Happy Birthday Fred Flintstone!

Today is Fred Flintstones birthday! Anybody know how old he is?

John Banner

We were talking about " Sergeant Shultz below and thought I'd do up a caricature/cartoon of John Banner...aka Sgt. Shultz.

I think he's an amazing actor, it's not easy to play a dumb Nazi when in real life you've studied law, fought in the U.S. Airforce, and actually are Jewish and had your entire family wiped out in concentration camps. Takes a special man to get past that and do what he did.

Mr. Banner started as an actor in Switzerland (though born in Austria) and has 40 movies to his credit and over 70 TV appearances.

Hogan's Heroes would never be the same without him.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Baja Marimba Band

Ha....this handsome goup of "Bad Boys of South of the Border Music" is The Baja Marimba Band. I loved hearing their rendition of standard cover songs played with a Mexican flavour to them.

They covered everything from "Spanish Eyes", to "Do You Know The Way To San Jose"."The group was started and led by Julius Wechter. I always got a kick out of watching them play with their sombrero's, big cigars dangling from their mouth's, swiggin beer and big droopy fake mustaches with an "I don't give a damn" attitude.

Odd thing was.....most of them are jazz musicians.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Daktari

I'm not too sure if many of you will remember this weekly show....Daktari.

The show ran from 1966 to 1969, what I remember most was that the main cast members (Doctors, Vets) had a white jeep with a zebra design painted onto it, but not much else, I guess I was into the spy movies more back then.

The soundtrack was by the great jazz drummer Shelly Manne, whom I had the great pleasure many years ago to hear play live. Cheers!

Who is smarter?

I loved the sixties humor in the sitcoms, I wonder, out of these three.....which one is smarter? Sgt. Schultz, Gilligan or....Jethro?

Tough question...isn't it!!!!

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Women of "The Rat Pack."

When we think of "The Rat Pack," we only think of the males.....but some of these gals were the female part of The Rat Pack. From top to bottom were Shirley Maclaine, Angie Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall.....left out was Judy Garland.

To read more on the Rat Pack, you have to see the ultimate Rat Pack blog..... "Coolness Is Timeless." It's run by an ultra cool guy himself...Keith! His site can be viewed at http://coolnessistimeless.blogspot.com

Check it out.....it's the best!!!

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Mary Travers

We lost another sixties icon the other day....Mary Travers, of the sixtes folk group, Peter, Paul and Mary.Just a couple of their hits were...
Lemon Tree
If I had a hammer
Puff the magic dragon
500 miles
Where have all the fowers gone
I dig rock and roll music
Blowing in the wind
Leaving on a jet plane


Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Karmann Gia

Not sure if you remeber this car running around in the sixties....The Karmann Gia. I always wanted one, but was too young to drive...then when I was able to drive...there wasn't any around! Germans and the Italians got together to put this car together, it was first modelled after a Chrysler Studebaker.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Check out Jeff's Sixties Site!

Just a quick note here....when you all get a chance...check out on my sidebar Jeff'f Sixties site. You'll be in "Sixties Heaven!" It's great!

John and Yoko

It was 1966 when John Lennon met Yoko Ono at an art gallery.... I'll leave it at that.......

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Run for Your Life

Sorry for the lack of posts on the weekend...this was a great show from 1965 to 1968, Run for Your Life. Starring Ben Gazzara (one of my favorite actors of all time) playing a lawyer "Paul Bryan," he's told by his doctor that he hasn.t long to live, maybe two years at most.

I wonder what would happen if we were told that, what we would do? Each episode has the main character travelling the world in different conflicts and situations...what a great storyline!

The show was created by Roy Huggins who created my favorite show...The Fugitive.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Top Cat

Remember this cartoon? Top Cat...or T.C. It ran from 1961 to 1962, not that long, just enough to get 30 episodes completed. The show is of course a Hanna Barbera creation. Some of the members of his "gang" were Choo Choo, The Brain, Fancy-Fancy, Spook and Benny the Ball, and the "antagonist" was Charlie Dribble...the New York cop. The show reminded me like a bit of The Bowery Boys...only with color!

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

The Beatles

The Beatles.....simply the best!

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Herman's Hermits

Starting out in 1963, Herman's Hermits are still going today. Peter Noone, the frontman still looks great when compared to other sixties band survivors.

Though their songs were more on the squeaky clean side, when compared to The Stones and The Who at that time, we can probably all name as many hits by Herman's Hermits (in the sixties) as we can by The Stones, The Who and so on.

A couple were...There's a Kind of Hush, I'm into Something Good, Henry the Eighth, No Milk Today, Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter, Can't You Hear my Heartbeat, and many more.

I have to say, Peter Noone is very "fan friendly." I did the "retro caricature" for him, (he was to use it on his blog.) and graciously thanked me for it having never met me in person. The picture above of Peter Noone and myself is our first meeting.....because I did the caricature for him via e-mail, without meeting him first, and my name is Kelly (could be a female's name, which is what I think he thought). This is the look on Peter's face when I introduced myself as Kelly....the guy that drew your caricature....the picture is priceless.....

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

It Takes A Thief

Again...my favorite sixties genre....spy shows! My brother had mentioned this show to me on the weekend, but I don't remember it that well, though I wish I could see some episodes now.

To anyone that hasn't seen the show, it starred Robert Wagner as Alexander Mundy, a professional cat burglar that has been imprisioned and has a chance to be released if he spy's for the government.

I'll have to try a find some of the DVD's of the show.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

The Archies

If you lived in the sixties, you must have had at least one or two "Bubblegum" 45's in your record collection. Though The Archies were simply a cartoon band, there first hit "Sugar Sugar," went to number one in the charts in 1969 and sold six million copies. There are no bands that I know of today that can sell even a million copies of one song. The song also knocked The Rolling Stones out of their number one position.I'm sure Mick would never admit to that stat!

They went on to record Bang-shang-a-lang (please don't tell me you had that record in your collection.....) and Jingle Jangle.

Some more totally useless information....but great memories, the band was Archie, Reggie, Jughead Jones (I like that name!) and Betty and Veronica. Now.....don't you feel enlightened after reading this! Have a great weekend!

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Doc Pomus

You may not know the name Doc Pomus.....but you'll definately know of his work! I'll just stick to the sixties songs (he wrote 2000 songs).

That's right....Doc Pomus is one of the greatest songwriters on the planet.

He was stricken as an infant with Polio, and had crutches while a blues singer, until he fell down stairs and was permanently confined to a wheelchair.

Before I go further, some of his sixties songs you might remember were Viva Las Vegas, Little Sister, Suspicion, Can't get used to Losing You, Teenager in Love, This Magic Moment, Sweets for my Sweet, Maries the Name of his Latest Flame, and Save the Last Dance For Me, and a ton of others. (He wrote 25 songs alone just for Elvis....but never met him in person)

Thing is, for the first half of his life, he lived in seedy hotels, only later did he finally start to make big money. He retired for ten years and became a professional gambler (he had trouble with the Mob) and went back to writing.

I could go on forever about this colorful character, but the story I've always thought interesting was when he finally was wealthy, he married an attractive actress.Now that's a surprise....a hugely overweight gambler that was confined to a wheelchair that smoked and drank but was wealthy with a hot woman....I'm sure she loved him for who he was...not the money....(I can't even type this with a straight face). He had taken her to a dance, but because he couldn't dance, he let her dance all night with other men. Thus the lyrics were written for the great song.... "Save the last Dance For Me."

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios

Rowan and Martin

Another great fast paced sixties comedy variety show was Laugh In.

Hosted by comedy duo, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. The show featured a large cast of regulars, as well as a ton of guests.

Some of the regulars were, Flip Wilson (what you see is what you get!)

Lily Tomlin (one ringy-dingy, two ring-dingies)

Henry Gibson

Arte Johnson (the dirty old man and the German soldier....very interesting)

Ruth Buzzi (the object of the dirty old man's affections)

Goldi Hawn (every young man's heart throb)

Chelsea Brown

Jo Anne Worley (life of the party.....not someone you want to take to a library) and

Judy Carne (the one I liked! But later in life sadley turned to Heroin)

The only thing bad I can say about the program was that it replaced The Man From UNCLE on Monday nights.

Sixties Beat! by Kel Studios