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The Mama Cass Television Program grooves with the Woodstock era. Mama Cass Elliot was one of the era’s most beloved songstresses. Her long-lost special, The Mama Cass Television Program, gets it on and arrives on the shelves August 25, 2009

The show was taped as a pilot for a TV variety series and aired as a colorful 1969 ABC special, The Mama Cass Television Program uniquely captured not only the free spirit of the iconic Woodstock festival of music and love, but the magic of the times and a decade of change. A joyous celebration of both music and “flower power,” the show never aired again, likely a victim of suit-and-tie network executives who tuned in (found it a bit too groovy) and tuned out.

Watch the program and you’ll see why these suits axed the show – it was bold.

I must admit the TV show cuts to commercials and you get to see 1969 commercials. They aren’t that bad either. One commercial you see Bernadette Peters deciding on whether or not to wear a padded bra.

Joni Mitchell, John Sebastian and Mary Travers all join Cass for a sing-along that’s a flashback of ’60s music utopia. John presents She’s a Lady and teams with Cass on Darlin’ Companion. Joni performs Both Sides Now and Mary offers And When I Die. All three women join together for a stirring version of Bob Dylan’s I Shall be Released.

With the censure television had back in the late 1960s, it’s amazing this show even aired.

The program also features rare solo vocal performances by Cass of The Mamas and the Papas’ mega-hits California Dreamin’ and Monday, Monday, as well as renditions of Dream a Little Dream of Me, River of Life, I Can Dream Can’t I?and the Motown hit Dancing in the Street.

Other guest stars include Buddy Hackett, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in a pair of humorous sketches with Elliot.

Screenhead has 3 The Mama Cass Television Program available for give away. Post your name and we will pick the winner Thursday, September 10, 2009.

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The production still tells it like it was during Woodstock. Although I was very young at the time, I sense the picture says it all — wide-eye and open to the new culture of free love, drugs and human be-ins!

A generation began in his backyard….  From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. 

It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.

When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel.   Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.

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A generation began in his backyard….  From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. 

It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents. 

When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel.   Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Production of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock begins late this month.

Lee’s ensemble cast includes Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton and Liev Schreiber and more as you read this post below.  It’s going to be an outstanding film.  I am very excited.

The movie is based on the memoir of Elliot Tiber, who played a role in helping the historic 1969 music fest unfold on his neighbor’s farm.

Contingency plans have been put in place in case SAG strikes in the event that work stoppage occurs because of a strike. With that in place Lee’s film is going into full production.

Demetri Martin (”The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”) is all set to play Tiber, an aspiring interior designer in Greenwich Village obliged to run the family business, a Catskills motel. In summer 1969, he was at the center of a generation-defining experience when he volunteered the motel to be the home base for Woodstock concert organizers after his neighbor, Max Yasgur, made his farm available for the event.

Staunton and Henry Goodman are set to play Tiber’s parents while Jonathan Groff is set to play Woodstock organizer Michael Lang. Hirsch will play a recently returned Vietnam vet, Eugene Levy is set to play Yasgur, and Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is set to play a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, while Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan play a hippie couple attending the concert. Dan Fogler is set play a local theater troupe head and Mamie Gummer is set to play Lang’s assistant.

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Looks like Ang Lee’s next project is “Taking Woodstock.”

Lee will direct the comedy based on the memoir “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, Concert, and a Life,” by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte.

According to Variety, “Woodstock” focuses on the politically turbulent summer of ‘69, story follows an Everyman working at his parents’ motel in the Catskills who inadvertently sets in motion what would become the generation-defining concert.

“Elliot’s exuberant and heartfelt story is a perfect window onto the Woodstock experience,” James Schamus, who is penning the script said. “It explores an inspiring historical moment when liberation and freedom were in the air.”

The film has one lead, based on Tiber, and a colorful ensemble. Speculation about original or period music was not confirmed, though the film is assuredly not going to be about the famed concert itself.

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