Does the phrase “a Quinn Martin Production” mean anything to you? If it does, that means you probably watched a lot of cop or detective shows in the 1970s. I know I did!
I was surfing a message board last night and saw a thread where someone posted the trailer for the upcoming Hawaii Five-O remake (my take: it looks more like the A-Team than the show I remember). But seeing that made me go to YouTube to find the intro to the original show:
Now see, that kicks ass! And of course, YouTube being what it is, there was a link to other “related videos” that I had to check out… including:
S.W.A.T. – this show kicked all kinds of ass, and has one of the best theme songs ever. I don’t know if this show pioneered “freeze frame credits” (you know, where an actor jumps through a window, and the screen freezes just at the most dramatic moment and his name is displayed), but I always think of this when I see a newer show parodying it:
Streets of San Francisco – Ya know, I think this is a very well done intro. I think if you updated the film stock and changed the music, it’d be hard to tell that it was shot in 1972. And it’s funny to see Michael Douglas as a “lowly” TV actor, too. But what really kicks in this intro is the theme… it makes me want to buy a 1973 Cadillac and drive around the mean streets:
Here’s the final list of all the songs heard on the BBC series Ashes to Ashes, including season 3, the show’s last.
Season 1
Episode 1
Ultravox – “Vienna”
The Clash – “I Fought the Law”
Tubeway Army – “Are Friends Electric?”
The Stranglers – “No More Heroes”
David Bowie – “Ashes to Ashes”
The Passions – “I’m In Love With A German Film Star”
Duran Duran – “Hungry Like the Wolf”
Duran Duran – “Careless Memories”
Roxy Music – “Same Old Scene”
Episode 2
Tenpole Tudor – “Swords of a Thousand Men”
Madness – “The Prince”
Imagination – “Body Talk”
The Flying Lizards – “Money”
Visage – “Fade to Grey”
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – “Souvenir”
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – “Geno”
The Pop Group – “We Are All Prostitutes”
Heaven 17 – “Fascist Groove Thang”
Jon and Vangelis – “I Hear You Now”
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – “Show Me”
Chas and Dave – “Gertcha”
Episode 7 opens at Viv’s funeral. As the crowd sings “Abide with Me”, the curtain is drawn to allow Viv’s body to enter the crematoria… only it gets stuck. The gang look at each other, and finally Gene puts his hymnal down and walks up to the curtain to pull it shut. Gene apologizes to Viv, while Chris and Ray snicker and find the whole thing amusing. Gene notices.
We then see the gang at Luigi’s, where they have a few drinks and share memories in Viv’s honor. But then Chris spills a beer whilst trying to open it, and this sets Gene off:
He hurls his glass at the wall and tears into Chris, saying that he’s lost one of his finest officers and is now left with a “clumsy bastard” like Chris. Gene then asks for Alex, who is back at her desk at the station. Jim walks up to her and says that another good officer is gone. Jim says that if you find a dead officer, you’ll find Gene Hunt standing over him. Alex, not in the mood for Jim’s talk, says that she has work to do. Jim says that she’s lucky, as Gene’s bullet didn’t kill her. Alex insists that it was an accident.
Jim notices that Alex was looking at a photograph, so he walks over and asks who the man in the picture is. She says that it’s the ghost who has been haunting her. He asks where she found the picture, and she says it was in Gene’s office. Jim laughs, calls Gene slippery and says that he’s good in covering his tracks. Alex says that Gene is clean. Jim picks up the roll of film Alex found with the photograph at the end of the last episode and asks about it. Alex says that she’s going to get it developed, but Jim insists that he can get it developed at D&C. He then says that he and Alex are the same, but she says that the difference between them is that she doesn’t wish for cops to be bad. Jim tells her to “do what you were put here to do… get me Gene Hunt”.
– Well, the Lost finale sucked… and not just because of the crappy writing. Entertainment Weeklyreports that the finale had 107 commercials, or over 45 minutes worth! A typical hour long show normally has 18-20 commercials per, but the first hour of Lost had 37!
– A dude buys a used paragliding rig for £300 off eBay. He then decides to take it out with no training whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong? Find out.
– European mobile phone operators have suspended the number 0888 888 888 after a string of mysterious deaths connected with it. In fact, every single person who has had that number for the past ten years has died under mysterious circumstances.
– Speaking of spooky, the Amityville Horror house is up for sale. It can be yours for a cool $1.15m.
– Guess what? Not only might sunscreen not prevent skin cancer, it might actually accelerate it! Awesome! Read more here.
Almost everyone who grew up in the 80s knows that there were two versions of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” video.
The “original” (uncensored) version, based on the extended remix of the song, features women having pillow fights, pouring champagne on their lingeried bodies, and other titillating scenes. This version was intended to air on adult video channels and on video screens at nightclubs.
The “edited” version of the video, which used the shorter single mix, is basically the same video, but with the more objectionable bits – like nipples showing through lingerie and topless scenes – cut out. This version was intended to air on MTV and other mainstream music video outlets like Friday Night Videos.
Not everyone knows that there was a third version of the video. This one is almost identical to the original, except that the mud wrestling scene at the end is slightly shorter and at the very end the band hold up a banner that says “Some People Will Do Anything To Sell Records”:
The reason I bring all this up is that I finally received my “Deluxe Edition” of Duran Duran’s first album yesterday (see it at Amazon here). It’s a three disc set: the first disc includes a remastered version of the album with all the B-sides from that era; the second disc contains a bunch of demos and early live versions of the songs from the album; and the third disc is a DVD which contains “live” performances from Top of the Pops, Old Grey Whistle Test, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop as well as all the music videos from that era.
Well, most of them. For some reason, the third version of the “Girls on Film” video is absent. Don’t get me wrong: I love that the two main version of “Girls” are included, as well as “Careless Memories”, “Night Boat”, and both versions of the “Planet Earth” video… including the rarely-seen “Club Version” filmed at the Rum Runner, the Birmingham nightclub where Duran Duran got their start:
But why couldn’t they have included the third version of “Girls on Film”?? As a completest, this drives me insane! Although all the videos look pretty good, it’s not like there wasn’t space enough for it on the disc. I guess it’s just EMI continuing to screw Duran Duran, even after all these years! Here I was, hoping to finally get rid of the crusty old MPEG file of the third version, and now I’ll have to keep it until EMI just decides to give up and release everything on DVD.
