Check Out 'Scooby-Doo! And The Samurai Sword,'
Now On DVD

With the stealth of a master Ninja warrior, "Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword" contains more hi-jinks, thrills and laughs when Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. embark on an exciting journey[...] Read more!

Read The Full Article:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/04/17/check_out_scooby_doo_and_the_s
amurai_swo

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

FIVE EASY MUSEUM PIECES

I went to the Paley Center for Media Thursday in midtown NYC and watched nearly half a dozen oldies.

1] First up was a special request - Woody Allen's "Men Of Crisis". I've been trying to see this for months there, but it kept coming up as being in use. Glitch in the system, I guess, because they were able to manually load it for me.

"Men Of Crisis" is a 1971 mockumentary about Harvey Wallinger, one of Richard Nixon's close advisors, with Woody as Harvey. His co-stars are Diane Keaton, Louise Lasser, Conrad Bain, Dan Frazer (of 'Kojak'), and Richard M. Dixon. (I'm pretty sure I saw Vincent Gardenia sitting to Harvey Wallinger's right on a McCarthyesque panel.)

2] 'Sam Benedict'
I've always wanted to check out at least one episode of this series - hey, I'd like to see at least one episode of all the old shows! But 'Sam Benedict' stars Edmond O'Brien, and ya gotta support family - no matter how distantly related. (O'Briens - the Smiths of Ireland!)
This was standard courtroom drama, apparently based on the career of a real-life lawyer, J.W. Ehrlich. It took place in San Francisco and the guest cast in this episode included Eddie Albert, Brock Peters, and Roger Perry.

3] 'Martin Kane, Private Eye' This private detective drama had to be one of the earliest examples of quantum leaping in Toobworld: four different actors played the role of Martin Kane over the course of its NBC run. William Gargan, Lee Tracy, Lloyd Nolan, and Mark Stephens were the four Kanes, but it was an episode with Nolan which I saw today.

Man, was this creaky! It's a kinescope of a live production, with clumsy camerawork and some flubbed lines. But the most intriguing part - and which seemed to be the main focus of the reviews I read at the IMDb.com - was the supporting role played by Old Briar pipe tobacco and the other products by the US Tobacco company: Dill's Best, Sano cigarettes, and Encore cigarettes. A lot of the scenes took place at Happy McMann/McMahon's tobacco shop - where only US Tobacco products were on display of course - and several of those scenes should have taken place down at the police station. At the very end, a key piece of evidence, and a very fragile one at that, was brought in to the tobacco shop when it should have been under lock and key in the station-house!

At least these scenes served as the actual commercials, with the characters extolling the pleasures of the various tobacco products. But it was weird to see the camera cut away from Kane and the police lieutenant to focus on Happy selling cigarettes to a woman for a couple of minutes.

4] 'Rocky King, Detective'
Another creaker, and even worse than 'Martin Kane'! Roscoe Karns was a New York police inspector in this kinescope from the early fifties. (The city was never identified, only that it was a big metropolitan city, but you could see the Chrysler Building out his office window.) This was taped live and it really showed in the way that Karns flubbed lines left and right, even if they had to be somewhere in the scene where he could check them. But at least he was able to cover up well so that it seemed almost like the real conversational slip-ups we have every day.
The weirdest part of this show seems to be that Rocky King carried on conversations with his wife Mabel, who never appeared on camera. You'd hear her and see him looking at her, but she may as well have been invisible. (Mabel King was the Vera Peterson of her day.)

5] 'Ford Theatre' - "The Ming Lama"
This was pretty decent so far as it goes. It served as an unsold pilot for a series that I imagine would have been called "Johnny Nighthawk". Howard Duff was John Stevens, who owned a struggling airline of one plane and he'd do the odd job to keep the company solvent. The co-stars were Francis L. Sullivan (great literal heavy), Freberg sidekick Dave Willock, Horace McMahon playing a San Francisco version of his 'Naked City' police lieutenant, Willis Bouchey (better known as a judge on 'Perry Mason'), Leo Gordon in his traditional role as Sullivan's muscle (He was always put to much better use on 'Maverick'.), and Angela Lansbury as a very hot femme fatale. (So weird to see her in this just a few weeks after seeing her, now 83, in "Blithe Spirit" on Broadway.)

While in San Francisco, Johnny stayed at the Carlton Plaza Hotel. I think there is an actual Carlton Plaza in Frisco, but I'd like to think this one was somehow connected to the Carlton Hotel of 'Have Gun, Will Travel' fame.....

So that was my Thursday in the Paley Center library, when it was such a beautiful day I should have been outdoors!
BCnU!Toby O'B

Read The Full Article:
http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/five-easy-museum-pieces.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Season Finale Scene Spoiler

Fan on the Boneyard posted a quote from David Boreanaz's interview on NHL Live radio where he gives a little tidbit about how he approached a particular scene. Spoiler warning for the Season Finale!

(PS - Thanks for all the congrats, but, so far, lil squint likes his heat pocket bit too much to come out and play. Soon, maybe!)

Read The Full Article:
http://www.obsessedwithbones.com/2009/04/season-finale-scene-spoiler.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

TV Review: My Life As Animal: Pigs, BBC Three,
Thursday 16 April, 9pm

In my previews of this I did wonder aloud whether My Life As An Animal would be the most ridiculous thing ever or perhaps a little gem. A TV series about humans living as animals? Sounds daft, right? But there was something about this that made me curious and weirdly excited. After all we've never seen a television show like it before. I was expecting an extreme, love or hate reaction, but after watching the series opener last night it produced neither... just a shrug of ambivalence. I definitely wasn't expecting that



Read The Full Article:
http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/304/f/4293/s/3e6f3a7/l/0L0Stvscoop0Btv0C20A0A90C0A40
Ctv0Ireview0Imy0Ili0Bhtml/story01.htm

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

The Fall of the House of Beale: An Advance Review
of HBO's "Grey Gardens"

"It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It's awfully difficult." - Little Edie BealeIt's hard to imagine, in age where Susan Boyle can go from obscurity to worldwide fame in a matter of days (thanks to things like YouTube and Twitter), that prior to the advent of this technology fame was usually a hell of a lot harder to grasp.Two of last century's most enigmatic and compelling cult figures were discovered in much a similar way as Britain's Got Talent's Boyle. The eccentric Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, were propelled into superstardom following the release of Albert and David Maysles' 1973 documentary film Grey Gardens, which showed the mother and daughter argue, sing, flirt, dance, and reminisce about the past as they struggled to survive in their raccoon-infested, decaying mansion in East Hampton.Over the last thirty-five years, the Beales have taken on a cult status among the...

Read the full article at Televisionary (http://www.televisionaryblog.com).

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Televisionary/~3/Kh4JI9hl-uY/fall-of-house-of-beal
e-advance-review.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Second Look: NBC's "Parks and Recreation"

I was curious to check out the second episode of NBC's Parks and Recreation ("Canvassing") last night to see if my feelings about the new Amy Poehler-starring series, from creators Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, had changed at all.After watching the series' second episode, I was struck once again how the mockumentary format that the duo borrowed from The Office just doesn't work here. In fact, I believe it's what's holding the series back. Too often the characters rely on overused talking heads to convey information that would be far more humorous if they were said to actual people (I'm thinking of Leslie's bit about returning to the park on her birthday with her White House staff as an example) than to the unseen camera crew.Additionally, the use of the hand-held cameras works much better in the physical confines of The Office, where the Dunder Mifflin crew works in bullpen-style seating rather than in tiny, cramped offices. Far too often, the shots on Parks and Recreation are...

Read the full article at Televisionary (http://www.televisionaryblog.com).

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Televisionary/~3/F9MsqoBgHPo/second-look-nbcs-park
s-and-recreation.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

http://www.fancast.com[...]

Read The Full Article:

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Wicked new teaser poster for 'True Blood' season
two

HBO's new teaser campaign for the second season of True Blood is work of trippy art that's[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/live_feed/~3/ornzOYgcyIE/new-teaser-poster-for-tru
e-blood-season-two.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

What to TiVo: Friday

• Fox is new with a repeat and a new episode of Prison Break
• NBC is new with two episodes of Howie Do It and Dateline
• CBS has repeats of Ghost Whisperer, Flashpoint, and Numb3rs
• ABC is new with Wife Swap, Supernanny, and 20/20
• The CW has repeats of Everybody Hates Chris, The Game, and America's Next Top Model
• TLC is new with Say Yes to the Dress
• Late-night highlights include Russell Crowe and Joe Wong on Late Show With David Letterman on CBS; Charles Barkley and Leslie Mann on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on NBC; and Matthew Perry, Adam Goldberg, and Plain White T's on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on NBC

Read The Full Article:
http://www.buzzsugar.com/3045811

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Celebrity Apprentice: A Lesson in LifeLock

Spoiler! It's that most glorious time of the week again. Time for Celebrity Apprentice! This week we get an overdose of Brande Roderick and Brian McKnight catches up on some much-needed sleep. To Manhattan!...

Read The Full Article:
http://www.tvgasm.com/shows/celebrity-apprentice/celebrity-appre-16-9487.php

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!