Balladeer’s Blog’s annual end of year retrospective looks at February’s most popular posts.
GENE HACKMAN: R.I.P. – HIS BEST 1970s ROLES – With the passing of actor Gene Hackman I examined some of his best roles in 1970s movies HERE.
COOL-NAMED SPORTS TEAM: ARKANSAS STATE AT NEWPORT – It’s HERE.
LUCKY SEVEN: SYRACUSE’S PIRATE TELEVISION STATION IN 1978 – For three wild days a renegade broadcasting crew dared to air commercial-free and eccentric programming. Click HERE.
KRIS STRAUB’S NEW EPISODES OF HIS ONLINE SERIES LOCAL 58 TV – I looked at them HERE.
THE TELEVISION GHOST: REALLY, REALLY FORGOTTEN TELEVISION (1931-1933) – Much earlier than most people realize, television broadcasts were already hitting the airwaves, including this horror anthology series.
I threw in 1930s newspaper listings of some of the other primitive tv offerings of the time. Click HERE.
BALLADEER’S BLOG RANKS THE PRESIDENTS – I composed this list the way that anyone trying to be objective should – by omitting the most recent presidents. Click HERE.
COOL NAMED SPORTS TEAM: BLACKHAWK TECHNICAL COLLEGE – It’s HERE.
MOTOR PIRATES (1906) – My review of an early silent sci-fi film short featuring a high-tech, armed and armored vehicle and its criminal designers. Click HERE.
PROFILES IN COURAGE (1964-1965) – This Forgotten Television series was inspired by John F. Kennedy’s book and presented dramas about heroic men and women from U.S. history. Click HERE.
COOL NAMED SPORTS TEAM: JOHN MELVIN UNIVERSITY – Click HERE.
TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT – I marked the cult show about bad movies’ 40th anniversary year. Mars Needs Women and Demon from Devil’s Lake HERE, Queen of Blood HERE.
ASTREA: STRONGWOMAN OF ITALIAN SILENT FILMS – Before Gina Carano, Sigourney Weaver or Milla Jovovich came this butt-kicking action starlet from Italy HERE. She did films from 1919-1922 then vanished.
BESS THE DETECTRESS: SILENT FILM ADVENTURESS (1914) – This series of shorts starred Bess Meredyth, starlet, writer, director and the wife of Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and mother of sci-fi writer John Meredyth Lucas (Star Trek). She’s HERE.
ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – Elektropolis (1928) a German novel about a high-tech city built in the Australian desert HERE, Adventures of Esplandian (1510) when California was an island and the home of odd creatures and a matriarchal civilization HERE, and El Hombre Artificial (1910) an Argentine story about obscene human experimentation HERE. Continue reading
ADVENTURE COMICS Vol 1 #48 (Mar 1940) 
NOTE: Over the years, changes would make it so that Miraclo granted Rex Tyler the strength of 50 men. Due to parental concerns about promoting drug use since Rex popped Miraclo pills, for a time it was changed to a Miraclo RAY that would increase Hourman’s strength. Other times it was retconned so that Hourman’s costume was enchanted and it was the source of his powers. 
THE PETTICOAT REVOLUTION – On December 5th, 1916 the “Petticoat Revolution” occurred in Oregon. Women had been allowed to vote in the state since 1912 and in the town of Umatilla several women ran stealth candidacies for municipal offices. 
UNDERWATER HOUSE (1899) – Written by Frank Bailey Millard, this short story was first published in the March 1899 issue of The Black Cat magazine. 
IT’S CHRISTMAS, CAROL! (2012) – Well, to borrow from another holiday, I hold these truths to be self-evident – 
All that said, I won’t be able to use my usual format for my reviews of A Christmas Carol since Marley and the Christmas Ghosts are all played by one person. And it’s not a case of a comedian or a chameleon-like thespian so skilled at crafting characters that it’s a showcase for their talents. (Picture Robin Williams doing different personae for the Ghosts, for instance.)
WILDSIDE (1985) – This Forgotten Television item was a short-lived series that had the elite Old West secret agents appeal that 
MABEL NORMAND: HER SILENT FILM COMEDIES FROM 1910-1915 – The pioneering comedienne who blazed cinematic trails and had a long collaboration with the iconic Fatty Arbuckle and Mack Sennett. 
SUPERHEROES FROM INDIA – Reading superhero stories as a kid served as a gateway to some of my adult passions like mythology and opera, so I will always have a soft spot for them. This blog post looked at some Indian superheroes from the 1960s onward. 
BRUCE CAMPBELL AND SAM RAIMI SHORT FILMS: 1974-1982 – Bruce, Sam and the rest of their Michigan Mafia when they were making youthful short films. My reviews of Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter, The Blind Waiter, Holding It, Attack of the Helping Hand and more 
A CHRISTIAN CAROL (2016) – Balladeer’s Blog’s 16th Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with this look at a religious-themed variation of A Christmas Carol. Directed by Stan Severance and written by Wesley T Highlander, A Christian Carol follows in the footsteps of the 1983 production The Gospel According to Scrooge.
The HILLSDALE COLLEGE CHARGERS will play the UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY PEACOCKS. 
The WEST TEXAS A&M BUFFALOES will play the ARKANSAS TECH WONDERBOYS. 
NERO WOLFE (1959) – This was a failed pilot for a potential series about Rex Stout’s iconic detective – the rotund, snobbish but brilliant Nero Wolfe, portrayed by Kurt Kasznar. William Shatner played Archie Goodwin, the affable leg man for his reclusive boss. 
The chemistry between Kasznar and Shatner was remarkable, and at just 26 minutes without commercials, this would have been just the right length for each episode without Wolfe’s egotism and impatience with lesser minds wearing out their welcome with viewers. 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2019) – Directed and co-written by Steven Salgado, this adaptation of the 1843 novel sets the story in present-day Miami. Though some may try to pigeon-hole this indy film as “a Hispanic-American Christmas Carol” that would not be quite accurate. 
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