What made you angry today?

[D'Snowth]

That in an of itself brings to mind something else shows like this had in common: celebrity guest stars being brought in (sometimes on a weekly basis) to boost slumping ratings . . . and more often than not, said celebrity guest stars had some sort of history with one or more of the main characters. In the case of THE ODD COUPLE, Felix was apparently in a USO troupe with Richard Dawson, not to mention all of the different athletes Oscar was pals with; meanwhile with SANFORD AND SON, Della Reese was the niece of one of Fred's friends, and B.B. King became a blues singer because Esther broke his heart!

 

[fuzzygobo]

The one cool thing about Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page, they had a friendship going back decades. They did a lot of shows on the chitlin circuit together.

But when Fred and Esther started taking shots at each other, they really got into it.

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, once Redd Foxx got some clout going on, that's when he started bringing in his old Chitlin Circuit crew onto the show, which resulted in pretty much almost all of the supporting characters who weren't even on the show in the beginning like Esther, Bubba, Grady, etc.

Then there was that strange season where Redd walked away from the show in a dispute with the network, and for several episodes, Grady stepped in for Fred, but when he did, he suddenly went from being Fred's dopey best friend to being Fred 2.0: he'd fire insults back-and-forth with Esther, argue with Lamont, and basically do everything Fred would do.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I actually want to mention my overall thoughts on all of seasons 1-7 in regards to Thomas:

Season 1: Great start with adapting the first eight books, even if as a result it did start off a bit slow. None the less, a great pilot season with some beautiful shots and music that would lead into its next season. This one had a nice blue tint to it. Ringo Starr was a bit dull in this season but he really improved a lot of them with his re-dubs. George Carlin wasn’t my favorite in this season but he did do some pretty good re-narrations (“Terrance the Tractor,” “The Flying Kipper” and “Thomas Saves the Day” are good ones for me).

Season 2: This is my favorite season - even though they did have to jump around with books (understandably) because so many new characters were being adapted, the episode adaptions were still fairly consistent and had a nice pacing to them. Unfortunately my only complaints are Britt Alcroft scrapping “The Missing Coach” just because she didn’t properly consider this one out when you have to adapt two stories (“Hullo Twins” and “The Missing Coach” from the Twin Engines book) into one 4:30 episode, resulting in some plot details having to be taken out and making the translation a bit more confusing, because Donald and Douglas’ introduction in “Break Van” was rushed and a lot of important detail was lost. It also resulted in a ton of wasted footage with only three shots fully surfaced. I also didn’t like how the Eight Famous Engines arc was completely scrapped just because of one episode budget issue (“Gordon Goes Foreign”) and we only got the first story adapted as a stand alone (“Percy Takes the Plunge”) , replacing what should have been the final episode for the Percy the Small Engine story arc (“Percy’s Promise”) instead of “Percy and Harold” (they had a conflict that was just left aside), though I did also hear it was because David Mitton didn’t want to damage the model for Percy with water (understandable) with the budget they had at the time. So Wilbert Awdry’s son Christopher had to write four new stories for the show at the last minute to help out the show with making episode translations and he was pretty unhappy with that. I can see why, too. While the episodes are enjoyable and give some of the new characters more screen time (Duck and Trevor), there’s a heavy use of stock footage in some of them (Better Late than Never in particular). None the less, I really like how much the filming has improved in this season, getting new locations and new models and the music has really improved in this one, too. Ringo got much more comfortable this season with his narrations and Carlin had more original stories to narrate (he sounds better there than most of his re-narrations, though I liked ones like “Saved from Scrap,” “A New Friend for Thomas” and “Percy’s Ghostly Trick.”)

Season 3 - Bit of a downgrade for me. I can honestly see why Wilbert Awdry was pretty upset with this season with how they were treating the show, even if some cases I do think he was being a little double-standardy. A lot of the episodes just SCREAM “rushed Shining Time adaption” with taking stories from previously adapted arcs and altering them a bit poorly (“The Trouble with Mud” is just a perfect example) or stealing stories from Andrew Brenner and never giving him any credit. The filming is a big downgrade for me because the quality looks a bit washed up in terms of definition. Thomas was also often forced upon in many episodes. But, I will say I liked Michael Angelis’ energy here and he was a good fit as UK narrator. George Carlin’s narrations were also at his best with this season imo, and while the picture is a bit meh, the colors do really stick out for me with this one and look much better restored. We also got our first song in this one, and the introduction of the proteus emu 2 music.

Season 4 - Upgrade from last season. I loved the Narrow Gauge and Stepney adaptions. But then afterwards, it just went back to the season 3 routine. Still, the picture in this one was beautiful with lots of gorgeous lighting, especially in the narrow gauge episodes. We also got more songs to enjoy. Angelis’ narration got better here. George’s voice was good but sadly got a bit more nasally here.

Season 5 - The picture is a lot more sharp and I like the coloring and detail that went into it. However, by now Wilbert Awdry is gone and the crew do their own thing. Original episodes. While I can enjoy them for what they are, it felt like the show was just trying too hard to be like TUGS. And some episodes just didn’t work with this dark material because sometimes it would break railway rules or physics (I mean, Skarloey and his crew making an igloo with heat?). Still, I liked Alec Baldwin’s US narrations and Angelis was starting to really settle in a bit more.

Magic Railroad - while enjoyable it did have some problems for me. The show combining with Shining Time was not really the best move and I can see why some folks didn’t like it, especially if you watched the show in the UK and didn’t know what Shining Time was. The voice acting was also not the best here, and too much stuff got cut that resulted in plot holes. Sorry to say the box office failure rightfully lead to Britt’s position as director. Still enjoyable none the less.

Season 6 - my biggest complaint this season is the filming. It was WAY too dull and gray and the models looked too plain and simple. By this point the writing was becoming a bit stale. While I liked Michael Angelis’ narrations Alec Baldwin was just completely dull and lifeless half the time. Enjoyable, but not a season I go out of my way to watch.

And season 7 - the picture quality really stuck out for me in this season. But unfortunately, with HiT soon to have control, this season foreshadowed what was to come when they had full control. The writing really became too cheesy and moral based. Many episodes had characters pretty OOC in this one, something that carried over to HiT in full control. What also sucked for America was having Michael Brandon as the narrator for the last “classic” season that resulted in new music being put in. It’s why I prefer the UK dubs much more. Still, a good conclusion to the Britt/Gullaine era.

Then afterwards I just jumped ship with where the show was going with how completely babyfied the show got. The most I’ll watch afterwards is the Great Discovery (mostly for Pierce Brosan’s narrations) and a few Brenner era CGI episodes.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Yeah, once Redd Foxx got some clout going on, that's when he started bringing in his old Chitlin Circuit crew onto the show, which resulted in pretty much almost all of the supporting characters who weren't even on the show in the beginning like Esther, Bubba, Grady, etc.

Then there was that strange season where Redd walked away from the show in a dispute with the network, and for several episodes, Grady stepped in for Fred, but when he did, he suddenly went from being Fred's dopey best friend to being Fred 2.0: he'd fire insults back-and-forth with Esther, argue with Lamont, and basically do everything Fred would do.

Redd Foxx’s walkout has been pretty well documented. At the time All in the Family was the #1 rated show, Sanford and Son was #2.
Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin (the shows’ respective executive producers) were partners and eventually gave in to Foxx’s demands and matched his salary to Caroll O’Connor’s plus one dollar.
Too bad Redd p/ssed it all away.

 

[D'Snowth]

A jug of Hawaiian Punch used to be 99 cents. Now it's $2.36.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm still dealing with froggin booklice and springtails scampering across my ceiling, like, go the frog away already, it's September, your time is over!

Dang they've been particularly invasive this year!

 

[fuzzygobo]

Maybe it’s time to call an exterminator. Or at the very least invest in a can of Raid.

 

[D'Snowth]

It's bad enough that Disney now owns one of my all-time favorite movies, but it's even worse that now, after nearly twenty years, an unnecessary sequel is being made of it.

I am speaking, of course, of DODGEBALL.

^^

 

[animalrescuer]

I think I am over this pandemic! All the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, Trump supporters, Covid deniers, everything!

I had a dog come in today with Ivermectin poisoning, the medicine that some people are taking to fight Covid, when it doesn’t do jack! Apparently the “owner” had Ivermectin to fight Covid, supposedly! The “owner” arrived at the hospital without wearing a mask probably knowing full well that he or she is exposing the staff to the virus! Long story short, the dog was put to sleep because of, in my brutally honest opinion, the “owner’s” stupidity! I am just over stupid, stupid people that seem to be popping up everywhere since the pandemic began! It’s because of those types of people that we still have a pandemic!