TVSquad

It looks like Sherwood Schwartz is having his other major television brainchild made into a movie (because The Brady Bunch and its sequels weren't enough). Even more interesting, his Gilligan of choice is Michael Cera, the same guy holding up the Arrested Development movie.

Would this movie work in this day and age? Maybe. It's a very silly premise and could work as a humorous take on Lost (or perhaps more accurately Lost is a serious take on Gilligan's Island). Of course, the planning is in the early stages so a myriad of things could happen to frick this entire idea up completely.

I can see Hollywood trying to make the cast multi-ethnic to give it a more modern sensibility. Will it have an African-American Jonas Grumby (that's the Skipper for all you lacking in Gilligan's Island trivia knowledge)? An Asian Mary Ann? A gay Professor (I only say this given his historic lack of pursuit of Mary Ann or Ginger)? The mind boggles. What do you think?

You mean Bea Arthur wasn't already in the TV Academy Hall of Fame before today? Well, actually, that was Bea's choice. In a very Maude-like way, she had turned them down. "I said, `So sorry, very nice of you, but I can't possibly accept. There are so many talented people in the business,'" Arthur recalled.

However, she's had a chance to think it over and when asked again, she agreed to become a Hall of Famer, just like Lucille Ball, Johnny Carson and Bill Cosby.

As I wrote previously, the TV Academy Hall of Fame will expand to include Bea Arthur, Merv Griffin, Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch), and ABC executives Thomas Murphy and Daniel B. Burke. On December 9 in Beverly Hills, the awards will be presented.

If you've read any of the 200 books written about The Brady Bunch or seen any of the TV movies or "behind the scenes" exposes, you know that Robert Reed wasn't a big fan of the show's scripts. In fact, he had battles with the producers on the show many times and even refused to be in a couple of episodes because of the plot and/or his arguments with the people in charge of the show.

And it wasn't just verbal arguments. Reed actually took the time to send memos to the producers explaining why a certain plot point/line/scene didn't make sense. Reed was a veteran TV (The Defenders) and stage actor and often referred to Shakespeare in his memos. This site has one of the memos, and after the jump is the full text of the memo (it's about the classic episode where Greg's hair turns green because of some shampoo Bobby sold him).