Blergh

I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible that MG may have threatened at least some of the surviving cast mates with a freeze (as in 'I'll never go to another reunion/con/meet-and-greet with you') if they openly said what may have happened to JG. She sure seemed rather . .. detached when mentioning how he amscrayed from the family when he became an adult in her autobio with more of 'never wanted him around in the first place so good riddance' tude than anything else! I don't claim any 'inside info' and the above is pure speculation but I can't help but wonder if it could be possible.

It only took a few minutes of Elf clips to get me to do a permanent hard pass on that movie! If others like it, their calls no problem. To each own's own! However, DON'T keep trying to force it down everyone's throats via displaying memorabilia, etc.!

OK, not the biggest fan but I've caught a few episodes here and there of Superman and Lois. Here's the deal. From Supe's original comic book concoction, to movies, to radio series and television, it's always had its audience suspend their beliefs that even Clark's nearest and dearest friends & colleagues are clueless that he could the Supe with JUST a pair of glasses and maybe oversized suits successfully disguising his ID. Even during the pre-'Net age of motion pictures and news photography that would have been impossible in Real Life to have happened. However, the successive depictions even into the age of 'Net, AI,etc. kept that premise. .. Until Supe's powered twin son Jordan showed up as a 'masked avenger' in a reptilian 'suit' that exposed part of his jawline in footage. ..which got his folks and DOD grandfather to go into complete hysteria over Jordan being linked to Supe for REAL. Never mind that they'd had Jordan's twin bro Jonathan's evil juvenile delinquent doppelganger from an alternate Earth show up and did massive destruction and nearly get BOTH planets destroyed yet somehow no one outside the family picked up on the possibility of him possibly being linked to Supe- to say nothing of Supe flying and zooming around maskless in his form-fitting suit with CCTV and news services worldwide picking up and broadcasting it to every online and offline viewer! Come ON! I mean,its bogus to suddenly dump the whole suspension of disbelief and panickly act as though a brief glimpse of Jordan's jawline somehow was the equivalent of broadcasting the process of making atomic bombs on Soviet television!

I was doing some last Christmas shopping today- and noticed that even in the chain supermarkets and pharmacies, there are virtually no cards left for relatives. .but there ARE some for. . .pets. I hope the Fidos and Fluffies out there are amused at their humans reading said cards to them while they get their new chew toys and scratching posts,etc. unwrapped!

Before I say anything else, thanks for the screenshot of 'Nurse Harriett'! Since Miss MacGregor DID state she was working on her autobio in at least one interview in her twilight years, I wonder how far along she might have gotten with it and did she have any heirs despite having no known surviving close relatives or did it wind up that the nursing home staff just dumped it with the rest of her belongings after her demise due to no one claiming anything. Too bad. As per Miss Arngrim, Dean Butler supposedly considered Miss MacGregor an acting mentor on the set (despite their characters usually at odds) so if he ever DOES an autobio, that might be interesting to find out his POV about her in particular. BTW, so far none of the male performers have penned any autobios about their LHOTP experiences.

Archie Bunker and Hester Sue. ..? I know that Mr. O'Connor had little in common with his iconic character but. ..that's almost as hard to imagine as Will Geer being Larry Linville's father-in-law for a time! Grandpa Walton being Frank Burns's father-in-law. ..

OK, one peeve I have had in my decades long worklife is when there has a dispute between two or more departments over. ..whatever so they go to the big chief to find out who's right,who's wrong and/or what needs to be done by whom- and the big chief says the departments can settle things among themselves! If the two or more departments could resolve the issue/s, why wouldn't they already have done so instead of asking the big chief's help?

The episode was broadcast in 1973 (IOW about a year before LHOTP). Miss MacGregor was billed there as 'Scottie MacGregor' instead of 'Katharine. . .', Oh, and anyone watching it hoping for a battle between Archie Bunker and the Archie Bunker of the Prairie, forget it. They had Miss MacGregor play the role of a nurse rather straight with zero hint of Harriet's wackiness,sneakiness or cardboard villainy. I wonder if she might have known Carroll O'Connor when both were still starving unknowns?

Perhaps Cher and Micky Dolenz [the Last Living Monkee] could do a Shmoo-Ewe Album to that organization!

His first cinematic debut was in Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys (1959) starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, then he went onto play a neighbor kid called Barry on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Mr. Mooney's younger son in The Lucy Show before he became youngest son Chip's bestie then adopted kid brother Ernie in My Three Sons (1964-1972) [Chip having been played by the performer Stanley Livingston- this performer's RL sib]- and has had a steady television and stage career to the present day (e.g. The Conners and General Hospital)! Yes, I'm talking Barry Livingston who was born on this day in 1953, has been married for 40 years to Karen Huntsman- his co-parent of their grown kids Spencer and Hailey! Yep, time sure flies and Happy 70th Birthday, Mr. Livingston!

There's no excuse or justification in Majors's abuse of Miss Jabbarri (much less in his lawyer attempting to trash her character) and the two of them deserve to have the book thrown at them. Regardless of how the dust settles in this, I truly hope Miss Jabbarri has gotten and/or gets help for any possible substance abuse issues for her own sake as well as any loved ones!

OK, I've got this problem in my offtask life,too, but here's one that's worse in my office worklife: callers who think that one is doing NOTHING whatsoever besides attending to their very own phone calls and refuse to believe that one has other imminently urgent tasks to attend to instead of solely passively listening to their rants. It also needs to be said that some of the worse offenders blurt out stuff faster than the Fed Ex ad guy AND openly get annoyed if one politely asks them to slow down and/or spell out vital surnames! ARGGHH!!!

I had too busy a workweek so I apologize for not doing this on the actual day but Monday, December 11th both Brenda Lee and Rita Moreno (born Rosa Dolores Alverio Marcano) had their respective 79th and 92nd birthdays! They both started working in the entertainment profession from childhood onward and would have worldwide fame despite both of them originating in areas considered somewhat off the beaten path. I can't help but think they'd have quite a few tales to trade and maybe might hit it off. I wonder if they've ever met? Regardless, Happy Birthday to two of my fave entertainers !

I wouldn't have minded occasional lightweight and/or humorous episodes but IMO, it was best in the first few years when there was still a sincere effort to depict the Ingallses as having to struggle and take serious risks just to survive instead of seeming to totally dump that gritty aspect for soapy stuff. All the above said, I actually agree with ML's call that it would have been too much for Miss Grassle to have worn prosthetic gunk to 'age' her hands- even though I know that pioneer women putting their hands through all kinds of tasks wouldn't have looked as though they had just popped in from the manicurist!

Perhaps, but one thing about Miss Brenda is the one can't say she ever had the most predictable career arc even for an entertainer. She was born Brenda Mae Tarpley December 11,1944 to a struggling family in rural Georgia but she loved to sing as far back as could remember. Her father Ruben died when she was just eight after a hammer fell on his head (?!) and she earnestly started singing for her family's supper! Thankfully, she has said that she never felt pressured or compelled to have done so but, instead WANTED to use her beloved singing to help out her struggling widowed mother Annie Grayce and her older siblings and felt proud to be able to do so. Yes, the promoters insisted she only use the last syllable of her original surname. She'd never grow an inch taller than 4 foot 9 inches but she proved to be a dynamo who'd tour the Americas, Europe and Asia from an early age and even had the Silver Beatles as her opening act before they hit it big and dropped the 'Silver'! She has said that when she was sixteen, she asked Judy Garland for advice and has never forgotten what her elder colleague told her- 'Don't ever let anyone take your childhood away!' In 1963, she wed the 19-year-old 6 foot 3 inches tall son of a Nashville city council member one Charles Ronald 'Ronnie' Shacklett who's been a successful construction contractor and they'd have two daughters (the elder born prematurely but saved by the neonatal pioneer physician Dr. Mildred Stahlman [born 1922 and still living] and have since had three grandchildren and a great-grandchild. .and even more amazingly have stayed married to each other sixty years despite the odds of teen marriage, tour separations,etc. Yep, in the new video of her performing 'Rockin' Around the Christmas' tree with her in a floor-length red choir robe, she may resemble a hand puppet but she and the rest of the performers (including Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood) in that video sure look as though they're having fun!

The deal of them crossing the Ingallses crossing the flooded river in the wagon with Jack trying to swim with them is rather nail-biting in that the viewer isn't so sure that they'll be able to safely make it across and one is ready to mourn the faithful Jack (and understand WHY Laura and Pa's bond has gotten strained while their dog's fate is unknown) so when Jack DOES return, it's quite a cathartic scene. Alas, the show quickly ditched the whole 'pioneers struggling to provide their own basic necessities' deal very quickly on the series!

In 1957, the 13-year-old performer Brenda Lee recorded 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' (accompanied by excellent musicians including Boots Randolph on the sax). OK, it became a holiday standard within a few years and has remained so. However, this week (of December 4,2023), the 78-year-old performer has FINALLY gotten to see that song be the Number One song in the Billboard Hot 100! Better late than never, indeed!

I can't say I was surprised to hear the news of Mr. Lear's passing at age 101. However, it's still a shock because his shows were part of my life from early childhood so it's hard to imagine him not being in this world. On a lighter (and shallower note), though, once he lost most of his hair and the remainder turned white, he seemed to have not aged but looked 50 for the next fifty-one years! In any case, RIP, Mr. Lear!

Re the new Cracker Barrel commercial with Dolly Parton: Does anyone truly believe that even she could possibly ride a motorcyle wearing those sky-high stilletto boots? I'm not even sure how she's able to walk across the room in those things!

Maybe Mr. Caruso's dyeing to look like a hipper version of the late Winston Churchill. Still, it's puzzling that the article claims that this is his first photograph since 2017. If that's true, does this mean that he somehow has lived in a CCTV-free underground bunker for six years- or is it only the first time in six years that anyone from the rags bothered to snap his pic?

One of the recurring themes of the British comedy series Last of the Summer Wine (1973-2010) was that of the scuffy little old rogue Compo Simmonite (Bill Owen) taunting and chasing after the much larger, frumpy and disinterested upstairs neighbor Nora Batty (Kathy Staff) who would beat him back with her broom while he'd try to get her goat. This went on from the time she was still married to her overwhelmed husband Wally (who oddly enough didn't mind Compo chasing after his wife since this distracted Nora from bossing him around) through her widowhood until his own sudden death. Yes, after the performer Bill Owen (1914-1999) died, so did his character and, the next year in 2000, the show acknowledged it with a tribute episode mourning the character's passing. FWIW, via virtually all accounts, he was very much like his character offstage with the glaring exception of being a sharp dressed man offcamera who loathed the character's scruffy and ragged wardrobe to the point that he refused to wear it a moment more than possible outside the de rigeur filming and publicity. However, (here's the Hell Yes), Nora was the ONE voice of reason saying that Compo was an AWFUL and DESPICABLE person to her and his death didn't erase those facts- yet she WAS going to miss him! This had to be one of the healthiest expressions of grief I've ever seen depicted on a show- especially since it didn't fake that he'd been a saint or worthy person but that his intended victim somehow , somehow admitted that he'd be missed! BTW, the performer Kathy Staff (1928-2008) herself had had serious misgivings about continuing to play Nora after her antagonist's death but came around -possibly in part due to Nora's realistic but still compassionate reaction to the passing. FWIW, Mrs. Staff had been born Minnie Higginbottom but had changed her performing name to Kathy Staff after her 1951 marriage to a Mr. Staff.

If Charles was supposed to have had some kind of encounter with Diana's ghost, why not have also had encounters with the ghosts of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, or even his comparatively recently deceased parents? I'm sure any or all the above would have had something to say and would have been just as real and legit as any mumbo jumbo with Diana! I know The Crown wasn't supposed to have been a documentary but that whole deal with those two after her death significantly trashed its cred as being supposedly close to the ballpark re the behind the scenes lives of the Windsors.

Miss Huffman seemed to have joined Miss Margulies re just making things worse via not knowing when to set a watch on their lips and letting others be able to give the benefit of the doubt that they might have been fairminded and willing to accept ownership for their own bad choices instead of doubling down after the fact and blabbing too much about their shadowsides. Believe it or not, I actually had thought that when Miss Huffman got caught in the university admissions criminal actions , then quietly served her sentence and apologized for not believing in her daughter's abilities, I had believed she had been genuinely contrite. Not anymore! Now, not only did she bogusly attempt to throw a pity party for herself due to taking umbrage that the authorities would have actually arrested her for committing a crime that she admitted to (and needlessly spelled out her xenophobia towards folks not sharing her own pigmentation in the process) but Miss Huffman is now wants others to believe that committing a crime of having her daughter pushed ahead of worthy, qualified collegian applicants was 'being a good mother'! UGHH!!!! SO much wrong with that but now I feel even more sorry for the daughter who likely has had that 'sacrifice' thrown in her face by Miss Huffman to guilt trip her. And, of course, this totally ignores the ACTUAL sacrifices by those qualified applicants and their families had made over the course of their lives to work & study hard (and likely financially sacrificed a huge part of their funds to be ready to pay sky high tuitions) to get into prestigious universities that got trashed by Miss Huffman and other wanting to bump ahead their own less qualified offspring! Yeah, Miss Huffman, you had nearly convinced me that you were contrite over the crime and for having had no faith in your daughter's abilities but, now that you've opened your big fat mouth to throw that pity party and take umbrage for the consequences, you've truly BLOWN IT!

Not to mention, that the whole 'practical joke' of the other woman's clothes falling apart due to ONLY having been glued together and the glue coming apart via getting water dumped on them was bogus! I mean, unless the other woman had somehow not moved or stretched in any way from the time she put on said clothes over her drawers to the time she appeared at the circus, there's no way such flimsy attire wouldn't have previously fallen apart via sheer movement.

I agree but it doesn't come as a surprise to me considering not just her aloofness towards her onetime colleague Miss Punjabi but also her rather classless and tacky response to someone asking about it (and I'm strictly talking about the deliberate rudeness even without her adding any f-bombs). Sorry Miss Margulies but no one is obligated to like or identify with any other person or group. No. One. And you don't even seem to be willing to try to attempt civility towards anyone who doesn't worship you or your POV. BLEAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!