Category: 1960s

Twilight Zone – Cavender Is Coming 

★★ May 18, 1962 Season 3 Episode 36

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is not a good episode. Cavender Is Coming has one redeeming quality…and her name is Carol Burnett. The episode borrows from It’s A Wonderful Lie and season one Twilight Zone episode Mr. Beavis in particular.  This episode was meant to serve as a pilot, the same as Mr. Beavis did…and like Mr. Beavis it didn’t make it as a series. The episode is more like a sitcom than a Twilight Zone and it is the only TZ with a laugh track.

As the guardian angel, Jesse White does the best he can but the problem is with the writing. Carol Burnett could ony do some much also. It is one of the lowest rated episodes on IMDB and in various polls. It’s not my my lowest rated episode…that is coming in the 4th season. It does have it’s funny parts but it doesn’t feel like a Twilight Zone.

In writing Cavender Is Coming, Serling used material from Burnett’s own life for certain sequences. At the beginning of the episode, Agnes is employed as an usherette. This was actually taken from one of Burnetts personal experiences.

The first day she went to work as an usherette, the manager ran through a list of silent signals. Three fingers slapped on the wrist meant take a thirty-minute break. Opening your mouth like a fish and pointing to it meant you were thirsty. And when the manager poked his finger into the center of his palm, that meant he wanted a girl to stand in the center of the lobby to direct the patrons to the available seating.

One of the girls worked up her own signal in reply to the bosss gestures. She poured a bag of buttered popcorn on his head and told him, That means I quit.

One good thing is the original laugh track has been removed in syndication.

Buck Houghton (Producer of the Twilight Zone) on the laugh track:  That was CBS’s idea, because they were in a pilot mood and they wanted to get a Jesse White thing going. I refused to go to the dubbing session with the canned laughter man there. I thought it was a dreadful idea.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Submitted for your approval, the case of one Miss Agnes Grep, put on Earth with two left feet, an overabundance of thumbs and a propensity for falling down manholes. In a moment she will be up to her jaw in miracles, wrought by apprentice angel Harmon Cavender, intent on winning his wings. And, though it’s a fact that both of them should have stayed in bed, they will tempt all the fates by moving into the cold, gray dawn of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Inept guardian angel Harmon Cavender is given a chance to finally earn his wings by helping an unconventional big city woman, the young, awkward Agnes Grep, who has just been fired. Cavender doesn’t ask her wishes, instead he puts her in posh clothes, provides her with a fortune, and moves her uptown to a fancy Park Avenue address

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A word to the wise now to any and all who might suddenly feel the presence of a cigar-smoking helpmate who takes bankbooks out of thin air. If you’re suddenly aware of any such celestial aids, it means that you’re under the beneficent care of one Harmon Cavender, guardian angel. And this message from the Twilight Zone: Lotsa luck!

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Jesse White … Harmon Cavender
Carol Burnett … Agnes Grep
Howard Smith … Polk
Frank Behrens … Stout
Roy N. Sickner … Bus Driver
Sandra Gould … Woman
Donna Douglas … Woman #1
Adrienne Marden … Woman #2
Maurice Dallimore … Man

Beatles – Dig A Pony

No, this is not the strongest song in the Beatles catalog or even the strongest on the Let It Be album but…I love that guitar riff! That riff is one of the most unorthodox riffs I’ve heard. Only the mind of John Lennon could have come up with that part. The same man that brought us the riffs of Daytripper and And Your Bird Can Sing.

The part that hooked me as a kid was the guitar riff as I’ve said and the I, I, I, I Iyeeeeeeeee that starts it out. The other strong part of the song is the chorus “All I Want Is You!” “Everything has got to be just like you want it to!” and right after that the riff comes in again. I also like John’s raw vocals in this one. Also…it’s hard not to like “I roll a stoney. “The orginal title was All I Want Is You.

John Lennon would often string words together to create nonsensical phrases for his lyrics. When asked about this song he said it refers to no specific person and the lyrics are “nonsense,” a lyrical technique he also attributes to Bob Dylan songs. John said he made it up as he went along.

The lyrics were brought up in the movie “Imagine” released in 1988.

This part below was in the Imagine movie.

In a clip after the Beatles broke up, a young man…obviousy on hard times ended up in John’s garden. The fellow’s name was Curt Claudio. He looked a bit lost and scarred. He latched onto John Lennon and his music, believing that he had some sort of connection to John and he traveled to England to find out if he really did. He was found sleeping on the grounds of Tittenhurst Park, John and Yoko’s home in Ascot. Claudio thought John was speaking to him through his songs. He mentions lyrics to Dig a Pony.

John took the time to go out and talk to Curt and very kindly told him that he was just a guy too, and that while Curt thought that John’s songs were written with Curt in mind, they were really just written from personal, everyday experiences. He then invited him in the house for something to eat.

Video below

Dig A Pony

I dig a pony
Well, you can celebrate anything you want
Yes, you can celebrate anything you want
Oh

I do a road hog
Well, you can penetrate any place you go
Yes, you can penetrate any place you go
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because

I pick a moon dog
Well, you can radiate everything you are
Yes, you can radiate everything you are
Oh now

I roll a stoney
Well, you can imitate everyone you know
Yes, you can imitate everyone you know
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because (woo)

Oh now
I feel the wind blow
Well, you can indicate everything you see
Yes, you can indicate everything you see
Oh now

I load a lorry
Well, you can syndicate any boat you row
Yeah, you can syndicate any boat you row
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because

Beatles – Two Of Us

I’ve been watching Get Back on Disney Plus and this is one of the songs they have went over. I always thought Two Of Us should have been a single… It’s not slick or full of production…just John and Paul singing together like they did in the early years. It feels like they had come full circle.

Paul McCartney wrote this about enjoying his travels with his wife Linda. The song was on the album Let It Be recorded in January of 1969 but wasn’t released until 1970. It was the last studio album released of the Beatles career but not the last recorded.

After this album The Beatles embarked on recording the classic album Abbey Road in the summer of 1969. As the film Get Back shows…yes they would argue but it was not as bad as we have been led to believe or they would not have recorded Abbey Road. There was also talk of another possible album after Abbey Road but they decided to call it a day.

I always thought The Beatles ended at the right time. They never made a bad album like some other bands. I do think they had a couple of albums left in them but to end a career recording Abbey Road…its hard to top that.

It’s interesting to speculate if they would have got back together if John Lennon would not have been murdered. I don’t think they would have recorded again but I do think Lennon and McCartney would have written together again.

Linda McCartney: As a kid I loved getting lost. I would say to my father – let’s get lost. But you could never seem to be able to get really lost. All signs would eventually lead back to New York or wherever we were staying! Then, when I moved to England to be with Paul, we would put Martha in the back of the car and drive out of London. As soon as we were on the open road I’d say, ‘Let’s get lost’ and we’d keep driving without looking at any signs. Hence the line in the song, ‘Two of us going nowhere’.

Paul wrote ‘Two Of Us’ on one of those days out. It’s about us. We just pulled off in a wood somewhere and parked the car. I went off walking while Paul sat in the car and started writing. He also mentions the postcards because we used to send a lot of postcards to each other.

From Songfacts

Lennon and McCartney sang together on this song, which is something they did a lot in the early years of The Beatles, but not so much later on, when they started writing separately and restricting the lead vocal to whoever wrote the song.

This song is mostly acoustic, with Lennon and McCartney each playing acoustic guitar. George Harrison’s electric guitar is there, but low in the mix. There is no bass on the track.

This appears twice in the Beatles documentary movie Let It Be, first as a duet by John and Paul and then with the whole band.

John Lennon did the whistling on the fade-out.

Two Of Us

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s hard-earned pay
You and me Sunday driving
Not arriving
On our way back home
We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

Two of us sending postcards
Writing letters on my wall
You and me burning matches
Lifting latches
On our way back home
We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home
We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home
We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

We’re going home
Better believe it
Good-bye

Twilight Zone – I Sing The Body Electric 

★★★★ May 18, 1962 Season 3 Episode 35

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is an emotional episode (100th)…I would even say heartwarming. It’s a sci-fi episode with a bit of drama and well done. You probably will recognize David White… best known as Darin’s boss Larry Tate on Bewitched. He plays George Rogers, a father of 3 who is left raising his children alone after his wife passes away. He takes his children to Facsimile Ltd. to build a robot grandmother to help raise the children.

One of the children, a young girl (Anne) after losing her mom is hesitant to accept her new robot grandmother. She blames her mom for dying and thinks anyone who loves her will leave. Josephine Hutchinson plays the Grandma with warmth and compassion. Veronica Cartwright who plays Anne Rogers does a good job conveying hurt and confusion over losing her mom.

I like this episode although it’s not as unsettling as some of the great episodes.

Ray Bradbury is a name that stands out as a writer on this episode. Initially, it was intended for Bradbury’s involvement with The Twilight Zone to be far greater than just one script. He wrote Serling and offered another story called “Here There Be Tygers” (not the Stephen King Story). It was turned down along with another story he wrote. It seems like Bradbury and the Twilight Zone would have went together well.

Rod, while talking in the 7os said this:  Ray Bradbury is a very difficult guy to dramatize, because that which reads so beautifully on the printed page doesn’t fit in the mouth it fits in the head. And you find characters saying the things that Bradbury’s saying and you say, Wait a minute, people don’t say that. Certainly, Bradbury’s dialogue does lean to the poetic and this might have been a consideration.

Ray Bradbury years later: I would prefer not to write or talk much about Twilight Zone or my stories. The series is over and done, my work for it stands on its own. For various reasons two scripts were never done. I dont recall the reasons now, so many years later.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Ray Bradbury

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

They make a fairly convincing pitch here. It doesn’t seem possible, though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good, except, of course, in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

George is a widower with three children and he is being criticized for trying to raise his children on his own. His son Tom shows him an ad from a company with the motto ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ that advertises an electronic data processing system to meet anyone’s needs – essentially, a robot. They set off and everyone seems to like the idea of having a grandmotherly robot housekeeper except for Anne, who has yet to come to grips with her mother’s death. Her rejection of the new member of their family will have serious repercussions but also lead to closure.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMPLETE EPISODE AT DAILYMOTION

Here is a short video clip of the episode.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A fable? Most assuredly. But who’s to say at some distant moment there might be an assembly line producing a gentle product in the form of a grandmother whose stock in trade is love. Fable, sure, but who’s to say?

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Josephine Hutchinson … Grandma Robot
David White … George Rogers
Vaughn Taylor … Salesman
Doris Packer … Nedra
Charles Herbert … Tom Rogers
Veronica Cartwright … Anne Rogers
Dana Dillaway … Karen Rogers
Susan Crane … Older Ann
Paul Nesbitt … Older Tom
Judee Morton … Older Karen
David Armstrong … Van Driver (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Young Man’s Fancy

★★★★May 11, 1962 Season 3 Episode 34

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

Phyllis Thaxter who plays Virginia Walker is brilliant as justifiable paranoid new wife who has waited for years to marry Alex. Virginia has a strong dislike for Alex’s late mother. She blames his mom for holding Alex too close. They are at Alex’s childhood house to make arrangements to sell the place and then go on their honeymoon. I like how the episode builds and Alex has a hard time getting rid of his childhood home as promised.

As Alex keeps bringing up his childhood the house starts changing back to the way it was when he was a kid. Little things start changing at first and then the hopelessness in Virginia starts showing. You start wondering if Virginia is blaming the wrong person.

A little trivial… Phyllis Thaxter also appeared as Ma Kent in the 1978 version of Superman.

This show was written by Richard Matheson and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at the house of the late Mrs. Henrietta Walker. This is Mrs. Walker herself, as she appeared twenty-five years ago. And this, except for isolated objects, is the living room of Mrs. Walker’s house, as it appeared in that same year. The other rooms upstairs and down are pretty much the same. The time, however, is not twenty-five years ago but now. The house of the late Mrs. Henrietta Walker is, you see, a house which belongs almost entirely to the past, a house which, like Mrs. Walker’s clock here, has ceased to recognize the passage of time. Only one element is missing now, one remaining item in the estate of the late Mrs. Walker: her son, Alex, thirty-four years of age and, up till twenty minutes ago, the so-called perennial bachelor. With him is his bride, the former Miss Virginia Lane. They’re returning from the city hall in order to get Mr. Walker’s clothes packed, make final arrangements for the sale of the house, lock it up and depart on their honeymoon. Not a complicated set of tasks, it would appear, and yet the newlywed Mrs. Walker is about to discover that the old adage ‘You can’t go home again’ has little meaning in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Immediately after their wedding, Virginia and Alex Walker return to his mother’s house to make arrangements for it to be sold. Virginia has waited a long time to marry Alex as his domineering mother Henrietta doted – and smothered – him. Going back home has a strange effect on him as he reconnects with his his environment such as his room and his toys. He slowly begins to change and Virginia realizes that her mother-in-law’s influence hasn’t subsided.

There was no decent preview of the episode. 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Exit Miss Virginia Lane, formerly and most briefly Mrs. Alex Walker. She has just given up a battle and in a strange way retreated, but this has been a retreat back to reality. Her opponent, Alex Walker, will now and forever hold a line that exists in the past. He has put a claim on a moment in time and is not about to relinquish it. Such things do happen in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Phyllis Thaxter … Virginia Lane Walker
Alex Nicol … Alex Walker
Wallace Rooney … Mr. Wilkinson
Helen Brown … Mrs. Henrietta Walker
Rickey Kelman … Young Alex

Janis Joplin – Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)

The song was written by Jerry Ragovoy and  Chip Taylor. Chip Taylor is famous for writing Wild Thing.

Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)” is the opening track on I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

That was Janis’s debut solo studio album and it was released on September 11, 1969. It was the first album which Joplin recorded after leaving her former band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. This would be the only solo album released in her lifetime. Pearl came out in January 1971 three months after her death on October 4, 1970.

This song charted in Canada at #89 in 1969. The album peaked at #5 in the Billboard Album Charts and #4 in Canada in 1969.

She got good reviews for the album partly because she wasn’t trying to out shout the loud Big Brother and The Holding Company…although I did like Big Brother…without them she might not have made it.

Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)

Try, try, try just a little bit harder
So I can love, love, love him, I tell myself
‘Cause I’m gonna try, oh yeah, just a little bit harder
So I won’t lose, lose, lose him to nobody else, yeah
Hey, I don’t care how long it’s gonna take ya
But if it’s a dream I don’t want No I don’t really want it
Yeah if it’s a dream I don’t want nobody to wake me

Yeah I’m gonna try, oh yeah, just a little bit harder
So I can give, give, give, give him every bit of my soul
I’m gonna try, oh yeah, just a little bit harder
So I can show, show, show him love with no control, yeah
Hey! I don’t care how long it’s gonna take ya
But if it’s a dream I don’t want
No I don’t really want it
Yeah if it’s a dream I don’t want nobody to wake me
Hey, dig it! Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right

Try oh yeah, hey, try oh yeah, Lord, Lord, Lord
Try oh yeah, try oh yeah, Lord, Lord, Lord
Try oh yeah yeah, try, whoa, try oh yeah, Lord, Lord, Lord,
Push, work, push, work, oh yeah, try, oh yeah hey!
Try oh yeah, hey try oh yeah
Try Lord, try, try, you ain’t trying man
You’re not trying out man, come up with it
Come on, that’s a wanker that listens to words, man
Hey you gotta work all night
Hey little girl, gotta push on
You gotta need
Work a little more, hey, try a little more
Need a little more
Yeah, work on, push on, move on, move on
You gotta work for it, you gotta work on it
Push on, need on, move on
Move on, hey hey hey

Work it daddy
Work it daddy
Come on, work it daddy, oh
Yeah, yeah, you better try, try, try, try a little more
You ain’t never gonna get any man if that’s the sort of thing you can do
Shit, there’s lot more talent around than that man
Try, try, try, try try try
You’ve gotta try, try, try, try
Try, try, try, try, try, try…
You gotta try, try, try, try…
Lord, try, try, try, try
Lord, try, try, try, try
Hey, try, try, try, try

Hey, try oh yeah, try oh yeah, Lord, Lord, Lord
Try oh yeah, hey, try whoa, try oh yeah
Try oh yeah, Lord, Lord, Lord, try oh yeah
Try oh yeah, hey, hey, hey
Try oh yeah, try oh yeah
Lord, Lord, Lord, oh Lord

Twilight Zone – The Dummy

★★★★★  May 4, 1962 Season 3 Episode 33

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

The story of a ventriloquist and his dummy has been done but the ending keeps this fresh.  This episode still works today. The Twilight Zone covers a lot of ground and some episodes do scare people. This one would be one of those. It’s creepy and may have influenced the 1978 movie Magic.

Cliff Robertson plays Jerry Etherson and is great in this role as a talented but alcoholic ventriloquist. Frank Sutton, who most people know as Sgt Carter from Gomer Pyle, is in the episode as Etherson’s agent Frank. At first you don’t know if Etherson is imagining what is happening or not.

Frank cares about Jerry but after so many missed performances because of his drinking problem….he drops him as a client.  He also suggests Jerry to get help because Jerry swears that “Willy” (the dummy) is alive.

The Dummy has one of the most chilling final shots of any episode of The Twilight Zone.

Any show with a dummy, gives me the creeps. After seeing this when I was younger… I had relatives who had one of those things lying around…I never took my eyes off that  thing.

The dummy “Willy” was created by American ventriloquist supplies maker Revillo Pettee, while the dummy seen at the end was created by English builder Len Insull. “Willy” is in the private collection of magician David Copperfield.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Lee Polk

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re watching a ventriloquist named Jerry Etherson, a voice-thrower par excellence. His alter ego, sitting atop his lap, is a brash stick of kindling with the sobriquet ‘Willy.’ In a moment, Mr. Etherson and his knotty-pine partner will be booked in one of the out-of-the-way bistros, that small, dark, intimate place known as the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Jerry Etherson has a reasonably successful nightclub act as a ventriloquist but has one major problem: he believes his dummy Willie is a sentient being who speaks to him and manipulates his life. His agent Frank thinks Jerry needs psychiatric help and tells him he has no future in the business if he doesn’t do something about his delusions. Jerry decides to lock Willie in a trunk and try his act with a different dummy. Willie has plans of his own however.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

What’s known in the parlance of the times as the old switcheroo, from boss to blockhead in a few uneasy lessons. And if you’re given to nightclubbing on occasion, check this act. It’s called Willy and Jerry, and they generally are booked into some of the clubs along the ‘Gray Night Way’ known as the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Cliff Robertson … Jerry Etherson
Frank Sutton … Frank
George Murdock … Willie
John Harmon … Georgie
Sandra Warner … Noreen
Ralph Manza … Doorkeeper
Rudy Dolan … Emcee (uncredited)
Bethelynn Grey … Chorus Girl (uncredited)
Edy Williams … Chorus Girl (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – The Gift

★★★  April 27, 1962 Season 3 Episode 32

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode is slow moving but at times interesting . It contains elements that could have been a great Twilight Zone but the acting in this one is subdued and the story is slow. I did like the study of human nature at the end but the script was  uneven.

A Christ-like alien ventures into a small Mexican village. He comes into a bar after being shot and hurting. He bonds with a little boy named Pedro played by Edmund Vargas. A doctor looks at the alien and by all accounts should have been dead. Everyone was fearful of him and he is referred to as a creature with powers. The alien offers a gift but will the lack of trust in the new comer accept it?

I did like the musical score for this one. The Gift has a guitar score composed and performed by Laurindo Almeida, one of the great classical guitarists.This story was originally written as one of the series’ possible pilots, but was passed over for The Twilight Zone: Where Is Everybody?

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The place is Mexico, just across the Texas border, a mountain village held back in time by its remoteness and suddenly intruded upon by the twentieth century. And this is Pedro, nine years old, a lonely, rootless little boy, who will soon make the acquaintance of a traveler from a distant place. We are at present forty miles from the Rio Grande, but any place and all places can be the Twilight Zone.

Summary

The residents of a small Mexican village, just 40 miles or so south of the Rio Grande, panic when they learn a being from another planet may have crashed near by. As the result of an altercation with local police, one policeman is dead and the alien is severely wounded. A young boy, Pedro, quickly forms a friendship with the alien who says he has come in peace. He also says he has a gift for the people of the Earth, but the villagers’ fear means that mankind will never benefit from the alien’s generosity.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Madeiro, Mexico, the present. The subject: fear. The cure: a little more faith. An Rx off a shelf in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Geoffrey Horne … Williams – the Alien
Nico Minardos … Doctor
Cliff Osmond … Manolo
Edmund Vargas … Pedro
Vladimir Sokoloff … Guitarist
Paul Mazursky … Officer
Henry Corden … Sanchez
Vito Scotti Vito Scotti … Rudolpho
Eumenio Blanco … Townsman (uncredited)
Carmen D’Antonio … Woman (uncredited)
David Fresco … Man (uncredited)
Lea Marmer … Woman (uncredited)
Joseph V. Perry … Man (uncredited)

Beatles – Helter Skelter

This is my tenth and last song pick for Hanspostcard’s song draft. The Beatles Helter Skelter.

I want to thank Hans for hosting this draft and having me as one of the participants. Thanks everyone for the great songs. A Beatles song had to be in play in the draft for me. I didn’t pick my favorite Beatles song, but one that scared the hell out of me as a kid. This song gave me the creeps because it was so loud. That was before I saw the Manson TV movie.

Now, the sheer energy of it gets me every time. In 1964 they gave us I Want To Hold Your Hand and four years later we hear Helter Skelter…that is growing and versatility. This song was by the band I most admire and it was influenced by another band I admire…The Who…sort of.

The origin of the song…I’ll turn it over to Paul: “I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: ‘We’ve just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock’n’roll record you’ve ever heard.’ I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going, just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, ‘I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.’ And I wrote ‘Helter Skelter.’”

The track that Townshend was talking is thought to be I Can See For Miles. Paul took the description and ran with it. Paul and George played the guitars while John played a six string bass…Mr blisters on his fingers played drums.

I’ve played this song at the different places I’ve worked (on cassette and computer) and I get inquiries…who is that? When I tell them who…they don’t believe me at first. A reply that I have got is… no that is NOT The Beatles…that is just not them. This is why I love the Beatles. They covered genres well.

The song has picked up evil vibes along the way because of Manson grabbing the title for his awful deeds. Some have said it was the first Heavy Metal song, but I don’t hear that. I do think it was a cog in the machine and influenced the harder bands though.

I’ve heard so many bands try to cover this song…even down to heavier bands and none match the intensity and energy of this recording. The secret is the punk rawness with it’s jagged edges showing. The only cover I like is U2’s live version on Rattle and Hum because it helped the song regain it’s reputation back and take it from Manson’s grasp to a then modern audience.

I’ve played this song with a band a few times and that little riff is so powerful and so much fun to play. I told the rest of the band…no distortion boxes…no processing…just pure loud overdrive (turn it up to 11 and beyond)…and it works.

The White Album…another reason I love it…you have Blackbird, Rocky Racoon, Dear Prudence, and Helter Skelter on the same album. The album is the very definition of eclectic.

Thank you all again for the songs.

Helter Skelter

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again

Do, don’t you want me to love you
I’m coming down fast but I’m miles above you
Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer
Well, you may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer

Helter skelter, helter skelter
Helter skelter

Will you, won’t you want me to make you
I’m coming down fast but don’t let me break you
Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer

Look out
Helter skelter, helter skelter
Helter skelter
Look out, ’cause here she comes

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
And I get to the bottom and I see you again, yeah, yeah

Well do you, don’t you want me to make you
I’m coming down fast but don’t let me break you
Tell me, tell me, tell me your answer
You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer

Look out
Helter skelter, helter skelter
Helter skelter

Look out, helter skelter
She’s coming down fast
Yes, she is
Yes, she is
Coming down fast

(I’ve got blisters on my fingers)

Twilight Zone – The Trade-Ins

★★★★1/2  April 20, 1962 Season 3 Episode 31

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode is very poignant. The older we get we all start becoming aware of our mortality. Serling offers a way out with a choice.  What if one day when we all get old…we can go and get new bodies? You would not just be young again  but you pick the body you want. Joseph Schildkraut as John Holt was superb in this role. The show stays realistic through out the episode.

John and Marie Holt visit the New Life Corporation, hoping to transplant their personalities into youthful, artificial bodies. Unfortunately, they can only afford the procedure for one of them…but which one? The episode also touches on mercy from Theodore Marcuse who plays Farraday who ordinairly doesn’t hand it out daily.

Unbeknownst to all but those on the set, something terrible was happening to Schildkraut during the filming of the episode. Director Elliot Silverstein recalls, He was undergoing a tragedy at the time … his own wife was dying. As a matter of fact, in the middle of the three-day schedule, his wife did in fact die. And he insisted that we not stop production for him; the Schildkraut family was a great theatrical family in Europe he would finish the film and then mourn. He was in real tears, off-screen.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, aging people who slowly and with trembling fingers turn the last pages of a book of life and hope against logic and the preordained that some magic printing press will add to this book another limited edition. But these two senior citizens happen to live in a time of the future where nothing is impossible, even the trading of old bodies for new. Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, in their twilight years, who are about to find that there happens to be a zone with the same name.

Summary

John and Marie Holt have been married for a great many years. Age is catching up with them and John is frequently in pain. They visit the New Life Corporation where they have the opportunity to have their consciousness transferred to new, younger bodies. They only have enough money to pay for one transformation however and once complete, a decision on their future life together must be made.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

From Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet: “Love gives not but itself and takes not from itself, love possesses not nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.” Not a lesson, just a reminder, from all the sentimentalists in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Joseph Schildkraut … John Holt
Noah Keen … Mr. Vance
Alma Platt Alma Platt … Marie Holt
Theodore Marcuse … Farraday (as Ted Marcuse)
Edson Stroll … Young John Holt
Terence de Marney … Gambler (as Terrence deMarney)
Sailor Vincent … Gambler (as Billy Vincent)
Mary McMahon … Receptionist
David Armstrong … Surgeon

…

Twilight Zone – Hocus-Pocus And Frisby

★★★★  April 13, 1962 Season 3 Episode 30

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

What happens when a man that tells the tallest tales meets aliens that believe every word? I won’t tell you but I wll tell you that it’s a fun episode. Nothing phases this guy.

Andy Devine plays Somerset Frisby…it’s hard not to like Devine. He is a character actor that I have really enjoyed seeing in other shows and movies. He usually brightens up any scene his is in. Frisby is a good natured guy that loves telling tall tales that are fun but obviously not true. This episode is a re-telling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf but you root for Mr. Frisby. The episode is worth watching just for Devine.

Howard McNear is in this one and he plays Mitchell…McNear played Floyd Lawson (Floyd the Barber) on the Andy Griffith Show.  Dabs Greer plays Scanlan and he played Mr. Jonas on Gunsmoke and  Reverend Robert Alden on Little House on the Prairie.

Clem Bevans who played Pete is the earliest born actor of any Twilight Zone Episode…he was born 10-16-1879.

Clem Bevans — The Movie Database (TMDB)

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. Rod Serling

This show was written by Rod Serling and Frederick Louis Fox

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The reluctant gentleman with the sizable mouth is Mr. Frisby. He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you’ve no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn’t know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture. The place is Pitchville Flats, the time is the present. But Mr. Frisby’s on the first leg of a rather fanciful journey into the place we call the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Somerset Frisby runs a country store and gas station and loves to tell tall tales to his friends. To listen to him he’s graduated from several universities and his advice to Henry Ford created the auto industry. His friends always have a good laugh but two patrons seem to take a interest in Somerset and his stories. They’re aliens who think they’ve found the perfect human specimen to take back to their home planet. Somerset wants nothing to do with and to his great surprising has the weapon he needs to make his escape in his pocket. It all should give him a good tale for his pals.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Somerset Frisby, who might have profited by reading an Aesop fable about a boy who cried wolf. Tonight’s tall tale from the timberlands of the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Andy Devine … Somerset Frisby
Milton Selzer … Alien
Howard McNear … Mitchell
Dabbs Greer … Scanlan
Clem Bevans … Pete
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Albright … Alien (uncredited)
Larry Breitman … Alien (uncredited)
Peter Brocco … Alien (uncredited)
Bartlett Robinson … Alien passenger in convertible (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Four O’Clock

★★ April 06, 1962 Season 3 Episode 29

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

First of all…it’s not a great episode but that doesn’t include Theodore Bikel’s acting job in this one…it’s good…maybe a little over the top. The character is an ordinary man with a god complex that borderlines on cartoonish. He conveys very well that this character is insane. I think Bikel does a good job out of what he had…which wasn’t much. Linden Chiles who plays Mr. Hall does a good job as the FBI agent that shows a great contrast to Bikel’s Mr Crangle.

It’s in my top five of least favorite episodes.  It’s the story that is weak to me. The origin of this story would be the McCarthy witch hunt of the 50s. Anyone that was different would be labeled a communist, subversive, and or thieves.

I love that Serling highlighted that awful period that but the script doesn’t live up to the outrage. I wish he would have hit the mark of McCarthy with a litte more. This is the lowest I have labeled an episode so far…but this is episode 94 so that is not bad since Serling was involved in writing every episode so far. It’s not the worse episode but it’s not up to Twiight Zone standards… which are very high. The ending…I won’t get into what happens but unlike many Twilight Zones…this one is too predictable.

Theodore Bikel, in real life, was a human and civil rights activist who ardently opposed blacklisting and McCarthyism during the 1950s.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Price Day

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

That’s Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He’s rather arbitrarily chosen four o’clock as his personal Götterdämmerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of an avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it’s four o’clock, and wherever you are it happens to be the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Oliver Crangle seems to like making other people miserable. He phones a young man’s employer to say that the man is a communist. He phone a school board to tell them a teacher is acting inappropriately with his students. He has a long list of people that he wants to tell on. He even arranges a meeting with an FBI agent and tells him that at 4 p.m. all of the nasty people in the world will undergo a transformation. The agent suggests he seek psychiatric treatment but it turns out he’s right.

Sorry there is not a small clip on youtube of this. Paramount has them locked down. 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

At four o’clock, an evil man made his bed and lay in it, a pot called a kettle black, a stone-thrower broke the windows of his glass house. You look for this one under ‘F’ for fanatic and ‘J’ for justice in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Theodore Bikel … Oliver Crangle
Phyllis Love … Mrs. Lucas
Linden Chiles … Mr. Hall
Moyna MacGill … Mrs. Williams

…

Twilight Zone – The Little People

★★★★1/2  March 30, 1962 Season 3 Episode 28

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

The Twiight Zone lesson in this episode is… absolute power can and will almost always corrupt. The best Twilight Zone episodes are the ones that are as thought-provoking and timely today as they were then. This one fits that bill.   Claude Akins does a great job as he appears  as Commander William Fletcher. He would appear in two Twilight Zones.

Joe Maross  plays Navigator Peter Craig who starts off as a simple jerk and then climbs all the way to a megalomaniac. Without giving the ending away…there is justice at the end of the epidsode. The more I watch this episode the more I’ve liked it through the years.

From IMDB The rocket launch depicted was in reality a test flight of a Mercury-Atlas booster. This was quite timely; this episode aired about a month after NASA’s John Glenn became the first astronaut to attain Earth orbit upon such a rocket.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The time is the space age, the place is a barren landscape of a rock-walled canyon that lies millions of miles from the planet Earth. The cast of characters? You’ve met them: William Fletcher, commander of the spaceship; his copilot, Peter Craig. The other characters who inhabit this place you may never see, but they’re there, as these two gentlemen will soon find out. Because they’re about to partake in a little exploration into that gray, shaded area in space and time that’s known as the Twilight Zone.

Summary

When a spacecraft makes an emergency landing on an unknown planet the commander, William Fletcher, is anxious to get underway again as soon as possible. Not so for his navigator, Peter Craig, who is insubordinate and is fed up taking orders all of the time. While Fletcher makes repairs to the ship Craig explores the area around them and is astonished to find that there are living beings there only a fraction of the size of humans. Soon, he is being recognized by them as a god and refuses to leave when the ship ready. He is to realize that one’s place in the universe is a relative thing.

Sorry there is not a small clip on youtube of this. Paramount has them locked down. 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The case of navigator Peter Craig, a victim of a delusion. In this case, the dream dies a little harder than the man. A small exercise in space psychology that you can try on for size in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Joe Maross … Navigator Peter Craig
Claude Akins … Cmdr. William Fletcher
Michael Ford … Spaceman
Robert Eaton … Spaceman

…

Rolling Stones – Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadow?

This is one you don’t hear everyday.

There is guitar feedback at the beginning and end. The followed The Beatles as the Beatles had used it for I Feel Fine before this one. This was also the first Stones song that used a horn section, which was arranged by Mike Leander. He also did the horns on The Stones As Tears Go By and wrote the score for the Beatles She’s Leaving Home when McCartney didn’t want to wait for George Martin.

The Stones performed this on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1966. Lead guitarist Brian Jones wore a cast on his hand. It was rumored that he got the injury when he punched a wall in a dressing room.

This was the first Stones song released in the US and England at the same time. The Beatles and Stones sometimes would work together on album and single releases. They didn’t want to release something each at the same time so they would make sure to stagger the releases.

This song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100, #5 in the UK, and #8 in Canada in 1966. The song was credited to Jagger/Richards.

Keith Richards: “I liked the track, I hated the mix. Mainly because there was a fantastic mix of the thing, which was just right. But because they were in a rush and they needed to edit it down for the Ed Sullivan Show, the mix was rushed and the essential qualities of it, for me, disappeared. Just because of the lack of time. It needed another couple weeks. The rhythm section is almost lost completely.” 

From Songfacts

This song is shadowy indeed. “Mother” could be code for “girlfriend,” or something else entirely. Keith Richards asks that we don’t read too much into it. “You must listen to it and place your own interpretation on the lyric,” he said. “There is no attempt to present a controversial ‘Mother’ theme.”

The American single has a picture of The Stones in women’s clothes on the sleeve. According to legend, after the photo session, they kept their costumes on and went to a bar in New York.

Footage of the band dressed as women for the single photo shoot was compiled into a promotional film for the song that was distributed to various broadcast outlets. This was an early example of a music video, although they were still using film back then. The Beatles made them for some of their songs as well.

The B-side of the single was Who’s “Driving Your Plane?” Both sides of the single are questions.

Glyn Johns, who engineered the “As Tears Go By” session in 1965, engineered this song as well. This led to more work with The Stones, recording the live album Got Live If You Want It! in the fall of 1966 and then engineering the London Between The Buttons sessions in November of that year. He was used as chief engineer for the producer-less Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, after which he suggested to the Rolling Stones that they use Jimmy Miller as their next producer. 

Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadow?

Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?
Have you had another, baby, standing in the shadow?
I’m glad I opened your eyes
The have-nots would have tried to freeze you in ice

Have you seen your brother, baby, standing in the shadow?
Have you had another baby, standing in the shadow?
Well I was just passing the time
I’m all alone, won’t you give all your sympathy to mine?

Tell me a story about how you adore me
Live through the shadow, see through the shadow,
Live through the shadow, tear at the shadow
Hate in the shadow, love in the shadow life

Have you seen your lover, baby, standing in the shadow?
Have they had another baby, standing in the shadow?
Where have you been all your life?
Talking about all the people who would try anything twice

Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?
Has she had another baby, standing in the shadow?
You take your choice at this time
The brave old world or the slide to the depths of decline

Twilight Zone – Person Or Persons Unknown

★★★★1/2  March 23, 1962 Season 3 Episode 27

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is a strong Twilight Zone episode.

David Gurney, played wonderfully by Richard Long, wakes up to find that no one, not his wife Wilma, his fellow workers, his best friend, or even his own mother knows him. The Twilight Zone has touched on this before in “And When the Sky Was Opened”  but not this in depth.

This was a well thought out script. I like that Gurney slowly is trying to tie himself to the world he knows. He goes over every detail of his life that could have been missed by this gag or whatever it is… that someone could have missed. He does think of something that no one knows about but him…will it help or not? When he is losing hope…another twist is thrown at Mr. Gurney.

From IMDB: One of the first instances on television to show a couple sharing a single bed, sleeping next to each other. Around this time, TV shows could only portray couples sleeping in separate beds due to television’s strict standards & practices. In season five’s The Twilight Zone: Stopover in a Quiet Town, a very similar situation occurs. In both cases, the man is sleeping on top of the covers, is still fully dressed (even wearing his shoes), and they are hung over from a bout of heavy drinking.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Cameo of a man who has just lost his most valuable possession. He doesn’t know about the loss yet. In fact, he doesn’t even know about the possession. Because, like most people, David Gurney has never really thought about the matter of his identity. But he’s going to be thinking a great deal about it from now on, because that is what he’s lost. And his search for it is going to take him into the darkest corners of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

David Gurney awakens on his bed fully clothed and realizes he’s late for work. He and his wife Wilma had a few drinks the night before and she is sound asleep. When he can’t find his razor he wakes her but she says he doesn’t know who he is and demands he leave her house. His clothes are nowhere to be found and so heads off to work. He knows everyone there but like his wife, none of his co-workers have any idea who he is. He’s desperate to find one piece of his identity to prove who he is. When all finally seems resolved, he faces another shock.

Sorry there is no preview on youtube

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A case of mistaken identity or a nightmare turned inside out? A simple loss of memory or the end of the world? David Gurney may never find the answer, but you can be sure he’s looking for it in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Richard Long … David Andrew Gurney
Frank Silvera … Dr. Koslenko
Shirley Ballard … Wilma #1
Julie Van Zandt … Wilma #2
Betty Harford … Clerk
Edmund Glover … Sam Baker (as Ed Glover)
Michael Keep … Policeman
Joe Higgins … Bank Guard
John Newton … Cooper
John Brahm … Winston Churchill (uncredited)
Robert McCord … Man on Steps Eating Apple (uncredited)

…