A Great Post from Douglas McEwan
The Morehead The Merrier Blog
http://www.tallulahmorehead.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-stately-holmes-of-england-butler_19.htmlThe Morehead The Merrier Blog
 Hello, darlings. Did you think I was dead? I did, but it turned out I was only dead drunk. I found myself adrift in space, and only just managed to get myself back to earth. [Editor's Note: I took Tallulah to see Gravity in Imax 3-D, sitting close to the screen, and I'm afraid she lost herself in the movie a little too literally. Basically, she's just been too drunk to do much of anything besides drink. There are few people of less use than a 117 year old drunk.] Anyway, I'm back. Fortunately, you've all had my new book,Tallyho, Tallulah! to give you your Tallulah fix while I was orbiting the earth trying to catch George Clooney. (He didn't need a space suit. He's a screen immortal. He was just trying to hide himself from any unpleasantness he feared I might be carrying. He called it his "Full-Body Condom.") |
Performed by Daws Butler, Joe Bevilacqua, and a Full Cast
Length: 6.43 hours CD Set or Download
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Not your grandmother's Mary Hartman.
Oh wait, yes it is.
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This "Audiobook," currently available as a download and shortly to be available on CD, is a half-hour radio comedy show starring Daws Butler, who, unlike Little Dougie, was a magnificent talent and comedy & voice genius, as "Ralph Backwards," Jules Verne, Jack the Ripper, William Gillette, and others, Ben Wright as Sherlock Holmes, Mike Hodel as Dr. Watson, and Little Dougie as Count Dracula and Oscar Wilde. (He wisheshe were Oscar Wilde, except for that going-to-prison-for-being-gay thing.) Daws was also head writer, and Dougie was one of the team of writers who knocked it out. Here's Daws, hanging out with Little Dougie in Dougie's 1980 living room.
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The great Daws Butler trying to get away
from Little Dougie's death grip.
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To fill out the CD, and turn a half-hour show into an hour of stuff, there's a half-hour interview with, of all people, Little Dougie. Well, if you buy it, you don't have to listen to the interview. I can't imagine people buying a CD to hear Dougie talk. I sometimes pay him just to shut up. But the comedy show part is a good deal of fun, and you can't go wrong with Daws Butler and Ben Wright.
Ben Wright was a wonderful actor. He was directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock (In the movie Topaz), and acted with Marlon Brando (In Mutiny on the Bounty), so acting with Little Dougie, performing words Dougie wrote, was a big thrill for Dougie, and an career low for Ben. When you've acted with Brando and been directed by Hitchcock, acting with Dougie is definitely slumming. However, it was not an all-time career low for him. He was, after all, acting with Daws Butler, and for an all-time career low, well, in The Wreck of the Mary Dreare, his co-star was Charleton Heston. One doesn't act "with" Cheston, as that implies UpChuck was acting also. But Ben acted near Heston.
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Ben Wright on Mission: Impossible.
Among Ben's acting credits: Journey to the Center of the Earth (with James Mason, and the Olivier of untalented Jesus freaks, Pat Boone), 101 Dalmations. (The original animated one. He played "Roger," The male human protagonist), the Liz Taylor Cleopatra (He was the narrator), The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, Munsters Go Home, Topaz, and The Little Mermaid, plus such TV credits as Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, The Outer Limits, Man From UNCLE, Get Smart, My Favorite Martian, Bonanza, The Monkees, The Addams Family (Yes, he worked with both The Munsters and The Addams Family), Hogan's Heroes, and - well, actually, it would be easier just to list the movies and TV shows he was not on. Yes, working with Little Dougie must have been a real thrill for him. |
Little Dougie is a long-time Sherlockian. You should see him cream for Sherlock and rail at how lame Elementary is. Mention Robert Downey Jr's "Sherlock Holmes" to him and he goes ballistic. You'd think those movies were a crime against humanity from the way they make Little Dougie foam at the mouth. This is a man who traveled all the way to England just so he could visit Baker Street and Dartmoor.
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Little Dougie seeks the Hound of Hell
on Dartmoor, 20 years ago. At what school did Dougie learn to be a detective?Elementary, my dear Vodka. |
But this CD, which you can order by clicking on its title above, is so inexpensive that one loses no money putting up with Dougie for the sublimely silly comedy of Daws and Ben.
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| If he doesn't look like this, he's NOT Sherlock Holmes! |
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I'd make a great Bond Broad
. My martinis are always shaken,
even if they're stirred. Just my staggaring across
a room holding it leaves them severely shaken.
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But only if you want to do a lot of laughing. Cheers, darlings.
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| Daws Butler & Joseph Bevilacqua |
In 1971 Joe Bevilacqua’s father bought him a cassette recorder, on which is created his first audio story, “Willoughby and the Professor,” providing all the voices himself at the age of 12. In 1975, Daws Butler, the voice ofYogi Bear and many Hanna-Barbera and Jay Ward cartoon characters, dubbed himself Joe Bev’s personal mentor, after hearing a 120-minute cassette of Bev’s Willoughby improvisations.
In 2003, Bevilacqua co-founded Waterlogg Productions with his wife Lorie Kellogg. In 2012, he signed an exclusive distribution deal with Blackstone Audio, for his more than 40 years of audio work. As of 2013, he has released more than 75 audio books, including hundreds of hours of audio documentaries, comedies, dramas, autobiographies.
 of Sherlock Holmes: The Best of the Comedy-O-Rama Hour, Season One  |
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