Author: DOuG pRATt

Howard’s End

On the Roku Channel I’ve been watching Leslie Howard’s son Ronald as Sherlock Holmes, in the 1950’s TV series. The shows are good fun, and being in the public domain they’re widely available.

The old Alfred Hitchcock Presents series is also on the Roku Channel. Ronald Howard appears in an adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s 1890 short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”.

Howard as a Southern plantation owner was a clever bit of casting, considering that his father was Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. I can’t embed the Hitchcock episode, but this link will take you there.

https://therokuchannel.roku.com/watch/b19e33491d2656a3a444fce5d0281a12

Rerun Rudolph Rerun

Who’d a thunk that sixty years after it first aired, the stop-motion Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer would continue to be shown on network TV? After being on CBS for decades, this year it returned to NBC, where it premiered in 1964.

This time it ran for 75 minutes, with the extra 15 minutes used for more commercials, rather than an introduction to note the anniversary. On the plus side, Rudolph looked brand-new, even better than on my Blu-ray copy.

Fifteen years ago here, I answered the question “Hermey or Herbie?” As heard in this video clip, there’s no confusion why there’s always been some confusion about the wannabe dentist elf’s name.

A Fanclub of One

Of interest to a very few other than myself, today on TCM I caught Bomba on Panther Island. It’s the second movie in the “Bomba the Jungle Boy” series and it features my very first childhood crush, Allene Roberts.

Allene’s dress that’s seen early in the movie seemed familiar.

Yep, just as I thought. It’s the same dress that Allene wore later in “The Haunted Lighthouse”, the first of her three appearances in The Adventures of Superman.

They weren’t kidding about “Poverty Row,” the term that was coined in the movie business for the ultra-low budget studios! Maybe it was one of the dresses Allene’s seamstress mother made for her.

Allene goes swimming with Johnny Sheffield, who before playing Bomba the Jungle Boy was simply “Boy” in the Weissmuller Tarzan series. Allene bears something of a resemblance here to Maureen O’Sullivan, who was Sheffield’s mother Jane in the Tarzan movies.

Speaking of Allene, eBay currently has a couple of unique items. I had a tough time deciding which one to bid on.

Norman Rockwell’s Vision of My Future

In 1965/66, Norman Rockwell envisioned the girlfriend I would have ten years later, right down to the drawing pad and jeans with boots. Except for her height. Marion was almost 5’10” tall. Few girls could pull off this classic “college art student” look so beautifully.

Picasso vs. Sargent, by Norman Rockwell, 1966

As with other Rockwell paintings, Picasso vs. Sargent has a humorous idea behind it, like a single-panel gag cartoon. Here is a critique by someone who has put a lot more thought into the painting’s gag than I have.

https://massmedievalist.substack.com/p/the-massachusetts-medievalist-on-23d

The Muggles

Beatles mugs, a Christmas present from my big sister.

When she was here in August to help me during a very tough week of cancer treatment, she was amazed to see this photo that I came across purely by chance online. My sister confirmed that it does indeed show her at the legendary Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965.

One of My Good Questions

Brent Butterworth, whose audio reviews I first read probably 35 years ago, answers a question I submitted to Audio Unleashed, his podcast with Dennis Burger.

Brent is wearing Audio-Technica ATH-M20x headphones. The same ones worn by Jon Stewart on his podcast, as I have pointed out.

For $50 the ATH-M20x has excellent sound quality, but the earpads are the most uncomfortable of any headphones I’ve ever owned. Brent must agree, because he did what I did and replaced the pads.

Dennis is wearing AKG K371 headphones. I also have a pair of those. (Uh… what did I say in the previous post? Something about wanting to have fewer physical possessions?)

Audio-Technica ATH-M20x
AKG K371