Friday Questions

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As we “Fall” into Friday Questions…

Bob Paris starts us off.

What is your opinion of out-of-period hair styles on TV shows? It seems that in a movie, the actor may get a crew cut if appearing in a 50's period piece but on a TV show such as M*A*S*H, the hair styles were more contemporary to the time the series was filmed. Loretta Swit's hair was occasionally shagged/layered which was not done until decades after the setting of the series.

Bob, I’m here to tell you it’s a fight you will not win. When the choice is authenticity vs. looking more flattering lots of actors will opt for the latter every time. You go to an actor’s trailer and try to tell them to look less hot. That’s the same assignment as giving a cat a bath.

Two questions from WB3:

If you could take DVDs of three half hours of some classic sitcom (excluding eps written by you and your partner David) on a desert island for an extended period what would you (and the community here) take along?

The CHEERS pilot
The “Private Speakup” episode of THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW
The “Chef of the Future” episode of THE HONEYMOONERS.

But that's a tough question because there are some episodes of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, SEINFELD, BOB NEWHART SHOW, FRASIER, MASH, DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, and GIDGET that just missed the cut.

Also, what is the single funniest line/exchange you recall from a sitcom?

In THE HONEYMOONERS “$99,000 Answer” episode, when Ralph is on a game show and knows every song in the world except the one Norton used to intro every other song I laughed for ten minutes. I was probably 10 at the time and never saw the joke coming. I think that’s the biggest laugh I've ever had in my life.

slgc asks:

There have been a lot of superlative commercial documentaries this year (RBG, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Three Identical Strangers and Love, Gilda immediately come to mind). To what do you attribute this apparent trend?

I think if you look back there have been exceptional documentaries every year. The excellent ones that you pointed out also have commercial appeal and are getting a lot of crossover attention, but if you dig a little I’ll bet you find undiscovered gems from just about any year. But don’t ask me to pick three for when I'm stuck on a deserted island.

What’s your FQ?

from By Ken Levine

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