Bonus Video! All in the Family's Carroll O'Connor on why he loved to break contracts with evil producers
Hello there!
For this week's Bonus Video, I've got some RATHER incendiary remarks from Carroll O'Connor (that's Archie on All in the Family) regarding the breaking of contracts -- basically, he writes in TV Guide (of all places) that it's always ethical for actors to make life difficult for greedy producers who want to exploit workers, and it's hard to disagree. Also, I have a few clips for you from Sally Struthers' All in the Family semi-spinoff, Gloria. I regret to say that it is not a great sitcom! But also not terrible. Just a very straight-down-the-middle '80s sitcom. It was cancelled pretty quickly, and I suspect it's because they really shot themselves in the foot by inflating the budget with big-name talent (Burgess Meredith, who's doing a great job) and stupid expenses (tons of animals on every episode!!!!) that pretty much made the show untenable.
And! We've got double-mysteries on our hands this week. First: What EXACTLY did Tony Curtis say about kissing Marilyn Monroe? Pretty much everyone who was at a screening of Some Like it Hot in 1959 recalled that he said "it was like kissing Hitler," but he denies it. And he also doesn't deny it. And he also confirms it. Oh Tony, what is the truth???
Mystery number two also concerns the film Some Like it Hot, and whether or not it was issued a Production Code certificate. Lots and lots of reputable sources say that it was released without a certificate, because it was so controversial. But I think that might not be true!
And: I need your help! Do you have any suggestions for bulk-scanning magazines without destroying them and also without spending a ton of money? I want to digitize some vintage showbiz publications so I can research them without getting my filthy hands all over the pages (and also so I can share them with you!) but scanning thousands of pages of magazines is ... tricky.
Comments (10)
I found this as very entertaining and informative
I'm excited to hear your take on Some Like It Hot. I saw that America's favorite new first son hunk went to see it this weekend https://www.instagram.com/taylorzakharperez/
I 100% want to hear you rant about fan fiction.
The fastest way we found to scan magazines without destroying them was… Interns. 😁
Fun video! And "Blood of Dracula" is on youtube right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN-37tFJcNQ (or, to skip to the musical number: https://youtu.be/MN-37tFJcNQ?t=1695)
Oh hooray, thank you! Cannot wait to watch this.
I have a ScanSnap SV600 and it’s quite good for scanning books and magazines though it’s not cheap. Prior to my last move across the country, I had hundreds of research books and magazines. It wasn’t practical to move them and then have to store them. So, I used a company called 1DollarScan. Their premium service costs $120 a month (cancel anytime). For that price, they will scan 100 groups of 100 pages (books, magazines, documents) and give you PDFs that are high quality, and searchable. You download them to your computer and/or cloud service so you can have access to them anywhere. The downsides are that you have to ship the originals (books can go media mail, magazines with ads legally cannot but some still do it) and the originals’ spines are sliced and, after giving you two weeks to make sure the PDFs are okay, they recycle the paper. Before deciding which books/magazines to send, I would look them up on Amazon or eBay. If I could easily replace them for a couple bucks, I sent them off without guilt. If they were more rare, I’d scan them myself and then donate or sell them. My feeling is that, if I had a fire, I’d lose all of my collection. This way, I have all of the information, can access it anywhere I have wifi, and back the files up in multiple places. I feel like I’m preserving this stuff for the future. Food for thought. Regarding the Some Like It Hot rating documentation, I used to spend my lunches at the Academy library. I haven’t been there in years but if that info is accessible to the public, I can go over and take a look.
Oh good to know, I'll check out that scanning company -- maybe that's the best way to go, so I don't have to do a lot of tedious work. And thank for the offer to check out the books, I'm waiting to hear back from a researcher there about access & may take you up on that!
I do not have this myself, but I think it's a great system that is not cheap, but not impossibly expensive either: the CZUR ET18 and its siblings. I saw it on CuriousMarc's channel (who's another technology nerd middle-aged-white-guy [MAWG]) ... he did a video review when he wanted to scan old technical documentation. It's slick in that it uses a laser system to "uncurl" the pages so you just shoot a page and turn to the next. The video: "Archiving vintage documentation: CZUR ET18 Pro Scanner Review" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qBeM710UIk )
Oh this is so helpful, thank you!!!