Almost missed it. Today is Thomas Edison's 164th birthday.
To read a bit about his not inconsiderable place in film history, click here.
Also, it's Tina Louise's birthday today. She's not 164. Which begs the question, Ginger or Mary Ann? I know the fashionable answer is Mary Ann, but I've always been a Ginger man, myself.
You can read the 2400 word essay I posted yesterday about D.W. Griffith's development of a film "language" and how he taught every director from Charlie Chaplin to Christopher Nolan how to manipulate an audience's emotions, or you can watch this 49-second clip from 30 Rock, which pretty much covers the same territory. Your call.
You know a television show has run seriously off the rails when your wife turns to you and says, in all sincerity, "This would have made more sense with a llama."
Flu-ridden and snowbound yesterday afternoon, Katie-Bar-The-Door and I watched a rerun of Lost in Space on the Family Net cable channel, specifically the infamous "Carrotman" episode, a.k.a. "The Great Vegetable Rebellion." For those of you old enough to remember Lost in Space, the Carrotman needs no introduction. For the rest of you, well, let's just say '60s camp never got any campier.
For those of you with an unquenchable thirst for useless trivia, the part of the Carrotman's sidekick, Willoughby, was originally to be played by a talking llama—yes, the kind with four legs, painted purple, no less. (It does not compute!) But the trained llama kept biting Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith) who finally refused to continue production. Which is a pity, because it really would have made more sense with a llama. But the llama was fired, a human was hired, and the series was cancelled two weeks later.
Oh, the pain, the pain.
You can watch "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" here at the Monkey, courtesy of Hulu.com.
"You have to go back to Lancelot Link's piano player to find anyone this ineffective at a keyboard."
He was referring specifically to a reporter for the New York Times but he could have been talking about me. I'm 171 movies and 4000 words into this essay about the film years 1906-1914, but I'm not any closer to being done than I was a week ago. I think what I'm going to do is throw in the towel and publish my notes bullet-fashion, the way I did for an unfinished essay about innovations in the use of sound back in 2009.
It's either that or stop blogging for the next six months. I don't see any other way.
In the meantime, does anyone else remember the Saturday morning kids show Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp? It was a live action show about a chimpanzee spy named Lancelot Link. He worked for the Agency to Prevent Evil ("APE"), had a girlfriend named Mata Hairy, and battled a parade of villains including Dr. Strangemind, Baron von Butcher, and other henchmen of CHUMP.
Here's a clip of their band, The Evolution Revolution:
Bonus Trivia: Lancelot Link was played by the same chimp who played the Bloop on television's Lost In Space.
Almost missed it. Today is Thomas Edison's 164th birthday.
You can read the 2400 word essay I posted yesterday about D.W. Griffith's development of a film "language" and how he taught every director from Charlie Chaplin to Christopher Nolan how to manipulate an audience's emotions, or you can watch this 49-second clip from 30 Rock, which pretty much covers the same territory. Your call.
You know a television show has run seriously off the rails when your wife turns to you and says, in all sincerity, "This would have made more sense with a llama."
For those of you with an unquenchable thirst for useless trivia, the part of the Carrotman's sidekick, Willoughby, was originally to be played by a talking llama—yes, the kind with four legs, painted purple, no less. (It does not compute!) But the trained llama kept biting Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith) who finally refused to continue production. Which is a pity, because it really would have made more sense with a llama. But the llama was fired, a human was hired, and the series was cancelled two weeks later.
"You have to go back to Lancelot Link's piano player to find anyone this ineffective at a keyboard."
It's either that or stop blogging for the next six months. I don't see any other way.
