It’s not official, so we’ll have to wait a fortnight, but: good news en route. And by “good news” I mean something that affects me personally and has absolutely no impact on your life in any significant form, but since I am the center of the universe I expect you will share my happiness. Is that egomaniacal enough? I swear, I could audition for Zod, except that when I commanded people to kneel they’d think it was because it made eye contact easier. Too short to be Zod.
There’s a T-shirt.
Capital day; not as hot as yesterday – seems almost decadent to use the word “hot” in March – and the long-range forecast calls for pain the week after next, with snow, or “bastard dandruff,” expected to fall. When Natalie got off the bus today she was in a T-shirt, smiling, almost skipping (she never skips), and she said it was great spring was here. I said hold the phone, we might get snow the week after next. She stopped. Jaw hung open.
SNOW?
Yes, alas.
HOW MUCH?
Oh, a dusting. Or more. Won’t stay. Don’t worry. It’s just a desperate measure. Winter is over. Someone should make a Hitler video about winter being angry it lost.
Yeah that would be funny.
See, she knows what a Hitler Video is. For all I know they made one about the cancellation of Danny Phantom. She is keen to tell me about memes she’s discovered, too, so we have that common vocabulary. (My poor wife is baffled by it all, but she has ceded all things internetal to husband and child.) I went off to take a nap the other day and shouted I’M CHARGIN’ MAH LAZERS and she laughed. It’s shorthand, it’s just pop-culty drier lint, but as long as I can keep some common currency I’ll bank it, possibly at First National Mixed Metaphors, because eventually kids enter their own world of concerns and fascinations, and they don’t share because they don’t think you care. Why would you? You’re a grup, careworn, slaving at the frown-house all day. There is no way you would think that this cool thing is a cool thing. You’d have to be a kid.
Lucky me, I come from a generation that wiped away most of the distinctions between high and low culture, and replaced the Search for Truth and Beauty with the pursuit of cool. Truth brings responsibilities, and Beauty is a value judgment; Cool is a pack of smokes. But I’m generalizing. I like cool.
I hate hip, but I like cool.
Peter Graves died. I had some notes at the Stribblog, but left out how much I loved “Mission: Impossible” as a kid. For a while it was hip to rag on the portrayal of Barney, who was always stuck working in an elevator shaft – but really, they went to places where a Black man would stick out, and that’s not how I saw him as a kid: he was the guy who had technology. As I’ve said before, the Black people on TV when I grew up were all indispensable: Barney made the plots work, Uhuru kept the ship in touch with Starfleet, and the fellow who pushed around Ironside – well, there was something of an antebellum relationship there from the outside, but hell, Ironside would have gone down a hill screaming if it hadn’t been for him. (“Ironside” would have been a much different show if it had taken place in San Francisco, no?) (For those who don’t get the reference, it was Raymond Burr’s post-Perry show. Dig the opening credits, here:
Man, that’s the soundtrack of my entire TV life, right there. Quincy Jones, of course. In a similar vein, but less gritty, was “Cannon.” I had no idea that the guy in this show – the fat cop who got his man – was the voice I heard in “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” let alone one of the greatest radio actors of all time:
Then, of course, there was Mannix:
A great theme, but as a kid I always wondered why the awesome Mannix was karate-chopping toast in the second “N” of the name sequence.
Anyway. “Mission” was a fine show. The bottom of the hour was always the point where it seemed the mission might be long: someone stopped Peter Lupus, and said “Achtung, senor comrade, do you know your name is a disease favored by hypochondriacs with vague, broadly defined symptoms?” and he would stop and the music would come up: COMMERCIAL! After the bottom of the hour break, the guard would look at his papers (most of the missions took place in countries where one was expected to have Papers) and wave him on, and the plot would continue. The endings were wonderful: the IMF team stripping off masks and fake beards and burning things and walking with great purpose and satisfaction to the getaway. A tidy little piece of entertainment . . .
. . . which they had to spoil, in the movie, by making Jim Phelps a traitor. I’m sure that made the screenwriters feel . . .
Virtuous, to use an odd word. But wrecking an icon, showing that the heroes were villains, is a form of virtue for some, if it keeps us from believing in the false icons The Man wants us to worship. You know, like, er, Jim Phelps, that fascist. Some icons are permitted if they are idiosyncratic and compassionate, which is why Kojak could shoot dozens of guys: he liked lollipops and said “who loves ya baby” and could be considered a Righteous Dude who was essentially Down With It, sort of a Greek Shaft.
The difference between hip and cool? Can’t give you an example of hip; nothing comes to mind. But cool? Yes:
So RIP Peter Graves. He grew up in my neighborhood here in Minneapolis and went to the movie theater down the block, the one they changed into a video store in the 90s. You could rent “Airplane” there.
Later today: Comic Sins, and an incredible find in B&W World. Stay tuned.
Pass it along, if you wish
88 Responses to Tuesday, March 16
Host with the Most
Ooh, time to do the 6 degree thing again: The marijuana puffing computer programmer daddy in that episode was played by Jack Webb regular Tim Donnelly (fireman Kelly). Tim Donnelly was in the MST3K victim “Clonus Horror” which included in the cast MST3K regular Peter Graves.
To get really annoying, Peter Graves was Price in “Stalag 17″ directed by Billy Wilder who also directed Sunset Blvd which included Jack Webb in the cast.
“it wasn’t until a chatty hotel clerk in Slovenia told me the reason she was inputting my data into the computer was, the computer forwarded them right away to the police. Their software was a little odd, though”
_@_v – i bet they were still using SCMODS
I too dislike hip, but like cool….
http://unhappyhipsters.com/
http://www.latfh.com/
Wow. My two fave 1980 movies in the same thread.
Let’s go for the trifecta. Come down and see the, uh, mile of cars we have on our lot.
@Peter: Hawaii 5-0 started in the ’60′s, and ran all the way to 1980. … Still LOVE the theme and “Kam Fong as Chin Ho” and “Zulu as Kono” references. Mission Impossible similarly started in the ’60′s and ran into the ’70′s, and even had a restart from 1988-1990 (different cast).
If I had to pick a cop show that best reflected each decade, I would pick:
Dragnet- 1960′s (even though it had a revival in the ’90′s- Al Bundy as Joe Friday just didn’t work)
Rockford Files- 1970′s- Chris- great catch.
Hill Street Blues- early 1980′s
Miami Vice- Late 1980′s
1990′s??? 2000′s ???
Bakersfield PD was the best cop show of the 90s.
Reno 911 reflects the 2000s pretty well.
This was just arrived in email from a colleague.
From Airplane! (1980). Urgent conversation in the cockpit between Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) and Capt. Oveur (Peter Graves).
Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?
Oveur: I can’t tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I’m a doctor.
Oveur: No. I mean I’m just not sure.
Rumack: Well, can’t you take a guess?
Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.
Rumack: You can’t take a guess for another two hours?
Movies make such wonderful epitaphs. Thirty years later and that still puts me in stitches.
We should not forget “77″ Sunset Strip I think it’s the one that started them all
Larry and Browniejr give the impression TV started in 1960. There were plenty of good detective shows in the 1950′s, pre 77 Sunset Strip.
Two of the most notable – Peter Gunn and M Squad (with Lee Marvin). And just for the record, I’ll take those two TV themes ahead of any of the ones you have mentioned. You tube ‘em.
“Jack! Jack! Hi! Jack!”
and off between two cops to the clubbing room.
This is the first time I’ve heard these themes since they were coming out of my parent’s console TV. Except in Kill Bill of course, but I didn’t know what it was at the time.
Other dribble no one cares about- “Cannon” was also “Matt Dillon” on the radio version of “Gunsmoke”- yeah, picture that image on TV. Also, Mike Connors went by the name “Trip” in several movies- this was because his real last name was Overtherug (giggle, giggle).
“Also, Mike Connors went by the name “Trip” in several movies-”
Touch, not Trip – he got that nickname for his high school basketball prowess.
And don’t forget Peter Graves’ return to the revived MI series filmed in Australia and brought about as a way to get around a Hollywood writers’ strike by reusing old scripts.
I too loved “Mission: Impossible” because of Barney and his Magic Happeners (engineer as hero) and Jim Phelps’s cool under pressure. HATED HATED HATED the stupid movie, did my best to forget it.
There is a recent commercial (for a product that I can’t recall & if my daughter were here, she’d name it instantly) where the girl says, “It’s totally cool… and hip!”
Would James have a love/hate relationship with whatever they were selling?
Does “total coolness” quench the fires of hip hate?
Amazing Fun Fact: the Mission: Impossible theme was written as a throwaway chase scene music cue for the pilot, but Bruce Geller liked it so much he switched it around with the music written for the titles.
This Bleat will self-destruct in five seconds.
@Cory: The problem is I started in 1961… I love the Peter Gunn theme, but have never seen any episodes. M Squad I will have to check out. The old radio shows are great on XM/ Sirius, and I have discovered many a great episode there. The problem is TV channels like “TVLand” don’t really play that many pre-1960′s shows anymore, treating ’80′s shows like “Tool Time” and “Married with Children” as “vintage” TV. I think they are missing something.
The truly unforgivable sin committed against “Mission: Impossible” by the Tom Cruise franchise was not the traitorous reveal of Jim Phelps, as horrible as that was.
No, it was the rewriting of Lalo Schifrin’s wonderful theme in 4/4 from the original 5/4 time signature. Oh sure, they give you the opening few bars in five to tease you in, and then it drops into a boring square time phrasing.
Ack.
I always got a chuckle out of that too… until I realized it was really no different from “Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett,” or “James MacArthur as Danny Williams.”
Those crazy white Europeans and their funny names!
The Hawaii Five-O title sequence is still the greatest travel commercial ever made.
Besides the great tv themes already mentioned, I was very fond of the themes from “I Love Lucy”, “The Munsters”, “The Addams Family” and the perky little theme from “I Dream fo Genie”.
Stupid fact: John Williams wrote the music to theme from ‘Gilligan’s Isle’. Fortunately, he’s more than made up for that.
Bob
A few stupid facts related to this thread/ commentary:
“Johnny Williams” also wrote the theme to “Lost in Space” (I like it… Gilligan’s Island- not so much.)
They did a remake/ new pilot of Hawaii 5-0 in 1997 with the character of Chin Ho (played by Kam Fong (Chun)), even though the Chin Ho character was killed off in the series’ 10th season…
I know I’m mostly repeating others’ sentiments here, but below are my picks for TV’s great musical themes (1960s vintage):
I Spy
T.H.E. Cat (A short-lived show, starring Robert Loggia)
Mission: Impossible
Hawaii Five-O
Mannix
Here’s the “T.H.E. Cat” opener. Not quite as cool as I thought it was back in 1967, but still pretty jazzy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbH1_48IrjA
I have all the I Spys on DVD, working my way slowly through them, and I rock out to the theme song every time, to everybody else’s embarrassment.
grs,
The “I Spy” opening graphics were pretty cool, too. Or so I recall.
I’m a little surprised my favorite 70s cop show hasn’t been mentioned yet. It may be the lack of a great theme song. Columbo. This is one show that has aged remarkably well.
Just one more thing…. A Trek connection for you. Mission: Impossible stared Greg Morris, who was the father of Phil Morris (who played Barney’s son in the 1980s MI spin-off) and Iona Morris. Iona was in an episode of Voyager. Phil was in Star Trek III, a couple of episodes of DS9 and one of Voyager. BOTH children were in the TOS episode “Miri”… from which our host got the word “grup.” It’s a small, nerdy world, isn’t it?
Oh, and in memory of Peter Graves I watched the MST3K episode “It Conquered the World,” in which we learn almost too late that man is a feeling creature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXUqOaxUDLQ
Can’t say that I was ever a fan of Cannon or Mannix. But I yield to no one, not even our host, in my appreciation for Burgess, Hugh, Tony, and Doug in “Search”.
Never picked up on the Arness / Graves connection, even when I was listening to “The Wall” 3 decades ago and wondering why someone on the TV in the background during “Is There Anybody Out There?” would be calling Jim Phelps “Marshal”.
When things are getting a bit – interesting – when working on a difficult project around the house (or office, or wherever), I find myself whistling one of the incidental music themes form “Mission: Impossible” – ya know, the one they’d typically play when they’d be skulking about in some Eastern Bloc wald. Can’t really describe it (I’m musically illiterate (innoterate?)), but it’s the one with the strings & snare drum. Helps me think that the scriptwriters are on my side and will let me wrap things up nicely in a few minutes (plus commercial breaks).
I think it fitting that Peter Graves should have the last word:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXUqOaxUDLQ
I was going to mention that, writing about Peter Graves, you used a version of the M:I opening credits from the season before Peter Graves joined the show, back when Stephen Hill was the one who listened to the self-destructing tape and flipped through the dossiers to put together the team for the job, and briefed the team — and then was not seen again in that episode. But ajtooley beat me to it.
So then I was going to say that Stephen Hill later played the great District Attorney Adam Schiff on Law and Order, but bgbear beat me to it. (“Good work. Take the rest of the week off.” “Adam, it’s Friday afternoon.” “Eh, so it is.”)
But, I do have some comments not previously commented.
The version of the Ironside theme you used is the later, jazzier one. The one I don’t like. Here is what I think of as the Ironside theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNS0u6USBT8
Bridey’s remark about the Dragnet episode where the pothead couple lets their little boy drown in the bathtub caused me to say this out loud: “Where’s little Robby? Where’s little Robby?” (Which is the remark by the father [played by the guy who was Gage and deSoto's main firehouse foil on "Emergency"] to Joe Friday as he came to realize something was wrong.)
Regarding John and his Slovakian hotel, I seem to recall reading that it used to be common for the police in US cities to visit hotels daily and see who had checked in, to see if there were any mopes, mooks, yeggs, or lamsters they needed to talk to.
Thank you Mark E Hurley for the Firesign reference. A Firesign reference is always appropriate.
While I really like the Banacek theme, I think my favorite 70s cop show theme might be the first version of the “Harry O” theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o5-7bAEtWQ . “Harry O” was a great show, too soon cancelled — and they kept re-orchestrating the theme, for the worse. And may I add, David Janssen was a fine actor, too soon dead.
Mannix was a 60s cop show, and has my second favorite 60s cop show theme. Remember how the first season Mannix worked for a big computerized private investigation agency run by Joseph Campanella, and the credits showed lots of spinning tape reels and punch cards running through a card sorter? Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF_49tWPNWA That was before Mannix struck out on his own as a lone wolf PI and had to hire Gail Fisher as Peggy to run the office.
My favorite 60s cop show theme, and maybe all-time favorite, which no one has yet mentioned, is the one for David Susskind’s “N.Y.P.D..” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERAfdei0Si4 (I cannot find just the opening credits, so you can forward to 2:00 if you want to skip guest star Al Pacino. And unfortunately, the audio and video are a little out of sync in that clip.) I still have an aging Scotch C-30 cassette with that theme on it, complete with the 60 Hz hum of the 3-inch Zenith speaker. (“Police Squad” stole the “NYPD” visual and the “M Squad” music.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd85Qim_Z6A Perhaps one of the best 60s/70s cop show themes.
James,
Why post a tribute MI opening with Graves instead of Stephen Elliot?
I had forgotten that Graves played the traitor, but as a kid, I vividly remember him being thrown out of the barracks and shot by the German guards.
And the Dragnet with the baby drowned in the bathtub still haunts me. Remember the episode when they came upon the murder scene, and the dying man’s declaration was “oft”? They figured out he meant “loft,” looked there, and found the body of the guy who killed the vic.
(And let’s not get started on “The House on Green Apple Road,” in which William Windom (WILLIAM WINDOM) got carved up in the kitchen and left blood everywhere. And that was an “ABC Movie of the Week”!
Loved the title sequence from “Mission: Impossible.”
The fact that that ep starred Steven Hill and not Peter Graves? Not so much. Ah, well. The man did have a sense of humor and would’a found it… wisible.
Fury – The Story Of A Horse – And The Boy Who Loved Him
Loved you, Peter Graves, much more than that little wimp ‘Bobby Diamond’ – and then there was ‘Packy’…
My goodness. People talked about Quinn Martin productions, and M Squad, and about Airplane!, but not about the series connected to all of these:
“Police Squad! IN COLOR! Starring: Leslie Nielson! Also starring: Alan North! Tonight’s special guest star: William Shatner! And Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln!”
Wow! Thanks for posting the videos. Amazing the memories those bring back!