Cheers "Abnormal Psychology" cold open. Woody wants to go fishing. I never noticed the Latin phrase Norm uses. I've used it myself here. I got it from Philip K. Dick. De gustibus non est disputandum. Although Norm left out the "est." In matters of taste there can be no dispute. IMDb has it in the trivia section below.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0539682/
https://thegoldenhornblog.blogspot.com/2022/03/de-gustibus-non-est-disputandum.html
Season five, episode 10. From Dec. 6, 1984. Luther Gillis returns. Elmo Ziller returns. Last episode with the voice of Orson Welles as Robin Masters.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0639685/
http://magnum-mania.com/Episodes/Season5/Luther_Gillis_File_001.html
Needed to use up some Covid canned goods. This is a recipe I created during Covid. Easy and spicy. Several different versions but this one has two cans red beans, two cans black beans, drained and rinsed. One can pinto beans. Not drained. Two cans Rotel tomatoes. Two chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped. One little can of peppers will make three things of soup. I freeze the rest. One big onion, three cloves garlic, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, black pepper, salt. One tablespoon chili powder. One tablespoon cumin. Chicken broth and water.
Cook the onions and garlic for a few minutes and then add the chipotle peppers for a couple minutes more. Add Rotel tomatoes and simmer for a few minutes. Add the beans, chicken broth, chili powder, cumin, all the seasoning, bay leaf. Simmer for about an hour to an hour and a half. That's it. I eat it with rice as filler with Extra Toasty Cheez-Its. Also good with a toasted taco shell broken up in it.
Directed by Jonathan Demme. Next on Tubi. Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Mercedes Ruehl, Dean Stockwell, Trey Wilson, Joan Cusack, Alec Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Charles Napier, Nancy Travis, Tracey Walter. Tak Fujimoto cinematography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_to_the_Mob
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/married-to-the-mob-1988
https://www.vulture.com/2021/11/dean-stockwells-sleazy-brilliance-in-married-to-the-mob.html
https://www.avclub.com/married-to-the-mob-1798215442
https://www.avclub.com/jonathan-demme-1798208233
Mickey Gilley has died. He was 86. The urban cowboy. Born in Natchez, Miss., his cousin was Jerry Lee Lewis, from right across the river in Ferriday, Louisiana. Jimmy Swaggart is also their cousin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Gilley
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/mickey-gilley-urban-cowboy-dead-obit-1350370/
Directed by Stephen Chow. And written. And starring. And produced. Coming up next on Tubi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Hustle
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kung-fu-hustle-2005
Directed by Rob Cohen. Sylvester Stallone. Coming up next on Tubi. Dan Hedaya, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Brenneman, Jay O. Sanders, Danielle Harris. Pretty solid thriller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_(1996_film)
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/daylight-1996
Magnum's favorite beer. Two six packs on the table here. One in his hand. No More Mr. Nice Guy from season four. Higgins spoils the ending of the Army/Navy game and Magnum throws his popcorn in the air.
http://magnum-mania.com/Episodes/Season4/No_More_Mr_Nice_Guy.html
The fictional beer "Old Dusseldorf" is seen for the first time. This is Magnum's favorite beer and will be seen or mentioned only a handful of times. Magnum describes it as "...an old German beer brewed in Maryland". It is hard to find on the islands.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0577616/
1990 NBC. "A Very Fanelli Christmas." An Italian family who own a funeral home business try to keep it afloat. Joe Pantoliano, Christopher Meloni, Richard Libertini, Ann Morgan Guilbert, Ned Eisenberg. Dom (Joey Pants) is a hustler and scam artist. When he brings home a Christmas tree everyone wants to see a receipt. Then we have a series of clips about his scam involving fake Rolex watches.
The next bit is a series of women who are brought home to the kitchen table as possible matches for Anthony (Ned Eisenberg), who runs the funeral home. Then the youngest Fanelli has to admit he has dropped out of school, and is not gay, which everyone is relieved to find out. Christopher Meloni is the stud brother Frankie, who is having a problem with Little Frankie. "You look like you lost your best friend in the world." "I did." "Ma, I'm important!" Wendie Malick and the lovely Italian beauty Fabiana Udenio appear briefly.
A Christmas episode with clips is kind of hard to judge a sitcom by. There was some criticism that the show was too stereotypically Italian. This is the only episode available on Youtube.
https://thegoldenhornblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/makin-it.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438869/
1979 ABC. "Something for Ma." David Naughton disco sitcom. Greg Antonacci, who I just saw on The Rockford Files the other day, Denise Miller, Ellen Travolta, Lou Antonio. This was a sitcom takeoff on Saturday Night Fever. The theme song by Naughton was a Top 40 hit. Lowell Ganz was one of the creators and this episode was written by Babaloo Mandel. Those two became a team with many big name hits. The end of disco quickly put an end to this show, which was among the lowest rated for the year.
It's Ma's birthday and nobody knows what to get her. She wants Tony (Greg Antonacci) to come home for the party, but he has a beef with Pop and doesn't want the aggravation. Tony gives her a nice pair of earrings and Ma gets arrested for possession of stolen goods. It was all a big misunderstanding and Ma and Tony end up having a heart to heart about Pop.
A fun curio of the 1979 TV season more than anything else. An early VCR must have gone on the market in 1979 because you see a bunch of short-lived and forgotten shows from that season on Youtube. It was a nutty year with a lot of crazy shows.
https://thegoldenhornblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/misery-loves-company.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0649113/
1995 Fox. "Uneasy Rider." Four aging friends hang out in a sports bar. Christopher Meloni, Julius Carry, Stephen Furst, Dennis Boutsikaris. Joe gets a Harley and inspires the gang to become bikers. Biker guest stars: M.C. Gainey, Mickey Jones, Donald Gibb, Franc Ross. Plus Diane Delano.
After buying motorcycles the guys think they can hang out in the local biker bar but quickly find out they're not exactly cut out for it. Just in the last week I have seen M.C. Gainey in Cheers, Simon & Simon, and Buddy Faro. He is one of mean bikers in the bar called Scar. Stephen Furst saves the day by performing some impromptu dental surgery on Donald Gibb. Impacted beef jerky. The payoff is that everyone in the biker bar turns out to be posers, not just our gang of friends. A pharmacist, a urologist, a Starbucks barista.
Only four episodes of this show aired and one of the unaired episodes is titled, "Wu's Company." Fox had a history of short-lived sitcoms in the 90s. This one episode has been on Youtube for a while, and I've also seen the pilot, but that has been deleted. It's a decent enough show and the cast is good. The biker guest star cast makes this one a lot of fun. The promo below is actually for this episode.
