Up on the Roof With the Fab Four

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"We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea because it was much simpler than going anywhere else.

"Also nobody had ever done that so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study.

"We set up a camera in the Apple reception area behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in.

"The police and everybody came in saying, 'You can't do that! You've got to stop.' "

George Harrison
'Anthology'

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If there is a seminal moment from the '60s that still lives in pop lore, it is probably the fabled rooftop concert given by the Beatles on the roof of the Apple building in London on this date in 1969.

Ultimately, about half of the 42–minute show served as the concluding segment of "Let It Be" — the fourth and final Beatles movie.

As George Harrison said, it was an interesting study. The movie captured a range of reactions on the street level in London, from excitement to exasperation. In hindsight, probably the Beatles were the only musicians who had the luxury of conducting such a social experiment. Anyone else might have been arrested, and their careers would have been reduced to punchlines.

But they were the Beatles, internationally known. Everything they did made news — not always good news but news. They could get away with things that other groups could not — like playing loud music in the business district during the noon hour.

In the movie, pedestrians could be seen looking skyward, trying to ascertain where the sound was coming from. A few of the older pedestrians clearly were annoyed by the intrusion into their lives.

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They didn't realize they were witnesses to history — the Beatles' last public concert. They were hearing something for which Beatles fans would yearn for 11 years — until John Lennon was murdered in December 1980 and it was no longer possible — a Beatles concert.

(In the 1970s, the talk was not of a Beatles concert but of a Beatles reunion. It was understood that they would perform together, but the shape that performance would take was never established in the discussions I heard or in which I participated. If such a reunion had taken place, it might have been on a TV show. It might even have been in the form of a multi–city tour.

And a few might have dreamed of a repeat of the rooftop performance. Who knows?)

The concert took place nearly five years to the day after the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

How Are Your 'Precious Bodily Fluids' Holding Up?

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Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers)

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I am a fan of movie director Stanley Kubrick's work. I really like all of his films — can't think of one that I don't like — but my absolute favorite is probably the one that premiered 50 years ago today, "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Actually, "Dr. Strangelove" isn't my favorite Kubrick movie all the time. Sometimes my favorite is "2001: A Space Odyssey," and sometimes it is "A Clockwork Orange." Sometimes it's "The Shining."

Occasionally, it is "Lolita" or even "Eyes Wide Shut." Heck, as I say, I like 'em all.

But none of Kubrick's other movies match "Dr. Strangelove" in terms of producing lines that I love ...

Like when Peter Sellers, as President Merkin Muffley, tells an American military official (George C. Scott) and a Russian ambassador who have come to blows, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" (The American Film Institute named that the #64 quote in movie history.)

But, really, there are so many wonderful lines in "Dr. Strangelove" that I can't narrow it down to a single favorite line. I discover new lines to enjoy and appreciate every time I see it.

There are some lines, of course, that have amused me from the start.

Just about every time that Slim Pickens opens his mouth is funny, whether he is preparing his crew for "noo–klear combat, toe to toe with the Rooskies" or whooping while he rides a bomb to his death.

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Everything is built around a really simple premise — an Air Force officer, aptly named Jack Ripper, issues an order for bombers in the air to attack Russia, and the movie is about the attempts on the ground to stop that attack. A very similar movie, "Fail–Safe," was in the theaters that year as well, but, whereas Kubrick's movie was a black comedy, the other was definitely a drama.

I've always been an admirer of George C. Scott. His performance in "Patton" is one of the great portrayals of an historical figure in cinematic history, but I always enjoy watching him as Gen. Buck Turgidson, an adviser to the president. Scott was a complete actor, able to do comedy as well as drama.

The lines were great, but a big part of that was hearing them from the mouths of just the right people.

Peter Sellers has long been one of my family's favorites, but he was never funnier than he was in "Dr. Strangelove," in which he played three parts. Three times as many chances to be funny — and two were with foreign accents that he could exaggerate as he wished.

Still, some of my favorite scenes are when Sellers is playing the American president. At one point, for example, he asserts that Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is a psychotic.

"I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that," Scott's character replies, "until all the facts are in." (This is after Ripper has already sent the bombers on their mission.)

And, of course, it is always funny to watch Hayden rant that "I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

I also enjoy Ripper's description of his personal battle to protect those "precious bodily fluids."

"I first became aware of it," he tells Mandrake, his British attache, "during the physical act of love. A profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence."

Never fails to make me laugh.

As it is with every Peter Sellers movie I have ever seen, it gets better with each viewing, too. Perhaps that is because I know what is going to happen, and I can focus my attention on the lines that always make me laugh.

And that, in turn, permits me to "discover" other lines on subsequent viewings.

I thoroughly enjoy watching Sellers as Mandrake, timidly declining Ripper's order to help him fire his weapon at incoming troops. Sellers' gift for physical comedy was evident — even though he took no pratfalls.

But it is as the movie's title character, Dr. Strangelove, that Sellers is at his most entertaining.

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He projects a very Nazi–esque demeanor when he rhapsodizes on the benefits of a Doomsday Machine, then chastises the Soviets for keeping their development of one to themselves.

"The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost," he says, "if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?"

In 50 years, it's never been a secret how funny "Dr. Strangelove" is. AFI ranks it #3 among the comedies (#39 overall).

Some of us might rank it higher than that. Much higher.

Here's to Hot Lips

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Lt. Linda Nugent (Peggy Lee Brennan): Do you dance, Radar?

Radar (Gary Burghoff): Uh, no. Football knee.

Lt. Linda Nugent: Oh, you played football?

Radar: Not much, I had a bad knee.

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Hot Lips Houlihan (Loretta Swit) was a pioneer among women's TV characters.

There had been other women in American television who were positive, assertive role models by 1979, but I can't think of any (other than women in TV movies) who had to overcome as much as Margaret Houlihan.

By the time the episode that made its debut 35 years ago tonight was aired, M*A*S*H was in its seventh season. Just think of all Hot Lips had been through in that time. She had had an affair with a married man, then she had married an officer, from whom she had just become officially divorced.

As a coping mechanism, Hot Lips threw herself into her work, devising a new triage system for her nursing staff and annoying Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) with the details of her plan. Hot Lips told Potter that she was determined to "go as far in this man's Army as any woman can go." Talk about gung–ho. It was a bit much for Potter.

For validation, she invited a general (Walter Brooke) to come and review her crew in action.

Meanwhile, Radar (Gary Burghoff) struggled to get the attention of a new nurse (Peggy Lee Brennan) with whom he was smitten. He turned to ladies' man Hawkeye (Alan Alda) for help.

Mostly, though, the episode was about Hot Lips and her attempt to elevate herself after the psychological beating she had taken over the failure of her marriage — a commendable objective, to be sure. But her effort to build a new and improved Margaret nearly got derailed by the general who came to review her new triage system.

The general, you see, had been acquainted with the old Hot Lips and had ideas of his own for her future.

He wanted to promote Hot Lips and take her back with him to his base, where she could be his mistress — a high–ranking mistress but a mistress all the same.

He didn't realize she was a different woman — at least, not at first. He soon found out.

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Hot Lips was unaware of his ulterior motive when she greeted him at the compound, but it became clear enough to her in due course.

And she wasn't willing to go along with it. The general stormed angrily out of Margaret's tent when she turned him down. When he had gone, she held up her glass in a silent toast to herself and said, "Here's to me."

I see no such role models for young girls on 21st–century TV. More's the pity.

Bringing Out the Biker in Barney

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Barney (Don Knotts): If you ride with your mouth open in the wind and put your tongue against the roof of your mouth, it's impossible to pronounce a word that begins with the letter 's.'

Andy (Andy Griffith): You didn't let anyone see you riding with your mouth open?

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Whenever Barney went to an auction, it was usually bad news for Andy.

On one occasion, he returned with gypsy cards and other items used for contacting the spirits of the dead — and managed to contact a ghost that granted Opie three wishes.

And 50 years ago tonight, he came back to Mayberry from a war surplus auction with a motorcycle with a sidecar.

The sheriff's office had been getting complaints about speeders, and Barney had the idea that the motorcycle could be used for trapping speeders and all sorts of official functions — as well as some functions that were not official, such as "going back and forth to the store."

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The new addition to the Mayberry motor pool encountered considerable resistance from the citizens.

Along with the verbal gags, the townsfolk engaged in a little sabotage. When Barney was about to take Andy to the diner in the motorcycle, they unfastened the sidecar so, when Barney accelerated the motorcycle, the sidecar stayed where it was (with Andy sitting in it). That drew a hearty laugh from everyone, including Andy.

There was greater backlash in store.

When Barney enforced speed limits on truckers with whom local law enforcement had always had an understanding that a little leeway was needed to get over a steep hill, there was pushback. The truckers began driving through town at night, making noise and keeping everyone awake.

They certainly succeeded in keeping everyone in the Taylor household awake.

"I have a feeling it's their way of saying hello to Barney and his new motorcycle," Andy told Aunt Bee and Opie.

Andy knew he had to do something about the motorcycle, and he drew inspiration from the simplest thing — Opie's woodburning set.

Viewers became aware that Opie had a woodburning set earlier in the episode so its introduction as the resolution of the story wasn't abrupt. But Andy's solution to the problem of the motorcycle probably did surprise some viewers.

Andy used the woodburning set to burn what appeared to be an historical claim onto a piece of wood and then placed it under the sidecar's seat cushion. The claim was that the motorcycle had played an important role in an historically prominent battle during World War I.

Andy pretended to find it, showed the plaque to Barney, suggested that it had been made on the battlefield, burned into the wood with a bayonet, and made the case that the motorcycle belonged on display. Grudgingly, Barney agreed.

And the problem was solved.

Michael Jackson's Pepsi Commercial

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When one mentions the name Michael Jackson, so many things come to mind ...

... His unparalleled success as an entertainer. He was known to be one of the hardest–working folks in show business,

... His general influence on pop culture — not only through his music but also through his dance style and fashion,

... The public's fascination with his — sometimes commendable, other times distasteful, always volatile — personal life,

... Even his untimely death.

He has been an endless source of fascination for decades. And Michael Jackson continues to fascinate. Even today, nearly five years after his death, there are many things about Jackson that compete for the public's attention — including milestone anniversaries of important dates in his life.

One of which is today.

It was 30 years ago today that Jackson suffered second–degree scalp burns when pyrotechnics went off accidentally during the filming of a Pepsi TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Most people would agree that was a bad way to start a new year, but, within 3½ months, Jackson was on top of the world again.

He had recovered sufficiently from his injuries to appear at the White House where President Reagan presented him with an award for supporting charities that assisted people who had abused alcohol and/or drugs.

His Victory Tour that year was a huge success. Jackson donated his $8 million revenue from the tour to charity — and Pepsi had agreed to a $1 million out–of–court settlement of his lawsuit.

Jackson donated the entire settlement to the Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, Calif. Brotman now has a burn center that bears Jackson's name.

A Paean to Non-conformity

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"What's so terrible about being beautiful? After all, isn't everybody?"

Suzy Parker (Lana)

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The episode of the Twilight Zone that made its debut 50 years ago tonight almost never shows up on a "Best of" list — yet I often hear it mentioned by Twilight Zone fans as being one of their favorite episodes.

I don't know why it is such a fan favorite. It isn't one of my favorites.

That doesn't mean I didn't admire the talents of the people who appeared in it. Collin Wilcox, who played Marilyn, is probably best remembered for playing the alleged victim of a black rapist in "To Kill a Mockingbird" a couple of years before she appeared on Twilight Zone.

That, of course, was a role she played. It wasn't her — although attendees at a conference of the NAACP had to be reminded of that when she showed up as a participant.

When I saw "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" for the first time (whenever that was), I was familiar with Richard Long from his extensive TV career, and, once in awhile, I have seen him in a movie on television. I knew less of her other co–stars, Suzy Parker and Pam Austin. Most of Parker's career apparently was spent in advertising work as a print model or an actress in TV commercials, although I have seen her in a few movies. Austin apparently guest–starred on several TV shows that I seldom, if ever, watched.

I appreciated the theme of individuality vs. conformity. It was definitely a Twilight Zone theme, but it didn't give me that familiar chill down my spine the way the really good episodes did when I was a child — and still do today.

The premise was simple. In some future time (Rod Serling suggested, in his opening monologue, the year 2000), young people are required to undergo what is called a physical transformation. They choose from a rather limited selection of attractive model types and then have some sort of surgical procedure that changes them into that type.

The procedure didn't appear to alter their personalities (although there was a reference to its influence on an individual's psychological adjustment), but it did seem to extend their lives, slowing the aging process and rendering them immune to disease. They were identifiable as individuals only by the names sewn into their garments.

(Parker, who played Wilcox's mother even though, in reality, she was only a few years older, did not appear to be any older or younger than anyone else who had chosen her model type.

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(There were, of course, model types for men as well, but there was only one that I saw — portrayed by Long, whose primary role in the episode was as Dr. Rex, the man who was to perform Wilcox's transformation.)

Wilcox's character resisted the transformation, though, preferring to hold tightly to the allegiance to individuality that she had been taught by her father. (Her father was deceased, but a picture of him could be seen in the episode, and the image in that picture was the same as Dr. Rex. It also bore a striking resemblance to her uncle.

(I must admit that all those characters who looked and sounded the same was so very Twilight Zone.)

It was a good metaphor for those who resist what they see as a conspiracy to make everyone the same. "When everyone is beautiful," Wilcox's character said, "no one will be." She argued that the powers that be didn't care whether everyone was beautiful, only that everyone was the same.

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Marilyn (Collin Wilcox): Why are you going to force me to do something I don't want to do? You can't make me do it, can you? Nobody can make me do it.

Dr. Rex (Richard Long): Now, now, my dear child. No one has ever been forced to take transformation if he didn't want it. You see, the problem is simply to discover why you don't want it and then to make the necessary correction.

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As I say, there was no actual influence that the transformation seems to have had on personalities, but the very act of the physical transformation seems to have affected them to an extent.

When Marilyn finally gave in and had the transformation, she chose the "pattern" her friend Valerie had chosen.

"The nicest part of all, Val," Marilyn said, " I look just like you!"

An interesting — and prophetic — angle of the conformity story was the tendency of the characters to encourage other characters who were sad, melancholy, even pensive to "drink a glass of Instant Smile." Seen from the perspective of half a century later, doesn't that seem to foretell of humans' growing desire to self–medicate?

Can You Imagine Pearl at 71?

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Seventy–one years ago today, Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas.

When I was in college, a female acquaintance and I used to listen to Janis Joplin on my friend's stereo while we drank beer and smoked cigarettes. Joplin had been dead for quite awhile at that time, but my friend and I were throwbacks to the '60s. Janis was one of our favorites, even though she wasn't one of our contemporaries.

If it is hard to picture Janis Joplin at 71, you have to remember that she has been dead for more than 40 years, forever a member of the 27 Club. Maybe she just burned out, a victim of all the booze and hard drugs she inflicted on herself. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would flame out the way she did.

(I always think of Joplin when I hear Neil Young sing "Hey Hey, My My." Of course, that could be because my friend was a Neil Young fan, and there's mental association involved for me there.)

"It's hard to imagine what Janis would be like in the 21st century," writes USA Today, "but it's safe to say no one has come close to matching her voice since."

Joplin was, as USA Today observes, "one of the first major female forces in rock 'n' roll." She was a pioneer, and pioneers have to be tough. You have to work hard, and you have to party hard if you're going to be taken seriously.

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Her only #1 hit was "Me and Bobby McGee," which was released the same month that the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon and only rose to #1 after Joplin's death the following year.

On Rolling Stone's list of the Top 100 artists, Joplin ranks #46. Among female artists, only Aretha Franklin and Madonna rank higher.

"She loved her whiskey and made no bones about it," wrote Rosanne Cash for Rolling Stone. "This was a full–blown one–of–a–kind woman — no stylist, no publicist, no image–maker. It was just Janis."

Rolling Stone's list was tough for solo female artists to make. The only other women on it after Joplin were Patti Smyth, Joni Mitchell and Tina Turner.

"She wasn't just a great woman in rock — at the time she was the woman in rock," gushed Cash. "Janis really created this whole world of possibility for women in music: Without Janis Joplin, there would be no Melissa Etheridge. Without Janis, there would be no Chrissie Hynde, no Gwen Stefani. There would be no one."

That may be a bit extreme. Women's voices in rock could not be kept muzzled, but the truth is that Joplin accelerated their influence on modern music.

She was a true pioneer.

Joni Mitchell's Masterpiece

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"I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song"

Joni Mitchell

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Imagine if you can what it must be like to be Joni Mitchell.

While she was still in her 20s, she released "Blue," which is ranked #30 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 albums of all time.

Then, 40 years ago today, she released "Court and Spark." It, too, made Rolling Stone's list. It wasn't as highly regarded (#113), but, with its fusion of folk and jazz, it was ranked higher than most albums — and deservedly so.

Mitchell was barely 30 years old at that time, but she had already released her most successful (and, arguably, her best) albums. They were really quite difference from each other. "Blue" was mostly what Jason Ankeny of AllMusic.com calls "confessional songwriting," but "Court and Spark" was primarily "evocative character studies."

The music was exquisite, and I believe it ensured Mitchell's place in popular music history.

If you were Joni Mitchell, where would you go from there? Which musical mountains were left to climb?

It would be hard for me to narrow down my favorite Joni Mitchell song, but "Free Man in Paris" certainly would be close to the top of my list. It was pretty popular with the public, too, climbing to #22 on Billboard's Hot 100.

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The first single from the album — "Raised on Robbery" — actually was released a couple of months before the album was released, and it gave listeners a taste of what was in store. Robbie Robertson of The Band played electric guitar on a tune that sounded like it would have been right at home on a Manhattan Transfer album.

There was no shortage of talent supporting Mitchell on "Court and Spark." In addition to Robertson, the album had Graham Nash and David Crosby contributing background vocals on "Free Man in Paris" (Jose Feliciano played electric guitar on that one), and comedians Cheech and Chong provided background voices on (appropriately) "Twisted."

I suppose most casual listeners would name "Help Me" as their favorite song from the album, and that would certainly be a safe choice. It was Mitchell's first Top 10 hit, and it was probably the best of the "wary love songs" (as Ankeny put it) that dotted the album.

But "Help Me" got too darn much airplay for me. I liked it, but, if pressed to pick my favorite of the "wary love songs" on "Court and Spark," I probably would choose "People's Parties."

But that's just me.

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Whichever song she sang, I always thought Joni Mitchell had a wonderful voice, and Rolling Stone agreed with me. It ranked her #42 on its list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.

'Happy Days' Turns 40

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Forty years ago tonight, America got its first look at Happy Days, a midseason replacement for something (like the guy who was replaced by Lou Gehrig, who remembers? OK, it was Wally Pipp who was replaced by Gehrig, but no one remembers what Happy Days replaced) — and a nostalgia wave was born.

Well, that isn't really true, I guess. That particular nostalgia wave probably began a few months earlier when "American Graffiti" hit the movie theaters. But, while "American Graffiti" did have some stars who went on to greater fame on (or by way of) Happy Days, it wasn't a natural extension of "American Graffiti."

"American Graffiti" was set in the early 1960s; in its early episodes, Happy Days was set in the mid–1950s, although, by the time it ended its run, Happy Days was set in the early 1960s, too.

Neither the film nor the TV show introduced Americans to Ron Howard, only to an older version of him. Howard, of course, played Opie on the iconic Andy Griffith Show in the real early 1960s, and Tom Bosley, who wasn't in the movie, was a familiar face to TV viewers thanks to his series and commercial appearances, but the rest of the cast were largely unknowns.

(Well, Marion Ross' face probably was familiar enough for viewers to scratch their heads and wonder, "Now, who is she? I know I've seen her in something else ...")

Before this night 40 years ago, though, few, if any, knew who Henry Winkler was. No one expected his character, Arthur Fonzarelli, to be the cultural sensation that he became. Cast members who became household names because of Happy Days included Anson Williams (Pottsie), Donny Most (Ralph) and Erin Moran (Joanie).

Cindy Williams, who did appear in "American Graffiti," was not an original star of the show, but she made a guest appearance on it that led to her long–term role on the popular spinoff show, Laverne & Shirley.

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One of my enduring questions about Happy Days, though, was whatever became of the oldest of the Cunningham children, Chuck, played by Gavan O'Herlihy, who appeared in a few episodes and then disappeared with virtually no explanation.

Age Is No Barrier

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When I was a child, birthdays were magical times. I guess it is that way for most children, but it was especially so in my house.

My mother really made a production out of birthdays for my brother and me. There were balloons and streamers, and Mom always made a birthday cake that really was a sight to behold. Even if the birthday gifts weren't spectacular, the day was.

Forty years ago tonight, Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) was observing a birthday, but he wasn't happy about it.

He was under the impression that it was his 49th birthday. The rest of the family, however, was certain that it was his milestone 50th birthday.

"I can prove that you're 50," Edith (Jean Stapleton) told him.

"How are you gonna do that?" Archie demanded.

"It says so on your birthday cake!" Edith replied. Archie responded that the cake was "a liar."

Turned out that Archie was 50. His birth certificate was found — and it proved Archie's age.

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Anyway, not long after Archie's true age was revealed, he slipped away from the party to have a beer at the neighborhood bar — where he was tracked down first by Edith, who had a gift for him, something Archie had always wanted, she said.

The gift was a ukelele, and Archie was, indeed, pleased — but he couldn't play it.

Archie was later visited by one of the guests at his surprise party, Mr. Quigley (Burt Mustin), who claimed to be only a few hours from his 83rd birthday (in reality, Mustin was about to turn 90).

Mr. Quigley massaged Archie's bruised ego a bit by calling him a "young sprig," and he told Archie about the things he was going to do — like learning to speak French.

The lesson was not lost on Archie. Age is only a barrier if one allows it to be.