Rant #2,375: Let's Do It Again

Yes, I did oversleep today pretty badly.

I guess that I am tired writing obituaries this week, but unfortunately, I have to write one more today, and hopefully, it will be the final one I write for the week.

This one kind of went under the radar, because the other ones--Peggy Lipton, Doris Day and Tim Conway--were so huge.

Just about every Baby Boomer should know this guy's name, although I will bet you haven't thought about him in decades, or maybe since you were a little kid.

Jim Fowler, the naturalist, animal lover and TV personality, died earlier this week. He was 89 years old.

And if that name still doesn't ring a bell, let me give you another clue:

"Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."

There. Now you remember who he was.

That show was a "must see" show for Baby Boomers in the 1960s, as it literally brought the zoo to your living room, introducing all kinds of animals into your consciousness for the very first time.

And it was done through two people: Fowler and Marlin Perkins, with Perkins, a former zoo official, serving as the actual host of the show.

Premiering on NBC in 1963 and going into syndication for more than a decade starting in 1971, Fowler served as a touchpoint for younger viewers.

Perkins knew his business, but the perpetually 90-year-old host was not necessarily a hit with younger viewers, but Fowler certainly was.

The former athlete--who nearly signed pro baseball contracts with the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees--was as imposing as the animals he profiled each week.

Fowler--a guy standing six feet, six inches tall and weighing about 250 pounds--was good looking too, and as opposed to Perkins--who was slightly built and looked like the perpetual great grandfather to all viewers--Fowler was a revelation.

Perkins laid back, gravelly voiced style was often made fun of, and Fowler perpetuated that by appearing on "The Tonight Show" numerous times. He proved to be a great foil for Johnny Carson, who used Perkins as a punchline when Fowler was on the show, imitating his voice while interviewing Fowler, who always brought a stable of animals around to add to the show.

But the Carson show also perpetuated a rumor that stood the test of time: that Fowler was the one who pursued the animals, lions and tigers and bears and what have you, and that Perkins was simply the in-studio host.

Fowler said for decades that the Carson portrayal was not true, and that Perkins did as much as he did, and had as much contact as he did, with the animals that they profiled.

In later years, Fowler became the wildlife correspondent on the "Today" show, and he also appeared on numerous other shows to promote wildlife subjects.

While his fame was not on the level of that achieved by Lipton, Day or Conway, Fowler will be remembered as one of the first TV personalities--along with Perkins--who promoted positive visions of the animal kingdom on national TV way before that portrayal was widely accepted.

He will be missed.

Classic Rant #1,022 (August 16, 2013): Gay Wrestler

WWE Wrestler Darren Young has come out of the closet, as he has admitted that he is gay.

Whoopee do!

In what apparently is a true story, Young simply admitted to be gay--not with a grand news conference--but via a Twitter post made while he was getting his baggage after a long plane flight to Los Angeles, where the WWE is holding its annual SummerSlam pay-per-view event on Sunday.

It was so matter of fact that it is almost surprising, because the WWE never does anything in a quiet way.

Young is not the first professional wrestler that was gay, not by a long shot.

There have been numerous gay wrestlers, and even a few wrestlers who were exploited for their sexuality, going all the way back to Gorgeous George, who, by all accounts, was not gay.

The difference here is that Young came out in a new era, one where gay people are legally accepted in many, many places in our world.

I said "Whoopee do!" before because personally, I really don't care about a person's sexuality, and especially an athlete's sexuality.

To me, I don't care if he is black, white, brown, red or green, and I don't care if he is gay or straight, if he comes up in the ninth inning for my team with the winning run on base, and he gets that run in, he is a hero; if he strikes out, he is a bum.

Plain and simple, and it has nothing to do with his background.

In Young's case, he is in a strange position, because of his previous role in the company.

Young is a second or third-tier WWE Superstar at best.

He is in a long-running tag team with Titus O'Neill known as "The Prime Time Players," who look good as they come down the runway, but ultimately lose just about every bout that they are in.

And as solo wrestlers, they put on a good show, but that is about it.

They are always portrayed as villains, get booed and laughed at at the same time.

To me, the most interesting thing here is how the WWE will exploit this--or if they will exploit it at all.

The WWE is known to exploit all of their wrestlers' personal lives to a point where they aren't personal anymore.

And no one is above this.

Their top star, John Cena, has himself had his personal life exploited and exposed.

As he was going through his divorce, his storyline often touched on his personal problems with his soon to be ex-wife.

So will Young be exploited too?

Right now, some of the biggest bigwigs in the WWE have pledged support for him, including Triple H, Vickie McMahon and Cena himself.

But remember, this is really not a star wrestler. They can applaud him, but what else can they do?

If Young starts moving up the ladder quickly, with or without O'Neill, then it is pretty obvious that the WWE is exploiting the fact that they now have an acknowledged gay wrestler.

It will show their sensitivity to the subject, and in this new world we live in, it will probably be applauded by both wrestling fans and the mainstream as a good move.

However, if Young still lingers as basically a "bum," will the WWE be raked over the coals by some, saying they are missing a major opportunity to show their solildarity with everyone, no matter what their sexuality?

Will fans accept him for what he is, no matter what?

I think so, but I can guarantee that some fans will probably not be so accepting, and he will certainly be open to taunts--I mean, this is wrestling, where full body contact is the norm, not the exception.

Stay tuned. This should be interesting.

Rant #2,374: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Today is May 15, and that makes it a memorable Wednesday for me.

The date has lots of meaning to me each and every year, or at least for the past 31 years.

Let me tell you why.

The Good: Thirty-one years ago today, I became a father for the first time.

My then-wife delivered to me a perfect baby girl, and right then and there, I had to grow up quickly, not putting me first but putting this little bundle of joy at the top of the list.

She was absolutely beautiful, with a long mane of pitch black hair to go with her little bouncy body.

What happened to myself and her mother happened, but I always looked forward to the weekends, or at least alternate weekends, when I would see my daughter and we would go all around and have lots of fun together.

Look, I knew it could not last like this forever, but when the fun ended, it ended pretty abruptly.

But you know what? When I do see her, which is sporadically at best, I still get that good feeling in my gut.

She is my first born, and I guess that feeling will never change. I am very proud of her, proud of her accomplishments and proud of what the future holds for her, just like I am for my son.

Happy birthday to her, and many more!

The Bad: Well, it was actually yesterday, but we will talk about it today.

We lost Tim Conway yesterday, at age 85, and this classic second banana was really second to no one on television, where he made audiences laugh for 50 years.

Yes, his most memorable role was as the perpetual guest star on "The Carol Burnett Show," but the midwestern born Conway first hit the funny bone target on "McHale's Navy," where he played second banana--or sometimes even third banana--to Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine and Joe Flynn.

Like his idol Don Knotts did with Andy Griffith, Conway supplemented Borgnine's more brash comedic style perfectly and more subtly, but we laughed at both actors--and Flynn--as they battled life's ills in the show's World War II setting.

Later came "The Carol Burnett Show," and we all know the hilarity that he brought to that show, and in particular, to Harvey Korman. This "Mutt and Jeff" duo made us laugh, but nobody laughed harder than Korman, who seemingly could not keep a straight face whenever he was paired with Conway. Normally, such shows of ad lib laughter would be left on the cutting room floor, but Burnett and the others running the show were so taken by the off the cuff lapses that Korman had that they left them in the show, and people actually looked forward to these comedic interruptions.

But before the Burnett show came about, Conway guest statted on numerous shows, and actually had one show in particular of his own that I will talk about here, where the second banana was the star--and it simply did not work out.

"Rango" was an ABC sitcom in the late 1960s that even Conway called "the worst sitcom ever," but personally, I think he was being a bit hard on himself.

The show was an "F-Troop" ripoff where Conway played the sheriff of a western town where violence seemingly never occurred. Even though he could do no right, and was completely inept, he was put in this position because his father was a high-ranking captain.

Anyway, knowing that Rango was in charge, crooks finally came to the town, tried to overrun it, but somehow, Rango always saved the day.

That is how I remember the show, which ran for just 17 episodes and co-starred comic Guy Marks as an Indian, continuing the Jewish/Italian Indian vibe that started on "F-Troop."

Anyway, the show sunk without a trace, I don't think it is on video, and you can only see faint traces of it on YouTube.

I loved the show, always got a big kick out of it, but I guess I was the only one.

Conway also starred in "The Tim Conway Show," another footnote to his long and very funny career. He will definitely be missed.

The Ugly: Honestly, I don't know what could be uglier than legislators elected by American citizens rewriting history to show that the Palestinians actually helped Israel succeed in its early mission as the Jewish State, or an actress who needs to keep her face fresh in our minds telling woman to hold back sex from their male partners until Georgia changes its abortion laws.

Uninformed people who have the pulpit of America are dangerous people, rewriting history and demanding that we follow their beliefs, even though they do not know what they are talking about in even the slightest way.

I won't mention their names to give them any further press, but you probably know who they are.

Their views are ugly, senseless and make bigger schisms among us than we already have.

How anyone can applaud these two charlatans is beyond me, but they do have their followers.

Let's stop this nonsense and put a sock in their mouths so they won't spill this filth anymore.

Classic Rant #1,021 (August 15, 2013): Funky Benjamins

Let me just say at the outset that I have an uncle named Benjamin, but I have called him "Uncle Bobby" for as long as I can remember.

That being said, the Benjamins I am going to talk about here have nothing to do with him, and, even though his picture is on the things I am going to talk about, I doubt that Benjamin Franklin would be too proud today.

Evidently, reports are that the redesigned $100 bill is faulty, and other reports say that the bill is so faulty that an entire order of these new bills was recently destroyed.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has hit some type of production snafu at one of the country's two currency factories--the one in Texas, where everything is "bigger," of course, and it has fouled up production.

According to reports, the problem is something known as "mashing," where too much ink has been applied to the paper, making the bills unusable because it fouls up the anti-counterfeit measures put into these bills.

Let me tell you, by the time I pay off the people I owe money to, I don't see too many $100 bills in my wallet, anyway.

But I would love to get my hands on these new Benjamins, legitimately, of course.

It would fill a hole in my wallet that is probably a mile deep by now.

My wife is a bank teller, and has been one for more than 20 years.

She tells me that after a short while, these bills, and any other bills that she handles at the job, are nothing more than paper with pictures on them.

I guess because of her job, that is the way she must feel, but to me, well, those "papers" feel different from any other papers I handle throughout the day.

But I guess I am happy that this supposedly bad shipment was destroyed, because you don't want any funky looking money on the market.

This isn't Monopoly money, you know.

The most garish fake paper money I ever saw was in the game of "Life," when they put TV personality Art Linkletter's picture on the $100,000 bills and others on the other "money" used in the game.

I guess he was promoting the game, but to put his face on them ... heck, Ben Franklin has nothing to fear.

Anyway, I look in my wallet now, and there are lots of singles, but no hundreds.

Oh well, back to living from paycheck to paycheck for me.

I will meet up with old Ben next week, and I hope he is kind enough to stay around a bit.

Rant #2,373: Que Sera Sera

Well, we lost another icon yesterday, an icon from a different time period than yesterday's obit subject, Peggy Lipton.

And that icon that we lost defined the 1940s, the 1950s and the early 1960s.

Doris Day, 97, was one of the longest lasting "American Sweethearts" that we ever had, and her 50 year career was full of successes, whether on record, the movies or even in television.

And her television career is what I want to focus on today, because that is pretty much how Baby Boomers got to know of Day.

Long after her movie and recording career fizzled, Day turned to television, but it was not something she actually wanted to do. In fact, legend has it that of all the mediums at the time, television interested her the least, and other than a few sporadic guest shots on variety shows, she wanted to stay away from TV as much as she could.

But leave a disgruntled ex-husband to force her to dive into the new medium.

One of her several husbands was Marty Melcher, a supposedly shrewd businessman who would get her financial affairs in order. Due to a number of bad deals and ruthless past husbands, Day--probably the most popular two-way recording/films star in the world by the end of the 1950s, certainly at the very least rivaling Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley--had had her money mishandled by past business people and husbands, and she was forced to work to pay off numerous debts, even after her marriages fizzled.

Melcher--with whom she would have a child, Terry Melcher, he himself a major player in the burgeoning rock and roll scene as a singer, writer and producer of such acts as the Byrds and Paul Revere and the Raiders, who predeceased her in death--not only continued the pattern of husbands stealing her money, he made deals for her that she was not aware of until after the fact.

In fact, it was her son--who was not only the love of her life, but the only person she could seemingly trust--who told her in the late 1960s that she was contractually obligated to appear on a regular CBS network TV show, and later, to appear in a few TV specials, something she had no idea she had to do.

Looking to get out of this contract that she had known nothing about, the younger Melcher told her that she had to continue with the contract, if for no other reason that she was heavily in debt and needed the money a regular TV gig would supply her.

Yes, by the end of the 1960s, Doris Day was broke, and in debt up to the top of her trademark blond poof.

So, "The Doris Day Show" came to network television, and somehow survived five seasons as one of the strangest sitcoms ever to grace the air.

Day was still a huge presence, and the show must have drawn millions of viewers just to see her on a weekly basis. But the show was a total and complete mess from beginning to end.

In something that was pretty much unprecedented then and still something that I don't think has ever been done with a network television show to this day, each season, the show was retinkered, keeping the best of the previous season but changing the situation each and every year--new setting, new cast, new theme.

One season, Day was a widower and doting mother living on a farm, the next season she was a burgeoning journalist. One season she was paired with co-star Denver Pyle, another season with co-star Kaye Ballard.

There were two constants: the show was lightweight comedy of the lightest weight, and the show was a good ratings grabber.

Looking back on the shows, Day of course stood out, and her allure was incredible. She took horrid scripts and made them at least palatable.

And what's more, to keep her at least somewhat interested in what she was doing, she dressed in the most modern outfits for a woman who was in her 40s at the time, sort of as a counterpoint to Marlo Thomas on "That Girl," who fashion-wise, represented the "moddest" of late 1960s fashion for the younger set.

But whatever the case, Day was the main draw, and somehow, she kept the show afloat for five seasons.

In fact, during its run, she made gossip columns from coast to coast, with her supposed relationships with such celebrities as basketball's Elgin Baylor and the music world's Sly Stone. These supposed relationships were supposedly concocted by her publicists to keep her name fresh, but one thing that was true was that in the late 1960s, her son got to know Charles Manson, the burgeoning musician. Manson did visit Day's home on numerous occasions--some with Stone in attendance too, thus the Day/Stone rumor--but the object of Manson's eventual hate was clearly Melcher.

Melcher rented a house with the Raiders' lead singer, Mark Lindsay, and on that fateful day that Manson and his followers killed, among others, actress Sharon Tate, he was actually looking for Melcher, who was not home at the time.

Back to Day ...

After the series ended, as her son had told her, she was contractually obligated to produce a few specials for CBS, which she did, and by the mid to late 1970s, she had fulfilled her obligations, and did not show up on regular TV for years afterward.

In the 1990s, she briefly had her own cable TV talk show, which was a major ratings grabber when her guest, Rock Hudson--a co-star in numerous films in the 1950s and early 1960s--admitted that he was gay, and had a disease called AIDS, which at the time mainly affected men who had relationships with other men.

When her close friend died, she became probably the first prominent AIDS crusader, almost wanting to avenge Hudson's death by this dreaded disease.

And she always had her animals.

She was a staunch animal lover, and she spent the remaining years of her life surrounded by her pets, and crusaded for their rights, too.

Doris Day came to the fore a bit early for most Baby Boomers, but she left her mark on the world which is still being felt to this day,

She will be missed.

Classic Rant #1,020 (August 14, 2013): Various Matters

Nothing out there is really catching my eye as a single subject to talk about, so rather than focus on one thing today, I am going to talk a little about a few subjects near and dear to my heart.

Nassau Coliseum Bid Winner Expected Today: After numerous delays, grand standings, and much else, today is reportedly the day that Nassau County will pick its winning bidder to develop the Nassau Coliseum into something supposedly viable for the county.

This has been going on for so long that it is hard to get overly excited at the prospects.

The two finalists--the Barclay Center people and the Madison Square Garden group--have basically put up what amounts to roughly the same vision for the arena, so what's to get excited about?

You know, the usual mix of entertainment, retail, and almost as an afterthought, housing.

But once the winner gets picked, the work can begin, I think.

Maybe this thing will get done before I collect Social Security. Let's see.

Yankees Win Four of Five: And yes, they are doing it with a non-PEDed Alex Rodriguez in the lineup.

The entire season they haven't been hitting, and with all of the injuries they have had, they have had to field teams that look like Little League teams--and bad ones at that.

But all of a sudden, with some of their stars back--A-Rod, Curtis Granderson, and the guy they supposedly didn't want, Alfonso Soriano--they have become terrors on the diamond.

They actually won a series against maybe the best team in the league, the Detroit Tigers, and now they are beating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a really bad team ...

Like the Yankees were for most of the season.

Can they get back in the playoff race?

They have dug such a hole for themselves, it will be difficult, but at least now, they are getting fun to watch again.

Rochdale Village Reunion Getting Closer: And that is really good for me, because I have tired of this whole thing at this point.

I have mentioned this event sparingly here, but I am on a committee to put on a Reunion event for my old neighborhood.

Things are picking up steam now, and we will have a good gathering of people attending this affair.

Being on a committee of four where three people are against you has made me a committee of one.

Without going into detail, I found a little bit of a problem with the some things in the background of this event, brought it up to the other three, and they basically poo-pooed the whole thing.

But I didn't, and I am glad that I didn't.

We met on Saturday, vented on whatever was going on, and I thought everything was settled, but evidently, one of the people didn't see things that way, and put up a Facebook post that I had to remove.

Yes, once this thing is done and over with, the truth will come out, but right now, our focus should be on making this Reunion the best it can be, but I guess others have their own agendas.

Monkees' New Box Set Out: To coincide with another leg of the quasi-Monkees tour featuring Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and yes, Mike Nesmith once again, Rhino Records has released the fourth--and supposedly last--of its big Monkees box sets, this time chronicling the LP "The Monkees Present," which originally came out in 1969.

In 1969, the Monkees, although still popular, were just about on their last legs. Tork had left, Nesmith was on the way out, so it was just Nesmith, Dolenz and Davy Jones on this LP.

The album actually stands as their best effort as a Tork-less outfit, and features one of their best songs, "Listen to the Band," as well as several other standouts, including "Mommy and Daddy" and "Good Clean Fun."

But with the show in reruns, the interest simply wasn't there, and the LP faded into the mist.

However, this boxed set--with three disks and a bonus single--shows the the threesome still had a lot in them at this point in time, and it really was a shame that few were listening at this point.

After this LP, Nesmith left to pursue a solo career, and Dolenz and Jones carried on to record the abysmal "Changes," which will reportedly not get the "Big Box" treatment.

And thank goodness for that, because if "The Monkees Present" had been their true swan song, it would have stood as a very solid bowing out.

Instead, the twosome fulfilled their contractual obligations, and put out a piece of trash that is hard to top for its shallowness and lack of musical vision.

"The Monkees Present" is an excellent pop album, and I would certainly give the box set a good, thorough listen.

And that is it for now.

Personally, I am pooped from work, but I will be back tomorrow with some more scintillating chatter that comes to my mind at 5:30 in the morning East Coast time.

Have a nice day.

Rant #2,372: Peggy Do

We lost an icon over the weekend, a woman who defined her generation as the result of one, single role that she had as an actress 50 years ago.

Peggy Lipton, one of the stars of the groundbreaking cop drama "The Mod Squad," passed away from colon cancer. The eternally youthful Lipton was just 72 when she died.

The actress, born in the Bronx and raised in the Jewish faith in Lawrence, Long Island, came to Hollywood's notice in the mid 1960s as a model, and later appeared on several TV shows in small roles, including on "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour."

It took her a few years to establish herself as an actress, and when ABC, the nation's third network at the time, was looking for another "quirky" show to accent its burgeoning schedule, it decided on doing something a bit different as a crime drama, breaking away from the norm of shows like "The F.B.I.," a show that Lipton had guest starred on.

Looking at the times we lived in in the late 1960s, ABC decided to go with a crime/cop drama that would reflect those times, and "The Mod Squad" was developed.

The show features three very distinct characters as leads: the spoiled rich kid who rebelled against society (Michael Cole); the revolutionary black guy (Clarence Williams III); and the waif-like hippie (Lipton), meshed together as an undercover crime-fighting unit in Los Angeles in order to save their hides in the California penal system.

Using the tag line "One black, one white, one blond," the show came to the ABC schedule in 1968 and was an immediate hit, and Lipton, who played the most vulnerable of the characters, was its breakout star.

She looked the hippie part in her Julie Barnes role, with her long straight hair and her soft spoken attitude on the show, and of the three young actors, she was the one who made the biggest impression with viewers.

Lipton tried to catapult her newfound stardom with a singing career, which really never materialized even though she appeared on just about every TV variety show around as a singer, but during this period, she met Quincy Jones, the writer of the show's theme song.

They eventually married, smashing a taboo even then with a white, Jewish girl marrying an older black man, but the marriage lasted, and produced two children.

Lipton continued on "The Mod Squad," and earned several Golden Globe nominations. The show ended in 1973 and Lipton pretty much faded away from acting to raise her children.

Her marriage to Jones ended in 1990, and she continued to be a mere footnote on the 1960s, until re-emerging in the late 1980s as one of the stars of the short-lived "Twin Peaks" TV series.

For the past 30 or so years, she appeared in a few TV shows here and there, and had continued to re-emerge as part of her daughter Rashida's Jones' humorous Verizon TV spots (that is Peggy's back in the photo).

Lipton revealed that she had been battling colon cancer since the early 2000s, and succumbed to the disease this past weekend.

To most of us of the baby boomer generation, no matter what Lipton ever did, she will always be the female part of "The Mod Squad," the willowy, good looking gal who wore snazzy mod clothes and basically stayed in the background while Williams III and Cole got in the punches.

She was certainly an icon to our generation, and with the show in reruns off and on in the past few years, and the entire series and reunion movie widely available on video, her acting life is cemented forever.

We all loved Peggy, and to us, she will always be the eternal flame of that very popular show.