Viva La ’66!

Hello! It’s hot, hot, hot. It’s the dog days of August, which means that here in Southern California there’s only three months left of summer. But we have a great show today. Now, I have spoken frequently of my affection for ME-TV. For me, it’s television comfort food. Star Trek, Voyage To the Bottom Of the Sea. Perry Mason. Now, these were not the shows on in prime time when I was a kid. But they were the re-runs that were on when I was a kid. They were the shows on in syndication, five days a week, in Boston on good ol’ Channel 56 or Channel 38. So these were the shows that I grew up watching every day after school. I’m sure that’s true for many of you as well.

Well, as it turns out, most, not all, but most of these shows all came from the same TV season. Star Trek, Batman, The Monkees, Lost In Space... The network television season that began in the fall of 1966 was the first all-color television season in American. It was really the dawn of modern television and, of course, all the stuff we see today was already going on back then. And there’s a new book about it called PrimeTime ’66 – 67 by Tom Shubilla and here’s here. And THEN, one of the giants of that era of television was Irwin Allen. Allen gave us Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Lost In Space, Land Of The Giants, The Time Tunnel and then turned around gave us The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. A true giant of 60’s TV and 70’s film, and my good friend Bond, Jeff Bond has a new, massive book, It’s not even a book, it’s a tome, called The Fantasy Worlds Of Irwin Allen and he’s here to talk about THAT.

True Tales From Weirdsville is taking a deep dive into the mind of Bob Rafelson who not only created that gem of the 1966 TV season The Monkees, but also made the Monkees movie, HEAD, which is really about what a jerk you were if you liked the Monkees. Starring The Monkees. And then he made Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. You know, just ‘cause. And episode image by the great Drew Friedman, by the way!