Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter 3.10 “Barbarino In Love: Part One”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, the Sweathogs are on the verge of actually accomplishing something but Barbarino is distracted by love.

Episode 3.10 “Barbarino In Love: Part One”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on November 3rd, 1977)

At the new apartment, Gabe asks Julie if he’s ever told her about his ancestor, Bart Kotter.  Bart was a prospector who let his friend Jesus die of snakebite because the only way to save him would have been for Bart to suck out the poison himself.  Julie finds the joke to be amusing, probably because it just gave her a new idea about how she could escape from her loveless sham of a marriage.

But enough with the Kotters.  It’s time to meet….

THREE DO’S AND A DON’T!

Okay, it’s actually just the Sweathogs again.  Three Do’s and a Don’t is what Vinnie has named their boy group.  They are competing in the regional semi-finals of the New York talent competition and, if they win, they’ll move on to the statewide contest.  Mr. Woodman isn’t a huge fan of their music, leading Washington to tell them that Three Do’s and a Don’t are not for the “over 30 crowd.”

And yet, when the group performs, they turn out to be a 50s do-wop group that performs a version of Jeepers Creepers.  Vinnie Barbarino sings in falsetto while the others do the acapella thing in the background.  1977 was the year of disco in the U.S. and punk rock in the UK.  It was not a decade known for its love of barbershop quartets.  Three Do’s and A Don’t appears to be very much for the over 70 crowd.

Still, the audience at the show goes crazy for them and I imagine that entirely has to do with Vinnie Barbarino.  Seriously, when you watch this episode and watch all of the Sweathogs performing together at the same time, it’s easy to see why Travolta went on to become a film star while some of the others — like Ron Pallilo — spent their post-Kotter career making cameo appearances in stuff like the sixth Friday the 13th film.  Travolta dominates the talent show, bringing a smoldering quality to even something as hackneyed as Jeepers Creepers.

Cassy (Amy Johnston) is impressed.  Cassy is the “winner from upstate.”  (“You’re a winner downstate as well,” Barbarino replies.)  Since the Sweathogs win their semi-final, that means that they’ll be facing off against Cassy at the final competition.  However, Barbarino is smitten with Cassy, especially after she instructs him on how a gentleman talks to a lady.  Instead of rehearsing with his group, Barbarino spends the weekend showing her around Brooklyn.  He even takes her to the local diner, where they run into Gabe and Julie, who are having a typically awkward date night.

Speaking of awkward, Barbarino’s date is crashed by the other Sweathogs, who demand to know why Barbarino has been blowing off rehearsal.  Washington explains that winning this competition would mean a lot to the rest of them.  Barbarino realizes that Cassy is the competition and that he can’t compete against the woman he loves.  The disgusted Sweathogs walk out on him as three dreaded words — “TO BE CONTINUED” — appear on the screen.

As easy as it is to be snarky about Three Do’s and a Don’t and their glorified barbershop music, this episode was enjoyable because it allowed to John Travolta to have center state and it also featured some very nice chemistry between Travolta and Amy Johnston.  Barbarino and Cassy are a cute couple, with Barbarino’s earnest stupidity matching up well with Cassy’s earnest intelligence.  Personally, I totally think that Barbarino should ditch his old friends for his new relationship.  I mean, how much happiness can you sacrifice for Arnold Horshack?

Next week, we’ll see if Barbarino finds happiness or if he returns to the Sweathog fold!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Harpoon With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 2019’s Harpoon!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th 1.18 “Brain Drain”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Jack falls in love but, unfortunately, someone is stealing brains.

Episode 1.18 “Brain Drain”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 25th, 1988)

Jack, Ryan, and Micki go to the Natural History Museum of Ontario to try to retrieve a trephinator, which is a device that the ancient Greeks apparently used to measure the size of people’s heads.  The belief was that the bigger head someone had, the more intelligent they were.  While at the museum, Jack runs into a former girlfriend, Dr. Viola Rhodes (Carrie Snodgress).  Jack is so happy to run into Viola that he soon seems to forget about the trephinator but instead finds himself planning their upcoming wedding.

(Just to make clear, Micki canceled her engagement so she could spend the next few years of her life tracking down cursed antiques but Jack can apparently just decide to get married out-of-the-blue without it being an issue.)

Well, Jack may have other things on his mind but that trephinator is still out there and it’s dangerous!  It has been incorporated into a chair that allows a formerly developmentally challenged man to steal the brain fluid of others and use it to increase his own intelligence.  Stewart Pangborn (Denis Forest) used to be a test subject but now he’s a scientist.  When he decides that Viola will be his next victim, Jack’s wedding plans are put in danger.

Even after watching this episode, I have no idea what a trephinator is, what it looks like, or how it was incorporated into the big bulky chair that Pangborn used to steal other people’s brain fluids.  Was the trephinator the big needle that would be forcibly inserted into the base of the skulls of Pangborn’s victims?  I don’t know but I do know that the whole point of Friday the 13th was that Chris, Jack, and Micki were searching for cursed antiques.  Overall, it’s helpful to actually be able to look at the screen and say, “Oh, there’s the antique.”

The episode had quite a few flaws, from the bulkiness of the chair to the apparent ease by which Pangborn was able to set himself up as a scientist at the museum.  (Do they not do background checks in Canada?)  The episode’s dialogue had a “It’s only first draft, we’ll think of something better later” quality to it and the performances, even from the usually reliable Denis Forest, felt subpar.  The idea of Jack meeting an ex-girlfriend and falling in love had potential but there was very little chemistry between Chris Wiggins and Carrie Snodgress.  If anything, Jack’s romance reminded the viewers of how strange it was that neither the handsome Ryan nor the beautiful Micki ever seemed to have any amorous admirers.

It was a disappointing episode this week but apparently, next week will feature Ryan joining some sort of Amish death cult.  That sounds promising!

14 Days of Paranoia #1: Fast Money (dir by Alex Wright)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1996, Fast Money opens with Francesca March (Yancy Butler) stealing a car.

This is what Francesca does for a living.  She steals cars and she’s good at it.  She’s the type of who can look in any trashcan and find something that she can use to pick a lock.  She’s master at hot-wiring a car.  I personally have no idea how to hot-wire a car but, judging from the movies that I’ve seen, it appears to be the easiest thing in the world to do.  Francesca doesn’t just steal cars for the money.  She sincerely enjoys doing it, to the extent that it’s a compulsion for her.  If she sees a car, she has to steal it.

This has not made her popular with the LAPD.  In fact, an entire taskforce has been set up to stop her.  Realizing that she has to get out of town, she rushes to the airport.  It’s there that she runs into Jack Martin (Matt McCoy), a nerdy journalist who is working on a story that could take down a powerful U.S. Senator.  Jack is looking to catch a flight to Reno.  For reasons that aren’t particularly clear, Francesca rushes up to Jack and pretends to be his wife and the recently widowed Jack goes along with it.

Further complicating matters is that Francesca impulsively decides to seal one last car and the one that she picks just happens to have 3 million dollars in mob money and a bunch of counterfeit printing plates in the trunk.  The evil Sir Stewart (Jacob Witkin) wants his money back and he sends Regy (Trevor Goddard) and corrupt detective Lt. Diego (John Ashton) to track down Francesca and Jack.

Soon, Francesca and Jack are desperately trying reach the Mexican border while dodging corrupt cops, FBI agents, and mobsters.  It leads to a lot of car chases, explosions, helicopters, and shoot-outs.  (The otherwise meek Jack turns out to be a surprising good shot.  Neither he nor Francesca freaks out after he shoots multiple people, which is the sort of thing that I would probably freak out about.)  Francesca and Jack also find themselves falling in love but wondering just how much they can trust each other.  Stolen money does that to people.

Fast Money is a cheerfully dumb but entertainingly fast-paced movie, one in which the chase never stops long enough for the viewer to have too much time to try to figure out why the ultracool Francesa would be willing risk her freedom for a relationship with someone as whiny as Jack.  Yancy Butler plays Francesca as being so confident and so fearless that it’s hard not to admire her but there’s also no way that she seems like she would ever have much use for someone as meek and repressed as Jack, regardless of how deadly his aim might be.  One gets the feeling that the only thing keeping this couple together is the adrenaline rush of being hunted.  If Jack and Francesca do make it to safety, their relationship will probably be over by the end of the week.

Though Fast Money is ultimately a fun but somewhat generic direct-to-video action film, I appreciated the film’s vision of a world where everyone from the mob to the police to the FBI were basically working together to track down one career criminal and one innocent man.  When even the usually likable John Ashton is trying to murder you in a cheap motel, you know you have reached the other side of the looking glass.  Jack learns what Francesca has always understood, which is that one should be suspicious of authority.  Though it may not have been the film’s intent, Fast Money‘s ultimate message becomes, “Trust no one but yourself.”

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, it’s time for …. another clip show?  Didn’t we just do a clip show last week?  Far be it for me to complain about having an easy review to write but how does any show get away with doing two weeks straight of clip shows?

Episode 2.17 “T.S. Turner For The Defense”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on May 1st, 1989)

“Things don’t look too good for Amy when, after upsetting the law society, she gets threatened with disbarment.  But even I got nervous when she doesn’t show up for the hearing and it’s left to me to defend her.”

Oh yay!  For the first time since the start of the second season, an episode of T and T opens with Mr. T offering up a synopsis of the episode’s plot.  It’s been so long since this weird but fun trick has been employed by the show that I originally assumed that this episode was originally meant for the first season.  But then I spotted the character of Joe Casper in the background of a courtroom scene and Joe didn’t become a regular character until the second season.  Who knows why Mr. T introduced this episode.  I’m just glad that he did.

As for the episode itself, Amy’s adventures with T.S. Turner have finally led to her facing disbarment proceedings.  Unfortunately, right before heading with Amy to the hearing, Amy’s attorney has a heart attack.  Amy blows off the hearing to go to the hospital with her friend and, for whatever reason, it doesn’t occur to her to call Turner or anyone else at the hearing and let them know what’s going on.  I mean, her lawyer had a heart attack.  Under normal circumstances, this is the sort of thing that would lead to the hearings being postponed.

So, with Amy missing, T.S Turner takes it upon himself to defend her at the hearings.  Keep in mind, T.S. is not a lawyer.  Amy did not hire Turner to defend her.  If there’s not much reason for the hearing to proceed without Amy or her actual attorney, there’s even less for the “law society” to allow T.S. Turner to serve as her counsel.  Maybe they do things differently in Canada but seriously, none of this makes any sense.

Maybe I’m overthinking things.  Like last week’s episode, this is a clip show and obviously, the main concern of the writers was to find an excuse for everyone to talk about Amy’s previous adventures on the show.  Unfortunately, Amy’s adventures have never been as interesting as Turner’s so the clips pretty much all fall into the same three categories: Amy gets mad, Amy gets captured, and Amy flirts with some loser to get information.  It all gets repetitive fairly quickly.

Halfway through the episode, Turner calls Joe to testify.  “What about you, Joe?” T.S. asks Joe on the stand, “Have you ever gotten in trouble?  Tell the court about it, Joe.”  Joe proceeds to talk about how he first met T.S. and Amy and it’s hard not to notice that Joe’s entire story centers on T.S. but not Amy.  Perhaps realizing that Joe hasn’t been of any help, Turner takes the stand himself and talks about …. himself.  We get several flashbacks of Turner beating up criminals and it’s hard not to feel bad for Amy, who isn’t even the center of attention at her own disbarment hearings.

“Every legal indiscretion she has committed is justified,” Turner says as Amy finally steps into the courtroom, “because she has helped so many.”

That’s all it takes for the Canadian Legal Society to decide that Amy can continue as a lawyer.  Yay!

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For Mad Max!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Mad Max (1979, dir by George Miller, DP: Dave Eggby)

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, we’ve got an action classic, 1979’s Mad Max!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Mad Max is available on Prime!  See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 1.21 “The Brightest Star”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

Jonathan and Mark are once again in Hollywood, bringing yet another family together.

Episode 1.21 “The Brightest Star”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on March 6th, 1985)

Despite the fact that Mark was hoping to finally have a vacation from work, the Boss has other ideas.  Jonathan and Mark end up picking up a hitchhiking little girl who claims that she’s escaped from an abusive orphanage.  It doesn’t take long for Jonathan and Mark to figure out that she’s lying.  She’s actually Laurie Parks (Carrie Wells), one of the most in-demand child actresses working in Hollywood.

Hired to do some carpentry at the Parks home, Jonathan and Mark soon start offering advice to the family and indeed, this family needs a lot of help.  The family is totally dependent on Laurie’s salary and Laurie deals with the pressure of being the main provider by acting like a monstrous brat.  Her alcoholic father (Gerald S. O’Loughlin) wants to return to his previous life of driving a cab.  Her mother (Trish Van Devere) spends all of her time watching out for Carrie’s career.  The daughter (Laura Jacoby) of the family’s loyal maid (Mary Armstrong) is the selfless angel that Laurie is not and, with Jonathan’s help, she begins her own acting career.  Unfortunately, her success comes at Laurie’s expense.

As I watched this episode, I was struck by how familiar it felt.  Eventually, I realized that it was reminding me of an earlier episode from season 1, in which a father was the one who neglected his family until his son was cast opposite of him in a movie that was he was shooting.  Both of these episodes present Hollywood as being a shallow place, where family is often put second and people are corrupted by the pressures of stardom.  Both episodes were critical of Hollywood but ultimately ended with the classic Hollywood story of a new star being discovered from out of nowhere.  One gets the feeling that Michael Landon, as the show’s guiding force, was dealing with his own issues of trying balance his career with his family.  Highway to Heaven both loves and criticizes the entertainment industry with equal abandon.

As for the episode itself, it wasn’t particularly memorable and it struggled to balance moments of sentimental drama with moments of comedy.  One could understand the father’s unhappiness with his situation without necessarily thinking that the solution would be for him to move out of the house and start driving a cab again.  In the end, Laurie was such a monster that it was difficult to care about what happened to her one way or the other.

Next week, Jonathan and Mark go up against another heartless corporation!

Retro Television Reviews: Lookwell 1.1 “The Pilot”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Lookwell, which aired on NBC in 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Adam West is an actor who solves crimes …. kind of.

Episode 1.1 “Lookwell”

(Dir by E.W. Swackhamer, originally aired on July 28th, 1991)

Ty Lookwell (Adam West) was once the biggest star in Hollywood.

Well, maybe not the biggest star.  But, in the 70s, he did have his own cop show.  It was called …. Banacek?  Mannix?  No, that’s not it.  Oh …. BRANNIGAN!  Ty Lookwell starred on a show called Brannigan and he was even given his own honorary police badge in 1972.  It was presented to him at a ceremony in Television City.

However, nearly 20 years later, things have changed.  Brannigan is no longer on the air and Ty Lookwell has been reduced to wearing a wig and a leather jacket in an attempt to get a role in a revival of Happy Days.  (He not only doesn’t get the role but he doesn’t even get to audition.)  When he returns to his home, he is informed that his favorite hairspray has been discontinued (“Those fools!”) and that all the messages on his machine are for his nephew.  Kevin Costner calls looking for Lookwell’s nephew.  Francis Ford Coppola calls for Lookwell’s nephew and leaves a message in which he promises to call back.  No one calls for Ty Lookwell.

Lookwell, however, still has a steady gig teaching an acting class and his students not only look up to him  but also help him out whenever he decides that there’s a crime he has to solve.  This apparently happens frequently as Lookwell takes his honorary badge very seriously.

“Remember how we talked about how you don’t have to come around here?” Detective Kennery (Ron Frazier) asks Lookwell at one point.

The pilot follows Lookwell as he investigates a series of car thefts.  Helping him out is his favorite student, Jason (played by future director Todd Field).  Lookwell’s investigative techniques are not particularly complicated.  He puts on a disguise and attempts to go undercover.  It never quite works, largely because everyone that Lookwell meets is smarter than Lookwell.  Lookwell’s attempt to disguise himself as a Grand Prix racer fails because the security guard takes one look at him and sees that he’s obviously not a Grand Prix racer.  His attempt to conduct a stakeout on a fancy diner is nearly thwarted by his bizarre decision to disguise himself as a hobo.  His attempt to go undercover at a garage is thwarted by the other mechanics misunderstanding his leading questions.

(“Who beat you up, Mr. Lookwell?” his students ask at the start of class.)

As the investigation continues, Jason wonders if they’re just wasting time.

“You do not waste time,” Lookwell corrects him, “Time wastes you.”

Lookwell was written by Conan O’Brian and Robert Smigel, long before either one of them became famous, and the humor is definitely the humor of a generation who grew up watching network television, especially the cop shows of the 70s and the 80s.  While the dialogue is clever and definitely funny, it’s really Adam West who makes the pilot work.  West delivers all of his line with such conviction and confidence that it doesn’t matter that he only plays a peripheral role in solving the case and, in fact, usually makes things worse for everyone involved.  As played by West, Lookwell is so confident in his abilities and so blithely unaware of his limitations that it’s hard not to admire his spirit.

Unfortunately, the spirit was not admired by NBC and Lookwell only aired once.  But it has since developed a cult following.  Adam West described it as being his favorite of the various shows that he did.  I enjoyed the pilot, though I do think the premise was perhaps a bit too thin to support an actual series.  (It would have made a great recurring SNL bit, though.)  Thanks to YouTube, everyone can now watch what NBC passed up.

Music Video of the Day: When I’m Gone by Katy Perry, feat. Alesso (2022, dir by Hannah Lux Davis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a fun video and I think we need more fun in the world.

The robot in the video was provided by Boston Dynamics and was nicknamed “Nugget” by Perry.  (The robot’s actual name was Spot.  If I ever get a robot, I’m naming it Fritz after director Fritz Lang.)  The video itself premiered on ESPN because …. well, why not?  Where else was it going to premiere?  Rob Dyrdek’s not in the video so it’s not like it could have premiered on MTV or any of its affiliated stations.  This was the first music video to ever premiere live on ESPN and, as far as I can tell, it might also be the only one.  There’s nothing wrong with being unique.

Enjoy!