KLAC did a remote broadcast at Disneyland on a Saturday back in the late 1970’s. It was “KLAC Country Music Day” at Disneyland and there was Barbara Mandrell, Freddy Fender, Lynn Anderson, etc., bunch of great country acts. We broadcast from the Main Street train station all day starting at 7:00 am. I was there …
When I was a kid, JAN & DEAN made a personal appearance at the opening (if you can believe it) of a new WHITE FRONT store and it was broadcast locally on KTTV.. The KTTV cameras looked just like this. I was a happy kid that day, saw Jan & Dean and I was on …
Because I was on the Disney Channel watching “SALLY” tonight, I also watched the first five episodes of “The Mickey Mouse Club” originally broadcast in 1955. These are very clean prints, right out of the archive, uncut. Right away I felt like a kid again. I missed the original run on ABC but these were …
The great Deanna Durbin, star of many Universal Pictures and Anne Frank’s favorite actress. Deanna and I were quite close in the 1980’s. Basically she would call me at the studio to ask when to expect her next royalty check but we would chat each time. Soon, she would just call, wanting to talk. Even …
People have asked me about the famous Surf Song CECILIA ANN and if I indeed wrote it.. Yes, it is true. I wrote this song in 1989 with Charles “Frosty” Horton and Frosty and I played and recorded it as THE SURFTONES on record. Then the Pixies heard it and asked if they could cover …
I was asked why a Railroad Approved watch cost $50.00 to $80.00 in 1910 when a regular pocket watch from that time cost $2.00. Read that little booklet page, first three paragraphs.. After all, a RR worker made maybe $10.00 a week.. He was not allowed to work on the railroad without the approved watch …
I’m thinking about drummer Hal Blaine today. This was his kind of LA weather. He used to make us laugh and laugh at our weekly breakfasts. I heard “Love Will Keep Us Together” today and thought of a funny story that Hal loved to tell (one of the clean ones.) The good old days of …
Here’s an awesome CBS Father’s Day publicity photo from 1967. This was tweeted by the mighty Steve Hoffman (https://twitter.com/SteveHoffmanTV). Clockwise from upper left, we have Billy Mumy, Barry Livingston, Ron Howard, Johnny Whitaker, Clint Howard, Anissa Jones and Stanley Livingston (center). All of the fathers represented on these TV shows, with the possible exception of …
My friend Christina Davis Pierce is an avid reader and a history buff, she loaned me this great biography and I’ve been pondering it for some time. It’s called Commander In Chief by Eric Larrabee, came out in the late 1980s and is really a series of chapters on men who were involved in WWII, …
Fans of the movie AIRPLANE, I had NO idea that it was taken from this obscure film ZERO HOUR. This is interesting if you are a fan. It IS the same movie, just not (intentionally) funny. Even has the “Looks like I picked the wrong week” line in it. It’s shot for shot in some …
If you’ve never seen it, you should. It’s on YouTube in a pristine print. “How Green Was My Valley” the 1941 Academy Award winner (Best Picture, Best Director JOHN FORD, Best Supporting actor DONALD CRISP, best cinematography ARTHUR MILLER, best art direction NATHAN H. JURAN, etc.). It’s an amazing oldie. They showed it to us …
A little bit less than once a week I find myself at AudioElement, (http://audio-element.com) a high-end audio store not far from my office in Pasadena, California. I come to AudioElement with a satchel of vinyl records, a quart of record cleaner, and a stack of premium record sleeves. I then spend an hour or so …