Reviews

This much-hyped Saturday show (airing usually around the noon hour) was created by Bruce and Carole Hart who helped assemble Sesame Street, and was intended as a kind of SNL+American Bandstand+Phil Donahue for the 10-to-13-year-old set. If good intentions were the only important criteria, Hot Hero Sandwich would have been the greatest children's show ever.

But the show never really clicked (a TV Guide post-mortem was headlined, HOT HERO SANDWICH: THE AUDIENCE DIDN'T BITE). Simply put, the show's producers fatally underestimated the savviness of its audience. With Sesame Street, a three-year-old might easily confuse an alphabet cartoon for a TV commercial or pop song. A 12-year-old Hot Hero viewer, on the other hand, had no difficulty watching an SNL-like skit about playing hooky and IMMEDIATELY recognizing its self-congratulatory stay-in-school message. 6th and 7th graders have finely-honed BS detectors. They know when they're being talked down to.

That being said, the series had its pluses: excellent production values, a slew of top guest stars/music performers, and a decent regular ensemble (Denny Dillon, in fact, graduated to SNL in the fall of 1980, and has had a solid career as a comedic character actress). And when the show wasn't full of its pro-social pretensions, quite a few of the sketches were genuinely funny (writer Andy Breckman went on to SNL, the early years of Late Night with David Letterman and Monk). Hot Hero Sandwich was very much a series of its time, when networks were scrambling to provide "pro-social entertainment" for kids. If they'd only focused on the "entertainment" portion of the equation, the series might well have lasted.

A misguided film adaptation of the 1973 Broadway smash, and indirectly a remake of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. What should have been a small, character-driven musical gets swallowed up in elaborate sets and costumes, and sadly much of Stephen Sondheim's score was cut. The stage play and Bergman film were set in Sweden; for tax purposes the movie was filmed in Vienna, thus losing Sweden's "perpetual sunset" which served as the story's sexual metaphor. Harold Prince expertly directed the stage version, but he's simply all wrong here; Stanley Donen or Herbert Ross would have been better behind the camera.

In 1990 PBS telecast the New York City Opera's production of Night Music (starring Sally Ann Howes and George Lee Andrews) as part of its "Live from Lincoln Center" series. That production captured this musical's wit, sensuality and lyricism. A pity it's not available on DVD.

In the intended generation gap comedy, Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason play bickering not-quite-in-laws. I say "not-quite" because Gleason's son and Hope's daughter are cohabiting without benefit of matrimony.

Living in sin.

Shacking up, don't you know.

The kids have a baby out of wedlock and put it up for adoption so they can concentrate on performing in their Top Ten psychedelic rock group, The Comfortable Chair (Cue Cardinal Fang: "The COMFY CHAIR!?!") Hope and estranged wife Jane Wyman (whose real-life ex-husband was governor of California when this film was made) adopt the tot using fake identities and, after a round of 3 a.m. feedings, grudgingly reconcile.

Jackie discovers that Hope & Wyman have the grandchild, revealing the info during a golf match between Hope and a chimp. (You're ahead of me. Bob loses.) But Ol' Ski Nose solves everything by impersonating the youngsters' guru, a Maharishi-like religious leader, at a huge concert. In disguise, Bob tells the kids to forget nirvana and perfect happiness and get married instead. By the time everyone figures out who's who, the rock stars have their baby AND wedding rings, Bob and Jane are back together and the new house Bob just sold Jackie gets destroyed in a mudslide.

Even for a wacky 1960s comedy, the events in this movie defy logic: What adoption agency would instantly hand over a newborn to a decidedly over-the-hill couple? Wouldn't Hope and Wyman face prison sentences for using phony names to get the baby? And how could Jackie Gleason attract Tina "I Trained at the Actors Studio, But They're Going to Put 'She was Ginger on Gilligan's Island' On My Tombstone" Louise?

Hope's probably the LAST guy in Hollywood to have been defending monogamy, given his notorious unfaithfulness to wife Dolores over a seven-decade marriage, and it's doubly offensive that he spoofed an Eastern religious figure to do so. Imagine the justifiable outcry had he impersonated a priest or a rabbi.

Gleason's in decent form but is given little to do. HOW TO COMMIT MARRIAGE isn't as utterly bizarre as another Gleason '60s vehicle, SKIDOO (1968), but simply one of Hope's worst starring films -- a pity, because for around 25 years Hope WAS a legitimately great movie comedian. At least it's interesting to see Leslie Nielsen play the straight man in this film, and the young lovers are JoAnna Cameron (who set the hearts of seven-year-old boys aflutter as ISIS in the 1970s) and Tim Matheson (who, FIFTEEN years after this movie, would still be playing a collegian in UP THE CREEK).

The best forgotten TV project Sherwood Schwartz ever worked on, it ran on NBC on Saturday mornings during the 1976-77 season. Just as "Gilligan's Island" was a sitcom variation on "Robinson Crusoe," this show spoofed Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth mythology. Herb Edelman (best remembered as Bea Arthur's jinx of an ex on "The Golden Girls") plays "Big" John, a junior high school teacher on a trip to Florida. Thirsty, he gulps some water from a brook which -- wouldn't you know it -- turns him into 12-year-old "Little" John, a/k/a Robbie Rist (the Brady Bunch's jinx of a cousin Oliver, and Ted Baxter's genius adopted son on "Mary Tyler Moore"). However, the effect comes and goes unpredictably, with "Little" John reoccurring at the most inopportune times. "Little" John appears in junior high as teacher "Big" John's nephew, though the principal and other students are slow (make that real, REAL slow) to catch on that they never see the two Johns in the same place together at the same time.

Yeah, it's a silly concept, but there's an inherent cheesiness to it I love. As with any Sherwood Schwartz TV production, there's a great theme song summing up the plot, and the opening credit sequence showing the younger versions of Edelman (or, if you will, the older versions of Rist) look NOTHING AT ALL like either of them, as if Schwartz is winking at us and saying, "I'm not taking the premise seriously, either." Some other bits of BJLJ trivia: "Big" John's wife (it's a Sherwood Schwartz kiddie show from 30 years ago, remember, so the grown wife/12-year-old husband theme NEVER EVER EVER gets exploited) was played by Joyce Bulifant, Murray's loyal wife Marie on MTM and the actress Schwartz originally signed to play Carol Brady on "The Brady Bunch," and Schwartz brought on the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams to contribute material to this show, around the time they were completing "Kentucky Fried Movie" and beginning work on "Airplane!" The complete series is going to be released on DVD in the fall of 2009 -- it's definitely worth a look.

Twenty-four hours in the life of a Southern California record store as employees try to thwart a serial bandit while a kick-ass talent show goes on in the parking lot.

How's THIS for a cast? You've got Ted (Isaac from THE LOVE BOAT) Lange as a break dancing clerk (who organizes the vinyl records via his "Afro-tonic" computer), Ruth Buzzi as the sex-starved cleaning lady, Michael Callan (Riff in the original Broadway production of WEST SIDE STORY) as the store's womanizing manager, Jack Carter as HIS p-whipped boss, Harold "Odd Job" Sakata as a gay strong-arm collections man, Sorrell "Boss Hogg" Booke as a clumsy cop, a youthful Ed Begley Jr. as a would-be thief, Larry Storch as a deaf customer (and what WACKIER place for a deaf guy to appear in than a record store??), Alice (what's-her-name on BEWITCHED) Ghostley and Leonard Barr (Dean Martin's uncle, believe it or not) as an elderly couple, Rick (DISCO DUCK) Dees as the talent show host and Jeff (PINK LADY AND JEFF) Altman as his Nazi engineer, Frank "The Riddler" Gorshin as the elusive bandit ... not to mention Kinky Friedman, Gallagher and GONG SHOW staple Razzle P. Willie (you remember, the guy with the lips painted on his bare stomach and the over-sized top hat over his torso, who put a trumpet to his navel and mimed "The Colonel Bogey March") as themselves. Eat your heart out, Steven Soderbergh.

And underneath the slapstick and cameos, RECORD CITY has some choice observations to make on Serious Themes. Look at how the only straightforward characters in the film, serving as a Greek chorus if you will, are the local hookers. Notice how Callan forces himself upon his minimum-wage teen girl workers, but must himself submit to the financial whims of Carter. And appreciate how the talent show winner will have to sell out to commercial success. This film's take on prostitution is one of the most sophisticated since NIGHTS OF CABIRIA.

And observe how there's a blind Hasidic man at the film's beginning and a one-eyed nun (both essayed by Gorshin) at its end. We are all operating in a world, director -- excuse me, auteur -- Dennis Steinmetz is clearly asserting, where God is blind. In modern American cinema, only CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS dares make such a statement. When Ted Lange asks a colleague, "Have you been playing 'Yankee Doodle' with your dandy?", he might as well have been posing the same soulful question to a soulless 1970s America.

Imagine eighth grade... as a musical.

Now, take your head out of the oven and watch this obscure independent movie. It's a mercifully brief singing, dancing love story featuring actual, honest-to-God teenyboppers from Van Nuys -- one of whom was Paula Abdul. Look quick and you'll also catch the wonderful singer/songwriter Dave Frishberg as a shop teacher. Too bad he didn't compose the score, which is cute but unmemorable -- what a musical about junior high really deserves is a Brecht/Weill soundtrack.

Spoofing the "That's Entertainment" genre of films seemed like a good idea on paper, but this movie doesn't deliver on any level. A seriously unhealthy James Coco (he died just after filming, but before the movie was released) plays the head of a Z-level movie studio who rips off other hit movies. His motto is: "An idea that's appealing is an idea worth stealing." Doubled over with laughter yet?

The first half of the film has scenes from Coco's movies, basically public-domain stock footage with profanity dubbed in, and testimonials from puzzled stars including Richard Lewis, Joe Franklin and Peter Riegert. I was surprised to see that Tony Randall played the narrator; given his reputation in showbiz as Mr. Good Taste, I wonder how he explained the scene involving the dancing penis to his small children.

The second half shifts gears, as we see Coco's affair with Anne Meara (she appears with Jerry Stiller and, in an early screen credit, son Ben). There's an allusion to a "We Are the World"-type benefit to save Coco's studio, but we never see it.

"That's Adequate!" feels like a movie produced for a private occasion like a Hollywood executive's roast or stag party, with the pointless cameos and aren't-WE-naughty gags. There's really no need for anybody not related to the director to see this.

NBC's idea for this mid-season replacement was to offer highlights from NBC programs of the previous week -- i.e. Top Ten lists from David Letterman, one-liners from Cheers and The Golden Girls. Even though there was a good cast (host Carl Reiner, and contributors Merrill Markoe, Linda Ellerbee and Harry Shearer) Sunday Best was little more than an hour-long infomercial for NBC programming.

BUFFALO BILL was originally received like a Neil LaBute or Todd Solondz movie; the few who liked this program LOVED it, while the masses who didn't like it LOATHED it.

There had been sitcoms starring essentially unlikable characters before, such as ALL IN THE FAMILY and FAWLTY TOWERS, but Archie Bunker and Basil Fawlty were veritable pussycats compared to Dabney Coleman's Bill Bittinger, host of a Buffalo, NY talk show. Think Coleman's "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss in the movie 9 TO 5 and you pretty much have his BUFFALO BILL character, only here he's surrounded not by feisty secretaries but by wimps and sycophants. His stage manager Woody (John Fiedler) worships him, his research assistant Wendy (a young, nubile Geena Davis) is flustered around him while his director/longtime girlfriend Jo-Jo (Joanna Cassidy) puts up with him primarily out of self-loathing.

Brandon Tartikoff wrote in his memoirs that his greatest regret as NBC head was canceling BUFFALO BILL in 1984; one more season and it might have become a hit. Executive producer Bernie Brillstein went on to oversee THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, and he's said he considers that successful HBO sitcom (also about an insecure talk show host) to have been the critical and ratings hit BUFFALO BILL should have been.

The series was created by the great comedy team of Tom (ALF) Patchett and Jay (MOLLY DODD) Tarses, who wrote the funniest episodes of THE BOB NEWHART SHOW in the 1970s. They bitterly broke up by the end of this show's run. I suspect that even if BUFFALO BILL had become a SEINFELD or FRIENDS-level hit, they'd have broken up anyway because the show was emotionally draining for an early-1980s sitcom. In one two-parter Jo-Jo, pregnant with Bill's baby, vindictively gets an abortion. In another episode, the racist Bill fires his black makeup man Newdell (Charlie Robinson), only to have a nightmare where he's chased by grotesque black stereotypes who lip sync to Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack." Bill rehires Newdell and is congratulated on his enlightenment. In other words, WE GOT IT MADE or MAMA'S FAMILY this wasn't.

While BUFFALO BILL may not offer instant gratification, sticking through the entire run is worth it. Each member of the outstanding ensemble gets a moment to shine, the guest stars include Martin Landau and Jim Carrey (who impersonates Jerry Lewis) and the story lines are well-constructed with intelligent dialogue. In a stroke of good fortune, all 26 episodes were released in a no-frills three-disc DVD set in the fall of 2005 -- unfortunately, licensing issues prevented the "Hit the Road, Jack" sequence from making this set. Do yourself a favor and pick this up. There won't be another sitcom quite like BUFFALO BILL on network TV anytime soon.

In VIVA KNIEVEL, the daredevil foils a drug shipment, charms a Mother Superior, reunites a long-estranged father and son, inspires crippled children to walk, woos a feminist news photographer and makes a 150-foot jump over a cage full of lions. Not all at once, however.

Robert Craig Knievel was one of his era's most singular pop culture figures, an endless self-promoter whose failures (e.g. his aborted 1974 Snake River Canyon jump) drew more media hype than almost anyone else's successes. A well-marketed, low-budget Knievel biopic starring George Hamilton did great at the box office in the early 1970s, so it was assumed the real Evel would also pack them into the theaters. But Knievel, unlike a Babe Ruth or Muhammad Ali, has no genuine on-camera magnetism and many of his line readings are horrid; trying to get Red Buttons to pay up on a debt, Evel says flatly, "You stole from me (long, long pause)... PROMOTER."

A quintessential 1970s cast (in fact, three POSEIDON ADVENTURE survivors appear here) includes a poorly-wigged Gene Kelly as Evel's alcoholic mechanic, a pre-AIRPLANE! Leslie Nielsen as the drug kingpin, Marjoe Gortner (take my word for it, kids, he was big in the 1970s) as Evel's protégé-turned-druggie and Lauren Hutton as the women's lib photographer who F-stops her way into Evel's heart.

Released in 1971, the same year as two other nostalgic hit movies, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and SUMMER OF '42, this film has been undeservedly forgotten. A simple story of a Southwest family during World War II, with excellent acting (let me put it this way... even Desi Arnaz, Jr. does a good job), nice dialogue and an attention to period detail. This ain't available on DVD or even VHS, so if you catch it on TV, do yourself a favor and check it out.

In this intended "Cannonball Run 3," amateurs replace professional drivers at the last minute before an illegal cross-country race. The real amateurs, however, were behind the camera. Jim Drake (who did some fine TV work) lazily directs this film based on an unfunny Michael Short (Martin's brother) script, complete with an obnoxious music soundtrack and bland stunt work. Even the cameos look unenthusiastic. And we don't even know who's leading the competition until the very end, a cardinal sin in racing movies. The main cast is quite talented (no fewer than 3 SCTV alums) but it looks like everyone flew in for their two weeks of filming and went home; there's simply no inspiration between the actors. During the closing credits we see John Candy, Donna Dixon and company riding around in amusement park bumper cars -- Lord, do they look utterly embarrassed. I wasn't demanding Shakespeare, but a competently-made, well-acted comedy (along the lines of Splash or Animal House) shouldn't have been out of the question, either.