Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

     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.     

       The cover of Amazing Fantasy comics #15 is a famous image. Jack Kirby's drawing of Spider-Man swinging among the skyscrapers with someone under his arm was the first time people saw the web-slinger in 1962. However, Steve Ditko, who did the interior art, had also drawn a cover but it was vetoed in favor of a cover by Kirby. In 2007, Jonathan Ross interviewed Ditko and the artist mentioned that Spider-Man was originally supposed be the secondary colors of orange and purple instead of the primary colors of red and blue. Co-incidently, there was a comic character in 1941 called The Spider Queen who wore red and blue, and also had web-shooting bracelets.       In 2008, the Library of Congress anonymously received Ditko's original artwork for that first Spider-Man story and there was another surprise. Under the partly cemented logo and white gouache was a much more webby header; that I recreated as well as cleaning up and re-coloring the origin...

        I've done a compilation of songs that are the band's name and songs that are the name of other musicians, so it's only natural that this week its songs with names of actor's names in the title. As happened last time, some songs are about the person (like The Eagles' "James Dean"), some use the actor for comparison (such as Picture This' "Winona Ryder") and the Gorillaz song "Clint Eastwood" doesn't even mention him.      Don't worry, this is the last I will do on this type of topic.... for now. Listen to the songs here:  Songs with Actor's Names in Title - YouTube

     In 2006 the tv series Smallville was a big hit. Its creators, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, tried an adaptation of  Aquaman. I remember it was originally going to be called Tempest Key then changed to Mercy Reef (sticking to the Smallville title template). The pilot was filmed in sunny Florida (although if the series was picked up I wonder if Vancouver would stand in for FLA) with famous names like Ving Rhames and Lou Diamond Phillips, as well as some actors that had appeared on Smallville . Even though Aquaman had appeared on Smallville played by Reacher star Alan Ritchson, they cast Justin Hartley in the lead. The series was not picked up but the producers liked Hartley and cast him as the Green Arrow on Smallville . Even though the pilot didn't air, it was released as a download on iTunes and I got it as a bonus with Smallville Season Five from Best Buy.       So, the DVD cover and outer case I made are if the series had been made. N...