Plus Charles Gray.  "I shall not be back…but something will."

Long ago, when I thought music critics knew stuff, I bought copies of Bob Seger's Night Moves and Jackson Brown's The Pretender because Marsh gave them orgasmic reviews in the old Rolling Stone Record Guide.  Between that and his rabid hatred of Devo and total inability to understand punk, I quickly realized Dave…

I was disappointed to learn that he hated the movie version of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.  It's one of my favorite Richard Lester pictures.

Yeah, I kind of hate that song, but Rowlf's performance is so sweet that it actually earns its sentimentality.

I always thought the explorer looked like Peter Cushing.  Just took it as a little tribute to Hammer's The Mummy.

It's worth it at any price, but I saw the MGM DVD of it in the cheapo bin at Barnes & Noble not too long ago.

But the thing is, he didn't "flatten" Milius beneath Conan—it was a project Milius actively sought out.  It's not good, but it's the movie he wanted to make.  And as for the Blue velvet debate—well, De Laurentiis actively produced it.  It was made at his studio, and he was possibly the only producer at that time who…

Plus Judy Graubart from The Electric Company!

The one time it actually aired was as a "preview"—so since it wasn't in its scheduled time slot, CBS sort of pretended it had only been a pilot all along, though it had been highly promoted.  And dear Lord, was it awful, though NBC's Animal House rip-off, Brothers And Sisters, was actually worse.

And a fourth.

That time he hired some Abba tribute band and had them perform at his private compound officially cemented his Bond villain status.

Yeah, from here on out, it's pretty much gold, the best-sustained run of the series.

I should point out, as much as I hate Froom's production work on Rumor And Sigh and Mirror Blue, he co-produced the tremendously underrated You? Me? Us?, a double album with no weak songs in the bunch, and Froom gives the material plenty of room to breathe.  The Ghost Of You Walks may be the greatest song Thompson…

It is a great song—most of the songs on the album are great.  (Backlash Love Affair, maybe not so much.)  To me, it's the noisy, overly gimmicky production work on You Dream Too Much that's the deal-breaker—it doesn't fit the song at all.  Froom's work on mirror Blue was even more distracting, but in fairness, that…

Rumor And Sigh remains one of his most popular albums, and it's a great showcase for his songwriting, but yeah, I'm one of those people who actively dislikes Mitchell Froom's production on that one.  Shoot Out The Lights is one of his best, certainly, and I'm also quite fond of Mock Tudor.

I've probably seen Thompson live more than any other artist, and he ALWAYS does 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.   And every time he leads into it, I think, "Man, not this again," but damned if it doesn't kill every single time.  Not his best song at all, but maybe his most resonant.

Seriously, no mention of the fact that this thing was co-written by Dick Miller?

Whew!  Also, how did I miss that?

So…Season One coverage ends next week, then hiatus…but these reviews will be back, right?  RIGHT?

I like this episode, but too much of it seems rushed, and the budget and time limitations of TV animation really trip it up.  Bruce Timm mentions in the commentary track that they were trying for a Russ Heath look to Sgt. Rock and Easy, while Steve Trevor's design was supposed to have a Milton Caniff quality—but they…