Pluggers by Rick McKee for June 29, 2020

Ah! Ya got me with that one.

I can hardly imagine the 1984 original “The Karate Kid” — which was released when I was twenty days old — on that TV channel.

What scares me is that when I see a movie from when I was a child, many of the actors are already dead.

Even the silent ones!

Clock only goes in one direction …..

But at 103, Olivia De Havilland (Robin Hood 1938, Gone With the Wind, 1939, etc.) just keeps on keeping on.

I wondered if this was from the Frank Puglia who was a longtime film and television actor, but he died in 1975. Any relation, I wonder?

BTW, Norman Lloyd (St. Elsewhere, Dead Poets Society, and more), is 104 will be 105 in November!

It’s the same way with “Golden Oldie” records. The songs that you listened to in high school are now classics". I once asked some sweet young thing manning a record booth at a fair if she had anything by Glenn Miller. Got a blank look. “Who’s he?”

I am not that old for the best ones……

When I was a kid what most of what we consider classics were all over the TV on weekends and late at night. (Not too late, they stopped broadcasting at midnight or so.) Loved watching them with my Dad back then and still watch them today.

But let’s say it’s 1966 and I am watching The Maltese Falcon (1941). It seemed like a relic, but a great well made relic. That is just 25 years. A similar movie today would be from 1995, let’s say Get Shorty. Do kids today think of Get Shorty the way I did The Maltese Falcon? Or do they think of that movie at all?

You also remember that 25 inches was a huge TV and only select people had colour TVs where most peoples faces were a shade of green..

I remember first watching AMC about 25 years ago. They showed only B&W movies from the 1930s to the 1950s with only a station announcement and a preview before and after the movie. Then they went to color and included the 1960s. Then announcements in the middle, then commercial advertisements and then they became zombie central. AMC stands for American Movie Classics.

For the classic movie fan, TCM is the only channel in town. (Or at least one of the top five.)

What’s on TV? DUST! And then it started. :>)