Retro Television Reviews: Jennifer Slept Here 1.13 “Take Jennifer, Please”

Posted on December 28, 2023 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 Jennifer Slept Here, which aired on NBC in 1983 and 1984. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Today, we finish up Jennifer Slept Here!

Episode 1.13 “Take Jennifer, Please”

(Dir by Charles S. Dubin, originally aired on May 12th, 1984)

The final episode of Jennifer Slept Here opens with Joey in a panic. His family is confused as to why Joey constantly appears to be talking to himself. Both his bratty sister and his best friend have developed a habit of breaking into his room so that they can read his diary, which is full of his thoughts concerning Jennifer. His father is concerned that Joey is having a breakdown. His mother continues to insist that it’s just a phase.

And Joey thinks that they might be right. He’s suddenly no longer 100% sure that Jennifer is real. Maybe he is just seeing things. Maybe he is losing his mind. Maybe….

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense from a continuity point of view because it goes against everything that we’ve see over the past 12 episodes. Joey and Jennifer have been hanging out together for a very long time. Jennifer has repeatedly helped Joey out. On one occasion, Jennifer’s help even involved making herself visible to the other members of the household. Joey has watched Jennifer possess people in the house. Joey has experienced a fake exorcist putting Jennifer in a jar. Joey has met other ghosts! Just last week, his tutor turned out to be a ghost who had been sent to take Jennifer’s place. Judging from the previous episodes, it would seem that Joey got over his doubts a long time ago and, for that matter, his family now seems to be used to him talking to himself.

I have a theory. I have no proof for this theory. This is based on my own gut feeling as someone who has watched and read about the production of a lot of old TV shows. You’ll notice that this episode was not directed by the show’s usual director, John Bowab. Instead, it was directed by Charles S. Dubin, who also directed the pilot. Here’s my guess. This episode was probably meant to air much earlier in the season. It wouldn’t surprise me if maybe it was meant to be the second episode or if maybe the pilot was even originally meant to be an hour-long special, with this episode serving as the second half. (I mean, the neurotic Joey in this episode has a lot more in common with the Joey of the pilot than the Joey of the rest of the series.) For whatever reason, though, this episode did not air when it was originally meant to. I’m going to guess this episode sat in limbo for a while and then the network decided to use it to close out the season, despite the fact that the previous episode felt more like a season finale than this one does. That’s my theory, take it or leave it.

(Also, as support of this theory, I would point out that this episode features Jennifer telling Joey the story of how she died, which seems like something she would have mentioned when they were still getting to know each other. Joey’s little sister appears to be significantly younger than she did in the previous few episodes. And, finally, George is just as negative in his comments about Jennifer’s love life as he was in the pilot. This was initially one of George’s least appealing traits and it was one that was largely abandoned about the first two episodes.)

As for the episode itself, Joey is desperate for Jennifer to prove to him that she’s real and not a figment of his imagination. So, Jennifer tells Joey that, before she died, she sent a note to Joey’s father explaining that she hadn’t written a will. That note is sitting in a vault in George’s office and no one has ever seen it. Jennifer and Joey break into the vault and retrieve the letter. Not only does this prove to Joey that Jennifer exists but it also gives Joey a chance to help out his father, who has been having to deal with all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork and claiming to be the beneficiary of Jennifer’s estate. It also provides an excuse for the invisible Jennifer to humiliate a nosy security guard by dousing him in liquor and causing his pants to fall off.

If you can look past the continuity issues, this is actually a funny episode. This show was always at its best when Jennifer was allowed to be mischievous force of chaos and that’s certainly the case here. I will admit that I laughed when Joey ordered Jennifer to prove her existence by shaking the breakfast table, just for Jennifer to discover that shaking a table is not as easy as it looks. Jennifer cracking the safe at the office was also amusing, mostly because Jennifer was obviously having a lot of fun committing a felony. Of course, when the security guard does show up, Joey’s the one at risk for being arrested for a felony.

Overall, Jennifer Slept Here was not a bad show. Having now watched all 13 episodes, I can say that this show may have been uneven but it had more hits than misses. Though the supporting characters never really had much personality and the writers never seemed to set any definite rules as to what Jennifer could and couldn’t do as a ghost, the chemistry between Ann Jillian and John P. Navin, Jr. kept things lively and Jillian had a talent for delivering sardonic one-liners. This show was cancelled after 13 episodes and that may be for the best because there’s only so many “safe-for-network-TV” storylines that a show about a ghost and a teenager can really explore. Still, Jennifer Slept Here definitely had a lot of charm to it.

Next week …. I’ll be reviewing something else! What will it be? I have no idea but it will be something. Check here next Thursday to find out what I found!

Retro Television Reviews: Jennifer Slept Here 1.6 “One Of Our Jars Is Missing”

Posted on November 9, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Jennifer is trapped in a jar!

Episode 1.6 “One Of Our Jars Is Missing”

(Dir by Charles S. Dubin, originally aired on November 25th, 1983)

Last week, I announced that George Eliot (played by Fiona Apple’s father, Brandon Maggart), was the worst character on Jennifer Slept Here and perhaps one of the worst characters of all time. This week, however, George is actually pretty tolerable. Instead, it’s his son Joey who is terrible.

Since this series started, Joey has been having to adjust to having to live with the ghost of Jennifer Farrell and, for the most part, he seems to be doing a pretty good job of it. Jennifer has helped out Joey with his problems and Joey has helped out Jennifer on numerous occasions. They’ve been established as being friends.

However, this episode finds Joey and Jennifer uncharacteristically annoyed with each other. Jennifer thinks that Joey makes too much noise in his room. Joey thinks that Jennifer makes too much noise in the attic. Joey spends a lot of time yelling at Jennifer, which makes him look crazy to everyone else. After hearing his son yelling into thin air one too many times, George decides that Joey is truly convinced that there is a ghost in the house.

George’s solution?

Hire an exorcist!

Now, it should be noted that George doesn’t think that the house is haunted. Instead, he thinks that Joey is delusional but George is convinced that an exorcism will cure Joey of those delusions. It’s not a bad plan. When Madame Wanda (played by Zelda Rubinstein, in a performance that is clearly meant to spoof her role in the original Poltergeist) shows up and performs her ritual, it’s obvious that she’s a fake. And yet somehow, she is still able to trap Jennifer in a mason jar.

Joey takes the jar to his room. Now, it should be understood that everyone else thinks that Joey is carrying an empty jar but Joey can see Jennifer trapped in the jar. Instead of unsealing the jar and allowing Jennifer her freedom, he decides to leave her in the jar. He puts the jar on his dresser and then pretends that he’s going to throw a baseball at it….

I mean, seriously …. WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH THIS!?

It is true that Jennifer can be a bit self-absorbed and definitely more than a little eccentric but, for the most part, she’s been pretty respectful to Joey. She helped Joey throw a fake séance. She helped Joey get over his ex-girlfriend. She’s been very supportive of the son of a man who repeatedly refers to her as having been a “tramp.” And now, Joey’s just going to keep her trapped in a jar? What type of sociopath is Joey?

Earlier in the episode, Joey wrote a rude letter to one of his teachers. He wasn’t planning on mailing it but, when his mother (Georgia Engel) comes across the letter, she takes it to the post office. Suddenly, Joey needs the help of someone who can walk through walls so he opens the jar and allows Jennifer to escape. (So, yes, Joey let Jennifer out of the jar but only because he needed her to do something sneaky for him.) However, Jennifer can no longer walk through walls! Something must have happened with the exorcism.

Joey and Jennifer head over to Madame Wanda’s place, hoping that Wanda can reverse the spell. Of course, Wanda is a fake and didn’t realize she was actually performing a real exorcism to begin with. Wanda has no idea how to reverse anything.

Now, fear not, everything returns to normal by the end of the episode. Jennifer is once again a ghost who can walk through walls and Joey is once again yelling at thin air. As the episode ends, George listens to his son yell and then mutters that he just blew a lot of money on a worthless exorcism. I’m a bit surprised that George is willing to give up that easily. I mean, if someone in your house is apparently arguing with someone that only he can see, that’s cause for concern. Has George never seen an Amityville film? Can he not see the path on which Joey is walking?

This episode felt a bit mean-spirited, which is a shame because it had the potential to be fun. But Joey acting like such a jerk ruined whatever humor could have been mined from Wanda and her attempts to exorcise the house. This whole episode felt just a bit mean-spirited.

Next week, according to the IMDb, Jennifer learns that she can take over people’s bodies so Joey better watch out!

Retro Television Reviews: Jennifer Slept Here 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since it is October, I figured why not take a look at short-lived sitcom about a ghost? What’s the worst that could happen? (Heh heh….)

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Charles S. Dubin, originally aired on October 21st, 1983)

Jennifer Farrell was, at one time, the world’s biggest movie star but then, in a tragic accident, an ice cream truck backed over here and she lost her life. Three years later, her former lawyer, George Elliott (Brandon Maggart, the father of Fiona Apple), has decided to move into her Hollywood home. Accompanying him is his wife, Susan Elliott (Georgia Engel), his 8 year-old daughter Marilyn (Mya Akerlin), and his teenage son, Joey (John P. Navin, Jr.)

Joey is not particularly happy about having moved from New York to California. First off, he left behind his girlfriend, Elizabeth. Secondly, a Hollywood tour bus keeps driving by and announcing that his new home is the former home of Jennifer Farrell. Finally, Jennifer’s ghost (Ann Jillian) is living in his bedroom, which is something that Joey discovers when he tries to close the window.

Jennifer, it turns out, likes to keep the window open so she can hear the tour bus announce her name.

Joey refuses to accept that Jennifer is a ghost but then his father enters the bedroom and says that he can’t see the woman that Joey claims is standing at the window. Then, after his father leaves, Joey tries to grab Jennifer and his hand goes through her shoulder.

Remarkably, it doesn’t take Joey that long to accept that his house is haunted by a ghost that only he can see. Perhaps that’s because Joey isn’t planning on sticking around the house for long. He’s planning on running away from home and catching the next flight back to New York City. Fortunately, Jennifer is there to grab the suitcase from his hand (and yes, we get a shot of the suitcase floating up the staircase with the wires barely visible) and explain to him that everything that he needs is in the house, with his family. She also encourages Joey to flirt with the girl who lives next door. Problem solved!

It’s a remarkably simple pilot. In fact, it’s a bit too simple for its own good. Joey is a bit too quick to accept that ghosts are real but, even more importantly, his parents and his best friend, Marc (Glenn Scarpelli), are surprisingly quick to ignore the fact that Joey keeps talking to himself and yelling at someone who they can’t even see. As well, it’s never really explained why George decided to move his family into Jennifer’s home, especially since George continually refers to Jennifer as being both his worst client and as being a “tramp.” That said, the pilot did what a pilot was supposed to do. It introduced the characters and it spread the seeds for future storylines. The majority of the cast seemed a bit lost but Ann Jillian delivered her lines with just the right amount of ghostly sassiness. The main problem with the pilot is that it wasn’t particularly funny but traditionally, pilots are usually the weakest episode of any sitcom. So, let’s see how things go over the next few weeks!

Retro Television Reviews: International Airport (dir by Don Chaffey and Charles S. Dubin)

Posted on April 9, 2023 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1985’s International Airport! It can be viewed on YouTube!

It’s not easy working at an international airport!

At least, that’s the message of this made-for-television film. Produced by Aaron Spelling and obviously designed to be a pilot for a weekly television series, International Airport details one day in the life of airport manager David Montgomery (Gil Gerard). Everyone respects and admires David, from the recently graduated flight attendants who can’t wait for their first day on the job to the hard-working members of the airport security team. The only person who really has a problem with David is Harvey Jameson (Bill Bixby), the old school flight controller who throws a fit when he learns that a woman, Dana Fredricks (Connie Sellecca), has been assigned to work in the tower. Harvey claims that women can’t handle the pressure of working the tower and not having a personal life. He demands to know what Dana’s going to do during that “one week of the month when you’re not feeling well!” Harvey’s a jerk but, fortunately, he has a nervous breakdown early on in the film and Dana gets to take over the tower.

Meanwhile, David is trying to figure out why an old friend of his, Carl Roberts (played by Retro Television mainstay Robert Reed, with his bad perm and his retired porn star mustache), is at the airport without his wife (Susan Blakely). David takes it upon himself to save Carl’s troubled marriage because it’s all in a day’s work for the world’s greatest airport manager!

While Carl is dealing with his mid-life crisis, someone else is sending threatening letters to the airport. One of the letters declares that there’s a bomb on a flight that’s heading for Honolulu. David and Dana must decide whether to allow Captain Powell (Robert Vaughn) to fly to Hawaii or to order him to return to California. And Captain Powell must figure out which one of his passengers is the bomber. Is it Martin Harris (George Grizzard), the sweaty alcoholic who want shut up about losing all of his friends in the war? Or is it the woman sitting next to Martin Harris, the cool and aloof Elaine Corey (Vera Miles)?

Of course, there are other passengers on the plane. Rudy (George Kennedy) is a veteran airline mechanic. Rudy is hoping that he can talk his wife (Susan Oliver) into adopting Pepe (Danny Ponce), an orphan who secretly lives at the airport. Unfortunately, when Pepe hears that Rudy’s plane might have a bomb on it, he spends so much time praying that he doesn’t realize he’s been spotted by airport security. Pepe manages to outrun the security forces but he ends up hiding out in a meat freezer and, when the door is slammed shut, it appears that Pepe may no longer be available for adoption. Will someone hear Pepe praying in time to let him out? Or, like Frankie Carbone, will he end up frozen stiff?

International Airport was an attempt to reboot the Airport films for television, with the opening credits even mentioning that the film was inspired by the Arthur Hailey novel that started it all. As well, Gil Gerard, Susan Blakely, and George Kennedy were all veterans of the original Airport franchise. George Kennedy may be called Rudy in International Airport but it’s easy to see that he’s still supposed to be dependable old Joe Patroni. Unfortunately, despite the familiar faces in the cast, International Airport itself is a bit bland. It’s a disaster film on a budget. While the viewers gets all of the expected melodrama, they don’t get anything as entertaining or amusing as Karen Black flying the plane in Airport 1975 or the scene in Concorde: Airport ’79 where George Kennedy leaned out the cockpit window (while in flight) and fired a gun at an enemy aircraft. Probably the only thing that was really amusing (either intentionally or unintentionally) about International Airport was the character of Pepe and that was just because young Danny Ponce gave perhaps the worst performance in the history of television.

International Airport did not lead to a television series. Watching it today, it’s a bit on the dull side but, at the same time, it is kind of nice to see what an airport was like in the days before the TSA. If nothing else, it’s a time capsule that serves as a record of the days when the world was a bit more innocent.

Horror on TV: Circle of Fear 1.20 “Spare Parts” (dir by Charles S. Dubin)

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Circle of Fear, Susan Oliver plays the widow of a doctor who allows his hands, eyes, and vocal chords to be used in transplants. Unfortunately for her, the spirit of her dead husband is still inside of his donated body parts. Because he’s convinced that she murdered him, the dead doctor seeks an elaborate revenge on his wife.

This episode originally aired on February 23rd, 1973. It was written by Jimmy Sangster, who is best known for his work with Hammer Films.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #142: The Meanest Men In The West (1978, directed by Sam Fuller and Charles S. Dubin)

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The Meanest Men In The West may “star” Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin and Sam Fuller may be credited as being one of the film’s two directors but don’t make the same mistake that I made. Don’t get too excited.

There was once a TV western called The Virginian. Starring James Drury as a ranch foreman, The Virginian ran for nine seasons on NBC. A 1962 episode, which was written and directed by Sam Fuller, featured Lee Marvin as a sadistic outlaw who kidnapped The Virginian’s employer, a judge played by Lee J. Cobb. Five years later, another episode features Charles Bronson as a less sadistic outlaw who kidnapped the Judge’s daughter.

The Meanest Men In The West mixes scenes from those two episode with western stock footage, a bank robbery that originally appeared in The Return of Frank James, an intrusive voice-over, and an almost incoherent prologue, all in order to tell an entirely new story. Now, Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin are brothers and rivals. After Marvin snitches on Bronson’s plan to rob a bank, Bronson blames his former friend, The Virginian. In order to get the Virginian to come to his hideout, Bronson kidnaps Cobb’s daughter. The Virginian manages to convince Bronson that he didn’t betray him, just to arrive back at the ranch and discover that Cobb has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Bronson and his gang set off after Marvin and his gang. It ends with Charles Bronson, in 1967, shooting at Lee Marvin, who is still in 1962.

The Meanest Men In The West is so clumsily edited that the same shot of Charles Bronson holding a gun is spliced into a dozen different scenes. Filmed on different film stocks, the Bronson scenes and the Marvin scenes look nothing alike and, since the two episodes were filmed five years apart, James Drury literally ages backwards over the course of the film.

The Meanest Men In The West is for Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin completists only. I think Bronson and Marvin are two of the coolest individuals who ever existed and even I had a hard time making it through this one. If you do watch it, keep an eye out for a young Charles Grodin, thoroughly miscast as a tough outlaw.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #55: The Tenth Level (dir by Charles S. Dubin)

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I first found out about the 1976 made-for-tv movie The Tenth Level while I was doing some research on the Milgram experiment. The Milgram experiment was a psychological experiment that was conducted, under the direction of Prof. Stanley Milgram, in 1961. Two test subjects were placed in two separate room. One test subject was known as the “Learner” and he was hooked up to a machine that could deliver electric shocks. The other subject was the “Teacher.” His job was to ask the Lerner questions and, whenever the Learner gave an incorrect answer, the Teacher was supposed to correct the error by pushing a button and delivering the electric shock. With each incorrect answer, the shock would get worse.

Of course, what the Teacher did not know was that the Lerner was an associate of Prof. Milgram’s and that pushing the button did not actually deliver a shock. The Lerner would intentionally give wrong answers and, after the Teacher pushed each subsequent button, the Lerner would groan in pain and eventually beg the Teacher to stop. The test was to see how long the Teacher would continue to push the buttons.

The study found that 65% of the Teachers, even when the Lerner stopped responding, continued to push the buttons until delivering the experiment’s final 450-volt shock. It was a surprising result, one that is often cited as proof that ordinary people will do terrible things if they’re ordered to do so by an authority figure.

The Tenth Level is loosely based on the Milgram experiment. Prof. Stephen Turner (William Shatner) is a psychology professor who conducts a similar experiment. Turner claims that he’s looking for insight into the nature of blind obedience but some of his colleagues are skeptical. His best friend (Ossie Davis) thinks that Turner is mostly trying to deal with the guilt of being a WASP who has never had to deal with discrimination. His ex-wife, Barbara (Lynn Carlin), thinks that the experiment is cruel and could potentially traumatize anyone who takes part in it. Turner, meanwhile, is fascinated by how random people react to being ordered to essentially murder someone.

Eventually, a good-natured carpenter/grad student, Dahlquist (Stephen Macht), volunteers. At first, Turner refuses to allow Dahlquist to take part because he’s previously met Dahlquist and Dahlquist is a friend of one of Tuner’s assistants. However, Dahlquist literally begs to be allowed to take part in the experiment and Turner relents.

Unfortunately, the pressure of administering shocks proves to be too much for Dahlquist and he has a 70s style freak-out, which essentially means that the screen changes colors and everything moves in slow motion as he smashes up the room. As a result of Dalquist’s violent reaction, Turner is called before a disciplinary committee and basically put on trial.

The Tenth Level is an interesting film. On the one hand, the subject matter is fascinating and, if nothing else, the film deserves some credit for trying to seriously explore the ethics of psychological experimentation. On the other hand, this is a film from 1976 that features William Shatner giving numerous monologues about the nature of man. And, let us not forget, this is William Shatner before he apparently developed a sense of humor about himself. That means that, in this film, we get the Shatner that inspired a thousand impersonations. We get the Shatner who speaks precisely and who enunciates every single syllable. And let’s not forget that Shatner is paired up with Ossie Davis, an actor who was never exactly subtle himself.

The end result is a film that is both thought-provoking and undeniably silly. This is a film that will make you think even while it inspires you to be totally snarky.

(Also of note, John Travolta supposedly makes his film debut in the Tenth Level. Apparently, he plays a student. I have yet to spot him.)

You can watch it below!