Saturday, February 13, 2016

Uphill All The Way...

The premise of this comedy-western centers around 2 bumbling good ol' boys (Roy Clark as Ben and Mel Tillis as Booger) who, at the start of the film, are tossed off a train after failing to show their tickets. They wander inside a saloon and attempt to cheat their way into a fortune at the card table. Frank Gorshin appears as the drunkest of the crowd (his character is named, Pike). To pull off their scheme Booger has a hat, hidden inside is a mirror, and he nonchalantly walks around the room letting Ben see the other player's hands. One thing leads to another and Booger drops the hat and cracks the mirror. At first the saloon women think Booger's using the hat to look up women's dresses...but eventually a seasoned card player realizes something's fishy and the other players suggest to start a new game since the previous one had been interrupted. Burt Reynolds has an uncredited cameo appearance in this saloon scene as the seasoned card player. He shows off his card tricks, at first, and then wastes little time at stripping an overly zealous but uneducated Ben of his winnings. Ben didn't realize the hand he held (the one he bet all his chips on) turned out to be a losing hand in that particular card game.

After a night of escapist romance with a couple of saloon women (Miss Jessie and Lucinda) they confessed, the following morning, that they didn't have any additional money to pay for the long night's activity. This caused the pair to get tossed out of the saloon/brothel, literally, by the bouncer (Leon). He pushed them down a flight of stairs.

Broke and wandering around they end up becoming fugitives after they innocently visit a bank to ask for a loan. Feeling that a shotgun should be excellent collateral the duo casually enter the bank and stroll up to the window with their shotgun.

A teller (Richard Paul), seeing their shotgun and mistaking their vague, nervous ramblings as some sort of veiled threat, flips the security alarm. After Ben yells that he's never been inside any bank before and is wondering about the reason for the loud noise Booger realizes that the alarm sound is for the police to hear and that they're being mistaken as bank robbers. From there they take off, hopping aboard a car in which the driver, obviously, mistakes the pair as car thieves. The driver asks for his luggage and nervously tells Ben and Booger they can keep the car and he makes a hasty exit. Ben asks Booger if he has any idea of how to drive "this fancy contraption" and of course his answer is "no!".

Meanwhile, the alarm is still blasting back at the bank and the local sheriff (Burl Ives) makes his entrance into the story and it takes a lot of explanation on the teller's part that the alarm wasn't just a test and that there was actually an attempted robbery. The sheriff's annoyance is made loud and clear due to being called to the bank on false alarms many times before.

Soon, though, a posse is formed after the driver of the car Ben and Booger "stole" arrives in town demanding that the 2 crooks face justice. Pike, the town's drunkest drunk, is recruited by the sheriff to join the posse.

By this time Ben and Booger are well on their way at evading a string of law enforcers all over the west due to a series of misunderstandings, confusions, and genuine criminal intent. One of those in the posse is a hysterical military Captain (Glen Campbell).

Burton Gilliam (Corporal) and Gailard Sartain (Private) appear on horseback during a scene involving Ben and Booger attempting to fix a flat tire on their "contraption". The shady servicemen fix the flat but insist on being paid for the labor. Ben says they're broke...this causes the Corporal to pull out a switchblade knife and he proceeds to let the air out of the tire. Fearing the worst and perhaps not looking forward to pumping air back into the tire, yet again, Ben pulls out his shotgun and the 2 macho servicemen do an about face and are now trembling with fear.

Ben and Booger steal the Corporal and the Private's clothes and their horses. The sheriff and his posse meet up ith the vandalized military officers and he insists they join in and track the 2 con-artists/bank robbers/murderers.

Ben and Booger eventually come to a stream...but it's filled up with soapy water. This leads the pair to a couple of alien's doing their laundry. Confusion abounds and the foreign aliens mistake Ben and Booger's demeanor as threatening and they pull out oars...startling the horses. The chaos causes the horses to trample all over the 2 alien's laundry rack...knocking it off into the nearby pond. This incident, as a result, creates more members of an ever growing posse. 45 minutes into the film Glen Campbell's character enters the story. At first he and his underlings are trying to get their vehicle back onto the road. He spots Ben and Booger in their stolen military clothes and on horses and demands that they come down and help get the truck on the road. "You 2...on the horses!!! Get down here on the double!!!". The Captain doesn't have much tolerance and is prone to barking snappy orders. On the count of 4 Ben and Booger take off on the horses as the General and the other officers attempt to keep the truck from sliding further off the hill. The Captain promises a court martial for those 2 once he arrives at the base. The posse meet up with the alien laundry men...and in a running joke they recognize Miss Jessie (Elaine Joyce) as did the Corporal and the Private earlier in the film.

Ben and Booger find themselves in a shoot out after they come across what appears to be an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. During the shootout a man emerges from the shack and shoots at all of the bandits as Ben and Booger race inside the shack. The stranger introduces himself as Anson Sudro (Sheb Wooley) and introduces his family.

The posse meet up with the Captain and the wrecked vehicle. The sheriff informs the Captain that the 2 people on horseback are impostors and don't belong to the military at all. Back at the shack Ben, Booger, and Anson continue to have a shoot out. They begin shooting at another shack in which holds dynamite...hoping the gunfire will ignite the dynamite in some way. The shot up shack explodes and the 2 flee Anson's residence and top a hill and see Mexico just across a river. They return to Anson's shack and help fight off the bandits. Eventually the posse come upon the shoot out and they, unknowingly, drive into it. The military vehicle had since been salvaged and it enters the chaotic surroundings. The Captain and the rest of the officers start firing at the bandits, too.

After things settle and the shooting stops the Widow Quinn (Trish Van Devere) makes a big showing of thanking "those 2 brave soldiers" (Booger and Ben) who had by that time vanished to the river to escape into Mexico. The Sheriff prevents the Captain and several others in the posse from revealing the true nature of Ben and Booger's 'fame' and he more or less bribes the posse to keep their mouths shut due to Ben and Booger unknowingly helping the daughter of a local politician.

Ben and Booger end up back on a train and they read a paper about the battle and fallout that took place in Sudro Springs and that the 2 mysterious saviors (Ben and Booger) vanished into thin air. They learn that the the Widow Quinn happened to be a daughter of a Senator and a reward's been offered. Ben suggests they return to collect their reward. Just then they're asked to turn in their tickets...to which Booger can't find them...and they're promptly tossed off the train once again just like at the start of the film. They bicker over their goals and whether or not to return to collect their money but in the end the 2 head off down the railroad presumably to their next get-rich-quick adventure.

This film hit theaters in 1986. Roy Clark, at the time, had been co-host of the syndicated television series Hee Haw dating back to 1969. Mel Tillis was certainly no slouch, either...for he not only is a great singer-songwriter but he displays good comedic skills in practically every project he's appeared in. Glen Campbell is also a legendary entertainer...at the time of this film's release he had been riding a crest of popularity that dated back to the 1960s. One of Roy's fellow cast-members from Hee Haw, Gailard Sartain, is another one of those performers loaded with talent. Frank Gorshin, the legendary impressionist and The Riddler from the Batman television series, had a memorable role as town drunk, Pike, but he didn't necessarily have too many lines. Gorshin's physical performance made the character memorable. Elaine Joyce had become so famous as a character actress and as a panelist on game shows, by 1986, and she eventually hosted a version of The Dating Game later on that year.

This movie can be purchased on DVD and it can be viewed, as of this writing, in it's entirety on YouTube. Search the video hosting site for the film.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Joe Alaskey: 1952-2016

I found out on social media today that voice actor, Joe Alaskey, has died at the age of 63 from cancer. Children of the 1980s (including myself) may recall Alaskey from a couple of programs that aired in syndication.

First off he appeared as the on-camera announcer/next-door neighbor on a syndicated television trivia game show titled Couch Potatoes. In a clever use of the on-camera announcer role Alaskey appeared in a living room set positioned next to the main set. Marc Summers, later of Double Dare fame on Nickelodeon, hosted Couch Potatoes. This series debuted on January 23, 1989 and aired it's final first-run episode on June 19, 1989. A daily series it amassed 100 episodes and it remained in local syndication (in reruns) until September 1989...after which it jumped to cable's USA Network and reruns aired during that channel's game show block of programming from September 11, 1989 to March 23, 1990. Alaskey departed the series near the end of the syndicated run and in his place came actor/game show emcee, Jim McKrell. Even though McKrell had a highly visible career on television and in movies he wasn't an on-camera announcer for Couch Potatoes as Joe Alaskey happened to be.

A sitcom titled Out of this World aired in syndication for four seasons (1987-1991) and a total of 96 episodes. Joe Alaskey appeared in the series as Beano Froelich starting with it's 1987 debut until the middle of Season Four in 1990 (appearing in more than 80 of the series 96 episodes). According to on-line sites Alaskey's final episode is "Marlowe Vice" (Season 4, episode 12).

It is during this time period (fall 1990) that Alaskey became more involved in voice acting for cartoons. Tiny Toon Adventures, debuting in September 1990, provided Alaskey the opportunity to originate the voice of Plucky Duck. The character is based on iconic Looney Tunes character, Daffy Duck, which Alaskey also eventually voiced following the 1989 death of Mel Blanc.

The decade of the 1990s had Alaskey providing a staggering amount of voices for all kinds of animated projects. Given my preference for a lot of classic cartoons I tended to gravitate more toward his contributions to the Looney Tunes legacy. Alaskey, more than any other, could replicate the iconic vocalizations of Mel Blanc. That is the reason I applaud the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries series so much. Alaskey voiced both Sylvester and Tweety plus other roles. The other main cast of vocal performers included June Foray as Granny and Frank Welker as Hector. Given Joe, June, and Frank's vocal abilities they often voiced a large number of other characters, too, in addition to their main roles. Those familiar with the Nickelodeon series, Rugrats, Alaskey became the second voice of the grandfather character (Lou Pickles) starting in 1997 and lasting into the next decade.

Chuck Jones fans may recall a video series titled Timberwolf. Well, Joe Alaskey provided the voice of Thomas Timberwolf in the thirteen episode 2001 series (the last project released during Chuck's lifetime). Alaskey's next big series arrived in 2003...the entertaining Duck Dodgers...featuring contemporary exploits and adventures of the fictional Duck Dodgers (Daffy Duck), Eager Young Space Cadet (Porky Pig), and Martian Commander (Marvin the Martian). All these characters are based on a classic Merrie Melodies short titled Duck Dodgers and The 24th and a Half Century. The short, directed by Chuck Jones and released on July 25th 1953, had by 2003 become one of the signature, iconic cartoons in Warner Brothers history.

The television series more or less is an extension of the 1953 short including the debut of a new character, Martian Queen. Tom Jones performed the theme song. In 2004 Alaskey won a Daytime Emmy award for his vocal performance as Duck Dodgers.

In the latter half of the decade Alaskey kept busy providing voices on various video games and on a revival of the Rugrats franchise. During the last 5 years or so he participated in a series of Tom and Jerry direct-to-video projects (issued on DVD or Blu-Ray) but oddly enough he wasn't cast in the most recent revival of the Looney Tunes...more specifically, The Looney Tunes Show. The roles of Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Sylvester and Tweety all went to Jeff Bergman even though the other voice actors and voice actresses returned to their primary Looney Tunes roles: Bob Bergen as Porky Pig, June Foray as Granny, Jim Cummings as the Tasmanian Devil, Billy West as Elmer Fudd, and Maurice LaMarche as Yosemite Sam. That particular series ran a couple of seasons (2011-2014). I'm sure if I looked through Google archives I could find articles surrounding Alaskey's non-participation but I'm not going to...probably not for awhile. His most recent work centered around the series, Murder Comes to Town. Airing on niche station Investigation Discovery Channel since January of 2014, Joe Alaskey was the narrator of the series...causing a lot of viewers to praise the similarity in narration to that of the late Paul Winfield (narrator of a similar series, City Confidential).

Joe Alaskey: April 17, 1952 - February 3, 2016.