Have Yourself a Jeanette Nolan Christmas

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

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 Books–The Electronic Mirror by Mitchell Hadley

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

As a listener of (and sometimes guest on) Eventually Supertrain, I’ve been introduced to several knowledgeable people. Dan Budnik does a fab job of finding guest hosts to discuss his short-lived TV shows. It’s an eclectic mix of voices, which I appreciate.

One of those voices is Mitchell Hadley of It’s About TV (absolutely check out his site; it’s super cool and informative). And when Mitchell said he wrote a book about TV, I knew I had to get it.

I actually acquired and read it a while ago, but I was a person who’d gotten lax with her blog then. That’s why I’m writing the book up now. I’m a new person.

Anyway.

The Electronic Mirror: What Classic TV Tells Us About Who We Were and Who We Are (and Everything In-Between!) is a collection of essays that gives the reader a cultural context of television. Organized by channels (which I love), the book covers topics such as the concept of classic television, the impact television has on us, communism, censorship, politics, violence, religion, and the various personalities who’ve made their marks.

Nothing occurs in a vacuum and television definitely didn’t. Mitchell provides so much context for a lot of the television that happened back in the day, stuff that people my age experienced in reruns. For example, there’s an essay called “Man on the Run” about The Fugitive and how ground breaking it was at time when the justice system and all of its components were seen as the ultimate authority. To say that it was fallible because an innocent man had been convicted of a horrible crime was kind of a big deal. This is a show that I used to watch in high school when I had insomnia. It’s a good show. I like it. But the context of it never really occurred to me until I read the essay. Yeah, it would kind of be a thing in 1963, wouldn’t it?

There’s a lot of history packed into these pages, which I appreciate. As someone who likes to learn things, I ended up acquiring a bunch of knowledge from the book. Some of the history is to provide context, but some of it is because television made history itself. Or was used to make history.

It’s fascinating to put all of those pieces together to create a much fuller picture of life not only at that time, but also how that picture informs the picture we’ve got going on today.

It’s an informative book and if you’re looking to go a little deeper into your TV knowledge, it’s definitely a read for you. Acquire it!

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 30

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

Season 3 of Book ’em, Danno and Hawaii Five-O chugs right along with two more episodes.

In “Force of Waves”, Steve is blown up, but survives, a show tradition. However, his companion isn’t so lucky and Danno takes the lead while Steve is supposed to be recuperating. This episode also features a shirtless John Vernon, if you ever needed that in your life.

In “The Reunion”, a businessman being terrorized by an unknown stalker coincides with a World War II veterans reunion in the worst way. What seems like a crime born of opportunity and mistaken identity turns out to be the greatest long game ever played.

Listen on Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Mild trigger warning for both episodes as each deals with mental illness and PTSD. While the former happens towards the end of the episode so I really don’t talk about it much, the latter deals with PTSD and the horrors of war heavily and I do discuss it quite a bit. Gird your loins accordingly.

In conclusion, John Vernon shirtless everybody.

Also, just a couple of pics of Steve’s outfits (which I forgot to include when I originally posted this…oops). Like I said, he was in all of his off-duty glory in this episode. The ascots!

steve in white

steven in green

The Addict’s Morality Tale

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

Cautionary tales and morality tales have evolved from stories and plays to television and movies. Makes sense. Go where the people are. And in theory, the tales themselves should also evolve to fit the current times. However, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes, they stagnate.

When it comes to depictions of drug use and addiction on TV, it can be argued that there has been progress. Addiction is recognized now as a complicated disorder rather than just a conscious bad choice. There are shows out there willing to depict the complexities of addiction now, and even some reruns that took to tackling the topic with the humanity and understanding it deserves.

However, that hasn’t always been -and isn’t always- the case. There’s still a certain stigma around addiction, a residue left behind by the old thinking of previous times, much of which was propagated by television back in the day.

A lot of these episodes were presented as cautionary tales. Drugs are bad and if you do drugs, bad things will happen to you. Over the years, these cautionary tales became morality tales, with only one possible redemption for the addict.

Death.

Obviously, overdose or some other death by drug-induced misadventure would be the ultimate bad thing that could happen. But it also became the only possible outcome to totally free a person struggling with addiction from that fight. Rehab is nice, but that whole relapse thing…not the nice neat ending one requires in 30 to 60 minutes of television.

For example, in the Season 3 Hawaii Five-O Episode “Trouble in Mind”, there’s some tainted heroin going around the islands and it’s believed that pianist Mike Martin is in the cross hairs. He’s been picked up for heroin before and did some time in rehab. However, it’s later revealed that Mike took the fall for his love, singer Eadie Jordan. She’s got the problem.

Eadie isn’t depicted like the typical addicts that you’d see on TV (and even on the show). She’s not some hippie looking for a high or some stupid kid who thinks drugs are fine and they’re immortal. It’s implied that it’s her job in show business that’s gotten her hooked and she functions quite well as an addict. Steve never suspected her being a heroin user until it was too late.

The depiction of Eadie’s addiction as something sinister. One lapse in judgment condemns an otherwise good person. And even though Mike is trying to help her quit, she still needs it just to keep the edge off of the withdrawal, which the episode doesn’t shy away from depicting.

But this is an addict’s morality tale and as much as we like Eadie, and as much as we want Steve to save the day, there’s only one way this ends.

Perhaps an even more tragic example is that of the story arc of Lt. Aiden Ford on Stargate: Atlantis. During the three-part Season 1 finale/Season 2 opener “The Siege”, Lt. Ford nearly dies while battling a Wraith. The Wraith attempts to feed on Ford just before they plunge into the icy ocean waters. The two of them are recovered in a dormant state with the Wraith still attached to Ford. Dr. Beckett is able to successfully separate them and save Ford, but unfortunately, Ford has received a massive dose of a Wraith enzyme that strengthens their victims so they don’t die too quickly during the feeding.

As a result, Ford becomes addicted to the enzyme. Similar to a person becoming addicted to pain killers after a horrific accident, Ford had no say in this suddenly being thrust upon him. This wasn’t a conscious choice. However, like an addict in denial, Ford is convinced that the enzyme is soldier’s little helper.

The result is him abandoning his friends and his life on Atlantis (and any life and family he might have on Earth). Obviously, the Atlantis crew go looking for him in an attempt to get him help, but in the end Ford escapes. He falls in with (or creates) a group of fellow enzyme addicts and their constant need of the enzyme leads them to riskier and riskier plots, endangering his old friends, which ultimately leads to his downfall, after a brief glimpse at redemption.

Given that this arc played out in the mid-2000’s, it would have been much more interesting to see Ford’s arc resolve in a different way, allowing him to come to terms with his addiction and get the help he needed. But I suppose, there’s fewer explosions in that.

As you may have noticed, the two examples I cited involve people of color portraying the addicts. I don’t think it’s necessarily a coincidence as race plays a part in the stigma of addiction and the portrayal of it. After all, the crack epidemic resulted in a lot of people going to prison and the opioid epidemic generated a lot of discussion about rehab and the nature of addiction. That wasn’t just because we learned something about addiction in the ensuing years.

However, being white doesn’t always save you from the inevitable fate of an addict in TV land. Just think of “Blue Boy” in “The LSD Story” episode of Dragnet.

I have no problem accurately portraying the struggles of addiction. Overdosing or relapsing after rehab is a very real danger. But death is not the only redemption available to an addict.

Our morality tales should reflect that.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 29

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

It’s a tale of two ransoms!

First, a priceless violin is inadvertently stolen in “The Guanerius Caper”. The missing instrument has major political implications, but it’s the thieves that are perhaps the most interesting aspect of the episode, especially since they never intended to steal the violin in the first place.

And then our beloved Kono gets taken in “The Ransom”. It’s a standard kidnapping case until the ransom drop goes all wrong and Kono ends up joining our missing boy. Kono is the hero, but man does he go through hell.

Listen on Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Fun connection with “The Ransom” (okay, fun for me): In the Season 1 NCIS: Hawai’i episode “The Tourist”, the NCIS team ends up going undercover looking for a woman in the same place that Five-O has staked out for the ransom drop: the dolphin show at Sea Life Park.

The NCIS team wasn’t sporting the undercover aloha shirts, though. Disappointing.

Let Steve show you how it’s done.

Rerun Junkie Confession–I Don’t Like Them Kids

/ Kiki Writes / 1 Comment

I’m not talking about the Brady kids, or the Drummonds, or Punky Brewster and her friends, or even Cousin Oliver. I don’t mind the children on their sitcoms where they’re meant to be. I’m talking about the kids that show up on my grown-up shows only to irritate the hell out of me because their spoiled antics and precocious nature are played for laughs or worse, for them to learn a life lesson that I’d rather not witness.

Now, I don’t hate all children that end up on my shows because not all of them are written to irritate me (and I don’t hate any of the actors whether they’re portraying a kid I like or not; I shouldn’t have to say that, but I am). Some of them I do quite like. Tran Quoc Jones in the Magnum PI Season 5 episode “Tran Quoc Jones” is a great example of a kid I like. He doesn’t dominate the screen time, he’s street savvy without being obnoxious, he’s sweet without it being saccharine or fake, and his story has an emotional depth that Roland Harrah III plays well.

Butch Patrick as Melvin in The Monkees Season 2 episode “The Christmas Show” is another example. The whole point of the show is to teach Melvin the meaning of Christmas and Melvin is basically an uptight forty-five year old executive in a 12 year old’s body. Melvin is dismissive, but does nothing to actively sabotage the guys working their Christmas magic. They’re just thwarted at every turn, which is why the humor works so well. And the pay off is a very sweet ending.

However, not all child characters are written with such care.

My least favorite child to show up on my grown-up shows are the spoiled, entitled children. Yes, they’re usually played for laughs because what’s not hilarious about watching our favorites attempt to placate such children except everything. Bonus points if the child is manipulative on top of it.

My best example of this is the Season 4 episode of Stargate: Atlantis, “Harmony”. John and Rodney are tasked with escorting a young princess (Jodelle Ferland, who is excellent in the role) to perform some sacred ritual that will make her queen. In addition to the princess being demanding and spoiled, as princesses tend to be written, she’s also awful towards Rodney, and then uses his rightful anger to play up to John. Yes, it makes for a funny punchline at the end, but the getting there is tiresome. We’re supposed to be amused by Rodney’s torment, but I spend the episode wanting something terrible to happen to a child.

My second least favorite child is a teenager. Perhaps that’s because it seems that all teenagers that pop up on my big people shows are written with their lack of fully formed brain in mind. They end up being rebellious, angsty, defiant, as well as spoiled, entitled, and all around unpleasant. Are teenagers this way in real life? Sure. But there are at least four who are not and they deserve representation.

Usually, these teenagers are there to learn a hard lesson. That’s why they’re so defiant and rebellious. Because they’re heading down the wrong path and it’s our favorites’ job to save them. Most of the time I don’t want them to be saved. I want life to chew them up and spit them out. You get what you pay for, junior.

Let’s go back to Magnum PI for this example. In the Season 6 episode “Summer School”, Robin Masters’s bratty nephew RJ (Tate Donovan, who plays it well) is sent to Robin’s Nest so Higgins can instill some discipline in the lad. After all, he keeps getting kicked out of school and getting into trouble. RJ is a prat from the word go and ends up impersonating Magnum on a case, creating all sorts of problems. And the best/worst part? He doesn’t learn shit from anything. He puts everyone in jeopardy and his parting shot is stealing one of Robin’s cars. Ha ha! What a scamp!

I’m not one to advocate violence against children, but that fictional boy could have ate shit and I would have been fine with it.

I admit that the writing of children and teenagers has gotten better in recent years. Writers have finally started to realize that the young people are actually nuanced little individuals with depths of personalities and emotions and experiences. However, I’ve still managed to run into a few lingering stereotypes.

Despite the improvements, though, I think my first reaction to seeing a child or a teenager in the guest credits is always going to be me wanting them to get off my TV lawn.

Rerun Junkie Show-Tales of the Gold Monkey

/ Kiki Writes / 2 Comments

As I like to say, the only men I fall in love with are either dead or fictional, and unfortunately Lt. “Mac” MacReynolds on Magnum PI ended up being both.

As the story goes, Jeff MacKay, who portrayed the recurring role of Mac, got a regular gig on a new Donald Bellasario show, Tales of the Gold Monkey, and so his character ended up being killed off at the beginning of the third season (much to the chagrin of me who has had a crush on Mac for years). When the new show was cancelled after one season, Jeff MacKay asked to come back and ended up returning to Magnum PI as Mac’s doppelganger, con artist Jim “Mac” Bonnick.

Obviously, I had to watch this one season show that caused Mac’s death and rebirth. And as luck would have it, my library carries this 1982 show. Which is wild when you consider that we don’t even have Magnum PI.

Anyway.

Before I even begin going into this show, I’m going to acknowledge it’s problematic nature upfront.

First of all, it’s a 1982 show set in 1938, apparently inspired by the 1939 movie Only Angels Have Wings. So there ends up being a lot of this show that did not age well. And while I believe in viewing these reruns in their appropriate context as well in current context, there’s some shit that’s just plain cringe-worthy.

Secondly, and more importantly, the lead in this show is portrayed by Stephen Collins, who admitted to “inappropriate sexual conduct with three female minors” in an interview he did with People magazine in December of 2014. So, yeah, knowing that the lead is a creeper definitely casts a shadow over the series, especially since he’s actually really good in the role and almost makes you forget that he’s a shitty person. Almost.

Now on to our feature presentation.

Tales of the Gold Monkey follows the exploits of former Flying Tiger Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins), his mechanic bestie Corky (Jeff MacKay), and his dog Jack (Leo the dog) as he makes a living flying his plane The Goose around the Marivella Islands from his home port of Boragora, which is under the jurisdiction of Bon Louie Chance (Roddy McDowell; Ron Moody in the pilot), who also owns and runs the Monkey Bar with the aid of his right-hand man Gushie (Les Jankey) where newcomer Sarah Stickney White (Caitlin O’Heaney) finds a job as a singer. However, only Jake knows that she’s also a spy. Princess Koji (Marta DuBois) rules a nearby island and has something of a fascination with Jake, much to the annoyance of her bodyguard Todo (John Fujioka). The princess and Todo are the only ones who know that the Reverend Willie Tenboom actually isn’t a Dutch man of God, but is really a Nazi soldier in disguise.

And if that sounds like a lot, you should watch the pilot. I said “WTF” at least 12 times starting with the killer monkeys. They aren’t bad WTFs, just genuine ones. I admit that it took several episodes for me to actually get the hang of this show and even then it still found ways to trip me up.

For example, in the episode “Shanghaied”, while Jake is delusional with fever from malaria, Corky gets kidnapped by Guy Stockwell the good ol’ fashioned way that captains acquired crew for their boats -got them loaded and they woke up at sea. So you think, “Ah yes. A sea romp in which Corky is captive and Jake eventually saves him”, which is accurate. Except there’s also a hard left into slavery that’s not exactly anticipated. Guy Stockwell’s slightly-campy captain veers directly into vile with no warning and it’s a bit jarring. Also the depiction of indigenous people in this series isn’t the greatest, so that really brings the ep down from “Oh, this is fun” to “Okay, WTF, I didn’t agree to any of this.”

There are other episodes that balance the tone between serious and fun better. And some that don’t, but end up on the sillier side rather than the uncomfortable side. “Trunk From the Past” tries to give Sarah a tragic backstory with a murdered archaeologist father and a fiance that she never mentioned to anyone, but the visions, mummy, and pyramid in the middle of the jungle send it a little bit over into ridiculous and caps it with a brutal end for someone in the guest cast. It’s not bad, just not hitting the notes it was going for.

Some episodes just go for the serious. “Last Chance Louie” has Bon Louie Chance going to the guillotine for murder and the whole story is rather tragic and heartbreaking (spoiler alert: he keeps his head). Speaking of tugging at the emotions, the fight between Jake and Corky which results in Corky trying to leave Boragora in “Cooked Goose” is incredibly upsetting. The scene between Jake and Corky involving the baseball just hurts.

“Naka Jima Kill” is a straight fun episode that has Jake looking for an assassin while Sarah and her bestie from college who’s now a famous journalist end up getting into a bit of a battle of egos as Sarah can’t reveal to her that she’s a spy and her friend thinks that she’s being generous by letting her tag along to find this Japanese defense minister to interview. It’s a little bit serious, but it’s mostly just fun.

It’s also remarkably like the season 2 Magnum PI episode “The Jororo Kill”. Both feature an assassin that dons women’s clothing, a journalist that’s an old friend, and a plot to murder a high ranking official from another country. And they both also feature Jeff MacKay.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Donald Bellasario ended up utilizing bits of one of his other shows for this one. The plot of “High Stakes Lady” was first used for the season 2 Magnum PI episode “Texas Lightning”. Jeff MacKay wasn’t in that one.

It’s not just plots. Aside from Jeff MacKay (Mac/Jim Bonnick), Marta DuBois (Michelle Hue), John Calvin (3 episodes as various characters), John Fujioka (Nishimoto in “The Taking of Dick McWilliams”), several of the guest stars on Tales of the Gold Monkey showed up on Magnum PI including: Guy Stockwell (in the same ep as John Fujioka), William Lucking, Lance LeGault, Anne Lockhart, Richard Narita, Soon-Tek Oh, Sondra Currie, Henry Darrow, Shelley Smith, John DiSanti, Ray Dotrice, Pamela Susan Shoop, W.K. Stratton, Branscombe Richmond, John McLiam, Kathryn Leigh Scott, and John Hillerman. Yes, Higgins himself showed up in the pilot being a Nazi and wearing a monocle. It was weird.

Other guest stars include: Ken Foree, Nicholas Pryor, James Avery, Reid Shelton, James T. Callahan, Kim Cattrall, Alex Colon, Faye Grant, Michael Ensign, Alexa Hamilton, James Hampton, Charles Napier, Nia Peeples, Sandy Ward, Charles Macaulay, Curt Lowens, and John Reilly.

Of everything questionable about this show, it does manage to pull off one spectacular trick: you end up liking a Nazi.

As I said, only Princess Koji and Todo know that Reverend Tenboom is really a Nazi spy. And Todo seems to delight in torturing him, which I find amusing. But our heroes -Jake, Sarah, Corky, Louie- don’t know that. I can’t imagine it would go over well if they did. Instead, they think of him as a reverend and a good guy. The fact that his “blessing” of the female congregation is just a euphemism seems to miss them (another example of how poorly indigenous folks were portrayed -they were so “uneducated” the women didn’t know the difference between sex and religious practice). As a result of Willie’s disguise -despite his skeeviness- the audience sometimes is lulled into forgetting that the dude is a Nazi. Especially when he does things like helps them look for Sarah when she’s kidnapped or takes care of Corky when he’s banging his head on a pole because he can’t remember something or fights a pimp taking advantage of the young indigenous girls (even though that’s what he does -I guess prostitution is the line in the sand he doesn’t cross). He’s just bizarrely likeable even though he’s a literal Nazi. It makes me wonder how that would have played out had the show lasted several seasons.

If the show had lasted, then I think it would have emerged that Jack was the real star of the show. A dog with an eye patch because Jake gambled away his false eye, an opal with a sapphire star in the middle, and who would bark once for no and twice for yes. Many of the times I laughed out loud were because of that dog. He was brilliant.

As questionable and sometimes cringe-worthy as this show can be, and despite my initial reservations early in the series, I do enjoy it for the most part. Not everyone is going to be able to get past some of the more problematic elements of the series (in particular Stephen Collins) and that’s fine. But it is entertaining overall. For a show set in 1938, it still manages to hit some ’80s tropes, including one of Jake’s old girlfriends coming back as a nun (I do not know why that was a thing) and Jake falling for a single mother, but they just weren’t meant to be. And of course, he’s romancing the leading lady throughout. But there’s also some really on point 1938 elements, such as the fashion and the music, that makes it feel more like an old school adventure.

Also, the pilot is basically one long brass monkey joke. Can’t get better than that.

corky and jack

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Joyce Jameson

/ Kiki Writes / 2 Comments

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.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 28

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

“The Second Shot” is an interesting political assassination plot episode that features an incredibly intense plan. It also pulls from the current events of the time as the focus of the plot is a leader of the opposition party in Greece, which at the time had undergone a right-wing coup.

And we are in flashback city when it comes to “Time and Memories” because for Steve there are a lot of memories with his ex, Cathy. There are several people who had motive to kill her husband, but she’s the one with the weakest alibi. Come and watch be Steve conflicted.

Or at least listen to me talk about it.

Soundcloud iTunes Spotify Stitcher

And as a parting gift, I give you Eric Braeden’s shirtless anatomy lesson. Because that really does require a visual.

eric braeden second shot

Rerun Junkie Books –From Beverly Hills to Hooterville by Daniel R. Budnik

/ Kiki Writes / 1 Comment

Welcome to the Henningverse!

In 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies premiered. Created by Paul Henning, the sitcom quickly became a hit much to the consternation of the critics who hated it. It’s success permitted Henning to create another show the next year, Petticoat Junction. In 1965, along came Green Acres, which was produced by Henning but created by Jay Sommers, who’d worked on Petticoat Junction and was tapped by Henning for the third show as he was busy with the previous two. The three shows lasted until the Rural Purge in the early ’70s.

From Beverly Hills to Hooterville: Exploring TV’s Henningverse 1962-1971 is an excellent companion guide for all three series. Covering a combined 666 episodes of all three shows, each episode comes with a synopsis, review, and technical details such as writer, director, and an air date, as well as Nielsen ratings for each season and time slots for each show. The episode reviews are arranged in a layered sort of way that gives you an idea of how the Henningverse was operating during any given season.

Dan provides context for the origins of the Henningverse, the popularity of Westerns at the time, and the intense dislike of the critics. He wraps up the book with talk of the Rural Purge, mentions of the various reunions, and his final thoughts on each series. There are also interesting notes and factoids scattered throughout.

It’s a hefty tome -over 700 pages. But considering that it contains words on every episode of three series, it’s not an unreasonable length when you think about it.

If you’re a fan of Dan’s podcasts (and you should be), this book is very much in his voice. His humor is present and his observations are keen as always.

Am I biased because Dan is a friend? Maybe. But I am familiar with Dan’s quality content, including his book ’80s Action Movies on the Cheap, and I feel like he’s written yet another book that’s a must-have, in this case for retro television fans.

It’s available in paperback and for Kindle over at Amazon. Bulk up your bookshelf.