Given how close their friendship was, did Carl Reiner ever try to get Mel Brooks to appear on The Dick Van Dyke Show in any role? Did Mel himself ever suggest it? (The character of Buddy Sorrell was actually based on Mel Brooks.)
Mel guesting on the show would have been EPIC.
In the United States, it’s probably St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas (pictured) and opened its doors in 1962. Today it treats up to 9,000 children a year and does research into children’s cancer and other devastating diseases. The charity does a LOT of advertising and fundraising. It was named after the patron saint of hopeless causes.
The first, who appeared in Margaret’s Marriage, was played by Beeson Carroll. The second, who appeared in The M*A*S*H Olympics, was played by Mike Henry. These are the only two appearances of Donald, although he was certainly talked about a lot on the show.
For a long time I didn’t like the casting decision that replaced the first one with the second. But now that I think about it, perhaps Mike Henry played him better. Beeson Carroll’s version of Donald makes him out to be a real doofus, while Mike Henry’s version makes him athletic, volatile and argumentative. Which one is more likely to get so upset during their honeymoon that he stopped talking and stopped pretty much everything, accidentally send a love letter meant for Darlene to Margaret and then do everything possible to avoid dealing with their marital problems? I think Mike Henry’s version. Besides, he has a more prominent brow ridge, and didn’t Margaret say he had just one eyebrow, over both eyes? (The Neanderthal look.)
Which Donald do you like better?
Anyone else love watching Imogene Coca as Mary, the Good Fairy? (Mary, the Good Fairy and The Good Fairy Strikes Again, season 7, episodes 15 and 16)
I was too young to have seen her at her zany best on Your Show of Shows, so seeing her turn up on Bewitched was a delight.
Someone I know has been watching Monk and was wondering why, in “Mr. Monk Stays in Bed”, the musical greeting card that Julie gave to Adrian plays Polly Wolly Doodle. The reason why this person was critical of the choice of music is because the song came from a 19th century minstrel show, so it has an uncomfortable history. I said the only reason I know why is because the song entered the public domain in 1951, meaning that nobody had to pay for its use on the show. I don’t know if the greeting card was already something that existed and the prop master just bought it for the episode, or they made it specifically for the episode.
So what do you think? Do you hate the song as much as Adrian Monk does? Or do you actually like it, or you’re just neutral about it?
I just had a breakfast (yes, it’s 3 p.m. in the afternoon, but I’m retired and get up late most days) of Multigrain Cheerios, vanilla almond milk and fresh blueberries. I was in heaven. It’s all gone now and I’m still savoring the memory of it. This is my favorite cereal and my favorite breakfast, other than sourdough pretzel nibblers and chocolate covered almonds, which I’ve eaten for years but trying to cut down on because of my high blood pressure. I’m a firm believer that breakfast is an important way to get the day started.
Do you have a favorite or comfort breakfast?
For a primarily science fiction show, the science presented on it was generally pretty bad. I was reading about the supercontinent Pangea and continental drift, and it reminded me of “The Odyssey of Flight 33”, in which a jet plane out of New York finds itself back in the age of the dinosaurs. In one scene with the dinosaurs, the cabin crew look out the window - and recognize the New York coastline! Um, no. The New York coastline as it is now would NOT have been recognizable when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And this is an episode in which Rod’s brother Robert, an aviation writer, checked the script and even helped write it to make sure the dialogue was authentic. And then there were episodes in which people lived on asteroids. That’s not even remotely scientifically possible, at least not on the surface of one. The writers had access to libraries and weren’t exactly living in the Middle Ages. They probably all had sets of encyclopedias at home. How hard would it have been to do some extra research to make sure the science checked out?
Thanks to a recent thread on Mezzetta cocktail onions, when I realized that I didn’t have any at home, I grabbed a couple of jars while shopping at the supermarket today. While I was there, I also grabbed a jar of okra pickles. My craving for okra pickles goes in cycles. When I suddenly get a craving, I have to buy a jar. Some people like the hot, but I prefer the mild. By the time I’ve emptied the jar, I’m totally over okra pickles for a while. Then after some time has passed, I have a sudden craving for them again. As you can see, I’m in the “OMG I NEED okra pickles!” phase once again. Talk O’ Texas is the only brand I’ve ever bought. If there are better okra pickles out there, I’d love to know about them.
This would have made a nifty spinoff series. Yes? No? Maybe?
During the “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe” musical number, Vernon Dent appears as the train engineer. He’s at the 1:22 mark in the attached video. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. He had a pretty nice singing voice.
They took away the good food, the healthy food, the fresh food, the produce, and they added more alcohol brands. WTF? Even if it was just a couple of cents back, it was a good excuse, an extra incentive to buy fresh produce at the market. Now they’re telling us we can buy alcohol to get some cash back. What if you don’t want alcohol? I probably wouldn’t care as much if they offered cash back on fresh produce as well as alcohol, but they got rid of the fresh produce. Now they want us spending our money on booze, along with a lot of junk food.
Is anyone actually buying these alcohol brands?
Marilyn converted to Judaism upon marriage to Jewish playwright Arthur Miller in 1956. Two days after their civil marriage ceremony, they had a Jewish marriage ceremony. While they ended up getting divorced in 1961, Marilyn continued to feel a strong connection to Judaism and never renounced her conversion. Her rabbi was Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg of Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, Connecticut. He guided her through her formal conversion to Judaism in July 1956 and officiated at her wedding ceremony to playwright Arthur Miller.
Not too many people are aware that she was a convert.
It just occurred to me that it might be a good episode to use to introduce M*A*S*H to the uninitiated because it’s a clip show. It contains scenes from previous episodes, including the scene in Adam’s Ribs in which Hawkeye goes off his noodle. I’m not saying it should be the only episode, but one of several.
And by the same token, when any other classic sitcom has a clip show, those can be used for the same purpose, introducing the sitcom to the uninitiated. See, clip shows aren’t useless after all!
Now tell the truth: When you see Weezie in this episode (Samantha Goes South For a Spell), don’t you expect George Jefferson to suddenly show up? I do.
The best thing about the episode “The M*A*S*H Olympics” is Klinger in a toga dress bearing the Olympics torch and lighting the flame. The first time I watched it, I couldn’t stop laughing. I can watch that scene on a loop. The rest of the episode, meh. Margaret yelling at Donald the entire time makes me cringe.
Star Wars will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year.
This makes me feel really old. I remember being 18 and going to see it with my brother, waiting in a really long line just to buy the tickets, and then waiting in another long line to get into the theater. The special effects blew me away. My parents went to see it separately, and my father bragged that he fell asleep halfway through. 🙄 But we had just gotten our first VCR, and one of the first movies I watched on it was a bootleg copy of Star Wars that my dad somehow glommed onto. It sure looked different on our TV set.
Since the Star Wars franchise is ongoing, what makes a nearly 50 year old movie fresh and exciting to young people when they won’t watch any other movie made before they were born?
STOP putting raisins in the coleslaw. Raisins are very sweet and coleslaw is sweet already because of the mayo dressing. (I once ordered coleslaw at Cracker Barrel. They apparently scooped from the bottom, because my coleslaw was absolutely DROWNING in the dressing. It was more dressing than coleslaw. But at least I didn’t find any raisins.) The raisins make the coleslaw even sweeter. The coleslaw is supposed to be a salad, not dessert. It’s supposed to have a tangy taste, not an overly sweet taste. You put raisins in cookies. You don’t put raisins in salad, or coleslaw. Who thought up such abomination as raisins in coleslaw?