September 22, 2017

Around the dial

No plugs for the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this week, unless you want to start thinking about attending next year. If you're on the fence, you can read about our experience here, and Jodie Peeler of Garoway at Large shares her great adventure here. And now on to the rest of the week.

At The Bob Crane Show Reloaded, Eric and Carol have a powerful podcast on Bob Crane's mistrial in the court of public opinion, focusing (no pun intended) on the movie Auto Focus and the inaccuracies it's helped to perpetuate. I run into this so often myself when talking about Hogan's Heroes or Crane, and people only know what they've heard from the tabloid press. Talk about fake news.

I enjoyed this writeup at Fire-Breathing Dimetrodon Time on the Avengers episode "The Hour That Never Was." Besides being a sucker for titles like that, it's a tense hour of suspense and mystery - a little different for the series. It's nice to see that their son appreciated the story as well; I think kids love this kind of edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Once Upon a Screen has an affectionate shout-out to The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves - and really, isn't he the one and only Superman? (With the possible exception of radio and cartoon voice Bud Collyer.) Yes, that opening sequence and the narration - I always enjoyed that as well.

The Twilight Zone Vortex has an interview with William F. Nolan, the famed author of Logan's Run and other sci-fi classics, who had a tight friendship with many of the legendary Southern California authors who made up the core group of Twilight Zone writers. Very neat stuff - and, again, how important it is to talk with these people while they're still around.

You may remember my fondness for Burke's Law, the early '60s cop show with Gene Barry (which helps explain my pleasure at seeing Gary Conway at MANC last week), but did you know that the original Amos Burke was none other than Dick Powell? The Land of Whatever has a look at the episode of The Dick Powell Show that introduced the suave detective.

Having lived in Dallas for four years, and studied the JFK assassination for years before that, I'm well-familiar with WFAA, so I enjoy seeing this old ad at the Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland announcing that the station is now the "most powerful TV station in all Texas," which in Texas talk means the most powerful station in the world. We're spoiled with cable and satellite TV; back then, a large transmitter tower and improved coverage was really a big deal.

At The Federalist (I told you once, I find interesting stories in unusual places), David Breitenbeck writes about how watching What's My Line? tells us something about how people back then thought of their world. And, incidentelly, it tells us about how we view our own world as well. I love these kinds of articles.

Finally, not a link to a blog, but our friend Mark Rathaus, whom I interviewed last year about the '70s series Movin' On. Says Mark, "DVDs are finally available. Fans may now buy remastered, high quality Season 1 and Season 2 sets for $39.95 each. Sorry, no telemovie, pilot, In Tandem yet. But the new DVDs are approved by the shows original Producers, Barry Weitz and Philip D’Antoni, and Restoration Producer, Mark Rathaus." Allied Vaughn is manufacturing the MOD DVDs and the Peter Rodgers Organization is the distributor. You can purchase Season 1 and Season 2 by clicking on the links.

Thanks for the update, Mark - and on that note, we'll see you tomorrow with another TV Guide. TV  

2 comments:

  1. That article on the George Reeves Superman TV show surprised me for two reasons:
    1. I didn't know it did the origin story.
    2. I didn't know any were done in color. Before '65 just about everything that wasn't a movie or a cartoon was in black and white.
    I've seen many of them from syndication where often TV stations would use them for space filler - especially when they began 24 hour schedules. Many stations went 24hr before infomercials (yuck) were allowed.
    BTW, a little fun fact on one of the longest running one of them: Forgot the name so I'll call it the Wizbang 2000. It was a hand mixer, the handle part containing the motor with a shaft going down to a blender blade. You could dunk it into a glass to blend whatever. Every other minute the host would gush ''look at the power of the Wizbang 2000!'' and it did appear to have a powerful motor. But here's what you didn't see; the case of Wizbang 2000's under the display kitchen - and of course, the 120 outlet wired to 240. :)

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  2. Thanks, Mitchell, and I completely agree that it is very important to talk to these talented folks while we still have a chance.

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!