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FUNNY STUFF
Can it be - more snow? I'm in heaven even though I was supposed to travel to a callback audition for a Tums commercial with NASCAR's Michael Waltrip. I'd rather have snow.
There's a Brazilian TV program that smashes a pie into unsuspecting bystander's faces ala Soupy Sales - understandably the victims are less than amused. Say what you will but that baker can sure plant a pie!
I just watched season one of The Ricky Gervais Show and love love loved it. So just for you here's the entire first episode of the second season which debuts Friday, January 14 at 9pm on HBO.
Here's a great list from modcinema.com - Exploring 60's/70's culture through rare & hard to find films on DVD.
Monday, January 10, 2011 - 8:06am
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HARRY'S LAW
I have the complete interview with David E. Kelley & Kathy Bates up at DTVUSAFORUM so check it out - I thought Ms. Bates had some very interesting things to say about the show and her approach to acting.
Friday, January 7, 2010 - 8:46am
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MY TWO QUESTIONS WITH KATHY BATES
Yesterday I participated in a conference call with Kathy Bates and Executive Producer David E. Kelley ('Ally McBeal', 'Boston Legal') about their new drama series on NBC 'Harry’s Law' which premiers Monday, January 17 at 10:00pm.
I used the opportunity to talk about Jessica Tandy and the shows she enjoyed growing up. You can listen to it here.
Billy Ingram: Hi Kathy. In my previous life I was a movie poster designer and I worked on a bunch of your movies. One of them was Used People. And I have a picture here of Jessica Tandy from the photo shoot that we did. She's got her hands raised and she's feisty and full of life... I wonder if you could tell me what it was like working with her and if you learned from her as an actress?
Kathy Bates: Well she was great. She was a one of a kind great lady, a great dame. And she always told me to go back to the theater. That was her way of staying connected to what she was so passionate about which was acting.
And the one thing I remember the most about her was how - what a source of life her work was for her.
When we started working on 'Fried Green Tomatoes' she came to work with jeans and a little jean jacket on. And she looked like a 16-year-old girl out of drama school with her first role. And she was 84 at the time.
And that taught me more than anything that you stay in love with what you do, you know, right the way through and it'll support you.
Billy Ingram: And where their TV shows that you enjoyed growing up?
Kathy Bates: Yes Route 66 was one of my favorites. I used to watch Bonanza. I went more for like who was the guy that was Paladin? Was that a show?
Billy Ingram: Yes, Have Gun - Will Travel.
Kathy Bates: I'm talking way back there in both phases.
Billy Ingram: Richard Boone I think...
Kathy Bates: Yes... right, yes. And Perry Mason. I used to watch Perry Mason. I think a lot about Perry Mason when I'm doing this show and those types of things.
Billy Ingram: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Kathy Bates: You're welcome.
Here's the great Jessica Tandy in a Bicentennial Minute from 1975.
Thursday, January 6, 2011 - 8:06am
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I'M BACK!
I've been mostly AWOL lately, the holiday season really knocked me for a loop, I have to look after my elderly mother so everything seems to be more complicated than normal. Still, I allowed myself to relax a bit and as a result I had the best Christmas in decades. I never do anything New Year's Eve (amateur night) however. Now I find I've been rooked into doing some no budget horror movie this month, I thought someone else was directing and it was a small part - wrong on both counts. And I'm playing a priest again, what is it with the priest roles? I was even asked to audition for a priest role on One Tree Hill. Talk about playing against type...
I'm sure you've heard that Anne Francis died the other day, she being the star of the one season under appreciated Honey West (the "private eye-ful") from 1965. Supposedly the ratings were fine for Honey West but ABC had just acquired the rights to the British series The Avengers and thought one high kicking private eye (Emma Peel) would be enough for mid-sixties TV viewers. Fortunately Honey West has been restored and collected in a nice DVD set. Great stuff!
Saw this headline: Paula Abdul: 'I've Never Been Drunk In My Life' - Yeah, me either.
Roger Froilan has launched The Fright Channel which is a horror TV Channel done in the style of the old, independent TV stations. Check it out at horrorhaven.com.
I'm doing a conference call with the wonderful Kathy Bates and producer David E. Kelley about their new series Harry's Law today, I'll have something for you manana.
Jim Longworth poignantly wrote about the many celebrity deaths in 2010, you can read it here.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - 8:33am
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Hot In Cleveland
I find it so amazing when a new series turns out to be better than I expected, like Funny Or Die reviewed earlier. That's happily the case with Hot In Cleveland season one now on DVD from TV Land.
First off the cast is impeccable - Jane Leeves (Frazier), Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time), and Wendy Malick (Just Shoot Me!) make up the core ensemble. But when Betty White meanders into any scene the show is hers from that point on. And thank goodness otherwise this caustic comedy would mostly fall flat.
The premise is flimsy but who cares, it's a sitcom, I come for the laughs - three LA airheads descend on the Cleveland bar scene once they realize the local guys there find them attractive. On a lark, they move into a home that comes with a cantankerous caretaker in the form of Betty White.
The scripts are crispy critters with plenty of burst-out-loud laughs sprinkled throughout each episode, those guffaws coming mostly from White's character, a pleasing mix of the two characters she's best known for - Daffy Rose Nylund from Golden Girls and bitchy Sue Anne Nivens from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. White's Elka Ostrovsky is a pot smoking, bedazzling senior citizen with an cutting comment for all that wander into her wobbly orbit.
Ah, but there's more. Most notably Carl Reiner who appears a few times as Elka's boyfriend; White's Carol Burnett Show costar Tim Conway makes an appearance as a potential suitor; Huey Lewis kills as the middle aged 80's rocker that Malick's character hopes to rekindle a flame with; Susan Lucci cuts and dices playing 'herself.'
How cool it is to see classic TV performers like Reiner and Conway working again (together even!), as good as ever in every way?
Lots of extras here - the full length pilot, backstage peaks, and hilarious bloopers among them. Wait until you see how Betty White handles it when someone flubs a line.
This is a sitcom in the same vein as Frazier or Everybody Loves Raymond, if you enjoyed those shows chances are Hot In Cleveland will hit that sweet spot.
Saturday, January 1, 2011 - 8:03am
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FUNNY OR DIE
HBO has released on DVD possibly the most hilarious half hour on television today - Funny or Die. Finally a show that made the jump from the internet to TV that is actually top notch! (Then again, this is HBO not television as they like to remind us.)
Produced by Will Ferrell (who's building a comedy dynasty), Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy Funny or Die reminds me of Fernwood 2Night in that it masquerades as a television network, drawing inspiration from familiar television conventions both old and new. Like Fernwood it's absurdist and cockeyed but taken to a startling extreme. Besides that, Fernwood 2Night's own Fred Willard appears in the hysterical 'Space Baby' segments - which manages to be delightfully adorable and despicably vulgar at the same time.
Stylistically asymmetrical, the show is diced into different sometimes recurring comedy bits and they are mostly all brilliant with few clunkers. 'Designated Driver' with Rob Riggle and Paul Scheer is scream out loud funny. 'Playground Politics' is a biting satire that breaks world tensions down to a schoolyard mentality. Wicked.
'Drunk History' gets a comedian fully plastered then have them explain in detail an historical event. Watching Duncan Trussle puking while relating the story of the invention of electricity is unreal.
'Casual Sex' follows an eight month pregnant woman's search for meaningless sex, 'Drunk Driver Superhero' is truly twisted, while Mike O'Connell's brutally capricious musical shorts are brilliant. I laughed until I cried at his manic anthem 'Totally Crazy.'
Scattered throughout are the brightest lights in film comedy today - Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Zooey Dechanel, Ed Helms, David Spade, Zach Galifinakis, Richard Lewis, Tim Meadows, along with old school stars like Karen Black and Bud Cort who, in 'Magical Balloon,' craft the most amazingly kooky scenario you'll ever see. It's amazing to see those old pros at it again, they really bring it, a career high point for both. There are so many cool guests and cameos it's a delight to see who might turn up next.
Toss in some tasteless commercial parodies and outrageously zany fake promos and you've got a comic punch in the gut on two discs. No doubt this is not for everybody, superior comedy never is, but if you enjoy your TV on the bizarro side then Funny Or Die is for you.
Friday, December 31, 2010 - 9:09am
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A FEW MINUTES WITH A LEGEND
As promised (see below) here are two segments from Life With Linkletter from January of 1970. The opening and first commercial break:
Sugar Ray Robinson was a guest, he talked about going broke and there is extensive footage of his 1950 bout in Paris with Jean Stock.
Monday, December 27, 2010 - 1:42pm
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Your host - Billy Ingram is one of the nation's top Pop Culture Gurus and expert on classic TV. Seen on VH1, |
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Past TV Blog Entries:
2 Questions with Kathy Bates / 7 Outrageous TV Commercial Fails! / Christmas Blog / Lost Christmas Specials of the 50s & 60s / 1970 TV Shows / Strother Martin / Joya Sherrill / Super Circus / 1950's The Big Show / Saturday Morning TV Memories / Hilarious Outtakes / The Smothers Brothers Revisited/Thanksgiving TV Shows / Thanksgiving Day Parade TV History / Thanksgiving
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