Saturday: 89. Sunday: 55. The rain moved in around suppertime while we were out to dinner, and it was those big fat drops that make you feel like you’re being pelted with tree frogs. Drove daughter from restaurant to a sleepover, and the rain cleared up - only to come back with a friend, Mr. Cold Front, a half-hour later.
Text from daughter at 8:00 We walked to Wolensky’s and got soaked
Text an hour later: I lost a tooth
I love getting those when she’s doing a sleepover. I told her that and said I appreciated the occasional detail.
“It’s usually because I’m bored,” she said. There are better reasons, but there are worse ones too.
So the rain came and the temps dropped, and what had been a fine summer day turned mean and rude. Sunday, the same. Huddled inside and did a little work on the Motel Postcard site, which is turning out to be a nightmare project of grotesque dimensions. But it has to be don.
There are many sites that show motel postcards, but that’s all they do: show them. Rarely any commentary or updates or research. I came across a few sites Sunday that linked to flickr sets or tumblr accounts that just spattered a bunch of stuff up, and so many of these sites are just snack food or sitcoms, instead of a meal or a novel. To mix metaphors.
There’s always something else to say, isn’t there? For example. This -
No, let’s go back a bit. Saw “The Last Voyage” this weekend, a not-completely-uncompelling disaster movie from 1960. Here's the vessel:
Aging, rusty. weary, headed for the scrapyard. A ship suffers a fire, then an explosion, and finally turns into stock footage of a sinking ship. Odd line; in the main lounge, they put dummies in chairs.
Why would they do that?
Oh. Right: boom.
Whee!
George Sanders plays the captain, and he’s in Serious Mode. You expect him to say something witheringly wicked and cruel, rotten bounder that he is. There’s Robert Stack being upright, Edmund O’Brien shouting every single line. It’s okay. I was curious to see what a cruise ship looked like in 1960. It had murals based on some sort of Asian / Indian motif:
You're looking at a remarkable defacement. The ship in the movie was the Ile De France, a famous luxury liner in service from 1926 to 1959. Wikipedia says it was considered one of the most beautiful ships of the day, Art Deco from stem to stern. You can see an old bas-relief here; apparently they couldn't remove this, or didn't have the heart.
Anyway: just try to find any good interior shots of the ship on the web. I can find a brochure . . .Wikipedia has a picture of a restaurant inspired by the design . . . you learn that the Ile de France was the first ship to pick up survivors from the Andfrea Doria disaster . . . but ff you find a picture of the ship it’s 225 pixels wide, because it’s from a site someone put up in 1999 and forgot. The internet is an enormous museum, but 75% the creators never show up for work anymore.
Here's what cruise ship rooms looked like in the mid-50s: grey wood.
In the main bar, everything's florescent:
Back to the movie. Here’s the little girl who played the daughter:
Isn't she adorable? Tammy Marihugh. You check the imdb credits, to see what else she did, whether she grew up to be an actress . . .
After leaving acting, Tammy became an exotic dancer and by the late
1970's she was a dancer in Las Vegas. She eventually married
bodybuilder Rodney Larson, ten years younger than her, who turned out
to be a violent and abusive husband. In March 1996, after a night of
heavy drinking, Tamra, as she was known by then, arrived at home and
shot her husband in the back. She pleaded guilty to involuntary
manslaughter and in September 1997, was found guilty but given
probation.
Sigh. A promotional picture from her dancing days. Not a happy person. Doesn't anyone in Hollywood have a happy ending?
Point is, just putting up that picture wouldn’t be enough. Posting a clip of the show wouldn’t be enough. Mentioning the history of the ship wouldn’t be enough without noting what it looked like inside, how it was remodeled, how it ended.
But where do you stop? You can go on as long as you like, which is one of the reason I enjoy studying movies while I watch them. There's a hundred doors to a hundred rooms in every movie, if you take the time to look.
<majelbarretvoice> And now, the conclusion. </majelbarretvoice> Last Friday I posted about the Punchy Hawaiian Punch ad, and got wound up in the idea that the fellow in the ad was not an actor, but connected somehow to the ad campaign. I mentioned the efforts of Jean Guy Jacques - the Frenchiest name in the world, by the way - to correct the record about the ad's creators, and the man who did the voice. Well, he wrote back. Here's his reply:
What a nice surprise this morning when I opened your email.
Thank you James... Yes it's time to get things straight.
To start I never saw that commercial... what a surprise to see Bob Guidi turn around.
Yes... The guy with the moustache is my old friend Bob Guidi. He designed the two characters... Punchy and Oaf. (He) was way behind schedule so John Urie had to finish them... that's why they both have credit.
The voice of Punchy was Ross Martin... John Urie did "Sure". John Urie and I did the recording with Ross in a recording studio in Hollywood. I forgot the name of the studio... I can find out if you need it.
I was the animation director and Rod Scribner was the animator.
One of the great... He was living in a mobile home in Malibu. I used to deliver my exposure sheets to him and pick up the drawings when he was finish.
For a later version I designed the two characters in sport uniforms. (see photos) We wanted to do a version where Oaf would duck and Punchy would miss... but the agency did not approve.
As for Ed Martin... he was a the lead cameraman at the studio... not a commercial director.
I've been trying to change the Wikipedia Hawaiian Punch page for almost a year now. Still not changed... so much bull shit... incredible... guess what... they don't believe me. Anyway I'm very glad we've connected... let me know more about you and "The Bleat".
Best regards...
Jean Guy Jacques.
There you have it. I don't know if he's telling the truth; how could I? But really, what are the chances of some guy deciding that he wants to set the record straight on the voice of Punchy, unless he was actually there?
He mentioned pictures of Punch and Oaf in sport uniforms:
Next step: contact the experts at Cartoon Brew, and see what they have to say. For great justice!
A few new matches, and I mean new. See you around!
