Category: US
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Shaping Up
Just watch these opening titles, and see if you do a double take, like I did, at the tonal shift once the actors’ credits begin to appear. Shaping Up was an ABC sitcom, which aired in 1984, and had quite the pedigree. It was created by Emmy-award winners Sam Simon and Ken Estin, who wrote…
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Bruce Forsyth’s Hot Streak
There are some incongruous things to be found in the annals of TV history. Like the time when Rod Hull sat down next to Richard Pryor on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, or when Bruce Forsyth appeared on Magnum P.I. Wait, what? (Many thanks to the Cheapshow podcast for the heads up) This marked…
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Days Like These
Days Like These was an ITV remake of That 70’s Show, which was created by Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner, Mark Brazill Caryn Mandabach, and Linda Wallem, and adapted for British screens by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. It was another in a longish line of remakes following on from the success of The Upper Hand,…
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The Fifth Seinfeld
This isn’t quite the fun of the fifth housemate in The Young Ones, or the mystery of the dog bowl in Bottom, but after Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer, the character who appears most in Seinfeld is Ruthie Cohen. She appears in 101 of 180 episodes, and has a speaking role in three (The Gum,…
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It Was A Back Tooth, Hank
Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been staving off illness. So let’s start the week as we mean to go on, with a couple of quick clippings about The Larry Sanders Show. First, this review, which makes the helpful argument that Terry Wogan isn’t like this, and hits all the obvious other beats…
