Is there a Baby Boomer male who didn’t have a crush on Hayley Mills back in the early 60’s?
If there was, he probably never saw her in her magnum opus, The Parent Trap.
The film trades on the extremely popular, but probably psychologically unhealthy fantasy of a lot of divorced kids that they can somehow get their parents back together again.
In this case, the too dumb for their own good ‘rents are played by Brian Keith (who owns every young girl’s fantasy of a California horse ranch) and Maureen O’Hara (who inhabits no one’s fantasy of a stuffy Boston home, relieved only by Charlie Ruggles as a grandfather with a permanent twinkle in his eye).
In The Parent Trap, their kids are both Hayley Mills (or Hayley and her body double, Susan Henning) as twins who were separated at birth by their idiot parents.
Based on the German novel by Erich Kästner, Das Doppelte Lottchen (The Double Lottie), where the twins are named Lottie and Lisa. In the transfer to Hollywood, the girls are renamed Sharon and Susan. Somewhere along the way, they also picked up an inexplicable British accent. Very hard to understand as neither parent sounds remotely British.
Is anybody besides us bothered by one small fact? Despite the divorced parents seeming to be on pretty good terms (especially considering the relative rarity of divorce way back when), neither parent has told either of the girls that they have a sister - let alone an indentical twin? How screwed up is that?
Of course if they had been told, you’d never have a picture and we’d never have gotten see Hayley Mills get her underpants exposed to a bunch of boys! Yes, that scene was mighty racy for a Disney picture. Ms. Mills reports that she was so nervous about the scene where one twin cuts away the back of the other twin’s dress at a mixer with the boys’ camp that she actually wore multiple pairs of underwear during the filming of that scene!
Possible rock & roll history was made during the climactic scene involving the twins recreating their parents’ first date at an Italian restaurant in the outdoor courtyard of dad’s (Brian Keith) fantastic California ranch.
The duo serenades their folks with a very catchy little big beat number, “Let’s Get Together,” written by those Disney song-writing fools, Richard and Robert Sherman (later to hit the motherlode with the songs for Mary Poppins).
Here in 1961, a full two years before the Beatles recorded “She Loves You,” you can hear the lad’s trademark pop hook “Yeah, yeah, yeah” being crooned by two other lovable British mop-tops, Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills. Mills rode that song all the way to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September of that year.
For whatever reason, the film’s title tune (also written by the Sherman brothers) is not sung by Hayley, but by Disney contract players Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands, who were busy at the studio filming Babes in Toyland at the same time.
The film was put together by the very capable David Swift. Swift had a long Hollywood career, working as animator for Disney and then as both a writer and director with a credit list that includes Pollyanna, Good Neighbor Sam, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and a variety of TV shows from Alfred Hitchcock Presents through The Love Boat. Appropriately, his final project was serving as screenwriter for the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap starring Lindsay Lohan.
For whatever reason, the original version of The Parent Trap went on to become one of Disney’s best-loved and most-remembered live action films. It wound up the 6th highest grossing film of the year, coming in just behind West Side Story, The Guns of Navarone, El Cid, and two other Disney films – 101 Dalmatians and The Absent-Minded Professor. The film was also nominated for two Oscars in technical categories (Sound and Film Editing).
BTW - Here's a photo of Hayley with her body double, Susan Henning. The two have remained in touch through all the intervening years.
Before the ’98 reboot, it spawned no less than three made-for-TV sequels all with Hayley Mills returning as the now grown up Sharon and Susan.
The Parent Trap and The Parent Trap II are available on DVD.
Throughout the early days of rock, many, many hit records were put together by producer/songwriters using session singers and musicians and then released with a made-up name for the recording act. Perhaps no such group ever achieved so much as the Grass Roots, who actually, ultimately became a real touring band and wound up in the American Pop Music Hall of Fame!
Their story begins at the fledgling 60s record label, Dunhill. The label had been started by producer Lou Adler. Together with the songwriting duo of P.F. Sloan and Steve Bari, they had recorded a song called “Where Were You When I Needed You.” They made-up the group name the Grassroots (originally one word) and shopped the record to stations around California. Music people liked the tune, but thought the vocals needed punching up. So, Adler, Sloan and Bari recruited a San Francisco band called the Bedouins. Vocals on the record were replaced with the Bedouins’ lead singer, Willie Fulton. The song was a modest chart success, cracking the Top 30, and the Bedouins began touring as the Grass Roots (Now two words).
Eventually Fulton and most of the rest of the band became frustrated with a lack of input into the group’s recordings and departed Dunhill Records. However, when they tried to continue appearing as the Grass Roots, they discovered that the label, not the band, owned the name. So much for that plan.
Meanwhile Sloan and Bari hired another local band to become the Grass Roots. The band was playing gigs as the 13th Floor (not to be confused with the 13th Floor Elevators). As with the Bedouins, Adler, Sloan & Bari used studio musicians during the sessions and employed the band only for the vocal tracks. Luck was with them as the 13th Floor’s bass player and key vocalist was a gentleman named Rob Grill. Their first collaboration in early 1967, “Let’s Live for Today,” made it into the Top 10.
Over the next several years, band members came, went, sometimes returned and left again with head-spinning speed. It didn’t matter. L.A.’s top sessions players (now known as “the Wrecking Crew”) and Grill’s lead vocals kept the hits coming. The Grass Roots put 14 songs into the Top 40 between 1966 and 1972.
When the hits dried up, Grill and an ever-changing assemblage of musicians continued to tour as the Grass Roots (Grill having been granted ownership of the name). One of the most famous was Creed Bratton, who gained fame playing a highly ficitionalized version of himself on the long-running NBC comedy, The Office.The group was inducted into the American Pop Music Hall of Fame in 2015.
Sadly, Rob Grill passed away in 2011, but there is still a group touring as the Grass Roots, which somehow seems fitting for a band that was created out of thin air!
Repair shops have a bad reputation. One reason why is most of us don’t really know much about our vehicles. When a repair person tells us our framastat and carburatic overgloid needs replacement, we just nod and sign the repair order.
One of the most common cons is the Oil Change Add-Ons: Many repair shops advertise a very low price on oil changes. Once they get your car in their service bay, they’ll tell you about all the other things you need – like a new air filter or a coolant flush. Unless you know and trust your repair shop, treat these tactics with skepticism, especially if your car has been running just fine.
BTW – Many of the coolants used in today’s vehicles are good for 100,000 miles.
Probably not, but we guarantee you, you've heard his voice.
His name is Pinto Colvig. He was active in the animation industry from its beginnings and wound up providing the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy. He also voiced Practical Pig (of Disney's "3 Little Pigs") and 2 of the 7 Dwarfs (Sleepy & Grumpy) as well as providing the barks for Pluto in the early Mickey Mouse cartoons.
In 1946, Capitol Records launched a series of albums aimed at children featuring a circus clown they called Bozo. Once again, Colvig was the man behind Bozo's voice for over a decade.
He passed away in 1967 at the age of 75.
Okay, we all know sugar is bad, but it tastes so darn good! We can cut down our intake of sugar (and still enjoy the occasional treats) by following a few simple tips:
Whole Fruit vs. Fruit Juice: Fruit juice can have as much sugar as several pieces of whole fruit, but none of the fiber that slows absorption. Eat the whole fruit and skip the juice.
The Best Fruits: Those are the ones that release their sugar into our systems more slowly. These include apples, berries and grapefruit.
Chocolate: Every chocoholic knows there are actual health benefits in chocolate. And the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa (the health-giving stuff) and the less sugar (the not-so-healthy stuff).
Avoid White: Not only is cane sugar white, but foods like white bread, white rice and white pasta are metabolized in your body just like sugar. Health experts say you should substitute whole gains and skip the white.