A Big Hand for the Little Lady and an Old Household Movie Viewing Mystery Solved

My wife, Christine, loves The Odd Couple original film, something about the combo of Neil Simon's humor and Jack Lemmon's performance as Felix. Anyway, it was streaming on Pluto the other day. I pointed it out, and she settled in to watch the what was left.

And Walter Matthau on screen suddenly reminded me of a conversation with my dad years and years ago. The, I guess, mostly forgotten comedy western A Big Hand for the Little Lady with Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward as the the "little lady" and Jason Robards came on TV, probably on NBC. This would have been the very early '70s.

As the show neared its conclusion, my dad said he'd seen it before. "But it wasn't with Henry Fonda."

An ad for the upcoming broadcast of Cactus Flower popped on the screen about that moment with a tight shot of Walter Matthau's face. "It was that fellow there," he said. 

Seemed weird, but we chalked it up to an odd coincidence or something like that and moved on.

But Walter Matthau--busy with a different set of poker buddies--was on my screen again all these years later via the Internet, which we didn't have in 1971. I thought, why not check it out? Maybe my dad had a point.  

The IMDB entry simply credits Sidney Carroll as the screenwriter, though there are mentions in the trivia of it originally being written for TV along with allusions to an alternate title or two. Big Deal in Laredo et al.

 

Let's Go the the Wiki
I moved on to Wikipedia, and gained clarity. In 1962, Big Deal in Laredo was produced for television as an installment of an anthology called The Dupont Show of the Week. It earned Emmy nominations including one for Matthau. There's even a press photo of him in character out there for purchase.  

Son of a bitch, my old man was right. It's a little thing, but that brought me a bit of joy. The TV show would have aired a month after I was born. 

My old man was a route salesman for a wholesale grocery company. When he came home from work after driving all day from mom-and-pop grocery to mom-and-pop grocery in rural Louisiana, he still had an hour or two of making changes to his price book, a heavy, leather bound thing with semi-circle holes punched for easy removal and replacement.

He would have been working on those changes or pricing order tickets from his customers as we watched anything. That was probably how he watched The Dupont Show years earlier and with a newborn in the house, more focused on the storyline than the brand umbrella. 

It's nice to have little things mined out of the memory, reconnecting with little moments from life flowing along. You never know what's going to matter. 

Some triggers on a quiet Sunday afternoon are good ones. 

Family Affair Hosts Oklahoma on Thanksgiving

I don't find much information about it on the web, but once upon a time the debut of a 15-year-old movie on network TV was a big deal. Things didn't turn up on TNT 15 minutes after a run on HBO in those days.

One Thanksgiving, Wikipedia says it's 1970 and that I believe, CBS rolled out Oklahoma, hosted by the cast of Family Affair.

The memory's not green, as Isaac Asimov might have phrased it. In fact, the memory's a little fuzzy, but it's not completely lost. While I can, I'd like to set the record straight on a few things.

Wikipedia by way of IMDB trivia contends that the cast hosted in character. That's not how I recall it, and I think I'm right.

First of all, they weren't on the Family Affair set, playboy architect (Christine reminded me he was a civil engineer, I knew he was always building stuff) Bill Davis's Manhattan apartment. I think it was supposed to be Sebastian Cabot's house. He played Uncle Bill's gentleman's gentleman, Mr.
French.

I don't recall why he was baby sitting Johnny Whitaker and Anissa Jones in the scenario, but that seemed to be the case. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recall that things seemed off to my young brain because he wasn't referring to them as Buffy and Jody. We'll call that Roman numeral II in the case of Wikipedia being wrong.

As the movie progressed, and commercial breaks ensued, Cabot popped pop corn for the kids and they settled in for viewing Rodgers and Hammerstein with the rest of America.

Then on another commercial break, there came a knock at Sebastian Cabot's door. He urged Johnny Whitaker not to answer, wanting to watch Rod Steiger perform Pore Jud without distraction, I guess.

Johnny was already up with popcorn bowl in hand, and who should be at the door but Kathy Garver, Cissy on Family Affair?

She'd been watching in her own home when her TV blew out. If she was in character, she wouldn't have had her own place. "When the `Surrey with the Fringe on Top' went `clip flop' my TV went flip flop," she said. Or something like that. Letter C in the case against Wiki accuracy.

IMDB and Wikipedia also claim Brian Keith, Uncle Bill, was on hand as well. I don't recall that being the case, unless he dropped by Seb's crib late and I'd dozed off or something. I didn't usually doze off watching TV then.

Since I believe the whole Family Affair show worked around his movie schedule, it would make sense that he wouldn't have signed for the Thanksgiving special, but I have not proof.

That's about the extent of what I recall. Anyone else with recollections, feel free to send me a message. Or, if anyone interviews Kathy Graver or Johnny Whitaker anytime soon, ask them for the record and for history. 'til then that will have to do.

Coming soon to my blog: The differences between Johnny Whitaker's Napoleon and Samantha the film and the Gold Key movie-tie-in comic book.

Awake Early

I heard talk of "Awake" a few weeks back. It's an NBC series starring the great Jason Isaacs of Harry Potter etc. Until recently it didn't have a slot on the network's schedule.

That's changed. It's due now March 1, or you can watch the pilot ahead of time on Hulu.

Seems to have a cool if complicated premise. Isaacs is a cop who has the misfortune to crash his car. When he awakens after the wreck, he faces two realities, or perhaps a reality and a dream state that seems real.

In one, his wife is alive, his son a victim of the crash. In the other, his son lives, and his wife is gone.

Amid the confusion, he solves crimes.

Watching the opener, you start to see how it call all work, and how you can follow it. It's not as hard as it sounds.

The realities are just different enough, and there are enough cues to help you keep things straight.

Couple the slightly surreal set up with stunning visuals and Isaacs on the side of the angels, and it makes for interesting viewing.

Will it catch on? I'm afraid odds are against it, but it certainly would be fun to see it get a decent run. 

Sanctuary! Fantasy SF Paranormal Fun With Monsters

Is there a name for fans of Syfy/Canadia fantasy-thriller Sanctuary? You know like Trekker? I'm ready for my badge and membership card.

I glanced at the first episode when it aired on then Sci Fi, but didn't get to stay with the series, and I'll confess I was a little dismissive. Just another paranormal investigation show, I thought.

I returned for more sampling when the season became available on Netflix Watch Instantly. Episodes became a nice 45-minute break for the lazy part of Saturday afternoons just before time to start my grill for dinner while I was in school.

And I decided the premise was kind of fun and that Sanctuary wasn't just another X-Files. For the uninitiated, it's about Dr. Helen Magnus, Amanda Tapping, Stargate SG-1's Maj. Carter in a stunningly different persona. Dr. Magnus is immortal due to some Victorian magi-science, and she heads a network devoted to finding and protecting a generous supply of "abnormals" sprinkled around  the globe.

The mythology grows richer as the series moves along, even though there are obviously cost-conscious episodes in which Magnus and right-hand-man Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunn) are trapped in one-set confines such as the cabin of a crashed aircraft or the belly of an oil tanker. One ep was set entirely in a warehouse, viewed through the lens of a news crew's camera.

Myth, myth
Magnus is part of a circle that includes a misunderstood Jack The Ripper, Dr. John Watson and Tesla. The Sanctuary network is fraught with internecine political struggle, and there's a rival organization called Cabal. (Spoiler warning) One major character was killed off with stylish imagination.

The Season 2-ending, Season 3-beginning arc eschewed claustrophobic confines for a glob-spanning, world-threatening feature-like three-parter introducing Bollywood numbers and even more mythology, which seems headed in a Steampunk direction next. That's if an eye-candy holograph recently unlocked is any indication.

Happily with Netflix and Hulu, you can catch up quickly or just begin the series now and forge ahead at your own pace.

You never know what monster will crop up next.

Mostly Recharging

I've been getting a little bit of writing done on a couple of projects, but mostly I've been recharging the last few days, and wondering how I got a write-in-Hindi button on my blogger interface.

I thought I would get more read over the holidays and time off I've had, but I haven't managed to turn as many pages as I'd hoped.

I managed to veg a bit instead and discover a few guilty pleasures:

Legend of the Seeker

I'm guilty of never having read the Terry Goodkind books on which this new syndicated series is based. I'm told they're better than the show, but for the moment the show's what I have time for. It's on Hulu.com, partially in HD, and it's beautifully shot with likable actors, some swift action and a twinkle in the eye and just a slight smirk. For TV, it's Herc and Xena territory, but it's engaging me more than some feature films. I detect a trend of betrayal and redemption, but it's still captivating viewing in the sword and sorcery vein, and there's not much in that vein on the air now.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

It's on just about every critic's year-end best list, so this is no revelation, but I liked it. Didn't get to see it when it was hot during the writer's strike. Happily it's also on Hulu in HD also and on DVD now as well. It's from Buffy-producer Joss Whedon, features Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie fame, plus Slither and Firefly's Nathan Fillion, who's soon to be seen in Castle, a mystery series that sounds like it might be fun.

Anyway Doogie is Dr. Horrible, aspiring super villain. I wondered how they were going to give him a suitable nemesis on a budget. Enter Fillion as The Hammer, a Captain Triumph-style good guy who's a bit of a jerk. He has the affections of the girl Dr. Horrible has a crush on, making things worse but paving the way for great songs. Really great show tunes. No kidding. Check it out.

The Big Bang Theory
So why is a show about über-nerds on opposite Heroes, a show they'd probably watch? I missed an entire season of this fab sit-com. It's got some standard misunderstanding gags, but it's brilliantly executed and ropes in Star Trek, online gaming, comic books and more as its youthful geniuses struggle with life outside their physics experiments. I resolve to solve all quandaries and disagreements in 2009 using rock, paper scissors, Spock, lizard!

Steampod

How'd I miss this great podcast for so long? It's a steampunk-themed 'cast with a stellar Christmas episode transposing late-sixties cryonics to the Victorian era, and you can backtrack to a multi-part novella and a great opening episode as well. Put it on your iPod, for sure!

QuasarDragon's Blog

Looking for free e-books, podcast recommendations and more? QuasarDragon's is a great place to stop by. It's a fantasy, SF cool-hunting blog pointing to various online e-zines, free fictionsites and more. It also occurs to me that it's a great guide to writing markets. Well worth a look. It's how I found Steampod.

Well, that's how I've been spending my free time of late. I think it has been energizing a bit as I prepare for the plunge into 2009, which promises to be challenging and busy. I had a tee-shirt in the appropriate year that read "Orwell That Ends Well, I Made it Through 1984." I'm thinking we all deserve an I Survived 2008 tee, and maybe a matching version for this year.

Let's look for fun where we can, and may everyone within the sound of my posts have a good one!

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry is gone too

I had sort of this fanboy dream back when I was first putting pen to paper that if I ever successfully pulled off anything with fiction writing, eventually I might get to be a guest at a science fiction convention in one venue or another.

Then in suitable Martin-Short-as-Ed-Grimley fashion, I thought: "I might get to meet some of the stars of the original Star Trek, don't ya know?"

I liked Star Trek re-runs when I was growing up. I watched in the first round of syndication in 1968, when it was really becoming a fan hit. The show happily stimulated my creative imagination and was one piece in the mosaic of influences that made me want to create my own stories.  

Happily my grand design worked out, and I was able to meet some of the TOS actors over the years.  Majel Barrett Roddenberry was the first. Some ambitious fans put together a convention in Alexandria, LA, and found their way to my doorstep because they'd heard I had some books out, and I got to be one of the guests.

I met Mrs. Roddenberry when she arrived in town for the event. I don't recall the confluence of events that led to the major coolness. A lot of media stars --i.e. people who were really famous --were on hand for the convention, but somehow or other they were busy. I wound up judging the convention's costume contest beside Ms. Roddenberry.

And saying to myself; "How freakin' cool is this? I'm judging a costume contest with Nurse Chapel and Lwaxana Troi in one."

I thought of the moment, of course, when I opened the Internet Movie Database to check a factoid this week and was hit with the headline that she'd passed away, just as Trek is poised for a pop-culture re-entry in a new form.

The notion that deaths of pop-culture figures come in threes seems to have been confirmed again, with Forry Ackerman, Bettie Page and now Nurse Chapel. It's always seems to happen that way, and it's always sad.

Looking Backward and Forward - The Time Tunnel

Re-runs of The Time Tunnel allow looking backward in more ways than one. 

It, of course, offers a return to various historic eras--via TV sound stage--in its plots of heroes thrust into out of control time travel.

As with every show from time gone by, it channels memories of when it was first viewed as well.

First viewing

I didn't see Time Tunnel when it was on network TV. Loved Lost in Space, also from Irwin Allen, but We just didn't discover it, I guess. 

However, though it lasted only one season, the 30-odd episodes worked for a weekly slot on one of the Baton Rouge, LA, TV stations, which we got on cable when I was a kid.

Educational opportunities

My old man and I must have found it while flipping the dial one Sunday after church, and periodically we'd tune in to catch scientists Doug and Tony as they hopped from one historic event to another--the fall of Jericho, the Alamo, the Titanic. My old man was better informed about the historic underpinnings so it usually allowed a little educational discussion along the way.

The heroes seemed to land at pretty much the worst possible times in history. Funny how those technical glitches in time travel apparatus work.

They were using the Time Tunnel--developed by the military industrial complex--pre-maturely in order to avoid a funding cut from Congress. Their activities were monitored by soldiers and scientists using one of the most impressive big-screen TVs on the Earth's side of Capt. Kirk's flat screen monitor. The Time Tunnel itself allowed viewing of but not communication with Doug and Tony, you see.

Catching up with the past

I'm getting the gaps filled in on episodes I've missed on Hulu. Who knew they landed in the belly of a moon rocket? I don't recall encounters with silvery, Lost In Space style aliens either. I think those must have been introduced to give ratings a boost with young viewers. Oh well.

The earlier episodes stand up surprisingly well. Irwin Allen knew how to stage a disaster after all, and he re-staged the Titanic long before he sunk the Poseidon.

It's good to watch again, almost like having my dad kicked back in his recliner at my side.

Extra reading

The Time Tunnel on IMDB

Hillary on SNL Unfiltered

(Sorry, link on this seems to have expired.)

On NBC.com, there's some kind of annoying Flash pop up blocking the view of SNL's cold open from last night in which Amy Poehler parodies Hillary Clinton's mid-week remarks about her support base.

However, the embed code seems unaffected so as a public service for those who couldn't want on NBC.com, here's Hillary.

Is this great packaging or what? - The Mad Men DVD

Wow, is the package for the Mad Men DVD inspired, or what? The box for season one of the '60s, Madison Avenue-set drama is shaped like a big cigarette lighter.

Since almost every character smoked constantly in keeping with the era, it's a brilliant effort.

Mad Men, like The Shield and Damages, owes a debt to The Sopranos, which opened the door to programs with complex, amoral protagonists.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is an ad executive with a troubled present and a mysterious past, and the firm he works for goes through some interesting campaigns in the series subplots, representing such diverse clients as Nixon and Lucky Strike.

Give it a look if it sounds interesting.

Doctor Who's Landing in the U.S. Again

The Doctor, you know who, returns to the Sci Fi Channel tonight in his time-traveling blue phone booth, a testament to growing popularity in the United States, I presume.

The third season of Doctor Who just concluded its run in Great Britain last week, while it took a year for the first season to make it to the U.S. If you've visited here often, you know I'm a fan, and Who fans don't just watch, they proselytize, or try to at least.

No Goof No Glory
A mixture of goofiness and hard science fiction, horror and hope, the new Doctor Who is one of the grandest science fiction television shows ever. If you couldn't take the videotaped versions from past years, the production values are on a par with Star Trek: TNG or any of the new Trek series.

The Best Period
And it's one of the best written television shows period. Amid all of the frantic action sequences and time travel that goes further than anyone's gone before, character-driven stories are the series' heart and soul.

A Show For Writers
This is a show that's great for writers--even of the very different prose medium--to observe. In the first two seasons, The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston who morphs into David Tennant) is paired with young British shop girl, Rose (Billie Piper), and their relationship is the underpinning for all of the first two seasons, culminating with an incredible two-part finale that airs as part of a marathon this afternoon (July 6) on Sci Fi. (Check local listings, what am I the TV Guide Channel?)

The new season, Series 3, begins in the evening with the 2006 Christmas special, followed by the first episode of Season 3 which introduces a new companion (Freema Agyeman) for the Doctor and promises to continue the quality of the first two seasons.

Tie-ins
Previous seasons have drawn on the wealth of Doctor Who tie-in material including scores of novelizations, and that continues once again with a two-part story based on a novel actually featuring an earlier incarnation of The Doctor, the one played by Sylvester McCoy. When actors change, ah, just read the Wikipedia entry.

The Human Nature novelization cum tele-story is offered by the BBC in ebook form, so it's a way to get a taste of the Who universe while waiting for prime-time to roll around.

Trust me, if you're not a Whovian, you should be. If you don't like goofy. Wait a few minutes and it's poignant.

After you read or watch, check out the BBC provided online commentaries available by iTunes. Also check out the wonderful Who Podcast, Podshock.

(I know the TARDIS is not really a phone booth, by the way, that's just short hand.)

No image rights implied. Logo belongs to the BBC.

Strange Vuze

Not long ago an Advertising Age columnist spent a week watching television anywhere he could find it, except on his set, and did OK. Cliff in his 8-Things Me-Me confesses to the world he gets by without television except on PC.

The online entertainment options are certainly getting better. It's still a matter of sitting in my home office for me, but I find myself doing that more and more. I mentioned making use of Netflix's "Watch Now" option, definitely added value for that subscription.

This week I discovered Vuze, which has been floating around in code-name form for a while. It's a wedding of You Tube and High Definition video, harnessing the power of that cousin with a slightly dark reputation, Bit Torrent.

Unburnt offerings
Their offerings currently include programinning from Showtime, A&E and the BBC. From what I can tell, the first episode of a featured series is free then it's 99 cents for additional episodes.

I sampled a show I've always wated to see - the British series Strange with Richard Coyle from Coupling, which incidentally is also an offering.

Interesting if not overwhelming show. Coyle is John Strange, a priest defrocked because he's given to a literal interpretation of demons in an age when the church is leaning toward symbolic. The late Ian Richardson of House of Cards and Murder Rooms is Canon Black, a manipulative older priest opposing Strange's effort. Demon hunting frightens parishoners.

Scientific Help
Samantha Janus is a nurse who brings a touch of science to the equation when she's drawn into Stranges battle with evil.

It's an interesting premise, a bit pokey in execution for my American tastes but overall fun viewing, especially in the sharp Windows media file Vuze provided.

I had to get a quick download to get started, but otherwise things went smoothly and relatively quickly. Took about an hour for the 1.3 GB show file on a fast connection. I'm sure it's proprietary in one way or another but I haven't explored that.

All in all not a bad experience and there seems to be enough free content for hours, although each additional episode of Strange will run into money.

Maybe I need a way to connect the PC to the TV in the den with options continuing to improve.

(No rights to image implied.)

Who's still writing to those Q&A Columns?

It's probably one of the tragedies of our electronic age that the art of letter writing is becoming antiquated, ushered toward extinction by terms like snail mail. Who wants to wait days for a missive to reach its destination when a message can be there in seconds?

That is a shame, but I'm a bit perplexed when I pick up magazines and see people are still writing in to letters columns to get bits of trivia resolved.

"Who was that guy that played the cousin of Charlie Sheen's girlfriend on the April 25 episode of..."

Pardon the pseudo-expletive but how frakin' dim are these people? Have they never heard of imdb.com? I mean you can even build their search into Firefox's address bar. You don't have to write a letter to Matt at TV Guide and wait weeks for a half-assed answer.

This week's "Ask Matt" really prompted this. Someone asks if Rick Schroder didn't play Jack Bauer's daughter's boyfriend in Season 2 of 24.

No, Rick Schroder's role as an asshole on this season of 24 is his first on the show, TV Guide answers: You, gentle reader--I'm paraphrasing--must be thinking of James Badge Dale who played Kim's boyfriend in season 2.

Actually, this is just a supposition, but I bet the reader was confusing seasons as well as former child stars. See I watch 24 just like I watch Lost--they're the only two I watch "live" unless Christine is in a mood for House--and I happen to know that C. Thomas Howell played Jack's daughter's boyfriend in a guest shot last season.

Don't you think that's something someone's a little more likely to confuse, Ponyboy vs. the kid from Silver Spoons?

I could be wrong, but you'd think TV Guide could have thrown that in.