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 California Dreams, which ran on NBC from 1992 to 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
The saga of California’s blandest garage band continues.
Is anyone reading this a surf dude with attitude?
Episode 1.3 “Double Date”
(Directed by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 26, 1992)
Oh, California! What a confusing place.
When Sharkey (the owner of Sharkey’s) goes out of town, he leaves Tony in charge of the restaurant. He promises that, if Tony does a good job, Tony will get a promotion and more money. But Sharkey, isn’t leaving Tony in charge already a promotion? Anyway, it turns out that Sharkey made a huge mistake because soon, Sly has convinced Tony to hold a luau at Sharkey’s. Tony spends a lot of Sharkey’s money on the luau. Sharkey returns home early and demands that Tony pay back the money with whatever is made at the luay. The luau has to be a success! It’s a good thing that the Dreams will be playing at Sharkey’s.
Unfortunately, Matt has already booked the Dreams to perform at a wedding on the same night! This leads to some conflict between Matt and Tony. The conflict would perhaps be more dramatic if Matt wasn’t a total wimp.
Fortunately, Tiffani suggests that maybe the Dreams could just play both shows, considering that there’s apparently only 2 minutes of distance between Sharkey’s and the yacht club. (The wedding, of course, is taking place at the yacht club. Do poor people even exist in California?)
This episode basically felt like it was left over from the Saved By The Bell episodes where Zach and the gang worked at Malibu Sands …. actually, wait a minute. IT IS! When Mr. Carossi went out of town, Zach and Stacy booked two parties for the same night and had to throw both parties during the same night. History repeats itself. Of course, every time that it does, things get progressively dumber.
For the record, the Dreams would have been a terrible wedding band in real life. Hire a DJ, like my friend Xander. He’ll keep your party going.
Episode 1.4 “Dream Man”
(Directed by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 3rd, 1992)
When Jenny hold a slumber party, Sly and Tony plant a listening device so that they can learn what Jenny and Jenny’s friend Jasmine are looking for in a boyfriend. This leads to …. WAIT A MINUTE! THIS IS ANOTHER SAVED BY THE BELL PLOT! Zach bugged Jessie’s bedroom so that he could learn who Kelly was planning on asking to the school dance. Jessie figured out what was going on and told Kelly to pretend to have a psychotic breakdown.
Anyway, this leads to Sly wearing an Italian suit and a silk tie in an effort to impress Jenny and the audience going, “Wooooo!” But, because Jenny knows about the listening device, Sly ends up getting grape juice splashed on his shirt. “Wooooooo!” the audience continues.
Meanwhile, Tiffani tried to help Matt write a song about a kid named Tommy who can’t swim. The song is supposed to be bad (which leads to Matt learning a lesson about being honest) but the end result is still better than Friends Forever.
The Venice Film Festival has come to a close with the awarding of prizes. And here they are:
Golden Lion for Best Film: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, d: Laura Poitras
Grand Jury Prize: Saint Omer, d: Alice Diop
Silver Lion for Best Director: Bones and All, d: Luca Guadagnino
Special Jury Prize: No Bears, d: Jafar Panahi
Best Screenplay: The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Tár, Cate Blanchett
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: The Banshees of Inisherin, Colin Farrell
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Bones and All, Taylor Russell
I would say that the big winner of the festival is undoubtedly The Banshees of Inisherin. Going into the festival, this film was only occasionally mentioned as an Oscar contender and that was just because director Martin McDonagh was previously responsible for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. However, the festival not only saw Banshees win the race for the longest standing ovation but it also won awards for McDonagh’s screenplay and Colin Farrell’s lead performance.
Cate Blanchett won best actress for Tar. Blanchett was already considered to be a probable Oscar nominee so the award at Venice will certainly help the establish the narrative that will be necessary for Blanchett to take home her third Oscar.
As for Luca Guadagnino winning Best Director, that’s fine. He’s a good director but I’ll never forgive him for the Suspiria remake. If he agrees to keep Argento’s name out of his mouth, I’ll add him to my list of Oscar contenders.
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, @TimBuntley will be hosting 2014’s Last Shift!
What happens when a rookie police officer is assigned to handle the last shift at a possibly haunted police station before the place is permanently shut down? I have no idea but I have a feeling that it will be something horrific! I’ll be finding out tonight and I invite you to join me.
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 and a few other streaming sites. 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.
In this 1954 short film, two rival gangs are fighting. They both come from the same neighborhood. The members of both gangs grew up poor. All of them feel like there’s no hope for them. They’re all angry and sad and fatalistic. In fact, there’s only one difference between the two gangs. One gang is made up of white kids and the other gang is made up of Mexicans. That’s the only reason the two gangs fight.
The leader of the Mexican gang knows that things have got to change. While looking over the quarry where, years ago, his younger brother died while trying to be as tough as him, the leader of the gang remembers the early days of the gang and how what started out as a place for outsiders to feel like they belonged soon became something violent and destructive. The community wants to have a dance but the threat of violence is in the air. Can he defuse the situation? Maybe that friendly detective could help….
Gang Boy is a Sid Davis production, a look at how poverty and prejudice were fueling the rise in gang violence in the 50s. Unusually, for a Sid Davis film, it’s remarkably nonjudgmental. There is, of course, all the “you’ve ruined your life” melodrama that one would usually expect from Davis but the final blame is put more on society than the members of the gang.
Speaking of the members of the gang, the cast of this film was apparently made up of actual gang members who all hated each other. The film may end with the promise of a better tomorrow but it’s hard to avoid the feeling that a fight broke out as soon as the camera stopped rolling,
Personally, I think of this as being a prequel to West Side Story. Before the Sharks and the Jets learned how to dance, there was …. GANG BOY!
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 One World, which ran on NBC from 1998 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
The Cast of One World
One world …. we’re living in one world….
Today, we rejoin Miami’s favorite foster family, the Blakes! How are they adjusting to Jane and, more importantly, how is Jane adjusting to them? Does she still consider them to be “The Brady Bunch?” Let’s find out!
Episode 1.3 “Marci’s Job”
(Directed by Chuck Vinson, originally aired on September 26th, 1998)
The Warehouse — which, you may remember from last week, is apparently Miami’s hottest under-21 club — needs a new manager! Marci applies for the job and is hired but then she hears rumors that she may have just been hired because she’s Cuban and the owner needed to fill a quota. Marci is outraged. “Did you hire me because I’m Cuban, Hispanic, Latina!?” she demands of the manager. “I don’t want a job because of my race!”
The audience applauds as Marci walks out.
Later, Ben asks Marci why she’s so upset. Marci replies, “He only gave me the job because of my race! That’s discrimination!”
Yes, this episode is definitely from 1998.
In the B-plot, Jane and Neal become convinced that Cray stole a pair of sneakers so they attempt to return them to the mall. Unfortunately, they get caught by mall security and end up getting tossed into the “mall jail.” Karen Blake — oh my God, her name is literally Karen — goes down to the mall to bail out her foster children. “I am a soccer mom!” she proudly declares as she demands to see the mall’s manager. The audience goes wild.
Again, this episode is definitely from 1998.
The important thing is that everything works out in the end. Cray explains that he didn’t steal the shoes. Instead, he just bought them from some weirdo on the school playground. Meanwhile, Marci goes back to the Warehouse and is told that she wasn’t hired because of her race. She was hired for her “spunk and attitude.”
The audience applauds. Everything works out when you’re living in one world.
Episode 1.4 “The Gift”
(Directed by Chuck Vinson, originally aired on October 3rd, 1998)
It’s Dave’s 45th birthday! While the other kids attempt to build him a home entertainment center, Jane decides to show her appreciation by stealing an expensive watch. When I was a teenager, I used to shoplift for birthdays as well but that just meant that my friends got used to receiving purple eyeshadow on their special day.
Anyway, Jane realizes that Dave wouldn’t want her to break the law so she writes him a letter explaining what happened. Dave says that the letter is the best birthday present he’s ever gotten. And you know what? It may sound silly but it’s actually kind of a sweet moment and it was well-acted by Aaroyn Lloyd and Michael Toland. As far as I’m concerned, that makes this episode a success.
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, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! The movie? 1987’s The Principal!
This film features Jim Belushi in his greatest role, high school school principal Rick Lattimore! Rick rides a motorcycle, introduces his students to the concept of “No more!,” and teaches a kid to read! He extends a hand to drug dealer Victor Duncan. When Victor threatens to cut Rick’s hand off, Rick replies that he’s got another! “He’s the principal, man!” Of course, it all leads to a big afterschool fight. You don’t become the principal if you don’t know how to throw a punch or two!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there tweeting 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.
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 City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
Roll with the city guys!
It’s Thursday and that means that it’s time to review two more episodes of City Guys! When last I reviewed this show, I was wondering whether the show would improve on its first two episodes. Actually, I wasn’t so much much wondering as I was hoping. (Maybe even praying….) But before we examine episodes 3 and 4 of City Guys, let’s get in the mood:
City-wide! We’re all the same …. you know the drill.
Episode 1.3 “Knicks Tickets”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 20th, 1997)
At the end of the second episode of City Guys, Chris and Jamal were best friends and the principal, Ms. Noble, was acting as if she had known them and all the other students at Manhattan High for years.
However, the third episode finds Chris and Jamal still engaged in the adversarial relationship that they had during the first episode. They’re working together on the video yearbook but neither is happy about it. Chris is determined to date Cassidy Guiliani. (Yes, that’s her last name. Rudy was mayor of New York when this show aired but I have no idea if Cassidy is meant to be a relative or not.) Jamal is still referring to Chris as being “some rich white boy.” Neither one of them knows enough about Ms. Noble to understand that they’ll always get caught if they try to fool her.
My guess is that the third episode was originally meant to be the second episode but, when the show originally aired, the episodes were shown out of order. This is something that NBC was notorious for doing with its TNBC shows. (It also explains why Zach Morris’s age seemed to change so dramatically from one episode to another of Saved By The Bell.) Technically, showing a show like City Guys out of order is not the greatest outrage that’s ever occurred even in the history of television but it is an indication of how little NBC cared about things like maintaining continuity or, for that matter, respecting the ability of its audiences to realize that something strange was happening. It’s just one of those things that annoys me to no end.
As for the plot of this episode, Ms. Noble has arranged for the class to attend a performance of MacBeth in Central Park. Ms. Noble wants Chris and Jamal to film the performance for the video yearbook and she also wants them to get Patrick Stewart’s autograph. (Patrick Stewart, we’re told, is playing MacBeth and that sounds pretty badass, to be honest.) However, Chris, Jamal, and Cassidy skip school and go to a Knicks game instead. Naturally, Ms. Noble sees them on television and eventually, Jamal and Chris have to come clean and….
Wait a minute. Didn’t all this happen on Saved By The Bell? Zach pretended to be Jewish so he could skip school and go to a baseball game and he was caught on television. Of course, Zach still got away with skipping because Mr. Belding and Zach’s parents didn’t watch the game. Ms. Noble, however, is a far better principal than Mr. Belding. Instead of accusing Jamal, Chris, and Cassidy of skipping, she waits for their guilt to force them to confess.
But what if they hadn’t confessed? Well, I guess Ms. Noble would have looked pretty stupid.
Speaking of stupid, that’s what this episode was. Let’s move on.
Episode 1.4 “The Package”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 27th, 1997)
Every TNBC show had to have an annoying sidekick and, on City Guys, that role was fulfilled by Al. Al rode a bicycle, worked as a messenger, had “connections,” and had an annoying habit of shouting, “Bam!” at random moments.
The fourth episode opens with Al telling Chris and Jamal that he has a new job. All he has to do is deliver one package a day for Tonio and Tonio shows his gratitude by paying Al an exorbitant amount of money. Chris and Jamal inform Al that Tonio is obviously a drug dealer. Al argues that Tonio is just an electronics salesman.
Tonio eventually shows up on a campus to discover why his latest package hasn’t been delivered. He’s wearing a gold medallion and he’s accompanied by two silent men who keep their hands in their jackets.
Yes, Tonio’s a drug dealer.
Fortunately, Chris, Jamal, and Ms. Noble are able to help Al get out of his bad situation. When Tonio tries to threaten Al, Ms. Noble orders him off campus and Tonio leaves …. once again proving that even drug dealers respect the authority of a caring principal. What was odd about City Guys is that apparently, all problems were resolved by whatever happened in front of the school or, occasionally, up on the roof. No one seems to be concerned that Tonio might just decide to wait outside of school until the bell rings and Al has to leave campus. Instead, Ms. Noble told everyone to go to class and …. hey, problem solved! (Admittedly, Ms. Noble does say that she’s going to call the police and let them know what’s going on but seriously, New York is a big city and there’s only so many cops.)
That’s just the way it was in the world of TNBC. There wasn’t a problem in the world that couldn’t be solved in just 20 minutes.
Anyway, The Package was well-intentioned but pretty dumb. How would Al not have known that Tonio was a drug dealer? To its credit, the show does feature Ms. Noble suggesting that Al was deliberately fooling himself because he wanted the money that Tonio was willing to pay him but still, the whole thing felt a bit contrived. “If you see something, say something!” this episode says, while giving little thought to what happens to snitches in real life. This isn’t Bayside and no one can magically stop time.
That’s it for this week’s City Guys! Next week, Chris and Jamal continue to heal America!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
Welcome aboard, it’s love!
Produced by Aaron Spelling, The Love Boat is one of the signature shows of the 70s and the 80s. Each week, the Pacific Princess would set off for a different location with a different group of guest stars. Typically, each episode would feature three stories. One story would be silly fun. One story would be a dramedy. And then one story would typically feature a member of the Love Boat crew either falling in love or worrying about losing their job. It was a tremendously silly show but, from the episodes I’ve seen, it was also very likable. If nothing else, the ship looked really nice.
While the passengers changed from week-to-week, the crew largely remained the same. During the show’s first season, the crew was made up of:
Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), who started out as a stern, no-nonsense captain but who became significantly nicer and a good deal goofier as the series progressed,
Adam “Doc” Bricker (Bernie Kopell), the ship’s doctor who hit on every woman who boarded the boat and who probably would have been an HR nightmare if the show actually took place in the real world,
Gopher (Fred Grandy), the ship’s purser who …. well, I’m not sure what a purser does but hopefully it wasn’t too important of a job because Gopher was always getting into weird situations,
Isaac (Ted Lange), the ship’s bartender who spent the entire cruise getting people drunk,
and Julie (Lauren Tewes), the cheerful cruise director.
And, of course, we can’t forget the true star of the show, the theme song!
Before the series, there were three made-for-television movies: The Love Boat (1976), The Love Boat II (1976), and finally The New Love Boat (1977). These movies served as pilots for the show. The first movie featured an entirely different cast playing the ship’s crew. Kopell, Lange, and Grandy first played their roles in The Love Boat II. MacLeod and Tewes came aboard in The New Love Boat. Unfortunately, these pilots aren’t available on Paramount Plus but, fortunately, the rest of the series is.
So, let’s set sail on a course for adventure with the first episode of The Love Boat!
Episode 1.1 “Captain & The Lady/Centerfold/One If By Land….”
(Directed by Richard Kinon, Stuart Margolin, and Alan Rafkin, originally aired on September 24th, 1977)
The Pacific Princess is about to set sail but all is not right on the cruise ship that some call The Love Boat.
Ginny O’Brien (Brenda Sykes) just wants to get away from her longtime boyfriend, Ronald (Jimmie Walker). Ginny wants to marry Ronald but Ronald just wants to have a good time. When Ginny boards the cruise, Ronald decides to follow her. The only problem is that the cruise is sold out and Ronald can’t break the law by stowing away. (I was actually surprised that didn’t happen. I can imagine The Love Boat writers room descending into chaos as the writers argued about whether or not it was too early to do a stowaway story.) Ronald decides to follow the Love Boat from port to port, just so he can show Ginny that he is committed to something. Ginny ends up spending her entire cruise wondering if Ronald is going to be make it to every port. To me, it felt as if her cabinmate (Suzanne Somers) seemed to be kind of annoyed about getting sucked into all of Ginny’s personal drama but that could just be projection on my part. I know that I would certainly get annoyed by it.
Meanwhile, Congressman Brad Brockway (Shelly Novack) has set sail with his fiancée, Sandy (Meredith Baxter-Birney). When Sandy was younger, she posed for a sleazy photographer. Now that she’s engaged to the Congressman, a tabloid has published those pictures. Sandy spends the entire cruise trying to keep Brad from seeing any copies of the magazine. The only problem is that the magazine is sold in ship’s gift shop! (Did most cruise ships sell adult magazines in their gift shop? I supposed it’s possible. It was the 70s….) Sandy manages to get almost every copy of the magazine but misses the copy that Doc keeps in his examination room. Doc looks at the pictures and tells her that she has nothing to be ashamed of because the pictures look good. That really wasn’t her main concern, Doc. Anyway, it turns out that the Congressman doesn’t care. Personally, I would have preferred that the story had ended with Sandy announcing that she was the one who didn’t care.
Finally, Captain Stubing is a nervous wreck because an executive of the cruise line named Aubrey Skogstad (Robert Symonds) is on the cruise and so is his wife, Stacy (Bonnie Franklin). While Aubrey is quiet and polite, Stacy proceeds to tell every member of the crew that they are inadequate and that she will personally make it her duty to get them all fired. It turns out that Stacy is hostile because she’s Captain Stubing’s ex-wife. Since Captain Stubing is still new to the ship and has kept himself aloof from the rest of the crew, they wonder if he’ll ever stand up for them. Eventually, the captain tells Stacy off and, in doing so, he finally wins the loyalty of his crew. Yay!
Anyway, the first episode of The Love Boat was very, very 70s. The only thing that could have made it more 70s would have been a disco ball on the lido deck. Fortunately, as our long-time readers know, I’m a total history nerd so I enjoyed the show as a floating time capsule. It’s one thing to watch a movie that’s set in the 70s and which features everyone going out of their way to bring to life every stereotype. It’s another thing to actually view something that was specifically made during the time period.
Unfortunately, the stories and the passengers themselves were pretty forgettable. The whole thing about the Stacy and the Congressman was slightly interesting just because, with the rise of social media, everyone’s got smutty pictures out there now. For the most part, though, this first episode was about introducing Captain Stubing and the crew and the cast did display a good deal of chemistry together. They were all likable. Even Doc Bricker, with his stash of cruise porn, seemed to be well-intentioned. They came across as people who most viewers would want to take a cruise with, which is exactly what the show required to be a success.
Next week …. more love, more 70s fashion, and more intrusive laugh tracks as we set sail on another voyage!
The director Elia Kazan was born 113 years ago, in what was then the Ottoman Empire and what is today Turkey. Though he died in 2003, Kazan has remained a controversial figure and there’s still a lot of debate over what his artistic legacy should be. As a director, he revolutionized both Broadway and Hollywood. He made films about topics that other directors wouldn’t touch and he played a huge role in making Marlon Brando a star and popularizing the method. (I’ll allow you to decide whether that’s a good or a bad thing.) He won two Oscars and he’s been cited as an influence by some of the most important directors of the past century.
Kazan was also a former communist who, at the height of the 50s red scare, testified in front of the HUAC and who “named names.” Kazan often claimed that he only identified people who had already been named. Many of his former colleagues, however, felt that Kazan had betrayed them and never forgave him. Though Kazan always denied it, many felt that his decision to name names had more to do with settling personal scores than with any actual concern about national security. Not helping matters was that Kazan’s 1954 film, On The Waterfront, was widely viewed as being Kazan’s attempt to justify being an informer. Indeed, Kazan’s post-HUAC films seemed to alternate between thinly veiled attempts to paint himself as a hero and attempts to remind people that he was still a liberal.
That adds an interesting subtext to his best film, 1957’s A Face In The Crowd. In this film, Andy Griffith plays Lonesome Rhodes, the type of down-home entertainer who would probably have been quite popular with the supporters of HUAC. A reporter played by Patricia Neal falls in love with Lonesome and helps him become a celebrity with a national following but, too late, she discovers that Rhodes is hardly the folksy and naïve country boy that she originally believed him to be. Instead, he’s a master manipulator who, drunk on his own power and fame, makes plans to transform himself into a political power. Lonesome is portrayed as being a down-home fascist, a countryfied version of the infamous Father Charles Coughlin. At the same time, one could also argue that Rhodes, with his seething contempt for the people who follow him, was also meant as a commentary on the people who claimed to represent the workers but who only saw them and their struggle as a means to an end.
A Face In The Crowd may have been Kazan’s attempt to remind his detractors that he was still a man of the Left but it’s far more interesting as a work of prophecy. There’s really not much difference between Lonesome Rhodes and the modern day celebrities and influencers who are currently famous simply for being famous and who, for the right amount of money and ego-stroking, are more than willing to propagandize for one side or the other.
In this wonderfully acted and directed scene, Lonesome Rhodes gets drunk on his own power and reveals just how corrupt his outlook has become. Making this scene all the more powerful is that it’s easy to imagine our current leaders springing something like Secretary of National Morale on us today.
