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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Five! Five Monster-Themed Cereals! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...



The one thing that I absolutely love about Halloween is that as far as tricks and treats go, you truly never know what you are going to find.

I know back in the days when I used to don a Halloween costume and wander the streets armed with the strongest pillow case that I could find, I would stay out all hours of the night trying to gather whatever goodies I could get.  Then when I got back home, after my parents would sort through the candy, checking through it for unwrapped pieces of candy or treats that could have been tampered with (because as much as we all would like trick-or-treating to be a safe and positive experience, I know that this isn’t always the case), I would have first dibs.

Growing up with two siblings who were a considerable age older that I was, and having both of them quit trick-or-treating around the same time I began, I really had to watch them like hawks.  Otherwise, they would have gobbled up the really delicious chocolates, candies, and potato chips, leaving me with licorice lollipops, raisins, Popeye candy sticks, and those disgusting taffy-like candies in the black and orange wrappers.


Yeah.  Those.  Apparently they’re known as Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses.  And, apparently, I was wrong in thinking that it was impossible to completely screw up something as delicious as peanut butter.

Luckily, those candies happened to be my mom’s all-time favourite...and considering how long I stayed out on Halloween night to get candy, she often had enough of them to last her until Valentine’s Day!

Thank goodness that you can only get those candies once a year on Halloween.  But the truth is that there are so many other Halloween foods that you can only get on Halloween, and 2012 seems to be a year in which you never have a shortage of brand new, limited time only treats...well, provided you live in Canada.


For one, I think we Canadians are the only ones in the world (unless there are specialty shops in the United States) that have modified the sweetness of a Cadbury Creme Egg into the green-centered spooky Cadbury Screme Egg!  This is the first year that I have ever seen them being offered as a Halloween treat, and although I am typically not a fan of them (even someone with a notorious sweet tooth as myself finds them too rich), I might end up sampling a couple of them to see if they are just as delicious as their Easter counterparts.


I notice that some of Nestle’s most famous chocolate bars in Canada have changed their names as well to reflect the spirit of Halloween.  When else can you find “Scaero” (Aero), “Scaries” (Smarties), or “Coffin Crisp” (Coffee Crisp)?  I don’t think you’d be able to find them at Christmas!

Even at the breakfast table, you could find some rather spooky characters hanging around your home right around Halloween.  I should know, I ended up practically begging my parents to throw in a box of my favourite cereal that I could only get during the month of October.


That cereal was “Count Chocula”, and it happened to also be the first of five monster-themed cereals that the General Mills company released beginning in the early 1970s.

And, since I’ve brought this up, why don’t we take the opportunity to talk about Count Chocula, and the other cereals that could be served as part of a nutritious, if not spooky breakfast?

In October 1971, General Mills issued the first two cereals in the “Monster” line.  Count Chocula was the first to be released, and simultaneously was the only Monster cereal that I actually liked.  But then again, I have a chocolate addiction so strong that I am surprised that I haven’t been checked into “Chocoholics Anonymous” yet.  No longer did I have to buy Lucky Charms and Cocoa Pebbles and mix them together!  The cereal came with chocolate cereal pieces and marshmallows!  This was the perfect cereal...well, in the eyes of a six-year-old boy, anyway. 
The mascot of Count Chocula was obviously supposed to be a Count Dracula knockoff.  During the earliest commercials for Count Chocula, voice artist Larry Kenney voiced Count Chocula taking lots of inspiration from Bela Lugosi!


But did you know that Count Chocula wasn’t the only cereal to be released in October 1971?  Also on the market was “Franken Berry”, a pink, strawberry-flavoured cereal with a giant pink Frankenstein inspired monster as its spokespersonmonster.  In the commercials, Franken Berry was voiced by Bob McFadden, channeling Boris Karloff.  There were lots of kids who loved eating Franken Berry cereal, but three months after the cereal went on the market, parents and kids started to notice one major side effect caused by the cereal.  Because the dye that was used to colour the cereal was one that was unable to break down and digest it, the end result meant that when children had to use the washroom...well...it came out pink!

(If there was anyone out there who was around in 1971/1972 trying this cereal for the first time reading this blog right now, can you verify this to be the truth?  Because if that is the case, that would be quite disturbing!)

I’m not even going to test this theory out myself because I happen to hate strawberry flavoured food.  I have an allergy to strawberries anyway, and I cannot stand artificially flavoured strawberry cereals.  But I imagine that food dyes have come a long way in forty years.  At least, one can hope.


In 1973, a third Monster cereal was released, and this one was particularly special because it was widely reported to be the very first example of a blueberry flavoured cereal ever used.  That cereal, of course, was “Boo Berry”.  Boo Berry was a little blue ghost who was voiced by Paul Frees, and the actor that he got inspired by was Peter Lorre.  You can view the commercial for Boo Berry below.


You know, one thing that I always regretted was that I never got the chance to try Boo Berry cereal.  I may have hated strawberry flavoured things, but I was always a fan of blueberry.  And, sure, the cereal inside looked more purple than blue, but I still would have liked to have tried it just once.  I don’t even remember seeing it in Canada, so I have no idea if it even made it across the border.  But, I see that it, along with Franken Berry and Count Chocula are still made seasonally, so maybe I’ll get a chance yet.

There were also two other Monster cereals made, but both of those have been discontinued, and you won’t be able to find them in stores...at least not yet.  But just in case you were wondering what they were, I’ll share them with you now.


The first discontinued cereal was introduced exactly one year after Boo Berry was brought onto the market.  In 1974, “Fruit Brute” found its way into supermarkets all over North America, with its mascot being an orange werewolf. 
The cereal was discontinued in 1983, so it was a cereal that I was way too young to remember.  I actually had to look it up because I didn’t think that there was such a cereal.  But given the description of the cereal, I can probably see why it didn’t last.  It was a rather unusual flavour.  The cereal bits were fruit flavoured, so I would assume that they were flavoured like Trix, or Froot Loops.  But the marshmallows were also given a lime flavour, which to me didn’t make a lot of sense.  But then again, I was a kid who preferred marshmallows to be original, and not fruit flavoured.  I guess maybe that’s why the description turned me off a little.


The final Monster cereal came sixteen years after the first one was released, in 1987.  Fruity Yummy Mummy” featured a multicoloured mummy character decked out in bandages of orange, yellow, purple, and pink...coincidentally the same colours as the cereal pieces and marshmallows.  It was basically a reintroduction of Fruit Brute, only with different flavours of cereal and marshmallows (instead of lime, the marshmallows were vanilla flavoured).


I would also like to say that I regret missing out on this cereal too, because it actually sounded like one that would be somewhat delicious.  Unfortunately, the cereal has been off the market for almost twenty years, so unless I want stale cereal, I guess I would be completely out of luck, huh?

So, I suppose in terms of how I would rank the cereals in my own mind (keeping in mind that I’ve only ever really had one), I would rank the order as this from most willing to try to less willing.

1.      COUNT CHOCULA

2.      BOO BERRY

3.      YUMMY MUMMY CEREAL

4.      FRUIT BRUTE

5.      FRANKEN BERRY

Well, how about you?  Do you have any memories of General Mills monster-themed cereals?  Share them below, if you like!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

October 16, 1946


Welcome to another exciting edition of the Tuesday Timeline, where we go back in time to look at a particular event from pop culture past. This week's edition will focus on a particular individual who has had success in the world of television, books, and believe it or not, infomercials! But, that's all I will say for now. Well, at least until we get through the other events of October 16 anyway.

Some interesting events that have taken place on October 16 include the following...

1384 – Jadwiga becomes the first female to be given the title of “King of Poland”

1590 – Prince of Venoza and Count of Conza Carlo Gesualdo murders his wife and her lover at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples, Italy

1781 – George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown

1793 – Marie Antoinette is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte is attacked by the Sixth Coalition in the Battle of Leipzig

1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster burns to the ground

1841 – Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

1846 – The first demonstration of ether anesthesia is performed by William TG Morton at the Massachusetts General Hospital

1869 – The Cardiff Giant is “discovered” (later proven to be a hoax) on the same day that Girton College, Cambridge is also founded (not a hoax)

1875 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah

1882 – Nickle Plate Railroad opens for business

1916 – Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States in Brooklyn, New York

1923 – Walt and Roy Disney found the Walt Disney Company

1939 – One of the earliest battles of World War II takes place when the German Luftwaffe invades British territory

1944 – Wally Walrus, the first foil for Woody Woodpecker, debuts

1951 – The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins

1964 – The People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon

1968 – Two American Olympic athletes (Tommie Smith and John Carlos) are thrown off the team for their participation in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

1970 – War Measures Act is invoked in Canada by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau

1978 – Wanda Rutkiewicz becomes the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest

1984 – Desmond Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize on the same day that Britain's longest running cop drama, “The Bill” debuts

1995 – Million Man March takes place in Washington D.C.

2006 – An earthquake measuring 6.7 magnitude strikes the Hawaiian islands, which causes landslides, power outages, and the temporary closure of Honolulu International Airport

2011 – British race car driver Dan Wheldon is killed in a crash at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway at the age of 33

What a busy day October 16 was, eh? I got tired just typing all that out, and we haven't even reached the celebrity birthday portion yet!

Speaking of which, here are some famous faces celebrating a birthday today! Becoming one year older are Angela Lansbury, Ann Morgan Guilbert, Peter Ashdown, Barry Corbin, Fred Turner (Bachman-Turner Overdrive), David Zucker, Boogie Mosson (P Funk), Tony Carey (Planet P Project), Stephen Mellor, Ellen Dolan, Tim Robbins, Brian Harper, Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet), Randy Vasquez, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Tom Tolbert, Davina McCall, Wendy Wilson (Wilson Phillips), Chad Gray, Adrianne Frost, Kellie Martin, Ryan Fitzgerald, John Mayer, Erin Brown, Sue Bird, Jeremy Jackson, Pippa Black, Rachel Reilly, and Bryce Harper.

And then we have one more celebrity celebrating a birthday today.



Their date of birth? October 16, 1946. And, if you are wondering why the logo looks a little bit pink...well, we'll get to that a little later.

As I mentioned before, this celebrity is one that has made a name for herself in television, including infomercials. She's also written a few books, hosted her own short-lived talk show, and she's also appeared in bit parts in some major films. On the flipside, she has also had her moments of controversy including being fired from the show that made her a star, as well as undergoing health scares.

Through everything, this woman has survived it all long enough to mark birthday number 66!



Happy birthday, Suzanne Somers! This blog is all about you today!

Suzanne Somers was born Suzanne Marie Mahoney in San Bruno, California on October 16, 1946. She was the third of four children, and she grew up in an Irish Catholic family. And, needless to say, Suzanne's early childhood was not exactly ideal. If you pick up her book, “Keeping Secrets”, it explains the situation a lot better than I ever could, but basically, Suzanne's father was an alcoholic who often hurled abuse the rest of the family as a result of it.

The upbringing that she went through left some deep scars on Suzanne emotionally, and after she graduated high school, she lied about her background to other people. In an interview that she did with Orange Coast Magazine in the summer of 1988, she recounted that she would tell other people that her father was dead, or that he was a doctor, or other things that would make her situation seem more respectable. She was that ashamed of him.

Suzanne would end up getting her name by a brief marriage to Bruce Somers. They got married in 1965, and the marriage would last just three years. The union did produce Suzanne's only son, Bruce Somers Jr. And, Suzanne also began her acting career, taking bit parts in television shows and movies. Despite all this, she struggled with low self-esteem, and bouts of depression over how she grew up.

It wouldn't be until a tragedy occurred in Suzanne's life that things ironically got better. When Suzanne's son was just a toddler, he was critically injured in a car accident, and Suzanne worried that he would die from his injuries. Bruce eventually made a full recovery from the accident, but both Bruce and Suzanne were so emotionally scarred by the accident that they ended up going to therapy about it, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions that Suzanne ended up making for both herself and her son. She came to terms with her terrible childhood experiences, and caused her to reevaluate everything that she had believed was true. As she later explained in the interview she did with Orange Coast Magazine, if it wasn't for the accident which caused her to go into therapy, she likely wouldn't have become successful, and she also wouldn't have met her current husband of 35 years, Alan Hamel.

And she certainly wouldn't have landed the role that made her famous.



Yes, in 1977, Suzanne Somers was cast in the role of Christmas Noelle Snow on the long-running sitcom “Three's Company” alongside John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt. Of course, Suzanne was the last one cast in the show, as many people know that a different actress played the role in the unaired 1976 original pilot episode. Susanne Zenor assumed the role (which was then called Samantha) in that episode. When she wasn't picked up for the second filming, Susan Lanier took over the role (which had since become Chrissy). Suzanne Somers ended up getting the role after the audience in the third taping of the pilot approved.



For the first four seasons of the show, Suzanne Somers wowed audiences with her portrayal of Chrissy Snow, a beautiful, sexy blonde whose penchant for short shorts and lopsided pigtails made the hearts of men all over the world flutter. I mean, sure, she was the stereotypical “dumb blonde” role, but Somers' portrayal was so convincing that you couldn't help but root for her. And, her breakout role certainly got attention from entertainment magazines and the press. In 1978, she appeared on over fifty different magazine covers alone, and her star continued to rise as the 1970s became the 1980s.

Unfortunately, this was where Suzanne Somers ended up doing something that cost her dearly.

Shortly before the 1980/1981 season was set to begin taping, contract negotiations were taking place, and Somers was earning a respectable $30,000 per episode. However, Suzanne decided that $30,000 was not enough for her, and raised the stakes. She wanted five times her salary, as well as 10% ownership of the sitcom. This seemed to shock a lot of people, especially her co-stars and executives at ABC, who flatly rejected her salary increase. So, Suzanne decided to take matters into her own hands. She skipped out of filming the second and fourth episodes of the fifth season by telling the producers that she had a broken rib and other excuses. For the rest of the season, she ended up only making one-minute appearances by talking to either Janet or Jack on the telephone from a separate soundstage (the reason being that neither Ritter or DeWitt wanted to work with Somers following her backstage antics). 




By the spring of 1981, it had become clear that ABC had enough of Suzanne Somers, and she was fired...her replacement being Jenilee Harrison, who played Chrissy's cousin, Cindy.

Suzanne tried suing ABC for $2 million in damages caused to her career, but she ended up not winning the lawsuit. Suzanne tried jumping ship to CBS to start another sitcom, but the sitcom idea was not picked up (Suzanne would later explain in one of her books that Three's Company producers had sent cease and desist letters to CBS, which stated that Somers could not bring her Chrissy Snow characterizations to the new project). Whether this is true or not, I cannot say...though it does sound rather believable.

Throughout the early and mid-1980s, Somers tried her hand at a few other projects. She did pose for Playboy in 1984 (another feature was printed in 1980, but those pictures were shots that she had done before she became famous), and in the mid-1980s, Somers ended up putting a face to the modern-day infomercial with this popular product.



I don't have any information of how many Thighmasters were sold while Somers was pitching them, but I can only imagine that the infomercials only helped.



And, hey, one can say that the Thighmaster helped Somers get jobs. It was while she was doing the infomercials that she ended up getting her first sitcom job in six years, 1987's “She's The Sheriff”. That sitcom featured Somers as the widowed mother of two children who assumes her husband's job as the sheriff of a small Nevada town. It ended up running for two seasons, wrapping up production in 1989. It wasn't the best show in the world, but it did get her name back out there, and she spent most of 1990 doing made for television movies.



And in 1991, she ended up proving that lightning struck twice when she ended up getting the role of Carol Foster Lambert in the ABC sitcom “Step By Step”, where she starred alongside Patrick Duffy. The show ran until 1998, which was the same year she began co-hosting the revival of “Candid Camera” with Peter Funt. In between that, she attempted hosting her own daytime talk show, “The Suzanne Somers Show”, which only lasted the 1994-1995 season.

Over the last few years, Somers has attempted a Broadway show (which unfortunately failed), and in 2012, she began hosting an online radio show on CafeMom called “Suzanne Somers Breaking Through”.



But during the early 2000s, Suzanne underwent a health scare (and this is where the pink logo comes into play). You see, October is “Breast Cancer Awareness Month”, and one of the symbolic colours of the month is pink. In 2001, Suzanne was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently in remission from the disease, which is fantastic news for her...however, it was the way that she chose to fight off the illness that ended up generating a little bit of controversy.

You see, Suzanne underwent a lumpectomy and radiation treatments in order to help get rid of the cancer, but she drew the line at chemotherapy, rejecting all forms of it. In 2008, Suzanne made the announcement that she had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer by six different doctors, but a week later, she made the discovery that she had been misdiagnosed. But that wasn't where the controversy lie.

It was Suzanne's decision to pursue alternative methods to treating cancer after speaking to several doctors about the possible treatment options available to her at the time that got tongues wagging...especially after Suzanne promoted these treatments in her book, “Knockout”. In the book, she sings the praises of the Wiley Protocol as a possible method of cancer treatment, and claimed that it worked for her...and that caused the American Cancer Society Society to speak out against it, instructing people not to follow the method that Somers promoted.

My honest assessment is that while I am not a doctor, and have no business promoting alternative medicine to treat an illness...however, if someone is in the same situation that Suzanne Somers is in, fighting for their lives...wouldn't you try almost anything to get better? There are two sides to every story here, and I'll leave it up to you to debate it.



I think Suzanne Somers is one of those people in which time can heal all wounds. Yeah, Suzanne might have annoyed ABC with her antics at Three's Company, but she obviously learned from her mistakes when the same network gave Somers the okay to star in another sitcom ten years later. Somers even took steps to repair the damage between her and her two co-stars from Three's Company. Somers and John Ritter patched things up between them and cleared the air shortly before his September 11, 2003 passing, and just recently, Joyce DeWitt appeared as a guest on her online radio show after not speaking to Somers for thirty-one years!

At any rate, yes, she made some mistakes. But, haven't we all? The point is that she has managed to overcome some of the biggest obstacles to get to where she is...and despite the fights, tears, and controversies, she's in a good place right now. I think that Suzanne Somers has had, and continues to have one heck of a life!

And, that's our look back on October 16, 1946.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Rosemary's Baby


I’ll be the first one to admit that I like scary movies, but I am definitely not a fan of scary movies that use a lot of blood, gore, and body parts exploding every ten minutes.

Granted, there are some exceptions.  I loved both versions of “Dawn of the Dead”, and I eventually grew to like and appreciate last week’s topic “Pet Semetary” (despite the fact that it took me almost a decade to summon up enough courage to watch it the whole way through).  And, if the film has a decent enough plotline in which the gory scenes make absolute sense and aren’t just thrown in for shock value, then I am all for it.

The “Scream” series managed to do this well.  “Friday the 13th” started off strong, but got silly towards the end.  And, I don’t even want to discuss “Saw”, “Final Destination”, or any other movies with the words “Saw” or “Final Destination” in the titles, because I will not be diplomatic.

I may be a rare breed here, but I find that the best scary movies are the ones that don’t have to rely heavily on gore to make an impact.  One of the main reasons why I loved Alfred Hitchcock movies so much was because of the fact that he used very little gore in his films (well, aside from the shower scene in “Psycho”), and instead made some of the best psychological thrillers in the history of cinema.

I think a lot of it also has to do with the calibre of acting skills that the people demonstrate in the films that can make or break it.  The reason why I tend to shun some of the most recent horror/thriller films made (within the last ten years or so) is because the acting is so over-the-top that I dismiss them more as tragic comedies rather than scary thrillers.  I’m not saying that everyone in the film has to have training at Julliard or have won an Academy Award, but at the very least make the performance believable.

Today’s blog entry will be focusing on a film that is definitely classified as a horror film, and it certainly made audiences flock to the box office with the expectation of being scared.  When it opened up in theatres on June 12, 1968, the film made close to $34 million (which doesn’t sound like a whole lot until you realize that the totals were based on what the prices were back in 1968).  But unlike some of the current horror flicks that are showcased at the box office, this film did not use a whole lot of gore to make its point, yet it still remains one of the scariest films ever made.

The film ended up making “Peyton Place” star Mia Farrow even more famous, and it was one of the last films Roman Polanski directed before the tragic slaying of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of Charles Manson and his followers. 


That movie, of course, is “Rosemary’s Baby”, the 1968 psychological horror film adaptation of Ira Levin’s 1967 bestselling novel, which in turn was based on the publicity that surrounded the Church of Satan of Anton LaVey, which had been founded a year before that.  The film earned quite a few accolades from critics at the time, and if you log on the website “Rotten Tomatoes”, you’ll likely find the film ranks within the 90-100% range on any given day.  It was nominated for several awards, and just take a look at some of the big awards that the film ended up winning.

1 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon)

1 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon)

2 David di Donatello Awards for Best Foreign Actress (Mia Farrow), and Best Foreign Director (Roman Polanksi)

1 French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Foreign Film

2 Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Sidney Blackmer) and Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon)


(Wow...Ruth Gordon really hit the ball out of the park with her performance, didn’t she?)

Anyway, aside from Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon, and Sidney Blackmer, the film also starred John Cassavetes, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Victoria Vetri, and Charles Grodin. 


The movie begins as young, married couple Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (Farrow and Cassavetes) move into a 19th century apartment building in New York City known as the Bramford.  They are immediately welcomed with open arms by their elderly neighbours, Minnie and Roman Castevet (Gordon and Blackmer), who appear quite harmless in spite of their quirks.  Guy is instantly drawn to the elderly couple, and Rosemary also treated them kindly, even though she was a bit guarded towards them.

While Guy goes out in the city to try and land acting jobs, Rosemary stays at home to become a housewife, and one particular day, she meets a young woman in the laundry room named Terry Gionoffrio (Vetri) who sings the praises of the Castevets.  She looked to the Castevets as surrogate grandparents who helped her get off the streets, and who helped her overcome a drug addiction.  Rosemary is drawn to a pendant that Terry is wearing, and remarked on the beauty of it, despite its strange smell.  But the pendant is Terry’s prized possession, as it was given to her by the Castevets.

One night, Rosemary and Guy are both stunned to hear all sorts of commotion going on down on the street, and even more shocked to learn that Terry committed suicide, throwing herself out the seventh story window of the Castevet apartment.  Minnie and Roman are absolutely devastated by Terry’s death, and they are obviously very shaken, but Rosemary comforts both of them by telling them what Terry told her.

A few days after Terry’s death, Rosemary and Guy are invited to the Castevet apartment by Minnie for dinner.  Although Rosemary is reluctant to go at first, the couple decide to attend anyway, where Minnie gives Rosemary Terry’s pendant for her to wear.  Minnie explains that the strange smell is caused by the plant root inside the pendant, “tannis root”, and that the pendant would be a good luck charm for Rosemary.  Rosemary is still a bit hesitant of the couple, but accepts the gift in good will.

Things start happening to the Woodhouses shortly after that dinner.  Guy ends up getting a break in a play after the lead actor who originally had the part loses his vision in a rather bizarre way.  And, Guy sees this as a sign that he and Rosemary should try for the child that they have always wanted to have together.  Rosemary agrees, and on the night that the couple plan to conceive their child, Minnie ends up bringing over a chocolate mousse dessert for both of them.  But unfortunately for Rosemary, her dessert has a bit of a strange aftertaste, and she can only stomach a few mouthfuls of it before deciding that she can’t stand eating another bite.


That night, Rosemary ends up having a rather frightening and horrible dream where she is surrounded by a bunch of naked people (all tenants of the apartment building, including the Castevets) who stand around and watch as she is repeatedly attacked by a demonic presence.  It is a scene so shocking that I can’t post it on here,  but take my word for it, it’s probably one of the most disturbing scenes in the whole movie.  It’s so disturbing for Rosemary that at some point, she exclaims that she is no longer in a dream and that it is really happening.  She wakes up with scratches all over her body, and she is wondering what happened.  Guy tells Rosemary that when he saw that she was unconscious (from the dream), he was disappointed because he really wanted to conceive a child with her that night, so he made love to her while she was out cold.

What a prince, huh?

Sure enough, Rosemary discovers that she is pregnant shortly after that horrible event...the due date being in June of 1966...or...6/66.  The symbolism is just oozing out of this picture, isn’t it?  And, within the first few months of the pregnancy, Rosemary seems to exhibit some rather...odd symptoms.  She actually loses weight instead of gains it, her skin becomes increasingly pale, and her favourite food craving happens to be raw meat!  On top of all that, she doesn’t even get to go to the doctor that she wanted to go to during the pregnancy, with the Castevets insisting that Rosemary have monthly check-ups with a doctor they have recommended, one Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Bellamy).


Rosemary’s friend Hutch (Evans) notices the negative changes that have happened as a result of her pregnancy and he is incredibly disturbed to hear that Rosemary is drinking a cocktail that is enriched with tannis root.  He tries to do some research on the root so he can warn Rosemary, but just before he can he develops a strange illness and falls into a coma.  He briefly comes out of the coma long enough to tell a doctor that he left a book about witchcraft on his desk, and that he wants Rosemary to have it before passing away.  One of Hutch’s friends makes sure that Rosemary gets the book at his funeral, and when Rosemary examines it, she finds a message in Hutch’s handwriting that reads the following.  “The name is an anagram”.

And, that’s where I plan to end this look back at Rosemary’s Baby, because if I go any further, I’ll spoil the surprise ending.  And we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Instead, here’s a bit of trivia surrounding the making of this film.

-          Initially, the role of Rosemary Woodhouse was intended for Tuesday Weld or Sharon Tate to play.

-          Patty Duke was also briefly considered for the role of Rosemary, but was instead given the role in the 1976 made for television sequel “Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby”.

-          Mia Farrow was married to Frank Sinatra at the time she accepted the role of Rosemary.  It would be this role that would later be the catalyst to the marriage breaking up, with Sinatra filing for divorce while Mia was filming the movie, even having somebody serve her the papers while she was filming a pivotal scene for the film!

-          Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson were both considered for the role of Guy Woodhouse.

-          You know the scene in the movie where Rosemary calls the newly blind actor whose part Guy took over in that play?  The voice belonged to Tony Curtis!  In fact, Mia Farrow was not informed of who the voice would be reading the lines of the actor in order for Polanski to get a more genuine reaction from Mia.



-          In the opening scenes of “Rosemary’s Baby”, Rosemary’s long hair was actually a wig that was fashioned by Sydney Ghilaroff.  When the wig was removed, it revealed the incredibly short Vidal Sassoon cut that made headlines after Farrow chopped off her signature long locks during filming of “Peyton Place”.

-          Ruth Gordon was the only actress to reprise her role in the 1976 sequel.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Last Dance With Mary Jane...


I'm going to open up this particular Sunday Jukebox entry with a little bit of a confession. I love almost any song released by Tom Petty.



And, in keeping with the theme of Halloween coming up soon, I thought that I would make the focus all about Tom Petty in this edition of the blog.

Think about it. Featuring a Tom Petty song around this time of year makes sense. He's had a career that has spanned almost four decades, has released several hit albums, was a part of three...count 'em...three bands (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Traveling Wilburys, Mudcrutch), has starred in some of the most interesting, thought-provoking, Tim Burton like music videos associated with his biggest hits, and his birthday is eleven days before Halloween!

(Not as cool as having a birthday ON Halloween, but hey, I take what I can get.)

But when it came time to choose a song to feature, I admit that I had a difficult time choosing one. Really, almost all of them are worth having a blog entry about them.

I mean, I suppose I could have chosen “Free Fallin'”, which is rumoured to be the number one song for getting comatose patients to wake up (whether its an urban legend or an actual happening, I don't know, but either way, I love the story). Unfortunately, that song was way overplayed in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994 for me to care if I ever listened to that song ever again.

Refugee” is a decent enough song. It came out in 1980, and was likely one of the songs that helped bring Tom Petty into the mainstream music scene. But that's about all of the information that I could dig up on that particular hit. Although I don't deny the coolness of the song that is “Refugee”, I feel that I wouldn't be able to do the song justice in a blog.

Don't Come Around Here No More” was another possibility, as it peaked at #13 in 1985. And, certainly the accompanying music video was one of Tom Petty's finest achievements, using an “Alice in Wonderland” setting to tell the story of the song. But, I think I'll save that song for the time when I actually do an Alice in Wonderland blog entry. Besides, when I was five years old, I freaked out at the scene in which the band cuts open Alice as if she were a living, breathing Bundt cake.



And, we won't even discuss the travesty of the 1996 hit single “Walls”. Not because of the fact that it is a terrible song (it's not great, but I didn't mind it), but because it will forever be associated with the horrible Jennifer Aniston movie “She's The One”. Yeah, that's a movie that I really want to forget.

So, I was left with a quandary. What Tom Petty songs were left? “The Waiting”? “You Got Lucky”? “Runnin' Down A Dream?”

But then I got to thinking...you know, Matthew, Halloween is coming up very soon...and well, why not do a song that features something scary?

And, well...here was my pick!



ARTIST: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
SONG: Mary Jane's Last Dance
ALBUM: Greatest Hits
DATE RELEASED: November 16, 1993
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #14

All right, so let's get the video out of the way, shall we?

The music video was well-received by the public, even scoring an MTV Video Music Award in 1994 for Best Male Video. Of course, the video had a lot going for it. A modest budget, a huge Hollywood starlet making a cameo (Kim Basinger), and a great, albeit incredibly morbid and creepy plotline.



Tom Petty plays a morgue assistant who obviously must have graduated right out of the nearest psychiatric institution, as during the whole first part of the video, we see that something isn't quite right with him. It's only until he unzips the body bag of a beautiful young, dead woman (played by Basinger) that we really discover how twisted a freak he really is.

Apparently he is a necrophiliac.

(A necrophiliac, of course, is someone that has a sexual fetish for people who are...well...dead in the sack...and then some.)

So, Tom, the morgue assistant/necrophiliac decides that he wants to go on a date. Never mind that the object of his affection is unable to tell him yes, no, or is able to pepper spray his creepy looking eyes...she really has no say in the matter. She's dead. I honestly don't know how he managed to smuggle a corpse out of the morgue without his supervisor saying anything, or at the very least chasing after him through the hallways. Oh, well...I don't work in a morgue, so I'm not entirely sure what the protocol is.

Tom ends up driving his corpse bride back to his house (which looks haunted from the outside), and tries to make her feel comfortable by sitting her on the sofa to watch television on a retro 1960s television set. Which would be great if our corpse could actually SEE the screen and HEAR the show! But, again, I keep telling myself that Tom the morgue assistant is one lime green cereal piece short of a box of Trix.



Now here's where things get even weirder. After dressing her up in what appears to be a dual-purpose prom/wedding dress, putting bright red lipstick on her, and serving her dinner (a rather creative way to waste food if you ask me), Tom lights a whole bunch of candles, and re-enacts his favourite episode of “Dancing With The Corpses”!

TRIVIA: In all seriousness, the candle scene was based off of a passage from the Charles Dickens novel “Great Expectations”, and no harm was done to either Petty or Basinger during the filming of that scene...which is good, since accidental cremation would have just ruined the whole night.

Eventually, Tom decides that his new friend isn't lively enough for him, so he carries her to the beach, and buries her at sea. How romantic. But wait...did you see her eyes open up at the very end of the music video? This can only mean one of two things...she either faked her death so she could have one last fling with someone else (no matter how creepy they were), or the water turned her into a flesh-eating zombie.

Yeah, let's go with that second explanation. Zombies are always the best explanation.

Now, that might be the storyline of the music video. But does the storyline of “Mary Jane's Last Dance” match the video? Well, I suppose if the dead corpse that Kim Basinger played was named Mary Jane, it might have some sort of meaning.

The more I listen to the lyrics though, the more I think that it has absolutely nothing to do with the creepy video. In fact, it could have a couple of meanings behind it.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Everyone who is at least 20-something or over knows that the phrase “Mary Jane” is a slang term for the drug known as marijuana. I personally have never tried the stuff myself (nor do I want to as the stench of it makes me want to hurl), but a lot of people do use it, including people who are suffering from painful diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and arthritis. The reason being that marijuana is a drug that has been proven to kill pain, and thus many people use its healing benefits as a way to feel better. So, I suppose one way you could look at the song is that it is in reference to someone who is sick, dying, or just needs one more dose of “Mary Jane” to kill the pain.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT advocating drug use in this blog. I'm merely explaining one of the possible meanings of this song.

And, certainly Mike Campbell (the guitarist for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) has not confirmed nor denied this possibility...just that it was just one interpretation.

I suppose one can also say that the song meaning is all about losing your first love, and it could be a song saying goodbye to Mary Jane the girl, instead of Mary Jane the drug. And I can absolutely take that meaning and run with it as well.

I guess as far as this song goes, it really is up to interpretation.



One final note before I close off this blog entry for today. Campbell also mentioned that the song's original title wasn't “Mary Jane's Last Dance”. You might have noticed that the first verse of the song has quite a few references to the state of Indiana within it. That's because the original title was supposed to be “Indiana Girl”, and the chorus was supposed to go like this. “Hey, Indiana girl, go out and find the world”.

For whatever reason, the band just didn't think the line blended well with the rest of the song at all, and the track's producer, Rick Rubin, outright hated it and changed the lyrics about a week after the chorus was penned. I think that it was a smart decision.

After all, we don't want any woman from the state of Indiana thinking she's a stiff!  

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Dueling "Ghostbusters"


It's time for another look back on the Saturday Mornings of yesteryear. And for this entry, I thought that we would take a look at a show that was based off of a popular movie from the 1980s. It was a program that despite a lawsuit threat, a revolving door of voice artists and a tinkering of concepts ran for five seasons on ABC and in syndication.

And it was also a show that yours truly grew up on, watched religiously, and never missed a single episode.

And this is surprising, considering that when I first watched the movie, I was too afraid of it to sit through it the first time.

I blogged about this movie a year ago (which you can read about HERE if you like), but the movie that inspired today's blog topic was 1984's “Ghostbusters”. And, yes, “Ghostbusters” scared the heck out of me when I first watched it. But in my defense, “Ghostbusters” came out when I was three years old, and admittedly when I was three, I was a big wimp. A few years later, I gave the movie another whirl, and it instantly became one of my favourites...which was a good thing because right around the time I started liking the movie, the cartoon version started airing.



That cartoon, of course, was “The Real Ghostbusters”.



The cartoon began airing on ABC on September 13, 1986, and ran until September 1991, and it was a three-way production between DiC Enterprises, Columbia Pictures Television, and Coca-Cola Telecommunications.

Now, I suppose some of you might be wondering why the cartoon is referred to as the “Real” Ghostbusters. Well, would you believe that just a few days before “The Real Ghostbusters” debuted, another cartoon series produced by Filmation known as “Ghostbusters” began airing?

Yeah, “Ghostbusters” debuted five days earlier, on September 8, and was a completely different format than “The Real Ghostbusters”. In the Filmation version, the cartoon was a revamp of an earlier 1970s live-action program also called “Ghostbusters”. Below you can watch the intro of that show.



Here's the thing about the Filmation series “Ghostbusters”. The program ran for 65 episodes during the 1986-1987 series, and the main characters were Jake Kong and Eddie Spenser (in the cartoon, they were actually the sons of the main characters in the 1975 version). Oh yeah...there was also a gorilla named Tracy that tagged along with them. So, in a way, it was trying to be a bit like Scooby-Doo with a kooky animal sidekick. I'm almost kind of surprised that Hanna-Barbera didn't jump on this idea and run with it.

I'll admit to watching the Filmation version of the show, and when I was a kid, I did somewhat enjoy it. But I hated the gorilla, and only watched the episodes that heavily featured Jessica in them.

(I mean, seriously, what were they thinking with the gorilla?)

Now, here's where things get quite interesting. When Columbia Pictures released the 1984 film “Ghostbusters”, they seemed to neglect the fact that a television series had been already produced nine years earlier...and when Filmation found out the news, they immediately filed a lawsuit against Columbia Pictures. The two companies ended up settling the suit out of court, but there was one condition that Columbia Pictures had to abide by. They could not use the name “Ghostbusters”on any future projects, including cartoon series, toys, comic books, and video games.

At some point before both “Ghostbusters” cartoons debuted in September 1986, Filmation actually attempted to work out a development deal with Columbia Pictures based on the movie. This was a deal that Columbia Pictures initially agreed to, and reportedly a basic outline was completed before Columbia decided to pull the plug on their partnership with Filmation. Columbia Pictures instead relied on then animation heavyweight DiC to finish the project, leaving Filmation to regret asking for the animation rights to the cartoon during their settlement.

So with that, the two “Ghostbusters” cartoons went head to head. The Filmation one airing five days a week in syndication, and “The Real Ghostbusters” aired exclusively on Saturday mornings.

But try as Filmation did to come up on top, fans seemed to prefer “The Real Ghostbusters” more. Or, maybe I'm just biased because I did like one version better than the other. I'm interested in knowing which version you prefer.

Here's the deal with “The Real Ghostbusters”. The show did manage to air about four years longer than “Ghostbusters”, but “The Real Ghostbusters” ended up having a lot of tweaking and changes done to it during its five year run.



Firstly, although the cartoon shared the same characters as the movie, there were slight differences. On the movie, the uniforms that the Ghostbusters wore were all the same colour. In the cartoon, they were all different (Peter Venkman wore brown, Ray Stantz wore tan, Egon Spengler wore navy, and Winston Zeddemore wore light blue). In the movie, Janine the secretary was kind of dowdy and nerdy, but in the cartoon, she was actually kind of...attractive...in a nerdy way. Perhaps the biggest difference between the movie and the cartoon was the role of Slimer. In the movie, Slimer was kind of an antagonist of sorts...and in the cartoon, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a liability than an asset. But in the cartoon, Slimer is now a friend of the Ghostbusters instead of a foe.

There were some changes in the voice actors as well. When the show first debuted in 1986, here was the list of characters, as well as their respective voice actors.

Peter Venkman – LORENZO MUSIC
Ray Stantz – FRANK WELKER
Egon Spengler – MAURICE LAMARCHE
Winston Zeddemore – ARSENIO HALL
Janine Melnitz – LAURA SUMMER

TRIVIA: The voice of Slimer was also provided by Frank Welker.

MORE TRIVIA: When Maurice LaMarche auditioned for the role of Egon Spengler, he was not asked to do an impersonation of Harold Ramis (who played Egon in the movie). But when LaMarche went ahead and did the impersonation, he was hired on the spot.

EVEN MORE TRIVIA: You might be surprised to see Lorenzo Music voicing Peter Venkman, considering that he was also known for being the voice of Garfield, something that Bill Murray (the actor who played Peter Venkman in the movie) was not keen on. Ironically enough, Murray would end up voicing Garfield in the live-action movies that aired in 2004 and 2006 after Music passed away in 2001.

STILL EVEN MORE TRIVIA: Ernie Hudson, who played Winston in the movie, was the only actor from the movie who auditioned for a part in the animated series. Imagine being turned down in favour of Arsenio Hall! Ouch!

The cast and writing staff remained the same for the first two years of the series. But beginning with season three, some major changes took place.



The first change came with the departure of story editor and writer J. Michael Straczynski, as well as the departure of three of the five main voice actors. Lorenzo Music and Arsenio Hall both left the series at the end of the 1987-1988 season, as did Laura Summer. Dave Coulier, who fans probably know best as Joey Gladstone from “Full House”, took over the role of Peter Venkman, while Buster Jones became the new Winston. Janine's voice was taken over by long-time voice artist Kath Soucie.

Another change in the series were some of the character designs. Slimer was given a tail instead of a round bottom, and Ray Stantz ended up losing some weight as he was drawn with a slimmer build. Janine's look was also updated with the new Janine having longer, straighter hair.

There were two new characters added to the show as well. With the “Ghostbusters” movie sequel being released in 1989, the character of Louis Tully was added into the cartoon (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), and Cree Summer was added to the cast as the voice of mail carrier Chilli Cooper.

And this leads to the final change to the program. The title.



Beginning with season three, the show expanded from thirty minutes to an hour. And to make the show last that long, the show was split into two half hour blocks. The first block showed an episode featuring all of the Ghostbusters. The second block featured Slimer getting into his own mishaps and mayhem (these were the cartoons where the new character Chilli could be found). Because of the new focus surrounding Slimer, the show's title was changed to “Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters” in the late 1980s.



Even after the show was cancelled in 1991, another sequel was made of this cartoon. “Extreme Ghostbusters” began airing in 1997, which had Egon training a new team of Ghostbusters (including Janine). This sequel only lasted a few months, but it did introduce a new group of fans to the cartoon series.

And, that's about all I have to say about the two “Ghostbusters” series.  So, why don't we watch an episode of the series that I liked best to conclude this piece?