Something Old, Nothing New

TCM showed 1964's For Those Who Think Young today as part of a festival of teen-surf movies from the '60s. This was United Artists...

When there's a fight between the two most fearsome old ladies in the Hills (either the Ozark or Beverly variety), everyone gets out of t...

Since Eartha Kitt died on Christmas day, most of the initial reports are focusing on "Santa Baby." That certainly wasn't the b...

Here's an "issue" episode that does work. It was the last episode of the third season, written at the height of entertainment-...

Has anybody ever traced the history of human characters in short cartoons? I specifically mean the use of humans as supporting characters in...

You all know I'm something of an Artists and Models junkie, and I've always been a little frustrated by the lack of material on it:...

Among the upheavals and conflicts of the '60s, one thing gave hope to the world: the ability of look-alike teenage girls with nothing in...

Paramount's DVD release of Petticoat Junction: The Complete First Season has given me the opportunity to see a bunch of episodes I neve...

Another thing that I like about Miracle On 34th Street , and didn't really think much about until I watched it again recently, is that i...

I got a request for this episode, the 18th episode of the fourth and final season. Bailey is assigned to do a story on an underfunded chil...

One of the posts I'm proudest of is my 2005 post about Archie comics writer Frank Doyle , so I was even prouder to get this email from ...

As you know, I believe that Happy Days incorporates more shark-jump points than any other show. So when I watched the fourth season DVD (co...

I've been revisiting some recordings produced by John Culshaw , and once again I'm reminded that I love, absolutely love, "ster...

I watched a bit of The Pelican Brief on TCM the other day -- not much of a movie, but a good-looking one thanks to the late Alan Pakula. Th...

Please read Ivan's great post on Miracle on 34th Street (the original, John-Payne-not-John-Hughes version). He rightly points out how ...

In the 20th episode of season 3 (written by Dan Guntzelman from an outline by Tim Reid), an unsolved robbery at the station sets off the usu...

Someone has put the complete movie The Swinger up on YouTube. It is one of the strangest movies of the '60s, not Skidoo strange but cl...

The three Warner Brothers wartime musicals released in the new Homefront Collection boxed set are all uneven. ( Thank Your Lucky Stars is ...

Finally, an episode that's upbeat -- this was episode 19 of season 3, and has Mr. Carlson and his wife deciding to renew their marriage...

Irv Brecher , writer of many Golden Age film musicals and radio comedies, has died at the age of 94. Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, a...