Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.10 “The Over-The-Hill-Gang/Poof, You’re A Movie Star!”

Posted on November 15, 2022 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!

Smiles, everyone! Smiles!

Episode 1.10 “The Over-The-Hill-Gang/Poof, You’re A Movie Star!”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on April 15th, 1978)

Uh-oh, Tattoo has a new money-making scheme! It involves a parrot. While the exact details of Tattoo’s schemes are a bit vague, it all involves teaching the parrot how to speak. Again, I’m not sure how exactly that’s going to make Tattoo a lot of money but whatever. I like parrots.

Still, it’s hard not to notice that Tattoo seems to spend a lot of time trying to figure out ways to make extra money. Tattoo is the second-in-command at the world’s most prestigious resort so you have to wonder why he always seems to be so desperate to bring in some extra cash. It’s not like Tattoo is paying rent or even buying his own food. That’s all provided by Mr. Roarke and the island. Add to that, it has been implied that Tattoo is in charge of the island’s finances and that’s not a job that you give to someone who can’t handle his own money. Maybe Tattoo isn’t looking to make money for himself. Maybe Fantasy Island is on the verge of bankruptcy due to Roarke’s habit of giving people free fantasies. Maybe the talking parrot is Tattoo’s latest scheme to save the Island. If that’s the case, then Tattoo really is the secret hero of this series.

I actually wish this episode has spent more time with the parrot because that little throw-away story was still more interesting than the two main stories. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a bad episode. It’s just a bit bland.

Shirley Russell (Barbi Benton) comes to the Island with dreams of becoming a movie star. Mr. Roarke simply snaps his fingers and suddenly, Shirley has not only an agent but also hundreds of fans following her everywhere that she goes. She also has a role in a big movie that will be filming on the Island! When the film’s producer (played by a veteran sleazy guy Herb Edelman) tells Shirley that she’ll have to film a nude scene for the movie, Shirley abandons her fantasy and happily reunites with her earnest fiancé. Barbi Benton was likable as Shirley but the fantasy itself was predictable and on the blah side. Shirley’s shock over the proposed nude scene made me wonder if she had actually watched any movies other than The Sound of Music.

The other fantasy dealt with Spencer Randolph (Ray Bolger), an aging bank robber who wanted to pull off one last job with his old gang before marrying a wealthy businesswoman. Bolger’s old gang was made up of familiar Hollywood character actors like Tom Ewell, Foster Brooks, and Phil Foster. Along with getting the old gang back together again, Spencer was also able to foil a blackmail scheme. Again, the storyline was a bit bland but the chemistry between all of the Hollywood veterans was enjoyable. Ray Bolger was just as spry and likable here as he was when he played the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Interestingly enough, 39 years passed between The Wizard of Oz and this episode of Fantasy Island and Bolger was still younger than Joe Biden is today when he played Spencer Randolph, the leader of the over-the-hill gang.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.6 “The Joker Is Mild / Take My Granddaughter, Please / First Time Out”

Posted on October 12, 2022 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!

Come aboard, we’re expecting you….

The Love Boat 1.5 “The Joker Is Mild / Take My Granddaughter, Please / First Time Out”

(Dir by Richard Kinon and Alan Rafkin, originally aired on October 29th, 1977)

This week’s cruise is all about remaining true to yourself!

For instance, Julie makes what appears to be a big mistake when she agrees to let a washed-up comic named Barry Keys (Phil Foster) do a show in the ship’s lounge. Throughout the cruise, Barry gets on everyone’s nerves with his old-fashioned jokes and his vaudeville stylings. Captain Stubing gives Julie an annoyed look whenever Barry starts to speak. Julie knows that her career is on the line but she made a promise. And Barry, it turns out, know what he’s doing. When it comes time for his performance, he asks for a stool so that he can sit in the middle of the stage and talk about the generation gap. (“Let’s rap, as the kids say,” Barry says.) Hooray! Barry has revived his career and Julie still has a job.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Warner (Ruth Gordon) is determined to find a husband for her granddaughter, Shirley (Patty Duke, who spends the entire episode looking as if she’s wondering how she could go from winning an Oscar to this). Shirley would like to hook up with the pleasantly bland Dave King (played by Tab Hunter). Mrs. Warner wants her to go out with Dr. Bricker! In the end, Shirley stands up for herself, as any single 30 year-old should. (To be honest, I thought Patty Duke’s character was closer to 40 but that’s mostly the fault of whoever in the costume department decided to make her wear some of the least flattering outfits available.) It’s all for the best. Dave is a nice guy and Doc has an exam room full of pornographic magazines to take care of.

Finally, a group of college students board the ship with one mission in mind. They want their friend Dan (Robert Hegyes, who has a truly impressive head of hair) to lose his virginity. Dan, it turns out, is not only shy but he also has no idea how to talk to women. Fortunately, her runs into Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) and it turns out that Marica likes shy, socially awkward guys with a lot of hair. Okay, technically Maureen is playing Barbara Holmes but seriously, we all know that Barbara was actually Marcia.

This was a majorly uneven episode. Barry’s revised act didn’t seem any funnier than his old stuff and it was kind of hard to sympathize with Shirley and her inability to make her own decisions. That said, Maureen McCormick and Robert Hegyes made for a cute couple and their storyline was the most satisfying of the episode. Personally, I think this episode would have worked better if Ruth Gordon had played Maureen McCormick’s grandmother as opposed to Patty Duke’s. McCormick was young enough that it would have been a bit less pathetic for her to be bossed around by her grandmother and one can imagine how Ruth Gordon would have reacted to McCormick picking hairy Dan over a doctor.

Oh well! The important thing is that everything worked out in the end and love won’t hurt anymore.

Shattered Politics #40: The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington (dir by William A. Levey)

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“God bless you, Ms. Hollander! You have saved us from recession!”

— Dialogue from The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington (1977)

Le sigh.

The things that I do for this site!

If I wasn’t currently in the process of watching and reviewing 94 films about politicians and politics, I can guarantee that I would never have watched The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington. However, while I was looking for films to review for this series, I went over to Netflix and did a search on “Washington.”

Guess which film came up first?

If you guessed The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington, you would be correct! And you know what? I watched this movie with an open mind. As anyone who has read this site knows, I have never been shy about my love of old exploitation films. The fact of the matter is that some of the most imaginative films ever made were low-budget grindhouse movies. Nothing angers me more than elitist film bloggers who dismiss a film just because it originally played in grindhouse cinema.

But, honestly, The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington is just bad. It’s boring. The acting is terrible. The jokes fall flat. The attempts at political satire are about as clever as what you’d find on any site trying to read like the Onion without actually being the Onion.

In the Happy Hooker Goes To Washington, Joey Heatherton plays Xaviera Hollander, a former madam who is now a businesswoman, magazine publisher, and sex advise columnist. She is apparently the world’s leading authority on sex. We know this because, when she first appears, she’s surrounded by reporters. “When sex is news, you’re news!” one of them tells her.

Xaviera has been called to testify in front of the Senate Committee To Investigate Sexual Excess In America. And goddamn, this movie is stupid. But anyway, Xaviera goes to Washington to stand up for sexual freedom. Accompanying her is an attorney named Ward Thompson (George Hamilton) and, quicker than you can say “Fifth place on Dancing With The Stars,” Ward is explaining to Xaviera why her testimony is so important.

“We’re heading right into the teeth of a new puritanism,” he tells her. “Under the new puritanism, there won’t be any happy hookers!”

Anyway, Xaviera testifies in front of the committee and we get a few flashbacks to some of Xaviera’s past accomplishments. And then she gets recruited by a dwarf (Billy Barty) and is sent to seduce an Middle Eastern ruler and … well, it just keep going and going. This is one of the longest 84-minute films ever released.

Anyway, this movie sucks. (And so does Xaviera! That’s the level of humor that you can expect when you watch The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington.) It’s still lurking around Netflix. Avoid it at all costs.