A Couple of Plugs For OH MY GOODNESS…IT’S PAUL LYNDE! Starring Michael Airington

My talented friend Michael Airington will be performing his awesome one-man show Oh My Goodness…It’s Paul Lynde! in Palm Springs at The Purple Room January 22nd – 24th and in San Diego at Martinis Above Fourth January 28th and 29th. I’ve posted previously about Michael’s show here and here….and am always happy to give him a shout out whenever he is appearing somewhere. I believe very strongly in Michael and his show….I have said this before and I will say it again – Michael doesn’t just portray Paul Lynde….he channels him!

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If you will be in the Palm Springs area January 22nd, 23rd or 24th, click here to get more information and to purchase tickets.

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If you will be in the San Diego area January 28th or 29th, click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Oh My Goodness…It’s Paul Lynde! is not to be missed! Here’s a promo for a previous version of this hilarious show:

 

Farewell to Some of Those We Lost in 2014

It seems like a lot of notable people in the field of entertainment in 2014. As they do every year, the folks at Turner Classic Movies put together an “In Memoriam” reel in honor of those in front of and and behind the camera….and, inevitably, a notable person died after this compilation was put together, that person being Luise Rainer, who died on December 30th at the age of 104. UPDATE: Actor Edward Herrmann died on December 31st at the age of 71.

Those who stand out immediately in my mind include James Garner, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple, Joan Rivers and, most of all, Robin Williams. His death is going to hurt for a long time to come.

TCM Remembers 2014:

 

Video of the Day

 

Back in 2000 Noel Blanc teamed with Warner Bros. to create this tribute to his dad, “the man of a thousand voices”, Mel Blanc. This “living” artwork was called a Power Picture and it moved to a synchronized soundtrack of sound bytes of Mel speaking about the characters and clips of the characters.

Of special note is the final statement from Mel in which he says, “Life is a great thing. You live once, love what you’re doing….you’ll live to a long, healthy life.” That came from a May 1984 conversation that my best friend Walt Mitchell and I had with Mel while visiting with him in his hotel room in Schenectady, NY where he was appearing to deliver one of his college talks. Walt and I were honored when Noel asked us to contribute a sound clip to this wonderful project.

Celebrating 15 Years of Being Online

15 years ago today I went online for the first time, thanks to the Webtv unit that my mother gave me for Christmas….by the time I got it hooked up and then signed up for the service, it was the wee hours of December 26th, 1999.

 

Webtv was a service from Microsoft that allowed you to use your tv set to connect to the internet using dial-up “technology”. Rather than try to explain how it worked, watch this video instead.

Yeah, it was primitive but it was a way to learn about using the internet before I eventually graduated to a laptop in October 2001. By that point Microsoft was allowing Webtv (which was rebranded MSNTV) users to access their MSN and/or Hotmail accounts on both their Webtv units and their computers at no extra cost. I did this until a little more than 5 years in December 2006, when we subscribed to Time-Warner’s high speed internet service, which I continue to use to this day. MSNTV, by the way, was discontinued on September 30th, 2013.

I have enjoyed being on the internet during these past 15 years….I’ve met all sorts of people online and used so many different services from banking to shopping to YouTube, MySpace (remember them?), Facebook and Twitter. Oh yeah….I also went from blogging on TypePad to WordPress….a definite improvement!

Anyway, I just wanted to observe the anniversary of the beginning of my access to the internet. The technology has expanded at such a breakneck speed since then and some day I’ll catch up with it all. Until then, whenever I become frustrated with my 8 1/2 year old laptop, I’ll stop and remember what things were like in the dark ages when dial-up and Webtv were state of the art technology.

Scary, ain’t it?

 

Remembering a Legend….Jack Benny

Jack Benny February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974

 

40 years ago today the world lost one of the greatest comedians who ever lived when Jack Benny died at the age of 80….of course, Jack would have insisted that he was 39.

Jack Benny’s career ranged from vaudeville to radio to movies to television to concert stages to personal appearances….and he continued to perform almost until his death from pancreatic cancer. He was even set to co-star with Walter Matthau in the film The Sunshine Boys….that role would played instead by Benny’s best friend of 55 years, George Burns. I’ll bet that Jack would have been pleased that George’s career was revived by his Oscar-winning turn in the movie.

NBC aired a half-hour tribute tribute on December 27th that was hosted by Tom Snyder and CBS aired the following hour-long tribute on December 29th, the day of Benny’s funeral. Hosted by Charles Kuralt, this special includes comments from Benny’s co-stars Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Frank Nelson, Don Wilson, Dennis Day and Mel Blanc, plus Milton Berle, Danny Thomas, Danny Kaye, CBS founder/chairman William S. Paley, Bob Hope’s eulogy at the services and a wonderful clip to end the broadcast….Jack and Gisele MacKenzie with their classic violin duet of “Getting to Know You”.

Today’s Christmas Video

Today’s Christmas video, Happy Xmas (War is Over), features John Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir….aside from being today’s video, it also is posted in memory of the 34th anniversary of John Lennon’s death.

 

A Halloween Treat….The Transylvania Twist

When I was growing up we had a local tv program here in Syracuse, NY called The Baron and His Buddies, which aired from 1963 until 1967. It starred Mike Price as a vampire named Baron Daemon and his fans were nicknamed his “Bloody Buddies”. The Baron originated as a Saturday night horror movie host but the character proved to be so popular with children that the Baron was given a daily program so parents didn’t have to let their kids stay up late to see him. The show featured the Baron and his sidekicks Very Hairy (Dennis Calkins) and Boris (the late Bill Eadie)….in between comedy bits there would be cartoons or a serial such as Flash Gordon.

The above photo is an example of a typical studio audience for the show….quite often the audience would be comprised of kids from various groups, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and, on one occasion, my Brownie troop. I remember this set very much and, as I recall, if you were a member of the audience and turned to your right you would see this….the Baron’s “space ship”. (This was the mid-60s, after all.)

About the only other thing that I remember from my visit to the show was that we all were given goodie bags that contained candy and a photo of Baron Daemon. My photo disappeared long ago but thanks to the internet, I believe that this was what we received:

Now for the treat. Somebody at WNYS decided that the Baron should record a novelty song, The Transylvania Twist, which featured local recording artists Sam and the Twisters and the Bigtree sisters. (Both acts were collectively billed as “The Vampires” for the record.) A wonderful piece about how the record came to be can be found here.

And now, from a tv special about the Baron, here is The Transylvania Twist:

 

John Denver: A Celebration

John Denver was and still is my favorite singer….it is hard to believe that it has been 17 years now since he died in that plane crash off the coast of Monterey, California. However, I choose to remember him not with sadness, but with a celebration of his career. In doing so, I thought that I would share a few video clips that I’ve enjoyed over the years.

Here is a clip of John with Cass Elliot in a duet of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” on The Midnight Special  on August 19th, 1972:

I’ve posted this next clip before here but I like it so much that I just have to share it again….John and Doris Day from 1975 singing a medley of “Sunshine” songs:

Next up is the video for “Don’t Close Your Eyes Tonight” from 1985….I always enjoyed the sexiness of this one:

John worked very well with the Muppets and I love this performance of “Grandma’s Feather Bed”….”Grandma” even appears near the end:

Here’s a nice duet of “September Song” with John and Frank Sinatra:

John’s final song was called “Yellowstone, Coming Hone”….he did record it but it was never released (it was played at his memorial in Aspen)…but there is an audio recording of him singing it at his last concert in Houston, TX on October 4th, 1997:

I can’t think of a better way to end this celebration of John Denver than with a performance of my very favorite of all his songs….”Perhaps Love”. This was the very first time I heard this beautiful song….this clip is from the special that MSNBC aired after John died but it originally aired on Tomorrow on December 3rd, 1980 (despite what it says on the screen):

 

Saturday Morning Memories

This article made me kinda sad….for the first time in over 50 years there are no Saturday morning cartoons airing on any of the broadcast networks.

Saturday morning American broadcast TV was once animation’s home field. Filling a cereal bowl with artificially colored sugar pebbles and staring at the tube was every kid’s weekend plan. Not any more: For the first time in 50-plus years, you won’t find a block of animation on broadcast this morning. It’s the end of an era.

Yes, The CW, the final holdout in Saturday morning animation, ran its last batch of Vortexx cartoons last weekend. This week, where you once saw shows like Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon Fusion, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, you’ll instead find “One Magnificent Morning,” a block of live-action educational programming.

It’s the end of an era, but it’s been a long time coming: NBC ditched Saturday morning cartoons in 1992, CBS followed suit not long after, and ABC lost its animated weekend mornings in 2004. The CW, a lower-tier broadcast network, was the last holdout in a game that the Big 3 left long ago.

I know that there are classic cartoons running on cable networks, not to mention the fact that kids and/or their parents can pop in a DVD….but it’s just not the same as parking yourself in front of the tv set with a bowl of cereal on a Saturday morning and waiting for some of the following classic cartoon openings.

This was my all-time favorite – The Bugs Bunny-Roadrunner Show. This begins with something that kids today know nothing about: the CBS network “tone” that was heard before the beginning of every program.

Here’s a few more Saturday morning favorites….

The Flintstones

The Jetsons

Underdog

Beany and Cecil (the opening)

Beany and Cecil (the closing)

There are so many more that I could have included – maybe I’ll do a follow-up someday – but for now….

Odd Ogg

When I was 5 years old my favorite toy was an odd thing that was aptly named Odd Ogg. I can pinpoint my age at the time that I had it because I can still remember taking it to kindergarten for show and tell. For some reason I’ve been thinking about this toy today and, thanks to the internet, I found some images of the thing. This is pretty much how I remembered it:

I didn’t remember how it could look like it could have been a member of KISS (but without the makeup):

According to Wikipedia:

Odd Ogg was a toy of the 1960s that was produced by the Ideal Toy Company. The ODD OGG was a half turtle and half frog and resembled a robotic version of this unique combination. Ideal Toy Company manufactured the ODD OGG in 1962. While ODD OGG might not be as popular as other toys produced by Ideal, such as Kissy doll, Tammy doll, or even the Magic 8-ball, it is remembered by many Baby Boomers to this day.

The ODD OGG came with four plastic balls and the objective was for the child to roll them directly into ODD OGG’s center. If a child succeeded in doing this, the toy would roll towards them. If a child failed to correctly roll the ball into the underbelly of ODD OGG, then the toy would stick out its tongue and move backwards.

Even more detailed info about Odd Ogg can be found here.

I even managed to find some video of Odd Ogg:

My Odd Ogg went to Toy Heaven probably around 50 years ago but I still have fond memories of playing with it….thank you Internet for bringing some of those memories back. 🙂