There's a point to this. Not a significant point, mind you, but a point, nonetheless. So, bear with me. I've always liked the TV series Mission: Impossible. Since a kid and even now, when reruns are shown on cable. (I’m selective – there are some episodes I didn’t care for, so I pass those by. The ones I like the most are when they do a "simulation" to trick their target. My favorite is an episode where they make a guy think he’s on a submarine in order to get him to give up key information, when in fact they’ve just recreated it all in a warehouse.) That said, I hate the movies. In fairness, I’ve only seen the first one, but I hated it so much, ripping the guts out of the point and core of the TV series, out of pure hubris, that I was so offended I haven’t had wanted to watch the others. But the TV series was and remains a joy. My love for the show even helped on a PR job I had. I was the unit publicist on an awful, violent movie, The Hitcher, in which Jennifer Jason Leigh was the female lead. We got along well, but she was very shy and quiet. When I was interviewing her for her bio in the presskit, she mentioned her step-father being Reza Badiyi. “Oh,” I said, “Didn’t he direct a lot of episodes of Mission: Impossible?” Jennifer stopped and just stared at me – “How did you know that????” she almost sputtered. Well, I’d watched the show all the time as a kid, I explained, and he directed a lot of episodes (18, it turned out) and he had a name that caught the attention of a kid and was hard to forget. I think she may have said that I was the first person she’d met on a movie who actually knew of him. (Their loss, by the way -- Reza Badiyi had a long, 40-year career directing, up to 2006 when he directed the feature film, The Way Back Home with Julie Harris and Ruby Dee.) Anyway, it was a nice, added movie-set connection to make, which is particularly important for a unit publicist, since they’re usually very low on a movie’s totem pole of stature. All thanks to loving the Mission: Impossible series. (Side Note: I tell some other tales about working on The Hitcher, including a couple of nice, amusing ones about Jennifer in this article here. But I digress… All of this aside, the point here is about one thing that has always struck me as weird and totally unbelievable about Mission: Impossible. And that’s saying a ton, given the premise of the show and that each week they pull off a mission that is…impossible. However, viewers always accepted those weekly, monumentally-convoluted tricks that often stretched credibility (to the point, every once in a while, that brought about eye-rolling), but because they were pulled off with clever writing and great Impossible Mission Force skill, they landed on the good side of acceptable. But not this one thing. At the beginning of every show – at least in the earlier years – the team leader (first Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill who later was the first D.A. on Law & Order, and then Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves) would go through his IMF portfolio, decided which agents he wanted to join him on that week’s specific mission. And the ones he wanted, he’d toss their photo in a pile. There was character actor Rollin Hand (“Man of a Million Faces,” his 8x10 actor’s glossy photo said, “World’s Greatest Impersonator”), electronics whiz Barney Collier and strong man Willy Armitage. (I’m guessing not many people know Barney and Willy’s last name. But them up there alongside Reza Badiyi.) And then also, there was Cinnamon Carter, played by Barbara Bain. Her photo was a magazine cover for a glamour magazine that said “Model of the Year.” And that’s where I always got stumped. Here was this attractive woman – who not only was a cover model, and not only a famous cover model, but one so famous that she was the Model of the Year!!! And…and…and No One in the Entire World Ever Recognized Her!!! (The team often had missions in Europe and South America.) Forget that no one ever knew her name, the Model of the Year – forget even that on that “Model of the Year” cover it had her name -- but no one in the series ever stopped her and said, “Hey, you look familiar. How do I know you?? Are you famous?” No one – and I don’t even mean the targets that she was thrown into close confines to trick each week, but I mean even people on the street or in restaurants or store who would regularly pass by her and say, “Wait, I know you!! You’re that lady on the magazines!” No one even ever did a double-take when seeing the Model of the Year right in front of them. It's like, for that era, being the target of a spy mission, and the woman trying to con you is Twiggy or Cheryl Tiegs or Lauren Hutton or Jean Shrimpton or Grace Jones. Or today, Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Gigi Hadid or Gisele Bündchen -- and no one in the entire world for four years even recognizes that she might look familiar...!!! I’m sorry, that was just a bridge too far for me. I never have been able to believe it that Cinnamon Carter, Model of the Year was never recognized. On occasion, sure, I could accept it like when on a mission in a small far-Eastern European country or a South American country that generally had a name like San Cristobal, or when she was made up to look like an old woman, but not recognized over the 78 episodes she was in – not once. I almost, sort of have the same issue with Martin Landau as Rollin Hand, who was an actor and apparently a successful one. But because he was a character actor who could sublimate himself into secondary roles – and of course because often he’d create a perfect mask so that he could look like someone else, generally played by someone else -- that, at least, had an aspect of the "willing suspension of disbelief,” where you could accept, “Okay, his career is looking like other people, he’s the Man of a Million Faces, after all. The World’s Greatest Impersonator.” But not the Model of the Year the point of whose career was the exact opposite – making herself as attractive as possible and ensuring that you see her, stare at her, are enthralled by her jammed in your face on magazine covers. Okay, yes, it’s a small thing in the great scheme of things. But in the world of famous TV series that one loves and has watched for decades, it’s worthy of being bugged by. And for all the absolutely unbelievable things on a show about “the impossible,” it’s the one thing I just don’t and have never bought.
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There are similar offers for two streaming services which I wanted to mention in case they're to anyone's attention here.
Both Hulu and Peacock TV are having Black Friday sales on their websites. The offers are for $1.99 a month for 12 months. (You can cancel at any time -- though for $1.99 a month, it's almost worth keeping it in case they end up having a movie or series later on that interests you.) Peacock TV has an additional offer -- $19.99 if you sign up for the full year. That's two months free, or the equivalent of $1.67 a month. The one caveat is that these Black Friday offers are all for the ad-supported services. I'll mention that I signed up for this same Hulu offer last year (I'm not eligible for it this year...), and was fine with the ad-supported plan. They only have a few ad breaks for each show and tend to be about 90 seconds to two minutes. Never longer, sometimes less. And they have a little clock counting down the time left in the ads, which I love. I keep a book by my chair and read during the break, knowing how much time I have -- or run some "errand" in another room.) For $1.99, I found it well-worth it. If I watched Hulu a lot, I don't know if I'd have gotten the ad-supported plan. But because I don't watch Hulu a lot, that's why I tried it out this way. (And it turned out that I found more things that I watched than I expected it.) And that's why I never paid for Peacock TV before. They didn't have much that interested me. But there are about 4-5 movies I have on my "Peacock List" that I do want to see, and was going to sign up for a month to watch them all. However, that would cost $12 for a no-ads plan. So, for just eight dollars more, I'm getting it for the whole year, during which time they might have some more movies I want to see, or series. Plus they carry Big Ten sports (like my beloved Northwestern...), which includes things not on my standard Big Ten cable channel. Anyway, that's the deal. Do with it what you will... As readers of these pages know, I love the series Ghosts. And as much as I like the U.S. version, I think I like the British original even more. A few months back, I wrote about how the TV networks were all struggling to find programming to put on the air as a result of the Writers Strike, and then the SAG-AFTRA strike for actors, and the results have been dismal and laughable. With one exception – CBS had the admittedly brilliant idea to get the rights to the British original of Ghosts and run two episodes each week after the American adaptation. And that begins tomorrow night, Thursday. As I noted above, I like the U.S. version a great deal, but probably like the British original the most. They each have things about them that I prefer, but overall there are three things about the original that I think works best – with England’s long history, it lends itself particularly well to ghosts from many different eras. Also, England has a long tradition of claiming haunted house. And most of all, I like the drier wit of the British version, treating the comedy a bit more understated than as a “sitcom.” Still, they’re both wonderful. And what I admire the most is what a superb job the U.S. writers did adapting the U.K. Ghosts. It’s one of the most faithful TV adaptations I’ve seen – all the while making the show its own. And if it wasn’t just a good adaptation, I don’t think CBS would have thought to air the British original, the contrast would have been too jarring. This, though, will be almost seemless. Almost. I think it will take a few episodes to appreciate the British original to its fullest. I have friends who dearly love the American version. And after I got them to try the British version – which runs on HBO Max – they liked it, but still preferred the U.S. show. Then, a month later, I got another email. It turns out they kept watching and, as much as they love the U.S version, they now adored the British original, and ever-so-slightly preferred it, as well. I should mention, as well, that the U.S. two-part pilot was such a faithful adaptation of its British source, that they even use a lot of the same jokes. (To their credit, they recognized that the jokes were too wonderful not to use.) Viewers might recognize Thomas Baynton, as well. He’s the only actor from the British show who (thus far) has appeared on the CBS series. In England, he plays the affected poet Thomas Thorne, a self-described enemy of Lord Byron who he claims stole much of his work. Baynton turned up on the U.S. program playing an actor who would be portraying scout leader Pete in a documentary. Also of note is that along with Baynton, five others of the main "ghost" actors on the British original created the series as a team. (They'd previously made the British series, Horrible Histories, together.) I don’t know how many episodes of the British Ghosts CBS plans to run. Perhaps all, it ran very successfully for several years, but only it’s had 33 episodes and just finished its run. (Seasons for England are much shorter than for U.S. network TV.) However, I suspect they might stop when new episodes of the U.S. series go back into production and are available. Though if the ratings are strong, and it’s a hit, they might just keep running them all. I hope that's the case since, unfortunately, HBO Max -- where it originally ran in the U.S. -- has taken it off their listings. Which is additionally unfortunate because they hadn't yet shown the final season. I would think (or hope...) that it will show up there again or elsewhere -- perhaps on CBS. For now, though, it starts tomorrow on CBS for all here to see. Here's a five-minute piece the BBC put out with highlights from the pilot episode. This is the Halloween broadcast of Kukla, Fran & Ollie I mentioned the other day that aired 74 years ago tonight, on October 31, 1949. It follows up on the episode a few nights earlier, when Beulah Witch was preparing for her fellow alums and teachers from Witch Normal college coming to town for a Halloween convention – but a small crisis comes up that she has to avert. As things develop, the other Kuklapolitans excitedly prepare for trick-or-treating, and sing a bunch of songs along the way – my favorite being Beulah Witch’s rendition of “That Old Black Magic.” The episode also shows off Burr Tillstrom’s artistry well – though it’s subtle because he does it with such ease. The first is the opening of the show when music director Jack Fascianato plays the KF&O theme “Here We Are Again,” and he’s joined by two Kuklapolitans accompanying him on toy pianos. It’s amusing and generally just plunking on the keys, except if you listen closely he actually is getting some of the theme music correct. (And made all the better because one of the two is my fave, the lunatic Cecil Bill.) And the other comes later in the episode when Kukla, Fran and Ollie sing a trio – with Tillstrom going back and forth with the two voices. As I said, it’s comes across with such natural ease, but it’s no small trick singing a duet with yourself. By the way, I noticed a bit of information posted with this video. Over 700 episodes of the show were transferred to digital thanks to funding from the Burr Tillstrom Copyright Trust and fans of the show – as well as, most interestingly, the Jane Henson Foundation. As I’ve written in the past, Jim Henson always said that Burr Tillstrom and Kukla, Fran and Ollie were one of his big inspirations to get into puppetry and ultimately create The Muppets. And his wife’s helping to fund this clearly supports that. Special thanks were given, as well, to the Chicago History Museum for its invaluable help in the process. And now – trick or treat! I’ve been posting songs that were performed in the Hulu series, Only Murders in the Building, whose storyline this year centered around putting together a Broadway production of a musical. So, here’s a third number. This one is sung wonderfully by Meryl Streep (she sings two numbers in the series, both gloriously), with a small assistance by Paul Rudd, titled "For the Sake of a Child." In the musical being staged, Streep’s actress character plays a nanny for infant triplets bizarrely suspected of the stage murder, and Rudd’s arrogant movie star character is making his Broadway debut playing the detective. And we see the number being performed in a flashback. A sort of tiny – borderline insignificant “warning” (though it’s not much of one). While it doesn’t even remotely give away anything about the murder mystery that the season is trying to solve, it does “give away” a plot point in the musical within the show -- which honestly isn't a big deal at all – and, to repeat, has absolutely nothing to do with the mystery in the series overall. But if you haven’t watched the third season yet, and plan to and want to know absolutely nothing, then perhaps you’ll want to skip this. Just know that this plot point within the musical is pretty much not even addressed during the season except here, which shows how minor it is, since the TV viewing audience really doesn’t care. The songs for the series were written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, and the move musicals La La Land and The Greatest Showman. They augmented their work here by bringing in other accomplished writers to collaborate with them on most of the songs. For Meryl Streep’s song noted above, it was co-written with Sara Bareilles. For this number, they worked with the playwright and composer Michael R. Jackson, whose musical “A Strange Loop” won a Pulitzer and two Tony Awards. By the way, if you missed the two other songs we’ve posted here, you can find the links to them at -- Meryl Streep singing “Look for the Light”. Steve Martin singing “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” But back to the number at hand, here wonderfully is Meryl Streep once again -- along with a tidbit of Paul Rudd. A few weeks ago, I posted here a gorgeous song that Meryl Streep sings beautifully and evocatively in Season 3 of the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building. I thought I’d post a few other songs that range between excellent and great fun from the series. This one falls into the “great fun” category. It’s a tongue-twister patter song that Steven Martin performs, called “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” There are two backgrounds to the number it helps to know. The first is the song’s context in the loopy Broadway musical being put on in the series. The musical, Death Rattle Dazzle, is itself a murder mystery where the three top murder suspects are (for some intentionally idiotic and unexplained reason) three toddler babies. It's being directed by Martin Short's character, who also supposedly wrote all the songs. (Apparently in an also unexplained, incredibly fast period of time...) The other background is that Steve Martin's character in the series, 'Charles-Haden Savage,' is a former, big TV star in a detective show. And for the musical, Martin Short has asked him to step out of his comfort zone to play a constable. The problem is that Steve Martin's series character, 'Charles,' has a total, overwhelming inability to get through the song during rehearsals. He has such difficulty with it, in fact, that he keeps hallucinating during his attempts in front of the cast. And even quits the show at one point, because he just can’t get it, and it's too stressful. This performance here is the first rehearsal actually on a stage and with an orchestra. With everyone in the production watching closely, nervous about whether can ever make it through. And yes, he nails it. (In an interview later, Steve Martin said, “It was a thrill to sing and a thrill to be done with." When you see the song, and what he has to go through, you'll understand.) By the way, after the rehearsal performance, a woman stands up in the seats and yells at the stage. She's the real inspector of the murder. The songs for the series were written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, and the move musicals La La Land and The Greatest Showman. I find their work very professional and sometimes very good -- they won an Oscar for Best Song, after all, with "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman -- though not (for my taste) especially memorable overall, and so (for my taste...), they had the good sense to bring in other accomplished writers to collaborate with them on most of the songs. And the results working together were excellent. For Meryl Streep’s song noted above, it was co-written with Sara Bareilles. For this tongue-twister patter song, they worked with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman whose credits include the musical Hairspray (winning the Tony Award for Best Score) and the recent Some Like It Hot, which is currently running on Broadway. And for a fun P.S., collaborators Shaiman and Wittman were asked about working with Pasek and Paul. And they sent their reply as a lyric to the tune of the song -- Which Of The Broadway Writers Wrote It? Who Of The Four Had The Wherewithal? Was Is Marc & Scott Placing Rhymes In Each Slot? Or Did All Alliteration Come From Pasek & Paul? Which Of The Broadway Writers Wrote It? Four On A Page Seemed A Lot At First But We Laughed And We Sang Till The Set Bell Rang Then Steve Martin Sang It Sweet For The Masses Who Can Tweet And Quote It The Answer Is All Of The Big Four Broadway Writers Wrote It! |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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