Guest Stars

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Burt Mustin

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For nearly 30 years, if a TV show was in need of a quirky and/or spunky senior citizen, they could call on Burt Mustin.

According to IMDB, he racked up 199 credits between 1951 and 1979, a feat that wouldn’t be too remarkable if he hadn’t made his first onscreen appearance at age 67. As fate would have it, Mr. Mustin’s retirement as a salesman gave birth to a second career that has blessed us all.

Mr. Mustin had recurring roles on several series including portraying Arthur Lanson on Phyllis, Jud on The Andy Griffith Show, Grandpa Jenson on Petticoat Junction, and Gus the Fireman on Leave It to Beaver. He also frequently made repeat appearances on shows as different characters, including Our Miss Brooks, Adam-12, My Three Sons, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Texan, Dragnet 67, and The Monkees.

It’s the last two shows that contain my favorite Burt Mustin performances.

In the Dragnet 67 episode “Homicide: DR-22”, he plays Calvin Lampe, who is at first thought to be a nosy neighbor of and then a possible suspect in the murder of a career girl. It’s later revealed that he’s a retired chief of detectives and friend of Friday and Gannon’s boss. He ends up helping the two whippersnappers solve the homicide. Calvin Lampe has an unmatched attention to detail and his insinuation in the case is at first a source of a bit of annoyance before Friday and Gannon realize how valuable it is. One of my favorite scenes is Lampe talking to Friday and Gannon while a uniformed officer in the background (played by Jack Webb favorite Marco Lopez) gives them a yikes look.

Mr. Mustin appeared in two episodes of The Monkees that I love. He was the butler in the classic “The Christmas Episode” and he portrayed a Tarzan knock-off by the name of Kimba in “Monkees Marooned”. The bit in which Peter translates for him is a hoot.

He stuck to The Andy Griffith universe, appearing in both Gomer Pyle: USMC and Mayberry RFD and even popped up on The New Andy Griffith Show; spent some extra time in the Henningverse on a couple of episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies; completed the Jack Webb odyssey with a couple of episodes of Emergency!; and appeared on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.

He turned up on Westerns like Maverick, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Virginian, and Alias Smith and Jones; hung out with Lucille Ball on both The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy; and cut up on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Laugh-In, The Brady Bunch, Sanford and Son, All in the Family, and Love, American Style. He got mysterious on Mr. Lucky, Surfside 6, and 77 Sunset Strip; saw some action on The Girl from UNCLE, Batman, The Fugitive, and Get Smart; got spooky on Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Outer Limits; and he even did a couple of medical stints on Ben Casey and Marcus Welby MD.

There wasn’t a television genre that Burt Mustin couldn’t shine in. He’s a delight in everything he appears in, elevating a generic senior citizen into something more memorable and cementing his face into the good graces and fond memories of generations.

Not bad for an old guy, huh?

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–J. Pat O’Malley

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Since I’ve already written about J. Pat O’Malley once when I discussed “The Fugitive” episode of The Twilight Zone, it’s only right that I go all in and do a guest star post about him. After all, he is one of my favorites anyway.

The adorable, sweet-faced actor has 242 credits listed on IMDB, and many of those are in TV Land, including recurring roles on Maude, A Touch of Grace, Wendy and Me, My Favorite Martian, Frontier Circus, Black Saddle, and The Adventures of Spin and Marty.

He also had the tendency to appear on shows multiple times, but as different characters. He appeared at least three times on Rawhide, The Twilight Zone, Death Valley Days, The Fugitive, The Real McCoys, The Virginian, Adam-12, Emergency!, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Barney Miller.

Of his three appearances on Barney Miller, his role as Mr. Holliman in “Dirty Rat” is probably my favorite. He plays a lovable ol’ houseless man who goes to a department store for the free samples and ends up falling asleep. When he wakes up, the store is closed until Monday. He makes himself at home while waiting for the store to open, but unfortunately, he couldn’t find an alarm clock so he could wake up in time to sneak out of the store. It’s a sweet, funny character, which is usually what I think of when I think of J. Pat O’Malley.

His appearance as Old Bill in the “Messing Around” episode of Emergency! is another one of my favorites. A sweet gent who entertains the folks waiting in the ER at Rampart General while seeking treatment for the persistent ailment of loneliness, Old Bill’s health takes a turn for the serious later in the episode and the paramedics have to intervene. What I like so much about it is not just his portrayal of Old Bill, but also everyone else’s response to him. They know he’s lonely and looking for a little attention, but they also don’t doubt him when he presents with an actual health concern. It’s just that he leaves to go home before he’s seen because he doesn’t think it’s anything to worry about. I can’t imagine pulling that twist off with another actor because of how endearing Old Bill has to be for it to work.

J. Pat did a tour of the Henningverse, appearing on The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres (4 times), and Petticoat Junction (2 times); was a medicine man on F-Troop; he welcomed the Bradys to TV in the pilot for The Brady Bunch; was Rob Petrie’s grandfather on The Dick Van Dyke Show; and attempted to con Barney Fife’s landlady on The Andy Griffith Show.

His cherub face graced Westerns like Alias Smith and Jones, The Big Valley, Wagon Train, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rebel, Daniel Boone, Maverick, Stoney Burke, and The Wild Wild West; sitcoms like Three’s Company, Taxi, One Day at a Time, I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, and Hogan’s Heroes; law and order shows like Perry Mason, The Untouchables, Burke’s Law, Ironside, Quincy ME, and The Mod Squad; and PI classics like Barretta, The Rockford Files, Banacek, and Mannix.

He got soapy on Soap, thrilled on Thriller, tested his luck on Mr. Lucky, duked around with The Dukes of Hazzard, and batted around with Batman. He even had a brush with zombies on Kolchak: the Nightstalker.

And if you somehow still don’t recognize J. Pat’s face, you’ll probably recognize his voice. This singer provided the voices for characters in Disney classics such as One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Robin Hood, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and Alice in Wonderland.

Maybe J. Pat O’Malley didn’t stray much from type (at least not in the many things I’ve seen him in), but he played that type so well that it’s hard to think of him as anything other than somewhat lovable. And memorable.

After all, I named one of the neighborhood cats J. Patch O’Malley after him.

Have Yourself a Jeanette Nolan Christmas

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I think I’ve made it pretty clear that Jeanette Nolan is one of my favorites, so it should be no surprise that I could find a way to elevate your holiday TV viewing with her presence.

Here are two Christmas-themed episodes of television shows featuring this holly jolly lady.

Okay, maybe she’s not so holly jolly in “PS Murry Christmas”, a Season 17 episode of Gunsmoke. In between appearances as Dirty Sally (and three years before her spin-off series of the same name), Jeanette played Emma Grundy, strict headmistress of a group of orphans that included Erin Moran, Jodie Foster, Willie Aames, and Todd Lookinland (Mike “Bobby Brady” Lookinland’s brother). In her employ is a handyman by the name of Titus Spangler, played by Jack Elam. That casting right there guarantees a hit.

When Titus, who is Jack Elam and therefore anything but subtle, embarrasses Emma in front of the orphanage’s benefactors during their annual Christmas visit, she fires him. The children, orphaned and impoverished, decide that going on the lam with Titus is a much better life and they convince him to take them along. Naturally, they all end up in Dodge City with Emma following. The plight of the children comes to light when Titus is arrested and Miss Kitty attempts to give the children a decent holiday with a party at the Longbranch Saloon, a gesture Emma refuses. It seems like she’s a straight up Scrooge, but there’s something a little more to Miss Emma than meets the eye.

It’s a sweet episode. You’ve got cute kids, the meaning of Christmas, and Jack Elam being Jack Elam. And at the heart you have Jeanette Nolan playing this very uptight character that goes beyond the stereotype of a heartless orphan-minder.

Jeanette isn’t who she seems to be in the MacGyver Season 5 episode “The Madonna” either. MacGyver takes a break from saving the world to try to bring a little holiday joy to some kids at an underfunded youth center. Sadly, the place is in danger of closing due to those lack of funds and kids like Katherine Isabelle (of Ginger Snaps fame) and Alessandro Julio (who went on to play Lt. Felix Gaeta on the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series) won’t have a place to go. And it’s tough out there on them streets! As we witness a couple of young punks roughing up an old homeless lady who appeared not long after a Madonna statue went missing from a local church. Nothing suspicious about that.

Turns out that everyone BUT Carol the homeless lady is short on Christmas spirit. MacGyver has a case of the holiday blues. The youth center needs $9,000 to stay open. Cynthia (Roxanne Reese), who runs the center, is at the end of her rope. Breeze (Charles Andrew Payne) has no love for the holiday he’s never had. The man who carved the Madonna, Vincent Battaglia (Anthony Holland), is all over sour. And Father Pat (Jackson Davies) isn’t too hopeful about the missing Madonna being returned before Christmas morning. Hell, even the Santa ringing a bell for money is down on his luck.

MacGyver works to both find the missing Madonna for his friend Father Pat and help the young people work to put on their Christmas show to get funds for the youth center, where Carol is now staying. And she helps out in her own special way.

It’s also a sweet episode with cute kids and Pete dressed as Santa and it ends just like you think it will (happy endings all around), but that doesn’t lessen the enjoyment. And Jeanette Nolan shines as the fount of Christmas Spirit. I mean, she takes a broom to a drunken Santa Claus and hustles 8 ball. Can’t get more spirited than that.

So, deck your halls, jingle your bells, trim your tree, and have yourself a Very Merry Jeanette Nolan Christmas.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Joyce Jameson

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Joyce Jameson is one of my crushes. I fell for her when I first saw The Comedy of Terrors and I never looked back.

I may have found her in a movie, but many of her 117 credits are on TV shows. She started off her career in her then-husband’s musical revue and was known for her impressions. Though intelligent and well-read, she was typically typecast as a dumb blonde, something she just couldn’t shake. However, she was an incredibly funny woman and managed to leave her mark on multiple TV shows.

For example, she played Fun Girl Skippy in three episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (other Fun Girl Daphne was played by Jean Carson), usually having her sights set on Barney. The duo made such an impression that Me-TV did a write up on them, and both actresses ended up on episodes of Gomer Pyle USMC playing different characters.

She also turned up on F-Troop, this time zeroing in on Corporal Agarn. She and Larry Storch would team up again years later on an episode of Emergency!, in which he’s an amateur magician attempting to escape from a safe and she’s his nervous wife who calls the fire department because she’s afraid he can’t get out. It’s a brief but funny interaction. Her second appearance on the show had her get stuck in a doggy door, another funny bit, though perhaps it depended a little too much on making fun of her weight.

Another funny, but problematic guest spot happened on Barney Miller in the episode “Rape”. She goes to the 12th precinct to make a complaint about her husband forcing her to have sex, which at the time wasn’t against the law. It’s hard to make a joke of something as serious as sexual assault, and the episode is mostly uncomfortable with some humorous bits, but Joyce is a bright spot.

Joyce appeared in other sitcoms, such as Hogan’s Heroes, The Munsters, The Dick van Dyke Show, McHale’s Navy, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Make Room for Daddy, and Rhoda.

She did appear on more serious shows such as The Waltons, as well as several Westerns such as Alias Smith and Jones, The Virginian, The Big Valley (in which her character is simply called The Blonde), and Gunsmoke.

If you like law and action, you can find her in episodes of The Fall Guy, Charlie’s Angels, Baretta, Police Woman, The Rockford Files, McMillan and Wife, The Mod Squad, Burke’s Law, Ironside, and a couple of episodes of Perry Mason, one of which co-stars Wende Wagner (Miss Case on The Green Hornet), James Frawley (who directed multiple episodes of The Monkees), and Keye Luke. Joyce’s character is less than nice in that episode.

She also turned up in episodes of The Girl from UNCLE and The Man from UNCLE, unsurprising given her long relationship with Robert Vaughn, who remembered her fondly in his autobiography.

She even took a trip to The Twilight Zone and worked with Bob Newhart in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

And though she didn’t find love on The Love Boat, she did find James MacArthur, and that’s pretty close.

As frustrating as it might have been that Joyce Jameson couldn’t fully display her range and show her full comedic talents, we are blessed with many memorable guest roles (and movies!) and I certainly don’t take that for granted.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Dabbs Greer

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I like to say that I see Dabbs Greer once a week on my reruns and the best part is that I’m not really joking. The man has 319 credits listed on IMDB, the first once being an uncredited appearance in the 1939 movie Jesse James. His last credit is an episode of Lizzie McGuire in 2003.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the man did everything in between.

Probably best known as Reverend Alden on Little House on the Prairie, he also had recurring roles on The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Picket Fences, Maybe It’s Me, Hank, and Gunsmoke. However, he often showed up on shows more than once even if he wasn’t playing the same character. Dabbs had multiple appearances on The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Wild Wild West, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, The FBI, and The Loretta Young Show.

He joined Dick Van Dyke on both the Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis Murder. He stopped by Mayberry multiple times on The Andy Griffith Show. He went to both The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

He was a doctor suffering from an aortic aneurysm on Emergency!, a family man in need of help in Gomer Pyle: USMC, a drunk on Big Valley, a moonshiner on Charlie’s Angels, and a doctor up to no good on The Incredible Hulk.

Dabbs Greer had the kind of long and varied career that a lot of actors dream of. He was never really a star, so to speak, but as a character actor who was in everything, he was instantly recognizable. And he could do just about anything. Sitcoms like The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Empty Nest, Petticoat Junction, Rosanne, and Ann Jillian were no problem. Do you like private investigators? He was on Mannix, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, and The Rockford Files. He also did cop dramas like The Streets of San Francisco, Adam-12, Mod Squad, The Rookies, and Chopper One. He covered all of the westerns, including Laredo, Laramie, and The Virginian. He even went out of this world with The Invaders and The Greatest American Hero.

And if all of that isn’t enough, he played the minister who married two famous sitcom couples:  Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mike and Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch. Then came back twenty years later and married Bobby Brady and Tracy Wagner on The Bradys. Because Dabbs Greer was unstoppable.

I think that’s what I like best about him. That he is such a familiar, constant presence on my rerun viewing. I don’t really have any favorites where he’s concerned because I always enjoy when he pops up on my TV. Sometimes he’s a good guy, sometimes he’s a bad guy, sometimes he’s just a bit part, sometimes he’s the episode.

But he’s always there.

The ever-present Dabbs Greer.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Boy George on The A-Team

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Season 4 of The A-Team featured a lot of what I call stunt casting: guest stars that are extremely popular at the time and are put on a show to capitalize on that. Now there can be a fine line between a genuine guest starring role and a stunt casting, but you’ll know it when you see it because you really can’t ignore it.

During The A-Team’s fourth season, they had Hulk Hogan (twice!), Rick James, Pat Sajak and Vanna White had cameos because Murdock went on Wheel of Fortune for some reason, and, of course, there was Boy George.

I know, right?

The episode is called “Cowboy George” and the basic plot is Face is doing some talent booking, working with some dude named Dash, who screws him over on his contract by exercising a clause that allows for substitutions. So instead of getting Cowboy George for some honkytonk gig, he gets Boy George and Culture Club, who have been led to believe they’re going to be playing the Arizona Forum, not a dance hall called The Floor ’em. This poses a problem to LQ Jones, who demanded Cowboy George to insure the show would be a sellout. The he and his buddies could rob the audience’s payroll. To get help get out of the jam, Hannibal impersonates Cowboy George, but Boy George and Culture Club perform, which first angers and then charms the audience. The A-Team also thwarts the robbery and takes the bad guys to the sheriff, but it turns out the local replacement sheriff isn’t really a sheriff; he’s in on the whole thing, too, and the real sheriff is dead in one of the cells were Hannibal, BA, and Face are being held. Outside, a mob of angry workers are trying to break in to hang them because they think the three men stole their payroll. Which means it’s up to Murdock (who has an obsession with the Lennon Sisters in this episode) and Boy George to get them out of trouble.

Now, here’s why I think this is the greatest bit of guest casting in the history of television.

Unlike the Hulk Hogan or Rick James episodes (which I enjoy, don’t get me wrong), The A-Team aren’t hired by Boy George to do a job. They just sort of stumble into this scenario and Boy George happens to be involved and he goes along for the ride.

And he is clearly having a good time.

Boy George is an amiable guy, willing to cut down the band’s contracted fee from $1.2 million to $600,000 and he’s confident that Culture Club can draw the kind of crowd necessary to make that kind of money if they can get some advertising. Everyone loves Culture Club (fact check: this is true). He’s not put off by the booing rednecks, either, though his first impression of the dance hall isn’t the best. He and the band go out and start their set. Of course, the crowd falls in love with them.

When the trouble starts and Face, Hannibal, and BA get thrown in jail, the not-sheriff interrupts the show to tell the crowd what happened to their payroll, hoping to work up a lynch mob. It’s Boy George to the rescue. He acts quickly, going to the radio station where Murdock has locked himself in a booth to both get publicity for the Culture Club shows, and to also play every Lennon Sisters song he can get access to.

The two of them then break into a shop because they need some supplies and a plan to save the guys. Murdock struggles to pick the lock, even when Boy George provides him with a bobby pin. In the end, Boy George just kicks the door in. He even has a funny quip!

Murdock: See, a really honest man doesn’t really have an appetite for this sort of thing.

Boy George: Yeah, but who needs honesty?

Isn’t that great?!

Murdock gets the idea to smuggle some explosives into the besieged jail by dressing up as the pregnant wife of one of the guys and Boy George gives helpful critiques of Murdock’s clothing choices.

Boy George rides along after the jailbreak to stop the bad guys at the airport. And then he and Culture Club perform one final song for a very pleased crowd of cowboys.

I know. It sounds ludicrous. It shouldn’t work at all. And it probably would fall absolutely flat if not for Boy George being slightly amused the whole time. It’s not that he doesn’t take any of it seriously. He’s not goofing nor is he acting like it’s all beneath him. He comes across as very oh-you-crazy-yanks bemused and decides to enjoy the craziness. He gets the spirit of a show in which cars flip and explode and the people in them crawl out looking a little disoriented and disheveled.

Boy George brings the joy to the episode. Pure, blessed joy.

And we are all better for it.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Victor Buono

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Oh, Victor Buono, how do I love you? Let me count the ways.

Funny, campy, witty, clever, a man whose presence was more than his size, this lover of Shakespeare dedicated himself to his craft in a way that let him fully embody a character, even take it over the top (and in some cases way over the top), yet never take himself too seriously nor lose credibility with the audience in the process.

Obviously, if Batman was the only rerun I’d ever seen Victor Buono in, that would be enough. His King Tut is my favorite Batman villain and with good reason. He embraces the camp of the show, revels in it. He bellows, he insults, he bosses, he throws tantrums. He goes from joyful to angry and back again. He thinks torture is good clean fun. He is royalty. Every line is quotable and so much of it is in King Tut’s delivery. My personal favorite is “My queen is disloyal, my handmaiden is a traitor, and everybody’s being mean to me!” It’s delivered as only Victor Buono can.

Though he never made it onto The Green Hornet, Mr. Buono did guest start in two other short-lived series starring Van Williams, Burbon Street Beat and Surfside 6.

And Batman wasn’t the only show in which he was a recurring character. He also did six episodes of the short-lived (I’m sensing a theme) series Man from Atlantis and six episodes on the longer-lived series Vega$.

He also did a couple of episodes as Count Manzeppi on my beloved The Wild Wild West (including an episode with Richard Pryor in one of his first TV acting appearances), however, Victor Buono also appeared in the pilot episode of the series in the bizarre role of a Mexican in disguise as a Chinese man. I will repeat that because it bears repeating. White Victor Buono played a Mexican in disguise as a Chinese man.

The ’60s were wild.

Speaking of the ’60s, those were busy guest star times for Mr. Buono. He appeared on Westerns Sugarfoot, The Rebel, and Daniel Boone; had some watery fun on Seahunt and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; went undercover on The Man from UNCLE, The Girl from UNCLE, and I Spy; found himself on various sides of the law in Hawaiian Eye,  The Untouchables, 77 Sunset Strip, and Perry Mason; and  he found time to thrill on Thriller and visit The Flying Nun.

Lucky for me, Mr. Buono graced Hawaii Five-O with his presence, playing a European master criminal after a rare Liberty head nickel. I believe this is also the episode that features the husband and wife in charming matching outfits. Only that could challenge the presence of Victor Buono and Jack Lord together onscreen.

Though he never made it on The Love Boat, Mr. Buono did manage to board Super Train and land on Fantasy Island. He also browsed The Night Gallery; again tangled with the law on The Mod Squad, Mannix, and Ellery Queen; and generated more than a few laughs on Here’s Lucy, The Odd Couple, and Alice.

One of his more memorable sitcom turns was on Taxi, playing Reverend Jim Ignatowski’s father, Mr. Caldwell, despite being only 8 months older than Christopher Lloyd. It was a naturally funny, but also sweet role, one that Taxi acknowledged in a later episode. After Victor Buono died of a heart attack in 1982, Reverend Jim’s father did, too.

 

 

 

Though Victor Buono died tragically early (only 43), we are left with a wealth of guest spots on some great reruns to enjoy. An immortal gift if there ever was one.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Jeanette Nolan

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Jeanette NolanMe-TV has been showing holiday episodes of various shows, not all of which they carry on their usual line-up which is great, and I’ve been watching some of them.  Last week I caught a Christmas episode of MacGyver and it reminded me that I needed to write a guest star post about the wonderful Jeanette Nolan, who is pretty great in that ep.

Jeanette Nolan has 200 credits listed on the IMDB and most of them are TV shows. There is plenty of chances to catch this wonderful character actress in reruns, especially if you like Westerns because I think she was in every Western TV show that ever aired. That’s a slight exaggeration because she was never on Big Valley or High Chaparral, but she did do a whole lot, including: The Restless Gun, Lawman, The Rough Riders, Black Saddle, The Rebel, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Bat Masterson, Outlaws, Have Gun-Will Travel, Laramie, Wagon Train (with her husband John McIntire), A Man Called Shenandoah, Bonanza, Laredo, The Virginian (she did 27 episodes as a recurring character), Alias Smith and Jones, and Gunsmoke (which I will talk about more in a minute).

The woman had a niche for a good long while. Part of that was probably due to the fact that both she and her husband sort of specialized in playing characters that were much older than they actually were. You need an older, spitfire of a woman on the prairie, then you get Jeanette Nolan. Because there seems to be a touch of spitfire to every character I’ve seen her play and I’m not complaining about that.

Jeanette Nolan as Dirty SallyJeanette Nolan plays one of my favorite characters in all of the reruns I watch or have watched. Dirty Sally is a recurring character on Gunsmoke (she was in 8 episodes, three of them playing Dirty Sally, but the rest of them playing different characters, including Festus’s aunt, I believe) and she ended up getting her own series called Dirty Sally that only ran for 14 episodes and I’m sorry I’ve yet to see it. Dirty Sally is a fabulous character. A dirty, old, toothless woman that uses chewing tobacco and tells everyone what she thinks and saves Dack Rambo and pals around with drunk Jack Albertson in various episodes. It’s an incredibly fun character and Jeanette Nolan owns it with every fiber of her being. She made herself look toothless and about twenty years older than she actually was. Fantastic.

But a good character actress, and Jeanette Nolan is a good character actress, cannot be contained. So along with all of the Westerns, she also did a lot of police/detective shows including: Dragnet (1958), Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Hawaiian Eye, Hawaii Five-0 (a nifty episode that I like a lot), Ironside, the Longstreet pilot (how I miss TV movie night on Me-TV), Mannix, The Streets of San Francisco, Police Woman, Columbo, Charlie’s Angels, Hart to Hart, TJ Hooker, Matt Houston, Cagney and Lacey, and Hunter.

If you like medical shows, she did Ben Casey, Marcus Welby MD, Dr. Kildare, Medical Center, Trapper John MD, and Emergency! (her character in that episode is a woman spending her 80th birthday in the hospital; she would have been 61 when the episode aired).

Jeanette Nolan on Golden GirlsIf you prefer family friendly fare, she was on Lassie, My Three Sons, The Mothers-in-Law, and The Waltons. If your family is weird, you can find her on Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Twilight Zone, and Night Gallery. If your family is funny, she appeared on F-Troop, Night Court, and Golden Girls (playing Rose’s mother even though she was only 11 years older than Betty White).

And if none of that excites you, then perhaps knowing that she did both Love Boat and Fantasy Island will.

Because we all know that’s gold.

And so is Jeanette Nolan.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Virginia Gregg

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Guest stars are the underrated necessity to any TV show. Someone has to be a victim, be a villain, be a good guy, be a witness, be a friend, be a bystander, be a customer. In short, the main cast needs someone else to interact with on occasion just to keep things interesting.

I have a list of my favorite guest stars that I think are worthy of posts of their own. These are my people.

On any given day of the week, it’s entirely possible that I’ll see Virginia Gregg on one of my reruns. Sometimes it seems like she was on every show ever made for about thirty years. Sometimes it seems like I see her every day of the week.

Of course, this isn’t a bad thing.

It’s also not too far off from impossible.

When I played my Me-TV guest star game last fall, the only person that had more guest appearances on the shows of the fall line-up was Vitto Scotti. When I said Virginia Gregg was in everything, I’m not really exaggerating the truth by much.

Of the current Me-TV summer line-up, she’s in 72 episodes of 22 of the shows.

So, yeah, it’s not far-fetched to possibly see her every day in a given week on this one channel.

She was a favorite of Jack Webb’s so she was in Dragnet (both TV incarnations, two movies, AND the radio version), Emergency!, and Adam-12 (13, 8, and 6 episodes, respectively). With Westerns as popular as they were back in the day she did Gunsmoke (didn’t everyone?), Bonanza, Big Valley, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Wagon Train, The Rebel, Daniel Boone, and Rawhide. Detective shows? Try Streets of San Francisco, Mod Squad, Cannon, and The Rockford Files. She was on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Thriller, and The Twilight Zone. Perry Mason and The Fugitive. And lest you think she could only do drama, she was on episodes of Happy Days and Make Room for Daddy.

And those are just shows on ONE station.

You can witness her fabulousness on Mission: Impossible, Ironside, My Three Sons, Charlie’s Angels, Marcus Welby MD, Bold Ones: The Lawyers, Bold Ones: The New Doctors, The Virginian, Maverick, Alias Smith and Jones, and so many more (I just listed shows I watch).

Being on so many shows, she’s played a variety of characters. The easiest way to get a sample of her range is to watch her episodes of Dragnet ’67. She played a cynical journalist, a gypsy grifter, the wife of a wounded veteran police officer, a no-nonsense secretary, the head of a pyramid scheme, a robbed candy store employee, a widow attempting insurance fraud, a gambler’s wife, a business owner not impressed with crime prevention, and a woman trying to get two police officers in trouble, just to name more than a few.

My personal favorite of her appearances, though, was on an episode of Adam-12 in which she bashed her own car because she was mad at her husband for drinking all the time. She wailed on that thing. It was impressive. And fun.

And so is Miss Virginia Gregg.

Be sure to catch her. She’s on any given day of the week.

The Guest Star Game

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Star Cluster

I watch a lot of reruns, as you may know. Most of the time, my TV is tuned to Me-TV for my rerun junkie needs. Because I watch that station so much during the day, it’s not unusual for me to see the same guest star faces several times during the day. Some actors got around A LOT and some were kept very busy by television.

As such, I’ve developed my favorite guest stars, faces I’ve love to see pop up on my shows (but that’s another post). And since I’ve gotten so good at recognizing the faces that other people might not notice, it’s led me down the road to other thinky thoughts.

For example, one weekend I was bored off of my rocker and as I was watching my reruns I suddenly wondered who had been in the most shows that were on the current Me-TV fall line-up. My guess was Virginia Gregg because that woman was in EVERYTHING. It’s not uncommon for me to go a couple of weeks in a row and see her pop up somewhere at least once a day.

Then my thought went a little further. How many guest stars would it take to represent the current Me-TV fall line-up?  What’s the fewest number I could come up with?

And so the game was born.

I started off with the guest stars I thought I saw all of the time: Virginia Gregg, J. Pat O’Malley, Dabbs Greer, Kevin Hagen, Vitto Scotti, and went from there, adding and researching new names as I came across them. It turns out that Vitto Scotti was in more of the shows than Virginia Gregg, but the two of them combined covered most of the line-up. After that it was just filling in the blanks.

So far the game stands at 11 as my lowest. Eleven guest stars cover 65 shows.

Some shows are harder than others to find one of my familiar faces on and oddly, some of the shows were surprising in their difficulty.

But the game continues. I’m sure that if I pay attention and keep researching, I’ll be able to get that number down under ten. I’m just sure of it.

And when the schedule changes in the spring, like I”m sure it will, I’ll start the game all over again to account for the change.

Okay, yes, this is a pretty geeky timewaster, I admit that. It’s taking rerun junkie to a new limit.

I’m an overachiever.