Fans of 1980s television will be pleased to learn that Actor Shavar Ross, who played Arnold Drummond’s best friend Dudley on television’s Diff’rent Strokes (yes, the Dudley that almost got molested by bike shop owner Gordon Jump in that “very special episode,” The Bicycle Man), has created the first website dedicated to his on and off screen pal, the late Gary Coleman.

“I was baffled I couldn’t find a dedicated fansite for Gary,” says Ross. “I’ve always been a fan of Gary’s even though I played his best friend on TV. I have my own blog and love blogging so I thought Gary deserved his own fansite as well.”

GaryColeman.net was launched just four weeks ago but is already stacked with some pretty interesting content including some little known facts (Gary was paid only $1,500 an episode for his first season of Strokes) videos (the above-mentioned stand-up routine, plus all of Gary’s 1981 TV movie On The Right Track.  You can even create your own commercial breaks by flipping over to Gary’s CashCall ads), Diff’rent Strokes cast photos, Gary’s TV Guide covers, and more than one pic of Gary’s guest-turn on an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

I’m tempted to caption this with a “What’chu talkin’ ’bout, Twikki?”  but I’ll refrain.

Ross says it will take him several more months to complete the site but fans of Gary can visit and enjoy the site now. “The site is positive but I want to be as thorough and factual as I can when it comes to Gary’s life. Hopefully through the site they’ll see that even though Gary’s life and career was tumultuous, he was still a man who loved, and cared and smiled a lot.”

Shavar Ross is founder of Tri-Seven Entertainment, a film, television and Internet media company which produces, acquires and distributes cutting-edge inspirational products. Contact: Shavar Ross. Tri-Seven Entertainment, http//:trise7en.com, info(at)tri7entertainment(dot)com (818) 632-7210.

Story information sourced at PRWeb.com

I won… in more ways than I ever could have imagined.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!  Check out the vid below for the shocking turn of events during Round Three of the game!

Yes, I’m talking about the blind school fire.

Generally, Little House was a sweet, old-fashioned confection, always topped off at the end with a lovely Michael Landon-ized moral, most often something along the lines of “It’s not nice to make fun of fat kids,” “Don’t make fun of stuttering kids,” “Don’t cheat on your math test,” “It’s not nice to make fun of kids with one leg seven inches shorter than the other,” “Progress is bad!,” “Once you reach forty, it’s too late to find fulfilling romantic happiness,” or “Never hide in an ice house that has a trick lock on the outside.”

But every so often, Landon would slap us viewing sheep upside the head with some perectly repugnant horror story, like a little girl getting raped by a mask-donning psycho, morphine addicts blowing chunks on camera, ma going crazy and trying to gnaw off her own leg, or parents rolling off a fifty foot cliff and crashing into a ravine as their newly orphaned kids wept in the panic brought about by total abandonment.

Also, on occasion, one of the Ingalls kids would get shot in the head, suffer a stroke, get mauled by a pack of wild dogs, or drown in the local lake.

But all of those pale in comparison to the infamous blind school fire.

Television wasn’t promoted to the extent it is now, where audiences are pretty much told all week long what to expect on the next episode. So back in the day, simpleton children such as myself would unwittingly plunk themselves down to watch their favorite shows, bowl of chocolate chip ice cream in hand, expecting nothing more than the upbeat Little House morality plays they were used to seeing, week after week.

Then this crazy shit goes down, and none of us slept for a month.

Let’s take a frame-by-frame look at the scariest-ass piece of 80′s television this side of Gary Coleman  and his buddy Dudley nearly getting molested by bike shop owner Gordon Jump on Diff’rent Strokes.

Baboon-faced Ingalls Foster Child and Anonymous Day Player are toking up in the basement of the blind school. Okay, so far the episode is shaping up to be nothing more than a cautionary tale on the dangers of tobacco and disobeying ma and pa.

Several minutes later – oops! Heh heh… fire!
Okay, but everyone will certainly make it out safely.  After all, this is Little House on the Prairie!  It’s family hour!

Nice production work, though.

Adam: “Mary, the blind school is on fire. We need to save all the blind orphans.”
Mary: “Okay, let me just tuck in our baby and leave him right here. He rolled over for the first time tonight. I wish one of us had vision.”

Mary: “Be sure to grab the backgammon set. It’s worth five dollars.”

Good-hearted, long-standing third-string character Alice Garvey (Hersha Parady) hears crying and busts into the room to get the baby. Oh, thank god. All will be saved.  And this will end up being a cautionary tale about why it’s important to keep around third-string characters played by actors with a few Florida local theatre credits… or something like that.

Finding it difficult to make an exit down the burning staircase, Alice heads for the upstairs window and uses Baby Ingalls as a battering ram. But apparently a single pane of 1870′s glass proves too much for her, and she and the baby go down in flames accompanied by a distrubing amount of screams.

Meanwhile, blind Mary and blind Adam and all the blind orphans sit outside and watch… well, not so much watch as point their faces in what they hope to be the general direction of the conflagration, proving that while stutterers, hobblers, and fat-asses can still make positive contributions, blind people are basically useless drains on pioneer society.

Okay, what the fuck is going on here? Is this Little House or an Irwin Allen disaster flick? I signed up for an hour of light-hearted wilderness merrymaking. Where’s the lovable drunken frump Mr. Edwards? Where’s that half-witted gork Carrie? Where’s the prairie bitch? Where’s Manly? Where’s Half Pint for god’s sake?

Charles goes dead-baby hunting and hey! He comes up a winner. Another Ingalls kid bites the dust, but at least the horses will eat tonight.

As the camera winds through the smokey wreckage, nine year old Gary Green is torn. Do I run out of the room and admit to my parents I’m being terrified by an epsiode of fucking Little House and need a re-assuring hug, or do I suck it up? My trust in television has been irrevocably shaken.

Poor Hersha Parady.  She asked Heir Landon for a pay raise, and now she’s been Fajita-fied right out of Walnut Grove. It’s back to Christian puppet shows and offering free cups of Fresca outside the supermarket for her!

Dead Alice’s husband and son gawk at wrapped up body. The way this episode was going, why bother with a sheet? Why not just show the two of them hugging and kissing Alice’s steaming, roasted loins? Instead, husband curses God and asks for directions to the neareat pine box outlet store.

Baboon-faced Ingalls Foster Fuck overhears the fire was caused by a pipe in the basement, expects fewer gifts at Christmas.

Mary wakes up from a ten day morphine-induced praire nap, “Oh, I’m so refreshed! You know, I’m so fortunate. I’ve survived scarlet fever. I’ve lost my vision, but I can still look on the sunny side of life. Hey… where’s my baby?”

“Uh, Mary, we have some news. I hope you take this well.”

Unfortunately, Mary does not take it well. Jesus Christ! Am I actually seeing the slit-open wrists of Melissa Sue Anderson? Is that Ingalls blood spilling down the facade of Nellie’s family restaurant? That definitely won’t be good for business.

Mary ends up going bananas. Blind and bananas. Good thing she’s already landed a man.

At least we get to see Prairie Bitch for a moment. She’s a hoot! And no amount of tragedy will keep her from donning that oversized donkey bow!

Yay, though I walk through the shadow of death, yadda yadda yadda. I hope the Ingalls’ get a family rate at that cemetery.

Then suddenly it’s just over. I’ve soiled my pj’s, and I get abruplty smacked out of it with the traditional end credits, snappy upbeat music, and Melissa Gilbert skipping through the fields and pretending she’s a bird? Hasn’t she heard the news? Is she just in denial?

Of course the biggest question of all is, do I have ANYTHING better to be doing on a weekend afternoon than create this post? Couldn’t I be reading a book? Getting some fresh air and exercise? Aren’t I supposed to be looking for a job?

This is how deeply “May We Make Them Proud” has affected me.  I’m a middle-aged man, and I’m still processing it.  I suspect that other people out there were as disturbed by this episode as I was back in the day. This is a way for all of us to come together and share our grief, take comfort in one another’s bosoms.

I’m sure that Fajita Alice Garvey and BBQ’d Baby Ingalls would have wanted it that way.

Check out this fantastic (in both style and vid quality) commercial for Pabst Blue Ribbon from 1979 with the late Swayze out on the town with his lovely lady, tearing it up under the neon disco globes, and finally rewarding himself with a cold mug of you-know-what.

The sexy hair! The devastating good looks! Those styling clothes! Those unmatchable moves on the floor dance moves!

It’s tough being a man that has it all.  Me and Patrick… the lord made our life loads heavy

Vid after the jump.

The vid was found at posted by Big Sky Edit, which explains: “This film was recently found in our archives and re-transferred to HD quality.” Can we do this for more ads from the ’70s and ’80s, please? Via BuzzFeed.

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A 60 year-old woman in Santa Fe, New Mexico was charged earlier this week with aggravated battery after stabbing her boyfriend for allegedly cheating during a game of Monopoly.

Clyde Smith (aka “The Wheelbarrow”) is in stable condition after Laura “The Old Shoe” Chavez leapt across the board and stabbed Smith in the head 80 times, ten times the amount shown on the dice.

When asked what motivated the attack, Chavez reportedly barked, “Why do I have to pay everyone fifty dollars when I’m the one elected Chairman of the Board?? It makes no fucking sense!”

Angry shouting prior to the attack was reported by Chavez’s ten year-old grandson, though the boy’s testimony is being ignored as he had not yet been born when the game was started.

Chavez was dragged to jail by an old-school Irish cop when she was unable to roll doubles after three attempts. While in jail, she was run over by a racecar several times and mock-pooped on by a Scottie dog who was “just visiting.”

Chavez was held on a $5,000 bond, which she intends to raise by winning second prize in 500 beauty contests.

More info on the actual event here.

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Thanks to my good friend, RumBunny, for taking this pic with her cel phone. I had to push a female Argentinian news reporter out of my way so she could get a good shot.
I had third row seats with my sister at the 2006 Miss Universe Pageant.  Here’s the skinny. I can’t imagine things have changed much in the last five years, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Ten Things I Learned at the Miss Universe Pageant

1.) In an effort to sound less sexist, the contestants are no longer referred to with the title “Miss.” But this oddly made the proceedings rather dehumanizing as Nancy O’Dell and Carlos Ponce (hot!) were forced into objectifying declarations such as, “Korea, come over here!” and “Take a good look… this is Ghana!”

2.) Impressed with the fancy Miss Universe contestant choreography? Don’t be. As they parade back and forth, revolving around one another, there’s a guy at the edge of the stage with a microphone barking out, “Step! Step! Turn! Stop! Step! Step!” I don’t know how that isn’t heard during the broadcast.

There’s also another guy right behind the camerman who wears white gloves and gives them hand gestures indicating when to walk, when to turn, when to stop, etc. He also gives an overly-broad double hand-sweep to the women who have just been eliminated to get the fuck off the stage and line up for their Cover Girl consolation gift bags.

3.) The opening “parade of the contestatns in their native garbs” montage was pre-taped at an earlier time, which sucked because I would have loved to have seen Miss Japan in her sexy ninja outfit and Miss USA in her naughty horse jockey with riding crop ensemble (though I’d hoped she’d be dressed as a giant firecracker like something out of Grease 2). I’m not even sure if that part was taped the same day, though we did see playback on the screens. The show is only “live” once they announce the final twenty, which has been decided before the broadcast begins by a preliminary judging panel.

And speaking of judges… a briefcase model from Deal or No Deal? Pete Sampras’s wife? I’m sorry. Was the kid from Free Willy otherwise engaged?

4.) Nancy O’Dell never smiles unless the camera is on her. My sister thought she was pissed off about something. I accidentally stepped on the back of her dress at the VIP party and left a footprint on it.

5.) You can purchase Barbie-sized versions of the contestants in the lobby along with plastic tiaras and crowns, which I totally would have snapped up except my sister forgot to bring money for parking and I had to pony up. There are also all kinds of mini-pageant winners in the audience wearing their crowns and their “Miss Southwest Vegetarian” and “Miss Teen San Joaquin Valley” sashes.

6.) There were LOTS of tipsy middle-aged men in cheap tuxes who, at every commerical break, would rush to the edge of the stage with their digital cameras and snap away at all the babes, tongues wagging, adding a classy “titty bar” touch to the whole affair.

7.) You can be blond, big-boobed and spit out the threat “I’m with Trump. You don’t want to do this to me!” as much as you want, but if you ain’t got a VIP wristband, you ain’t getting to the bar.

8.) Sorry, but… Poor Miss USA Tara Conner (yes, the one nearly de-throned by The Donald). Granted, it’s hard to look good when you’re asked “What is your greatest flaw?” but when they asked what the most inspiring place she’d ever visited was, she could have lied and said Tibet or Jerusalem or the house where Anne Frank hid. Those would have all gone over big. Instead, she said the most inspiring place she’d ever visited was… wait for it… Lake Tahoe!

I was never more ready to surrender my citizenship.

9.) My sister gave Dr. Julian Omid, aka Dr. 90210 passes to the after-after party at The Standard Hotel and he thanked her, then told her she should come into his office sometime and he’ll “do something” for her, which for half a second, didn’t sound like “You need work done.”

And number 10… Okay, I didn’t actually learn ten whole things, but it’s the Miss Universe pageant for god’s sake! How much am I expected to take away from it?

And by the way, just for the record, my sister is very pretty and would have known how to answer the “most inspiring place you’ve ever visited” question with far more style and grace then Miss USA did, even if she’d been dressed up like a firecracker!

Anyone else remember this commercial?

And in case the voice of the announcer sounds familiar, I’m guessing it’s Martin Sheen.

But at least it’s by someone with some game show knowledge.

The recording below was reportedly made by Ray Angona, who was Technical Director on Match Game during its heydey 1970s run. During the taping of this show, Angona was in the control room, next to the show’s director, Marc Breslow, fingers at the ready to click whichever button would bring up the specific camera Breslow called for at any moment. (“Ready one… take one!”).  For anyone who’s ever wondered what a television director actually does, this should shed some light on the subject.

In between calling for the needed camera, Breslow also had the task of instructing his cameramen where next to move on stage in anticipation of a shot he’d want five seconds down the road. On top of that, Breslow needed to follow along with the conversation and antics of all the participants on stage, especially host Gene Rayburn and regular panelists Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers, who were constantly setting each other up for a joke. Miss the celeb who delivers the punchline and the entire rhythm of the bit is totally lost.

Having never been either a director or a technical director, I’ll have to only assume that a nearly psychic connection between the director and the TD would go a long way to capturing the sharpest show possible. Breslow and Angona clearly had each other’s numbers.

Check out the two videos below.

First is the episode as it aired on CBS. After that, you’ll see the epiosde “live” as it was actually being shot, with the addition of the director calling shots and delivering camera instructions over headset.  The only major difference between the two is the amount of “think time” in the aired episode – that’s the amount of time it actually took the celebrity panel of six to come up with their answers after hearing Gene read the story with a “blank” needing to be filled.

Match Game was a half hour show, and was actually shot in that amount of time, with only minor snips needed in editing (an off-color remark, the thinning down of “think time,” eliminating any technical gaffes).  With this shooting rate, plenty of time was left for wardrobe changes and meals, and an entire week’s worth of episodes were shot in a single day.   As a kid, I always assumed the celebrities came to work each day to shoot one show.  What a life I thought that was!

Enjoy! And to any of my director friends out there, if there’s anything you’d like to add, I welcome your thoughts!