Today's grooviness is the collection of random group of Hollywood Walk of Fame Trading Cards that I own for some reason.
Today's card is the always ridiculously entertaining Jerry Lewis!
Ewww that is one bad picture they used on this one. And the back one isn't so great either. Meh.
I'm still confused as to who thought it was a good idea to make trading cards out of Hollywood celebrities. Then again, I don't understand trading cards in general. There is a lot of useless information on this card of Mr. Lewis, but then again, the basic purpose of trading cards is to share this kind of stuff with people who don't care in a quick and portable way.
Also, WHAT'S THE QUESTION ON CARD #196?! I MUST KNOW!!
William Castle is by far my favorite film director. He made some of the most fun and entertaining films of all time and was a master horror filmmaker and showman. Most of his movies are some of my favorite films. He created gimmicks and a filmgoing experience that was copied by some of the more popular great filmmakers, including his idol Alfred Hitchcock.
By the way, Psycho would not exist as the classic it is if William Castle's House on Haunted Hill didn't.
Some of William Castle's most infamous gimmicks include an ILLUSION-O ghost viewer for 13 Ghosts, a $1,000 life insurance policy for Macabre, seat-belts for I Saw What You Did, and PERCEPT-O shocking seats for The Tingler!
Because he is my favorite filmmaker, I have collected tons of his cool movie memorabilia, and this is the first descent into that abyss of Castletoscity!
Today, we've got the giveaway coin from one of his few comedies, ZOTZ!.
So in the film, Tom Poston is this eccentric ancient languages professor who comes into possession of a coin with the word ZOTZ on it. Inscribed on the letters it tells him that the coin will give him magic powers to slow down time, cause instant pain, or death. Hilarious mishaps ensue at a magical rate, and it basically becomes William Castle's version of the Disney film The Absent-Minded Professor.
THE MAGIC WORD FOR FUN!
(and yes, I do own this poster)
It's not Castle's greatest movie, and it's far from his worst. It has some cool supporting roles played by Jim Backus (aka Mr. Magoo and Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island) and the Marx Brothers' old lady comic foil, Margaret Dumont. There's also some cameos by super awesome 1950s/60s character actors Fred Clark, James Milholin, and Tom Poston's old comedy partner Louis Nye.
Instead of something as insane as shocking your butt every time Tom Poston yelled ZOTZ! (which would have been super amazing), the gimmick this time was the coin. They handed these things out to everybody who bought a ticket, and now I've got two of them, and obviously, they are ZOTZTASTIC!!
Well that's it for today, but check out the AWESOME trailer for ZOTZ! below!
Today's item is one of my all-time favorite things - the Darkwing Duck watch.
I can't believe someone would want a Rolex when a watch like this exists.
I've probably had 5 of these watches over the past 20 years, destroying every single one of them from overuse. I just love these things with a firey passion. I stopped wearing them a couple years ago, just because I couldn't stand the thought of killing any more!
Poor mutilated DW watch...
See?! It's terribly sad to see my old Darkwing Duck watch like that... the tears are coming!!
Besides the super coolness of the watch, the art for the box is pretty awesome too! I wish they would make stuff like this again. Oh well, I guess.
A REAL WATCH
Enjoy, and don't forget to be careful when you're getting dangerous!
Today's item is something really cool. Essentially, it's the original Nintendo Game Boy DS - The Nintendo Game & Watch with the game Mario Bros.
This thing is really cool... and really difficult to play. It's a little LCD game that's totally unlike any other Mario game that exists.
Basically, you control both Mario and Luigi, and the goal is to place boxes on the conveyor belts with Mario on the right screen and then collect them with Luigi on the left screen. You keep putting them up a level on the until you get to the top, then you store them in a truck on Luigi's side.
It keeps going faster and faster until your brain can't handle it much longer and then you go crazy and you start screaming and throwing it around and stomping around the house shoving your fists through windows until your arms are a shredded mess of flesh and bones!!
At least that's what happens to me when I play this thing.
It's an interesting little game system. It's probably the first portable Nintendo game and was definitely the original idea for the Game Boy DS and its Dual Screen technology.
Although, I find this game much more brain meltingly evil than any Game Boy DS game.
CLICK on the photo(s) to enable the ENLARGE-O-MATIC PHOTO EMBIGGENER®!
Enjoy!
Also, I just realized that this is, by far, the most un-colorful and ugly blog I have ever posted. I feel like I deserve an award.
And here we are, at the final installment of the Girl in Gold Boots memorabilia! (Also, it's my 60th post! Woo, I guess.)
Today, we've got the as-complete-as-musically-possible Girl in Gold Boots Soundtrack Album!
Being the ginormous Girl in Gold Boots fan that I am, there's nothing I've wanted more than the soundtrack to this film. The film has some great 60s rock/pop by Larry Cartell and Chris Howard, and an awesome incidental score by Nicholas Carras that has moments very reminiscent (at least to me) of a low-budget film noir soundtrack.
Most of the rock songs in the movie were written by Chris Howard (the lead singer on screen at the Haunted House AKA that guy that looks like John Tesh) but a most of them, including the title song, were actually sung by Larry Cartell - that "Cowboy Santa" guy.
A Happy Go Lucky Sound!
As you can see, that "Cowboy Santa" song went to #1 on the charts. I wonder why it never became a holiday staple, like "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I mean, I never heard of it until this movie. Weird.
From what I can gather, most, if not all of the songs in the movie were recorded by artists on the Glenolden label. All except one of the 7"s that I've collected were released on the Glenolden label. I assume the other label (Colossal) was a label that absorbed Glenolden whenever it closed.
Three of the songs in the movie were written by Jody Daniels (aka Critter). In the early 60s, he was on the Dot record label, which released many famous artists including Louis Armstrong, The Surfaris, Liberace, The Andrews Sisters, The Chantays, and everybody's favorite... Leonard Nimoy.
As far as I can tell (and find), Jody only released one single with Dot Records, and I assume he never released a full album. If he did, I'd love to find and hear it.
There is another 7" single I've found on a label called N-Joy Records under the name of "Jody Daniel" with the songs "At The Go Go" and "Quando Calentia Del Sol"... but I'm not going to pay $103.06 for a record, especially for only 2 songs.
The song "Gold" is by a great loungey-type singer named Joe Valino. He released a bunch of singles, including his most popular, and still pretty well known song "Garden of Eden". Joe was also the first person to record the song "Learnin' The Blues" which was later made famous by Frank Sinatra. He released one really great album, called Sinner or Saint, which we'll come back to in another post. Also, I think he kind of looks like Al Lewis aka Grampa Munster.
One song in the film is by Jerry Wallace, who was a country/pop musician who recorded for many labels, and is probably most well known for his song "If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry" which was featured on an episode of the classic Rod Serling show Night Gallery.
There is only one song in the film that has completely evaded me, and that is the song that is played during the infamous diner scene where Buz appears out of nowhere. Just so you know, this only happens in the TV/VHS version... not on the DVD. So get your laughs out now!
So, if you know what song that is, and I'm assuming it's called "The Hurting Game", let me know! I'd love to find it. It's a pretty good country song!
Anyways...
There is another fan-made version of the soundtrack floating online, where all the music is taken directly from the DVD. I have used the DVD tracks for the Nicholas Carras score, as well as the songs that weren't put on any official record ("Do You Want to Laugh or Cry", "I Just Want to Rest", "Lonesome Man", "You Gotta Come Down", and "Bongo Madness").
But all of the other tracks come directly from promotional 7"s released on Glenolden Records, and are the full and complete tracks, with no dialogue/sound effects overlapping the songs, unlike on that other soundtrack that's around the interwebs. I've also included an alternate version of Larry Cartell's "Jimmy's Girl" that I like more than the one used in the film. So there.
UPDATE (11/02/12) – added two Danny Welton instrumental harmonica tracks ("Julie" and "Stroblights") from a Girl in Gold Boots promotional soundtrack 7". "Julie" replaces "A New Companion", since it's the full length version of that song. "Stroblights" is added on at the end of the album, because I'm pretty sure it's not in the finished film... also, they spelled "strobe lights" wrong.
And so here we are at the end of the Girl in Gold Boots memorabilia. Except for one more thing... a promotional photo. It's the only one I've got, but it's a good one! If I get anymore, you'll be the first to know... whoever you are.
You can download the unofficially official soundtrack to Girl in Gold BootsHERE!!
Enjoy, yak boys and girls in your gold boots movin'!
Today's musical fantasticality is the official, unreleased, promotional only soundtrack to the amazing Christopher Guest film Waiting for Guffman.
The music in this film is pretty hilarious, and why shouldn't it be? It's written by the trio that made up the super rockin' band Spinal Tap - Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. By the way, Harry Shearer annoys the crap out of me... but that's a different story for a different time on a different planet and in a different galaxy.
Well anyways, Waiting for Guffman was the film that was Christopher Guest's return to the style that Rob Reiner, Guest, Shearer, and McKean perfected - the mockumentary. In the film, a group of wanna-be theater actors from a small town put together a play about the history of their town, Blaine, Missouri. Hilarity ensues.
Hilarity ensues thanks to the insanely funny cast of Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban, and the funniest man alive, Fred Willard.
The only reason I can come up with why this soundtrack wasn't released officially is because since the songs are intentionally terrible and unprofessional sounding... although that's why fans would want to buy the soundtrack... right?
So here, for you, my loving lovers of love, are all the songs from the movie/play in their full, uncut form!
