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Angel, Angie & Apple's Way by Mike Spadoni All articles are copyright © Television Heaven or their individual authors where stated |
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Angel, Angie & Apple's Way by Mike Spadoni All articles are copyright © Television Heaven or their individual authors where stated |
Absolutely drew together a new breed of relatively unknown (mainly Scottish) comics and pretty much gave them free licence to create a collection of surreal and silly sketches and songs. Like Monty Python years before the performers were also the writers and the sketches stretched from the sublime to the ridiculous, but unlike Python, Absolutely featured a number of recurring characters who have since become cult figures. Morwenna Banks (now an established actress, writer and director) often played a whining St Trinian's type schoolgirl sitting on a large table or desk (to make her appear small) and the sketches she appeared in often ended in her exclaiming "It is, it's twue!"; Jack Docherty was the extreme Scottish nationalist and playwright MacGlashan ("All English are pooves"); John Sparkes developed the character of a grumpy old man called Bert, complete with Zimmer frame; Stoneybridge Town Council (played by the entire cast) were originally created to lampoon the (then) trend of small-town self-promotional travelogue videos, but soon became a parody of all local councils. Other members of the cast included Moray Hunter, Peter Baikie and Gordon Kennedy. After the show finished in 1993 a spin-off appeared; Mr. Don and Mr. George (6 episodes) and a pilot appeared on BBC2 for a series called Mac, a sitcom based around MacGlashan and his long-suffering brother Finley.
Created by James A. Michener, Adventures In Paradise starred Gardner McKay as Adam Troy, the handsome captain of a schooner called the Tiki. Troy, a veteran of the Korean War, became involved in all kinds of comings and goings featuring fortune hunters and freebooters as well as a host of beautiful Tahitian women. Our hero had a number of partners during the series three-year run including a Chinese-American called Oliver Lee (Weaver Levy), Clay Baker (James Holden) and Chris Parker (Guy Stockwell). Although set in the South Pacific the series was filmed on the back-lot of 20th Century-Fox. Following the cancellation of the series McKay turned his back on showbusiness to travel the world. He returned to acting in the 1960's and later became a playwright, drama critic and teacher. He passed away at the start of 2002 aged 69.
An oddity - a British made sitcom from the 1950s starring a US actress so it could be sold to America. The actress in question was Joan Shawlee who shortly after this series enjoyed her most famous film role was as Sweet Sue in the 1959 comedy classic, Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. She also appeared as a semi-regular in The Dick Van Dyke Show (as Buddy's wife, Pickles). Before this UK series the 27-year old actress had appeared in The Abbott and Costello Show on US TV. In The Adventures of Aggie she appeared as Aasgard Agnette Anderson, an international buyer working for a world-famous fashion house. The demands of her job meant that she didn't stay in one city too long so her globetrotting meant there was no room for a regular cast. However, a number of upcoming celebs appeared throughout the series run of 26 episodes, including Wilfrid Brambell, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, Richard Wattis, Rupert Davies, Gordon Jackson, Anthony Valentine, Patrick Allen and future film director John Schlesinger, all destined for fame and fortune. Like most females in 1950s sitcoms the situations she got into were normally a result of her tendency towards being accident prone, although none of these were of the domestic type and normally involved spies, smugglers or murderers. The series was shown in the US in syndication as simply Aggie.
Anna Sewell (1820-78) wrote only one book in her lifetime but it became an all time children's classic. The book, for which Sewell received just £20.00, was published in 1877 just three months before her death, and told the story of a black mare who had been brutally treated by a succession of cruel owners until it was finally taken in by a kind family that nursed it back to health. The TV series, with specially written scripts, was set on a beautifully spacious Victorian country estate and featured Judi Bowker as Vicky Gordon, the thoroughbred's latest owner. (When Bowker left the series Stacy Dorning as Jenny replaced her). Other members of the cast included William Lucas as Dr James Gordon and Roderick Shaw as Kevin Gordon and sharing the directorial seat was Charles Crichton who later went on to make the hit movie A Fish Called Wanda. A sequel, The New Adventures of Black Beauty was made in 1990 with Lucas and Dorning reprising their roles.
Having made good international sales with The Magic Boomerang, Pacific Films in Australia embarked on a somewhat more ambitious project about a widowed father travelling the Southern Pacific seas with his two sons, daughter and a deckhand. Originally made as a monochrome pilot in 1965 entitled The Cruise of the Seaspray, Pacific took the bold step of filming the episode entirely on location in Fiji. Realising that they would not be able to afford the grand budget required to do the series justice Pacific sought co-funding and found it at Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures in the USA. However, the American company required some changes before the series went into production and as a result there were some cast changes, the filming moved to full colour and the title was changed to the more dynamic sounding The Adventures of Seaspray. The deckhand in the pilot only had a small role but this was expanded for the series. A Fijian native, Leone Lesianawai, was a real-life police officer in Fiji but left the force to play the character of Willyum Lesi. Walter Brown was drafted in to play Captain Dan Wells (replacing Joe McCormick as Captain Dan Wilder in the pilot) and Gary Gray and Rodney Pearlman played sons Mike and Noah. The daughter, Sue, was played by Susanne Haworth. After seven episodes the character of Noah was dropped when Rodney Pearlman decided that he didn't want to be an actor after all, and would rather resume his educational studies. The Seaspray continued to sail thereafter with a crew of four. It was initially planned to produce a series of 26 episodes but in the end 32 were made. The pilot episode was never screened.
Anglo-Canadian sitcom about Annie Brennan, the fog-horn voiced captain of the Narcissus, a tugboat based in a harbour on the Pacific North West of America. Her main preoccupation was getting the better of fellow skipper Horatio Bullwinkle and the two spent most of their time trading insults although deep down they were really friends and shared many adventures together. Tugboat Annie first appeared in Norman Reilly Raine's short stories that appeared in the weekly US journal Saturday Evening Post in the late 1920s. In 1933 a movie was made which starred Marie Dressler as Annie and Wallace Beery as Bullwinkle. Tugboat Annie Sails Again appeared in 1940 and Captain Tugboat Annie in 1945. In each movie Annie was portrayed by a different actress. The independent US production company TPA (Television Programs of America) commissioned a series in 1954 but the pilot was beset with problems; taking two years to complete and costing a then record $129,000. Among the favoured stars to play the lead role was the original Bride of Frankenstein; Elsa Lanchester. When the series was finally made (by Normandie Productions, Inc. a Canadian subsidiary of TPA) former opera singer Minerva Urecal was cast as Annie and Walter Sande as Bullwinkle. Annie's deckhands were Whitey and Pinto (Don Baker and Don Orlando) while Bullwinkle was supported by Jake (James Barron). Filmed in Ontario, Canada for US Syndication and Associated Rediffusion in the UK.
BAFTA-nominated comedy 'After Henry' followed the comfortable middle-class lives of three women; except that, for one of them, life wasn't all that comfortable... A widow of two years Sarah had been left well provided for in a large Edwardian detached house in a leafy suburb by her late husband, Dr Henry France. But, unfortunately, she had also been left with a demanding mother and a prickly adolescent daughter, Clare (Janine Wood) who craved independence, just as long as mother was there to clear up the mess. Sarah was stuck between the two of them (literally; her mother lived in the upstairs flat whilst her daughter resided in the basement and Sarah was in between). Mother was both manipulative and a gossip (Sarah dubbed her and her friends 'The Geriatric Mafia') and she often found herself being torn between mother and daughter with her only source of refuge being a second-hand bookshop where she worked, and the sympathetic ear of the shop's owner, Russell (Jonathan Newth). Prunella Scales ('Fawlty Towers') starred as put-upon Sarah and Joan Sanderson ('Please Sir!') as Eleanor, her fearsome battle-axe of a mother. 'After Henry' was written by multiple BAFTA-winner Simon Brett ('Rosemary & Thyme') and directed by sitcom legend Peter Frazer-Jones ('Man About the House,' 'George and Mildred'). 'After Henry' was originally created for BBC radio in 1986 and soon became a firm favourite with listeners. However, when the BBC turned down a TV adaptation it was snapped up by Thames. Not one of the Beeb's best decisions.
Running for two series in the early 1980s, Alfresco was the same quickfire combination of anarchic sketches and musical items that made Not the Nine O’Clock News, The Two Ronnies and Monty Python’s Flying Circus so successful. Featuring six young comedians who were destined to become household names within a few years of its transmission, Alfresco starred Ben Elton (who did the bulk of the writing), Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane and Siobhan Redmond. Alfresco set the seeds for future shows like A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Ben Elton’s The Man from Auntie and Saturday Live. Everything was fair game and a target for their humour - chat shows, effeminacy, British WWII films, Shakespeare and private health care, to name a few. Before Alfresco Granada Television tried out the format in a short mini-series of three titled There's Nothing to Worry About! which was only shown in the North-West. Alfresco followed a year later.
According to The Television Annual for 1955 "A constructive use has been made of Children's Television by presenting to the young viewers other youngsters who have hobbies or talents to show. These programmes, All Your Own, have been ably presided over by Huw Wheldon." (Seen in this picture with Keike Ihara, a 13-year old Japanese girl who demonstrated the art of Japanese tea-making while her parents looked on). All Your Own first appeared on the BBC in 1952. Wheldon also edited the programme and it was later produced by Cliff Michelmore who had worked his way up from assisting on a number of other children's programmes. Michelmore had been the Hamburg voice of the Two-Way Forces Favourites series, through which he "met" the voice of Jean Metcalfe, who handled the programme in London. She later became his wife. All Your Own also featured a young guitarist by the name of John Williams and it is rumoured that Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page was a youthful guest.
Almost a direct follow on from the BBC's hugely popular 'Not In Front Of The Children' starring Wendy Craig who was in an almost constant state of domestic discord, only on this occasion she was left carrying the babies herself as she was cast as widow Sally Harrison. However, the babies in question, Simon (Robin Davies) and Peter (David Parfitt) were in fact two almost-teenagers and help was often at hand from Auntie Flo (Valerie Lush). Craig played her role with a delightful scatterbrained aplomb that was to become something of a trademark for her in a long and distinguished television career. There were four series altogether and by the end of the last Sally had met, fallen in love with, and married antiquarian bookseller David Redway (Richard Coleman). This lead to a sequel...'And Mother Makes Five' (David had a daughter, Jane, played originally by Miriam Mann and in the sequel by Maxine Gordon), for which Wendy Craig wrote several episodes under the pseudonym Jonathan Marr.
Based on Frederick Grice’s 1969 novel, 'The Courage of Andy Robson', about a young boy (Tom Davidson) who is uprooted from his life in the pit community of Easington, in 1910, when his father is killed in a mining accident. Andy is sent to stay in a remote part of Northumberland, but after upsetting his new schoolmaster and making an enemy of the school bully he realises he has a lot to learn about rural life. Andy is given a dog to care for but in the second episode (Plague Dogs) an outbreak of rabies further alienates him from the locals. Help is at hand in the form of upper class Victoria Dennison (Stephanie Tague) and local lad Alec (Stevie-Lee Pattinson) whom he befriends. The trio shared numerous adventures across two seasons including intrigue with foreign agents, hunting for buried treasure and preparing for a royal visit.
I Love Lucy co-creator Jess Oppenheimer came up with this sitcom about American architect John Smith (Marshall Thompson) and his new bride Angel–that is, Angelique (Annie Farge), a French woman who had just moved to America. She was pretty, strong-willed and new to the ways of the USA; her earnest attempts to fit into suburban Los Angeles culture was the basis for the comedy–much as Cuban-born Ricky’s mangling of the English language generated laughs on Lucy. Doris Singleton and Don Keefer played neighbours and friends Susie and George, whose bitter banter toward each other was not unlike Lucy’s Fred and Ethel Mertz. In its review of the series, Time magazine accurately noted although the assembly line may soon run the ignorant-immigrant theme into the ground...Farge triumphantly resists being merely Lucille Ball with a French accent. She is easily the brightest newcomer to situation comedy—small, pert, winsome, and somehow giving the impression of being attractively feathered. But up against ABC’s new family comedy My Three Sons and NBC’s Bachelor Father, not enough viewers gave Angel a chance and CBS gave up after just one season. Thompson went on to star in the adventure series Daktari and appeared in other TV and film roles until his death in 1992. The French-born Farge made guest appearances on several other series before she apparently retired from show business in the mid-1960's.
Donna Pescow, who gained fame as John Travolta’s girlfriend in Saturday Night Fever, starred in this opposites attract sitcom. Pescow was Angie Falco, a blue-collar gal working as a waitress in a Philadelphia coffee shop. She began dating customer Bradley Benson (Robert Hays), whom she thought was a struggling student. Far from it: Bradley was a successful paediatrician from one of the city’s wealthiest families. Angie’s side of the family included her divorced mom Theresa (Doris Roberts), and younger sister Marie (Debralee Scott). Brad had his stuffy father Randall (John Randolph) and his overbearing sister Joyce (Sharon Spelman) to contend with. But Angie and Brad had support from Joyce’s daughter Hilary (Tammy Lauren). Naturally, the differences in cash and social class became comic fodder, helping Angie to become an instant hit as a mid-season replacement following Mork & Mindy on Thursday nights. It ended its first season as the fifth most-popular series on television, giving ABC a clean sweep of the top five that year, with Laverne & Shirley in first place, Three’s Company second, and Mork and Mindy tied for third with its parent Happy Days. In Season Two, Angie and Theresa ran their own beauty parlour, and Brad and Angie tried to settle in as newlyweds. The sharp comedy that marked the first season was softened–and not for the better; combined with a time slot change, ratings fell drastically and the series was cancelled. Angie’s theme song, Different Worlds, was performed over the opening credits by singer Maureen McGovern and became a top-20 hit in 1979. Pescow moved on to other television roles; Hays became known for his work in the 1980 film comedy Airplane! and its sequel; and Doris Roberts would win Emmys playing another meddling mom–Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Gerald Middleton is a wealthy and cultured professor of medieval history who, at sixty, feels both an academic and emotional failure. His broken marriage to the monstrous Inge has produced three children from whom he is estranged. Dollie, his best friend’s wife with whom he had a long and passionate love affair, has disappeared from his life in a cloud of recrimination and alcohol. And Gilbert Stokesay, the best friend, long dead in the trenches of the Great War, continues to haunt and threaten his self-esteem as an historian - all because of the Melpham Idol, a pagan phallic figure found in the coffin of a disinterred Bishop. It is the most important archaeological find of the century, a discovery that changes the course of scholarship and sets the academic world in turmoil. But is it a hoax? And if so who was responsible? And why? From Angus Wilson’s remarkable post-war novel, Anglo Saxon Attitudes has a typically rich and interwoven cast of Wilson characters. It is a satire, a tragedy, a black comedy of manners and a deadly accurate examination of the loves, lusts and foibles of a middle-class family bent on self-destruction. Made into a three-part television mini-series in 1992 by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies and featured Richard Johnson in the role of Gerald Middleton. Tara Fitzgerald played a supporting role as the young Dollie, and there was also a brief appearance by a 16-year-old Kate Winslet. The film won the BAFTA award for best serial drama; Davies and Johnson also won awards, from the Writers' Guild of Great Britain and the Broadcasting Press Guild respectively.
What we’re about to witness is called a football match. Not the beginning of World War Three. Not the destruction of the human race. A football match!" Every weekend, long-suffering referee Mr. Armistead wades into the melee to try to teach two sets of testosterone-fuelled maniacs the value of restraint, justice and fair play. Why does he persist in this near-futile endeavour? Is it because he has a dangerously masochistic streak? Or is it because Mr Armistead genuinely believes that he can use his peaceful philosophy of life to tame the wilder excesses of the players of Co-op Albion and, on this occasion, the Parker Street Depot? Another Sunday and Sweet FA, originally transmitted in 1972 as part of Granada’s celebrated Sunday Night Theatre anthology, was written by multiple BAFTA winner Jack Rosenthal - one of Britain’s most consistently successful television dramatists - and directed by the internationally renowned Michael Apted (7Up). Taking a ref’s-eye view of the life-or-death drama of match day, Another Sunday and Sweet FA is laden with Rosenthal’s characteristically insightful humour and features excellent performances from a cast that includes David Swift, David Bradley and Coronation Street stars Fred Feast and Anne Kirkbride.
The man who created The Waltons, Earl Hammer Junior, tried his hand with another family drama set in contemporary times. Premiering as a mid-season replacement in January 1974, Apple’s Way was the story of George Apple (Ronny Cox), a successful architect who was tired of big city life (Los Angeles, that is) and moved his family to the small rural community of Appleton, Iowa. (The town was founded by George’s ancestors.) Wife Barbara (Lee McCain) took to her new surroundings just fine, but it proved to be a big adjustment for the couple’s four children Paul (Vincent Van Patten), Cathy (Patti Cohoon), Patricia (Franny Michel; replaced in the second season by Kristy McNichol) and Steven (Eric Olson). Malcolm Atterbury played grandfather Aldon, who lived with the family. Every week, the Apples (especially George) became involved in various causes around the small town, which inevitably led to conflict with both townsfolk and other family members. But while the Depression-era setting of The Waltons drew millions of fans every week, the plots and resolutions of Apple’s Way seemed rather hokey and synthetic–especially in the Me Decade. Viewers found it much easier to switch the channel to NBC and enjoy The Wonderful World of Disney. CBS ended the Apple’s saga in January 1975.
(CBS, 28 episodes 1974-75)
Innovative US crime drama series which was almost two programmes in one. The 90 minute presentation was split into two parts. In the first 45 minute segment viewers saw Ben Gazzara as LA Detective Sgt. Nick Anderson as he hunted down the suspect to a crime and ultimately made the arrest. Then in the second part Chuck Connors appeared as attorney John Egan and the police procedule turned into courtroom drama as Egan attempted to get the accused acquitted. The series ran for just one season.
Hard to believe it in this day and age but in 1970, long before the video revolution, the only way to see your favourite clips from the previous week's television was to write in to Michael Aspel, the genial TV presenter who became one of the country's most familiar faces during the 1960s and 1970s, as a regular presenter of the evening news, before moving on to a wide variety of light entertainment roles including the long running BBC children's TV series, 'Crackerjack' and his own TV series, 'Ask Aspel.' Each week Michael's postbag would be full of requests to rerun favourite clips-mainly from children's shows but with a few adult programmes slipping in from time to time including 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', 'The Goodies', 'Top Of The Pops' and 'The Morecambe & Wise Show'-to name but a few. Mike also got to interview the likes of John Cleese, Peter Cushing, Roger Moore and the top pop stars of the day such as Kate Bush. The series proved popular with young viewers and enjoyed two runs, finally finishing in 1981 by which time VCR's were becoming more commonplace in British homes and viewers could keep their own favourite clips to watch whenever they wanted...which is more than the BBC did with much of their archive material!
