Blergh

It's not only amazing how long Miss Fabray lived (and yes she was quite a gifted comic as well as quite attractive in her day) but it also she be noted that she had had to overcome some serious challenges. Most notably, due to a hereditary inner ear condition, she became profoundly deaf in her early teens and it was only through surgery that she was able to hear at all. But also, it should be mentioned that she endured a far more serious hazard of live television than mere forgetting lines, swearing or wardrobe malfunctions when between scenes of Caesar's Hour, while she was bent down to brush off the front of her blouse -a large piece of stage ballast crashed down and glanced her head! This ballast was SO heavy and it fell with such velocity that it literally put a hole in the wooden stage floor but since she happened to be bent down, it did NOT do the same to her skull! She was knocked unconscious and her scream could be heard on live television and they asked the studio audience for a doctor! Well, she survived and even returned to the show a few weeks later but with bandages on her eyes due to extreme sensitivity to light afterwards. Miss Fabray also said that, despite that horrible accident, she loved working with Sid Caesar and honing her comedic gifts but that it came to an abrupt end when her manager asked for far higher billing and monies than the producers and network were willing to provide- and she only found out many decades later when she and Mr. Caesar compared notes at a tribute to him as she had had no idea this manager had sabotaged things without her knowledge. Anyway, if anyone wants to see her working with a comedy legend, I urge you all to check out her work with Mr. Caesar on that show on that site that rhymes with Blue Voob. RIP, Miss Fabray!

"Monkees on Tour" was a strange hybrid -as the opening scene was a comedic introduction to the episode's actual plot ( a mini documentary showing them as the successful performers they were on a tour date). What was especially odd about that first scene was that not only were all but Davy wearing obviously fake beards for no given reason but also that it was filmed in (of all places) the Stephenses' living room in Bewitched and they made their exit via the back patio (what did Mrs. Kravitz have to say about that?! LOL). Perhaps the most ironic thing about this docu was that it showed parts of their live show in front of their audience who never stopped screaming to deafening levels and it's likely the viewers at home got to actually HEAR what numbers they'd played far better than the audience members did.

OK here's one, I never liked The Nanny, primarily because, apart from occasionally gushing over her charges, Fran barely interacted with them- just spent virtually every waking moment shopping and gossiping! It might have worked better had she started out clueless re what a nanny was supposed to do but then be willing to learn the ropes but still have fun being a fish out of water (and she could have still had interactions with her family and friends- as lots of hardworking folks manage to do) . However; Fran didn't even seem to try to do anything yet expected to get paid to just shop and gossip! Those kids' father might as well have just gotten them a goldfish to take care of them (and not vice versa). BTW, I've seen Miss Drescher in other things and IMO she's okay in small doses or as a good background character but this was not a role I liked her in.

Believe it or not, he actually auditioned for Happy Days for the role of . . The Fonz! Somehow, I think he might have made the part more openly comical.

The irony is that Mr. Jones was a talented drummer and even guitarist but they insisted on him being a singer and tambourine player while the guitarist Mr. Dolenz was made the drummer mainly because TPTB were afraid Mr. Jones wouldn't be seen by the audience behind the taller members of the band if he stayed in the background!

Actually, I LIKED the Neighborhood of Make Believe because folks there actually had disagreements but would work things out by the end of the week whereas in Mister Rogers's actual neighborhood, everything was perfect but rather boring. However; I always liked the 'how stuff is made ' segments and demonstrations and still do! BTW, IIRC correctly, Lady Elaine was based on an older neighbor Fred Rogers had known as a child!

Here's one of the worst sets of cliffhanger blunders: Moesha- not only was it unclear whether it was the title character or another character who was about to reveal her pregnancy but her younger brother Miles had gotten kidnapped! Not only were both of these very serious developments left hanging on that show but also one of the Moesha's best friends, Kimberly Parker spun off to her own sitcom (The Parkers)- and never once did Miss Parker or her mother Nikki EVER say what had happened with the former's best friend and brother despite having four years on their own show to at least drop an aside. Yes, I know the latter show was supposed to be a comedy but it was totally OOC for Kim and her gossipy mother to never bring up stuff like that (even if it was just to make the latter seem more important via being linked to a major crime happening to her daughter's friend's family) -and the former show was a comedy,too yet they had this awful development happen at the very end. I mean, why drop this horrific bombshell at the tail end yet even when giving the opportunity to expand on other characters on a new show, NEVER say if the pregnancy/kidnapping got resolved much less if either character survived?! Why The Face!!?!

They had a riveting episode in which while she was unconscious, her Jehovah's Witness mother and Bobby engaged in several emergency court battles re to give her blood transfusions with EACH of them claiming to her know her 'real' beliefs and wishes. Well, she somehow woke up after all the dust settled- and never ONCE said what her actually beliefs and wishes were much less commented on her mother and boss having this fight over her.

Ms. Frutt was a brilliant lawyer, great orator but had absolutely the WORST bat sense and judgement calls re her supposed friends. I mean, I could imagine it happening that once or twice a friend might need her help and perhaps could be guilty of the crime accused. However; as the seasons wore on (before she became wallpaper with the rest of the cast for Alan Shore), it seemed she had an unending supply of 'friends' who needed someone to defend them and virtually every time it would turn out they were guilty and she'd do a 'how could you?' speech. One would have thought after the 3rd or 4th time the firm got burned by these folks misusing her compassion, they'd have told her they were NOT going to go to bat for these folks and that her judgement was messed up.

Can anyone recall this character smiling- even ONCE?! One would think that with the birth of his son and his wife being freed from prison, that'd have done the trick but NO!

Yep, the terrible irony of Hogan's Heroes was that those playing the cardboard villains were actually heroes in real life while Bob Crane who played the title hero seemed to have been a nightmare to have been acquainted with (but even so didn't deserve to be murdered). Also, it was produced by Bing Crosby who himself had quite a few contradictions re his onstage and offstage personas.

Inasmuch as the main characters reminded me of folks in high school who I did my best to avoid, I never liked That 70's Show. I tried it once or twice but it just seemed to be a jaded, cynical and unpleasant version of Happy Days- set two decades later. Oh, and I dislike that we've had Ashton Kutcher inflicted upon us ever since thanks to that show.

All I can think of is that after centuries of being a 'creature of the wind' and being able to zap up whatever she wanted and pop where ever she wanted at a moment's notice, she wanted something more challenging (and perhaps she wanted a child without getting into the warlock dating circle). Then again, she knew she'd only have to put up with him for less than a century before he lived up to his tag and maybe use that experience to help her become more rounded. Perhaps, it was a means to declare autonomy from Endora but Samantha just wound up having TWO masters.

I seem to hear that buzzing sound a lot not just with the shows mentioned here but also when folks try to hype Facebook,etc. . And the weird thing is that when I've tried to tell folks it's perfectly okay to opt to NOT go for any of the above mentioned entities, they often look at me as though I'd just suggested they climb Mt. Everest.

You all think Darren in Bewitched was stifling? Try Sgt. Mike McCluskey in Meet Mona McCluskey! The title character was played by the fetching Juliet Prowse and the premise was that she was a successful actress who had married an Air Force sergeant (Denny Scott Miller) who insisted that, rather than the two of them live high on the hog on her thousands of $$ weekly salary, that they should entirely live on his ¢ hand-to-mouth income in cramped quarters on the Air Force base and her attempts to learn to be a housewife and sneak little luxuries without him finding out and getting sore. No, it wasn't as though either of them had a terminally ill grandparent who needed her huge income to pay for treatments and caregiving, it was ALL because he didn't like her making far more money than him. It barely lasted one season ('65-'66) and even back then the audience didn't find it worth watching despite the physical appeal of the leads! Oh, and it was produced by (of all people) George Burns who himself had spent decades extolling the fun being the straight man for a successful, zany talented performer and owing his own career to her! Yeah, and I'd bet the McCluskeys' own marriage didn't last longer than the show's cancellation.

I'm with you- and with the proliferation of travel websites and search engines showing the REAL spots where everything's shot on, there's absolutely NO need for me to endure what sounds like IMO a jaded, depressing,sadistic and nasty enterprise JUST to see interesting locales! I guess on a positive note, at least the show HAS highlighted spots many folks would have had NO idea existed beforehand but that's not enough to get me to go for it!

I know their union didn't last but he and Miss Diahann Carroll had phenomenal chemistry together when they were together. He knew how to use his voice quite well. Of course, his last years outliving his last wife and only son (by his 1st wife Pier Angeli) had to take their toll. RIP, Mr. Damone.

Even though this was brought up in the Old Shows Better Than Remembered thread, since this is about a movie, I'm putting it here. As much as I liked The Monkees TV show and songs, with the exception of Davy Jones's music hall tribute "Daddy's Song" that phenomenally showcased his singing and dancing skills (as well as the editorial skills of the filmmakers to perfectly match footage of oppositely dressed performers performing identical moves), I LOATHE the movie Head ! Pretentious, confusing, depressing and utterly trashing to the band itself as well as the audience with virtually no humor whatsoever. Even Micky Dolenz's attempt at humor re the Coke machine in the desert fell flat in that it was SO dragged out that even the dimmest viewers worked out what was supposed to be the 'payoff' long before the execution. Oh and even the "Porpoise Song" was a complete bummer, IMO. Sorry, but that movie epitomized some of the worst excesses of the era with none of its virtues (and I don't think it's because they were too 'deep' and the audience was too simple at the time to 'get it').

Folks can gab on their cells all they want when driving and they'll never too distracted to drive much less have any accidents- regardless of how animated the convo gets!

I agree that often times Darren went too far. I recall one early episode in which this drunk started to come on to Samantha and totally ignored her polite but firm declines- so she zapped a water bucket and dumped its contents on the drunk's head to cool his ardor! Darren saw the WHOLE thing and, rather than be grateful she could take care of herself (much less have any outrage that this drunk was trying to make moves on Darren's own clearly uninterested wife), ALL Darren could do was snarl 'NO WITCHCRAFT!'. She's already tried the conventional approach and it hadn't worked. Would Darren have preferred the drunk to just attack her and her not attempt to do anything to defend herself?! And why didn't HE try to tell the drunk to not go after uninterested women or try to chase him off? SHEESH!

I liked Mr. Stack better than Mr. Farina (who seemed to have all the personality of a turnip on this show). However; it should be noted that Mr. Stack has been linked to an unsolved mystery of his own re a pair of eyeglasses. A pair of eyeglasses that was considered a key piece of evidence in a murder mystery was sent to the show and Mr. Stack displayed them on the air when recounting the mystery- and that was the VERY last trace of them. To this day, they've not resurfaced even for law enforcement and no one is entirely sure what became of them! https://www.denverpost.com/2007/07/24/key-evidence-goes-missing-in-georgia-church-murders/

The BEST scene in that was when Mr. Cash first wore those vestments and Mrs. Cash heartily laughed at how ludicrous it was for HIM to pretend to be a preacher! I mean, I know the Cashes were performers following scripts playing characters but I couldn't help but think that Mrs. Cash herself felt it was from their OWN lives! Oh, yeah and Mr. Cash was completely believable as a fraud who somehow got guilted in turning his life around (and Mrs. Cash was believable as someone who knew EXACTLY what kind of person her husband was but DID sincerely love him).

I liked the Marx Bros. approach of the Monkees a great deal. However; IMO the only really entertaining part of "Head" was when the late Mr. Jones did a music hall tribute re 'Daddy's Song' which included the then-unknown dancer Toni Basil as his dancing leading lady (who would later achieve fame with the single " Mickey" which some thought was about Mr. Dolenz but she has denied this).

It's too bad that he believed he had to change his name instead of being able to openly celebrate that he came from some very old families in the California and Mexico! Well, even if though he was born an Apablasa, RIP, Mr. Gavin.

Kel, I'll bet if Mr. Leno had attempted to follow through on taking his toys. ..er show to ABC after having ALREADY retired, the ABC folks would have just LAUGHED HIM OUT THE DOOR while they shut it in his face! NBC not only stupidly placated his tantrum instead of just telling him to GO HOME and find a hobby if he's bored with retirement, but they ALSO sabotaged no less than five hours of programming a week which others could have used (which means minimally five shows but up to TEN shows were crowded out by this stunt). Sorry, but what NBC did to Mr. O'Brien and all those other performers re spoiling Mr. Leno really STANK!