TVSquad

Character: Widow Fortune
Show: The Dark Secret of Harvest Home
Episode: Mini-series

I recently watched R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About it with my children and I had an epiphany -- TV was a lot creepier when I was a kid. We didn't watch water-downed kiddie horror. We watched what the adults watched when they obviously didn't know we were watching.

My parents didn't allow me to see scary movies, such as The Amityville Horror or The Exorcist. Yet, somehow they didn't stop me from viewing all sorts of frightening TV, including the The Twilight Zone , Chiller Theater, Salem's Lot, Frankenstein: The True Story, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow, and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

However, it was The Dark Secret of Harvest Home that left the greatest impression on me -- thanks in a large part to Bette Davis in the role of the creepiest senior citizen ever. Davis played the sinister Widow Fortune so brilliantly that almost 30 years later, I still remember it vividly.

Welcome to TV Squad Lists, a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

Gung Ho
Before Scott Bakula became one of the hottest leading men in sci-fi, he starred in many terrible sitcoms. The worst of which was this TV version of the Michael Keaton film. Never mind that any conflict was completely resolved by the end of the big screen version, the scripts were not funny and Bakula isn't really known for his comedic timing.

Bob Patterson
One of the more famous flops in history, mainly because it starred Jason Alexander who had just ended his run on what TV Guide called "the best sitcom ever," Seinfeld. Imagine if George Costanza got his own show and then forgot how to be funny. That is Bob Patterson.

Tom Smothers' Organic Prime Time Space Ride
After The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was unfairly canceled, Tom & Dick Smothers were thought of as two of the funniest and most cutting-edge comedians of the day. So when Tom's new show was announced people expected the same bold humor they were given before. Sadly the wildest thing about this show is the title.

I miss Dick Cavett's talk show. In fact, I miss Dick Cavett's type of talk show on television. Charlie Rose comes close I guess, with the spare set and the serious devotion to subjects, but it's not the same. Luckily, Cavett is coming back to television (sort of), on Turner Classic Movies.

The movie network is going to run eight classic episodes of Dick Cavett's 70's show throughout the fall. The shows will run every Thursday night, as part of a theme night about a certain star or director. The first episode will air on September 7 and will include a brand new interview Cavett has with Mel Brooks. Later Thursdays will have classic interviews with people such as Katherine Hepburn, Groucho Marx, Robert Mitchum, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, and Bette Davis.

Wow, not only did this guy have a long career - he acted, wrote, and directed since the mid-1930s - he also romanced Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, and Francine York. Nice.

(Davis and Crawford? Those must have been some conversations...heh.)

Sherman directed many TV shows over the years, including The Waltons, Baretta, 77 Sunset Strip, Trapper John, M.D., Alias Smith and Jones, Medical Center, and Hagen. He also directed the films The Adventures of Don Juan, Mr. Skeffington, The Naked Earth, Bogie, and The Young Philadelphians.

He died of natural causes on Sunday.

You can relax--you're not the only one who finds Paris Hilton annoying as hell. Shirley Temple-Black and Shirley MacLaine have both come out lately slamming the pet-rotating heiress. First MacLaine stepped up to the mat when someone suggested she is an icon. "Oh, hell, they're calling Paris Hilton an icon", MacLaine shot back. "It doesn't mean a thing to me."

MacLaine went on to blast Hilton for having the audacity to call herself an "actress", pointing out it took seven years for screen legend Bette Davis to earn the cred to have her name above the title on the screen. Damn straight, Shirley.