Tag Archives: Roxie Roker

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.8 “The Kleptomaniac/Thank God I’m A Country Girl”

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, we’re reminded that Fantasy Island is apparently the country music capitol of the world.

Episode 6.8 “The Kleptomaniac/Thank God I’m A Country Girl”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on December 11th, 1982)

Fred Simpson (Sherman Hemsley) is a kleptomaniac.  Whenever he sees anything shiny, he hears a bong in his head, explosions occur behind his eyes, and he has to steal it.  He always returns what he steals and pays back his friends but it’s still ruining his life.  No one trusts him.  He comes to Fantasy Island looking to be cured.  Mr. Roarke assigns Tattoo to keep an eye on Fred on the Island.  Unfortunately, Fred is still driven to steal an expensive necklace from courier Emily Carlisle (Roxie Roker).  Fred and Tattoo end up in jail!  Poor Tattoo!

(Seriously, what did Roarke think would happen when he gave that assignment to Tattoo?)

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure that Fred actually got his fantasy.  He and Emily do fall in love and he leaves the Island with her but I’m not sure his kleptomania was cured.  Maybe Emily will provide whatever was missing from his life that caused him to steal.  This episode is somewhat progressive in that acknowledges that kleptomania is an uncontrollable impulse, one that is usually linked to trauma.  (After my parents got divorced, I went through a phase of regularly skipping school so I could shoplift makeup from Target.  It was probably a cry for help on my part, though it just seemed like an adrenaline rush at the time.)  Still, what happens if Fred and Emily break up?  Fred’s got a serious problem and I hate to think that he spent all that money to come to Fantasy Island just so he could go home and get tossed in prison.

Meanwhile, Loretta Wentworth (Loretta Lynn) works at the local Fantasy Island diner.  Lorraine Wentworth (Heather Locklear), the daughter that Loretta gave up for adoption years ago, is coming to the Island to meet her mother for the first time.  Loretta’s fantasy is to be rich for the weekend.  Roarke gives her a nice house and a bunch of servants.  Lorraine is impressed until her jerk of a fiancé (Ted McGinley) tries to put the moves on Loretta.  In the end, things work out, of course.  Lorraine and Loretta grow close.  Loretta and her friends board a bus and say they’re going to Nashville so that Loretta can pursue her country music career.  How is anyone going to drive from Fantasy Island to Nashville?  There’s a big old ocean in the way.

This episode really didn’t do much for me, despite the presence of Heather Locklear and Ted McGinley.  It was nice to see Tattoo get involved in someone’s fantasy and Roarke got to give a speech about the true meaning of love but neither fantasy really worked for me.  Loretta Lynn was a great singer but a very stiff actress.  This trip to the Island was not as memorable as it could have been.

A Blast From The Past: The Day My Kid Went Punk (dir by Fern Field)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First produced in 1987, the short film The Day My Kid Went Punk tells the story of Terry Warner (Jay Underwood), a clean-cut teenager and aspiring violinist who lands a summer job working as a daycare counselor at a luxury hotel.

Feeling that he’s been neglected in favor of his high achieving older brother and his younger sister, Terry acts like a typical middle child and decides to change his image right after leaving home for his job.  (It worked for Jan Brady!)  He decides to become a punk.  (Jan Brady never went that far.)  Could this have something to do with his mother (Christine Belford) being the nation’s leading expert on the “Punk Syndrome,” that is terrifying parents everywhere?  Or could it just be because Terry knows that he’ll never be as cool as his father (Bernie Kopell), who might claim to be named Tom Warner but who is obviously just Adam Bricker living in the suburbs?  Every time Tom looks at his “punk” son, you can just see him dreading the thought of word of this getting back to Captain Stubing.

(Incidentally, the family in film is clearly named Warner but, in all of the advertisements that I’ve seen for this special, including the one at the top of the post, they’re identified as being the Nelson family.)

Needless to say, Terry Warner is, in no way, a convincing punk and judging from the film’s dialogue and plot, it would appear that the film doesn’t really know the difference between punk, goth, and heavy metal.  Everyone at the hotel is a bit taken aback by Terry’s appearance but he proves himself to be a good worker and the kids absolutely love riding horses with him.  I guess the message is that you shouldn’t judge someone based solely on how he looks.  That’s a good message except that it’s ultimately undercut by Terry himself and his decision abandon his punk look as soon as it inconveniences him at school.  So, I guess the message is that teens should dress the way they want unless it keeps them from winning first chair in the school band and parents shouldn’t worry because teenagers are so shallow that they’ll abandon anything after a month or two.  The film suggests that Punk is less of a syndrome and more of a fad that whiny middle children go through during the summer.

(Myself, I’m not a middle child.  I’m the youngest of four and I’ve never felt particularly ignored, even if there were times when it seemed like being left alone would be a nice change of pace.  That said, I definitely went through some phases while I was growing up.  During my junior and senior years of high school, I always made sure that I was wearing at least one black garment and I wrote emo poetry under the name Pandora DeSaad.)

Anyway, Halloween’s approaching and this very (and I do mean very) campy short film feels like a good way to welcome a month that encourages everyone, young and old, to think about putting on costumes.  Here is The Day My Kid Went Punk!

Retro Television Reviews: Making of a Male Model (dir by Irving J. Moore)

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1983’s Making of a Male Model!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

While visiting the set of an outdoor shoot in Nevada, high-powered modeling agent Kay Dillon (Joan Collins) spots a ranch hand named Tyler Burnett (Jon-Erik Hexum).  Tyler is tall, athletic, handsome, and polite.  When Kay asks Tyler if he’s ever modeled, Tyler scoffs at the idea.  Him?  A model?  He’d rather stay in Nevada and work on the ranch.  However, when the girl he likes turns him down because he doesn’t have any money, Tyler reconsiders Kay’s offer.

Before you can say Midnight Cowboy, Tyler is walking around Times Square while dressed like a cowboy.  At first, Tyler is resistant to Kay’s suggestions on how to improve his look.  He doesn’t want anyone messing with her ear or trimming his eyebrows.  But, after a humiliating meeting with a photographer who tells him that he just doesn’t have the right look, Tyler agrees to let Kay turn him into a male model.  Not only does she fix his look but she also takes him to bed.

Soon, Tyler is one of the country’s most well-known faces.  He branches out into commercials, using his sex appeal to sell products to the men who want be him.  And yet, Tyler still feels lost.  He’s not sure if Kay actually loves him or if she’s just using him.  Meanwhile, his roommate, Chuck Lanyard (Jeff Conaway), is a former model who is now hooked on drugs and who constantly warns Tyler that all models are washed up by the time they hit 35.  Tyler becomes disillusioned with his life as a model but is he capable of giving up the fame and the money and returning to Nevada?  Or is he destined to follow in Chuck’s footsteps and head down a path of drugs and self-destruction?

Welcome to the world of decadence, 80s style!  Making of a Male Model is one of those films where the synthesizer-heavy soundtrack plays through every scene and the only thing more dramatic than the line readings is the hair and the shoulder pads.  It’s all a bit silly, none more so that when Tyler and Kay go to a costume party.  Kay dressed up like Cleopatra.  Tyler wears a cowboy hat.  One random extra wears an oversized headpiece with two gigantic eyes painted at either end.  It’s not so much Studio 54 as much as it’s Studio 54 as imagined by someone who has heard of the place but never visited.  It’s decadent but it’s never quite authentic.  The film captures the joy of not only looking good but also knowing that you look good but it never captures the tedium that can go into being on a shoot.  It’s a film about the reality of modeling that never bothers to get that real but so what?  You don’t watch a film called Making of a Male Model because you’re looking for reality.

Joan Collins appears to be having fun in the role of Kay.  John-Erik Hexum, who was a real-life model, gives a rather stiff performance in the role of Tyler.  He looks good but he struggles whenever he has to show any emotion beyond being slightly annoyed.  If anyone really stands out in the cast, it’s Jeff Conaway.  Conaway brings a bit of genuine sadness to his role but you’ll guess what’s going to happen to Chuck long before it actually does.  Finally, Kevin McCarthy (the actor, not the Congressman) plays one of Kay’s business rivals.  He doesn’t get to do much but it’s always nice to see Kevin McCarthy playing yet another sophisticated but ruthless businessman.

In the end, the film doesn’t have anything surprising to say about the world of modeling and Tyler is never that interesting of a protagonist.  However, there’s just enough 80s melodrama and 80s fashion to keep things watchable.