THE ORSON WELLES SHOW - "Unaired Pilot" (1979)

I've got a great Saturday Night Special for you this evening, yet another unaired pilot that will just leave you scratching your head in wonder how it couldn't have possibly been sold to a network. No wonder I stopped watching TV back in those days because they weren't airing the cool stuff like this!

Orson Welles is just crazy brilliant cool, and fun to watch and listen to!

If I had to make a choice of five people from history to have dinner with, I'm pretty sure Orson would have been one of them!

"The Orson Welles Show" was done in a fairly straight forward talk show format, except they never show Orson and his guests in the same frame, at least as far as I can remember!

It's pretty damn funny, and they make like it's a coincidence that Orson and his first guest Burt Reynolds are both wearing red shirts!

Burt tells some truly funny stories and does a bit of an impersonation of Cary Grant!

Next guests up are The Muppets with Gonzo doing the cue cards!

Fozzie and Kermit get interviewed by Orson!

It's a crack up because it's all so serious!

Sometimes I get bored with a 30 minute or less show, but this show was 90 minutes long and felt like it got over too soon! It's that good!

Here's something you will never see again on a TV show, Orson Welles smokes at least three cigars over the course of 90 minutes!

Time to let the magic begin!

Sawing a woman in half wasn't good enough for Orson, he had to go for thirds!

Another Orson Welles feature you should absolutely see is his pseduo-documentary from 1973, 

"F Is For Fake!"

Not to be outdone by The Muppets, the next guests are the two main men behind The Muppets scene, Frank Oz, and Jim Henson!

Last but not least on the show is the beautiful Angie Dickinson, who doesn't say much, but instead is Orson's assistant in a couple more magic tricks!

In the "Don't Try This At Home" department, Orson's last trick is one that fatally failed when another magician from another time attempted it!

It's a form of Russian Roulette where Orson has to tell Angie when to stop firing before she hits the live shell.

 Pretty Dramatic no doubt and you finally stop wondering why they couldn't sell this show!

Unfortunately Orson picks the wrong time to stop and is hideously killed by the speeding bullet!

Just kidding, but I'm sure Orson would have loved to have been carried off dead, and you didn't find out until the next week that it was all just a trick!

Find out for yourself at the amazing and always free Internet Archive!

And while you're there check out the equally amazing radio shows by the guy who told me about this show,

LORD LITTER!

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN / "The Mind Machine" - 1952

In today's super adventure, a mobster kidnaps a scientist and takes possession of his invention. The crook then uses the device to damage the minds of people testifying before an investigative committee, and the victims die a short time later. Superman races to find the mobster before Lois Lane testifies at the committee hearing.

Dr. Stanton is working on his invention to help mental patients for the betterment of mankind... Three mobsters enter the lab where they take the machine and doctor away after knocking the doc's assistant to the ground, and they warn him, do not call the police if you ever want to see your boss again!

The assistant goes to the Daily Planet and sees Clark who he knows him from a press conference where the doctor told the public about the machine. Clark takes an interest in the kidnapping, of course!

Here's the hoodlums at their hideout. There's Curly, Lou the boss and Al. They're reading the newspaper which has a classified ad that has a reward for whoever knows the whereabouts of the doctor. Lou knows it's a trap, so just grabs the doc and has him warm the machine up.

He tunes it in on the investigative committee where the witness is ready to name names in the criminal activities in Metropolis.

But the second he's ready to say, Lou Cranek, the mob boss tells him to say that he's never heard of the person, then the man goes into a psychosis and leaves the courthouse...

The man then gets super paranoid, he goes into the street and commandeers a woman's car and drives like a bat outta Hell trying to get away from Clark and Lois, the lady faints. He drives into the country and stops after the car gets a flat. He sees a bus with children in it and steals it while the driver is trying to fix the brakes. Lois and Clark show up in their little Nash Rambler. Clark tells Lois and the bus driver to go chase the bus while he stays with the fainted woman... He then changes and Superman takes off.

Our hero stops the bus, and when Lois and the bus driver show up...

They find the man dead in the driver's seat!

It gets really weird about here, Clark and the doctor's assistant (who's flying the plane) use radar to try and locate the place the doc's located. Since the mind machine uses so much power, they finally locate the place. So, Clark punches the pilot and knocks him out, puts the plane on auto-pilot and jumps out.

Lois is testifying before the committee, as soon as the viewer becomes clear, Lou can give her a deadly command...

Luckily, Superman shows up just in the nick of time. Al fires away with his gun but to no avail.

As Superman toys with the gangsters, Dr.Stanton destroys his devilish machine.

Al breaks a vase over Superman's head, then gets knocked on his ass!

He tells the doctor to call the police for him because he has one last thing to do, land the airplane safely as it just ran out of gas...

Of course everyone wants to know where Clark was during the whole ordeal... Tune in again tomorrow for another dose of what you need, here at The Dungeon!!..

DICK TRACY - "The Plot To Kill Nato" Unaired TV Pilot (1967)

Tonight I've got a real Weird Wednesday feature for you, the 1967 unaired pilot for a TV show based on the Dick Tracy comics, titled what else, but "Dick Tracy!"

This go round Ray MacDonnell is the Dick in the driving seat!

When this gig failed, Ray settled in at the soap opera "All My Children" for the next 41 years and/or 688 episodes as Joe Martin.

The title of this pilot episode was the uplifting, "The Plot To Kill Nato."

"Dick Tracy" was brought to you by the same people who did "Batman," and it's prety obvious! The only thing that is missing is the "Zap" and "Pow" visual sound effects!

"Batman" regular as King Tut, Victor Buono is the villianess Mr. Memory!

From looking at these credits, you might get the idea this is a cartoon, but it is not!

Jan Shutan was also in "Dracula's Dog," and "The Outer Limits" Episode "The Inheritors Pt. II."

They were obviously planning on a longer run when they made these opening credits, because Tess Trueheart never even shows up in this pilot episode!

Ken Mayer started out in "Space Patrol," and went on to be in what looks like almost every western show that was on in the 60's.

Monroe Arnold was also in shows like "My Favorite Martian," "Bewitched," and "The Munsters."

This would have been Jay Blood's only acting appearance if it had aired, and Bonnie Braids, like Tess Trueheart, was not even in this episode, but after this, she was Jan Brady for many years!

The infamous two way wrist radio and TV.

 

The infamous two way wrist radio and TV realized!

The reason I'm showing you all these cartoon images from the credits is because this "best copy" that you can watch on YouTube is barely watchable, and almost impossible to get any decent stills from!

A big nod of Dick Tracy's chapeau to Mr. KD for telling me this "Dick Tracy" show existed!

Victor Buono makes almost anything worth watching, even this!

AND.....one of the cooler features of the "Dick Tracy" show is that the theme was composed and performed by one of the most popular surf bands of all time, The Ventures!

So here you go kids, it's only a little over 28 minutes long, if nothing else, at least listen to the theme!