Horsing around underwater

THiS, a local over-the-air channel, shows some funky stuff late, late at night. Of course I'm talking about Sea Hunt and Mr. Ed.

Sea Hunt starred the young and intrepid Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson, former Navy frog man and now ace civilian deep sea diver. If you lost it in the ocean, whether it was your car keys or an Air Force fighter jet, Mike Nelson could find it for you. (Bridges is most famous to Jeff and Beau Bridges for playing the roll of "dad," sometimes known as "pop" when they wanted to borrow the car.)

Mr. Ed is the titular loquacious equine. The pretty palomino horse only talked to his owner, Wilbur Post, (Alan Young, Jr., aka the guy from The Time Machine, and the voices of Scrooge McDuck in Duck Tales and 7 Zark 7 in Battle of the Planets).

The reason I bring this up is you could not have two more mismatched series to run back to back, or scuba tank to saddle in this particular case. The heart pounding suspense of one, running right up and into the surreal horse hijinks of the other.

Here are some log lines for actual episodes of both series:

Mike Nelson searches for an underwater thief. Ed refuses to write another hit song for Kay's brother.

Rising tides trap two children in an undersea cave. Ed will not admit he caused the newsboy to lose his job.

A diplomat and his family are kidnapped. Wilbur falls into a lion's cage while retrieving a kite.

If you watch enough of these shows, however, they all start to run together:

Mike refuses to record a song (Tiny Bubbles) underwater for Kay's brother because Ed is a thief.

A newsboy is trapped underwater (who the hell was he delivering to?) and Ed comes to the rescue after Mike loses his job to some kids.

A diplomat and his family are threatened by sea lions and Mike rides Ed to the rescue while Wilbur flies a kit.

Bet you're confused as crap now. Well, the line forms behind me. All I'm saying THiS Channel programmers is be more careful of what series you pair together; you never know what kind of night terrors they could induce in viewers.

I'm looking at you Outer Limits and The Patty Duke Show.