“And now it’s time for another special feature…”

Hello, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful.  Honest Ivan here again...but not to sell you anything.  When the DISH Austerity Program first went into effect in the House of Yesteryear, I was a little crabby…and I may have even whined a little.  (How do I know this?  Well, when about half a dozen people say to me “Will you stop whining, ferchrissake?” that’s a little hard to ignore.)  I had reached a point where I started to sound like Karl Swenson in The Birds: “It’s the end of the world!”

But a month into our whittled-down package…I’m beginning to think that Nietzsche guy was right.  I speculated that when I first announced the DISH news this experience might be a positive one for TDOY, in that such a removal of this distraction might provide the impetus for more prolific blogging.  At the risk of tooting my own piccolo, I have been en fuego in the month of August.  While the ‘rents search in anxiety for something with which to be entertained (Mom is so sick of Dad’s constant watching of MSNBC that I think she’s on board with Giant Meteor in November), I sit smugly in Count Comfy von Chair with my tablet, composing blog post after blog post.  I’m not going to lie to you.  Occasionally, when I get wind that a movie I wanted desperately to see is playing on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™, I tear up a little.  But it passes quickly.

This post is going to serve as sort of a guide to the “new” Thrilling Days of Yesteryear—what you can expect in terms of content and such.  Not all of what I write about will appeal to everyone, so if you have an idea of what will appear on the blog on a daily basis you can plan your visits accordingly.  (In a perfect world, of course, you would not only read every utterance you would pledge complete and unwavering fealty to TDOY…but alas, we do not live in such a Utopian existence.)

Mondays – Book reviews.  Again, because I’m under oath—or am I?—I must truthfully admit the few times I reviewed a book here at TDOY in the past is when someone graciously sent me a free copy for the blog.  (No money exchanged hands, I cannot emphasize this enough.  It’s more “quo” than “quid”—if I may indulge in a little pun.)  In most cases, there were books that I paid for myself with TDOY funds simply because it was something I was excited about reading.  Since I invested in the new computer three years ago and it came equipped with Kindle. I have found that it’s relatively inexpensive to build an electronic library if you just keep an eye peeled for book bargains.  (BookBub is a great resource in giving you a heads-up on this.)  So I’m going to make a concerted effort to read more than I have previously (the Kindle allows me to effortlessly sit in Count von Comfy and accomplish this task), and we will see where that takes us.

Tuesdays – It was Todd at Sweet Freedom who first instituted “Overlooked Tuesdays” and in the beginning, I tried my darndest to structure TDOY so that movies that don’t always receive the greatest number of electrons here in the blogosphere would be featured on “Overlooked Films on Tuesdays.”  My track record for participating, sadly, was the very definition of “spotty”; I blame this on the fatigue and ennui I experienced after completing Serial Saturdays and Doris Day(s) on Mondays.  (More on this in a bit.)  Nevertheless, I have seen the light, brother, and am committed to making certain an overlooked motion picture gets its due on Tuesdays, be it an edition of “From the DVR” or “Grey Market Cinema.”

Wednesdays – If you’re going to place a bet in the pool of “Which feature will have the shortest shelf life at TDOY”, this might be the nominee that will pay off big time.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good shoot-‘em-up, it’s just that the number of economically-shot oaters in the Dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear Archives has diminished in recent years: many of my B-Westerns were relegated to the trash can (I decided about a year-and-a-half ago that I was going to stop recording movies at anything lower than SP speed) and the others wound up on the eBay runway.  I know I’ve got some on hand; it will just require my digging through a—what I call for lack of a better word—“pile” of DVD-R discs.  Still, B-Western Wednesdays is back with a vengeance, baby—so saddle up for some good ol’ rootin’-tootin’ fun (in memory of my dear departed Facebook compadre Lloyd Fonvielle).

Thursdays – Thursdays will be devoted to “silent cinema”; it can take the form of comedy shorts that I’ve acquired over the years (my recent review of Steve Massa’s Lame Brains and Lunatics no doubt inspired this) …or “On the Grapevine,” which spotlights DVDs purchased from Grapevine Video.  There may also be silent films both unknown and well-known tossed into the mix (discs purchased from Flicker Alley and Milestone Films).  And there may be an occasional “talkie” featured as well (I’ve socked away quite a few Alpha DVDs.).

Fridays – It’s Forgotten Noir Fridays!  (Don’t tell me you’ve relegated yesterday’s post to ancient history already.)  VCI Entertainment and Kit Parker Films’ acclaimed DVD series will be examined on a weekly basis, one movie at a time.  By the way, I made a lulu of a boo-boo yesterday in my review of I’ll Get You: according to friend of TDOY/film historian Richard M. Roberts, the Lippert film library was never “orphaned.”  “Robert Lippert Sr. sold the rights to those films to the Weiss Brothers in the early 60's, where Weiss Global International kept them in perpetual television syndication into the early 80's,” Richard wrote me in an e-mail.  “When Adrian Weiss passed away in the early 00's, the rights and materials to the Lipperts and all other surviving Weiss product was sold to Kit Parker, who has made them available ever since through VCI.”  I am so grateful that Richard is around to keep me honest.

I’ve made the decision that with the exception of an occasional post (like this one) or the announcement of swag to give away, weekends will be kind of quiet here at TDOY.  (Hey, I have book reports to write.)  Which means that Serial Saturdays will be retired (though I had two chapters left in The Black Widow—if I can locate the DVD I’ll try to wrap those up) and as for Doris Day(s)…well, again—a little honesty is in order.  I have to watch these episodes in order to transcribe the dialogue…and then a second time (I generally speed this up if I’m in a hurry) for the screen grabs.  I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude for this anymore (and my recent diabetes diagnosis doesn’t help, either—Doris is awful gooey at times).  Maybe if MeTV decides to add it to its schedule (I’ve seen the traffic for Mayberry Mondays shoot up since they started airing RFD reruns, and I think I thank them for that) I may apply some paddles but for now you’ll just have to settle for memories of Leroy B. Semple Simpson.  (Andrew “Grover” Leal keeps insisting I’ve lost the Doris DVDs…this is simply not true, though I sometimes wish it were.)

So there you have it: the new Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  (I feel like I just participated in a network upfront.)  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and meet me back here Monday.