Showing posts with label Little Mermaid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little Mermaid. Show all posts

Thursday, February 13, 2014

ABOUT THAT TV LITTLE MERMAID PHOTO

If you were wondering about the identity of the two performers in the photo from a 60s TV adaptation of the Little Mermaid, I'm going to give the answers.


The lady is Shirley Temple Black, who passed away earlier this week. Here is the New York Times obit, which is one of the few obits I found that featured photos of Miss Temple in her later years.


The leading man is Canadian actor/comedian Donald Harron. I played several small roles on TV in the 60s, such as the sarcastic, bearded Australian agent Kit Kitridge on The Man from UNCLE.


However, he is most famous in both America and his native Canada as Charlie Farquharson (above), a farmer/historian who talked about politics, society and his neighbors, while mangling the English language. He played the character on Hee Haw for 18 years, although in this interview on You Tube, he gives the impression that he wasn't happy with his work on that show. I only recently found out Charlie had a snooty city cousin, Valerie, played by Harron in drag. There is a video of Charlie explaining global warming and why he voted for the Green Party that is funnier than the stuff he did on Hee Haw.

BTW, this was from The Shirley Temple Storybook TV show and it is on DVD. The photo above is a publicity photo from that 50s - 60s TV series.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

THE TV VERSION OF LITTLE MERMAID


I found this photo last week while doing some impromptu research on one of the two performers in this photo. I thought I would post it at some point because most people have never seen a photo of these like this.

This is a screen shot from the lady's TV show. Each week she starred in an adaptation of a famous children's story. This is "The Little Mermaid." Most photos of the woman are of her as a small child. Even in death (which occurred yesterday), the news media ran photos of her as a child.

The man was a very busy character actor on TV in the 60s, but most Americans have only seen this fellow with thick stubble and wearing a moth-eaten, dirty sweater as his gossiping rural radio news commentator persona.

I picked this photo of these two performers because their work is mentioned in two of the many annoying memes on Facebook. There are a bunch of nitwits on Facebook who every day post the same two or three stupid memes. One features the lady on the left as a child next to a photo of  Honey Boo Boo with a caption "What has happened to our country?" Personally, I think there is room for both and don't have a problem Honey Boo Boo. At least it's not The Five or Duck Dynasty, which the people who post this crap think are the greatest TV shows ever.

Another meme says "I was raised unlike today's kids." Then it mentions how they grew up watching the American TV show featuring the man in the photo. They seem to believe it makes them superior to the younger generation. I always thought that watching that TV show was uncool. According to an interview on You Tube, this guy wasn't crazy about that TV show either. 

I think the people that post those memes need to read this post from Gilligan on Retrospace and lighten up.

   
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...