A Basket Full of Easter TV Treats

Here's a timely pastiche of old posts dealing with Easter-themed television. It seems like Easter was once a much bigger deal on TV back in the 1970s. Not only did the three major networks air a slew of animated specials, but regular series also aired special Easter-themed episodes!
THE LIFE & TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS was one such series. This NBC family adventure series about a hairy dude (play by future drug afficinando Dan Haggerty) who lived with bears was quite popular during it's two-year run. Grizzly was loosely based on a real person, a bear handler in P.T. Barnum's circus during the early 1980s. This 90-minute holiday episode guest-starred Western legend John Wayne's less than legendary son Patrick. This show should not be confused with BJ AND THE BEAR - which starred Greg Evigan and a monkey named "Bear."

From bears to killer whales...Perry Como, the famously bland singer, hosted a batch of holiday specials on the networks through the 1970s. Joining Perry for this splashy outting - taped at San Diego's Sea World (nothing says Easter like killer whales) are the equally bland duo Grammy-winning Grizzly Adams lookalike Kenny (The Gambler) Rogers and Debby (You Light Up My Life) Boone. The fact that this snoozefest aired at 10PM must have alienated the elderly and grammar school audience that it was meant to attract. I mean who else loves water parks and squeaky-clean easy-listening music but people who are in bed by 9PM?

Speaking of easy-listening, regular readers of Dougsploitation know that when I was a kid I was obsessed with The King Family. The King Family was this humongous group of clean-cut, mostly-blond, well-dressed white folk who sang cover versions of songs made famous by other people. These were mostly showtunes, spirituals and patriotic songs like Climb Every Mountain, He's Got the Whole in His Hands and America the Beautiful. Sometimes they all dressed alike and sometimes they even dressed like royalty!

The King Sisters (Donna, Yvonne, Louise and Alyce) and their extended musical family had their own ABC prime-time variety series from 1965-66. It was sort of like THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW if Lawrence had fathered everyone.

In all, some thirty-seven members of the King family, ranging in age from seven months to 79 years, were featured on the show. I wanted to be one.

A short-lived 1969 revival, also on ABC, focused on the younger, hipper King Cousins. Don't they look cool?

This special, HAPPY EASTER WITH THE KING FAMILY may have just been a syndicated repeat of an Easter-themed episode of their weekly show, or it may have been an all-new hour-long King-fest. I'm not sure, There was a great King Family Christmas clip show that airs on PBS each holiday season. I heard a follow-up on their non-Christmas shows will be made as well.
Wow! What a star-studded eggstravanga this was! Poor Frankie, first THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR now an Easter Special from around the same time with an unimpressive line-up of guest stars. Very sad. Brings to mind one of my favorite lines from GREASE, "Would you pull that crap with Annette?"

SUPERTRAIN returns!

This is a repost from 2008 (and 2010).

In the past few seasons NBC has brought back both BIONIC WOMAN and KNIGHT RIDER, which forced me to recall the another terrible NBC show about a futuristic vehicle–SUPERTRAIN! A failed attempt by the peacock network to launch it's own LOVE BOAT-type franchise, SUPERTRAIN is one of the most critically lambasted TV shows ever. While the train itself was mighty impressive (There was a disco and a swimming pool on board!), the series lacked several things that viewers were looking for at the time - big name guest stars and comedy. SUPERTRAIN premiered February 7, 1979 at 8PM and limped along for a few weeks before it was "retooled" and rescheduled to air in more "adult" the Saturday 10PM slot. I remember watching it a few times and thinking that it really sucked, excepted for the train. I always hoped that it would at least stay on the air long enough to inspire a cool line of toys. That never happened, in total, only 9 episodes aired.
Well, maybe NBC will revisit the concept since they seem to have been mining the NBC archives with revivals for the past few seasons (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, THE BIONIC WOMAN, AMERICAN GLADIATORS, KNIGHT RIDER). With V turning up as a revival on ABC, Can SUPERTRAIN be that far behind? Thanks to Tony Cook for posting some great SUPERTRAIN clips on YouTube .

NBC Fall 1984 - Tuesdays

Tuesdays nights on NBC 25 years ago was a triple bill of action and adventure. Starting off the night was the high octane live-action cartoon called THE A-TEAM.
THE A-TEAM premiered in January 1983 and was an instant hit. Mr. T. quickly became a household name and o culture icon. I was never a fan of the show due to it's hyper-military theme, even though the violence was so over-the-top, it was more a comedy than war show. The series ran for 4 seasons in its Tuesday night berth and was eventually replaced by the much mellower MATLOCK in 1986. Team leader George Peppard passed away in 1994 and plans for a feature film version have been announced, and cancelled and then re-announced.
At 9PM, RIPTIDE came from the same producers as THE A-TEAM, and co-starred Perry King and Joe Penney as two old war buddies who ran a detective agency from a boat. The show benefited from its timeslot and became a ratings champ for two seasons, until a little detective show called MOONLIGHTING came along on ABC. RIPTIDE sailed away in 1986, never to be heard from again.
Finishing up the evening was REMINGTON STEELE, a quirky detective show from MTM that premiered two years earlier. The show introduced audiences to future James Bond, Pierce Brosnon and to rumored lesbian Republican Stephanie Zimbalist. The enjoyable series, which I watched on a regular basis, followed the adventures of Laura Holt (Zimbalist) the "brains of the operation" and Remington, the pretty face who was basically a con man who fit the tuxedo. Doris Roberts was featured as their assistant Mildred. The show was a moderate hit, running for four full seasons and ending in 1986. Then the producers of the Bond film franchise offered Pierce the dream role of 007, creating tons of publicity. Suddenly NBC was interested in a fifth season of the show, and Brosnon lost the lead in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS to Timothy Dalton. The final season was a series of two-hour TV-movies set in exotic locales. Nine years later, Pierce finally became Bond, replacing Dalton. He later appeared in many film roles, including being terribly miscast in MAMMA MIA. Zimbalist has kept an extremely low profile in recent years. I wonder why? Tomorrow: the Wednesday line-up.

Danny's Surprise Movie Matinee: MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS

Hello faithful readers, I may have mentioned in the past that my dear friend Danny occasionally hosts SURPRISE MOVE NIGHT parties at his home. A few transcripts from those events, written by Danny, have appeared on this very blog in the past. This past Saturday we were treated to a special SURPRISE MOVIE MATINEE - and I am turning today's post over to Danny once again to report on the proceedings. Take it away, Danny...Thanks, Dougsploitation! I'm Danny. Seeing as how this was my first surprise movie event in a while, it naturally started off as a disaster! I couldn't get my damn DVD player to work and I had to go to Plan B: the dreaded VHS!!! I put in something called PROTOTYPE X29A... It was horribly unwatchable! Except for the hot Prototype robot costume (which accentuated a hot Prototype butt) there was nothing notable about this feature so we yanked it and recommenced fretting over the faulty DVD player. Guest viewer Tony C. was really helpful here, but everything we/he tried so valiantly just left us more confounded. Then, I realized my "portable porn player" had a cable I could attach to the TV and, VOILA! we had our original intended feature...and the reason we had calamari for lunch...MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS! Starring Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas!
Yeah, start kicking yourselves now! This movie, brought to us by the notorious folks over at THE ASYLUM, is a treat for all group movie watchers. Queue up your Netflix now! It all starts with pop 80's sensation and Playboy model Deborah Gibson... yes, she did Playboy. Yes, she did! Don't contradict me, I know what I'm talking about! See? It was a nice little spread... In all honesty, I thought it was cute & tasteful. Anyway, she puts on some clothes and plays Q-Bert inside a minisub while listening to whales and other sea life play instruments. The Sea lion played the oboe. She must have been possessed, or something like that, cause every time she handled the controls, her hand would have black fingernails and seemed very man-like, but then all normal again as she played Q-Bert.Meanwhile, a helicopter above drops a flashy coffee thermos into the water which makes the concert go awry and all the whales skedaddle. Then Deborah thinks she hallucinates a frozen mega shark and giant octopus, so she don't say nothing about it.Later the giant octopus angrily attacks an offshore rig in Japan, killing almost everyone onboard and the mega shark eats a plane! (Doug's note: this has got to be seen to be believed!)Back in Long Beach, which in this movie is called" San Francisco", Deborah goes to CSI a whale washed up on the beach. She gets all Sheriff Brody and the head guy says it was done by a propeller- case closed! As a true Playboy model would, Deborah sneaks back and pulls a mega tooth fragment out of the whale. She calls her old professor, Dr. Old Guy and asks his opinion. He tells her it's a mega shark tooth. Then her former classmate, Asian Guy, comes to ask Dr. Old Guy about the giant eye he sketched based on the account of a giant eye witness from the rig. Dr. Old Guy says it's a giant octopus' eye. Lorenzo Lamas then Shanghais the trio and takes them to some super secret naval base thing. He tells them, in the most ass-holey way he can, that they need to find a way to stop these giant mega creatures. Speaking of which, the monsters attack subs that are lit like early 80's music videos. The Asian subs are mainly yellow with a blue complementary light, while the American subs are mainly yellow with a fuchsia complementary light.
ANYway... Deborah, Dr. Old Guy and Asian Guy spend a lot of time mixing Easter egg dye in tubes and beakers and, in the most brilliant scene in the movie, Deborah is absolutely crestfallen when she mixes blue and red and gets purple!!To cheer her up Asian Guy says something that really turns her on and they sneak away to do "it" in a broom closet. That is all the inspiration Deborah needs! She realizes that they can lure the giant mega monsters to place that makes them easy to be captured... and they'll lure them with furry moans! Yeah, that stuff that attracts one sex to the other, unless they're gay. I think they intend on using Deborah's furry moans. And to prove it'll work, Deborah mixes a green egg dye with a yellow egg dye and it GLOWS!! That proves it! They lure the Mega Shark to the San Francisco bay, where he'll get stuck between two continental shelves, but things go awry in the music video subs and the plan fails. The shark, angry that he's not going to get it on with Deborah, eats the Golden Gate Bridge ... don't be a tease with a horny mega shark! Meanwhile, Asian Guy reports that things went wrong with the giant octopus, too, but the was no budget to show it, so we just believe him. After Lorenzo Lamas tells them that thousands of people have been killed, in the most ass-holey way he can, he says they're gonna nuke them. Deborah won't stand for it and suggests getting them to fight & kill each other... getting them together with her furry moans, again.
The stupid giant monsters fall for the furry moan trick again and fight each other in a quick cut, repeated shot, cgi fight. They die and Deborah & Asian Guy hook up to live in oceanic peace... until Dr. old Guy brings them another case! THE END.

HERE'S THE TRAILER FOR A QUICKER RECAP:

Easter TV, Part 1

It seems like Easter was once a much bigger deal on TV back in the 1970s. Not only did the three major networks air a slew of animated specials  (more on them in the days to come), but regular series also aired special Easter-themed episodes!
THE LIFE & TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS was one such series. This NBC family adventure series about a hairy dude (play by future drug afficinando Dan Haggerty) who lived with bears was quite popular during it's two-year run. Grizzly was loosely based on a real person, a bear handler in P.T. Barnum's circus during the early 1980s. This 90-minute holiday episode guest-starred Western legend John  Wayne's son Patrick. This show should not be confused with BJ AND THE BEAR - which starred Greg Evigan and a monkey named "Bear."

TV tie-in merchandise that makes you say "huh?"

Was the lovely Lindsay Wagner pregnant on the cover of this coloring "fun" book? It certainly looks that way...
But I don't remember The Bionic Woman ever giving birth on the show, do you?

Also, what exactly is going on here ? It looks Jamie Sommers is on a row boat with a couple of suspicious dudes. Apparently one is dressed up as a templar knight, the other guy is almost entirely cropped out of the photo. (I guess he didn't sign the release form). Bionic school-teacher Jamie is wearing a Holly Hobbie-inspired maternity top and holding a wooden oar. I guess this was supposed to stress the action of the series, but it's kind of a dull shot. Why would anyone choose this bizarre and unflattering photo to use as the cover for a supposedly "fun" book aimed at children? I just don't know...but I'm glad they did. As a bonus - let's visit the Bionic Beauty Salon...