Chicago -
By Kathryn Ware
Our look back on the debut season of Ironside continues.
Episode: The Fourteenth Runner
Airdate: 28 December 1967
Plot: During a marathon race in the hills above San Francisco, Yuri Azneyeff, a prominent Russian runner and “hero to the Soviet people” disappears. Ironside is put on special assignment to find out what happened to the missing marathoner.
Guest stars: Steve Ihnat (who?), John Van Dreelen (huh?) and Edward Asner (yes!)
Posted on January 25, 2010
By Pat Bataillon
I was reading the Bible again the other night. Something I do to remind me to fear for my soul at all times. I re-read the Cain and Abel story as well as some Jesus stuff and realized we have a modern day version unfolding right before or eyes. Leno is killing the younger Conan for the approval of his superior. I love it when biblical tales come to teach us in modern day situations. See Haiti’s pact with the devil. Kudos to Pat Robertson for pointing that one out, I would have completely missed it.
I have never watched an episode of Leno’s prime time show and never made it through an entire hour of his version of the Tonight Show. I watched Conan a few times when it started, and over the last two weeks. The Late Night show with Conan was really something special and looks to be in good hands with Jimmy Fallon. Seriously, Jimmy Fallon is worthwhile. His take on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is a can’t miss. Through all these shows though, Letterman has been holding my attention since I could stay up past 10.
Posted on January 22, 2010
By Scott Buckner
When you’ve made a choice to live your life without cable TV, finding something interesting enough to write about is often a dismal challenge. This is why I was was glad – and completely surprised – to see Chicago’s very own MeToo (digital 26.3) airing 1971’s critically-acclaimed The Last Picture Show at 3 a.m. last Sunday.
I was even more surprised to notice there were only one or two very short interruptions during the entire two-hour block, most notably by a flashback of the classic Keep America Beautiful “Crying Indian” commercial, which looked like it could have been filmed yesterday along the Grand Calumet River and the Borman Expressway near the Indiana-Illinois border.
Posted on December 17, 2009
By The Beachwood Harpo Affairs Desk
Oprah Winfrey reportedly is considering a move to Los Angeles. Here’s why.
* Sunshine is supposedly slimming.
* Really angry about parking meters.
* Persuaded by those California commercials.
* Wants to be closer to the Laurel Canyon diet.
Posted on November 10, 2009
By David Rutter
David Spade has made an actor’s living as the creepy letch who pretends he’s way younger that his 40 or so, solely as a technique to snag hot babes.
Turns out he’s even creepier in real life than what he played on TV
His most recent commercial for DirecTV matches him with the ghostly superimposed Chris Farley during their Tommy Boy turn.
Except now Spade looks 45 in addition to being 45.
And no, there appears to be no nobler ulterior involvement, such as arguing against overindulgence and a dissolute lifestyle which did in Farley, or perhaps donating proceeds to some charity. This is a cash deal, baby. Creepy is the new greedy, I guess.
Posted on October 26, 2009
By The Ken Cosgrove, Accounts, Affairs Desk
1. I really enjoy the aesthetics of this era!
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2. Good job, sycophants!
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3. You reek of that cheap manwhore cologne!
Posted on October 9, 2009
By Steve Rhodes
I used to be a huge David Letterman fan – long before he had a late night show. Letterman started on network TV with a morning show that was as brilliant as anything that’s ever been on TV; just like his late night show was in its early years, the morning show was as much a parody of morning shows as it was for real. I bailed on Letterman years ago, though, when his late night show became too fratty – and too much like the very thing he once slyly and savagely parodied. You know, he became like Leno.
To wit:
1. Animal psychic segment.
Posted on October 7, 2009
By The Ridley Scott Affairs Desk
The Good Wife – starring Julianna Margulies as the wife of a Cook County State’s Attorney (Chris Noth) sent to jail in a sex and corruption scandal – finally premiered last week and we’re here to tell you, it hardly matches up with real politics around here. Here are some plot lines sure to develop.
Here are some plot lines you might see if this was reality TV instead of inferior fiction.
* Noth’s character gets his own show on WLS-AM while his appeal is pending. Spinoff!
* Margulies’ character loses her job at a homeless agency and is forced to eat bugs on Svengoolie for meal money.
* The Cook County Democratic Central Committee installs Bill Beavers as Noth’s replacement. Spinoff!
Posted on September 28, 2009
By Scott Buckner
For us menfolk, the 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. network TV time slot is a torturous purgatory filled with little more than TV judges, people cooking things, and talk shows. This window of time was made even more torturous on Wednesday by the airing of the 1973 Robbie Benson/Glynnis O’Connor film Jeremy on ThisTV, one of WCIU’s digital children whose library seems to be comprised largely of movies from the 1970s that nobody in their right mind would have paid good money to see even back then, when theater tickets didn’t even cost five bucks.
On the other hand, if it weren’t for ThisTV, I’d have no idea that distinguished French actor Thierry Lhermitte even existed.
For those of you who weren’t teenagers in 1973 – or for those of you who were and would like to forget the whole experience – Jeremy ranks right up there with Ice Castles as a movie capable of giving you contact diabetes, or at the very least making the fillings in your teeth hurt.
That’s because they starred the incredibly scrawny and incredibly sensitive and emotional young actor Robby Benson, a kid who could make Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” sound like a James Taylor song. But America fell in love with doe-eyed sensitivity during the 1970s, so naturally, boatloads of tweenie girls fell in love with Robby Benson. He made several movies before dropping off the celebrity radar a few years later when everyone decided the kids in Fast Times at Ridgemont High were obviously more interesting and fun. (He – well, his voice, anyway – had a brief resurgence of sorts in Walt Disney’s 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast.)
My problem back then with Robby Benson – and on Wednesday with Jeremy – was that it always took me half the movie to figure out that he wasn’t somewhat mentally retarded, or playing someone who was.
Posted on September 18, 2009
