Video: STAR TREK Anger Management

Via Laughing Squid with a Vulcan salute to Mark Anderson for the heads up!



One of the best mash ups I've seen.

Video: "The One Ronnie" Christmas Special Sketch

Harry Enfield and Ronnie Corbett from The Guardian blog. "For years the Two Ronnies were regarded as unfunny and unfashionable – now we're once more celebrating their brand of humour."

A sketch from BBC One's "The One Ronnie" 2010 Christmas Special starring Ronnie Corbett:



If you don't like puns, don't click.

I couldn't hep but think of Ronnie Barker, the late comedy partner of Ronnie Corbett, who could have been playing the shopkeeper ala Arkwright from OPEN ALL HOURS.

Adrian Sinnott, this clip is for you, my fellow British TV comedy fan!

Coming to BBC: DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY

Above: the DIRK GENTLY cast: Darren Boyd, Stephen Mangan and Helen Baxendale.

Douglas Adams' book DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY has now been adapted for TV and will premiere on BBC4 in 2011:



Related: Dirk Gently: Douglas Adams’s detective finally cracks TV

Jack Davis TV Commercials

Here is 6 minutes of Jack Davis TV commercials from years ago. Some unseen Davis work here.



Commercials:

• McCracken's Apple Chips (with voice talents June Foray and Gary Owens)
• Utica Club Beer
• Cask Mountain Wine
• True Temper Uni-Spin fishing rods
• Gillette Trac II (with (I think) the voice talent of Jackson Beck)
• Sominex
• Utica Club Beer (another one)
• The Dodge Boys (1969 Polara)
• Chex Cereal (with Ruth Buzzi)
• Pennsylvania Lottery
• Lectric Shave

Thanks to chiefzabu for posting this!

Another treat: a collection of General Electric appliance commercials created by Rankin Bass for its original 1964 GE-sponsored broadcast of the 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' TV special. I've never seen these!

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK Documentary

More information at the YouTube page.

DOCTOR WHO Unreleased Scene

An unseen scene from the cutting room floor of the Doctor and Amy at the end of "Eleventh Hour" and/or the beginning of "The Beast Below." Quite fun, but no plot advancement. "Why have you labeled a time machine 'police box?'" and so on. In HD from TheDoctorWhoMedia.

TV Themes That Include the Pet (Excluding LASSIE)

Above: Asta from the TV series version of THE THIN MAN (1957).

Here is a small collection of TV show titles that include a credit for the pet. I decided, when I was many an eight year old television consumer, that any TV show that included a credit for the family dog was cool.

I've kept a note of what shows credited animals in the back of my mind. I was surprised that sometimes I've remembered wrong. For instance, Darwin the dolphin from SEAQUEST DSV, gets a credit for the first season only.

Ditto Dagget!

I always thought that Muffit the Dagget (for the uninitiated: a monkey in a fur/plastic 'cyborg" costume) from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA had a credit. He doesn't. You only see the back of him as "Noah Hathaway's" credit appears.

SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH includes a credit for Nick Bakay, who voiced "Salem the cat" in the show, but most of the time the cat was a puppet. That's a no no, so that doesn't count.

And the big James Thurber dog in MY WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT, while the focus of the opening, is not credited. Below, after the 90 second teaser, are the titles and you can see what I mean:



Okay, here are the top contenders -- the cool TV openings that include the family pet. Please feel free to note any omissions:

Ladadog from PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES



Lord Nelson from THE DORIS DAY SHOW



Scruffy from THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR



The winner: THE THIN MAN TV series, which starred Peter Lawford as Nick and Phyllis Kirk as Nora. Asta the dog gets third billing. The highest ranking billing I've seen!



Please feel free to comment and add any I missed.

TWILIGHT ZONE/CALVIN & HOBBES Mash-Up

"The Watterson Zone," written by Mark Pellegrini with art by Timothy Lim, adapts the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode where anything a little boy wants, happens.

It's a spoof of a classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode. The original program title was "It's a Good Life" and starred Billy Mumy. It was later remade as a segment of the TWILIGHT ZONE MOVIE.

Below is the program that originally aired on November 3, 1961, cut into its requisite YouTube 10-minute chunks:

Sergio Aragonés in FUTURAMA

Sergio Aragonés appears in a "San Diego Comic Con 3010" episode of Matt Groening's FUTURAMA series Thursday night on Comedy Central.

Wired has the details and some more pics:

The “world’s fastest cartoonist” and the world’s most badass viper pilot make special voice appearances in this week’s episode of Futurama, which features a glimpse of what Comic-Con might look like in the year 3010.

Sergio Aragonés, the speedy comics legend who made his mark with Mad magazine and Groo the Wanderer, plays himself and appears as a head in a jar at the comic book convention on a panel discussion with Futurama creator Matt Groening and head writer/executive producer David X. Cohen.

Katee Sackhoff, who played Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, guest-stars in the role of Grrl, a hot young Omicronian who wants to hook up with Lrrr, the ruler of Omicron Persei 8 who is facing a midlife crisis.

Comic-Con serves as the setting for Lrrr’s unsuccessful takeover of Earth at the beginning of the episode, which is titled “Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences.” See the screenshots above for a sneak peek at the episode. Futurama airs Thursdays at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central on Comedy Central.

Images courtesy MTV. Futurama TM and © 2010 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Read More http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/08/futurama-guest-voices/?pid=602&pageid=44242&viewall=true#ixzz0xd1b5Fpm

That's Not Uncle Arthur!

Above: Sherilyn Fenn. Yes, she could NEVER be mistake for Uncle Arthur. More about her in a moment.

There is a little known tradition in TV series. The tradition has no name, so I just call it the "That's NOT Uncle Arthur!" effect.

If you watch TV, you know what I mean. You're watching a show and suddenly, a familiar character is acting a strange way.

Let me explain.

OK, here's Uncle Arthur:



Here's a description. There is an episode of BEWITCHED with Paul Lynde NOT playing Uncle Arthur -- he's this nervous driving instructor. Here's a (colorized) clip from the first time Lynde appeared on the show. It's from the very first season.



This 1965 episode is titled "Driving is the Only Way to Fly," and you can watch the whole thing on Hulu here (or there's a MySpace cut up Minisode, which runs under 5 minutes and really has all the best bits).

Paul Lynde would return the following fall, in his new role as the recurring Uncle Arthur character.

This is the Uncle Arthur Effect.

OK, here's another example. Harry Morgan appeared on M*A*S*H as 2 characters. The first: a one-time appearance as Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. Here he is in his 1974 episode:



And the next season, he returned in a different role: that of Commanding Officer Colonel Sherman T. Potter. He would stay with the series until its demise in 1983 -- and would reprise his role in the short-lived spin-off series After M*A*S*H.


So, how many times have actors wandered in, played a guest part -- and then are asked to return for a regular role in a series?



Above is Vincent Gardinia, who played Frank Lorenzo in ALL IN THE FAMILY. But before he played Frank, he played two other characters in 2 earlier episodes of the sitcom.


And the same thing with veteran character actor (and ubiquitous cartoon voice talent) Allan Melvin. Melvin was, like, in a zillion shows like PHIL SILVERS, DICK VAN DYKE, ANDY GRIFFITH and GOMER PYLE USMC. With both VAN DYKE and GRIFFITH, he played different characters before being brought in as a semi-regular character.

Alex Borstein, maybe best known for her long running gig as a great comedic character actress in Mad TV, played "Drella," a sarcastic harp player in the first few episodes of the Gilmore Girls series. It was the producer's hope that she play the second banana role of Sookie, but her Fox TV contract prevented that commitment. She returned a 3 years later to GG as "Miss Celine."

Sherilyn Fenn played 2 characters in Gilmore Girls: she was first cast in a pilot-within-the-series as Jess' mother figure and then, later on, a semi regular role as an ex-lover of series regular Luke

And then there's Dennis Franz. Back before NYPD Blue, he was on Hill Street Blues for a short multi-episode arc. He played Detective Sal Benedetto, a drug-hooked, crooked cop for 5 episodes. He returned two years later, portraying Detective Norman Buntz for the remaining two years of Hill Street's network run, and starred in the 12 episode spin-off series Beverly Hill Buntz.


Freema Agyeman played Adeola Oshodi, a "red shirt" who had to die in "Army of Ghosts" to emphasis the danger of the invading Cybermen in Doctor Who. (To quote Guy Fleegman in Galaxy Quest: "I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here.") In less than a year, Freema was back, this time in her new continuing role as series regular Martha Jones.

And on it goes.

That's all I can think of. But there must be more. Please let me know.

Video: Tex Blaisdell on "To Tell the Truth"

Above: Tex Blaisdell's NCS bio.

Here's veteran cartoonist Tex Blaisdell, whose talents spanned DC Comics and many syndicated features, guesting on this 1970 episode of the To Tell the Truth game show.

At this time, Mr. Blaisdell had taken over LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE after creator Harold Gray's death in 1968.

Some members of the celebrity panel (composed of Tom Posten, Peggy Cass, Gene Rayburn and Kitty Carlisle) ham it up, reading a very early ANNIE strip aloud. Actually, one of the very earliest ANNIEs. It's the strip from August 14, 1924, the middle of the second week of the feature when Mrs. Warbucks takes Annie from the orphanage to the Warbucks estate. As Kitty Carlisle remarks, people have not heard of Mrs. Warbucks, the wife of Daddy Warbucks. The explanation offered is that she was an unsympathetic character and Mr. Gray wrote her out of the strip.

At the end of this clip, Tex live-draws a portrait of Annie.

Chuck Jones' A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1971)

OK, it's the Holiday season. Let's go watch an Oscar-award-winning adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, executive produced by Chuck Jones with the voice of Alastair Sim as Scrooge! For now, there's only one -- just one place -- to see this: YouTube.

It's not on DVD. Ands that's crummy. This show has some serious pedigree; the guy who brought us THE GRINCH (the cartoon, not the Jim Carrey monster) is the executive producer and it's directed by the animation director of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. I remember seeing it in 1971, and once or twice since then -- but only by chance. It's not a holiday TV tradition ala CHARLIE BROWN or those Rankin Bass puppet specials or the MISTER MAGOO special. Go figure!

YouTube's rules means a 28 minute vid has to be sliced up into smaller segments. Here are the links if you have the time to watch.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Stave One

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Stave Two

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Stave Three

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Stave Four

Thanks to Grant Miehm for reminding me of this special, which I had forgotten about until now!


- The above was originally posted on December 11, 2007. And this is still not available on DVD or Blu Ray or whatever so far as I know.

Video: MY WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT - Christmas Episode

From the TV show MY WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT, based on the work of James Thurber. This episode is titled "Rally 'Round the Flag" originally aired on Decmber 15, 1969.

The program was canceled after one season, after which it won an Emmy for Best Comedy. I was a very small kid when it aired and I remember being fascinated by the real life actor William Widom interacting with the B&W Thurber-esque characters. I could never make up my mind whether it was wonderful or scary.

STAR TREK Scene Re-Creation

This runs about a minute. It's an audacious side by side comparison of a 1966 STAR TREK episode ("The Naked Time") and a couple of guys who reenact that same scene in 2009. It runs about a minute and is more interesting than it sounds. One thing for sure: these guys shamelessly know the scene. The fellow who plays Kirk has the shiniest orange velour shirt.

BBC One DOCTOR WHO Christmas Ident

Hat tip to Bully via Dorian Wright. I agree with Bully that it just "makes me so happy."

Video: DOCTOR WHO "End of Time" Promo

Here's a new promo from BBC One today, promoting an animated program called "Gruffalo" (which looks to be a very short special) and the final DOCTOR WHO episodes, "The End of Time." The WHO segment contains several new clips and, yes, a mild spoiler about who the villain will be -- but I think everyone knows who that is by now. This runs over a minute.



Hat tip to the Doctor Who news Page!

Video: MISS PEACH OF THE KELLY SCHOOL (1982)

From 1982, here is a clip of a MISS PEACH made-for-TV video based on the Mell Lazarus comic strip which ran for 45 years (1957-2002).

The videos, titled MISS PEACH OF THE KELLY SCHOOL, featured a live actress and puppet versions of the children characters. Below is the first ten minutes of the Thanksgiving special. There were five different specials distributed by Carousel Film and Video. The others include the first day of school, Valentine's Day, career day, and the spring picnic.

1982 was also the year that Mell received the Reuben Award, the "Oscar" of cartooning, presented by the National Cartoonists Society.

Oddly, I can find no actor credits for the specials online, other than Martin Short providing some of the voices.

BBC America: DOCTOR WHO "End of Time" US Premiere Dec 26

Via the Doctor Who News Page:

The special preview clip of The End of Time [below], shown as part of the BBC Children In Need appeal is now available on the BBC YouTube channel.

BBC America have also posted their clip on their website and revealed that the full episode will be shown in the USA at 9pm EST on the 26th December 2009 a day after the expected UK showing and 1 week after the US showing of The Waters of Mars.

More for US viewers at the BBC America Doctor Who page.

BBC America: A DOCTOR WHO December

BBC America has a Holiday present for us DOCTOR WHO fans.

Looks like all of the DOCTOR WHO specials, the final batch of the Tennant/Russell run, will appear on BBC America next month according to an advertisement I saw. The last 3 lines are:

3 Part Television Event
THE DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS
Coming in December

This would be a first: US audiences seeing DOCTOR WHO so close its UK premiere. I was able to pull up on YouTube all 3 of their commercials.

• First, a spot for all 3 of the specials;
  
  
• second: a "Waters of Mars" preview for its US premiere Saturday, December 19;
  
  
• third: Russell T. Davies, producer Julie Gardner and David Tennant on the appeal of the series.
  

This takes some of the sing out the fact that I have to wait a month to watch what Britons are seeing right now.

Video: STAR TREK TNG Endings

From Eugene Roddenberry, here are a bunch of final moments from a bunch of TNG episodes.

I never thought about it, but now that I've seen these scenes -- with an ending line and the fanfare as the Enterprise swooshes away for another adventure -- well -- that is one of my favorite bits. Off to another adventure!

These all appear to be from the first season of The Next Generation. It runs just over 6 minutes.



AS fun as those may be, I still like the overly-dramatic music in The Old Show. Look at what it can do in this 8 second clip below.Now, you hear music like THAT, and you know it's dangerous!! It may look like a rotating out of focus disco ball sugar cube, but, dang it, it's full of PERIL!