Blergh

In her Emmy TV Legends Interview Doris Roberts (1925-2016) said that she was offered the part of Maude's bestie Viv and got along great with Bea Arthur (an old acting pal from New York) and started rehearsing the show and was ready to accept the offer to be a supporting player on a sitcom when. ..the producers fired her! Why? Because they happened to witness Miss Robert and Miss Arthur having done a little impromptu comedy routine backstage comparing each other's outfits - and they concluded Miss Roberts wouldn't have worked because they concluded that she'd have been a 'little Maude' therefore a redundant character! Yeah, not because she blew the audition or clashed with anyone but because she happened to do something offstage with Miss Arthur that got them to dump her and then give the role to Rue McClanahan. Thankfully, Miss Roberts got offered a slew of one-shot roles that eventually led to regular parts on TV before she finally hit it out of the ballpark as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond!

How about other titles such as: Walnut Grove Makes Peyton Place Look Like Walton's Mountain Laura Ingalls Wilder's Even Wilder Bunch Laura Loathes Manly [Who Wonders If He'd Been Better Off Giving Nellie His Robe Instead of 'Beth']

OK, I couldn't quite remember why he needed that ambulance. However, I thought that, right after he'd been strapped to the wheeled stretcher and was due to taken to the hospital for observation, that THAT is when Maggie's grandma's flaky friend put that piece of birthday cake on a paper plate to cheer him up- directly on top of his strapped-in chest! I couldn't help but think that she'd have been great pals with Gracie Allen and Lisa Douglas!

Michael Rockefeller, the 23-year-old son of the extremely wealthy and powerful Rockefeller family was last seen attempting to swim about 14 miles to shore of what now the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea in 1961 after his dugout canoe capsized with several others. He had expressed great interest in the local Asmat tribe previous to this. Despite extensive searches armed with large sums of monies and resources from his family, no trace of him was ever found and he is believed to have most likely drowned. There were secondhand accounts of him possibly been cannibalized due to the tribe wanting to 'even' out occupying Dutch soldiers having killed a few of their members and him being considered a member of the 'European' tribe. However, one odd footnote must be considered. In recent years, a documentary film from 1969 has been unearthed of hundreds of Asmat tribesmen standing and waving their spears in virtual unison while rowing past the camera operator . Among the Asmat standing was a single bearded, blond man of European extraction who was unclothed like the others but definitely not having been born into the tribe. While it may be tempting to speculate that this one blond, bearded man may have been Michael Rockeller (and there does seem to be at least a passing resemblance), there's no proof that this unidentified man was he. However, even if this possibly adopted European Asmat man had not been young Mr. Rockefeller, this leads to the questions of who WAS this individual, where did he come from, how did he join the tribe and what became of him?

Why would it not have surprised me if Ed's jacket had been a birthday present from Ruth-Ann shortly after he became a teen and he was so touched and grateful that he not only never considered getting a replacement but he never had the heart to admit he'd outgrown it within a few years! BTW, thanks for reminding me of one of most surreal/bogus scenes in the whole series re Joel visiting Maggie's grandmother during the older woman's birthday celebration: after Joel defeated Maggie's local ex in basketball, the ex somehow injured himself and an ambulance was called. Anyway, as they loaded the ex onto the wheeled stretcher to get him to the hospital, one of Maggie's grandmother's friends put a piece of birthday cake on a paper plate- right on TOP of the ex's chest as the paramedics shut the ambulance hatch door. Anyway, the flaky friend told the ex that she hoped the cake would cheer him up in the hospital! LOL

Where? That kitchen looked barely big enough to singe a Pop Tart!

Oh, the weather outside may be frightful But the news 78 years ago proved delightful Happy Birthday to Miss Dolly Rebecca Parton!

FWIW, I think it's possible Miss MacGregor might have suggested Harriet screaming' WALNUT GROAH_OHVE!! ' into the switchboard mouthpiece before the actual filming (and ML agreed it would have helped the scenes and added it in) but not so much ad-libbing during the actual filming as both the lineman falling off the telephone pole and the switchboard installer's actions and dialogue wouldn't have fit Harriet's scream had their dialogue/directions not been previously altered to have their reactions to it match.

Since this story initially broke, legit media outlets have reported that Mr. Musser's cause of death on Saturday, January 13, 2024 was suicide as per the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. Moreover, it was his fiancee Paige Press who found him and added that he's been suffering from 'a severe case of COVID'. I hope Mr. Musser can now RIP.

Forgive me but I'm not sure whether it was a foregone conclusion that Miss Harbottle was supposed to have been neurodiverse- or just a self-important jerk who expected everyone else connected to the practice to conform to her own standards. FWIW, in the OS there was an episode with a new secretary who was attempted to reform Siegfried and the clientele who wound up intimidating Siegfried so much that he'd wait until she left the premises to sneak back into Skelldale House before it was all over.I can't recall if the OS secretary was called Miss Harbottle or not but she was more openly a steamroller who had even less charm or likability than this character had had.

Though, I somewhat call into question Miss MacGregor's later claim that she ad libbed Harriet SHOUTING 'WALNUT GRO-OH_OVE!!! at the top of her lungs which caused the poor lineman to fall off the tall telephone pole. I mean, if it hadn't been scripted (and he wasn't supposed to fall off), what would the point of having had a stunt person climb up to the top of the telephone pole have been with the camera rolling? Maybe they had him climb the pole and fall off after deciding to keep Miss MacGregor's alleged ad-lib but I have my doubts.

I had that happen last Christmas and I wound up having to call a rival furnace installer to get it fixed. Thankfully, once the dust cleared, the original company seemed rather mortified that service wasn't restored for my 90-something mother sooner -especially since my emergency pleas [due to my 90-something mother in residence] got sent to voice mail that the one service person working didn't seem to respond to until several days later!

One thing's become clearer than ever is that Helen seems to know the gossip about virtually everyone in Darrowby! I wonder if she had known that Joe Coney wasn't using his original name? He somewhat whispered it but it seemed either Portuguese or Italian (and it should be noted that the performer Paul Bazely's parents had been from Chennai, India). I definitely think Mrs. Hall needs to level with Gerald about having filed for divorce from her long-estranged husband as soon as possible. If she truly doesn't intend to 'set her cap' for Gerald, she can spell that out to him when she explains her transitional marital status! BTW, I KNEW that stack of letters on the desk would play into some drama involving Miss Harbottle. I mean, why else would they have been given their own close-up? Well, at least Blossom got a new lease on life in her own stall as. ..a wet nurse for other cows' calves, I guess. Not surprised that James and Helen decided to go ahead and try for children but, in that time and place, babies were considered a matter of course for newlywed couples unless the husband worked/was stationed some distanced from his wife and/or it was known that there were physical impediments re one or both of them preventing conception. Was the audience supposed to believe that PDA James had been sleeping on the floor in another room all this time? Of course, now that they're trying for babies, they may find out they're not instantly rabbit-like. We shall see, I guess.

I'm grateful that my workplace has given me today off and that yesterday, I shopped for meals to eat in as well as brought in my uniform for tomorrow's early shift? Why? Because my area has been hit with a DEEP snow! A headache to be sure (and frozen precip has been useless to me since I graduated high school and could get no more snow days). HOWEVER, I am in my nice warm home with Mama today , have plenty of good food to eat ....AND since I have my freshly washed uniform (and a lunch) already AT my workplace, if I must snowboot it there early tomorrow morning, at least I won't have to carry any extra stuff!

That's somewhat like being ejected from a rock concert for being too loud. ..

Laura was supposedly 'innocent' and 'naive' to have blabbed about the gold beneath the miner's late wife's remains but I can't help but think she told the story he'd told her( in confidence) to make herself popular and cool with her new schoolmates- not thinking about the inevitability of at least one schoolmate ALSO telling it to her greedy father!

Thankfully, Siegfried's 'storm' over Helen's getting six cases instead of six boxes of gauze was rather minimal. However, little did they know in 1940 that from 1941 until 1949, clothing would be rationed so I can't help but think that Siegfried would have wound up being rather GRATEFUL to Helen for having previously obtained all these cases- and might very well have unthreaded some of thegauze bandages to extend the life of the household clothing. Of course, I seriously doubt that Skedale House's bounty will be kept hushed up in Darrowby! Nice that the newly widowed farmer took in Wesley and his dog so that they'd have lots of open space to romp in between chores, but what's to become of Wesley's aged and struggling great-grandmother in their sketchy hovel? Even though she dismissed Duke as 'another mouth to feed', it seemed that she had outlived her husband and perhaps two generations of family between herself and Wesley and was getting frail instead of just being mean for no reason and fit as a fiddle! While I know it was a sincere struggle to go against her own beliefs to file and recount the reasons for her divorce from her long estranged husband Robert, I hope Mrs. Hall is ready for all the other steps it w take before their union get declared to be legally done. I wonder if Robert can be found to have the papers served much less whether he will attempt to stop the proceedings? Also, I wonder how much monies will it cost Mrs. Hall to go through with it. Amazing that few if any in Darrowby have put together that she's an informal grass widow instead of a genuine widow!

The Columbia Torch Lady became known in the late 1920's onward but often changed and the identity of the models were kept secret. In 1987, People magazine had an interview with onetime performer Amelia Batchler (1908-2002) who it claimed was used as the Columbia Torch Lady from 1936 onward (therefore could be seen in Three Stooges reruns for many decades on TV). She said that it took quite a few days for her to pose for the sketch and that by the end, they'd strung up the torch on an unseen overhead support which she herself held onto because she'd gotten too weak to keep holding her arm up much less hold it aloft! Alas, her career at Columbia had a rather unpleasant end when studio boss Harry Cohn summoned her into his office and told her to go to wardrobe to get some fancy clothes so she could entertain some 'East coast distributors'. Miss Batchler immediately responded, 'Mr. Cohn, I came here to be an actress NOT an escort!' He didn't agree so he fired her but they evidently used the sketch of her as their logo for quite some time while she wound up being an extra at other studios for a time. .. but would be blessed with more longevity than her logo!

Yeah, the sad irony is that the germ phobic Mike Munroe (Anthony Edwards) who lived in his own terrarium and everywhere in a lunar space suit doesn't seem as whacked as he did then! I kind of thought it was funny how the semi-regular Adam was originally conceived as Cicely's version of a semi-legendary Bigfoot that the citizens (including Ruth-Ann) were somewhat intimidated in spite of/because of the fact that all they knew of him was that stole cookbooks (and a Bible) in addition to leaving behind gigantic bare human footprints. Then, after Joel got rescued/kidnapped by Adam himself(Adam Arkin) a reclusive chef who mistook a Bible for a cookbook then described his 'captivity' to his fellow citizens who disbelieved his account. However, the twist was that very soon, Adam revealed himself and everyone craved his cuisine [while accepting him ignoring health codes re cooking barefoot in an eating establishment] when he'd chef it at the Rosalyn Cafe - with him (and soon his family including his wife Eve [!] ) become part of the community!

Anyone else think Mrs. G. might have been too soft on the Four? I mean, not only did she get talked into giving them 'internal punishments' in lieu of squealing to them to the principal for getting drunk and smuggling booze into the dorm but one needs to consider that they ALREADY were on probation for having snuck into a bar to attempt to guzzle booze and flirt with strange men (AND had already gotten the school's van TOTALED after they borrowed it without permission to get to said bar. .and Blair stupidly parked it on the wrong way of a one-way alley). Yeah and both sets of transgressions were terminal offenses for their Eastland education but, in spite of saying they'd learned their lessons, they obviously hadn't and would keep getting into more and trouble before Tootie FINALLY was able to graduate and move into wherever Mrs. G. decamped! Of course, had they been expelled, that would have meant having to revamp the show/find replacements but it seemed Mrs. G. wanted little as possible to do with the other Eastland student body- especially that invisible (and unmentioned) Kimberly Drummond who was supposed to be still living there as per the other show for years after Mrs. G spun off!

Or, better yet we could have your nephew and that thug who beat up his frail grandfather for waking him early see if they might clash enough to both get 'tude adjustments and. . . Oh, my bad- they're several seasons apart.

First World Peeve Alert: I hate when I lose clothing but especially when I lose something that's cool and a pragmatic item! I'm so mad at myself for having lost my fave scarf that not only wrapped around the neck several times but was warm and thick so I could keep the whole neck and upper chest area toasty warm even in the most freezing temps! All I know is that I brought it to work, then sometime between the time I changed from street clothes to work clothes then back, it was gone. I'm not even sure about that because the first time I noticed it was missing was when I was about to walk out the building and I didn't feel that usual toasty embrace- and all my efforts to retrace my steps back to my locker and change are to spot it were for naught! Yep, and right when my neck of the woods is having a long spell of subfreezing temps!ARRGHH!! Yeah, I'm going to try to buy a replacement ASAP [and hope that the stores aren't sold out] but it makes me so mad at myself! PHOOOEY!!!!!

Amazing how Charles could 'solve things' in three days time for unrelated folks but he never solved the problem of the tiny house with more people and no known chamber pots!

It has been reported in legit media outlets that the coroner has ruled Sinead O'Connor's July, 2023 cause of death as 'natural causes' but with no other information to be forthcoming. I suppose that might be more comforting to her loved ones than accidental death, suicide or murder but it's odd that they refuse to say what the 'natural cause' WAS. At least some questions have been cleared up even if others are left unanswered.

IMO, no Northern Exposure discussion is complete without mentioning the straight-woman/stable one Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips) who [usually] was the voice of reason though even she had her moments- and lets not forget that she was rather brave to make the decision to move to Cicely entirely on her own as a middle aged woman after her husband's death just to run the general store (which rivaled Last of the Summer Wine's Auntie Wainwrights in terms of having quirky merchandise). Oh, and she virtually raised the parentless aspiring teen filmmaker Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows) who worked as her assistant- and, even more important, encouraged the pursuit of his ambition rather than dismissing them as mere pipe dreams [despite the many odds he'd have to deal with]. Even in its last legs, when the show totally flew off into the flake field and, otherwise, got dominated by annoying characters, Ruth-Anne remained a character one looked forward to visiting and wished one could visit more than once a week!