Also Starring…

AKA: Hunkered Down, Day 12

As we spend this strange time together, I have a suggestion for you. You’re going to hear it, and two choices will come to mind:

1. Sure, I’ll give that a try. 
2. Are you kidding? No way.

For almost all of you, your choice will be number two.

HOWEVER…

You might have time on your hands. Or you might like a little something playing in the background to fill the silence as you work … or cook … or knit … or whittle … or tend the still.

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I’ll get to the suggestion in a minute. Until then….

When we were kids (those of us at a specific age) we had three television networks. Programming was often a bland, sorry mess of sit-coms (with the occasional slightly-disturbing nazi-themed comedy thrown in); dreadful music or variety shows (I’m looking at you Lawrence Welk and Donny and Marie, and not you, Smothers Brothers [the Smothers Brothers were the best]); and horrible (and I mean horrible) mysteries and detective shows. 

But let us, for a moment, take a look at a segment of television programs that straddled the line between not-so-awful and hey-that’s-pretty good: The shows that came from the production house of Mr. Quinn Martin.

Quinn Martin’s heyday was the in the 1960s and 70s. Shows of his that I remember were The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, The Invaders, and Dan August. (A quick Googling reminded me that he also produced The Fugitive and Twelve O’Clock High. Nice.)

For me, “A Quinn Martin Production” wasn’t about the writing, or the actors, or the performances. Oh no. My memory is VERY SPECIFIC. Look at those quotation marks around “A Quinn Martin Production.” They are there because Quinn Martin shows were all about the narration. Every single one of this guy’s TV shows had the the same narrator announcing practically every facet of the program—even if it could be accomplished using a simple on-screen graphic or title.

Just watch the opening of Dan August:

I mean, does the narrator actually have to say “Dan August!” when the title is there on screen, plain as day? No. But that narrator … he sold it. He sold it when he announced the title of the episode, and sold it when we’d come back to the show after the commercial break, when he’d summon that low-register, he-man voice of his and chime in with “Act 1,” and he sold it at episode’s end, intoning a mega-serious “Epilogue…”

This drove me nuts. Even as a thirteen-year-old watching The F.B.I. all I could think of was, “Is this narration necessary?” Quinn Martin obviously thought so. Or maybe he was friends with the voiceover guy and wanted to give him work. 

(The narrator’s name was Hank Simms. I researched Googled it.)

Of particular resonance to me, decades later, are the guest stars, announced at the top of each episode. Their faces are burned into my brain. I’ve seen them on countless old television shows over and over … again and again. To performers like Fritz Weaver, Bradford Dillman, Ken Lynch, Barbara Babcock, Kevin McCarthy, and personal favorite Don Stroud … their acting bread and butter was the “guest star” or the “also starring” or, if the planets aligned, the “special guest star” shot. (That freaking Anthony Zerby guy probably guest-starred on every network TV show from 1968 to 1980.) 

I realize now these actors probably did an extra cartwheel when they got a Quinn Martin gig, because at the top of the show not only would they get a credit, they’d also get an audible shout out from that great narrator. Viewers at home could hear their name, properly pronounced, accompanied by their face in close-up, in the midst of full-fledged, serious acting mode. I can hear the actors on the phone with their agents: “You gotta get me more Quinn Martin, gigs! What the hell am I paying you for!”

A few days ago, a friend tweeted a link to a YouTube video made by a person named Mike Young. I have no idea who Mike Young is, except that he apparently found the time to compile a video that includes the opening title sequence of the Quinn Martin gem, Cannon, and then goes on to show EVERY SINGLE GUEST STAR THAT EVER APPEARED IN THE SHOW.

The video is twenty-five minutes long. It’s mind blowing.

I normally work in silence. I like silence. Background noise, music, podcasts—they distract me. But sometimes when I’m in a specific head-space, I’ll put on something in the background. And that’s the head space I was in when this video came my way.

I watched it for one minute, and then went back to work. But I allowed the video to play in the background—the audio soft, almost too quiet to hear.

The barely audible sound of the constant announcing of actor after actor after actor, coupled with the classic horns and flutes and drums of a 1970s-era detective show theme song, became a bizarre, yet soothing balm. 

Minutes passed. Names would be repeated, some three or four times. I’d lose myself in my work and then I’d hear a name that would surprise me: Recognizable names of actors who later would become bigger names, like Martin Sheen and Roy Scheider; names I’d forgotten, like Harold Gould and Dack Rambo.

For a while I thought this could be a Twilight Zone episode, in which—you guessed it—the “Special Guest Star,” after a foolish deal made with the Devil himself to win a Best Actor Oscar, is unable to escape this constant narration of bit players, playing endlessly in his brain, until he’s brought to an inescapable madness. (Nobody steal this idea!)

But honestly, my reaction to the Cannon Guest Star Audio Playing in the Background was very different. It turned out that the barely-audible, constant announcing of name after name—each one three seconds apart, like a ticking clock, a seemingly never-ending roll-call of the actors of the past—was an oddly-pleasing comfort. I was swaddled in a soft blanket of memories and nostalgia.

Which brings me to the point where I reveal my request from the top of this post:

I heartily recommend this. This means you, Jonathan.

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PS: The geniuses that made the hilarious “Police Squad” TV show clearly felt like I did about “A Quinn Martin Production.” The opening of their show was a brilliant tribute. Best thing about it: The star of that show, Leslie Nielsen, popped up at least three times in the Cannon titles.