Daria & Roby - Hallelujah Live@Ristorante Caffè Accademia
Splendida serata in compagnia di Daria e Roby a Città di Castello al Ristorante Caffè Accademia!!!Siete stati fantastici!!!Daria e Roby in Hallelujah acustic Live!!!!
Fast & Furious 8
Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham return for the eighth installment of Universal’s globally popular Fast & Furious saga. Following the record-breaking success of Furious 7, the high-octane franchise is revving up for its biggest adventure yet. Oscar®-winners Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren join the cast alongside returning favorites Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Kurt Russell and Chris Bridges. The Fate of the Furious is directed by F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Italian Job) from a script by Chris Morgan (Furious 7, Wanted). - ( Original Title - Fast & Furious 8 )
Subways Are for Sleeping / Only Johnny Knows / Colloquy 2: A Dissertation on Love
Subways Are for Sleeping is a musical with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne. The original Broadway production played in 1961-62.
The musical was inspired by an article about subway homelessness in the March 1956 issue of Harper's and a subsequent 1957 book based on it, both by Edmund G. Love, who slept on subway trains throughout the 1950s and encountered many unique individuals. With the profits from his book, Love then embarked on a bizarre hobby: over the course of several years, he ate dinner at every restaurant listed in the Manhattan yellow pages directory, visiting them in alphabetical order.
After two previews, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd, opened on December 27, 1961 at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 205 performances. The cast included Orson Bean, Sydney Chaplin, Carol Lawrence, Gordon Connell, Grayson Hall, and Green's wife Phyllis Newman (whose costume, consisting solely of a towel, was probably Freddy Wittop's easiest design in his distinguished career), with newcomers Michael Bennett and Valerie Harper in the chorus.
Subways Are for Sleeping opened to mostly negative reviews. The show already was hampered by a lack of publicity, since the New York City Transit Authority refused to post advertisements on the city's buses and in subway trains and stations for fear they would be perceived as officially sanctioning the right of vagrants to use these facilities as overnight accommodations. Producer David Merrick and press agent Harvey Sabinson decided to invite individuals with the same names as prominent theatre critics (such as Walter Kerr, Richard Watts, Jr. and Howard Taubman) to see the show and afterwards used their favorable comments in print ads. Thanks to photographs of the seven critics accompanying their blurbs (the well-known real Richard Watts was not African American), the ad was discovered to be a deception by a copy editor. It was pulled from most newspapers, but not before running in an early edition of the New York Herald Tribune. However, the clever publicity stunt allowed the musical to continue to run and it eventually turned a small profit.
Newman won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and nominations went to Bean for Best Featured Actor and Kidd's choreography.
SHAKE! Rock & Dance Festival
Sabato 8-06-2013 PARCO ANSA DEL TEVERE Citta di Castello (PG)
-----------------------SHAKE! rock & dance FESTIVAL-----------------------
ANFITEATRO LIVE!
- ALLE 22:00 CONCERTO UFFICIALE DEI PORTO FLAMINGO
La band mette fin da subito in luce le proprie caratteristiche.. grinta,divertimento,capacità teatrali e un Folk tutto da ballare!
negli anni suonano in gran parte d'Italia condividendo il palco con i migliori artisti della scena Folk-Rock italiana come
Bandabardò, Modena City Ramblers, Folkabbestia, Ratti della Sabina, Simone Cristicchi, Cisco.
..I PORTO FLAMINGO sono stati indicati da molti come sicuri eredi della Bandabardò..
- ALLE 23:00 CONCERTO LIVE RADIOFRECCIA LIGA COVER BAND
- ALLE 00:00 ESIBIZIONE LIVE DELLE FIAMME LIBERE
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ANFITEATRO DJ SET !
-DALLE 00:30
DJ ROBERTO FERRARI RADIO DEEJAY!
DJ NOS (live on the mix)
VOCAL COACH SIMONE MONE FERRONI
PH: Ilaria Bistoni
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NEL PARCO !
DALLE 00:00
▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼REVISION ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼
MICHELE PATRIARCHI
MATTHEW b2b ANDRY ES
ART DIRECTOR E PH ANDREA BISTARELLI
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Prenotazione biglietto € 10
Prenotazione biglietto con energy drink in omaggio € 12
INFOLINE: 3290673874 FRENKY
TANKS TO:
- COMUNE DI CITTA' DI CASTELLO
- RADIO DEEJAY
- FERRO ENERGY DRINK
- ROBERTO FERRARI
- MAKE A DREAM
-BAR AGORA'
IN CASO DI MALTEMPO IL FESTIVAL SI SVOLGERA' AL FORMULA DISCO !!!
The Great Gildersleeve: Leroy's Paper Route / Marjorie's Girlfriend Visits / Hiccups
The Great Gildersleeve (1941--1957), initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first introduced on Oct. 3, 1939, ep. #216. The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Peary played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.
On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee! became a Gildersleeve catchphrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was revealed as Philharmonic. Gildy admits as much at the end of Gildersleeve's Diary on the Fibber McGee and Molly series (Oct. 22, 1940).
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.
Our Miss Brooks: Conklin the Bachelor / Christmas Gift Mix-up / Writes About a Hobo / Hobbies
Our Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952--56), it became one of the medium's earliest hits. In 1956, the sitcom was adapted for big screen in the film of the same name.
Connie (Constance) Brooks (Eve Arden), an English teacher at fictional Madison High School.
Osgood Conklin (Gale Gordon), blustery, gruff, crooked and unsympathetic Madison High principal, a near-constant pain to his faculty and students. (Conklin was played by Joseph Forte in the show's first episode; Gordon succeeded him for the rest of the series' run.) Occasionally Conklin would rig competitions at the school--such as that for prom queen--so that his daughter Harriet would win.
Walter Denton (Richard Crenna, billed at the time as Dick Crenna), a Madison High student, well-intentioned and clumsy, with a nasally high, cracking voice, often driving Miss Brooks (his self-professed favorite teacher) to school in a broken-down jalopy. Miss Brooks' references to her own usually-in-the-shop car became one of the show's running gags.
Philip Boynton (Jeff Chandler on radio, billed sometimes under his birth name Ira Grossel); Robert Rockwell on both radio and television), Madison High biology teacher, the shy and often clueless object of Miss Brooks' affections.
Margaret Davis (Jane Morgan), Miss Brooks' absentminded landlady, whose two trademarks are a cat named Minerva, and a penchant for whipping up exotic and often inedible breakfasts.
Harriet Conklin (Gloria McMillan), Madison High student and daughter of principal Conklin. A sometime love interest for Walter Denton, Harriet was honest and guileless with none of her father's malevolence and dishonesty.
Stretch (Fabian) Snodgrass (Leonard Smith), dull-witted Madison High athletic star and Walter's best friend.
Daisy Enright (Mary Jane Croft), Madison High English teacher, and a scheming professional and romantic rival to Miss Brooks.
Jacques Monet (Gerald Mohr), a French teacher.
Our Miss Brooks was a hit on radio from the outset; within eight months of its launch as a regular series, the show landed several honors, including four for Eve Arden, who won polls in four individual publications of the time. Arden had actually been the third choice to play the title role. Harry Ackerman, West Coast director of programming, wanted Shirley Booth for the part, but as he told historian Gerald Nachman many years later, he realized Booth was too focused on the underpaid downside of public school teaching at the time to have fun with the role.
Lucille Ball was believed to have been the next choice, but she was already committed to My Favorite Husband and didn't audition. Chairman Bill Paley, who was friendly with Arden, persuaded her to audition for the part. With a slightly rewritten audition script--Osgood Conklin, for example, was originally written as a school board president but was now written as the incoming new Madison principal--Arden agreed to give the newly-revamped show a try.
Produced by Larry Berns and written by director Al Lewis, Our Miss Brooks premiered on July 19, 1948. According to radio critic John Crosby, her lines were very feline in dialogue scenes with principal Conklin and would-be boyfriend Boynton, with sharp, witty comebacks. The interplay between the cast--blustery Conklin, nebbishy Denton, accommodating Harriet, absentminded Mrs. Davis, clueless Boynton, scheming Miss Enright--also received positive reviews.
Arden won a radio listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top ranking comedienne of 1948-49, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton, she joked. But she was also a hit with the critics; a winter 1949 poll of newspaper and magazine radio editors taken by Motion Picture Daily named her the year's best radio comedienne.
For its entire radio life, the show was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, promoting Palmolive soap, Lustre Creme shampoo and Toni hair care products. The radio series continued until 1957, a year after its television life ended.
My Friend Irma: Aunt Harriet to Visit / Did Irma Buy Her Own Wedding Ring / Planning a Vacation
My Friend Irma, created by writer-director-producer Cy Howard, is a top-rated, long-run radio situation comedy, so popular in the late 1940s that its success escalated to films, television, a comic strip and a comic book, while Howard scored with another radio comedy hit, Life with Luigi. Marie Wilson portrayed the title character, Irma Peterson, on radio, in two films and a television series. The radio series was broadcast from April 11, 1947 to August 23, 1954.
Dependable, level-headed Jane Stacy (Cathy Lewis, Diana Lynn) began each weekly radio program by narrating a misadventure of her innocent, bewildered roommate, Irma, a dim-bulb stenographer from Minnesota. The two central characters were in their mid-twenties. Irma had her 25th birthday in one episode; she was born on May 5. After the two met in the first episode, they lived together in an apartment rented from their Irish landlady, Mrs. O'Reilly (Jane Morgan, Gloria Gordon).
Irma's boyfriend Al (John Brown) was a deadbeat, barely on the right side of the law, who had not held a job in years. Only someone like Irma could love Al, whose nickname for Irma was Chicken. Al had many crazy get-rich-quick schemes, which never worked. Al planned to marry Irma at some future date so she could support him. Professor Kropotkin (Hans Conried), the Russian violinist at the Princess Burlesque theater, lived upstairs. He greeted Jane and Irma with remarks like, My two little bunnies with one being an Easter bunny and the other being Bugs Bunny. The Professor insulted Mrs. O'Reilly, complained about his room and reluctantly became O'Reilly's love interest in an effort to make her forget his back rent.
Irma worked for the lawyer, Mr. Clyde (Alan Reed). She had such an odd filing system that once when Clyde fired her, he had to hire her back again because he couldn't find anything. Useless at dictation, Irma mangled whatever Clyde dictated. Asked how long she had been with Clyde, Irma said, When I first went to work with him he had curly black hair, then it got grey, and now it's snow white. I guess I've been with him about six months.
Irma became less bright as the program evolved. She also developed a tendency to whine or cry whenever something went wrong, which was at least once every show. Jane had a romantic inclination for her boss, millionaire Richard Rhinelander (Leif Erickson), but he had no real interest in her. Another actor in the show was Bea Benaderet.
Katherine Elisabeth Wilson (August 19, 1916 -- November 23, 1972), better known by her stage name, Marie Wilson, was an American radio, film, and television actress. She may be best remembered as the title character in My Friend Irma.
Born in Anaheim, California, Wilson began her career in New York City as a dancer on the Broadway stage. She gained national prominence with My Friend Irma on radio, television and film. The show made her a star but typecast her almost interminably as the quintessential dumb blonde, which she played in numerous comedies and in Ken Murray's famous Hollywood Blackouts. During World War II, she was a volunteer performer at the Hollywood Canteen. She was also a popular wartime pin-up.
Wilson's performance in Satan Met a Lady, the second film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's detective novel The Maltese Falcon, is a virtual template for Marilyn Monroe's later onscreen persona. Wilson appeared in more than 40 films and was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show on four occasions. She was a television performer during the 1960s, working until her untimely death.
Wilson's talents have been recognized with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: for radio at 6301 Hollywood Boulevard, for television at 6765 Hollywood Boulevard and for movies at 6601 Hollywood Boulevard.
Wilson married four times: Nick Grinde (early 1930s), LA golf pro Bob Stevens (1938--39), Allan Nixon (1942--50) and Robert Fallon (1951--72).
She died of cancer in 1972 at age 56 and was interred in the Columbarium of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.
Suspense: Portrait Without a Face / The Defense Rests / Narrative About Clarence
Suspense is a radio drama series broadcast from 1942 through 1962.
One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled radio's outstanding theater of thrills and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era. Approximately 945 episodes were broadcast during its long run, and more than 900 are extant.
Suspense went through several major phases, characterized by different hosts, sponsors, and director/producers. Formula plot devices were followed for all but a handful of episodes: the protagonist was usually a normal person suddenly dropped into a threatening or bizarre situation; solutions were withheld until the last possible second; and evildoers were usually punished in the end.
In its early years, the program made only occasional forays into science fiction and fantasy. Notable exceptions include adaptations of Curt Siodmak's Donovan's Brain and H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror, but by the late 1950s, such material was regularly featured.
The familiar opening phrase tales well-calculated to... was satirized by Mad as the cover blurb Tales Calculated to Drive You... Mad on its first issue (October--November 1952) and continuing until issue #23 (May 1955).
Radio comedians Bob and Ray had a recurring routine lampooning the show, with stories that were presented as dramatic but were intentionally mundane, entitled Tales calculated to put you in a state of... Apathy!
Meet Corliss Archer: Beauty Contest / Mr. Archer's Client Suing / Corliss Decides Dexter's Future
Meet Corliss Archer, a program from radio's Golden Age, ran from January 7, 1943 to September 30, 1956.
Priscilla Lyon and Janet Waldo successively portrayed 15-year-old Corliss on radio. Lugene Sanders also played Corliss briefly on radio and in the Meet Corliss Archer television show.
Perpetually perky, breathless and well-intentioned, Corliss is constantly at the side of her next-door neighbor and boyfriend, Dexter Franklin (Bill Christy, Sam Edwards). Clumsy, nerdy Dexter, a sweet but constant bungler with a nasal voice, is best remembered for his trademark phrase, Holy cow! and his braying call, Heyyyy, Corrrrrliiiiiss!--frequently delivered from the hedge separating their houses.
Harry Archer, Corliss' father, is a lawyer who tolerates Dexter only when he wants to use him to prove the superiority of the male gender. Gruff but gentle, he was played by both Fred Shields and Frank Martin. Janet Archer, Corliss' mother, was played by Irene Tedrow, Monty Margetts, and Gloria Holden. She is calm and understanding with her daughter and her husband, both of whom sometimes try her patience. Other frequent characters include Mildred Ames, a good friend of Corliss (played by Bebe Young and Barbara Whiting); Mildred's irritating younger brother Raymond (Tommy Bernard, Kenny Godkin); and Corliss' rival, Betty Cameron (Delores Crane).
Meet Corliss Archer was written by F. Hugh Herbert, who first introduced the character and her friends in the magazine story A Private Affair, the first of a series of stories. Kiss and Tell was a 1943 play that was adapted for a 1945 film starring Shirley Temple. The 1949 sequel, A Kiss For Corliss, was re-released in 1954.
The Great Gildersleeve: Leila Leaves Town / Gildy Investigates Retirement / Gildy Needs a Raise
Aiding and abetting the periodically frantic life in the Gildersleeve home was family cook and housekeeper Birdie Lee Coggins (Lillian Randolph). Although in the first season, under writer Levinson, Birdie was often portrayed as saliently less than bright, she slowly developed as the real brains and caretaker of the household under writers John Whedon, Sam Moore and Andy White. In many of the later episodes Gildersleeve has to acknowledge Birdie's commonsense approach to some of his predicaments. By the early 1950s, Birdie was heavily depended on by the rest of the family in fulfilling many of the functions of the household matriarch, whether it be giving sound advice to an adolescent Leroy or tending Marjorie's children.
By the late 1940s, Marjorie slowly matures to a young woman of marrying age. During the 9th season (September 1949-June 1950) Marjorie meets and marries (May 10) Walter Bronco Thompson (Richard Crenna), star football player at the local college. The event was popular enough that Look devoted five pages in its May 23, 1950 issue to the wedding. After living in the same household for a few years with their twin babies Ronnie and Linda, the newlyweds move next door to keep the expanding Gildersleeve clan close together.
Leroy, aged 10--11 during most of the 1940s, is the all-American boy who grudgingly practices his piano lessons, gets bad report cards, fights with his friends and cannot remember to not slam the door. Although he is loyal to his Uncle Mort, he is always the first to deflate his ego with a well-placed Ha!!! or What a character! Beginning in the Spring of 1949, he finds himself in junior high and is at last allowed to grow up, establishing relationships with the girls in the Bullard home across the street. From an awkward adolescent who hangs his head, kicks the ground and giggles whenever Brenda Knickerbocker comes near, he transforms himself overnight (November 28, 1951) into a more mature young man when Babs Winthrop (both girls played by Barbara Whiting) approaches him about studying together. From then on, he branches out with interests in driving, playing the drums and dreaming of a musical career.
Calling All Cars: The Blonde Paper Hanger / The Abandoned Bricks / The Swollen Face
The radio show Calling All Cars hired LAPD radio dispacher Jesse Rosenquist to be the voice of the dispatcher. Rosenquist was already famous because home radios could tune into early police radio frequencies. As the first police radio dispatcher presented to the public ear, his was the voice that actors went to when called upon for a radio dispatcher role.
The iconic television series Dragnet, with LAPD Detective Joe Friday as the primary character, was the first major media representation of the department. Real LAPD operations inspired Jack Webb to create the series and close cooperation with department officers let him make it as realistic as possible, including authentic police equipment and sound recording on-site at the police station.
Due to Dragnet's popularity, LAPD Chief Parker became, after J. Edgar Hoover, the most well known and respected law enforcement official in the nation. In the 1960s, when the LAPD under Chief Thomas Reddin expanded its community relations division and began efforts to reach out to the African-American community, Dragnet followed suit with more emphasis on internal affairs and community policing than solving crimes, the show's previous mainstay.
Several prominent representations of the LAPD and its officers in television and film include Adam-12, Blue Streak, Blue Thunder, Boomtown, The Closer, Colors, Crash, Columbo, Dark Blue, Die Hard, End of Watch, Heat, Hollywood Homicide, Hunter, Internal Affairs, Jackie Brown, L.A. Confidential, Lakeview Terrace, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Life, Numb3rs, The Shield, Southland, Speed, Street Kings, SWAT, Training Day and the Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour and Terminator film series. The LAPD is also featured in the video games Midnight Club II, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, L.A. Noire and Call of Juarez: The Cartel.
The LAPD has also been the subject of numerous novels. Elizabeth Linington used the department as her backdrop in three different series written under three different names, perhaps the most popular being those novel featuring Det. Lt. Luis Mendoza, who was introduced in the Edgar-nominated Case Pending. Joseph Wambaugh, the son of a Pittsburgh policeman, spent fourteen years in the department, using his background to write novels with authentic fictional depictions of life in the LAPD. Wambaugh also created the Emmy-winning TV anthology series Police Story. Wambaugh was also a major influence on James Ellroy, who wrote several novels about the Department set during the 1940s and 1950s, the most famous of which are probably The Black Dahlia, fictionalizing the LAPD's most famous cold case, and L.A. Confidential, which was made into a film of the same name. Both the novel and the film chronicled mass-murder and corruption inside and outside the force during the Parker era. Critic Roger Ebert indicates that the film's characters (from the 1950s) represent the choices ahead for the LAPD: assisting Hollywood limelight, aggressive policing with relaxed ethics, and a straight arrow approach.
You Bet Your Life: Secret Word - Name / Street / Table / Chair
Julius Henry Groucho Marx (October 2, 1890 -- August 19, 1977) was an American comedian and film and television star. He is known as a master of quick wit and widely considered one of the best comedians of the modern era. His rapid-fire, often impromptu delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers and imitators. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game show You Bet Your Life. His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, glasses, cigar, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. These exaggerated features resulted in the creation of one of the world's most ubiquitous and recognizable novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses, a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and mustache.
Groucho Marx was, and is, the most recognizable and well-known of the Marx Brothers. Groucho-like characters and references have appeared in popular culture both during and after his life, some aimed at audiences who may never have seen a Marx Brothers movie. Groucho's trademark eye glasses, nose, mustache, and cigar have become icons of comedy—glasses with fake noses and mustaches (referred to as Groucho glasses, nose-glasses, and other names) are sold by novelty and costume shops around the world.
Nat Perrin, close friend of Groucho Marx and writer of several Marx Brothers films, inspired John Astin's portrayal of Gomez Addams on the 1960s TV series The Addams Family with similarly thick mustache, eyebrows, sardonic remarks, backward logic, and ever-present cigar (pulled from his breast pocket already lit).
Alan Alda often vamped in the manner of Groucho on M*A*S*H. In one episode, Yankee Doodle Doctor, Hawkeye and Trapper put on a Marx Brothers act at the 4077, with Hawkeye playing Groucho and Trapper playing Harpo. In three other episodes, a character appeared who was named Captain Calvin Spalding (played by Loudon Wainwright III). Groucho's character in Animal Crackers was Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding.
On many occasions, on the 1970s television sitcom All In The Family, Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner), would briefly imitate Groucho Marx and his mannerisms.
Two albums by British rock band Queen, A Night at the Opera (1975) and A Day at the Races (1976), are named after Marx Brothers films. In March 1977, Groucho invited Queen to visit him in his Los Angeles home; there they performed '39 a capella. A long-running ad campaign for Vlasic Pickles features an animated stork that imitates Groucho's mannerisms and voice. On the famous Hollywood Sign in California, one of the Os is dedicated to Groucho. Alice Cooper contributed over $27,000 to remodel the sign, in memory of his friend.
In 1982, Gabe Kaplan portrayed Marx in the film Groucho, in a one-man stage production. He also imitated Marx occasionally on his previous TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter.
Actor Frank Ferrante has performed as Groucho Marx on stage for more than two decades. He continues to tour under rights granted by the Marx family in a one-man show entitled An Evening With Groucho in theaters throughout the United States and Canada with piano accompanist Jim Furmston. In the late 1980s Ferrante starred as Groucho in the off-Broadway and London show Groucho: A Life in Revue penned by Groucho's son Arthur. Ferrante portrayed the comedian from age 15 to 85. The show was later filmed for PBS in 2001. Woody Allen's 1996 musical Everyone Says I Love You, in addition to being named for one of Groucho's signature songs, ends with a Groucho-themed New Year's Eve party in Paris, which some of the stars, including Allen and Goldie Hawn, attend in full Groucho costume. The highlight of the scene is an ensemble song-and-dance performance of Hooray for Captain Spaulding—done entirely in French.
In the last of the Tintin comics, Tintin and the Picaros, a balloon shaped like the face of Groucho could be seen in the Annual Carnival.
In the Italian horror comic Dylan Dog, the protagonist's sidekick is a Groucho impersonator whose character became his permanent personality.
The BBC remade the radio sitcom Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, with contemporary actors playing the parts of the original cast. The series was repeated on digital radio station BBC7. Scottish playwright Louise Oliver wrote a play named Waiting For Groucho about Chico and Harpo waiting for Groucho to turn up for the filming of their last project together. This was performed by Glasgow theatre company Rhymes with Purple Productions at the Edinburgh Fringe and in Glasgow and Hamilton in 2007-08. Groucho was played by Scottish actor Frodo McDaniel.
Suspense: I Won't Take a Minute / The Argyle Album / Double Entry
The program's heyday was in the early 1950s, when radio actor, producer and director Elliott Lewis took over (still during the Wilcox/Autolite run). Here the material reached new levels of sophistication. The writing was taut, and the casting, which had always been a strong point of the series (featuring such film stars as Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Eve McVeagh, Lena Horne, and Cary Grant), took an unexpected turn when Lewis expanded the repertory to include many of radio's famous drama and comedy stars — often playing against type — such as Jack Benny. Jim and Marian Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly were heard in the episode, Backseat Driver, which originally aired February 3, 1949.
The highest production values enhanced Suspense, and many of the shows retain their power to grip and entertain. At the time he took over Suspense, Lewis was familiar to radio fans for playing Frankie Remley, the wastrel guitar-playing sidekick to Phil Harris in The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. On the May 10, 1951 Suspense, Lewis reversed the roles with Death on My Hands: A bandleader (Harris) is horrified when an autograph-seeking fan accidentally shoots herself and dies in his hotel room, and a vocalist (Faye) tries to help him as the townfolk call for vigilante justice against him.
With the rise of television and the departures of Lewis and Autolite, subsequent producers (Antony Ellis, William N. Robson and others) struggled to maintain the series despite shrinking budgets, the availability of fewer name actors, and listenership decline. To save money, the program frequently used scripts first broadcast by another noteworthy CBS anthology, Escape. In addition to these tales of exotic adventure, Suspense expanded its repertoire to include more science fiction and supernatural content. By the end of its run, the series was remaking scripts from the long-canceled program The Mysterious Traveler. A time travel tale like Robert Arthur's The Man Who Went Back to Save Lincoln or a thriller about a death ray-wielding mad scientist would alternate with more run-of-the-mill crime dramas.
Suspense: Voyage Through Darkness / You'll Never See Me Again / Bluebeard of Bellaco
Suspense is a radio drama series broadcast from 1942 through 1962.
One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled radio's outstanding theater of thrills and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era. Approximately 945 episodes were broadcast during its long run, and more than 900 are extant.
Suspense went through several major phases, characterized by different hosts, sponsors, and director/producers. Formula plot devices were followed for all but a handful of episodes: the protagonist was usually a normal person suddenly dropped into a threatening or bizarre situation; solutions were withheld until the last possible second; and evildoers were usually punished in the end.
In its early years, the program made only occasional forays into science fiction and fantasy. Notable exceptions include adaptations of Curt Siodmak's Donovan's Brain and H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror, but by the late 1950s, such material was regularly featured.
The familiar opening phrase tales well-calculated to... was satirized by Mad as the cover blurb Tales Calculated to Drive You... Mad on its first issue (October--November 1952) and continuing until issue #23 (May 1955).
Radio comedians Bob and Ray had a recurring routine lampooning the show, with stories that were presented as dramatic but were intentionally mundane, entitled Tales calculated to put you in a state of... Apathy!
Words at War: Assignment USA / The Weeping Wood / Science at War
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 20, 1943, and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on June 20, 1943 and continued until the 22nd of June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2 million.
In the summer of 1943, in the midst of World War II, tensions between blacks and whites in Detroit were escalating. Detroit's population had grown by 350,000 people since the war began. The booming defense industries brought in large numbers of people with high wages and very little available housing. 50,000 blacks had recently arrived along with 300,000 whites, mostly from rural Appalachia and Southern States.[2]
Recruiters convinced blacks as well as whites in the South to come up North by promising them higher wages in the new war factories. Believing that they had found a promised land, blacks began to move up North in larger numbers. However, upon arriving in Detroit, blacks found that the northern bigotry was just as bad as that they left behind in the deep South. They were excluded from all public housing except Brewster Housing Projects, forced to live in homes without indoor plumbing, and paid rents two to three times higher than families in white districts. They also faced discrimination from the public and unfair treatment by the Detroit Police Department.[3] In addition, Southern whites brought their traditional bigotry with them as both races head up North, adding serious racial tensions to the area. Job-seekers arrived in such large numbers in Detroit that it was impossible to house them all.
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government was concerned about providing housing for the workers who were beginning to pour into the area. On June 4, 1941, the Detroit Housing Commission approved two sites for defense housing projects--one for whites, one for blacks. The site originally selected by the commission for black workers was in a predominantly black area, but the U.S. government chose a site at Nevada and Fenelon streets, an all-white neighborhood.
To complete this, a project named Sojourner Truth was launched in the memory of a black Civil War woman and poet. Despite this, the white neighborhoods opposed having blacks moving next to their homes, meaning no tenants were to be built. On January, 20, 1942, Washington DC informed the Housing Commission that the Sojourner Truth project would be for whites and another would be selected for blacks. But when a suitable site for blacks could not be found, Washington housing authorities agreed to allow blacks into the finished homes. This was set on February 28, 1942.[4] In February 27, 1942, 120 whites went on protest vowing they would keep any black homeowners out of their sight in response to the project. By the end of the day, it had grown to more than 1,200, most of them were armed. Things went so badly that two blacks in a car attempted to run over the protesters picket line which led to a clash between white and black groups. Despite the mounting opposition from whites, black families moved into the project at the end of April. To prevent a riot, Detroit Mayor Edward Jeffries ordered the Detroit Police Department and state troops to keep the peace during that move. Over 1,100 city and state police officers and 1,600 Michigan National Guard troops were mobilized and sent to the area around Nevada and Fenelon street to guard six African-American families who moved into the Sojourner Truth Homes. Thanks to the presence of the guard, there were no further racial problems for the blacks who moved into this federal housing project. Eventually, 168 black families moved into these homes.[5] Despite no casualties in the project, the fear was about to explode a year later.[6]
In early June 1943, three weeks before the riot, Packard Motor Car Company promoted three blacks to work next to whites in the assembly lines. This promotion caused 25,000 whites to walk off the job, effectively slowing down the critical war production. It was clear that whites didn't mind that blacks worked in the same plant but refused to work side-by-side with them. During the protest, a voice with a Southern accent shouted in the loudspeaker, I'd rather see Hitler and Hirohito win than work next to a nigger.
The Great Gildersleeve: Jolly Boys Gift / Bronco Disappears / Marjorie's Wedding
Premiering on August 31, 1941, The Great Gildersleeve moved the title character from the McGees' Wistful Vista to Summerfield, where Gildersleeve now oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie (originally played by Lurene Tuttle and followed by Louise Erickson and Mary Lee Robb) and Leroy Forester (Walter Tetley). The household also included a cook named Birdie. Curiously, while Gildersleeve had occasionally spoken of his (never-present) wife in some Fibber episodes, in his own series the character was a confirmed bachelor.
In a striking forerunner to such later television hits as Bachelor Father and Family Affair, both of which are centered on well-to-do uncles taking in their deceased siblings' children, Gildersleeve was a bachelor raising two children while, at first, administering a girdle manufacturing company (If you want a better corset, of course, it's a Gildersleeve) and then for the bulk of the show's run, serving as Summerfield's water commissioner, between time with the ladies and nights with the boys. The Great Gildersleeve may have been the first broadcast show to be centered on a single parent balancing child-rearing, work, and a social life, done with taste and genuine wit, often at the expense of Gildersleeve's now slightly understated pomposity.
Many of the original episodes were co-written by John Whedon, father of Tom Whedon (who wrote The Golden Girls), and grandfather of Deadwood scripter Zack Whedon and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog).
The key to the show was Peary, whose booming voice and facility with moans, groans, laughs, shudders and inflection was as close to body language and facial suggestion as a voice could get. Peary was so effective, and Gildersleeve became so familiar a character, that he was referenced and satirized periodically in other comedies and in a few cartoons.
The Great Gildersleeve: Gildy Turns Off the Water / Leila Engaged / Leila's Wedding Invitation
Aiding and abetting the periodically frantic life in the Gildersleeve home was family cook and housekeeper Birdie Lee Coggins (Lillian Randolph). Although in the first season, under writer Levinson, Birdie was often portrayed as saliently less than bright, she slowly developed as the real brains and caretaker of the household under writers John Whedon, Sam Moore and Andy White. In many of the later episodes Gildersleeve has to acknowledge Birdie's commonsense approach to some of his predicaments. By the early 1950s, Birdie was heavily depended on by the rest of the family in fulfilling many of the functions of the household matriarch, whether it be giving sound advice to an adolescent Leroy or tending Marjorie's children.
By the late 1940s, Marjorie slowly matures to a young woman of marrying age. During the 9th season (September 1949-June 1950) Marjorie meets and marries (May 10) Walter Bronco Thompson (Richard Crenna), star football player at the local college. The event was popular enough that Look devoted five pages in its May 23, 1950 issue to the wedding. After living in the same household for a few years with their twin babies Ronnie and Linda, the newlyweds move next door to keep the expanding Gildersleeve clan close together.
Leroy, aged 10--11 during most of the 1940s, is the all-American boy who grudgingly practices his piano lessons, gets bad report cards, fights with his friends and cannot remember to not slam the door. Although he is loyal to his Uncle Mort, he is always the first to deflate his ego with a well-placed Ha!!! or What a character! Beginning in the Spring of 1949, he finds himself in junior high and is at last allowed to grow up, establishing relationships with the girls in the Bullard home across the street. From an awkward adolescent who hangs his head, kicks the ground and giggles whenever Brenda Knickerbocker comes near, he transforms himself overnight (November 28, 1951) into a more mature young man when Babs Winthrop (both girls played by Barbara Whiting) approaches him about studying together. From then on, he branches out with interests in driving, playing the drums and dreaming of a musical career.