1960s – Page 31 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Star Trek – Dagger Of The Mind

★★★★1/2 November 3, 1966 Season 1 Episode 9

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by Shimon Wincelberg and Gene Roddenberry

This episode is excellent. Morgan Woodward played Dr. Simon van Gelder and did a superb job. He stated that the part of Van Gelder was perhaps the most physically and emotionally exhausting role he played…and it affected him for weeks. James Gregory as Dr. Tristan Adams turned in a nice performance as the sadistic doctor that has been corrupted by his power over the patients. James Gregory had a long successful career. He played on Barney Miller and many other shows.

Marianna Hill as Helen Noel did a great job as well but I felt she was underutilized in the row. She played a psychologist who knew Kirk in the past and helps save him in this episode. Her character is independent, strong, and viral. She holds her own throughout the episode and displays a strong female, not usually common, for 1960s television.

This episode also shows Spock doing the first mind meld in the series with a distraught Dr. Simon van Gelder. Provocative, intriguing, and intelligent, with some good tension with some great acting, makes this one a must. This episode is a pure human drama that explores the consequences of not only experimentation on humans but also of the need for past experiences to define us.

From IMDB

In several interviews, Morgan Woodward noted that his work on the episode greatly affected him on both a personal and professional level. Woodward felt the part of Van Gelder was perhaps the most physically and emotionally exhausting role he played. He also stated his experience in playing the part resulted in his being in a largely anti-social state of mind for a few weeks following. However, Woodward, who would later play Captain Tracey in Star Trek: The Omega Glory (1968), credits his work on Star Trek in helping him to finally break away from his being typecast in Western roles.

James Doohan and George Takei do not appear in this episode. Scotty appeared in the original script, operating the transporter in the first scene, when Van Gelder is beamed aboard. His appearance was nixed by Robert H. Justman, who saw this as a way of saving costs by eliminating Doohan, who would have been paid $890 for the episode, and replacing him with a random performer (Anthony Larry Paul, playing Lieutenant Berkeley), hired for a much lower salary.

A shipping label produced for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) shows that a (now elderly) Dr. Van Gelder is still in charge of the Tantalus Penal Colony in the 2370s. TBF More likely to be the son or even grandson of the original Dr. Van Gelder given he would have to be at least 153 years old by the time of DS9.

This episode marks the first appearance of the Vulcan mind meld. The final shooting draft of this script had Spock placing his hands on Van Gelder’s abdomen while performing the mind meld. According to The Making of Star Trek, the mind meld was developed as an alternative to the scripts use of hypnosis to stabilize Van Gelder. They did not want to inaccurately depict hypnosis as a medical technique. Nor did they want to shoehorn into the script a pretext that Spock was qualified to act as a hypnotist in a medical capacity. Lastly, they did not want to risk accidentally hypnotizing viewers at home.

During filming of this episode, William Shatner was pulled away from the sound stage and rushed to a recording studio where, in 2 takes, he recorded the famous “Where No Man Has Gone Before” monologue, which had been re-written several times by different writers (mostly John D.F. Black). He read the first take flawlessly, but associate producer Robert H. Justman felt it should have a subtle echo, so he had the sound engineer create it for the second take. Since most of the effects sequences of the Enterprise were late and not yet been completed for the series debut, the opening credits were hurriedly assembled from existing shots from Star Trek: The Cage (1966) and Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966).

Summary

After a psychologically disturbed patient from the Tantalus penal colony, Dr. Simon Van Gelder manages to escape to the Enterprise, Dr. McCoy begins to suspect that something is amiss on the colony. Captain Kirk and Dr. Helen Noel beam down to the planet to investigate.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
James Gregory … Dr. Tristan Adams
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Morgan Woodward … Dr. Simon van Gelder
Marianna Hill … Helen Noel
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Susanne Wasson … Lethe
John Arndt … First Crewman
Ed McCready … Inmate
Eli Behar … Therapist
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Walt Davis … Tantalus (uncredited)
Louie Elias … Inmate Guard (uncredited)
Ron Kinwald … Tantalus Inmate (uncredited)
John Hugh McKnight John Hugh McKnight … Inmate Guard (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Anthony Larry Paul … Crewman (uncredited)

Kinks – Till The End Of The Day

Growing up I had a greatest hits album by the Kinks and this song was on it. Later, I would buy Give The People What I Want, Low Budget, and their 80s albums. It was later when I got The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society and I started to listen to more of their 60s music that wasn’t just the big hits… but was just as good or in some cases better. I also know the song through Big Star as they covered it on their album Third/Sister Lovers. Ace Frehley also covered the song.

By 1966 The Kinks were in a touring, recording, and promotion cycle that put enormous strain on the band. Ray Davies was married and had a child and was still counted on writing more songs. Ray was growing as a songwriter. Their career started with You Really Got Me and as they went along…the sophistication of the songs grew with Davies’s songwriting ability.

This single was one of the last early harder-rocking songs. What came after this was introspective pop songs like Waterloo Sunset and Dedicated Follower of Fashion. I like the jarring guitar intro plus Mick Avory’s drums. Nicky Hopkins, the supersession piano player, played on this track. The harmonies by Dave Davies and Peter Quaife elevate this song also.

The song peaked at #8 in the UK, #34 in Canada, and #50 on the Billboard 100 in 1966. For me, it ranks high on my list of early Kinks songs.

Ray Davies: “That song was about freedom, in the sense that someone’s been a slave or locked up in prison. It’s a song about escaping something. I didn’t know it was about my state of mind.”

Ray Davies: “I remember how ‘Till the End of the Day’ came about. I had a bit of writer’s block, and my managers were getting worried because I hadn’t produced anything in almost a month. They sent Mort Shuman around to my house, one of my hit-writing heroes. He wrote ‘Save the Last Dance For Me” with Doc Pomus. This mad, druggy New Yorker came ’round to my little semi-detached house in London. He said, ‘I’m here to find out what you’re thinking about. I’m not interested in what you have written; I’m interested in what you’re gonna write.’ He was completely paid off by my managers to say it. I thought it was ridiculous that there was so much importance put on it. If I don’t want to write for a month, I won’t. To say the least, I was pressured into doing it. Then I went off to stay with my sister and bought a new toy, a little upright piano, and wrote ‘Till The End Of The Day.”

Till The End Of The Day

Baby, I feel good
From the moment I arise
Feel good from morning
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Yeah, you and me
We live this life
From when we get up
Till we go sleep at night
You and me were free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Yeah, I get up
And I see the sun up
And I feel good, yeah
Cause my life has begun
You and me were free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
You and me were free
We do as we please, yeah
From morning, till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day
Till the end of the day

Star Trek – Miri

★★★★★ October 27, 1966 Season 1 Episode 8

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

***Dave at A Sound Day has given me the honor to host his site today…check it out if you can***

This show was written by Adrian Spies and Gene Roddenberry

This is a wonderful episode of Star Trek. Miri is a name of a girl played by Kim Darby and she is brilliant in that role. I’m reminded of Lord of the Flies with a dash of a dark Peter Pan while watching this episode. A planet that is a replica of earth that has a disease that affects kids as soon as they start puberty. They start the symptoms with sores and then go berserk and die shortly thereafter.

The problem started with the earlier people on the planet experimenting with trying to prolong life. They ended up creating a serious virus (hmmm been there done that). The catch is the kids do have prolonged lives and are hundreds of years old before they reach puberty but they still have the maturity of children. The crew get there and because of their age start contracting the disease.

Bones and Spock are trying to come up with the vaccine while the children steal the communicators of the crew. Miri is a young woman about to hit puberty and is showing signs of the disease. She is not trusting of the Enterprise crew at first but then warms up to Captain Kirk and develops a crush on him. She is also jealous of Yeoman Janis Rand because of her close relationship with Kirk. She wants to help the captain and crew, to find a cure but she is scared and jealous. Can Kirk find the rest of the kids to get their help along with Miri?

This is one of my favorite episodes

From IMDB

Leonard Nimoy was asked to allow his children to appear as extras but Nimoy refused to let his children be involved in show business. His son, Adam Nimoy, did grow up to become a television director, including a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

The first of several “parallel Earth” plots in the series, contrived to save money by avoiding the necessity for “alien” sets, costumes, and makeup.

The outdoor scenes of this episode were filmed on the same back lot streets that also were used to create Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show (1960), except that the streets were piled with debris and dirt to create the appearance that the town was in ruins. Several building exteriors familiar from Mayberry can be seen in those exterior shots, including the courthouse, Walker’s Drugstore, the Grand movie theater, Floyd’s barber shop, and the Mayberry Hotel.

John Decker and Scott Dweck are Grace Lee Whitney’s sons. As an adult, Scott would return in a feature film appearance as a Vulcan members of the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

Leonard Nimoy and Grace Lee Whitney both named this as one of their favorite episodes of the show. William Shatner was more critical, however, feeling that the story dragged and that the initial hook of “another Earth” was interesting, but didn’t amount to anything.

This episode has a number of connections to The Andy Griffith Show (1960). The outdoor scenes are shot on the streets of the set that stood in for the town of Mayberry. Visible are the old courthouse, barber shop, feed and grain store, Walker’s Drugs, bank, grocery store, the Grand movie theater; and the building with the small porch into which the crew runs is the old Hotel Mayberry. Michael J. Pollard, who plays Jahn, the leader of the Onlies, played Barney Fife’s bumbling cousin in The Andy Griffith Show: Cousin Virgil (1962). And, when Kirk asks Spock to estimate in what time period the town seems to be, Spock responds with “1960,” the year that series debuted.

Summary

The Enterprise receives an old-style SOS signal and finds on arrival a planet that is virtually identical to Earth. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Yeoman Rand beam down to the planet only to find that it is inhabited solely by children. Kirk befriends one of the older children, Miri, but they soon learn that experiments to prolong life killed all of the adults and that the children will also die when they reach puberty. They also learn that the children are in fact, very old. Soon, the landing party contracts the virus and has seven days to find a cure.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Kim Darby … Miri
Michael J. Pollard … Jahn
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
Keith Taylor … Jahn’s Friend
Ed McCready … Boy Creature
Kellie Flanagan … Blonde Girl
Stephen McEveety … Redheaded Boy (as Steven McEveety)
David L. Ross … Security Guard #1 (as David Ross)
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
John Megna … Little Boy
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
John Arndt … Ingenieur Fields (uncredited)
Iona Morris … Little African American Girl (uncredited)
Phil Morris … Boy – Army Helmet (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Darleen Anita Roddenberry … Flowered Dress Girl (uncredited)
Dawn Roddenberry … Little Blonde Girl (uncredited)
Irene Sale … Louise (uncredited)
Leslie Carol Shatner … Brunette Girl (uncredited)
Elisabeth Shatner … Girl in Red-Striped Dress (uncredited)
Scott Whitney … Small Boy (uncredited)

Star Trek – What Are Little Girls Made Of?

★★★★1/2 October 20, 1966 Season 1 Episode 7

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Robert Bloch and Gene Roddenberry

This episode highlights Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel. Nurse Chapel and Kirk beam down to a planet to meet with Chapel’s old fiancee Dr. Roger Korby. What they find is extraordinary. Making copies of humans into Androids who gain their consciousness and live practically forever.

This episode has Ted Cassidy as Ruk. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was Lurch in the Addams family as well as the voice or growl of The Incredible Hulk over a decade later. He plays a survivor still running the machinery of the old civilization that died out long ago. He’s also quite protective of that and those that are on the planet.

Another guest star in this episode is Sherry Jackson who plays Andrea… who is an android. She was in many television shows from the 50s through the 90s. In this episode, she has an interesting relationship with Kirk.

Dr. Korby was so overcome with his obsession with eliminating the bad aspects of human nature, he didn’t consider the consequences of the good. He was trying to build the perfect human but stripping away everything that makes us humans. This is an excellent episode.

From IMDB

Sherry Jackson’s revealing costume never failed to get an enthusiastically appreciative response, whether it be stunning a noisy commissary into silence, when the actress showed it off there, or when it was displayed at a SF convention and the model for it found herself being approached by a large number of men, including Harlan Ellison, trying to secure a date from her.

The only TOS episode to prominently feature Nurse Christine Chapel, who was played by Majel Barrett. Also featured is Ted Cassidy, best known for playing Lurch on The Addams Family (1964) TV series. Barrett would later play Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)’s gag character Lwaxana Troi, whose valet Mr. Homm was played by Carel Struycken, who played Lurch in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993).

To test the effectiveness of Ted Cassidy’s Ruk costume and makeup, the producers arranged for Cassidy to receive a visiting clothes dealer while costumed as Ruk. Sure enough, the salesman, who thought he was calling on Gene Roddenberry, was so frightened at Cassidy’s intimidating character, he was barely coherent even as he attempted to do his pitch. However, the salesman eventually recovered, and Roddenberry ended up purchasing some pants from him.

William Shatner kisses Sherry Jackson so hard that when they pull apart you can see that her lips are swollen a little, and that most of her lipstick is gone and all over his lips. Also, when he holds her in his arms and pulls her in close to kiss her, he squeezes her arms so tight when kissing, that he leaves his fingerprints there. In 1998, the Sci-Fi Channel aired all the original episodes in their complete, non-syndicated format, with added interviews from some of the series stars, guest stars and production people. It was called “Star Trek Insights”. Jackson said in her interview, “I must say when he kissed me on screen, he really kissed me!”

Ruk is Ted Cassidy’s only appearing role in Star Trek. He provided voice overs in Star Trek: The Corbomite Maneuver (1966) and Star Trek: Arena (1967). Ironically, in a few scenes of this one, his own voice is dubbed over by other actors to show Ruk’s mimicking abilities.

Summary

The crew of the Enterprise arrives at the planet EXO-III with some trepidation and great anticipation. They are there to see if they can locate the renowned scientist Dr. Roger Korby. The man hasn’t been heard from for 5 years and the general belief is that he is dead. For Nurse Christine Chapel, however, a reunion with Corby will be a reunion with her fiancé. They find Korby alive but when Kirk and Chapel beam down to the planet, they find a man obsessed who is using alien technology to reproduce the humans around him in the form of androids.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Michael Strong … Dr. Roger Korby
Sherry Jackson … Andrea
Ted Cassidy … Ruk
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Harry Basch … Brown
Vince Deadrick Sr. … Mathews (as Vince Deadrick)
Budd Albright … Rayburn
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – Mudd’s Women

★★★1/2 October 13, 1966 Season 1 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by Stephen Kandel and Gene Roddenberry

Harry Mudd in today’s time would be a crooked car salesman and a good old con man. This is the first appearance of Harry Mudd, a con artist whose cargo is three lovely ladies. He would reappear on another episode called I, Mudd. Roger Carmel played this role over the top and it worked for this character. Harry Mudd attempted to evade the Enterprise, driving his inferior ship into a dangerous asteroid belt, narrowly escaping death thanks to Kirk’s persistence in transporting him on board instead of the alternative, sacrificing his own ship’s Lithium crystals which keep the power operative at effective levels.

Now the Enterprise needs more crystals to go on and they will go down to the last minute trying to get them or the Enterprise will crash out of orbit. The three ladies are looking for husbands and have the males in the Enterprise all in a flutter. There is something different about them that attracts the attention of the crew…more than just a beautiful female would do. There is a humorous conversation between Kirk and Bones about why they are so attracted to them with an amused Spock listening to them.

It is revealed why later on in the episode. It’s a good episode but not one of the great ones to me. There is a message from one of the ladies named Eve in the end. Asking a would-be husband if he just basically wanted a trophy wife or someone who would work with him. If you like Harry Mudd…no worries…he will return in another episode.

Good episode

From IMDB

The velour uniforms used in this episode had shrunk since they were first used in Star Trek: The Corbomite Maneuver (1966). According to Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow’s book “Inside Star Trek: The Real Story”, the velour uniforms shrank every time they were cleaned. The actors’ union requirements specified that the costumes had to be cleaned daily.

NBC program manager Jerry Stanley recalled that “One of the problems we had was in trying to talk Gene Roddenberry out of some of his sexual fantasies that would come to life in the scripts. Some of the scenes he would describe were totally unacceptable”. William Shatner noted “that NBC allowed ‘Mudd’s Women’ to be produced at all is still a minor miracle”.

During the very early pre-production days of “Star Trek – The Next Generation” (1987-1994), Gene Roddenberry proposed to have Roger C. Carmel return and make a guest appearance, possibly as Harry Mudd, in order to provide an extra link with the original series. However, nothing came of this as Carmel died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 54, several months before the pilot show was filmed.

Production went a day over schedule due to the intricate camera setups used by director Harvey Hart, which had good results but were too time-consuming. Hart also made things difficult for the editors by “camera cutting” the show, leaving few choices of shot available. Due to these factors, Hart was not invited back to the show.

One of the more memorable bloopers in the series occurred while filming the scene where the women take the “Venus drug.” As Maggie Thrett’s (Ruth) reaction shot was being filmed, her right breast popped out of her scanty green costume. A shot of her stuffing it back in with an embarrassed smile appeared in the first season’s blooper reel.

Summary

After stopping a vessel in space, Kirk and the crew find a very odd captain with a very strange cargo. The captain of the vessel is Harcourt Fenton Mudd – known as Harry to his friends – and the cargo are three lovely women he is transporting as brides for lonely men on distant planets. Kirk has a major problem: while trying to rescue Mudd and his women from his disintegrating ship, the Enterprise’s lithium crystals used to power the engines were destroyed. They travel to a nearby mining colony where Mudd sets about to arrange marriages for the women, interfering with Kirk’s plan to buy the crystals. All the time, the ship’s orbit is deteriorating and risks burning up in the atmosphere.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Roger C. Carmel … Harry Mudd
Karen Steele … Eve McHuron
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Maggie Thrett … Ruth
Susan Denberg … Magda
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Gene Dynarski … Ben
Jon Kowal … Herm
Seamon Glass … Benton
Jerry Foxworth … Guard
Majel Barrett … Enterprise Computer (voice) (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Vinci (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Connors (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Starfleet Officer (uncredited)

Aretha Franklin – Baby I Love You

This is my personal favorite song of Aretha Franklin…and she has a boatload of great songs to pick from. She could bring soul to You Light Up My Life and THAT is saying something. I’ve said this a lot but Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin are my top female singers.

This Aretha Franklin song was released in 1967 and it was on the Aretha Arrives album. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, and #39 in the UK in 1967. Her sisters Carolyn and Erma provided backing vocals along with the Sweet Inspirations, an R&B girl group founded by Cissy Houston. Musicians who were featured on the track included engineer Tom Dowd and Muscle Shoals players Jimmy Johnson and Joe South on guitars, Tommy Cogbill on bass, Spooner Oldham on electric piano, and Roger Hawkins on drums. Truman Thomas also played the organ.

Franklin recorded this with Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler in New York City during the same session as Chain Of Fools. The song was written by Ronnie Shannon, who was also responsible for another hit for Aretha with I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You).

The horns are on point and perfect in this song. The music and vocal backups make a perfect backdrop for Aretha’s explosive voice. She never sounded like she was singing by a formula…each song is marked by her individuality. We lost her great voice and soul on August 16, 2018.

This woman could sing the phonebook and I would listen. This is one of many songs I like from her… She has sold over 75 million records in her career. This is the first song I remember hearing from her.

Aretha Franklin: “Those sessions were a lot of fun, and there was a lot of good food coming in and out of the studio. Lots of burgers, fries, and milkshakes. In between takes, we would sit and chat, with whoever was producing, Jerry or Arif. They’d be enjoying those burgers so much I couldn’t wait until mine came!”

Baby, I Love You

If you want my lovin’If you really doDon’t be afraid, babyJust ask meYa know I’m gonna give it to you

Oh, and I do declare (I do)I wanna see you with itStretch out your arms, little boyYou’re gonna get it‘Cause I love you, oh(Baby, baby, baby, I love you)There ain’t no doubt about itBaby, I love you(Baby, baby, baby, I love you)I love you, I love you, I love youI love you, baby I love you

If you feel you wanna kiss meGo right ahead I don’t mindAll you got to do is snap your fingersAnd I’ll come a runnin, I ain’t lyin’(I ain’t lyin’)And oh what you wantLittle boy you know you got itI’d deny my own selfBefore I see you without it‘Cause I love you(Baby, baby, baby I love you)Ain’t no doubt about it baby I love you(Baby, baby, baby I love you)I love you, I love you, I love youI love you, baby I love you

Someday ya might wanna run awayAnd leave me sittin’ here to cryBut if it’s all the same to ya babyI’m gonna stop you from sayin’ goodbye(Goodbye)Baby I love ya (baby, baby, I love ya)Baby I need ya (baby, baby I need ya)Said I want ya (baby baby I want ya)Getcha have ya baby (baby baby I love ya)Don’t let your neighbors tell ya I don’t want ya(Baby, baby I want ya)Don’t let your lowdown friends(Baby, baby I want ya)

Star Trek – The Enemy Within

★★★★ October 6, 1966 Season 1 Episode 5

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few… HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Richard Matheson and Gene Roddenberry

A problem with the transporters causes Captain Kirk to re-energize as two versions of himself.

Kirk is split in half. He is the Jekyll/Hyde character, except he becomes two actual people. One exhibited animalistic behavior and the other a compassionate indecisive person. The problem is that the two look exactly alike. It allows William Shatner to go over the top…he is good at that but in this case, it really fits. He sneers as the evil side while he wonders indecisively as the other half.

The evil Kirk attacked Yeoman Rand and it’s brutally realistic. Shatner and Whitney do an excellent job in this scene. The episode examines the good and bad in everyone. It makes us who we are…both the ugly and compassionate sides make the whole.

Compassionate Kirk is too easily swayed by arguments and is paralyzed by the weight of decisions on his shoulders. Animal Kirk is too blinded by his desires to make decisions and is terrorized by fear.

Spock had to tell Kirk that he won’t be able to continue to be Captain if he kept losing his decision-making abilities. While this was going on, Sulu and crew are stuck on a very cold planet and cannot come up until the transporter is repaired. Dividing Kirk into two emotional halves to examine man’s duality is ingenious because it reveals not only Kirk but a broader look into our own human nature.

Spock: If I seem insensitive to what you are going through Captain…understand…It’s the way I am.

From IMDB

The original script called for Spock to karate chop Kirk to subdue him. Leonard Nimoy felt that this would be an uncharacteristically violent act for a peace-loving species like the Vulcans so he came up with a pincer-like grasp on the neck that has since become known as the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and become one of the character’s most famous gimmicks…it was used in The Naked Time but although this was filmed first…The Naked Time was aired first.

This is one of the few times in Star Trek where it can be seen that the middle finger on actor James Doohan’s (Scotty’s) right hand is missing. Doohan lost the finger when it was struck by a bullet or shrapnel during the D-Day invasion in 1944. He took great pains to conceal its absence during the series, but his full right hand can be glimpsed briefly when he reaches into the box holding the snarling alien dog.

According to Grace Lee Whitney, while shooting the scene when a distraught, tearful Janice Rand accuses Captain Kirk of trying to rape her, William Shatner slapped her across the face to get her to register the proper emotion. As they shot the attempted rape scene days earlier, Whitney couldn’t get into the same emotion successfully, and it was Shatner’s “solution” to the problem.

The only Star Trek program written by Richard Matheson, a fantasy-horror legend who wrote two previous William Shatner vehicles: The Twilight Zone: Nick of Time (1960) and The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963).

Summary

While beaming back aboard the Enterprise, a transporter malfunction results in two vastly different Captain Kirks being beamed aboard. His personality has in effect been split into two. One Captain Kirk is weak and indecisive, fearful of making any kind of decision; the other is a mean-spirited and violent man who likes to swill brandy and force himself on female crew members. Meanwhile, as Scotty struggles to repair the transporter, the landing party is stuck on the planet below with temperatures falling rapidly.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Ed Madden … Fisher (as Edward Madden)
Garland Thompson … Wilson
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (voice) (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Connors (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Naked Time

★★★★ September 29, 1966 Season 1 Episode 4

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by John D.F. Black and Gene Roddenberry

This episode is probably best known as the one with Sulu, stripped to the waist, running around the ship’s corridors with a sword. But, it’s this episode where we learn a lot of interesting things about the main characters. After visiting the surface of a planet where many people had died in odd ways, one by one the Enterprise Crew starts acting with no inhibitions. You learn some of the inner secrets of the crewman as they get sick which is much like them getting drunk.

Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel makes her first appearance in Star Trek since the pilot when she played Number One. She starts professing her love for Spock who is shaken because the disease is affecting him as well and he is losing control of his emotions. We also learn in this episode that Spock is half-human… his mom is human and his dad is Vulcan.

Bruce Hyde who plays Riley is the comic relief in this one. He catches the disease and locks himself up and shuts the engines down while drunkenly serenading the Enterprise for a good part of the episode. They are in orbit and are about to crash unless they find a way to start the engines long before the 30 minutes required to do so.

This is also the first episode Spock did the famous Vulcan Nerve Pinch. The main reason for the 4 stars is because of the way we get to know these characters.

From IMDB

After the scene where Spock is weeping, Leonard Nimoy’s fan mail increased exponentially. Viewers were enthralled with the idea that Spock was secretly a reservoir of love and passion instead of an empty emotional void. This reaction inspired further scripts which explored Spock’s inner makeup.

The budget-strapped show often made good use of the creativity of its prop staff in coming up with low-cost solutions to otherwise pricey items. Here, the “thermal suits” worn by Spock and Tormolen on the planet’s surface were fashioned from 1960s art deco-style shower curtains.

This is the only TOS episode in which the three primary female crew members – Uhura, Chapel, and Rand – appeared together. The characters did not appear together again until Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

While under the influence of the virus, Nurse Chapel attempts to seduce Spock. This would be the first depiction of what many fans perceived as underlying romantic tensions between the characters, or at least Chapel’s unrequited romantic attraction to Spock.

Summary

When Lieutenant Junior Grade Tormolen brings aboard an infection that killed the science team on Psi 2000, the crew of the Enterprise soon find themselves unable to control their most predominant emotions. Soon the entire starship is in shambles and plummeting toward the self-destructing planet.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Stewart Moss … Tormolen
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel
Bruce Hyde … Riley
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
William Frederick Knight … Amorous Crewman (as William Knight)
John Bellah … Laughing Crewman
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Andrea Dromm … Yeoman Smith (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Ryan (uncredited)
Woody Talbert … Crewman #2 (uncredited)
Ron Veto Ron Veto … Crewman (uncredited)

Star Trek – Where No Man Has Gone Before

★★★★ September 22, 1966 Season 1 Episode 3

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Samuel A. Peeples and Gene Roddenberry

Absolute power corrupts. In an energy field Kirk’s friend Gary Mitchell is endowed with astonishing powers of ESP and telekinesis, Kirk and Spock grow alarmed as he starts to test his ability to take over the Enterprise. Spock urges Kirk to maroon Mitchell on Delta Vega, an uninhabited planet, or kill him. At first, Kirk is outraged at even the suggestion, but eventually accepts the cold logic of this solution as Spock warns him, “we’ll never reach another earth base with him on board.”

This episode probably should have been the debut of Star Trek…it was the second pilot filmed but this one was aired 3rd. It truly is bizarre that this story wasn’t used for the first broadcast episode on September 8, 1966, instead of The Man Trap. It worked out in the end but this would have been a stronger episode.

It was the first one filmed with Captain Kirk. Spock looks close to what he looked like on the pilot which no one saw at the time. In the other episodes, he looks like the Spock we have come to know. This episode has a different doctor (Paul Fix) than DeForrest Kelley.

It’s a strong episode with a very good storyline and acting. My favorite interaction was this between Kirk and Spock about what to do with Gary Mitchell. After telling Kirk his friend needs to be marooned on a planet before he destroys them all…this short snippet took place.

Kirk: Doctor Dehner feels he isn’t that dangerous. What makes you right and a trained psychiatrist wrong?
Spock: Because she feels. I don’t. All I know is logic. In my opinion, we’ll be lucky if we can repair this ship and get away in time.

That sums up Spock rather nicely.

Sally Kellerman was in this episode as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. Kellerman would go on to star in M*A*S*H the movie. Also, Gary Lockwood who played Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell would be in 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years later.

From IMDB

The change in Gary and Elizabeth’s eyes was accomplished by Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman wearing sparkly contact lenses. They consisted of tinfoil sandwiched between two lenses that covered the entire eye. Wearing the lenses was difficult for Lockwood. He could only see through the lenses by looking down while pointing his head up. Lockwood was able to use this look to convey Mitchell’s arrogant attitude.

The phaser rifle that Kirk uses appears for the first and only time in the series. However, it can be seen on many pre-season 1 promotional photos.

Leonard Nimoy is the only actor to appear in both this, the second pilot, and the original pilot episode Star Trek: The Cage (1966). That being so, and the fact that he is in all the rest of the episodes, makes him the only actor to appear in all 79 episodes of the series (80 for those who count “The Cage”).

The gap in time between filming this and the rest of the series explains some of the apparent inconsistencies, notably some changes in the Enterprise architecture, the fact that most of the female crew members wear trousers and Mr Spock’s distinctive yellowish skin tone.

The reason this episode wasn’t broadcast first, despite being a pilot, is that the network felt it was “too expository”, and would not have made a good premiere episode for the series.

This was filmed more than one year before it was aired on TV.

Summary

When the Enterprise attempts to penetrate a space barrier, it is damaged and creates a potentially worse problem. Two crew members, including Kirk’s best friend, gain psionic powers that are growing exponentially. This leaves Captain Kirk with the difficult choice; either maroon them or killing before they get so powerful they lose their humanity and become truly dangerous.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Sally Kellerman … Dr. Elizabeth Dehner
Gary Lockwood … Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Lloyd Haynes … Alden
Andrea Dromm … Yeoman Smith
Paul Carr Paul Carr … Lt. Lee Kelso
Paul Fix … Doctor Piper
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – Charlie X

★★★★ September 15, 1966 Season 1 Episode 2

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

***Sorry to interrupt Star Trek but I guest hosted UK #1’s Blog today…he has an incredible blog of all the number 1 hits in the UK from the beginning. Check his blog out today if you can!***

This show was written by D.C. Fontana(teleplay by) and Gene Roddenberry

There are parallels between Charlie X and the iconic Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good Life that aired 5 years before…when Billy Mumy’s character would wish people in the cornfield.

Charles Evans had very little contact with human life before coming on board the Enterprise and has to live amongst a community of 428 people. He is 17 years old, a time when teenagers have to find their way in the world and somehow fit into adult communities. This episode does a good job of portraying how awkward and difficult life can be in these situations. What complicates it further is the infatuation he develops for Yeoman Janice Rand, not to mention the uncontrolled psychic power he possesses.

Charlie is a 17-year-old with the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old…but with massive powers that no one knows about. You feel bad for Charlie as he has never had the opportunity to develop and learn around real people. He asked Kirk if Yeoman Janice Rand is a girl. Kirk tries to be a father figure to Charlie throughout the episode which included explaining why he shouldn’t slap Rand in the butt. Charlie comes off as obnoxious and whiny…so yes…a teenager but they find out quickly he is very dangerous.

The episode starts off humourous until Charlie is angered by the rejection of Rand and that is when the crew discovers his powers. Charlie is a character whom one could easily fear or hate, but in the end, one realizes that what he really needs is guidance. Imagine being 17 and having unlimited powers. Robert Walker Jr. who plays Charlie Evans did a great job of portraying Charlie.

From IMDB

True to his training as a Method actor, Robert Walker Jr. chose to remain in his dressing room and not interact with any members of the cast as this would help his characterization of a strange, aloof person.

In the original outline, Gene Roddenberry’s working titles were “The Day Charlie Became God” or “Charlie Is God”. These would almost certainly have been problematic to the network censors, so the title was changed to Charlie’s Law, then settled on Charlie X, as X denotes the unknown. However, the title “Charlie’s Law” was retained in the book-form tie-in, novelized by James Blish.

During the lounge scene, where Uhura sings a song about Charlie, Spock is seen smiling as he accompanies her on a harp-like instrument. This is one of the few times in the series that Spock smiles, while not under the influence of a substance or someone’s mind-control powers.

This episode was originally scheduled to air further into the season, as all action took place aboard the Enterprise and it was basically a teenage melodrama set in the space age, both of which NBC disliked. However, as it required no new outer space special effects shots (actually all Enterprise shots are recycled from the two pilots), its post-production took less time than other episodes, and it was chosen to be the second episode to air out of necessity, as other episodes were not ready for the deadline. The Antares was originally to be shown on screen, however, when the early airdate was commissioned, this was eliminated.

Summary

Charlie Evans was the sole survivor of a crash and he has been alone on a deserted planet for fourteen years. Making Charlie’s return to society more difficult is his mysterious godlike abilities. The space vessel Antares rescues Charlie from the forbidding surface of the planet Thasus, and then hurriedly hands him off to the Enterprise. Soon, mysterious happenings dog the boy, who cannot seem to learn certain vital lessons of adulthood. Finally, the humiliated teen reveals prodigious psionic powers that could even threaten the survival of the Federation. Who is Charlie, really, and where did he get these abilities?

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Robert Walker Jr. … Charlie Evans (as Robert Walker)
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Charles Stewart … Captain Ramart (as Charles J. Stewart)
Dallas Mitchell … Tom Nellis
Don Eitner … Navigator
Pat McNulty … Tina Lawton (as Patricia McNulty)
John Bellah … Crewman I
Garland Thompson … Crewman II
Abraham Sofaer … The Thasian
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Brent / Security Guard (uncredited)
Bob Herron … Sam (uncredited)
John Lindesmith … Helmsman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Gene Roddenberry … Enterprise Chef (voice) (uncredited)
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (voice) (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Security Guard (uncredited)
Laura Wood … Prematurely Aged Woman (uncredited)

Beatles – Here, There, And Everywhere

I was looking for a Beatles song to post about and I came across Hobo Moon Cartoons a while back and this new video was featured. Check the site out when you can.

What a beautiful song this is..I think it’s one of Paul’s and The Beatle’s best ballads. Paul has said before that the song was inspired by the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” off of their album Pet Sounds.

The way that John and Paul heard Pet Sounds for the first time is interesting. Beach Boy Bruce Johnston was in England in 1966 and he met a huge Beach Boy fan Keith Moon. Moon dragged him to every hip spot in London. To Johnston’s surprise and amazement…he took him to a hotel and invited John and Paul to come over and meet Johnston and listen to the Beach Boy’s new album that was about to be released. Bruce had no idea how connected the Who’s drummer was at the time. He had come to England to sightsee and maybe hype the album a little but did not expect to have an audience of John and Paul.

Keith at the time acted like he liked the album but at heart, he wanted the same old surf songs…he wasn’t expecting an art-pop album from the Beach Boys. John and Paul were knocked out by Pet Sounds and after hearing God Only Knows Paul came up with this melody and he and John finished it off. Paul said this song was around 80-20 his song. It was a full circle because Brian Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul when writing Pet Sounds.

Paul said that John praised his songwriting only once. He said “John says just as it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! He likes it!'”

The song was on arguably the Beatle’s best album Revolver. This song was somehow not released as a single. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, in Canada, and in The UK in 1966. During the 1987 CD releases, it peaked at #3 on the US Billboard Top Compact Disks Charts…seriously? I never heard of the US Billboard Top Compact Disks but that is also a chart.

Paul McCartney: “I wrote that by John’s pool one day, I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up…John might have helped with a few last words…But it’s very me, it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written…So I would credit me pretty much 80-20 on that one.”

John Lennon: “Here, There And Everywhere’ was Paul’s song completely, I believe – and one of my favorite songs of The Beatles.”

John Lennon: “There was a period when I thought I didn’t write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock’n’roll. But of course, when I think or some of my own songs – ‘In My Life,’ or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ – I was writing melody with the best of them.”

The Beatles released an animated video for this song in 2022. It was directed by Rok Predin.

Here, There, And Everywhere

To lead a better life
I need my love to be here

Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking
But she doesn’t know he’s there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I will be there
And everywhere
Here, there and everywhere

Star Trek – The Man Trap

★★★1/2 September 8, 1966 Season 1 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by George Clayton Johnson

This was the first episode aired although it was the 6th one filmed. NBC thought this one had more action than the other 5 that were ready to go. The world got its first look at the crew of the Enterprise…and they didn’t fail to deliver here. It’s not one of the top episodes by any means but it is a good solid episode.

In this episode, we get the first peek at an alien monster (Salt Vampire) and what a handsome man he is! He was a shapeshifting alien who is the only one left of his kind that needs salt to survive and loves the human variety of salt.

The show does serve as a good introduction to the main characters. William Shatner as Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock, DeForest Kelley as Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand, George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, and the beautiful Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. The main thing that is missing is the close friendship between Spock and Jim…of course since this was the 6th one made but the first to air…it hadn’t built up yet.

Dr. McCoy is the central character here for the most part, except when he’s being lectured by Captain Kirk for dropping the ball a few times. The characters are close to what they become but we will see growth from all of them coming up.

It’s interesting how they touch on real life with species that are on the brink of being extinct. Determining the creature’s right to continue existing, drawing parallels between the salt vampire and the now-extinct wild buffalo. Like the Twilight Zone…they manage to get a social comment across through science fiction. There will be more of that to come in the episodes.

As a debut, it is solid and good. I would say a little above average but they have better ones coming.

From IMDB Trivia

It was Gene Roddenberry’s idea to have the creature, in its illusory form, speak Swahili to Uhura. Kathy Fitzgibbon supplied him with the translation. In English, the illusory crewman says “How are you, friend. I think of you, beautiful lady. You should never know loneliness.”

Dr. McCoy’s handheld “medical scanners” were actually modified salt and pepper shakers purchased originally for use in “The Man Trap”, in which a character was seen using a salt shaker. They were of Scandinavian design, and on-screen was not recognizable as salt shakers; so a few generic salt shakers were borrowed from the studio commissary, and the “futuristic” looking shakers became McCoy’s medical instruments.

Summary

In the series premiere, the Enterprise visits planet M-113 where scientists Dr. Crater and his wife Nancy, an old girlfriend of Dr. McCoy, are studying the remains of an ancient civilization. When Enterprise crewmen begin turning up dead under mysterious circumstances, Kirk and Spock must unravel the clues to discover how, why, and who is responsible.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Jeanne Bal … Nancy Crater
Alfred Ryder … Prof. Robert Crater
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Bruce Watson … Green
Michael Zaslow … Darnell
Vince Howard … Crewman
Francine Pyne … Nancy III
Budd Albright … Barnhart (uncredited)
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
John Arndt … Crewman Sturgeon (uncredited)
Bob Baker … … Beauregard (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Brent (uncredited)
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Sandra Lee Gimpel … M-113 Creature (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Ryan (uncredited)
Anthony Larry Paul … Berkeley (uncredited)
Walter Soo Hoo … Crewman (uncredited)
Garrison True … Security Guard (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Cage

★★★★★ October 4, 1988 PILOT

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Gene Roddenberry

*** Before I start this review I want to tell everyone that I try not to give the ending away in any of these although they are over 50 years old…some people have not seen them. If you disagree with my stars (5 being excellent, 4 being very good, 3 being a good average show, 2 means below average, and 1 means downright bad)…please say something…change my mind. I usually get my summary from IMDB and add or subtract from them…there is no sense in reinventing the wheel***

I’m presenting Star Trek in order of air dates except for this one. It was only screened to NBC executives in 1965 and they are the last people to see it until October 4, 1988, when it was finally broadcast on television almost 20 years after Star Trek went off the air.

I love this pilot episode of Star Trek. A different cast almost completely except for Spock. He looks and acts a little different (see the smile) but still is Spock. One more cast member was recast. Actress Majel Barrett who played Number One was recast as Nurse Chapel in the TV series. She would go on to marry the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry. They would reuse much of the footage of the pilot for an excellent two-part episode called The Menagerie later on in season one.

Jeffrey Hunter was really good as Captain Pike but he didn’t want to commit to the series because he wanted to concentrate on movies. William Shatner has said in his book that the producers canned Hunter after his wife repeatedly stormed onto the set insisting on more flattering camera angles for her husband.

The original Star Trek pilot was rejected by NBC for being “too cerebral”, “too intellectual”, “too slow”, and with “not enough action”, so they commissioned a new pilot, which later became Where No Man Has Gone Before, starring a completely different captain… the one and only Captain James T. Kirk played by William Shatner.

What we learn from Captain Pike in this one is that he is questioning his life of being Captain of the Enterprise. He is tired of making life-and-death decisions for all of his crew. Of course, when he loses himself because of the Talosians, he snaps back and realizes that a quiet life is not for him. The real star to me was Susan Oliver as Vina. She was obviously beautiful and she did a great job acting in this part. You felt so bad for her when you see her true state.

This is an excellent show…NBC was wrong in its assessment of the show. I’m happy it turned out the way it did though because we would have never had the great original cast.

Summary

This is the pilot to the series that would star William Shatner. Only in this version, there is a different Captain, Christopher Pike, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew. Now it begins when the Enterprise receives what appears to be a distress message. But when they get to the planet where the message was sent from, they discover that the supposed survivors were nothing more than illusions created by the inhabitants of the planet, for the purpose of capturing a mate for the one genuine surviving human, and Captain Pike is the lucky winner. While Captain Pike tries to cope with the experiments and tests that the aliens are conducting on him, his crew tries to find a way to rescue him. But the aliens’ illusions are too powerful and deceptive (at first).

CAST

Jeffrey Hunter – Captain Christopher Pike
Leonard Nimoy – Mr. Spock
Majel Barrett – Number One
John Hoyt – Dr. Philip Boyce
Susan Oliver – Vina
Meg Wyllie – The Keeper
Peter Duryea – Lieutenant José Tyler
Laurel Goodwin – Yeoman J. M. Colt
Clegg Hoyt – Transporter Chief Pitcairn
Malachi Throne – The Keeper (voice)
Michael Dugan – The Kaylar
Georgia Schmidt – First Talosian
Robert C. Johnson – First Talosian (voice)
Serena Sande – Second Talosian
Jon Lormer – Dr. Theodore Haskins
Adam Roarke – C.P.O. Garrison
Leonard Mudie – Second Survivor
Anthony Jochim – Third Survivor
Ed Madden – Enterprise Geologist
Robert Phillips – Space Officer (Orion)
Joseph Mell – Earth Trader
Janos Prohaska – Anthropoid Ape / Humanoid Bird

Box Tops – Soul Deep

I had a Box Tops greatest hits and I wore this one out. The Box Tops had quite a few good singles. This one only peaked at #18 but I like the intro and the guitar in this one.

I’ve told this story at some point but it was a long time ago. A bizarre personal story…a one-in-a-million mistake…Back in the 90s, I tried calling a recommended musician (Gary something) to play in our band but dialed the wrong number and talked to another Gary. After a while after being confused…he told me I think you want another Gary. He said my name is Gary Talley. He was the guitar player for the Box Tops and we talked for a good 45 minutes.

He laughed and told me that I had at least reached a guitar player named Gary… but in Nashville, my odds were good getting one with any number. He was really cool and we talked about guitars, Alex Chilton, his touring, etc… He was giving guitar lessons at the time. He told me that other people have called him looking for Garry Tallent the bass player for Bruce Springsteen. I sure wish I had taken lessons just to meet him. Where ever you are now Gary…thanks for being a super guy to a young foolish person who dialed the wrong number. He seemed surprised when I started to tell him my favorite Box Tops songs because I was in my early 20s.

A song by the Box Tops and their teenage lead singer Alex Chilton. This song peaked at #18 in 1969 on the Billboard 100, #9 in Canada, and #22 on the UK charts. This has always been my favorite song by them. It was not as big as “The Letter” or “Cry Like a Baby” but it was their last top twenty hit.

A couple of years after this Alex Chilton would be playing in Big Star. His voice in this compared to Big Star doesn’t compute…the song was written by Wayne Carson-Thompson. He was a country musician, songwriter, and producer. Below is the Eddy Arnold version a year after The Box Tops.

Soul Deep

Darlin’ I don’t know much
I know I love you so much
A lot depends on your touch
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep

I worked myself to euphoria
Just to show I adore ya
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for ya
Cause my love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep

All I ever, ever hoped to be
Depends on your love for me
If you believe me, if you should leave me
I’d be nothing but a jilted male
I know darned well, I could tell, but

I don’t know much
I know I love you so much
A lot depends on your touch
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep

Impressions – It’s Alright

You got soul and everybody knows
That it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

I never get tired of this song and it never fails to put me in a good mood…just as “I Can See Clearly Now” does. It’s a great sixties soul/pop feel-good song. I’m a Curtis Mayfield fan from The Impressions to Superfly. A great songwriter and singer…and a pretty good guitar player.

The song was written by singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Curtis Mayfield. In 1963, the song peaked at #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100,#1 on the R&B Charts, and #1 in New Zealand… I looked for the Canadian charts but since it was before 1964 it was hard to find. My friend Dave did find that it at least reached #25 on the Chum Toronto chart in November of 1963.

The song started with a conversation between lead singer Curtis Mayfield, baritone Sam Gooden, and tenor Fred Cash between Nashville performances. The trio had recently teamed up with producer Johnny Pate and were excitedly talking about future possibilities for The Impressions when Fred Cash exclaimed that “it’s all right!” Mayfield ran with it after hearing that phrase.

This song was on their self-titled debut album released in 1963. It peaked at #43 on the Billboard Album Charts. They would have more successful albums but It’s Alright was their highest-peaking song on the Billboard 100.

Mayfield was getting ready to perform at Windgate Field in Brooklyn, N.Y. on August 13, 1990, when a gust of wind from a fast-moving storm sent a lighting rig tumbling down onto him, breaking his neck and paralyzing him from the neck down. He received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1995, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Impressions in 1991 and as a solo artist in 1999. He died at age 57 in 1999.

It’s Alright

Say it’s all right, it’s all right
Say it’s all right, it’s all right
It’s all right, have a good time
‘Cause it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

We’re gonna move it slow
When lights are low
When you move it slow, it sounds like more
And it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

Now listen to the beat
Kinda pat your feet
You’ve got soul and everybody knows
That it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

When you wake up early in the morning
Feelin’ sad like so many of us do
Hum a little soul, make life your goal
And surely something’s got to come to you

And say it’s all right
Say it’s all right
It’s all right, have a good time
‘Cause it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

Now everybody clap your hands
Give yourself a chance
You got soul and everybody knows
That it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

Someday I’ll find me a woman
Who will love and treat me real nice
Then my woe’s got to go
And my love, she will know
From morning, noon and night

And she’s got to say it’s alright
Say it’s all right
It’s all right, have a good time
‘Cause it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right

Everybody clap your hands
Now give yourselves a chance
You’ve got soul