My sister Rosemary has been hospitalized since Saturday and I’ve been updating my blog remotely here and there to take my mind off worrying about her whenever I can squeeze out a few moments. This post is a little shoutout to her since it looks at one of her favorite forgotten shows. Thank you to loved ones and friends doing their best to help me through this difficult time.
The New People was part of a brief and very odd experiment with Continue reading
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Shadow Theater was a terrific series hosted by Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund. Everyone over the age of 30 remembers a time when you couldn’t just go to the internet to get your fix of info and footage from fringe and/ or obscure horror films. This program was a nice once-a- week documentary look at movies for the Psychotronic- minded.
An additional plus about the show was the way it treated viewers to behind-the- scenes facts and rare interviews with some of horror’s most daring filmmakers without having to attend a fan convention. (It’s a joke! Lighten up!)
Robert Englund displayed the same macabre charm he would employ when hosting the Horror Movie Hall of Fame ceremonies later in the decade. He didn’t copy his patented Freddy routine, but rather Continue reading
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SUPER PRESIDENT was an actual cartoon series from the 1960’s that has virtually disappeared. It’s rare to catch a glimpse of this DePatie- Freleng show anywhere or even to find people who have heard of it outside of oddballs like me.
This cartoon was not intended for laughs, like it would be today. It honestly featured a superhero whose “secret identity” was being President of the United States. First off, there’s the absurd fun of Continue reading
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THE ALMIGHTY JOHNSONS – With the popularity of the movie Thor I want to help spread the word about this New Zealand program that debuted in February of this year. This treasure is not so much forgotten as it is simply unknown here in the states but I want to change that since it has “cult hit” written all over it, and because it has nothing to do with vampires, unlike 68% of the new shows lately.
The Almighty Johnsons is about a Continue reading
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Shandling
It’s Garry Shandling’s Show was the pre-Seinfeld version of Seinfeld. And no, I don’t just mean because both programs starred popular stand- up comics. I mean basically Shandling’s program, which aired on cable via Showtime and later on network tv via Fox, seems like the blueprint that Seinfeld followed almost slavishly. That’s my opinion, anyway.
Consider the following points: episodes of Seinfeld started with Jerry on-stage doing a few bits for a nightclub audience – episodes of IGSS started with Garry on his sitcom set doing a few bits for the studio audience … Seinfeld dealt with life as a stand-up comic trying to juggle his career and romantic life – ditto for IGSS … Jerry had a Continue reading
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PSI Factor depicted a series of investigations into the paranormal conducted by the fictional Office of Scientific Investigation and Research, or OSIR. This Canadian-made series was often unfairly dismissed as “X-Files Light”, but that in no way does justice to a very entertaining program. The members of the OSIR’s various field teams went about their business in a much more convincing mock-scientific way than conspiracy kook Fox Mulder ever did, and that helped the audience suspend their disbelief. Each episode featured menaces either scientific or supernatural in very inventive ways that Continue reading
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COUNTERSTRIKE is a tragically forgotten British sci fi television series from 1969. Jon Finch (left) portrayed Simon King, an alien agent who worked for the Intergalactic Council. This council had sent him to Earth to protect it from a group of renegade aliens from a dying planet who wanted to conquer the Earth and make it their new home. Not the most original of premises, but that inimitable British panache breathed life into the series, which unfortunately ran Continue reading
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