The TV thread

Don Rickles passed away on 4/6/17

 

Rickles and his wife were best friends with Newhart and his wife - they vacationed together and such. Why nobody put those two in a sticom together is beyond me, unless they just didn't want to mess their friendship with their business. But dang - they had me rolling when they were on a late-night show and were sharing pictures of a cruise they took together with their wives. Rickles having fun and very definitely not "on" and Newhart busting his chops for it. Rickles giving Newhart a bad time for not having more fun on the cruise.

Here's a recap, from something else they did on it.

 

Firsts for $100
George Carlin, Billy Preston and Janis Ian.

BTW At 17 might be the most depressing song ever sung

 

The Super Bob Einstein Movie on HBO is a fun watch. I learned a lot about Super Dave Osborne/Funkhouser. Those talking about him include David Letterman, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld and his brother, Albert Brooks.

 

PBS' American Experience has a great documentary this week on Elizebeth Friedman, a master cryptologist whose work broke up a Nazi spy network in WWII that was feeding information to the U-boat wolfpack in the Atlantic. At one point a message she decoded in the nick of time saved the Queen Mary ocean liner from a torpedo as it transported allied troops.

Her career as a code breaker spanned both world wars but she always worked in the shadow of men because she was a woman. Her massive contribution remained a classified secret until just a few years ago.

PBS is streaming this program here: The Codebreaker | American Experience | PBS

 

It occurs to me that Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are the modern day Walter Winchell and Hedda hooper. Garbage gossip columnists with false piety and republicans bigotry.

 

I watched the Super Dave documentary on HBO Max last night. Funny enough and fairly slight. They obviously chose interview subjects who loved him and/or his work. The most interesting parts for me, neither of which were really explored, were the complicated feelings which Albert Brooks had for him (which is mostly in terms of what wasn’t said) and why he wasn’t more of a success (other than Funkhauser, he was basically a sporadic late night guest for 15+ years).

 

1883
It's really gritty and probably fairly accurate to life at the time.
People today think they have hardships when they don't have cell service. Holy cow, I would not have wanted to live back then.

 

O'Reilly was more of a Father Coughlin - using piety (kind of laughable now) as a weapon.

 

Mayor of Kingstown has some of the best writing since the Wire,
an unforgettable scene where paid informant tells the FBIs what’s what is awesome.

 

RIP Don Rickles

 

My wife started that show as a suggestion because she was watching Yellowstone. Hardships is right.