The Adventures of Tugboat Annie

Minerva Urecal played a tough, but lovable Annie in this cheap, but well-made show. The last episodes I saw were so ripped up, its a wonder you could make sense of the story. Would've presented better with a better quality print, so will probably never see light on DVD. So generic was this series, most viewers never knew it was filmed entirely in Canada.

Made during a busy time for syndicated Canadian TV series' such as "Last Of The Mohicans," "Cannonball," "The Littlest Hobo" (1st series, not the version made in the 1970s) and "B" films "Flaming Frontiers" and "Wolf Dog." I heard from a child extra in "Annie" that Walter Sande was a great practical joker and talented at sleight-of-hand, which entertained cast and crew alike during downtime.

The reason the series was filmed in Canada was that labor and resources were cheaper and marketing possibilities wider. Inexplicably, the bonanza ended by 1960. It took decades for the Canadian film industry to recover, but recover it did, thanks largely to productions like "Tugboat Annie."

I would like to see a modern remake of this series. For some reason, I never forgot the original, and that is saying something!!I would like to see some of the original episodes and rediscover why I have never forgotten this short lived series. I remember Annie and some of the other characters very vaguely, but recall that I had a lot of great belly laughs watching this show as a young boy. Maybe I enjoyed it because it made my dad laugh too, which seemed quite rare back then. We had a 15 inch black and white Spartan TV and the signal was not the greatest, but the lure of the waterfront and the antics of Annie and the shows cast opened my imagination on a greater level of focus.

It's been so many decades since I last saw this show that it all seems a bit dim. Still, I remember it as being just one more of those wonderfully watchable comedy / adventures from the 50s. The rather frightening visage of Minerva Urecal in the title role has never faded from memory, though it once took three hours of TOT ( tip of tongue ) phenomena to finally recall her name.

This was no knock off of the 30s movies. Minerva was a lot tougher than Marie Dressler - she could probably have chewed up and spat out the latter - and Walter Sande was hardly Wallace Beery. Still, this was an entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable program that had a peculiarly endearing quality. [ OK, the story involved the salty captain of the Narcissus ( Annie ) and her constant battles to keep the scheming Capt. Horatio Bullwinkle and his Salamander from stealing jobs from her and her crew. That was pretty much the extent of it. ] Hopefully, it will pop up again one of these days...assuming it already hasn't.

As a youngster in late 1950s this was a syndicated series I enjoyed watching on Saturday afternoons and would love to see brought back on any classic TV channe. However after seeing the original Marie Dressler movie I find it odd that Annie's son and daughter in law were never seen or mentioned on the TV series.