I hope you've read Jane's post from yesterday on her Top Ten TV choices from this year. It's a terrific and well-reasoned list, and after such a wonderful look-back, I need to do something different. I agree with Jane on all her choices, But I can't just repeat the wonderful things she said about Louis C.K., for instance, or all the other accurate shout-outs she gave to our favorites. How about I offer my favorite performances from this past year? Firmly believing that TV is all about personalities, here's a selection of the actors and actresses I loved best -- my top seven. (Who needs a Top Ten when seven will do?)
Charlie Day as Charlie on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, on FX: All Hail crazy Charlie, King of the Rats! Though I don't think this was the series' best year, Charlie Day is a constant delight. He's not only hilarious -- a great physical comedian as well as a plucky actor with truly funny bones -- he's also able to convey an almost hapless melancholy that brings his performance into a special place. Charlie's some kind of a savant living life as a dope, he's the butt of everybody's jokes, he puts mittens on cats and keeps a dream journal, and you can't wait to see him appear in every episode. Whether it's his unique voice or his lithe form in his Greenman costume, Charlie always rules the Day! He's an absolute delight.
John Slattery as Roger Sterling on Mad Men, AMC: Though Slattery has been superb all through Mad Men's run, the blue note he often played this season really got to me. Roger's got everything -- money, prestige, a doting wife, all the liquor he can possibly imbibe -- except the things he wants most. Respect...he doesn't have that, just remember how the creepy tobacco heir Lee Garner (played so well by Darren Pettie) smooshed his ego flat when Roger asked for a little time to break the news about the loss of his account. Yikes, so cold, such a wake-up call, and not the only blow Roger would face this season. The wise and eternally sultry Joan sees his desperation and calls off her sometime fling with him, too, over that debacle. And even worse, his dictated memoirs get nothing but giggles from Don and Peggy when they surreptitiously listen to them. In terms of Slattery's comic chops, anytime we saw him working on his memoirs was pure gold, always funny, often bitter and ultimately more sad than anything else. Dyspeptic, often cruel, ultimately heartbroken, John Slattery showed us the rue this year, plus he stepped into the director's chair a couple of times. So talented! I'm even okay with his car commercials...
Randee Heller as Miss Ida Blankenship on Mad Men, AMC: Don Draper's idiosyncratic fill-in secretary was a special treat, at first a tad annoying but then a treasure. We learned, via Roger's memoirs, that she had been a sexual vixen back in the day, and she had lost none of her tartness as she served up wry and cheeky observations which usually left Don speechless. We figured that her sudden death in the 9th episode ("The Beautiful Girls") meant a dark shift for the last few episodes of the season, and we weren't wrong. We really missed Miss Blankenship after that, and kudos to Randee Heller for playing much older (and virtually in disguise) with such heart and humor.
Betty White as Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland, on TV Land. Betty White had a golden Renaissance this year, not that she needed one. The TV comedy veteran has never had a dull or a non-working moment, but it was extra nice to see her co-starring on TV Land's successful new sitcom alongside the talented Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli. Yeah, so her character is maybe a little cliched -- a man-hungry senior lady -- but nobody does it like Betty White. Her comedy timing is unsurpassed, as we also saw with her great guest hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live in May. She's always the funniest one on whatever stage she's on, and we love her.
Julia Stiles as Lumen Pierce in Dexter, on Showtime: I've been cool on Julia Stiles in the past, but she won me over as the disturbed gang rape victim turned avenger in Dexter's 5th season. Damaged almost beyond salvation yet brought back to life, through death, by Dexter (Michael C. Hall), Lumen turned out to be courageous, resourceful, necessarily savage but ultimately human again as she finally found her peace. I'll miss the down-to-earth sneakers that she always wore, the perfect choice of footwear for a woman teetering on the edge episode after episode.
Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson on Masterpiece Mystery!Sherlock: The always perfect Freeman (The Office, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was a wonderful sidekick to the icy idiosyncratic genius of a modern day Sherlock Holmes, played by an equally skilled Benedict Cumberbatch. There's something about Freeman's everyman looks and essential kindness that makes him so tremendously watchable. He was charming, bemused, intelligent and brave as Watson, a troubled Middle East war veteran medico who brought humanity and friendship to the prickly Holmes. Definitely check out this three-part presentation if you missed it. If you did see it, you know what I mean -- Martin Freeman was terrific.
Matt Smith as Doctor Who, on BBC America: It's not like the franchise needed or wanted a new Doctor; everybody loved the wonderful David Tennant as the 10th Doctor, but Tennant wanted to move on. Big shoes to fill, there; Tennant was nothing less than superb. But now we have the 11th actor to play Doctor Who, and the youngest one yet. Matt Smith is only 26 but has proved to be a terrific choice to carry on the whimsical, intelligent, wise and humane legacy of The Doctor. Smith's Who is exactly right, with a manic energy and humor befitting his age and the sensibility of these times we're in, plus a brilliant mien that clearly takes much from the actor himself. If you want to see an actor put his heart, mind and soul into a part, in a way that you simply don't see here on American TV, I urge you to watch Matt Smith as Doctor Who. He was my favorite new face of 2010, hands above anything else on the tube, anywhere.
Here's to many more sensational performances and break-out personalities in 2011!
We hope you remember the wonderful but woefully short-lived Rudy and GoGo's World Famous Cartoon Show which ran on TNT back in the day. Created by two charming, intelligent and hilarious young men -- Barry Mills and Jack Pendarvis -- RaGG was a crazy melange of cartoons, live-action marionettes, songs, parodies and everything else.
TNT Programming tried to give it a long run -- honestly, we did -- but at least we have some footage to love now, thanks to the internet. Barry has set up a tribute site to the show here and there are also clips here and there on YouTube, including this for a great New Year's Eve programming stunt when Rudy, GoGo goat (who also ran for President later) and J.B. hosted science fiction movies all night long!
No such luck anything this fun will be airing on TV this year -- not a chance!
Lest you fear Barry and Jack's talents are wasting away these days, Barry continues a wonderful career as a TV and music producer, and Jack Pendarvis is a celebrated novelist and educator!
With just a couple of days left before 2011, it's a great time to think about our favorite television gems from the past year. There were a TON of phenomenal programs this year in fact, this could have been a top 20 list. Good TV has become so prolific, watching it all could easily become a full time job. I'm sure I've missed something...but these are the shows that kept me glued to the couch in 2010!
Mad Men (AMC): The Madison Ave men and women grace so many top ten lists, it's almost redundant to add them to mine. But it would be criminal to not include this amazing period piece which is more mini-feature film than any TV drama I can recall. From the intricacies and in-fighting of the ad biz (which I adore) to the character study of smoking hot Don Draper and 60's career woman Peggy...it's the one show that never got recorded in my house. I had to watch it in real time.
Louie(fX): We wrote about it many times on the Nose, in fact it became somewhat of an obsession. Hilarious, profane, heartbreaking, insane and sometimes so creepy it was almost unwatchable. This show within a show about stand up comedian Louie CK, his divorce, his adorable daughters and his NY friends was the most original effort on television this year. I am soooo getting the boxed set when it comes out, because each episode is infinitely re-watchable.
Breaking Bad (AMC): The bleak, cold high plateau of New Mexico...the double life of Walter White and his Meth cooking lab....the evolution of Jessie from drug addict loser to moral compass. Woven between it all the relentless terrorism, and mesmerizing violence of the Mexican drug cartels. Which happens to be more relevant this year than ever before. Where will this series go now that Walter has lost his brain cancer motivation for crime? Who cares, I'm coming along with them.
Nurse Jackie (Showtime): You haven't lived until you belatedly get Showtime and then dive into an entire season of Nurse Jackie over a period of 3 days. Thank you, On Demand. Yes, I had a total immersion NJ marathon and I LOVED it. Edie Falco rules the roost as Jackie, but the entire cast is absolute gold. I'm particularly fond of Zoey, the youngster who brings comic relief to the grim hospital setting. Also love Jackie's BFF Dr. O'Hara, who had an interesting twist with a lesbian turn this season. Nurse Jackie, along with Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Dexter, has character duplicity as a core plot device. Who are these people? Why are they doing such terrible things? And why does nobody notice except for us?
Modern Family (ABC): As an ABC alumni worker, I can't say how much I adore seeing the alphabet network with a top comedy hit. Every character in this series is hilarious, even the teenage girls. And teenage girls usually suck the laughs out of every scene they're in. My personal favorites are Mitchell and Cameron, the gay couple raising Lilly, the world's most stoic adopted baby. Catch Mitchell's song about "not biting" on the ABC website, it will give you an ear worm.
Dexter (Showtime): Sweaty Miami, Cuban Mojitos, swamps with dead bodies in barrels....and amidst it all, our Dexter of the enigmatic smile. He found true love this season with Lumen (Julie Stiles) but lost it in real life with Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his sister Deb on the series. Yes, it is fraught with peril to date your co-workers and even more hazardous to marry them. Let's hope all the dust settles before the next season so we can root for America's favorite serial killer once again.
Glee (Fox): Now that American Idol has jumped the shark, Fox should thank its lucky stars for "Glee". AI is toast. Would I watch it without Simon Cowell? Not in this lifetime. There is no musical show on TV as strong as Glee. We love the characters (especially breakout girl Britney, who is the funniest dumb blond on TV), and the music is fantastic. Some episodes don't quite make the mark (Rocky Horror was a horror), but most are award winning. If "Grilled Cheesus" doesn't get an Emmy I will be shocked.
Great Migrations (National Geographic): Even though I have not been able to watch the entire series because Comcast prices Nat Geo out of my reach (hateful!), I've seen enough episodes On Demand to know that this is one of the most beautifully filmed nature programs to ever grace the small screen. To watch the Monarch Butterfly migration (followed because they were able to attach a tiny, almost microscopic camera to a butterfly wing) was beyond amazing. On an HDTV it was sublime. Truly the most beautiful documentary series ever. It's the Rose Parade of wild life programs. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pony up for the DVD when it comes out.
Entourage (HBO): I never tire of the escapades of the "boys" as they zoom around So. Cal. in their inappropriate sport utility vehicles adding more smog to Hollywood-land. When is Vinnie going to get a Tesla? He could afford it. Although when last seen, our star was exploding like a supernova, with his porn g.f. dumping him and a bad coke habit wrecking his career. We love Hollywood, and we love cliff hangers. Can't wait until next season to see Ari, Drama, Lloyd and all the young Turks as they pull it out of the fire.
30 Rock (NBC): Liz Lemon, you are our Queen. You are the girl we always wanted to be...a Mary Tyler Moore for the 21st Century. Your glasses...your ham obsession...your fearless and proud braininess. You deserve happiness with a cute pilot or astronaut. But you will probably end up (some season faaaarrrr in the future) with our beloved favorite TV mogul Jack Donaghy. Kenneth can be the best man and Jenna the Maid of Honor. Oh please, at least let it happen as a dream sequence! Actually, the dream is that NBC has managed to create a comedy about television that works on a million levels. Bravo to the Peacock!
And before we close...a special word for our sponsors. I have to give mention to two favorite commercial characters; Isaiah Mustafa, the "I'm on a horse" hottie who made Old Spice cool again and Stephanie Courtney who plays "Flo" on the Progressive insurance ad. Both are originals and immensely appealing.
If you're in need of a bright moment today, here's the terrific Danny Kaye, from his eponymous variety show which ran 1963 - 1967, doing the Dietz and Schwartz tune "Triplets". You might remember the song from the movie The Bandwagon; famously Kaye, Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh also performed it at a British all-star Royal Variety Show back in the late 1940s. (Fueling, of course, those rumors about Kaye and Olivier's friendship being more than a friendship...).
HappyHolidays from The Flaming Nose! We hope you're up to opening presents, cooking and eating delicious food, and watching some great TV!
Our recommendation for today and tonight: BBC America's all-day Doctor Who marathon, including the 1pm Doctor Who at the Proms, where the Who-niverse invades London's traditional Royal Albert Hall Proms musical concert. Taped in July 2010, it features the newest Doctor Matt Smith and a bevy of Who villains, personalities, and of course terrific music from the series. Very much a bit of British tradition -- the Proms part, at least! (Think of The Proms like a wonderful Hollywood Bowl concert, or a Boston Pops extravaganza.)
The biggest present for us comes at 9pm -- the simultaneous UK-USA premiere of Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol, with special guest star Michael Gambon. BBC One airs DW: ACC at 6pm their time, and you should check out their fabulous Doctor Who website here. We're incredibly lucky to get it here on a same day basis -- for some reason BBC Canada doesn't air it until tomorrow. (Of course ultimate DW fans will be watching it on the internet the minute after it airs, so why the delay?)
If you're not a Doctor Who fan, you might become one after today! The DW tradition has been charmingly and successfully carried-on by Matt Smith, the youngest actor to play the Doctor but with every bit as much panache as the best of them. Also here's a recommendation you won't always hear -- Doctor Who is suitable for the entire family! And I mean that in the best way...there's nothing childish about it, just amazing adventure plus a huge dose of heart and wisdom for everybody to enjoy. Completely accessible science fiction excitement!
Word is out now that 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan underwent a kidney transplant operation earlier this month and will miss some episodes of the series next year. If you're a fan of 30 Rock, you know how wonderful Morgan is as Tracy Jordan, the unhinged and hilarious perennial malapropist and page Kenneth's biggest assignment. Here's a great scene with Tracy and Alec Baldwin:
The talented Morgan is evidently recovering well, and we wish him continued good health and many more opportunities to make us laugh!
Yes, we said it here three years ago, and we're going to say it again -- Ricky Gervais is incomparable. After catching up again with his Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale on one of the HBO channels, it's abundantly clear that nobody else comes close. I was once more caught up in the pathos, intelligence and insight offered up by Gervais and his co-writer (and castmember) Stephen Merchant in the holiday-set (but not Christmas-y) movie-length episode about struggling actor Andy Millman and his grapple with fame when he found finally found success on a sitcom. Ashley Jensen as Andy's pal Maggie was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the special, and it was richly deserved.
Hilarious and heartbreaking, the Extras series finale is timeless in its message and endless in its entertainment. It's airing a couple of times next week on HBO Comedy on the 29th, so look it up or rent it. I offer, as a tantalizing reminder, Gervais' stunning speech at the end of the show. It's a brittle indictment of the world's obsession with celebrity, still as relevant as it was three years ago -- probably more so -- and it will take your breath away. To set the scene, Andy has been appearing on a Big Brother show as one of the resident "celebrities" and has a revelation.
Only the British -- or maybe it's only Gervais -- can combine (and with such incisive brilliance) so much sentiment, intelligence and wisdom, and dare to offer it up in a comedy. That's genius, TV fans.
The news that veteran Hollywood producer-writer-director-actor Blake Edwards passed away yesterday brought many different images to mind. Undoubtedly best remembered for his screen comedies like the Pink Panther series (mostly starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau), The Great Race, S.O.B., Victor Victoria, and 10 (and of course so many other films, too; be sure to check out his entire credits), Edwards had also been a prolific presence on television in the 1950s and early 1960s. After starting out as an actor in the 1940s then transitioning into behind-the-scenes success, Blake Edwards was instrumental in the production of at least three well-remembered series of the era.
He had a hand in the well-regarded Mr. Lucky series which had a short (34 episodes) but successful run in 1959, short not because it wasn't an audience favorite, but because it lost its sponsor, something that doesn't happen anymore. He also wrote extensively on the Richard Diamond, Private Detective show (best remembered for the presence of Mary Tyler Moore's gams as the legs of Diamond's unseen secretary), and finally hit longer success (3 seasons and 114 episodes) as the creator of the ultra-cool Peter Gunn, starring Craig Stevens in the title role.
Both Mr. Lucky and Peter Gunn benefitted from their popular theme music written by Henry Mancini. Even if you don't remember the programs, you might recall the music, some of the hippest and snazziest TV scores ever written. Here's the end title from Mr. Lucky:
It often takes a death to bring appreciation to talents we've taken for granted, and so it goes with Blake Edwards. It's high time to remember his contributions to television as much as his work in the movies. You might be able to find some of these series online, and I believe Peter Gunn airs on some digital TV channels with classic TV; I'll investigate and post the info. Seek them out -- you will enjoy them.
Update: Fri. 12/18:TCM will be airing five of Blake Edwards' films starting at 8pm Eastern on Monday, December 27th, as follows: 8pm Breakfast at Tiffany's-- Audrey Hepburn unforgettable as Holly Golightly and singing "Moon River", 10pmDays of Wine and Roses-- searing drama with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as tragic alcoholics, 12m The Pink Panther -- the first Inspector Clouseau comedy, 2am Victor Victoria -- Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston and LesleyAnn Warren all delightful in this gender-bending comedy/romance with music, 4:30am Operation Petticoat -- WW II comedy with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis serving on a pink submarine filled with nurses. All are definitely worth catching for an interesting sampling of his many different genres and some great performances under his direction.
Is it the weather -- we had a short bout of cold weather here in Florida -- or the season, or am I merely always hungry? Honesty, it's that last one, and it might explain why I've been ferretting out, like some out-of-control, mac n'cheese-seeking ICBM, the airings of the unbelievably delicious Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network lately. Hosted, by Guy Fieri, DDaD visits small local-type eateries across the U.S.A. to sample the favorites that keep their customers coming back again and again.
Everything -- and I mean everything -- on this show looks completely delectable. You want to hop on a plane and order what you've just seen, right now, and get another one for take-out to eat on the flight back. This isn't fancy dining by candlelight, it's just great little restaurants serving insanely delectable burgers, or fried chicken, or regional dishes, or matzo ball soup, or whatever else hits that irresistible sweet spot on your palate. Truly, this show will make you hungry whenever you watch it, and if maybe it's not convenient to arise and start rustling up an onion-topped cheddar burger at 3am, then it will provide inspiration for later and send you running to the computer to look up the many recipes online from the show.
If you ever find yourself in a cooking slump, I guarantee DDaD will get you thinking again about flavors and tastes -- everything you love about preparing foods. The many chefs, cooks and restaurant owners featured on the show are delightfully devoid of ego, most seeming to completely enjoy making their special dishes and serving them to appreciative diners. They really get a kick out of the food, and it's infectious. Chef and restauranteur Fieri is also an appreciative host and has a friendly and open demeanor which brings out the best in the folks he visits. Here's a neat clip where he visits a Peruvian restaurant, and I'm sure you can practically taste it while you watch -- I can!
The show isn't new; it's been on since 2006 and Fieri's done over a hundred episodes, so there's plenty of good eating and cooking to discover. I've been salivating my way through the episodes and the online recipes, wishing maybe I lived near some of these places, but more grateful that we can watch and delight in some of the best food around. Happy eating!
With this past Sunday's Season 5 finale of Dexter still warm, the news came out yesterday that its two-year-married stars, Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter, are divorcing. I'm thinking that Showtime must have wished they'd announced this unexpected development before the finale -- a little scandal is always good for ratings.
These two talented thespians will no doubt go on to much future happiness personally and professionally, but it's always at the very least interesting when celebrities break up. Adding to the fascination factor here was the fact that they played brother and sister on Dexter, just a little lagniappe of strangeness for show fans who watched them play off each other so expertly over the past quintet of seasons.
For all the details, read this article from the Access Hollywood website.
Who was funnier, classier, or more intelligent in 1960s TV than Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie in the eponymous The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966) on CBS? He made us all want to live in New York, be TV comedy writers, and work with amusing colleagues like Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie). No doubt it was this show that set the bar so high for all of us as we entered the working world, seeking coworkers who were like a really funny family for us. Most of us all spent our working lives searching for that dynamic; some of us actually found it at different times (I hope, for your sake, that you're one of them!).
Dick Van Dyke turns 85 today; he was set to begin a run of his one-man stage show in Los Angeles this week, but injured his leg and had to bow out. 85 years old and still treading the boards, making people laugh -- Dick Van Dyke is a wonder! In addition to the original TDVDS, Dick Van Dyke starred in two other bonafide TV successes, The New Dick Van Dyke Showin the early 1970s, and his detective series Diagnosis: Murder from 1993 - 2001, as well as other short runs and lots of guest appearances.
Van Dyke also enjoyed an interesting movie career at the same time as he was America's favorite suburban husband. In 1963 he reprised his stage role in the movie adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie, and the next year he was tapped to play Bert in Disney's immortal Mary Poppins, with Julie Andrews in the title role. Other interesting roles followed -- more interesting than overtly successful -- including the kid classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which wasn't a winner when it first came out but has kind of evolved into one), and his brilliant performance in The Comic, writer-director Carl Reiner's 1969 dramedy about a washed-up silent movie comedian, another near-flop which has since gained a great reputation and much critical acclaim. I'm also fond of his ultra-dramatic turn in 1979's The Runner Stumbles (directed by Stanley Kramer), where he plays a priest who becomes involved with a young nun played by Kathleen Quinlan. Complete non-success at the box office, but fascinating and Van Dyke is excellent. Like many funny men, Dick Van Dyke is equally as skilled in straight dramatic parts, though the public wasn't as accepting.
But it was Rob Petrie we all loved, and continue to love up to this very day. Handsome and hilarious, Dick Van Dyke as Rob was our ideal mate, though we girls didn't even resent Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) for nabbing him before we could. All seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Showare available on DVD, and they are also available for viewing on Hulu and some are on Netflix InstantView. I've picked one of my favorites out for you here, the second season episode "It May Look Like a Walnut"; it's a really funny science fiction-infused entry, with a special guest appearance by Danny Thomas, also one of 1960s television biggest sitcom stars. We had TDVDS under license when I programmed KTLA in Los Angeles, and near the enf of our term we ran it overnight, where I could put together wonderful evenings of the series, including my two favorites, this one and the 5th season's "Uhny Uftz" (where Rob sees a flying saucer). But "It May Look Like a Walnut" is the one that most people remember loving, and here it is. (If for some reason it doesn't work for you, check out the episode on Hulu here).
There are a couple of great books out there about The Dick Van Dyke Show -- The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book by Vince Waldron, andThe Dick Van Dyke Showby Ginny Weissman and Coyne Steven Sanders. You can't know too much about America's classiest and funniest domestic comedy ever. We don't think anything comes close.
Happy Birthday, Dick Van Dyke! The Flaming Nose TV Blog loves you!
Only one more episode left for Dexter's 5th season and I'm feeling a little sad about that because he's finally found the girl of his dreams. Everything about Lumen (guest star Julia Stiles) is perfect: she's a victim (like him) and now a vigilante serial killer (the family that plays together stays together). Also, I can't help but notice that they LOOK like identical twins. The same dirty blond hair, wide cheek bones and penetrating brown eyes. They were separated at birth. It was a narcissist's delight the first time Dexter and Lumen had a roll in the hay. I wanted them to leave their matching black leather gloves on. This season has been intriguing on many other levels too. I happen to think that Peter Weller's bad cop was one of the most menacing and terrifying characters that "Dexter" has introduced yet. He looked like he could snap at any moment and boil a bunny or blow Miami sky high. He's evil with a bit of joie de vive, sort of like Stephen King's Walking Dude devil in The Stand. I must confess I've had a crush on Peter Weller since Buckaroo Bonzai back in the 80's. "No matter where you go, there you are". Well his character has gone to a quick demise, dispatched Dexter style in the back of van. I believe I will miss him and his coiled-like-a-snake energy.
The other romance that has become fascinating and almost sweet (if that adjective could ever be applied to the best female potty mouth on TV) is the on again off again flirtation between Deb and Quinn. Poor Quinn was outed for conducting his own investigation of Dexter and Deb dropped him like a hot potato. But she still has feelings for the NY Irish cop (who wouldn't?) and seems determined to get her heart drop kicked and stomped on once again. Oh how I wish for a season end surprise where Deb actually gets to find some semblance of normal love. Hope springs eternal.
I think this may not have been one of the very best Dexter seasons, but even a lesser Dexter is still a delight. His evolution as a father, brother, and now (new) boyfriend to Lumen has been measured and riveting. There will be an empty hole on Sunday nights for me when this show is done. Catch the season finale this Sunday on Showtime at 9pm.
Most of us were dismayed to hear that the talented and unique Leslie Nielsen died this past weekend. Though his credits are full of interesting big screen titles like Forbidden Planet, The Reluctant Astronaut, and The Poseidon Adventure, it was 1980's Airplane! which forever cemented his image, at least for fans of a certain age, of Nielsen as a primarily comic actor. He hardly started out that way, though, breaking into live TV in the very early 1950s in a steady series of roles that never let up as he made appearances on every major drama showcase of the time. He had several years at MGM making movies, but at the end of the decade he was back in the medium that seemed to better know how to utilize his earnest presence.
His credit list is an A-List of every important television series from the 1960s on, in every genre -- Rawhide, Wagon Train, The Untouchables, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, The Fugitive, The Defenders, Daniel Boone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Peyton Place, Ben Casey, The Wild Wild West, Dr. Kildare, Bonanza, Run for Your Life, It Takes a Thief, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, The Virginian, The Bold Ones, Night Gallery, Medical Center, The Mod Squad, M*A*S*H, The Streets of San Francisco, The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, Hawaii 5-O, Ironside, Kojak, The Rookies, Kung Fu, Cannon, Columbo, SWAT, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Vega$, Hotel, 227, Murder, She Wrote, Highway to Heaven, Father Dowling, Who's The Boss?, The Golden Girls, and many more. After his big screen success in Airplane!, Nielsen got his own comedy TV series in 1982 with Police Squad!, short-lived on TV but spawning three movie sequels as The Naked Gun.
From that time on it was hard to convince people that Nielsen had once been a dead serious dramatic actor, but it didn't really matter. He was making so many people laugh that it was a moot point. Always the proud Canadian (his older brother was a top Canuck politician), Nielsen made several appearances on the popular mid-90's Mountie comedy-adventure series Due South starring Paul Gross. (It was seen down here on CBS late-night for a while and then we picked it up for TNT where it ran nicely in afternoon for several seasons). Nielsen was able to both honor and poke gentle fun at his native land with his portrayal of Sgt. Buck Frobisher, a sure comic creation played with his characteristic absurdist grace.
And here's a cute TV commercial for the European mobile telephone company DutchTone (and there are others on YouTube for the same company):
Here's a bit of Leslie when he assumed the role of high-powered movie studio boss Bracken in the second season of the fascinating (but ultimately short-lived) series Bracken's World, circa 1969. Leslie Nielsen's scene with the wonderful Lois Nettleton begins about 1:30 into the clip. It's from the episode called "Nude Scene" about actors facing the dilemma of whether or not to do one together. The late great Steve Ignat also starred in this memorable episode.
Critic Tom Shales did a nice column in The Washington Post on Leslie Nielsen's television career, which you can (and should) read here. You should also read his comprehensive biography here; it will make you appreciate even more the productivity and longevity of this show business legend. If you're a Netflix subscriber, take a look at the wealth of offerings available to watch and enjoy.
Leslie Nielsen was able to survive, adapt, reinvent himself in different decades, and thrive -- sounds like a lesson that we can all learn from.
Listen Millennial boys and girls...and you will hear a television tale from long, long ago. Back when Woolly Mammoths still thundered across the plains, there was a time before iPhones, iPods, widgets and apps. If you wanted to watch TV, you had to get your big butt off the couch and turn it on by hand. And once it was on, there were only about 5 or 6 channels to watch. That's right, no Animal Planet, no ESPN, no Hallmark or G4 or Discovery. Incredibly, the world was still without DVD's and DVR's as well. It's possible we didn't even have microwaves back then, but it was soooooo many moons ago it's hard to recall. You're probably thinking, what in God's name did we all do on Thanksgiving after the Macy's parade was over and the turkey was bubbling in the oven? Well most people watched football on TV and if you weren't a sports fan television was a vast desert. That is, until the Twilight Zone Marathon came along. Invented by industry titan and fellow Nose founder Lisa, the T-Zone marathon was at the forefront of alternative programming. An entire day of Twilight Zone episodes were programmed back to back on independent TV powerhouse KTLA (Los Angeles). It was wildly, amazingly, Nielsen ratingly successful. Finally, non-football followers had something to be thankful for on the national day of stuffing and pumpkin pie. Rod Serling's classic and iconic series was truly a feast for starving TV viewers.
I checked TV listings for tomorrow and could not find Twilight Zone playing anywhere on my Comcast system. I guess some good things have to live in the rosy glow of our memories. TV Land is doing a Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie marathon however, and I consider it an homage to our Nose founder Lisa.
Do you have a favorite Twilight Zone episode? A lot of people would choose the one pictured above, where a very young William Shatner thinks he sees a monster on the wing of a plane. Yes! There was once something a bit scarier than TSA pat downs or body scans! I'm partial to "A Stop at Willoughby", which always resonated personally after many years working in media and advertising. In it, an ad executive loses all his marbles from Madison Avenue stress, and finds a way to escape into a kinder, gentler time, compliments of....the Twilight Zone. I hope this post helps you recall a kinder, gentler time in television history. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We never want to forget one of America's darkest days -- and one of televisions's most important -- when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Many of us were in school at the time and we all recall with a varying set of memories the shock and horror at hearing that our President had been shot. For CBS, it fell to newsman Walter Cronkite to deliver the announcement to Americans, or at least the housewives watching daytime television -- a soap opera -- at the moment the news came over the wire.
As soon as live news coverage started, it was Cronkite before the camera as the gravity of the day's events unfolded and the grim outcome was sealed in history.
Many years later Walter Cronkite reflected on the events of that day:
Of course, Walter Cronkite wasn't the only national journalist to cover the events of November 22, 1963. ABC and NBC also had live news coverage, but somehow it's Cronkite that we all seem to remember, no doubt because of his longevity in the business and his sterling reputation as a newman of incomparable insight, intelligence and integrity. We highly recommend a visit to the YouTube channel JKF1963Videos, where you will a collection of all three networks' coverage from that terrible day. (Thanks to channel creator Robbie from Minnesota for compiling and collecting this video in one place.) There are also many fascinating interviews with Cronkite where he reflects further on his experiences, and they are also highly recommended for students of history and television.
The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a defining moment in the history of television, and in the history of a nation.
PBS takes a decided more youthful demo turn -- John Lennon instead of Lawrence Welk, though I guess he's pretty much disappeared from PBS fundraisers, replaced with baby boomer rock concerts, right? -- with two programs premiering over the next two nights.
Tonight, Masterpiece Theatre, which recently had such a brilliant trio of Sherlock Holmes under their Mystery! banner, goes Contemporary with Lennon Naked, a TV movie originally broadcast on BBC Four in the UK this past June. It covers the life of John Lennon from approximately 1967 - 1971, including his romance with Yoko Ono and other Beatle milestones. We're a little over two weeks away from the 30th anniversary of Lennon's murder, and with such a date looming, and with PBS' sterling reputation, you'd think that this might be as wonderful or special as was their Sherlock triple-pack, but alas it seems not. I'm not a Beatles ultra-aficionado (music in general isn't my bag, exactly) but the reviews are unanimously not overly favorable. However, it's John Lennon. At the very least Lennon Naked is a great curiosity piece, with Lennon played by Christopher Eccleston (2005's Doctor Who and also a short-time regular on Heroes) and Yoko Ono by Naoko Mori (from Torchwood).
Definitely more your thing if you're a serious John Lennon fan is Monday's American Masters documentary presentation LENNONYC, focusing on Lennon's time living in New York with Yoko and their son Sean. This is the one that's getting the great reviews, and there's no way you can beat a great documentary with a so-so TVM. Truth is always more wondrous than fiction, and LENNONYC appears to have done a fitting job in profiling the musical genius' pleasure at crafting a satisfying life for himself and his family in his adopted city of New York.
If you're a Beatles' fan it's inconceivable that you'd miss either one, of course. The 90-minute Lennon Naked on Masterpiece Contemporary preems tonight (Sunday) on your local PBS station at 9pm (probably, but check your local listings) and will encore as well as being available for online viewing starting next week.
LENNONYC on American Masters airs tomorrow (Monday) at 9pm (again probably, but always check your local listings) for two hours and will also encore. It's not currently listed as being available in its entirety online, but you should check the American Masters' video page for updates and other interesting clips.
I was inspired by a Facebook profile photo event -- change your pic to a favorite childhood cartoon -- to revisit The Mighty Hercules, an animated series which started in 1963 and utterly captured my imagination back then. Starting out with an exciting theme song sung by pop singer Johnny Nash, and featuring the exploits of mythological hero Hercules -- always one of my favorites -- The Mighty Hercules was plenty thrilling to a kid and we all loved it.
I was a nut for Greek mythology; I first got turned onto it from the entry in The Golden Book Encyclopedia set which was found on a many a baby boomer's library shelf. (I credit this set for starting my intense curiosity and lifelong love of mummies, volcanoes, and so many other things!) Haunting illustrations (especially on the covers -- yikes! Look at that Punch and Judy!) which tantalized the imagination -- like something from the Twilight Zone, hyper-real images from all of history -- made reading these an unforgettable experience! I remember the images for the mythology page so well -- Andromeda on a rock, Perseus holding Medusa's head (fostering my complete love for all things Medusa), and so many others.
Then along comes an amazing cartoon on weekday afternoons that ties right into my fascination with mythology! The Mighty Hercules had just enough characters straight out of mythology to satisfy my classical bent, and enough crazy powers to feed my science fiction/monster gent. Perfection! (The series was made by Trans Lux who also did Felix the Cat, so you might recognize some voices.) Here's the catchy theme song!
And here just a little taste of the excitement in every episode -- Hercules' girlfriend Helena gets stuck in some quicksand, thanks to the evil powers of chief baddie Daedalus. The little centaur who says everything twice is named Newton. He's annoying, but memorable. I must say Hercules looks mildly annoyed at the clingy Helena in the pic to the left here; it's been said more than once that The Mighty Hercules has a homoerotic frisson, but you can say that about most any muscle man-oriented entertainment. However I totally get where young gay boys' hearts might have gone pitter-patter over Hercules. Honestly, Herc falls into the pure hero type. I know he probably likes Helena just fine, but he's fighting evil...who has time for a girlfriend?
We're not the only ones who love The Mighty Hercules; there are some terrific places on the web with great TMH info: The Cartoon Scrapbook page, on the A Dispensable List of Comic Book Lists, Infinite Coolness has a great TMH article (scroll down to it), Toon Tracker, and others, including a great episode listing here on TV.com. plus there are some full episodes on YouTube though it doesn't look like there is an official DVD release yet. Long overdue, that! Okay, the animation is primitive and it's hardly Disney, but the show was wonderful!
So, as Hercules used to say as he flew off up to Mt. Olympus...Olympia!!!!
Writing about Second City Television feels radically daunting to me. It's like writing a a review of the Bible, or telling you about the love of my life or something: it feels too big for me to handle. In fact it IS too big for me to handle, at least here on The Flaming Nose. But I'll try.
In 1977, when I was 11, I was friends with a kid named Juan Salazar. Juan was from Cuba, and when I'd hanging around his family's apartment, I was introduced to their then-unique (to me) mixture of Spanish and English. I found this aspect of Juan's life quite fascinating, and so I tuned in, once, to a Spanglish show on my Atlanta PBS outlet called Que Pasa, USA? As I watched this series (which I now find even more intriguing), I felt it cluing me into the Hispanic dialect and culture, and as a result, I was hoping to garner a deeper understanding of Juan's life (though his English was better than mine, and we had a preternatural connection through humor; no one in my life made me laugh harder than Juan Salazar, and wherever he is, I hope he feels the same about me). Anyway, I'd watch this sitcom every week, and I really enjoyed it, even if I couldn't get some of the jokes. One week, I stuck around afterwards to see what was on next, and what appeared blew my little mind.
It was a cheap dinky show, and it was called Second City Television, or SCTV for short. It spoofed all manner of media, and in a different way than did the then relatively new Saturday Night Live. For one thing, there were no audience members, no musical guests, no celebrities, no streams of whooping applause; it was only 30 minutes long and it'd come on (in my outlet at least) when the sun was still up. Many of the sets were slightly makeshift (sometimes there weren't even sets; there were just lit studio backgrounds). The costumes and makeup (by the incredibly talented Juul Haalmeyer and Christine Hart, respectively) were rich but definitely hitting a strange note of comedy-centric craft I'd never before witnessed. The sound was weird; SCTV had a laugh track unlike any out there--uber-phony, but somehow it was the one laugh track that really did make me laugh a little harder (I've read that the laugh track was sampled live from real audiences at the Second City Theater in Toronto). The on-screen titles and graphics were bizarre, seemingly hand-crafted. It all just totally overloaded me with exoticism and, thus, I couldn't immediately fathom its appeal, except to say that it made me laugh and FEEL complete rapture. Though the show was in English, I felt like it was being beamed to us from another world far away.
Well, I guess it was. SCTV was being broadcast from Toronto, Canada (and later was shot even further north, in Edmonton, Alberta, which made the comedy seem even more alien). Anyway, I didn't know any of this at the time. I just knew there was something peculiar about this show that I loved. Only problem was, when I would insist that my closest relations, my mom Lynn and dad Buddy, watch it with me while we ate dinner, I'd be the only one in the den laughing. I endured some pretty stony silences those days; my parents just didn't get it at all (the only thing more uncomfortable than being the only one in the room laughing is to be the only one in the room NOT laughing). Once again, like many time before and after, I fear, my parents were baffled by this weird little only child of theirs. And then, when I sojourned over to Juan's house to watch Que Pasa USA? I'd insist we'd watch SCTV right after it. But, somehow, he didn't get it, either. Neither did my cousin Greg, with whom I grew up and I watched Saturday Night Live with regularly during weekend sleepovers at his house. In fact, I knew not one person, big or pint-sized, who was watching this show. Not one...except for me.
And so it became my show. Mine, all mine. On Sundays, I'd wake up, watch an old movie on Atlanta's WTCG, or listen to Casey Kasem count down America's Top 40 on Z-93, and then by 7 pm, I'd retreat into my room for the main attraction, tuning in with my tiny black-and-white tube to glorify in this Canadian silliness that I was sure was intelligent and insightful (the night would be capped, by the way, with 96 Rock's Dr. Demento and the King Biscuit Flour Hour). One thing is for sure I knew right away about SCTV: I got a lot of the jokes. For instance, having long realized the Vegas-tinged phoniness of 70s TV talk shows, I really got a kick out of Joe Flaherty as the unctious gabfest host Sammy Maudlin, a long-running character who appeared here, in 1976, alongside John Candy as sidekick William B. Williams, Eugene Levy as funnyman Bobby Bittman, Catherine O'Hara as Trish Nutley--an early Lola Heatherton--and Andrea Martin doing a confused "Mother Teresa"
And then, later on in the show's run, there was this insane commercial for the home version of my favorite game show, the Hollywood Squares. Even to this day, the last shot of this bit gives me both goosebumps and guffaws--and even today, I can't really explain where the goosebumps come from. There's just a radical oddness about the piece that really tapped into not only a deep-seated fear of having my childhood home ripped apart for no reason at all, but also into my romance with all things wacky (also, the notion that we're supposed to buy the obvious miniature at the end as real was a new level of comedy for me). At any rate, this was a sensation I'd get accustomed to feeling while watching SCTV:
The premise of SCTV was simple: each episode was a "programming day" for Channel 109 out of an anonymous American city called Melonville. The shows being programmed on SCTV were fast-paced: an "episode" could go on for four minutes, and then it'd be on to the next thing. Watching it on PBS without any real commercials intruding, I think, was a real key to my liking SCTV so early on. The whole thing tapped into my love for and sometimes disgust with television's brilliance and inanity. And I liked that the whole thing seemed to be done by a bunch of amateurs. Just look at this early opening, which actually used a famous Spike Jones tune to back up shots of TV "professionals" who clearly have no idea what they're doing!
This cast rundown was the show's bedrock. None of them had yet ripened into movie stars; they all seemed like my weird uncles and aunts--the ones that made me laugh incessantly because they didn't have to deal with the consequences once they handed me back to my parents. Later, the SCTV cast projected a more celebrated image when this slightly more familiar opening began airing, complete with shots of the now-iconic falling TVs and Russ Little's incomparable theme playing in the background:
I think I first really, in my marrow, knew I was hopelessly in love with SCTV when this very skit first aired: The Leave It To Beaver 25th Anniversary Party.Beaver was a series that greeted me almost every day upon my arrival home after school. To savage it like this...it just seemed so...so...wrong. How could you make cruel hay of such innocence? Portraying Ward as a greying drunk, Whitey (Harold Ramis) as a murder-minded chum, Eddie Haskell (Dave Thomas) as an enabling homosexual, and referring to those wild 1970s rumors of the Beaver being killed in Vietnam? (The whole bit, actually, seems to be about the mass confusion the latter urban myth about Jerry Mathers' wartime "death" evoked in the populace.) Hell, the SCTV writers even deigned, as became their custom, to spell the actors' names hilariously wrong--Hugh Bowmont (fanatically soused Joe Flaherty), Barbara Billingslee (adulterous Catherine O'Hara), Tony Dowe (genial pompadoured Eugene Levy), and Gerry Mathers (the only innocence still to be sullied, in John Candy) as The Beaver. Again, I got chills watching this, but laughed hard, particularly at something an 11-year-old would find hysterical: Joe Flaherty's sublime drunken stumbling...
Harold Ramis would be the first cast member to jump ship, noticeably disappearing after the show's first year to co-write the box office smash hit National Lampoon's Animal House. But the other cast members stayed with me, and for a long time. I got to be great friends with them. Eugene Levy would forever be in my heart as the harried, fake-mustachioed game show host Alex Trebel (again with the name screw-ups) in this, what is widely considered to be the perfect SCTV skit, High-Q. It was written, in a fit of delirious genius, by Catherine O'Hara, and remains the game show we all secretly wanna see happen. Just look at these faces, and listen to the sound, in this piece--they make the senses smirk:
My relationship with SCTV on my PBS stations (Channel 8 and 30 in Atlanta) continued unabated until the year 1980. By this time, I was well into my love of movies, having seen 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1978 and, upon which, having decided that the pursuit of either the making of or the talking about movies would be my lifelong chase. By this time, another PBS staple, Sneak Previews, with hosts Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, had become another obsession of mine. In between watching movies on my own, and seeing what these guys had to say about everything coming out in theaters around me, I'd become sincerely strung-out on movies. So when I saw this skit on my favorite TV show ever (SCTV had surpassed my former favorite TV show, All in the Family, by this time), I was apoplectic. Everything about it--from the slaying cheap-o effects with those improbably combined Starlost/Star Wars/Lost in Space/Star Trek models and the skewering of Robert Altman's lark Popeye--to the spoofing of the "Dog of the Week" feature on Sneak Previews (in which Siskel and Ebert had an actual dog on set barking to signify the segment's appearance--and I mention it now just to explain the now-obscure upcoming jokes)---everything about this skit touched me deeply, and made me love SCTV even more. Time and space themselves, now, could not tear this relationship asunder; for me, it was a perfect storm:
There was a time where SCTV became harder for me to see. In fact, it had vanished from my local station's lineup in late 1980, and I felt like my favorite cat had run off on me. Seriously, as I entered high school, I had become somewhat sallow in the show's absence. I had movies to keep me happy, but Saturday Night Live's original cast had departed, and the replacement cast wasn't doing it for me. Luckily, this was one of the best periods for cinema in my lifetime, so I kept busy. But something... something was missing. I perked up for a short while when, on Atlanta's CBS affiliate, the show reappeared as a late-night rival to Saturday Night Live. The cast had changed: Catherine O'Hara (an early crush) and John Candy (an early man-crush) were gone, replaced by the less funny Robin Duke and Tony Rosato. Still, there were golden moments. For instance, I had long been famous in high school for memorizing and performing K-Tel commercials in their entirety; and I'd recently been creeped out as a 13-year-old by Mike Nichols' 1966 film of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? As a result, I really dug this bit (and I even knew who Broderick Crawford was, too):
NBC returned my love to me full force, though, in 1981. With the dismal failure of the new Saturday Night Live's ratings, the network was searching for a possible replacement. So they granted SCTV a extra life, and when I found this out, ecstasy stands as a weak term for what I experienced. I was scaling the moons of Jupiter when NBC birthed SCTV Network 90, a massively-scaled 90-minute vehicle for this cast of characters (now with Catherine O'Hara and John Candy back in the fray). When I tuned in on that first September Friday in 1981, at the incredibly late 12:30 time slot (I never fell asleep, not once), I saw this indelible opening. How I still adore those glimpses into each actor's "life" as they are badgered by the network to sign their stinking contracts; it's the funniest opening ever for any TV show (Catherine O'Hara being caught as she cheats on a test cracks me up every time; so does that one little girl on the left giving a goodbye Girl Scout salute to the amazing Andrea Martin, another early crush of mine; and may I say, Dave Thomas' narration reigns supreme):
This new guise for SCTV ushered in a wholly different feel for the show. Most importantly, it slowed the pace down a bit, and I don't mean that in a bad way. After the show found its footing midway through its first season (still shooting in Edmonton, Alberta, by the way), it halfway eschewed the shorter skits and started concentrating on the behind-the-scenes doings at SCTV. Now we were totally in another world. Totally. To give you an idea: Matt Groening and James L. Brooks have said they were inspired by SCTV to create a little universe in The Simpsons' Springfield. This should give any novice a perspective on the show's influence.
I can't give a rundown of all the SCTV characters here. To do so would be madness. But I have to say the series, for me, was ultimately anchored by SCTV's Owner and President Guy Cabellero (Guy Guy!), played with supreme improv confidence by Joe Flaherty. Dressed in a natty panama suit, seated in a wheelchair he didn't need ("I use it for respect," he'd confess to his closest confidants), and slimy as all get out, Guy made no bones about it: he was in the TV business to make money, and would break everyone's balls to do so. He wore this goal as a badge of pride, and would admit it outright to the viewers, whom he fully expected to be on his side in exploiting them. In Guy's defense, I think his motto was that old producers bromide "Give the people what they want." Because he was strangely so honest with us, it was hard not to love Guy Cabellero.
SCTV Network 90 was, I think, a questionable ratings success--back then, before the 24-hour cable cycle was really born, who was up at 12:30 watching TV, and what outfit was really staking its guts on the concept? But it was an unqualified critical and industry success. In fact, the show achieved an absolutely unprecedented feat in television history. Yeah, in 1982, its writing staff (which included its entire cast, too) were nominated for four out of five Emmy nominations for Best Writing for A Variety Show (they won that year, of course, for their Moral Majority episode). But, incredibly, in 1983, the show was nominated again--for FIVE OUT OF FIVE NOMINATIONS. No TV show EVER has matched this feat (the episode that won was the amazing Energy Ball/Sweeps Week episode with the "Night of the Primetime Stars" throughline). This is like...so outstanding. It's like...could you imagine the batshit shitstorm that would rain down in the media nowadays if Mad Men, as fantastic as it is, were nominated for five out of five of anything? Well, this happened in 1983. And it'll never occur, in any category of any award show, in any country, in any universe, ever again. It's a planetary alignment, or a Chicago Cubs pitcher delivering five no-hitters in a row. This is how great SCTV was and is. For me, this was that recognition I'd sought when I was that little kid, looking at SCTV alone in my room on a Panasonic black-and-white. If I coulda said boo-ya then to my not-with-it parents and friends, I would've.
I think a 10,000-page volume could be written about the SCTV characters, references, influence, and laffs. In fact, Dave Thomas penned an invaluable, detailed, well-illustrated, quote-heavy, annotated, but much shorter book in 1997 called SCTV: Behind The Scenes that is really the last inside word on the subject. But I'd love to see (or maybe write myself) a detailed appreciation of everything SCTV from a fan's perspective, noting everything that's funny, and why it's so, about the show. At any rate, the list of characters and impersonations the show offered up could go on forever, nearly. I won't even attempt to go over them all. If you're interested, the work has already been done for us on the Wikipedia or IMDB entries for John Candy,Eugene Levy,Catherine O'Hara, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas,Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis,Harold Ramis,Martin Short,Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, Mary Charlotte Wilcox, and John Hemphill. One and all, they're incredible. If I were to list their achievements on this show, you'd never be able to finish this post. However, I will go on to throw in some choice bits of comedy chow here, with my own comments on each. I'll make a deal with myself: I'll limit myself to ten inclusions (and this is my reward for doing this article, cause now I get to watch a lot of great SCTV to pick my faves):
(1) From SCTV Network 90, a musical and childlike interlude from the kids of Pre-Teen World, with the Recess Monkeys playing Chilliwack's one-hit-wonder "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" with accomplished musician Rick Moranis aping a novice (love that guitar solo). God, I love how Eugene Levy quits playing rhythm and reverts to the tamborine, and how great is John Candy, as the nervous telethon-host/drummer Stephan Sealy who can't speak/sing a line without swallowing in fear? Pre-Teen World was a spoof of things like the forgotten Zoomand Kid's World, and as a kid who loved these shows (even though I felt I was somehow ahead of them), I loved and related to this spoof so much.
(2) Okay, this made me cry my eyes out with laughter. A promo for Liberace's Christmas special, with Dave Thomas as an obviously gay Liberace (how did anyone NOT know?). The piece goes on a lot longer, with a great deal more features, but the end-all-be-all happens very early on, with the hilariously tense piano-off between Liberace and Rick Moranis' Elton John (whom I'm just now fully realizing owes a lot to Liberace with his wild costumes, perfectly mirrored here by series costume designer Juul Haalmeyer). When real-life football club owner Elton John realizes he's the loser here and resorts to rebounding a silvery soccer ball to the back of Liberace's head to win the day...well, as an Elton John fan then and now, I can't tell you how much this means to me. And I love Liberace, too. Jesus Kee-ryste, this skit slays me.
(3) The 5 Neat Guys. Yes, even in the 1970s, this kind of commercial existed on TV. As Rick Moranis details in Dave Thomas' book SCTV: Behind The Scenes: "Dave was the happy singer, and John was the comfortable, relaxed borderline retiree. Joe was a drunk. Eugene was damaged in some way. I think that I was the only one that didn't know, didn't have a beat. Except I felt very protected by all those guys. They were all taller, bigger. They knew what they were doing. I was the least neat guy and it didn't matter. It was all going to be okay and that's how I played the character. It was, boy, am I ever safe. That's really what was behind the voice. John and Joe didn't sing it. I double-tracked the middle. Gene went a third up and a third down. Dave did the really high and the really low voices. John just sat back and lip-synched. Joe could barely hold it together. I just beamed through the whole thing. I'm the happiest guy in the world."
(4) The Twilling's Tea ad, with Catherine O'Hara downright foolproof as Katherine Hepburn. Imagine being an actor asked to imitate another actor who was imitable, but whom no one had yet managed to imitate; it must have been frightening. Then again, O'Hara was in good hands with Haalmeyer's authentic threads, Christine Hart's convincing makeup, that huge high-backed leather chair that makes Hepburn seem deceptively small, and John Blanchard's fuzzy-focused camera. All the elements bond, but it's O'Hara who's obviously the heroine. In fact, she's a major reason the entire show works at all. Only two women in the cast, for the most part, and they covered it all when it came to the female roles, which is astounding. Though I know they had problems working in what was largely a boy's club, they can stand tall. O'Hara and Andrea Martin, they rock so, so sturdy.
(5) Andrea Martin's Station Manager Edith Prickley was always one of my favorite SCTV characters. Perpetually bedecked in leopard skins, and so forward with her love of the menfolk, she struck me as one of the more confident members of the SCTV universe. She was who she was, and no one was gonna steer her away from that, and really, she wanted you to be the same way. Nothing says this more than the segment which has Prickley as the host of a concert at the Melonville Baths (a reference to Bette Midler's beginnings as a bathhouse entertainer, complete with a version of Midler staple "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," which Prickley plays on the piano partially with her breasts). Here, we get, also, a regal Charlton Heston imitation from Joe Flaherty, who has Chuck reading from the diaries of Alexander Hamilton and dancing stiffly with Edith (while grasping the back of his neck and exclaiming "Damn!"). This spoof of The Dating Game is pretty dang good, too!
(6) You know these guys. Bob and Doug McKenzie were developed as a part of SCTV early on when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation demanded that there be at least two minutes of Canada-specific material on each episode of all its shows. So Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas came up with these two hosers and the characters almost overtook the show, to the actors' embarrassment. Still, their ultimate popularity helped the ratings a lot, and boosted the show's media profile. They also provided the basis for some of the best episodes of SCTV Network 90 and, overexposed or not, added to the show's otherworldly quality.
(7) Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice is a part of the extra-weird Canadian episode of SCTV. Surely, this is one of the strangest moments seen by American network television, and yes, it was produced for NBC exclusively. But this 4th season episode of SCTV Network 90 demanded its place as a love letter to the show's country of origin. As its centerpiece, this sketch is a send-up of one of the great Canadian films, Donald Shebib's 1970 grubby masterwork Goin' Down The Road . I won't bother to try to explain it all to you. It's better that it seem as bizarre to you as it did to me when I first saw it. But believe me, it's an accurate satire, even right down to including one of the movie's main actors, Jayne Eastwood, as one of the mopey ladies. This bit, too, gives me those wintery Canuck chills.
(8) No explanation necessary. The Merv Griffith Show. Merv Griffin. Andy Griffith. This puny locutional connection was enough for the SCTV team to work with. And this is another of their jewels. Eugene Levy continues beyond the comedy stratosphere with his portrayal of the post-stroke Howard McNear (the actor who played Floyd The Barber). And I love that Dave Thomas plays 70s impersonator Fred Travalena PLAYING Jim Nabors PLAYING Gomer Pyle. I could go on and on here, but you get the message. ("Riunite on Ice. It's the drink that Otis drinks.")
(9) Rick Moranis on Gerry Todd (from Dave Thomas' SCTV: Behind The Scenes): "I just structured a radio format for television. I wrote it up as a ten-minute sketch including my own songs. I did them as another middle-of-the-road radio station. I had worked at a radio station and there were these deejays who took great pride in being able to fill air time with inoffensive chatter. These guys had the ability to talk endlessly about nothing. They were middle-of-the-road in every way. Politically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually, they reflected popular opinion. They could talk about the weather for fifteen minutes. They loved it. If you said to them, "Well, it's four minutes to the top of the hour and I've only got a two-minute record." "No problem," they would say and they would fill the rest. I was on the other side of the glass from them. I was their audience. I alone was representing the hundreds of thousands of people who were listening to them. They would talk to me and I would pretend that they were saying something important. Meanwhile, I'm taking notes in my mind the whole time. And I developed the ability to talk endlessly about nothing, as I'm doing right now. That's how Gerry Todd was born."
(10) I apologize for the poor quality of the following clips, but I work with what I got, and believe me, if I could get this any other way, I would (and if you look at it the right way, the gimpy quality actually helps). This Sammy Maudlin skit, Maudlin of the Night, was done as part of the Cinemax run of the SCTV, and is, as such, unavailable on DVD. But it's one of the funniest things ever on SCTV. We've earlier, here, seen Sammy Maudlin's beginnings on SCTV and now we're here at his very painful, even more uncomfortable downfall. John Candy's William B. Williams has been fired, and Sammy's been forced to keep up with the times, to act a lot younger than he really is (complete with 80s mullet and threads), and to take on a load of "zanies" as his backups. I include this skit mainly as a tribute to my favorite cast member, Joe Flaherty, who astonished me over and over with his fearless physicality and veering improv timing (he always seemed to be making things up as he goes along, and in a dangerous way, especially as Sammy, Guy Cabellero, and horror movie host Count Floyd). This particular piece here is a spoof of Alan Thicke's long-ago talk show Thicke of the Night, and is rife with 80s auras. But why can't we see this masterpiece in a pristine quality?? See, this is what I mean by no one being able to get a handle, truly, on releasing, or even TALKING about, the FULL run of SCTV. Why can't a company just go right down from the first 1976 program from Canada to the last 1984 program on Cinemax? What kind of rights problems are involved? Would the entangled lawyers blow a gasket at the prospect? Or is there no money to be made for the effort? I have to guess probably a combo of both. Still, we have the internet, and with it, we have to be thankful for what's available. At any rate, the final gasp for Sammy Maudlin is one of SCTV's major triumphs, in my opinion (and now I can pay special tribute to Martin Short's manic, desperate Howie (Mandel) Souzloff, Andrea Martin's flashdancy Jennifer "Beal" and Eugene Levy's drunken Dr. Henry Kissinger). Also, I always shiver at the show's closing credits, with that final zoom in to what I assume is an illustrator's rendering of the original Second City site.
BONUS TRACK: A 60-second excerpt from a Canadian on-demand infomercial that includes Joe Flaherty as Guy Cabellero, indespensible SCTV makeup artist Christine Hart as...a makeup artist, and the surest property of laughter around: a fake dummy. SCTV's makers were masters of the use of fake dummies, and they knew when they needed the BIIIIIIIG laugh, the dummy was the answer. See what I mean here:
So...this post. Why did I do it? Why now? Well, this definitely classifies as burying the lead, because at long last, the internet has been gifted, via You Tube, with The Official SCTV Channel. Beautifully designed and detailed, the site finally tries to take on the bear that is SCTV. Even with Shout's astounding series of releases of the entire SCTV Network 90 run (four volumes at five discs a piece, extras aplenty), and its followup releases of SCTV: Best of the Early Years, and Christmas with SCTV, I don't think that any company out there has been able to get an entire handle on the show's complete history. It's incredibly broad and complicated. What can you expect from a show that went from Canada's Global Syndication, to the nation's CBC, to NBC, and ultimately to Cinemax, where it finally heaved its last barbs in 1984? With this, you can understand my consternation at even attempting an article like this.
But I was so happy to see The Official SCTV Channel on You Tube that I had to get out there and try to express my happiness at its existence. It's a little taste of what I felt way back when, like I've been telling you, I was searching for a sign of love for the show. Yeah, there are dedicated fans out there like komedykollector and chalomirof63 (both of whom are so enamored with the series that they've downloaded obviously worn-out VHS copies of skits to You Tube for fans out there hungering for more). But having an official channel like this proves that the show's stewards finally recognize that SCTV is really internet-friendly. It can work extremely well in little You Tubey bite-sizes.
At any rate, you can see here that even attempting a post like this was pure folly, really, on my part. I can't do the show justice. I can only do what I can, which is to confess a lifelong love to the reader; even if some people can't get all the show's jokes and references in full, I urge anyone who's never even heard of SCTV but knows of all these stars that've hailed from its halls to investigate further and thus open yourself up to a galaxy of joy.
Finally, I want to get even more personal, even a little goopy, here. I have to thank every single person involved with the show for giving me some of the happiest moments of my life. And I mean every single person. The directors (Milad Bessada, George Bloomfield, John Blanchard, and John Bell), the scads of writers (too many to mention here), and producers, and anybody who ever clapped a board or held a boom mike (Ghod, I'm thinking of the skit "Mr. Boom Microphone" now). The cast, I've lionized only in part. And ultimately we have to think of Second City producers Andrew Alexander and Bernard Sahlins, and Second City improv masters Del Close and Sheldon Patinkin, for sitting in a room together and brainstorming "Well, what if we did a TV show where each episode was just an average programming day for a little station in a town called Melonville?" The whole concept of what we now think of as laughter--and ask any comic out there about this--would not be the same without their idea. These people might have changed my life, and who cares about that? But, with this li'l notion called SCTV, these guys, and the writer/actors they trusted...they truly shook the goddamned, bonafide world.
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Charlie Day as Charlie on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, on FX: All Hail crazy Charlie, King of the Rats! Thoug
h I don't think this was the series' best year, Charlie Day is a constant delight. He's not only hilarious -- a great physical comedian as well as a plucky actor with truly funny bones -- he's also able to convey an almost hapless melancholy that brings his performance into a special place. Charlie's some kind of a savant living life as a dope, he's the butt of everybody's jokes, he puts mittens on cats and keeps a dream journal, and you can't wait to see him appear in every episode. Whether it's his unique voice or his lithe form in his Greenman costume, Charlie always rules the Day! He's an absolute delight.
John Slattery as Roger Sterling on Mad Men, AMC: Though Slattery has been superb all through Mad Men's run, the blue note he often played this season really got to me. Roger's got everything -- money, prestige, a doting wife, all the liquor he can possibly imbibe -- except the things he wants most. Respect...he doesn't have that, just remember how the creepy tobacco heir Lee Garner (played so well by Darren Pettie) smooshed his ego flat when Roger asked for a little time to break the news about the loss of his account. Yikes, so cold, such a wake-up call, and not the only blow Roger would face this season. The wise and eternally sultry Joan sees his desperation and calls off her sometime fling with him, too, over that debacle. And even worse, his dictated memoirs get nothing but giggles from Don and Peggy when they surreptitiously listen to them. In terms of Slattery's comic chops, anytime we saw him working on his memoirs was pure gold, always funny, often bitter and ultimately more sad than anything else. Dyspeptic, often cruel, ultimately heartbroken, John Slattery showed us the rue this year, plus he stepped into the director's chair a couple of times. So talented! I'm even okay with his car commercials...
Randee Heller as Miss Ida Blankenship on Mad Men, AMC: Don Draper's idiosyncratic fill-in secretary was a special treat, at first a tad annoying but then a treasure. We learned, via Roger's memoirs, that she had been a sexual vixen back in the day, and she had lost none of her tartness as she served up wry and cheeky observations which usually left Don speechless. We figured that her sudden death in the 9th episode ("The Beautiful Girls") meant a dark shift for the last few episodes of the season, and we weren't wrong. We really missed Miss Blankenship after that, and kudos to Randee Heller for playing much older (and virtually in disguise) with such heart and humor.
Betty White as Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland, on TV Land. Betty White had a golden Renaissance this year, not that she needed one. The TV comedy veteran has never had a dull or a non-working moment, but it was extra nice to see her co-starring on TV Land's successful new sitcom alongside the talented Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli. Yeah, so her character is maybe a little cliched -- a man-hungry senior lady -- but nobody does it like Betty White. Her comedy timing is unsurpassed, as we also saw with her great guest hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live in May. She's always the funniest one on whatever stage she's on, and we love her.
Julia Stiles as Lumen Pierce in Dexter, on Showtime: I've been cool on Julia Stiles in the past, but she won me over as the disturbed gang rape victim turned avenger in Dexter's 5th season. Damaged almost beyond salvation yet brought back to life, through death, by Dexter (Michael C. Hall), Lumen turned out to be courageous, resourceful, necessarily savage but ultimately human again as she finally found her peace. I'll miss the down-to-earth sneakers that she always wore, the perfect choice of footwear for a woman teetering on the edge episode after episode.
Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson on Masterpiece Mystery! Sherlock: The always perfect Freeman (The Office, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was a wonderful sidekick to the icy idiosyncratic genius of a modern day Sherlock Holmes, played by an equally skilled Benedict Cumberbatch. There's something about Freeman's everyman looks and essential kindness that makes him so tremendously watchable. He was charming, bemused, intelligent and brave as Watson, a troubled Middle East war veteran medico who brought humanity and friendship to the prickly Holmes. Definitely check out this three-part presentation if you missed it. If you did see it, you know what I mean -- Martin Freeman was terrific.
Matt Smith as Doctor Who, on BBC America: It's not like the franchise needed or wanted a new Doctor; everybody loved the wonderful David Tennant as the 10th Doctor, but Tennant wanted to move on. Big shoes to fill, there; Tennant was nothing less than superb. But now we have the 11th actor to play Doctor Who, and the youngest one yet. Matt
Smith is only 26 but has proved to be a terrific choice to carry on the whimsical, intelligent, wise and humane legacy of The Doctor. Smith's Who is exactly right, with a manic energy and humor befitting his age and the sensibility of these times we're in, plus a brilliant mien that clearly takes much from the actor himself. If you want to see an actor put his heart, mind and soul into a part, in a way that you simply don't see here on American TV, I urge you to watch Matt Smith as Doctor Who. He was my favorite new face of 2010, hands above anything else on the tube, anywhere.
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