I Spy, And You Spy...

May 19, 2008

As the Cold War raged, the world carried on its hot love affair with spies led by British secret agent James Bond. Forty years ago tonight, American television networks celebrated their contributions in a dominating night at the Emmys.

For the second year in a row, Mission: Impossible (CBS) won best drama while Get Smart (ABC) snagged best comedy. Three of the four best acting awards also went to secret agent shows: Bill Cosby for I Spy (NBC), Barbara Bain for Mission: Impossible and Don Adams for Get Smart. The lone non-spy in their midst was Lucille Ball, who won for best actress in a comedy (The Lucy Show, CBS). “We all love Lucy,” noted Los Angeles Times columnist Joyce Haber, “but enough is enough!”

Never too proud to not capitalize on a trend with copycat versions, Hollywood studios also shook and stirred adventures on the big screen with wry James Coburn as Our Man Flynt and tongue-in-cheek Dean Martin as Matt Helm (The Silencers).

All this emanated from the suave fictional creation of British author Ian Fleming, born 100 years ago this month. He’s the subject of a new exhibit, “For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond,” at London's Imperial War Museum (http://www.iwm.org.uk/) through March 2009. Wildly successful but charmingly unpretentious, Fleming described his first Bond book, Casino Royale (1953) as “an oafish opus.”

After Casino Royale, a string of successful novels followed, with teenage boys (soon to become the prime movie demo) especially enjoying the saucy adventures. But when Sean Connery kicked off the multi-billion dollar movie franchise with Dr. No (1962), Bondmania reached stratospheric new heights.

Quality control has been noticeably lacking, while personnel changes have been legendary: Connery (6 movies), George Lazenby (once was enough), Roger Moore (7), Timothy Dalton (2), Pierce Brosnan (4) and now Daniel Craig, who returns for his second stint as 007 in this fall’s Quantum of Solace (pushed back from summer) and is already signed for #3.

“I watched every single Bond movie three or four times,” said Craig, “taking in everything I could about how the character had been portrayed in the past, then threw all that away once I started doing the role.... If you don’t get bruised playing Bond, you’re not doing it properly. I had black eyes, I had cuts, I was bruised, I had muscle strains, and I took a lot of painkillers – all part of the job.”

Fifteen Minutes of Fame & Counting...

March 27, 2008

She’s young, she’s blonde and she’s a fashionista who asks penetrating questions like, “Who doesn’t want to know what kind of shoes Dr. [Henry] Kissinger wears?”

Meet Meghan McCain, 23-year-old daughter of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, whose “musings on pop culture on the political trail” (www.McCainBlogette.com) have been generating considerable press of late. Yet she laments, “I’m so sick of being called dumb because I like, you know, movies and music and fashion.”

Y’know, we luv that stuff too, Meghan -- like totally! So keep your dishy, pithy pop culture musings coming. Like how you maximize eyelash density by blending two brands of mascara (do the Bush twins know?). Or how you choose a “best dressed reporter” of the week (puh-leese, how about dreamy-slash-nerdy Tucker Carlson? Since he just got canned from his regular MSNBC gig, he could use the lift).

My favorite is your scoop that your ever smiling Mom is a big Cream fan. Whoa, that’s great to hear ‘cause the closest she’s going to get to the White House is “White Room” (#6, 1968). And you’ll soon be at a “Crossroads” of your own right after November 4.

So grab that media spotlight, girlfriend, and work it. Only when it comes to Dr. Kissinger, I have to say I saw him on a flight back in the ‘80s, maybe a decade or so after the end of the Vietnam War. But I didn’t notice his shoes -- I was too struck by the blood on his hands.

There's A Moon Out Tonight

March 25, 2008

Thirty-five years ago, that would be Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The progressive rockers’ landmark ode to life, death, time, money and madness enters the charts on this day in 1973 for the first of 741 straight weeks (that’s more than 14 years), unmatched in album chart history.

It spawns the – ka-ching! – Top 20 single “Money,” and almost every other song becomes an FM staple, from the beautiful “Breathe” to the closing tour-de-force “Brain Damage/Eclipse.” The LP’s use of sound effects to match the rhythm of each of Roger Waters’ compositions, along with double-tracked vocals and seemingly quadraphonic sound, make it a benchmark recording. Indeed Dark Side of the Moon invariably rates high on listeners’ and critics’ all-time-best lists like best album, best album cover and, ahem, best album to make love to.

Dark Side of the Moon is estimated to have sold more than 40 million copies to date, which makes it the 5th bestseller of all time behind only Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black, the Eagle’s Their Greatest Hits 1971-75 and the soundtrack to The Bodyguard.

And for the older listener, “There’s a Moon Out Tonight” by the Queens, New York-based Capris was released on New Years’ Eve in 1960, and reached #3.

M*A*S*H, What a Smash!

February 28, 2008

For a quarter century, a most amazing television record has stood unbroken – the most watched show in history. It happened exactly 25 years ago tonight when 105.9 million viewers tuned in to see the 2½-hour finale – “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” – of the CBS sitcom M*A*S*H.

Last month one powerhouse telecast made a run but fell just short. The New York Giants’ stunning 17-14 upset of the New England Patriots clocked in with 97.5 million viewers, making it the most watched Super Bowl of all time – and the second most watched program in TV history.

Yet this pigskin classic’s showing makes M*A*S*H’s feat even that more extraordinary, considering that there are 70 million more people in America today than there were in back in 1983. CBS reportedly charged $450,000 for a 30-second commercial, some $50,000 more than NBC charged that year for Super Bowl ads.

Most TV series spun off from motion pictures have been disasters. Remember Down and Out in Beverly Hills? How about Dirty Dancing? Planet of the Apes, anyone? My Big Fat Greek Life, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Uncle Buck? Dogs, all. Or that comedic classic Animal House spinoff, Delta House? (At least the latter did launch the career of Michelle Pfeiffer.)

Set in the Korean War, M*A*S*H began in the fall of ‘72 and offered tart, topical correlation to the raging Vietnam War. CBS had just ended the 6-year run of Hogan’s Heroes, set in a Nazi POW camp, but that show emphasized traditional broad, bland fun. Injecting life and death reality into the general craziness at a battlefront hospital, M*A*S*H ran for 11 years – nearly four times longer than the conflict it depicted. Co-creator Larry Gelbart called it a labor of love. “It’s nice not to see that love go unrequited,” he said when it won the Emmy for best series in 1973, besting a classy field including All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Odd Couple.

Alan Alda, the only cast member to appear in every episode, won Emmys for acting, writing and directing – the only actor to do so on one series. As Hawkeye Pierce, he once said, “I’ll carry your books, I’ll carry a torch, I’ll carry a tune, I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia. I’ll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!”

Twenty-five years later and counting, it’s carrying a stupendous record – with no end in sight.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

February 20, 2008

On this sleepy Saturday morning in 1971, an AP and UPI wire story transmits to radio and television stations nationwide:

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ACTION NOTIFICATION DIRECTED BY THE PRESIDENT. NORMAL BROADCASTING WILL CEASE IMMEDIATELY.”

And for the next panicked 40 minutes, many stations do just that. The false alert triggers fears of an impending nuclear attack, and flashbacks to Pearl Harbor or the assassination of JFK.

“[I] thought, ‘My God, it’s December seventh all over again!’” says the manager of an Indiana television station that goes dark for 22 minutes.

Turns out it’s all due to human error, a plain old tape mix-up. Not tape as in videotape, but in punched paper strips transmitted on Teletype machines. Wrong tape, wrong message, big mistake. From the massive concrete bunker warning center deep in the mountains of Colorado, the 15-year veteran employee responsible later says, “I can’t imagine how the hell I did it.”

To which hitherto unknown but now egg-faced director Louis Smoyer later adds, “It damn sure won’t happen again.”