This what yet another week where I didn’t really watch any television, beyond the shows that I review for this site and also the weekly episode of Darkthat I watch with Case Writes. I’ve been busy getting ready for Monday, which is both St. Patrick’s Day and Kurt Russell’s birthday. But I have to admit that, even since my Dad passed away last year, watching silly reality shows hasn’t really appealed to me the way that it used to. I don’t how to explain it. I guess tastes change!
Anyway, maybe I’ll get caught up on Abbott Elementary, Survivor, and all the rest next week! I guess I’ll have to or else this weekly post is going to start to feel a bit superfluous!
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.
Horshack makes a decision about his future.
Episode 4.20 “Oo-Oo I Do! Part One”
(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on May 25th, 1979)
Horshack is shocked to suddenly realize that he has a girlfriend. To be honest, I think everyone’s a little shocked. Horshack doesn’t exactly come across like someone that anyone would want to have a romantic relationship with. He’s not particularly handsome, he’s got that terrible voice, he’s got those weird personal habits, and he’s like 50 years old and still in high school.
Still, when Horshack learns that he’s going to be transferred to another school because his mother married a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City, Horshack asks Mary Johnson to marry him. And Mary says yes.
NO, MARY! RUN, MARY, RUN!
So, let’s just consider this. One reason why Gabe Kaplan refused to appear in much of season four is because the show’s producers refused to consider his suggestions that the Sweathogs should graduate high school and move on to City College. But the producers were totally willing to have Horshack get married while in high school. Sure, that makes sense. Admittedly, people do get married in high school but few of them would marry Arnold Horshack. Plus, most high school marriages — at least in my experience — involve an unexpected pregnancy and it’s hard to view Horshack as being anything other than asexual. He’s just too weird a character for a episode dealing with real things, like love and marriage. I could buy Epstein getting married. I could buy Washington getting married. Beau …. sure, I could buy that. What would have been really cool would have been if one of Travolta’s episodes had featured him getting married. Even better would have been an episode where Gabe and Julie got divorced. Seriously, it would have made more sense than someone voluntarily saying, “I want to spend the rest of my life with the school weirdo.”
This is the first part of a two-part episode. If I’m not saying much about this episode it’s because this episode was 75% Horshack and Horshack annoys the heck out of me. When the show began, he was weird but he wasn’t quite as cartoonish as he became in the third and fourth seasons. This whole marriage two-parter was apparently a backdoor pilot for a show about Horshack adjusting to married life. Seriously, out of all the Sweathog, that’s the one they wanted to spin-off?
(What’s annoying is that occasionally –– like in this episode where Horshack was drinking — Ron Palillo would get a chance to show that he actually wasn’t a terrible actor but the show’s writers usually did him absolutely no favors.)
This episode really showed how far the show had fallen. Horshack is getting transferred to a new school and Gabe is nowhere to be seen. Horshack is getting married and again, Gabe is nowhere to be seen. It’s Welcome Back, Horshack now and the Sweathogs are truly doomed.
Since today is the Ides of March, it only makes sense that today’s song of the day should have the feel of the ancient Roman world. From the soundtrack of 1963’s Cleopatra (stop it, it’s a fun movie!), here is Cleopatra Enters Rome, composed by Alex North!
The scene below is from the 1953 film, Julius Caesar. This Oscar-nominated Shakespearean adaptation had a cast that was full of distinguished actors. James Mason played Brutus. The great John Gielgud played Cassius. Louis Calhern was Caesar while other roles were filled by Deborah Kerr, Greer Garson, Edmond O’Brien, George Macready, John Hoyt, Edmund Purdom. and a host of other distinguished thespians. And yet, the best performance in the film came from an actor who, at the time, no one considered to be a Shakespearean. Marlon Brando brought his method intensity to the role of Mark Antony and the result was a performance that is still electrifying today.
On YouTube, someone referred to this as being “the world’s greatest speech delivered by the world’s greatest actor.” Sounds good to me!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!
This week …. hey, it’s a good episode!
Episode 3.6 “Bad Penny”
(Dir by William Fruet, originally aired October 30th, 1989)
The Coin of Ziocles returns! Last seen being used by a cult to raise the dead, the Coin is recovered from a construction site at the start of this episode. This turned out to be the best episode of the third season so far. Here’s a few reasons why:
First off, with this episode, Friday the 13th finally showed that it still remembered its own history. The last time Jack, Micki, and Ryan sought the coin, Micki was actually killed and remained dead until Ryan and Jack figured out how to use the coin to bring her back to life. With this episode, we discover that Micki has some serious PTSD as a result of the experience which actually makes a lot of sense. In the past, I’ve always felt this show tended to gloss over just how traumatizing it would be to deal with cursed antiques on a daily basis. With this episode, we see that Micki can’t even look at the site where she was killed without starting to shake. It was realistic and Robey did a great job portraying Micki’s emotions.
In yet another nod to continuity, Johnny stole the coin and used it to bring back his dead father. In the past, I’ve felt like Johnny was a bit too quick to accept the idea of the antiques being cursed. With this episode, we saw that the inexperienced Johnny doesn’t quite understand that danger of the cured antiques. Ryan, Micki, and Jack would never have made the mistake of using the antique or trusting anything that had once been owned by Uncle Lewis but Johnny is still learning.
Steve Monarque and Sean McCann both did excellent work as Johnny and his father. Needless to say, Johnny’s father is confused when he’s brought back from the dead. His struggle to understand what was happening brought tears to my eyes. It’s been less than a year since I lost my Dad. I’d probably do the same thing Johnny did. In the end, Johnny sent his father back into the afterlife. It was so sad!
Micki writes a letter to Ryan. It’s probably one that she won’t ever send but it’s good to see that the show at least acknowledged how difficult it would have been for her to say goodbye to Ryan.
By mentioning Ryan so much, this show actually made it easier for me to accept Johnny as his replacement. Over the past few episodes, I kind of resented how quickly Johnny seemed to be stepping into replace him. This episode showed me that Ryan is still loved.
The villains — a corrupt cop and his zombified partner — were a bit over-the-top but still entertaining. For once, this episode focused on our heroes and I was glad it did.
This was an excellent episode of Friday the 13th! I hope it’s a sign of things to come for the rest of the third season.
Every so often I’m going to throw out a movie that I don’t think gets enough love, and that just doesn’t set right with me. Today’s movie is RED SUN.
In RED SUN, two of the most macho actors in the history of world cinema team up in a western where train robber Link (Bronson) is forced to lead the honorable samurai Kuroda (Mifune) on a cross country trek to reclaim a stolen sword that was intended to be a gift from the Empire of Japan to the US President. If the two men can’t get the sword back in a week’s time, honor demands that the two men will lose their lives out of shame. Link isn’t really down with this plan, but he doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter due to the power and skill of Kuroda. Charles Bronson & Toshiro Mifune command the screen, with Charlie showing a likable sense of humor in his role as the bad / good cowboy. The two must find the evil Gauche (French superstar Alain Delon). Gauche is Bronson’s old train robbing partner who stole the sword and killed a samurai in the process, providing even more motivation for Kuroda. Add in Ursula Andress as a sexy woman who has a history with both Link and Gauche, and it doesn’t get much better than this!
RED SUN is not a perfect movie, but I couldn’t imagine anyone being disappointed by this enjoyable East meets Western that features true international superstars. In my book, it’s highly recommended!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
It’s another day in Boston.
Episode 1.16 “Monday, Tuesday, Sven Day”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on March 1st, 1983)
It’s a busy day at St. Eligius. Here’s a breakdown:
The racial conflict is continuing. Putting a young white man and a young black man in the same hospital room leads to an all-out brawl. Some poor guy walking down the hall on a broken leg gets trampled in the melee. Agck!
A man in a crude astronaut’s uniform shows up at the ER. He doesn’t get any lines but his name tag identifies him as “J. Masius,” which is a reference to one of the show’s writers.
Oh, hey, it turns out that kid who claimed he was jumped by a bunch of black guys actually wasn’t jumped by a bunch of black guys. Instead, his father (Dick O’Neill) beat him up. Dr. Westphall threatens to beat up the kid’s dad. They may be old but they both grew up on the streets of Boston! What is it with old men from Boston and they’re need to threaten each other with fisticuffs?
Dr, Chandler hears another doctor make a racist remake and gets angry. “I keep forgetting he’s black,’ the doctor says.
Dr. Morrison apologizes on behalf of the racist doctor. Chandler tells Morrison that he’ll never understand what it’s like to be black. Morrison agrees but then points out that he only lives two blocks away from Chandler so he does understand what it’s like to live in a poor neighborhood. Uhmm….see, this is why I was kind of dreading watching this show try to deal with racism. St. Elsewhere has been a good show so far but well-intentioned TV writer liberalism is usually the cringiest liberalism there is.
Peter’s wife is pregnant. Peter is not the father. Peter asks a nurse for a loan so that he can pay his wife’s abortion.
By the way, Peter is sleeping with the nurse who unknowingly paid for his wife’s abortion.
There’s no way any of this is going to end well.
A sex worker comes in to get her appendix removed. “I love my job,” Fiscus says after telling her to undress. Ugh, what a pig. I get that guys say stuff like that when they’re talking to each other and that’s fine but you don’t say that to someone when they’re in terrible pain and in the emergency room.
Finally, the show’s best storyline featured Ehrlich going to party at Dr. Craig’s house for a visiting Scandinavian doctor named Sven. Ehrlich brings Shirley Daniels as his date and proceeds to have way too much to drink. This storyline was fun because it highlight William Daniels’s wonderfully sardonic portrayal of the abrasive Dr. Craig. I love that Ehrlich is both terrified of and desperate to impress him. Drunk Ed Begley, Jr. was definitely this episode’s highlight.
This was an okay episode. It wasn’t the most memorable that I’ve seen but I did enjoy that terrible party at Dr. Craig’s house. Terrible parties are always so much more fun to watch than good ones.
Sharing that Michael Caine scene reminded me of how much I loved the soundtrack of the entire Dark Knight trilogy. Here, from the end of the Dark Knight, is a bit of Hans Zimmer’s iconic score.
Today’s music video of the day is the latest from Jessica Simpson. Jessica Simpson actually went to my high school, though she was a student long before I got there. She was often held up as an example of what we, as students, could achieve even though she dropped out without graduating.
In other words, don’t worry too much about that diploma.
Through the Shattered Lens 