The Jim Stafford Show

If it had been a one-time TV special featuring Jim Stafford, I would have rated it much higher - probably 7/10. But it was a summer replacement show, and got very repetitive in a hurry. Skits were mere variations of one basic skit shown on the premiere. I especially remember some fellow with a British accent and an emu puppet who would talk about how you should never tickle an emu's feet and then proceed to due so. It was funny the first time, but after the 3rd time I was ready to pull out the old vaudeville custom of the cane around the stale performer's neck.

It's funny that the description talks about this show "starring Western singer" Jim Stafford. I don't know what Stafford did after his top 40 era was over, but in the 1970's he was kind of a top 40 shooting star with rather - at that time - controversial songs like "My Girl Bill" and "Wildwood Weed", sandwiched between the end of the Beatles era and the beginning of disco.

Look as hard as you can and you will not find The Flying Dutchman / Flight 313 by Jim Stafford anywhere but your memory of this show. I wasn't quite 10 and I only heard Jim perform it one time but the verses have been burned into my head for 48 years.

Flight 313 on the greatest airline you ever seen.

It's the Flying Dutchman homeward bound,

If it ever got off the ground.