Friday, April 17, 2015
Show notes for HMOTD 003: Speed Kills, Del
0:00 The title of this week's podcast not only refers to Del's seemingly dexedrine-aided loquaciousness (and the motto of the methamphetamine awareness campaign started by Dr. David E. Smith of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic), but may also be a more oblique reference to the very current-in-1978 controversy over the much-maligned National Maximum Speed Law in the United States. I had always thought that the speed limit was a Carter initiative but no, it was Nixon, during the first oil crisis!
6:00 The Squeaky Fromme assassination attempt on Gerald Ford is the strange mid-70s coda to the already-strange saga of the Manson Family.
6:30 Here's another great Wikipedia summary for D.B. Cooper. Sorry about the mistaking "Dan" for "Don." Obviously too excited about that Don Draper theory.
7:30 I very enthusiastically recommend The Skies Belong To Us. Just a great, riveting read.
9:00 My esteemed collaborator was apparently as tickled as I was by David Lynch's portrayal of an old-timey agent on Louie.
14:45 Oh man, can I just say? I spent one year in Toronto in grad school in the late 90s. I took two pilgrimages to Suspect Video and it was indeed as good as its reputation indicated.
16:15 AFSCME! The Amalgamated... F-Federalizat... hey, apparently I, too, don't know what the fuck it means (NSFW!).
20:30 Unsurprisingly, if you listened to Del's on-air monologue, Hamilton Camp later became a very prolific voice actor. All you 90s Kids will know him from Darkwing Duck as Gizmoduck and all of you 80s Kids will know him as Greedy Smurf AND Harmony Smurf.
22:00 "Don't. Praise. The machine." Also, here's a capsule history of radio automation.
25:00 What the crap, Samsung. Seriously.
26:40 Michael Kassel's book is fast becoming an indispensable concordance for this podcast. Yeoman work, Mr. Kassel, bravo.
28:00 Joyce Armor's IMDB. After you've worked on WKRP, Love Boat, and Remington Steele, what else is there?
31:45 Excerpts from Newsweek's "The Teen-agers" issue here, including the Jan Smithers cover.
36:35 This is from the fantastic second season Mad Men episode "Maidenform."
38:17 Here's Dawn Wells (Gilligan's Island's Mary-Ann) on forty years of the the question, "Ginger or Mary-Ann?" She's good-natured about it, but immediately sees it is all about the male ego. "A boy could go to the prom with Mary-Ann. You had to be a man to court Ginger."
40:15 I dropped the Good Will Hunting reference, so it's up to me to post the video, and I'll just pretend Robin Williams is telling me about this Bailey vs. Jennifer-at-20 thing, "It's not your fault, Mike. It's not your fault."
44:00 Extraterrestrials. Magic and Witchcraft. Missing Persons. Myths and Monsters. Lost Civilizations. Special Phenomena. My six dream Jeopardy! categories.
46:00 C'mon son. C'MON SON.
47:15 Here it is. UFOs Are Real (1979). I want you to watch this and pretend you are 6 years old watching this on WSBK-TV 38 in Boston in 1981. Betty Hill first appears at 1:06:45. Oh, and here's the movie poster. Pleasant dreams.
49:00 Black triangle UFOs. Project Mayflower. Mrs. Woodruff's business card above. IT'S ALL RELATED PEOPLE
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"Comedy is about timing, son... ... ... ... ... ... timing." Hee.
ReplyDeleteAnother excellent book [recently published] on D.B. Cooper is "Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper" by Geoffrey Gray http://www.amazon.ca/Skyjack-Hunt-D-B-Cooper/dp/0307451305/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429309061&sr=1-1
ReplyDeleteFantastic recommendation, Gary, thanks. I definitely want to check that out!
DeleteHey Rob. Hey Mike. Terry here - long-time listener, first-time commenter. Great show, guys. I really think you've hit your stride now with HMOTD 003. Now, not to sound like a certain Simpsons nerd (Wow, I sure hope someone lost his job over that one) but didn't you overlook something in your discussion of "levels of meta" in connection with the writer of "Bailey's Show", Joyce Armor? You do know that she shares her name with a character that appears in a later episode. Joyce Armor is in fact the name of the receptionist who preceded Jennifer. She appears in the episode where Art mistakes her return visit to the station after many years as an invitation to something extramartial. She is in fact an exec herself and was looking to do business with 'KRP alone, and not with the Big Guy. So, as far as "levels of meta", I would've thought that particular connection between off-screen staffers and on-screen characters would have been made. I'll forgive you this time, as your analysis on everything else on this episode was excellent. P.S. Nnnnyyyeeeearrrgh!
ReplyDeleteThat is great information, Terry, thank you! We will be sure to credit you when we get to that episode, which I think Rob and I always refer to as "the Phone Cops" episode. :)
DeleteCharacter becomes writer becomes character? It all falls into place now. Grant Morrison's "Invisibles" is thinly veiled WKRP fanfic. The Big Guy is King Mob, Andy is Jack Frost, Bailey is Ragged Robin, Jennifer is Lord Fanny, Herb is Mister Six, Venus is Mason (the wheels are coming off a bit here), Johnny is Jim Crow, Les is Boy. And Mama is the Lord-of-All-Tears!
ReplyDeletea) This is another one of those situations where this concept is appealing to basically three people in the world: you, me, and Rob, right?
Deleteb) Oh MAN, wait until you listen to next week's episode, Chris. Just WAIT.
(And you know, we can joke all we want, but that Boy-as-Les analogue has me intrigued. Their origin stories both involve political conspiracies!)
Delete(Also, and yes, I really should SAVE THIS FOR THE PODCAST, but did you remember that Les Nessman and Cigarette-Smoking Man have the SAME origin story??)
I sadly don't remember Les's origin story. I guess I know how I'm spending my afternoon.
ReplyDelete