Those are real zircons...

After I posted last night I re-watched Quatermass and The Pit for the first time in years. having first seen it on the afternoon movie on WVEC in the seventies, with the proper American title Five Million Years to Earth.  Being unfamiliar with Quatermass back then, all I knew was this film was crazy.  It starts at a archeological dig in a tube station in London that goes oh so wrong.  Ghostly neanderthals.  Crickets from mars.  And Satan.  Now, imagine a kid fixated on Star Wars seeing it for the first time.  MIND. BLOWN. I've been able to see a couple of the other Quatermass pictures and they've got this terrific... Britishness about them. Like Doctor Who, but with a more grounded in reality  feel.

Watched the first episode of The McLean Stevenson Show (12.1.76).    Stevenson plays a hardware store owner who lives with his children- his son lives in the basment, his daughter's moved back in with her two sons.  His wife's mother lives with them in a spare room and she's "The Mother-In-Law" character.    I made it eight minutes into the show before I had to cry "Mercy."  The show ran from December 76 to March 77, broadcasting ten of the twelve filmed episodes.  That's nine too many.

As a palate cleanser after that, I watched The Price Is Right (1.6.76).  Game shows are good for mindlessness.  Amazingly, it's just like I remembered.  I think that has more to do with the fact that the show was the same thing for decades rather than my memory being sharp.

 I finished the evening off with What's Up, Doc? (1972), the Peter Bogdonovich tribute to screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby, starring Ryan O'Neal and Barbara Streisand.  I'm not a fan of Streisand's more recent projects and antics, but this was before she was "BARBARA", and she's a remarkably good comic actress.  Lots of mistaken identities and luggage mixups, it's just a romp that doesn't take itself too seriously.