In 2003, going to Amsterdam was a rite of passage for many Americans. They would disappear for a month and then return, claiming that they had been to Amsterdam but that they couldn’t “remember a thing.” *wink wink*
Of course, now we have Colorado so we don’t really care about Amsterdam anymore. Sorry, Amsterdam!
Enjoy!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Hang Time! This week, we learn about geography.
Episode 4.13 “Nothing in Common”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 24th, 1998)
We’re back in Indiana! I guess the San Antonio trip is over. Yay.
Michael, Silk, and Rico panic when they see Coach K. walking around their favorite after-school hangout, The Stadium. It turns out that Coach K. wants to buy the place and make it more friendly to older customers. Michael, Silk, and Rico totally freak out and I don’t blame them. No one wants to see their teachers outside of school. Anyway, they come up with the brilliant idea of having Rico’s uncle pretend to be a health inspector so that he can scare off Coach K. It doesn’t work because Rico’s uncle asks how Rico is doing on the team but Coach K. still decides not to buy the Stadium because this is a silly show where plot developments are brought and abandoned at random.
Meanwhile, Mary Beth is upset when Hammer resists her attempts to change him. Mary Beth wants to go to an art exhibit. Hammer wants to go to a boxing match. (Personally, I’m probably an even bigger culture snob than Mary Beth and I would be happy to go to either of those. I love museums but a boxing match is a good excuse to wear something nice and show off your cleavage.) Mary Beth wants Hammer to go sailing. Hammer wants to spend his time at a biker rally. Realizing that she’s trying too hard to change Hammer, Mary Beth dresses up in leather and hangs out at a biker bar. She teaches the bikers all about the proper utensils to use at a formal dinner. It was actually pretty cute and, in the end, Hammer and Mary Beth agreed that they didn’t have to like the same things as long as they liked each other. Awwwwwww!
I liked this episode. Season 4 may not be as strong as the previous three seasons but the Hammer/Mary Beth relationship works surprisingly well. As far as I’m concerned, any episode that features more of Mary Beth and Kristy being wacky and less of Julie getting annoyed is a good one.
Episode 4.14 “And Then There Were Nuns”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on October 24th, 1998)
Oh hey, we’re back in San Antonio. Continuity be damned!
With only a few days left in Texas, Kristy suspects that she’s in love with Antonio. She tells Mary Beth and Julie that she can imagine a future with Antonio. Awwwwww! Antonio invites Kristy to a wedding …. in Mexico! Kristy agrees. Before leaving, she leaves a note for Julie and Mary Beth. Unfortunately, it’s a poorly-written note and Julie and Mary Beth are convinced that Kristy’s run off to Mexico to get married!
Because everyone on this show is stupid, they don’t tell Coach K or any other adults about what is happening. Instead, everyone except for Julie and Michael head down to Mexico and try to stop the wedding. I guess it’s lucky that they all happened to have their passports with them. (Either that or they crossed into Mexico illegally.) Of course, since they won the big Tri-state tournament. they have to get back to San Antonio by 4 p.m. so that they can get ready to do a media appearance. Michael and Julie are convinced that their friends can go to Mexico and come back while the Coach is taking an hour-long nap. Apparently, the show’s writers were under the impression that San Antonio is right on the border. It’s not. San Antonio is 155 miles away from the border and it appears that the wedding is taking place in a fairly small and remote village. In short, this trip is going to take a lot longer than an hour.
Admittedly, King of the Hill used to do the same thing. Hank Hill was literally an hour away from every location in Texas. But, in that case, it was obviously meant to be intentional and it was a fun in-joke for Texans. (It helped that Mike Judge was one of us.) But, in this case, it just feels incredibly dumb on the part of the Hang Time writers.
Anyway, Silk, Rico, Hammer, and Mary Beth arrive at the wedding but a nun tells them that this is a private ceremony. So, of course, they all dress up like nuns and sneak into the ceremony and….
….
….
Sorry, silently screaming.
The important thing is that it all works out in the end. Coach K. finds out where the team has gone so he, Michael, and Julie show up for the wedding. Meanwhile, Antonio promises Kristy that, someday, he will find her in Indiana. Awwwww! I’m going to guess that the media appearances were handled by the team’s non-starters, who probably talked about how much fun it was to spend every game sitting on the bench while Michael, Julie, Rico, Silk, and Hammer got all the glory.
What a stupid episode.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1994’s Double Dragon! Selected and hosted by Bunny Hero, this movie features double the action! So, you know it has to be good!
Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. We will be watching 1990’s Blue Steel! The film is on Prime and Tubi!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Double Dragon on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to Twitter and Prime, start Blue Steel, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates the 109th anniversary of the birth of director and showman, William Castle! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 William Castle Films
House on Haunted Hill (1959, dir by William Castle, DP: Carl E. Guthrie)
13 Ghosts (1960, dir by William Castle, DP: Joseph F. Biroc)
Strait-Jacket (1964, dir by William Castle, DP: Arthur E. Arling)
Shanks (1974, dir by William Castle, DP: Joseph F. Biroc)
Artist Unknown
This playful cover is from 1966.
Hell yeah, get outta the way!
No one stands in the way of an All American Girl!
Enjoy!
This has been a long week. Not only did I have to put up with two days straight of people coming out to the house to repair things but there’s also currently a road crew working on my street. They started their work on Thursday and apparently, they’re going to be here for about a month. It’s stressful. Now, when I leave in the morning and come back in the afternoon, I have to take a series of detours just to reach my own house. I’m going to have the worst headaches until they all go away.
Anyway, on a better note, here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week!
Films I Watched:
Television Shows I Watched:
Music To Which I Listened:
Live Tweets:
News From Last Week:
Links From Last Week:
Links From The Site:
More From Us:
Do you want to see what I did last week? Click here!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1971’s The Feminist and The Fuzz! It can be viewed on YouTube!
At first glance, Jane Bowers (Barbara Eden) and Jerry Frazer (David Hartman) don’t have much in common.
Jerry is a cop, though he’s attending night school with the hope of someday becoming a lawyer. Jerry is an old-fashioned law and order man. He expects the law to be followed. He’s also the type who definitely believes that there are clear differences between men and women. As he explains it, there are some thing that men are just better at. Jerry is dating Kitty (Farrah Fawcett), who works as a waitress at the local Playboy Club.
Dr. Jane Bowers is a pediatrician and a proud feminist, one who takes it personally when a cop like Jerry refuses to give her a parking ticket just because she’s a woman. She wants to be treated as an equal in all matters. She’s dating Wyatt Foley (Herb Edelman), an attorney who still lives with his mother and who constantly goes out of his way to let everyone know that he’s an ally. Jane’s best friend is Dr. Debby Inglefinger (Jo Anne Worley), who has decided that it’s time to lead a protest at the Playboy Club.
The only thing that Jerry and Jane have in common is that they both desperately need an apartment but apparently, apartments were not easy to find in San Francisco in the early 70s. Fortunately, a hippie (Howard Hesseman) has just been evicted from his apartment because the landlord (John McGiver) didn’t like the fact that he was constantly having overnight guests. Jane and Jerry both end up at the apartment at the same time, with Jane getting offended by Jerry’s refusal to give her a traffic ticket. (Jerry makes the mistake of saying that he’s going to let her off “with a warning.” He wouldn’t give a warning to a man! Seriously, though, who in their right mind would actually demand a ticket? Those things cost money.) Even though they take an instant dislike to each other, Jane and Jerry still decide to pretend to be husband and wife so that they can rent the apartment together. With their busy schedules, they figure that they’ll never have to see each other. They won’t even know the other is around.
Of course, it doesn’t work out like that. Jane allows Debby to hold a consciousness raising meeting at the apartment. (Future director Penny Marshall appears as a participant.) Meanwhile, Jerry lets a prostitute (Julie Newmar) stay at the apartment, just to keep her off of the streets for the night. The landlord is getting suspicious. So, for that matter, is Jane’s father (Harry Morgan). And, as you probably already guessed, Jerry and Jane are falling in love.
With its hippies and its militant feminists and its jokes about the Playboy Club, The Feminist and the Fuzz is a film that practically yells, “1971!” Unfortunately, script’s attempt to turn the film’s rather predictable plot into a Neil Simon-style jokefest never quite works. The “humorous” dialogue feels forced and the film’s 75-minute run time doesn’t do it any favors, as we never really have the time to get to know Jerry or Jane as human beings. Instead, they just remain “The Fuzz” and “The Feminist.” As a result, it’s not that easy to care about whether or not they actually get together. Some of the supporting performances are amusing. Barbara Eden manages to avoid turning Jane into a caricature of a humorless activist but poor David Hartman is stiff as a board and in no way convincing as a veteran cop.
The main thing I took away from this movie is that the Playboy Clubs were exceptionally tacky. Way back in 2011, NBC actually tried to air a drama series that took place at a Playboy Club in the 60s. (This was when every network was trying to come up with the next Mad Men.) The pilot started with creepy old Hugh Hefner assuring the viewers that, “Everybody who was anybody wanted to be a member of the club.” I mean, seriously? What a strange world.
No one’s having a good time in this video!
Indeed, there does have to be more to life. That was a true sentiment in 2003 and it’s a true sentiment 20 years later. People are still trying to figure out what else they can get out of life. I think the answer is different for everyone. That said, if you’re standing in your front yard while your significant other impotently yells at a repo man who is trying to take away your baby’s crib …. I don’t know if there’s really anyway to come back from something like that. You might want to find a new partner because the one you’ve got obviously isn’t holding up their end of the deal.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 