The Handler, by Damon Knight

 

(8:18)  That's show biz!

A reading accompanied by music from George Gershwin, Concerto in F.

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Tony Regan: Now You See Him

 

And now, That Guy...in color!

You always have to watch out in this face-spotting game; try to make sure it's who you think it is.  Especially if your comments are going out to some historic forum which may be archived and studied hundreds of years from now.  

(For example, the IMDB's mis-identification of Guy Raymond as an extra on Wild in the Streets (1968)-- that was mine.  I know, now, it was Norm Leavitt.  Sorry about that.  I can't log on and change it.  I hope to make it up with a subsequent series on Telling One Guy From Another Guy.)  (Especially if he's actually named "Guy".)

So I won't say for sure that Man Waving up there (from the Doris Day film, The Thrill of It All) is Tony Regan.  I think he well might be, though.  (Editor's note: the IMDB says it is.)

Anyone acquainted with the Desilu-Universal Studios galaxy of Old TV Guys, which spans this world like the Milky Way, has probably seen Mr Regan a couple dozen times.  I first noticed him as Surprised Diner in Columbo: Now You See Him,

still surprised after watching Jack Cassidy pull the whole thing out of a pocket in his cape.  Like Mike Lally and all the other people sitting back there.  "Did you just see him pull that ashtray out of his cape?  Wow!"

Here he is, tending to Rockford's dad-

 

(dig that room number)

And a few years earlier, as a THRUSH agent in Man From Uncle.

I first tagged him "the Robin McNeil-looking guy", due to his resemblance to the great Canadian newsman.

Precisely because he was so anonymous.  Although the IMDB counts 249 appearances over a 29-year career in movies and TV, 8 or 9 a year,  I'm not sure he ever spoke a word.  Actors like this are extremely hard to identify.  There has to be some kind of cult appeal (a flame I'm hopefully fanning, here).  I gave up expecting to ever know his name.  But thanks to fans.  

According to the IMDB, he was also a casting director.  Nice job for this sort of gig.  Probably a factor in the sheer volume of his work.  But for someone like Mr Regan, who appeared as an assortment of party guests, spectators, butlers, police officers, patrons, pall-bearers and passengers-- he could be basically any kind of non-speaking, clip-art-type of bystander, appearing quickly in the glimmer and then gone.  And you would never say "Who was that guy?", until you'd seen him do it a few dozen times.  Then, you have to ask.  

 

 

 

D-Day Trout

 

(4:21) Late-nite radio foolishness, c 1944.

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The 1812 Overdub

 

(4:38) The main source of this piece was originally a bonus track included with a recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and considerably enhanced with the latest recorded sounds.  (Boom!)  Your host is the noted music-explainer Deems Taylor.

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The 60s, Part 1: All the Way With JFK

 (4:28) Welcome to the show.  A sporadic series.

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Dobie Gillis and Burt Muskin

 I think it was the babysitter who introduced my four-year-old brain to Dobie Gillis (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, CBS-TV 1959-63).  At that age, I was also watching Perry Mason, the great crossroads itself, so I was more likely to become a fan of the faces on that show, like Jeanette Nolan or Robert H Harris, than single-out any of the ones who strutted/fretted through Herb Gillis's store, or Mr Pomfritt's classroom.  (Warren Beatty?!  He probably thought the show's about him.)

One thing about 60-some years of following these people, you can still go back and identify familiar faces for the first time.  There's a lot of people you just don't know the names of; you still cry out in ignorance, "It's that guy!", or "It's that gal!"  And trying to place them, when you see their mug pop up on your late-nite or Internet Archive TV.  Who is that guy?  He must have been on Mason half a dozen times!  

Like that guy on the left.

Seven Days in May, with Martin Balsam, Kirk Douglas and Whit Bissell (about whom we'll have much more to say later, never fear).  Everyone knows them.  But that one guy- he was usually a friendly, one-of-the-boys, George Babbitt-type, whose sole interest was getting everyone relaxed and drinking.  Never knew his name.

Until he turned up in Dobie Gillis, a month ago.

Charles Watts

Sometimes, you know their name, and it's still a surprise.

Mel Blanc

And sometimes, they turn up in something else, and do a great job.  

Chatsworth Osborne- I mean Steve Franken- in The Party.

But what are we to make of this?

It's not a surprise to see Burt's name on the credits.  Penultimate gummer and geezer extraordinaire, who graced hundreds of programs with his singular, senior presence.  Burt's one of my heroes because he started late in show biz, and still accumulated an impressive 201 IMDB credits over 25 years, or about one gig a month with summers off.  

But who is "Burt Muskin"?  Is this in fact Burt Mustin, on this episode of Dobie?  Perhaps it's a different, younger, wilder person.

Nope.  

 

 Evil twin?

 Probably not.

 Must be a typo.  Oh well.

When this week's question comes right down to it, we're still left with the realization that there was a time when Burt Mustin himself, breaking into show-biz at the age of 66, couldn't get them to spell his name right.  Yet he now owns the title, That One Old Guy.  Persistence pays off.

Apple Music stole my work

(Is that a compliment?)  They pulled a couple pieces off an anthology and posted them without saying anything to me.  They're selling them, but they won't pay me, or take them down.  

I'm surprised to discover I'm an Apple Artist, but I want to tell you, stay away from those guys.  If you think you're supporting the artist by paying Apple for their music, that may not be the case.  I'm not seeing a penny of it.

You can find my stuff here (for free, unlike Apple Music) and at Bandcamp (where you can still play and record the whole album for free without telling me.  Although I appreciate the donation.)

Here's the two pieces Apple Music stole. Free of charge.  The second one is actually the full-length bit, not the 50-sec version they lifted from the anthology.  (There's also a lost version of Brokaw, which is longer, and I'll post that if it turns up.) 

Brokaw: Good Evening Tonight

Bush econ

Rose's In-store Announcements

(2:44)  This started as in-store announcements for a general merchandise store, slipped into the background music.  I attempted to render them in Dada.  There's five of them.

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Killers Car Race

(9:28) We'll resume posts with one I made a couple years ago, and had up here, until I thought there was going to be a collection (at Bandcamp), and I took it off for that.  

Two years later, no collection, it needs to be up somewhere, so it's back.

The project started with this exposition-obsessed PA announcer in 1964's The Killers, and somehow ran into a Youtube video promoting driverless cars.  Then the robots all jumped in, and everything went heck over teakettle in a hurry.  

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New Sponsor

Hello and welcome back.  A couple things to announce.

First of all, please join me in welcoming a new sponsor/content source, an authority on TV and Movie Character Actors of the Golden Age, and lifelong Perry Mason fan, That Guy, Inc.  

Have you ever been stumped, trying to tell the difference between Ed Peck and Thomas Browne Henry?  Is there a picture of Frank Marth without his hat?  That Guy will clarify such matters.  More bent than bio, more pointed than pictures, it's That Guy!

Regarding the recent hiatus.  It was one of those "accidentally change a setting on a computer, and not be able to tell what happened" things.  I was trying to post something a couple years ago, and inadvertently set Blogger to compose only in precise graphic-layout language.  How do you make a post with that stuff {?} {insert "$%#@!$"}

So when I was here a week ago, mining the moribund dream of a former life, I thought, "Maybe I can figure that fershlugginer thing out."  And I did.  One stupid little switch.  Now we're back.  

I started this blog 16 years ago.  There have been various periods of posting, and fallow.  I have no illusions of even a large-ish collection of listeners.  Ever.  But I'm hopeful that weekly posts might find their way to other similarly-inclined fans of the arcane.  In whatever time-space they momentarily occupy.

Doing a weekly audio post has been the sticking point; I think I owe you original content, more than repeating other people, or even myself.  (With notable exceptions like Mr F Le Mur.)  I want to start giving you new audio every week.  But if nothing's come out of the oven by Sunday, at least That Guy will be holding down the store with something else equally odd/silly.  

New postings start tomorrow.  Thank you for your patience.

 

Oh, is this working now?

A setting on Blogger got mis-set a couple years ago but I think I found it.