2/26/2007

Last week, I asked for some help in identifying a movie a Sven fan asked about…and , I believe someone came through! A viewer had asked me to identify a movie that had small humans being controlled by large blue-skinned aliens. I was grabbing at straws on that one, even thinking “could they mean the old George Pal version of ‘the Time Machine’ with the slight blonde people and the menacing Morlocks?”(Hey- it was just a guess- I didn’t say it was a good one.) Fortunately, Mike P had the answer- it was the French animated film “Fantastic Planet!” Fantastic answer, Mike- I don’t think the original inquiry had mentioned that it was animated, because I might have had more of a clue if it had. Mike also asked if part of our Universal deal includes Japanese delicacies like “King Kong VS Godzilla” and “King Kong Escapes”- sorry, Mike, they are not on the list of what Universal will be allowing us. We’ve found it very difficult, over-all, to locate giant Japanese monster films with broadcast rights for air. I know, for years, it seemed like local TV stations ran so many of them…are they all hidden away in some cable network’s vault? Maybe we can unearth them someday… Elizabeth had asked if the guy who played “Roach” in our recent “People Under the Stairs” was the same guy who played Beni in Brendan Fraiser’s “the Mummy.” Nope, Elizabeth, it’s two different guys- “Roach” was Sean Whalen, who’s done a lot of movies and TV, including sit-coms- and Beni was Kevin O’Connor- who also played Dracula’s assistant hunchback Igor in “Van Helsing.” Little-known fact- he’s a Chicago product! His mom was a Chicago school teacher, and his dad was a Chicago cop- and he got his acting training at DePaul and the Goodman School of Drama! Sean Whalen has no Chicago connection that I can find- BUT- I was surprised to know that he was the guy in the “Got Milk?” commercial who worked at a museum, and knew the answer to a radio contest was “Alexander Hamilton”-but he can’t give the correct answer intelligibly because he’s been eating peanut butter- and is out of milk! If only I’d known that when we’d taped that “People Under the Stairs” show… I did want to mention that, one thing I’ve been hearing lately- a lot- both in e-mails and letters, and at live appearances- is that you viewers are really happy that we’re still doing locally-produced entertainment shows on TV. People whose first memory of these type of shows was (ahem) “the Koz Zone”-right on to people who remember “Shock Theater” and “Lunchtime Little Theater” all seem to feel that local TV shows on broadcast TV are worth having. Well, so do my bosses, as you might’ve guessed- and we’re happy to be able to keep that tradition going. Just remember- it’s your support- by watching these shows- that help keep them on the air (I borrowed that from a PBS pledge break, but, it’s true in our case , too- and I’m not asking you to send me 75 bucks for a totebag!) Send me your pledge- I mean, drop me a line anytime at svengoolie@wciu.com