Mannix is Coming! (All things Mannix w/spoilers) (5 Viewers)

[jompaul17]

Oh, and I wanted to comment on "Search In The Dark" too. I just loved the little interplay about the coffee early in the episode. Connors, Fisher, and Wood all played that little scene perfectly. It was...hot!

Harry

Harry,

OK, since you brought it up -- that is one of four pieces of dialogue in Mannix that might be considered dated.

It is amazing to realize that, while the producers of Mannix were putting out a show they never thought, and could never have predicted, would be viewed and scrutinized on DVDs, they still seemed to intentionally be making a show with timeless content. It was set in its period, of course (in and of itself, such a difficult thing to pull off -- a character with knight-like qualities set in the present day), but it did not date itself in terms of dialogue and hardly even the properties of the villains. The evils driving the heroic nature of the main character still apply today -- and so do his qualities of character since they are, in fact, timeless in nature.

Curiously, one such piece of dated dialogue happens in the pilot episode, "The Name is Mannix." When Joe is at the Palm Springs airport, a thug comes to take him to his client when Joe wanted to pick up his rental car and get himself there later. The thug pulls a gun on Joe, meaning that he wasn't going to be able to pick up his rental car after all. So when a young female rental car attendant brings the car to Joe (geez, were things different in those days....), Joe replies to her, "He tried harder."

This was from the Avis ads that ran those days, since, as the #2 rental car company (to Hertz), they "tried harder."

Another piece of dated dialogue comes at the end of "Climb a Deadly Mountain." When Joe says to Peggy "I just couldn't find a phone" -- that was a line used by men in those days to try to get themselves off the hook for not calling women who expected them to call. That line still works in that episode -- but it was somewhat stronger since it tied into a common expression which is, of course, no longer used.

Then, there is the dialogue you pointed out. It tied into some commercial that ran then -- I can't remember which one now (most probably a coffee one). But, "It's hot" was something running all over the airwaves when that line was said in that episode.

And, there is a fourth such dated reference, and a second one to a coffee commercial -- I think it might be in season 8. For some reason, I seem to think the reference is much more explicit to a coffee commercial in that one, to the point of almost mentioning Mrs. Folger. My apologies for not remembering which episode. I have a somewhat less complete memory of season 8 -- it is still hard to watch because it was the last season -- and the show did not deserve to be canceled!

Actually, that link I posted a couple of weeks back blamed Fred Silverman for the cancellation -- I had not heard that before. I seem to recall Johnny Carson making a lot of fun of Fred Silverman as well -- probably after he left CBS. Fred Silverman had the power to cancel Mannix -- but he is not remembered fondly.

 

[Harry-N]

"Cry Danger" had some great location shots in San Francisco, a city that's always fun to look at with its striking imagery. I love seeing Joe in the same locations as Jimmy Stewart in VERTIGO, one of my favorite movies.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

"Cry Danger" had some great location shots in San Francisco, a city that's always fun to look at with its striking imagery. I love seeing Joe in the same locations as Jimmy Stewart in VERTIGO, one of my favorite movies.

Harry

Harry,

The show made good use of S.F. during both seasons 7 and 8, hitting all sorts of highpoints including the Golden Gate Bridge, The Cable Car Museum, Alcatraz, and other spots over the two episodes.

In "Cry Danger" notice something that might be easy to overlook. When Joe is by the Golden Gate Bridge, just after getting away from the thugs, he runs up, for lack of a better description, a giant rock. While MC tended to do less of his own stunts over the years (probably in no small part because they didn't want him to be out of commission for some accident, since there was no show without him), a few fun ones were included every year. One of them is here, where he runs up this giant rock in what appears to be one long take. Now, there is a lot of stunt-man action leading up to this, but then you can tell MC is put back in the shot just before this happens. And, since the camera pans pretty far away from him, it was important that it was done in one take -- and MC must have wanted to do it.

It was weird to see Joe in another recognizable city, other than LA. In season 8 he is supposed to go to cities like Albuquerque, but, there aren't a whole lot of distinctive features there (to this day), and so it was tough to tell if the show actually even went there. But, they took the show to S.F., twice, making it the second most visited city for Joe.

And, so there is Joe, who is quintessential late 60's - early 70's So Cal, looking cool in S.F., but also, well, not like he is quite home. Something is different. The feel is different.

The scenes with the other P.I. are all sorts of fun and they exemplify this difference. This other P.I. is supposed to be something of Joe's S..F. counterpart. For example, instead of having his office in an upscale shopping complex like the Paseo Verde, the S.F. P.I. has his office in Ghiradelli Square -- surely the S.F. counterpart of the Paseo Verde (had it existed in West L.A.). The S.F. P.I. has friends, like Joe does, that help him solve the case -- another similarity. But, notice how the S.F. P.I. wears a three piece suit, not a tweed or print jacket. And, his office, while tastefully decorated with art, like Joe's, is somehow plainer -- even the art seems more traditional. Something seems more uptight, more proper. There are lots of brick and mortar landmarks in S.F. So, while Joe has a good time running around the streets of S.F., on foot a lot of the time, S.F. winds up feeling more constrained, somehow. By contrast, L.A. winds up feeling dynamic, as if anything could happen, a big playground. S.F. winds up feeling more proper.

I remember watching those episodes, first run, and enjoying them -- but also wanting to see Joe back home -- and soon.

This leads to another curious thing about Mannix. Our hero is established as the kind of knight in shining armor of L.A. Some people know of him in L.A. -- know of him by name. He has achieved some note for doing good deeds in L.A. -- we know this because it winds up revealed (subtly, as all things in Mannix) in various episodes over the years.

But, he is not known in S.F. He is also not known in the immediate environs of L.A. Now, L.A. is a big city, and so being its hero is a pretty big deal -- most of us would take that and consider it a pretty successful life. But, the show was careful to maintain a certain kind of anonymity for the hero as well. His deeds are locally significant, and certainly to the people he helps. His deeds achieve some note, and this makes sense. But, he is not a hero on a world stage.

Think of how easy it is to construct a hero who saves the world -- like a cartoon character. Now, think of how difficult it is to portray a hero who walks the line between deeds that are great enough to receive some note, but not the slapstick version of heroic deeds that populate our movies and TV today.

Mannix pulled off an everyman sort of hero, one whose deeds mattered enough to bring him some note, have people who did not know him know of him by name because of those deeds, since he, after all, lived and worked in a big city. But, that fame remained local -- and, through all of this, he stayed the same, not running off to help the government "save the world" but working at the level where not only do most of us live our lives, but, arguably, the level that matters the most, when it comes right down to it -- certainly the level that used to matter more.

It's almost a heroic blueprint -- some people should know of you, know your name and think well of you without having met you, but that kind of fame is not the driving force, just a kind of spiritual by-product of leading a good life.

 

[Harry-N]

I started watching "Race Against Time" but didn't get too far before the sleepies set in. From what I can tell, this surely must have been a leftover script from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE that didn't get filmed when that series finished. I almost expected the guy who gave MANNIX his mission to self-destruct!

I dozed off as the "team" was being assembled and will have to get back to it later. Even the cast in these two episodes are former MISSION guest stars.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

I started watching "Race Against Time" but didn't get too far before the sleepies set in. From what I can tell, this surely must have been a leftover script from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE that didn't get filmed when that series finished. I almost expected the guy who gave MANNIX his mission to self-destruct!

I dozed off as the "team" was being assembled and will have to get back to it later. Even the cast in these two episodes are former MISSION guest stars.

Harry

Harry,

I think you are absolutely right.

"Race Against Time" and the two-parter from s8, "Bird of Prey" are at the bottom of my list of Mannix episodes. I haven't even watched them yet on the DVD releases.

Having said that, I do think they were at least trying to do something with "Bird of Prey," however much I disagree with it, which is move Joe Mannix into more global kinds of situations, to the point that I wonder if they might have done more of that, had there been a season 9. And, while I always lament that there was no season 9, I would not have wanted to see that. But, it all depends -- was that the way the series was headed, or was that a lark?

Regardless, "Race Against Time" comes across as every bit the leftover Mission: Impossible script.

But, it should come as no surprise that I found some redeeming, Mannix-specific qualities, even in an episode like "Race Against Time."

The first was alluded to in my previous post. While Joe Mannix was "recruited" by the government, he was entirely reluctant to do the mission, preferring to think of himself as a Private Investigator. So, while he was capable of doing this cloak and dagger stuff -- credible enough since Intertect agents were, presumably, trained for that sort of thing (however much Joe did not like organizations) -- he chose not to, except for this one instance.

That is not the kind of choice you would see in heroes of today. These days, it would almost be considered un-Patriotic if the hero did not go off and provide his services to the government!

But, we had a different mindset then. We were more defined by people who fought WWII, and the evils of hierarchical organization that went with that. They fought in order to become the common man.

And, really, what use are mythical heroes if they first require you to gain acceptance by an organization -- of any kind?

Second, because of the bizarre structure of the episode -- with Joe serving in a kind of Jim Phelps role, but without the IMF team, Joe winds up being all alone in this mission! He is somewhat antagonistic with the doctor, and hardly knows the team he is working with, to the point he can't pinpoint the traitor.

So, once again, even in this mission-oriented episode, you have Joe as individual -- all alone and without a team, or even any one person he can really trust.

And his desire is to go back to what he was before -- a PI.

 

[Harry-N]

Well-stated Joann.

This morning I watched "The Dark Hours" (7.16) and it was the biggest MANNIX episode I've ever seen. "Biggest" because I watched it on our new 60" TV. Our previous set was a 55", so this was noticeably bigger.

Right away our hero is removed from action by being conked on the head, shot and dumped for dead. Then, after his miraculous recovery (I keep thinking of THE PRINCESS BRIDE and the line, "He was only *mostly* dead!"), we're treated to the backstory in Joe's memories while Malcolm tries to figure out what's going on.

Joe gets another house guest who disappears. (His accommodations must not be all that special!)

A decent episode, except for the fact that they had Joe trying to speak through the oxygen mask in the hospital scenes. I suppose it was more authentic, but it was annoying to the viewer.

Harry

 

[Harry-N]

"A Night Full Of Darkness" was kind of a neat episode in that it kind of tied the MANNIX universe together with Robert Reed, Ward Wood and Jack Ging all appearing in the same episode. Going in, I actually thought there might be more of Robert Reed than there was, but it was nice that he got into the wedding reception scene at the Paseo.

Harry

 

[Harry-N]

"Walk A Double Line" (7.18) was a classic whodunit where the audience is as much in the dark as the participants in the drama. An odd episode of MANNIX for me, this one featured a bunch of players that I wasn't very familiar with. Val Avery was about the only one whose face I recognized, but I hadn't remembered his name. Everyone else was pretty much a new face.

Harry

 

[Harry-N]

"The Girl From Nowhere" (7.19) is an entertaining hour with lots of plot twists and turns as Mannix tries to find out who might know something about a young girl killed in a bleacher accident. I enjoyed seeing Rosemary Forsyth again - she'd been in the fifth season opener as promoted on this eBay ad:

Apparently on that night in the fall of 1971, she guest-starred on both COLUMBO on NBC and MANNIX on CBS.

Here, she gets to be both client and suspect as Mannix unravels the case. And she gets the rare chance to be someone who appears in Mannix's apartment, rather than disappear!

I see that Ms. Forsyth is scheduled for one more MANNIX guest shot in Season 8.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

Well-stated Joann.

This morning I watched "The Dark Hours" (7.16) and it was the biggest MANNIX episode I've ever seen. "Biggest" because I watched it on our new 60" TV. Our previous set was a 55", so this was noticeably bigger.

Right away our hero is removed from action by being conked on the head, shot and dumped for dead. Then, after his miraculous recovery (I keep thinking of THE PRINCESS BRIDE and the line, "He was only *mostly* dead!"), we're treated to the backstory in Joe's memories while Malcolm tries to figure out what's going on.

Joe gets another house guest who disappears. (His accommodations must not be all that special!)

A decent episode, except for the fact that they had Joe trying to speak through the oxygen mask in the hospital scenes. I suppose it was more authentic, but it was annoying to the viewer.

Harry

Harry,

60"? Geez, awhile ago I broke down and finally bought a 40" TV and a newer BD player. The combination of those two resulted in my seeing all sorts of things on those DVDs that I never saw before, to the point that I now need to watch the entire series just to see things I missed before. Virtually every episode I have re-watched so far has resulted in my seeing more detail in the acting that made me fall in love with the series all over again. I just love the way MC and GF embodied those characters, to the point of minute facial expressions, including when scenes were abruptly cut away and when they were in the background, to body movements such as hand gestures that conveyed meaning. Mannix is a very visual series because it is about a way of being more than results -- it is about life as lived according to a certain heroic motif more than it is about outcomes. For that reason, seeing the way those characters respond to situations means so much more than plot. It makes me wonder what it was like to watch it on, what was it, perhaps a 9" TV most of the time during its first run (albeit in color). I loved the series anyway -- it seems to scale to small and large sizes, and continue to hold surprises -- amazing.

As for "The Dark Hours" -- well, my impression is a bit different.

After years of seeing Joe in all kinds of personal peril, near death, struggling, shot, drugged, and abandoned, viewers who allowed those characters to crawl inside their heads, and who enjoyed the active imagination, had to wonder what it might look like if Joe Mannix actually wound up dead. In the 7th year of the series, loyal viewers got to see what that might look like, at least from Art Malcolm's perspective. It stops just short -- but just short -- of seeing Peggy's. But, we sort of saw that in "Climb a Deadly Mountain" and also a bit in "The Gang's All Here." And, true to form in year after year, the producers had a common theme they seemed to explore, so that we saw that same theme from different vantage points in different episodes. In season 7, Joe Mannix gets closer to death, and, in "The Dark Hours" just touches upon it.

But, notice how they waited until the 7th year of the series to do that. If they had done it earlier, it would not have meant nearly as much to loyal fans.

True to Mannix form, something that seems super-heroic, is done in tasteful, artful form -- and this is one episode that I believe could not be pulled off in any other series. Face it, this theme of "rising from the dead" -- it is a pretty big one. But, it is not strictly religious, by any means. Myth is filled with this theme, in all sorts of forms, such as the phoenix, rising from the ashes. There is a good reason for this theme being so fundamental. Throughout our lives, we experience all sorts of mini-deaths. The best people among us have the courage to change in some pretty fundamental ways, to see things we never saw before, and become different people, dying to the one we were before. The courage to face this is behind every powerful hero motif, it is the most fundamental expression of true courage.

So, this powerful scene, Joe Mannix's near death, takes up only a few minutes of the opening of the episode. It is over so quickly. Then, we have the powerful scene with Art and Peggy by the hospital bed (note on that big screen how Peggy takes Joe's hand -- sweet!) and we see the wonderful, tortured look on Peggy's face.

Nothing takes very long here -- it is not dragged out. That makes it all the more powerful.

What in the world could be bigger than this in this episode??? What is left to come???

For the rest of the episode, we have MC acting in the way few actors can, virtually without words, with only his eyes to establish his level of anguish and confusion.

And, then he takes the heroic motif, leaving himself vulnerable to death, to be found only by accident, followed by the struggle to survive, to the next level. Even while he is struggling to survive, he places himself, his own life, second to trying to figure out what put him there, and then second again to trying to help someone else, doing so even while he is barely alive.

He places his life second to helping someone else, even when he has very little to hang onto. And, he does so in more than just a moment of self-sacrifice, but over at least a full day, maybe more.

This episode, for me, is so powerful that I do not watch it very often -- I save it for when I really need it. I do the same thing with a collection of other episodes as well, but this one is way, way up there.

The powerful themes in this kind of episode -- they simply cannot be done in a host of other so-called heroic motifs -- and the list is so long, I won't make it. Just insert your favorite hero (include the motif as well as the actor) in this blank line _____________.

Now, in order to be fair, I will say that I am not real fond of the ending of this episode. Season 7 had this peculiar dual theme of having Joe Mannix take on the most classic heroic themes out there, rising from the dead in not only this episode, but also, for all intents and purposes, "Climb a Deadly Mountain" -- but, the season also had Joe and Peggy growing apart, certainly far more apart than we ever would have expected if we followed them through seasons 3-5, for example (mostly season 3 and the first part of season 4, but then again in "Death is the Fifth Gear" in season 5). That line about Joe's closet -- to this day, I wondered why they did that. And, to this day, at the end of this brilliant episode, I cringe, every time!

And, I wonder why too, because, throughout most of the series, they did not paint Joe to be a ladies man. The person he was closest to, all along, was Peggy. Perhaps they did it for balance, since the episode might otherwise seem too over the top?

But, the series had a tendency to evolve, to consider themes, year by year. And, my guess is that there was something out there that prohibited them from making Joe and Peggy closer -- they made specific references to them dating other people, which seemed to almost get in the way, at times. Too bad too. But, given where other series went with that sort of thing, where too much attention paid to it tended to ruin the characters, I will take it!

In fact, whatever flaws are in this series, I am more than happy to accept them.

Because, even as one might imagine Joe's death, and how that would be handled by the actors involved, or the near-death scenes of "The Dark Hours" the series never failed to surpass my imagination in hitting the sweet spot -- no over-dramatization, but real depth and feeling from people who, in their own right, were strong and decent people. They did not go to pieces. But you felt how they felt the potential loss of Joe as the loss of someone that represented more than just a friend -- he represented the loss of someone who figured out how to lead a heroic life.

So very sweet.

By the way, season 8 went in a different direction -- one more about adventure than the classic themes of season 7. Joe travels around more in season 8. For that reason, I like it less -- but, true to form, mixed in there are some tremendous scenes that capture the essence of the character in just a few moments, like a kind of mastery, a punctuation point, and sweet reward for those who followed the character all those years. I not only would not miss those scenes for anything, in some ways, they result in some of the best scenes of the series.

 

[jompaul17]

"A Night Full Of Darkness" was kind of a neat episode in that it kind of tied the MANNIX universe together with Robert Reed, Ward Wood and Jack Ging all appearing in the same episode. Going in, I actually thought there might be more of Robert Reed than there was, but it was nice that he got into the wedding reception scene at the Paseo.

Harry

Harry,

Yep, to this day I wonder why Robert Reed appeared in only that cameo role.

It creates a problem, because, after he cares enough to show up to Art's wedding, he fails to help -- just disappears without explanation or reference -- when Art is on the hook for his life!

I guess we can assume that he was sent out of town or something -- he did need to leave the wedding. But, the set-up led the viewer to expect he was coming back and the fact that he never did was somehow disappointing.

The other disappointing thing, up-front, is the way we see Joe and Peggy dating other people, with that scene up-front.

Having said all of that, and true to form, we get to see certain scenes under cover of other things. This sort of cover was a clever technique that Goff and Roberts did so well in episodes like s4's "The World Between," discussed previously on this thread. We get to see Joe and Peggy be closer in small moments precisely because there are other people out there that they are dating, or else in the 68-75 timeframe, we would not get to see it at all.

The same thing is true of the opening of "A Night Full of Darkness." We see Peggy touching Joe, and wanting happiness for him -- but that kind of wish can only happen because they are under cover of dating other people.

Now, this episode was the next one aired after "The Dark Hours." And, the way "The Dark Hours" was left, I distinctly remember, first-run, wondering if they were going to give Joe any lingering affects after being so severely wounded like that. But, true to Mannix form, our hero is all healed the next time we see him, ready for his next adventure. His adventures only make him stronger, not weaker -- in true psychological, symbolic embodiment that what does not kill us makes us stronger.

Still, I was surprised to see the next episode open with that wedding scene.

"A Night Full of Darkness" is also the very next episode produced after "The Dark Hours."

I'm not sure if it is because of production schedule making for the best time of year to produce certain kinds of episodes or what, but I've noticed that the most powerful episodes of the series tended to be filmed (but not always aired) back to back.

For example, "The Sound of Darkness" was filmed right before "A Medal for a Hero." And, "A World Between" was filmed right before "The Mouse That Died." Those episodes were produced back-to-back, but not aired back to back. But, in this case, "The Dark Hours" and "A Night Full of Darkness" were produced back to back and also aired that way.

The other thing those episode couplings have in common is that they each contain one episode in which Joe is in great physical peril of some kind, and then he gets the chance to return the favor of his primary helper in the other episode, be it Art or Peggy (even if this is done in a backwards way in season 4's pairing). I do not think that was done by accident.

In "A Night Full of Darkness" we get to see Joe help Art for the second time in the series. He was introduced in s2's "End Game" as the almost unseen object of the nutty Korean War buddy, as police Sgt. Malcolm before he was brought back in season 3 as a police Lt and eventually fleshed out to be more of a buddy to Joe. But, he was barely there in "End Game."

This time we get to see more of a relationship with Joe, one we've seen all along, and we get to see Joe struggle with the truth as a result.

Notice how Joe does struggle with this, because he witnesses some pretty inexplicable behavior on Art's part -- and unlike "friends before everything else" behavior of today's heroes, Joe realizes he has both an obligation to his friend and the truth. He believes his friend, he does not want to doubt him. But, people are capable of pretty much anything, we all have our dark sides and breaking points, and he also has an obligation to the truth. We can see it right on Joe's face, right in the conflict on his face.

The ending, the lines as well as the sweet way they are delivered, conveys that Joe never doubted his friend. But, he also never doubted the other friend, who did turn bad. The conflict was well justified.

That is so sweet, so poignant.

If Art turned bad, and it was the other way around, Joe would be forced to do the same thing. And, to Ward Wood's credit, he conveys recognition of that so well. It's all right there on the faces.

This is not your simple "buddy before all else, friends before all else" relationship so many series have, with heroes that seem caught in perpetual youth.

Joe would give his life to help a friend and wanted Art to be innocent. But, in the end, he was also responsible to the truth. You could see that, all throughout the episode, which ended on a note of sweet sadness.

Back to back, these are two of the best-done, most touching episodes of the series. They are set-up by the relationships in the years that came before, and executed by the mastery of all of the years of the people behind the scenes, establishing these characters.

 

[jompaul17]

"Walk A Double Line" (7.18) was a classic whodunit where the audience is as much in the dark as the participants in the drama. An odd episode of MANNIX for me, this one featured a bunch of players that I wasn't very familiar with. Val Avery was about the only one whose face I recognized, but I hadn't remembered his name. Everyone else was pretty much a new face.

Harry

Harry,

So, "Walk a Double Line" was produced a whopping 10 episodes before "A Night Full of Darkness." Mannix had this curious way of holding certain episodes for airing much later -- each season seemed to do this, placing some episode that was in the can for a long time squarely in the middle of end of the season.

Normally, I think of these as weaker episodes. Perhaps a better way of saying it is that they are more ordinary kinds of episodes that seem to be strategically placed around some of the stronger ones, which were probably aired as programming that ran counter to some program on some other network.

Recently, I came across an old article (via eBay) where I read how MC was disappointed in how viewership of Mannix went down in s6, compared to blockbuster ratings in s5. Of course, they moved it from Wednesday night at 10pm to Sunday night's -- an absurd timeslot for an adult detective series. But, he specifically said that he was perhaps naïve for thinking that viewers would stay loyal to Mannix when ABC was running movies like Patton and Love Story -- and, remember, this was the only way to see theatrical movies after their first-run -- there were no practical home recording or playback devices in those days.

So, who knows what was running against this episode that night.

I do know what I was watching that night -- an investment that paid off all these years later.

Anyway, it is a fun episode. The part where Joe sort of winds up using the secretary to discover the truth -- that's subtle, but important, because they do not make a big deal out of it.

There is also a lot of nice, light touch humor in this episode -- something the show did so well, and yet something it tends to not be well known for.

And, so far as Mannix jackets go -- that reddish one is one of the best of the series. It's way up there with the solid brown one with the flaps on the pockets that was used heavily in seasons 4 and 5. This red one comes back in season 8, and in one of my favorite episodes, at that.

 

[jompaul17]

"The Girl From Nowhere" (7.19) is an entertaining hour with lots of plot twists and turns as Mannix tries to find out who might know something about a young girl killed in a bleacher accident. I enjoyed seeing Rosemary Forsyth again - she'd been in the fifth season opener as promoted on this eBay ad:

Apparently on that night in the fall of 1971, she guest-starred on both COLUMBO on NBC and MANNIX on CBS.

Here, she gets to be both client and suspect as Mannix unravels the case. And she gets the rare chance to be someone who appears in Mannix's apartment, rather than disappear!

I see that Ms. Forsyth is scheduled for one more MANNIX guest shot in Season 8.

Harry

Harry,

I love this ad!

I saved it -- where did you get it?

Prior to this, I had not realized Colombo made its debut on a Wednesday night -- I always though of it as only a part of that NBC Mystery Movie that ran on Sunday nights.

Of course, one definition of hell, for me, would be a night in 72-75, sitting in front of TV set that had its tuner stuck on the station where Colombo ran, unable to tune into Mannix while it was running on another channel.

Mercifully for me, that never happened.

 

[jompaul17]

"The Girl From Nowhere" (7.19) is an entertaining hour with lots of plot twists and turns as Mannix tries to find out who might know something about a young girl killed in a bleacher accident. I enjoyed seeing Rosemary Forsyth again - she'd been in the fifth season opener as promoted on this eBay ad:

Harry

Harry,

I just noticed how you said the ad came from eBay -- my bad. Thanks for putting it here!

Also, I must have missed it -- since I never did see it on eBay.

I forgot to mention a couple of things about "The Girl from Nowhere." First, it has a line that I've seen quoted elsewhere on the web. It happens when Joe comes back after being beaten up -- and fans were grateful to see that Joe could still endure those beatings so soon after "The Dark Hours."

Peggy asks him how he is, and he says "I feel like a million -- half a million bumps and half a million bruises."

Also, notice how the series quotes the bible, under cover of the funeral ceremony -- and a great quote, at that. Mannix is not a religious series. But this was back in the day before people got all upset when series and heroes either included religious references, or responded to them in a certain way. So many people would come out of the woodwork now and say the hero's response was too much or too little, or just plain wrong -- indicative of something one way or the other -- so that such references would be completely left out.

Mannix was a series with the guts to include all sorts of nude art in the background, and quote the bible.

In today's world, those two things would not even go together.

 

[jompaul17]

I happened to be watching MLB network the other day, and a tire commercial came on -- for some kind of Goodyear tire. It shows how the tire is good in all sorts of conditions -- so shots of it are quickly interleaved in different scenes.Several of those scenes take place in different angles of the "Mannix bridge" used in the opening of Mannix all those years.One time the car is shown driving on the grating, another time it is shown driving on this rusty, older bridge (the most recognizable shot) and yet another is a side angle of the same bridge.It was... weird to see that!

 

[Harry-N]

The "Mannix bridge" being lowered back into place after traffic comes through underneath. According to YouTube posters, the bridge is to be replaced.



Harry

 

[jompaul17]

The "Mannix bridge" being lowered back into place after traffic comes through underneath. According to YouTube posters, the bridge is to be replaced. Harry

Harry,I love it!I've seen reports that the bridge will be replaced -- and that's really too bad. I seem to recall reading once that it was to be replaced in 2011. A bad economy is good for some things after all. As of October 2011 it looked much the same as it did in the Mannix opening, except that they seem to have stopped painting it. Still, it looked better to me then than it did in those Goodyear ADs. Or, perhaps I was seeing it through some other lens -- sweet power of a great heroic myth, it takes the rust and age away, even as it should!

 

[jompaul17]

Harry,I love it!I've seen reports that the bridge will be replaced -- and that's really too bad. I seem to recall reading once that it was to be replaced in 2011. A bad economy is good for some things after all. As of October 2011 it looked much the same as it did in the Mannix opening, except that they seem to have stopped painting it. Still, it looked better to me then than it did in those Goodyear ADs. Or, perhaps I was seeing it through some other lens -- sweet power of a great heroic myth, it takes the rust and age away, even as it should!

Oh, and look on that same page -- there is a lot of discussion about the bridge, technical details and such, and then one poster put this one line there:

poodleslayer 1 year agoWhere's Mannix?

I love it!!!!

 

[Harry-N]

I was hoping you'd notice that!

 

[jompaul17]

I was hoping you'd notice that!

Harry,In the voiceover on the season 1 DVD, MC talks about how the grating on that bridge made it very easy to slip -- something you can't see in the Mannix opening, but is really easy to see in that Goodyear commercial, where they show the tires.Also, when I answered the posts last week, I could not use any of the editor features -- none of them -- couldn't, for example, insert a smiley face or italicize the series name. I figured that would be fixed in a day or so -- but I still can't! In fact, plain text with html mark-up comes up in the reply box.Am I missing something, or is this now broken for everyone?