made a lot of TV appearances as a guest on other people's shows -- and won acclaim in the
, but like a lot of film stars, he never was able to sustain a long running regular series.
(having two titles made things confusing right there). It ran one season in 1954-55 on NBC against
on CBS.
Each show began with someone shouting "Hey Mulligan!," a title format adopted over a decade later on
I don't know if those "Hey Culligan Man!" commercials had any connection or not. Anyway, Rooney played a twentysomething Andy Hardy living with his parents (played by Regis Toomey and Claire Carleton), courting a longtime girlfriend (Carla Balenda) and somehow keeping a job as a network page for a fictional TV network.
The network page idea is a great one for a sitcom, not fully realized again until 30 Rock, though Rooney plays it strictly for broad slapstick.
wrote many of the episodes, foreshadowing the legendary success he had with another bumbling character, Inspector Clouseau.
).
as his "Ethel Mertz." Forman became a favorite featured player in sitcoms and movies of the '60s (Harry Hoo of
among others) and was a very talented comic actor. This series doesn't maximize his talents as much as it could, but he and Rooney have a good chemistry and it would have been nice to see how the series progressed had it lasted.
Why didn't it last? The competition, first of all, but perhaps more than that, it was an incident in which Rooney was rude to the sponsor at a social gathering. He described it very honestly in his autobiography,
. He felt as if he was being pressed into service as a performer for their social amusement and chose a very off putting way to strike out at the president of the company.
Interesting series, available complete in one DVD set. Interesting book too.
BESIDES 'MAD MEN," THIS IS THE SMARTEST SHOW ON TELEVISION
Blog, TV
Posted on Oct 15 2010 by Greg
The creators of Phineas and Ferb have exactly what I always expected from watching the show -- a lot of creative freedom. The show started quietly and gained its audience on its own, not because of a business plan, but because they were largely left to make a funny, smart show.
This new DVD contains the recent PHINEAS AND FERB CHRISTMAS VACATION episode plus four more: Interview with a Platypus;
Oh There You Are, Perry; Chez Platypus and
Perry Lays an Egg. All are great examples of how this series weaves its storylines with grace and panache, loaded with lots of quick asides in the spirit of other great comedy cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Bullwinkle.
There's an extra episode in the Bonus Features called "Doof Side of the Moon" preceeded by a 12-minute feature about how the creative team writes and performs their original songs and how one of their favorite episodes "Spongebob"veteran Dan Povenmire, comedy writer/performer Martin Olson, Jon Colton Barry (son of legendary songwriter Jeff Barry) and Jeff "Swampy Marsh" whose is the grandson of bandleader Les Brown.
I mention the musical connections especially because Phineas and Ferb is very music-generated and again, not just by committee-engineered pop tunes by by comic effect, from rock to big band, Broadway to Bollywood. Many of the songs written for the show have been released on CD, including a new holiday favorites album. Most of the music and songs came from the above team, with the able help of musical director Danny Jacob.
The interactive menu is
really interactive, not just called by that heavily-used term. Clicking various objects results in quick appearances by characters. One in particular takes you to a video in which the show staff conspire to cover a co-workers office with post-it notes.
You can tell from the bonus features on the new
PHINEAS AND FERB: A VERY PERRY CHRISTMAS DVD that the creative forces behind the show are relatively free of the
interfering words: "Well, I don't get that joke and neither do my
associates, so the whole world won't so therefore kill it dead and let
me watch is fester, rot and bleach in the sun." Well, maybe not in those
words, but I can just imagine how a song like "Squirrels in my Pants"
might die in a corporate approval process.
Let's hope the recent phenomenal success of Phineas and Ferb continues to thrive in relative autonomy. But somehow even if it does happen to a degree, we can probably look forward to a sly spoof of the internal ordeal, so veiled it may pass over the tops of the Herman Miller head rests.
WE ROCK, YOU ROCK, THEY ROCK, WE ALL ROCK
Blog, TV
Posted on Sep 14 2010 by Greg
My kids and I get a kick out of how things are promoted and advertised, especially on TV. My wife and I are big on media literacy, since kids are exposed to advertising almost as soon as they're born.
Anyway, whenever a sequel to something approaches, the marketing department types tend to force "points" into things whether they fit or not. In the case of
Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, their "strategy" was to make it clear that the second film is bigger and better. It's not exactly groundbreaking thinking, but you hear it all the time. So for the last several months Disney Channel has been having their stars tells us how this new
Camp Rock is "so much more (insert word here)." My kids laugh at this because of how it infers that that original is somehow inferior.
Of course, that's what advertising types must do -- always go for the new and improved. Curiously,
Camp Rock 2 seemed to me to be better than the first film -- but not so to my kids.
I liked the big, exuberant musical numbers. Clearly this film feels the influence of past phenoms like
High School Musical and
Glee. There's a lot more highly choreographed set pieces here and it's great stuff if you like MGM musicals and
Annette movies, which of course I do. The songs are more classic Hollywood "out of nowhere" than in the first film, where they were confined primarily to onstage settings.
My kids like musicals too, but they were missing the gentle, simple story of the first
Camp Rock. It was basically a cross between Cinderella (a prince seeking a voice rather than a shoe) and the
Mickey Mouse Club "Annette" serial (mean girl accuses nice girl of stealing).
The new movie really is bigger. All three
Jonas Brothers have key roles this time around, with the most endearing song sung by Nick.
Daniel Fathers as the camp leader is more of a plot focus also, as he competes with a rival camp led by an old rock rival (played by
Daniel Kash, an actor whom we were sure was related to
Tony Shalhoub in look and voice and still, we think, must be a distant cousin).
Therein may have been what lost my daughter in particular. The story was about ambition and business rather than boy meets girl -- or at least the romance took a backseat to the main plot. Don't get me wrong -- she likes the film and watched it again but prefers the first one.
The one thing we all agree on is the talent and likability of the star,
Demi Lovato. She had to carry the first film on her shoulders and delivers a strong presence and performance again. She has a
Sally Field quality and we hope she takes her life and career in the best possible dircctions. She's the real deal and we wish her well in the mine field of being a young star in show business.
The DVD does not offer more than a sing along (excuse me, a "rock along") option. The Blu-Ray disc also includes interviews.
<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next >>
BACK TO BLOG HOME
0 Comments...
