Star Trek and James Bond

Goldfinger; Shirley Bassey

My Dad, my sisters and I were very healthy TV viewers in the 70’s and early 80’s. We didn’t have cable TV, and ABC was a seldom visitor to the antenna stuffed in our attic. But we didn’t miss out on much. Let me see if I can remember the carousel of shows that took a turn on our screen.

Gilligan’s Island, My Three Sons, The Carol Burnett Show, MASH, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Dallas, Simon and Simon (Dad called it Simeon and Simeon), Falcon Crest (Dad called it Falcon Hearst), The Rockford Files, Cannon, Lou Grant, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Phyllis, The Bob Newhart Show, Mannix, Hawaii 5-0, Barnaby Jones, The Muppet Show, The Flip Wilson Show, Petrocelli, Cagney and Lacey, Barney Miller, Night Court, Sonny and Cher, The White Shadow, Welcome Back, Kotter, Baretta, Columbo, McCloud, … How’m I doin’? … Newhart, Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Hart to Hart, Switch, Charley’s Angels, All Creatures Great and Small (That was on PBS.), All In The Family, Little House On The Prairie, The Jeffersons, Maude, The Waltons, The Wild Wild West, Knot’s Landing, Too Close For Comfort, Three’s Company, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, and __ number of years of The Tonight Show. I’m done.

I’m reminded of a quote from Al Bundy on Married With Children, who asked, when someone pointed him in the direction of a “lady of the evening”, “Why would I want to go out and eat steak when I have a cow at home?” Our TV watching time didn’t really allow us to go out to the movies very often. Or, probably more accurately, a night out at the movies for two adults and three kids, even in the 70’s, was a little spendy for a farmer and his family. TV was free.

Every once in a while, Mom would see that something quality was showing at the theatre that we kids could watch. Like Benji, The Cat From Outer Space, Freaky Friday, The Black Stallion and all the animated Disney movies.

In 1977, my sister D. and I talked our cousin W. into going to see Star Wars. As a matter of principle, she had been resisting going to see this movie. Then she saw it and she liked it. We also got her to go see The Empire Strikes Back a few years later. I think she liked that one, too.

But it wasn’t until my buddy Steve N. made me go see Star Trek III: The Search for Spock that I watched a movie without a net; something that hadn’t been “screened” by my parents. Now, don’t laugh. I encourage you to look at the second paragraph above. There is no Star Trek listed. Star Trek aired on ABC. We couldn’t get ABC. That’s why we couldn’t watch The Six Million Dollar Man or The Bionic Woman. I knew that there was a character with pointy ears on Star Trek and that was it. I had no background. I really struggled to keep up with what was happening. A few nights later, I went to see it again with Pastor B., a Star Trek fan, who could tell me the television history of these characters and its significance to the plot of the movie. That was the first time I saw a movie twice.

The same thing happened, on a much smaller scale, with me and James Bond. My first Bond flick was “A View To A Kill”. I hadn’t seen any others before that one. Not even on television. So I had to have a few things explained. But I liked it. Eventually, with the advent of the VCR, I was able to catch up on the Star Trek and 007 movies.

And I remember, when watching Goldfinger, that I had to stop the tape after the opening credits so I could listen to the song again. Fortunately, we were in my dorm room and I could dictate how many times we could rewind and listen to the song again. We listened to it four times.

Shirley Bassey. Tore. That. Song. Up! I had never heard anyone sing a movie title like that before. After everyone went home that evening, I rewound the tape to the song eight more times before taking the movie back. To this day, when Mr. Bond and Mr. Goldfinger show up on one of the cable channels, I’ll stop what I’m doing to listen to Ms. Bassey throw it down.

A few years ago, A. D. sent me a link to a clip of Shirley Bassey singing the best Bond song of them all on The Muppet Show. I didn’t remember Ms. Bassey being a guest on TMS. One day recently, when I felt rich, I downloaded “Goldfinger” from iTunes, so that I wouldn’t wear out a videotape.

Credits: To Ian Fleming, for an exotic creation that’s laced with style, humor and action. And to Gene Roddenberry, for a thoughtful creation that’s imbued with the wonder of science, humanity and the possibility of what could be. Thank you.