Category Archives: entertainment

Peter Schickele

Posted on by Leave a comment

I still remember the first time I heard the music of P.D.Q. Bach. On the program at New York’s Town Hall were the Echo Sonata for Two Unfriendly Groups of Instruments and the Schleptet in E♭ major. I was immediately hooked.

Each piece was introduced by Professor Peter Schickele of the Music Pathology Department, University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople. Schickele claimed to have discovered the work of P.D.Q, who he described as the 21st and least of the children of the great baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Here is where things get a little dicey. J.S. Bach was certainly prolific. But he stopped at 20 children. And while there is a Hoople in North Dakota, there is no university there. I should have noted that the program listed P.D.Q.’s dates as “(1807–1742)?“

Read more

Tommy Smothers

Posted on by One comment
Thomas and Richard Smothers

His mother always liked his brother best. That was his go-to line. Tommy Smothers (left above) was an American comedian, actor, composer, and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy duo the Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick. He was born in 1937, in New York City, and passed away on December 26, 2023, at the age of eighty-six in Santa Rosa, California.

When I look back over my blogs, I see that the few obituaries I write are always about people who have had a significant impact on me. Smothers is one of those people. When I think of Tom I think of the Sixties. This was my coming-of-age decade, and one that stands out as a turning point in American history.

Read more

David McCallum

Posted on by Leave a comment

It was my last year of grade school, and I faced all the usual crises. My family was about to move about five miles closer to the center of the city because my parents wanted me to attend a different high school than the one serving our current neighborhood. I was about to lose most of my grade school friends because only two others were switching to the same high school. And for some reason the girls, who I had recently become interested in, were not so much interested in our current hero, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn. They had eyes only for the blood sidekick Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum.

McCallum died yesterday in New York City at the age of ninety.

Read more

Passing

Posted on by One comment

There are some people you just think will be around forever. Betty White was one of them. I cannot claim to have watched her first television program, the self-produced “Life with Elizabeth.” I was only one year old when it premiered in 1952. And coming in the days before television programming could be recorded, or prerecorded, there is no record for me to review, or add to my insanely enormous collection of television programming.

But as to the rest of it, the game shows including Password, Match Game, Tattletales, To Tell the Truth, The Hollywood Squares, and the $25,000 Pyramid. Or the soaps and dramas, The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and the comedies/variety programs including The Carol Burnett Show. Her biggest roles include Sue Ann Nivens on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977), Rose Nylund on the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), and Elka Ostrovsky on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2010–2015). She gained renewed popularity after her appearance in the 2009 romantic comedy film The Proposal (2009) and was subsequently the subject of a successful Facebook-based campaign to host Saturday Night Live in 2010, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Read more

Remakes. Why?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Have you ever seen a remake that was better than the original? Or at least as good as the original? Neither have I. So why do they continue to go down this road? Has Hollywood run out of new ideas?

The entertainment business is a land of superlatives. So, let’s get this out of the way. Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest film directors of all time. Stephen Sondheim is one of the greatest composers/lyricists of all time. West Side Story, in its various incarnations, the book of the 1957 Broadway musical the work of Arthur Laurents, is a modern implementation of the outline drawn by William Shakespeare in his drama Romeo and Juliet and as such, one of the greatest romance stories of all time. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music. Jerome Robbins was the choreographer along with Peter Cennaro. More of the greatest.

Read more

Tough Turkey

Posted on by Leave a comment

There is probably no more unfortunate creature on earth than Meleagris gallopavo, the wild and domestic turkey of North America. Forty-six million, according to the National Turkey Federation, were eaten on Thanksgiving Day and I did my share. Despite its name, the web address of the NTF is “eatturkey.org” so I do not believe the foundation is on the side of the bird.

In today’s climate some of us delude ourselves about facts and history while others find it necessary to question everything and be suspicious to a fault. I tend to split the difference.

Read more

If He Builds It, We Will Come

Posted on by One comment
August 13, 2021 Update

I don’t mean to brag but, well, yes I do. My hometown Chicago White Sox beat the New York Yankees 9-8 in the Field of Dreams game with a dramatic bottom of the ninth inning walk off home run by Tim Anderson. The lead had changed hands several times. There is no hiding the fact that baseball faces some big challenges in the years a ahead. Perhaps this event will help. It was a great game.

August 12, 2021

Tonight the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees will play the first major league baseball game ever in the state of Iowa. There will be eight thousand people in the stands. They will have paid from $1,500 to $5,000 for the privilege. The town of Dyersville, Iowa, the game’s location, has a total population of about four thousand. The game will be telecast on Fox at 7:15 Eastern Time.

Read more
« Older Entries Recent Entries »