Category: TV

The Best TV Shows of the Last Twenty Five Years

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In a tribute to their 25 years of publishing, Entertainment Weekly selected their choices for The Best TV Shows of the Last Twenty Five Years.

Of the 25 shows they selected, I’ve seen nine.  Here they are with my thoughts on each, plus one I’ve never seen and two I’m shocked that didn’t make the list…

  • Roseanne: I watched a few episodes over the years but it wasn’t for me.

  • Larry Sanders Show: See my comments for Roseanne.

  • X-Files: This is one show I wish I had watched more of.  I plan to give it a try again.  I have a feeling it would have grown on me if I had given it a chance.  Have to say though that I was bored out of my mind with the first movie — perhaps the new one will be better.

  • Friends: I watched it for a season or two and just grew tired of it.

  • Sopranos: I think I’ve seen all the episodes… but not on HBO and so some of the violence was cut.  I would like to watch this series again (uncut) someday.

  • The West Wing: Never missed an episode and loved this series.

  • The Office: I didn’t watch it regularly but always enjoyed it when I did catch it.

  • The Wire: The Wire along with Deadwood are the two series I’ve never seen and want to badly.

  • The Colbert Report: Always enjoyed it the few times I tuned it.

  • Breaking Bad: Saw every episode and consider it one of the best series of all time.

  • How could Seinfeld and Justified not make the list?

The Other Frankenstein Monster: The Strange Fate of Glenn Strange

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Quick, name the famous actor in the photo above who played Frankenstein.

Nope, it’s not Boris Karloff.  Try again.  No, he’s not Lon Chaney, Jr..  Try again.  No, it’s not Bela Lugosi either.  The actor playing Frankenstein in the photo above is Glenn Strange.

Although Glenn Strange played the Frankenstein monster three times (tying Karloff’s record), most folks seldom think of Glenn Strange when they think of Frankenstein.  In a career that spanned over 300 roles in 43 years, Strange was best known as Sam the Bartender on Gunsmoke.

If you’ve read this far, you’ll enjoy the short piece by Jim Knipfel titled The Other Frankenstein Monster: The Strange Fate of Glenn Strange at Den of Geek.

15 Awfully Big Facts About “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 15 Awfully Big Facts About The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. GAVIN MACLEOD AUDITIONED FOR THE ROLE OF LOU GRANT.
Allan See started losing his hair at age 18, while he was studying drama at New York’s Ithaca College. By the time he graduated he was pretty much bald, which limited his roles as an actor. He changed his name to Gavin MacLeod and maintained a fairly steady career playing heavies, thanks to his bald pate and bulky physique. MTM co-founder Grant Tinker invited MacLeod to audition for the role of Lou Grant, which he did, but afterward he asked to read for the role of Mary’s co-worker, Murray Slaughter. He thought he could bring more to the affable Murray character than the gruff and imposing Lou. The producers agreed with him after Ed Asner tested for the role of Mary’s boss.

6. TED KNIGHT WAS LIVING PAYCHECK-TO-PAYCHECK WHEN HE WAS CAST AS TED BAXTER.
The second choice for the role of the anchorman was Lyle Waggoner, but he was happily ensconced on The Carol Burnett Show and had no desire to leave a successful series for an untested one. Jennifer Aniston’s father, John, read for the part of Ted and was called back twice, but the producers were not quite sure he was “the one.” Producer Dave Davis happened to see Ted Knight performing in a local production of the Broadway comedy You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running and reported to the rest of the team that Knight was hilarious and that they should have him read for the role of Ted Baxter.

Even though the silver-haired Knight was a far cry from the hunky heartthrob-type they originally had in mind, Knight came to the audition wearing an anchorman-style blue blazer he had purchased from a thrift store with part of his rent money and impressed them with his booming voice and comedic chops. During that brief reading, he brought some layers to the anchorman character (cocky and arrogant on the outside, but secretly vulnerable and very human) that impressed the MTM staff and inspired some new newsroom story ideas for the show.

14. MARY REALLY DID HAVE TO STRUGGLE TO KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE DURING THE “CHUCKLES BITES THE DUST” EPISODE.
Often listed as one of the best sitcom episodes, this entry touched on a dark subject: the death of WJM children’s show host Chuckles the Clown. (He’d been dressed as Peter Peanut to serve as Grand Marshall of a circus parade and a rogue elephant tried to shell him.) Mary was supposed to remain grim and mournful while the rest of the newsroom made jokes about his unusual demise, but during every rehearsal she continually cracked up whenever Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo (one of Chuckles’ many characters) was mentioned. She recalled in her autobiography that the insides of her cheeks were almost raw from biting them so hard to keep from laughing during the actual taping of the episode.

15 Behind-the-Scenes Facts About “Taxi”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 15 Behind-the-Scenes Facts About Taxi.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. TONY DANZA WAS “DISCOVERED” IN THE BOXING RING.
In the mid-1970s “Tough” Tony Danza was a professional boxer who trained at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Gleason’s was home to many famous fighters, and the go-to place for filmmakers and authors who were researching the sport. That was how producers Larry Gordon and Joel Silver happened to be ringside one night when Danza knocked out Billy Perez and they invited him to audition for Walter Hill’s The Warriors, which they were producing. He was just about ready to ink a deal with them, too, when James L. Brooks called and asked him to read for the part of a boxer on his upcoming sitcom, Taxi.

9. KAUFMAN’S CONTRACT STIPULATED THAT HIS ALTER EGO, TONY CLIFTON, WAS GIVEN A SEPARATE CONTRACT.
Tony Clifton was another of Kaufman’s characters, a sleazy, obnoxious Vegas lounge-lizard. Kaufman insisted not only that Tony Clifton be written into several Taxi episodes, he also insisted that Clifton be treated as a separate and unique entity, with his own contract, dressing room, and parking spot. Kaufman also required that all the staff and actors address him as “Tony,” never “Andy.”

Clifton was cast as Louie’s brother in the episode “A Full House for Christmas,” and he didn’t endear himself to the cast when he arrived late and then retreated to his dressing room for over an hour to have very loud sex with two prostitutes he had brought with him. When rehearsals finally got underway, Tony kept changing the dialogue and announced that he’d written parts for his hooker friends as well. Jeff Conaway stormed off the set and Judd Hirsch got into a shouting match with Tony that ended up with punches thrown. Ed. Weinberger summoned security guards to escort Tony Clifton off the Paramount lot, which Andy Kaufman later stated had been his entire purpose behind that bit of “theater.”

10. REVEREND JIM’S LOOPY CHARACTER WAS ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED TO TONY.
The evolution of the show’s characters got a little confusing: In the beginning, Phil Ryan (the boxer) was supposed to be somewhat punch drunk and dim-witted. When Tony Danza was hired, the producers decided that he was more convincing playing a young, somewhat naive and innocent type, rather than a confused bumbler. Problem was, Randall Carver had already been cast as John Burns, a wide-eyed country bumpkin new to New York City. As season one progressed, the producers realized that the two characters were too similar and their lines were almost interchangeable. So John Burns was written out after the first season and Christopher Lloyd, who played 1960s drug casualty Reverend Jim Ignatowski, was added to the cast to provide the eccentric goofiness originally intended for Tony Banta.

10 Dangerous Toys from Decades Past (and the Commercials that Sold Them)

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 10 Dangerous Toys from Decades Past (and the Commercials that Sold Them).

Of the ten shown I had (or at least played with) Sixfinger, Slip ‘N Slide, Water Wiggle, Johnny Seven One Man Army, Creepy Crawlers, Wham-O Air Blaster, Wham-O Wheeler Bar and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic.  My favorite was the Johnny Seven One Man Army.  The most dangerous was probably the Creepy Crawlers (that metal got hot!).

I loved seeing these commercials again. Click over and check them out for a laugh.  Ah, the golden days of youth.

13 Things You Might Not Know About “Modern Family”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 13 Things You Might Not Know About Modern Family.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. CRAIG T. NELSON WAS OFFERED THE ROLE OF JAY PRITCHETT.
Like many things in Hollywood, Nelson’s decision to pass on the project came down to money. “I really wanted to do Modern Family,” Nelson said. “I really liked the script and I liked the people. I just said, ‘You know what? I’ve been doing this too long.’ We’re in the middle of a cutback here, ladies and gentlemen, in Hollywood and salaries have gone way, way down … I just felt disrespected to tell you the truth.” The next year, Nelson signed on for Parenthood.

5. FIZBO THE CLOWN WAS A REAL CHARACTER ERIC STONESTREET PLAYED AS A CHILD.
Stonestreet began dressing up as Fizbo when he was nine years old (his dream was to be a clown in the circus). By the time he was 11, he was performing at kids’ birthday parties. “It was my way then as a young man to express my desire to entertain and perform,” he told The Kansas City Star. “I didn’t know what I was saying then was that I wanted to be an actor. I had parents, fortunately, who didn’t think I was weird. They thought it was funny and cute and encouraged me to do it. And I had a grandma who would make my costumes.” He doesn’t know where the name Fizbo came from.

7. SOFIA VERGARA THOUGHT ED O’NEILL SPOKE SPANISH.
Sofia Vergara watched Married … with Children growing up in Colombia, where the voices were dubbed into Spanish. She didn’t realize that it wasn’t Ed O’Neill saying Al Bundy’s lines in Spanish, and was surprised to find that he couldn’t speak her native language when they first met. “He had a very sexy Antonio Banderas voice, the guy who was dubbing him,” said Vergara.

15 Critical Facts About “ER”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Critical Facts About ER.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. GEORGE CLOONEY “BEGGED” FOR AN AUDITION.
“George Clooney begged me for a part,” said executive producer John Wells. The 33-year-old was by that time a TV veteran who hadn’t yet found his breakout role (one of his earlier roles had been on a short-lived 1984 CBS sitcom titled E/R). “George was the first person to audition. He came after me for it,” recalled Wells. “Our second day in the office, George showed up and wouldn’t leave until I’d let him audition … George got his hands on the material and was like a dog with a bone.”

12. SOME ACTORS ASKED TO BE KILLED OFF.
Maura Tierney, who played Dr. Abby Lockhart from 1999 to 2009, asked to be killed off. Instead, she was given a juicy enough storyline that she was okay with sticking around until the end of the series. When Edwards told John Wells that he was leaving the show after eight seasons, Wells said that Dr. Greene was too important a character to just walk away from the show, so he asked Edwards: “‘Do you mind if we kill him?’ And I was like, ‘Nope!’ You’ve gotta do what’s best for the show, so that’s okay.” When Kellie Martin decided her character, Lucy Knight, wasn’t working for her, she requested that her departure be made “big.”

15. THE SHOW SAVED LIVES.
A 28-year-old woman in Texas discovered she had a brain tumor because her tongue went out to the side, just like Dr. Greene’s tongue did when his brain tumor returned. The woman’s tumor was caught early and she survived. A USC study found that subjects were 65 percent more likely to change their eating habits if they watched the episode about obesity. And a 2002 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered viewers “increased their knowledge”of HPV and contraception after viewing episodes of the show.

15 Smart Facts About “The Big Bang Theory”

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Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 15 Smart Facts About The Big Bang Theory.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

2. IT TOOK TWO PILOTS FOR THE SHOW TO GET PICKED UP TO SERIES.
The show filmed two different pilots, because CBS didn’t like the first one but felt the show had potential. The first pilot began with a different theme song and featured Sheldon, Leonard, and two female characters, including a different actress playing what would become the Penny role. Chuck Lorre thought the initial pilot “sucked” but is open to having the unaired pilot included as part of a DVD.

5. SHELDON PROBABLY DOESN’T HAVE ASPERGER’S.
Because of Sheldon’s anti-social nature, viewers have often assumed that Sheldon has Asperger’s syndrome. But Prady has stated that “We write the character as the character. A lot of people see various things in him and make the connections. Our feeling is that Sheldon’s mother never got a diagnosis, so we don’t have one.”

Parsons himself isn’t totally sure, though. “Asperger’s came up as a question within the first few episodes. I got asked about it by a reporter, and I had heard of it, but I didn’t know what it was, specifically,” he told Adweek in 2014. “So I asked the writers—I said, ‘They’re asking me if Sheldon has Asperger’s’ and they were like, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ And I went back and I said, ‘No.’ And then I read some about it and I went, OK, well, if the writers say he doesn’t, then he doesn’t, but he certainly shares some qualities with those who do. I like the way it’s handled … This is who this person is; he’s just another human.”

10. WIL WHEATON GOT THE “EVIL WIL WHEATON” GIG THROUGH TWITTER.
Wheaton, who plays a “delightfully evil version” of himself on the show, tweeted about The Big Bang Theory. Wheaton told Larry King, “I was talking on Twitter about how much I loved the show and how I thought it was really funny.” One of the show’s executive producers, Steven Molaro, saw the tweet and told Wheaton to let him know if he wanted to come to a taping. A few days later Wheaton received an email from Bill Prady’s assistant about appearing on the show. “I just thought the email was a joke from one of my friends, so I just ignored it,” Wheaton said.

When Wheaton realized that the email was legit he phoned up Prady, who explained they wanted a nemesis for Sheldon. “It’s always more fun to be the villain,” Wheaton said. Even though the character has evolved into Sheldon’s ally, Wheaton said, “I still call him Evil Wil Wheaton.”

Max Allan Collins’ Interview: Nate Heller, Batman, Quarry, Wild Dog and More!

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Max Allan Collins is one of my favorite novelists.  Collins’ Nathan Heller historical novels are buy-as-soon-as-they-come-out must reads.

Collins discusses…

  • the soon to be released trade for Wild Dog [co-created with artist Terry Beatty]
  • Ms. Tree [also co-created with Terry Beatty]
  • the upcoming Quarry tv show [based on Collins’ hitman Quarry novels]