Let it run into Split Second while I went through the little bit of paperwork for John Hancock and my tax return that were piled on top of my printer. The first episode was pretty much a curb-stomp battle, as one lady dominated the entire game. She missed the car and opted to come back. A gentleman barely beat her in the second. He must have decided that his close victory was a little too close, as he opted to take the vacation.
I briefly considered running errands. The rain stopped by noon, but it began again around 2 and would be off and on for the rest of the afternoon. This was no day for running around. The only time I went outside was to take out the trash.
I also called Karen to see how she's doing. Not well. She's getting checked out in the hospital. We won't be getting together again this week. I just hope she's all right.
Had lunch and made the bed while watching 365 Nights In Hollywood. I go further into this Tinseltown-set backstage musical that was one of the earliest roles for Alice Faye at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Switched to the first season of F-Troop while doing research into several different jobs that interest me. I started watching this spoof of western cliches last year, but never got around to finishing it. Started with the second disc of season 1. "The Girl From Philadelphia" is a pampered lady who wants Captain Parameter (Ken Berry) to marry her. This doesn't make his current girl Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson) or his troops happy at all. Jane and the troops do everything they can to get rid of this wealthy interloper.
Sweet and clumsy Parameter becomes "Old Iron Pants" when he returns from an officer training course a far tougher man. He closes the saloon, ousts the town drunk, and won't let Melody in the fort. The men have to figure out how to get him back to normal in time for a shipment of mail order brides to arrive.
Instead of Sergeant Agarn (Larry Storch) re-enlisting, he says "Me Heap Big Injun" and joins local tribe the Hekawis. Truth be told, they really don't want him, either. Parameter and Agarn's partner Lieutenant O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker) try to convince the Hekawis to send him on a ritual that'll put him back in the army...and failing that, they bring everyone from the fort over to join the tribe.
The fort's bugler Private Dobbs (James Hampton) invites his mother to visit the camp. The others think he's talking about a gorgeous singer. "She's Only a Build In a Girdled Cage" when Agorn and O'Rourke try to bring a real chanteuse to the fort to appease them.
After he saves Chief Wild Eagle's life, Parameter receives "A Gift from the Chief" - a baby. The men are all enamored of it at first, until it starts to keep them awake at all hours. Parameter and the others try to figure out how Parameter can save Wild Eagle's life and get him to take the child back.
O'Rourke and Agorn are really excited when a con-man starts to sell worthless mining shares around Fort Courage. Once word gets out about them being phony, they retreat to the hills. The con-man dresses as a Native and says he's an "Honest Injun," but some habits are really hard to break.
Worked on writing for a little while after F-Troop ended. Joyce is dazzled by and impressed with Televisia City. The citizens are somewhere between curious about her strange appearance, and nervous that she's traveling with a lion. Bill Cullen the gate keeper finally introduces them to Nips Tok (Nipsey Russell), their wind-up guard and the head of the Televisia City army. He'll accompany them to the Wizard.
Watched Match Game Syndicated while eating leftovers for dinner. Charles somehow manages to predict his name will fall off the Star Wheel in the first episode. Gene helps him use a staple gun to get it back on. Charles is more nervous in the next episode when the Star Wheel lands on a double, and he has to do "Leonard __" for the Head-to-Head.
Finished the night as I worked on my Musical Dreams reviews doing something a bit different. Thought I'd listen to all those fairy tale kids' records I picked up yesterday. My favorite was the Simon Says one. Their Goldilocks started off more like Little Red Riding Hood, with Goldilocks picking flowers before she invades the bears' home. Cinderella has a fairy godfather elf instead of a typical fairy godmother. There's also a brief story about the Easter Bunny waking up for spring. "Rings On Her Fingers" and "Alakazam - The Magic Man" are songs, a nursery rhyme set to music and a song about a magician who teaches young children.
The Brave Little Tailor was nearly as much fun. This isn't a story that's adopted often, other than the Mickey Mouse short. This one pretty much follows the original Grimm fairy tale. The tailor is a diminutive fellow who is so proud when he kills seven flies at once, he tells the townspeople he killed "seven with one blow." They think he killed seven giants, and he finds himself dealing with some very nasty oversized interlopers.
Wasn't nearly as fond of the Pinocchio/Treasure Island/Aesop's Fables Peter Pan album. Pinocchio sounded more like The Gingerbread Man, with Gepetto chasing the puppet everywhere until he finally follows his father to the whale and learns to be good. His grating voice didn't help matters. The Little Red Hen sounds less like an industrious hen than an annoyed baker from Brooklyn, and his friends were even worse. The squeaky voices on the City Mouse and the Country Mouse, not to mention the mouse that helped the lion, were too much. The only story that came off well here was that truncated version of Treasure Island. I'd like to see if I can dig that one up in full.
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