September 6, 2019

Around the dial

Just the other day I saw a video of the opening credits to Mission: Impossible, and was reminded (as if anyone needed reminding) how fetching Barbara Bain is in that role, and how good she is at convincing us that Cindy Crawford could well have been moving among us as an undercover agent. Like me, you'll appreciate Rick's interview with her at Classic Film and TV CafĂ©.

Thanks to Dennis Hart's book, I've become quite interested over the last few years in Monitor, Pat Weaver's brave effort to reshape NBC radio's weekend. At Garroway at Large, Jodie looks at the role The Master Communicator played in being a, well, communicator.

To tell the truth (no, not the TV show), I've never really given any thought to the link between toasted marshmallows and The Simpsons, but Michael's TV Tray has, and does it brilliantly, in honor of last week's National Marshmallow Day.

The year 1961 saw the end of Bronco's third season, and the beginning of its fourth, with a heavy emphasis on the appearance of real historical characters, Find out more about it with this overview from Television's New Frontier: The 1960s.

If you're of my age, you'll remember that among the hallmarks of early September, besides returning to school (and the less said about that, the better) was TV's new fall season, the return of football, and the Miss America Pageant. These cover stories, and more, are part of the September 2, 1989 TV Guide, and Television Obscurities has all the details.

When we lived in Dallas, back in the early part of the decade, one of the highlights was getting to see Jim Leavelle live and in-person. If his name doesn't ring a bell, you're probably familiar with him nonetheless: he was the Dallas homicide detective handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, Leavelle died last week, aged 99, and at The Lucky Strike Papers Andrew looks back at his picture, frozen in time for all eternity.

Finally, a couple of additional deaths to report on: first, Terrance Dicks, a name familiar to all Whovians, died at 84; he played a major role in making the original Doctor Who the show we all knew and loved. And Valerie Harper died after her brave battle with numerous illnesses; she was 80, and while it couldn't really be a surprise, it was, nonetheless just that. Both of these passings are covered elegantly by Terence at A Shroud of ThoughtsTV  

2 comments:

  1. People are dying these days who have never died before …
    A friend of mine at my old job used to say that whenever somebody well-known passed on - and sure enough, a few years after his retirement, it happened to him …

    This morning, I note from the 'Net that Carol Lynley has passed, aged 77.
    She'd been largely inactive since the Milennium set in - that demographic business, you know.
    When you get to be A Certain Age, you tend to notice things like this a bit more, and so I bring it up here.

    If it can happen to the Gerenuk, it can happen to you!

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  2. I read a couple of the Television Obscurities 1989 posts, but that guy seems uninterested in all the articles I find intereated in...which renders all of it uninteresting. Pretty much the opposite of this blog!

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