Your Mental Sorbet: "Barney Miller" Quarantine: Parts 1 & 2

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

Release Date: 30 September 1976

Release Date: 7 October 1976

Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: March 2020 PART II

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 15, 1935

Judd Hirsch is born. 

Best most known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series Taxi, John Lacey on the NBC series Dear John, and Alan Eppes on the CBS series Numb3rs.

He was born in The Bronx borough of New York City, New York, the son of Sally (née Kitzis) and Joseph Sidney Hirsch, an electrician. His father was also born in New York where the family had lived since the mid-1800s. Sally (Sarah) Kitzis was born in Russia. Hirsch was raised Jewish.

He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, located in The Bronx, and later earned a college degree from the City College of New York in physics.

Hirsch's first major television appearance was in the mini-series The Law (1974).

For his performance in Taxi, in 1981 and again in 1983, Judd Hirsch won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor In a Comedy Series. Hirsch went on to play the title character on the modestly successful sitcom Dear John and in 1989 won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series in a Comedy or Musical for this role. He later teamed with Bob Newhart in the short-lived comedy George and Leo. He had also previously starred for one season in the series Delvecchio, playing a police detective (1976–1977).

In film, Hirsch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the drama film Ordinary People (1980). Other films in the 1980s include the 1983 drama Without a Trace, the 1984 dramedies Teachers and The Goodbye People, and the 1988 drama Running on Empty directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starring River Phoenix. In 1996, Hirsch portrayed the father of Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day, and in 2001 he appeared in the acclaimed A Beautiful Mind.

Hirsch co-starred on the CBS Television drama NUMB3RS as Alan Eppes, father of FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and Professor Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz). Hirsch and Krumholtz also played father and son in Conversations with My Father, a Herb Gardner play for which Hirsch won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Krumholtz credits Hirsch with jump-starting his career after Hirsch chose him during the audition process for Conversations. Other noteworthy stage performances include The Hot l Baltimore, Talley's Folly, and his starring role in I'm Not Rappaport, in which Hirsch also won a Tony Award in 1986.

More recently, Hirsch guest-starred on episodes of Warehouse 13, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Law & Order: SVU and The Whole Truth (which saw him reunite with Numb3rs co-star Rob Morrow), among others, and lent his voice to the animated programs Tom Goes to the Mayor and American Dad! In 1999, he reprised his role from Taxi for a brief moment in Man on the Moon, the biopic of his co-star from Taxi, Andy Kaufman (portrayed by Jim Carrey).

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your Mental Sorbet: James Lipton Tells His Favorite Inside the Actors Moments

It can be summed up in one sentence.

Does this person have something to teach my students?

No one has ever let us down.

-James Lipton

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

Good Night Mr. Lipton

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: March 2020 PART I

March 2, 1935

Porky Pig is an animated character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts featuring the character. Even after he was supplanted by later characters, Porky continued to be popular with moviegoers and, more importantly, the Warners directors, who recast him in numerous everyman and sidekick roles.

He is known for his signature line at the end of many shorts, "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" This slogan (without stuttering) had also been used by both Bosko and Buddy and even Beans at the end of Looney Tunes cartoons. In contrast, the Merrie Melodies series used the slogan: So Long, Folks! until the mid 1930s when it was replaced with the same one used on the Looney Tunes series (when Bugs Bunny was the closing character, he would break the pattern by simply saying, in his Brooklynese accent, "And Dat's De End!"). He is the oldest continuing Looney Tunes character.

Porky's most distinctive trait is a severe stutter, for which he sometimes compensates by replacing his words; for example, "What's going on?" might become "What's guh-guh-guh-guh—...what's happening?" Porky's age varied widely in the series; originally conceived as an innocent seven-year-old piglet (explicitly mentioned as such in Porky's Preview), Porky was more frequently cast as an adult, often being cast as the competent straight man in the series in later years. In the ending of many Looney Tunes cartoons, Porky Pig bursts through a bass drum head, and his attempt to close the show with "The End" becomes "Th-Th-The, Th-Th-The, Th-Th... That's all, folks!" Porky Pig would appear in 153 cartoons in the Golden age of American animation.

March 3, 1985

The television show Moonlighting premiered.

Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes (67 in syndication as the pilot is split into two episodes). Starring Bruce Willisand Cybill Shepherd as private detectives, the show was a mixture of drama, comedy, and romance, and was considered to be one of the first successful and influential examples of comedy-drama, or "dramedy", emerging as a distinct television genre.

The show's theme song was performed by jazz singer Al Jarreau and became a hit. The show is also credited with making Willis a star, while providing Shepherd with a critical success after a string of lackluster projects. In 1997, the episode "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" was ranked #34 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2007, the series was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time." The relationship between David and Maddie was included in TV Guide '​s list of the best TV couples of all time.

March 7, 1955

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

March 7, 1975

The final episode of The Odd Couple aired on ABC.

March 8, 1945

George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is born. 

The actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.

Dolenz was born at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, Los Angeles California, the son of George Dolenz and Janelle Johnson, both of whom were Hollywood actors.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: February 2020 PART IV

February 24, 1980

The U.S. Hockey Team won its “Do you believe in miracles?” gold medal during the 1980 Olympic Winter Games beating Finland (4-2) in their final medal round game. The Soviet Union took the Silver Medal by beating Sweden in their final game. Sweden took home the Bronze Medal, with Finland finishing fourth.

Two days prior on February 22, 1980 was the "Miracle on Ice". The U.S. men's ice hockey team, led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union team, 4 - 3. The Soviet Union team, who were considered to be the best international hockey team in the world, they entered the Olympic tournament as heavy favorites, having won every ice hockey gold medal since 1964, and all but one gold medal since 1956. On February 9, the American and Soviet teams met for an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden in order to practice for the upcoming competition. The Soviet Union won (10-3) so the odds were in favor of the Russians.

The day before the match, columnist Dave Anderson wrote in the New York Times, "Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments."

The game ended with Al Michaels delivering the most famous call in Hockey history, "Eleven seconds, you've got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk...five seconds left in the game... Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!"

Though the Olympic Games are supposed to be an arena free of politics the Soviet and American teams were long time rivals due to the Cold War.

President Jimmy Carter was considering a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, to bheld in Moscow out of protest to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. President Carter eventually confirmed the boycott on March 21, 1980.

At the same time there was another international drama playing out. Despite President Carter’s initial refusal to admit the Shah of Iran into the United States, on October 22, 1979, he finally granted the Shah entry and temporary asylum for the duration of his cancer treatment. In response to the Shah's entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981.

The "Miracle on Ice" was a shot in the country’s morale during a time of great uncertainty.

February 25, 1950

Comedy program Your Show of Shows, hosted by Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, first airs.

Although the show lasted only four seasons, it became a classic of television's golden era, featuring comedy by future stars Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, and others. The series was one of television's Top 20 hits for three of its four years.

February 27, 1940

Howard Hesseman is born. 

The actor is best known for playing disc jockey Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati and schoolteacher Charlie Moore on Head of the Class.

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

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Ja'Net DuBois

Ja'Net DuBois

She began her acting career in theater during the early 1960s, appearing in Broadway's Golden Boy with Sammy Davis Jr. and Louis Gossett Jr. in 1964. DuBois's early television acting credits include the 1969 television movie J.T. and the long–television soap opera Love of Life, on which her 1970 to 1972 role as Loretta Allen made her the first African–American female as a regular cast-member on a daytime serial.' In 1970, DuBois appeared in her first film, playing Vera in Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Television producer Norman Lear saw DuBois in Lanford Wilson's play The Hot l Baltimore at the Mark Taper Forum, which led to her being cast in the 1974 to 1979 CBS comedy series Good Times. DuBois recorded the album Again, Ja'Net DuBois, on her Peanuts and Caviar label, in 1983. DuBois appeared in former Good Times co-star Janet Jackson's 1987 "Control" music video as her mother. In 1992, she co-starred with Clifton Davis in And I Still Rise, a play written and directed by Maya Angelou. She co-starred in the films I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), and on television in Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show, A Different World, and The Wayans Bros..

During the 1980s, DuBois operated the Ja'net DuBois Academy of Theater Arts and Sciences, a performing-arts school for teenagers in Long Island, New York. In 1992, DuBois, Danny Glover and Ayuko Babu co-founded the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles.

In 1995, DuBois won a CableAce award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Lifetime movie Other Women’s Children. In 2000, DuBois served as Grand Marshal for the North Amityville Community Parade and Festival Day in Amityville, New York. She won two Emmy Awards for her voiceover work on the animated program The PJs (1999). DuBois with the cast of Good Times received The Impact Icon Award at the 2006 TV Land Awards.

 Good Night Ms. DuBois