Happy Easter

Chill Mode

Yesterday's post marked the one year anniversary for Franklin Mint Blog...thank you. It was a goal of mine to post something new once a day for the entire year (except weekends...I don't do weekends). And I was successful!

I'm now going to reward myself by chilling out and only post when I want to, or have the time to post. I'm not giving up by all means. I still have a lot to share/say. I'm just not going to stress out over the daily post. You may not realize it, but a lot of research and preparation goes into this madness. Blah...blah...blah...wahh!

So what does this really mean? Well, from now on you don't have to check this blog everyday. Feel free to use this opportunity to check out my archives, though. But don't forget about me! I'll still be posting from time to time...and knowing me it'll be often.

Thanks for your dedicated readership. Keep in touch.

An Anniversary and Armageddon with Charlton

Today marks the anniversary of two things... Exactly one year ago today was my very first Franklin Mint post, and today also marks the day Charlton Heston past away – which was what my first post was about.

In my first post I mentioned that Planet of the Apes (1968) is my favorite movie...still is. One day I'll do a proper post on the whole Planet of the Apes saga. After filming Planet of the Apes, which depicted the end of our world, Charlton also starred in two more films about the world's end: The Omega Man (1971) and Soylent Green (1973).

The Omega Man, based on the novel I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson, is about Dr. Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) who, due to an experimental vaccine, is the only survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. The plague caused by the war has killed everyone else except for a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves "The Family". The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believe science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a "user of the wheel", must die. Neville, using electricity, machinery, and science attempts to hold them at bay.


Here's a scene from The Omega Man (1971)...


Soylent Green begins in year is 2022. New York City has become overpopulated with 40 million people and pollution has caused the temperature to be risen and all natural resources have been destroyed, leaving 40 million people starving. The Soylent company has create a new food product, Soylent Green. In the overpopulated and polluted New York City, police detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of an corporate official of the Soylent company. Thorn's investigation into the murder leads him to uncover a conspiracy in the Soylent company and the Soylent Green food product itself, where Thorn uncovers the horrible truth about Soylent Green.


Here's some scenes from Soylent Green (1973)...


And here's a few of my favorite songs from the soundtracks of The Omega Man (1971) and Soylent Green (1973)...


[DOWNLOAD] Best Of The Omega Man and Soylent Green
1- The Omega Man -- Ron Grainer - The Omega Man
2- Surprise Party -- Ron Grainer - The Omega Man
3- On the Tumbril -- Ron Grainer - The Omega Man
4- Neville Crashes Through -- Ron Grainer - The Omega Man
5- Opening City Music -- Fred Myrow - Soylent Green
6- New Tenant -- Fred Myrow - Soylent Green
7- Funiture Party -- Fred Myrow - Soylent Green

R.I.P. Charlton.

Missile Command (1982)

I found this album for $1 a few years ago. I bought it for my friend Joe (that's his hands holding the LP) because he's super into classic Atari stuff. Before I gave it to him I managed to rip it but I forgot to scan the cover so the images I have here were found on the web – gotta love Google images.

Missile Command is a 1980 arcade game by Atari Inc. The plot of Missile Command is simple: the player's six cities are being attacked by an endless hail of ballistic missiles, some of them even splitting like multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, and in later levels smart bombs which can evade a less than perfectly targeted missile. As a regional commander of three anti-missile batteries, the player must defend six cities in their zone from being destroyed. Well, it actually is simpler than it sounds.

In 1982, the record label Kid Stuff started putting out records based on the most popular video games. The first three albums were for Atari's flagship games: Asteroids, Missile Command, and Yars Revenge. Each included a theme song followed by a usually rather nonsensical adventure story. Anything to cash in on a craze. Here's Missile Command...

[DOWNLOAD] Missile Command (1982)
1- Atari Theme
2- Missile Command
3- Zardon Commanders

Brooke Shields

Last day of "Childhood Celebrity Crush Week!"

There's just no one more beautiful than circa-1980 Brooke Shields. She was the definition of beauty. Brooke's another one of those actresses who was just about everywhere in the late-70's/early-80's. Being a fashion model also added to her exposure.


Her most famous ad campaign was for Calvin Klein Jeans, with Brooke saying "Want to know what gets between me and my Calvins? Nothing".


Below are a few scenes from Brooke's various acting roles...

Alice Sweet Alice (1976) (a.k.a. Communion)
Alice is a withdrawn 12 year old girl who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen (Brooke Shields). Karen gets most of the attention from her mother and Alice is often left out of the spotlight. But when Karen is found brutally murdered in a church before her first holy communion, all suspicions are turned towards Alice. But is a twelve year old girl really capable of such savagery?


Pretty Baby (1978)
It's 1917, and Violet (Brooke Shields) lives in the red-light district of New Orleans known as Storyville with her prostitute mother (Susan Sarandon). On the eve of her 12th birthday, when she'll soon join her mother in life's oldest profession, she meets photographer Ernest Bellocq (Keith Carradine), whom she aspires to marry despite the fact that he's much older. In this scene, Violet tells the house pianist (Antonio Fargas) that her mother just delivered a baby boy...


King of the Gypsies (1978)
Eric Roberts plays defiant gypsy youth Dave Stepanowicz, who tries to turn his back on his legacy but can't escape it when his dying grandfather makes Dave the tribe's new leader. Trouble begins to brew as Dave's father (Judd Hirsch) – who covets the crown – plots his son's downfall. The star-studded cast includes Susan Sarandon, Shelley Winters and Brooke Shields.


Tilt (1979)
Tilt is the story of a young girl, who's a pinball wizard. Because she does not get on with her parents, Tilt (Brooke Shields) is contemplating running away from home, and skipping school one day she decides to play pinball at Mickey's Bar. There she meets and befriends a gambler/hustler and the two hit the road betting and scamming people at various pinball joints. It all leads up to Tilt playing the pinball champ, Harold "The Whale". Here she is hitching a ride with a perverted truck driver (Geoffrey Lewis)...


Wanda Nevada (1979)
Romantic drama following the fortunes of a drifter named Beaudray Demerille (Peter Fonda) who wins a young orphan named Wanda (14 year old Brooke Shields) in a poker game and takes her gold prospecting in the Grand Canyon.


Just You and Me, Kid (1979)
George Burns stars as a former vaudevillian who befriends a young runaway, played by 14-year old Brooke Shields, who is being chased by a drug dealer. Here's the scene where George finds a naked Brooke in the trunk of his car...


The Muppet Show (1980)
In this episode of The Muppet Show, Brooke Shields reenacts various scenes from "Alice In Wonderland". Here's the scene where Alice meets the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar perfectly cast with Sgt. Floyd Pepper...


The Blue Lagoon (1980)
Richard (Christopher Atkins) and Emmeline (Brooke Shields) are two young children who are swept up on a desert island after a shipwreck. The film follows them as they grow up and become more mature, without the intervention of grown ups. Nature takes its course, and Emmeline gets pregnant, totally unaware of the fact that a child is growing inside her. On the night their boy is born, Richard finds out about the origins of the drums they hear from time to time from the forbidden side of the island and realize they must leave.


Endless Love (1981)
Two young kids fall in love with each other. But the passion is too consuming for the parents of Jade (Brooke Shields). Her parents try to stop them from seeing each other but this winds up with their house accidentlly burned down by her boyfriend. After time in a mental institution the boyfriend once again tries to make contact with Jade.


Wet Gold (1984)
Wet Gold is the story of a young woman (Brooke Shields), who works as a waitress in a cafe. Laura stumbles across a drunk elderly man (Burgess Meredith), who fills her with exciting stories of a boat that went down with millions in gold. Together, along with Laura's boyfriend and a dive shop owner, they set off from Key West in search of the gold. But tension fills the air as greed and lust sets in.


Not sure how to end this post so I'll leave you with a photo of Brooke with Gene Simmons of KISS...

Kristy McNichol

Day four of "Childhood Celebrity Crush Week!"

Aaahhh...Kristy. I'm not sure when I first took notice of Kristy McNichol. She's one of those actresses that was just about everywhere in the late 70's. Kristy popped up in a bunch of TV shows I watched as a child. She guest-starred on The Bionic Woman (one of my favorites), Starsky & Hutch (which I watched with my dad), the ABC Afterschool Specials (three heart-felt specials), The Love Boat (another favorite), and of course Battle of the Network Stars – Gabe Kaplan and the ABC Team would be nothing without her.


Aaron Spelling finally gave Kristy a steady job in ABC's Family (1976-1980). Family was about the trials and tribulations, joyous occasions and heartbreaking moments of the Lawrence family: lawyer father Doug, housewife Kate, married (and quickly divorced) daughter Nancy, teenage son Willie and just-hitting-puberty daughter Buddy (Kristy McNichol).

Here's a scene from the Family episode "Jury Duty" (1976) in which we see Buddy practicing for the upcoming skateboard competition. Also practicing is a boy (Willie Aames) whom Buddy likes and he seems to like her back. But his current "girlfriend" has something to say about that...


Below is a few more Kristy McNichol scenes from some of the TV shows I listed above and some of Kristy's movie roles...

The Bionic Woman - "The Ghost Hunter" (1976)
When strange events begin to interfere with an OSI scientist's work on a new decoder, Jaime (Lindsay Wagner) is assigned as governess to his daughter (Kristy McNichol). Her real assignment is making sure that his work is uninterrupted, but this proves to be difficult due to the possible ghost of his first wife...or is it Kristy!


Starsky & Hutch - "The Hostages" (1976) - "Little Girl Lost" (1976) - "The Trap" (1978)
Here's three scenes from three seasons of Starsky & Hutch. In them Kristy plays three different characters – although it would've been nice to see one character's story arc. In season one's "The Hostages", Kristy had a small role as the neighbor of an armored-car driver whose pregnant wife has been taken hostage. In season two's "Little Girl Lost", Kristy plays Molly, a twelve-year-old tomboy whose father, a recently released alcoholic convict, turns up dead over some diamonds. In season three's "The Trap", Kristy plays a petty kleptomaniac who gets trapped in a barn with Starsky and Hutch when a ruthless criminal seeks revenge on the two detectives...


ABC Afterschool Specials - The Pinballs (1977)
Three pre-teen outcasts cross paths when they come to stay with an elderly foster couple. It takes a little while, but these troubled, interesting kids learn about true friendship: how to find it, how to keep it. In this scene Kristy McNichol, feeling unappreciated, attempts to run away...but does anyone notice?


The Love Boat - "Graham and Kelly" (1977)
In "Graham and Kelly", senior citizen Kitty Pickrel boards the ship with her grandson Graham (Scott Baio), who meets a fellow teenager (Kristy McNichol). Two adolescents develop an awkward flirtation and eventually find first love...


Battle of the Network Stars II (1977)
Battle of the Network Stars was one of the first reality TV shows where popular television stars representing the three major broadcast networks at that time: ABC, CBS, and NBC, would compete in Olympic-like events. Sports broadcasting legend Howard Cosell hosted or co-hosted almost all of the specials, and commented on the action with a semi-serious version of the style for which he was famous. In this scene Kristy McNichol, competing for the ABC Team, is profiled during the kayak race...


The End (1978)
This is Kristy's first foray onto the big screen. The movie's about a man named Wendell Lawson (Burt Reynolds), who finds out he has only 6 months to live. Not wanting to live his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take his own life. He enlists the help of a humorously delusional mental patient (Dom Deluise), and the movie chronicles his many unsuccessful attempts to kill himself. But before he begins his attempts he goes to see his daughter (Kristy McNichol) for the last time...


Little Darlings (1980)
This movie is definitely in my top 25 favorite movies of all-time. The story is about a group of teenage girls who go to summer camp, two of whom make a bet as to which one will lose her virginity first. The two girls then choose "targets", or guys they want to be the ones they lose their virginity with. Unbeknownst to the adults, all the girls in camp bet money on the contest and divide into two "teams," each rooting for and egging on either Ferris (Tatum O'Neal) or Angel (Kristy McNichol). In this scene, Randy (Matt Dillon) looks like a worthy enough target for Angel...


Blinded by the Light (1980)
In this TV-movie, David Bowers (Jimmy McNichol) is a teenager who runs away from home to join a quasi-religious cult. His sister Janet (Kristy McNichol) is determined to find him, but almost winds up getting brainwashed by the cult herself. Here she is behind the gates of the cult trying to find her brother but the cult leaders are giving her the run-around never actually letting her see him. That's when she realizes it's time to escape or risk becoming one of them...


Speaking of Jimmy McNichol... Kristy and her brother released an album back in 1978. Here it is...


[DOWNLOAD] Kristy & Jimmy
01- He's A Dancer
02- Page By Page
03- Girl You Really Got Me Goin'
04- My Boyfriend's Back
05- Slow Dance
06- He's So Fine
07- Box on Wheels
08- Go For It
09- Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay
10- Hot Tunes
+
11- I Need You Strong for Me (vocal Kristy McNichol) -- from The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia Soundtrack

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981)
You'll notice I added a song from The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia Soundtrack to the Kristy & Jimmy album. This movie's about a young singer (Dennis Quaid) and his sister/manager (Kristy McNichol) who travel to Nashville in search of stardom. As they journey from one grimy hotel to another, it becomes increasingly obvious that only one of them has what it takes to become a star. This particular scene ends with Kristy drunk driving and punching out a dude...


I suppose you never really get over your childhood crushes. In fact, oddly enough, photos of my wife as a young girl have a striking resemblance to Kristy. Coincidence?

Maureen McCormick

Day three of "Childhood Celebrity Crush Week!"

Here's the story...of a girl named Marcia. Who caught the eye of a very little boy...me. But I wasn't alone, many boys my age had the hots for Marcia Brady of The Brady Bunch. Maureen McCormick played the eldest daughter Marcia, the popular girl with a perky personality, from 1969 to 1974 – and then reprised the role for many reunions. Running plot lines revolved around middle sister Jan’s jealousy of Marcia’s popularity and Marcia’s unhappiness when something happens to her looks such as when she is fitted with braces or her nose is swollen after being hit by a football thrown by brother Peter. No matter what, Marcia was dreamy.


Here's a scene from one of my favorite episodes of The Brady Bunch, starring Davy Jones of The Monkees...

The Brady Bunch - "Getting Davy Jones" (1971)
Disaster looms when Marcia promises to get Davy Jones to perform at her Junior High prom before clinching the deal. But it all works out in the end when Jones, after overhearing his manager rejecting her outside his rehearsal studio, later agrees to perform at the prom.


When The Brady Bunch ended Maureen attempted to further her career by making guest appearances on numerous television shows such as The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island. She also played supporting roles in a few B-movies including Skatetown, U.S.A., A Vacation in Hell, The Idolmaker and Texas Lightning. But Maureen was never able to completely distance herself from her Brady role due to the sitcom's continuous syndicated reruns.

Here's a few scenes from some of her non-Brady roles...

Pony Express Rider (1976)
A young Texas man who saw his father get killed by a group of bandits, decides years later to go to work for the Pony Express. But he is not just working around the country to deliver mail, he is actually finding the bandits who murdered his father. Here's Maureen playing his love interest...


The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries - "Nancy Drew's Love Match" (1977)
In this episode of The Nancy Drew Mysteries, Nancy goes undercover at an exclusive tennis tournament to keep a kleptomaniac classmate (Maureen McCormick) out of trouble during a crucial match, although Nancy doesn't mind the handsome tennis pro. Here's a scene...


The Love Boat - "First Time Out" (1977)
A young man's (Robert Hegyes of Welcome Back, Kotter) fraternity brothers pressure him to lose his virginity during the cruise. Maureen McCormick helps out...


Fantasy Island - "Beauty Contest" (1978)
A sheltered 19 year old girl (Maureen McCormick) wishes to enter a beauty contest like her mother did in order to get acceptance from her father. But when her father shows up on the island, she is none too happy...


Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979)
A star-studded cast (including Maureen McCormick, Scott Baio, Patrick Swayze, Ron Palillo and Billy Barty) about clashing roller skate gangs competing in a roller skate contest. In this scene Ron Palillo (Welcome Back, Kotter) woos Maureen McCormick to lure her away from the contest...


A Vacation in Hell (1979)
A made-for_TV-movie about five tourists, four women and one man, escape from the group in a holiday camp at a tropical place and get lost. They have to find the way back, but problems are still to come. Here's a pretty weird scene with Maureen dancing suggestively...


The Idolmaker (1980)
Loosely based on the life of rock promoter Bob Marucci, who discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian, this film follows Vincent Vacarri, a charismatic music fan who becomes a successful producer. Vacarri's tenacity pays off when he discovers the Fabian-like singer Caesare in his feature debut. Maureen McCormick plays a music reporter for a teen magazine who falls for Caesare...


Texas Lightning (1981)
In light of Maureen's recent tell-all book, she probably agreed to do this movie during a cocaine binge. It's about a macho truck driver who takes his quiet son, Buddy on a hunting trip to make him a man. Things start looking up for Buddy when he becomes romantically involved with honky-tonk barmaid Fay (Maureen McCormick). But after his dad and his dad's friends commit an unforgivable act (raping Fay), Buddy is forced out of his shell – with violent results. Maureen more likely accepted the job because they gave her a nice spotlight at the end of the film to perform a song. Here it is...


As seen in the scene above, Maureen fancied herself a singer which goes back to her days with The Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch kids recorded four albums in the early 1970s on Paramount Records. These albums were Merry Christmas from The Brady Bunch, Meet The Brady Bunch, The Kids from The Brady Bunch and The Brady Bunch Phonographic Album. There were also various solo singles, and an LP consisting of just Christopher Knight and Maureen McCormick. Here's that record...


[DOWNLOAD] Christopher Knight & Maureen McCormick (1973)
01- Spread A Little Love Around
02- Little Bird (Sing Your Song)
03- Hang On Baby
04- Ben
05- Over & Over
06- Just A Singin' Alone
07- Road To Love
08- Tell Me Who You Love
09- There Is Nothing More To Say
10- Good For Each Other