What Weird Reason Did ABC Have for Baretta Having an Instrumental Theme Song Originally?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: The theme song for Baretta did not have lyrics at first for a slightly out of the ordinary reason.

The TV series Baretta debuted in 1975 on ABC (check out this previous installment of TV Legends Revealed for some more information about the origins of Baretta)…

The series, which starred Robert Blake as the titular detective, became a popular series and a well-received show from a critical audience, too (Blake was nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series).

However, when it debuted, the network was a bit unsure about just how successful the series would be.

As a result, the theme song for the series is fairly well-known for being sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.

The song, “Keep Your Eyes On The Sparrow,” is even on Sammy Davis Jr.’s greatest hits album!

However, initially, the song was an instrumental!

Why?
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Did Michael Corleone Avenge His Wife’s Murder In EACH of the First Two Godfather Movies, Only For it to be Edited Out of Each Film?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Michael Corleone avenged his wife’s murder in each of the first two Godfather films, but each time it was cut from the actual movie.

Warning: We’ll be discussing some spoilers from a 41-year-old movie. If you’d prefer to not be spoiled, then go watch the Godfather and then come back and read this article.

One of the most tragic scenes in The Godfather (and there is no shortage of tragic scenes in the film) is the death of Michael Corleone’s first wife, Apollonia Vitelli. Michael has fled the United States to hide out in Sicily after murdering rival mob leader Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo (who had twice attempted to murder Michael’s father, Vito Corleone, the Don of a New York crime family) and corrupt police Captain McCluskey. Michael seems content to live out his days in Sicily being protected by his Sicilian bodyguard (and interpreter) Fabrizio and wooing the beautiful Apollonia Vitelli, daughter of a local tavern owner. Michael sought permission to court Apollonia from her father and after receiving it, their courtship was brief and they soon married. What Michael did not know was that his bodyguard, Fabrizio, had been turned by one of the enemies of the Corleones and had planted a car bomb in Michael’s car. Unbeknownst to either Fabrizio or Michael, though, was that Apollonia had taught herself to drive a car (a rarity for Sicilian women at the time) and she gets into the car to demonstrate her newfound skill to Michael. The car explodes and Michael’s wife is killed. Through the efforts of his father back in New York, Michael is promised to allow to return to the United States safely. Michael then takes over the Corleone crime family and “takes care off all family business,” wiping out all of the people who tried to take down his family.

Oddly enough, though, while he manages to kill the people who surely contacted Fabrizio, he does not actually kill Fabrizio, the man who physically murdered his wife. While that might not seem too odd, considering the last time we saw Fabrizio he was in Sicily and Michael is in New York, however, Francis Ford Coppola (director of The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II) actually filmed scenes in BOTH movies where Michael gets his revenge and yet neither one made it in to their respective films! Read on for more details!
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Did Star Trek Once Get John Drew Barrymore Suspended From the Screen Actors Guild?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Star Trek once got John Drew Barrymore suspended from the Screen Actors Guild!

The story of John Drew Barrymore is a pretty sad one.

His father, John Sidney Blyth Barrymore, was one of the greatest actors of his generation. Here is the elder John Barrymore in Hamlet from 1922.

John Drew was born in 1932, but his parents divorced in 1935 and he grew up never knowing his father (who died in 1942 when John Drew was 9 years old).

However, while he might have never known his father, he certainly did not have trouble following in his father’s footsteps in more than just pursuing a career in acting. The first John Barrymore had a serious problem with alcoholism, and the same affliction cursed his son.

Most likely due to alcohol and drug abuse, the younger Barrymore never managed to secure a place for himself in the American film industry, as he bungled away several film roles.

In the late 1950s, Barrymore managed to sober up long enough to have a fairly notable career in Italian cinema, starring in a number of films. By the early 1960s, he was back to his old tricks, and even ended up in jail a few times. Despite all of this, in 1966, he was hired to do a guest spot on the television series Star Trek. Then things got odd.
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July 2nd, 2013 | Posted in TV Legends Revealed | 4 Comments

Was Peanut Butter Really Used to Make Mister Ed “Talk”?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Mister Ed was made to talk through the use of peanut butter on his lips (in the alternative, through tiny electric shocks).

Mister Ed has had a surprising amount of false stories surrounding the series. One notable one was about Mister Ed being a zebra (he was not).

A tougher nut to crack was the story that Mister Ed was made to talk through the use of peanut butter on his lips (an alternate version I’ve seen some places is that he was made to talk through slight electric shocks – I’ll cover both legends).

Is it true?
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Is a Playboy Centerfold Really the Standard Test Image for Image Processing Algorithms?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to architecture and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the magazine urban legends featured so far.

MAGAZINE URBAN LEGEND: A Playboy centerfold is the standard test image for image processing algorithms.

It was in 1973 that Alexander Sawchuk, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Signal and Image Processing Institute, and a graduate student were looking for a good image to scan for a colleague’s conference paper.

They wanted something glossy and they wanted something with a human face and, most of all, they wanted something that seemed a bit out of the ordinary – something that would pop a bit more than the standard test images they always used.

Well, someone happened to have a copy of a recent issue of Playboy (I don’t know if it was the LATEST Playboy or not) and the men decided that, hey, why not use the centerfold?

Little did they know how famous this photo would become…
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How the Heck Did Oprah’s Head Land on Ann-Margret’s Body?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to architecture and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the magazine urban legends featured so far.

MAGAZINE URBAN LEGEND: TV Guide once put Oprah Winfrey’s head on Ann-Margret’s body for a cover.

Nowadays, we’re a little more used to the idea of photoshopping, but in 1989, photoshopping was a bit more of a secret.

Not that photoshopping is new, of course. Basically as soon as they had photographs they had photoshopping.

But it wasn’t as popularly used as it is nowadays with the rise of technology like, well, PhotoShop.

So yeah, in 1989 it was certainly something that people knew existed but it was not used popularly.

So imagine people’s surprise when not only did TV Guide photo shop Oprah Winfrey on the cover of an August 1989 issue of TV Guide, they did so by putting Oprah’s head on Ann-Margret’s body!!!!

Read on for more details!
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Did Quantum Leap Correctly Predict Super Bowl XXX?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: An episode of Quantum Leap correctly predicted that the Pittsburgh Steelers would play in Super Bowl XXX.

One of the more common areas for potential urban legends is stories about films and television series set in the future that have seemingly predicted real life events (coincidentally, of course). Sporting events seem to be particularly common examples of this phenomena. They almost always turn out to be bogus. I personally have debunked legends involving Seaquest supposedly predicting the Marlins winning the 2003 World Series and Back to the Future II allegedly predicting the 2015 existence of Ken Griffey III. So it did not surprise me when a reader wrote in to ask whether it was true that a 1990 episode of Quantum Leap correctly predicted 1996’s Super Bowl XXX.

What was surprising was the truth about the episode. Read on to find out more!
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Does Time Magazine Intentionally Put Devil’s Horns on Cover Subjects They Dislike?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to architecture and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the magazine urban legends featured so far.

MAGAZINE URBAN LEGEND: Time magazine intentionally placed “devil horns” on Billy Graham and/or Bill Clinton as some sort of commentary.

Back in early January 1993, there was a bit of controversy when Time magazine revealed it’s Man of the Year. They chose the President-Elect, William Jefferson Clinton.

Here is the cover.

People were all, “Hey, are you insulting Bill Clinton by making it look like he has devil horns via the M in TIME?”

Time Magazine said, “No, it’s just a coincidence.”

Five years later, Clinton was on the cover again, and again…

And again, Time Magazine said, “No, it’s just a coincidence.”

Six years ago, Billy Graham was on the cover. Time magazine put him on the cover of the magazine and, once again, if you check out the cover, the M in Time looks like devil horns…

And yet again, after criticism from people offended by the cover, Time said, “No, it’s just a coincidence.”

And while I can’t PROVE it (because I can’t read minds), I’m going with “yeah, it’s just a coincidence.”

Here’s the main reason why.
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Did Carol Reed Hire Anton Karas to do the Soundtrack of The Third Man Based on Seeing Karas Play at a Bar in Vienna?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Carol Reed hired Anton Karas to do the soundtrack of The Third Man based on seeing him play at a bar in Vienna.

To start with, we can pretty safely debunk one of the major stories of how Anton Karas got the gig of doing the soundtrack for the Third Man.

An old story was that the director of the film, Carol Reed, came upon Karas at a bar in Vienna while filming the movie (which is, naturally, set in Vienna) and hired him on the spot to do a song for the soundtrack and once he did the one song, Reed asked him to do more and thus, a star was born (here’s Karas below with his unique musical instrument, the zither)!!

That’s false.

It’s pretty clear from various histories of Reed, Karas and the film itself that Reed first hired Karas to do a song for the soundtrack after Karas was playing his zither at a production party for The Third Man in London, well after the conclusion of the filming in Vienna.

Otherwise, the story is similar – Reed hired Karas to do A song and quickly decided that he wanted Karas to score the entire film (for quite a lot more money than Karas was making at the time playing his zither to entertain bar patrons in Vienna). This was a major endeavor for Karas, who was almost entirely a performer and not a writer of music. So now he had to suddenly score an entire film! The story of Karas living in London with Reed for three months as Karas worked 12-15 hours a day on the film is truly remarkable – and it’s almost like the film Boxing Helena, in that Reed literally would not let Karas leave!! Karas wanted to take a trip back to Vienna, but Reed would not allow it!

But it all paid off when both…

A. The film was released and was a big hit…

and

B. The soundtrack came out and was almost a BIGGER hit!

The trailers for the film even used Karas’ music as a selling point for the film – “He’ll have you in a dither with his zither!”

The most popular song by Karas, “The Harry Lime Theme” (Harry Lime was Orson Welles’ character) sold 500,000 copies!! It increased zither sales, well, a lot (if you sold 10 more zithers that would probably have tripled the zither sales in the U.S. in 1948).

So it is not true that Reed hired Karas out of a Viennese bar.

HOWEVER, SOMEbody hired him to work at the production party in London, right?

And here, history is not so helpful.
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Did Cameron Crowe Use “Kashmir” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High Even Though it Didn’t Fit the Script?

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Fast Times at Ridgemont High used the song “Kashmir” even though it did not fit into the script.

Led Zeppelin has had a strong history in their career with the protection of their songs as far as allowing them to be licensed for films and stuff like that.

This is a policy that has been wasted away a bit over the years as:

A. The large sums of money available to them for licensing plus

B. The large amount of other respected artists who have licensed their songs

have led to Zeppelin being a bit more willing to allow their songs to be used. That is why you can now hear, say, “Rock and Roll” being used to sell cars or “Kashmir” being used to sell phones.

However, in 1983, that was not the case – they were practically Fort Knox when it came to using their songs in ANY sort of context.

This is where Cameron Crowe fits in.

Cameron Crowe was a rock journalist for Rolling Stone while still a teenager. While working for Rolling Stone, he did articles on Led Zeppelin and came to be quite friendly with the band (years later they would choose Crowe to do the liner notes for their career-spanning Box Set).

In the early 1980s, the 22-year-old Crowe went undercover as a high school student to write a book.

That book was called Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

The book was optioned for a movie, and Crowe was hired to write the screenplay.

Directed by Amy Heckerling, Fast Times was very much about music. The soundtrack was very important (and led to at least one hit song, Jackson Browne’s “Somebody’s Baby”). Amusingly enough, as you can tell from the soundtrack, there were very divergent tastes involved in making the soundtrack.

Here’s the track listing…

1. “Somebody’s Baby” (Jackson Browne) – 4:05
2. “Waffle Stomp” (Joe Walsh) – 3:40
3. “Love Rules” (Don Henley) – 4:05
4. “Uptown Boys” (Louise Goffin) – 2:45
5. “So Much in Love” (Timothy B. Schmit) – 2:25
6. “Raised on the Radio” (The Ravyns) – 3:43
7. “The Look in Your Eyes” (Gerard McMahon) – 4:00
8. “Speeding” (The Go-Go’s) – 2:11
9. “Don’t Be Lonely” (Quarterflash) – 3:18
10. “Never Surrender” (Don Felder) – 4:15
11. “Fast Times (The Best Years of Our Lives)” (Billy Squier) – 3:41
12. “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (Sammy Hagar) – 3:36
13. “I Don’t Know (Spicoli’s Theme)” (Jimmy Buffett) – 3:00
14. “Love Is the Reason” (Graham Nash) – 3:31
15. “I’ll Leave It up to You” (Poco) – 2:55
16. “Highway Runner” (Donna Summer) – 3:18
17. “Sleeping Angel” (Stevie Nicks) – 3:55
18. “She’s My Baby (And She’s Outta Control)” (Jost/Palmer) – 2:53
19. “Goodbye, Goodbye” (Oingo Boingo) – 4:34

As you can see, there’s a mixture of younger artists popular among the teen set, as well as a bunch of Southern California soft rock artists. This was because Heckerling wanted the former group of songs on the album, while producer Irving Azoff felt that artists like the Eagles would be best for the movie. That Azoff was the manager of the Eagles I’m sure had absolutely no impact on what he felt made for a good soundtrack.

Anyhow, one of the neatest things about having Crowe write the movie was that presumably he could use his connections with famous rock artists to get good songs for the soundtrack. Specifically, it was felt that Crowe would be able to deliver what few (I think literally ONE other film had done this at this point, and it was a minor French art film) others could – a Zeppelin song for use in the film!

In fact, Crowe actually wrote a scene in the film specifically ABOUT Led Zeppelin’s music.
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