Archie #600

I just got Archie #600 and I have to say it was a good read. How many people have ever said that about a comic book? Michael Uslan weaved comic book and Archie Saturday morning cartoon nostalgia in and out with flawless artistry. The issue, before publication, actually caused some controversy as it has Archie getting ready to marry Veronica. The mild controversy came as most people figure that he would marry Betty. It is a six issue series so I think they will rectify that before we get to the end. The plot starts with Archie and the gang graduating high school. Then he takes a walk UP, not down, Memory Lane. Archie comes to a fork in the road and takes the left fork. I think he will go back and take the right fork and marry Betty but the time this story ends. At the end of the walk suddenly Archie is graduating college. Now this was the only part that in real life I would find unbelievable. He was graduating college with all of his friends from high school. From what I have seen that almost never happens. There were only a few that I saw in college that I went to high school with and, except for my cousin, I didn't know them that that well. I loved how Dilton felt the love from his friends so much that he didn't want to leave them and how honored he was that Archie ask him to be a part of the wedding party. However, he seemed to have a little inferiority complex when he said if he left Riverdale others would just see him as a nerd. Follow your Dad's advice Dilton and you will make new friends.
People, like myself, grew up with these characters and they seem real to us. Like they are our high school friends too. Mr. Uslan knows that and made it feel like a high school reunion for the readers. I loved this issue and can't wait to see how it ends.

Need New Space

Does anyone know a site where I can store my photos? Blogger tells me I am close to the limit so I switched to photobucket. Now they are telling me the same. Both sites suggest that I pay for an upgrade but I can't afford that. Does anyone know of a site that gives unlimited space? If not I may have to stop blogging or cut back on all of my blogs.

A Month of Monkees by Dartman

No the above album isn't a foreign release of the Monkees second LP. It is an "alternate reality" release and part of Dartman's Month of Monkees celebration at Dartman's World of Wonder. He started it August 12th and will end it on September 12th. That is the anniversary of the first showing of the Monkees TV series. It is really cool and he has some great downloads that may be hard to find. Check it out. Keep it up Dartman.

This Day In Music History: Sonny and Cher and I Got You Babe.

When Salvatore met Cherilyn at a coffee shop no one knew that music history was going to be made. You see this was really the first meeting of Salvatore "Sonny" Bono and Cherilyn "Cher" LaPiere. Later known only as Sonny and Cher.
Sonny had worked in the music business for a few years. He had some hits under his belt that he had written. Now he was the promotion man/background singer/writer for producer Phil Spector. Cher told him she was 18, she was really 16, and wanted to be a singer. Sonny took her to see Phil and got her a job as a background singer on his records. For awhile Sonny tried to get Phil to produce songs for Cher but mostly he refused. So Sonny used his own money to produce one for her. At the last minute Cher got nervous and asked Sonny to sing with her. So they recorded "Baby Don't Go" as a duet. Sonny said the best way he knew to tell if the song was a hit was to see if Phil liked it. If he wanted to buy the song Sonny knew it was a hit. Phil offered $500 for half the rights to the song. It only cost Sonny $135 to record it.
At the time Cher was under contract at Imperial as a solo artist under the name of Cherilyn. She had just released her first solo song titled "Dream Baby." Over at Atlantic Ahmet Ertegun was interested in signing them as a team. Reprise had some of their songs but no contract with the duo. They decided to sign as a duo with Atlantic and their songs would be released on their Atco label.
"I Got You Babe" was their second single for Atco. Sonny was excited and sent the tapes to Ahmet in New York. When he got a call from him Sonny was shocked to hear that "I Got You Babe" would be the B side and the A side would be "It's Gonna Rain." He could not convince him to release the song as the A side. So Sonny took the song to a local Los Angeles radio station. The program director, Ron Jacobs, only agreed to play the song once an hour if he got the song exclusively. The song became a huge local hit and forced Ahmet to release the song as the A side of their second single. It climbed the Billboard charts and became the #1 song in the country on this day in music history August 14, 1965. By the 1970's they got married, had a little girl and were contracted to host a TV show. The song became the theme to their show.
As we all know the marriage didn't last and the couple got divorced. But in November of 1987 the two reunited on the David Letterman show and sang "I Got You Babe" one last time. Fans finally saw that there was no animosity between the two.
A little over ten years later Sonny was killed in a skiing accident in South Lake Tahoe, CA. He was 62 years old.

Jeff Barry and Archie Comics

Hey Jeff Barry fans! Here are a couple of pages from Archie Comics in 1969 with whom Jeff had strong ties to back then. Fans wanted to know more about Mr. Barry and the songs he produced for the Archies. I hate posting these as big as I had to on this one as it cuts off part of the article. But if you click on the picture you can read the whole thing.

Spirit TV Movie

If you were disappointed with last years Spirit movie like I was then you should see the TV movie from 1987. It's star was Sam Jones of the Flash Gordon Movie. You can find it here.

Spire Christian Comics

Over at For God So Loved I will be posting from time to time stories in the Spire Christian Comics Series. Today is a story from Archie's One way. All stories are by the late, great cartoonist Al Hartly.

Archie in the Soft Sell

Here is one of my favorite stories from Archie Comics.

Tina Louise's Wedding

I just saw this photo at Learning to Share. It's great to see the cast of Gilligan's Island in wedding setting. The editor of Learning to Share says it seems odd that thte Professor isn't there. He said he likes to think he is the one taking the picture. I hope so too.

Monkees Teen Beam Ad

Here is an ad for DC Comics teen mag that was short-lived. The Monkees were popular in their magazine as they were in others back then.

David McCallum

If you are only familier with him as Ducky on NCIS then it may be a surprise to you that David McCallum was something of a sex symbol in the 1960's. He was the co-star of the spy drama "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." He played Russian agent Illya Kuryakin. He almost didn't get on the show. After the network viewed the pilot they asked that one actor be recast. The Network was referring to Mr. McCallum. The series creator and producer was thinking of recasting the agents boss Mr. Waverly and thought they ment him. So there was no arguement with the request. The executives were surprised to later see Mr. McCallum in the first show. When teenage girls became fans of the show as they were attracted to him the ratings went up and made the show a hit.
Years later,after the show left the air, the creator of the show met one of the network executives at a party. They finally talked about the mix up. The network executive said it was the best mistake that was ever made for the network. Below is an ad for a pin-up that was selling in comic books and magazines at that time.

Rest in Peace Gordon Waller

People who follow this blog know that I am a fan of broadcasting espically the early days. So it may come as a surprise that this posting isn't about Walter Cronkite. I want to express my sorrow to another icon. One of those from the music world of the 1960's Gordon Waller. He is more popular as Gordon from the duo of Peter and Gordon.
I can't believe that it was 3 years ago that I mentioned their reunion here. At that time they had renewed their battle against "A World Without Love." This past weekend the world lost one of it's musical soliders in that battle. On July 17th Mr. Waller died of cardiac arrest.
In the music world Mr. Waller's career seemed to be overshadowed by his friend and partner Peter Asher. Gordon looked like the high school Quarterback teaming up with the school nerd. It looked like Joe Montana joining with Bill Gates.
Gordon had the deep baritone voice that gave their songs the solid rock foundation that every group needs. Yet it was Peter who overshadowed Gordon with his connection to the Beatles. Peter's sister Jane was Paul McCartney's girlfirend. Thanks to that connection they had the songwriting talent of Lennon-McCartney behind them. With Paul's help they got a recording contract. Still no matter how big your connection is in the business you have to have talent to stay there and keep cranking out the hits. They had that talent and someone somewhere releases the Greatest Hits of Peter and Gordon for record buyers.
I am surprised that when they split up that Gordon didn't have a big career in country music. Yes I said country. Everytime I heard about any new releases that he had, it always seemed country flavored. His first solo album was a country album. For some reason he never became the big solo musical star. Yet Peter went behind the scenes and became famous as a producer and manager of stars like James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and others. Even after their split Peter still seemed to overshadow Gordon.
Now Gordon had the bad luck to die the same weekend as Walter Cronkite. Overshadowed even in his death. I was recently over at Gordon's official site and heard part of his latest song "Rebel Rider." The last line I heard him sing was "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone." I never knew you Gordon but I do miss you.

Archie

If you miss Archie being in your local newspaper like I do then here is what todays installment is for this strip.

Video of the Week: The Odd Couple Opera

Closing out the week is another segment from the Odd Couple Sings. This is the Odd Couple Opera. It is ofer 10 minutes and took up most of the second side of the album. It is basically one of the episodes set to music. I liked it and I hope you do too. I have chosen this as the video of the week.

The Odd Couple Sings: When Banana Skins Are Falling

The Odd Couple Sings

In 1973 Tony Randall and Jack Klugman recorded an album called "The Odd Couple Sings." I remember finding this album at Value City in Latonia,Ky. Value City is no longer there as they recently moved to Florence,Ky. However, the memory of that find lingers on. I loved that album. I played it for anyone I thought would be interested. I had it for years but at some point I lost it. I have tried to find other copies but with no luck. Recently I found on the web some mp3's. Can you believe that? Anyway from time to time or maybe for the rest of this week I will post some of the songs here. The songs were not written just for them. They are mostly standards and showtunes. The most recent one at the time the album came out was "You're So Vain." I believe that was the first time I heard that song. Not by Carly Simon but by Randall and Klugman. Actually it was only Jack Klugman who sang the song. They tried to incorporate a bit of comedy with each tune. THe best was the over 10 minute musical skit called the Odd Couple Opera. Today here is the song Johnny One Note.

Is Michael Jackson Really Dead?

I know this question is always asked about famous people who have died. But I ask this because as we all saw the memorial was a closed casket. That alone doesn't justify it but not long after he died I was in Norwood Ohio. There is a record store and a comic book store up there that I use to go to. I haven't been able to go there much lately so I decided to stop by. I parked in back like I usually do and I cut through a small alley. I saw that both stores weren't open so I went back to my car. As I cut back through the alley that was next to the record store I saw the entrance to an apartment. On the mailbox I saw that there was a faded tag that had the occupants name on it. The name was...MIKE JACKSON! I thought that's it! He faked his death and moved to Norwood,Ohio into an apartment next to a record store.

Fireworks Ads

I couldn't pass these up on a day like today. I saw them in an old 1948 Plastic Man comic.

Happy 4th of July

I wish everyone who comes to this site a Happy and Safe 4th of July. Here are two videos I hope you enjoy. The first is of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA". The second is what they called in 1976 a Bicentennial Minute. On CBS between 1975 and 1976 after some of their programs they would air them with celebrities narrating them. This one had Jessica Tandy. Most of you may remember her as Miss. Daisy from the movie version of "Driving Miss. Daisy". Have a great holiday.

Rest in Peace Fred Travalena

Wow I can't believe we lost another celebirty today. When will the carnage end? Singer/comedian/actor/impressionest Fred Travalena died of cancer yesterday. I learned of this from Mark Evanier's facebook site. You can read more about it on Mark's News From ME site.
I didn't know Mr. Travalena but I enjoyed watching him. Here are some You Tube videos for you to watch. As someone said on Facebook there must be some show going on up in Heaven.