That Guy on TV - John Graham's Blog, Resume, and Hootenanny
That Guy on TV - John Graham's Blog, Resume, and Hootenanny

Free Photos

Who doesn’t like free? Sometimes, you write a blog post and you need a pic to draw those eyeballs, something colorful but also cheap. The New York Public Library has more than 600,000 images online at digitalcollections.nypl.org and if you click “Search only public domain materials,” anything you find is yours to download and use however you want for free. (Make sure you click “public domain.”)

The NYPL collection has everything from scans of menus to greeting cards to publicity photos to stereograph slides – which are like an early version of a View-Master disc. It’s two images that blend into a 3D picture in the right device. If you want to try it out on the image below, try crossing your eyes like one of those Magic Eye pictures that hides a sailboat. That might work too.

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Down the Rabbit Hole
January 12, 2021 | 10:27 pm

Man, I Love “Night Court”

Time for another edition of Down the Rabbit Hole where I start with a nugget of pop culture and, like Alice in Wonderland, see where we end up.

The sitcom “Night Court” ran on NBC from 1984 to 1992 and, as I write this, is in reruns on LAFF, which is on Dish Network and probably one of the digital subchannels in your town like 5.2 or 8.3.

Harry Anderson starred as Judge Harry Stone, a young and unconventional judge working the evening shift in Manhattan Municipal Court. Before “Night Court,” Anderson was mostly known as a magician, appearing on “Saturday Night Live” and “Cheers.”

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1980s, 1990s, Down the Rabbit Hole, TV
June 10, 2020 | 5:38 pm

You Mean That Isn’t …?

You hear a song for years and think you know the band, but maybe you don’t. It’s no accident the band below sounds like The Beatles, but it’s actually New Jersey’s The Knickerbockers.

The Knickerbockers’ singer Buddy Randell really could play the saxophone, and in the video, you can see him put it to his lips just as the guitar solo kicks in, but if it’s there, it’s buried in the mix. Buddy’s around 24 in this clip, but he had a radio hit with another band before he was even 18.

 The Royal Teens went to #3 in 1958 with “Short Shorts.” On the single, Buddy plays the signature sax riff and says, “Man, dig that crazy chick.” In the clip below, someone else is faking to Buddy’s part. By 1958, the song was a hit, but Buddy left that band because he was still in high school and couldn’t tour. Bob Gaudio is definitely the guy on piano here. Gaudio co-wrote “Short Shorts” and, eventually, went on to perform with Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons for decades.

Down the Rabbit Hole, Music, You Mean That Isn't...?
April 21, 2020 | 5:48 pm
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About John

John Graham is That Guy on TV – an Emmy-winning producer/writer/host and owner of Mosquito County Productions, based in Orlando, FL.

Over the years, John has produced YouTube videos with millions of views, worked with Muppets and Princesses, won two regional Emmys for travel reporting, interviewed celebs from Ariana Grande to Hillbilly Jim, and done thousands of live news broadcasts. (You know it’s me writing this, right?)

Get ahold of me at John@thatguyontv.com

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