G’day! Wow, it’s Sept. 16–and you know what that means, so I don’t have to tell you, do I?
Byron the Quokka here, with this weekend’s TV brought to you by Quokka University. Here’s a mere sample of its wonderfulness!
6 P.M. Ch. 09 THE MAN WITH A DOUBLE COCCYX–Crime drama
Smarty Jones stars as–wait, check that: Smarty Jones was a racehorse–I guess we don’t know who stars as private eye Mort DePort, the man with the double coccyx… which makes sitting down rather complicated. Tonight: Mort goes to court with the wrong sort of judge, we report [Enough already!]
Ch. 12 SHOWS THAT WERE TOO AWFUL TO AIR–Broadcast history
Tonight: “Manics!” paired Buddy Ebsen and Danny DeVito as State Dept. flunkies in love with the same store window mannequin (Heather Locklear). All the dialogue was in code and no one understood it. And no one wanted to.
6:14 P.M. SPECIAL REPORT!–Breaking news
Mary Stupid reports on the Spanish Navy’s futile efforts to bombard Kazakhstan into submission. Live on the ground: Some guy they tricked into doing this. Extra: “Why Foam Rubber Bats Aren’t Right for Baseball.”
6:30 P.M. Ch. 32 MOVIE–(We dare you to watch it!)
Pro Bowler Larry LaFong (Norman Rockwell) finds himself in hot water with the KGB in this Cold War comedy, Pardon My Three-Pin (Portuguese-Syrian, 1964: 566 minutes): he’s just made the entire Soviet bowling establishment look like a mass of floundering squid. (I think that may be a mixed metaphor.) Soliloquy, “Oh Bloody Hell!” by Richard Burton, with an Ameslan signer beside him, looking offended.
7 P.M. Ch. 15 THE HUNGRY GAMES–Cooking show
Can Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins really cook–with one hand tied behind her back? The studio audience, having fasted for a month or two, is really, really hungry; and Ms. Collins has to feed them before they start setting up a lottery to see who gets killed and eaten. The June Taylor Dancers are on hand to encourage her: they’ll stop if she can ever get the food going.
Well, now, I’ll bet you’re raring to go! This stuff is so much better than regular TV.
I wonder if this grass would make a good TV dinner.
That nightmare really got to you, didn’t it, Lee? 😁😁😁
As for “The Shows That Were Too Awful to Air,” I used to say that some day I’d like to teach a course on “Absolutely Awful Plays of the Renaissance.” Even in my regular Renaissance drama courses I liked to throw in a piece of schlock to show students the difference between good drama and the kind of junk that always turns up alongside it. And that included my Shakespeare classes, where I’d assign “Titus Andronicus” – followed by a discussion of the differences between that play and one of Shakespeare’s later plays.
I wish I could have taken that course!
You don’t like Titus Andronicus? How about if they rewrote it as a musical?
g’day Byron, ol friend. Good to see you are still on it.
THE HUNGRY GAMES–Cooking show – my daughter is an executive chef so I will have to watch this one. Sometimes when I watch my daughter cook it is like she has three hands – she doesn’t even have to measure out the ingredients.