I grew up with the classic Match Game daytime series, the one Gene Rayburn hosted with that telescoping mic. It featured Bret Summers, Charles Nelson Reilly and Richard Dawson, all served on a bed of orange shag carpeting. A decade ago a revival featured Alec Baldwin as host, complete with that goofy antenna mic. The
Editor’s note: summer is a good time to finally crack open those books you’ve been meaning to read all year. Contributor Maurice Tougas gets things started with his review of Desi Arnaz, The Man Who Invented Television (Simon and Schuster), Lucille Ball – just Lucy to her millions of fans – has rightfully been elevated
Mark Maron’s WTF podcast has been essential listening for me ever since the COVID pandemic. He’s been at it since way before that, sixteen years in fact. His peers consider him the O.G. of podcasting. His decision to shut things down come October, podcast wise, has nothing to do with the title of his new
I met Loni Anderson 20 years ago in Los Angeles on a Television Critics Association press tour. It was at a cable network event that took place at the Universal Hilton. Other stars, including Wayne Newton and George Hamilton were in the room. It was cool meeting those guys as well but Anderson stood out
Every Sunday night back in the 1950s and ’60s families would gather around their living room TV and watch The Ed Sullivan Show. The variety hour ran 23 seasons, ending 54 years ago in 1971. Now streaming on Netflix, the documentary Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan is not just another “best of” blast of nostalgia.
When I interviewed this century’s most successful creator of sitcoms — Chuck Lorre — earlier this summer for a podcast, I asked if he had any new shows coming up. He immediately singled out Leanne, which premiered Thursday on Netflix. All 16 first-season episode are available now. Lorre, who has worked with some pretty fair
I’ll always be grateful to my Grade 7 teacher, Mr. (Tom) O’Hanley, for turning me and my classmates on to the brilliance of Tom Lehrer. The New York City native passed away Saturday in Connecticut at 97. His earthly exit will get a fraction of the attention that came earlier this week with the death
Before there was Saturday Night Live, MuchMusic or MTV, the really big shew with hottest music acts was The Ed Sullivan Show. It began in 1948 as The Toast of the Town, with bold face newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan introducing, between the plate spinners, acrobats, comedians and a little puppet mouse named Toppo Gigio, everyone