Author: Alex

Flo: A Sitcom Spinoff Disaster

The popular CBS sitcom Alice, which ran from 1976 to 1985, was loosely based on the successful 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The plot had recently widowed Alice Hyatt (played by Linda Lavin) taking a waitress job in Mel’s Diner, a Phoenix eatery, to make ends meet. One of her waitress colleagues was feisty Florence (Flo) Castleberry played by Polly Holliday. The character became so popular that CBS launched a sitcom focusing on Flo. The premise of the spinoff was that Flo had moved back home to Cowtown, Texas to assume the management of a rundown roadhouse which she re-christened Flo’s Yellow Rose. As a mid-season replacement, Flo aired on Monday nights in March and April 1980 and got as high as number seven in the Neilsen ratings. However, when Flo returned in the fall of 1980 its time slot was moved several times. Ratings tanked and it was gone after a total of 29 episodes. The Flo character never returned to Alice (with the exception of old clips in the series finale). Here is the opening montage of Flo.

Julie Andrews on Dick Cavett Show

Here’s a gem: From a 1971 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, Julie Andrews is persuaded to sing Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? from My Fair Lady.

In 1963, Andrews began her work in the title role of Disney’s musical film Mary Poppins. She was hand picked by Walt Disney, who liked her performance as Queen Guinevere in the musical Camelot, she initially declined because she was pregnant, but Disney insisted saying “We’ll wait for you.”

Andrews next appeared in two of Hollywood’s most expensive flops: Star! (1968), a biopic of Gertrude Lawrence; and Darling Lili (1970), which is quite amusing as it is in this time that she appears in the clip above.

Unfortunately, in 1997 she developed a hoarseness in her voice, which resulted in surgery to reportedly remove non-cancerous nodules from her throat. In 1999, she filed a malpractice suit against the doctors who had operated on her throat. Originally, the doctors assured Andrews that she should regain her voice within six weeks, but Andrews’ stepdaughter Jennifer Edwards said “it’s been two years, and it [her singing voice] still hasn’t returned.” The lawsuit was settled in September 2000 for an undisclosed amount.

In recent years her career seems to have had quite a bit of a revival, taking on many modern roles in film series such as The Princess Diaries, Shrek, and Despicable Me.

Deep Blue v Kasparov

May 11, 1997 saw one of the most important milestones in human history occur. Strangely, it was attained at the expense of humans. On that date in New York City, Garry Kasparov, the reigning world chess champion and one of the greatest players of all time, lost the deciding game of a six-game series to an IBM computer nicknamed Deep Blue. Kasparov resigned after only 19 moves, giving Deep Blue the match with a record of two wins, one loss, and three draws. The previous year, Kasparov had beaten an inferior version of Deep Blue four games to two in a series played in Philadelphia. To those in the computer industry, the triumph of Deep Blue was a cause for celebration. To many chess followers and ordinary folks, however, the result was ominous: Artificial intelligence had surpassed one of the great minds in human history. Here is a six-minute video about the 1997 event.

After losing, Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine’s moves, implying that during the second game, human chess players did some of the moves of the machine, which would be a violation of the rules. IBM denied cheating, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules allowed the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the strategy of the computer which was revealed during the match. Kasparov requested printouts of the machine’s log files, however IBM refused. Later, IBM published the logs on the Internet.

Forever Autumn – Justin Hayward

Many remember this song from the musical War Of The Worlds written by Jeff Wayne. The original melody was actually written for the Lego company in 1969. Justin Hayward was selected because Jeff Wayne wanted the voice that sang Knights In White Satin.

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/10a91db9c6.mp4

Mott’s Clamato

Introduced as a drink in 1966 by Mott’s or Lord Mott’s Canning as known then. It was a combination of clam broth and tomatoes. They even secured a trademark for the Clamato brand.

Today the drink is used as a mix for alcoholic drinks or cocktails mainly in Mexico and Canada but not so much in the United States. They also have Beefamato which you guessed it is a cross been beef (broth) and tomato juice. Again, it’s main use is for cocktails.

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/5a6609bd71.mp4

Search For Tomorrow

Originally aired on March 29, 1962 Marge Bergman (Melba Rae) reels from Monica’s decision about the adoption and goes to best-friend Joanne and Arthur for solace.

Search for Tomorrow began on CBS on September 3, 1951 and it’s final episode was December 26, 1986 on NBC.

The program was one of many packaged from the 1950 through 1980s by Proctor and Gamble Productions, hence the term “soap” operas.

Search for Tomorrow was Search for Tomorrow was created by Roy Winsor and was written by Agnes Nixon. The show was originally a fifteen minute live broadcast at 12:30pm eastern time. The show expanded to a half hour show September 11, 1967, and by now was a recorded show.

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/76017c9928.mp4

Adam 12 Intro Theme

Adam 12 was a TV series created by Jack Webb and Robert A. Cinader. The show ran on NBC from 1968 through 1975 and was one of the first TV shows to introduce actual police jargon and police procedures following veteran officer Pete Malloy (badge number 744 for you trivia buffs) and fresh out of police academy Jim Reed (badge number 2430). The series takes place in Los Angeles. The episodes were based on actual cases.

Their call signal 1-Adam-12 is based on their unit being the first division, “A” spoken Adam in their police radio jargon means a two man car and 12 being the number assigned to the car. There never was a 1-Adam-12 car in Los Angeles. LA police enthusiast will tell you that they should actually be the 2-Adam-12 since they mostly worked the second division (Rampart) area of the city.

Veteran officer Pete Malloy was played by Martin Milner who passed away of heart failure at the age of 83 on September 6, 2015. He stared in the TV series Route 66 as Tod Stiles which ran from 1960 to 1964. He also starred in the TV series of Swiss Family Robinson, MacGyver, Airwolf and Murder She Wrote to name a few.

Kent McCord as of this writing in 2018 is still with us at the age of 75. He starred in roles in the ABC Galactica, Mr. Unger on Airplane II, The Sequel,

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/1f47c3284c.mp4

Ajax Dishwasher Man

Actor Eugene Roche was the dishwasher man in the 1970’s Colgate-Palmolive Ajax for dishes and as he would say “Squeaky Clean” dishes.

This was probably Roche’s most famous role even though he was well known on Broadway and many roles in movies. In TV he appeared in Night Court as Christine Sullivan’s father as well as other shows like Webster and Perfect Strangers.

Sadly Roche passed on July 28, 2004 of a heart attack. He was 75.

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/dd774fc140.mp4
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