This Day In Music History: Elvis and I Want You, I Need You, I Love You

On this day in music history, July 28,1956, Elvis Presley had the #1 song in the country on the Billboard charts with I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. It was recorded on April 11, 1956 and was the only song he recorded that day. The song was released in May and on June 5th Elvis made an apperance on the Milton Berle Show. This is the song that he sang on the show as well as Hound Dog. At the time Ed Sullivan said that he would never have Elvis on his show. Others had no problem with Elvis appearing on their show and Steve Allen paid him $7,500 to appear on his show July 1st and sing the same songs he did on the Milton Berle Show.

Elvis gave us an early example of how television can help sell records. In 1976 an alternate take of I Want You, I Need You, I Love You was released. In it Elvis got the words wrong and sang I Need You, I Want You, I Love You.
If you want to buy the sheet music you see above you can buy it here on E-Bay.

Spider-Man in The Trap

It's Saturday morning so get yourself a Hostess Fruit Pie and enjoy reading Spider-Man in The Trap.

New logo

Hope you like the new logo. I thought I would give their necks a break from looking up. However, Mike's arm might get tired from holding up the title for so long.

Is this man the Green Hornet?

With Seth Rogan signed to write and star in the new Green Hornet movie it looks like it will be a bad comedy like Knocked Up. Hopefully he will try to show his range and write a good Action movie.

This site quoted Wow!

Here is something I didn't know. One of my favorite unsung superheros is the Illuminator from Thomas Nelson and Marvel comics. I was searching the net for info on him and came across some earlier sayings that I had post at On My Mind but they were quoted on the religion of the Illuminator site. This was a big surprise to me but if you go to that site you can scroll down and read it. Thanks to whoever put it on there.

The Monkees Unplugged

In the early days of the Monkees careers Peter Tork did not get to sing much. I always thought that meant that he was the worst singer of the four. Over time I have heard a song here and there from Mr. Tork, and while I have to say the others usually are better singers, he really shold have been given more to showcase his singing ability.
The two songs here that they did during a concert on their reunion tour are When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door and Take a Giant Step. Micky is known for singing the 2nd song but Peter sings it here and he is amazing with wonderful harmonizing by Jones and Dolenz. Take a listen and you will be glad you did.

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From The Monkees

Some of these I really did learn from the show.

I Dream of Jeannie Season One

A few weeks ago I bought season one of I Dream of Jeannie. I bought it in its original black and white as I didn't think I had any other choice. I have since found out that they did release a colorized version. This was a wonderful DVD set as I never saw the first season of this show. It was fun to see how Major Nelson, well Captain Nelson during this season, first met Jeannie. His space capsule went off course and he landed on an uncharted island. It was while gathering debris that Tony Nelson came across Jeannie's bottle. When he opened her bottle it was love at first sight for Jeannie who Tony could not understand as she didn't speak english. He wished for her to speak english and then he wished for a helicopter and one arrived for his rescue. As a way to thank her he gave Jeannie her freedom. This part esplained the rest of the series to me. When she would get mad she would always leave but would come back by the end of the episode. I always wondered how she could do that as once the bottle is open the genie is suppose to always be with you. Now it was clear that she stayed by choice. So everything that she did. No matter if it was using her magic to help Tony and his friends or if it was just calling him Master it was always because she wanted to do it. I loved hearing Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman and Bill Daily comment on the first episode. It was not just 3 former co-workers but 3 old friends who were remembering old times and joking around. Another surprise was to see that Bill Dailey's character of Roger didn't know about the existance of Jeannie when the series started. Like everyone else he thought Tony was going crazy. The one constant in the series was Haydon Rourke as Dr. Bellows. He always suspected that Major Nelson was up to something but he couldn't figure it out. By the end of the series he was still trying but not nearly as hard as he had before.

The stars of this series had been knocking around for a few years in movies and other TV series. Barbara Eden holds another place in TV history even before I Dream of Jeannie. The movie How to Marry a Millionare that starred Marilyn Monroe as Loco Jones was made into a TV sit-com in 1958 and Barbara played Loco Jones on TV. This was the first time that a movie was made into a TV series.

Hogan's Heroes Seasons One and Two

Another show that I enjoyed watching in the 1960's was Hogan's Heroes. I even enjoyed the reruns but at some point, like on most childhood favorites, I started wondering why I liked this and stoped watching it. Years later when they started bringing it out on DVD I really wanted the first two seasons. Well I actually only wanted the first season. For some reason I had this memory of William Christopher, who played Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H, as Carter in the pilot episode. Of course everyone knows Larry Hovis played the part but I really believed that William Christopher played the part. Well he didn't. He did play on the show as a allied solider that they helped to escape but never as part of Hogan's gang. Hovis was in the first episode but not as Carter. He too was an allied officer that Hogan's men helped escape. Then in the second episode he was back as Carter. I guess someone on the show liked him. The first episode was filmed in black and white. Back then it saved money to film in black and white as color was expensive. You didn't want to spend that money unless you had a show that was going to be a series and not just a failed pilot. As I mentioned with Bewitched they should colorize the pilot so it can be included in a better syndication package for the series.

I later bought the second season as it was full of extras. For some reason it was left off of the first season. Perhaps it was because of the extra cost to get them as season two cost more. It had variety show apperances that the cast memebers made and and apperance that Bob Crane and John Banner did on the Lucy Show. It also had the audio of Bob Cranes old LA radio show where his guest was Dickie Dawson and they talked about the TV pilot they had just filmed. That was of course Hogan's Heroes.

What surprised me most was that Sgt. Schultz and Colonel Klink were usually in on what they were doing. Mostly Schultz. I remembered them as not knowing anything but Schultz did know. He just didn't care. All he wanted to do was his job and then go home at the end of the day. Klink helped him out but he was in the dark more often then Schultz. I had to wonder how dumb Klink could be. Hogan was always listening in on what was going on in Klink's office or apartment without Klink knowing. Suddenly Hogan would burst in and practically tell that he heard everything and soon Klink was volunteering to help Hogan and never asking how Hogan knew what was going on. How dumb can you be Colonel Klink?

I really enjoyed these two seasons of the show but I doubt I will get the rest. Unless some one wants to send me a free copy to review. The series was a one joke show but it was fun to watch and see how they could make the same plot seem new and fresh all the time. They kept this going for 6 or 7 years so they must have been good at it. The cast members were all severly typecast. Bob Crane tried for a movie career but that never took and he spent the rest of his life doing dinner theater. John Banner was cast in a new TV show the Chicago Teddy Bears but the show didn't do well and Banner died a couple of years later. Werner Klemperer became a guest conductor. Ivan Dixon became a respected TV director and we all know that Richard Dawson made a TV career out of getting families to feud.

Bewitched Season One in Color

Well I have lately been watching Season one of Bewitched on DVD. I have not seen season one before. When I was old enough to know what I was watching on TV they were already into the color episodes and I believe it was the last two years that Dick York was playing Darren. So to see this season was watching a new series.

Now I use to be an oppenant of colorization. I was reminded of this when I was having a conversation with my cousin Steve. I had just watche these new colorized episodes and while I had not seen them before I was over taken by a wave of nostalgiza as they looked like I remembered seeing Bewitched. I voiced how come they don't do this more often and he said something like "it ruins the beauty of the black and white film and destroys the effort that the lighting director made to try and get it just right." That reminded me of something that I would have said years ago. However, I have now see from the other side. With the exception of when they sequed from one scene to another you could not tell this had ever been in black and white. It looked like it was in the old technicolor and I know this would help get the series in more markets when in syndication. So why not do this with more of the older series? Half the episodes of F-Troop were in black and white. I think the series would be seen more if the whole series was colorized. The only series I don't think it would work with is the Munsters. Too many people have seen Herman with a pale white face for years. Seeing the green face may have a bad effect and turn viewers off. Also, fans of I Love Lucy may not like it as that is an iconic series. Still if you don't like seeing your favorite old series or movie in color you can always turn down the color on your TV set.

When I do get to see the color episodes I hope one of the extras are the short introductions that they had just before the show would come on. It was usually Elizabeth Montgomery in front of a plain background. She would say "Stay tuned for Bewitched. Next! In color!" This was a turning point in pop culture as it shows what point that TV went from all black and white to all color. It was also a way to sell the new color TV sets. I know a man who as a child would see those and he would tell his family to hurry into the living room to watch this show because it was in color. Then seeing how disappointed he was when seeing that it was still in black and white they had to get a new color TV.

If anyone reading this knows if those are used as extras on any of the sets please let me know and which one it is on so I can get it.