Torso, Justice League, and the Russian Avengers

Confession time.  I hadn’t thought about this in years, decades really, but it came up recently in a Twitter conversation with friend and fellow Biff Bam Popper Tim Murr.  He’d just seen the 1973 pre-slasher era horror classic Torso and I’d mentioned I’d seen it in its initial run, when I was ten.  I wasn’t a bad kid really I wasn’t, but let’s face it, I was that night.

On what might seem like a dare, but was more like a don’t be a body part Trump thinks he can grab without permission, three other boys in my class and I sneaked out after nine during the summer and watched Torso at the drive-in with no sound from the woods near the screen.  My siblings are probably shocked right now, and my parents both passed would have kicked my butt majorly if they’d known, but yeah, I did it.

Rest in Peace, Tom Petty

In the shadow of one of the worst shootings in American history, in between the news network full coverage, and the madness that follows such things, we have lost one of our great musical lights. Tom Petty was found unconscious yesterday morning, and finally, after much heartache and misinformation, pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at the age of 66, early last night.

The first time I saw or heard Tom Petty, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was in the movie FM, friends had referred to him as the new Mick Jagger. I don't know how accurate that is or was, but it was memorable. His music was the sound of my teens, my twenties, and so on, it truly mapped the 1970s, the 1980s, and 1990s for me. Hard Promises was one of three albums I bought with my very first paycheck. The great thing about Petty albums consistently is that you not only got the hits like "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" and "The Waiting," you also got AOR tunes and hidden gems like "A Thing About You," "Kings Road," and "The Criminal Kind." Yeah, I wore those grooves out.

I can remember having two, not just one, cassettes of Tom Petty's songs recorded from the radio when I first got a cassette recorder. He was an FM rock favorite and almost all of his music got airplay. Even before I graduated high school in 1982 (and Petty was white suburban FM rock and roll then) he had a catalog that included some of the best of the time, from "American Girl" and "Breakdown" to "Listen to Her Heart" and "I Need to Know." He was not a favorite, like Bowie or Prince, but man, he was always there, and always rocking. Yeah, he was a favorite, I just didn't know it.

Later favorite albums would include Long After Dark, which holds a special place in my heart for getting me my first date with a college girlfriend. She was a Petty fan, and my inside knowledge of when the album was coming out (easily found in Billboard magazine which I read obsessively when I worked at the college radio station) dazzled her enough to date me. This album also included Petty's move into the MTV era from that of FM AOR. I remember loving the post-apocalyptic music video for "You Got Lucky," the red vinyl single for "Change of Heart," and my favorite tune off the album, the B-side "Between Two Worlds."

My favorite Petty song comes from the next album Southern Accents, an album full of oddities mixed into the usual southern rock and roll highlights. This one had the hilarious country ditty "Spike" about a punk rocker, as well as the hit single with acid trip video, "Don't Come Around Here No More," coolly co-written by genius co-producer Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. But it was the weird dance vibe of "It Ain't Nothin' to Me," also with Stewart, that still blows me away. I don't know why, but I love this song even today and turn it up whenever I hear it.

Later Tom Petty, already a superstar in his own right, would officially go solo from the Heartbreakers, and also join with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Obrbison, and George Harrison to form the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty, with and without the Heartbreakers, would continue to release albums and singles through to 2014. He was always producing and always innovating. We have lost another legend, a man who filled my life with music, creating a soundtrack of memories. We will all miss Tom Petty. Rest in peace, man.

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere ~ I stumbled across this documentary the other night on one of the MTV channels, and it brought back some great memories.  The doc tells the story of the band Kansas from its beginnings to their commercial success through individual interviews with the original six members. 

I remember hearing Kansas on the FM AOR radio, mostly WMMR and WYSP in the mid-seventies, and thinking they were okay.  I wouldn't change the station if they were on, basically, but I didn't really appreciate their music or their artistry until I heard them played in a neighbor's basement that had a killer stereo system.  That brought Kansas to life for me. 

I also remember a trip to the Ocean City boardwalk and a busker who refused to play "Dust in the Wind" because it was 'the hardest song ever to play properly,' and he 'didn't want his fingers to bleed.'  He got booed by both those who requested it and wanted to hear it.  True or not, it gave me added awe for the tune. 

My favorite Kansas song was "People of the South Wind" from the album Monolith, a song and an album both considered failures, but its content pulled at me.  Native Americans shoved aside by the white man, and wearing space helmets on the cover of the album drew me just like the fantastical elements of the cover of Point of Know Return.  It's still one of my favorite songs from that time. 

The doc is compelling, and tells stories of their early days, composition of songs, dealing with Don Kirshner, fighting with Steven Tyler, and the internal struggles of the band.  This is one of the better rock docs I've seen, cool for Kansas fans old, new, or fans not at all.  Check it out.

F is for Family

Like many of the television situation comedies of the 1980s and 1990s - like "Seinfeld," "Home Improvement," or "Roseanne" - "F is for Family" is built around the stand-up routines of a popular comedian, in this case, Bill Burr.  What makes this one unique is that it's animated, and set squarely in 1973.  And as a child of the 1970s suburbs, let me assure you, they got this right.  This is no That 70's Show. 

Now I have to admit that I was never really a big fan of Bill Burr.  I always enjoyed when he was a guest on the late great Opie and Anthony radio show, and never turned the channel when his stand up was on, but I never sought it out either, and I've never heard his podcast although I know it's quite popular.  Burr always seemed fun, and funny, but a little mean spirited and pessimistic.  In this format however, I think it works. 

Bill Burr voices the father, Frank Murphy, who in the opening credit sequence set to Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love," we see go from hopeful young man with dreams to the crushed spirit of a family man with responsibilities.  The wordless bit actually reminds me if the beginning of Disney-Pixar's Up in that it conveys so many feelings in an economy of dialogue and time, brilliant. 

Frank's wife Sue is voiced by Laura Dern, and burnout son Kevin by Justin Long.  Sue fights for her rights as best she can as a housewife in 1973, and Kevin tries to better himself but it never seems to work out thanks to his other burnout friends.  Frank struggles with his wife, his family, which also includes a younger son and daughter, and a job that is quickly headed toward disaster. 

Besides Bill Burr, who voices, writes, and inspires, there are two other executive producers who may be of note, Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley.  Vaughn you all know from his many acting roles, including Swingers and "True Detective," and Billingsley was Ralphie in Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, who since then has does considerable work behind the camera. 

As I said I grew up in the suburbs of South Jersey in the 1970s, with the show taking place in nearby Pennsylvania, and this is dead on.  I not only know these people, in some cases I was them.  The comedy is funny but the people and the situations are real, sometimes too real, and at times override the jokes.  The ongoing subplot of a strike at the airline where Frank works is a serious concern. 

My favorite episode of the first season is "Bill Murphy's Day Off" where the parents take Kevin to a rock concert so he and his friends can see the opening act, Shire of Frodo.  Fans eager to see the headliner Lifted Riffs don't let them even start a song but Riffs is a hoot.  While both bands are parodies of different aspects of Led Zeppelin, Riffs really takes it to town with a song called "Lick My Pickle," a clever and hilarious riff on "The Lemon Song."  Loved it. 

The second season became available, all ten episodes of it, just a couple months back.  Frank adjusts to new jobs and old, Sue fights the glass ceiling, and Kevin tries to make a go if his own band.  There are bigger parts for Frank's rich swinger neighbor played by Sam Rockwell, and his two younger kids as well, one a bullied boy standing up for himself, and the other a smart girl up against many of the same barriers as her mom. 

"F is for Family" is coming of age, it's nostalgia, it's emotional, it's funny, and it's definitely worth checking out. If you grew up in the seventies, ever didn't want to turn into your parents, or tried to turn everything into a bong, this show is for you. 

Len Wein and the Golden Age of Comics

There's a saying among comics fandom, a play on words really, that the real golden age of comics is ten. Traditionally the Golden Age is considered roughly from 1938 to 1951 when all the great characters were created and things were simpler and better in general. Also as implied, when most folks start reading comics they are a magical age when they believe all the wonders they read, and that nostalgia stays with them, forming the basis for their love of the genre. For me, that love came roughly between the ages of six and twelve, and most of the good comics that formed my magic time were by a guy named Len Wein.

The man passed away this past weekend, and many folks have memorialized him, in personal blogs, comics press, and even the mainstream media. Most mention his huge triumphs in the field. Len Wein created Wolverine, Swamp Thing, co-created the New X-Men, and edited Watchmen - all events that advanced, shaped, and transformed comics as an entertainment medium - and all true. However, that's not really what I remember him for. I remember him for the comics that shaped me and my thinking, and my love of comics.

As I was beginning to learn to read, more from comic books and Dr. Seuss than from any of the Dick and Jane readers at school, Len Wein wrote the comics that thrilled and amazed me. When comics were coming down off the social relevance trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wein sought to bring back the characters that made comics fun for him. He re-established the paradigm of superheroes and super-villains, and returned a fun Silver Age and even Golden Age vibe to the oncoming Bronze Age of comics.

In Justice League of America, a comic he was only on for a short time, he turned these characters from a group of heroes who sometimes worked together into a team of friends who were a finely tuned fighting unit, who knew each other, watched each other's backs, and even socialized together. Wein returned not only traditional Silver Age villains like Amazo, the Key, Felix Faust, T.O. Morrow, the Shaggy Man, Eclipso, (and indirectly the Queen Bee and the Lord of Time), but also revived Golden Age superheroes like Earth-Two's other super-team (a decade before the All-Star Squadron) the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and gathered the old Quality Comics heroes as the Freedom Fighters of Earth-X, a parallel world where Germany won World War II - soon to be featured in an animated series on CW Seed. In an age where young readers were being newly introduced to these characters in the reprints of the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars, Wein brought us new stories of these greats.

Wein also, in his all-too-brief fifteen issue run on JLoA, expanded the membership for the first time in years. He added the Elongated Man, a move that was a long time coming; moved the emotional android Red Tornado over from Earth-Two, after killing him in one of comics' earliest hero deaths; and inducted the mysterious and seemingly out-of-place Phantom Stranger into the team's ranks. He was able to make the Stranger work within the team better than any later writers, probably because Wein himself was writing the character in his own title at the same time. He always had a mastery of these new members, as well as guest-stars, the Justice Society, when under his pen. Speaking of the JSA, Wein had the honor of writing the hundredth issue team-up of the JLA/JSA, as well as introducing the concept of adding a third team to the annual mix, and even wrote the only one-issue teaming of them. Speaking of guest-stars, he also helped engineer the first unofficial DC/Marvel crossover at the Rutland Halloween Parade.

Speaking of the JSA, another story that resonates with me to this day is Flash #215, written by Wein during his short stint on that title, which I've briefly talked about before. With a dramatic Neal Adams cover and interiors by Irv Novick, in my opinion, the Flash artist, this story told the tale of Barry Allen waking up in bed with his Earth-Two counterpart's wife Joan, finding that he'd replaced Jay Garrick. After that weirdness, Barry goes on the find Jay in the limbo dimension and fighting the Vandal Savage, yet another Golden Age character that Wein breathed new life into. This remains one of my favorite Flash stories, and made me love Jay Garrick.

Also notable from this era were his Adventure Comics stories with Supergirl and Zatanna respectively, which I still love. I bet if he'd stayed on JLoA longer, he would have brought Zatanna on to the team much earlier than she ended up joining. While they were going on at roughly the same time, and I did not read them at the time, I did eventually read Wein's fantastic stories of the Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and Korak, and dug them. And let's not forget that he also co-created the Human Target, a back-up feature I never understood as a kid, but loved as an adult.

This was the mid-1970s now, and Len Wein had moved across the street to Marvel Comics, where he would create Wolverine as a Hulk foe; assemble the New X-Men, reviving that title which had been in low-selling reprints for a while; and had longer (if not as memorable, to me at least) runs on titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, and Marvel Team-Up. What I do remember him on was Defenders, which he picked up on after Steve Englehart left the book. Wein would recruit Nighthawk to the team, one of my favorite Defenders, after an eerily familiar clash with Marvel's parallel universe evil Justice League, the Squadron Supreme (or was it Sinister? I always get confused).

Len Wein would return to DC Comics however as an editor. He was editing both Justice League of America and Flash ironically when I met him at a Creation convention around the time of those two titles' 200th and 300th landmark issues respectively. I told him how much I enjoyed his Justice League stories, but also expressed, perhaps too cockily, an opinion that the 200th issue shouldn't be so full of guest-stars as the 100th issue was. He took the left-handed compliment well, smiled, and said I would be pleased with Justice League of America #200. I was, the tale, which pitted the original members against all the later members of the team in a retelling and return to their origin, is not only one of my favorite stories, but also a lot of folks' too.

Later Wein would go on to edit Watchmen, write the new Blue Beetle series, and oversee the Who's Who project, all wonderful stuff. He continued to write and edit for years to come, including Batman, Wonder Woman, and After Watchmen. He won many awards, even wrote for television animation, the last work I saw from him was the adaptation of Harlan Ellison's script for Two-Face on the 1966 "Batman" television series. We have lost one of the greats in the comics field, and we are all poorer for it. Len Wein was and is a legend, and he'll be missed.

RIP Jerry Lewis

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jerry Lewis earlier today. Not just a Hollywood legend, but an award-winning actor, writer, director, producer, author, philanthropist, and film innovator. He was the whole package, and he will be missed.

My first memories of Jerry Lewis were of someone who was just there, a Hollywood legend as I said, who would sometimes pop up on talk shows and variety shows. I remember having him pointed out by my brother when he made his cameo in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but I never really got a good look at the man until I started watching his Labor Day telethons for muscular dystrophy(which he did for over four decades), there I saw what kind of man he was and how respected and gracious he was. The telethons were always big ratings blockbusters, so when a rival local channel started running Jerry Lewis movies opposite it one weekend, that's when I really saw what he was about.

My eyes were opened that weekend with Way… Way Out, Hook, Line, & Sinker, Who's Minding the Store?, The Ladies Man (a tour de force in which he not only starred, wrote, produced, and directed, but innovated new cinematography that still boggle the mind), and a film that remains a favorite, in my top ten of all time even, Boeing Boeing. I wonder if WCAU Channel 10 knows that in the name of money they introduced me and probably hundreds of others to the genius of Jerry Lewis that weekend.

As the years went by, I would appreciate his work more and more. While I never found him very funny in his original incarnation as half of Martin and Lewis with Dean Martin, I loved his other films as I discovered them on television, and later when I managed a video store. Other favorites include The Big Mouth, The Bellboy, Cinderfella, and The King of Comedy. Perhaps now, we might also finally see a complete version of the infamous The Day the Clown Cried, a film about a clown in the Nazi concentration camps, that while controversial, Lewis locked away because he felt it was not his best work.

Although he has proven himself difficult and a perfectionist in the field, Lewis' genius behind the camera remains, and his films are a legacy to that. There's an old joke that he was a genius in France, but let's face facts, in this, the French are not wrong. He changed, and improved how Hollywood makes films, and how we see them.

Jerry Lewis was one of the greats, and I was glad to have seen him one last time while he was alive on the most recent TCM Classic Cruise when he introduced and fielded questions about The Nutty Professor. He was a legend of stage, screen, and radio, and will be missed by all, whether they liked him or not.

Glen Campbell 1936-2017

I was sad to hear of Glen Campbell's passing earlier today, as I've always felt a weird kinship to the man. When I was but a wee one, the family would watch his television variety show, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," and when I was learning to read and spell, his name was an example of 'the wrong way' to spell my name.

I grew up with Glen Campbell, his songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Wichita Lineman" were AM radio staples just "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights" were the same on FM when I discovered that bandwidth. His role as Texas Ranger Le Bouef in the original True Grit was one of the things that made the flick one of my favorite movies.

As I grew older, his participation with the Beach Boys and studio work as one of the Wrecking Crew were more than impressive. He was way more than a country guy my parents liked and a movie cowboy. Much later I was struck by the tragedy of his living with Alzheimer's in the documentary I'll Be Me.

Those not familiar with the man's work should seek out three of his final albums - Adios, Ghost on the Canvas, and Meet Glen Campbell, an album of covers with guest-stars, all proof positive he was vital and vibrant toward the end, even fighting that horrible disease. May he rest in peace.

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters

I remember when the original show of "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" aired, not the first episode, but the preview for NBC's new Saturday morning line-up the Friday night before it officially debuted.  I don't just miss Saturday morning kids TV, but also those preview specials, both for the kids shows and the prime time line-ups as well.  I watched the preview and I watched the first episode the next morning, along with the first version of "Super Friends" and the animated "Star Trek."

And yeah, I watched Sigmund regularly, probably mostly because everyone else did - it was popular.  Comics were twenty cents a piece, you could ride your banana seat bike just about everywhere, and "Delta Dawn" and "Brother Louie" were on the AM radio all day, why not watch Sigmund?  It was wild and vivid (I can't say colorful, we didn't have a color TV yet), and even though we weren't old enough to know about drugs yet, we knew the guys who came up with this stuff were a bit out of their heads. 

The premise of the show, developed by Sid and Marty Krofft, the then-kings of live-action Saturday morning, who swear no drugs were involved in any of their shows, was that two boys had found a sea monster at the beach and kept him in their clubhouse, hilarity ensues.  In the title role was Billy Barty in a leafy seaweed covered rubber suit, supported by Johnny and Scott, having misadventures running from Sigmund's family while the boys kept him a secret from their domineering housekeeper (the parents never seemed to be around). 

Beyond its popularity, I might have also watched because of lead actor Johnny Whittaker.  As Jody on "Family Affair," he was a kid of roughly the same age growing up just like us.  The show had its moments, especially in the all the puns of the sea monster world.  They watched shellavision, and Sigmund's father was a bit of an Archie Bunker type, good fun. 

The show had its flaws as well in the boys' absentee parents, the weird genie character Rip Taylor played in the last season, and Johnny Whittaker trying start a singing career.  I guess he thought if the Patridges and the Bradys could do it, so could he.  The show lasted three seasons then fell into the obscurity of syndication. 

Sigmund lives on in the memories of those who watched however, my wife among them.  The Bride is a huge Sid and Marty Krofft fan.  We own all of their varied TV projects, on VHS, and DVD.  I know hardcore.  The popularity beyond the 1970s and Saturday morning are probably what spurred Amazon to produce a reboot.  The first episode is available now, with more to come. 

The new series has essentially the same premise.  The kids have a Disney channel vibe, David Arquette plays a creepy sea captain who believes in sea monsters, and the monsters themselves have been given a bit of an upgrade, slightly.  Let's face it they still look like rubber suits, but with a bit more life and more abilities.  Johnny Whittaker, looking every bit of four decades wear, even makes a cameo.  And to be honest, Arquette's not looking so great either. 

Like the original, it's not bad, and it's probably doing just what Amazon hoped it would - be great for fans of the 1970s version who are now sharing it with another generation.  Even The Bride didn't mind it, wanting to see another episode before giving a final opinion.  I kinda dug it.  What did you all think who've seen it? 

Rediscovering Dick Cavett

Recently, one of the nostalgia channels we get started showing old Dick Cavett shows, and when I say old shows, I mean all of them. Not every episode, to be clear, but selected episodes from each of Dick Cavett's talk and interview shows, as he's had one or more in several decades, from the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. I myself recall seeing Dick on TV before I could read.

Dick Cavett had also recently started a radio tour pushing his two latest books and was telling great stories on the air, and he was booked on the most recent TCM Classic Cruise. So the man has come back into my life in a big way. I bought the books and was reading them, watching the shows (which were unfortunately minus live musical performances per rights), and anticipating his appearance on the Cruise. I was buried in Cavett.

On the Cruise, he introduced several movies including The Third Man, a couple Marx Brothers flicks, where he discussed his friendship with Groucho Marx, and he sat down with TCM interviewers a few times during the trip to answer questions from them and the audience, always telling the most wonderful stories. The Bride even rode an elevator with him one day on the ship.

One of the highlights of the Cruise however was the showing of a few episodes of his original 1960s show, specifically one where Dick interviewed Orson Welles. In this 1970 interview with the man who rarely gave interviews, Welles turns the tables on Cavett, interviewing him and casting some not so nice aspersions on Jerry Lewis, also a guest on that Cruise. Welles was amazing, owning the show, having fun, and making Cavett good naturedly squirm.  Good stuff. 

I have a newborn interest and respect in Dick Cavett - the man and his career. I can't recommend his shows or his books enough, check them out.

Gargoyles!

I remember very distinctly seeing this movie when it first aired on CBS in late 1972. This was at a time when my bedtime was in dispute, and by in dispute I mean I wanted to stay up late but my parents didn't.  I would slyly pull this stunt of taking too long with my homework so I would be up when whatever I wanted to see on TV would be on.  I remember purposely doing that this night so I could see Gargoyles! in its 9:30 PM time slot. 

My big brother was doing babysitting duty that night with me and didn't seem to mind the movie so I guess it wasn't that bad.  He'd watched worse with me in those days before the VCR and only one TV in the house.  I also remember the next morning at school asking my third grade teacher if she'd seen it.  She was horrified, first saying she didn't watch such movies, and then that I shouldn't be up so late. 

Such movies were my kind of thing though.  Raised on "Dark Shadows" and "Thriller" and Dr. Shock, this was my kind of movie even if it wasn't Mrs. Scott's.  And there were enough of my friends in class who also watched it - they were also the ones who had Aurora monster models and liked Alice Cooper, if that says anything.  Nevertheless when I saw coming attractions for Gargoyles!, I knew I'd want to see it and planned for it appropriately. 

The movie has been out of print for years now, and is occasionally available on YouTube, but I most recently saw it on MeTV's Svengoolie.  Like the aforementioned Dr. Shock, Svengoolie, played by Rich Koz, is one of dozens of horror movie hosts across the country.  Svengoolie, the second to go under that name has been enjoying national success for some time now on the nostalgia network.  Sometimes he's annoying but usually has lots of good info on the flicks.  He's truly a movie fan, and that's really appreciated. 

Now all that said, Gargoyles! is actually a pretty darn good horror film, both typical of its time and yet better than most.  The flick is scary as well, one wonders how I slept that night back in the day.  It also features early work by Stan Winston which won him his first Emmy.  Most frightening of all is the make-up work on Bernie Casey, former football player and character actor, who plays the lead gargoyle.  That is one scary dude.  And it was written by Stephen and Elinor Karpf who also wrote the camp horror classic Devil Dog: Hound from Hell! 

The movie opens with a montage of photos of gargoyles, interspersed with the ones from the movie, and including one from the classic Swedish and Danish silent Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages if I'm not mistaken and the narration of Vic Perrin.  His bit is perfect as he was also the control voice at the start of each episode of "The Outer Limits," and he tells us the tale of the Devil banished from Heaven, and his minions the gargoyles who rise up every six hundred years to battle mankind. Guess what time it is? 

The premise has Hollywood leading man Cornel Wilde in his twilight years as an anthropologist/demonology/writer Professor Boley and Jennifer Salt as his daughter Diana who stumble upon a colony of these emerging gargoyles.  This was the first place I ever saw Wilde, so even his finest roles bring the Oscar nominee back to Gargoyles! for me.  Salt mesmerized me in Brian DePalma's Sisters and has done amazing work behind the scenes on "Nip/Tuck" and "American Horror Story" so for me, she's not all just this.  And she's rocking those halter tops.  Together they are perfect 1970s protagonists for this horror film. 

They set off into the desert, probably the same one Dennis Weaver raced through in Steven Spielberg's Duel, to visit Uncle Willie's Desert Museum.  Willie has something for the good professor, and serves a gateway to this hero's quest.  Already however the couple are being watched, lending chills before we even get started. 

The Desert Museum is a tourist trap, full of crap, but old Uncle Willie (played by Woody Chambliss, a TV western regular who was also in another horror classic of the time, The Devil's Rain) does have something of value for the professor.  After nightfall he takes them out to his barn and shows them a gargoyle skeleton.  Boley disbelieves at first but listens to Willie's tales of demons at war with the Native Americans. 

To the tune of crazy music by Robert Prince sounding like it was played on police sirens, something attacks them and kills Willie.  The couple escape with cassette tape recordings of Willie and the gargoyle skull in their beat up station wagon.  One of the monsters pursue and jump on, invoking Race With the Devil. As they get away we get our first eerie slow motion look at a gargoyle, scary. 

Dad and daughter get a motel room while their car gets repaired.  The motel is run by Grayson Hall of the aforementioned "Dark Shadows."  She plays a lush who always has a drink in her hand, which is funny as she was frequently rumored to be drinking on the set of the soap and blowing her lines.  At least here it's in the script. 

When Dad and Daughter report Willie's death to the police, leaving out all the gargoyley details, the cops immediately place the blame on local bikers, one of whom is Scott Glenn, most recently seen as Stick in "Daredevil" and soon "The Defenders."  A real young Scott Glenn.  Later on he has one of the movie best and most memorable lines, "one of them gar things is gonna get her," and he's not talking about the Podcast either. 

Eventually the gargoyles attack and steal back the skull, moving in crazy scary slow motion, and featuring the one very frightening scene of the gargoyle looking over the end of the bed - a major reason I never watched this flick late at night in bed.  When a gargoyle is killed by a hit and run truck, Boley takes in the dead body for proof.  It's his undoing. 

Like the skull, the gargoyles come again for their dead, and this time, they take Diana as well.  Winged head gargoyle Bernie Casey takes a shine to her and brings her home to meet his family.  The more we're exposed to the gargoyle costumes and make up the less scary they are, but by this time, we're fully invested and it doesn't matter.  We are in this world, and they're still scary. 

Still, this is where the flick starts to fall apart a bit. Casey, with Vic Perrin's dubbed voice (!), wants Diana to teach him to read, so the gargoyles can get smarter and be on more even ground to fight man.  Eggs are hatching and the menfolk are getting a posse together, so time is dear. The movie spirals downward from there. 

Gargoyles! is still a great horror flick, even all these years later, and even with the obviously cheap special effects.  It's a piece of my childhood, and still scares the crap outta me.  Recommended, but don't watch alone, or in the dark. 

Bionic Nostalgia - Bigfoot

Much like the Bionic Woman episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," I don't think I had seen "The Secret of Bigfoot" since it originally aired back in 1976.  This two-part episode, at the height of Steve Austin's bionic popularity, hit on so many power spikes of pop culture at the time, making it classic 1970s television. 

For all of you fans of "Ancient Aliens" or the real Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell who don't know, that whole cycle of strange phenomena began back in the 1970s.  From Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? to the movie documentary The Mysterious Monsters, it was all hot at that time.  The commercial for the latter, which featured a Bigfoot's arm crashing through a window to grab its victim was pulled from television by parents' groups for scaring young children. 



That one struck a chord close to home for me, living so close to the Pine Barrens.  We didn't believe in the Jersey Devil, but we also weren't stupid enough to go in the woods at night, or sit on the couch with a window behind it.  Bigfoot was hot, aliens were hot, and so were earthquakes after the big disaster film.  A pop culture fuse had been lit and the folks behind "The Six Million Dollar Man" were going to get on board. 

"The Secret of Bigfoot" two-parter had it all - two geologists investigating the San Andreas fault, an ancient alien base, and Bigfoot, played by Andre the Giant himself.  It could only get better as Steve went to save the couple, and came face to face with Bigfoot, or as the badly stereotyped Native Americans called it, Sasquatch.  Only the stereotypes that date these episodes mar it.  Watching it again on Esquire recently, I found my childhood again. 

We were a little under a year away from the wave of jiggle shows of which Lee Majors' wife Farrah Fawcett was a big part of, and I hadn't discovered girls yet, so watching Steve Austin trade blows with the Sasquatch was a dream come true.  There is a good and lengthy fight with voiceover narrative by the aliens watching, until Steve pulls off Bigfoot's arm. 

The aliens have been there in the mountain for generations, guarded by the robotic Sasquatch.  Filmed in weird soft focus, they dress in leisure jumpsuits and a young Stephanie Powers is very interested in what makes Steve tick.  Bigfoot, while having some very cool facial make-up has an even worse wardrobe problem as he looks as if he's wearing pilly wool dreadlocked brown pajamas.  Sasquatch makes friends with Steve, maybe just to get fashion tips.  Throw in a massive Cailfornian earthquake and a nuclear bomb, and you've got a nail-biter.

In the original two-parter we get a few cameos of Jaime Sommers, a reminder of how closely linked the two series were.  As with anything so popular in pop culture, the Sasquatch kept coming back, but not always played by Andre the Giant. Ted Cassidy filled in a few times, and not as satisfactorily in my expert opinion.

The last time we see the creature, it's in the season five episode titled appropriately and simply enough, "Bigfoot V."  There's been a Bigfoot sighting and everyone is after him - anthropologists, hunters, opportunists, Rudy Wells, and Steve Austin and the OSI.  Other than some silly talk about the difference between space Bigfoots and Earth Bigfoots, this is pretty pedestrian stuff for the show, which had become mostly for the kids by this time. 

Of course, the show had such an effect on our culture that when many people think of Bigfoot, they see in their minds Andre the Giant rather than the ape-like beast from the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, and that's saying something.

Sonny and Cher on Television

There was a time back in the 1970s when variety shows were all the rage.  The closest thing we have these days are the contests like "America's Got Talent" or the late night talk shows, or the current godfather of them all "Saturday Night Live," but there was a time when they ruled prime time television.  There was Carol Burnett, Donny and Marie Osmond, the Captain and Tennille, Shields and Yarnell, Flip Wilson, even the Brady Bunch, there were dozens, and then there was Sonny and Cher. 

Cher, and her older mentor husband Sonny Bono came to prominence in the 1960s as the pop duo Sonny and Cher.  With their hits "The Beat Goes On" and "I Got You Babe" (each would later become their theme songs on TV), they were an odd coupling.  The hippies thought they were straights, and the straights thought they were hippies, giving them an almost universal appeal by default.  They began playing Las Vegas, where they developed the banter and chemistry that would make them TV stars. 

Their variety show ran for three seasons before their divorce ended it.  The next season featured two new shows, one for Sonny and one for Cher, followed in the next season by a new show featuring them both.  No longer married, but still friends and working partners, the jokes were a bit meaner and subtextual.  Audiences loved it in all its incarnations.  And while the pair were no longer making hits, Cher had several of her solo hits featured on the shows.

Recently a nostalgia network new to us in Florida, GetTV, has acquired the programs and have been running them.  I haven't seen any of them since they aired, and it was quite a surprise.  Less dated and more risqué than I imagined, I can only guess that puberty had not kicked in yet regarding Cher's scandalous outfits by Bob Mackie. 

The wardrobe, glam rock style aside, notwithstanding, wasn't the only thing that was edgy.  The humor is something that like Cher's dresses (or lack thereof, how did she get away with them?) was also a bit risqué.  I'm really not sure a lot of this would have gotten through censors today.  Not just dated jokes, but a lot racial humor and sexual innuendo, so in that way, these shows are an intriguing time capsule. 

Catch them if you can for a bit of nostalgia, a bit of social evolution, and a laugh or two.  And for those who did not live through the 1970s, don't laugh at us too hard. 

Mary Tyler Moore 1936-2017

Actress, icon, and star of television, stage, and film, Mary Tyler Moore, has passed away. She was 80. As long as I've been aware, she's always been there, whether it was reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or the Saturday night tradition of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," there's never been a time when she wasn't in my world, on my TV screen, or elsewhere. Recently I was diagnosed with diabetes, and there as well, she was a heroine for me, just as in the 1970s she was an icon for women all over the world.

I have seen every episode of the two above TV series, and loved most of them, their content impacting me to this day, sitcoms or not. The production company she co-founded with then-husband Grant Tinker, MTM Enterprises created some of the best television of the 1970s and 1980s, and I was a fan of those as well. I also really dug some of her failures, especially the short-lived and hilarious sitcom titled "Mary," which featured a pre-"Married with Children" Katey Sagal.

Mary also wrote books, starred on the stage, and on the big screen, notably in Ordinary People, and one of my guilty pleasures Flirting with Disaster. And who couldn't love her as a nun courted by Elvis Presley in Change of Habit? We have lost one of the great ones today, the woman who could truly turn the world on with her smile. You will be missed, Mary.