The first season of 'McCloud' has come out on DVD and I plan to pick it up. It's a guilty pleasure, true, but I've also heard that in the pilot episode, Marshal McCloud rode his horse through the lobby of my place of employ. So I'd like to see if that's true.
Besides, I always get a kick out of TV shows and movies that jumble NYC locations altogether. And of course, 'McCloud' had many great guest stars.
Today, Channel 55 out of Long Island showed an episode of 'McCloud' as their afternoon movie. And it served as the perfect example of those great guest stars: Burgess Meredith, Vic Morrow, Moses Gunn, Joyce Van Patten, Alfred Ryder, Lou Frizell, and Allen Garfield. All but Frizell (who played a detective) were in a gang of drug smugglers working under the cover of the Tranquil Valley Mortuaries, just outside of NYC.
Of course, Marshal McCloud was able to bring an end to their activities. And as he and Chief Peter Clifford were walking out of the lavish estate grounds upon which Tranquil Valley was located, a voice-over announced that the gates of Tranquil Valley would open again at nine in the morning... under new management.
Any guesses as to who that new management would be?
Prove me wrong, but I think Tranquil Valley would have been one of the first acquisitions for the Kroner Corporation as they went national.
A classic Missing Link!
For the next thirty years or so, Kroner would become the country's leading mortuary conglomerate. And as such, they became the Goliath of nemeses to Fischer & Sons Mortuary in Los Angeles. But eventually they collapsed under their own internal weight of greed and corruption.
('McCloud' & 'Six Feet Under')
BCnU!
Tele-Toby
"It is not good to speak of the Dead.
If they hear you talk about them,
They come in the night to steal your eyes."
Gatita
'The Wild, Wild West'
If they hear you talk about them,
They come in the night to steal your eyes."
Gatita
'The Wild, Wild West'
McCloud and Six Feet Under, eh? Interesting. I thought I had a link from 6
ReplyDeleteFeet to the old Kolchak the other day, but it was really tangential.
Six Feet Under gets tied to Crossing Jordan and thus the Tommyverse on that
site.
But McCloud has a couple of other fantastic links. One, to Galactica 1980
(spinoff of Battlestar Galactica, which *might* tie to Buck Rogers, is, I
think, one of the first I ever got from your site.
The other comes from a Halloween episode of McCloud, in which John Carradine
plays "Loren Belasco," a horror movie actor who may be Dracula. It's left
enough in doubt, but it's enough in the air that I count it. John Carradine
was Dracula five times on the silver screen, three more times than Lugosi
and almost as many as Lee. I don't know if you've established a Dracula for
Toobworld (if there's only one), but he also played the role on Matinee
Theater in "Dracula," airing in 1956, so that might work to network some
disparate shows.
Hugh
I think I'm going with Rudolf Martin as the official tele-version of Dracula, as he combines both the Classic ('Buffy The Vampire Slayer') with the Historical ("Dark Prince").
ReplyDeleteAnd between those two portrayals I just might add in the one by Jack Palance, as his version of the classic Bram Stoker story made allusions to his warrior past.
As to why he should have aged and then reverted to his original look? Perhaps at that point in Time (the Victorian Age), he was really in need of a fix.
But the question of all the TV Draculas has given me an idea for expounding on the topic around the end of October.
And that would give me time to finally bring up a splainin (which I have dubbed the Maigret Strategem) for a series of Slider dimensions.
As always, Hugh - thanks for writing!