Altogether Ooky
NPR delves into Charles Addams today, interviewing author Linda H. Davis on her new bio of the delightfully dark cartoonist. Addams’ people obviously had an image of being sinister and macabre, but mostly they’re just misunderstood. Take the witchie on his Halloween 1986 New Yorker cover, considerate enough to share a sample of bubbling brew with her black kitty. I’m looking forward to reading Ms. Davis’ book. This review from the New York Observer was written by Addams’ fellow New Yorker cartoonist Edward Sorel (via Emdashes).
Also on NPR — Neal Gabler appeared on yesterday’s edition of Fresh Air with Terry Gross to talk about his new biography of Walt Disney. Now, normally I think Terry Gross is a lousy interviewer; her bizarre obsessions with spirituality have seriously crippled her shows in the last couple of years. But she did well on this one, and amazingly the woman doesn’t bring up religion once during the conversation. I liked how Gabler mentioned the suprisingly un-Disneylike messages in 1960’s Pollyanna starring Haley Mills. I saw that one recently and it really is a caustic film, taking on religion and small town hypocracy. Another bio to look out for.
Deeper Shade of Twang
Being something of a country music novice, I’m grateful to Derrick Bostrom for posting a series of well-chosen country collections on his weblog. The latest one is called Disco Goes the Country, covering the crossover period of the mid ’70s when Nashville was trading in authenticity for pop hooks. The songs aren’t terribly disco sounding, but they do have entertaining “kick” and they can even be touching at times. The collection might be the best one yet, in fact.
Actually the songs on that comp are strikingly similar to a new obsession of mine — watching repeats of Pop Goes the Country on the RFD-TV network. I vaguely remember this show when it was originally broadcast; now it’s a hoot watching gnomish Ralph Emery introducing all these sometimes great, sometimes creaky performers. One week they’d have Marty Robbins or Loretta Lynn, the next week they’d have Geri Reichel (fake Jan from The Brady Bunch Variety Hour) or some anonymous blue-jeaned belter that nobody’s ever heard of. I love the music and the tacky disco-like sets. Don’t forget that the show was produced by Showbiz Entertainment, a subsidiary of Holiday Inns, Inc.!
There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow
Disney history blog 2719 Hyperion is currently doing a series of posts on the 1939 New York Worlds Fair.
Were I sent back in time to the ‘39 Fair, I would probably make a beeline for the Donut Pavilion, where fairgoers could eat a plate of donuts served by waitresses in donuty costumes. The restaurant was sponsored by Mayflower Donuts and Maxwell House Coffee; eBay has the menu up for auction. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.
Gruesome Twosome: The Mann-Weil Edition
Dusty Springfield: “Make the Man Love Me”
ABC-Dunhill recording session, 1974 | BUY
Doris Day: “Oo-Wee Baby”
Columbia Records UK single, 1964 | BUY
Gerry Goffin/Carole King may have been the most innovative and Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich were most attuned to teenaged trendiness, but it’s Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil who have proven to be the most durable of the Brill Building’s power songwriting couples. The duo have 40-plus years of huge hits to prove it, but here I’m sharing a couple of their more overlooked songs. Cher sung the winsome ballad “Make the Man Love Me” on her Dark Lady LP, but listeners would have to wait nearly 30 years for Dusty Springfield’s subtler version to surface (recorded for her stillborn ABC-Dunhill LP Longing). “Oo-Wee Baby” was more typical Mann-Weil, only instead of a faceless girl group we have a frisky-sounding Doris Day singing the praises of her imperfect guy (gee, I wish Doris recorded more of this kind of stuff). Barry and Cynthia’s official site has a lot more info on this incredible duo.
By the way, I will be retiring Gruesome Twosome after a year with this post. I might double-post album reviews here with my Rate Your Music account.
P Is for Product
Muppet Central reviews Sesame Street Old School Volume 1, which makes me wanna rush out and buy it instead of waiting for the rental discs to arrive. The 3 DVD set contains the premiere episodes for each of the first five Sesame Street seasons (1969-74), along with various popular sketches and bits from that period. Apparently some of the episodes are not complete, probably due to music licensing issues, and there are no retrospective documentaries. That’s a bummer, but I’m sure “Pinball Number Count,” Kermit T. Frog’s reports, the klutzy baker, and orange Oscar the Grouch will make up for the losses.
Speaking of Sesame Street, PBS’s Independent Lens will be presenting The World According To Sesame Street this week. The program examines various S.S. productions throughout the world. Check out the photo tour of the Bangladesh version, Sisimpur, on that website — fascinating stuff!
Little Miss Sunshine
Whenever I think about Doris Day, I just smile. So geniune and multitalented, but also projecting just enough artifice to make you question whether that genuineness is truly what it is (know what I mean?). That’s what came to mind for me while taking in The Doris Day Special, recently issued on DVD from MPI Home Video. This DVD presents a clear and lovely copy of Miss Day’s 1970 TV outing, The Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff Special, augmented with a load of interesting outtakes. Watching the DVD was fun, and strange. But mostly fun.
If anything, this show is a time capsule of the era’s proudly un-hip, grownups-only entertainment. The special presents an overly tanned and made up Day singing some of her earlier hits (”It’s Magic”, “Sentimental Journey”) alongside more contemporary fare like Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” She and a laconic Perry Como frolic on a giant set dressed like an outdoor park, at times joined by Rock Hudson or a phalanx of her beloved pet dogs (in fact, it’s the dogs’ unpredictability that provides the most enjoyment on the outtakes). There’s also a cool/kitschy filmed opening medley and fashion sequence to keep the eyeballs busy, but it’s clearly Miss Day’s show all the way. The world of 1970 may have been filled with war and political unrest, but you’d never know it watching Doris in her crisp orange knee-length dress with matching ribbon. One smile from her is an escape from the humdrum — then and now.
The Hair Care Bunch
Some goofy hairstyles from 1977’s Vogue Body and Beauty Book might serve as inspiration for halloween costumers or drag queens. I’ve always liked that “disco helmet hair” look in vogue briefly during the late ’70s. Dorothy Stratten in Galaxina, Frida of ABBA and (briefly) Elaine Joyce of Match Game had that ‘do. And it’s not in an ironic “ha ha” way, either; I really do like that hairstyle. It takes a certain kind of nervy woman to pull that look off, however.
Completely unrelated: Ken Jennings blogs on his experience guesting on NBC’s 1 vs. 100. Interesting reading with Jennings pointing out the obvious shortcomings of the show. I watched one and only one installment. Cool set, nice concept, non-engaging gameplay, unbelievably stupid questions. A Television Without Pity forum poster accurately desribed the show as “Jeopardy with a lobotomy”.
Dreams A Go Go
The Dreamgirls trailer popped up during last night’s South Park. Excellent. Can’t wait for December! Beyoncé sure looks eerily like a young Diana Ross in those previews.
Funny — the producers of the original Broadway Dreamgirls were famously cagey about comparing their story with the Supremes’ saga, but it appears that the filmmakers are being less covert. If you look closely in one brief flash of a scene, a blown-up album cover for the film’s fictional trio The Dreams can be seen in the background. The album derives its design from two vintage Supremes albums: More Hits By The Supremes (1965) for the layout and Supremes A Go Go (1966) for the photography. I wonder if the film will have more of these little in-jokes for Supremes fans?
Stop the Madness
The 7 Worst Fonts (via Kottke). It begs the question, once again: why is Comic Sans so popular? Here’s the font equivalent of a chubby middle-aged biddy in a hand-decorated sweatshirt. Simply put, it’s popular with people who don’t know any better. And it will depressingly remain on its reviled perch until Microsoft removes it from Windows. Like the common cockroach, it will never, ever, ever go away.
Old Drawing: The Price Is Right
As a kid, I would draw and draw on reams of old-style computer paper supplied by my dad’s office job. So long as I had a trusty ball-point pen handy, I didn’t mind that the paper had faint horizontal green stripes and sprocket holes on each side. Scads of drawings resulted with just those two items; mostly doodles, cartoons and tracings of my fave comic characters.
Although most of this stuff invariably ended up getting tossed, I did save a few — like the über geeky rendering of the Price Is Right set in red felt-tip pen seen below. This is probably from about 1981. The drawing actually tells a little story: a contestant is rushing onstage after having the winning bid on an aquarium. Host and contestant are about to play a game of Hi-Lo, with a jeep of some kind waiting to be revealed behind the curtain. Funny how the other prizes are just sitting backstage. Guess I didn’t have time to draw little stagehands moving everything about.
Ready or Not
Looking forward to the December arrival of Saturday Night Live’s Complete First Season, complete and unedited on 8 DVDs. This first season will be interesting to check out, since it was still a work in progress with a few elements (grungy Muppet creatures, short films) ironed out of the more polished later seasons.
Admittedly, “ABBA appeared on SNL?” was the first thing I thought upon reading that press release. It’s true: the Swedes performed “Waterloo” and “S.O.S.” in episode 5 from November 15, 1975. According to TV.com: “this was the first episode where a musical guest did not sing live, as ABBA lipsynched. Dick Ebersol insisted that they be a musical guest, and a result Lorne [Michaels] reduced Dick’s output in the show quite considerably.”
Man-Sized Love
Just completed a special mix disc of a musical style that I call Synthy Soul. All of these tunes appeared on the Billboard pop charts between June 1985 and August 1987, a period when Prince and Michael Jackson paved the way for scores of R&B artists to embrace a more strident, synthetic and danceable sound. The mix reminds me of the many afternoons spent watching music videos on BET, hosted by that super-smooth guy who looked like the lead singer of Kool & The Gang. Ah, good times.
I’m especially proud that this mix has tracks by the era’s four “star” groups — Starpoint, Atlantic Starr, Five Star, and Midnight Star. Follow the links for some primo ’80s video goodness.
Starpoint — “Object of My Desire”
Five Star — “Let Me Be The One”
Midnight Star — “Midas Touch”
Atlantic Starr — “One Lover At A Time”
Robot Chicken
Oh Turner Classic Movies, what would we do without you? They’ve been playing some groovy old Japanese horror/sci-fi films lately that deserve a little write-up here. First up was Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968), broadcast on October 1st. This film follows a small passenger aircraft as, mysteriously, the sky turns bright red and birds start crashing into the windows. A glowing UFO appears, causing the plane to crash in an empty canyon. As the terrified band of passengers attempt to survive with no food and water, an alien host invades one man who then tries to kill the others in various entertaining ways. This was a memorably unsettling film made even more resonant with its references to the Vietnam war. Although the alien looks like nothing more than a harmless blob of pearlescent shampoo, I found the scenes of it entering/exiting the human hosts through a slit in their foreheads truly creepy.
Our second film came in the form of last Sunday’s The X from Outer Space (1967), another one of those “giant creature on the loose” flicks. The creature in question, a big rubbery reptile/chicken saddled with the un-scary name Guilala, doesn’t appear until the second half. Until then, we have to endure a standard romantic love triangle in space involving a handsome astronaut, a pretty Asian traffic controller, and a pretty blonde scientist. I’d have to agree with one of the IMDb commenters, however, in interpretating that the two women seemed more interested in each other than in the man — which made this movie more interesting than the filmmakers likely imagined. Another thing I dug was the space station’s future-chic costumes and production design, which predated the similar looking TV series UFO and Space: 1999 by a few years. I also enjoyed the groovy rockish music score, although the repeating theme accompanying the monster’s inevitable rampage through cardboard buildings got old after awhile. In sum: two squawks up.
I’ve Seen the Light
“You are so Markie Post in every single Lifetime movie.” — Will Truman, Will & Grace
Too campy. Somebody on YouTube did an eleven minute Lifetime movie parody starring Judith Light. It goes without saying that Ms. Light’s role is played by a fetching-looking guy.
Gruesome Twosome: Girl Power Edition
The Pixies Three: “Welcome to the Party”
LP: Party With The Pixies Three, 1964 | BUY
The Breakaways: “That’s How It Goes”
Pye Records U.K. single, 1964 | BUY
Let’s break out the fun with a couple of Girl Group gems. No shrinking violets, the Pixies Three bring loads of spontinaety and charm to this opener for their lone LP, a concept album on the subject of parties. I love how the track goes through various popular dances of the day; makes me want to Monkey with the best of ‘em. The Breakaways were best known for backing some of ’60s England’s biggest recording acts, but the thundering “That’s How It Goes” gave them an excellent chance to shine on their own. Producer Tony Hatch furnishes the gals with a raucous (and eerily correct) recreation of the Phil Spector sound. More about the Breakaways’ incredible career here. Thanks to Patrick for the Pixies Three.
