Aired on April 28, 1966, this one-hour special featuring Tony Bennett at the peak of his (first) career was sponsored by Singer Sewing Machines and NBC and is–in my opinion–the best television musical special ever made. In addition to Tony the starry supporting cast includes Buddy Rich, Paul Horne, Milt
Joe Piscopo may not have left much of a mark on comedy but he did achieve something that cannot be superseded by any other comic; his impression of Jerry Lewis. His Jerry is the Jerry at the late stage of his career–the smarmy telethon host in his tux with shoe-polished
Watching the above reel of TV cigarette commercials from the early 1960s, one might get the impression that the product being peddled wasn’t really a cigarette, but more of a combination of perfume, cold tossed mediterranean salad, herb-infused lemonade and a good massage. Words like ‘flavorful’ and ‘relaxing’ and ‘rich’
Here’s a brief, fascinating British Pathe newsreel from 1930 showing us The Handley Page HP–42 (nicknamed the Hannibal), a giant British four-engine biplane airliner designed by Handley Page. Introduced by Imperial Airways in 1931, it was the largest airliner in the world at the time. Built mostly from metal and fabric, it was
Apropos of yesterday’s post showing the evolution of RKO studio’s logos, here’s a reel of logos from some of the most obscure in-the-gutter strictly-from -hunger low-rent low-budget low-self-esteem studios the movie business ever created. Names like ‘Invincible Pictures’, ‘Mascot Studios’, ‘Chesterfield Pictures’ sound like companies invented by a novelist for
Here’s fifteen minutes of different logos–both opening and closing–of RKO movies. I’m sure you’ll be tempted after a few minutes to either turn it off or scrub through them, but I urge you to set aside fifteen minutes and stare, glassy-eyed, at the screen. Something odd happens as they progress–they
If you know me even slightly (and nobody really knows anyone more than slightly, do they?) you’re aware that I love old comedy two-reelers, any movie connected to director Leo McCarey and old airplanes. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered this past weekend that TCM was airing
On June 30th two directors had birthdays. One of them was me. The other was Anthony Mann. I turned 62. Mann turned 120. Or at least he would have if he’d listened to those doctors and quit smoking. I can’t think of a more appropriate director for me to share
It was on June 30th, 1964, that I commenced my first journey around the sun. Today marks my sixty-second trip around the damn thing and I can think of few people I’d like to share this day with more than Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard. Here, for my
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHOmBV4js_Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkgbCECWp-s In case you haven’t heard, yesterday was comic legend Mel Brooks’ one-hundred birthday. I’ve been honored to know Mel for the past dozen years and shared a number of delightful Chinese dinners with him and a group of other friends usually at ‘The Manderette’, a now defunct West Hollywood