Classic Posters and Lobby Cards #2

Beatniks and Hippies on '60 network TV. #3 Beany and Cecil Beatnik

Beany and Cecil Beatnik 

The  Dali inspired painting

Salvador Dali on "What's My Line?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A&feature=related

Cecil digs the crazy art.




Wildman of Wildsville

lord buckley vs. groucho marx:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1eSo8-Zns

From Wikipedia

Go Man Van Gogh - A stereotypical cartoon beatnik/wild man who lives in the jungles of Wildsville on the Hungry I-Land. He often paints various things with his paintbrush, including paintings, vines to swing on, and fake backdrops to fool enemies (ala Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner). He also often plays a set of bongo drums, and scat-sings and speaks with various beatnik stereotype slang. Though he did not appear in many episodes, he was somewhat of a recurring character in the bumpers. He was originally voiced by Lord Buckley in "The Wildman of Wildsville" (a 1959 theatrical short that aired as an episode of the TV series) and then by Scatman Crothers after Buckley's death in 1960.

Beatniks and Hippies on '60 network TV. #2 Lost in Space "The Promised Planet"

Original Air Date:

 24 January 1968

Irwin Allen's television science fiction shows are pretty much lackluster at best. I was 10 years old when Lost in Space first started. I remember enjoying the first black-and-white season. By the time it turned color in 1966 I found it silly. Looking back now I find I was right. However even as a precocious 11-year-old I did not have the perspective to enjoy it. Now my ancient jaded eyes are able to much more enjoy some aspects of this camp catastrophe.

This episode "The Promised Planet" focuses more on the two younger siblings. The castaway crew are led to believe by the robot that they had reached their primary goal, Alpha Centauri. They are greeted by a young man who calls himself Bartholomew. In a greeting ceremony all of the female members are given bouquets of flowers, there is one left so they give it to Dr. Smith.

Bartholomew talks the father into letting him take Penny and Will away from them.  Although they are first seen in military uniforms the inhabitants of this planet are dreaded space hippies, or so it seems. 

     

Soon Penny is seduced by cheesy surf music and is go-go dancing on the furniture.

"You just don't get the vibrations like I do".

   

But Will is made of stronger stuff. He is teamed with Edgar a bespectacled chunky hippy. "Your guide to the promised land". The indoctrination is to unlearn the teachings of the olders.

"Light up one of these memory cones when you get back to your pad. They smell like incense." 

Meanwhile the crew of the Jupiter five are administered memory washing fumes that blocks the memory of the children. Dr. Smith has left the group and escapes that fate only to be turned into an aging hippie, but not before he discovers that Bartholomew and his gaggle of space hippies are in reality big eared green aliens with antennas.

When hippie Smith joins the youngsters, Will and Penny, he says;

"It's like freaky man, real freaky. Were going to freak out together. I'm way out man, like the rest of you cats."This is too much for Will who grabs Penny and pulls her out of the room.

When they find their father he does not recognize them.

"Wait a minute, you called me dad. Is that another of the expressions that you use so freely here."

Before they leave Will gives Mr. Robinson the memory  cones. 

"What are these?"

"Light them up and find out".

With the help of the robot they do indeed Light them up and find out. Making a U-turn in space they attempt to return to the planet that holds their kids. Their attempts are thwarted so Will cons hippie Smith into destroying their equipment by promising him the loot from a space heist.

Well, the adults eventually make the scene. It turns out the alien space hippies only want to grow up. They lack some chemical compound that they had hoped to extract from the Robinson children. Stern Dr. John Robinson leaves the luckless aliens to their fate after earlier admonishing them "When I speak I expect children to obey".

If this was Star Trek Kirk would have left some friendly interplanetary social worker or Bones would've synthesized some remedy.

Beatniks and Hippies on '60 network TV. #1 Petticoat Junction: Bobbie Jo and the Beatnik

Original Air Date:

 7 January 1964


Petticoat Junction is the least abstract and interesting of Paul Henning's rural trilogy. It lacks the ensemble cast and silly surreal ambulance of the Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. In this episode Dennis Hopper is a beat poet passing through Hooterville. As Bobbi Jo walks from town to the hotel run by her family, the Shady Rest, Hopper exposes his philosophy of life.

After a lecture on the hypocrisy of the family, Bobbi Jo is intrigued.

"I want to find the truth as you have found it".
"No baby you're too soft, you're too tender to face life, you're a dove I'm an Eagle. I'm screaming at life longing to tear it open".

Sister Billy decides to flirt with the handsome new man, and has the following exchange;

"Are you the boy from New York City?"
"Greenwich Village".
"Bobby Joe never gets anything right".

 Hopper dismisses her as the bimbo she is. However, he is still welcomed into the group by friendly matriarch Kate.

The family is befuddled, and Bobby Joe ensnared by the strangers words;

"My poetry is a scream of protest. I hang the bell on the Cat. I shout in the atrophied ear of the sleeping American".

After a set piece of a poetry reading, in which the middle America sensibility of the Shady rest is contrasted with the nihilistic philosophy of the wandering poet he calls the group corpses in a cemetery and storms out. Predictably Bobby Joe follows and is further corrupted by the vagabond with a cigarette.

Sensible mother Kate knows from her own experience that her young daughter will always remember him as an exciting young rebel with interesting ideas. She hatches a cunning plan. Hopper's beatnik character Alan is ritually humiliated by toadying to a fake dog food manufacturer to obtain a Fictitious $2,000

. The ridiculous jingles and sucking up to the phony capitalist proves hopper's lack of integrity, and shows middle America how ridiculous and phony are its detractors. In the end we're all after the cash. Our corporate spin makers and sponsors are safe. We will see this theme again in Henning's most popular outing the Beverly hillbillies.

For awhile you can see the entire episode in three parts HERE Missing the theme music probably to defeat the copyright bots.