WORLD OF GIANTS - Episode # 13 - "Off Beat" (1959)

 

This week's Saturday Night Special is extra special because it's about a special special agent! Why was he more special that any other special agent? It's because he was only six inches tall. "World Of Giants" was a TV show that was on for thirteen consecutive weeks in 1959, and then it was gone pretty much forever!

 

 According to Wikipedia, an American spy named Mel Hunter was on a covert mission when he got shrunk down to six inches in an accident. After that they used him as a special special agent.

 

Mel Hunter was played by Marshall (It! The Terror From Beyond Space) Thompson.
 

 I found two fairly crappy looking episodes of "World Of Giants" on youTube, good luck finding the other eleven. This is the last episode that was ironically titled "Off Beat," which was the same name as our public access TV show.

Look real close and you can see little Mel in the bottom right hand corner sitting behind his drum kit! Besides being a special agent for the government, Mel is also a big fan of jazz music. 

On the left is Arthur (Atomic Submarine) Franz as agent Bill Winters, whose job it is to carry around the valise that little Mel is in. On the right is Marcia (Hypnotic Eye) Henderson as Miss Brown. There's not a lot of explaining about the characters, and Miss Brown seemed like she was a regular, but she was only in three of the thirteen episodes.

This November 27, 1954 issue of TV Guide magazine featured Marcia on the cover with Peter Lawford because they were in a popular television show together called "Dear Phoebe."

Same smile........

Johnny Silver plays jazz musician Chuck Crescent, or the guy who is pretending to be Chuck Crescent. Being a big jazz buff, Mel smells something wrong with Chuck's performance in this club. It's good, but it's just too stiff. Johnny Silver was under five feet tall, and was in scores of TV shows in the 50's and 60's.

In the "Take What You Can Get Department," this is as good as this show looks on youTube, but it's a fun enough watch, so I think it's worth it.

Mel is very concerned, and there was something so weird about Chuck that he wants to go talk to an old musician friend of his who was Chuck's mentor, but there's just one thing, his friend doesn't know that he is now only six inches tall.

 

Mel's friend is jazz pianist Daddy "You're The Greatest" Dean as played by Bill Walker. I'm sure you've seen Bill's face before, because he has been entertaining us on some kind of screen from 1946 to 1987. Bill was in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?," and he was also in "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte." He's also the only one out this whole great cast to ever be in a "Twilight Zone" episode, that being "The Masks."

Nobody is supposed to know about Mel's secret, but they tell Daddy Dean, and he can't believe his eyes. He has to agree to never tell anyone, and I guess that was pretty easy since this was the last episode!

Daddy Dean goes with Mel, and Bill, and Miss Brown to the club, and it doesn't take him any time at all to realize this is not the real Chuck. Daddy calls him on it, and all Hell breaks out!

 

Mel pops out of the briefcase an into the piano!

The fake Chuck decides to do some impromptu stuff after all, and almost gives Mel a big headache!

The music is swingin' hard through this whole show, and yet I couldn't find any credits for the musicians or the composer.

This is the cool logo they used when they came back from cutting to a commercial. Man, I'd love to see all of the episodes of this cool show in high definition, but alas, as far as I can tell, they're not available at all in any quality! Some things in the world just ain't right!

When I got all done here, I decided to see if I could find any videos of "W.O.G." available anywhere, and although I didn't come up with anything, I did find somebody selling some production stills on eBay, and even though it wasn't from this episode, this picture of Mel in a slot machine was just to good to not include it here.

THE VENTURE BROS. / Dia De Los Dangerous - 2004

The Venture Bros. was my favorite show on Adult Swim, this is the first episode from this series. I personally like the earlier stories as it got too glossy and overly complicated near the end.

Our adventure starts with the gang down in Tijuana Mexico where Dr. Venture is giving a lecture at the university. He's accompanied by his sons Hank and Dean and their body guard, the baddest ass in the universe, Brock Samson.

Dr. Venture is lecturing the students on how there is no such thing as a chupacabra. The students are paying no attention to his ramblings...

After his WTF lecture, Dr. Venture would like to get paid for his services. The administrator hands him a check for 9,000..... Pesos!!

Then a Monarch butterfly lands on Dr. Venture's shoulder and he wants to know if it's poisonous.

Thing is, the butterfly is actually a mechanical tracking device sent out to spy on Doc. The Monarch there on the right is Dr. Venture's sworn rival, although, Doc seemingly has never even heard of The Monarch! He tells his henchmen to go out and keep an eye on the Ventures and watch out for that psycho Brock Samson!

In the meantime, Dr. Venture has gone to a Tijuana doctor and requests some uppers from him. The Tijuana doctor tells him that he has scruples, so Dr. Venture holds up a hundred dollar bill.

Doc gave Hank and Dean some spending money and Dean wants to spend it on their robot, Helper. 

Dean says, let's get him a new paint job!

While Helper is being redone, Monarch's henchmen decide to take Hank and Dean hostage and take them back to their palace, rather than just keep an eye on them.

The boys communicators tell Brock exactly where they are and he sprints to the scene!

Brock chokes the instigator of the kidnapping with an iron grip while the others look on in horror.

Brock has been hit with like a hundred tranquilizer darts with no effect!!

So, one of the henchmen guns the truck and rams Brock in reverse, finally knocking him out. The kidnappers go back to the palace.

When Dr. Venture wakes up, he's in a tub of ice with a note pinned to his dickey.

Doc calls Helper to come and get him.

Helper hones in on Brock's communicator and they find a gravesite where people have paid their respects to the fallen god.

But, Brock springs up, still holding on to the dead henchman. Doc asks him why he was being so brutal and Brock replies... Doc, they hit me with a truck! By the way, Brock is voiced by that awesome dude, Patrick Warburton!

Back in their private jet, the X-1, Brock has found the boys' location and puts a plan into action. But just before that, Dr. Venture is attacked by a chupacabra that was hiding in Brock's car. I hope you see the irony here.

Brock guns the car in reverse and backs it out of the X-1.

The car drops into the Monarch's lair where Brock demolishes all the henchmen and grabs Hank and Dean from the Monarch's clutches.

At the end we find out that Dr. Venture is just fine with two new kidneys! This series is just the best for twisted humor, my fave.

THE TREE IN A TEST TUBE - "Pete Smith - Interlocutor" (1942)

 

Now here's a right Weird Wednesday item that everybody should see at least once. It's called "The Tree In A Test Tube," and was an American made propaganda film promoting the appreciation of wood in 1942. The amazing Pete Smith is the "Interlocutor" which is a three dollar word that basically means anybody having a conversation. Other completely useless words for the same thing are conversationalist, dialogist, middleman, and in this case interviewer or narrator.

 

The first thing that throws you off is that this short piece of film is in colour. 99% of the work of Laurel and Hardy is in black and white.

Pete Smith starts asking the boys if they know how useful wood is. To me it seems like an odd subject to have to sell the general populace on, but then again, these days we have to have billboards telling guys to be good Fathers, because they can't figure that out on their own!

 

But instead of talking about how good wood is in general, like construction, Pete goes into this whole esoteric diatribe about plastic objects like glasses frames that are made of 60% wood flour.

 Pete Smith Produced 150 short films from the 1930's until 1955 called the "Pete Smith Specialities." What you're seeing here is a shot from his 1941 short called "Murder In 3-D," that included a witch, various monsters, and as seen here, a Frankenstein monster. 

If you'd like a really good dose of what Mr. Smith was doing, and what a great sense of humor he had, then proceed immediately to YouTube and watch this ten minute short from 1944 called

"Groovie Movie."

Trust me, if you like swingin' music and amazing dancing you won't regret it!

The sweat bad in Stan's hat is imitation leather made of plastic.

Stan hands Ollie his pipe, and the bowl is made of wood, and the stem is made of plastic.

Matches and the cover on the matches are both made of wood pulp.

Even when he doesn't have them on, there's wood in Stan's rayon shorts!

The Ski Patrol would be lost without some good wood!

Hopefully, when the war is over, wood will provide a lot of jobs for these heroes when they come home.

Interestingly enough, it's stated on IMDB that Laurel and Hardy's parts for this little film were shot eight days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Not quite The End, here are a couple more of Pete's shorts for your enjoyment!

From 1935, "Donkey Baseball."

From 1944, "Movie Pests."