How lucky am I to have a conversation with Bill Persky, the Emmy-winnng writer-producer of, among many other things TV-related, The Dick Van Dyke Show. The spry 89-year-old New Yorker is the latest guest on brioux.tv: the podcast. (Listen now at the link above.) He’s pretty sure that he is the last remaining writer from
The one and only time I encountered Jackie Mason in person he was selling Chicken Soup. Not the dish; the TV show. Co-starring the English actress Lynn Redgrave as his Irish Catholic girlfriend, Chicken Soup cast Mason as what he was at the time, a middle-aged Jewish man with a droll but searing sense of
On this day in 1969, at 2:56:15 AM (GMT), Neil Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon. I’m up at the cottage this week, half unplugged, so here’s a giant leap into the brioux.tv archives — a replay of a salute I wrote to Armstrong, who passed away at 82 in 2012:
The situation with situation comedies today is no laughing matter. When the news shows for fall were announced this spring, there were few comedies on the list – and one was a reboot of The Wonder Years. The best new comedies that are made today, many for streaming services, could compete for awards as dramas,
Herb Tarlek earned a place of honour on TV’s Mount Rushmore of boorish, weasel-y characters. The WKRP in Cincinnati sales manager just oozed phony charm with every, “Hey big guy” entrance. The white shoes, white belt, plaid jacket with elbow patches – it is a wonder Frank Bonner could even be heard over his wardrobe.
Gavin MacLeod had to know both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat would be referenced in the first line of all his obituaries. The New York State native — who passed away May 29 at 90 — was Murray Slaughter or Captain Stubing through 16 straight seasons of network TV glory. Yet
Paul Soles — one of the last surviving members of the annual holiday special Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer voice cast — passed away Wednesday in Toronto. He was 90. Soles, of course, was known for so much more than that. His career in Canadian television spanned seven decades, from an early appearance on London, Ontario’s
One of the great late night talk show guests of all time was Charles Grodin. Who else was cocky enough to slump down next to Johnny Carson and ask if he cared at all about any of his guests? (As he does in the above clip from 1990.) The studio audience and viewers at home