Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on February 12, 2018, 11:42:26 AM
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Baa Baa Black Sheep (aka Black Sheep Squadron) recently became available on DVD. I got the season 1 DVDs from Netflix. I have not watched the show since it was first on when I was a kid in 1976.
I forgot how good it was, at least for a 1970s TV action show. I doubt political correctness would allow it to be made today. A few things I noticed watching it the second time around:
1) I'd forgotten about the actual WW2 footage they used in every episode.
2) I'd forgotten how many famous actors, in early roles when they were youngsters, were part of the squadron.
3) Stephen Cannell pretty much copied the music for The A Team (or maybe vice versa - can't remember which series was first).
4) Most interesting for me, which I didn't know the first time around, was that almost all the aerial footage was filmed around the Channel Islands. I would have never known that the first time, but having spent probably a couple thousand hours over the years flying near the islands for work, it has been really cool watching that footage and identifying landmarks that we used to fly over (albeit a few thousand feet lower than these guys did). So far they have used sections of three different islands to represent them flying towards their base island. :laugh:
5) And of course, those WW2 Corsairs are just plain cool.
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It has been a while since I watched those shows. That would be worth picking up.
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I loved that show.
I've been on an old TV shows kick recently. Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, etc. Some of them hold up well.
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It's been awhile, I loved watching that show. I obviously watched it in reruns, forget where it aired. I want to say history channel before it's spot was taken by Swamp Aliens hunting for Bigfoot in Alaska.
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"1) I'd forgotten about the actual WW2 footage they used in every episode."
Nothing like the occasional shot of one of Boyington's men "shooting down" an FW-190...
Looks sort of like a Zero.... Close enough!
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"1) I'd forgotten about the actual WW2 footage they used in every episode."
Nothing like the occasional shot of one of Boyington's men "shooting down" an FW-190...
Looks sort of like a Zero.... Close enough!
Those FW-190s had incredible range!
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I loved that show.
I've been on an old TV shows kick recently. Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, etc. Some of them hold up well.
I started on rewatching Magnum a couple of years ago, but for some reason got sidetracked halfway through (I think maybe it got removed from streaming). I need to get back to it. I also remember liking Simon and Simon - I should put that on the list as well.
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"1) I'd forgotten about the actual WW2 footage they used in every episode."
Nothing like the occasional shot of one of Boyington's men "shooting down" an FW-190...
Looks sort of like a Zero.... Close enough!
I recall that they shot a lot of runway footage at Santa Paula airport. That airport is know for vintage aircraft, so some local flyboys likely got their planes thrown into the mix, regardless of authenticity.
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I remember that show fondly.
Every few episodes it seemed like they were bombing Rabaul.
Which, it turns out, was a thing. The allies didn't want to take Rabaul just contain the forces there. So that was accurate.
However I'm skeptical that you can survive a strafing run by throwing yourself in between the two rows of bullets that are hitting the ground in neat, straight lines.
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I started on rewatching Magnum a couple of years ago, but for some reason got sidetracked halfway through (I think maybe it got removed from streaming). I need to get back to it. I also remember liking Simon and Simon - I should put that on the list as well.
I LOVE Magnum PI! I wish it were available a lot more widely but for some reason it's not.
Trivia for you... one of Tom Selleck's earliest roles in a major film was a Marine Corps aide in the film Midway.
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However I'm skeptical that you can survive a strafing run by throwing yourself in between the two rows of bullets that are hitting the ground in neat, straight lines.
You just have to be very, very lucky.
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I remember that show fondly.
Every few episodes it seemed like they were bombing Rabaul.
Which, it turns out, was a thing. The allies didn't want to take Rabaul just contain the forces there. So that was accurate.
However I'm skeptical that you can survive a strafing run by throwing yourself in between the two rows of bullets that are hitting the ground in neat, straight lines.
Depends entirely on the point of convergence and your distances from the aircraft when you leave its sights.
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All this is one of the reasons I like over-the-air TV. Lots of old shows --and it's amazing how many times you can spot later-famous actors in them. E.g., Leonard Nimoy was in a lot of the Sea Hunt- Lloyd Bridges shows. I recently saw one old movie where Yul Brinner actually had hair ! :)
Convergence: That was one of the advantages of the P-38. The nose guns all streamed out in the same direction and convergence range wasn't an issue. This is mentioned here and there in various articles.
(https://acesflyinghigh.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/img_0816-1024x683.jpg?w=900&h=600)
(Also, takeoff torque didn't matter since the props rotated in opposite directions.)
There have been calls for banning the old war birds from flying in air shows and races in order to preserve the "species." Lotsa luck with that.
The movie Memphis Belle is known for its extraordinary adherence to technical accuracy (I'm thinking of the FW-190 mentioned above) where possible, except crew members were kind of fictionalized. Their model shop worked overtime, building IIRC over 200 accurate radio-controlled models.
I loved both the Black Sheep shows and Magnum, P.I. as well as others of that vintage where Stuff Happens Within A Half Hour, instead of having two actors staring dramatically at each other for forty seconds while some insipid one-chord "music" plays, in order to stretch a rinky-dinky ten minute plot into a whole hour.
:(
Terry, 230RN
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I watched that show when it was on TV originally in the mid 70's. MASH also played either just before or just after. A friend of mine and I used to get together for a boys night out whatever night that was and watch those two shows and drink a little beer smoke a little MJ that he stored in a skull he had brought home from 'Nam. Afterwards we'd play pool on a table he had in his living room. Good times.
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Curiously, I remember watching the series when it first ran, and I can't understand how that happened. By 1976 I had already been through my first divorce, and I was living in rented quarters. I don't recall watching much television during that phase of my life, but I guess I must have.
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I had friends that worked the combat air museum at Forbes Field. I met Boyington around 1985 seemed like a pretty neat guy. Not sure what happened to the signed copy of his book.
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I remember reading an interview either with Conrad or Boyington where it was mentioned that Boyington didn't like Conrad much and pretty much treated him like a little bitch when he was on set.
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It's only hearsay but I understand Conrad was an arrogant little bastard.
I've also heard him described as hyper-competitive and a go go go sort which could be confused for arrogance.
Anyway he could easily put people off.
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I remember reading an interview either with Conrad or Boyington where it was mentioned that Boyington didn't like Conrad much and pretty much treated him like a little bitch when he was on set.
I used to enjoy BAA BAA BLACKSHEEP. My father was a ex Navy officer, he once met Col. Boyington while in the submarine service at Groton Connecticut. He claimed Boyington was a "drunken bum."
Also, worked with the son of a actual Black Sheep squadron member, who was pretty critical of the errors the tv show portrayed. On tv the squad was stationed on Vela LaCava, but he said it was on Vela LaVela.
ME TV used to run the series....but I don't think they still run it.
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I used to enjoy BAA BAA BLACKSHEEP. My father was a ex Navy officer, he once met Col. Boyington while in the submarine service at Groton Connecticut. He claimed Boyington was a "drunken bum."
Also, worked with the son of a actual Black Sheep squadron member, who was pretty critical of the errors the tv show portrayed. On tv the squad was stationed on Vela LaCava, but he said it was on Vela LaVela.
ME TV used to run the series....but I don't think they still run it.
I sort of remember BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP eventually morphed into BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON and the writing went downhill. (STILL better than nearly all network TV shows today!) It was one of the shows I remember watching and enjoying back when there was more WORTH watching and enjoying on TV than the crapola polluting today's airwaves. I wonder how many minutes of each hour was actual TV show rather than commercials back then . . . .
Someone wrote that they changed the name of the Black Sheep's island base in the TV show "for legal reasons" but didn't elaborate.
Personal trivia note: I remember reading in Boyington's book that he traveled on a transport ship, the Boschfonteine. That rang a bell because I know my Dad shipped overseas on a ship of that name - probably the same one. I showed that passage in the book to my Dad and he said yep, that was the ship. But he didn't remember ever encountering Boyington and probably wasn't even on the ship at the same time.
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My other favorite "let's use this footage, no one will know the difference!" are the bombing runs "over Rabaul..."
But they're clearly bombing a major modern population center, which Rabaul didn't have.
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My other favorite "let's use this footage, no one will know the difference!" are the bombing runs "over Rabaul..."
Some of the footage that looks like WW2 footage is actually not. It's modern footage shot in black and white. I've seen a couple of opening segments of what looks like historical footage, but with actors for that episode spliced in.
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I sort of remember BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP eventually morphed into BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON and the writing went downhill. (STILL better than nearly all network TV shows today!) It was one of the shows I remember watching and enjoying back when there was more WORTH watching and enjoying on TV than the crapola polluting today's airwaves. I wonder how many minutes of each hour was actual TV show rather than commercials back then . . . .
Someone wrote that they changed the name of the Black Sheep's island base in the TV show "for legal reasons" but didn't elaborate.
Personal trivia note: I remember reading in Boyington's book that he traveled on a transport ship, the Boschfonteine. That rang a bell because I know my Dad shipped overseas on a ship of that name - probably the same one. I showed that passage in the book to my Dad and he said yep, that was the ship. But he didn't remember ever encountering Boyington and probably wasn't even on the ship at the same time.
With regards to commercial space, in the 1960s most tv shows ran 50-51 minutes without commercials. 70s and 80s, about 48-50, depending on network and time. Now, most tv shows run a shocking 42-44 minutes, again depending on network and time.
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"Now, most tv shows run a shocking 42-44 minutes, again depending on network and time."
Which is why I DVR almost everything and watch it after the fact, so I can blitz through the bullshit.
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Black Sheep episodes run 49 minutes and change.
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"Now, most tv shows run a shocking 42-44 minutes, again depending on network and time."
Which is why I DVR almost everything and watch it after the fact, so I can blitz through the bullshit.
Ditto.
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Ditto.
Yup. Without a DVR, I would just blow off most of network TV. I know some people just do stuff during the breaks, but I can't do that either. Not only is it too disjointed, but I remember pre-DVRs, I used to cuss like a sailor if I went to the kitchen during a commercial and got back ten seconds too late and missed some cliffhanger thing. I could mostly live with a 60-90 second break though "in the olden days". Four minutes of commercials every ten minutes is just too damn much.
I couldn't handle shows like The Walking Dead at all. After the first act, the commercials get ridiculous. Without hyperbole, I think the commercial break/act periods are nearly the same amount of time. It feels like I'm hitting FF every five minutes after the first fifteen.
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Anymore it's much like a comic I saw once... I THINK the caption was something like "When Commercials Have Gotten Out of Hand" or something like that.
Three panels, guy on a sofa watching TV. Only movement is the "sound" coming from the TV.
First panel, TV sound bubble is saying: "And now back to our feature presentation!"
Second panel: "The"
Third panel: "We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors!"
There have been times where it's felt like that, too.
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I had friends that worked the combat air museum at Forbes Field. I met Boyington around 1985 seemed like a pretty neat guy. Not sure what happened to the signed copy of his book.
I was fortunate enough to chat Boyington at a couple of different airshows I attended with Sentimental Journey back in the '80s. He was a genuinely nice guy.
He had a ghost writer help him complete his book after he stalled out in writing it. I forget how many years the manuscript languished until the ghost writer joined the project. You can definitely tell where Boyington left off and the ghost writer picked it up.
I have an autographed copy in my library.
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I used to enjoy BAA BAA BLACKSHEEP. My father was a ex Navy officer, he once met Col. Boyington while in the submarine service at Groton Connecticut. He claimed Boyington was a "drunken bum."
He was that, in spades. He covers it pretty thoroughly in his book, readily admitting to having a serious drinking problem that cost him dearly over the years.
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Documentary on VMF-214:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yyZY1aauxk
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He was that, in spades. He covers it pretty thoroughly in his book, readily admitting to having a serious drinking problem that cost him dearly over the years.
"You show me a hero, and I'll show you a bum." ~Pappy Boyington
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"You show me a hero, and I'll show you a bum." ~Pappy Boyington
Close, it's "It's my estimation that every man ever got a' statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another."
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Close, it's "It's my estimation that every man ever got a' statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another."
Wow. I'll have to track down that discrepancy. I like yours better
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Wow. I'll have to track down that discrepancy. I like yours better
https://youtu.be/ica2n8y7wKE?t=3151
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A timely story:
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/enemy-world-war-ii-fighter-pilots-told-a-gripping-tale-of-peril-and-reconciliation-and-then-there-was-the-truth/
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Wow. I'd never heard any of that before!