Bedtime for Bonzo (1951)

Retrofit Drive In🙉🙈🙊

Professor Mikey

May 15, 2021

`Now the dance that the people do, I don't know how it started`

`All I know is that when the beat brings a feel`

`It's so hard to get parted`

`And then the music begins to play`

`Automatically you're on your way`

`Are you ready (are you ready)`

`Well, you get yours, cause-a I got mine`

`For the Monkey Time (Monkey Time)`

`--Lyrics by Curtis Mayfield`

`Sung by Major Lance`

Is it Monkey Time? Or is it the most beloved Republican President Time?

Well, it is both. Everyone knows that Ronald Reagan had a great career in movies and television before he trickled down to become this country’s 40th commander in chief. His easy manner before the camera was no accident. Reagan learned his craft well, starring in movies such as Knute Rockne, All American (1940) and King’s Row (1941). He and our future first lady even sailed together in Hellcats of the Navy (1957).

Reagan transcended smoothly into television, hosting the weekly General Electric Theater (1954-1962), followed by a similar role for the Old West anthology Death Valley Days (1964-1966). His regular appearances before millions of Americans reinforced his friendly, calm demeanor, his rugged persona, and his Hollywood good looks. The image would work for him throughout his life building on the dream of freedom, tearing down the walls of oppression.

An avid hobbyist, Reagan enjoyed golf, horseback riding, and politics. In the 40s he was a hardcore FDR/Truman Democrat who reluctantly back out of an anti-nuke demonstration in 1945 at the request of his employer, Warner Brothers.

After serving on the Board of Directors for his union, the Screen Actors Guild, he became a vice president in 1946. When the SAG president and six board members resigned in 1947 in a kerfuffle over new conflict of interest bylaws, Reagan was elected the union’s president. He won that election six times in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, and again in 1959.

Reagan’s political affiliations shifted and he went on to become California’s governor (1967-1975) and America’s president (1981-1989). This week’s Retrofit Drive In feature comes from a time when it was yet to be discovered that SAG’s president had once served as an FBI informant, providing names of Hollywood types who he believed might have communist leanings.

“There has been a small group within the Screen Actors Guild which has consistently opposed the policy of the guild board and officers of the guild...suspected of more or less following the tactics that we associate with the Communist Party. At times they have attempted to be a disruptive influence... I have heard different discussions and some of them tagged as Communists... I found myself misled into being a sponsor on another occasion for a function that was held under the auspices of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.” --Ronald Reagan, testifying as president of the Screen Actor’s Guild before the House Un-American Activities Committee, October, 1947.

But enough politics. It’s showtime. From 1951, the president of the future has a monkey on his back. As Professor Peter Boyd, he is trying to prove to a stuffy superior that human morals can be taught to a chimpanzee if the subject is raised according to accepted child rearing methods of the early 1950s. Leave it to Lucy.

Also on tap, just four episodes to go in the weekly serial! The Phantom Empire! Chapter 9 is “Prisoners of the Ray.” Finally, there are monkeys and more in an early Looney Tune animated feature entitled “A Day at the Zoo.” Scroll to the bottom for this week’s surprise extra, and enjoy the show! And good night Bonzo!!