January 13, 2017

Around the dial

What do the other blogs have to say this week? Here’s a sampling:

A couple of times in tomorrow’s TV Guide piece, I use the word “prophetic” to describe something that someone says. Talk about prophesy – the following has only a tangential connection to television, but it’s the kind of tidbit that I love running across myself, so I can’t resist sharing. At Lileks’ site, a commenter, apropos of nothing, shares this snippet of a conversation from a 1958 episode of Trackdown entitled “The End of the World.” It features a huckster named – well, read the rest:
Trump: I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing will penetrate.

Townperson: What do we do? How do we save ourselves?

Trump: You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I'm here to tell you.

I don’t care what your political persuasion is, you have to appreciate that. It’s like, “who writes this stuff?”

At The Horn Section, Hal’s back with a review of the 1967 Hondo episode “Hondo and the War Hawks,”  an entertaining outing according to Hal. Meanwhile, Lincoln X-ray Ida looks at the fourth season Adam-12 episode “Substation,” in which Malloy and Reed confront a hostage situation at LAX.

If The Twilight Zone is more your style, The Twilight Zone Vortex offers a genre guide to the series’ episodes. Want to know which episodes deal with “Death and the Afterlife” or “Dolls, Dummies and Effigies”? This is the place.

Cult TV Blog’s review of the Brit series Spyder’s Web prompts reflections on quality television. It’s a nice companion to his previous post, which discussed the difference between quality television and regular television. Should I be looking at adding this set to my collection?

Vote for Bob Crane looks back at a 2008 tribute to Bob from one of his former broadcast homes, WICC radio in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Well worth a listen.

Comfort TV offers a tribute to frequent Hogan guest Bernard Fox, who died last month. As David writes, in addition to mourning Fox, we’re also reminded of how the list of surviving classic TV actors continues to dwindle.

That’s another reason why we write about classic television, my friends and I, to keep these memories alive as long as we can – presumably until we’re gone, and then hopefully someone from the next generation will pick up the torch.  But until then, I’ll keep on typing, and you can read the latest effort here tomorrow. TV  

2 comments:

  1. "Who Writes This Stuff?"

    Well, in the case of this Trackdown episode, from May of 1958, a man named John Robinson, who contributed to many series in the '50s and '60s, mainly including the original Dragnet (one of his specialties was con games).

    (Always look things up.)

    The Trackdown 'Trump' is played by Lawrence Dobkin, who I believe I've mentioned a time or two here, for his off-camera narration of Naked City, his on-camera roles (mainly villains, including the pilot film of Streets Of San Francisco), and his frequent stints as a director of TV episodes (including the above-named shows, among many others).

    I confess to having been unaware of this Trackdown episode, although I don't doubt that it will soon go viral (if it hasn't already).

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  2. Late, I know, but in answer to your question, I definitely think you should be adding Spyder's Web to your collection!

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!