Cheers-related stories
Posted Nov 12th 2009 3:04PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Web, Reality-Free
I know, I know, you're thinking, those are the only two choices I get,
Happy Days and
Gilligan's Island? Yes, according to this poll over at AOL Television. For the past several weeks they've
pit various TV show theme songs against each other in a tournament, and the two finalists, for some reason, are
Happy Days theme and the
Gilligan's Island theme.
Now, it seems like these aren't the "best" theme songs, just the ones that readers and TV fans thought were the most iconic, or maybe it's the fact that they both have lyrics and that's what readers were looking for?
Continue reading What's the best TV theme of all-time, Happy Days or Gilligan's Island?
Posted Nov 11th 2009 6:33PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries, Reality-Free
David Lloyd was one of those TV writers whose work spread across the history of television. He worked on shows ranging from
The Tonight Show in the 60s to
Frasier in the 90s and early 2000s.
Lloyd died last night after a long illness.
Lloyd had a part in many memorable TV shows over the years, as a writer and/or a producer, including
Cheers,
Wings,
Taxi,
Lou Grant,
Rhoda,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
The Bob Newhart Show,
Phyllis,
The Tony Randall Show,
Dear John,
The Dick Cavett Show,
The Associates,
The Best of the West, and many other shows.
Ken Levine has a great tribute to Lloyd on his site, including a discussion of how Lloyd was as a writer. It includes an example of Lloyd's script for the classic
Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "Chuckles Bites The Dust."
Posted Oct 14th 2009 4:30PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities, Reality-Free
All of the new ABC Wednesday night comedies --
The Middle,
Cougar Town, and
Modern Family -- have been
picked up for the entire season. Actually, one new sitcom is missing from that group.
Kelsey Grammer's
Hank isn't getting any love from viewers and it's not getting any love from critics. Ratings aren't that good and the critics don't like it. So Grammer is doing a bunch of interviews for tonight's episode, including
this one over at The TV Addict. He promises that tonight's episode is funny -- really! -- and we should all watch it.
Continue reading Kelsey Grammer says tonight's episode of Hank is funny
Posted Jun 21st 2009 10:22AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
Fathers' Day should be a time of deep reflection and appreciation for the man who brought you into this world, whether you asked him to or not.
Oh sure, the old man may seem like
the worst father of all time sometimes. He yells and screams. He gets on you for growing your hair too long because he knows he couldn't grow hair if he had a Chia Scalp. He constantly walks around the house in his underwear and then scolds you for not eating the sausage Mom made for breakfast.
But a few minor flaws doesn't mean that he's a bad guy. So go out and get him that witty card with the pipe smoking Dad on the cover, pick out a paisley tie that you'll never see him wear and give him a big hug to remind him
he's the best. Because he's your old man and he's not one of the seven bastard sons of hell below.
Continue reading Seven TV dads we're glad aren't ours
Posted Jun 9th 2009 2:04PM by Eliot Glazer
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Video, Children, Reality-Free
Zachary Johnson and Jeffrey Max are two effed up dudes.
Before they hit the "viralsphere" with
Lasagna Cat, the production team and creative geniuses behind
Fatal Farm created an incredibly twisted, brilliantly subversive, and unarguably hilarious series of "alternative intros" parodying the openings to classic sitcoms. No two intros follow the same theme or formula, except to say that they're all unequivocally... Messed. Up.
From blood and guts to go-carts and the hinting of pedophilia, each parody brings with it an innate ability to eviscerate any leftover nostalgia from the sight of, say, the
Happy Days jukebox or the beginning chords of the theme to
Cheers. (Believe us, you'll never think of Rhea Perlman the same way again.)
Strap in, sit back, and take an incredibly disturbing trip down Memory Lane, courtesy of your friendly tour guides at
Fatal Farm:
Continue reading Fatal Farm twists the opening credits [NSFW]
Posted May 4th 2009 5:16PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Programming
Mother's Day is Sunday, but we all have to realize that not every mom deserves a box of chocolates, a nice dinner, or a bouquet of flowers. AOL has their picks for
the worst TV moms of all time, and a lot of the usual suspects are on the list. I think we can all agree that Marie Barone on
Everybody Loves Raymond should be on the list. She clearly loves her kids, but...wow, how manipulative and pushy and meddling can a person get?
Evelyn Harper from
Two and a Half Men is on the list, too. She's such a bad mom that it's sometimes easy to forget that she's even Charlie and Alan's mother. She seems more like some older, sexy aunt or something.
Continue reading Bad moms, bad moms, whatcha gonna do?
Posted Apr 14th 2009 5:01PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Reality-Free
AOL has chosen the
best TV shows of the 1980s, and it's not a bad list. But I'm sure everyone reading this will have their own thoughts.
Sure, there are shows that were my favorites I'd like to see on the list, but those would be personal choices. The only problem I have is
where the shows place on the list. For example, is
Fraggle Rock really a better show than
Spenser: For Hire,
Miami Vice, and
Kate and Allie (even beyond the fact that it might be an odd show to compare to the other shows in the first place)? Is
Facts of Life better than
MacGyver?
Continue reading What are the best TV shows of the 1980s?
Posted Apr 7th 2009 3:01PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Web, Game Show, Reality-Free
There are a lot of TV show set designs that I love, but I've never really given any thought to how put them together exactly. I used to assume they just drew up plans and/or blueprints with the measurements and all that and then the set designers and the rest of the crew would build the sets. I never once thought they were done this way.
On The Set has pictures of the original dioramas (those little models you might have built for a class back in school, though I never did) made for various shows over the years. These things are great! Check out the
Price is Right set above. The site even has more dioramas from the show, from different angles.
Continue reading The most awesome thing you'll see on the web today: TV show dioramas!
Posted Mar 10th 2009 3:02PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Reality-Free
I guess everyone is getting laid off because of the economy.
Eddie Doyle, the famed Boston bartender who worked for 35 years at the bar that inspired the TV show
Cheers,
has been laid off. The bar used to be called The Bull & Finch but was changed to
Cheers after the NBC show went off the air in 1993.
I wonder, exactly, why he was laid off. Sure, it's a bad economy, but Doyle was a big draw for the place, very well-liked, and they're going to keep paying him until the end of the year anyway. Reading the comments at the link above, it looks like a lot of patrons won't be going back to the place. The bar is going to have a party for him in April.
Doyle was involved in many charities over the years. He says he's now going to work on his house and maybe even write a book about his experience at the bar.
Posted Feb 20th 2009 3:05PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: TV Squad Lists, Casting, Reality-Free
It's hard to see beloved characters leave your favorite shows. You have created a bond with them, perhaps even projected their values onto yourself in an effort to raise the self esteem you had before, say, you fell down the
Law & Order rabbit hole and started to believe the shows were actual news and not just "ripped from the headlines." But change is inevitable, and sometimes, it works out. Here are a few that worked (at least for me).
1. Current cast of Law & Order: I know, I know, who could replace Lenny Briscoe? No one, really. But the current pairing of Anthony Anderson and Jeremy Sisto as NYPD partners is the best the series has produced. They changed the feel of the show. Perhaps because we're still getting to know them, they are less predictable then previous tandems, and both evoke a certain hard-nosed quality that seems a bit more gritty and real. Plus, Anderson has chops as a stand-up comic, and could easily fill the wisecracker role, if need be.
Continue reading Seven of TV's best replacements
Posted Jan 26th 2009 6:05PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV on DVD, Reality-Free
Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.Wow ...
M.A.N.T.I.S.! Remember this show? It lasted for 23 episodes on FOX back in 1994-95. I had completely forgotten that it starred Carl Lumley from
Alias as the superhero. I didn't think it would ever come out on DVD (or maybe I should say I didn't really think of it at all in the past few years), and now here it is with a complete series set. By the way, the letters stand for Mechanically Automated NeuroTransmitter Interactive System.
As for
The Love Boat, I knew that was going to be out on DVD, but I'm not going to buy it.
- The All-New Superfriends Hour - Season 1, Vol. 2
- Blossom - Seasons 1 and 2
- Cheers - Season 11
- The Invaders - Season 2
- The Love Boat - Season 2, Vol. 1
- M.A.N.T.I.S. - Complete Series
- Meerkat Manor - Season 4
- The Pink Panther Show - Classic Cartoon Collection
- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? - Vol. 1
- SpongeBob SquarePants - Spongicus
- You're A Good Sport Charlie Brown - Remastered
Posted Dec 29th 2008 11:03AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, The Simpsons, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, The Dick Van Dyke Show
The TV neighbor has served many useful roles over the years; some that many thought had been lost by the unrelenting sands of time.
They've become the great modern philosopher like Wilson, the evolving thinker like Bill Dauterive, the bearer of bad news like Newman, and even the court jester -- as long as you don't count one of these guys.
Not only would we not want some of them living next door to us, we wouldn't want them living. Period. These are the annoying next-door neighbors who should have been run out by the Neighborhood Homeowners' Association with torches and pitchforks.
Continue reading Nine least-wanted TV neighbors - VIDEOS
Posted Nov 17th 2008 1:24PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Video, Reality-Free
I think this is probably the 50th or 60th post about
TV theme songs we've done here at TV Squad, either lists of our own or stories about other lists on the web. But it's one of the great all-time TV debates among fans so it's good to revisit the topic every few months.
Paste has the latest list, their
40 best TV theme songs of all-time. Oh, we could talk about this for hours (and we probably will), but there are four thoughts that come immediately to mind after reading all 40 choices:
Continue reading What's the best TV theme song of all time? - VIDEO
Posted Oct 23rd 2008 8:28PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Cancellations, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Has anyone else noticed the lack of hair trigger cancellations thus far this season? We're a good month or more in now and only
Opportunity Knocks and
Do Not Disturb have had the plug pulled. And believe me those needed to happen. By now, though, your high quality shows that have underperformed like
Pushing Daisies usually would be doing just that ... pushing up daisies. But, for some reason, not this year. At least not yet.
Hell, ratings-challenged shows like
Knight Rider and
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are even getting full season pick-ups. And that's FOX giving
Sarah Connor a chance to find an audience! FOX!! I think what we're seeing is the continuing fallout from the Writer's Strike last year. Remember when the execs were talking about how they were going to rethink their approach to television, ordering fewer pilots and possibly even altering the landscape of television in regards to seasons and sweeps? Well, the fall season started up pretty much like it always has, but I do believe there are far fewer shows waiting in the wings to replace this season's failures.
Continue reading Did TV execs get kinder and gentler this year?
Posted Sep 10th 2008 2:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Celebrities, Emmys, Reality-Free
One of the highlights of this year's primetime Emmys is going to be musical. That's right, I'm psychic. I've looked into the future and can tell you without equivocation that
Josh Groban singing a medley of TV themes from 60 years of programs will stop the show.
On September 21, the night ABC broadcasts the big anniversary of the
Primetime Emmys, producer Ken Ehrlich has tapped balladeer Groban for a four-minute medley of TV themes. The mind reels with the possibilities of how many memorable melodies he can fit into 240 seconds.
Some choices seem obvious:
Cheers (where everybody knows your name),
The Jeffersons (movin' on up to the big time),
The Beverly Hillbillies (black gold, Texas T),
The Flintstones (they're a modern stone-aged family).
Like I said, the possibilities are vast, and the promise of a something hilarious is sure fire.
Continue reading Emmys to feature Josh Groban's TV theme medley
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