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tjjohnson61
Reviews
Earthquake (1974)
Seeing film in theater in Iowa 1st itme - Interesting facts on "Jody"
An OK film. I saw it in theater in a small town in Iowa. I can't say that I "felt" the Sensurround - it more just seemed like maybe they had some extra sound or stereo somehow piped into the theater? But I remember hearing about the "Sensurround," which was a big deal, heavily promoted. I saw this film - it was first run for us in Iowa - in spring 1976, as I recall.
On the character of "Jody" - two interesting facts. In Army maching cadences, Jody is the guy who steals your girl while you are at Army basic or deployed. The name "Jody" has an interesting history, which you can find online.
One thing Jody does during the film - since he had big 70's bushy hair - is that he put on a short-hair wig once he put on his National Guard uniform. This actually was a common practice for Guard and Reserve members in the 70's when long hair on men was popular. There even was a court case, I think it made its way to the Supreme Court, in which reservists from Arizona sued someone over the reservists wanting to wear short-hair wigs on Drill weekends, rather than have regulation-military-haircuts.
Just some interesting side notes on the movie- things I would not have known in 1976.
Curiosity Shop (1971)
Clip or Lyrics to the Onomatopoeia song?
My twin girls, in first grade, just told me that they are learning about "sound" words, and I immediately had a flashback to the "Onomatopoeia" song, which I am pretty sure I first heard on the "Curiousity Shop" all these many years ago. Here are some of the lyrics, as I remember them (yes, I even remember the basic tune): "Onomatopoeia, Onomatopoeia, it's the word you spell by ear. Onomatopoeia, Onomatopoeia, it's a word for a sound that you always hear -- like a crash, bang, boom." I read on Wikipedia that a specific puppet represented the Onomatopoeia and made all kinds of sounds. Can someone, somehow, somewhere post a YouTube video with this song? I'll even settle for the lyrics. The so-called "modern" Onomatopoeia songs don't hold a candle to the Chuck Jones version. PLEASE, Please if anyone knows a link to the lyrics or the right YouTube video, post it in the comments somewhere! This was a truly great show - obviously, since I remember this from more than 40 years ago!
Little Darlings (1980)
Thanks to the writers and to Kristy McNichol for this movie.
And while I'm at it, thanks to PC Hacker for leaving her comments. Her observations put into words an understanding about the movie that I'd only reached emotionally.
I believe the reason this movie isn't well regarded historically is because it was so cynically marketed: two teenage virgins compete to experience sex for the first time. One reviewer at the time wrote, "What ever happened to Andy Hardy?" While the marketing was true to the movie's basic plot, unfortunately it allowed many lazy reviewers to see it through a myopic lens of an exploitation movie. Nothing could be further from the case. PC Hacker does an excellent job of stating what the movie is really about, and Kristy McNichol's performance really is astonishingly tender and complex.
Kristy decided to retire from film, which is a pity - but I'm grateful she's left us this and I imagine her retirement plus the undeserved pejorative opinion by critics of the work adds to the poignant sentiment that fans hold for this film to this day.
Tales of the Riverbank (1960)
Memories from "The House with the Magic Window"
I grew up in northwest Iowa, U.S.A., and one of the children's shows I remember was "The House with the Magic Window," hosted by Betty Lou Varnum, and her puppet sidekicks, Gregory Lion, Katrina Crocodile, and one other - can't remember the other puppet right now.
Anyway, in addition to some Felix cartoons and others, "Magic Window" would show "The Tales of the Riverbank."
I didn't know "Tales of the Riverbank" was a BBC show. It has a very distinctive guitar musical background, and I can remember the theme song tune to this day.
What I remember was the little creatures -- hamster, etc. -- which were actual live animals filmed in black and white -- they were all probably very well trained -- with a male narrator who did all the voices for all of the animal characters. It was very short and episodic, almost soap-opera-ish, but I also don't remember actually watching them sequentially on "Magic Window." It seemed like we always saw them out of order, but I could be wrong on that. Somehow, they always seemed out of order, but throughout had the most beautiful guitar as background music.
There was one episode where the little creatures were flying all over in the balloon -- incredible guitar accompaniment that gave a sense of the flight. It seemed like the balloon adventure went on and on for many episodes.
Gilligan's Island: And Then There Were None (1966)
Loved the Mary Poppins - Eliza Doolittle dream sequence
This is another episode which I distinctly remember seeing when it first aired in prime time, even though I was only in kindergarten at the time.
Gilligan's dream, in which he is the handsome Dr. Jekyll/Gilligan (I think modeled after Oscar Wilde?) and he stands trial for being Mr. Hyde, is what I like most about this episode.
When I was young, I was big into Mary Poppins - we saw the movie several times, had books, I would stand outside our house with an umbrella on a windy day and pretend I could fly, even though only the umbrella would fly away.
So seeing Mrs. Howell as Mary Poppins, acting as Gilligan/Dr. Jekyll's defense counsel, was a hoot.
Also, even though I did not understand it at the time, Mary Ann taking the stand as Eliza Doolittle -- the poor Cockney flower girl -- was also funny. It wasn't years later, when I saw the movie "My Fair Lady" in the movie theater, that I made the connection -- this was Gilligan's nod to "My Fair Lady," and the humor was that even though Dr. Gilligan had taught Eliza how to "walk, and to to talk, and to dress like a regular lye-dee. 'E give me real class, 'e did," as Eliza blows her nose loudly. The humor was that even though Dr. Giligan had taught poor Eliza/Mary Ann all these things, she still looked and sounded like a Cockney flower girl.
Anyhow, then Gilligan, at the mere mentioning of food by Ginger, turns into Mr. Hyde.
Anyway, great show, and always a great way to expose kids to many different things.
Gilligan's Island: The Second Ginger Grant (1967)
"The 2nd Ginger Grant" episode description
This episode starts with Ginger singing a sultry "Poo-Boo-Be-Do," entertaining the castaways with her version of "I Wanna Be Loved By You." Sweet moral Mary Ann is uncharacteristically overcome by "Ginger envy," something which may have been hinted at in other episodes but definitely came to the foreground in this show.
(In an article by an 8th grade English teacher, trying to teach his students characterization, the teacher compares the Gilligan's Island characters to the Seven Deadly Sins. It is this episode that gives Mary Ann the sin of "Envy.")
Mary Ann falls, hits her head, and wakes up, believing that she is Ginger.
In order not to confuse Mary Ann in her delusion, the real Ginger is persuaded to dress up like Mary Ann. This whole turn of events has Mrs. Howell very confused.
Mary Ann (thinking she's Ginger) cuts up Ginger's dresses so they will fit her. The real Ginger is understandably upset and starts crying.
This is one of the few episodes that I actually remember seeing in prime time when I was in kindergarten.
About 5 years later, when I was in 4th grade, several of my classmates and I saw this episode as part of the after-school reruns, and we decided to act it out.
Even though I am male, I am a born ham, and I volunteered to play the part of Ginger. Using someone's winter scarf (which I pretended was Ginger's feather scarf), I opened our skit singing a very hammy (not really that sultry) version of "I Wanna Be Loved By You." (I think I ad-libbed Ginger's opening line to be "Whoop-Whoop-pee-do.") The kids in my class thought I was so funny that they all asked me to do a command performance for all our 4th grade teachers at the beginning of each class.
We then did act out the rest of the show, in our own truncated version since we did not have the script, with kids from the class playing the different parts. We picked out this goofy kid to be Gilligan, an overweight kid played the Skipper, and this one girl was a dead-ringer for a Jim Backus/Mr. Howell accent, especially when Mr. Howell tries to explain to Mrs. Howell what's going on.