Sunday, May 10, 2009

Odd dog mind meld

No, this isn't the newest band.

In the early seventies, there were two hippie trippy programs that somehow were the same thing in my memory until I was able to sort it out later in life. This is one reason why those of us growing up during this time THOUGHT we were on drugs but weren't. It's kind of like an acid trip for geeks.



"The Point" was an ABC special broadcast in 1971. It was based on a fable and music (and album) by Harry Nillson. Nillson's music is definitely one of the more pronounced soundtracks of this time what with the hit "Everybody's Talkin'" from "Midnight Cowboy" and the Coconut song popularized by the Muppets among his work. I had a pretty progressive speech-drama teacher in sixth grade and he showed us "The Point" on a TV monitor in class. This was in SEGUIN, TEXAS mind you. Dustin Hoffman provided the voice of the father, but Ringo Starr dubbed the voice for the British release on VHS. I can't remember which voice I heard. Here's the music and premise:




"The Boy and His Dog" is an incredible film based on a novella by famed writer Harlan Ellison. It's an post-apocalyptic vision (very Mad Max for its day) with a young Don Johnson scavenging for food and sex with his talking dog. Well, they speak telepathically.Alvy Moore (Hank Kimball in "Green Acres") co-produced it and actually had a decent part in it. Now, I never saw this movie as a kid. It was R-rated and difficult to find on video in later years. I have no idea where my memory of it comes from except perhaps reading about it. I finally saw this film around six years ago and it blew me away. Here's why:



So, the POINT of this blog about a BOY and his DOG is....well, there is no POINT. I just can't understand why these two very different stories about A BOY AND HIS DOG (albeit both pharmaceutically inspired) somehow conjoined themselves for thirty-odd years in my brain.

If anyone out there has similar media mind melds, I'd love to hear about them!

2 comments:

  1. That's totally weird I had those two kinda linked in my foggy memory also. netflix'd boy and his dog just last year - well done low budget scifi oddness.

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  2. I love The Point! I taped it off of TV years ago :)

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