I first remember watching a Walt Disney television series back when it was called Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color with the "World of Color" theme by the Sherman Brothers. The show presented something different each week: there might be a multipart presentation of a Disney film like Almost Angels or The Three Lives of Thomasina. Or there might be something from the park like "Disneyland After Dark." My usual favorites would be the night they had an animal story: ones about horses ("Run, Appaloosa, Run!" or "The Horse with the Flying Tail") or dogs ("Little Shepherd Dog of Catalina" or "The Wetback Hound") or wild critters ("Run, Light Buck, Run" about a pronghorn or "Flash the Teenage Otter").

But the two things I remember most about the World of Color were Gallegher and Kilroy.

Gallegher I believe I've spoken about here; you can wander over to my Gallegher web page for all the Gallegher that's fit to print.

Kilroy didn't have quite the exposure that Gallegher did—it had only four episodes to Gallegher's twelve. But I loved him just the same, even if even fewer people remembered him.

Warren Berlinger played Oscar Kilroy, a Brooklyn-born ex-Marine who, after his discharge, visits the little Midwestern town of Wilton Junction. His bunkmate Greg Fuller has told him so many tales about the place that he wanted to visit—and tell Greg's family that their son was okay. The Fullers—mom, dad, son Billy (played by Kurt Russell's little brother Bryan), and daughter Gladys—become Kilroy's surrogate family (he has none; while talking to the family he gracefully skirts the fact that he grew up in orphanages and foster homes). Of course this being a Disney comedy, there's the usual requisite slapstick, especially in the final two parts where Oscar gets a job with animal control and brings home an Irish Wolfhound named "Junior."

There aren't many reviews about Kilroy, and most of them aren't fully complimentary. Certainly it has "no redeeming social value" and parts can be rather corny. But I like it. It's warm and friendly and doesn't lambast the viewer over the head with a moral like the predigested pap they make today.

The one thing I always object to in these reviews—and other reviews of these home-town stories, Disney or otherwise, are the snide remarks about "perfect small towns" where people are friendly and everyone knows each other and how such places don't exist in real life. All right, certainly Disney communities of that era were totally "white bread" and didn't represent all ethnic groups; I know it always irritated me back then when an Italian character appeared he was always stereotyped.

But those small towns do and did exist...and they didn't even have to be small. As Clancy Strock says at the end of all his Reminisce editorials, "I know...I was there." We knew all the neighbors by name (or most of them), when one of us went on vacation, the other ones watched the house for them, we did errands for each other. Our mothers kept an eye on everyone's kids...which was good because we always had a safety net, but bad if we wanted to be naughty! Maybe it didn't have a town square and a pompous old mayor, but we did have the friendly milkman, and a bread man, and the oil delivery man who knew everyone (he certainly knew us; he was my godfather!). We had neighborhood stores where we called the proprietors by their first names and the neighborhood bakery (doughnuts were 8¢ each and hermits were a nickel).

All gone now; in the same place kids steal cars from peoples' driveways for joyrides. So forgive me for retreating to Kilroy and remembering a time when times were better.

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:06:00 PM

Comments:

A mention of liking Disney animal TV Movies including "Run Light Buck Run" caught my attention because I am looking for a video or DVD of that movie.
See runLtBck.jpg by going to: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=26482847/a=30126532_30126532/fromupload=true/t_=30126532
The coat & hat; worn by the (almost *non-verbal* "star", Al Neimela, was my Dad's old attire. Both Al and my dad, Dale, lived in Cornville AZ at the time. STILL LOOKING FOR a DVD OF *RUN LIGHT BUCK RUN*.

# posted by  Anonymous : 5:46:00 PM

 

Post a Comment