Tom Mix Commandos

Tom Mix was a real guy who made literally hundreds of western movies until his death in 1940. Wrote, produced and directed a bunch also. Mix's reputation, however, was greatly enhanced by the long-running radio series sponsered by Ralston and starring Curley Bradley (a much better actor than Mix himself) as Mix. Writer/director Jim Harmon (and my editor on IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN 3) actually revived TOM MIX on radio in the 1970's, again with Bradley. Here, however, from the early 1940's is proof that even the great cowboy's death couldn't keep him from supporting the war effort (or keep Ralston from exploiting his image)!

The '77-'78 New Fall Season

If you’ll notice, there’s a bunch of new television programs coming on these days. This, of course, is a throwback to the days of three networks and was called "the new season." Although that term is still heard from time to time, in these days of new shows coming and going at all times of the year on hundreds of cable channels, the networks seem a bit superfluous and the term season should probably be replaced by the British "series." That’s as in "FAWLTY TOWERS ran for two series. They were made several years apart so they weren’t really "seasons" in this context.
That said, here’s some nostalgia from TV GUIDE—the schedule for the new Fall season of 1977-78, now thirty years gone. Let’s reminisce, shall we?

Saturday nights were tough that year and my family alternated, watching all of these series on alternate weeks. THE BIONIC WOMAN offered ok plots and fx with Lindsay Wagner as the thinking man’s sex symbol. I had her poster right next to Farrah’s. Well, Farrah’s six or seven to be honest (and one of Linda Blair!) FISH was Abe Vigoda’s kinda funny BARNEY MILLER spin-off and didn’t last the whole season. I particularly liked THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, this being the one in which he portrayed a judge. CAROL BURNETT had too much "Eunice" I think by this point so we tended to watch LOVE BOAT at our house.

Sunday I just watched THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and ALICE regularly with NBC very much dependent on what was on Disney and the BIG EVENT as to whether we watched at all.

Mondays we watched nothin’ at 8. Nada. CBS and ABC’s offerings didn’t last long and we may have watched whatever replaced them. I did particularly enjoy Patrick McGoohan’s quirky HOUSE-like medical show, RAFFERTY and THE BETTY WHITE SHOW, this one being a caustic showbiz parody with Caren Kaye and the great John Hillerman.

Tuesdays found us on ABC for HAPPY DAYS and LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, then switching to CBS for M.A.S.H., my favorite show at that time, and ONE DAY AT A TIME. We picked up on SOAP, though, about halfway through the season (a time change perhaps?) and it became one of my all-time faves also. We alternated at 10 with my mother enjoying FAMILY and I, myself, preferring LOU GRANT (which I believe moved to Mondays).

Wednesday was ABC all the way for EIGHT IS ENOUGH, CHARLIE’S ANGELS and Robert Blake’s BARETTA. BIG HAWAII didn’t stand a chance at our house.

Thursday brought another fight with me preferring WELCOME BACK KOTTER and WHAT’s HAPPENING but my mother usually winning with THE WALTONS. BARNEY MILLER we all agreed on and Victor French’s CARTER COUNTRY got watched just because the other two nets were already halfway into hour shows. At 10, we watched the short-lived ROSETTI AND RYAN while it lasted. I remember it as being an amusing and intelligent lawyer show featuring Tony Roberts and TV commercial mainstay Squire Fridell. TV GUIDE picked it as a possible winner but it wasn’t.

Friday was another of those nights where it depended on the family’s mood. All of these series were watched at one time or another. Despite the fact that I’m on record as to THE ROCKFORD FILES being another all-time favorite, I think I skipped it that year to watch LOGAN’S RUN. SWITCH with Eddie Albert, Robert Wagner and Sharon Gless was also big at our house that year.

Ah, memories. This year, I’m looking forward to…maybe…and strangely enough…THE BIONIC WOMAN. I saw the pilot (as I’m sure many of you have on the Net) and found the villain to have more charisma than our heroine. Did quite like Miguel Ferrer, though. That’s really about it for this "season." Sigh. Things change.

10 Hitler Heads!

One thing I never got into as a collector is stamps. Oh, I tried, mind you, for about three months in 1970. Just didn't care for all the minutiae for some reason. Go figure. Anyway, today's offering is an early 1950's stamp collector ad offering "10 Hitler Heads!" Gives whole new meaning to licking the Nazis.

Ben Ohmart Has a Blog!

I've never met Ben Ohmart nor did he ask me to write this.

In the interests of full disclosure, however, Ben Ohmart is the publisher of IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN 3 which featured my first published short story (not exactly as I recently found out but that's another story) and also my upcoming second appearance in WELL! REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND CAREER OF JACK BENNY. That said, this man founded BearManor Media in order to publish books about pop culture folks and shows that the major publishers wouldn't touch. Where else can you find full length biographies of Agnes Moorehead, Guy Williams and Walter Tetley...let alone the great Paul Frees! Bear Manor also published my Christa co-author's book on Barbara Payton!

Now Ben has a new blog! This should be fun as this man knows everyone and/or at least their relatives! Case in point: Here's a great shot lifted from The Ohmarts that features Diana Canova (SOAP). Diana is the daughter of comedienne Judy Canova who is the subject of yet another upcoming Bear Manor book. Diana Canova is also an as yet unrevealed crush of mine (yes, another one!) dating all the way back to a memorable guest appearance on HAPPY DAYS! Haven't seen her in years but she looks great! I am so jealous, Ben!

Summer of Love Concerts

Lotsa talk in the media about a big San Francisco concert commemorating the Summer of Love this weekend featuring the Doors’ Ray Manzarek, the Youngbloods’ Jessie Colin Young, the Chambers Brothers and whatever other few survivors they could corral. Here, from the real thing (well, late sixties San Francisco but not necessarily ’67), are six cool Fillmore rock concert posters—looking here like psychedelic postage stamps—taken from Time-Life’s sixties volume of their series, THIS FABULOUS CENTURY.

The World's Finest Cookout

Seen here is the cover of the very first issue of WORLD’S FINEST that I ever saw. I thought the cookout/camping theme was kind of appropriate for Labor Day weekend’s last blowout of summer. Me, I gotta work today so I hope those of you who do party have a safe and happy one!
This was actually the second of two appearances of the imaginary sons of Superman and Batman (see below for the first from 1965). Now, these were not the legendarily awful Bob Haney Super Sons stories (that he insisted were IN continuity in spite of all evidence to the contrary). These were cute stories set just a decade or so into the future in which both heroes had married—in a double ceremony in fact—their respective sweethearts (Lois and, for Bruce Wayne, Kathy Kane) and later had kids. It’s established that many kids of that time period wore superhero playsuits to emulate their idols so the kids can pass without having to be out of costume.
By the second story, a scant 5 months later, the adult heroes are showing a bit of gray around the temples. It happens when you have kids. That story features the kids screwing around playing pranks on the adults until its eventually discovered that they’ve been replaced by Mister Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite. Coincidentally, this exact same plot was used a year or so later in continuity only with Supergirl and Batgirl having been replaced by Mxy and Bat-Mite!
Nice silver age art by Curt Swan and George Klein make this one supreme nostalgia for me. Off to work now.

Collage # 2-TV's Golden Moments

This collage from the early 1990’s is, of course, more than a bit facetious in its title, TV’S GOLDEN MOMENTS. In fact, celebrated here are more wacky WTF ideas from 1970’s and early ‘80’s television than you can shake Garry Marshall at! In those pre-cable days, however, these were sometimes all we had, folks. So we watched…and watched…and kvetched about the crap on TV! Now we have 300 or so channels and I STILL can’t find anything worth watching. Ironically, if I came across some of these unlikely to be collected on DVD gems anytime soon on my cable today, I’d probably watch!
An incomplete listing of what you see includes:
SUPERTRAIN-NBC’s highly touted "LOVE BOAT on a train only with mystery instead of romance" concept was notable only for the participation of Vincent Price and wife Coral Browne (as Capt. Stubing and Gopher, respectively.)
THANKSGIVING REUNION WITH THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY AND MY THREE SONS-Now this had potential! If the Partridge’s bus broke down in front of the Douglas home and the two mega-families were forced to spend the holidays together, this COULD have worked! Unfortunately, it was a clipfest with Fred MacMurray and Shirley Jones sitting around introducing other cast members. The reason for combining these two shows that had less than nothing to do with each other is totally lost on me.
MRS. COLUMBO-Okay, you see, Peter Falk was always threatening to walk out on COLUMBO if he wasn’t paid a gazillion bucks a season AND get shorter seasons. NBC got tired of caving in and so hired Kate Mulgrew to be the oft-mentioned but never seen wife of the rumpled detective and have HER solve mysteries. Who needed Falk anyway? Hah! Well, this series just confused the hell out of everybody and Falk was soon back. NBC tried to keep it going anyhow by retitling it KATE COLUMBO and later KATE LOVES A MYSTERY. I think they even eventually changed the character’s last name. Didn’t help. I don’t think the Lieutenant ever mentioned his Missus again.
THE SONNY AND CHER SHOW-Sonny’s solo series flopped and Cher’s fell quickly out of early favor. Thus the network reunited the now very publically divorced couple for the cameras. The jibes just weren’t funny anymore, though, because we all knew what had gone between them. Instead of looking forward to mom and dad with Chastity at the end of every episode, now we just felt sorry for Chas. Sigh.
FITZ AND BONES- Concept: The Brothers Smothers are back only this time they’re non-controversial detectives instead of comedic social commentators. Yeah, right.
DIFF’RENT STROKES-"Arnold Meets Ruthie," it proclaims! Okay, let’s take a cute kid who was already full of himself by that time and have his horribly preachy "sitcom" cross over with HELLO, LARRY, one of McLean Stevenson’s legendary post-M.A.S.H. flops so he can meet cutie Kim Richards (formerly of NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR and later shockingly blown away in John Carpenter’s original, classic ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13). If either show had been funny and had this crossover been made when both kids were at a cuter stage, this might have seemed like a good idea.
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE-THE NEXT GENERATION-To be fair, there was some good stuff here during this ill-fated "new cast" season. I liked Denny Dillon, Gail Mathius, Joe Piscopo and even Charlie Rocket (whose dropping of the "F Bomb" on live TV got most of the cast canned) later redeemed himself as a good character actor. Who would have believed that Gilbert Gottfried would have gone on to be the most successful out of this bunch, though?
CHARLIE’S ANGELS-" The Male Angel Affair" was the perhaps inevitable attempt at doing a male variation on the theme, notable only for the presence of Miss Barbara Stanwyck as the female "Charlie." Unlike the faceless leader of the girls, she was very much seen on camera. I guess if you pay for Barbara Stanwyck, you expect to SEE Barbara Stanwyck!
PINK LADY AND JEFF-Hmm… I think this IS out on DVD, isn’t it? What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Hi, Mark!
THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR, BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS, a Johnny Yune sitcom, Cheryl Ladd and Raquel Welch specials, Beatles TV bios. Sigh. It really was the Golden Age of Bad TV!