Billie Rae Bates's Blog, page 3

Join Patrick and the Filmsquatch podcast for the Monster Mingle

Patrick Shawn Bennett of the Pop Ninja and Filmsquatch podcasts has always been a fan of Bigfoot. He's also been a host and organizer of fun pop culture events from his locale in Louisiana. Now he's got a new event planned for August, and it's simply squatch-arific. It's the Monster Mingle, and it promises to be a celebration of all things Bigfoot and in particular the "Boggy Creek" movies. It happens at the birthplace of the first "Legend of Boggy Creek" film, Fouke, Arkansas ...

Six Feet Under Hollywood: Tallulah Bankhead - Unlikely Bat-Villain

In the 1960s "Batman" TV series starring Adam West, she was the Black Widow. Who knew that her life behind the scenes was so dark, as well? Blogger Brian of the Six Feet Under Hollywood blog visits her grave and gives a little peek behind the curtain at this stalwart actress of an old and quite-extinct Hollywood era ...
Six Feet Under Hollywood: Tallulah Bankhead - Unlikely Bat-Villain:   "Nobody can be exactly like me.  Even I have trouble doing it." Tallulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama on January 31 ...

Our "Dukes of Hazzard" friend Jason shares this vintage photo

Awwwww, it's too cute not to share. It's our friend Jason, who is often a roving reporter for BRBTV as he's out and about in his truck driving job. This photo goes back quite a ways, though, to the late 1970s / early '80s. Jason's got his "Dukes of Hazzard" jammies on. He found this pic while looking through some items that had been kept for years in storage, quite the trip down memory lane. In the words of Rosco, "I-love-it-I-love-it" ...

Terrific non-TV Toys: At long last, Blythe!

Maybe I saved the best for last. I don't know. I seem to have saved the most valuable doll I own for last, I know that! Because as it turns out, the final doll from my childhood that I'll be profiling on the Terrific non-TV Toys series turns out to be worth the most. Go to eBay and run a search for vintage Blythe dolls by Kenner. They go for some pretty good cash. There were a number of variations in hair color for this beloved 1972 icon who has more than a cult following. Mine is the blonde (obviously there was not a redhead available that day my mom went to the store!). So see her up-close and personal in the latest episode of the series:

Shout-out in this one to awesome collector BlytheWorld1972!

See what else is on the Terrific non-TV Toys playlist.

Just Beneath the Surface podcast discusses "Little Girl Lost" of classic "Twilight Zone"

Because they're awesome, Bruce and Brian at the Just Beneath the Surface podcast, who discuss classic "Twilight Zone" episodes from a modern perspective, took this author's request to review the wonderful episode "Little Girl Lost," my favorite TZ episode of all time. It also happens to be the very first TZ episode I ever saw. I remember it well; I was at the home of friends of the family, as a teen in the '80s, while my parents were hanging out playing cards in the next room, I believe. The TV was on, and this episode came on one of the independent TV stations in our area. What the frig is this show? I thought (well, maybe "what the frig" wasn't a thing back then). I had heard of this show but never watched it before. I was absolutely riveted. And chilled. It was so creepy. Can a little girl actually disappear through a portal in her bedroom? Could this happen to me or someone I know???? Well, OK, maybe I wasn't actually afraid of something like that happening, since I wasn't like 5 years old or anything, but the point was, the episode presented an unusual premise that was very interesting and chilling and did  make you think.

Bruce and Brian offer their own take on the events of this story. Thanks, guys! Really enjoyed the discussion, and didn't realize the actress who portrayed the little girl was in that other (well-known) "Talky Tina" episode with Telly Savalas.

Just Beneath the Surface podcast tackles "Little Girl Lost"

Because they're awesome, Bruce and Brian at the Just Beneath the Surface podcast, who discuss classic "Twilight Zone" episodes from a modern perspective, took this author's request to review the wonderful episode "Little Girl Lost," my favorite TZ episode of all time. It also happens to be the very first TZ episode I ever saw. I remember it well; I was at the home of friends of the family, as a teen in the '80s, while my parents were hanging out playing cards in the next room, I believe. The TV was on, and this episode came on one of the independent TV stations in our area. What the frig is this show? I thought (well, maybe "what the frig" wasn't a thing back then). I had heard of this show but never watched it before. I was absolutely riveted. And chilled. It was so creepy. Can a little girl actually disappear through a portal in her bedroom? Could this happen to me or someone I know???? Well, OK, maybe I wasn't actually afraid of something like that happening, since I wasn't like 5 years old or anything, but the point was, the episode presented an unusual premise that was very interesting and chilling and did  make you think.

Bruce and Brian offer their own take on the events of this story. Thanks, guys! Really enjoyed the discussion, and didn't realize the actress who portrayed the little girl was in that other (well-known) "Talky Tina" episode with Telly Savalas.

Terrific TV Toys: "Star Trek" transporter set, Playmates, 2009

One second you see him, the next, you don't. That's the wonder of the transporter. "Beam me up, Scotty," and all of that. While so much other tech from the original "Star Trek" TV series has come to reality in our culture in the decades since the show originally aired, we're still waiting for the transporter. But hey, like Dr. McCoy, we might not even fancy our molecules being scattered! Who knows. But maybe we'd try it once! So who's working on that invention? Hurry up!

But we do digress! The latest episode of the T3 series features a toy from the Playmates company, released in 2009. With a little magic (and determination) you can make the action figure disappear in a special transporter chamber ...

See what else is on the Terrific TV Toys playlist.

When Hazzard County meets "Alice," Mel gets "Hogg Tied"

Happy Friday! TGIF and all that! How about a guest post from writer Brian of the Six Feet Under Hollywood Blog?

................................

In 2015, The Dukes of Hazzard was removed from broadcasttelevision after 30 years of commercial syndication. The move was not an unexpected one, as theseries, which originally aired on CBS from 1979-1985, was under increasingscrutiny for its use of Confederate flag imagery and symbolism. Once the most heavily merchandised series intelevision history, Dukes merchandise was now being pulled from shelvesacross the country, following a racially motivated mass shooting event in SouthCarolina.

Since then, the series has only been available via Amazon Prime, but that’s notto say that the fine folks of Hazzard County have been permanently banned fromAmerican airwaves. One hidden gem stillairs to this day – an often-overlooked episode of Alice.

The year was 1983, and the hit sitcom, which also aired on CBS, was kickingoff its eighth season. The episode,which was entitled “Mel is Hogg-Tied,” premiered on Sunday, October 2.It brought two of Hazzard County’s finest citizens more than 1,800 miles toPhoenix, Arizona, for reasons I’ll speculate on later. For now, we are told that Dukes mainstay BossJ.D. Hogg is a distant cousin of Alice regular Jolene Honeycutt. It’s a rather flimsy excuse to bring thesetwo series together. Regardless, itworks beautifully.

Boss Hogg meets his long-lost cousin, Jolene Honeycutt(left). Enos is instantly smitten with Mel's other waitress, Vera, whosimilarly seems charmed by Hazzard County’s oldest living virgin.

Oncein Phoenix, Boss Hogg, joined by honest Hazzard lawman Enos Strate, takes aliking to Mel’s Diner, the setting for this series about waitresses who dreamof bigger things. Boss offers to leasethe diner from owner Mel Sharples, hoping to turn his Hazzard restaurant, theBoar’s Nest, into a national franchise. At first, Mel declines, but Boss offers him a tidy sum to sweeten theoffer. Mel happily signs Boss’scontract, having neglected to read the fine print.

Fastforward one week, and the diner has been re-themed as the “Boars NestWest.” Where it was once famous forMel’s chili, it now features traditional Hazzard fare, including hog jowls andpig’s feet. The new menu seems to be ahit with the customers, as the diner is busier than we’ve seen in otherepisodes. Most noticeably, Mel is nowsporting an all-white suit just like Boss.

Mel discovers that he has accidentally sold the diner toBoss for $1 (left). The re-themingincludes a stuffed Boar’s head (right).

Enos stops by the diner after a week of site-seeing to spend time withVera. He tells her that Boss has beenbusy buying up real estate on the block, with plans to build a new shoppingmall. At first the gang is overjoyed atthe business this will mean for the diner, until Boss arrives and admits thatthe diner will be demolished long before then. Unbeknownst to Mel, the contract contains a provision allowing Boss tobuy the diner for just $1 – and he’s here to collect.

Alice, who has always been the brains of this outfit (it is her show afterall), soon devises a plan to get the diner back from Boss. In a move never before seen in this series,Vera breaks the fourth wall and outlines the plan for us.

Taking a page fromBoss’s own playbook, Alice enlists diner regular Artie, who works as a constructioncontractor, to pay a visit to the diner, with his cement mixer in tow. The gang threaten to fill Boss’s prizedCadillac with wet cement unless he tears up the contract and gives the dinerback. Boss reluctantly agrees, but Enosaccidentally turns the machine on anyway, filling the Caddie with cement andtrapping Boss in the process. The twodecide to head back to Hazzard, bringing this episode of Alice to aclose.

Vera outlines Alice’s plan for the viewers (left). Boss decides to leave Phoenix after giving upthe diner and nearly drowning in cement (right).

ObservationsThe Alice series currently airs on Antenna TV weekday afternoons at 3:00. This episode came at a time when The Dukes of Hazzard was trying to reclaim some of its former ratings glory, following a walkout by series leads Tom Wopat and John Schneider. By this point, the two had returned to the series, but the Nielsen ratings would never recover. Contrarily, Alice was still a top 10 show at the time, so its possible that this episode was used as a vehicle to re-ignite interest in Hazzard County.The fact that Vera provides narration for the plan, something never before done on Alice, suggests to me an homage to Hazzard County’s Balladeer, Waylon Jennings, who provided similar service for The Dukes of Hazzard.Not only did both series air on CBS, but they were also both produced at Warner Brothers on the same lot.Back in Season 7’s “The Secret of Mel’s Diner,” the gang discovered buried treasure. When asked what she’ll do with her share, Jolene replied that she’ll buy a souped-up stock car like the General Lee, even mentioning Bo Duke by name. Does that line create an anachronism for this episode? It’s possible that she was referring to people she knew from back home or to characters from a beloved TV show.It’s a shame that diner regular Charlie, played by Ted Gehring, doesn’t appear in this episode. Not only was he a two-time guest star on Dukes, but he also provided those “tonight on the Dukes” voice-overs at the start of every episode.It was only appropriate that Boss ended his visit by falling into wet cement, as he frequently fell into lakes, ponds, and mudbanks back in Hazzard. In fact, he once fell into wet cement back there too!Eagle-eyed viewers will spot a few Confederate flags in the diner during this episode. While Enos is wearing his standard Hazzard County uniform, he’s also sporting a name tag that was never seen back in Hazzard. In fact, it comes from the uniform Sonny Shroyer wore on his spin-off series Enos. I’d like to think that he kept the name tag and snuck it on for this episode. Check out Brian's Six Feet Under Hollywood Blog for more musings on classic TV shows and their stars -- and maybe some modern ones, too!

Terrific non-TV Toys: Little Miss Dollikin, Uneeda, 1971

They're adorable and roughly the size the beloved Dawn doll of this author's childhood. They're Little Miss Dollikins, and they were designed as a competitor to Dawn, actually, back in the early 1970s, measuring in at 6.5 inches to Dawn's 6. Dollikins had already been produced in larger sizes for years at that point, competing with the unstoppable Barbie at just over 11.5 inches high, and before that produced in larger sizes of about 19-20 inches. 

In the latest episode of the T series, you'll see the three Little Miss Dollikins I had as a little girl. These were three of my earliest dolls as a child. I don't even remember what the boxes looked like, but thankfully here comes the Internet to to the rescue! Below are some photos from a simply smashing post on the Who's That Doll Facebook page. (One of mine, the blonde, I believe was branded Triki Miki as shown below.)

The image of Little Miss Dollikin fashions above may just solve one of the mysteries around my own dolls. I remembered what clothing the blonde and redhead were wearing when I got them, because I never really changed their clothes, but I wasn't as clear on the brunette. I was pretty sure she was wearing the denim button-up shirt and bell-bottom jeans that you see on her in the video. And lo and behold, it's one of the outfits above, lower left part of the image. So yes, that's a Dollikin outfit and not a Dawn one. But I could not find any Dollikin online that came dressed in that outfit as I believed mine was. Maybe the brain trust out there can clear that up!

Images from the Who's That Doll Facebook page.

Terrific TV Toys: Mary Ellen Walton and the glorious grab bag, Mego+, 1970s

Have you ever experienced the joy of a grab bag??? Call this experience grab bag "lite," because this bag you can actually see through, so you can get an idea what's in it! And though it may not be quite as daring as a grab bag you can't see through, it is thoroughly thrilling, nonetheless! 

The reason I grabbed up this one at a toy show in Metro Detroit last fall was the little gal in the red and green plaid dress. Yes, that's Mary Ellen Walton -- and that's even Mary Ellen Walton times two! An heir and a spare, so to speak. It was my buddy Jim Wilson in Canada that I was thinking about. He loves "The Waltons," and before now he has never owned any of the wonderful Mego figures released for the series back in the 1970s. Well, now he does -- the better one of the two! The other goes on the BRBTV shelves. So what else is in that wonderful bag! Just behold ...

See what else is on the Terrific TV Toys playlist.