{"id":1265,"date":"2018-05-09T13:13:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T13:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2018-05-09T13:20:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T13:20:55","slug":"ftv-the-great-ballantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1265","title":{"rendered":"FTV: The Great Ballantine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Warning: \u00a0If you are able to identify the person named in the title above, \u00a0you are about to confront an age old conundrum. (or perhaps it is an old age conundrum). \u00a0It goes like this: If you make a cultural reference and no one else in the room has any idea what you are talking about, you will be either viewed as A) being an old coot or B) a babbling cauldron of crazy. \u00a0I say this with a certain amount of confidence because I have done it (the cultural reference thing) and been accused of both A) and B) above; sometimes at the same time. If you are not aware of who The Great Ballantine is, I will feed you some clues to see how far down the path to \u2018cootdom\u2019 you may be. \u00a0Not to worry, I will meet you at the end of the trail so we will be in good company. I promised my buddy Jim that when we are both 64 (thanks for reminding us Paul McCartney) that we could exchange mental exercises to keep our brains pliable and lucid, so consider this installment #1.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clue #1: \u00a0The Great Ballantine was born in Chicago on September 27, 1917 (making us birthday twins by month and day)( but not by year may I add). \u00a0The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, the former Meyer Kessler was nine years old when he got interested in magic courtesy of his barber. \u00a0The barber would perform tricks while cutting his hair and it wasn\u2019t long before young Meyer began his life as a performer. His first claim to fame in the world of entertainment? \u00a0He was the first magician to perform on stage in a little show town called Las Vegas. He didn\u2019t have to travel far to get his feet wet as a performer in Los Angeles where he passed away in 2009 at the ripe old age of 92. \u00a0Interestingly enough, he took his stage name after seeing a bottle of Ballantine whisky. He thought the name sounded classy. I can\u2019t help but wonder what the folks who make Kessler\u2019s whiskey would think of him trading one whiskey name for another. \u00a0His obituary pointed out that his career ran from 1949 to 2009 meaning he was still somewhat active even into his 90s. Okay, you now know he has a connection to Hollywood and that he has now gone to that great gig in the sky (my apologies to Pink Floyd).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sometime in the late 1980s, I went to a workshop at the ISD in Bergland run by our favorite NASA Education Specialist, Ralph Winrich. \u00a0Among the many neat things he showed us to help us incorporate more Space Science into the curriculum were two video tapes produced by Kentucky Educational Television (KET for short). \u00a0The first was called <\/span>Electromagnetic Mischief<\/span><\/i> and the level of acting ability, special effects, and staging was about what one might expect from the drama department at a large university. \u00a0The story is about The Science Police and their efforts to track down one Willie Hooper, failed inventor turned super-fiend who is now spreading mayhem as Spectrum Man. \u00a0If their \u2018crime coup\u2019 (an old finned Cadillac tricked out with some lights and PVC pipes attached to the roof) doesn\u2019t remind you of the Ghostbusters similarly done up ambulance, then you probably haven\u2019t seen <\/span>Ghostbusters<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0On a small budget, continuity and casting sometimes leave the viewers scratching their collective heads. \u00a0\u00a0At one point they pull up in front of what looks like an abandoned drive in bank building in a mall parking lot, but the next scene shows them descending the stairs in a typical college lecture room which is decidedly bigger than the building they just parked in front of. \u00a0In the climatic scene that leads to them capturing Spectrum Man, they are directed to Channel One\u2019s TV studio by a security guard who for some strange reason sports a Scottish brogue that could have (or probably did) come from the late James Doohan playing <\/span>Star Trek\u2019s<\/span><\/i> Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. \u00a0Even the female voice of the crimebusters\u2019 computer reminds me of the ship\u2019s computer on the Enterprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I am not being critical here, because if it were truly a bad video, I wouldn\u2019t still be showing it. \u00a0\u00a0It is a fun method that I have used for nearly thirty years to review what my classes have covered about astronomers using the electromagnetic spectrum to unlock the secrets of the Universe. \u00a0Most people are only aware of the electromagnetic spectrum because of ROYGBIV – the acronym used to remember the colors of the visible portion of the ES commonly known as a rainbow. KET expands the discussion to the invisible parts of the spectrum. \u00a0Commander Willard muses about the deadly invisible parts saying, \u201cGamma Rays? Isn\u2019t that what turned David Banner into the Hulk?\u201d (and yes, the TV series with Lou Ferrigno as the Great Green One changed his first name from Bruce to David).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The second KET program Ralph shared with us was called <\/span>The Star Salesman<\/span><\/i> and it is a futuristic tale of two young newlyweds on a quest to purchase a new star from the Starmart. \u00a0Insert your last adventure to buy a car and you will already know all of the plot devices put into play here. \u00a0While the couple argue over whether or not to get a high performance star (O Class) or an uber economical M Class star, the Star Salesman tries to stay out of the line of fire. \u00a0\u201cThe \u2018O\u2019 stars only last about 40,000 years versus the \u2018M\u2019 that can last 100 billion years,\u201d intones the frugal wife. \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d asks the beleaguered husband. \u201cRead about it in <\/span>Star and Driver,<\/span><\/i>\u201d she smugly replies. \u00a0\u201cI didn\u2019t even know she was a subscriber,\u201d \u00a0muses The Star Salesman, Joe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joe Alpo (the \u2018Star\u2019 Star Salesman by his own accounting) takes it all in stride while educating the couple (and my students) on the intricacies of used stars (\u201cpretty expanding clouds of gas\u201d), supernovas, the internal structure of different stars, and the spectral classes of stars (using another acronym that goes \u201cOh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me\u201d for the O, B, A, F G, K and M class stars). \u00a0Sadly, they make the deal but the newly weds never get to take their star home. The woman makes the mistake of taking a peak in a box containing a black hole, there by sucking them, Starmart showroom and all, into oblivion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As with <\/span>Electromagnetic Mischief,<\/span><\/i> the acting, script, and sets for <\/span>The Star Salesman<\/span><\/i> are pretty well done by college drama department standards circa the mid-1980s. There is one major difference with <\/span>Salesman<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0I always introduce this to my students by telling them, \u201cThis film also features a real actor – as in a \u2018paid actor imported from Hollywood\u2019 to raise the quality level.\u201d \u00a0By now, you may have guessed the \u2018paid imported actor\u2019 was The Great Ballantine. When I showed the video this year, it dawned on me that Ballantine must be getting up there in years so I looked him up only to find that he had passed away nearly a decade ago. \u00a0If you haven\u2019t run off to look him up yet, good for you. If you are as far along the geezer trail as I am, then the next clue will be the one to pull you into the old coot zone with me and help you identify exactly who The Great Ballantine is (or more properly, was).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clue #3: \u00a0The Great Ballantine played my favorite character on a sitcom (and later at least one movie) about the exploits of a hapless PT Boat crew in the South Pacific during World War II. \u00a0<\/span>McHale\u2019s Navy<\/span><\/i> was one of my favorite shows and it made stars out of Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway, and Joe Flynn. \u00a0The Great Ballantine (Carl Ballantine) played Lester Gruber, one of the crew of PT 73. Gavin McLeod, who played alongside of Mary Tyler Moore and eventually became a captain on another type of vessel in the series <\/span>The Love Boat <\/span><\/i>played the much put upon mechanic of the PT boat crew, Happy. \u00a0The character of Gruber had a knack for making deals and as such got in on enough story lines to be almost as famous as their secret Japanese prisoner of war, \u00a0Fuji (Yoshio Yoda) who spent most of the episodes trying to stay out of sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was a time when my students would confuse my <\/span>McHale\u2019s Navy <\/span><\/i>reference with the remake starring Tom Arnold done in 1997. \u00a0I have never watched this version so I don\u2019t know if the Gruber character is part of that crew, but it would be a great disappointment to me to see someone else in the role. \u00a0Like any good character actor, Carl Ballantine made a living playing bit parts in TV dramas and comedies while still performing his comedy-magic act. As a matter of fact, he played a magician named The Great Marvello in an episode of <\/span>CHIPs<\/span><\/i> and a used car salesman on one segment of <\/span>I Dream of Jeannie<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0If you look up his picture on the internet or watch the credits for a few old TV shows, you will likely say \u201cOh yeah, that guy!\u201d \u00a0He even voiced a character named Al J. Swindler, a seller of questionable quality goods on <\/span>Garfield and Friends.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As soon as I got back to school from Ralph\u2019\u2019s workshop, I took the information copied off the video tape case and made contact with KET to obtain my own copies. \u00a0In those pre-internet days, this involved talking on the phone to a real person. As I explained what I was looking for, the woman on the phone paused and asked me in a rather peculiar voice, \u201cWhere exactly did you hear about these programs?\u201d \u00a0It vaguely dawned on me that Ralph had hinted that he had \u2018liberated\u2019 his copies from a Public Television booth at at science teacher\u2019s convention he had attended. One can interpret \u2018liberated\u2019 any number of ways, but not wanting to get Ralph in hot water just in case, I played dumb and evasive by telling her, \u201cOh, I had seen it previewed at a science workshop in Michigan.\u201d \u00a0Perhaps my acting skills weren\u2019t up to college drama department level, but she let it drop and allowed me to order the two programs. She also mentioned that the program had only just now been made available for purchase, more or less explaining her odd tone of voice during the mini-inquisition part of our phone conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the tapes arrived, I popped them in my video machine and was disappointed to find the tapes were both labeled correctly, but the shows on both tapes were not the ones I ordered. \u00a0Mercifully, I made my second contact with KET, explained the problem, and they graciously told me to \u201ckeep the bonus shows and we will get the right ones in the mail.\u201d It made sense for me to preview my two \u2018new shows\u2019 while awaiting the replacements and in doing so, I discovered something about mass producing video tape copies. \u00a0Apparently, the series tapes for sale were copied one after the other with some level of automation. Whoever was minding the duplication process had mistakenly let the tapes get out of sync giving me a five minute snippet of the wrong show followed by the complete show that had been ordered. Not wanting to make a third call to KET to explain all this, I took it as an \u2018acceptable business loss\u2019 that would allow me to share the programs with someone else who would appreciate them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ralph and I exchanged notes from time to time and we made it a point to have him come to Ontonagon to do a NASA Education Program every couple of years. \u00a0Each time he was in the area, we also put him to work doing a teacher workshop at the Bergland ISD. On his next visit to the area, I told him all about the trials and travails that it took for me to end up with dual copies of the KET programs. \u00a0When Ralph sadly told me that his copies and a good deal of his own educational materials had been lost in a freak flood that destroyed his storage unit, I knew exactly who needed to get the bonus copies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As long as I was doing some research on Carl Ballantine, it seemed like a good idea to see what information is still out there about the whole <\/span>The Universe and I<\/span><\/i> series that had included the two KET segments I have been using all these years. \u00a0The KET website didn\u2019t have much information other than a partial list of titles that they still air from time to time. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but notice that one of them starred Leonard Nimoy . . . and yes, I have a Leonard Nimoy story to tell in my collection of tales, but that will have to be another story for another day! \u00a0RIP to both Carl Ballantine and Leonard Nimoy. I can only imagine how thrilling it would have been to work with them as the fledgling actors and technicians in the college drama program at the U of Kentucky got to do making <\/span>The Universe and I<\/span><\/i> series!<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Here is a clip someone posted in tribute to Carl Ballantine shortly after his death – you may note a certain amount of\u00a0Who’s on first<\/em>? riffing in this scene from this\u00a01977 movie.