Tag Archives: TV Show

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.10 “Twenty Bucks”

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!

This week, everyone needs some money.  Gourmet Scum is coming.

Episode 3.10 “Twenty Bucks”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on February 6th, 1989)

To quote the Zit Remedy, everybody wants something they’ll never give up.  In this week’s episode, everyone wants twenty bucks.

That’s how much it costs to buy a ticket to see Gourmet Scum, Canada’s hottest band.  Melanie, who has gotten her braces taken off and who is finally feeling confident about herself (Hey, I’ve been there!), has been invited to the concert by Snake.  There’s just one catch.  Melanie has to pay for her own ticket.  When Melanie asks her mom for the money, Melanie’s mom says that she can’t spare twenty dollars.  Not with the cost of groceries!  (Hell, try living in 2024.)

Melanie decides to steal twenty dollars from her mom’s purse.  Melanie justifies it by assuming that she’ll get paid twenty dollars for her next babysitting job and she’ll be able to pay her mom back as a result.  Melanie steals the money and buys the ticket.  However, her weekend babysitting job is canceled.  Without the twenty dollars, Melanie’s mom will only be able to make chili until her next payday.  A guilt-ridden Melanie finally confesses to stealing from her mom.  Her mom promptly grounds Melanie, meaning no concert and probably no chili either.

Snake, when he hears Melanie can’t go to the concert with him, decides that he doesn’t want to go to the concert either.  Awwww!  Snake and Melanie are cute together but, those of us who have seen Degrassi: The Next Generation, know that Snake is ultimately going to marry ….. well, I won’t spoil it.

Meanwhile, Spike is upset because Shane has told her that he’s broke and won’t be able to pay her any child support.  Why is Shane broke?  Because he used his last twenty dollars to buy a ticket to Gourmet Scum!

Finally, Joey makes a twenty-dollar bet with BLT (Dayo Ade).  (Yes, the character’s nickname is BLT.)  BLT bets that Joey can’t get a date for Friday night.  Joey asks and is turned down by almost every girl at school.  Even the Farrell twins turn him down!  (Seriously, how much of a loser do you have to be to actually get turned down by a Farrell?)  Finally, he asks the girl that he really likes (but who he fears no longer likes him), Caitlin.  Caitlin says yes.  Awwwww!  Unfortunately, BLT pays Joey right in front of Caitlin.  In order to prove that he didn’t ask Caitlin out just for the money, Joey proceeds to rip up the twenty dollar bill.  (Keep in mind, it’s a Canadian twenty so he probably just ripped up the equivalent of an American dollar.)

I enjoyed this episode.  It deftly balanced several storylines but it also set up a few big developments that we’ll talk about next week.  Joey and Caitlin are a cute couple and so are Melanie and Snake.  As for Shane and Spike …. well, like I said, we’ll talk about it next week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.13 “Love and Marriage”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Howard is the world’s worst boyfriend …. again!

Episode 2.13 “Love and Marriage”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on January 18th, 1987)

As I’ve said in the past, Check It Out! has never been very consistent when it comes to portraying Howard and Edna’s relationship.  Sometimes, Howard is the perfect boyfriend, a romantic bon vivant who always knows the right thing to say.  Then, other times, Howard is a complete idiot.

This episode finds Howard in idiot mode.  He forgets Edna’s birthday and even admits that the cheap flowers that he sends Edna are the result of him asking the florist to remember Edna’s birthday so Howard wouldn’t have to worry about it.  While Edna is definitely (and rightly) annoyed with Howard, she does receive some very beautiful flowers from a man named George Zuckerman.

Edna tells a jealous Howard that George was her boyfriend when she was a teenager.  She says it’s been forever since she last saw George but George has invited her to have dinner with him at a fancy French restaurant.  Of course, Howard follows Edna to the restaurant, where he gets on the nerves of the snooty maître d’ (Louis Negin, who gets the episode’s best lines) and he also meets George (Doug Paulson).

George is handsome, charming, rich, and Edna’s ex-husband.  Howard is shocked the learn that Edna was married before but Edna explains that she was only seventeen and her father made them annul the marriage after two weeks.  That still seems like a strange thing to have never mentioned in the past.  Edna and Howard have been dating for seven years, after all.

While Howard fumes with jealousy, George says he has something he needs to ask Edna.  Before he can ask, Howard throws a fit when his credit card is declined.  (“It has a $150 credit limit!” Howard snaps.  “The soup alone costs $150,” the maître d’ replies.)

Later, at the store, Marlene encourages Edna to marry George.  Edna says that she can’t marry George because she loves Howard.  Uhmm….Edna?  George is handsome and rich.  Howard runs a failing supermarket and forgot your birthday.  Not that it matters because George isn’t interested in marrying Edna.  Instead, he reveals that the annulment was never filed so he needs Edna to sign some divorce papers.  Edna agrees and then looks forward to having a romantic dinner with Howard.

This episode had some funny moments, mostly due to the work of Louis Negin and Gordon Clapp, who returns as Viker and delivers his lines with such a hilariously sincere stupidity that he elevates the entire show.  Viker reveals that he’s a tailor in this episode and he even makes Howard a suit.  Howard later wears the suit to the restaurant and, every time he moves, the suit tears just a little more.  Hey, it made me laugh!

Still, this was kind of a sad episode.  Seriously, Edna, you can do so much better!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/22/24 — 9/28/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just as with last week, I’ve been busy getting ready for Horrorthon and watching a lot of movies.  I haven’t watched much episodic television over the past few days.

I binged my way through several episodes of Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. I’ll be reviewing those episodes over the next few weeks.  I watched the second season finale and the the third season premiere of Miami Vice.  I’ll be posting my thoughts on the show tomorrow.  I watched a few episodes of One Step Beyond, a horror-themed anthology show from the 60s.  I’ll be posting episodes of that show throughout October.  The fun thing about One Step Beyond is that all of the shows were claimed to be based on fact.  Every episode seems like it should feature Criswell asking, “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

On Netflix, I watched the second season of Monsters (the Ryan Murphy-produced true crime anthology show and not the old Canadian anthology series that I review for this site).  This time, the series focused on Lyle and Erik Menendez.  Though overstuffed with ten episodes, it was a clear improvement over the first season.  At first, I was worried that the series was going to glamourize the Menendez brothers in much the same way that it previously glamourized Jeffrey Dahmer.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen.  The Menendez brothers came across as being two spoiled rich sociopaths and the fact that one of them reached out from prison to complain about how he was portrayed leads me to suspect that the miniseries got closer to the truth than some of the other shows that have been made about the Menendez murders.  As is typical of Ryan Murphy’s miniseries, the end result was uneven and occasionally a bit tasteless but it was still interesting to watch.  I plan to write and post a longer review sometime next week.

Speaking of Ryan Murphy-produced true crime, I watched the third episode of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.  It was okay, even if it did feel as if it wasn’t really adding anything new to what we previously learned from the first two episodes.  I liked Patrick Schwarzenegger’s portrayal of Tim Tebow, even the show itself didn’t exactly treat the character fairly.  The actor playing Aaron Hernandez continues to come across as being a bit of a blank.

I plan to get caught up with Survivor next week. I might even check in on the Big Brother House, now that this season is nearly over.  I did get a chance to watch the premiere of Hell’s Kitchen this week.  I can’t wait for the first dinner service and elimination.  Just based on the first episode, this looks like it will be another good season.  Unlike Jeff Probst, who seems obsessed with changing Survivor simply for the sake of changing it, Gordon Ramsay seems to understand that there’s no need to fix something that is already working.  I always enjoy Hell’s Kitchen and I’m looking forward to this season.

And that’s it for this week!

 

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.1 “The Drop-Ins: Part One”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, we begin the fourth and final season of Welcome Back, Kotter.

Episode 4.1 “The Drop-Ins: Part One”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on September 11th, 1978)

The fourth season of Welcome Back, Kotter opens with a few changes.

First off, there’s new opening credits.

Did you notice one very big change?  That’s right. Sebastian Leone is no longer president of the borough.  All hail Howard Golden.

Did you notice another big change?  John Travolta is now a special guest star!  That’s what happens when you star in two hits films in a row but you’re too nice to tell your former sitcom colleagues to go away.

However, there are even more changes waiting as the new school year begins.  For one thing, there are new background students in Gabe’s classroom, joining Epstein, Washington, and Horshack.  (Barbarino is not present as the school year begins.)  Epstein has gotten a haircut and now looks like he’s 40.

Carvelli and Murray have moved into the district and are now students in Gabe’s class.

Principal Lazurus has retired and Woodman has finally achieved his dream of becoming principal.

Finally, Gabe is now Vice Principal!  The Sweathogs are superexcited and tie up Carvelli and Murray to celebrate.  Gabe is not amused and takes Epstein, Horshack, and Washington to his office.  He gives them a week’s detention.  The Sweathogs accuse Gabe of having sold out but Gabe tells them that it’s time for them to get serious about their lives and to start preparing for the world outside of high school.  Eventually, the Sweathogs are able to convince Gabe to give them two days detention on the condition that they all get jobs around the school.

Horshack and Washington run the school store.  Epstein runs the projector for the audio visual department.  But when Horshack and Washington leave the store a mess and Epstein unrolls a film in the middle of the school hallway, Gabe is again forced to be the disciplinarian.  Now, even Horshack thinks that he’s sold out.

Suddenly, Barbarino shows up!  The audience goes crazy.  Barbarino is wearing what passed for good clothes in the 70s.  He tells the Sweathogs that he has dropped out of school and he has a job at the local hospital.  The Sweathogs, seeing Barbarino’s success, decide that they should drop out as well.  Gabe can only watch in stunned silence as the four Sweathogs walk out of the school….

And that’s the end of Part One!

This episode was kind of depressing to watch, to be honest.  It’s not just that the Sweathogs themselves all appear to approaching middle-age, though that certainly didn’t help.  It’s that no one seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about starting another season of this show.  (From what I’ve read, due to all of the third season’s backstage drama and the open animosity between Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman, just about everyone in the cast was ready to move on.)  Even Gabe Kaplan appeared to be bored with the whole thing.  The strength of this show was its cast.  For the fourth season premiere, everyone is obviously just going through the motions and, compared to the earlier seasons of this show, it’s sad to see.  There’s just no energy or joy to any of the performances.

Hopefully, things will improve with the second part!  We’ll find out next week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

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: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

Agck!  Bees!

Episode 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

(Dir by David Winning, originally aired on January 16th, 1989)

I have never been stung by a bee or a wasp.

I’m extremely lucky.  All of my sisters and all of my cousins have been stung once or twice.  My mom was stung multiple times when I was little.  But I have never once been stung.  I once had a wasp fly straight into my hair and I was able to shake it out without it stinging me.  I have had bees land on my bare arm and just sit there without stinging.  I once knocked a wasp nest off of a farm doorway and the wasps, while obviously angry, made no attempt to sting me in retaliation.  For whatever reasons, the wasps and the bees have decided not to mar my beautiful skin with any of their stingers and I appreciate them for that.

Of course, I’m also very scared that they might someday change their mind.  I have no idea what it feels like to be stung but I know it’s painful.  On a more serious note, I have no idea whether or not I’m allergic to bees or wasps.  I appreciate their kindness but I’m still terrified of their capriciousness.

That’s why this somewhat silly episode of Friday the 13th freaked me out.  I say silly because it was about McCabe (Art Hindle), a psycho beekeeper who kept all of his bees in a cursed hive.  Whenever he would unleash the bees, the cheap special effects were so bad that it would have made me laugh if not for the fact that I’m already scared enough of innocent bees.  Imagine how I feel about cursed ones!

The bees produced cursed honey that can be used to restore the youth of people who allow themselves to be stung by McCabe’s bees.  (Because they’re magic bees, they don’t die after stinging someone.  I always understood that stinging someone caused a bee to be ripped in half so I’m not sure how the magic works but whatever.  I actually kind of feel bad for bees now.)  However, the people who accept McCabe’s youth treatment have to have a constant supply of honey and McCabe needs a constant supply of dead bodies so that his clients can fake their own deaths.  So, McCabe orders his clients to kill if they want to remain young.

To be honest, the whole plot kind of feels like it was made up on the spot but the great Canadian character actor Art Hindle gives an amusingly over-the-top performance as McCabe.  McCabe is the type of villain who laughs whenever he’s thinking about doing something evil.  There’s nothing subtle about Hindle’s performance but it works in the contest of the episode’s overall absurdity.  The bees are obviously fake.  Art Hindle chews up every piece of scenery he can get his hands on.  The episode’s a lot of fun.

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.16 “TV Turner”

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!

This week, a documentary crew proclaims T.S. Turner to be the West’s greatest crime fighter.

Episode 3.16 “TV Turner”

(Dir by Patrick Loubert, originally aired on April 21st, 1990)

A Japanese television crew shows up at the Canadian police station and tells Detective Hargrove that they asked a computer for the name of the greatest crime fighter in North America.  The computer replied with “T.S. Turner,” so they have traveled to Canada to interview Turner.  The only catch is that they have no idea where Turner is and they don’t know anything about him.

Meanwhile, Turner is preparing to leave for his interview with the Japanese documentary team when …. wait a minute, I thought they didn’t know where to find Turner.  I thought they hadn’t even called Turner before arriving in Canada.  So, why is Turner getting ready to leave for his interview?  This is a confusing episode.

Anyway, an old friend of Turner’s asks him to help her track down her missing husband, who lost his job after he was framed for a theft at work.  Turner blows off the interview to search for him.  This means that the film crew instead interviews Hargrove and then Terri about Turner.  The film crew is disappointed to learn that Turner does not drink and he’s not a womanizer.  A random criminal (Phillip Jarrett) gives an interview about the time he was arrested by Turner but it turns out that he’s thinking of a different Turner.

Finally, Turner shows up at the station.  However, before he can do the interview, Terri’s latest client (Angelo RIzacos) grabs a gun and threatens to shoot his way to freedom.  By an amazing coincidence, it turns out that the client is also the missing husband!  Turner convinces the man to put down the gun by explaining that everyone now knows that he was framed for the theft.

(That said, the guy is still looking at serious jail time.  He threatened to shoot up a police station!)

The film crew decides not to interview Turner because he’s not exciting enough.  The end.

Weird episode.  I was expecting it to be a clip show but instead, it was just people talking about how Turner didn’t drink, have sex, or fight any supervillains.  I guess the idea was to show that Turner was a good man and that’s what made him a hero.  That’s a nice message but it also leads to Turner losing his chance to be the subject of a documentary.  Turner’s just too good for the world, I guess.

Let’s give some credit where credit is due.  After sleepwalking through most of season 3, Mr. T actually seemed to be invested in this episode and the scene where he talked the guy into putting down his gun was very nicely done and acted.  As an actor, Mr. T had zero range but he could be likably earnest and that’s certainly the case here.

Anyway, this was an odd episode, even by T and T standards.  There’s only five more to go!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.18 “To Bind The Wounds”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark invade people’s dreams.

Episode 2.18 “To Bind The Wounds”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 19th, 1986)

Timothy Charles (Eli Wallach) sits in a cemetery, the only person to show up for the burial of his son, Timothy Charles, Jr.  The younger Charles died nearly twenty years earlier, while serving as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.  Only recently have his remains been returned to the U.S.A.

The elder Charles is himself a veteran and lives in an airplane graveyard that sits in the desert.  He served in World War II.  The United States won World War II and Timothy Charles was celebrated as a hero.  The United States lost Vietnam and, as a result, most people want to pretend like it never happened and ignore the sacrifice of men like Timothy Charles, Jr.

Jonathan and Mark show up at the funeral.  Though he doesn’t know them, the elder Timothy Charles is touched by their presence and invites them back to his airplane.  The elder Charles, bitter about how his son has been forgotten, wishes there was some way he could memorialize him.  Jonathan and Mark suggest setting up a scholarship.

Unfortunately, a scholarship requires money and none of the wealthy people in town are willing to contribute.  They all want to forget the trauma of the war.  So, Jonathan and Mark pop up in their dreams and show them what a hero Timothy Charles, Jr. (played by Moosie Drier, Jr.) truly was.  They agree to set up the scholarship.  At the announcement ceremony, the elder Charles gives a heartfelt speech thanking them.

Timothy Charles, Sr. returns to his airplane.  Suddenly, the plane is flying into heaven and his son is sitting beside him.  Awwwww!

As I mentioned two weeks ago, I’m binging Highway to Heaven while in an emotional state.  My father died in the early morning hours of August 19th and I’m still very much in mourning.  As a result, while the logical side of me can watch this show and realize that it’s shamelessly sentimental and manipulative, the emotional side of me doesn’t care.  Eli Wallach was a great actor who had a tendency to go a bit overboard.  There’s nothing subtle about his performance here.  And the ending, with father and son literally flying to Heaven, was absolutely shameless.  But dammit, it made me cry.

And, to be honest, this episode makes an important point.  The people in Timothy’s town are reluctant to honor him because he served in an unpopular war that America lost.  It’s similar to the attitude that a lot of people now seem to have to those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.  One sees it in the relentless gaslighting about the disastrous withdraw from Afghanistan and the refusal to honor the 13 service members killed at Abbey Gate.  Instead of holding our leaders to account, the American people often seem to blame those who served.  Hopefully, someday, that will change.

Retro Television Review: Malibu CA 1.11 “Malibu Holiday”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, an actress runs away with Scott.

Episode 1.11 “Malibu Holiday”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on December 20th, 1998)

Desperate to escape the paparazzi, world-famous movie star Jessie Sinclair (Ragan Wallake) ducks into the restaurant where Scott works.  (Does this place have a name?  I assume it does but I can’t remember it to save my life.)  Even after Jessie dyes her blonde hair brown, Scott still recognizes her.  However, he also promises not to let anyone know who she is.  Touched by Scott’s kindness (and seriously, when has Scott ever been this nice before?). Jessie spends the weekend with him.

Meanwhile, Jason and Stads want to make a quick $5,000 by taking a picture of Jessie for the tabloids.  While pretending not to know who Jessie actually is, they secretly snap a picture of Jessie with Scott.  However, when the publisher of the tabloid starts to press Jason and Stads for information on Scott, Jason and Stads realize that Jessie deserves her privacy.

It’s too late, though.  The paparazzi are on to Scott and Jessie.  At first, Jessie accuses Scott of selling her out but, eventually, Stads and Jason admit that they were the ones who took the picture.  That night, Jessie and Scott hang out at the beach before Jessie announces that she has to leave to go shoot another movie.  After Jessie leaves, Scott admits to Jason that his heart is breaking.

Awwwww!

This would be an okay episode if not for the fact that it reminded me way too much of that episode of Saved By The Bell where Zach made a bet that he could get a kiss from pop star Stevie.  Little did Zach suspect that Stevie was actually Miss Bliss’s houseguest, Colleen McMurphy.  Seriously, are there any episodes of Malibu CA that don’t feel as if they were recycled from leftover bits of Saved By The Bell, California Dreams, and Hang Time?   With each episode, it gets more and more difficult to ignore this show’s total lack of originality.

As for the b-plots, Tracy (who, as played by Priscilla Inga Taylor, is the only consistently amusing character on Malibu CA) hopes to be cast as a screaming girl in Jessie’s film.  Meanwhile, Murray takes it upon himself to screen all of Sam’s potential boyfriends because, as he explains it, Sam has terrible taste in men.  Considering that Sam dated Scott for two episodes, Murray has a point.

It’s kind of interesting how, when this show started, both Scott and Jason were supposed to be in love with Sam.  Now, Scott is dating random guest stars, Jason is dating Stads, and Sam rarely gets much to do on the show.  If anything Gina May (who played Sam) had more chemistry with Brandon Brooks (who played Murray) than she did with either of the show’s stars.  It’s just funny how things develop.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.15 “Mr. Swlabr”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

Mister Who?

Episode 2.15 “Mr. Swlabr”

(Dir by Warner Shook, originally aired on January 28th, 1990)

11 year-old Roy Barton (Robert Oliveri) spends all of his time in the basement of his house, playing with his train set and making dinosaur figurines.  His mother (Kate McGregor-Stewart) is abusive.  His older sister (Danielle Ferland) is spoiled and self-centered.  Roy doesn’t have a friend in the world and has never gotten over his father abandoning the family when he was younger.

One day, Roy opens a box of cereal and finds a small dinosaur toy.  Roy puts the toy in water and it comes to life.  Mr. Swlabr (voiced by New York performance artist Rockets Redglare) says that he’ll be Roy’s friend and promises that he’ll never leave.  Awwwww!  Roy’s evil mother tries to drown Mr. Swlabr with a hose but the water just causes Mr. Swlabr to grow into an even bigger dinosaur.  Mr. Swlabar spits a bunch of green goo on Roy’s sister.  It doesn’t hurt her but it does convince her and her mother to do whatever Roy tells them to do.

This was an odd episode.  It played out like a particularly macabre fairy tale, with Roy finally getting a friend who was big enough to bully everyone who was previously bullying him.  It had its moments.  I teared up a bit when Roy begged Mr. Swlabr not to abandon him the way that his father did.  But, in the end, the hand puppet dinosaur was a bit too silly to be an effective monster.

Probably the most interesting thing about this episode was the casting of Rockets Redglare as the voice of Mr. Swlabr.  From the 1970s up until his death in 2001, Rockets Redglare was a fixture of the New York underground.  He was a comedian, a performance artist, and eventually a character actor.  He worked as a drug counselor while, at the same time, delivering drugs to people like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Sid Viscous.  He was reportedly the last known person to have seen Sid and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen alive and he was a suspect when Nancy was later found dead.  According to Phil Strongman’s Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk, Redglare later told his friends that he was the one who had murdered Nancy.  That said, musician Howie Pyro later said that Redglare was notorious for making up stories to get attention.  (For their part, the police focused their investigation on Sid Viscous, who they claimed confessed despite the fact that Viscous was also too drugged out to really remember much of anything.  The main lesson here: Stay away from the heroin.)  Redglare went on to become a bit of an underground celebrity, appearing in movies directed by Jim Jarmusch, Stee Buscemi, and Olive Stone.  (He played himself in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat).  Redglare died at the age of 52, saying in his final interview that everything he did, he “did to excess.”  RIP, Mr. Swlabr.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.24 “That Old Gang of Mine/Love with a Skinny Stranger/Vicki and the Gambler”

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 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!

This week, Vicki learns how to gamble.

Episode 4.24 “That Old Gang of Mine/Love with a Skinny Stranger/Vicki and the Gambler”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on April 11th, 1981)

It’s an anniversary cruise!

Captain Stubing and Vicki are celebrating the anniversary of Vicki coming to live on the boat with her father.  Captain Stubing has already picked out the gift that he’s going to give Vicki, a beautiful and valuable pearl necklace.  As for Vicki, there’s a watch in the boat’s gift shop that she would love to give her father but she can’t afford it.  Then again, Vicki is the Captain’s daughter.  Can’t she just take whatever she wants?  I mean, who is going to snitch on the Captain’s daughter?  Add to that, it was only two weeks ago that the manager of the gift shop was juggling three lovers on one cuise.  Who is she to judge anything Vicki might do?

Admirably, Vicki is an honest person and does not want to just steal something for her father.  But when her father’s old friend, Wade Hubbard (Gene Barry), boards the ship, he shows Vicki that she can easily make enough money to buy the watch by betting on a horse race!  Wade, it turns out, is a compulsive gambler and Vicki soon falls under his influence.  Captain Stubing is not happy about that so Wade pretends to lose all of his money (and Vicki’s necklace!) in order to trick Vicki into not only hating him but also hating gambling.

You know, Wade and Captain Stubing could have just told Vicki not to gamble anymore.  Vicki seems like she’s pretty smart and level-headed so I’m sure she would have listened if Wade and the Captain had just told her that they didn’t want her placing bets as a minor.  Instead, Wade created an elaborate lie and basically traumatized Vicki for life.  That seems a bit extreme to me but, then again, I don’t have a gambling problem.

As for the other passengers, Patty Beller (Vicki Lawrence) is stunned when she discovers that her long-distance boyfriend, Phil Manning (Charles Siebert), has spent the last month at a fat farm and is now totally athletic and handsome.  Patty always took it for granted that Phil would only have eyes for her but suddenly, every other woman on the cruise appears to be trying to get his attention.  This story would have perhaps worked better if Patty hadn’t come across as being so self-centered.  Phil explains that he lost the weight because he was worried about his health and tired of people making fun of him.  To me, it seems like Phil should be applauded for his self-discipline and his desire to make a better life for himself.  Instead, Patty gets upset that Phil is taking care of himself.  Seriously, Phil — you can do better!

Finally, three old-time crooks (Jack Gilford, Jesse White, and Kaye Ballard) board the cruise and make plans to rob the safe.  That shouldn’t be too hard since Gopher is the person in charge of watching the safe.  However, the crooks are all elderly and out-of-touch with life in the swinging 80s.  The safecracker has gone deaf and needs someone else to listen as he turns the dial.  It’s all a bit silly but it was kind of a sweet story, largely due to the performances of Gilford, White, and Ballard.

The safecracker’s story aside, this episode of The Love Boat was a bit of a sour ride.  Between Wade lying to Vicki and Patty wishing that her boyfriend was at risk for heart disease, this just wasn’t a very likable cruise.  Hopefully, next week will be a bit more fashionable.  Considering that the upcoming episode guest stars Glorida Vanderbilt, Bob Mackie, and Halston, I imagine it will be.