Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

       The Big Bang Theory show started on CBS in 2007 and lasted twelve seasons. The original pilot was different than the pilot that aired. Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons were always cast as Leonard and Sheldon but instead of meeting struggling actress Penny, played by Kaley Cuoco, as their new neighbor, they meet Katie, played by Amanda Walsh, who is left homeless after breaking up with her boyfriend and Leonard offers their guest room to her. We are also introduced to Gilda, played by Iris Bahr, a fellow nerd and lab partner to Leonard who is jealous of Kate.      The character of Katie comes off as quite harsh, but I presume it would be softened as the show went on and she probably would have moved out of the guest room and across the hall from the boys. Katie was much like Sara Gilbert's character, Leslie Winkle, from the first couple of seasons. Who knows, if the original pilot was picked up the show might still have not been that much different...

       Sometimes I will hear someone say modern music is just nonsense, whereas the music from their youth all had deep meaning. I was thinking about songs through the decades that nonsense. If we can get albums of songs in different languages, what if there was an album with songs with gibberish lyrics?      Some of these songs have nonsense titles but the song makes sense, like the songs by Trio, The Police and The Crystals that start this album. The song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" tells a story in English with the refrain of "da ba dee". The song "Pinhead" gave us "gabba gabba hey" which became a catchphrase for The Ramones. Robert Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, "Ging Gang Goolie" which intentionally written in gibberish so anyone could sing it. The version I included is from Dirk and Stig (Eric Idle and Ricky Fataar) of the Rutles. Louis Jordan's "Push Ka Pee Shee Pie" tells the story of a young man from Trinidad who...

       In 1957 The Amazing Colossal Man  was released to the theaters. It was the story of military man Glenn Manning caught in a nuclear explosion at a Nevada test site. This, obviously, makes him grow to extraordinary size and he goes on a rampage. At the end of the movie, he falls off a dam apparently to his death, but a sequel came out a year later where he was disfigured and continues his rampage. What if he got a happier sequel?      In 1958 Allison Hayes played Nancy Archer, a woman who grows to incredible height after investigating an extraterrestrial craft that landed in the Southern California desert. Imagine if Nancy and Glenn met and realized they finally found someone who could understand them and stopped their destructive ways. Maybe they could get married at the Little Chapel in Las Vegas.

       I've used Spinal Tap before on this blog (Loving Large, The Fantastic 80s, The Singing Sixties and The Namesake Series of audiobooks) and to honour their new movie, I present SHARK SANDWICH, the album with the two word review. The front cover is the from the movie, the band photo was taken by Bob Gruen at CBGB's and the back illustration and design is by me.      To make a playlist I used "Sex Farm" from the This is Spinal Tap soundtrack and "Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare" which can be found on their Back From the Dead album. I also used two songs from other heavy metal parodies: "Drink Till I Die" by Bad News from the series The Comic Strip Presents and "Black Moon" by Strange Fruit as seen in the movie Still Crazy. Two more songs from actual 1980 albums: "Close Encounters" by Hilly Michaels and "Ear in the Snow" from Atomic Rooster (which once had Ric Parnell, of Spinal Tap, as a member. Two more songs sup...

       I originally saw this pilot movie years ago and it stuck with me. Years later I tried to find the name of it using the actors names I remembered. With the help of the imdb I found the name was High Risk. I tried to find it on DVD but the search kept bringing up the 1981 movie with Lindsay Wagner and the Jameses, Brolin and Coburn. After many more years of searching I found on Amazon a DVD of High Risk starring Buono and Cameron, ordered it immediately and when it arrived it was the 1981 movie. Then a few months ago I checked YouTube yet again and found ffernan312 had recently uploaded it.      I figure if it had been turned into a series it would have storylines like a wife trying to help her wrongfully convicted husband, someone from Walker-T's past calls him about a problem and the group finding out their boss has been kidnaped. For anyone who has read this far, I have an offer: if enough people are interested, I will write one of those storie...

      In the 1970s bands needed to have a "hook". They couldn't just be musicians, no, they had to be musicians who solved crimes, or had animal members, monsters, fairies, etc. Since I did fictional bands of the '60s and '80s, I decided to do something different with the '70s. The amount of pop music written for American kid's shows in the late sixties and seventies is staggering. Most of the "bands" I included had an album put out by labels like Decca and Capitol. The Josie and the Pussycats here is different from the one I had on this blog before. The cartoon was popular enough to release a record announcing, "now a real live group!". Cheryl Ladd was one of the members, then going by Cherie Moor. Gimmicky Bands of the 70s - YouTube