This is the ninth post of a series. The previous posts are: #1: The Howdy Doody Show#2: 77 Sunset Strip#3: The Edge of Night#4: The Defenders#5: #6: The Dick Van Dyke Show#7: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour#8: The Mary Tyler Moore Show#9: St. Elsewhere #10: The West Wing Sorry for not finishing this series in a timely … Continue reading My Top Ten TV Shows of the 20th Century – #9
Television
The Venus Butterfly
Speaking of L.A. Law, as I was the other day, one of my very favorite episodes of that show was entitled “The Venus Butterfly”. Not only did it win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, but it’s one of the top-rated episodes of the show on iMDB. I remember when it … Continue reading The Venus Butterfly
Before and Knepper
Continuing with my occasional looks at actors earlier in their careers… Robert Knepper is an actor that I didn’t really become aware of until sometime in the 2000s, when I saw that he usually played villainous or menacing characters, such as T-Bag in Prison Break. It was only later on that I realized that I … Continue reading Before and Knepper
The Living Doll
As a reminder, in the Boston Legal television show William Shatner played Denny Crane, James Spader played Alan Shore, and Candice Bergen played Shirley Schmidt. Now watch this video and I’ll explain why afterwards. That’s from the episode entitled “Can't We All Get a Lung?” There’s a reason that that particular sequence came to my mind, … Continue reading The Living Doll
Rene Auberjonois
One of the pleasures of watching television programs from 40 or more years ago is to see actors in their younger days before they became better known and received larger roles. Case in point is Rene Auberjonois. Unlike many actors of his generation, he refused to changed his last name to something pronounceable by the … Continue reading Rene Auberjonois
Tragedy and Comedy
Walter Kerr, in addition to being the husband of humorist Jean Kerr, was a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune and later on for the New York Times. During his time as a critic, he gave absolute raves to fluffy musicals such as Hello, Dolly!, and he consistently panned everything that Stephen Sondheim … Continue reading Tragedy and Comedy
Task Is at It Again
Once is not enough apparently as far as Task is concerned. You may recall that the television series Task, which was broadcast on HBO, did some filming in my neighborhood a couple years ago, although in the finished series, I never was able to identify which scenes those were. I assume that filming must have been … Continue reading Task Is at It Again
John Oliver on Soap Operas
A while back John Oliver offered to appear on a soap opera if they could meet his conditions. On his most recent episode he revealed what became of that offer:
The American Experiment
It seems that “Donald” is no longer a very popular name for babies. The name peaked in 1934 when more than 30,400 babies in the United States were given that name, and it remained in the top ten of baby names until 1990. In 2025 it hit its lowest point, becoming only the 690th most … Continue reading The American Experiment
Maximo Pleasure
When Apple began its TV streaming service several years ago, I tried watching the sitcom Acapulco but gave up after one episode. It seemed like a pretty conventional sitcom that was set in Mexico. Then not too long ago I noticed that there were four seasons of the show available. Perhaps I had been too … Continue reading Maximo Pleasure