the 1967 cast photo

[michael c]

at the fest i bought a t-shirt with the 1967 cast photograph.

it's a pretty well used picture(although mpi marketed for many years a plaque with this picture described as "rare")that most of us have seen.

there are a few variations on it(one fellow at the fest told me of a version with everyone smiling although i'm not sure what any of these folks would have to smile about by 1967)but i could have sworn that jason mcquire was in this picture whenever i've seen it before yet he's not here.

funny too that maggie is pictured in her waitresses' uniform since after her abduction by barnabas she is never again seen in her waitress role(the producers must have figured that at this point that the audience would still most identify with her in that part).

poor joel crothers gets left out of this picture just as he does in the 1968 series with the cast on the staircase.what did this poor guy have to do to get into the cast shot?

speaking of that famous 1968 photo it's quite remarkable that besides it and the 1967 photo under discussion here that they never did another ensemble photo.not in 1966 and not from 1969-71.there are really only two group shots from this show.

once the program became successful i'm surprised abc didn't order more for publicity purposes.especially once quentin became so wildly popular a character.there are of course numerous single shots of the castmembers but only two group setups.

i realize that location shooting had become prohibitably expensive but it couldn't have been too hard to gather the cast on the set periodically for this purpose.something of a mystery.

[Gothick]

The most glaringly obvious answer to the lack of cast photos is that DC and ABC were CHEAP.

Also, once Barnabas came on the scene, the publicity revolved 99 percent around Barnabas, Barnabas, Barnabas--because that was the ONLY reason fans tuned in, right?  *wink*

G.

[michael c]

i love this picture b.t.w.

it has the air of an old "whodunnit" with the suspects gathered into the drawing room for all to be revealed.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

there are a few variations on it(one fellow at the fest told me of a version with everyone smiling although i'm not sure what any of these folks would have to smile about by 1967)

The smiling version was published in one of the MPI catalogues. If you'd like to see it, I can probably did it up, scan and post it.

but i could have sworn that jason mcquire was in this picture whenever i've seen it before yet he's not here.

I thought he was always standing somewhere in the back of Carolyn. But perhaps he's not in all the versions.  

poor joel crothers gets left out of this picture just as he does in the 1968 series with the cast on the staircase.what did this poor guy have to do to get into the cast shot?

He posed with KLS in 1968 - but, yeah, I don't *think* he was ever posed with anyone else. Odd...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Barnabas, Barnabas, Barnabas--because that was the ONLY reason fans tuned in, right?  *wink*

Hell no!

[Sara Monster]

The smiling version was published in one of the MPI catalogues. If you'd like to see it, I can probably did it up, scan and post it.

I'd like to see it,

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Here's the smiling version (well, everyone is smiling except for Barn - he's baring his fangs ):

Notice how Jason is partially hidden behing Carolyn, which leads me to a theory about the photo on the T-shirt. But first, is this photo that appears on one of the MPI mousepads similar to the one on the T-shirt? (I couldn't actually locate a decent photo of the T-shirt - they were all too small. )

Jason is mysteriously absent from it - yet everyone else is in almost the exact same positions as they are in the smiling shot. Though Jason also does indeed appear in the version that was used for the cover of the 2003 Calendar (I seem to have misplaced my copy so I had to scan the flyer) with everyone else in basically the exact same positions:

All this leads me to wonder if in the mousepad and T-shirt versions Jason wasn't similarly obscured behind Carolyn, as he is in the smiling version, and MPI took it upon themselves to airbrush him out. If so, it certainly wouldn't be the first time that MPI airbrushed a DS photo for their own (often bizarre) purposes. 

[jimbo]

Don't get me started with MPI. They originally marketed this item (plaque) as a limited edition although I don't believe it ever stated the size. In subsequent years it was not referred to as a limited edition by MPI and now I believe they are back to saying it is in fact a limited edition. Hopefully MPI can inform us if this plaque is indeed a limited edition and the size of it.

Airbrushing a character/actor out of a photo. I hope MPI has a good reason if they did that.

Interesting topic!

[Gothick]

These are fascinating.  I know for a fact I have never seen the version in which they're all smiling.

Joan is wearing the awful infamous Liz wedding gown.  Is Louis's tie from the wedding sequence too? 

I figure this was done sometime in June of '67.  It's interesting that they got Grayson to come down for it. At the end of that month she had been in exactly one episode.

Thanks for these, MB! 

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Joan is wearing the awful infamous Liz wedding gown.  Is Louis's tie from the wedding sequence too?

It might. The shirt and suit might even be the same - but the vest is definitely different.

I figure this was done sometime in June of '67.

I do believe you're right about that. In fact, the photo session was most likely done sometime between June 13th and June 28th because Anthony George didn't shoot his first ep until the 13th and Dennis Patrick shot his last on the 28th. And given that Patrick was already with one foot out the door, it's actually more interesting to me that he was included more than that Grayson was because at least she was just beginning her run. But then the same holds true of Humbert Allen Astredo because, by the time the '68 photo session for the shots on the foyer stairs was done, he was soon to be out the door as Nicholas - as was Lara Parker as VampAng and Robert Rodan as Adam...

[Sara Monster]

(In regards to the version) Huh, taken during the month that there was a gas leak at Collinwood apparently. 

Thanks for scanning/posting that, it's just so weird to see all those characters happy together without some fighting/blackmailing/homocide taking place.

I think the most common version of the pic (or atleast one that hasn't been posted yet) might be this one:


Slightly different angle with Willie between the girl's heads, Jason now to the left of Carolyn & Woodard is facing a different direction.

[Lydia]

I want a key ring with those two photos back-to-back so I can turn it over and over.  Smiling, not smiling, smiling, not smiling...

[michael c]

thanks mysterious!

it's the middle version that appears on the t-shirt.the black space between carolyn and vicki's heads must be where jason was somehow eliminated.hmmm.

the smiling version is beyond weird.i mean how often did this group smile?

in june of 67 joan and louis are still being given "star placement"...that will change rather quickly won't it?and grayson is sort of biding her time in the background before she assumes the mantle.

b.t.w. i don't walk around new york in this t-shirt.i'd feel kind of silly.i wear it under another shirt so that only i know that "they're" with me.

[Sara Monster]

Smiling, not smiling, smiling, not smiling...

[Midnite]

That's awesome.