1974: Fifty Years Later / Pray For The Wildcats

1974 was a landmark year for film, a convergence of exciting international cinema and the original voices of New Hollywood that still resonates 50 years later. In our new series we invite a different guest for each episode to choose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between. Anyone familiar with actor Marjoe Gortner's background as a child evangelist preacher (and his later milking of said image as depicted in the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary Marjoe) will know he often commanded his congregation to pray. But is there any prayer that could help the Wildcats? Anthony King - husband, father, beer leaguer, hockey player and film writer - is also a huge fan of Marjoe Gortner, and he's here to discuss the former minister's first full length film, Pray for the Wildcats, which debuted on ABC in January of 1974. A murderer's row of television personalities make up the titular squad: Mayberry's own Andy Griffith, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch and William Shatner fresh off the USS Enterprise are joined by Marjoe on a dirtbike trip to the Baja California desert. Desperate to impress Griffith's sociopathic business exec, the three ad execs bring along plenty of personal baggage on a trip fraught with resentment and failure that ultimately ends in death. It's a terminally square yet truly strange and somewhat obscure TV movie that we're glad Anthony unearthed for us to survey. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Anthony King on X: x.com/akdonelly John Cribbs on X: x.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on X: x.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: x.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"