Breakaway Day Greetings.

 Another year has gone by, and once again it's September 13th.  It's been 21 years since September 13, 1999.

I was recently watching bits and pieces of 2001: A Space Odyssey.   Once again the thought came to mind that if someone had done a TV series spinoff of 2001 it would have looked a lot like the first season of Space:  1999.  The visual influence of the former on the latter is pretty obvious.  I'm guessing some of the plots would have easily been transferable between the two.  

And for those who didn't know September 13th is Barbara Bain's birthday.  She turns 89 today.  I wonder if this was coincidence, or if the choice of a date for Breakaway was because she co-starred in the series.

Breakaway, 20th Anniversary.

Wow, September 13, 1999 is 20 years ago.   Space: 1999 debuted 44 years ago.  Time sure has gone by.  As always at this time of year we wish you an unhappy Breakaway Day. 

Despite this being an old fandom with virtually no chance of a revival someone thinks it's still worth putting out product.  Shout! Factory has released the complete series on DVD and Blu-Ray this year for the North American market.  I would imagine this is probably the last commercial release we'll see for the series, as I doubt there are too many under 40 members of the fandom.  This being the 20th anniversary I really should give the whole series a view again. 

That's The One.

If you remember the early '70s, and are a Canadian, you may remember this.  Canada AM, CTV's national morning show, debuted in 1972.  Its theme song was an instrumental version of the Moody Blues' 1968 single "Ride My See-Saw."  And now I've found the actual version used, which was by Ronnie Aldrich.

I'd never heard of Aldrich before, but it's a nice version.

This version was replaced at least once with another cover.  I'm not sure when they stopped using "Ride My See-Saw" as a theme, but it was the late '80s at least.  Canada AM was cancelled in June of 2016, after 44 years on the air.

Were You There?

It's something I sometimes wonder when I see comments on old music on YouTube.  I just saw that sort of comment on a posting of Deep Purple performing "Highway Star" in 1972 on German TV.  It was the common "Oh, music is so horrible today compared to back then!" type of comment you see on all sorts of things.  But before you get too gushy about early '70s popular music(or any other period of pop music) consider the following:

"Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" was a big hit in 1970, with versions by three different artists getting chart action.  Middle of the Road's version was the most successful, making the top fifteen or better in 13 countries, and number one in 6.  Check out the charts for any year and you find stuff you're likely to think of as dross. 

Unhappy Breakaway Day 2018.

Once again September 13th has come.  This is the 19th anniversary of the Moon being blown out of Earth orbit in at least one universe.  It's hard to imagine that it will be 20 years since 1999 next year.  I'm thinking that I'll sit down one of these days and binge watch the whole of the first season.

Finally, The Original And Greatest.

For years I've tried to find this one on YouTube.  Finally it's turned up.  Possibly the greatest Canadian PSA ever, the story of the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe and what happened one fateful night.  The later ones in the series are cute, but don't have the weight of the original.

I Want A Cut!

This fall we've seen a couple of revivals of old TV series.  Back from the '70s is S.W.A.T.  The series has done well enough that it's been given a full season of episodes by CBS.  So if there's a market for '70s revivals here's my suggestion: Quincy, M.E., with Gilbert Gottfried as Quincy.  If you've ever seen the original you might guess why.  So if you read this, Gilbert, and go for it I want  a cut of the profits.

Breakaway Day Greetings!

Yep,  another September 13th has rolled around, and as tradition here we acknowledge that today is Breakaway Day.  The big news in the Space: 1999 fandom this year was of course the death of Martin Landau on July 15th.  Hopefully the rest of the cast is around for many years to come.

Of course it's not just the cast that is ageing.  The fandom itself is ageing.  Most people who are fans were fans when the series first aired in the '70s.  Even younger fans, who caught on to the show via reruns in the '80s and '90s aren't that young either.  I'm sure the occasional newcomer picks up on the series, but it doesn't have the same kind of footprint as other older fandoms, and a new TV series or movie is increasingly unlikely.  So, barring some surprise, the fandom is slowly going to decline as the years go on.

This Is More Fun.

I had an idea for a post today, but in one sense it was a repeat of an older post.  So instead watch this, which is more fun.  If you're Canadian and old enough you probably remember this, as it aired on Canadian TV frequently for a long time.  Kate and Anna McGarrigle sing "The Log Driver's Waltz."

Breakaway+17+40.

Once more it's September 13th, and as is tradition here on the blog we commemorate Breakaway Day.  On this day in 1999 the Moon was blown out of Earth orbit by a massive explosion of nuclear waste on the far side.  By an unknown process this led to the Moon being flung across the Universe, taking with it the crew of Moonbase Alpha.

The title to this post is a callback to last year's Breakaway Day post.  This year is the 40th anniversary of the second and final season of Space: 1999.  CBC in Canada aired the first episode of year 2, "The Metamorph," on Saturday, September 18, 1976.  I remember CBC advertising the upcoming season with a clip from "The Metamorph" some time before that date, although I can't remember how far beforehand it was. 

The second season did well enough that further episodes were considered, but ultimately series producers ITC/ATV decided that the lack of a major US network order didn't make future episodes viable. 

An Odd Desire.

For some reason this morning I got the urge to hear the Three's Company theme.  I did see multiple episodes of it when it ran, but it wasn't exactly a favourite of mine. 



The show was a big hit in the '70s and '80s, but by today's standards the premise seems a bit weird.  A man pretends to be gay so he can share a Santa Monica apartment with two women, because the landlord doesn't approve of co-ed living arrangements.  If it had been set in a small town in a more conservative part of the country it would have seemed a bit more believable, but in a city in Los Angeles County? Not to me at least. 

Breakaway+16+40.

Another year has gone by, and once more it's Breakaway Day.  On this day 16 years ago a massive explosion of Nuclear Disposal Area 2, on the Moon's far side, sent the Moon out of Earth's orbit, flinging it into deep space.  For the survivors on Moonbase Alpha it was the beginning of a journey across the Universe.

In our world this year also marks the fortieth anniversary of Space: 1999 hitting TV screens in the UK and elsewhere.  For those of us who saw the show when it was new it's weird to think we first saw it that long ago.  At the time it was the only new science fiction TV series set in space, its contemporaries such as The Six Million Dollar Man and The Invisible Man being set primarily or entirely on Earth. 

Space: 1999 was created in an era when the possibilities for manned space exploration seemed huge.  Men had landed on the Moon, Skylab was active, and plans were in the works for the joint Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz mission.  So it's no surprise that the series envisioned manned spaceflights to the outer Solar System in the mid '80s and '90s, and a manned base on the Moon.  Years later Gerry Anderson would admit he was overly optimistic in setting the show in 1999, but everyone else was thinking the same kind of things as well.  Of course we would have a base on the Moon soon.  Unfortunately for everyone space travel in the real world proved a lot more complicated than it did on TV.

As with everything else fandoms for television have changed a lot in that forty years.  It's funny to think of how fandom then was pretty much entirely based around printed material, including whatever licensed material was released in connection with a series, articles in commercial publications and newspapers, and fan publications exchanged between local fans or sent by mail.   By modern standards the amount available was generally quite limited, and it often took weeks or even months for news to reach fans.  Things like fan art and fanfiction existed, but distribution was limited to the small publishing runs of whatever fan publication it was submitted to. 

I watched "Breakaway" tonight on a Sony Walkman.  No, the tiny screen isn't an optimal way to watch a TV episode, but it seemed appropriate to watch it on something that would have seemed amazingly high tech and exciting to the 8 year old version of me who watched the series in 1975 and 1976, a gizmo that could have been lifted right from the set of the show itself.  (Well, perhaps if it was beige plastic, not the lovely wine colour mine is.)  Even being able to watch an episode whenever you want would have seemed exciting in an era before people owned VCRs to record things, and before commercially released TV episodes existed.  That's of course one of the greatest changes from the mid '70s, the instant access to programs and information we have.  And of course it's something that isn't reflected at all in the series. But hey, most other science fiction of the '70s didn't get it right either.

More Than I Expected.

If you've been paying attention to the Confederate battle flag controversy in the US you've probably heard that The Dukes of Hazzard has been pulled from the rerun network TV Land.  The Dukes drove around in a Dodge Charger with a Confederate flag on the rood, so a lot of people don't think it's a good idea to be showing the series.  Thinking about the series this morning got me wondering how much fanfiction there is.  There's more than I thought.  Fanfiction.net, the biggest fanfiction site, has more that 1100 stories based on the series.  That's a lot more than some other series of similar vintage. 

Wonder On The Street.

For a while now I've been thinking about doing a series of Sesame Street Saturday posts, featuring classic Sesame Street clips from the '70s.  I don't know if I actually will, but I just had to post this.



I sure don't remember this.  Killer version.  Perhaps it didn't get aired in Canada for some sort of performance rights reason.

Thanks, Glen.

Although he died Friday it only became public yesterday that veteran TV writer and producer Glen A. Larson died Friday.  If you watched any amount of US made TV programming in the '70s and '80s there's a good chance you were a regular viewer of a series Larson had a hand in.  His entertainment career began in 1956 when he was a member of the vocal group the Four Preps, whose 3 gold records were written by Larson.  Larson moved on to the TV business, working for Quinn Martin Productions before going out on his own.  His work ranged over a variety of genres, from the crusading coroner Quincy, ME, to the space drama of Battlestar Galactica.  The latter was Larson's most personal project, one he began work on in 1968, and had elements based on his Mormon faith.

Unlike some of his contemporaries Larson proved unable to sustain his success, with his projects after the mid '80s being largely unsuccessful, or rehashes of his earlier work.  He had no real involvement in the 2003 remake of Galactica, and work on a big screen continuation of the original with Bryan Fisher circa 2010 stalled.  It was often suggested during the height of his career that Larson's projects were too often attempts to cash in on trends, or had elements taken from other works.  However valid such criticisms might be Larson had a lot of influence on American TV while he was successful, and his work continues to have influence.

Poor Guy.

While I was lying around trying to keep weight off my sore foot I spent some time poking around YouTube, and ended up watching a bunch of old Sesame Street animated bits.  If you're old like me you'll remember this fellow.  I kind of know how he feels in this clip.

Watch It Now!

Before Big Brother declares it doubleplusungood!.



(Warning, ads are put in annoying places.)

The VHS Advantage.

I rented a movie yesterday.  As I began to watch it I remembered one of the advantages of the VHS video cassette for watching movie rentals.  If there's ads at the beginning you can fast forward through them.  DVDs force you to watch through all the crappy ads.  I sat there last night for what must have been 5 or 6 minutes of trailers for movies I have no interest in, and an ad trying to get me to by a Blu Ray player.  On the other hand you don't need to rewind a DVD.

To most younger readers a VCR is a curiosity at best, something your older relatives might still have in their house, plugged in or not.(I say most because I'm sure there are some young movie buffs who own one to watch movies that will never see the official digital light of day, but are still found on VHS.)  I'm old enough to remember when they were high tech and expensive.  The first ones I saw in the flesh were in grade school, where they were used to show us kids stuff that was taped off TV.  This was early enough that I doubt we were ever shown anything commercially made.  These early machines even had mechanical recording timers on them.  I wonder if some might have been Betamax machines, Sony's home video format which ultimately lost to JVC's VHS format, despite its supposed better quality.

I'm not sure when my family got our first VCR, but it was some time in the mid-late '80s.  But we'd been renting videos for some time before that.  When video rental stores began to appear they rented machines in the early days alongside the actual cassettes.  After all most people initially didn't have a VCR due to the cost.  So when you came home from the video store not only would you be carrying a bag of cassettes, you'd be carrying a big metal case with a heavy VCR in it.  I'm not sure when the practice ended, because of course once we got our own machine we didn't need to bother renting one anymore.

One thing I can't remember is whether the ancestor of the DVD, the LaserDisc, was ever offered for rent locally.  The format was pretty much a flop in North America, so it's quite amusing to see interviews with musicians circa 1980 speculating on what the format might mean for the industry.  A number of them talked about producing visual material for the format, but other than a few concert videos these plans fizzled as the format did.  I do remember seeing a few used discs in Saskatoon in the mid '80s, so a few of the machines did reach the market in this area.

Oompah.

Remember this one? If you remember hearing it in the '70s, you're old. "Good Friends" was released in 1971, and in a way it sounds like kind of a throwback for 1971. Susan Jacks sounds a bit like Connie Francis, and the tune has a feel like the kind of weepies Francis was known for. Then there's that bassline, which sounds to me like it came from a polka tune, and is kind of odd for a pop tune in the aftermath of hte more melodic bass playing people like James Jamerson and Paul McCartney popularised.

According to Wikipedia the two Poppy Family albums remain unreleased on CD or digital download. Weird. There must be an interesting ownership story involved. And perhaps at this point there's another problem, namely that the multitrack and master tapes don't exist anymore or can't be found. So if you've got this on vinyl you should treat it well, as you might not get another chance to own it.

Once On The Dial.

I had a nice surprise today.  During my travels I came across a mailbox with a "Radio 600 CFQC Saskatoon" sticker on it.  I'm sure I haven't seen one of those in twenty years or more.  I really should have taken a picture.  Fortunately I came across a photo of it at the Radio Sticker of the Day blog.   It's the style at the top of the post.  Of course the one in the photo is much nicer looking than the faded example I saw.  Several decades on a mailbox will do that to an image.

My family were consistent listeners to CFQC in the '70s.  However we eventually began to listen to CBC for some reason.  Perhaps we just changed our tastes, I really can't remember.  CJWW currently holds the station's old 600 khz frequency assignment, while the callsign lives on via the local CTV station.