The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy TV show was a 60 minute action series on ABC about a movie stunt man who also worked as a bounty hunter to supplement his income. Sometimes he would also help people who were being abused by crooks.


Fall Guy Cast:

Lee Majors ............ Colt Seavers
Heather Thomas ........ Jody Banks
Douglas Barr .......... Howie Munson
Markie Post ........... Terri Michaels
Joann Pflug ........... Samantha "Big" Jack
Nedra Volz ............ Pearl Sperling
Robert Donner ......... Edmund Trench

Fall Guy Theme Song Lyrics


Title: The Unknown Stuntman

By: Glen A Larson, Gail Jensen, and David Sommerville


Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell,
But I've been seen with Farrah.
I've never been with anything less than a nine, so fine.

I've been on fire with Sally Field,
Gone fast with a girl named Bo,
But somehow they just don't end up as mine.

It's a death defyin' life I lead,
I take my chances.
I die for a livin' in the movies and Tv.
But the hardest thing I ever do,
Is watch my leadin' ladies,
Kiss some other guy while I'm bandagin' my knee.

I might fall from a tall buildin',
I might roll a brand new car.
'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that made Redford such a star.

I've never spent much time in school,
But I taught ladies plenty.
It's true I hire my body out for pay, Hey Hey.

I've gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs,
Blown up for Raquel Welch.
But when I end up in the hay it's only hay, Hey Hey.

I might jump an open drawbridge,
Or Tarzan from a vine.
'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine.

Fall Guy Opening Narrative:

Recited by: "Lee Majors"

"This is the story of one of America's great unsung heroes. I mean you've seen him but you never knew who he was. You've cheered for him and cried for him and women have wanted to die for him. But did he ever get any credit or the girl? No! He's what we call the "Stuntman" and the reason I'm talking so fondly about him is, well because it's me, Colt Seaver. Anyway, picture work isn't wall-to-wall employment so maybe you wonder how a guy keeps his head together? Well, one way is to wait by the phone and wait and wait. The other is to take an occasional job with the court system of the United States of America where a man is considered innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately sometimes a lot of these people get out of jail on what we call bail and they'd run like hell!...and that's where I come in. I sometimes pick up rent money trying to find them and bring them back to justice...and that reminds me of a very interesting case."

I even had the Fall Guy Lunchbox! And who didn't have this poster of Heather Thomas?

One of my all-time favorites..

Bobbie Gentry was a prolific writer, that had only one huge hit.... And so beautiful!

Toy Matinee

A week ago, I was asked by a fellow blogger, Curtis Linder , to offer a guest review on an album. I was more than happy to oblige, and awfully humbled. So, here is my "guest review", posted by... well, ME!

"I found this GEM (and I do mean GEM!) Back in '91 on cassette. I'm from the Quad Cities of Iowa/Illinois, and was a frequent shopper at Co-op Records. The guys all knew me and knew I KNEW my music. I was looking for something different, something interesting, something not mainstream, that I could sink my teeth into AND be able to call my own (always loved finding great music and then turning others onto it, like a music guru). The Co-op dudes knew I was a Beatles collector and fan as well as a follower of Steely Dan. I had respect for Madonna's pop sensibilities, but much preferred intelligent lyrics and word play within an easily digestible, but intricate movements in a song. They showed me a cassette of Toy Matinee.

Toy Matinee was a short-lived American art-pop band, and also the title of their only album. Their sound was an array of mixed influences, including progressive rock, AOR and pop reminiscent of both the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I was ADDICTED the very first time I heard the very first chords on LAST PLANE OUT - the very first song on the album! I knew, immediately, that this should have been a much bigger record than it had been. Lots of pop hooks that, in no time at all, you'd be singing along with, not to mention bopping your head. This was classy, intelligent power pop from mostly unknown masters!



TOY MATINEE was formed by producer/composer/keyboardist Patrick Leonard in collaboration with singer/lyricist Kevin Gilbert. Backed by a group of session musicians (drummer Brian MacLeod, guitarist Tim Pierce, and bassist Guy Pratt), and with guest appearances from several other musicians including Julian Lennon, the duo recorded just one self-titled album which was released on Reprise Records in 1990.


The album was engineered and produced by Bill Bottrell. Thematically, it covered a rather broad ground; two tracks were dedicated to Czech poet and political figure Vaclav Havel and painter Salvador Dali, and "Queen of Misery" is about Madonna (Leonard was the singer's longtime songwriting and producing partner and Gilbert had recently worked with her as an engineer.) Two of the other songs on TOY MATINEE -- "The Ballad of Jenny Ledge" and "Last Plane Out" -- received wide play on album rock stations, both of them peaking at #23 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Despite that, the album's highest U.S. chart position was #129.

Kevin Gilbert was known well in the L.A. pop scene and around the Sunset Strip. He'd been in various bands, all of his own creation, NRG (No Reasons Given) and Giraffe. At this time he was also dating an unknown singer by the name of Sheryl Crow, who also sang back up and played some keyboards while TM was performing live. (Incidentally, most of Crow's TUESDAY NIGHT MUSIC CLUB album was written by Kevin, during a songwriter's workshop Kevin created with Bill Bottrell and David Baerwald called, The Tuesday Night Music Club.)

Pat Leonard was, well..... PAT LEONARD! (See above credits). These two crafted a masterpiece of power pop that was not schlock, but well thought out. Hooks that were poppy but not annoying or cheesy! You were proud to repeat these lyrics as many time as it took to get others around you to say, "What is that? Who is it? Where can I get it?" (I did this many times, and wore out, at least 3, store bought cassettes of Toy Matinee, before I finally bought a CD player!)

My favorite track is....um...... damn. This is too hard! It's like asking a mother which one of her 9 children did she love most.... If I was asked what track stands out the most. I'd say.............. CRAP! Can't do that either! Every piece of this pie must be savored on it's own or as a whole. This may be the ONLY CD, that I've never "parted out" onto mix-discs of favorites that I make for car rides, because it's a favorite, thru and thru!! All in all, I doubt anyone that reads this review, would find anything they don't like about this album. Unfortunately, you WILL find it in a bargain bin in used CD and record stores. The original was on Reprise but Pat Leonard reissued it in 2001 on his own Unitone records with extra tracks! I'd advise, also, To check out Kevin Gilbert's solo efforts THUD and THE SHAMING OF THE TRUE. You WON'T be disappointed!"

Shawn Phillips

I saw Shawn Phillips for the 2nd time last night in Davenport, IA. He noted that 45 years ago, he had his 1st gig as a professsional musician IN Davenport, IA! MY BACK YARD! I'm originally from the Quad City area, so this was a surprise to my whole family as I was named after this man.

Here's a great interview I found on him.

Pics on the way!

His creation... A Les Paulocaster.

Dad, Mom, Shawn and Myself

Voyagers! (1982)

Voyagers! is a time travel-based television series broadcast in the 1982-1983 season starting on October 3, 1982.
Voyagers

Voyagers ran for one season for 20 episodes. The series, broadcast up against the top-rated 60 Minutes, failed to gain high ratings and was cancelled after one season.

Phineas Bogg (Jon-Erik Hexum) was one of a society of time travelers called Voyagers who, with the help of a young boy named Jeffrey Jones (played by Meeno Peluce) used a hand-held device called an Omni (which looked much like a large pocket watch) to travel in time and ensured that history unfolded as we know it. In the first episode Jeffrey ensured that baby Moses' basket traveled down the Nile where it was met by the Pharaoh's daughter.

Bogg and Jeffrey first met when Bogg's Omni malfunctioned and took him to 1982, landing him in the apartment of Jeffrey's aunt and uncle, who were caring for him after his parents' death. Jeffrey accidentally fell out of a window, and Bogg to jumped out to rescue him by activating the Omni. Bogg's Guidebook, which contained a detailed description of how history should unfold, had been grabbed by Jeffrey's dog Ralph so Bogg had to rely on Jeffrey (whose father was a history professor) to help him.

Phineas is a great womanizer and manages to fall for a beautiful woman in almost every episode. Phineas' memory of historical facts is highly selective. He couldn't tell the difference between the French Revolution and World War I, yet he did remember that "Marie Antoinette had terrible legs!" Whenever Jeffrey's wisdom is paired up against Bogg's stubbornness, Jeffrey usually wins out, to which Bogg always mutters, "Smart kids give me a pain!"

Over the closing credits of each episode, regular cast member Meeno Peluce said in voice over: "If you want to learn more about {historical element from the episode}, take a voyage down to your public library. It's all in books!"

Voyagers Opening Narrative:
Version #1: "We travel through time to help history along, give it a push where it was needed. When the Omni is red it means history is wrong. Our job is to get everything back on track."

Version #2: "Far out in the cosmos there exists a planet known as Voyager, where the mystery of travel into space and through time has been solved. It is inhabited by a race who call themselves Voyagers. Their purpose is to keep constant surveillance on history. These people have a time machine device, the Omni, which will take them into the past, present or future. As each Voyager graduates he is given an Omni and a guidebook. One such graduate Phineas Bogg, who was assigned as a field worker to operate in certain time zones."

Series Description:

The Voyagers TV show was a 60 minute time travel fantasy series on NBC about a man from another planet whose job it was to travel throughout Earth's past, present, and future fixing "mistakes" in time.

Voyagers TV Show Cast:

Jon-Erik Hexum .............. Phineas Bogg / Narrator
Meeno Peluce ................ Jeffrey Jones

Voyagers Opening Narrative:

Version #1: "We travel through time to help history along, give it a push where it was needed. When the Omni is red it means history is wrong. Our job is to get everything back on track."

Version #2: "Far out in the cosmos there exists a planet known as Voyager, where the mystery of travel into space and through time has been solved. It is inhabited by a race who call themselves Voyagers. Their purpose is to keep constant surveillance on history. These people have a time machine device, the Omni, which will take them into the past, present or future. As each Voyager graduates he is given an Omni and a guidebook. One such graduate Phineas Bogg, who was assigned as a field worker to operate in certain time zones."

Episodes List With Original Air Dates

Voyagers TV Show - The First And Only Season

1... Pilot (10/3/1982)
2... Created Equal (10/10/1982)
3... Bully And Billy (10/24/1982)
4... Agents Of Satan (10/31/1982)
5... Worlds Apart (11/7/1982)
6... Cleo And The Babe (11/14/1982)
7... The Day The Rebs Took Lincoln (11/21/1982)
8... Old Hickory And The Pirate (11/28/1982)
9... The Travels Of Marco Polo ... And Friends (12/5/1982)
10. An Arrow Pointing East (12/12/1982)
11. Merry Christmas, Bogg (12/19/1982)
12. Buffalo Bill And Annie Play The Palace (1/9/1983)
13. The Trial Of Phineas Bogg (1/16/1983)
14. Sneak Attack (2/13/1983)
15. Voyagers On The Titanic (2/27/1983)
16. Pursuit (3/6/1983)
17. Destiny's Choice (3/13/1983)
18. All Fall Down (3/27/1983)
19. Barriers Of Sound (6/12/1983)
20. Jack's Back (7/10/1983)

Jellyfish

Jellyfish were a power pop band from San Francisco. The core members were drummer/singer/songwriter Andy Sturmer and keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Roger Joseph Manning Jr. Although their career was short, the band has become highly influential in the power pop genre.

The band's debut album, Bellybutton, was released in 1990. It demonstrated the wide range of influences which the new band drew on, drawing heavily from the Paisley Underground, Queen, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, XTC, Cheap Trick, Wings, and Badfinger, Bellybutton was released in 1990. The album contained the band's biggest hit, "Baby's Coming Back", which peaked at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album also included the singles "That Is Why", "I Wanna Stay Home", "Now She Knows She's Wrong" and "The King Is Half-Undressed" (the video for which was nominated for Best Art Direction at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards).

After the recording of Bellybutton, Manning's brother Chris was asked to join the band as bassist for the imminent live dates.

Frustrated with simply being the guitar player, Jason Falkner left the band after the Bellybutton tour. Chris Manning also left, disliking the touring lifestyle.


Sturmer and Roger Manning recruited Tim Smith as the new bassist while preparing new material. Studio musicians (including Jon Brion) were brought in to help record their second album, Spilt Milk in 1993. The album was a far more elaborate affair than Bellybutton, incorporating a significant amount of overdubbing and complex song arrangements. A tour followed which included Eric Dover on guitar and backing vocal duties.

The Ghost at Number One

The Phoenix (1982)

The Phoenix is a 1982 television series starring Judson Scott which was on ABC for about one month in 1982. The plot revolved around an ancient extraterrestrial named Bennu of the Golden Light, who is discovered in a sarcophagus in Peru and awakened in the 20th Century. Bennu displays superhuman abilities and behaves in a manner meant to represent an enlightened culture (kind, nonviolent, environmentally responsible, etc.).

 Characters

Bennu of the Golden Light (played by Judson Scott), the protagonist, is an alien who possesses special abilities including physical levitation, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, astral projection and telekinesis. Some of these are made possible or amplified by his Phoenix Amulet, which draws power from the Sun. The planet Bennu hailed from was originally called Aurica, but this was changed to Eldebran for broadcast.

Yago is another being from the planet Eldebran. He is evil and Bennu's primary opponent. Yago is connected to the Moon, as Bennu is to the Sun. The series bible explicitly compares Yago to Lucifer and Dracula. He wears a bracelet called "The Bells of Thon" around his right wrist, which has the power to deafen. He also carries a musical instrument called "The Black Moonball," which can alter his appearance or teleport him to another location. In the series bible Yago was named Aiwaz, presumably after the alleged being who dictated The Book of the Law to Aleister Crowley.

Mira is another being from the planet Eldebran. 40,000 years ago she was placed on Earth as Bennu's companion, and when the series begins he is searching for her.

Justin Preminger (played by Richard Lynch) is the human villain of the story. He is generally only one step behind Bennu.

Dr. Ward Frazier is a scientist sympathetic to Bennu and his goals.

Sources and influences

The series bible mentions Erich von Däniken's books Chariots of the Gods? (1968) and Gods from Outer Space (1970) as the source of the idea that aliens may have visited the Earth roughly 40,000 years ago.

Yago's ability to create illusions using the power of the Moon was, according to the series bible, "implied in the Lunacy (sic) Act of 1842".

Bennu is the Egyptian word for the mythological phoenix bird.

Episodes

Only a 90-minute pilot and four regular episodes were broadcast. Four additional episodes were scripted, but never filmed nor broadcast. The episodes were:

The Phoenix (Pilot)
In Search of Mira
One of Them
A Presence of Evil
The Fire Within
Trial by Fire
Deadly Cargo
Dark Hunter
The Star Needle

The Greatest American Hero

Here's a fun little idea..... I'll post, at least once a week, a TV show from years gone by, to see if you remember it!

The Greatest American Hero TV show was a 60 minute adventure / comedy series on ABC with a sci-fi twist about a Los Angeles high school teacher (Ralph Hinkley) who was given a red flying suit by aliens during a field trip to the desert. An F.B.I. agent convinces him to use the suit to fight crime. Ralph later discovers that the suit also gives him the power to become invisible, to see things from great distances and to see through solid objects. During the first season only, Ralph also sometimes included his students in his crime-stopping adventures.


Greatest American Hero Cast:

William Katt ................... Ralph Hinkley
Robert Culp .................... Bill Maxwell
Connie Sellecca ................ Pam Davidson
Faye Grant ..................... Rhonda Blake
Michael Paré ................... Tony Villicana
Brandon Williams ............... Kevin Hinkley
Marc Price ..................... Rodrigeuz
Don Cervantes .................. Cyler Johnson

Greatest American Hero Trivia:

The theme song for the series became a major hit on the charts during the summer of 1981.

The owners of the Superman copyright threatened to sue citing similarities in the suits and of the superpowers.

Connie Sellecca starred on another TV series before, the Greatest American Hero titled, "Flying High". Before the final season of the Greatest American Hero began, Connie appeared in a TV movie titled, "Hotel". She went on to re-create the role on a Hotel TV Show. The first episode of that series aired a measley 6 1/2 months after the final episode of the Greatest American Hero so Connie didn't have any substantial gap in her resumé! Before becoming an actress, Connie had a career modelling lingerie. The actors and crews that Connie works with know her as an expert practical joker. When she and Gil Gerard were married he would come home to find Connie on the floor, seemingly dead, with a huge pool of fake blood all around! That happened so often that Gil started rating how good her attempts were compared to previous ones!

On March 30, 1981, a man named John Hinckley attempted to assasinate President Ronald Reagan. Fearing public disgust over the similarity in last names (Hinkley & Hinckley), scripts were quickly rewritten to refer to the hero of the series as simply, "Mr. H" and sometimes even "Mr. Hanley". Eventually, however, things cooled off and his name was changed back to Hinkley.

Robert Culp's grandfather inspired him in his role as Bill Maxwell. He had also written an episode of his series, "I Spy" where he developed a character (Uncle Harry) who was also inspired by his grandfather.

Robert Culp wrote several of the Greatest American Hero scripts. He had previously written scripts for his first series "Trackdown (1957)" and also for "I Spy (1965)". He even won an Emmy for one of the "I Spy" scripts!

Thirteen years before appearing as an FBI agent in "The Greatest American Hero", Robert Culp played the role of a U.S. secret agent on "I Spy". Actually, the rugged schedule of shooting "I Spy" caused him on many occasions to say that he didn't even want to see scripts for TV pilots. Fortunately, a friend convinced him to change his mind for "The Greatest American Hero".

Greatest American Hero Theme Song Lyrics

Title: "Believe It Or Not"

Written By: "Mike Post and Stephen Geyer"

Performed By: "Joey Scarbury"


Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself.
Suddenly I'm up on top of the world,
It should've been somebody else.


Believe it or not,
I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free eee eee.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.


It's like a light of a new day,
It came from out of the blue.
Breaking me out of the spell I was in,
Making all of my wishes come true ue ue.


Believe it or not,
I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free eee eee.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.

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