Former Monkee Davy Jones dead at 66

Sad news in the entertainment world today. Former Monkee Davy Jones has died. EMTs were called to his Indiantown, Florida ranch where he was complaining of not feeling well and having trouble breathing. He was rushed to Martin Memorial South Hospital in Hobe Sound where he was pronounced dead of an apparent heart attack. 

RIP
David Thomas "Davy" Jones
 December 30, 1945 – February 29, 2012

Jones had lived in the South Florida area for a number of years and raised race horses. He had married Jessica Pacheco in 2009. Jones is survived by his wife and four daughters from previous marriages.

Davy and his wife, Jessica

The Monkees clockwise from top left...Nesmith, Dolenz, Tork, and Jones

Jones joined The Monkees in 1965 and he and castmates Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork played faux band members in a rock and roll band that were always trying to break into the big time. They had a successful television sitcom series that lasted for two seasons from 1966-1968. The members did not play the instruments on their recordings * (they did for the most part in concert)  but did sing, releasing several international hits still heard on oldies radio stations today. These included Last Train to Clarksville, I'm A Believer, Pleasant Valley Sunday, and Daydream Believer. Their hits sold over 65 million records worldwide.

*(Studio session musicians from the Wrecking Crew performed the actual music on the recordings.)

In addition to recording and touring as a solo artist after The Monkees went off the air Jones found time to appear on other television shows including The Brady Bunch.

Upon learning of the passing of Jones, Dolenz released a statement saying, "Can't believe it...Still in shock...had bad dreams all night long." He added, "My love and prayers go out to Davy's girls and family right now."

Monkees bassist Peter Tork also released a statement about Jones which reads: "It is with great sadness that I reflect on the sudden passing of my long-time friend and fellow-adventurer, David Jones. His talent will be much missed; his gifts will be with us always. My deepest sympathy to Jessica and the rest of his family."

Saturday Morning Cartoons

I was a fan growing up of Saturday morning cartoons. I don't mean the Japanese Anime or the type on tv today such as that carried by Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network. I mean the type like in the late 60s and early 70s and mostly on CBS. Back in those days TV stations weren't even on the air all night. They usually signed off by 1 am and there was static on the air until just before sign-on when you got to see something like this:

Now I didn't know what this was but I did know what was about to come on....the best entertainment for a Saturday morning! CBS seemed to have the best lineup of cartoons and this was before the days of news programming and special programs on a Saturday so it was definitely an all kids morning. During the summer we would eagerly await the CBS promos to see what would be the new lineup for Saturday. They even advertised it in the papers:

As you can see Saturday mornings were full of cartoons. Usually Saturday started off with Captain Kangaroo and later Mr Mayor (Bob Keeshan in another role). After that it might be Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, The Archies, Richie Rich, Superman, Wacky Races, Underdog, Scooby Doo, Fat Albert....every type of cartoon you could imagine at some time or another showed up on tv. There were even live-action programs like The Banana Splits, H.R. Pufnstuf, or Land of the Lost.

Some real live people were even turned into cartoons...The Beatles, WWF Wrestlers, Jackson Five, and the Brady Bunch for example.

As time went on the networks started dropping the Saturday morning cartoons and substituted news programming for the most part. There were some animal adventures that showed up such as "Wild Kingdom" but it wasn't the same. The best era of cartoons ended by the mid 70s.

For your enjoyment, a retrospective of 60s and 70s cartoons with some commercials of the time thrown in for good measure.

Growing Up....pre-Disney World (Volume 1)

Diving platforms and glass bottom boat rides at Wakulla Springs

One of the things about growing up in the 50s and 60s was having parents that believed in taking us to every tourist attraction around the state. In the years before Disney World opened and pretty much was the death-knell for the mom and pop type attractions there was an abundance of neat little places to go scattered throughout the state.

Near where I grew up in the panhandle was Wakulla Springs. To us a great place to not only go on glass bottom boat rides but just to go swimming in the springs themselves. 72 degree springs year round. Lots of fun for a day trip from home.

Starliner roller coaster at Miracle Strip Amusement Park

Nearby also was Panama City Beach, the "redneck Riviera". Thats all we knew for summer vacations. And of course no trip to Panama City Beach was complete without a visit to Long Beach Resort, Goofy Golf, Petticoat Junction western world and amusement park, or Miracle Strip Amusement Park. Now pretty much all gone. Ft Walton Beach had the marine attraction, Gulf World. And of course numerous things to do and see in St Augustine, the oldest city in America.

Weeki Wachee Springs Mermaid

Florida was home to other water attractions of course...Weeki Wachee, Homasassa Springs, Cypress Gardens, and the like with their ski shows and mermaids. Most are all state parks now. Silver Springs...another great place for glass bottom boat rides. Good places to stop by on the way to or from some other attraction or on the way to visit relatives.

And there were lots of similar attractions...several Monkey Jungles, Jungle Worlds, Gator Lands and such. Busch Gardens during the 60s was primarily a tour of the brewery and gardens and having your photo taken with parrots. Nothing like it is today.

In Palm Beach County was the Flagler Museum and later Lion Country Safari...both still open today. And of course with the space program in full swing was Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center with the live viewings of the launches and tours of the facilities.

Some cities themselves were attractions. Daytona Beach and Ft Lauderdale attracted large numbers of tourists. This was all pre-Disney again but there was no shortage of things to do and see around the state. All you had to do was take the time to explore and have parents willing to try to provide interesting and fun vacations which my brother and I were lucky to have.

50 Years Ago In Space

I have always been fascinated with the space program. I am somewhat aware that the USSR put a satellite, and then a man in space before the US did. (They even had a man walking in space before the US did.)
Right after the early Russian accomplishments, though, I followed the US space program from the early satellites through the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle programs. (This was followed by my interest in the International Space Station as well as all the exploratory launches to Mars, Venus, Saturn, Hubble, and everything in between and beyond.)
The US  was always one step behind the Russians at the beginning.

 To see how the United States began in the space program here's a look at some important milestones prior to our official man in space beginnings:

                                   

 After many false starts the US finally enters the space race with the launch of Explorer 1 on January 1, 1958. It was the first U.S. satellite to orbit around the Earth and discovered the Van Allen Radiation Belt.

NASA was formed later in the same year on October 1, 1958.

On May 28, 1959 Able, a Rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, became the first living beings to launch into suborbital flight and successfully return to earth.

On April 1, 1960 the first weather satellite, Tiros 1, was launched by the US.

I was in elementary school when the US first started with the manned missions. My father had a TV, furniture, and appliance business at that time and often brought a small black and white TV to my class to watch the space launches. BMOC......elementary school!

Original Mercury 7 astronauts
Back row: Shepard, Grissom, Cooper; front row: Schirra, Slayton, Glenn, Carpenter in 1960.

I was fascinated with the Mercury program, the seven astronauts and their single occupant capsules designed to see if man could actually fly in space. Each astronaut had a spacecraft designated with separate names, all of which I could easily recite at the time. Freedom 7, Liberty Bell 7, Friendship 7, Aurora 7, Sigma 7, Faith 7...only Donald Slayton did not have a named spacecraft and did not fly in the Mercury program. He later was involved in the joint Apollo-Soyuz project. The Mercury capsules were propelled by Redstone rockets.

Launch of a Mercury capsule atop the Redstone rocket

Mercury spacecraft closeup

May 5, 1961
Alan Shepard makes a suborbital flight to become the first American in space aboard Freedom 7.

July 21, 1961
Gordon Grissom makes the second suborbital flight in Liberty Bell 7. (His spacecraft sank before recovery when the hatch unexpectedly blew off. It was recovered 1999.)

John Glenn entering the capsule for his orbital flight

Getting back to today's anniversary, it was 50 years ago today, February 20, 1962, when John Glenn became  the first American to orbit the earth to begin the series of orbital flights of NASA's Project Mercury. He made a total of three orbits of the earth circling the globe three times during a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds in his Mercury capsule, Friendship 7.

The Friendship 7 flight proved that man could endure orbital flight and safely return to earth. Later Mercury flights performed engineering tests and stayed in orbit longer.

50 years ago today. God speed, John Glenn.

Old Time Radio and Me

I think my first exposure to Old Time Radio (OTR) was in the mid 70s.  By OTR I mean the radio programming of the period roughly of the 30s through 1962. One half hour to one hour shows on the air, the "theater of the mind" as it was known. You have probably heard of the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast of October 30th, 1938 that panicked some listeners. This was on one of those such programs, the Mercury Theater On the Air. Anyway, there was a music store in the mall I used to go to that carried albums, 45s, and 8-track tapes. (An online encyclopedia-type site can tell you what these are.) At the store albums were usually $2.97 as I recall with the double albums $3.97. I was in there quite a bit and on one occasion I found few albums with some OTR shows on them. One was The Lone Ranger, another was The Shadow, and the one that really got me interested.....The War of the Worlds.               

I quickly purchased and listened to them and was hooked on OTR from that point on. It would be a good many years before I began to find sources for OTR cassette tapes but I began to collect them. Usually two episodes of a program per cassette like the albums. I didn't specialize in any one program or field of programs......detective, comedy, dramas, space, mysteries.....

As for detective stories my favorites were Dragnet, Richard Diamond, Adventures of Sam Spade, Boston Blackie, Broadway is My Beat, Night Beat, and Casey Crime Photographer. All are half hour programs that tell a complete story per episode.

Another favorite (and my favorite by the way) is " the man with the action packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar". These programs ran fifteen minutes five nights a week to later thirty minute complete episodes. Several actors played Johnny Dollar but my favorite was Bob Bailey.







On the comedy side, it was hard to beat Jack Benny, Great Gildersleeve, Life of Riley, The Aldrich Family, Amos and Andy, Duffy's Tavern, Burns and Allen, Our Miss Brooks, and My Favorite Husband.

Cast of Duffy's Tavern

For tales of the unknown, horror, and suspense, I prefer X Minus One, Suspense,  Molle Mystery Theater, Mysterious Traveler, Lights Out Everybody, and The Whistler.  




There are also full plays produced as radio programs. Among the many excellent series are Academy Award Theater, Lux Radio Theater, Campbell Playhouse, Mercury Theater On the Air, and Hollywood Star Playhouse. 

There are many sources now that cater to OTR enthusiasts on the web, not only for downloading free episodes but for purchase as well.  Downloads are usually MP3 format and the purchased ones are on MP3 CDs. Here you might get as many as 100 episodes of the same series on one CD. They only play, however, on your computer or another MP3 CD player. Most new cars and trucks come with MP3 ready players.Some larger series you can even find on only one or two DVDs but you need to listen on a computer or DVD player for these. It does make it handy to have a ton of shows on a relatively few discs by putting them on DVD. I have a couple of sources where I not only download program episodes to my computer then later burn to discs but also purchase CDs from. They are easily found online. A few of the sites I visit also offer "CD samplers" for sale. This is handy because you get to hear many series you might not have thought of trying out as well as samplers geared to different times of the year. For instance, a Christmas sampler I have has about 100 various Christmas shows from many different programs.


Once you find a series you like you'll want to obtain all the episodes of it. Some programs that were on for a long time might have 600-800 episodes of which most still survive after all these years.

OTR was killed off primarily by the less expensive music formats that took their place. Formats such as rock and roll and beautiful music. The end of the OTR period is generally recognized as September 30th, 1962, when the final episodes of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense aired. Thank goodness for the programs existing on tapes, transcription discs, albums, CDs, and the like today.

As a side note, one of the sources I use to download and purchase OTR CDs, OTRCAT.com, has a service that allows you to listen to a different program each day. I've included this now at the top right of my blog. Be sure to check it daily.

Another death in the news

    I heard today about the death of Nello Ferrara who died at the age of 93. If that name doesn't ring a bell how about the company he founded, Ferrara Pan, headquartered in Chicago? Here's a hint......his products were a staple at movie theaters and drive-ins around the country, not to mention stores on top of stores all over the place. A final clue...how are your teeth today? Give up? Here's the answer:

    Nello Ferrara was the head of his family's candy company, Ferrara Pan, that has made your favorite candies  for years. Emigrating from Italy in the early 1900s Ferrara Pan made such delectable treats as Boston Baked Beans, Red Hots, Atomic Fireballs, Lemonheads, and other candies.

    The "Pan" referred to in the company name had to do with the way the candy was made whereby "grains of sugar, nuts or candy centers" get tossed around in revolving pans "while adding the flavor, color and other candy ingredients," as revealed in the company's website, http://www.ferrarapan.com. The candy then gets tossed around until it becomes the desired size and then it is polished with vegetable wax.

    A little trivia about the creation of Atomic Fireballs. Mr Ferrara came up with the idea while he was in the service in 1954, serving in post-war Japan, according to a Chicago Sun-Times interview with  Ferrara's son, company CEO Salvatore Ferrara II.

The Boston Baked Beans themselves are peanuts covered in candy made the Ferrara Pan way. In addition to these treats, Ferrara Pan also makes Grape Heads, Apple Heads, Cherry Heads, Black Forest Gummies, Black Forest Fruit Snacks, and Jaw Busters.

Rest in Peace, Nello Ferrara. Generations of kids, adults, and dentists thank you for your contributions to the candy industry.

Some old, good friends

I spent a little time yesterday with some old friends. Some you probably even know. The fact is, I have walked past them about every day for the last six years and didn't even say a word, although, silently I promised to get around to them one day.

Before I get too far ahead of myself I should say they are friends from when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. And they aren't even real, except in your mind. These friends are in the comic books I collected long, long ago. I had not seen them for about 30 years or so until I was clearing out my old room at home after my Mother passed away. My brother and I were cleaning our old stuff out of our parent's house so that it could be put on the market.

I took a few pictures and other mementos of my youth and threw a LOT of stuff out. Clothes, albums, magazines, and assorted other junk. I decided though to box up all the comic books I could find and bring them home with me until I could decide what to do with them. There in the garage the boxes sat for for the last six years until now.

I always figured I would get all the ones in good condition and see if they were worth anything at a comic book store. I first started going through the boxes to put the characters in some sort of order. Of course you couldn't have just Archie comics. You had to have Archie, Archie and Pals, Archie and Me, Archies Joke Book, and then each of his friends had books...Jughead, Jughead and Me, Reggie and Me, Betty and Veronica, Bettie and Me......you get the idea. This was going to be a long process.

As I was putting them in some sort of order, however, I started remembering the stories somewhat just from the covers. Now I was not only sorting them, I was reading as well. This little project of about two hours turned into an all afternoon and evening event.

The more comic books I went through, the more I stopped to read...Archie, Sad Sack, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Richie Rich, Bugs Bunny, Dennis the Menace. I even had some Monkees, Beverly Hillbillies, and Banana Splits comic books......I took one or two from each of the big series' and read cover to cover. It was fascinating to look at the old art and stories and remember again being 9, 10, 11, 12 or so. Particularly on days when I was home sick from school or during the summer when I could get my parents to bring home the latest comic books from F. P. May Drugstore. I had a list of the new ones mind you and I would read them as I did now cover to cover.

And all the old ads on the back covers......Sell Christmas cards for cash, sell Grit for cash and prizes, draw Binky the deer, 200 plastic green soldiers for $1.99, incredible sea monkeys, Schwinn bicycles, sell flower seeds, Aurora plastic models, Daisy Air Rifles, and others.

All in all, it was a fun way to spend the better part of the day reliving memories with old friends. I'll probably sell some if not all of them soon. A few are actually worth something. Most about $2-$5 depending on the condition but these were only 12 cents new for the most of them. (25 cents for the 80 page giants!) A handful  are even upwards of $25 each and still fewer over $100. Maybe not just yet though. Like a few of the human-type, some friends you like to keep around for a while longer.

An excellent documentary

A few days ago I blogged about the West Coast session musicians called The Wrecking Crew and the many artists they recorded with. Unfortunately the documentary on them has not been released yet while the producers are paying off the music rights. I do have faith it will be released in time for Christmas.

There is, however, a documentary that has been out on DVD for several years and deals with another set of studio musicians. This time the focus is on Motown and the studio musicians known as The Funk Brothers. They played on all the Motown hits of the period 1959-1972.  The documentary is titled Standing In the Shadows of Motown.

Founded by Berry Gordy Jr, and from a small basement studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit (known as Hitsville USA) the combination of soul and pop music originated that came to be known as The Motown Sound. The artists were the superstars of their time but the musicians that played on all their hits were unknown. That is, until director Paul Justman sought them out and told the story of The Funk Brothers in this documentary.

While the names of the musicians may not be as well known (people like keyboardists Earl Van Dyke, Johnny Griffith, and Joe Hunter; guitarists Joe Messina, Robert White, and Eddie Willis; percussionists Eddie "Bongo" Brown and Jack Ashford; drummers Benny Benjamin, Uriel Jones, and Richard "Pistol" Allen; and bassists James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt) the musical legacy they left is the history of Motown. In fact, they played on more #1 records than The Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley combined.

These are some of the artists The Funk Brothers played for:  The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, The Jackson 5, and on and on.

The documentary is widely available and a must-see for music lovers and particularly Motown music lovers.

Here is a trailer for the documentary, Standing In the Shadows of Motown.

And as a bonus, a video with Cornelius Grant of The Temptations and how The Funk Brothers, Berry Gordy, and Hitsville USA operated.

Enjoy!