Truphen Newben hosts TALES FROM THE PUB, another spooky manifestation on Bantam Street.
Don’t ask, and I won’t tell!
Don’t ask me if there’s a XXX parody of the old Batman TV show, and I won’t tell you there is one.
“Down the Bat Pole, Robin! Now up the Bat Pole, and…”
New Netflix face
Sorry, no time to blog. Enjoying the new Netflix user interface on the Roku HD player. Searching and selecting can now be done directly on the box. Yay!
Daughters do the darndest things
Art Linkletter has died at age 97, and frankly I was somewhat surprised to realize that he was still alive. When Linkletter’s daughter Diane committed suicide — or, as some claim, was murdered — by falling from a sixth story window, I had recently turned fourteen. At the time it was reported that she was on an LSD trip. When my twin sister Jean and I heard the news, I said, “drugs do the darnedest things!” This elicited a tremendous laugh from Jean.
I knew about Art Linkletter’s “Kids Say the Darndest [sic] Things” from his House Party show on TV, and I knew about LSD trips from watching Dragnet. “Kids Say the Darndest Things” had been around in one incarnation or another for many years, and by the late 60’s the format had grown tired and it was near the end of its run. But back in the 50’s, it was quite popular.
In 1957, Art Linkletter published a collection of his “Kids Say the Darndest Things” stories that was illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. Years ago, I found a copy in a used book store for 50-cents.
The preview picture for the video below is from the same year as the book. Diane is on the left. The picture actually has nothing to do with the video, which is a TV commercial that Linkletter made with his daughter Diane, looking like Nancy Sinatra, not too long before her death.
[media id=148 width=512 height=408]
Another father-daughter collaboration was a record called, “We Love You, Call Collect,” which was released after Diane was gone. I can only imagine how tortured Linkletter must have felt when he lost her.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/MAY/CallCollect.mp3]I can’t say that Art Linkletter had a big influence on me, but I can admire how he didn’t shy away from discussing his daughter’s problems. I think back to watching Linkletter (b.1912), Lawrence Welk (b.1903), and Jack Webb (b.1920) in the 60s, and I see men who had trouble dealing with the youth culture that had taken over. After all, hadn’t the older generation regained control after the first wave of rebellion was beaten back in the late 50’s? But when I think of Charles Schulz (b.1922), I see a man who was not only in tune with the times, he made them his own. The same thing can be said of Walter Cronkite (b.1916). Their strength was in their flexibility.
Fill, baby, fill!
Here’s hoping top kill fills the hole.
Tuesday evening stuff
Turner Classic Movies is, at this moment, showing D.W. Griffith’s first version of The Squaw Man. Who else but TCM would show a silent movie from 1914 at 8 pm ET?
Fifty five years later, the Beatles recorded and filmed Let It Be, and that was, oh, only, uh, forty one years ago. Yikes! Who else but the BBC would have a radio documentary on the making of Let It Be? Click here to listen, but do it before next Monday.
BTW, Paul will be at the White House on July 2.