On Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:48:46 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:


You've got to be a real night owl, Micky, to catch the "Outer Limits" on
TV - around here it's only on at 5AM along with Broderick Crawford's
"Highway Patrol" and "Sea Hunt."

I go through periods when I am a night owl, but when that stopped I
just recorded those two and Patty Duike. Patty Duke's show is really
great in a lot of ways. It's the most "sophisticated' sitcom I ever
saw, in that they talk about all kinds of topics international travel,
how to form corporations, how to get suppliers, vendors, advertising,
about politics (One episode where her father's boss runs for office,
he makes the same speeches politicians make today, word for word).
They use words even I barely know or don't know. They had an episode
where Patty wants a fancy French dinner for her friends, and her
mother gives her some choices. Patty can pronounce the French well,
but she doesn't know what they mean. One was chicken broth, which she
said sounded a lot better in French.

If you ever watch "Highway Patrol" look

I taped all three but didnt' have time to play back everything I tape
(record) so when I went away for a week, I cut out Sea Hunt and Patty
Duike, all the episodes I had seen already, and kept Highway Patrol.

So far, even when it starts boringly and I know I've seen it, it still
gets very interesting within 10 minutes. A big advantage of
half-hour shows is they are all plot, no sitting around thinking about
what to do next.

for how often Crawford appears leaning against something when standing up.
It's reputed he was fall-down drunk for most of the filming. (-:

I read that once, (here? from you?) and wikip says something
similar, but I don't see it. His body language seems reasonable,
especially for a man his weight, and he doiesn't run fast, but he does
climb hills and move around a lot when the plot calls for it. The
last couple days he's had a dark mark on his lower lip, towards the
side. But the show stopped filming in 1959 and he didn't die until
1986, so maybe it was only a cold sore scab or something.

A lot of interesting things about the show. They rarely rush, and
not because he's too fat, because often they haven't left the station
yet. And they almost never use the radio when the police car is
moving. Instead, even though it's usually an emergency, they call in
before they get into the car. Even when they see a guy turn around at
a road block and in 30 seconds he can be out of sight or turn down a
side road, the cop stands there and calls in.

Or someone's shot, and his wife doesn't ask the operator for an
ambulance, she asks for the highway patrol. I was alive then and at
least in Pennsylvainia, one asked the operator for the police, an
ambulance, or the fire department. A lot quicker.

OTOH, it was what people would, sillily, call modern, in a lot of
ways. Sometimes the women criminals were the dominated female who
did whatever their boyfriend or husband told them, but other times
they were the more crimiinal one, who dragged the guy into crime, and
even the brains. More than half of the criminals wore suits and
ties,. They had people who were extorted into crimes. They had an
episode with a mute girl, who had been kidnapped and released, where
they showed how smart she was when matthews asked the right questions,
and she wrote down enough info to catch the bad guys.

Of course no one on the show was black. Not in Sea Hunt either iirc.

A great movie he stars in was Born Yesterday, with Judy Holliday.
She's great too.

Patty Duike had token blacks, someone dancing at the school dance or
sitting in a class or at the malt shop, but I dont' think they spoke
more than three words total.

BTW, the aparatment building they used to show was actually in
Brooklyn Heights, right at the south end of the Brooklyn Promenade, a
broad sidewwalk facing the river above the Brookly Queens Xway which
was built into the side of the hill, northbound lanes on the bottom I
think, southbound above them, Promenade on top. They have an episode
or two where they walk on the Promenade and look at Manhattan. It's
an apartment building, even though they acted like they lived in a
house. My friend lived a couple doors away, 20 years later. In
later episodes, they lived in a big house with a big yard. No one in
Brooklyn Heights has even a small yard in front. Nor does Brooklyn
Heights High School exist. There is no neighborhood school in
Brooklyn Heights, even elementarry I think, and for high school they'd
have to walk a couple miles to Brooklyn Tech, one of the 4** NYC HS's
that require passing a test to get in, but maybe not such a high score
if it's the only high school near your home.

**Brrooklyn Tech, Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School
(in Manhattan) and the High School of Performing Arts, portrayed in
the move and tv show Fame. That one requires an audition, not an
academic test.

10-4

Over and out.