Just Folk(s)

Well, here we go ringing in a new year at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear...and just as I did at the beginning of 2018, I’m once again apologizing for allowing weeds to run rampant around the blog.  I can blame no one for this lapse in blogtiquette but myself; it seems that once the Yuletide season…

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Where’s That Been? – Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941)

Once again, I apologize (with hat in hand) to the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful for the fallow blog of late; a lot of my copious free time has been sacrificed to Radio Spirits assignments and their blog (not that I’m complaining, mind you—there's money in that gig) and the remainder seems to be taken…

“I christen thee ‘The High Chaparral’—the greatest cattle ranch in the whole territory…the whole world!”

In the House of Yesteryear, we adhere to a standard (and arguably, fairly predictable) schedule when it comes to mealtimes—primarily because my father is diabetic and if he doesn’t eat regularly Mom goes into her ZaSu Pitts-number (“Oh, dear...”).  She arranges for us to have supper around 6pm, and we enjoy this repast in front…

“It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.” — Robert Benchley

It’s one of the most familiar of pop culture tropes: some dimwitted husband in the world of movies, TV, radio, comic strips, etc. forgets a birthday or wedding anniversary or what-have-you and winds up facing the wrath of his significant other for his thoughtlessness.  (I'm not being deliberately sexist when I ascribe this to the…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Television’s Lost Classics, Volume 2

Back in September of this year, I reviewed a new VCI/MVD Entertainment release in Television’s Lost Classics, Volume 1...and in that essay I mentioned that a second collection of Golden Age treasures would sally forth on October 9th.  In Lost Classics, Volume 2, the presentation spotlights four half-hour “pilots” for potential boob tube fodder—with two…

“Possessed of an instinct keener than man, Wolfheart suspects evil doings…”

Last month, as I was entertaining myself with the two-reel comedies on The Sprocket Vault set Thelma Todd & ZaSu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931-33, I spotted one of the blog’s favorite character actors, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, in two of the Thel-Zase entries.  In Catch-As-Catch-Can (1931), Guinn is the lovable lug of a…

Book Review: It’s Saturday Morning!

It’s hard to believe that there was a time in my life when Saturday mornings weren’t made for sleeping...but rather, getting up “at the crack of ice” (as my pal Maureen likes to call it) and blissing out in front of the set to watch the endless parade of TV animation.  Those fondly-remembered “days of…