Tag Archives: Kenneth White

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 1.6 “You Are Who You Eat”

Posted on 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, Diana makes history!

Episode 1.6 “You Are Who You Eat”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 30th, 1984)

Coach Denardo has a heart attack and is laid up in the hospital.  It looks like Diane is going to have to coach the team!

Wait?  What?

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about football but I do know that there is such a thing as an assistant coach.  And there’s also coordinators.  There’s a lot of coordinators and a lot of assistants and I imagine that a part of their job entails coaching whenever the head coach is in the hospital.  So, I’m not really sure how this episode went from “Coach Denardo can’t coach this weekend” to “The owner is going to have to do it!”

Still, Diana ends up on the sidelines as the “first female head coach in history!”  I remember that a few Super Bowls ago, they made a big deal about one of the teams having a female assistant coach and I was like, “Well, they better win or they’re never going to hire another woman.”  I think the team lost.  I don’t really follow football.

Anyway, Coach Denardo is on the phone with Diana for most of the game but, towards the end of the game, the connection goes down.  Denardo runs out of his hospital in his hospital gown and takes a taxi to the stadium.  Luckily, even without his help, Diana knew exactly which play to call and the Bulls win another game.

Yay, I guess.  This episode was pretty dumb.  If I was coaching a football team, I would just be like, “Have that guy run to the touchdown area and then throw him the ball.”  I think we would win easily.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter, 4.21 “Ooh Ooh, I Do: Part Two”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime.

Wedding bells are ringing!

Episode 4.21 “Ooh Ooh, I Do: Part Two”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on May 25th, 1979)

Horshack’s getting married!

For some reason, the Sweathogs throw him a bachelor party in Barbarino’s trashy apartment.  Barbarino isn’t there.  I assume he’s at work or maybe he finally moved back in with his family after realizing just how ugly and depressing his apartment was.  Seriously, I will never understand why a show would try to get viewers invested in such an ugly location.

Anyway, the bachelor party is a bust.  Epstein dresses up in drag and dances for Horshack.  The Sweathogs love it.  Horshack loves it.  But then the Sweathogs make a joke about how Horshack and Mary Johnson are going to be so poor that Mary is going to have to get a job washing bricks to support them.  Horshack realizes that they’re right.  He’s getting married in high school and he has absolutely zero marketable skills.  In fact, he’s such a weirdo that most people go out of their way to avoid him.  How is he going to support Mary?

Horshask freaks out and runs away.  After Mary shows them the note that Horshack left, in which he said that he was running away to become the type of man who could support her, the Sweathogs search all over Brooklyn for him.  Epstein goes to a Marine recruiting station.  Washington and Beau …. eh, I watched this show like 20 minutes ago and I’ve already forgotten what they did.  That’s how well-written this episode was.  Mary, however, knows that Horshack’s favorite movie is Wuthering Heights so she finds him at the local move theater.

They get married!  The ceremony is small and pathetic.  I don’t think a single member of Horshack’s family showed up.  Gabe does show up and, when the Sweathogs realize that Horshack needs a ring to give Mary, Gabe gives up his own wedding ring.  Julie approves.  They’re probably going to get divorced as soon as the show ends.

Gabe, who is usually portrayed as being very concerned with the future of his students, is totally cool with Horshack getting married while still a high school student.  At no point does he suggest that Horshack might be rushing into things or that a stunted manchild who can’t get a job might not be a good husband.  This was one of Kaplan’s rare appearance during the final season of the show but he doesn’t act much like the Mr. Kotter that we got to know over the previous three seasons.  It’s kind of like when Steve Carell came back for The Office finale and only said one line.  It just doesn’t feel right.

Apparently, this episode was meant to a backdoor pilot for a series that would have focused on Horshack and Mary.  I can’t imagine that working, though I would say that Mary and Horshack do look cute together at the end of the episode.

Speaking of endings, there are only two more episodes left!  Will the Sweathogs finally graduate?  We’ll find out!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.12 “The Good Doctor”

Posted on 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

It’s time to get back on that highway!

Episode 2.12 “The Good Doctor”

(Dir by William Claxton, originally aired on December 18th, 1985)

This week, Mark is super-excited about Jonathan’s new assignment.  They’re going to be working, as equipment managers, for a pro football team!  Mark’s excited because he loves football and he can’t wait to meet his favorite player of all time, a banged-up, aging guy named Alex Carpenter (Ray Young).

Jonathan, however, is concerned that everyone is on drugs.  Alex is in almost constant agony from his injuries and he’s gotten hooked on the pain pills that are provided to him by the team doctor, Dr. Dan Hickey (Michael Constantine).  Dan is hooked on pills himself, along with being an alcoholic.  Dan is such an addict that he doesn’t even realize that his son, medical student Neal (William Kirby Cullen), is now abusing drugs himself.  Everyone’s an addict and everyone’s in denial.

When Alex gets cut from the team, he is also cut off from his main supplier and soon, he’s tearing up his house while searching for any leftover pills.  (Jonathan appears and loudly encourages him to destroy his entire office while searching, presumably so Alex can see how out-of-control his addiction is.)  When Neal takes too many pills before his next exam, he ends up in the hospital.  And Dan is finally forced to admit that he hasn’t been a good doctor.

Does this episode end at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, attended by all three of the addicts?  You better believe it!

This was pretty much a typical Highway to Heaven episode.  This message was earnest and heartfelt but the direction and the script totally embraced the episode’s already heightened melodrama.  It wasn’t enough for Alex to get upset over not being able to find his pills.  Instead, he had to furiously toss everything around his office (and even break a window) while Jonathan shouted, “WHERE ARE THE PILLS, ALEX!?  WHERE ARE THEY!?”  It wasn’t enough for Dan to overprescribe pills.  He also had to be so drunk that he didn’t even notice when Jonathan materialized in his office.  And, of course, Neal had to OD because there was no way we were going to end this episode without someone being rushed to the hospital.  It was all a bit predictable but the show wasn’t incorrect when it came to discussing the dangers of abusing even prescription medication.  If the show aired today, the enemy would be fentanyl.  Since it was made in 1985, the enemy is instead just generic pain pills.

As often was the case with this series, the acting was a mixed bag but Michael Constantine was certainly effective as the “good doctor,” wandering through his day in a haze of pills and alcohol.  And Michael Landon delivered his denunciation of drugs with a quiet fury that let you know that he meant every word of it.

Next week, Jonathan and Mark help a young man who is living alone.