While cleaning files, I came across more old cover images that I scanned from my once large and now dispersed collection of paperbacks. I've organized what I found into small groups, and this post will be one of tie-ins to TV programs that were popular when I was a squirt and had to be in bed by 8 p.m.
One black, one white, one blonde.
Above you see #3 from The Mod Squad, a groundbreaking show produced by Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas that from 1968 to 1973 featured a team of hip young undercover cops who as a trio epitomized the Civil Rights Era acceptance and celebration of racial and gender balance without making too much a fuss about it. I find it hard to accept that some politicians are still prattling on about this issue, creating discord and deepening a racial divide, never celebrating unity or how far we in the West have come, partaking in what some might coin "race hustling" as a way to divide and conquer and anger a new generation. I suppose this just shows how politicians exploit what a short memory span some people have.
Here's a link to an article in Boomer magazine about Mod Squad's 50th anniversary https://www.boomermagazine.com/michael-cole-mod-squad/
I don't know what I like better. The old telephone booth in the background, or the dusty modifier "sock-it-to-em" which was cutting edge lingo at the time.
The lovely Peggy Lipton, who most boys my age had a terrible crush on at the time, played Julie Barnes. Both Elvis and Paul McCartney wanted to date her. She married the great composer Quincy Jones and raised two children with him. Ms. Lipton, who died in 2019, also starred in another seminal show, Twin Peaks.
The character Linc Hayes, played by Clarence Williams III, was cooler than cool as he sported an afro and bell bottoms and all sorts of bling and helped break ground for black actors of his and future generations. It's perhaps difficult for younger folks to grasp just how limited and gnerally white American television was at that time. Mr. Williams died in 2021.
Michael Cole, who played Pete Cochran, is the last surviving member of the trio that was led by Captain Adam Greer who was played by Tige Andrews. Here's a You Tube video of Mr. Cole talking about his battle with alcohol addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AzuohPZLIM
Here's another #3 episode from the show, The Rat Patrol. It started airing in 1966 before I began going to school. What I remember about it most is that my mother bought me a metal school lunch box, my first, with The Rat Patrol as its theme. Unfortunately, it was stolen after about a month of going to classes. I enjoyed any story about tanks and jeeps in the desert, but because our television often didn't work, I don't recall seeing maybe more than a dozen episodes, all of which were in snowy black and white. I've come to learn that this program was famous for being the first WWII story to be broadcast in color, though I never saw it in that format. This was due, I believe, to there being a stretch of about three years when we just didn't have a television. None of us minded. Maybe that's why I learned to like to read so much. Imagine that happening today. Most kids have televisions in their rooms and are mainlined to their phone-screens 24/7 and suffer withdrawals when forced to go without them for an hour or two.
According to historian Richard Howe from his website, The Rat Patrol wasn't exactly the most accurate of desert war programs:
"The series was loosely based on the British Army’s Long Range Desert Group, an elite unit that used Chevrolet trucks more often than jeeps to conduct raids and reconnaissance patrols behind the lines of the German Africa Corps. If you share my interest in this topic and are looking for a quick summer read, check out Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield."
Here's a link to the author Steven Pressfield's site where he gives some excellent advice to those who hope to become writers: https://stevenpressfield.com/about/
Next we get to the cult phenomenon, Star Trek, which I really don't need to elaborate on. Like many, I really didn't discover this program until long after it was cancelled. I would watch it in syndication on a UHF channel out of Boston. As I recall, it wasn't until the llate 70s and early 80s and the first feature film of the franchise that its popularity, and all the conventions it engendered, began to explode. This show was another groundbreaker in that it featured all sorts of different ethnicities among the humans, as well as the aliens, and, to a degree, created its own language.
In England, fans of sci-fi on television may have seen or even liked Star Trek, but it was Doctor Who -- which is still running on BBC with a whole new generation of actors -- that captured their hearts.
They are loyal fans. The show recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, and it's had 16 different actors playing the title role. If you grew up in the UK, you know Doctor Who and all about Daleks, and Logopolis, and the Key to Time. Most likely, you love the program. It's perhaps an enduring memory of your childhood.
What's not to love? In America, I watched it on Channel 2 out of Boston, which is now the PBS affiliate. It usually aired on rainy and snowy Sunday, so I'd catch it the evenings in winter when I was in my teens. The two actors I remember best were Jon Pertwee, the third doctor, who played the time lord from 1970 to 1974, and the man who followed him, Tom Baker, from 1974 to 1981.
Here's a fun BBC article about the program: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25004050
Here's another oddball program that teens of a certain era, and fans of TV horror will likely know about. I remember Dark Shadows would come on in the afternoon as a kind of vampire soap opera about an hour after I got home from school.
I'd hurry through my homework and chores, and if the TV set was working (never guaranteed), I'd lie on the floor and indulge in a little low-budget gothic escapism.
The actor Jonathan Frid, a native of Hamilton, Ontario in Canada, played 200-year-old Barnabas Collins. Mr. Frid was one creepy and pale and yet strangely alluring figure with a voice you just had to listen to.
Here is a You Tube post that features cast members such as Joan Bennett and Louis Edmonds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW8EgTpL4Rg
This next program, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has The Cold War written all over it. The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement needed these two gifted agents, the American Napoleon Solom and the Russian Illya Kuryakin to fight T.H.R.U.S.H. They were led by the avuncular Leo G. Carroll playing Alexander Waverly.
The show ran only four seasons, from 1964 to 1968. I came to it later on, though like Rat Patrol it was introduced to me through my mother buying me yet another themed metal lunch box.
The show earned two Emmy awards. It started its life in black and white, and eventually went to color. There was a James Bond feel to it, and plenty of action and witty dialogue. What I remember liking most was that Illya Kuryakin fought so efficiently and fearlessly and yet remained ever modest. He was played by Scottish actor David McCallum, who starting in 2003 appeared regularly as a medical examiner on the crime series, NCIS. He died recently, in 2023.
Robert Vaughn died in 2016 after appearing in many films, one of them Bullit with Steve McQueen, and as Harry Rule in the British ITV series, The Protectors. He later revived his career as a regular on the BBC program, Hustle.
Like Star Trek and The Mod Squad, this program got the feature film treatment in 2015, with Guy Ritchie writing and directing, and with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer reprising the roles.
Sticking with espionage, and TV to feature film incarnations, and The Cold War, and the sleek James Bond era style, we have Mission Impossible, a program that featured one of the most instantly recognizable musical themes ever written. A big thank you to composer Lalo Schifrin for penning a composition that had me as a kid bouncing off the walls whenever I heard it.
Here is a fun CBC article about Schifrin's theme song: https://www.cbc.ca/music/read/7-things-you-didn-t-know-about-the-mission-impossible-theme-song-1.5008219
In 1996 U2's Adam Clayton along with Larry Mullen Jr performed their own take on the legendary track, adding to what Tom Cruise and Aaron Spelling and so many others have done to keep this franchise alive as full-length motion pictures.
The telelvision program, created by Bruce Geller, ran from 1966 to 1973, featuring actors such as Peter Graves, Martin Landau, and Phil Morris, among many others.
This AV Club article lists the ten best episodes from the series and explains why they made the list: https://www.avclub.com/10-episodes-of-mission-impossible-that-are-formulaic-te-1798237703
Keeping to memorable theme music, we venture to Oahu where we have Hawaii Five-O, the original version with actor Jack Lord playing Steve McGarrett who was famous for his line, "Book him, Dano."
The theme was composed by Morton Stevens, who won an Emmy in 1970 and 1974. The original program ran from 1968 to 1980. As with Mission Impossible, I never tired of watching the opening of Hawaii Five-O.
The focus of this article is on the mystery surrounding the identity of the drummer behind the iconic song: https://www.fuelrocks.com/the-legendary-drummer-behind-the-hawaii-five-o-theme-song/
The CBS remake of the show which featured Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim, and Grace Park, ran from 2010 to 2020.
This article also delves into the theme song and other interesting tidbits about the original show. https://clickamericana.com/media/television-shows/classic-tv-show-hawaii-five-0-theme-song
I'll end with some family fare, of which there was plenty on television during a time when it seemed everybody I knew in school and in the neighborhood was a member of a large tribe, including myself.
In my house, we all adored Shirley Jones in The Partridge Family. She was everybody's sweet sexy Mom. David Cassidy was the hearthrob whose picture many girls had taped to the inside of their school locker doors, or at home to their bedroom walls. Danny Bonaduce made us laugh, and I, for one, had my own little crush on Susan Dey, who would later star on L.A. Law (from 1986 to 1994).
No comments:
Post a Comment