Joe Blevins's Blog, page 23

Podcast Tuesday: "The Good News is That Chachi Has Diabetes"

Scott Baio and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.
Happy Days is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Believe it or not, it's been half a century since the first episode of Season 1, "All the Way," originally aired on January 15, 1974. Wait, don't most sitcoms debut in September or so? Well, yes. Let me explain.
The first(ish) episode of Happy Days.Garry Marshall's nostalgic sitcom debuted in January because ABC initially had so little faith in it. Like The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, and All in the Family, Happy Days was a midseason replacement that defied expectations and became a long-running hit. In fact, one of the cast members of All in the Family, Rob Reiner, cowrote "All the Way." That may seem like a random pairing to us (Meathead and Fonzie?), but remember that Rob's father, Carl, was Garry Marshall's mentor and friend and that Rob was married to Garry's sister, Penny, from 1971 to 1981.
Now, a total nerd might claim that Happy Days had its true 50th birthday two years ago, because the earliest pilot for the series ("Love and the Happy Days") aired as an episode of the ABC anthology series Love, American Style on February 25, 1972. The network passed on that pilot, only changing its mind when the movie American Graffiti (1973) and the stage musical Grease became successful. The Happy Days series that ran from 1974 to 1984 was heavily influenced by both Graffiti and Grease and bore only a passing resemblance to the 1972 pilot. That's why I'm fine with calling January 15, 1974 the birthday of Happy Days.
So we know when the show began. But when, exactly, did Happy Days end? That's much trickier to pin down. The eleventh and final season of the show was a total mess in terms of scheduling, bouncing around from night to night and even vanishing from the schedule for weeks. I consulted the invaluable book The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh to make sense of it all.
Happy Days aired (to great success) on Tuesday nights at 8:00 from January 1974 until September 1983, when the veteran series was rudely transplanted to 8:30 to make room for a new sitcom, Just Our Luck. When that show failed miserably, the coveted 8:00 berth went to another freshman series, Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders. Happy Days stayed in the 8:30 slot until January 1984, when it was booted from the schedule altogether so that ABC could cover the Winter Olympics. Even when the Olympics were over, however, Happy Days remained on hiatus. Its old time slot went to yet another new show, Norman Lear's A.K.A. Pablo starring Paul Rodriguez.
Happy Days finally returned to Tuesday nights on ABC from April to May 1984 for a brief run of episodes that included the two-part series finale, "Passages." But ABC had a handful of unaired episodes left over from the hiatus. These ultimately aired on Thursday nights at 8:00 from June to July 1984. According to The Complete Directory, that's where the Happy Days story ends. 
Looking back through old newspapers from 1984, I have concluded that the original run of Happy Days finally came to a halt on July 19, 1984 with the episode "Good News, Bad News" in which Chachi (Scott Baio) discovers he has diabetes. And, in case you haven't guessed by now, that's the very episode we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . Is this episode worthy of being the true finale of Happy Days? You know how to find out! (In case you don't, it's by clicking the play button below.) 

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The saga of Ed Wood's 1940 high school yearbook photo (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

A solemn Ed Wood (top row, center) poses for a class photo in 1940.

NOTE: Author James Pontolillo has been diligently researching the early, pre-Hollywood years of writer-director Edward D. Wood, Jr. His goal is to fill in some gaps in the timeline of Wood's life. The following article contains photographs and information that James has discovered while conducting this research. Enjoy. - J.B.

Ed Wood attended Poughkeepsie High School [Figure 1] from September 1940 until early May 1942 when he paused his studies in order to join the U.S. Marine Corps. For unknown reasons, Ed only took part in his 1940 Freshman class photo [Figure 2] and does not appear in his subsequent 1941 and 1942 class photos. 
Unfortunately, the 1940 yearbook staff managed to mix up Ed and two of his classmates when it came to identifying the participating students [Figure 3] . Ed was mislabeled as Thomas Martell, Tony Rinaldi was mislabeled as Ed, and Thomas Martell was mislabeled as Tony Rinaldi. Additional photos of all three men to demonstrate this point and short biographies of Ed's classmates are given here for the first time.

Podcast Tuesday: "Drugs Are Bad, M'kay?"

Marta Kober on Happy Days.
I grew up during wartime, by which I mean the War on Drugs. Remember that dumb thing? I guess the government officially declared "war" (whatever that means) on mind-altering substances in the early 1970s when soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on dope. But the War on Drugs that I remember started in the 1980s, shortly after Ronald Reagan became president. I think we all remember Ron's wife, Nancy, telling us to "just say no" in some famously ineffective PSAs.
I was in elementary school at the time, and I can say that drugs were not a factor in my life at all. We kids were fairly bombarded with antidrug propaganda, but it was not needed in my case. Teachers would say things like, "We know you kids are under a lot of pressure to smoke pot and pop pills." Wanna bet? I certainly wasn't being pressured to do drugs back then. I wouldn't have even known where to get that stuff if I'd wanted it.
By the time I got to high school in the '90s, students were expected to go through a program called Drug Awareness Resistance Education or D.A.R.E. Drugs were still not a factor in my life because I didn't hang around with cool-enough kids. So D.A.R.E. was just kind of a goof to me. One of my favorite moments of my high school years was when our gym teacher asked the class, "Why do you think they call it dope?" and some wiseacre answered, "Because it's dope." Such a great line. I'm ashamed I didn't think of it.
This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast , we're covering the obligatory antidrug episode of Happy Days entitled "School Dazed." The plot has Joanie (Erin Moran), now somehow a full-time teacher at Patton Vocational School, mentoring a troubled young student named Jesse (Marta Kober). Marta pops pills at school, causing Joanie to get all up in her business. Speeches are made. Tears are shed. Lessons are learned. You know the drill.
But is "School Dazed" any fun at all? Or is it just another useless sermon? Find out by listening to our latest episode, which is linked below.

And that'll do it for 2023! See you in 2024! (BONUS: Some comics!)

I'll be joining Larry Burns for some brewskis.
After a pretty busy 2023, this blog is going on a brief hiatus for a couple of weeks. I trust you can live without my super-niche Happy Days and Ed Wood content for the time being. Rest assured, These Days Are Ours and Ed Wood Wednesdays will both return in January. 
Boy, isn't it strange how this blog used to be about all kinds of stuff but is now just about those two topics? Hmmm. For instance, I used to do a lot of comics parodies on this blog, little sendups of comic strips and (less often) comic books. I haven't posted any of that stuff to this blog in three years . I haven't stopped making that kind of content, though. I just tend to post it to my Twitter account and leave it there. But Twitter (or, uh, X) seems to be in its death throes. I guess we'll see.
In the meantime, here are some of my extremely crude, silly comics from the last couple of years that haven't yet been posted to this blog. All created in Microsoft Paint. Enjoy or don't. 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 174: The Oralists (1969) [PART 2 OF 2]

Could this be Ed Wood's most disturbing work?
How far are you willing to go in your pursuit of Edward D. Wood, Jr.? I've asked this question several times  before , and I'll ask it yet again this week. At what point do you say, "No, Ed, I will not follow you down this path"? People have limits, standards, lines they won't cross. I appreciate that.
The Ed Wood you signed on for.Most Ed Wood fans, including me, got to know him through his endearingly wonky 1950s movies, like Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). This is the Ed Wood we signed on for: Bela, Tor, Cris, Vampira, plywood cemeteries, angora sweaters, toy UFOs, etc. When you start exploring the rest of Ed's career, especially his adult-oriented films and books from the 1960s and '70s, you do so at your own risk. Much of this stuff ain't pretty.
Over two decades ago, for instance, I remember being appalled by Ed Wood's softcore feature Love Feast (1969) when it was released under the title Pretty Models All in a Row by Rhino Video. I was too embarrassed to return it to the store or resell it at a secondhand shop, so I believe my copy went right into the garbage. I later had to repurchase that DVD for this project, probably at a higher price than I'd paid for it originally. Today, Love Feast seems relatively tame to me, even though it features a bloated, drunken Ed Wood on all fours being led around on a leash like a dog.
But The Oralists is something else, maybe the ultimate test of any Ed Wood fan. On the surface, it seems relatively harmless—a book-length treatise on oral sex, attributed to the fictional husband and wife duo of Roger West and Jean Spenser. What could go wrong? If you've read the first half of my review, you know the answer is: plenty. Although ostensibly marketed as an erotic book and presumably aimed at horny straight men, The Oralists veers into some decidedly anti-erotic, off-putting material. And we'll encounter the worst of that when we delve into the book's final four chapters.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 173: The weird, wild works of Spenser & West

Ed Wood wrote several books (for different publishers!) under the name "Spenser & West" in the late 1960s.

NOTE: I promised last week that I would complete my review of The Oralists (1969) today, but I unexpectedly received bonus information about some other, related Ed Wood books and decided that they deserved an article of their own. The second half of my Oralists review will appear on this blog next week instead. - J.B.

Last Wednesday, I published the first half of my review of The Oralists (1969), Ed Wood's truly depraved guide to oral sex and those who love it. Eddie wrote this book—and possibly a few others—under the pen name Spenser & West. Jean Spenser and Roger West are supposedly a married couple of sex researchers who write books together. It's all bunk, of course, but it theoretically makes the books seem somewhat more credible. (This isn't just smut. It's science.)
I'd always assumed these fictional sexologists, Jean and Roger, were inspired by William H. Masters (1915-2001) and Virginia E. Johnson (1925-2013), two famous real-life sex researchers who actually were married to each other for over 20 years. While M&J's pioneering book Human Sexual Response (1966) was already out on the market and very well-known to the public, including Ed Wood, William and Virginia didn't actually tie the knot until 1971. They divorced in 1993.
In The Oralists, Eddie refers to a previous Spenser & West book called Sexual Fantasia. I was initially unable to find any information about this book whatsoever and assumed Ed Wood just made it up to bolster the fictional resume of Spenser & West, but reader James Pontolillo corrected me on this issue. Like The Oralists, Sexual Fantasia was published by Tiger in 1969. James kindly provided pictures of the front and back covers.
The front and back covers of Sexual Fantasia.
According to James, Sexual Fantasia is quite rare. In fact, his copy might be one of the few left in the world. Naturally, since this book is a companion volume to The Oralists, I wanted to know if Ed Wood had also written it. Here's how James answered:

I've read through it once very breezily and I will say a provisional "Yes". But I really need to take it back out and go through it much more carefully before rendering a final verdict. It definitely has that "Late Wood" porn novel characteristic mixture of corny writing ("my forest is on fire, baby.... get that big hose out and go to work already") with disturbing content (example: very young-age pedophilia). I need to come up with a reasonable solution to scan the rare paperbacks I have in order to get them circulating to interested parties. Perhaps I'll drop some serious $$$ on this in a few years when I retire and will have the time to scan books.

That certainly sounds promising! 
James also helpfully sent me a copy of the table of contents page from Sexual Fantasia as well as the front cover of yet another Spenser & West book, The Prostitutes (1968). The page from Sexual Fantasia is especially interesting because it contains summaries of the book's seven chapters. It's obvious from the summary of Chapter Two that Sexual Fantasia revisits some of the same disturbing themes from The Oralists. The book doesn't appear to be limited to the topic of oral sex, however.

Podcast Tuesday: "That Boy Could Dance"

Eve Smith and Scott Baio on Happy Days.
I can't dance. I just can't. And it's not for lack of trying, mind you. I've made plenty of attempts at it, both public and private, but my arms and legs just will not do what I want them to. The utter lack of physical coordination that has kept me from playing sports has also, tragically, prevented me from dancing. Anything more complicated than "The Hokey Pokey," and I'm useless.
Why does this matter to me? Well, when you think about it, dancing is an integral part of music -- from classical to pop. A great deal of music is made either to accompany dancing or to exhort listeners to dance. Though wildly different in style, "The Blue Danube" and "Twist and Shout" are both examples of dance music. The fact that I can't dance means that I cannot consume this music in the way that it was intended to be consumed. When you hear "The Madison Time" by The Ray Bryant Trio, for instance, you're not supposed to listen to it passively; you're supposed to get out on the floor and do the Madison. But I can't, darn it.
This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast , we're reviewing "Low Notes," an episode that puts the spotlight on Chachi Arcola (Scott Baio) as he reluctantly takes a job as a dance instructor for senior citizens. Now, we've said plenty of unkind things about Chachi over the years, but this episode proves that he can boogie with the best of them. Cha cha, jitterbug, tango -- he can do it all. I have to admit, I'm a little jealous.
But does that mean "Low Notes" is an episode worth watching? You know how to find out! (Hint: It involves clicking the play button below.)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 172: The Oralists (1969) [PART 1 OF 2]

It's time to talk about one of Ed Wood's most shocking books.
One of the pivotal literary discoveries of my youth—apart from finding a well-worn paperback copy of Dan Jenkins' Semi-Tough (1972) in the basement—was stumbling across Nancy Friday's Forbidden Flowers: More Women's Sexual Fantasies (1975) at the local library. I'm not sure how I found this book. I was unfamiliar with Ms. Friday and wouldn't have known to seek out her work. But I saw something titled Forbidden Flowers on the shelf, and it called out to me. Little did I know I was about to have my adolescent mind blown.
This book shocked me.Nancy Friday (1933-2017) was not a scientist or an academic. She was, rather, a sex-positive feminist who interviewed women about their erotic fantasies and turned her findings into the best-selling book My Secret Garden (1973). The book that I found, Forbidden Flowers, was the sequel. It was, by a wide margin, the most explicit volume I'd ever seen. It left even Semi-Tough in the dust. Here were women sharing their innermost thoughts about taboo topics in terms more graphic than I thought were legally allowable in print. And some of the stories in the book were from women who'd read My Secret Garden and were relieved that they weren't the only ones in the world with certain fantasies.
I thought about Nancy Friday occasionally while making my way through one of Ed Wood's least-known yet most disturbing books: The Oralists, published in 1969 by Tiger as part of its "Case History Series" and credited to the fictional Jean Spenser and Roger West. The publisher's conceit is that Jean and Roger are two sex researchers who are married to each other and write books together; this is their scientific study of oral sex and those who enjoy it. Ed's equally salacious Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History (1967) from Pad Library is also attributed to the nonexistent Spenser and West. In The Oralists, Ed alludes to the existence of another S&W book called Sexual Fantasia, but I cannot find any evidence such a book existed.
While the veracity of Nancy Friday's books was sometimes questioned, the author vigorously denied making up the fantasies herself. I believe her; the women's stories strike me as genuine. On the other hand, Ed Wood's The Oralists is pure literary invention. As with much of Eddie's so-called nonfiction, there's not an ounce of genuine research in it. The supposed interviews and testimonials within it are all just Ed talking to himself. Whether they represent the author's own fetishes and kinks, I don't know. I sincerely hope not. I suppose that the publisher credited the book to Spenser & West and presented it as a clinical study of sex in order to give it a sheen of respectability it would otherwise not have.
I've long delayed writing about The Oralists for a variety of reasons. For one thing, this book will not appeal to most Ed Wood fans. If you've come here for mad scientists, plywood gravestones, and flying saucers dangling from strings, you will not find them in this book. This is "down and dirty" Ed, wallowing in extreme topics and incredibly graphic language. In particular, Chapter Two and Chapter Seven will be more than most readers will be able to take. Another problem in reviewing The Oralists is that each chapter is devoted to a different, self-contained story, so it's really more like a short story anthology than a novel. A lot happens in this book, in other words.
There's no way around the first problem, i.e. the subject matter and tone of this book. This is Ed Wood at his grungiest and least ingratiating, and we just have to accept that. As for the second problem, the overabundance of material to talk about, I've decided to divide this review into two parts: four case studies now, four more next week. That way, I can discuss all the major characters in The Oralists without shortchanging any of them.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Baddest Mother of Them All"

Marion Ross and Billie Bird on Happy Days.
There are some TV characters we just never get to see . Maris on Frasier. Charlie on Charlie's Angels. Orson on Mork & Mindy. Vera on Cheers. We hear a lot about them. In the case of both Charlie and Orson, we even hear them. But their faces are never seen. And that's part of the fun. We imagine what they must look like. We each create our own version of the character. So there's not just one Maris Crane; there are thousands, maybe millions.
Happy Days had a strange, recurring habit of establishing such mysterious offscreen characters, then relenting and actually showing them to us. We eventually got to meet Rosa Coletti, Binky Hodges, Arnold Takahashi, Jenny Piccalo, and more.
But viewers probably thought we'd never get to meet Mother Kelp, the notorious mother of Marion Cunningham (Marion Ross). The eternally-offscreen Mother Kelp was one of Happy Days' longest running jokes, frequently mentioned by the characters but never even glimpsed by the audience. We heard about her bad temper, her drinking, her wacky shenanigans, and her undying hatred of her son-in-law, Howard (Tom Bosley). She was the ultimate compendium of all "mother-in-law" jokes.
Finally, in one of the very last episodes of Happy Days to reach the airwaves ( "So How Was Your Weekend?" ), Mother Kelp appeared onscreen, played by the inimitable Billie Bird. Does Billie live up to eleven seasons' worth of hype? Find out this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . 

Ed Wood Wednesdays: A roundup of Ed Wood news! (Fall 2023)

A new version of one of Ed's films is coming to BluRay soon!
For a director who's been dead for 45 years this December, Ed Wood has maintained a surprisingly high profile in the 2020s. He never totally goes away, at least not for long. It seems like there's always some Wood-related project in the works, related to his films, his writings, or his life. Ed Wood tribute movies and documentaries are always in production or pre-production somewhere, though many of these may never be finished or released. I know this because the makers of these films (and potential films) contact me occasionally to tell me of their grandiose plans. I wish them all a lot of luck.
Eddie's own movies are occasionally rereleased or repackaged as well. Currently, a company called Gold Ninja Video is taking pre-orders for a new two-disc Blu-ray edition of Eddie's Night of the Ghouls (1959). This remastered version will carry the film's original title, Revenge of the Dead, and comes with a slew of special features. Most impressively, this package includes several of Ed's other movies, including Trick Shooting with Kenne Duncan (1960), Jail Bait (1954), and Final Curtain (1957), plus the Super 8 version of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Ghouls, Plan 9, and Jail Bait will all have optional commentary tracks as well. My esteemed colleague Greg Dziawer has written the liner notes. Can't wait to have this one in hand!
But not all the news I have this week is so positive.
Probably the biggest Ed Wood-related story of the past few months was that the makers of the new, crowdfunded episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 wished to use Plan 9 from Outer Space for the show's proposed 14th season. Unfortunately, their Thanksgiving weekend fundraising drive only managed to raise $2.7 million toward the show's $4 million goal, and this was an "all or nothing" campaign. On November 26, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson sent this melancholy message to all who had donated:

Greetings, backers.

Well, we’ve come to the end of the month, and the end of the Turkey Day Marathon and this campaign. 

While we’re incredibly grateful for all of the support, enthusiasm, and encouragement, it’s clear we’ve fallen short of our goal this time.

First, to be clear, please understand that that means that no one will be charged anything, and we will not be collecting anything that you pledged to this campaign , since the agreement was that we’d only collect funds if we reached our minimum goal. No charges will be put on anyone’s credit cards.

Second, and more important, please know that we’re incredibly grateful for all of your input, feedback, concerns and questions, and are thinking about all the suggestions you have made over the past month.

One silver lining is that the continued support for this campaign, and the show, may have opened up some new conversations about potential partnerships and fundraising that could be key in getting the show another season.

We’ll spend some time now exploring those, and working to integrate all of the feedback and suggestions we’ve heard from you, and will follow up again next year, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, when we’ve had a chance to regroup and have more to share downstream.

For now, whether you pledged or not, please accept our thanks and gratitude for your ongoing dedication and investment in MST3K.

We’re proud that the show continues to mean so much, to so many, and will keep working to figure out a path forward so that we can hopefully continue to #MakeMoreMST3K.

Until then, have a wonderful holiday season, and thanks again for all of your support.

Cheers and Thanks,

Joel and Team MST3K

For the time being, Ed Wood's most famous film will not be receiving the full MST3K treatment. So Plan 9 from Outer Space will not be joining Bride of the Monster (1955), The Violent Years (1956), and The Sinister Urge (1960) quite yet. But don't despair! There's a RiffTrax version of Plan 9 from 2009 featuring commentary from MST3K veterans Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. 

And who knows? Maybe the MST3K team will find a way to make Season 14 happen after all. Lord knows, Ed Wood went through his own struggles to raise money for films. Maybe Joel and the gang can take inspiration (or at least consolation) from him.