This Sunday, March 20, would have been Carl Reiner’s 100th birthday. Despite writing a book entitled, “How to Live Forever,” the great writer-producer-comedian double-crossed us by dying nearly two years ago at 98. To mark the occasion of Reiner’s centennial, the National Comedy Center, located in Jamestown, N.Y., will premiere a new multi-media exhibit in
Did you know that there was a Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame? Well, there was, but then there wasn’t and now there is again, except not really. An actual brick and mortar CCHofF that fans can visit does not exist, yet, but that is the goal of the committee which has pumped new life into
I’ve always been fascinated by TV’s earliest child stars, the kids who gained fame on television nearly 70 years ago as the medium began to spread to millions of homes. Among the most prominent were those associated with The Mickey Mouse Club (1954-57). That popular Disney series made instant stars of the early “Mouseketeers,” but
When film fans think of Sally Kellerman, the first image that comes to mind is generally of her screaming out of the shower in Robert Altman’s movie version of “M*A*S*H” (1970). While that part earned her an Academy Award nomination, she stood out in many other roles, big and small, over a six decade career
As expected, the Canadian women’s hockey team emerged triumphant in Beijing, with viewership spiking to 2.7 million viewers vs. Team USA Feb. 16 at 11:41 p.m. ET on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet. Still, the just-ended 2022 Olympic Winter Games did not seem to bring the same golden glow with North American viewers as they have
Ivan Reitman (above right, with Dan Aykroyd and Rick Moranis on the set of “Ghostbusters”) packed a lot of movie theatres when I was a university student and beyond. His low-budget cottage country comedy “Meatballs”(1979) co-starred an actress named Kate Lynch who went to my high school in Etobicoke (Michael Power-St. Joseph’s). She was great,
Ralph Mellanby was the guy who put Don Cherry in Coach’s Corner. The Hamilton, Ont. native died last Saturday, Jan. 29, at 87. Raised near Windsor, Ont., the innovative executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada was one of the country’s most influential television broadcasters. Back in the ’60s, he was quick to embrace modern
When I interviewed him in 2014, Hugh Wilson, the creator of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82), admitted many of the episodes of the series were a tad underwritten. “In the beginning, he said, “the scripts were pretty tight. By the third year, we almost had blank pages, we were so far behind.” Fortunately, Wilson had cast