Podcasts about Tom Poston

My moms birthday, so we played Elvis. Entertainment in 1987. London beer flood of 1814, NY museum hangs expensive piece of art upside down, Albert Einstein arrived in US. Todays birthdays - Irene Ryan, Rita Haayworth, Tom Poston, Earl Thomas Conley, Gary Puckett, Michael McKeon, George Wendt, Margo Kidder, Alan Jackson, Norm MacDonald, Eminem. Tennessee Ernie Ford died.Intro - Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard     http://defleppard.com/Happy Birthday - The BeatlesI'll never know - ElvisRumors are flying 0 Frankie Carl & his OrchestraWine, Woman and song - Al DexterBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent      http://50cent.com/Beverly Hillbillies TV themeDon't make it easy for me - Earl Thomas ConleyYoung girl - Gary Puckett & the Union GapBig bottom - Spinal TapDon't rock the jukebox - Alan JacksonSlim Shady - Eminem16 tons - Tennessee Ernie FordExit - In my dreams - Dokken     http://dokken.net/

Multiple gunmen opened fire from outside Mansfield house in Sunday homicide: https://www.richlandsource.com/2024/09/25/multiple-gunmen-opened-fire-from-outside-mansfield-house-in-sunday-homicide/ Today - On Sunday morning, gunmen opened fire on a home located on South Main Street in Mansfield, resulting in the death of 19-year-old Malachi Miller. Support the show: https://richlandsource.com/membersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today is the 40th Anniversary of Tom Poston's mini-coma at the Super Match on The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour. In honor of this moment we present an outtake between episodes of a taping in 2020 as Mike gives some play-by-play of this legendary moment. This outtake was heard in Episode 100 but this is the first time we are presenting this by itself.

My moms birthday, so we played Elvis. Entertainment in 1987. London beer flood of 1814, NY museum hangs expensive piece of art upside down, Albert Einstein arrived in US. Todays birthdays - Irene Ryan, Rita Haayworth, Tom Poston, Earl Thomas Conley, Gary Puckett, Michael McKeon, George Wendt, Margo Kidder, Alan Jackson, Norm MacDonald, Eminem. Tennessee Ernie Ford died.Intro - Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard http://defleppard.com/Happy Birthday - The BeatlesI'll never know - ElvisWhen I think of you - Janet JacksonJust another love - Tanya TuckerBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/Beverly Hillbillies TV themeDon't make it easy for me - Earl Thomas ConleyYoung girl - Gary Puckett & the Union GapBig bottom - Spinal TapDon't rock the jukebox - Alan JacksonSlim Shady - Eminem16 tons - Tennessee Ernie FordExit - It's not love - Dokken http://dokken.net/

This week's episode takes a look back at the career of trailblazing independent filmmaker Robert Downey, father of Robert Downey, Jr., and his single foray into the world of Hollywood filmmaking, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we follow up on a movie based on a series of articles from a humor magazine that was trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies with a movie that was sponsored by a humor magazine trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies not unlike the other humor magazine had been doing but ended up removing their name from the movie, and boy is brain already fried and we're not even a minute into the episode.   We're talking about Robert Downey's 1980 comedy Up the Academy.   But, as always, before we get to Up the Academy, let's hit the backstory.   If you know the name Robert Downey, it's likely because you know his son. Robert Downey, Jr. You know, Iron Man. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is a repo baby. Maybe you've seen the documentary he made about his dad, Sr., that was released by Netflix last year. But it's more than likely you've never heard of Robert Downey, Sr., who, ironically, was a junior himself like his son.   Robert Downey was born Robert John Elias, Jr. in New York City in 1936, the son of a model and a manager of hotels and restaurants. His parents would divorce when he was young, and his mom would remarry while Robert was still in school.   Robert Elias, Jr. would take the last name of his stepfather when he enlisted in the Army, in part because was wanted to get away from home but he was technically too young to actually join the Army. He would invent a whole new persona for himself, and he would, by his own estimate, spend the vast majority of his military career in the stockade, where he wrote his first novel, which still has never been published.   After leaving the Army, Downey would spend some time playing semi-pro baseball, not quite good enough to go pro, spending his time away from the game writing plays he hoped to take, if not to Broadway, at least off-Broadway. But he would not make his mark in the arts until 1961, when Downey started to write and direct low-budget counterculture short films, starting with Ball's Bluff, about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in New York City's Central Park a century later.   In 1969, he would write and direct a satirical film about the only black executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who is, through a strange circumstance, becomes the head of the firm when its chairman unexpectedly passes away. Featuring a cameo by Mel Brooks Putney Swope was the perfect anti-establishment film for the end of that decade, and the $120k film would gross more than $2.75m during its successful year and a half run in theatres.   1970's Pound, based on one of Downey's early plays, would be his first movie to be distributed by a major distributor, although it was independently produced outside the Hollywood system. Several dogs, played by humans, are at a pound, waiting to be euthanized. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a comedy? The film would be somewhat of a success at the time, but today, it's best known as being the acting debut of the director's five year old son, Robert Downey, Jr., although the young boy would be credited as Bob Downey.   1972's Greaser Palace was part of an early 1970s trend of trippy “acid Westerns,” like Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Character actor Allan Arbus plays Jesse, a man with amnesia who heals the sick, resurrects the dead and tap dances on water on the American frontier. It would be the first movie Downey would make with a million dollar budget. The critical consensus of the film at the time was not positive, although Jay Cocks, a critic for Time Magazine who would go on to be a regular screenwriter for Martin Scorsese in the 1980s, would proclaim the film to be “the most adventurous movie of the year.” The film was not a hit, and it would be decades before it would be discovered and appreciated by the next generation of cineastes.   After another disappointing film, 1975's Moment to Moment, which would later be retitled Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight in order to not be confused with the 1978 movie of the same name starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that really, truly stunk, Downey would take some time off from filmmaking to deal with his divorce from his first wife and to spend more time with his son Robert and daughter Allyson.   By 1978, Robert Downey was ready to get back to work. He would get a job quickly helping Chuck Barris write a movie version of Barris' cult television show, The Gong Show, but that wasn't going to pay the bills with two teenagers at home. What would, though, is the one thing he hadn't done yet in movies…   Direct a Hollywood film.   Enter Mad Magazine.   In 1978, Mad Magazine was one of the biggest humor magazines in America. I had personally discovered Mad in late 1977, when my dad, stepmom and I were on a cross country trip, staying with friends outside Detroit, the day before my tenth birthday, when I saw an issue of Mad at a local grocery store, with something Star Wars-y on its cover. I begged my dad to give me the sixty cents to buy it, and I don't think I missed another issue for the next decade.   Mad's biggest competition in the humor magazine game was National Lampoon, which appealed to a more adult funny bone than Mad. In 1978, National Lampoon saw a huge boost in sales when the John Landis-directed comedy Animal House, which had the name of the magazine in the title, became an unexpected smash hit at the box office. Warner Brothers, the media conglomerate who happened to own Mad Magazine, was eager to do something similar, and worked with Mad's publisher, Bill Gaines, to find the right script that could be molded into a Mad Magazine movie, even if, like Animal House, it wouldn't have any real connection to the magazine itself.   They would find that script in The Brave Young Men of Weinberg, a comedy script by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, a pair of television comedy writers on shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Tony Randall Show, who had never sold a movie script before. The story would follow the misadventures of four teenage boys who, for different reasons, depend on each other for their very survival when they end up at the same military academy.   Now, of all the research I've done for this episode, the one very important aspect of the production I was never able to find out was exactly how Robert Downey became involved in the film. Again, he had never made a Hollywood movie before. He had only made one movie with a budget of a million dollars. His movies were satirical and critical of society in general. This was not a match made in heaven. But somehow, someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be the right director for the film, and somehow, Downey didn't disagree.   Unlike Animal House, Downey and Warners didn't try to land a known commodity like John Belushi to play one of the four leads. In fact, all four of the leads, Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Joseph Hutchinson, and Ralph Macchio, would all be making their feature debuts.    But there would be some familiar faces in the film.   Ron Liebman, who was a familiar face from such films has Slaughterhouse-Five, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Norma Rae, would play the head of the Academy. Tom Poston, who played Mindy's downstairs neighbor on Mork and Mindy, plays what would now be considered to be a rather offensive gay caricature as the guy who handles the uniforms of the cadets, Antonio Fargas, best known as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch but who had previously worked with Downey on Putney Swope and Pound, as the Coach, and Barbara Bach, who had starred as Anya Amasova in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.   The $5m film would begin production in Salina, Kansas, on September 17th, 1979, still using the title The Brave Young Men of Weinberg. The primary shooting location would be the St. John's Military School, which was still functioning while the film was in production, and would use most of the 144 students as extras during the shoot. The film would shoot for nine weeks without much incident, and the cast and crew would be home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving with their friends and family.   Unlike Animal House, the makers of The Brave Young Men of Weinberg did attempt to tie the movie into the magazine that would be presenting the film. At the very end of the movie, the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, shows up on the side of the road, to wave goodbye to people and deliver his signature line, “What, Me Worry?” in a thought bubble that leads into the end credits. The person wearing the not quite realistic looking Neuman head gear, fourteen year old Scott Shapiro, was the son of the executive vice president of worldwide production at Warner Brothers.   After the first of the year, as Downey worked on his edit of the film, the studio decided to change the title from The Brave Young Men of Weinberg to Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad Magazine, suggested a slightly different title, Mad Magazine Completely Disassociates Itself from Up the Academy, but the studio decided that was too long for theater marquees. But we'll come back to that in a moment.   Warner Brothers set a June 6, 1980 release for the film, and Downey would finish his cut of the film by the end of March. A screening on the Warners lot in early April did not go well. Ron Liebman hated the film so much, he demanded that Warners completely remove his name from everything associated with the film. His name would not appear on the poster, the newspaper ads, the television commercials, the lobby cards, the press kit, or even in the movie itself. Bill Gaines would hate it to, such much in fact that he really did try to disassociate the magazine from the film. In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines would explain without much detail that there were a number of things he had objected to in the script that he was told would not be shot and not end up in the final film that were shot and did end up in the final film. But he wouldn't be able to get the magazine's name off the movie before it opened in theatres.   Now, one of the problems with trying to research how well films did in 1980 is that you really have only two sources for grosses, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and they didn't always report national grosses every week, depending on outside factors. It just hadn't the national sport it's been since, say, 1983.   So when Up the Academy opened in theatres on June 6th, we don't have a full idea of how many theatres it played in nationwide, or how much it grossed. The closest thing we do have for this Variety's listing of the top movies of the week based on a limited selection of showcase theatres in the top 20 markets. So we know that the film played at 7 showcase screens in New York City that weekend, grossing $175k, and in Los Angeles on 15 showcase screens, grossing $149k. But we also know, thanks to newspaper ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that the film was playing in 11 theatres in the New York Metro area, and in 30 theatres in the Los Angeles Metro area, so those listed grosses are merely a snapshot and not the whole picture.   According to Variety's limited tracking of major market showcase theatres for the week, Up the Academy was the second highest grossing film of the week, bringing in $729k from 82 theatres. And according to their chart's side notes, this usually accounts for about 25% of a movie's national gross, if a film is playing in wide release around the entire country.   In its second week, Up the Academy would place ninth on that showcase theatre listing, with $377k from 87 theatres.    But by the time Variety did bring back proper national grosses in the film's third week of release, there would be no mention of Up the Academy in those listings, as Warners by this time had bigger fish to handle, namely Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining, and Bronco Billy, their Clint Eastwood movie for the year. In that showcase theatre listing, though, Up the Academy had fallen to 16th place, with $103k from 34 theatres.   In fact, there is no publicly available record of how many theatres Up the Academy played in during its theatrical run, and it wouldn't be until the 1981 Warner Brothers 10-K annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Up the Academy had earned $10m from American movie theatres. If studios get about 55% of the box office grosses in rental fees, that would put the $5m film in a very good position to be profitable, depending on how much was spent on P&A, prints and advertising. The film wasn't an Animal House-level hit, but it wasn't exactly the bomb many have painted it to be.    After Up the Academy, two of the actors, Wendell Brown and Joseph Hutchinson, would never act in another movie, although, billed as Hutch Parker, the latter would produce six X-Men related movies between 2013 and 2019, including Logan. Tommy Citera would make two more movies until he left acting in 1988. And Ralph Macchio would, of course, go on to play Daniel LaRusso, the Karate Kid, in a career-defining role that he's still playing nearly forty years later.   Robert Downey would make another wacky comedy, called Moonbeam, in 1982. Co-written with Richard Belzer, Moonbeam would feature a fairly interesting cast including Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Liz Torres and Mr. Belzer, and tells the story of a New York cable television station that becomes world famous when they accidentally bounce their signal off the moon. But the film would not get released until October 1986, in one theatre in New York City for one week. It couldn't even benefit from being able to promote Robert Downey, Jr., who in the ensuing years had started to build an acting career by being featured in John Sayles' Baby It's You, Fritz Kiersch's Tuff Turf, John Hughes' Weird Science, and the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School, as well as being a member of the cast of Saturday Night Live for a year.   There's be sporadic work in television, working on shows like Matlock and The Twilight Zone, but what few movies he could get made would be pale shadows of her earlier, edgier work. Even with his son regularly taking supporting roles in his dad's movies to help the old man out, movies like Rented Lips and Too Much Sun would be critically panned and ignored by audiences. His final movie as a writer and director, Hugo Pool, would gross just $13k when it was released in December 1997, despite having a cast that included Patrick Dempsey, Richard Lewis, Malcolm McDowell, Alyssa Milano, Cathy Moriarty and Sean Penn, along with Junior.   Downey would also continue to act in other director's movies, including two written and directed by one of his biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Downey would play Burt, the studio manager, in Boogie Nights, and the WDKK Show director in Magnolia. Anderson adored Downey so much, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker would sit down with Downey for a four-part conversation filmed for the Criterion Company in 2013.   Robert Downey would pass away in July 2021, a curious footnote in the history of cinema, mostly because of the superstar he sired. Most of his movies are hard to find on video, and nearly impossible to find on streaming services, outside of a wonderful two disc DVD set issued by Criterion's Eclipse specialty label and several titles streaming on The Criterion Channel. Outside of Up the Academy, which is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Apple TV and several other streaming services, you can find Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace and Too Much Sun on several of the more popular streaming services, but the majority of them are completely missing in action. You can also learn more about Robert Downey in Sr., a documentary streaming on Netflix produced by Robert Downey, Jr. where the son recounts the life and career of his recently passed father, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, Alan Arkin, and mega-producer Norman Lear.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 107, on John Landis's underrated 1985 comedy Into the Night, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

This week's episode takes a look back at the career of trailblazing independent filmmaker Robert Downey, father of Robert Downey, Jr., and his single foray into the world of Hollywood filmmaking, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we follow up on a movie based on a series of articles from a humor magazine that was trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies with a movie that was sponsored by a humor magazine trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies not unlike the other humor magazine had been doing but ended up removing their name from the movie, and boy is brain already fried and we're not even a minute into the episode.   We're talking about Robert Downey's 1980 comedy Up the Academy.   But, as always, before we get to Up the Academy, let's hit the backstory.   If you know the name Robert Downey, it's likely because you know his son. Robert Downey, Jr. You know, Iron Man. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is a repo baby. Maybe you've seen the documentary he made about his dad, Sr., that was released by Netflix last year. But it's more than likely you've never heard of Robert Downey, Sr., who, ironically, was a junior himself like his son.   Robert Downey was born Robert John Elias, Jr. in New York City in 1936, the son of a model and a manager of hotels and restaurants. His parents would divorce when he was young, and his mom would remarry while Robert was still in school.   Robert Elias, Jr. would take the last name of his stepfather when he enlisted in the Army, in part because was wanted to get away from home but he was technically too young to actually join the Army. He would invent a whole new persona for himself, and he would, by his own estimate, spend the vast majority of his military career in the stockade, where he wrote his first novel, which still has never been published.   After leaving the Army, Downey would spend some time playing semi-pro baseball, not quite good enough to go pro, spending his time away from the game writing plays he hoped to take, if not to Broadway, at least off-Broadway. But he would not make his mark in the arts until 1961, when Downey started to write and direct low-budget counterculture short films, starting with Ball's Bluff, about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in New York City's Central Park a century later.   In 1969, he would write and direct a satirical film about the only black executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who is, through a strange circumstance, becomes the head of the firm when its chairman unexpectedly passes away. Featuring a cameo by Mel Brooks Putney Swope was the perfect anti-establishment film for the end of that decade, and the $120k film would gross more than $2.75m during its successful year and a half run in theatres.   1970's Pound, based on one of Downey's early plays, would be his first movie to be distributed by a major distributor, although it was independently produced outside the Hollywood system. Several dogs, played by humans, are at a pound, waiting to be euthanized. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a comedy? The film would be somewhat of a success at the time, but today, it's best known as being the acting debut of the director's five year old son, Robert Downey, Jr., although the young boy would be credited as Bob Downey.   1972's Greaser Palace was part of an early 1970s trend of trippy “acid Westerns,” like Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Character actor Allan Arbus plays Jesse, a man with amnesia who heals the sick, resurrects the dead and tap dances on water on the American frontier. It would be the first movie Downey would make with a million dollar budget. The critical consensus of the film at the time was not positive, although Jay Cocks, a critic for Time Magazine who would go on to be a regular screenwriter for Martin Scorsese in the 1980s, would proclaim the film to be “the most adventurous movie of the year.” The film was not a hit, and it would be decades before it would be discovered and appreciated by the next generation of cineastes.   After another disappointing film, 1975's Moment to Moment, which would later be retitled Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight in order to not be confused with the 1978 movie of the same name starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that really, truly stunk, Downey would take some time off from filmmaking to deal with his divorce from his first wife and to spend more time with his son Robert and daughter Allyson.   By 1978, Robert Downey was ready to get back to work. He would get a job quickly helping Chuck Barris write a movie version of Barris' cult television show, The Gong Show, but that wasn't going to pay the bills with two teenagers at home. What would, though, is the one thing he hadn't done yet in movies…   Direct a Hollywood film.   Enter Mad Magazine.   In 1978, Mad Magazine was one of the biggest humor magazines in America. I had personally discovered Mad in late 1977, when my dad, stepmom and I were on a cross country trip, staying with friends outside Detroit, the day before my tenth birthday, when I saw an issue of Mad at a local grocery store, with something Star Wars-y on its cover. I begged my dad to give me the sixty cents to buy it, and I don't think I missed another issue for the next decade.   Mad's biggest competition in the humor magazine game was National Lampoon, which appealed to a more adult funny bone than Mad. In 1978, National Lampoon saw a huge boost in sales when the John Landis-directed comedy Animal House, which had the name of the magazine in the title, became an unexpected smash hit at the box office. Warner Brothers, the media conglomerate who happened to own Mad Magazine, was eager to do something similar, and worked with Mad's publisher, Bill Gaines, to find the right script that could be molded into a Mad Magazine movie, even if, like Animal House, it wouldn't have any real connection to the magazine itself.   They would find that script in The Brave Young Men of Weinberg, a comedy script by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, a pair of television comedy writers on shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Tony Randall Show, who had never sold a movie script before. The story would follow the misadventures of four teenage boys who, for different reasons, depend on each other for their very survival when they end up at the same military academy.   Now, of all the research I've done for this episode, the one very important aspect of the production I was never able to find out was exactly how Robert Downey became involved in the film. Again, he had never made a Hollywood movie before. He had only made one movie with a budget of a million dollars. His movies were satirical and critical of society in general. This was not a match made in heaven. But somehow, someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be the right director for the film, and somehow, Downey didn't disagree.   Unlike Animal House, Downey and Warners didn't try to land a known commodity like John Belushi to play one of the four leads. In fact, all four of the leads, Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Joseph Hutchinson, and Ralph Macchio, would all be making their feature debuts.    But there would be some familiar faces in the film.   Ron Liebman, who was a familiar face from such films has Slaughterhouse-Five, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Norma Rae, would play the head of the Academy. Tom Poston, who played Mindy's downstairs neighbor on Mork and Mindy, plays what would now be considered to be a rather offensive gay caricature as the guy who handles the uniforms of the cadets, Antonio Fargas, best known as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch but who had previously worked with Downey on Putney Swope and Pound, as the Coach, and Barbara Bach, who had starred as Anya Amasova in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.   The $5m film would begin production in Salina, Kansas, on September 17th, 1979, still using the title The Brave Young Men of Weinberg. The primary shooting location would be the St. John's Military School, which was still functioning while the film was in production, and would use most of the 144 students as extras during the shoot. The film would shoot for nine weeks without much incident, and the cast and crew would be home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving with their friends and family.   Unlike Animal House, the makers of The Brave Young Men of Weinberg did attempt to tie the movie into the magazine that would be presenting the film. At the very end of the movie, the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, shows up on the side of the road, to wave goodbye to people and deliver his signature line, “What, Me Worry?” in a thought bubble that leads into the end credits. The person wearing the not quite realistic looking Neuman head gear, fourteen year old Scott Shapiro, was the son of the executive vice president of worldwide production at Warner Brothers.   After the first of the year, as Downey worked on his edit of the film, the studio decided to change the title from The Brave Young Men of Weinberg to Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad Magazine, suggested a slightly different title, Mad Magazine Completely Disassociates Itself from Up the Academy, but the studio decided that was too long for theater marquees. But we'll come back to that in a moment.   Warner Brothers set a June 6, 1980 release for the film, and Downey would finish his cut of the film by the end of March. A screening on the Warners lot in early April did not go well. Ron Liebman hated the film so much, he demanded that Warners completely remove his name from everything associated with the film. His name would not appear on the poster, the newspaper ads, the television commercials, the lobby cards, the press kit, or even in the movie itself. Bill Gaines would hate it to, such much in fact that he really did try to disassociate the magazine from the film. In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines would explain without much detail that there were a number of things he had objected to in the script that he was told would not be shot and not end up in the final film that were shot and did end up in the final film. But he wouldn't be able to get the magazine's name off the movie before it opened in theatres.   Now, one of the problems with trying to research how well films did in 1980 is that you really have only two sources for grosses, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and they didn't always report national grosses every week, depending on outside factors. It just hadn't the national sport it's been since, say, 1983.   So when Up the Academy opened in theatres on June 6th, we don't have a full idea of how many theatres it played in nationwide, or how much it grossed. The closest thing we do have for this Variety's listing of the top movies of the week based on a limited selection of showcase theatres in the top 20 markets. So we know that the film played at 7 showcase screens in New York City that weekend, grossing $175k, and in Los Angeles on 15 showcase screens, grossing $149k. But we also know, thanks to newspaper ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that the film was playing in 11 theatres in the New York Metro area, and in 30 theatres in the Los Angeles Metro area, so those listed grosses are merely a snapshot and not the whole picture.   According to Variety's limited tracking of major market showcase theatres for the week, Up the Academy was the second highest grossing film of the week, bringing in $729k from 82 theatres. And according to their chart's side notes, this usually accounts for about 25% of a movie's national gross, if a film is playing in wide release around the entire country.   In its second week, Up the Academy would place ninth on that showcase theatre listing, with $377k from 87 theatres.    But by the time Variety did bring back proper national grosses in the film's third week of release, there would be no mention of Up the Academy in those listings, as Warners by this time had bigger fish to handle, namely Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining, and Bronco Billy, their Clint Eastwood movie for the year. In that showcase theatre listing, though, Up the Academy had fallen to 16th place, with $103k from 34 theatres.   In fact, there is no publicly available record of how many theatres Up the Academy played in during its theatrical run, and it wouldn't be until the 1981 Warner Brothers 10-K annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Up the Academy had earned $10m from American movie theatres. If studios get about 55% of the box office grosses in rental fees, that would put the $5m film in a very good position to be profitable, depending on how much was spent on P&A, prints and advertising. The film wasn't an Animal House-level hit, but it wasn't exactly the bomb many have painted it to be.    After Up the Academy, two of the actors, Wendell Brown and Joseph Hutchinson, would never act in another movie, although, billed as Hutch Parker, the latter would produce six X-Men related movies between 2013 and 2019, including Logan. Tommy Citera would make two more movies until he left acting in 1988. And Ralph Macchio would, of course, go on to play Daniel LaRusso, the Karate Kid, in a career-defining role that he's still playing nearly forty years later.   Robert Downey would make another wacky comedy, called Moonbeam, in 1982. Co-written with Richard Belzer, Moonbeam would feature a fairly interesting cast including Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Liz Torres and Mr. Belzer, and tells the story of a New York cable television station that becomes world famous when they accidentally bounce their signal off the moon. But the film would not get released until October 1986, in one theatre in New York City for one week. It couldn't even benefit from being able to promote Robert Downey, Jr., who in the ensuing years had started to build an acting career by being featured in John Sayles' Baby It's You, Fritz Kiersch's Tuff Turf, John Hughes' Weird Science, and the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School, as well as being a member of the cast of Saturday Night Live for a year.   There's be sporadic work in television, working on shows like Matlock and The Twilight Zone, but what few movies he could get made would be pale shadows of her earlier, edgier work. Even with his son regularly taking supporting roles in his dad's movies to help the old man out, movies like Rented Lips and Too Much Sun would be critically panned and ignored by audiences. His final movie as a writer and director, Hugo Pool, would gross just $13k when it was released in December 1997, despite having a cast that included Patrick Dempsey, Richard Lewis, Malcolm McDowell, Alyssa Milano, Cathy Moriarty and Sean Penn, along with Junior.   Downey would also continue to act in other director's movies, including two written and directed by one of his biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Downey would play Burt, the studio manager, in Boogie Nights, and the WDKK Show director in Magnolia. Anderson adored Downey so much, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker would sit down with Downey for a four-part conversation filmed for the Criterion Company in 2013.   Robert Downey would pass away in July 2021, a curious footnote in the history of cinema, mostly because of the superstar he sired. Most of his movies are hard to find on video, and nearly impossible to find on streaming services, outside of a wonderful two disc DVD set issued by Criterion's Eclipse specialty label and several titles streaming on The Criterion Channel. Outside of Up the Academy, which is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Apple TV and several other streaming services, you can find Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace and Too Much Sun on several of the more popular streaming services, but the majority of them are completely missing in action. You can also learn more about Robert Downey in Sr., a documentary streaming on Netflix produced by Robert Downey, Jr. where the son recounts the life and career of his recently passed father, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, Alan Arkin, and mega-producer Norman Lear.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 107, on John Landis's underrated 1985 comedy Into the Night, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

This is the episode you've been waiting for, comedy fans. Dave Thomas tells how he almost became an ad man,  a real life Don Draper,  On the very day, however, that  the young Canadian dazzled the ad men in New York, winning the Coca-Cola account,  he got a call from his old McMaster University chum Eugene Levy that changed his life. There was an opening on the Second City stage in Toronto. Was Thomas ready to throw away a career in advertising for $145 bucks a week at the Old Firehall?Yes he was, because it meant working with Levy, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, Paul Shaffer, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Flaherty and others. Thomas fit right in and helped shape the comic sensibilities of a generation.He talks about how ad writing helped him understand how seconds count in comedy. He talks about how there were two sides to John Candy, and how, when Bob & Doug took off, he and Rick Moranis were ready to step away from SCTV. "I don't think I had a single funny idea left," he says about the relentless challenge of filling 90 minutes a week for NBC.Thomas also salutes the comic heros who inspired him, including Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. He speaks of his early days on the David Steinberg Show and shares Tom Poston stories from working on Grace Under Fire. He explains why he made the switch to writing for such TV procedurals as Bones and The Blacklist. Plus: he picks one of the true TV classics as his favourite, all-time theme song.

This podcast discusses the career of Tom Poston. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://thewritelife61.com/2021/08/16/tom-poston-one-of-the-busiest-men-in-hollywood/

This podcast discusses the career of Tom Poston. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://thewritelife61.com/2021/08/16/tom-poston-one-of-the-busiest-men-in-hollywood/

This week on the program, the gang is having Christmas celebrations shoved down their throats while talking about Christmas with the Kranks! Why is Tim Allen jacked in this movie? How sad is it seeing Jamie Lee Curtis doing grocery store pratfalls? And will someone tell these goddamn neighbors to mind their own business?! PLUS: Tim Allen as Bane? It could work!  Christmas with the Kranks stars Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, M. Emmet Walsh, Erik Per Sullivan, Cheech Marin, Jake Busey, Tom Poston, Caroline Rhea, Felicity Huffman, and Austin Pendleton as ‘Umbrella' Santa; directed by Joe Roth. Perfect for your last-minute holiday shopping—check out the WHM Merch Store featuring new SW Crispy Critters, MINGO!, WHAT IF Donna? & Mortal Kombat designs! This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/whm and get on your way to being your best self. Advertise on We Hate Movies via Gumball.fmUnlock Exclusive Content!: http://www.patreon.com/wehatemoviesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

HOLIDAY GAUNTLET: HALLOWEEN - This week on Must Have Seen TV, Barb and Ethan talk about the Mork & Mindy episode "A Morkville Horror." You can't deny Robin Williams! Tom Poston is always great! Mindy reunites with her mother, who resides beyond the corporeal realm!You can watch video of this episode on Must Have Seen TV's YouTube channel. Please rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts. Follow Barb Hardly on Instagram at @barbhardly, and follow Ethan on Instagram at @ethankaye55. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pop Culture 1946. The London beer flood of 1814, priceless painting hung upside down, Al Capone sentenced. Todays birthdays- Irene Ryan, George Wendt, Alan Jackson, Eminem, Rita Hayworth, Tom Poston, Gary Puckett, Margo Kidder, Michael McKeon, Earl Thomas Conley, Norm McDonald. Tennessee Ernie Ford died.

This week on It Was a Thing on TV we look at a pair of forgotten game shows along with crazy shenanigans with funny cars and monster trucks.   First, usually around this time of the year BUZZR would air their “Lost and Found” marathon except they aren't doing it seems. Whatever, we'll have our own version! (with blackjack and hookers!) The week starts with a show from the 1950s, hosted by podcast favorite Tom Poston.  Split Personality didn't last long, though it technically aired in the 50s and 60s.   Next, as we've said many times, NBC in 1979 was desperate for anything that would draw eyes.  Mindreaders was helmed by a former primetime personality, trying to capitalize on an ESP craze at the time.  If only the people behind this show had ESP and could see this show not lasting all that long…   Finally, Saturday Night Live starts it's 48th season on NBC. In this special minisode we look back at a weird commercial parody making fun of monster truck shows where those boring funny cars turn out in the ad to be sentient beings able to achieve perpetual motion. Sadly those monster trucks are not amused by what these funny cars manage to accomplish. Follow us through all of our social media pages via our Linktree page at linktr.ee/itwasathingontv   Seriously, that spoon truck by Yuri Gellar sucks.   Timestamps 0:30 - Split Personality 41:55 - Mindreaders 1:15:01 - SNL Funny Cars at Worcester Centrum

This week, both episodes are previous entries from BUZZR's annual "Lost and Found" marathon, which usually happens this time of year.  (No details about this year's marathon, BUZZR?)  The week starts with a show from the 1950s, hosted by podcast favorite Tom Poston.  Split Personality didn't last long, though it technically aired in the 50s and 60s.

Set sail on Episode 12, Season 1 of the Love Boat, the worlds greatest romantic comedy drama television series of all time! In this episode we follow an all star cast that includes Anson Williams, Tom Poston, Arte Johnson, Pat Morita, Will Geer and Bayn Johnson as they deal with heartbreaking loss, unrequited love, imposters, jump suits, and disappointing paint. We also encourage everyone to find our Instagram page Lovin' The Love Boat to enjoy the super cool video messages from Isaac himself Mr. Ted Lange! And much more. Thanks for listening to the podcast and joining us on this voyage and by all means consider subscribing to the show as well as Paramount+ so you can watch the episode with us. We promise you'll be glad that you did. * Be sure to check out Istvan's other amazing podcast for kids and families, Istvan's Imaginary Podcast available everywhere podcasts are found. * Find and Follow our new Instagram profile here: @lovin_the_love_boat * And follow Istvan on Instagram: @iamistvan or on his website: www.istvansongs.com

What would AYBS be like if it was filmed in Los Angeles instead of London?? The Unanimous loved The Unanimous Episode! And we'd still love to hear from you if you didn't get on the podcast. Get well soon folks who have COVID. Blackface verses Drag: comparable or not? Are you a drag queen? We'd love to hear your thoughts about what drag means to you. There's only one recording of “Beane's of Boston” (and that's probably for the best…). Beanes of Boston was filmed between seasons 6 and 7 of the original AYBS in the UK. “Healthy” Kentucky Fried Chicken?! Beane's was broadcast once on May 5, 1979 during the old “Good Times” time slot on CBS. Theme songs: a pilot episode in music. Beane's of Boston is like an American Grace Brothers… kinda. Frank Beane (“Old Mr. Grace”) played by Tom Poston (who guest starred on every sitcom in the 70/80s). Mr. Brandon's brain is AYBS and nothing else. Old Mr. Beane is a dirty old man like Young Mr. Grace. Harrold Bennet's YMG was somehow sweet while being a dirty old man; Frank Beane not so much. We love bumbling Mr. Rumbold played by Nicholas Smith. How did “pilot season” effect the actors in Beane's of Boston? “Miss. Brahams” feels like an airhead from “Three's Company”. Remaking films/TV shows is such a tricky thing since audiences will naturally compare the new product to the classic one. Why couldn't American audiences watch the original UK TV series? American censors couldn't handle sexual jokes or overtly gay characters? Check out Steven Capsuto's Youtube channel about LGBT TV history at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-uzyA8-dkyNpMBKXb8mZw We meet Alan Sues who plays Mr. Humphries (Sues was gay but not out for his career). John Hillerman plays MISTER Peacock and carries it off very well. Charlotte Rae plays Mrs. Slocombe without her famous tinted hair. Was blue hair only a UK phenomenon? Slocombe does the “are you free?” line! Did American audiences know about AYBS? Repetition of classic AYBS jokes- “German Week” episode set up. “Well there goes my ride home” = a bold gay joke for American TV in 1979. The first black AYBS-related actor is Don Bexley who plays Mr. Johnson (like Mr. Harmond in maintenance). The German week jokes didn't get any laughs from the American audience. Mrs. Garrett from “The Facts of Life”! The Trans-Atlantic accent: the world's completely artificial accent in 1930s Hollywood films (think Catherine Hepburn). Drunk Mrs. Slocombe singing Marlene Dietrich! Comparing the German Dance Slap Fight with the original just isn't fair. The American experiment failed but it's a great way to compare and construct BoB with AYBS. Generation gaps made the original UK show so funny and relatable: by 1979 in the US, that just didn't work. Treat yourself to some That Does Suit Madame merch at our Bargain Basement podcast shop at imfree.threadless.com for t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, and more! Leave the show a voicemail at the Peacock Hotline: (662)-PEACOCK (662-732-2625) and find us on Twitter @DoesSuitMadame and #AYBS #AreYouBeingServed #ImFree #Britcom #comedy #MrHumphries #ThatDoesSuitMadame #GraceBros #podcast #LGBT #BlackLivesMatter #BBC

Welcome back to another episode of “Sitcom All Ye Faithful” and another episode starring the legend of Bob Newhart. And although this early episode of Newhart doesn't feature some of the great characters we've come to love just yet, it still has some fun moments (mostly thanks to Bob and Tom Poston!) Show Title: Newhart Episode Title: “No Room at the Inn“ Year: 1982 Season: 1 Episode: 9

Ed Scharlach joined me to talk about his sixty plus years in show business telling stories about his stepfather Harry Crane; being Jerry Lewis' assistant, writing a spec Honeymooners at 14; Please Don't Eat the Daisies; That Girl; Hey, Landlord; Captain Nice; Good Morning, World; The Ghost & Mrs. Muir; The Dean Martin Show; Odd Couple; Love, American Style; Happy Days; Chico & The Man; 3 Girls 3; Bob Hope; Mork & Mindy "Mork's Mixed Emotions", "The Night They Raided Minski's"' Tom Poston; Tom Sullivan; Lewis & Clark; George Burns Comedy Week; meeting his wife; Robert Mitchum; Duckman; Scooby Doo; his memoir; Starring! To get Ed's book: https://www.amazon.com/STARRING-Really-Famous-People-Stumbled/dp/B095LFNRCP/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=ed+scharlach&qid=1626543753&sr=8-3 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Ron Osborn joined me to discuss his childhood as a horror fan; Art Center College of Design; giving blood for a living; meeting Jeff Reno; getting the job on Mork & Mindy and throwing up every morning; pitching stories; writing 12 Angry Appliances; 17 writers in the writers room but Robin gets credit for ad-libbing series; Robin never forgetting a joke; a typical week at Mork; Tom Poston; Too Close for Comfort; youngest writers on a staff of 6; Ted Knight; my favorite episode of Too Close; ABC tries to hip it up; Jm J. Bullock; Audrey Meadows; freelancing a Silver Spoons; Goodnight Beantown; decent ratings but still cancelled; pitching to Night Court; freelance episode leads to them getting hired; great writers room; creating the characters of Phil and The Wheelers;Selma Diamond; Ellen Foley; I Had Three Wives; having to write one more Night Court right before wedding; how I Had Three Wives led to Moonlighting; coming up with scenes on the fly; commenting on being a TV show; Bruce Willis gets the job because Rick Dees turned it down; making a scene longer to give Bruce & Cybill a day off; Allyce Beasley & Curtis Armstrong; "Atomic Shakespeare" pitch; claymation scene; writing & shooting "Atomic Shakespeare"; Paul Sorvino; Charles Rocket; 3 episode arc "Sam & Dave"; adding Curtis Armstrong; "Casablanca" homage episode; Cybill Shepherd's pregnancy changes the series; working with Eva Marie Saint; Dennis Dugan; leaving the show; Goldie and the Bears - the lost Hulk Hogan pilot; selling a Charlies Angels story; working with George Lucas on Radioland Murders; --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Mark joined me to discuss Al Franken; growing up in Buffalo; moving to LA; quitting his day job; his stand up material; meeting Dennis Miller; how finding your voice is difficult when you're writing for someone else; getting The Dennis Miller Show; Bob Odenkirk; Mum & Shanz; Herb Sargent; being brought on to The Chevy Chase Show; Chevy farts on FOX execs; performing in front of 12 people including Richard Lewis & Albert Brooks;his SNL showcase; his parents take on his material; screwing with Adam Sandler right before he was to go on; helping Will Forte out of his contract to go to SNL; Robert Smigel; David Letterman; meeting Bonnie & Terry Turner; getting hired for 3rd Rock; creating Mr. Rhodes and having to stay there; how TV portrays teacher; tech schools; demographics should not supercede poverty; old textbooks; racism in the US; the Royal Family; Bernie Sanders; casting Topher Grace; casting Mila Kunis; guest stars Betty White, Tom Poston, Charo, Tanya Roberts and the one that got away; chickening out on meeting Aerosmith; having to write George Harrison''s acceptance speech with him; Chris farley; Eric, Donna & Hyde triangle he hated; trying to "Urkel" Fez; women in America; his mom suffers discrimination; cancel culture; The Birth of A Nation vs. Birth of a Nation; Betsy DeVos; the old Republicans; Bill Clinton becomes corporatist; the Capitol defecation; Republican swingers; humiliation is funny; my favorite scene from That 70's Show; lasting friendships; what he watches now; sports; The Simpsons; being held accountable for what you did as a teenager; forgiveness; Kevin Spacey; cancelling Dancing with the Stars; Lab Rats; Grateful Dead jokes; Drake Sather; meeting and working for your heroes --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

December 17-23, 1994 This week Ken welcomes comedian, fellow podcaster, actor and all around good dude Blaze Mancillas to the show. Ken and Blaze discuss NYC vs SF, ships, ghosts, pervy ghosts on ships, Don Johnson, Nash Bridges, video albums, Kathy Lee's crazy life, Dave Chapelle's backdoor Home Improvement pilot, Blown Away's huge explosion, Deep Space Nine, pandemic episodes, easy payment for collector' plate, coin collection, plate you can't eat off of, Bobby's World, Camp Candy, Life with Louie, how therapists are out to get you, Woody Allen's Made for TV movie, The George Carlin Show, Roseanne, 90210's Christmas reality show, MTV's Sex in the 90s, AIDS, urban legends, Rescue 911, UFOs, Bigfoot, The Making of Richie Rich, Basketball cards, E!, The Dream Team, not coming out of the closet, a craving to shoot hoops, ER, Grand Mama, Christmas, Tom Poston, Family Matters, Christmas Unsolved Mysteries, Lion taming, Circuses, fake Unicorn, Pen15, Jeer heavy, lying on Rikki Lake, Jimmy Smidt, NYPD Blue, bookies, Notre Dame and not messing with Boston's team mascots.  

Another Effin' Podcast About Sitcom is four friends, Mo Laikowski, Stan Laikowski, Luke Ward and Dan McInerney, watch The Bob Newhart Show carefully pulling all of the joy out of it.

In this repeat of a classic GGACP episode, Gilbert and Frank chat with one of their favorite performers, actor-writer-director DAVE THOMAS, who looks back on his years with Second City (and "SCTV"), his transition to dramatic series writing, his admiration for Bob Hope and his working relationships with Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Tom Poston and Martin Short. Also, Richard Harris gets rough, Buck Henry storms out, Gilbert cuts the rug with John Travolta and Mel Blanc plays Dave's dad. PLUS: "The New Show"! Yasser Arafat hits the links! Dave praises Al Jaffee! And the comedy stylings of Max von Sydow! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luther & Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas and plan to take a cruise over the holiday, but their neighbors are having none of it. Wacky hijinks abound in this 2004 film written by Home Alone director Chris Columbus, and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and perennial Christmas favorite Tim Allen. Garret & Kirsten join Matt & Ashley to talk about this zany holiday movie.

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series in 2020, their first since 1988. Yes, it was a short and insane season, with expanded playoffs and all kinds of strange rules across the board. But as many predicted this was the year of Dodger blue. This is my conversation with four friends – Shane Trowbridge, Cody Farley, Rob Barber and Ryan Miller. These guys are all Dodgers fans and they are all Baseball Dads. Together we took on the big questions: what did this year's WS title mean to you? Who's your favorite Dodger? Has anyone ever seen Tom Poston in the same room as Vin Scully?”

Born on this Day: is a daily podcast hosted by Bil Antoniou, Amanda Barker & Marco Timpano. Celebrating the famous and sometimes infamous born on this day. Check out their other podcasts: Bad Gay Movies, Bitchy Gay Men Eat & Drink Every Place is the Same My Criterions The Insomnia Project Marco's book: 25 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My Podcast OCTOBER 17 Matthew Macfadyen, Felicity Jones, Michael McKean , Max Irons , Chris Lowell , Irene Ryan, Mike Judge , Mark Gatiss, Margot Kidder , Margarita Carmen Cansino, Rita Hayworth,, Andy Whitfield, Montgomery Clift, Norm MacDonald, Jean Arthur, George Wendt, Eminem , Marshall Mathers , John Marley, Howard E. Rollins Jr. Tom Poston, Rob Marshall, Cameron Esposito. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/born-on-this-day-podcast/message

Comedy writers and Second City legends Jim Fisher and Jim Staahl joined me via Zoom. We discuss Fish's early days in a stand up comedy duo, joining Second City as David Steinberg's understudy, being groomed as the next David Steinberg, Jim Staahl's college career, being called a "funny" Hamlet, auditioning and understudying all five male performers (Fisher, David Blum, Joe Flaherty, Brian Doyle Murray and David Rasche), Fisher unionizing Second City giving the performers a week off and Staahl having to sub for all the men, Fisher passing out from mono at intermission and Staahl going from eating dinner to onstage before Act II, corporate gigs, leaving Second City with Tino Insana and forming The Graduates, going to the Comedy Store and filming a special with Robin Williams, Staahl joining the cast of Mork & Mindy when Robin crashed his auditioned and they improvised together, being a go-between for Mork & Mindy execs for Robin and Jonathan Winters, Tom Poston, Jay Thomas, the practical joking of former guest Stu Kreisman, the Osmonds poo poo a wine taster sketch, writing and performing with Steve Martin in a special, the menschness of Martin Short, creating, writing and performing in Laugh Trax with Howie Mandel, Gail Matthius, and Lucy Webb, writing "Sledge Hammer", jokes that wouldn't fly today, and their Magnum force parody episode Magnum Farce. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week It Was A Thing on TV looks at beer bottles playing football, a bizarre game show/sitcom hybrid and Tom Poston being Tom Poston.   First, People enjoy seeing ads during the Super Bowl sometimes as much as the game itself.  In the late 1980s through the late 1990s, The Bud Bowl was likely the most popular series of Super Bowl ads.  We reflect on The Bud Bowl's growth and eventual demise.   Next, UK celebrity Noel Edmonds finished hosting their version of Deal or No Deal on Channel 4 in 2016, after over 11 years.  In 2017, he return to Channel 4 with a game show/sitcom hybrid called Cheap Cheap Cheap, which was just weird weird weird.  We look at this bizarre hybrid which has been compared to Twin Peaks.   Finally, Tom Poston was a beloved television fixture for decades, ranging from The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s through The Suite Life of Zack & Cody in the 2000s.  Poston also appeared on many game shows through the years.  We look at three times in the 1980s when Tom Poston's game play wasn't exactly stellar, though we do not put the entire blame upon Tom.

Tom Poston was a beloved television fixture for decades, ranging from The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s through The Suite Life of Zack & Cody in the 2000s.  Poston also appeared on many game shows through the years.  We look at three times in the 1980s when Tom Poston's game play wasn't exactly stellar, though we do not put the entire blame upon Tom.

Today Ken welcomes TV veteran and author of the new book "Tuesdays with Ted", Russ Woody. Ken and Russ discuss Burbank, wildfires, worshiping television, Ted Danson, Becker, Cheers, seeing the top of your head, Dick Van Dyke, Working at MTM, Newhart, St. Elsewhere, comedy vs. drama, Barney Miller, multi-cam sitcoms, how hard it is to tell a story in 19 minutes, bad people on TV, Cybill, Roseanne, Cosby, insane stand up comedians, how remarkable it is that anything good ever gets made in Hollywood, Green Acres, Tom Poston, Absolutely Fabulous, The Royle Family, US remakes of UK shows, network censors, Jacob's Ladder, Norsemen, Liam Neeson's improv, Toast of London, working in a writers' room, navigating personalities, Dabney Coleman, Slap Maxwell Story, winning people over, living with depression and anxiety, empathy, perspectives, the solitary nature of writing, Murphy Brown, being perfect like an orange, Jay Tarses, mentors, George Clooney, sticking up for people because you can, treating people right, cost benefit analysis, Ken's respect for Bonnie Hunt and a P.A. who's never had a tomato.

  2.5 - Dancin’ Homer Aired.11/08/1990 Written by: Ken Levine and David Isaacs Directed by: Mark Kirkland and David Silverman (Supervising Director) Chalkboard: “I will not trade pants with others” Couch gag: “Maggie in Marge’s Hair” Guest Stars: Tony Bennet and Tom Poston   SUPR Simpsons Rating Greg - 2.75 Jesse - 2.80 Robbie - 2.5 (Special Guest)

We delve into the world of film and find the forgotten gems or otherwise unappreciated masterpieces of film and talk about them. This episode we discuss one of the best films of all time "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004) which stars  Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd,  M. Emmet Walsh,  Cheech Marin, Tom Poston and Caroline Rhea? In this commentary, we talk about the interesting questions that are brought from watching this brilliant film and we hope that we answer some of those questions. This episode features Ryan Sliwinski, Bartek Kasprzyszak and Oliver Menhennitt! PRESS PLAY AT 11:31!

Today Ken welcomes musician, writer Tracy Newman to the show. Ken and Tracy discuss pre-interviews, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Ricky Jay, card magic, telling a story in 20 minutes, Ed McMahon, false confidence, knowing a performer, being yourself on stage, improv, The Groundlings, The Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Betty White, live TV, Phil Silvers, Ernie Kovacs, Don Knotts: Love God, Sid Caesar, growing up in LA, Tom Poston, playing cards on the set of Bob, writing for Cheers, helping Ellen come out of the closet, According to Jim, having no apologies, High School Reunions, UK TV licenses, Phil Hartman, Paul Reubens, Lisa Kudrow, winning an Emmy, the dangers of wearing heels on TV, calling James Arness, Gunsmoke, calling Kelsey Grammar "Fraiser", Have Gun Will Travel, and writing a TV theme song.

Today Ken welcomes actor and filmmaker James Lorinz to the show. Ken and James discuss the 1970s, growing up in Queens, Barney Miller, Gregory Ciera, killing hold up men, Valerie Harper's City, serious episodes, Good Times, Normal Lear, All in the Family, One Day at a Time, spending quality time with Talcum Powder, Mannix, being the Monster under the Castro Convertible, shooting on the lot, Tom Poston, Frankenhooker, Alan Young, Zsa Zsa Gabour, Unforgettable, testing pilots, Street Trash, parking spaces, your parents loving your dress, The Twilight Zone, pornographic aspirations, Louise Lasser, Woody Allen's sexual prowess, Mary Hartman, being perplexed by Dark Shadows, To Tell the Truth, SNL, Bill Boggs Midday Live, Price is Right, Room Service, the most awkward interview of James' life, Welcome Back Kotter, On the Rocks, Hogan's Heroes, Bing Crosby: Nazi Sympathizer, The San Pedro Beach Bums, Fish, collecting TV theme songs, film school, Richard Dawson, Bob Barker, Alice, One Day at a Time, Muhammad Ali, Modern Family, The Jerky Boys, Breaking Bad, The Honeymooners, The Odd Couple, Batman, The Munsters, Abbot and Costello, Superman, Jean Sheppard and a shared love of collecting old magazines.

Science topics, obits; Tom Poston and Don Ho.

Science topics, obits; Tom Poston and Don Ho.