[profh0011]

I was rather shocked to learn that ABC yanked THE GREEN HORNET off the air right at the end of its 1st run.  That is, they never let it have a proper rerun season! How can you do that? This means, every episode ran ONCE. And with only 30 episodes, there wasn't enough for a proper syndication package, so it wound up one of those shows that only turned up on weekends-- if you were lucky.  (I wasn't Nobody around here ever ran the thing.)

To make it worse, the Green Hornet guest-appearance on BATMAN-- one of the STUPIDEST episodes that entire year (on which even Roger C. Carmel managed to out-do himself in the bad acting department, no easy feat), has run often as part of that series.  So most people have the impression that THE GREEN HORNET was as silly a show as BATMAN-- when it wasn't!


But then, my bigger pet peeve back then was the way the first half of BATMAN ran opposite the first half of LOST IN SPACE for a year-and-a-half.  and they were my two favorite shows at the time! Every week, I had to miss HALF of one of them, and didn't get to see most of those stories in their entirety until either the rerun season, or later, when they went into syndication.


It would have been so much better if BATMAN had aired Thursdays and Fridays...

[narfstar]

Flash back experience.....I remember that. It hit me when mentioned.

But then, my bigger pet peeve back then was the way the first half of BATMAN ran opposite the first half of LOST IN SPACE for a year-and-a-half.  and they were my two favorite shows at the time! Every week, I had to miss HALF of one of them, and didn't get to see most of those stories in their entirety until either the rerun season, or later, when they went into syndication.


It would have been so much better if BATMAN had aired Thursdays and Fridays...

[profh0011]

It's funny, but decades later, watching BATMAN again, I can still remember which stories I saw all the way thru the 1st time, and which I walked in on the 2nd half (because I'd been watching LIS the night before).

Another flashback... somehow, when the 2nd season for both shows started, it totally slipped my mind about LOST IN SPACE.  I watched the first 2 weeks of BATMAN, and never changed the channel when 8 o'clock rolled around.  The 3rd week, my brother insisted on watching LIS, so I watched BATMAN that week upstairs on my Dad's B&W tv.  At 8 o'clock, I came down... and was stunned to see my first view of LIS-- IN COLOR.  Not only that, it was the episode "The Ghost Planet", probably the MOST "serious" episode of the 2nd season. And the firts thing I saw was the Jupiter 2-- with its landing legs down. I had missed the first 5 episodes of the series (and those 5 were never rerun by CBS-- I had to wait for the show to go into syndication to see them). So I had never seen the landing legs before! Really wondered, WHAT had I missed?

Of course the next week they crashed-landed AGAIN, so it was back to the same old thing they had the 1st season, only this time, in color, and a LOT sillier.


My brother must have loved "The Ghost Planet". He did an (unfinished) comic-book adaptation of it shortly after seeing it.

[josemas]

I remember having the same conflict when Batman started opposite Lost in Space but we didn't have a second TV set (or one in color-at least not until after both Batman and Lost in Space had finished their network runs) so we had to pick one or the other.
We ended up watching Batman and only the second half of Lost in Space.  Finally got to see those LiS episodes in their entirety (and in color after we finally got a color TV in the Fall of '68) when it was in daytime syndication.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

I was never a fan of the Batman t.v. show.  It always seemed a bit silly and corny to me and the only reason I want the Bats./ G.H. crossover is because I have the complete G.H. series on dvd.  Now there is a great t.v. show.  Lost in space also never appealed except for Smith and the robot and I have only seen a few episodes.  A lot of American progs. either didn't show here or were on in different parts of the country.  Rin Tin Tin, for example, showed in Wales but not in Scotland, I think.  And we had only BBC for ages before a 2nd. chanel, ITV, started up in the late 50's, I seem to remember. And even then we didn't have it in our house.  I went to a neighbours house to watch Superman as they had the new aerial which was needed to tune in ITV.
At recent cons and marts in Glasgow, there heve been a couple of dealers selling copied dvd's of tv pilots and that's where I found the Phantom pilot, also Archie, Batgirl and G.H. among others. The Phantom is not bad and could have made an enjoyable series. Also Archie.
This weeks Primeval was the best yet.  This is becoming a really convoluted plot with lots of question in the air about the Anton Lesser character, the, supposedly, lost in time Victorian couple, Prospero and lots more.  Great monster this week, plus Abby in peril. 
Sitcoms - We don't watch or enjoy many USA shows, which is strange as my wife and I were great fans of Mash, Cheers, All in the Family and many more.  On British tv we watch Miranda, Not Going Out, Lead Balloon, IT Crowd and reruns of Dads Army, Allo - Allo, Fawlty Towers and so on.

[josemas]

Paw,  I think a lot of it has to do with how old one was when they first viewed a television series.  I was 7 years old when Lost in Space and Batman started and 8 years old when the Green Hornet ran on TV.   

I didn't even realize originally how camp those first two series were.
   
Now I enjoy them both for the nostalgia and for the performances. I really get a kick out of Jonathan Harris' Dr. Smith on LiS.

Batman also had a lot of great guest stars playing the villains.  Many of them excellent film and stage actors.  All having a great time playing their roles to the hilt!   Is it silly, corny...yeah sure... but it's still fun!

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

I was 6 when LOST IN SPACE debuted, 6-1/2 when BATMAN debuted the following January. As space shows go, LIS always seemed a step down from FIREBALL XL5 (which disappeared here just before LIS started). As for BATMAN, I recall wondering, "What's with the outfit?"  I'd never seen a "superhero" before!

LIS started out comparitively serious, and didn't get really silly until its 2nd season, when someone made the foolish decision to deliberately "compete" with BATMAN.  (The same sad fate befell THE WILD WILD WEST and THE MAN FROM UNCLE, turning all these once-great shows into parodies of themselves.)  BATMAN was funny from the beginning (though at that age, I didn't realize it!). But with its 2nd season, it lost the delicate balance that made it an adventure show with humor, and it degenerated into a sitcom that wasn't even funny most of the time.


All the same, there are so many actors I came to know over the years who I saw for the first time on these shows, including Cesar Romero, George Sanders, Jack Kruschen, Roddy McDowell, David Wayne, Victor Buono, Malachi Throne, even Vincent Price!! And of course, one of my favorite 2nd-season LIS episodes (wedged in there among the really, really stupid ones) was "A Visit To Hades", with Gerald Mohr, who, a year later, became the voice of Reed Richards on the FANTASTIC FOUR cartoons.

[bowers]

I remember my friends and I waiting with very high expectations for the debut of "Batman" on TV. Needless to say it was a truly jaw-dropping experience! I don't believe I've ever been so disappointed by any program before or since. I'd watch it with chums to be social, but I never could really get in to the spirit of the show. Wasn't a really big fan of  "Lost in Space" either. Did enjoy "The Green Hornet" and  both "Uncle" series. Also was addicted to a sort of espionage/quest series called "Coronet Blue"-- watched faithfully and, dammit, they never showed the final episode! Many years later I looked up this show on the Internet Movie Database so I could find out how it ended. Cheers, Bowers

[josemas]

For anyone who's interested I went to SyFy's website and found out that they are running a 9 hour marathon of Green Hornet tomorrow Friday January 28th.  There is also an 8 hour marathon on Wednesday February 9th and another 9 hour marathon on Thursday February 24th.

Between these three marathons they should be running all 26 Hornet episodes at least twice.

Best

Joe

[boox909]

For anyone who's interested I went to SyFy's website and found out that they are running a 9 hour marathon of Green Hornet tomorrow Friday January 28th.  There is also an 8 hour marathon on Wednesday February 9th and another 9 hour marathon on Thursday February 24th.

Between these three marathons they should be running all 26 Hornet episodes at least twice.

Best

Joe

This is pretty awesome! Either the past marathon was well received or they are pulling out the stops on GH promotion -- either way a win-win for us! 

[paw broon]

A Green Hornet marathon?  What a great way to spend your time.  Hope you've got lots of tape space ready.
Our experiences here with t.v. in the early 60's were somewhat different.  In 1960 I was 11 and already into comics - American and British - and had seen Superman on our neighbour's t.v. (I used to walk around shouting KIMOTA, in the hope I'd turn into Marvelman, 'cos I knew I didn't come from Krypton) but it was the Avengers that really hooked me.  Steed and Mrs. Gale were superheroes without costumes, although Mrs. Gale's fighting suits come close. Although it was a stangely altered reality, the show seemed grown up and that is what probably made me look at Batman as a corny and silly.  As we also had Doctor Who, and everyone was talking about the Daleks, there wasn't much else you could wish for.  Mind you, thinking about it, I also loved Ivanhoe, Range Rider, William Tell and lots of others. so I'm probably just waffling.

[narfstar]

One of the channels ran William Tell here and I watched and enjoyed them all.

[bowers]

 I'm looking forward to the GH marathon- Syfy's finally doing something good! Never got to see William Tell, but I did really enjoy the Avengers. The black and white episodes seemed to be better written and less campy than the later ones. Of course, there was also "The Prisoner", but this was a bit later. Be seeing you, Bowers

[profh0011]

"The black and white episodes seemed to be better written and less campy than the later ones."

Some might argue it's the color, but the thing is, this is a phenomena that has turned up with so MANY tv series, I tend to think it's just a matter of better scripts early-on, and the quality taking a nose-dive once something was successful and the producers didn't care anymore. It just happens that in the mid-60's, any show that ran from B&W to COLOR, well, the COLOR episodes tend to look bad.

I've sometimes thought it was good that THE OUTER LIMITS didn't make it to color. That thing being entirely B&W makes it all the scarier.

On the other hand, I'm glad STAR TREK didn't arrive until COLOR. So the best episodes ARE in color, and, sadly, so are the really bad ones. (Mind you, one of my all-time MOST-HATED episodes was early in the 1st season. Took me decades to figure out it was quite probably a bad rewrite of a script that had been REJECTED-- then, the original got shot as-is almost 2 years later anyway when the then-producer was running out of handy scripts. Now let's see if anyone can guess what I'm referring to... heehee)

[profh0011]

As for THE AVENGERS, would you believe, my very 1st episode was "EPIC"-- which may be one of the gooniest Diana Riggs ever. But I saw it on a B&W set, and didn't notice. Later, I saw about half the Linda Thorsons. (Took me awhile to find where the stupid network had moved it to! The idiots put it up against the highest-rated show on the other network, which KILLED it-- for everybody. Grr.) In the 70's, I got hooked watching reruns, and got to see all the B&W Diana Riggs.  In 1978, THE NEW AVENGERS arrived here, on late-night (it was considered "too violent for prime time"-- which shows you how bad prime time had gotten here that year), and run completely out of sequence.

I think it was around 1990 the Cathy Gale episodes FINALLY turned up here.  Yeah, it took that long!! I figured out that A&E was cutting 8-1/2 minutes from every episode. It's amazing those things still make sense!  I'm missing a few of them, but I've watched my tapes of the 2nd & 3rd season about 3 times so far, and they keep getting better-- even the "dull" ones in season 2 improve with repeat viewing. Dr. King is "okay" at best, but I do like Venus Smith a lot. Cathy is one very impressive character... but I keep thinking, if I ever met her in real life, I don't know if I'd like her too much.

I'm in the middle of re-watching the Purdey & Gambits again right now, and I'm having the exact opposite reaction.  For at least 20 years, I had such a thing for Joanna Lumley, but watching her again now, Purdey is just too damn FULL of herself. I don't know how Gambit puts up with her. And she's way too cocky-- her fooling around almost got her KILLED on several occasions. (See, she's not as good as she think she is-- and I think she resents knowing, if she admits it to herself, that Gambit is BETTER as his job than she is.)



Maybe my taste in women is changing. Last year I watched my entire DOCTOR WHO collection in sequence, and just about the only girl that didn't impress me this time was... Sarah. That never happened before.

[narfstar]

I remember watching THE NEW AVENGERS and SAINT late night probably around 1978 also. I did like the original Roger Moore Saints but also liked the Ian something ones also.

[profh0011]

Tonight:

THE DOORBELL RANG  (2001)


I had no intention of watching the whole thing... but it was just so good, and I was tired, and needed a break.


This is the NERO WOLFE 2-hour story where the Timothy Hutton / Maury Chaykin series really GOT GOOD.  Hutton became one of the exec. producers, and, directed this one. They introduced the loud big band jazz score, and the pacing was lightning-fast.  Maybe too much.  I was never able to figure out any of these, and that never really bothered me, but it's maddenning when I get to the end and STILL aren't sure who did what to who and why.


STRANGE thing... this was the first time I've manage to watch BOTH versions of "THE DOORBELL RANG" less than a month apart.  I re-watched the 1977 version with Thayer David as Wolfe just a few weeks ago.  Here's the strange part.  The 1977 version has pretty much NO STYLE at all. Being made-- and set-- in the late 70's-- does that a lot. But even though I had just seen that version, and so KNEW the story this time around, and even though the 2001 version has about 100 times more style... the 1977 version is MUCH EASIER to follow the plot!


I'm afraid, for instance, that the relavance of the story's title to the murder involved got completely lost in the redo. It's no wonder I couldn't make heads or tails of this thing.


I don't regret the Chaykin version having so much style... but I get the feeling in the case of this story at least, that maybe too much style got in the way!

[profh0011]

"I remember watching THE NEW AVENGERS and SAINT late night probably around 1978 also. I did like the original Roger Moore Saints but also liked the Ian something ones also."

CBS ran THE NEW AVENGERS Fridays at 11:30 PM during the 1978-79 season, and RETURN OF THE SAINT in 1979-80.

I had seen the odd SAINT episode and film before, but nothing really grabbed me.  Then I started watching Ian Ogilvy... and within a few months, I was amazed that not only did I love his show, and the character he played, but he became my FAVORITE actor!! At the time, I had no idea that I'd seen him before... He was in quite possibly my favorite Tara King episode of THE AVENGERS, "THEY KEEP KILLING STEED". And, he was the hero of the GHASTLY, awful, horribly violent and disturbing film, WITCHFINDER GENERAL.

CBS never re-ran RETURN OF THE SAINT, so I had to tape it off Channel 9 when they had it on about 2:30 AM. And they skipped one of the 24 episodes, so I'm still missing one all these years.  CBS did run the Roger Moore SAINT episodes sometime after the Ian Ogilvy ones, and that's where I started taping, the color seasons.  It was years later I caught the earlier B&W episodes, also on Channel 9. I found most of them were adapted from the books!

I had also started reading the SAINT books, and got 25 of them, which I read more-or-less in sequence. By then, I'd managed to see most of the movies from 1938-up, and what struck me from the word "go" was that the Simon Templar in the books reminded me of ONLY ONE actor-- Louis Hayward!  He was so perfect in THE SAINT IN NEW YORK. It's a shame RKO had such low budgets on those things.  He left after only one film, replaced by George Sanders, who had to be the least-likely actor to ever play the role.

After one positively abominable film, his 2nd one, THE SAINT IN LONDON, seems to have been written specifically for him, as he "works" in there much better than his 1st one.  It's also taken me decades to feel that ...LONDON may be the best SAINT film from the period, despite the absence of Hayward. Templar's in his element (England), Gavin MacLeod is the BEST Inspector Teal EVER, and Sally Gray... (SIGH!!) She should have played Patricia Holm.

I recently learned author Leslie Charteris was so distressed by the RKO films that after 5 of them with Sanders, he yanked back the film rights! A UK company made the next 2, but if I got this right, RKO wound up distributing them anyway. Hugh Sinclair should not have had that moustache... all the same, I rank THE SAINT'S VACATION as one of the 3 best films from that era. Once again, it's got MacLeod & Gray, plus, Cecil Parker gets my vote for the "classiest" SAINT villain ever!

It's probably time I dug out all my tapes to watch again...

[josemas]

I had also started reading the SAINT books, and got 25 of them, which I read more-or-less in sequence. By then, I'd managed to see most of the movies from 1938-up, and what struck me from the word "go" was that the Simon Templar in the books reminded me of ONLY ONE actor-- Louis Hayward!  He was so perfect in THE SAINT IN NEW YORK. It's a shame RKO had such low budgets on those things.  He left after only one film, replaced by George Sanders, who had to be the least-likely actor to ever play the role.

After one positively abominable film, his 2nd one, THE SAINT IN LONDON, seems to have been written specifically for him, as he "works" in there much better than his 1st one.  It's also taken me decades to feel that ...LONDON may be the best SAINT film from the period, despite the absence of Hayward. Templar's in his element (England), Gavin MacLeod is the BEST Inspector Teal EVER, and Sally Gray... (SIGH!!) She should have played Patricia Holm.

I recently learned author Leslie Charteris was so distressed by the RKO films that after 5 of them with Sanders, he yanked back the film rights! A UK company made the next 2, but if I got this right, RKO wound up distributing them anyway. Hugh Sinclair should not have had that moustache... all the same, I rank THE SAINT'S VACATION as one of the 3 best films from that era. Once again, it's got MacLeod & Gray, plus, Cecil Parker gets my vote for the "classiest" SAINT villain ever!

RKO did distribute the first Hugh Sinclair Saint film The Saint's Vacation-1941) but the second one (The Saint Meets the Tiger-1943) ended up being distributed in the U.S. by Republic.  I've never seen the later or the final Saint film in the series (The Saint's Girl Friday-1954-RKO) in which Louis Hayward returned to the role.  The earlier Saint films play on TCM now and then.

Even though Charteris may not have liked the Sanders' Saint films they were very popular with the public so RKO immediately moved Sanders into the very similar Falcon series.  Then when Sanders grew bored with the role someone came up with the clever idea of replacing him with his actor/brother Tom Conway (who comes across as a mix between his brother and swashbuckler Errol Flynn).  In The Falcon's Brother (1943) Sanders' character Gay Falcon is killed off and Conway, as Tom Falcon, takes over the series for the next nine films.  After RKO dropped the series in 1946 it was revived a couple years later by Film Classics for three low budget films starring John Calvert.  The Sanders and Conway Falcon films also pop up on TCM.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

We're in the fortunate position that The Saint and The Avengers have regular runs on certain free to air channels but I had forgotten the Ian Ogilvy series, which I really enjoyed.  I take the point re. Sanders - I never liked him much anyway.  Didn't he play The Falcon in 1 or 2 films?  Before Tom Conway.  I will have to borrow the Saint films and, fortunately, I know a man who has them.  T.V. here seems to show the early Bulldog Drummond films rather than The Saint. The series very quickly went downhill after the first 3 or 4.  I have the Drummond books (some of them as Yellowjackets) and they are really fast and a bit violent, for the time, that is.  They are also very non-pc. and very anti-semitic. So, be warned, if you fancy trying them.
Sorry if I've mentioned this before but the Paul Temple films are now available here - region 2, of course.  And for those who haven't seen them, they are well worth tracking down.  I just bought Bombay Waterfront and will try to fit it in this week.
"Maybe my taste in women is changing. Last year I watched my entire DOCTOR WHO collection in sequence, and just about the only girl that didn't impress me this time was... Sarah. That never happened before."  profh0011
Interesting and almost blasphemous.  SJS is the best.  Always has been, always will be.  Do I sound a bit obsessed here?  Actually I am also a fan of Zoe, Polly and Leela.
I don't know if you've seen Absolutely Fabulous in the States but if you have, you will have seen the comic talents of Ms Lumley.  Only my opinion but it's a "fall off your chair laughing" show

[profh0011]

Strange but true: my 1st SAINT movie was THE SAINT STRIKES BACK, which I consider the worst one ever! It's almost impossible to follow, and the dialogue, clearly written for Hayward, just sounds completely "wrong" coming out of Sanders' mouth. Now here's the kicker... when I was reading the books, ANGELS OF DOOM-- on which that film was based-- became my favorite novel ever!  But I figure it might take 3 hours to adapt properly, not 60 minutes. The film version is so compressed and convoluted, very little of it makes sense at all.

So THE SAINT IN LONDON is kind of a shock, as the dialogue is written just for Sanders, and he feels so "right" in the role despite himself. This film was based on a short story, and does a much better job adapting it.

Sanders did 5 films-- 2 really good ones (LONDON and TAKES OVER), two merely average (DOUBLE TROUBLE and IN PALM SPRINGS) and one awful (STRIKES BACK).  

I wonder if them switching distributors might be why Sinclair only did 2 films? And yes, I haven't seen the 9th one (GIRL FRIDAY). How come that film NEVER turns up???


With the greatest amount of difficulty, I managed-- just barely-- to get all 120 Roger Moore episodes on tape. This was between the color episodes rerun on CBS late night, the B&W episodes on Channel 9, and several 2-parter syndicated separately as "movies" (this was a bane of syndication in the 70's & 80's-- often the best episodes MISSING from syndication packages, like where every Ron Ely TARZAN 2-parter was missing).  Moore's acting is MUCH better in those than it ever was in the Bond films. It's ironic-- he plays Templar MUCH more serious than the guy in the books, yet, refused to ever take Bond (a character with no sense of humor) serious. He'd have been much better off doing big-budget SAINT films in the 70's.

For years, I suspected that, due to his completely-different background (and how he made his money), that Ian Ogilvy's Templar was somebody else-- and since he so closely resembled Hayward, I joked maybe he was the son of the original.  Then many years later I found out the series was going to be called SON OF THE SAINT, but Charteris nixed it!  (Gee, I was right!)

I've also got the Andrew Clarke tv pilot (he's just too stiff) and the 6 Simon Dutton tv-movies (they're too serious and dull), and the Val Kilmer film --which I was really afraid I wouldn't like-- but it became my favorite film the year it came out.  I think I went to see it 3 times. I was recently reading about how drastically it was changed before release, and I have to say, I'm glad they did.

[bowers]

Absolutely agree that Louis Hayward was an excellent Saint. His portrayal of Templar as a totally charming yet curiously cold-blooded avenger made us believe Simon was, indeed, a very dangerous man. I'm currently watching "The Green Hornet" marathon on Syfy. Haven't seen any of these since they first aired. I had forgotten how the Black Beauty was driven through a room in the house to reach the secret exit. (Wonder what brand of carpet cleaner Kato used?) Anyway, it's nice to see them again- if you can, catch an episode or two. Cheers, Jeff

[profh0011]

What amazed me when I got up to the novel THE SAINT IN NEW YORK, was realizing how toned down the movie was!  In the book, Templar takes a commission to clean up the racketeers. (He gets PAID!) In the movie, he decided it might be interesting to make "one entirely altruistic gesture". Then there's the kidnapped girl. I believe in the movie, it was purely a kidnapping for ransom, but in the book, she was kidnapped because her father wasn't "staying in line", and they grabbed her just to teach him a lesson.  During her rescue, in the film, Templar shoots one guy, then trips another on his way out the door.  In the book, he shot at least 3 more guys in the living room on his way down the stairs! I always loved the line, "Don't you think a girl with a name like Viola Throckmorton has enough problems already without getting herself kidnapped?"

Of course, my favorite bit in the film is where he hitches a ride with Fernack. "Be honest, Fernack. Don't you think the law in its zeal sometimes loses all track of right and wrong?" "Templar, it's my job to catch criminals, and put a stop to them. Why if an archangel came down to Earth and parked illegally, I'd have to give him a ticket." "Yeah, but a Saint oughta be able to get his ticket FIXED!"


That film was my favorite for a long time, mostly on the basis of Hayward alone. But in recent years, I think ...IN LONDON has surpassed it, for all the elements in the film combined.  (If only ...IN LONDON and ...VACATION had had Hayward in them... wow.)


Another real fave of mine is AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1945), the first of 4 adaptations of TEN LITTLE INDIANS.

I also saw a stage version of it back in the 90's.  One big difference was the ending, which might offend some today. They explain why the hero didn't get killed by the heroine...  "Thank God women can't shoot straight!"

[bowers]

"And Then There Were None"- WOW! What a cast- Huston, Hayward, and Fitzgerald plus a couple of my very favorite character actors, Mischa Auer and C. Aubrey Smith. First saw it on the late show about 50 years ago. I was a twelve year old boy sitting in the dark and watching this mystery unfold. The surprise ending was a total "gotcha". Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

The movie Agora. I got it from Netflix thinking it was Christian based but it was actually anti Christian. My wife and I figured that out after only a few minutes so I checked IMDB and sure enough it was anitChritian.