David Cassidy, Downer

There's nothing like daydreaming about which teen idol to date. Why I'll bet every teenage girl thought if she could just meet Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, or Jimmy McNichol, that the young male testosterone factories would fall in love with them and be the perfect boyfriend. Why, those fine young men are sensitive, sweet, and a joy to be around.

Yes, teen idols are always happy. Well, except for one guy, the mopiest moper who ever graced the cover of a teen mag, causing many a young woman to rip her own head off rather than be stuck in a room with him. You see, David Cassidy is a downer.

Here's David Cassidy. His heart is broken but he's a professional and the show must go on. This is as happy as David gets


David's mental state is going down hill. He starts writing letters about ecology in which he urges people to buy white toilet paper, recycle their bottles and cans, pick up any trash you find on the ground, and don't smoke. He also says don't litter. Somewhere an Indian cries.


Oh god, is that David over there in the corner? He's going to totally ruin the party. I hear his heart got broken. Don't look at him! I think we can sneak out the door before he looks up. Oh no, he's spotted us. Keep walking and pretend you don't see him.


I am so tired of this whiny mopey crap. Yeah, David, I know, she broke your heart, but she's not coming back. So quit following her around and trying to get back together with her. You're only half alive? What the hell is that supposed to mean? That's messed up.


The smile on David's face says he's more than half alive now. Yup, David's a happy guy. Unfortunately you won't be happy because everywhere you turn, there's David - at your office, driving slowly up and down your street, staring at your house, never blinking, parking in front of your neighbors, revving his engine, impersonating the paperboy, sleeping in his car, or standing like a statue outside your window. Um, not only is he a downer, he's really creepy.

As David ups his stalking ante, he tries to buy your affection with roses and sad puppy dog eyes. Unbelievable. Is there nothing he won't try to manipulate you?


Even the teen mags can't hide David's lifeless expression. They have to resort to pathos by imploring teenage girls everywhere to love this pathetic wreck by giving him a lonely little rich boy spin rather than the sad psychotic downer we know him to be.


Oh no, is that Cassidy again? What's he doing here? After bringing everyone down at the last party, I didn't even invite him this time. Man, he looks really pissed off. He's starting to really scare me. Don't leave me alone with him, okay? I think he just mumbled something about making me swim with the fishes.

Really David, just muster a smile and stop whining. Get a grip, man!

Mr. Hyde Ate My Brain

Another cool book I got at the school book fair. How could anyone resist the creepy, hairy, fangy semi-monster man? Um, actually if I saw him in real life, I'd back away slowly, turn on a dime, and run like the wind. But on the cover of a book at the school book fair, when most covers are bland, harmless, oooo-don't-scare-the-kiddies type of books, this one jumped out, smacked me in the head and demanded I buy it. No kid can resist horror classics with disturbing covers.

The Mystery of Dracula's Castle

This was going to be my next post even before seeing a reference to it on Bubblegumfinks Sigmund and the Seamonsters bubblegum cards.

What kid wouldn't want to see Johnny and Scott in the Wonderful World of Disneys "The Mystery of Dracula's Castle!?" I remember being very excited about seeing this movie. Unfortunately I dont' remember anything about it. I'd really like to see it now as live action Disney kids movies in the 1970s were excellent!

Happy Star Trek Day

This is only one of the reasons that my brother and sister-in-law are fantastic. They gave me this cool record for my birthday. I never would have picked it up when it came out as I was too much of a snooty teenager to buy Peter Pan records. Heck, now I'd pick up any Peter Pan tv/movie oriented record I saw.
Here's the back of the sleeve which I must confess, is disappointing. I think it's the incredibly bland color of their outfits and the horribly stiff posing, which make them seem like something out of a wax museum. While the shirts of the 60s were bright colors, now the cast is clad in the soothing non-color of insane asylum walls.

Oh boy, the voices on the record are a treat. The planet's ambassadors inflections reminded me of Roddy McDowell in Planet of the Apes. Scotty had a brogue that only seemed to appear when he rolled his R's. Sulu sounded Asian. Checkov appeared to had marbles in his mouth, Spock's voice was completely generic, and Bones sounded like he was in a Southern Rock band.

And what of Captain Kirk, you ask? Let me put it this way. When I first put the needle on the record, I thought my turntable was messed up because Kirk sounded like an elf. After adjusting it's speed and hearing the other characters talk, I came to the conclusion that whoever is playing Kirk has a higher pitched voice than Shatner. This Peter Pan Kirk sounds a little like Casey Kasem...if he were an elf. (Insert your own joke here).

Oh, I also got this for my birthday - a salesmens promo photo on thick cardboard of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Try opening up a birthday present and not bursting into laugher when you see this staring back at you.

Take a Hike, Nancy Drew!

When I was a kid, I was given some Nancy Drew mysteries. I stared at the well groomed girl on the cover, and decided any girl who looked that neat couldn't be very exciting. She didn't even seem to get dirty. From that day on, I demanded Hardy Boys books.

The Hardy's had better mysteries to solve. While prissy little Nancy was out getting her nails done, or complaining about the speck of dirt on her new dress, the Hardy's were crawling through mud, hiding in a hayloft, and outwitting the bad guys.

Yup those Hardy's always had the best mysteries: The Ghost at Skeleton Rock; The Secret of Skull Mountain; Danger on Vampire Trail; The Mystery at Devils Paw; The Sinister Sign Post..... what the hell?!?!? The Sinister Signpost???? Why that doesn't inspire anything but confusion. "Good god, that signpost... it's evil! Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!" (sound of body landing at the bottom of the cliff)

Honestly, from the cover it appears that the car might be the sinister one since it is running the Hardys off the road, and looks like it's shooting a laser beam into the Danger sign. But perhaps, just perhaps, the sign is shooting a laser into the car. And just maybe the sign reads, "Danger - this sign destroys cars with its white light laser killing beam."

It's the Incredible Hulk...except he's underwater and sort of a fish

When the promtional writeup for the show starts off, "Mark Harris has an expressionless face and speaks in stilted phrases," you know you're in for a long ride. I think I only knew one kid who watched this show, which probably explains why it was cancelled the first season.

Mark is supposedly a survivor from the lost city of Atlantis. I know what you're thinking. But how could a waterlogged, ancient fishman make a living in todays modern world? Well they've thought of everything because Mark "..is employed by a national-security foundation that plunges him into perilous missions to foil mad scientists' diabolical schemes."

Damn! Why do the national security guys always get first dibs on the superhuman plankton eating fishmen? Do we really need a blank faced frogboy with an awkward monotone to fight mad scientists and their diabolical schemes? I think not!

Cool or Embarrassing - You Make the Call

Yes, it's true. Shaun Cassidy did tour to support his albums and he actually played Civic Centers. This is the ad from my local paper, vintage 1979. They used the cover of his Born Late album, and the promo sticker for the "Hey Deanie" single can be seen.

What the hell kind of a name is Deanie anyway? I was always a bit put off by it. But isn't Shaun cute? His hairs a bit too long, but thats okay. Because we all know that cuteness always overrides an odd girl name, like strange old four legged mutant creature Deanie.

Yeah, that's right. I went to the show. How could I miss it? I can't believe my ticket cost $8.50, because the seat wasn't all that great. I was on the left side of the venue a couple of sections from the back. Geez, the $8.00 seats must have been terrible. Maybe you had to sit behind an aggressive outcast with a huge afro and a sharp knife.
I don't remember much about the performance, except that Shaun was a small blob in a spotlight and his satiny spandex pants were really tight. Oh yeah...and the little so and so came onto the stage pretending to be an old man, complete with long flasher-type raincoat, feet shuffling, back hunched over, possibly a cane, and I believe wearing a rubber old man mask.

As the band played, the old man stood there and the teenage girls yelled for Shaun and told the old man to get off the stage. But then the crowd went wild as the old man threw off his mask and creepy raincoat, to reveal he was Shaun. Girls screamed with delight, while at the same time, I couldn't believe he was so lame. So basically what I'm saying is that Shaun passed for a creepy old flasher.

Here's the souvenier program I bought. I also bought a poster, but I don't have a picture of it at this time. I'll dig it out at some point because you really have to experience it. Shaun looks a bit sleepy eyed in this exciting, real, not posed, in concert cover shot. Love the ribbony pink belt, iiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!

Just three more things to mention to make the concert going complete

1. My cousin brought sticks of incense to the concert, which we lit and waved around - for about ten seconds. Then an usher practically flew up the stairs to demand we extinguish them. Geez Dude, it's incense. There's not even a flame, just a smoldering mass of smelly stuff on a stick. Oddly enough he didn't say anything to the girls smoking, even though there were no smoking signs posted everywhere. Oh how I loathed him, the stupid little powermad usher.
   
   
2. The girl behind us taped the concert. This was the 70s before little walkmen, so she had a full sized portable tape recorder in her lap. I wondered how she got it past security and was often tempted to turn around and smack her due to her constant, high pitched screeching.
   
   
3. I would guess that the girl's tape recording was mostly screaming teenage girls with just a hint of Shaun Cassidy. Most of crowd of 8,000 girls (thats right, I said 8,000) were screeching, squeeling, and screaming. I never did get into that whole teenybopper girl going nutzo thing. I had crushes on teen idols, but I never squeeled with delight or cried due to an emotional overload just because someone walked on stage or I caught a glimpse of them. (I must confess my ex once screamed like a teenage girl at a Ramones concert when he saw the band looking through a second floor window overlooking the stage.)
   

Mills Watson, Character Actor of Distinction

I don't think I saw even one episode of the Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. I know one of my brothers friends watched it, but then again he fell off a deck onto his head as a small child. Odd that the idea of dumb law enforcement didn't appeal to me, yet I was completelyl enthralled by Dukes of Hazzard. The best part of Sheriff Lobo must have been the guy pictures on the left, Mills Watson. I remember seeing him all the time in movies and tv in the 70s. He usually played a bad guy, and sometimes the character wasn't that bright.

The Hall of Teen Records

Damn, due to some internet problems, I haven't been able to post this week. So I give you Teen Records of the 70s. In 1976 the Sylvers hit the charts with "Boogie Fever." Cute little Foster had a sweet voice. However I remember being highly disturbed by the Sylver's outfits, especially the girls. I wasn't sure why they had crinkly silver gift wrap for shirts. It doesn't look comfortable and the girl in front has hers tied in a knot, which I thought would probably let go due to the slick silver texture.

But by far the most distressing bit of the cover is that the hairstyle on the girl standing on the right makes it appear that she has been scalped. I stared at the top of her head every time I played the record. I'm still emotionally scarred by it.
Rosetta Stone were in the teen mags because Ian Mitchell (in the center) was briefly in the Bay City Rollers. Hmmm five Scottish lads playing rocknroll aimed at teens? Why does that sound familiar? I bought this album at Zayres and remember being surprised to find it because I doubt it sold to anyone in the US other than BCR fans that remembered Ian. Anyone who liked BCR would probably like Rosetta Stone.

The Bugaloos were so cool. They got to drive around in this weird car, talk to flowers, fly, and they had their own band! I didn't like evil Benita Bizarre, but I thought Funky Rat was fascinating - except his eyes which were kind of creepy.
"When it's time to change, then it's time to change." That Greg Brady was a genius. I also liked young Greg's ballad that began with the Shakespearean couplet, 'Clowns never laughed before, beanstalks never grew, ponies never ran before, til there was you." Sheer poetry. I was so disappointed when "Time to Change" was a straight version of the song without Peter's cracking puberty vocals.

Gotta love Shaun Cassidy. Well I suppose you don't, but he was cute, had nice teeth, solved mysteries every week, and even got to perform his music while playing the younger Hardy. I had a huge crush on Shaun, and put his pin ups on my wall. If you look closely, there seem to be traces of a unibrow, which is not a good selling point for a teen idol.

Disco Dancing, Motorcycle Riding, Lady Charming Ponch..and some blond guy

Hey remember when we used to watch CHiPs every Thursday night? And how we used to fight over who was cooler, Ponch or Jon? And how Ponch was always disco dancing while Jon stood over in the corner shaking his head at his good buddys disco antics?
Or how when the guys reported to Sergeant Getraer we could never understand what his last name was so we called him Contrare, Cotrare, Getrare or Savoir Faire? And how Grossie was always the butt of the guys lame jokes? And we thought the nickname was because he was a slob but it was really because his last name was Grossman? And how Ponch would try to pick up girls while they were out on a call, while Jon stood over by their bikes shaking his head at his good buddys overtly flirty antics?

And do you remember when the show started, that Ponch was the outgoing handsome Lothario and Jon was the quiet sweet boy next door type of guy? But after a few seasons, Ponch was the arrogant primadonna and Jon was the bitter jealous one?

And when Ponch would do his disco rollerskating, Jon would stand at the edge of the rink shaking his head at his buddys girl-impressing, disco skating antics? But we could tell by the look in his eyes that what he was really thinking was, "Why does Ponch always get the girl? Why does everyone want to hang out with Ponch? Why don't the women every pay attention to me? Damn you, Ponch. Damn you all to hell!!! I hope you fall right on your ass, you no good son of a bitch!"

Good times......