So many big names passing along to celebrity heaven lately…so how about one who’s still alive?
I always check out the birthdays in the paper, and today I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mitch Miller is still alive. Mr. Miller was born on the fourth of July, 98 years ago.
For those of you who aren’t of age, Mitch Miller was a conductor and record executive who hosted “Sing Along With Mitch” in the early ’60s. And that’s what America did every week. Sing along with Mitch.
My favorite story of the week, from our Thursday broadcasts:
APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING…AND APPARENTLY, SO CAN CERTAIN SOUNDS.
4 TORRINGTON TEENAGERS WERE IN COURT WEDNESDAY…CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING A MAN WITH A BASEBALL BAT.
THEY TOLD POLICE THEY THOUGHT HE WAS ATTACKING A WOMAN ON JUNE 6TH…BECAUSE THEY HEARD HER SCREAMING.
SO LOUISVILLE SLUGGER IN HAND…THEY CHARGED INTO THE MAUD STREET HOME TO RESCUE HER.
SHE WAS, IN FACT, SCREAMING…WITH DELIGHT.
THEY WERE HAVING SEX… WHEN THEY WERE SO RUDELY INTERRUPTED.
Obviously, I’m sorry the guy got the crap beaten out of him, but I loved the story because every now and then I need a good “tester.”
A tester is one of those stories you can have fun writing, and then hope you keep a straight face when you read it on camera (with no video to hide the expression on your visage).
I passed my little test. But on the inside, I was laughing my ass off.
Former SNL cast member Chris Kattan has signed on as a regular in an ABC sitcom for the fall.
Ferrell & Kattan
It wasn’t that long ago that Kattan and Will Ferrell were on equal footing at SNL…a couple of wild and crazy guys for their generation (”A Night At The Roxbury.”)
Then Ferrell became a big star, and Kattan stalled at “Mango.”
This is SNL history repeating itself. The show has propelled some into the pantheon of pop culture, others to sitcoms and the talk show circuit, and a few unfortunates to early graves.
Fey & Dratch
For every Eddie Murphy, there was a Joe Piscopo. For every Tina Fey, a Rachel Dratch.
For every Adam Sandler, there was a Rob Schneider. For every Billy Crystal, a Charles Rocket.
And of course, for every Chevy Chase, there was a Chevy Chase. (And you’re not.)
King & Brooks
This principle could be extended to local news anchor teams, I suppose.
For instance, for every Gerry Brooks, there was a Gayle King.
(Whatever happened to her? She seemed so promising, then…poof…gone. Well, Duby McDowell is doing a “where are they now” feature…)
Almost every evening, Keisha Grant and I have dinner while watching Brian Williams. During a Michael Jackson story this week, she casually mentioned that her father (a.k.a. “Daddy”) appeared in one of Jackson’s videos.
I looked up from my ham and cheese, and said something equivalent to “pardon me?” (I don’t believe those were the exact words.)
I have had the privilege of spending time with Daddy, who is as delightful and gentle a human being as you will ever want to meet. As a matter of fact, I even called him Daddy because I didn’t know his first name for the longest time. (And we’re not that far apart in age.)
His name is Basil. And Basil Grant does something that, it’s safe to say, your daddy never did and never will. Basil Grant eats fire. (My dad occasionally breathed fire. But eat it? No.)
And so he did in the 1992 Michael Jackson video, “Remember the Time,” which also featured the likes of Eddie Murphy, Iman, and Magic Johnson.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Basil Grant, a.k.a. “Daddy,” who appears 2 minutes and 12 seconds into the video. Enjoy!
Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have signed deals to continue on “Law & Order: SVU,” and those of us who need NBC to do well can only say “whew.” It’s no secret the Peacock doesn’t have an embarassment of prime-time riches right now, so long live Benson and Stabler.
Koufax & Drysdale
As it turns out, they negotiate in tandem, which brings to mind another power duo who did the same thing. Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale threatened to hold out unless the Dodgers paid them six-figure salaries for the 1966 season. Koufax got $125,000, Drysdale $115,000.
Hargitay and Meloni will reportedly get north of $400,000. An episode.
But like the Dodgers needed Koufax & Drysdale 43 years ago, NBC needs Hargitay & Meloni.
As Babe Ruth said when asked why he was demanding more money than President Hoover, “I had a better year than he did.”
Billy Mays: “You’re kidding. The OxiClean guy? What the hell happened?”
Gale Storm: “Oh jeez, I remember her. How old was she?”
She was 87. And I know that a lot of you won’t remember her. Gale Storm was among the first TV sitcom actresses I remember (along with Joan Davis and Betty White, who’s still a hoot).
I remember Gale Storm (perhaps the only female personality outside of exotic dancers whose stage name is a weather condition) best for the fifties sitcom “My Little Margie.”
Gale Storm & Charles Farrell
What I remember most vividly is that her father, “Mr. Albright,” spoke with a Boston accent. (”Maaahjee!”) The actor who played Mr. Albright, Charles Farrell, was in fact a Boston-area native.
Naturally, that reinforced the notion that everyone in the world spoke with a Boston accent, and those who didn’t were out of the norm.
You know, I’m gonna have to shake that notion someday…
As Kenny Perry celebrates his victory in the Travelers Championship, let us take a moment to remember Tim Norris.
Tim Norris won the penultimate Sammy Davis, Jr.–Greater Hartford Open played at Wethersfield Country Club in 1982. He set a tournament record with his winning total of 259, which earned him the then-princely sum of $54,000. Tim Norris played in eight more Sammy/Canon/GHOs, and missed the cut six times.
But his tournament record stood. Until Sunday.
Perry’s final round 63 gave him a total 258. It earned him a very princely sum of $1.06 million dollars, and it nudged Tim Norris aside in the tournament’s record book.
Norris was a journeyman golfer whose career was cut short by injury. He went on to become a successful college coach. And while we celebrate Kenny Perry (who ironically wears the logo of The Hartford) as the new Travelers champion, it’s worth remembering Tim Norris’s one great week on the PGA Tour.
You can say he was a one-hit wonder, but Tim Norris won one more PGA Tour tournament than the rest of us ever will.
As news of Michael Jackson’s collapse and death started to break Thursday, something unusual unprecedented happened to me.
I went to tmz.com to see what they had. And they had a lot. As a matter of fact, they broke the news of his death, well before the traditional media outlets did.
I have been aware of TMZ, the syndicated companion television show, and founder Harvey Levin for some time. Having little interest in the lives of celebrities, I had never visited the web site or seen the show. But I knew the site had an uncanny record of accuracy in the celeb/gossip field, so there I was, on the air, quoting tmz.com.
It was a rite of passage of sorts. A reluctant acceptance of a non-traditional source of information (not that I took it as gospel).
And when I got off the air, I was greeted by grinning news managers. “Hell froze over,” they said. “Gerry Brooks quoted tmz.com on the air.”
I felt the same way. And I didn’t feel as “dirty” as I thought I would.
Please open your major metropolitan daily to page B3 (although your edition could differ from mine.) Thank you.
I save the sports section for last to linger over the box scores and Dom Amore’s fine baseball coverage. Today there was no Dom Amore, but two Red Sox articles by Adam Kilgore of the Boston Globe. OK, no problem.
But wait, there was a problem. It was the same article under two different headlines. “Rookie Spoils Debut” and “Experience Reminds Smoltz Not To Worry” were one and the same.
I know I live in a glass house when it comes to media criticism. I know we’re all working shorthanded. I know most of the paper’s sports resources are in Cromwell. But really, how does this happen?
It’s worth repeating that I’m rooting for the Courant’s survival, even though they now “sleep with the enemy,” Channel 61. A healthy Courant is good for all of us. I’m even looking forward to next week when the paper puts its banner back where it belongs: at the top, horizontal. Hey, I’m a paying customer!
But you’ve gotta make your free throws. And today, they threw up bricks for the Red Sox coverage.
He was incredibly talented, he merged genres, he broke barriers, and once upon a time he was a very attractive young man.
So with the all the words that are being written and spoken about Michael Jackson, here is my sole contribution and observation.
I feel bad that I can only remember him as a freak.
———–
And the morning after… I watched some of his videos on MTV after I got home, and they did bring me back to the day when his singular talent was in full bloom. I would prefer to remember him that way. Maybe he preferred to remember himself that way too. We’ll never know.
I save the sports section for last to linger over the box scores and Dom Amore’s fine baseball coverage. Today there was no Dom Amore, but two Red Sox articles by Adam Kilgore of the Boston Globe. OK, no problem.