Thanks for remembering to mention United States. I saw a few episodes - this was in early 1980 on NBC - and indeed it went against the grain by having no laugh track. (There was at least one earlier comedy of this type - the original 1969-71 Bill Cosby Show, also on NBC - but I don't recall when the "single-camera"…

How about a little recognition for Michael Chapman, the cinematographer? His contribution was at least as substantial as Bernie Herrmann's.

Absolutely correct. A friend of mine worked at a movie theater during his college years (he remained in town while I went to school elsewhere) and once while I was back home, he told me that when they'd shown "Behind the Green Door" and similar fare, lots of couples in their 40s turned out, including my own parents.…

At the time I saw this in the theater, I'd recently ended my subscription to National Lampoon that I'd begun in high school; it was rapidly becoming less funny, starting in perhaps late 1974. The bylines on the three newspaper articles at the end ("Taxi Driver Battles Gangsters" etc.) were Pellegrini, Kaestle, and…

Didn't "The Elton John Band" appear on the label of only one release, the single "Philadelphia Freedom"?

Interesting. As noted elsewhere, I first saw this (in the first and longer of the two original theatrical cuts) in 1977. Last night I ran the DVD up through the audition scene, which suggested to me a variation of what you're saying: It seems to me that a contrast was intended between the severe friction of Jimmy and…

Just checked the disc. Immediately after a lingering shot of the exterior marquee "Francine Evans in Happy Endings" comes a stylized New York street, a small "audience" apparently sliding in on risers from stage left (facing us), and a movie projector showing what they're watching but aimed at us the viewers; then in…

But "Happy Endings" is not a "number" in the usual sense - it's supposed to represent an entire Francine Evans movie! Being sung all the way through doesn't change that.

Never saw the show or heard songs from it, only read about it before and during its run - at the time I lived in center-city Philadelphia and you could get a weekly Variety on any of dozens of street-corner newsstands, 75 cents, printed on newsprint with the occasional glossy insert. At the time that was about the…

Under the influence of cocaine, so rumor has it.

On the strength of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver, I went to see New York, New York in 1977 and enjoyed it despite (not because of) the abrasiveness. But I actually like it better in the full-length version (same as DVD) that was first released some time after the theatrical run and includes the…

Just a minor quibble concerning the passage " 'I Will Wait For You,' the movie’s primary romantic theme […] The lyrics, not heard in this scene but still in the viewer’s memory, are an ironic rebuke, since Geneviève did not, in fact, wait for him…"

I've always enjoyed that track even though I've only ever seen one second-season episode (and that was first-run; early 1991, I guess). As a whole, the Floating into the Night album is more satisfying than the TV series. Just my opinion.

The Vienna Boys Choir parts were great. What a wacky idea, having to learn how to sing "Die Forelle" acceptably while being accompanied by piano and choir. The evaluator was hilarious.

On the other hand, Mull's host character Barth Gimble would (for example) sing a song with the chorus "I've had sex with all kinds of girls / please be one of them…" (an actual lyric I recall); he accompanied himself on guitar and was likely the songwriter. But sure, I'm prepared to believe that Mull himself is a…

Very enjoyable article for someone like me who saw 30 or 40 first-season episodes, then fell away but was aware of season 2 and Forever Fernwood, and became a huge fan of Fernwood 2-Night and its sequel America 2-Night, the swan song of the ad hoc syndication network put together for Mary nearly 3 years earlier. Those…

Hoffman starred in a markedly unfunny semi-satirical comedy called Hero (known outside the U.S. as Accidental Hero) directed by Frears in the early 1990s. Not sure why they'd want to work together again…

"but this is a bonkers thing for someone to do…"

Grossman's father was an amazingly vibrant professor of (in the one class I had with him in the mid-1970s) the history of storytelling, starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh and moving forward from there - the Aeneid, etc. He's a fine poet too, although now retired from teaching. Growing up with him as a dad might have…

I don't get it - if King was not only happy with the first one but actually participated and even appeared on camera, why outside of naked opportunism would there be any need for another? (Not his own opportunism; he doesn't need to.)