WHERE THE ACTION IS - Season 2, Episode #231 (1966)

Welcome to "Where The Action Is!" Wednesday from inside the music room of The Dungeon!!

"Where The Action Is!" was a 30 minute show on Monday through Friday for three years from 1965 to 1967 at about 4:00 PM in the afternoon, just in time for when the kids got home from  school! It was a Dick Clark production with time on each show for three or four artists to do one or two songs! Like the AM radio of the time, it featured music of all genres from Rock to Pop to Soul to Folk to Country, and there basically were no boundaries! Let me give you a couple of examples, the talent included Captain Beefheart, Buck Owens, James Brown, Otis Redding, The Standells, The Music Machine, Marvin Gaye, The Byrds, ? and The Mysterians, Al Martino, The Kingston Trio, Roy Orbison, The Seeds, The Yardbirds, The Zombies, Sam & Dave, The 13th Floor Elevators, Love, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on forever!

 Dick puts an exclamation point on "Where The Action Is!"

 Our sponsors tonight are Clorets breath mints with Retsyn and.......

 .......Lizzie Borden milk, the favourite dairy product of ax murderers everywhere!

First up, the main act on this episode was The Vogues! You'd probably have to talk to their P.R. guy to find out what the que pasos are with the sombreros and serapes!

This sequence of The Robbs with a bunch of young ladies singing "Younger Girl" is just creepy!

The Vogues are back with their big hit, "Five O'Clock World" that made it to number 4 on the Billboard charts in January of 1966!

Odd photo bombing 1966 style!

Sometimes the host of the show was Paul Revere and The Raiders, the rest of the time it was this guy Steve Alaimo! As hard as they tried to make Steve a major commercial success, it just never quite panned out! Steve had 9 songs that made it into the Billboard top 100, but he never had one song break into the top forty!

Shake it, don't break it!

Although he was extremely talented, they just couldn't break Keith Allison either, despite the fact that he played on a lot of other people's successful albums like The Monkees, so he ended up joining Paul Revere and The Raiders for three years! Still rockin' today, Keith currently plays with the Waddy Watchtel band!

Bobby Moore plays his hit, "Searching For My Love," that made it to #27 on the charts, and to #7 on the R and B charts in 1966!!

They even took the show on the road, and were still pushing Steve Alaimo and Keith Allison, and with headliners like The Young Rascals!! Look at those prices kids, four bucks for the best seat in the house!

So, as it turns out, the phrase "Where The Action Is!" will always be now, and was never destined to become where the action was!

 "Where The Action Is!" has continued on through the decades and refuses to slow down!

Because  let's face it, no matter what, you'll never go wrong, as long as you are...

"Where The Action Is!"

PULGASARI / North Korea - 1985

Here's a wild and weird one from North Korea of all places! Tagline sez... Banned for a decade! The story goes like this... In feudal Korea, an evil King becomes aware that there is a peasant rebellion being planned in the country and has his men take all the iron farming tools and cooking pots from them so they cannot defend themselves! An old blacksmith is imprisoned and starved to death, but, his last creation is a tiny figurine of a monster... Pulgasari, a creature that eats iron! The blood of his daughter brings the creature to life, and, it fights on the side of the peasants to overthrow the corrupt monarchy.

Although the film is a North Korean production, director Sang-ok Shin is South Korean. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il was a huge fan of Shin's and since North and South Korea have technically been at war since 1951 and have no diplomatic relations, Kim had him kidnapped! Shin eventually escaped back to South Korea, but, not before he had been forced to make this movie for the North Korean leader!..

The original title card is not available, so, we get this one from the recent release!

After Pulgasari is hatched, well, he's cute as a bug and loved by his new parents. They let the little guy play in the sewing drawer, then, they tuck him in for the night!.. So freakin' cute!!

When the King's men try and decapitate our hero, Pulgasari jumps in to save the day! After the monster bites a hunk out of the sword, the men run like Hell, and, our hero is saved!

The peasants find a cave to pursue their training against the King, wish I had a cave!

The good guys are tricky! This time, they drop a big pile of logs onto the King's men when they try to attack from a river!.. Horray!!

This still simply speaks for itself!..

Well, you can see that Pulgasari is all growed up, and, he's on the attack, big time!

The King has some strange allies... A bunch of these women fan sleeping gas around the monster until he faints and falls into a giant hole! Then, many tons of rocks come tumbling down on him... Don't worry, he's not dead!

Back at the King's ranch, well, I guess they're working on weapons to defend themselves against Pulgasari with some sort of polluting nuclear domes in the background, what the?!

The big guy just keeps on coming! Eventually, the King's domain is decimated by Pulgasari.

Problem is, the monster now turns on the peasants after their victory against the King. You have to admit, the details are stunning on the creature! In fact, some of the scenes are absolutely amazing, it would be worth your time to check this one out if you get the chance.

So, the blacksmith's daughter has to cast a spell on the monster that causes him to crumble into a million pieces! Kinda sad.

But, guess what?.. There's a baby Pulgasari somewhere on a mountain in North Korea, just see for yerself! Check back on Wednesday for more, from... The Dungeon!!

RED INGLE AND HIS NATURAL SEVEN - "Melody Masters" (1948)

 Tonight's Saturday Night Special is for me, I hope you like it as much as I do!

 When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time listening to my Dad's olde 78 records, and I mean a lot of time! Many, many of those songs will be ingrained into my head for my own personal eternity!

Of course, the novelty records were the ones I listened to the most by Spike Jones, Tex Williams, and there was this record called "Yokohama Mama" by Hari Kari and his Six Saki Sippers, that I accidently broke one day, but two of my favourite records were by Red Ingle and his Natural Seven, "Tem-Tayshun" with Red Ingle and Cinderella G. Stump (Jo Stafford) on vocals, and  "Cigareets, Whuskey, and Wild Wild Women" with vocals by Red and Buttermilk Tussie!

 Red Ingle was born into this world as Ernest Jansen Ingle in 1906, and departed in 1965 at the age of 58. If you'd like to visit his grave, it's in a Santa Barbara graveyard that he shares with Fess Parker and Alan Thicke!

 This is a 14 minute burlesque show that Red made in 1948, and you can watch it or download it for free, no strings attached at a site I just discovered and added to our side bar called "Free Classic Movies!" As I captioned the link over there, If this blog was a class, that site would be one of our textbooks. There are probably at least 100 great movies you can watch there that we've covered on this site, so don't ever tell me you don't have anything to do!

 Red knew how to surround himself with talent like The Albin Dancers, and singer Karen Tedder!

 "The Man With The Big Sombrero" is the song sung by Karen Tedder!

 I didn't know before I started writing this that Red worked with Spike Jones and his City Slickers before going solo, and had done the vocals on a couple of Spike's hits like "You Always Hurt the One You Love," "Liebestraum" and "Glow Worm!" From listening to the music, I always had assumed that this was a hillbilly band, but that aspect was just one part of their shtick! I love Red's outfit, like some kind of military busboy ringmaster!

 

 Red learned to play the violin at a very young age, and then also turned to saxophone!

This Wikipedia page will show you what an amazing cat he really was!

Okay, enough of all that, let's get this show rolling!!

 Can't find out much about the very talented and very pretty Karen Tedder, except she was in another one of these Red Ingle shorts, and was on the Perry Como show once. I'm pretty sure that she was also the one doing the Buttermilk Tussie vocals!

 Karen is awesome doing her Carmen Miranda routine, and ignoring Red the whole time as he eats all the fruit in her headdress !

 Next up are the Albins doing an insane dance number you're just going to have to watch because I don't think I can really describe it accurately!

 

 Red's guitar player was a guy named Hayden Causey, and Hayden and the boys do a hot little number called "Steel Guitar Rag!" with Red on fiddle!

 In a more serious moment (Right!) Red does something he calls "Violin Concerto!"

The show closes out with "Cigareets, Whuskey, and Wild Wild Women!" The only thing that's missing is the drunken heckler on the recorded version! This song became a big hit because it was banned from playing on the radio for it's lyrical content! That'll work every time!! 

And you gotta admit, 

"Cigareets, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women, They'll Drive You Crazy, They'll Drive You Insane!"

That's advice that some almost 70 years later, you still can't argue with!

So, thanx big time to Jimbo Berkey at Free Classic Movies for this killer blast from the past!

The way things are going, gettting to see this might be the best thing that ever happens in 2017!