Taylor Hicks, plus a Salute to The World’s Foremost Authority: Next on TVC

Platinum recording artist and Season Five American Idol winner Taylor Hicks will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Mar. 17-20 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 3/17
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 3/18
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 3/19
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 3/18
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 3/19
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSCO

CROC Radio
Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada
Sunday 3/19
1pm ET, 10am PT
Streaming at CROCRadio.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 3/19
9pm PT
Monday 3/20
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 3/20
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

Taylor Hicks’ resume since winning American Idol is extensive. His debut album post-Idol, Taylor Hicks, went platinum, while his career over the past decade includes an eighteen-month stint on Broadway as Teen Angel in the national tour of Grease, a longterm residency at Paris Las Vegas (the first American Idol winner to do so), a best-selling book, and appearances on such shows as Law and Order: SVU.

Taylor Hicks is the host of the INSP series State Plate, which celebrates the unique food traditions of different states across the country. He is also about to release a new album and a new single later this year. We’ll ask Taylor about that, plus we’ll talk about some of his music influences, and more, when he joins us during our second hour.

Taylor Hicks is also in the middle of a national tour that will take him to such cities as Charlotte, NC, Atlanta, GA, Milwaukee, WI, Jackpot, NV and Chicago, IL over the next several weeks. For more information on the tour and the upcoming album, go to TaylorHicks.com.

Phil Gries will join us in our first hour as we salute the “World’s Foremost Authority,” “Professor” Irwin Corey, the wild-haired, zany comedian whose career as an entertainer spanned more than eight decades. Best known to television audiences for his many appearances on variety shows and late night talk shows during the 1960s and ’70s, Corey passed away last month at the age of 102.

Phil Gries is not only a longtime fan of Irwin Corey, he worked with Corey for a couple days on a film shoot in 1986. We’ll talk about that, plus we’ll play rarely heard audio from some of Corey’s most notable TV appearances as part of the Sounds of Lost 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 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!

This Week in Television History: March 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.

March 15, 1977

Three's Company first aired.  It is based on the British sitcom Man About the House.

The story revolves around three single roommates: Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt), Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers), and Jack Tripper (John Ritter), who all platonically live together in a Santa Monica, California apartment building owned by Stanley Roper (Norman Fell) and Helen Roper (Audra Lindley). Following Somers' departure in late 1981, Jenilee Harrison joined the cast as Cindy Snow, who was soon replaced by Priscilla Barnes as Terri Alden. 

Three's Company [First UNAIRED Pilot Episode] by UnknownArchiveTV

After Norman Fell and Audra Lindley left the series for their own sitcom, Don Knotts joined the cast as the roommates' new landlord Ralph Furley.

The show, a comedy of errors, chronicles the escapades and hijinks of the trio's constant misunderstandings, social lives, and financial struggles, such as keeping the rent current, living arrangements and breakout characters. A top ten hit from 1977 to 1983, the series has remained popular in syndication and through DVD releases.

After crashing a party and finding himself passed out in the bathtub, cooking school student Jack Tripper meets Janet Wood, a florist, and Chrissy Snow, a secretary, in need of a new roommate to replace their departing roommate Eleanor. Having only been able to afford to live at the YMCA, Jack quickly accepts the offer to move in with the duo.

However, due to overbearing landlord Stanley Roper's intolerance for co-ed living situations, even in a multi-bedroom apartment, Jack is allowed to move in only after Janet tells Mr. Roper that Jack is gay. Although Mrs. Roper figures out Jack's true sexuality in the second episode, she does not tell her husband, who tolerates but mocks him. Frequently siding with the three roommates instead of her husband, Mrs. Roper's bond with the roommates grows until the eventual spinoff The Ropers.

Jack continues the charade when new landlord Ralph Furley takes over the apartment complex because Mr. Furley insists that his hard-nosed brother Bart (the building's new owner) would also never tolerate such living situations.

March 15, 1977

Eight Is Enough First Aired.

The show was modeled on the life of syndicated newspaper columnist Thomas Braden, a real-life parent with eight children, who wrote a book by the same title. The show centers on a Sacramento, California, family with eight children (from oldest to youngest: David, Mary, Joanie, Susan, Nancy, Elizabeth, Tommy, and Nicholas). The father, Tom Bradford, was a newspaper columnist for the fictional Sacramento Register. His wife Joan (Diana Hyland) took care of the children. Hyland was only in four episodes before falling ill; she was written out for the remainder of the first season and died five days after the second episode aired.

The second season began in the fall of 1977 with the revelation that Tom had become a widower. Tom fell in love with Sandra Sue "Abby" Abbott, (Betty Buckley) a schoolteacher who came to the house to tutor Tommy who had broken his leg in a football game. They were married in one of the series' TV movie broadcasts on November 9, 1977. The role went to Buckley after being approved by network chief Brandon Tartikoff, who felt the character of the sympathetic teacher she had played in the 1976 film Carrie would also be great for the series. In another TV movie event in September 1979, David and Susan were both married in a double wedding. As the series progressed, Abby got her Ph.D. in education and started a job counseling students at the local high school, oldest sister Mary became a doctor, while second-youngest son Tommy became a singer in a rock-and-roll band.

March 19, 1977

The Last Show (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) The 168th episode and series finale of the television sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and was written by Allan Burns, James L. Brooks, Ed Weinberger, Stan Daniels, David Lloyd and Bob Ellison. 

It was first broadcast on CBS on March 19, 1977. The episode won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series." In executive producer Allan Burns' "Outstanding Comedy Series" acceptance speech at the 29th annual prime time Emmy Awards, he stated, "We kept putting off writing that last show; we frankly didn't want to do it. I think it said what we wanted it to say. It was poignant, and I believe The Mary Tyler Moore Show was, in the long run, important for many women."

Plot summary

The new owner of WJM-TV is firing people left and right, and wants to do something about the Six O'Clock News' low ratings. Surprisingly, Lou, Mary, Murray, and Sue Ann are fired, but the person widely perceived as the cause of the Six O'Clock News' low ratings, Ted, is retained.

Mary takes the news particularly hard. To cheer her up, Lou arranges for old friends Rhoda and Phyllis to fly to Minneapolis for a surprise visit at Mary's apartment.

After their final news broadcast together, in which Ted gives a sincere but comical sendoff to his colleagues on the air, the Six O'Clock News' staff, along with Georgette, gather in the newsroom to say goodbye to each other. The memorable and oft parodied scene culminates in an emotional huddle, during which nobody wants to let go, and, needing some tissues, the group shuffles en masse toward a box on Mary's desk. After final goodbyes, everyone exits the newsroom singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary." Finally, a very emotional Mary looks back, then bucks up and smiles before turning off the lights and closing the door.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Conan Guest Stars In A Mexican Telenovela

Renata Notni with Conan O’Brien Makes on the set of the Mexican Telenovela Mi Adorable Maldición

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.

Conan wants to play a sexy leading man on "Mi Adorable Maldición,” but he settles for the role of a Mennonite cheese merchant.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Eric Braeden, plus The Allure of Harry Houdini: Next on TVC

Emmy Award-winning actor Eric Braeden and costume designer Arlene Larsen will join us on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Mar. 10-13 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 3/10
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 3/11
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 3/12
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 3/11
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 3/12
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSCO

CROC Radio
Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada
Sunday 3/12
1pm ET, 10am PT
Streaming at CROCRadio.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 3/12
9pm PT
Monday 3/13
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 3/13
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

If you watch daytime television, you know Eric Braeden as Victor Newman, the complex self-made billionaire that he has played continuously on The Young and the Restless since he first joined the series in 1980. If you don’t watch daytime television, you probably know Eric as Captain Diedrich on the classic TV series The Rat Patrol, for his notable roles in such films as Colossus: The Forbin Project, 100 Rifles and Escape from the Planet of the Apes, or for the many villains that he played on various popular TV shows in the 1970s, including memorable appearances on Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and just about every crime drama produced by Quinn Martin.

What you may not know about Eric Braeden that his life story is a classic immigration story that embodies the American Dream. Born and raised in Germany at the height of World War II, Eric arrived in America in 1959 unaware of the atrocities of the Holocaust. That changed dramatically one day in 1961, when he watched the film Mein Kampf—an experience that not only awakened him politically, but left him determined to redress the wrongs of his homeland and to fighting prejudice not only against Germans, but all ethnicities.

Eric speaks about this candidly, and very movingly, in his memoir, I’ll Be Damned: How My Young and Restless Life Led Me to America’s .... Eric Braeden will join us in our second hour.

Also joining us this week will be Arlene Larsen, award-winning costume designer and the wife of Milt Larsen, founder of the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. Arlene will talk about a Larsen family heirloom—a rare and historic emerald and ruby encrusted crown that Czar Nicholas of Russia originally gave to legendary illusionist Harry Houdini in 1903—that will soon become the property of the highest bidder at the upcoming Houdini Auction, which will take place at the auction house of Potter & Potter in Chicago on Saturday, April 8. Proceeds from the winning bid will help fund the creation of the Magic Castle Cabaret, a smaller version of The Magic Castle that will be located in Santa Barbara. We’ll ask Arlene how the Larsen family came to own the Houdini Brooch, as well as the Larsen family’s personal connection with Harry and Bess Houdini, the legacy of Houdini himself, and the various film and TV actors who have played Houdini over the years. Arlene Larsen will join us in our first hour.

If you can’t make the Houdini Auction in person on April 8, you still can bid on the Houdini Brooch (or any other item) either online, by telephone, or as an absentee bidder. For more information on how to do that, go to PotterAuctions.com/auctions/buying. For more information on The Magic Castle, go to MagicCastle.com.

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!

Robert Osborne

My love of movies started when I was 7 years old, living in a small town, going to the movies all the time, and finding the people in the movies more interesting than the people in my small town. Also, at that time, it wasn't that easy to find out about movies 

Robert Osborne

Robert Jolin Osborne
May 3, 1932 – March 6, 2017

One of Robert Osborne's early television appearances was in a 1959 episode of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse called "Chain of Command", starring Hugh O'Brian. He was also featured in the Christmas Day Desilu Playhouse installment "The Desilu Revue" in December 1959. 

He also had small roles in such TV shows as The Californians and the 1962 pilot episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, "The Clampetts Strike Oil" (as Jeff Taylor). Not thinking the show would be a success, he decided not to sign up for the series, instead deciding to focus on acting in television commercials.

Ball suggested that Osborne focus his energies on becoming a journalist, as he would often quip, "especially after she saw me act". After The Beverly Hillbillies, Osborne would focus more on writing and journalism. In 1965, Osborne had his first book published, Academy Awards Illustrated.

In 1977, Osborne began his long-standing stint as a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. The following year, he published 50 Golden Years of Oscar, which won the 1979 National Film Book award. Having joined the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, he was elected its president in 1981, a position he would be re-elected to for the next two years. In 1982, Osborne began a five-year stint as the entertainment reporter/critic on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles. In addition, he began his Rambling Reporter column for The Hollywood Reporter, published five times weekly.

In 1984, Osborne began hosting for The Movie Channel, as well as winning the Publicists Guild of America 1984 Press Award. The following year, he began a relationship with Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), when he hosted a tribute to Shirley Temple at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. Three years later, AMPAS commissioned him to write 60 Years of the Oscar.

In 1994, Ted Turner created Turner Classic Movies as a competitor to American Movie Classics (now known as AMC). Osborne was selected as the host of their nightly broadcasts. For TCM, in addition to hosting four primetime movies seven days a week, he was also the host of special one-on-one "Private Screening" interviews featuring many familiar actors and directors. Beginning in 2006, Osborne also co-hosted TCM's The Essentials. His co-hosts have been Molly Haskell from 2006 to 2007, Carrie Fisher from 2007 to 2008, Rose McGowan from 2008 to 2009, Alec Baldwin from 2009 to 2011, Drew Barrymore and finally Sally Field.

Osborne also participated in events at the Paley Center for Media in New York City saluting the television careers of Lucille Ball and Cloris Leachman. He recently served as moderator at the Paley for an evening celebrating the 100th birthday of Academy Award-winning songwriter Johnny Mercer. Beginning in 2005, Osborne hosted the annual "Robert Osborne's Classic Film Festival" in Athens, Georgia. The non-profit event is held by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2010, Osborne hosted the very first TCM Classic Film Festival, and participated in subsequent annual festivals.

In 2011, TCM announced that Osborne would be taking "a short break from his TCM hosting duties for minor surgery, followed by a vacation." Osborne did, however, continue to appear on Saturday nights hosting "The Essentials" with Alec Baldwin. In 2012, Osborne began to share some of his hosting duties with Ben Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz hosts primetime films two nights a week as well as many daytime events. Osborne stated that he will continue to work “as long as I have health, and as long as I think I look O.K. on camera.” He also said, “If I really couldn’t do it with enthusiasm, that would be the time to quit.”

In 2014, as part of an exclusive programming deal with Disney, Turner Classic Movies agreed to become the sponsor of The Great Movie Ride. The attraction underwent a refurbishment in 2015, with the addition of a new pre-show and post-show hosted by Osborne, who also provides onboard narration to the ride. The changes were unveiled on May 29, 2015.

Good Night Mr. Osborne

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: March 2017 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.

March 6, 1942 (1942-03-06)

Ben Murphy is born in Jonesboro, Arkansas

He is known for his role in the ABC television series Alias Smith and Jones, co-starring as Kid Curry, first with Pete Duel and later with Roger Davis.

Though born in Arkansas, Murphy grew up in Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. An alumnus of Benet Academy in Lisle, Illinois, he attended eight different colleges before deciding to pursue an acting career.

Murphy appeared in a supporting role in The Name of the Game, a series featuring a rotating leading cast including Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack. From 1971 to 1973, he starred in Alias Smith and Jones with Pete Duel (1971–1972) and Roger Davis (1972–1973). After Alias Smith and Jones, Murphy joined Lorne Greene in the 1973 ABC crime drama Griff. He played detective S. Michael "Mike" Murdock, assistant to Greene's character, Wade "Griff" Griffin, a Los Angeles retired police officer turned private eye. The series had some notable guest stars but folded after thirteen weeks.

In 1985, he co-starred as Department store heir, Paul Berrenger, on the short-lived drama, Berrenger's. His character was at odds with his former wife, Gloria (Andrea Marcovicci) and his own father, Simon (Sam Wanamaker) due to his romance with executive, Shane Bradley (Yvette Mimieux).

Murphy starred in in his own series Gemini Man, in which he played a character who could become invisible through the use of a watch. However, the show did not run beyond a single season. Murphy has since appeared in guest-starring parts, including having been a murder suspect in CBS's Cold Case.43

March 6, 1947

Hour Glass, the first regularly scheduled network variety hour, airs its last episode. The most ambitious television program to date, Hour Glass helped prove that television could provide high-quality entertainment as well as novelty programming.

Although commercial television had existed since 1941, World War II temporarily halted the growth of the medium. When Hour Glass premiered in 1946 on NBC, the network consisted of only three stations, in New York, Philadelphia, and Schenectady, and only a few thousand people owned television sets.

Hour Glass was the first hour-long entertainment series produced for network television, and it was hailed as the most ambitious production of its time. The series, well funded by sponsor Standard Brands, featured elaborate sets and respected performers like Peggy Lee and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen--previous television efforts had usually featured second-rate vaudeville performers. At first, the sponsor's live commercials ran between two and four minutes but were later shortened. The show was the first to feature a regular weekly host--Helen Parrish, who was succeeded by Eddie Mayehoff.

Hour Glass raised interest in regularly scheduled entertainment programming, and several other network series began to follow suit in 1946. However, it was more than a year after Hour Glass went off the air before another company agreed to sponsor a big-budget variety show. That show was Texaco Star Theater, featuring host Milton Berle. The show launched the "vaudeo" era in television history, where variety shows featuring successful vaudeville acts made TV stars out of performers like Eddie Cantor, Ed Sullivan, Bob Hope, and Abbott and Costello.

March 6, 1947

Rob Reiner born in New York City.

Reiner was the son of Carl Reiner, then a regular on Sid Caesar’s famous television comedy program Your Show of Shows and its follow-up, Caesar’s Hour, where he had worked with such talented comedy writers as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. When Rob was 12, his family moved to Los Angeles, and he began his own acting career as a teenager, appearing in community theater productions and episodes of the TV program Alfred Hitchcock Presents… before co-founding The Session, an improvisational comedy troupe. On the big screen, Reiner debuted in Enter Laughing (1967), directed by his father from a script based on his autobiographical novel.

The younger Reiner’s big career break came in 1971, when he began appearing on the hit TV sitcom All in the Family. Reiner won two Emmy Awards (1974 and 1978) for his portrayal of Michael “Meathead” Stivic, the liberal, hippieish son-in-law of Carroll O’Connor’s stubbornly bigoted Archie Bunker. 

Also in 1971, Reiner married the comedic actress Penny Marshall; the couple appeared together in recurring guest spots on The Odd Couple, produced by Penny’s brother Garry Marshall, and in a TV movie, More Than Friends (1978), which they co-wrote. Marshall and Reiner divorced in 1979.

In 1984, Reiner launched his career as a film director with the cult hit This is Spinal Tap, a satirical “mockumentary” about a fictitious rock band. Though his follow-up effort, The Sure Thing (1985), made little noise at the box office, Reiner scored massive hits with his next two pictures: 1986’s Stand By Me, a coming-of-age tale based on a Stephen King story, and 1987’s The Princess Bride, a hilarious take on the romantic fairy tale-fantasy genre. With his reputation in Hollywood now well established, Reiner co-founded his own production company, Castle Rock Entertainment, in 1987. (It was named for a town in one of King’s novel.) Castle Rock’s first feature was Reiner’s most successful film to date, the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… (1989).

With Castle Rock, Reiner also directed the acclaimed hits Misery (1990) and A Few Good Men (1992), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. His next few films varied between hits (1995’s The American President) and misses (1994’s North, 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi and 1999’s The Story of Us). After several years without releasing a film--during which he increasingly immersed himself in political activism in California, on behalf of such causes as early childhood development and environmental efforts--Reiner came back with two relative disappointments, Alex and Emma (2003) and Rumor Has It (2005). In 2007, he directed Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List.

In addition to directing and producing, Reiner maintained an acting career over the years, appearing in supporting roles in such films as Postcards from the Edge (1990), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Primary Colors (1998) and The Majestic (2001). He also appeared in some of his own movies, including The Story of Us and Alex and Emma.

Reiner and his second wife, Michele, married in 1989; they have three children.

March 10, 1997

Buffy the Vampire Slayer first airs. 

Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, developed the series from an original script he had written for the big screen a number of years earlier. The 1992 movie, starring Kristy Swanson and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, had disappointed Whedon by turning his edgy story with its powerful female heroine into too much of a silly comedy. When he was approached about creating a television series based on his original script, Whedon jumped at the chance. For the TV series, he went with the concept of "high school as a horror movie" and re-created his darker version of Buffy. The result was a blend of drama, romance, comedy, action and horror unique on network television. Whedon served as an executive producer throughout the show's run and was heavily involved in its writing; he also directed a number of episodes.

Sarah Michelle Gellar, a Daytime Emmy Award winner for her work on the soap opera All My Children, took on the lead role of Buffy Summers, the perky cheerleader who is also her generation's Chosen One, the only person on Earth with the power to defeat vampires. In the Buffy universe, Sunnydale High School in Sunnydale, California, sits atop a "Hellmouth," an entrance point for evil demons, and Buffy's constant battling of undead ghouls served as a supernatural allegory for surviving the real-life challenges of high school and adolescence.

Though ratings peaked during the second and third seasons, the show was consistently well reviewed by critics throughout its six-and-a-half-year run. As one of the edgiest offerings amid a growing WB line-up that included Dawson's Creek, 7th Heaven and Felicity, Buffy's success helped establish the network as a staple among teenage and young adult TV viewers. After 2001, Buffy moved to the WB's competitor, United Paramount Network (UPN). Gellar decided not to renew her contract after the seventh season, and the show aired its final episode in May 2003.

With Buffy Summers hailed by fans and critics as a feminist hero, Gellar made the transition to the big screen with roles in films such as Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions and Scooby Doo.  Other breakout stars of the show were Alyson Hannigan, later known for the American Pie movies and the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and Seth Green, who left the show after less than three seasons to pursue big-screen stardom, appearing in the Austin Powers movie franchise. A Buffy spin-off on the WB, Angel, starred David Boreanaz. Though the show didn't spark the same amount of frenzied enthusiasm as Buffy, it attracted a small but devoted fan base.

After the demise of Angel in 2004, rumors swirled about future TV spin-offs, movie adaptations and even an animated Buffy series. In the meantime, DVD sales and Whedon-produced comic book series have kept Slayer-mania alive.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: Wapner hears the case of Letterman vs Carson

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.

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.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa