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It practically gallops!

Generally Sherman

Hearing news reports about the death of Robert Sherman was like listening to a soundtrack of my childhood. He and his brother wrote songs for many iconic movies from my youth. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” remains one of my all-time favorite films. “Mary Poppins” is the first movie I remember seeing in a theatre.

The much-maligned “It’s a Small World (After All)” debuted not at Disneyland but at the New York World’s Fair. Visiting the Fair is another of my earliest memories.

Because the Shermans are so associated with Disney, I did not realize that they had also written songs for non-Disney films such as “Charlotte’s Web,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Snoopy, Come Home.” My father sang “No Dogs Allowed” for years after taking us to see “Snoopy, Come Home” at a drive-in theatre in the Hamptons.

“The Sherman Brothers Songbook” is a two-disc set with 59 amazing songs like “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.” I added the album to my wishlist even though I already have most of the songs in other compilations. Looking up information on the Shermans also led me to discover that they wrote a song that Don & Mike used to play at WAVA for its camp value. I can still picture the tape cart for “Pineapple Princess” with my friend Bean’s handwriting on the label.

March 8, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Deep Southampton

Almost any show about the Hamptons will grab my attention. I fell in love with the area a long time ago when my family went to Noyac each year for vacation. No trip was complete without a visit to the Penny Candy Shop or Crutchley’s Crullers.

Entertainment Weekly’s cover story is about “Revenge,” which they call “TV’s greatest guilty pleasure.” I got an early seat on the “Revenge” bandwagon when they made the pilot script available as a free download for the Kindle. My only gripe with the show is that North Carolina and California play the part of the Hamptons. However, EW says they sent a camera crew to New York to get some footage of the Hamptons in winter, now that the show is a hit.

The beautiful Hamptons scenery should receive co-star billing on the show “Royal Pains.” The third season resumed last Wednesday, after a four-and-a-half month break. Thank goodness for DVRs. “Royal Pains” now airs at the same time as “Revenge.”

There was no reason for me to ever watch CMT until now. Tom Arnold was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” promoting a reality series called “My Big Redneck Vacation.” I was half-listening until he said that the show was about a family named the Clampets (really) who were sent to the Hamptons. He got a laugh describing the Clampets’ skills with plywood when Hurricane Irene was on the way.

January 25, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Thank You, Thing

The Google Doodle inspired me to look online for episodes of one of my favorite old TV shows. Today would have been the 100th birthday of cartoonist Charles Addams.

Reruns of the “The Addams Family” were an afternoon TV staple in my youth. My parents taught me that the same characters were found in copies of The New Yorker that my father brought home every week. I would eagerly flip through each issue looking for a new Addams cartoon. Before long, I discovered books of Addams cartoons at the Crestwood Library. I borrowed titles like “Favorite Haunts” and “The Groaning Board” and eventually bought a few Addams anthologies from the Mystery Guild. Of the cartoons, I generally preferred the ones set in the real world instead of those at the mansion of Gomez, Morticia et al.

As I watched the first two episodes of season one, I skimmed through an episode guide at a comprehensive fan site. From there, I decided to watch a fun Halloween episode with guest star Don Rickles as a crook and a great two-part flashback episode with guest star Margaret Hamilton as Morticia’s mother.

January 7, 2012 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Syncopated Rhythms

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is broadcast on both NBC and CBS. The official telecast on NBC is too scripted while the coverage on CBS isn’t scripted enough. The hosts of “Today,” who work together every day, recited the banter that had been prepared for them. It always has the same feel as the forced repartee of co-presenters on an an awards show. Meanwhile, two correspondents from “The Insider” were given the freedom to ad-lib on CBS. Unfortunately, they spent much of their time talking over each other. It was a downgrade from last year’s CBS telecast.

A guy dressed as a baker on the Morton Salt “Home Baked Goodness” float looked more like Santa Claus than the Santa on the North Pole float. Macy’s Santa had a forked beard. The celebrity on Morton’s float was “American Idol” winner Scotty McCreery. He got caught off-guard by his own song and raised the microphone to his lips after his pre-recorded voice had already started singing. The same thing happened to Avril Lavigne on the Cooking Channel’s “Tom Turkey” float. A little later, seasoned pro Neil Diamond showed how it’s done while aboard the South Dakota Tourism float. I wrote on Twitter: “Neil Diamond doesn’t wait for the lip-sync track before lifting his mic. The lip-sync track waits until Neil Diamond is ready!”

My favorite marching band performance was by the Dobyns-Bennett High School Marching Band, which covered the song “Dynamite.” One of the band members received the Bob Hope Band Scholarship Award.

NBC fills the first hour of their broadcast with performances outside Macy’s while they wait for the parade to arrive. Daniel Radcliffe showed off some impressive dance moves with the cast of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” I was surprised to learn that a version of the movie flop “Newsies” is coming to Broadway as a musical. The costumes from “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” were bizarre, as I’m sure they were intended to be.

My friend Jessica commented on the parade via Facebook. She responded to another of her friends by writing, “you weren’t kidding about the Priscilla number being a little outré for family TV. Also, I was playing the ‘which one of those dancers is in drag; and which one is a female made up to look like a man in drag?’ game.”

November 24, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Prevenge

screen shot of last page of "Revenge" pilot script on Amazon Kindle There was a surprise at the end of the script for ABC’s “Revenge.” In addition to the various plot twists, there was a web address and log-in code (MN3JozZrq) to view the pilot episode online before it airs next week. I had downloaded the script onto my Kindle because I was curious about a show set in the Hamptons. I found out later that the series premise is based on a classic novel.

“The Count of Monte Cristo” is one of my son’s favorite books. I’ve seen the movie but I haven’t read the book yet. It’s one of many classics available for free on the Kindle. I downloaded it and several others last month so that my virtual bookshelf wouldn’t seem too empty. The Count was disgraced and imprisoned. He changed his identity and sought revenge on those who did him wrong.

Emily Thorne, the main character in “Revenge,” was once little Amanda Clarke. Now an adult, Amanda changed her identity to become Emily and insinuate herself into Hamptons high society. She starts exacting revenge on the very same people who framed her father and destroyed young Amanda’s life.

Like Emily Thorne, the show isn’t exactly what it seems. In this behind-the-scenes clip, actress Emily VanCamp explains that the pilot was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. The series will be filmed in Los Angeles.

September 15, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off 

Brotherhood

At my grandmother’s funeral this summer, we took time to acknowledge the family members who had predeceased her. We prayed for her husband, two of her sons and two of her grandsons. Her late grandsons are my cousins, Terry and Kenny Hatton.

Kenny died of a brain tumor when he was only 16. Terry was almost 18 at the time. I remember that it was Terry who called the extended family members, including my parents, to tell them that his brother had passed away. Kenny was a star athlete for his school’s baseball team. We thought that his physical fitness may have hidden the early effects of his illness. It wasn’t until he inexplicably fell during a ballgame and complained of a headache that his tumor was discovered. By then, it was quite large. He underwent surgery to remove it but never regained consciousness.

When someone dies young, it reminds us of the fragility and the value of our own lives. The death of a close family member may inspire us to do something we had been putting off. At my father’s wake, one of his friends told my mother that they hoped to visit Ireland someday. She told them to stop procrastinating and make the trip because you never know when it will be too late. My father had hoped to get there too but didn’t.

Obviously, Kenny’s death had an effect on Terry. I wish I could ask him about it. Terry joined the volunteer fire department in Rockville Centre the same year his brother died, a fact I was reminded of by a comment in an online guestbook honoring his memory. Their dad, Ken Hatton Sr., was a deputy chief for the New York City Fire Department. Terry went on to join FDNY himself, rising through the ranks to become captain of Rescue 1. Ten years ago today, he was one of New York’s Bravest who marched into the burning twin towers as the civilian survivors tried to get out. 343 firefighters lost their lives  at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Firefighters call each other “brother.” Tim Brown, one of the last people to see Terry alive heard him say, “I love you, brother. I may never see you again.” Brown will be featured in a Showtime special called “Rebirth” that premieres at 9:00 p.m. tonight and repeats throughout the week.

I heard my cousin’s name on the radio last night. I was flipping between stations when I landed on a talk show host talking about a column by Peggy Noonan. As he started reading aloud from it, I just knew that Terry’s name would somehow come up. Here’s the part I heard:

And there were the firemen. They were the heart of it all, the guys who went up the stairs with 50 to 75 pounds of gear and tools on their back. The other people who were there in the towers, they were innocent victims, they went to work that morning and wound up in the middle of a disaster. But the firemen saw the disaster before they went into it, they knew what they were getting into, they made a decision. And a lot of them were scared, you can see it on their faces on the pictures people took in the stairwells. The firemen would be going up one side of the stairs, and the fleeing workers would be going down on the other, right next to them, and they’d call out, “Good luck, son,” and, “Thank you, boys.”
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They were tough men from Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island, and they had families, wives and kids, and they went up those stairs. Captain Terry Hatton of Rescue 1 got as high as the 83rd floor. That’s the last time he was seen.

September 11, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 6 Comments 

South Fork

A new series on ABC called “Revenge” wasn’t particularly interesting to me. They’ve been running promos for it,  none of which grabbed my attention until after I saw the show promoted in an unusual manner on Amazon.com.

Since receiving a Kindle for my birthday, I have made a weekly habit of trolling the Kindle bestseller lists. I almost ignore the left column to focus on the right, which lists the top 100 free downloads. This past week they offered a free download of the script for the pilot episode of “Revenge.” Curiosity piqued, I looked into it further. When I learned that the show is set in the Hamptons, I thought, “why not?”

I started watching “Royal Pains” a few years ago solely because it is set in the Hamptons. It has become one of my favorites, to the point that I got caught up on DVR-ed episodes and even watched the last few episodes of this season in real time.

So far, I’ve read as far as the first commercial break in the “Revenge” script. It seems to be a fairly standard prime-time soap opera. I’m hoping for some clever twists to come. Either way, I will watch the premiere episode even if it’s just for the Southampton scenery.

September 10, 2011 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

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