Image by Jason Powell as part of the series “Looking Into the Past.”

Your Mental Sorbet: Get A Life!

Here is another "Mental Sorbet"

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Get A Life! by dag2007

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Rita Lakin, plus Fifty Years of Star Trek: Next on TVC

Television writer/producer Rita Lakin will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Sept. 9-12 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 9/9
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 9/10
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 9/11
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

KSCO-AM 1080
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY-AM 1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 9/11
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 9/11
9pm PT
Monday 9/12
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 9/12
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 program will include a return visit from pioneering television writer/producer Rita Lakin. Rita not only spent more than two decades in television writing and producing such shows as Dr. Kildare, Peyton Place, The Mod Squad, Dynasty and The Movie of the Week, but was one of the first solo female writers in network television — at a time when the industry was still almost entirely run by men. Though she didn’t know it at the time, Rita helped pave the way for many women behind the scenes in film and TV today. She speaks candidly about her experiences in her memoir, The Only Woman in the Room: Episodes from My Life and Career as a T.... Rita Lakin will join us in our second hour.

Rita Lakin will be appearing at the Sperber Community Library at American Jewish University on Thursday, September 15 beginning at 7:30pm. Rita will be in conversation that night with Howard Rosenberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic for the Los Angeles Times. Admission is $11. For tickets and more information, call (310) 440-1572 or go to wcce.aju.edu. Rita will also be appearing at the Beverly Hills Public Library Auditorium on Sunday, September 18 beginning at 2pm. Admission for that event is free. For more information, call (310) 288-2200. For news on other upcoming events, go to RitaLakin.com.

Our first hour will include a special expanded edition of This Week of TV History that discusses the golden anniversary of the premiere of the original Star Trek, and the various ways in which the Star Trek franchise continues to influence our culture.

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
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 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network
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
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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. For as little as a dollar a month, you will help offset the costs of production and receive some cool rewards. For more information, please visit www.Patreon.com/tvconfidential... and thanks!

This Week in Television History: September 2016 PART I

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.

September 8, 1966

Star Trek premieres. 

Although Star Trek ran for only three years and never placed better than No. 52 in the ratings, Gene Roddenberry's series became a cult classic and spawned four television series and ten movies.

The first Star Trek spin-off was a Saturday morning cartoon, The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, which ran from 1973 to 1975 (original cast members supplied the voices). 

The TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired in 1987 and was set in the 24th century, starring the crew of the new, larger U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, captained by Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart). This series became the highest-rated syndicated drama on television and ran until 1994.

Another spin-off, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, premiered in 1992, featuring a 24th-century crew that lived in a space station rather than a starship. 

Star Trek: Voyager, which debuted in 1995 and ran until 2001, was the first to feature a female captain, Kathryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew). In this series, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager is stranded more than 70,000 light years from Federation space and is trying to find its way home.

The final spin-off to air on TV was Enterprise, which premiered in the United States on September 26, 2001. The final two episodes of that show aired in May 2005.

And this Saturday.

September 8, 1966

That Girl primeried. 

The sitcom ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971 and starred Marlo Thomas as the title character Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who moves from her hometown of Brewster, New York to try to make it big in New York City. Ann has to take a number of offbeat "temp" jobs to support herself in between her various auditions and bit parts. Ted Bessell played her boyfriend Donald Hollinger, a writer forNewsview Magazine; Lew Parker and Rosemary DeCamp played Lew Marie and Helen Marie, her concerned parents. Bernie Kopell, Ruth Buzzi and Reva Rose played Ann and Donald's friends. That Girl was developed by writers Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, who had served as head writers on The Dick Van Dyke Show (with which Thomas's father, Danny Thomas, was closely associated) earlier in the 1960s.

Each episode begins with a pre-credits teaser in which an odd incident occurs or a discussion foreshadows the episode's story. The scene almost always ends with someone exclaiming "...that girl!", just as Ann wanders into the shot or the character notices her. The words "That Girl" would appear over the freeze-frame shot of Ann. The opening credits during the first season featured Thomas, in character, strolling the streets of New York. From the second season forward, the opening shot was the view from a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train crossing the New Jersey Meadowlands between Newark andPenn Station near Laurel Hill Park, then Thomas flying a kite in Central Park, and seeing (and exchanging winks with) her double in a store window. Lyrics were added to the theme for the final season, written by series co-creator Sam Denoff, sung by Ron Hicklin.

That Girl was one of the first sitcoms to focus on a single woman who was not a domestic or living with her parents. Some consider this show the forerunner of the highly successful Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murphy Brown, and Ally McBeal, and an early indication of the changing roles of American women in feminist-era America. Thomas's goofy charm, together with Bessell's dry wit, made That Girl a solid performer on the ABC Television Network, and while the series, in the overall ratings, never made the top thirty during its entire five-year run, the series did respectably well.

At the end of the 1969–1970 season, That Girl was still doing moderately well in the ratings; however, after four years, Thomas had grown tired of the series and wanted to move on. ABC convinced her to do one more year. In the beginning of the fifth season, Don and Ann became engaged, although they never actually married. The decision to leave the couple engaged at the end of the run was largely the idea of Thomas herself. She did not want to send a message to young women that marriage was the ultimate goal for them and she was worried that it would have defeated the somewhat feminist message of the show.

September 8, 1986

The Oprah Winfrey Show is broadcast nationally for the first time. 

A huge success, her daytime television talk show turns Winfrey into one of the most powerful, wealthy people in show business and, arguably, the most influential woman in America.

Winfrey, who was born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenage mother on January 24, 1954, began her TV career as a local news anchor in Nashville and Baltimore before moving to Chicago in 1984 to host a low-rated morning talk program. She quickly turned the show into a ratings winner, beating out a popular talk program hosted by Phil Donahue. 

At the urging of the Chicago-based movie critic Roger Ebert, Winfrey signed a syndication deal with King World and The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast nationally for the first time on September 8, 1986. It went on to become the highest-rated talk show in TV history.

Proving that talk-show host wasn’t the only role she could play, Winfrey made her big-screen debut as Sofia in director Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple(1985), based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name and co-starring Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. The film earned Winfrey a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, although she lost the gold statue to Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor). Winfrey went on to star in and produce in 1998’s Beloved, based on Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and voice characters for 2006’s Charlotte’s Web and 2007’s Bee Movie, which co-starred and was co-written by Jerry Seinfeld. In addition to TV and film, Winfrey became a true media mogul, branching out to books and magazines, radio, musical theater and the Web. In 2008, she announced plans to launch her own network, named OWN, in 2009.

In 2008, The Oprah Winfrey Show had an estimated weekly audience of some 46 million viewers in the United States and was broadcast around the world in 134 countries. Winfrey wields enormous influence when it comes to promoting products: A recommendation on her show can turn a book, movie or just about anything else into a bestseller, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the “Oprah Effect.”

September 9, 1926

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). 

RCA chairman of the board Owen D. Young and president James G. Harbord announced the formation of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc., to begin broadcasting upon RCA's acquisition of WEAF on November 15. "The purpose of the National Broadcasting Company will be to provide the best programs available for broadcasting in the United States. ... It is hoped that arrangements may be made so that every event of national importance may be broadcast widely throughout the United States," announced M.H. Aylesworth, the first president of NBC, in the press release.Although RCA was identified as the creator of the network, NBC was actually owned 50% by RCA, 30% by General Electric, and 20% by Westinghouse.The network officially was launched at 8 p.m. ET on Monday, November 15, 1926.

September 9, 1966

The Green Hornet Premiered

Though it followed and crossed over with Batman, The Green Hornet struck a much different tone than its vigilante peers. The action and plots were taken seriously, though remained a joyous thrill thanks to Kato. Though it lasted just a season, the series made Bruce Lee a household name. The debut outing, "The Silent Gun," also introduced America to the Black Beauty, which remains on of the coolest vehicles in screen history.

September 9, 1956

Elvis Presley sang "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" on Ed Sullivan's show Toast of the Town. 

Presley scandalized audiences with his suggestive hip gyrations, and Sullivan swore he would never book the singer on his show. However, Presley's tremendous popularity and success on other shows changed Sullivan's mind. Although Elvis had appeared on a few other programs already, his appearance on Ed Sullivan's show made him a household name.

September 9, 1986

Ted Turner presented the first of his colorized films on WTBS in Atlanta, GA.

Ted Turner presented the first of his colorized films -- on his superstation WTBS in Atlanta, GA. The first Hollywood classic to get the new look was "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Some people were opposed to the colorization process, where color is added to black-and-white movies. They felt the originals should be pristine -- that any change interferes with the original creativity.

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: "Something Wilder"

Here is another "Mental Sorbet"

A little spark of madness

that we could use to momentarily forget about those things that leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Something Wilder is a short-lived sitcom starring Gene Wilder that ran on NBC from October 1, 1994 to June 13, 1995. The series was created by Lee Kalcheim and Barnet Kellman. A total of 18 half-hour episodes were produced over one season.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Joel Eisenberg, Mitchel Musso and The Secret to Happiness: Next on TVC

Film and TV producer Joel Eisenberg, filmmaker Adam Shell and actor Mitchel Musso will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Sept. 2-5 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 9/2
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 9/3
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 9/4
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

KSCO-AM 1080
San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA
KOMY-AM 1340
La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA
Sunday 9/4
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 9/4
9pm PT
Monday 9/5
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 9/5
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 guests will include documentary filmmaker Adam Shell. At a time when millions of Americans spend billions of dollars a year hoping to find the secret to happiness, Adam and his producer, Nicholas Kraft, spent two years of their lives traveling across the United States in search of the most positive people in America. They spoke to artists, public servants, parents, and dreamers who radiate genuine happiness (even when faced with tragedy or debilitating illness), and how that happiness has a remarkable impact on the people and communities that surround them. Adam and Nicholas also interviewed many experts in the fields of psychology, art, sociology, religion, finance, and cultural studies, as well as such luminaries as Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer Richard Sherman. Among their findings: While money may not buy happiness, the amount of money you have can lead to a happy life ― up to a certain point.

Adam chronicled his findings in a film called Pursuing Happiness, which we’ll discuss when he joins us in our first hour. Pursuing Happiness is now available on many On Demand and streaming services.

Joel Eisenberg, author, screenwriter, producer and former head of EMO Films@Paramount Studios, will join us in our second hour. Joel has written or developed programming for Cinemax, TNT and FOX Studios. His latest projects include an upcoming biopic on legendary heavyweight champion Joe Louis that will particularly focus on Louis’ two historic bouts with German heavyweight Max Schmeling, and The Chronicles of Ara, an eight-hour miniseries that will air in 2017 on Ovation TV. The Chronicles of Ara is based on the epic eight-volume fantasy saga that Joel co-wrote with Steve Hillard.


Also joining us this week will be actor, musician and voice artist Mitchel Musso (Hannah Montana, Prank Stars, Phineas and Ferb). Mitchel plays an aspiring animator in CharacterZ, a full length family comedy that our friend Greg Ehrbar describes as a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and My World and Welcome to It. CharacterZ is available right now on Video on Demand on iTunes, Vudu, Uverse and other VOD platforms. The movie also features such classic TV stalwarts as Ken Osmond (Leave It to Beaver) and Felix Silla (The Addams Family), plus the music of Justin Hayward and The Moody Blues. Mitchel Musso will join us in our first hour.

Plus: We’ll revisit how network and cable news covered the events of Sept. 11, 2001 as part of This Week in TV History.

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
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 9pm PT, Mon Mid ET on KHMB-AM and FM (Half Moon Bay, CA)
Mon 10pm ET, 7pm PT on The Radio Slot Network
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. For as little as a dollar a month, you will help offset the costs of production and receive some cool rewards. For more information, please visit www.Patreon.com/tvconfidential... and thanks!

Gene Wilder

I'm not so funny. Gilda was funny.

I'm funny on camera sometimes.

In life, once in a while.

Once in a while.

But she was funny.

She spent more time worrying about being liked than anything else.

- Gene Wilder

Jerome Silberman AKA Gene Wilder
June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016

Gene Wilder died at the age of 83 at home in Stamford, Connecticut, from complications of Alzheimer's disease. HWilder began his career on stage, and made his screen debut in the TV series Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1962. Although his first film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and Clyde, Wilder's first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 

This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks, including 1974's Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, which Wilder co-wrote, garnering the pair an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wilder is known for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and for his four films with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Another You (1991).^[1] Wilder directed and wrote several of his own films, including The Woman in Red (1984).

"From what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I now present a cultured, sophisticated, man about town!"

His third wife was actress Gilda Radner, with whom he starred in three films. Her death from ovarian cancer led to his active involvement in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda's Club.

After his last contribution to acting in 2003, Wilder turned his attention to writing. He produced a memoir in 2005,Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art; a collection of stories, What Is This Thing Called Love?(2010); and the novels My French Whore (2007), The Woman Who Wouldn't (2008) and Something to Remember You By (2013).

Good Night  Mr. Wilder

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: August 2016 PART V

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.

August 29, 1966

Mia Farrow withdrew from the cast of the ABC-TV's Peyton Place.

Farrow left the series in 1966 at the urging of Frank Sinatra whom she married on July 19, 1966.

August 31, 1946

Foghorn J. Leghorn first appeared. 

"Walky Talky Hawky" from Foghorn Leghorn Quotes on Vimeo.

The character of Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the popular character of Senator Claghorn, a blustery Southern politician played by Kenny Delmar who was a regular character onThe Fred Allen Show, a popular radio show of the 1940s. The rooster adopted many of Claghorn's catch phrases, such as "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son." Delmar had based the character of Claghorn upon a Texas rancher who was fond of saying this.

September 3, 1966

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet airs its last episode. 

The sitcom focused on the comic antics of a young family based on the real-life family of show founders and stars Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. The show premiered as a radio comedy in 1944 and ran for 10 years. Even before the radio show ended, a TV version launched in 1952; the television show ran until 1966. The Nelson's two sons, Ricky and David, played themselves on the TV version.

September 3, 1991

It’s a Wonderful Life director Capra dies. 

On this day in 1991, Frank Capra, a leading Hollywood director in the 1930s and 1940s whose movies include the now-classic You Can’t Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life, dies at the age of 94 at his home in La Quinta, California. According to his obituary in the New York Times: “Capra movies were idealistic, sentimental and patriotic. His major films embodied his flair for improvisation and spontaneity, buoyant humor and sympathy for the populist beliefs of the 1930s.”

Capra was born in Sicily, on May 18, 1897, and as a young boy sailed to America in steerage with his family, who settled in Los Angeles. After graduating from the California Institute of Technology and serving in the U.S. Army, Capra worked his way up through the movie industry; he had his first big success as a director with 1933’s Lady for a Day, which received a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. The following year, Capra helmed the comedy It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The film took home Oscars in five categories: Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor and Actress. Capra won a second Best Director Oscar for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), which starred Gary Cooper as a man who inherits a large fortune and wants to use it to help Depression-era families. Capra received a third Best Director Oscar for You Can’t Take It With You (1938), a movie about an eccentric family that starred James Stewart, Jean Arthur and Lionel Barrymore and was based on the Pulitzer prize-winning play of the same name by Moss Hart and George Kaufman.

In 1940, Capra took home a fourth Best Director Oscar for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), which featured Stewart as an incorruptible U.S. senator. 

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Capra joined the Army again and during his time in the service made several well-received propaganda films, including Prelude to War (1943), which earned an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Capra went on to co-write and direct 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, perhaps his best-known work. The film again starred Stewart, this time as George Bailey, a small-town man who is saved from suicide by a guardian angel. Although the film was considered a box-office disappointment when it was first released, it garnered five Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and eventually gained widespread appeal when it was broadcast annually on TV around Christmastime, starting in the 1970s.

Capra’s final film was Pocketful of Miracles (1961), a remake of Lady for a Day starring Bette Davis as a street vendor who needs to remake herself into a society dame in order not to disappoint her daughter.

September 4, 1966

The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon was an annual telethon held each Labor Day in the United States to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The show was founded and hosted by actor and comedian Jerry Lewis, who hosted the broadcast from its 1966 inception until 2010.  The history of MDA's telethon dated back to the 1950s, when the Jerry Lewis Thanksgiving Party for MDA raised funds for the organization's New York City area operations. The telethon was held annually on Labor Day weekend beginning in 1966, and would raise $2.45 billion for MDA from its inception through 2009.

The telethon aired up to 21½ hours, starting on the Sunday evening preceding Labor Day and continuing until late Monday afternoon on the holiday itself. MDA called its network of participating stations the "Love Network". The show originated from Las Vegas for 28 of the years it was broadcast.

Beginning in 2011, coinciding with Lewis's controversial departure, MDA radically reformatted and shortened the telethon's format into that of a benefit concert, shortening the length of the special each successive year. The 2011 edition was seen exclusively on the Sunday evening before Labor Day for six hours; This edition, syndicated to approximately 160 television stations throughout the United States on September 4, 2011, Nigel Lythgoe, Jann Carl, Alison Sweeney and Nancy O'Dell were brought on as co-hosts. shared hosting duties for the 2011 edition.

Successive telethons from 2012 to 2014 renamed the show as the MDA Show of Strength and further cut its airtime. The 2012 edition aired on Sunday, September 2, 2012; the job of renaming the new show was given to MDA's advertising agency E.B. Lane (now LaneTerralever). Mark Itkowitz, their Exec. Creative Director came up with the name MDA Show of Strength and it quickly gained internal approval. The 2012 edition was reduced to three hours as a primetime-only broadcast. The telethon aired at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time, and was seen live in the Eastern and Central time zones.

The 2012 edition did not refer itself as a "telethon". The 2013 Show of Strength discontinued the long-standing format of being syndicated to individual stations of varying network affiliation and aired on a major national network instead of being syndicated to individual stations, airing on ABC on Sunday, September 1, 2013, and being reduced to two hours. While the 2012 edition did not refer itself as a "telethon", it referred itself as such for the 2013 edition.

The final edition, for 2014, aired on ABC on August 31, again as a two-hour special beginning at 9PM ET/PT. This was the final edition for the telethon, as it was announced on May 1, 2015 that the MDA would be discontinuing the annual event.

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Marvin Kaplan

"I recognize that I’m a very lopsided human being! 

I’m very committed to my craft: writing, acting, theater, and film. 

I have a good life, but I made it for myself. You gotta make it for yourself." 

- Marvin Kaplan

Marvin Kaplan 
January 24, 1927 – August 25, 2016

Marvin Kaplan died yesterday in his sleep of natural causes. 

Marvin Kaplan, Beth Howland, Linda Lavin and Polly Holliday

Marvin Kaplan was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. He is probably best known for his recurring role on the sitcom Alice where he portrayed a phone lineman named Henry Beesmeyer who frequented Mel's diner. He was a part of the cast from 1977 to the series end in 1985. His first film role was as the court reporter in Adam's Rib(1949). 

Kaplan also served as AFTRA Los Angeles Local President for eight years and Performers’ Governor on the Television Academy. He is a member of the California Artists Radio Theatre, Motion Picture Academy, Theatre West, and Academy of New Musical Theatre.

Kaplan had a regular role in the radio sitcom and later television version of Meet Millie as Alfred Prinzmetal, an aspiring poet-composer. The program ran from 1951 to 1954 on radio and continued on television from 1952 to 1956. In addition, the actor was the voice of Choo-Choo on the 1960s cartoon series Top Cat and had a small role in the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World playing a gas station attendant; in both roles he was featured alongside actor Arnold Stang (the voice of Top Cat). Among other roles, Kaplan co-starred in the 1965 Blake Edwards comedy The Great Race. In 1969, he appeared as Stanley on Petticoat Junction in the episode: "The Other Woman". He also made a brief appearance as a carpet cleaner in the 1976 film Freaky Friday.

In 1987, he reprised his role of Choo-Choo for Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. At the same time, he actively returned to voice-over acting, playing roles in shows such as Garfield and Friends, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters,Johnny Bravo, and most recently, The Garfield Show in 2011.

Kaplan was the commercial spokesperson for the American cologne Eau de Love. In addition to his role on Alice, Kaplan also played Mr. Gordon on Becker alongside Ted Danson.

A dedicated theatre person, for many decades Kaplan was a member of Theatre West, the oldest continually-operating theatre company in Los Angeles. He performed in many plays there and elsewhere. He was also an accomplished playwright and screenwriter.

Kaplan created the Kaplan-Loring Foundation to assist individuals in show business and, in particular, comedians, songwriters, composers, lyricists, and book writers who develop new material for musical productions.

Established as a not-for-profit organization in 2008, the foundation may fund scholarships and pay for tuition and books at Brooklyn College in New York for a promising comedian, as selected by the college. In addition, funds may be used to establish the Richard Loring musical workshop for songwriters, composers, lyricists, and book writers to help them develop material for new musical productions.

Good Night  Mr. Kaplan

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa