Mannix is Coming! (All things Mannix w/spoilers) (3 Viewers)

[jompaul17]

I watched S1 episode last night with Grace Whitney in it. The episode was great as it was all about a package and who wanted to ge their hands on the package!!

Paul,

Welcome back to the thread!!

The episode you are referring to is "Another Final Exit" -- even though I've also seen it described as "The Box." Curiously, I watched this episode only recently, even though I do not visit season 1 all that often. It features as recurring theme we've actually seldom discussed on this thread -- and perhaps have not discussed before it all.

That theme is Joe setting himself up as a target.

A couple of other episodes where he does that are s6's "A Puzzle for One" and, also in s6, "A Matter of Principle" -- but, I'm sure there are others.

And, true to form, either Lew Wickersham or Peggy Fair think Joe is nuts for setting himself up as a target like that.

But oh how it provides one of those times when you take a look at yourself more closely -- are you more the kid who used to know Joe was right, or the adult who thinks Joe was nuts? Or, have you, perhaps, reached a level of adulthood where Joe makes sense again -- making life come around full circle?

You know, Mannix really does make me feel like a kid again -- but not in the way you might think.

Because that, in a nutshell, is exactly why my love for this series is so great. I've been all three people -- the kid who just knew Joe was right, the adult who came to embody a person that identified with those that thought he was nuts, and then someone just a little but more adult -- who came to realize life is about so much more than merely surviving, playing it safe, fitting in and following the rules.

You can see from the looks on his face and the way he behaves that what he does really does make sense -- in a way that transcends the other "adults."

Once again, this is a choice he makes -- not a situation he finds himself in, but a choice to make himself a target.

True heroes do not happen by circumstance -- they represent choices. That is why they are heroes -- they are who they are not because of circumstance, but regardless of circumstance. They find ways to get things done, instead of ways to fit in.

And, this theme of him setting himself up as a target fits right in to that mosaic.

I just don't know of a character that embodied heroic individualism in so many different ways as Joe Mannix -- because no character so focused on those themes ran in episodic television so long!

The scene where Lew Wickersham picks Joe up -- with Joe sitting there on the ground -- that leaves you to believe that there might have been some nice interplay develop between those two, had the series continued in that format. But, Mannix really did become more classic in its season 2-8 format -- reached levels it could not have otherwise.

Thanks for the post!

 

[jompaul17]

Harry,

Yep, this is a great post -- and I can't think of a better example of illustration than the Mannix grid!

So, what's going to happen is that I'm going to find a way to get the 4:3 aspect ratio... then my 3 month old TV will look too small again.

Could anyone have come up with a better example to convince me I'm not seeing Mannix the way it should be seen than the threat of Joe losing his head or getting fat?

Harry,

OK, well I achieved 4:3 last night!

Turns out, my Sony BD player is kind of cute in the way it has a bunch of settings that you might consider to be accessible in the normal way -- but then it has a lot more, only these are logically positioned in a strange way. They appear like inputs to the player, i.e., selecting these settings looks just like selecting either the disk, or the USB drive, or the internet, etc...

I also found my TV remote, and the TV, too, probably needed to be changed (can't remember the defaults now), but that initially had no effect. If memory serves, it had 4:3 going to something like "auto wide" mode. But, once I found the BD settings, all of a sudden, things squared up nicely!

However, I initially did not see either the grille for the "a" nor Joe's full head with the toast! This bothered me, then I remembered that you used season 8's Mannix grid.

Turns out, the grids for seasons 4 and 6 (at least, because those are the ones I tried) show a bit less of those images than season 8 -- when the grid was re-done to gain two new pictures.

So, anyone trying this at home -- be warned that you won't see the grille nor Joe's full head if you are calibrating to anything other than season 8!

But, now all is well -- and, to be honest, it does have an impact. It is subtle, but recognizable.

Having said that, I think my combination of Sony products did OK by the way it did the translation to 16:9 -- but, this is better.

 

[Harry-N]

Good to hear that you're all "squared" away. Yes, I have a Sony Blu-Ray player too, and the settings are all the way over on the left and then it's up and down to find what you're looking for.

I only used the Season 8 grid since that what was currently out and about. I didn't realize that the other seasons' images were framed differently - that's an interesting point.

And here's an offshoot question for anyone who might be in the know: In season one of MANNIX, the classic opening credits sequence has Mannix running across the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim drawbridge. Surrounding those little pictures are a pinkish-looking border that somehow make the film look less "new - or restored", but rather give the impression that it's a faded old print. Yet everything else about the pictures look fine.

This phenomenon diminishes greatly or disappears entirely in other seasons. Could it have something to do with the age of the master prints and/or the fact that the first season was never out in syndication? Just some of the things that rattle through my brain...

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

Good to hear that you're all "squared" away. Yes, I have a Sony Blu-Ray player too, and the settings are all the way over on the left and then it's up and down to find what you're looking for.

I only used the Season 8 grid since that what was currently out and about. I didn't realize that the other seasons' images were framed differently - that's an interesting point.

And here's an offshoot question for anyone who might be in the know: In season one of MANNIX, the classic opening credits sequence has Mannix running across the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim drawbridge. Surrounding those little pictures are a pinkish-looking border that somehow make the film look less "new - or restored", but rather give the impression that it's a faded old print. Yet everything else about the pictures look fine.

This phenomenon diminishes greatly or disappears entirely in other seasons. Could it have something to do with the age of the master prints and/or the fact that the first season was never out in syndication? Just some of the things that rattle through my brain...

Harry

Harry,

I noticed that as well, and wondered about it. Other prints that show signs of age tend towards yellow, even with a kind of burning appearance at the edges, as in "One for the Lady" -- the scene in Lt. Tobias' office. That sort of make sense -- but what would make the pinkish appearance?

Normally, you'd think that the less something was syndicated, the clearer it would be -- as seems to generally be the case for season 8!

But, some seasons of Mannix do seem clearer than others. One wonders if it was because of a different process used for restoration for some seasons compared to others, or because they used different film that aged differently. Certainly I've noticed a difference in clarity and granularity from camera angle to camera angle -- within the same scene! The difference actually shifts back and forth, as the scene is interleaved with the different film!

And, there seemed to be a trend towards filming darker scenes in the later seasons. Perhaps they learned how to film color with less light, and so they were pushing the edges -- but the lack of color made the film type they used less amenable to age?

I've said before, when you love one thing, you find a lot of connections -- to other people and to all sorts of related, interesting topics. Loving this show had led me to be interested in everything from supporting actors, to film, to wondering what went into filming the series, to locations, to aspect ratios on my BD player!

Strange, how life works out that way.

 

[Harry-N]

I know I've heard that series would often change their film stocks from season to season. As supposedly better film formulations were developed, producers would adopt the newer stuff, which results in series having slightly different looks from year to year.

And yes, I've certainly noticed the change to grainier stock within scenes as the lighting dims. That's pretty normal. We've also discussed how MANNIX used a lot of day-for-night exterior shots, which would tend to look better than trying to use high-speed film in really dark locations.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

I know I've heard that series would often change their film stocks from season to season. As supposedly better film formulations were developed, producers would adopt the newer stuff, which results in series having slightly different looks from year to year.

And yes, I've certainly noticed the change to grainier stock within scenes as the lighting dims. That's pretty normal. We've also discussed how MANNIX used a lot of day-for-night exterior shots, which would tend to look better than trying to use high-speed film in really dark locations.

Harry

Harry,

You know, that explains a lot!

I used to think that the quality of the DVDs was different from year to year -- at first, I thought the restoration might have gotten cheaper with time. But, then I wondered if it wasn't, in fact, the film, itself. I have a funny feeling the "newer" stuff did better in a wider variety of lighting situations (i.e., with less light), but wound up with less clarity as a result -- or, perhaps, aged more poorly. Having said that, season 8 seems clearer again. For some reason, season 7 seems the grainiest, overall -- at least to me. You can tell when you freeze frames. And there are quite a few frames in season 7 worth freezing!

Mannix surely did a lot of day for night, especially on location -- but it did a surprising number of scenes at night as well. Granted, most of these were on the Paramout lot -- but, they were still clearly done at night. Heck, a lot of s4's "A Gathering of Ghosts" was done at night on the Western Streets -- so much that I wonder if they didn't have to dramatically change their shooting schedule for it -- same thing for s7's "The Gang's All Here," only that was done on the New York streets.

One location shoot at night that comes to mind is s5's "A Walk in the Shadows." Some nondescript (to me at least) housing plan seemed to be used for the closing scenes.

Also, on a few occasions, the use of different camera angles cause the same scene to have very clear frames interleaved with ones that actually seem out of focus! This is rare -- quite rare -- in Mannix. But, it brings to mind some things I've seen elsewhere. First, apparently Mannix had a very good cameraman. Second, I've read where some other series had a terrible camera man, so that the DVDs reveal all sorts of scenes that are actually out of focus!

 

[Harry-N]

During a shot of two people conversing, of course, they'll usually film one character first and get his reaction shots while there, and then turn things around and film the other character and get his reaction shots. So that's two different camera setups, and two opportunities for out of focus shots, or different film stocks, or different lighting situations - and when edited together would tend to bounce between the two different setups.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

During a shot of two people conversing, of course, they'll usually film one character first and get his reaction shots while there, and then turn things around and film the other character and get his reaction shots. So that's two different camera setups, and two opportunities for out of focus shots, or different film stocks, or different lighting situations - and when edited together would tend to bounce between the two different setups.

Harry

Harry,

Right -- that's one of those things I learned when I wanted to learn more about the show! I used to think that they had two (or more) cameras there, and just had one focused on each actor -- as if they were just filming a staged play. In retrospect, that would make no sense. The lighting and backdrop would be problematic -- in addition to the need to hide people behind the camera.

So, sometimes actors are not even in the same scene when the other actor is supposed to be saying their lines (such as, for example, when Joe and Peggy are having a phone conversation). But, more often than not, two (or more) actors actually do the scene multiple times -- so that the actor that is not on camera is actually setting the other actor up for his/her lines.

There is a term for this -- one I've read before and now I can't remember it -- but some actors consider it a major courtesy when the actor that is not on camera does a good job setting up the one that is on camera -- especially for emotional scenes. Could this be one reason the scenes between Joe and Peggy, for example, are so great?

And so, with this knowledge, all sorts of special scenes in Mannix take on new meaning.

This also explains why things like hand positioning are sometimes off -- the kind of detail that might be paid more attention in movies (and not always there either), but which was sometimes overlooked in the shooting schedule of a series. One scene, in s6's "Light and Shadow" -- the one where Joe and Art converse across Joe's desk -- has stuff on Joe's desktop moving around as they converse!

Strangely, you'd think this knowledge would detract from the appreciation of the show -- that the characters are not exactly conversing in the way you might think. But, it has the opposite effect. The actors were so in character that they were saying those same lines multiple times -- and yet, what comes across seems spontaneous.

You also gain an appreciation for the workload it was to do this series -- add the single camera work to the location shooting, and many set-ups in this series, and you get something very special, indeed.

 

[Harry-N]

I just read in THESE ARE THE VOYAGES, TOS SEASON ONE by Marc Cushman that the short list for playing the Captain in STAR TREK's first pilot included Mike Connors. Others on the list were:

Lloyd Bridges
Peter Graves
Rod Taylor
George Segal
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Warren Stevens
William Shatner
Patrick O'Neal
James Coburn
Jeffrey Hunter

Obviously they went with Jeffrey Hunter and later William Shatner, but can you picture Mike Connors as Captain Kirk?

Harry

 

[Harry-N]

(Before someone else does it.)

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

(Before someone else does it.)

MikeConnorsCaptainKirk.jpg



Harry

Harry,

For the record, no one else was going to do this.

I would have replied to this post sooner, but I was caught in a parallel universe, one where Spock not only had a goatee, but also had a black eye. I wonder who gave it to him?

But, alas, this attempt at photoshop is not quite convincing enough -- not in a 4:3 aspect ratio, anyway. Perhaps in 16:9, where Joe is "fat."

If you are going to try to convince me that is MC sitting there, you are going to have to do something about that spread in the middle....

 

[jompaul17]

I just read in THESE ARE THE VOYAGES, TOS SEASON ONE by Marc Cushman that the short list for playing the Captain in STAR TREK's first pilot included Mike Connors. Others on the list were:

Lloyd Bridges
Peter Graves
Rod Taylor
George Segal
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Warren Stevens
William Shatner
Patrick O'Neal
James Coburn
Jeffrey Hunter

Obviously they went with Jeffrey Hunter and later William Shatner, but can you picture Mike Connors as Captain Kirk?

Harry

Harry,

This really is quite incredible -- and I never knew this before!

Not only that, it gives a person pause. A lot of these guys, I can see why -- what they were going for. But, George Segal? I had to go to the IMDb to be convinced he ever played any roles that were basically dramatic -- without a heavy dose of irony, at the very least. My initial reaction was the same for James Coburn, but that was because of the Flint movies -- I can at least picture him in dramatic roles (The Magnificent Seven comes to mind).

Considering how different Jeffery Hunter's Christopher Pike was from Shatner's Kirk, the series would have been decidedly different with some of these actors. Shatner brought a lot of himself to the role, and my guess is that MC would have as well. So likely would have James Coburn and Rod Taylor. Guys like Peter Graves and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. seem like they would have been more of a Hunter type -- but, admittedly I'm saying that because of the other roles for which they are best known.

And, of course, a lot of Star Trek's success had to do with the way Shatner and Nimoy got along.

Still, I'm sure MC could never have brought as much to the role of whatever captain he might have been named as he did to the role of Joe Mannix -- but that is because few, if any, actors have ever brought so much to a role -- inventing it and having it last over so many years.

I've said before, and it remains true -- I do not know of any single actor who had such a role built around him! It just happened that way, in no small part because of the way the series was saved by Lucille Ball in its second season -- so the series became all about MC's interpretation of this guy, Joe Mannix. And, that interpretation not only amounted to visual storytelling, but it embodied some pretty classic themes -- and the more I research those themes, the more I am amazed at how important they are, and why.

Mike Connors was meant to play Joe Mannix.

 

[jompaul17]

So, this time of year is always -- always -- incredibly nostalgic for me. Nostalgia is the emotional equivalent of the kind of tastes those super-chefs seek, a mixture of extremes like sweet and salty. Except, with nostalgia the mix is pleasure and pain -- the pleasure of the memory, and the pain that is a part of the past.

Nostalgia is not the main reason I enjoy Mannix so much, that has so much more to do with looking back over a long and complex life, is more about perspective, but, nostalgia is an unavoidable part of the mix.

For those raised in the northeast, this time of year marks back to school, a transition to the indoors, the brilliant ending of green leaves on trees, a welcome ending to hot and muggy weather, all of which mark the passage of time -- and the start of a new TV season.

There is something inherently nostalgic about transitions, about the marking of time, thus building a sense of nostalgia right in, even when those events are first lived out. Perhaps for that reason, when they enter a deeper memory, after the passage of many years, they take on an almost stupefying, revelatory quality, as if they were trying to tell us something the first time around, but we were too busy or too overwhelmed to pay enough attention.

I loved the start of a new Fall TV season because it was entirely comforting, somehow easing the burden of a young mind being forced to comprehend the transition between the end of something and the start of something new with characters that led the way, characters that were, themselves, a bit older and in newer settings, but with character that remained the same. To a young mind, and perhaps now an older one yet again, those returning characters somehow affirmed that character was timeless, even if nothing else in life was. And so, despite endings and uncertain beginnings, I came to love the Fall.

Here are some anniversary dates for the opening episodes of Mannix:

season 1 -- September 16, 1967 -- "The Name is Mannix"
season 2 -- September 28, 1968 -- "The Silent Cry"
season 3 -- September 27, 1969 -- "Eagles Sometimes Can't Fly"
season 4 -- September 19, 1970 -- "A Ticket to the Eclipse"
season 5 -- September 15, 1971 -- "Dark So Early, Dark So Long"
season 6 -- September 17. 1972 -- "The Open Web"
season 7 -- September 16, 1973 -- "The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress"
season 8 -- September 22, 1974 -- "Portrait in Blues"

This makes September 15-17 kind of a special time for the series.

 

[Harry-N]

There are some interesting titles in that group - some rather fitting for the time of year.

"The Silent Cry" could be what schoolchildren do when they realize the school-season is opening. (That one's a stretch.)
"Eagles Sometimes Can't Fly" - rather fitting for the start of football season (in Philadelphia, anyway).
"A Ticket To The Eclipse" - I think of "eclipse" and it reminds me of "equinox" (another stretch, to be sure).
"Dark So Early, Dark So Long" - fitting as the days are getting shorter in the fall
"The Open Web" - Web=network. The network's open for the new season.
"Portrait In Blues" - the sad final season-premiere of MANNIX

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

There are some interesting titles in that group - some rather fitting for the time of year.

"The Silent Cry" could be what schoolchildren do when they realize the school-season is opening. (That one's a stretch.)
"Eagles Sometimes Can't Fly" - rather fitting for the start of football season (in Philadelphia, anyway).
"A Ticket To The Eclipse" - I think of "eclipse" and it reminds me of "equinox" (another stretch, to be sure).
"Dark So Early, Dark So Long" - fitting as the days are getting shorter in the fall
"The Open Web" - Web=network. The network's open for the new season.
"Portrait In Blues" - the sad final season-premiere of MANNIX

Harry

Harry,

So, you only left two out -- "The Name is Mannix" and "The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress."

The first one is tough, although you could imagine a young kid correcting a teacher on the first day of school!

The second is much more far-fetched, but could also involve young love involving an impression made on a playground on the first day of school.

Certainly all of these have closer ties to the time of year than, perhaps, titles like "Murder Revisited" or "Only One Death to a Customer."

Actually, I consider my two connections above less far afield than the "Eagles" one -- but, coming from the less football-challenged (and now less baseball-challenged ) side of the state I also completely understand it!

 

[jompaul17]

Happy 46th anniversary of the premiere of Mannix -- September 16, 1967 -- "The Name is Mannix." !

If you care to re-watch the episode (the pilot), you might note that it was filmed in late December of 1966 -- not only is that mentioned by MC, but you can see Christmas decorations in the Palm Springs tramway lodge (one of two Mannix episodes I know of where Christmas decorations are visible in a location).

 

[Harry-N]

That Saturday, September 16th, 1967 that MANNIX premiered, here is what I watched in prime time. I didn't actually remember these, but with the Internet, it's easy to reconstruct.
At 7:30 PM, I would have tuned to CBS. We did that a lot - tune to CBS. It seemed to be our default network. But even on this night there was a defection to NBC. THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW was redoing old HONEYMOONERS sketches. This was the second one that season they were doing these, in color and musical, with Sheila MacRae in the role of Alice Kramden. This night it was "Hair to a Fortune", a remake of "Hair Raising Tale" (5/8/54). Ralph and Norton get suckered into buying the formula for a miracle hair restorer.
Defecting to NBC for a half hour, just because it was becoming a really popular spy spoof, I would have switched to GET SMART. This would have been the first episode of Season 3 of that show, "The Spy Who Met Himself". In a CONTROL-KAOS clash, nobody can tell the good spies from the bad spies.Then it would have been back to CBS for HOGAN'S HEROES at 9 PM. Also the first episode of it's third season, "Crittendon Plan", the sabotage job London wants the team to do sounds suicidal even before they learn Colonel Crittendon (Bernard Fox) apparently came up with the plan.

At 9:30, CBS continued with the fifth season opener of PETTICOAT JUNCTION, "It's Not Easy to Be a Mother". Billie Jo's night-club audition and Betty Jo's cooking unnerve Kate (Bea Benaderet).
And then at 10:00 PM, we'd seen previews all summer of this new MANNIX show, advertised as another product of Bruce Geller of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE fame. The show of course was "The Name Is Mannix". I distinctly remember watching this one. Though I'd apparently seen John Colicos in a January episode of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (appearing with Joseph Campanella, no less!), I hadn't remembered him from that one. I found his manner and appearance in the pilot of MANNIX quite memorable and odd, and I took note of his name in the credits. I'd see him again later that season as Klingon Captain Kor in the STAR TREK episode "Errand Of Mercy", and every time thereafter, I'd remember him as that odd little man in the MANNIX pilot.

We watched all of this stuff in black & white, as that's what we had at the summer cottage we spent our weekends at. The CBS stuff came from WMAR-TV 2 in Baltimore, which at the time was the CBS affiliate. It's since switched to ABC. The NBC affiliate at the time was WBAL-TV 11. Though we were only about 70 miles as the crow flies from Philly, our antenna would only pick up Baltimore stations, and one Lancaster, PA station. Those signals were well conducted up the Susquehanna River, which was where our cottage was located.

And that's where I was, and what I was watching, 46 years ago tonight.

Harry
...strolling down Memory Lane, online...

 

[Jack P]

Was watching S8's "Man In A Trap" today and was surprised to see Stafford Repp, Chief O'Hara from "Batman" because he died two months before the episode was broadcast, and I'd never seen this on him IMDB credits before. This was likely the last work he ever did (I know he was also in a MASH episode that didn't air until after his death as well).

 

[Harry-N]

"Man In A Trap" is the episode I have next up to watch. It's been there, it seems, for like a month. I need to get back to watching MANNIX so I can finish it up and check out some of the ones I've missed, and then go back an re-watch some favorites.

Harry

 

[jompaul17]

That Saturday, September 16th, 1967 that MANNIX premiered, here is what I watched in prime time. I didn't actually remember these, but with the Internet, it's easy to reconstruct.
At 7:30 PM, I would have tuned to CBS. We did that a lot - tune to CBS. It seemed to be our default network. But even on this night there was a defection to NBC. THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW was redoing old HONEYMOONERS sketches. This was the second one that season they were doing these, in color and musical, with Sheila MacRae in the role of Alice Kramden. This night it was "Hair to a Fortune", a remake of "Hair Raising Tale" (5/8/54). Ralph and Norton get suckered into buying the formula for a miracle hair restorer.
Defecting to NBC for a half hour, just because it was becoming a really popular spy spoof, I would have switched to GET SMART. This would have been the first episode of Season 3 of that show, "The Spy Who Met Himself". In a CONTROL-KAOS clash, nobody can tell the good spies from the bad spies.Then it would have been back to CBS for HOGAN'S HEROES at 9 PM. Also the first episode of it's third season, "Crittendon Plan", the sabotage job London wants the team to do sounds suicidal even before they learn Colonel Crittendon (Bernard Fox) apparently came up with the plan.

At 9:30, CBS continued with the fifth season opener of PETTICOAT JUNCTION, "It's Not Easy to Be a Mother". Billie Jo's night-club audition and Betty Jo's cooking unnerve Kate (Bea Benaderet).
And then at 10:00 PM, we'd seen previews all summer of this new MANNIX show, advertised as another product of Bruce Geller of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE fame. The show of course was "The Name Is Mannix". I distinctly remember watching this one. Though I'd apparently seen John Colicos in a January episode of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (appearing with Joseph Campanella, no less!), I hadn't remembered him from that one. I found his manner and appearance in the pilot of MANNIX quite memorable and odd, and I took note of his name in the credits. I'd see him again later that season as Klingon Captain Kor in the STAR TREK episode "Errand Of Mercy", and every time thereafter, I'd remember him as that odd little man in the MANNIX pilot.

We watched all of this stuff in black & white, as that's what we had at the summer cottage we spent our weekends at. The CBS stuff came from WMAR-TV 2 in Baltimore, which at the time was the CBS affiliate. It's since switched to ABC. The NBC affiliate at the time was WBAL-TV 11. Though we were only about 70 miles as the crow flies from Philly, our antenna would only pick up Baltimore stations, and one Lancaster, PA station. Those signals were well conducted up the Susquehanna River, which was where our cottage was located.

And that's where I was, and what I was watching, 46 years ago tonight.

Harry
...strolling down Memory Lane, online...

Harry,

This is a great post, and when I read it, I could not wait to make the reply, then sit down and watch "The Name is Mannix" at 10pm that night.

But, I came home that night to a family health crisis -- a nightmare come true. I've had such things happen before, and over more than four decades. But, perhaps naïvely, I thought those days and nights had come to an end.

I've mentioned before that I've had some pretty extreme family health issues, and for a long, long time, really starting before I was an adult and able to fully deal with them (if anyone ever really could), let along get along in the world. I had thought I was through the worst of it, but, the fates continue to be unkind in a way and certainly for reasons I cannot understand.

So, with that, let me say this. Probably a lot of people think I'm nutty for loving a TV character so much -- thinking I'm reading too much in, or a little off center, or on some sort of weird trip.

But, when life puts you in a really tough spot, one that gives you a set of circumstances that forces you to deal with all sorts of utterly overwhelming things alone, you are already singled out. The only question is, what do you do with that. Often, people exposed to extremes go on to see things differently -- because the definition of different is based upon some norm, and when your experiences are outside the norm, then what you see is entirely appropriate, however different it might be.

A lot of Baby Boomers have had things pretty easy -- that's just a fact. I haven't -- and that is a fact as well. And, the fact that things happened to me so early, and lasted so long, forces me to see a different side of life -- and so I am fascinated by what keeps a person going, what allows them to endure. After years of trying to figure that out, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, but always looking, some of those things surprised me.

Such things in my earliest experience wound up in the volumes of people like Jung and Campbell -- discussing the healing power and societal importance of certain kinds of mythical heroes -- only I didn't know that until so many years later.

But, as with joy, some insight is invariably coupled with pain -- perhaps in direct proportion, who knows?

Anyway, now more than ever, I am grateful to understand how much certain kinds of mythical heroes matter -- how much they can be there for us in the single most powerful thing any of us will ever really have, our minds.