tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post8775975818844541150..comments2023-11-03T06:02:02.128-07:00Comments on By Ken Levine: Black Friday QuestionsBy Ken Levinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17305293821975250420noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-50865523155160703522020-11-30T12:26:18.267-08:002020-11-30T12:26:18.267-08:00Flipside question - what was the most awful, lazie...Flipside question - what was the most awful, laziest, phoned-in head credits sequence ever? <br />My vote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdC9nJzZNyIMcTomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08672101599685031569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-85024251315500549412020-11-29T20:04:17.927-08:002020-11-29T20:04:17.927-08:00Friday Night Question offering -- you've menti...Friday Night Question offering -- you've mentioned your work on the Tony Randall Show; it was something I remember clearly enjoying as a pre-teen. The re-occurring Mario Lanza repetitive exchange made me giggle. It had a great cast and Randall as a lead fuss-budget, in the Jack Benny position as being the butt of many jokes, was perfect. Can you offer up more info of that experience and how you found it?<br />As to title sequences, which isn't just about the theme song, I go to many of the ones you mentioned Ken, and add the original Hawaii 5-0 and Adam-12, seasons 1-2...<br />Happy Black Friday weekend!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05868079188564018463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-54333347206469889232020-11-29T13:44:40.753-08:002020-11-29T13:44:40.753-08:00@Michael I think I can answer that one for you. He...@Michael I think I can answer that one for you. Hell no lol. I've seen the Charles Brothers' academy archives interviews and both have said that they all were getting a little bored with the Sam\Diane dynamic and didn't know where to go because they definitely weren't going to get them married. Imo as a Rebecca Howe fan, as great as Shelley was as the erudite bore with a heart of gold Diane Chambers, the show needed a fresh shot in the arm and love her or hate her, without Kirstie Alley's Rebecca I think the show wouldn't have made it past the sixth season. Kendall Rivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401646799797849078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-34482111596267180262020-11-28T13:10:13.349-08:002020-11-28T13:10:13.349-08:00@ Joey H
The Quinn Martin shows were a godsend to ...@ Joey H<br />The Quinn Martin shows were a godsend to actors because of the way their images were presented on screen at the very beginning, while the announcer spoke their names. What a break for getting more work! Most shows put the names at the end and not everyone read the end credits, even back when it was possible to read them more easily. It wasn't just the stars but also the character actors.<br /><br />I, for one, was glad to learn how to pronounce Alf Kjellin.Greg Ehrbarhttp://www.gregovision.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-85187844473391231842020-11-28T13:02:30.083-08:002020-11-28T13:02:30.083-08:00@Pat Reeder - I have both the Hollywood Hi-Fi book...@Pat Reeder - I have both the Hollywood Hi-Fi book and it's sparkling companion CD. To quote Milton Berle, Cybill Shepherd "was never better."<br /><br />For The Jetsons big-screen movie, it's become legendary that Tiffany's manager pressured Universal, who was bankrolling the film, who pressured Hanna-Barbera to toss out Janet Waldo's finished dialogue so the pop star could speak as well as sing for Judy Jetson. Guess what else? The execs also wanted to dump the theme song in favor of opening with a Tiffany pop song "to get the kids" but composer John Debney assured them as much as possible that the theme song was iconic and there would be a cheer as soon as the first few notes came on the screen. They reluctantly agreed. I was in theater to hear the cheer, though the movie that followed wasn't as good as, say, "Rockin' with Judy Jetson."<br /><br />When The Addams Family first became a movie, the execs did not want to use that moldy old TV theme song for their hot new movie. It was decided to test it with trailers. One of the trailers was a blank screen with nothing but the "snap, snap" music. The crowd went wild. Well, duh.<br /><br />NBC wanted nothing to do with The Smurfs. "Kids today" wouldn't want to watch some little blue fairytale characters in simple, gentle adventures. They wanted hot, contemporary action and super heroes. Hanna-Barbera got it through with a great pilot film. One exec said it would not air unless the classical-style music was replaced with that hot, rock and roll music to "get the kids." Time was running out until the exec suddenly disappeared from NBC and the show was rushed onto the air before another exec could reapear. The Smurfs ran for nine years with 272 episodes. They got the kids.Greg Ehrbarhttp://www.gregovision.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-66343120904896598562020-11-28T12:12:45.832-08:002020-11-28T12:12:45.832-08:00I always liked the Quinn Martin show openers where...I always liked the Quinn Martin show openers where the week's actors were visually identified. For instance:<br />https://youtu.be/eIfdD191II4JoeyHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12710864245535772665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-74999456902075409622020-11-28T11:15:59.425-08:002020-11-28T11:15:59.425-08:00Showing my age, but two of my favorite title seque...Showing my age, but two of my favorite title sequences are from JONNY QUEST and THE OUTER LIMITS. And for theme songs, it's also tough to beat 77 SUNSET STRIP (snap, snap).mike schlesingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15824197221204862706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-76179322997444920312020-11-28T09:02:39.475-08:002020-11-28T09:02:39.475-08:00@Pat Reeder What I'm curious about is when cha...@Pat Reeder What I'm curious about is when characters on a show dress up as other copyrighted characters from other properties and franchises . . . I could see it if the characters they dress up as are also owned by the same company that owns the show, but suppose it's a character owned by another company? Is there any kind of legality involved with that? Like, say a character on a show owned by Viacom dresses up as a character owned by Disney, for example.Joseph Scarbroughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02572781083272335747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-81320450839287996002020-11-28T08:00:02.296-08:002020-11-28T08:00:02.296-08:00"Name a movie a bad movie that you *know* is ..."Name a movie a bad movie that you *know* is bad and yet you'd still sit down to watch it:"<br /><br />"Skidoo." 1968. It has:<br />* Jackie Gleason going on an acid trip.<br />* Carol Channing attempting to seduce Frankie Avalon. She's in her underwear.<br />* Groucho Marx, wearing a bad toupee and his greasepaint mustache, smokes a joint with Austin Pendleton (when he isn't reading his lines off of cue cards.)<br />* "Batman" fans: here are the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and the Joker (Cesar Romero), directed by Mr. Freeze (Otto Preminger.) They don't interact.<br />* Comic stooge Arnold Stang is shot in the head, his corpse left for Gleason to find. Oh, the hilarity!<br />* Songs by Harry Nilsson, including the Garbage Can Ballet and the end of the film, where he sings ALL of the credits.<br />* Michael Constantine, the gentle high school principal of "Room 222," plays a serial rapist with the immortal line about LSD, "Hey, maybe if I took some of that stuff, I wouldn't have to rape anybody no more!"<br />* In a more serious mood? You want George Raft and Peter Lawford? They're here.<br />* In his final film, veteran straight man Fred Clark, on acid with Harry Nilsson, and with no discernable drug experience, plays it (in Bob Hope Special fashion) as wildly drunk.<br /><br />The joys of this film are endless. Although, to be fair, even in a terrible film Gleason is a terrific actor, and Nilsson's song, "I Will Take You There" is very nice. And as has been pointed out, nobody sets out to make a bad film. Everybody is doing their best.<br /><br />In his final Playboy interview, Gleason admitted that he had talked Groucho into doing the movie.<br />INTERVIEWER: Did he ever forgive you?<br />GLEASON: I don't think so.Craig Gustafsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14503925766039307551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-40891767859779057152020-11-28T07:22:51.757-08:002020-11-28T07:22:51.757-08:00"Cybill Does It...To Cole Porter" (was t..."Cybill Does It...To Cole Porter" (was there ever a more apt title?) is one of the prime entries in "Hollywood Hi-Fi," my book about bizarre and little-known celebrity recordings. My favorite comment about it was definitely Cary Grant's, "I only wish Cole could have heard it." Talk about a line with a double meaning. Cybill has made other albums, and there's also a soundtrack LP of "At Long Last Love" that I have, of course. It comes in handy for driving off lingering party guests. <br /><br />To Joseph Scarbrough: one of my pet peeves is when sitcoms go all out with Halloween episodes in which the characters have elaborate costumes and decorations that they couldn't possibly afford. "Roseanne" was the worst offender. The Conners couldn't afford food, rent or vaccinations for the kids, but they had more horror paraphernalia than the Universal Studios prop department.<br /><br />Ken: you are wise to stay away from political humor. I write topical humor for a living, and I'm under no delusions that my material in that area will stand the test of time. Have you listened to a Bob Hope monologue from the 1940s recently? You have to be a history nut like me to make sense of it. My best friend programs an all-comedy radio format, and he tells me that a number of young comics tell him that they want to do more political humor. He asks, "Do you know who Mort Sahl is?" None of them do. He used to be hot because he was as topical as that day's newspapers. And that's why he never gets played on the comedy radio format today. Pat Reederhttp://www.facebook.com/hollywoodhifibooknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-38298571169824096732020-11-27T21:53:26.621-08:002020-11-27T21:53:26.621-08:00I listen to the intro themes to shows every time, ...I listen to the intro themes to shows every time, especially MASH and CHEERS, which are practically spiritual.<br /><br />Friday question: What would be your personal theme song, if you got to have one?Ere I Saw Elbanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-81761913216653223752020-11-27T20:02:59.314-08:002020-11-27T20:02:59.314-08:00Ah yes, little known factoid Roger Ebert made a po...Ah yes, little known factoid Roger Ebert made a porno. :PJoseph Scarbroughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02572781083272335747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-26661355676009196612020-11-27T18:34:51.969-08:002020-11-27T18:34:51.969-08:00> Nudity and laughs. You’d have to go back to ...> Nudity and laughs. You’d have to go back to RETURN OF THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS to find that combination. <br /><br />If you are referring to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, it was written by Roger Ebert.ScarletNumbernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-19939762146834022522020-11-27T16:35:01.893-08:002020-11-27T16:35:01.893-08:00I loved the opening credit sequence for "Sili...I loved the opening credit sequence for "Silicon Valley" and was sorry to see the series end its run although happy that, as a viewer, I discovered the show and Thomas Middleditch.Lorimartiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-25074588583484215702020-11-27T15:28:13.259-08:002020-11-27T15:28:13.259-08:00@FFS
Beats basically means, "this happens. T...@FFS<br /><br />Beats basically means, "this happens. Then this happens. Then this happens..." <br /><br />You then put those beats into scenes. Add dialogue. <br /><br />INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY<br />KEN enters in a huff. KEN: "When will these Friday Questions stop being about MASH or Cheers all the time?!" Ken's dog ELVIS looks up at him. ELVIS: "Sometimes they ask about your baseball announcing career." KEN: "I guess you're right. (THEN) Holy shit! Since when can you talk?!" Ken grabs a glass of water and throws it in his face. KEN: "Nope not dreaming. What other classic cliches can I do? Oh! Elvis, pinch me!" Blah blah blah until you move on to the next scene. <br /><br /><br /><br />KBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-46117697108643309172020-11-27T12:05:48.292-08:002020-11-27T12:05:48.292-08:00Orson was a close friend of Carole Lombard when bo...Orson was a close friend of Carole Lombard when both were at RKO (in fact, she was considered for the lead in his unmade adaptation of the comic film "The Smiler With A Knife") and raved about her intelligence as an actor in Peter Biskind's book about Welles' conversations with Henry Jaglom. Through Bogdanovich, Welles became pals with Shepherd (one of the last things he did was to introduce a black-and-white episode of "Moonlighting"), but I fear he may have persuaded Cybill to believe she was her generation's Carole. While she could sing better than Lombard (who was dubbed in nearly all her films and only sang in "Swing High, Swing Low" at the insistence of director Mitchell Leisen), she was no Carole by any means -- on or off screen.VP81955https://www.blogger.com/profile/11792390726196611188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-937465491550112012020-11-27T11:47:34.641-08:002020-11-27T11:47:34.641-08:00I assume Tony Randall was running for a State Supr...I assume Tony Randall was running for a State Supreme Court seat. You don't run for the country's Supreme Court. I am sure it is pretty rare to lose to a dead person but it happened this year. I think it was for a seat in a state legislature.sanfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06580867647162091670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-69469470495384781162020-11-27T11:19:46.909-08:002020-11-27T11:19:46.909-08:00Peter Bogdanovich produced an album called “Cybill...Peter Bogdanovich produced an album called “Cybill Does It ... To Cole Porter” — a collection of unexpurgated Porter tunes.<br />For liner notes, he was able to secure submissions from four Porter pals — two of the greatest interpreters of Porter on stage/film, the star of the first Porter biopic, and America’s greatest director, who’d created a Broadway show with Porter.<br /><br />What may have escaped the attention of Cybill and Pete - perhaps overly grateful for having gathered such celebrated blurbists — is the subtly amusing faint praise damning-<br /><br />Astaire finds the album “intriguing” and Cybill “sensational” — but not at singing<br />Grant comments on neither the quality of the album nor the singer<br />Kelly calls Cybill a “beauty of a singer” — which is not quite the same as saying she’s a beautiful singer.<br />And Welles offers no verdict — even as to the singer’s ability to spell her own name.<br /><br />THE BLURBS<br /><br /><br />This is really an intriguing album. It’s different—and I’m sure that’s one of the things Cole would have liked about it. The girl is sensational and the boy is O.K. too.<br />— Fred Astaire<br />I only wish Cole could have heard it.<br />— Cary Grant<br />I used to think Cybill was a beauty but now I know she’s a beauty of a singer, too.<br />— Gene Kelly<br />Way back yonder, when some of the great songs in this album were censored and even banned on the radio, I was living it up as The Shadow (‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’). Week after week, just before the closing commercial, I solved another mystery. What I failed to do, year after year, was to solve the commercial. Why should the sponsor wish his product to be known as ‘Blue Coal’? Roses are red, but not of necessity, and except at Valentine’s, violets are violet. Of coal, it seemed to be even more fundamentally true that it simply had to be black. It might be beautiful, but how could it be blue? A blonde beauty — who appears to know even better than he does what evil lurks in the hearts of men — may now have come up with a clue to the mystery which for so long has baffled even The Shadow. Has Cybill Shepherd cleared herself of the charge that she doesn’t know how to spell her own name? She doesn’t need to. What she has most triumphantly spelled out for us is ... Blue Cole — in the most delicious sense of both those words. And all of his.”<br />— Orson WellesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-17479651805043814742020-11-27T11:17:56.583-08:002020-11-27T11:17:56.583-08:00Ken, I want to see you answer FFS's questionKen, I want to see you answer FFS's questionStevenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-90506558416093347942020-11-27T11:15:04.097-08:002020-11-27T11:15:04.097-08:00Friday question: If Shelly Long had not left CHEE...Friday question: If Shelly Long had not left CHEERS, do you think Diane and Sam would have ended up together in season six or would their relationship continue to have been dragged out? Also, would the show been able to last as long it did?Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-57409278245661963132020-11-27T11:13:54.194-08:002020-11-27T11:13:54.194-08:00The Jetsons' open was an all-timer. For pure ...The Jetsons' open was an all-timer. For pure music, I have to admit I loved the Partridge Family theme with the Cassidys, Shirley (Jones) and David.<br /><br />Two that always stood out to me for being smart, soft, and sentimental, were Room 222 (Gene Reynolds at the helm!) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father.Ed from SFVnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-22842303872006758122020-11-27T10:49:19.249-08:002020-11-27T10:49:19.249-08:00I just read that Suzanne Sommers was fired for ask...I just read that Suzanne Sommers was fired for asking for a raise on Three's Company when John Ritter was making 5 times as much as her. Were there any gender biased pay inequities on Cheers or Mash?blinkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04284135060900752329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-35173251790411455332020-11-27T10:43:20.389-08:002020-11-27T10:43:20.389-08:00You mentioned Cybill Shepherd's lack of singin...You mentioned Cybill Shepherd's lack of singing skills. I read once that Peter Bogdanovich (who was, of course, her boyfriend at the time) produced an album of Shepherd singing some classic oldies. He sent the album around to various celebrities, hoping they'd give the album a rave review that he could print on the album cover. One of the people P.B. sent the album to was Frank Sinatra, who returned it with a note that read, "Some guys will do anything to ball a broad."Steve Baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07460010481523481647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-19640807106380942732020-11-27T10:30:38.399-08:002020-11-27T10:30:38.399-08:00"There have been so many hour-long dramas abo..."There have been so many hour-long dramas about brilliant, dedicated, courageous lawyers -- have you considered a sitcom about the kind of lawyers Trump hires?"<br /><br />AMC and Better Call Saul beat you to it.ODJenningsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-64206584753420570122020-11-27T10:28:37.794-08:002020-11-27T10:28:37.794-08:00Wild Wild West had great credits. If you recall, t...Wild Wild West had great credits. If you recall, the show opened wth generic artwork filling a series of boxes, and then as the story progressed, at each commercial break the generic art would be replaced by a scene from the show. By the end you had a little recap of the action. Innovative and I don't think it's ever been repeated.ODJenningsnoreply@blogger.com