Scenes from Day Two of the OTR Con/Bad news

Bob Hastings on mike as an outlaw in GUNSMOKE, followed by Rosemary Rice waiting to go on as Miss Kitty

Brittany Rose and bookdave enjoying some downtime and Brittany Rose on mike rehearsing her gig as the announcer on OUR MISS BROOKS!

Unfortunately we returned home from a triumphant weekend to find a letter indicating that my wife's school contract would not be renewed so we are now BOTH unemployed!!!!!!

That, as you might suspect, was a real buzzkill to a day that also saw Rene portray a genealogist (type casting as she is one) in a lost episode script from a 1941 DUFFY'S TAVERN episode (in which I played Archie, da manager), a GUNSMOKE episode in which I managed to avoid playing "Doc" in the voice of Howard McNear's OTHER great character, Floyd the Barber and OUR MISS BROOKS in which I think I held my own with the pros reasonably well as squeaky-voiced teen, Walter Denton!

As always, any and all donations to this blog would be greatly appreciated. PayPal box is to your right at the top of the page. Sigh.

OTR 24--Day One

Scenes from the audition room for the re-creations (as I tried to stay out the dealers room since I have no money!). Meredith Grainger and Steve Jansen in the bottom photo. The middle photo shows our director Don Ramlow (standing) and a number of the show's regulars! At top is the one and only Brittany Rose with the world's greatest Jack Benny fan, Karen Hughes!! A long day coming up tomorrow as Rene, Brittany and myself all have rehearsals and shows all day long! More tomorrow late or Sunday!

Raquel

When I was a kid, Raquel Welch was the absolute epitome of feminine beauty and sexuality. Her Amazonian figure, glorious hair, piercing eyes and breathy voice just oozed sex...even though we kids had no earthly idea in those more innocent years what that even meant! A competent actress, a so-so singer/dancer and a fair comedienne, she steadfastly refused to appear nude or even partially nude--even in the PLAYBOY shoot she eventually consented to in the eighties! But that's just it...she never needed to be nude to work her magic. To this day she remains physically a stunning example of real-life pin-up art. Here's a portfolio of shots from the sixties and early seventies (and a couple from even more recently). Enjoy! We certainly did at the time!

Kraft's 75th Anniversary Special-1978

In keeping with this week's radio theme, here's an ad for the KRAFT 75TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL. Kraft was, of course, a big sponsor on radio back in the day when sponsors were practically as famous as (and certainly more powerful than) the stars! THE KRAFT MUSIC HALL was also a long-running favorite when television was young. Over the years Kraft several times presented salutes to themselves as radio specials well into the 1970's but this was a TV one. Note that even after all this time, along with Bob Crosby and Edgar Bergen (who died that same year), Kraft brought back Hal Peary as the Great Gildersleeve, their NBC character for more than 15 years. In the late forties when CBS famously raided NBC's top shows and performers, Peary quite logically followed Jack Benny, Amos 'N' Andy and others in signing with the upstart network only to find that sponsor Kraft was perfectly happy where they were at! Kraft refused to give up their claim to the Gildersleeve character that Peary had created and cultivated over a period of years on various shows, most notably FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY. Thus it was that Peary soundalike Willard Waterman stepped into the role without missing a beat and continued for several more years on radio and eventually television for Kraft. Perhaps this special was Kraft's belated way of saying "No hard feelings" to Harold Peary.

Reminder--Cincy OTR Con

That's a much younger Bob Hastings over there on the right than the one scheduled to appear at the 24th Annual Greater Cincinnati Old Time Radio and Nostalgia Convention this Friday and Saturday. He'd appreciate the fact that he's on the right, though, as he always likes to say that when he appeared on ALL IN THE FAMILY semi-regularly as "Kelsey, the bartender," he was the "token conservative" on the series. In the past 24 years Bob has appeared as a guest (or in some cases THE guest) at the Cincinnati Con more than 15 times and is scheduled to appear onstage in a re-creation of one of the classic X MINUS ONE episodes in which he starred on 1950's radio.

If you're in the Greater Cincinnati area this Friday and Saturday, feel free to drop by the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Pfeiffer Road--a new venue this year. The Cincy Con--often described as more like a family reunion-- is like none you've ever experienced. If you're on Facebook look up the Con's page there for more details. Hope to see you there!

XXX Batman

If you've been paying attention in the past several years, you've probably noticed a trend in adult films parodying classic and current TV series. This, of course, isn't new. The thing about these newer ones is that they're not so much parodies as XXX remakes--note for note in some cases--of their source material, names and all. Oh, they CALL them parodies, which allows the producers to get around that pesky little concept of rights. And it must be working because some--like the relatively recent THIS AIN'T GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, even get coverage on shows like ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT!

Now comes XXX BATMAN...and it looks surprisingly good! Originally touted on YouTube some months back in a teaser trailer suggesting a mostly different cast, here we see the finished product complete with its primary colors, "Zaps" and "Pows," the batmobile (one of the originals??) and even--talk about attention to detail in an homage!--the Joker's mustache!!

Okay, it's porn and many of you won't watch it just because of that and that's perfectly fine. Those of you that do, however, may well from the looks of it find yourself skipping through the sex scenes to get back to the "parody!"

Batman Temporary Tattoos-1966

Here is some Topps art from 1966 that was used for a series of BATMAN temporary tattoos. Not sure who did the art but amongst those working at Topps at that time I believe were Wally Wood, Bhob Stewart and Art Spiegelman.