February 9, 2018

Around the dial

Terry Teachout leads off our look at this week with a well-done obituary of John Mahoney, who died earlier this week. As he reminds us, Mahoney as an actor was more than just fine, and much more than just the father on Frasier.

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack, who writes the terrific "Hitchcock Project" articles, this week covers Oh, For the Life of an Author's Wife, a biography of Fredric Brown by his second wife, Elizabeth. You'll recognize Brown's name from the stories he wrote that were adapted for Hitchcock, among many other shows. Sounds as if Mrs. Brown has some wonderful stories about her husband.

Who among us doesn't have a favorite show or two that everyone else things is absolutely awful? For David at Comfort TV, the terrible show he likes is Gemini Man, which I confess I've only seen when a couple of episodes were cobbled together into a movie that was riffed on MST3K. Perhaps I really have been missing something.

Great news for all fans of The Avengers (the real ones, not the cartoon superheroes), and of course I include myself in that category. At Cult TV Blog, John reports that an episode previously thought lost, "Tunnel of Fear," is not only found, but coming out on DVD. Sign me and my region-free player up, though I suspect it will make it over here before too long.

The Broadcast Archives at the University of Maryland links to a very interesting article from Current on how Sesame Street got PBS to start acting like a network.

Really interesting story at Garroway at Large, where Jodie tells about how Today covered the breaking news - one hour before airtime - of the death of King George VI in 1952. Impressive, especially considering the pioneering show had only been on the air for a month.

A Shroud of Thoughts has a very good, very comprehensive review of the military sitcoms of the 1960s. There are more of them out there than you might think, upholding a great tradition of military comedy that goes back to the 1950s in both movies and television.

Yes, a good week indeed - and you can start off the weekend on the right foot by being back here tomorrow for TV Guide. Just look for the issue with the stars of Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky on the cover.  TV  

3 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for the plug regarding this week's "Garroway at Large" entry. I have to give credit where it's due, though - the entry cited above is the work of my amazing collaborator on the Garroway project, Brandon Hollingsworth. I'm happy to have him along and really appreciate his perspective on all things Garroway, and I hope you find his contributions as valuable as I do.

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  2. Thanx for the heads-up on this Saturday's TV Guide - which I happen to have, for a change.
    If you're still in the process of writing this one up, may I call your attention to an item in TV Teletype, the New York section on page four, just inside the front cover.
    The fourth paragraph from the top has an item that you might find interesting - I know I did when I happened upon it while looking for something else a few years back.
    It piqued my interest sufficiently that I wrote to Steve Lewis's Mystery*File blog, in order to ask Mike Nevins, who's an expert about an aspect of what's mentioned here; sadly, nothing came of it then - but that's another story ...
    Sorry about the whole "blind item" business, but I want to make sure that you actually read this.

    More (if necessary) tomorrow ...

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!