{"id":5337,"date":"2014-02-18T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T10:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2014-02-18T05:30:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T10:30:51","slug":"dvd-review-happening-68-vols-1-3-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/18\/dvd-review-happening-68-vols-1-3-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD Review: Happening ’68 Vols. 1-3 (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

The aforementioned Aretha Franklin<\/strong> segment is of particular interest, as it shows the off-the-cuff nature of the program. As Lindsay is discussing the soul singer’s career with guest Jackie DeShannon<\/strong>, they note that Aretha was \u201con Columbia\u201d (also Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong>‘ label) for five years, but \u201cdidn’t go anywhere.\u201d The clear implication is that Columbia didn’t serve Franklin’s career well. An entire episode (aired March 15, 1969) is devoted to Wilson Pickett<\/strong>, who \u2013 unlike most musical guests \u2013 appears with his entire band. Pickett tears things up \u2013 even though he’s miming like everyone else (though some reports suggest the performance was live; you decide) — and gives a fun if brief interview.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center>A charming regular feature on Happening<\/em> was the garage band contest. Local groups from around the country would mime to some or other cover version, and celebrity judges would pick the best. The list of prizes will boggle the minds of modern audiences (a Pontiac Firebird?! $2500 in Vox musical equipment?!) but the truly amazing part of all this is the tunes covered. One might hear a vocal version of Cannonball Adderley<\/strong>‘s 1966 hit \u201cMercy, Mercy, Mercy,\u201d Spirit<\/strong>‘s \u201cGot a Line on You,\u201d a cover of Johnnie Taylor<\/strong>‘s \u201cWho’s Makin’ Love,\u201d and other left-field-for-daytime-TV tunes. Often the judges’ decisions are suspect, but it’s a hoot seeing these often pimply teenagers make their bids for the big time (grand prize included a \u201crecording contract\u201d with either ABC or A&M, but history does not record any great success visited upon whichever band won on Happening<\/em>).<\/p>\n

By 1968 an industry veteran, Mark Lindsay<\/strong> seems quite comfortable and natural in front of the camera. Lindsay comes off pretty well throughout, ad-libbing his way through brief, light interview segments with such stars of the days as Ross Martin<\/strong> (who surprises everyone by telling Lindsay that his show Wild Wild West<\/em> is simultaneously \u201cin great shape\u201d and cancelled<\/em>), Jay North<\/strong> (former Dennis the Menace<\/em>, then star of the TV show Maya<\/em>, with co-star \u2013 and Raider — Keith Allison<\/strong>), James Doohan<\/strong> (Star Trek<\/em>‘s \u201cScotty\u201d), Mission: Impossible<\/em>‘s Greg Morris<\/strong>, and many others.<\/p>\n

A \u201cHappening News\u201d segment featuring Teen<\/em> magazine editor Sue Cameron<\/strong> offers up Hollywood gossip and so forth, presumably priming the teen audience for the adult versions to come in subsequent era in the form of Entertainment Tonight<\/em>, Access Hollywood<\/em> and similar shows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Paul Revere<\/strong> plays the irreverent fool throughout, mugging and offering up endearing slapstick. He often calls Lindsay \u201cBobo\u201d (huh?) and \u201cmy pony-tailed nitwit\u201d and engages in endless in-jokery. Happening<\/em> seemingly went to production with the barest of scripts, instead preferring to riff on the undeniable chemistry between Revere, Lindsay and their guests.<\/p>\n

A nice bonus on many of these episodes is the inclusion of the original commercials. These show \u2013 should there remain any doubt \u2013 that the program was aimed squarely at teenage girls. But some of the ABC-TV commercials promoting other programs such as The Mod Squad<\/em> (\u201cCops: one black, one white, one blonde<\/em>\u201d) and The FBI<\/em> are a time-capsule scream.<\/p>\n

These DVDs are highly recommended, but be warned that since these transfers are sourced from various private collector caches, the video quality varies episode to episode. These are pretty rare; when I discussed Happening<\/em> with Lindsay, he admitted that he had only a couple of the episodes in his own collection. (I dubbed copies of some that I had, including a few poorer-quality transfers not found here.) Until DCP sees fit to release legitimate archival copies (assuming they even exist), these DVDs from [redacted] are your only option.<\/p>\n

Available HERE<\/del>. Aha…I am told that it’s no longer available.<\/del> Okay, now (August 2015) Happening ’68 DVD<\/a> is available again.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The aforementioned Aretha Franklin segment is of particular interest, as it shows the off-the-cuff nature of the program. As Lindsay is discussing the soul singer’s career […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18,19,51,65],"tags":[1402,1666,1668,2189],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bootleg","category-comedy","category-compilation","category-pop","category-review","tag-mark-lindsay","tag-paul-revere","tag-paul-revere-and-the-raiders","tag-the-video-beat","cat-11-id","cat-18-id","cat-19-id","cat-51-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}