The World Accordingly: Must Be Santa

Santa? We'll get there... bear with me for a second...

You see... I found the original Battlestar Galactica series (1978) online at www.tv-links.co.uk and am forcing Mel to watch at least the first 3-hour premiere (watching anymore could probably be considered cruel and unusual punishment).

Note: lots of other streamed tv series there as well; also check out www.dailymotion.com, particularly if you watch Lost or the new Battlestar Galactica, or www.tv-video.net (which I'm not as familiar with, but I think is good)

I was trying to explain the series and cast to Mel and this is how it went:

David: "Lorne Green is Commander Adama in the 1978 series."

Mel: "Who is Lorne Greene?"

Me: "What? You serious? Do you remember Bonanza, with Michael Landon?"

Mel: "Bonanza? Never seen it. Who's Michael Landon?"

Me: "Sheesh."

So I got on my computer and did some quick searches and such. For a second I also thought Lorne Greene was the Friendly Giant, a favourite childhood show of mine (a few other million kids no doubt), but I was wrong . I should have known because I went to the CBC Museum in downtown Toronto last year (had a couple hours before my train) and they had a display and Friendly Giant shows being played. Anyway, I remembered good things about Lorne Greene (besides just being the Commander of the Battelstar Galactica), but I was foggy. So, here's a snippet from wikipedia and a few of the better links I found, if you're interested:

Lorne Greene

Greene was born in Ottawa, Ontario to Russian Jewish immigrants, and began acting while attending Queen's University in Kingston, where he also acquired a knack for broadcasting with the Radio Workshop of the university's Drama Guild on the campus radio station CFRC.

He gave up on a career in chemical engineering and, upon graduation, found a job as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). He was assigned as the principal newsreader on the CBC National News. The CBC gave him the nickname "The Voice of Canada"; however, his role in delivering distressing war news in sonorous tones following Canada's entry into World War II in 1939 caused many listeners to call him "The Voice of Doom". During his radio days, Greene invented a stopwatch that ran backwards. Its purpose was to help radio announcers gauge how much time they had available while speaking. He also narrated documentary films, such as the National Film Board of Canada's Fighting Norway (1943). In 1957 Greene played the role of the prosecutor in the socially controversial movie Peyton Place.

The first of his American television roles was as family patriarch Ben Cartwright on the long-running western series Bonanza (1959–1973), making Greene a household name. He garnered the role after having turned in a highly-regarded performance in a production of Nineteen Eighty-Four for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). After the cancellation of Bonanza, he was host for the CBS nature documentary series "Last of the Wild" from 1974 to 1975. During the 1977 miniseries, Roots, he played the first master of Kunta Kinte, John Reynolds.

Greene's next best-known role was Commander Adama, another patriarchal figure, in the science fiction feature film and television series Battlestar Galactica (1978–1979) and Galactica 1980 (1980).

In 1964, Greene had a #1 single on the music charts with his hit ballad, "Ringo." [[1]] He was also known as the host and narrator of the nature series, Lorne Greene's New Wilderness. He also appeared in the HBO mockumentary The Canadian Conspiracy, about the supposed subversion of the United States by Canadian-born media personalities. For nearly a decade, Greene co-hosted the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. He is also fondly remembered as the founder of Toronto's Academy of Radio Arts which had been founded as the Lorne Greene School of Broadcasting.

Greene died of pneumonia on September 11, 1987 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 72. He was interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, Culver City, California. Only weeks before his death, he had been signed to appear in a revival of Bonanza.

A click from the Lorne Greene wikipedia site takes me to the Sci-Fi Channels Lorne Greene scipedia site, which I get the following information from the Canadian link:

Canada

Canadian refers to a person or thing from Canada.

Canada is a country in North America.

Canadians have contributed some of the most iconic Sci Fi images. William Shatner (Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk), Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters, the Coneheads), and Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty, The Mask) are all Canadians.

So seems Canada is represented by William Shatner, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, and though not as noteworthy, Lorne Greene. Interesting.

A Battlestar Galactica clip with some great acting worthy of James T. Kirk!