Todd’s Serial Blog

The title for this post comes from the old British sit-com Are You Being Served?, the character Mrs Slocum would usually say it to one of the male characters when they showed any hesitation  in action to save their jobs.  My wife so loved it that she would say it to me in the exact same tone whenever I would spend money  I shouldn’t have on a serial.  I don’t do that anymore, preferring to wait until I have the money these days (amazing the fiscal responsible differences between when you’re twenty and when you’re forty).

So I had money this Christmas, not a lot, but enough to get the third and final volume of Raymond Chandler from the Everyman Library, leaving me enough to get a serial.  So what did I get?  One  that I have never seen but have always wanted to?  Upgrade to a better copy on a personal favorite?  No, I got Jungle Queen.  Remember how I gave that less than glowing review of it?  It was too talky, it was slow moving, too little action.  Remember how one of my first posts on this blog was that I wouldn’t be upgrading it to DVD?  I’m sitting here getting ready to pop that DVD in my player.  I am such a sucker for serials that I bought one I panned.  What’s next, snapping up James Horne serials?

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This had originally been a thread that was started over on the Squadron message board.  I had put a lot of thought and effort into an answer to the question and posted it.  Some board members gave some very nice feed back, but inevitably I got into another argument with Grood over my thoughts on the subject (apparently content, cast, stunt work, special effects, etc. are meaningless to Grood, all that matters is that a serial is told in parts.  Ironically, for a man who stated I wasn’t a true fan and he was, also claimed he can’t name all of the serials Anthony Warde has appeared in, that’s something a none fan like me wastes their time learning.  But that’s a topic for a different post.)  As my first post of the year I thought I would repost my thoughts on why we as fans watch serials.  I was going to be lazy and just cut and paste my original post from the Squadron’s board, but ha ha, jokes on me, I couldn’t find the thread.  So I’m going to have to do it from scratch again.  Here goes.

I can only speak for myself, but the reason I watch serials is that they fulfill their promise.  You look at any trailers, posters or one sheets and they promise a slam bang, action packed experience and I have found that for the most part serials keep their promise.  Take a look at The Shadow (ignore the farcical comedic tone), before I had ever seen it, back in the nineties, I knew when I first put that VHS tape in the player that every episode was going to feature Jory appearing in the Shadow costume, there would a be a fist fight, a gunfight and a chase.  I also knew the last episode would contain an exciting confrontation between the hero and the main villain and The Shadow did not disappoint me.

The same can not be said for other types of film or TV.  I remember being very excited when The 4400 first started, only to quit watching after the second season when it became apparent that the people making it had no idea where it was going.  Superman Returns is another example.  How many fans were pumped to see that film and ended up being vastly disappointed with the ending.  Instead of a major confrontation with Lex Luther, we saw Superman laying in the hospital for the last twenty minutes of the film.

Serials have never done that.  They may not all be great, and some may even be down right awful to sit through.  But they have always kept their promise.  And that’s why I watch them.

Tags: Musings by admin
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Sorry to disappoint anyone who was thinking I would be highlighting the 1931 Universal serial featuring Kenneth Harlan and Andy Devine. No I’m taking a look at the 1968 TV cliffhanger serial that was part of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Uh oh, Chongo!

Out in the South Pacific, just off a couple of uncharted islands, Prof Irwin Hayden (Frank Aleter), his daughter Leslie (Ronne Troup) and his assistant Lincoln “Link” Simmons (Jan Michael Vincent) are searching for the ancient lost city of Tubania. Hayden’s brother had disappeared years earlier on the same quest and the Professor is hoping that he will find what happened to him as well as find the city.

Link and Leslie are searching the ocean floor when they find a treasure chest. Taking it up to their boat they find it is full of gold and jewels. Link goes back down to see if he can find anything else. While he is down below, a ship full of pirates lead by Captain Chu (Rodrigo Arrendondo) and Mu-Tan (Victor Eberg) come upon the boat and board it.

Finding the treasure chest, Mu-Tan realizes that it is from Tubania and that Hayden must know where it is. He takes Hayden and Leslie captive. Just then Link comes back to the surface, slipping aboard, he engages Mu-Tan in a fight. Mu-Tan cold cocks Link into unconsciousness with a massive hay maker and tosses him overboard.

Hayden and Leslie are taken aboard the pirate ship along with the treasure chest. Once they have pulled far enough way, Mu-Tan loads a shell into a canon and fires it at the Professor’s boat, which explodes in a huge fireball. Link comes to and finds the boat gone. Left with no choice, Link starts to swim for the closest island. Just then a shark swims up and pulls Link under…….

I am very grateful to YouTube, having attempted to watch this serial several times, once in the early 80’s when the show was run in a half hour weekday syndication format and again in the mid 90’s when it was on Cartoon Network late at night (the ten minute long serial episodes were edited into five minute segments). but have been unable to get to the end either time. The lo and behold I found it on YouTube over the Christmas holiday while looking to see if any new serial trailers had been uploaded (I also found the complete run of Curse of Dracula but that’s a review for another month).

The rest of the plot is a pretty decent serial, very reminiscent of the cliffhangers from the forties. Once on the island Link meets and teams up with two castaways Elihu Morgan (Rockne Tarkington) and Chongo (Kim Kahana), who were abandoned on the island by the same pirates that attacked Professor Hayden’s party. They rescue them during a power struggle among the pirates that Mu-Tan wins, and then continue the search for Tabania while trying to avoid not only the pirates, but also several angry tribes who don’t like outsiders, most notably the Skeleton Men and the Ash Men.

Helmed by the great Richard Donner, years before The Omen, Superman and Lethal Weapon; the serial veers back and forth between serious action and slapstick. The serious parts concern dealing with alligators, sharks, an earthquake and those ever present cliffs that the heroes keep almost getting knocked off of. The slapstick involves Chongo’s spastic (and unfunny) antics and the fights involved in between the heroes and the pirates, and the heroes and the natives. They always show up full of menace and then engage in fights from a Three Stooges short, full of eye gouging, head bonking, shin kicking free for alls with the added gag of reversing the film to reshow specific bits, and all punctuated with cartoon style sound effects for maximum comedic effect. At one point everyone even engages in a pie fight. James Horne would have been proud.

Ironically the serial also includes some surprisingly serious scenes. After Leslie is rescued from being sacrificed by the Ash Men (and engaging in a pie fight) on a neighboring island, Morgan asks if the Prof has seen enough of the danger they are in and should return to the safety of the their own island. The Prof looks at Leslie and agrees. Later on when they find the city of Tubania, they come upon the body of the Professor’s brother and there is a very heartbreaking moment of silence from everyone.

The serial is also a bit of a ground breaker due to Tarkington’s character, Morgan. You have to remember that this is 1968 and positive African American role models are few and far between on network TV, and here on a little kids show is a African American hero who is tough, smart, compassionate, funny and proud.

I understand from some of the message boards that Danger Island was shown at SerialFest one year to less a than enthusiastic response. Understandable, it is not a film serial made during the heyday of the 20’s to the 40’s, it was made for TV, and there was more than a little feeling of spoofing the genre throughout. But it is competently made with some excellent cliffhangers, and is probably the best of the Saturday morning live action serials made from the late sixties into late eighties. Not for every serial fan, but it is enjoyable on it’s own terms.

Tags: Reviews by admin
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