BOZO

BOZO

Allexpendable
Bozo
deFarquwit
Johnsodyou

I wouldn’t trust him

To run a bath

MAWH, 290520

FUDGE & BUMBLE

FUDGE & BUMBLE

Fudge & bumble 

Bumble & fudge

Deflect the story

With an unwise nudge

Bumble & fudge

Fudge & bumble

Don’t expect numbers

To start to tumble

Fog & bluster
Bluster & fog
We need digital
You're still analogue

Bluster & fog
Fog & bluster
Why not admit
It's a total cluster

Fudge & bumble 

Bumble & fudge

You know what’s needed

Why don’t you budge

Bumble & fudge

Fudge & bumble

We think you’re

A total dumbbell

Fog & bluster
Bluster & fog
More of a poodle
Than a British bulldog

Bluster & fog
Fog & bluster
Despite what you think
You're simply lacklustre

MAWH, 28-290520

NOT EVERYONE

NOT EVERYONE

Not everyone you like is always right

Not everything you read is always true

Sometimes something is not thought out

Sometimes something is not thought about

But that does not diminish you

Not everyone I like is always right

Not everything I read is always true

Sometimes it’s a falsehood quite persuasive

Some days I’m quite willing to be persuaded

But that should not empower you

Not everything you know is a proven fact

Not everything you read is knowledge backed

Some days an opinion isn’t so strong

Sometimes an opinion can be wrong

But that should not diminish you

Not everything I know is a proven fact

Not everything I read is knowledge backed

Some days my opinion isn’t so strong

Sometimes my opinion can be wrong

But that should not enable you

Not everyone need do what you say or do

Not everything I think will agree with you

Sometimes we simply must agree to differ

Some things might cause a row to trigger

But this does not diminish you

Not everyone need do what I say or do

Not everything I think will appeal to you

Sometimes we’ll agree to disagree

Sometimes you’re right, some days it’s me

But this cannot diminish you

You don’t have to defend every wrong word

Even after you find out its utterly absurd

Sometimes you might turn out to be wrong

Sometimes I’m right but we can still get along

And this will not diminish you

I shouldn’t have to defend every wrong word

Even if I do find out its utterly absurd

Sometimes I might turn out to be just wrong

About some things I thought I knew all along

And this does not diminish you

It’s really all right to have been found out

Or to find you’ve believed in something faked

If you find out something else later on

It’s fine to admit you once were wrong

And that does not diminish you

It’s really all right to have been found out

Or to find I’ve believed in something false

If I find out something else later on

It’s fine to admit I once was wrong

And that does not diminish you

True wisdom comes from learning something new

True knowledge is to know you once were wrong

Sometimes the bigger picture fills you in

Sometimes standing back you just can’t win

But that will not diminish you

True wisdom is discovering something unknown

True knowledge is finding out I could be wrong

Sometimes new information fills me in

Something new puts my argument in the bin

And that should not vindicate you

Standing by as someone does something wrong

Standing alongside them just to feel you belong

Not realizing whilst you once knew everything

Knowing how wrong that is only time can bring

And that does not diminish you

Standing by the actions of an obvious despot

Standing up for the monstrous no matter what

Not listening and learning as they speak

Not caring about the havoc they wreak

Now that does indeed diminish you

MAWH, 120520

‪PAPERS 060520

‪PAPERS 060520

Professor Lockdown ‬
‪Falls onto his sword‬
‪Taking one for the team‬

To keep the tabloids‬
‪From telling the hard truth‬
‪That those numbers mean‬

The finger of blame
Is allowed to be pointed
Unless you're the sainted BJ

Whilst bloody E*pr*ss
Readers choke on their toast
Over the racism of the day

MAWH, 060520

LAST TEABAG STANDING

LAST TEABAG STANDING

All alone at last

The one last teabag standing

Waiting to serve

And be served

Many thousands gone

Memories of brews gone by

Just one remains

Warm the pot

Tea time approaches

One warming final emission

It's the only

Way to go

@MAW_H, 060520

VJ NOT VE

VJ NOT VE

Perhaps you’ll forgive

The lack of bunting flying

It’s not because

I’ve a lack of respect

For what was lost

By far too many

To save the world

From fascist tyranny

So quickly forgotten

In a self-obsessed world

Replacing hate with hope

Hoping hate would not return

Perhaps you’ll forgive

A small indulgence here

As I take you back to the not

Forgotten summer of eighty-five

Where from his armchair

Chatting to old comrades

My father made a choice

Not - yet - to celebrate

Forty years of peace

In Europe for his world war

Had been far from over yet

Raging on as peace paraded

Perhaps you’ll forgive

That sentiment you hear

As out in the Far East

He was still surrounded

By a bloody forgotten war

Still fighting on and on

In far distant jungle sweat

My father chose instead

To raise his own toast

His tumbler of whisky

On August the fifteenth

Forgotten, unremarked

So perhaps you’ll forgive

The lack of bunting flying

It brings that last summer

Of birthdays and farewells

Quiet remembrances

Now flooding back

Dad did not survive

The following October

So perhaps you’ll forgive

The lack of bunting flying

It reminds me too much

Of my father dying

MAWH, 070520

PODCAST 48 – VTTBOTS

PODCAST 48 – VTTBOTS

Listen at:
https://soundcloud.com/user-868590968/rta048-episode-48-the-goodies-the-twilight-zone-voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea

These days, the four big Irwin Allen productions of the 1960s - LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, THE TIME TUNNEL, and LAND OF THE GIANTS - are rarely looked upon as being quality television. Don’t get me wrong; They looked great, they looked expensive, they told cracking weekly adventure stories, but, somehow, they failed to be at the cutting edge, relying instead on the tired old sci-fi tropes of 1950s post-war pulp.

Somehow, whilst certain other shows of a similar vintage are considered to be great examples of whichever genre they represent, the Irwin Allen productions are often thought of as outmoded, old-fashioned, or just plain silly.

Nevertheless, as kids, we lapped ‘em up…!

My personal favourite was the submarine one, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, based upon the 1961 movie of the same name starring Walter Pidgeon and Robert Sterling, in the roles which are played by Richard Basehart and David Hedison in the TV series, and reusing the sets, plots, and both model and footage made for that film – and other Allen movies - to create the weekly adventures aboard the super-submarine SEAVIEW, a beautifully designed craft with manta ray wings, Cadillac tail-fins, and eight massive impossible picture windows made of transparent Herculite in the nose that gave it a spectacular, erm, sea view and which opened up the otherwise claustrophobic interiors magnificently.

Stock footage would feature prominently throughout all of these shows to save both time and money, of course, and sometimes shaped precisely the story that was being told. David Hedison’s previous appearance in Allen’s movie THE LOST WORLD, for example, meant that one episode could use scenes from that movie in order to tell that week’s story without too much effort, this time featuring Captain Lee Crane.

The first year of VOYAGE, dating from 1964, but set “several” years in the future, was filmed in black and white and overall looked rather grittier than later seasons, and dealt with more “adult” stories of espionage, as the crew of the SEAVIEW battled cold war shenanigans and evil organisations bent upon the destruction of the free world in much the same way as SPECTRE did in the Bond films at that time, and THRUSH would do in THE MAN FROM UNCLE at around the same time.

Not forgetting the ever-present threat of the rise of communism.

In later seasons, the stories would become more fanciful, if not downright wacky, as the influence of other types of shows like BATMAN started to gain popularity and the sixties became ever more swinging and the conventional white bread militaristic zeal of the po-faced gung-ho crew of the SEAVIEW became less fashionable.

Year two would bring fewer bow windows, inconsistent model shots, stories shot in gloriously vibrant color, and the Flying Sub, one of the greatest aircraft slash submarine designs ever to excite the minds of a certain generation of children.

Year three brought a bit of a downturn in script quality, as the espionage and spy adventures were replaced by more bizarre threats like werewolves and aliens, and the crew would face cancellation with their upper lips truly stiffened in 1968 and would then sail into television history with no chance of returning.

The first episode was broadcast in America on September the fourteenth 1964 when I was less than two months old, so you may wonder why I have quite such fond memories of the show.

Well, obviously, it sometimes took British television a few years to discover and broadcast these series, so they started to appear on our screens when I was at a much more impressionable age, the sort of age where someone might, for example, buy you an Annual tied into a television show, or donate one at the office in a “Oh, I thought your kids might like that” kind of a way.

Anyway, however it came to me, I still have that annual on my shelves, vandalized ever so slightly with my biro in that “but the eight windows don’t match the four ones in the episodes I’m watching” manner that obviously used to bother me, and, on the front cover, there’s a transfer of Zebedee from THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT perched on the submarine as somebody must have bought me a set of rub-down transfers at some point and I would have been looking around for places to do the actual rubbing down on.

VOYAGE obviously appealed to the tiny vandal in me, as it was the logo – in that iconic wibbly-wobbly lettering – that inspired me to try and recreate it in blue biro on the white headboard of my bed when I was still far too young to know any better, a tiny act of vandalism, I must add, that I never repeated.

The other reason that I remember the show quite so vividly is, of course, because my big sister loved it – or, at the very least, she particularly admired David Hedison when she was also at a significantly different impressionable age.

So, it remains one of the few shows that I have vague memories of us watching together in those far distant “one telly in the house” days.

The pilot episode, ELEVEN DAYS TO ZERO, written and directed by Irwin Allen himself, was made in 1963, and filmed in full colour but broadcast from black and white prints, and, as it should, serves as a reasonable introduction to the crew of the SEAVIEW and the types of adventures they were likely to be having.

For the purposes of this article, I decided to watch that “unaired pilot” from the DVD set rather than the broadcast version, although there’s not a great deal to differentiate the two other than that glorious colour that would vanish for a year but resurface later on, and that the unaired Pilot on the DVD still has the series title sequence stitched into it, rather than the one-time only captions made for the actual Pilot, which still upsets some fans.

And, as is Allen’s way, you are hurled into the action pretty much from the off in an episode that manages to display several of the popular tropes of the genre of a significant number of submarine movies in its forty-eight minute run time.

There’s a dive to below crush depth, a depth-charge attack, and even a battle with a giant octopus in the course of the episode, all of which, of course, were sequences that featured in the original movie cut in wholesale, but woven together – at least for the moment – to tell an entirely different story.

The plot of the film would, inevitably, be revisited in a later episode, but, for the moment we’re telling a whole new story – sort of – so that viewers couldn’t claim that it’s just a rehash of the film recut for television.

That said, the film could be said to be a little bit overlong and slowly paced, and perhaps it isn’t the greatest submarine movie ever made, although it made a few quid at the box office.

One of the criticism’s often leveled at the Irwin Allen Productions is that he would often substitute action for actual characterization and emotion, and it’s a fair point. This bunch of guys, and, guys, it is all guys, guys are not the most emotive lot. Even Del Monroe’s petulant Kowalski is painted in the broadest of strokes, and it is in the moments when they try and engage with some kind of backstory or contrived conflict that the script suffers most.

Still, that’s not what we’re here for really, is it guys. Let’s get on with the action and leave the actors to try and find their moments of character wherever they can.

Anyway, the episode itself opens and immediately shows the documentary roots of the film-maker by starting with an enthusiastic voiceover which tells us, in the most gung-ho manner about the public image of this mighty weapon we will come to know as the Seaview, and, to help us work out where we are, that “carved out of solid rock” five hundred feet below the Nelson Institute in Southern California there is a secret base housing the Seaview that “few men” know about.

The disembodied voice also introduces us to both Admiral Nelson and Captain John Phillips – eh? – but, thankfully, the mighty voiceover doesn’t hang around much after that, despite having already outstayed its welcome.

The Admiral and his Captain are heading off to an important meeting of the full council of something or other which is made up of a lot of elderly grey-haired military gentlemen who seemed to be sitting around running things everywhere in those days, often whilst smoking pipes, and speaking grave thoughts about protecting the free world.

Peculiar times, but only a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and not long after the Communist Witch Hunts, perhaps we ought not to be surprised about this battle to maintain what was doubtless  considered normal and forever. Probably. All those average families living in those average neighbourhoods probably sat around nodding their heads sagely and agreeing with every word in that lost world of what is now considered the type of ordinary suburban America that they seem so eager to try and recover.

Not an equal world, of course, especially if you weren’t a Caucasian male of a certain age and attitude, but a world forged in that post-war economic and technological boom, when America really could make a decent enough claim that it was, in certain aspects anyway, the Top Nation in the world.

Funnily enough, however, the forces of evil are to be found everywhere and seem hell-bent on bringing this wonderfully idyllic capitalist utopia crashing down around its ears, as the bloke painting the sign at the entrance to the Nelson Institute – obviously the “few men” who know about it are more numerous than they think – is a wrong ’un, and, as the car carrying Nelson and Phillips pauses beneath him, using his spray gun, he paints a big old cross on the roof for evil reasons, and X marks the spot.

That the Big X he painted in the close-up doesn’t really match the one on the location film doesn’t really matter all that much, because our heroes are now, quite literally, marked men.

And so, on one of those windy Californian roads pretty much designed for precisely this sort of melodramatic action sequence, our heroes come under attack from the type of helicopter that everyone seemed to get rather excited about in those days because they were still a relatively new thing, and whilst some of the cutaway shots to the static copter shot on a soundstage somewhere fail to quite match the location work, and the dummy that falls into the sea when Nelson shoots one of the villains looks very much like the unconvincing dummy it is, the Seaview loses its captain to enemy action, and, with exploding cars and helicopters, the series can definitely be said to have started with a bang.

And so we reach the opening titles which are another memorable sequence of the kind that Irwin Allen series did so well, even though it is mostly made up of stock footage of that terribly impressive model of the Seaview and a couple of custom-shot sequences featuring the main cast, all backed with that memorably rousing nautical theme which is very much in the tradition of the composers Khachaturian and Dvorak, and is consequently very traditional, if not old-fashioned considering it was made in the era of Rock’n’Roll and the birth of The Beatles.

Indeed, this world we are being introduced to is extraordinarily traditional in a United States military kind of a way, despite the fact that great pains are taken to point out that this submarine, armed at is it with nuclear missiles, and a lot of other sophisticated weaponry, is actually supposed to be a civilian outfit.

The style of the filming, and that music, reminds the viewer very much of those “Look at the World in Awe and Wonder” short films that often used to accompany the cinema releases of the time, and this is, of course, not surprising – the underwater world of Jacques Cousteau and documentary film makers like Ivan Tors and the Wonderful World of the Disney Corporation would have been a huge influence and very probably taught a lot of the people working on this show much of what they knew.

It might also explain the more stilted aspects of the screenplay, as the characters often created for such documentaries were seldom written as anything more than ciphers.

That said, the crew of the Seaview would develop over the course of the four series as the actors created those familiar television characters that people came to love watching, so we do have to give them a lot of credit for making the most of what they were given to work with.

The other interesting aspect of those iconic opening titles is the effusive voiceover that returns and manages to repeat the title of the programme twice in the space of less than thirty seconds whenever the caption in that beautifully rendered iconic wibbly-wobbly typeface appears, and, in the tradition of American dramatic series television of this sort at that time, it assumes that nobody can read and feels the need to read everything out loud for the benefit of those of us at home.

Later series would add a memorable “Radar scope” graphic over the montage of impressive model shots of that fabulous submarine, but we’re a long way from that as yet.

Meanwhile, back at the plot, we are greeted by the sort of thing that’s going to become very familiar to viewers of this show over the years, a montage of stock footage of storms, and other freak weather events including a reasonable model shot of a dam breaking presumably nicked from a film, all of which are in black and white which might explain a lot about why the transmitted episode also would be.

Admiral Nelson is addressing the Full Council and is putting forward his plan to avert world disaster as two massive Arctic earthquakes have been predicted to occur in eleven days time, and Nelson wants – predictably – to use a great big atom bomb to create a counterforce that would negate the effects of the earthquakes or some such nonsense.

They did like to show off their nukes and what they could do with them back then, didn’t they?

There’s lots of dodgy science being bandied around here, and respected actor Richard Basehart does sometimes give the air of wondering just what the hell he’s got himself involved with here, but manages to do so with a certain amount of dignity and conviction.

Anyway, if they don’t do this, huge tidal waves would sweep down from the north apparently, and obliterate life as we know it. Britain is basically wiped off the map in this scenario, by the way. We learn that the forces of evil – by which we must assume that he means those counties in that huge land mass in the east which is less likely to be troubled by those waves - are quite keen to let this happen and destabilize life as we know it.

Equally, to avoid mass panic, none of us are going to be told anything or evacuated to safe places or anything, which is just the kind of thinking almost designed to make a generation grow up feeling paranoid about the government and the military and the sort of shenanigans they get up to behind closed doors.

Anyway, despite some to-ing and fro-ing, Operation Counterforce is approved because Admiral Nelson says that it will work and that they have to act, and, luckily – I suppose - the plan gets recommended for approval.

After the meeting breaks up, they then have a brief chat about what a “Darned Shame” it was about Captain Forgettable who got killed, and we hear a little about his requisitioned replacement, a certain Lee Crane, who’s painted as a “By The Book” kind of a guy which is about the most actual characterization we’ll ever get in this.

Sadly, via a recorder placed in one of those exotic engraved gold cigarette boxes that you never see any more, the forces of evil know all about what happened in this secret meeting and, in their headquarters, the kind of bald villain brandishing a long cigarette holder and wearing a velvet smoking jacket is planning further evil actions.

Those early Bond films do have a lot to answer for, don’t they?

In the super secret dockyard late at night, a sinister figure sneaks aboard the Seaview, and into the moodily red-lit inner corridors of the submarine but – Phew! – he’s very quickly caught and – Ha! Ha! – despite all those sinister men in sinister H.Q. – it’s not a super sneaky evil spy at all, but the new Captain testing the security and he’s not all that impressed, despite the fact that they caught him.

Some people are never pleased are they?

Still, this sets up a certain amount of edginess between him and the crew which means that, as per the rules of such things, he needs to prove himself to be an okay guy before the episode is over.

The crew at this point includes Henry Kulky playing Chief Curley Jones, who would only feature in the first season as he would die of a heart attack before the Seaview returned to full colour. His replacement would be Chief Sharkey played with a light and sweaty touch by Terry Becker for the rest of the run, and it is his Chief that people remember more.

As well as the eternally put-upon Kowalski, other regular crew members included the eternally cool Bob Dowdell as Chip Morton – I always liked Chip – Paul Trinker as Patterson, Arch Whiting as the ever busy and well-named Sparks, Allan Hunt as Seaman Riley, and Richard Bull as the ship’s no-nonsense Doctor.

Other crewmen would come and go, but they were the main regulars in a usually all-male and very WASP-ish cast.

We are also introduced at this point to the terse Doctor Fred Wilson, played with a certain brusqueness by this week’s Special Guest Star, Eddie Albert, the “best diver on the boat” and, whilst the language is all very clipped, this boy’s club doesn’t feature any women at all in this episode, though it wasn’t an exclusive boy’s club as there would be female guest stars, although – like with other matters of diversity - they would be few and far between.

Anyway, pretty soon the sub is at sea and, despite the crew and the ship both being considered EXPENDABLE, Chip continues plotting courses and the action moves to that front observation deck set with those massive viewing windows which remain one of the more memorable images associated with the series, and Nelson and Crane can share what passes for some matey “mutually respectful” dialogue which underscores how heroic they all are, and whilst they all try to smoke themselves to death in a strangely huge-seeming environment that probably could do without all of that smoke hanging around, they decide not to tell the crew everything about this TOP SECRET mission as they don’t want to be aboard a floating pressure cooker full of chaps worrying about silly stuff like families and whatnot, a notion that would resurface in CRIMSON TIDE a couple of decades later.

Night falls and, with the first proper shudder of the series – not a full-on rock and roll like the kids would play in the school playground after watching this that the show became famous (or notorious) for, we get the next full-on action sequence which includes Depth Charges as they are attacked by an aircraft, and the TOP SECRET nature of the mission is immediately revealed causing certain supporting artists to display a certain amount of panic.

Also, the sonar mast gets lost, requiring a lot of the cast – including the less than sylph-like Curley Jones to get into their rubber gear in a range of colours including orange, yellow, and black, and head outside via an airlock tube and not the usual studio tank in the middle of a set because they didn’t have one,  for an encounter with a giant octopus.

Truly EVERYTHING from the film is being included in this episode.

Anyway, Captain Crane is molested by the octopus, and saved by the heroic – if not modest – Doctor, who also retrieves that lost sonar mast, and they must surface to make repairs, via some impressive model shots of the submarine underneath the polar ice field.

However, before we can draw breath, the torpedoes are incoming and they have to call battle stations and make a run for it as another submarine is after them, albeit a submarine crewed by some of the stupidest villains in the Evil World.

So now we get some proper rocking and rolling as the torpedoes miss, but are too close, and, following the surprisingly FLASH GORDON-y orders of the Evil Cabal, the other inferior submarine dives far too deep in pursuit of Seaview and, basically blows up.

The Seaview is, of course, the far superior vessel and survives.

Huzzah!

The Seaview is now free to surface and does so using that spectacular if impractical model shot of it erupting into a frozen sea at a forty-degree angle and it is, still, a breathtakingly powerful image.

Meanwhile, at Evil Headquarters, they turn to their remote control drones to make another attack, and this is when the modern viewer has to consider two things. First, that the idea of remote control drones has been around for more than half a century, and second, maybe too many little girls and boys grew up watching this sort of stuff and decided to make them into real weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway, we are at the North Pole which is nicely realised, despite a few obvious backdrops, and the submarine looks great in the snowscapes.

The remaining part of the episode involves trying to deliver the atom bomb – because military might can basically solve any problem, boys and girls - to the appointed spot, an attack on his team in their Snow-Cat, the first deadly earthquake actually happening for another prolongued rocking and rolling session from the cast, and a foolishly brave rescue mission headed up by the stupendously brave Captain Crane which succeeds but well beyond the nick of time and yet, despite knowing that they’ve got a limited amount of time to get away before Wilson nukes the Arctic – no doubt causing a certain amount of global warming in an instant chaps – he hangs on anyway in the belief that they will succeed in their rescue attempt.

And of course – huzzah! – they do, and they even manage to launch a missile to take out that pesky drone in the process, although those pesky Evils in their lounge-lizard-y base are determined to return.

Nya-ha-ha-ha-HAAAA!!!

Actually, in terms of building tension throughout this sequence, the episode does it surprisingly well. One thing Allen did well was build and pace a bit of sweaty tension, as anyone who’s ever seen his THE TOWERING INFERNO could no doubt testify.

Anyway, with a cry of “Brace Yourselves!” and a crash dive, a whole load of rock’n’rolling, and feet upon feet of stock footage of the Seaview being battered by chunks of undersea ice, the world and, happily from a personal point of view, that includes tiny old Britain, is saved, and, over coffee and biccies on the observation deck, we learn that Captain Crane has been bunged out of the Navy to be made permanent Captain of the Seaview, and they will be battling evils just so long as there are evils to be battled – or until 1968, whichever is sooner, which calls for a resounding celebratory fanfare and the Pilot episode is over and almost as dead a cert for a full series as you might ever see.

There is something about all of the Irwin Allen productions that have a heightened sense of artificiality about them, as well as a slightly formulaic and, perhaps, stagey quality that’s difficult to define but which becomes more apparent when compared with other shows made around the same time.

That said, a lot of American television drama series made before the nineteen-eighties do have a similar unreality about them, even the most “urban” of them, but that might go some way towards explaining their appeal and the fond memories certain generations have of them.

Many of those shows were made to be watched by families, and as families we sat down and watched them, and perhaps that explains the good, warm, nostalgic feelings they can evoke in us even now.

Certainly my own early exposure to the adventures aboard the Seaview created an interest in me for all kinds of dramas set on board submarines, and led me to enjoy some of my very favourite films, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, DAS BOOT, CRIMSON TIDE and the like, as well as all those stiff upper-lipped War Movies made in the 1950s, and, as a legacy, well that’s not half bad for a bit of hokum made in the mid-1960s, is it?

Martin A W Holmes, February 2020