LIFE ON MARS From 2006 U.K. to 2008 U.S.

Tonight's Saturday Night Special isn't really a grudge match per se, it's just a simple comparison between two very similar versions of the same show called "Life On Mars!"

 The British version came out in 2006, and was a great show in my opinion! So much, that I really didn't want to try and even watch this U.S. version. "What's the point?" was what I thought, but then it got interesting! I'm thinking somebody knew this was a great show, but also knew that the U.K. version wouldn't fly in the U.S. because, for the uninitiated, you can't understand what they're talking about half the time! They could have released it in the U.S. but it would have had to have sub-titles like in "The Harder They Come," and a lot of people just won't watch movies with sub-titles, so they just remade the whole thing as close to the original as they could! It's weird! It's like a clone!



The top pictures will all be from the 2006 version, and this is a prime example of how far they went to re-create the original! They even tried to make the photos identical! That's wild! Actually, it got so confusing that while I was doing this, I mixed up these pictures myself!

 

Occasionally there is a bit of variation here and there like the location of Officer Tyler's girlfriend's bloody shirt went from a playground swing set to a merry-go-round!

The changes in technology from 2006 to 2008 are evidenced by the improvements in the mp3 player`

Some scenes are as close to exactly the same as is humanly possible!

The shot of the eight track player!

 

There are also some obvious variations that can't be avoided because it's New York City and not Manchester, England!

But whenever they could, they made it this close to the original!

I really didn't expect them to pull it off, but Jason (The Death Of Superman) O'Mara does an excellent job as Sam Tyler!

Jonathan (Animal Among Us) Murphy and Michael (The Sorpranos) Imperioli are also excellent as the Chris and Ray characters, and Harvey Keitel is equally amazing as Gene "Genie" Hunt!

Two obvious changes are Annie is now a blonde as played by Gretchen (The 13th Floor) Mol.

And Nelson is no longer a black man, but it makes sense if you think about it. A dreadlocked bartender would probably be fairly common in a 1973 England, but in a 1973 New York, it would be an Italian guy.

The new Nelson is Mike (Dumb and Dumber, Ed Wood) Starr, but I just saw that he's only in this one episode, so they must be going to deviate from the story after this first show, because the original Nelson was in many episodes!

I loved the record store scene in both movies!
I got to watch this first episode for free because I opted for Amazon Prime no rush shipping on some shampoo I ordered. I still have another 99 cent credit, so I can either watch another episode or I might just break down and buy the DVD for about $13.00. Either way, I'll be watching the rest of it one way or another! I probably won't know what year it is or where I am by the time I get through!

THE BULLWINKLE SHOW / Jay Ward Productions - 1960

THE BULLWINKLE SHOW aired on TV from 1960-63 and was one of my all time favorite cartoons, also at this time we had BEANY AND CECIL and FELIX THE CAT, holy crap, how in the Hell could you beat that?!! Not to mention WB and Hanna-Barbera. Great freakin' time for us kids back then!

In this episode the boys are working on their secret rocket fuel they want to sell to the government. Of course, Boris and Natasha show up, and some Moon Men!.. From the MOON!!

Rocky and Bullwinkle are walking down the street, Boris gets the word from Natasha, who's reading a secret message from Fearless Leader, to... Keel Moose!

But, Natasha finishes the message after Boris has already cut the rope holding a safe meant to fall on Bullwinkle... Complete message says... Oh, Do NOT Keel Moose!

Boris rushes downstairs to save Bullwinkle and ends up under the big old safe himself!

The boys are working away, trying to create a new rocket fuel. After succeeding, they realize that Bullwinkle never wrote the formula down, so, Rocky wants to hire a hypnotist to hypnotize Bullwinkle into remembering!

Of course, Boris and Natasha show up for the job...

It's not long before Boris has Bullwinkle eating out of his hand. Now, start talking!

So, Bullwinkle tells them everything he knows, it's so boring Boris and Natasha fall asleep!

When Bullwinkle finally gets to the rocket fuel formula, some Moon Men are listening in!..

They are my favorite little characters from the Moon, Gidney and Cloyd... Gidney has the wild mustache and Cloyd carries around his precious Scrooch Gun!

Generally speaking, Cloyd is interested in just one thing... Can I scrooch 'em now, Gidney?!.. And, Gidney would usually reply...

You can scrooch 'em now, Cloyd!..

This still fascinates me, that look of sheer joy on Cloyd's face is priceless!!

Besides the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, the show included Fractured Fairy Tales, Dudley Doo-Right, Aesop And Son and Mr. Peabody & Sherman... Eegah!! is back tomorrow!

THE PIT - "Teddy" (1981)

"The Pit!" Jeezz.......so weird, but not really in a good way! Welcome to another Weirdass Wednesday in The Dungeon! You might want to tighten up your straitjacket a notch for this one!

In this Canadian film, they can't figure out if the story is about a 12 year old pervert, or a bunch of troglodyte monsters living in a hole! It's from 1981, but looks like 1970, and seriously WTF!?

 Tomorrow's the first day of Summer 2018, so who needs the weekend, let's get this party started!

 Everybody's going to be there!

Sammy Snyders is Jamie Benjamin, a distracted kid with an overzealous libido! Sammy was Tom Sawyer in a 1980 TV series for 26 episodes, and he made one more appearance after "The Pit" and never looked back!

Jamie Benjamin is a twisted little kid who can't seem to get women off of his mind!

He does cutouts from nude art books he gets from the library, and pastes the faces of ladies he knows on them!

Jamie's parents are going out of town, and when the new babysitter comes over to have a meal, Jamie drops his napkin, just so he can get this view!

Oh yeah, and his best friend is this toy bear with the original name Teddy, and the reason for the alternative title of this movie! They actually converse, and Teddy has a dirty mind too!

Besides acting, Jeannie Elias as Sandy the gullible babysitter, has been busy for some 30+ years doing cartoon and video game voices. She was Margaret on 78 episodes of "Dennis the Menace," and her voice credits go everywhere imaginable from Princess Toadstool to Pugsley Addams! Sandy drives Jamie crazy, and he thinks he's in love with her. Her dressing like this when she goes to check on him doesn't help matters much!

Wow! I forgot all about those two tone Webers!

But wait, this movie is called "The Pit," not the little pervert, so where's the pit? Is it an olive pit, or an arm pit, or maybe Brad Pitt? Oh, here it is, a hole out in the forest somewhere that's gotta smell like something that rhymes with spit!

Pretty dang nice looking Chevy ragtop!

Jamie's back up to his tricks again!

After Jamie discovers the hungry critters down in the hole, and then finds out they like meat, he starts stealing Sandy's money and going to the butcher shop to buy meat for them and tossing it down into the pit! When he runs out of money, he tries to steal this cow!

Sometimes, "The Pit" is almost slapstick, like when the pervert kid is wheeling the Grannie in her wheelchair out to the pit to feed the little buggers. It's like "The Little Shop Of Horrors" meets "The Keystone Kops!" "The Pit" takes more than a little bit from "The Little Shop Of Horrors" as it's a story about monsters with an insatiable taste for meat and a lamebrain's efforts to feed them, and that's where all the murder and mayhem begins!

Jamie's pushing everybody he doesn't like into the pit, and then Sandy falls in accidentally. After that all the monsters escape and go on a rampage through the country leaving a trail of bodies like this!

Like really none of it makes one iota of sense!

The monsters are chased back into the hole, and.....

.......The local townspeople take care of the rest of the cleanup business!

I always try to give people credit just for trying, but it's pretty difficult for me to do with "The Pit!" Besides everything else, "The Pit" is agonizingly slow at times! It's 96 minutes long, but I'm sure if they just cut out about an hour and a half, it wouldn't be half bad!