Sunday Showcase April 2, 1972

How could I resist a Sunday Showcase with The Brady Bunch on the cover. This was probably the peak original run Brady's since the show still had a couple of seasons left to go. It was and always will be one of my favorite television shows ever made. There's no story on them inside, but the cover alone will do. 

This Sunday Showcase April 2, 1972 review is brought to us by Fotomat's everywhere. I'm afraid the special offer is expired. 

This commercial is from 1976...let's pretend it's 1972

Neil Diamond was set to play his first concert ever in Nashville a few weeks later on April 16th. The talented songwriter had become a big time performer too and was well on his way to becoming the mega-star we know today. I am curious though as to why the advertisement for him seems to have a photo of Lou Reed instead of Neil. I've added a photo of Lou circa 1972 for comparison and even though Lou wasn't about to play Nashville until decades later I'm adding a tune from him too. 

  

This is Neil Diamond - he's great

This is Lou Reed - he's vicious

The Villa is once again promoting "Bandito Nite" which makes me wonder whether you are supposed to dress up like a "bandito" or whether you are supposed to come stick up the place. 

Eddy Dee and The Blues Express are the highlighted act fresh from a stint playing the Playboy Club in Chicago. More questions....why did so many musical acts pose in front of trains? I think I will have to have a separate blog post about this mystery. Eddy "Dee" Dempley was a fairly well known blues singer back in the day and he also played a mean saxophone too. 

Eddy Dee rocks!

The King was coming, but not to Nashville. If you wanted to see Elvis Presley on April 8th you'd have to journey east on I-40 and see him in Knoxville at the Stokely Center. You can get the whole rundown of this performance right here. 

Bootleg of some of this Knoxville show

If you head back to Nashville the morning after Elvis you can enjoy an evening of rock with Lee Michaels along with openers Osibisa and Jo Jo Gunne. Lee Michaels is one of those artists that was popular enough to play Municipal, yet I can't think of any of his songs (and then I stand corrected later). My friend DD Blank likes him. I guess I can begin to acquaint myself better with Lee Michaels by posting a tune from him.

Ok - I did know this tune...I just always forget it's by Lee Michaels - he's cool

Every Sunday Showcase also included a handy capsule guide to all of the sports that would be on TV that week. Sports were not as omnipresent as they are now (well, at least until this pandemic), but they still took up a good chunk of the time especially on the weekend. I would have been most interested about the NBA and ABA basketball, the pro wrestling, and Wide World of Sports since there was no baseball on yet. 

A little bit of Dr. J operating

The Top 10 Records are a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll with Donny Osmond and the Osmonds taking two of the spots. America sits atop the list with their best Neil Young homage. I love Joe Tex's funky soul. The most interesting tune in the Top 10 for me is Giorgio Moroder's "Son Of My Father" which only made it up to 46 on the Billboard charts. 

Joe Tex on Soul Train (a Saturday morning viewing staple for me then)

felt good to be out of the rain

Moroder!

Thus ends another Sunday Showcase review. The Lord willing, the creek don't rise, and the virus don't get me I'll have another one of these up next week for some other year from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and maybe one day a 90's one too. 

Film Flashback January 10, 1980

Yes, it's another film flashback only 12 hours after the last one about January 10, 1975 dropped. How does he do it? It's almost as if these are pre-recorded. We're five years into the future from 1975 yet forty years into the past on January 20, 1980. This is one of those flashbacks where I did see one of the movies in the theatre and have seen all five that were playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee back then some time or another.

Our first stop is Jackson Heights Plaza to see what's playing at the Martin Twin. Stand up comic Steve Martin becomes a movie star and future all time great with the Carl Reiner flick The Jerk. This is one I wasn't allowed to see due to its R rated. I was allowed to see his HBO special and even buy his book Cruel Shoes, but R rated films were out of the question. I was only 13 and should have been smart enough to sneak into the movie, but instead I went and saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I had to learn about The Jerk from my more savvy friends. My school bus driver (bus 84!), Bart Yeagan, would sometimes play Martin's albums if there were no elementary age kids on the bus. I finally saw the movie a few years later either on cable or regular television. I didn't find it as amusing as I thought it would be. Too much hype in my head I suppose. It is a really funny film that has grown on me over the years.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that was very successful at the time which relaunched the franchise, but it didn't get great reviews. I vividly remember going to see it. I was into sci-fi, but had never been a huge fan of the show. I wouldn't really get into the TV show until it was rerun a few years later on Channel 17. The movie was a big event and I didn't want to miss it. It was slow and it did spend lots of time on reintroducing the principal cast, but I didn't mind the endless shuttle rides to the Enterprise. The special effects were well done and the main plot was engaging. Here's a review from a future Nashville Scene editor; a then 14 year old Jim Ridley featured in the Murfreesboro Press. You should be able to click and zoom to make it readable. Jim passed away much too young in 2016 and I have loved his writing since he began as a teenager.

The Cinema One was showing The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh which I didn't get to see there, but I would end up watching repeatedly on HBO. It starred Julius Erving and Jonathan Winters along with Stockard Channing. It wasn't a big hit. I think it's considered a flop, but it made some money. It's no flop with me. The scene where Dr. J as Moses Guthrie just shoots hoop in a deserted playground court alone is worth the price of admission for me....heck I could watch him do only that for 2 hours and be happy. It's a silly sports comedy about how an astrologer named Mona Mondieu, played by Stockard, arranges for the Pittsburgh basketball team to be filled with compatible Pisces which turns them into winners. I think this movie deserves a Criterion release just because the versions that are floating around now are all cut up for some reason. May the fish be with you.

The Marbro Drive-In had a pair of great films on January 10, 1980. Alien was on its second run and if you missed it the first time the drive-in would have been a fun place to see it. I would see it when it played HBO managing to talk my mother into letting me see an R rated film. It's the classic haunted house in space movie that you need to see if you haven't. Race With The Devil is a real corker starring Warren Oates, Peter Fonda, and Loretta Swit. A couple of vacationing couples witness a Satanic sacrifice and then are chased all over while driving a Winnebago. Warren Oates's character drives a motorcycle into some water and falls off then mutters the line, "I'm getting too old for this shit" so take that Lethal Weapon movies. It's ludicrous, but is downright creepy and it has a quintessential 70's ending. 

If you're curious about what channels were carried on Murfreesboro cable back in early 1980, the guide is below. WTBS and KTVU were favorites along with HBO, but the one I loved the most was Nickelodeon. I might have to write a post about those early Murfreesboro cable days. Another film flashback will be released on January 17.