Director of programming Stuart Hands and the good folks at the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation have once again done me the honour of asking me to moderate one of their Q&A panels. That happens tonight, Wednesday, June 9 at 7 p.m. as the TJFF pays homage to the late, great Carl Reiner. To join the
News of the death of Chad Stuart — one half of the British soft-rock ’60s duo Chad & Jeremy — provoked for me yet another memory from the Television Critics Association press tour. Nearly nine years ago, in January of 2012, me and Bill Harris — another former Toronto Sun scribe — wound up at
What are the best Christmas-themed sitcom episodes of all time? I change this list up every December. Since it’s been a strange year, I’m throwing a couple of strange choices into the mix. Here, in chronological order (and heavy on the ’60s) is my 2020 Twelve Sitcoms of Christmas list: The Honeymooners (1955). In “T’was the
Carl Reiner, who passed away Monday at 98, wrote books well into his nineties. There was, “I Remember Me,” then, “I Just Remembered” and a third biography, “What I Forgot to Remember.” “I don’t know what to do now,” he told his friend of nearly 70 years, Mel Brooks. “You’re too busy to die,” replied
Eb has gone to the big tractor in the sky. The last surviving regular cast member of the ’60s series Green Acres, Tom Lester, passed away Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 81, and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Lester was best known for playing Eb Dawson on the series. He was the lanky
If you love classic Christmas episodes, Hamilton, Ontario’s CHCH has a two-day marathon that is the perfect holiday gift. One Tuesday Dec. 24 and Wednesday, Dec. 25, they’re offering a “Have yourself a Retro Little Christmas” holiday marathon. The superstation pulled every holiday-themed episode from their daytime rotation of sitcoms and dramas from the ’60s,
On Thursday, Netflix announced it would cut back on smoking scenes in its original series. This was in response to an anti-smoking organization, “Truth Initiative,” who called out the streaming service for all the tobacco use in a show most popular with younger auidences: Stranger Things (back this week with a third season). The series
This week, Vulture ranked all 158 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show from first to worst. Doing that with any series is a big undertaking; making that effort for a series that began 58 years ago is a testament to how timeless and enduring that sitcom remains. So, hats off to Vulture. The author