TVSquad

There should be a moratorium on remakes. They rarely work, and in some cases, they are just ill-conceived from step one. That's how I feel about this news: they're remaking Ben-Hur as a television mini-series. I'm not saying this because actor Charlton Heston has just died and this was his movie and, therefore, it should be sacrosanct. No, not at all. If someone has the urge to remake almost any other Heston film -- Soylent Green, Diamond Head, The Pigeon That Took Rome -- go for it. But leave Ben-Hur alone. You'd think the disastrous remake of The Ten Commandments on ABC last year would have been a lesson. I guess not.

He was Moses, Michaelangelo, Ben-Hur and a dozen other famous historical figures on the big screen, and on television he was as famous appearing as Charlton Heston the movie star he was for the TV roles he played, but he was born John Charles Carter on October 4th 1924 in Evanston, Illinois. Today, "Chuck" Heston is dead. He was 84 years old; he had Alzheimer's disease.

Do you like television? Yes, you do, otherwise you wouldn't be on a television blog reading about TV. I'm sure some a few farsighted readers think they're on eBay right now and are trying to figure out how to place a bid, but for the most part, you're here because you love TV as much as we do.

As lovers of TV entertainment, we owe a big thanks to Sid Caesar, who created Your Show of Shows, a comedy variety series that aired in the early 1950s and boasted some of the best comedy writers in the business: Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Lucille Kallen, Mel Tolkin and Larry Gelbart. The series starred Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howie Morris.

U.S. News and World Report, which is right up there with Page Six as far as entertainment rumors are concerned, has an item in their "Washington Whispers" column this week that says Tom Selleck's name is being bandied about as Charlton Heston's successor as president of the NRA. Heston's been president for five terms, but will no longer be able to do the job due to the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

The reason why Selleck's name has come up is because he has been a member on-and-off for years and he currently is on the gun lobby association's board. But he may not make the cut because his "leading man" status will keep him from devoting the time needed to stump for the organization. I was going to say something snide here, but looking at Tom's IMDb profile, it looks like he's still the lead in a lot of projects (last year's Eisenhower biopic and the Jesse Stone TV movies being two examples). I'd like to see him take the job just so he can go on The View and mix it up with Rosie again. Not sure who would win in that fight.

[via The Huffington Post]