A Life in Reruns

Sherwood Schwartz has died in his sleep at age 94. His 4 children were nearby - along with his wife of 69 years, Mildred.

Schwartz started in radio working with Bob Hope, Ozzie & Harriet and moved to televsion with Red Skelton.

His own creations Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch have a lasting power that are due partially to great casting decisions, fun cartoony writing, and kicky theme songs (written by Schwartz) that hooked you within seconds and didn't let you go. His sitcom worlds (tropic island, suburbia) were cleverly made more fun for viewers with a steady stream of dopplegangers, guest stars, and dream sequences. Returning to watch these shows is like visiting a favorite amusement park, or eating a favorite candy from our youth.

His "Gilligan's Island" (which aired for 3 years) became a 4-decade franchise of
2 cartoons, 3 TV-reunion films, a summer stock stage musical, a reality show, and a planned feature film.

His "Brady Bunch" (which aired for 5 years) became a 4-decade franchise of
1 cartoon, a 70s Variety Show, a spin-off sitcom The Brady Brides, and a short-lived dramedy The Bradys (we dubbed: Bradysomething). He hit gold again when he visited a storefront Chicago theater in 1991 and saw that audiences loved sharing in the memories of the original sitcom by attending a show called: Real Live Brady Bunch. He didn't sue the non-profit tiny theater - he simply ran with that satire idea and produced 2 feature film parodies and a TV-film where the parody bunch moved to the White House.

The actors in his 60s shows were kept in the limelight by his reruns, reunions,
and were given an immortality that many in showbiz seldom enjoy. Some were embittered by lack of residual money and the type casting. Schwartz knew it was a double-edged sword. He said: "That's the damaging thing about being terrific in what you do as an actor, everybody wants you to be the same person.”

Being the true Producer he was - he had to make his own living, and move on to the next project. He would bring back these "same persons" again and again as long as the public wanted to embrace them.

If anybody could re-invent his properties (or squeeze every last penny from them) it was Mr. Schwartz. He was kind and personable to fans, and loved his work. We loved it back.

Sleep well, Sherwood Schwartz.

The Maltese Bippy

We all know what happens when the hot TV stars dujour rush to make a film during hiatus set in a haunted house...well, it aint so good. (Unless it's THE GHOST & MR. CHICKEN starring Don Knotts).

The Maltese Bippy (1969) starred Laugh-In's hosts Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.
Here is the trailer.

The NY TIMES review said:

Television, the great leveler, has produced the ultimate comedy team, a pair of personalities of similar sex, height, weight and wit, which, I suppose, is the direction in which we've been heading ever since Martin and Lewis convinced us that comedy teams need not be physically grotesque—maybe one man should be slightly Italian and one man slightly Jewish, but not grotesque.

On the other hand, "The Maltese Bippy," is a movie that cheapens everything it touches, including a few visual nonsequiturs from "Laugh-In," actors (Fritz Weaver, Dana Elcar, Mildred Natwick, and even Carol Lynley and Julie Newmar) and the comedy-mystery genre that once had a kind of slapdash charm in "The Cat and the Canary."

For the record, the movie was directed by Norman Panama ("Road to Utopia") and concerns two aging roués who make poor exploitation films and live in a haunted house in Flushing. Some attempts at humor are made by using words like "do-do," "dum-dum" and "bippy" (in the title only). The words sound like euphemisms that mothers use when training small children.

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Sadly, the film had no scenes like this:

Ma Na Me Na

When I was a little kid my favorite show was Sesame Street and my favorite bit was the Ma Na Me Na song. I would go around the house singing that song repeatedly, which probably led to my Mother's nervous condition. I loved the Ma Na Me Na song, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that it was based on a song from a Swedish softcore porn movie called Inferno E Paradiso (Heaven and Hell). My childhood memories are based on porn! This explains so much about me.

Here is the Sesame Street version.


Here is the Ma Na Me Na scene from Inferno E Paradiso.


Here is the American trailer for Heaven and Hell. I really like the "prudish American" hard sell of this one.


And, lastly, here is Dio performing Heaven And Hell, because it rocks hard.

Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino (February 4, 1918 – August 3, 1995) was an English film actress, director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers.

Lupino was a 1940s film star at Warner Bros. (Lupino often joked that she may have been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress.) After a suspension from Warners in 1947, she focused on getting behind the camera. In 1948 she and her husband Collier Young formed their own filmmaking company, The Filmmakers. In 1950, when the director of "Not Wanted" suffered a heart attack, Ida took over as director; it was the start of another career for her. She began directing full-time, mostly 50s film melodramas, and was one of the few women of her era to achieve success in this field.

Lupino continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.

Watch her episode "A is for Aardvark" - the definitive fan-fave Bewitched episode. Originally, The Ashers (Bill and wife Liz Montgomery) wanted to do a sitcom called "The Fun Couple" about an absurdly rich heiress who marries a car mechanic. Eventually they were steered into the supernatural angle of witch marries mortal. The touching scene towards the end of this episode reiterates the show's core premise: that witchcraft (or rich-craft) is no substitute for love, affection and goals achieved through your own merit.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/10990/bewitched-a-is-for-aardvark