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I came across this when looking for something else. Hilarious foreign commercials. these would never make it onto television in this country
Hilarious Commercials
07 Wednesday Dec 2011
Posted in Humor
Tag Archives: Television
Shock Theater with Dr. Paul Bearer
26 Tuesday Oct 2010
Posted in Television
One of the local television stations, WGHP in High Point, started carrying ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE three weekends 
ago(another in the area started this past weekend with the first episode from three weeks back. It’s on very early Sunday morning(three am on one and five on the other). it started me thinking about a show that same WGHP carried when I was a teenager, Shock Theater hosted by Dr. Paul Bearer, he of the puns and bad jokes(as in, “coming to you from Die Point, North Carolina!”). It was a kick watching these really bad movies in a darkened room, usually alone.
You know the formula. really bad monster movies, bad jokes, and puns(one of his favorite was Bearer hitting a pack of gum with a hammer. “Here I am beating my gums!”). You’ve seen it before on Mystery Science Theater and the previously mentioned Elvira. Except old Paul was doing it back in the sixties. Was he first? I have no idea, but probably not.
Dick Bennick Sr. was the man behind the make-up.
The show was on from the mid to late sixties, then disappeared. I didn’t know anything else until I started researching(love the internet). Bennick took his character to St. Petersberg, Florida and in 1971, started Creature Feature(later Fright Night) that went on a long run that lasted until he died in 1995.
There’s even a website Here.
A fondly remembered show from my teenage years. it was on every Saturday night at eleven thirty. The new Elvira is much later. I suppose her barely contained cleavage might be a bit much for the viewers of this type of show, which tends to run young. Certainly a lot better looking than Paul Bearer.
Here’s a couple of early promotional clips:
and some of his goofy songs he liked to play:
Davy Crockett, King of The Wild Frontier
12 Wednesday Aug 2009
Posted in Television
I took a trip back to my childhood today when I watched the five episodes of Disney’s Davy Crockett. Fess Parker starred as Davy and Buddy Ebsen as his partner, Georgie Russell.
I remember watching the episodes back in the mid-fifties(1955) on our recently acquired television, a gift from my stepfather, who wasn’t at the time. A black and white, as color wasn’t around then. The shows were filmed in color but broadcast originally in black and white.
Crockett exploded in popularity for young boys, such that coon skin caps were all the rage. Yes, I had one as well. The shows were so popular that Disney remarked that if he’d “known it was going to be this popular, I wouldn’t have killed him off in the third episode.”
THE CREEK INDIAN WAR
DAVY CROCKETT GOES TO CONGRESS
DAVY CROCKETT AT THE ALAMO
The Creek Indian War had Davy and Georgie going off to fight the Creek Indians as a scout for Andrew Jackson. Red Stick was the aggressive young chief that was leading the rebellious bunch, being pursued from the Mississippi delta to the swamps of Florida.
On a personal note, some of this one was filmed in the Great Smokies. One of my best friends lives in Knoxville and on a visit, he took us to a spot used in the episode. Davy is shown shooting an Indian off a huge rock, him falling into the pond below. I actually stood in the same spot that Indian fell from.
In the second, Davy and Georgie have staked a claim in western Tennessee on land and are building a cabin before he brings his wife and two sons out. He takes a job as magistrate in the local village when a man named Bigfoot Morton and his men are throwing Indians off their land and selling it to unsuspecting whites.
From there, he agrees to run for state legislature, serves a few years, then, at Andrew Jackson’s urging, runs for Congress. Jackson, planning a run for President, needs allies in Washington.
A few years later, Davy runs afoul of the usual politics, in the way they were treating the Indians and returns to Tennessee.
Davy decides to go to Texas when he reads of the Texans’ problems with Santa Ana to help out. Kenneth Tobey appears as Jim Bowie and Hans Conried as Thmblerig, a gambler/con man that hooks up with them. Along the way, they pick up a Comanche scout, who they dub Busted Luck for all his problems as they beat it into the Alamo just ahead of the Mexican Army.
You know the rest of that story.
DAVY CROCKETT’S KEEL BOAT RACE
DAVY CROCKETT AND THE RIVER PIRATES
As I mentioned earlier, the Davy episodes were so popular, they filmed two more earlier adventures. It was really a two part story as Jeff York appeared as the larger than life Mike Fink, King of the river in both episodes. Kenneth Tobey is also one of his men, Jocko, in both tales.
Looking for a ride down the Mississippi to sell a load of furs, they end up in a race with Fink down the river, a bet a drunken Georgie made with their furs. It’s a ship of landlubbers against Fink’s seasoned crew.
It was a bit comical at times as they continually pulled pranks on each other to slow their opponents down. But the pair end up friends at the end.
The second part concerns pirates pretending to be Indians attacking boats, killing their crews for the cargo, stirring up both the real Indians and the whites against each other.
Davy and Fink team up to wipe them out(there was a brief skirmish with them during the boat race).
It was a lot of fun watching these shows after so many years, presented as they originally run with introductions by Disney and a brief trailer at the end for next week’s episode(it was a revolving show with FantasyLand, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and Frontierland.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
22 Wednesday Oct 2008
Posted in Television
UPS just delivered my birthday present to myself two days before the actual day. The complete Man From U.N.C.L.E. series. Much beyond my control, that young teenager locked inside gleefully dived in to open up and examine his prize.
It was one of my favorites when I was that uncertain teenager in the first bloom of puberty. Napoleon Solo was the American version of James Bond, everything that -nerdy kid(ouch) wasn’t, handsome, assured, a swell dresser(yes we talked like that), good looking women after him all the time.
105 episodes, the rarely seen color pilot(the first season was black and white), one of the feature films, and all the usual bells and whistles. It all comes packed in a nice little briefcase.
It certainly took them long enough. Over the years I’ve collected all the tie-ins: 23 paperback novels, 24 issues of the magazine, two hardcover novels, a Big-Little book, one by Walter Gibson(he of The Shadow fame), 7 issues of the Girl magazine, the two book Girl series, and the 4 book British Girl series. One last DVD is ordered and should be here in the next few days: The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair.
I’ve a feeling over the next couple of months, that twelve year old locked inside will be escaping all too frequently. I’m looking forward to it.
