I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"
Rudolph has just come back from delivering Christmas presents with Santa Claus when he is asked by Father Time to find the missing Baby New Yearbefore midnight on New Year's Eve. The baby, named Happy, ran away because everyone laughed at his large ears, although no one meant it in a cruel way.
Unless Happy is returned before December 31 to take his position as the new year, the current year will not end and the date will perpetually remain December 31 forever. If this happens, the evil buzzard named Aeon will rule the world forever.
Rose Marie Mazetta August 15, 1923 – December 28, 2017
Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City to Italian-American Frank Mazetta and Polish-American Stella Gluszcak. At the age of three, she started performing under the name "Baby Rose Marie." At five, she became a radio star on NBC and made a series of films. Rose Marie was a nightclub and lounge performer in her teenage years before becoming a radio comedian. She was billed then as "The Darling of the Airwaves". According to her autobiography, Hold the Roses,she was assisted in her career by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel.
She performed at the opening night of the Flamingo Hotel, which was built by Siegel. At her height of fame as a child singer, from late 1929 to 1934, she had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number of Paramount films and shorts.She continued to appear in films through the mid-1930s, making shorts and one feature picture, International House (1933), with W.C. Fields for Paramount.
In 1929, the five-year-old singer made a Vitaphone sound short titled Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder. Between 1930 and 1938, she made 17 recordings, three of which were unissued. Her first issued record, recorded on March 10, 1932, featured accompaniment by Fletcher Henderson's band, one of the premier black jazz orchestras. According to Hendersonia, the bio-discography by Walter C. Allen, Henderson and the band were in the Victor studios recording the four songs they were intending to produce that day and were asked to accompany Baby Rose Marie, reading from a stock arrangement.
Her recording of "Say That You Were Teasing Me" (backed with "Take a Picture of the Moon", Victor 22960) also featured Henderson's orchestra and was a national hit in 1932. According to Joel Whitburn, Rose Marie is the only pre-World War II hitmaker still living as of 2017.
After five seasons (1961–1966) as Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rose Marie co-starred in two seasons (1969–1971) of CBS's The Doris Day Showas Doris Martin's friend and coworker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared in two episodes of the NBC series The Monkees in the mid-1960s. She later had a semi regular seat in the upper center square on the original version of Hollywood Squares, alongside her longtime friend and Dick Van Dyke co-star, Morey Amsterdam. She also appeared on both the 1986 and 1998 syndicated revivals.
In the mid-1970s, she portrayed, in recurring fashion, Hilda, who brought fresh doughnuts, made coffee for the team, and provided some comic relief on the police drama S.W.A.T..
In the early 1990s, she had a recurring role as Frank Fontana's mother on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown. She appeared as Roy Biggins's domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the television series Wings. Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam appeared together in an October 1993 episode of Herman's Head and guest-starred in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City, shortly before Amsterdam's death in October of that same year.
She appeared with the surviving Dick Van Dyke Show cast members in a 2004 reunion special. Rose Marie was especially close to actor Richard Deacon from that show and offered him the suits left behind when her husband died in 1964, as the two men were of similar height and build.
Rose Marie appeared opposite Phil Silvers in the Broadway show Top Banana in 1951.
From 1977 to 1985, Rose Marie co-starred with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell, and Margaret Whiting in the musical revue 4 Girls 4, which toured the United States and appeared on television several times.
She was the celebrity guest host of a comedy play, Grandmas Rock!, written by Gordon Durich. It was originally broadcast on radio in 2010 on KVTA and KKZZ, and rebroadcast on KVTA and KKZZ again in September 2012 in honor of National Grandparents Day. A CD of the show was also produced, featuring audio clips from The Dick Van Dyke Show.
We’ll replay our conversation with actor Fredd Wayne as part of a special holiday edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Dec. 29-Jan. 1 at the following times and venues:
Share-a-Vision Radio San Francisco Bay Area Friday 12/29 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 12/30 8pm ET, 5pm PT Sunday 12/31 10am ET, 7am PT Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks
KSCO AM-1080 and FM-104.1 San Jose, Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA KOMY AM-1340 La Selva Beach and Watsonville, CA Sunday 12/31 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 12/31 1pm ET, 10am PT Streaming at CROCRadio.com or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in CROC
RadioSlot.com San Francisco, CA Monday 1/1 10pm ET, 7pm PT with replays Tuesday thru Friday at 10pm ET, 7pm PT Click on the Talk Slot button at RadioSlot.com
The second hour of this week's show will include an encore presentation of our October 2015 conversation with Fredd Wayne, the noted character actor whose career on stage, film and television spans seven decades and includes appearances on such shows as The Twilight Zone, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, The Rockford Files, The Untouchables, Quincy, Perry Mason, Ironside, Frasier, Hogan’s Heroes, My Three Sons and at least a hundred others. If you are a fan of Bewitched, you know that Fredd Wayne played Benjamin Franklin in a famous two-part episode of Bewitched that is still fondly remembered today. What you may not know is that Fredd has played Ben Franklin on thousands of other occasions over the past fifty years, ever since he began studying the life of the American patriot in 1964. We’ll ask Fredd about his lifelong passion and interest in Franklin, plus we’ll talk about some of his other current projects.
Phil Gries will join us in our first hour for our annual tribute to bandleader Guy Lombardo, with audio highlights from some of the first TV coverage of the ball drop at Times Square… including a rarely heard clip from New Year’s Eve 1965 featuring Howard Cosell.
Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"
