Question: I am a huge fan of "M*A*S*H," and I know there was a take-off of the "M*A*S*H" series after the final season.
What was it called, and is it also available on DVD? I know it was a short-lived sitcom. Can you help?
Answer: Ah yes, let's return to the halcyon days of 1983 and "After M*A*S*H," which followed the postwar adventures of Col. Potter (Harry Morgan), Max Klinger (Jamie Farr) and Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) at a veterans hospital in Missouri.
I'm sure you'll (yawn) find their ... exploits ... with (yawn) the staff and patients ... to be ... zzzzzzzzz ...
The problem was that "After M*A*S*H" was just about as interesting as you'd think life would be in a Missouri veterans hospital in the mid-1950s. It was canceled after about a year and a half, and it isn't on DVD.
Question: We were recently watching "Animal House," and I remarked that it was also made into a TV series. No one believed me! Please tell them my memory is still functioning.
Answer: Kids, pull your chairs up reeeal close to the simulated pot-bellied stove with the virtual fire burning inside while the old storyteller feller tells you the tale about the three "Animal House" sitcoms that came and went waaaay back in the winter of '79.
We used to light our candles and sit around the TV in those days, and on Jan. 18, 1979, we saw the "authorized" sitcom version of "Animal House," called "Delta House." It had several actors from the movie, including John Vernon as Dean Wormer, Stephen Furst as Flounder and Bruce McGill as D-Day. Also in the cast was a young starlet named ... Michelle Pfeiffer!
"Delta House" ran until that April on ABC. The CBS entry into the ripoff sweepstakes was "Co-Ed Fever," which began and ended on Feb. 4, 1979, since no one watched it. And the NBC entry was called "Brothers and Sisters," which featured Chris Lemmon and Mary Crosby, and went away in the spring of 1979 as well.
See how learning can be fun, kids?
Kids?
Question: Several of us are trying to remember the name of a movie about Vietnam. The main character is an officer who protests about the way the war is being run and is sent home. After getting out of the service, he returns to Vietnam as some sort of adviser, I think. Any ideas?
Answer: Sounds like "A Bright Shining Lie," a 1998 made-for-cable movie based on the book by Neil Sheehan. It stars Bill Paxton and Amy Madigan, and it's based on the real-life story of Col. John Paul Vann. It's on DVD.
Question: Can you give me some information on an actor named Ronny Graham? What is he doing now?
Answer: Graham was a nightclub comic who first received attention as a member of the Broadway review "New Faces of 1952."
One of the writers on that show was Mel Brooks, and he and Graham later worked on such Brooks films as "History of the World," "Spaceballs," "To Be or Not to Be," "Life Stinks" and "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."
Graham was also a writer-producer on "M*A*S*H" and appeared on episodes of such 1970s sitcoms as "Chico and the Man" and "The Bob Crane Show."
But during that same period, he was probably best known for playing Mr. Dirt on TV commercials for Mobil gasoline, which cleaned your car engine and got rid of Mr. Dirt.
Graham died in 1999 at age 79.
Question: A group of friends were discussing what we think was a TV show where one of the characters would open up a medicine cabinet that looked into another bathroom and he would carry on conversations with the guy on that side.
Several of us remember this, but no one remembers the name of the show. Can you help?
Answer: That was no television show, that was a commercial!
It was actually a series of commercials for Right Guard deodorant that ran in the early 1970s.
Bill Fiore played a guy who shared a bathroom medicine cabinet with a jolly fellow played by Chuck McCann, who would sing the praises of Right Guard and say things like, "One shot and I'm good for the whole day!"
He also greeted Fiore with the phrase, "Hi, Guy," which became a kind of national mini-craze that lasted for about two weeks.
Question: I am trying to remember an old TV program back around the early '70s where some lover-type guy dressed in a smoking jacket and a white silk scarf would come on screen and just talk sexy to the ladies.
All the females loved this guy, but I can't remember the name of the show.
Answer: It goes back farther than the '70s, bub.
The show was "The Continental," and it ran on CBS in 1952 and then on ABC from 1952-53. Renzo Cesana played the guy, and he was the whole show.
He spent the entire 15 minutes cooing sweet nothings to the camera, which was supposed to be his date for the evening. The show's sponsor was a stocking company, which led to a funny incident one night (the show was live) when Cesana was telling the ladies that nice stockings were just as important as good makeup.
He got mixed up, though, and ended up saying, "What the powder does for your legs, the stockings do for your face."
Question: There's a commercial for Sun Chips promoting their new biodegradable bag.
What's the name of the music on the soundtrack?
Answer: That's "The Only Other Thing" by Orba Squara.
Question: What was the song that played at the end of the March 9 episode of "Castle"?
Answer: That was "Stop and Stare" by OneRepublic.
Question: I hope you can either prove I am sane, or my wife and friends should have me checked.
I remember a show from the 1960s, I think, about a man who was shrunk to about 6 inches high and lived in a miniature house in the apartment of another fellow. Thanks for your help.
Answer: Yes, that was the short-lived sitcom "Hey! Watch Those Tweezers!," which ran from ... no, just joshing.
It was actually the 1959 syndicated series "World of Giants," which featured Marshall Thompson as a tiny, tiny spy named Mel Hunter. Between jobs, he lived with agent Bill Winters (Arthur Franz) in a little house located behind a painting. Winters would carry Hunter from mission to mission inside a briefcase, which was equipped with a tiny chair. The series went off the air before Hunter's boss had to face the thorny problem of shrinking a spouse.
Question: In the song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon," the guy says "I'm coming home, I've done my time." Where is he coming home from? My daughter says that he has just finished a hitch in the Army, while I recall that he was getting out of prison.
Which of us is right?
Answer: Why, father knows best, of course.
Your daughter might recall that another line in the song, sung by Tony Orlando and Dawn, says, "I'm really still in prison, and my love, she holds the key..." And the song is based on a story that appeared in a 1959 book on prison reform called "Star Wormwood."
Question: I seem to remember a mid-1980s movie starring Gene Simmons of the rock band Kiss and another singer, the Prince protege Vanity. But no one seems to remember this movie. Can you tell me the title?
Answer: That's the 1986 film "Never Too Young to Die," which also stars John Stamos. He's a gymnast named Lance Stargrove who's avenging the death of his father. Vanity is secret agent Danja Deering, who teams with Lance to find the killer. Simmons is the killer, Velvet Von Ragner.
This sounds like the best movie ever!
Question: I remember hearing that the soap actor who plays Ridge on "Bold and the Beautiful" was in a one-hit-wonder band. Do you know the name of the band and the song?
Answer: Any kind of fool can see that Ronn Moss, who plays Ridge, was a member of the band Player. Its big hit, "Baby Come Back," hit No.1 on the pop charts in January 1978, leading to the release of the CD "Player's Greatest Hit."
Just kidding! But you can hear it in innumerable Swiffer commercials.