You can get The Point on DVD now, and if you grew up in the seventies, you’ll probably find watching it to be a cozy experience. It’s got animation by Fred Wolf (the same man who did, among other things, Free to Be You and Me as well as Tony the Tiger and Jolly Green Giant ads), music by Harry Nilsson (the whole thing was his idea in the first place), narration by Ringo Starr, and little Bobby Brady (Mike Lookinland) as Oblio. What especially hit the spot this time around was the Rock Man scene (a giant stone mountain with mouth and eyes), in which some ace mimic invokes the long departed voice of Lord Buckley.

The Rock Man sets it straight, from The Point

When Suzi Q. showed up on Happy Days as Pinky Tuscadero’s bass-thumping sister Leather, that’s the first most Americans had heard of her. For those of you keeping track of the nation’s shortcomings, the fact that Suzi never made the Top 40 here before 1979 (the regrettable “Stumblin’ In” with Chris Norman) certainly ought to make the list. Little did Happy Days viewers know that she’d long been reigning supreme on the British charts in the early seventies with insanely great singles like “Can the Can,” “48 Crash,” “Daytona Demon” and “Devil Gate Drive.” But I wonder how many who might have already known this bit of info also knew that she’d played in a blistering Detroit fab fivesome along with her sisters Patti and Arlene in the late sixties? I knew nothing of these early years until my friend Jim recently got me all up to speed and sent me some fine pics of the girls looking like Shangri-La cousins. Best of all, he let me hear their debut 1967 single: the moody “Never Thought You’d Leave Me” backed with what must be the original and ultimate bad girl rock and roll anthem, “What a Way to Die.” Have a listen yourself.

(Suzi’s the one in the group photo above drummer Darline, who’s sitting on the floor.)

The Pleasure Seekers – “Never Thought You’d Leave Me” (1967)

The Pleasure Seekers – “What a Way to Die” (1967)

The cover says “The Second Season” instead of “The Complete Second Season” because it doesn’t include a banned episode called “Bored, She Hung Herself” which was only shown once in 1970 and has never run again. It’s about hippie kids who hang-and-release for kicks. Sordid subject matter, yes, but I’ve seen a videotape of the banned episode and can say that I’ve seen much worse on TV many times over. Really hate that it’s not included. (Update: turns out someone actually did die after watching the episode and attempting to try some of the thrill techniques detailed therein.)

I amassed the whole collection circa 1974 by being good and waiting in the car while my mom went in to the grocery store to pick up a few things. (Shut up – everyone’s moms did this in the seventies.) They were available for purchase in a cookie jar by the cash register. I remember their distinct vinyl smell.

In 1975 or so my mom took us to see Lady Aberlin and two purple pandas at the Valley Fair Mall in Granger, Utah. Happy memory. This record came with a gift bag that Lady Aberlin handed out to all the kids. Hear it as it now sounds. Confession: I’ve sung the “meow meow pretty” routine at 3:11 to more than a few cats.

Fred Rogers – “Around the Neighborhood: Puppet Voices”

My parents bought this story 45 at K-mart for me when I was 8 or 9, I’m guessing. (It’s taken from the “U.S. of Archie” American history cartoons of the mid-70s.) My very favorite part of the record is still the first ten seconds. (Sometime in the early 80s, Dallas McKennon, the man who did Archie’s voice on these shows, sang lead on a hard-to-find record credited to the Archies called Drive the Boulevard.)

Archie – “The Great Divide”

Welcome to the Boneyard, friends, where all manner of subjects – mostly arts/leisure/media – get dug up and pawed at randomly and attempts might even be made to “unite the joints,” so to speak. Here’s a small image of our mascot, Timothy Spall, who plays Mr. Venus in the BBC’s 1998 production of Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Mr. Venus is what Dickens calls a “preserver of [dead] animals” and an “articulator” of skeletons. He continues on about the character like this: “The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a tangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with more ease.” Venus is a bitter sad-sack, and he spends most of the story involved in a conspiracy against our heroes, the Boffins. But he changes his ways in the end.