Eating lunch with Samjay at work, probably not a month goes by before one of us at least mentions the movie Airplane! It’s no secret that Airplane! is based on a 1957 movie called Zero Hour!. Somebody on YouTube has done a very nice job of making some shot-by-shot comparisons.
What’s remarkable is there were only 23 years between Zero Hour! and Airplane!, but they’re worlds apart. It’s been thirty years since Airplane! and yet its irreverent, sarcastic, and subversive tone is still fresh and funny.
May 30th, 2010
Truphen Newben hosts TALES FROM THE PUB, another spooky manifestation on Bantam Street.
May 29th, 2010
Don’t ask me if there’s a XXX parody of the old Batman TV show, and I won’t tell you there is one.
D’oh! Who asked?? No, I will not embed this video any bigger than the usual size!
May 29th, 2010
Sorry, no time to blog. Enjoying the new Netflix user interface on the Roku HD player. Searching and selecting can now be done directly on the box. Yay!
May 28th, 2010
Art Linkletter has died at age 97, and frankly I was somewhat surprised to realize that he was still alive. When Linkletter’s daughter Diane committed suicide — or, as some claim, was murdered — by falling from a sixth story window, I had recently turned fourteen. At the time it was reported that she was on an LSD trip. When my twin sister Jean and I heard the news, I said, “drugs do the darnedest things!” This elicited a tremendous laugh from Jean.
I knew about Art Linkletter’s “Kids Say the Darndest [sic] Things” from his House Party show on TV, and I knew about LSD trips from watching Dragnet. “Kids Say the Darndest Things” had been around in one incarnation or another for many years, and by the late 60’s the format had grown tired and it was near the end of its run. But back in the 50’s, it was quite popular.
In 1957, Art Linkletter published a collection of his “Kids Say the Darndest Things” stories that was illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. Years ago, I found a copy in a used book store for 50-cents.
The preview picture for the video below is from the same year as the book. Diane is on the left. The picture actually has nothing to do with the video, which is a TV commercial that Linkletter made with his daughter Diane, looking like Nancy Sinatra, not too long before her death.
Another father-daughter collaboration was a record called, “We Love You, Call Collect,” which was released after Diane was gone. I can only imagine how tortured Linkletter must have felt when he lost her.
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I can’t say that Art Linkletter had a big influence on me, but I can admire how he didn’t shy away from discussing his daughter’s problems. I think back to watching Linkletter (b.1912), Lawrence Welk (b.1903), and Jack Webb (b.1920) in the 60s, and I see men who had trouble dealing with the youth culture that had taken over. After all, hadn’t the older generation regained control after the first wave of rebellion was beaten back in the late 50’s? But when I think of Charles Schulz (b.1922), I see a man who was not only in tune with the times, he made them his own. The same thing can be said of Walter Cronkite (b.1916). Their strength was in their flexibility.
May 26th, 2010
Here’s hoping top kill fills the hole.
May 26th, 2010
