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!
This week, Robert Reed turns into a vampire!
Episode 2.13 “The Lady and the Longhorn/Vampire”
(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on December 16th, 1978)
Tattoo is excited because Vera Templeton (Eva Gabor) is coming to the island. Vera is the glamorous owner of a cosmetics company and she is looking for a location to shoot a commercial for her makeup. Tattoo hopes that she’ll hire him to direct so he puts on a red beret to make him look more like a director. Mr. Roarke rolls his eyes, letting us know that he has no time for Tattoo’s foolishness. NOT THIS WEEK!
Actually, this turns out to be a very foolish week indeed. Vera Templeton is not just coming to the Island to shoot a commercial. She is on the verge of going bankrupt and needs to marry a rich man. She meets Hollis Buford, Jr. (Jack Elam), who wears a cowboy hat and picks his teeth and talks about the rodeo a lot but who is apparently a millionaire. He’s also supposed to be from Dallas. (I’m from Dallas and I can assure you that the cattle barons live in Fort Worth.) Vera flirts with Hollis by speaking in a painfully bad Southern accent. Vera and Hollis get engaged. Hollis seems to love Vera but Vera just wants his money and we are supposed to find this funny.
Vera’s bratty and annoying daughter (Tammy Lauren) doesn’t like Hollis, even though he seems like a perfectly well-meaning guy. So, she sells her stocks to Vera’s butler (Lloyd Bochner) and Vera marries her butler after telling Hollis that their marriage just won’t work out. “Dagnabbit,” Hollis says, “Now, I have to find another date to the rodeo.”
What an annoying fantasy. Not only did the humor fall flat but it was a bit mean-spirited as well.
Meanwhile, Leo Drake (Robert Reed) and his wife, Carmen (Julie Sommars) have come to the Island. Roarke explains that Leo is a method actor.
“That means he like to become the role that he plays,” Tattoo says, “Like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.”
(And that is probably the only time in history that Robert Reed has even been compared to Sylvester Stallone.)
Leo has been cast in a remake of Dracula so he wants to live in an actual castle overlooking a village in Transylvania. Roarke obliges and soon, Leo is wandering the streets in the middle of the night and he’s developing fangs. Has he become a vampire or is the method getting the better of him? The villagers want to set him on fire but Roarke suggests that they just wait for the sun to rise. When the sun doesn’t destroy Leo, everyone realizes that he’s not a vampire and …. well, that’s that!
Yes, it’s painfully dumb but at least the episode features mild-mannered Robert Reed, with his gray perm and his aging porn star mustache, putting on a cape and wandering around a village at midnight. Reed is totally miscast but that gives this episode what little charm it has.
My fantasy is that next week’s episode will be better!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
It’s time to start season 4!
Episode 4.1 “A Whole New Ballgame”
(Dir by Miguel Higuera and Patrick Maloney, originally aired on September 12th, 1998)
It’s a brand new school year! Teddy, Vince, and Danny have all graduated, with Teddy and Vince going to Southern Florida University and Danny going to NYU to pursue his stand-up career. Despite the fact that Julie and Mary Beth were in the same grade as Danny with the show began, they’re both still students at Deering High, along with Michael Manning and Kristy.
And, of course, Coach Fuller is gone. He’s now coaching at Southern Florida University. For the first three seasons of the show, Coach Fuller was played by Reggie Theus. Reggie Theus was a stiff actor but he was a former basketball player and he was believable whenever Fuller discussed the mechanics of the game with his players. As stiff as Theus was, it was still easy to believe him as an inspiring basketball coach. Replacing Coach Fuller is Mike Katowinski. Mike is played by Dick Butkus, a former football player who looks and sounds like a former football player. From the minute he appears, it’s hard to buy him as a basketball coach, despite the fact that Julie mentions that Coach Katowinski coached the Houston Rockets for 20 years. As I watched Coach K, I found myself wondering why Deering didn’t give the job to that assistant coach who appeared in two episodes during the third season.
(Add to that, what type of loser goes from coaching an NBA team to coaching a high school basketball team?)
Along with a new coach, this episode introduces some new players, all of whom are suspiciously familiar substitutes for the actors who have left the show. Nick Hammer (Mark Famiglietti) is cocky and confident and, despite the fact that she’s still dating Michael, it’s pretty obvious that he’s being set up as Julie’s next love interest. Rico Bosco (James Villani) is short and dumb, like Vince. Silk Hayes (Danso Gordon) is a thinner version of Teddy. Silk tells us that he’s called Silk because he’s “smooth on the court and off …. with the ladies!”
Things get off to a bad start between the new Coach and Julie when Julie starts to suspect that the Coach is going easy on her because she’s a girl. The main reason she thinks this is because the Coach tells her that he’s going easy on her because she’s a girl. Julie attempts to prove that she’s just as good as the boys by practicing super-aggressively and knocking everyone down. “Don’t worry,” the Coach tells Hammer, “it’s probably just a female thing.” Julie storms out of the gym, as she had every right to do. (Wow, is this the first time that I’ve liked Julie since this series began? I think it may be.) Later, Julie attempts to talk to the Coach about his attitude and he responds by sending her to the school nurse. Julie resents the Coach assuming that all of her behavior is period-related but she does appreciate the nurse sending her home early. As someone who used to fake cramps to get out of gym class on a daily basis, I related.
Julie then shows up at practice dressed in an apron and carrying a plate of cookies. In her words, she’s behaving acting the way coach expects her to act. This leads to Julie getting put on the B-team and not being listed as a starter. Coach explains that it’s not because Julie is a girl. It’s because “you’re a weird girl.” Fortunately, Julie does well-enough in practice that she’s promoted to starter. The audiences goes crazy.
While all of this is going on, Mary Beth tries to come to terms with no longer having a boyfriend. Come on, Mary Beth — it was just Vince!
With this episode, the fourth season got off to a rocky start, with a miscast Coach and a set of new players that just don’t seem to have as much personality as the players they replaced. Would things improve in the second episode of the season?
Let’s find out.
Episode 4.2 “Team Players”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on September 12th, 1998)
Uh-oh, the team’s just not coming together! Mostly it’s Michael and Julie’s fault, because they think that they’re too good for the new players. After Hammer overhears Michael telling Julie that the new team sucks, he tells all of the other players. During the first game of the season, the Tornadoes struggle during the first half but, after realizing they have to work together, they stage a comeback and win in the second half. Wow! JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER GAME THEY’VE EVER PLAYED! After the game, Julie says that this new team might even be better than last year’s team. Uhmm …. no. Sorry, Julie, no. Last year’s time had Danny. None of these new guys can compare to Danny.
In the B-plot, Mary Beth tries too hard to get the Coach to like her. Through a series of unlikely events, she knocks a hole in the wall of his office and she and Kristy has to fix it during the game. Megan Parlen and Amber Baretto are a good comedy team and it’s always a lot of fun when Mary Beth is flustered at the thought of having to do actual work. Unfortunately, the situation is not quite as funny without Reggie Theus’s looking stunned at whatever it is that Mary Beth has done. As played by Dick Butkus, Coach K. is just a bit too angry and gruff to be a good comedic foil. Whenever he gets annoyed with something, he looks like he’s about to tackle someone and break their ribs.
Season 4 is off to a rough start! Hopefully, things will get better next week.
This year’s Oscar ceremony was all about the Slap.
Don’t get me wrong. No one got slapped during the ceremony. No one got yelled at. There wasn’t any major controversy at all, beyond the question of whether Everything Everywhere All At Once actually deserved all of those Oscars. Most of the awards speeches were nice. Ke Huy Quan was a highlight, calling his story “an American dream.” Much as when Gary Oldman praised America upon winning his Oscar for Best Actor, you could tell the audience at the ceremony wasn’t sure how to react to unironic praise of America but I can promise you that his speech touched the hearts of almost everyone watching. Compared to previous ceremonies, there wasn’t a lot of political blathering and the orchestra did its job and kept people from rambling on for too long. Obviously, the Academy learned its lesson from the Soderbergh Oscars and that guy who wouldn’t shut up about his octopus.
That said, from the start, it was obvious that The Slap and preventing another incident was on everyone’s mind. As opposed to last year’s Oscars, the entire ceremony felt tightly controlled. Jimmy Kimmel kept his jokes light and only poked fun at people who didn’t show for the ceremony, like James Cameron and Tom Cruise. Amongst the presenters, there was a definite lack of comedians or, really, anyone who might threaten to go off script and say something controversial. The show was carefully constructed to keep anything shocking from happening and, as a result, it was a bit dull. For all the drama and controversy that surrounded the Slap, it was probably one of the few truly spontaneous moments that we’ve seen on the Oscars. Certainly, more people talked about the Slap last year than are going to be talking the ceremony this year.
This year was safe and boring, though it was never as downright dull as the Soderbergh Oscars. Most of the victories felt inevitable. I guess the biggest upset was Jamie Lee Curtis winning Best Supporting Actress over Angela Bassett. (Though I appreciated that Curtis epitomized everything that normal people hate about the IRS, I was rooting for Kerry Condon.) There was a brief moment of excitement when it seemed like All Quiet On The Western Front might upset Everything Everywhere All At Once but that ended up as soon as All Quiet lost the Adapted Screenplay Oscar to Women Talking.
As far as the speeches go, Ke Huy Quan won the evening by giving a genuine, heartfelt acceptance speech. The Daniels got to give three acceptance speeches and they both seemed to get just a little bit more impressed with themselves with each speech. (A lot of people are going to have their knives out when the Daniels get around to making their third film.) EEAAO‘s editor went on for a bit too long, which is actually kind of a funny thing for an editor to do. Michelle Yeoh’s speech was classy and should be used as a guide who ever wonders what to say when accepting an award.
I was kind of dreading the prospect of Jimmy Kimmel hosting but I thought he did a good job. Other than throwing in a few heavy-handed political jabs towards the end, Kimmel struck the right tone for the show. Jimmy certainly seemed to have a better handle on things than Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall did last year. Of course, unlike those three, Kimmel didn’t have to deal with any nominees walking on stage and striking a presenter.
As far as the musical performances go, the performance of RRR‘s nominated song was a lot of fun and I also thought Lady Gaga did a wonderful job with her song. The other performances didn’t do much for me, though none of them were particularly bad. They were just kind of safe. The fact that EEAAO got a nomination for that song should have been everyone’s first clue that the Academy was going to love the movie.
The ceremony this year was controlled and boring and, most importantly, it’s now over. Now, we can start talking about what’s going to win in 2024!
Here’s just a few thoughts on what I watched this week:
Abbott Elementary (Wednesday Night, ABC)
Now, I want to play Drought.
Accused (Tuesday Night, FOX)
After missing the previous two episodes, I caught the latest episode of Accused on Tuesday night. Whitney Cummings played a comedian who was a raped by another comedian. Mary Lynn Rajskub played the clingy fan who offered support but who later turned out to be dangerous in her own way. This episode was a bit overwritten, which tends to be a problem with many anthology shows. But it was saved by the excellent performances of Rajskub and Cummings.
American Idol (Sunday Night, ABC)
The auditions moved to Nashville! A lot of talented singers made it through to Hollywood but …. eh, I don’t know. The best singers are usually the ones who may not be technically perfect but who bring their own individual personality to their performances. So far, there hasn’t been much personality this season. Everyone’s a bit too polished and the judges already seem to know who is going through before they ever hear one note. I guess I’m old-fashioned as far as my reality show preferences go. I don’t care how tragic your life has been or what your family is like. I just care about whether or not you’re an interesting and entertaining performer.
The Bachelor (Monday Night, ABC)
Eh. Who cares?
Bar Rescue (Weekday Mornings, Paramount)
I watched two episodes on Wednesday morning. Both featured bars that were so disgusting and filthy that it made me happy to be a non-drinker. The second episode that I watched actually featured the bar’s cook taking a bath in the dishwashing area. BLEH! That was not exactly something I needed to see.
Bubblegum Crisis (Night Flight Plus)
I have no idea what was actually happening in this animated series from Japan but the imagery was nice and a lot of things blew up.
Court Cam (Weekday Mornings, A&E)
I watched two episodes on Wednesday. Angry defendants were making trouble. Dan Abrams breathlessly narrated every single event. One defendant attacked his own lawyer. I’m going to assume that someone else probably handled his appeal after he was convicted for that.
Farmer Wants A Wife (Wednesday Night, FOX)
Apparently, this show is 1) based on a British program and 2) also a reboot of a show that aired on the CW way back in 2008. Basically, a bunch of city girls compete for the chance to marry four farmers. The dramatic high point of the first episode came when the farmers had to ask each girl, “Do you want to come back to my farm?” and the women were then given the choice to say yes or to walk out. Only one girl walked out. Everyone else was like, “I’d love to go back to the farm with you!” This show felt a lot like Burning Love, the brilliant and much-missed parody of The Bachelor franchise.
I enjoyed the first episode, though. With The Bachelor a bit of a bore this season, Farmer Wants A Wife might temporarily replace it as my new guilty pleasure show. I’m always torn between my love of the city and my nostalgia for the country so this is a show to which I can relate. Plus, the farmers are all handsome and strong and they don’t look like the types to spend a lot of time crying about the state of the world. This show brings out my country girl side. I think my accent got a hundred times more Southern while I was watchin’ it.
Ghosts (Thursday Night, CBS)
This week’s episode was great. I hope Matt Walsh makes a guest appearance every season.
Jared From Subway (Monday Night, ID)
This three-hour documentary detailed, in repulsive detail, the crimes of Jared Fogle and his associate, Russell Taylor. On the one hand, it did a good job of showing how America’s cult of celebrity allowed Jared to flourish. On the other hand, Rochelle Herman, the journalist who first recorded Jared talking about his desires, often came across as being more concerned with promoting herself than anything else. Between the use of blurry reenactments and the people who were interviewed solely so they could talk about how “beautiful” Rochelle was, the documentary was occasionally its own worst enemy.
The New Wave Theatre (Night Flight Plus)
I watched an episode of this 80s cable access show on Saturday morning. The music was good and loud.
Night Court (Tuesday Night, NBC)
Abby is all excited because her favorite podcast host is in the court to serve as a witness. Abby thinks that the going-ons at the court would make a great podcast! The host, however, only wants to interview Dan. Dan talks about running for the city council in the 80s and bribing people to vote. “It was hard to get people to vote in the 80s,” Dan says, “there were other things to do …. like cocaine! Plus, Pac-Man had just come out and that was the perfect surface on which to do cocaine.” Okay, that made me laugh. The rest of the episode was fairly forgettable. The problem is that Dan is the only consistently well-written character and John Larroquette so completely dominates the show that it’s hard not to kind of resent having to spend time with any of the other characters.
Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)
On Friday, I watched an episode from the early 80s. It was about erotic imagery in music videos. Prince and Madonna were heavily featured.
Poker Face (Thursday Night, Peacock)
Though it took me a month and a half to get around to it, I finally watched the first episode of Poker Face on Tuesday night. I resisted because the commercials (“Meet Charlie Cale, you’re going to like her.”) annoyed me and the show’s creator Rian Johnson is undeniably talented but also makes films that occasionally seem to be a bit too impressed with their own cleverness. However, Poker Face has been critically acclaimed since it premiered and I do like Natasha Lyonne and Benjamin Bratt so I decided to finally give the show a chance.
The first episode was set in Nevada and set up the premise of the series. Lyonne stars as Charlie, who has the ability to tell whenever anyone is lying. Over the course of the episode she discovered that her boss (played by Adrian Brody) was a liar and, after his suicide, she had to go on the run. The episode looked great. I loved the sight of Charlie’s little trailer sitting in the desert and I also liked the contrast between the opulent casino and the messy house where the episode’s murder actually took place. Plotwise, it suffered from a problem that is typical of pilots in that it tried to cram too much information into a limited amount of time. That said, it held my interest and Natasha Lyonne was sympathetic and likable as Charlie. I did find myself wishing that Charlie would cut down on the alcohol but I guess that’s what people do when they’re stuck in a go-nowhere situation. They drink to dull the pain.
The second episode was set in New Mexico and featured Charlie not only solving the murder of a Subway employee who had just won the lottery but also proving that a trucker was not a murderer. The mystery itself wasn’t that interesting (and really, since both episodes opened with showing us the murder being committed, it technically really wasn’t a mystery) but, again, the episode was entertaining due to Lyonne’s performance. Since this show is apparently going to reveal the identity of the murderer at the start of each murderer and then show how Charlie eventually learns the truth, it’s important that the lead character be likable and interesting. As much as I hate to admit it, the commercials were right. I like Charlie Cale.
South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)
“Written by Trey Parker and ChatGPT.”
I loved this week’s episode, mostly because it confirmed that ChatGPT is going to eventually transform the world into a cold, barren place where people have no appreciation for art or literature. It’s not a happy vision of the future but at least we’ve been warned so it won’t be too much of a shock.
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 California Dreams, which ran on NBC from 1992 to 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, Sly breaks hearts and hurts feelings! And maybe he learns a lesson.
Episode 4.7 “Secret Admirer”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 4th, 1995)
This episode opens in Pacific Coast High’s state-of-the-art computer lab!
After accidentally deleting a love poem that Mark has spent weeks working on, Sly spots a student named Lynn awkwardly asking people to come to her sweet sixteen party. Realizing that Lynn comes from a wealthy family, Sly decides that the Dreams have to play that party! The only problem is that Sly has known Lynn since kindergarten and he’s spent that entire time making fun of her weight. Lynn cannot stand Sly.
Can you feel the hatred?
Sly, having learned nothing from being put on trial last week, steals one of Mark’s love poems and slips it into Lynn’s locker. “Wow, a secret admirer,” Lynn says. Then Sly pops up and starts trying to flirt with her. At first, Lynn refuses to believe that Sly is being serious but, slowly, he wins her over. And what happens here is kind of interesting. As Sly eventually figures out, it’s not that Lynn believes him as much as she wants to believe him because she has absolutely no self-esteem. Even after Lynn hires the Dreams and pays them $2,000, Sly still feels guilty. He feels so guilty that he gives up the money.
This was not the first Peter Engel-produced show to figure its lead character going out with a someone who weighed a bit more than Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. Saved By The Bell actually used that plot a few times. On Saved By The Bell, Zack got sold in a date auction to a girl who wasn’t his type and the audience screamed in shock. But this episode of California Dreams is different from Saved By The Bell in that it is more on the side of the girl than on the guy pretending to like her. Sly does a terrible thing and, when he realizes it, Michael Cade does such a good job of playing Sly’s guilt that the viewer really does feel like Sly is probably never going to forgive himself.
That’s a good thing. That said, this still isn’t a particularly strong episode. The actress playing Lynn delivers all of her lines in the same flat manner and there’s a rather annoying B-plot about everyone thinking that Mark’s love poem was written for them. (That’s another plot that was used and reused on Saved By The Bell.) Sly learned a lesson about making fun of people but I doubt it will last….
Episode 4.8 “Old”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 11th, 1995)
Sly makes fun of a bunch old people and then has a dream where he’s old and all the members of the band make fun of him! He then wakes up and visits an old man in the hospital. So, basically, Sly learned the same lesson that he should have learned in the last episode and in the episode before that. Some people just don’t ever learn!
That said, by the time this episode aired, Michael Cade had really grown as an actor and he’s convincing as both an old man and an obnoxious teenager.
Next week, in another story borrowed from Saved By The Bell, Tony gets an operation! The fun never ends when you’re surrounded by surf dudes with attitude and feeling mellow.
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 The Brady Bunch Hour, which ran on ABC from 1976 to 1977. All nine episodes can be found on YouTube!
This week, the Brady Bunch celebrates disco! This, by the way, was the very first episode of The Brady Bunch Hour that I ever came across on YouTube. It was such a bizarre 70s time capsule that I knew that, someday, I would have to watch and review every episode of the series.
So, let’s get to it!
Episode 1.8
(Dir by Jack Regas, originally aired on April 25th, 1977)
As always, things begin with the Kroftettes doing a kickline before diving into the pool. The announcer introduces the members of the Brady Bunch and tells us that tonight’s guest stars include Rip Taylor, Ann B. Davis, The What’s Happening Kids, and Rick Dees.
The Bradys come out and sing Get Ready, a song that was only 11 years old when it showed up on this show. (That’s definitely an improvement on the songs from the 1920s that the Bradys were originally singing on the show.) It must be said that the Bradys actually perform the song with some energy. None of them appear to be able to carry a consistent tune but at least they’re trying to come across as if they’re excited to be there. That said, it’s also hard not to notice that both Robert Reed and Florence Henderson have a distracting habit of looking straight at the camera while performing and the Brady kids all tend to look down at their feet whenever they have to dance.
Greg gets a solo in the song while Carol gets to chant, “That’s right.” From what I’ve read about the series, Florence Henderson apparently signed onto the show specifically because she thought it would lead to her becoming a Barbra Streisand-style star and it must be said that she delivers “That’s right,” with so much intensity that she sometimes seems as if she’s about to attack the cameraman. Indeed, all of the Bradys have so much energy that the performance comes across as almost desperate. It’s like when you’re appearing in a play and the first act doesn’t go well so, at the start of the second act, everyone starts enunciating a little more harshly and barking out their lines in attempt to get the energy flowing again. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but you still get the feeling that someone backstage told the Bradys to step it up or face cancellation.
Following some Kroftette water ballet, we get the usual bit of Brady banter. Carol enthusiastically welcomes “America” and tells us to “get ready because here we come!”
Mike adds, “Welcome back to another Brady Bunch Hour!” but it’s hard not to notice that Mike is so out-of-breath following that performance that it appears he might faint at any moment.
“60 minutes of songs and swimming with America’s wettest family,” Greg says with a big smile that suggests he knows exactly what he’s saying.
The family explains that the Kroftettes both sing and swim. Mike says that he didn’t realize that the swimmers and the dancers were the same people. The Kroftettes are in the pool so we don’t get to see how they react to all of this. I’d like to think that they all held up their middle fingers in solidarity. Power to the dancers!
“I never met a music cue I didn’t like!” Carol announces and the family starts dancing again as Mike struggles to catch his breath.
We then cut to an absolutely terrifying image. Carol is wearing baggy pats, carrying a cane, and there’s a jaunty hat on her head. She sings Walk Right In and is eventually joined by the other Bradys, who are all dressed in the same style. They do an elaborate, vaudeville-style dance to Walk Right In, a song that was originally recorded in 1929.
After the performance finally wraps up, Carol tells Mike that she found her old high school yearbook. Mike, who is once again visibly out-of-breath, tries to feign interest. (Carol shows him a picture of her as a cheerleader. “I recognize those pom poms!” Mike replies, in a tone that suggests that the joke may have gone straight over Robert Reed’s head.) Carol wonders if their kids enjoy school as much as they did. Mike mentions that Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy have it tough because they have to go to school on the set.
We then cut to Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy, all sitting in a classroom and looking bored. Jan says she’s sick of school and considering that Rip Taylor is their substitute teacher, who can blame her? (Actually, considering that Rip says he’s going to teach them movie trivia, it seems like he might be the coolest teacher ever!) Suddenly, the kids from What’s Happening!!! come into the classroom and explain that they’re now in the class. Then, Patty Maloney, an actress with dwarfism, comes into the classroom, pursued by a police officer who assumes that Patty is a student despite the fact that Patty was nearly 40 when she appeared on this show. Cindy explains to the officer that Patty is an actress and not a Brady.
We then cut to Greg, who happily explains that he’s not singing this week. The audience applauds. Greg jokes that he’s not going to get mad because he’s excited about introducing one of his favorite people. The audience applauds. “Will you shut up!?” Greg snaps and, to his credit, Barry Williams actually wrings some laughs out of Greg’s growing frustration. Finally, Greg introduces Alice the Maid, who proceeds to sing Thank God I’m A Country Girl while dancing with someone wearing a gigantic cowboy outfit.
It’s weeeeeeeeeeird.
It gets weirder.
After the song, a visibly out-of-breath Alice thanks everyone and says that she figured it was just her turn to take a try at singing. Alice catches her breath long enough to tell us that something big happened at the Brady Compound.
What happened is that Peter, Jan, Cindy, and Bobby invited the What’s Happening!!! Kids to the come home with them after school and they promised their friends a guest role on the show. They discuss doing a skit about a magic potion. Fred “ReRun” Berry pretends to drink a magic potion and starts to dramatically twitch, while Fake Jan watches with a nervous look on her face. ReRun the announces that he …. WANTS TO BE O.J. SIMPSON! ReRun starts running around the living room and jumping over the furniture. Fake Jan drinks her fake potion and starts to sing The Sound of Music. Peter suggests that he would drink his potion and become a waterfall. This all goes on for so long that it’s hard not to wonder just what exactly is in those imaginary potions.
Mike and Carol finally get home and demand to know why the kids from What’s Happening!!! are in the living room. Fake Jan explains that the Brady kids invited the What’s Happening!!! kids to be on their show. Mike and Carol look worried and then say that it’s time for the What’s Happening!!! kids to go home. Mike leaves to drive the guests back to their studio. Carol order the Brady kids to sit on the couch and sternly tells them that there’s no room for the What’s Happening!!! kids on this week’s show but that she would have totally voted for Obama a third time if she could have. (Seriously, it’s kind of hard not to notice that Mike and Carol had no problem with Rip Taylor, Rich Little, Lee Majors, and Farrah Fawcett all dropping by the house unannounced but they freaked out as soon as they say saw the What’s Happening!!! kids in their living room.) Carol tells Peter that he’s going to have to “tell the What’s Happening!!! kids that they can’t be on the show.”
The show goes to commercial. When it comes back, Carol and a coked-up Marcia are standing on stage.
“Hi,” Marcia says, “stay tuned for the second half of the Brady Bunch Hour.”
“Excuse me, Marcia,” Carol says, “this is the second half of the Brady Bunch Hour.”
“That’s good, this is going to be much better than the first half,” Marcia says, before dismissing the first half as being sad.
“Marcia’s a part of the now generation,” Carol explains, “They’re always honest and always tacky.”
Why was so much of the humor on the Brady Bunch Hour based around the kids being condescendingly corrected their parents? Carol, for her part, seems to be taking tonight’s show extremely seriously. Maybe she’s still nervous about the What’s Happening!!! kids living in the same neighborhood as her family.
Speaking of which, Marcia says that she feels sorry for the What’s Happening!!! kids. Carol blames it all on Peter and then tells us to just watch so that we can see what happened when Peter told them they couldn’t be on the show.
It turns out that Peter summoned the What’s Happening!!! Kids to the Brady Compound so he could tell them they couldn’t be on the show. The What’s Happening!!! Kids show up and show off their impersonations of the Bradys. Cindy is shocked by how boring the imitation of her is. Peter finally tells them that they can’t be on the show. That What’s Happening!!! Kids are not amused, declaring that this is the “Same old story!” that they always have to deal with whenever they want to appear on someone else’s show. Guilt-stricken, Peter announces that he’ll find a way get the What’s Happening!!! Kids on the show.
We then cut to the main stage, where Greg is taunting Peter about how he’s going to get pushed in the pool. The What’s Happening!!! kids come out and Peter announces that Greg is going to be pushing all of them into the pool. (If Peter was smart, he would have just had the What’s Happening!!! Kids push Greg in the pool.) The What’s Happening!!! Kids respond by shoving Peter in the pool and then introduce “Mr. Disco, Rick Dees!” Rick Dees, who was best-known for a song called Disco Duck, performs a song called Disco Gorilla.
We then cut to Mr. Merill, who now wants to be called Mr. Merillo, opening up his own pizza place. Bobby apparently now works for him as a pianist but Mr. Merrillo also expects him to help serve the customers. Mike and Carol come by the restaurant and Carol yells that she came to Merillo’s to see Bobby play and not to watch him serve pizza.
Bobby starts to play the piano but Patty Maloney and a construction worker come into the restaurant and start to have a loud conversation. Carol demands that Mr. Merrillo tell them to be quiet so that she can hear Bobby. (Is it just me or is Carol kind of being the absolute worst this week?) Mr. Merillo refuses to say anything so Carol demands that Mike do something. Mike says that the construction worker is too big for him to deal with so Carol confronts them herself. It all leads to a huge food fight which …. ugh. I feel bad for whoever had to clean up the stage after this scene.
Having gotten a pizza dumped over their heads, Patty Maloney and the Construction Worker leave. Than the Brady kids shows up. Carol brags about how she and Mike put two blue collar workers in their place. (For all of her complaining about not being able to hear Bobby play, Carol hasn’t stopped talking since entering the restaurant.) A biker (played by Bruce Vilanch) also shows up. He tells Mike and Carol to shut up so he can hear the piano. Mike then picks a fight with the biker, even though the biker actually want to hear Bobby play the piano.
Anyway, this goes on for seven minutes and it’s followed by Carol oversinging a song called This Masquerade. This Masquerade was only five years old when it showed up on The Brady Bunch Hour. As always, Florence Henderson has a good voice but there’s something a bit too studied about her performance. There’s no personality to her version of the song. It’s a bit dull.
It’s time for the finale! But only Mike and Carol are on stage. Carol explains that the kids aren’t out there because they wanted to save all their energy for the disco-themed finale. Mike is shocked, wondering how the kids think that Mike and Carol are going to have enough energy for the finale.
“They think that we can have six of them, there’s just no end to our energy,” Carol says, “They think we’re bionic.”
“Maybe they’re right,” Mike says.
“Maybe they’re wrong,” Carol replies.
Uhmmm …. what? Is Carol saying that she and Mike don’t have the energy for the finale? Or is she claiming that she and Mike are bionic?
Anyway, it’s time for the disco finale and again, you have to see this for yourself:
Cocaine was very popular in 1977.
Technically, this was not a good episode but it was still oddly fascinating. It represented not only everything that didn’t work about The Brady Bunch Hour but it also represents everything that makes it impossible not to watch this very odd show. Everything about it is so wrong that it becomes undeniably entertaining to see just how much stranger things could get.
Next week, everyone will struggle to catch their breath as the Brady Bunch Hour comes to an end!
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. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
Time for this again.
Episode 4.4 “Presumed Innocent”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 30th, 2000)
Jamal is convinced that Louis (Mike Bowman), a student who we’ve never seen before, is a skinhead. Louis has a shaved head and appears to have a bunch of new tattoos on his neck and hiding under his short-sleeved shirts. Jamal also says Louis was super aggressive the one time that they played basketball. “He was always trying to foul a brother hard,” Jamal says, “If it looks like a duck and talks like a duck and walks like a duck,,,,”
Later, in class. Jamal tosses aside a backpack and claims the chair that in which it was sitting. That backpack belonged to Louis and, in Louis’s opinion, so did the chair. Louis proceeds to call Jamal a …. JERK! That’s right. He used the word “jerk.” I considered whether or not to give everyone a trigger warning before revealing what Luke said but I decided to take the risk and just reveal what Louis said, as ugly as it may be. Now, in Manny High, calling someone a “jerk” is obviously the worst thing that you can do. Ms. Noble is able to prevent Louis and Jamal from getting into a fight in the classroom but later, Jamal discovers that someone has spray-painted “JERK” on his locker. Jamal immediately accuses Louis, telling him, “You’ve messed with the wrong brother.”
Louis laughs and says, “At least now you’ll always be able to find your locker.”
Bad move, Louis! Jamal throws the first punch, Louis throws the second, and then Ms. Noble finally runs up and shouts, “Stop …. or you’ll have to fight me!” Realizing that neither one of them has the skills necessary to defeat a middle-aged high school principal, Jamal and Louis stop fighting. When Jamal says that Louis tagged his locker, Louis replies that Jamal doesn’t have any proof. “This ain’t Judge Judy!” Jamal replies.
Inspired, Ms. Noble decides to have a mock trial so the students can decide whether or not Louis defaced Jamal’s locker. (And to think, some principals would have just punished both of them for fighting in the hallway.) Chris represents Jamal while Cassidy and Dawn are assigned to defend Louis. Ms. Noble serves as the judge and the other students serve as the jury and are probably bored to death. I mean, seriously, this is a lot drama over a locker that’s been defaced with one of the mildest insults known to man.
(Add to that, this was already done in that episode of Saved By The Bell where Ms. Bliss’s tacky sweater got paint on it and Screech was put on trial.)
When Chris turns out to be a terrible lawyer, Jamal resorts to sending Al to get proof that Louis is a skinhead. Al returns with a picture of Louis at a bus stop with several other bald people. When Jamal (having fired Chris) enters the photos into evidence, even Ms. Noble looks like she’s ready to sentence Louis to life imprisonment. Louis explains that all of the people in the photos have cancer, “like me.” And he also reveals that his tattoos aren’t skinhead tattoos. They’re marks that are used to guide the radiation. Louis gets mad and walks out of the classroom.
“Case dismissed,” Ms. Noble says, which doesn’t really make any sense because Louis could have still defaced Jamal’s locker while also having cancer. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
“I can’t believe I judged Lou by how he looked,” Jamal says, “I mean, me, a brother!”
Chris and Jamal go to the cancer clinic and apologize to Louis. We never find out who wrote “Jerk” on Jamal’s locker.
Actually, this isn’t a terrible episode. Mike Bowman (who, as far as I know, is not related to me) did a pretty good job as Louis and the show’s message was ultimately a worthy one. There was even a slightly funny B-plot about Al and L-Train trying not to use any slang on their radio show. City Guys is definitely not my favorite show to review but this episode was okay.
Episode 4.5 “The Third Wheel”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 7th, 2000)
Al’s birthday is coming up and Dawn wants to celebrate it without L-Train coming along. However, when Al tries to tell L-Train that he’s not invited to celebrate his birthday with him and Dawn, L-Train mishears and thinks that Al is complaining about Dawn being clingy. Al gets upset. “I have to choose between my best friend and my girlfriend.” Al, are you really so stupid as to not know that you spend your birthday with your girlfriend? Apparently so. Anyway, Dawn and L-Train realize that Al is too stupid to choose between them so they collaborate on the party, which is a pretty simple solution. You have to wonder why it took so long for them to come up with that.
Meanwhile, Chris and Jamal want to put on a horror-themed radio show and, of course, Cassidy and Ms. Noble decided to get involved. Doesn’t Ms. Noble have a wedding to plan?
This episode was dumb and I don’t want to waste any more time on it.
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!
Episode 2.4 “The Man Who Loved Women / A Different Girl / Oh, My Aching Brother”
(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on September 30th, 1978)
This week’s cruise is all about deception …. and love!
For instance, Joe (Marty Ingels) and Harold Nash (Sonny Bono) are two brothers who thrive on deception. Harold specializes in pretending to get injured. Joe specializes in threatening to sue until the brothers get paid off. Apparently, it’s a scheme that works well for them, though Joe seems to be a lot more enthusiastic about it than Harold. In fact, Harold seems to be a nice guy who mostly just wants to enjoy the cruise and flirt with another passenger, Rita (Judy Landers). Still, Joe insists that Harold pretend to hurt his back so Harold takes a dramatic fall on the shuffleboard course.
Of course, the crew can spot a fake injury from miles away. For once, Doc Bricker actually does his job and announces that, despite all of his yelling and groaning, there does not appear to be anything wrong with Harold’s back. Still, if Harold goes through the entire cruise without walking, the Pacific Princess will probably pay a settlement. Joe’s happy about that. Harold’s unhappy because he wants to get up and walk over to Rita’s cabin. In the end, it is Harold’s love for Rita that defeats the scheme. When he sees Rita actually trip and take a fall, Harold can’t stop himself from jumping out of his wheelchair to help her. Awwwwwww!
This storyline was dumb but kind of sweet. Sonny Bono was not a particularly good actor but there was something rather genuine about his chemistry with Judy Landers.
Meanwhile, the Captain Stubing’s godson, Dave Stanton (Grant Goodeve), is taking the cruise with his wife, Laura (Bess Armstrong). Though they’ve been married for two years, they are only now getting to take their honeymoon. (Dave was in the army and Laura was caring for her terminally ill mother.) During the trip, they discover that they’ve both changed over the past two years. Laura’s more independent now. Plus, she had an affair while Dave was gone. Dave gets pretty upset but Captain Stubing asks Dave if he can really say that he’s never cheated on Laura. Dave admits that he cheated on her too. Now that they know that they’re both cheaters, Dave and Laura’s marriage is strong than ever!
This storyline was defeated by the fact that neither Dave nor Laura were particularly sympathetic characters. At one point, Dave actually says that his cheating was different from Laura’s cheating because he’s a guy and she’s a woman. AGCK! Probably the most interesting part of this story is that it gave Stubing a chance to talk about why his own marriage fell apart. This show has often hinted that there is a lot of darkness and trauma in Stubing’s past and Gavin MacLeod always brings a lot of sincerity to the scenes where the captain admits that he has regrets.
Finally, Charlotte (Cathryn Damon), Bonnie (Jo Ann Pflug), and Anita (Brett Sommers) are three divorcees who take the cruise together. All three of them end up meeting a man. Charlotte meets a man named Alvin, who she decides to call him by his middle name, “Cornelius.” Bonnie meets a man who she calls Vinny. Anita meets a man who she calls by his last name, “McNair.” What they don’t know is that all of them have met the same man, Alvin Cornelius McNair (David Doyle). Alvin goes out with all three of the women but he starts to feel guilty when he realizes that they’re all cabinmates. However, Charlotte, Bonnie, and Anita tell him that it doesn’t matter to them because Alvin was always honest with them and didn’t try to manipulate any of them. Awwwww! I liked this story. Damon, Pflug, and Sommers were believable as old friends and Doyle was likable as Alvin.
This was actually a pretty enjoyable episode. It may not have been perfect but it was a pleasant trip.
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!
This week, Fantasy Island is invaded by Nazis and Angels!
Episode 2.3 “Charlie’s Cherubs/Stalag 3”
(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on December 9th, 1978)
Today’s episode begins with Mr. Roarke noticing that Tattoo is carrying a calculator with him.
“What is that, Tattoo?” he asks.
“A mini-computer,” Tattoo replies, “My cousin Igor sent it to me. Computers can take away a lot of guess work.”
Mr. Roarke, obviously thinking that these “computer” things are but a mere fad, replies, “So can bikinis. Let us meet our guests.”
This week, all of the guests have dangerous fantasies. For instance, Danny Ryan (Cornel Wilde) is a World War II veteran who has never really been able to make it in the post-War world. So, he invites three fellow vets to return with him to the French town in which they spent 1944. During the War, they were POWS at Stalag 3 but they were famous for continually outsmarting Commandant Horst Von Stern (Nehemiah Persoff). In fact, Von Stern’s career and reputation never really recovered from the time that Danny and his friends escaped. (I imagine that, after the war, Von Stern’s reputation was also damaged by the fact that he was a freaking Nazi commandant.) Not only has Mr. Roarke arranged for the old French village — complete with Fifi of the Resistance (played by Yvonne DeCarlo) — to be moved to Fantasy Island but he also brought over the old POW camp. Unfortunately, Von Stern decides to come over as well and get his revenge by tossing Danny and friends back in the camp.
“You see,” Von Stern announces, “generals have fantasies too.”
What the Hell is going on with this Island? Does Mr. Roarke just give anyone a fantasy, even a Nazi war criminal? Actually, it appears that Mr. Roarke doesn’t know that Von Stern has come to the Island nor does he know that there is a treasure of stolen diamonds hidden in the village. Apparently, Roarke decided to just let this fantasy run on autopilot without actually bothering to check in with what was going on.
Both Mr. Roarke and Tattoo are more concerned with the three secretaries (Melinda Naud, Brenda Benet, and Bond Gideon) who want to be Charlie’s Angels and solve a crime. The crime involves a theft on Fantasy Island and …. well, it’s really not much of a mystery. It’s basically a 20-minutes episode of Charlie’s Angels, with a bit less action but a lot more scenes of people saying stuff like, “He knows about electronics so he’s the thief!” It was really a weak fantasy, which is a shame because, if I ever went to Fantasy Island, I would probably want to be a detective as well!
The show ends with Von Stern being sent to Germany to be put on trial for war crimes and the Angels saying that they’re ready to be secretaries again. Roarke informs them that most angels fantasize about being secretaries. Uhmmm, Mr. Roarke …. the proper term is administrative professional. Everything appears to be wrapped up but, as the show ends, Tattoo announces that someone has stolen his mini-computer and Mr. Roarke laughs at his assistant’s misfortune. Perhaps Tattoo losing his most prized possession was Roarke’s fantasy.
This was a weird episode. Mr. Roarke might need to pay closer attention to what’s happening on his island!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Season 3 comes to an end as the Tornadoes play in the state championship and Coach Fuller is faced with a big decision about his future. It’s hang time!
Episode 3.25 “The Curfew”
(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on December 6th, 1997)
The Deering Tornadoes are in the championship tournament! After they arrive at Indiana University or the University of Indiana or Gary Community College or wherever it is that they’re playing, Coach Fuller tells them that they’re under curfew. However, Teddy sneaks out to a sorority party and then the rest of the team sneaks out to bring him back. Then Fuller shows up at the party, looking for his team. Since no one on this show can just do the simple thing and admit to having screwed up, the boys dress up like sorority girls and Julie dresses up like a frat boy and they attempt to sneak back to the dorms. Everyone but Teddy shows up before curfew. When Fuller finds out what happened, he benches Teddy. Even when a player gets injured, Fuller sends in some guy we’ve never seen before and keeps Teddy on the bench. What’s funny is that the player Fuller does send in pauses to dramatically glare at Teddy as he heads out to the court. I wonder if he’s related to the guy from the Fake ID episode, the one who snapped, “I don’t want to let the team down!” when Fuller asked him if he could play despite being injured.
Even though he’s not on the court, Teddy still helps the team by joining the cheerleaders and cheering them on to victory.
This is stupid and the next episode is a lot more interesting. Let’s move on.
Episode 3.26 “Fuller’s Big Offer”
(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on December 6th, 1997)
The Deering High Tornadoes have a chance to win the state championship but they’re struggling. “The Tornadoes are self-destructing!” the in-game announcer says. Their heads are not in the game!
Well, who can blame them? Coach Fuller has been offered a chance to become the head coach at Southern Florida University. The team is convinced that Fuller is going to leave them after the season ends but, in a rousing locker room speech, he tells them that they can’t worry about what’s going to happen in the future. They have to concentrate on the here and now. Inspired by his words, the Tornadoes take the court and win the championship! Of course, Julie scores the winning point because Julie was the greatest player in the history of basketball. And, of course, the Tornadoes only win by a point because the Tornadoes almost always only won by one point. It just seems like a truly great time wouldn’t always have to come from behind and win by a point.
At the dinner to celebrate the championship, I can’t help but notice that Fuller and all of the starters are there but the rest of the team is nowhere to be seen. It’s hard not to feel bad for the members of the team who never got names or storylines. Not only do they have to spend all of the games sitting on the bench but they also aren’t allowed to attend the championship dinner. Fuller toasts his starters and announces that “All good things must come to an end.” Awww, he’s leaving. Then, Fuller says that he can’t wait to win another championship with the Tornadoes! Yay! He’s not leaving! The season ends with a jubilant team surrounding their coach.
Except, of course, Fuller did leave. Season 4 opened with Fuller in Florida and a new coach in Indiana. We’ll get to that next week.
So, what happened with the finale? Apparently, Reggie Theus left the show because he was offered a real-life coaching job but the offer wasn’t made until after this episode had been filmed. Here’s what I think happened. I can’t prove this but my theory is that the ski lodge and basketball camp episodes were meant to be the final episodes of the season. I think the championship episode was probably supposed to happen before all of that. (The ski lodge episode was taking place during everyone’s vacation, which indicates to me that it was supposed to be happening during the summer break. The whole basketball camp also seems like something that would happen during the summer as opposed to the middle of the school year.) But, when Theus announced he was taking a coaching job, the episodes were rearranged so the season now ended with Fuller getting offered a coaching job. Though the video on YouTube ends with Fuller announcing that he’s going to stay, several commenters say that they can remember that, when the show was originally aired, it ended with Fuller saying, “All good things must come to an end.” That indicates to me that the episode was hastily edited to try to create a cliffhanger, just in case Reggie Theus decided that coaching wasn’t for him.
Regardless of what may or may not have happened behind-the-scenes, this was a strong season ender. In fact, it would have been a perfect way to end the series. After three seasons, it would make sense that most of the characters would be graduating from Deering. (And indeed, Reggie Theus was not the only cast member to depart after season 3.) The show would have ended with everyone together one last time before moving on to even better things. It would have been poignant and sad and it would have have brought tears from even this cynical reviewer.
However, that was not to be. Instead, the show would continue with Julie and Mary Beth somehow still students at Deering High and a new coach stepping into Coach Fuller’s shoes. Next week, we start season 4!
Through the Shattered Lens 