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Actor
Pat Hingle died Saturday, he played Commissioner Gordon in the 1980's
Batman movies in addition to hundreds of roles over his six
decades in the business. He was unforgettable as Norma Rae's father,
Pete Watson in TV's The Shining, Adm. William F. 'Bull' Halsey
in War & Remembrance, those are just a few of his memorable
portrayals. He also became the Doc on Gunsmoke for a few
episodes in 1971 after Milburn Stone was sidelined by several heart
attacks. Although he had been ill recently, Hingle continued to work
right up to 2008's Undoing Time.
Read and watch more...
New
Show Reviews
HELL'S
KITCHEN - SEASON 5 - Devastatingly harsh, unflinchingly
heated, Hell's Kitchen delivers a savory year five opener
full of gut wrenching meltdowns and crackling flame outs with the
promise of a sizzling season to come.
As
usual, there are a couple of ringers, individuals who have no business
whatsoever being there, contestants who are in way over their heads.
There's one whiner in particular that comes completely unglued more
than once and quickly attracts the ire of everyone around her. "I'm
just sooo tired of stupid bitches," she croaks as she attempts
to cook with a cold oven. "Every time I work in a kitchen with
women!" Delicious.
Read
more...
New
Show Reviews
LIE
TO ME - In this new FOX drama, behavioral psychologist
Dr. Cal Lightman and his associates attempt to separate the truthful
from the prevaricators by observing the various micro expressions,
body language and unconscious intonations that accompany a duplicitous
individual - in other words, these guys are human lie detectors. Think
Bones without the decaying flesh.
Contempt, disgust, fear, surprise - how do you know the person you're
dealing with is suppressing these emotions? It's easier than you think
and you may be amazed to find people you're dealing with on a regular
basis are hiding these simple to spot 'tells' from you.
Read and
watch more...
New
Show Reviews
After
a lackluster season 6, 24 is on track to have it's best year
yet! I
grew up on comic books and Dark Shadows so I'm not bent out
of shape when a character that was dead dead dead comes back to life.
It's not particularly original and a bit of a cop out but I love the
classic 24 cast and rejoice to see them re-united. The producers
have even admitted to taking "creative license" in bringing
Tony Almeida back but they do it in a way that keeps you guessing
so what the hey, I'll buy in.
Read
and watch more...
Los
Angeles Local Kid Shows from the Fifties to Seventies!
Sheriff
John, Hobo Kelly, Baby Daphne, Shrimpenstein, Chucko and more. With
rare video and dozens of photos. NEW BONUS: Never
before seen backstage footage from KCOP's Romper Room!
Read
and watch more...
Kids,
Guns and TV
Some modern-day experts contend
that violent video games encourage savage behavior in our young people,
while others say that's just another example of the latest entertainment
medium becoming society's scapegoat du jour. Keep in mind, the same
breed of expert said the exact same thing about comic books and toy
guns in the 1950s - and look at how great the baby boomers turned
out.
Read
and see more...
New
Show Review - Cat Dancers
Before
Seigfreid and Roy dazzled Las Vegas with their death defying act,
audiences thrilled to Cat Dancers Ron and Joy Holiday, an exotic married
couple who raised up and lived with the big cats they used in their
sensational act. Along the way they took on a handsome assistant and
the routine became a menage-a-troi. Together they found true happiness
both on and off stage but how their dream life came to an abrupt end
will leave you astounded. This mesmerizing documentary draws on archival
footage and new interviews with a broken Ron Holliday who recounts
his horrifying tale in vivid detail. You may anticipate what happens
at the end but you'll never guess it's mind blowing conclusion.
Read
more...
Search!
While
comparing Search to shows of today might be unfair, the concept
still has a contemporary ring to it. Comparable to classics like Star
Trek or The Wild Wild West, this series was both anachronistic
and futuristic at the same time. Why
has it never turned up in reruns, especially now with the current
debate on domestic spying?
Read
and see more...
Beverly
Garland and Decoy
Long before “Christie Love” and Angie Dickinson’s
“Police Woman,” long before the fanfare of “Cagney
and Lacey,” and the advent of so many modern day no-nonsense
female cops (I’m thinking of Mariska Hargitay on “Law
& Order: SVU,” among others), Officer Jones walked the beat,
went undercover and collared a long, surly set of perps. And she did
so without playing cute, coy or dumb; she did it by just being a cop.
All the female “flat-foots” who have come in her wake
owe her a debt.
Read and watch
more...
Strange
Death of Carol Wayne
If
you watched the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson during the
seventies, you may remember sexy Carol Wayne. She was the big-busted,
bubbly Matinee Lady of the 'Tea Time Movies with Art Fern.' She ended
up dead under the most bizarre circumstances. How did it happen?
Read
more...
Hanging
Out With Lucy
I
got a job at a department store and Lucy came by one day to see if
I was really working. She bought $600 worth of linens from me. She
gave me her home phone number and said, "Do you play Backgammon?"
and I said "No," and she said "You'll learn."
She taught me how to play Backgammon and I still play to this day.
Read
and watch more...
Outrageous
Outakes!
Maybe
the most outlandish outake ever filmed comes from The New Zoo Revue,
a fondly remembered 1972 syndicated children's educational show with
Freddy the Frog, Henrietta the Hippo, and Charley the Owl. Charley
and Freddy had a secret life, evidently! WARNING:
harsh language!
Read
and watch more...
Saturday
Morning Shows 1971
1970
was a very good year for network Saturday morning revenues, so 1971
brought a continuation of the shows that were working - along with
remakes of proven series from the past. All three networks started
giving in to pressure from parent groups to offer more educational,
and less violent programs. For the most part, they are all flops.
Read
and watch more...
50th
Anniversary of The Three Stooges on Television
The
cinematic antics of Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp were never fully
appreciated by the movie critics or by many adults who felt that the
boys' humor was decidedly low brow and extremely violent. The team
did have a loyal following with the children who saw the trio as cartoons
brought to life, forever at the lower strata of life and always landing,
by pure happenstance, jobs that they were never meant to have.
Read
and watch more...
TV's
First Jewish Mom
The Goldbergs was one of the most successful entertainment ventures
ever, a radio and television show that reached across every medium.
It all hinged on one woman - Gertrude Berg, a true multi-media pioneer.
Read
and watch more...
Run
Buddy Run
We
get more requests for this program than almost any other. This dizzy
and typically sixties' sitcom starred trumpet player Jack Sheldon
(seen as an occasional band member on the 'Merv Griffin Show' during
the seventies) as a guy on the run from comical criminals.
Read and watch more...
The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
L.
Wayne Hicks interviews the original star of the classic BBC radio
& TV series. Simon Jones' role in the big-screen version
of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is sparse. His screen time
amounts to maybe 30 seconds, a brief part to be sure. But it wouldn't
be - and couldn't be - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
without Jones.
Read
more...
What
Happened to Coronet Blue?
The
series lasted for only 11 episodes with 2 episodes never broadcast
during the initial run of the show. Much to the disappointment of
viewers, the series ended abruptly in the fall of 1967 and the secret
of Coronet Blue was never revealed. To this day, many people
remember the show and still wonder what "Coronet Blue" meant.
Read
more...
Wonderama
RARE
VIDEO! WNEW dropped Bob McAllister following an emotional
Christmas Day broadcast in 1977 then aired reruns of Wonderama
for three years afterwards. McAllister went public with his distaste
over this practice after watching reruns of his show one Sunday
and seeing an ad for a Charles Bronson movie. "I had never
allowed violence in the frame work of Wonderama. So I took
out a rather elaborate display ad in the New York Times and told
parents not to watch it anymore."
Read
and watch more...
40
Years Ago -
TV's First Angry Conservative
Move
over Bill O'Reilly! Never
one to avoid controversy, Joe Pyne claimed to keep a loaded gun
in his desk drawer - and no wonder with the kooks he (or more accurately,
the TV cameras) attracted.
BONUS: a glimpse into to the very origins of one
of the most notorious organizations of all time,
the LA Crips.
Read
and watch more...
America's
First Lady of Comedy
Carol
Burnett won the hearts of TV viewers playing the nervous klutz in
dozens of hilarious skits on The Garry Moore Show. She
was an instant hit with the home audience, one of the emerging medium's
first bright stars.
Each week, hapless Carol would find herself in the most outrageous
predicaments. No matter how sketchy the script, the comedienne turned
each performance into a farcical romp with her spasmodic interpretations.
She quickly became the de-facto star of the program.
Read
and watch more...
The
Curse of Beulah!
It
was one of ABC's first hit shows - Beulah; the first and
last TV program to star an African-American woman until Julia
fifteen years later.
Ethel
Waters, Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers and
other legendary actresses inhabited the Beulah role
and
found themselves an object of derision - denounced by civil rights
groups, their careers and health destroyed. We trace the origins
of the 'Mammy' image as it evolved for television.
Read
and watch more...
"Plunk
Your Magic Twanger, Froggy!"
"I
am looking for a newspaper editorial - it could've been in a magazine
- written about the kid's show 'Andy's Gang' in which the writer
blames Froggy for causing the protest movement of the '60s. He said
Froggy's disrespectful behavior towards adults, which he demonstrated
every show, influenced the kids who were watching him and those
kids grew up to become the protesting college students of the sixties
who likewise showed disrespect towards their elders."
Read
and watch more...
Origin
of the TV-Movie
Not only was the animated opening sequence to
the ABC Movie of the Week a magnificent graphic achievement
(and precursor to modern computer animation) but the
30-second teasers forever redefined motion picture advertising.
We'll show you some of the best examples from the seventies.
Read
and see more...
Was
The Producers ripped off from an episode of Racket Squad?!?
Did
Mel Brooks get the idea for The Producers from this TV show?
He was writing for a comedy program (Your Show of Shows)
at
the time that
spoofed other TV shows so it makes sense that he might have seen this
episode of Racket Squad and tucked away the idea until 15
years later when he was writing The Producers.
Read
and watch more..
Saturday
Mornings 1988
Just
as the networks gave in to years of lobbying from parental groups
and put an end to all violence on Saturday morning programs, syndicated
cartoons came along offering up violence galore. 1988-89 marked the
beginning of the end for the golden age of Saturday morning programming.
Read
and watch more..
Then
Came Bronson
Easy
Rider was a hit in 1969, a movie about two young counter-culture
cyclists looking for the "real" America. Perhaps Middle America was
not quite ready for that story on the small screen, but Then Came
Bronson expressed some of the themes of that movie in a way more
palatable to the mass audience (interestingly, the pilot movie was
completed before Easy Rider hit the screen, so TCB
was not a knockoff.)
Read
and watch more...
Classic
Car Commercials
Cruise
the digital highway TVparty style! Drop-top
Fords, '66 Mustangs, '59 Chevys, '57 CHP cars, and those supercharged
Mopars - with the 'realm of silence' ride! See for yourself the evolution
of automotive advertising, from the fifties to the seventies. ALSO:
the LA car dealer that was mauled by lions, tigers and bears - oh
my!
Read
and watch more...
Classic
TV on DVD - Archived Reviews!
NEW: Tom
Jones, Twin Peaks, Stargate Atlantis, Voyage to the Bottom of the
Sea, Dallas, Men Behaving Badly, Captain N, Hootenanny, ER, Wanda
Sykes, Adventures of Superman, Battlestar Galactica, F Troop, and
so many more hot DVD releases. And they're all deep discounted
- for you!
Read
more... 
1980's
TV Wrestling - Greats and Near Greats!
BONUS
FOR COMIC BOOK FANS:
