Tag Archives: Deborah Shelton

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.20 “The Older Woman”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, things get even dumber than usual.  Forever summer!

Episode 1.20 “The Older Woman”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 11th, 1999)

Tracyee wants to try to out for the Lakers cheerleading squad.  Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of sharing her plans with Samantha and Stads, both of whom are morally offended that Tracyee would actually want to do something that could bring her 1) a steady income and 2) the fame that she’s desperately been searching for since this show started.  Stads and Sam both declare cheerleading to be sexist and degrading.  However, when they find out that the auditions will be televised, they decide to try out so that they can denounce the Lakers on television.

(Of course, unless the try-outs are being aired live, it’s probable that anything Samantha or Stads said would have been edited out of the program.  Add to that, it doesn’t seem to occur to either one of them that they would also probably be ruining Traycee’s chance of making the squad as well.)

Now, I should point out that this is just the B-story.  Only a few scenes are devoted to Murray training Sam, Stads, and Traycee before their try-outs.  In the end, Murray is such a good coach that he’s the one hired for the cheerleading squad.  The most (and really the only) interesting thing about this B-story is that it shows just how unlikeable and one-dimensional both Sam and Stads became as the first season progressed.  There’s really no reason for them to even involve themselves in Traycee’s quest to become a Lakers Girl.  Traycee indicates that she knows that it’s all sexist and exploitive but — and this is key — she doesn’t care.  As soon as Traycee indicates that she doesn’t care, that’s the signal for Stads and Sam to back off.

(One of the consistent things about all of the teen sitcoms produced by Peter Engel was that feminists, whether they were Jessie Spano on Saved By The Bell or Julie on Hang Time, were always portrayed as being shrill, humorless, and, worst of all, hypocritical.)

As for the main plot — hey, it’s stupid too!  In fact, it’s both stupid and creepy!  Peter has hired a graphic artist named Laura (Odile Corso) to redesign the restaurant’s menus.  Peter seems to like Laura and Jason decides that he’s going to help his father get laid.  (He doesn’t put it that way but that’s still the general idea.)  However, while Jason is trying to convince his father to ask out Laura, Laura decides to ask out Jason.

This is a bit awkward, seeing as how Jason is supposed to be a high school student!  Even worse, the episode ends with Peter explaining that Laura was too young for him and suggesting that Jason should have asked her out.  Again, why would a successful and attractive woman in her mid-to-late 20s want to date a shallow high school student who works in his father’s restaurant?  This is not the first time that I’ve wondered if this show’s writers remembered that Jason and Scott were established, at the start of the season, as being high school students.  Then again, even if Jason wasn’t a high school student, he would still be a sociopathic nepo baby so maybe Laura just has bad taste in general.  As for Peter, he ends up dating a dentist, who is played by Deborah Shelton (who, in presumably better times, had a key role in Brian DePalma’s Body Double).

This was a dumb episode, even by the standards of Malibu, CA.

 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

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 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, Tattoo is still missing.

Episode 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on April 10th, 1982)

Amnesiac Ellen Layton (Jill St. John) comes to the Island in hopes of remembering who she was in her past life.  Ever since she was tossed off a horse and struck her head, Ellen has not been able to recall a single detail of her old life.  Roarke agrees to help, using another one of those magic plants that seem to grow in abundance on Fantasy Island.  However, Roarke also shows Julie a hologram that reveals that, in her previous life, Ellen was a ruthless businesswoman who fired people at the drop of a hat.

As quickly becomes obvious, amnesiac Ellen is far happier than corporate Ellen.  Afterall, amnesiac Ellen has all sorts of friends on the Island and she even has sleazy Mike Collins (Dan Gautier) pretending to be in love with her.  (In what I believe is a Fantasy Island first, we hear the thoughts of Mike and several other men when they first learn that the wealthy and beautiful Ellen can’t remember anything about her past life.)  But when Ellen’s real husband (Brett Halsey) comes to the Island looking for her, she has to decide if she wants to go back to who she used to be or if she wants to continue being the carefree amnesiac that she’s been for the last several months.  Which will she choose?

You already know the answer to that one.  Ellen’s fantasy really wasn’t that interesting.  I preferred the first part of the show’s other fantasy.  Two game show hosts (Gene Rayburn and Jan Murray), who are both in love with the same woman (Vikki Carr), come to the Island because they want to compete in the ultimate game show.  Roarke actually sets up a game show for them, with himself as host and a studio audience.  The two men are asked a question.  The first man to answer correctly is given the choice of opening one of four doors.  Three of the doors contain prizes, like love and money.  The other door is the …. DOOR OF DEATH!

One of the joys of this episode is watching Ricardo Montalban play a game show host.  He appears to be having a blast, especially when he gets to dramatically remind the two contestants about “the Door of Death!”  And, while the two men do manage to open up two of the doors successfully (leading one contestant rescuing Vikki Carr from being burned at the stake as a witch and the other contestant robbing a 1920s bank), the third door that the two men open is THE DOOR OF DEATH!

Unfortunately, the Door of Death turns out to be a bit anticlimatic.  The two men and the women they love have to survive in the wilderness while being pursued by an archer whose fantasy is to — *sigh* — hunt the most dangerous prey of all, man.  The show just did a Most Dangerous Game knock-off just two episodes ago so why do it again?  Fortunately, both of the game show hosts and the woman they’re fighting over survive.  They leave the Island together, their love triangle unresolved.

The game show had a lot of potential but this episode was disappointing.  Unfortunately, Tattoo was not in this episode and Julie served as Roarke’s assistant.  Nothing against Julie but the whole game show thing seemed like it would have been a perfect set up for some Roarke/Tattoo banter.  This show was definitely better with Tattoo than without him.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.11 “House of Dolls/Wuthering Heights”

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 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, it’s all about the power of imagination.

Episode 5.11 “House of Dolls/Wuthering Heights”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on January 9th, 1982)

After being absent last week, Tattoo returns for this episode.  That means that Julie, once again, is too busy on the other side of the Island to assist Mr. Roarke this week.  The excuse that the show’s writer come up with to explain Julie’s absence is that she accidentally opened up a box of Fantasy Island butterflies that were meant to be delivered to the San Diego Zoo.  Now, Julie has to catch all of the butterflies.  Good luck, Julie!

As for the fantasies, they both deal with imagination.

Clarissa Bevis (Britt Ekland) is a librarian who is single because she’s never met a real-life man who can compare to Heathcliffe from Clarissa’s favorite novel, Wuthering Heights.  Clarissa wants to enter the world of the novel so that she can meet Heathcliffe and hopefully put her obsession with him behind her.  Mr. Roarke grants her fantasy but warns her that she must not change the plot of the book in any way.  That strikes me as an odd rule because it’s not as if Clarissa is traveling into the past.  She’s entering her imagination so why would it matter if she decided to do what so many other readers have done and imagine a different ending to her favorite novel?

Clarissa finds herself approaching Wuthering Heights.  Heathcliffe (Hugh O’Brian) sees her and declares that his beloved Catherine has come back to life.  Meanwhile, Edgar Linton (Richard Anderson) believes that this proves Heathcliffe has gone mad and starts to plot to have Heathcliffe declared insane so that Edgar can claim Wuthering Heights and all of its farmland as his own.  To be honest, if we’re in Clarissa’s imagination, I can only assume that she’s only seen a movie version of Wuthering Heights because neither Heathcliffe nor Edgar behave like their characters in the book  (In particular, Edgar is portrayed as being a cartoonishly evil villain.)  And, it should be noted, no mention is made of Cathy, Linton, Hindley, Isabella, Harleton, or any of the book’s other characters.  How is Clarissa supposed to stay true to the plot of a book that she’s never read?

As for the other fantasy, Francis Elkins (Bob Denver) is a maker and dresser of mannequins,  He’s fallen in love with one of his mannequins — “Hey, that’s not creepy at all,” I say while dramatically rolling my eyes — and his fantasy is for her to come to life.  Roarke gives Francis a magical medallion thing that Francis uses to bring Courtney (Barbi Benton) to life, with the understanding that Courtney will only be human for two days.  Eager to live as much life as possible, Courtney uses the medallion to bring to life three other mannequins to serve as the members of her squad.  She also flirts with two salesmen (Larry Storch and Joey Forman) by telling them that’s she’s from Bloomingdale’s (“Oh yeah,” Storch says, “that town in Indiana,”) and that she’s only six years old.  Fortunately, Francis’s love for Courtney is so strong that Courtney remains human even after the two days are up.

At the start of this fantasy, Roarke promises Tattoo that it will be the most delightful fantasy ever.  Barbi Benton did a good job in the role of Courtney and she certainly showed more comedic timing here than she did during previous visits to the Island.  But I don’t know …. the whole falling in love with a mannequin thing was a little too creepy to be delightful.

That said, this was an entertaining episode, even if neither fantasy really worked.  Barbi Benton got to show off her comedic timing and the Wuthering Heights fantasy was enjoyably melodramatic, even if it got the book wrong and even though all-American Hugh O’Brian was not exactly the most convincing Heathcliffe.  This was a nice enough trip to the Island.

I wonder if Julie ever found those butterflies.

A Movie A Day #227: Silk Degrees (1994, directed by Armand Garabidian)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Actress Alex Ramsey (Deborah Shelton) may have become a star as a result of playing the lead role in a cop show but she still worries that her show is not realistic enough.  When a fight with her director (Gilbert Gottfried) leads to her walking off the set for the hundredth time, Alex stumbles across a real-life murder.  Now being chased by terrorists and gun smugglers, Alex is forced to go into hiding.  FBI agent Baker (Marc Singer) is assigned to protect her but how can he hide one of the most famous women in America, especially one who does not appreciate being told what to do? Making things even worse, there is a traitor in the bureau.  Shelton is going to have to use all of her tv crime-fighting skills to survive.

Though it featured enough Deborah Shelton nudity to win it a place in the regular Skinemax rotation, Silk Degrees is basically a standard 90s direct-to-video action film but it has a cast that will be appreciated by any B-move fan.  Along with Body Double‘s Shelton, Beastmaster’s Marc Singer, and everything’s Gilbert Gottfried, Silk Degrees also features Charles Napier as Singer’s boss, Mark Hamill as Singer’s partner, and Katherine Armstong as a duplicitous femme fatale.  The main villain is played by singer Michael Des Barres.  Even Adrienne Barbeau shows up in a tiny role!  Silk Degrees is not a great movie but with a cast like this, it does not have to be.