Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the former home of the late actor James Franciscus in Beverly Hills on Tuesday in a peaceful protest of bad 1970s television shows. Franciscus played blind private eye Mike Longstreet in the 1971 detective drama, “Longstreet,” which aired for one season on ABC.
One of the protest’s apparent leaders, Nat Lint, told the Wedgie that Occupy Longstreet is a “resistence movement” aimed at drawing attention to the role that watching bad TV shows in the 1970s had in ruining the lives of people like himself.
“All those years I shoulda been studyin’, but instead I got hooked on this junk,” said Lint. “I mean, a blind detective? Come on!”
Lint, an unemployed truck driver from El Segundo, carried a sign that read: “I wish I could say that I’m One of the 99% who didn’t watch your show.” He said that, after Franciscus’ former home, the group planned to picket the gravesite of Claude Akins, star of the bad 1970s trucker drama “Movin’ On.”
“That show was the reason I became a trucker,” Lint said, wistfully. “You see how that turned out.”
Another protester, Betty Schaefer, who carried a sign that read, “No Blood For Potsy,” said the group also planned to picket the homes of Lee Majors, star of the 70s hit, “The Six Million Dollar Man,” Linda Henning, who starred in “Pettitcoat Junction,” Chad Everett (“Medical Center”), Dan Haggerty (“Grizzly Adams”), John Schuck (“Holmes and Yo-Yo”) and James Farentino (“Cool Million”), as well as the graves of several other stars, including Christopher George (“The Rat Patrol”), Bert Convy (“Love, American Style”), Dom DeLuise (“Lotsa Luck”), Nipsey Russell (“Match Game”) and Ted Bessell (“Me and the Chimp”).
When informed of the protest, LAPD chief Charlie Beck said, “It’s one thing to desecrate the grave of Dom DeLuise, but we draw the line at Chuck Connors.”
“All those years I shoulda been studyin’, but instead I got hooked on this junk,” said Lint. “I mean, a blind detective? Come on!”
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