TVSquad

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Evelyn Keyes: Although she was best known for her movie work, including The Seven Year Itch, Gone with the Wind, The Jolson Story, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan, she also guest starred on many TV shows, including The Love Boat, several episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Amazing Stories, and Climax! She was once married to jazz legend Artie Shaw and directors John Huston and Charles Vidor. She died in Montecito, CA at age 91.

I've been thinking. Yeah, I know you might find that hard to believe, but it's true. I swear it is! What I've been thinking about is television. Ah, now you believe my thought processes are truly in motion. A lifetime of television watching is behind me and what do I have to show for my hours of dedication?

Well, other than the cool TV Squad gig, that is. That goes without saying.

What I have are life lessons learned from television, as well as some obscure bits of knowledge I may have overlooked had I led the scholarly life without television in my life.

My wife gave birth to our first son three months ago, so names have been on my mind recently. A name says a lot about a person: strong names help kids to grow up to be television news personalities or American Ninjas (Wolf Blitzer and Joe Armstrong, respectively). Weak names, on the other hand, lead to name calling in grade school and sad lives of quiet desperation in adulthood.

Television has given us a large catalog of super-cool names to choose from. Since TV is all about wish fulfillment, it's rare for a character to be given a truly terrible name. Sometimes, though, a terrible name slips through the network sieve and luckily for all of us, TV Squad is there to catch it. The five worst names in the history of television after the jump...

• At 8, FOX has a new Cops.
• CBS has college football at 8, Florida State vs. LSU.
• ABC has college football too, Ohio State vs. Purdue
• TV Land has a Leave It To Beaver marathon starting at 8, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary, starting with the rarely seen pilot with Harry Shearer.
• Nick has a new TV movie at 8, The Naked Brothers Band: Battle of the Bands.
• Also at 8: TCM has the original version of The Producers.
• At 9, FOX has a new America's Most Wanted.
• Cartoon Network has a new Naruto at 9, then new episodes of Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo and One Piece.
• At 10, TLC has a new Trading Spaces.
• At 11:30, NBC has a new Saturday Night Live, with guests Seth Rogan and Spoon.
• At midnight, FOX has a new Talk Show with Spike Feresten, with guest Louis C.K.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the classic sitcom Leave it to Beaver, and while many of the show's original stars have left us (Hugh Beaumont, Stanley Fafara, Sue Randall, Richard Deacon), much of the main cast is still going strong, and five of them - Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond, and Frank Bank - appeared on Good Morning, America this morning to celebrate the day.

They've all kept busy over the years. Mathers appeared on stage in Hairspray this year and has appeared in several TV shows and wrote a book. Dow has directed many TV shows and movies over the years and is also an artist. Billingsley is an incredibly active 92 and even recreated her famous Airplane jive talk on GMA. Osmond became a cop - and was shot three times in the line of duty - and is now retired, and Bank (Lumpy Rutherford) is a financial expert who handles Mathers and Dow.

"Aw, cut it out Eddie, will ya?"

Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on 'Leave It To Beaver' but did not become a porn star after the show ended (that's an urban myth - he actually became a cop) is suing the Screen Actors Guild. He says that SAG has collected more than $8 million from foreign residuals but has not shared that money with SAG members and non-members. Osmond's attorney has also filed suits against the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild over the past few years. It could be a class-action suit if others join in. Osmond says that SAG will not show him their books.

"And Jerry Mathers as ... The Beaver."

Let's begin this week's column with another letter from a reader in need.

Howard Kotarski writes ...

"Hi, I am a transplanted NYer who now lives in Tx. I moved in 79, and was a NYPD officer until the layoffs, What I would like to know is what Fire House, and where is it located that Rescue Me is filmed at. It all looks real, or is it a closed Station used for Movies and TV. Also could you advise me the same for the old 3rd watch TV series, for both the PD and FD that were across the street from each othe. I presently am a Deputy Sheriff in Ft. Worth Tx, and still in love with NY. Thank you, Howard K"

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), 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.

A couple of other bloggers have made lists concerning movies that have been made into TV shows and vice versa. There's The Top 10 Movies Based on TV Shows, The Top 5 Shows That are Better than the Movie, Four Small Screen to Big Screen Flops and AOL's own list. Here is my effort. Enjoy.

1. The Avengers: I tried to sit through this move twice and couldn't do it either time. If anyone can explain the plot to me, they can have my job. This movie is the exact opposite of the TV show. Boring, unoriginal, ignorant and unpleasant to watch.

2. Lost in Space: After the cameos by the surviving original cast members, stop watching. Since when is Dr. smith a psycho? I know Heather Graham is hot, but why is Don West more interested in getting laid than getting home? And what is up with the stupid CGI alien? I'd rather see a monkey with Spock ears.

Barney Fife, Herman Munster, James T. Kirk...and President Bill Clinton?

Yup, the former President is going to be the keynote speaker at TV Land's March 23 event to announce their lineup and programming future. It's the ultimate Baby Boomer talking about the ultimate Baby Boomer network. To quote TV Land spokesman Paul Ward, about the speech: "You better believe it's going to be about the economic and cultural and social influence of Baby Boomers (I don't know why I keep capitalizing "Baby Boomers" but it just looks right).

The event is being held to announce new shows that TV Land is going to air this year. It will be held at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

[via TV Tattle]

I know, you might be thinking, who is Stephen Talbot and why should I care what he thinks of the TV news biz? Well, Talbot is a producer and writer for PBS' Frontline (his new episode, News War, debuted earlier this week), but that's not why I'm posting this. I'll explain that after the jump. In the meantime, go read the chat he has at The Washington Post's site and look at his picture closely. Where have you seen him before?

Talbot has a lot of interesting things to say about the news industry. He likes local news, but doesn't like it when they focus on just local stories, fears that people will just wake up one day and wonder why the only news they get is stuff about Anna Nicole and Britney, and he explains why Connie Chung gave up her great reporting career to do...well, whatever the hell she's doing now.

Oh, where have you seen him before?

So I was watching an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show this weekend. What does this have to do with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Firefly mastermind Joss Whedon? Read on.

The episode I was watching was "Scratch My Car and Die," the one where Rob buys a new sports car and Laura accidentally scratches it while shopping. Watching the credits (I often watch the credits to see who was in an episode and then I run to the comptuer to check the IMdB to see what else they've done, if they're still alive, etc) I noticed that it was written by someone named John Whedon. Now, Whedon isn't the most common name, and he did work in television, so I checked and...yup, it's Joss Whedon's grandfather! He wrote another episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show and also wrote episodes of Leave It To Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, The Wonderful World of Disney, and several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (though it's hard to figure out how many exactly with the IMdB's odd credits system).

Whedon died in 1991.

There hasn't been much talk about NBC's broadband video site DotComedy, and I've only poked around it a little bit myself, but before the end of this year, NBC plans to kick the site into high gear with clips of old shows, including Late Night with David Letterman, Coach and Dream On, and classic TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and The Munsters.

In an effort to woo viewers, the site will take on an aesthetic more akin to Comedy Central's Motherload site and feature both original and viewer-submitted content. The original series include "Hot Tub in Space," about a group of friends, in a hot tub, in space; "Untitled Comedy News Show," a parody of news programs that will actually pay viewers for jokes; "Easter Bunny Begins," a prequel to "The Easter Bunny Hates You" (video after the jump); "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: Live In Las Vegas;" and "Kyle's in a Coma," about a guy named Kyle, who, funny enough, is in a coma.

The improved DotComedy will also feature clips from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live. What, they can show classic Letterman, but not Carson?

[via Market My Monkey]