Well, dear readers, it’s very clear that June will be over in about three days. Where on EARTH did this week go? It just flew by, like a gazelle wearing a pink taffeta sample size ten. I don’t know, last I remembered, I got up and it was Monday morning. Now it’s Thursday. I gotta tell you. And what a next few days it’s going to be – filled with merriment and mirth and laughter and legs and hopefully no annoying annoyances. It’s going to be non-stop fun and frivolity and working and seeing and doing from morn to night. Speaking of morn to night, yesterday was a speedy day. I got up early, did some work on the computer, then sat down at the piano and played through the entire Nudie Musical score. It’s all coming back to me, finally, and getting easier to play. As I went through it, I found a few more little dialogue excisions and I moved a couple more things around. I then went through the script, checking and fixing all the spacing stuff, making sure it all looked like it should, and then I locked it up and made a pdf. I then shipped about six packages, took the pdf to Staples to have eighteen copies made, picked up my mail, including a wonderful royalty check for $1.68. I then confirmed tomorrow’s band rehearsal and made all those arrangements. Then I sat back down at the piano and played through the score for the musical I’m mentoring, whose reading occurs the day after the Nudie reading. I was quite rusty on a few things, but it, too, is coming back to me. By that time, the day was just about over and I went and got some food, then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish and ate said food.
Last night, I watched a motion picture I’d TIVOd entitled Raw Meat, starring Mr. Donald Pleasance. It was a low-budget film made in the UK by an American director. I must say, I hated just about every minute of it – truly sleazy, gory, pointless, ugly, and nauseating. Other than that, it was fine. Mr. Pleasance is always interesting and fun to watch, but he couldn’t help this monumental piece of garbage. Of course, it has a little band of followers on the imdb. I then had a craving to watch The Outer Limits, so I pulled out the box set of season one episodes. I was never fond of the show back when it first aired, mostly because I was a loyal and true Twilight Zone fanatic, and I felt The Outer Limits was a copycat show and encroaching on Mr. Serling’s territory. So, I really only saw a couple of episodes back then. Of course, the show is quite different than The Twilight Zone, and over the years I have really come to appreciate it, especially the season one episodes, before Ben Brady took over the show for season two and brought his particular brand of nothingness to it. One of the things that makes The Outer Limits so great are the choices of directors – amazing and unique folks like Byron Haskin, Gerd Oswald (who did most of my favorite episodes), John Brahm, Leonard Horn, and others), plus the camerawork of Conrad Hall, which was, for TV, rather revolutionary. Some of the episodes were so outré one doubts that they could be filmed in quite the same way today. I began with the series’ first episode, The Galaxy Being. It’s not quite as out there as subsequent episodes, and, in fact, it plays like a Twilight Zone episode. I do love the opening narration of the show – “There is nothing wrong with your television set. We will control all that you see and hear.” Cliff Robertson is great in the show, and I must say however they did the effects for the being were really good. I then watched Don’t Open Till Doomsday, directed by Gerd Oswald, starring Miriam Hopkins and John Hoyt. What a creepy and effective hour it is, too, helped immeasurably by the score of Dominic Frontiere (as are most of the episodes). Finally, I watched Zzzzz, one of the weirdest hours of TV ever. Starring Phillip Abbott and Marsha Hunt (who I see at the Tony Slide gatherings down the street, looking exactly the same as she does in this show), along with an actress named Joanna Frank, who, I must say, gives one of the creepiest performances I’ve ever seen on TV – she’s had an odd career, working all the way through the late 90s, but just not very much, save for a nineteen-episode stint on LA Law. Zzzzz was directed by the great John Brahm (Hangover Square), who did his customary terrific job. I’ve decided I’ll methodically go through all the episodes of season one. The transfers, considering this set came out about six or seven years ago, are pretty terrific. And, in serendipitous news, a new 3 CD set of Outer Limits music is coming out in a few weeks.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below and do remember that we will control all that you see and hear.
Today, I shall be going over both scores again, just getting them in my fingers as best as possible. I have several telephonic calls to make, several errands to run, plus I’ll be picking up eighteen copies of the Nudie Musical script. I’ll be going through each script and highlighting the dialogue for each actor so they can easily see where they come in. I’m still lacking one person for the reading to read the role of Eddie, the head backer. I have one idea, but he’s not close by and I know there are people around here who could do it and be fine. In fact, I just thought of someone and dropped him an e-mail, which is why these here notes are now going up twenty minutes late.
Tomorrow, I’ve got an eleven o’clock music rehearsal with the gal who’s playing the ingénue in Nudie, then at two we have a two-hour band rehearsal, and then I’ll decide whether to make the trek to see The Brain.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, pick up scripts, do errands, ship a package or three, sit at the piano for a few hours, and I’m sure there’ll be other things to do. Today’s topic of discussion: There have been a lot on anthology shows right from the beginning of TV – what are your all-time favorite anthology shows and your favorite episodes within them? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and do remember that we will control all that you see and hear.