The Perfect Live Action (TV) “Justice League” ??

If you’re a fan of the DC TV Universe than you know the big news for this fall is the adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earth’s that is coming. This looks huge, and one of the coolest aspect is that characters from other DC shows are appearing including Tom Welling and Erica Durance from Smallville (just for starters!). I love this because it validates these past shows as having happened and existing, just on a parallel Earth somewhere. So if all these shows, and characters, exist than you have to wonder..what if they could all exist together??

So just for fun, let’s take the best of the various DC shows, from any era but only from live action TV, and see what we can come up with. And some characters never appeared on a tv show so Green Lantern will be sadly omitted.







Superman-Dean Cain

Tough choice was an understatement here. Who do you choose? The classic George Reeves version? The pretty cool Dean Cain version? How about the Tyler Hoechlin version we’ve had in Supergirl? Tom Welling who was fantastic on Smallville? Well as hard a decision as it was as far as TV Superman’s go I think Dean Cain for being the one who filled all the roles. I had a tough time deciding between him and Welling but as I have said before, Welling never officially was Superman on the show, if I picking Clark Kent he would win. I feel bad always picking on him for that but there it is.

Random Thoughts-Are Multi-Camera Sitcoms Becoming Extinct?

When The Big Bang Theory ended it also seemingly ended something that has been around for ages. The multi camera setup that so many sitcoms use. You know, three cameras on a stage while a studio audience watches? Many of the greatest shows ever made utilize this method, starting with Lucille Ball herself on I Love Lucy all the way to  Mary Tyler Moore  to Family Ties to Cosby to Seinfeld to Friends to Will & Grace to Everybody Loves Raymond (and dozens more). These differ from Single camera shows, poorly named for a show which uses more of a movie format than the three camera one with no studio audience or (usually) a laugh track. These have been around for ages too. From Andy Griffith to The Munsters to The Brady Bunch to Happy Days first two seasons to MASH to Doogie Howser, M.D.—there are plenty of classic examples of that format.



While single camera is great, for me it’s the classic multi camera show that I am a sucker for. It just doesn’t feel like a real sitcom when it isn’t.  It was one of the things I liked about The Big Bang Theory, that it was a traditional sitcom! I like shows like The Wonder Years for example, but it’s a different feeling when watching single camera shows as opposed to a multi camera show like Frasier. In 1988 The Wonder Years won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and I was appalled. How is that show a comedy?  I still don’t quite get it. Last week I watched the Emmy Awards and as they went through the nominee’s for outstanding comedy show, they were all single camera shows which felt like light drama’s more than a “sitcom”. And don’t get me wrong, I am sure Barry and all the others out there are fine. But to me, that just isn’t a sitcom!

Top 10 Members of the “Superman Family”

Superman supporting characters aren’t quite as lush as the Batman one’s, so this list was a little harder. But after 80 years Superman has managed a decent array of supporting characters. Like last time, no villains and no colleagues that weren’t originated in the Superman books (like Wonder Woman, etc).

#10.Jor-El

This one may seem kind of strange, kind of like putting Thomas Wayne on the Batman list. But over the years Jor-El has made lots of appearances and of course we’ve seen lots of flashbacks expalinin who this guy was and why he sent his only son to Earth as his planet exploded.

Top 10 Favorite Batman Family Members

So today (or yesterday) is Batman day. For some reason. Yeah, can someone explain that one to me? But since it is also his 80th anniversary this year, I guess a little celebrating can’t hurt. And while I covered a lot of Batman stories and inceptions, and his villains, one thing I never discussed was his supporting cast. Batman has one of the best supporting cast of any superhero, and today I’m going to look at the my ten favorites.

 

I kind mentioned this when I went over five characters I did not like. But today I wanted to take a look at the awesome characters I do like. The only rule is that these have to be a “Batman” family character, so heroes and/or colleagues like Superman are off the list. And no villains, with one notable exception.



#10.Cassandra Cain

Why so high on the list? I barely know anything about her. What I do came from the AT4W retrospective earlier this year. But from what I understand she is a very unqiue character who really made a mark for herself as the second Batgirl.

Special Episode Face-Off:The Naked Time (TOS) vs The Naked Now (TNG)

Hello my friends, welcome back as I take two episodes of different series with the same plot and see which did it better. I did a few of these awhile back before I had trouble coming up with new episodes. But I decided this one would be fun. When Star Trek-TNG first premiered they decided to homage the original Star Trek by following up, so to speak, on one of their most popular episodes. Was it a bad idea? Well, yeah…but let’s discuss it anyway!

Now let me make on thing clear. Usually when I do these I am trying to decide which episode was better. But of course, that’s a no brainer here. While the “winner” is obvious that doesn’t mean we can’t run through the episodes and note the similarities. And there are some things I thing TNG did better. Also since it’s not a sitcom going to break the episodes down differently than I have done it in the past. Plus TNG has a five act structure not a four like TOS so I will keep the ending separate.











TEASER:

 

TOS:The Enterprise orbits plant that is going to breakup and they are to retrieve a science team. Spock and Joe Tormolen beam down to a planet in environmental suits to find all the scientists dead. Not only that, but they were frozen in place like they didn’t care. One even frozen to death fully clothed in a shower! When Joe takes his glove off, he gets infected with something. Spock then reports all scientists are dead.

TNG:The Enterprise rendezvousing with a ship that had been monitoring the collapse of a supersize star. But when they hail the ship, the crew is clearly irrational. Then an explosion on the ship as the hull is blown out. On the the other ship it looks as if the crew were oblivious to what was happening as they died. Geordi accidentally comes into contact with a victim while Riker reports that all crewmen are dead.


VERDICT:Both episodes set the mood but what kills me that is that even though they beamed down in environmental suits, meaning someone knew they may need to protected from something, Joe proceeds to take his glove off and touch a surface. On TNG we see more of the victims and how they died and Geordi getting infected makes sense. Tormolen taking his glove off is just plain stupid.


WINNER-TNG

Five Daytime TV Pioneers

A lot of people don’t take daytime TV very seriously. It’s kind of gotten a bad rep as nothing but soap opera’s for old ladies and shows offering nothing worth watching. But a lot of daytime TV does stand out and even matches up with prime time fare. I talked before about how game shows were all over the place once upon a time, but of course we also have talk shows, court shows, soap opera’s and the ever reliable news programs. Ans some of these shows and hosts have elevated daytime TV with their presence, and are just as popular and admired as anyone one prime time.

Here are five people who pioneered daytime TV








Phil Donahue

When it comes to talk shows, Donahue was the grand master. I don’t think he originated the concept but he certainly popularized it. The list of people who tried to imitate his success goes on forever. Sally Jesse, Geraldo, Joan Rivers, Jerry Springer, Riki Lake..on and on and on. Including a bunch of names we’ve all forgotten (who remembers Jenny Jones?). His style was simple but effective, easily impersonated but still respected. He could be serious one minute and light hearted the next. And he also introduced the idea of taking calls which I don’t think many do, back then or today.

Six Episodes That Gave Me Mood Whiplash

Last year I discussed when a movie will suddenly change tone, so abruptly sometimes that it can be jaring. A light funny movie suddenly gets serious, or the plot does a total 180 and the movie becomes something else. Sitcoms can do this also, usually with “very special episodes”. You think you’re watching a nice happy little story and then…wham! You’re crying. Take the classic Growing Pains episode when we suddenly discover Carol’s boyfriend died between transitions. It wasn’t the happiest episode but that endings till comes out of left field and is still hard to watch.




A lot of shows don’t waste time setting the mood of the episodes. You know what you’re in for. Others, catch you off guard. Here are five classic examples of a show that started funny and light but didn’t end that way.





Golden Girls, “Brother can you Spare That Jacket”

This episode starts out as a light farce. The girls win the lottery, but proceed to lose the ticket. The first half of the episode is the girls chasing after the ticket. They end up in a homeless shelter, and then things take a dark turn. The four get into conversations with different people and by the end of the episode they’ve all figured out that they have pretty good. And give the ticket to the shelter. The episode is better than I am making it sound and touches on some very important topics. It won the Emmy for writing that year.

Underrated Trek:Course:Oblivion (VOY)

Welcome back to Underrated Trek,where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. It is possible to take a concept totally far fetched and making no sense at all…and turn it into one of the best episodes of an entire series? This is:

 

 

 

This episode is either a beautiful tragedy or a contrived mess. How can i be both? Let’s see:

 

 

 

Five Saturday Morning Cartoon Curiosities

As I’ve talked about before I, jut like most kids in the old days, loved Saturday Morning Cartoons. It’s really a shame they don’t exist anymore. We all remember the classic stuff like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, The Smurfs, Garfield, and Superfriends. But sometimes the less than stellar stuff stay in our memories also. A lot of these shows came and went because they were kinda silly. And while some stuff was so silly we all remember it existed, like Rubik The Amazing Cube and Shirt Tales, there are other shows that I never see anyone talk about.

 

My colleague Rowdy Reviewer has been discussing Saturday morning cartoon’s the last few weeks. It occurred to me that they fall into two categories. You remember them fondly (Shirt Tales) or you never heard of them (The Biskitts?). It’s easy to remember the good stuff that people love so much that they’ve even been rebooted  (Yeah I see you over there Muppet Babies). But what about the other stuff? The ‘Wish Kids”, “Camp Candy”s or “Foofur”s (that last one was a real thing!!).  Here are five Saturday Morning Cartoons which I always remembered…even if they weren’t great. And since I was not a kid for forty years, there’s only a small range here in the mid to late 80’s. Though I’m pretty sure that awful Happy Days cartoon would have been on here if I had seen it.







Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling!

Oh hell yes! It’s hard to believe in the 80’s Wrestling was a huge thing. I even got hooked into it (even went to a few live shows). So a cartoon series was a given with the “good guy” wrestlers vs the “bad guy” wrestlers. Is that still a thing in wrestling? The wrestlers appeared in live action segments. So what makes me saw this was “awful”? The funny thing is that while the word wrestling was in the title and Wrestlers were the main characters (voiced by others), there was never any wrestling on the show!! Yeah the plots were generic as they could be. At least the Mr.T cartoon had interesting plots and the actor provided the voice!

Top 5 WORST Sitcom Casts EVER

Last year I did an article on the greatest sitcom casts of all time. Now it goes without saying that if a sitcom is successful the cast had to be pretty strong..doesn’t it? I got to thinking if there were any shows that while successful, had a really awful cast. Maybe something else helped it like the main star was such a big star they carried the show, or the writing was just so top notch. Here is what I came up with anyway, and this is just opinion as always.

   




Now of course unlike last time I am not saying the entire cast was bad since no show can function with a totally bad cast. I am also not blaming the actors in these cases, I’m sure they did there best. These are shows that I feel most of the characters just added nothing to the mix. One rule is that these have to be the primary cast for the bulk of the run, we all know shows can often start with a cast member who suddenly vanishes once creators realize the character isn’t working. The other rule is this has to be a show that was on for awhile, say five years at least.




#5.Mad About You

The winner of the most solid worst supporting cast ever. This show was all about Paul and Jamie…and man was it hard to include anyone one in that mix. It wasn’t soo bad in the early years but as the show went on the supporting cast kept changing. First Ira replaced Shelby. Then Mark and Fran vanished. Then Paul’s parents became main cast members even though that NEVER made sense. Paul’s sister was added while Jamie’s sister disappeared and her mother stuck around, played by Carol Burnett for some reason. and it was just crazy. The show tried to fill in the voids but overall, it failed. If a good solid supporting casts helps keep a series alive, then I guess we know why this series has kind of faded away.