“Time to Get Things Started”

April 3, 2017April 3, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

John Lennon said, “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” That is especially true when looking at our two television shows today. We are going to explore two shows that mixed reality and fantasy, or humanity and puppets more accurately. Madame’s Place and The Muppets are both what they now call a mockumentary. Both shows featured a puppet hosting a late-night tv show, interacting with humans. On Madame’s Place, Madame was the only non-human, while The Muppets blended muppets and humans throughout the show. We’ll also take a quick peek at the men behind the fantasy: Wayland Flowers and Jim Henson.

Madame’s Place debuted in 1982 while The Muppets began in 2015, 33 years apart. Both shows lasted one season and featured celebrities interacting with the characters. Both Madame and Miss Piggy had Jay Leno on their show. Both shows also went beyond the professional lives of their stars, featuring their personal lives as well.

Madame’s Place

Madame lived in a large mansion. All 51 episodes included her three-person staff: Bernadette Van Gilder (Susan Tolsky) who was her secretary; Walter Pinkerton (Johnny Haymer) who was an ex-boxer, now butler; and her niece Sara Joy Pitts (Judy Landers) who was a bit of a dumb blonde. A young Corey Feldman appeared in half the shows as Buzzy St. James, the next-door neighbor boy.

Madame clad herself in feathers and sequins. Madame was never described as politically correct, and she did not mince words with her staff or her nightly guests. She always had a witty comeback.

Some of the guests on her show included Frankie Avalon, Joyce Brothers, Scatman Crothers, Phyllis Diller, Eva Gabor, George Gobel, Arsenio Hall, Pee-Wee Herman, Jay Leno, Anthony Newley, Charles Nelson Reilly, Debbie Reynolds, John Schneider, William Shatner, Toni Tenille, Betty White, and Fred Willard.

I was surprised to learn that Wayland Flowers was actually born Wayland Parrott Flowers in Georgia in 1939. He passed away in 1988 in California from cancer. He always performed with Madame, and their first break happened when they were cast on The Andy Williams Show in the mid-1960s. They appeared on Laugh-In, The Hollywood Squares, and The Mike Douglas Show, as well as four years on Solid Gold.

Flowers once said that Madame had a mind of her own, and sometimes what she said shocked him.

If you wish to see Madame in action, there are several youtube videos of her. Madame’s Place s0le13 is an episode where Madame holds a contest to determine her next (and 7^th) husband.

The Muppets

Like Madame’s Place, The Muppets showed life on a late-night talk show. The gang is all here. Kermit and Miss Piggy have ended their relationship, but it is obvious they still have feelings for each other. The show is Up Late with Miss Piggy. Before the show went live, Kermit always said, “Time to get things started.”

THE MUPPETS – “Pig Girls Don’t Cry (Pilot)” – Miss Piggy is furious that Kermit booked Elizabeth Banks as a guest on her late night talk show Up Late with Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear meets his girlfriend’s parents, and Grammy Award-winning rock band Imagine Dragons performs their new single “Roots,” on the season premiere of “The Muppets,” TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/Andrea McCallin) KERMIT THE FROG

Kermit is the executive producer; his best friend, Fozzy Bear, is the co-host; Gonzo is the head writer with fellow writers Rizzo the Rat and Pepe the King Prawn; Scooter is in charge of talent, Bobo is the stage manager; Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker are the prop handlers; Uncle Deadly is in charge of Miss Piggy’s wardrobe; Sam the Eagle is in charge of the network’s Standards and Practices; Denise, another Pig, and Kermit’s current girlfriend, is in charge of marketing; the house band is the Electric Mayhem; and we’re not totally sure what the Swedish Chef actually does. Rowlf the Dog owns a bar across the street and many of the characters retire there after the show to talk about the evening’s performances.

The show mixes humans and muppets. For example, Fozzy is dating a human girl, and her parents don’t approve.

The show cleverly made fun of a lot of the late-night shows. Some of the guests who came to dish with Piggy included Christina Applegate, Elizabeth Banks, Jason Bateman, Jere Burns, Kristen Chenoweth, Laurence Fishburn, Josh Groban, Joan Jett, Mindy Kaling, Jay Leno, Willie Nelson, and Reese Witherspoon.

The show was cancelled after one year. A lot of people complained about The Muppets living as adults in adult situations. This was unfair criticism because the Muppets began as a show aimed at adults.

Jim Henson was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died in New York in 1990. He began creating puppets in high school. While at the University of Maryland, he created a show starring Kermit among other now-unknown puppets called Sam and Friends, an adult show. The show appeared in television in the Washington, DC area from 1955-1961.The puppets lip-synched popular songs and acted in sketches spoofing television shows. Henson founded Muppets, Inc. in 1958. The Muppets then appeared on late night talk shows.

In 1969, the Muppets moved to Sesame Street where they became famous. The Muppet Show was on television from 1976-81, and the crew made several movies including The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan.

In the 1980s, Disney became involved with the Muppets and several television shows occurred (The Jim Henson Hour in 1989 and Muppets Tonight from 1996-98), along with a couple more movies. In 2004, Disney acquired all rights to the Muppets and made additional movies.

I’m not sure why neither of these shows made it to year two. Maybe people just couldn’t accept the interaction of puppets and humans. With The Muppets, I think some people who would have liked the show assumed it was for kids while people who assumed it was for kids were unhappy it was an adult show.

I found both shows a lot of fun. They didn’t take themselves or celebrities too seriously. Another show I fell in love with that put kids’ characters into modern situations was the New Looney Tunes, but that’s a show we’ll explore in detail in a future blog.

I could not find an author for the following quote: “It’s not reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.” I don’t know about you, but in watching the news and reading newspapers (ok, almost no one reads newspapers anymore), I find reality is not a fun place to dwell in. I will happily add a bit of fantasy. It seems to produce a lot of great one-liners.

Piggy: I’m telling you this because we’re friends: we are no longer friends.

********************************************************************

Fozzie: I knew you wouldn’t approve it so I went over your head.
Kermit: I’m the boss.
Fozzie: Oh that’s right. So I went behind your back.

********************************************************************************

Cousin Charlie: Well, if you need me I’ll be in my dressing room practicing my collection of one-liners.
Madame: Well, be sure to do a good job darling. They’re all in your face.
*********************************************************************************

Madame: These are my Summer Diamonds. Some are diamonds, some are not.

The White Stuff

March 27, 2017March 27, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 4 Comments

It’s hard to imagine anyone with a more versatile or longer-lasting occupation than Betty White. During her career, she’s starred in 12 sitcoms, had recurring roles on 17 shows, and appeared in another 45 series. In addition, she was in 14 movies; 18 movies made for television; and 305 different shows as herself, including 326 episodes of Match Game, 85 guest spots on the $10,000 Pyramid, 52 appearances on Entertainment Tonight, and 40 times on To Tell the Truth.

Born January 17, 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois, Betty was an only child. Her family moved to California when she was quite young. Her original goal was to become a Park Ranger, but that career was closed to women at that time. She started her entertainment career in radio, because she was told she was not photogenic. When World War II broke out, she joined the American Women’s Voluntary Services. She was briefly married to Dick Barker, a pilot; they married and divorced in 1945. In 1947 she married Lane Allan, an agent, but they divorced in 1949.

Her career took a major leap in 1952 when Life with Elizabeth was picked up by the network. Betty was the star and producer of the show from 1952-1955. Her show gave her total control both behind and in front of the camera. She was the first woman to produce a sitcom. She was only 28 years old and living with her parents when this opportunity presented itself.

During the 1950s Betty would also star in the sitcom Date with the Angels, as Vickie Angel. Vickie and her husband, an insurance salesmen, involved their friends and neighbors in a variety of comic situations. She also appeared on variety shows such as Jack Paar Tonight, as well as The Betty White Show, a talk show. In 1956, she began an alliance with the Tournament of Roses parade which she co-hosted for 19 years.

The 1960s found her starring in her first movie, Advise and Consent in 1962, portraying Kansas senator Elizabeth Ames Adams. She also began her long partnership with game shows, earning the title, “First Lady of Game Shows.” It was when she appeared on Password that she met her third husband, Allen Ludden, who was the host. They married in 1963 and were happily living life until his death in 1981. (Note: Wisconsin claims Allen Ludden because he was born in Mineral Point in 1917.)

LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 17, 1976: (L-R) “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” co-stars – Ed Asner, Betty White, Mary Tyler Moore and Ted Knight – all won awards at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 28th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Shubert Theatre on May 17, 1976 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by TVA/PictureGroup/Invision for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences/AP Images)

In the 1970s, Betty re-entered the television series realm. She guest-starred on the Mary Tyler Moore Show during its fourth season as television host Sue Ann Nivens, the Happy Homemaker. She was such a hit that she became a regular for the rest of the series’ run. In 1977, she and Georgia Engel starred in The Betty White Show (not to be confused with the talk show in the 1950s) which only lasted one season. Because of her affiliation with the Mary Tyler Moore Show, the Tournament of Roses replaced her as host, and she then took on the task of co-hosting the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade for ten years.

In the 1980s, at age 60, Betty’s career continued to steamroll. She became a regular on Mama’s Family, which aired from 1983-86. In 1985, she accepted the role of Rose Nyland on The Golden Girls. Originally slated for the part of Blanche, it was suggested that Rue McClanahan and Betty switch roles to keep from becoming typecast. The role of Rose Nyland kept her busy through 1993. Golden Girls ended production in 1992; the next season, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White reprised their roles for one season on Golden Palace.

Rue McClanahan, Vicki Lawrence, and Betty White in Mama’s Family.

During the 1990s, Betty continued her television work. She had a regular role on Maybe This Time where she played Shirley Wallace, a much-married woman, who pushes her daughter, recently divorced, into a relationship, when she just wants to run the family coffee shop and avoid dating altogether. She also was in all 30 episodes of Ladies Man, where she again plays the mother of the main character. He is trying to raise a daughter from his first marriage and a daughter from his current marriage while dealing with a wife, and ex-wife, and a mother.

As the new century turned over in 2000, at 78, Betty just continued to add to her acting credits. She had regular roles on Boston Legal and The Bold and the Beautiful. She also starred in Hot in Cleveland for its entire five-year run. She continued appearing on a variety of television shows during that decade.

During her career, she was nominated for 21 primetime Emmys and won five. She also won 2 daytime Emmys. She is the only woman to be nominated in every comedy category. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Betty loves animals and is an advocate for many animal associations including the Los Angeles Zoo, the Morris Animal Foundation, and the African Wildlife Foundation. She received the Humane Award in 1987 and had a plaque installed near the gorilla exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo to commemorate her work there.

It’s hard to know what she will attempt next. She was the oldest person to host Saturday Night Live which she did in 2010. She appeared on the original Tonight Show with Jack Paar and has appeared with Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon. She has been on the Howard Stern Show, the Simpsons, and one of my favorites, Madame’s Place. She has guest starred in both comedies and dramas. She produced Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, where senior citizens played pranks on younger people.

Considering her real name is Betty, not Elizabeth, it’s ironic that her first television role was in Life with Elizabeth and her first movie was portraying Elizabeth Ames Adams.

At 95, how has she kept so young? If you ask her co-stars from Hot in Cleveland, they will tell you that she survives on hot dogs, French fries, Diet Coke, and red licorice. Who am I to argue?

One of her best awards came in 2010 when she was made an Honorary Forest Ranger. Considering that in 1940 that field was closed to her, when she received her honorary title, one-third of forest rangers were women.

When asked about why she loves performing, Betty said, “To be able to talk to that camera—the camera became your best friend. You’re looking into that little camera lens and they’re looking into your soul, because they’re right into your eyes. You can’t be phony. You can’t fake it.”

No one has ever accused Betty White of being a fake or a phony. Everyone she comes in contact with seems to love her. The camera was her best friend, but we all became her friends through those camera portrayals.

What a wonderful personality. What a wonderful career. What a wonderful legacy.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

March 20, 2017March 20, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Happy Monday. It’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” Day. They say fences make the best neighbors, but sitcom television proves otherwise. In honor of the day, I decided to compose my list of the top ten sitcom neighbors.

10. Wilson from Home Improvement. We don’t see much of Wilson, literally, but we hear him talking behind the fence. Wilson W. Wilson, played by Earl Hindman, can solve any problem Tim has. Wilson spouts a lot of philosophical advice for Tim. He has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, and has traveled the world studying extinct languages and forgotten cultures. Much of his wisdom comes from these not-well-known societies. Wilson’s face was never revealed in full; it was always covered by something, most often the fence between the homes. He calls Tim “Neighbor” and his wife Jill “Neighborette”. One of his pieces of advice is “If you place a small value on yourself, rest assured the world will not raise your price.”

9. Charlie from Empty Nest. We all worry about having a neighbor like Charlie. Empty Nest was about a pediatrician, Dr. Weston, whose wife has died and his two daughters (Barbara and Carol) move back in with him. Charlie, played by David Leisure, is their next-door neighbor. He is lazy and has no respect for women. He often barges in to borrow food. He is a kind of son to Dr. Weston, but he and Carol have a love-hate relationship. In one episode they get together, and try to make the relationship work, but both are relieved when they realize it never will, and they can go back to bickering. Charlie really does consider the Westons his family, and there are times he shows how much he cares about them; unfortunately, it never takes long for him to go back into annoying mode.

8. Marcus from About a Boy. If Mr. Wilson had met Marcus, he wouldn’t have complained about Dennis. Will Freeman (David Walton) is a single man who enjoys the single life. He’s quite wealthy because he wrote a huge best-selling song. Then Marcus (Benjamin Stockman) moves in next door. Marcus wants to be best friends; he lives with his mom and rarely sees his dad. Will thinks being his friend will cramp his style until he realizes girls rate single dads favorably. Of course, after a short amount of time, Will does become Marcus’ best friend and father figure, even though Marcus can make life difficult for him at the worst times.

7. Chuck Larrabee from Last Man Standing. Mike and Chuck spend a lot of time trying to come up with put downs for each other, but we know it’s only because as friends, they spend more time lifting each other up. Jonathan Adams plays Chuck, a retired Marine who runs a private security business and later works full time heading security at Outdoor Man, the store Mike co-owns. Although they joke around most of the time, occasionally, they get serious and have some in-depth, soul-revealing discussions.

6. Rhoda from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Rhoda knew instinctively how to bring out the best in Mary and encourage her to experience life more fully. Valerie Harper plays Rhoda Morgenstern who lives above Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore Show. She becomes Mary’s best friend. She has little self-esteem, and often makes fun of herself. She is single and often tells Mary about her bad date stories. After the fourth season, she moves to New York where she marries and gets her own series, Rhoda. Harper won four Emmys for her portrayal of Rhoda, three for the Mary Tyler Moore Show and one for Rhoda.

5. Yosemite Sam from The New Looney Tunes. Only Bugs could handle a neighbor like Yosemite Sam. Yosemite has a quick temper, doesn’t like anyone, and insults all his neighbors. In the New Loony Tunes, Bugs and Daffy are roommates. Porky Pig is one of their good friends. Sometimes Bug’s girlfriend Lola or Daffy’s girlfriend Tina are part of the plot. Yosemite admits he is a cheat, a thief, and a liar. He has a lot of terrific one-liners.

4. Kramer from Seinfeld. Who wouldn’t want a wacky neighbor like Kramer to keep life more interesting. Kramer (Michael Richards) is eccentric, but kind-hearted and tries to help others. Kramer is honest to the point of being rude at times. Kramer has the ability to talk Jerry into making choices against his better judgment. Jerry forgives his quirks and views him almost like a brother. Most of the time, Jerry is highly entertained by the antics that Kramer gets involved with.

3. Gladys and Abner Kravitz from Bewitched. The residents of Morning Glory Lane might not have a lot of privacy, but no criminal could get away with anything with Gladys Kravitz on the watch. Gladys is convinced that something strange is going on at the Stephens. However, her husband Abner is never around at the right moment to back her up. She gets frustrated because she can never prove anything is out of the ordinary. Gladys was played by Alice Pearce and Abner was played by George Tobias.

2. Blanche Morton from Burns and Allen. No matter what else is happening, Gracie and Blanche (Bea Benaderet) are never too busy to stop and have coffee together. They are able to discuss everything and accept each other with all their strengths and weaknesses. Blanche truly loved Gracie and accepted her with all her quirks. Gracie livened up Blanche’s life. Blanche’s husband Harry thinks Gracie is ridiculous, so Blanche loves her all the more.

1. Howard Borden from The Bob Newhart Show. My favorite sitcom neighbor has to be Howard Borden. Howard (Bill Daily) definitely gives Bob and Emily a purpose in life. He takes as much work as any child, and eventually becomes family when he marries Ellen, Bob’s sister. Howard is often at their apartment mooching their food or borrowing something again, but we know they wouldn’t have it any other way. On one episode, Bob and Emily are going on vacation for ten days. Howard is beside himself. They introduce Howard to a psychologist and when they come home, Howard is responsible and competent, but boring. When they try to talk to him, they realize he is a carbon copy of the therapist. Bob and Emily bribe him with his favorite foods and, eventually he is borrowing items, being forgetful, and coming over to eat. They are relieved to have the old Howard back.

There are a lot of interesting neighbors in TV Land. Make a list of your favorite.

Do You Mind If I Ask You a Question?

March 13, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Hello. Are are you feeling? Do you have a favorite food? What are your plans for today? What is your favorite vacation destination? Are you wondering if I lost my mind? Well, it’s National Ask a Question Day tomorrow. In honor of that celebration, we have a tv quiz. I decided to feature my 20 top favorite television shows with a question from each. So, grab a piece of paper and a pen; answers are at the end of the quiz. Hint: If you’ve been reading my blogs, you’ve seen the answers to many of these questions, but no peeking. Good luck.

(1) The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet – Don DeFore played their neighbor Thorny. In 1961 he would star in his own show. What was it?

(2) The Andy Griffith Show – Who was Aunt Bee’s neighbor and best friend?

(3) Bachelor Father – Bentley Gregg lived in Beverly Hills and worked with a lot of stars. Was he:

(a) An attorney (b) A family doctor (c) A film writer

(4) Big Bang Theory – Leslie Winkle, a physicist played by Sara Gilbert, dated two of the main characters. Who were they?

(5) The Bob Newhart Show – Bob’s sister Ellen ends up marrying another character on the show. Who was it? (a) Dentist Jerry Robinson (b) Neighbor Howard Borden (c) Patient Elliott Carlin

(6) The Brady Bunch – What was the name of the kids’ dog?

(7) The Burns and Allen Show – Blanche and Harry Morton lived next door. During the show’s run, Harry was replaced more than once. They found interesting ways of introducing the new person; e.g., they ended one year with Blanche holding a pan over his head. The next year, they started the show telling her to get back into place with the pan, but it was a different Harry under it. How many Harry Mortons were there from 1950-1958?

(8) The Dick Van Dyke Show – Morey Amsterdam plays Buddy Sorrell, a writer on the show. He always refers to his wife by a “food” name. Was it:

(a) Sugar Plum (b) Cupcake (c) Pickles

(9) The Donna Reed Show – Donna had two children Mary and Jeff, played by Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen. These two kids had something else in common in real life. Was it:

(a) There were cousins (b) They had famous mothers (c) They recorded hit songs

(10) Family – Matthew Broderick, married to Sara Jessica Parker, had a famous relative on this show. Who was it?

(11) Green Acres – The Ziffels owned a pig that was smarter than almost everyone in Hooterville. What was his name?

(12) Love American Style – This show featured three to four skits each week with television and movie stars. A famous show from the 1970s first appeared as a skit on this show. What was it?

(13) M*A*S*H – Here’s a two-parter. What was Radar O’Reilly’s favorite drink and for a bonus, what was his real first name?

(14) Modern Family – Both Gloria and Lily were born in other countries. What countries were they?

(15) My Three Sons – The oldest son, Mike, left the show after 1965. At the end of that year, he marries his high school sweetheart, moves away to teach at a college, and is only mentioned 4 times during the next 6 years. What was his girlfriend’s name?

(a Julie (b) Maureen (c) Sally

(16) The Partridge Family – This show was loosely based on a real-life family band? What was it?

(17) Petticoat Junction – Kate Bradley had three girls: Billy __, Bobby ___, and Betty ___. They had two-part names and they all had the same second name. Was it: (a) Ann (b) Jo (c) Kay

(18) Rizzoli and Isles – Maura, the ME, is extremely intelligent and a fashion plate, but in high school, the kids called her “Maura-the-Bore-A.” She has a pet named Bass. Was it:

(a) a chimpanzee (b) a tortoise (c) A skunk (de-fumed)

(19) That Girl – Ann Marie moves to New York City from a smaller town in New York. Was it: (a) Brewster (b) Bedford (c) Brighton

(20) thirtysomething – This show about a group of friends was set in a Pennsylvania city. Was it:

(a) Erie (b) Harrisburg (c) Philadelphia

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Ok. Are you ready to check your scores? If you score between 15-20, you are a well-rounded person, at least regarding classic sitcoms. If you score 10-15, you just need to add some of these shows to your DVD library. If you scored 5-10, you need to go back and re-read all my old blogs. If you scored less than 5, make up another score, because I don’t want to hear that.

Hazel
Clara
attorney
Leonard and Howard
(b) Neighbor Howard Borden
Tiger
Four
(c) Pickles
(c) They recorded hit songs. Fabares recorded “Johnny Angel” which hit number 1 in 1962. The same year, Petersen’s “My Dad” hit number 6.
James Broderick who played the father Doug Lawrence
Arnold
Happy Days
Grape Nehi; Walter
Colombia and Vietnam
(c) Sally
The Cowsills
(b) Jo
(b) A tortoise
(a) Brewster
(c) Philadelphia

I Don’t Have a Free Toothbrush For You, But . . .

March 6, 2017March 6, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Are you feeling comfortable? You might want to lean back, put on a pair of plastic glasses, and say Ahhh. Sorry, I guess I’m getting carried away by our topic today. March 6 is National Dentists Day. I thought it might be fun to delve into some shows that featured dentists. Apparently, the average viewer finds nothing funny about dentists. They are hard to spot on the small screen. Perhaps it brings back too many pain-filled memories of the sound of drills and mouths so numb you bite your lip without realizing it. Finding dentists on television was like pulling teeth – sorry I’m getting carried away again. Let’s look at a few of them.

When we think of television dentists, most of us probably conjure up pictures of Jerry Helper (played by Jerry Paris) on The Dick Van Dyke Show or Jerry Robinson (played by Peter Bonerz) on The Bob Newhart Show. These two shows can make anything funny, even dentists.

Jerry and Millie Helper are the Petries’ next-door neighbors and best friends on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Jerry is a dentist, and Millie is a stay-at-home mom with a son the same age as Richie, Rob and Laura’s son. Jerry is a kidder and his comments often get him in trouble.

One episode, “Punch Thy Neighbor” from the first season, shows Jerry taking his teasing too far. Jerry and Millie are watching the Alan Brady Show with Rob and Laura, and Jerry makes comments about how bad it is. Rob isn’t happy, but the next day he gets mad when several people, including the Helpers’ son Freddie and the milkman, tell Rob Jerry mentioned how bad the show was. Rob goes to talk to Jerry and ends up punching him accidentally. When he attempts to show Laura how it happened, he hit her as well. Richie tells Millie his dad hit his mom, and she sends Jerry over to get Rob under control. Jerry walks in seeing Rob yelling, not knowing it’s because he tripped over a toy. Trying to calm him down, Jerry wrestles him to the floor. Jerry realizes he was out of line with his joking. You would think he learned his lesson, but at the end of the episode, Jerry starts again, and Rob hits him in the face with a pie. Like all the Dick Van Dyke episodes, this one is true to life, well written, and funny.

I’m sure it was also well directed, although not by Jerry Paris. However, Paris kept nagging Reiner to let him direct. Once he did a couple of shows, Reiner realized that “he understood our show more than any of the other directors.” In 1963-64, Paris won an Emmy for directing the show. He directed 84 of the 158 episodes. After The Dick Van Dyke Show ended, he went on to direct many shows including 2 episodes of The Partridge Family, 3 episodes of Love American Style, 3 episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 7 episodes of The New Dick Van Dyke Show, 18 episodes of The Odd Couple, and 237 of the 255 episodes of Happy Days.

From 1972-1978, Jerry Robinson was Bob Hartley’s best friend on The Bob Newhart Show. Bob realizes his friends and family are not any more emotionally stable than his patients; they just get his advice for free. Jerry is an orthodontist, and he shares a receptionist with Bob. When interviewed about his character, Bonerz said “Jerry Robinson was written by 25 guys. It was my job to make those 25 different versions of Jerry the dentist credible.” Robinson was a swinging single, slow to trust others, and easily angered. Yet, his character was likeable, and he credited that to a well-balanced cast who all made each other better. They were like a close family; you don’t always approve of your family members, but you love them. Bonerz’s theory was that Bob Newhart was the psychologist/listener of the family, and that role made everything else fall into place. If you needed a root canal, Dr. Helper might be more proficient, but you would enjoy the conversation during the procedure more with Dr. Robinson.

One dentist who was a critical component of a show, although most people don’t remember him, was Dr. Barry Farber. Dr. Farber is the man Rachel Green was supposed to marry on Friends, but she left him at the altar, ending up living with Monica and meeting a new group of friends.

Several other shows, not as well-known as these three, also featured a dentist in their cast.

Doc Corkle was on the air in 1952. Doc, played by Eddie Mayehoff, was a neighborhood dentist. He lived with his father (Chester Conklin) and his daughter (Connie Marshall). Poor Doc has some money problems. The biggest financial setback was the fact that the network cancelled the show after only three episodes.

I’m a Big Girl Now featured Diana Canova who played a divorced woman, Diana Cassidy, who goes home to live with her father Benjamin Douglass, a dentist (Danny Thomas). His partner and his wife have run off to Spain. Diana also has a daughter Rebecca and a neurotic brother named Walter. The show was cancelled mid-season.

Charley Shanowski, played by Ted McGinley, is a dentist on Hope & Faith. His wife Hope (Faith Ford) is a stay-at-home mom with three children. Her sister Faith (Kelly Ripa) was a soap opera star whose character was killed off on the show. She moves in with her sister but expects to be treated like the star she used to be. Charlie does not like Faith and spends a lot of his time trying to get her to leave. We can understand why. It seems like every time a dentist has a show where a family member moves in, the network cancels the show. At least this show made it three seasons instead of three episodes before it got pulled.

Probably my favorite show with a dentist was an episode of The Carol Burnett Show. Like so many of the funniest episodes, this one featured Tim Conway (the dentist) and Harvey Korman (the patient). When interviewed about the skit, Conway said that memorable sketches often create themselves. “The novocaine portion of the dentist sketch wasn’t planned—it just happened. That’s the magic of comedy; you never know when it is going to sneak up on you and make you laugh.” The dentist skit was based on Conway’s real-life dentist who stuck the needle of novocaine into his own thumb while working on a patient. Korman didn’t know Conway was going to put that in the sketch.

Last, but not least, I wanted to mention Edgar Buchanan, Uncle Joe in Petticoat Junction. Buchanan earned a DDS degree from North Pacific College of Dentistry in Oregon. His father was also a dentist. During the time he was a pre-med student, Edgar took acting classes at the University of Oregon and eventually left dental school to take a position in their drama department. His father convinced him to finish his dental degree first. When he returned to North Pacific he met Mildred Spence, another dental student. They graduated in 1928. After marrying, the couple moved back to Eugene, Oregon where they opened a private practice. From 1930-1937, Edgar was chief of oral surgery at the Eugene Hospital Clinic but also worked as an assistant director in the University of Oregon drama department. In 1939, the couple moved to Pasadena. When Edgar appeared in a production at the Pasadena Playhouse, he received his first film offer. So, at the age of 36, he turned over the practice to his wife and became an actor. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1941 and 1974. He was the only cast member of Petticoat Junction to appear in all 222 episodes.

Apparently dentists are not too popular. There are a handful of shows about them while there are tons of shows about attorneys. But dentists are our friends, so to celebrate their day today, take a moment and watch the following:

www.liftable.com/edwardtofil/tim-conway-made-harvey-korman-wet.

Tim Conway talks about The Dentist episode to Conan O’Brien and they play a clip from it. If you watch it enough times, you might not actually look forward to going to the dentist, but you might not dread it as much. And if you’re a hopeful television creator, write a show about dentists. They’re due for a big hit.

Not Everything is Black or White

February 27, 2017February 27, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

As Black History Month comes to an end, I wanted to look at the early years of television featuring African American characters. I don’t know if young people today realize how much culture has changed in the past fifty years. While there are a lot of negative changes that have occurred in the movie and television industry, there have been a lot of positive changes as well.

It’s hard for young adults to realize today how different things are. When I was growing up in the sixties, married couples on television had twin beds; you could not say “pregnant” on the air; black people and white people were not friends, and certainly did not date or marry; the “jobs wanted” ads in the newspaper were divided into jobs for men and jobs for women; and if a married woman wanted to join the armed forces, her husband or father had to sign a letter giving his approval.

Sometimes we get so caught up in how far we are from the journey’s end, we forget to appreciate how far we have traveled. Looking at the current television schedule we see a variety of shows about capable women. While certainly racism and gender discrimination exist, most people don’t think twice about whether a lead character is a man or a woman; is black, white, or Asian; or single or married.

Just a quick review of shows on the air reveal complex, intelligent characters who are African American. We see this in Black-ish, This Is Us, Empire, Scandal, House of Lies, Last Man Standing, and Gray’s Anatomy, just to name a few. This was far from the reality of early television.

We often think of that era as the golden age of television, but honestly, it was the white age of television.

In 1950, two shows debuted with main characters who were black: Amos ‘N Andy and Beulah. A radio transplant, Amos ‘N Andy dealt mostly with Kingfish’s schemes to gain wealth, often at the expense of his friends. Beulah also got its start on radio where she was a character in Fibber McGee and Molly. She worked for a well-to-do middle class white couple with one son. Both of these shows were demeaning and stereotypical. In 1953, they were both yanked from the air due to NAACP protests.

Unfortunately, it would take almost 20 years before another show would feature a black character as a star. In 1968, Julia debuted. Julia, played by Diahann Carroll, was a black woman with a young son Corey (Marc Copage). Her husband is killed in Vietnam and she moves to LA to start a new life in her nursing career. Like Tom Corbett on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, she is raising a son; like Doris Day she is a working mother; and like Ann Marie on That Girl, she has a fabulous wardrobe. She is hired at Astrospace Industries, an industrial-health office where she works with Dr. Chegley (Lloyd Nolan). Her life is normal. She goes to work, takes care of her son, and goes on a few dates, but the concept of an African American, or a woman, starring in a show as the sole breadwinner, intelligent and fashionable, was not normal for the times. The show was on for three seasons until 1971.

Julia was a controversial show at the time, but it scored high in the ratings and became a popular series. I think it gets a lot of unfair criticism today. The show gets complaints because during the time of the Watts riots, sit-ins, and so much racial unrest, it portrayed Julia living a fairly normal life. I think people forget how groundbreaking it was to have a working woman or a black character star in a show. I think the fact that she was able to live a “normal” life gives even more credit to not bowing to stereotypes of the late sixties. It’s like criticizing someone who is just learning to walk for not running and doing handstands. They might be small steps, but they are steps going forward. I am one of those people who actually prefer not to see too much “real life” in sitcoms. Honestly, I watch them to escape real life.

I also wanted to mention a few other shows that were featuring black characters in their cast during the time Julia was on the air: Hogan’s Heroes, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Barney Miller.

Hogan’s Heroes had a diverse cast, including Ivan Dixon as Sgt. James Kinchloe, striving to stay one step ahead of the Nazis. The Mary Tyler Moore Show included a quirky news staff including weatherman Gordy Howard played by John Amos. Barney Miller centered around a police department made up of personnel who each had their own dysfunctions. One of those members was Lt. Ron Harris played by Ron Glass. Each of these shows quietly featured black characters. The races of any of the characters could easily have been switched during an episode and the character would not change. It was just real people living real lives and some of them happened to be white and some black. After these creative and well-written shows, I prefer to ignore the Norman Lear era of shows. They may have their merits, but I couldn’t stand All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, or Good Times. The Jeffersons was tolerable, but I would not choose to watch it either. In the mid-1980s, television began to get more diverse.

Don’t get me wrong. Things are far from perfect in the world of television and movies, but we have made a lot of progress. We have a lot of work to do, but just think how many choices Diahann Carroll would have today if she wanted to develop a television series. She could pick any career she wanted, including the military without anyone’s else’s approval; she could marry a white man and not sleep in twin beds; she could announce on the air she was pregnant—small steps but 5280 small steps turn into a mile. So, let’s devote one day to appreciate the hundreds of miles we have come before getting too caught up despairing about the hundred we still have to go.

All Hail to the Grief

February 19, 2017February 19, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Monday is Presidents Day, and as I mention that fact, I can hear the collective groans. Whether you’re in the Hate Trump or Love Trump camp, you are probably thoroughly sick of politics. Believe me, I hear you. However, today we are going to look at presidential moments in television. And before you exit out, be assured I am not talking about the Nixon-Kennedy debates. We’re going to look at my top television episodes that featured a president.

Several series have included presidents with people dressed in costumes at Halloween parties. George Washington showed up on Growing Pains in 1990 and on the first episode of The Munsters in 1964, while Thomas Jefferson appeared on Mike and Molly in 2011. I mention the roles, but we’re not going to concentrate on them.

Several candidates also made whistle stops campaigning on television. Thomas Jefferson was on Simon and Simon in 1986 when they were trying to recover a family journal, Teddy Roosevelt was on The Virginian in 1962 fighting with the Rough Riders, and Franklin Roosevelt was a minor character on Wonder Woman in 1975, when she used her super powers to return a wounded WWII pilot to Washington. In 2002, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson all made an appearance on Sabrina the Teenage Witch to convince her aunt not to run for city council. Because these were minor appearances and the shows were not about the presidents, I did not include them in my top five.

Here are my top five television episodes featuring a president as a character.

No. 5 – Bewitched: “George Washington Zapped Here” – 1972. When I saw a Bewitched episode that starred George Washington, I was sure I had my number 1 show for this blog. Then I watched the show. I tend to look at Bewitched almost as two different shows. I love the first five years and include them in some of my all-time favorite tv episodes. It was one of the best fantasy shows ever created, but by the last season the fantasy had died. The last season, including this episode, is like trying to watch a wrinkled, saggy grandmother trying to pull off wearing a mini skirt and go-go boots. It’s a bit frustrating, a bit humorous, fairly sad, and extremely uncomfortable. If George Washington had a premonition about appearing in this episode, I’m sure he would have found a way to ban television in the Constitution.

Trying to help Tabitha with her homework, Esmeralda zaps George Washington to the present time. George is played by Will Geer. I feel like this theme of zapping historical figures happened more often than it should have during this show’s run. Also, Esmeralda is not as likeable a character as Aunt Clara or Uncle Arthur. Of course, Washington wanders off and is arrested for speaking without a permit. The only thing more painful than watching this show was the realization that it was a two-parter; the second episode has George going before a local judge and finally being exonerated by the truth. Talking about truth reminds me when George said, “I cannot tell a lie”, and I have to admit this episode is dreadful. Apparently, politics was just as painful 45 years ago as it is today.

No. 4 – Dharma and Greg: “Dutch Treat” – 2001. Numbers 3 and 4 are really a toss-up. Abraham Lincoln stars in both shows, and he appears in dreams in both episodes. This sitcom was on the air from 1997 to 2002 starring Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson as a young couple who eloped on their first date. She was raised by hippy parents and he comes from a wealthy family. The show earned eight Golden Globe and six Emmy nominations, and Elfman won the Best Actress Golden Globe in 1999. This episode was a bit too formulaic for me, so Drew Carey beat it out for number 3 in my list.

In this show, Dharma and Greg argue about being a role model for their young college friend. During the argument they both claim to be independent, so they decide to go dutch for a week to find out which one is truly independent. Of course, they end up realizing they are dependent on each other during the experiment. Peter, Greg’s coworker, has some weird dreams during the show. At the end of the episode, Peter leaves for lunch with a bunch of Victoria’s Secret models who think he’s hot (he’s not), and Abraham Lincoln arrives at the office for a consultation with Peter. Dharma and Greg inform him Peter is out and invite him to lunch with them. He takes off his hat to reveal it is full of waffles. At this point, Dharma informs Greg that they are now in Peter’s dream and the show ends. Abe is played by Ryan Stiles and, by chance, our no. 3 show features Stiles as a cast member.

No. 3 – The Drew Carey Show: “Drew’s in a Coma” – 2001. From 1995-2004, Drew portrays the average guy. He works at a department store and has a group of friends he hangs out with, primarily at the Warsaw Tavern. Ryan Stiles is one of these friends, who played Abe Lincoln in the Dharma and Greg episode. He also appeared on Drew’s improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

In this episode, Drew is in an auto accident and goes into a coma. His friends and family try to bring him out of it, but he is enjoying his unconscious dreams. We see him in an apartment with a bunch of sexy women. Mimi is his sister-in-law who wears flamboyant make-up. They have a love/hate relationship, but in his dreams, she is very conservative looking and tells him she is his slave, being very respectful. He has a pizza tree, a beer fountain, and a door that opens to the greatest moments in sports featuring himself. After several attempts to bring him out of the coma, his family gets ready to pull the plug to see if it shocks his body into waking up. When they unplug the respirator, Drew is in the middle of a Trivial Pursuit game with William Shakespeare and Abe Lincoln. (Abe is played by Charles Brame, and he also was Abe Lincoln on the Growing Pains episode mentioned in the second paragraph of the blog.) Abe is excelling at all the history questions, until Drew reads him a shocking question. The card asks “Who shot Abraham Lincoln?” The shock Abe feels equals the one Drew feels when he is unplugged and it forces him to realize he has to choose between going on to heaven or back to his life on earth. In the words of his fellow gamer, he had to decide “to be or not to be” and he chooses to return to earth for a while.

No. 2 – Spin City: “A Tree Falls in Manhattan” – 2001. Spin City is about a group of city hall employees who work to help the mayor. Mike, played by Michael J. Fox, is great at his job but he is leaving to get married and travel around the world. The staff covers up for the mayor who is not very competent, but they struggle with their personal lives. I did not watch Spin City a lot when it was on the air from 1996 to 2002. This was a funny episode, so it came in at number 2, even though Washington is only an on-air character for a minute or two.

Trying to impress his new girlfriend so they can watch the sun rise over the East River, the mayor orders a tree outside the mansion to be cut down, not realizing that it was a tree planted by George Washington and is protected. Charlie tells a girl he picks up that night about the tree story, not knowing she was the campaign manager for the opposition. She tells her boss, and they go on the air to make an announcement. When Charlie sees her, he realizes what has happened. Four George Washingtons appear in this episode played by David Hayman, Jack Wright, Gelbert Coloma, and Anthony Provenzano Jr. They are part of the Revolutionary War Society picketing city hall. After all this mayhem, Mike realizes he needs to be back in city hall and returns to his job. He arranges for the mayor to go on television saying “I cannot tell a lie, I chopped down George Washington’s tree, but I used the wood to build a shelter for the homeless.” At this time, Fox was dealing with Parkinson’s Disease and announced he would be leaving at the end of this season. When he did eventually leave the show, the explanation was that he accepted a job as an environmental lobbyist who moved to Washington, DC. He met a senator there named Alex P. Keaton, the name of Fox’s character on Family Ties.

No. 1 – My Friend Flicka: ”Rough and Ready” – 1956. I had heard of the book and movie My Friend Flicka, but I did not know that it was ever a television show. It was only on the air one year, and only 39 episodes were made, airing between February 1956- February 1957. It was a mid-season replacement for The Adventures of Champion, a show starring Gene Autry. Unfortunately, neither show could compete with The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin which was on another channel during this time slot. The show was later aired Monday nights on the Disney Channel in the mid-1980s. Ken McLaughlin, played by Johnny Washbrook, is devoted to his horse Flicka. He and his parents live at the Goose Bar Ranch in Coulee Springs. After this show was cancelled, Washbrook appeared on several shows, including three different characters on My Three Sons, but then went into the banking profession and moved to Martha’s Vineyard.

This episode was a delightful and charming show featuring Theodore Roosevelt played by Frank Albertson. Young Ken McLaughlin decides to write a letter to the president because there is too much overgrazing going on due to the government failing to put restrictions on the lands. A couple of weeks later, the newspaper has an article about Vice President Roosevelt coming to Coulee Springs for a vacation. In the meantime, several families are forced to put their ranches up for sale and move because there is no place for their cattle to graze. Ken meets a man fishing and shows him lures he makes himself. The man is quite impressed, and they make plans to meet again in the morning to fish. The next day, Ken explains what is happening with the land, saying he wrote the president but never heard back, and then tells the man that his family had now put their ranch up for sale also. The man tells Ken to have his father come to town, and he will arrange for him to talk to the vice president. He also has Ken take his picture with a large fish they caught. When he and his father go to town for the meeting, he realizes that the man he has been fishing with is Vice President Theodore Roosevelt who takes care of the situation, putting regulations in place. A few weeks later, Ken gets a letter. Theodore Roosevelt is now President Roosevelt and he wanted to make sure Ken did get a letter back from the President. He also included the photo that Ken took of him and the fish. Albertson did a bully good job playing Teddy.

Hopefully watching some of these episodes will convince you that it is possible to have a Happy Presidents Day. Watching the influence these men still have in our modern-day history reminds us that our Constitution and government were created and modified by great men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt, creating a strong foundation that is hard to destroy. All you have to do to enjoy politics today is to choose one of these five episodes to watch. And wearing red, white, and blue while you do so wouldn’t hurt.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Love is definitely in the air; whether you think it smells rancid or fragrant depends on your current relationship status. Remember those days when everything hinged on what type of valentine your current crush gave you at the school party? Love seemed to be the answer to all questions. We’re going to look at some classic (and not so classic) television shows that promoted that kind of love. Sorry, I can’t tell you if that pain you’re feeling is cupid’s arrow as it hit you or heartburn, but I can share some information with you as we learn about shows with “Love” in the title.

Love That Bob (1955). Bob Cummings played ladies’ man and photographer Bob Collins. His widowed sister, Rosemary Decamp, and nephew (Dwayne Hickman) also lived with him. Before she moved in with the Bradys, Ann B. Davis was Schultzy, Charmaine Schultz, Bob’s assistant, who was in love with him. Every show opened with Bob holding a camera and saying, “Hold it! I think you’re going to like this picture.” The beautiful Joi Lansing was another model who also was in love with Bob, but he was having too much fun playing the field. When he never accepted Joi, we knew deep down in his heart, he realized that Schultzy was the one for him. While Bob couldn’t decide on only one woman, the networks couldn’t decide on only one channel for the show either. It was on NBC Jan-May of 1955, moved to CBS for two seasons, moved back to NBC, and then finished up the last year and a half on ABC. I guess no one could remember where the show was supposed to end up after 1959, so it was cancelled. Bob was one of the first stars to play two characters in one show. Bob played himself and his grandfather Josh Collins. A decade later, Fred MacMurray would play Uncle Ferguson in addition to Steve Douglas in My Three Sons.

Love That Jill (1957). Rival managers of modeling agencies are played by real life couple Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling who had played the married ghosts on Topper. I guess they spooked the network because they disappeared after three months.

Love and Marriage (1959). Now we know what Uncle Charlie really did before he moved in with My Three Sons. He owned a music publishing company that was close to bankruptcy. William Demerest plays a business owner who brings his daughter into the company as a partner. She and her lawyer husband also move into his house. She loves rock and roll; her father hates it, but it might save his company. The network shut down the agency after four months to promote family harmony.

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). This show was based on a 1953 book and it was the first television series to feature teenagers as the main characters. I guess when Dwayne Hickman lived with Bob Collins, he picked up a lot of tips for the ladies, and as high schooler Dobie, he spent most of his time trying to find a girl to go out with and some money to pay for the date. Since his family owned a small grocery store, he was on his own for finances. Once he graduated, the show had to come up with new situations, so Dobie was in college for a couple of years as well as the army for a year. Dobie would go to the Rodin’s Thinker in the park and talk to us and himself about his love life. His best friend was beatnik and bongo player Maynard G. Krebs. Bob Denver played this role before he went on to star in Gilligan’s Island. He had never acted before this show; he had been a grade school teacher, and his sister, who worked for the casting department, included his name in the auditions. Super smart Zelda Gilroy was in love with Dobie. We knew he would eventually end up with her, his own Schultzy. She always wrinkled her nose at him and before he could stop himself he always did it back. In later years when they did two reunion movies, Dobie and Zelda were in fact married. Sheila James, who played Zelda, became a California senator.

During the first season, Dobie thought he was in love with Thalia Meninger played by Tuesday Weld. Thalia only liked Dobie when he had money which was not often. In real life they did not get along, and she left after the first season. Another character who disappeared after the first season was his brother Davey Gillis who was played by Hickman’s real brother, Darryl. Dobie also suffered through Milton Armitage played by Warren Beatty and then Chatsworth Osborne Jr. (Steve Franken) who were his arrogant, wealthy competition. Some of Dobie’s many girlfriends included Marlo Thomas (who became That Girl), Sally Kellerman (who was Hot Lips in the M*A*S*H movie), Ellen Burstyn (starred in many movies), Barbara Bain (who would be in Mission Impossible), and Yvonne Craig (before she was Bat Girl). Two interesting things I learned about this show was that DC Comics created a comic book series of 26 issues about the kids from 1960-1964. Also this show inspired the Scooby Doo Gang in 1969. Fred was based on Dobie, Velma on Zelda, Daphne on Thalia, and Shaggy on Maynard. Garry Marshall also reported that this was one of his main influences for his creation of the show Happy Days. After four years, I guess these kids were too innocent to handle all the crazy situations coming in the sixties and the show ended but has appeared in reruns often since it left the air.

Peter Loves Mary (1960). This couple, played by Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, were married in real life. They play a show business couple who moved to Connecticut. Luckily they have a housekeeper played by one of my all-time favorites Bea Benaderet who takes care of the house and children. Opposite the Green Acres viewpoint, Mary wants life in suburbia while Peter loves the city. The network didn’t want to weigh in on the argument so they took the show off the air after the first season.

Love On a Rooftop (1966). Judy Carne (pre Laugh-In days) and Peter Duel are a young married couple, living in San Francisco. He is an apprentice architect and she’s an art student, who gave up her dad’s money for love. Rich Little played their neighbor who designed restaurant menus, among other jobs. It was cancelled after one season. Oddly, in the summer of 1971 it aired as a rerun show but never aired again.

To Rome with Love (1969). John Forsythe tries his hand in another sitcom. In this one, he plays a widower who has accepted a job at an international school in Rome, and he heads for Europe with his three daughters. His sister comes along the first season, mainly to try to talk them into going back home to Iowa. For the second season, they gave her a one-way ticket home and brought Walter Brennan in as Forsythe’s father-in-law. The family lives in Mama Vitale’s boarding house. After the second season, they all got air fare home and the show was done. Don Fedderson produced this show, and in the second season they had two cross-over episodes, one with the cast of Family Affair and one with Uncle Charlie, Robbie and Katie from My Three Sons.

Bridget Loves Bernie (1972). Bridget, played by Meredith Baxter, marries Bernie, played by David Birney. The only problem is that she’s Catholic and he’s Jewish. This would not even be noticed in today’s world, but in 1972 it caused quite a commotion. Her parents were wealthy and Irish. His parents owned a deli and the couple lived above it. The ratings were very good–the fifth highest rated show, but they were cancelled after the first season anyway. It was the highest rated show to ever be cancelled, and the network finally caved into the pressure of public protests for having an inter-religious marriage. One fun fact is the Meredith Baxter and David Birney married in real life after this show was over. However, that was before she came out of the closet, which created another mixed marriage . . .

Love Thy Neighbor (1973). This show was a summer replacement in the days of All in the Family. Charlie Wilson, a shop steward at Turner Electronics, lives in LA. When new neighbors move in, not only are they black, but the new guy is hired as an efficiency expert at Turner. The show explored how two couples of different races become friends. The white couple was played by Ron Masak and Joyce Bulifant. The black couple was played by Janet MacLachlan and Harrison Page. The network didn’t love any of them because they sent them packing after 11 episodes.

Loves Me, Loves Me Not (1976). Jane, played by Susan Dey, fresh from the Partridge Family, is a teacher. Dick (Kip Gilman) is a reporter. They have a couple of dates with mixed results and aren’t sure if they like each other or not or should continue dating. Dick’s boss and his wife are also characters on the show. Apparently CBS decided it loved them not because they were cancelled after one month.

Love, Sidney (1981). If the network thought they had problems when Bridget loved Bernie, they really stirred up a hornet’s nest with this show. Based on a movie, Sidney Shore, Tony Randall was the first person to play an openly gay character. Sidney is an adman and lives with a young woman and her daughter, played by Swoosie Kurtz and Kalena Kiff. There were some heart-warming stories including two different episodes when both Sidney and Kurtz’s character had to make peace with less-than-perfect parents. Once again, the network gave into public dissatisfaction and cancelled the show midway through season 2.

Joanie Loves Chachi (1981). This show was a mid-season replacement. Chachi (Scott Baio) left Milwaukee and Happy Days and moved with his parents (Ellen Travolta and Al Molinaro who had owned Arnolds’s malt shop) to Chicago. He sang in a restaurant his family owned. Because Joanie (Erin Moran) loved Chachi, she convinced her parents to let her go to Northwestern to be a nurse, but she spent more time singing with Chachi. Most of the shows involved one of them being jealous of the other and ending the fight with a song. In the first season this new show followed Happy Days and was a huge success. The second season it moved to Thursday and bombed in the ratings. The network sent both Joanie and Chachi back to Milwaukee after the second season where they continued on Happy Days until it went off the air in 1984.

Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). Ray Romano played sports columnist Ray Barrone. He lived with his wife (Patricia Heaton) and kids, right across the street from his overbearing mother (Doris Roberts), cynical father (Peter Boyle), and jealous older brother (Brad Garrett). No one had any privacy on this street, but there were a lot of poignant episodes. We all knew everybody loved Raymond, but they also loved each other. In 2004 after 9 seasons, the network decided not everybody loved Raymond, just most people, and they cancelled their sports subscription.

If you’re not crazy about love right now, apparently you’re in good company because the majority of these shows were cancelled within a year. If you’re a hopeless romantic, you’re probably watching Everybody Loves Raymond on Nickelodeon. Happy Valentine’s Day, or not.

Do We Have Reservations? Yes We Do.

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 / thewritelife61 / Leave a comment

February has finally arrived. Some of us are getting a bit tired of winter, so this is a popular month for travel to a warmer destination. If you aren’t able to physically get away, stay home and watch the February Sweeps, the only time you’re guaranteed new episodes of your favorite show for a month straight. This week I decided to look at sitcoms set in hotels or resorts. I did not discuss Fantasy Island or The Love Boat because I thought we could talk about them another time.

Based on the length of many of these shows, the hotel business is a tough one to be successful in. Let’s look at a bunch of shows that didn’t last too long.

Stanley was a show starring Buddy Hackett and his girlfriend played by Carol Burnett that aired in 1956. Stanley ran a newsstand in the lobby of a New York City hotel. The hotel owner was played by Paul Lynde. The show was cancelled in March of 1957, supporting the philosophy that no news is good news.

Happy starred George and Gracie’s son, Ronnie Burns. Ronnie was married to a woman played by Yvonne Lime and they were co-owners and managers of the Desert Palm, a ritzy resort. Included in the cast was their Uncle Charlie and the co-owner played by Doris Packer. Happy was their son who commented on what was going on, sort of like Family Guy’s Stewie. It was a summer entry in 1960, but 9 months later it gave birth to a cancellation which made the cast not Happy. I don’t know why, but apparently viewers could accept a talking horse or a talking car, but not a talking baby.

Another show that began as a summer replacement was Holiday Lodge in 1961. Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, two comedians from Canada, played social directors at a New York state hotel. They tried to provide entertainment but always ran into trouble, including being taken off the air after a few episodes.

The Bill Dana Show was interestingly based on the character Jose Jiminez developed by Dana for the Steve Allen Show and later brought to the Danny Thomas Show. In 1963 The Bill Dana Show portrayed Jiminez as a bellhop at the New York City Park Central Hotel and the show centered on him trying to get used to life outside Mexico. Often his dream sequences took him into bizarre situations. The most interesting fact about this show might be that the house detective was played by Don Adams who went on to star in Get Smart. Jimeniz’s dream became a nightmare when the show was cancelled after 42 episodes.

One of the most controversial shows to air on television in the 1970s was Hot L Baltimore debuting in the fall of 1975. Many stations refused to air the show because it was lewd and racy. Norman Lear, the producer behind All in the Family, Maude, and The Jeffersons developed the concept based on a play. The cast was made up of a desk clerk, his girlfriend, the manager, a hooker, an unemployed waitress, a dying man, a gay couple, and an eccentric woman. After four months, the waitress was not the only one unemployed because the show was done.

The Last Resort was developed by MTM in 1979, the company that created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Phyllis. The resort, set in the Catskills in upper New York, included a bunch of college students working their way through school. It featured a stereotyped crew including the brilliant premed student, a bookworm, a snob, an overweight clumsy guy, the pastry chef who left her wealthy husband to pursue her career, a Japanese chef, and a maitre’d who ran the place like a drill sergeant. It was cancelled after three episodes. Retooled, it came back in December only to be finished for good in March when the last resort of The Last Resort was no more.

Checking In must be in the running for the shortest show to appear on television. In 1980, Marla Gibbs, playing Florence the maid on The Jeffersons, got her own show, transferring to a hotel in New York City where she was the head housekeeper. She answered to a snobby manager played by Larry Linville who would later become Frank Burns on M*A*S*H. The rest of the cast included an assistant, a house detective, a maintenance supervisor, and a bellboy. After several weeks, the hotel was shut down and Florence went back to working for The Jeffersons.

The Golden Girls was one of the most beloved shows in television, but I’m guessing few people remember The Golden Palace which debuted in 1992. After Dorothy got married, the other three characters decide to invest in a hotel in Miami. Only two employees are left at the hotel: a manager and a chef. After 24 shows, no one was left at the hotel.

In 1999 Payne, a remake of the British show Fawlty Towers hit the air. Set in a California inn, Whispering Pines, the hotel was owned by Royal Payne and his wife Constance. It went on the air in March. At the end of April, the network ended its Payne by taking two aspirins and cancelling the show.

Compared to some of the shows, Whoopi! might have seemed successful, lasting an entire season. Set in the Lamont Hotel in New York City, a one-hit wonder musician played by Whoopi Goldberg decides to put her money into a hotel and run it the way she sees fit. She has an assistant from Iran, a brother who is a conservative Republican, and his girlfriend who is white but acts more African American than the black members of the hotel. Of course, these three characters give her much controversy to deal with. The network, acting as referee, blew the whistle and cancelled the entire thing after one year.

In 2008 Do Not Disturb debuted. If you missed it, don’t feel bad. It debuted on Fox and featured The Inn, a hip Manhattan hotel. The staff is not as competent as they appear to their guests. The manger is arrogant, the head of human resources is loud and tactless, the front desk clerk is an aging model who does not want to be a desk clerk or older, the reservations clerk is a famous musician wannbe, and the head of housekeeping has problems at home. The network, not wanting to disturb the viewing public, pulled the plug after three shows. Larry, played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, would go on to star in Modern Family in 2009.

Before you begin to think shows about hotels are doomed, let’s check in with four successful shows that knew how to make a profit.

From 1996-2001 The Jamie Foxx Show on WB featured Jamie Foxx as a musician who moves to California to work at his aunt and uncle’s (played by Ellia English and Garett Morris) hotel, King’s Tower. He has two co-workers played by Christopher B. Duncan and “Fancy” played by Garcelle Beauvais. He is interested in Fancy, but she doesn’t feel the same until the final two seasons when they become engaged. The show aired 100 episodes before the network finally got reservations.

Disney’s Suite Life of Zach and Cody set in the Tipton Hotel ran from 2005-2008. The twins lived in the hotel because their mother was the lounge singer. Somewhat like Eloise at the Plaza, the boys got into mischief and interacted with other employees including the wealthy heiress London Tipton, the candy counter salesgirl Maddie Fitzpatrick, and the manger Marion Moseby. In 2008 the show sailed off, literally, and became Suite Life on Deck running until 2011.

With 184 episodes, Newhart debuted in 1982. With its quirky cast of characters, it became a big hit. Set in Vermont, Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart) is a writer who buys the hotel and runs it with his wife Joanna (Mary Frann). Their handyman George Utley (Tom Poston) and their maid Stephanie Vanderkellen (Julia Duffy) make life both easier and more difficult at the inn. Later Dick becomes a local television celebrity working with Michael Harris (Peter Scolari) who marries Stephanie. Larry, (William Sanderson) his brother Darryl (Tony Papenfuss) and his other brother Darryl (John Voldstad) are memorable characters. Darryl and Darryl never speak until the final episode. That finale has the best ending ever in a television series when Bob Newhart wakes up in bed, tells his wife he had a really weird dream, and we see the wife is Suzanne Pleshette, his wife Emily from The Bob Newhart Show in which he played a psychiatrist from 1972-78. This series delightfully captured the life in a small New England town until 1990.

While Newhart is hard to top, my favorite hotel sitcom is Petticoat Junction which featured the Bradley Girls from 1963-1970. Kate (Bea Benaderet) ran the hotel with her three daughters Billie Jo, (Jeannine Riley till 1965, Gunilla Hutton until 1966, and Meredith MacRae until 1970), Bobby Jo (Pat Woodell until 1965 and Lori Saunders through 1970, and Betty Jo (Linda Henning), along with her Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan). The Shady Rest is near Hooterville, so we get to know a variety of town folk including Sam Drucker who runs the general store; Floyd and Charley, who run the Cannonball train; and Steve Elliott, crop duster, who is Billie Jo’s boyfriend first but later marries Betty Jo; and we run into the Ziffels and the Douglases from the show Green Acres. It’s a charming and heart-warming show loaded with loveable but zany characters. It ran for 222 episodes, even surviving the death of Bea Benaderet, who was replaced by Janet Craig (June Lockhart), a woman doctor who moves into the hotel. The amazing Charles Lane shows up throughout the series as Homer Bedloe, a railroad employee whose sole mission is shutting down the Cannonball.

If you can’t physically travel this month, take some time and watch a season or two of Newhart or Petticoat Junction, and you can still get away and experience life in a small-town hotel.

An Actress With “Street” Smarts

January 30, 2017 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Much of the entertainment news media has been focused on the death of Mary Tyler Moore this past week, and rightly so. However, with the passing of two other television icons in Barbara Hale and Mike Connors, I decided to celebrate the life and career of Barbara Hale in this week’s blog.

Like William Christopher, whom we looked at a couple weeks ago, Barbara Hale seems to have had a successful and fulfilling career. She comes across the decades as a very nice person and a hard-working actress. She was married for more than 46 years to the same man and they had three children. A lot of her career was based on acting with her husband, her son, and her close friend Raymond Burr.

Born in April of 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois, she moved to nearby Rockford shortly after her birth. She and her sister had a nice life, growing up in a middle class family. Always interested in the arts, she attended The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. She continued to have an interest in art the rest of her life, often sketching while waiting for taping to resume. She worked as a model during part of her school years for a comic strip Ramblin’ Bill. She was also featured as a Dr. Pepper girl in the Dr. Pepper calendars in the 1940s and 1950s.

Continuing her modeling career after graduation, it was through that avenue she was given a contract with RKO in 1943. While at RKO she met her husband-to-be Bill Williams and they married in 1946. Their wedding took place in the Old Stone Church in Rockton, Il and their reception was at the Wagon Wheel in Rockton, north of Rockford. During her RKO-tenure she also met Raymond Burr.

Her first movie was Gildersleeve’s Bad Day in 1943. Her contract with RKO continued until 1949 at which point she signed a seven-year contract with Columbia. During her career she appeared in 42 movies and 34 television movies, 31 of which were Perry Mason films. Some of her costars included Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, and Jimmy Stewart.

Between 1953 and 1956 she appeared in 14 drama/anthology series on television including Schlitz Playhouse, Studio 57, The Loretta Young Show, Damon Runyon Theater and Playhouse 90. She also appeared in many print ads during these years promoting products such as Lux Soap Flakes, Sunnybrook Margarine, and Chesterfield Cigarettes.

Debating whether or not she should retire and stay home to raise her three children (born in 1947, 1951, and 1953), she was offered the role of Della Street for the upcoming Perry Mason series. She declined it at first, but when she realized her old friend Raymond Burr was starring in the show, she opted to take the part. From 1957-1966, she appeared in 263 of the 271 shows. In the midst of the series’ run in 1960, she received a marker on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. In 1959 she won the Emmy for best actress in a drama and was nominated again in 1961.

When the series ended, she appeared in only a handful of shows including Lassie, Adam-12, The Doris Day Show, Marcus Welby, and Walt Disney’s Wide World of Color. She was in her dear friend Raymond Burr’s show Ironside and acted with her son William Katt, the star of The Greatest American Hero, playing his mother on the show. She was also in the movie Big Wednesday in 1978 with her son, playing his mother. During this time, she also appeared in several commercials and was a spokesperson for Amana Radarange microwave ovens. In 1970 she was one of the celebrities appearing in the movie Airport.

In the mid-1980s, Raymond Burr was approached to make several Perry Mason television movies. He agreed only if Barbara Hale was cast as Della Street again. Hale’s son William Katt appeared in some of the movies as Paul Drake Jr. From 1986-1995 Hale and Burr made 31 Perry Mason movies. Sadly, her husband passed away from cancer in 1992 and Burr died in 1993. She was one of the friends to deliver a eulogy at Burr’s funeral. He cultivated orchids and named one for Barbara Hale.

In her later years, Hale battled colon, ovarian, and bladder cancer. With a remarkable attitude and her belief in God, she defeated the disease each time. She died from natural causes this month at 94.

One of the most charming stories I read about Hale was one she told a few years ago when she had returned to Rockford, which she did often, to attend a theater renovation celebration. She talked about after-football parties they had in high school. The kids would drive to the Spring Creek Road subdivision. Roads had been constructed for the housing development, but no homes had been built yet. The kids would park their cars in a circle, turn their headlights on, tune their radios to the same channel, and get out and dance. It was a heart-warming story about a more innocent time. After hearing so many sad stories about the issues actors often face in the industry, it was refreshing to hear about someone who was a nice person who appeared to have a normal and happy career with a great life balance of work and family.

A lot of her movies and the Perry Mason shows are available on Amazon. Take an upcoming week-end and watch a few seasons and keep track of how many cases Perry loses. Here is some dialogue to listen for while you watch.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Spurious Sister – 1959

Perry: Della, how would you like to get a divorce?

Della: I thought you were supposed to be married first.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Surplus Suitor – 1963

Hamilton Burger: Well, Miss Street, having you here just as a witness for the prosecution is a rare experience for both of us.

Della: I’ll try not to be hostile, Mr. Burger

Hamilton Burger: Well, that’ll be a rare experience too.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Angry Mourner – 1957

Bell Adrian: Mr. Mason, were you surprised when you found I didn’t do it?

Perry: Of course not, Mrs. Adrian. I knew all along. You just weren’t the type.

Paul Drake: And who is the type pray tell?

Della: Oh, that’s easy, Paul. Anyone who is not represented by Perry Mason.

Thank you Barbara Hale for providing us with so much drama over the years, but only on the television episodes!

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