Gil Thompson and Horse in ACTION IN THE AFTERNOON
The other day a friend and I were talking ancient television shows and suddenly ACTION IN THE AFTERNOON jumped into my brain. Unfortunately no one else seems to have heard of this, much less watched it - or maybe it's that no one wants to admit to having watched it.
ACTION IN THE AFTERNOON ran for a year - 1953 - 1954 - and I rushed home religiously every day after school to watch it. (This was before AMERICAN BANDSTAND with Dick Clark caught on big time and rock and roll changed the world forever. Hyperbole? I think not.)
A live-action western - the only live western without inserted film clips - ever broadcast on CBS or elsewhere, for that matter, and I seem to be the only one who ever watched it. Tell me this isn't so. Disabuse me of the notion. Tell me there were others out there enthralled by the whole idea of horses and 'colorful' town folk, schoolmarms, bank robbers, sheriffs, grizzled cowpokes and fist fights, moving about in real time, mistakes, missed cues, odd background noises, recalcitrant and/or jumpy horses and all. (Actually, the horses were the best part.)
I loved it.
I can trace my eternal affection for cowboy movies and such to Roy Rogers, Red Ryder, Lash LaRue, The Lone Ranger et al keeping me company Saturday afternoons at the movies, and of course, ACTION IN THE AFTERNOON every day after school. Hey, I lived in Manhattan - this was the wild west to me. Even if it originated in Pennsylvania.
Since it's Tuesday once again, don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom, to see what other Forgotten (or Overlooked) Films, Television and/or Other Audio/Visuals other bloggers are talking about today.
New to me Yvette - but maybe it never made it across the Atlantic - sounds like fun though and I love live TV (or anyway TV taped 'as live')
ReplyDeleteOh I would have been VERY surprised if you'd ever heard of it, Sergio. Besides, you probably hadn't even been born yet. :)
ReplyDeleteCaught me flat-footed, Yvette - I have no recollection at all of that show (and I too used to rush home to the living room TV set). Sigh. I too grew up in New York City, so my idea of the wild west was, er, somewhat urbanized. I refer you to a great song by Rodgers and Hart from "Babes in Arms": "Way Out West (on West End Avenue)...
ReplyDeleteI loved the film BABES IN ARMS with Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and a guy with a tremendous voice whose name I've forgotten. :) Remember: 'They call us babes in arms, but we are babes in armor...!' And th bob fire at the end of the song.
DeleteThe wild wild west you and I imagined, Les, was better than the real thing. That, I am sure of. :)
Wonder if we got this one in Philly.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But you're not a big western fan - right? :)
DeleteYvette,
ReplyDeleteI never heard of the show. I was in Chicago then and in high school. I also worked for a newspaper distributor in the afternoon and had to rush there right after school, not home to the TV.
Oh, well that explains it, Fred - you were working while I was sitting in front of the set eating a snack and watching a western. In '53, I would have been 11 years old and not of the working class yet. :)
DeleteYvette,
DeleteI was fifteen then and a member of the working class for several years already. I think boys probably had more access to jobs than girls did back then. I know the boss would never have hired a girl to deliver papers.
Yvette, if Sergio didn't hear of this across the Atlantic, there is no way I'd have heard of it across the Pacific and the Indian! I think I'd enjoy watching a "live-action western" from the 1950s. I haven't seen many of those, film or television.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we even had a TV then. I can remember watching American Bandstand with friends at someone's house!
ReplyDeleteNow it's working again. Jeez. This 'reply' thing is driving me batty. Anyway - American Bandstand came later, Gram. Well, it began in '52 but Dick Clark didn't sign on until '56 and that's when I began watching.
DeleteHi, Yvette - I don't have recollections of shows like this because my father forbade a TV in the house, always calling it "the idiot box" (so of course I had to sneak in my viewing at the homes of friends). Ironically, we finally got a TV when I was in high school, and my father became addicted to Green Acres! I think he enjoyed the little pig on the show.
ReplyDeleteWell, we didn't actually have a TV, Mark - a wonderful Admiral which lasted for years and years way back when things were made to last - until I was just 11, the same year as ACTION IN THE AFTERNOON came on - so I was lucky. I guess. :)
DeleteI do remember the pig. :) I always commiserated with Eva Gabor's character: ' Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue...' Ha.
DeleteActually, part of the reason my dad liked the show was that he and my mother were the show's characters, she a big city girl, and he perfectly happy to live in the wilderness. Somehow they struck a balance.
DeleteLove will always find a way. :)
DeleteBetween this and BANDSTAND, Yvette, you were in a Philly thrall!
ReplyDeleteYes, I was. :)
DeleteThe 'reply' thing stopped working, again, Prashant: Can you watch the link? It's the only one available, according to Wikipedia - at least I think it is. It's pretty horrible, so you're not missing much. Still, I have fond memories of cowboys leaping up onto horse's backs and taking off after the bad guys. Something that captured my young imagination and never really let go.
ReplyDeleteIt was performed at the Philadelphia CBS station, so it was visible in Philly...and I noted that with BANDSTAND, later, Philly had you, Yvette, in its thrall...
ReplyDeleteIt only seems to happen (the reply thing) when I click onto Prashant's comments. So far, anyway. Don't know why.
DeleteTo me, Philly was the wild west. No, the truth is, I didn't know where it was shot, just that it seemed like the wild west to an 11 year old's eyes. :)
BANDSTAND was also shot in Philly...
DeleteWell, geez, Todd - we ALL knew that. At least we Bandstand aficionados. I do believe all teenage girls of my age at the time would dream of appearing on the show. Of course with the handsomest boy who just happened to be the best dancer.
DeleteI've always had a soft spot for the 1988 film, HAIRSPRAY, which as you know, was a parody of the whole Bandstand craze. Maybe I'll write about it at some point. But I want to watch it again.
Wow, I have no memory of this. I was in southern California, probably not far from where the thing was filmed. I remember watching shows like Sheriff John (Rags the Tiger cartoons), and of course American Bandstand later on. When this show was on, though, I was only eight, third grade, and I'm not at all sure I was allowed to watch TV after school.
ReplyDeleteNo, the thing was shot in Pennsylvania, Richard. And here I thought I was the oldest. I don't know why I remember this at all, but I do. Must have made an impression. :)
DeleteWe did not have a TV at that time, and I was probably too young to care about Westerns at that point. A few years later I watched Westerns like Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry, and Cisco Kid in the afternoons after school.
ReplyDeleteI loved THE CISCO KID. :) And ROY ROGERS too. Not so much GENE AUTRY. I was a little western fiend. :)
DeleteI was in love with Roy Rogers. Really. And he and I have the same birthday, although I don't think that I knew that then.
DeleteI kind of liked him too, Tracy. :) I always thought he was the best rider I ever saw. Kind of loved Trigger too. :)
DeleteWell, I have something I bet you all do not have! An autographed photographed of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Trigger!
ReplyDeleteYes, my first TV watching at a friend's was in the early 1950s in New York City. I remember he had a TV; we didn't. And I'd rush over to watch The Long Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy -- remember him?
And then in Chicago we got a TV, and somewhere along the line I became enamored of all three of them--Roy, Dale, Trigger.
When my mother packed up her house to move out, she gave me a ton of things I'd forgotten about, including that photograph. Yep, I have it.
I was 7 in 1953 and in Chicago.
Oh, lucky you, Kathy. I'll bet that photo has a place of honor in your apartment. :) I don't have anything like that, just happy memories. Yes, I do remember Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger) and William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy and his beauty of a horse, Topper). Those were the days, my friend.
ReplyDeleteYes, me, age 6, living on Bleecker and Grove Streets, walking next door to Tommy's house to see Hopalong Cassidy and The Long Ranger.
ReplyDeleteAnd then being smitten by Roy, Dale and Trigger.
Gosh, were we ever innocent and loyal in those days, and when we fell for those characters/actors, we fell hard and never wavered. Not until we outgrew them and moved on.
Some of us never outgrew them. :) I like to think that a part of me is still smitten with all that stuff. Your comment reminded me (it came to me in a flash last night) that I actually did see Roy and Dale and Trigger - at a rodeo at Madison Square Garden - the old Garden, I suppose. Ancient times. :)
DeleteOK. Something we forgot has been nagging at me. There also was a dog I liked, a German Shepherd.
ReplyDeleteSo, I looked him up and it was Bullet, who was owned by Roy and Dale, of course.
Here is a web page with pictures of that beautiful and loyal dog, who was also a star in his own right.
http://www.royrogersworld.com/Dog.htm
I loved Bullet too. Bullet and Trigger. Hmmm....
DeleteYvette,
DeleteYou see a pattern there?