LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - JOHN WAYNE II

JOHN WAYNE

AS SEEN IN:

'The Beverly Hillbillies'

"The Indians Are Coming"

SYNOPSIS:

from bkoganbing at IMDb:

When Indians threaten the oil lands of that poor mountaineer who one time barely kept his family fed, it's a call to arms for Irene Ryan as Granny.

Most of this episode involved a boundary dispute that would have been settled in court, but this is the Beverly Hillbillies and television where these people are not used to city ways.

After a lot of hilarity involving some movie studio Indians and Granny sending for the best Indian fighter she knew from the screen at the very end of the episode the bell rings at the Clampett mansion. It's the Duke, but not in western gear, in a business suit. Granny is so disappointed she shuts the door on him leaving him standing on the Clampett walk.

Granny is no different than a lot of film fans who really believe the people on the screen are exactly who they are.

Good fun and the Duke got his fifth of scotch as payment.

O'BSERVATIONS:

Our guest commentator has the facts a bit wrong about Wayne's appearance, but as you'll see in our next post, he got the intent right......

BCnU!

PRIME-TIMELINE - "THE BOLD ONES" - "SHRIEK OF SILENCE"

In 1969, 'The Bold Ones' ('The Lawyers') had an episode called "Shriek Of Silence" in which a gubernatorial candidate was framed for murder.  He knew he would be exonerated, but not before the election in November.

This is one of those cases where the episode does not take place around the same time as it was broadcast.  Ronald Reagan was elected in 1967 for two consecutive terms ending in 1975.  So he wouldn't have been running again until 1970.  

Either this episode took place before the 1967 election, two years before the broadcast, or it was a look into the future at the events a year later.

I don't want to play hob with the entire timeline for 'The Lawyers', which debuted with two pilot movies at the end of 1968 and in March of 1969.  It began it's three season run in September of 1969.  And since the overall premise of the show began in 1968 with Walter Nicholls hiring the two Darrell brothers to help with his workload, I really can't push the show back a year to 1967.

Better to consider "Shriek of Silence" to have been from the show's future, a year later than it was broadcast.  Stephen Patterson was going to run against Reagan in the 1970 election.

(One other idea that I rejected - that in Earth Prime-Time, the election cycle is different from that in the real world.  Such an idea works for the TV dimension which houses  'Smallville', 'The West Wing', and 'Mr. Sterling'.  But I'd rather keep that aspect aligned with the real world since so many TV shows could have episodes thematically timed to various elections.)

BCnU!

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - GEORGE TAKEI

GEORGE TAKEI

From Wikipedia:

George Hosato Takei (April 20, 1937) is an American actor and author, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise in the television series 'Star Trek'. He also portrayed the character in six 'Star Trek' feature films and in an episode of 'Star Trek: Voyager'. He is a proponent of gay rights and active in state and local politics as well as continuing his acting career. He has won several awards and accolades in his work on human rights and Japanese–American relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum.

AS SEEN IN:

'Futurama'

"Saturday Morning Fun Pit"

TV DIMENSION:

The Tooniverse

O'BSERVATIONS:

The cartoon he appeared in was considered fiction by the people of the Tooniverse in the year 3013.  Therefore, he is not really a homicidal maniac.  But it was the Tooniverse Takei that made that cartoon.

Thanks to my Little Buddy Sean Cleary for getting me these frame grabs!

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, HAT SQUAD EDITION - STEVE LAWRENCE & EYDIE GORME

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eydie Gorme, a popular nightclub and television singer as a solo act and as a team with her husband, Steve Lawrence, has died. She was 84.

Gorme, who also had a huge solo hit in 1963 with "Blame it on the Bossa Nova," died Saturday at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas following a brief, undisclosed illness, said her publicist, Howard Bragman.

Gorme was a successful band singer and nightclub entertainer when she was invited to join the cast of Steve Allen's local New York television show in 1953.

She sang solos and also did duets and comedy skits with Lawrence, a rising young singer who had joined the show a year earlier. When the program became NBC's "Tonight Show" in 1954, the young couple went with it.

"Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years," Lawrence said in a statement. "I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time."

In the last couple of years, it's been my practice to admit qualified candidates into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame upon news of their deaths.  In this case, it just didn't seem right to induct Eydie Gorme without Steve Lawrence.

Here are the three sitcom appearances in which they appeared entitling them to become members of the TVXOHOF:

'The Nanny'
"Canasta Masta"

At Sylvia's, Brighton shows an incredible talent for playing canasta, so he joins Yetta's canasta team to play in Atlantic city.  Fran runs into Steve & Eydie there but thinks they're celebrity impersonators.  They sing for her but can't convince her that they're the real Steve & Eydie.

'Sanford And Son'
"Earthquake II"

Fred wakes up one morning to discover what looks like a robbery took place but learns that there was a small earthquake overnight. Grady breaks the news that a big one is scheduled to hit on the 6th and a fed up Fred decides to sell the house and move. Meanwhile, Fred heads to Las Vegas to avoid the earthquake on the 6th and has a run in with Merv Griffin and Steve and Eydie.

'Here's Lucy'
"Lucy the Peacemaker"

Lucy attempts to resolve the marriage separation between Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence.

Good night and may God bless, Eydie Gorme......

CLASSIC TELEVISION THEATER - "LAW OF THE PLAINSMAN" ("AMNESTY")

Because of the recent death of Michael Ansara, we're looking at episodes of the second series in which he had the starring role, 'Law Of The Plainsman'.  Ansara played Sam Buckhart, a Harvard-educated Apache who was the deputy U.S. Marshal in the New Mexico territories.  The show ran for one season.

This week:

[27] Law of The Plainsman: AMNESTY
  07Apr60 NBC Thur  
Written by: Lee Berg
Director: Robert Gordon
Starring: Michael Ansara

Guest Cast:
Chris Alcaide ................. Conroy
Robert Warwick ................ Gen. Lew Wallace
(General Lew Wallace, author of novel Ben-Hur),
Biff Elliott .................. Mike Williams
Paul Sorenson ................. Ludwig
Natalie Norwick ............... Clara
Fred Graham ................... Joe Graham

Amnesty is declared by the territorial governor, and a vicious killer escapes a
murder rap.  Then Sam Buckhart hires him as a lawman.

[Thanks to the CTVA - link to the left, Range Riders!]

From Wikipedia:

In the Autumn of 1878, the president appointed Lew Wallace, a former Union Army general, as Governor of the New Mexico Territory. In an effort to restore peace to Lincoln County, Wallace proclaimed an amnesty for any man involved in the Lincoln County War who was not already under indictment.

I've written about Lew Wallace twice before - once as the daily Tiddlywinkydink, and the other time when he was inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

When we first met Sam Buckhart on 'The Rifleman', those two episodes took place after 1881.  That was the year the McCains settled on a ranch outside of North Fork, New Mexico.  So 'Law Of The Plainsman' begins a few years earlier in order to facilitate the inclusion of General Wallace's real-world history.

Governor/General Lew Wallace is one of those historical characters who have been seen several times in Toobworld, and always recast with different actors.  It's easy enough to dismiss the stand-alone TV movies and specials - they can be banished to alternate TV dimensions.

These would include:

• The Andersonville Trial (TV movie) Played by Cameron Mitchell 
• Billy the Kid (1989) (TV) Played by Wilford Brimley 
• Longarm (1988) (TV) Played by Rene Auberjonois
• Der Andersonville-Prozess (1972) (TV) Played by Alexander Hegarth

In fact, that last production must be from German Toobworld, the alternate TV dimension in which the Nazis won WWII.

Two other portrayals of General Lew Wallace can be found in anthology TV series:

"Death Valley Days"
– Shadows on the Window (1960) Played by Dayton Lummis

"The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse"
    - The Death of Billy the Kid (1955) Played by Matt Crowley

And that means they could also be transported into other TV dimensions.  Or, in the case of the 'Death Valley Days' episode, we could just be seeing the dramatization of a story told by the Old Ranger.

But when an historical character appears in more than one regular series, recastaways can be a thorny issue.  We want to keep as many of those shows in Earth Prime-Time as possible.  So one splainin used to account for the different looks to an historical character would be that each one is how the main character of the show perceives him or her.

So that's what we're using here in the case of Lew Wallace.  Each of these appearances are of the televersion of the General/Governor.  However, the details differ because of how each was seen by the main character.  (The historical character most often associated with Wallace is Billy the Kid, and his splainin for the recastaways is different.  Clu Gulager is the Toobworld Billy McCarty, and all the other portrayals are of wannabes trying to cash in on his name.)

Oddly enough, it was in the Clu Gulager series 'The Tall Man' in which we got two different actors playing Wallace.  It could be that Pat Garrett's opinion of him changed since their first meeting.  Or it could be that one televersion is Pat Garrett's point of view while the other is Billy the Kid's.  Or even farther out there, the General was replaced by a Quantum Leaper from the future.

Here are the episodes in which Lew Wallace has a televersion:

"Branded" 

    - A Destiny Which Made Us Brothers (1966) TV episode, Played by Len Hendry

"The Tall Man" 

  - The Great Western (1961) TV episode, Played by Frank Ferguson
    - The Black Robe (1962) TV episode, Played by Robert Burton

"Law of the Plainsman"
    - Amnesty (1960) TV episode, Played by Robert Warwick

"Bronco"
    - Death of an Outlaw (1960) TV episode, Played by Forrest Lewis

"Colt .45"
    - Amnesty (1959) TV episode, Played by Willis Bouchey

"Tales of Wells Fargo"
    - Billy the Kid (1957) TV episode, Played by Addison Richards

Well, enough about that!  Let's get on with the episode!

BCnU!

TOOBMUSIC - "ALL-AMERICAN BOY"

A powerful country-western song......

LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - PETER, PAUL AND MARY

PETER, PAUL AND MARY

From Wikipedia:

Peter, Paul and Mary were a United States folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, (Noel) Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers. After the death of Mary Travers in 2009, Yarrow and Stookey continued to perform as a duo under their individual names.

"Puff, the Magic Dragon" was made into three animated specials, each featuring songs by Peter Yarrow. The first features Yarrow himself as Jackie's father in voice and appearance alike.

"Early in the Morning" was used in the series 'Mad Men', at the end of the episode "A Night to Remember".

AS SEEN IN:

'The Jack Benny Program'

"The Peter, Paul And Mary Show"

O'BSERVATION:

Today's episode links to yesterday's showcase on Dimitri Tiomkin (because of that song).

BCnU!

HAT SQUAD VIDEO TRIBUTE - ART DONOVAN

Art Donovan, the football player and teller of tales, died last week.  He was 89.

In the early nineties, he appeared as himself in an episode of 'The Adventures Of Pete And Pete'.......

Good night and may God bless.......

BLIPVERTS - THE BIRTH OF THE CUBA LIBRE

It's time to pay the blls.....

The history behind this blipvert may be fact; it may be legend... in the real world.  But it happened EXACTLY this way in the history of Toobworld......

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD - REMEMBERING KAREN BLACK

Karen Black, the bravely offbeat actress who burst into the public consciousness in such iconic counterculture films as "Five Easy Pieces" and "Easy Rider," has died. She was 74.

Black, who was found to have ampullary cancer in 2010, died Thursday at West Hills Hospital, said her husband, Stephen Eckelberry.

With compelling, close-set eyes that gave her a distinctive appearance, Black built a film resume that included prostitutes, murderers, waitresses, transsexuals and thieves. She imbued the portrayals of her often vulnerable, working-class characters with pathos and occasional humor.

- Rebecca Trounson

Los Angeles Times

Most of Ms. Black's best-known work was for the Cineverse - "Easy Rider", "Five Easy Pieces", "Nashville", "Day Of The Locust", and "Airport '75", among others.

But for Toobworld, it was her three roles in the ABC movie of the week, "Trilogy of Terror", that she will be best remembered.

Especially for that last story, "Amelia"......

Good night and may God bless......