Today’s music video of the day is an early one from Van Halen. Coming from 1981, this video was a product of the time when videos were usually performance clips that focused on showing off the skills of the musicians.
As with all of the early Van Halen videos, this one balances the technical skills and talent of Eddie Van Halen with David Lee Roth’s sense of showmanship. David Lee Roth and Van Halen had their conflicts but they were always at their best when they were performing together.
Director Bruce Gowers, who died in 2023, started directing music videos in the 70s and worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Queen to Journey, Michael Jackson, Toto, and Rod Stewart. He was one of those directors who worked every everyone who was anybody. He also directed a lot of television, doing countless MTV Movie Awards ceremonies and also working as a director for American Idol.
Welcome to Late Night 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 Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which ran on the Disney Channel from 1988 to 1989 before then moving to NBC and being renamed Saved By The Bell. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!
This week, the kids learn yet another lesson about conflict resolution.
Episode 1.9 “Let’s Get Together”
(Dir by Burt Brinckerhoff, originally aired on February 18th, 1989)
After Ms. Palladino (Joan Ryan) is kicked out of her apartment by her boyfriend, she temporarily moves in with Miss Bliss. It doesn’t go well. Ms. Palladino is messy and quirky and accident-prone. Miss Bliss is British. Can these two friends figure out how to live together?
Meanwhile, Nikki and Zach have been assigned to work on a class project but they’re suddenly not getting along. They have to convince Miss Bliss that the telephone is a worthwhile invention. (Miss Bliss plays the role of a skeptical pilgrim.) Nikki wants to use a bunch of charts to make her point. Zach pretends to call Nikki on the phone and apologizes to her for not being a good friend. It’s extremely awkward to watch, despite the fact that Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Heather Hopper both pour their hearts into the scene. Actually, maybe that’s why it’s so awkward to watch. Imagine being a student, trapped in that classroom and forced to listen to Zach and Nikki work out their differences. Miss Bliss give them an A and decides to stop being such a bitch to Ms. Palladino. Good for her!
This episode probably would have been more effective if we hadn’t already been subjected to an episode where Mickey and Zach get into a disagreement and then talk about their friendship while the entire school watches. This episode felt like a do-over. I also found it curious that all the students apparently knew that Miss Bliss and Ms. Palladino were living together and not getting along. First off, why would the students know this and secondly, why would the students cares?
I’m starting to think that Good Morning Miss Bliss was not a realistic portrayal of the Indiana middle school experience.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, Lisa will be reviewing The American Short Story, which ran semi-regularly on PBS in 1974 to 1981. The entire show can be purchased on Prime and found on YouTube and Tubi.
This week, we have an adaptation of a 1963 short story.
Episode #15: The Sky Is Gray
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired in 1980)
This adaptation of an Ernest Gaines short story takes place in Louisiana during the 1940s. James (James Bond III) is a young black child who lives on a farm. His father is overseas, serving in the Army during World War II. His mother (Olivia Cole) is a stern but loving woman who is trying to raise the sensitive James in a world where one often has to depend on their inner strength to survive. When James comes down with a toothache, he and his mother travel to a nearby town so he can see the dentist. From having to stand in the back of the bus to listening to a debate between a priest and a militant in the dentist’s office, it’s an eye-opening journey for James. When the white receptionist at the dentist’s office arbitrarily cancels James’s appointment and tells him and his mother to come back tomorrow, the two of them seek shelter. James discovers how strong his mother is when they’re harassed by a pimp (Reuben Collins). He also learns that there is unexpected kindness in the world when a white store owner invites him and his mother inside to give them shelter from the cold and windy day. During one trip to the dentist, James learns that the world is far more complicated than he originally knew.
This was an okay adaptation of Gaines’s acclaimed short story. Young James Bond III gave a good performance as James and the episode was full of scenes that visually captured the feel of being an outsider. That said, as was often the case with this series, the adaptation was so straight-forward that it didn’t really capture the nuance of Gaines’s writing. In the short story, Gaines put the reader right into James’s head. The adaptation doesn’t really do that. A heavy-handed musical score doesn’t help matters but, with all that in mind, this was still an effective coming-of-age tale.
When it comes to the 1976 film, Carrie, we tend to focus so much on what Carrie does at prom that we forget about what she does while she’s walking home.
The prom scene, to me, is disturbing because Carrie not only kills her bullies but also a lot of people who probably weren’t actually laughing at her. The floppy-haired photographer wearing the dorky fake tuxedo? That dude did not deserve to die in a fiery inferno!
However, the scene in which Carrie blows up Chris and Billy is extremely satisfying because there’s no doubt they deserved it.
4 Shots From 4 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.
For today’s edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films, we celebrate films that demonstrate what the human mind can do when it’s angry and there’s stuff around that can explode. These are….
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 2016’s Ozark Sharks!
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 Tubi! 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!
Shot in an around Paris, the music video for Depeche Mode’s Strangelove was considered to be so controversial that MTV refuses to broadcast the original version. The band offered up a re-edited version, in which some of the shots of the two models were replaced with shots of the band.
Director Anton Corbijn needs no introduction. Along with being a renowned photographer who has been responsible for countless album covers and music videos, Corbijn has also directed films like The American, Control, and A Most Wanted Man.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, the identity of the Ski Mask Rapist is revealed.
Episode 2.15 “Attack”
(Dir by Kevin Hooks, originally aired on February 22nd, 1984)
The Ski Mask Rapist is continuing to attack. Off-screen, a pharmacist is assaulted while trying to catch her train. In the hospital, a candy striper gets lost in the cavernous building and is attacked in a storage room. When Shirley Daniels enters the storage room, she’s startled by a man wearing a pest control outfit. She sprays him with her mace but is later told that the police do not believe that he was the rapist. Instead, he was just a man trying to steal drugs. When Fiscus tries to put together a list of men who will walk the women to their cars, Dr. Cavanero tells him that one of the men on his list could very well be the rapist.
Amongst themselves, the women who work at St. Eligius debate what they would do if they are attacked. Shirley carries her mace. Wendy says that she would use her keys as a weapon. Jacqueline Wade says that women who don’t struggle and just submit have a better chance of surviving. Dr. Cavanero dumps her insensitive boyfriend after he offers up a half-hearted, insincere apology for trying to force himself on her during the previous episode. The head of the hospital’s security gives a lecture and makes the women feel like the attacks are somehow their fault. “There’s no need to get hysterical,” he says.
(Myself, I carry mace. I’m always scared that I’ll accidentally spray myself in the face with it but still, I carry it.)
Kathy Martin turns down the offer of a rape whistle, saying that carrying it would give her the aura of a victim. As the episode ends, she’s attacked in the morgue. She manages to push up the ski mask, revealing the face of …. Peter White.
It’s not really a surprise that Peter turned out to be the rapist. I suspected it was him last week. Rape may be classified as a sex crime but ultimately, it’s about power. The weakest men are rapists and there’s no man on this show who is weaker than Peter White. Before Peter attacks Kathy, we see him with a prostitute who tells him that it’s okay that he couldn’t get it up. Peter mentions that it’s his anniversary. Peter is weak and, looking back at the the moment he first appeared during the first season (begging Dr. Morrison to cover for him), it’s obvious that the series has been building up to the moment that he loses control.
There were other things that happened during this episode. Geraldine Fitzgerald played a patient who Auschlander dated in his younger days. (Now, she’s a drug addict.) Victor and Roberta returned from their honeymoon, Victor with a painful sunburn and Roberta with a host of problems that she accidentally broadcast to the entire hospital while talking to her friend in the front office. (You have to make sure the PA is turned off before talking about your sex life, folks.) There was a humorous scene in which Dr. Ridley got into an argument with Roberta’s psychiatrist (Philip Sterling). Dr. Morrison tried to figure out why his latest patient (Dan Hedaya) was suffering from sudden bouts of blindness.
In the end, though, this was a grim episode and not always an easy one for me to watch. Honestly, if I had been a nurse or a doctor at that hospital, I would have walked as soon as it became apparent that the Ski Mask Rapist was someone inside the building. I would have gone home and refused to come back until they caught the guy.
Kathy saw Peter’s face as he attacked her. I fear what’s waiting for me on next week’s episode.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties. On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday. On Mastodon, 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? Lucio Fucli’s Conquest!
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 happily tweeting. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Through the Shattered Lens 