I Like To Be In America”

Posted on October 15, 2025 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 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!

Love, life’s sweetest reward….

Episode 6.22 “Abby’s Maiden Voyage/He Ain’t Heavy/I Like To Be In America”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on February 26th, 1983)

When Abby (Mary Beth McDonough) boards the boat, her best friend (Constance Forslund) informs Julie that this cruise will be Abby’s “first time.” She may be setting sail a virgin but she won’t be returning one. Julie is too coked up to care. Abby meets Neil (Brodie Greer), who is handsome and nice but, whenever they start to fool around, Abby starts laughing and the mood is killed. At the end of the voyage, Abby is still a virgin but she and Neil are now a couple.

Spoiled high school grad Jimmy (Michael J. Fox) boards the boat with his adoptive parents (Don Porter and Barbara Billingsley) and almost immediately makes an enemy out of a waiter named Greg (Gregg Henry). We’ve never actually seen Greg on the show before but Isaac acts as if Greg has been working on the boat forever. Jimmy later realizes that Greg is his older brother, the one who he hasn’t seen since their parents died and Jimmy was adopted. At first, Greg refuses to accept that Jimmy is his brother but, by the end of the cruise, they embrace. Awww! Actually, considering that Gregg Henry and Michael J. Fox look absolutely nothing alike, I can understand why Greg had his doubts. That said, if he’s been on the boat for as long as this episode implies, Greg has surely seen another long-lost siblings just happen to find each during a cruise. It happens at least once every season.

Speaking of once every season, it’s time for April Lopez (Charo) to take her annual voyage. Though April is returning to Mexico, she wants to become an American citizen. Good for her! America rocks! Unfortunately, she struggles with the oral exam. Judge Kramer (Esther Rolle) realizes that April will be able to remember the answers if she sings them so she gives April the examination while April is performing in the Acapulco Lounge. The audience loves it because who doesn’t love paying money for an expensive cruise just so you can spend the final night watching someone take a citizenship exam.

(For the record, in high school, I tutored one student who was about to take his exam because he was like really hot but he couldn’t remember how many years were in a Congressional term. I taught him to think of it as 2-4-6. Two for the House. 4 for the President. 6 for the Senate. He became a citizen and sent me flowers and then he moved to Idaho.)

This week’s cruise was a bit bland but I’m glad April became a citizen of the greatest country in the world.

Airplane! (1980, directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Airplane!, which may be the funniest movie ever made, has made me laugh every time that I’ve watched it. And I’ve watched it a lot!

Whenever I’m getting ready to travel for my day job, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m going to Baltimore or West Virginia for the holidays, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a bad mood and I need something lighten me up, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a good mood and I want to be in an even better mood, I watch Airplane!

I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw Airplane! but I know I wasn’t yet ten. While a lot of the humor went over my head at that young age, it did not matter because I laughed at all the sight gags, like the heart hopping around on the doctor’s desk and the line of passengers waiting to “calm down” the hysterical woman. I laughed when Ted Stryker (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Haggerty) got covered in seaweed while making out on the beach. I laughed at the people dying while listening to Ted’s story, even though I didn’t fully understand that it was because of Ted boring them to death. I loved it when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got annoyed with the kid in the cockpit, even though young me really didn’t know who Kareem was other than he was a basketball player. Otto the autopilot was the coolest character around. Stephen Stucker’s Johnny made me laugh with his nonstop energy. “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive.” “And don’t call me Shirley.” “It looks like I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue.” Every time I heard them, I laughed at all of those lines. I didn’t have to understand why Lloyd Bridges was suddenly upside down. I just knew it was funny.

As I got older and rewatched the film, I started to pick up on the humor that earlier went over my head. I traveled to Turkey when I was twelve and our tour guide spent an hour telling us that Midnight Express was not a fair representation of her country. After that, I suddenly understood why Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) wanted to know if Joey had ever been to a Turkish prison. I came to appreciate Julie Hagerty and Lorna Patterson as the two flight attendants. Airplane! still made me laugh but I came to understand that it was also a love story. What adolescent boy watching Airplane! didn’t want to be Robert Hays, not only landing the plane but also getting kiss Julie Hagerty at the end of the movie?

And then, as I learned more about the movies, I realized that Airplane! was a pitch perfect parody of the disaster genre and I came to understand the brilliance of casting actors like Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and especially Leslie Nielsen in this film. From the first time I saw the movie, Nielsen always made me laugh because he had the best lines and he delivered them with deadpan perfection. But, as I got older, I came to understand that Nielsen was doing more than just saying funny things. He was sending up his entire career. I’m a part of the generation who grew up laughing at Leslie Nielsen the comedy superstar and it’s always strange for me to see him in one of his older, serious roles. I have Airplane! to thank for that.

There’s so much to say about Airplane! I could write a thousand words just talking about my favorite jokes and one-liners or how much I enjoyed Stryker’s flashbacks. It’s my favorite movie and one that still makes me laugh even though I know all of the jokes by heart. (I’ve always thought Howard Jarvis waiting for Stryker to return to the taxi was one of the best, though underrated, jokes in the movie.) Airplane! is close to 50 years old and it’s still just as funny today as when I first saw it.

In fact, I think I’ll go watch it right now!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.9 “Reaper”

Posted on May 22, 2024 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, on Monsters, an elderly man tries to make a deal with Death. Because if there’s anyone you can trust to honor a verbal agreement, it’s the Grim Reaper.

Episode 2.9 “Reaper”

(Dir by John Lafia, originally aired on November 26th, 1989)

Robert Ross (George D. Wallace) is a bitter old man who is living out his final days in a retirement home. Not even the sight of one of his neighbors celebrating her 103rd birthday can cheer up the angry Robert. However, things look up for Robert when he meets a new nurse, an incurable optimist named Sheila (Barbara Billingsley). Robert falls in love with her and Sheila seems to be falling in love with Robert as well.

What a terrible time for Dr. Morton (Curt Lowens) to show up in the middle of the night! Now, it should be understood that Dr. Morton is not actually a doctor nor is he human. Instead, he’s the Grim Reaper and he’s come to collect Robert’s life. Robert begs for a few more years and offers to do anything to live. The Grim Reaper makes a deal with Robert. If Robert kills three people, the Reaper will allow him to live. The requirement is that Robert has to personally kill each person and that he has to kill when the Reaper tells him to. At the same time, Robert can pick his victims. The Reaper is not particular about who he takes away with him.

Robert agrees and soon discovers that murder isn’t as difficult as he thought. After the first two murders, Robert is able to rise from his wheelchair and he starts to move around with a spring in his step. He’s ready to ask Sheila to marry him but then he spots Dr. Morton in the nursing home. Dr. Morton explains that it is Sheila’s time, unless Robert can send him a third life. Robert agrees but it turns out that he’s not the only one at the nursing home who has made a deal with the Grim Reaper. Afterall, how else do you think that woman has lived to be a 103?

Especially when compared to last week’s disappointing episode, Reaper is superior episode of Monsters. Along with telling an interesting story (and, for once, this is an episode that feels neither rushed nor padded for length), this episode featured strong performances from Wallace, Billingsley, and Lowens and a memorable villain in the form of the skull-faced Grim Reaper. Director John Lafia does a good job of creating and maintaining a properly ominous and creepy atmosphere. The image of the Grim Reaper standing in the dark hallway of the nursing home is genuinely unsettling. This was a good and effective episode that ended with a properly macabre twist.

Horror Film Review: Invaders From Mars (dir by William Cameron Menzies)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The aliens have arrived! They landed one night in the middle of a thunderstorm and now, they’re hiding underground in a sandpit. Only David McClean (Jimmy Hunt) was awake to witness their arrival. He was supposed to be asleep but who could sleep through all that thunder and lightning? (Not to mention the sound of the flying saucer!) Unfortunately, no one’s going to believe David because he’s only 12 years old!

That’s the premise at the heart of Invaders from Mars, a nicely surreal science fiction film from 1953.

In order to humor David, a few people do go to the sandpit to look for this supposed UFO. They include his scientist father (Leif Erickson) and a few local cops. They all return saying that they found nothing. They also all return in a really bad mood. David’s formerly loving and humorous father is suddenly distant and rather grumpy. And he no longer speaks like himself. Instead, he is now rigidly formal, like someone still getting used to speaking a new language. Maybe it has something to do with the strange mark on the back of his neck….

David goes into town and soon discovers that several townspeople are acting just like his father. It’s almost as if something is controlling them! Well, what else can David do but go to the local observatory and get the U.S. Army involved!?

Invaders from Mars may be disguised as a children’s film about a flying saucer but it actually deals with some very adult issues. What do you do when you know that you’re right but no one is willing to listen to you? Do you stubbornly cling to what you believe or do you just become a mindless and unquestioning zombie like everyone else? Do you remain independent or do you get the mark on your neck? Of course, it should also be pointed out that Invaders From Mars was made at a time when people were very much worried that America was being invaded from within by communists and subversives, all of whom would rob Americans of their individual freedoms just as surely as the aliens in David’s town. Invaders From Mars came out two years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers but they both deal with very similar issues.

What sets Invaders From Mars apart is that it’s told from a child’s point of view. It plays out like a nightmarish fairy tale. The film was directed by the famous production designer, William Cameron Menzies and he gives the entire film a nicely surreal look. The town is just a little bit too perfect while the inside of the spaceship is a maze of corridors, all overseen by a ranting head in a crystal ball.

The film’s ending was probably chilling to audiences in 1953. For modern audiences, it’s a bit of groan-inducing cliché. Still, the ending itself makes sense when viewed in the context of the entire film. (It’s literally the only ending that makes sense.) Still, ending aside, Invaders From Mars is a classic sci-fi film and one well worth watching this Halloween season.