Do you recognize this future mega star?

Of course, it's cutie who shot to fame on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," Oscar-winning actress Goldie Hawn.

The granddaddy (or is that grandmommy) of all Spring Break films is Where the Boys Are! Released in December of 1960, this was an “A” picture for MGM, shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope.

The movie’s advertising billed it as “The HILARIOUS Inside Story of Those Rip-Roaring Spring Vacations!” Let’s look at the plot. We have a date rape (laughing yet?), a girl wandering out into traffic and getting hit by a car (a chuckle maybe?) and the film’s two leads going their separate ways at the end of the picture (side-splitting, right?).

Actually, this baby is pretty damn melodramatic. What few laughs there are belong to Frank Gorshin as a very nearsighted musician committed to “dialectic jazz.”

The film’s title allegedly came from a remark a college girl made when a reporter asked her why she came to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break. The plot was based on a novel by Glendon Swarthout.

Watching it now will induce more than a few eye-rolling moments. First of all, two of four girls at the center of the movie have Merritt and Tuggle as first names! Tuggle? That’s the name you’d give your dog, not your daughter.

Tuggle (Paula Prentiss) confesses she’s only in college to catch a man. Her career goal? To become “a baby-making machine.” No kidding, that’s actually one of her lines in the film!

She’s at the right college, apparently, because the class we see the girls attending at the start of the movie is “Courtship and Marriage.” Maybe she was majoring in that subject.

In that class, Tuggle’s pal Merritt (Delores Hart) shocks everyone by suggesting that girls ought to engage in premarital sex! College students in 1960 had apparently not heard much about sex. Of course, we know that later in the film, when Merritt has a chance to hop in the sack with George Hamilton, she will discover she’s “a good girl” and not come across. And Hamilton does what any rich, really good-looking college boy would have done in 1960. He totally understands and loves her more for it!

Also along are Yvette Mimieux (as the poor girl who gets raped), Connie Francis (proving she should stick to singing and not acting), Jim Hutton (cast because he was the only young male lead at MGM who was taller than Paula Prentiss) and Barbara Nichols as a buxom floozie named Lola Fandango (we kid you not).

A few Where the Boys Are facts you might not know:

• The film’s well-known title song was co-written by Neil Sedaka
• It was the first film for both Paula Prentiss and Connie Francis. Prentiss went on to a long acting career in movies and TV. Francis, not so much.
• The success of the movie caused even more college kids to descend on Fort Lauderdale every spring. This eventually pissed off the residents so much that they made the local police start cracking down on the mayhem. The kids took the hint and moved up the coast to Daytona Beach as the sixties wore on.
• The film’s star, Delores Hart, actually became a nun a few years after this film was made!

Where the Boys Are became a huge box office hit. Plans to film a sequel (Where the Girls Are, natch) were ultimately scrapped, although Prentiss and Connie Francis did re-team for a film called Follow the Boys (1963) that had absolutely nothing to do with this picture.

The film not only touched off a mini-wave of other Spring Break comedies, including Palm Springs Weekend, but was one of the influences on the Beach Party films (though not as big an influence as Gidget).

We might be a little too old now to take part in Spring Break in Florida, but if you want to celebrate Spring Break as it never really was (except for the copious amounts of drinking that go on all through the picture), give it a watch this weekend!

Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" started out as "Mrs. Roosevelt", and was changed to the final title after it was pitched to director Mike Nicols, who was then filming The Graduate. The opening lines, “dee de dee dee de dee dee dee,” were sung during the pitch because Paul Simon had not come up with suitable lyrics yet, but Nicols liked it that way and so they remained in place for the final recording.

Believe it or not, your cell phone can cause back pain!

If you're on the phone for long periods of time, bending your neck to cradle to phone or read all those text messages can add up to 60 pounds of additional stress to your back!

Experts recommend two things to combat this:

1.) Invest in ear buds and wear them during long conversations. That way, you don't have hold the phone near your ear.

2.) Keep your head up and your eyes down when reading texts.

Just a reminder that yu can register your smart phone as well as your land line (if you still have a land line) on the National Do Not Call registry.

There are 2 ways to do this:

1.) Visit donotcall.gov

2/) Call 888-382-1222

Keep in mind that it takes 31 days from the day you register for your registration to become effective and that charities and political groups are still legally allowed to contact you.

A Guide to Howdy Doody Books and Video

For a show that ran for 13 years and was one of the mainstays of Baby Boomer culture throughout the entire 1950’s, there are surprisingly few ways we can relive those memories today.

There have been books and DVDs about The Howdy Doody Show released over the years, but few remain in print as of this writing. Nevertheless, here’s a rundown on what’s been produced.

BOOKS

Say Kids! What Time Is It? Notes from the Peanut Gallery by Stephen Davis, published in 1987 by Little Brown and Company. This is the first and best book about the show and what really went on backstage. Davis was the son of one of the show’s early writers and producers. Consequently, he got to sit in the Peanut Gallery multiple times during his childhood. As an adult, he was also able to draw on his father’s contacts to provide a fascinating look at all facets of the show, both in front of and behind the cameras.

Howdy and Me by Buffalo Bob Smith and Donna McCrohan, published by Plume Books in 1990. While there is no better witness to the entire Howdy Doody phenomenon than Bob Smith, he can’t really be called an impartial observer. Much of the backstage tensions and bawdy rehearsal shenanigans are glossed over. Still, the book is a comprehensive look at the show and what happened to Buffalo Bob when production ended in 1960. It’s also filled with dozens of rare photographs from Bob’s private collection.

VIDEO

Really only a small percentage of the more than 2,000 episodes of The Howdy Doody Show have been released on video.

Howdy Doody’s Christmas – This is probably the most widely seen piece because it fell into public domain some time ago, and has appeared on dozens of old VHS tapes and cheap “dollar DVDs.” Yet, it doesn’t really come from the TV show at all.

Back in the early days of TV, the numbers of homes that had even one television set was still relatively small. So in 1951, they produced this short film featuring Howdy to show in theaters during the holidays. The release date for Howdy Doody’s Christmas is often wrongly said to be 1957. Yet it contains performances by Bob Keeshan as Clarabell and Dayton Allen as Ugly Sam. Both of those actors were gone from the show by the end of 1953. Also, the extremely crude production techniques rule out 1957 as a release date.

The Howdy Doody Show: In 2000, Image Entertainment released a series of 4 DVDs, each containing 4 episodes of the show during its run as a Saturday morning show on NBC. The volumes in this set are:

Andy Handy: Contains “Mr. Bluster Is Up to His Old Tricks” (April 1, 1953 – not a Saturday morning show), “Easter” (April 13, 1957), “Andy Handy” (May 4, 1957) and “Water Fountain” (July 13, 1957)

The Bird Club: Contains “10^th Anniversary Show (December 28, 1957), “The Bird Club” (February 1, 1958), “Shrinking Machine” (February 8, 1958) and “Tammy Returns” (March 8, 1958)

Scuttlebutt: Contains “King Yodstick Part 1” (May 24, 1958), “King Yodstick Part 2” (May 31, 1958), “Scuttlebutt” (July 18, 1958) and “Val Carney” (August 2, 1958)

Clarabell Speaks: Contains “Halloween” (October 28, 1958), “Mambo” (November 16, 1958), “Cy Clone” (August 25, 1959) and “Clarabell Speaks” (September 24, 1960)

All the shows except the final show, “Clarabell Speaks,” are in black & white. Both “Clarabell Speaks” and “The 10^th Anniversary Show” are hour-long shows. The rest are 30 minutes.

Howdy Doody: 40 Episodes – Released in 2008 by Mill Creek Entertainment, this 5-disc set comes with 32-page booklet of photos from the show’s run.

This set mainly focuses on the show’s early days when it ran Monday through Friday in the evenings, featuring episodes that range from February 1, 1949 to December 31, 1954.

In addition, the show also includes the show’s final telecast, “Clarabell Speaks” (September 24, 1960) as well as interviews with Bob Smith, Bob Keeshan, and the show’s main writer, Eddie Kean and producer/director E. Roger Muir.

There was a less expensive 2-disc version containing 20 episodes that was marketed at the same time as the 5-disc set.

With only two episodes duplicated between the Image and Mill Creek collections (“Mr. Bluster Is Up to His Old Tricks” & “Clarabell Speaks”), these sets together can give you a pretty comprehensive overview of what the show was like during its entire 13-year run.

Howdy Doody - There has also been one “dollar DVD" from Digiview that collects 3 additional episodes from the show (“Howdy for President,” “Doodyville Band Uniforms” and “New Clubhouse”) along with the Howdy Doody’s Christmas film. The exact dates for these show’s can’t be determined, but this DVD is usually pretty cheap and well worth picking up if you just want to sample what the show was like or if you must have everything that’s been released.

While these DVD sets have been out of print from a few years now, they can be found through eBay, Amazon.com or other second-hand dealers.

It’s Howdy Doody Time: A 40-Year Celebration – A little harder to find, this 2-hour TV special was broadcast in 1987 and released only on VHS. It contains lots of vintage footage from the show’s original run as well as a new storyline that reunites Bob Smith and many of the original cast members along with celebrity guests.

BUYER BEWARE: There are a handful of DVDs that are sometimes advertised as Howdy Doody – “The Lost Episodes.” Beware! These are all from the short-lived Howdy Doody revival in 1976. These are not to be confused with the genuine article.

No, really. Researchers have found that temperature can affect weight loss. That means keep your house set at, say 65 degrees at night may actually encourage your body to burn more fat!

This could be the very first item of authorized Beatles merchandise outside of buttons and photos: the authentic Beatles Sweater!

And check out the fab hairdo on the lovely model!