For the past few months, I’ve been exploring what I used to dismissively call “the old people stations.” These are television stations like MeTV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV, and TVLand which specialize in showing episodes of old television shows. Of the old shows that I’ve recently discovered, The Jack Benny Program is one of my favorites.
Each episode featured comedian Jack Benny playing himself and being cheap, egocentric, and annoying. In many ways, the show feels like a forerunner for shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm.
With this being the holiday season, what better time than to feature a Christmas episode of the Jack Benny Show. In this episode, Jack attempts to buy a Christmas present.
This episode originally aired on December 15th, 1957.
I’ve been spending the weekend visiting my sister Megan and her family. Last night, Megan and I watched yet another episode of the mediocre yet oddly entertaining 90s sitcom, California Dreams.
Why Were We Watching It?
So, last night, after everyone else in the house was sound asleep, Megan and I were awake and doing some sisterly bonding, which — when you’re a member of the Bowman clan — usually concludes with watching something silly.
But what to watch? Because I have the greatest big sister in the world, Megan happens to have every season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class on DVD and, at first, I was really tempted to suggest that we watch something from the storied history of Bayside High. But, when I actually thought about it, I knew that we simply had to watch yet another episode of California Dreams.
Last night, we watched a handful of episodes but I specifically decided to review the “Daddy’s Girl” episode because it was the episode that preceded the Family Trees episode, which just happens to also be the last episode of the show that I reviewed for this site.
(As some of our regular readers my remember, it’s been nearly a year since Megan first introduced me to this show when, during the Christmas holidays, we sat down and watched the 4th season episode, Dancing Isn’t Everything. )
What Was It About?
Future steroid addict Tiffani Smith (Kelly Packard) is worried because her father has been alone ever since her parents got divorced. (I assume that the Smiths got divorced though it’s never specifically stated, beyond Mr. Smith saying, “Ever since your mother left…” So, it’s entirely possible that Tiffani’s mom may have joined a cult or something.) Tiffani arranges for her father to meet Ariel (Kristine Sutherland), a woman who claims to be an expert in dolphins. Mr. Smith and Ariel hit it off and, at first, Tiffani is super excited!
However, Mr. Smith is soon spending all of him time hanging out with Ariel and a jealous Tiffani ends up having one of those extremely elaborate and plot-specific nightmares that always seem to happen on California Dreams. So, with the help of Ariel’s criminal record, Tiffani breaks up her dad’s new relationship.
Problem solved, right?
Nope. Now that Mr. Smith is alone again, Tiffani feels guilty and seriously, you have to wonder if there’s ever been a more wishy-washy character than Tiffani Smith. So, Tiffani tries to get Ariel and Mr. Smith back together by singing them a song.
Meanwhile, in the B plot, Mark (Aaron Jackson) has come up with a computer program that tells Samantha (Jennie Kwan), Tony (William James Jones), Jake (Jay Anthony Franke), and Lorena (Diana Uribe) that none of them are compatible. Since this was made in the 1990s, everyone automatically believes anything determined by a computer to be true and, as a result, there are mass breakups.
What Worked?
As soon as Ariel first stepped into Sharky’s, Megan and I immediately exclaimed, “Buffy!” That’s because Ariel was played by Kristine Sutherland who is better known for playing Joyce Summers, the mother of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! This, of course, led to Megan and I imagining a scenario where Tiffani’s dad turned out to be a vampire and Buffy had to destroy him. That was a lot of fun.
I thought it was funny just how terrified Tony was of having to listen to Mr. Smith talk about humpback whales. It made me smile.
What Did Not Work?
To be honest, this episode really had a pretty bad message and I’m glad that I didn’t see it whenever it originally aired because it probably would have given me a lot of false hope. Tiffani’s father goes out with Ariel because Tiffani wants him to. He breaks up with Ariel because Tiffani wants him to. And then, eventually, they get back together again because Tiffani is really sorry and really wants everything to be better.
This episode takes place in a world where a daughter can heal a broken family just through sheer willpower and desire. It’s a world where, even if that daughter screws everything up, all she has to do is let everyone know how sorry she is and then sing a pretty song and magically, everything will be better. It would be nice if that was true but it’s not and that’s one of the hardest lessons to learn when you’re young and convinced that, since everything is somehow your fault, you’re also capable of fixing it all and making everyone happy again.
On a less serious note, do the members of the California Dreams ever do anything other than eat? Seriously! Almost every episode seems to feature them whining about how they don’t have any money and yet, they spend all of their time at Sharky’s eating. If Mark is really struggling financially, maybe he shouldn’t have ordered that expensive desert.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
As usual, I related to Lorena because she had really pretty hair and the best fashion sense of anyone on the show. Plus, I’ve got a weakness for bad boys who wear big, bulky jackets.
As I told Megan last night, much like Tiffani, I also spent a lot of my teenage years wishing that I could sing a song that would somehow make everything better.
“Lisa Marie,” Megan said, “that’s sweet but you know you can’t sing.”
And she’s right. I can’t carry a tune to save my life.
Traditionally here in the States, Thanksgiving is the forgotten holiday that sits between Halloween and Christmas. This is the time of year that those of us in the States are supposed to think about what we are thankful for. According to the people in Washington, this year we’re also supposed to talk to all of the members of our family about politics. They’ve even made talking points available, just in case you have a relative who isn’t crazy about your personal ideology. To me, though, that seems kind of foolish. Why would you ruin a perfectly good Thanksgiving with politics when you could spend your time thinking, talking, and arguing about movies and television?
After all, Presidents are only around for, at the most, eight years. Movies are forever.
With that in mind, here are twelve random things that I am thankful for in 2013.
1) I’m thankful that there are still visionaries like Shane Carruth who can make films like Upstream Color.
2) I’m thankful for actors, like Robert Downey, Jr., who are capable of making mainstream films, like Iron Man 3, memorable.
3) I’m thankful that a show like Breaking Badgot a chance to remind us of just how good television can be.
8) I’m thankful that I actually saw Tyler Perry’s Temptation because, otherwise, I would not believe that such an inept and deeply offensive film could have been made.
9) I am thankful for Icona Pop’s I Love It, which is currently my favorite song to play while I’m dancing around the house in my underwear.
10) I am thankful that the series finale of The Office was everything that it should have been.
11) I am thankful that Dexter finally ended because, seriously, the show was getting so bad that it was running the risk of overshadowing how good the first few seasons actually were.
12) Finally, and most importantly, I am thankful for our readers and for our subscribers. Y’all are the ones who make all of this worthwhile. Thank you!
As Halloween comes to a close, so does both horror month here at the Shattered Lens and our series of televised horrors. What better way to finish out this feature than with one of the best known and most popular episodes of The Twilight Zone?
There’s a lot I could say about To Serve Man but really, all that needs to be acknowledged is that it’s a classic and features one of the best endings ever.
To Serve Man was written by Rod Serling and directed by Richard L. Bare. It originally aired on March 2nd, 1962.
After having too much to drink at a party, Bob and Millie (played by Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone) wake up in a strange bed with no memory of how they got there. Hey, who hasn’t had that happen once or twice, right? However, Bob and Millie soon discover that not only is the house deserted, but so is the strange town outside.
This episode of the Twilight Zone was written by Earl Hamner, Jr. and directed by Ron Winston. It was originally broadcast on April 24th, 1964.
For some of our readers, this will probably be the most challenging episode of television that I’m going to post this Halloween season.
But first, what is Door Into Darkness?
In 1973, after he had directed his highly successful Three Animals Trilogy, Dario Argento produced a television series called Door Into Darkness. Each episode of Door Into Darkness told a different story of horror and suspense. Argento would appear at the beginning of each episode and introduce the story.
Of the four episodes of Door Into Darkness that were produced, most critics agree that the first one was the best. Titled Neighbors, it was also the directorial debut of Argento’s long-time assistant, Luigi Cozzi.
Neighbors tells the story of a newlywed couple who, along with their newborn baby, move into a seaside villa. (Along the way, they also manage to run their car into a ditch, effectively leaving them stranded at their new home.) When they arrive at the villa, they discover that the power hasn’t been turned on yet so they decide to hang out in the apartment upstairs. Once up there, they come across the dead body of their neighbor’s wife. When the neighbor arrives back home, the couple have to try to survive in the darkness while he looks for a place to hide the body of his dead wife.
Neighbors is an effectively suspenseful story that makes good use of both our inherent fear of the dark and the fact that we can never be quite sure of what our neighbors are doing.
I’m happy to say that a user in Italy has downloaded all four episodes of Door Into Darkness to YouTube and, hence, we can now share Neighbors on this site.
However, that’s where the challenge comes in.
The episode below is in Italian.
It has not been poorly dubbed into English and there are no subtitles. Personally, that’s not an issue for me. The plot of Neighbors is effectively simple and easy to follow and Italian suspense has always been a visual genre. Add to that, I love Italy. I’m a fourth Italian. I could listen to people speak Italian for days without understanding a word with it. I just love the sound of the language.
With all that in mind, here is Door Into Darkness…
This episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? is important for two reasons.
First off, when it originally aired on April 20th, 1996, it was meant to be the series finale. It would be another 3 years before the show would start up again with a new Midnight Society sitting around the campfire and telling tales.
Secondly, and most importantly, this episode is about Irish magic!
And, as we all know, that’s the best type of magic that there is.
When I first decided to feature old, horror-themed television episodes this month, I knew that I had to include Nightmare At 20,000 Feet.
This is perhaps the most famous episode of Twilight Zone. William Shatner plays a man on an airplane who is both terrified of flying and who has spotted a gremlin out on the wing. As Shatner desperately tries to convince his fellow passengers that he’s not crazy, the gremlin cheerfully goes about his destructive business.
This is one of the few episodes of The Twilight Zone not to have been downloaded onto YouTube and, at first, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to share it. Fortunately, site subscriber and frequent commenter KO tracked it down on Hulu for me and, as a result, we are very happy to present the classic fright fest Nightmare At 20,000 Feet!
This episode was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Richard Donner, who would later direct such films as The Omen, Superman, and Lethal Weapon. It originally aired on October 11th, 1963.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/440824
(Incidentally, originally an episode of Goosebumps was scheduled to be featured tonight. However, the YouTube account that was hosting that video has been suspended. The episode in question was The House of No Return, which many people believe features an early performance from Ryan Gosling. Having seen the episode before it was taken off YouTube, I can assure you that Ryan was nowhere to be seen.)
Earlier this month, we featured an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction that was hosted by Jonathan Frakes. What I did not mention, in that post, is that Frakes was not the 1st person to host this show.
The first season was hosted by veteran scenery-chewer James Brolin. Whereas Frakes brought a bemused appreciation to the absurd to his role of host, Brolin’s approach was far more earnest.
And, in appreciation of that earnestness, here’s the very first episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? This originally aired on May 25th, 1997 and it’s worth watching just to compare Brolin’s blandly sincere approach to the far more snarky approach of Jonathan Frakes.
Through the Shattered Lens