Tired of college sports teams called Eagles, Tigers, Bulldogs or Wildcats? Here’s another institution whose teams sport a more creative name.
LAKE-SUMTER STATE Continue reading
Monthly Archives: July 2025
FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT
For some laughs this Frontierado Season, here’s the worst and weirdest version of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
A movie guaranteed to contain absolutely NO accurate information.
Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault! Before Joel and Mike we had Randy and Richard! Before Pearl and Kinga we had Laurie Savino!
Welcome to a special Frontierado Edition of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at this neglected cult show which ran from 1985-1987, making this its FORTIETH anniversary year.
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday, October 25th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00 am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
OPENING SERIAL: An episode of Mysterious Doctor Satan (1940).
THE MOVIE: Frontier Marshal, directed by Allan Dwan, has a well-deserved reputation as the worst and weirdest cinematic depiction of the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Randolph Scott turns in his usual bland performance as Wyatt Earp with Cesar Romero as a very unlikely Doc Holliday.
Wyatt and Doc trying to cut the rear projection screen off at the pass.
As usual Doc steals the show from the hopelessly dull and straight-arrow Wyatt. Ward Bond shows up as a cowardly lawman, Lon Chaney, Jr plays one of Curly Bill Brocius’ thugs and Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend John Carradine is the movie’s main villain … Carter. No, not Clanton or even McLaurey but “Carter”.
Here’s just some of the hilariously distorted bits from this Parallel Universe version of the events in Tombstsone, Arizona: Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, FRONTIERADO, Movie Hosts
THE DEFENDERS: THEIR FIRST ELEVEN ADVENTURES
This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the first eleven stories of Marvel’s Defenders.
MARVEL FEATURE Vol 1 #1 (December 1971)
Title: The Day of the Defenders
Villain: The Omegatron
Defenders Roster: Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange, MD), the Hulk (Bruce Banner, PhD) and the Sub-Mariner (Prince Namor McKenzie)
Comment: The Defenders were originally far different from the mere “street level” heroics that fans of Marvel Television adaptations associate with the team’s name. In 1971 Marvel had just one Avengers team in addition to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. The Defenders often fought to save the entire world or even the entire universe or multiverse.
Doctor Strange and the Hulk had been around since the 1960s. The Sub-Mariner was introduced in 1939 (so BEFORE Aquaman), back when Marvel Comics was called Timely Comics.
Synopsis: The evil scientist Yandroth, an old one-off foe of Dr Strange, has been spending his years since his defeat at Strange’s hands mastering sorcery as thoroughly as he had previously mastered science. He is on his death bed after having devised a scheme to ensure that the world will be destroyed shortly after he dies. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
JULY ELEVENTH ROUNDUP OF NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS
Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog does another current events roundup from an America where anti-Trump loons continue to prove that they make absolutely NO effort to determine if their insane claims about him are true.
For just one example, they’re still hysterically blaming things on Trump budget cuts THAT HAVEN’T EVEN GONE INTO EFFECT YET.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT PEDOPHILE RING BUSTED BY ICE IN MINNEAPOLIS. Democrats, who like to pretend such rings don’t exist, are outraged, of course. If they had their way the ring would still be in operation. Right, Governor Walz?
DEMOCRAT MEDIA OUTLETS CLAIMING THAT THE THAI AND LAOTIAN-RUN RING IN MINNEAPOLIS JUST HAD A “CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDING.” Democrats, can you ONCE side with victims of crime instead of the perpetrators?
EVEN DEMOCRAT MEDIA OUTLET CNN NOW ADMITTING THAT THERE IS NO BASIS FOR BLAMING PRESIDENT TRUMP REGARDING THE TEXAS FLOODING. Same old anti-Trump tactics – hysterical shrieking followed days later by quiet corrections.
ICE RAIDS CALIFORNIA MARIJUANA FARM ON DRUG, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AND CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS. More about the children being used HERE. Needless to say, Democrat Governor Newsome defended those arrested and called Trump “real scum” for the raid. Unreal.
PRESIDENT TRUMP MOVES TO PROTECT FORTY BILLION DOLLARS IN TAXPAYER FUNDED BENEFITS PROGRAMS FROM ILLEGAL USE BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Financially comfortable Democrats who don’t need to rely on those benefits like the working class and the poor do are, of course, upset. Continue reading
CASEY JONES (1957-1958) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION
CASEY JONES (1957-1958) – Alan Hale, in his pre-Gilligan’s Island years, starred as the legendary train engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones in this series that’s not only appropriate for Frontierado season but makes for a nice watch with the whole family all year ’round. (It never depicted the incident in which the real Casey Jones died.)
The show lasted 32 half-hour episodes and was set in Tennessee as Casey worked his steam engine the Cannonball Express (just Cannonball in real life) westward and back during the 1890s. Child actor Bobby Clark played our hero’s son Casey, Jr. while Mary Lawrence was Casey’s wife Alice. Eddy Waller portrayed Conductor “Red Rock” Smith.
Dub Taylor played Engine Fireman Wallie Sims, a composite character based on two of Casey Jones’ fellow employees, both of them African Americans – Fireman Sim Webb and Wallie Saunders, who wrote the words to the first version of The Ballad of Casey Jones. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television, FRONTIERADO
“BIG STEVE” LONG: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER
The Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 1st this year. As regular readers know, Frontierado celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here’s a seasonal post.
BIG STEVE LONG – Like many gunslingers of the American West, Steve Long served in the Civil War, in his case on the Confederate side. After the war, Long gravitated westward as a gunman for hire, temporary lawman and bounty hunter.
In 1866, now known as Big Steve, Long settled in Laramie, WY where he befriended Ace and Con Moyer, two members of one of the Laramie founding families. Big Steve, Ace and Con established a tent saloon that they called Keystone Hall. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS ROUNDUP: JULY NINTH
Here’s a mid-week current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog, here in an America where ignorant, uninformed and emotionally unstable anti-Trump zealots continue to run around as mindlessly as the torch bearing mobs in a Frankenstein movie. Not a single rational thought among all of them.
TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT SMACKS DOWN MORE OF DEMOCRAT MEDIA EMPLOYEE DANA BASH’S LIES ABOUT THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT. So far, no criticism outside the fact that it’s a goofy name for a legislative item has been proven right.
MORE ECONOMIC EXPERTS ADMIT PRESIDENT TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT TARIFF MANAGEMENT ALL ALONG.
PRESIDENT TRUMP DOES AWAY WITH BIDEN REGIME RULE TO LET NON-CITIZEN FARMERS ENJOY UNION COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS BUT NOT AMERICAN FARMERS. People warned Democrat fascists that their grotesque excesses would come back to bite them.
DEMOCRATS CONTINUE ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE AGAINST ICE AGENTS. SAN ANTONIO CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE MATTHEW GAUNA CALLED OUT BY DHS FOR HIS STATEMENT “I WANNA SEE A FEW DEAD ICE AGENTS, LOS ANGELES! DON’T LET ME DOWN”. What an animal. More HERE. And HERE. And HERE.
HERE’S YET ANOTHER LOOK AT THE HATE-FILLED GIBBERISH FROM THE VIOLENT DEMOCRAT MOBS WHO PRETEND TO BE “PEOPLE WITH EMPATHY.” Continue reading
THE AMERICAN ADVENTURER: STORY OF THE SECOND TRAVELER (1879) – ANCIENT SCI FI
THE AMERICAN ADVENTURER: STORY OF THE SECOND TRAVELER (1879) – While looking for new blog posts to mark Frontierado this year I unexpectedly came across this short story that is more sci-fi than Wild West.
Author and poet Don Maguire’s short story collection The American Adventurer is basically an Old West imitation of Canterbury Tales. The title figure is an itinerant peddler in the west who invites other guests at a Little Rock, AR inn to take turns sharing a tale from their life. The individual tales are titled Story of the First Traveler, and so on.
Most of the stories would fit in with Wild West tall tales and the like, but Story of the Second Traveler features wild science fiction elements. An Irishman named Fitzhugh relates how he was once shipwrecked off the coast of South America. (But wait, there’s more as the old joke goes.)
Clinging to a makeshift raft he found an abandoned Spanish ship loaded with gold plundered in the 1500s. Eventually reaching Lima, Peru, Fitzhugh mustered a party to recover the gold and became wealthy beyond his dreams. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
RICHARD DENNING: HIS PSYCHOTRONIC FILMS
Richard Denning is best remembered as the relentlessly affable Governor Paul Jameson on the original Hawaii 5-0 series. He made 74 appearances on that cop show but had previously filled starring roles in other television programs like Mr. and Mrs. North, The Flying Doctor, Michael Shayne and Karen.
This being Balladeer’s Blog I’m focusing purely on Richard Denning’s roles in Psychotronic films for this post.
UNKNOWN ISLAND (1948)
With the latest film in the Jurassic World series now in theaters I’ll start with this dinosaur flick. Denning portrays John Fairbanks, the drunken sole survivor of a visit to a Pacific Ocean Island inhabited by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures.
Fairbanks is hired by an expedition planning to explore that island because their photographer leader (Phillip Reed) was a World War Two pilot who once snapped a sub-Loch Ness Monster level picture of dinos while flying over the island during the war. His wealthy wife (Virginia Grey) is financing the expedition and their ship’s captain – who drinks almost as much as Denning’s John Fairbanks – is played by Barton MacLane.
The foolish photographer winds up getting multiple members of the expedition killed by dinosaurs through his inept, unfocused “leadership.” He also keeps everyone on the island, endangering their lives every minute, long after he has more than enough photos to prove the existence of the dinosaurs and therefore justify additional, heavily armed visits to the Unknown Island. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
INDIANA JONES REBOOT RUMORS
The buzz surrounding the planned reboot of Indiana Jones reminded me of my blog post from five and a half years ago. That post was prompted by the news that Steven Spielberg declined to direct the upcoming fifth movie in the Indiana Jones franchise –
“In the past I’ve mentioned how foolish it is to think that Harrison Ford MUST play Indy in all the movies. James Bond and Tarzan are just two recurring heroes that have survived multiple casting changes over the years.
“The obvious move long ago would have been to cast a younger actor – say, Chris Pratt – as Indiana Jones and detail some of his earlier adventures. I love the Roaring Twenties so I think it would have been great to see Dr. Jones’ activities in that decade.
“Since it would be before Raiders of the Lost Ark even Belloq (maybe Gary Oldman) could appear in a few installments. I can’t possibly be alone in wanting to see some of those “many stimulating encounters” that Belloq referred to having with Indy in Raiders.
“Belloq was French, so do a story with Dr. Jones searching for a lost relic in 1920s Vietnam. Belloq’s hoity-toity family could be among the French plantation owners there, helping to set up a clash with our hero. Or have the two vying with each other to recover ancient Russian artifacts from violent factions of Red and White Russians in the years after the Russian Civil War. Any number of things. Continue reading
Filed under opinion, Pulp Heroes
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