Rant #3,072: One Way Or Another

Sorry for the delay of this Rant.

My computer continues to give me problems, and today it gave me plenty of problems.

It would not start up, but finally, after several tries, it did, so even though many days it boots up on the first try, today was not one of those days.

I have been struggling with this problem for more than six months, so at this point, I know that it is not going to get any better, and today, without a doubt, proved that belief.

But here I am, the computer is finally working, and what am I going to write about today?

I had a pretty dull weekend, which was really good for me, as it allowed me to relax after a somewhat busy week last week.

And the “busy-nesss” continues today, as I have to take my mother to one of her doctors and I have to take my son to the dentist.

So again, what am I going to write about today?

This weekend, I watched a TV sitcom that I had not seen or thught about in probably more than 50 years, but when I heard its opening, it sparked a memory in me, one that I had pretty much totally forgotten about, from my very early childhood days.

“Don’t turn that dial!” …. “BLON …. DIE!”

The Decades TV network once again had its binge weekend, but this binge was “Blondie,” and “Blondie” all of the time.

The station showed several movies bases on the Chic Young comic strip—there were 20 such movies in all, making it, along with James Bond, the movie franchise with the most sequels, with the Blondie films spanning from the late 1930s to 1950, with each movie starring Penny Singleton as Blondie Bumstead and Arthur Lake as her dithering but loveable husband, Dagwood Bumstead.

But few remember that there were two TV series that were also based on the comic strip.

Let’s go with the most recent first. The one from 1969 tried to adapt Blondie to the then-current norms and trends, and starred Patricia Hardy as Blondie and Will Hutchins as Dagwood.

It fell flat on its face and didn’t even last a half season, with legend having it that the personnel affiliated with the show were told that the show had been canned right in the middle of shooting one of the 15 episodes that were filmed for the series.

But the earlier TV version—from 1957—was the one that was shown in its entirety this weekend on Decades, the show which had a very interesting cast, including Pamela Britton as Blondie and Arthur Lake once again as Dagwood.

I had totally forgotten about this show when I finally sat down to watch it, but that opening hit me between the eyes, and in reruns, this show was probably one of the first TV shows I ever watched as a kid, joining “The People’s Choice” with Jackie Cooper—and the talking dog—and “The Adventures of Superman” as the three shows I now remember that started my love of television—along with “American Bandstand,” which my mother has said time and time again was the show that I used to jump up and down in the crib to.

Anyway, the “Blondie” show ran only about two-thirds of a single season—26 episodes, as opposed to the 38 that a full season ran in those days—and I must have seen it in reruns a year or two after the show originally ran, when I was about one or two years old—and yes, I distinctly remember watching it.

And you can see why as a little kid I enjoyed this show so much.

It was wall to wall slapstick, with Lake being the focus of the show, fumbling and bumbling around just about every circumstance, while still finding the time to love his wife and children.

The show was funny as could be, very contrived but it generated a lot of laughs for me.

And the cast was very, very interesting, apart from the show itself.

Perhaps the most interesting one was Lake, but we will get to him in a moment.

Britton, as Blondie, had that real 1950s look as an actress, but her most famous role was not this one, but the one where she played the overly ditzy and overly nosy neighbor Mrs. Brown on “My Favorite Martian.” But Britton was actually quite an accomplished stage and screen actress before she ended up as a TV staple.

The young actress that played their daughter Cookie was Ann Barnes, who followed up this show with a long string of ingénue roles on sitcoms like “Leave It To Beaver” and “My Three Sons.” She kind of faded into obscurity until she died in 2005, when her death made national headlines, as she was found dead in her home, and had been in this state for possibly weeks or months without anyone knowing that she was gone.

Simon “Stuffy” Singer played son Alexander (known as the character “Baby Dumpling” in some of the early movies), but his real claim to fame is that he was a superior athlete as an adult, competing in everything from baseball to handball on a competitive level, the latter or which he had an incredible career as a professional player, winning numerous championships and being inducted into the Handball Hall of Fame. All the while, he did many voiceovers in cartoons, and voiced in both TV and the movies, including in the classic cartoon movie “Peter Pan.”

And then we finally come to Arthur Lake, who basically WAS Dagwood Bumstead from the time he played the role for the first time in the late 1930s until his death in the late 1980s—he became to that character what Alan Hale became to “The Skipper” on “Gilligan’s Island”—he became the character in real life. Even after he was done with the Blondie series of TV shows and movies, Lake often appeared at events as Dagwood, posing with those outlandish “Dagwood Sandwiches” that were seemingly a mile high.

On another side, Lake was a suspect in the “Black Dahlia” murder case, the still unsolved murder of a young woman in Los Angeles in the 1940s. He was questioned at least partly because the woman worked at the Hollywood Canteen that he frequented, and he was also a friend of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, of whom he married their illegitimate daughter. About the Black Dahlia case, Lake knew the girl well from the canteen, he was questioned, but any case against him was dropped when no evidence of any wrongdoing was found.

And then the supporting cast … Harold Peary as the gnarly next door neighbor, was actually better known for his radio role as the “Great Gildersleeve,” and Elvia Allman as Dagwood’s boss’ wife appeared in numerous situation comedies during this period, including as the candy boss in that classic episode of “I Love Lucy.”

There were other supporting cast members, and each had an interesting back story, but along with the regular cast, this show just didn’t cut the mustard, and was canned after just about two-thirds of a season.

Whatever the case, I personally enjoyed this trip back to another time and my very early life, and I recorded some of the shows to watch later on.

And the “Blondie” comic strip continues on in local newspapers, the name was appropriated for the Hall of Fame rock band, and the movies can still be seen each weekend on various cable channels and is available on the Internet … so if you want Blondie, you can get Blondie, anytime.

“BLON …. DIE!”