Hello!

This Killer TV spot is making the rounds — it’s a fast-cut celebration of All Things Godzilla on his 70th Anniversary (which I guess begins in January).

It’s a Suntory spot, meticulously edited to show the entire ‘scope of Big G’s years stomping Tokyo. It’s really well put together, with nice new music, too. Enjoy the subliminal imagery —

Boss: GO YOUR WAY, 65-second version. 

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Leave it to correspondent & advisor Gary Teetzel to beach-comb yet another vintage fantasy film connection, washed up in the cultural tidewater.

In this case it’s a rather-good sounding record, of a movie theme I don’t remember at all. Les Baxter’s score from the UA programmer Pharaoh’s Curse was at some point turned into this mambo record by a jazzy bandleader:

Tony Martinez & His Mambo Combo — Pharaoh’s Curse.The Youtube posting is by ‘GotYouFish.’ As Les Baxter was known as the ’50s king of lounge music and exotica, Gary asks:

Why didn’t Les record it himself with his own orchestra?  Was he trying to keep his film work and lounge record work separate?  Pharaoh’s Curse was the bottom half of the double bill with Voodoo Island, so why didn’t Baxter make an arrangement of the main Voodoo Island theme instead?  It could have easily been turned into one of his lounge pieces.

But Gary also theorized that Les Baxter may have reworked his film themes for his many LP releaes, just listing them under different titles. The busy mambo arrangement wouldn’t cut back into the film very smoothy — we can’t quite visualize it behind an image of a mummified pharaoh shambling down an ancient corridor.

 

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Me too!  I want to Zowie!-Zooom! into Deamland too!  No, Batman isn’t endorsing hard drugs. Correspondent Michael McQuarrie offers this vintage advertisement, offering an alternative to the plain brown plaid bedspread that graced my room back in the day.

It’s a catalog ad from 1966 and presumably motivated by the popular TV show — but we like that the Batman logo and Batmobile on view are definitely older designs from the comic books.

We also like the ad copy’s assertion that the Caped Crusader’s bedspread has  ‘a Not To Be Believed 3-Dimensional look.’  We’ll bet that wording was approved by the legal department — consumers complaining, “Hey, this isn’t 3-D!”, have been clearly forewarned not to believe the claim.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson