Kirstie Alley

I never did go back to acting class. I was too busy working. 

-Kirstie Alley

Kirstie Louise Alley
January 12, 1951 – December 5, 2022

Kirstie Alley died on December 5, 2022, following a short battle with cancer at age 71.

Alley made her film debut in 1982 in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, playing the Vulcan Starfleet officer Lieutenant Saavik, but chose not to reprise that role in the next two sequels, later saying she was offered less money than for Star Trek II. In the years following, she starred in a number of smaller films, including One More Chance, Blind Date and Runaway. In 1985, she starred in the ABC miniseries North and South. In 1987, Alley starred alongside Mark Harmon in the comedy film Summer School. The film was a box office success, grossing over $35 million in the United States.

Later in 1987, Alley joined the cast of NBC sitcom Cheers, replacing Shelley Long and remaining with the show until its eleventh and final season. In 1989, Alley starred with John Travolta in Look Who's Talking. The film grossed over $295 million worldwide. They then went on to make two other films centered on the same theme, Look Who's Talking Too and Look Who's Talking Now. After two Emmy Award nominations for her work on Cheers, in 1988 and 1990, she won the Emmy on her third nomination, in 1991.

Alley earned her second Emmy for the 1994 television film David's Mother. For her contributions to the film industry, Alley received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in 1995.

From 1997 to 2000, Alley played the title character in the NBC sitcom Veronica's Closet, as well as serving as executive producer on the show. She served as the spokesperson for Pier One from 2000 to 2004, and for Jenny Craig from 2004 to 2007.

TV Land aired a sitcom that centered on Alley as a Broadway star and a new parent. It was titled Kirstie, and reunited her with former Cheers co-star Rhea Perlman and Seinfeld star Michael Richards. The series premiered on December 4, 2013, and ran for one season before it was canceled, five months after ending its freshman run.

In February 2011, Alley was announced as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. She also took part in the 15th season of Dancing with the Stars. In 2022, Alley competed in season seven of The Masked Singer as "Baby Mammoth" of Team Cuddly.

Good Night Ms. Alley

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Christmas Flintstone Song

 

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

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Tony Figueroa

Bob McGrath

It's nothing short of an extraordinary show. When I got hired, I started thinking, 'Hmmm, I'm not really an actor. I wonder what I'm going to be doing?' It was interesting. I kept saying, 'Who am I supposed to be?' I told my wife, 'They're not going to pay me just for going in and being myself for 130 shows'. They did make me the music teacher. I come out of that background, and I'd taught music to kids before. Finally they said, 'We don't want you to be anybody but yourself'. And that was pretty much true of anyone in the original cast and those they hired later.

-Bob McGrath

Robert Emmett McGrath

June 13, 1932 – December 4, 2022

Bob McGrath died on December 4, 2022, at the age of 90.

Bob McGrath was born on June 13, 1932 in Ottawa, Illinois. He was named for Irish patriot Robert Emmet. As a child, he would sing for his family while his mother would play the piano. His mother enrolled him in the Roxy Theater’s Amateur Program, where he came in second place. He graduated from Marquette High School.

McGrath graduated from University of Michigan in 1954 where he was in School of Music. While attending Michigan, he was a member of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club and of the fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta, where during fraternity events, he washed dishes while fraternity brother David Connell waited tables, a connection which Connell would use when casting began for Sesame Street. After graduating, he was inducted in to the U.S. Army, where he spent 2 years in Germany, booking and performing for the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra.

McGrath obtained a Master of Music degree in Voice, from Manhattan School of Music in 1959.

McGrath worked with Mitch Miller and was the featured tenor on Miller's NBC-TV television singalong series Sing Along with Mitch for four seasons from 1960 to 1964. He was a singer on the Walt Kelly album Songs of the Pogo.

In the mid-1960s, McGrath became a well-known recording artist in Japan, releasing a series of successful albums of Irish and other folk songs and ballads sung in Japanese. This aspect of his career was the basis of his "secret" when he appeared on the game shows To Tell the Truth in 1966 and I've Got a Secret in 1967. From 1969 to 2016, McGrath was a regular cast member on Sesame Street, playing the character of Bob Johnson.

Along with series matriarch Susan Robinson, played by Loretta Long, McGrath had been one of the two longest-lasting human characters on the series since the show's debut. A Noggin segment proclaimed the four decades of Bob when promoting Sesame Street on that network. In July 2016, Sesame Workshop announced that McGrath would not return to the show for its 47th season because it would be re-tooling the series, but the company did say that McGrath would continue to represent the Workshop at public events. Sesame Workshop later announced that there would be talks to bring him back. Sesame Workshop said that he would still represent Sesame Street. Although McGrath had not been in any new material since season 45, he subsequently appeared in online videos for the show. He also returned for the 2019 TV special Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration.

For 38 years, McGrath was a regular fixture on Telemiracle, a telethon broadcast annually on CTV outlets in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. 2015 was his final regular appearance at Telemiracle, where performers at the show paid tribute to him. He returned for a special appearance in 2018. On March 3, 2006, he was awarded the Commemorative Medal for the Centennial of Saskatchewan for this work by the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Lynda Haverstock. He was given the Saskatchewan Distinguished Service Award in 2013 by the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall.

McGrath wrote many children's books, including Uh Oh! Gotta Go! and OOPS! Excuse Me Please!

In 1995, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

McGrath's Sing Me a Story was nominated for the 7th Annual Independent Music Awards for children's album of the year.

On April 10, 2010, he was the first recipient of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club Lifetime Achievement Award. McGrath also served as master of ceremonies at the Glee Club's 150th anniversary celebration weekend.

Stay Tuned
Tony Figueroa

Good Night Bob

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Home for the Holidays - SNL

  

Here is a

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

 

Here is a 

"HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is a Sesame Street Christmas special first broadcast on PBS on Sunday, December 3, 1978.

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Bing Crosby & David Bowie

 

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth.
Music video by Bing Crosby & David Bowie performing

Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: MST3K #521 - Santa Claus

 

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Santa Claus It's Christmas time on the SOL! After Mike and the 'bots exchange gifts, they get to watch a movie where Santa Claus has to outwit Satan in order to deliver gifts.

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Tony Figueroa

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: The Richard Pryor Show - Santa Claus

Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

a little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.

TV History

December 1, 1940

Richard Pryor is born in Peoria, Illinois. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Pryor was “the first African-American stand-up comedian to speak candidly and successfully to integrated audiences using the language and jokes blacks previously only shared among themselves when they were most critical of America. His comic style emancipated African-American humor.”

December 1, 1945

Bette Midler is born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

By the time she appeared as the final guest of Johnny Carson's 30-year career on The Tonight Show and brought tears to the unflappable host's eyes with an emotional performance of "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)," she was an established star of stage and screen—a Tony winner, an Oscar nominee, a Grammy winner and a multimillion-selling recording artist. It would be difficult, however, to imagine a more unorthodox path to mainstream stardom than the one followed by Bette Midler—"The Divine Miss M"—who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on this day in 1945.

Equal parts Judy Garland and Ethel Merman, Bette Midler early on set her sights on making it in New York City. Arriving in New York in 1965, Midler soon tried out for the national touring company of Fiddler On The Roof only to land the role of Tzeitel (and the job of singing "Matchmaker" eight times a week) in the Broadway production instead. After several years of singing in various Manhattan nightclubs on the side, she got what would prove to be the most important gig of her career, singing poolside nightly at the fabled Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse/cabaret in the basement of the Ansonia building on West 72nd Street in Manhattan. It was there, in collaboration with a young pianist named Barry Manilow, that she fully developed her "Divine Miss M" stage persona—a brash, campy interpreter of numbers ranging from "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "Leader Of The Pack" to "Superstar" and "Delta Dawn." It was at the Continental Baths that Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun discovered Midler and signed her to record the album that made her a star: The Divine Miss M (1972). That album, which made an unlikely pop hit out of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (Billboard #8, June 1973), earned Midler the Best New Artist award at the 1973 Grammy Awards.

Though she would remain a beloved favorite of a significant fan base over the next decade or so, her only pop hit during that period was the theme song from the 1979 movie The Rose. In 1986, however, her flagging Hollywood career was revived by a comic turn in Paul Mazursky's Down And Out In Beverly Hills. Two years later, she would earn a Record of the Year Grammy and her first and only #1 pop hit with "Wing Beneath My Wings," from the 1988 movie Beaches, in which Midler co-starred alongside Barbara Hershey.

December 1, 1950

Keith Thibodeaux is born. The former child actor and musician is best known for playing “Little Ricky” in the I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour television shows.

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Tony Figueroa