*"Demi-God," the second episode of season 6 of Medical Center, premiered September 16, 1974, on the CBS television network, airing against What Happened to Helen? on NBC and the Bills playing the Raiders on the season premiere of Monday Night Football.
*Medical Center aired 1969-1976, peaking as the #8 prime time show in its second season. The complete run is on DVD and streaming through Warner Archive.
*The People article Rick mentions is right here. McKenna tanked on ABC in the 1994 season; only 5 of 13 episodes aired. Jennifer Love Hewitt co-starred with Chad Everett.
*Marcus Welby, M.D. with Robert Young (ABC) also aired 7 seasons (1969-1976) and 169 episodes (to Medical Center's 171).
*Marjoe Gortner started preaching at 4. He was in his mid-20s when Marjoe was filmed; that documentary won an Oscar after premiering in 1972. His acting debut came in the pilot movie for what became Kojak.
*Meredith Baxter, who of course appeared in our first season as Elyse Keaton, was 27 when this aired and had starred in Bridget Loves Bernie. She went on to be a regular on Family in 1976, but first she returned in the final season of Medical Center as a different character than the one she plays in "Demi-God."
*IMDB lists no other Marjoes, but there is a producer named Marjoes Corsten.
*TV historian Stephen Bowie's excellent article on the Stanley Milgram/Medical Center connection is right here.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Episode 3-10: Medical Center "Demi-God"
We give our diagnosis of Medical Center, a mid-70s version of that TV staple, the medical drama. Erstwhile and well-dressed Dr. Gannon (Chad Everett) wants to do his job and help a young woman (Meredith Baxter), but she believes in her faith healer husband David (BOTNS fav. and ex-evangelist Marjoe Gortner!). David's father Harmon urges them to have faith...and keep the machine going...but will medicine or faith ultimately save the day? Find out this and more, but mostly listen to us talk about ~MARGOE~!
Check out this episode!
Check out this episode!
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Friday, December 22, 2017
Show Notes: Episode 3-10: The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas
*The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas premiered Monday, December 17, 1973, on the National Broadcasting Company network. We did find evidence of reruns throughout the 1980s. Check out the YouTube playlist for a commercial break segment that aired during one of them.
*GetTV has in fact been showing many rarities for the season, including specials from The King Family, Sonny and Cher, and Bing Crosby, but no cartoons as far as we can tell.
*Proof that Mike was not suffering some bad egg nog when he loaded this special on Amazon Prime:
*Author John Barrett not only created Ted E. Bear, but he apparently wrote...a history of the Wimbledon tennis championships?
*DePatie-Freleng started in 1963 and was bought by Marvel in 1981. The studio also animated Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979, CBS) and The Pink Panther In: A Pink Christmas (1978, ABC)
*Tommy Smothers and brother Dick did not actually destroy television in general, nor the CBS network in particular, but The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour did a lot of rabble-rousing!
*If you'd like to learn more about why cartoon animals don't wear pants, TV Tropes is a good starting point.
*No offense intended by the BOTNS cast to the fine people at Big Lots.
*The Great Bear Scare is the Halloween-themed sequel of sorts from 1983. Tommy Smothers returns as Ted E. Bear, but Hans Conreid steps in for Arte Johnson.
*The SFM Holiday Network was an operation that syndicated movies to stations around the country from 1978 to 1991. SFM also syndicates Make Room for Daddy, Rin-Tin-TIn, and even The Smothers Brothers Show.
*GetTV has in fact been showing many rarities for the season, including specials from The King Family, Sonny and Cher, and Bing Crosby, but no cartoons as far as we can tell.
*Proof that Mike was not suffering some bad egg nog when he loaded this special on Amazon Prime:
*Author John Barrett not only created Ted E. Bear, but he apparently wrote...a history of the Wimbledon tennis championships?
*DePatie-Freleng started in 1963 and was bought by Marvel in 1981. The studio also animated Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979, CBS) and The Pink Panther In: A Pink Christmas (1978, ABC)
*Tommy Smothers and brother Dick did not actually destroy television in general, nor the CBS network in particular, but The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour did a lot of rabble-rousing!
*If you'd like to learn more about why cartoon animals don't wear pants, TV Tropes is a good starting point.
*No offense intended by the BOTNS cast to the fine people at Big Lots.
*The Great Bear Scare is the Halloween-themed sequel of sorts from 1983. Tommy Smothers returns as Ted E. Bear, but Hans Conreid steps in for Arte Johnson.
*The SFM Holiday Network was an operation that syndicated movies to stations around the country from 1978 to 1991. SFM also syndicates Make Room for Daddy, Rin-Tin-TIn, and even The Smothers Brothers Show.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Holiday Special: "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas"
The holidays mean holiday specials--or they used to--and we present second one. Tommy Smothers plays nonconformist Ted E. Bear in "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas." While the rest of bear society hibernates, Ted wants to stay awake and go to Christmas. Does his dream come true, or does he succumb to the norms of bear society and biology? We get to the bottom of this and risk the ire of the Big Bear lobby by blowing the roof off its secret plans. Listen if you dare!
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Friday, December 15, 2017
Show Notes: Season 3, Episode 9: Voyagers!
*"Cleo and the Babe" premiered at 7:00 P.M. November 14, 1982, on the NBC television network.
*Voyagers! only lasted 20 episodes.
*Meeno Peluce was born February 26, 1970, and is now a photographer, but he really was in tons of shows in the 1970s and 1980s.
*Jon-Erik Hexum was only 26 when he accidentally took his own life on the set of the short-lived series Cover Up.
*The episode mike mentions with the trial is episode 13, "The Trial of Phineas Bogg."
*We found no evidence of the Voyagers interacting with dinosaurs during the show's run.
*60 Minutes' (which was the #1 show on TV this season) cast/approximate ages at the time of this episode:
Ed Bradley (41)
Morley Safer (51)
Harry Reasoner (59)
Mike Wallace (64)
Diane Sawyer (36)
Andy Rooney (63)
*Lucky Luciano allegedly started modern organized crime in the USA and was likely responsible for countless murders. He's a lot of fun in this episode, though! Oddly enough, despite dozens of arrests, Lucky never served actual jail time.
*Yankee Stadium, "The House That Ruth Built," debuted in 1923.
*The 1927 Yankees went 110-44, destroying the American League, and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. 5 other players besides Babe Ruth are in the Hall of Fame, and so is the manager and then-exec Ed Barrow (who we see in a different role in this episode).
*The makers of Baby Ruth candy bars always claimed they named it after Grover Cleveland's daughter, but they launched it in 1921, and as Wikipedia notes, the manufacturer was on the same street as Chicago's legendary Wrigley Field.
*Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation may or may not have been directly inspired from an apple actually falling and plunking him on the head, but isn't it a better story that way?
*Mike was spot on in referencing the Babe's piano. Legend has it that an intoxicated Ruth heaved a full upright piano into Willis Pond in 1918. The New England Historical Society reports the other version of the story is that Ruth and a bunch of his drunk friends just pushed it in together and left it because it was too heavy to pull out when they sobered up.
*Speedy with Harold Lloyd and an extended cameo by Babe Ruth is a 1928 silent film.
*Shannen Doherty appeared in "Agents of Satan," which took the Voyagers to colonial Massachusetts for the witch trials and to Harry Houdini.
*We give a special shout-out to the comprehensive website https://www.voyagersguidebook.net/ and recommend if you want to learn more about the show, visit your local library...but then visit this website. (NOTE: Updated to give the URL of the new and improved version of the site!)
*Voyagers! only lasted 20 episodes.
*Meeno Peluce was born February 26, 1970, and is now a photographer, but he really was in tons of shows in the 1970s and 1980s.
*Jon-Erik Hexum was only 26 when he accidentally took his own life on the set of the short-lived series Cover Up.
*The episode mike mentions with the trial is episode 13, "The Trial of Phineas Bogg."
*We found no evidence of the Voyagers interacting with dinosaurs during the show's run.
*60 Minutes' (which was the #1 show on TV this season) cast/approximate ages at the time of this episode:
Ed Bradley (41)
Morley Safer (51)
Harry Reasoner (59)
Mike Wallace (64)
Diane Sawyer (36)
Andy Rooney (63)
*Lucky Luciano allegedly started modern organized crime in the USA and was likely responsible for countless murders. He's a lot of fun in this episode, though! Oddly enough, despite dozens of arrests, Lucky never served actual jail time.
*Yankee Stadium, "The House That Ruth Built," debuted in 1923.
*The 1927 Yankees went 110-44, destroying the American League, and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. 5 other players besides Babe Ruth are in the Hall of Fame, and so is the manager and then-exec Ed Barrow (who we see in a different role in this episode).
*The makers of Baby Ruth candy bars always claimed they named it after Grover Cleveland's daughter, but they launched it in 1921, and as Wikipedia notes, the manufacturer was on the same street as Chicago's legendary Wrigley Field.
*Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation may or may not have been directly inspired from an apple actually falling and plunking him on the head, but isn't it a better story that way?
*Mike was spot on in referencing the Babe's piano. Legend has it that an intoxicated Ruth heaved a full upright piano into Willis Pond in 1918. The New England Historical Society reports the other version of the story is that Ruth and a bunch of his drunk friends just pushed it in together and left it because it was too heavy to pull out when they sobered up.
*Speedy with Harold Lloyd and an extended cameo by Babe Ruth is a 1928 silent film.
*Shannen Doherty appeared in "Agents of Satan," which took the Voyagers to colonial Massachusetts for the witch trials and to Harry Houdini.
*We give a special shout-out to the comprehensive website https://www.voyagersguidebook.net/ and recommend if you want to learn more about the show, visit your local library...but then visit this website. (NOTE: Updated to give the URL of the new and improved version of the site!)
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