Your Mental Sorbet: CAPTAIN AMERICA 1966 SERIES

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.

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Tony Figueroa

The series, produced in color, had extremely limited animation produced by xerography, consisting of photocopied images taken directly from the comics and manipulated to minimize the need for animation production. The cartoons were presented as a series of static comic-strip panel images; generally the only movement involved the lips, when a character spoke, the occasional arm or leg, or a fully animated black silhouette. The series used the original stories largely in their entirety, showcasing Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Don Heck art, among others, from the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books.

Wes and Carol and Joey and Phil: Next on TVC

We’ll continue our look at the making of The Carol Burnett Show on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing May 4-9 at the following times and venues:

WROM Radio
Detroit, MI
Wednesday 5/4
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Sunday 5/8
8pm ET, 5pm PT
2am ET, 11pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at WROMRadio.net

KHDN AM-1230
KBSR AM-1490
KYLW AM-1450
Billings, MT
part of GLN Radio Network
Friday 5/6
3pm ET, Noon PT
Saturday 5/7
6pm ET, 3pm PT
Monday 5/9
3pm ET, Noon PT

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 5/6
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
or hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 5/7
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 5/8
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 5/8
9am ET, 6am PT
Also streaming at KSCO.com

KHMB AM-1710
KHMV-LP 100.9 FM
Half Moon Bay, CA
Sunday 5/8
9pm PT
Monday 5/9
Midnight ET
Click on the Listen Live button at KHMBRadio.com

RadioSlot.com
San Francisco, CA
Monday 5/9
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

Wesley Hyatt will join near the end of the first hour for Part 2 of our behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Carol Burnett Show. Wes’ book The Carol Burnett Show Companion: So Glad We Had This Time tells you everything you wanted to know about the landmark CBS variety series that many of us discovered when it was part of that great Saturday night lineup in the early 1970s. Among other things, we’ll spotlight the contributions of Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner, the circumstances that led Tim Conway to become a series regular (after many memorable guest appearances), the ill-fated experiment with Dick Van Dyke in what proved to the show’s final season, plus such classic moments as “Went with the Wind” (and the story behind Carol’s curtain-rod gown), the dentist sketch, and the infamous “elephant story” segment of “The Family.”

This week’s program will also include the first in a series of programs that will highlight the career of Joey Bishop, the legendary deadpan comic who guest-hosted The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson nearly 200 times (more than anyone else), while also hosting his own NBC sitcom in the early 1960s, and his own late night talk show on ABC in the late 1960s. A member of the Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra Rat Pack, some (including Bishop himself) would argue that he was the wheel that kept the clan together.

Bishop, however, was also a known recluse who spent most of the last two decades of his life out of the limelight. One person he did connect with, though, was our friend Phil Gries. Phil spoke with Bishop on several occasions between 2002 and 2003; we’ll play highlights from those conversations, plus rarely heard audio from Bishop’s early career, as part of The Sounds of Lost Television. Phil’s tribute to Joey Bishop will begin in our first hour.

TV CONFIDENTIAL: A radio talk show about television
Wed and Sun 8pm ET, 5pm PT on WROM Radio
Fri and Mon 3pm ET, Noon PT and Sat 6pm ET, 3pm PT on GLN Radio Network
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
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This Week in Television History: May 2016 PART I

Listen to me on TV CONFIDENTIAL:

 

CLICK HERE for a list of Stations

 

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.

May 2, 1996

Phil Donahue taped the final edition of his talk show Donahue. On July 15, 2002, he returned to television with a talk show under the same name. 

May 3, 1991

Prime-time soap opera Dallas airs its last episode. 

The episode was watched by 33.3 million viewers (38% of all viewers in that time slot)

The show debuted in April of 1978, and broke ratings records in 1980 when 83.6 million viewers tuned in to find out "Who Shot J.R.?". In the final episode, titled Conundrum (An homage to It's a Wonderful Life) J.R. is contemplating committing suicide. The drunk J.R. walks around the pool with a bourbon bottle and a loaded gun, when suddenly another person appears, a spirit named Adam (portrayed by Joel Grey), whose "boss" has been watching J.R. and likes him. Adam proceeds to take him on a journey to show him what life would have been like for other people if he had not been born. At the end of the  episode Adam encourages J.R. on to kill himself. J.R. will not do it, as he does not want Adam to be sent back to heaven with his job incomplete. At this point Adam reveals that he's not an angel, but a minion of Satan. Bobby has returned home. The gun goes off while Bobby is in the hallway, and he rushes to J.R.'s room. He looks at what has gone down, gasps, "Oh, my God," and the series ends on that note with the fate of J.R. never settled (although it eventually would be five years later, in the reunion movie, Dallas: J.R. Returns.).

In 2010, cable network TNT announced they had ordered a pilot for the continuation of the Dallas series. After viewing the completed pilot episode, TNT proceeded to order a full season of 10 episodes.

The new series premiered on June 13, 2012, centering primarily around John Ross and Christopher Ewing, the now-grown sons of J.R. and Bobby. Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray returned in full-time capacity, reprising their original roles. The series is produced by Warner Horizon Television, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which holds the rights to the Dallas franchise through its acquisition of Lorimar Television and is a sister company to TNT, both under the ownership of TimeWarner.

The new series is a continuation of the old series, with the story continuing after a 20-year break. It does not take the events of the TV movies Dallas: J.R. Returns or Dallas: War of the Ewings as canon. Instead we find the characters as they are today, 20 years after the events of the Season 14 cliffhanger.[29] In an interview with UltimateDallas.com, Cynthia Cidre was asked to describe the new Dallas. She responded, "I tried to be really, really respectful of the original Dallas because it was really clear to me that the people who love Dallas are [like] Trekkies, really committed to that show and I really did not understand that before, so I never wanted to violate anything that had happened in the past. On the other hand that was the past, twenty years had gone by, so at the same time I think we're properly balanced between the characters of Bobby Ewing, J.R. and Sue Ellen. I also have the new cast and it's John Ross and Christopher, the children of Bobby and J.R., and their love interests. Total respect and a balance of old and new."

May 8, 1976

The theme song from Welcome Back, Kotter is the #1 song in America.

In 1975, John Sebastian, former member of the beloved 60s pop group the Lovin' Spoonful, was asked to write and record the theme song for a brand-new ABC television show with the working title Kotter. As any songwriter would, Sebastian first tried working that title into his song, but somehow the rhymes he came up with for "Kotter"—otter, water, daughter, slaughter—didn't really lend themselves to a show about a middle-aged schoolteacher returning to his scrappy Brooklyn neighborhood to teach remedial students at his own former high school. So Sebastian took a more thoughtful approach to the task at hand and came up with a song about finding your true calling in a life you thought you'd left behind. That song, "Welcome Back," not only went on to become a #1 pop single on this day in 1976, but it also led the show's producers to change its title to Welcome Back, Kotter.

What Sebastian's sweet, wistful and playfully nostalgic tune did not do, however, was influence the tone and content of the show. To listen to "Welcome Back," you'd think that Welcome Back, Kotter was a seriocomic slice-of-life program in the mold of, say, The Courtship of Eddie's Father—another 70s TV show with a theme song by a great 60s songwriter (Harry Nilsson). Instead, Welcome Back, Kotter was little more than a flimsy platform for catchphrase-spouting caricatures, albeit an insanely successful one. Arnold Horshack's "Oooh, oooh, oooh," Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington's "Hi therrre," Vinnie Barbarino's "What? What?" and Gabe Kotter's "Up your nose with a rubber hose" were the pop-cultural coin-of-the-realm in 1975-76, and though they bore little relation in tone or spirit to the song that topped the charts on this day in 1976, the disconnect did nothing to hinder the popularity of all things Kotter-related. Indeed, if you weren't wearing an Uncle Sam or King Kong T-shirt in the summer of America's bicentennial year, you were probably wearing one with a picture of "the Sweathogs" and a colorful phrase like "Off my case, toilet face" on it.

"Welcome Back" was the first and only television theme song that John Sebastian ever wrote, but it was far from the only television theme song of the mid-1970s to become a legitimate pop hit. Only weeks earlier in 1976, the instrumental "Theme From S.W.A.T." had topped the Billboard Hot 100, and the excellent Mike Post-written theme The Rockford Files had made the top 10 the previous summer.

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

 

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Tony Figueroa