Happy Birthday Frank Conniff!

It’s Frank’s Birthday! I knew I wasn’t going to top last year’s meat cake. But since Frank is a fan of the movie “Singin In The Rain” I thought Gene, Debbie, and Donald would make a sweet treat.  I had this cake made special. Few people know this, but “Julie” was Frank’s stage name back in his Vaudeville days.

Since he is a fan of the show “Man From U.N.C.L.E,” I commissioned this special Beatles powered, Napoleon Solo groove. If you’re wondering why the lady says “Happy birthday Abbey” at the beginning, well only the Sisters at Westminster know for sure and they’re not talking because of that damned vow of silence. By “vow of silence” I mean “court mandated gag order” but you get the idea. The lesson here is, no matter how tempting the invitation, NEVER party with nuns!

Seriously though, Frank, if you’re out there reading (and even if you’re not), thank you for sharing your great taste in music and thank you for the laughter. Happy birthday sir, I hope it’s a great one!

The Unbelievable Man From U.N.C.L.E.

“Man From U.N.C.L.E.” ran from 1964-1968. The theme was composed by Jerry Goldsmith and it was performed differently each season. They only used the lengthy introduction you see here in the first few episodes to introduce viewers to the premise and the main characters. Interesting bit of trivia: That gun you see Iliya holding was so cool it actually started getting its own fan mail at the height of the show’s popularity.

My power to suspend disbelief is almost superhuman. I can accept the most colossal plot impossibilities without batting an eyelash:

Different Strokes- A 50-something bachelor millionaire adopted his maid’s (quite young) Black children.   That would totally happen, especially in the 70s.

Aquaman (via Superfriends)- The ability to talk to fish is a cool and useful super power.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark- If you do not shut your eyes in the presence of the opened Ark, you deserve face-melting Nazi death. A benevolent God would definitely enforce an obscure and pointless rule like that.

There are scores of other examples where I let storyline absurdities float peacefully by so that I can just enjoy the show with an untroubled brow. So can someone please tell me why, after watching this clip, I spent a significant portion of an hour engaged in an internal monologue about how a convenience store would be a much better super spy headquarter front than a tailor shop? If you said “Because you’re a geek with no life” you are absolutely right of course. It still doesn’t change the fact that I really need to stop such trains of thought or, before you know it, I’ll be wondering who Wonder Woman’s daddy was. Then where would we be?