Friday, January 24, 2014

When Love Still Kept Them Together: The Captain & Tennille's Variety Show

 
Comfort TV proudly lives in the past, so it’s rare when a current news headline will inspire a new piece. But then I read that the Captain & Tennille are headed for divorce court after nearly 40 years of marriage. 



The two most prominent reactions to this unexpected development were as follows:

1. Who? (This was from the under-30 crowd)

2. I guess love “won’t” keep them together (or a similar variation on one of their song titles – see also “I guess he won’t be doing that to her one more time.”)

My first thought was, “I wonder who gets custody of the bionic watermelon.”

Confused? You won’t be if you were among those who watched the couple’s short-lived variety series. If you missed it, there’s a “best of” DVD from R2 Entertainment featuring 11 of the 20 episodes that aired on ABC from 1976-1977. 




Is it worth a look? Yes, if you have fond memories of ‘70s TV, when one hit song was enough to get you your own show. New variety extravaganzas popped up every season, ranging from the still entertaining (Donny & Marie, Sonny & Cher) to classic kitsch (Tony Orlando & Dawn, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr.) to "What were they thinking?" (Pink Lady & Jeff, The Starland Vocal Band).

Within that groovy to gross scale, the Captain & Tennille fit squarely in the middle of the road, much like their music catalog. If you’re unsure about whether to revisit the show to see Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille in happier times, here are five highlights and five lowlights from the R2 set.

Highlight: 1970s TV Casts
These episodes feature guest appearances from Charlie’s three original Angels, Gabe Kaplan and the Welcome Back Kotter Sweathogs, the Happy Days gang (including Pinky Tuscadero!) and the cast of What’s Happening!



Lowlight: Erin Moran sings “My Guy”
While it’s fun to see so many classic TV casts outside their familiar roles, no one needed to hear Joanie “Shortcake” Cunningham drone her way through a Motown classic.

Highlight: “Love Will Keep Us Together”
The duo’s first hit, written by Neil Sedaka, stayed at #1 for four weeks in 1975, and still sounds great. 



Lowlight: The Bionic Watermelon
The show’s comedy bits have not aged well. None was more groan-inducing than this tired takeoff on The Six Million Dollar Man, about a watermelon that falls off a truck, is put back together by scientists, and now apprehends bank robbers by hurling itself at their heads. 

Highlight: The Musical Guests
The R2 set includes performances from The Sylvers, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Bread, Dionne Warwick, Leo Sayer, and Heart with a live version of “Dreamboat Annie.”

Lowlight: The Captain’s Hat Jokes
Besides his prodigious keyboard skills, the only thing interesting about Daryl Dragon was his trademark hat. This inspired several sets of purposely lame hat jokes, which were the show’s way of acknowledging that Dragon had the personality of an eggplant.
Sample: What goes on your head and hit a lot of home runs? Babe Hat. 
  
Highlight: Toni Sings with her Sisters
From the Everly Brothers to the Beach Boys to the BeeGees, there’s always something special about close musical harmonies within families. Several episodes feature performances from Toni and sisters Louisa and Melissa, including a wonderful salute to classic girl groups from The Shirelles to The Shangri-Las. 

Lowlight: Toni Sings with Leonard Nimoy
Technically this isn’t a duet – Toni and Daryl play piano while Nimoy recites one of his poems. Between stanzas, Toni sings a few lines from Elton John’s “Your Song.” Surprisingly, this isn’t one of the comedy segments. 



Highlight: The Closing Song
Most variety shows featured a musical signoff, inspired by Carol Burnett’s famous “I’m so glad we had this time together…” The Captain & Tennille closed each show with “We Never Really Say Goodbye,” a lovely ballad as appealing as any of their charted songs. 


Lowlight: Run! Giant Mutant Muskrats!
The DVD set includes not one but two performances of the duo’s most unlikely hit, “Muskrat Love.” In one, Toni peers into a gingerbread house that is home to Muskrat Susie and Muskrat Sam. Faster than you can say, “Call the Orkin man!” Toni and Daryl are inside the rodents’ residence, where they have a tea party and dance with their furry new friends. The 1970s were indeed a strange and wondrous time.



And that’s just a sample of the delights on this 3-DVD set, now available on amazon.com for…7 dollars and 6 cents. That’s less than ten cents per hat joke.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The Twilight Zone: Wisdom From Willoughby

 
I have always believed that classic television shows can serve a higher purpose beyond the entertainment derived from them. Like any work of art worthy of our respect, they have something to teach us as well.

During its five seasons, The Twilight Zone presented dozens of issue-oriented stories, including some effective but occasionally heavy-handed allegories about war, racism and intolerance. For me it was the subtler stories that struck a deeper chord, none more so than “A Stop at Willoughby.”   

Fade up on Gart Williams, a media buyer in New York, sitting amongst other executives in a boardroom, anxiously tapping a pencil. He has just lost a major account, much to the chagrin of his oppressive boss: “This is a push-push-push business, Williams, all the way, all the time.” 

 

Gart leaves the office on the verge of a nervous breakdown that’s been building for a long time. Headed home he falls asleep on the train, but when he wakes he finds himself on a 19th century rail coach. The snowy November evening has been replaced by bright summer sunshine, as the train stops at an idyllic small town called Willoughby, circa 1888. Gart wakes up, and dismisses the episode as a dream.

At home his pressures do not subside. “I’m tired, Janie. Tired and sick,” he says to his unsympathetic wife, who coldly ponders how she could have married such an over-sensitive loser. 

Back at work, the stress resumes unabated – angry clients, constantly ringing phones. The next night, he once again hears the conductor call “Next stop, Willoughby.” This time, he gets off the train.

This being The Twilight Zone, there’s an unexpected zing at the end. I’ll avoid spoilers for anyone who somehow missed this episode during the last 54 years.

In 25 minutes, “A Stop at Willoughby” paints a complete and perfectly rendered portrait of a man who spent the better part of his life doing something for which he had neither affinity nor desire. He sublimated his true self to pursue a lifestyle that was never important to him, to achieve prosperity that brought no satisfaction. Now he’s at the end of his tether and willing to grasp at any lifeline, no matter how fantastic. 



I can’t prove it but I am certain that when this show first aired, someone living Gart Williams’ life for real decided to hop off their self-destructive carousel, and to start spending more time doing what he or she loved. Hopefully, after a half-century of syndication and videocassette and DVD releases, many others have been similarly inspired to recalibrate their priorities.

The demands on Gart Williams’ time were stifling to him – and this was in 1960! How much faster is life moving now? How many other electronic devices are commanding our attention, not only in the office but at home and in the car and even when we’re supposed to be with our friends and families?

If anything, the lesson of “A Stop at Willoughby” is needed now more than ever: We are more than our jobs, or at least we are supposed to be. And if the world insists on moving at a certain speed, we don’t always have to keep up with it. It’s a lesson we are never too young or too old to learn.

Unfortunately, many of us have to make compromises, if not for ourselves than for those we love. But we don’t have to be compromised. We can find the proper balance between work and family, one that results in peace of mind and a soul-deep contentment.

This blog is one of my stops at Willoughby. It’s something that will never pay my mortgage, but I do it because it makes me happy.

Find your Willoughby. Even if you can’t live there, make sure you visit often enough to take a piece of it with you wherever you go.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Comfort TV Shows Turning 50

 
Fifty years is a long time. Not by geologic standards, perhaps, but certainly in the time we are blessed to have in this world. It’s a halfway point if we’re lucky (I hope so, as I will turn 50 this year), and it’s the time when we are ousted from the highly coveted 18-49 demographic. From here on, nobody cares where we go, what we watch or which brand of toothpaste we buy.

Some shows seem like they originate from another era – I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and any family sitcom in which boys wore jackets and ties to school. But when you look back at some of the TV shows that debuted in 1964, many of them do not appear to be a half-century old. Some are still as entertaining as they were the first time they aired.

Let’s reminisce about Comfort TV debuts from the year the Beatles invaded America. Perhaps their undiminished quality and freshness will make some of my fellow future (and current) 50-somethings feel a little younger.

Bewitched
Take away the nose twitching, and the nightly foraging of the liquor cabinet, and Bewitched still paints a pretty accurate portrait of American middle-class life. Of course, it’s a little jarring to realize that Tabitha would now qualify for AARP membership. And if McMann & Tate is still on Madison Avenue, Darren and Larry are helping clients develop mobile apps and social media strategies, using technology that would certainly have seemed like magic 50 years ago. 



Gilligan’s Island
As I acknowledged in an earlier Comfort TV piece, Gilligan’s Island has never been a personal favorite, but it remains a classic TV staple that has rarely left the air. It’s a series that always existed outside current events, which has helped it to age gracefully. Put your kids down in front of an episode and they’ll still be taken with the silly but good-natured escapades of the seven stranded castaways. And the “Ginger or Mary Ann?” debate rages on, though for me it’s always been Mary Ann.

Flipper
“They call him Flipper, faster than lightning
No one you see, is smarter than he.”

I haven’t watched an episode of Flipper in 30 years but I can still sing the theme song. At least my memory is working. 




Peyton Place
This groundbreaking series has never been widely syndicated, but two DVD collections reveal a show that, give or take a few fashion statements, could find an audience today. Its stories of love, greed and power in one New England town are still being told in today’s daytime dramas. And just like any good soap, if you watch the first few episodes you’ll be hooked.

The Munsters/The Addams Family
How strange that TV’s most enduring horror-inspired sitcoms would debut in the same year. As with Gilligan’s Island these shows are not products of their era – both feature characters that predate the 1960s. But some episodes betray their age – like Herman reciting beatnik poetry in “Far Out Munsters,” or fitness guru Jack LaLanne helping The Addams Family’s Uncle Fester go on a diet.

Underdog
With Underdog we are reminded of how times have changed since 1964. Our canine hero, so memorably voiced by Wally Cox, was a humble shoeshine boy who became a superhero by taking a powerful vitamin pill. Due to subsequent pressure from “educators” and “child safety advocates,” reruns often aired with any scenes of Underdog taking the pill deleted. And see? It worked! No more drug abuse in America! 



The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
At last, a show that was very much a product of its time. The 1960s box-office success of James Bond inspired a wave of secret agent facsimiles, including this popular series starring the suave Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo. The twist was having Solo partner with a Russian (David McCallum) at the height of the Cold War, inspiring millions of teenage girls to ponder how Communism could be bad when Illya Kuryakin was so dreamy. And like many classic TV shows, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is about to be adapted into a new movie that will feature a hip-hop theme and copious jokes about flatulence, while ignoring everything that made the original a success.  



Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
When Christmas rolls around this year, it will mark the 50th airing of this evergreen holiday tradition. Are Rudolph and Clarice still together? Is Hermey still a dentist in this age of Obamacare? Have the denizens of the Island of Misfit Toys filed a class-action suit demanding they no longer be labeled by the derogatory term “misfit,” and must now be classified as “recreationally-challenged?” So many questions, for which we’ll never know the answers. Thank heaven for that.