By Kathryn Ware

Our look back on the debut season of Ironside continues.
Episode: Force of Arms
Airdate: 4 January 1968
Plot: A “dynamic millionaire” named Marcus Weathers is amassing a private army called The Second Force, a citizen group he proclaims will help the San Francisco police force deal with the rampant crime overtaking the country. The murder of his own security officer gives Weathers the excuse he needs to whip up support. Ironside must solve the murder before the vigilante millionaire begins enforcing law and order – his way.
Guest stars: Harold J. Stone, Gene Raymond (Mr. Jeanette MacDonald), and Linden Chiles.
The Second Force’s Mission Statement: “We’re a group of concerned citizens who want to help. We don’t intend to hand over our country to the forces of lawlessness and crime, without a fight.” Step right up, they’re accepting applications for membership.

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Posted on February 22, 2010

By Scott Buckner

I was a little concerned when I tuned in to The U for Svengoolie at 9 p.m. last Saturday and ended up with the final hour of The Mask of Zorro, an overwrought 1998 piece of crap with Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It turned out Sven was just bumped back an hour, which gave me the time to interject plenty of silly Zorro commentary as The Great Cornholio and the talking bee on those Zyrtec commercials.
Sven’s feature was the 1967 Joan Crawford star vehicle Berserk!, which is like saying a Yugo is a star vehicle because a major Hollywood star imploding into itself happens to be driving one at the moment. It’s also one of the few Svengoolie features where playing The Svengoolie Drinking Game of Death has the real potential to kill you within the first 15 minutes simply because it’s a Joan Crawford movie.

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Posted on February 16, 2010

By The Beachwood Niche TV Affairs Desk

According to sources close to the Beachwood, the following pitches were recently made to the following channels.
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Death Rattle – A&E
Spend 24 hours in America’s deadliest hospice.
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Look at My Dick – Spike
Fucking Look At It.
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Celebrity Cameltoe – E!
Special Oscar Preview.
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Douchebags – MTV
The Boys totally party with some sluts.
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Sluts – MTV
The Girls totally party with some Douchebags.

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Posted on February 8, 2010

By Scott Buckner

Some years ago, I was introduced to Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America and became kind of fascinated with it. Like the American version of the show that came later, Ramsay spent his time traipsing around the United Kingdom on a mission to whip some mom-and-pop restaurant the size of a Dairy Queen into shape within the span of a few days. If I learned anything from that show, it’s that food created on that island is basically unidentifiable slop even on its best days, so if you ever visit, you’re probably better off just drinking your three squares a day at the closest pub.
Here in the States, our mom-and-pop dining establishments have many of the same problems as those across The Pond, except without meals involving sheep innards or eels. Their kitchens are just as filthy and disorganized, their food storage practices just as abhorrent, and the food cooked by the same stressed-out, lazy and incompetent kitchen people who seem to have developed their social skills in prison. Likewise, our dining establishments are being mismanaged into the dirt by bickering family members who probably should have found something more profitable to mismanage into oblivion, like a steel mill or a record company. In many cases, it has taken entire families generations of hard work to drive their business over a cliff, so the possibility that it might be resurrected in less than a week by one guy is pretty inspiring.
That said, you’d think having Gordon Ramsay dedicate seven days to save your own personal Titanic would make you cream in your jeans. Or if you were a really hard case, at least make your nipples tingle a little. But no. That’s why another entertaining season of Kitchen Nightmares is now back on Fox.

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Posted on February 4, 2010

By The Beachwood J School Affairs Desk

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Posted on February 1, 2010