Tag Archives: Tom Melissis

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.15 “Jump Start”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

Wait a minute!  This isn’t Friday afternoon!  This is Saturday morning!  Why am I posting my review of this show now?

I’m only human.  After a long week, I was so exhausted on Friday that I couldn’t even find the strength to former coherent thoughts about a show as simple as T and T.  So, I put off the review until this morning.  Of course, I’m still tired.  All of this thinking is exhausting.  Roll the opening credits so I can take a 90 second nap.

Episode 2.15 “Jump Start”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on February 20th, 1989)

In a rare nod to maintaining some sort of continuity from episode to episode, this week’s episode of T and T opens with a flashback to a previous story.  We once again witness how two hapless crooks — Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Finn (Ron Gabriel) — tried to pull a gun on T.S. and Decker, just for the clip to fall out of the weapon.  At the time, my feeling was that the two crooks were both too incompetent to be viewed as a legitimate threat and this follow-up episode proved me right.

Fritz and Finn are back on the streets, having had their criminal charges dismissed on a technicality.  They want revenge on Turner for sending them to jail so they decide to steal his car.  However, because they’re both incredibly incompetent, they have to ask Max (Kathleen Laskey, who also played Marlene on Check It Out!) to steal it for them.  Just as with so many episodes of Check It Out!, Laskey was this episode’s saving grace.  She brought so much badass attitude to the character that you couldn’t help but cheer Max on as she stole Turner’s car.

Unfortunately, Laskey really isn’t in much of this episode.  For that matter, Alex, Decker, and even Turner have reduced roles.  The majority of the episode is devoted to Fritz and Finn and their total and complete incompetence.  I get that it was meant to be comedic but these two characters were so stupid and so foolish and so obviously doomed to failure that there was absolutely no tension as to whether or not Turner would be able to get his car back.  As far as I could tell, Turner didn’t even bother to report that his car had been stolen.  He just tracked the two guys down and took it back.  That’s the power of T and T!

Anyway, this was a throw away episode.  I’m not sure why, out of all the villains that have been on this show, T and T decided to bring back the least impressive of them.  Episodes like this leave little doubt that all of the serious criminals left Toronto as soon as Mr. T showed up.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Degrassi Junior High 1.8 “Nothing To Fear”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

On tonight’s episode …. hey, it’s Spike!

Episode 1.8 “Nothing to Fear”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on March 8th, 1987)

This week’s episode of Degrassi Junior High is important because it’s the first to prominently feature the character of Christine Nelson.  Played by Amanda Stepto, Christine was better known as Spike, because of the punk rock-inspired hairstyle that she wore throughout Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High.  Even when she appeared with far more conventional hair on Degrassi: The Next Generation, she was still frequently referred to her by her nickname.

Fans of the Degrassi franchise know that Spike is destined to get pregnant after having sex with her ill-fated junior high boyfriend.  They know that Spike is going to keep her daughter and that Emma Nelson is going to be the main character for the first few seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation.  And, of course, Spike is destined to eventually marry Snake.  Most of that won’t happen for a while.  On this week’s episode, she’s mostly present as a study partner of Voula’s (Niki Kemeny) and L.D.’s (Amanda Cook).  When L.D.’s father has a heart attack, Spike and Voula visit him at the hospital but L.D. keeps finding excuses not to.

That may seem selfish on L.D.’s part but L.D. has been terrified of hospitals ever since her mother passed away.  L.D. finds excuses not to go to the hospital, from cleaning the kitchen to helping out at her father’s garage.  I knew exactly what L.D. was going through, as I’ve also hated hospitals ever since my mom passed away and it’s always a struggle for me to find the courage to step through the front doors of one of them.  My Dad has been dealing with Parkinson’s for the past few years and I often do drive him to his doctor appointments so I’ve had to set aside my fear and dislike of them so that I can help him when he needs the help but my nerves still go into overdrive as soon as I step into one of those places.

Anyway, Voula does eventually talk to L.D. about her fear of going to the hospital and L.D. finally finds the courage to visit her father.  She arrives just as he’s being released to go back home.  So, for once, Voula actually helped someone out.  I still think she’s been way too unfair to Stephanie during this season but I’m sure we’ll return to that story in an upcoming episode.

Meanwhile, Yick and Arthur accidentally set free the school snake and they have to spend the entire episode looking for it.  It was a bit of silly subplot and I get the feeling that it was included to keep the episode from feeling too grim.  That said, the snake silliness really didn’t seem to fit with the scenes of L.D. struggling to come to terms with losing her mother and potentially losing her father.

As the episode ends, L.D.’s father says, “If you think hospitals are scary, try being the father of a teenage daughter.”  Apparently, not even a heart attack can defeat dad humor.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.5 “Hellowe’en”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on YouTube!

Tonight, we have the first Halloween episode of Friday the 13th: The Series!

Episode 1.5 “Hellowe’en”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on October 26th, 1987)

Somehow, it was not until I watched this episode that I noticed that the Friday the 13th antique shop is names Curious Goods.  I guess that’s a good name for a cursed antique shop.  (It’s probably more inviting than going with something more honest, like Evil Junk.)  Certainly, it appears that it was good enough to keep the place open, even though the owners spent most of their time taking back the antiques from the people who bought them.

This episode takes place during a Halloween party.  Is it a good idea to throw a Halloween party in a location that is full of cursed items?  That’s the exact question that Micki asks Ryan but Ryan thinks that the store needs to do something to let the neighborhood know that it’s not as scary as it looks.  Ryan is actually thinking like a businessman, whereas Micki is thinking like someone who just wants to find all of the cursed antiques so she can get back to planning her wedding.  Personally, I think Micki has the right idea.

That said, it’s not a bad party.  Ryan dresses up like a renaissance prince.  Micki wears a black gown that is to die for.  (I assume Micki is costumed as the lead singer of an 80s goth band.)  Jack, who really should have been the voice of reason when Ryan first suggested the party, dresses up like a wizard.  A lot of people from the neighborhood come to the shop and they watch as Jack performs some simple magic tricks.  Unfortunately, the party is ruined when two dummies wander down to the basement and accidentally activated a crystal ball.  The lights in the store go out.  There are scary noises.  Everyone abandons the shop, except for Ryan and Micki.

Where is Jack?  He’s taking a mysterious little girl trick-or-treating, just to suddenly discover that the girl is actually a Satanic creature who was sent to distract him while the ghost evil uncle Lewis (R.G. Armstrong) confronted Ryan and Micki in the shop.  Lewis, who is wandering around because the damned are apparently allowed to do so only on Halloween night, lies and says that he needs the amulet of Zohar so that he can free his wife from a curse but, after Ryan and Micki stupidly bring him the amulet, Lewis announces that the amulet will actually allow him to transfer his spirt into the body of someone who has recently died, as long as that person died from natural causes.  Lewis is going to use the amulet to return permanently to the land of the living.

Lewis and the little demon girl head down to the local morgue.  Fortunately, Jack has broken free of the trap that the demon put him in and Ryan and Micki have, for once, managed to figure out what’s happening on their own.  Between the efforts of Jack, Ryan, and Micki and Lewis’s own pickiness when it comes to picking a body, Lewis’s time runs out and he is dragged back to Hell.

This was a fun episode.  Not only did did it feature Ryan and Micki wearing their very 80s Halloween costumes but it also featured an enjoyably over-the-top performance from R.G. Armstrong as evil Uncle Lewis.  All Halloween episodes should be as enjoyable as this one.