#herb vigran

[oldshowbiz]

what actors used to look like

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Herb Vigran-June Havoc-Ricardo Montalban "Three for Jamie Dawn" 1956, de Thomas Carr.

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

Christmas Episode

Dragnet - The Big Little Jesus - NBC - December 24, 1953 - Season 3, Episode 17

Crime Drama

Running Time: 30 Minutes

Written By Jack Webb

Produced By Michael Meshekoff

Directed By Jack Webb

Stars:

Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday

Ben Alexander as Officer Frank Smith

Harry Bartell as Father Rojas

Joe Carioca Jr - as Paco Mendoza

James Griffith as Claude Stroup

Ralph Moody as Mr. Flavin

Herb Vigran as Desk Clerk

Walter Sande as Captain Barnard

Billy Chapin as Joseph Hefferman

George Fenneman as Announcer

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A Cry in the Night (1956) Frank Tuttle

March 3rd 2024

[loveboatinsanity]

[papermoonloveslucy]

COMPUTER COMEDY

Computers and Robotics in Lucycoms

Although, Lucille Ball never lived to see the miracle of the internet, she was around to see the birth of the computer age. From 1956 to 1986 computers and robotics provided a source of comedy in the Lucyverse!

“Lucy and Bob Hope” (1956) ~ When Lucy disguises herself as a hot dog vendor at Yankee Stadium to talk to Bob Hope, she presses him into service making change for hungry spectators. 

HOPE: “All of a sudden I feel like UNIVAC!” 

UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) was an early computer made by Remington Rand that, at the time, was used mainly for weather forecasting, but later would correctly predict that outcome of the 1956 Presidential election.

UNIVAC was mentioned again in “Chris Goes Steady” (1964). Viv says that UNIVAC “couldn’t have come up with a better match” than Chris and her new boyfriend, Ted.

“Lucy the Super Woman” (1966) ~ Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon) installs a computer at the Westland Bank. When it falls on Mr. Mooney’s foot, Lucy has a sudden rush of adrenaline to lift it up. From then on, she has super-strength and wreaks havoc with her new-found power.

To decide where to put the computer in the office, Mr. Vigran (Herb Vigran) feeds it a punch card. Punch cards were widely used through much of the 20th century in the data processing industry. The IBM 12-row / 80-column punched card format came to dominate the industry. Many early digital computers used punched cards as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data. While punched cards are now obsolete as a storage medium, as of 2012, some voting machines still used punch cards to record votes.

“Lucy and Bob Crane” (1966) ~ Lucy has a new responsibility at the bank:  running a huge, loud, punch card-driven computer. After the computer sprays shredded paper in Mr. Mooney’s face, Lucy is re-assigned to ‘new accounts’ and must move her things from one desk in the lobby to another.

“Lucy the Matchmaker” (1968) ~ When Lucy wants to find a date for Harry, she visits Select-A-Spouse, a computer dating service that surprisingly matches him with her old friend Vivian.

The comic payoff of most episodes featuring computers was having them short-circuit and run amok!  

Mr. Morton (Dick Patterson) tells Lucy that Select-A-Spouse does not give out names, only numbers. Vivian is #42-26-38 and Lucy’s computer date, Bradley Henshaw, is #74-32-59. Reducing people to numbers was a genuine concern during the initial popularization of computers. 

“Lucy’s Replacement” (1972) ~ Harry gets a computer and fires Lucy, who then gets a job in a typing pool at an insurance company. When she starts to miss Harry, Lucy and Kim sabotage the computer to get her old job back. EXMO-III [Experimental Model #3] was designed by ‘Al Rylander.’ It is established that EXMO is a ‘he’.  EXMO speaks, but his voice is uncredited. 

In addition to its computation skills, EXMO-III also makes coffee!  

Naturally, EXMO malfunctions and squirts coffee and cream in Harry’s face,  thereby fulfilling one of “Here's Lucy's” staple comedy bits: Getting Harry wet! Off screen, Lucy nicknamed Gale Gordon “Old Soggy Crotch”!

Coincidentally, two weeks before this episode aired (but well after its filming in late 1971), the first scientific electronic pocket calculator, the HP-35 was introduced by Hewlett-Packard and priced at $395 (equivalent to more than $2,400 today). Although hand-held electronic machines that could multiply and divide had been made since 1971, the HP-35 could handle higher functions including logarithms and trigonometry.  

“Lucy and the Generation Gap” (1974) ~ At the end of a three-part mini-musical, the Carters are in space sometime in the future, but contending with the same communication problems between parents and kids as they did in the past - but this time with the aid of a space-age computer. 

HARRY: “I’ve got the computer programmed with each of our personality traits and our relationships with one another. All I have to do is push a button and we’ll have the solution to the generation gap!” LUCY, KIM & CRAIG: “Well, push it!”  

As usual, the computer explodes - this time, in space age colored smoke and party snakes!  Welcome to the festive future!

ROBOTS

“Lucy and the Ceramic Cat” (1965) ~ After breaking the original, Lucy must get a replacement of Mr. Mooney’s ceramic cat. The last one is in a window display at Bigelow’s Department Store. Unfortunately, it is part of a display involving a robotic butler played by Larry Dean, a mime who specialized in playing a robot. He also did this on episodes of “Lost in Space” and “Bewitched.”  

“Lucy and the Robot” (1966) ~ Larry Dean returns to play Major Fun-Fun, a robot toy soldier Mr. Mooney buys for his rambunctious nephew Wendell (Jay North). When the Robot falls down a flight of steps and is destroyed, Lucy must take its place.

“Lucy Makes Curtis Byte the Dust” (1986) ~ Lucy's attempt to computerize M&B Hardware results in a a shop full of lawnmowers and with Curtis listed in the obituary column. As a result Lucy returns the computer, but buys a robot named Rupert!  In 1928, British schoolboys built a robot named Rupert which contained mechanical representations of human organs!  

CURTIS: “You know me, always keeping up with the times.”  LUCY: “Yeah, he's almost up to 1956.”

1956 was the same year that UNIVAC was mentioned on “I Love Lucy,” which brings this blog full circle. 

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[oldshowbiz]

Character actor Herb Vigran losing his patience with a chimpanzee

[kwebtv]

Dear Deductible - NBC - November 9, 1966

Season 4 Episode 7 of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater

Comedy

Running Time: 60 minutes

Stars:

Peter Falk as Mike Galway

Norman Fell as Eddie Carr

Janet Leigh as Virginia Ballard

Christopher Cary as Cornell De Haven

Bara Byrnes as Beverly Beaumont

Marianne Kanter as Bryce Coberly

Charles Lane as Charles Eckhardt

Herb Vigran as George Burke