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

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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

TV Confidential Archives: Feb. 22, 2010

Second hour: Ed, Frankie and guest co-host Tony Figueroa welcome author Jan Alan Henderson (Speeding Bullet) and TV historian Bruce Dettman (Glass House Presents, The Adventures Continue) as they revisit one of Hollywood's great unsolved mysteries, the death of actor George Reeves.

First hour: Ed, Frankie and Tony discuss the public apology given by Tiger Woods during his nationally televised press conference. Also: David Krell looks back at Wiseguy; while Tony remembers the "Miracle on Ice" from the 1980 Winter Olympics, the final episode of M*A*S*H and the premiere of Your Show of Shows during This Week in TV History.

Your Mental Sorbet: The "Late Night" Anthem

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

Tom Jones does his rendition of The Late Night Anthem for David Letterman's 7th anniversary show in 1989.



Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This week in Television History: February 2010 Part IV

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.

February 23, 1997
Schindler's List is shown on NBC, the first network to broadcast a movie without commercial interruption. Ford Motor Company, which sponsored the broadcast, showed one commercial before and after the film.

The 1993 film about German factory owner Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of Jewish workers in his factory during World War II, was Spielberg's most ambitious movie to date. The picture, filmed in black and white, won Spielberg his first Academy Award as Best Director, and it also garnered Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay awards. The film's screenplay, by Thomas Keneally and Steven Zallian, was adapted from Keneally's novel, Schindler's Ark, published in 1982.
Spielberg started making amateur films in his teens, and by the late 1970s he had become heavily involved in production and scriptwriting. He gained fame early in his career for directing such blockbusters as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Poltergeist, and a string of other phenomenal successes. He established his own independent production company, Amblin' Entertainment, in 1984, where he produced Gremlins, Back to the Future, Arachnophobia, Cape Fear, and more. In 1994, he formed DreamWorks SKG with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, and the following year the trio announced a partnership with Microsoft Corporation, called DreamWorks Interactive, which produced interactive games and teaching tools. Just months before he released Schindler's List, Spielberg released Jurassic Park, which featured computer-generated dinosaurs that took the world by storm. He won his second Academy Award for Best Director in 1999 for Saving Private Ryan. Virtually all of Spielberg's films have been box office smashes.

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, 1928
The Federal Radio Commission issues the first television license. The license went to the Charles Francis Jenkins Laboratories for a television broadcast station on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. The station later moved to Maryland and operated until 1932.
Government regulation of broadcasting has been in existence almost as long as the broadcast industry itself. The Wireless Act of 1910 required American ships to carry a broadcasting transmitter and qualified radio operator on all sea voyages. In the early 1920s, laws were passed governing transmission power, use of frequencies, station identification, and advertising. The Radio Act of 1927 shifted regulatory powers from the Department of Commerce to the new Federal Radio Commission, which became the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934.
Today, the FCC still regulates broadcasting and communications. The U.S. president appoints its five commissioners with the Senate's consent. The commission licenses and regulates radio and TV broadcasters as well as other communications mediums, such as telephone and cable television. It assigns frequencies and call signs to radio stations and is responsible for ensuring rapid, efficient telephone and telegraph service. The FCC also operates the Emergency Broadcast System, which provides a vehicle for authorities to communicate with the public and disseminate critical information immediately when national disaster strikes (though the system can also be used to broadcast weather warnings and local emergencies).
More expansive policy issues under the purview of the commission include deciding how much sex and violence is permissible on television. Deregulation of the industry in the 1980s reduced the FCC's size from seven to five commissioners and increased the term of radio and television station licenses. In the 1990s, the FCC developed a television rating system, much like the one used in movies, which helps people decide which shows are appropriate for the viewers in their household.

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, 2003
Children’s Television Host Fred Rogers succumbs to stomach cancer at 74. The talented writer and puppeteer, known to generations of children simply as “Mr. Rogers,” hosted Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on public television for more than 30 years.
A native of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Rogers filmed the famed show in Pittsburgh, 30 miles east of his hometown. He studied early childhood development at the University of Pittsburgh and, in 1962, was ordained as Presbyterian minister with a mission to work with children and families through television. Beginning in 1954, he worked as a puppeteer on a show called The Children’s Corner, before beginning work on his own show, which first aired in 1968.
Singing his well-known theme song, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Rogers would enter his living-room-like set at the beginning of each episode, changing his shoes and sweater. He would then take his viewers on a magical trolley ride to the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe,” where he introduced them to characters such as King Friday XIII, his wife Queen Sara Saturday, Curious X the Owl, and Henrietta Pussycat. Even in an era of slick packaging and new technology in children’s programming, Rogers found continued success by sticking to his original message—that children should love each other and themselves. He aimed to help children deal with troubling emotions, like fear and anger, as well as everyday problems, like visiting the dentist.
Rogers composed most of his show’s songs and did much of the puppeteering and voices himself. Despite countless awards and honors, including four Emmys® and a George Foster Peabody Award, Rogers once remarked, “I have never really considered myself a TV star. I always thought I was neighbor who just came in for a visit.” He taped his last show in December 2000, but came out of retirement briefly to film public service announcements helping parents and children deal with the September 11th tragedy. One of Rogers’ trademark red sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

February 28, 1983
Last episode of M*A*S*H airs. M*A*S*H, the cynical situation comedy about doctors behind the front lines of the Korean War, airs its final episode after 11 seasons.

The last episode drew 77 percent of the television viewing audience, the largest audience ever to watch a single TV show up to that time.


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

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa