Blergh

If one wants to go back to vintage, then I think that the two who own this thread would have to be Theodor ' Beaver' Cleaver (of Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963) and Laura Ingalls ( of Little House on the Prairie 1974-1983). They constantly fall the lies and tricks of their respective nemeses Eddie Haskell and Nellie Oleson . However, I think Laura winds up being the dumber of the two because Beaver is somewhat pressured to try to be civil to Eddie due to Beaver's older brother Wally inexplicably considering Eddie to be his best friend while Laura has no such pressure but just stays gullible to Nellie's stunts right through the mud wrestling episode! Oh, and they both openly dislike their respective tricksters so it makes it all the more frustrating that they each continue to let their guards down and get scorched again and again!

That's must be utterly heartbreaking for Mrs. Hanna! I hope she herself has a support system in her locale to help her cope with dealing with Mr. Hanna's Alzheimer's because the caregivers so often wind up being overshadowed and very overwhelmed by the many pragmatic demands of those dying from the inside out- to say nothing of becoming emotionally devastated before and after their loved ones' demises. Ages ago, I knew two neighbors who were sisters who cared for one of the sisters' husband who himself had a very lengthy and devastating decline over X number of years. It wound up that these two were so wiped out by the physical and emotional toll that, within a very short time of the husband's death, the two sisters sold their house and moved straight into a nursing home until their own respective deaths.

One of the more annoying things about it was that even when Cindy was supposed to be going to sleep, swimming,etc. (in the first few years) she was expected to always have her hair curled that way with plastic 'dingle balls' on each side of her head holding everything together instead of being shown with loose hair or her hair in curlers. At least by the latter part of the show, they let the character wear her hair loose but curled and sometimes in braids (but with the ends curled). And it must be kept in mind that in the late 1960's and early 70's the fashion was for conventional girls and women to have their hair straightened not curled but her and the late Miss Jones's styles hearkened back to Shirley Temple's childhood locks of the 1930's (when the young Miss Temple's wavy hair was curled to exactly 57 precise curls- not sure why they picked that number but they publicized it in promos about her).

@Dani covered many basic reasons why many of us heartily have disliked Piers Morgan down the years. It's not just his relentless uncalled for meanspiritedness towards his targets but how utterly unethical and unprincipled he appears to have been down the years as per legal findings! Anyway, I hope this answers your query!

OK, fair enough to mention Mr. Thomson's interview to give Miss Collins's account re Mr. Forsyth's reactions more credence. Sorry, but I just wasn't about to do the 'if Miss Collins said this happened it MUST be true! ' with nothing else to back it up. Whether she saved the show or the ratings somehow got a boost from other factors is a matter of opinion. The show's long been over and Mr. Forsyth has long since died. However, the fact that she has publicly made kudos re Mr. Morgan in the last few years and even went so far as to invite him to her birthday party just last month DOES IMO indicate that she's not the nicest celebrity out there (and even the claim that she wasn't praised by the late Mr. Forsyth doesn't absolve her of her currently flocking together with at least one buzzard)! IOW, I understand why you are disappointed with the late Mr. Forsyth's evident past actions so please understand why I'm disappointed with Miss Collins's current ones!

Maybe Mariette Hartley's dishes got sold off to pay off some of the Ingallses' debts including all the stuff they bought when pinning everything on a kook uncle's inheritance.

Keep in mind two things re this claim: First, we only have Miss Collins's side of the story and Mr. Forsyth's no longer in this world so no one can ask him if he actually said or did these things. Secondly, even if her claim re Mr. Forsyth's reaction to her Playboy cover is true, she's not the nicest celeb herself. For example as she's been a longtime fan of. ..Piers Morgan[BLEH!!!] for years right down to actually inviting him to celebrate her 90th birthday with her last month (as opposed to having him foisted on her against her wishes as the British Royal family has had happen). IOW, she doesn't seem to have had to stretch very far to have portrayed Alexis.

Are you sure about that? Why would he have had them live in that sardine-can crackerbox that was already packed with his own progeny if he had liked them- especially since it didn't even to have a chamber pot on the premises? I wouldn't be surprised if Albert didn't wish he'd stuck to shining shoes and stealing coins on the Winoka streets nor that James and Cassandra may have wished they'd just taken their chances with the strict Amish [?] couple and their framing son instead of winding up in such cramped quarters - both in Walnut Grove and on those mean Burr Oak, Iowa big city streets!

Along those lines, locals who needlessly repeat the entire name of their locale to other locals. Case in point: in the Wonder Woman Pilot, it seemed Princess Diana and the other Amazons constantly kept repeating that they were on 'Paradise Island' instead of just 'the Island'. I mean, these immortal Amazons had been living on this one island for two-thousand years and never BEEN to any other island the whole time so why the need to repeat the full name to each other each and every time?

Welcome to the club! Never could stand them OR their so-called show but even with that said, for them to have dissed the late Mr. Reeve the way they did was the ultimate in kicking someone while they're down! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, did either of them ever make the slightest attempt to apologize to him before his passing. ..or his surviving family after his death? If not, the above BOO.! stands!

So he says! FWIW, I'll believe it when an actual divorce decree gets rendered. They've been claiming to split then reunite then split,etc. so often, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both their sets of divorce lawyers had offices inside amusement park merry-go-rounds so as to feel less ying-yanged than having to deal with them!

I don't claim to be speaking for @debraran but I think it's likely she considers Nancy (who tried to deliberately have another girl killed) to have been a sociopath. Although, I would agree with you that Robert Loggia's character (who crippled his wife after attempting to murder her and their daughter then held Laura and Jenny hostage deluding himself that THEY were his wife and daughter) was a sociopath, at least he was a one-shot (figuratively not literally) unlike Nancy! FWIW, while I agreed with ML that the rags unfairly ragged upon him and, especially, his family. I have to say that ML himself was more unfair to his family by the 2nd Mrs. Landon (who'd not chosen to be famous) by putting them through the whole adulterous bond deal . Moreover, ML didn't seem to get that, having consistently opted to depict literally larger-than-life righteous heroes from Bonanza onward instead of cheaters, drunkards and/or bums, he somewhat handed the rags extra ammo to use against him when it was found out that he'd fallen off the fidelity wagon. In retrospect, it's somewhat amazing that they somehow continued to preserve the illusion that ML as every bit as sober as Pa Ingalls and it would only be long after his death via cast members' bios that his actual alcoholism would be revealed (and it seemed a virtual onset open secret if not in Hollywood itself) .

One thing to keep in mind re women performers/characters past 40 seeming to look older than we'd expect through modern eyes: until recent decades, estrogen supplements were not available. Hence once menopause happened, there was little if anything a woman could do to prevent the body from having a post-menopausal appearance in a short time. It's not for nothing that the saying of '40's the new 30' has come to be! In the Golden Girls era, having women of Blanche's age being depicted having an active dating life was more of an exception to how women were perceived to conduct themselves after menopause rather than the expectation. Of course, the sad irony is that those who may have decided via past experiences that they're no longer interested in dating a storm are often now perceived on shows as somewhat oddballs (even those who've made use of hormone supplements).

Likely because it was a broad comic scenario that lasted only ONE episode while the other two ideas were permanent millstones to the show's last gasp!

Ah, but when was the last US American show depicting an actual tea party- capped off with someone 'reading' everyone else's tea leafs (after they drank the tea, the 'reader' would spin the guests' cups upside-down and check the pattern the leafs made). IIRC, on The Waltons in the mid- 1970's the heavily pregnant Mary Ellen Walton Willard had this done by the usually jovial and gossipy busybody Flossie Brimmer who chillingly clammed up and refused to say WHAT she'd believed she saw in Mary Ellen's tea cup! Did that prove the end of tea leaf 'readings' on US American shows?

Tax loss write-offs, perhaps? Don't forget at the time ML had quit performing on LHOTP on a regular basis to produce the vehicle for Merlin Olsen Father Murphy ( which, like Victor French's Carter Country stint, is IMO simply best left forgotten).

I agree but I guess it was a surface rather than a personality contest! Regardless, it's one of those tales Miss Parton has enjoyed telling on herself for a while!

I have to admit that I felt sorry for Nancy when she dressed up as a ringmaster to present the 'trick' of a performer bursting out of burning haystack but, of course, it went horribly wrong with the performer getting overwhelmed by the heat and smoke from within and burning to death in front of the entire crowd! Even Nancy actually seemed to be horrified at that outcome despite (because?) of the fact that the performer had had nothing to do with her beforehand. Of course, the performer had been a bully who'd just disowned one of his sons for NOT wanting to follow in the 'family tradition' (but had successfully survived that stunt on countless occasions). Yet the 'prodigal' son somehow returned from his 'exile' to give comfort to the performer's shattered widow and younger son! I wonder if ML was trying to say something about pride going before the fall (as well as destroying filial bonds) and/or not quitting while ahead!

It probably would have worked better than the Dunk Tank of Shame did on Nancy! Of course, it was only after the Olesons found out that she'd evidently lied about having been abused by her mother (who'd , in fact, died giving birth to her) that Harriet wanted to punish her at all- and first proposed just sending her to bed without. .. dessert! Laura's [allegedly] wiser and cooler head prevailed, and voila the Dunk Tank of Shame with Harriet aiming straight at the lever. Of course, IIRC, Harriet just vented about how rotten Nancy was for not loving HER- neither she nor anyone else brought up the fact that Nancy had tricked others to lock the ice house door to deliberately leave a one-shot girl trapped inside who only got saved from dying of exposure to cold by chance JUST because Willie and Albert were paying more attention to this girl than to HER. Yep, as per Harriet and the others, lying about one's childhood seemed to be far more of a serious transgression than attempting to have another person murdered! Of course, the Dunking just exposed Nancy to the Walnut Grove citizenry as wet liar but didn't prompt her to do a 180 re being a spiteful and entitled brat! Brilliant idea, Laura!

OK, I mentioned in the post above that the representation of the Rock of Gibraltar and the mountain on the other side of the Strait [Jebel Musa in Morocco] as the Pillars of Hercules were used on the coat of arms for Spain. OK, this actually has a link to US currency! After the former British North American 13 Mainland Colonies (south of present-day Canada) won their independence, there was no standard currency and, in fact, would use coinages of many European nations (Great Britain, France, Spain,etc) more or less for barter. Anyway, bookkeepers would list the different currencies in ledgers and the abbreviation for multiples of the Spanish currency being the Pillars (with two lines somewhat like' l l ' being depicted) over an 'S' to depict multiples of the currency. Before too long, it got garbled with the lines drawn OVER the ' l l' lines and THAT is how the symbol for US currency came to be (which eventually got abbreviated further as $). Oh, and the name Dollar is derived from the name of coinage used in the Holy Roman Empire and several German territories called the 'thaler' (pronounced 'TAH-lerr') that also became the term for 'pieces of eight' coins in Spain called 'dolar' (DOUGH-lar') . Interestingly they got called 'pieces of eight' because one could divide the coins into eight pie wedge parts to pay smaller bills- and that's where the term 'two bits' came from because smaller debts would be paid off a quarter portion of the coins!

If you don't think Nice has the nicest airport, try flying into Gibraltar! The airport is on the one flat part of the peninsula- and sitting right smack on the Spanish Frontier. But since the peninsula is so narrow, they had to build the runway 'wings' right over the water but it's a tricky landing because it's between the more gradual hills of the Spanish Mainland and the Rock itself! Thus, the planes make rather steep dives/climbs when approaching/leaving the airport THEN land directly onto the runway 'wings' AND turn at the edge of one runway which looks as though one's completely surrounded by water before the plane is able to brake enough to safely taxi to the Airport! Now, the good news is that because only maybe ten flights arrive/depart from Gibraltar each day, once inside the Airport, Customs officials are usually somewhat less tense than other International Terminals (e.g. JFK, London, Singapore,etc.) and, if everything checks out, one gets that really cool Gibraltar stamp on the passport! Until just the last year (or so), one had to walk down the only road linking the Airport with the rest of Gibraltar (Winston Churchill Highway[!]) which crossed directly onto the Airport runway! Oh, they'd make a gigantic production of shutting off all vehicular and pedestrian traffic with NO ONE lingering on the runway until the plane had arrived then (usually) departed about ten minutes later! Thankfully, they've just completed a vehicular tunnel BENEATH the runway but the old road has been converted to a bicycle-pedestrian pathway which STILL must abide by the road closure during the planes' arrival. Of course, once you've cleared the airport, one either take a look back at the Airport and see the Spanish Border Crossing with British and Spanish flags flying on opposite sides of the fence AND immediately across the Spanish border in the town of La Linea is a McDonald's! Yep, if you go to Gibraltar and having a Mac attack that overwhelms any desire for British fish n' chips (or other cuisines), you'll have no choice but to hike over to the Border Crossing and get your passport stamped at La Linea then, after your meal, cross BACK over and get another Gibraltar stamp! Now, if you want to continue on to Gibraltar itself, you can't help but notice that the Rock's most famous and steepest cliffside angle is best seen going due south from the Spanish Frontier! Oh, and it's by NO means solid but riddled with natural and man-made caves and tunnels- the latter dating back for quite a few centuries (with the tunnels actually having more milage than than the surface roads). However, that Rock juts almost 1400 feet and was one of the Pillars of Hercules (the other being Jebel Musa on the Moroccan coast on the other side of the Strait) which the Ancient Greeks considered to be the Edge of the World (and the Spanish would render the two mountains on each side of their nation's coat of arms with the words 'plus ultra'- meaning territories beyond the Strait). Oh, and Gibraltar has been a magnet for millennia as in some of the Rock's sea caves have yielded evidence of Neanderthals living there from as far back as 40,000 B.C. ! Lastly, while some wanted to believe that the Barbary Apes (the only semi-wild primate population in Europe) came to Gibraltar from Africa via caves, it's more likely that they were imported by the Moorish officials imported them in the Middle Ages. OK, I guess what I'm trying to say that if one gets the chance, there's all kinds of fascinating things to see and do in Gibraltar but the flights arriving/departing are definitely adventuresome!

Considering that he did the whole Albert Morphine Addict after one of his children had had substance abuse issues, I think it's possible that (had he lived longer ) ML may have penned a somewhat sympathetic script about some of the issues the LGBTQ have faced since one of his RL sons( Christopher) has publicly identified as such in 1999. Of course, one might wonder if he'd ever attempted to do so for LHOTP in the 1970's or 80's but was given a big fat N-O by NBC ....

Maybe add the twist that one or all of the 'rough' men has been crushing on the Doc but Doc doesn't find him/them interesting and THAT is the true source of their hostility towards him. Seriously, while I can't imagine ML would have attempted any storylines about LGTPQ folks in the 1970's or 80's, he might have written something like this had were he still living at this time.

I'm not sure I agree with those unmanned devices being less vulnerable but I appreciate your trying to help. Thanks!

OK, thanks to everyone who answered my query re the school's possible MO for not discussing Mrs. D's terminal condition then death. Yes, I think there's a good probability that Mr. D. and possibly Mrs. D. herself may have requested that so as not to stress out us students. I have no doubt that those who kept the news had the best of intentions but, alas, we weren't sheltered from the tragedy in the end. @Gramto6, Yes, I would agree that doing nothing besides naming a library cart after that deceased 6th grade teacher was a bit flat-footed and lame (and your daughter's school did a much better job helping the students deal with her 4th grade teacher's passing). But that was more than how my school acknowledged Mrs. D.'s passing- via saying and doing nothing! I wish I had thought to seek out Mr. D. and have a more in depth conversation about his wife but Mr. D. himself died about twenty years afterwards and somehow I was too shortsighted to consider trying to contact him. I know it can't have been easy since he wound up raising their three preteen children entirely on his own after her passing and, for whatever reason/s, never remarrying until his own death. I don't what's become of their now-grown offspring, though their youngest was about a year younger than me so I'm not sure how much they'd have been told at the time. Thanks again for everyone's input! I don't know why that popped up into my noggin roughly a half-century after the fact but it was nice to recall how wonderful she had been to all of us who knew her before she got her reward.