Your Mental Sorbet: Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots sing Disco Duck

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

A performance of Rick Dees in 1976 on The Midnight Special


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Tony Figueroa

Peter Graves

Peter Graves was born Peter Aurness on March 18, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (He was the younger brother of actor James Arness). Graves died of a heart attack yesterday, just four days prior to his 84th birthday. He collapsed outside his home in Pacific Palisades, shortly after returning from a Sunday brunch with his family. His daughter administered CPR in an attempt to revive him.

Graves appeared in more than seventy films, TV series and TV movies. He is best known Jim Phelps, the leader of the elite Impossible Missions Force in the iconic CBS TV series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973, and its revival, from 1988 to 1990 and Captain Clarence Oveur in the comedies Airplane! (“You ever seen a grown man naked?”)and Airplane II: The Sequel.

During the 1990s, he hosted the documentary series Biography on A&E.

Graves received a Golden Globe Award in 1971 for his role as Jim Phelps on Mission: Impossible. He also received nominations for an Emmy Award and Golden Globe awards in other seasons of that show. Graves also won a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding informational series in 1997 as host of Biography. On October 30, 2009 Graves was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Good Night Mr. Phelps and good luck on your new mission.


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Tony Figueroa

This week in Television History: March 2010 Part III

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte Broadcast LIVE every other Monday at 9pm ET, 6pm PT (immediately following STU'S SHOW) on Shokus Internet Radio. The program will then be repeated Tuesday thru Sunday at the same time (9pm ET, 6pm PT)on Shokus Radio for the next two weeks, and then will be posted on line at our archives page at TVConfidential.net. We are also on Share-a-Vision Radio (KSAV.org) Friday at 7pm PT and ET, either before or after the DUSTY RECORDS show, depending on where you live.

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 19, 1953
First Academy Awards program on network TV. The first network broadcast of the Academy Awards takes place on this day in 1953. Some 174 stations across the country carried the awards. Gary Cooper won Best Actor for his performance in High Noon, and Shirley Booth won Best Actress for her role in Come Back, Little Sheba. The Greatest Show on Earth won Best Picture.

March 21, 1980
J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), the character millions loved to hate on TV’s popular nighttime drama Dallas, was shot. The shooting made the season finale, titled A House Divided, one of television’s most famous cliffhangers and left America wondering “Who shot J.R.?” Dallas fans waited for the next eight months to have that question answered because the season premiere of Dallas was delayed due to a Screen Actors Guild strike. That summer, the question “Who Shot J.R.?” entered the national lexicon. Fan’s wore T-shirts printed with "Who Shot J.R.?" and "I Shot J.R.". A session of the Turkish parliament was suspended to allow legislators a chance to get home in time to view the Dallas episode. Betting parlors worldwide took bets as to which one of the 10 or so principal characters had actually pulled the trigger. J.R. had many enemies and audiences were hard-pressed to guess who was responsible for the shooting.

The person who pulled the trigger was revealed to be J.R.’s sister in law/mistress Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby) in the "Who Done It?" episode which aired on November 21, 1980. It was, at the time, the highest rated television episode in US history. It had a Nielsen rating of 53.3 and a 76% share, and it was estimated that 83,000,000 people watched the episode. The previous record for a TV episode, not counting the final installment of the miniseries Roots, had been the 1967 finale for The Fugitive. "Who Shot J.R.?" now sits second on the list, being beaten in 1983 by the final episode of M*A*S*H but still remains the highest rated non-finale episode of a TV series.

March 21, 1983
The last episode of the long-running TV series Little House on the Prairie aired.

The series, based on the children's book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, premiered in 1974. The show was one of television's 25 most highly rated shows for seven of its nine seasons. When series star and executive producer Michael Landon decided to leave the show in 1982, the show's title changed to Little House: A New Beginning and focused on character Laura Ingalls Wilder (Melissa Gilbert) and her family. The show lasted only one more season. Three made-for-television movie sequels followed: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (1983), Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (1983), and Little House: The Last Farewell (1984).

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

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Tony Figueroa

TV Confidential Archives: Mar. 8, 2010

First hour: Author Sherry Kelly (The Big Life of a Little Man) joins Ed and Frankie as they remember the life and career of actor Michael Dunn (The Wild, Wild West, Ship of Fools). Also: Ed and Frankie comment on The Marriage Ref, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Parenthood and other recent television premieres.

Second hour: A look at the 2009 Academy Awards telecast with regulars Tony Figueroa and David Krell.

Your Mental Sorbet: Mother Dexter's Wedding Bell Blues

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

Judith Lowry (July 27, 1890 - November 29, 1976) was best remembered role was as the acid-tongued "Mother Dexter" on the 1970s sitcom, Phyllis, which starred Cloris Leachman. Phyllis is the second spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (the first being Rhoda) created by Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels. The show starred Cloris Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom, who was previously Mary Richards' landlady on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the new series, Phyllis and her daughter Bess Lindstrom moved from Minneapolis to San Francisco, after the death of her husband, Dr. Lars Lindstrom. It was revealed that San Francisco was Phyllis' and Lars' original hometown, prior to their moving to Minneapolis, and that his mother and stepfather still resided there.

Fiesty octogenarian Mother Dexter is late for her wedding because Phyllis forgot to pick her up, so she is forced to hail a taxi on her wedding day.
In a 1976 episode, Jonathan's cranky and outspoken Mother Dexter (Judith Lowry), Phyllis' main nemesis, married Arthur Lanson (Burt Mustin); both Lowry and Mustin died within a month of the episode's airing.



Stay Tuned



Tony Figueroa

Story Salon 60 Sec Commercial

Story Salon is Los Angeles’s longest running storytelling venue. What began as an alternative to stand-up clubs and self-conscious performance spaces has been challenging performers and audiences for more than a decade. Created in a North Hollywood coffee house Story Salon now reaches the globe through Podcasting, publishing, and recordings.
The rules of the Story Salon haven’t changed since it started: Five to seven minutes of original material performed by the author. The result is a unique blend of observation, memoir and comment that makes the Salon one of the most eclectic entertainment experiences available. More than a dozen solo theater works have been developed at Story Salon, as well as a CD of stories, and several books.
“Live storytelling is a unique art form,” says Story Salon founder, writer/actor/comedian Beverly Mickins. “Words spoken aloud paint pictures capable of evoking laughter and tears, the whole range of emotion. People have been telling each other stories since the first campfires, talking about the whole mix of things, important and trivial, that go into making life. Storytelling is one of the ways we figure out how to be human.”

This week in Television History: March 2010 Part II

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte Broadcast LIVE every other Monday at 9pm ET, 6pm PT (immediately following STU'S SHOW) on Shokus Internet Radio. The program will then be repeated Tuesday thru Sunday at the same time (9pm ET, 6pm PT)on Shokus Radio for the next two weeks, and then will be posted on line at our archives page at TVConfidential.net. We are also on Share-a-Vision Radio (KSAV.org) Friday at 7pm PT and ET, either before or after the DUSTY RECORDS show, depending on where you live.

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 9, 1959
The International Toy Fair in New York premiered Barbie. That event was followed by 50 years of Barbie comercials during Saturday morning cartoons. This is the first Barbie commercial that aired during the Mickey Mouse Club.


March 9, 1976
ABC premiered Family, a weekly prime-time drama about a Pasadena California suburban family. The show was created by novelist and screenwriter Jay Presson Allen, directed by film director Mark Rydell, and produced by film director Mike Nichols, as well as television moguls Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg.

The show featured James Broderick and Sada Thompson as Doug and Kate Lawrence. Doug was an independent lawyer, and Kate was a housewife. They had three children: Nancy (portrayed by Elayne Heilveil in the original mini-series and later by Meredith Baxter Birney), Willie (Gary Frank), Letitia, nicknamed "Buddy" (Kristy McNichol) and the family later adopted a girl named Annie Cooper (Quinn Cummings). The show attempted to depict the "average" family, warts and all. Storylines were very topical, and the show was one of the first to feature shows to be termed as "very special episodes."


In the first episode, Nancy, who was pregnant with her second child, walked in on her husband Jeff (John Rubinstein) making love to one of her friends. Other topical storylines included Kate having to deal with the possibility that she had breast cancer. In the later seasons, there were instances in which Buddy had to decide whether or not to have sex (She always chose to wait, most notably in an episode with guest star/teen idol Leif Garrett). One episode featured guest-star Henry Fonda as a visiting elderly relative who was beginning to experience senility.

During its five seasons Family received fourteen Emmy Award nominations, three of them for Outstanding Drama Series. The show won four awards all in acting categories: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (Sada Thompson in 1977), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Kristy McNichol in 1976 and 1978) and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Gary Frank in 1976).

March 10, 1965
Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple debuted on Broadway. Felix Ungar was played by Art Carney and Oscar Madison was played by Walter Matthau (Matthau was later replaced with Jack Klugman). The show, directed by Mike Nichols, ran for 966 performances and won several Tony Awards, including Best Play. The play was followed by a successful film (Jack Lemmon as Felix and Walter Matthau as Oscar) and television series (Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar).

March 10, 1989
Fox network primered the reality series COPS. The show that follows police officers, constables, and sheriff's deputies during patrols and other police activities. The show came out right after the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike and the new network needed material. An unscripted show that did not require writers would be ideal for FOX.

The show covered COPS in 140 different cities in the United States, and also filmed in Hong Kong, London, and the former Soviet Union.
2,044 arrests have been made on COPS.
The oldest person arrested was 90 years old (for battery)
The youngest person arrested was 7 years old (for a bike theft)
Roughly 120 hours of footage goes into one broadcast segment.


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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

The life and career of dwarf actor Michael Dunn will be among the topics of conversation on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL

The life and career of dwarf actor Michael Dunn will be among the topics of conversation on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, premiering Monday, March 8 at 9pm ET, 6pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio, with a rebroadcast Friday, March 12 at 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org. Best known for playing the evil Dr. Miguelito Loveless on television's The Wild, Wild West, as well as his Oscar-nominated performance in the 1965 film classic Ship of Fools, singer/actor Michael Dunn led an amazing life from childhood until his sudden death in 1973 at the age of thirty-eight. Born with dwarfism, Dunn overcame constant pain throughout his brief life to leave an inimitable mark on stage, screen and television. Joining us this week as we remember this TV icon will be Sherry Kelly, author of a new biography on Michael Dunn, The Big Life of a Little Man. She'll be with us in our first hour.

If you want to be part of our conversation, we invite you to join us for our live broadcast Monday, March 8 beginning at 9pm ET, 6pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio. Phone number is (888) SHOKUS-5 / (888) 746-5875. Email address is talk@tvconfidential.net.

TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie MontiforteEvery night at 9pm ET, 6pm PT Shokus Internet Radio Fridays 7pm ET and PT Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.orghttp://www.tvconfidential.net/blog.tvconfidential.netAlso available as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner

MAILING LIST ADVISORY: You have received this message because you recently contacted Ed Robertson with respect to his books Thirty Years of The Rockford Files, The Fugitive Recaptured, The Ethics of Star Trek and Maverick: Legend of the West, or his appearances on Talking Television with Dave White (Share-a-Vision Radio) and Doctor Rerun (The Ronn Owens Program). No one is placed on this list without their consent, nor will anyone's name be distributed to any additional email lists. Announcements will go out every other week, so the number of emails you receive from this address should not exceed two per month. If you do not wish to receive further updates, please reply with the message "Remove" and we will take your address off the list promptly.

Your Mental Sorbet: Streaker at the 46th Annual Academy Awards

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

Perhaps the most widely-seen streaker in history was 34-year-old Robert Opel, who streaked across the stage flashing the peace sign on national US television at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974. Recovering quickly, the bemused host David Niven quipped, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?" Later, some evidence arose suggesting that Opel's appearance was facilitated as a stunt by the show's producer Jack Haley, Jr. Robert Metzler, the show's business manager, believed that the incident had been planned in some way; during the dress rehearsal Niven had asked Metzler's wife to borrow a pen so he could write down the famous ad-lib. Niven's brush with the streaker was voted the top Oscars moment by film fans in 2001. Ironically, Opel's run across the stage occurred with Niven mostly between him and the camera, so nothing below the waist was visible to the TV audience. The first one or two frames of Opel's appearance do provide a blurred view of Opel's genitalia, but since they appeared at the very edges of the image they were probably never seen by viewers due to the overscan common in TV sets at the time.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This week in Television History: March 2010 Part I

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL with Ed Robertson and Frankie Montiforte Broadcast LIVE every other Monday at 9pm ET, 6pm PT (immediately following STU'S SHOW) on Shokus Internet Radio. The program will then be repeated Tuesday thru Sunday at the same time (9pm ET, 6pm PT)on Shokus Radio for the next two weeks, and then will be posted on line at our archives page at TVConfidential.net. We are also on Share-a-Vision Radio (KSAV.org) Friday at 7pm PT and ET, either before or after the DUSTY RECORDS show, depending on where you live.

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 2, 1944
For the first time, the Academy Awards are presented as part of a televised variety show.

Jack Benny served as master of ceremonies for the event, which was held at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. Due to lack of network interest, the show was only broadcast locally, on two Los Angeles TV stations. Winners included Best Film Going My Way, whose male lead, Bing Crosby, won Best Actor. Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for her performance in Gaslight.

March 4, 1996
Minnie Pearl dies.

A longtime fixture of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, comedian Minnie Pearl dies on this day. Pearl was famous for her comic monologues about hillbilly life, and was featured on the long-running syndicated show Hee Haw from 1970 to 1990.

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 7, 1955
The first Broadway play to be televised in color, featuring the original cast, airs in 1955.

The play was Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin.

March 7, 1960
Jack Paar returns to The Tonight Show. A month after walking off The Tonight Show to protest censorship, host Jack Paar returns to the show. Paar, who had been hosting the show since July 1957, shortly after host Steve Allen left, was protesting NBC's censorship of a joke about a "water closet," which the network deemed inappropriate.

Paar joined The Tonight Show as host in 1957 after Steve Allen retired from the popular late-night program. The witty, often emotional Paar was a master of the interview as well as comic sketches. Regulars on his show included Hugh Downs, bandleader Jose Melis, Tedi Thurman, and Dody Goodman. Florence Henderson, Betty White, and Buddy Hackett also appeared frequently. The mostly humorous show also included serious moments: Paar railed against the Cuban dictatorship under Batista and praised Castro's revolution. He also did some telecasts from the Berlin Wall.
Paar permanently left The Tonight Show in 1962, and the show was hosted by a series of substitutes until Johnny Carson took over later that year.

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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa