Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

       There have been compilations of songs from The Police before, but I noticed they tend towards only songs by Sting. What if the other two lads got their chance to shine? Here is a collection of music written by Copeland and Summers no songs that they wrote with Stingo. I had initially wanted to include Andy Summer's love song "Sally", but just like "Baby, You're a Rich Man" by the Beatles was put together from two separate pieces written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, "Be My Girl" by Sting was put together with "Sally".       Hear songs by the drummer and guitarist here:  THE POLICE Greatest Hits Copeland & Summers - YouTube

       The original IT Crowd show would be hard to duplicate. The American network NBC, however, tried in 2006. The pilot recruited Richard Ayoade to reprise his role as Moss and Joel McHale was cast as Roy, the part originated by Chris O'Dowd. I like Joel McHale, he was great on Community , but as loser nerd Roy? The original script was used for the American pilot and it suffers from comparison. I felt the same way about the American version of The Office , and yet as the show went on, they let characters grow and change into something different that worked for their cast. Maybe the same would have happened with The IT Crowd but it didn't make it past a pilot, There was also a German adaptation in 2008 that lasted six episodes.

           In 1988 the Traveling Wilburys released their first album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 . The group consisted of George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. In 1990 they released Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 . What about 1989? Roy Orbison had died before Volume 1 was released and Bob Dylan was busy, but the other Wilburys were working with another rock idol of theirs: Del Shannon. To make a volume two I compiled songs from Del Shannon's Rock On! (which was co-produced by Jeff Lynne), Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever (which was produced by Lynne, Petty and Mike Campbell), Jeff Lynne's Archair Theatre and George Harrison's Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 .      I open the album with Del's "Walk Away" which was written by him, Tom and Jeff. Next is "I Won't Back Down", written by Tom & Jeff, with Tom, Jeff and George all playing and singing. Third song is "Cockamamie Business" from George. Following is "I...

     This is kind of a double "What If". What if An American Werewolf in London  was made in the 1940s and what if the Universal monster series went a different direction. Since this is the time of Sherlock Holmes in Washington , The Falcon in San Francisco  and The Saint in London , I figure the movie would be called The Wolf Man in London . The original Mummy movie had Boris Karloff as Imhotep but the 1940 sequel had Tom Tyler as the mummy Kharis. The main characters were Steve Banning and Babe Hanson, played by Dick Foran and Wallace Ford, searching for the lost tomb of Princess Ananka. The sequel to that film, The Mummy's Tomb , took place 30 years later (1970?). I imagined the Jack and David characters from An American Werewolf in London  being Steve and babe from The Mummy's Hand . Lon Chaney Jr. would have a small part as Larry Talbot passing the curse to Steve. Since Universal horror movies reused actors in different roles, Claude Rains, who played ...

       In 1983 Jeff Lynne had decided he wanted to stop doing Electric Light Orchestra, although in 1986 they released Balance of Power , with only Lynne, Richard Tandy and Bev Bevan as the band. However, in 1990, Lynne released his first solo album, Armchair Theatre , which had Tandy performing on six songs. Bevan had wanted to continue doing E.L.O. so in 1989 he formed Electric Light Orchestra Part II, with Louis Clark arranging the strings as he had on previous E.L.O. albums. Kelly Groucutt and Mik Kaminsky started their own band: Orkestra. They had six songs on the soundtrack of 1989's Summer Job which were on Orkestra's first record, Beyond the Dream , released in 1991.      When I did my first "what if Jeff Lynne included contributions from other band members" E.L.O album in July 2023 there were songs I wanted to include but avoided because I only wanted to use songs sung by Lynne or Groucutt since they were the lead vocalists on the earlier E.L....

     Quentin Tarantino's movie  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follows the career of an actor named Rick Dalton, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio. His early break a tv western called Bounty Law . It is similar to Steve McQueen's series Wanted: Dead or Alive. A s an aside, Damian Lewis has a cameo as Steve McQueen in the movie. Tarantino has said he would be interested in making an actual tv series of Bounty Law  and has already written five episodes. Until that happens, you'll have to make do with this DVD cover from a dimension where Rick Dalton really was a star.