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Podcasts, Season 4

Season 4, Episode 04—Batman 1966 pt. 1 – The Series


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Batman from 1966. Troy and David look at the series in a 3-part episode. The first two episodes look at the TV series, and the third episode looks at the movie

This is part 1.

The series starred Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin. other regulars in the series were:

Alan Napier as Alfred
Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon
Stafford Repp as Chief O’Hara
Madge Blake as Harriet Cooper
Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl

There were villains, most of whom were played by actors and actresses that people knew at the time, all were celebrities, to some extent. Here is a list of some (not all) of those super villains:

SUPER VILLAINS

Cesar Romero as The Joker
Burgess Meredith as The Penguin
Frank Gorshin (Seasons 1–3) as The Riddler
John Astin (Season 2) as The Riddler
Lee Meriwether (Movie) as The Catwoman
Julie Newmar (Seasons 1–2) as The Catwoman
Eartha Kitt (Season 3) as The Catwoman
Victor Buono as Professor William McElroy/King Tut
George Sanders (Season 1) as Dr. Art Schivel/Mr. Freeze
Otto Preminger (season 2) as Dr. Art Schivel/Mr. Freeze
Eli Wallach (Season 2) as Dr. Art Schivel/Mr. Freeze
David Wayne as Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter
Vincent Price as Egghead
Carolyn Jones as Marsha, Queen of Diamonds
Cliff Robertson as Shame
Anne Baxter as Olga, Queen of the Cossacks
Milton Berle as Louie the Lilac

BATCLIMB WINDOW CAMEOS

Please go to this web site for more information…
https://www.vintag.es/2019/01/batman-window-cameos.html

  1. Jerry Lewis – Appeared in “The Bookworm Turns” (April 20, 1966)
  2. Dick Clark – Appeared in “Shoot a Crooked Arrow” (September 7, 1966)
  3. Van Williams and Bruce Lee as Green Hornet and Kato – Appeared in “The Spell of Tut” (September 28, 1966)
  4. Sammy Davis Jr. – Appeared in “The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes” (October 12, 1966)
  5. Bill Dana as José Jiménez – Appeared in “The Yegg Foes in Gotham” (October 20, 1966)
  6. Howard Duff as Sam Stone – Appeared in “The Impractical Joker” (November 16, 1966)
  7. Werner Klemperer as Colonel Klink – Appeared in “It’s How You Play the Game” (December 1, 1966)
  8. Ted Cassidy as Lurch – Appeared in “The Penguin’s Nest” (December 7, 1966)
  9. Don Ho – Appeared in “The Bat’s Kow Tow” (December 15, 1966)
  10. Andy Devine as Santa Claus – Appeared in “The Duo is Slumming” (December 22, 1966)
  11. Art Linkletter – Appeared in “Catwoman Goes to College” (February 22, 1967)
  12. Edward G. Robinson – Appeared in “Batman’s Satisfaction” (March 2, 1967)
  13. Suzy Knickerbocker (pen name of Aileen Mehle) – Appeared in “King Tut’s Coup” (March 8, 1967)
  14. Cyril Lord as the Carpet King – Appeared in “Ice Spy” (March 29, 1967)




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Season 4, Episode 03—Love on the Set: A St. Valentine’s Day Special


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Whether it is True Blood‘s Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, or Game of Thrones‘ Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie, there have been a number of genre productions, whether it is a TV series or a TV episode, or a movie, where love blossomed between actors on the set. There are also genre productions, like A Quiet Place, where married couples (in this case, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski) worked together. John Carpenter and Adrienne Barbeau worked together, as well.

Here are a few (some already mentioned).

Green Lantern (Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively)

I Know What You Did Last Summer (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.)

Once Upon a Time (Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas)

Fantastic Four (Jessica Alba and Cash Warren)

The series Game of Thrones had a number of LGBTQ+ characters, and was not shy in portraying these relationships. Love knows no bounds. Troy and David do not cover these aspects as much in this episode, but will in a future episode.

Troy and David will look at love on the set, for their St. Valentine’s Day special. This is just a brief overview, and they will hopefully return to the subject down the road.

Highlights of the episode include:

a) The moment that Captain Kirk professed his one true love, the starship Enterprise.

b) Troy asks David which actress was his favourite Cat Woman of the 7 actresses that have been in the role in feature length films.

c) Was there a dalliance between Adam West and Julie Newmar back in the 1960s?

d) If time travel were a thing, would you go back in time to find the first appearance of Superman, in Action Comics, and collect 100 pristine copies?

e) Troy reminiscing about being in a music video, Dream Girl, by the group FM, back in 1987, when he was 22, where he played a roadie, wearing a hat and tripping over ladders. Look for a link to the video on the web site (2of.ca).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSNsLkbYI9k

f) The advantages of working on set with someone you are in love with.

g) Majel Barrett and Gene Roddenberry.

h) Did something go on between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, while shooting Star Wars? And what of that love triangle, which had two of the three points in the triangle a brother and a sister?

i) The love triangle between the characters in Buck Rogers (Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering and Princess Ardala).

j) Unrequited love, like in Lady Hawk, Beauty and the Beast, Firefly, Star Trek TNG; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Vision and Wanda; Iron Man and Pepper Potts; Spiderman; The Hulk.

k) The loves of Superman and Clark Kent, in the series Superman & Lois; Smallville; and, Lois & Clark.

l) The ten most romantic science fiction movies, according to Ranker, is discussed by Troy and David.

m) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Outlander are briefly discussed.

n) the dynamics of relationships in the reboot to Battlestar Galactica (Adama and President Roslin, Starbuck and Apollo, Baltar and no. 6, among others).

o) Troy and David look at the ten most epic love stories in all science fiction (a list from the Internet that they relate and comment on).

p) from the comic books, Troy mentions The Swamp Thing (Alec Holland and Abigail Arcane) a great but tragic love story.



Listen to the 2of podcast online, or download the episode to your computer using the Download icon!

Season 4, Episode 02—Doctor Who 101 – An Introduction


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Doctor Who may be the greatest sci-fi adventure of all time. The show focusses on a timelord from the planet Gallifree. The main character is Doctor Who, and is often referred to as, “The Doctor.” The doctor goes through regenerations, where he or she can come back as someone else. He or she travels in a machine, called the Tardis, that can travel through space and time.

Doctor Who was first launched in 1963, and is looking forward to a 60th anniversary special in 2023. It began as something of a show for children, but became much more than that. Consider for a moment all the science fiction and fantasy and horror shows that have come and gone in the last 60 years. The only shows that can compete are Star Trek and Star Wars. One may also consider the James Bond films, that began in 1962 with Dr. No, and continues today, as another series that has longevity. And the change in actors during the various Bond films, and the British sense, makes one think of Dr. Who. And Bond, like Dr. Who, was an expert on many things.

One can also think of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as characters that have stood the test of time. The connection here, beyond the British one, is that Watson is the character that humanizes Holmes, and is a lens, the connection we have to Holmes is through Watson, and the same can be said for the various companions that have assisted the various Doctors through the years.

Doctor Who has made it into lore, where there are iconic images associated with it, that many recognize, even if you are not a Whovian. Many know that the machine the Doctor travels in is a blue police box, that is larger on the inside. The TARDIS (short for, Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) is iconic. You do not have to watch Doctor Who to be aware of it.

One of the Doctor’s adversaries, The Dalek, are also iconic. There is a wonderful moment in Mr. Bean’s Christmas, where Mr. Bean has a small toy Dalek, and puts it in a manger scene.

Doctor Who had a great run, which ended with Silvester McCoy, and there was a gap, perhaps about 8 years or so, before Doctor Who came back as a TV movie starring Paul McGann. Then there was another long break, of about 8 or 9 years, and then the series was rebooted in 2005, starring Christopher Eccleston, and has basically been going non-stop ever since, with small breaks between seasons, and sometimes breaks between new Doctors. The first episode of the reboot, with Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, was the most watched Dr. Who episode of all time.

At one point Dr. Who had an annual Christmas episode, which was something many looked forward to.

Troy and David will do their Dream Cast and Schrödinger’s Cast. The Dream Cast is where they take the best actors/actresses of all time, either living or dead, to play the roles. The Schrödinger’s Cast takes the same six roles, but has very unusual casting to fill the roles. Here are the six roles they look at, and the actors that first portrayed them.

CharacterOriginal Star
Dr. WhoWilliam Hartnell
Companiongranddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford);
Susan’s schoolteachers
Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill)
The Brigadier
[Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]
Nicholas Courtney
The MasterRoger Delgado
DavrosMichael Wisher
CybermanRoy Skelton, Peter Hawkins – Cybermen Voices
Harry Brooks, Reg Whitehead, Gregg Palmer – Cybermen



Listen to the 2of podcast online, or download the episode to your computer using the Download icon!

Season 4, Episode 01—A Christmas Carol


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A Christmas Carol is the Dickens classic novella that has been adapted to the big screen, small screen, stage, and has been referenced / parodied countless times. The Muppets even did a special based on the novel. And, don’t forget Scrooge McDuck!

Many consider the 1951 film version starring Alistair Sim as the best representation of the tale.

Here are some basics:
The published title was: “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas”

Ghost stories told around Christmastime were fairly common at the time, and very popular. The story was a novella (not a novel). It was first published in 1843.

There were a number of printings, all selling out. Dickens himself read the story to audiences over a hundred times.

The basic story centers around a man named Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley. Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, in succession. The three spirits represent stages in Scrooge’s life.

The Spirit of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to earlier, seminal moments in his life, a time when he was happy, but also to a time where he lost that faith and the light he had.

The Spirit of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to things that are going on currently that he is not aware of – how other people live, and how they feel about him.

The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come takes Scrooge to a time where he has passed on, and again, how others feel about him, how he is treated (in death), and also what may happen to Tiny Tim, if Scrooge does not change his ways.

The novella begins with a great first line: “Marley was dead.” It is considered one of the great opening lines in literature. It brings one immediately into the story.

There have been many versions of the story, and one that both David and Troy recommend, beyond the 1951 film, is the 2009 animated version, starring Jim Carrey.

Scrooged, starring Bill Murray, has a fantastic opening, and is well worth watching, just for that. Look for cameos from Lee Majors; John Houseman; James Farr; and Mary Lou Retton.

Troy and David rate some of the films, and do their Dream Cast and Schrödinger’s Cast. The Dream Cast is where they take the best actors/actresses of all time, either living or dead, to play the roles. The Schrödinger’s Cast takes the same six roles, but has very unusual casting to fill the roles. Here are the roles they look at, and the actors that portrayed them in the 1951 film.

CharacterOriginal Star
Ebenezer ScroogeAlistair Sim
Bob CratchitMervyn Johns
Tiny TimGlyn Dearman
Spirit of Christmas PastMichael Dolan
Spirit of Christmas PresentFrancis De Wolff
(as Francis de Wolff)
Spirit of Christmas Yet to ComeCzeslaw Konarski
(as C. Konarski)



Listen to the 2of podcast online, or download the episode to your computer using the Download icon!

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