Robert Conrad

Sorry to note the passing of Robert Conrad at the age of 84.
Conrad will be remembered by different ages of people for different roles.
Some might remember him from his 70s tv show "Baa Baa Black Sheep", others for being the insanely competitive captain on "Battle of the Network Stars" and others for the Eveready Battery commercials where Conrad snarled "I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder".
However, to me and so many others, Bob Conrad is always going to be James West of  "The Wild Wild West" from 1965-1970 on CBS.


WWW was canceled before I turned two, so my fanatical fandom was right after it hit syndication and WWW along with Batman and Star Trek were the three standards of mine as a small only child (at that time).
I've written about the Wild Wild West before in 2012, I've written about Adam West and Leonard Nimoy's passings, so the passing of Robert Conrad completes my early 70s childhood television heroes and with the passing of Glen Campbell, the stars of all the shows that I enjoyed most from that time have passed away.
WWW wasn't always in syndication, but when it was I was usually around watching it.
I remember running home from school to watch it at my grandmother's house, I remember when TNT aired it for a while in the mid-90s and the network FETV currently has it on its station in the afternoon with two episodes.

Robert Conrad's James West ranks near the top of my favorite television characters, but I'm not sure he would have always been a blast to be around.
Conrad was a short person with an attitude that comes out often, most notably from his times on Battle of the Network Stars, and could be seen to have had a bit of a Napoleonic complex.
However, as I age, I'm starting to think unlike West and Nimoy that I might not have been a fan of Robert Conrad as much as I was a fan of "James West".
I didn't go out of my way to find or watch Conrad's other roles and I don't remember watching "Baa Baa Black Sheep", which was his starring television role that was the most successful after WWW, so maybe that indeed was the case.

I saw Conrad in person a few years back when I took Rachel to meet Shirley Jones.
The line for him was long and I wasn't quite up for waiting in the line after working all night, but you could tell that he wasn't in good health.
Conrad seemed in be in a lot of pain (Conrad was convicted of drunk driving in an accident in  2003 that injured him, the other driver passed away two years later, and left Conrad with significant nerve damage that left him partially paralyzed on his right side) and his signature was reported to be not very legible as it was very difficult for Conrad to write.
I've wondered about whether I should have stood in the line that day and to my surprise, I'm OK with that decision.
I'm not sure that I would have wanted to meet him when he was hurting and likely cranky from flying across the country and churning out autographs.
When you watch the clip below from that day, I think it was the right call for me!


Robert Conrad was a part of my youth and now I'm an aging middle termer looking back as the stars of my childhood pass away.
There is one advantage that the stars of television and film have over those of athletics and politics after they step off the stage- television and films that are important to people will never age.
And for giving me James West and the Wild Wild West and it being forever young, I'd like to say-
Thanks, Bob and I promise I won't even try to knock that battery off your shoulder.

Cleaning out the inbox

Time for the remainder of the inbox cleaning and I'll start with an interview from the website Pray for Surf with Mark A.Moore.
Moore wrote the most comprehensive,well,record of Jan and Dean yet-The Jan and Dean Record.
The book looks massive in detail and in size and might be a must for every Jan and Dean fan,if not for one thing-the expense.
The book is 29.95 on Kindle and 75.00 in paperback form!
That's a bit rich for my blood,but sample the interview,that alone is massive in scope...

Some of you might have noticed a new addition
to the links column in Lipstick and Nachos-a new site started by my friend Samantha Blinn.
Now,I'm not even a remotely knowledgeable person on makeup,but I've been known to sample nachos on occasion,most notably the large nachos that Doug Hopkins and I had at the Kast Hotel in Williamsport PA!
Samantha promises Nacho recipes and makeup tips,so if either interests you,check her out on the links column!

The cable network Decades shows older television shows and a recent page on their website listed eleven little known facts about the Wild Wild West.
As I am a long time fan,I knew most of these,but there was one fact that I didn't know-can you guess which one that was???

The Toronto Sun writes of SCTV and its history in a long article on the lost TV "Network".
Several of the stars of the Canadian comedy classic are talked with in the article,but it discusses more than just the actual show as it looks at the influence it had on even today's comedians and comedy television...

Denise Nicarry sends this on the accidental creation of the world's hottest chili pepper.
The Dragon's Breath measures at 2.48 million on the Scoville Scale beating the Carolina Reaper's 2.2.million.
The Dragon's Breath is reported to be too hot to eat as an attempt to eat it,could burn so badly that it could close your airways and asphyxiate you.
Now,that's hot!!!

I'm sure if you have ever ordered a Papa John's pizza (Of the chain pizza places,I like them best),you might wonder why it includes a pepperoncini pepper with every order.
Thrillist tells the story of how it came about,why they continue to keep the pepper and what happened when they tested removing the pepper from their pizza boxes.

Adidas takes over the uniforms for the NHL for the 2017-18 season and as most of these new contracts involved do-they'll be bringing changes.
We'll see what they are soon,but here is a link looking at the lineage of the Devils franchise going back to their days as the Kansas City Scouts and Colorado Rockies.
I've always liked the idea of a yearly heritage night that alternates between wearing the Scouts and Rockies jersey or even using those logos with the Devils colors,if someone wants to see the home team in the same colors.
Kansas City never made the playoffs and Colorado only did once (losing in the long ago best of three series in two straight games),but I still feel that those teams and towns are part of the Devils heritage and occasionally should be showcased as such.

The Wild Wild West

There isn't a lot from the sports world to write about, so let's move to something else.
Before I start though, I would like to thank those of you that have written thus far on the post asking for your thoughts.
I have read all of them and enjoyed the one common thread that you seem to like my work.
It is quite humbling to read the notes and I am listening to your responses.
The funny thing is so many of them feature different things that you like, so there is soul searching to do, but I plan a post later in the week that will deal with your notes.
If you have not sent me anything, there is still time to do so and I ask you to drop me a line.....

I am a passionate fan of many shows throughout my life, but there are a select few that rank above all.
There is one that ranks very highly from the first time that I watched it and it never deviated from its position.

The Wild Wild West was an unusual mix of science fiction and western action that never saw a drop in the ratings, but became a casualty of the tightened regulations on television violence in the late 1960s.
The show basically was James Bond hits the 1800's with a pair of secret service agents traveling the country (usually the Western half) battling threats to then-President Ulysses Grant and the nation itself.
"James West" used gadgets to get himself out of trouble, usually gadgets that would have been way ahead of the time that the show was based in and "Artemis Gordon" was the jack of all trades that used various disguises as his M.O.

Robert Conrad and Ross Martin were the stars and played off each other very well as a team that needed each of their individual skills to survive.
The show used various nefarious villains each week to combat the duo, but the main bad guy was a dwarf "Dr.Miguelito Loveless" played by the brilliant Michael Dunn.
Loveless appeared in ten episodes as a megalomaniac that wanted to install himself as ruler of the world through plots that often involve things well before their time, only to have them foiled by West and Gordon, although Loveless was never grabbed before getting away.

The show aired its first season in black and white and that might be the best season of the show.
The first season was a bit darker than the color shows that started in the second season.
The episodes that air in color are a bit funnier and campier than season one, but despite the differences, the show is still terrific.

The show is quite violent as the stunt work is among the best that you can see of its time as the timing and choreography are almost perfect.
Conrad did most of his own stunts until a fall from a 12-foot chandelier that ended a season early and that forced some changes in the stunt formats in the show, although you would need to watch the entire run of the series to really see the difference.
Fights are a part of the Western genre' anyway and WWW fought-a lot.
The number of fights was mentioned twice in congressional hearings and CBS canceled the show despite the ratings not having dipped as an olive branch towards the new legislation.

I always watched the show as a child when it was aired in afternoon syndication after school in the days before VCR's and simply loved it.
I could not get enough of it (and Star Trek, but that's another post) and was such a huge fan that I did not want to miss an episode