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Dan Goes to the Movies

Dan discovers Jackie Coogan

While I was in the Air Force and working for Armed Forces Radio & TV (in Madrid — Torrejon de Ardoz, Spain), I had a part-time job working at the base theater. It was the late 1980s and when you came to a theater, you either sat there in the dark waiting for trailers and your movie, or you had some sort of slide show. Since I was a radio (and TV) guy, I decided to create an audio-only show to entertain the theater crowd while they waited for the trailers … so “Reel Tunez” was created.

Reel Tunez was movie trivia and teaser, accompanied by songs related to movies (of which there are plenty!). Now, for a few LPFMs, I’m producing a new hour-long version of Reel Tunez for the radio. Basically the same idea as 25 years ago at the theater in Spain, but in a one-hour radio version. So this “Path” leads to movies and music.

Movie Song Research
When doing a show about movie music, it helps to have a good resource for the research. Here are two links I’ve found useful — Songfacts and Sweet Soundtrack.

Movies & TV Sound Clips
This particular link is a rerun, but I couldn’t ignore it in a blog about movies. The Daily.WAV is the best resource for grabbing sound bites from movies and TV shows. It has a great archive and search, plus with Halloween coming up, and great resource for some excellent station imagers and drops.

More Movie Sounds
Another useful link for sound bites from movies is Movie Sound Clips. Unlike Daily.WAV, this one is focused a little more on more recent stuff.

Filmmaking
A lot of broadcasters are also into film, and the transition from actual “film” to video has occurred. Only the rare movie seems to make it to actual film these days and only people like Quentin Tarantino even care if it’s even projected as film — most theaters are projecting a digital video file, not an old-fashioned film on a reel. For those into some “film home-schooling,” here’s the Homeschool Movie Club. It might be a more appropriate link for young nieces and nephews or even grandkids. There is some great talent behind this free program.

And finally …
As a fan of movies, I was really surprised that I never knew this (maybe I’m the only one). In 1921 Charlie Chaplin produced “The Kid.” Any film fan probably knows this movie with the young child star, Jackie Coogan. But only recently did I know that “The Kid” (that little boy) continued his movie career (or TV career) becoming Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family.” Plus, if you watched “The Brady Bunch,” “Partridge Family” or a lot of other 1950s, 1960s and 1970s TV shows, you also saw him there! Maybe I was the only one who didn’t know this, but wanted to share it.

If you stumble across a good or unusual web site that might be of interest, please don’t hesitate to send me the link and any info you might have about it. My email address is [email protected].

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