Adventures in Rainbow Country

Okay, so here's how it started: I was watching Hitchcock's "The Trouble with Harry" and the music sounded familiar. Whoever did the score for "The Forest Rangers", a 1960's Canadian TV series, blatantly ripped off Hitch's score. Don't believe me? Then you be the judge:

• Link to: The Forest Rangers theme.
• Link to: The Trouble with Harry score.

I say that we forget all this nonsense about the bundle of sticks reference in Dire Straits' song "Money for Nothing", and get on with this travesty of epic proportions.




But anyway, that then reminded me of "Adventures in Rainbow Country", which was another outdoorsy Canadian drama made at about the same time. I started searching the interweb tubes...


I don't remember much about the show. There was the opening scene where the boy is excitedly running through the woods, the boy's single mom and sister, people never smiling, and there was a dock for boats and planes. But just look at this synopsis/episode guide and tell me it wasn't edge-of-your-seat action:


[www.IMDB.com]
The inseparable pair experience an endless string of adventures, thwarting the designs of:

• Jewel thieves (Mystery at Whaleback Bay)
• Kidnappers (Pursuit Along the Aux Sables)
• Iron Curtain defectors (Stolen Tugboat)
• Airplane hijackers (Milk Run)
• The military (Wall of Silence)
• Petty larcenists (Roar of the Hornet)
• Witch doctors (The Return of Eli Rocque)
• The Devil himself (Lac du Diable)





But I digress. Look at what I dug up in the cast trivia, and how they are linked through Hollywood's seamy underbelly of aberrant sexual practices, messy divorces, drug addiction, mental instability, and suicide attempts - all the way back to little old Canadian "Adventures in Rainbow Country":


• The avid outdoorsMAN who loved ANIMALS, was played by Billy.

• Billy's hot mom Nancy was played by Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny in a bazillion Bond films.



• In the 1966 movie "King Kong", Susan Bond was played by Susan Conway (Billy's sister Hannah).
Bonus: she played Kathy in "The Forest Rangers".

• In Bond film "Live and Let Die", Jane Seymour played Solitaire.

• Solitaire, in "GoBots: War of the Rock Lords", was played by Margot Kidder, who played Dr Rhodes in "Adventures in Rainbow Country".

• Margot Kidder has Bipolar Disorder.

• "The Polar Express" was composed by Alan Silvestri.

• Alan Silvestri composed the music for "MANIMAL."




OMG, HOW SUPER-CREEPY IS THAT SET OF LINKS???

To whom do I report this?




Next week in classic Canadian children's programming: Kidstuff!

Big Joe Muffraw, Johnny Chinook...
Never read about them in your history book...

Mulligans Not Named "Terry David"

Everyone needs heroes. The trouble is that heroes and events and projects turn out not to be perfect. And sometimes something doesn't have to be perfect, but there's still something sticking in your craw and you'd like it not to be there. Well, viola - welcome to Paul's Universe As I Remember It. In my little world, you're allowed a mulligan in every category and sub-category that's important to you.


For me, for instance, I choose to believe that the following things never happened:


• Jerry Rice never played for the Oakland Raiders.
He now only played for the San Francisco 49ers, and a bit of a warm-down with Seattle and Denver. There...now it's a perfect career. But I can also hold 2 opposing thoughts in my head at the same time ('cognitive dissonance', for you wordies), because I'm still counting his TD catch in the Super Bowl with the Raiders. The reason is that it makes him the only play to have caught a TD in 4 Superbowls. Jerry, Jerry!





• The movie "The Abyss" had a great ending.
It was totally in line with the gritty, realistic, fantastic first 7/8's of the movie. Something didn't "just happen" because the studio forced him to shorten the movie - there was a great explanation and ending! Fantastic movie.


• Brett Favre didn't play for the Minnesota Vikings this year.
It's a shame he didn't - he probably would've kicked ass they would've won the Superbowl...they were so close last year. Still, he retired on top and did it his way. And was a darn good family man too. We'll never forget you, Brent!


• The rain scene in the movie "Tombstone" was done well.
Of course they had to use fake rain - that's perfectly fine. They didn't stop the rain short and make bone dry soil 10 feet beyond them - that would have been annoying.


• Pierre Trudeau never tried to implement the National Energy Policy.
Thus leaving a colourful, fascinating, world-recognized and loved leader. Now the worst thing he did was flip us the bird - that's just style, baby.


• The scene where Nitty was falling in "The Untouchables" and where Hans was falling in "Die Hard" were well done close-ups.
Look how good the rest of the movies are - obviously these scenes rocked!


• The Oilers never messed up their goalie situation in their 2005-06 Stanley Cup run.
Woohoo - another Stanley Cup for E-Town! Keep those "City of Champions" signs up!





• Bill Clinton never took up smoking cigars and played more sax.
Or at least found a better looking humidor.


Of course I have a legacy of personal mulligans to take too: errant throws, shots, half-assed efforts, wrong blames, stupid play calls, 'witty' comebacks to significant others/friends, work 'reply to all' emails, childhood comments to 'different' kids, etc. But hey - I'll keep mine to myself for now, thanks. La la la...happy place.


Terry David Mulligan