I think they also exist elsewhere as Checkers or Rally's. (I remember Rax from tech school at Fort Harrison, IN; good burgers, first curly fries I'd ever had, and a chocolate - chip milkshake where the chips looked and tasted like shredded brown crayon.)

Joe's Comics was / is J. Michael Straczynski's comics imprint; it was originally under Top Cow/Image Comics, but I think moved elsewhere after JMS and Top Cow's management had problems.

It's named Jumbo's now, but yes, still has the tiger (in blue shorts) over the door. Don't know about the interior.

Basically, Scott slipped and fell on his ass in one take, Kubrick thought it was funny (and fit the theme) and kept it in for the final cut. (Not least for Scott recovering and carrying on regardless.)

I think that's a Philadelphia thing (the coleslaw on a Reuben) - I used to work next door to a Philly sandwich shop (on the California coast, in a mall no less) that was hardcore enough to FedEx the rolls in from Philadelphia every day. Only place I've ever had it - but I liked it.

It's not slang, but it is a by-word for bad food (and bad food service, come to that. A YA novel from the early '70s, in relating a guy's slovenly work habits, described him as "Worse than the house painters who slap it on over the cobwebs. Worse than the window cleaners who don't change the water in their buckets…

As do we in the US; while taxpayer funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcastingwas slashed in the '90s, it's still there. (And virtually all of it goes to PBS; had McDonalds' heiress Joan Kroc not given a huge donation and willed them most of her estate, National Public Radio would have died decades ago.)

Even on the original broadcasts, PBS had to provide separate feeds - one uncut and a second with the (few) "fuck" s and "shit" s bleeped and the (few) male and female naughty bits blurred - and several stations in the South refused to show it even then. (IIRC, it was blacked out completely in Jesse Helms' North…

I already mentioned PBS' Tales of the City here…and that's pretty much exactly what happened. (Highest ratings of any PBS broadcasts ever, and they've still never re-shown it nationally, and pulled out of funding or airing the two following series.)

This was also right around the time the BBC first got into overseas sales, and Play for Today (which I assume was the series "Girl" aired in originally) was very much a BBC flagship.

Does PBS not count? (Tales of the City was 1994, and there's at least one m/m kiss in there…plus other bits.)

Even the Columbo episode has some nice touches, both in the performances and the cinematography. (The DP, Russ Metty, who'd worked with both Welles and Kubrick, initially threw a fit when Spielberg wanted to shoot major scenes in an all-glass penthouse - but Spielberg knew what he wanted and they got some beautiful…

The defense attorney in PBS' staging of The Andersonville Trial, directed by George C. Scott. (Also has William Shatner in HIS best role as the prosecutor…but Cassidy got the Emmy nomination.)

Oof. I think we've just found the 21st century's Bosley Crowther.

They could go shamelessly commercial now and then, though - as with the 8-hour marathon of Dragnet episodes as a tie-in to the Aykroyd/Hanks comedy.

Could well have been - I originally saw Breaking Glass when a friend taped it off Night Flight.

Er, what? Oprah's giftees owed tax because they'd received taxable goods. Debts are not generally taxable - a debt write off is not the same as a gift.

The show 's creators couldn't even agree on that one - McGoohan always said it wasn't actually supposed to be Drake, and George Markstein said it was.

"I do not drink . . . wine"

They totally missed "Carlton, Your Doorman" from RHODA. His favorite tipple was even namechecked in his novelty 45: