / baby's mama dies unexpectedly that's just sort of there and doesn't really tie in with the main story. More entertaining is Ironside's jousting with a nun at the hospital, who catches him smuggling in a bottle of whiskey and, in the coda, informs him that the staff has voted him the worst patient they ever had. And while Ironside's surgery proves unsuccessful, we get a feel-good ending from another, more recently handicapped patient, with whom Ironside had been bonding over smuggled whiskey, having better luck with his operation. We find out (though it was likely established in the pilot) that Mark's offscreen pursuit of an education is a condition of Ironside's, and the Chief learns here that Mark plans to go to law school. _______ Star Trek "The Enterprise Incident" Originally aired September 27, 1968 Stardate 5027.3 See my post here. _______ Adam-12 "Log 141: The Color TV Bandit" Originally aired September 28, 1968 While trying to track down the titular perp, Malloy and Reed get a call from a concerned neighbor to check on two children who've been left in their apartment unattended, and discover the kids unconscious and a bag full of pills. The children's mother (Cloris Leachman) comes home, and vainly tries to hide the pills. Reed rolls off the penal codes that she's violated and Malloy reads Junkie Phyllis her rights...for what I think is the first time on the show, or at least I didn't notice Miranda popping up last week. JP won't admit to knowing how many pills there were so that the ambulance crew can figure out how many the children took, causing Reed to snap at her, which Malloy mildly reprimands later in the car. Malloy gets to set an example for Reed when a VW with flower decals makes an illegal left a few cars in front of them at a multi-lane intersection. Malloy stays cool and professional while the sassy young driver (Melody Patterson from F Troop) tries to intimidate them. Malloy and Reed think they've hit the jackpot when they find a car in an alley with a TV in the back seat, followed by a nearby suspicious character who flees upon seeing them. Reed chases him on foot through some back patios, over a wood fence, and into a pool on the other side. Back at the squad car, a group of kids gather whose tough-talking spokesman is future alternate Linus Stephen Shea. Sign o' the times: At the station, the evasive suspect, Fenster (Ray Ballard), briefly explains to Reed how the photofax that they use to transmit fingerprints works. Some offscreen follow-up investigation by Sgt. MacDonald reveals that Fenster was telling the truth in that it wasn't even his car, though he was impersonating a gas company employee to steal people's valuables; and that the TV in the car was just being taken in for repair by its owner, an off-duty cop. Capping off the episode, Malloy and Reed learn in the break room that two more TVs were stolen while they were engaged in all of this. _______ Get Smart "Snoopy Smart vs. the Red Baron" Originally aired September 28, 1968 Sign o' behind-the-times... Also, somebody needs to tell the Chief that potatoes aren't a vegetable. The episode bends over backwards not to reveal 99's name, or her mother's. Overall, this one was a little more so-so to me, compared to last week's outing. _______
Milestone in the kind of TV sold to North American audiences during a very dark era. I enjoyed the conflicts between the trio--they're nowhere near being the tight family they would become, with class differences (fired at another or personally refereed to) being interesting. The pilot was shot in 1967, so you will undoubtedly notice certain characterization and visual changes (with the leads) from the pilot with "Bad Man on Campus", the 1st regular episode of the series. Continuity nod: Beau Graves (the henchman/schemer who slaps Julie around in her apartment) will return in a late season two episode titled "A Time for Remembering", where he's paroled from prison, and immediately seeks revenge on the Squad for his imprisonment. There's a great deal of drama in this episode as Pete is at a crossroads, and a near-tragedy shows the great depth of the love the Squad--and Greer--have for each other. That politician was actor Addison Powell, who is (arguably) best known for the role of Dr. Eric Lang, the scientist who temporarily cured vampire Barnabas Collins by transferring...something...from Collins to his Frankenstein-like creation, Adam in over 30 episodes of Dark Shadows in 1968. Perhaps I missed your listing it in the "50 Years Ago this Week" links, but when are you getting to the pilot for Land of the Giants, which aired on September 22, 1968?
_______ 50 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Do It Again," The Beach Boys (10 weeks) "Love Makes a Woman," Barbara Acklin (12 weeks) "Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)," The Moody Blues (11 weeks) "You Keep Me Hangin' On," The Vanilla Fudge (17 weeks total; 12 weeks this chart run) New on the chart: "Take Me for a Little While," The Vanilla Fudge (#38 US) "Lalena," Donovan (#33 US) "Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)," Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus (#25 US; #19 UK) "White Room," Cream (#6 US; #28 UK; #367 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time) See the 50th Anniversary Album Spotlight for Wheels of Fire upthread. "Magic Carpet Ride," Steppenwolf (#3 US) And new on the boob tube: Mission: Impossible, "The Heir Apparent" (Season 3 premiere) The Avengers, "Super Secret Cypher Snatch" Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 2, episode 3 That Girl, "The Hi-Jack and The Mighty" Ironside, "The Sacrifice" Star Trek, "The Paradise Syndrome" Adam-12, "Log 11: It's Just a Little Dent, Isn't It?" Get Smart, "Closely Watched Planes" _______ Ain't got that one, but I did notice the difference from other episodes I'd seen in the past. I do have that one, however. I, um, wasn't planning to watch it.... Mind you, if I were inclined to change that, I only recently gained access to the show via Me, and they're currently in the middle of Season 2 at a rate of one episode a week, so the option to sync it up with 50th anniversary viewing wouldn't be coming anytime soon.
That does sound good. I have to remember that I can record Avengers again. Laugh-In is definitely the MAD magazine of television. This is another show that I never got into at the time. I tried watching it a few times in later years, because it looks like I'd like it, but it never worked for me. I think it's the cast. I guess Doc Pepper's not the only one riding the Laugh-In bandwagon. She could lose her license over something like that. Nice. Grand theft color. B&W would just be petty larceny. Hah, Joe Friday would have read her the riot act. And we see the very first paper jam ever shown on television. Or that they own a restaurant. Aw, too bad. Ah, Night of the Living Dead. They should have made a TV series about that. This isn't ringing any bells, although it's not very memorable. Not one of his great ones, but very pleasant. Whew, for a second I thought it was that other "Run, Joey Run." I never heard this one before. Oh, yeah. Very classic. Also very classic.
Surprised you hadn't seen it, as you seem to have recently watched all the Tara episodes I've watched so far. Anyroad, they shouldn't be getting to that season on This for a while. I'd think you'd appreciate it for its dramatic qualities, which remind me of Naked City and Route 66. This episode was a bit of an outlier in that the drama was split between the main cast getting to know each other and the situation of the week. By the standards of what I've seen of the show, I'd say that it felt unfocused. Indeed! Good point. Not sure if that's a jokey reference or an actual upcoming story point. I'm split about whether to watch/cover this. It generally qualifies as an oft-referenced, influential movie of the era, but I find the whole flesh-eating zombie thing to be a bit too grotesque. That said, I already watched the Fandango movie clips from the film...I suppose I could bear it for the sake of history. ETA: My decision has been made for me. Turns out it's not available for standalone rental on Xfinity; I'd have to subscribe to EPIX, which isn't much more, but is where I draw the line with taking the trouble. Yeah, I got this one just to have two Vanilla Fudge songs to rub together, as it was their only other Top 40 hit. Yeah, I generally enjoy Donovan's singles, but this one is a bit of a snoozer for me. Had to look that one up. Yeesh, if this immersive 50th anniversary retro thing manages to go on another 6 years, something like that is seriously gonna test my methodology.... From what I read, this was part of a studio project to put together a "supergroup" of various associated bubblegum acts of the era, included 1910 Fruitgum Co. and Ohio Express. It was a bit of a shame to squeeze out its embedded video slot, but it was recently covered in 50th anniversary context as part of the album. If I were Zefram Cochrane, you know I'd have to pick something that synced up with 100th anniversary business.... _______ 51st Anniversary Cinematic Special _______ Bonnie and Clyde Starring Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons Directed by Arthur Penn Premiered August 4, 1967; General release: September 1967 Winner of 1968 Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey); Nominated for Best Picture; Best Actor in a Leading Role (Warren Beatty); Best Actress in a Leading Role (Faye Dunaway); Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Hackman); Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael J. Pollard); Best Director (Arthur Penn); Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen (David Newman and Robert Benton); and Best Costume Design (Theadora Van Runkle) And this would be an example of one of those oft-referenced, influential movies of the era that was definitely worth a few bucks and a couple of hours to give it a watch and see what all the fuss was about. I'd like to give it another for absorption, but in this case it's only a 24-hour rental, so I'm not sure I'll get around to it in time. [ETA: Squeezed it in just under the wire.] I won't bother getting into historical accuracy here, as it's well-covered on the film's Wiki page and IMDb. The film is what it is. That said, one potential anachronism that jumped out at me in an early scene was Clyde using the phrase "get in your pants" in relation to Bonnie...which seems an odd choice in an era when women practically always wore dresses...as Bonnie did throughout the film. Sign o' the period piece times, visible in that scene: the FDR poster. Though we see the same poster late in the movie, when the film is adapting events that happened in the real world in 1934. The duo start modest in the film...their first attempted bank robbery is of one that had failed weeks before. And in a subsequent scene, they're so broke that they're holding up a grocery store not for money but for groceries! Clyde is portrayed as somebody who's fighting the system, but sympathetic to ordinary folks... ...such that he's very upset at his first killing in the film, as well as an incident when a storekeeper tries to fight back with potentially lethal force. "I ain't against him!" I touched upon classic Trek guest Michael J. Pollard's role in the film, including a couple of related clips, in this post. After their first killing, Clyde offers Bonnie the opportunity of getting out before she becomes known.... Clyde: You ain't gonna have a minute's peace. Bonnie: You promise? From what I read, the real Blanche Barrow wasn't pleased with the film's depiction of her. I found the panicky, screaming everywoman routine a bit tiresome myself, but it won the actress an Oscar: (Maybe the grocery boy wouldn't have ratted them out if Bonnie had given him a tip....) In the Moments in Cinema History Department...Gene Wilder's first film role: It was an interesting but slightly distracting cinematographic choice to completely change the shooting style for the scene with Bonnie's mother. And a very interesting choice for a film centered around a famous romance to depict Clyde as impotent, and Bonnie as resultingly frustrated, until late in the story. And to devote the entire last half-hour or so of the film to their rather unglamorous downfall, even though the film evidently skipped a number of events that would have been even less glamorous, including Bonnie being severely burned in an accident and losing most of her use of one leg. And yeah, I can see why the death scene would have been such a big deal at the time...it's definitely like nothing I've seen come up in movies, never mind television, of this era. Reportedly Jack Warner hated the film and tried to bury it in limited release in spite of its increasingly evident popularity. And some still blame it for opening the floodgates of increasingly graphic violence in film. _______
I'm sure I only recorded select episodes at the time, since we were recording other things, too. This one must not have sounded as interesting in the capsule description. The times I've watched it, it was obviously a quality show. I just couldn't bond with it somehow. The 99 is a restaurant chain. Maybe it's only in this area. If you've got one, though, it's very good. It's not as graphic as it is in Walking Dead-- it's really more about mood than grotesqueness. And you should have no trouble finding it on YouTube, since it's in the public domain (poor George Romero forgot to copyright it). I've never seen this. Warren Beatty works on me like apples on a doctor or crosses on a vampire. Too bad, too, because I like the 20s/30s period setting. Maybe he was just being a wise ass-- like saying "this'll put hair on your chest." What was wrong with the poster? Not a campaign poster? Not Night of the Living Dead?
_______ Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for 55 years ago this week: 55 Years Ago Spotlight The latest release by an old friend of this thread: "She's a Fool," Lesley Gore (Charted Sept. 28, 1963; #5 US; #26 R&B) Also, the Impressions' biggest hit: "It's All Right," The Impressions (Charted Sept. 28, 1963; #4 US; #1 R&B) _______ Wild Wild 51st Anniversary Viewing "The Night Dr. Loveless Died" Originally aired September 29, 1967 You gotta love a spy operation that uses a passenger pigeon. And continuing the avian theme, Loveless leaves his last will and testament via a talking mynah. The next of kin is, of course, Loveless in disguise, but West's ever-resourceful arch-nemesis also used a yoga technique to play his own corpse in the casket. Conrad gets shirtless in the climax of this one, when Loveless has him on the operating table. An IMDb user pointed out that Loveless's latex surgical gloves were a big anachronism. Artie's disguises are comically obvious sometimes. I spotted him as one of the observing doctors in the surgical theater in a longshot. A Trek guest threefer, with Susan Oliver as an accomplice of Loveless and Anthony Caruso as a rival criminal whom Loveless used West to eliminate via his death ruse. Not sure if I'll be able to continue with the screenshots for this show, as for some reason my Xfinity app gets bigtime glitchy trying to play my recordings of it, though I was able to watch it on the DVR just fine. _______ Looks like there is one near me, but I must never have noticed it. Still, there's at least one scene where the zombies are gnawing on human bones like it's chicken. (Which it probably was.) Curse you! Flesh-eating zombies are my Warren Beatty. In 1932 it's just dandy. In 1934, it's "Why is that poster still up?"
Maybe not. Maybe he developed germ theory—and polymers—before everyone else. A Doctor Maturin of the Wild West, if you please.
Really underrated Donovan track. Another major turn for harder-edged rock. Imagine if they lasted for a decade... Just about everyone points to "Born to Be Wild" as the act's most important pieces, but all proto-metal claims as its "best from" aside, I feel "Magic Carpet Ride" had more to it in terms of musical quality. Its not about riffs and distortion. NOTLD is too important a film to miss due to having any issues with one half of its plot. Its one of the last horror films to be an original product not easily sourced from other films. Even The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (two films often cited as being among the last great, original horror films) cannot make that claim. Its in the public domain, so you could find one of the non-remastered DVDs at a Wal-Mart on amazon for dirt cheap, just for the sake of reviewing it here.. Which was a load of horseshit; Clyde had no personal system of morality in regards to justice in its relation to the average perosn and was--by most accounts--a small-minded thug. Why Penn took a dive into the fantasy end of the pool is anyone's guess. A biopic can be just as effective playing scum as scum, rather than trying to turn them into free-wheeling victims of circumstance. Handing Oscars out like candy... The film having Clyde impotent is not based on historical fact, but its been argued that it stems from the fact that the real Clyde--while serving a sentence at Eastham Prison Farm--was repeatedly raped by a man, so the "impotence" angle might have been formed from the theory that he had been permanently emasculated by rape at the hands of a man, therefore he could not perform with Bonnie. Its anyone's guess, but the impotence plot device only has anything of an origin point if one adds the real world Clyde's prison abuses into the mix. Well, before Bonnie and Clyde, there were numerous independent & mainstream films depicting rather graphic forms of violence, such as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (20th Century Fox, 1967), and of course, the shower scene from Psycho (Paramount, 1960) was considered horrifying as much for Hitchcock showing it as the in-story act.
I forgot about this. Good one. It's all right. Ah, I love Wild Wild West, especially when Doctor Loveless is on. That's unusual. Great Scott! An anachronism in Wild Wild West? I've always suspected that there's an element of mind control involved in Artie's disguises. I think he studied at the same school as Mandrake. It's actually my favorite place to eat out, although I don't really like to eat out (they do have take out, too). Actually, it was, from what I've read. Ah, well then, we can skip the ghouls. Procrastination. That's the kind of alternate universe that I would like to visit.
I think I'll try to squeeze it in, via YouTube, but closer to the holiday. It worked for the purpose of the film's narrative, especially in appealing to the increasingly anti-authoritarian youth culture of the time. Interesting, but I don't know if they put that much thought into why he was impotent. I read that another, discarded idea was to portray him as bi. So does this one not sound like the '50s, or is it just understood at this point that all of her stuff does? Conrad was known to run around in his boxers on occasion on Black Sheep, FWIW. _______ 55 Years Ago Spotlight Addendum Unbeknownst to America, the advance scout of an impending invasion was among them.... By his own account, George was dismayed that he wasn't able to find the Beatles' records that had been released in the US at that point. _______
Oh, yeah, definitely sounds like the 50s. It's pretty much a given for her, I think. If you got it, flaunt it. They were sold out.
50th anniversary viewing hits an untimely snag...it appears that the MeTV site has just made some changes to their free videos section, which included taking down That Girl! I was afraid that might happen sooner or later. Had I known, I might have watched ahead, at least for this season. Another show I noticed was taken down is Route 66. And continuing a trend I've seen on the various Weigel networks, some of the current offerings are of 21st century vintage.
Damn. I forgot that MeTV even had episodes online. Some of the links on their revamped page don't even work, like The Invisible Man. No Sci-Fi on there at all.
I don't know when that expression entered the vernacular, but I've always taken "pants" in that context to mean underpants (panties, knickers) as per British usage.
Considering who the real Bonnie and Clyde really were as people, and their trail of blood, I found it to be less entertaining and more irresponsible; it predicted the kind misplaced romanticism and idiotic support / celebration of domestic terrorists such as the Weather Underground enjoyed in the years following this film, just as long as they were against the system and/or "the man". I think that the impotence angle and the discarded bisexual idea had to come from a perception based on Clyde being raped in prison, as there's no other indicators / accounts in any other part of the real Clyde's life that would lead a writer to consider that seemingly out of the blue.