I’ll never forget the time I got to hang out with Stiller & Meara. It was in January of 2004 at a CBS press tour party in Los Angeles. I’m guessing Jerry Stiller was there promoting The King of Queens. His wife Anne Meara–who died Saturday in Manhattan–was sneaking onto the Kevin James sitcom around then
Twenty years ago, when my young adults were young children, Sharon, Lois & Bram were superstars. Because I worked at TV Guide at the time, the children’s entertainers were also on my radar thanks to their very successful TV ventures, The Elephant Show and Skinamarink TV. Eric Nagler and Fred Penner were frequent guests. It
Back before Netflix, Amazon, Shomi or Crave, before DVDs and PVRs, before YouTube or Facebook, back when cable or specialty were blips on the TV landscape, there was Anne of Green Gables. Executive producer Kevin Sullivan’s sweet valentine to popular Canadian literature premiered 30 years ago this Christmas. It was an enormous hit, pulling five million viewers back
On the wall of my TV room, next to a cover of a Harpo Marx album, hangs another album cover from the ’50s: “The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows.” Freberg is pretty much forgotten today but in the ’50s he was Jon Stewart, Hank Azaria and Don Draper all rolled into one. Freberg died
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