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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

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Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Somewhere around here I still have my coonskin cap. When I was a kid-I slept in it. He was every kid's hero back then.:(
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

DrDemento said:
Somewhere around here I still have my coonskin cap. When I was a kid-I slept in it. He was every kid's hero back then.:(
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Our younger posters can't possibly comprehend the impact that Parker had as Davy Crockett (he certainly couldn't). It was the early days of TV and he made just three one hour episodes for Disney--and became an instant, mega celebrity. Perhaps the arrival of the Beatles in '64 was comparable. He was just huge, gigantic, the theme song became a #1 hit, and about 10 artists covered it. I didn't have a coonskin hat, but I surely wanted one.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

While I loved Davy Crockett, and certainly had my genuine coonskin cap, I still think of Parker as about 50% Crockett and 50% Daniel Boone. The Daniel Boone TV series was later, but it ran for a lot of years. I guess the two iconic frontier characters almost run together into one. They sure dressed alike!
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Old Pio said:
Our younger posters can't possibly comprehend the impact that Parker had as Davy Crockett (he certainly couldn't). It was the early days of TV and he made just three one hour episodes for Disney--and became an instant, mega celebrity. Perhaps the arrival of the Beatles in '64 was comparable. He was just huge, gigantic, the theme song became a #1 hit, and about 10 artists covered it. I didn't have a coonskin hat, but I surely wanted one.
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If you recall the first three were The Indian Wars, Going to Congress and The Alamo. They were so incredibly successful that Disney brought him back to star in 2 more episodes (or prequels to the Alamo episode) where he battled Big Mike Fink and the River Pirates. I had all the bubble gum trading cards that came out, the hat and even a fake rifle.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Carter said:
While I loved Davy Crockett, and certainly had my genuine coonskin cap, I still think of Parker as about 50% Crockett and 50% Daniel Boone. The Daniel Boone TV series was later, but it ran for a lot of years. I guess the two iconic frontier characters almost run together into one. They sure dressed alike!
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You're right, of course. But Boone was only possible because of the culture shaking impact of Davy. For whatever reason I wasn't in to the caps and other merchandise, but I surely watched those three (only three!) episodes. I'm guessing no three episodes of any program ever had such a cultural impact. Like Dr. says, Disney rushed in some prequels and stitched the episodes together to make a theatrical release film. And that song--all day everyday, everywhere. Remember, Davy died defending liberty at the Alamo, very big concept in pre-Vietnam America.

edit: I didn't have a coonskin hat but I do remember (how?) a Life magazine article talking about women selling their old fur coats to the manufacturers to keep up with the demand. Nowdays, they'd have to fly to Peking to make the sale.
 
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Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Old Pio said:
You're right, of course. But Boone was only possible because of the culture shaking impact of Davy. For whatever reason I wasn't in to the caps and other merchandise, but I surely watched those three (only three!) episodes. I'm guessing no three episodes of any program ever had such a cultural impact. Like Dr. says, Disney rushed in some prequels and stitched the episodes together to make a theatrical release film. And that song--all day everyday, everywhere. Remember, Davy died defending liberty at the Alamo, very big concept in pre-Vietnam America.

edit: I didn't have a coonskin hat but I do remember (how?) a Life magazine article talking about women selling their old fur coats to the manufacturers to keep up with the demand. Nowdays, they'd have to fly to Peking to make the sale.
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My earliest recollection of Fess Parker though was a bit part in the movie THEM(with the giant ants and James Arness). He played a pilot who they thought was crazy after he reported seeing some flying giant ants.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

DrDemento said:
My earliest recollection of Fess Parker though was a bit part in the movie THEM(with the giant ants and James Arness). He played a pilot who they thought was crazy after he reported seeing some flying giant ants.
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HA! Love those old monster movies.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

DrDemento said:
My earliest recollection of Fess Parker though was a bit part in the movie THEM(with the giant ants and James Arness). He played a pilot who they thought was crazy after he reported seeing some flying giant ants.
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"Say, aren't you Marshall Dillon from Gunsmoke?"

"Not until 1955."

(C) Dave Barry
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

huskyfan said:
HA! Love those old monster movies.
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THEM! was by far the best of the bunch. With really good actors. James Whitmore, James Arness and Edmund Gwenn (who won an oscar as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th street). Usually the actors in these things were working part time jobs in the Dog n Suds to make ends meet.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Old Pio said:
THEM! was by far the best of the bunch. With really good actors. James Whitmore, James Arness and Edmund Gwenn (who won an oscar as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th street). Usually the actors in these things were working part time jobs in the Dog n Suds to make ends meet.
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Every so often Turner Classic Movies has an entire day or evening of these movies-Jenny and I never miss any. Them! is one of the best-if you ever notice the opening credit showing the title is in color but the movie is not. The studio felt the movie was not worth spending all the money on making it in color after they had already done the title sequence. I don't know if color would have made a difference since the movie was fantastic without it.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

DrDemento said:
Me too-and Godzilla
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So we've named 3 films out of about 300 as being worthy. hahaha. The 3"creature" films come to mind, with the dude in the suit with a visible zipper. This genre gives "b" movies a bad name. Bad scripts, incredibly bad actors, lousy to non-existent special effects and awful cinematograpy.

On the other hand, they did give the dudes at Mystery Science Theatre lots to rip on years later. As a kid, I probably watched all 300 of 'em.

edit: another pretty good effort from that era: The War of the Worlds. Good special effects for that time and Gene Barry was a decent actor. Scared the pizz outta me.
 
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Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Old Pio said:
So we've named 3 films out of about 300 as being worthy. hahaha. The 3"creature" films come to mind, with the dude in the suit with a visible zipper. This genre gives "b" movies a bad name. Bad scripts, incredibly bad actors, lousy to non-existent special effects and awful cinematograpy.

On the other hand, they did give the dudes at Mystery Science Theatre lots to rip on years later. As a kid, I probably watched all 300 of 'em.

edit: another pretty good effort from that era: The War of the Worlds. Good special effects for that time and Gene Barry was a decent actor. Scared the pizz outta me.
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Although WotW was not a low budget movie -- IINM the effects were expensive for their time.

I think there are dozens of 50's b&w horror / monster / cold war paranoia movies that are good (like Val Lewton's movies) or even great (like Them!). It's just they churned out, literally, hundreds of them, so the diamonds are rare. But that's no different from any other genre in any other era -- figure 10% signal to noise and you have the same ratio in contemporary Hollywood, and a much better record than say chick or action flicks.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

Old Pio said:
So we've named 3 films out of about 300 as being worthy. hahaha. The 3"creature" films come to mind, with the dude in the suit with a visible zipper. This genre gives "b" movies a bad name. Bad scripts, incredibly bad actors, lousy to non-existent special effects and awful cinematograpy.

On the other hand, they did give the dudes at Mystery Science Theatre lots to rip on years later. As a kid, I probably watched all 300 of 'em.

edit: another pretty good effort from that era: The War of the Worlds. Good special effects for that time and Gene Barry was a decent actor. Scared the pizz outta me.
Click to expand...

War of the Worlds was a classic with great special effects for it's time. Supposedly if you look real carefully early in the film when the first meteor is seen crossing the sky, you are supposed to see an homage to Woody Woodpecker in one of the trees-this was supposedly done as an honor to Walter Lantz the creator of Woody and a friend of the director of WotW. We have seen the move a hundred times and have yet to see Woody. We did see the homage paid to Cecil B DeMille by showing a movie theatre playing Samson and Delilah. This was not one of the low budget B movies. As far as Creature frm the Black Lagoon-I saw that in 3D in the 50's and did not sleep for an entire week-it still scares me.
 
Re: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD (Part Whatever)

DrDemento said:
If you recall the first three were The Indian Wars, Going to Congress and The Alamo. They were so incredibly successful that Disney brought him back to star in 2 more episodes (or prequels to the Alamo episode) where he battled Big Mike Fink and the River Pirates. I had all the bubble gum trading cards that came out, the hat and even a fake rifle.
Click to expand...

I think I got that Mike Fink Davy Crockett movie floating around on VHS around here.
 
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