Tag Archives: YouTube

Gilligan’s Island Cast Related Albums

The Skipper’s Orgy Album and Other LP’s

This year September 26, marks the 50th anniversary of the premiere of one of television’s all-time classic shows.

Gilligan’s Island originally ran on CBS from September 26 1964 until April 17, 1967 and will be seen forever in re-runs. It spawned an unforgettable theme song and a cast of actors that for better or worse became synonymous with their characters.

Nowadays merchandising and licensing for nearly every quasi-celebrity is the norm. But Gilligan’s Island never took advantage of the popularity of the show and issued albums on behalf of the cast members.

But looking around the web you will find a few albums related to the cast of the show.

Alan Hale’s incredibly titled album, Skipper Alan Hale’s Roman Orgy, would not inspire many of the eleven-year-old fans of the program to purchase it.

Unfortunately it is not a real album, but just one of a series of fake album covers by animator Chris Shapan.
Continue reading →

One Of The Greatest Pitching Performances Ever

49 Years Ago, Satchel Paige Shut Out The Red Sox For Three Innings.

No Big Deal, Except That He Was 59

Satchel Paige, age 59 warming up on September 13, 1965 two weeks before facing the Red Sox photo: AP

To hold “a day” for a ballplayer years after he last played in the major leagues is a special treat for the player. What makes it even more special is when the player participates in the game.

Forty nine years ago on September 25, 1965, Satchel Paige stepped on to the field at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium on Satchel Paige Night as the starting pitcher for the Kansas City Athletics. It was supposed to be a publicity stunt conceived by Athletics owner Charlie Finley to boost attendance, but Paige took his pitching seriously and would not be embarrassed.

Paige considered by many to be the Negro League’s best pitcher for over two decades, came to the Major Leagues when he was 42-years-old in 1948 when he was signed by Indians owner Bill Veeck.

Paige went 6-1 with a 2.48 ERA that year and helped Cleveland win the pennant. Paige stayed in the majors until he was 46 and continued playing in the minors and barnstorming into the early 1960’s.

At Satchel Paige Night, Charlie Finley had provided a rocking chair for Paige to sit in before the ball game began and a nurse was stationed next to Paige to massage him and keep his arm loose.

The visiting Boston Red Sox did not lay down for Paige. They tried, but the crafty 59-year-old was not going to let a bunch of kids show him up on his own night.

In the first three innings the Red Sox managed to get a runner on with an error and a double by Sox star Carl Yastrzemski.

At the beginning of the fourth inning with the A’s winning one to nothing, Paige went to the mound Continue reading →

Fastway – Eat Dog Eat – Album Review

Batman TV Series – Celebrity In The Window Cameos

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Do NOT Be Alarmed Citizen! Batman Series To Finally Be Released On DVD

Sammy Davis Jr., Robin & Batman

In January it was reported that the long awaited release of the original Batman TV series is finally coming to DVD/Blu Ray sometime in 2014.

Batman which originally aired on ABC from 1966-1968, has been wrapped up in licensing, clearance and legal tangles for years and a whole generation knows Batman primarily from the most recent set of movies and DC comic books.

But for anyone who grew up in the 1960’s or 1970’s, Batman meant the campy TV series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, along with many guest star villains and celebrity cameos.

Presented here on Youtube (until it is ordered taken down by some corporation) is a compilation of all the cameo appearances of celebrities who happened to coincidentally look out the window just when Batman and Robin were climbing up or down a building. They then would proceed to have a bizarre conversation with the dynamic duo. This simple stunt was accomplished by having Adam West and Burt Ward walk on the floor hunched over while the camera was tilted on its side as the celebrity pops out of the floor disguised as a window.

Some of these celebrities like Dick Clark, Jerry Lewis and Sammy Davis Jr. are still recognized by younger audiences today, but many are forgotten such as Suzy Knickerbocker. Take a look for yourself.

The celebrity cameos are in order of appearance on the video:

1. Jerry Lewis

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The Brilliance Of Sid Caesar – Five Of His Great Comedy Sketches

The Ed Sullivan Show Was Not First With The Beatles

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Jack Paar Featured The Beatles One Month Before Sullivan

Ed Sullivan, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon

With Beatlemania nostalgia peaking this month, it is interesting to take note of something that seems to be a common misperception, that the Beatles made their prime time American TV debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

In fact the Beatles were noticed by Jack Paar when he was visiting England in the fall of 1963. A film crew captured them performing and the footage was shown on the Jack Paar Program on January 3, 1964, more than one month before the Ed Sullivan Show.

The big difference was for the Ed Sullivan Show the Beatles came to the United States for the first time and performed live on the program. Beatlemania had hit the United States and the impact reverberates to this day.

Many underestimated the staying power of the Beatles. After their first Sullivan appearance, McCandlish Phillips of the New York Times wrote, “At their present peak, the Beatles face an awful prospect of demise. They are a craze. Anyone at the center of a craze finds that everything he touches turns to money. But since a craze is a source of inflation, it may precede a crash.” He could not have been more wrong. Even Jack Paar thought the the Beatles would be a passing fad when he showed them on his program.

Here is Jack Paar reminiscing about the Beatles with a clip from the original 1964 program.

https://youtu.be/aqll7MBaCOY?t=47

The Worst Vegas Lounge Act & Rock Cover Song Rendition- EVER

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Jon Thor Covering (Butchering) Sweet’s Hard Rock Classic “Action”

What is the worst cover song rendition of a rock song by any person or band of all time?

Of course that is subjective and debatable, but this may be it.

Don’t be tempted to name any William Shatner cover as the worst. Shatner has a method to his madness.

If you can, stay with this five minute video, it will be worth it for its jaw dropping kitschiness.

Everything is perfect. The camera shots of the admiring(?) 1970s female audience members. The inexplicable presence in the background on stage of the Watermelon Mountain jug band smiling and standing there doing nothing. The live Vegas orchestration and rearrangement of what was once a great rock song. And the best part, the over the top histrionics of the main act.

So with that summary, on national television, with Merv Griffin doing the introduction, from 1976, here is Jon Thor straight from the Aladdin Hotel’s Red, Hot and Blue Show doing his “Muscle Rock” rendition of Sweet’s Action.

For those who do not know what the original version of Action sounds like, because any resemblance of Jon Thor’s version to a real rock song is purely coincidental, here is Sweet’s original version recorded in 1975.

If you are wondering whatever happened Continue reading →

Mickey Lolich – Hero Of The 1968 World Series

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Mickey Lolich Wins Game 7 Of The 1968 World Series – October 10, 1968

ST. LOUIS – Oct. 10 – WORKING ON THE CARDINALS – Detroit Tigers pitcher Mickey Lolich as he pitches to the St. Louis Cardinals in the final game of the 1968 World Series at Busch Stadium in St. Louis Thursday. (AP WIRE PHOTO)

It had been 23 years since the Tigers had last won the World Series. A Detroit pitcher would play a huge role in the 1968 World Series, but it wasn’t who everyone thought it would be.

The Tigers ace pitcher was Denny McLain who posted an incredible 31-6 record in the regular season. He remains the last pitcher to win 30 or more games in a season. But in the World Series McLain went 1-2, unfortunately going head to head twice with the Cardinals star hurler Bob Gibson and losing both times in games one and four.

Mickey Lolich on the other hand, was a very good pitcher and put up a solid 17-9 regular season record. In the World Series he proved to be unbeatable, pitching three complete game victories, including the exciting finale against Bob Gibson. Continue reading →

Roger Maris Hits His 61st Home Run

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October 1, 1961, A Home Run Record Is Set & Baseball Blows Its Big Moment

Roger Maris emerges from the dugout to tip his cap after hitting his 61st home run of the season. October 1, 1961

52 years ago today, on the last day of the regular season October 1, 1961, Roger Maris hit his 61st home run of the season off of the Red Sox hurler Tracy Stallard in the fourth inning. For those who were fortunate enough to be there, it was a great moment in baseball history.

Unlike many of today’s players who will take a curtain call without any prodding for driving in the go-ahead run, Maris had to literally be pushed out of the dugout to acknowledge the 23,154 cheering fans at Yankee Stadium.

So why were there only 23,154 fans to see Babe Ruth’s record eclipsed?

That has to do with former sportswriter and then baseball Commissioner, Ford Frick who was a great friend of Babe Ruth and his ghost-writer.

Frick had declared that an asterisk be placed next to any home run record set, if it was not accomplished in 154 games, which was the number of games Ruth played in 1927 when he set his home run mark at 60.

Legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck tells this scathing and hilarious story in his wonderful memoir, Veeck as in Wreck written with Ed Linn (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 1962.

Let us be fair. Ford Frick does not try to do the wrong thing. Given the choice between doing something right or something wrong, Frick will usually begin by doing as little as possible. It is only when he is pushed to the wall for a decision that he will always, with sure instinct, and unerring aim, make an unholy mess of things.

Suppose that, purely as an exercise, I had put the following baseball question to you at any time during the past twenty-five years.

Suppose, starts the question, that someone comes along to challenge Babe Ruth’s record- which is THE record the same way Mt. Everest is THE mountain. Continue reading →

The Greatest TV Game Show Ever

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What’s My Line 1950 – 1967

A few years ago my Tivo was tuned into the Game Show Network weeknights at 3:00 a.m., taping every episode of the greatest TV game show ever made, What’s My Line.

Let me state it was not just a great game show, but one of the best television shows ever.

Unfortunately the series is not being broadcast now, but many segments of the show are available on Youtube.

To describe the brilliance of the show better than I ever could, we will refer to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1948 – Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine 1988), an indispensable television reference book.

What’s My Line was the longest-running game show in the history of prime-time network television. It ran for 18 seasons, on alternate weeks from February to September 1950, then every Sunday at 10:30 p.m. for the next 17 years. The format was exceedingly simple. Contestants were asked simple yes-or-no questions by the panel members, who tried to determine what interesting or unusual occupation the contestant had. Each time the contestant could answer no to a question, he got $5, and a total of 10 no’s ended the game. The panel was forced to don blindfolds for the “mystery guest,” a celebrity who tried to avoid identification by disguising his voice.

That little game, by itself, hardly warranted an 18-year run, when other panel shows of the early 1950’s came and went every month. But What’s My Line was something special, both for the witty and engaging panel, and for a certain élan which few other shows ever captured. There were no flashy celebrities-of-the-moment or empty-headed pretty faces on this panel; they were obviously very intelligent people all, out to have some genteel fun with an amusing parlor game. Like (moderator) John Daly with his bow tie and perfect manners, it reeked of urbanity [“that’s three down and seven to go, Mr. Cerf?”]

The panelists who created this special atmosphere were an elite group. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

A not so random collection of observations about things you should care about