- Wait, you have a TV? - No, I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV. ♪ Cover this planet ♪ ♪ Cover this planet ♪ ♪ Cover this planet ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ - Hello and welcome, it's TV Guidance Counselor. It's Ken Reed, I am your TV Guidance Counselor, and this is the TV Guidance Counselor, Boston Marathon, in which I'm releasing a large number of episodes, and one day, all of Acts who are from Boston, still live in Boston, or started in Boston, and this next guy is a great, great friend of mine, Mr. Rob Creen. Rob is sort of a staple on the Boston comedy scene, especially the alt scene. He books and created a ton of shows in Boston, most notably, and probably the longest lasting, being the gas of Friday night showcase in Alston, Mass. And Rob is also a guy that I've known for years through bands and things. He actually used to work in the same building with my sister. We come from kind of the same world in the pre-comedy age, and he also had a group called Anderson Comedy for Years, and they still continue to produce shows. He's a really nice guy, as I said, produces a lot of really great shows in the Boston area, and I really enjoyed talking to him. So please enjoy the next episode here, and our TV Guidance Counselor, Boston Marathon, with my guest, Rob Creen. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Mr. Rob Creen, welcome to my home. - Thanks so much for having me. - You're quite welcome. Rob, it's been here before. Rob actually probably moved most of my TV Guid collection for me. - Yeah, he did a lot of stuff. - He helped me move here about five years ago, and it was quite a lot of TV Guidance. - It was pretty fun. - There was a lot of, I feel like you're being sarcastic. - No, it was fun. I got to do a really fun thing in the move that rarely happens, which is I got to ride in a vehicle in a really unsafe way, which is always fun. - That could happen more often. I feel like there's not a lot stopping that from happening. - I just think common sense, but it just made sense at that time. It was like the risk outweighed the inconvenience. It would be to do two car rides. - Right, so Rob actually-- - I want people in a box truck. - Right, he moved in the back of the box. Did you sit on a chair or anything back? - No, it was empty at that point. - Oh, it was really like surfing. - Yeah, it was just surfing. It was pretty fun. - Nice, nice. - It was very, it was pitch dark black, hit black dark. - Pitch black dark. - Yes, that's either an emo album title or a really bad fearnet.com harm movement. Yeah, so people moved a lot of boxes of laser discs and box of TV guides. The TV guides did come up as a bone of contention amongst my friends who helped me move because they were like, "What is in these things?" And then I'm like, "Oh, that's a box of TV guides." And they were like, "I hate you." That was said this time. Rob didn't say that, but other people did. - No, no, yeah. Getting right into it, Rob chose one TV guide from the week of July 27th, 1985. - I really am. - Into the summer. - Yeah, yeah, so a lot of, you know, maybe not the best time of year to pick, to pick, but. - Well, no, no, there's some interesting stuff on in the summer. - Yeah, there is. - They're burning stuff off then. You know, you're seeing some decent reruns. Some shows are going away. There's a lot of specials. - Yeah, that's pretty interesting. - So what drew you to this particular issue? Was it the fact that Miami Vice is on the cover in the very '80s looking illustration by Mr. Amcel? - I liked the cover. I don't like the show, Miami Vice. I wasn't a fan, really. - Really? - I really liked the show, Miami Vice. - To me, Miami Vice was like baseball, where like if I got a chance to watch a little bit of it, I'd be like, "Cool, I can like talk to people "at school tomorrow and seem normal for me." - Oh, I thought you were gonna say that you would think about it in an attempt to not have a premature orgasm. - No, it seems like that would not work. There's a lot of-- - What have the opposite effects, yeah. Phil Collins as a drug dealer, that's gonna make most people just dumb. - I remember like very vividly like, it wasn't a show that my parents would watch, but I think I had a babysitter over and I watched an episode of it. It was inappropriate for me and that being-- - Yeah, it's an advanced age show. I mean, this will sound ridiculous, but I was a huge Michael Mann fan when I was five years old. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I would not believe that of most people, but with you-- - Yes. - I really, really like the movie Thief. - I've never seen that. - Oh, Thief is great. - I'm trying, I feel like the only movie I've ever seen by him is The Manhunter, which I really-- - Well, Manhunter is awesome as well. - Yeah, that's really good. - Yeah, I mean, Manhunter, if you like Manhunter, you should like find me twice. - Yeah, oh, I think I would probably like it now, but I didn't like it, it was just, I couldn't, I don't know, it just was too much for me. - I don't like Miami, I mean, I have no interest in ever going to Miami. - Right, right. - I also don't like Don Johnson. - Yeah, yeah. - I like him in East Brown and Down, it's really-- - I've never seen East Brown and Down. - Oh, it's very good. - Yeah, I like Don Johnson's album, Heartbeat. - Well, you like his album, but not his act. ♪ Heartbeat ♪ - Did you ever see it right? - I heard it. - I was gonna ask if you ever heard it, but I should more appropriately ask, have you ever seen the album? 'Cause it was conceived as the first video album, it was initially only released on VHS tape. - Wow. - It was a music video for every song in the album. - So even before Green Jello. - Yeah, yeah. Don Johnson's Heartbeat. - That's crazy. It happens every once in a minute. The most recent one was a band called Son, I think, who released it. It wasn't a video, it was a DVD album, so their album came out on DVD audio, so. - Oh, okay, so they were sure. - But I think that it also had a, I don't think it had videos, but it had a video component. - Does it fill up Michael Thomas as the other guy from Miami Vice? He put out a really terrible album. - Really? - Really bad. - Do you like his acting? - No, no, exactly. - And he seems kinda like a cock as well. - Really? - Like, do you see interviews with him? He seems like a real dickhead. - How do you feel about, do you like Bruce Willis? - I like Bruce Willis. I love the moonlighting. - Do you like the Return of Runer? - Return of Runer I did not like 'cause it's Dad Blues, which is not my favorite thing. - Yeah, it's not great. - It's not good, it's almost as bad as jazz. - Yeah. - So, you picked Miami Vice. Also, you should check out the Michael Lin movie The Keep, which is about demons versus Nazis. Pretty good. - That sounds pretty good. - So, both of those things in movies. - Yes, most people like Nazi demons. - Yeah. - We start as all TV guide week start, and as all true weeks start on Saturday at 8 p.m., what did Rob Kring choose? - Well, there's a couple things that I put down a few things. - So, you only narrowed it down, you didn't even pick anything. You're indecisive? - Sometimes I didn't, sometimes I didn't. This one was tough 'cause there's basically three things on. The first is Air Wolf, which is, I think Air Wolf is, it's about a helicopter. - It's helicopter night rider, basically. - Right, exactly. - John Michael Vincent's in it. - Yeah, is the helicopter like, does the helicopter have any character? - It didn't talk, but it was very much, it was more like 18 combined with night rider. - Okay, right. So now, is Air Wolf the helicopter, like I always thought growing up, or is Air Wolf elected? - Yes. - The John Michael Vincent, he's an Air Wolf. No, I believe it's the helicopter. I wasn't the world's biggest Air Wolf fan. I liked Ernest Borgnine in it. Mostly because I really liked him and escaped from New York, but it's not, I'm not 100% positive. It's not my strongest, excuse me, it's not my own vomit. - Yeah. - No, it's not my strongest area of knowledge. But this particular episode is obviously a repeat, because it's summertime time. We have Dominic, who's Ernest Borgnine, is arrested for the murder of his ex-wife, but security considerations prevent him from proving he was a board of Air Wolf at the time of her death, 'cause it's a top-secret Air Wolf, so he could have proved himself. - But is Air Wolf his name? - Is it a government top-secret? - I honestly don't remember it. - It seems like the government would be able to go behind the lines and kind of-- - I feel like they worked outside the government, like the black ops kind of-- - Yeah, 'cause they were like 18, 'cause 18 was not-- - Late team was wanted, there were a few-- - They wanted, they're few-- - I think this might have been like an off-the-books government on location. - Okay, right. But you think that they could still-- - Well, they don't wanna expose themselves. - Yeah, I guess so. - So that was one of your choices, okay? - Well, I'm just, these are just kind of the choices. So the other things I might have watched, there's pretty much nothing good on a UHF or cable at eight o'clock. TJ Hooker is also on. TJ Hooker, I've never seen an episode. The only, my only real memory of TJ Hooker is the SNL sketch where it's, he's just on the hood of a car for-- - Right, for the whole time, that's pretty accurate. I mean, Heather Locklear was on it, and so that's, you know, boyoyoing right there. That's worth an hour. - Right. - I think you've missed two things you could have chosen. - Well, I have one more thing. - Oh, okay, what else is that? - Which is our time. So I didn't know what that was. So I kind of looked around and figured out. - It's a special. - It's a special, and do you read what it says next? - There's a large idea. It's the kids of the '60s, it made it to the '80s, and now it's our time. It's the baby boomer generation with music and laughter and memories. - And look at who's, all those pictures there. There's all these people listed there. - Yeah, Ken Osman, who was Eddie Haskell. I like it says, plus many guess who's surprise guests. And it says the hot new summer series, but when you-- - When you read it. - Yeah. - It says it does have a great thing. Or it says, a seven week variety series for baby boomers. And then in parentheses, it says at press time, it is unlikely that John Sebastian, Leslie Goran, Ken Osman would appear as noted in NBC's ads. - Which is so weird. - It's a little disclaimer there. - It's weird that they would make an ad that advertises those people. And it's also weird that they couldn't get Eddie Haskell. - Well, you know, he might have been when I had jury duty that day. He could add a babysitter to his kids. - Oh, sorry. - You know, so who knows what it could have been, but I assume this ad layout took a long time. - Right, yeah, back then there's before. - Yeah, I mean, someone had to actually cut this out with the AFE, they even had scissors. - Yeah, they did, I don't know. - So those were your, you had it narrowed down to those three. - Those are the three things I would have watched. And I don't think any of them are very good choices. - See, I think you were wrong in all three accounts because on HBO at eight o'clock, where the boys are 84 was on. - Is that good? - It's great. It's a spring break, TNA movie, female centrix, both three female friends who go out to a spring break, Daytona Beach, it's a remake of the original where the boys are except much more '80s and much sleazier. It's a pretty good movie. It's everything you would want it to be at the time. And also at the time USA Network was playing a British episode of Hammer House of Horror, called Child's Play. - Oh, I think that was pretty good, yeah. - Yeah, I have that Hammer House of Horror box that it's pretty good. - Also for people local to this area, Rob picked a main edition of the TV Guide, which did show local Boston stuff. And TV 38 that night, I don't know how you miss this, was showing something called a Megathon Mania Live. - I saw that. - Which was nine hours and five minutes of Dana Hersey and Charles Lockwood era hosting an all night party that includes WBCN on-air personalities and the local celebrities. - Oh man, I just assumed it was wrestling. - No, no, that's the local celebrity. You know that Steve Sweeney would've been on there. - Wow, yeah, yeah. - You would've seen Lenny Clark on there, I'm sure. That would've been great. I mean, you really missed out on that. - I didn't miss out on that. - So what are you gonna go with out of those two? - I guess out of, so I guess from those, I think those are all good choices. Where the boys are at four sounds pretty good. And, but I think the Dana Hersey thing is really-- - That's nine, I mean, that would've been the whole night. - That would've been the whole night. - And then some, out of the three you narrowed it down to. Would you just flip between the three? - Yeah, I mean, none of 'em are that interesting to me, you know. And then at 805, Gimme Shelter was playing. - Oh, right. - That was the first movie they showed on the Megathon Mania Live. I actually have a recording of that Megathon Mania Live. - Really, how is it? - It's pretty good, I can copy it for you if you want. So you went for a full hour there, so what you missed at 8.30. - Right, well, it's your move. - Is it your move with Jason Bateman? - Yeah, which I don't, so that's pre-valory, right? - It's pre-valory, but it's most Silver Spoons. He played Ricky Shorter's friend on Silver Spoons, and it was very popular, he was kind of a sleazy. He used Jason Bateman. And so they gave him this show, and he was living in an apartment building, his mother's new boyfriend lived across the hall, and was Marcy's husband from Marywood Children. - Okay, the first husband or second husband? - The first husband, David Garrison. - Steve, is that right? - Yes, it wasn't a great show, but it had some fun episodes. - And this one, he gets cut trying to steal something, right? - Yes, Ellen is devastated once she catches Matt played by Jason Bateman, breaking into her office. - The most famous episode of that show was a two-parter called The Dregs of Humanity. - That's a great title. - What it was, was that it was, yeah. It was a school dance, and Jason Bateman told everyone he could book a band called The Dregs of Humanity, which was a band he made up. And so what he did was he got a record player playing some heavy metal, and then stole skeletons from the science lab, dressed them up, and we can have burnedied them, you know? Mary netted them, and people thought it was a real band, and then they got very popular, and he got other requests to book The Dregs of Humanity. - Did you get cut? - Oh, we got cut, yeah, you always got cut eventually. You also missed 8830 on PBS Tripods. - What's that? - Which was a really bizarre dystopian UK sci-fi show about alien tripods that take over the world and enslave everybody. It was pretty fucked up. It was about, it was everything scary about Doctor Who in 1985, but with none of the fun. - It's funny that it's just, they're tripods. - They're tripods. - It's not scary. - The description in this episode doesn't really tell you that it's science fiction, other than the fact that it says it's a science fiction show. It says, "The boys helped the V-show family harvest their grapes and continue their journey to the White Mountains." - Yeah, it sounds really. - It doesn't sound like aliens, it's a pretty good show. So, on to nine o'clock, what do you got? - Nine o'clock, I've got a, so the two choices of my network were Love Boat, which I might like now, but was not interested in back then, and give me a break, that's what I would've watched. - Well yeah, give me a break, hands down, the winner. - I liked it a lot. - Pretty much at the end of Love Boat. This was, I think, the last season. - Really? - It was-- - There's specials after this, right? - They tried to bring it back in '97, when they tried to bring back Fantasy Island as well. I think they did a couple I made for TV movies, but this was as bad as Love Boat was, this was one of the worst seasons. There's no guest stars in this episode that I have even heard of, which is pretty bad. - I did relatively recently watch an episode of Love Boat, and it was one with Phil Silbers. - Oh yeah, where he plays the captain's father. - Yeah, yeah, Phil Silbers is watchable in anything. He did a lot of TV in the late '70s. He was in a great episode of Cole Check, The Night Stalker, where he got killed, sadly. There is one person I reckon is, Catherine Oxenberg plays, quote, in English Tarte, testing someone's husband's fidelity. Catherine Oxenberg was on, I believe Dallas, but she's also in the movie The Layer of the White Worm. - I just watched that the other day. - Oh yeah, she's the one in her underwear at the end, then almost gets eaten by the worm. - I fell asleep, so I didn't actually see that. - You fell asleep during The Layer of the White Worm? - It was just, I was tired. - You have to be pretty tired of fall asleep during The Layer of the White Worm. The new, speaking of Doctor Who, the current Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi, is in The Layer of the White Worm. - Oh really? - He's the Scottish guy. - I haven't seen it. - What part did you fall asleep at? - Pretty early on. - So you didn't see any of the nudity? - They, I don't think I saw any nudity. They'd just, they'd gone to the party. - Yeah. - I didn't wear 'em song, that sounds like The Pogs. - Yeah, yeah. - We saw that with Hugo. - And then they're coming back through the woods and they get frightened by something, they see a car that scares them, and then they come back, when they come back, there's a police officer there. - Yeah, with a weird eye. - He's got a weird eye, and he says, I think someone's missing, and they're like, "We don't know." - Yeah, her parents are missing. So they look-- - Well, parents were missing already, but I think isn't someone in addition missing? - There's some people missing. Amanda Donahoe comes back, she's ill. - So you miss Amanda Donahoe spitting venom on a cross, and being blue and naked. - I'm probably gonna go back and finish it. - You should watch the-- - I will, yeah, I really fell asleep like pretty much right there. - Yeah, it's a good movie. - Not because I was bored, I was enjoying it, but I just was really tired. You're like me, where you like pretty much fall asleep with watching something. - Oh yeah, I fall asleep watching a movie every single night, yeah. So this was you, you put it on for bedtime. What drew you to it in the first place? - Just like remember seeing it in a video store. - Okay, why don't you just comment out of the wicker basket in the cover, yeah. - And being like, that's pretty cool, and it was on Netflix. There's not a lot that I'm excited about on Netflix right now, I've watched so much that-- - There's gotta be more stuff on it. There's some great documentaries. - There aren't good documentaries. It's just tough to tell, 'cause they also have so many bad documentaries. - That's true. But unfortunately, the way I was not on at this time, so you watch "Give Me a Break", and this "Give Me a Break" episode is one of my favorites. - I didn't read the description. - Oh wow, well this is a great one. It is a repeat again as it's summer, but trapped by an earthquake with a deaf woman who reads lips already tough, right? Here, you ready for the next twist? Only reads lips in Spanish only. - Whoa, that's tough. - Talkative now learns to communicate without words, which is the lesson she learned in "Give Me a Break", but if it's not bad enough, she's deaf. She also only speaks Spanish. - Wow, that is tough. - That's a great episode. - It's too young. - So you went with that, that's nine to nine 30. It was also doctor who was on after the tripods, if you really wanted to terrify yourself, and the prisoner was on. - Oh, the prisoner? - There was some great British sci-fi on this night on PBS. - The prisoner, I want to like it, and I just, I've never been able to get through it. - You don't like Patrick McGowan yelling at people? - I don't dislike it, I've only watched the first, maybe the second episode, and it's pretty slow. I'm sure once I got into it, I would be-- - I think it's pretty fast. It's actually for a 60's show. - I guess you're right, I don't know. - Did you ever get into any of the 60's UK action shows, like The Avengers or anything like that? Patrick McGowan, man, he's my favorite angry person. He goes from zero to pissed off, and like one question on that show. - Oh yeah. - He'll be like, "Oh, good morning." And he's like, "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here!" And he just, yeah, it's great. - Yeah. - He yells better than anyone. - I like, I like the idea of the prisoner, and I like any time it's sort of parodied, I always like it. - Is it parodied often? - Yes, sir, occasionally. - Patrick McGowan turned down the role of James Bond prior to Sean Connery getting it. He was in a show called Secret Agent Man here, and so they thought of him to be, it was a UK show, it was called Secret Agent Man here, and they asked him to be James Bond 'cause he was famous for that and he basically told him to fuck off, and then he created the prisoner. - That's so funny 'cause, yeah, he created it. - Yes, yeah, he was the executive producer, wrote a lot of the episodes under pseudonyms, and he's essentially playing the same character he played on Secret Agent Man. - Interesting. - But unofficially, yeah. - Yeah, he doesn't have a name in the prisoner, he doesn't do so, it's he. - No, you never know his name. - Interesting. The, yeah, that's funny, that's so funny that they would try and get a guy that played a similar character in a TV show. - People aren't very creative. - Yeah. - And then they got the saint himself. - Oh, the saint, and then also-- - But there's Brazil, yeah. - Yeah, from Reminded City, I was playing a fake-- - A fake game, yeah, like basically a parody of James Bond earlier than James Bond. - Actually became, that's crazy. And I thought that was so weird, but I guess it was not unprecedented. - It was not, no, they had started that from the beginning. So, 9.30, please tell me you didn't pick what I think you picked. - Uh, I put down Mom's family at CNN this week-- - Oh, Korean. - Mom's family is not a good show, I don't like it. - It's the worst sitcom ever, I cannot-- - It is really bad, yeah. - If someone said to me, "Watch this Mama's family box set." The entire series, box set, will give you a million dollars. You have a year to watch this whole thing. I would say, I can't do it. - I could definitely do it for less than that, but-- - No. - Actually, I do really like the woman who played Gunny on Major Dad, who's in that show. - Right. - I like her. - Now, this was before, so Mama's family was one of those shows that was only on, I believe, for one season on Network, and it was canceled and brought back in first-run syndication, which happened to a Charles in Charge after the first season, and then happened to Punky Brewster for the last season and different strokes and a few other shows. The first network seasons of Mama's family aren't as terrible as the other ones. When Bubba comes in, once the Bubba era is reached, which is the syndicated ones, I just want to just chew my wrist open. - Yeah. - The worst show. - It's not a good show, but I'm, but if I'm being honest, if I was, it's on the same channel, it's giving me a break, and if I was watching you give me a break, I might flip around, but I'd-- - You just stick it on the channel, you park it. - Very well, might, yeah. I might flip, back then I probably would have flipped around. - Here's what happened in that night's episode of Mama's family. So July 27th, 1985, nice hot summer day, 9.30 a night, you sit down and you watch a back spasm literally floors Mama. Just before vent and Naomi's guests arrive for a fancy dinner that Mama cooked, but isn't invited to. - That sounds like something I do not want to watch. - For some reason I always have it in my head that Mama's family's a Canadian show, but it's not-- - Oh no, it's very Southern. What are you thinking of? Check it out. - Different show. - My secret identity. - Maybe, I don't know. - Wow, Mama's family is the least Canadian show I can think of. - Really? - You're probably confusing it with Do South. - I don't think so. - They're very similar. - I just, are you thinking of kids in the hall? - Kids in the hall. - That's probably what you're thinking of. See, you-- - No, it's, it's kids in the hall. I feel like we're doing like the Citizen Kane sketch. - From Mama's family? - No, from kids in the hall. - No, the Citizen Kane sketch was on Mama's family. - That was on Mama's family. - Yeah, Mama had seen Citizen Kane. - Right. - She wouldn't admit it was Citizen Kane. - The move here I would have gone with was on Cinemax. You had Martin Moles, the history of white people in America. - Oh yeah, that is good. - The second episode was on, and that's a pretty great one. - That's a good show. - I mean, I'm shocked that between Mama's family and Martin Moles, you put down, you would watch Mama's family with an understudy of this week in Japan on CNN. - It's interesting to me. - It's not game shows in our squid sex. - I know. - It's gonna be about the night now that's back in the yen. - You think that I'm all game shows? - I mean, I think when you saw this week in Japan, you thought, oh, it's Japanese game shows. - It was interesting, the culture of Japan. I think it'd be interesting to see a real news story about a real new show about Japan in 1985. I think that would be interesting. - I'm surprised by this revelation, Rob Creen. I will say this, so that's prime time for the night, but that night, what we've missed out on by not going to 11.30 was Michael Nesma's Television Parts, which is one of my favorite shows. It was groomed as the replacement for Saturday Night Live when they attempted to cancel Saturday Night Live in 1985 before Lauren Michaels came back and they did air in the Saturday Night Live slot that evening. This is a very, very good episode. They ran it that summer. This one has Martin Mullen it. It has the funny boys spitting images on it to Onegeron, Bobcat, Goldthwaite. Does a really funny segment in it. It's very, very good. I highly recommend Michael Nesma's Television Hour. - I've really, I've seen the, what's the movie? - Elephant Parts. - Elephant Parts, yes. - I've seen Elephant Parts. I've never seen television parts, it's sort of like, you know, kind of similar, right? - It's similar format, yeah. One of the great things he did with Elephant Parts was that he basically went to comedians that he thought was funny, gave them a budget and said, "Do you make a two minute film "of whatever you want?" So, what became essentially the pilot episode of "It's Gary Shanleyk Show" was on television parts. There was some really great stuff on that show. It's very underrated 'cause it was only, you believe, six episodes. - Yeah, yeah. - I have them if you want to watch-- - I would love to, yeah, yeah. So, Sunday. - Sunday. - Eight o'clock. What do you got? - Mertish wrote. - You know what the hands down Mertish wrote? No question about it. - That's, I mean, I guess, I'm kind of going back and forth between what I would have watched then and what I would watch now and definitely Mertish wrote, I would have watched then. - And you wouldn't watch it now? - No, I watched it. Yeah, they actually just took it off of Netflix just very recently. - Just despite you. - It was devastating, more to my girlfriend than to me, but I was enjoying it. - This is gonna shock you, I've never seen an episode of Mertish wrote. - Oh, it's just like anything. - I know what it is, but I've never actually seen an episode of it. I don't think I've ever sat through an episode of Mertish wrote. - It's a, I really liked it growing up, but here's, I actually, I saw some episodes recently and this, mainly it's this woman, Jessica Fletcher, and she's an author and she lives in a small town, but she travels around a lot and then people keep getting murdered and she helps solve the murder. - That's how I remember Mertish wrote. - Right. - Mertish wrote. But I saw some episodes on Netflix recently where it's not that format. The format is just, she's at the beginning and she's got her latest manuscript and she's-- - She's reading her book. - She's just reading her book and then the storyline, she's not in. It's just, it's an, it's an, you know-- - There might've been a later season when she was too old. - I think it's an earlier season. - Oh, really? - I think it was, you know, kind of like, she only signed on to be in so many episodes. - Right. - But, you know, I mean, 'cause you get, you know, you're able to get-- - Weirdly, she's a big movie star. I'm post-Beth Knobs and Brewsticks. - It's true. - Now, weirdly, there was a spin-off of Mertish wrote called "The Law" and Harry McGraw that I saw every single episode of. - Really? - But never saw Mertish wrote. Now, this particular episode doesn't sound that interesting. It says, "The head of a Dallas hospital is murdered shortly after Jessica checks in following a minor accident, but here's what's interesting about it. The number one guest cast member that night, Kevin McCarthy. - Who's Kevin McCarthy? - Kevin McCarthy is in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He's the villain in UHF. - Oh, okay. - He's been in, you've seen him. He's in everything. I believe he's still alive. Kevin McCarthy's great. He always plays an annoyed asshole. He's one of, he's just, he's great in everything. Who wouldn't watch Kevin McCarthy in anything? So if he's the guest star, I would check it out, especially because there's literally only four other things on it this time. We have evening at the Pops. The year of living dangerously, which I thought was really boring as a kid, and sports, and that's it. - Yeah, sports, I always hate when sports were on. - There's nothing on any 30 that night really worth watching. - Yeah, Kevin McCarthy's great. - Do you recognize him? Rob's looked him up on his phone. - He looked him up on, yeah, on IMDB. And yeah, he's really, yeah, he's awesome. - Yeah, everyone likes Kevin McCarthy. - Trying to think, I saw him in something recently that was good. I don't see it in here. I'm not seeing anything familiar, but I recently saw him in something. And it was good, but I don't know what, but. - You should remove your views. - Yeah, I saw Kevin McCarthy, I think. - And it was good, but I don't know what it was. - So nine o'clock, where were we at? - So nine o'clock, Miami Vice is on. I don't really like Miami Vice. - It's a two hour movie, Miami Vice, two hour episode. - Two hour, oh my God, I don't wanna sit through that. - It's good though, this is the series premiere. It's a rerun of the series premiere. - Maybe it would have, I probably would like it now, but as a child, I think it would have been. - It's pretty action packed. It's got some good scenes, it's good stuff. The show actually I think got best around season two or three. - Is that what this is? - This is the season premiere of series premiere. - Series. - It's the first episode. - The first two hour movie, yeah. They reared it at the end of the summer prior to season two. - Oh. - But you did have another option. You could have watched "Stir Crazy." - Oh right, yeah, "Stir Crazy." - It was on a EBC that night. - ABC. "Stir Crazy" is Richard Pryor. - Gene Wilder, the 1980 movie. Sydney Portier directed it. - Oh, Sydney Portier. - Yeah, it's a comedy. - Yeah. - TV Guide had not yet instituted the star system from movies yet in 1985, so they haven't given it a star rating, but I would say "Stir Crazy" is probably three stars. - Yeah, I really don't like watching movies on TV with, I don't like the-- - They don't like the commercials? - They're not made for-- - To be cut off like that. - Yeah, that's true. - It's always, I found it jarring, you know, whereas Miami Vice, a two hour movie, was still designed to have commercials in it, so I probably enjoyed that movie. - Well, Rob, if I get a treat for you then-- - What's that? - On Cinemax, at the same time, you could have watched Splash, Commercial Free and Uninterrupted. - I've never seen that all the way through, but it's got like, isn't John Candy in it? - John Candy, isn't it? Eugene Levy, that's all that you went with them. They're not the two main stars of that film. - Right, right, right, right, but I was, I'm big fans of those guys especially. - As am I in their career. - Yeah, there's a lot of ethnic geoflarities in it, I believe, as well, in a small role. - I love geoflarities. - Yeah, but Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. - That is real name, clarity. - Yes, yeah, this is Ishtok Promen. - Ishtok Promen, that's all right. - So, that is on Sunday night. What do we got? Monday night, the saddest day of the week. - It is sad, but not that bad, actually. - Monday was always a strong night for television. I don't think it is so much anymore. - Is, I don't see, I don't know, I don't watch-- - I don't really know what's on Monday night. - It's not much television anymore, but I guess, I mean, I watch television, but I don't watch it on a television, I watch it on the internet, so that what day stuff is-- - So it doesn't matter, it's not a point in television for you. - Some of it is, I mean, some of it is a matters to me, but only in the sense that I watch it the following day. - Right. - Or a week later the following day with shows like Bob-- - So you watch it within the week, Bob's Burgers, which is on Sunday nights. - Yeah, but you get it from Hulu a week later on Monday. - Oh, they don't air until a week later. - Yeah, so it's a week, they're always a week behind. That is one of the better shows on television. - Yeah, it's really good. - It's a great show. - Really? - Yeah, Monday nights, I really don't know what's on Monday nights anymore. - Yeah, I have no idea. - So you went with, though, eight o'clock, I know what I would've gone with, but let's see what you would've went with. - You know, I think that this is probably the bad show, but it's TV bloopers and practical jokes. - That's what I would've gone with it. - I would've gone with it. - I would love to see it now. - I have some if you want to check it out. - Yeah, I always love that time. - So would this have been a dick-clark? - Dick-clark, an epic man. - Man, yeah. - Yup, TV's bloopers and practical jokes. It was a fantastic show. The bloopers were always funning to me 'cause I was five and I had laughing at people flubbing. The practical jokes, I usually just like seeing celebrities made fun of. They did do a practical joke on Stevie Wonder once. - Really? - Yup. - Seems a little mean, little mean. - Seems a little mean. - But there's a great one with Jason Bateman, actually, during the Hogan family era where they do a cooking show and he keeps screwing it up and Danny Ponzi gets very, very mad. And Danny Ponzi uses the phrase, "You better not mess up my leathers." (laughing) - And so he'd rage. - Is that, is he wearing leather pants? - He's got a leather jacket, but he calls it his leathers. - Oh, what show? - I feel like leathers to me implies like a whole suit, like a jim Morrison tape. - Danny Ponzi and his leathers. Yeah, he was one of the twins on the Hogan family. Along with his brother on the show, who played-- - How do you spell Ponzi? - P-O-N-C-E, I believe. - Is he a Buddhist? - Call him Ponz. - Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. - His name is Luis Daniel Ponzi. - Oh, I'm sorry. - He's full name. - I only know his anglicized name in the 80s, back when we weren't allowed to talk about Hispanics that didn't exist outside of Miami Vice. - There were twins on? - They played twins, yes. They were twin brothers, they were fraternal twins, they weren't identical twins. - But his brother, the one who played his twin brother on the Hogan family was in the Twilight Zone movie with Kevin McCarthy, where he was in the, it's a good life remake. He was the creepy kid that played the Billy Moomie role. - Oh, interesting. - Is it kind of, is it really kind of back? - I'm really trying to back. - It's so weird. - It's very weird, Moomie. - Yeah, the John Landis segment terrified me. - Yeah. - John Lara Kept plays a racist. He's the head of the KKK in that. - Is he the main character on that? - No, no. The main character is Mick Morrow. - Right, who dies. - Who died, then yeah. Jennifer Jason Lee's father. - Oh, right. - Yeah, he was chopped up by a helicopter, a whole bunch of people. - Two kids. - Two Filipino children, yes. - So it ends, like, I remember seeing it as a kid, not knowing the story, and it ends in such a weird way, you know? - Well, that segment didn't really get completed, so. - Right, but it's just weird that they still included it. I guess they spent so much money on it, they had to. - Yeah, and that's a really boring Steven Spielberg kick the can segment, which is just schmaltzy in the worst of Steven's story. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The live life one, though, is great. That's Joe Dante, it's very cartoony and terrifying. - Yeah. - The voice of Bart Simpson, isn't that? - Oh, well, it's my Nancy Cather. - Nancy Cather. - No, wait, Nancy, is that right? - Yeah, I think so. And it makes Dan Aykroyd terrifying. Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks beginning opening scene is very funny, but then also really scary. - Yeah, I'm trying to remember. That sounds very-- - He's like, you want to see something really scary? - Oh, right, yeah, yeah. - They're playing, they're driving and Albert Brooks is they're trying to guess TV theme songs and Albert Brooks does one where he goes, "Look at that old man. "He looks like an old ape. "Look at the cave there. "That must be where they live." - It's National Geographic, that's what he's singing. - That's fake. - It's Albert Brooks. That's my Albert Brooks impression, everybody. I can only do his singing from that opening scene of that movie. Good movie, sadly not on that night. So he went with bloop bloop bloop bloop bloopers. - Yeah, I really-- - Bloopers and practical jokes. This particular episode, segments include practical jokes on Jane Kennedy and Herbie Hancock. - Herbie Hancock? - Yes. - Rocket himself. Bloopers with David Carradine, Linda Carter, Dick Cabot, Jamie Farr, Supie Sales, and The Washington Red Skins, a salute to local TV movie show hosts and also Johnny Carson's own travel movies. That episode was great. The local movie host was actually a guest hosted that segment by Elvira. So it was local horror movie hosts. I remember that. - That episode was a repeat from October of that year. It's very, very good. - There's still a local horror movie host around here, which I didn't know about it yet. - There's quite a lot of Penny Dreadful, so are you thinking of it? There's a few in Massachusetts. - I saw it the other day. It was a, I can't think of what his name was. - A lot of them are on the internet now. - Really? - Yes, there's a big horror host on the internet. - On my Boston TV. - Me TV. - Yeah. - Me TV. - They show Gulardi. - Is that what that is? - Yes. Oh no, I think they're, no, I'm sorry. They show Sven Guli, son of Sven Guli, which is actually not local. It's out of Cleveland. - Wait, no, it was something Elvira. I can't think of what they had. - There's a lot now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Interesting. - It's mostly cable access, and there's a lot on the internet now. But you passed up on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which I was not a huge fan of. - Yeah. - You didn't miss out on anything. - I remember that show, but I remember being, like the title Scarecrow sounded so interesting, but then when I would see previously, it looked so boring. - I was disappointed too that there was an actual Scarecrow. - Yeah, I wanted to show about a Scarecrow. I would have easily watched that, but two of these blueberry brother jokes, hands down, the only choice there. - Yeah. - Nine o'clock. - Kate and Allie, perfect. - I like Kate and Allie. - We're in complete sync on this one. Kate and Allie's, one of my favorite sitcoms of the 80s. I frequently re-watch it. - I didn't watch it when I originally aired, but I watched on Lifetime later. - Best place to watch it. - Yeah, it was great. - Lifetime used to air Kate and Allie back to back, and then it would air a Spencer for hire. - Spencer for hire, yeah. - It was a really weird two-hour block. I thought it was just programmed just for me. - There were some great shows on Lifetime and that era. You know, there was The Tracy Elman Show. - The Days and Nights at Molly Dodd. - Oh, really? - It was a very good show. - The original ER with George Clooney and LA Gould. - Yeah, so weird that he was in a two-show named PR. - Yes. - Who was E-Slash-R? - Yeah, yeah. - That was based on a play at a Chicago theater company who also steward Gordon, and all the people who made Reanimator in this theater company, that also produced and wrote the original ER play that sitcom was based on. The name of which is Kase Me at the moment. So at nine o'clock we had Kate and Allie, it's a repeat, it's a good episode. It's from the first season when Allie gets a job at Kate's office and wreaks havoc, Kate quickly comes to her defense, but Allie's gratitude is short-lived. They were at Odds. That show was consistently good for all seven seasons, I believe it went on. - Yeah, yeah. - And for my birthday this year and last year, I hosted shows and I gave everyone copies of Kate and Allie season one on DVD. - Oh yeah, we'll smally gave one away. It's a different show. - Which I'm sure you do. - I mean, yeah. - Yeah, I bought one gross of DVD copies of Kate and Allie season one. - One gross. - Yeah, so 144 copies. - 144 copies, that's a lot. - I got it for about $30. - That's not bad. - Yeah, I still have some. If you want a DVD copy of Kate and Allie season one, you can watch that. - Sure, yeah, I'll have one. - And you can watch that. Perfect choice. 930, I think is really only one choice here, and I assume you made it. - Of course, yeah, New Heart. - New Heart, hands down. - And I, this is 1985, I would have been seven, and I think this is, when did New Heart start? - 82. - 82. So yeah, this is pretty late into it. I probably would have, as a seven-year-old would have watched this and been kind of bored. - Real? - Until Larry Darryl. - Larry Darryl. - Larry Darryl. - This was, I believe, around season three or four, which is when it sort of started getting the flavor of what people think of New Heart now. So the first season were shot on videotapes. Stephanie wasn't on it, Michael wasn't on it. Larry Darryl were on it. - Yeah, I've watched it more recently. - I've watched it. - It's good, though, it's still good. - It's really good, yeah, it's great. And it's very much about him being the mild married guy in this very odd Vermont town. - Yes. - And the town is not quite as cartoony, but it's very, you know, very odd. - It gets very surreal in the last two seasons. So a lot of the people who created and wrote "Get a Life" were staff writers for "New Heart" the last season. And really, the last season "New Heart" is basically almost exactly like "Get a Life." - Yeah, it's a lot of really weird characters. Yeah, I mean, that show is so good, it's such a great show. - It's underrated, it's really good. - Season two and three coming on on DVD soon after six or seven years since the first season, everyone should order those. - It's really good. - Yeah, for a while it was on Hulu, and you could watch episodes on Hulu, but then certain episodes were not on there. - For music. - For licensing reasons. - For music, yeah. But what music did they, I don't know. - There was some music in there. I liked "The Bob New Heart" show, but I knew "Heart" is I think a far superior show. - I agree, and I think as a kid, I think "Bob New Heart" is a little bit more accessible. - Yeah. - But as an adult, I think "New Heart" is better. I also liked "The Bob New Heart." I liked "Bob" when I aired, but I think-- - "Bob's not great." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - "Bob's not great." "Bob" was like "Taylor" made for me in 1994. - I know. - See those "Bob" comic books, "Bob New Heart." But see, the problem was he had a kid in it, and that ruins "Bob New Heart." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And even worse was "George and Leo," the show he did later than that, which Jason Bateman actually, coming back up, he played his son. And what's his name from taxi, Alex? I'm John of Lang. It was him and the two of them, and they lived together on Martha's Vineyard because their kids were married and "Bob New Heart" on a bookstore. It's not a great show. - Not a great show. - Too bad. "Bob New Heart" though. - "New Heart"'s great. - "New Heart"'s great. - All right, so-- - I think Monday night, though, at the Wilbur. - I did, yes, I did. It was very good. I kind of wish the whole show was just him showing clips and talking about "Olden Days," although I enjoyed seeing him do his material. - Yeah, yeah, I couldn't go like, so I was doing my month in the studio, but-- - So you "Aced" Monday night, I think. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah, that's definitely what I know, pretty much no question there. - So-- - Next is Tuesday. - Tuesday. - So an interesting thing I want to mention, there's two interesting things I want to mention, which are, "Three's a Crowd," which I think is interesting. I did, "Three's Crowd" of course is a sequel to "Three's Company." - Yes, and actually just sort of seamlessly replaced "Three's Company." - Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of just, if I remember correctly, it's John Ritter and then two different ladies. - No, no, no, no, it's one of the ladies and a different guy and-- - Nope, it's John Ritter gets married and moves in with his wife and her father. - Oh, right, but he's the same character. - He's Jack Trapper. - Right, right. - I wrote a sequel to "Three's Company" a few years ago with Adam Hout and Katie McCarthy, which we just called "Three's Company" too. - Okay, T-O-O? - No, just the number two. - Oh, she's been a T-O-O-O. Here's, I don't know what it was about, but just before you get into it, I think it should have been where they were all werewolves. - Oh, that would have been good, yeah. Especially we could have gotten Jason Bateman at the end of the year. - Yeah, yeah. - We just did it at the old Milky Way and it was a-- - The Milky Way is pretty old, Rob. It is a celestial body. - It's true. - Rob's referring to the Milky Way, which is a bowling alley pizza place that used to be in Jamaica Plain. - Yes, and now it's a pizza place with a small room to do shows. - And the old Milky Way is now a Whole Foods? - No, it has continued to be nothing since then. - It's just a hole in the ground. - Since the guy evicted them because he wanted to double their rent, it has been empty. - What an asshole. - Yeah, he's the worst. He also did the same thing to Bikes Not Bombs and that building's been vacant for probably-- - Who's gonna argue with that? Is there's a store called like Bombs Not Bikes? - Yeah, yeah, maybe that's who he wanted to get in there, but Bikes Not Bikes in there. If they made a movie of what happened, do you think Jason Bateman would play the guy who was the landlord? Do you think there's too likable? - It was too likable, yeah. - Kevin McCarthy? - Kevin McCarthy would be great for him. - Perfect, old man. - Old man, angry, mean. - So what would happen in your three's company, two sequels? - Three's company, two, and I like to think of it as kind of like, you know, how like there's a lot of living dead and then it breaks off into two different sequels. That's kind of like, we were sort of-- - You're the return of the living dead or return of the living dead, sort of. So basically the plot was, Katie McCarthy was a woman who moved in with two men and had to pretend to be a lesbian because-- - So you just flipped the script? - We just flipped it, it's pretty much the same, but it was a lot dumber and there were-- - Here's dumber than three's company and I-- - Three's company is a terrible dumb show. - They'll actually, for research to, I had never really watched it growing up. I just kind of like knew what it was about, but for research when I was writing it, I didn't watch the first season and I found it pretty enjoyable. - It's a sleazy, terrible show. Two things, and if I'm a television executive, which I'm not, I would green light your show, if Jack Tripper played the woman. So you got John Ritter to play the woman and you had Joyce to it and Suzanne Summers and drag King outfits as the men, but never mentioned that they were actually women. - Right, right. - They just played opposite sex roles. - Yeah, we didn't do that. We did have Adam Howt played the, so there's two landlords that-- - Mr. Furley. - Oh, oh, yes. - Who lives upstairs who are-- - The real person. - Yes, but they are a gay couple who do not like, and the guy who owns the building does not like breeders. His partner is not as strict and his partner was, the character was French Schneider. - Okay. - So that was just-- - Monster on my pants. - Just playing French Schneider, yes. - Do you ever heard Nate Johnson's French Schneider story? - No. - I'm talking about out of school. It's not my story. And Nate Johnson was performing at the comedy lounge on Cape Cod, and French Schneider was there 'cause the beefies he was playing in Cape Cod. He was drinking at the bar, and then he watched Nate Johnson set, and then he came up to him after, and he went, "You know, it'd be a lot funnier if you were dirty." And then told him to do like dirty or dirty or material. And that was his French Schneider story. Three's company, have you ever heard the infamous John Ritter testicle scandal? - That sounds familiar. I've refreshed my memory. - So the show was '70s early '80s, was three's company, and shorts were very short back then. And in an episode, John Ritter plops out on a bed to use the phone, and his testicles pop out of his shorts. Now, nobody noticed this at the time. - It aired? - No, no, no, much, much later. When it aired in a rerun on TV land in the year 2000. - 2000, that's much later. - A guy recognized it, had it on tape, and confirmed that John Ritter's testicles pop out of the shorts, TV's were bigger. - Right. - To me, very small people go over the unknown notice. - Yeah. - They confirmed it, edited it out of the episode now. - Wow, that's crazy. - Yeah, same for Miss John Ritter. You can find the footage online if you really, really wanna see it. - Very well, I think I'm going to. - So you, but so there's that, and then there's also follow-ups, bleeps, and blunders on ABC. - Which is a rip-off of "Vipers and Craftical Jokes." - It's weird that they went with the same sort of format of like three things. Because I think, because I think eventually TV's, it's TV's "Bloopers and Craftical Jokes" now, but I think they may have added some. No, I guess that's it. - Yeah, it's three things, brother jokes. Follow-ups, bleeps, and blunders was usually hosted by, I believe, Don Rickles was on frequently. - Yeah, I think he did this one too. But I would have not have actually watched those. I think they're interesting, and I would have actually watched on HBO Muppet's "Take Manhattan." - Muppet's "Take Manhattan" is the move there, but interestingly enough, I don't know if you read the description of that episode of "Follow-ups and Blunders," but of what we were just speaking of, "Outtakes" featured Joyce Dewitt, Priscilla Barnes, and John Ritter from "Bree's Company." So you would have gone on Muppet's "Take Manhattan," which brings you to 9.30, so you would have missed the 9 o'clock show, so you would have missed "Who's the Boss?" - Yeah, which is, it's not a show that I really like. - You know who's the boss fan of? - You know, I mean, I watched it again on Lifetime. I just watched it in a video. - Not a great show. I watched "Who's the Boss?" 'Cause it was always paired with "Growned Pains," which is one of my absolute all-time favorites. - I did not love "Growned Pains." I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't one of my shows. - "Season 3" is one of my favorite all-time family sitcom seasons, fantastic season, right? When just the 10 of a spun off, everybody loves it. Now, also at 9.30 that night on ABC was a very, very short-lived show called "Hail to the Chief" that was pretty crazy. And I haven't been able to track down any episodes of it, but it's one of those shows that I thought that I just made up in my "Fever" dreams. This particular episode at 9.30, Dick Sean, plays Zolotov, who was the main character, who threatens to make Oliver a porno star, while Luger dines with his future in-laws. Patty Duke was on it, last show of the series. It only lasted a few episodes, it was a summer replacement series, it was really weird. - That sounds very unwork show. - That's so weird. - Yes. - So. - Yeah, I definitely would have gone with the "Mouthed Sick Man" and that's a classic movie. - Why wouldn't you go with that? - It's one of my favorite "Mumpet" movies. - We move on to "Wednesday." - "Wednesday." Well, so there's a couple of things. There's "Highway Heavens" on, which I might have watched. - No, that's an awful show. - I don't really like it, but-- - What a schmaltzy term. Although, I will say this, the two Halloween episodes of "Highway to Heaven" are very good. They're funny and weird, and it doesn't have as much Jesus freak stuff in it. - Yeah. - And it's not every week 'cause we're talking with cancer, like a mentally challenged person, a guy in a wheelchair. I watched an episode. - Always tell me that I look like that guy in-- - Michelandon? - Michelandon, and they always say I look like him in "Little House in the Prairie," but I think I actually look more like him in "Highway Heaven." - See, I think you actually look like if you combined Michelandon with his assistant on "Highway to Heaven." - Yeah, the older guy. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Victor French, Chris Mark. So, if you took Victor French and Michelandon, put them in one person, boom, you get Rob Green. - Yeah, basically ugly up Michelandon. - He's not ugly enough. He's a little more blue collard. He's got a beard. - What's his name, Victor? - Victor French. - Victor French, I'm looking him up right now. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's, you're pretty-- - Come on, I'm not wrong. - No, you're not wrong, no. - This episode sounds terrible. - Yeah, that's really pretty close. - A young mother has two crosses to bear. Number one, terminal illness. - That's a bad one. - And number two, a minister father who shuns his adulterous daughter and her illegitimate child. So, this woman's father tells her to hit the bricks 'cause she had an affair and had a kid and she has a terminal illness and her father is played by a real reverend. - Huh. - Yeah. - Not a fun show. - I've got a quick piece of trivia for you about Victor French at his funeral in 1989. His humorous farewell for friends and family was Eat Shit Love Victor. - Yeah, so see you used like you-- - Overhead by an airplane. Overhead by an airplane, that's pretty good. - Unlike some kind of banner I imagine. - That's pretty cool. - That is pretty cool. - Victor French. - I mean, really, if you're gonna do it, you might as well go with sky writing, but you know-- - Well, that is not bad. - That's not a long name, though. - Yeah. - I mean, that would take a while. - Victor? - It would fade. No, no, the whole message he had there. I don't know if the sky writing would be a banner. - Victor would do like a lot of stuff in sky writing. - But doesn't it dissipate? - It does dissipate, but-- - Victor French seems like a banner guy to me. - Yeah, I guess he probably was. He definitely was. - So, you may have gone with highway to heaven, but there's some other choices. What did you go with? - Yeah, I don't, there's, oh, there's something called rock and roll summer action. - Yes. I think that's what I would have gone with. - That looks, that's a terrible name. - Rock and roll summer action. Again, in the summer, summer replacement series, they do a lot of these concert variety shows. They're cheap to produce and they could pump 'em out. - So what was this? - This was hosted by Christopher Atkins. You may remember from the Blue Lagoon, a lot of people get him confused with Willie Ames. He kinda disappeared. It was just a concert show. So, this was, had guessed that night was New Edition, Boston's Own Edition, John Parr playing St. Elmo's Fire, and then weirdly, Paul Revere and the Raiders doing Louis Louis all performing on there. But here's the best part of the show. It says, "Also, a barrier boyfriend in the sand contest." - Wow, that is pretty good. - That's good TV. I mean, I think that beats highway heaven. - I didn't read the, yeah, I didn't read the description. I just thought, you know what, like in the 80s, there was this thing of like trying to force rock and roll into everything. I just kind of-- - Why did that stop in the 80s? I feel like that's every, that's been since the 50s. - Yeah, but I think it was like particularly bad. - Would it give me some examples? - Even my beloved back to the future, I think the rock and roll is coming in there. - You thought it was forced. But they made sense, they went back to the 50s. - Eh, it's just crammed in there. I feel like they could have gotten away with without the rock and roll in the movie. - So, for example, let's say Risky Business. - Risky Business. - You could have done without the old-time rock and roll segment. - Uh, that song is terrible. - It really is. - So really bad song. - Bob Seger doesn't have a good song. - Yeah, yeah, well that's, I don't really know much Bob Seger. - You're a lucky man. - When my Adam said that he, that I mean, I don't like turn the page and stuff. My older man Adam said that the Seger, Bob Seger's system was a good band. I don't remember. - The Bob Seger system. I really would love that to be an infomercial. - Yeah, to the Bob Seger system. - The Bob Seger system, you can be like a rock. - Yeah, like a rock's a bad song. - Yeah. - 'Cause here was you on the other move, between those on ABC that night. CB, I mean CBS, CBS reports topic, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. - Yeah, that sounds fun. - Yeah, it was called Hiroshima plus 40 years and still counting. - Ooh boy. - With Walter Cronkite. Yeah, so I think between that rock and roll summer action and the angel helping a terminally ill adulterous. - Man, it is a bad night for TV. - Yeah, there's no reason not to go with a rock and roll there. - After that nine facts of life. Perfect, facts of life, Wednesday night, before it moved to Saturdays where it really blossomed. This is '85 where it started to get into my favorite years. And actually I love all the facts of life. First five seasons, not my favorite. Really season six through nine is where the overall heads used. - That's probably what I remember. I remember them, I really vividly remember facts of life having episodes where they had a warning before them that there would be adult content. - Yes, so that the most famous one of that was when Natalie lost her virginity to her boyfriend Snake played by Robert Russell. No, Robert, the guy who played DeMone in "Fast Times" originally was originally supposed to be Blair was supposed to lose her virginity on that episode, but she's a born-in-Christian, refused to partake in the episode. And Mindy Cone, who's one of the best people on earth, said I'll do it and they wrote the episode while to her. - Do you talk about that in your first special episode? - I don't believe so. - I feel like I'm-- - I may have mentioned it. - Or did you talk about that before, but it may have just been in life. - There was another episode with adult content from season three where Natalie again was coming home from a costume party dressed as Oliver Hardy and someone attempted to rape her. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty rough. - Wow, well I mean she was dressed that way. - Yeah, of all the things, but that show got great. Season six is when George Clooney came in, Mackenzie Astin, it's some of my favorite stuff. I really enjoy the last three seasons of "Fast Life." After that is "Double Trouble," which is, I don't remember-- - I absolutely love "Double Trouble." The "Fast Life, Double Trouble" hour was one of my favorite things NBC ever aired. So "Double Trouble" were in for two seasons. It was about the Segal twins, who were Katie Segal from "Marrow Children and Future Emirates," her sisters. - Oh, really? - Liz, yep. - Liz and Jean and their identical twins, they were double mint twins at some point. Season one of "Double Trouble" is not so great. They live in Ohio with their single dad. They did two seasons. They live in Ohio with their single dad. It's kinda, it's a little bit boring. Season two, which is from 1985, they sort of rebooted the show. They moved to New York City to move in with their aunt, and it's about these two 19-year-old twins who moved to New York City. One of them wants to be a stand-up comedian, and one wants to be a fashion designer. - And since I was reading up on them, my girlfriend has a twin sister. - Yes. - So I'm interested in twin culture. - Did you know that she had a twin sister? When did you find out? - I found out, we were friends for a while before we started. - It's a good way to do it. - Dating. We worked together, doing colonial tours, and she runs a show called "Soup." You should do it. I think I mentioned it to you. - Is this the one she does in her house? - Yeah, we do our house. She lives with me now. - All right. - When I first met her, we weren't dating, and she didn't live with me. I think we did it. - That's how it works now. - You really, if you were dating someone and living with them but you hadn't met them yet, that's the TV movie. - Actually, "The Soup" last night, I told a story about, we've done three at my house so far, and I've been telling stories about the house, and so I told a story about a couple that moved into my apartment, and then broke up, and the girl started sleeping with someone else in the apartment, which has happened twice since I've lived there, and it's not the way to do it. - That's why roommates are bad news. Bad news. - Yeah, they can be. - Yeah. - But anyways, so I first met, I first realized that she had a twin when I, so I just started working with her, and she was like, I have this show, and it was near my house, and I thought, I'll go check this out, see what it's all about. And so, when I got there, I'm just kind of, it was, at this time, it was outside in this garage behind the house in Roxbury, and there, I don't really know anyone there, so I'm kind of just sort of hanging out, looking around, and then this, I see this girl that looks like so much, like Amy Rose, her girlfriend, but it's definitely not her. I'm like, she's- - Different energy, different vibe. - She looked different, yeah, yeah, different energy. Just a different, yeah, just a different person, you know, but like, looks so much like her, I'm like, that's, do I just forget what she looks like? - Did you think you became- - I'm like, that's not her. - Did you think you became racist for a moment where you're like, all white girls look the same? - I think- - I can't tell them apart anymore. - Maybe. It was weird, I, yeah, it was definitely, I was sure it wasn't her, but I was like, it looks so much like her, it's weird that it's- - It's just gotta be her twin sister, that's where I would have gone. - I didn't, it didn't occur to me, but I found it later that it was, in fact, her twin sister. - When I lived in a really shitty triple decker in Somerville, they let a guy move into the first floor to be, I think they basically try to have me the handyman for the building. He trashed the building, I forget why, but like, spray painted the walls and broke the windows. - Purpose not. - On purpose. And this is the only time I've ever encountered this in real life. He tried to say it was his evil twin brother. - Really? - He actually used the evil twin brother defense. - You know, I used to work at Newbury Comics in Newton, and there was this girl who'd come in all the time, and she was a regular, she'd come in all the time by CDs and stuff, but we caught her stealing one time, and we kicked her out, and we said, you know, a lot of back in here. - Right. - And then she came back in later, and we said, you can't come back in here, we kicked you out, and she was like- - I wasn't in here earlier. - No, you didn't. Like, you know, I mean, like, a week later. - Right, right. - And she said, that, what? I, that didn't happen. We were like, get out of here, you jerk. We kicked her out, and then she came in later that day with her twin sister, and her twin sister was like- - It was me too. And now you date one of them. - No, but that girl, one of those girls, these are different twins, but one of those twins, I don't know which one lives on my street now, so I see her sometimes when I'm- - You don't know if it's the evil one, are there? - I can't remember. - Do they even tell them apart? - Are they attractive twins? - They're like, kind of plain but cute. No, they're, no, not dumpy. - Dumpy? - I would say athletic build, you know. - They're masculine. - Not masculine, a little plain from my taste. - You like them fancier than that. Two plain. - No, I like, I like interesting. They're just the whole plain. - So like, if one of them had an eye patch, you'd be okay with it. - Oh yeah, that would be, the one I would be more attractive. - So double trouble was, as far as I know, the only show of the 80s that starred twins, this is pre-sister sister. - Yeah. And I loved it. One of them was kind of, you know, the wild one, one was more conservative. We're weirdly flipping their roles in real life. They played sort of the opposite of their actual title. - Interesting. - This particular episode, the twins father pays a surprise visit to New York, where concluding that Margot, who's their aunt played by Barbara Barry, who was Barney Miller's wife in the first couple seasons of Barney Miller, permits the girls to run wild. He announces he's taking them back to Iowa. This also started two guys who used to do stand up as the funny boys who had a segment in this week's episode of television parts, that was pretty funny. And one of them is the guy who is the Mater D and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, at Snooty, the Abe Ferlman scene. Take the kids back to the clubhouse? That guy, he's one of the funny boys. - Funny boy, I don't think I know the funny boys. - Yeah, they were a duo. They did run a lot of the stand up shows in the 80s, but they played sort of the wacky neighbor on double trouble, but with two guys. They rented a room in Margot's house in New York. And in 2006, I invited myself to the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival 'cause the Walsh brothers were in it, so I tagged along and hid in their luggage, and that guy was there, and he was eating a huge fudge circle. And it was one of the weirdest moments of my life. - They make different sizes of fudge. - Yeah, it was the biggest fudge circle I've ever seen in my life. It was a, this was an Aspen fudge circle. This was like a artisanal Colorado fudge circle. - That's crazy. - So, yeah, double trouble, easy move, great show. I love it, season one boring, season two great. - Yeah, I would like to see it. - Again, on the whole series, I'd be happy to watch the Christmas episode every year, which is a classic. - Cool. On to Thursday. - Thursday, well. - Mass TV night. - Mass TV, yeah. This is, I looked up Mass TV when I was doing the research, and it's, I don't think they actually were using the term Mass TV because- - No, NBC was, NBC was the worst station out of all of the three networks until about 1985. - Yeah. - Miami Vice and the Cosby Show is really kind of what saved them. - Yeah, yeah. - But I always watch it, they had a really fun show called Misfits of Science on the year before that, which I liked a lot, and some bizarre shows. Alf was also 85, which, or 86, which kind of saved them as well. - So, I wonder, that show probably doesn't hold up that great, but I loved it at the time. - Alf is terrible. - Yeah. - It's a pretty bad show. - Yeah. - So, you would have definitely gone with- - Yeah, I mean, Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court. - Yeah, that's, I mean, you cannot go wrong with that lineup of Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court. - I think Night Court's the worst show of that lineup, and it's not bad. - And Night Court's great, I love Night Court. Again, it was created by former Barney Miller alums, guys that worked on Barney Miller, which is just one of my favorite shows. - It got- - It's got a similar feel. - It does have a similar feel. So, the episode of Cosby that night is having a baby seems like a great idea to Claire, but not to anyone else in the family. Obviously, they didn't actually have a baby because they kept it. You didn't watch Magnum PI. - Yeah, I liked Magnum PI, but- - But, compared to Cosby and Family Ties, there's no way. - Yeah. - Red Dawn was on HBO, but that's a little- - Never seen that. - You've never seen Red Dawn? That's probably why you're a Pinco. - Yeah, yeah. - You had seen it, you'd be a meet right now. - Yeah, it's true. - I saw that with my dad and the opening scene of Red Dawn, these Cuban communists parachute down into the parking lot of a high school and kill everybody. And I was maybe four. Then I went, "Oh, that can't happen." And my dad said, "Yeah, it can." (laughing) And it probably will, that's what he said. But he said, "We're in Massachusetts. "We're far away enough from Cuba, "that we probably won't get it." And then he said, "They could come in from Canada." (laughing) So that was Red Dawn. It's a particularly good episode of Family Ties that night, it's Alex's birthday. He cancels family dinner date to celebrate instead with friends whose plans involve a cocktail lounge and enticing waitresses. Crispin Glover is a guest star on that. - Really? - Yeah, he plays one of Alex's best friends, Crispin Glover. - Wow. - He wasn't on the show up much, was it? - He was, he was on several episodes. - Really? - And later one of their friends dies in a drunk driving accident. Not Crispin Glover, but one of their other friends. Good, good call. - Crispin Glover, wow, that's so funny. I didn't realize that he was on that show. - Oh yeah, oh yeah. A lot of people were on Family Ties, he'd be surprised he was on Family Ties. - He's a genius. - David Davis was in about six episodes. - Yeah, there's the famous Tom Hanks. - Tom Hanks says, "Yep." That's the drunk uncle. Then Cheers, Sam returns to the mound for a charity softball game against Playboy bunnies. - Sounds like Cheers. - That's a good one. That's a classic, and then at 9.30, the Night Court episode is a fortune teller's curse, paralyzed his bull in the courtroom and Harry Muskondra up a cure. Not one of my favorite episodes, but a pretty good one. Bruce Kirby is a guest star on that one, it's a pretty good show. And then Hill Street Blues is on a 10, which I feel like didn't really go well with the two hours of comedy. - Yeah, I don't, I have, is Hill Street Blues the one that ends up? No, I'm thinking of Quincy. Wait, which is the one that ends up the reveal at the end of the last episode? - St. Elsewhere? - St. Elsewhere is that it's on-- - Autistic child's brain? - Autistic child's brain? What, how did you, how does that episode work? - So it works, there's an autistic character that's in a few of the episodes, and the reveal is that St. Elsewhere is actually this world that exists in a snow globe, and he's created all of the, there's a guy who's done a really interesting essay online at where he basically, 'cause a lot of the St. Elsewhere characters crossed over into other series. So he actually did a chart to show you every show that existed in this kid's brain, and it's like 200 shows. I think I got up to it, including Seinfeld and a bunch of other stuff, and my PD Blue. It's kind of an interesting essay, clearly ironically written by someone with autism. - Interesting. - Yeah. - So Friday, the sadly, the final day, and the TV Guide Week. - He's gonna come in here, maybe. - Now, one thing that you haven't mentioned is since this is summer, and networks don't really do this that much anymore, a lot of burned-off pilots air during this week, so there's pilots that are overnight. Yes. - Which is, that's, well, first is Webster, which I love, it was a huge fan of Webster. I like the, I like the two, I like that when they lived in the apartment, I thought that was cool. - Before he burned it down. - He burned it down, isn't that so weird? - Yeah. - Yeah, not as weird, though, is when Corky from Facts of Life burned down the restaurant. - Yeah. - That was even, what a weird, what? So, why? - Yeah. - Why, Corky? - Yeah. - Was that Corky on Facts of Life? - Not Facts of Life, life goes on. - Oh, Life goes on, yeah, it's like, Corky wasn't on Facts of Life. - No. - Oh. - Very odd to have a, you know, mentally handicapped character burned down restaurant on television. - But, you know, hey, they're not immune to making mistakes. - It's true, but-- - They're not infallible. - That, that's really-- - You didn't do it on purpose. I mean, you've said it like you knew as an arsonist and he was like, fuck this place. - Like, it's, I feel like that show in general is very empowering of-- Life goes on, Life goes on almost depressing, man. - Yeah, he's depressing, yeah. - There was nothing empowering about that show. - I don't think so. - No, it was about sad girls with glasses and people getting aids in them. - Yeah. - Oh, what a-- - There was a lot of sad stuff, but I think empowering to the, you know, Down syndrome community. - This is the name, Chris. I can't remember his name now, I can't remember his name. His name was Chris, he put on an album. - Really? - He did, yep. - Better or worse than Return of Bruno. - I would say it's better than Return of Bruno. - I would listen to Chris, Life goes on, his album. - I, you know what? I do remember him hearing his version of Obadio Bada. - Yeah, that's better than anything Bruce Willis has ever recorded musically. - Yeah, maybe. Yeah, his stuff's pretty bad. - Yeah, it is. If you're-- - That album, though, is another thing that is, they should not have made. - If you're a white man, and your instrument of choice is the harmonica, I have no interest in listening to anything you create. - What about Dan Aykroyd? - I don't think his instrument of choice is the harmonica. - Dan Aykroyd? - I would venture to guess that's not his instrument of choice. But also, as much as I love Dan Aykroyd, I'm not really that interested in his musical career. - Right, well, do you like the Blues Brothers movie, though? - I enjoy the Blues Brothers movie. - It keeps him lockin' that. - Yeah, but that's a movie. - It is a movie. - That's not, I'm not listening to the soundtrack of the Blues Brothers very often. - Yeah, I don't really listen to it, but when I was in high school, I had friends that listened to it a lot. - But now they're not your friends anymore. - No, they're still my friends. - Oh, why'd you say it was just in high school? - Well, 'cause I would, I didn't have a car with him, so I'd be in that car a lot, but-- - Oh, so you were subjected to that? - Jimpine. - So you got-- - It's not bad, I mean, it's fine. - You got Stockholm Syndrome. - It's a Saturday Live band, being in playing goofy blues songs? - Yeah, you could listen to the originals. - Yeah, yeah, I could. - Anyway, Corky, Chris, Chris, whatever, his last name was. - I do remember hearing that, yeah, it's pretty bad. - It is quite bad. - It's really bad. It's just kind of like really sort of soulless versions of songs with a, you know, sort of a chorus of people singing the lyrics and then everything else. - You're talking about Bruce Willis? - No, no, the, Chris from "Life Goes On." - 'Cause the way you describe it could have easily applied to Bruce Willis. - Yeah, I'm sure, I've never heard the return of Bruno, he's singing. - It's like a 40 minute Bud Light commercial. - Yeah, yeah. - That's pretty much-- - Do you Bud Light commercial? - Yeah, yeah, there's a reason for that. I think it'd cause lighter. - Of course, yeah. - No, I feel like, you know what, I feel like he was a wine cooler guy. - Yeah, I think maybe, yeah, maybe. And then, you know, pretty soon after that, you know, once we had, it's been sober for-- - For wine coolers. - For wine coolers, yeah. - Do you think anyone went to rehab exclusively for wine coolers? - For wine coolers? - No. - You don't see wine coolers a lot anymore. - Yeah, I mean-- - Are they called something different? - No, they still make them, they're just not popular because they're not very alcoholic, and I think they've figured out ways to make alcohol taste better. - When I lived in England, there was a thing very popular amongst 19 year old girls called Alco Pops. - Yeah. - They were basically like alcoholic soda. - Yeah. - We're sort of wine cooler-ish. - There's like a hard lemonade is-- - Yeah, I guess that's sort of like a wine cooler. - It's sort of like the equivalent now. There's maybe something else that I don't know about. - We, the first time I went to LA, which was not long ago, maybe four or five years ago, we stayed in the Bonaventure Hotel, which is a whole, I could do a whole hour on that. But there's a liquor store in there that has, unironically, a life-size standy of Bartles and James. - Yeah, wow. - I don't think they've sold that in decades. - I think that's still a thing. - You can still buy Bartles and James? - I really think you can. - People can write us and tell us if you can buy Bartles and James. - That was like a thing when I was growing up, my grandfather kind of looked like one of those guys. - Okay. - And people would stop him and ask him to ask him if they could take their picture with him. - Who would he do it? - Yeah, he would do. - Did he have any idea why? - He knew why, yeah. - Did he just walk around with one of those Bartles and James? - He was the, oh, he did, at one point, someone gave him a stand-up of, you know, like a cardboard stand. - Right, of Bartles and James. - Bartles and James. - I thought you were gonna say when you're in high school, you and your friends would drive around, listen into the Blues Brothers soundtrack, drinking Bartles and James. - No, no, no, no. This is when I was, my grandfather, I don't know, I was pretty young, but so I was, I didn't know what the Blues Brothers was, yes. My first exposure to the Blues Brothers, actually ever, was a promo Dana Hursey did when he showed up on the movie. - The movie lost the first time I ever heard of it. - Dana Hursey. - I had some great stories about Dana Hursey when I worked at Channel 38. He used to like to go into bars and say, "I'm Dana Hursey, who wants to fight me?" - Really? Did people fight him? - Oh yeah, he's a big dude, he just seen bar fights. What a great man Dana Hursey was. - I just saw that we never knocked them. - We don't knock. - We don't knock any. - Don't worry, go to the rat, you see that episode? I have about four or five episodes of that show, really. That's pretty interesting. So, you eight o'clock you went with Webster. This particular episode doesn't sound like the best episode ever. Before the aluminum can sculpture of a mystery artist can be unveiled, Webster recycles the cans to buy a skateboard. - I remember this episode. - Ben Vereen made an uncle appearance. - Yeah. - A rare uncle appearance. Did you know the story of Webster? It was two separate sitcoms that they smashed together. - No, that makes sense. - Yeah, it was supposed to be a sitcom just by Alex Karis and his real life wife who played "Man on the Show." - Right, 'cause they did a movie too before. - Yes, yes. - Was the movie called? - I can't think of the name of the movie, but yeah, and I think that's what sparked their sitcom deal. They had signed and made a Lewis for a deal, they made them smash the shows together and make Webster. - Yeah. - Originally titled, "Then Came You." - "Then Came You." That's the theme song. - Yeah. ♪ Was you and you ♪ ♪ Then came you ♪ - Yeah, yeah. - Yep. What you missed out on though, on TV 56 that night, Phantom of the Paradise. - Oh, right, that's what I was-- - It's what I would have gone with Hands Down, Phantom of the Paradise, we're in my favorite movies. - Really? I remember trying to watch it when I was in high school and not being able to get through it. - It's my favorite "Brian Di Palma" movie. - Really? - Absolutely. - It's considered, it was a huge flop and considered a bad movie, right? - Yeah, it's a big classic now though. I think it's far better than things like Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's a great movie. Paul Williams is absolutely terrifying in it. There's some good songs on the soundtrack. It's a great movie. Jessica Harper from Suspiria, is in it, "Pree Suspiria." It's a good movie. You should revisit Phantom of the Paradise. - I should. I've heard good things about it. - I show it at my home every Halloween we watch. Phantom of the Paradise. People come over and you're not cool. I think we watched it one year when you were here, but you left before we watched it. - Yeah, I think I came and watched about six hours of television, which was awesome. - Yeah, that was-- - I did not stick around for-- - You missed out on it. Also, "Cannibal Run 2" is on. - "Cannibal Run 2." I've never seen any of the "Cannibal Run" movies. - They're fun. I need to smoke you the bad at movies. Is there just one smoke in the bed? Or is there two? - There's two, yeah. - And Meatballs was on. - Meatballs, yeah. Meatballs. - These are all things you could have watched instead of Webster. - I loved Webster, but because it was summer and it was a repeat, it probably would have gone with Phantom of the Paradise. - Yeah. - 8.30, you went with Comedy Factory. - Yeah, this seems interesting to me. I always think, you know, so many pilots are shot and then you can't, you never get to see them. I always wish that you could see more of those weird pilots that never made it. You know, there's so many like great pilots that are kind of like, you know, like the Patton Oswaltz and Bryant Wossain's Super Nerds or whatever. - Yeah. - That is really good. Heat Vision and Jack is really awesome. Which, yeah, there's like a lot of those. - 13th, 13th Avenue with Iron Graph. It was about a kid played by Wil Wheaton, moves into an apartment building of monsters. Sketch, not a sketch comedy, it's sitcom. - Sounds funny. - Yeah. - Only one episode pilot. So this was a pilot for a show called It Takes Two with Beth Howlin and Jeffrey Bose, portrayed a couple who share a psychology practice but could use a marriage counselor of their own. - Let me read you something about this. So this is kind of weird. I looked this up on IMDB. - Okay. - And this is the description of it. Comedy Factory, 1985, Dash. They might bring it back. - Whenever, you might come back, yeah. - Yeah, who knows? - Unsold pilot scripts are performed each week by a repertory cast and guest star. - Oh yeah, this is the part that's weird. In the second season, only unsold comedy pilots were aired under this umbrella title. So that implies it in the first season. - There were some dramas. - There were some dramas as part of the comedy factory. - Yeah, that's odd. Yeah, they would have these umbrella titles like the NBC Mystery movie would usually be like an hour-long pilot for something that didn't. - Never took off. - Well then that also was like, there was a bunch of kind of reoccurring mystery ones. - Yes. - I think Matlock originally was. - Yeah, it was a series of TV movies. - Yeah, that were under the umbrella before it became its own series. - Yes. So comedy factory is what you went with. Yeah, at nine o'clock, I'm guessing you went with Benson. - Benson, yeah. - One of my favorites, the fabulous Gold Sisters, Tracy, a gold of growing pains, of course, and her sister, Missy, Gold, who played the governor's daughter on Benson. Ironically enough, since we're looking at a main edition of the TV Guide, she now lives in Maine and is a psychiatrist in Portland. - No kidding. - Missy Gold, so if she takes your insurance, you should go there. - I would make the drive to go talk to Missy Gold about my mental problems. - I love Portland too, it's nice. - There you go, get some food, go by the sea, see Missy Gold. Benson, of course, a spin-off of soap. - Yep. - Which many people forget, weirdly, a better show than soap in my eyes. - Seemingly, now, isn't Benson on soap? He's like, the butler? - Yeah, he's the butler, yeah. - And then on Benson, he's the assistant to the governor. - It's the governor. - The governor is supposed to be the woman who Benson was the butler of his brother, I believe. So she sends him Benson to help him. 'Cause his wife dies or leaves him. - It seems like a big, I mean, I guess being a butler back then was sort of a, probably like a well-paid-- - I don't know if it was, I don't know. - It sort of does fall into the many sub-genre. - Yeah, yeah. - Who's the boss, Charles in charge, Benson, they're all kind of the same year. Benson also became the governor later in the series. He ran for governor. - That's right. - It's against the governor and it was a cliffhanger. You never know if he won. - It was a real pain. - And I mentioned the sign teller, he was on the show and he talks about how he, you know, went in, he's on for a little while and he went into a reading and he just wasn't in the script and no one had told him. - Yeah, well, that's how you get written out of Benson. A bit Robert Guillaume hated him. - Really? - I don't know if that's true, but I believe it in my heart. So at 9.30, what do you got? - I went with people do the craziest things. There's some pretty funny pranks that they did. - So people do the craziest things I'm actually not familiar with, but reading the-- - The description here. - It does sound pretty good. - Yeah, yeah. - Ballroom dance students get a lesson in break dancing. - That one doesn't sound that good, but some of the other ones sound good. - Bob Perlow asks strangers to pose as an old flame to make his girlfriend jealous. - I think that's great. - That's pretty good. See, back to the ballroom dancing. I'm picturing like really old people. - Yeah. - And then they come in and start trying to show them on a break dance. That's where the humor is. - Yeah, I guess, yeah. I mean, I think probably in 1985 would have been a lot funnier, but it's like pretty trite at this point. - If it was 1994, there would have been shown how to slam dance. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And then a man predicts how his fiancee will act in an experiment with an actor. - That's vague. That's the most vague thing I've ever heard in my life. - Yeah, yeah. - And volunteers scream for the cameras. - Yeah, which sounds fun. Like I feel like I would, I kinda wanna just take a camera out on the streets and just ask people to scream and see. - I feel like this show probably would do well now. - Yeah. - No. - It's probably ahead of its time. The other thing is at 10 o'clock, the second rip off of TV's bloopers and practical jokes aired. - What's that? - It was a show called Life's Most Embarrassing Moments. - Wow. - And it was a blooper show. - A blooper show. - It was just a blooper show. That's it. Steve Allen hosted it. - Steve Allen, and is it so is it bloopers from TV or? - Yes, yes. So this episode is Life's Most Embarrassing Moments? - Yes. If you're an actor in Hollywood in 1985. So this is bloopers from Benson, bloopers from Kate Nally, Charles in Charge, hosted by Steve Allen. - Also, Friday night, at say, Friday night videos was on one of my favorites. - What's Friday night videos on what channels are on? - Friday night videos was on NBC. It was for people who didn't have an MTV. And it would have a celebrity guest host. Oftentimes, one of the facts of life girls. And they would just host 90 minutes of videos. - Sounds pretty good. - It was a great show. - Was that what time it was at at 10? - That was on at 11.30. - 11.30, yeah. - Also on that night was Night Flight, which I watched every night on USA Network. That was a good episode, that night it was about reggae. - Crazy. - Yeah, Night Flight. Night Flight, I remember that hearing about that show. - Night Flight is responsible for most of the things that I like in my life. - Yeah, yeah. - So Rub Cream, that is the end of the week. Now, normally, what we do here is a TV guide doesn't just give you what is on. It also cheers and also cheers. - Right. - So I will read the cheers and cheers and see if you agree with them. However, in 1985, TV guide, this edition, no cheers and cheers this week. So I think you might want to just cheer that. I think that that's-- - Yeah, I definitely want to do that. - Is there anything you want to cheer or cheer this week that you saw in there? - In here. Oh, that meant-- - There is a great article about the Segal Twins. It's like a three-page article that I would-- - Oh, it's hard. - It's a little heartily cheer. Yeah, it's the front of the magazine. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - It's a glossy, nice, right up about them on page 12. If you find yourself with a copy of this TV guide, it's worth it for the Segal Twins article, well-- - Mm-hmm, Candy Segal Sisters. - Candy Segal Sisters. - So that's my cheer of the week. I don't know if you have a cheer or a cheer, but sadly, TV guide let us down this week. - That's weird. - Whoa, America discovers phones that don't work. - Yeah, it's a sad day. That's when people used to have to rent their phones 'cause we didn't own 'em. - Yeah, my dad had a bunch of phones in his garage for many years that were-- - Fell off trucks. - Notice that he had gotten from the phone company and-- - They never collected 'em. - Well, he was being charged-- He had like four or five of them, maybe, and he was being charged rent in them for like 20 years where he wasn't using them, but the rent was so low he just didn't bother to return them in. - She is. - Eventually he did return. I think maybe when New England Telephone got bought out by, at the time, I believe, Bell Atlantic, they-- - She sure got one 9X. - They might've, it was whatever bought out the, or 9X to 9X, if-- - They might've. - Yeah. - We're the one for you, New England, New England telephone. - Yeah. - And 9X Corporation. They did get bought by 9X. - Oh, you're right, right, 9X. And 9X got bought by Bell Atlantic. - Right. - Bell Atlantic got bought by AT&T. - Right, is it AT&T? - No, AT&T? - AT&T. - I think AT&T. - People have tuned out by this point anyway. - Yeah, yeah. - All right. - I wonder, is any of this interesting? - I don't know if any of this looks good. - I feel like I'm such a, I just like stuff, so I'm not like, this looks like a piece of garbage. - No, you don't need to have an extremely strong opinion. I think there's been some interesting discussions here. - Yeah, I mean-- - I've heard a lot of stuff about Jason Bateman. - Yeah, I like Jason Bateman. - I feel like Michael Thomas. We discussed his musical career. You have a lot of stuff to check out. You can watch "Hardbeat" on YouTube. You can watch the whole thing. There's probably eight or 10 shows you can watch. I think we sort of, you know, a week later, the white worm. You can go back and watch that tonight. - Yeah, I'm definitely gonna, yeah. I may, I may very well finish that tonight. - All right, Rob Creen. Well, thank you for doing my podcast and being part of the TV guidance counselor. - Yeah, thanks so much. - Appreciate it. - I hope that some of it's interesting. - I'm sure it is. - I'm sure it is. - Thanks. (upbeat music) - There you go, that's Rob Creen. That poor kid had the displeasure of having to spend eight hours on a bus with me at one point when he went down to New York to the UCB Theater to see me perform one of my one man shows. So he should get some sort of metal for that or at least some sort of tax credit. Rob Creen, fun guy. So as always, please email me at candidateikenread.com or at tvguidenscounselor.com. You can go on our Facebook page. You can go on our Twitter @tvguidens. Let me know what you think of this dumb idea of the Boston marathon that I'm doing today. I wouldn't do this again immediately, but if you like it, maybe I'll try and think of more things, fun things along these lines. It's, we don't really have any holidays this time of year. So the holiday specials aren't happening. So why not? We'll do a TV guidance counselor to Boston Marathon. So more to come in the marathon and also Wednesday, there'll be a new episode as there always is. And you never know when there'll be a new episode outside of that. So make sure you subscribe and I'll see you again next time on TV guidance counselor. (upbeat music) - To me, Miami Vice was like baseball. I don't think I saw any nudity. Oh, it's a new party. That's crazy. - Yep. - It's been a lot of work well.
