Category: TV

Z-View The Twilight Zone: “Where is Everybody?” [Season 1, Episode 1]

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Twilight Zone: “Where is Everybody?” [Season 1, Episode 1]
Original Air Date: October 2, 1959

Director: Robert Stevens

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Earl Holliman and James Gregory.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Mike Ferris [Holliman] suddenly finds himself in a deserted small town.  He doesn’t know who he is or how he got there.  As he moves through the town looking for others, he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched… and he is!

Final Thoughts:  Nice twist ending provides a solid start to the series.

Rating:

Syfy Presents Every “Twilight Zone” Episode in Order!!

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The Syfy Channel runs a Twilight Zone Marathon every year for New Year’s Eve / New Year’s Day.  

This year is no exception.  Except it is.

This year Syfy is pulling out all the stops and will run each of the 156 Twilight Zone episodes in order!  My DVR is locked and loaded.  Although I’ve seen nearly every episode, this is my chance to (Z-)view them in order.

The fun starts on December 30th at 7pm.

Paleofuture has a list of the TwilightZone episodes and times that they’ll appear.  I’ll be live tweeting along with The Twilight Zone @The Night Gallery and others.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to join in too.

RIP – Meadow George Lemon III aka “Meadowlark” Lemon

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Meadow George Lemon III better known as “Meadowlark” Lemon of Harlem Globetrotters fame passed away today at the age of 83.

Meadowlark played “before Kings, Queens, Presidents, Popes,” and millions of fans in over 100 countries of the world during his career with the Globetrotters which ran from 1954 – 1979 and over 16,000 games.  Dubbed the “Clown Prince of Basketball” Lemon became the face of the Globetrotters and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.

Lemon’s popularity led to commercials, tv and movie roles and two Harlem Globetrotter animated series.  In 1993, fourteen years after retiring, Lemon returned to the Globetrotters for a 50 game come-back tour.  In 2003, Lemon was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame which was just one of the many honor and awards Lemon earned throughout his life.

Lemon was a born-again Christian and in 1986 became an ordained minister.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Meadow George Lemon III’s family, friends and fans.

Star Trek: The 366 Project!

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2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a tv series that lasted just three seasons and yet would not die.  Star Trek went on to spawn a cartoon series, comic books, novelizations, several more tv series and many Star Trek movies [with more on the way].

In honor of Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary…

Roddenberry Entertainment, the original creators of Star Trek, is celebrating the anniversary of its brainchild by unearthing rare photos, memos, script pages, documents, and the like from the archives. The initiative, called “The 366 Project,” will see one piece of Trek history posted to Roddenberry Entertainment’s social media channel each day beginning in 2016. Like the title suggests, there are 366 pieces to be released.

If you can’t wait, Entertainment Weekly has three bonus pieces available now!

13 Spirited Facts About “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

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Andrew N. Wong and Mental_Floss present 13 Spirited Facts About How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. ITS BUDGET WAS MASSIVE.

Coming in at over $300,000, or $2.2 million in today’s dollars, the special’s budget was unheard of at the time for a 26-minute cartoon adaptation. For comparison’s sake, A Charlie Brown Christmas’s budget was reported as $96,000, or roughly $722,000 today (and this was after production had gone $20,000 over the original budget).

8. CHUCK JONES HAD TO FIND WAYS TO FILL OUT THE 26-MINUTE TIME SLOT.

Because reading the book out loud only takes about 12 minutes, Jones was faced with the challenge of extending the story. For this, he turned to Max the dog. “That whole center section where Max is tied up to the sleigh, and goes down through the mountainside, and has all those problems getting down there, was good comic business as it turns out,” Jones explained in TNT’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas special, which is a special feature on the movie’s DVD. “But it was all added; it was not part of the book.” Jones would go on to name Max as his favorite character from the special, as he felt that he directly represented the audience.

7. THURL RAVENSCROFT DIDN’T RECEIVE CREDIT FOR HIS SINGING OF  “YOU’RE A MEAN ONE, MR. GRINCH.”

The famous voice actor and singer, best known for providing the voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, wasn’t recognized for his work in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Because of this, most viewers wrongly assumed that the narrator of the special, Boris Karloff, also sang the piece in question. Upset by this oversight, Geisel personally apologized to Ravenscroft and vowed to make amends. Geisel went on to pen a letter, urging all the major columnists that he knew to help him rectify the mistake by issuing a notice of correction in their publications.

8 Jolly Facts About “Frosty the Snowman”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 8 Jolly Facts About Frosty the Snowman.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. THE NARRATOR WAS UNIVERSALLY REGARDED AS A NICE GUY.

Jimmy Durante was a jazz pianist, singer, and comedian whose career spanned a little over 50 years. In the 1950s, he was a regular not only at Las Vegas’ Desert Inn, but also at the Guardian Angel Cathedral, where he stood outside and greeted fellow parishioners with the priest after Sunday mass each week. Durante loved children, and is famous for turning down a performance fee at the Eagles International Convention in 1961. When asked by the organizers “What can we do, then?” Durante replied in his trademark Brooklynese: “Help da kids.”

5. LEGENDARY VOICE ACTORS JUNE FORAY AND PAUL FREES WERE REPLACED AFTER THE ORIGINAL AIRING.

The original film featured June Foray performing the voices of both the schoolteacher and young Karen, who accompanied Frosty to the North Pole. Paul Frees was the Traffic Cop and Santa Claus, and the two combined to voice the remaining schoolchildren. For reasons unknown (even to Foray herself), nearly all the children’s voices—including Karen’s—were redubbed by unidentified child actors for the 1970 airing. All subsequent TV appearances and video releases contain this new soundtrack. The original is only available on the 1970 soundtrack LP and a 2002 CD release by Rhino.

8. FROSTY HAS MAGIC FINGERS AS WELL AS A MAGIC HAT!

Watch carefully when Frosty attempts to count to 10: He has five fingers on one hand for a brief moment, then when he clasps his hand and flexes his digits, he’s down to four fingers. Maybe that falls under the category of “animation blooper” rather than “magic.”

11 Deluxe Facts About “The Jeffersons”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 11 Deluxe Facts About The Jeffersons.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. THE FIRST GEORGE JEFFERSON WE MET TURNED OUT TO BE A FAKE.
Producer Norman Lear had pegged Sherman Hemsley from the very beginning to play George Jefferson. However, at the time All in the Family hit the airwaves, Hemsley was co-starring in Purlie on Broadway and was reluctant to break his contract. So Lear improvised and hired Mel Stewart as a sort of placeholder.

Stewart posed as George when he joined Louise for dinner at the Bunker home; it was later revealed that he was actually Henry Jefferson, George’s brother. Henry Jefferson appeared in a few more All in the Family episodes before Hemsley was able to assume his role as the Jefferson family patriarch.

4. SANFORD WAS NONPLUSSED WHEN SHE FIRST MET THE ACTOR HIRED TO PLAY HER HUSBAND.
Isabel Sanford recalled during an interview with the Archive of American Television that she first met Sherman Hemsley when she reported to the studio for work one day. An assistant caught her attention and told her that this “young man” (Sanford is 21 years older than Hemsley) had an appointment to see director John Rich, and could she please take him upstairs with her and point him in the direction of Rich’s office? Sanford agreed and when she located Rich she was taken aback when he announced, “Isabel! This is your husband!”

Sanford eyed the “little man that she could squash like a bug” and wondered why the director thought anyone in the world would ever believe that the two characters would be a married couple. Of course, she was cheerfully proven wrong, because years after the show ended, she and Hemsley were often hired as a couple to appear in commercials and other TV shows.

8. MARLA GIBBS DIDN’T QUIT HER DAY JOB … FOR TWO YEARS.
Marla Gibbs had been working as a reservation agent at United Airlines for 11 years (and acting in plays during her spare time) when she landed the role of Florence on The Jeffersons. The character wasn’t intended to be a recurring one, but Gibbs got such a positive audience response that she was called back again a few episodes later. She was eventually offered a contract, but it was for just seven episodes (at the time the Florence character had to alternate stage time with Zara “Mother Jefferson” Cully). Two years later Gibbs was still making the daily commute from the Sunset Boulevard studio after filming had wrapped on The Jeffersons to the Sixth Street United Airlines reservation office in downtown L.A. The producers were surprised when they found out; worried that she was stretching herself too thin, they suggested that she take a leave of absence from the airline. “Not unless you plan to pay me for it,” was her response. She was offered a full contract shortly afterward and said farewell to United.

14 Blockheaded Facts About “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

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Jake Rosen and Mental_Floss present 14 Blockheaded Facts About A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. SNOOPY’S VOICE IS JUST SPED-UP NONSENSE.
The early Peanuts specials made use of both untrained kids and professional actors: Peter Robbins (Charlie Brown) and Christopher Shea (Linus) were working child performers, while the rest of the cast consisted of “regular” kids coached by Melendez in the studio. When Schulz told Melendez that Snoopy couldn’t have any lines in the show—he’s a dog, and Schulz’s dogs didn’t talk—the animator decided to bark and chuff into a microphone himself, then speed up the recording to give it a more emotive quality.

7. CHARLIE BROWN’S HEAD WAS A NIGHTMARE TO ANIMATE.
Because Melendez was unwilling to stray from Schulz’s distinctive character designs—which were never intended to be animated—he found himself in a contentious battle with Charlie Brown’s noggin. Its round shape made it difficult to depict Charlie turning around; as with most of the characters, his arms were too tiny to scratch his head. Snoopy, in contrast, was free of a ball-shaped cranium and became the show’s easiest figure to animate.

10. CBS HATED IT, TOO.
After toiling on the special for six months, Melendez and Mendelson screened it for CBS executives just three weeks before it was set to air. The mood in the room was less than enthusiastic: the network found it slow and lacking in energy, telling Melendez they weren’t interested in any more specials. To add insult, someone had misspelled Schulz in the credits, adding a “T” to his last name. (Schulz himself thought the whole project was a “disaster” due to the crude animation.)

19 Things You Never Knew About “Breaking Bad”

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Hollywood.com presents 19 Things You Never Knew About Breaking Bad.  Here are three of my favorites…

5.      The GPS coordinates that repeatedly appear throughout the show, N34 59 20 W106 36 52, actually corresponds to the location of the studio where the show filmed.

6.      Showtime, HBO, and TNT all initially passed on Breaking Bad.  FX began production on it, but eventually passed in favor of Courteney Cox’s Dirt in an attempt to increase female viewership. HBO wasn’t interested and TNT liked it but couldn’t have a meth kingpin as a main character.

14.   The title of the final episode, “Felina,” is an anagram for “finale.”   The letters can also spell out the atomic numbers for various elements: Fe Li Na, or blood, meth, and tears.

20 of the Most Surprising Numbers About “Seinfeld”

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Worthy presents 20 of the Most Surprising Numbers About Seinfeld.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. $40,000,

2. $1 million

3. $110 million

During the 1991 to 1992 season, Jerry Seinfeld was paid $40,000 per episode. During the show’s final season, 1997 to 1998, he was paid $1 million per episode. He was offered $110 million to do a tenth season, but he turned down NBC’s offer to continue. He decided that nine seasons completed the show, and that is another story about numbers that was revealed when Vanity Fair did a cover story of him in 1998 when the series finally ended. He was quoted as saying “Nine is cool.” He had discovered that the number nine means completion in numerology. Learning that the Beatles stayed together nine years and then broke up was also an inspiration to Seinfeld. It turns out that nine is also a highly significant number in his life:

• He was born in 1954 (5 plus 4 = 9).

• He graduated high school in 1972 (7 plus 2 = 9).

• His first Tonight Show appearance was in 1981 (8 plus 1 =9).

• His sitcom Seinfeld first aired in 1989 (1 plus 9 plus 8 plus 9 = 27; 2 plus 7 = 9).

• The show was shown at 9 P.M.

• The show ended in 1998, which also equals 27 and, of course 2 plus 7 =9.

Seinfeld also said that when he thought about the end of the show, he felt that nine was his number.

Z-View: “The Wiz Live”

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The Wiz Live  [2015]
Director: Kenny Leon
Based on the play The Wiz by William F. Brown
Starring: Shanice Williams, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo and David Allan Grier.

The Pitch: We need a new musical to do live on tv…. Hey, let’s do The Wiz!

The Tagline: “Ease on down the road to Oz!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Everyone knows the story of The Wizard of Oz.  This is an adaptation of that story.  Actually, this version is an adaptation of an adaptation of The Wizard of  Oz.

The Wiz first appeared as a Broadway play in 1975.  Then in 1978, The Wiz turned up in theaters as a movie starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson directed by Sidney Lumet.

This version was broadcast live with Shanice Williams as Dorothy, Elijah Kelley as the Scarecrow, Ne-Yo as the Tin Man and David Allan Grier as the Cowardly Lion.  Queen Latifah plays the Wizard and there are appearances by Common, Mary J. Blige and Stephanie Mills.

I enjoyed The Wiz.  The cast was excellent and special mention to David Allan Grier as the Cowardly Lion and Elijah Kelley as the Tin Man for their performances.  Stand out scenes include Dorothy meeting the Scarecrow [loved the crows], when our group on the way to Oz come across the poppies, and the Lion singing “I’m a Mean ole Lion.”

If I were to pick nits:  I wish the show had been presented before a live audience.  I think it would have enhanced the viewing experience.  I was a bit let down by the tornado sequence, the creatures sent by the Wicked Witch to collect Dorothy and some of story shortcuts.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Wiz Live.  It was a fine way to spend a couple of hours in Oz.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars.

Robert Rodriguez Talks Up Sly Stallone in “The Director’s Chair”

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Robert Rodriguez is a true Sylvester Stallone fan.  Recently Sly sat down with Rodriguez for an episode of The Director’s Chair and…

Rodriguez was so impressed with Stallone’s insight and honestly that he wanted to make the episode available for free to everyone. You can watch it on the …

Capone from Ain’t It Cool News had a chance to interview Rodriguez about Sly’s appearance on The Director’s Chair and their interview should be required reading for anyone who checks in here.

11 Far Out Facts About “Lost in Space”

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Bryan Reesman and Mental_Floss present 11 Far Out Facts About Lost in Space.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE ORIGINAL UNAIRED PILOT SET A DARKER TONE. IT ALSO COST $600,000.
The original pilot “No Place To Hide”—which cost $600,000, or $4.5 million in today’s dollars—was a more straight up sci-fi tale that did not include either Dr. Smith or the Robot in the cast. The Space Family Robinson saga—inspired by a comic book with that title from Gold Key Comics that began in 1962—started with their 1997 mission going awry thanks to a meteor shower, and the Jupiter 2 crash landing on a seemingly barren planet with harsh weather conditions and inhabited by dangerous cyclops giants. It was pretty impressive for the day and hinted at a more intense show than the one that ultimately aired. We still love the series, but this episode—unseen until early last decade—promised many more dramatic possibilities.

2. THE JUPITER 2 COST MORE THAN THE ENTERPRISE.
The cost of the Robinson family’s Jupiter 2 spacecraft was $350,000 ($2.6 million today), more than the Enterprise on Star Trek, which began airing when Lost In Space started its second season. Of course, a major difference is that the Jupiter 2 was a smaller ship, so we saw every chamber in it, whereas the Enterprise was a larger wessel (as Pavel Chekov would say) with many unseen nooks and crannies. It was all about scale.

7. GUY WILLIAMS RETIRED FROM ACTING AFTER LOST IN SPACE.
The man who was famed for playing Zorro on TV between 1957 and 1961 and Dr. John Robinson from 1965 to 1968 decided to retire from the spotlight at the young age of 44 following the cancellation of Lost In Space. He later moved to Argentina, where he was reportedly beloved and where he lived until his death in 1989.