- Wait, you have a TV? - No, I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV. (rock music) - Hello and welcome, it's TV guidance counselor as always since it is Wednesday and as always I am Ken Reed. I am here to guide you through the world of classic television using TV guide as our, I guess I don't know, using TV guide as our doorway, as our raft, as our vehicle. Let's say using TV guide as our vehicle. My guest this week is a good friend of mine, Mr. Nate Johnson, he is a very funny comedian, a very funny actor, a really, really good character comic. Nate is a guy that I met at the Walsh Brothers, former guest of the show, Lost Brothers, great and secret show, doing a lot of weird fun characters. He, Sean Sullivan, and we're not a Toot-Kone myself for a kind of a sketch group in the mid 2000s. Nate is a guy I always like talking to and this episode was no exception and you will enjoy listening to it. So please sit back and listen to today's episode of TV guidance counselor with my guest, Nate Johnson. (rock music) (rock music) - Mr. Nate Johnson, Nate, hello. - Hi, Ken, how are you? - You're welcome, welcome to my home. You've been here many times. - Yes, I have. - It's not that exciting. - Yes, I have, yeah, it's not as crazy as everyone, yeah. - They pretend it is, yeah. - They pretend it, I mean it's crazy. - I've been to your house before, though. - Yeah, it's not like it's FAO shorts or anything. - No, no. Unless he has an antique shop out back. - Yes, he is like FAO shorts. - Antique house in the back, yeah. - So you've picked a TV guide from November 10th to the 16th, 1984, what drew you to this TV guide? - Well, I was thinking before I came over here, I was thinking what, when did I really love TV? And when was it? 'Cause I feel like, right before you hit puberty and whatever, you get kind of distracted by television, this was just like the time when I was like, all like, exciting stories and like crazy adventures and stuff like that. - It's before you discover real life television is the most exciting thing. - Pretty much, pretty much. And like, I don't know if I got, 'cause I wasn't really getting into cable as much? I think we had cable, but it wasn't like I, I was old enough to really do that work out. - And this is when kids in elementary school, you're still talking about TV the night before, and that was like the main topic of discussion I imagine. - Exactly. - Now on the cover here, we have Joan Collins of Dynasty. I presume you did not watch Dynasty at all. - I did not watch Dynasty at all. - Yeah, and I remember it was like a big thing, but I didn't. - Oh, huge. I still watch very little Dynasty, not my thing. Never really liked the subs. Although, when I used to work at a TV station, we had to watch the TV station all day, and the soaps around during the day, and I will say after two weeks, I was really into it. - Wow, not in new, but I knew what was going on, and I would watch it and care about it. - I think when that then, I didn't even really know what their point was. Like I was like, I don't know why these grownups are yelling. - Many people don't know their point now. - I know, well see, nowadays I appreciate a dumb, a good dumb soap, they don't, I don't know. - What are you watch now that's a dumb show? - Well, you know, we used to watch like Downton Abbey or whatever. I think that would be-- - That's a little highbrow. - It's highbrow 'cause it looks highbrow, but all, it's all the same dumb drama, and like weird turns and twists and ridiculous things, and miscommunications, blah, blah, blah, blah. - What kind of establishment do you think would be called the highbrow eyebrow? - The highbrow eyebrow. - Yeah, would that be like a good bar, or like a supper club? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's like one of those cool places that are like, it's a bar, but also it's like your eye doctor. - Oh, okay. - Like you're like, oh, I've got the coolest eye doctor. It's like, oh, we got drunk. We dilated our pupils the natural way. - It's crazy. - I can't believe it's legal, but it's the best. Oh, yeah. - I think we should, we should come through. - You can't drive home anyway most of the time. - Right, so you might as well get drunk. You need to rise. - Some guy, highbrow eyebrow guy came up with her. - Highbrow eyebrow is gonna be a national chain. So Nate Johnson, Saturday night, as all good TV guide week start, eight o'clock, what do you got? - I went with good old different strokes. - Different strokes was a classic. This is a good one because it does feature the gooch, the school bully. - Now wait, I'm sorry. Refresh my memory, was that? 'Cause I saw the picture there. Which was the gooch, the little white kid? - No, no, no. You're thinking of Danny Cooksy, who came into the show after Mr. German got remarried to a woman who later wanted to be and designing women. - Oh, I remember. - Yep, and he is the worst kid on earth. He was a little red-headed bastard. He's a Terminator 2, but he-- - Does he die? - No, no, no. - No, he's the buddy of John Conner 2. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a band now. But he was a big, he was about four or five, and he was like, did everyone TV sing in country songs? That was like his big thing, and like, he'd come on and be like, they're like, no, no, no, no, no. And he was on all kinds of country TV. So once Arnold got too old, they brought him into different strokes. - Right. - He got kidnapped in one episode. That was a good one. - Oh my gosh. - Oh, Arnold, I love you. - He was all, he was real. - I think I remember that. I remember being aggravated by this kid. - Oh, he's a dude. - No, Arnold. - Yeah. - So, he drove that show. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - And then you had the other kid, who was kind of like his nemesis. - Yeah. - But you know, they had to be friends 'cause they're brothers, technically. - Yeah. - Awful. - Yeah, but this was the school bully, the gooch. And in this one, he's taunting Sam and Arnold. So Sam is Danny Cooksy. - Okay. - Until he faces a challenge from tough new exchange student, Carmilla, who's Martine Allard of the tap dance kid. Something I've never heard. - Oh yeah, tap dance kid, right, right. - Don't know her. - So this was towards the end of different strokes life. It was canceled this year and it moved networks for the final season. Very, very unpopular. I probably would have gone at eight o'clock with T.J. Hooker. Because the different strokes was a repeat. I couldn't really stand Danny Cooksy that much. And this episode of T.J. Hooker is a pretty good one. And in this one, Hooker volunteers to help a colleague played by Jim Brown of former football player. - So much football though. - Right. - Crack a drug related murder and finds that a cop's daughter is a heroin addict and she is there only hope for convicting the killers. Everyone who heard Nate's text message there but we'll let it go 'cause he has a child. - Thank you. - So that's what I probably would have gone with. Although normally would have been a big different strokes fan. I do also want to mention that at eight o'clock this night, putting on the hits was on. - I had in parentheses, might switch over to put on the hits 'cause one of them they were singing all night long. Was it? - Yeah, they listened to one of the songs to be-- - So this was the show. - Through you sing too. - It wasn't even Karaoke, it was literally just people lip syncing hit songs. - A lip syncing content, you know, especially nowadays where like air guitar is a thing like people, like there's big dumb competition for that. - Why not this? - Why not have this kind of dumb junk? I mean, this was the original dumb thing putting on the hits. I remember it come on and I would be and it was like, what was it, what was the originality? I remember one, one was for lip syncing. He's a guy, a guy, a 20 accuracy in a 28 nine on originality. - Yes, yes. - Oh, and the curly shuffle was the all time winner of putting on the hits. But this one we have lip synch routines to all night long, lies, say, say, say, miss me blind in respect. And I have to imagine that anyone who would have watched putting on the hits at this time would have had a real dilemma because it was on opposite star search. And I feel like that was the same target audience. - Pretty much, pretty much. I have to say the, say, say, say it was one of them. And that's duet. So did they have two people doing that? - Oh yeah, they don't have multiple people sometimes. It would be whole groups. - Yeah, and there was also the children's version putting on the kids. - I miss that one. - Which unfortunate title. - It's very, really terrible. - So I picked an hour show, so I wouldn't have picked anything at 8.30. But if I had, I think I definitely would have gone with give me a break, which I assume you went with. - That is what I went with, even though I will say this, I wasn't even a huge fan. I was just like, I remember, because Nel Carter, something that you were too sassy for? - She was, honestly, she was a little bit sassy for me. - She was. - She was like making brassie and I don't like her. But I also hated Joey Lawrence. - Oh, everyone hates Joey Lawrence. - And the only thing I think I saw, I've only seen one episode of my life, and it was one where she collected him blackface. Yes, and it didn't even in my shadow. - Yeah, yeah. - And she, I still remember her grabbing him. That's offensive to my people, but she was like, oh, he wouldn't know. I mean, he was-- - He didn't get it. - She was teaching them Al Jolson. So for people who aren't familiar, there was a two-parter. Now, Joey Lawrence was brought into the series around season three to add some cuteness to the cast. And Nell eventually adopted him. After Dolph Sweet died of cancer, sadly, before the show ended. - Oh, God. - But in an episode, yes, she used to sing a lot of songs, dance with them, and they sang me in my shadow, and he thought it would be great during Nell's church performance of this to surprise her by coming out and Al Jolson blackface. - Right. - Which was a real TV show that aired in America in 1985. - Yeah, that was, actually, I feel like, me, it might be Ms. Merritt, I thought maybe one of his sister put him up to it as a trick. I don't know, I'd have to re-watch it. I do have the whole series, but I don't really watch it. You think that it would have been Katie, if anyone did it, 'cause he was the real-- - She'd be, you know, like, she, at the same point, like, I don't know, he's so terrible, he might not. - The first episode of "Different Strokes," Katie gets in an argument with Dolph Sweet, and he smacks her right in the face. - Yeah, yeah, give me a break. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I have to say, this episode though looked exciting 'cause she catches the whole promises that she caught him, Joey, break dancing after school. - Yes, what is doing? Oh, he's out, break dancing. - Yeah, notified of a drop in Joey's grades, Nell tries to find out where he's been going after school. Meanwhile, Katie tries to keep her need for a loan, a secret. So, unrelated plots, but pretty exciting. - Pretty exciting. - Nine o'clock, what do you go with? - Love boat. - See, I never really got into the love boat that much, but during this was sort of the, really the end of love boats, rain. - Yeah, yeah. - This particular episode, Judy's friend, played by Deborah Adair, can't trust men after a rape and subsequent divorce. - That would probably, yeah. - That doesn't sound that fun to me. - That doesn't sound like a love on that boat. - Also, a woman, played by Julia Duffy, one of my favorites, a pre-new art, wants her jewel thief uncle, played by Patrick McNee of the Avengers. - Yes. - To retire, and a fellow played by William Christopher engaged to one of Doc's ex-wives studies Doc's every move. So, we have a wacky uncle jewel thief plot with a rape plot. - I feel like, trying to get a jewel thief to retire is never successful. It's always like, it's, they always gotta go for one last score. They can always be kept in. - Yeah, they're never gonna give it up. And I would've gone with Mickey Splein's Mike Hammer, starring Stacy Cage, which was a great show. I mean, I'm a huge hard-boiled detective fan and I love my camera. Kiss Me Deadly, great movie, The Girl Hunters, where Mickey Splein actually plays my camera himself. - I, yeah, he, that in Columbia were two shows where I was just like, they look like the most boring cop shows. 'Cause they're old school cop shows. - Yeah. - Like, man, close the doors, wait a minute. - That's hilarious, but Mike Hammer would just like, thump somebody. You know, like, he was a tough guy. And this episode has two great guest stars, Susan Anton and Henry Gibson. - Hello. - Buy a perfect sleep, a perfect sleep. That's what Susan Anton was famous for. - I, I feel like they brought that back, they rebooted that one. - I bet you that would do well. Like, on HP, like they made that a camera? - Oh, Mike Hammer? - Yeah, we could do it. They could do it. - They could go on camera. - They could absolutely do that, absolutely. - But we should also mention that we both picked our long show, so we didn't have to do anything at 9.30. But it was a lifestyles of the rich and famous episode that follows on Morgan Fairchild's Secret Fountain of Youth and his tough guy, Robert Conrad, Mellowing. - I actually, that was a tough one. I almost went 'cause Morgan Fairchild is fantastic. - Plus, psychic Yuri Geller, an eccentric nautilus founder, Arthur Jones. Do you remember nautilus? (laughs) - It goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It was like, it was like a solo flex, was sort of a nautilus session. I remember when I used to go to the lie after school, when my parents were trying not to have me be a latchkey kid, but then gave up, they signed me up for nautilus, 'cause I couldn't do a sport, but I did nautilus when I was about seven years old. - It was like the number one equipment, and now I'm like, I wonder how much have you held the high-end nautilus stuff in his house, or is it not used to the test equipment? - Why don't you go ahead, yeah, experimental nautilus, I think he would've had absolutely. I also, one of my favorite songs by Steve Albini's band, speaking of rape, they're called A Rape Man, was his second band, but there's a song where just in the middle of the song, he just goes, I might not be intimidating now, but wait till I start nautilus. - It's very great, very great. So Sunday night, we move on to the Lord's Day, eight o'clock, what do you got? - Oh, you know what? I went with an earlier one that day. - Okay. - 'Cause I was not pleased by too much, so I went with Silver Spoons at 6 p.m. - So there was a rerun, we're looking at a central time, so we had to do the math. So you went with a rerun of Silver Spoons at seven. - Yes, I did. - And let me see if they tell us what episode of Silver Spoons it is, yes. - Kate played by Erin Gray, who everybody looks. - Yeah, yeah. - Her daughter works at a bar in Boston right now. - Really? - Yeah, I won't say what bar it is. Looks just like a comedian Lamont Price hangs out at the bar all the time, and his friends with her. - I think I know what bar it is now. - Yeah, and he met Erin Gray one night, and he texted me as she hugged him. Very jealous, very jealous. So this is-- - She'll always be Wilma from Buck Rogers, to me. - Well, yeah. Kate pilots the company plane for the family's sun-filled Caribbean vacation, which is fraught with danger when they enter the Bermuda Triangle part one of two. - I will say this, I chose this, and then I saw that's an option, like that looks, that would be the most regretful decision I make, because the beauty of Silver Spoons was, 'cause everything could happen in that awesome house. - Yeah. - Like, I remember loving that show. - They got a train, they got a train. - They got a train, they got a train. - And they're one arcade. - He had these arcades, and then Jason Babin, young Jason Babin, who was always like this brad, and he was like, "Yeah." "What's up, Rick?" You know, it's always gonna be trouble. - He got his own spin-off. - And he got his own spin-off. - Yeah, and I, that's why I love the show. And then I said, "Imagine them stuck on a plane "for a half hour, trying to collect my jokes." - First of all, Aaron Gray's piloting a plane, so I'm sold already. Second of all, Bermuda Triangle, I mean, come on. - This is like an in search of crossover. - I like the idea of it, but they're gonna have, they're gonna be on this fake plane that's shaking, and then she's gonna be wearing a headset. I mean, she will all right, maybe. - Yeah, you're selling me on this one. - All right. - What are you talking about? So at eight o'clock, what'd you go with? - I went with Knight Rider. - Knight Rider's an easy, easy decision. Really the only move here. - Yeah. - Knight Rider, and this one, a psychologist who bought a ranch to use as a home for troubled city kids needs Michael's help to stop a rustler's and keep angry townsfolk from taking her land. I mean, that's a classic Knight Rider. - Yeah. - That's definitely a good move. And at nine o'clock, I know what I'd go with, but let's see what you got. - I actually couldn't make any decisions. - You didn't make any decisions? - I was a bed, actually. At this point, I'm like, "I have beds, nothing here." See, no, normally I think a good move here would have been Vegas 'cause Christina Ferrara was in it, who isn't. Ooh. - Yeah. - And Robert Urik was prespensive for hire. That was a pretty fun show, but there was a movie on starring Tim Daly from Wings, who's a favorite of mine, and Terry Copley from We Got It Made, and Anson Williams of Happy Days. - Happy Days, right. - And the movie is called, "I Married a Center for you." - I retract my original answer. - I would watch that film. - And this one says, "I married a centerfold, "or so an engineer hopes as he pursues "the model of his dreams." World premiere movie, "Every Man Dreams of Her," his problems began when his dream came true. The best part inspired by a true story. - I saw that. I was hoping you'd inspired that by a true story. - Is that like, it sounds like, what is it movie, or Star 80? - Star 80, yeah. - Is that like, is that Star 80 light? - Star 80 was pretty grim. - Yeah, no, that was nice. I heard Robert's being crazy. - Yeah. - That's a true story. - That is a true story, but I wonder if this is like, oh, you know what was great? Stay home to me. Got a lot of acclaimed star 80 when I came with that. - Dorothy Stratton. - Let's lighten it up a little bit. - Dorothy Stratton started in one film, "Galaxina." - Oh. - Yeah, not a great movie, but looks cool. - Indeed. - And she was killed soon after that. I think Mariel Hemingway played her in Star 80. - She did. - She did play her. - Yeah, Ernest Hemingway is a great granddaughter. - Wasn't it a great granddaughter? - No, it's not his daughter. - No, it's not his daughter. It's at least his granddaughter. - Okay, I'll go with granddaughter. - Yeah. So we move on to Monday night. As I always mentioned, the saddest night of the week, as we've gone to school, we've gone to work, we need something to take us away. What do we go with, Nate Johnson? - Scarecrow and Mrs. King. - Really? - You know what? Didn't really watch it that much. It's cute, but I feel like, you know what? It proceeded that night. It proceeded a bunch of shows that I would watch. I'm like, you know what? I would just stick on one channel. - I mean, I liked Kate Jackson. - Right. - She wore her line of clothing at Kmart. She wasn't my favorite Charlie's angel, but she was respectable. - Sorry, I forgot that she was a Charlie's angel. - But not the most exciting show. And this one, Amanda, is kidnapped by a white slavery ring while Lee tries to locate a valuable micro dot chip that could save some agents' lives. All right, I'll give you that. This one sounds pretty exciting. - The white slavery ring is pretty cool. I think it's just cruel that they have to say white slavery ring. Like, why mention that it's white? Like, is that worse? Like, can you say a slavery ring? - A slavery ring? - Like, people at all, if it's white, if it's a white slavery ring, that's terrible. I don't know, watch that. - Like regular slavery. - Like a slavery ring, well, of course. - Yeah, right. - Yeah. - Was she the guy that was white or something like that? - Yeah, she was like a secret agent. I didn't watch a ton of it, but they were secret agents involved. - I'm trying to think of the difference between that and like, Remington's Steel. - Well, Remington's Steel was about a woman who ran a private detective business, and no one took her seriously, so she made up the character of Remington's Steel and hired this actor, whose name we never actually knew, to play Remington's Steel. - And then they ended up talking-- - It was Pierce Brosden. - Okay, that's right. - So it was, oh yeah, I feel like Scarecrow, Mrs. Mrs. King is, was like a housewife of some sort. She gets wrapped up by accident, whose Scarecrow is a code name. - Yeah, yeah, his agent. - Right, I think she was like recruited into the CIA. I haven't seen a ton of Scarecrow on Mrs. King, but I definitely would have gone with TV's bloopers and practical jokes. Mr. T was the guest star this week. It says, "Mr. T dares you to laugh "at his hilarious 18 bloopers, "plus wild jokes with Loretta Lynn, Heather Locklear, "and much, much more. "The practical joke victims Loretta Lynn "in Adrian's Ahmed, bloopers by Christian Alfonso "and Peter Raquel from Days of Our Lives, "and Robert Klein's look at how New Yorkers stay healthy." - Yeah, no, I think what might have saw me in that was like, if you look at, looking at that TV, that picture, that was the beauty of a TV guy. - Yeah, all that. - They had like big ads for the shows, and that one's like cartoonishly big. It's like a whole sidebar. I was like, well, maybe, you know, if you're sitting there on your couch and you're like, not sure, you could just look at all the, you've read this little magazine, it's nice. - Did you used to not watch TV's bloopers and practical jokes? - I did watch it a couple of times, but again, I didn't, I don't know. I think it was, you know what, 'cause it was a practical jokes thing that turned me off. I was like, I'm not a big prep to the jokes person, but I didn't enjoy bloopers. - Yeah, it was America's funny song videos. I probably wouldn't want to. - Oh, that's fantastic. - 'Cause that's always good. - That's shaped America. - Right. - Now, we both did our long show, so we missed the 830 shows, and what I should mention is on Cinemax, there was a short-lived sketch comedy show they had called Assaulted Nuts. - Oh boy. - Which I believe Wayne Knight was on. It was a mixture of British and American comedic actors, and this one says, "It's the pits for a fruit vendor when the organic mafia's top banana threatens to pare him down to size." Assaulted Nuts. A show I saw a few times at the time, but don't remember much about it and haven't been able to re-watch it. Nine o'clock, what do you go with? - Oh, let me see. That would be Caden Alley. - Classic. - I followed by a new heart. - Yeah, that is the hour. That CBS Monday nights, I was locked in for just a decade. - They owned it, they owned it, yeah. - And this one's great. Caden's relationship with a handsome plumber is running hot and cold. The only thing they can agree on is a mutual attraction. - Well, that sounds pretty hot. - It sounds pretty hot. No one would have thought that about a sitcom. - Yeah, I love that show. It's a great show. I love the kids on the show. They were all very funny chips, the favorite. - Yeah. - Oh yeah, that was the key with a red-haired kid too, right? - Yeah, yeah. - What was up with red-haired kid? - Well, he wasn't super red-haired. He was more sort of dirty blonde. - Okay. - Very funny kid. He shows up in TV commercials every now and then. I don't see anyone else, like I never see Ari Myers, and I don't see the other one whose name I can't remember play Jenny who was in Annie on Broadway in New York. I can't remember her name. - But that was a great show. In New Heart, this one is, New Heart's always good, but this is a pretty good one. Roasted at the Beaver Lodge's Man of the Year, George Gets Burned the Most by Barb's From Dick. This is a great one. Dick is too mean to him at a roast. And it plays through the whole episode. - I remember when I knew it was a good show at the time, but I just didn't get all the jokes. Like, but I knew it was like, these are good. This was a good show, but I don't understand. - I think there was a bunch of levels that New Heart worked on, 'cause we had a silliness factor that would appeal to kids, but it was very clever. - Right. - It was such a great ensemble cast, and New Heart's so funny on that show. Everyone was great on that show. Mary Friend, very underrated, sadly no longer with us. - Which one? - Well, she was his wife. - She passed on. - She did, she passed away from cancer. Which New Heart wife did you like better? Suzanne Plashette or Mary Friend? - Oh no, Mary Friend, yeah. - Yeah, most people weren't with Plashette, but I'm a billionaire. - She's a sassy one from the, she was from the original show. - She was a booger. - Yeah. - And then she was a voice, yeah. - At the very end, she was a dream the whole time. - Yeah, yeah, Mary Friend underrated. - Yeah. - Tuesday night, Nate Johnson, eight o'clock. What do we go with? - Eighteen. - We went with the eighteen. - And what were the eighteen? - Yeah. - Okay, I think that's a fair choice. This one, an ex-army medic who once saved BA's life sends for the team to fight a group of thugs who've taken over the tropical island where he doctors the natives. - Here we are. - There might be some Bermuda Triangle involved. - Also, you know, that he's a friend of BA's, so you know that Mr. T's getting some serious monologues in that and about friendship. - Oh yeah. - How I trusted you. - Absolutely. - You know, our debt is paid. Something like that. - It turns coat though. Yeah, I think I would've gone with this too, but I wanna mention that on HBO Tuesday night, I don't know if you noticed, but you know what was on? - Oh, like. - Star 80. - Ha, I did not notice that. - Star 80, you know. - That's the thing, I was avoiding cable for myself. - Why would you avoid cable? - Because, well, for this, I was avoiding cable. That's the thing. This was before I was trying to enjoy just television. If I was going to cable, forget about it. I would've been like, I would've been seeking out, you know, everything was a vehicle for breasts. - So here's what TV Guide has to say about Star 80. Violence, sexual situations, strong language, Eric Roberts dominates Bob Fossey's tragic story of an actress model, Dorothy Stratton. - Bob Fossey. - Yeah, Bob Fossey directed it. - He's a choreographer. He's like, yeah. - Oh, you know what? You really-- - The chorus line. - And he's choreographing it. - Yeah, it started. - And beating women. - There was a lot of rape in that movie. - It's harsh. - So I think I would've gone with the '18 as well. I definitely wouldn't have watched Star 80. - I would've gone with it. - I'm sure I had seen it at that time. And then you didn't have to watch anything at a 30, but who's the boss was on? I will say that. And nine o'clock, what'd you go with? - Riptide. - Riptide. - Riptide. - You're a big fan of Riptide? - Never watched it. But it looked, I was one of those ones where I was like, I think I had to go to bed at that time. And I was like, eh, that looked cool. 'Cause it was always in the same formula where it was like, there's always a cool handsome guy and there's always some kind of nerdy guy. - Yeah, there were two-- - There was a lot of shows like that. Simon was kind of like that. - They had a boat as well. - Yeah, one of them were a Hawaiian shirt, I feel like. - So here, there's a bit of controversy with this episode of Riptide. So in the ad, it says, the guy's follow a high tech trail to a deadly electronics genius. But when you go into the description, it says, after an attempt is made on an author's life, the boys are hired to escort him to a talk show interview, which is canceled following the man's suicide. Now those sound different, correct? TV Guide has written a little note here that says at press time, it was likely that NBC would air this episode and not the one described in NBC's ad for the series. - That is amazing. That is, I love that like, TV Guide had so together, their production team. - They knew. - They were able to get them as it is. They talked to the brass and NBC, NBC's like, no, we gotta fix all those TV guides. Someone in the production is a cold up, hold up. We got a last bit of changes. - Yeah. - That's something on their head, man. - No, I definitely would have watched paper dolls this time, which was a drama about a modeling agency. And as we know, I love the world of modeling. - You love it, you love it, yeah. - This one, after informing the family of Blair's risky pregnancy, Grant, played by Lloyd Bridges, flies to Miami with a plan to get her back. Meanwhile, Parnell wants all charges against him dropped as the price for Blair's safe return. Also, John Waite invites Nicolette Sheridan along on his world tour, John Waite. - Missing you? - Yep. - And playing himself. And Dina is concerned about Laurie's grades, which have plummeted since she began modeling. I mean, you got to John Waite, but you know he's gonna play some songs. - Yeah. - And he's probably doing missing you. He'll probably do change. ♪ It doesn't matter who you are ♪ - I feel like it's all the same. - How many hits did he have? Because I feel like she'll miss you as later in the '80s. - Missing you, I think was '84. It was probably around this year. Change was a hit before missing you, but he had a lot of hits. He was also the singer for Bad English. - Yeah. - And he was in a band called The Babies before that, who had a couple hits. But I definitely would have watched that. I mean, what a great show. - Paper Dolls. - Paper Dolls, it was great. It's a little loved, but what a great show. And I also, Nate Johnson, want to mention that on Showtime at eight o'clock. - Here it is. - Star 80. Was it going again on a different station? - I'm kidding, I'm kidding. - You could have watched it two nights in a row. - They knew what sold, and that was-- - People wanted Star 80. - They wanted to see Playboy models murdered. - Exactly. - Who does it? - They knew that NBC and CBS wouldn't be able to offer that. - No, no, they definitely wouldn't. Wednesday night, hump day. What do we go with? - Fall Guy. - Fall Guy was a good one. - Really enjoyed. You know what, that was one I never watched, but you know what, I always loved-- - Love you. - You know what, set? Oh, that opening? - Oh yeah, always felt so cool. - That could have followed from a towel, oh, my own. - Yeah, it was all these routines, it was all-- - Commonly unknown stunt, man. Although, I will say that song was of the country caliber that sounded like Sam from Different Strokes would have sang it. I think he, I'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure he guest-starred on an episode of The Fall Guy and probably sang that song with him. - I have to listen to that song again. - It's a good song, so on this one, Cultly Majors is pursued over rugged mountain terrain by a deputy sheriff who framed him for assault. Doesn't sound that interesting, but Michael J. Paulards in it who's a fantastic character actor. He's actually the inspiration for Michael J. Fox putting the J in his name, which isn't a real initial. - Really? - Yeah, 'cause he also didn't want to be known as Michael Fox. - Well, there wasn't Michael Fox already in SAG, so he had to put the J in, so he took the inspiration from Michael J. Paulards. - What else was Michael J. Paulards in? - He played Mr. Mitzel Pitlick in the Super Boy TV series. - Okay. - He's in Sleepaway Camp 2, but he was in a lot of '70s movies. He's, you've definitely seen him. He's a very recognizable character actor. - I'm guessing he gets killed in Sleepaway Camp 2. - He does, he's very horny. - Yeah. - Also, he missed Highway to Heaven, which is just one of the most depressing shows ever. - I've never watched one. - But I feel the need to read the injury. - Yeah, yeah. - Jonathan and Mark tend the children of a hard-driving movie star who always has the money, but never the time to spend with his kids. Tough lesson. - So sad. - Cats in the cradle. - So sad. - And Michael Lanham came, and he just found a way-- - It's like, I'm an angel. - I will give you some money. - Yeah. - But he wouldn't steal it. He'd find a way like-- - Yeah, he'd be able to get your job and-- - But he's also an angel. Like, he could use angel powers. I wonder if people who are really into the show Supernatural are like kind of going back and being like, what are other shows I would like? What's this Highway to Heaven? It's got angels in it. And then they're just like, wow, I'm gonna kill myself. - Right, so why Supernatural is about also about angels? - Current, Supernatural, current series Supernatural is very angel heavy. - 'Cause I was like, what if someone's like watching Highway to Heaven, you know, like, yeah, you know what? What do we need me to show up on angels that were a little bit more, you know? - Fighting. - More on the edge. - Fighting, right, yeah. - I would've got my Charles in charge at this time. This is season one of Charles in Charge. This is when Gwendolyn Pierce played by Jennifer Runyon, who you may remember from Ghostbusters. She's in the opening scene with Bill Murray. She is the pretty blonde. - Yes, I do, okay, yeah. - And this one, she aspat with Gwendolyn prompts Charles to swear off women just in time to chaperone a slumber party for Leela. This is my favorite episode from the first season of Charles in Charge. It's actually pretty well written. There's a really weird girl who sleeps over named Enid, who's obsessed with horses, and Charles has to talk her down from not leaving this room, and she's only making horse noises. It's a very, very weird show. - Was he just like a babysitter? - Sort of, he was like a live-in nanny babysitter caretaker for the children. - I see that one. Honestly, that, who's the boss? - The Manny's of genre. - I just, I couldn't get into those at all. I thought they were-- - You couldn't get into it. - Some of the worst shows. And I never saw, I just saw like, in actually growing pains, which is a whole other thing. I just don't, I think it was just 10 or 5. - Didn't like, so you weren't an ABC fan. - I was not an ABC fan, I realized. - I really liked ABC. I definitely would've gone with Charles in Charge, which I believe is the CBS show, and then went into first-run syndication. At 8.30, what do you go with? - Wait, oh, oh. - Wait, I was on fall gap, right? - Fall gap, oh, you picked an hour show so he doesn't pick you at 8.30. - So then at 8. - I would've gone at 8.30, I would've gone with ER, which was the original ER, which started Elliott Gould. It was a comedy series based on a play. - Yes, I saw, I remember that that sort of was when I was like, yeah, yeah, 'cause I had already gone on fall gap. - But I do want to mention this, on BET, they were airing the 1946 movie, Jivin' Into Bebop. - See, that was before, that was back then when those channels didn't have their own programming yet. - Yes, they were a lot of movies. - I feel like they were all just showing movies, which actually was an instant. - More and stuff. - Like Comedy Central, well, it used to be the Comedy Channel. - Yeah, that's true. - It just showed, like, standard specials and movies and stuff. - Well, the original concept for the Comedy Channel, which then changed the CTV before it became Comedy Central, it merged with the Ha Network to become Comedy Central, which was the other rival Comedy Network. So the Ha Network was owned by Viacom, and they had all the reruns of "Saturday Night Live" and a bunch of the original programming. The Comedy Channel used to, their format was essentially MTV for Comedy, so they had two or three hour blocks that had sort of VJs, and they would show short clips from old movies, comedy movies, stand up specials, mostly HBO stand up specials, and a lot of that kind of stuff. So you had short attention to fan theater, which John Stewart hosted and later Mark Marin hosted, and then you had a show called "The Sweet Life" with Rachel Sweet, who is a fantastic musician. She was on the IRS, written on IRS records, stiff records. She did a lot of cool singles. She did a lot of music for the movie "Hairspray," and then you had the Higgins Boys and Gruber, who hosted a show, and they would show sort of a half hour episodes of old kids TV, like "Cletch Cargo" and "Supercar." - What was it, Higgins Boys and who? - Gruber, Dave Gruber Allen. - Dave Gruber Allen from "Fricks and Geeks." - Yes, and Dave Higgins and his brother, who I can't remember his first name, but he's the head writer for "Fountain." - Oh, wow. - Yeah. So that was a great show, and then Rich Hall also had a great show called "Onion World," which was really weird. - Is he still doing comedy? - He moved to the UK, he's very popular in the UK. - That's good for him, he's great. Sniggles are great. - Yeah, Sniggles are great. I had the Sniggles board game. Rich Hall also, he does a sort of a Southern musician character called Otis Lee Crenshaw that's very popular in the UK. When I went to school in England in the early 2000s, I called the BBC and asked if they had tickets to TV tapings, so these just send me a package of tickets every week, and I would go to television center all the time, and I saw a bunch of tapings of Rich Hall's talk show, which was pretty cool. - That's awesome. - Yeah, and Mike Wilmont was his second in command in the show, he's a Canadian stand-up. He's performed at the Boston Comedy Festival for it. I did a show with him in England, actually. Nice guy. So yeah, that's what was on ER and jiving in the bebop. Nine o'clock, what do you go with? - "Faxillife." - No question about it. - Easy, easy. - We're at season five of "Faxillife," not my favorite season, but approaching it. The last three seasons were my favorite. This episode, Mrs. Garrett enrolls in a Shakespeare class, but worries that she might neglect her business and have trouble fitting in with the college crowd. So this is when she owned Edna's Edibles. It was before it burnt down and became over our heads. All the girls lived there. - Okay. Now it was over our heads when Mackenzie Austin-- - Mackenzie Astin, yep, John Astin, sorry. And George Clooney. - Yep, George Clooney. - And laid up Pippa McKenna, played by Sherry Kren, who now goes by the name Sherry Austin and is a country singer. - Wow. - Yep, I'm all else. - She tried to escape you. - But she couldn't. - She changed her name many times. - She changed her name and she couldn't, I still have all our albums. - Nice. - Autographed. Also at this time, I definitely would have watched "Faxillife," but I do want to mention that the movie "Night Mayors" was on HBO, which started as three episodes of the television series "The Dark Room," which was hosted by James, not James Mason. James Brolin, I want to say, not James Brolin. James Coburn, that's what I'm thinking of. - Oh, that guy is awesome. - Yeah. And it was the early '80s anthology horror series and these three episodes were considered too terrifying and the show got canceled and so they made it into a movie. They just stitched them together. And one of them, which is great, is called "The Bishop of Battle." And it stars Emilio Estvez as a teenager who's really into video games and he gets sucked into a video game, essentially. It's like a horror-tron. - Yeah. - Really good movie. - So that was called "Night Mayors" was the name of the show. - "Night Mayors" was the movie. - It was called "The Movie." The show was called "The Dark Room." - Okay. - And it didn't last very long, but they edited these together into one movie. - They used to love it 'cause it wasn't "Tales from the Crypt" was the other, like they used to have all those, like, "Darks from the Crypt" which started in 1989. It started as a 90-minute pilot, which was three episodes and then they put it to series and it was on for seven seasons or eight seasons. - And Hitchhiker was another one. - The Hitchhiker started on HBO in 1982 and that canceled off HBO, I think in '87, and then moved to USA Network where it had a lot less boobs. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So they all had those shows, and then "The Outer Limits" was brought back in the '90s too on Showtime, which was actually really good. - Those kind of shows were actually kind of cool. - Oh, I love horror. - 'Cause they were shorting anthology things and you're like, yeah. - Yeah, and sometimes you'd get a really great episode and the new Twilight Zone came back as well, which there were some great stuff. You also had monsters, tales from the dark side. Yes, I love tales from the dark side. - Yeah, no, that was good. - Monsters was a little more comedic. And then at 8.30, I'm guessing you only have two choices here and I'm guessing since your love of Jason Bateman was already stated, you go with "It's Your Move." - You know what? I almost did it 'cause I didn't know I was gonna go, my "I'll Just Watch That Ellis Island" miniseries. - Were you gonna watch "It's Ellis Island" miniseries? - But then I saw it, but again, TV Guide stayed me right 'cause I saw the big ad and I didn't know what "It's Your Move" was and then I saw that goofy picture of Jason Bateman and whoever that character is in, David Garrison, he was in "Mare With Children" later. - Yes. - He was the big Broadway actor. - Yeah, he was great. He was really, I remember him being very funny, so I don't remember what "It's Your Move" was about. - So the premise of the show, he's not playing the same exact character from "Silver Spoons," but he's basically the same character. - Yeah, he's playing Jason Bateman in the 80s. - Yeah, and they gave him this show because he was such a popular character on that show. And in this show, he lived in an apartment building with his single mom and his sister. David Garrison lived across the hallway and was courting his mom. And so Jason Bateman and David Garrison were at odds against each other, like constantly battling. That's where it's called "It's Your Move." - Okay. - And so in this episode, Matt and Norman, who's Jason Bateman and David Garrison, both think the love letters they received are practical jokes on each other rather than the outpourings of "Secret Admirers." - That's excellent. - Yeah, it's really good. It's similar to the plot of the movie "Secret Admirer" with C. Thomas Howell, if you've seen that movie. - Hi. - Lori Loughlin. - I think my viewing of C. Thomas Howell begins and ends with "Red Dawn." - With "Red Dawn?" - Yeah. - Really seem to have seen "The Hitcher." - Or "Soul Man" really, which is the one I wanted to say. - Well, "Soul Man" I saw in the theater because they shot it in the Boston area. I was very excited about it. - Yeah, yeah. - What an offensively- - Oh, yeah, it's terrible. - Oh, yeah, it's terrible. - Yeah, it's terrible, yeah. - "Redawn Chown." I do really, really like "The Hitcher." That's one of my favorite movies. It's "Rutgar Howell" being absolutely bone-chillingly terrifying. - Yeah, it's terrifying. - And that movie, I saw that twice in the theater when I was six, which was probably inappropriate. It was written by a guy named Eric Red who also wrote "Near Dark," which is my favorite vampire movie from 1987. If you're either a near dark person or a lost boy's person, I like lost boys quite a bit, but near dark is-- - Lost boys, yeah. - Have you ever seen "Near Dark?" - No, I have. - Oh, you should see "Near Dark." It's very, very good. - Did it fly? - They don't fly. They never use the word vampire in the movie and they're basically sort of nomadic cowboys. Does anyone death by stereo? - There's not a death by stereo, but there is a guy who blows up in a Mac truck and when the sun hits them, they burst into flames. - Well, yeah. - Okay. - All right. - There's some good stuff. There's a great scene in "Near Dark" where they're holed up in this motel and the cops start shooting and each bullet hole puts a shaft of sunlight into the room and they just start bursting into flames or the sun hits them. There's a great scene in that movie where they walk into this honky talk bar, lock the door and slaughter everybody. It's about 10 minutes long and it's scored to fever by the cramps and it is amazing. Bill Paxton's in it, Lance Hendrickson's in it. Most of the cast of "Aliens" is actually in it, weirdly. - Who's the director? - Catherine Bigelow. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - She was Eric Red's writing partner. They worked on a movie called "The Lovelace," which was actually one to first movie. It's a biker movie. - Wow. Was this her first movie? - It was, "New Dark," was her second movie. "The Lovelace" was her first movie that she directed. - And then when was Point Break with the one after two guys? - Point Break was 1990. So she did a movie called "Blue Steel" after New Dark, which is a really good movie. And then she did "Point Break." - Okay. - And then, "Not End of Days." What's that one, the sci-fi one? - Oh, "The One's Ralph" where it finds something. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something days. But Eric Red is a really interesting story to get on a small tangent here. So he, all his movies have very specific reoccurring themes in them. So there's a lot of, they're mostly road movies. They're very violent. He did a great movie called "Cone" and "Tate" that he directed with "What's His Name" from Jaws, the main guy. - Rorschider. - Rorschider. The hitcher has one of the greatest opening 10 minutes of a movie. I would challenge someone to sit through the first 10 minutes of the hitcher and be able to not watch the rest of the movie. It's just like a perfect screenwriting trick. - And wait, see Thomas Howell, the star of that movie? - Yes, so the plot of this movie, see Thomas Howell as a college kid. And he, during a spring break, he gets a drive away, which is basically someone hires you to drive their car across country. - Yeah, yeah. - And so he picks up a hitchhiker and the opening the movie, it's "Rucker Howard." - Yeah. - And then "Rucker Howard" basically just fucks with him for the whole movie. And he's got a switchblade and he says a great line. He goes, "You ever wonder what happens to a human eyeball when it gets punctured?" And so he's basically just terrorizing in the whole movie. And you never get a reason why. And in one point, see Thomas Howell goes, "Why are you doing this? What do you want?" And he goes, "I just want you to stop me." And it's almost supernatural. You don't know what, it's so great and "Rucker Howard" is terrifying. - The thing is, I've read, see Thomas Howell, from every movie I've seen, the one movie, and I think I saw him. But he always looked like he's a douche in real life. - Oh, I'm sure he is. - He looks obnoxious. - Yeah, I'm sure he is. - I think I read you where he sounded obnoxious. - So, part of me thinks that would be great to see him get terrorized. - Oh, it's great to see him be terrorized, especially at that post-outsiders, ponyballing itself. - Yeah. - If you want to see "Rucker Howard" terrorized someone, you want to see him terrorize see Thomas Howell. - Exactly, exactly. - Yeah, who doesn't have a "C" at the beginning of the same, actually, there was another Thomas Howell on "Sag," so he went with the "C." - That's how it's written. - Yeah, so the hitcher, I can't recommend the hitcher enough. What a great movie. - No, I'm sorry, see Thomas Howell, but you deserve it. - Yeah, easily the best "C" Thomas Howell movie as well. Eight o'clock, Thursday night. What do you go with? - Oh, that's an easy Cosby show. - Yeah, I think there's no question here Cosby show. The first season of the Cosby show, this is one sort of must-see TV, had sort of just come into its own for the first time, and what a great, great show. This episode, Cliff's been so rough on Denise's past boyfriends, he told one at the door, you have the wrong address, that he promises to behave so she can meet her current bow. - Hmm, I, without season one. - Yeah, so Lisa Bonet, have a episode. - That's great. That was what she, yeah, before she left. How many seasons was she on that show? - She left to do, no, I think she was on about four seasons, and she came back later. She came back after a different world, but Cosby had sort of banished her after she was in the movie "Angel Heart." - Yeah. - Yeah. - Which is a great movie as well. - I've seen that, I've seen that. - I've been, have you ever been to the Bradbury building in LA where the final scene takes place? - No. - Also in Blade Runner with Rucker Howard, but a very, very distinctive scene from "Angel Heart" takes place in the Bradbury building. Next time you're in LA, definitely go to the Bradbury building. It's on Broadway, downtown. - That's one, and I want to go to the Nakatomi building. - Yes, those will be the only two places where they won't go. - Just go, just to go to those buildings. - Just end it up on a plane of feedback. - Yeah, absolutely. So you passed up Magnum PI, which is fine. We'll mention that in Magnum PI, there was a, this is Virgil and Al, but I can't not mention it, there was a character named Gay Lore, played by an actor named Alan Fudge. - Will. - Just thought I'd mention that, just had to mention that. - The only Jim J. Bullock, really would be-- - Jim J. Bullock, in terms of funny. - When I was in a band in the '90s, I was in a punk rock band, and our first EP was called "Ollie just Pied in Contest," which was a reference to Lord "S. Davey Hogan" from "Stand by Me." Then this record never came out, but we had a record we were gonna call Nevermind Jim J. Bullock, and I imagine somebody's done that already. - Yeah. - But it was-- - It's agreed, I like that, that's, I don't know. - Yeah. - It is still time. - It is still time. - But we could do it. - Is he still alive? - I believe he's still alive. He had that talk show where him and Tammy Faye Baker co-hosted him. - Yeah, that's right. - She's dead. - Right. - She's dead. - He did, he did come out of the closet, right? - Oh yeah, yeah. Do you remember the episode, we've never discussed this on the podcast where the butt of, when he played Monroe on, why am I blanking on the name of the show? - Too close for comfort. - Too close for comfort. - Yes. - Where he got raped. - Yes, and then they, didn't they take it off the air and you can't find it? - You can find it now. Someone uploaded it to QTube, YouTube. It's QTube, it's QTube shaped YouTube. You just did it right in your ear. - Have you seen that ad for the ear vacuum? - Yes, 'cause I love it because the guy, ow, ow! - Like every single time he jams a thing in his ear and it's like someone who doesn't know how to use a QTube at all. - It's my favorite acting. - That is really, he just sold it. And I feel like they turned up the audio when he jams it. - Oh yeah, he really jams it in there. - 'Cause the whole thing is just like, like people like little kid trying to clean his ear and the mouth's like, no, don't do it like that. It's just like, but then it shows a grown man taking QTube and he doesn't even jam to it. He's like, ow, ow! - I think whenever I'm having a bad day or I'm like stuck on the train, I just close my eyes and I think of that scene and I just repeated over and over in my head and ow! - Ow! - And I feel a lot better about things. - It's, I can, it only, it kinda scares me 'cause it's like, yeah, that wouldn't really be painful. But I also have, you know, motor skills. - Yeah, you use QTube's every morning. - No, no, I use them on a regular way. I know, you know, that I should not jam things too hard. - Yeah, everyone uses QTube's. - Right. - I mean, you have those weirdos who like do a kindling. That's a little weird. - That is, wait, no way, I don't know. - They stick a candle in there here and they light it and it wicks out the wax. It's a real hippie-dippy thing. - That is crazy, do they, I think those, they also use Nettypots, those people. - Oh, they're Nettypot people, yeah. - Man. - They're Nettypot. - I don't get it, some people swear by that stuff. - Yeah, that's, it's not like-- - Candling and Nettypotting and I won't get it. - It's not right. And you wouldn't, if, what if your daughter's like, "Dad, I'd like to Nettypot someday." (gasps) - You can't lie, well, you know what, that's when I'll show her the door. - Yeah, not under my roof, it's not acceptable. - I will mention that we didn't watch it, but the movie on at eight o'clock on Thursday was Valley of the Dolls, which is Patty Duke, Mackenzie, Aston's mother. - Yep. - What a great movie. So, 830, what do we go? - Yeah, I'm not changing that channel. Sticking with, going next with family ties. - Sticking with family ties, this is a great one. Boys will be boys. Alex's weekly poker with his buddies is broken up by Doug's constant involvement with a girl. Tim Busfield. - That's who it was, I saw the, again, saw the picture, I'm like, "Who is that guy?" - Yeah, I know who that guy is. - Tim Busfield, point next to her from Revenge of the Nerds later on 30-something, went by Timothy Busfield most of the time. He's one of his buddies, and also one of his buddies was played by Crispin Glover. - No. - Yes, he has played. - He's really back to the future. Crispin Glover. - Wow, wow. - Alex's buddy. Nine o'clock, I'm assuming you go with yours. - Of course. - This is a great one. After winning a lottery, Irene breaks her engagement to coach when he was still alive at this point, but against all reason, he stubbornly proceeds with the wedding plans. - It's too bad it wasn't when he was dead. - Well, yeah, and now I broke up the wedding plan. Sam's like, "How do we break it to her?" And then the whole episode of them finding a way to have Woody tell this woman that coach has been dead for five years. - But then he marries her. - I love Shelly Long. - Yeah, she's great. - I love her. She's so funny, totally underrated. - She, I can watch her in anything. - Do you watch Modern Family and All? - No, is she on that? - She plays, what's his face? - Ed O'Neill's ex-wife? - Yes, fantastic. - She's perfect. She's fantastic. It's like you watch and you're like, she's such a great actor. - I've never seen a thing with Shelly Long that I didn't enjoy. Night Shift? - I saw, you know, money pay, which I love. - Money pay? - Whenever that's on. I think that's still works now. - Hello again. - Hmm. - True Beverly Hills. - True Beverly Hills. - That's, she was smart. She was, is an 80. She's like, "I am just gonna do this." And she was in as many movies as possible. - And right after she heard, she had to be. - Yeah. - So I think she's a very attractive lady. - Really? - Do you know how Shelly Long doesn't do it for you? - Not really. - No one ever agrees with me on this. No one ever agrees with me on Shelly Long. - No. Well she also never like kind of dressed alluringly. She was always kind of dowdy. - That's kind of what I liked. That's kind of what I liked. She's very pretty lady that Shelly Long. - Yeah, yeah. In the next store, neighbor kind of Nordic kind of way, I guess. - Don't back, don't back panel. - All right. So then at 9.30, we go with, I'm gonna go with Nike. - Gotta be Nike or Nike or Nike. - Nike or Nike or Nike. - Nike or Nike or it's one of my favorite shows. This one, Harry has called before a judicial review board to answer charges that his eccentric behavior and undisciplined approach make him unfit to serve. This is fantastic. Ray Wollstone's in this episode, who's always entertaining. - Yeah. - My favorite Martian himself. Also, always loved John Myra-Kett. - John Luka, great. Did you, he was on Proxure Recreation. - Yes, he's on, he's on almost human now and he was on Chuck as well. - I'll watch John Myra-Kett. - He's great. - What we did miss though, Nate, by watching Night Court was another episode of assaulted nuts and pro karate. - Professional karate. - Professional karate, light middleweight, John Longstreet versus Trent Norman in a light middleweight fight on ESN. - Yeah, was that like ESPN before? - Yes. - Oh yeah, the Eastern sports network. - Sports network, yeah, yeah, okay. - So we move on to the final night of the week, Friday night, eight o'clock, what do we go with? This is a tough decision. - This is a very tough one we talked about. - I went with Benson. - Benson was a good move and it was sorta towards the end of Benson's run. And this one with Pete and Denise moving to Houston, Benson must choose a replacement. The choices and overbearing, Prigish Preppy, played by Steven Peterman or Krause. - Yeah, Krause, they said that, will they or won't they think? Benson and Kurt, did they ever hook up to Benson and Kurt? - No, no, it was very subtle. I don't think that would have ever worked. A black man and a German. - I know, no, no, no, no, no, they, but I felt like they played that a little bit. - I'm like so much, oh, this is tension. - Oh, they hated each other. Yeah, one of my favorite episodes of Benson is when the two of them are held hostage during a convenience store robbery, gone wrong. And the guy ties them up to each other. And they think they're gonna die. - Tied up back to back. - Back to back, yeah, back to back. Benson was a good move, absolutely. But I at this time, regretfully, would have gone with V. The series, so the original V miniseries is still hands down one of the best miniseries ever aired on television. It was Ken Johnson, who is a fantastic writer. He brought the Incredible Hulk to television. Also, on his website, if you Google Ken Johnson's website, he didn't put this together when he posted on his website. Someone watched every episode of The Incredible Hulk, and they wrote down every reason why he helps out on the whole series. And it's just the list of everything that causes it. - That's awesome. - It's one of the funniest things I've ever read. There's stuff like does not have enough change for a phone call, which is true. They're all true things. And I remember that episode, 'cause he's on the phone, and the operator's like, "Please deposit 50 cents." And he goes, "I don't have 50 cents!" And then his eyes all turn, and he turns it. - And then Lou Ferrignos, I'm like, "That's me." Well, like, I love him. - It's great. - It must have been a reason. It was an important phone call. Somebody was gonna die. - And a lot of it should be worse. - I'm sure. - There's a lot of bolder-induced hulk outs. Yes, look up the hulk out list on Ken Johnson. - Yeah, I like that, that's like, that's all the special sex guys, like, we can make another bolder. - We got bolder, we got all that. - We don't have any old cars or anything. We can have them through. - I'm not making no paper machete cars, dude. I'll tell you what, I'll make you a paper machete phone booth. If you can write that into the series, I'll make you a paper. - If we got a boat, we're gonna have ready for you, but that's like two seasons away, but it's gonna be a sweet boat he's gonna throw. - So V was great, for people who don't know, V was about Nazi lizard aliens, essentially, that came to Earth, promising peace, and did not bring it. It started off as a series about real fascists taking over the US, and the network would narrate, so he changed it to aliens, and they were like, perfect. And so, the first mini series was great, there was, V the final battle was the sequel mini series, which wasn't quite as good, but was still pretty good as well. So they brought it to a weekly series, and it was weak. They just kept reusing the same footage from the special effects footage from the TV movies, also the visitors, which is what the V aliens were called, had a weird voice on the show, but on the series, they didn't want to spend the money to do their weird voices, so they had normal voices, which doesn't make sense. - That's terrible, that's terrible. - I had a V doll, which was like a kendall, whose face came off, and he turned the lizard. I had a huge crush on Diana, who ate a whole guinea pig, which a lot of people of our generation really into that. Also, the one redeeming factor of V the series was Michael Ironside, wasn't it? Who is-- - He's a badass. - Oh, he's a badass character actor. And in this episode, Donovan, Mark Singer, the Beast Master himself. - Beast Master. - rescues his son from the aliens and is stalked by the deadly leader of the Alien Youth Corps, who wants his prized pupil returned. Meanwhile, the star child is reunited with her mother. There was a star child that came about in the second mini series and really got ridiculous in V later. - Yeah. - So what do you go with at 8.30? - I'm gonna stick with, after bed, so I'm just gonna go with Webster. - Going with Webster. - Gonna go with Webster. - This Thanksgiving episode, since we're in November, the first Thanksgiving episode that we've seen in all of this TV guy. - That's pretty funny, yeah. - It's early, I mean, this is only the 16th of the month, so, but this one, Webster's Thanksgiving guest list includes Uncle Philip and the grandparents, Webster's never met, but Philip's scheduling conflict and Catherine's conflict with her mother may shorten the list considerably. - Yeah. - Ben Vereen was a real dick on Benson. I mean, on Webster. - On Webster. Yeah, wait, he was his uncle? - He played his uncle. - Yeah. - And then, confusingly, there's also an episode of Webster where he meets Ben Vereen. He goes to Hollywood and meets Ben Vereen. - Does he dress up like, he's playing him, he's playing Ben Vereen. - That's depressing. - And also playing his uncle's uncle. - I was like, did the people at Webster, but we can only talk to three black people and one of them is Webster, one of them is Ben Vereen. - I have to imagine-- - The other one is also Ben Vereen. - I have to imagine Ben Vereen was the source behind that plot. Look, guys, let me play myself. I'm not doing enough dancing. I wanna play a scene against myself. So nine o'clock, the final hour of the final day this week, what are you going with? - I'm gonna have to go with Dallas on that. - Dallas, we're really great. - Dallas, that surprises me. So this episode of Dallas, Pam initiates a search for the wreckage of Mark's plane. Sly takes a leave of absence, unable to handle her role as a spy any longer. J.R. becomes determined to locate the model he saw at a restaurant. - Right. - And Pam is devastated by J.R.'s announcement at the Ollie Verens Ball. - I think, yeah, that was a weird choice. I'm not gonna lie. I think when I remember it was a kid and I would watch like that show and felt the crass back to back for some reason. I think it's just my parents were just, they were like, you should go to bed, and then I didn't, and so they were like, all right, fine, just watch these shows with us. So I was like, all right, I'll just stick here and watch television. - So you should have gone, I think you should have gone with either Hunter or Hawaiian Heat. - See, I didn't like Hunter, though, I always-- - It was a hateful, violent show, but everyone like D.D. McCall, but here's why I would tell you to go with this. So in Hawaiian Heat, Mac and Andy get unsolicited help from a vacationing Chicago cop, a friend of Mac's family who's obsessed with their murder investigation. Pretty good, Tracy Scoggins was in it, who I absolutely love, but there is a TV guide notation here, much like the other one that says fire or water. A last minute script change altered the rescue scene, depicted in ABC's ad for this series. - That is so weird. - Yeah, they're telling you so you're gonna be like, the ad showed fire, and this is a water rescue, bullshit, but TV-- - People are gonna be really annoyed by that. - TV guy wanted to warn you. Now Hunter was a pretty weird violent show with Fred Dryer who was just unlikable, but in this one-- - That's the thing, it was the reason I didn't want such a show. - Yes, and this one, it was sort of like dirty, a dirty Harry type show. - Yeah. - Witnesses to Hunter's quote, "Out of control behavior, "while arresting a drug seller, "don't help his situation when the man is released "and later found dead, shot with Hunter's gun." Now, sounds pretty good, but there's two guest stars in this episode that I love. One is Tim Tomerson, who was an external comedian who sort of got typecast and tough guy roles later. He was in "Who's Harry Crumb?" You might know him, he's a blonde guy. He also starred in the movie "Doll Man" and "Trancers." It was also in "Charry 2000." - Oh, the, wait, oh no, I was thinking it went to "The Cherry Moon." - No, that's in "Charry 2000." And also, one of my favorite character actors who weirdly people confused for J. Michael Pollard quite a bit, Tracy Walter. - Never had. - Tracy Walter plays Miller in "Repo Man." - Okay. - It's true you, boys. Yeah, who doesn't like him? - No, no, he's great. - So I would've watched Hunter just for that reason. - And I had to, so Fred Dry, wasn't he was a professional football player? - He was an ex-football player, yeah. - Okay, so that's interesting. Friday night, you got two ex-professional football players. - Yeah. - What's his face on Webster? - Yeah, you had-- - Good puppet obelisk. - Yes. - Which isn't his real name. - Yeah. - I think it is. - Alex Caris. - Alex Caris, that's what he did. - Who was married to ma'am in real life. - Oh, they were all, that's-- - Yeah. - I actually was ma'am, no. But the weird thing about Webster before we end here is that that started as two different series. So there was a show called The Men Came You that was just about Alex Caris and his wife. And the network had signed a manual Lewis for a development deal, couldn't get a show to work for him and just threw him into their show. - That is on. I just don't understand why they thought, 'cause they thought, he was the only decent thing about that show. And it was-- - Manual Lewis? - Yeah. - No, I think Alex Caris was pretty fun. - I think he was funny or ma'am, I thought she was terrible. - Yeah, yeah. - And I thought, I'm like, I can't even imagine an entire show devoted to those two people, that would be-- - It wouldn't have lasted as long. - Fairly terrible. - Well, Nate, I'm just setting my ways losing track of the days. - You lot? Is that the theme song? - That's the theme song to Webster, song called The Men Came You. Now Nate, as you know, TV Guide does not just guide us through our week, it has opinions and it cheers and it cheers. Now this particular edition does not have cheers and cheers of their own, but I ask you, what would your cheer be and what would your cheer be for this week of television? - My cheer would be to, you know, I'm just looking at my list, I gotta say, my cheer, I'm gonna just give it to a love boat. - Just for tackling rape. - Pulling off a daring, yeah, challenging subject. - Okay. - It's such a fun tropical environment. - Fair enough, fair enough, and what's your cheer? - Cheers is to, oh, I'm gonna say it's to give me a break for cutting out on Joey's break dancing. - Fair enough. - And not showing enough of it. - This should've been more break dancing. - They probably, why bother with that other plug. - Exactly, exactly. My cheer this week would be to Hunter for having Tim Thomason and Tracy Walter in an episode elevating Hunter to the stratosphere. - Okay. - My cheer would be to Hawaiian Heat for switching the final from water to fire without telling us. - It's so rude. - Deceptive ads. - Deceptive ads. Well Nate Johnson, thank you so much for doing the podcast. I appreciate it, and hopefully we learned a few things about this. - I think I did, we definitely did. Thank you very much for having me. - You all right? (upbeat music) - Well that was Nate Johnson. The one and only Nate Johnson. Very, very funny guy. I will put up links to all his social media stuff, maybe some fun videos that'll all be up on tvguidescounselor.com. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to the show. I do a new episode every Wednesday, but some days I just feel like doing an episode on not a Wednesday. So if you subscribe, you'll never miss an episode. And if you subscribe and you like the show, please, please, please rate and review the show on iTunes. It helps very much get the word out about the show. And that is the thing I would like to do is get the word out about the show. As always, we'll have more great guests on Wednesdays. And if you have requests for guests or questions or comments or anything like that, feel free to email me at tvguidescounselor@gmail.com or at can@icandread.com. You can also tweet to us at tvguides or find us on our Facebook page where you can discuss the show with all the other fans of the show. There's at least 25. Anyway, that's about all for this week. So please come back next Wednesday for a brand new episode of TV Guidescounselor. (upbeat music) It's a bar, but also, it's like your eye doctor. Okay, I'll go with granddaughter. I should not jam things too hard.
