The second one is Gateways to the Mind, with animation by Chuck Jones. It also features 10 seconds of clown footage so disturbing that every time I tried to save it to send to YouTube, my editor crashed. [Update 1/4/8: I was finally able to upload it. Do not view with your eyes open.] Since these each weighed in at around 50 minutes to begin with and produced so many grabs they’d have run for at least twice that, I’ve actually split them up into two parts each, that will run separately. But I’ve also added both films to the catalog, so you can request showings in their entirety via the links above.

On the “IS Playhouse” front, the big addition is that after adding the soon to run “Escape to Ponderosa” (Bonanza episode 35), I’ve run out of new Bonanzas to add to the rotation for the moment. So, I’ve taken this occasion to double its presence by dumping seven episodes that haven’t been capped in a while into the playhouse rotation. I’ve tried to trim most of these to a more reasonable number of grabs than on previous runs, which should hopefully make the Bonanza haters out there a little happier about the addition. My impression is that maybe 25% of you really enjoy capping this show, another 25% don’t enjoy it, and the rest of you are just happy to be here (to coin a phrase).

The episodes I’ve just put back into play include appearances from Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban, and Jack Elam. The “new” episode, Escape to Ponderosa features a fine performance by Joe Maross, who appeared in over 100 TV shows and movies during the course of his career. However, if he’s remembered by anybody under the age of 40 or so (particularly msties) it’s usually for just one of those roles, particularly one line, on The Twilight Zone. He’s the guy who said “I’m the god!” in The Little People (episode 93). Anyway, my aim is to keep Bonanza at around its present level of 5% of the Playhouse grabs by dumping episodes back into rotation as I add new grabs from other sources. Of course, that means it will probably take another year or so to get the 10 episodes I have laying fallow on my HD back into the mix, so I may have to run them for Lorne’s birthday or add them to the request catalog, even if nobody’s going to request them.

If I might backtrack to the subject of Hans Conried for a moment, I’ll point out that by coincidence I ended up watching Peter Pan (with features two of his more famous roles) last night for the first time that I can concretely remember. Well, in as much as you can say you watched a movie when your four year old niece was asking to know why almost every plot point happened. She finally seemed satisfied when I explained “because Captain Hook’s a bitter old bastard, Peter’s an emotionally stunted freak, Tink is a catty b, and Wendy’s getting ready to unleash all sorts of hormones on her body.” At least, she stopped asking me questions after that.

Some of Mr. Davis’ IS staples include:

• Alchohol is Dynamite
• Dangerous Stranger
• Keep off the Grass
• Skateboard Sense
• The Terrible Truth

If you do live in the area, don’t forget about the proposed capperfest on the 28th mentioned in my last post.

Most of the shorts in tonight’s show aren’t amongst the ones AV-Geeks guru Skip Elsheimer has made available at archive.org, so they haven’t shown up on IS (yet). That’s a pity, since most of these were right in the average capper’s wheelhouse. Despite a fairly interactive show – starting off with audience members taking turns reading frames in a slideshow and occasional sing-a-longs with the film (the theme of the show was musical shorts), I’m pretty sure if there were more than one capper there, we’d have been thrown out for talking back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must excorcise my soul of the horror that was the evening’s last film, Telezonia:

Made by THE PHONE COMPANY back in 1974, this thing is deeply in need of getting riffed a new one. This edutainment flick aimed at helping youngsters learn to use the phone was described by Mr. Elsheimer as “Sid and Marty Kroft Inspired”, I’d say at least as much inspiration stemmed from sharp blows to the head. It starts off with four phono-phobic kids suddenly shrinking, then being lured into a telephone by a phone spirit named Telly (played by Robert Towers, who apparently might’ve been inside one of the Banana Splits suits).

Oh, yes, Telly. I remember the days before I knew Telly. Good, innocent days. Imagine if you will, Mr. B-Natural’s younger brother-sister, as portrayed by a cross between Topher Grace and Joel Grey, yet more sexless. Give him a man-skirted outfit that’s a mix of Gil Gerard’s Buck Rogers uniform and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky’s costume, add some AT&T insignias, then let him sing and you begin to understand Telly.

Once inside the phone, Telly leads the kids to the magical city/world (well, large room) of Telezonia. The kids spend eight minutes travelling to and exploring said land before they finally get to speak on a telephone. First, they must meet half of Bell’s support crew, meet horrifying characters dressed as punctuation marks, get some introductory electrical engineering coursework in, hear a few Barneyrific songs, and travel through the Dr. Who opening credits three or four times. The journey really was harrowing, the audience’s shock and horror at the suddent arrival of the Question Mark was palapable. After the kids get to talk on a phone, it takes another ten minutes featuring several more songs (including one by a frightfully manic exclamation mark) before they actually get to dial one. With each new and frightening character hopping into frame, I could hear Crow crying “just show us how to dial the thing . .. with the thing . . . and . . . ohpleaseIwantmymommy!” But enough from me, just watch it and see if you don’t have to shield your eyes.

Telezonia, won’t you?

Author of novels, comics, and other things Neil Gaiman will be will be interviewed live by author, Daily Show cast member and PC-portrayer John Hodgman, followed by a book signing of Gaiman book, Fragile Things on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 7:00pm at The Fashion Institute of Technology’s Great Hall, 227 West 27th Street New York, New York.

It’s free, you’ve got two weeks notice and at least one capper should be in attendance. Contact UnReality (trust me, the form on that link will go to him) for more info.

For those of you with more flexible schedules, this Sunday through Monday brings us three area screenings from the AV Geeks archive, source of some of Inventing Situations’ primest material, hosted by the head geek Skip Elsheimer.

I for one will be attending Sunday the 17th’s 7 PM screening, “AV Geeks Greatest Hits” at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street) which will include that classic claymation dental horrror morality tale, Munchers.

If there’s enough interest in one of the two other screenings, we might get a gathering going with or without me. We already have one vote for the screening in Huntington, NY at 7:30 on Tuesday the 19th and none yet for the showing on Monday night near the South Street Seaport at 10 PM.

If you’re interested in going to any of these screenings, contact me and maybe a gathering will occur.

In order to serve you better (or maybe just mix things up) I’m moving around the ‘programming blocks’ at Inventing Situations. There’s still going to be five hours a day of ‘Non-Ephemeral’ films (e.g. feature films and tv shows), they’ll just be playing at different hours. Here’s the new schedule. It can also be found on the info page.

I’ve decreased the Library of Congress images to one hour a day since they’re repeating a lot faster than either of the larger collections.

In the coming weeks and months I’ll be tinkering with the schedule a little more:

• Adding another hour of “Non-Ephemeral” films.
• After Thanksgiving, I’ll be adding all of this year’s new to IS turkey-day movies to the regular rotation. There should be at least five this year. I’ll proceed to drop in the rest at some steady rate.
• Bonanza: Six new to IS episodes should start showing up in a month or two. Once those have premiered, the 18 episodes I’ve already run will start appearing.
• Plus, I’m toying with yet another programming block. It’s material that technically could go in with the feature films, but that I think will work better on their own.

While I’m discussing picture sources, thought I’d offer an update on how my campaign to add grabs has been going since I last discussed it:

Without considering the 1,500+ images I’ve tossed from the ephemeral collection, that’s around 75 grabs a day.

One last thought: Can anybody suggest a better phrase than “Non-Ephemeral Films”. I’m looking for a term that differentiates them from the “ephemeral films”, acknowledges the fact that they conist of more than just feature films (there’s cartoons, tv shows, movie trailers, Three Stooges shorts, and drive in ads in there too), and is less awkward and obscure than “Non-Ephemeral”.