BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

Joe Camel has decided to make movies.  His first project will be a reboot of a Michael J. Fox franchise:  Bactrian to the Future.

SILVER DOLLAR

Damita Jo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGkV6UFB9wk

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE

Rocky King, Detective (later called Rocky King, Inside Detective), one of the Dumont Networks most popular programs, ran from January 15, 1950 to December 26, 1954.  Rocky King was a member of a large city (read New York) police force. Very few of the episodes of the live crime show survive.  This one, "One Minute to Murder," in that star Roscoe Karns never appeared in the episode.  Detecting duties were performed by Rocky King's assistant Detective Sergeant Lane, played by Earl Hammond.  Another oddity:  there seems to be no record of when this particular episode was aired.

Roscoe Karns was a street-wise character actor and second banana throughout most of his long career, which stemmed from 1906 to 1964.  Arguably, his best-known role was as Oscar Shapeley, the pesky bus rider who tried to pick up Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night.  He also appeared in another Oscar-winning film,  as Lt. Cameron in Wings.  Taking the role of Rocky King evidently pulled him from a career slump.  He later appeared in 73 episodes of Jackie Cooper's series Hennesey as Admiral Walter Shafer.

Co-star Earl Hammond later moved from character to voice actor on a number of cartoon series such as Starblazers, The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, and Thundercats.  His career in film and television covered almost fifty years.

Although she was never seen on camera, Grace Carney appeared in every episode as Rocky King's wife, Mabel.  Carney appeared sporadically three times on television following this show, once in 1956, once in 1958, and once in 1964.  She appeared in only one film, The Owl and the Pussycat, in 1980.  She died in Connecticut in 1999 at age 97.

This episode involves the murder of the owner of a scandal sheet.  At the end of the show, Hammond, as Lane, explains to the audience that Rocky King did not appear that week because of a case of food poisoning.  This varied from the show's normal ending in which Rocky King telephones his wife to tell her the case was closed.

Also appearing in this episode were Ned Wertimer, Mary Jackson, Barbara Joyce, Wylie Hancock, and Steven Gethers.

"One Minute to Murder" was directed by Wesley Kenny and Written by Carl Abrams, with additional dialog from Karns.  Ken Roberts was the announcer and Jack Ward was the organist.  Rocky King, Detective was shot in Dumont's New York offices.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFJF4mmTobI

DIXIE FRIED

Carl Perkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eezZRq_0C0Y

INCOMING

• Louisa May Alcott, The Journals of Louisa May Alcott.   As the years passed, her entries became much shorter, often just a line or a single word.  Edited by Joel Meyerson & Daniel shealy, with Madeleine B. Stern as associate editor.
• [anonymously edited], Four Summoner's Tales.  Horror anthology with four novellas by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss, and Jonathan Maberry.
• IdsaacAsimov, Charles G. Waugh, & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, The Best Crime Stories of the 19th Century.  Mystery anthology with 15 stories.
• Robert Asprin & Linda Evans, Wagers of Sin.  SF novel, the second in the Time Scout series.
• Marian Babson, Murder on a Mystery Tour.  Cozy mystery.  Also published as Weekend for Murder.
• "George Bagby" (Aaron Marc Stein), Dirty Pool.  An Inspector Schmidt mystery.
• Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons.  SF novel in the Culture series.
• Raymond Benson, The James Bond Bedside Companion.  Nonfiction.  Benson wrote a number of authorized Bond novels following Kingsley Amis and John Gardner.
• T. I. Binyon, "Murder Will Out":  The Detective in Fiction.  Nonfiction.
• Jeff Burk, Shatnerquake.  SF parody.  At the very first ShatnerCon, all the characterseer plyed by Willaim Shatner are sucked into our world.  Their mission:  Destroy William Shatner.  Features Captain Kirk, Cartoon Kirk, T. J. Hooker, Denny Crane, Priceline Shatner, a sining Shatner, and others.
• Angus Burrell & Bennett Cerf, editors, An Anthology of Famous American Stories.  Seventy-three stories.
• Stephen Calder, Bonanza:  The High-Steel Hazard and Bonanza:  The Money Hole.  Television tie-ins.  Calder wrote three of the five books in this series.
• Groff Conklin, editor, Four for the Future.  SF anthology with four novelettes.
• David Drake, Eric Flint, Ryk E. Spoor, & Henry Kuttner, Mountain Magic.  Fantasy anthology with four Hogben stories by Kuttner, five Old Nathan stories by Drake, and a short novel by Flint & Spoor.
• J. T. Edson, The Half Breed.  A Floating Outfit western.
• Phyllis Eisenstein, editor, Spec-Lit No. 2.  SF anthology of 14 stories, mostly written by students at Columbia College Chicago.
• Roger Elwood & Virginia Kidd, editors, Saving Worlds.  Ecologically-themed SF anthology with 20 stories and poems, with an introduction by Frank Herbert.
• Michael Eury, Comics Gone Ape!  Nonfiction,  A loving history of simians in comics.
• Christopher Fahy, Nightflyer.  Horror.
• Edward L. Ferman, editor, The Best from  Fantasy and Science Fiction:  Sixteen Series and The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction:  20th Series.  SF anthologies with thirteen stories and four poems (16th) and eleven stories (20th).
• Ed Gorman, Martin H. Greenberg, & Larry Segriff, editors, Cat Crimes Through Time.  Mystery anthology with 21 stories.
• Peter Haining, editor, London After Midnight.  Mystery anthology with 22 stories.
• Harry Harrison & David Bischoff, Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Ten Thousand Bars.  SF.
• Harry Harrison & Jack C. Haldeman, Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Zombie Vampires.  SF.
• Edward James, Science Fiction in the 20th Century.  Nonfiction.
• William W. Johnstone, The Sanction.  Horror.
• Stephen Jones, editor, Clive Barker's Shadows in Eden.  A compendium of 48 articles by and about Barker.  Also, The Mammoth Book of New Terror, a horror anthology with 26 stories.
• Walter Kendrick, The Thrill of Fear:  250 Years of Scary Entertainment.  Nonfiction.
• Elaine Koster & Joseph Pittman, editors, Crimes and Misdemeanors.  Mystery anthology with 18 stories.
• Mercedes Lackey, Reserved for the Cat.  Fantasy, Book Five in the Elemental Masters series.
• Louis L'Amour, Callaghen, Flint, Kilrone, Over on the Dry Side, Reilly's Luck, The Shadow Riders, The Tall Stranger, and Tucker.  Western novels.  Also, two Sackett novels:  The Lonely Men and Milo Talon (Talon's  mother was a Sackett. so this one is oblilquely a Sackett novel and not part of the official canon), and Fair Blows the Wind, a historical novel with pirates.  Western collections Bowdrie's Law (ten stories), Durchman's Flat (eleven stories), Riding for the Brand (twelve stories), and Yondering (revised edition; 16 stories and one poem).
• Y. S. Lee, The Agency:  The Body in the Tower.  ARC.  The second Mary Quinn mystery featuring an all-female detective unit operating out of Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for girls in 1859 London.
• [MAD Magazine, aka "The Usual Gang of Idiots"], The MAD Bathroom Companion:  The Mother Load.  Humor omnibus containing The MAD Bathroom Companion, The MAD Bathroom Companion, Number Two, and The Mad Bathroom Companion, Turd in a Series.  Admittedly, I have the mind of a thirteen-year-old boy.
• Gary McCarthy, Gunsmoke:  Dead Man's Witness and Gunsmoke:  Marshal Festus.  Radio/television tie-ins.  McCarthy wrote four novels in the series, but "I didn't enjoy them and they didn't work for me."  Hmm.
• "Hank Mitchum" (house name), the Stagecoach Station series: #1 Dodge City, #3 Cheyenne, #5 Virginia City, #6 Santa Fe, #7 Seattle, #8 Fort Yuma, #9 Sonora, #10 Abilene, #11 Deadwood, #12 Tucson, #13 Carson City, #14 Cimarron, #16 Mojave, #17 Durango, #18 Casa Grande, #19 Last Chance, #20 Leadville, #23 El Paso, #24 Mesa Verde, #25 San Antonio, #27 Pecos, #29 Panhandle, #32 Taos, #33 Death Valley, #34 Deadman Butte, #36 Casper, #37 Shawnee, #38 Grand Teton, #41 Red Buffalo, #42 Fort Davis, #43 Apache Junction, #44 Socorro, #45 Presidio, #47 Juarez, #49 Gila Bend, #50 Buckskin Pass, #51 Wild West, and #52 The Last Frontier.  I'm not sure who wrote what here.  James (according to Wikipedia) wrote seven books in the series; of those listed above, he wrote #29, 33, 51, and 52.  Other authors are unidentified,
• Andre Norton, Mirror of Destiny, a fantasy, and Wizards' Worlds, a collection of thirteen stories.
• Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories.  Thirty-one stories.
• Mel Odom, Apocalypse Dawn, Apocalypse Crucible, and Apocalypse Burning.  The first three (of four) books in the Left Behind Apocalypse military series, based on Tim LaHaye/Jerry B. Jenkins Christian thriller series dealing with those left behind after the Rapture.  LaHaye and Jenkins created a Left Behind industry; in addition to over a dozen books of their own and to Odom's military series, there's also a political series by another writer, as well as devotionals, gift books, calendars, graphic novels, audio products, and so much more.  Who knew the Apocalypse could be so profitable?
• Penzler, Otto, editor, The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps.  Fifty-nine crime stories from the pulps of the 20s, 30s, and 40s with the majority of them coming from Black Mask.
• Fred Saberhagan, The First Swords.  Fantasy omnibus containing The First Book of Swords, The Second Book of Swords, and The Third Book of Swords. 
• Arthur W. Saha, editor, The Year's Best Fantasy Stories:  7.  Fantasy anthology with eleven stories from 1980.
• Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Nothing Sacred.  SF novel.
• Lawrence Schimel & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Vampire Stories from the American South.  Horror anthology with twelve stories.  Also published as Southern Blood:  Vampire Stories from the American South.
• Howard Schwartz, editor, Tales of Wisdom:  One Hundred Modern Parables.  A hundred parables from 72 writers.  Maybe I can get some wisdom from this book.  Lord knows I need it.
• "Jon Sharpe"  (I have no idea who's behind the house pseudonym on this one), The Trailsman #240: Frisco Filly.  Adult western.  Skye Fargo runs into a deadly extortion racket in San Francisco's theater district.
• Dorothy Simpson, Dead by Morning.  An Inspector Luke Thanet mystery.
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, editors, Fast Ships, Black Sails.  Pirate/fantasy anthology with 18 stories.
• Charles Harry Whedbee, Outer Banks Mysteries and Sea Stories.  North Carolina folklore and legends.

THE REWARD

Here's a story from Melville Davisson Post's collection The Sleuth of Saint James Square (1920), featuring Captain Walker, chief of the United States Secret Service.  This one's a podcast (July 13, 2006) by Maureen at MariaLectrix.

"I found a drunken hobo in Atlantic City who was the best detective I ever saw."

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/MDPostTheReward

HYMN TIME

Tamela Mann, "I Can Only Imagine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2m85U9A2w4