Random thoughts

Is that like the warning signs of early dementia?  

Ah yes, Tom Lehrer - National Brotherhood Week!

For those who have never seen a TV station sign off at night, watch the beginning of the 1980s "Poltergeist".

Random thoughts do seem to enter my mind more often these days.

Why do models get dirtier when you apply a wash?

Why do Xacto knives always land point-down on your foot?

What did I have for lunch today?

Is it lunch time yet?

Is it past lunch time already?

What day is it?

Why do 1/700 ship models cost so much?

Why am I asking about the cost of 1/700 ship models when I don't buy them?  But dang, they sure do cost a lot on a $ per inch basis!

ikar01

I remember having to head home every day when I was a kid when the daillly air raid siren went off.

Never (mercifully) had to do that...but, having grown up in the Midwest, I remember having to explain to distressed-looking 'new kids' at school that the local civil defense siren going off at noon on Mondays didn't mean the Ruskies were attacking...but instead that they just tested it regularly, mainly in case of tornados. (I did occasionally wonder, however, if the evil Ruskies might be clever enough to attack at noon on a Monday, just to catch us off-guard.... )

ikar01

Having to go out on the roof to adjust the antenna to get a better reception of one of our three T.V. stations on our black & white T.V.  Having the stations go off at a certain time at night and come back on in the morning, starting with the National Anthem.

I ran a line out the window to a little 'Radio Shack' antenna -- not much more than a glorified coat-hanger -- hanging in the low-hanging branch of a tree in the side yard. Easier (and faster) to adjust, no climbing required.

I don't think I was ever watching TV early enough to see the sign-on...but I vividly remember the National Anthem being played at sign-off...always right after 'Thought For The Day.' 

ikar01

When something went wrong, getting a test pattern or some cartoon picture of an ape tangled up in film with an appology from the station.

Ours was the cartoon 'station manager' literally tearing his hair out, with a janitor with mop and bucket smiling in the background. I always wondered what kind of technical glitch could be solved with a mop and bucket...unless the aforementioned SM was likely to pee himself. 

ikar01

A forgotten piece of old music, popping up like They're comming to take me away, or something from one of Tom Leher or Allan Sherman's albums. 

Napoleon XIV, 'Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,' and...my favorite...'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.' Sherman's My Son, the Folksinger and Vaughn Meader's First Family album were the only comedy records my parents ever owned. Everything else was Sinatra, Montovani, Burl Ives, and...my pre-adolescent favorite...Julie London. (Not that the music of that last was my favorite...but I used to stare longingly at Ms. London's sexy album covers, even before I quite knew why.)

A more innocent (i.e., clueless) time, for darn sure.

On the 'ol television front, playing with walkie-talkies and upsetting the parents and neighbors TV reception and hearing the ramblings of ten year olds....

When an aircraft would fly over the picture would go wobbly until it passed.

W.O.R. Radio out of New York would have a show at night called the pillow talk club where they woujld ask you to listen to their music through your pillow so your parents could not hear it.  In the morning the transister radio would be dead and you needed to find a new battery.

Ever hear the chicago radio program called The Breakfast Club?

Ever listen to Gene Sheppard's stories from N.Y.?  If you never heard of him, think A Christmas Story.  That's some of his stuff and he did the narration.

ikar01

Ever hear the chicago radio program called The Breakfast Club?

In the mid-1960s, my mom used to listen to "Don McNeill's Breakfast Club" -- think the same demographic as, say, Mike Douglas or Larry King -- weekday mornings on Chicago's 'old folks' radio giant WGN.

But even more bizarre..from a pre-teen's POV...the same city's 50,000-watt Rock'n'Roll radio powerhouse WLS used to run the same show...on a few hours' tape-delay, I think...between Clark Weber (early mornings) and Bernie Allen (early afternoons). To recast it in terms of a slightly later entertainment generation: sort of like if they had run "Lawrence Welk" mornings on MTV. 

AFRTS would put out canned programs from the States, play them twice and dispose of the records, much like the old Liberty Records from WWII.  I have maybe 5 of those that my Father grabbed during the war.

We would have some strange safety/public service commercials and just plain strange comic bits show up on the radio too.  We got things like Chicken Man, Wolfman Jack and his bit Casa Del Lobo besides his usual broadcast show and his Christmas special each year.  I managed to get some things on tape while on duty by either taking my cassette radio with me or just loading a tape and let it play while locked in my locker.

Greg, do you remember the WLS Silver Dollar Survey?

JohnnyK

Greg, do you remember the WLS Silver Dollar Survey?

Hells yeah! Even as pre-teens, we lived and breathed everything WLS. I actually got to meet and converse with Art Roberts and Clark Weber at (separate) personal appearances in Arlington Hts and Wheeling (we lived in Buffalo Grove at the time). Pretty heady memories for a kid who -- to hear my mom tell it -- had the old pocket transistor 'surgically attached!'

I'll see your Silver Dollar Survey...and raise you a 'Super Summer Treasure Truck.' 

[BTW, notice anything really odd about the survey below? Other than, say, the Jefferson Airplane, Al Martino, the Everly Brothers, the Mauds and Jon & Robin all appearing in the same mid-to-late-'60s R&R Top-40 space/time continuum??

No Beatles!!!]

I remember meeting Gene Sheppard when he did a show at our high school.

Remember the show Jesus Christ Super Star?  I got to see the play with the original cast in S.D. just before I went overseas for the first time.  Not many years later one of the female singers became a hit singer during disco.

gregbale

 

 

JohnnyK

Greg, do you remember the WLS Silver Dollar Survey?

 

 

Hells yeah! Even as pre-teens, we lived and breathed everything WLS. I actually got to meet and converse with Art Roberts and Clark Weber at (separate) personal appearances in Arlington Hts and Wheeling (we lived in Buffalo Grove at the time). Pretty heady memories for a kid who -- to hear my mom tell it -- had the old pocket transistor 'surgically attached!'

I'll see your Silver Dollar Survey...and raise you a 'Super Summer Treasure Truck.' 

[BTW, notice anything really odd about the survey below? Other than, say, the Jefferson Airplane, Al Martino, the Everly Brothers, the Mauds and Jon & Robin all appearing in the same mid-to-late-'60s R&R Top-40 space/time continuum??

No Beatles!!!]

 

I remember when most of these came out.  There's only a few that I don't remember hearing.

Can you imagine turning Weird Al on some of these somgs.

Ah, ... Weird Al .

Can't mention him without thinking of Dr. Demento.

I get the dead puppies song stuck in my head all the time ..... and I haven't heard it in at least 30 years !

Does anyone remember any of this kind of stuff?

Remember all of it. 

Entered Modelrama.

Built most of Monograms cars over the years. Built the Big Rod and the Big Deuce. Still have the Deuce. Making it a rear engined rod with a Pocher V12.

Built most of Pyros gun kits. Still have the Bavarian Wheellock Rifle kit, all 4'4" of it that is not in that flier.

Was a member of the Auto World club. Still have my jacket patch.

Guess I'm a lucky guy in that I still remember lots of that old stuff at 82 years old.

Stay Safe.

Jim 

Why is there a 'd' in fridge but no 'd' in refrigerator?

Why is the number 4 spelled with a 'u' (four) but there no 'u' in forty?

Only in the higher cultured areas do they have the "u" in 40.

They can be a bit odd like that.  If you have for some reason, seen them when they hold their cup, the saucer never moves.

When Mountain Dew first came out they had a Ozark style hillbilly as its identifier trademark.  When did that go way?  I had heard that it was going to be brought back. A new class distinction they may have just rediscovered?

Why did it take so long to get a rocket to land vertically when it was happening all the time on 1950s T.V.?  Rocky Jones, Tom Corbet, and Flash Gordon are examples.  After that you can add you can add Thunderbirds to the list.

keavdog

Why is there a 'd' in fridge but no 'd' in refrigerator?

Why is the number 4 spelled with a 'u' (four) but there no 'u' in forty?

I can't take credit for this...it's an old routine by the late great Gallagher...but consider the following:

comb, tomb, bomb...why a different 'o' sound in each one?

Have you suffered a wound...or have you wound a clock?

And last -- not one of Gallagher's, AFAIK -- punctuate the following phrase -- made up with only 3 different words -- so it makes some kind of sense:

that that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is

[answer below ↓]

That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is not that it? It is! 

ahh... examples of what you can do with the english language.

My daughter sent me this from the Simpsons

Before was was was, was was is.

Then there are capitonyms - words that change meaning when capitalized.

Polish polish

Cancer cancer

Lent lent

March march

Fun with english - don't get me started with palindromes!

Palindromes.........Wasn't that a name of a chracter on a TV show back in the day?  It might have been a comedy science fiction show like Quark, or maybe something newer.

ikar01

Palindromes.........Wasn't that a name of a chracter on a TV show back in the day?  It might have been a comedy science fiction show like Quark, or maybe something newer. 

That would be 'Otto Palindrome'...played by the late, great character actor (and accomplished jazz trombonist) Conrad Janis. (Think Mindy's father from Mork and Mindy, for you poor culturally-deprived miscreants who do not know the splendor which is Quark. May the Head have mercy on your pitiful souls....)

Strictly speaking, the character was 'Otto Bob Palindrome' -- both 'Otto' and 'Bob' being...well...you know.... 

DasBeav

On the 'ol television front, playing with walkie-talkies and upsetting the parents and neighbors TV reception and hearing the ramblings of ten year olds....

 

I tried that with radio when I was a kid.  I wanted to be a ham.  I soon learned about spark transmitters.  I had a spark coil set up (combination of buzzer and auto spark coil).  I made a little spark gp, a long length of wire as antenna and set the spark generator in series with telegraph.  I sent friends home to tune their AM radios to the AM band.  The results were incoclusive- the signal so weak I am sure no one else noticed.

Hey I remember Quark!  I used to watch that show.  There was a character named Ficus that was a plant, though he looked like a human.  Groot's great-great-great-grandfather perhaps?  Or maybe Odo's distant cousin?

In the same vein of cute but short-lived TV shows from the same era, I liked Holmes and Yoyo.  As a little kid, I found it funny whenever someone asked Yoyo what division he was from.  "The bunko squad.  The bunko squad.  The bunko squad..."

Real G

In the same vein of cute but short-lived TV shows from the same era, I liked Holmes and Yoyo.  As a little kid, I found it funny whenever someone asked Yoyo what division he was from.  "The bunko squad.  The bunko squad.  The bunko squad..."

I remember John Schuck played Yoyo...but I can't recall whether that was before or after he played the long-suffering Police Commisioner lackey Sergeant Enright on McMillan and Wife. 

I had no idea he played trombone, but so did Riker on next generation.  It was an interesting show that came out in a time when for some reason shows were changed every half season for no reason.  This meant that you could start getting to like a show and all of a sudden it was replaced.This went on for about two years I believe before things returned to normal.

Werner Kempler also played classical and was a skilled makeup artist.  They said his parents fled Germany just as things were starting to get bad and when the part of aCol. Klink was offered him he said he would only accept if Klink was an idiot and none of his ideas worked out.

ikar01

It was an interesting show that came out in a time when for some reason shows were changed every half season for no reason.  This meant that you could start getting to like a show and all of a sudden it was replaced.This went on for about two years I believe before things returned to normal.

I think that was a period when there was a revolving door for Network execs...and every time a new guy came in, the pet projects of the previous regime got the axe on day 1...whether they showed promise or not. You can't start a big-money job like that without showing you can throw your weight around....

missileman2000

 

 

DasBeav

On the 'ol television front, playing with walkie-talkies and upsetting the parents and neighbors TV reception and hearing the ramblings of ten year olds....

 

 

 

 

I tried that with radio when I was a kid.  I wanted to be a ham.  I soon learned about spark transmitters.  I had a spark coil set up (combination of buzzer and auto spark coil).  I made a little spark gp, a long length of wire as antenna and set the spark generator in series with telegraph.  I sent friends home to tune their AM radios to the AM band.  The results were incoclusive- the signal so weak I am sure no one else noticed.

 

 

I got my ham license when I was 13 - dad was an electronics tech (20 years in the AF) so it was kind of a household thing.  We had an high gain beam antenna on a tower above the house and 40/80 meter dipoles along the fence.  I was a novice (and still am WB6PJZ)  I was lower power as a novice but dad had 1000 watts out of the Heathkit and when he would key that (depending which way the beam was pointed) the neighbors would complain and birds would jump off the antenna.  I still have a scar from a 100 watt RF burn adjusting the dipole outside for my dad - didn't hear him say 'get off, checking swr' ZAP!

Another fun story - me and a buddy 8 doors down or so got a couple of army surplus field raidios.  Turned out his nextdoor neighbor was a telco guy with a pile of 4'-8' sections of wire.  We spent one summer soldering them all together and went through a lot of rolls of electrical tape.  Got everything wired up running down the outside of the fences, a few D batteries and a crank and we could talk all night.  Winter came and the rains killed us but what a fun summer project.

One neighbor down the street got his kids a walkie/talkie set that was marked with the James Bond logo.  We split into two groups heading in different directions  and started to use the radios.  It wasn't too long before we got a response, it just wasn't the one we expected.  Their radios happened to have the same crystal as one of our local police departments.  We answered their questions and it wasn't too long before we met a police car at theri house.  I never saw those radios again.

Remember the song Swamp Witch and Cow Patti?

Swamp Witch - Jim Stafford - YouTube

JIM STAFFORD - Cow Patti (1981) Original Studio Version! - YouTube

ignore the printed words under the picture.

then there's always I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes among others.

ikar01

Remember the song Swamp Witch and Cow Patti? Swamp Witch - Jim Stafford - YouTube JIM STAFFORD - Cow Patti (1981) Original Studio Version! - YouTube

You forgot his magnum opi: My Girl Bill and the epic Wildwood Weed.

Yeah, but it has been a long time.  I haven't even played his CDs in some time.

Here's one, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.  Narration by Richard Burton and songs by the Moody Blues.  They eventually did a live stage show.

Then there's Rick Wakeman's two musical recordings, Knights of the round table and Journey to the center of the earth.