January 20, 2023

Around the dial




If you like, you can imagine that the lone cowboy on the screen is Gabby Hayes, whom Chuck and Mike correctly identified in last week's post. Just a reminder of how popular Westerns were back in the day, and why not? The best of them were little morality plays that just happened to be set in the old West, and even ones like The Lone Ranger and The Roy Rogers Show provided decent entertainment. What more could you want from TV?

Let's start this week at Classic Film & TV Café, where Rick visits the 1964 film The Brass Bottle, which stars Tony Randall as a man who discovers a bottle with a real-life genie in it. No, Barbara Eden isn't the genie, but she is Tony Randall's fiancée; Sidney Sheldon saw The Brass Bottle, and remembered it when it was time to cast I Dream of Jeannie. The movie's genie? Burl Ives.

It's been 20 years since Fred Rodgers died. No, I can't believe it's been that long, either, and I don't believe there's anyone on television today—or anywhere, for that matter—who comes close to his warmth and kindness. At Comfort TV, David looks back at everyone's neighbor, and how things have changed without him.

A cool picture at the Broadcast Archives of Al Sinton, sound technician for CBS radio, and the various gadgets he used to generate sound effects on radio shows of the day, circa 1930. It's nice to have a look at things that are always heard but seldom seen. Not much else to say about this; Al let his tools do the talking for him.

You'll recall that last week at Cult TV Blog, John began a series on pairing episodes of The Prisoner to make a film out of them. (The idea of double episodes was originally considered when the series was being conceived.) Here, he links "Arrival" and "The Schizoid Man" and comes up with something quite interesting; John always has intriguing ways of looking at this fascinating series.

At Drunk TV, Paul looks at "Rules for School," one in a series of classic educational shorts issued on DVD by Kino Classics DVD. I have to admit that after watching these on MST3K, Return of the Mads, and Rifftrax, it's pretty hard for me to take them seriously. but they do remind me of those dear old school days of my youth. If I can think back that far. TV  

1 comment:

  1. I remember seeing that "The Brass Bottle" was on a local station once, and that Barbara Eden was in it, so I eagerly tuned in, expecting to see Jeannie. As soon as I saw Burl Ives was the genie, I turned it off in mild disgust. ;)

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