Feb 6, 2012

Nobody But Me

I don't know when it happened, but somehow Twilight Zone: The Movie went from "Holy Shit...that's the flick where John Landis killed Vic Morrow!" to that flick with Dan Ackroyd and Albert Brooks were singing "Midnight Special". I mean, I guess Landis didn't really kill Morrow (along with two others) HIMSELF. And he was eventually found Not Guilty in the trial. But, c'mon...that was the flick that Vic Morrow was decapitated, and there is no reason that I should have forgotten that. At the very least, that memory shouldn't have been replaced by another memory of two actors singing along to Creedance.

Memory is a weird thing like that.

I re-watched it the other night. Probably for the first time in nearly 20 years. And damn if it didn't start off right away with Creedance, Ackroyd and Brooks singing "Midnight Special". Just like my dominant memory, um, remembered. Then came the Burgess Meredith voice-over mentioning the angriest man in the world, and all of a sudden the forgotten memory of Vic Morrow's death came flooding back.

Now I'm set for the next dozen years or so.

But really, Ackroyd and Brooks singing together is a much happier memory. Until that damned tape deck eats the cassette. Thank God those things don't really exist anymore. Ruining a perfectly happy memory like that. And who knows? If it hadn't eaten that cassette, maybe Ackroyd wouldn't have turned into some feral creature and eaten Brooks.  Then again, it WAS a movie. I probably shouldn't wonder about "real-life" timeline changes like that.

Although that would be a fun thing too, wouldn't it? What would have happened if Beatrix Kiddo had just told Bill that the baby was his a bit earlier on? Maybe all those folks wouldn't have had to die at her hands.  And the movie would have probably sucked. I really have no idea where I was going with this.

Oh, there was a television show as well. I guess most people remember the television show over the movie. That's another place where my memory goes all spastic. I should remember the television show first, but my first thought always seems to be "Let the Midnight Special....". Blah blah blah.

Do you remember the Dutch band Golden Earring? They had a modest hit with a song called "Twilight Zone" in the mid-80's as well. They are more well-known for their mega-hit "Radar Love". I remember that there was this rumor that they spoke no English at all and they recorded that song phonetically. I dunno if that's true or not. I do know that I had the album, "Moontan", that the song came from and there were other songs on it. All in English. I also know that whenever anyone looked at my music collection back then, they would wonder why I had a Golden Earring album from 1973. No one I've ever met has owned that album.

Nobody but me.

Fuck it. Let's just watch Uma (and Zoe Bell) fuck some shit up. Tarantino-style.

5 comments:

Slyde said...

I can forgive John Landis for killing Vic Morrow, soley because he invented the best TV ever to grace television, Dream On.

Verdant Earl said...

Dream on was created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, the duo who also created Friends. Landis served as an Executive Producer and he directed a few episodes, but he didn't create it.

sybil law said...

Oooh - Dream On was a good show, though. Well, for the 90's, anyway. Who knows how I'd feel if I watched it now.
Anyway, so I wonder if that's true about Golden Earring? I'd google it but that reeks of effort.

Verdant Earl said...

Sybil - I feel the same way about Googling stuff sometimes. Especially when you know the results could be wrong anyways.

Slyde said...

i own seasons 1 and 2 of dream on on dvd... they have never released the other episodes but i still have them all on vcr. i used to tape it every week.