Culture – Page 24 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Time Machine To Hamburg

Dave at A Sound Day gave writers a question to write about. If you could safely go back in time and move about for one day, what one concert or live performance would you choose to go to?

Well, that narrows it down to me because there are two cities that come to mind after he asked that. Now…if this was a baseball question I would go to New York in the twenties and see who I think was the best baseball player ever…Babe Ruth. But it’s music so the two cities are Hamburg and Liverpool…the Star Club in Hamburg or the Cavern in Liverpool…and I shouldn’t have to name the band.

I’m going to pick Hamburg…and the reason is The Beatles would play 6-8 hours a night compared to lunchtime sessions at the Cavern so to Germany I go! From everything I’ve read the performances there were off the charts. They played loud sweaty rock and roll there and accumulated way past 1000 hours playing there in a 3-year stretch from 1960 to 1962. It’s not a stretch to say at that time they could have had more hours on a stage than any other rock band.

The Beatles played over 250 nights in the seedy red-light district of Hamburg. If you average 6 hours a show that would be 1500 hours…that is why they could play so well with a wall of screaming in their ears later on. They would get to know the gangsters who would buy them champagne, the barmaids who would sell or give them Preludin (a type of diet pill speed so they could play all night…”prellies”), and the prostitutes who would take them in and befriend them. They also met Little Richard, Billy Preston, and Gene Vincent there.

They slowed down in 1962 and didn’t play as long of sets but at the end they had Ringo. I would want to see them in 1960-61 when Stuart Sutcliffe was on bass and Pete Best was drumming. Other bands from England started to come over but none of them had the impact of the Beatles. They lived off of prellies and beer when they played and would go have an English breakfast when they could afford it. There are pictures of them holding a Preludin metal tube (what they came in) and grinning manically.

They would write a few songs but mostly played covers through this period of learning. They caused all kinds of trouble and there were rumors of John Lennon urinating off of a balcony on nuns…but that has been disproven…no he did urinate off of balconies but left the nuns alone. He once appeared with a real toilet seat around his head on stage after being angered and ripping it off a toilet. George was booted out of the country for being underaged and Paul and Pete were accused of trying to burn down a cinema. Stuart Sutcliffe found his true love there Astrid Kirchherr. He would die in 1962 of a brain hemorrhage at 22.

When they came back from Hamburg in 1960 to Liverpool…people were amazed and at first thought, they were a German band with their all leather clothes. They were a sensation because they played like no one else. Without Hamburg…there would probably be no Beatles. After they got back they started to play the Cavern regularly and the promoters were wary of them because of their reputation but soon knew they would make them a lot of money. They were NOT the grinning moptops that the world came to love. They were rough and tough growing up in Liverpool with further education in Hamburg. Often after shows in Liverpool, they would have to fight because of the rough audiences being jealous of their girlfriends who were fawning over them.

Well, that was long-winded…but Hamburg in 1961… is where I want Dave’s time machine to take me. I might hijack it and make another trip to the Cavern if Dave is not watching. So what is the saying about rock music? Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll? This probably helped that saying along.

There are some low-fi recordings of them in Hamburg in 1962 with Ringo drumming which shows how stripped down and raw they were.

Star Trek – Balance Of Terror

★★★★ December 15, 1966 Season 1 Episode 14

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 Paul Schneider and Gene Roddenberry

Before we get to the review and story…this is Grace Lee Whitney’s last episode with Star Trek. There are two stories about why she was let go. I will cover it when I do the First Season review in a few weeks…it’s not good and should not have happened. She would not appear again until the first movie came out in 1979.

Excellent Episode! This episode starts off with an attempted marriage on the Enterprise with Kirk about to lead the ceremony. When everyone was ready… a distress call came and everyone went back to their posts. Romulans are attacking a space post and the Enterprise is going to investigate.

This episode is confined to the Enterprise and this is amazing because an episode just on the Enterprise could easily have been static and dull. But, because the writing was so fantastic and the main characters written and acted so well. Overall it’s very tense and exciting. For all of you die-hard Star Trek fans you will recognize Mark Lenard as the same actor who later played Spock’s father.

The Romulans and Vulcans descend from the same ancestor species…both have the same ears and some of the same traits. The writers lay down a not-so-subtle sub-text involving racial prejudice and bigotry. It’s clever that they do this by involving two alien races (Vulcans and Romulans), instead of those we are so generally used to, black and white, North and South, Semitic/anti-Semitic. It helps one to step outside the box of common stereotypes to question why one race, religion, or nationality is any better or worse than another.

Roddenberry was really well ahead of the curve on this, and he would do it again in future episodes. Rod Serling was doing the same thing through SciFi on the Twilight Zone. It looks like some of this bigotry was possibly inspired by the very vivid fear American and Russian citizens had at the time that either nation might be able to destroy the other with nuclear weapons.

Kirk takes a huge chance (a bluff) in this one…which teaches Spock about a game that he doesn’t know…poker. The acting, writing, and yes effects are all very good.

From IMDB:

Network restrictions at the time forbade the tackling of any contentious subjects such as the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement and the rise of feminism. “Star Trek”, under the guise of science fiction, boldly flouted these rules. This story, for example, openly deals with the subject of racism, as reflected through Lieutenant Stiles’ opposition to Mr Spock.

Budgetary and time constraints prevented the make-up and costuming departments from dressing up each Romulan in Vulcan ears as it was such a lengthy process applying them. So they hit on the idea of giving the lesser Romulans helmets, which were manufactured by Wah Chang. Mr. Chang was responsible for creating many iconic Star Trek hand props.

Mark Lenard plays the Romulan Commander, an apparent enemy of the Enterprise and its crew. However, later in his career, he played the famed role of Spock’s father, Sarek, and also played a Klingon in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), making him the first actor to portray the three major alien races (Vulcan, Romulan, Klingon) in the Star Trek franchise.

When Leonard Nimoy held out for a better contract after the first season, Mark Lenard and Lawrence Montaigne were the two leading candidates to replace him as Spock. Nimoy eventually got a raise from $1250 to $2500 per episode.

Two actors who played Romulans in this episode returned in later episodes as Vulcans: Mark Lenard, the Romulan Commander, played Spock’s father, Sarek, in Star Trek: Journey to Babel (1967) (and several return appearances) and Lawrence Montaigne, Decius, played Spock’s rival, Stonn, in Star Trek: Amok Time (1967).

Final TOS appearance (in airing order) of Yeoman Janice Rand, who will not appear again until Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

Mark Lenard said, “The Romulan Commander was one of the best roles I ever had on TV”. Comparing the part with that of Sarek, Lenard elaborated, “In many ways, I did enjoy that role [Sarek], but I think the more demanding role and the better acting role was the Romulan Commander”.

Summary

The Enterprise answers a distress call from Federation Outpost #4, a monitoring station on the Federation side of the neutral zone with the Romulan Empire. The outposts were established over a century ago and no one has actually seen a Romulan. The Romulan vessel seems to have some type of high-energy explosive device as well as a cloaking device to make the ship invisible. When it appears that Romulans bear a strong resemblance to Vulcans, Kirk must deal with a rebellious crew member. He must also engage in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with a very intelligent Romulan commander.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Mark Lenard … Romulan Commander
Paul Comi … Stiles
Lawrence Montaigne … Decius
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
Stephen Mines … Tomlinson
Barbara Baldavin … Angela
Garry Walberg … Hansen
John Warburton … The Centurion
John Arndt … Ingenieur Fields (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Robert Chadwick … Romulan Scanner Operator (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Crewman (uncredited)
Walt Davis … Romulan Crewman (uncredited)
Vince Deadrick Sr. … Romulan Crewman (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
John Hugh McKnight … Crewman (uncredited)
Sean Morgan … Brenner (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Anthony Larry Paul … Crewman (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Crewman (uncredited)

Grateful Dead – Here Comes Sunshine

I want to thank all of you for reading last week’s “covers” week. Based on the positive response…I’ll start doing covers on Tuesdays coming up.

I just finished another Grateful Dead book so I’ve been listening to the Dead’s albums. Wake of the Flood has slowly become one of my favorites. It’s hard to beat American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead but it’s up there.

The verses of this song are straight-up Grateful Dead but the chorus reminds me a little of The Beatles. No, the Dead didn’t copy anything but it’s a type of chorus that the Beatles would attempt. Phil Lesh’s bass is prominent in this song…so is Jerry Garcia’s wonderful weaving guitar playing.

Garcia wrote the music and the Dead’s lyricist Robert Hunter wrote the verses. The song was influenced by a tragic event. Robert Hunter wrote in his book: Remembering the great Vanport, Washington flood of 1949, living in other people’s homes, a family abandoned by father, second grade. Hunter didn’t state the proper year or state of the flood but some about him.

Hunter was not in the flood but he was 7 years old and in second grade when it happened. His father around this time also abandoned his family. Hunter would live in different foster homes until he returned to his mom.

The song is about the flood that happened in Vanport City Oregon in 1948. Calling this a flood would be treating it mildly. It actually washed the town away. On Monday at 4:17 p.m. on Memorial Day 1948, a combination of heavy rainfall and the Columbia River heavy with melted snowfall broke a portion of the dike surrounding Vanport. Floodwaters fifteen feet deep washed Vanport away.

Residents had been assured by authorities that the dikes were holding and that they would be warned in ample time to evacuate. The break caught everyone, including the authorities, by surprise. Thankfully, the swamps within Vanport absorbed the initial surge, allowing around 40 minutes for most people to escape Vanport to higher ground along Denver Avenue. Still, 15-16 (different sources) people lost their lives in the flood.

Vanport is no more. Several acres of the former city became “West Delta Park” which is now the Portland International Raceway.

The song was on the Wake of the Flood album released in 1973… but not without its problems. It came three long years after the Dead’s previous studio album, American Beauty. They did release the live Europe 72 between the two albums. The Dead had just left Warner Bros and were without a record deal. So they did what other bands did at that time…make their own record company. This was the first album released on their new label.

Mickey Hart was not part of the Grateful Dead at this time. Mickey’s last show was 2/18/71 at the Capital Theater and he rejoined the band the last night of the “Farewell” shows at Winterland in October of ’74.

The album peaked at #18 on the Billboard Album Charts and #30 in Canada in 1973. This song was the B side to the single “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away.”

This would not be a Dead post if I didn’t give you a live version of it.

Here Comes Sunshine

Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine
Get out the pans, don’t just stand there dreaming
Get out the way, get out the way

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Line up a long shot maybe try it two times, maybe more
Good to know you got shoes to wear, when you find the floor
Why hold out for more

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Asking you nice, now, keep the mother rollin’
One more time, been down before
You just don’t have to go no more, no more

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Star Trek – The Conscience Of The King

★★★1/2 December 8, 1966 Season 1 Episode 13

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 Barry Trivers and Gene Roddenberry

This episode starts off with Captain Kirk and his friend Dr. Thomas Leighton watching a performance of Macbeth by a Shakespearean acting troupe. The Doctor is sure that the actor that played Macbeth, who goes by Anton Karidian, is really “Kodos the Executioner” who was responsible for 4,000 deaths.

The episode involves the hunt for Kodos, a governor who apparently ordered the execution of half his settlement in order to assure that the rest could survive famine. And, the worst of it is after the executions, help unexpectedly arrived. After all of this is explained…you are not in love with Kodos but you see that his execution orders had a reason. It wasn’t just madness but against what Kirk believed in…exhausting every means of knowledge and know-how and never giving up.

Anton Karidian (Kodos?) has a daughter. The beautiful Barbara Anderson who plays Lenore Karidian goes right after the Captain’s attention and yes she gets it. Yes, Kirk is falling for her but he is also collecting information and digging for information. He makes this very personal after his friend Dr. Thomas Leighton was killed. He keeps it from his crew but Spock wants to know what is going on. Kirk makes it clear that he wants Spock to mind his own business.

Kirk is a double agent in this episode. Yes, he is entranced by Anton Karidian but he is using her for information also. While this is going on, the people who were witnesses to Kodo’s deed, are dying…or more truthfully getting killed. Kirk is one of those witnesses.

This is a solid episode and features some eye-catching set design. Injecting some Shakespeare into a science-fiction setting turns out to be a pretty interesting touch, showing that classics will never go out of style, even centuries later.

A quote from Karidian is interesting…and relevant now when Kirk was examining him to see if he was Kodos. “ I find your use of the word mercy strangely inappropriate, Captain. Here you stand, the perfect symbol of our technical society. Mechanized, electronicized, and not very human. You’ve done away with humanity, the striving of man to achieve greatness through his own resources.”

I think we as a society can relate to that quote in the era of technology we live in.

From IMDB:

Barbara Anderson developed a fever blister/cold sore on her lip during filming. Besides using makeup to partially disguise it, she was often filmed with part of her lower face in shadow.

When Kirk goes to the Leighton dinner party and comes out to meet Lenore, you can hear a very slow jazz version of the series’ theme song. This is the first time it has been played as “source music”. The other times this occurs in the original series is later in the episode when Kirk is speaking to Lenore in Karidian’s cabin, when Areel Shaw enters the bar in Star Trek: Court Martial (1967), and when Kirk, McCoy, and Tonia Barrows run to Sulu’s position in Star Trek: Shore Leave (1966).

This episode contains Star Trek’s first direct reference to eugenics, although there is an oblique reference in Star Trek: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (1966). Spock tells McCoy that Kodos applied his own theories of eugenics when sentencing certain colonists to death, causing McCoy to note that Kodos unfortunately wasn’t the first. Two seasons later, the concept of eugenics resurfaced prominently in Star Trek: Plato’s Stepchildren (1968) when Philana informs Spock that the Platonians are the result of a successful mass eugenics program.

Barbara Anderson (Lenore Karidian) shares the record (with Ricardo Montalban and Joan Collins) for the most costumes worn in a single Trek episode by a guest star (six). She wears a maroon-colored dress for her Lady Macbeth costume, a blue dress with a veil at the party thrown by the Leightons, a fur mini-skirt dress when arriving on the Enterprise, a greenish multicolored mantle on the observation deck, a black and red evening dress when Kirk visits the Karidians in their quarters, and, finally, her yellow and lavender Ophelia costume. It could even be argued that the veil she wears while walking with Kirk just before discovering Tom Leighton’s body could be considered a seventh costume.

In the scene where security guards are searching for Kevin Riley in the corridors, rectangular seams are visible in the floor. This is where the grates visible in Star Trek: Charlie X (1966) and other early episodes were eliminated and filled in with the corridor floor material.

One of the few Original Star Trek episodes in which no-one from the USS Enterprise (even the red-shirts) is killed, although there is an almost successful poisoning.

This is the first of a long line of Star Trek productions which feature scenes, quotes, or references to William Shakespeare. In this case, the title comes from “Hamlet” (Act II, Scene 2). Scenes from Hamlet and Macbeth are acted out, and there is a paraphrase of “Julius Caesar” (Act 1, Scene 2): “Caesar, beware the Ides of March”.

Summary

Captain Kirk is informed by his old friend, Dr. Thomas Leighton, that the head of a Shakespearean acting troupe (known as Anton Karidian) was once known as “Kodos the Executioner”. Having seized power as Governor of Tarsus IV, Kodos had 50% of his colony (4000+ people) killed when the food supply was destroyed by an infestation, rather than have so many starve, not knowing that help was en route. Of the nine witnesses who could potentially identify Karidian as Kodos, only Kirk, Leighton, and a young crewman on the USS Enterprise, Kevin Riley (whose family was killed on Tarsus IV), survive. Kirk dismisses Leighton’s accusations until the latter turns up murdered, and Riley almost dies of poisoning while alone in an engineering sector where no one else is present, which Riley and others view as some sort of punishment although it was really Kirk’s misguided attempt to protect Riley. The other eyewitnesses have all died. Spock tells Bones that on each occasion the acting troupe was in close proximity. When finally challenged directly by Kirk, Karidian dramatically declines to confirm or deny anything but never asks who Kodos was and seems aware, although there is no reason he should be, of the details of what happened on Tarsus IV. Complicating things are Karidian’s beautiful daughter, Lenore, an actress in the troupe. And who’s really behind the murders

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Arnold Moss … Anton Karidian
Barbara Anderson … Lenore Karidian
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
William Sargent … Dr. Thomas Leighton
Natalie Norwick … Martha Leighton
David Somerville … Larry Matson (as David-Troy)
Karl Bruck … King Duncan
Marc Grady Adams … Hamlet (as Marc Adams)
Bruce Hyde … Kevin Riley
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
John Astin … Capt. John Daley (voice) (uncredited)
Majel Barrett … Enterprise Computer (voice) (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Crewman (uncredited)
Robert H. Justman … Security Guard (voice) (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Security Guard (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Menagerie Part 2

★★★★★ November 24, 1966 Season 1 Episode 12

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

How much do The Talosians want Pike back? How much does his former first officer want to help him? What lengths will Spock go to free Pike from his confinement? The planet that Spock was trying to take the Captain is called Talos IV. Starfleet had given strict orders not to go to that planet and the punishment was the death penalty.

The second part of this wonderful two-parter episode has a great payoff. It’s interesting seeing Captain Kirk on the screen watching his predecessor Captain Pike at the helm of the Enterprise. Regular cast members don’t get that much to do. As we find out, Pike had been taken prisoner by the Talosian people, a species that has mastered the art of illusion. It’s how they continue to survive. And they have a plan in store for Pike, as well as for the lovely Vina (Susan Oliver), the sole survivor of a previous expedition.

We get to see an Orion slave girl…who is described as vicious, animal-like, and irresistible to any man. She is in one of the many illusions Captain Pike has been thrust into. This is the first appearance of an Orion Slave Girl in Star Trek not counting The Cage because it wasn’t aired until the 80s.

I really like The Cage, but this story inserted into that one makes it that much better and more well-rounded. If you want to start watching the original Star Trek…these two are not a bad place to start.

At the end of the episode, you have Spock, whose closing exchange with Kirk is a thoughtful dialog on the topic of emotionalism versus logic. It would set the stage for future episodes, many of which would have to be dealt with on the basis of sound reasoning instead of irrational fear or succumbing to the unknown. Quite a remarkable accomplishment for a show more than 50 years old… the stories growing richer and more vibrant with the passage of time.

From IMDB:

In the script, McCoy and Scott have a scene in which they explain to Kirk how they figured out which computer bank Spock tampered with to lock the ship on course. They took perspiration readings on all banks, and since Spock’s sweat has copper in it, traces of copper were found. This scene isn’t shown.

When Number One and Yeoman J.M. Colt transport to the planet, Vina states that Capt. Pike would be better reproducing with a computer than Number One. Majel Barrett provided the standard Federation computer voice throughout the various Star Trek series.

The Talosian “Keeper” alien was actually played by a woman – Meg Wyllie, as were all Talosians. The voice was dubbed by Malachi Throne, who portrays Commodore Jose Mendez. In order to differentiate the ‘Talosians’ voice from the Commodores, Throne’s voice as the Talosian was slightly sped up.

Spock uses the term “hyperdrive” instead of warp drive. Hyperdrive was the propulsion mechanism for the United Planets Cruiser C-57D featured in Forbidden Planet (1956), a movie which Gene Roddenberry used as a source for many other Star Trek elements.

In the images of the Enterprise of the past, the crew prepares for departure from Talos IV. Pike signals the crew by saying “engage”. This is another characteristic of Captain Pike that Picard borrows in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), along with referring to the First Officer as “Number One”.

Sean Kenney took over the role of Pike from Jeffrey Hunter. Kenney also appeared as DePaul in TOS Season 1. Because Malachi Throne was cast as Commodore Mendez, it was necessary to re-dub The Keeper’s dialogue by altering the pitch of the actor’s voice. Throne later played Romulan Senator Pardek in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Unification I (1991) and Star Trek: The Next Generation: Unification II (1991).

Summary

Spock’s court-martial board views the video stream from Talos IV of Captain Pike’s imprisonment 13 years earlier and of the Enterprise’s attempts to rescue him. The Talosians, using their powers of mind-reading and illusion, place Pike in worlds from both his memory and his imagination. The one constant is Vina, the beautiful blonde survivor of a crashed Earth ship (the other half of a Talosian plan for a captive Adam and Eve). Number One’s attempts to liberate Pike result in her and Yeoman Colt’s capture (additional breeding stock for the Talosian plan), but when the humans and Talosians learn more of each other, the situation takes a turn neither side expects. As the Enterprise approaches Talos IV once again, Kirk and the court watch the past unfold and learn the real reason for Spock’s mutiny.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Jeffrey Hunter … Captain Christopher Pike (archive footage)
Susan Oliver … Vina (archive footage)
Malachi Throne … Commodore José Mendez
Majel Barrett … Number One / Enterprise Computer (archive footage) (as M. Leigh Hudec)
Peter Duryea … Lt. José Tyler (archive footage)
John Hoyt … Dr. Phil Boyce (archive footage)
Adam Roarke … C.P.O. Garrison (archive footage)
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Nichelle Nichols Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Sean Kenney … Christopher Pike
Hagan Beggs … Lt. Hansen
Julie Parrish … Miss Piper
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Tom Curtis … Jon Daily (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Guard (uncredited)
Brett Dunham … Guard (uncredited)
Sandra Lee Gimpel … Third Talosian (archive footage) (uncredited)
James Holt … Starfleet Officer (uncredited)
Clegg Hoyt … Transporter Chief Pitcairn (archive footage) (uncredited)
Anthony Jochim … Third Survivor (archive footage) (uncredited)
Bob Johnson … First Talosian / Transporter Chief Pitcairn (voice) (uncredited)
Jon Lormer … Dr. Theodore Haskins (archive footage) (uncredited)
Tom Lupo … Security Guard (uncredited)
Ed Madden … Enterprise Geologist (archive footage) (uncredited)
Leonard Mudie … Second Survivor (archive footage) (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Jan Reddin … Enterprise Court Recorder (uncredited)
Serena Sande … Second Talosian (archive footage) (uncredited)
George Sawaya … Chief Humboldt (uncredited)
Georgia Schmidt … First Talosian (archive footage) (uncredited)
Meg Wyllie … The Keeper (archive footage) (uncredited)

Beatles – Twist And Shout ….Under The Covers Week

Usually, I don’t like covers better than the original but with this song I do. John Lennon sounds demented and he pushed his vocals over the edge. Lennon has said he screamed the lyrics more than sang them but it worked. He provided the power to this song with just his vocals. The Beatles didn’t have monitors live…no one else at this time didn’t either so they had to sing loud to be heard. Author Mark Lewisohn called it “arguably the most stunning rock and roll vocal and instrumental performance of all time.”

This is probably close to sounding like they did live in Hamburg and The Cavern. This session took place on February 11, 1963, at EMI Studios in London, which was later renamed Abbey Road Studios. The Beatles did 10 songs that day, nine of which ended up on Please Please Me, their first UK album. Think about that for a minute… in one day they recorded their debut album except for the song Please Please Me which was recorded later.

When The Beatles played the Royal Command Performance with the Queen watching. During the introduction to this song, John Lennon famously said, “For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands and the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry.” He told Brian Epstein that he was going to say “rattle your fu**ing jewelry” and Epstein was on pins and needles worried that John would go through with that…but he didn’t. John wasn’t a fan of playing at these functions.

They actually did two takes of the song and kept the first one. John was sick with a cold and had stripped off his shirt to let himself sweat it out, but he pulled it off. The next day…February 12, 1963 – The Beatles played two shows, one at the Azena Ballroom in Yorkshire and another at the Astoria Ballroom in Lancashire. No rest for the weary.

This was the first song ever written by Bert Burns. He went on to write, Piece of My Heart, Here Comes the Night, Hang on Sloopy, Cry to Me and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love to name just a few. He signed Van Morrison to his first solo deal with Bang Records. Unfortunately, he died at 38 of a heart attack in 1967. Phil Medley did get a co-writing credit on the song.

The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand in 1964. The Beatles version was not done yet. In the film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986, the song was used and charted again. It peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 and #16 in Canada.

The Isley Brothers’ version is great and there have been many other charting versions of it.

Norman Smith engineer: “Someone suggested they do ‘Twist and Shout’ with John taking the lead vocal. But by this time all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right the first time. The Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room. John sucked a couple more Zubes (a brand of throat lozenges), had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.”

Twist and Shout

Well, shake it up, baby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outWell, work it on out, honeyYou know you look so goodYou know you got me goin’ nowJust like I knew you would

Well, shake it up, baby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outYou know you twist, little girlYou know you twist so fineCome on and twist a little closer nowAnd let me know that you’re mine, woo

Ah, ah, ah, ah, wowBaby, nowTwist and shoutCome on, come on, come, come on, baby, nowCome on and work it on outYou know you twist, little girlYou know you twist so fineCome on and twist a little closer nowAnd let me know that you’re mineWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowWell, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, nowAh, ah, ah, ah

Star Trek – The Menagerie Part 1

★★★★★ October 27, 1966 Season 1 Episode 11

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 Gene Roddenberry

My star rating system goes to 5…but this one…I would give a 12 if I could…that includes Part 1 and Part 2. I point this episode out to people who have never seen the original series before. This two-parter would be a great place to start. It gives you some history of the crew, especially Spock and Captain Pike from the unseen pilot at the time.

Spock charged with mutiny and court marshal? Has the world gone mad? This is part one of a two-parter. They used the unseen pilot (The Cage) to make this one. It takes place 13 years after the episode The Cage that had Captain Pike.

You don’t know how Spock will not be in trouble for all the chaos he has caused. When Spock turns himself into Bones to be arrested…the shock of all the crew around them is priceless. When Kirk tries to pry the Enterprise from Spock’s control he fails. Spock has thought this out down to every single detail.

I have to give Roddenberry a lot of credit for writing this one. He took the pilot and developed this fantastic story around it and got to use the pilot’s footage that the network rejected. It could have been easily a patch job all the way around but it’s a great episode. Even some of the plot holes were explained. While watching the video screen of detailed past events, Kirk remarked that the Enterprise didn’t keep that good of video records but it was explained.

We learn that Vulcans are fiercely loyal, and seeing that Spock served under Captain Pike for over 11 years it would make sense that he still feels a sense of loyalty to his old Captain. Even though Pike rejects Spock’s plan with a series of beeps (Pike cannot talk) Spock still takes Pike against his will with good intentions. We also learn that Vulcans cannot lie, but it certainly appears that Spock did indeed lie in this episode, which seems impossible until Bones acknowledges that Spock is only half-human.

I remember first watching this episode in the 1980s. I totally bought the plot and still do. You are thinking, why is Spock risking everything, his career, and life, against his old Captain’s wishes? Kirk trusts Spock and is shocked when he finds out Spock has taken over the ship. You can see the hurt and confusion in the character. Good acting all the way around. Part II is just as good and has the payoff.

From IMDB

Although scenes from Star Trek: The Cage (1966) feature Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, he was unavailable and unaffordable for the framing story into which the scenes were to be inserted. Sean Kenney, an actor who resembled Hunter, was used instead. He plays the mute, crippled Captain Pike, now wheelchair-bound after an accident.

According to James Doohan, Gene Roddenberry originally wanted to sell the failed pilot as a theatrical film. However, it needed to be expanded with additional material to reach the feature length. Roddenberry planned to film the crash of the Columbia on Talos IV, because it didn’t require Jeffrey Hunter, who was neither available nor affordable to reprise his role as Captain Pike. However, plans for the feature release were soon abandoned.

The “frame” story of Captain Pike’s injury and abduction to Talos IV was necessitated because the producers’ inability to use the original pilot Star Trek: The Cage (1966) in its unedited form. Normally, series producers count on being able to use the pilot as an episode of the season, despite possible minor changes from the regular series, such as differences in uniform styles, terminology, and props; the second pilot, Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966), was used despite such discrepancies. But the differences between the series and the original pilot were too stark to be used unaltered – without the elaborate “frame” placing it 13 years in the past.

This episode was the first Star Trek material to be officially released by Paramount on any home video format in the United States, first in 1980 on VHS and Betamax, followed by a RCA SelectaVision CED videodisc release in 1981, and a US Laserdisc release in 1984.

The novel “Burning Dreams” establishes that the subspace message summoning Enterprise to Starbase 11 was not a fabrication by Spock, but instead an illusion by the Talosians making Spock think he actually did receive a message. The Talosians then spoke telepathically to Spock, making him aware of Pike’s condition and asking him to bring Pike to Talos IV. The novel also establishes that at the end of the teaser, when Spock tells Pike, “I have no choice,” their conversation continued with Spock telling Pike that the Talosians were aware of his condition and wanted to give him a chance for a better life than what he had and that Spock actually asked Pike for permission to try to help him.

Jeffrey Hunter accepted the lead role of Captain Christopher Pike in “The Cage”, the first pilot episode of Star Trek, but declined to film a second Star Trek pilot, requested by NBC in 1965, deciding to concentrate on films. Footage from the original pilot was subsequently adapted into a two-part episode called “The Menagerie” and screened in 1966. It wasn’t until 1988 that it was screened intact as a filler episode in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) due to a writers’ strike.

There have been many reasons given for Jeffrey Hunter not continuing as the captain. The one that rings most true is from Shatner’s book, where he relates that Hunter’s wife was a constant irritant to the production staff, with never-ending demands for how Hunter was to be handled and treated. Other books say that his wife came to a screening pitch for the pilot and declared that he wasn’t interested because he “was a movie star”. It seems likely the second story is a cover for the first and the first is the closest to the truth. Roddenberry decided that he wanted to be rid of Hunter, his wife, and their demands, and so never actually offered him a contract to continue.

It seems the nation of Cuba still exists in the 23rd century. During the court-martial scene, if you look carefully (to the right of where Captain Kirk is seated), you can see a flag stand in the back of the room. The flag hanging on it has the blue stripes and red triangle, which are part of the Cuban flag.

Summary

The Enterprise is summoned to Starbase 11 only to learn that no one there sent a message to them. The base is home to Fleet captain Christopher Pike, Kirk’s predecessor as Captain of the Enterprise. Unfortunately, Pike has recently had a serious accident, rendering him unable to speak and confining him to an automated chair. The base Commander, Commodore Mendez, begins to suspect Mr. Spock but Kirk defends his friend. That is until Spock takes command of the Enterprise and heads to Talos IV, a planet for which all Federation personnel are forbidden to visit under the sentence of death. Kirk and Mendez catch up with the Enterprise in a space shuttle at which time Mr. Spock is arrested. At his trial, he pleads guilty and offers mitigating circumstances in the form of detailed video logs recounting the time the Enterprise visited Talos IV 13 years before with Pike in command and Spock as its science officer.

CAST

Joan Jett – I Love Rock And Roll ….Under The Covers Week

Our small town got a record store in 1982. We had one in the seventies but it went out of business. In the new one…this is the first single I bought there. The store only lasted a year at the most but we enjoyed it while we had it. In 1982 you could not go to school, a store, or anywhere without hearing this song. If you didn’t hear it you heard someone hum it. Much like Another One Bites The Dust from two years earlier…you just couldn’t escape it.

In 2016 I saw The Who in Nashville and I didn’t know who was opening up. I was pleasantly surprised when Joan Jett was announced. She and her band were tight and very loud. The Who had ties with Jett back in 1979 as they helped finance Jett’s debut album Bad Reputation.

This was originally recorded by a British group called The Arrows in 1975, and it was written by their lead singer Alan Merrill and guitarist Jake Hooker. The song was released as a B-side with The Arrows’ “Broken Down Heart.” Co-writer Alan Merrill said “That was a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones’ ‘It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll.’ I remember watching it on Top of the Pops. I’d met Mick Jagger socially a few times, and I knew he was hanging around with Prince Rupert Lowenstein and people like that – jet setters. I almost felt like ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ was an apology to those jet-set princes and princesses that he was hanging around with – the aristocracy, you know. That was my interpretation as a young man: Okay, I love rock and roll. And then, where do you go with that?”

The Arrows did get their own TV show called The Arrows Show. It ran from 1976-1977 in the UK for two full 14-week seasons on the ITV network. It was this show that Joan Jett saw in 1976. A fun fact about the song. The Arrows were based in England, where they don’t use dimes. At that time they would put a sixpenny in the jukebox to buy a song. That would have had a different ring to it, but the original producer Mickie Most liked dime because it sounded American, and that’s the way The Arrows recorded it. Joan Jett didn’t really differ much from the Arrows version…just a little louder.

When the Runaways broke up in 1979, Joan Jett and her producer Kenny Laguna put her first solo album together with studio time and travel arrangements fronted by The Who. They struggled to get a record deal and had to form their own label, Blackheart Records, to release the album in America. Joan remembered The Arrows singing I Love Rock N Roll in 1976 while touring the UK and knew it sounded like a hit. She wanted the Runaways to cover the song but they turned it down. The reason they turned it down was that they had already covered a song called Rock and Roll by Lou Reed on their debut album and didn’t want another song with “rock” in the title at that time.

Jett recorded it with Paul Cook and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols and released it as a B-side in 1979. Polygram Records owned that version of the song but they were not excited about the song or Joan Jett. They basically let her go and signed some of the other Runaways. Boy was that a mistake! Joan would end up being the best-known Runaway. Lita Ford was successful also along with Michael Steele with the Bangles but neither became as popular as Joan Jett…and this song was a big reason.

I like the original and both Jett covers. The hit version peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, #1 in New Zealand, and #4 in the UK in 1982.

The album was called I Love Rock And Roll released in 1981. The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in Canada, #1 in New Zealand, and #25 in the UK in 1982.

The producers were Ritchie Cordell, Kenny Laguna, and Glen Kolotkin.

The song’s co-writer, Alan Merrill, died at 69 on March 29, 2020. Joan Jett offered condolences on Twitter, posting: “I can still remember watching the Arrows on TV in London and being blown away by the song that screamed hit to me.”

Joan Jett: “I think most people who love some kind of rock ‘n’ roll can relate to it. Everyone knows a song that just makes them feel amazing and want to jump up and down. I quickly realized, this song is gonna follow you, so you’re either gonna let it bother you, or you gotta make peace with it, and feel blessed that you were involved with something that touched so many people.”

Producer Kenny Laguna on Polygram Records: “They could care less about Joan Jett, they were busy signing every other Runaway. They thought Joan was the loser and they signed the other girls, who we’re all friends with, but I looked at the band and thought she was the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the band. The company decided that if I would pay the studio cost of $2,300, I could have all the rights, and I got three songs. I got ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ with The Sex Pistols, I got ‘You Don’t Own Me’ – they did a great version of the Lesley Gore hit, and they did a song Joan wrote called ‘Don’t Abuse Me.’ So I buy these songs back. In the meantime, Joan has a couple of fans. Rodney Bingenheimer of K-ROCK, KMAC in Long Beach, BCN in Boston, LIR in Long Island, they were playing The Sex Pistols’ kind of cruddy version of the song, and it was #1 on the alternative stations. It was really alternative music, they were way-out stations that would play some pretty adventurous stuff, that’s why they would play Joan, because Joan was not getting a record deal, Joan was way on the outside, like a Fugazi of her day. We saw some kind of potential there. I remember these guys from the big record distributors in Long Island kept calling and saying, ‘This is a hit record, we’re getting so many requests for it.’ So we cut it over and did a really good version of it.”

THE 1979 VERSION

I Love Rock and Roll

I saw him dancin’ there by the record machine
I knew he must a been about seventeen
The beat was goin’ strong
Playin’ my favorite song
An’ I could tell it wouldn’t be long
Till he was with me, yeah me, singin’

I love rock n’ roll
So put another dime in the jukebox, baby
I love rock n’ roll
So come an’ take your time an’ dance with me

He smiled so I got up and’ asked for his name
That don’t matter, he said,
‘Cause it’s all the same

Said can I take you home where we can be alone

An’ next we were movin’ on
He was with me, yeah me

Next we were movin’ on
He was with me, yeah me, singin’

I love rock n’ roll
So put another dime in the jukebox, baby
I love rock n’ roll
So come an’ take your time an’ dance with me

Said can I take you home where we can be alone

An we’ll be movin’ on
An’ singin’ that same old song
Yeah with me, singin’

I love rock n’ roll
So put another dime in the jukebox, baby
I love rock n’ roll
So come an’ take your time an’ dance with me

…

Creedence Clearwater Revival – I Heard It Through The Grapevine ….Under The Covers Week

Creedence cut through his song and stripped it bare with their version. I love Marvin Gaye’s version of this song but Creedence spun it into a garage band’s dream. I really like the steady drums that keep it tethered to earth. CCR’s drummer Doug Clifford played off of John Fogerty’s rhythm and it created the atmosphere of the song.

This is embarrassing but this song really hit my radar through constant commercials in 1987. It was used in California Raisin commercials that played, and played, and played more. When I would go to Hardees for lunch…they would give me a plastic figure of one of the raisins. Yea…I collected them. Former drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsies, Buddy Miles, sang lead in those commercials.

Creedence’s album version was a whopping (I love using that word) 11-minute song. This was a change from their other compact songs. This of course was not an original. It was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Strong came up with the idea and asked Motown writers Holland-Dozier-Holland to work on it with him. They refused to credit another writer, so Strong took it to Whitfield, who helped put it together…so it was credited to Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

In December 1975, CCR’s label Fantasy Records re-released the song as a single, which peaked at #43 on the Billboard 100 and #76 in Canada. This release came in the middle of some heated legal battles between the band and the label, which resulted in John Fogerty taking a 10-year break from making music. The song was edited down to a more reasonable length for radio.

The song was originally on their Cosmo’s Factory album released in 1970 which is possibly their best album.

Below….the first is one of the many commercials, the second was the single version, and the third is the album’s 11-minute version.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Ooh-ooh, bet you’re wondering how I knew
‘Bout your plan to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before?
Between the two of us guys, you know I love you more
Took me by surprise, I must say, when I found out yesterday

Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah

You know that a man ain’t supposed to cry
But these tears I can’t hold inside
Losing you would end my life, you see
‘Cause you mean that much to me
You could’ve told me yourself that you found someone else
Instead

I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah

People say “You hear from what you see
Not, not, not from what you hear.”
I can’t help but being confused
If it’s true, won’t you tell me dear?
Do you plan to let me go
For the other guy that you knew before?

Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah

Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Ooh-ooh, I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Aah-aah, I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah

Star Trek – The Corbomite Maneuver

★★★★1/2 November 10, 1966 Season 1 Episode 10

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 Jerry Sohl and Gene Roddenberry

This was a really good episode. It’s a very dramatic and suspenseful episode. Kirk is seen as a commander worthy of the title as this episode shows his skills quite well. The Enterprise wanders into a part of space where they are warned to turn back and proceed no further…but that is not part of the 5-year mission.

A mysterious alien attacker claims to be able to destroy the ship with no risk of anything stopping him, and therefore grants the crew ten minutes…but they didn’t count on Captain Kirk pulling victory out of defeat. I love the look of the alien as his image gets transmitted to the Enterprise… a very handsome young man.

Kirk has a lot of boldness in this episode. He is risking the ship on a bluff but he didn’t have many options at that point. I have to say, the most disturbing thing to me was the episode’s final reveal of Balok. His appearance and the ship’s interior design, mixed with the incongruous voice really had an uncomforting effect. The episode offers a good look at the political climate of the Cold War.

The ending of this episode will throw you. You will not see it coming. I watched this one for the first time in years a few weeks ago…and yes I completely forgot about the ending. Great episode.

From IMDB

Although the script instructed Leonard Nimoy to emote a fearful reaction upon his first sight of Big Balok, director Joseph Sargent suggested to Nimoy that he ignore what the script called for and instead simply react with the single word “Fascinating.” The suggestion of this response helped refine the Spock character and provide him with a now-legendary catchphrase.

McCoy says “What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?” which can be considered the first of the “doctor not a” quotes. In later days, the quote would have been phrased “I’m a doctor, not a moon shuttle conductor!”

James Doohan’s wartime injury to his right hand (incurred at Normandy on D-Day) is briefly visible in the conference room scene when he passes a coffee thermos. Generally this was carefully hidden off-camera, but it can also be seen when he’s holding a phaser in Star Trek: Catspaw (1967), as he carries a large bundle of tribbles in Star Trek: The Trouble with Tribbles (1967), as he reverses the probe polarity in Star Trek: That Which Survives (1969) and very briefly in freeze-frame when he’s reaching into the box to restrain the evil dog in Star Trek: The Enemy Within (1966).

This episode was originally scheduled to air much earlier than it did, but the large amount of visual effects took several months to complete. The producers had to delay the planned airdate twice, before eventually broadcasting it as the tenth episode of the season.

Both in terms of its order on the production schedule, and its order of televised broadcast, this episode marks the very first time that the Enterprise fires its phasers. The actual burst that the ship fires at the warning buoy is unique to this episode.

Summary

In a section of unexplored space, the Enterprise comes across a marker of sorts that will not let it pass. They destroy the marker and move on but soon find themselves in conflict with an unknown alien who accuses them of trespassing and tells them they have only 10 minutes to live. Kirk decides it’s time to play a little poker and literally bluff his way out of the situation by telling the alien that the Enterprise has a device on board that will destroy the alien as well as the Enterprise. The bluff works but the alien turns out to be something quite unexpected.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Anthony D. Call … Dave Bailey (as Anthony Call)
Clint Howard … Balok
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
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel (voice) (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Ted Cassidy … Balok’s Puppet (voice) (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Crewman (uncredited)
Walker Edmiston … Balok (voice) (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Sean Morgan … Crewman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Eddie Smith … Crewman (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Crewman (uncredited)

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)

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)

Jimmy Buffet – Come Monday

Buffet has always lived on the pop/country side of music…and soon after this, it was pop/country/tropical music. I bought his greatest hits in the 80s and I became a fan. I saw him live twice and if you ever want a concert that is more like a giant party or a Hawaiian Lūʻau…go see Buffet live. Also If you like tailgating before the concert… this is the man to see. His truly devoted fans are called “parrotheads.”

This song was written by Buffet and released in 1973 and peaked at #30 on the Billboard 100, #23 in Canada, and #58 on the Country Charts. The song was off of Living & Dying in ¾ Time and the album was Buffet’s first album to reach the top 200 at #176. Come Monday was his first top-40 hit. He would have some minor hits after this like Pencil Thin Mustache, A Pirate Looks at Forty, and others but it was Margaritaville in 1977 that broke it open for him.

The single version of the song replaces the third line, “I’ve got my Hush Puppies on,” with “I’ve got my hiking shoes on.” Some broadcast outlets, including the BBC, would not play songs with brand names in the lyrics, something that forced an edit on the Kinks song “Lola.”

Jimmy Buffet was quite the partier in the 70s. I’ve talked to a music producer who knew him back then and it’s a wonder he survived. He did have a run-in with a famous Tennessee sheriff…6’6″ Bufford Pusser. If you have a few minutes…it’s worth the story!

He wrote this song for his girlfriend, who he was missing and she ended up in the video. When he sings the first line, “Headed out to San Francisco for the Labor Day weekend show,” he’s talking about a specific concert in 1973.

Buffet explains quickly how the video was made and then the video.

Come Monday

Headin’ up to San Francisco
For the Labor Day weekend show,
I’ve got my hush-puppies on,
I guess I never was meant for
Glitter rock and roll.
And honey I didn’t know
That I’d be missin’ you so.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

Yes it’s been quite a summer,
Rent-a-cars and west bound trains.
And now you’re off on vacation,
Somethin’ you tried to explain.
And darlin’ I love you so that’s
The reason I just let you go.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

I can’t help it honey,
You’re that much a part of me now.
Remember the night in Montana when
We said there’d be no room for doubt.

I hope you’re enjoyin’ the scenery,
I know that it’s pretty up there.
We can go hikin on Tuesday,
With you I’d walk anywhere.
California has worn me quite thin,
I just can’t wait to see you again.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

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)

Bessie Smith – Down Hearted Blues

Let’s go back…way back. Music did exist before the 50s and sometimes I like to explore it. These are the talented artists who inspired later generations that we listen to. We cannot forget the pioneers of any genre. Artists like Mahalia Jackson, Janis Joplin, and Norah Jones have all given Bessie Smith credit as their inspiration.

Whenever I hear Bessie Smith I hear pain and greatness all at once. I’ve written about her song No One Loves You When You’re Down And Out and I’ve been revisiting her lately. This song was her debut single in 1923.

I got into Bessie Smith from listening to Janis Joplin and reading about her. Bessie’s voice sends chills up my spine…that is my litmus test. This particular song grabs me because of Smith’s voice and the recording vibe. She sings it, means it, and she damn well lived it. The sound of the record and her voice is just unbeatable. Yes, we have digital now but digital could not give you this sound.

She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 15, 1894. She lost her dad while she was an infant and her mom when she was 7-8 years old. She was raised by her tough older sister. To help support her orphaned siblings, Bessie began her career as a Chattanooga street musician, singing in a duo with her brother Andrew to earn money to support their poor family.

She is credited with recording more than 160 songs between 1923 and 1933. Smith performed on stage throughout the southern United States and recorded with such jazz greats as Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Coleman Hawkins.

Before the Great Depression, Bessie was the highest-paid black entertainer in the world, collecting as much as two thousand dollars a week to perform. She was accompanied by great musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, and Benny Goodman.

This song was written by Alberta Hunter and Lovie Austin. The song is about a mistreated woman and had been recorded by fellow blues singer Alberta Hunter in 1922. A year later Bessie Smith sang it with pain, passion, and power as if it was her own song. The record sold more copies than any blues or jazz record had before…780,000 in the first six months after the release, #1 in the Billboard charts for 4 weeks, it helped to save Columbia from imminent bankruptcy and made Bessie a star.

They called Bessie Smith the “Empress of the Blues,” and for good reason.

Down Hearted Blues

Gee, but it’s hard to love someone
when that someone don’t love you!
I’m so disgusted, heart-broken, too;
I’ve got those down-hearted blues.

Once I was crazy ‘bout a man;
he mistreated me all the time,
The next man I get has got to promise me
to be mine, all mine!

Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days,
Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days,
It seems like trouble
going to follow me to my grave.

I ain’t never loved but three men in my life,
I ain’t never loved but three men in my life,
My father, my brother,
the man that wrecked my life.

It may be a week, it may be a month or two,
It may be a week, it may be a month or two,
But the day you quit me, honey,
it’s comin’ home to you.

I got the world in a jug, the stopper’s in my hand,
I got the world in a jug, the stopper’s in my hand,
I’m gonna hold it until
you meet some of my demands.