Tonight's Wednesday Wonder is brought to you by The Fleischer Brothers.
Not only did Max and Dave Fleischer make the best looking cartoons, I think they might have just made more than anybody else, and they had the best heroes, Popeye, and Superman!
Max Fleischer produced over 625 cartoons, and his brother Dave directed over 645, and "Terror On The Midway" was just one of them!
"More Powerful Than a (Super Cool) Locomotive!!"
"Able to Leap (Totally Awesome) Tall Buildings at a Single Bound!"
You can bring on as many superheroes as you want, but Superman will always be the baddest of them all in my humble opinion!
And Clark Kent will always be one of the best alter egos too!
The circus is in town, but it's not going to be the show that all the kids are expecting!
Of course, circuses are nothing by controlled chaos and madness!
It's when they become out of control that all Hell breaks loose!
These two shots of Clark checking out Lois Lane are great!!
Here's some Sid and Marty Krofft memories for lots of kids back in the seventies. This re-titled episode appeared later in THE KROFFT SUPERSHOW. The aliens are Fi and Fum, played by Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors. The are from the year 2369 and have a flying saucer to get around in, but, you know, it's lost!! They also have two earthlings from the present, little Jerry and his babysitter, Alice, who were in the saucer when it had an emergency take off.
So, the gang land on a distant planet and find a giant wishbone, which Fi and Fum remember that it's the wishbone from a creature they have already encountered, a Chickephant! A Chickephant is a large animal with a chicken head on an elephant body.
This Dorse, horse head on a dog's body, is like Fi and Fum's pet. Anyway, it finds a giant egg and pushes it toward the ship...
We even gots three cavemen running around in the jungle, looking for anything that might just come their way.
A Chickephant shows up and the cavemen run like Hell.. The gang tries to say hi to the beast, but, they end up running like Hell too!
Inside the saucer, the dorse rolls the egg into the ship, and after not too long, that crazy looking mixed-up aminal breaks out of its shell, and it's a freaking Elefaken!! Hey pal, these names are making me dizzy!
Then, don't ax me why, but this knuckle dragger tells Fi that she is now his slave, and she must go to his cave and clean it up! Fi's energy is nearly depleted and needs to be recharged.
In the meantime, Fum wants to have mom meet her baby and gives out some ear shattering calls to her.. Baby waits on a rock but when mom sees it, she rejects the poor little thing!
Fum rescues Fi from the cave and recharges her, then it's a game of ring-around-the-rosy with the Dover Boys. Our friendly pals start their rocket boots, and...
Away they go!!.. Back to the ship!
They are trying to figure out what to do with Baby when the saucer gets rocked like a mofo, it's mom again, and she's mad as Hell...
Believe it or not, Alice comes up with a plan to rub the thing with peanut oil, since Chickephants liked peanuts. And, it works!!
Go figure.
Well, it's off to another adventure for the gang, see you in the reruns! That's it for today, be back Wednesday for Eegah's take on all this stuff, here at The Dungeon!!..
I've got a real killer Saturday Night Special for you this week!
It's an "All-American" film from 1948!
"Killer Diller" is actually the most exciting film I'm seen lately, and right up there with "Hellzapoppin" in the sheer entertainment category!
"Killer Diller" is an amazing musical variety show wrapped around a small unnecessary story line to try and make it cohesive! I'm not going to explain the short story line, but instead I'll just tell you that it was written by Hal Seeger, who went on to produce and direct hundreds of cartoons starring characters like Milton the Monster, Batfink, etc.
It's all happening at The Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. The Lincoln was built in 1926, and was sometimes referred to as the "West Coast Apollo" because it featured popular African-American acts, many of whom also played at The Apollo in Harlem.
Andy Kirk and his Orchestra are the house band on this fine night!
The first performance is by Andy's Orchestra and is called "Gator Serenade." It features saxophone solos by two killer players, Hank Abrams playing tenor sax on the left, and Shirley Green playing alto sax on the right.
"Gator Serenade" seriously rocks, and Hank Abrams delivers an awesome solo, so much, that he just doesn't want to quit!
When it's Shirley Greene's time to solo, Hank gets so excited that he tries three or four times to get involved again and Andy Kirk has to run him off each time. It's really quite funny!
I just love this shot of the Andy Kirk horn section!
Next up, Beverlee White serves up a couple of tastee dishes, "It Ain't Nobody's Business What I Do," and "I Don't Want To Get Married."
Then it's "Two tons of Melody and Mirth" with Patterson and Jackson with "If I Didn't Care," "I Believe," and "Ain't Misbvehavin.'" Don't be fooled by these guys girth, because they've got some moves!
A very young Moms Mabley was known as Jackie Mabley back then.
The phenomenal James and Steve Clark, performing as the tap dancing Clark Brothers are nothing but fun to watch. This was their first recorded performance, and they went to to be on all kinds of TV shows, like The Ed Sullivan's.
Most people only know Nat King Cole as being a soulful crooner, but he was a very talented jazz pianist. The other two members of the King Cole Trio are guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince. It's cool that Nat sits side saddle when he plays. The Trio performs three songs, "Breezy and the Bass," "Now He Tells Me," and "Ooh, Kickeroonie." There's another funny sequence in this set when Nat and Wesley and playing notes together like crazy, and Nat stops, but Wesley just keeps on going.
This is a high energy show, and it doesn't stop here. The Congaroos do a couple of numbers where I'm not sure how nobody gets hurt. These folks are crazy, slinging each other around to a point that I can't even describe! This is a truly Mind boggling performance, it wore me out just watching so bad that I had to take a nap afterwards!
And as the man says himself, you can't have a show like this without some beautiful dancing girls, and they are lovely, no doubt
The Lincoln sat 2,100 people, and I'll tell you what, this crowd sure got their money's worth!
Today, the Lincoln Theater is the home of Iglesia de Jesucristo Ministerios Juda, a Spanish-speaking church.
Here's a Killer Diller early X-Mas present for you, Enjoy!
