This season while watching Lost it occurs to me that they have written so many characters into the show that the writers have totally lost track of some of them.. leaving some of them off for weeks and weeks at a time.. Have we seen Bernard and Rose yet this season? And how about that “new” couple who were on the plane that were supposed to be a major part of the cast this season? With that in mind.. you really have to appreciate Robert Altman for the way he successfully weaves more than 24 major characters into his 1975 movie Nashville, while never abandoning them for lengthy periods of time. And that includes 2 prominent characters who are never seen! Speaking of 24.. I think Heroes may be better than 24 this season.. Memo to NBC: Just send a tape of last Monday‘s episode and the Emmy is yours! I like Claire’s dad’s flashbacks from 1997 and 1992... .. If they would have gone back 20 years you would have seen him when he was Gay Steven on “Dynasty”.
One of the things about the wiseguy playboy Sawyer on Lost.. is you wonder if he is somewhat modeled after Tom.. (Tom Sawyer?) from Nashville.… . Tom, played by Keith Carradine is part of a 3 person trio Tom, Bill and Mary.. Sort of like Peter Paul and Mary… except his rock group which happens to be traveling through Nashville are big time rockers not country music stars.. The 1975 Carradine strongly resembles the present day Josh Holloway and has sex with so many people, I almost expected to find Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband hanging around his hotel room!
Nashville starts out in the style where M*A*S*H left off.. With a spinning record disk announcing the cast (Like the in-movie cast announcements at the end of M*A*S*H) and a politician preparing for the ‘76 Tennessee primary driving around with a bullhorn that forces you to listen closely for amusing nuggets like the M*A*S*H loudspeaker.. Probably the funniest comment questions why The Star Spangled Banner is our National Anthem.. And of course like M*A*S*H, Altman again took on a movie with no real plot ..instead it’s a series of scenes that are very well edited together.
To further enhance your enjoyment of today's column, here is the 1975 trailer for the movie that actually does a good job explaining Who’s Who. Watching it will help you to better understand today’s column.
Like Lost, the Nashville story gets rolling with an airplane trip,…taking us to the Nashville Airport where so many major characters arrive, you almost expect to see them welcomed by Ricardo Montalban and Tattoo. Among those flying in are the country music starlet Barbara Jean, whose arrival on a chartered flight is covered in breathless play by play by local news reporter Bill Jenkins since this event is considered “Breaking News!” Also coming in on a plane are our rock and roll (and love) trio, a political strategist who is prepping for the TN primary, and a young girl played by Shelley Duvall who is there to visit a sick relative, but meets a new guy every five minutes and just walks off with him. Sorta like Anna Nicole Smith when she first came to Hollywood.
After the airport scene, virtually the entire cast gets stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on the highway near the airport. Too bad in 1975 they didn’t have WCBS's Chris Maget or WOR's Tom Note to guide them to a Shadow Traffic alternate route. Alberquerque played by Barbara Harris sneaks off from her husband and in a tender moment runs into Kenny who runs interference for her when her husband comes looking for her.. just long enough for her to get away. She escapes and he ends up hitching a ride with the husband.. Doesn’t this guy think before he picks up hitchhikers? But then again,. this nice guy did sweetly help Albequerque so how bad can he be?
Even though the film has no star, the most incredible acting performance in my opinion is delivered by Henry Gibson who to me was always a mousy kind of character on Laugh-In. Here, he plays a country music mogul among the universe of those who are country fans.. He doesn’t bat an eyelash when Elliot Gould of MASH playing himself shows up at a party, and considers him a “fellow star”. Gould and Julie Christie were in Nashville when the movie was filmed and cameo appearances were written for both of them…. The Julie Christie appearance is a truly hysterical moment watching 2 hicks react to a woman who was a big star at the time… which is almost as amusing as Ned Beatty’s embarrassment when he didn’t recognize Gould. He must have not seen M*A*S*H.
Gibson’s Laugh-In co-star Lily Tomlin is another key character playing a gospel singer who is married to an emotionally unavailable Ned Beatty (maybe still sore in the tuchis after filming Deliverance?) and is the mother of 2 deaf kids whose dad doesn’t seem to bother to learn sign language. And guess which aforementioned stud ends up doing the ol’ hocus mcpocus with Tomlin? None other than Tom who ends up singing a song called “I’m Easy” (which went on to win an Oscar) in a nightclub where at least 3 women in the audience believe the song is directed towards her. One of the other 2 women he hooks up with is Mary from his group who is married to the other guy Bill who actually resembles Weird Al Yankovic
Tom also hooks up with a wacko British woman who claims to be filming a documentary for the BBC... although she never seems to have a camera crew. Watching the BBC reporter’s breathless interviewing skills was like the media frenzy that jumped off the crazy diaper astronaut bandwagon to Anna Nicole Smith’s death the way our media did last month… The “BBC reporter” walks away from an interview with Gibson’s son while he is in the middle of a sentence…. the moment she sees the more popular Elliot Gould arrive at a party… She runs up to him and sticks her microphone right in his face expecting him to recognize her from an a film festival where they had allegedly briefly met. She refuses to meet Tomlin’s deaf kids because her shallowness just can’t deal with the concept of deaf children and she also rudely cuts off a local drivers polite offer to show her around Nashville with the classic line.. ”I never socialize with the servants!”
Beatty’s character is probably the glue that brings the whole cast together. He plans a whole big shindig along with the out of town political operative (Michael Murphy from M*A*S*H) to help promote a politician running for President in the 1976 Bicentennial election which was of course was won by Mr. Anti-Israel Jimmy Carter. By the way, after the Oscars, do you get the opinion that Al Gore is kind of popular? Anyway, Beatty and Murphy reach out to all the music stars to appear at an event which is the climax of the movie featuring the troubled but loveable Barbara Jean, played superbly by Oscar nominee Ronee Blakley who comes to face to face with a life changing event .
Coincidentally, poor Barbara Jean’s misfortune ends up as Albuquerque, the wanna-be’s lucky break in a truly stunning musical performance by Harris.. That contrasts another political fundraiser from the prior evening featuring Sueleen Gay.., the vocally challenged singer descends from a stage that comes down from the rafters only to show that her singing is incredibly awful. The all male crowd Cowell-ingly boos her… to the point where she turns the crowd to her favor by humiliatingly performing a strip tease where she removes ALL of her clothes! By the way the American Idol fans now have a site called Vote For the Worst.com.. where they organize a campaign to vote for the worst person. I see they did the same thing for the last two Presidential elections!
When you have a movie like this with so many characters and no plot per se.. it really is only worth it when there is a big payoff at the end. In this case there is.. Because while you see all the major characters interact, (and realize that the minor characters aren’t so minor after all) you realize that Nashville, like Hollywood is where people go to make dreams come true. You also see a lot of shallow people who in a moment of crisis turn out to have good hearts that just don’t come out under ordinary circumstances.
Nashville shows that stardom isn’t what it’s cut out to be..… Barbara Jean arrives in the airport at the beginning of the movie after having been hospitalized out of state for a lengthy period due to injuries sustained in a fire. Now fully healed physically, she arrives at the airport only to injure herself while collapsing as she walks over to greet her fans, and that leads to another hospitalization where a stalking fan sneaks into her hospital room … not even having the guts to take credit that it was his mom that saved her from that fire. Maybe being a star isn’t such a great thing after all… and maybe Albequerque and Sueleen Gay might have been happier had they kept their more simpler lives? Or maybe the deaf kids are better off in their silent world than the BBC reporter who lives in her noisy planet of shallowness.
The helpful hitchhiking Kenny always shows up at these Barbara Jean appearances.. Forced to perform the day she leaves the hospital. BJ has a meltdown when her band starts to play but she just starts wandering off into some bizarre monologue reminiscent of Frank Sinatra at the Emmys. Finally, BJ’s husband/manager strolls onstage and leads her off seeing full well that she is just not mentally ready to perform on stage.. That is of course until the very next day for the political rally. Kenny appears again.. and I actually thought he was another musician waiting for his big break.. waiting for another long pre monologue BJ silence to start, so he could pull out an instrument and begin to sing. Instead Kenny provides the key moment in the end of the movie that gives Alberquerque her moment in the sun. I think it would be unfair to those who might want to see the movie to reveal the plot twist even though the movie has been out for more than 30 years. I didn’t see it coming, and the shock greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the movie.
Overall the story has a great beginning… a middle dragged down by too much country music and a fantastic ending. The final song will ring in your brain for days after you see it. Some of the actors are pretty good especially the Oscar nominated Ronee Blakley who was cast as Barbara Jean at the last minute, and as mentioned before, Gibson who I never would have imagined in this role. You also have to give Altman credit for managing all of these characters and achieving a sense of balance for a rather complex storyline, On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… the 2 hour 40 minute Nashville gets 3 bladders.
Time for The Clip of the Week: The husband in that rock trio looked like Weird Al Yankovic.. here is a clip from his TV show!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Top 14 Movies to Start a DVD Collection
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Friday, February 16, 2007
The Sublime Time Line to Solving Crime in Prime Time
The sublime time line to solving crime in prime time that has no reason or uh uh.. Hmmm what word would fit here?.. Excuse me while I channel the ghost of Nipsey Russell.
You know the old saying.. “If you do the crime.. You do the time“.. Well how about applying it to TV show if you do the crime.. we’ll solve it in an unrealistic time. Or something like that. We all do things based on time.. The entire cycle of life is time related. The Jewish Mourning laws are all based on time. At the other extreme, babies are expected to grow within a timeframe.. educations take time.. We have to be at work at a certain time. Time, Time.. Everywhere there’s time… (or is that signs?). Last fall I did a column about "Time Management" (See the archives Sept. 2006) how Trophy Wife lured me to a surprise 30-something birthday party for me by coordinating my day down to the minute, which included of all things.. a Time Management Seminar!
Monday Night I plunked down on the couch for an evening of 24 and CSI Miami.. knowing full well that in my Tivo-less universe, a commercial-free Heroes would look better on my computer than a tape recorded off my 17 year old vcr. 24 was starting an hour earlier so my agenda for the evening was going to be 2 hours of Jack Bauer and Company trying to save the world from Muslim terrorists.
If you saw the first hour, you would see that Morris, Chloe's Richard Dawson-esque boyfriend/ex-husband was lured into a trap by terrorists so he could program a suitcase nuclear bomb. Of course Morris wasn’t going to cooperate with the evil terrorist.. so it was torture time.. Better known as the 24 s and m fan festival! After the usual beatings and whippings and head soakings it was time to go for the old power drill and after drill bit hit flesh, Morris collapsed like a house of cards and agreed to program the device. Grey’s Anatomy also used the drill Thursday night when Stevens buzzed into a guys brain.. But her Emmy-esque beautiful speech about belief turned into a yenta fest when she told George that he made a colossal mistake by marrying Callie. Anyway, many bloggers feel Morris should have killed himself instead of giving in... but from a story telling standpoint, it didn’t make a lot of sense since the actor who plays Morris is pretty popular and they would need him to keep the story moving.
At 10 it was time for CSI Miami.. the 2nd of a 2 parter that strangely didn’t start with a recap of the prior episode. Who does CBS think is going to recall what happened in last weeks episode while still catching your breath from the end of the 2nd hour of 24 where Rena Sofer's character... (she is also Nathan’s wife on Heroes and went to high school with my buddy Harmon) led Jack Bauer into a bomb filled house.. after her father in law (Jack’s father) strolled off with her son and threatened to kill him if she didn’t lead Jack to that house? And at 10:01 do they really expect me to go into the episode cold? Gimme a recap.. give me a "Previously on CSI Miami".
As it turned out... Delko was shot.. did he die? Yes? Oh wait no.. lets pound a needle into his chest.. okie dokie,... his heart is beating..
Which leads to today's topic.. who is managing the time frame of these crime shows?? I can see how 24 is structured that each 24 episode season takes place in a 24 hour period.. but if you look at CSI Miami.. the show seems to wrap up in a weird time frame and Heroes is totally out of left field in that regard.
I haven’t always been a big fan of the crime shows. The earliest show I recall was the afternoon Channel 2 reruns of Barnaby Jones where the narrator would announce in his baritone that this was “A Quinn Martin Production - Tonight‘s episode….” Why was it tonight‘s episode if I was watching it in the afternoon??
At least NBC seems to have addressed the problem when they started Law and Order in the early 90s.. I remember as a kid the crime dramas used to wrap their storylines in a nice little bow at the end of an hour and many of the storylines took place within the context of a single day. However, L and O stories can stretch for months because first you have the law and then you have the order. Even Criminal Intent doesn’t wrap up its cases in a single day.. although I remember that Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue always took place over the course of one day
Nonetheless, let’s take a closer look at some shows’ writers that need time managers…
LOST - Its not a Monday Night show but time-wise it’s a mess too... The plane crashed in 2004... they seem to have been there for only a few months.. yet Jack saw a tape of the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004. Where are we now? Is it still 2004?
And after last week’s head scratching episode.. Did Desmond’s life flash before his eyes.. Or did he travel back in time and relive his life like that awful Taye Diggs show that ABC briefly aired late last year? And notice how one “psychic” just lets people die because they are gonna die anyway, while Desmond keeps running out to save Charlie’s life? Wouldn’t it be cool if Desmond somehow ended up on Heroes?
And... why are the characters Dr Shepherd, and Dr. Burke sharing character names with Grey’s Anatomy characters? What are they gonna start calling Hurley?.... McTubby?
HEROES - It might win the ratings against 24, but I still must watch 24 live as it happens! Heroes is all over the time space continuum starting out in the fall.. going back 5 years.. then back to the fall... yet even though the show premiered in September, a bomb that Hiro futuristically sees as going off on Election Day 2006 still hasn’t gone off... and Nathan Petrelli (Mr. Rena Sofer) last Monday mentioned that its now 2 weeks before Election Day. And Nate is the father of Claire the Cheerleader! This just in to the newsroom.. Nathan Petrelli has just announced that he is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!
24 - Ok.. Don’t do 2 hour shows any more.. its too much and I can only handle an hour of the action. Also, if they do 2 hours you become more keenly aware of things that happened in the 1st hour that don’t make sense when compared to the 2nd hour. For example, in the first episode this season.. Jack shaved off his big beard, got a haircut and changed into an Adrian Monk-esque outfit… in 11 minutes! And this past week was pushing it a bit.. In the beginning of the 1st hour.. Morris was getting his ass pounded and drilled etc. By the end of hour 2 he was back at his desk pecking away at his computer trying to save the world. Don’t they have sick leave at CTU? How do they expect him to just do his job after being... drilled?? This just in to the newsroom..90 year old Zsa Zsa Gabor has announced that she is the mother of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!
And the all time classic of classics!…
CSI MIAMI/aka The David Caruso Acting Clinic.- they get hot babes like Callie (NOT the one who Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Stevens doesn't like) and Eva LaRue.. who pounce around in their sexy little outfits and you just cant help but notice that they wear the same clothes during the episode. Do you mean to tell me that Monday's episode that started with Delko getting shot on a parking deck and ended before sundown with Horatio killing the bad guy really took place in one day? Keep in mind they traced the bad guy to the shooting (his dad was played by the actor who played the villain from an early season of 24), and figured out he was a diamond dealer, and that a local diamond store had an illegal sweatshop behind a secret panel! At 10;01 Delko was rushed to the hospital... operated on.. .and wondering why his dead sister won’t visit him.... All in the same day! Last month, Delko had this storyline where he broke up a fight involving a couple.... bailed the wife out of a tough situation,. and then she sued him for assaulting her husband.. who later died in that episode, and by the end of the same episode he had settled out of court and was signing a document that would allow his wages to be garnished!! And all in one day!! C’mon what the heck is going on?? Buy the chickies more outfits and make the timelines more plausible!!
This just in to the newsroom… The crazy astronaut just packed a carload of diapers and is driving to The Bahamas to declare her love for Howard K. Stern.
Speaking of Howard K. Stern, I gotta ask a Rabbi about how the Jewish laws of mourning apply to Howard. Does he sit shiva for Anna Nicole? Does he have to wait until the funeral to start now that the body is held over for DNA testing? Were they actually married? Does he say kaddish? All these customs are based from the time of death or burial.... and I hope whoever figures out how much time is allotted for these things does a better job than the writers who figure out how much time lapses during an episode of CSI Miami...
Now time for the Clip of the Week - This week in honor of CSI Miami.. Somebody with a lot of spare time put together an amazing montage of David Caruso overacting sunglasses removal (or put-on) scenes that grace the very beginning of each episode before the theme song. You gotta see this to believe it! The show’s theme song is The Who’s “Who‘s Are You?“ I love the clip at 5:55!
You know the old saying.. “If you do the crime.. You do the time“.. Well how about applying it to TV show if you do the crime.. we’ll solve it in an unrealistic time. Or something like that. We all do things based on time.. The entire cycle of life is time related. The Jewish Mourning laws are all based on time. At the other extreme, babies are expected to grow within a timeframe.. educations take time.. We have to be at work at a certain time. Time, Time.. Everywhere there’s time… (or is that signs?). Last fall I did a column about "Time Management" (See the archives Sept. 2006) how Trophy Wife lured me to a surprise 30-something birthday party for me by coordinating my day down to the minute, which included of all things.. a Time Management Seminar!
Monday Night I plunked down on the couch for an evening of 24 and CSI Miami.. knowing full well that in my Tivo-less universe, a commercial-free Heroes would look better on my computer than a tape recorded off my 17 year old vcr. 24 was starting an hour earlier so my agenda for the evening was going to be 2 hours of Jack Bauer and Company trying to save the world from Muslim terrorists.
If you saw the first hour, you would see that Morris, Chloe's Richard Dawson-esque boyfriend/ex-husband was lured into a trap by terrorists so he could program a suitcase nuclear bomb. Of course Morris wasn’t going to cooperate with the evil terrorist.. so it was torture time.. Better known as the 24 s and m fan festival! After the usual beatings and whippings and head soakings it was time to go for the old power drill and after drill bit hit flesh, Morris collapsed like a house of cards and agreed to program the device. Grey’s Anatomy also used the drill Thursday night when Stevens buzzed into a guys brain.. But her Emmy-esque beautiful speech about belief turned into a yenta fest when she told George that he made a colossal mistake by marrying Callie. Anyway, many bloggers feel Morris should have killed himself instead of giving in... but from a story telling standpoint, it didn’t make a lot of sense since the actor who plays Morris is pretty popular and they would need him to keep the story moving.
At 10 it was time for CSI Miami.. the 2nd of a 2 parter that strangely didn’t start with a recap of the prior episode. Who does CBS think is going to recall what happened in last weeks episode while still catching your breath from the end of the 2nd hour of 24 where Rena Sofer's character... (she is also Nathan’s wife on Heroes and went to high school with my buddy Harmon) led Jack Bauer into a bomb filled house.. after her father in law (Jack’s father) strolled off with her son and threatened to kill him if she didn’t lead Jack to that house? And at 10:01 do they really expect me to go into the episode cold? Gimme a recap.. give me a "Previously on CSI Miami".
As it turned out... Delko was shot.. did he die? Yes? Oh wait no.. lets pound a needle into his chest.. okie dokie,... his heart is beating..
Which leads to today's topic.. who is managing the time frame of these crime shows?? I can see how 24 is structured that each 24 episode season takes place in a 24 hour period.. but if you look at CSI Miami.. the show seems to wrap up in a weird time frame and Heroes is totally out of left field in that regard.
I haven’t always been a big fan of the crime shows. The earliest show I recall was the afternoon Channel 2 reruns of Barnaby Jones where the narrator would announce in his baritone that this was “A Quinn Martin Production - Tonight‘s episode….” Why was it tonight‘s episode if I was watching it in the afternoon??
At least NBC seems to have addressed the problem when they started Law and Order in the early 90s.. I remember as a kid the crime dramas used to wrap their storylines in a nice little bow at the end of an hour and many of the storylines took place within the context of a single day. However, L and O stories can stretch for months because first you have the law and then you have the order. Even Criminal Intent doesn’t wrap up its cases in a single day.. although I remember that Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue always took place over the course of one day
Nonetheless, let’s take a closer look at some shows’ writers that need time managers…
LOST - Its not a Monday Night show but time-wise it’s a mess too... The plane crashed in 2004... they seem to have been there for only a few months.. yet Jack saw a tape of the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004. Where are we now? Is it still 2004?
And after last week’s head scratching episode.. Did Desmond’s life flash before his eyes.. Or did he travel back in time and relive his life like that awful Taye Diggs show that ABC briefly aired late last year? And notice how one “psychic” just lets people die because they are gonna die anyway, while Desmond keeps running out to save Charlie’s life? Wouldn’t it be cool if Desmond somehow ended up on Heroes?
And... why are the characters Dr Shepherd, and Dr. Burke sharing character names with Grey’s Anatomy characters? What are they gonna start calling Hurley?.... McTubby?
HEROES - It might win the ratings against 24, but I still must watch 24 live as it happens! Heroes is all over the time space continuum starting out in the fall.. going back 5 years.. then back to the fall... yet even though the show premiered in September, a bomb that Hiro futuristically sees as going off on Election Day 2006 still hasn’t gone off... and Nathan Petrelli (Mr. Rena Sofer) last Monday mentioned that its now 2 weeks before Election Day. And Nate is the father of Claire the Cheerleader! This just in to the newsroom.. Nathan Petrelli has just announced that he is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!
24 - Ok.. Don’t do 2 hour shows any more.. its too much and I can only handle an hour of the action. Also, if they do 2 hours you become more keenly aware of things that happened in the 1st hour that don’t make sense when compared to the 2nd hour. For example, in the first episode this season.. Jack shaved off his big beard, got a haircut and changed into an Adrian Monk-esque outfit… in 11 minutes! And this past week was pushing it a bit.. In the beginning of the 1st hour.. Morris was getting his ass pounded and drilled etc. By the end of hour 2 he was back at his desk pecking away at his computer trying to save the world. Don’t they have sick leave at CTU? How do they expect him to just do his job after being... drilled?? This just in to the newsroom..90 year old Zsa Zsa Gabor has announced that she is the mother of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter!
And the all time classic of classics!…
CSI MIAMI/aka The David Caruso Acting Clinic.- they get hot babes like Callie (NOT the one who Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Stevens doesn't like) and Eva LaRue.. who pounce around in their sexy little outfits and you just cant help but notice that they wear the same clothes during the episode. Do you mean to tell me that Monday's episode that started with Delko getting shot on a parking deck and ended before sundown with Horatio killing the bad guy really took place in one day? Keep in mind they traced the bad guy to the shooting (his dad was played by the actor who played the villain from an early season of 24), and figured out he was a diamond dealer, and that a local diamond store had an illegal sweatshop behind a secret panel! At 10;01 Delko was rushed to the hospital... operated on.. .and wondering why his dead sister won’t visit him.... All in the same day! Last month, Delko had this storyline where he broke up a fight involving a couple.... bailed the wife out of a tough situation,. and then she sued him for assaulting her husband.. who later died in that episode, and by the end of the same episode he had settled out of court and was signing a document that would allow his wages to be garnished!! And all in one day!! C’mon what the heck is going on?? Buy the chickies more outfits and make the timelines more plausible!!
This just in to the newsroom… The crazy astronaut just packed a carload of diapers and is driving to The Bahamas to declare her love for Howard K. Stern.
Speaking of Howard K. Stern, I gotta ask a Rabbi about how the Jewish laws of mourning apply to Howard. Does he sit shiva for Anna Nicole? Does he have to wait until the funeral to start now that the body is held over for DNA testing? Were they actually married? Does he say kaddish? All these customs are based from the time of death or burial.... and I hope whoever figures out how much time is allotted for these things does a better job than the writers who figure out how much time lapses during an episode of CSI Miami...
Now time for the Clip of the Week - This week in honor of CSI Miami.. Somebody with a lot of spare time put together an amazing montage of David Caruso overacting sunglasses removal (or put-on) scenes that grace the very beginning of each episode before the theme song. You gotta see this to believe it! The show’s theme song is The Who’s “Who‘s Are You?“ I love the clip at 5:55!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Culture Week Part II - Books I Read in 2006
Hello folks and welcome to our shortest column of the year…
And what a week it has been… is there anything crazier than an astronaut in a love triangle? I mean I’m happy the police were able to stop this looney kazoonie before she would have killed anyone but you gotta give her credit for planning… I mean she packed diapers so she wouldn’t have to take an intermission to go pishing.. But can you imagine the amazing concentration you need to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando without stopping? In this age of chronic ADD, you gotta keep her in the space program if she can drive that long without a break! I say .. Even if she is convicted… keep sending her out on space missions.... I mean ya send her up into space in the shuttle.. she really is in custody and not “free”? What's she going to do? Run away? And if she works in the kitchen on the space station…would she be called “The Pampered Chef?”
This goes along with my long time belief that we can ease our overcrowded prisons and landfills by sending prisoners and garbage to other planets. I got a kick out of some bigshot politician in NY the other day who reacted to neighbors opposing a homeless shelter by telling a reporter…”Neighbors will always object to this type of thing.. If we put it on the Moon.. The Martians would complain”. However, it now appears that the crazy astronaut has been Anna Nicoled out of the headlines…
And how about that President Bush?… He adds to the budget to allow for more troops in Iraq yet he cuts the budget for Homeland Security. Does that mean Iraqi’s safety is more important than American safety… I guess hes gotta protect the family’s oil money.
Today for the 2nd straight year.. We present the books I read in 2006. I heard a great Sam Waterston line on Law and Order a couple of weeks ago…… The L and Os seem to be the only shows I still watch on NBC… aside from Heroes and Deal or No Deal. I only mention Deal or No Deal because there is this DOND fan website that lists this very blog as one of its “Top Bloggers”… I only tossed that reference in to get me up there in the rankings!
Anyway they had this wacky L and O episode about a reality show that led to the killing of a rapist by his victim. The episode dealt with Waterston’s prosecution of the show’s producer… In the episode the reality show was a spinoff of another show that was verrrrry similar to those Chris Hansen Dateline NBC shows where they lure child molesters into a home on the premise of meeting a young child. Anyway, Waterston convicts the producer and her network throws her under the bus by asking Waterston if he would allow the trial to be… a reality show. Waterston’s response to watching coverage of his prosecution….: “I’ll be reading a book”
As a regular reader of his fine blog, I gotta give Neil's blog credit. He constantly writes columns about the books he reads.. I recently asked him if he actually has read all those books.. And he does! Wow… I’m really not much of a book reader.. Although I do read a lot, I read a few newspapers each day and Entertainment Weekly plus a bunch of other online publications.. not to mention a lot of other blogs… but as you can see by today’s column.. The book reading .. It ain’t what it oughta be.
This past year I read 2 books and started 2 others that I‘m “still reading“… including one that I got at the tail end of 2006 during one of those trips to Dollar Tree and that irresistible dollar book bin . The first book I read was early in the year…. Podcasting for Dummies.. I bought it after numerous futile attempts to get my NWOW pod casts on Itunes. Ultimately I figured out how to do it… but not through the book which by the way is extremely informative. I finally saw the light to itunes when I bought my cell phone! As I mentioned in my Technology Schmecknology column last summer in my July 6th column… I couldn’t get my music into the mp3 player until I went back to the Cingular store and they explained that the songs only work in mp3 format.. and not as a wma… Once I figured that out… I realized that Itunes also wasn’t catching the wma format either… Once I changed ‘em to mp3, I was able to hook up my NWOW pod casts with Itunes.
Podcasting for Dummies is another book in the popular dummy series.. It is quite informative, especially for those looking to get a start in pod casting. . But with technology being updated constantly…a book like this … which was just written last year could be out of date before too long.,. However for now, it’s a good reference guide to find stuff when you run into trouble getting a podcast up and running. I thought pod casting would be more popular by now as a forum for people to do little radio shows or commentaries… Podcasting has caught on but in a different way… now people go on their My Space page and post links to the drek that they uploaded to You Tube.
As I wrote in a column a few months ago on November 24th I was a guest on another pod cast.. hosted by a guy who had heard my Mortgage Podcast… (and I suspect reads this blog too). My ability to be a “good guest” was based on tips I learned from Book #2 - “Get on TV” by Jacquie Jordan.. my first poolside book of the summer.. Jacquie and I worked at the same radio station many moons ago, and she was a guest on my pod cast here last April. Technically, I didn’t finish the book… it was summer book #1... I lost it somewhere along the line as I was reading the last chapter! However, I am sure at some point during spring cleaning, it will turn up.. But even though I technically didn’t finish it… I am still counting it on my 2006 tally.
The 2nd Summer Reading book was The Bob Schieffer autobiography “This Just In” … I picked it up at Dollar Tree and I was about 80 pages in when I ran out of summer. Schieffer has some very interesting anecdotes about his career.. Including how he met Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother after the assassination of JFK. He also tells about ducking bullets during riots at The University of Mississippi when black college student James Meredith attempted to break the color barrier by enrolling there. Oddly enough Meredith went on to become a Right Wing Republican and actually endorsed David Duke when he ran for President! Was David Duke at the Holocaust Revisionist Conference that they held in Iran?
Speaking of that hideous Iranian President.. What about that moronic group that calls itself the Neturei Karta.. A bunch of low lives who dress like Chasidic Jews but who are an embarrassment to Judaism and have now sunken lower on the Jewish food chain beneath the Jews for Jesus cult. Just so you understand.. There are a lot of very nice ultra Orthodox Jewish Chusids who dress up in their traditional black hat and black suit outfits. They are very fine people who are very devoted to their religious practices.. The Neturei Kartas are a bunch of morons who try to confuse people by going out in public dressed as Chusids, but in reality they are a bunch of idiots.
The NKs are anti Zionist… who don’t think it’s the Jews biblical right to be in Israel so they constantly come out in support of Israel‘s many enemies.. But to insult the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust by joining in with Holocaust deniers is beyond disgraceful.. One of these idiots…. “Rabbi” Friedman of Austria just saw all 4 of his kids tossed out of their Jewish school and those kids are now banned from attending any other Jewish schools. Some people say these Friedman kids are being picked on because of their controversial dad but the reality is they shouldn’t be in Jewish schools.. because the schools only take real Jews.. and the Nks are not real Jews.
I also picked up another good one at Dollar Tree at the tail end of last year…… “Stealing Time”.. about the AOL - Time Warner Merger.. I read about 30 pages of that one shortly after I bought it.. and hopefully it will make next year’s Books I Read column. In addition, I just bought Jim Cramer’s new book on eBay, and it looks like that is going to be the first book that I actually finish reading in 2007.
Now time for the Clip of the Week. This weekend the Grammys move from its annual weeknight slot to its new Sunday Night slot… thus avoiding a repeat of last year where it got hammered in the ratings by American Idol. As I mentioned in a prior column, I went to the Grammys in 1988... highlighted by an incredible “Man in the Mirror” performance by Michael Jackson that got so intense.. he seems to have briefly zoned out right in the middle. Here is a clip from that show! Check out the audience for younger versions of Mayor Koch and Billy Joel and somewhere there... little ol' me.
And what a week it has been… is there anything crazier than an astronaut in a love triangle? I mean I’m happy the police were able to stop this looney kazoonie before she would have killed anyone but you gotta give her credit for planning… I mean she packed diapers so she wouldn’t have to take an intermission to go pishing.. But can you imagine the amazing concentration you need to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando without stopping? In this age of chronic ADD, you gotta keep her in the space program if she can drive that long without a break! I say .. Even if she is convicted… keep sending her out on space missions.... I mean ya send her up into space in the shuttle.. she really is in custody and not “free”? What's she going to do? Run away? And if she works in the kitchen on the space station…would she be called “The Pampered Chef?”
This goes along with my long time belief that we can ease our overcrowded prisons and landfills by sending prisoners and garbage to other planets. I got a kick out of some bigshot politician in NY the other day who reacted to neighbors opposing a homeless shelter by telling a reporter…”Neighbors will always object to this type of thing.. If we put it on the Moon.. The Martians would complain”. However, it now appears that the crazy astronaut has been Anna Nicoled out of the headlines…
And how about that President Bush?… He adds to the budget to allow for more troops in Iraq yet he cuts the budget for Homeland Security. Does that mean Iraqi’s safety is more important than American safety… I guess hes gotta protect the family’s oil money.
Today for the 2nd straight year.. We present the books I read in 2006. I heard a great Sam Waterston line on Law and Order a couple of weeks ago…… The L and Os seem to be the only shows I still watch on NBC… aside from Heroes and Deal or No Deal. I only mention Deal or No Deal because there is this DOND fan website that lists this very blog as one of its “Top Bloggers”… I only tossed that reference in to get me up there in the rankings!
Anyway they had this wacky L and O episode about a reality show that led to the killing of a rapist by his victim. The episode dealt with Waterston’s prosecution of the show’s producer… In the episode the reality show was a spinoff of another show that was verrrrry similar to those Chris Hansen Dateline NBC shows where they lure child molesters into a home on the premise of meeting a young child. Anyway, Waterston convicts the producer and her network throws her under the bus by asking Waterston if he would allow the trial to be… a reality show. Waterston’s response to watching coverage of his prosecution….: “I’ll be reading a book”
As a regular reader of his fine blog, I gotta give Neil's blog credit. He constantly writes columns about the books he reads.. I recently asked him if he actually has read all those books.. And he does! Wow… I’m really not much of a book reader.. Although I do read a lot, I read a few newspapers each day and Entertainment Weekly plus a bunch of other online publications.. not to mention a lot of other blogs… but as you can see by today’s column.. The book reading .. It ain’t what it oughta be.
This past year I read 2 books and started 2 others that I‘m “still reading“… including one that I got at the tail end of 2006 during one of those trips to Dollar Tree and that irresistible dollar book bin . The first book I read was early in the year…. Podcasting for Dummies.. I bought it after numerous futile attempts to get my NWOW pod casts on Itunes. Ultimately I figured out how to do it… but not through the book which by the way is extremely informative. I finally saw the light to itunes when I bought my cell phone! As I mentioned in my Technology Schmecknology column last summer in my July 6th column… I couldn’t get my music into the mp3 player until I went back to the Cingular store and they explained that the songs only work in mp3 format.. and not as a wma… Once I figured that out… I realized that Itunes also wasn’t catching the wma format either… Once I changed ‘em to mp3, I was able to hook up my NWOW pod casts with Itunes.
Podcasting for Dummies is another book in the popular dummy series.. It is quite informative, especially for those looking to get a start in pod casting. . But with technology being updated constantly…a book like this … which was just written last year could be out of date before too long.,. However for now, it’s a good reference guide to find stuff when you run into trouble getting a podcast up and running. I thought pod casting would be more popular by now as a forum for people to do little radio shows or commentaries… Podcasting has caught on but in a different way… now people go on their My Space page and post links to the drek that they uploaded to You Tube.
As I wrote in a column a few months ago on November 24th I was a guest on another pod cast.. hosted by a guy who had heard my Mortgage Podcast… (and I suspect reads this blog too). My ability to be a “good guest” was based on tips I learned from Book #2 - “Get on TV” by Jacquie Jordan.. my first poolside book of the summer.. Jacquie and I worked at the same radio station many moons ago, and she was a guest on my pod cast here last April. Technically, I didn’t finish the book… it was summer book #1... I lost it somewhere along the line as I was reading the last chapter! However, I am sure at some point during spring cleaning, it will turn up.. But even though I technically didn’t finish it… I am still counting it on my 2006 tally.
The 2nd Summer Reading book was The Bob Schieffer autobiography “This Just In” … I picked it up at Dollar Tree and I was about 80 pages in when I ran out of summer. Schieffer has some very interesting anecdotes about his career.. Including how he met Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother after the assassination of JFK. He also tells about ducking bullets during riots at The University of Mississippi when black college student James Meredith attempted to break the color barrier by enrolling there. Oddly enough Meredith went on to become a Right Wing Republican and actually endorsed David Duke when he ran for President! Was David Duke at the Holocaust Revisionist Conference that they held in Iran?
Speaking of that hideous Iranian President.. What about that moronic group that calls itself the Neturei Karta.. A bunch of low lives who dress like Chasidic Jews but who are an embarrassment to Judaism and have now sunken lower on the Jewish food chain beneath the Jews for Jesus cult. Just so you understand.. There are a lot of very nice ultra Orthodox Jewish Chusids who dress up in their traditional black hat and black suit outfits. They are very fine people who are very devoted to their religious practices.. The Neturei Kartas are a bunch of morons who try to confuse people by going out in public dressed as Chusids, but in reality they are a bunch of idiots.
The NKs are anti Zionist… who don’t think it’s the Jews biblical right to be in Israel so they constantly come out in support of Israel‘s many enemies.. But to insult the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust by joining in with Holocaust deniers is beyond disgraceful.. One of these idiots…. “Rabbi” Friedman of Austria just saw all 4 of his kids tossed out of their Jewish school and those kids are now banned from attending any other Jewish schools. Some people say these Friedman kids are being picked on because of their controversial dad but the reality is they shouldn’t be in Jewish schools.. because the schools only take real Jews.. and the Nks are not real Jews.
I also picked up another good one at Dollar Tree at the tail end of last year…… “Stealing Time”.. about the AOL - Time Warner Merger.. I read about 30 pages of that one shortly after I bought it.. and hopefully it will make next year’s Books I Read column. In addition, I just bought Jim Cramer’s new book on eBay, and it looks like that is going to be the first book that I actually finish reading in 2007.
Now time for the Clip of the Week. This weekend the Grammys move from its annual weeknight slot to its new Sunday Night slot… thus avoiding a repeat of last year where it got hammered in the ratings by American Idol. As I mentioned in a prior column, I went to the Grammys in 1988... highlighted by an incredible “Man in the Mirror” performance by Michael Jackson that got so intense.. he seems to have briefly zoned out right in the middle. Here is a clip from that show! Check out the audience for younger versions of Mayor Koch and Billy Joel and somewhere there... little ol' me.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Culture Week Part 1 - Can You Hear the Drums Fernando?
This week on the blog we celebrate Culture Week.. An expansion of last years oh so popular Literacy Week. I was all set to write what will now be the next column… but then Sunday night, Trophy Wife and I took a trip to the theeee ater… hence the change from Literacy Week to Culture Week.
And what a week it has been… The Super Bowl is coming up this wknd.. And The Amazing Pumpstradamus picks the Bears to win 42-7. Sayeth the Pump: “3 week old Baby Pumpstradamus has a lot of little Bears.. And Nate has 2 and 7 in the Super Bowl pool!”. Speaking of the Big Game.. my submission for best Super Bowl ad contest was summarily rejected. To coincide with the much ballyhooed release of Vista… I came up with a Microsoft ad based on the popular Apple ads featuring a young hip guy who introduces himself as “I’m a Mac” and a stodgier square geeky guy who announces “And I’m a PC”…. except in my version the PC guy announces… “You may be the young hip guy.. But more young girls use me… a PC… to flash their boobies on their web cams than little Ipod boy over here.….”
How ironic that the week the Colts go to The Super Bowl coincides with all the attention on the tragic death of the horsey Barbaro.. At first when he was injured people initially thought it just might be a temporary setback and he would be back for Belmont. Then as we heard the severity of his condition, the hope was that he could be retired to stud and live a happy life.. Then as his leg condition worsened… the hope was for a life without pain… Now.. Its off to the glue factory….where he can be used as billboard glue so Adult Swim can just paste billboards for their new cartoon show instead of scaring the living daylights out of our friends in Boston who spent Wednesday waiting for Paul Revere to announce that The British Are Coming!! . OMIGOSH Nate!!! How can you say such a horrible thing about the beautiful, majestic and incredibly brave Barbaro… and the city of Boston? Actually, I question the media obsession with the horse. Why were there were more microphones at the Barbaro death press conference than at the daily press briefing updating the horrible Holocaust going on in Darfur? The horse was brave… how about these people who are being executed on a daily basis?
As for Culture Week… last Hannukah, Trophy Wife got me an awesome gift - Tickets to see Mamma Mia on Broadway. I gotta tell you… I hate musicals…. But I love Abba.. So this was the ultimate test to see if my love of Abba.. (My childhood was Abba and game shows.) would outweigh my distaste for musicals. The last time I went to see a musical was actually in the late 80s when as a student at Montclair State, a theater class required that I see a Broadway Musical, and write a paper about it. I was not very happy about this assignment.
So one Sunday, my buddy Harmon and I went to The City to one of those TKTS booths to buy tickets to “Oh Calcutta” since I heard there was nudity. Much to our chagrin… the show was sold out. However I later saw it on video.. and frankly I can never look at Bill Macy (from Maude) or hear the Lone Ranger Theme/William Tell Overture the same way after that experience. People who have seen the show will appreciate that comment!
Since we couldn’t get Calcutta tickets we decided to go for Plan B. Peter Marshall was appearing in a musical called “La Cage Aux Folles” and not having a clue what it was about.. we got tickets. I remember it had been a movie several years before that had an incredibly long run. We got the tix and headed to the Palace Theater… The show was actually pretty good although I was a little surprised by the whole plot involving transvestites and gays.. From what I recall, a young guy is getting married and tries to hide his gay parents from his fiance’s hoity toity parents. After the show,. we strolled over to Rockefeller Center… We used to know this guy named Wild Bill Grundfest who emceed at the Comedy Cellar and did a weekend call in show on the old 66 WNBC. Harmon and I went up there and talked about our big trip to Broadway and then a lot of people started calling in. I didn’t realize till much later that the callers were all male and extremely friendly.
So last weekend, it was off to the Winter Garden Theater to see a Sunday Night 7pm show.. a good time to catch a show since you can drive in and find free parking within a few blocks from the theater! Usually at a musical I would think.. Ok skip the songs and just tell me the story.. But in this case I was ready to say Just skip the storyline and get to the Abba songs.. However the story was kind of catchy. Its about a young girl who is getting married.. Not to the guy from La Cage… and the young girl wants her dad to give her away. The problem is she doesn’t know who her father is… and since her mom had 3 little affairs 9 months before her birth she decides to send wedding invitations to all 3 so she can figure out who’s her daddy and he can give her away at the wedding. This should be mandatory viewing for all those teenagers that appear on The Maury Povich Show so they can see the ramifications for their babies 20+ years down the road.
The girl lives on an exotic Greek Island with her mom who has really carved out quite a life for herself by running a nice little hotel. The bulk of the show takes place the day before and the day of the wedding, and the Three’s Company/My Two Dads (little known pre Mad About You sitcom with Paul Reiser) hilarity that ensues.
The music is - Abba! And I loved every second of it. Right off the bat they get into a fantastic rendition of “Money Money”… involving a song and dance number involving extras who sit quietly at the rather sparse hotel set one second and then moments later start dancing it up with the rest of the cast. One extra in particular is a little old lady who just sits there quietly knitting.. and then starts dancing like a mad-woman. With her makeup.. She actually bears an uncanny resemblance to my mom’s 70-something cousin. There is also the wedding scene near the end where the Minister who is hired to perform the wedding looked exactly like my buddy Memo, but not his identical twin brother. It was so uncanny it was almost hard to concentrate on the show for a few minutes.
All the Abba songs are there except for Fernando which I guess in retrospect isn’t really as upbeat and peppy as the other Abba work. The actress who plays the young girl is ok.. David McDonald who plays one of the dads is exceptional, and the other 2 dads are pretty good too… But the women playing her mom and her sisters are excellent! Carolee Carmello who plays the mother Donna has a set of pipes and really belts out the tunes… believe me… coming from a person who has been an Abba fan for 30 years.. that is a lot to live up to! And her sister Tanya played by Judy McLane - homina homina homina… Now that I’m married I don’t use this word anymore.. but lets just say… its what my dyslexic friend would call a FLIM! There is one scene where she is wearing this gown with thigh high slits and every guy in the theater appeared to be drooling! Britney Spears could learn a lesson here on how to act lady like with such an outfit. McLane also has a great voice and actually after the show is over and the stars take their bows.. the 3 sisters come out dressed as ABBA and along with the rest of the cast belt out an “impromptu” ABBA concert featuring a few of their most popular songs.
Incidentally, the theater runs a slick little operation selling cds, programs, and dvds… I bought one of the cd’s from the original cast recordings, and it amazes me that it costs more than what I paid for all of my other ABBA music combined!
The show is really awesome especially for ABBA fans.. Trophy Wife also had a blast… So on a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… wait a minute.. You cant leave in the middle of a show.. OK.. On a scale of 1 to 4 Fernandos… Mamma Mia gets 4 Fernandos! It would have been 3 and a half but the little concert after the show put it over the top.
Now time for the clip of the week…
Peter Marshall wasn’t the only game show host to do La Cage. The legend himself Gene Rayburn did the show in Bucks County, PA during my radio days in the early 90s. I couldn’t get out there to see the show.. So here instead is a radio interview I did with a local theater critic the day after he saw Gene on Opening Night! Here’s that chat from the archives… from September 26, 1991.
By the way….in 2004.… many years after seeing La Cage, Trophy Wife and I went on our honeymoon cruise, and along with a few other people participated in these goofy little nightly trivia contests where you had to answer 20 questions on a sheet of paper and whichever team correctly answered the most questions would win a little tchotchke. Well on this particular night.. It was Name That Tune… for Broadway Musicals! I was doomed… if they didn’t have stuff from The Sound of Music.. It was gonna be a long night. Luckily, one of our teammates was an aspiring actress who knew every single musical ever created… it was Marvin Hamlisch with breasts! The 1st 19 questions… she had the answer in a second! Then came question 20... And she had the blankest look on her face… Y’know isn’t that a famous song. I thought… . I knew the words were….”Those were the days”…but the actress had no clue where the song was from. Using my powers of deduction… like Columbo I managed to solve the mystery with one simple question… “Uh… have you ever seen La Cage Aux Folles?”
And after she replied “No” to my question.. I promptly jotted down “The Best of Times” from “La Cage Aux Folles” and we won 20-19.
And what a week it has been… The Super Bowl is coming up this wknd.. And The Amazing Pumpstradamus picks the Bears to win 42-7. Sayeth the Pump: “3 week old Baby Pumpstradamus has a lot of little Bears.. And Nate has 2 and 7 in the Super Bowl pool!”. Speaking of the Big Game.. my submission for best Super Bowl ad contest was summarily rejected. To coincide with the much ballyhooed release of Vista… I came up with a Microsoft ad based on the popular Apple ads featuring a young hip guy who introduces himself as “I’m a Mac” and a stodgier square geeky guy who announces “And I’m a PC”…. except in my version the PC guy announces… “You may be the young hip guy.. But more young girls use me… a PC… to flash their boobies on their web cams than little Ipod boy over here.….”
How ironic that the week the Colts go to The Super Bowl coincides with all the attention on the tragic death of the horsey Barbaro.. At first when he was injured people initially thought it just might be a temporary setback and he would be back for Belmont. Then as we heard the severity of his condition, the hope was that he could be retired to stud and live a happy life.. Then as his leg condition worsened… the hope was for a life without pain… Now.. Its off to the glue factory….where he can be used as billboard glue so Adult Swim can just paste billboards for their new cartoon show instead of scaring the living daylights out of our friends in Boston who spent Wednesday waiting for Paul Revere to announce that The British Are Coming!! . OMIGOSH Nate!!! How can you say such a horrible thing about the beautiful, majestic and incredibly brave Barbaro… and the city of Boston? Actually, I question the media obsession with the horse. Why were there were more microphones at the Barbaro death press conference than at the daily press briefing updating the horrible Holocaust going on in Darfur? The horse was brave… how about these people who are being executed on a daily basis?
As for Culture Week… last Hannukah, Trophy Wife got me an awesome gift - Tickets to see Mamma Mia on Broadway. I gotta tell you… I hate musicals…. But I love Abba.. So this was the ultimate test to see if my love of Abba.. (My childhood was Abba and game shows.) would outweigh my distaste for musicals. The last time I went to see a musical was actually in the late 80s when as a student at Montclair State, a theater class required that I see a Broadway Musical, and write a paper about it. I was not very happy about this assignment.
So one Sunday, my buddy Harmon and I went to The City to one of those TKTS booths to buy tickets to “Oh Calcutta” since I heard there was nudity. Much to our chagrin… the show was sold out. However I later saw it on video.. and frankly I can never look at Bill Macy (from Maude) or hear the Lone Ranger Theme/William Tell Overture the same way after that experience. People who have seen the show will appreciate that comment!
Since we couldn’t get Calcutta tickets we decided to go for Plan B. Peter Marshall was appearing in a musical called “La Cage Aux Folles” and not having a clue what it was about.. we got tickets. I remember it had been a movie several years before that had an incredibly long run. We got the tix and headed to the Palace Theater… The show was actually pretty good although I was a little surprised by the whole plot involving transvestites and gays.. From what I recall, a young guy is getting married and tries to hide his gay parents from his fiance’s hoity toity parents. After the show,. we strolled over to Rockefeller Center… We used to know this guy named Wild Bill Grundfest who emceed at the Comedy Cellar and did a weekend call in show on the old 66 WNBC. Harmon and I went up there and talked about our big trip to Broadway and then a lot of people started calling in. I didn’t realize till much later that the callers were all male and extremely friendly.
So last weekend, it was off to the Winter Garden Theater to see a Sunday Night 7pm show.. a good time to catch a show since you can drive in and find free parking within a few blocks from the theater! Usually at a musical I would think.. Ok skip the songs and just tell me the story.. But in this case I was ready to say Just skip the storyline and get to the Abba songs.. However the story was kind of catchy. Its about a young girl who is getting married.. Not to the guy from La Cage… and the young girl wants her dad to give her away. The problem is she doesn’t know who her father is… and since her mom had 3 little affairs 9 months before her birth she decides to send wedding invitations to all 3 so she can figure out who’s her daddy and he can give her away at the wedding. This should be mandatory viewing for all those teenagers that appear on The Maury Povich Show so they can see the ramifications for their babies 20+ years down the road.
The girl lives on an exotic Greek Island with her mom who has really carved out quite a life for herself by running a nice little hotel. The bulk of the show takes place the day before and the day of the wedding, and the Three’s Company/My Two Dads (little known pre Mad About You sitcom with Paul Reiser) hilarity that ensues.
The music is - Abba! And I loved every second of it. Right off the bat they get into a fantastic rendition of “Money Money”… involving a song and dance number involving extras who sit quietly at the rather sparse hotel set one second and then moments later start dancing it up with the rest of the cast. One extra in particular is a little old lady who just sits there quietly knitting.. and then starts dancing like a mad-woman. With her makeup.. She actually bears an uncanny resemblance to my mom’s 70-something cousin. There is also the wedding scene near the end where the Minister who is hired to perform the wedding looked exactly like my buddy Memo, but not his identical twin brother. It was so uncanny it was almost hard to concentrate on the show for a few minutes.
All the Abba songs are there except for Fernando which I guess in retrospect isn’t really as upbeat and peppy as the other Abba work. The actress who plays the young girl is ok.. David McDonald who plays one of the dads is exceptional, and the other 2 dads are pretty good too… But the women playing her mom and her sisters are excellent! Carolee Carmello who plays the mother Donna has a set of pipes and really belts out the tunes… believe me… coming from a person who has been an Abba fan for 30 years.. that is a lot to live up to! And her sister Tanya played by Judy McLane - homina homina homina… Now that I’m married I don’t use this word anymore.. but lets just say… its what my dyslexic friend would call a FLIM! There is one scene where she is wearing this gown with thigh high slits and every guy in the theater appeared to be drooling! Britney Spears could learn a lesson here on how to act lady like with such an outfit. McLane also has a great voice and actually after the show is over and the stars take their bows.. the 3 sisters come out dressed as ABBA and along with the rest of the cast belt out an “impromptu” ABBA concert featuring a few of their most popular songs.
Incidentally, the theater runs a slick little operation selling cds, programs, and dvds… I bought one of the cd’s from the original cast recordings, and it amazes me that it costs more than what I paid for all of my other ABBA music combined!
The show is really awesome especially for ABBA fans.. Trophy Wife also had a blast… So on a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… wait a minute.. You cant leave in the middle of a show.. OK.. On a scale of 1 to 4 Fernandos… Mamma Mia gets 4 Fernandos! It would have been 3 and a half but the little concert after the show put it over the top.
Now time for the clip of the week…
Peter Marshall wasn’t the only game show host to do La Cage. The legend himself Gene Rayburn did the show in Bucks County, PA during my radio days in the early 90s. I couldn’t get out there to see the show.. So here instead is a radio interview I did with a local theater critic the day after he saw Gene on Opening Night! Here’s that chat from the archives… from September 26, 1991.
By the way….in 2004.… many years after seeing La Cage, Trophy Wife and I went on our honeymoon cruise, and along with a few other people participated in these goofy little nightly trivia contests where you had to answer 20 questions on a sheet of paper and whichever team correctly answered the most questions would win a little tchotchke. Well on this particular night.. It was Name That Tune… for Broadway Musicals! I was doomed… if they didn’t have stuff from The Sound of Music.. It was gonna be a long night. Luckily, one of our teammates was an aspiring actress who knew every single musical ever created… it was Marvin Hamlisch with breasts! The 1st 19 questions… she had the answer in a second! Then came question 20... And she had the blankest look on her face… Y’know isn’t that a famous song. I thought… . I knew the words were….”Those were the days”…but the actress had no clue where the song was from. Using my powers of deduction… like Columbo I managed to solve the mystery with one simple question… “Uh… have you ever seen La Cage Aux Folles?”
And after she replied “No” to my question.. I promptly jotted down “The Best of Times” from “La Cage Aux Folles” and we won 20-19.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Top 14 Game Show Hosts of All Time
Last month GSN celebrated its 12th birthday.. And as it approaches its Bar Mitzvah.. it continues to try to find its identity.. For the last year or so, it has distanced itself from reality shows and gone back to its original format of the good ol’ game shows…. The network has also started to air “documentaries” E/VH1 style.. covering topics such as Match Game.. Chuck Barris.. and the guy who “cheated” on Press Your Luck by figuring out the pattern on the electronic board so he would avoid the dreaded Whammy. Recently as part of their Sunday Night documentary series, GSN ran a special about its list of the Top 10 Game Show Hosts of All Time.. However, as you can see by my Top 14 List.. the GSN special may have been a bit of a clunker, Their List, while not as exciting as the one on the 24-beating-Heroes.. goes as follows:
1. Bob Barker; 2. Gene Rayburn; 3. Alex Trebek; 4. Monty Hall; 5. Richard Dawson; 6. Regis; 7. Bill Cullen; 8. Chuck Woolery; 9.Pat Sajak; 10. Bob Eubanks.
However, my Top 14 is not just 4 names pasted on to the bottom of their Top 10 list although that would have been a lot easier to write. When all was said and done, I totally dropped 1 host and kept 2 others on the list although I label them as list “bottom feeders“ . I agreed with 4 of their picks.. I guess that’s not that bad,.. But the rest of their rankings are pretty far out in left field.. just like Cliff Floyd in Wrigley Field…. Also feel free to check out the archives from last February to see my list of the Top 14 Game Shows. Here we go with my Hosts list.
THE HOST WHO SHOULDN’T BE ON THE GSN LIST - Regis - Yeah, his hosting of Millionaire boosted it to No. 8 on last February’s Top 14 Game Show list.. but as you will see by the other hosts who inhabit my list, they have almost all accumulated a large body of work as a host. Aside from a few forgettable clunkers in the 70s.. Reege really only hosted this program. Granted the show was a ratings phenomenon that has since disappeared from the network airwaves, but it still lives on in syndication with Meredith Viera and has inspired 1 vs. 100 which has players competing against other contestants as they climb up the money ladder. I predict.. And remember that a year ago I predicted Dave Price would host The Price is Right… I predict that with some fine tuning, 1 vs. 100 actually has the potential to become more successful than Millionaire.
HONORABLE MENTION Here is my disclaimer.. Due to my “youth“, my memory goes only as far back as the mid 70s… so a lot of hosts in the early days of TV get short shrift on my list although 3 slots on this list go to hosts from “The Early Days” whose careers went beyond the 50s and 60s.. Groucho Marx was a legend and his You Bet Your Life deserves an honorable mention. I should put him at No. 14, but my pick there is a person who has made the top of everyone else’s list but just barely makes mine due to the fact that I didn’t like his show.
Bottom Feeder 1 - #14 - Monty Hall - A nice Jewish boy from Canada.. Why was this show so popular? People got dressed in stupid costumes for the show that popularized the term “Do you want what is behind Curtain No. 1?”. Oddly enough Deal or No Deal is sorta like LMAD because we find contestants swept up in the heat of the moment and egged on by a host and a wacky studio audience to make dopey odds defying choices… Maybe that is why DoND is such a hit,.. because the players on that show don’t understand statistics and take risks that really are stupid gambles. Chuck Woolery also used to tempt Greed contestants with a little cash if they would “quit while they were ahead” in that odd game.. but he wasn’t quite the salesman like Monty.
Bottom Feeder 2 - #13 - Pat Sajak - Why is this show So Popular Part II?? I don’t get it.. It’s just Hangman… yet the show continues to bring in huge ratings.. It airs in most markets right after Jeopardy, even though it doesn’t appear that any Jeopardy fans actually watch WOF. You gotta give Sajak credit for longevity.. He took over the original NBC version of the show after Chuck Woolery left in the early 80s. Back in the day when there were network game shows, other hosts unsuccessfully tried to host the now defunct network version such as Bob Goen and former NFL player Rolf Bernirschke, but nobody has achieved the popularity and longevity of Sajak.
12. Jim Lange - All those dating shows owe a debt of gratitude to The Dating Game and although a lot of people credit Chuck Barris for its success.. Lange deserves some credit for presiding over the festivities with such a straight face.. just like Sajak deserves credit for WOF’s long run. Unlike Sajak, Lange also hosted a few other shows over the years such as Name That Tune and Million Dollar Chance of a Lifetime.. But it was his presiding over the sparks that ignited many a love affair that gets him on the list at No. 12.
11- Peter Tomarken - Press Your Luck seemed like a complicated show to host since it moved so fast.. but Tomarken was able to keep the pace moving and the excitement level quite high.. Was anything more nerve wracking than avoiding a whammy on a passed spin?. When a contestant would land on a “prize”, Tomarken would need to quickly announce the players prize money total to keep up the pace and excitement…. Back in the old days on WOF, Sajak and Woolery also quickly calculated balances when contestants used to pick out prizes after they would win a round.. I liked The Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin goes on the old WOF to pick his prizes…..… "Uh… can I have the guy whose face is in the circle?"
10 Bob Eubanks - Like Lange, he hosted a legendary show in the Barris Empire.. plus added quite a few others to his resume such as Card Sharks. His hosting of The Newlywed Game spanned so many generations that the younger set knows him from the infamous “In the Butt Bob” episode.. an incident that took place so long ago in a more “innocent” time that at the time Eubanks didn’t even realize what the contestant was talking about.
9. Richard Dawson - Mainly known for Family Feud, he did a few shows before that such as Masquerade Party… Ol’ Dickie Dawson rode his post Hogan’s Heroes Match Game run into his own show when they decided to spin off a show out of the Audience Match. Dawson ended up with a lengthy career kissing hot babes.. and old ladies too. He also was notorious for having a huge ego and ticked a lot of people off during his later years as a Match Game regular. In 1987 he displayed some incredible acting talents when he played Damon Killian in “The Running Man”… the greatest acting performance ever by a game show host or possibly anyone for that matter! Dawson returned to The Feud in 1994 after the late Ray Combs wrapped up his hosting stint.. But this version of Dawson was not the wild kisser from the 70s and 80s.. but instead was much older and spent a lot of time chatting about his young daughter whose mom had been a contestant on the original FF!
8. Chuck Woolery - Survived his Wally Pipp esque run on WOF by hosting among others Love Connection, Greed, 2 NBC versions of Scrabble and GSN’s apparent sole hit - Lingo. He also tried hosting a talk show which bombed like Sajaks. Woolery is now 65 and trademarked his “2 and 2” throw to a commercial break that would last 2 minutes and 2 seconds. Good thing he trademarked that phrase before the pornographers got a hold of it!
7. Bill Cullen - Now we get to the real legends…Cullen was a relic from the good ol’ days.. He is one of three hosts on this list who held court during that era of the 50s 60s and 70s,…Since I can only remember back to the mid 70s, Cullen gets a spot even though I only witnessed the tail end of his career. Back then, it seemed like networks would create a game show concept, and then hire Bill Cullen or a Bill Cullen wannabe as a host.. He hosted the original Price is Right in the 60s which had an interesting multi round bidding format that actually is better than the one used on the Barker version. Cullen also had a leg problem that caused him to limp so producers would shoot the programs in such a way so Cullen would never have to walk on camera..
6. Dick Clark -Its absolutely incredible, but 3 of my top 6 were left off the GSN list!. Like Tomarken, America’s Oldest Teenager gets points for being smooooth, presiding over The Pyramid during its lengthy run. He also knew how to build the excitement as contestants went to the winners circle and had to climb the Pyramid while those loud nerve wracking seconds ticked off… His presence was greatly missed when remakes with John Davidson and Donny Osmond fell short of the quality that Dick brought to the show. Its too bad that some of the very young whippersnappers only know Clark from his post stroke appearances on ABC’s New Years Eve show since he was one of the best hosts to grace a stage.
5. Allen Ludden - Graphite - Pencil! Aristophanes - Ridiculous! Mr. Betty White cracks the list for the same reason as Cullen… Ludden presided over Password and was a legend from back in the early days of game shows stretching into the late 70s and early 80s. He was excellent as the host of PW… a show that nobody has remade in some 20 something years for some bizarre reason.. Fans of Diner will also recall he hosted a Jeopardy like show called GE College Bowl. Ludden is another host who was inexplicably left off the GSN list. In 2001 TV Guide named him the Best Game Show Host of All Time.. At least that’s what Wikipedia says and as far as I know, Microsoft didn’t hire anyone to verify that story.
4. Alex Trebek - Not only for his excellent long run on Jeopardy.. but he had a whole career before that as a big mustached bushy haired host of shows from the 70s and 80s such as High Rollers, Battlestars, Classic Concentration and To Tell The Truth. At one point, Trebek hosted 3 different shows at the same time that aired back to back. He could have just gotten up at the end of one show and strolled over to the set for the next show. Younger fans who have never seen the other shows might find him a bit arrogant as the Jeopardy host with his oh so proper pronunciations, but thanks to You Tube, you can see that he was once an ordinary Joe as evidenced by the other less snooty shows he used to host.
3. Peter Marshall - I don’t know what GSN was thinking.. but its inexcusable that he wasn’t on the list… he was the anti-Trebek and was never afraid to mispronounce something as you can see from this clip. After the amusing Paul Lynde wisecrack… check out the 2nd question he asks Wally Cox..
Marshall played the straight man to his panel, and kept the show running for 17 years filled with wacky wisecracks and contestants who forgot how to play Tic Tac Toe. If a player looking for a block or a win picked the wrong square.. Marshall would kindly point out.. “Well I would have picked George Gobel… but this might work out for you“…..Marshall maintained control over some truly hysterical panelists and big names… The remakes hosted by John Davidson and Tom Bergeron didn’t quite get the quality panelists like the original and even though both of those hosts did admirable jobs in their versions.. neither Davidson nor Bergeron were anywhere near as good at the job as Marshall. After HS, he actually hosted some other shows such as All Star Blitz.. and Yahtzee which I recently saw on You Tube, and definitely wasn’t one of Peter‘s finest shows.
2. Gene Rayburn - Hosted the best show ever.. it ran about 9 years.. and Gene took a little bit of Marshall with him by playing straight man to his panelists… Gene was in a tough spot because producers wanted a “serious” show... but Gene admitted in many interviews that the format was weak and needed wisenheimers like Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly to liven things up. After taking a month of so to find its footing, the show took off and maintained an incredible pace for about 9 years. Subsequent remakes without Gene weren’t as good.. . The panelists were lacking.. But those shows also lacked a ringmaster to keep things under.. or out of control. Even though he did a great job.. Gene finishes a very distant 2nd to the obviously unanimous number one choice!
1. Bob Barker - The Legend..
He is Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky and Johnny Carson rolled into one! 50 years on daily Television.. 35 on The Price is Right.. The ONLY network daytime game show.. And he did the ol' Hoochie McScoochie with Dian Parkinson! Barker’s popularity spans the little old ladies who are younger than him all the way to the hot looking college girls that the lingering camera sometimes catch Bob checking out.
Most incredibly he is the host of THE ONLY network game show.. The last time a network aired a game show other than TPIR was in the early 1990s… And these daytime audiences are an odd bunch who are absolute creatures of habit based on the lack of changes in daytime network schedules.… Despite its aging audience being replaced by young mommies.. nothing ever changes on the network daytime lineups! Now its only soap operas and one game show.. And with NBC canceling Passions… only one current daytime show has premiered since The Young and the Restless came on the air in the early 1970s! (The Bold and the Beautiful) Suffice it to say.. The daytime audience is a tough nut to crack and Barker has turned a fun little game into a huge million dollar industry. Dave Price or whoever replaces him has huge shoes to fill… but hey.. If Jay Leno still gets ratings 15 years after replacing Johnny Carson.. I guess anything is possible!
And even though Bob is signing off later this year… he could still be a big moneymaker… hes made a ton o’ cash for CBS over the years. If GSN can somehow secure the rerun rights to the old TPIR episodes.. which they haven’t been allowed to show for several years… it could be a ratings bonanza after Bob signs off later this year….
Now time for the Clip of the Week.. Tom Kennedy is a likeable fellow, but did not make the list.. But this clip from Password Plus shows how hard it was for Kennedy while he was filling in for Allen Ludden. Keep an eye out as Dick Martin tries to get a little sneaky with his clues, and how Tom has no control over the show. Also quite amusing is the poor woman who doesn’t know the word that Betty White gives as a clue!
1. Bob Barker; 2. Gene Rayburn; 3. Alex Trebek; 4. Monty Hall; 5. Richard Dawson; 6. Regis; 7. Bill Cullen; 8. Chuck Woolery; 9.Pat Sajak; 10. Bob Eubanks.
However, my Top 14 is not just 4 names pasted on to the bottom of their Top 10 list although that would have been a lot easier to write. When all was said and done, I totally dropped 1 host and kept 2 others on the list although I label them as list “bottom feeders“ . I agreed with 4 of their picks.. I guess that’s not that bad,.. But the rest of their rankings are pretty far out in left field.. just like Cliff Floyd in Wrigley Field…. Also feel free to check out the archives from last February to see my list of the Top 14 Game Shows. Here we go with my Hosts list.
THE HOST WHO SHOULDN’T BE ON THE GSN LIST - Regis - Yeah, his hosting of Millionaire boosted it to No. 8 on last February’s Top 14 Game Show list.. but as you will see by the other hosts who inhabit my list, they have almost all accumulated a large body of work as a host. Aside from a few forgettable clunkers in the 70s.. Reege really only hosted this program. Granted the show was a ratings phenomenon that has since disappeared from the network airwaves, but it still lives on in syndication with Meredith Viera and has inspired 1 vs. 100 which has players competing against other contestants as they climb up the money ladder. I predict.. And remember that a year ago I predicted Dave Price would host The Price is Right… I predict that with some fine tuning, 1 vs. 100 actually has the potential to become more successful than Millionaire.
HONORABLE MENTION Here is my disclaimer.. Due to my “youth“, my memory goes only as far back as the mid 70s… so a lot of hosts in the early days of TV get short shrift on my list although 3 slots on this list go to hosts from “The Early Days” whose careers went beyond the 50s and 60s.. Groucho Marx was a legend and his You Bet Your Life deserves an honorable mention. I should put him at No. 14, but my pick there is a person who has made the top of everyone else’s list but just barely makes mine due to the fact that I didn’t like his show.
Bottom Feeder 1 - #14 - Monty Hall - A nice Jewish boy from Canada.. Why was this show so popular? People got dressed in stupid costumes for the show that popularized the term “Do you want what is behind Curtain No. 1?”. Oddly enough Deal or No Deal is sorta like LMAD because we find contestants swept up in the heat of the moment and egged on by a host and a wacky studio audience to make dopey odds defying choices… Maybe that is why DoND is such a hit,.. because the players on that show don’t understand statistics and take risks that really are stupid gambles. Chuck Woolery also used to tempt Greed contestants with a little cash if they would “quit while they were ahead” in that odd game.. but he wasn’t quite the salesman like Monty.
Bottom Feeder 2 - #13 - Pat Sajak - Why is this show So Popular Part II?? I don’t get it.. It’s just Hangman… yet the show continues to bring in huge ratings.. It airs in most markets right after Jeopardy, even though it doesn’t appear that any Jeopardy fans actually watch WOF. You gotta give Sajak credit for longevity.. He took over the original NBC version of the show after Chuck Woolery left in the early 80s. Back in the day when there were network game shows, other hosts unsuccessfully tried to host the now defunct network version such as Bob Goen and former NFL player Rolf Bernirschke, but nobody has achieved the popularity and longevity of Sajak.
12. Jim Lange - All those dating shows owe a debt of gratitude to The Dating Game and although a lot of people credit Chuck Barris for its success.. Lange deserves some credit for presiding over the festivities with such a straight face.. just like Sajak deserves credit for WOF’s long run. Unlike Sajak, Lange also hosted a few other shows over the years such as Name That Tune and Million Dollar Chance of a Lifetime.. But it was his presiding over the sparks that ignited many a love affair that gets him on the list at No. 12.
11- Peter Tomarken - Press Your Luck seemed like a complicated show to host since it moved so fast.. but Tomarken was able to keep the pace moving and the excitement level quite high.. Was anything more nerve wracking than avoiding a whammy on a passed spin?. When a contestant would land on a “prize”, Tomarken would need to quickly announce the players prize money total to keep up the pace and excitement…. Back in the old days on WOF, Sajak and Woolery also quickly calculated balances when contestants used to pick out prizes after they would win a round.. I liked The Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin goes on the old WOF to pick his prizes…..… "Uh… can I have the guy whose face is in the circle?"
10 Bob Eubanks - Like Lange, he hosted a legendary show in the Barris Empire.. plus added quite a few others to his resume such as Card Sharks. His hosting of The Newlywed Game spanned so many generations that the younger set knows him from the infamous “In the Butt Bob” episode.. an incident that took place so long ago in a more “innocent” time that at the time Eubanks didn’t even realize what the contestant was talking about.
9. Richard Dawson - Mainly known for Family Feud, he did a few shows before that such as Masquerade Party… Ol’ Dickie Dawson rode his post Hogan’s Heroes Match Game run into his own show when they decided to spin off a show out of the Audience Match. Dawson ended up with a lengthy career kissing hot babes.. and old ladies too. He also was notorious for having a huge ego and ticked a lot of people off during his later years as a Match Game regular. In 1987 he displayed some incredible acting talents when he played Damon Killian in “The Running Man”… the greatest acting performance ever by a game show host or possibly anyone for that matter! Dawson returned to The Feud in 1994 after the late Ray Combs wrapped up his hosting stint.. But this version of Dawson was not the wild kisser from the 70s and 80s.. but instead was much older and spent a lot of time chatting about his young daughter whose mom had been a contestant on the original FF!
8. Chuck Woolery - Survived his Wally Pipp esque run on WOF by hosting among others Love Connection, Greed, 2 NBC versions of Scrabble and GSN’s apparent sole hit - Lingo. He also tried hosting a talk show which bombed like Sajaks. Woolery is now 65 and trademarked his “2 and 2” throw to a commercial break that would last 2 minutes and 2 seconds. Good thing he trademarked that phrase before the pornographers got a hold of it!
7. Bill Cullen - Now we get to the real legends…Cullen was a relic from the good ol’ days.. He is one of three hosts on this list who held court during that era of the 50s 60s and 70s,…Since I can only remember back to the mid 70s, Cullen gets a spot even though I only witnessed the tail end of his career. Back then, it seemed like networks would create a game show concept, and then hire Bill Cullen or a Bill Cullen wannabe as a host.. He hosted the original Price is Right in the 60s which had an interesting multi round bidding format that actually is better than the one used on the Barker version. Cullen also had a leg problem that caused him to limp so producers would shoot the programs in such a way so Cullen would never have to walk on camera..
6. Dick Clark -Its absolutely incredible, but 3 of my top 6 were left off the GSN list!. Like Tomarken, America’s Oldest Teenager gets points for being smooooth, presiding over The Pyramid during its lengthy run. He also knew how to build the excitement as contestants went to the winners circle and had to climb the Pyramid while those loud nerve wracking seconds ticked off… His presence was greatly missed when remakes with John Davidson and Donny Osmond fell short of the quality that Dick brought to the show. Its too bad that some of the very young whippersnappers only know Clark from his post stroke appearances on ABC’s New Years Eve show since he was one of the best hosts to grace a stage.
5. Allen Ludden - Graphite - Pencil! Aristophanes - Ridiculous! Mr. Betty White cracks the list for the same reason as Cullen… Ludden presided over Password and was a legend from back in the early days of game shows stretching into the late 70s and early 80s. He was excellent as the host of PW… a show that nobody has remade in some 20 something years for some bizarre reason.. Fans of Diner will also recall he hosted a Jeopardy like show called GE College Bowl. Ludden is another host who was inexplicably left off the GSN list. In 2001 TV Guide named him the Best Game Show Host of All Time.. At least that’s what Wikipedia says and as far as I know, Microsoft didn’t hire anyone to verify that story.
4. Alex Trebek - Not only for his excellent long run on Jeopardy.. but he had a whole career before that as a big mustached bushy haired host of shows from the 70s and 80s such as High Rollers, Battlestars, Classic Concentration and To Tell The Truth. At one point, Trebek hosted 3 different shows at the same time that aired back to back. He could have just gotten up at the end of one show and strolled over to the set for the next show. Younger fans who have never seen the other shows might find him a bit arrogant as the Jeopardy host with his oh so proper pronunciations, but thanks to You Tube, you can see that he was once an ordinary Joe as evidenced by the other less snooty shows he used to host.
3. Peter Marshall - I don’t know what GSN was thinking.. but its inexcusable that he wasn’t on the list… he was the anti-Trebek and was never afraid to mispronounce something as you can see from this clip. After the amusing Paul Lynde wisecrack… check out the 2nd question he asks Wally Cox..
Marshall played the straight man to his panel, and kept the show running for 17 years filled with wacky wisecracks and contestants who forgot how to play Tic Tac Toe. If a player looking for a block or a win picked the wrong square.. Marshall would kindly point out.. “Well I would have picked George Gobel… but this might work out for you“…..Marshall maintained control over some truly hysterical panelists and big names… The remakes hosted by John Davidson and Tom Bergeron didn’t quite get the quality panelists like the original and even though both of those hosts did admirable jobs in their versions.. neither Davidson nor Bergeron were anywhere near as good at the job as Marshall. After HS, he actually hosted some other shows such as All Star Blitz.. and Yahtzee which I recently saw on You Tube, and definitely wasn’t one of Peter‘s finest shows.
2. Gene Rayburn - Hosted the best show ever.. it ran about 9 years.. and Gene took a little bit of Marshall with him by playing straight man to his panelists… Gene was in a tough spot because producers wanted a “serious” show... but Gene admitted in many interviews that the format was weak and needed wisenheimers like Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly to liven things up. After taking a month of so to find its footing, the show took off and maintained an incredible pace for about 9 years. Subsequent remakes without Gene weren’t as good.. . The panelists were lacking.. But those shows also lacked a ringmaster to keep things under.. or out of control. Even though he did a great job.. Gene finishes a very distant 2nd to the obviously unanimous number one choice!
1. Bob Barker - The Legend..
He is Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky and Johnny Carson rolled into one! 50 years on daily Television.. 35 on The Price is Right.. The ONLY network daytime game show.. And he did the ol' Hoochie McScoochie with Dian Parkinson! Barker’s popularity spans the little old ladies who are younger than him all the way to the hot looking college girls that the lingering camera sometimes catch Bob checking out.
Most incredibly he is the host of THE ONLY network game show.. The last time a network aired a game show other than TPIR was in the early 1990s… And these daytime audiences are an odd bunch who are absolute creatures of habit based on the lack of changes in daytime network schedules.… Despite its aging audience being replaced by young mommies.. nothing ever changes on the network daytime lineups! Now its only soap operas and one game show.. And with NBC canceling Passions… only one current daytime show has premiered since The Young and the Restless came on the air in the early 1970s! (The Bold and the Beautiful) Suffice it to say.. The daytime audience is a tough nut to crack and Barker has turned a fun little game into a huge million dollar industry. Dave Price or whoever replaces him has huge shoes to fill… but hey.. If Jay Leno still gets ratings 15 years after replacing Johnny Carson.. I guess anything is possible!
And even though Bob is signing off later this year… he could still be a big moneymaker… hes made a ton o’ cash for CBS over the years. If GSN can somehow secure the rerun rights to the old TPIR episodes.. which they haven’t been allowed to show for several years… it could be a ratings bonanza after Bob signs off later this year….
Now time for the Clip of the Week.. Tom Kennedy is a likeable fellow, but did not make the list.. But this clip from Password Plus shows how hard it was for Kennedy while he was filling in for Allen Ludden. Keep an eye out as Dick Martin tries to get a little sneaky with his clues, and how Tom has no control over the show. Also quite amusing is the poor woman who doesn’t know the word that Betty White gives as a clue!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
How Does a Cixelsyd Spell Radar? - A Movie Club Column
Wow…Has this past week been wild and crazy or what???. 4 hours of the Gong Showesque American Idol tryouts on Fox featuring Josh the tearful rocker’s renditions of Dancing Queen and Copacabana, plus Jonathan singing God Bless American on the second night….4 nail biting football games.. And of course 4 excruciatingly stressful hours of 24! Can you top that? The only Manning to survive the weekend was Peyton after Jack Bauer shockingly gunned down Curtis!! Between Saturday Nights football game and the back to back nights of 24 and then American Idol, Fox has been getting monster ratings.
As for 24 - holy bananas! They go after the wrong terrorist and then a nuclear war and poor Curtis.. I don’t even know what to make of that! And Kumar of H and K Go to White Castle fame is a terrorist and gets killed off on Monday’s 24 and then on Tuesdays Law and Order SVU also! (And is it me or didn’t the actor who played “Kumar’s” dad on L and O bear an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Meloni?) Unfortunately, I missed the 1st 90 minutes of the 24 premiere so I figured I’d go to Fox.com to watch it. No dice, they didn’t post it. Then I decided to go to iTunes and watch it there. I plunked down my 1.99 and slowly waited for it to download into my 4 year old virtually obsolete eMachines Computer. Finally, showtime! I watched the first episode.. But then I started to realize that my old comp has a problem synching the audio and video, and due to skipped video frames the tracks were not quite matching up. I think I’m gonna buy a Japanese movie on iTunes to see if the lips actually stop moving when the dialogue stops. Finally, it was Blockbuster to the rescue! Fox released a dvd of the 1st 4 hours, this week, and luckily for me I was able to rent the last copy so now I can finally catch up on what I missed… plus the first segment of next weeks episode.. (Nope, my lips are sealed.. You gotta wait till Monday.)
In honor of Jack Bauer’s alter ego Kiefer Sutherland , I decided it was time to move from The Godfather trilogy (with Robert Duvall) to the next part of the movie club reviews by watching the 1st of our four Robert Altman films - M*A*S*H starring his father Donald Sutherland….with Robert Duvall. Just to recap the weekend… I went from Don Corleone movies to watching Donald Sutherland, heard Don Criqui’s radio broadcast of the Chicago-Seattle game and watched a young afro-ed bearded Donny Deutsch win 5000 bucks on a 26 year old Match Game rerun that aired Sunday morning on GSN. I also got a kick out of how the late Debralee Scott was so blatantly hitting on Deutsch, yet he continuously ignored her.
Before the MASH review…. Here is my disclaimer - I never really liked the show… I rarely watched it,… I did see the last episode and maybe saw one episode since then… the one with George Wendt. I am familiar with the characters such as Hawkeye, Trapper John (I actually liked the Trapper John MD show that aired Sunday Nights at 10 on CBS), the future seeing Radar, and Hot Lips Houlihan. Radar is the only regular character to be played by the same actor in both the movie and TV show. Gary Burghoff continued the role and from what I have read got his acting and comedy training from last weekends birthday boy Charles Nelson Reilly.
Even though I didn’t like the show.. I decided to give the film a fair shot. The movie starts out just like the TV show… with footage of a medical helicopter landing and the song “Suicide is Painless”, except in the movie, you actually hear the words to the song and I must admit.. despite the morbid title, it is quite a catchy tune. It was written by Altman’s son and legend has it he made more money on royalties than his dad made for directing the film. I was actually hoping I would get to hear it again in the closing credits…however Altman came up with a different yet brilliant way to integrate the credits into the movie.
The song does reappear during the movie when Painless the Quagmire-esque Casanova dentist (John Schuck pre- MacMillan and Wife) announces that he wants to commit suicide because his sudden impotence leads him to believe he is gay.. (Radar must have told him that Rock Hudson might try hitting on him later in the Macmillan portion of his career). Hawkeye and Trapper John hold a farewell dinner for Painless, modeled right out of the infamous “Last Supper” with Jesus. As Painless is given a “suicide pill” and lays down in a coffin, a “disciple” starts to sing the tune. As it turns out Painless just falls asleep, but thanks to a very amusing twist involving JoAnn Pflug’s character (who married Chuck Woolery 2 years later) he wakes up the next morning, and all is well with the world.
The movie which really has no plot, tells the stories of Hawkeye Pierce played by Sutherland who at the time was younger than Kiefer is on 24, and his time with the MASH unit in Korea.. which is only identified in the opening credits as taking place there… Altman wanted the story to take place in Vietnam, which was quite the controversial war at that time, but the producers insisted that it be identified as Korea.. I’m surprised we don’t have a remake taking place in Iraq. The story is broken up into a few distinct chapters.. mainly the arrival of Hot Lips Houlihan, and her subsequent harassment, the Painless crisis and a football game between our boys and another unit that starts out as a friendly bet when a General comes to the 4077 on the premise of investigating the complaints filed by the straight laced Houlihan. This football game predates the similar theme in The Longest Yard which was directed by the similarly named Robert Aldrich.
Even though there is no main plot to this movie, the mini plots are filled with humor and in my opinion a lot more watchable than the TV show. The pure nonchalance towards Painless and his desire to off himself is very amusing.. if you like dry humor. The storyline involving Hot Lips is quite hysterical especially involving scenes where she decides to get intimate with Burns while the rest of the gang “listens” in.. That type of crazy voyeurism is still going on in movies today… such as the live web hook up scene in “American Pie“. But this appears to be where it all started. Burghoff is also quite amusing as Radar who thanks to his ability to predict things repeats his orders seconds before his superior says them.. It’s a little strange to listen to at first, but Burghoff has excellent comedic timing. The football game wasn’t all that great but there were some very funny moments including the first apparent mainstream movie use of the F word (not firetruck) by Fearless. The political incorrectness is quite apparent.. (this was right around the time Archie Bunker was created) as the expected football team ringer is referred to as a Negro and carries the nickname Spear Chucker. Maybe they won’t be able to remake this movie now that I think of it.
Speaking of Political Correctness, now I see there is more hullaballoo because a guy on Grey’s Anatomy called a castmate by a “slur” for a gay man. Of course if the gay guy called the other guy an “n” word,. All hell would break loose too. Yet why is it that these words are slurs and Donald Trump can call Rosie O’Donnell fat, and then threaten her with a lawsuit if she says something about him?
The dvd offers some very interesting insights to how the movie was made and ended up so successful.. The studio was producing 2 other very expensive war movies at the same time so they weren’t paying too much attention to what was going on at the MASH shooting. Altman basically ripped up the Ring Lardner screenplay and told the actors to wing it. Lardner won the only Oscar for the movie by the way.. But some of the scenes such as Father Mulcahy blessing a Jeep were just made up on the spot. Another fact was that Altman realized that he needed something to keep the film moving along since there was really no plot to speak of. That’s how the wisecracks on the PA system worked their way into the movie… sort of as an afterthought.. But they are quite amusing.. (one is a verbatim reading of a studio memo banning pics of pin up women at people’s work stations!).
Because of the film’s relatively low budget, they hired a bunch of no name actors to co star with the established stars Sutherland and Elliott Gould.. Many of the actors were making their film debut, and luckily this turned out to be an All Star cast.. kind of like the no names in Diner who all became big names. Some of the actors being “introduced” in the movie were Pflug, Shuck and Bud Cort… shortly before his appearance in the incredibly bizarre “Harold and Maude”. Rene Auberjonois who played Father Mulcahy is now on Boston Legal… One other very very creepy coincidence… the actors who played Colonel Blake… Roger Bowen in the movie and the very amusing McLean Stevenson from the TV show, died on consecutive days in February of 1996.
Keep in mind how important it is to have a good support staff for the heroes on the battle front. While the boys are out there on the battle fields its always very important to have a good crew to provide meals and clothing and other important things needed in day to day life in a battle. Of course, having a good medical crew and talented nurses is important and is driven home in this movie… especially when Trapper John gets into a fight with Frank Burns after he was nasty to Bud Cort‘s character… he threw a nice punch his way and poor Burns ended up falling into ….. a big stack of Tampax boxes… an important product when you have a hospital staffed with young nurses!! I can only imagine the commercials if Tampax had hired Sally Kellerman or Loretta Swit as their spokeswoman instead of Brenda Vaccaro!!
Overall I must admit I really liked this movie… and even though there is no plot to speak of.. Altman successfully weaves together all the sub plots into a very entertaining film. On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… MASH gets 3 bladders. Next up in the Altman 4 pack - Nashville… assuming I can find it somewhere!
Now Time for The Clip of the Week:
Since New Years.. 4 friends of ours have had babies! In honor of that… check out this old Family Feud clip showing Richard Dawson totally cracking up after an incredibly odd answer to a question relating to what month a pregnant woman starts to show…
As for 24 - holy bananas! They go after the wrong terrorist and then a nuclear war and poor Curtis.. I don’t even know what to make of that! And Kumar of H and K Go to White Castle fame is a terrorist and gets killed off on Monday’s 24 and then on Tuesdays Law and Order SVU also! (And is it me or didn’t the actor who played “Kumar’s” dad on L and O bear an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Meloni?) Unfortunately, I missed the 1st 90 minutes of the 24 premiere so I figured I’d go to Fox.com to watch it. No dice, they didn’t post it. Then I decided to go to iTunes and watch it there. I plunked down my 1.99 and slowly waited for it to download into my 4 year old virtually obsolete eMachines Computer. Finally, showtime! I watched the first episode.. But then I started to realize that my old comp has a problem synching the audio and video, and due to skipped video frames the tracks were not quite matching up. I think I’m gonna buy a Japanese movie on iTunes to see if the lips actually stop moving when the dialogue stops. Finally, it was Blockbuster to the rescue! Fox released a dvd of the 1st 4 hours, this week, and luckily for me I was able to rent the last copy so now I can finally catch up on what I missed… plus the first segment of next weeks episode.. (Nope, my lips are sealed.. You gotta wait till Monday.)
In honor of Jack Bauer’s alter ego Kiefer Sutherland , I decided it was time to move from The Godfather trilogy (with Robert Duvall) to the next part of the movie club reviews by watching the 1st of our four Robert Altman films - M*A*S*H starring his father Donald Sutherland….with Robert Duvall. Just to recap the weekend… I went from Don Corleone movies to watching Donald Sutherland, heard Don Criqui’s radio broadcast of the Chicago-Seattle game and watched a young afro-ed bearded Donny Deutsch win 5000 bucks on a 26 year old Match Game rerun that aired Sunday morning on GSN. I also got a kick out of how the late Debralee Scott was so blatantly hitting on Deutsch, yet he continuously ignored her.
Before the MASH review…. Here is my disclaimer - I never really liked the show… I rarely watched it,… I did see the last episode and maybe saw one episode since then… the one with George Wendt. I am familiar with the characters such as Hawkeye, Trapper John (I actually liked the Trapper John MD show that aired Sunday Nights at 10 on CBS), the future seeing Radar, and Hot Lips Houlihan. Radar is the only regular character to be played by the same actor in both the movie and TV show. Gary Burghoff continued the role and from what I have read got his acting and comedy training from last weekends birthday boy Charles Nelson Reilly.
Even though I didn’t like the show.. I decided to give the film a fair shot. The movie starts out just like the TV show… with footage of a medical helicopter landing and the song “Suicide is Painless”, except in the movie, you actually hear the words to the song and I must admit.. despite the morbid title, it is quite a catchy tune. It was written by Altman’s son and legend has it he made more money on royalties than his dad made for directing the film. I was actually hoping I would get to hear it again in the closing credits…however Altman came up with a different yet brilliant way to integrate the credits into the movie.
The song does reappear during the movie when Painless the Quagmire-esque Casanova dentist (John Schuck pre- MacMillan and Wife) announces that he wants to commit suicide because his sudden impotence leads him to believe he is gay.. (Radar must have told him that Rock Hudson might try hitting on him later in the Macmillan portion of his career). Hawkeye and Trapper John hold a farewell dinner for Painless, modeled right out of the infamous “Last Supper” with Jesus. As Painless is given a “suicide pill” and lays down in a coffin, a “disciple” starts to sing the tune. As it turns out Painless just falls asleep, but thanks to a very amusing twist involving JoAnn Pflug’s character (who married Chuck Woolery 2 years later) he wakes up the next morning, and all is well with the world.
The movie which really has no plot, tells the stories of Hawkeye Pierce played by Sutherland who at the time was younger than Kiefer is on 24, and his time with the MASH unit in Korea.. which is only identified in the opening credits as taking place there… Altman wanted the story to take place in Vietnam, which was quite the controversial war at that time, but the producers insisted that it be identified as Korea.. I’m surprised we don’t have a remake taking place in Iraq. The story is broken up into a few distinct chapters.. mainly the arrival of Hot Lips Houlihan, and her subsequent harassment, the Painless crisis and a football game between our boys and another unit that starts out as a friendly bet when a General comes to the 4077 on the premise of investigating the complaints filed by the straight laced Houlihan. This football game predates the similar theme in The Longest Yard which was directed by the similarly named Robert Aldrich.
Even though there is no main plot to this movie, the mini plots are filled with humor and in my opinion a lot more watchable than the TV show. The pure nonchalance towards Painless and his desire to off himself is very amusing.. if you like dry humor. The storyline involving Hot Lips is quite hysterical especially involving scenes where she decides to get intimate with Burns while the rest of the gang “listens” in.. That type of crazy voyeurism is still going on in movies today… such as the live web hook up scene in “American Pie“. But this appears to be where it all started. Burghoff is also quite amusing as Radar who thanks to his ability to predict things repeats his orders seconds before his superior says them.. It’s a little strange to listen to at first, but Burghoff has excellent comedic timing. The football game wasn’t all that great but there were some very funny moments including the first apparent mainstream movie use of the F word (not firetruck) by Fearless. The political incorrectness is quite apparent.. (this was right around the time Archie Bunker was created) as the expected football team ringer is referred to as a Negro and carries the nickname Spear Chucker. Maybe they won’t be able to remake this movie now that I think of it.
Speaking of Political Correctness, now I see there is more hullaballoo because a guy on Grey’s Anatomy called a castmate by a “slur” for a gay man. Of course if the gay guy called the other guy an “n” word,. All hell would break loose too. Yet why is it that these words are slurs and Donald Trump can call Rosie O’Donnell fat, and then threaten her with a lawsuit if she says something about him?
The dvd offers some very interesting insights to how the movie was made and ended up so successful.. The studio was producing 2 other very expensive war movies at the same time so they weren’t paying too much attention to what was going on at the MASH shooting. Altman basically ripped up the Ring Lardner screenplay and told the actors to wing it. Lardner won the only Oscar for the movie by the way.. But some of the scenes such as Father Mulcahy blessing a Jeep were just made up on the spot. Another fact was that Altman realized that he needed something to keep the film moving along since there was really no plot to speak of. That’s how the wisecracks on the PA system worked their way into the movie… sort of as an afterthought.. But they are quite amusing.. (one is a verbatim reading of a studio memo banning pics of pin up women at people’s work stations!).
Because of the film’s relatively low budget, they hired a bunch of no name actors to co star with the established stars Sutherland and Elliott Gould.. Many of the actors were making their film debut, and luckily this turned out to be an All Star cast.. kind of like the no names in Diner who all became big names. Some of the actors being “introduced” in the movie were Pflug, Shuck and Bud Cort… shortly before his appearance in the incredibly bizarre “Harold and Maude”. Rene Auberjonois who played Father Mulcahy is now on Boston Legal… One other very very creepy coincidence… the actors who played Colonel Blake… Roger Bowen in the movie and the very amusing McLean Stevenson from the TV show, died on consecutive days in February of 1996.
Keep in mind how important it is to have a good support staff for the heroes on the battle front. While the boys are out there on the battle fields its always very important to have a good crew to provide meals and clothing and other important things needed in day to day life in a battle. Of course, having a good medical crew and talented nurses is important and is driven home in this movie… especially when Trapper John gets into a fight with Frank Burns after he was nasty to Bud Cort‘s character… he threw a nice punch his way and poor Burns ended up falling into ….. a big stack of Tampax boxes… an important product when you have a hospital staffed with young nurses!! I can only imagine the commercials if Tampax had hired Sally Kellerman or Loretta Swit as their spokeswoman instead of Brenda Vaccaro!!
Overall I must admit I really liked this movie… and even though there is no plot to speak of.. Altman successfully weaves together all the sub plots into a very entertaining film. On a scale of 1 to 4 bladders meaning how less likely you would be to leave in the middle to go to the bathroom… MASH gets 3 bladders. Next up in the Altman 4 pack - Nashville… assuming I can find it somewhere!
Now Time for The Clip of the Week:
Since New Years.. 4 friends of ours have had babies! In honor of that… check out this old Family Feud clip showing Richard Dawson totally cracking up after an incredibly odd answer to a question relating to what month a pregnant woman starts to show…
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Will 2007 Be The Year of The Giant?
Now that we are about a week and a half into the new year….here are some things in the news during the early part of the year that may or may not be trends of what will be relevant for 2007.... It makes me wonder if this will be the year of the… (yo ho ho) Giant.
1. The Giant Ego - of Donald Trump
Even though Newsday says its a done deal that Dave Price will take over as host of The Price is Right, .. What’s all this hullaballoo about Rosie O'Donnell possibly taking over? Assuming this is not all one big publicity stunt,. she apparently got quite angry with Barbara Walters when Donald Trump told numerous interviewers that Babs cant stand her! Walters has denied it.. and now Trump says Walters is lying. Now who are you gonna believe.. a legendary journalist like Walters, or Trump who had to dosie do around all his creditors when they came knocking on his door demanding repayment on their loans when his business was tanking in the 90s? And Ivana must be smart too,... because this daughter of hers Ivanka comes off as being very bright on what little I saw of Apprentice... Heck they fired a guy because he wanted to interrupt a chat with The Donald because he had to take a pish. Don’t you think Donald would stop taping if one hair on that wacky pompadour was out of place during his ego maniacal boardroom firing sessions?
Now lets say Rosie and Barbara really are feuding? Wouldn’t it be a great ratings grabber for CBS if Rosie leaves The View and heads over to its 11 o’clock competitor The Price Is Right? I just hope all 3 are really all in it together as a publicity stunt, because if it isn’t… I think Donald Trump is mentally ill when he keeps saying all these nasty fat comments about Rosie and then threatens to sue her when she criticizes him.. As Barbara Walters would say.. “What a Poor Pathetic Man!”
2. The Giant Football Team -
Both Giants and Jets never lost playoff games on the same day before, and it was only the 2nd time that they both appeared in playoff games on the same day.. (The Giants won and the Jets lost the last time this happened).. Nonetheless, the Jets fans are thrilled with the season, while the Giants fans were calling for Coach Coughlin’s head, although the team will allow him back for next season. Granted, the Jets were vastly improved this season, but if you take a look at the schedule they played (based on their hideous performance in 2005).. it was quite soft.
On the other hand, The Giants played a brutal schedule especially during the early part of the season. Yet they got off to a 6-2 start that included big comebacks against The Eagles and The Falcons. However, everyone seems to have forgotten since they fizzled down the stretch to finish 8-8 (including a tough game against the division rival Redskins who wanted nothing more than to knock NY out of the playoffs). Now all these Giants/Eli Manning critics who are soooo eager to point out the poor 2nd half during the soft part of the schedule claim that the latter part of the season is most important.. If that’s the case, why don’t they give Eli credit for his late TD drive in the 4th quarter Sunday during a drive that included a 1st and 30? After tying the game at 20, the Giants defense couldn’t keep the Eagles from eating the clock and kicking a game winning field goal as time expired. Yet for some reason, my fellow Giant fans wants to blame the QB! Now the Ledger says that Bill Parcells was turned down when he made overtures to take over the vacant GM position. I guess they don’t love the Tuna.
3. The Giant Sandwich.
The Giant brass may not love the tuna.. but I do.. The sub that is…
My love affair with the sub goes back to my childhood. When I was a little pisher, the first time I was allowed to cross busy Raritan Road coincided with the Grand Opening of a nearby sub shop. I crossed at the Roselle Shopping Center where the Consumers Distributing store used to be... an oddball store where people paged through catalogs and filled out forms that they then brought to the front of the store.. kind of the model for the shopping carts on internet websites. From there I strolled past the old closed Pantry Pride, passed Sobin’s drugstore and waved at Mario and Angelo through the window while they were dolinig out haircuts at the Barber Shop. From there I jogged past the City Federal Savings Bank, past the gift shop and the cleaners and the mysterious tavern that never seemed to have women going in.. (I was a little pisher just crossing a street.. how did I know it was a gay bar?).
As I turned the corner to Wood Avenue.. there it was... a sub shop holding a Grand Opening.. .(Or to paraphrase Adam Sandler.. was it a hoagie/grinder/sloppy joe?) I stepped up to the counter, standing at attention as if I was ordering a minestrone from The Soup Nazi and ordered my first tuna sub.. a limited menu for me because due to my revisionist Kosher observance, I wouldn’t eat meat outside the home. (This is not a forum to debate if tuna at a sub place is kosher or not.. so hold your comments). After ordering my sub. I scampered home to watch Password at 12 noon... and of course I looked both ways before I crossed Raritan Road.
After that initial introduction the sub... it carried over with the arrival of Subway franchises. And they're the best.. all the stores look the same. they are pretty clean... and I really miss the round sandwiches they used to sell in the early 1990s.. Unfortunately, the only sub I have really ever had has been tuna.. but boy is it yummy. Subway became comfort food headquarters when we had a house in Bradley Beach in the summer of 1990. After a night of partying and getting shot down by drunk babes, me and my homies would head over to Subway for a late night sub that would get chowed down on our little summer home's porch... . Our ability to wolf down the tuna subs in virtually one bite created the phrase... "That sub never had a chance...". When I moved to Woodbridge ten years ago, the subway on St. George Avenue in Rahway at the Old Miller Pontiac location was my sub headquarters.. especially when they used to have the West Coast video store right next door. Now they even have a drive through Subway on Stelton Road in Piscataway! Apparently its the only one in the USA.
Fast forward to last weekend. Trophy Wife and I took a trip to Flatbush for a family event, (I'd link to the simchas.com website, but I don’t think these relatives want to be associated with a shaygitz tuna sub eating goofball like myself) and afterwards we were kind of hungry. We decided to see if there was a pizza place to satisfy our late night munchies because who the heck knows what is gonna be open at midnight on a Saturday Night. And there we saw it on Avenue J!.. A brand new Subway... And it’s kosher!! I almost fell out of my car I was so thrilled.. and for a moment I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
We got out of the car, looked both ways, and crossed the street… following the light to the store.. and there it was.... Kosher Subs at a Subway Franchise! I spoke to the guy in charge there and he told me that they were recently awarded the franchise and had just opened the store right after New Years! Welcome to 2007, and my early nominee for Time Magazine Person of the year.. the Kosher Subway franchisee!!... Of course, they can't offer a lot of the stuff on the regular Subway menu... but we did manage to order a half a chicken teriyaki and a half a pastrami beef fry.. What do you think, I’m gonna order tuna after eating nothing but tuna for the last 30 years??
The subs are awesome, and now I have a new place to go when I’m in Brooklyn! This is only the 2nd kosher subway in the USA.. . the only other one is in Cleveland at a Jewish Community Center! The Brooklyn one also apparently has to show the standard menu, but the non kosher items are left blank in the price column, and taped over since they are not sold at that location. Nonetheless, they still have a pretty decent variety of choices there.
By the way there is a very bizarre parallel between my tuna sub Roselle to Rahway odyssey and a notorious criminal from the 50s and 60s. I guess we can go from sub to unsub.... You may have heard the story of Robert Zarinsky... one of the more fascinating criminal stories to come out of New Jersey. He had accumulated a pretty large bank account because his mom's will left him a lot of money while his sister ended up with very little. Several years ago, while he was still serving time in prison for killing a teenage girl in the 1960s, his sister told police that he had also killed a cop in the late 1950s. It turns out the sister had been caught red handed stealing about 100k from her imprisoned brother's hefty bank account and “made a deal” that if they dropped the charges against her, she would testify against him because he was the culprit in an unsolved cop killing back in the late 50s.
Ultimately, 40 years later Zarinsky went on trial for the cop killing.. but he was acquitted. Some jurors felt he did it, but didn’t feel prosecutors proved their case. The officer's widow then filed a civil suit against him, sort of like the Goldman family filed against OJ Simpson… Zarinsky had trouble finding a lawyer and ended up representing himself at that trial and lost the case.. As a result of losing the case, he had to fork over all of his remaining money to the cop's widow. But there's more.. another court overturned the civil case, but the widow said all of the money was gone. Just this past year a court ruled that the widow would not have to repay the money back to Zarinsky... Talk about having your money mismanaged.. Thanks to his sister he went from being wealthy to flat broke… even though he wasn’t convicted in the cop killing. Incidentally, the sister told police she realized he killed the missing teenage girl when he failed to return to pick her up from a pre family wedding beauty salon appointment the same day the girl disappeared after working at Sobins drug store.. Both the salon and drug store were in the,.... Roselle Shopping Center.. and the cop was killed at the Old Miller Pontiac showroom.... which is now... Subway! It later turned out the sister was wrong about that accusation… the girl had disappeared 2 days before the infamous beauty parlor appointment.
As for the original Sub Shop… I haven’t been in Roselle in awhile, but as far as I know the sub shop is still there, along with the Barber shop... The gay bar is long closed, but late one night in the early 90s, I accidentally locked myself out of the house, and had to go to the payphone across from the gay bar to wake my mom at 1 am to open the front door for me... As I departed the phone, a gentleman in his car drove up and asked me directions to the Parkway, and then after telling him he just had to go straight.. (no pun intended) I walked back home.. As I cut through the parking lot of the Consumers (now the Sears) the aforementioned gentleman drove up again and asked me if I had just left his favorite bar.. I then realized that this guy was not looking for the parkway.. he was looking for studly Nate.. “No, I was not at the bar, sir” I replied.. and kept walking.. The little horndog got a bit belligerent.. C'mon... I saw you there.. "No" I replied... "I was NOT there… I used the payphone at the Gulf Station across the street because I got locked out of my WIFES PARENTS house!"
I then hurriedly covered my Charles Nelson Reilly t shirt and ran home..
Now time for this The Clip of the Week…
This week features 2 different clips with the legendary William Shatner from a 70s appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid. Here is Part I
And here is Part II of Shatner Follies… He's nuttier than Donald Trump...
1. The Giant Ego - of Donald Trump
Even though Newsday says its a done deal that Dave Price will take over as host of The Price is Right, .. What’s all this hullaballoo about Rosie O'Donnell possibly taking over? Assuming this is not all one big publicity stunt,. she apparently got quite angry with Barbara Walters when Donald Trump told numerous interviewers that Babs cant stand her! Walters has denied it.. and now Trump says Walters is lying. Now who are you gonna believe.. a legendary journalist like Walters, or Trump who had to dosie do around all his creditors when they came knocking on his door demanding repayment on their loans when his business was tanking in the 90s? And Ivana must be smart too,... because this daughter of hers Ivanka comes off as being very bright on what little I saw of Apprentice... Heck they fired a guy because he wanted to interrupt a chat with The Donald because he had to take a pish. Don’t you think Donald would stop taping if one hair on that wacky pompadour was out of place during his ego maniacal boardroom firing sessions?
Now lets say Rosie and Barbara really are feuding? Wouldn’t it be a great ratings grabber for CBS if Rosie leaves The View and heads over to its 11 o’clock competitor The Price Is Right? I just hope all 3 are really all in it together as a publicity stunt, because if it isn’t… I think Donald Trump is mentally ill when he keeps saying all these nasty fat comments about Rosie and then threatens to sue her when she criticizes him.. As Barbara Walters would say.. “What a Poor Pathetic Man!”
2. The Giant Football Team -
Both Giants and Jets never lost playoff games on the same day before, and it was only the 2nd time that they both appeared in playoff games on the same day.. (The Giants won and the Jets lost the last time this happened).. Nonetheless, the Jets fans are thrilled with the season, while the Giants fans were calling for Coach Coughlin’s head, although the team will allow him back for next season. Granted, the Jets were vastly improved this season, but if you take a look at the schedule they played (based on their hideous performance in 2005).. it was quite soft.
On the other hand, The Giants played a brutal schedule especially during the early part of the season. Yet they got off to a 6-2 start that included big comebacks against The Eagles and The Falcons. However, everyone seems to have forgotten since they fizzled down the stretch to finish 8-8 (including a tough game against the division rival Redskins who wanted nothing more than to knock NY out of the playoffs). Now all these Giants/Eli Manning critics who are soooo eager to point out the poor 2nd half during the soft part of the schedule claim that the latter part of the season is most important.. If that’s the case, why don’t they give Eli credit for his late TD drive in the 4th quarter Sunday during a drive that included a 1st and 30? After tying the game at 20, the Giants defense couldn’t keep the Eagles from eating the clock and kicking a game winning field goal as time expired. Yet for some reason, my fellow Giant fans wants to blame the QB! Now the Ledger says that Bill Parcells was turned down when he made overtures to take over the vacant GM position. I guess they don’t love the Tuna.
3. The Giant Sandwich.
The Giant brass may not love the tuna.. but I do.. The sub that is…
My love affair with the sub goes back to my childhood. When I was a little pisher, the first time I was allowed to cross busy Raritan Road coincided with the Grand Opening of a nearby sub shop. I crossed at the Roselle Shopping Center where the Consumers Distributing store used to be... an oddball store where people paged through catalogs and filled out forms that they then brought to the front of the store.. kind of the model for the shopping carts on internet websites. From there I strolled past the old closed Pantry Pride, passed Sobin’s drugstore and waved at Mario and Angelo through the window while they were dolinig out haircuts at the Barber Shop. From there I jogged past the City Federal Savings Bank, past the gift shop and the cleaners and the mysterious tavern that never seemed to have women going in.. (I was a little pisher just crossing a street.. how did I know it was a gay bar?).
As I turned the corner to Wood Avenue.. there it was... a sub shop holding a Grand Opening.. .(Or to paraphrase Adam Sandler.. was it a hoagie/grinder/sloppy joe?) I stepped up to the counter, standing at attention as if I was ordering a minestrone from The Soup Nazi and ordered my first tuna sub.. a limited menu for me because due to my revisionist Kosher observance, I wouldn’t eat meat outside the home. (This is not a forum to debate if tuna at a sub place is kosher or not.. so hold your comments). After ordering my sub. I scampered home to watch Password at 12 noon... and of course I looked both ways before I crossed Raritan Road.
After that initial introduction the sub... it carried over with the arrival of Subway franchises. And they're the best.. all the stores look the same. they are pretty clean... and I really miss the round sandwiches they used to sell in the early 1990s.. Unfortunately, the only sub I have really ever had has been tuna.. but boy is it yummy. Subway became comfort food headquarters when we had a house in Bradley Beach in the summer of 1990. After a night of partying and getting shot down by drunk babes, me and my homies would head over to Subway for a late night sub that would get chowed down on our little summer home's porch... . Our ability to wolf down the tuna subs in virtually one bite created the phrase... "That sub never had a chance...". When I moved to Woodbridge ten years ago, the subway on St. George Avenue in Rahway at the Old Miller Pontiac location was my sub headquarters.. especially when they used to have the West Coast video store right next door. Now they even have a drive through Subway on Stelton Road in Piscataway! Apparently its the only one in the USA.
Fast forward to last weekend. Trophy Wife and I took a trip to Flatbush for a family event, (I'd link to the simchas.com website, but I don’t think these relatives want to be associated with a shaygitz tuna sub eating goofball like myself) and afterwards we were kind of hungry. We decided to see if there was a pizza place to satisfy our late night munchies because who the heck knows what is gonna be open at midnight on a Saturday Night. And there we saw it on Avenue J!.. A brand new Subway... And it’s kosher!! I almost fell out of my car I was so thrilled.. and for a moment I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
We got out of the car, looked both ways, and crossed the street… following the light to the store.. and there it was.... Kosher Subs at a Subway Franchise! I spoke to the guy in charge there and he told me that they were recently awarded the franchise and had just opened the store right after New Years! Welcome to 2007, and my early nominee for Time Magazine Person of the year.. the Kosher Subway franchisee!!... Of course, they can't offer a lot of the stuff on the regular Subway menu... but we did manage to order a half a chicken teriyaki and a half a pastrami beef fry.. What do you think, I’m gonna order tuna after eating nothing but tuna for the last 30 years??
The subs are awesome, and now I have a new place to go when I’m in Brooklyn! This is only the 2nd kosher subway in the USA.. . the only other one is in Cleveland at a Jewish Community Center! The Brooklyn one also apparently has to show the standard menu, but the non kosher items are left blank in the price column, and taped over since they are not sold at that location. Nonetheless, they still have a pretty decent variety of choices there.
By the way there is a very bizarre parallel between my tuna sub Roselle to Rahway odyssey and a notorious criminal from the 50s and 60s. I guess we can go from sub to unsub.... You may have heard the story of Robert Zarinsky... one of the more fascinating criminal stories to come out of New Jersey. He had accumulated a pretty large bank account because his mom's will left him a lot of money while his sister ended up with very little. Several years ago, while he was still serving time in prison for killing a teenage girl in the 1960s, his sister told police that he had also killed a cop in the late 1950s. It turns out the sister had been caught red handed stealing about 100k from her imprisoned brother's hefty bank account and “made a deal” that if they dropped the charges against her, she would testify against him because he was the culprit in an unsolved cop killing back in the late 50s.
Ultimately, 40 years later Zarinsky went on trial for the cop killing.. but he was acquitted. Some jurors felt he did it, but didn’t feel prosecutors proved their case. The officer's widow then filed a civil suit against him, sort of like the Goldman family filed against OJ Simpson… Zarinsky had trouble finding a lawyer and ended up representing himself at that trial and lost the case.. As a result of losing the case, he had to fork over all of his remaining money to the cop's widow. But there's more.. another court overturned the civil case, but the widow said all of the money was gone. Just this past year a court ruled that the widow would not have to repay the money back to Zarinsky... Talk about having your money mismanaged.. Thanks to his sister he went from being wealthy to flat broke… even though he wasn’t convicted in the cop killing. Incidentally, the sister told police she realized he killed the missing teenage girl when he failed to return to pick her up from a pre family wedding beauty salon appointment the same day the girl disappeared after working at Sobins drug store.. Both the salon and drug store were in the,.... Roselle Shopping Center.. and the cop was killed at the Old Miller Pontiac showroom.... which is now... Subway! It later turned out the sister was wrong about that accusation… the girl had disappeared 2 days before the infamous beauty parlor appointment.
As for the original Sub Shop… I haven’t been in Roselle in awhile, but as far as I know the sub shop is still there, along with the Barber shop... The gay bar is long closed, but late one night in the early 90s, I accidentally locked myself out of the house, and had to go to the payphone across from the gay bar to wake my mom at 1 am to open the front door for me... As I departed the phone, a gentleman in his car drove up and asked me directions to the Parkway, and then after telling him he just had to go straight.. (no pun intended) I walked back home.. As I cut through the parking lot of the Consumers (now the Sears) the aforementioned gentleman drove up again and asked me if I had just left his favorite bar.. I then realized that this guy was not looking for the parkway.. he was looking for studly Nate.. “No, I was not at the bar, sir” I replied.. and kept walking.. The little horndog got a bit belligerent.. C'mon... I saw you there.. "No" I replied... "I was NOT there… I used the payphone at the Gulf Station across the street because I got locked out of my WIFES PARENTS house!"
I then hurriedly covered my Charles Nelson Reilly t shirt and ran home..
Now time for this The Clip of the Week…
This week features 2 different clips with the legendary William Shatner from a 70s appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid. Here is Part I
And here is Part II of Shatner Follies… He's nuttier than Donald Trump...
Friday, January 05, 2007
Thoughts For 2007 About Game Shows, Walmart and Panici
Happy 2007 everybody and welcome to another year of fun and games here at NWOW!
It didn’t take long for me to make a buffoon of myself this year!.. I was at a New Years Party Sunday Night…. watching Dick Clark, and in an attempt to be hip pointed out the musical talent with comments such as… “Which one of those guys is Panici?”. and paraphrasing A Christmas Story - “Panici.. It Must Be Italian!” At that point one of the party guests attempted to avoid any further embarrassment by bellowing out… “Hey Nate.. I think you misread the graphics… the group is actually called Panic! At the Disco.. Dumbass.. Not panici…It’s an exclamation point… not an I!
Good to get the New Year off to such a great start!
Last week we presented Pumpstradamus and his annual predictions.. However, THE best prediction last year here at NWOW came by me early in the year when I called it that Dave Price would take over as host as “The Price Is Right”. Its not official yet.. but those in the know say an announcement could be forthcoming shortly.
So without much further ado… here are 3 Game Show Predictions for the New Year…
1. The long early morning hours at “The Today Show” will take its toll on Meredith Viera, and she will step down as host of Millionaire and be replaced by - Regis
2. I thought Rosie would be a good choice for Millionaire too, but her little tiff with that nut Donald Trump and Trump’s obsession with his ratings superiority over similar Apprentice reality shows got me thinking… Rosie will host her own reality show….. And the show will get higher ratings than Donald Trump’s Apprentice!
3. And here is a real longshot… A new name will become part of a game show - Michael Airington who does an incredibly uncanny impression of Paul Lynde good enough that he does a one man Paul Lynde show.. - hey since you can't have the real one.. why not this guy? Maybe he’ll hook up with the new Spanish version - The Mexico City Squares.
There are other things that I see happening in 2007...
New Years Weekend was probably the best local football weekend in recent memory… Rutgers won its first bowl and both The Giants and Jets made the playoffs. The only disturbing aspect of the Giant win was when a buddy who was watching the game with me informed me that he had just bought himself a new TV at ugh.. Walmart. I’ll get to that in just a minute.
You don’t have to be a psychic to realize that 2 events are going to cause headaches not only in 2007 but for years to come. The first is the Supreme Court's puzzling decision to allow Eminent Domain and the 2nd is Former President Clinton's signing of an import export treaty with China that seems to have backfired.
When it comes to developers - the old saying now takes on a new meaning.. If you cant beat 'em.. beat 'em harder. I see that Edison mayor Jun Choi will mark his one year anniversary in office with a recall petition launched by a developer who is also an attorney! Politicians are growing increasingly tired of developers swallowing up innocent people's homes through eminent domain only to see developers get incredibly rich. The politicians do get political donations to help win elections - but then they have to deal with the headaches caused by these eminent domain developers.
This lawyer/developer is an interesting character by the way.. He once sued a law school that booted out his client… saying that the school knew, or should have known in advance that his client was not smart enough to make it through the difficult curriculum! Reminds me of the old joke.. What do you call the guy who finishes last in his graduating class at Med School? - Doctor!
This lawyer/developer is using a different tactic. If a Mayor like Choi doesn’t like what the developer wants to do - just smack him in the head with a recall petition.. that is until the people vote into office a person who will allow the developer to get what he wants. Choi has already shown some guts by fighting a proposal to open yet another Walmart.. this time in Edison.. just a 10 minute drive from the hideous one that is currently in Piscataway.
Walmart is another one that grinds my gears. ..I was bored the other day and actually accidentally watched PBS.. They had a documentary on about Walmart.. so I figured .. hey this should be pretty interesting.. especially if its critical of this horrific monstrosity of a store..
After watching the very entertaining documentary… here is my idea.. just like food products have nutritional information.. I think all Wal Mart products should have manufacturing information posted on the outside of each box... And that information should state the following - where the product was manufactured.. and the salaries of the workers who assembled the product. When Clinton signed his treaty with China.. did anyone realize that most of the stuff would be sent here and not much would be sent there?. According to this PBS show, the raw materials are exported to China, and cheap labor builds the stuff that graces the aisles of Wal-mart!
Lets say you have an American business... Coincidentally,..they used an American TV manufacturer as an example. And this is so ironic since my buddy got his TV at Walmart - Anyway, here is what happened to the American TV manufacturer… The price of his raw supplies suddenly shoot up.... and the American TV manufacturer told Wal Mart that he would have to raise his prices. Wal Mart then tells 'em tough noogies.... because they have connections with Asian exporters who will still do the same job at the original lower price. What does that do to American businesses? And what does that say about Wal Mart?
I have another idea.. besides including the information on each box.. I think that all the Wal Mart workers' name tags should include info about how much health coverage the mighty Wal Mart empire is providing for them. Then we can compare that poor harried cashier to the info on the big shot PR flack who smiled through the interview talking about what the Disney-esque Wonderful World of Walmart…
I betcha a lot of American companies would jump at the opportunity to manufacture such a label... and twice as many Asian companies would do the same job for half the price.
We’re done with the weekly football picks.. We finished at -13 (same record as Expert Picker Joel Magaraci in the Ledger) and Pumpstradamus was 10-6-1. This week we present a new gimmick for 2007 - The Video of the Week. This week in memory of President Ford.. Here is a clip from an old Channel 4 Newscast involving a seldom discussed news story involving former President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat….
Friday, December 29, 2006
The Return of Pumpstradamus and The Bird - A Multimedia Extravaganza
Well folks, today December 29th is the 5th anniversary of the day I met Trophy Wife! Details about that fateful day are in the archives “Jemimah and the Sugar Plums” see January 24, 2006… Today is also the one year anniversary of the day I got hit in the head by a dead bird while driving through Florida. Therefore… we present that video clip, and more clips of other road trips throughout the year where my lovely wife always seems to remind me of my unfortunate Audubon encounter…
Also as part of our annual tradition, the Great Pumpstradamus visits us today for a chat about his predictions for the upcoming year. Today you will learn about Pump’s 2007 predictions…. After the panty less hijinks of Britney Spears and Lloyd Lindsay Lohan I asked the Great One who would be the next celebrity in 2007 to get caught without panties on. Sayeth the Pump: "Richard Simmons!" To hear the rest of the 2007 prognostications.. Click play!
Now time for the final week of regular season NFL picks… Last week we went 10-5-1... (The same as Pumpstradamus’s season to date record!) and we have improved to 13 games under .500 at 110-123-7.. Not bad considering we were a horrific -25 in the beginning of December… Here we go…
Giants 3 point faves over WASHINGTON - Not sure exactly why they are road favorites, but they do have a winning record away from Giants Stadium. A win here pretty much clinches a playoff spot..;. They could get in with a loss too if the other NFC 7-8 teams lose their road games.
Raiders 13 doggies over THE JETS - Remember, the Raiders always cover the huge spreads..
BENGALS 6 faves over Pittsburgh - Can you believe the Bengals might miss the playoffs because of that missed point after attempt last week? (They also might have lost that game in OT)
DALLAS 12 faves over Detroit - It would be nice to see the Boys lose, but I cant stand the Eagles either.
HOUSTON 4 faves over Cleveland - Did you see how bad that Houston field looked during the Rutgers bowl game? And will the Texans march out to the field holding hands like Rockettes like the Kansas State team?
Jacksonville 3 doggies over KANSAS CITY - The Chiefs historically play well at home in December, but they really arent too good this year.
Rams 2 faves over MINNESOTA - If the Giants lose, the Rams pretty much earn the spot with a win.. If the Giants win, the game means nothing and St. Louis will just play half assed like all the other wild card NFC pretenders have done for the past 4 months.
NEW ORLEANS 3 doggies over Carolina - Don’t forget if you send checks out for Katrina victims this weekend, it still counts as a 2006 tax deduction.
Seattle 3 ½ doggies to TAMPA BAY - At least Tampa Bay signed Chris Simms to a contract so fans there have something to look forward to.. If Seattle loses they would win the division with an 8-8 record.
New England 3 doggies at TENNESEE - Nice bounce back by the Titans.. But the Patriots are better.
Atlanta 8 doggies over PHILADELPHIA - Eagles also bounced back but I think the spread is a bit large.
BALTIMORE 9 ½ faves over Buffalo - I would have taken Buffalo to cover, but the Ravens are still playing for home field in the 2nd round.
COLTS 9 faves over Miami - The NFL has moved all the AFC relevant games to 4:15... Which means all the CBS shows are gonna start late Sunday Night! (Don’t get too involved in Without a Trace… you might miss midnight!)
San Fran 10 ½ doggies over DENVER - The Broncos need this for a playoff spot.. But the niners are a much better team than the last few years….. I think they will cover.
SAN DIEGO 13 ½ faves over Arizona - To paraphrase Pumpstradamus - The Cardinals pick the Pope.. So I pick the Chargers.
CHICAGO 3 faves over Green Bay - IN a bizarre twist, if the Giants and the other 7-8 teams lose, the Packers can earn a playoff spot if they win. If Green Bay loses, the inevitable Giants canning Coughlin press conference is postponed for another week. The game has no meaning to the Bears by the way….
PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK - Pumpie is 10-5-1.. This weeks pick is only available via the pod cast.. (Oh quit kvetching.. Its free!)
HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!!
Also as part of our annual tradition, the Great Pumpstradamus visits us today for a chat about his predictions for the upcoming year. Today you will learn about Pump’s 2007 predictions…. After the panty less hijinks of Britney Spears and Lloyd Lindsay Lohan I asked the Great One who would be the next celebrity in 2007 to get caught without panties on. Sayeth the Pump: "Richard Simmons!" To hear the rest of the 2007 prognostications.. Click play!
Now time for the final week of regular season NFL picks… Last week we went 10-5-1... (The same as Pumpstradamus’s season to date record!) and we have improved to 13 games under .500 at 110-123-7.. Not bad considering we were a horrific -25 in the beginning of December… Here we go…
Giants 3 point faves over WASHINGTON - Not sure exactly why they are road favorites, but they do have a winning record away from Giants Stadium. A win here pretty much clinches a playoff spot..;. They could get in with a loss too if the other NFC 7-8 teams lose their road games.
Raiders 13 doggies over THE JETS - Remember, the Raiders always cover the huge spreads..
BENGALS 6 faves over Pittsburgh - Can you believe the Bengals might miss the playoffs because of that missed point after attempt last week? (They also might have lost that game in OT)
DALLAS 12 faves over Detroit - It would be nice to see the Boys lose, but I cant stand the Eagles either.
HOUSTON 4 faves over Cleveland - Did you see how bad that Houston field looked during the Rutgers bowl game? And will the Texans march out to the field holding hands like Rockettes like the Kansas State team?
Jacksonville 3 doggies over KANSAS CITY - The Chiefs historically play well at home in December, but they really arent too good this year.
Rams 2 faves over MINNESOTA - If the Giants lose, the Rams pretty much earn the spot with a win.. If the Giants win, the game means nothing and St. Louis will just play half assed like all the other wild card NFC pretenders have done for the past 4 months.
NEW ORLEANS 3 doggies over Carolina - Don’t forget if you send checks out for Katrina victims this weekend, it still counts as a 2006 tax deduction.
Seattle 3 ½ doggies to TAMPA BAY - At least Tampa Bay signed Chris Simms to a contract so fans there have something to look forward to.. If Seattle loses they would win the division with an 8-8 record.
New England 3 doggies at TENNESEE - Nice bounce back by the Titans.. But the Patriots are better.
Atlanta 8 doggies over PHILADELPHIA - Eagles also bounced back but I think the spread is a bit large.
BALTIMORE 9 ½ faves over Buffalo - I would have taken Buffalo to cover, but the Ravens are still playing for home field in the 2nd round.
COLTS 9 faves over Miami - The NFL has moved all the AFC relevant games to 4:15... Which means all the CBS shows are gonna start late Sunday Night! (Don’t get too involved in Without a Trace… you might miss midnight!)
San Fran 10 ½ doggies over DENVER - The Broncos need this for a playoff spot.. But the niners are a much better team than the last few years….. I think they will cover.
SAN DIEGO 13 ½ faves over Arizona - To paraphrase Pumpstradamus - The Cardinals pick the Pope.. So I pick the Chargers.
CHICAGO 3 faves over Green Bay - IN a bizarre twist, if the Giants and the other 7-8 teams lose, the Packers can earn a playoff spot if they win. If Green Bay loses, the inevitable Giants canning Coughlin press conference is postponed for another week. The game has no meaning to the Bears by the way….
PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK - Pumpie is 10-5-1.. This weeks pick is only available via the pod cast.. (Oh quit kvetching.. Its free!)
HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!!
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