Gilligan’s Island, if done today
An evening pause: As expected, this silly 1960s comedy has to become a predictable formula horror vehicle, filled with lots of AI and CGI slop. Quite funny, until you think about it for awhile.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Tag: television
Lorne Greene – Describes working on Bonanza
An evening pause: Recorded 1963. It was a very different world.
Hat tip Cotour.
Patricia Neway – Climb Every Mountain
An evening pause: The Rodgers and Hammenstein song from The Sound of Music, performed live on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1959.
Makes an interesting contrast with yesterday’s pause.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Ethel Merman – Anything Goes
An evening pause: From a 1954 television production.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
An afternoon pause: This TV movie, the first ever, was produced by NBC and first aired in 1957. It subsequently played every Christmas season for most of the next decade. It has been forgotten in the ensuing years, something I think must be rectified, especially for the children of today. It is clever, sophisticated, innocent, entertaining, and above all, firmly American in every way.
Thus, I will now renew that past tradition.
The Addams Family – The Wednesday Dance
An evening pause: From the original 1960s television show, which was actually quite funny and original (unlike the turgid 1991 movie).
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra -Peter Gunn TV show theme
An evening pause: Performed live c2016. The Peter Gunn showed aired in the late 1950s.
Hat tip Don Carrera.
Judy Garland – Old Man River
An evening pause: From the first episode of The Judy Garland Show, taped in June 1964 and aired December 1964.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
Katherine Jenkins – Abigail’s Song
An evening pause: The song apparently is from the Doctor Who television series, but as I have never been a fan, I do not know the context.
Hat tip James Street.
Jayne Mansfield – Concerto No. 6 in A Minor
An evening pause: By Vivaldi, and performed on the Ed Sullivan Show 1957.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy – Judy Garland & Barbra Streisand
An evening pause: This isn’t piano-centered, but it definitely is an example of another great genre of great music sung by two great performers. Performed live 1963 on the Judy Garland Show for television.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
Chad & Jeremy – A Summer Song
An evening pause: Performed live on American Bandstand on November 28, 1964, though the music is almost certainly lip synched.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Susan Boyle – I Dreamed a Dream
An evening pause: This was her first appearance as a singer, on the television show Britain’s Got Talent, airing on April 11, 2009. It is a glorious TV moment. Much of it I think was planned, at least by the producers, though the judges and audience almost certainly had no idea what they were about to hear. Enjoy. Fun to watch over and over.
Hat tip James Street.
Jess Erskine – The Prisoner Intro, re-visited
An evening pause: Those familiar with the original series, The Prisoner, will find this quite amusing. As the filmmaker notes on the youtube webpage, “And yes, this is cheesy as crap. I made it that way on purpose. Be seeing you!”
And if you aren’t familiar with the original, which was a truly unique and very surreal spy TV show of the 1960s, watch the original opening first. It is amazing how close this new version matches, in a ridiculous way, the shot angles and action of the actual opening sequence.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Little Eva – The LocoMotion
An evening pause: Clearly from early 1960s television.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Frank Sinatra & Bing Crosby – Jingle Bells
An evening pause: Two professionals show how to make a song fresh that unfortunately has become too familiar.
Hat tip Alton Blevins for the song suggestion for this holiday season.
Jerry Granelli Trio – Linus and Lucy
An evening pause: The music from the soundtrack of the Charlie Brown television specials, with sections from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The man playing the drums, Jerry Granelli, is the last surviving member of the original group that played Vince Guaraldi’s music for the television show itself.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Irwin Allen – The Time Tunnel
An evening pause: For those like myself who as a kid watched all of Irwin Allen’s sometimes good, often boringly predictable, but always truly cheesy sci-fi television shows, this documentary will bring back memories. Allen’s shows also explain why Star Trek became the phenomenon it did, as it was so much better.
And can you guess the name of the documentary’s narrator/anchor?
Hat tip Robert Pratt.
Armstrong and Miller – The Art Historian’s Most Clumsiest Moments
An evening pause: Ben Miller of the Armstrong and Miller show does a series of wonderful send-ups of the typical narrator/anchor of public television documentaries. This short skit appears to have been a regular running gag on their show. More funny routines here.
Don Rickles, Ruth Buzzi, and Arte Johnson – bloopers from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In
An evening pause: This sequence shows the almost vain attempt to shoot a series of quick jokes using the running gag of Buzzi playing her character “Gladys” on a park bench being “accosted” by Arte Johnson, playing his character “Tyrone”. Rickles adds another element. It shows again that humor is at its heart silliness. If you can’t be silly you can’t be funny, and these three comedians certainly understood that.
Hat tip Cotour.