July 31, 1968 – Charles M. Schulz introduces Franklin.
May 2, 2022 – Scott Adams introduces Dave the Black Engineer.
A Real Trouper Caught in the Webb
Today’s Google Doodle features a famous song that was written by Bobby Troup.
Originally treated as a Jazz tune, “Route 66” was made famous by Nat King Cole, who was an unknown studio musician playing piano before he was known as a singer.
Route 66 was the inspiration for a TV series with Martin Milner and George Maharis.
Milner later got behind the wheel again, as co-star of Webb’s series Adam-12. He had first worked with Webb in the original 1950’s Dragnet TV series.
With Milner in the above picture is Allene Roberts, who passed away a few years ago.
The Rolling Stones turned “Route 66” into a Rock and Roll number.
Bobby Troup also wrote the title tune to the Rock and Roll movie The Girl Can’t Help It, that Little Richard made famous. The movie was directed by Frank Tashlin, who was known as Tish Tash when he was a Warner Brothers cartoon director.
For Troup, Route 66 doubled-back to Jack Webb. Bobby married Jack’s ex-wife, singer and actress Julie London. No hard feelings, Webb hired Bobby and Julie to appear in his Adam-12 follow-up, Emergency! With Troup’s songwriting royalties, I wonder if he really needed the work?
If you look at the link above to my post about Allene, you will see Julie is there as well. And finally, let’s give a nod to Boss Radio 66, which you will always find over in the Links section.
What a crazy Tish Tash mish-mash of a post this is, inspired by a Google Doodle.
Recast
Here is yet another post about Google Chromecast for audio. The eBay seller who sold me a new Chromecast Audio player for $50 started charging $75 for them, and now they’re sold out. So I was lucky to get one when I did, at the price I did.
Considering the utility and quality of this inexpensive product, it’s a shame it was discontinued by Google. Amir at Audio Science Review had high praise for the technical quality of Chromecast Audio, especially when used with a Toslink cable connecting to an external DAC. And he had no complaints about its internal DAC, which is how I use the player.
When I started testing my Onkyo receiver’s Chromecast Built-in feature, I noted the difference between the behavior of the SiriusXM app on my phone and the TuneIn app.
The tech site reviews I’d read agreed on one point about Chromecast Audio. That it establishes a direct Internet connection between the audio renderer and streaming services. The app doing the controlling is just that, a remote control. The reviewers should have done some deeper digging.
It was very curious to me that TuneIn had some success with the Onkyo, but the SiriusXM app didn’t, requiring the workaround of using the Google Home app. I wanted to know exactly what was going on. To my satisfaction, the excellent HiFi Cast app not only revealed why SiriusXM failed — which turned out to be the Onkyo’s broken Eventing Mode — but also why TuneIn had some success. The answer is in this screenshot.
Casting has an option the reviewers missed — that it can play through an app. The stream comes to the phone and is then redirected to the audio renderer in the player. Switching to “Via Hi-Fi Cast” causes the same sputtering effect I hear when casting with the TuneIn app. The sputtering disappears when I use the Google Home app to do the casting. The implication is the TuneIn app is redirecting by default. That’s why it was somewhat successful with the Onkyo, whereas the SiriusXM app apparently runs in direct mode.
That’s enough for now. To the exasperation of at least one of you, there is even more about Chromecast Audio that I will explain later.
Green Lantern and Green Arrow
Only an hour after my last post, there came the stunning news that Neal Adams has died at age 80.
Jack Kirby was the most influential comic book artist of the 1960’s, and Neal Adams was certainly the most influential of the ’70’s.
After Gil Kane left DC to work for Marvel full-time, Adams took over drawing Green Lantern in a series reboot with Green Arrow.
About five years ago I was at a convention in Rhode Island with Joe Sinnott, his family, and a group of our friends. By then Joe needed a wheelchair to cover longer distances, and I enjoyed wheeling him around. (I was doing the same thing for my father in Arizona.)
Joe was scheduled to appear on a panel, and as we were heading to the end of the hall, Joe and Neal spotted each other. Joe wanted me to take him over to see Neal at his table, and once those two old pros got started talking, there was just no stopping them.
As reluctant as I was to break up their mutual admiration society, after I-don’t-know-how-long, I started to pull back on Joe’s chair to hint that we needed to go. Joe gave me the okay, he and Neal said their good-byes, and we were on our way to a late arrival at the panel discussion. As we entered the room everybody applauded and Joe waved to his fans. This is probably my all-time favorite fanboy memory.
Adams… was honored in the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame in 2019.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/neal-adams-dead-dies-comic-book-artist-1235254617/
Superman and Green Lantern
I was thrilled when Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” hit Musicradio 77 WABC in July 1966. “Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got a-nothin’ on me.”
Superman’s main artist at that time was Curt Swan.
Gil Kane was Green Lantern’s artist.
Curt Swan and Gil Kane were my two favorite DC comic book artists. What I didn’t know was that Curt Swan was a member of the Silvermine Golf Club. Our backyard literally bordered the golf course. My school bus stop in the 7th and 8th grade was in front of the clubhouse. Gil Kane lived along the route of my 2-mile bike ride to a shopping center where I bought most of my comic books.
What if I had known about this when my family was preparing to move to Massachusetts, soon after my 13th birthday? Hoo boy, there would have been trouble!
An Animated Radio Guy
In the Sixties, Filmation was one of the cartoon studios that began competing with Hanna-Barbera for Saturday morning TV network time. Comic book artist Curt Swan is mentioned in this featurette, and I’ll say more about him in my next post.
Filmation later produced a well-regarded Star Trek TV cartoon that featured writing worthy of the original series.
As stated in the featurette, Filmation co-founder Norm Prescott was originally a radio announcer. In the 50’s he had a stint here in Boston on WBZ-AM 1030, as heard in this aircheck.
Somebody who was interested in both radio and cartoons? Sorry, can’t relate. 😉