Holding pattern

Previously on Thrilling Days of Yesteryear:

MELISSA (brandishing a gun): You’re through, do you hear me?  This is the very last time you’ll do dirt to me…you’ve turned my daughter against me…had my mother committed to an asylum…turned me into an alcoholic nymphomaniac, incapable of knowing real love or stopping at one last drink…you sit there in your ivory tower, manipulating people’s lives…well, this is the last straw, Trevor!

ME: It’s Ivan, actually…

And scene!  Yes, that little bit o’nighttime soap drama was inspired by the revelation that the 65th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony Sunday night was unable to single out TV icon Larry Hagman (I Dream of Jeannie, The Good Life, Here We Go Again, Dallas) or past award winner Jack Klugman (Harris Against the World, The Odd Couple, Quincy, M.E., You Again?) for tribute…but did find time to do it up right for Kelly Montieth.  Which, really…oh…I’ve just been handed a note—that’s Cory Montieth.  Anyway, I won’t rehash the outrage that erupted on the Internets from this pathetic attempt to lure young viewers into watching a show they probably have no interest in from the get-go—suffice it to say, I skipped the show and settled in with a MOVIES! double feature of Absence of Malice (1981) and Come Back, Little Sheba (1952).

Last Wednesday, I listed the nominees for this year’s Classic Movie Blog Association Awards (you like this awards show transition thing?  I thought it rather nice) and mentioned that we’d know today who would soon be busting out the Pledge and shining up CiMBAs on their mantles.  Well, I lied.  I lied a lot.  Actually, they decided to extend the voting deadline until the end of this month so it looks like we won’t know the results until early October.  (Plenty of chances to get a bet down in the meantime.)

My friend Harry Heuser, who blogs at broadcastellan, has just had his study Immaterial Culture: Literature, Drama and the American Radio Play, 1929-1954 published…and I thought I’d mention it in passing here on the blog.  Those of you with an academic interest in old-time radio and its impact on popular culture (stage, movies and books) will find much of value in this book (though Harry rather modestly describes it as “me writing about the stuff we like”)—there are discussions on such artists as John Dickson Carr, Lucille Fletcher, Norman Corwin, Leslie Charteris and Arch Oboler, as well as shows and personalities as Amos ‘n’ Andy, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Lum ‘n Abner and Vic and Sade.  You’ll find the meaty tome here in softcover and e-Book form.

The movies obsessed gang over at True Classics are spotlighting the genius (and that’s really the only way to describe it) of animator Tex Avery this week…and to supplement their splendid posts, they’re running a contest in which some nifty swag will be given away.  Click here to find out the “deets” on how to enter, and I’ll warn you right now—I’m determined to win these goodies, so if anyone gets in my way I might drop a piano on you.

Last year, Aurora at Once Upon a Screen—in cahoots with her partners-in-crime Kellee (of Outspoken and Freckled) and Paula (of Paula’s Cinema Club)—sponsored the What a Character! Blogathon to great success, and so the three of them have planned a sequel (What a Character II: Texas Blood Money) for this November (November 9-11, to be exact) that looks to be every bit as informative and crowd-pleasing as the original.  (Well, you have to say that with sequels—otherwise no one will go see them.)  I’m not sure if I’m going to have the time for this one (I have some outside “bidness” around that date) but I do know that my BBFF Stacia will be contributing an essay entitled Regis Toomey: You Cannot Kill Him, You Can Only Hope to Contain Him.

Annnnnddd…speaking of Stacia (honestly, I should write segueways for a living)—we break out the streamers and noisemakers today because six years ago today, she made a daring escape (yes, I know I used this joke in 2011—but times are tough) from the fetid fever swamp that is Usenet (“a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” as I fondly refer to it) and started construction on She Blogged by Night here in Upper Blogistan.  Though many were disappointed at first (well, they thought it was going to be a Five Guys and a Burger) the naysayers quickly closed ranks and realized that Stacia’s scrap of the blogosphere is one of the funniest and most well-written sites out there.  I am proud to call her my friend and confidante, and wish her many, many more years of productive blogging.  (And even non-productive, which I have sort have cornered the market on here.)