Wednesday’s checklist

This morning at the Radio Spirits blog—or what we’ve come to call here at Rancho Yesteryear “the paying gig”—I kicked off a series of reviews of the films from Columbia’s Whistler movie series, to coincide with The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™’s scheduling of the first feature, The Whistler (1944), this Saturday (September 1) at 10:45am.  I was fortunate to obtain good copies of all eight movies in the Whistler franchise many moons ago from a collector, and though I have seen all of them I’m having fun revisiting these old favorites in my capacity as RS blogger.

Every now and then, I’ll watch something with a familiar character actor…and then it’s almost like I keep running into him in every movie I view afterward.  You may remember that one of the “stars” in our Serial Saturdays presentation of Jungle Queen (1945) was Cy Kendall, who played the skeevy boardwalk dive proprietor Tambosa Tim…and in the serial I dissected after finishing Queen, Kendall turned up again as the head bad guy, Curtis Monroe, in The Green Hornet (1940).  In the piece I wrote for the Summer Under the Stars blogathon on Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942)…Kendall is Colonel Ralph Sargent, the crooked circus owner who helps kidnap Boy (Johnny Sheffield).  He’s also in—believe it or don’t—Christmas Holiday (1944), which I reviewed for the Gene Kelly Centennial Blogathon…he’s Teddy Jordan, the gambler who Gene Kelly’s character points out to Deanna Durbin’s Abigail—I don’t remember if Kendall had any lines, but there was no mistaking his presence.

This weekend, I had a rare moment of television-to-myself Saturday night and I watched one of my favorites on TCM on Demand, Call Northside 777 (1948).  Kendall’s in that, too…as a bartender.  He also tends bar in The Whistler, which brings me back to where I started with this in the first place.  I can’t get away from the guy!

Also in The Whistler is this familiar face, who has the small role of a deaf-mute who reads Superman comic books…

…yeah, it’s our old pal William “Billy” Benedict.  Benedict, as I mentioned in my write-up on Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945) for the Guilty Pleasures Blogathon, has a small role in that serial as a comic relief copyboy alongside the star, Joan Woodbury…

…who also has a part in The Whistler, as a vengeful spouse trying to kill the film’s main character.  (I laughed out loud when I saw her, saying to myself “Brenda’s gone bad!”)

Well, so much for my movie-related antics this week…but this does give me an opportunity to segueway (like glass, I’m tellin’ ya) to an announcement that might be of interest to classic movie bloggers.  Back in June of this year, several bloggers (including myself) had a bit of a chinwag on the Twitter regarding the Large Association of Movie Blogs’ bold, revolutionary move to award its Best Classic Film Blog LAMMY to a blog that…well, really wasn’t a classic movie blog to begin with.  Some resigned from the LAMB because of the organization’s mind-bogglingly jerkwad behavior; others severed ties because it was becoming increasingly obvious that the LAMB was too large and insiderish to have the classic movie blogging community’s interests at heart.  It was distinguished author Terence Towles Canote, best known for his book Television: Rare & Well-Done:Essays on the Medium and blog A Shroud of Thoughts, who proposed that an organization be built to accommodate the aforementioned interests, and to provide an outlet for the socializing that often occurs between classic film bloggers.  Terry cut the ceremonial ribbon on this project yesterday: The Vintage Association of Motion Picture Blogs.  The title is a little unwieldy, granted…but we liked the acronym (VAMP) and immediately decided upon appointing silent film siren Theda Bara as the official mascot.  As Terry further explains:

VAMP is an association for bloggers who write primarily about films made before 1980. The word "vintage" is used instead of the word "classic" for the simple fact that not every old movie is necessarily a classic, the word classic implying a level of greatness that not every film will possess. Nineteen eighty is simply an arbitrary cutoff point with the understanding that a film must be of some age to be considered "vintage." Many film bloggers might set the cutoff point for vintage films much earlier.

If you’re interested in being in the association (keeping in mind, of course, that you should always be mindful with whom you associate) you can send a “deal me in” to the Twitter address @VAMPblogs or an e-mail to thevampb(at)gmail(dot)com.  (And tell ‘em Ivan sent ya!)

I saw a promo on Me-TV the other day for their upcoming Sunday Showcase program, which is scheduled to debut September 9th with a mini-marathon of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (being added to the fall line-up) but according to their website will also spotlight “themes, tributes, rarely seen shows—all memorable favorites!”  Two of those memorable favorites have their opening credits featured in the spot; the first being Wagon Train (and it’s from the solo color season), which Encore Westerns still has on their schedule (our RTN/RTV affiliate ran it on Saturday and Sunday mornings, too—but they always seemed to show the same eight episodes) weekdays at 3:20pm.  It was the second show that made me sit up and take notice—The Millionaire, the popular 1955-60 CBS-TV anthology featuring Marvin Miller as the employee of a rich guy (voiced by Paul Frees) who handed out checks for a million simolians to people every week.  I’ve never seen the show, so I’m kind of stoked about catching it…perhaps this will usher in other rare and rarely seen classics as well.  (Knock wood.)

A couple of classic TV-on-DVD announcements that I need to address begins with this blurb from TVShowsOnDVD.com that the scheduled September 18th release of The Real McCoys: The Complete Series from Inception Media Group has been yanked, and that the company is going to release the first three seasons as separate sets—or I should say more accurately re-release—before bestowing upon consumers the big enchilada (details remain fuzzy, but it will apparently be some time in 2013).  (I already own the first four seasons separately.  I cannot catch a break.)  The Real McCoys: The Complete Season #2 (keep in mind that this is probably a misnomer, since the earlier Infinity Entertainment sets featured the edited syndicated versions) will be released to stores on November 13th in a set that will price at $24.98 SRP and contain all thirty-nine episodes from Season Numero Dos.

Speaking of fourth seasons (so smooth), Shout! Factory will prepare the penultimate season of the classic sitcom Hazel for release in time for holiday shoppers with a 4-disc collection (priced at $34.93 SRP) on December 11th.  All twenty-six episodes of Season Four will be included, especially the episode “Marriage Trap” (10/08/64) which guest stars the actor who headlines Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s weekly Mayberry Mondays feature, Ken Berry.  (When I manage to get a little jingle in my pocket one of these days I will have to invest in Season 3.)

TSOD also brings news that the McMillan & Wife: The Complete Series collection that VEI originally scratched at the post is now back on schedule, with a street date of October 23rd.  The 24-disc set will also include a bonus DVD of the NBC Wednesday Night Mystery Movie favorite, The Snoop Sisters, not to mention all forty episodes of McMillan & Wife (and its ill-advised follow-up series, McMillan—which made the San Francisco police commissioner a widower when co-star Susan Saint James couldn’t come to terms with the studio).

Also on the VEI slate—though the scheduling is still not set yet—is a 32-DVD set entitled Cagney & Lacey: The Complete Series, which will retail for $139.95 SRP and contain all of the episodes from the popular crime drama’s 1982-88 CBS-TV run.  But Cagney & Lacey creator Barney Rosenzweig will also be making a limited edition set available for the series’ die-hard fans (available for purchase only online) that will contain 36 discs…and will not only include the shows with Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless but the show’s 1981 pilot (with Loretta Swit in the “Cagney” role—she couldn’t get out of her M*A*S*H commitment to reprise her role when the show became a series), the six 1982 episodes (called “The Lost Episodes”) with Meg Foster as Cagney (the network insisted she be replaced because they thought she was “too dykey”) and the four post-series reunion TV-movies, along with a fistful of other goodies.  Rosenzweig says that only 3000 of the Limited Edition set will be pressed—so if there are 3001 die-hard Cagney & Lacey fans out there someone is seriously boned.

Finally, on a melancholy note: I’m sure you have all heard by now of the passing of one of the truly wonderful stand-up comics of my and anyone else’s generation: the incomparable Phyllis Diller.  Phyllis lived a long one, but passed away at the age of 95 on August 20th—and though it was purely unintentional on their part, Lionsgate Home Entertainment will pay the comedienne a nice tribute with the release of the cult classic Mad Monster Party? (1967) to both DVD and Blu-Ray September 4th.

Some of you know the Rankin-Bass people are the ones responsible for television Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town (older folks, like myself and hobbyfan, are familiar with their Saturday morning output like Smokey Bear and The Reluctant Dragon/Mr. Toad Show), but in 1967 the animation studio released Mad Monster Party?, a stop-motion favorite featuring the voices of Diller, Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Ethel Ennis and Gale “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” Garnett.  A rep for the company, Traci Speir, e-mailed me to let me know my name’s on the list to get a screener for the film so I hope to have a review of it up when it arrives in my mailbox.

It’s a most unusual day

I know today is Friday the 13th, but it’s actually turning out to be one of those days when the Cable Gods are smiling down upon my ‘umble existence here at Rancho Yesteryear.  Let me see if I can explain why in a few short sent…oh, hell—you should probably know by now it’s never going to be a few short sentences…

Last night, I turned on the TV set in my bedroom shortly before eight o’clock because Thursday evenings offer up my boob tube favorites: Parks & Recreation, The Office…and I would have Community on this list except NBC has for the time being assigned it to that frustrating television limbo known as “hiatus” in order to put 30 Rock back on the schedule.  (I also like Up All Night, despite what majorly important TV critics say.)  But the channel I had watched when the set was last on was the digital feed of MSNBC, and I noticed when the set came on that all that was left of the Lean Forward people was a blue screen with a “No Signal” box floating around in all its blue-osity.

This is generally a sign that our cable company, CharredHer Communications, has done a shuffle of their channel line-up and the last time this happened I thought (briefly) that I had lost my fiancée, Me-TV.  So I went ahead and reprogrammed the set, and when I was finished noticed that many of the digital channel versions of some of the stations I watch had vanished…which was a small disappointment.  However, since Me-TV was still intact I didn’t get too worked up about this.

This morning, I started surfing the new channels and came across Seems Like Old Times (1980) on one of them…and since I had nothing else to do at that time, watched a bit of it until the station break.  It was at that time that I was informed I was watching…wait for it…

Antenna TV!

(Heavenly chorus)

I know what you’re saying/thinking right now:  “It takes so little to make him happy.”  And you would be right, though I’d be in a much better humor if you removed a little of the sarcasm from that remark.  But the addition of Antenna TV to our Athens environs (courtesy of WATL in Atlanta) can only be a good thing, because now I have access to such TV chestnuts as Bachelor Father, Father Knows Best, Gidget, Hazel, The Flying Nun (touché, Ms. Driscoll!), The Monkees, The Partridge Family, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny and so many more.  With great TV comes great responsibility, however…I’m fearful I may never emerge from my bedroom again.

CharredHer Cable is a completely evil entity (in league with the USPS, by the way) but every now and then they do something worthwhile…and they’ve come a long way from RTV, which we no longer get but that I also no longer miss (CharredHer in Athens doesn’t carry the RTV affiliate in our area, WYGA).  I welcomed Antenna TV on Facebook this morning, and this is the response I received:

All of Me (TV)

Next Monday, the Chicago-based cable station known as Me-TV—or as my bosom high school chum The Duchess refers to it, “Shreve TV”—makes several major changes to its lineup…but the interesting thing is that while there are only two shows in the schedule that are being given what the outlet calls “a rest”—The Streets of San Francisco and The Honeymooners (and Gleason and Company will still be seen on Me-TV’s sibling, Me Too)—Me-TV is adding a bumper crop of vintage boob tube reruns that, as you may have suspected, make us tingly all over here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  Among the new additions and changes:

Love, American Style and Family Affair – Both shows premiere in the 6am weekday time slot (that’s EST)…though Family Affair has been running on Me-TV for a while on Sunday afternoons.  To make room for these shows, Gomer Pyle, USMC and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis move to 5 and 5:30am respectively…and The Beverly Hillbillies is scaled back to a half-hour, which means Petticoat Junction moves to 7:30, followed by My Three Sons (8am) and I Love Lucy, which is also pared back at 8:30am.

Daniel Boone – This RTV staple premieres in a 9am timeslot on weekdays.

Hawaii Five-O – Moves from 5pm to 12noon…but I’ll still have to watch it in my room, because my father is usually occupied watching things ablaze on Channel 2’s noon newscast.

Kojak – Premieres at 4pm weekdays, replacing Rawhide…which moves to a 4am slot on weekdays, with reruns also at 5:00 and 7:00am on Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings at 4am.

The Rockford Files – Premieres at 5pm weekdays, replacing Hawaii Five-O (see above).

The Rifleman – Premieres at 6pm weekdays, replacing reruns of Hogan’s Heroes—which have been pared back to an hour a week on Saturdays (at 6pm).  An hour of  Rifleman reruns will also be shown on Saturdays at 5pm.

Currently, the Me-TV evening lineup beginning at 8pm EST kicks off with Mary Tyler Moore, followed by The Dick Van Dyke Show (8:30pm), The Bob Newhart Show (9pm), Cheers (9:30pm), M*A*S*H (10pm—also an hour at 7pm, which will stay put) and The Honeymooners at 10:30.  With The Honeymooners gone, Me-TV loses the extra M*A*S*H repeat at 10 and replaces it with Cheers…The Odd Couple moves in Cheers’ old slot at 9:30pm, and Taxi rounds out primetime at 10:30pm.  (Both Couple and Taxi were previously on the schedule Saturday and Sunday nights, with Felix and Oscar at 9:30 Saturdays and Sundays and the Sunshine Cab folks on for an hour at 10pm on Sundays.)

I hope you guys got all that…because there will be a test.  Now…here’s the thing.  Our Me-TV affiliate, WSB-DT in Atlanta, doesn’t show Cheers at 9:30…they run in its place another Dick Van Dyke Show episode.  (I’m speculating that this is so because several stations in the Atlanta area have Cheers on their schedule already.)  Now, I checked with Locate TV on next week’s schedule…and apparently they’re going to keep things in place, except that since Cheers is moving to 10 that means The Odd Couple reruns won’t be seen in this area.  (I’m hoping this is an error on Locate TV’s part.)

The rest of the schedule remains unchanged with the exception of the Gunsmoke half-hours that ran in the 5-6am slot, which they’ve surgically removed to make room for the new additions of Love, American Style and Daniel Boone.  Gunsmoke—or Marshal Dillon, since the reruns have the old syndicated titles, also airs Saturdays at 6am (for one hour) and 11am (also one hour).

The Wild Wild West – Moves up an hour to 4pm on Saturdays, replacing Rawhide and making room for The Rifleman at 5.

The Saturday night lineup gets a major revamp, beginning at 7pm with the acquisition of Batman…followed by Lost in Space at 8pm and the original Star Trek at 9pm.  Then it’s two hours with my new best bud, Svengoolie (aka Rich Koz), who unspools old Universal horror films while yukking it up with comedy in between breaks.  I like Svengoolie (I think Mike Doran was asking me what my opinion was of him), who’s been around forever in Chicago…though I don’t know if good Universal horror flicks like The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Mummy should be fodder for his antics (though I have to confess, Sven did a funny musical number about Karloff’s Mummy character, Ardeth Bey, to the tune of Bobby Bloom’s Montego Bay).  After the movie, it’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea continuing the cheesefest…which means Get Smart moves up an hour to 1am, and that’s followed by Car 54, Where are You? at 2.  Honey West reruns get a workout at 3am, and then The Rogues—the sitcom starring David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young…and later Larry Hagman—premieres at 4am.  (Something tells me we’ll need to get this “rogue” cable box fixed before next Saturday.)

Me-TV starts its Sunday schedule with an extra half-hour of Car 54—so the cable box will definitely have to be in peak condition, ‘cause I’ll need to tape them for ClassicBecky—and this will be followed by (drum roll) a full hour of The Phil Silvers Show!  But aye, here’s the rub: WSB-DT cuts away from Me-TV at 6am to run a few hours of infomercials (well, something’s got to pay for all this classic TV) so my initial joy at having a full hour of Bilko each week caught a chill after the cold water was thrown on it.  This also means that I will not be able to watch the Laurel & Hardy shorts that will be shown by the channel from 6:30 to 8am.  (I’m a little upset about this, too.)

The only new acquisition to Me-TV’s schedule that I find disappointing is Bosom Buddies, which will air for an hour from 3-4pm on Sundays…but that will be followed by an hour of The Dick Van Dyke Show, so I’m sure I can deal with it.  Sunday nights imitate Saturdays with a major revamping—Me-TV schedules Columbo from 8-10pm, then follows that with Boris Karloff’s Thriller at 10pm, an hour of The Twilight Zone at 11 and (love it) The Fugitive at midnight.  Then an embarrassment of riches follows that’s sure to lighten the heart of any insomniac or night auditor—Naked City (1am), Peter Gunn (2am), and Route 66 (3am).

If you’re curious as to why you’ll be seeing a lot of former RTV staples on Me-TV (like Kojak and Rockford), this press release trumpets the acquisition of a lot of properties from the NBC-Universal library…and the channel promises more goodies to come in Leave it to Beaver, Dragnet, Adam-12, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Wagon Train (both the hour and ninety-minute versions).  Emergency! and Ironside are also slated to appear on Me-TV within the next few years as well.

I’ve alluded on the blog that the ‘rents are becoming most displeased with the level of service being offered by our current cable company, CharredHer, and there’s serious talk that we may cut them loose and watch them drift out to sea while we give a hearty handclasp to AT&T Uverse…which has recently become available in our area.  I was saddened at first because I thought that the long romantic relationship between the great classic TV cable channel would come to an end…until I learned Me-TV is available in our Uverse package, too.  (All we need is a slow motion shot of the two of us running toward one another in a field of daisies, and we’re good to go.)

“I hope you die! I hope you die soon! I'll be waiting for you to die!”

…and now that I have your attention, I just wanted to take a quick moment to shill my latest essay that’s up at the weblog beloved by cinephiles and couch potatoes alike, Edward Copeland on Film…and More— or ECOF, as I sometimes refer to it…particularly when I’m too lazy to type all that out.  Seventy years ago on this date, the film adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s stage hit The Little Foxes was packin’ ‘em in the movie the-ay-ters, and though Hellman’s Broadway chestnut about a really despicable and wealthy Southern family is starting to show a few crow’s feet, it’s still first-rate entertainment…with one of my all-time favorite Bette Davis performances taking center stage (her characterization of Regina Giddens is so pure dagnasty evil I can’t take my eyes off of her anytime she’s on screen).

As I was tooling around the Shreve-TV Me-TV website for some pictures to poach…er, borrow for yesterday’s TV-on-DVD post I came across this page that offers up a preview of what’s in store for viewers this fall; I mentioned the Chicago-based cable channel had plans to add Star Trek and Batman to their lineup but they’ve also obtained a few cast-offs from the Retro Television Network in The Rifleman, Peter Gunn and Daniel Boone.  Old TV favorites like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space and Mission: Impossible (RTV used to have this back in the days when they were getting their shows from Viacom ‘cause I used to watch it before I hit the hay in the evenings) are also on tap, not to mention (to tie this in to yesterday’s post) the comedic antics of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy—I just hope it’s not that godawful show that CBN used to run many moons ago…that presentation was the yardstick by which “abomination” should be measured.