Flashback Friday: Bewitched

~ lobablanca ~ 2 Comments

Ah, the age-old question finally rears its ugly head here at the lair: Bewitched? Or I Dream of Jeannie?

Well, if you like your all-powerful women to remain subservient and wishing only to do your bidding while scantily clad and calling you “Master”…then you’re a pig.

However, if you like your magical immortals a little more head-strong, a little more mischievous, a little more in control…then it’s all about Samantha Stephens, my friends.

samantha

Yeah, yeah, I’m being hyperbolic yet again. I Dream of Jeannie wasn’t completely misogynistic (although damn if it didn’t try really hard to be) and Bewitched wasn’t 100-percent “girl power.” It was, after all, a show about a witch who decided to suppress her true self to please the mortal man she married. However, even as a kid, I always felt like Jeannie was…wrong. Not that I felt like Samantha was right in wanting to deny her own unique powers just because they made Darrin feel like less of the man of the house. Still, there was something about Jeannie’s obsequious nature…that fragile desperation to please Major Nelson and that gushing heartbreak to which she would succumb when her attempts inevitably failed…it just annoyed me. Meanwhile, I was always happiest when Samantha’s attempts to “be normal” failed and we were treated to yet another episode of witchy nose-twitching hilarity. Plus, rarely did Samantha kowtow to Darrin. And heaven help the poor man if he pissed her off. Or, even worse, if he pissed off Endora. Hell hath no fury like a mother-in-law with occult powers.

endora

Ah, Endora. I have to say, as much as I adored Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, I think it was supporting cast like Agnes Moorehead’s performance as Endora and Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur who made Bewitched all the more beguiling to me.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/JTXEnCc-pco

With family like this, Samantha had no chance of denying who she was. And Darrin had no chance of ever having a “traditional” marriage, no matter how much he wanted it. Who needs tradition, though, when you’ve got Paul Lynde?

Of course, one of the first things that most people ask about is the issue of “The Two Darrins.” Dick York, the original actor cast as Darrin Stephens, Samantha’s constantly bewitched, bothered, and bewildered mortal husband, could no longer stand the constant pain he was in from a back injury he suffered in 1959 while filming the movie They Came to Cordura. The crew did all manner of things to make him more comfortable on the set, including building special furniture for him. He lasted as Darrin Stephens from 1964 until a collapse on the set in 1969 marked his abrupt retirement. From then until the series end in 1972, Dick Sargent portrayed Darrin Stephens.

Rather than give you comparing photos of York and Sargent, I’m just going to leave the two animated intros, featuring caricatures of each actor, right here…because, I love the cartoon Samantha (so much so that I have a coffee mug bedecked with her bewitching countenance) and, frankly, I need to include the theme song to this show at some point in this flashback. It’s one of two theme songs I’ve ever downloaded as a ring tone…that’s how much I love it. So first, Dick York:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XRZitnndpoY

And now Dick Sargent:
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/txP2JK2ecmA

And, just because I love that I finally found this, here’s a clip of the original theme song, as sung by Steve Lawrence. I always heard that the theme had lyrics but it was years before I finally confirmed the rumors for myself. This version is obviously trying to give off a Frank Sinatra vibe, which kind of works for me. I’m glad that they used the instrumental for the show (especially since Lawrence seemed to enjoy singing the word “witch” with quite a bit of gusto that gave a sinister element to this version), but this is pretty groovy for a listen or two:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/mKOGTiSGlYY

Back to the Darrins, I’m sure this was a rather unexpected switch, especially back in the pre-Internet days when audiences simply had to accept it without explanation, but it wasn’t a change drastic enough to cause people to stop watching. I’m sure, though, that a lot of Bewitched fans were used to switch-ups like this thanks to soap operas doing similar things. To be honest, when I watched the show, I never really cared. I mean, I think I preferred Dick York to Dick Sargent, but honestly? I wasn’t watching for Darrin. Darrin was…well, I won’t say he was a necessary evil. He was the catalyst for the show’s purpose, which was more Samantha, more Endora, and more Uncle Arthur. Beyond that, meh.

[Loba Tangent: I have to give a bit of credit here to another classic sitcom, Roseanne, for using this infamous Darrin debacle to acknowledge their own need to replace actress Alicia Goranson, the show’s original Becky, with Sarah Chalke when Goranson decided to attend college. Actually, this YouTube clip showcases not only this switcharoo nod but also Goranson’s return…and Chalke’s return…and…well, just watch. Nice spoof of The Patty Duke Show as well!]

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/6HYXTyrZLfM

It’s been a very long time since I last saw an episode of Bewitched, but I can assure you, denizens, this show played a huge role in fashioning the twitchy-witchy wolf I am today. Not even that awful Will Ferrell abomination of a remake could dull my love for the original series (although I have to admit, Shirley MacLaine was damned good as Endora and Steve Carell made quite the convincing Uncle Arthur…too bad everyone else, including the screen writer, botched everything else).

Plus, any time one of my favorite sitcoms crosses streams with one of my favorite cartoons? Stick a fork in me, because I. Am. Done. No, Samantha never joined forces with my favorite teen sleuths and their pesky Great Dane (I think that might have been more than I could handle). She did, however, find her way to the quaint little town of Bedrock. Oh, yes, denizens. The Stephenses met the Flintstones. And the Rubbles. And hilarity, indeed, ensued. Plus some awesome meta-ness that still cracks me up. I’ll just leave these here for you while I twitch off…

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/puwyccNsLdQ

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MqcqoydxSS0

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/R_z1GkwNobQ

BookBin2013: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

~ LobaBlanca

Layout 1

I’ve been slowly whittling away on a book from my own collection that has proven to be quite a journey (note that I did not use a pejorative, like “slog” or “ordeal”; it’s been an interesting read, but also a very full read). However, I set this particular book aside for a little while (because, honestly, you need a break from even enjoyable things when they go on for too long) to read the latest book from Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.

For those of you who are not familiar with Roach, she’s made a bit of a name for herself by writing “curious” examinations of topics that I assume pique her interest: Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife. I actually received Stiff as a Christmas present from my parents almost 10 years ago (which speaks volumes about: A) how sad my book backlog really is; and B) the types of books that make my dad think of me). After reading Packing for Mars, I’ve made a deal with myself that I really should try to fit Stiff in at some point this year.

Hopefully.

So I’m going to do that cop-out thing again and post the dust jacket description. Really, though, it’s quite a well-written summary, and I always like to give credit when it’s due:

Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can

Flashback Friday: When Frat Boys Attack

~ lobablanca

I feel I owe you something special this week, denizens. I’ve been flaky enough as it is for the better part of this year…but then I didn’t even show up last Friday for our now weekly meetup here. Mea culpa.

So what have I brought to make up for this unexcused absence? Something special, indeed. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing…well, that’s something that you’re going to have to decide on your own.

A little history: When I was one of Testudo’s minions, I had the pleasure of being one of the first English majors to take part in a new concentration one of the tenured professors was working on, based on the spark of potential he saw for us in the steadily growing online world.

Yes, I know how old that last paragraph makes me sound. Shut up.

He was an awesome professor, and one of the few I encountered while at the University of Maryland who wanted more than just his own words parroted back to him. He wanted creativity. He wanted different, weird, strange, provocative, pensive, funny, angry, querulous, bewildering, bemused…he wanted original and unhinged and reaching and odd. He wanted us to climb into the spaces of this new world and see what we could build.

This was one of the most enjoyable classes I took the entire time I was in college. No syllabus, no textbook, no rules, no limits. He had two major assignments, both involving our own creativity and steadily increasing familiarity with HTML coding and graphic design programs. The first project involved designing an online space, with different “rooms” into which visitors could enter in whatever way we deemed most appropriate. We needed a theme…everything else was up to us. Basically, he wanted us to show him how we could take the power of words and combine them with the power of code to create a whole new, interactive reading experience.

I called my project “Tongue: Hypertextual Experimentation.” I based the themes of my “rooms” on the different taste bud groupings: sweet, bitter, sour, and salty. I even built little “hallway” pop-ups that blended the various taste groups together in short little vignettes as you transitioned from one room to the next. And I had Steven Tyler be my visitors’ guide:

ACOUST

I was a long way from Shop-Fu in those days. But I had way more time and creative energy, which was what really mattered. I also had a blast doing this project. I loved each of the pieces that I wrote for the different rooms, but I think “Bitter” was my favorite. Surprise, right?

I named the piece I wrote for this room “Diatribe,” with the tag line “Because Bitter Is A Better Way Of Life.”

I really haven’t changed much at all, have I?

Needless to say, it is an incredibly bitter bit of writing, even for me. Lots of bitterness bubbling just below the surface for that young little wolf. But, embedded as one of the many links I used to make my rooms truly “hypertextual,” was this little gem, which I called “When Frat Boys Attack”:

I had often heard about the fabled “Frat Boy” but I had never actually seen one up close and in action before. After all, the ones who had been in class with me in the past usually only made it in once every week or so and when they did show up, they’d be sleeping off a hangover in the back of the room. And it would be an easier task to get me to hang glide off the Empire State Building than to drag me to a Frat Party at any university (and if you knew how scared I am of heights, this statement would mean a lot more to you than it does right now).

My inexperience with Frat Boys was destined to end, however, in a most bizarre fashion.

I suppose I should let you know this

Photo Fun Friday: Easy Riker

~ LobaBlanca

I cannot take full credit for this idea. The original concept was brought to my attention by my most devilish ImagiFriendTM via a doctored image he found that was funny in concept but so visually awful it burned me to my PhotoShop-loving core. I said that I wanted to fix the poster.

So I did.

I decided to use beardless Riker, because I kind of think Q was right: He was more fun before the beard. He had a boyish charm and impulsiveness that I feel better matches the Easy Rider spirit (plus, this was just a great screen capture of early Commander Riker that I couldn’t resist using it).

I also added a new riding companion for “Easy Riker.” I thought about adding Deanna, just for the LOL factor, but I decided that the idea of Worf on a motorcycle amused me even more.

“I must protest! I am NOT a toking hippie!”

easyriker

Flashback Friday: Very Necessary

~ LobaBlanca

snpvn

I feel as though this flashback should actually be on Salt-N-Pepa rather than just one of their albums, since they played such a pivotal role in defining my early musical tastes. Plus, if I were to select one album from their catalog as their strongest or best, it wouldn’t be Very Necessary. It would probably be their third album, Black’s Magic, which, track for track, is their most solid offering from their unfortunately short-lived career.

Still, for nostalgic reasons, I’ve decided to go with their fourth album, which released the year I was a high school senior. I’m going with this one for a couple of reasons. First, this was one of the last rap/R&B albums I ever bought. I spent a good portion of my middle school and high school days memorizing the lyrics to all variety of rap songs from all variety of artists I’ve mentioned here before. However, with the shift in mainstream rap leading to less provocative, more violent artists offering less creative, more misogynistic music, I began to shift away from the genre. Plus, I was beginning to finally feel the flannel pull. By my freshman year of college, I was well into alternative music…not to mention that strange interlude I had with country music (that I admittedly still slightly cling to through my continued love of Terri Clark and the Dixie Chicks in all their iterations).

Second reason I chose Very Necessary is because it was pretty much the soundtrack of my final year of high school…at least the commuting part. My little nerdly Chevette had a tape deck that fed into the tiniest, tinniest speakers you could possibly imagine. Seriously, I’m willing to bet that some of you have better speakers on your smartphones than my little Chevette had. Still, it was sound. Sound of any kind was good. And so I dubbed several of my favorite CDs onto tapes (Memorex, natch) and would listen to them during my 15-minute drive from home to school, always being sure to eject the tape and turn off the radio before I pulled into the parking lot. Remember, I went to a religious school and I highly doubt they would have been grooved by such lyrical scripture as:

You couldn’t hump me if my first name was Cooty Cat
Your little jimmy can’t even hold your zipper back

Call me crazy, but I think that would have landed me in the pastor’s office faster than that short dress I wore for my junior year picture day…but that’s another story for another time.

And, yes, Salt-N-Pepa’s lyrics were profane, sexual, sensual, and sometimes just downright naughty. One of the things that I love about their lyrics, though, is that, while they were sexual, they always conveyed a sense of female strength and resiliency and self-respect (although, admittedly, I’m not going to be picking any of those songs here…they’re more from earlier albums…sorry). However, they also weren’t always what we would now call “PC.” For example, in “Shoop,” their second biggest hit from this album, guest rapper Big ‘Twan says “Twelve inches to a yard and have you sounding like a retard” during his interlude. Even back in the day, this bit caused problems and most radio stations would bleep out the word “retard.” (Never mind the physical impossibility of the lyric anyway…a yard? Really? 36 inches? Right.) It’s a shame that they included Big ‘Twan at all in this song, which is one of my favorites (and also one that I can still rap in its entirety, either with or without rum accompaniment…although I have been told that “with rum” is a more entertaining delivery).

One of the other standouts from this album isn’t actually a song. It’s a public service announcement that the group included, inspired by Sandra “Pepa” Denton’s and Deidra “Spinderella” Roper’s work with HIV/AIDS awareness groups. The PSA, “I’ve Got AIDS” is the last track on the album. Listening to it now shows how far we have come in our understanding of the disease as well as how far medicine has come in controlling the virus and how much closer we are to finding a cure. Back then, though, it was something groundbreaking and, in some ways, controversial, to have these mainstream rappers giving time and space on their album to a PSA about what had for years been called “gay cancer.” Instead, Salt-N-Pepa were telling their fans, this is happening to all of us and it’s not going to stop until we’re all aware and looking for ways to prevent it and ways to cure it.

Oh, and for the record, the biggest hit not only of this album but probably also of their career was their duet with En Vogue, “Whatta Man.” Ironically, it’s one of my least favorite songs…but one that I still will stop to listen to if I hear it on the radio. Why don’t we just take a little break right now and listen to it, eh?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/b9iDl1KIOTQ

And, of course, I’m going to leave “Shoop” right here…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4vaN01VLYSQ

And, as a bonus, I’m just going to leave this here, too. If you know me at all, denizens, you’ll understand…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/q6Dqs2kmYHw

Flashback Friday: Shrinky Dinks

~ lobablanca

We’re going to pretend that today’s Flashback Friday is about Shrinky Dinks, those magical sheets of plastic that you colored, cut out, and then stuck in the oven to shrink them down into brittle, scalding “fun” sizes. But, seriously, this photo just looks like it fell out of the 1980s, doesn’t it?

shrinkydinks

That was my little 13-inch television on which I played Hunt the Wumpus and all my other awesome generic ripoffs of cool Atari games that came with my TI-99/4A computer. Sadly, if I tried to play a video game on a television this small now, I’d probably have to tape magnifying lenses overtop my glasses. Old age: Run away!

This is also the television that I discovered Sisters on…but this Betamax VCR was not exclusively mine; this was the family VCR for years. We watched all kinds of Disney cartoons and live-action movies and whatever else the local mom-and-pop store offered on Beta tape. I remember a lot of things like K9 (we never could get Turner and Hooch, so we had to settle for James Belushi and a German shepherd…had a happier ending from what I remember) and Savannah Smiles, which I know we must have rented at least once a month, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about if my life depended on it. I also used to tape all kinds of movies from my childhood on this little machine…horribly cheesy films like Troop Beverly Hills and the remake of The Blob that always made my dad shake his head when he would pass by and see me designing special labels for these movies with my packet of Crayola markers.

So, sure, we can pretend that this entry is all about Shrinky Dinks…but what could I possibly say about Shrinky Dinks that I didn’t say in the very first sentence? These are Smurfs. I also did Shrinky Dinks for He-Man and Battle Cat, but I couldn’t find those on the day that I was taking these photos. I used to color my Smurf Shrinky Dinks while listening to my Smurfs All Star Show album. Dude, I was totally meta, even as a little Loba.

Flashback Friday: Whitney

~ LobaBlanca

I’m in a bit of a musical mood this evening, denizens. I’ve said before that I don’t really know all that much about music. If you want to read things written by someone who actually does know music, I’d recommend you go here.

No, I just want to write about the sentiments I feel when I think of certain songs or CDs or musicians. I just want to remember. I just wanna…dance with somebody…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eH3giaIzONA

I know, I know…that was a truly horrible segue. Whatever. Just watch the video. Watch happy, healthy Whitney. Watch that amazing eye makeup. Watch that hair. That hair! That hair screams 1980s louder than the highest note Whitney ever could hit.

It was the constant airtime rotation of this song and video that made Whitney the first CD I ever bought. I paid $30 for it at The Wall. Yeah, kiddies, you read that correctly. $30. For one CD. You know, it’s not really that difficult to understand why so many people turned to things like Napster so rapidly when they became available. Not that I’m condoning such behavior. But $30? For something that you can now download instantly from Amazon.com for $9.99? Ballsy, RIAA. Ballsy.

But I digress, per usual. I must have damned near worn out my little boom box playing this CD, not just because it was the only one I owned at the time, but because I enjoyed listening to every single song. They had catchy hooks, lots of 80s-era synth (which I apparently really enjoy), bubbly, bouncy lyrics, and Houston’s amazing voice.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0YjSHbA6HQQ

When I was in college, I sold my copy of this CD at the local used store for pocket money. I was well into my alternative rock phase by then; also, by that point in Houston’s career, she had already started turning into the sad punchline to her very unfunny personal joke. I didn’t want to watch this artist I had looked up to and adored so much as a child imploding in on herself in such a painfully public way. When she died, all I could think in the moment I heard the news was that hers was the first CD I ever bought. And I wished I could have it back.

More than that, I wished I could have that time back, if only for a moment…before Bobby Brown, before the drugs, before she was called difficult or a diva and the worst thing people were saying about her was that she might be gay. Really not that bad a rumor in comparison with what ultimately transpired, wouldn’t you say?

In 1987, though, she was perky, vivacious Whitney, belting out inescapably happy tunes, flouncing about in music videos with handsome male dancers and poorly CGIed bodyless dance shoes. And that hair.

That hair.

Only thing that could outclass that hair are the lapels from this live performance of one of my favorite songs from Whitney, “Love Will Save the Day.” She made performing seem so effortless in this video. Sadly, the white people caught on tape do not make dancing seem effortless. You’ll know them when you see them. Love wasn’t going to save that day…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GkhHbz-A_p0

Flashback Friday: Trapper Keeper

~ lobablanca

You won’t believe this, denizens. I don’t believe it.

Mead still makes Trapper Keepers!

Actually, that site doesn’t really provide a nice view of the modern Trapper Keeper. Here, have this Amazon.com view.

Looks like they’re now made with solid-color fabric covers, with a sturdy metal snap to hold them shut and sturdy metal rings that I’m sure clack shut with percussive reassurance.

How dull.

Nope. I want my Trapper Keeper made completely of plastic and cardboard. I want a Velcro closure and a little plastic tab that, when you pull on it, makes the plastic rings slide open and shut in absolute silence. I want the flap to be held on with thin, destined-to-become-more-brittle-with-age plastic piping that tatters and rips throughout the year, until by the time summer vacation arrives, those tattered edges have several times snagged your clothing and sliced through the skin on your palms like paper cuts on steroids. I want special folders in bright primary colors, branded with the Trapper Keeper logo. And I want the outside decorated with something inspiring. Like a tiger. I want a Tiger Trapper Keeper.

Image attributed to like the 80s
Image attributed to like the 80s

I actually did have this exact Trapper Keeper one year. One year is a pretty good record for a Trapper Keeper. Then again, that was the joy (for kids, but a money-sucking pain for parents, I’m sure) of the Trapper Keeper: You got to get a new one each year. One that would properly express your ever-evolving personality through pictures, designs, and colors. Either that or show everyone that you were late to the Back-to-School sale and all they had left was the one with the prancing horse in a meadow.

Which is fine if you like horses. Otherwise, you end up suffering from an extreme case of Trapper Keeper envy for an entire year. Not that I know anything about such things.

[Loba Tangent: What the hell did I know about horses? I’d never even ridden a horse at that point!! Well, except for that glue-factory candidate they dragged out at the local elementary school’s summer carnival for kids to climb onto and clatter about in a parking lot for 10 minutes. That poor little beast sure wasn’t going to take you prancing through a verdant meadow.]

Actually, likethe80s has quite a few photos of Trapper Keepers, including this infamous horse one. They even apparently did research for their post.

Pfft. Research. Really, it’s all about the photos they have. Nice walk down memory lane…although I’m not going to lie, denizens…I’m a little concerned by the hoarding nature of the person holding onto all these Trapper Keepers. Let them go! Let that horse finally run free!!

Oh, and if you scroll to the bottom of their page, you’ll find a link to their post on Mac Tonight, who I recently blathered on about here a couple weeks ago. Their post is nice and all, but they don’t have what I have: This photo, taken for me by an awesome ImagiFriendTM who was kind enough to indulge my recent mooning over Mac.

Heh. I see what I did there.

mactonight

BookBin2013: My Mother Was Nuts

~ LobaBlanca

mmwn

I’ve written before about how certain shows from my youth have stuck with me while certain others leave me feeling not the least bit disturbed that there was a point in which I could stand more than 5 minutes of them without wanting to defenestrate the television. One of the shows that I think still falls in the former category is Laverne & Shirley. Looking back on the show now, I think that it was the characters’ blue collar appeal that initially drew me in, even as a child. I watched the regular antics of these two working-class women and recognized in their struggles with work and money the same struggles that my own family sometimes faced.

With less Booboo Kitty, of course.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I consider Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney just as much part of the pantheon of female role models from my youth as Beverly Crusher, Jaime Sommers, Diana Prince, Bonnie Barstow, Jo Polniaczek, and Terry Dolittle, just to name a few.

I’ll get back to that last one in a minute.

I liked them both, but Laverne was my favorite. She always seemed less concerned about etiquette or appearances, a little less genteel, a little more crass, a little quirkier, a little more likely to tell the dirtier jokes and share the better stories over a pizza and a pitcher of beer. Plus, she embroidered all her tops with a giant cursive “L” and drank Pepsi Milk.

Yes, Pepsi Milk. It was a mixture of milk and Pepsi-Cola. I remember drinking these with my grandmother one summer. I don’t know why this sticks in my mind, but it always makes me smile whenever I think of it.

So, what does all this have to do with my latest BookBin entry? My Mother Was Nuts is the autobiography of none other than She Who Was Laverne.

What can I say? If you liked Penny Marshall as Laverne or if you have liked her continued Hollywood career as a director, I would recommend this book to you. It’s funny, straightforward, and incredibly interesting. Suffice it to say, she has led quite a life. Also, Marshall has a wonderful way of being honest without being catty or vindictive. She tells things plainly, saying only what’s important in a refreshingly objective way, and then moves on. She doesn’t try to tear anyone down and she doesn’t try to build herself up…even though, she could if she wanted to.

After all, Marshall was the first woman director to break $100 million at the box office…on only her second directorial outing (not counting those episodes of Laverne & Shirley she directed). She broke the boundary with Big and she repeated this feat with A League of Their Own, one of my absolute favorite movies ever made.

As for my earlier mention of Terry Dolittle, this was Whoopie Goldberg’s character from Marshall’s directorial debut, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which was one of my earliest Flashback Friday posts. Yes, it was horribly inappropriate for 10-year-old me, but it also showed me that someone quirky and strange and just a little left of center could be awesome. In fact, this is what I wrote of Dolittle:

More than just making me laugh, though, I think at some point in my impressionable young mind, I made the choice that, when I grew up and got a

Flashback Friday: Haunted Honeymoon

~ lobablanca

I’ve been thinking a lot about Gilda Radner lately. Probably because, even though I don’t keep track of the actual date anymore, I know that this is around the time of year when she passed away after struggling against ovarian cancer.

[Loba Tangent: For the record, she died May 20, 1989, less than one month after her comedic inspiration, Lucille Ball, died. I don’t know why these weird little things stick in my brain.]

It was around 1988 that Nick at Nite began airing early episodes of Saturday Night Live, and I knew I had to watch for Gilda. I’d already fallen in love with her thanks to the movie of merit in today’s flashback, and I couldn’t wait to see more. Her kooky cavalcade of regular characters, like mushroom-haired Roseanne Roseannadanna, hard-of-hearing Emily Litella, punk rocker Candy Slice, Baba Wawa (I’m sure you can take a wild guess which television journalist this character skewered), nerd icon Lisa Loopner, and Judy Miller, the hyperactive Brownie with the overactive imagination, were always among my absolute favorites from the show. Her random vignettes, like “What’s in Gilda’s purse,” were odd and oddly revealing of the fragility of character that so many entertainers hide behind their creativity. Her Lucille Ball impersonation was impeccable. Her improvisational skills were beautiful. In fact, one of my all-time favorite moments from these early SNL shows comes from a line flub from show host Candice Bergen that Gilda ran with, to hilarious effect (not to mention leaving Bergen in tears from laughing so hard in the background, while Gilda simply pressed onward, never once missing a beat).

Don’t believe me? Watch.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Q6o3qTykxKU

Wait, what was that? The Right to Extreme Stupidity League? I think I saw them downtown. They’re called Congress now.

I digress. Hugely.

Needless to say, these reruns made me an even bigger Gilda fan. What started my admiration, however, was this silly little movie that she made in 1986, with her husband Gene Wilder. Haunted Honeymoon, written and directed by Wilder (with writing assistance from Terence Marsh), was this bizarre amalgamation of comedy, horror, musical, and murder mystery filtered through a noir lens by way of the radio serial format that was so popular during the 1940s-era setting of this film’s events.

Sounds crazy, right? Throw in werewolves and Dom DeLuise in drag, plus that strangely esoteric humor that Wilder infused into all his movies and…well, I’m not really sure what you’ve got. Neither were most people. Critics panned Haunted Honeymoon and audiences didn’t really bother showing up while the film was in theaters. For a week.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It’s a shame, really. I think this is quite an underrated and absurd little film, full of all manner of bizarreness that appeals to my peculiar sense of humor. Admittedly, you cannot watch this movie without disconnecting whatever need for logic and plausibility that you might possess, but sometimes it’s nice to turn these parts of your brain off and allow a bit of nonsensical silliness to wash over you.

Don’t believe me? Watch.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SXXjGjhjTus

I’m telling you, denizens, this one is utterly crazy in that supremely Wilderian style…and Gilda was up to the task of keeping up every step of the way. Plus, the over-the-top setting, both of the house and the dinner party motif, as well as the strange cast of questionable characters with their questionable motives has always reminded me of another one of my favorite childhood movies, Clue.

I used to catch this movie on television all the time, either in its terribly edited format or late at night on one of the cable movie channels, but I haven’t seen it in years. I suppose since it isn’t as popular as some of Wilder’s other films like Young Frankenstein or his go as Willy Wonka, most channels don’t think to play it. Besides, how many people really want to see Dom DeLuise in a dress?

You know, besides me.

I’m not going to tell any of you that this is a “must see” film. As much as I love it for my own personal reasons, I could recommend other, better movies from Wilder’s career. I’d also recommend early SNL seasons or her one-woman Broadway show Gilda Live! for a better idea of Radner’s comedic genius. However, I have to admit that on the rare occasions that I have found this little, oft-ignored gem playing on cable, I always stop. I kind of have to. Netflix doesn’t offer it, either on DVD or streaming instantly, and I failed to buy the DVD before MGM stopped making it. Now, I have to wait patiently to find a used copy either on Amazon Marketplace or eBay that isn’t ridiculously priced. That’s okay, though. I can be very patient.

Until next time, this is your host wishing you…pleasant dreams…