Thanks to Hulu.com — rumored to be contemplating a subscription fee, and I think it should — I’ve been revisiting some old television pilots, such as ST. ELSEWHERE and HILL STREET BLUES. The pilots hold up pretty well, although I see (or am simply reminded of) the elements that would later disturb me in SE.*
Revisited any blasts from the past as of late? How did they hold up? I also re-read SPIDERWEB FOR TWO, and it’s divine. I cried at the last line.
*My central complaint about almost all television dramas is they devolve into stories about who’s sleeping with whom. Let me put it this way: an MSRA infection would be the least of my worries if I had to go to the hospital in ER. SE’s pilot actually has a subplot about a doctor with VD, who has to contact all his sexual partners on staff — and it turns out to take a lot of time, and he can’t even remember if he’s actually had sex with the women in some cases.
The most interesting relationships on SE, IMHO, were between Dr. Craig and the resident played by Ed Begley Jr., or possibly Morrison and White, before they made White a rapist. The latter was more interesting as a simple jerk.
I somehow missed Land of the Lost, but I know far too much about HR Pufnstuf. I have a hunch it’s not better than I remember.
Laura,
Here’s one way condensed to find out. This was just on TVLand and it brought up a lot of memories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xf4fmuDcf0
This is part 1 of the clip. Part 2 has the most of Pufnstuf!
I was a big Land of the Lost fan – along with all the other Sid & Marty Kroft like Sigmund & the Sea Monsters, Wonderbug & Electra Woman and Dyna Girl…but they lost me w/ Pufnstuf. It was too acid-trippy and scared me. Interesting note – Pufnstuf was so popular that McDonalds tried to get the Krofts to endorse their company. When they refused to “sell out to the Man”, McDonalds hired an ad agency to create Grimace, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, etc. and the Krofts sued & eventually won. (At least that’s what I remember from once looking it up to find out if my theory of the similarity of characters was correct – and in keeping with the memory theme here, I didn’t re-look.)
i was a child in the 60s, and while my family imposed what i thought of as pretty draconian limits on consumption of television (i think i was allowed to watch 2-3 hours a week, highly monitored–but could watch unlimited news, which we would then discuss at dinner, and football did not count against my time), i loved me some ‘land of the lost’, although i remember little in the way of specifics. i also recall ‘winky dink’ [and can still sing part of the song], along with ‘wonderama’ [i lived in southern california; not sure if these shows were out here or not]. i have not seen any of these as an adult [and there is no way i am seeing the will farrell movie]. recently, though, i have discovered old original star trek on broadcast television, at ~0200 hrs. i was not a trekkie, but i liked the show a lot, and while it is primitive in the special effects dept., i have enjoyed seeing it again, though it does seem ‘smaller’ somehow. i never saw any of the movies, nor did i follow any of the later spinoffs.
and damn your collective hides for making me hum the theme from pufnstuf today. was that ever a trippy show. i would love to see ‘the wild wild west’ or ‘the big valley’ again.
interestingly, i have never developed into much of a television person, which is not an altogether bad thing–so maybe my folks were on to something.
as an aside, i do remember that if we stayed home from school sick, which was a very rare event, we were not allowed to watch television then either [if you were so sick that you could not go to school, well, surely you were too sick to watch television]. my mother would come in and place her hand on the set, which in those days retained heat much longer, i think, and woe be unto the child who tried to sneak in ‘the rifleman’.
//k
THE BIG VALLEY is really creepy to watch as an adult because the sons and Victoria appear to be about fifteen years apart, tops. There was just something kinky about Stockton, California. I’ve never gotten over the episode where a local family kidnaps Victoria and keeps her in the basement and the menfolks sweat the truth out of a Chinese servant by making him swear on the blood of a chicken.
I wasn’t too into HR Puffenstuff, but I loved Lidsville! How innocent we were in those days! The kids show that used to scare the crap out of me was a sort of animated, maybe claymation one called Davey and Goliath about a boy and his dog with very religious overtones.
i vaguely remember that basement thing–but it is possible it was a different episode and i am just conflating. i seem to remember an awful lot of kidnappings on that show, whether or not that is accurate. was that one of the two-parters? the age thing did not strike me before, but as an adult, and certainly now that it has been brought to my attention, that would definitely creep me out.
i am from southern calif. and i don’t know anyone who would want to live in stockton, or even visit, for that matter. i would not even remember that it existed were it not for ‘the big valley’ and squeaky fromme.
IIRC, it has been used for a lot of movie sets, though i could not tell you one.
//k
Let me give a shout-out to a great novel that takes place partially in Stockton: FAT CITY by Leonard Gardner (sp?). Hey, I remember the TV promos for the Big Valley better than the show itself. For some reason the promotional line that comes back to me (hello, Memory Project) is, “Victoria, a woman of backbone and bite!”
As I have nattered about elsewhere, that period where they made EVERYONE a rapist — EVERYONE — has traumatized me to this day. I guess it’s nice to always be alert in empty stairwells, but that particular grotesquerie I could live without. Same one in Prime Suspect, yes?
The Sci-Fi channel ran a marathon of the 70s Saturday morning show LAND OF THE LOST and I couldn’t stop watching it! So very cheap but somehow hypnotic. It was unnecessarily complicated – almost to LOST level – which kind of made me love it. I mean, there was not need to make it as weird as it was. There are monkey men, dinosaurs, and reptilian aliens, and crystals that sort of run everything, and the aliens worship a god who lives in a misty pit, kind of like the Ken Russell movie LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, and they are constantly throwing people down there to appease their vengeful god. They use nets to catch people! Aliens with nets! Some episodes were filled with hallucinations and felt like 2001 for kids, with a budget of $20.01. (No kidding, people had hallucinations when they “breathed the sacred smoke” hint, hint.) I can’t imagine what anyone was thinking. The music was a combination of banjo and synthesizer for all occasions, including suspense! I kept smirking and scoffing at it and sticking around to watch another episode.
I hated the final episode of “St. Elsewhere” and how they wrapped it up. I won’t give it away to anyone who still might watch the series on DVD. You might like the ending, but I didn’t. David Morse as Dr. Morrison was always my favorite. I would say that the first two seasons were the best.
When I was very very young, I remember watching a tv show called “Diver Dan”. For many years, before the internet and search engines and Youtube, I could never confirm that it was anything like what I remembered or if it existed at all. “Dan” was shown in segments in between cartoons and I think it was on Channel 5 from out of New York. The show took place under the ocean and featured a man in a diving suit with a bubble helmet, a mermaid and a bunch of fish that were done by puppets. Spring ahead 40 years and through the internet I found the series on DVD (which I now own), and lots of internet mentions of the show. But I bet that none of you will remember it. At the time (I was 3 or 4) I thought that when you turned off the television set (which was black and white), the show waited for you to return and would be there for you when you turned the set back on to see the rest of the show. I was shocked that “Diver Dan” wasn’t there waiting for me one day!
Watching the episodes all these years later, I found it very charming and sweet with a great snappy theme song. Was I ever that young to be so enchanted by puppets? Yeah, I was. Maybe I still am.
For anyone interested, I have found a clip on Youtube. Cut and paste:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPa4Rci7ec
Wow Marjorie, Diver Dan! never knew it was on DVD, I will have to get it for my brother, who was only about 2 when it aired but used to try to sing the theme song. I remember we sent away for some plastic replica, using cereal box tops. Having spent the last 6 years writing about current TV offerings, I have often sought refuge in past ones (I agree w/Laura re SE, and had a conversation w/Ed Begley Jr about it) and am struck by how long it takes those vintage shows to set up a storyline, by theme songs and much longer opening/closing credits. And the hair and clothes! I’ll have to roam hulu and youtube to see if “National Velvet” has made it on there–a 1960s adaptation of the book/movie. I loved the horse Blaze King but don’t recall much of the people.
Kathy,
Thanks. Your brother and I must be kindred spirits! I am so glad that you had heard of the show. Thinking about it some more, the villian, Baron Baracuda is what made the show especially interesting. He was one bad fish, but you still were mesmerized by everything he did. And what about the mermaid with her long hair covering up her breasts? Very racy stuff for 1960!
i saw wagner interviewed multiple times near the book release, and by some very good interviewers. none of them mentioned the stanwyck angle. i would like to think wagner asked them not to–he certainly did not need it to sell the book–and that he kept this for the reader.
this could be entire fantasy on my part, but i still like the notion.
//k
THE BIG VALLEY?
Pure genius. Nick, Heath, Jarrod, Audra, and Victoria. Oh, and Silas.
Best episode – the one with Lou Rawls…
“Ain’t a man can’t be throw’d, ain’t a horse can’t be rode.”
I admit, I was IMMENSELY cheered when Robert Wagner released his memoir earlier this year, and one of the big revelations was a longtime affair he had with Stanwyck, who was significantly older.
Laura,
Why immensely cheered? I don’t want to assume that I know it’s just because an older woman (a beautiful, talented, wealthy older woman) could interest a younger man. I’d like to know. As a 51 year old single woman, I would like to think that I would not be dismissed just for being older by a man, but I am no movie star!
Unfortunately, such relationships are rare in our culture, so I was happy to read about one that was carried on with great discretion and, when revealed, resulted in nothing but respect for both participants.
I’m happier still that no one invoked the word “cougar.” Although, to be sure, if there was ever a woman who could destroy a man, it was Stanwyck.
Now that is not the answer that I was expecting, so I ma glad that I asked it! Respect is a very important commodity.
Stanwyck in “Baby Face” is one of the best performances ever on screen and she crushes men under her feet at an amazing rate! She has her reasons though. Thank goodness the Code didn’t come in until after the movie was made.
Anyone have any ideas for mysteries/thrillers (not lots of gore) that are on dvd?
Just watched “Fracture,” with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, an excellent legal/suspense/thriller.
May have to find ER and other dvd’s at the library.
Kathy D.