Posted on 06/12/2021 3:06:57 PM PDT by SamAdams76
I have mosquito bites all over my arms and legs. I'm thinking because I've been out camping, sitting by the campfire and doing a lot of cast iron based cooking over said fire. Which is some of the best kind of cooking if you are to be camping.
Then I go into my tent and roll myself into a "sleeping bag" but even then, I'm thinking mosquitoes are still able to get through.
So a lot of mosquito bites and it's only mid June. Lot of camping left to go this season.
Nothing better though then sleeping under a tent and hearing all the noises of nature, especially pit-pattering rain and crickets and tree frogs. Then you get the birds in the morning waking you up as the sun gains strength in the east.
Then you get the campfire going again in put some "cowboy coffee" on as you prepare the eggs and bacon to get your next camping day off to an acceptable start.
But I digress.
I'm old enough to remember back when "rural" themed TV shows ruled the day. You had "Hee Haw" which was such an incredible institution that I might need several posts to fully describe it. You had "Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction", "Mr Ed", "Andy Griffith", "Jim Nabors Show", and "Lassie" just to name a few.
Oh yeah, and "Gunsmoke" and "F Troop" just to name a couple more.
All these shows (and more!) had respectable to great ratings on TV and presented good American values to the general public.
But along came this douchebag named Fred Silverman who took over CBS around 1970 and felt that rural values were not conducive to how he felt America should be and the "rural purge" was on.
In came more "urban" based shows like "Mary Tyler Moore", "All In The Family", "The Jeffersons", "What's Happening", "James at 15", and "Sanford & Son."
Certainly not all Fred Silverman creations but Fred did kill the rural-based TV shows in order to cater to more urban and suburban audiences (though those audiences did appreciate the rural shows as even "Hee Haw" got decent ratings in NYC and Boston.)
Fact is, rural shows basically disappeared in the early 1970s with the notable exceptions of "The Waltons" and "Little House On The Prairie."
Basically from then on, you had the urban-suburban TV shows with their loud voices, their canned laughtracks and their more liberal values dominating the airwaves.
Then there was the spin-off with Fish (Abe Vigoda).
I do too.
“Go to Helen Hunt for it.”
“Rat Patrol”, followed Vic Morrow in Combat.
Rat Patrol 2021 would be sweet, huh?
Recognize this “Hills Angel?” She played Daphne on “Frasier.”
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6bxoAsvhcOI/hqdefault.jpg
60s and 70s jingles and theme scores were a masterpiece in themselves. Rockford files, Firestone commercials, Hill Street Blues, Barney Miller, Sanford and Son, Brady Bunch, Green Acres, ......yadda yadda.
Green Acres had superb writing. They don’t make em like that anymore.
Loved “Fractured Fairytales”.
Rockford also had Lindsey Wagner appearances, more than once.
The pilot and one other time.
Don’t forget that pigs grow up very fast so there were actually many “Arnold the pigs”.
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I kinda recall reading that in TV Guide.
I watched Rat Patrol too but don’t remember it like I do Combat. It was too sandy for me. I vaguely recall guns jamming with sand.
He also directed, “Play Misty For Me”.
I do believe you are correct, sir.
Other favorite recurring characters were Freddie Beamer and Vern St. Cloud.
Thanks. I was not aware of the radio version. I liked Conrad as an actor.
Gunsmoke was one of my favorite tv shows, and my Dad’s. My mother and sister couldn’t get into it. They loved Bonanza!
I never got into radio except while driving until Rush came on his show and I was hooked. There was one exception.
My roommate in college and my best friend from high school to now, listened to the Rest of the Story at noon everyday. He got the other room mate and I addicted to that show. We would fix lunch, eat it and listen to the Rest of the Story with Paul Harvey.
The other roommate’s dad owned a Chevy dealership, and he had a big Chevy Convertible. Sometimes on nice days, we would go to the local fast food drive in, order and then listen to Paul with the top down on the convertible.
We often had small coveys of other listeners. They would bring their lunch sacs over and listen. None of us ate in the car. We lunched while sitting/leaning on the fenders or a curb.
A 50 cent lunch, a new Chevy convertible and listening to Paul Harvey with good friends was a great break in our study routines.
Often we had some great discussions on that lesson of the day.
“Watched Ed Sullivan with a babysitter when the Beatles 1st made American TV. She didn’t stop screaming. LOL!”
Sullivan and his producers swiftly recognized that The Beatles were something monumental by the end of 1963. He made sure that their first live televised performance in the US would be on his show, and, on February 9th, 1964, the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show.
We were in Norfolk finishing up my tour of active duty in the Navy. My wife’s mother called her and told her to watch the show. My wife’s music teacher/piano teacher was calling everyone telling them that history was going to be made with that show and not to miss it.
We watched it with a neighbor couple, he was the Security Group Chief on the cruiser that JFK had loved. His wife was a great woman from Ethiopia and sang in Italian. He grew up in Kentucky/Tenn. and was good with a guitar and not a bad singer.
My wife played the piano at weddings and the organ at her church while growing up and has an incredible ear re music.
I thought that she and the Chief were going to pass out watching and listening to the Beatles. He was playing and singing his “Air guitar. My wife was totally blown away.
The Ethiopian gal and I couldn’t believe our spouses..
Later my wife said that the Beatles were beyond just a pop group. They had that magic and used it. She said everyone in that TV audience would probably remember that show forever.
On one Ed Sullivan show The Beatles were singing “Help” and John dropped two lines of the second verse and was starting in the middle. Paul and George were trying to out sing him to get him back on track LOL. It used to be on Youtube somewhere.
Episodes of “Gunsmoke,” (the radio version) air regularly on Sirius/XM “Radio Classics” (Channel 148). If you don’t subscribe, they occasionally have free periods where the channels are open to anyone with a receiver in their cars, or through the website/app.
Give the radio version of Gunsmoke a try. Easily the best western in the medium’s history and one of its finest dramas. Conrad gives Matt Dillion a slightly different spin, and the same can be said for the rest of the cast in their roles.
Sound effects (or sound patterns, as they were listed in the show’s credits) were truly outstanding. The sound department at CBS was very good at creating multi-dimensional audio (in a day when everyone was listening on “mono” AM stations, and really couldn’t appreciate their efforts). For an indoor scene at the Long Branch, you’d hear the main actors talking in the foreground, background conversation suggesting other patrons, and the sound of the bar’s piano beyond that. The radio version of Gunsmoke ran until 1961, and was one of the last network dramas to leave the air.
Paul Harvey was appointment radio for 50 years. BTW, the “Rest of the Story,” was created by his son, Paul Jr., who wrote those segments for decades, and they were compiled in at least two books. Paul Jr. was also the announcer for his father’s 7:25 am newcast.
Thanks
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