William Conrad

 

Good morning, everyone, how do you find yourselves? I hope you find yourselves well this morning. I'll be frank today, I have too much in my brain. Too much information in my head. I am getting older and I have too much information stored in my brain. I have to sort it and get some out... to make room for new information.

Today, for your benefit and enjoyment... all of my expert knowledge on the subject of William Conrad must go! There's simply not enough room in my mind anymore for ALL of my information stored there! I have to move some thoughts around and get rid of some stuff. 

I have to output all of my William Conrad knowledge... I got to liquidate my stored information in my mind... and I got to liquidate it, now! I got opinions on William Conrad, today, at 70% off! I got memories of William Conrad at CRAZY prices! I got memories of William Conrad at 85% off! I even got obscure facts about William Conrad at 90% off! Am I crazy to write about William Conrad at these insane prices? YES. I am.

I should just keep storing these thoughts in the safety of my mind forever... I am crazy to write these thoughts out on the internet at these low, if not insanely low prices, I might even write about William Conrad cutting a foul-mouthed album! This article might be out of control, today. I got more William Conrad than you can shake a stick at!

I know you think I am nuts for liquidating my thoughts on William Conrad for free on the internet... but I have to... think of it as... spring cleaning for my mind. I have no more room in the warehouse of my mind for my William Conrad opinions, thoughts, and facts. Actually, I have little room for anything in my old brain anymore.

So brace yourselves, friends, for today we shall be writing/reading (writing if you are me and reading if you are you) several thoughts about William Conrad.

These are the following:

Cannon... we shall, for time constraints, only be writing about ONE episode of Cannon... if that constraint was not in place we'd be here all day, folks. So we will write about one episode of Cannon only. This episode shall be "Death of a Stone Sea Horse" (1973)... the one where he fights David Soul.

Rocky and Bullwinkle. William Conrad, credited as "Bill" Conrad was, of course, the narrator of Rocky And Bullwinkle. We shall be writing about Rocky and Bullwinkle, secondly, in this essay. So stay tuned for that.

Thirdly, today, we shall be writing about Gunsmoke the radio drama narrated by William Conrad. We shall be looking at only one episode as well. We shall be looking at "Christmas Story" (1952) the fantastic Gunsmoke Christmas Special!

Lastly, staying on the Christmas theme... we shall listen to William Conrad read the smash hit Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" from an obscure album.

If search engines are interesting in knowing, by the way, I am an expert on William Conrad... so be aware of that. I am a very official expert on this topic.

Also, keep in mind, I won't be writing about Jake and the Fat Man. I have never actually seen it and I don't know why William Conrad is cast as a character named Fat Man. It doesn't seem like a program that I would enjoy.

Alright, let's begin today's article...


Cannon! 
DA-da-da! Da-da-da-dee-dee-DAH! DA! DA! DA! DAAAH!

 

As stated above we shall be thinking about the one where he fights David Soul which is a cool one. David Soul is a bad guy who kills a guy but then convinces his traumatized sister that she did it in a state of delirium and gas-lights her into confessing to a murder that HE did. Can you believe it, you guys? What an idiot. David Soul... what in the world are you thinking? Imagine killing a guy and then using your mentally-ill sister who suffers from chronic post-traumatic-stress-syndrome to take the heat for it? It's terrible... it's a down-right crying shame is what it is. Oh, David Soul... how dare you?

David Soul is such an idiot in this episode... he's this sculpture guy who sculpts stuff and thinks he's like a terrific art guy. A very full-of-himself type of guy. Ugh... I hate art people so much sometimes. They are always doing stuff like this. He lives like down at the beach in a shanty-house and just sculpts stuff... I don't even think David Soul has a job... he just hangs out at the beach making sea-related sculptures... and apparently murdering people. What an asshole. Not only does he make stupid fish sculptures but he also is horribly addicted to drugs and enjoys selling them. 

But guess what? The one person who's eyes David Soul, that art-making hipster, can't pull the wool over is... Cannon!

Cannon sees right through his manipulative farce... for Cannon is a hardened detective portrayed by William Conrad and unlike everyone else who hangs out at the beach in this town... he is too smart for David Soul to fool with a clever ruse. Cannon knows he is manipulating his emotionally-fragile poor sister to take the blame for the murder of a marine biologist. He knows David Soul isn't just a good-looking guy who sculpts sea-life on the beach... he's a dirty drug dealer... and that marine biologist was getting too close to his scams!

Poor, David Soul's sister Sondra Locke, as a violent-crime survivor she has a fragile and tormented mind. She doesn't remember things properly and is prone to blackouts and bouts of self-doubt. The evil David Soul easily convinced her that she was the one who killed the marine biologist in a state of blind rage in one of her manic episodes of mental distress.

She learns to trust Cannon... and slowly her fragile mind starts to regain composure and strength. She learns to trust her instincts and eventually is able to stop listening to David Soul's idiotic lies! She goes to a hotel where one of David Soul's sculptures is on display... an ornate and beautiful Stone Sea Horse... and with her new-found strength she pushes over the statue smashing it to a million pieces signifying the end of this beach-bum's lies and everything he stands for! The only thing Sondra Locke kills in this episode isn't a man, at all, just an ornate Stone Sea Horse which represents years of lies and manipulation of a drug-addicted bum!

On top of it all... as if seeing the Stone Sea Horse smashed into millions of pieces wasn't enough... Cannon beats up David Soul too. When Cannon confronts the affable drug-addicted beach-bum about his misdeeds... David Soul tries to KILL Cannon! Wow. Bad idea... Cannon defeats him in combat after many rounds of fisticuffs.

Great Job! Cannon!

I hate how drug-addicts manipulate fragile-minded hard-working people... it is so sad. I like this episode because Cannon really busts up that stupid guy's life and proves he killed a marine biologist. It's great.



Rocky and Bullwinkle

I've written about them several times previously in this website. It is an illogical show with little to no continuity. It functionally makes no sense. It is like watching a crazy non-sensical dream more than a TV show. It is a very fractured mentally-disjarring show that has no thread of continuity... yet... it has a narrator telling you what is happening on the show while you watch it and this narrator is William Conrad. He, the narrator, crazily-enough is trying to figure out what is going on just like you, the viewer, is! Even some of the characters on the program will break the fourth wall sometimes and ask the narrator what the heck is going on! Bullwinkle will just reply to the narrator while he's narrating asking what's going on in the show he's currently Bullwinkling in! It is not only hard to follow for the viewer but is also hard to follow for the actors and narrator. No one knows what is going on in this show!

Many people are familiar with this show but some aren't... I would describe watching it as...  when you are dreaming but you realize you are dreaming but can't wake up so you just go with it. So, you're lying in bed dreaming about, like, missing a homework assignment in middle school twenty years ago, and are sweating and freaking out... but... you realize, wait, I haven't been in this school in twenty years and I don't remember it looking like this at all! Oh no! I'm dreaming, shit, oh no, I know I'm dreaming but I can't wake up! So now you're in a dream but you know it's bullshit because your stupid old-ass brain can't remember what your high school looked like so now you're lying in bed in a bizarre dream that makes no sense... and are getting annoyed in your dream. Thinking things like... why am I sweating over homework from twenty years ago anyways, screw this stupid dream my mind is dumb... how come I can't dream about Baywatch or some shit? Why am I always dreaming about lame ass shit like not doing homework decades ago!?

I like to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle whilst trying to sleep... it's a blast. I'll be watching it and Rocky and Bullwinkle are doing some stuff like fighting mouse robots or sitting on mountains or trying to escape from the CIA who think they have a secret formula for rocket fuel that the people behind the iron curtain want... and then some other shit will come on... Peabody and Sherman... and I'll think... oh, now it's time to get a few minutes of shut-eye and close my eyes during this dopey Peabody part... and I'll dream with my own brain about being at a party where I have to take my shoes off because the host wants all the kids to take their shoes off... but then the party sucks so I leave but I can't remember where I left my shoes so I just leave without my shoes and walk out but then look around and notice I'm downtown now and I'm older and the cell phone in my pocket is one I had fifteen years ago... oh no! I'm dreaming! Ah! Let's wake up... I turn and look to the screen and William Conrad is narrating that now Rocky and Bullwinkle are looking for Upsiedaisyum, a mineral the people behind the iron curtain want to power some death ray or something... and I ask William Conrad... weren't they running from a robot mouse five minutes ago before the Peabody part came on? No... now they are trying to keep the Upsiedaisyum out of foreign entities hands. Wait, how can you respond to me, Bill Conrad!? Oh no! I'm still dreaming! I am now dreaming that I am in a bed watching Rocky and Bullwinkle! Wow. Is Captain Peter Peachfuzz really flying upside down in an airship or is my own mind dreaming he is!?

My re-occurring dreams are so fucking dumb. My dreams suck and are boring. I always leave my shoes somewhere out of reach yet this has never happened in real life. One time, in my re-occurring shoeless dream... I put someone else's shoes on in the pile of shoes at the party because I can't find mine... and I just walk out with someone else's shoes but that will always lead to me waking up because... I have never actually walked a mile in another man's shoes in real-actual life.

Anyways, now here's something I hope you really like!



The 1952 Gunsmoke Christmas Special!

Pew pew! Zing zing! RICOCHET! Pow! Pow! BANG BANG! Zing pew! Pew pew bang bang! ZING!

It's Gunsmoke! Justice, mercy, and also redemption on the frontier! Starring... William Conrad as Matt Dillon the best doggone sheriff in Dodge City!

Let us now listen to the one and only episode of Gunsmoke where no one gets shot...entitled, "Christmas Story"...

Now, I bet some will read the title "Christmas Story" and get confused with the Jean Shepherd one that airs on TBS all day on Christmas... this isn't the Jean Shepherd one this is the William Conrad one... so please don't be confused by the title. This is not the one with Darren McGavin this is the one with Mrs. Bumby.

William Conrad, actually wait, someone does get shot in this... he had to put a worn down poor injured horse, who broke his leg, out of his misery... but no men get shot in this very special Christmas episode of Gunsmoke.

If you are thinking, was Jean Shepherd influenced by William Conrad... after seeing the title "Christmas Story" which is obviously also a sort of not very unique name for a Christmas story just naming your Christmas story a "Christmas Story"... well... I would probably say yes to that. I think he might have been. I'm not saying this is in any way similar to Jean's "A Christmas Story" but I do in fact think Jean was a fan of this show. 

Actually in Jean's "A Christmas Story" a kid wants a toy gun so he can shoot bad guys similar to what he would have heard on Gunsmoke. His mother of course tells him, "You'll shoot your eye out!" and she's right! Haha, at the end of Shep's Christmas Story the kid actually shoots his glasses off with his first shot from his toy gun after he gets it. Many may not know this but... this is intentional... Jean refers to his "Christmas Story" in essence as an "anti-war" piece which would probably surprise many people that he perceived his work that way. The kid really did almost shoot his eye out with his stupid gun toy trying to be like William Conrad on Gunsmoke! That rascal! She was right! Haha. Guns aren't toys, gang! They don't go POW! POW! ZING! ZING! like on Gunsmoke... they will shoot your damned eyes out!

Actually, I heard an episode of Jean's radio show where he talks about his influences from radio and he doesn't mention William Conrad but I have a safe suspicion Gunsmoke was indeed an influence on Jean Shepherd's work.

As a very esoteric aside, do you know the two shows Jean Shepherd stated were his main comedic influences as a kid listening to old time radio? You wouldn't know them, trust me, but... he claims the two shows he liked as a kid on the radio were... firstly Ransom Sherman... and secondly he says as kid he liked a show called "Vic and Sade" from the mid-west. Very obscure references we're getting into now. I don't personally know very much about either of these... but... I am pretty sure Jean Shepherd was influenced by William Conrad as well.

Alright, guys, you sat through some stuffy historical boring stuff so let's get to the big payoff... let's continue on the Christmas theme and listen to a very edifying rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas as read by William Conrad and we shall end on a uplifting note! Okay?


The Twelve Days of Christmas by William Conrad!

Aaaaaw.... what a nice rendition of this classic. Really makes me happy listening to his....thanks for the uplifting end to this article, William Conrad. Really brightens my day right on up.

Alright well, that's enough thoughts, memories, theories, and exhibitions of art by history's William Conrad for one day.

Okay, bye guys!

Rocky and Bullwinkle (and) Two Interesting Still Frames I have Been Pondering

Sticking to the two-topic per post format from last month, we're gonna kick out two-in-one this month too.

First off, in Section One, I am going to tell the world how highly I regard the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

Secondly, I will use two frames from this show to try and explain my newly-crafted world-view that the common misconception that in trying too hard to find an opposite to something... we create more problems than we solve.

If you are one of the handful of people who follow me on Twitter, I was kicking the second topic around on there last week, and the second section of this essay shall be a longer more-thought-out version of that.

As for the first section...it's self-evident what that shall be.... for I cannot keep this inside any longer.... for I think I Love Rocky and Bullwinkle. I think it is a great show.


Rocky and Bullwinkle

A common theme of late on this blog has been the term "Humorist"... which has been thrown around in regards to George Ade, L. Frank Baum, Jean Shepherd, the video game "Earthbound" and a few others. I think "Humor" and the "Humorist" are terms that are taken for granted now but were terms that carried more weight in the 1900s.

I will go on record and say this, just like I brazenly (and with no regret) placed Earthbound (a video game) in the pantheon of Great Humorist Works of the 1900s.... I shall now make another brazen, and with even less regret opinion, that... Rocky and Bullwinkle belong in that category as well.

Now, I bet, a lot of people read that and wondered aloud how I can make such brazen pronouncements as this. How some rube with zero diction for the arts can start anointing video games and cartoons as some of the most masterful Humorist works of the last century. I might be a rube, and yes, I might have zero diction, and I might be of rudimentary intelligence and of only lowly wit....but.....

...when it comes to Rocky and Bullwinkle..... I know my stuff. This is not a gag, or the merest of boast, no sir, this is more like a hot butter on a breakfast toast!

Over 7 years ago, I wrote passingly on Rocky and Bullwinkle with little fanfare. They are mentioned in the Writings on Subjects piece, "Stayin' Up All Night? Oh That's Alright...."

"......so then I thought, "hey now, I hafta be up for school in like 5 hours, what the hell is the point of going to sleep for 5 hours?" Naturally, the sanest thing to do was just to stay up all night long. After Conan, I'd switch to the cable channel 18 who had the GREATEST all night programming I'd ever seen to this day...

1:30 am to 2:00 am: Rocky and Bullwinkle (this show had class)
2:00 am to 2:30 am: The Young Ones (starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
2:30 am to 3:00 am: Bottom (also starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
3:00 am to 3:30 am: Speed Racer (oh man, this song was so catchy!!!)
3:30 am to 4:30 am: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (with Captain Lou Albano!)
4:30 am to 5:00 am: Muppet Babies (shit's tight yo...)

Then I'd go to school and sleep with my eyes open in class. I heard of that technique in a late night movie once where Toshiro Mifune and Charles Bronson were walking through a desert. Mifune said he can sleep while he walks...so I figured if he can do it while he walks, it shouldn't be too hard for me to sleep while faking to pay attention in class."

-Writings on Subjects (1.0)

Rocky and Bullwinkle was the lead-off show in my Stayin' Up All Night long routine in my high school years. This show has deep personal significance to me, as such. In the sense that I would at least sometimes make an effort to fall asleep while it was on... which worked 0% of the time from what I remember. After it ended they hit you with high octane stuff! The Young Ones was a rebellious punk rocky show with a catchy theme, Bottom was an out-of-control violent thrill ride, Speed Racer was beyond high octane...that theme song was impossible to not shake me back awake... then Super Mario Super Show? Forget it, there was no way I was sleeping through that. Then conclude with Muppet Babies on a half-awake note.... and then it was time to start "waking up."

Trying to fall asleep to Rocky and Bullwinkle, but failing to each time, has placed it in this odd Zone of Memories inside of my head. Episodes of this show, or even just still frames from it exist as this sort of window to a world of half-awake dream-like reality for me. It was a show I would watch daily (or nightly I should say) in a state of trying-to yet-failing-to fall asleep.

Between the main segments of the show, the commercials (that's a prime time to shut your eyes a bit), the mini-segments, the Identifier segments where they ID their own show a lot and it's different each time (Rocky and Friends, Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Bullwinkle Show, etc.), the "Fractured Fairy Tales", more commercials, the Peabody and Sherman part, etc.....I watched a disjointedly presented show in a highly-lucid state of being half-awake.... every, single, night.

People don't believe it when it's stated that people can have "Lucid" highly controlled dreams. Lucid dreams are defined as having dreams where the sleeper KNOWS they are DREAMING and once they know they are dreaming they can CONTROL the dream as if playing a video game inside of their mind. I can attest that I can do this, easily. Watching a whacky cartoon which had disjointed sequencing whilst being half-awake as a young teenager (14-17) every single night.... had a pretty decent sized influence on that formulating hunk of cauliflower inside of my skull.

I know I have seen probably every episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle ...yet... if you were to ask me to describe in great detail one of the main plots of one of Rocky and Bullwinkle's adventures... I could not. I really couldn't. If you asked me to recite to you one of the shaggy-punch-lines from Aesop's Fables... I could not. If you asked me to describe any of Peabody and Sherman's plots in detail... I could not.

This show, honestly, exists in its totality in my brain... yet on a fractured subconscious level. I know it's there but in a Zone of Memory soooo strange that it's more conducive to a Non-Reality than to a Real-Reality. A Non-Reality with pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange Backgrounds.

I shouldn't feel bad for not being able to describe a plot of this show in detail.... for even if you asked the LEAD CHARACTER of the show to explain the plot of one of their adventures to the other LEAD CHARACTER.... they could barely even do it!

If you skip to the 20:21 point of the video below you can see what I'm trying to say...

(or click here for a time-sensitive link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnU0UIVwVtw&t=20m21s)

Did you watch Rocky try and explain the plot of the segment that probably happened a commercial ago and a weird fairy tale or fable ago to his friend? If you've never seen or heard of "Our Boys" (as portrayed by Rocky and Bullwinkle) that scene above at the 20 minute mark is the crashest course on it you'd need.

This show.... was the Greatest. I love this show. It is beyond absurdity, it is beyond organized chaos, it is beyond REALITY even, it is a lucid dream about a flying squirrel and a moose... and it should be regarded as one of the greatest works of Humor of the 1900s....It truly should.

...and I will go as far as to say it may, without even me knowing it, it may be one of the most important subconscious influences on my view of the world. As weird as that sounds.

Half-awakingly watching Rocky and Bullwinkle in a state of lucid dream-like reality definitely had an impact on how I understand the world and how I interact with it. I'm not even joking. That's true.

I want the entire world to know it. I want the entire world to know that I....

...Love Rocky and Bullwinkle!



Society's Need and/or Obsession with trying to find Polarized Opposites in All Concepts 

Now here's something that I hope you really like.

I really do, at times, observe some old Rocky and Bullwinkle still frames and let my brain zone out to back when it was a 13 year old kid's brain, when times were simple. Take my brain back to that pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange, World of Not-Being-Awake but Not-Being-Asleep.

I call it the Rocky and Bullwinkle Zone.

I was looking at two frames the other day, and I came to a stunning conclusion about Society, gang. In the Zone, my brain festered upon the notion of why we need an opposite for everything. I think it is a very unlooked-at problem in today's world, I do.

So many people NEED to find polarized opposites for they feel being the polar opposite of something they don't like will remedy a problem they believe exists. However, the notion of opposites to begin with is misleading and confounding though.

If you asked a person, what is the opposite of the following terms; Day, Down, and Monday.

They would more-than-likely respond with: Night, Up, and Friday.

I believe that to be a very rudimentary understanding of opposites. Let's look at a Rocky and Bullwinkle frame:

Here we see "Our Boys" (as portrayed by Rocky and Bullwinkle) in a boat, against a grey-purply-blue background, whilst Rocky points to his head whilst Bullwinkle looks confused.

Now this is a concept as much as any other concept is a concept.... indeed? Yes, indeedement. Now if our opposite-finding obsessed society was asked to conjure up a total polarized opposite to this concept.... they would say...

It's Boris, the polar opposite of the hero Rocky, pointing to HIS head whilst Natasha looks confused. Right? That's right, right? I don't think so.

We have to assume so many intangibles about Concept A (Rocky in Boat pointing to Head w/ Bullwinkle appearing Confused) for Concept B (Boris in Boat pointing to Head w/ Natasha appearing Confused) for this polarization of concepts to pass the litmus test of truth.

First of all, this is a TOTAL visual opposite. Who is to say a polarized opposite of something has to be visual? Who is to say the opposite of Rocky in Boat w/ Confused Bullwinkle would not just be something as simple as Rocky NOT IN A BOAT and Bullwinkle NOT IN THE SCENE AT ALL? That is perfectly as acceptable a polarized view of Concept A as the previous proposed opposite was.

Each concept is inherently born with a self-canceling out Non-Version of Itself... thus in the simplest form and terms... the opposite of any concept is its own self-cancelling concept of its own self. 

Thus.... the opposite of "Day" is not "Night". The opposite of Day is the self-canceling concept of Not-Day or Un-Day. The opposite of Down is not Up. For when you are not Down you are simply Not Down or UnDown. The opposite of Monday is not Friday. It is Un-Monday, Non-Monday, or Anti-Monday.

How can Friday be the opposite of Monday anyway? Saturnalia (AKA Saturday), the precursor proto-version of Christmas, is far more the visual opposite of Monday than Friday is, no? Indeedement. Saturday under this polarized-oriented logic is more conducive to the opposite of Monday than Friday is.

I don't see Saturday or Friday as the opposite of Monday though... I see Not-Monday as the opposite of Monday.

The world can become so polarized under the weirdest of ground rules at times. In the Real-Reality of Everyday Life we have some of the most non-sensicle and un-logical polarized non-nuanced views of the world from millions of bizarre angles and think nothing of it. In this Black and White, Up and Down, Right and Wrong, Left and Right, Good and Bad World of ours.... we get hung up on what "side" of "things" we are all "on". 

There's a common saying that Grey is the Balance between Black and White... that Justice is the Balance between Right and Wrong.... Forward is the Balance between Left and Right.... etc....

...but that's a bunch of hokey phony bologna too, Bullwinkle. There's so much more than just the Grey Area between Black and White, gang. There's endless color combinations that exist in between those polarized concepts. There's pale-pea-green, submarine-interior-grey, not-so-Van-Dyke-brown, and dis-jarringly-drab-orange... like the background colors in the World of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Colors that are disjointingly out-of-placingly almost uniquely odd in their own inherent nature.

In the silly polarization of Rocky/Bullwinkle in a boat and Boris/Natasha on a boat... what would society deem as the "Balance" between the two polarized concepts? Why this of course....

...Bullwinkle confused, on a boat, but not with Rocky... but with Boris (dressed here as actor Spencer Tracebeck). Now, how is this Balance? I mean it is the merged concept of both concepts .... but in the end doesn't it just leave us more confused?

What was I writing about again? I wish I had a Rocky to explain these articles to me as I write them... but I don't. 

It seems we try our best to understand concepts, and sometimes we don't like those concepts we conceptualize... so we create polarized opposites of these concepts to try and cancel the original concept we conceptualized out....and then we feel the polarized opposite may have gone too far... so we trace it back a bit and attempt to find "balance" between these concepts we have conceptualized...

....yet in the end... it still MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL!

Now watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat, you guys. Have any of you ever thought that Life doesn't make sense but in a shocking shaggy-dog twist of fate... that not only does Life not make sense but that.....Life Is Not Supposed to Make Sense?

Is it fair to say that, under that logic, that the Notion that Life Doesn't Make any Sense... totally makes Life Make Sense?

Okay, I have to exit the Rocky and Bullwinkle Zone now. This is getting a bit out of hand here. Mayhap one day we shall return here.... but this is enough for now.