A visit with Billy Gray
Billy Gray (Bud Anderson) invites the journalist Steve Unger to come over for a visit.
Trout fishing in America
Tucker Carlson is going away for a while. I hope he has a nice long trip.
Our tube
Familiar faces in new arrangements: one of the pleasures of television.
Real chyrons, imaginary crowd
From CNN.
Mystery actor
Who?
Domestic comedy
“Why doesn’t she just call him Rob?” “For the same reason Sally is the typist.”
Background of backgrounds
Obelisk? Check. Statuary? Check? Skulls? Rocket? Skeleton? Check, check, and check. Dr. William Haseltine has the background of backgrounds.
Ken Osmond (1943–2020)
AKA Eddie Haskell.
Fred Willard (1933–2020)
So much to admire, from Fernwood 2 Night to Christopher Guest films to Modern Family.
“Great”
In our house we stream the Criterion Channel, TCM, and YouTube instead. We care not for greatness.
Woodruff’s Morison
That book on Judy Woodruff’s right, the one with the blue-gray cover, its spine often partly hidden behind the NewsHour logo — I’ve been wondering what it is.
Jackie Wilson, twice
Jackie Wilson — Mr. Excitement — performed in five Shindig! episodes and closed two.
Recently updated
Perry Mason and John Keats: A reader writes to point out the “burrs” in Keats’s poem.
TV as radio
From Tight Spot (dir. Phil Karlson, 1955), spoken by prison inmate Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers): “Television should be so good that when you close your eyes it sounds like a radio.”
Pitching Ghostwriter
“Ghostwriter rewards the patient, the loyal, the attentive. If that means some fans will reach adulthood without ever learning who Max Mouse is, so be it.”
Jon Batiste FTW
As Sanjay Gupta came on stage on The Late Show tonight, Jon Batiste played a bit of Billy Strayhorn’s “U.M.M.G.”
Is there one in Hawkins?
Aldi Breakfast Best Homestyle Waffles are better than Eggo Homestyle Waffles. Is there an Aldi in Hawkins?
Recently updated
Orson Bean’s later-life swerve to the right, unmentioned in his New York Times obituary.
Orson Bean (1928–2020)
A regular presence on TV in my childhood. He later swerved very far right.
Donkey Hodie rides again
Coming to PBS, a new show inspired by Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Donkey Hodie, with Purple Panda, Duck Duck, Bob Dog, and Donkey Hodie, the granddaughter of the original Donkey Hodie, now known as Grampy Hodie.
TV academics
“Professor Laird, the cucumber sandwiches are running out. Would you like me to get some more?”
Mystery actor
This one would baffle me, so I’m guessing it’ll be easy for someone else.
Scribbles & Ink
For kids and those who think like kids: Scribbles & Ink, an online game (or drawing environment, I’d call it) to go with the PBS Kids series of the same name.
Hallmark rising
The New Yorker looks at the Hallmark Channel(s).
Lock her up
The judge sure looks like she’s wearing a straitjacket.
Wuthering Heights, tonight
it’s a version made for television, with Richard Burton and Rosemary Harris, lost and now found.
“Artistically appointed restrooms”
Dialogue from a 1965 episode of Hazel.
Walter Mercado (1932?–2019)
I’d describe Walter Mercado as something of a cross between Liberace and Fulton Sheen. Regalia and piercing eyes.
A World Book cameo
On MSNBC.
Marshall Efron (1938–2019)
His comedy was heady, subversive stuff for a bookish, skeptical high-school student. I still remember “Olives.”