1. Gloria from Modern Family. Because she's from COLOOOOOOOMBIA. 2. Barb the Cougar from Cougar Town. How can you not like a horny, sexy, confidant 40-something who seems to have a cccktail surgically attached to her hand? 3. The "new guy" on 30 Rock, Danny, played by Cheyenne Jackson, who gives Neil Patrick Harris a run for his money as America's favorite (openly) gay actor. A great talent. 4. Senor Chang from Community. !El es muy tonto! 5. "Clive Bixby." If you know the reference, you're probably getting an ab workout from laughter right now. I predict that "pulling a Clive Bixby" or "CliveBixbying" will soon enter the urban cultural vernacular in various forms: as a noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective. Next stop: Webster's.
Mannix detailed the exploits of Joe Mannix, a private investigator, and ran from 1967-1975. The first season (which never had been released in syndication) is now out on DVD.
Some Mannix facts from Wikipedia:
Mannix was shot at or wounded more than a dozen times during the series, usually by an old war buddy from the Korean War.
His faithful assistant Peggy was played by Gail Fisher. She was one of the first African-American females with a regular role on a TV drama.
The show was the baby of Bruce Geller, the man also behind Mission Impossible.
Mannix liked to drive convertibles. He also liked to crash convertibles.
Midway through the opening credits viewers see "a screen layout bearing an exact resemblance to the flag of Armenia." Why? It's a mystery, a mystery that perhaps only the great Joe Mannix could solve.
Jay Leno also will be back, but without his writers. Not that I watched him before, but this is one Scab I won't be picking when I turn my TV dial.
In honor of Dave striking a deal, here's a quick FIVE FAVS entry -- my five favorite individual Letterman shows.
1. The Warren Zevon show. It was just after Zevon announced he was dying, so Dave gave him an entire show. Tremendous.
2. Dave's first show back after 9/11. Dave's monologue struck the perfect notes for a wounded city and nation, as compared with Leno's first monologue after 9/11, which didn't seem as sincere and as genuine. Dave's guest that night was Dan Rather. This is a show they'll be showing clips from years from now, and deservedly so.
3. Pie Night. Any Pie Night. It's always on Thanksgiving, and Dave's mom is featured in a live remote from her Indiana kitchen. I was in the audience for one of his Pie Night shows. I can't remember the pie, but I do remember laughing a lot. Pie Night was canceled this year because of the writer's strike.
4. Dave's first show after his heart surgery. His guests included his entire medical team. Puts life in perspective, no?
5. The Speeded-Up Show. This was back on NBC. Dave wanted to pack an hour and fifteen minutes worth of comedy (or something like that) into one hour, so the entire broadcast ran at a slightly faster speed so the show would still only take an hour. If I remember correctly there also was a real-time clock clicking in one of the corners. How cool is that?
1. M*A*S*H. I beg to differ with people who say that the last two seasons of M*A*S*H were horrible. In fact, there were episodes in the final years that were among the wittiest in this show's history. Catch them on repeats some time. I hope you're pleasantly surprised; they are, at times, truly terrific. But not the finale, which wasn't very funny and was the final turning point where this "comedy that also was a drama" became a "drama that was no longer a comedy." And it only got worse with after M*A*S*H, which I've already discussed as among the worst shows in TV history.
2. Seinfeld. The show always made me laugh; the finale didn't. And long before Kramer annoyed America with his racist rants, his Kramer became less and less funny the more he mugged and turned it up way too many notches. Oh well: How could the finale of one of the great comedies in American TV history (and probably the funniest) not disappoint, since so much was expected?
3. Soap. What I think producers were thinking: "Let's set up a bunch of mysteries that jumped the shark and then screw over fans by never airing the show again." Horrible.
4. Twin Peaks. "Let's set up a bunch of mysteries that jumped the shark and then screw over fans with really unfulfilling resolutions." Even more horrible than No. 3. 5. Again, I'm taking reader comments, but let me throw out there Oz (HBO) as my initial pick, because I think the writers took the easy way out. Although my friend (and blog reader) JR will probably applaud the frequent frontal male nudity. Speaking of blog reader JR, rumor has it that when the show aired, he thought it was actually a real prison and volunteered to go to Oz for an undetermined amount of time as restitution for his long history of jay-walking.
In light of The Sopranos finale last night, here are my Five Favorite TV series finales of all time.
I was fortunate enough to see each show live the night of its last first-run episode, except for my tentative pick for Number 5, The Fugitive. The night it aired, Aug. 22, 1967, I was too busy soiling my diapers to worry much about what the one-armed man was up to. Here's my favorites:
1. Newhart. (1990)
2. Mary Tyler Moore Show. (1977)
3. St. Elsewhere. (1988)
4. The Tonight Show (1992)
5. I'm leaning toward The Fugitive (1967). But I'm taking nominations (and reminders) for No. 5 in the comments. After I rewatch the episode, I may even consider .... The Sopranos.
Ms. Hilton, 26, wearing no makeup and with her hair disheveled, sobbed and screamed, “Mom, this isn’t right,” as she was taken from the packed courtroom by deputies.
This is from the New York Times on Saturday, and "this" is what I'm interested in. And by "this" I mean, quite literally, "this."
Just exactly what is Paris referring to when she uses the pronoun "this"? It could refer back to many things.
I'm going to a stab at what Paris Hilton really meant by "this" by replacing the pronoun with what she could have been talking about in this quote.
1. "Mom, being famous for really doing nothing and having no talent isn't right."
2. "Mom, never having to work a day in my life isn't right."
3. "Mom, that cloying look I give the paparozzi when they take my picture isn't right."
4. "Mom, the media pay more attention to me than they do the War in Iraq and it isn't right."
5. "Mom, I'm a household name because I made a porn video and it isn't right."
As of five seconds ago. This could change at any moment. 1. Juliet from Lost, played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Complex character, well-written, well-acted. And those deep blue (and Wally-esque) eyes! Just give her the Emmy now.
2. Yau-Man Chan. He plays two roles on this season of Survivor: "Asian guy" and "Old Guy." Smart, crafty, down-to-earth, and unpretentious. In other words, he's unlike 95 percent of reality show contestants. I hope he wins. 3. David Letterman. Today's his birthday. He turns 60. He's been making me laugh for, oh, a quarter of a century now. Thanks, Dave, and happy birthday.
4. Caveman Guy from The Geico ads. I know they're turning this into a TV pilot, which might turn into something absolutely disastrous, but these commercials make me laugh every time. I sure hope they find a cure for his chronic wistfulness. 5. Don't beat me up over this one: Sanjayafrom American Idol. This guy gets pooped on in the media on a regular basis. The cruel comments come from the ladies on The View, shock jocks, Keith Olbermann, bloggers ... me. But yet he continues to smile, translating his minimal talent into more media buzz than Donald Trump. I hope he has an agent, cause I'd be looking to get him and his sister booked on the next Amazing Race as well as some sort of shampoo commercial. Cher, Charro, Elvis, Sammy and Sanjaya. Only one name is needed, and isn't that amazing?
A reader emailed me that WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-1982 on CBS) is finally coming out on DVD. As a tribute to this classic TV show, here are my FIVE FAVORITE episodes of the show.
1. "Real Families." Herb Tarlek and family go on a TV show, Real Families, a parody of the old "reality" shows such as That's Incredible and Real People. Peter Marshall guest-stars as the obnoxious host. This savaging of TV sensationalism/phoniness pre-dated Jerry Springer and is even more relevant today with the explosion of "reality" TV in recent years and the mockumentary genre. Springer, by the way, was mayor of Cincinnati when WKRP first premiered. (Season Three.)
2. Thanksgiving episode. WKRP decides to do a promotion by dropping turkeys from a helicopter, inspiring the classic closing line from Mr. Carlson: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!" Les Nessman describes the scene in a radio report: "One just went through the windshield of a parked car! ... Oh, the humanity! ... The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! ... The crowd is running for their lives ... Children are searching for their mothers, not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this?!!" (Season One.)
3. The Softball Game. If I recall correctly, this episode about a WKRP softball game did not have a laugh track, and the nerdy newsman Les Nessman, who was never able to participate in sports as a kid, plays a starring role in a game against a rival station. Funny and poignant. (Season Two) 4. A 1981 episode features DJ Dr. Johnny Fever catching disco fever -- in a schizophrenic type of way. Title: "Dr. Fever and Mr. Tide." This two-part episode is a must-view for anyone who thinks they "gotta dance." (Season Three)
5. Too hard to choose. Let's just say it's any episode where Les calls golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez as "Chy Chy Rod-ri-gweeze"
***
And perhaps my all-time favorite quote from the show, from the show's opening: "But the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity." Clips from the turkey episode and the Real Families episodes are embedded below and are still funny more than 25 years after they first aired.
(My thanks to reader Jer-Bear/Jerry Wonka for alerting me about the new DVD coming out.)
Now that the Academy Awards are over -- the broadcast did eventually end, didn't it? -- it's time to look ahead to the great movies of 2007 that will be loosely inspired by the movies of 2006 and early 2007.
Notes On A Sandal: A lesbian diarist spends a summer at the beach.
Charlotte's World Wide Web: A spider starts a blog and captures the heart of a nation
Last King of Scotch Land: A biopic on the life of Peter O'Toole. The Ghost Writer: A man sells his soul to the devil (Harvey Weinstein) to get a movie script produced. Nicholas Cage stars.
Blood Diamonique: The seedy underbelly of faux jewelry.
Sometime during the next day, try to work these five seldom-spoken words into a casual conversation with, say, your boss, your daughter, your lover or the mailman.
It'll be fun, I promise.
1. Purloin.
To your daughter: "Honey, did you purloin the chocolate chip cookies?"
2. Murmur.
To your lover: "I thought I heard you murmur something about my annoying habits. Could you share with me in more detail, or would you rather email me it later?"
3. Masticate.
To co-worker: "You want to grab some lunch and masticate some food in our mouths together?"
4. Cattywampus
To yourself, out loud, so that strangers can overhear: "My life became cattywampus after my lover murmured something about me purloining the chocolate chip cookies, which I had just finished masticating."
5. Penultimate.
To my readers: "This could be my penultimate post, after I publish my farewell post this weekend announcing that I'm giving up The Cup of Joe for lent."
I'm an ex-pamphleteer turned blogger who provides tightly-focused niche coverage of movies, TV, politics and kittens. I don't discrimate against people based on race, religion, sexual preference or your level of stupidity. Occassionally, I also blog on sports, history, Britney Spears and Abe Lincoln. My lover's name is Wally, and although he seems a little embarassed by this blog, he never really says so when he's sober.
