Bob Barker, a pop cultural institution if there ever was one, passed away today. He was 99 years old. And while he will probably be best-remembered for his long run as the host of The Price Is Right, he will also always be remembered for beating up Adam Sandler in my favorite golf film, Happy Gilmore.
Barker himself reportedly turned down the cameo when it was first offered to him but accepted it after he was assured that he would be winning the fight.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 9 pm et, Tim Buntley will be hosting #ScarySocial! The movie? 1984’s The Toxic Avenger!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Toxic Avenger is available on Prime!
See you there!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, Mr. T takes on drug dealers and mad bombers!
Episode 1.5 “The Drop”
(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on February 8th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a kid’s life is shattered when he’s arrested for dealing drugs. Amy and I try to pick the pieces, with some unexpected help from Renee!”
This episode begins with one of my favorite cop show clichés. A suspected drug courier is grabbed by two cops. They open the envelope that he was carrying and discover a white powder. One of the cops puts some of the power on her fingers and then sticks her fingers in her mouth.
“High grade crack!” she announced.
Hey, just be happy it wasn’t anthrax!
In this case, the accused courier is a 14 year-old named Norm (Gerry Musgrave), who says that he has no idea what was in the envelopes and he was only carrying them because he answered a classified ad asking for delivery people. However, the prosecution is determined to send a message by trying Norm as an adult! Fortunately, Norm is friends with T.S.’s goddaughter, Renee (Rachael Crawford). Renee brings T.S. and Amy onto the case.
“Loosen up, brother, you already convinced us,” T.S. tells Norm, “Now we just got to the convince the court.”
Norm moves into T.S.’s home, where he is looked after by the gospel-singing Aunt Martha (Jackie Robinson). While Jackie helps Norm get settled in, Renee approaches T.S. and says, “I’ve seen the ads on crack. I know what it does.”
“And you want to help Norm,” T.S. says, “Don’t get involved! People dealing drugs are very dangerous!”
Renee does not take T.S.’s advice and instead, approaches the school drug dealer, Bob Douglas (Jeremy Ratchford). She compliments Bob on his red trans am and Bob invites her to meet up with him at a local disco. Renee’s friends tell her that she might be making a mistake but Renee snaps that she can’t look the other way like everyone else at school.
While Renee skips class so she can meet up with Bob at the most depressing nightclub I’ve ever seen (seriously, there’s just one very sad disco ball hanging over the dance floor), T.S. meets with Fat Sam, who is not fat and who is played by future television director Clark Johnson! (As an actor, Johnson is probably best-known for playing Meldrick Lewis on Homicide and later Gus Johnson on The Wire.)
“Fat Sam,” T.S. says, “you’re the coolest dude I know!”
“As long as the dice keep rolling my way,” Fat Sam replies, “Rumor on the street has it that you’re looking for a specific crack dealer.”
“Be honest with you, Fat Sam,” T.S. replies, “I want to bust all the crack dealers but I want this one first.”
Fat Sam makes some phone calls and tells T.S. that the crack dealer he’s looking for is …. BOB DOUGLAS!
“Thanks, Fat Sam, I owe you one,” T.S. replies.
Meanwhile, Bob Douglas has taken Renee to his loft apartment! When Bob discovers the Renee has been searching his apartment while he was distracted, Bob has a paranoid breakdown, accuses Renee of being a narc, and makes a run for it. Fortunately, T.S. and Amy show up in time to catch him and clear Norm’s name! Yay!
This episode suffered a bit because, for all the build-up, it turned out that all Amy and T.S. needed to do to prove Norm’s innocence was to get Fat Sam to make one phone call. It felt a bit anticlimactic, to say the least. This is a case where the limits of that 30-minute running time really worked against the story the show was trying to tell. That said, Mr. T growling against crack is always enjoyable to watch.
Episode 1.6 “Something In The Air”
(Dir by Allan A. Goldstein, originally aired on February 15th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tell us, “a radio DJ is the target of an angry phone caller. While Amy fights to keep the D.J. on the air, I get to make a few calls of my own.”
After radio DJ PJ Reynolds (Lee Curreri) encourages his listeners to “take it to the streets,” one of his listeners blows up a mailbox. The district attorney wants to take Reynolds off the air! Fortunately, Reynold is a client of Amy Taler’s! When Louney (Neil Munro), the smarmy D.A. tries to convince Amy and T.S. to deliver a court summons to the DJ, T.S. replies, “Sorry, brother. We ain’t a delivery service!”
Because there’s only one explosives dealer in all of Canada, Turner confronts his friend Whisperer (Martin Donlevy) and demands to know who he has been selling to. Whisperer says that he sold a timer to a man who said that he wanted to take down Reynolds. “He sounded like someone who was used to getting what he wants.” Somehow, T.S. figures that this means Louney is behind the bombings. Turner needs Louney to call the show again but Reynolds has voluntarily taken himself off the air.
“Let’s talk responsibility,” Turner snaps at the DJ, “That’s the big talk!”
Convined that he has a responsibility, Reynolds goes back on the air and Louney can’t help but call him. Though Louney hangs up before the police can trace the call, T.S. is staking out Louney’s house and, as soon as Louney steps outside with a briefcase bomb, Turner goes after him. It leads to a car chase that ends with T.S. capturing Louney and forcing to Louney to defuse his latest bomb right before it detonates.
A grateful PJ promises that, from now on, he’s going to be “Mr. Mellow” on the air. When Amy says she doesn’t think it’ll happen, PJ says, “You’ll have to tune in and see.”
“Not me, brother,” T.S. replies, “I’m going to stick to my TV …. it’s my favorite medium!”
I liked this episode because it stood up for free speech. Any show that exposes a power-crazed bureaucrat, I’m going to enjoy.
Next week, Amy and T.S. search for …. THE SILVER ANGEL!
In honor of what would have been Sean Connery’s 93rd birthday, today’s scene that I love comes from the film for which Connery won an Oscar, 1987’s The Untouchables.
In this scene, Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness first meets Sean Connery’s Jim Malone.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got my favorite screwball comedy, 1936’s My Man Godfrey!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
My Man Godfrey is available on Prime and YouTube! See you there!
Hey, they’re back!
Don’t ever get me started on the title, though.
Here’s the trailer for The Expend4bles, which will be released on September 22nd!
Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan will be co-starring Amazon’s FOE, which will be released to theaters in October 6th. The advertising is already making references to “visionary director” Garth Davis. Did people learn their lesson about tossing around words like “visionary” with Malcolm & Marie?
Anyway, here’s the trailer!
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 City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, City Guys finally comes to an end.
Episode 5.25 “And Then There Were None”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 8th, 2001)
Having graduated from Manny High, the gang (and Ms. Noble!) gather together at the Manhattan Diner so that they can remember all of the adventures they had over the past five years of high school. I can understand a group of high school friends wanting to get together for one last time before going to college but what is the principal doing there? I mean, Ms. Noble has retired. Why isn’t she hanging out with her husband? Why isn’t she in the Hamptons? WHY IS SHE STILL HANGING OUT WITH THESE KIDS!?
Anyway, as you may have guessed, this is a clip show. We get clips of Dawn crusading for the environment during the first season and then a scene of her getting drunk at Chris’s penthouse. And then we get a clip of that weird time that Ms. Noble tricked L-Train into thinking she couldn’t walk. We relive a few of the times that Al and L-Train did something stupid. Cassidy remembers some cringey radio drama that she did with Chris and Jamal and, for some reason, she also remembers Chris’s terrible Austin Powers impersonation. Finally, Chris and Jamal remember their stupid radio show. After everyone has left, Chris and Jamal share one final embrace and then Chris leaves Manhattan Diner. Jamal stands at the booth alone and …. wow, that’s kind of depressing.
In general, I loathe clip shows but I usually make an exception if they are a part of a series finale. City Guys is a show that I grew tired of reviewing about halfway through the 4th season but the finale actually was kind of touching. If nothing else, the cast themselves seemed to be genuinely emotional about filming their final scenes together.
However, this effective episode was not the final episode of City Guys to air. There was one more episode to go….
Episode 5.26 “Al’s In Toyland”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 15th, 2001)
As I’ve often said while reviewing both City Guys and Hang Time, NBC didn’t really pay much attention to little things like showing episodes in the order in which they were supposed to be seen. Nowhere is this more evident than with the final episode City Guys, which finds the gang back in high school despite having graduated and left for college in the previous episodes. This is because Al In Toyland was not meant to be the series finale. It was meant to air earlier in the season but it was pushed back because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
This episode opens by reminding us that Ms. Noble is a monster as she announces that she has signed Jamal, Chris, L-Train, Dawn, and Cassidy up for the marching band without telling them ahead of time. She explains that they all need an elective arts credit. (Cassidy has appeared off-Broadway but somehow doesn’t have an elective arts credit?) The band, of course, practices on the roof of the school and the gang is horrified to discover how uncool the band kids are.
Why isn’t Al in the band? It’s because he’s working in advertising! The president of Snappy Toys has hired Al to do commercials for him because he was impressed by Al’s suggestion that “Snappy Toys Ain’t Just For Kids No more” could be their new slogan. Somehow, this leads to L-Train starring in a commercial. I mean, it’s strange enough that a company would put Al in charge of their advertising but why would they hire L-Train to star in their commercial?
Snappy Toys asks Al to develop a campaign for a toy gun known as the Annihilator. L-Train tells a story about a friend of his who entered a store with a toy gun and got shot by the owner. Al promises that he’ll develop a non-violent commercial for the gun but his boss says that he wants the commercial to look like the “opening scene of Scream!”
While Al works on his advertising career, Chris, Jamal, Dawn, Cassidy, and L-Train discover that the band kids really know how to party. In fact, they’re throwing a rave …. on the roof of the school! It turns out that the band has very high standards and, after a pep rally, they kick Chris, Jamal, Dawn, Cassidy, and L-Train out of the band for just not being cool enough. I guess they listened to Chris and Jamal’s radio show.
Meanwhile, Al sees his younger sibling playing with the guns and pretending to be dead. He decides that he can’t work for Snappy Toys. He quits but his boss assures him that, “a kid like you, who stands up for what he believes in — you have a great future.”
And so ends City Guys! And, to be honest, Al’s In Toyland wasn’t a terrible episode. I liked the fact that Al’s boss was not portrayed as being some sort of sleazy, money-crazed villain but instead just as a reasonable businessman making business decisions. And I even liked the band subplot, if just because it featured all of the main characters being put in their place for once.
What is left to say about City Guys? City Guys was the show that I used to launch Reto Television Reviews. I’ve been watching and reviewing the show for nearly a year. At first, I kind of enjoyed the show and then I got kind of annoyed the show and, by the fifth season, I think it was pretty obvious that I was ready to be done with it. That said, I do feel a little emotional saying goodbye to it. City Guys was a show that had a few good moments, though it never really escaped the shadow of better Peter Engel-produced shows like California Dreams and Saved By The Bell.
Next week, we’ll be starting a look at a new show on Thursday. Here’s a preview:
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!
For this week’s cruise, Julie learns that she’s not the only person who can do her job!
Episode 3.3 “The Grass is Greener/Three Stages of Love/Oldies But Goodies”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on September 22nd, 1979)
This week, Julie is super excited when her friend, Tina Philips (Joan Hackett), boards the cruise with her young son, Brian (Adam Rich). Tina and Julie went to cruise director school together, where they were both taught by none other than Captain Stubing.
(As I’ve mentioned before, there have been a lot of weird continuity issues with establishing just how long anyone had actually known Captain Stubing. During the first season, everyone was unsure of what to make of Captain Stubing and none of them had any experience sailing with him. But, in the second season, Stubing was suddenly celebrating his five year anniversary as the ship’s captain. And, in this episode, Stubing is established as being Julie’s mentor.)
Tina had a crush on Stubing while she was a student and Stubing had a bit of a crush on her as well. Though Tina could have had a great career as a cruise director, she decided to get married and settle down instead. Now, with her marriage falling apart, Tina boards the boat and immediately starts giving Stubing and Julie advice. Julie, meanwhile, takes care of Brian while Tina dances with the captain. Tina lives Julie’s life and Julie lives the life she could have had if she had stayed in Alaska and gotten married. It turns out that Julie’s a great substitute mom but Tina is a terrible substitute cruise director. Her idea of throwing a sock hop is a huge bust and, to be honest, it does seem a bit childish for a luxury cruise. In the end, Tina returns to being a single mom and Julie returns to being childless and career-driven. Yay, I guess.
Meanwhile, Nora (Amanda Blake) boards the ship with her daughter, Daphne (Karen Morrow). Daphne is determined to marry a millionaire but Nora is the one who finds love when she meets the wheelchair-bound Phillip (Barry Sullivan). Unfortunately, Phillip’s stuffy valet, Perkins (Werner Klemperer), insists that Philip needs to stay in his cabin and watch his blood pressure. Fear not, though. Daphne finds a millionaire and the millionaire hires away Perkins so now Phillip and Nora are free to have fun. Yay!
(Though, really, Phillip should keep an eye on his blood pressure….)
Finally, Mike (Eddie Mekka) and Robin (Lani O’Grady) seems like a perfect couple, except for the fact that Mike is convinced that all relationships go through three stages before ending and he has an annoying habit of saying stuff like, “We’ve just entered stage two!” Robin gets tired of Mike and his cynicism and eventually, Mike decides to give love a try because …. well, I’m not sure why. I think it was because the episode was nearly over.
This episode was pleasant but, ultimately, rather forgettable. Nora and Phillip were a nice couple but Perkins was portrayed in an over-the=top villainous light, especially when one considers that he was just doing the job he was hired to do. Mike and Robin seemed like they were still destined to break up, even as they left the ship in love. I did enjoy the scenes in which Tina’s sock hop party turned out to be a bust, just because it seemed like a dumb idea from the minute she mentioned it. That said, the main message of this episode seemed to be that having a family and career were two mutually exclusive things, which I certainly did not agree with.
Again, this was not necessarily a bad episode. It was just kind of a bland one.
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 entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!
Smiles!
Episode 3.11 “The Mermaid/The Victim”
(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on December 1st, 1979)
This week, Fantasy Island suddenly becomes the most dangerous place on Earth.
Julie Bett (Joan Prather) comes to the island with a simple fantasy. She wants a date — just one date — with a man that she met briefly four years ago. Mr. Roarke asks Julie if perhaps she has overidealized her memories of Michael Duvall (James Darren). Julie says no and that Michael is the ideal man. Roarke reveals that Duvall lives on a nearby island where Roarke has no legal authority. Julie says that fine, since the date will be on Fantasy Island. Roarke reveals that Duvall is usually not allowed to step foot on Fantasy Island because of his shady reputation. Julie replies that there’s nothing shady about Michael Duvall. Roarke finally allows Duvall to come to Fantasy Island for the date.
Of course, within minutes of arriving, Duvall has drugged Julie’s drink and then whisked her back to his own island. It turns out that Michael Duvall is a Jeffrey Epstein-style human trafficker and his estate doubles as a prison for the women that he had abducted. His evil assistant, Madame Jeannot (Yvonne DeCarlo), announces that there is no way that Julie can escape and, to prove her point, she introduces Julie to Annie (Cathryn O’Neil), who tried to escape and was severely beaten as a result.
Julie tries to rally the other prisoners (including Dorothy Stratten, who would be murdered 8 months after this episode aired) to fight back against Duvall, Jeannot, and their servant. If her rebellion fails, Julie knows that she’ll never be seen again….
Meanwhile, oceanographer Harold DeHaven (John Saxon) has come to Fantasy Island with his wife, Amanda (Mary Ann Mobley). Harold and Amanda have a troubled marriage, largely because Harold is too obsessed with his work and his desire to make a major discovery of some sort. No sooner has Harold started walking along the beach then he comes across a mermaid! Princess Nyah (Michelle Phillips) is apparently a well-known figure on Fantasy Island and, at one point, Roarke even confronts Nyah about her history of trying to lure the guests to their deaths. Can Amanda prevent her husband from drowning in his attempt to be with Princess Nyah?
(This episodes leaves us to wonder just what exactly Fantasy Island’s legal liability would be if someone died as a result of their fantasy. Seriously, it seems like Mr. Roarke has really left himself vulnerable to a lawsuit.)
Anyway, Julie and the other kidnapped women manage to escape from Duvall’s estate, just to find Mr. Roarke and a bunch of policemen waiting for them. Roarke explains that he knew what Duvall was doing but he needed proof before he could contact that authorities. Julie provided the proof. Essentially, Roarke is saying that he put Julie’s life at risk to take down Duvall but Julie and the other women seem to be amused by the whole thing. Everyone smiles as Mr. Roarke says that he’ll take them back to Fantasy Island. I guess PTSD doesn’t exist on the islands.
Meanwhile, Amanda’s efforts to keep Harold from swimming off with Nyah nearly leads to Amanda drowning. Seeing his wife risk her life for him, Harold realizes that he really does love Amanda and both he and Amanda return to dry land. Disappointed, Nyah swims off.
Yay! Everyone lived! As they all left the Island, no one seemed to be the least bit traumatized by nearly dying. At the plane flies away, Roarke suggest that Nyah’s new target might be Tattoo. “Be serious, boss,” Tattoo, “I can’t even swim.” The thought of his assistant dying a terrible death from drowning cause Roarke to laugh out loud as the end credits roll.
There was a weird episode and compulsively watchable as a result. Seriously, how do you not love John Saxon following Michelle Phillips into water? That said, Fantasy Island seems like a very dangerous place.
Through the Shattered Lens 