As they say, these things come in thirties, and yesterday Ernest Borgnine joined the ranks of the many actors, celebrities and famous figures to leave us this year, passing away at ninety-five less than a week after Nora Ephron and less than two weeks after Andy Griffith. Borgnine was one of those life-time, living legend actors, sort of a male Betty White, a performer whose career spanned more decades than most marriages, a half-century of a work on his resume. By the time we knew who he was, or at least knew his name, he was already into the golden age of his career, a silver-headed silver back. And we came know him best – for better or worse – as Manny the doorman onNBC’s The Single Guy. Certainly, this is not the crowning achievement of his career, that would be his Oscar for 1955’s Marty, and the NBC sitcom is more of a footnote on his illustrious filmography, but it is the role with which we most associate him. We didn’t choose to be twelve-years-old when The Single Guy came on the air, it choose us. And how were we not supposed to watch the show between Friends and Seinfeld? But that’s where The Single Guy was, 8:30pm on Thursday nights, the cushiest spot for any fledgling sitcom in all of television, and there on that show was an adorable, bushy-haired old man. And that’s how we remember Ernest Borgnine.
In lieu of any choice excerpts from The Single Guy (if such a thing exists), here’s Borgnine talking about that show and its rapid demise. His quiet bemusement over the show’s sudden cancellation and the questionable machinations of showbiz indicates that Borgnine the person was not so unlike the Borgnine characters: upbeat, gentle, and genuine.
Beloved author, screenwriter and New Yorker Nora Ephron passed away suddenly nearly two weeks ago, and we wouldn’t be doing our job here at Jumped the Snark if we didn’t report on it nearly two weeks later. Like with a lot of celebrities and significant figures who left us this year – Richard Dawson excluded – we didn’t have the same deep personal relation to or affection for Nora Ephron that many others did (and still do). Did we respect and appreciate her work? Surely. But did we harbor a rapturous devotion to her romantic comedies? Not quite. When we think of Nora Ephron, we think of You’ve Got Mail. And when we think of You’ve Got Mail, we inevitably think of this scene from Undeclared, when a warm-keg-beer-filled Seth Rogen declares his love for the film.
And this soliloquy can perhaps be applied to Nora Ephron’s body of work, at the least to her film career. Later in life she became synonymous with “romantic comedies” which became synonymous with “rom-coms” which itself became synonymous with “melodramatic, insulting, mindless treacle,” which is not quite an appropriate usage of the transitive property. Yes, some – maybe even most – rom-coms are uninspired and vapid forms of low art designed to appeal to a specific demographic and not necessarily to be good, but not all rectangles are squares, and not all rom-coms are “typical American tripe.” Like with You’ve Got Mail, you may think you’re better than Nora Ephron, but you’re not.
Coincidentally, we just this afternoon read New York magazine’s tribute of sorts to Ephron, a reprinting of her inaugural “Women” column, and we found her writing witty, confident, fun, and, much like Greg Kinnear in You’ve Got Mail, very likable.
We recently received this email from Major League Baseball promoting a special performance by former American Idol finalist Adam Lambert at the MLB Fan Cave, the corner storefront in Greenwich Village where a bunch of super-fans hole up and watch every MLB game (kinda like The Real World, but instead of Puck picking his nose and putting his fingers in the peanut butter, there’s a dude who swears that Ryan Braun has an STD).
And this got us thinking: what percentage of Major League Baseball fans are also strident Adam Lambert loyalists? How many people are both excited about the MLB Fan Cave and Lambert’s #CaveConcert? So we did a little statistical analysis and graphed our results using a Venn diagram.
Well, after what could only be described as a bloodbath, a display of violence so grotesque it rivals the Mortal Kombat tournaments, only two Eugene Levys are left standing in our Ultimate Eugene Levy in American Pie Showdown: the old guard, the wily veteran, Jim’s Dad in American Pie, and the new kid on the block, the upper and comer but still older and wiser, Jim’s Dad in American Reunion. It’s not just a clash of titans, it’s a clash of generations, a clash of millennia. For over a decade Jim’s Dad in the original American Pie has been known as the preeminent Jim’s Dad in American Pie, but Jim’s Dad in American Reunion is looking to change all that. Two Jim’s Dads in American Pie will go in, but only one Jim’s Dad in American Pie will come out.
Don’t get any on you.
The finals start…right now! Vote early and vote often.
Kristen Stewart has long been famous for acting with her hair (both on-screen and just when visiting Regis). Johnny Depp has also been no slouch when it comes to fondling his follicles, especially during his formative years on 21 Jump Street when the serious story lines and/or laughable dialogue elicited some legitimate hair wringing. With the recent news that Stewart is the highest paid actress in Hollywood and the equally recent news that Depp has split with his long-time girlfriend (and mother of his children) Vanessa Paradis, it seemed fitting to pair these two mane attractions together in a new quiz game.
And now, we proudly present, the very first Depp or Stewart?:
For years now Regis Philbin has been on a path of destruction, an unstoppable wave of violence that not only has counted many victims, but has also been self-directed, from box-cutter wounds to hip replacement. And today on Today, sitting in for Hoda, Regis admitted that he finally finished the job, doing what God himself couldn’t do.
But, then, if Regis off’d himself how could he be co-hosting the 4th hour, perfunctorily sipping what looked to be a gin-based drink? Well, there’s only one answer: he’s a zombie. Why else would he so readily believe in vampires?
Notice the look of shock and horror on Kathie Lee’s face, truly, genuinely unsure if Reege is kidding or officially senile. We’d be tempted to give KLG points here, if she didn’t conclude that of the two guests it’s Benjamin Walker who plays the title role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter based on the length of his legs, and not because between him and Anthony Mackie he’s the only white one.
One thing is for sure, Reege has officially crossed the line from lovable old curmudgeon to Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. For the full final hour of Today, it just seemed like Regis was really pissed that all these strangers were on his lawn.
Last week the New York Yankees headed down to D.C. for an interleague matchup with the Nationals, just a week after the Mets also visited the nation’s capital to take on their division rivals. Now we’re generally enormous Mets fans, but this year our enthusiasm is even more fervent than usual, with a roster that’s featured thus far an especially young, gritty and fun team, a Mets team we’re proud to watch. And not only do we watch religiously, we also spend far too much time following Mets beat reporters on Twitter, obsessively checking the Mets blog, and reading articles by local sports columnists. So with the amount of attention we grant to NY baseball, we couldn’t help but notice some similarities on the city’s back pages when the Mets and Yankees each took a turn against the Nationals.
It’s not out of the ordinary to see two very similar headlines among the city’s big three commuter papers (and sometimes three similar headlines), but those instances usually occur on the same day, when they can point to the rapid speed of overnight journalism as a reason for the doppelgänger. When you have three hours to turn around a newspaper, and, often, much less time to write and set the back page, it’s not surprising that the Post may print the same or a very similar headline as Newsday (like yesterday, for example) – great journalistic minds think alike – but in the triad above the Newsday super-headline was printed the day after the Daily News‘s “Capital Pains” headline (and after a different but still excruciating Mets loss). The Post headline, “Capital Gains,” came nearly a week later (after the Yankees handed the Mets three more excruciating losses), so certainly there was plenty of time to see the two prior “Capital” back pages and brainstorm some other DC-related copy. But, we reckon, in the newspaper world you just can’t turn down a good pun. And we respect that.
There’s never a day of Today that goes by without something interesting (or absurd) happening, and not a day goes by without a drink or two. Apparently, they’ve now exhausted more palatable Tuesday Boozeday options and have turned to petroleum. And it quickly goes to Hoda’s head, as she has a real hard time paying attention to Kathie Lee’s riveting childhood tale.
Ladies, you should know by now that the quickest way to get on The Soup is to ask not to be on The Soup.
Also, seems like Hoda’s been taking her cues from Survivor: One World’s Kat:
Today we continue our look at some of Growing Pains more memorable – or notorious – moments, especially those bits of dialogue or storylines that surprised (or mildly stunned) us when we rewatched the show as an adult.
One of the episodes of Growing Pains that we remember most from our youth, one that stuck with us all throughout childhood and beyond, is Season One’s “Reputation.” In this episode Mike Seaver* prepares, fully intends, to cheat on his Civil War exam in Mr. Dewitt‘s history class, writing key dates, names and locations on the soles of his largest pair of sneakers. But a funny thing happened on the way to the test: he actually learned the answers, and when the time came he didn’t need to take a peek at the bottom of his Reeboks. He absorbed and retained that information, and in much the same way we absorbed and retained this episode. It was because of this episode that we’ve known for as long as we can recall that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and Andrew Johnson took over after Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Yes, we’ve always had an aptitude for history, but we feel entirely comfortable crediting Growing Pains with teaching us about this specific and significant event in US history. And in addition to the lesson this episode provided, we also vividly recalled Mike Seaver’s stirring, high-pitched, plea of innocence to his parents – “I did not cheat!” and Jason Seaver’s surprising but unwavering belief in his son’s word. If we didn’t already have a father who loved and trusted us, we would have desperately wanted Jason Seaver to serve that role. And even though we weren’t in the market for a replacement parent, we never forgot or stopped admiring Jason’s unconditional love.
But despite having such a strong connection to this episode, something did take us quite aback when we years later watched the episode on DVD, Mike’s explanation to Ben about the crib-sheet sneakers.
We’re not sure what’s more hard to believe, that they so casually equated a black guy with the basketball team, or that there would actually be a black student in their white, upper-middle class, Long Island suburban paradise (a neighborhood not unlike the one we grew up in). We’re racking our brains trying to come up with a single black character on the show, and we’re coming up empty (Apparently Growing Pains was the Girlsof its day). But it is the first reaction – the flippant political incorrectness – that really struck us. We could envision a line like that a few years later on a more provocative show like Married with Children, but it’s not like Growing Pains was ever considered edgy.But, then again, the TV landscape has changed, and while you can say, do and show more now, you can also say, do and show less. As the limits of sex and violence and vulgarity have expanded over the last twenty-five years, you can make the argument that the levels of political correctness and racial sensitivity have conversely, almost paradoxically, expanded in kind. Appomattox Court House, captain of the Dewey High School basketball team, is a perfect example of this.
*We’ve been talking about the New York Mets a lot lately, so it’s worth noting here that the Seavers were named in honor of Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, who just this past Sunday was named to the Mets All-Time Team as right-handed starting pitcher. Also named to the team as the all-time lefty starter was Jerry Koosman, which not coincidentally is the surname of the Seaver’s next-door neighbors.
It’s officially over now. Sue Simmons signed off NBC 4 New York nightly news for the final time last Friday night, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the studio (or on our face). However, the night was not without some touching tributes from local personalities who love Sue just as much as we do, including some former and current New York Mets. It certainly says something about Sue that she inspires such adulation in the people who we ourselves revere. She’s bigger than New York sports, bigger than Jimmy Fallon, and, now, bigger than NBC News. Here’s hoping we see her again real soon (please, please take up Terry Collin’s offer).
Jumped The Snark 