Y is for Yellow Submarine

The soundtrack to the movie Yellow Submarine was not released until January 1969, some six months after the movie debuted.

Yellow Submarine was a song by The Beatles, with Ringo Starr on the lead vocals. It was issued as a single, coupled with Eleanor Rigby, and released just before it appeared on the Revolver album. It has a peculiar little difference, though, which I remember distinctly; on the single version, during the last verse, the responses start one line earlier, with “life of ease”. Compare the album version with the single version around 1:40.

It became the title song of a 1968 animated United Artists film. The Beatles themselves had little to do with the making of the movie – other actors did the voices of the Beatles characters – though the movie was chock full of songs from the latter half of their career. This is a movie I saw at least four times, once on a day I saw ALL of the Beatles’ movies in one sitting. I even watched it on commercial television (CBS, I think), which is not recommended.

Oddly, the soundtrack to the movie was not released until January 1969, some six months after the movie debuted. The second side of the album was instrumental music arranged by George Martin. Side one starts with the album version of the title song and ends with All You Need Is Love. There were four other songs on that album:

Only a Northern Song
All Together Now
Hey Bulldog
It’s All Too Much.

In 1999, Yellow Submarine – Songtrack was released. It dumps the instrumentals for other Beatles songs used in the film, mostly or all remastered.

Now, The classic 1968 animated feature “Yellow Submarine” showcasing music by the Beatles has been “carefully restored frame-by-frame for a special DVD release May 28, 2012.”

I haven’t seen it in a couple of decades, and it’d be interesting to see how it stands up.
(Note: I had some links to movie segments that are no longer operational; I am willing to bet that you can find similar clips on YouTube from time to time.)

ABC Wednesday – Round 10

June Ramblin’: my Facebook follies

Speedy Alka-Seltzer with Buster Keaton?


The problem with Facebook: I had passed along some funny items. As it turns out, though, the original cover of Tails had been Photoshopped to remove the comma after the word cooking, this giving the post a whole new meaning. Read about it here.

The wife of a World War II soldier waited for more than 68 years for solid proof that her husband is either dead or alive. Then she learned the stunning truth in Normandy, France. Steve Hartman reports. A sad, maddening, and ultimately, touching story.

Mark Evanier tells The Ray Bradbury-Julius Schwartz-Al Feldstein Story, at the San Diego Comic-Con. Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.
Also: Ray Bradbury: 1950s comics’ illustrated man.

The British sense of personal privacy is very different from the American one. Asking someone’s name, even implicitly by offering yours, is a premature violation of that privacy until some goodwill has already been established between you.

From Alan David Doane: Looking back, I have to say my over 18 years of parenting has been fascinating, a never-ending learning curve that I am sure will continue for the rest of my life.

There’s also a debate over whether the FDA should label genetically modified food. I don’t even know what the debate is, honestly. Is this something that needs discussion? Of course it should be labeled. Everything on food should be labeled. Also stuff about “gay” Oreos, among other topics.

John Lincoln Wright – a man of two musical careers.

How did the Euro start?

In 1955, John L. Black, Sr. started his job as a janitor for the Cincinnati public school system. He regularly put in 16-hour days to provide for his wife and eleven children…his son Samuel talks… about his father’s lasting legacy and the power of a look.

Redux Riding Hood is a 15-minute Oscar-nominated animated short from 1997, written by Dan O’Shannon, and starring Michael Richards, Mia Farrow, Lacey Chabert, Garrison Keillor, Adam West, Don Rickles, June Foray, Fabio, and Jim Cummings. It has never aired or been released on DVD. You can now watch it on director Steve Moore’s website, or on Samurai Frog’s.

The Making of Star Wars. Now, I REALLY want to read this book.

A great tool in snow removal.

Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants pitched a perfect game against the Houston Astros on Thursday night. Cain struck out 14 batters in the Giants’ 10-0 victory. Here’s the box score.

Clinic Vignettes from a family practice physician.

Jaquandor finishes the first draft. I’m interested in the process, too.

June Foray wins her first Emmy…at the age of 94. As the Squirrel would say, Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!

Cartoonists! You NEED This Chapbook!

The argument is: If you’re criticizing this show, which is for, by, and about girls/women, you’re a misogynist. Bullsh-t.

Here’s a rundown of the folks who hosted The Tonight Show between the time Jack Paar left and Johnny Carson took over.

Harry Belafonte on The Nat King Cole Show, back in 1957, singing a song I remember surprisingly well.

‘Mr. McFeely’ gives his take on viral Mister Rogers video

How Canadians Get Their TV

An obit of legendary Dick Beals — a star of radio, cartoons, and more commercials than just about anyone – Speedy Alka-Seltzer with Buster Keaton?

Yog(h)urt.

A mashup of cartoon and Kubrick.

Keep Calm and Carry On – a phrase I somehow all but missed. (Though, now that I see the graphic, it looks vaguely familiar…)

Not calm: Gilbert complains about gender cakes, as well he should. (Some NSFW language.)

New grandfather Steve Bissette’s essays on Tijuana Bibles and gay comics. To be VERY clear, grandpa Steve is adorable, but if you don’t know what the Tijuana bibles are, they are definitely NSFW AT ALL, and the latter post, “though non-explicit, may be offensive to some.”

And in the world of the truly bizarre: Jesus was crucified on a pyramid.
By aliens… The proof is on the Ohio flag.

GOOGLE ALERT

Dr. Green is the founding President of the Florida Nurse Practitioner Network.

Evil, President Romney, and my daughter’s future

Mitt Romney’s hard right swing makes it difficult for me to ascertain what his real values are.

First, Chris, in answer to my answer, writes:

You bring up Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears. However, my husband is studying for a military exam, and the honors that his company won during the “Indian Wars” is considered part of their venerable history… And then I think of Hitler and Genghis Khan and I wonder, were they genuinely trying to do good by their own?

This is why I picked him over the more obvious choice such as Hitler. History, at least the history most of us have read, has already assigned Hitler with the “evil” mantle; he doesn’t need me. Whereas Jackson’s place in history is a more of mixed bag. I have an ex who could talk your ear off (probably not literally, though I’m not sure) on the topic. I would submit that GWB’s war in Iraq may have been – OK, probably was, in his mind – initiated by “trying to do good” for his own people; didn’t make it right. I daresay most ethnic cleansing is done to “protect” one group from “the other” (see: Rwanda or Yugoslavia in the 1990s for recent examples). Whether the “good intentions” of mass murder are relevant inevitably will be written by the historians.

Maybe a better question is “What do you consider evil?” What is good and what is evil, really?

I defer to Potter Stewart, who famously said, concerning pornography, that he knows it when he sees it. I do agree, for example, with the sentiment in the article Condemning foreign governments for abusive acts while ignoring one’s own is easy. But the U.S. leads the way.

American slavery was evil, and you had good Christian people defending it at the time, though almost no one does now. People in the US North who were involved in the “triangular trade” at the time seemed to be oblivious to their role in the “peculiar institution.”

Not incidentally, I wouldn’t argue against your notion that this “American life” is supported by a modern-day form of slavery and exploitation, which is, however, much harder to see, though some of us do try.
***

Jaquandor of Byzantium Shores provokes me:

At the risk of provoking a more political post than you might wish…

Almost certainly true, BTW.

how bad do you think a Romney presidency might be? (I, as you might suspect, think it would be an absolute train wreck that might make us pine for the days of George W. Bush.)

Here’s the thing: I don’t know. His hard-right swing makes it difficult for me to ascertain what his real values are. I’m not a big fan of pointing to “flip-flopping” when a person’s view on life has changed over time; I know mine has. But Romney would contradict himself and even lie about his position from weeks earlier during this campaign. And I don’t remember him doing that during the 2008 race.

Let me go wildly optimist: Maybe he really is that guy who was the Massachusetts governor who could manage to have some sort of health care plan that would be palatable to Republicans.

Nah.

I believe that he would expand on the covert military actions that both GWB and Obama have overused; difficult to put that genie back into the bottle.

I believe he, with Republicans, will dismantle regulations pertaining to banking (such as they are) and the environment. I expect that the pipeline from Canada, which Obama has partially resisted, will be expedited, and a massive catastrophe will ensue.

I believe, if the Republicans still control the House, that there will be pushes to go into either Syria or Iran (or Lord help us, both), to terrible outcomes.

I believe that not only does the divide between the rich and poor increase, but there will be hunger in America with a safety net that has been rendered totally inadequate, so apparent that there will be demonstrations a lot more confrontational than Occupy has initiated to date. To Chris’ question about evil: some of it, at least, is all that Biblical stuff about NOT feeding the hungry, NOT clothing the naked.

What’s a movie or book that you were convinced you would hate and ended up liking a good deal?

Any number of movies billed as raunchy but I liked anyway, such as 40-Year-Old Virgin, and, to a lesser extent, Knocked Up. Dolphin Tale, which I saw with The Wife and The Daughter, I thought wasn’t awful, and Ramona and Beezus, which I saw with the Daughter, I rather liked. I actually did try to read The Bridges of Madison County, but just couldn’t, yet I liked the movie. But, in general, I go to a movie EXPECTING to like it; sometimes I don’t, but I have my anticipation.

Even more true, I just don’t read books I don’t expect to like. Well, when I was in my church book group at my former church, from about 1986 to 1995, we would read from various genres; that’s how I read Margaret Atwood, which I didn’t expect to like, but I did.

Are there any careers you’d like to see your daughter pursue? Or, on the flip side, any careers you would be deeply troubled to see her pursuing?

To the former, no. I’m REALLY TRYING to give her room to figure out her path. Although she could do worse than to be a librarian or teacher. There COULD be a parental bias here, however. She is starting to write stories, and while I would not wish a writer’s life on her – full of rejection – I’m happy about the learning aspect of her activity, at least. She likes to dance, and I don’t know whether that is a career path she’ll want or not. Maybe she’ll be a pastor; that was my dream when I was about 10 to 15.

But I wouldn’t want her to be a politician, because I just think it’s too brutal, with candidates decided upon with too much superficiality.

Morgan Freeman is 75

The last two movies I’ve seen of Morgan Freeman’s were Invictus, in which he played Nelson Mandela quite convincingly, and the kid-friendly Dolphin Tale. Such range.


I was already in college, but I really enjoyed watching the Electric Company. And one of my favorite actors was this guy who played a number of characters, but especially Easy Reader. Little did I know that being stuck on children’s television was literally driving Morgan Freeman to drink.

I saw Brubaker (1980) and the TV movies The Marva Collins Story (1981) and the Atlanta Child Murders (1985). I don’t think I really knew that he was MORGAN FREEMAN, though, until I saw a trio of 1989 films, all in the theater: Lean on Me, where he played principal Joe Clark who shook up an inner city school district; Driving Miss Daisy, where he was a chauffeur to a white woman while attempting to demand his dignity; and Glory, in which he helped lead the Civil War’s first all-black volunteer unit, while dealing with prejudice. All strong performances, though I didn’t love Miss Daisy, for whatever reason.

I barely remember Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) at all, but was totally captivated by Unforgiven (1992) and the Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Freeman’s performances in them. Since then, I’ve seen Amistad (1997) – good; Deep Impact (1998), as the ineffectual President – eh; and Brice Almighty as God (2003) – enjoyable. I think his voiceover work on March of the Penguins (2005) helped make it the hit it became. There are plenty more I will want to see (Million Dollar Baby, the Batman pictures).

He was also noteworthy for his views about Black History Month. He said: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!” I wish that were true. I don’t think we know HOW to talk about it without the knives being drawn. And I found his comments somewhat peculiar given the fact that he participated in a DNA study of his racial breakdown.

ABC News, at the time of his 2008 car accident, noted the “dark cloud” over the cast of The Dark Knight: besides Freeman’s incident, the accusation of assault against Christian Bale, and, of course, the death of Heath Ledger. Not sure I believe in that stuff.

The last two movies I’ve seen of his were Invictus, in which he played Nelson Mandela quite convincingly, and the kid-friendly Dolphin Tale.

Such range. A very fine actor, who turns 75 today.

Our Viewing Tastes Are “Polls” Apart

“Interestingly, the majority of both parties conclude that movies have a liberal bias…”

I was, for a brief time, receiving, for free, this conservative magazine called Newsmax. The February 2012 issue has “How Grover [Norquist] Conquered Washington,” Norquist being the author of the “taxpayer Protection Pledge.” One of the features in that issue reported polls commissioned by the Hollywood Reporter about movies, and the other by Entertainment Weekly about television.

The reported premise is that Democrats like comedies, “at least today’s version of it,” while Republicans prefer reality TV which is, according to an Iowa professor, “the only genre that regularly includes Christian conservatives and treats them like they’re normal.” But Republicans do like the sitcom The Middle.

Conservatives like reality shows on History such as American Pickers (collectibles), Top Shot (shooting challenge), and Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy, while Democrats like the “raunchy” Jersey Shore. The Democrats also like the scripted HBO drama Treme, which shows “sympathy for the underdog.”

In the graphic box, the favorite TV shows of Republicans are Castle, The Biggest Loser, Hawaii Five-O, and The Mentalist, while Democrats prefer 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Glee, and Cougar Town.

As for movies, Republicans like Secretariat, Chariots of Fire, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music, while Democrats prefer Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Kramer vs. Kramer, American Beauty, and Crash (the 2005 version).

“Interestingly, the majority of both parties conclude that movies have a liberal bias…The movie that [both parties] say reflects that left-wing bias most happens to be the biggest blockbuster in history: Avatar.”

I found Chariots of Fire boring, but The Sound of Music has wonderful music. I know some Castle fans who probably aren’t Republicans. And I find it fascinating that the NBC shows that apparently, Dems like (30 Rock, Parks & Rec) haven’t translated to higher ratings.

Ramblin' with Roger
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