He, or someone involved in Davy Crockett, also narrated a vinyl audio book about Herbie the Love Bug in which he suddenly, for no apparent reason, sings the chorus of Davy Crockett once. I was very confused for a long time why he did that.
I watched a video looking back at the film Crimson Tide, and before seeing it wasn’t aware Quentin Tarantino had an uncredited role as a script doctor on it. It highlighted some of the dialogue he must have clearly added.
There woulda been no way to know, but in retrospect if you know to look for it, it’s pretty blatant.
I’ve read that Buddy Ebsen got the role of Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies because he played the role of Doc Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
That may have brought him to the attention of the studio, but Doc Golightly was a rural Texan, not an Appalachian backcountry guy, like George Russel.
It’s interesting – I read Ebsen autobiography a few months back, and je started out as a hoofer – he and his sister were an extremely talented dance team. Buddy himself eventually got the role of the Tin Man in the 1939 Wizard of Oz, but had to quit when the aluminum dust they used in his makeup almost killed him. and Jack Haley got the role. But it’s still Buddy Ebsen you see in some of the long shots in the existing picture.
Between that, the dispute he had with MGM, and World War II, he had a long hiatus, and when he tried to come back the agents tried to talk him out of it – he was too old to be a star or a dancer anymore. But he persisted and started acting in television. He had a lot of roles, but the one in Disney’s Davy Crockett stood out. He continued as a regular on TV – the Breeakfast at Tiffany’s part was a rare movie role.
But, as Paul Henning said about the reason he cast him:
Ebsen played lots of western characters, but the closest to that Ozark hillbilly was George Russel.
Here’s one source that says "This role [in Breakfast at Tiffany’s] brought Ebsen to the attention of the casting director of the CBS television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies:
I suspect that all of Ebsen’s roles on TV and in movies were known to the people who made The Beverly Hillbillies.
“The Official Preppy Handbook” (1980) included an etiquette quiz with questions about how to conduct yourself in various situations. One of them is setting the table for an informal dinner. The options are
a. Ketchup in a bottle, salt in a shaker, Triscuits in the box
b. Ketchup in a bottle, salt in a shaker, Triscuits on a plate
c. Ketchup in a dish, salt in a dish, Triscuits in the box
The correct answer is c.
I agree that the ketchup in the bottle is a demonstration of ill breeding.
What about “ketchup in little tear-open packets”?
Trashy. High class folks use the little plastic cups with the foil lids.
I just watched Dr. Strangelove and realized why his hand kept rising up involuntarily into a Nazi salute at the end as he was taking about the need for women in the mineshafts.
It represented his erection.
To be fair, I was 12 when I first saw it (and thought it was the best movie I’d ever seen), so wouldn’t have made the connection back then
I don’t necessarily agree, but I’ll have to watch the movie again with that in mind. I do seem to remember that when he talks about men doing “prodigious service” in repopulating the Earth, Strangelove gets an odd look on his face and looks down toward his lap.
Other than that, I just figured Strangelove was a former Nazi whose right arm was still fighting the war.
Certainly a factor, but the arm starts at rise when he starts talking about the sexual aspects of the plan. Fighting his arm is very reminiscent of a man fighting an embarrassing erection. And when he stands up, it’s stiff and erect.
The movie is filled with sexual and phallic elements, and was written by Terry (“Candy”) Southern, so it’s not out of place.
I’ve seen Airplane! a bajillion times. I only just realized that the radio station “where disco lives forever” is WZAZ – as in Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker aka ZAZ.
But then his hand starts strangling him. What’s the phallic aspect of that? If it were really phallic, it’s be stuffing itself into his mouth. (True, he does bite it in an attempt to control it.)
I admit the way he’s contorting in his wheelchair during his speech could be interpreted as trying to conceal an erection. I guess it’s plausible, but did Sellers improvise that on his own, or was he directed by the script or Kubrick, and was any of that explicitly intended as we’ve surmised?
It’s when it keeps going up into the salute and he has to force it down. It’s reminiscent of of teen boy fighting an unwanted erection. The strangling can also be seen in those terms.
It’s probably a combination of Sellers and the script. The movie clearly uses metaphors for male sexual potency throughout, starting with the opening credits.
Or shots like this.
Random thought I had the other night: “You know, the basic premise of Lost In Space is pretty much The Swiss Family Robinson… in space. The family’s name is even Robinson… oooooh, that was intentional.”
It’s even better than that.
The Space Family Robinson is Lost in Space on Space Station One may no longer be the world’s longest comic book title, but it’s still pretty long.
I just found out yesterday that the version of “The Sound of Silence” I’ve always listened to is not the original version of that song. Simon and Garfunkel recorded their original version and put it on their album Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. The album sold poorly and they broke up.
But a few radio stations played “The Sound of Silence” and a year after the album’s release, Columbia decided to capitalize on this by releasing the song as a single. Columbia decided to remix the song for the single and it’s this version which is now popular.
“Fool,” said I, “you did not know?!?!?”
What can I say? The words, like silent raindrops, fell.