“Disney’s Titey”
Titanic a la Disney. Starring an all-star cast! Featuring Jason Alexander as Titey, Whoopi Goldberg as the Mean Ol’ Iceberg, Gilbert Gottfried as Napoleon, and Molly Ringwald as Anne Frank. The inspiring true story!
Titey, from J. J. Sedelmaier Productions for NBC’s Saturday Night Live, directed by David Wachtenheim.
What happened to Galen, Virdon and Burke?
One of the frustrations of watching an open-ended series is that a network may cancel it before the storyline is resolved. Case in point: CBS’s Planet of the Apes series. The network had shown the movies to huge ratings success, which prompted them to commission a TV series in 1974. This meant stop-lighting a proposed series by producer Gene Roddenberry, Genesis II. CBS didn’t want two science-fiction series on the air. “Apes! Apes! The public wants apes!” Roddenberry was told. And so, a Planet of the Apes TV series prevailed.
Roddy McDowall, who played the chimpanzees Cornelius and Caesar in the films, would play the chimp Galen in the series. Galen would assist two surviving astronauts, Virdon and Burke, who crash-landed in his world, where civilized apes dominated a dumbed-down human race. The astronauts, being highly intelligent and resourceful, threatened the status quo of the ape society, and thus became fugitives, pursued by gorilla General Urko and his troops. Galen took pity upon the human astronauts, helped them and for that, he too, became a wanted criminal. The astronauts had one hope: that somewhere in the world, they could find existing technology that would enable them to get back into space and return home.
The series lasted only for 13 episodes. There weren’t enough viewers to satisfy the network and so, CBS pulled the plug. Virdon and Burke were stranded; their fate unknown, to the consternation of viewers who followed their adventures on Friday nights.
Then came another venue for the show. There weren’t enough episodes for a daily showing in syndication, in which 65 was the magic number required. So, 20th Century-Fox repackaged ten of the thirteen episodes, combining them into five two-hour movies, containing two episodes each. New bridging material was added at the beginning and end of each movie. Once again viewers saw Galen, this time as an older chimp with grey-streaked hair, in an office that included a desktop computer! At the end of the fifth movie, Farewell to the Planet of the Apes, Galen reveals what finally happened to the two astronauts.
Thanks to a fan on YouTube, now you will know, yourself:
The Classical Three Little Pigs
Comedian John Branyan tells the story of “The Three Little Pigs” in the classic style of Shakespeare. Enjoy:
In time past, though not long ago, there lived pigs, in stature, little, in number three, who–being of an age both entitled and inspired to seek their fortune–did set about to do, thusly.
When they had traveled a distance, Pig numbered First spake, saying, “Hearken, brethren, heed this tempestuous realm! Tarry we long from hearth and home, we shall fare, I fear,’oink’ not well!
And so, being collectively agreed, but individually impelled, the diminutive swine set about to each erect, for himself, an abode. Pig numbered One did construct his house from straw. Pig numbered Two did likewise, though, rather not from straw, instead from sticks. Meanwhile, unique in his imaginings, Pig numbered Three did erect as his domicile, stalwart and garish a structure made from brick, entirely!
Soon, there happened along, as is frequently the scenario in classic tale of protagonist pig or red-hooded child, a wolf.
Carnivorous nature in full season, he called out to the straw-ensconced swine, saying,
“Pray thee, little pig, grant me entrance!”
But Pig One recalled with sage foreboding, that he is MAD to trust in the tameness of a belly-pinched wolf!’ and responded immediately, “Nay, it shall not be, indeed, not by wit or whiskered jowl!”
Prepared for this most expected response, the wolf replied immediately, “Then steel thyself, little pig! Forthwith shall I endeavor by employing means both by huffing and puffing to dismantle yon flaxen fortress!”
Whereupon there issued forth from the wolf an exhale of gale proportions that quickly rendered straw hovel to dregs and dross and carried aloft piglet and shattered quarters both.
Exposed now to claw and fang, Piglet One made haste, wolf in pursuit, to the stick festooned sanctum of peccary secondary, causing Pig Two to cry out in dismay,
“Well, this knots my knickers! The marshaling of feral wolf to my doorstep is nowhere among those endeavors amenable or congenial!”
“A thousand pardons!” squealed Two (sic) One. ‘T’would seem the beast made for breath has purged me of home and sound judgment, alike!”
The mighty maelstrom of the wolf’s exhale splattered second swine’s shack, and shortened his sanctimonious scoldings simultaneously.
“Lo and behold!” squealed Two, “Stand we now amid wooded wreckage, tremulous and vulnerable, with nary a strategy for eschewing the canine devourer looming in deadly proximity!”
“Strategy!” squealed One. “What is noble to contemplate tactical particularities, pressed as we are with a time restraint forbidding detailed strategical conversations. I would urge we run! Wee wee wee wee wee!”
Whether by their own fleet-footed competence, or the wolf’s windless attitude, the diminutive swine arrived at their ultimate kindred neighbor’s inexpugnable brick ingress unscathed.
Upon the Third Pig’s door with urgent hooves they pounded calling out, “Unbar this entrance and with haste, we beseech thee!”
The Third Pig hailed from the American colonies, and possessing a vocabulary substantially less robust than his impromptu visitors, replied, “Say what?”
“Seek we sanctuary!” they implored on the verge of hysteria, “lest we fall forthwith to the ravenous appetency of yonder approaching carnivore!”
Still confounded by their importunate words, Pig Three did render ajar his portal, whereupon One and Two spilled through and collapsed beyond the threshold enervated.
“So y’all just wanted to come in? You could have said that.”
The sinister hist of the wolf could once again be heard outside.
“Pray thee, pigs, grant me entrance!”
“The wolf!” said One and Two.
“Wolf?” said Three, “What do you s’pose he wants?”
“He seeks to gain purchase within, and indeed he would occupy this very alcove were he afforded the most meager of opportunities!”
“Right. I’m just gonna go ask him what he wants.”
“Under no circumstances!” squealed Two, flinging self bodily against the portal. “There is naught to be gained accosting external opponent save our own immediate demise!”
“What did you say about my momma?”
House and occupants were again engulfed in a malevolent blast of wolfish wind. The foundation shook, the frame rattled and lo, to the astonished eyes of piglet and encroaching scoundrel alike stood the Third Pig’s lodging, undaunted. (Good news for you pig fans.)
Aghast and dismayed, Pig Two queried of Three, “How doth, against such relentless and torrential onslaught this domicile endure?”
Pig Three, puffed out chest, tapped a hoof to the hearth and responded,
“It’s American made!”
Transcribed by Jewel Atkins.
A Five-Year Publishing Forecast
E-publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin offers a look at the future of books in an enlightening essay, here. Already, he reports, “A couple of major (Big Six) publishers have acknowledged that ebook revenues for them have passed 20% of their revenues.”
Fascinating.
He who has the most dialogue, wins
Today, Startrek.com posted Part 1 of an interview with Norman Spinrad, who wrote the classic Star Trek episode, “The Doomsday Machine.” It turns out that someone in the cast had the power to eliminate dialogue from his fellow actors. It almost ruined a scene.
Spinrad recalls, “While I’m on the set I see that William Shatner, in between takes, is sitting somewhere. He’s got the script and penciling out Spock lines, because he had something in contract saying that he had to have the most lines, that Nimoy couldn’t have more lines than he did. So, Marc Daniels, who was the director, starts to shoot this. Five blown takes. I’m there. It’s really an [un]usual honor. You’re not really supposed to stick your nose into this. But I can’t stand it finally. I know what’s wrong. There’s a reaction line from Spock that’s missing. It just can’t work (without it). So I call Marc Daniels over into the corner. I said, ‘Listen, Marc, the reason you’re having trouble with this is because of the missing Spock line that Shatner took out. I know the whole reason why that is. We can’t put it back in, but maybe you just tell Leonard to grunt. Can you get away with a grunt?’ And that’s the way they shot it. ”
Read all of Spinrad’s account here.
