Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the original Peanuts gang have survived nerly 60 years in television. The original animated half-hour holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, premiered on Dec. 23, 1965. I was eight that Christmas and already a devoted Peanuts follower. I used to clip Charle’s Schultz’s comic strip out of the Toronto Star
Early last month, when I wrote about the death of Canadian talk show host Mike Bullard, it reminded me of a turning point for one of the biggest late night stars in America: Conan O’Brien. Now 61, O’Brien was 40 early in 2004 and after a decade at 12:35 a.m. secure enough in his job
Teri Garr was a unique and welcome personality who shone in any role, big or small. She passed away Oct. 29 at 79 after dealing for decades with multiple schlerosis. The daughter of a comedic actor father and a dancer/wardrobe mistress, Garr’s showbusiness roots ran deep. In the 1960s, the California native danced her way
There was a time when Mike Bullard was the King of comedy in Canada. His death from a heart attack Saturday at age 67 brings to an end a complicated legacy, one I had a window seat on for many years. Bullard, who grew up in Mississauga, Ont., had a day job at Bell Canada
Bill Vigars would not want this to be a sad story. He lived an amazing life, had friends across Canada, and Robert Duvall once played him in a movie. Oh yes — he also helped raise a billion dollars to find a cure for cancer. Still, Bill Vigars has died, and that is terribly, terribly
In the summer of 2012, Ethel Kennedy — who died October 10 at 96 — made an appearance in Los Angeles at a Television Critics Association press tour. She was accompanied by her daughter, Rory Kennedy, who directed “Ethel,” the HBO documentary about her famous mother, the widow of slain senator and presidential candidate Robert
During the decade of the 1970s one of the busiest and most-watched actors on television was John Amos. Not a bad trick considering the New Jersey native did not start out in television as an actor. He was writing for a local news show when singer-actress Leslie Uggams started working on her variety show. She
Nineteen sixty-four was a good year to be a TV tot. I was seven-years-old that October and remember all these cool, black-and-white witches, vampires and severed hands invading our living room via network premieres of such sitcoms as The Munsters, The Addams Family and Bewitched. Besides the shows themselves, there was the monster merch. At