Arnold, It’s time to lock up.

Noriyuki "Pat" Morita
1932-2005

To a generation he was Mr. Miyagi, Daniel-san’s (Ralph Macchio) mentor in the The Karate Kid movies, but to me he will always be Arnold from Happy Days.

As a child Morita suffered from spinal tuberculosis and was told that he would never walk again. Thanks to an operation to fuse four vertebrae he was on his feet only to be sent with his family to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona during World War II. After all this hardship and suffering Pat Morita dedicated his life to making people laugh. After years of stand-up comedy in the early '60s known as "The Hip Nip" and roles in film and television Morita landed his breakthrough role as the 50's drive-in owner Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi.

I was trying to think of an Arnold quote, but Arnold’s best lines were either in Japanese or sound effects. To quote Pat Morita, "Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did".

Good Night Mr. Morita. I will always remember you as a source of laughter and inspiration.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Good Luck Ted

Ted Koppel

"Trust me, the transition from one anchor to another is not that big a deal," said Koppel. "[Walter] Cronkite begat [Dan] Rather, [John] Chancellor begat [Tom] Brokaw, [Frank] Reynolds begat [Peter] Jennings. And each of them did a pretty fair job in his own right.
"You've always been very nice to me, so give this new anchor team for 'Nightline' a fair break. If you don't, I promise you, the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot,"

Ted Koppel

November 22, 2005

Ralph Edwards, "This Is Your Life"

Ralph Edwards
1913-2005

Long before people got Punk'd there was Truth or Consequences. Before there was Entertainment Tonight or Biography there was This Is Your Life. These shows were created and hosted (originally for radio) by broadcasting pioneer Ralph Edwards. Ralph Edwards also earned a special place in broadcasting history in 1950 when as a publicity stunt he offered nationwide publicity to any city that would change its name to "Truth or Consequences" In a vote, a majority of the citizens of Hot Springs New Mexico changed their name. Mr. Edwards was also well-known for his extensive charitable and philanthropic activities as well as being one of TV's most prolific producers. On a personal note, my wife Donna had the pleasure of working for Mr. Edwards on The New Truth and Consequences and found him to be a class act.

Good Night Mr. Edwards and enjoy your gala reception in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt hotel.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Today in TV History

On November 13th Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence.
That request came from his wife.

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Tony Figueroa

The West Wing LIVE (Click PODCAST)

I hate being sick. A few days ago I caught a bug that left me bedridden for a few days. There were times when I barely had the strength to change the channel. Then I would find something interesting to watch like a documentary on the History Channel and I would fall fast asleep. Most of the weekend was spent watching the What's Happening!! marathon on TV Land. So you can imagine I was in need of some intelligent television.

Last Sunday at 8 PM The West Wing aired a live episode. This was a big deal. My wife Donna and I love the excitement of a live TV broadcast. Could something go wrong, be it a human or technical error? At one time all TV was live. I remember seeing live plays being broadcast on network TV. ER did a live show a few years ago, the sitcom Roc did a whole season of live episodes. Today many reality shows like to have live finales.

I have been a fan of The West Wing since the show first aired. I know that my top ten list of reasons why I love the show are the same reasons why other people hate the show. Even with changes in front of and behind the camera the show continues to set a standard of TV excellence. These past two seasons have brought more changes. New characters are coming in and familiar faces will soon be leaving. With the election story line either Congressman Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) or Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) will be the new president (I'm hoping for Santos).

When a show is done well I am willing suspend disbelief. A pro-life Republican candidate? A debate where the candidates throw the rules out the window? Maybe this is something we'd like to see in real world politics.

Vinick: When the greatest hero in the history of my party, Abraham Lincoln, debated, he didn't need any rules, we could junk the rules.

Santos: OK, let's have a real debate.

While Ellen DeGeneres was trying to get me to ruin my credit rating by getting me to sign up for the new American Express One card. I told my wife that I love to see intelligent dialogue over car crashes. She pointed out that other people would be turned off by the show for the same reason. I hope that viewers who share my opinion are in the majority and I think they are. After the fictional election is over and a new fictional president is sworn in, I hope that viewers stay tuned and in a few years we will debate who was the better West Wing president Bartlet (Martin Sheen) or TBD? At the end of the day The West Wing’s greatest legacy will not be it’s Emmys or SAG Awards, but the fact that the show got real people talking about real politics.

I'd like to see The West Wing do another live show soon. Perhaps an election eve show that also features Tim Russert with his dry erase boards.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Happy Anniversary Days of our Lives (Click PODCAST)

My mom was concerned by what she considered an obsession in the way I devoured the TV Guide fall preview issue (This was before TV Guide was an entertainment magazine). Now if I went through the TV Guide with a highlighter, that would be obsessive. But I did my best to see all the new shows every fall and see if they were worth watching. I was firm but fair in my evaluation. I knew better than to judge a show by it's pilot. Even though there were only three networks, this was not an easy thing to do since there were no VCRs. If you were not home when your program was on you missed it. We couldn't go online to find out what happened or pay $1.99 to have the episode downloaded on our iPod. Just like if the phone rang and no one was home, the call went unanswered. Archaic! Mom saw my relationship with TV as an addiction, but did she help me? Did she find a 12-step program? The Betty Ruble Center? No, she exploited what she saw as my addiction.

It’s the summer of 1983, I was home from school but Mom was doing some volunteer work in the afternoons, meaning she would be missing Days of our Lives. So she asked me to watch the show for her, then tell her what happened. Remember there were no VCRs. It seemed simple enough. She’d come home and I’d say, " The guy with the beard has the hots for that girl with the big boobs. Everyone is wondering if this guy I think his name is "Cirano?" is really dead even though he was cremated. Soon it became, "Bo (Peter Reckell) expressed his feelings to Hope (Kristian Alfonso) and Stefano (Joseph Mascolo) faked his death by having some John Doe in the morgue cremated in his place". By the time summer was over and Mom was done with her volunteer work, I was hooked on Days of our Lives.

I never felt insecure in my manhood being a Soap Opera fan because Los Angeles Dodger's manager Tommy Lasorta confessed that he hated away games because it caused him to miss Days of our Lives.

In college I bought my first VCR before I bought my first textbook so I wouldn’t miss the show. While working as a Universal Studios Tour guide I met a coworker who had a recurring part on the show as a nurse. I used the show as an icebreaker. Long story short, I married her. It's a mixed marriage, she's an All My Children fan. Every Wednesday I attend a story telling group in Los Angeles called STORY SALON. One of the storytellers there is an actress named Marsha Clark, who also plays the no nonsense judge, Karen Fitzpatrick on DAYS. I started to talk to her about the show's serial killer story line where half the town was murdered by Dr. Marlena Evens (Deidre Hall). She must have thought this guy is nuts, don’t make eye contact.

It’s 22 years later, Bo still loves Hope and everyone is sure that Stefano is really dead this time. I know better.

When all else fails, blame Mom.

To quote Macdonald Carey (Dr. Tom Horton), "Like sands through the hourglass... so are the Days of our Lives".

Happy 40th, have you had work done?

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Tony Figueroa

There are no stupid TV shows PART II Halloween Edition.

Last week I said in my column (There are no stupid TV shows, just.... Okay some are stupid.) That,

"I was reminiscing with friends about our favorite episodes of Gilligan's Island and Get Smart. Then I remembered that many of the adults in my life (not children of television) dismissed the two shows as stupid. Both of these shows were on the air when I was born and have been airing ever since. The wealth of talent in front of and behind the camera has to be a huge contributing factor to a show's longevity. I was able to enjoy both shows in syndication. Both Gilligan's Island (1964-1967) and Get Smart (1965-1970) were on when I came home from school. These were shows that I enjoyed on one level then and on a different level now."

I realized that I had made similar statements about other classic TV sitcoms. In the spirit of Halloween I wanted to revisit some of the comments I made about some macabre shows. In Not a Black and White Issue. I mentioned that,

"Samantha & Darrin Stephens were the first mixed married couple on a television show Bewitched to actually discuss their differences. The show featured a witch (Elizabeth Montgomery) who married a mortal (Dick York & Dick Sargent). Underneath the mother in law jokes, nosey neighbors and special effects, serious issues like prejudice, negative stereotypes and tolerance were covered. How many times did we see Endora (Agnes Moorehead) tell Samantha that she disapproved of her daughter marring a mortal, what mortals did to them in the early days of Salem, or how mortals depict witches with hooked noses and warts. If you did not know that I was talking about TV witches, you might think that I was talking about one of a number of disenfranchised minorities.

If you think that I am connecting the dots incorrectly like some conspiracy theorist, I would encourage you to do a Google search and type in "Bewitched" and "Mixed Marriage", see what you find. I also want to point out that when Bewitched first premiered in 1964 it was not without controversy. Some stations refused to carry the show under pressure from religious groups that did not like the idea of a fine red blooded American male marrying a witch, a witch seen in a positive light, or an attractive witch (a problem that also pledged Glinda the Good when the 1939 MGM production of the The Wizard of Oz aired on TV). After Dick Sergeant joined the cast there was a concern that the public might find out that he was gay, even though no one was concerned about Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde)."

I also mentioned that, The Munsters (Fred Gwynne & Yvonne De Carlo) were a mixed marriage of a vampire (descended from nobility) and the Frankenstein monster. Because the characters were monsters, their diversity was never made an issue either. Nor was it made an issue that they were the first married couple on TV to sleep in the same bed." I would later mention in The Beauty of The Munsters & The Addams Family.

The Addams Family
"The show mocked other TV families by being their polar opposite. This family would do everything from sword fighting to blowing up model trains in the middle of their own living room. If Fear Factor was around then, they would have the home version. I don't think anybody knew where John Aston began and Gomez Addams ended. Everything gave him a rush and his love for Morticia can only be described as horney monogamy. With all the craziness the show had moral high ground. Not only did you see a loving family where the parents were not afraid to show affection in front of the kids, you got to see so called "normal people" compromise their principles in order to do business with Gomez followed by humorous consequences.

The Munsters
"The Show is a brilliant mix of three key ingredients.The classic Universal Studios Monsters from the 1930 & 40's (that were finding a whole new audience thanks to Saturday Matinee "Creature Features" on TV)The placing of these monsters in the world of Leave It to Beaver (In fact the Munster's house is still across the street from the Cleaver's house on the Universal Back Lot only now Desperate Housewives have moved in). The "normal people’s" reactions to our family similar to those seen in Casper cartoons. The patriarch is the Frankenstein monster who married Dracula's daughter and live in the states as an "Typical American Family". There is more to Herman than a big stupid baby who throws tantrums by saying, "Darn! Darn! Darn! Darn!" Here is a character that is the Frankenstein monster, but he really thinks he is Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons. Fred Gwynne could deliver Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont) type dialogue totally straight and was incredibly funny doing it. He was also able to play the stooge to Al Lewis in one scene, and then straight man to guest stars Paul Lynde or Harvey Korman in another.

Because of the macabre settings of the show, I think the writers were able to slip things under the censor’s radar. The wild look in Gomez’s eyes when he and Morticia played with whips and chains came very close to S&M. The Munsters did jokes about Vietnam, nuclear war and drugs. Herman & Lily were also the first TV couple to sleep in the same bed while Gomez & Morticia had twin beds of nails."

It’s scary how many topics that are still taboo today were used on these shows decades ago. All three of these shows have been remade in one form or another, and perhaps with the exception of the 1991 The Addams Family movie, the projects lacked the heart or intent of their original.

To quote Samantha Stephens, "Well?"

Stay Tuned & Happy Halloween.


Tony Figueroa

There are no stupid TV shows, just.... Okay some are stupid. (Click PODCAST)

As I said in my Pre-ramble, "I represent the first generation whom, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes." That also means that the generation prior to ours did not grow up with a TV set as a permanent fixture in their homes. It seems that TV helped widen the generation gap as well as bond our generation in ways that nothing else had before (If you don't believe me try going to STAR TREK convention). At least my generation used to watch TV with their families. I could watch Happy Days with my mother. I thought The Fonz (Henry Winkler) was cool and she saw the show as nostalgic. Back then if I did not get a joke or a 1950's reference she would explain it to me or have me look it up in a dictionary or an encyclopedia (this was before Google). There were also primetime shows and after school specials that would encourage parents to watch with their kids. The episodes would cover a variety of topics like death, divorce, teen pregnancy and starting in the mid 1980s, AIDS. I find it amazing that in the past twenty years (I'm starting the clock with the news of Rock Hudson having the disease) that the subject of AIDS awareness has been discussed on TV through PSAs, news programs, documentaries, dramas, sitcoms, soaps and Movies of the Week. The ignorance of the disease is still high. Nowadays every family member has a TV in his or her own room. If a child asks their parents to explain something he or she saw on TV, the parents block the show with the V-chip, start a letter writing campaign or both. I sometimes forget that my mother was progressive and did not want to shield me from uncomfortable subject matter. If there was something that she really did not want me to see she would know beforehand through the newspaper or TV Guide.

Following the recent deaths of Bob Denver and Don Adams I was reminiscing with friends about our favorite episodes of Gilligan's Island and Get Smart. Then I remembered that many of the adults in my life (not children of television) dismissed the two shows as stupid. Both of these shows were on the air when I was born and have been airing ever since. The wealth of talent in front of and behind the camera has to be a huge contributing factor to a show's longevity. I was able to enjoy both shows in syndication. Both Gilligan's Island (1964-1967) and Get Smart (1965-1970) were on when I came home from school. These were shows that I enjoyed on one level then and on a different level now.

Gilligan's Island is possibly the most maligned situation comedy in the history of television. Sherwood Schwartz created a microcosm of American society with a military man, a millionaire, his socialite wife, a celebrity, an intellectual, a wholesome farm girl, and Gilligan. The idea was each week to show how these very different people had to work together as a cohesive unit in order to survive.

Mr. Howell: Do you think I began a dozen international corporations by stooping to thievery?

Professor: Well, of course not.

Mr. Howell: Shows how naive you are. How else do you get to the top of the corporate ladder!

In other words there was more to the show than the castaways almost getting off the island and Gilligan screwing it up. It's not like the viewers hoped that maybe, just maybe, this week they might actually make it off the island then felt bamboozled when it didn't happen. Everyone knew that if the castaways were rescued, the show would be over.

In an in an interview, I once heard Get Smart's creator Buck Henry describe Maxell Smart as the child of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau. Along with great parodies of popular secret agent movies and TV shows, Get Smart contained some highbrow social and political satire. There was more to the show than pratfalls and quotable catch phrases. Here is an example of the show’s wit. An anti-bomb statement is made in the episode titled Appointment in Sahara. Behind Max and 99 is a mushroom cloud:

Agent 99: Oh, Max what a terrible weapon of destruction.

Max: Yes. You know, China, Russia, and France should outlaw all nuclear weapons. We should insist upon it.

Agent 99: What if they don't, Max?

Max: Then we may have to blast them. That's the only way to keep peace in the world.

It’s funny that the same people who taught me to never judge a book by its cover could easily dismiss these shows as stupid. I can forgive them because the show’s humor may have been lost on that generation. It’s sad that now when someone sees a show that they don’t like because they don’t understand it or it conflicts with their beliefs, they can easily dismiss the shows as stupid. I can’t forgive that type of thinking. It’s not the show that’s stupid.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

TV Guide's New Look

Two words "New COKE".

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Tony Figueroa

Buffalo Bill on DVD. (Click PODCAST)

As many of you know I love sitcoms. In the past I’ve talked about the importance of good writing, good acting, taking risks, being edgy, comedy coming from the situation and knowing everything you need to know about the show from it's pilot. I am surprised, almost embarrassed even that I never mentioned Buffalo Bill. This brilliant but sadly short lived sitcom aired from 1983 to 1984 and stared Dabney Coleman as Bill Bittinger, a local talk show host in Buffalo NY.

I remember back in 1983 NBC promoted the show by saying, Buffalo Bill makes "J.R. Ewing look like a Boy Scout" That was enough to make me want to watch the show. The shows opening told you that the title character was a sleazy guy with a good public image. The pilot actually delivered on the network's promise (although I saw Bill more as a white collar Archie Bunker without the moral high ground). Bill was truly the man you loved to hate. The show did not last long, a real shame because I have never met anyone who did not like the show. I used to say that the show was ahead of its time. I've since had to amend that statement because 22 years later that time has still not come.

When I found out that Buffalo Bill was coming out on DVD I went to the store and got the last copy. I had to wait a few weeks to watch the DVD because I was watching the new fall shows, the returning shows and besides I HAVE A LIFE! Both my wife and I have a favorite episode, #13 Titled: Hit the Road, Newdell. In this episode the racist Bill fires Newdell (Charles Robinson) then has a nightmare where he is persecuted by a roomful of African Americans while lip syncing Ray Charles’ Hit the Road Jack. For legal reasons (music rights) the nightmare scene was cut. Why was there not any mention of that on the DVD case? That episode was one of the reasons why I bought the DVD in the first place. I also wish the DVD had some extras like interviews with the shows actors and writers. They must have some great stories. Maybe we will see that on TV Land Confidential.

To quote Bill Bittinger, "Be good to yourself and be good to Buffalo".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa