When I put together the list of the top 10 TV couples for my Valentine’s Day post, I had to leave someone out. And one of the last couples to be cut was Darrin and Samantha Stephens from Bewitched. Samantha was so in love, after all, that she didn’t even notice when Darrin was abducted by aliens and replaced by an entirely different person!
But anyway, I feel bad about leaving them out, so today’s Minisode Monday feature is Bewitched. This one features Dick York (the first Darren), as he tries to deal with the latest witchcraft-caused disaster to befall his family. Hilarity ensues, as always.
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, so this week’s Hulu Hump Day features Hearts Afire. (Get it? Hearts Afire?) It features a lot of people your kids should be aware of, mostly because they’re famous for other roles. John Ritter was better as Jack Tripper on Three’s Company. Markie Post was better as Christine Sullivan on Night Court. Billy Bob Thornton was better as Karl Childers on Sling Blade. But they were still very good here, and when you put them all together, and you have one of the best TV comedies of the ’90s.
One of the most hilarious complaints of entertainment moguls is that the Internet makes it possible for anyone — no matter how talentless — to clutter up our lives with bad art.
And maybe they’re right. If only we could go back to that Pristine Time of Yore, when benevolent gatekeepers stood guard over our attention to make sure we only saw quality entertainment programming. Programming like the 1994 hit Muddling Through.
“Pistol-packin’ Connie Drego had just been paroled from prison, where she had served three years for shooting her cheating husband, Sonny, in the butt, in this raucous comedy. She had returned home to go back to work at Drego’s Oasis, the family’s truck-stop diner/motel in rural Michigan.” –The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows
Ha ha! You’re laughing already, aren’t you? And perhaps you’re wondering what makes this show Minisode Monday-worthy.
Two words: Jennifer Aniston. Before she was a waitress at Central Perk, Jennifer Aniston was a waitress at Drego’s Oasis: the daughter of an ex-con, and the young wife of the ignorant cop who had put her mother away. It’s worth watching to see just how good Aniston is — that even in this mess of a show, she managed to convey that something that made her a star.
With last night’s Lost season premiere, time travel is all the rage in pop culture. But what do you get when you combine time travel with history and humor? Why, Peabody and Sherman, of course! They are intrepid time-travelers whom every child should know.
This week’s Hulu Hump Day video takes us back to the era of Don Juan. And to a time on television when an entire 5-minute segment could be nothing but an elaborate build-up for one of Peabody’s horrible puns. Watch and enjoy.
Minisodes are a great way to make kids more pop literate, in the time it would take them to find a clean pair of socks on their bedroom floor. The Minisode Network takes classic TV shows and distills them down to about 5 minutes. And that’s not as easy as it sounds, because the opening credits of some shows were like 3 1/2 minutes long.
For my first Minisode Monday, I’m offering an episode of Green Acres. If your children know only one ditzy Hungarian blonde, it should be Eva Gabor. Zsa Zsa got the men, but Eva got the comedic chops.
Incidentally, the little boy in the alien outfit is Buddy Foster, who you may recognize from such other roles as Mike Jones (The Andy Griffith Show), Wolf Boy (The Six Million Dollar Man), and Boy in Car (Foxes). Oh, and he’s also the brother of Jodie Foster, someone your kids might actually recognize.
Welcome to Hulu Homework, wherein I pick a classic clip and give you, my dear readers, an assignment. Today’s clip comes from Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of the great TV dramas of all-time. And it features two actors, each of whom starred later in TV shows with their character name in the title. One of them may even be known to your children from a recent run on a reality series.
Your assignment:
1. Identify the actors.
2. Name the shows in which their character name appeared in the title.
3. Name the reality show on which one recently appeared.
Leave your answers in the comments. And no peeking. And if you want to watch the whole episode, you can do it here.
