Week of July 31: We Have Reached a Verdict.....

The American Bar Association has published its list of the 25 greatest legal television shows. "L.A. Law," which ran on NBC from 1986-94, is ranked #1 on the list. The show starred Susan Dey, Harry Hamlin, Jimmy Smits, Corbin Bernsen and real-life husband and wife Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry. It won the Emmy for Best Drama Series four times.

Number 2 on the ABA's list is Number 1 on mine: Perry Mason, which starred Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, William Hopper, William Talman and Ray Collins, and ran on CBS from 1957-66. The show has been mentioned at length on this blog.

The ABA's list has some interesting selections, including "Night Court" as #10. That show, also on NBC, debuted as a mid-season replacement in 1984 and lasted until 1992. Comedian Harry Anderson played Judge Harry T. Stone, an offbeat leader of the court. He, Richard Moll, who played the large bailiff Bull Shannon, and John Larroquette, who played the skirt-chasing assistant prosecutor Dan Fielding, stayed throughout the run of the show. Selma Diamond was the much-loved bailiff Selma, always with a cigarette in her mouth, a habit that killed both actress and character during Season 2. Charles Robinson, Marsha Warfield and Markie Post joined what would become the cast that would carry the show through most of its run.

Ranked lower were "Judging Amy," a successful show, and "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill," a not-so-successful show, both for CBS. "Judging Amy," starring Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly, ran from 1999-2005, and focused more on the personal lives of the characters than their professional lives. However, the show won a lot of fans for the work of the two leads, as Judge Amy Gray and her mother, social worker Maxine Gray; Daly continued the Emmy success streak she'd started on "Cagney and Lacey" with one for Best Supporting Actress for this show.

Alas, the story was not so happy for Daly's "Cagney and Lacey" co-star, Sharon Gless with "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill." Gless played the title character, a public defender. There were curious sidelights - Rosie being seen talking to her therapist (played by Gless' real-life husband and show creator Barney Rosenzweig), and another character who was an Orthodox Jew. Though the show had a strong supporting cast that included Ron Rifkin and Robert Wagner (and one guest-star appearance by Daly) , it limped through two seasons.

Here's a link to the whole list:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/the_25_greatest_legal_tv_shows

The ABA doesn't mention, but I will, two other series. One, "Sweet Justice," starred Melissa Gilbert and the great Cicely Tyson as small-town lawyers and ran on NBC for one season. The show never really found its footing or an audience.

The other, which kind of leaves the network-television barrier for this blog, is Lifetime's "Any Day Now," which starred Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussant; Toussant's character was an attorney. The show ran four seasons. That and the yesterday-and-today storylines that included the civil rights movement make the show worth a mention.

With that, court is adjourned.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!

Week of July 24: Cronkite's Adventures

In paying tribute to Walter Cronkite, who died last Friday, most news accounts mentioned the CBS anchor's top news stories, including his coverage of the early years of the space program.

The apogee, to use a space term, of that coverage, of course, came on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11's lunar module, Eagle, landed on the moon. At one point, an emotional Cronkite said to astronaut Wally Schirra, who was covering the landing with him, "Say something, Wally. I'm speechless." Cronkite semi-lamented, in later years, that he wasn't more eloquent at that moment, but no regrets were needed. It was an honest moment in a career full of them.

After Cronkite stepped down from the CBS Evening News anchor chair in 1981, he did anything but retire. Cronkite immediately began hosting a science program, called "Universe," for the network. It lasted a couple of years.

Lasting a lot longer were two significant hosting duties - until 2005 at the Kennedy Center Honors, which have aired on CBS since their beginning in 1978, and on PBS' annual New Year's celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic, which Cronkite hosted until last year. Here's a link to a video in which Cronkite has some after-dinner entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhKXpe4w8GY

This Sunday, the Discovery Channel will rebroadcast "Cronkite Remembers," an eight-part series that originally aired when Cronkite released his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life." It covers Cronkite's journalism career.

But his career was about much more. Thank you, Walter.

See you next week.

Week of July 17: "The Big Valley" Goes Big-Time

Interesting news this week of efforts to turn "The Big Valley," the hit Western drama that ran on ABC during the late 1960s, into a feature film.


The program starred Barbara Stanwyck, no stranger to the silver screen, as Victoria Barkley, the head of a California ranching family. Playing her children and stepson were Richard Long (later to star on "Nanny and the Professor"), Peter Breck and two newcomers: Lee Majors and Linda Evans. Majors, of course, later starred in "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Fall Guy," while Evans became a major star on "Dynasty." Incidentally, all of those series were ABC series.

Besides the cast, another star of the show was George Duning's wonderful theme, inspired, no doubt, by Western films such as "The Magnificent Seven."

The first two seasons are available on DVD; Season 1 can be seen on Hulu.com.

What will a movie do with the Barkleys? It will be interesting to find out.

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Fun footnote to the United States Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor to head for the Supreme Court; Sotomayor, a big fan of the series "Perry Mason," mentioned one episode that inspired her, which prompted comedian-turned-Senator (Isn't that redundant?) Al Franken of Minnesota to mention the one episode in which Mason lost a case. Neither he nor Sotomayor knew the title, but it was later identified as "The Case of the Deadly Verdict."

That episode is available on the special DVD released two years ago by CBS on the 50th anniversary of the series.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!

Week of July 10: I Know That Voice

Casey Kasem has stepped aside from his hosting duties for "America's Top 40," the weekly music hits countdown he has done on radio since 1970.

Known best for his voice, Kasem has built a prolific announcing career on television, as well as radio. For a while during the 1980s, he hosted "America's Top 10," a television accompaniment to "America's Top 40."

Kasem has also had many appearances on scripted television shows; he can currently be seen as on DVD in "Mother's Deadly Helper," a sixth-season episode of "Hawaii Five-O." Other credits have included "Fantasy Island," "Charlie's Angels," "Ironside" and more.

Of course, his most famous role has been as Shaggy, one of the four crime-fighting friends of Scooby Doo, the crime-fighting dog.....The original "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" series is available on DVD. Enjoy it with your favorite Scooby Snack!

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!

Week of July 4: Malden Tribute, Charles Kuralt and Tom Sawyer

It is sad to hear of another death in the entertainment world this week, of Karl Malden.

Malden, an Oscar-winning actor, became familiar to television viewers through "The Streets of San Francisco" and the American Express commercials he did (famously - and funnily - lampooned by Johnny Carson). But he would show up from time to time in character roles much later. Here's a link to one of his best, from The West Wing episode "Take This Sabbath Day" (named two weeks ago by Rabbit Ears as one of the 10 Best Television Episodes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6wOOJy0hk

Here's a tip of the fedora to one of the greats.

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For July 4, what's more American than the great CBS newsman Charles Kuralt (who died July 4, 1997) and Mark Twain's most famous story?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EircVhudo

Enjoy the Fourth, and until next week, Happy Viewing!