Certainly is nice to see yah

January 5, 2014 1:01 PM

Don Rickles gives a tour of Brooklyn in 1968 (via)
posted by timshel (10 comments total)

Not just Brooklyn, but way the hell out in Brooklyn. Although I'm not sure what sort of reputation Midwood had back in '68. This is around where I grew up and I still live/work near (taking a cab home I see Ave. M frequently) so this is really awesome to see and to see it being brought to attention. There's a serious tendency for people to forget there's more Brooklyn under the park.
posted by griphus at 1:12 PM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was filmed in the vicinity of NBC's TV Studio in Midwood, which now seems to be defunct.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:45 PM on January 5, 2014

That was great; I just sent it to a friend who was a kid in Brooklyn back then.
posted by languagehat at 1:45 PM on January 5, 2014

There was some talk of ABC soaps moving there in 2011, but they went to CT instead.
posted by nevercalm at 3:03 PM on January 5, 2014

I can't figure out just how many climate change events have occurred since Don Rickles was that young.
posted by localroger at 5:54 PM on January 5, 2014

Oh, man, Midwood, my old neighborhood. My main claim to fame for a long time (still?) was that I lived in the same apartment building at Ave. K and Ocean Ave. that Midwood High graduate Woody Allen lived in (supposedly, his aunt still live in the building by the time we arrived in the mid-70s).

Rickles could have done even better by staying on the subway another stop and getting off at Kings Highway and doing his shtik inside Dubrow's - the classic Jewish Brooklyn eatery with a seltzer fountain in the back.

Then, as now, the neighborhood was heavily Jewish and middle class. Except no Hasidim. And, yeah, it's pretty distant from "the City" (at least back then, the signs in the subway one way pointed to "Coney Island" and the other way to "New York").
posted by adamg at 7:47 PM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Don Rickles was never young; he was born a late middle aged man and has stayed that way all his life. Also, he was born and raised in Queens (Jackson Heights), NOT Brooklyn.
posted by KingEdRa at 7:54 PM on January 5, 2014

Hey, Rickles bats lefty!
posted by blurker at 9:22 PM on January 5, 2014

That was excellent, even if it wasn't really all that funny!

Does anyone know anything about video preservation? I'm curious about the distortion (most prominent at the frame edges when the camera pans), and am wondering if the echo on the soundtrack is a function of restoration, or if that was in the original.

If I were that kid on the street, I'd've run to a trophy store to have that half-eaten-by-Don-Rickles hot dog bronzed.
posted by Dr. Wu at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2014

"Obsolete Media Recovery"
posted by mikelieman at 9:38 AM on January 6, 2014