There are a couple of blogathons looming over the horizon
that I should direct to your attention…and I thank the gang at True Classics
for giving me this heads-up, because I am quite a bit behind in my
blog reading as well. Throughout the
month of August, Jill at Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence and Michael at ScribeHard on Film will host the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon, which will coincide
with The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™’s annual celebration. Here’s the skinny from Jill and Michael:
For classic movie lovers, TCM’s Summer Under the Stars is like Christmas, the Oscars, the Super Bowl, and every
That got us to thinking: what better
way is there to commemorate this month-long celebration of classic stars and
classic movies than to co-host a month-long collection of classic blogs created
by the classic members of the online blogging community?
That’s a lot of class!
Thus the TCM Summer Under the Stars
Blogathon was born!
Pick a movie … pick a star … pick a
whole day … pick five … ten … whatever!
This is a month-long blogathon and we want to showcase as many bloggers
as many times as we can. And because
your picks will coincide with their respective SUTS days, you can plan as far
in advance as you need to.
Whether your medium is the written
word, stories in pictures, video tributes, or even a simple haiku (see what
Michael did there?), we want you to make the great Summer Under the Stars event
even greater.
The process is really simple:
- Make
your pick (did we mention you can pick as many as you want?)
- Send
us (ScribeHard(at)hotmail(dot)com and sittinonabackyardfence(at)gmail(dot)com)
an email as far in advance of your pick’s SUTS day as possible so that we
can give you maximum exposure.
Include what you would like to contribute, in what form, and the
name of your blog (with the url)
- We
will send you a banner to add to your blog (if you would be so kind)
- The
day before your particular SUTS day (or sooner if you have it), send us
the link to your post. On your SUTS
day, we will add your link to our sites, as well as promote your blog via
Twitter and Facebook.
- Lather. Rinse.
Repeat.
It promises to be oodles of fun, and I e-mailed Jill to let
her know that Thrilling Days of
Yesteryear will be participating with an essay that I have tentatively
titled “Him Tarzan, You Mom” (in honor of my mother’s love for all things Johnny
Weissmuller).
The other blogathon of note will be hosted from September
22-24, and will feature three (count ‘em) hosts: Aurora
at Once Upon a Screen, Paula of Paula’s Cinema Club and the Irish Jayhawk
herownself, Kellee at Outspoken and Freckled.
(“Why, when I was a young blogger…it only took one person to host a
blogathon—and that was the way we liked it!”)
The What a Character! Blogathon will spotlight the “glue” of any classic
film: those beloved character actors whose names we might not always remember
but whose faces are often more recognizable than any of our relatives (what my
BBFF Stacia often calls “Hey! It’s that
guy (or gal)!”). Here are the details of
Aurora, Paula and Kellee’s “Character studies”:
This summer is proving to be a
landmark in the classic film blogosphere.
Events are planned covering an array of fabulous classic films, movie
stars and topics on all things movies.
Borrowing a catch-phrase from our
beloved, home of the classics, Turner Classic Movies, Kellee of Outspoken &
Freckled and (@IrishJayHawk66), Paula of Paula’s Cinema Club and
(@Paula_Guthat) and Aurora, of Once Upon a Screen and (@CitizenScreen) are
dedicating an event to the great character actors that so enhanced our classic
movies. To the faces, the laughs, the
drama presented by these wonderful actors whose names all too often go
unrecognized we dedicate WHAT A CHARACTER!
If you are interested in
contributing, please go to any one of the host sites and submit a comment with
your choice. Please include the title
and link to your blog. What or whom you
choose to write about is open. We’d love
to have everyone choose different subjects and topics because there are so many
great character actors that deserve attention.
But we’ll leave that up to you.
As submissions come in, we’ll update the list of entries to give
everyone an idea of what’s been chosen.
A couple of weeks before the event,
we’ll post a submission schedule.
I contacted Aurora
and informed
her that I’m definitely in for this one—thought about doing Leon Errol, but
called an audible at the last minute and will go with TDOY fave Charles McGraw.
When they decide upon the submission schedule, I’ll let you know when to
expect it (so everyone can get their alibis ready).
And now for some classic TV-on-DVD news. TVShowsOnDVD.com has solidified the details
on CBS DVD-Paramount’s box set release The Fugitive: The Complete Series/The Most Wanted Edition—the street date for the 33-disc collection containing all
120 episodes of the iconic 1963-67 TV series will be October 23rd. To those fans of the show who waited
patiently for the company to “do it right,” as it were—your persistence will
pay off in huge dividends (including a bodacious fistful of extras described in
the press release here). To
CBS-Paramount…I’ll see you all in Hell.
The Hades-bound company has also announced a release date for the second volume of Gunsmoke: The Sixth Season (the first volume is due
out August 7) because, Heaven forfend they release the early half-hour version
of this series in a complete affordable package instead of that split-season
bullsh*t. The second volume street date will
be October 16th—three discs containing the remaining episodes from the seminal
TV western’s 1960-61 season, and priced at $36.99 SRP.
Also on the release schedule from the appointed minions of
Satan is the second volume of Perry Mason’s seventh season (the first volume
due out August 21), which will hit stores on the same day as The Fugitive
collection (October 23). This 4-disc set
will contain the remaining episodes (a whopping 15 shows!) from the classic
legal series Season Siete, priced to move at $49.99 SRP. (One of these days I’ll be able to complete
my Mason collection, which is still languishing at Volume 1 of the fifth year.)
And CBS-Paramount, whose motto could be “When there is no
more room in Hell, DVDs will walk the earth,” will finish out the six season
run of The Lucy Show on October 9th with The Lucy Show: The Complete Sixth Season, a 4-disc collection containing the final twenty-four episodes of the
popular 60s sitcom. I’m behind on my
Lucy collecting, too—I have the fourth season, but held off on buying Season 5
because most of those shows (with the exception of one episode) are available in those
public domain collections that dot the Internet landscape. (I’ll probably knuckle under and get it one
of these days, but it will definitely have to be a deep discount…if you know
what I mean, and I think you do.)
This week’s award for “Most Obscure TV Series to Hit DVD”
goes to the Warner Archive, who announced yesterday (July 24th) that they would make available on MOD DVD the 1962-63 series The Gallant Men, an ABC drama that
centered on the exploits of an American Army infantry company fighting in Italy
during World War II. The show, which
starred William Reynolds (later of The F.B.I.) and (Father) Robert McQueeney,
never really caught on the way ABC’s other WW2 series, Combat! did (Men had
some stiff competition opposite CBS’ Rawhide on Friday nights as well) and so
it signed off after a single season. All
twenty-six episodes of the series are available in a 6-DVD collection that’s
priced at a non-negotiable tariff of $49.95.
I joked on Facebook after learning of this release that all that needed
to happen was the news of 12 O’Clock High and Garrison’s Gorillas coming to DVD
and my WW2 childhood would be complete.
Finally, the news that Sony Home Video will release the TV version of Born Free (a short-lived show that ran for 13 episodes in 1974) on
August 7 amused the heck out of me because it reminded me that Gary Collins
actually had an acting career before becoming a talk show host. He was cast in several TV series: The
Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965-66), The Iron Horse (1966-68)—which airs in
reruns on Antenna TV Saturday mornings at 8am EST ,
and The Sixth Sense (1972), which was later cut up into segments for the
syndicated run of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery.
That’s the only version of the series I’ve seen; I was only eight when
the show first aired but I remember a young friend of my sister Kat’s who endearingly
told her that “Sixth Sense was fooky” (he meant “spooky”).
Stop the presses! An
e-mail notice informs me that the anticipated The Jack Benny Program: The Lost
Episodes collection originally announced for September 11th…is in error. According to TSOD, Shout! Factory says the
listing at DVDEmpire.com is incorrect, and that the actual release probably won’t
see the light of day until sometime after the new year in 2013. (The artwork for the set is subject to change
as well.) So as far as my birthday present goes...missed it by that much.
4 comments:
Thanks for the shout-out, Ivan. Always glad to be of service to the head honcho of Rancho Yesteryear. :)
Thanks for the shout-out, my friend!
Can't wait for your contribution.
SUPER ANGRY at the delayed Jack Benny set date.
Both blogathons look great!
All set up for the Summer Under the Stars blogathon, super excited. Any chance I could possibly get a shout-out for my upcoming blogathon, the Universal Backlot Blogathon. Deets here http://journeysinclassicfilm.com/the-universal-backlot-blogathon/. Thanks
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