Spent the rest of the morning vacuuming, dusting, and using the Swifter on the wooden parts of the floors. Watched the original 1933 King Kong while I worked. Director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) hires actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to appear in his latest animal movie, filmed in a remote jungle. The film crew takes a boat to remote Skull Island, where he hopes to film a mysterious creature called Kong. Ann, meanwhile, falls for one of the sailors on the boat, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot).
Kong turns out to be a massive gorilla, and the natives want to sacrifice Ann to him. Carl and some of the crew chase her, but they're held back by dinosaurs, including two whom Kong attacks. Jack does rescue Ann, but Kong follows. Carl takes advantage of Kong's interest in Ann to knock him out and take him back to New York for display. Kong, however, does not belong in an urban jungle, and he proves it when he breaks out and takes Ann on that famous climb up the Empire State Building. It's here that Kong meets his maker...and Carl reveals that "'twas beauty that killed the beast."
Though some aspects haven't dated well (like the very obviously stereotypical natives who worship Kong), I can mostly see why this was such a hit and is still widely respected now. The stop motion work that pit Kong against the dinosaurs, especially the Tyrannosaurus, still looks pretty good, and Fay Wray being carried up the Empire State Building remains an iconic image. A must-see for anyone who loves monster movies or King Kong and wants to see where many of them originated.
Headed out around 1:50 to eat out before work. The White Horse Pub about a block from CVS is one of the few restaurants on the White Horse Pike that's open on a Monday. In fact, except for one guy at the bar, they were totally dead when I arrived. I enjoyed a turkey bacon wrap with tasty sweet potato fries dipped into syrup and a Diet Coke in peace other than the TVs.
Got to Thomas Sharp Elementary just as the kids were arriving. Though we had more kids than last week, we aren't quite at full strength yet. We had 15 younger kids and probably about 6 older ones. The kids were rowdier, especially in the bathroom, which makes it a very good thing that we got them outside. It would have been a crime not to! The weather was stunning, sunny, breezy, dry, and warm but not too hot. The kids chased each other and the other teachers and I ran around with them as "Floor Is Lava" blasted from the new speakers given to the program. Most of the kids were picked up when we were outside. By 5 PM, we had so few kids, they let me leave early.
I went home and spent the rest of the evening working on Maplepunzel. Maple is waiting for Victor and Scott's arrival the next evening when Pavla comes early. To Maple's horror, Pavla not only intends to take her to Berlania, she wants her to marry Pruitt, her financier and one of the country's top officials, and marry Victor herself. Maple has had enough of Pavla's manipulation and demands. She screams so loudly, she shatters crockery and what little glass there is, and attacks Pavla wildly. Pavla has to call her ugly giant crows to hold Maple down.
Furious, Pavla crops Maple's long red hair closely to her head, making sure she has as little left as possible, and slashes her cheeks with the blades of the scissors. When Maple briefly breaks free and calls out the window to warn Victor and Scott away, Pavla takes her voice as her own. Not only does Maple not warn Victor away, he hears her and knows something wrong. He climbs the hair, but only sees Pavla glaring down at him. He accidentally lets go of Maple's hair and drops into the thorny vines below. The vines shred his skin and the blue uniform and pierce his eyes, leaving him blinded. Pavla carries him off to Wennaria on her griffin, rescuing Victor from the thorns and making him believe she's Maple, while Maple is carried off in the opposite direction to be abandoned in the nearest wilderness.
Listened to On the Radio while I worked. Donna Summer's greatest hits album from 1979 may be her definitive collection. It has most of her famous songs, including the title song, "Bad Girls," "Hot Stuff," "Last Dance," "Heaven Knows," and the hit "Enough Is Enough (No More Tears)." My stepdad loved her in the early 80's. Some of my earliest memories are of dancing to his original album copy. In the late 90's, I found it on CD and bought it as a Christmas present for Dad. It was intended to be a little bit of a joke - Dad loved disco, but Mom hated it. It wound up being the hit of the Christmas season and played constantly by everyone in my family during Christmas break, even by Mom.
Switched to Match Game PM while working. For most of this week, Buzzr is running episodes of the nighttime Match Game episodes from 1976 and 1977 it hasn't yet gotten around to. I suspect this is in honor of the nighttime show's 50th anniversary.
In fact, I finished the night with nighttime episodes of popular daytime shows. This practice goes way far back. Some shows that ran in the daytime were such massive hits, they would film extra episodes for the syndicated market at night, too. Match Game and Family Feud are two such surviving examples from the 70's. Alas, the syndicated Tattletales isn't quite as lucky. Its nighttime version only lasted a year, and most of it is gone except a few episodes that ran on Buzzr a couple of years ago.
The 1972 version of The Price Is Right tried three different nighttime syndicated episodes. I have the second version, hosted by a warm, witty Tom Kennedy. It was based on the original half-hour show from 1972-1975, with people playing three pricing games and the top two winners bidding on Showcases. Alas, it and the 1986-1987 syndicated Card Sharks with Bill Rafferty hosting were victims of a crowded market and didn't last a year. Nor did the syndicated Sale of the Century, which ran in 1985 (though ironically the syndicated Sale exists in full, unlike its mostly lost daytime version).
No game show benefited more from moving to the nighttime than Wheel of Fortune. Only a middling success in daytime, Wheel debuted in syndication in 1982 and became an instant sensation that is still going strong to this day. Likewise, Hollywood Squares would twice try nighttime syndication and was a hit both times. I have an episode of the original 70's syndicated show hosted by Peter Marshall, with Paul Lynde presiding in the center square. Other celebrities in this episode include Wally Cox, Shirley Jones, Charley Weaver, Elke Sommer, and Kent McCord.
Game shows can be even more fun in the nighttime! Come see what nighttime syndication has to offer in these hilarious episodes!
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