television Archives - Page 4 of 25

The Party Mummy Meme

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

Jenna Fischer, Pam on The Office. (Could have picked Willard Scott from the Today Show, which would have been more birthday appropriate.)

2. Where was your first kiss?

Under some mistletoe at someone’s house. A girl named Mary. Maybe it was Mary’s house, I’m not sure. I was 13.

3. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? If yes, why?

No. Do you know what song I really hate that I just played this week? I know it’ll sound PC, but it’s The Crystals’ He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss), written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It’s on a Phil Spector collection; his birthday is next week.

4. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? When?

My father, sister and I sang in front of some drunk VFW guys when I was 17.
Slightly off topic, there was a Red Cross training event at Manlius, NY. I played a blues comb. Got a standing O.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex?

Ratio of bust, waist, hips.

6. What really turns you off?

Generally, people who talk too much without saying anything.

7. What is your biggest mistake?

Impatience.

8. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

Well, if you count drinking too much in college, then yes.

9. Say something totally random about yourself.

I fell asleep watching Citizen Kane on VHS.

10. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?

Yes, but I’m at a loss remembering who.

11. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows?

I have a daughter who’s under six. I have seen, just this WEEK The Wonder Pets, The Backyardigans and The Fresh Beat Band.

12. Are you comfortable with your height?

Heck, yeah.

13. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?

I’m not going to tell you.

14. When do you know it’s love?

I don’t think you do except through trial and error.

15. What’s something that really annoys you?

I’m walking across the street with the light. Some driver will turn right on red, forcing me to wait in the intersection.
***
Art Clokey died this week at the age of 88. He created Gumby and Pokey. I actually HAD a Gumby toy, dammit. Really.

But the thing I remember more from Art Clokey is this really odd limited animation thing called Davey and Goliath, about a boy and his dog, put out by the Lutheran Church. There came a point where I found the moralistic tales too simplistic, but even in my cynical late teens, I would keep watching it. here’s but one example from YouTube; there are plenty more, including a commercial…for Mountain Dew?
ROG

Reeling in the Years

I know historians banter about the most significant years in a given period, as do others. I’d have to pick 1917 (Russian revolution), 1945 (end of WW II), 1968 (unrest in US, Mexico, Czechoslovakia), 1989 (fall of Berlin Wall), among others, for the 20th Century.

But did you ever rank the years in your life? 1977, when I lived in three cities in two states, was pretty awful, but 1978, when, not coincidentally, I moved to Schenectady, NY, was pretty good. I was up in the attic this week, sorting stuff, and I came across a 1998 calendar, 100 Years of American Comics from the International Cartoon Art.

My, that was a good year.

I went to the movies. A lot.
Jan 16-Jackie Brown
Jan 19-Good Will Hunting
Jan 25-Titanic
Jan 31-Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
Feb 1-Amistad
Feb 10-The Tango Lesson
Feb 14-Mrs Brown; L.A. Confidential
Feb 15-Afterglow; Ma vie en Rose
Feb 16-The Apostle
And that was just the first two months.

I took JEOPARDY! test #1 on April 29.

I went on a two-week vacation in May. I don’t know that I’ve been on a two-week vacation since. I went to the Motown museum and a Tigers game in Detroit; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on one train trip. I visited the Capitol and other landmarks and took JEOPARDY! test #2 in Washington, DC on a second train trip. I love the train.

Saw LOTS of music in the summer. Many are local band (Burners UK, Hair of the Dog), but I also saw Maddy Prior, Cyril Neville, the Glenn Miller group, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Rickie Lee Jones. Then on August 9, I went to SPAC for the Newport Folk Festival, featuring Lyle Lovett, Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, Bela Fleck, Bruce Cockburn, Alison Krauss, Marc Cohn, Lucinda Williams, and others; a great day.

I had two conferences in September. At the ASBDC conference in Savannah, GA, my father drove down from Charlotte, NC and hung out with me and a couple of my friends the first two days. THE best time I ever had with my father. Then the SBDC conference was in Niagara Falls; I love the falls. And I walked to NF, Ontario.

The JEOPARDY! broadcast party was November 9. Later that month, my attempts to re-woo Carol, which began in earnest in August, proved successful, and we got married the following May.

Music, movies, travel, love. Even a modicum of fame. That was a great year.

May your 2010, and mine, be as fruitful.

ROG

Should old acquaintance

There are lots of ideas that I come up with for this blog but eventually abandon. Things like, my favorite albums of the aughts or my favorite TV shows of the aughts. I just can’t wrap my head around the beginning and end points, I’d likely just forget a bunch of choices, and it’d be unsatisfactory for all involved. Especially me.

(Not to be confused with the things I start but haven’t finished yet. Sssh, we won’t mention THEM just yet.)

In fact, I don’t even note the significant deaths of the year, because everyone else has already done so. I do want to note some deaths I had not mentioned here, most of which did NOT make it into those annual lists in the magazines, because the magazines came out in the FIRST WEEK IN DECEMBER. No one dies in December, it would seem; ask James Brown.

Edward Woodward (11/16, age 79) – there was this show I enjoyed in the mid-1980s called The Equalizer on CBS that I enjoyed immensely. it was about a secret agent for the US government (Woodward) who quit and helped individuals in dire straits. Unfortunately, it was head-to-head, Wednesday at 10 p.m. with St. Elsewhere on NBC, one of my favorite shows, for most of 1985-1988. So I only saw it when the hospital show was in reruns, until The Equalizer’s last season, when St. Elsewhere had gone off the air.

Gene Barry (12/9, age 90) – the western Bat Masterson (1958-1961) was a little before my time, but Burke’s Law (1963-1965) was not. It about a millionaire L.A. chief of detectives (Barry, pictured above with Jaye P. morgan in 1984), who’d get driven in his limousine to the latest celebrity murder; he was always surrounded by beautiful young women. A great theme song. LOTS of guest stars in these shows. I loved it, yet didn’t follow Barry when the show segued into Amos Burke – Secret Agent in the 1965-1966 season.

Oral Roberts (12/15, age 91). When I was 12, his theology was right up my alley. By a decade later, it had become anathema to me. That clip that ABC News showed with Roberts proclaiming need for more money for the ministry, lest the Lord take him away, is one of the most vile pieces of “theology” I’ve seen.

Connie Hines (12/18, age 78). It must have be difficult for a working actress to be best known as the “mom” of TV horse Mr. Ed (1961-1966), especially since her character Carol didn’t even know the equine talked; only her husband Wilbur (Alan Young) did. An insidious theme song, which unfortunately I’ve known by heart for decades. She seemed to have left acting in 1971.

Brittany Murphy (12/20, age 32!) I saw her in the movies Clueless and Girl, Interrupted. But I enjoyed her most as the voice of Luanne in the cartoon series King of the Hill, the extended theme by the Refreshments which can be found here.

Arnold Stang (12/20, age 91) the voice of a lot of nerdy cartoon characters, plus one of my favorite cartoon characters, the cool and unflappable Top Cat. He also did some onscreen performances. Evanier has a piece or two. I remember THAT theme too, and in case you don’t, here’s a singalong version.
***
The passing of the Spatula Forum blog, mentioned here only yesterday. I am sad but I understand. Sort of. There’s been a number of blogs that I followed that bit the dust this year: Delenda Est Carthago by Greg Burgas, though he still has the Daughter Chronicles; Tom the Dog; Tosy and Cosh. The latter two are on Twitter, but it just ain’t the same.
***
So because it pleases me, A Charlie Brown Hey Ya Christmas. Hey, it’s only the seventh day of Christmas.

ROG

The Rod Serling Holiday

Near twin Gordon has decreed, and I have capitulated, to try to make both Bogie Day and Serling Day the holidays of choice in the blogosphere. Why? “Because both men were born on December 25th, and both encapsulate the ultimate in pop culture coolness.”

But I just don’t have enough to say about Humphrey Bogart, though I did see The African Queen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and one of my favorite films in the whole world, Casablanca. One of the times I saw Casablanca was in Rochester, NY outdoors in a park with my old neighbor from New Paltz, Debi. How I came to even be in Rochester involves lost brain cells. Oh, yeah, and I have a recording where expounds on the value of baseball.

As for Rod Serling, what more can I say that I didn’t already say here or here, where I discuss meeting him or any number of other posts about episodes and whatnot.

It occurred to me, though, that I may never have mentioned the fact that I attended the world premiere(!) of Twilight Zone: The Movie, 13 days before it officially opened. The event took place, naturally, in Binghamton, NY, my hometown, on June 11, 1983 at the Crest Theater on Main Street, which had a seating capacity of approximately 800. I saw lots of movies at the Crest growing up. Hmm, I wonder if Serling saw any movies there growing up? It was a walkable, certainly a bikeable distance from his house on Bennett Avenue.

Some of the details have faded to memory, such as how I got tickets. I DO recall that it was very hot outside, waiting there for the dignitaries to come in. Of course, Rod was not one of them, having died eight years earlier from smoking cigarettes.

And I DO recall that this was a Very Big Deal for this small city where Rod Serling’s family moved to from Syracuse before he turned two. One of the dignitaries was Helen Foley, Serling’s beloved high school English teacher. Another was Richard Deacon (pictured below with Betty White, circa 1983) who was on Leave It To Beaver, but was best known as the put-upon producer Mel Cooley on The Dick van Dyke Show. Deacon, who died in 1984, was born in Philadelphia in 1921 but also grew up in Binghamton.

As for the movie itself, well, I’d have to see it again. I did think the first segment, a vague remake of A Quality of Mercy (Season 3, episode 80), was almost unrecognizable from the original. The filming of that segment led to the accidental deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors. Whereas the remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Season 5, episode 123) felt pretty much like the William Shatner version, at least in my memory.

The movie segment It’s a Good Life, featured a character named Helen Foley (played by Kathleen Quinlan), which got a big laugh from the audience; oddly, “Helen Foley” was not the name of a character in the original episode, but rather in the Nightmare as a Child television version.

*An episode guide of the television series can be found here.*

Pictures of Rod Serling c. 1955; all photos from LIFE.com.
ROG

Child of (Too Much) TV

A television meme (with various comments throughout), via SamuraiFrog. I realized that the programs of my childhood I was pretty indiscriminate. Only had two or three choices at the time.

My Rules:
– Star (*) all of the following TV shows which you’ve ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
– Italicize a show if you’re positive you’ve seen every episode of it.

*24
I watched the whole first season. Then the second season’s premiere episode was quite shocking, but still watched good parts of it. But by Season 3, I’d given up on it, largely for political reasons. I can’t help but think that some of those Blackwater-type thugs justified their moral code based on Jack Bauer.

7th Heaven
Maybe saw five minutes.

ALF
Never saw except in passing; looked stupid, but I could be wrong.

*Alias
Watched the whole first season, then found out about some time shift thing between seasons. Saw the first episode of the next season, said what the… and bailed.

American Gothic

America’s Next Top Model

Angel
May have seen one episode. It was all right.

*Arrested Development
I tried to watch the first season, just couldn’t get into it. Then, nagged by others, notably Gordon, watched the premiere of the second season and was hooked and watched until the end. STILL haven’t seen much of the first season, though…

Babylon 5

Batman: The Animated Series
It looks good, but haven’t found the time.

*Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
It was goofy.

Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
I haven’t seen the new one at all. I figure it’s far better than the original but I’m not really that invested.

Baywatch
Never a full episode.

Beverly Hills 90210 (original)
I was in a laundromat once and actually saw an entire episode of this and Melrose Place. I survived.

*Bewitched
Probably saw all the Dick York episodes, certainly all the ones in black and white. I loved this show early on, but somewhere it lost me. Don’t know know if it was the introduction of Tabitha, the introduction of color, or the introduction of Dick Sargeant as Darrin that made it lose its lustre.

*Bonanza
My sister had a HUGE crush on Michael Landon. We often went to the neighbor next door to my grandmother to watch it, because they had color TV in 1962, while we didn’t get one until 1969. Probably watched for a half dozen seasons.

Bones

*Bosom Buddies
People I knew really liked it, but it never caught on with me.

*Boston Legal
I was a big fan of The Practice. In a cost-cutting move, the show canned half the cast in the last season, which essentially became an extended pilot for Boston Legal, as it introduced Denny Crane (William Shatner) and Alan Shore (James Spader). As a result, I didn’t bother with Boston Legal. Yet I caught it either late in the first or early in the second season, and pretty much watched it from that point until the end. Will have to catch that first season on DVD someday.

*Boy Meets World
This is a really bad show, but somehow I got stuck watching it; don’t remember why.

*Brothers And Sisters
I got hooked because of Sally Field.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Think I caught a Very Special Episode with music or something. It was OK.

Californication

Chappelle’s Show

*Charlie’s Angels
I was living in Charlotte, NC with my parents at the time of the first season. It was on. Dopey.

Charmed

Cheers
One of my favorite shows ever, though it took me forever to warm up to Rebecca.

Chuck

Clarissa Explains it All

*Columbo
Watched this a LOT. It was in some weird rotation on NBC. Don’t know if I saw every episode, but it doesn’t matter, because they were all pretty much the same.

*Commander in Chief
This show started off really strong the first half dozen episodes. Got a new show runner and never really regained its footing until very near the end.

*Crossing Jordan
I watched it for most of the first season, but lost interest.

CSI
Wrote about my one and only time watching this here.

CSI: Miami

CSI: NY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
I’d probably watch this if I had HBO.

Dark Angel

Dark Skies

DaVinci’s Inquest
I don’t even know what this is.

Dawson’s Creek
I saw the last episode.

Dead Like Me

Deadwood

Degrassi: The Next Generation

*Designing Women
It was on Monday nights on CBS between something I watched (Newhart) and something else I watched (Cagney & Lacey). It was harmless.

Desperate Housewives
Surprised that I’ve never seen this even for 10 minutes.

Dexter

*Dharma & Greg
I can’t believe how dumb this show got after a while. And I think I was invested early because of this.

*Different Strokes
Usually when someone else turned on the TV; I never turned on the set to watch it.

*Doctor Who
Mostly the guy with the long scarf.

*Dragnet
Both the 1950s version, which I saw as a kid, and the late 1960s version with Harry Morgan which I thought was high camp. Probably saw most, if not all of the latter series.

*Due South
Liked the first season, but lost interest.

*ER
I watched it for probably seven seasons but slowly started giving up on it, somewhere between the point when Dr. Romano lost his arm to a helicopter and the point that the helicopter fell on him. Watched the last episode.

Everwood

Everybody Loves Raymond
I saw one episode. It was OK.

*Facts of Life
Like Different Strokes, when someone else controlled the remote.

*Family Guy
Don’t love it.

Farscape

*Fawlty Towers

Felicity

Firefly

*Frasier
Very fond, though there was an arc when Frasier was unemployed that just never worked.

*Freaks & Geeks
Found this show a quarter of the way through and became a religious convert. May have seen all the episodes eventually, but not sure.

*Friends
This show I always had a like/hate thing. Couldn’t tell Chandler and Joey apart the first season. Hated the monkey stories. But then I’d see something I liked. Probably saw about 30% of the shows.

Fringe

Futurama
Saw this once or twice. Thought it was fine but never pursued it further.

*Get Smart
Funny until Max and 99 got hitched.

Gilligan’s Island
When I was a kid, thought it was greatly entertaining, what can I say? Still has a solid theme song. Oh, Mary Ann.

Gilmore Girls
Found this late in the first season, then caught the reruns. Loved the core relationship: Rory-Lorelai-Emily. Loved the townspeople. especially loved Mrs. Kim, when she developed as a character. Sure, the show would get off track – Rory’s refrain with Dean, e.g. I never believed. But I watched all seven seasons, and we even have Season 1 on DVD, albeit unwatched. The subject of one of my earliest posts, and undoubtedly others.

Gossip Girl

*Grey’s Anatomy
Sometimes I don’t know why, but there is always a character or two to root for.

Grange Hill
Don’t know what this is.

Growing Pains
Not once.

*Gunsmoke
This was on from 1955-1975. When it was on Saturday night and ran for an hour (1961-1967), probably watched every week if I were home, but when it moved to Monday, probably only a dozen or so episodes.

*Happy Days
I discovered this pretty much post-Chuck. Watched it until it jumped the shark, which really made the Fonz a bit of a pussycat.

Hercules: the Legendary Journeys

Heroes
Was mildly tempted, but never succumbed. Now I’m glad.

*Home Improvement
Never of my own volition.

Homicide: Life on the Street
I loved this show.

House
Maybe one episode. Found it irritating.

*I Dream of Jeannie
This was the epitome of sex when I was 12. Again, ruined by the engagement and marriage to Major Nelson. Always liked Bill Daily here,; he played ROGER Healey.

*I Love Lucy
It was on ALL OF THE TIME. I MUST have seen every episode.

Invader Zim

Invasion

Hell’s Kitchen

JAG

Jackass

*Joey
Waited for it to get good; never happened.

Kim Possible

*Knight Rider
In passing the TV.

Knight Rider: 2008

*Kung Fu
Quite fond.

Kung Fu: The Legend Continues

La Femme Nikita
Saw the movie, but never felt compelled.

LA Law

*Laverne and Shirley
Usually, but not always, after watching Happy Days.

*Law and Order
Pretty much from when Lenny Briscoe started, or maybe an episode or two earlier, until when he left.

*Law and Order: SVU
Sordid little show I end up seeing when I’m in a hotel away from home. It seems to be ALWAYS on.

*Law and Order: CI
Probably three episodes.

Leverage

Little House on the Prairie
Never saw a full episode ever.

Lizzie McGuire

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Watched, and liked the first season, but it started grating on me; probably gave up on it.

Lost
Seen five minutes. It’s less Lost per se and more the fear of commitment.

Lost in Space
High camp.

*M*A*S*H
Watched the first eight seasons TWICE, but the last three only once. Should have ended when Radar went home and they started repeating. (And we won’t mention the messy chronology at all.)

MacGyver
Did I ever see a full episode of this?

*Malcolm in the Middle
Wasn’t watching much on Sunday night by this point.

Married…With Children
Saw once all the way through. Hated.

McLeod’s Daughters
Don’t know.

Melrose Place
One ep in the laundromat.

*Miami Vice
Watched probably a couple seasons of it before I lost interest.

*Mission: Impossible
watched the first ramping up season with Steven Hill as the leader, the excellent next couple seasons with the perfect set of Peter Graves, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, then the latter, lesser years, with Leonard Nimoy and Lesley Ann Warren replacing Landau and Bain. Maybe it was the acting too, but the writing definitely suffered in those later years.

*Mod Squad
What can I say?

Monk

*Mork & Mindy
LOVED the first season, but by the time Jonathan Winters was hatched, I’d already long given up.

Murphy Brown
I used to love this show.

My Life As A Dog

*My Three Sons
It was on forever.

*My Two Dads

Mythbusters

NCIS

Ned Bigby’s Declassified School Survival Guide

Nip/Tuck

Numb3rs

One Tree Hill

Oz
I will probably see this someday.

*Perry Mason
Watched it for years at every opportunity; made me want to be a lawyer, until I got to college and found that I didn’t have much of a capacity for law. One of the best theme songs, ever, and the extended end theme is even better.

Power Rangers

Press Gang

Prison Break

*Private Practice
The cast deserves better.

Privileged

Profiler

Project Runway

Psych

*Pushing Daisies
Lamented loss.

Quantum Leap

Queer As Folk (US)

Queer as Folk (UK)

ReGenesis

*Remington Steele
Have little recollection of this show, actually.

Rescue Me

Road Rules

ROME

*Roseanne
Watched it from the beginning until near the end, when I had to bail.

Roswell

Sanctuary

*Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

*Scrubs
A very inconsistent show which seemed to finally finally find its footing in the seventh and final NBC season, only to actually improve with its first season on ABC. But I fear the new show will be like AfterMASH.

Seaquest DSV

*Seinfeld
Loved this show in the very beginning, really started being annoyed by it by Susan’s death, and by the last season, had all but abandoned it. Did see the disappointing last episode.

*Sex and the City
Never saw it at all on HBO, but watched the entire (edited) series on TBS. Liked it. Didn’t love it, but enjoyed it on its own terms.

Six Feet Under
Another HBO show I’ll have to see someday.

Slings and Arrows

Smallville
Don’t know why I never actually watched this.

So Weird

South of Nowhere

*South Park
Not my thing, though occasionally funny.

*Spongebob Squarepants
Watched maybe a season religiously before the child was born. Go figure.

St. Elsewhere
Possibly my favorite all-time show. I loved the first season when I got a review copy of the DVDs.

Star Trek
But not in the first run.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Felt compelled to watch, maybe to make up for muffing watching the original series.

*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Enterprise

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate SG-1

*Starsky & Hutch

*Superman
Watch countless episodes with George Reeves.

Supernatural

Surface

*Survivor
Watched the whole first season, which was interesting. The second season was dull. I started watching just the first and last shows for about six seasons, but now not even that.

Taxi
Loved Taxi.

Teen Titans

*That 70’s Show

That’s So Raven

The 4400

*The Addams Family
Probably in first run.

The Amazing Race

*The Andy Griffith Show
Watched it for years.

The A-Team

*The Avengers

*The Beverly Hillbillies
Watched it far longer than I should have. Did you know that about a half dozen of the regular season shows of this program are in the Top 50 all-time most watched programs?

The Big Bang Theory

*The Brady Bunch
Never saw it in first run, though came across a few episodes subsequently.

*The Cosby Show
Loved how the theme changed in most seasons. I think when Raven showed up is when I left.

*The Daily Show
Never saw it until Jon Stewart was hosting. See more online than on TV.

The Dead Zone

*The Dick Van Dyke Show
Probably my all time favorite comedy.

*The Flintstones

*The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Wow, did this show get grating, or what?

*The Golden Girls

*The Honeymooners

*The Jeffersons

*The Jetsons

The L Word

*The Love Boat

The Magnificent Seven

*The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Must see TV.

*The Monkees

*The Munsters

*The Office (US)

The Powerpuff Girls

The Pretender

*The Real World
I watched the first three or four seasons.

*The Shield

*The Simpsons
Watched nine full seasons, have watched only a handful of shows since.

*The Six Million Dollar Man

The Sopranos
The last five minutes.

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody

*The Twilight Zone
I’m referring to the original, not the 1980s version, which I also saw some segments.
I was constitutionally required.

*The Waltons
In the spring of 1975, I watched this every week; I was depressed.

*The West Wing
Watched first few seasons. then it got too unfocused and I quit it. But I DID watch the campaign between the Alda and Smitts candidates.

*The Wonder Years
Probably until the last year or so.

The X-Files
Watched one two-part episode.

Third Watch
Saw parts of an episode or two.

*Three’s Company
Usually someone else had it on.

*Twin Peaks
Tried to watch, but bailed about halfway through the first season.

Twitch City

Unfabulous

Ugly Betty

Veronica Mars

Weeds

*Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)

Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)

*Will and Grace
Very irregularly. Gene Wilder was on a couple of them, and I watched them specifically for that reason.

*Wings

Xena: Warrior Princess