Your Mental Sorbet: The Secrets Of The Back To The Future Trilogy

Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Kirk Cameron as he answers fans' most-asked questions about this series.

Stay Tuned... Or should I say, "See you in the Future".

Tony Figueroa

Whatever Happened to the Made for TV Movie? Next on TVC

Emmy Award-winning writer, director and producer Joseph Dougherty and TV Guide business editor Stephen Battaglio will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing May 29-June 4 at the following times and venues:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 5/29
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 6/2
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at MediaCritic.net

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Wednesday 5/29
11pm ET, 8pm PT
with replays at various times throughout the week
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the Live365 app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 5/31
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV

Talktainment Radio
Columbus, OH
Thursday 5/30
2am ET, 11pm PT
Friday 5/31
3am ET, Midnight PT
Noon ET, 9am PT
Click on the Listen Live button at TalktainmentRadio.com

The Coyote KKYT 93.7 FM
Ridgecrest, CA
Sunday 6/2
9pm PT
Monday 6/3
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at Coyote395.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KKYT

The Radio Slot Network
San Francisco, CA
Monday 6/3
9pm ET, 6pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

Passionate World Radio
Ann Arbor, MI
Tuesday 6/4
9:30pm ET, 6:30pm PT
Click on the Listen Now button at PWRTalk.com

Joseph Dougherty and Dan Farren will join us in our first hour for a roundtable discussion on the made for TV movie — a staple of television for more than four decades (particularly during the era of The ABC Movie of the Week) that has all but disappeared from network TV in recent years. We’ll talk about that, but we’ll also take a look at some of the great Movies of the Week from the 1970s that have stayed with us for one reason or another.

Joseph Dougherty is the Emmy Award-winning writer/producer of such shows as thirtysomething, Saving Grace, and Pretty Little Liars, plus he has also written many TV-movies for network and cable television. Dan Farren is one of the producers of Story Salon, along with Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen; he also reviews movies for SchmoesKnow.com.

Also joining us this week will be Stephen Battaglio, business editor for TV Guide magazine and the author of such books as of David Susskind: A Televised Life, From Yesterday to Today: Six Decades of America’s Favorite Morning ..., and Election Night: A Television History: 1948-2012. Steve will join us in our first hour to help us preview some of the new TV shows that were announced earlier this month at the annual network upfronts.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Wed 11am ET, 8am PT on IndianaTalks.com
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
Fri Noon ET, 9am PT on Talktainment Radio
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Midnight ET on The Coyote KKYT 93.7 FM (Ridgecrest, Calif.)
Mon 9pm ET, 6pm PT on The Radio Slot Network
Tue 9:30pm ET, 6:30pm PT on Passionate World Radio
Now also heard at various times throughout the week on IndianaTalks.com
Tape us now, listen to us later, using DAR.fm/tvconfidential
Also available as a podcast via iTunes, FeedBurner
and now on your mobile phone via www.stitcher.com/TVConfidential
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This Week in Television History: May 2013 PART IV

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

May 28, 1998

Comic Phil Hartman killed by wife Brynn, in a murder-suicide. 

He was 49. Born on September 24, 1948, in Ontario, Canada, Hartman was raised in Connecticut and Southern California, and later became an American citizen. Early on, he found work designing record album covers (he created the official logo for the rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) but made the leap to acting in 1975 when he joined the L.A. improvisational acting group, the Groundlings. With his fellow Groundlings alum, Paul Reubens, Hartman wrote the screenplay for the successful comedy Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985). Along with Reubens, Hartman had helped create the zany man-child character of Pee Wee Herman, though Reubens received most of the credit. From 1986 to 1990, Hartman portrayed Kap’n Karl on the Saturday morning children’s TV series Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

Also in 1986, Hartman earned a spot on the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. In his eight years on the show, Hartman became known for his spot-on impersonations of a variety of celebrities, notably President Bill Clinton. He also made frequent guest appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 1989, Hartman shared an Emmy Award for his writing contributions to Saturday Night Live. He went on to set a record for the most appearances (153) as one of the show’s regulars.

Hartman joined the cast of the TV sitcom NewsRadio in 1995. He played the egotistical anchorman of an AM radio news station in New York City through four seasons of the show’s five-year run.

The ensemble cast also included Dave Foley, Maura Tierney and Andy Dick. Hartman also notably provided the voices for a number of characters, including the has-been actor Troy McClure and the incompetent lawyer Lionel Hurtz, on the acclaimed animated series The Simpsons. In addition to his TV work as an actor and pitchman (for MCI, McDonald’s and Cheetos, among others), Hartman appeared on the big screen in Blind Date (1987), Jingle All the Way (1996) and Small Soldiers, released after his death.

Off-screen, Hartman was popular among his Hollywood colleagues and known for being completely different from some of the more unlikable characters he had portrayed. The murder-suicide, which shocked fans and friends alike, occurred early on the morning of May 28, 1998, at the couple’s home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. According to news reports, Brynn, Hartman’s third wife (two previous marriages ended in divorce) had a history of drug and alcohol problems. The couple had two children.

May 29, 2003

Bob Hope celebrates 100th birthday

Some 35 U.S. states declare it to be Bob Hope Day on this day in 2003, when the iconic comedic actor and entertainer turns 100 years old.

In a public ceremony held in Hollywood, city officials renamed the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Avenue--famous for its historic buildings and as a central point on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--Bob Hope Square. Several 1940s-era U.S. planes flew overhead as part of an air show honoring Hope’s longtime role as an entertainer of U.S. armed forces all over the world. Hope, who was then suffering from failing eyesight and hearing and had not been seen in public for three years, was too ill to attend the public ceremonies. Three of his children attended the naming ceremony, along with some of his younger show-business colleagues, including Mickey Rooney.

One of the leading talents on the vaudeville scene by the 1930s, the London-born, American-raised Hope met his future wife (of nearly seven decades), the nightclub singer Dolores Reade, while he was performing on Broadway in the musical Roberta. They married in 1934, and four years later Hope launched his own radio program, The Bob Hope Show, which would run for the next 18 years. One of the country’s most popular comics, Hope had a successful film career largely thanks to the series of seven “Road” movies he made with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, including Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946) and Road to Rio (1947).

In 1941, after America’s entrance into World War II, Hope began performing for U.S. troops abroad; he would play shows for more than a million American servicemen by 1953. Some 65 million people watched him perform for troops in Vietnam on Christmas Eve in 1966, in his largest broadcast.

Hope also became a legend for his countless TV specials, which he would perform over the course of some five decades. He hosted the Academy Awards ceremony a total of 18 times, more than any other Oscars host.

Dubbed “Mr. Entertainment” and the “King of Comedy,” Hope died on July 27, 2003, less than two months after his 100th birthday celebration. He was survived by Dolores, their four adopted children--Linda, Anthony, Nora and Kelly--and four grandchildren.

May 30, 1908

Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and countless other Warner Bros. cartoon characters, was born in San Francisco. 

His parents, who ran a women's clothing business, moved with their son to Portland, Oregon, when Blanc was a child. Blanc began performing as a musician and singer on local radio programs in Portland before he was 20. In the late 1920s, he and his wife, Estelle, created a daily radio show called "Cobwebs and Nuts," which became a hit. Blanc made many other radio appearances and became a regular on Jack Benny's hit radio show, providing the sounds of Benny's ancient car (The Maxwell) and playing several other characters.

In 1937, Blanc made his debut with Warner Bros., providing the voice for a drunken bull in a short cartoon called "Picador Porky." Another actor provided the pig's voice, but Blanc later replaced him. In 1940, Bugs Bunny debuted in a short called "A Wild Hare." Blanc said he wanted the rabbit to sound tough and streetwise, so he created a comic combination of Bronx and Brooklyn accents. Other characters Blanc created for Warner Bros. included the Road Runner, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird. He performed in some 850 cartoons for Warner Bros. during his 50-year career. For other studios, he provided the voices of Barney Rubble and Dino the dinosaur in The Flintstones, Mr. Spacely for The Jetsons, and Woody Woodpecker's laugh.

In his 1988 autobiography, That's Not All Folks, Blanc described a nearly fatal traffic accident that left him in a coma. Unable to rouse him by using his real name, a doctor finally said, "How are you, Bugs Bunny?" and Mel replied, in Bugs' voice, "Ehh, just fine, doc. How are you?"

Blanc continued to provide voices until the late 1980s, most memorably voicing Daffy Duck dueling with Donald Duck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). 

After Mel Blanc died of complications from heart disease, his son Noel, trained by his father, provided the voices for the characters the elder Blanc had helped bring to life.

 

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

 

Tony Figueroa

TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives: Show No. 185 with guests Anne Serling and Jennifer Armstrong

 
Show No. 185 with guests Anne Serling and Jennifer Armstrong
Original Airdate: Week of May 15-21, 2013
 
First hour: Ed welcomes Anne Serling, author of As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling, an intimate portrait of the Emmy Award-winning television pioneer that is also a moving testament to the love between fathers and daughters. Also in this hour: Phil Gries with Part 3 of the Sounds of Lost Television tribute to New York Mets announcer Ralph Kiner, featuring highlights from two historic moments from the inaugural year of baseball at Shea Stadium: the 23-inning game between the Giants and the Mets (May 31, 1964), and Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jim Bunning’s perfect game (June 21, 1964). Plus: Jane Boursaw on NBC naming Jimmy Fallon as the new host of The Tonight Show beginning in early 2014.  

Second hour: Ed welcomes pop culture commentator and entertainment journalist Jennifer Armstrong. Jennifer’s latest book, Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, is the story of the people who gave us The Mary Tyler Moore Show, one of the most beloved and admired television series of all time, and a show whose influence can still be seen today in such shows as 30 Rock, Grey’s Anatomy, Parks and Recreation, 2 Broke Girls, and HBO’s Girls.

Your Mental Sorbet: Back To The Future - Clara's Folks

Here is another "Mental Sorbet" that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Following the conclusion of Back to the Future Part III, "Doc" Brown settled in 1991 in Hill Valley with his new wife Clara, their sons Jules and Verne, and the family dog, Einstein.

Verne, Jules and Marty head back to Wyoming on March 3, 1850, a date that has been carved on a wagon buckboard as the day that Daniel Clayton and Martha O'Brien married while on the Oregon Trail. As it turns out, Martha is a tough frontier woman, while Daniel is a mild-mannered scholar who collects butterflies. When Martha sees Marty, she falls in love with him, and Jules and Verne have to reunite their mother's parents. To complicate matters, Martha is kidnapped by an outlaw, Wild Bill Tannen.

Stay Tuned... Or should I say, "See you in the Future".

Tony Figueroa