Saturday, September 10, 2016

American Copper butterfly on sedum

It was getting late when I went to bed but I still wasn't sleepy.  I turned on the TV, put the sleep timer on, and found one of those channels that only reruns old TV series.   It was playing The Green Hornet tonight!   The Green Hornet character was a techno-hero similar to Batman.  He had no superhuman powers but had a lot of gadgets and a special car named Black Beauty.  I don't remember this show from when it originally was broadcast and, to be blunt, it wasn't all that well written in my opinion.  However, it has two wonderful things going for it.  The first was Bruce Lee.  He played Kato, the Green Hornet's butler and sidekick in getting the bad guys.  He didn't say much but could move like a cat.  I'd heard that he physically slowed down his movements in fight scenes so they could be filmed but the show in addition had to play the fight scenes in slow motion so it didn't look like Bruce Lee was just using mind control to defeat the enemy.  I found a website that showed a short clip of Bruce Lee in normal speed giving a punch and then in a doubly-slowed down version of a similar punch.  In normal speed it appears just like when Gene Wilder draws his gun in Blazing Saddles - you see nothing except the other person's reaction.  The second wonderful thing about the Green Hornet?  Al Hurt's rendition of The Flight of the Bumblebee at the beginning and end of the show.

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