Around the dial

Wet's see, we'll start this week at Silver Scenes, where the Metzingers have a review of Character People, a book that looks at the careers of some of the great character actors of Hollywood and Britain. It covers movies, but how many of these faces will you also remember from your favorite shows?

And speaking of character actors, at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence offers a Memorial Day retrospective on those character actors who showed their character by their service in World War II. Thanks to all of them.

At Cult TV Blog, John's latest entry in his review of the series The Omega Factor is the episode "St. Antony's Fire," and the mysteries in this ten-episode series continue to mount and deepen. When things calm down a bit here, I'm definitely checking this out.

One of the things I really like about Herbie Pilato is his insistence that we drown out the noice and look at what's right in the world, and at The Upbeat News with Herbie J Pilato, he offers a 50th anniversary personal tribute to two of his favorites, Charlie's Angels and The Bionic Woman. Has it really been that long?

A small company being bullied by a rival business. Just another day in the life of The A-Team, as Roger points out at The View from the Junkyard in the episode "Knights of the Road." Of course, these baddies don't know the kind of trouble they're getting into, do they?

How many of you remember "Miniature," the sole Twilight Zone appearance by the great Robert Duvall? Well, at Shadow & Substance, Paul looks back at one possible reason why Duvall starred in this memorable episode.

And in case you missed it on Wednesday (and if you did, why?), here's the latest episode of "American TV" in which Dan and I talk with Michael J. Socolow about the rise and fall of CBS. Check out a great show, if I do say it myself. TV

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Around the dial

Ahis week at Cult TV Blog, John continues his "Tony Wright Season" with another of my favorite series, The Persuaders!, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, and, in "Someone Like Me," Tony Wright. If you find you're seeing double after watching it, don't say I didn't warn you.

Speaking of seeing double, at The View from the Junkyard, Roger is reviewing The A-Team episode "Double Heat," in which the Team travel to Marina del Ray to involve themselves in a kidnapping designed to keep a key mob informer from testifying.

Bob Sassone has some nice footage, unseen for 60 years, of the great Vince Guaraldi performing "Linus and Lucy," which was actually written for an unsold Charles Schulz documentary, before it went on to great fame in A Charlie Brown Christmas. 

My first introduction to Dick Tracy was not through the comic strips, nor the movies, but through the cartoon version that featured Tracy with some animal assistants. I know, sounds like some kind of drug hallucination, doesn't it? Anyway, Martin Grams has a piece about a Tracy adventure novel from 1945, Dick Tracy Meets the Night Crawler.

Daniel Boone is another of those shows I remember from my childhood, but I never really stopped to watch it much. Why? I don't really know—I like Fess Parker and all— even after reading Paul's review of the series at Mavis Movie Madness. Maybe someday.

We throw the word "great" around quite a bit; I did so myself in referring to Vince Guaraldi above. But Robert Duvall truly was great, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence has a fine tribute to his remarkable career; he also shares the TCM Remembers short honoring Duvall.

How about a little more video? At Television Obscurities, Robert has the network promo for ABC's series Room 222, from 1970. Was that series a comedy or a dramedy? I lived in The World's Worst Town™ when it was on, and it aired in our market, as I recall, in a late-afternoon, off-network slot.

And last, but most assuredly not least, I'm back on Eventually Supertrain with Dan to discuss the penultimate (I think) episode of Garrison's Gorillas. And stay tuned for The Yellow Rose and Ghosted; it's another fun show. But how could it not be with that crew? TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!