Ed Sullivan's Rock n Roll Classics DVD Box Set (Rhino)

Ed Sullivan, the master of US variety and entertainment had his fair share of stellar performers grace his stage over the years, and this comprehensive DVD box set pays testament to 144 tunes that are a treat for fans of the age. In particular, a lot of the groups beloved here at Chik-A-Boom are represented in all their glory.
Sonny & Cher, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Dino, Desi & Billy, The Association, Lou Rawls, The Mamas & The Papas, Johnny Rivers, Tommy James & The Shondells, The Beach Boys, Spanky & Our Gang, Brooklyn Bridge, The 5th Dimension, The Carpenters, Jay & The Techniques, as well as a bunch o' Motown and some funky offerings from Sly Stone and James Brown. On with the shooo!



Available here from the good folk at Rhino.

The MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E

The Sunshine World Of Anna Chambers

Anna Chambers has a great line in retro styled illustrations of the cute n kooked variety that will brighten up any day. Peep her website here.

ThWAAk! It's the Batman "fight sounds" gallery!

Here's a fun gallery page of all the Blam! Thwaak! Zowee! Swish! onomatopeyas that occured whenever Batman and Robin tangled toe toe to with their arch enemies. See how many ridiculous sounds you can spot (!Ox?-eth!! being a favourite of mine). Taken from the wonderous Spanish (?) site Batmania.

Yo Yo A Go Go Icons #1 - RUBE GOLDBERG

I just saw the 2003 made Honda car commercial, aka The Cog, again on the telly & I am still amazed at the genius behind it & so I thought I should mention the man Rube Goldberg. Most people aren't too familiar with his name, but might be with his style of inventions. Everyone knows the game Mousetrap. Okay, it wasn't a Goldberg invention, but instead it was created by Marvin Glass in 1963 for the Ideal Toy Corp, but it adhered to the Goldberg principle. It would have to be the most relatable item that would connect the Honda ad & the game with Mr Goldberg's ideas. Here's a website dedicated to him. And a book as well. This cartoonist with a gift for the absurd died in 1970, but his ideas are still employed at schools by teachers who get science students to understand engineering & complex machinery in an amusing way. Schools in the USA compete nationwide everywhere with these crazy inventions.

"Rube's drawings depict absurdly-connected machines functioning in extremely complex and roundabout ways to produce a simple end result; because of this RUBE GOLDBERG has become associated with any convoluted system of achieving a basic task."

Paul Revere & the Raiders 'Stepping Out'. 1965

You know we love this stuff. Paul Revere & The Raiders perform their hit single "Steppin' Out" on the Hullabaloo television show on November 29, 1965. Michael Landon hosts, while the studio is chockas with go-go dancers.

The series was available on 3 DVD sets & if its of the quality that was displayed in the video above, then it looks like a worthy purchase. Unfortunately you might only find it on eBay, because the original released copies of 6 years ago seem to be only available on Amazon from re-sellers at $100US. Shucks! I wanna see more of the Hullabaloo dancers.

HERSK

Check out some of his retro inspired artwork. They have a definite modern twist, with perhaps the above piece Liquid Swords, being named after GZA's album. More visuals here.

Rock Flowers - The Story

I noticed that my man idiotproof had posted up the Rock Dolls ad from YouTube, so I thought i'd shed a bit of light on their history. This info I've garnished from the the Rock Flowers article by Lisa Sutton from the bubblegum bible "Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth" edited by Kim Cooper & David Smay.

Rock Flower dolls were six inch high fashion dolls introduced by Mattel in 1970. Each colourfully dressed figure came with a seven inch record abd a spindle used to attach the doll to a record player (!), so it would flail about while the turntable spun. Originally there were 3 dolls, Lilac, Heather & Rosemary. They were later joined by Iris and Doug (Doug???). Each doll had their own personalised song on the A-Side, while the beach side of each disc contained the Rock Flower theme song, "Sweet Times".

The songs the "group" performed on the 7" singles were produced by Wes Farrell (the dude behind the Partridge Family) and penned by Toni Wine (formerly of the Archies) and Brill Building honeys, Ellie Greenwhich and Carol Bayer. In fact, the same studio muso's who created the Partridge tracks would lay down the Rock Flowers tunes in down time between sessions for the popular TV show.

The two albums recorded in 1971 and 1972 were recorded by the world famous "Wrecking Crew" (with Hal Blaine and the players that backed the Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra and...well, just about everyone). The albums were "Rock Flowers" and "Naturally". Their sound was reminiscent of a female Jackson Five/5th Dimension soul groove with a bubblegum pop edge. The real life stand ins for the dolls were found for the album covers, but strangely no mention of the actual dolls that spawned the records could be found anywhere on the sleeve! Nor was there mention of Mattel or the names of any of the vocalists singing the songs. there was however, a fanclub adress. Perhaps strangest of all was the lack of inclusion of any of the songs that came with the actual dolls, therefore destroying any idea of cross promotion! Crazy!

Neither the dolls nor the records took off in any major way, and they are now only a hazy memory to anyone who caught the ads on saturday morning TV. Until now, that is....see below for a rare glimpse at The Rock Flowers.

Rock Flowers doll commercial. 1971.

Wow! It even comes with a record... Awesome!
And yes, that is Kasey Kasem's voice.

Excellent late 50s Album Cover gallery.

Some of the artwork/photography displayed on these covers are absolutely beautiful & exquisitely designed. In fact there were too many to just choose just one to feature, so I've added a special bonus cover to the right. Ha! A lot will be familiar to those who delve into this music, but for those who know nothing, have a geek. Sure most of the music is lightweight piano music, but the likes of Baxter, Esquivel, Ferrante & Teicher, Denny are all represented among the 141 covers.

Check 'em out here.

Canadian emcee Josh Martinez used the Jonah James cover for his 'Buck Up Princess' album.

70's signage comes to life

This song and clip is taken from the popular US kids show The Electric Company. It's such a simple, effective idea and essential for fans of retro fonts and signage.

Cardboard records

Crazy as it sounds, they existed & they really did work. Read up on them here.
If you can't get enough & want to be freaked out some more, try this kooky site. You'll spend a couple of hours going through his archives.

Himitsu Sentai Goranger. 1975

Just listen to the theme music from Michiaki Watanabe. Awesome cheeseball Streets of San Francisco style TV funk. Secret Task Force Goranger was Toei Studio's 1st Sentai TV show that aired from 1975-77. Wanna know what they looked like.

This is Skateboard Music compilation.

I remember in the 70s, before the main feature played in the cinema, they'd always show short films. The ones I recall better than others were the Frisbee championship type & the skateboarding ones. So when this compilation came out late last year, on CD & double gatefold vinyl via the German label Diggler, it reminded me of a style of music that has totally dissapeared. It also shows how extreme the soundtrack to skateboarding has changed in the last 30 odd years. Your contemporary skater would piss his pants listening to this stuff. It was a time & it was definitely a place. A very Californian sound circa 1975. Have a listen at Movie Grooves. It even has its own dedicated website.

Sydney band Youth Group recently did an brilliant cover version of the early 80s track Forever Young by Alphaville (it was in Napolean Dynamite). It's an impressive cover version that is leagues ahead of the original. While the Alphaville's version was classic new romantic, Youth Group having given it a dreamy sunshine pop sound. Apparently some popular teen drama on US TV has been using it for awhile now. So why have I provided you with this information? Becasue the videoclip has some excellent archival footage of Aussie skateboarders from the 70s & is worth a viewing. Watch it here.

BB & Sacha Distel (Prod. Serge Gainsbourg) - La Bise Aux Hippies

Oh, yeeeeaaahhh.

Serge gets lairy with Whitney

Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited - Various (Barclay, 2006)

I heard this brand new compilation of reinterpretations/covers of some of Serge G's well known and not so well known tunes for the first time today. As with any of these tribute affairs, the results are patchy at times, but several of the worshipers here do rise to the occasion with very tasteful takes on the great man's melodies.

Among the better tunes are Michael Stipe (!) performing "L'Hotel" with some great sparse instrumentation and an understated vocal delivery, Portishead with a menacing guitar and a solid beat on "Requiem for Anna", Cat Power and Karen Elson giving "J'Tieme" a breathy workout. Marianne Faithful almost steals the show backed by Sly and Robbie on her version of one of Gainsbourg's JA sojourns "Lola R. For Ever", and finally, Gonzales, Feist and Dani give a fresh feel to "Boomerang 2005".

Others on the compilation include Franz Ferdinand & Jane Birkin, Jarvis Cocker & Kid Loco, Faultine, Brian Molko & Françoise Hardy, Tricky, Marc Almond,Placebo, The Rakes, The Kills and Carla Bruni. Unfortunately, several of these tracks lack something in the translation, but overall it's worth a look in, if only for the tracks I mentioned above, which are pretty damn good. Another bonus is hearing Serge's lyrics deleivered in their english translation, which serves to highlight his witty way with words - saucy!


PLUS...Just saw this review on a French site, looks great...Gainsbourg in concert, reggae-style
Re-release of the album Live au Palace 1979

www.scopia.new.fr

I love it when searching the Net for something in particular & then accidently stumbling onto a site that is, well, just like us. Kinda sorta... bits of it anyway. It comes highly recommended by us so go have a peeky boo at Scopia.

Oh, but its all in French so all you non-Francophiles can just look at the record covers.

Kitsch * Futuriste * Groovy
Pop * Psychédélique
Synthétique * Retro * Culte
Avant-gardiste Ringard
Jazzy * Cinématique

Go Go film tribute # 1

AMOR A RITMO DE GO-GO. 1966.
Directed by Miguel M. Delgado.
This well Mexican rock & roll film is regarded as one of the best in the teen genre.
Available on DVD-R from The Video Beat & Los Rockin Devils.
View a preview of the film here. Downloadable 4.6MBs Quicktime movie file.

CORALIE CLEMENT - Bye Bye Beaute

Here's one for fans of 60's folk, the VU, Astrud Gilberto and the Ye Ye French girl sound. This is Coralie's second release and it's quite the sassy item from the land of the long bread stick. Assisted by her multi-talented muso/producer brother, "Bye Bye Beaute" whispers and rocks gently utilising modern production techniques along with warm analogue sounds to bring one of the nicest releases of the past few years. Play it for the shy girl in the front row.

Visit Coralie's official website.
Buy her albums here .

Bon Apetite!

CHIK-A-BOOM'S IN LOVE WITH #5 - Jane Seymour

Car chase from BULLITT. 1969

One of the all-time greatest car chases put on film. Steve McQueen in a Mustang 1968 GT. A great article on the chase here. The video is full screen & about 8 mins long.

The Green Machine. 1976. Marx Toys

Can you believe this? 30 years later & they've remade the classic 70s toy. The one that children were literally green with envy everytime they saw another kid with one. Me included. I can still remember the commercial on TV as clear as day. Sadly my parents reneged on a deal & bought me a block of Das instead. It still looks pretty damn nice. The design started out in 1969 as the Big Wheel & then culminated into the Green Machine after a rival company developed the Hot Cycle.

FROGS. 1972

Fantastic poster artwork. Boring as batshit film. Well, that's what I remember.

The 70s were rife with animals & insects gone mad films. ie: The Swarm, Empire of the Ants, Food of the Gods, Giant Spider Invasion, Piranha, Squirm, Night of the Lepus, Grizzly, etc... If they made 'em, I watched them. Ha! The director George McGowan mostly worked in televison. Which would explain why it was so dull. What were good actors like Sam Elliot & Adam Roarke (I feel an Adam Roarke post coming on soon) doing in this one? One of legendary exotica composer Les Baxter's early forays into synthesised soundtracks. Mostly blips & blurps imitating swampy sounds. Apparently the DVD version looks 100% better than the video & TV prints we've endured. Maybe I oughta take another look. In saying that, the new DVD cover looks pretty shithouse. Have a gander. Original artwork always kicks arse over clean stupid photo montage shit they do.

Les Surfs - The Youngest Ye Ye Family

I have had to translate the translation of this story, hopefully it reads ok (Oof!)...

Les Surfs were four brothers and two sisters, the eldest of the Rabaraona family of twelve children, born in Madagascar.

The group, known initially under the name of Rabaraona Brothers and Sisters, gained First Prize at an amatuer song contest organized by the national station "Tananarive", by interpreting two hits of the well known US vocal group the Platters, "Only You" and "The Great Pretender".

Following this success, the group, now going under the name The Beryls, made several rounds through Madagascar with the popular Malagasy singer Henry Ratsimbazafy and the CCC Guitars. They recorded their first 45 accompanied by De Commarmond from the afore mentionedTananarive

At the request of the French government, the six brothers and sisters were selected to represent Madagascar with the inauguration of a chain of television stations in Paris (Door of Versailles) in September 1963. With their first appearance, they immediately conquered the French public. Record label Festival, with the assistance of the motor mouthed organizer of Radio Madagascar, Jean-Louis Rafidy, who accompanied them during their stay in Paris, landed them their first European contract and became their manager. The group was then baptized Surfings (Les Surf).

Their first album was released in December 1963 during their first round to France with Sheila and Frank Alamo. Their song "My Baby", remained for three months at the top of the charts in France, Spain and in Mexico (Spanish version). In 1964, after their shows at the Olympia in Paris , Surfings were heralded as "the revelation of the year" in France.

During the following years, Surfings made several tours to France, Spain, Italy (including four participations in the International Festival of the Song Italian of San Rémo), Switzerland (three festivals of Montreux), but also in several French-speaking countries and of Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, etc...), Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Algeria, Zaire, etc... Their success caught the world's attention because the group had managed to cause so much interest and passion wherever they went.

They took part in many television appearances and showcases with large artists of world repute like Jacques Brel, Enrico Macias, Alain Barière, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, the Supremes, Betty Grable, Oscar Peterson, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, etc... Not only did Surfings record all their songs in French, Italian, Spanish, English and German, but they also seemed to appeal to ye ye music fans of all ages.

The press, the radio and television covered their career with interest, and Surfings remained, during their existence, among the best selling groups in the world. During their career, they made an appearance in two films: Seek The Idol with Charles Aznavour, Johnny Halliday and Sylvie Vartan, and Last Tiercé with Dario Moreno and Odile Versois. Several heads of State came to attend their premieres.

In 1971, after a lengthy tour to Guadeloupe, Martinique and in Quebec, Surfings separated amicably to take time to reflect on a wonderous career in pop.

The Real Reason For The Bananna Shortage

Jasper Johns

The pop art pal of dancer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage and fellow artist Robert Rauschenburg (who he worked along side as a Tiffiny's window dresser), Jasper Johns was a painter dealing with the process of looking at the absurd of the everyday within his paintings and making use of maps, numbers and flags.

I remember chosing one of his works using flags as a subject matter in a year 10 art class where we were asked to replicate an artwork of our choice. I was drawn to his bold, sometimes rough strokes and great use of colour.

He also used everyday objects in his early sculptute works and that crossed over into his painting and later, his printmaking. Teaming up with the writer Samuel Beckett in the 70's, his works displayed an abstration and overlapping of the written word, based on Beckett's texts.

If you've got some silly money to throw around, why not go here and purchase one of his originals for a cool $40,000US.

CHIK A BOOM'S IN LOVE WITH #04 - Jane Birkin

Let's All Boogaloo!

The Boogaloo or Shing-A-Ling was a 1960's dance craze which caught on with the public thru American Bandstand and gained momentum in the late 1960s. It was considered a Latin dance because of it's Mambo patterns, but was used in the Blues and Rock and Roll as well. The Boogaloo replaced the popular Latin Pachanga dance in popularity.

The dance basically involved simple jerky movements with your feet, hips and body. Anybody could do it! (The Americanised version, that is.)

Early Boogaloo used a twelve-step sequence that was later sped up into a thirty-step sequence. The most common musical feature was a mid-tempo, looping melody that doubled as the anchoring rhythm, often played on piano or by the horn section. The presence of vocals, especially a catchy, anthematic chorus, was another distinguishing feature, especially in comparison to more instrumental dances like the mambo, guajira and guaracha. Ray Baretto, Eddie Palmieri, Joe Bataan, Joe Cuba, Johnny Colon, Ricardo Ray, King Nando, Joey Pastrana, the Lebron Brothers, the Hi-Latins, Pete Terrace and Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers were all heroes of the boogaloo.

You can read more at this great resource, salsacrazy.com

There's Gonna Be A Gumfight!

Flotter Osten - Alte DDR-Werbespots.

Awesome footage of late 50s/early 60s motor travel in Germany. Ripped from a 1990 made/1992 released German VHS tape.
I did find some info, but its on a German P2P site that also looks to have some other interesting vids. Look here. I just can't register to check them out.

Be warned it's 38 mins in length, so best to use a video download program & then watch.

ROMANTICA's La Nuit de Romantica DVD.

Record label associated Readymade Magazine No 2 contained a DVD which featured the strippers Romantica. They've now released it as a separate DVD & as you can see, they favour the 60s imagery quite a bit. Directed and music selected by Konishi Yasuharu.
Readymade International RMDV-001

You can get it from Japan HMV.

More information at International Readymade.

BLACK TIGHT KILLERS. 1966. Japan

aka Ore ni sawaru to abunaize.
Directed by: Yasuharu Hasebe
Starring: Akira Kobayashi, Chieko Matsubara, Akeme Kita, Mieko Nishio, Bokuzen Hidari.
Soundtrack by: Naozumi Yamamoto
DVD release date: Aug 2000
Based on original novel by: Michio Tsuzuki.
87 mins.
Nikkatsu Studios

It was about 6 years ago when someone decided to start releasing all the previously unavailable Japanese films from the 60s/70s onto DVD. This film was in the 1st crop & was also my first purchase. They were films I had read about, but were impossible to view in this country. SBS TV played a few, but nothing quite like what is now currently available. So having previously lived off Sonny Chiba & samurai films, I'm now an ardent Suzuki, Fukasaku & Hasebe fan.

Kobayashi plays a combat photographer who has to rescue his airline stewardess girlfriend (Matsubara) from a wierd team of American mobsters & Japanese Yakuza. Luckily he is helped by some mysterious looking go go girls who appear on the scene, using vinyl 45s & bubblegum as weapons, everytime he is in distress.

post in progress

French version of the 1967 Spiderman cartoon theme.

What a trip!
Though I don't think singing 'L' Araignée, l'araignée, il peut faire celui qu'une l'araignée puisse', sounds as cool as 'Spiderman, spiderman, he can do whatever a Spider can'.


If that wasn't enough for you, don't forget Spider-Man - The '67 Collection (6 Volume Animated Set) (1967). Includes 52 episodes. 1114 mins. Full colour. Watch Spidey swing past the same building 20,000 times & listen to J.Jonah Jameson grumble at the end of each episode.

Fork out the coin for it at Amazon.

YO YO'S IN LOVE WITH #03 - Ann Margret

Hideous Homes of the 7os.

All contained within the 176 pages of James Lileks Interior Desecrations : Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s. Saw this once a few years ago & have regretted not picking it up. Funny thing is, I so wish my parents had bad taste back then, but they were never really hipster groover types who would make such bold mistakes with their furnishings & such.

Its only a click away from Amazon. Published by Crown.

FOXY BROWN title sequence.

Maurice Binder inspired credit sequence from one of Pam Grier's best films. Willie Hutch sings the awesome theme song, while a dancing & shaking Pam assaults your visual cortex amongst an epileptic inducing siezure of swirling candy colours. The 1974 released Foxy Brown is definitely one of the director Jack Hill's finer moments & Miss Grier can still be seen on Showtime's lesbian drama The L Word.

Retro acquisitions for your home.

Furnish your house with loads of funky looking pieces via the Seattle, Washington based store Planetoranj.

CHIK A BOOM'S IN LOVE WITH #02 - Raquel Welch

How Fruity!

Blaze said he thought this site was lookin' appropriately fruity, so I thought I'd take it to the next level and showcase the amazingly realistic illustration work of Ben Garvie and his world of fruit, hotdogs, ice cream and toys. Try to resist licking yer monitor....

COSBY KIDS ILLUSTRATION COMP WINNERS

Check out these competition entries for an illustration competition held over at Sacks 10 where the entrants were asked to draw the gang from Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids! Some real nice work on some of 'em.

The ultimate THUNDERBALL shrine.

Of course Sean Connery was the best Bond. No arguments here. Though I can say that the choice of Daniel Craig has me captivated. For I think he's exactly what the series needs. A Bond with more balls & less smugness. Lets hope it gets as gritty as it was back in the 60s. Alas the look of those days are far gone, so we just have to make do with what exists from that period.

Alan Gilbert's incredible website dedicated to just one of the Bond films is one of the cleanest & well thought out designs on the internet. It's been online for almost 6 years & has amassed an extraordinary amount of material for your perusal. Appropriately he's named it Obsessional and after you have had a scout around, you'll most likely concur. The information is staggering, but what I truly admire is the great lengths he has gone to in scanning images for the site. It truly is mind boggling & very completist. Even if you aren't into the Bond films, it's worth it just for the artwork & design that was associated with that period & specifically the spy genre.

THE FACE OF JESUS IN MY SOUP

OK, I know I'm going a bit nuts with the YouTube madness, but, c'mon - it's too good not to take a look. Besides, why not let the good folk here at Chik A Boom do all the late night trawling, so you don't have to - now get back to work you slacker!

This is so golden - footage taked from library stock footage of bad drivers set to a very funky little number - enjoy!

LOVE - My Little Red Book

Arthur Lee and his band of misfits tear up the Bacharach/David tune originally penned for the soundtrack to the film "What's Mew Pussycat" where it was performed by UK R&B/Beatboomers Manfred Mann. Apparently, Bacharach hated Love's version, but I reckon it's outstanding. Check out Arthur in his famous diamond shaped shades (word had it that you couldn't actually see through them, they just made the world look even more fractured and trippy!)

THE CATTANOOGA CATS - Know Where It's At

The Cattanooga Cats were a Hanna-Barbera creation consisting of Scoots, Country, Groove & Kitty Jo. Four Southern feline hipsters on the road peddling their groovy gum tunes and getting into wacky adventures wherever they roamed. The songs they played were written and performed by 17 year old Michael Lloyd, a member of the mighty West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and produced by the famous Mike Curb, the man who kicked all those "dangerous" psychedelic bands such as the Velvet Underground off the MGM label when he took it over in his mid 20's in favour of "family" oriented groups such as the Osmonds and the Cowsills (Curb also formed the Mike Curb Congregation, a group akin to the Ray Conniff Singers).

The Cattanooga's ran for a relatively short time on TV, but managed to unleash a slab of subliminal songwriting subversity onto the kids via tunes such as "My Birthday Suit" and this snappy little number, "Mother May I".
The Cat's opening theme song was accompanied by animation master Iwao Takamoto's strobing op art images.

The show also introduced three regular cartoon segments: It's The Wolf (featuring the voice of Paul Lynde as Mildew Wolf), Autocat & Motormouse (see more pics at The Motormouse Page in Portuguese), and Around The World In 79 Days. This was also one of the last HB shows to feature "talking animals" (in the Huck/Yogi tradition) before HB launched into creating dozens of Scooby Doo-inspired Mystery cartoons like The Funky Phantom, The Amazing Chan Clan, Goober And The Ghost Chasers, and many others. Motormouse recieved his own show for one season in September 1970 on ABC Saturday Mornings.

Can we get a DVD release please?

The PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH. 1970.
Directed by: Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow & Dave Monahan (live action sequences).
Starring: Butch Patrick & the voice of Mel Blanc
Soundtrack: Dean Elliot.
Based on the Novel by: Norton Juster.
MGM STUDIOS

Plot: The Phantom Tollbooth tells the story of a bored boy named Milo who drives through a magic tollbooth into the Kingdom of Wisdom. The rulers of the kingdom's two major cities, Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, are engaged in an endless quarrel about whether words or numbers are superior. Milo discovers that harmony can only be restored if he rescues the twin princesses of sweet Rhyme and pure Reason. His pun-rich travels include trips to Conclusions (you jump there, of course) and the silence-filled Valley of Sound, culminating in an attempt to rescue the princesses, who are guarded by horrible beasts like the Gross Exaggeration and the Threadbare Excuse.

Okay, so the author called the film 'drivel' when it came out, but all I can recall is that it was freaky looking, educational & wondrous children's film. Even the songs have still resonated. Especially teh one set in the 'doldrums'. Mind you, it must be over 30 years since I last saw it & time can make terrible things seem so much better through a hazy memory. Warner own the rights via the MGM connection & are rumoured to make it as a live action film one day. Technology is now here to make it possible, but I reckon they'd go with CGI instead. Do try & find the book, for it has that Dr Seuss type quality in that it's quite cryptic in its language, yet simplistic in its delivery.

The book was written in Brooklyn, NY in 1961 & adapted into a feature film by Warner brothers main animator, the late Chuck Jones. Milo, as played by Butch Patrick (Freddie on The Munsters TV show) appears briefly in the flesh before transforming into an animated version once he enters through the tollbooth that is plonked in his loungeroom. The live action sequences bookend the film & from memory we don't get to see any other real live himans in the film. For some reason I recall a goldfish. Classic animation voices or comedic actors like Daws Butler, Hans Conreid & the legendary June Foray also provide the voices.

It's probably not as good as I remember, but surely its better then half the 'drivel they release on DVD. It is due for a remake... Mr Tim Burton perhaps?