August 28, 2010, Burbank California:
Bob Burns brandishing one of his many original Steve Canyon treasures in his house-cum-museum in beautiful suburban Burbank last Saturday.
Well it finally happened. We've been talking about it since way back in 2006 and last Saturday my associate Tom Swyden and I finally got together with Bob and Kathy Burns and shot an interview with Bob for inclusion within the documentaries I am working on for Volume 3 of THE COMPLETE STEVE CANYON ON TV!
Here's a a little peek featuring Bob as well as a promo for the Volume 3 episode "The Bomb":
"Bob Burns On Steve Canyon"
Bob will also be providing audio commentary on that episode as well which should be a lot of fun! I also shot interview footage that afternoon with famed illustrator and cover artist Stephen Hickman, Stephen's brother musician Lance Hickman, and Visual Effects maven Pat McClung, all big Steve Canyon fans, and we're glad to have them on board for Volume 3.
Now the promo for "The Bomb" has a bit of an interesting story. It was actually finished about ten months ago BUT was a casualty of the fatal hard drive crash that I reported at that time. I can tell you that it was really depressing to lose all the work that went into creating it (and other things).
Well when Bob and I were recording his interview I suddenly got an idea how I might resurrect this promo in spite of having lost all of the original files and media. Working from a text file I had saved to another drive (that listed all of the pieces), I was able to recreate it piece by piece by hand using a different formatted version of the episode that we had on another hard drive. It took a while but I am glad to report I feel much better now that it has been restored for your viewing pleasure.
It's interesting that had this not happened it would have gone out last year without Bob Burns mighty presence to give it that extra touch...so it worked out ultimately to everyone's advantage.
"The Bomb" was directed by Walter Grauman and written by John Hawkins, with star Dean Fredericks and series regulars Jerry Paris and Ted de Corsia PLUS guest stars John Anderson, Virginia Christine and Dabbs Greer.
Three boys, a clubhouse, a little red wagon and a live 250 lb. general purpose bomb! (Left to right) Gregory Irvin, Steve Wooten and Ricky Klein in a scene from "The Bomb", which aired Thursday March 12, 1959 on NBC primetime.
Here's another image from "The Bomb", this time a cool stereo 3D image for all you cats with two different colored lenses in your glasses:
3D anaglyph image from "The Bomb", which aired Thursday March 12, 1959 on NBC primetime. Use red/blue 3D glasses to view (with the red lense over your left eye). 3D process by John Ellis.
While we're at it here's another rare image from our files:
Steve Canyon (Dean Fredericks, left) with Dr. Francis Arnold (Barry Atwater) in a composite studio publicity shot from OPERATION MOBY DICK, which aired November 8, 1958 (available on Volume 1). Photo courtesy the family of Dean Fredericks.
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So to wrap this post up, work is proceeding apace on Volume 3 as I get closer to having all of the interviews and commentaries recorded. I will be trying to post more often to keep everyone apprised of the current status and final release date for Volume 3...it IS approaching...relentlessly...resolutely...and we are just as excited about it as you are.
Stay tuned.
John Ellis
Pacoima, California
P.S. Again, I recommend (if you want to stay "in the loop" and you haven't already) that you 1) Subscribe to this (our official website) using the form you find over on the right hand sidebar, so you can keep up with what is going on. 2) We also have a Steve Canyon page on FaceBook that we post to regularly with updates that are "on the fly" or too minor for this blog (our regular website). Much much up to date info there!
