THE MALTESE FALCON - "Cut 'Em Off At The Past" (1941)

Tonight's Wednesday Classic is the 1941 film "The Maltese Falcon" starring the always fun to watch Humphrey Bogart!

"The Maltese Falcon" is a krazy movie with an amazing cast of characters! I feel stupid even writing about it, because I just feel like everybody should already know everything about a movie like this, but then, maybe not considering the school system these days!

I'm not exactly sure where this movie takes place......

......Maybe in California if I had to guess!

Probably my favorite comedy bit is The Firesign Theatre's "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger," from their album "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All," which is an insane story about a private detective named Nick Danger that is totally based on "The Maltese Falcon."

One of the very first audio gags at the start of the story has Nick Danger introducing himself as Regnad Kcin because he's reading his name backwards from the writing on the glass door just like this!

Humphrey Bogart is Detective Sam Spade, and his partner is Jerome (Black Zoo) Cowan as Miles Archer!
 In the middle is their new client, an absolutely insane woman in my opinion named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, posing as a Miss Wonderly, as played by Mary (Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte) Astor!
Jerome Cowan was also in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine."

Right out of the box, Miles Archer is shot and killed!

Sam Spade can only get so upset by the death of his partner since he was having an affair with his wife!

This is a great shot of Sam visiting the scene of the crime!

Here's an amazing pair of Detectives as played by Barton MacLane and Ward Bond!!
Barton MacLane had 182 tough guy credits including "Nabonga," "The Mummy's Ghost," "Cry Of The Werewolf," and "Unknown Island."
It's hard to see Ward Bond as anybody else except Major Seth Adams after watching over 100 episodes of "Wagon Train" as a kid!

Sam Spade and Miss Wonderly develop a very strange relationship!

Bogie must roll and smoke at least five cigarettes during the course of the film!

And...Of course, Peter Lorre is in there as the sleazy weasel Joe Cairo!
In the Nick Danger episode, the Joe Cairo character is named Rocky Rococo, because The Firesign Theatre recording is a combination of "The Maltese Falcon," and The Beatles' song "Rocky Raccoon!"

I could watch the scenes with Bogie and Peter Lorre all night long!

Let's not forget the masterful weirdo Elisha Cook Jr. is also in there as hit man Wilmer Cook!
Just some of Elisha's freakin' 219 credits are "House On Haunted Hill," "Black Zoo," "The Haunted Palace," "Blacula," "Messiah Of Evil," etc. etc., and you could usually count on him to have a name like Ice Pick, Mousy, Sweeper, Inky, Banjo, or Spinks!

It's cool to see Bogie smile!

Finally, the package containing the famous bird arrives!

And there it is, in all it's glory, "The Maltese Falcon;
Too bad it's a fake!!

If you've never done it before, now's the time to spend that extra 28 minutes and eleven seconds you've got to listen to
"The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger!"
It's a guaranteed good time!

I'm just going to leave you with this!

 I honestly believe this is one of the most remarkably odd posters I've ever seen!

J-MEN FOREVER / A Proctor & Bergman Film - 1979

We have a comedy classic from two of the brains behind Firesign Theatre, Phil Proctor and the late great, Peter Bergman, heroes to the Dungeon. We had every Firesign Theatre album from the beginning, we used to sit around and crack up to the little weird worlds they created in our minds, especially when we closed our eyes! Then, Cheech and Chong came along, appealing to the total base side of humor, we definitely preferred the thinking man's approach to comedy. The storyline for J-Men is simple... The Lightning Bug, ruler of the Moon, plans on enslaving the Earth with rock and roll music and marijuana! This used to play frequently on Night Flight back in the late eighties.

I swear, Joel Hodgson gives a shout out to J-Men in one of his very first MST programs, he quotes an exact line about the robots when he was watching the same scene used by J-Men from the UNDERSEA KINGDOM serial! I'm pretty sure this thing was the spark for MST...

Eegah!! sent over a cool lil' soundclip from this movie for our enjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the atomic powered weed whacker, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... J-MEN FOREVER!

Peter had the deep voice of authority.

One of my top 10 lines of all time is from Rocky Rococo... Rocky Rococo at your cervix!

It's all those guys verses...

...This guy here, The Lightning Bug! He has many faces, including the Crimson Ghost, and really bugs the good guys! They cut characters and scenes from a number of old serials and added the shots with Peter and Phil.

The good guys get their record inventory decimated! We got to make some fake newspaper headlines in our flick, THE CREEP.

The bad guys have a teriffic assortment of death devices!

This still is very interesting to me.

The whiny little girl voiceover they do for Leonard Nimoy here is a real crack up!

J-Man Barton gets the last word ~ J-Men... Forever!!..

FRACTURED FLICKERS - Fred Steiner (1963-64)

"Fractured Flickers" was one of our favourite half hour comedy shows that ran for 26 episodes in 1963-64 that pre-dated The Firesign Theatre and MST by years!

If I recall correctly, it would usually be on at about 6 PM, because it seemed like it was always about at dinner time, so we'd have to wolf down our food real fast in order tobe  able to watch it! The concept was simple, take an olde silent film, and add shameless dialogue by some of the most fantastic voice-over artistes of that or any era, and turn the whole thing into a laugh fest!

Hosted by the incredible actor Hans Conried, "Fractured Flickers" was nearly ineffable in it's ability to make us laugh, and was an inspiration for years!

The writing by Chris Hayward, Bill Scott, George Atkins, Jim Critchfield, Lloyd Turner, and Alan Burns had a no holds barred approach that would pick up your brain and body slam it to the floor, and leave you dazed and confused for days!!

Hans Conried will always be remembered for his roles In "The Twonky," and "The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T," and some of his cartoon voices are more than classic, such as Dr. Hook in Disney's "Peter Pan," Wally Walrus on "The Woody Woodpecker Show," or Snidely Whiplash on "Rocky And His Friends," and "The Dudley Do-Right Show!"

Every show also always had a guest interview spot that included some of the best of the day like the fabulous actress and comedienne Rose Marie, who believe it or not is still active today!

Otto Elmo Linkenheltin in the very first version of "Tarzan" that was ever made, was a made-to-order subject for this type of harpooning and lampooning!

Elmo was krazy enough looking without all the added dialogue! Would you look at the girth on that guy!

The theme music for "Fractured Flickers" was written by the super talented Fred Steiner, a man with some truly unbelievable credits for some TV shows you just might have heard of like "Twilight Zone," "Lost In Space," or "Star Trek!"

"Fractured Flickers" was so cool that even Fabian appeared in the hot seat on one episode!

"Fractured Flickers" is about as close as you'll ever get to seeing  a cartoon show that wasn't exactly animated!

Another killer guest was super funny guy, producer, writer, "My Son, The Folk Singer," "My Son, The Vampire," and one of my Mom's favourite comedians, Allen Sherman!!

"Fractured Flickers" was produced by the guys who knew what funny was really all about, Ponsonby (George Of The Jungle) Britt, Bill (The Bullwinkle Show) Scott, and ..........

.....Of course, none other than Jay Troplong Ward who brought us some of the best laughs of our life with "Crusader Rabbit," "Rocky And His Friends," "The Bullwinkle Show," "Hoppity Hooper," "Super Chicken," "George Of The Jungle," and "The Dudley Do-Right Show!"

Besides Hans Conried, the other voices were all done by a superlative cast that included Paul Frees, June Foray, and Bill Scott! Paul Frees has so many credits, it will make your head spin like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist! Here's just a short list, Barney Bear, Francis The Talking Mule, Go Go Gomez, Boris Badenov, Capt. Peachfuzz, Barney Google, and Ignatz Mouse! Paul also did voice-over in movies we love like "Deadly Mantis," "Beginning Of The End," "The Monolith Monsters," and "Spacemaster X-7!" What an incredible talent!!! Not to be outdone, June Foray was not only the voice of Rocket J. Squirrel and Natasha Fatale, she was also the voice of Betty Rubble, tons of Granny, Grandma, Grandmother, and other characters over the years! She was also the voice of the talking doll Talky Tina, in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Living Doll!" June Foray is still working today!! Last but never least, Bill Scott was the voice of Bullwinkle the Moose and Mr. Peabody, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken! What an incredible crew of talent! Simply amazing!!

The interview with Edward Everett Horton is one of my favourites! These two guys had more talent than half of Hollywood combined today!!

The whole series is available on disc from Netflix! "Fractured Flickers" was made to be seen once a week, and it's pretty hard to watch a bunch of them in a row because it beats you up so bad! A small price to pay, but it's really too bad it's not streaming!