Random TV Thoughts

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Not sure who wrote the commemoration, below , but here it is in its unabridged, run-on goodness....

Remembering the wonderful Jack Soo, who we lost far too soon 44 years ago today. Nick Yemana made the world’s worst coffee, had a weakness for horse races, and seemed to not take life too seriously. But as we saw in Loan Shark, when on the day after his 20th anniversary on the force, feeling unappreciated, he blows up after having had enough of the complaints about his coffee and filing, and tells everyone off before leaving for lunch and the racetrack,

(Wojo: Wow. He usually doesn’t say more than two words.
Harris: Uh, Wojo, I’d say that WAS two words!)

...and in Dog Days when he outsmarts both an angry dog and its equally angry owner, Nick was a force to be reckoned with and a damn good cop.
He also provided what was probably one of the funnest moments ever on TV when he got high on the hash brownies Wojo unknowingly brought in. He serenaded the squad room, asked Barney if his mother was from Clarney, suggested going to the beach and shooting some clams, asked if anyone had seen his legs and made “mooshy mooshy” a line that would live on in hilarity long after he and the show were gone. Jack was one of a kind and is still deeply missed. I think our own Max said it best:

“We finished about 2:30 in the morning...I think and all of us were here and all of the camera people and directors and other people it takes to make the show were here and you could go through all of those people and all the people who encounter Jack away from the studio in real life and not find anyone that he hadn't touched in some way at some time. Because his love for humanity and people was always stronger than his anger at the things people have done to him and that's why he was able to give us the gift of Yemana.”

And what a gift it was. Let’s all raise our coffee cups as we say, here’s to you Jack! ~Sue
 

Literally dozens of celebrities play a softball game to determine if Miller Lite tastes great or is less filling. Team Less Filling is winning handily until their relief pitcher, Rodney Dangerfield gives up literally 15 runs in a row. With the game on the line, Loni Anderson bats for the Tastes Great team and seems to hit the game-winning home run. However, John Madden (from the Less Filling team) was stationed behind the wall and caught the ball. I'm not familiar enough with the rules of the game to decipher what the appropriate call would be in that situation, but the commercial seems to indicate that the home run didn't count. Rather than continuing to play until a decision is rendered, things are prematurely cut off and the viewer is led to believe that Tastes Great and Less Filling are totally equal.
 
Nickyboy said:
We always laughed at that. He tried to make glue to fix the Minnow. Didn't work. But somehow, everything ELSE did!!!
:)
"How else can you explain everyone's vibrant clothing?"
Polyester. Duh.
Click to expand...
I think that there was an episode when Mary Ann and Gilligan tried to make pancake syrup from tree sap.

Turned out it was stronger than glue, and they used it to patch the Minnow.
 
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Classic Retrovision Milestones​

Nancy Jane Kulp (August 28, 1921 – February 3, 1991) died 32 years ago today at the age of 69. Best known as Miss Jane Hathaway on the popular CBS television series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Kulp moved to Hollywood, California, not long after she married Charles Malcolm Dacus (in April 1951), to work in a studio publicity department, where director George Cukor convinced her that she should work in front of a camera.

She made her film debut as a character actress in 1951 in The Model and the Marriage Broker. She then appeared in other films, including Shane, Sabrina, and A Star is Born. Kulp has an uncredited bit part in a crowd scene as a fan of Donald O'Connor in one of the opening scenes in Anything Goes. After working in television on The Bob Cummings Show, she returned to movies in Forever, Darling, The Three Faces of Eve, The Parent Trap, Who's Minding the Store?, and The Aristocats.

Kulp was once described as television's most homely girl or, as one reviewer put it, possessing the "face of a shriveled balloon, the figure of a string of spaghetti, and the voice of a bullfrog in mating season." Others described her as tall and prim and praised her comedic skills.

In 1953 Nancy had an uncredited part in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movie, "The Caddy". She played Emma, the wife of an inebriated man who had stayed out too late. Her only line was "Well, I don't know where you've been, but at least you came home with first prize". In 1955 Kulp joined the cast of The Bob Cummings Show (a.k.a. Love That Bob) with Bob Cummings, portraying pith-helmeted neighborhood bird-watcher Pamela Livingstone.

In 1956 she appeared in the episode "Johnny Bravo" of the ABC/Warner Brothers series Cheyenne, with Clint Walker. Kulp appeared in 1955-1956 as Anastasia in three episodes of the NBC sitcom It's a Great Life. In 1958 she appeared in Orson Welles' little known TV series The Fountain of Youth. In 1960, she appeared as Emma St. John in the episode "Kill with Kindness" of the ABC/WB detective series, Bourbon Street Beat, starring Andrew Duggan.

Kulp appeared in one episode of I Love Lucy. In the 1956 episode "Lucy meets the Queen," Kulp portrayed an English maid, showing Lucy and Ethel how to curtsy properly before the Queen. She also appeared in episodes of The Real McCoys, Perry Mason (The Case of the Prodigal Parent, 1958), The Jack Benny Program, 87th Precinct, Pete and Gladys, The Twilight Zone, and The Outlaws, and she briefly played a drunken waitress with slightly slurred speech in a 1959 episode of Maverick, featuring James Garner, entitled "Full House." Kulp played a housekeeper in a pilot for The William Bendix Show, which aired as the 1960-61 season finale of CBS's Mister Ed under the episode title "Pine Lake Lodge."

In 1962 she landed her breakout role of Jane Hathaway, the love-starved bird-watching perennial spinster, on CBS's The Beverly Hillbillies television series. She remained with the show until its cancellation in 1971. In 1967, she received an Emmy Award nomination for her role.
In 1966, she appeared as Wilhemina Peterson in the film The Night of the Grizzly, starring Clint Walker and Martha Hyer. In 1978, she appeared on The Love Boat in a segment titled "The Kissing Bandit" and she played Aunt Gertrude in a segment titled "America's Sweetheart".

After The Beverly Hillbillies Kulp appeared on The Brian Keith Show and Sanford and Son. She also appeared in Broadway productions, including Morning's at Seven in 1981.

In 1984, after working with the Democratic state committee in her home state of Pennsylvania "on a variety of projects" over a period of years, Kulp ran unopposed as the Democratic nominee for the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 9th congressional district. As an opponent of Republican incumbent, Bud Shuster, in a Republican district, Kulp was the underdog.

Sixty-two years old at the time, Kulp said some people might feel her background as an actress was "frivolous." But she noted that Ronald Reagan had taken the route from screen to politics and she said anyone who "listens and cares" can do well.

To her dismay, Hillbillies co-star Buddy Ebsen called the Shuster campaign and volunteered to make a radio campaign ad in which he called Kulp "too liberal." Kulp said of Ebsen, "'He's not the kindly old Jed Clampett that you saw on the show... It's none of his business and he should have stayed out of it.' She said she and Ebsen 'didn't get along because I found him difficult to work with. But I never would have done something like this to him.'" Garnering 59,449 votes, or just 33.6% to Shuster's 117,203 votes and 66.4%, she lost.

Kulp was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, then she received chemotherapy. By 1991 the cancer had spread, and Kulp died on February 3, 1991 at a friend's home in Palm Desert, California. She was 69.
 
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Did you know at a Christmas party in 1990, Ginny Newhart, Bob's wife, pulled Bob aside and said I have a great idea for the final show of "Newhart"! You wake up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette talking about a nightmare you just had; that you owned a country inn in Vermont and all the characters you meet. Bob said he loved the idea. Suzanne was also at the party and said "Count me in!" The scene was to be shot in top secret with a fake script and even the other cast and crew members did not know about it.

Considered one of the great all time show finales. "That's it, Bob. No more Japanese food for you!"

RIP Ginny Newhart who just passed at 82 after sixty years of marriage to Bob.

~David Brew [Great Moments in Television and Movies]
 
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Happy 80th Birthday Tuesday Weld [August 27, 1943]

On the set of DOBIE GILLIS the crew noticed Tuesday off camera was shy and withdrawn, as if hiding something. She was seen hitchhiking from the set and no one had actually met her mother. Then the crew noticed she would hit the food table after the actors had left and put the food in her handbag.

Her mom would leave her for weeks and months at a time on flings beginning when she a pre-teenager. There would be no money or food. She tried out for the role on Gillis hoping she could make enough money to eat.

Today Tuesday is 80 years old. But she is also a survivor. Respect.
 
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