Blog Post Diahann Carroll Advocates Socially Responsible Television She played the title character in the ground-breaking show Julia , portrayed the fabulous "Dominique Deveraux" on Dynasty , and more recently graced the small screen as "June Ellington" on White Collar . And today she celebrates her 80th birthday! Diahann Carroll has entertained television...
Blog Post MATTERS OF LIFE AND BETH: A DIRECTOR’S TAKE ON POP CULTURE Remember how Forrest Gump seemed to be there for every significant Baby Boomer pop culture moment? If Generation-X has a Forrest Gump, it's director Beth McCarthy-Miller . She started out as an intern at MTV, worked her way up to director of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock , and along the way has...
Blog Post A Starsky Is Born To star on a hit television show in the ‘70s meant attaining a level of fame that is difficult to fathom in these days of 300 cable channels and fragmented audiences. Over 15 million people tuned in each week to watch Paul Michael Glaser as "Dave Starsky" on Starsky and Hutch at the show's peak in...
Blog Post How WWII Led The Late Dick Smith To A Career In Makeup Dick Smith was one of THE biggest forces in screen makeup. He established the very first TV makeup department at NBC in the 1940s, and pioneered many of the techniques and materials that enabled all future television makeup departments to thrive. He won Emmys and Oscars, and worked on TV shows...
Blog Post Remembering John J. Lloyd We're sad to hear of the passing of Production Designer John J. Lloyd , who died recently at the age of 92. Lloyd served as the designer on 137 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents , designed for The Munsters (he developed the rising stairs seen in the original intro to the show), and established...
Blog Post Why We Love An Underdog: Stephen J. Cannell Stephen J. Cannell : writer, show creator ( The Rockford Files , The A-Team , 21 Jump Street , The Greatest American Hero ), and dyslexic. School was always rough for him, but that didn't stop him from a career as a scribe: And as for how his dyslexia affected his writing: "I always kind of viewed...
Blog Post The Story Behind "The Carol Burnett Show's" Most Famous Blooper It's one of THE best bloopers of all time. It involves a "Mama" sketch, Tim Conway , and one of the best zingers ever. We'll let Vicki Lawrence tell the rest of the story. Here's the sketch itself. Prepare yourself. It doesn't get much better than that.
Blog Post Feel Good Friday: Why TV Matters The Cosby Show was a hit in the 1980s. It was well-written and acted, socially conscious and entertaining, and made an awful lot of people want to be part of the Huxtable clan. Mrs. Huxtable herself, Phylicia Rashad , shared another reason the program was important - something she learned directly...
Blog Post Food For Thought Knowledge can be fun. Just ask TV chef/host Alton Brown , whose program Good Eats was part cooking show, part chemistry lesson, and part sketch comedy. More fun from the guy who called his show a mix of "Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python" here .
Blog Post The Seinfeld Chronicles: No Elaine, No Gain So Jerry Seinfeld's manager George Shapiro has some talks with NBC. Then Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David chat about what they'd do if they had a TV show. Yadda yadda yadda, you get Seinfeld . Well, here's the yadda explained: how 25 years ago, the relatively unsuccessful pilot "The Seinfeld...
