Star Wars came out over 30 years ago! It really does now seem like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but it was two years after Woody Allen’s movie Love And Death.
Category: Sci-Fi
Bill Mumy Musings
Hey, it’s been a whole week since we saw Bill Mumy in Springfield, MA. Yesterday he did an online one-hour audio interview that you can hear by clicking here. I agree 100% with Bill’s politics.
Once again I highly recommend listening to the Mumy Jukebox. I’m enjoying his new CD, The Landlord or the Guest, a lot. Mumy’s Lost In Space co-star Angela Cartwright, for whom I had a major crush, designed the art for the CD.
Sputtering After Sputnik
Science News is a consistently excellent weekly magazine for keeping up with what’s really happening in the various scientific disciplines. I enjoyed reading an article about the launching of Sputnik 50 years ago. Something I didn’t know is that the launch was no surprise to American scientists, who were looking forward to it. America’s first attempt at a satellite launch was spectacular, but not successful:
On Dec. 6, the press was invited to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to witness the U.S. response to Sputnik. Newsreel cameras rolled as a modified Navy Vanguard rocket carrying a small satellite lifted off the launch pad. It rose just 4 feet before erupting in a fireball, sending the grapefruit-size satellite in its nose cone hurtling across the sands. The next day’s headlines provided the postmortem: “Flopnik,” “Dudnik,” “Kaputnik.”
You can read the article by clicking here.
June Lockhart’s TV Sons
Today, in Springfield MA, I met Jon Provost and Bill Mumy. They were separated by the Connecticut River — Jon was on the west side and Bill on the east, at two very different events. Jon was appearing at the World of Pets, and Bill was at the United Fan Con. What they have in common is June Lockhart was their mother on TV — Jon as Timmy Martin on ‘Lassie’, and Bill as Will Robinson on ‘Lost In Space’.
Bill Mumy shares a distinction with another former child actor — Jerry Mathers, from ‘Leave It To Beaver’. They were both directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Bill was in ‘Bang! You’re Dead’, one of the most famous installments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and one of the few that the master himself directed. Mathers was in Hitchcock’s film ‘The Trouble With Harry’.
I can honestly say that I liked all of these guys when I watched them on TV as a kid. I’ve never had a chance to see Mathers in person, but I was thoroughly impressed by Provost and Mumy. They’re both very smart guys, as nice as anybody could ever be, and as good at listening as they are at speaking; but, then, I guess that makes sense, given their training and experience, starting at such an early age. Or maybe it comes from having June Lockhart as their TV mom!
A while ago I posted an item about Jon Provost, whose autobiography, Timmy’s In The Well, will be out soon. Timmy was never in the well on TV, so I was pleased to show Jon the one piece of physical evidence I know of that Timmy, in cartoon form, was briefly in a well, and he was nice enough to sign it for me. Here I am today, with Jon Provost.
Bill Mumy has always been very much into music, and is a musician himself. He’s very, very good. Hear for yourself by playing the Mumy Jukebox. For a while he was in the band America. Mumy has a wide selection of great music available, and I bought his latest CD.
It was a fun day! Eric got to see somebody as well, and I’m hoping to post something about that later.
Bob Dylan’s Dire Warning
On October 1, a big Bob Dylan CD collection is being released. On October 2, D. F. Rogers and I will be seeing Dylan in concert, appearing with Elvis Costello. Dylan has always been forward thinking, and being in the middle of watching Battlestar Galatica on DVD, I’m right with him on this important warning.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/DylanCylons.flv 400 300]
Bismo’s Buddy Wins An Emmy!
I know somebody who knows somebody who’s won an Emmy! In fact, it’s his second such award. Leave it to Bismo to mention it almost as an afterthought in a blog post about beer!
Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz does special effects for the TV show Battlestar Galactica; which, as mentioned previously, we’re watching on DVD with Bismo. The award is for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series. Here’s Mojo holding his Emmy, dressed for the occasion in Battlestar gear from the original series. Big time congratulations!
