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Beyond the Bunch: The Brady Kids’ Best Non-Brady Roles
The six actors who portrayed the Brady kids never found other roles that had the same popular or cultural impact. That’s not a condemnation of their talents, as the same could be said of many Comfort...
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Still More Retro TV Nights
As with my two previous pieces on this topic, I’ve selected some stellar programming lineups from the Comfort TV era that can now be recreated thanks to the availability of their shows on DVD (or on...
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Five Pieces You Won’t See on Comfort TV
If I didn’t have to work for a living, I’m sure I could update this blog twice a week for the rest of my life, and never run out of topics to explore. The problem has never been ideas but having enough...
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Classic Family Sitcoms: Are They Unrealistic?
Perhaps the most frequent observation about family situation comedies in the Comfort TV era, especially among those who dislike them, is that they are unrealistic because they present an idealized view...
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Top TV Moments: Ken Berry
The term “song and dance man” belongs to a bygone era in entertainment. You’d never hear Bruno Mars, who can indeed sing and dance, described that way. But for Ken Berry it’s a label that fits just...
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The Magician: Purchase or Pass?
The Magician is one of those shows with a notoriety that endured well beyond its brief run. Just 22 episodes aired from 1973-1974, but 40 years later the series could be found on many classic TV fans’...
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New Episodes of Classic TV Shows: Would it Work?
If you visited Las Vegas this year, you may have seen some of these shows playing at various resorts on and off the Strip: The Australian Bee GeesMJ Live: Michael Jackson Tribute ConcertBruce in the...
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The Unshakeables: Tootie’s Tantrum
When I introduced the idea of The Unshakeables in an earlier blog, I used the term to describe episodes of TV shows that lingered in the memory long after they had ended. They were powerful in a way...
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Top TV Moments: Arlene Martel
New York City is home to the United Nations. It is also the birthplace of Arlene Martel, an actress who seemingly played characters from every country represented in that (once) august assemblage. She...
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Television: No Longer Something to Talk About
I’ve been a subscriber to Entertainment Weekly magazine for more than 20 years, though lately my love/hate relationship with the publication has been mostly hate. That’s what happens when every staff...
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The Unshakeables: “Elegy For a Pig”
It’s tempting to believe the times we’re in now are the most divisive in America’s history, but they aren’t really. Which is not to say all is well, or that one cannot be astonished on a daily basis by...
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Honey West: Purchase or Pass?
When a television series is labeled as “ahead of its time” it usually means it won’t be around very long. That describes Honey West, which lasted just one season. It was definitely ahead of its time,...
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Where’d She Go? Miss America
If I asked the next 500 (or 5,000) people I met the name of the current Miss America, I’d wager not one of them would know the answer.That wasn’t the case in the Comfort TV era. According to Wikipedia,...
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Top TV Moments: Michael Constantine
Longevity is one of the hallmarks of a great Comfort TV character actor. If there were a Mount Rushmore for such thespians Michael Constantine could be on it, alongside such stalwarts as William...
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How Hogan’s Heroes Should Have Ended
We’ve talked before about how some Comfort TV shows ended with an episode that provided closure for its characters and its viewers. But these were the exception. From the 1950s through the 1970s, most...
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Classic TV’s Curtain Call: 1989
It has always been this blog’s assertion that the 1980s was the last classic TV decade. That doesn’t mean television hasn’t introduced memorable shows in the years since. It refers instead to how our...
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An Open Letter to the Worst Entertainment Critic On the Planet
To: Chris NashawatyEntertainment Weekly magazineSir,My blood pressure goes up every time I read one of your articles. That was negligible when I was in my 40s, but now I’m at the age where people take...
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Top TV Moments: Howard Cosell
Howard Cosell occupies a unique place in the Comfort TV era. As a sportscaster he was both revered and reviled enough to transcend almost any event he covered. Cosell’s enthusiastic fan base...
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The Five Worst Comfort TV Opening Credits Sequences
Remember “Too Many Cooks?” It was a parody of the sweet but corny opening credits sequences found on countless TV shows from the 1970s and ‘80s. Like much in this age of fleeting fads it was everywhere...
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Donating To Dawn Wells
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Dawn Wells crowdsourcing campaign. If it is successful, as it now appears to be, will we see more attempts to rally fans in support of classic TV stars that fall on...
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