OT: August 28 -- Slim Pickens Day on TCM's "Summer Under the Stars"

Every August, Turner Classic Movies gives each day to a star and shows their movies for 24 hours.

TCM's almost done for the year.

Each year the biggest stars always get a day -- Wayne, Grant, Doris Day, James Stewart.

But each year a few days are given to "somebody new, and not so big."

One year, they had Martin Balsam day. (Without Psycho, I might add, he was in plenty of other great films.)

Tomorrow: Slim Pickens day.

Why not?

This allows for one truly great masterpiece -- Dr. Strangelove -- in which Pickens plays nuclear pilot "King" Kong and gets some of the best lines in the movie, like "Weel, boys, it looks like this is eet -- nuk-cleer combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies!" Plus a rundown of a list for survival kit that includes condoms and vodka: "Hell, a fellah could have a good weekend in Vegas with this!" Pickens role was first offered to John Wayne, and then assigned to Peter Sellers to go with his other three. Sellers didn't feel comfortable with the accent. Pickens got screen immortality.

But also: Blazing Saddles. I didn't much like it then -- it seemed like a dirty-mouthed TV episode. But its very nostalgic now, and Slim Pickens(a hefty villain here) get this great line: "What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is goin' on here?" Well, I like it.

Pickens is incredibly moving in Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He gets Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" as a send-off. He's also moving in "The Honkers," a rodeo movie with James Coburn. And he's back to being funny again in Spielberg's misfire, "1941" doing a mini-homage to King Kong's reading of the survival kit list.

I know that they are showing those movies, but I can offer two things I DON'T think they are showing:

A 1964 b/w Man From UNCLE episode: "The Iowa Scuba Affair." Pickens played a good ol' boy Iowa farmer who turned out to be a THRUSH(bad guy) kingpin. It was fun watching this Hitchcockian turn by Pickens -- a likeable villain.

"Rough Night in Jericho." This little-known Universal Western is famous for two things: Dean Martin plays the town-boss villain, and quite well(he's RUTHLESS.) Dino's only bad guy role. AND: there is a fight between hero George Peppard and Slim Pickens(as a Dino henchman) which I'd count among the three or four most violent, lingering, and painful fights ever put on film. And before the R-rating yet. And with Slim Pickens yet.

So, yeah...I'd give Slim Pickens a day, too.

Did he do any Hitchcock episodes?