The thing about Paris

BIG CHOCOLATE!

Look out, bunny! Ryan and Caitlin go crazy at the Lindt Chocolate Museum, Cologne

Wet dreams in the jungle

There are days, and this is one of them, when I am totally fed up with the internet. What started off as a potentially invaluable source of information has become a vast juggernaut, with useful stuff increasingly buried by the crap that is posted every day (and hardly anything is ever taken down). The more this stuff accumulates, the harder it is to find anything, which is ironic but is never mentioned. I won't get into the racism, the ranting, the hiding in the bluff behind cover of anonymity, so you can say any damn hateful thing you want. 

But once in a while, you find the end of a thread, and you think, hmm, maybe it's not so freaking useless after all. The old magic returns, if only for a moment.

For years, a thought would come into my head, I'd rack my brains fruitlessly for a while, then give up and let the thought slide back into oblivion. It had to do with Tarzan. More specifically, Tarzan movies. More specifically than that, the Tarzan movies that used to come on TV on Saturday afternoons.

It was some sort of a Tarzan series, and I am sure the movies were badly butchered, but we didn't care because we had nothing to compare them to. Certainly we didn't get to see the erotic swimming sequence (did anyone? I find it hard to believe it wasn't cut from theatrical versions) from Tarzan and his Mate. They probably even censored the crocodile-wrasslin' scenes with their sped-up film and elaborate editing (to make it look as if an actual crocodile were involved) because they were too violent for the kiddies in the 1960s.

The series had some sort of title card with palm trees and birds and stuff on it, and there was this music. It was the weirdest stuff, because it seemed to have animal sounds in the background. Bird calls and stuff. There was very little actual music involved, just atmosphere. A piano was playing, and someone was rhythmically scraping something. You only got to hear a snippet of it while The Tarzan Show title card came on, but they'd also play a bit of it after commercial breaks (and there were a lot of them).

So was this, as they say, "a thing"? Did it still exist, could I find it?  How do you find something like this when the clues are so vague? I just started googling terms like "music with birds in background" and "bandleader who uses bird sounds" (for in retrospect, it's obvious this was some sort of lounge music). I was astounded at how quickly I scored a hit. Soon I was playing a video with this cheesy, lounge-y, '50s-style music, about as exotic as Dorothy Lamour in a sarong, which I had not heard in - um - four, or - seven, or - a lot of years. 

What made me laugh is the realization that those aren't even bird sounds - they're band members squeeee-ing and hooting and rattling to sound like birds. Could have fooled me. I have no plans to cultivate a taste for the genre, which is called exotica (and here I always thought that had something to do with sex!). But at least now I know what it is. The internet still has the power to inform.

I don't know if Martin Denny got any royalties for The Tarzan Show, but probably not - they likely just stuck the record on and hoped for the best. As is almost always the case, I can't find any information on the actual video, which I think is quite lovely. Who knows how many times it has been pirated and passed around. But isn't that what the internet is all about?

Handmade movie

How to have a beach body

You'd better use your hands

Fall of the house of Horse

There's something just a little bit sad, and a little bit mad, about the way I collect horse pictures on the internet.

When I was a kid, I didn't have too many options. I had my horse books, such as King of the Wind (with Wesley Dennis' glorious illustrations of the sun-colored Godolphin Arabian) and the odd rerun of My Friend Flicka or Fury. For a short time I had a horse of my own - and I am sure I did not appreciate it at the time. These are among the sweetest memories I have, so it seems incredible to me that after a while, I lost interest. How stupid we are, or can be, in hindsight.

But the internet opened up whole new vistas of horse porn. When I started collecting photos about five years ago, they were mostly teeny and of poor quality. All that has changed. I mean, look at this thing! It's breathtaking, almost beyond horse.

But I've also noticed some things about horses.

They have changed.

This 1960 painting of an Arabian horse by Wesley Dennis is the standard for the breed. . . or at least, it used to be. I pictured the "Arab" (as little girls called them, thinking of them as the epitome of horsedom) as having a fine, sculpted head sitting on a swanlike but muscular neck. Large dark eyes and flaring nostrils were traits of this ancient desert breed, as were small, pricked ears.

This horse (the cinematic knockout Cass Ole), shown in silhouette in The Black Stallion, reveals ideal Arabian conformation in every sense. Especially that beautifully symmetrical head with its elegant profile.

Even as a horsy little girl, having read every horse book in existence, I knew there was a trait prized by Bedouin horsemen: it was called jibbah, and it referred to the slightly concave, tapering forehead and muzzle of the desert horse. SLIGHTLY, I said, as in the lovely Arabian mare above.

SO. . . WHAT HAPPENED???

This happened.

And this happened.

And THIS happened! AAAAACK!!! 

Somewhere along the line, in the past few decades, the standard of beauty and ideal conformation for the Arabian horse has gone to hell in a shit-basket.

The glorious and dignified desert steed has come to resemble something more like My Little Pony.

We now have a horse with a pig-snout: a muzzle that looks squeezed, with very large nostrils that have almost formed a mono-nostril (because there's simply no room for them at the end of that tiny nose), and black eyes that look something like an alien's. The show ring is behind a lot of this mutation/mutilation, with handlers applying eyeliner or even tattooing the horse's eyelids to give them that dark and sultry look.

But most of it is breeding. Bad breeding, to exaggerate traits that someone must have decided are quintessentially Arabian. The result is creatures which look disturbingly alike, like the Hapsburgs when their genetic house of cards finally collapsed. No one seems to see this ugliness any more, and horsy Facebook pages draw oooohs and ahhhhs in the comments section for the most horribly distorted photos of Arabians, their heads flung up unnaturally high and their eyes flashing because their handler just jerked the hell out of the lead.

BUT!!!

That's not why I'm writing this.

I'm writing this because the other day I came across this photo:

Hell-llo, I thought. In fact, I think I said it out loud.

It looked strange. It looked like the puzzle piece that might fit together with the grotesque Arabian "dished" face.

It wasn't just the exaggerated Roman nose, but the eyes, which had an exotic almond shape that gave the horse a "knowing" look. Unless we're talking about locating the feed bucket, most horses aren't particularly knowing.

It was eerie. What sort of horse was this?

It definitely wasn't a draft horse. It just didn't have the look of one. A Clydesdale or Percheron has the same sort of nose, but it belongs on a massive head and neck. This just looked strange.

When I looked it up, I was even more puzzled.

It's one of these.

An Andalusian  (and oh God, how I love that name! Say it again: Andalusian). It's a very ancient breed of Spanish horse, but a horse of a very different shape and size. You can instantly see that the neck is thicker, the body longer and more muscular than the Arabian's. The legs are more like a thoroughbred's. And the head is noble, with a curious convex curve that is the opposite of jibbah: what shall we call it - habbij? 

The Lusitano (another fall-over-backwards-gorgeous name) originated in Portugal, and a horse person would kill me for saying this, but they're pretty similar. So you have horses like this, magnificent steeds which resemble all those old paintings and sculptures of war horses. They're so different from Arabians - or even Morgans or Quarter horses or Saddlebreds or ANY of the breeds which originated from Arabian stock - that it's hard to know what to make of them. How did a saddle horse get a head like that?

But here's where we start to get in trouble. Something about this horse's head isn't quite right. He looks inbred to me - though, of course, a lot of highly-bred horses are. It comes with the territory. But that convex head is as weird-looking as the Hapsburg lip. The eyes are almost squinty. Could it be that the breed's more distinctive traits are being deliberately exaggerated, for the sake of the show ring and the auction block?

Is this what makes a Lusitano a Lusitano?

I hate to see it, because at their finest these are such beautiful horses. But this is not beautiful. This is deformity, not unlike the toy-like Arabians which have lost all their dignity through human manipulation. 

No more horse lies! "From the horse's mouth" means telling the truth. And these poor creatures, through no fault of their own, are paying through the nose.

Blogger's afterthought. It's sad, some of the things you see. There are zillions of YouTube videos of horses, including Arabians bucking and prancing around. They are beautiful to watch. Here's a tiny clip:

The resemblance to Cass Ole is just astounding, even in the way he moves. It's just possible the two are related. But what dismayed me were the comments:

"That's not an Arabian."

"No way, don't try to fool us."

"You trying pass this off as a Arab?"

"Look at the head, it's Quarter horse or a Morgan."

"Arab have deer head, not? This horse has no."

Yes. The "deer head" with the tiny squashed nose has now become the standard, so that a magnificent horse like this one is somehow "wrong".

My hope is that not all Arabians look like this. But the fact that ANY of them do dismays me, particularly since this sort of extreme breeding seems to be done to please the public.

I would be pleased by this. And thank you.

The desert will bloom: cactus flower timelapse

How to carry your cat in a car

            How to carry your cat in a car

Two bad shows in a row (or: did James Coco really look like a hippo?)

Blogger's apology. I am so sorry! I thought I had found the worst TV sitcom in human history - Calucci's Department - but I was not even close. For some reason, when James Coco starred in anything, it only lasted eleven episodes. This one was so bad, episode #11 was destroyed before it had a chance to air.

The Dumplings - 1976


One Season - 11 Episodes

TV Historian's Blurb: This show aired before (PC) political correctness was popular. The show followed an overweight married couple that owned and operated a New York deli on the first floor of an office building. This one may have survived had it not been so fat joke "heavy."

Network: NBC

I have taken YouTube by the heels and shaken it, and I cannot find anything about this show. But I found the theme song, and it is putrid. The lyrics are:

Arms and legs
Ham and eggs
The great team of pipe and slippers
And there's the daily double
Good things come in pairs
Heart and soul
Rock and roll
An old fashioned horse and buggy
A song's got words and music
Good things come in pairs
You can bet Noah knew just what he was doing
When he began all the two-by-two-ing
He and she
You and me
A sweet blend of milk and honey
Always together
We'll go through life discovering
Good things come in pairs!

The Dumplings theme song

MORE INFO:

Aired: Wednesday nights at 9:30 pm Eastern U.S.
Premiered: January 28, 1976
Ended: March 24, 1976
Theme Song: Listen here The Dumplings Theme Song
Writer(s)/Creator(s):
Fred Lucky

Don Nicholl
Michael Ross
Bernie West

Developer: Norman Lear

Cast:

James Coco as Joe Dumpling
Geraldine Brooks as Angela Dumpling
Marcia Rodd as Stephanie
George Furth as Frederic Steele
Jane Connell as Bridget McKenna
George S. Irving (1) as Charles Sweetzer
Mort Marshall as Cully

Series Premise: Fat married couple, Joe and Angela, own a deli in New York.

Season One Episodes:

1 - Pilot - Aired: January 28, 1976
2 - The Ultimatum - Aired: February 4, 1976
3 - To Drink or Not to Drink - Aired: February 11, 1976
4 - The Parting - Aired: February 18, 1976
5 - Gourmet's Delight - Aired: February 25, 1976
6 - Sweetzer's Image - Aired: March 3, 1976
7 - Cully's Sister - Aired: March 10, 1976
8 - The Other Woman - Aired: March 17, 1976
9 - The Foundling - Aired: March 24, 1976
10 - Joe Takes a Fall - Aired: March 31, 1976
11 - Joe Gets Jugged - Unaired.

Show canceled after episode 10.

And here are details about each episode. I am particularly intrigued by the suicide one. Hard to wring merriment out of someone wanting to die. The show lasted one more episode after that.

Title	Plot/Notes
Pilot	Joe and Angela try to celebrate the anniversary of their first meeting. NBC rebroadcast this episode on January 28, 1976, as the first episode of the weekly series in its regular time slot.
"The Ultimatum"	The Dumplings' landlord orders them to move their luncheonette out of the building after Joe calls Mr. Steele a thief.
"To Drink or Not to Drink"	The Dumplings inherit a $900 bottle of wine and must decide whether or not to drink it.
"The Parting"	Joe and Angela must be apart for the first time in their 15-year marriage.
"Gourmet's Delight"	A newspaper columnist praises Angela's soup.
"Sweetzer's Image"	Mr. Sweetzer seeks refuge with the Dumplings after a fight with his wife.
"Cully's Sister"	Cully's twin sister makes a surprise visit – and reveals an even bigger surprise.
"The Other Woman"	Stephanie becomes hysterical when she sees her boyfriend, Mr. Steele, with another woman.
"The Foundling"	Angela talks a woman out of committing suicide.
"Joe Takes a Fall"	Joe is injured in a fall from a broken apartment step. Vernon Weddle guest-stars.
"Joe Gets Jugged"	Joe is arrested after he accidentally knocks out a policeman.

NEWS FLASH! A discerning reader sent me a YouTube video of The Dumplings theme song, so now you can SEE what I meant, not just hear it. Thanks, Brian!

And as a glorious (inglorious?) p. s., here is the intro to a truly clenchworthy show about zany priests. Didn't age well at all. 

FatBoyGetDown: The Return

 

One man clapping

The second-worst sitcom in human history?

I very vaguely remember this '70s (or '80s?) sitcom, with James Coco working in some dreary office from hell, doing God knows what. The preview has a Dante quality to it, with everyone working in thick, slow-mo, zombie-faced torpor. Coco looks like he wants to commit suicide. The show lasted a few episodes, maybe made it through a season. But it definitely wins the prize for worst opening credits. 

BLOGGER'S INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY! Here is a summary of every episode of Calucci's Department - eleven in all. One can see why it failed, but it failed with such a . . . clunk! The last episode had Calucci on a quest to discover the meaning of his life. It sure wasn't this.

Episode #	Episode Title	Original Airdate	Episode Summary
1	"The $80 Heist"	September 14, 1973	After the $80 he has collected from staff is stolen, Calucci does some detective work to find the culprit, but becomes a psychoanalyst and peacemaker in the process.
2	"Calucci, His Brother's Keeper"	September 21, 1973	Gonzalez asks Calucci for $400 after having his life threatened by loan sharks.
3	"Calucci, the Matchmaker"	September 28, 1973	When Calucci's date with Shirley also involves finding a date for Elaine, he and Gonzalez go to great lengths to find her a date.
4	"Calucci Goes on a Diet"	October 5, 1973	Calucci's trip to the doctor for stomach pains results in a directive to lose weight, an edict he finds it increasingly difficult to focus on.
5	"Winners and Losers"	October 12, 1973	After Calucci is told that a member of his office staff must be fired, it becomes an incredibly difficult decision for him.
6	"The Bloom is Off the Rose"	October 19, 1973	Calucci is upset when he finds out that his secretary and girlfriend, Shirley, once had another man in her life.
7	"Life is an Anchovy"	November 2, 1973	The office staff is concerned when the usually sour Woods is even grumpier than ever because of problems at home.
8	"A Mother's Love"	November 9, 1973	When Cosgrove begins to act neurotically, Calucci attempts to diagnose his problems. However, he doesn't count on the prescription for the cure from Cosgrove's mother.
9	"Gonzalez's Thrill"	November 16, 1973	Confirmed bachelor Gonzalez appears ready to take the plunge into matrimony when he buys an engagement ring after meeting Samantha.
10	"Calucci and the Chicken or the Egg"	November 23, 1973	Calucci finally gets up the courage to take Shirley home to meet his mother.
11	"Calucci's Raison D'Etre"	November 30, 1973	Gonzalez decides there must be more to life than the office, setting Calucci off on a soul-searching quest for the meaning of his own.