Tag Archives: Bob Seagren

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 4.10 “High Off The Hog/Reprisal”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube, Daily Motion, and a few other sites.

The plane has arrived!

Episode 4.10 “High Off The Hog/Reprisal”

(Dir by Michael Vejar, originally aired on January 10th 1981)

This week’s episode of Fantasy Island is all about being someone that you’re not.

For instance, Hadley Boggs (Stephen Shortridge) wants to thank his family for taking out a mortgage on the family farm, just so he could go to MIT.  Hadley has a great future ahead of him but he just wants his dad (Noah Beery, Jr.), mother (Dody Goodman), and sister (Misty Rowe) to have a chance to be live like rich people for the weekend.

Fantasy Island to the rescue!

When the Boggs family arrives, they are shocked to discover that they are going to be living in a mansion.  Mr. Roarke has arranged for them to host a cocktail party with ten of the richest men on the island.  Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of telling Tattoo to place an invite for the party in the Fantasy Island Chronicle.  (Yes, Fantasy Island has a newspaper and, in this episode, it appears to be printed in red ink.)  Tattoo decides to spice things up by claiming that the Boggs family owns a uranium mine.  Mr. Roarke is not happy.

“But, boss,” Tattoo says, “I am your best assistant!”

“That does not matter,” Roarke snaps before explaining that the Boggs family could be in a lot of trouble if they start buying things with money they don’t have or selling property they don’t own.

And, of course, that’s just what happens.  Roger Fox (Shecky Greene) offers the father of the family a few million dollars for the mine.  Thinking that it’s all part of the fantasy, Dad agrees.  Roger then sells the non-existent mine to someone else because it turns out that Roger is a con artist at heart.  Fortunately, with Roarke’s help, the family is able to con Roger into giving them back the non-existent mine and Hadley even falls in love with Roger’s daughter, Kathi (Kathrine Baumann).  To be honest, I had a hard time following exactly how Mr. Roarke conned Roger into giving up his fake mine but I’m glad things worked out.

This fantasy was …. eh.  The problem is that Hadley’s family was presented as being borderline idiots, what with their amazed reaction to existence of cars, airplanes, servants, and checking accounts.  It’s one thing to make them a poor farm family.  It’s another to treat them as if they’re the members of a cargo cult that has never had contact with modern human beings before.  West Virginia is not the Amazon Rain Forest.

The other fantasy featured Maureen McCormick in one of her six trips to the Island.  This time, she plays Trudy Brown (Maureen McCormick), an orphaned gymnast who is treated terribly by her aunt (Janis Paige) and her cousin (Holly Gagnier).  Trudy wants to win the Fantasy Island Gymnastics Competition and, in the process, she wants to defeat her cousin.  Mr. Roarke gives her the power of telekinesis, which Trudy promptly used to make her cousin fall off the high beam.  Roarke gives Trudy a stern talking to.

It’s a struggle but eventually, Trudy realizes that she doesn’t want to win through magic powers.  Nor does she want to hurt her cousin or anyone else competing.  Roarke takes away her powers and Trudy, having learned a valuable lesson, wins the competition on her own.

This fantasy was actually a lot of fun, just because it gave the viewer a chance to see what Carrie would have been like if Maureen McCormick had played the title role instead of Sissy Spacek.  McCormick seems to be having lot of fun loosening screws with her mind.  Toss in some gymnastics with the telekinesis and you have classic Island fantasy!

This episode had one boring fantasy and one good fantasy.  Luckily, the good overshadowed the boring.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.4 “Baby/Marathon”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week’s episode is saved by the one and only Herve Villechaize.

Episode 3.4 “Baby/Marathon”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on October 5th, 1979)

Fantasy Island is going to be hosting a marathon competition so Tattoo decides to greet Mr. Roarke while carrying a replica of the Olympic Torch.

Tattoo proceeds to light a huge flame in a cauldron.  A group of Islanders start trying to splash water on the fire, leading to Tattoo yelling at them to leave the flame alone.  Mr. Roarke, who appears to be even more disgusted than usual with Tattoo’s antics, barks at his assistant to put on his tuxedo and head down to the docks so that they can greet their guests.

Bunny Kelly (Barbi Benton), Gretchen Wasserman (Arlene Golanka), and Olaf Olafsen (Peter Isacksen) have all come to the Island so that Olaf can compete in the marathon and hopefully win enough money to keep their barbell factory open.  (Don’t blame me, I didn’t write this script.)  When Olaf is injured while trying to lift some weights, Bunny enters the marathon in his place!  (At first, Bunny tries to disguise herself as Olaf but, when that doesn’t work, Mr. Roarke declares that Bunny can compete as herself.)

Can Bunny defeat the men who have shown up to run the marathon?  Well, it won’t be easy.  Bruno Glass (Bruce M. Fischer) is so evil that he often stops in the middle of the race so that he can laugh at everyone else’s misfortune.  Helping out Bruno is his trainer, Dr. R.M. Funk (Dick Martin).  Using techniques that would be more appropriate for a cartoon, Bruno sabotages the other racers.  Somehow, Bruno is able to do this despite the fact that the entire race is being televised live to the world.  Fear not!  With the help of friendly competitor Eugene (Paul Petersen), Kitty makes it to the finish line.  When both Kitty and Eugene sprain an ankle towards the finish line, they carry each other to a tied victory!  The factory is saved and everyone falls in love!

As you have probably already guessed, the whole marathon was pretty stupid.  There really didn’t seem to be any sort of set rules as to how the marathon would be run.  Olaf and Gretchen grabbed a car and drove alongside Kitty for most of the race.  Meanwhile, Dr. Funk was somehow able to commit numerous acts of open sabotage without anyone noticing.  Because Dr. Funk and Bruno were so cartoonish, it made it difficult to take seriously the possibility that they might win.  There was no suspense whatsoever, which made for a pretty boring fantasy.

I preferred the episode’s other story, in which Tattoo was placed in charge of finding a family to adopt an orphaned baby.  At first, Tattoo wanted to adopt the baby himself but eventually, he realized that the child would be better off with Thomas (Joshua Gallegos) and Mary (BarBara Luna), two Islanders who already had a large family and who had more experience taking care of babies.  There was nothing surprising about the story but seriously, Herve Villechaize’s portrayal of Tattoo’s dilemma was surprisingly touching.  While Villechaize was notoriously difficult on the set of Fantasy Island, he also used his fame to speak out in support of abused and neglected children and he really seemed to be put his heart into this episode of Fantasy Island.  When Tattoo said that he wanted to make sure the baby had the best and most loving home possible, one got the feeling that he was speaking for Villechaize as well.

So, this was yet another mixed episode of Fantasy Island.  Ultimately, it was saved by the sincerity of Herve Villechaize.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.19 “A Very Special Girl / Until the Last Goodbye / The Inspector”

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 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!

Beware the Inspector!  Read on and find out more about this week’s cruise of the Pacific Princess….

Episode 1.19 “A Very Special Girl / Until the Last Goodbye / The Inspector”

(Dir by Roger Duchovny, originally aired on February 11th, 1978)

Captain Stubing starts the cruise by giving the crew some potentially frightening news.  The company has sent an inspector to take the cruise and observe how everyone is doing their job.  The catch is that the inspector is disguised as a passenger and the crew now has to figure out who it could be!

Marvin Waterman (Jim Backus) seems like a good suspect.  He’s stuffy.  He always wears a suit.  He carries around a notepad.  He’s always asking questions about the ship.  It must be Marvin!  Nope, sorry.  It turns out that Marvin is just a children’s book author and he’s doing research.

Could it be eccentric Mrs. Corwin (played by Gavin MacLeod’s wife, Patti MacLeod)?  She acts like she’s spacey and not always sure where she is but maybe that’s just a cover!  She does make a lot of calls back to the mainland!  Nope, it’s not Mrs. Corwin.  It turns out that she’s just an eccentric widow who likes to call her daughter and let her know what’s going on in her life.  Fortunately, Mrs. Corwin meets and inspires Marvin and they fall in love.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t bring the crew any closer to finding the inspector.

Surprise!  The inspector wasn’t actually on the ship.  He arrived late and wasn’t able to board.  However, his father (Jack Bernardi) did get on board and he spend the entire cruise wandering about and asking people questions in Russian.  As far as I could tell, none of the crew made much of an effort to help the confused old man out so I’m guessing they’re all out of a job now.  I wonder what next week’s episode will be like….

While the crew was looking for the inspector, Mike Andrews (Bob Seagren) was looking for Melanie Taylor (Laurette Sprang).  Mike arranged for his goofy sidekick, Doug (Sal Viscuso), to spend all of his time with Melanie’s best friend, Jane (Debralee Scott).  Fortunately, Doug and Jane fell in love.  Meanwhile, Mike abandoned Melanie as soon as the cruise ended.  Booooooo!

Finally, the crew was fascinated by an older man (Paul Burke) who was traveling with a younger woman (Susan Blanchard).  For the majority of the episode, everyone assumed the man and the woman were lovers.  But then the man collapsed and it turned out that he was the woman’s father and he also terminally ill.  This cruise was their long goodbye.  This was a sweet story, even if it was kind of icky that everyone assumed that the father was carrying on an affair with his daughter.  But, really, that mistaken assumption is the fault of the crew.  I’m surprised they didn’t mistake the older man for being the Inspector.

Anyway, this was a fairly typical episode of The Love Boat.  It got the job done with a minimum of complications and, if nothing else, it looked like a fun vacation.  The Love Boat always works best as wish-fulfillment.  It’s the type of show you watch and think, “What would I do if I was on that cruise?”  I enjoyed this episode.  The whole thing with the inspector was silly but the other two stories were well-handled.  I hope things worked out for Doug and Jane!