Castle Green


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Well here’s the next two pages of Tyer’s Felix story and the next episode of Lane Allen in which the beloved deer jumps into the underbrush. Pussyfoot’s crafty expression in the last panel on the second page reminds me of Sweet Tooth Sam the candy bandit in Tom Terrific. Tyer probably animated that scene of Sam.

Last Thursday, Cathy, the painting group and me all went to the Green Hotel in Pasadena, now called the “Castle Green”.  It’s a hotel that dates back to the 1910s, it’s  now been turned into a condominium. The rooms inside are all period furnished and have that “Grand Ecole” kind of look. We all congregated in the park across the street from the Castle. It was fun painting the two towers of the southern side of the building, surrounded by the many tall palms surrounding it. As we painted, two unfinished Rose Parade floats drove right down the street! It was weird to see how BIG the floats are, you don’t get that on TV, and how simple the underlying construction looks before all the flowers are applied to the float. One was obviously Glendale’s entry, it looked like the old tower of the Glendale airport, which is now full of Dreamworks and Disney buildings. There was an old Piper Cub taking off in front of the tower. The other float was a giant Indian Chief, looking something like an outsized Pontiac hood ornament. It was a wonderful experience painting the old hotel, and we got many enthusiastic comments from passing pedestrians. People are nice when not speeding past you in their cars! We’re hoping to paint in a really colorful spot this Thursday, I’ll report on it if it actually happens.

If you want to read my account of the KTLA (Los Angeles) 60th anniversary marathon over Thanksgiving weekend, here it is: 
“I watched quite a lot of the KTLA 60th over the weekend.  The presentation, especially of the 1940s and 50s material, looked OK, but was NOT respectful. The whole pace of television has changed radically since the “golden age”. In those days, the average half-hour show had 26 minutes of programming, now it’s 21, 9 minutes of commercials. In order to squeeze in those spots, KTLA radically edited and shortened most of the black and white programs. The Peter Gunns were so chopped up that they put in a lot of fake cross-dissolves and wipes to cover up the “slow spots” in the program. To me, that’s the ESSENCE of 50s TV, it was in no particular hurry, the directors took their time and held on shots and usually did slow transitions and long fade outs. This, admittedly, made the shows cheaper to produce, but without those transitions and longer shots, a lot of the charm of the old shows is missing. It was a great pleasure to see the Tommy Rettig version of LASSIE, I hadn’t seen those since the original airings, the Jon Provost LASSIEs have dominated TV slots since the 1960s. The Rettig LASSIES had a lot slower pace, but they radiate charm and innocence that’s missing in the Provosts. The POPEYE hour sadly didn’t include Tom Hatten, KTLA’s Popeye host for many years. They aired without fanfare) rather faded prints of GYM JAM, TOTS OF FUN, HOSPITALIKY (COLORIZED VERSION!), POPEYE AND THE PIRATES (STILL CENSORED), A BALMY SWAMI, QUICK ON THE VIGOR and SPREE LUNCH. The OUR GANG comedies they ran were just two: BEGINNERS LUCK (colorized) and TEACHER’S PET. They ran them with so many commercials that only ONE comedy could be shown in half an hour. The THREE STOOGES were treated with more respect, they ran three shorts in an hour: HOI POLLOI, A-PLUMBING WE WILL GO and MEN IN BLACK (with an artificial wipe in it to edit it down). The TIME FOR BEANY half-hour was the most disappointing for me, they ran episodes #281 and #421 (originally 15 minute episodes) from the DVD set. They were the same edits as in the DVD, except the audio in episode #281 was cleaned-up a bit more. But these great shows air so seldom on television, that you have to be grateful for even THAT small favor (at 4:30 AM). TIME FOR BEANY may be KTLA’S greatest show of all time, yet it’s shoved on the air at that un-godly hour, with no preamble or interviews to support it. The show’s treatment in previous KTLA anniversary programs was more respectful to say the least, but they only showed clips, at least here, they ran almost the entire programs. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait 10 more years to see TIME FOR BEANY again on LA TV. “The Traffic Zone” episodes of Hoppity Hooper were fun to listen to, they included a few Fractured Fairy Tales and Peabody’s Improbable History with them. “Underdog” doesn’t hold up as well, the prints they ran (including Tennessee Tuxedo) were pretty faded. It’s going to be a whole lot more fun watching the shows I taped from this Melee Massacree, at least I can fast-forward through all those commercials! If I ever saw “Larry” from the “Sit and Sleep” stores ads in a crosswalk( “Your mattress is FREEEEE!”), and I was driving, well, it might almost be worth the million-dollar fine and prison sentence to be rid of him! I might as well nail Irwin, Larry’s sidekick, (YOU’RE KILLING ME LARRY!), if I can find HIM in another crosswalk.”

Here’s a comment I made in response to another poster: “I can report that the image quality of the TIME FOR BEANY episodes was very good, just like the copies on the “Beany and Cecil” DVD of a few years ago. They were probably the same transfers, except the audio on episode #281 was cleaned up a bit from the DVD release. You are right about the KTLA kines being on 35mm. The Clampett family has a vault full of the 35mm episodes. I hope they are taking good care of them. How I would LOVE to have all the Bob Clampett puppet shows on DVD (sigh)! I just hope the prints are not going vinegar or suffering nitrate deterioration. I guess what keeps these from being transferred to DVD is that they probably wouldn’t sell in the millions. Also music clearance can be a problem.You have to meet these shows more than half-way when you watch them. Being a cartoon fan, I have no trouble entering into low-tech fantasy worlds, and I love Beany and especially Cecil’s world. Years ago in the Clampett library I saw a 16mm print of a prime-time Willie the Wolf show (KTTV) which had Spike Jones as the guest star with his pet kangaroo in tow. Bob C. had puppets interviewing live guests many years before the Muppet Show. As long as I’m wishin’ how about a DVD collection of the early Bil Baird marionette shows such as THE WHISTLING WIZARD or LIFE WITH SNARKY PARKER, directed by Yul Brynner! I watched the two HOPALONG CASSIDY eps. this morning, and they were shortened just like most of the other b/w shows KTLA ran. It was great to see old “Uncle Joe” Edgar Buchanan in the sidekick part, I think just about all the Hoppy TV eps. are out on DVD.” 

 I think I enjoyed that old Lassie episode with Tommy Rettig as much or more than anything they ran that weekend.

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