Trolleywood MOTION IN PICTURES Ringo Starr “Mr. Conductor’s” peculiar legacy Behind the Scenes of The Second-Worst The Dirty Truth about Magical Mystery Tour Show of All Time? Road Trip Movies Pg. 14 Pg. 34 Pg. 42 December 2016 Contents Ringo Starr: Busy Beyond the Beatles “Mr. Conductor’s” peculiar legacy Advertisement 26 Photo Credits for Cover Image: FinnSpotVlogs on YouTube Behind the Scenes The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour 14 The Dirty Truth about Road Trip Movies More Than a Gimmick 34 Trucky Throwback Mother of All Failures 42 3 Contents Letter from the Editor 9 Travel Destination Rusty’s TV & Movie Car Museum 10 International Films The Cyclist 17 Vehicle Roundup Wheel & Heel Advertisement 20 Hating Your Legacy Thomas’s Bittersweet Creator 22 The George Carlin Who I Knew Remembering a Different Side of Carlin 32 Propmaster Furious 7’s Wrecked Cars 37 Rewind Review From 1968: Yellow Submarine 44 Anthropomorphic Profile The Magic School Bus 46 4 5 Masthead Editor-in-Chief Contributing Editors Jerrika L. Waller David Bianculli, Rosalind Cummings- Senior Editors Yeates, Dan Schneider, Nicholas Jones, Jane Warren, Britt Allcroft, Bryan Andrew O’Donnell, Amanda O’Keefe Alexander, Renata Adler, Jim Halpert, Art Director Pam Beesly, Dwight Schrute, Andy Logan Jerv Waller, Jr. Bernard, Michael Scott, Stanley Hudson, Phyllis Vance, Kelly Erin Hannon, Toby Web Editor Flenderson, Ryan Howard, Angela Nina Arsenault Martin, Kelly Kapoor, Meredith Palmer, Advertisement Associate Editors Kevin Malone, Darryl Philbin, Oscar Michael Fiedler, Gino Sanchez, Kathryn Martinez, Creed Bratton, David Wallace Bloomberg General Manager Assistant Editors Bryhanna Waller Christina Williams, Katt Brown, Circulation Waldemar Ramirez, Victoria Male, Melanie Thibeault Camille Zimmerman Public Relations Editorial Interns Neil Waller Ben Cameron, Ryan Hamilton, Rachel Worthington, Amy Sharkey Vice President, Advertising Jocelyn Sippola Art Intern Christina Williams Assistant to the Publisher/ Rights and Reprints Contributing Artists Missy Kennedy Tierney Bailey, Cerise Steel, Anthony Whidbee, Jessica Weber, Joseph Publisher McGinnis, Carrie O’Brien, Mary Houston Pizza Crown 6 TROLLEYWOOD 7 Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, This issue is particularly dear to my heart. Raised as an unquestioning Beatles fan, I was delighted to learn more about both the band’s work outside of music and the work of their quirky, often- overlooked drummer. Despite his own shadow from Advertisement the Beatles, Ringo Starr has earned significant acclaim in his other pursuits, and remains exceptionally active and hardworking in his 70s (I hope to be even half as industrious in my Golden Years). It is an honor to feature him in our magazine. Learning more about another Mr. Conductor whose work influenced my upbringing was also a privilege. George Carlin’s passionate and clever work is not forgotten by this editor, nor will it likely be by many Editor-in-Chief, other people for years to come. Jerrika L. Waller I hope you enjoy this issue of Trolleywood! Cheers, Jerrika L. Waller 8 TROLLEYWOOD 9 Travel Destination Rusty’s TV & Movie Car Museum Rosalind Cummings-Yeates like quirky museums. For me, But when I rolled up to Rusty’s TV I there’s a real rush of discovery & Movie Car Museum in Jackson, Ten- that comes with finding a museum nessee, I didn’t know what to expect. dedicated to some crazy subject that How do you fit cars into a museum? you’d never expect to find as the Just how interesting can a pack of old subject of an extensive collection. cars really be? Well, I quickly discov- I’ve visited museums dedicated ered that TV and movie cars represent a to pencil sharpeners, washboards, lot of nostalgic fun, even for those who Pez dispensers and coffee and they aren’t big car fans, like myself. Advertisement were all weird fun. Before I even entered the museum, The Mystery Machine Photo Credits: Travel Pulse, Pulse from Scooby Doo 10 TROLLEYWOOD 11 I was drawn to a ‘50s vintage, cherry There was the iconic Ghostbuster’s red car parked outside. It gleamed in Ecto-1 Cadillac, complete with green the sun and looked well preserved so ghost and Stay Puft Marshmallow man. I figured it was the owner’s personal Across from it stood Scooby Doo’s iconic car. Until Rusty, the affable owner in- Mystery Machine. Several cars from “TV and formed me that it was the car from the the Fast & Furious movies held visi- ‘80s movie classic, Christine. tors’ attention but I fell in love with the movie cars Based on the Steven King, novel, Bat Cycle from the original Adam West that movie created a personality and Batman TV series. represent evil spirit that I had never seen at- On my visit, I also viewed the Knight tributed to a car. I looked inside at the Rider Trans Am, The Beverly Hillbillies leather interior and touched the glis- jalopy, Herbie’s Love Bug, The Blues a lot of tening fins and was transported back Brothers hearse and the Back to The Fu- to the eerie movie. Before I knew it, I ture DeLorean. nostalgic was leaning back on the car, posing for If you’re lucky, Rusty himself will pictures. I was totally caught up in the guide you through the museum and fun, even car museum and I hadn’t even stepped explain how he started collecting cars inside. at 14 years old and how he builds some Once I did go inside, I had to adjust of the cars on display and finds others for those to the overwhelming lineup of cars. from Hollywood sales. Rusty says that They were edged along walls and ar- he has 50 more cars that he rotates, who aren’t ranged in rooms, some with signs and changing the museums displays every Rusty’s TV & Movie Car Museum in movie paraphernalia and some just week so you never know what car Jackson, Tennessee big car laid out in recognizable movie glory. you’ll see. Although it isn’t a typical museum, The Movie & TV Car Museum is Rusty’s car museum requires time and open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. every week- fans” contemplation, just like in other muse- end, Friday-Sunday. ums. I actually walked through several times before I registered all the movies Originally published at TravelPulse.com and TV shows that the cars represented. The Iconic Ghostbusters’ The Eclipse from The Ecto-1 Cadillac Photo Credits: Travel Pulse, Offbeat Tennessee Fast and the Furious 12 TROLLEYWOOD 13 Behind the Scenes after Christmas — on Boxing Day — as Jonathan Clyde of Apple Films and a holiday special. A quarter of the Brit- directed by Francis Hanly, is wonder- ish population watched it — and many fully thorough. It explains how the idea of those hated it for Magical Mystery Tour came about, The Beatles’ Back then, the 53-minute program and how Paul McCartney originally was filmed in color but wasn’t broad- drew the concept as a pie chart — then cast that way. Imagine the Sgt. Pepper shows the chart. It covers the origins cover in black and white, and you can of each number written specifically for Magical imagine how much was lost in the the show, from the title song and “The translation. Reception to the TV special Fool on the Hill” to “I Am the Walrus” was so poor that the show wasn’t even and “Your Mother Should Know.” It Mystery picked up in the United States — just presents lots of outtakes and new inter- the soundtrack. Eventually, the special views with McCartney and Ringo Starr, was syndicated to some local TV sta- as well as Martin Scorsese, Terry Gil- tions and toured the college film cir- liam and Peter Fonda. It also includes Tour cuit along with Reefer Madness. That’s a vintage interview with George Har- when I first saw it. But on a national rison, whose assessment of the 1967 TV level, Magical Mystery Tour has never special is as unfiltered as the program David Bianculli been televised in the United States — itself. until now. It’s a fine documentary — better, to On Friday — as always, check local be honest, than Magical Mystery Tour listings — Magical Mystery Tour will be itself. But Magical Mystery Tour is so preceded by the new one-hour compan- much fun to watch if you’re a Beat- ion documentary, Magical Mystery Tour les fan, that it serves up one joy after The Beatles, it seemed, could do no wrong. Revisited. This may be the first case on another. John Lennon serving shov- record in which a documentary about a els of spaghetti as a waiter in a dream And then they did Magical Mystery Tour, film is longer than the film itself — but sequence. John and George in a strip it’s worth it. club, watching the house band singing which was televised by the BBC the day The documentary, produced by a song called “Death Cab for Cutie” — after Christmas as a holiday special. A quarter of the British population watched it — and many of those hated it. n Friday night on PBS, Great It was written and produced in O Performances presents a docu- 1967, which was an incredibly fertile mentary about the making of a Beat- period for the Beatles. “Strawberry Rotten Tomatoes les TV special from 1967 — Magical Fields Forever” came out that year, as Mystery Tour — then shows a re- well as “Penny Lane” and the Sgt. Pep- stored version of that special. Magi- per’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. cal Mystery Tour has the music from That was followed, a month later, by the U.S. album of the same name, the live TV premiere of “All You Need The Beatles look but it’s not the album.