Happy 100th birthday, Sid Caesar!

I mean no disrespect when I celebrate the late comedy icon's 100th birthday and say, wow, I can't believe he would have been "only" 100 today. Growing up, he seemed at least "a generation or two ago" when he appeared in guest spots on cartoons, variety shows, and in ABC showings of Grease. He was a comedy legend, yes, but a comedy legend, as in, someone who was from the past, yet he was only in his fifties and early sixties:

Of course, his prime was a couple of decades before the heart of the BOTNS era, but he was still a constant presence in the TV of the 1970s and 1980s. Looking at his resume on IMDB, I'm surprised there aren't as many credits as I expected. It just seemed like he was always around.

Happy birthday, Ally Sheedy!

You probably remember Ally Sheedy from her 1980s Brat Pack and Brat-Pack-adjacent run, but she was in several high-profile TV programs before her film career took off. In addition to several episodes on Hill Street Blues, she was in TFV movies like The Violation of Sarah McDavid and The Best Little Girl in the World. She was also in a lot of TV commercials! Happy 60th, Ally Sheedy!

Happy Birthday, Saundra Santiago!

We celebrated Olivia Brown's birthday on Sunday, so I think it's only fair we commemorate the 65th birthday of her Miami Vice co-star Saundra Santiago today! I love these Friday Night Videos clips. Here's "Gina" co-hosting with "Switek" from 1986:

Happy 75th, David Letterman!

One of our favorite late-night hosts (Hey, we haven't gotten around to Joe Franklin yet) turns 75 years old today. Happy birthday, David Letterman!

75 is a great number, but we can think of some other great numbers. Hey, 10 is a great number! Here with more, courtesy of the official Letterman YouTube channel, is Casey Kasem (Speaking of numbers, this is from 1993, but we think it's worth stepping outside our timeframe):

Happy birthday, Jason Hervey!

Happy birthday to Jason Hervey, who turns 50 today! He is best known as irritating older brother Wayne Arnold on The Wonder Years, but perhaps his most important role was as one of the ringside judges during the main event at Clash of the Champions I.

Happy 100th birthday to the late Richard Kiley

Today would have been Richard Kiley's 100th birthday, and while he is known and celebrated as a fine performer of stage and screen, I personally remember him best for one specific host/narration gig--no, not Jurassic Park, but a documentary that aired on HBO many, many times in the early 1980s:

Some Call Them...Freaks is a 1981 HBO documentary spotlighting "different" individuals like Robert Wadlow, Julia Pastrana, Tom Thumb, and others. It has a simple, often stark style, reliant on basic recreations, still photos, and Kiley's sober voice-over. Yes, there is some showmanship--Kiley dresses like a magician and appears on a stage set up to resemble a sideshow backdrop--but the overall pace and tone are subdued.

Check out the dedication at the beginning. The plain white text on black background with no music prefigures something serious. At least, it did when I was a kid. I knew this was something strange yet meaningful, and this special haunted me a bit. It was meant to humanize the spotlighted people, and it did so in a way, but I was also, for lack of a better word, freaked out by the presentation.

I still watched it, though! I must have seen pieces of this many times on HBO. Years later, I got into the "Hey, you can find old stuff on YouTube" phase of my life, and I was thrilled to find this special. It was more subtle than I remembered, and today it really stands out for being less hyper than what we see today. The style is much more akin to the kinds of educational films we used to see in school than current documentary fashion. And you know what? I like it!

Kiley does a great job in this special, and it will always be my favorite role of his. Happy 100th!

Happy birthday, William Shatner!

It's William Shatner's 91st birthday, and I don't have anything profound to say, but he's getting a birthday shout-out from me as long as he remains with us.

Happy birthday, Cybill Shepherd

I guess Shepherd wasn't the "cool one" on Moonlighting (That was Curtis Armstrong, of course), but it would have been a duller show without her. Check out this non-paywalled (yay) 1986 profile Rolling Stone did of her back when she was "being hailed as the next Carole Lombard."

Happy birthday, Cybill Shepherd!

Click here for our Moonlighting episode!

Happy birthday, John Schuck!

Today is the 82nd birthday of the great and oft-talked-about (especially on our Facebook group) but not quite podcasted about by us John Schuck! Munsters Today eluded us last season, but could we finally get some vintage Schuck on the show sooner than later? Stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy this:

Happy birthday, Alan Alda!

To many people, he WAS MASH at a certain point...and they hated it!

Happy birthday to 86-year-old Alan Alda, who we discussed in our MASH episode a few years back. I Googled him to double-check the birthdate and saw these top two results in the "People also ask" section:

Does Alan Alda have Alzheimer's?

Is Alan Alda a nice guy?

Happy birthday, Tom Baker!

The performer best known as the Fourth Doctor was born this day in 1934. We talked about how much we liked Baker in our look at Doctor Who several years ago. In fact, at the end of that season, he won a Batty for Outstanding Male Lead in a rough category, and the "Genesis of the Daleks" storyline won for Episode, co-star Elisabeth Sladen won Supporting Female, and the Giant Clam won Non-Human!

Happy birthday, William Sanderson!

 As we established last year, William Sanderson is a Friend of the Show, whether he knows it or not, by virtue of having liked an Instagram post we did when we covered Newhart. So we are especially happy to wish him a very happy birthday today!

Happy birthday, Ted Danson!

Today we honor one of our favorite on-screen performers, Batty-winning Ted Danson. Not only was he a star on Cheers, but he has somehow managed to have key roles (lead and otherwise) in multiple other series since then.

Happy birthday to Ted Danson, AKA Mayday Malone! 

Happy birthday, Rodney Dangerfield!

Today is the 100th birthday of Rodney Dangerfield. He'd have a joke about that, but we're just gonna remind you that even while he was big in movies like Caddyshack, he was killing it on The Tonight Show, was a fixture on HBO with what seemed like about 24 consecutive annual Young Comedians specials, and was a regular presence on television.

Happy birthday, Meg Ryan!

60 years ago today, once-promising television actress Meg Ryan was born in Connecticut.

After standout commercial work and early gigs on an ABC Afterschool Special and Charles in Charge, plus recurring roles on As the World Turns and Wildside, Ryan seems to have mostly left the business, returning after a suspicious gap in her resume with some minor appearances and voice-over work. What in the world was this charming and talented performer doing in the late 1980s and 1990s?

Happy birthday, Lou Ferrigno!

Today Lou Ferrigno turns 70!

It's a special milestone for us because just over 5 years ago, our very first official episode of the podcast focused on The Incredible Hulk. So really, the big guy has been with us from that beginning. That's kind of an endorsement, right? You don't think so? Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. 

(Come on, you gotta give me that one!)

Happy birthday, Lou!

Happy birthday, Pam Dawber!

The actress is 70 years young today. We praised her work in an often-thankless spot on Mork and Mindy in one of our earlier pod episodes.

Happy birthday, Linda Lavin!

Today is the birthday of one of the iconic female performers in TV history, one who headlined one of the biggest and beloved sitcoms the medium has ever seen. Yes, we're talking about Linda Lavin, though Lucille Ball was born on this date, too.

We just discussed Alice in our most recent season, and Lavin was the star for all 9 seasons--no small feat. She has a distinguished career on stage and screen beyond the long-running CBS comedy, but I want to commend her for her awesome YouTube channel, which has behind-the-scenes clips and specials galore.

Happy birthday, Linda Lavin!

Happy birthday to the Sagal twins!

Can you believe the Sagal twins, who epitomized youthful cuteness, or maybe cute youthfulness, are 60 years old today (That's 60 years each, not total)? Well, you should considering Double Trouble premiered in 1984! We're all getting older, folks.

The NBC sitcom lasted only about one year/2 seasons/23 episodes on NBC, but reruns seemed to stay on USA Network forever. Yeah, that's right: FOREVER.

But you know what? I kinda wouldn't mind watching one or two today, even though I don't remember watching the show back then so much as having it on. Earlier this year, I mentioned Double Trouble as one of 10 female-centric shows I'd like to see streaming somewhere. It's not Women's History Month anymore, but it is the series' birthday!

Happy birthday, Robert Walden!

One of the notable guest stars in the Rockford Files episode we discussed on the podcast this season is Robert Walden as record company big shot Barry Silverstein. We enjoyed the heck out of his performance in that, and of course he's a two-timer on the pod after starring as Joe Rossi in Lou Grant.

And he likes the semi-official adult beverage of BOTNS:

Happy 78th birthday, Robert Walden! Maybe someday we'll even get to Brothers.