It seems to me there is a great movie in the Sam Simon story. I never met the man–one of the three credited creators of The Simpsons–but he appears to evoke a passionate response with people who did know him (including comedy writer Ken Levine; check his terrific blog in the coming days for a promised
Sometimes when a famous TV personality dies, I get asked to talk about the person on the radio. I got a message from a producer today asking if I would speak about Leonard Nimoy. Star Trek‘s original Spock passed away Friday at 83. Since the interview was for Arlene Bynon I quickly said yes. We chat every Monday
There was a time when all you had to do was cup your ear and, before you even spoke, everybody knew you were doing a Gary Owens impression. The man with that unmistakable announcer’s voice died Friday at 80. Owens was already a seasoned radio hand when he became a TV star—along with Goldie Hawn,
I’ve said it before: 1969 was an important year in the history of television. Several quiet little comedies emerged that year, shows I feel were HBO before HBO. They were all before their time, one reason none of them lasted. The examples I’ve listed before are Room 222, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and My World
PASADENA, Calif.–I was sitting through a TCA session on the upcoming Fox drama Wayward Pines when the news reached my Twitter feed: Don Harron had died. There had been word he was not in good health. Harron was 90. I probably first discovered him on Hee Haw. The creators of that show were Canadian, Frank
The annual “TCM Remembers” tributes have become as much a part of the end of each year as Auld Lang Syne. The 2014 tribute, above, is one of the longest at 5:13, and needed to be given the many prominent film and TV performers and others connected to the entertainment industry who passed away in the
“Keep banging on your drum/And your day will come.” Craig Ferguson, sporting a liberated, Mohawk-y ‘do, stood on his anchor desk and left us with a joyous, Proclaimers-like, jump-up-and-dance anthem. Would that CBS had given him a band ages ago, that was a stompin’ good way to go out. Ferguson spent 10 years in late night,
“What did Rudolph do? He saved capitalism! Kids got their presents. Can you imagine? The very idea that we won’t get our loot, our gifts, and there’ll be no Black Fridays—O my God!” That was Paul Soles, putting it all in perspective, when I spoke to him last week about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Fifty