Old Hippie's Sixties Pad

Music in the Sixties in England

Hippie — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:04:00 +0000

Elvis, Motown, the Surf Sound, the British Invasion, Psychedelia, Woodstock, Hendrix, Bob Dylan and The Monkees. All set against the backdrop of a new permissiveness, Free Love and a war we couldn’t win. Turn on, tune in and drop out . . .

In Britain we had The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Merseybeat and Pirate Radio, but we also had Freddie & The Dreamers, Acker Bilk and Ken Dodd! - The golden decade of British music.

The Sixties started without a bang! If rock fans expected the new decade to bring fresh excitement they were in for a big disappointment because we were waist-deep in the soggy middle ground between rock & roll and The Beatles, who at this point were about to visit Hamburg for the first time, having just completed a lacklustre tour of Scotland backing Johnny Gentle!

In the company of Vince Eager, Dickie Pride, Duffy Power and his biggest acts Tommy Steele and Marty Wilde, Johnny Gentle was a transitory inmate of Larry Parnes’ “Stable of Stars” - all of whose names were said to have been selected as an indication of their sexual characteristics! Gentle was destined to remain in obscurity.

In America, no pretenders had threatened Elvis Presley as King of Rock & Roll. The month after his army release in March 1960, Stuck On You bolted to Number One to be followed by It’s Now Or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight? later in the year.

In London the first rock groups began to emerge, but most of them sounded pretty weak and unimaginative compared with the Americans. Some even had hits: Nero and The Gladiators experienced five minute stardom with Entry Of The Gladiators and In The Hall Of The Mountain King. Shane Fenton and The Fentones scored with I’m A Moody Guy and Mike Berry and The Outlaws found favour with Tribute To Buddy Holly - an early success for independent producer Joe Meek.

Eventually, the British pop scene of the Swinging Sixties was bursting with vocal groups, solo artists and instrumentalists. But at the outset, teenagers had to listen to the latest hits on the café jukebox or a basic record player. Their only other lifeline was a nightly dose of music from Radio Luxembourg or Alan Freeman’s Pick of the Pops on BBC radio on Sunday afternoons.

Then in 1964 came the offshore pirate radio stations - Radio Caroline and Radio London, which broadcast from ships anchored just outside British waters - but in 1967 the government closed them down as a risk to shipping. In the re-organization of BBC radio into Radios 1,2, 3 and 4, Radio 1 became the new station for pop music and ex-pirate DJs like Tony Blackburn and John Peel.

By 1964, for the first time in rock history, America was looking up to Britain, and the rampant Beatlemania at Kennedy Airport heralded a full-blown British Invasion.

I love 60s music. I did back then, I still do now and I probably always will. In the year I was born, The Shadows had a number one hit in Britain with an instrumental song called Kon Tiki. To this day, it is one of my favourite records.

My entire musical education was grounded in the Sixties. Our house always had music present, and an eclectic selection at that. Certainly I was exposed to the greats at an early age; Elvis Presley, Motown, The Beatles and the entire Merseybeat and British beat collection - but I also grew up with the music of Tom Jones, The Bachelors, Engelbert Humperdink, Shirley Bassey, Ken Dodd, Jim Reeves, Benny Hill (remember Ernie who drove the fastest milk cart in the west?) and Rolf Harris.

The curious counterpoint to such a rich outpouring of great rock & roll music in the 60s was a parallel boom in middle-of-the-road pop. So for every My Generation and You Really Got Me there seemed to be an equal number of drippy ballads selling in vast quantities, like Ken Dodd’s Tears, Val Doonican’s The Special Years and The Bachelors singing Marie.

So the soundtrack to my childhood was a curious mix of Soul music, British Beat, psychedelia, R&B, romantic schmaltz and records by British comedians, wholesome vocal groups, cheeky chappies, pretty girl singers and male heartthrobs who were also actors.

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San Francisco Sound - New Riders of the Purple Sage

Hippie — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:30:00 +0000

The roots of the New Riders can be traced back to the early 60s folk/bohemian/beatnik scene in San Francisco, where future Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, then considered to be one of the finest banjo players of the folk revival, often played gigs with like-minded guitarist David Nelson. The young John Dawson, also known as “Marmaduke”, from a well-to-do family centered in Millbrook, New York, also played some concerts with Garcia, Nelson, and their compatriots while visiting relatives on summer vacation. Enamored with the sounds of Bakersfield-style country music, Dawson would turn his older friends on to the work of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens while providing a vital link between the East Coast, Timothy Leary-dominated psychedelic scene and the West.

Dawson went on to college, Nelson moved on to Los Angeles with future Grateful Dead/New Riders lyricist Robert Hunter and tape archivist Willy Legate, and Garcia formed the Grateful Dead with an acquaintance, blues singer Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.

By the time Nelson returned to the Bay Area in 1966, the Merry Pranksters-led Acid Tests were in full swing, with the Dead serving as house band. Though the group briefly considered replacing Bob Weir with the more experienced Nelson, this never materialized. Throughout 1967 and 1968, Nelson worked as a journeyman musician in the San Francisco area, playing anything from electric psychedelic rock (he was briefly lead guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company after Janis Joplin and Sam Andrew departed) to contemporary bluegrass with groups such as the Mescaline Rompers.

After attending a junior college in the Los Angeles area, Dawson returned to the Bay Area, where he decided to find his fortunes as a solo folksinger. Attending some of the Acid Tests and visiting the Dead at their commune in 1967, Dawson decided that it was his life’s mission to combine the psychedelia of the San Francisco rock scene with his beloved electric country music. An early 1969 mescaline experience confirmed this, and the erstwhile perpetual student-cum-folkie began to compose songs on a regular basis. Some, such as “Glendale Train”, were traditional country pastiches, while a number of others (”Last Lonely Eagle” and “Dirty Business”) found him working in the milieu of a countrified Dead. Others, including the shuffle “Henry”, were a combination of the two - traditional music combined with then-contemporary lyrics (the exploits of a marijuana smuggler, drug-related themes being a common motif in the New Riders’ repertoire).

Dawson’s vision was timely, as 1969 marked the emergence of country rock via the Dillard & Clark Band, the Clarence White-era Byrds, The Band, Gram Parsons’ Flying Burrito Brothers, and Bob Dylan. Around this time, Garcia was similarly inspired to take up the pedal steel guitar, and Dawson and Garcia began playing coffeehouse concerts together while the Grateful Dead was off the road. The Dawson and Garcia repertoire included Bakersfield country standards, traditional bluegrass, Dawson originals, a few Dylan covers (”Lay Lady Lay”, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”, “Mighty Quinn”), and Joni Mitchell’s signature song “Big Yellow Taxi”. By the summer of 1969 it was decided that a full band would be formed to satisfy Garcia’s desires in this creative outlet. David Nelson was immediately recruited from Big Brother to play electric lead guitar.

In addition to Nelson, Dawson (on acoustic guitar), and Garcia (continuing to play pedal steel), the original line-up of the band that came to be known as the New Riders of the Purple Sage (a nod to the Zane Gray classic and an obscure western swing combo from the 40s) consisted of Robert Hunter on electric bass and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Hunter was soon replaced by Dead soundman and old crony Bob Matthews, who in turn did not last very long. Finally, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead was named bassist. Not only was this line-up economical - for only two extra plane tickets, the cash-strapped Dead had an opening act - but Dawson’s songs, combined with Garcia’s self-taught pedal steel style and the eccentric rhythm section of Lesh and Hart (neither had much experience in country or folk music) gave the New Riders a singularly unique sound that stood out from the pack of emerging country-rock bands.

After a few warmup gigs throughout the Bay Area in 1969, the New Riders (for all intents and purposes Dawson and Nelson) began to tour with the Grateful Dead in May 1970 as their opening act. This relationship continued on a regular basis until December 1971. Throughout much of 1970, the Dead would open with an acoustic set that often included Dawson and Nelson before segueing into the New Riders and then the electric Dead.

By the time the New Riders recorded their first album in late 1970, change was in the air. Dave Torbert, a young Bay Area musician, replaced Lesh. After Mickey Hart went on sabbatical from music in early 1971, Spencer Dryden (from Jefferson Airplane) began a ten year relationship with the group as their drummer, and eventually manager. The first album, eponymously titled, was released on Columbia Records in late 1971 and was a moderate success. Featuring all Dawson songs, the record was driven by Garcia’s inventive pedal-steel playing.

With the New Riders desiring to become more of a self-sufficient group and Garcia needing to focus on his other responsibilities, the musician parted ways with the group in November 1971. Buddy Cage, a seasoned pedal steel player who had contributed to the latter-day recordings by Ian and Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird, replaced Garcia. The Dawson-Nelson-Cage-Torbert-Dryden lineup is generally considered to be the finest of the group. Thanks to rampant touring and the coattails of the Grateful Dead, with whom they still gigged periodically (both bands shared the same management in this epoch), the New Riders managed to nearly eclipse the parent band in popularity. This was not necessarily a surprise, considering that their sound was far more accessible than was the Dead’s.

The band peaked in popularity in 1973 with the sleeper hit The Adventures of Panama Red and the accompanying single, “Panama Red”, an FM radio staple. The Adventures of Panama Red was the group’s lone gold album, and is considered by most critics to be one of the better country-rock opuses to have emerged from the 1970s; the juxtaposition of a rootsy ambiance with irreverent lyrical themes clearly influenced the alternative country movement of today.

In the mid-1970s Radio Caroline adopted the song “On My Way Back Home” from the Gypsy Cowboy album as the station’s theme tune. The song was well-suited to the station’s album-oriented format of the time, and included the lyric “Flying to the sun, sweet Caroline”.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage continued touring and releasing albums throughout the mid to late ’70s and early ’80s. In 1974, Dave Torbert left NRPS, and he and Matthew Kelly co-founded the band Kingfish. Skip Battin, formerly of the Byrds, took over on bass guitar, followed in 1976 by Stephen Love. Spencer Dryden left the drummer’s chair to manage the group in 1978. His musical replacement was Patrick Shanahan. Then, in 1982, David Nelson and Buddy Cage departed from the band.

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San Francisco Sound - Jerry Garcia

Hippie — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:26:00 +0000

Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia (August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. Garcia was viewed by the media as the leader or “spokesman” of the group.

Performing with the Grateful Dead for its entire three decade career (which spanned from 1965 to 1995), Garcia participated in a variety of side projects, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and several solo albums. He also contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician. He was very well known by many for his highly distinctive and original guitar playing and was ranked 13th in the Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time cover story.Later in life, Garcia was sometimes ill due to his unstable weight. After experiencing a diabetic coma that nearly cost him his life in 1986, Garcia endeavored to live on healthier terms until his sudden death in a rehabilitation facility in August of 1995.

Garcia was influenced by music at an early age, taking piano lessons for much of his childhood. His father, Jose, was employed as a professional musician, and his mother, Ruth, a hospital nurse, enjoyed playing the piano. Also, his father’s extended family (he had emigrated from Spain in 1919) would often sing during reunions.

At the age of four, Garcia experienced the amputation of two-thirds of his right middle finger. Given the chore of steadying wood while his elder brother chopped, he inadvertently put his finger in the way of the falling axe, producing what would later be used as almost a signature for his art and music.

Garcia served as lead guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Grateful Dead for their entire career. Garcia composed such songs as “Dark Star”, “Franklin’s Tower”,”Ripple”, and “Scarlet Begonias”, among many others. Robert Hunter, an ardent collaborator with the band, contributed lyrics to all but a few of Garcia’s songs.

Garcia was well-noted for his “soulful extended guitar improvisations”, which would frequently feature interplay between himself and his fellow band members. His fame, as well as the band’s, arguably rested on their ability to never play a song the same way twice. Oftentimes, Garcia would take cues from rhythm guitarist Bob Weir on when to solo, remarking that “there are some kinds of ideas that would really throw me if I had to create a harmonic bridge between all the things going on rhythmically with two drums and Phil Lesh’s innovative bass playing. Weir’s ability to solve that sort of problem is extraordinary. Harmonically, I take a lot of my solo cues from Bob.”

Beatle Controversies

Hippie — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:41:41 +0000

Paul McCartney is turning 65, Sgt. Pepper turning 40 (it was twenty years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play).. and the Beatles aren’t controversial now, but they were back in the 60’s….

In July 1966, when The Beatles toured the Philippines, they unintentionally snubbed the nation’s first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. When presented with the invitation, Brian Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been the group’s policy to accept such “official” invitations. The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to accepting “no” for an answer. After the ’snub’ was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles’ police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Mal Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd. Once the group boarded the plane, Epstein and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, “Tell my wife that I love her.” Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed back on the plane.

Almost as soon as they returned from the Philippines, an earlier comment by Lennon made in March that year launched a backlash against The Beatles from religious and social conservatives in the United States. In an interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now.” Afterwards, a radio station in Birmingham, Alabama, ran a story on burning Beatles records, in what was considered to be a joke. However, many people affiliated with rural churches in the American South started taking the suggestion seriously. Towns across the United States and South Africa started to burn Beatles records in protest. Attempting to make light of the incident, McCartney said, “They’ve got to buy them before they can burn them.” Under tremendous pressure from the American media, Lennon apologised for his remarks at a press conference in Chicago on August 11, the eve of the first performance of what turned out to be their final tour.

The group’s two-year series of Capitol compilations also took a strange twist in the United States when one of their publicity shots, used for a Yesterday and Today album and a poster promoting the UK release of “Paperback Writer”, created an uproar, as it featured the band draped in meat and plastic dolls. Thousands of these copies had to be withdrawn. Years later, the cover shot was linked with the group’s interest in German expressionism.

Elvis Presley disapproved of The Beatles’s anti-war activism and open use of drugs, later asking President Nixon to ban all four members of the group from entering the United States. Peter Guralnick writes, “The Beatles, Elvis said, […] had been a focal point for anti-Americanism. They had come to this country, made their money, then gone back to England where they fomented anti-American feeling.” Guralnick adds, “Presley indicated that he is of the opinion that The Beatles laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music while entertaining in this country during the early and middle 1960s.” Despite Elvis’ remarks, Lennon still had some positive feeling towards him: “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”

In stark contrast, Bob Dylan recognised the Beatles’ contribution, stating: “America should put up statues to The Beatles. They helped give this country’s pride back to it.”

For more information on the Beatles Visit The Long and Winding Road

Billie Piper Gallery PopStar to Dr Who Companion

Hippie — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:06:00 +0000

Sixties TV Dr Who The Tardis

Hippie — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:37:00 +0000

The TARDIS is a time machine and spacecraft in the British science fiction television program Doctor Who. The name is an acronym of Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space.

A product of Time Lord technology, a properly maintained and piloted TARDIS can transport its occupants to any point in time and space. The interior of a TARDIS is much larger than its exterior, which can blend in with its surroundings through the ship’s chameleon circuit. In the series, the Doctor pilots an unreliable, stolen, obsolete Type 40 TARDIS, once referred to as a TT Capsule, whose chameleon circuit is faulty, leaving it locked in the shape of a 1950s-style London police box. It was stolen from the shipyards of Gallifrey where it had been stripped for spare parts, and the unpredictability of the TARDIS’ short range guidance - that is, relative to the size of the entire Universe - has often been a plot point in the Doctor’s travels.

Although “TARDIS” is a type of craft, rather than a specific one, the Doctor’s TARDIS is usually referred to as “the” TARDIS or, in some of the earlier serials, just as “the ship”. (In the two 1960s Dalek films, the craft was referred to as Tardis, without the definite article.)

Doctor Who has become so much a part of British popular culture that not only has the shape of the police box become more immediately associated with the TARDIS than with its real-world inspiration, the word “TARDIS” has been used to describe anything that seems bigger on the inside than on the outside.The name TARDIS is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

For more on Dr. Who (and his companions) visit Jells

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Sixties TV Dr Who The Daleks

Hippie — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:32:00 +0000

The Daleks (pronounced “DAH-lecks”) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A Dalek is a grotesque mutated organism integrated with a tank-like mechanical casing made of “dalekanium”. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent on universal conquest and domination, utterly without pity, compassion or remorse (as all of their emotions were removed except hate). They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Their most famous catchphrase is “EX-TER-MI-NATE!”, with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice ).

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and BBC designer Raymond Cusick and were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial. They became an immediate hit with viewers, featuring in many subsequent serials and two 1960s motion pictures. They have become synonymous with Doctor Who, and their behaviour and catchphrases are part of British popular culture. “Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear” has even been cited as an essential element of British cultural identity, along with Bovril and afternoon tea.

The word “Dalek” has entered the Oxford English Dictionary and other major dictionaries; the Collins Dictionary defines it rather broadly as “any of a set of fictional robot-like creations that are aggressive, mobile, and produce rasping staccato speech”. It is also a trademark, having first been registered by the BBC in 1964 to protect its lucrative range of Dalek merchandise.

The term is sometimes used metaphorically to describe people, usually figures of authority, who act like robots unable to break from their programming. John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was publicly called a “croak-voiced Dalek” by playwright Dennis Potter in the MacTaggart Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival. The Daleks appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord Snowdon.

Externally, Daleks resemble human-sized salt or pepper shakers around five to six feet (152 to 183 cm) tall, with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, a gunstalk containing an energy weapon (or “death ray”), which can also be fitted with a projectile weapon, and a telescoping robot manipulator arm. In most cases, the manipulator resembles a sink plunger, but Daleks have been shown with arms that end in a tray, a mechanical claw, or other specialised equipment like flamethrowers and blowtorches. Daleks have used their plunger-like manipulator arms to interface with technology,[3] crush a man’s skull, measure the intelligence of a subject, and extract the brainwaves from a man’s head (also fatal). Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material dubbed “dalekanium” by a human in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The Daleks also use this term for the material.

The lower half of a Dalek’s shell is covered with protrusions - “Dalek bumps” - which are spheres embedded in the casing. These are described as “sense globes” or sensors in The Doctor Who Technical Manual by Mark Harris (which is of uncertain canonicity). However, in the 2005 series episode “Dalek”, they are part of a self-destruct system. The casings are vulnerable to “bastic”-headed bullets, and when breached tend to explode spectacularly. The armour has a forcefield that evaporates most bullets and absorbs most types of energy weapons, though normally ineffective firepower can be concentrated on the eyestalk to blind the Daleks.

The creature inside the mechanical casing is depicted as soft and repulsive in appearance and vicious even without its mechanical armour. The first-ever glimpse of a Dalek mutant, in The Daleks, was a claw peeking out from under a coat after it had been removed from its casing. The actual appearance of mutants has varied, but in most cases they are octopoid, multi-tentacled creatures. The Doctor described the Daleks as “little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour” in Remembrance of the Daleks, in which a Dalek mutant was seen to have a bionically augmented claw. In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier. The revived series has generally depicted mutants as having one eye and an exposed brain, however the mutants depicted in “The Parting of the Ways” also had a second, smaller eye. The same episode states that these mutants were built from human materials. In “Daleks in Manhattan”, a mutant (Dalek Sec) demonstrates the ability to engulf a human with a large, sack-like membrane.

However, as the creature inside is rarely seen on screen, the misconception exists that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots. (The series itself has even made this mistake on occasion.) The interdependence of biological and mechanical components makes the Daleks a type of cyborg. The Ninth Doctor, in “Dalek”, described the Dalek as a genius: it could run through an electronic lock’s billion combinations in seconds and download all of the information on the internet into its memory, showing the union of the biological and mechanical components.

The voice of a Dalek is electronic; the Dalek creature is apparently unable to make much more than squeaking sounds when out of its casing. Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks, The Space Museum and Planet of the Daleks. In The Daleks, Ian Chesterton disguises himself by hiding in a Dalek shell, which alters his voice to sound like that of a Dalek. Daleks also have a radio communicator built into their shells, and emit an alarm to summon other nearby Daleks if the casing is opened from outside. The Dalek’s eyepiece is its most vulnerable spot, and impairing its vision often leads to a blind firing of its weapon. On one occasion they were shown to be susceptible to extreme cold (Planet of the Daleks).
For many years, it was thought that due to their gliding motion Daleks were unable to tackle stairs. A cartoon from Punch pictured a group of Daleks at the foot of a flight of stairs with the caption, “Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the Universe”. In a scene from the serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor and companions escape from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. The Fourth Doctor calls down, “If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don’t you try climbing after us? Bye bye!” The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower. A joke among Doctor Who fans goes, “Real Daleks don’t climb stairs; they level the building.” In The Dalek Invasion of Earth a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating that they are amphibious to a degree. Remembrance of the Daleks showed that they can hover using a limited antigravity capability - first implied in earlier serials such as The Chase (1965) and Revelation of the Daleks - but their awkward

Sixties TV Dr Who

Hippie — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:43:00 +0000

Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television at 5:15 pm (GMT) on 23 November 1963, following discussions and plans that had been in progress for a year, and was repeated at the same time the next week due to the disruption of viewing habits caused by coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. The Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, was mainly responsible for developing it, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the Head of the Script Department (later Head of Serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. ‘Bunny’ Webber. Writer Anthony Coburn, story editor David Whitaker and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series. The series’ title theme was composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The program was originally intended to appeal to both children and adults. The BBC drama department’s Serials division produced the program for twenty-six series, broadcast on BBC One. Viewing numbers that had fallen (though comparably increased at some points), a decline in the public perception of the show and a less prominent transmission slot saw production suspended in 1989 by Jonathan Powell, Controller of BBC One. Although it was for all intents and purposes cancelled (as series co-star Sophie Aldred reported in the documentary Doctor Who: More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS), the BBC said the series would return.

While in-house production had ceased, the BBC was hopeful of finding an independent production company to relaunch the show. Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures’ television arm in the United States, approached the BBC about such a venture. Segal’s negotiations eventually led to a television movie. The Doctor Who television movie was broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996 as a co-production between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC, and BBC Worldwide. Although the film was successful in the UK (with 9.1 million viewers), it was less so in the United States and did not lead to a series.

Licensed media such as novels and audio plays provided new stories, but as a television programme Doctor Who remained dormant until 2003. In September of that year, BBC Television announced the in-house production of a new series after several years of unsuccessful attempts by BBC Worldwide to find backing for a feature film version. The new incarnation of the series is executively produced by writer Russell T. Davies and BBC Wales Head of Drama/BBC Television Controller of Drama Commissioning Julie Gardner. It has been sold to many other countries worldwide (see Viewership).

The new series debuted with the episode “Rose” on BBC One on 26 March 2005. There have been two further series in 2006 and 2007, and Christmas Day specials in 2005 and 2006. A Christmas special for 2007 has been commissioned and will feature a guest appearance from Kylie Minogue. This will be followed by a fourth series to be shown in 200

Sixties TV The Great American Dream Machine

Hippie — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:11:01 +0000

Great American Dream Machine was a weekly television show broadcast on PBS in 1971-1972.

The host of TGADM was Marshall Efron, a pudgy and entertaining young man in his mid thirties with curly, black hair. The show centered around skits and satirical political commentary. The hour and a half long show usually contained at least 7 different current event topics - al la Andy Rooney - but more biting. Some of the skits were labeled by critics as pointedly anti-government. In the second season the show was an hour.

The show began (and ended) with patriotic marching music and red, white, and blue GREAT AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE lettering, striped like an American flag. There was an animated “machine” of sorts, with complex moving parts, that had no evident function. The background contained all sorts of fireworks, spinning sparklers, and roman candles.

Marshall once did a skit on the different size descriptions on cans of food. I believe this was prior to government regulation and standardizing of labels. Marshall sarcastically compared cans of olives with sizes like: Giant, Jumbo, Extra Jumbo, Super Jumbo, Collosal, and Super Collosal The Super Collosal can contained one olive that filled the can. On one short piece, Marshall took the audience on a tour of his apartment, in a “non-event” style that was very much ahead of its time. He presented his “stuffed cat”, which proceeded to wake up and look around. Typical pieces such as these were brilliant in their simplicity. An Albert Brooks article in Esquire magazine (1971) was the basis for an American Dream Machine piece. Each week there was a Great American Hero segment. One week was Evel Knievel. Over Evel hospital footage was a honky-tonk song about putting body parts back together. Cancellation may have been due to an FBI expose about bombings and fires on campuses.

Sixties TV - The Twilight Zone

Hippie — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:22:36 +0000

One of television’s most rightly revered series, The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959-64) stands as the role model for TV anthologies. Its trenchant sci-fi/fantasy parables explore humanity’s hopes, despairs, prides and prejudices in metaphoric ways conventional drama cannot.

Creator Rod Serling wrote the majority of the scripts, and produced those of such now-legendary writers as Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. The series featured such soon-to-be-famous actors as Robert Redford, William Shatner, Burt Reynolds, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Carol Burnett, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Peter Falk and Bill Mumy, as well as such established stars as silent-film giant Buster Keaton, Art Carney, Mickey Rooney, Ida Lupino and John Carradine.

An often worthy revival series ran on CBS from 1985-87, and in first-run syndication in 1988. Another recently ran on UPN, which reunited Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman in a sequel to the classic TZ chiller “It’s a Good Life.” But it’s the daring original series that shows every sign of lasting the ages as the literature that it is.

Each episode (156 in the original series) is a self-contained fantasy, science fiction, or horror/terror story, often concluding with an eerie or unexpected twist. Although advertised as science fiction, the show rarely offered scientific explanations for its fantastic happenings and often, if not always, had a moral lesson that pertained to everyday life. The program followed in the tradition of earlier well written radio programs such as The Weird Circle and X Minus One. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to serious science fiction ideas through television and also through a wide variety of Twilight Zone literature.