It’s Halloween! Everybody smile!
Pumpkin Patch Putdown
In October 1966, [Ray] Bradbury and his daughters sat down together to watch [the first airing of] the Halloween special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and none of them liked it. They were all disappointed that The Great Pumpkin didn’t show up and felt it wasn’t a proper Halloween film at all. Bradbury complained about it over lunch to his friend, animator Chuck Jones, who agreed with him.
https://www.mouseplanet.com/12510/Three_Disney_Halloween_Treats
Ray Bradbury is one of my all-time favorite writers, but I disagree 100% with his reported opinion of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which was written by one of his cartoonist friends named Charles M. I’m not really surprised that the other Charles M. didn’t care for it but, in my opinion, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is the best of all animated TV specials.
Cartoony Looney – 118
Too many things to do that need doing, but every so often I manage to sit down and do some more doodling.
A Sweet Southern Belle
Something I missed catching in May was that Allene Roberts has passed away. Allene’s life began and ended in Alabama, but for almost ten years, starting as a teenager, she was in Hollywood.
I was very young the first time I saw Allene, in one of the early episodes of The Adventures of Superman. When I watched “The Haunted Lighthouse” as a kid, Allene was already in her 30’s and had left the business.
As a devoted fan of the TV series, I enjoyed spotting Allene’s appearances in other episodes. She could play a sad and lonely part, as seen in “The Haunted Lighthouse,” and the start of the feature film The Red House. But Allene could also shine, as she does in the second half of the picture. “Girls don’t come prettier anyplace,” the narrator says when Allene’s character is introduced.
The Red House is an outstanding film. The contrast between Allene and co-star Julie London is developed very skillfully, as each of them blossoms in her own way, becoming more assured of themselves but doubtful of some others. This publicity shot with Julie shows that Allene could hold her own as a glamour girl.
“The Red House” is available on YouTube in very good quality.
In The Hoodlum, Allene’s sweet innocence is robbed by her fiancée’s crooked brother. The shocking pivotal scene with Allene is cut so short it’s hard to tell what she did. Perhaps this was done as censorship for TV. The print that TCM shows, presumably the best available, has the same abrupt fade-out.
Spinning Out of Control
Trump thinks he’s superhuman, but he isn’t winning, he’s spinning, and all he’s succeeding in doing is trapping himself. I recall seeing something about that from a long time ago.
Batman’s right. Let’s not interfere with the process!
Tech Note
This link works for standard HTTP on TCP port 80:
https://dograt.com
But now this one also works for encrypted HTTP on port 443:
https://dograt.com
With SSL working, I am contemplating forcing all sessions to use an encrypted connection, but there are many other things to attend to first, including the RSS feed apparently being broken.
Follow-up: The RSS feeds have moved to the https link.