show time...sort of

Somewhere along the way my parents gave me a Give-A-Show Projector by Kenner. I don't remember having much to watch with it. The only thing I had was a bunch of Fred Flintstone slides for it. The unit basically consisted of a light bulb and an adjustable lens. The color slides were sandwiched between a strip of cardboard. It wasn't a bad little toy. All you had to do was slide the slide panel through a slot and voila' instant entertainment on a wall.

road picture

I don't know why there's a movie poster of this film because it was originally made for television. My guess is that it was released to theaters sometime after being aired on television. Has that ever happened before? The Longest Hundred Miles in fact was one of the first full length feature films to be made for television back in 1967. I don't know why this movie stands out in my mind. It's a WWII film based in the Philippines during a Japanese invasion. A United States corporal, (Doug McClure) is persuaded by a missionary priest (Ricardo Montalban) and an American nurse (Katharine Ross) to help transport a bus load of Filipino children out of harms way. The old bus was on it's last wheel and they had to make their way through enemy lines while trying to keep the rickety old bus going. I only saw this movie once - when it first aired. I remember the wounded Japanese soldier that the priest wanted to let live. There is a scene toward the end involving a child and a grenade. Many of the scenes of this movie are still lodged in my memory from childhood. Was it that great of a movie? I must have thought so back then. I would like to see it again. It has yet to be released on DVD.

Another memorable element of this movie is the soundtrack. The movie featured the song Five Hundred Miles sung by The Kingston Trio. It's a haunting folk song that was popularized by The Longest Hundred Miles.

Yo Brook - do you have this in your DVD collection?

wow gee whiz

Back when I was a kid - school lunches sucked like a bucket of tics. That's why many parents in those days let kids take PB&J's to school in tin lunch boxes. The coolest lunch box of all time was the Batman & Robin lunchbox produced by Aladdin in 1966. The other coolest lunch box of all time was The Green Hornet. I was a big fan of Batman when I was a kid and so I envied all the kids with the Batman & Robin lunchboxes. I didn't get one because I guess my Mom and Dad wanted me to take in the whole school experience - which included their bland nasty food. R.A. Mitchell did have great yeast rolls. I believe it was my red headed freckled faced pal Mitchell Gregory that first taught me how to toke yeast rolls. What you did was poke a hole in the roll and inhale deep on the full essence of the warm buttery rolls. After about three rolls you could actually get a yeast roll buzz. I kid you not. If you ran out of rolls, you could always point up to the ceiling and yell "Hey look - BATMAN!" Kids, 100% of the time in fact would look up - only to see nothing but their yeast roll gone. Darn that dastardly Joker!

But I digress - Now if I did take a lunch to school it was in a brown paper bag. It just wasn't the same. Sure, I could draw Batman & Robin on the bag, but that didn't make it cool. Nothing like the look and feel of full color superheros stamped into tin. It was the Batman & Robin lunchbox that was the lunchbox to have if you were a boy (or a cool girl). Now I wasn't completely without Batman stuff. I did have a cool Batman & Robin coloring book based on the popular television show of that day. I remember Dad offering to have a Batman costume made for me but I lost interest quick when he insisted on having the name Batboy sewn onto the chest of the outfit. We were both quite insistent and I lost out on being my favorite cape crusader. The idea never got off the drawing board. I didn't want to be BatB-O-Y!!!! I'M BATMAN!

Chicken Fat

This song will be familiar to all you babyboomers out there. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy released this song to all public schools throughout America as an exercize inititive.

Robert Preston (of The Music Man fame) is the fellow that performed the song.

I remember us kids gathering at R.A. Mitchell Elementary School - gathering in the back area of the lunch room (an area in front of the stage) and the P.E. teacher would lead us all in exercising to the song Go You Chicken Fat, Go!

The P.E. teacher would get us all in a circle and then drop the needle on the old 45. The old institutional looking player was positioned at the edge of the stage and the static riddled song blarred across the entire lunchroom. It was a daily thing and it's what we did every school morning.

it's a swinger

It's only nineteen dollars and ninety five!

I posted this image to go along with the previous post. I don't remember the commercial but I remember that jingle.