The Stray Thought Strut

[captainsblog]

Just twoone (dammit, Mel, hold still) of the 10 shows are left. Hinty time: one is current (though at the rate things are going it may not be for long), the other quite nicely retired from both production and (last I knew) syndication. Yet my brain's going back even further than that tonight. I'm Home Alone

 until Eleanor gets home from work at 9; the kid's at an overnight b-day party and may not be seen alive again for days. So I'm left to answer assorted entries and remind myself of my own wasted childhood.

Seeing a Friend's birthday party picture with a cake in the shape of a typewriter reminded me of my own early days in the Empire of Peckia-Huntary. My father worked for Sperry, then owner of the Remington brand (the shavers and electronics, not the guns), and they actually put out a decent electric typewriter that in many ways was superior to the IBM Selectric that went on and conquered just about every office by the time I got to college.  So I did a lot of work on that one, but this is the one I remember with much more fondness:



That, m'dears, was a genuine Tom Thumb brand toy typewriter, but toy only in the sense that they sold it in the toy department. As far as its keys went (a basic QWERTY layout but lacking minor things like, oh, numbers), it really worked. I typed many a pretend newspaper, menu and church bulletin on that thing until the ribbon finally shit the bed. No doubt it wound up in my nieces' playroom, along with most of the rest of my childhood, until all of it's been resurfacing on eBay the past few years. As such shite goes, this one's a bargain; the auction I gacked that picture from just ended with no bids above the opener of $7.50; naturally, though, if you have its original cardboard box, it's worth almost seven times as much.

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Then there was another of those random cartoon lyrics which just came outta nowhere:

One for all and all for one, the Eagles fly until the job is done.

At first I was thinking the Thunderbirds, or Fireball XL-5 or something equally hideous and marionettish. But no- twas a much dirtier sounding cartoon name than the thing actually amounted to, and more of a Bullwinkle-style comedy (I think they shared some of the same writers):

Roger Ramjet, man!

This serious subversion featured Rog, above, voiced by later Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens, and a squad of younguns indeed known as the Eagles (including a girl! you go 60s progressiveness!) who got the world out of all sorts of trouble by Roger downing his Proton Energy Pill- yup, the PEP pill- which, in his own words, "gives me the strength of 20 atom bombs for twenty seconds."

I'm sure this fit in quite nicely with the general tendency in 1965 to drug any ailment that wasn't nailed down and most of the ones that were.

Needless to say, the DVD has recently come out. Needless to say, I will be getting much less done around here in the coming weeks.

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There's a third odd memory, of a 60s TV show on local New York television and a really bad movie done by its host, but for yet-unspecified reasons I'm gonna save that one for the baseball blog.

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And if it seems like I've been spamming like whoa lately? There's a deep and evil reason for it that shall be revealed in the fullness of time. Unless it isn't.

Comments

[bluesilverkdg.livejournal.com]

Interesting side note about the typewriter. I wanted to learn to type properly, and my mom just happened to have a book from her typing class. So she sent me to their bedroom to fetch it. While rummaging around, trying to find the typing book, I stumbled upon my dad's stash of porn, and my life was forever changed.

I did learn to type eventually, however.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

*randomly snorgles you just 'cause I wanna*

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

God, I hated Roger Ramjet when I was a kid. They used to show it on ITV, especially during Sunday lunch. It had the most annoying theme tune ever and it almost made me hate all cartoons ever.

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

I remember my Mom's Remington (type writer, not gun). I used to try to type on it as a kid, and my fingers would get stuck in the areas between the rows of keys. I've become a bit more coordinated since then.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

That does give all new meaning to the term "hunt and peck," though.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, I saw the lyrics to that (on the same site I found the pic) and I seem to have completely blocked them out. The "one for all" line is absolutely the only thing I retained from however many years I watched it.

::notes the thumbs down for the DVD vote::

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Maybe you have, but those areas between the rows of keys are still there.

When my laptop died in October, while my guru was putting its brain into the new Frankenputer, I amused myself by cleaning the pet hair out of the keyboard of the old laptop. Holy kaboongies there was a lot of it in there.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Hunh. I don't remember any "one for all" line. The lyrics I recall -- and I'm kind of a savant for this sort of thing, you want the lyrics to 1962 Kool-Aid commercials, I'm your man -- ran like this:

Ahem. Mimimimimiiiiii.

1. Roger Ramjet and his Eagles,
fighting for our freedom,
fly through in- and outer space.
Let's join 'em, but to beat 'em.

Cho. Roger Ramjet, he's our man,
hero of our nation!
For his adventures, just be sure
and stay tuned to this station.

2. When Roger takes a Proton Pill,
the bad guys start to worry.
They can't escape the awful fate
of Proton's mighty fury.

3. So come and join us, all you kids,
for lots of fun and laughter,
as Roger Ramjet and his men
catch all the crooks they're after!

I may have a preposition or two wrong, but that's what I remember from the mid- to late '60s, on (if I recall correctly) WPIX, or maybe WOR.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Minds are terrible things, aren't they? As noted earlier, I have no recollection of the lyrics or the (apparently) wrist-slitting-inducing quality of their tune, but I can quote that Eagles chant like I'd heard it ten minutes ago.