Today's script is from the classic two-part Quincy, M. E. episode "Slow Boat to Madness"!
Of course, as you all know (or should know) Quincy, M. E. stars the klug-man himself, Jack Klugman as a Los Angeles medical examiner who always gets involved in all sorts of crazy hijinks that he shouldn't be getting involved in.
This time, while on a cruise vacation in Tahiti, Quincy and his girlfriend get mixed up in a crazy situation -- someone is drugging passengers on the ship, making them go crazy and hallucinate. The drugs eventually kill the crazy hallucinating passengers, causing the rest of the people on the ship to go into a panic, afraid for their lives! Of course, Quincy being Quincy, feels the need to help and stop this crazy plot from going too far!
This is a fun two-parter with lots of action, and lots of cool late 70s/early 80s cruise ship stuff, which I LOVE... as evidenced by my earlier post of the Princess Cruise Adventure record.
One thing I really love about this episode is the ship's captain, played by character actor Ed Nelson, who is also in one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time -- Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood. Also, he's the elusive Robert Denby, which immediately makes him the greatest human being to have ever lived.
Ed Nelson!
Oh, and you can watch A Bucket of Blood for free online, because it's in the Public Domain! Yipee!
Probably my favorite scene in this episode is in part two, when, during a screening of Phantom of the Opera, a passenger goes crazy! It's insane madness. I love it.
Oh, and the other thing I love about this episode is, after a costume party, Quincy has to seriously explain what's going on to the ship's doctor and the captain, and he is still in costume... as a jockey... with a tiny bowtie and everything.
Dr. Quincy -- Serious jockey dude
If you wanna see this episode, it's available on Netflix streaming... in HD! Jack Klugman in high definition. Nothing could be better.
Also, if you're looking for another episode of Quincy, M. E. to watch, you must must must must MUST watch what is probably the greatest episode of television ever -- "Next Stop Nowhere", where Quincy goes after punk rock. That episode guest stars Jan Levenson-Gould herself, Melora Hardin, as a teenage punk rocker. Gabba gabba hey!
You can download the Quincy, M. E. script to "Slow Boat to Madness" HERE.
In case you didn't know, there's this amazingly perfect horror film called Rosemary's Baby. It's pretty much the greatest horror movie ever made... well, you know, besides Wuhrwuhlf. Oh, and guess what? It was produced by William Castle, which immediately makes gives it a billion extra brownie points in my book.
It also was a part of THE GREATEST DOUBLE FEATURE OF ALL TIME! No, seriously. It was!
Anyways, I don't need to go into the perfectness and importance of Rosemary's Baby, since it's been well documented. What hasn't been well documented, though, is the unimportance and ridiculousness of its 1976 sequel.
Now if I know you (and I think I do), right now you're saying to yourself "THIS CAN'T BE... NO IT'S NOT TRUE... IT'S NOT REAL... IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!"
Well, I hate to break it to you, but yes, there is a sequel to Rosemary's Baby -- the Made-for-TV movie, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby.
Oh yes. This thing really exists. And oh man, is it BAD. Well, maybe I'm being a little harsh on it. I guess it might have been OK-ish and just campy groovy 70s-ness if it had nothing to do with Rosemary's Baby, but the fact that this is supposed to be a continuation of the film, makes it so much worse than you can possibly imagine.
The UK VHS cover
There is at least one... okay, two redeeming factors of this movie. Those two redeeming factors are Ruth Gordon, reprising her Minnie role from the original film, and my favorite movie drunk, Ray Milland, taking over the Roman role for Sidney Blackmer... who wasn't alive anymore. Frowny face.
The film is split up into three parts, or books, or chapters, or whatever-you-wanna-call-em's -- The Book of Rosemary, The Book of Adrian, and The Book of Andrew.
The movie/first book begins right at the end of Rosemary's Baby, with Rosemary (played by Patty Duke) still freaking out about the whole baby being a Satan-baby and what not. She then kidnaps her son Adrian/Andrew away from the Satanic cult. At a bus stop, while Rosemary is on the phone with her husband Guy (George Maharis), Adrian/Andrew gets in a fight with a couple of kids and KILLS TWO OF THEM AND THEIR DOG. What a jerk. In this crazy opening, we also find out that Guy sold his son to the cult in exchange for fame and fortune in Hollywood.
Then, with the help of a Satanized prostitute named Marjean (Tina Louise), the cult catches up with her, and re-kidnaps Adrian/Andrew back from Rosemary, who is sent off in a demon-bus of some sort, driven by nobody to nowhere in particular... and she is never heard from again! In exchange for her taking care of Adrian/Andrew, the cult gives Marjean a crappy casino in the middle of nowhere.
In the second book/part, we see Adrian (played by Stephen McHattie) all grown up and living at the casino with Marjean. He also sings at the casino with his glitter/psychedelic rock band named Captain Nitro and His Acid Kings. Pure genius. Wish I had thought of that band name... dang it.
Adrian/Andrew also has a best friend/scapegoat named Peter, a self-proclaimed Jesus-Freak, who at every opportunity, tries to convert Adrian. Since the next day is Adrian's birthday, his "godparents" and all of their friends are coming to celebrate with him. His godparents, of course, being Minnie and Roman, the heads of the Satanic cult.
Because Adrian is a Satan-baby thing, he keeps having crazy nightmares, so Peter takes him to church, where he freaks out and speeds back to the casino in his Lamborghini, almost killing a bunch of bikers on the way. Back at the casino, his godparents are getting ready to do a seance/sacrifice thing with his father, Guy. To calm Adrian down, Roman offers him a joint.
No, really. He does.
So, after he smokes this joint, he immediately passes out, because that's what always happens when you smoke that Satanized weed. After he passes out, they paint his face like Marcel Marceau and do this crazy devil worship thing which then turns him into, as the script implies, an Alice Cooper-esque glam rocker.
Then, in a trance, he joins the band onstage flipping out and dancing like a madman. The whole band and audience now join Adrian in the trance. The movie then decides we need these nice close-up shots of the band like 7 or 8 times --
Beautiful.
Adrian's friend Peter notices things are going crazy, and tries to stop the band and Adrian by running up on stage and unplugging their instruments. Since the powers of Satan are strong, his Devil generator keeps them going, even with their amplifiers unplugged. FREAKY-DEAKY.
Guy doesn't like what he sees, so he runs out to his limo, but is followed by Peter who then tries to fight him and figure out what the heck is happening. Guy then picks up a downed power line and electrocutes Peter, and Adrian passes out.
PHEW!
That was a long book/chapter/whatever. Now I'd say it's time for a commercial break.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.
In our final chapter (THANK GOD), we find Andrew in a mental hospital for the criminally insane, with no memory of how he got there or what happened. We also find out that he has been committed there for murdering Peter. With the help of a caring nurse named Ellen (played by Donna Mills) and some weird therapy where they put wires on cotton balls into his forehead, he magically remembers what happened. He tells Ellen he needs to go find his father and she helps him escape!
Andrew and Ellen hide in a seedy motel, where they stay for the night before going to search for his dad, the real murderer. While hanging out in the room, Ellen gives Andrew a drink... and of course, it's been drugged. Yup. ELLEN IS ONE OF THEM. Like all evil geniuses, she then proceeds to explain what is going to happen -- she is going to have his Satan baby!! GAH!! Then she... well, you know. Ugh.
Eventually, he wakes up and stumbles out of the motel room towards the street. Ellen follows him out there, and Andrew's car starts driving by itself, trying to kill him! He jumps away, over cars and bushes and what-have-you. Then, out of nowhere, the car hits Ellen! The car crashes, and the cops come. Andrew tries to show them that there's nobody in the car, but when they open the door, it's (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN) GUY!! AND HE'S DEAD!! Andrew is then hauled away by the cops, thinking he's on something.
The film then fades into a doctor's office, where Roman and Minnie find out that their "granddaughter" and her baby are going to be just fine. The camera pans over and... BOOM! It's Ellen, she's still alive, and she's still having that Beelzebaby!!
FADE OUT.
THE END.
But don't change the channel just yet! Over the credits they show pictures of a woman giving birth and when credits end, there is a shot of a crying infant!
THE END.
REALLY.
Spooky, huh?
No, not at all. This thing is just sad. The movie is nowhere near the masterpiece that Rosemary's Baby is. In my opinion, this movie should've just been called Return of the Devil Child or Psychedelic Satan Baby or something. If they just got rid of all the Rosemary stuff, this would be a tolerable, crappy 1970s made-for-TV movie. The Rosemary stuff just brings this thing down. The entire time, you're waiting for some classic creepiness from Minnie and Roman or the claustrophobic feeling of the original film or even the feeling of disorientation, but nope... even with all the hand-held camera stuff, none of what made Rosemary's Baby so great is there.
The screenplay for this movie was written by a guy named Anthony Wilson who, in his spare time, created Banacek! AWESOME.
The film was directed by a guy named Sam O'Steen, who was better known as an editor. In fact, he edited the original Rosemary's Baby, as well as other classics like The Day of the Dolphin, Chinatown, Cool Hand Luke, Catch-22, and The Graduate! Woah!
The script here is pretty similar to the actual movie, with only a few lines and scenes missing, including a bunch of scenes at a Tokyo airport, and a scene of Ellen and Andrew searching Hollywood Blvd for his dad. There also this really really creepy cut line that kind of foreshadows a terrible real-life situation that involved Roman Polanski, the director of the original Rosemary's Baby --
SUPER CREEPY!!!!!!!!
Since you can't find this weird movie on DVD anywhere (and I'm sure it won't be included with the Criterion Collection release of the original film) you can watch this insane Made-for-TV movie here --
And you can download the .PDF of the Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby script HERE!!
Well, boy howdy. Today's item it something that is unimaginably ridiculous and extremely rare. It is the script from the nonexistent third episode of the unclassic 1969 sketch comedy show Turn-On, featuring guest star Sebastian Cabot!
For some reason, George Schlatter, the guy who produced Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (which was actually funny and smart) decided to make a new show where the premise is that a computer chooses what weird ass political comedy is going to be thrust into your face on your television.
Cool, huh?
Well, not really. It didn't really go as planned. Depending on who you believe, the show was either cancelled after the first episode, or as Tim Conway says, halfway through the airing of the first episode. I choose to believe Tim Conway. He is Dorf, after all.
Interestingly enough, Albert Brooks was on the writing staff of this show. Now, look, I LOVE Albert Brooks. I think Real Life and Modern Romance are two of the funniest movies ever, but this show is just BLECH. Sorry, Al.
RANDOM TRIVIA: Apparently, since the show got cancelled, the second episode's airing (which guest starred Robert Culp) was preempted with an airing of the film The Oscar, which is one of my favorite campy 1960s movies. Groovy.
Supposedly the comedy was too provocative for its time. Or it just sucked. Here, judge for yourself from some clips from the unaired second episode.
Yeah. Weird.
The thing that I can't understand about this show is why it has to be a semi-clone of the infinitely better Laugh-In. The show moves from one sketch to the other at the speed of light, and the "jokes" in this show are either weird sight gags or nonsensical one-liners that required a set up not short enough to fit on a popsicle stick.
Take for example, this one --
HA! OH MY GOD! THAT IS SO SUBVERSIVE!
(Not really.)
Maybe I'm just too young or stupid or something, but I just don't find that funny at all. Maybe it's just really not funny. I don't know. I'm no comedy expert... although I pretend to be.
I also can't help but hear this sound whenever I read the punchline of all these jokes. That may be throwing me off.
The best thing about this script is the inclusion of some storyboard and concept art doodles for the episode, even though they aren't all that funny either... with the exception of this one --
Boob jokes are always hilarious, even if they make no sense with absolutely no context whatsoever.
If you wanna know more about this strange show, you should check out this interview with George Schlatter about Turn-On, or if you live in Los Angeles, go to the Paley Center for Media where you can watch the first episode in their library... which I've yet to do. You can also check out the Wikipedia page for a description of some skits from the first episode.
So, check out this rare oddity that you probably can't find anywhere else, and pray that maybe one day the two filmed episodes will be released on DVD for posterity... or for some other reason.
Download the Turn-On script for episode #1003 HERE.
Today's super insanely radical magnificentness is the script for the "Sound of Terror" episode of the short-lived TV series Beyond Westworld!!
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, Jeremy. There's no TV show called Beyond Westworld! Would they really make a TV show based off the Westworld and Futureworld movies? No! That's crazy! YOU'RE CRAZY! STOP TORTURING ME WITH OBSCURE CRAP!"
Well, I hate to break it to you, but yes, they did make a TV series based off the Westworld/Futureworld movies... and it was awesome!
Okay, so it wasn't that cool. But still! A Westworld TV series? I'd watch it. And I have, thanks to the healing power of bootleg DVDs. It's an odd little obscurity with a premise that really forces you to suspend disbelief to the extreme.
In the show, a mad doctor named Simon Quaid (who used to work for the Delos parks) has created and programmed a bunch of androids to integrate into society as humans and do his bidding to help him in his mission to conquer the world! Yeesh... why can't mad doctors ever use their powers for good?
Anyways, there's these spies, John Moore and Pamela Williams, and their mission is to find these androids and destroy them! Cool, huh?
Obviously the show didn't last too long. Actually, they only produced 5 episodes and 2 of them never aired in the US. The premise for the show is pretty fun, but it really has nothing to do with the Westworld series of films, except for the name "Delos" and the crazy, murderous robots.
It's too bad the show didn't have too much to do with the films, though. I think that Westworld is one of the most fun and interesting Sci-Fi movies ever made, and it's one of my all-time favorites. Unlike most people, I really like the sequel Futureworld, too. But then again, I'm weird. Also, I will watch, and inevitably fall in love with anything starring Peter Fonda and/or Stuart Margolin.
Now... back to the show!
So the script we have here is from the final aired episode -- "Sound of Terror". In this episode, the evil Simon Quaid steals some Uranium from a nuclear power plant with the help of an android member of the rock group Power and Ruth to sell to a terrorist named Hakim Fadar, so John and Pamela follow the band around and thwart Quaid's plan of world domination! Super groovy.
Check out the episode preview (and title sequence) below!
I really enjoy the writing in this script, especially the description of the band, which dresses them up like some weird mixture of Jefferson Airplane and The Village People.
Man, I just love reading about shaking butts...
I especially love the dialogue that's given to the members of the band, which is very similar to a lot of the corny 70s and 80s After-School Special stuff. It doesn't make them cool, it just makes them sound like your regular old rockstar stereotype, saying all sorts of random colloquialisms that NOBODY SAYS. Well, that is unless real, actual people in the 70s called their name their "handle" and talked about getting their "kicks" a lot.
The episode ends just like your basic 70s/80s TV series with the one thing about television that will never, ever get old -- The FREEZE FRAME! God, I love those.
I think it's a pretty fun episode with lots of music and action and spying, but it apparently wasn't fun or action-packed or spy-ful enough for everyone else, since the show was cancelled after this episode aired.
The show hasn't really been seen too much since it was cancelled (except for bootlegs), but apparently that will change in the near-ish future, since the geniuses at the Warner Archive say their going to release it on DVD! Then you can buy the DVD and watch it and read the script at the same time! Hooray for multitasking!
You can download the Beyond Westworld "Sound of Terror" teleplay HERE.
Well, here we are at the end of the Darkwing Duck script collection. Lucky for you, though, we have barely even scratched the surface of my Darkwing Duck collection! Oh yes.
Today's script is for one of the best episodes of the entire series, "The Darkwing Squad". In this episode, J. Gander Hooter decides that Darkwing needs to train S.H.U.S.H.'s best (aka nerdiest) agents to be more like the daringly dashing Darkwing. Of course, Gryzlikoff hates this idea, but if we let him be the boss of this whole operation, then we wouldn't have this episode, which would lead to not having this script, which would lead to not having this blog entry!
*GASP*
Thank God Gryzlikoff isn't in charge.
For the rest of the episode, while Darkwing trains the bumbling agents, the evil supervillian Steelbeak takes advantage of Gryzlikoff's anger at the situation to recruit him to F.O.W.L. for his prolific plot against humanity! Of course, then it's The Darkwing Squad to the rescue!
Oh, by the way, The Darkwing Squad contains Darkwing Donkey, Darkwing Dog, Darkwing Deer, and Darkwing Dodo.
Unfortunately, unlike Dirty Money, this script doesn't have a storybook based on it. Sadness. But, fortunately for us all, the episode is available on the second volume of Darkwing Duck DVDs. YIPEE!
Orrrrr you can watch it below!
Download the script for "The Darkwing Squad" HERE.
I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the script-owning scourge that squeegees my way into your soul! I am.... DARKWIIIIINNNNGGG DUCK!
Well, not really, but that was my half-assed attempt at being as awesome as the Darkwing Duck writers. Anywhoo, welcome to part THREE of my collection of Darkwing Duck scripts!
Today's script is entitled "Dirty Money" and features one of the rarest (and strangest) Darkwing Duck villains ever - the F.O.W.L. neat freak, Ammonia Pine. Puns are awesome.
In this episode, the evil Ammonia Pine (who turned to evil after "an accident with an experimental bathroom disinfectant") is breaking into banks, literally cleaning out the vaults by removing the ink off the dollar bills. Oh, and not even 10 pages in, and she sucks the head of S.H.U.S.H., J. Gander Hooter, up into her vacuum. I love it.
This, of course, leaves Gryzlikoff in charge, annoying Darkwing to no end - especially when Gryzlikoff runs him through an insane amount of "training". Cue the hilarious sitcom-type humor!
This episode was also turned into a kid's storybook, which I also own... obviously. The book has the slightly, yet completely different title of "Clean Money". Freakin' genius.
You can download the PDF of the "Dirty Money" script HERE.
This episode is available on Vol. 1 of the Darkwing Duck DVDs, ooooorrrrrrrrr you can watch it below!
Today, we've got the first of my collection of four Darkwing Duck scripts. I purchased these teleplays about a year ago, from eBay, just thinking they were another awesome thing to add to my always growing Darkwing Duck collection. Little did I know, these scripts belonged to Ron Feinberg, the voice of S.H.U.S.H. (the secret spy organization Darkwing sometimes worked for) agent Grizzlikof!
Ron Feinberg was a character actor who, before moving to voice acting primarily, guest starred on many classic shows, such as Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, and the classically forgotten caveman sitcom, It's About Time!
All four of these scripts are obviously Grizzlikof-featuring episodes, and in fact are some of my favorites. Today's script is for "Bad Tidings", a Batman meets I Love Lucy style episode where Grizzlikof and Darkwing have to put their differences aside to stop Steelbeak (my favorite Darkwing Duck villain) and his evil organization F.O.W.L. (the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny) from conquering the world with their tidal wave machine. Yep. A TIDAL WAVE MACHINE. God, I love cartoons.
Man, I just love reading about shaking butts...
