# Movies/TV/Books/Music from your past, but no one else remembers (or cares)... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099 "2019-02-23T19:54:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/81 "2019-03-01T11:14:23Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Maybe I should have added “…that you care about, but no one else does”. > > For decades, no one would believe that I saw [the first few minutes of a show called \*Coronet Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqjw6gLDeLU),\* until the faraway station devolved into static. Friends would roll their eyes, and get me to sing the [jazzy theme music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46uZkxiCZTM), just to mock me. > > It stayed on my mind, and fostered a affinity for a good amnesia story, and the “clueless protagonist caught up in a thriller” genre. I filled that void with movies like North By Northwest. > > This was the summer of '67, so it was decades until I found out it really was a show (though a short summer replacement; they never showed the whole series). Wow, I did the math and it took fifty years for anyone to post the intro online, and release it on DVD (a year and a half ago). Man, I wish I could show it to those sixth grade haters who would get me to sing “Coronet Bluuuuue…” > > But, and here’s the kicker… they wouldn’t care, or even remember. I’m all alone with the show that only I know or care about. > I could go on with a few books and an unsung musician, but I’ll let someone else have a turn first… The Trivia section in the [IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061242/)listing for Coronet Blue is interesting (I added paragraph breaks, ‘cause it was a wall o’ text): > [@](#): > > Series Creator Larry Cohen, in his autobiography “The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker”, explained the mystery behind the series’ title and catchphrase. "When the Brodkin Organization took over the series, they wanted to turn it into an anthology. So they played down the amnesia aspect until there was nothing about it at all in the show. It was just Frank Converse wandering from one story to the next with no connective format at all. > > Anyway, the show ended after seventeen weeks and nobody found out what ‘coronet blue’ meant. The actual secret is that Converse was not really an American at all. He was a Russian who had been trained to appear like an American and was sent to the U.S. as a spy. He belonged to a spy unit called ‘Coronet Blue’. He decided to defect, so the Russians tried to kill him before he can give away the identities of the other Soviet Agents, and nobody can really identify him because he doesn’t exist as an American. > > Coronet Blue was actually an outgrowth of ‘The Traitor’ episode of The Defenders (1961)." However, anyone who has seen the show knows that the amnesia aspect was in fact not played down (one episode had Alden declining a golden opportunity to learn the truth about himself, or at least a good part of it, on moral grounds concerning the way the information became available to him). > > Other facts are that thirteen episodes were all that were filmed, and that from first air date to last is only fourteen weeks, fifteen potential weekly air dates if you include those at both ends, but only eleven of the episodes were aired. In any case, Cohen’s “seventeen weeks”, made in a book wherein he presumably had plenty of time to check and be certain that he got such fundamental facts correct, is indefensible. All this calls the validity of the entirety of his statement into question. ---
**Author:** ![Fortyfold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7c8e57/32.png) [@Fortyfold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fortyfold)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/82 "2019-03-01T13:11:39Z")
I loved **Tomfoolery** as a kid, so that’s three here so far. I’ve rarely met anyone who remembers that at all. I also really enjoyed the TV play _The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner_ which hardly anyone remembers. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/83 "2019-03-01T14:44:42Z")
a) in Valdosta GA circa 1967-69 in the early hours of Saturday morning, pre-cartoons and just post-test-pattern, don’t recall which network, the day would start with a proto music video. The chorus of the lyrics, and probably song title, were “Space Space a-Go-Go”. The video featured dancers in plasticky-looking costumes. Haven’t ever found a trace of it outside of my own memory. b) Cereal boxes sometimes used to come with 45 RPM flexible plastic phonograph records. In New Mexico circa 1965 I had one such prize that was a promotion for forest fire awareness; the A side had Alvin and the Chipmunks singing a song about Smokey the Bear in their usual 3-part harmony. (was _not_ the famous Smokey the Bear “dunno why they call him Smokey but I’m sure he deserves the name” song,a different one instead; in the middle of the song, the chipmunks sing the letters “A”, “B”, and “C” while Dave provides the bullet-point narration of the three most important things to do to put your campfire out safely). The B side of the little record was a more grown-up ballad, “The Sigh of the Dying Trees”. c) For years I could not convince people I had once watched a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called “Top Cat” in a time slot that was later occupied by the Flintstones. (YouTube and Wikipedia etc have rescued me on that one) ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/84 "2019-03-01T15:23:03Z")
When I was a kid I watched a [Christopher Columbus mini-series](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088916/?ref_=tt_urv) (1985) starring Gabriel Byrne that was 6 hours long. We taped it so I re-watched it several times growing up. Of course those tapes are long gone. Anyone who has seen it acknowledges it was much better than any other of the Christopher Columbus movies around that time. It did eventually come out in a DVD, but: 1. It was only released for non-US regions and so wouldn’t plan on US DVD players, and 2. They chopped out 1.5 hours of the story! But apparently know one cares so I will probably never see it again. . ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/85 "2019-03-01T21:35:08Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > For years I could not convince people I had once watched a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called “Top Cat” in a time slot that was later occupied by the Flintstones. (YouTube and Wikipedia etc have rescued me on that one) I remember Top Cat. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/86 "2019-03-01T21:55:56Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > I remember Top Cat. I remember watching it in prime time on Saturday or Sunday evening when I had chicken pox in the second grade. Usually, though, it was on in the late afternoon on schooldays. It was _ **Sergeant Bilko** _ with alley cats. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/87 "2019-03-01T22:00:00Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > I remember Top Cat. So do I. My husband’s a fan, and I bought him a DVD of the complete series for his birthday last year. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/88 "2019-03-01T22:42:18Z")
I grew up in the Dark Ages, before Google and Wikipedia and having the whole panoply of pop culture at one’s fingertips, so I questioned for years whether I had actually seen a short-lived series called [_Run, Joe, Run_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run,_Joe,_Run), about an Army dog fleeing across the country. In my memory, he was trying to find his master, but Wikipedia tells me he was fleeing a $200.00 bounty put on his head after he was falsely accused of attacking his handler, and that the handler, knowing Joe was innocent, was trying to reunite with him. No one, and I mean no one, had ever heard of or remembered the show, so it wasn’t until the intertoobz came along that I was sure I wasn’t just imagining the whole thing. Another 70’s kid show that seemingly I alone recall was called [_Zoom_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_(1972_TV_series)). I can still recall the silly theme song: " I wanna zoom, I wanna zoom zoom zoom, zoom-zoom, zoom". Weird, the things that stay in your mind. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/89 "2019-03-01T23:12:03Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Another 70’s kid show that seemingly I alone recall was called [_Zoom_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_(1972_TV_series)). I can still recall the silly theme song: " I wanna zoom, I wanna zoom zoom zoom, zoom-zoom, zoom". > > Weird, the things that stay in your mind. My husband and I both remember Zoom fondly. We can even sing the zip code of the address to send mail to Zoom: “Oh-two-one-three-four!” PBS rebooted the show briefly a few years ago. The reboot was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/90 "2019-03-01T23:34:39Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > Possibly this… > > [Danny and the Mermaid (1978) - Turner Classic Movies](http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/461922/Danny-and-the-Mermaid/) > > No images or videos from it seem to exist. This might actually be Fate trying to spare you the embarrassment and/or disappointment of seeing it again. Thanks. That must be it. I had no illusions that I would still like it 41 years later. It’s just that being the only one who remembers it has been bugging me for 84% of my life. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/91 "2019-03-02T00:32:30Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > c) For years I could not convince people I had once watched a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called “Top Cat” in a time slot that was later occupied by the Flintstones. (YouTube and Wikipedia etc have rescued me on that one) I wouldn’t have thought of Top Cat as being all that obscure. It’s not like it was Quick Draw McGraw, Jabberjaws, or Speed Buggy. Or Laff-a-Lympics. Or The Hillbilly Bears. Or Lippy the Lion. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/92 "2019-03-02T00:52:25Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I grew up in the Dark Ages, before Google and Wikipedia and having the whole panoply of pop culture at one’s fingertips, so I questioned for years whether I had actually seen a short-lived series called [_Run, Joe, Run_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run,_Joe,_Run), about an Army dog fleeing across the country. In my memory, he was trying to find his master, but Wikipedia tells me he was fleeing a $200.00 bounty put on his head after he was falsely accused of attacking his handler, and that the handler, knowing Joe was innocent, was trying to reunite with him. > > No one, and I mean no one, had ever heard of or remembered the show, so it wasn’t until the intertoobz came along that I was sure I wasn’t just imagining the whole thing. > > Another 70’s kid show that seemingly I alone recall was called [_Zoom_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_(1972_TV_series)). I can still recall the silly theme song: " I wanna zoom, I wanna zoom zoom zoom, zoom-zoom, zoom". > > Weird, the things that stay in your mind. Don’t remember “Run, Joe, Run” but I definitely remember “Zoom.” I was right in the targeted age group for its first run, and many old episodes are on You Tube - both the 1970s series, and the ca. 2000 reboot. Around the same time, there was a PBS series called “Inside Out” which we used to watch at school. They were episodes about 15 minutes long where kids were faced with age-appropriate moral dilemmas that were deliberately left unresolved, and then we would have a class discussion about it. There was also a Saturday-morning show called “Isis”, about a woman who had superpowers that involved her calling upon the goddess Isis and transforming into a female superhero. It was probably awful but we kids loved it. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/93 "2019-03-02T15:51:14Z")
I vaguely remember _Coronet Blue_, and how disappointed we were when it was cut off and we didn’t know how the story ended. I think my cousins and I had crushes on Frank Converse. _The Trials of O’Brien._ All I remember of it was Peter Falk shooting pool. I’d like to see a few episodes of that. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/94 "2019-03-02T16:39:58Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > c) For years I could not convince people I had once watched a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called “Top Cat” in a time slot that was later occupied by the Flintstones. (YouTube and Wikipedia etc have rescued me on that one) Oh, another of that ilk: _Ruff and Reddy_ (a cat and dog cartoon). No one I mentioned it to remembered ever seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/95 "2019-03-02T16:51:18Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Oh, another of that ilk: _Ruff and Reddy_ (a cat and dog cartoon). No one I mentioned it to remembered ever seeing it. I watched Ruff and Ready. It was Hannah-Barbera’s first TV cartoon, before even Huckleberry Hound. Not particularly memorable, though. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/96 "2019-03-02T16:54:08Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Oh, another of that ilk: _Ruff and Reddy_ (a cat and dog cartoon). No one I mentioned it to remembered ever seeing it. \*Get set, get ready, here come Ruff and Reddy! They’re tough, but steady, here come Ruff and Reddy! They sometimes have their little spats, even fight like dogs and cats, but when they need each other, that’s when they’re rough and ready!\* ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/97 "2019-03-02T17:20:00Z")
Zoom (“Write ZOOM, zee-double-oh-em, Box 430, Boston, Mass. OH two ONE three FOUR! Send it to Zoom!”) was where I learned such games as whistling with crackers in your mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/98 "2019-03-02T18:07:20Z")
What I remember from _Zoom_ is this (or another version of it that they did): We discussed this twenty years ago (and why don't you remember that?): > **["You must pay the rent!" "But I can't pay the rent!"](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=8489)** > > Villain (with moustache): You must pay the rent! Damsel in distress (with bow in her hair): But I can’t pay the rent! Villain: You must pay the rent! Damsel: But I can’t pay the rent! Hero (wearing bow tie): I’ll pay the rent! Damsel: My hero! ... ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/99 "2019-03-02T19:48:57Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > \*Get set, > get ready, > here come Ruff and Reddy! > > They’re tough, > but steady, > here come Ruff and Reddy! > > They sometimes have their little spats, > even fight like dogs and cats, > but when they need each other, > that’s when they’re rough and ready!\* **Amendment:** T_hey’re tough, but steady, always rough and ready!_ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099/100 "2019-03-02T19:52:43Z")
Long before _ **Vikings** _, there was _ **Tales of the Vikings** _: > **[Tales of the Vikings (TV Series 1959–1960) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053543/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt)** > > Tales of the Vikings: With Jerome Courtland, Buddy Baer, Walter Barnes, Stefan Schnabel. Leif sets off from Scandinavia around the year 1000 determined to find lands to conquer and settle. He, along with his fellow Vikings, find conflict and... The kick-ass theme song: Patrick McGoohan was a member of the cast as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-books-music-from-your-past-but-no-one-else-remembers-or-cares/830099.md?page=6)