Classic TV

Back in the 70s, Doctor Who was a ratings juggernaut. If you were ITV, you aired a show opposite it at your own risk, knowing it probably wouldn’t survive the ordeal. But some shows did survive and even beat Who in the ratings. Ask many a Whoer, and they’ll know that Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was one of those victors, but few realise that Man From Atlantis, a short-lived show that did badly in its native US, actually beat Doctor Who on several occasions.

Could it be a fit man without many clothes on was the reason? If Doctor Who was for the dads, then what were mums watching…?

Man From Atlantis saw Patrick Duffy – best known now as Bobby Ewing in Dallas, in which his character cheated death by revealing an entire season of the show was just a dream – as “Mark Harris”, an amnesiac who is possibly the last survivor of the lost continent of Atlantis. In the first of four TV movies that launched the series, “Mark” is washed ashore near a naval research base, where he’s nursed back to health by Doctor Elizabeth Merrill (Belinda J. Montgomery – best known now as the mom of Dougie Howser in Dougie Howser MD). “Mark” turns out to be able to breathe underwater, withstand extreme depths and has superhuman strength.

Despite the fact Mark’s hands and feet are webbed, Merrill isn’t put off and recruits him to join the Foundation For Oceanic Research, a government agency that explores the depths of the ocean in a sophisticated submarine called the Cetacean, doing spy work and fighting aliens – yes, it was that kind of show. There was even some time travel, with Mark going back to the Wild West and Romeo and Juliet’s Italy. However, his main enemy is “Mr. Schubert”, who in typical Bond villain stylee, has a secret underwater base and plans to take over the world with nuclear missiles, giant jellyfish, melting the polar ice caps – that kind of thing.

Despite the success of the four TV movies, Man From Atlantis only lasted 13 episodes as a TV series – largely because it was pretty dreadful, even by the standards of mid to late 70s US sci-fi. Only the pilot movie has been released on DVD and only in the US. Nevertheless, it was iconic enough that it proved the making of Duffy’s career.

Here, though, for your enjoyment is its weird old title sequence, featuring Patrick Duffy without many clothes on, as well as a few clips that show just what a big old pile of pants it was.

Well, after last week’s foray into Lee Majors’ magnum opus, The Six Million Dollar Man, how could I resist a little stroll to take in his follow-up, The Fall Guy?

The Fall Guy took its inspiration from a big pile of Burt Reynolds films: Smokey and the Bandit had made the whole of the US just a bit mental about car chases and other stunts, while Hooper had pointed out that it’s not actually actors that do the stunts, it’s stuntmen and stuntwomen. Add on the success of The Dukes of Hazzard and, well, you can guess the rest.

So in The Fall Guy, Majors played Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stunt man who moonlights as a bounty hunter to pay the bills. He uses his physical skills and knowledge of stunt effects (especially stunts involving cars or his very large GMC pickup truck) to capture fugitives and criminals. He’s accompanied by his extraordinarily dull cousin and stuntman-in-training Howie (Douglas Barr) and far more interesting fellow stunt performer Jody Banks (Heather Thomas).

Typically, every episode would start with Colt’s crew performing a stunt for a film or TV series. They would then be assigned to finding an escaped crim, but then the case would turn out to be more complicated than it first seemed. Then hey, a hey hey – guess what? Somewhere along the line, they’d end up doing a stunt just like the one shown at the beginning of the show (again, using that great big pickup truck of his).

The series is basically best known for a number of things:

1. The theme tune composed by the omnipresent Glen A Larson with Gail Jensen and David Sommerville, but sung by… Lee Majors. He did do a bit of singing on The Six Million Dollar Man – most notably with ‘Jamie’, which was all about the Bionic Woman – but, well, it wasn’t the best bit of singing ever. Nevertheless, the song actually was quite fun, with Seavers basically moaning about how Robert Redford and all the other Hollywood stars are famous but he isn’t, despite the fact they’d have been nothing without him. Bravely, it also mentions Farrah Fawcett Majors, Majors’ then wife, with whom he was having a bit of marital strife.
2. Cameos by Hollywood celebrities in more or less every episodes, including Tom Selleck, Farrah Fawcett, James Coburn, Robert Wagner, Milton Berle, Lou Ferrigno, Linda Evans, Cathy Lee Crosby, Roy Rogers, Doug McClure and Richard Burton. Seriously.
3. Lots of in-jokes about The Six Million Dollar Man
4. Heather Thomas, who soon turned into one of the biggest pin-ups of the 80s, possibly helped by her being in a bikini in most of the show’s title sequences. For those of you wondering what she went on to do afterwards, she wrote a screenplay called School Slut, and founded the liberal fundraising group LA Cafe, which has contributed over $280,000 to Democratic political candidates and special-interest groups. Huh.
5. Stupid stunts

So, here’s the weird old title sequence for The Fall Guy, followed by the famous explanatory dialogue and a few stupid stunts. Enjoy!

Time to head to controversy corner for this week’s “Weird old title sequence/Lost Gem”, since we’re going to deal with Kung Fu, which may or may not have been Bruce Lee’s idea, but certainly didn’t star him.

Here though, are the weird but incredibly iconic old titles of Kung Fu, followed by the entire pilot movie. More after the jump, including clips from the sequel movie and sequel TV shows.

Continue reading “Weird old title sequences: Kung Fu (1972)”