T.H.A.T.
(Television History and Trivia)from
www.hologlobepress.com
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
RULES OF USE
The material provided on this page is a service of Victor Swanson and The Hologlobe Press. The material may be used freely by a person, if the person does not use the material for commercial purposes. The material may be used by persons employed in the media, such as staffers of radio stations, but persons employed in the media must announce that the material has been taken from the Web site of The Hologlobe Press, the main Internet address to which is www.hologlobepress.com. Of course, the material is provided for fun.
- - - T.H.A.T., Edition No. 30 - - -
Anyone who works in the television business is always trying to get a "credit" on a television product, and a "credit" identifies what a person has done, such as edit film or do catering. However, not everyone who works on a program gets a credit, and that can be, for instance, because there is no television time left in which to show the credits for everyone that works on a program or a person accepts the idea of not being listed (which can happen, for instance, when an actor makes what is often considered an unlisted "cameo" appearance). In essence, this edition of T.H.A.T. is about credits--at least a few credits.
The fall is always a busy time for me--in relation to gathering information about television series--since, for one, I gather general information about the regular performers and crews (such as producers) of the new television series, and, this season, I have found some actors should be frowning about how the credits of their series are being seen by viewers. In the Detroit area, the MyNetwork Television affiliate is WMYD-TV Channel 20 (formerly, most recently, WDWB-TV), and WMYD-TV regularly shows a station-identification bug in the lower right-hand corner of the television screen, and that bug should "bug" a least a few actors. When I attempted several times to get the opening credits for one of the two television series of MyNetwork Television--Fashion House and Desire--by watching the series, the "bug" blocked out some of the letters in the last names of a few of the actors. At the open of Fashion House, I was only able to see "Taylor Kin," "Robert Buck," and "Ethan Erick" on the screen. The full names of the actors are "Taylor Kinney," "Robert Buckley," and "Ethan Erickson." If you see the opening of Fashion House, you may see only a portion of some of the names, and if you can only see a portion of some names, you can blame "clutter" (a topic of which I have talked about in a previous edition of T.H.A.T.), and you should expect a few actors should be angry or disappointed that they are not getting promoted properly to all viewers.
The problem with the "bug" related to WMYD-TV Channel 20 is a problem for me, but it is not as big a problem as something else that is being done by MyNetwork Television related to Fashion House and Desire. I have attempted several times to get not only the opening credits of Fashion House and Desire but also the closing credits for Fashion House and Desire, but I have been unable to get any production credits, such as who the producers and executive producers are, because during none of the showings did the network show any such credits. Because MyNetwork Television has not shown such credits during the times that I watched the shows, I am annoyed or disappointed or something--I like to get sample credits of all the series that I can, and so far, I have no sample credits pertaining to the production crews of either series.
I have a bit of history to pass along to you. Victoria Pratt is an actress, and she has become part of a small group of actors who have been seen in two new TV-movies within the same week (a topic of which I have covered in the past). On September 23, 2006, Victoria Pratt was seen in a new movie entitled Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, which also featured such performers as Jack Scalia and Charlie O'Connell, and it was a movie shown on the Sci Fi channel, and on September 24, 2006, she was seen in a new movie entitled Her Fatal Flaw, and it was a movie shown on the Lifetime channel. Since 1964, only a few performers have been seen in two new made-for-TV movies within the same week (or within seven days really), and now Victoria Pratt is one of the few.
And, "for the record," I have to talk about TV Guide again (I have talked about TV Guide in several editions of T.H.A.T. over the last year). In several editions of T.H.A.T., such as the T.H.A.T. #25, I have talked about how the management of TV Guide has given one prime-time series great exposure through the feature spot on the covers of several editions of TV Guide. Once again, though the edition of TV Guide for the September 18-24, 2006, Grey's Anatomy (a series on ABC-TV) has had the feature spot on the cover of an edition of TV Guide. That means, since October 2005, Grey's Anatomy has had the feature spot six times on the cover of TV Guide, and that is unprecedented, since, between 1953 and about October 2005, the managers of TV Guide never gave any one show such attention on covers within a single year.
From time to time, I remember TV-movies or television series or only portions of TV-movies or television series that I like, and, recently, I fondly remembered a derived television movie entitled Code Name: Heraclitus, which featured such performers as Leslie Nielsen, Jack Weston, Sheree North, Malachi Throne, Kurt Kasznar, Signe Hasso, and Ricardo Montalban, and although I had in my files nearly all the credits for the derived movie (as shown on the television series), I thought I should find out when the show originally aired, and my research has led to my deciding to pass along some information about the show in this edition of T.H.A.T. In the movie Stanley Baker played a spy called "Gannon" (and also "Frank G. Wheatley"), and, in essence, Gannon was a dead man who was "rebuilt," after having had been in an airplane crash in Korea, which traded him back to the U.S., where he ended up in a new spy job. An index card in my file of television programs shows that the derived movie was originally shown as a presentation of a series called Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, which was shown on NBC-TV for four seasons (the 1963-1964 season, the 1964-1965 season, the 1965-1966 season, and the 1966-1967 season), and the information on the card was acquired about two decades ago. In essence, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre was a series that was hosted by Bob Hope and that was made of fictional programs and some Bob Hope comedy specials, and, generally, it was a weekly one-hour series, but sometimes, a particular show was shown in two parts (part one on one week and part two the next week). In this paragraph, you will see that I use the word "Theatre" in the title of Bob Hope's series, but if you look at the eighteenth edition of T.H.A.T., you will see that I used the word "Theater" in the name of Bob Hope's series, and if you look in television history books, you will see the name of the show listed with either "Theater" or "Theatre," and if you look in old television-listings publications (such as in newspapers), you often will only see a short title for the series, Bob Hope Presents. Since the last edition of T.H.A.T. was published, I did find advertisements in The New York Times for Bob Hope's series, and the advertisements called the series Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre (though, actually, all the letters in "The Chrysler Theatre" were in capital letters or uppercase letters and I, here, use "The" and not "the"), and I found articles in which The New York Times used Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theater. For my files, I report that people use both titles to refer to Bob Hope's series, but I note that the correct full title is Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. Some of the advertisements were about such episodes of Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre as "It's Mental Work" (which was shown on December 20, 1963, and featured Lee J. Cobb, Harry Guardino, and Gena Rowlands), "Two Is the Number" (which was shown on January 31, 1964, and featured Shelley Winters and Martin Balsam), "A Case of Armed Robbery" (which was shown on April 3, 1964, and featured Tony Franciosa, Pat O'Brien, and Bethel Leslie), and "Murder in the First" (which was shown on October 9, 1964, and featured Janet Leigh, Bobby Darin (the singer), and Eduard Franz), but I did not find an advertisement related to the derived television movie dealing with "Gannon," because I did not look for any advertisements. I did find evidence that Code Name: Heraclitus was originally shown in two parts as part of Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre, and the air dates were December 28, 1966, and January 4, 1967. (I found an article on the Internet that noted that Code Name: Heraclitus was shown in January 1967, which is not fully correct information.) One scene that I remember from Code Name: Heraclitus is a scene in which Gannon comes across a little girl who has lost something (the scene is near the end of the movie). What did the little girl lose, and what did Gannon give her? (That is a question that I will answer in the next edition of T.H.A.T.)
Now, I pass along answers to questions posed in the previous edition of T.H.A.T., which was officially called T.H.A.T. #29. The first question posed dealt with a made-for-TV of the Shaft television series of the 1973-1974 season and with a man who is a regular performer in General Hospital today, and the answer to the question is Tony Geary (or Anthony Geary). The second question dealt with a another TV-movie of the Shaft television series, particularly the TV-movie (or episode) entitled "The Murder Machine," and the answer is Clu Gulager. The third question was about the actor who play Al Rossi in the Shaft television series, and the answer is Ed Barth (or Eddie Barth).
In the previous edition of T.H.A.T., I posed a question about the television series entitled Hawaii Five-0, and the question dealt with a woman who is seen during the opening credits (the credits during which the main actors of the series are introduced, such as Jack Lord). Since the previous edition of T.H.A.T. was published, I have not had time to do research that might give me an answer to the question, since I was working on, repairing, upgrading, et cetera a residence along Lake Huron (in the Hammond Bay area of Michigan), and more about my experiences are hinted at in recent editions of Michigan Travel Tips (Internet-only publications that are available through the Web site for The Hologlobe Press, the main address to which is www.hologlobepress.com). I did note in the previous edition of T.H.A.T. that I might not have an answer to the question that I was wondering about. Maybe, I will have time to get an answer to the question before the next edition of T.H.A.T. is put together.
Incidentally, my working on the residence in the Hammond Bay area of Michigan has a tie-in of sorts with some prime-time television series of broadcast networks. During my stay in the Hammond Bay area, I visited a number of times with a retired couple (close neighbors and friends of the person whose residence I was working on), and they passed along information to me--after I had chosen most of the topics for this edition of T.H.A.T.--about a granddaughter who has been working as an "extra" on two television series on a broadcast network this season (I already knew she had done work over the last year as an extra on Veronica Mars (a series that started out on UPN, which is now gone). The gal is named Jenny Chiesa (a stage name), and this season (the 2006-2007 season), she has done work as an extra on the two series of MyNetwork Television, and, officially, she has played a person on the "wait staff" of restaurants in Desire and Fashion House, such as the restaurant called "Toku" in Fashion House. This season, Jenny is also working as an extra on Veronica Mars, which is now on The CW network, and she is playing a student, as she did last season, and again this season, one of her regular props is a pink purse. Since Jenny is an "extra," she has yet to be given a credit on Fashion House and Desire, as far as I know, but maybe she has been given a credit in the credits of Fashion House and Desire, and I have happened to miss days when MyNetwork Television runs credits for the two series.
And, by the way, I sometimes use short-cut words in my files to define jobs done by production people in television programs, and if you were to ever see an index card from my files, you might see such terms as EXprod (which standes for "executive producer"), PROD (for "producer"), WRIT (for "writer" or "written by"), DP (for "director of photography"), and EDIT (for "editor"), and, as an example, on the card for Code Name: Heraclitus, you would see at least these credits:
FROM: UNIVERSAL
EXprod: GORDON OLIVER
PROD: JACK LAIRD
DIR: JAMES GOLDSTONE
WRIT: ALVIN SAPINSLEY
DP: BUD THACKERY
EDIT: ED BIERY
EDIT. SUPER: RICHARD BELDING
ASSprod: JEANNOT SZWARC
UNIT: GEORGE LOLLIER
SOUND: DAVID MORIARTY
MUSIC: JOHNNY MANDEL
THEME: JOHNNY WILLIAMS
MUSIC SUPER: STANLEY WILSON
ART: JOHN LLOYD
SETS: JOHN McCARTHY & AUDREY BLASDEL
COSTUMES: BURTON MILLER
MAKE-UP: BUD WESTMORE
HAIR: LARRY GERMAIN("ASSprod" stands for "associate producer.")
If I were to put credits on this Web site, I might provide this list:
Exprod: PROD: SUPER. PROD: COprod: ASSprod: WRIT: DIR: EXstoryEDIT: EXstoryCON: PROD. DESIGN: ART: EDIT: GRAPHICS: VICTOR SWANSON
I often sort of combine credits before a person's name if the person is listed as having done more than one job, and I hope you understand what the previous list means (divided it up into thirteen different jobs)..
The next edition of T.H.A.T. will have more about credits and have something that I have yet to choose to talk about.
Stay well!
Vic
copyright c. 2006
Date published: October 10, 2006
The Hologlobe Press
Postal Box 20551
Ferndale, Michigan 48220-0551
The United States of America
To see the next edition of T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T. #31.
To see the previous edition of T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T. #29.
To see the catalog page for T.H.A.T. editions,
click on: T.H.A.T..
To go to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com.
###