Route 66, Weld, JFK, and To Kill a King ~ Strange Days in LA: From Magnolia to Inherent Vice

Tuesday Weld, at 18, played a 25-year-old on Route 66. In this extremely synchromystic program, you never know who or what you will see.

Students of Forteana, political assassinations, and the unexplained are familiar with how symbolic this program remains tied to this road's number. One of strangest cases I ever investigated in Illinois was “the Blue Phantom of Route 66," seen during the 1950s, as I document in Mysterious America. Jim Brandon in his The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit notes the significance of 33's "second multiple" being 66, and how roads designated "66" appear in the midst of strange situations, as, for example, during the specific key Mothman years' sightings along West Virginia State Road 66.

It's a small world, after all. Above is Glenda Jennings, shown in the February 15, 1963 episode of Route 66, "Somehow It Gets to Be Tomorrow," filmed in Corpus Christi, Texas. Red Dirt Report editor Andrew W. Griffin's godmother, who had married his mother's oldest brother, played a carhop in the episode.

Griffin mentioned this to me as we discussed the strange, pre-JFK assassination episode, "Love is a Skinny Kid" on Route 66, released on April 6, 1962, filmed in "Dallas." This episode has become a focal point of discussion within JFK assassination forums.

Jerry Organ, who compiled the following visual overview of the episode, noted, "Weld is distantly related to Charles J. Guiteau, who assassinated President James A. Garfield."

Kenn Thomas notes about the episode entitled "Aren’t You Surprised To See Me?" that "it opens at Love Field and someone on the phone mentions Earle Cabell, Dallas mayor whose brother Charles was fired from the CIA by JFK over the Bay of Pigs. Earle Cabel is the person who changed the route of Kennedy's motorcade for November 22, 1963...JFK was headed for the Trade Mart [when he was assasinated] where Buz gets a job in this episode."

Organ also posted this:

I'm Here to Kill a King
The fourth season has the show's most-direct "connection" to the Kennedy Assassination: the "I'm Here To Kill A King" episode scheduled to run Nov. 29, 1963. Some sources claim the episode aired March 20, 1964 (the week after the series finale); it certainly made it into syndication. The episode scheduled to run Nov. 22nd ("Kiss the Monster, Make Him Sleep" filmed in Minneapolis with James Coburn) was pre-empted and ran Jan. 24, 1964.
The "King" episode--with Robert Loggia, Tina Louise and Frank Campanella--was one of two from the series that were set in Canada. A close confident of the King of an oil-rich Middle-Eastern country hires a mercenary to assassin the leader while visiting the world-famous Niagara Falls. Tod is working at the Falls when he is mistakenly given an itinerary because he looks near-identical to the "assassin" character (Milner in a dual role). Word gets back to the plotters, who then attempt to frame Tod as the assassin by kidnapping Tod and having the "assassin" take his place at Tod's work-site.
Among the "King" episode's purported similarities: the assassin plans to shoot the King through the head, a character's father name is Lee, the King deplanes and travels in a motorcade, the assassin uses a rifle and intends to fire from a knoll. Dallas is mentioned as a place for the King to discuss oil deals.
Martin Milner seems to bear somewhat of a resemblance to Texas Tower sniper Charles Whitman.

The captions in this panel overview of "Love is a Skinny Kid" are Mr. Organ's, not mine.