It's A Wonderful Life Museum

Did you know there is a museum dedicated to the movie It's A Wonderful Life? Neither did I. But this year my wife and I are making the effort to travel to Seneca Falls, New York, where the fictional story took place. 2021 marks the 75th anniversary of the motion-picture and the town has plans for a weekend celebration. (Donna Reed would have turned 100 this year, incidentally.) I discovered the museum when browsing the Internet last year but with the worldwide pandemic, we did not make the trip. With the anniversary this year, it seemed logical to make the travel in a couple weeks.

At least four cast members from the motion-picture will be there to meet and greet fans, sign autographs and pose for photos. There will even be a "preview dinner" on the Friday evening where the menu replicates the Los Angeles 1946 preview dinner.

The committee is planning to have a complete schedule of events on their website in mid-June so bookmark the website and check it out on a regular basis. Some events may require tickets. Hope to to see you there!

https://www.wonderfullifemuseum.com

THE LONE RANGER: The Early Years, 1933 - 1937

As a friend of mine would say, "You have a blog and have tons of followers so you would be foolish not to use it to promote your next book." So here it goes...

THE LONE RANGER: THE EARLY YEARS, 1933 - 1937 is a book that has been two decades in the making. Add another two decades from research by my co-author and you can be certain how valuable this tome will be for generations to come.

THE LONE RANGER premiered in January 1933 but it was not until five years later, February 1938, that the radio program was recorded on a regular basis. Back in the 1930s, radio was considered a throw-away medium. No sooner did the radio broadcast conclude, the actors tossed their scripts into the box as they went out the door and returned two days later to rehearse for the next broadcast. It was not until 1938 that the radio broadcasts were recorded and this was solely for business reasons. Yes, that means only about 75 percent of the radio broadcasts are known to exist. This also means the first five years have, with but minor exceptions, gone undocumented by fans and historians. This 800-page book documents the first five years of the radio program, including a thorough and accurate history regarding the origin of the program, with scans of archival documents to back up the facts and age-old myths debunked. 

It will not come as a surprise to fans of the program that the character we know as The Lone Ranger was different in the earliest of years than the persona we came to know by 1938. In those early years, The Lone Ranger was depicted more like Zorro and Robin Hood, laughing at danger, gunning down Mexicans and Gypsies, and sought justice in a manner outside the law. 

The authors read almost every radio script from those first five years to provide us with a unique perspective of a darker rendition, the various masks The Lone Ranger wore before settling down with the accepted black domino mask, Tonto's blood-thirsty acts of murder and revenge, Tonto's silver-tipped arrows, the dog that ran alongside as a sidekick to the masked man, recurring villains and The Lone Ranger's musical obsession to sing by the campfire and play a guitar. 

A plot summary for each radio broadcast is documented in the episode guide.

The tentative release date is June 1, 2021, but you can pre-order your copy now at www.martingrams.biz and pay no postage.

THE MUPPET SHOW: Debunking the Controversy

It is difficult to fathom how many of today's children have never seen The Muppet Show, a program I watched every Saturday night when I was a child. Kermit the Frog is the central character of the program, manager of a cabaret-style theatre house providing weekly vaudeville, which invariably has more drama behind the stage than on it. He has to contend with wannabe-comedian bears, the smothering advances of Miss Piggy, crabby regular theatre patrons, homicidal chefs, livestock, not to mention making the weekly guest star feel welcome. This was Jim Henson's attempt to bring back the old days of vaudeville with terrible acts, funny performances, clever musical numbers... heck, some were terrible and others were gems. Let us be honest. He threw everything in there including (literally) the kitchen sink. And for 25 minutes every week we were entertained. 

Florence Henderson on The Muppet Show

Watching the episodes today one has to wonder what was more entertaining: the impressive array of celebrity guest stars or the off-beat comedic sketches and creative musical numbers. In one episode, Scooter sings a song using the names of celebrity guests who appeared on the program. In another episode, woodland creatures sing Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” while trying to avoid being shot and killed by hunters.

 

The program offers loads of entertainment from Johnny Cash, Billie Holiday, Rita Moreno, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Liberace, Carol Burnett, George Burns, Petula Clark, Vincent Price, Roger Moore, Andy Williams, Jonathan Winters, Linda Ronstadt, Alice Cooper, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Hope, Lena Horne, Florence Henderson, Danny Kaye, Madeline Kahn, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and many others.

Debbie Harry on The Muppet Show

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Worthy sequences worth finding on YouTube to watch are Liza Minelli performing “Copacabana” in a half-hour rendition of a Sam Spade murder mystery, Paul Williams and his Muppet imitators singing “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” Lynda Carter in a song and dance routine with “Orange Colored Sky,” Elton John avoiding being eaten by crocodiles in “Crocodile Rock,” Scooter in his rendition of “Six String Symphony,” The Country Trio in a clever rendition of “To Morrow,” and Rolf the Dog performing a hilarious rendition of “The Cat Came Back.” (Those last three are highly recommended.)

Waldorf (left) and Statler (right) on The Muppet Show

Waldorf and Statler, the old hecklers in the box seats, are still hilarious as ever. 

 

WALDORF: They aren’t half bad.

STATLER: Nope, they’re ALL bad!

 

STATLER: Does this show constitute as cruelty to animals?

WALDORF: Not unless they're watching it.

 

KERMIT: Fozzie gets over 200 letters a week!

STATLER: Yeah, but if he paid his bills, he wouldn't get any.

 

STATLER: What’s wrong with you?

WALDORF: It’s either this show or indigestion. I hope it’s indigestion.

STATLER: Why?

WALDORF: Indigestion will get better in a little while.

Milton Berle on The Muppet Show

Among the best of the episodes is the second season entry with Milton Berle. Not only does Berle demonstrate his talent for heckling and exchanging barbs, but reminisces of his days at vaudeville, recites the lyrics to “The Entertainer” and performs a vaudeville comedy sketch with Fozzy Bear. You will never find a more entertaining 25 minutes today. Other notable episodes (in case you do not have time to watch them all) include Alice Cooper, Lynda Carter, Raquel Welch, Liza Minelli and John Denver.

 

Thanks to Disney Plus, all five years of the program is now available on the streaming platform. Well… there are a few exceptions. The streaming service has added a short disclaimer to 18 episodes because the “program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures,” adding that while the content remains intact they “want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.” This disclaimer is not uncommon. Multiple DVD releases of vintage cartoons released over the years offer uncut and uncensored classics with a similar disclaimer on the packaging. 

Johnny Cash on The Muppet Show

What is surprising is how a percentage of the viewing public, of recent, has cried foul over this move with theories running rampant (including one news network blaming a “woke” generation engaging in “cancel culture”) but the real reason has nothing to do with politics at all. For The Walt Disney Company, an extremely large corporate entity subject to ridiculous lawsuits (often referred to as “nuisance suits”), such a disclaimer is an effort to protect the company from nuisance suits. It seems few people today realize that the ten second disclaimer is a trade-off compared to the alternative: the deletion of musical numbers through editing or digital cover-up. For purists like myself, the disclaimer is harmless as I can feel confident that I can watch the episodes as I saw them when I grew up, unaltered or edited.

Lena Horne on The Muppet Show

This is not to say those eighteen episodes are not unwarranted. Johnny Cash performs with a Dixie flag hanging in the background, Joan Baez sang her classic “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” while other episodes depict Muppets as Native American Indians and people from the Middle East. But today's insensitivities are blown out of proportion as a result of the news media and social media. Blaming a generation of children as a whole, or any political party, is nonsense. But such claims create click bait with headlines, Tweets, and accusations designed to infuriate the reader and create distance between our fellow neighbors. All of which is a long winded way of asking people to ignore what social concerns are not really of concern... Instead of watching the evening news, tune in nightly to The Muppet Show. That is what my wife and I have been doing. And we could not have made a better decision.

For the official count, two episodes are not included altogether (one for legal issues and the other suspected music rights that could not be signed off) while a musical number here and there could not be cleared for streaming. The following list contains those cuts:

 

Complete Episodes missing from Disney Plus:

 

Episode 5.06, with guest star Brooke Shields

 

Episode 5.19, with guest star Chris Langham for obvious legal concerns.

 

Segments deleted from the following episodes (mostly for lack of music clearances):

 

Episode 1.17, with guest Ben Vereen. Statler’s reaction to his pants on fire is cut.

 

Episode 2.01, with Don Knotts, the song “Lullaby of Birdland” was removed.

 

Episode 2.12, with Bernadette Peters, the songs “They Call the Wind Maria” and “I’m Five” was removed. 

 

Episode 3.16, with guest Danny Kaye, the song “Jogging” was removed.

 

Episode 3.21, with guest Roger Miller, the song “Down at the Old Bull and Bush” was removed.

 

Episode 3.24, with Cheryl Ladd, the song “There’s a New Sound” was removed.

 

Episode 4.15, with Anne Murray, the song “Dancing on the Ceiling” was removed.

 

Episode 5.05, with James Coburn, the song “Birdwalk” was removed.

 

Episode 5.13, with Tony Randall, the song “Ti-Pi-Tin” was removed.

 

Episode 5.17, with Hal Linden, the song “If I Ruled the World” was removed.

 

Episode 5.18, with Marty Feldman, the “Sesame Street Theme” was removed.

 

Episode 5.20, with Wally Boag, the song “The Ying Tong Song” was removed.

 

Episode 5.22, with Buddy Rich, the song “A Transport of Delight” was removed.

 

Elton John on The Muppet Show

A number of the episodes above including the Brooke Shields episode are available uncut (with all musical numbers intact) on previous Muppet Show DVD releases. And the reason why these segments are not included has nothing to do with a social cause. After consulting with the source, it was disclosed that the reason has to do with music rights that need to be cleared and many times the owners of specific songs demand ransom prices. Oftentimes the cheaper method is to delete the music segment altogether. So rather than blame shift a "woke generation" or a political party, I am taking the moment to clarify the real reason why the disclaimer and those edits.

Harry Belafonte on The Muppet Show

Watching one or two episodes every night routinely, I have found the most comical sketches are those with The Swedish Chef, and one has never truly seen the best of the series until they watch him properly prepare “Roosted Turkle.” (That is roasted turkey for those curious.) In that segment, he demonstrates with a Muppet Turkey how to properly stab a long metal spike through a turkey’s butt (much to the chagrin of the turkey).

 

Jim Henson had a three-year contract with the network and agreed to a two-year extension. Afterwards, he wanted the show to end during the peak of its popularity and creativity – and it did. The final year featured the highest Nielsen ratings for the program. While Henson’s decision is respected, and probably justified, it is a darn shame the program did not continue beyond the five years. If you have access to the Disney Plus streaming service, or considering buying the first three seasons (now available on DVD), do yourself a favor and enjoy the return of vaudeville.

 

Zack Snyder's JUSTICE LEAGUE (movie review)

Love it or hate it, fan boys asked for the director's cut and this past weekend their wish was granted. The highly-anticipated Justice League was to the D.C. Comics what The Avengers was to Marvel Comics. Business rivals with valuable intellectual property, there exists two separate cinematic universes for superheroes. While Marvel has a successful track record for varied storytelling and popcorn fare that you can take your children to go see in theaters, D.C. has continued to provide us with darker fare thanks to the talented director, Zack Snyder. In full disclosure, I am not a fan of Snyder’s style: muted tones and monochrome color to convey a cold, desolate universe populated by action sequences that are sometimes difficult to make out. While executives at Warner Bros. prefer Snyder’s renditions to differentiate from the bold primary colors of Marvel, a studio that maintains straight-ahead camera shooting and quips intercut with chaos, the D.C. style has not always been a home run. Zack Snyder’s Justice League miraculously saw the light of day after fanboys petitioned long and hard… but does the “director’s cut” live up to the hype?

 

Marvel cooked up a recipe involving individual superhero movies that culminated into a superhero team-up, and box office success. Executives at Warner Bros. chose to go work the other way with a team-up and later individual movies with each of the superheroes. After establishing the new rendition of Superman and Batman, the first of what was meant to be three Justice League movies went into production. After significant pressure from the studio who wanted to quickly cash in on the success of Marvel’s The Avengers, Zack Snyder suffered a personal blow during production of Justice League – the suicide of his daughter, Autumn. For two months he attempted to complete work on the film as a means of coping with his loss but ultimately had to walk away. Spiraling into disaster control mode, after review of the costs already put into production, the movie studio turned to Joss Whedon, who scripted and directed The Avengers, to jump on board and help finish the film. The studio executives were not pleased with the dark style of Zack Snyder, and asked Whedon to incorporate a brighter tone, cut the runtime down significantly (in accordance to a studio mandate), and complete the film for theatrical release.

 

Anyone who saw the theatrical rendition knows the film wavers back and forth between scenes. You could tell which ones were scripted and shot by Whedon and which ones were directed by Snyder. In total, 90 percent of the finished film were Whedon’s scenes. Fan boys had high hopes for the movie based on the popularity of the comic book stories, but the film received mixed reviews and financially the movie was a box-office bomb. Zack Snyder was advised by his close friends and family not to watch the theatrical release in fear he would react to what he saw.

Following the theatrical release, and without knowing that Snyder had hours of unused footage on the shelf, fanboys launched a campaign that included petitions, comic con gatherings and billboards in Times Square in the hopes the studio would consider giving Snyder the green light to assemble the unused footage for a director’s cut. Ultimately the studio gave the go-ahead and a small budget for Snyder to complete CGI special effects and a music score. Released on HBOMax on March 18 is Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a four-hour epic that is a completely different movie from what we saw in the theatrical release. 

 

More than just an alternate rendition, numerous characters who received minimum screen time now take center stage, there is a larger villain in the background pulling the strings, and subtle details that required explanation are now extended for clarity. Barry Allen (a.k.a. The Flash) gets more screen time, the character of Cyborg has purpose beyond looking flashy on the big screen, and Wonder Woman commits an act of brawn that you would never expect to see going in. But while we are treated to the best of Zack Snyder, we are also treated to his worst. The film is bloodier, lacked human qualities, contained vulgarity that was not found in the theatrical versions, eliminated humor, and our heroes are practically gods who would not crack a smile if they knew what a joke was. At least three separate times I saw our heroes standing around discussing what action they should take, in a manner that looked like cardboard cutouts, with no emotion as they recited their lines. Clearly had Snyder finished the movie back in 2017, retakes would have polished those scenes. Is Zack Snyder’s Justice League a better film than the theatrical movie? Yes. But only because there is a different story and so much new footage.

 

The director’s cut contains over three-and-a-half hours of footage unseen until now. Director Patty Jenkins insists Zack Snyder’s Justice League fits within the D.C. Cinematic Universe when it comes to continuity with the Wonder Woman movies, but when it comes to the underwater scenes involving Atlantis and Aquaman, there are noticeable differences. Among the obvious was how the Atlanteans were unable to talk under water normally, like in the James Wan movie, and respond to each other by trilling; Also, Mera has an English accent instead of the American Accent she uses in Aquaman. She is also referred to as Domestic Abuser Mera instead of Princess Mera. Also, her parents are revealed to be dead, when King Nereus is clearly alive in the solo movie. Finally, Arthur comments that his mother left him on his father's doorstep as a baby. This is slightly different from the story told in Aquaman, where Arthur is a toddler when Atlanna left him and Thomas Curry to protect them. 

 

Towards the end of the film the director provided us with a hellscape besieged by insect-like Parademons, who make up the army of a cosmic tyrant known as Darkseid. This was only to provide fans with a vision of where he planned to take the next movie and since the director and studio already parted ways, makes me wonder why it was included in the first place. If anything, the film is exhausting. Only once in the four hours was I cheering for one of the superheroes. For anyone who never saw the theatrical release, the director’s cut will be a fantastic feast for the eyes. But Zack Snyder’s Justice League reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock who once said the length of a movie should never last the endurance of the human bladder. Clocking in two minutes over four hours, I question why the movie could not have been cut to three hours.