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Mannix Women

It’s been six years since the last great pre-Covid movie, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. One of my favorite scenes shows Cliff Booth livin’ the trailer life. It reminds me a lot of how my brother lived for years, minus the dog, but with the cigarette and denim jacket.

Two Marvel Comics are shown — Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and Kid Colt Outlaw. On TV, Cliff is watching Mannix, a show that’s mentioned earlier in the movie by Marvin Shwarz, the agent who meets with Cliff’s pal and ostensible boss, Rick Dalton.

As seen in the opening credits, the first season of the series had a computer gimmick, that was later dropped. On Facebook, actress Leslie Parrish was asked, “Are you the girl in Mannix who’s twirling around in tennis whites?”

Before Leslie appeared in an episode of Mannix, she had been in the Star Trek episode, “Who Mourns for Adonais?”

Leslie Parrish, wardrobe test for “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Star Trek S2:E2

She even wore the same costume in Mannix.

Leslie Parrish in “The Girl in the Frame”, Mannix S1:E24

Leslie’s reply to the question? “No, that isn’t me. That’s Thordis Brandt.” Brandt is also seen kissing Mike Connors in the opening credits.

Leslie is now 90 and Thordis is 85.

Woke Batman?

After Superman issue #187, Batman #182 was my second DC 80-pg. GIANT comic book.

Batman #182, August 1966

The collection of reprints features “Fantastic, BIZARRE Adventures!” The most enduring story is “The Rainbow Batman.” YouTube has a surprising number of videos about Rainbow Batman.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rainbow+batman

Here’s one that does a good job of explaining the history behind Batman’s mysterious costume swaps.

Now there’s a bizarre “AI Batman” in (mostly) black & white!

I Was a Predhead

This scene from episode 2 of The Penguin TV series depicts a “drophead” getting his fix.

That was me 25 years ago, dosing up my left eye, during the early months of recovery from my hellish eye surgeries for a detached retina. The first surgery, by a hack specialist in Worcester, MA, was a failure. The second procedure, by a world-class retinologist at Boston’s Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary, was successful.

Prednisolone, or Pred-Forte, is an anti-inflammatory steroid eye drop. I was on the stuff for such a long time that I became a Pred addict. Between doses my eye began to feel “unsettled.” As soon as I took the drops as prescribed it quieted down, but as with all addictions, the need grew in both intensity and frequency.

My doctor asked, “How are you doing, tapering off of Pred?” I’d tell him it was slow going, and he was willing to prescribe a couple of extra refills. The fact was, my eye felt like it was going to crawl out of my skull. Seriously, this was a real problem for me.

Instead of tapering, I was holding to the original schedule, and even using in between. I’d be at work and have to run to the men’s room to do my drops, like the guy does in the video. “Oh, yeah… that’s the stuff!”

The low point was when I lifted a couple of Pred sample bottles from the doctor’s exam room. I knew he wouldn’t refill the prescription again, so I used those to finally taper down and get off of the stuff.

I was effectively blind in my eye through all of that. Two-and-a-half years later, after cataract replacement surgery, my vision was restored.

Years later, I had an appointment with a Boston ophthalmologist I hadn’t seen before. She looked through my history, paused, turned around, and said, “Oh. You’re THAT Mr. Pratt!” “Uh… what does that mean?” I asked. “You were fully detached for ten days, and now you have perfect visual acuity in that eye. That does not happen!”