Sunday, August 01, 2010

For Anyone (Like Me) Who Didn't Get It.



MAD MEN, SEASON FOUR, EPISODE ONE
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17 comments:

Bill Crider said...

Don't watch Madmen, but I sure remember "John & Marsha" and many other great Freberg recordings.

5:36 PM
Todd Mason said...

Which thing didn't you get, Patti?

7:02 PM
Randy Johnson said...

Never watched Madmen. So I'm lost here.

8:19 PM
Charles Gramlich said...

I've only watched a few episodes of Mad Men. It seems interesting but I'm not quite sure what all the hype is about.

9:46 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

I had no idea who John or Marsha was or why they kept repeating it. I don' think I ever listened to comedy albums with the exception of Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby.

9:52 PM
Richard R. said...

Stan Freeberg was a genius.

I love his History of the United States Part I, probably my favorite comedy album of all time. In college I just about had it memorized.

Patti - no Shelly Berman?

10:46 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

For some reason the comics of that era escaped me. Berman I've heard of by this guy--not at all.

11:08 PM
Margot Kinberg said...

Patti - I have to admit, I'm not a Madmen watcher, but I like John and Marsha; I even remember the first time I heard it.

11:45 PM
Evan Lewis said...

I don't like John & Marsha, but it was intended to be a parody of radio soap operas. Freberg is appropriate for Madmen because at the time the show is set, in the early 60s, he was a giant in the advertising field. He's considered one of the first to effectively use humor in ads.

1:08 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...

Aha. The information grows. So he was in advertising not only a comedian.

7:41 AM
Todd Mason said...

Yes, he'd moved from being one of the most admired radio comedy writer/performers to being a very successful ad guy as well, doing similarly mildly (and sometimes not so mildly) satirical/absurdist things. He also sold a lot of records. THE STAN FREBERG SHOW was a summer replacement for THE JACK BENNY SHOW on CBS Radio in...'56, I think it was.

Yeah, I really didn't know where you were going with that question.

10:50 AM
Todd Mason said...

Elaborated series of sketchs, the J&M, that were picked up by others...I think I first encountered the trope on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY ca. '72, if not on some primetime comedy show beforehand.

10:52 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...

I always wondered why they canceled THE ELECTRIC COMPANY.
I was a pre-schooler when this piece debuted I think.

3:58 PM
Todd Mason said...

THE ELECTRIC COMPANY, much like ZOOM some years before (and ZOOM is already gone again), has been revived in radically different form by PBS. Good question as to why the CTW, now Sesame Workshop, shut it down...perhaps the cast was too expensive (it didn't turn over nearly as quickly as SS's) and the spinoff/subsidiary toy potential was slight. I think TEC was gone even before the Speak and Spell was introduced.

6:32 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

My kids liked both around five or so. A dearth of quality shows for kids then. And even more so, movies.

6:34 PM
Todd Mason said...

Yup, though there were a few other decent series for children which were contemporaneous...ABC's MAKE A WISH, the syndicated BIG BLUE MARBLE, CBS's CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL hosted by Kukla, Fran and Ollie...but those were all weekly. Weekdaily, CAPTAIN KANGAROO on CBS and the syndicated ROMPER ROOM were about the only sops to educational programming the commercial stations were making to very young children in the early '70s. MARSHALL EFRON'S PAINLESS SUNDAY SCHOOL was mildly amusing for even the young atheist I was. But I dug the short-form drama of RIPPLES and INSIDE OUT at least as much (PBS offers meant to spark classroom discussion).

6:42 PM
Todd Mason said...

In one episode of INSIDE OUT, one of the preteens blows off school and goes to see a showing of THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, one of the badly-executed anthology films Amicus made from the Robert Bloch scripts they commissioned (among those, I like only TORTURE GARDEN, though on the Horror List, a number of folks like ASYLUM metter than I do or Bloch did).

6:45 PM

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