Bob Elisberg informs me that the new video of Gypsy, which stars Imelda Staunton, has not run yet on PBS. It debuts there on November 11. I'll remind you when we're close to that date because it's really, really good. Also, rumor has it that there will soon be a limited engagement of that production in New York. It's reportedly awaiting Ms. Staunton's availability.
If you enjoy this blog, you should check out Bob's over at Elisberg Industries. If you don't enjoy this blog…well, maybe you'll like Bob's better.
Friday night through Saturday, Turner Classic Movies is running a whole mess of old horror movies from 1931 to 1961 including Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, The Blob, The Black Scorpion and Village of the Damned. Another batch runs on Monday.
Early Sunday morning, they're showing The World's Greatest Sinner, a 1965 never-released-to-theaters movie produced, written and directed by Timothy Carey. I wrote about it here and explained that the music was done by Frank Zappa, who called it "the worst movie ever made" and urged his fans not to seek out copies. I wasn't a fan of Zappa's so I tried to watch it and after about ten minutes, wished I'd taken his wise advice.
As you may know, NBC broadcasts a live revival of a classic musical every year in December. In 2013, they did The Sound of Music. In 2014, it was Peter Pan. In 2015, we got The Wiz. This year on December 7, they'll be bringing us Hairspray. And it's just been revealed that the 2017 offering will be Bye Bye Birdie with Jennifer Lopez in the role originated on Broadway by Chita Rivera. No word on who'll play Dick Van Dyke's role but I sure hope someone at least tries to get Nathan Lane for the Paul Lynde part.
This doesn't sound to me like the greatest choice. Bye Bye Birdie has a lot of great songs but the book is pretty uninteresting. When they made the 1963 movie, screenwriter Irving Brecher rewrote about 85% of it, changing Albert (the Van Dyke part) from an English Teacher to a failed songwriter who wanted to get into Chemistry. Ever since then, people who go to see live productions are disoriented to find a very different storyline…and not a better one. Harvey Fierstein is reportedly set to adapt the book for television. Good luck, Harvey.
Tonight, Antenna TV is running a Tonight Show on which Johnny Carson welcomes Bob Hope, Gore Vidal and Steve Landesberg. Tomorrow night, it's Richard Pryor, Tim Conway, Dr. Lendon Smith and The Mighty Carson Art Players.
Lendon Smith was a frequent guest on TV back then, promoting a number of medical theories and the books in which he advanced them. I think Carson had him on so often because Dr. Smith was billed as "The Baby Doctor" and Johnny liked to mention that, make a gesture to indicate someone a child's height and say, "He's a little baby doctor."
No mention was made of the fact that Smith was often criticized by other doctors and got in trouble with the Oregon State Board of Medical Examiners. He finally surrendered his medical license in 1987 in a plea bargain when he was charged with insurance fraud. But for a decade or two, talk shows made him something of a celebrity.
Next year, Antenna TV is adding a lot of new reruns including Becker, Murphy Brown, What's Happening? and Alice. The ones I'm most likely to watch are Good Morning, World and The Joey Bishop Show. The latter was the sitcom Joey did which I recall as being not very good the first season and pretty good for the rest of its four seasons. I'll let you know when to tune in.