Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Behind the Scenes of Elvis: The 1968 Comeback Special: Next on TVC

Emmy Award-winning and ACE Award-winning producer and director Steve Binder will join us on a brand new edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Mar. 3-6 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 3/3
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil
Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 3/4
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 3/5
10am ET, 7am PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

WON 920 The Apple
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday 3/4
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Streaming at www.920won.caster.fm

KSCO AM-1080 and FM-104.1
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY AM-1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 3/5
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSCO

CROC Radio
British Columbia, Canada
Sunday 3/5
1pm ET, 10am PT
Streaming at CROCRadio.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM

Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 3/5
9pm PT
Monday 3/6
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 3/6
10pm ET, 7pm PT
with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

PWRNetwork
Ann Arbor, MI
Various times throughout the week
on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork.com
and the PWR channel on TuneIn


A fixture in the world of variety television for more than five decades, Steve Binder’s many credits as a director and producer include the musical series Hullabaloo, the iconic concert film The T.A.M.I. Show (considered by many to be the Holy Grail of Rock films), and such iconic variety specials as Lucy in London, Petula (which featured a groundbreaking yet controversial moment between Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte), the historic Diana Ross: Live in Central Park telecast and the 1968 Elvis Comeback Special.

Steve Binder is also the co-author of Fade Up 26: The Movers and Shakers of Variety Television, an excellent oral history that tells the story of variety television through the voices of twenty-six men and women who were and are responsible for bringing these shows into our homes for the past sixty-five years. Steve will tell us the backstory of the Elvis Comeback Special, and more, when he joins us in our second hour.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org and CX Radio Brazil
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Indiana Talks (Marion, IN)
Sat 10pm ET, 7pm PT on WON 920 The Apple (Brooklyn, NY)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 1pm ET, 10am PT CROC Radio (British Columbia, Canada)
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network (San Francisco, CA)
Replays various times throughout the week on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork
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 Stitcher.com
Follow us online at www.tvconfidential.net
Follow us now on Twitter: Twitter.com/tvconfidential
Like our Fan Page at www.facebook.com/tvconfidential

If you listen to TV CONFIDENTIAL, and like what you’ve heard, please consider supporting our efforts by becoming a patron of our show through Patreon. It’s easy to do, it does not cost much, plus you can receive some cool rewards (such as coupons that will allow you to download up to six free programs every month from the TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives store). For more information, please visit www.Patreon.com/tvconfidential... and thanks!

Monday, February 27, 2017

This Week in Television History: February 2017 PART IV

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.


February 28, 1942
Frank Bonner is born Frank Woodrow Boers, Jr. 
The actor and television director is best known for playing sales manager Herb Tarlek on the television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.

March 2, 1917
Desi Arnaz was a born. Born into the upper-class in Cuba, ending up having to flee to the United States when the Batista regime came into power. 

While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to whom he was married at the time. He and Ball are generally credited as the inventors of the rerun in connection with the show.

March 5, 1982
John Belushi was found dead in his room, by Bill Wallace at Bungalow number 3 of the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. 

The cause of death was a speedball; the combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa


Sunday, February 26, 2017

Joseph Wapner

Joseph Albert Wapner
November 15, 1919 – February 26, 2017
Judge Joseph Wapner was an American judge and television personality. He was the first star of the ongoing reality courtroom series The People's Court. The court show's first run in syndication, with Wapner presiding as judge, lasted from 1981 to 1993, for 12 seasons and 2,484 episodes. While the show's second run has been presided over by multiple judges, Wapner was the sole judge to preside during the court show's first run.
Wapner's tenure on the program made him the first jurist of arbitration-based reality court shows, what is now a most popular trend in the judicial genre. Until the summer of 2013, Wapner also held the title of longest reigning arbiter over The People's Court. However, by completion of the court show's 2012–2013 season, Marilyn Milian captured this title from him and became the longest-reigning judge over the series. Five years after presiding over The People's Court, Wapner returned to television as a judge on the nontraditional courtroom seriesJudge Wapner's Animal Court, lasting for two seasons (1998–1999 and 1999–2000).
On June 27, 1986, Wapner appeared on the Tonight Show to hear a case of David Letterman vs. Johnny Carson over alleged damage to the headlight of Letterman's pickup truck when Carson had the truck towed to the studio. Wapner ruled in favor of Letterman, granting him $24.95.



Good Night Judge Wapner

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Bill Paxton

I've had a career that is kind of under the radar,
but it sure is varied,
and I've been so blessed to be able to get paid to do something I love to do
Bill Paxton
William "BillPaxtonMay 17, 1955 – February 25, 2017
Bill Paxton died today at the age of 61 from complications following heart surgery.

Paxton's television performances included his lead role in HBO's Big Love (2006–2011), for which Paxton received three Golden Globe nominations. Paxton also received good reviews for his performance in the History Channel's miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012), for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award, alongside co-star Kevin Costner

He directed several short films, including the music video for Barnes & Barnes' novelty song "Fish Heads", which aired during Saturday Night Live's low-rated 1980–1981 season. He directed the feature films Frailty (2001), in which he starred, and The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005).
He was cast in a music video for the 1982 Pat Benatar song "Shadows of the Night", in which he appeared as a Nazi radio officer. He appears in the Limp Bizkit video Eat You Alive

In 2014, he played the role of the villainous John Garrett in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He stars alongside Jon BernthalRose McGowan, and John Malkovich as a playable character in the 2014 video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (downloadable "Exo Zombies" mode).[8]
In February 2016, Paxton was cast as Detective Frank Roarke for Training Day, a crime-thriller television series set 15 years after the events of the eponymous 2001 movie; it premiered a year later.

Good Night Mr. Paxton

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Friday, February 24, 2017

Your Mental Sorbet: Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies


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

Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies is a 1972 animated one-hour TV-movie (with a live-action segment near the end) that was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. In this Filmation-produced movie, Daffy DuckPorky Pig, and other Looney Tunes characters interact with the characters from the Filmation series Groovie Goolies.
This movie is notable for being the one and only time that Warner Bros. "loaned out" their famous Looney Tunes characters to appear in a Filmation production (otherwise they were a silent partner).
The Phantom of the Flickers announces his intention to destroy every film that Daffy Duck and the company ever made, including their current King Arthur film. Being a huge fan of Daffy, Frankie goes to Hollywood to offer his help, and the other Horrible Hall residents go along with him. The Phantom suddenly grabs the film and, disguised as Hauntleroy, tries to escape from the Goolies by running through a magic mirror into "Mad Mirror Land" (i.e., the real world). Frankie, Drac, and Wolfie chase after him, and after a cartoonishly slapstick pursuit they bring (or more rather sneeze) the Phantom and the film back to their world.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Diane Baker and the Art of the Motion Picture Showman: Next on TVC

Actress and producer Diane Baker, television writer Paul Robert Coyle, and author John McElwee will join us on an encore edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Feb. 24-27 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 2/24
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil
Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 2/25
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 2/26
10am ET, 7am PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

WON 920 The Apple
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday 2/25
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Streaming at www.920won.caster.fm

KSCO AM-1080 and FM-104.1
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY AM-1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 2/26
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSCO

CROC Radio
British Columbia, Canada
Sunday 2/26
1pm ET, 10am PT
Also streaming at CROC Radio

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM

Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 2/26
9pm PT
Monday 2/27
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 2/27
10pm ET, 7pm PT
with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

PWRNetwork
Ann Arbor, MI
Various times throughout the week
on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork.com
and the PWR channel on TuneIn



Best known for her acting appearances in The Diary of Anne Frank, Marnie, Straight-Jacket, Route 66, The Invaders, House, Law and Order: SVU, The Fugitive, and other films and TV series, Diane Baker is also an accomplished producer of many films and documentaries, including To Climb a Mountain for HBO and the Emmy-nominated miniseries A Woman of Substance starring Deborah Kerr. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Motion Pictures & Television Acting School at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, one of the largest film schools in the country, and a position that she has held for more than ten years. 

We’ll ask Diane about how she first made the transition from acting to producing, as well as how she became involved with the Academy of Art University (and the school’s recent collaboration with director Roger Corman). But she’ll also share some memories of her work on The Diary of Anne Frank, Perry Mason, Kojak and other films and TV series. Diane Baker will join us in our second hour.

Also joining us this week will be our friend Paul Robert Coyle. Paul began his career as a television writer writing for The Streets of San Francisco and Barnaby Jones, plus he’s written for such shows as Crazy Like a Fox, Simon and Simon, Jake and the Fatman, Xena: Warrior Princess and Stephen King’s The Dead Zone.

Our first hour will feature John McElwee, curator of the Greenbriar Picture Shows movie website, and a consultant on many documentaries about the Golden Age of Hollywood. John’s book, Showmen, Sell It Hot! Movies as Merchandise in Golden Era Hollywood, examines the often innovative marketing campaigns for such classic motion pictures as Stagecoach, King Kong, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, On the Waterfront, Frankenstein, Dracula, A Night at the Opera and Rebel Without a Cause. The book includes hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, plus great stories about the various ways in which movies were promoted in the era before television.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org and CX Radio Brazil
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 10am ET, 7am PT on Indiana Talks (Marion, IN)
Sat 10pm ET, 7pm PT on WON 920 The Apple (Brooklyn, NY)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 1pm ET, 10am PT CROC Radio (British Columbia, Canada)
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network (San Francisco, CA)
Replays various times throughout the week on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork
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 Stitcher.com
Follow us online at www.tvconfidential.net
Follow us now on Twitter: Twitter.com/tvconfidential
Like our Fan Page at www.facebook.com/tvconfidential

If you listen to TV CONFIDENTIAL, and like what you’ve heard, please consider supporting our efforts by becoming a patron of our show through Patreon. It’s easy to do, it does not cost much, plus you can receive some cool rewards (such as coupons that will allow you to download up to six free programs every month from the TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives store). For more information, please visit www.Patreon.com/tvconfidential... and thanks!

Monday, February 20, 2017

This Week in Television History: February 2017 PART III

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.


February 20, 1972
Radio personality and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell dies at the age of 74. 

Winchell's influential gossip and news show, Walter Winchell's Jergens Journal, ran for 18 years.
Winchell started as a vaudeville performer, working with an array of future stars, including Eddie Cantor and George Jessel. He began writing about Broadway in 1922 for the Vaudeville News and in 1929 began writing a syndicated column for the New York Daily Mirror, which ran for three decades. But dishing on socialites became his claim to fame when he began his radio news show in 1930. His fast-paced show was packed with short news and gossip items-his rapid-fire radio prattle was clocked at 215 words a minute. Millions of people tuned into his witty and extremely popular Sunday evening show, which he introduced with, "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press!"
A gossip columnist when few others existed, Winchell ruined more than a few careers with reports that some maintained were sensationalistic, reckless, and actually untrue. His show popularized catchphrases like "blessed event" and "scram," and peers admired his penchant for finding fresh ways to report on Hollywood's elite. Winchell starred as himself in several films, including Love and Hisses in 1937 and Daisy Kenyon in 1947.
What some called captivating reporting was labeled yellow journalism by others. His career declined in the 1950s. Like so many other radio stars, Winchell's career lost its sparkle when Americans' allegiance turned to television. Meanwhile, he made an unpopular decision to back Senator Joseph McCarthy's "Red Scare," publicly accusing a number of Hollywood stars of being communists. In the 1960s, the New York Daily Mirror closed and his column ended. One of his last major jobs was narrating "The Untouchables," a popular television drama series, from 1959 to 1963. When he died penniless in 1972, it was reported that just one person-his daughter-showed up at his funeral.

February 23, 1997
Schindler's List is shown on NBC, the first network to broadcast a movie without commercial interruption. 

Ford Motor Company, which sponsored the broadcast, showed one commercial before and after the film.
The 1993 film about German factory owner Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of Jewish workers in his factory during World War II, was Spielberg's most ambitious movie to date. The picture, filmed in black and white, won Spielberg his first Academy Award as Best Director, and it also garnered Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay awards. The film's screenplay, by Thomas Keneally and Steven Zallian, was adapted from Keneally's novel, Schindler's Ark, published in 1982.
Spielberg started making amateur films in his teens, and by the late 1970s he had become heavily involved in production and scriptwriting. He gained fame early in his career for directing such blockbusters as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Poltergeist, and a string of other phenomenal successes. He established his own independent production company, Amblin' Entertainment, in 1984, where he produced Gremlins, Back to the Future, Arachnophobia, Cape Fear, and more. In 1994, he formed DreamWorks SKG with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, and the following year the trio announced a partnership with Microsoft Corporation, called DreamWorks Interactive, which produced interactive games and teaching tools. Just months before he released Schindler's List, Spielberg released Jurassic Park, which featured computer-generated dinosaurs that took the world by storm. He won his second Academy Award for Best Director in 1999 for Saving Private Ryan. Virtually all of Spielberg's films have been box office smashes.

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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa


Friday, February 17, 2017

Dan Castellaneta and Don Most: Next on TVC

Actor and playwright Dan Castellaneta and singer/actor Don Most will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Feb. 17-20 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 2/17
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil
Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 2/18
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 2/19
10am ET, 7am PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

WON 920 The Apple
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday 2/18
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Streaming at www.920won.caster.fm

KSCO AM-1080 and FM-104.1
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY AM-1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 2/19
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSCO

CROC Radio
British Columbia, Canada
Sunday 2/19
1pm ET, 10am PT
Also streaming at CROC Radio

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM

Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 2/19
9pm PT
Monday 2/20
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 2/20
10pm ET, 7pm PT
with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com

PWRNetwork
Ann Arbor, MI
Various times throughout the week
on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork.com
and the PWR channel on TuneIn

This week’s show will include Part 2 of our interview with Emmy Award-winning actor, writer and voice artist Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, and the writer and star of For Piano and Harpo, a brand new play about Oscar Levant, the renowned pianist, composer, humorist and bon vivant who was known as much for his biting wit as for his musical compositions.

We’ll ask Dan how he came to develop both the play and his portrayal of Levant, and how he captured the sensitivity and vulnerability that Levant often hid from the public. Dan Castellaneta will join us in our second hour.

For Piano and Harpo is currently playing at the Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive in Burbank, CA through Sunday, March 5. For tickets and more information, call 818-955-8101 or go to FalconTheatre.com.

Also this week: We’ll welcome back singer/actor Don Most. Though he rarely sang on camera when he played Ralph Malph on Happy Days, Don’s roots as a musical performer go back very early in his career, long before Happy Days. His new CD, D Most: Mostly Swinging, celebrates his love of big band and swing music, plus he continues perform live at different venues all over the country.

Don was also among the various Happy Days cast members who appeared in the recent episode of The Odd Couple that paid tribute to Garry Marshall. We’ll ask him about that, and more, when he joins us in our first hour.
Plus: Vince Waldron will join us in our second hour for more thoughts on the legacy of Mary Tyler Moore. Vince’s books include The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book: The Definitive History of Tel....

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Fri 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org and CX Radio Brazil
Sat 8pm ET, 5pm PT and Sun 6pm ET, 3pm PT on Indiana Talks (Marion, IN)
Sat 10pm ET, 7pm PT on WON 920 The Apple (Brooklyn, NY)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KSCO-AM 1080 (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA)
Sun 9am ET, 6am PT KOMY-AM 1340 (La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA)
Sun 1pm ET, 10am PT CROC Radio (British Columbia, Canada)
Sun 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network (San Francisco, CA)
Replays various times throughout the week on the Entertainment Channel at PWRNetwork
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 Stitcher.com
Follow us online at www.tvconfidential.net
Follow us now on Twitter: Twitter.com/tvconfidential
Like our Fan Page at www.facebook.com/tvconfidential

If you listen to TV CONFIDENTIAL, and like what you’ve heard, please consider supporting our efforts by becoming a patron of our show through Patreon. It’s easy to do, it does not cost much, plus you can receive some cool rewards (such as coupons that will allow you to download up to six free programs every month from the TV CONFIDENTIAL Archives store). For more information, please visit www.Patreon.com/tvconfidential... and thanks!

Your Mental Sorbet: Greedy Humpty Dumpty (1936) Fleischer Cartoon

Here is another "Mental Sorbet
that we could use to momentarily forget about those
things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
The TurboTax commercial featuring Humpty Dumpty reminded me of the first time I saw the anthropomorphic egg.

Greedy Humpty Dumpty's wall of gold is not enough. He wants all the gold in the sun, too.



Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Monday, February 13, 2017

This Week in Television History: February 2017 PART II

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.


February 19, 1987
A controversial, anti-smoking ad aired for the first time on television. It featured Yul Brynner who died shortly after of lung cancer. 
In January 1985, nine months before his death, the tour reached New York for a farewell Broadway run. Aware he was dying, he gave an interview on Good Morning America discussing the dangers of smoking and expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. The Broadway production of The King and I ran from January 7 to June 30 of that year, with Mary Beth Peil as Anna. His last performance marked the 4625th time he had played the role of the King. Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society and he created a public service announcement using a clip from the Good Morning America interview.
Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985, in New York City. A few days after his death, the recorded anti-cigarette public service announcement was shown on all the major US television networks, and also in many other countries. In it, he expressed his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial after discovering how sick he was, and that his death was imminent. He then looked directly into the camera for 30 seconds and said, "Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke. Whatever you do, just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. I'm convinced of that."


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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa


Friday, February 10, 2017

Your Mental Sorbet: Sean Spicer Press Conference (Melissa McCarthy) - SNL


Here is another "Mental Sorbet
that we could use to momentarily forget about those
things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer (Melissa McCarthy) and secretary of education nominee Betsy DeVos (Kate McKinnon) take questions from the press (Bobby Moynihan, Kristen Stewart, Cecily Strong, Vanessa Bayer, Alex Moffat, Mikey Day).

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa