Episode 1695 Talkback - The CGS "Best of 2017" Awards Show
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Announcing the final winners of the CGS 'Best of 2017' Awards, as voted on by you, our listeners! Following the reveal, pick up a goodie-bag of bonus Comic Talk, including a SPOILER-rich rundown of DC's landmark Action Comics #1000; a micro-Spotlight's worth of Action Comics historical data and statistics, as compiled by Pants; some early thoughts on Season 2 of Legion; and more! (1:26:19)
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Comments
Quarter in the jar, @Pants. The “Bin” in Otto Binder is pronounced as you would say “back issue bin”.
Re: Blackhawk, the main reason DC bought the Quality stable of heroes was to get Blackhawk, as it was Quality’s best selling book (and for a long time it sold better than every DC book outside of Superman). I have to say, I'm much more likely to go the theater to see a Spielberg directed Blackhawk movie than to see anything else currently on DC/WB's movie slate. There were rumors of him being interested in making a Blackhawk movie back in the ’80s, so it's something he’s had a long time to think about. For those interested in reading up on the team, just pick up everything Chaykin did with them. And the Mark Evanier/Dan Spiegle run is a lot of fun too. You can often find all that stuff in bargain bins.
Hope you enjoy the book, Adam. Dr Mutter was a remarkable surgical pioneer and an early adopter of anesthesia, anti-sepsis and the importance of good bedside manner and patient communication in preparing his patients for the great challenge of nineteenth century surgery.
With regards to the Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence version of Orwell's 1984 it was produced for the BBC in 1954 by the Quatermass team of writer Nigel Kneale and director Rudolph Cartier. As with most TV in that era it was performed live on the night of broadcast with just a few pre-filmed inserts showing exterior scenes of the bombed buildings of post-war London. Peter Cushing plays Winston Smith, Andre Morrell who would go onto play Dr Watson to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes is O'Brien, and Donald Pleasence in an early role plays Winston Smith's work colleague Syme.
The broadcast was extremely controversial with some newspaper critics declaring it a show created by "sadists and readers of horror comics"! Questions were even asked in the British parliament about whether it was too terrifying for television viewers, and the planned repeat broadcast was under threat until Prince Philip who was speaking at the Royal Society of Arts happened to mention that he and the Queen had watched and enjoyed the production, at which point the newspapers reversed their opinions and declared the show a triumph! The repeat broadcast went ahead and this time it was recorded for posterity by the cutting edge technique of just pointing a camera at an in-studio television.
Interestingly most of the cast and crew felt that their first performance had been better but it's the second one that survives to this day. The BBC appear to be taking down videos on the internet archive and elsewhere as there are rumors of a DVD release but it is still up on DailyMotion at the time of writing. So turn down the lights, imagine yourself in post-war austerity Britain, and watch a classic moment of black and white TV.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zqkq4
And you can hear me and Brian discussing the show on the British Invaders podcast here:
http://britishinvaders.com/?s=nineteen+eighty-four