I love this week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV. It's the locally produced Al Alberts Christmas Special!
Al Alberts Showcase was a weekly variety series produced and aired locally in Philadelphia from the 1970s straight through the 1990s. It was hosted by singer Al Alberts, who had been a member of the vocal group The Four Aces (their biggest hit was a version of "Three Coins in the Fountain"). The content consisted of occasional performances by Alberts, but mostly by performances of young children singing, dancing, and telling corny jokes.
It was amazingly kitschy, but it was a big hit in Philly. Here is an hour-long Christmas special that aired in 1979. This special hits all my soft spots: local TV, produced in Philly, with retro Christmas flair. I can't not love this!
For this week's Tuesday's Overlooked, I'm going way back to December 22, 1960 and an episode of the anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.
This episode is titled "A Silent Panic," and features a rare dramatic turn by comedy legend Harpo Marx. He stars as a deaf-mute performer in a department store's Christmas window display who witnesses a murder. He is unable to communicate what he saw to the police, yet is still a target by the killers.
I know this is heavy subject matter for a Christmas post, but the story is intriguing, and classic anthology series such as this fascinate me from a broadcasting perspective. They were so commonplace back in the day, but seem so alien to modern audiences.
I apologize for not posting anything yesterday, but I have a good excuse. My daughter celebrated her Confirmation yesterday (it's a Catholic thing), and I spent the earlier part of the day preparing and the latter celebrating. Time very well spent!
But I'm back today, and this week, Tuesday's Overlooked TV (delayed by one day) is a really creepy episode of The Greatest American Hero. The series involved a high school English teacher (William Katt) entrusted with a superhero suit which gave him special powers. He was aided in his adventures by his girlfriend (Connie Sellica) and a crusty FBI detective (Robert Culp).
In this episode, detective Bill Maxwell (Culp) is possessed by a female spirit that haunts a deserted house set for demolition. It's up to superhero Ralph (Katt) to save his buddy from the spirit. This episode is a bit off the beaten path in context of the rest of the series, and although I loved this show as a kid (and still do), this episode always gave me the heeby jeebies. I hope it does for you too.
This week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV is a Halloween episode of the NBC police series Hunter.
Hunter revolved around the titular cop, a Dirty Harry for television, and his straitlaced partner. This episode's title is "Killer in a Halloween Mask." That pretty much says it all.
Hello all! Today the Countdown to Halloween starts in earnest, and it also starts by participating in another multi-blog undertaking.
I occasionally take part in Tuesday's Overlooked A/V, a feature hosted by my friend Todd Mason at his blog Sweet Freedom. On Tuesdays, several of us blog about a particular movie, TV series, or other audio/visual project we believe is worth reminding readers of. This month, as I've done in past Countdowns, I will feature spooky-related programming, all with a certain theme. One year, I focused on crawling hand movies; last year, it was killer cars; and this year, it will be spooky-themed episodes of classic TV series!
This week, I feature an episode of Mork & Mindy titled "A Morkville Horror." In this episode, Mindy is selling her childhood home and is feeling wistful about it. Little does she know that the ghosts of two of her ancestors haunt the house and wish to drive away potential buyers. It's up to a frightened Mork to save the day.
This week, Tuesday's Overlooked TV is the documentary film "Jaws: The True Story."
Produced by the BBC, this first aired in the US as an episode of the PBS documentary series Nova on December 4, 1984, but the taping I feature here is from the Australian documentary series The World Around Us. The special is a bit exploitative here and there, and we know much more about sharks today than we did then, but it's still interesting to see a shark documentary created pre-Shark Week.
With Thanksgiving just a little more than a week away, I'm happy to present this week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV-Movie, the 1986 Disney production "The Thanksgiving Promise."
"Promise," which aired as an installment of the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, stars the late Lloyd Bridges, as well as sons Beau and Jeff (in an uncredited minor role). In this story, a young boy is conflicted when he becomes emotionally attached to an injured Canadian goose that he has promised to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner.
And well--that's it! There's little information about the plot on the Internet, which I find strange as it has majors stars and was produced by Disney. For all the details, we'll just have to sit down and give the movie a--gander. GANDER! GOOSE! GET IT? HOW DO I DO IT? HOW DO I DO IT?
Coincidentally, next Wednesday, November 23rd is the 30th anniversary of the movie's original airing on ABC. I'm featuring it this week instead because, with the actual holiday next week, you might not have time to see it then. Enjoy!
Today is the last Tuesday of the Countdown to Halloween, which means today is the last Tuesday's Overlooked Film for the Countdown, and that film is the 1974 Peter Weir-directed film The Cars That Ate Paris.
The story involves the fictional town of Paris, Australia, a rural town set in its old-fashioned ways and insular attitudes. How insular? The town hobby is staging fatal car accidents for outsiders so their cars can be stolen and customized into terror machines. If a person does survive a crash, they are taken to the local hospital to be lobotomized and used for experimentation.
I do NOT want to see the town's ratings on Yelp.
I haven't seen the film, but I've heard much about it and it looks very intriguing. In addition to the carnage, there are also themes of the obsession with cars and the conflicts between older and younger generations. Cars is different from the other "killer car" selections I've written about this month in that these cars aren't possessed by evil spirits or alien gas, but they are in fact possessed by evil human beings--and aren't they the scariest monsters of all?
The film was a big hit at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, but didn't make much of an impact on Australian audiences. It has, however, become a cult classic today. It was released in America in 1976 under the misleading title The Cars That Eat People (wouldn't that be something?). Director Peter Weir would go on to bigger and better things directing films such as Witness, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show, among others.
Tuesday's Overlooked theme of killer cars rolls on (see what I did there?) with the 1986 Stephen King vehicle (I did it again!) Maximum Overdrive.
The movie is about a strange mist (what is it about Stephen King and mists?) that covers the entire planet and grants all forms of electronic technology the ability to think for itself. The machines, of course, opt to be evil and revolt against humanity. No machines get more satisfaction out of this than automobiles, which wreck havoc on the desert town the movie focuses on. It's up to Emilio Estevez and his ragtag band of townsfolk to wrestle control back from the vehicles, most notably a nasty tractor trailer that bears the hideous grin of the Green Goblin from Marvel Comics. Costars include Pat Hingle (Batman) and Yeardley Smith (The Simpsons).
Subtlety goes out the car window with this one, as the cars destroy every human they can as brutally as possible. You can tell King, making his directorial debut here, is having a blast killing off the humans with fiendish glee. If you enjoy horror that goes straight for the jugular--literally--this will be up your alley.
Here is the film's trailer, which King chews up defiantly. Enjoy!
The second installment of Tuesday's Overlooked Film in this year's Countdown to Halloween continues the theme of "killer cars" established last week with Christine by featuring the 1977 horror movie The Car.
The plot is pretty straightforward: a mysterious killer car is, well, killing people for no apparent reason in a small Southwestern town, and it's up to the newly installed sheriff (James Brolin) to stop it. End of plot!
The driverless car doesn't have an origin--it kills because it can. The only hint as it its origin is it's unwillingness to drive onto consecrated ground. Apparently, the devil likes to drive a 1971 Lincoln Continental. The car, by the way, was customized for the movie by legendary Hollywood car designer George Barris, who also designed the Batmobile for the 1966 Batman TV series and the Dragula for The Munsters.
Here is the movie's trailer. Seems like a good flick to put on so you can laugh at it for an hour or two. Thanks!
For those new to the blog, I occasionally take part in another multi-blog event called Tuesday's Overlooked, in which blog writers spotlight a movie, TV series, or audio series that may be obscure but nonetheless deserves more love from the public. The feature is curated by my friend Todd Mason at his blog Sweet Freedom. Check it out!
For the Countdown to Halloween, I always devote my Tuesday's Overlooked selections to horror/thriller and similarly related offerings. Last year, I decided to go by a theme, "crawling hand" movies. This year, I've chosen another theme--killer cars! Because--well, why not? For the first Tuesday's Overlooked of the Halloween season, I am going with what is likely the most famous killer car--Stephen King's Christine.
Actually, it's Stephen King's Christine by way of director John Carpenter. The story involves nerdy Arnie Cunningham, your standard bullied geek who has no game with the ladies. One day, he becomes mysteriously enamored with an old 1958 Plymouth Fury nicknamed Christine, which he buys for cheap and refurbishes himself. As he spends more time and effort with Christine, Arnie undergoes a strange personality change--more arrogant, aggressive, and eventually, murderous, all under the influence of Christine.
The movie, an adaptation of King's novel, wasn't a hit with critics--or, reportedly, even Carpenter--but it has a niche following today. Here is the film's trailer. Enjoy!
The first Tuesday's Overlooked for 2016 is on the Australian women's prison TV drama Wentworth.
Wentworth revolves around the character of Bea Smith, who enters the prison while awaiting sentencing on an attempted murder charge on her husband. While there, she runs into many characters among the prison population and staff, all of varying degrees of moral ambiguity. Other characters include sadistic warden Ferguson, fellow inmate and prionser leader Frany Doyle and other various prisoners and corrections officers with their own stories to tell.
The series, based on an earlier Australian series called Prisoner, has won critical acclaim in its native Australia and the UK. The first three seasons of the series are available on Netflix in the US. A fourth season is airing on Australian television later this year. For those who may think it's similar to the US series Orange Is The New Black, be forwarned: Wentworth is much more serious than Orange (not that Orange doesn't have its serious moments), and is a bit closer in tone to HBO's Oz. I've only seen sporadic episodes here and there, but my wife has been binge-watching the series religiously since our Christmas vacation.
Here is the trailer for Season 1.
For more Tuesday's Overlooked, check out Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom!
For the last Tuesday before Christmas, I present the last installment of the long-lost PBS holiday special Simple Gifts. This installment is "No Room At The Inn" by R. O. Blechman, and it details Joseph and Mary's travel to Bethlehem and their inability to get a proper place to stay for Jesus' birth. Beautiful in its simplicity, it's easily my favorite segment of the special.
This isn't the first time I've featured Blechman's work. Here are two short promo pieces for CBS television from the 1960s that showcase Blechman's heartfelt style.
Tuesday's Overlooked TV continues to present the obscure PBS animated special Simple Gifts this holiday season. This week, the short segment "My Christmas," describing a Christmas of a childhood-era Theodore Roosevelt, and "December 25, 1914," a soldier's telling of the Christmas truce that took place that year during World War I.
Tuesday's Overlooked TV continues to showcase segments of the 1978 PBS holiday special Simple Gifts with "Lost and Found." This segment was based on the early 20th century comic strip Toonerville Trolley (aka Toonerville Folks), which ran in newspaper syndication from 1908 to 1955.
The most lighthearted portion of the program, this brief short is played strictly for laughs. As it's comprised of just a few gags, I'll let the segment speak for itself. Enjoy!
I've been having a hard time trying to find the official order of the segments, so I may be presenting them out of order. I hope this isn't a problem for anyone. :)
As promised last week, Tuesday's Overlooked TV this month is another portion of the dormant PBS Christmas special Simple Gifts. In "A Memory of Christmas," Jose Ferrer narrates a man's remembrance of a long ago Christmas during the Depression spent with his father while looking for a Christmas gift. This is a bittersweet segment, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. Thanks!
Thanksgiving--the beginning of the holiday season. Roll out the holly, trim the tree, hang up the stockings, and pour the eggnog! But these things are not the point of the holiday season, nor are the elaborate gifts we wish to give and get. The best gifts of the holidays are the simple gifts, as my latest Tuesday's Overlooked TV will demonstrate.
I'm doing something I've never done before with Tuesday's Overlooked--I'm sharing one program over the course of several weeks, starting this week and every week until Christmas day. The program in question is the 1978 PBS animated special Simple Gifts.
Simple Gifts is a collection of six animated shorts by top shelf animators and storytellers such as Maurice Sendak, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Roosevelt, and R. O. Blechman (who directed the entire special and animated its final installment). Late actress Colleen Dewhurst appears in a live action introduction and epilogue.
I just learned of this special's existence last week, and I'm eager to share it with you as part of my holiday programming this year. The special was last released on home video in 1993 on VHS and has never been released on DVD, so please enjoy the special here. This week, I feature Dewhurst's introduction and the first of the six installments, "The Great Frost," based on a story by Virginia Woolf. I hope you return each week for the next installment.
This week's Tuesday's Overlooked is about as overlooked as you can get. I didn't know this program existed until today, and info about it on the Web is scarce. Of course, the scarcer it is, the more I want to know about it!
The program in question is the 1981 animated TV special No Man's Valley. Based on a children's book published that same year, Valley is about one Elliot Condor, whose habitat is threatened by human development. It's up to Elliot to find a place known as No Man's Valley, a land no human has ever inhabited and therefore a great new home for Elliot and his animal friends. The special was produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, who of course created the legendary Peanuts specials.
What little information I can find lists the premiere date as November 23rd, 1981 on CBS, paired with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Here is a promo for the two specials that year.
It was in coming across this promo on YouTube that I learned about the special's existence. I have no recollection whatsoever of seeing this special ever, and as far as I can tell, 1981 may be the only year it aired. Voice actors for the special include Arnold Stang (whose voice is ubiquitous in 70s and 80s cartoons), Richard Deacon (The Dick Van Dyke Show), and Joe E. Ross (Car 54, Where Are You?).
There are no clips on YouTube or Dailymotion and no DVD release I could find. It was released on VHS in 1986, according to the library database of Case Western University (I had to dig deep for this info). It wouldn't surprise me if they have the only surviving copy!
If anyone out there has any memory of this special at all, please let me know if the comments section. Thanks!
UPDATE AS OF 1/28/16: Reader Juan Aguirre notified me that he recently acquired an original cel from the special's production, for which he's graciously given permission for me to post above. Thanks Juan!
I'm afraid I didn't get to post an official installment of Tuesday's Overlooked Film last week, so I wasn't able to keep to my promise that I feature a crawling hand film every week like I wanted to. But this is a new week, so here I present to you the 1973 shocker And Now The Screaming Starts!
The story is set in England in 1795, and the main character is Catherine, an aristocratic young woman who visits the home of her fiance Charle to be married. While strolling through the premises, she takes interest in the portrait of Charle's grandfather Henry. Suddenly, a hand seemingly bursts through the portrait for Catherine. Things get far creepier and macabre from there.
Although not a Hammer Studios film, it's very much in that vein, even featuring Peter Cushing in a key role. If you like your horror British, gothic, and don't mind killer severed limbs, you may enjoy And Now The Screaming Starts.
In fact, you can enjoy the entire film right here and now! Thanks!
