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Monday, February 11, 2013

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?


Hello, everyone! Are you ready to kick off another week?

I know, I know...some of you already have the Monday doldrums. I know what you're saying. Some of you hate Mondays so much that you actually make Garfield the cat look pleasant.

To be truthful, I don't mind Mondays all that much. Although my schedule at the job that I actually make money with can be kind of unpredictable at times, I can always count on the fact that I have almost every single Monday off (unless I have Sunday off, in which case I usually have to come in...as such the case today. But, I'm rambling, never mind).

And, besides...Mondays are lots of fun in this blog because we get to examine a movie in greater detail.

Now, because we're smack dab in the middle of “Black History Month”, today's movie is going to be linked with the theme of the month. And, although the movie that I have chosen has a predominantly Caucasian cast, it does feature a storyline that was deemed extremely controversial for its time.

These days, when one mentions the words “interracial relationship”, I would think that most of us would not think that it is a big deal. I am one of those people who does not select a mate based on skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, or clothing colour. When it comes to dating, I would date anybody who was interested in me regardless of what their background is. But five decades earlier, would you believe that interracial dating was so frowned upon that in 1967, it was still considered an illegal act in seventeen states? Well, at least until Loving vs. Virginia invalidated those laws in June 1967.

You know, being born in the early 1980s, I sometimes have no idea just how much racism existed back in the childhoods of my parents and grandparents. In many ways, I would have loved to have gone back in time to experience things for the first time...and then there are times in which I don't want to revisit the past because for some people, it was a living hell because of the skin colour they were born with.

But sometimes it's good to look back on the bad and the ugly within our history books so that we can appreciate the good moments even more.

And, today's film takes a look at what happens when a woman gets involved in a relationship with someone of a different racial background, as well as the frustrations that can come from having family members who vehemently oppose the union.



Today's film study is the 1967 film “Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?”. The film starred Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, and in his final film appearance before his death, Spencer Tracy.



Directed by Stanley Kramer and written by William Rose, the film debuted on December 12, 1967...six months after Tracy passed away of a heart attack in June 1967 at the age of 67. This movie was not the first time that Tracy and Hepburn had worked together...this was actually their ninth and final movie together. It was a film that Katharine Hepburn was never able to see after it was completed due to the painful memories that were associated with the making of the movie. When Hepburn herself passed away in 2003 at the age of 96, at last report, she still had not seen it. And, I'll get into why that was the case further down in the blog entry.

I'll just go into the basic plot of the movie very quickly, mainly because I don't want to give too much away. The story begins as we are introduced to a woman by the name of Joanna “Joey” Drayton (who was played by the niece of Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton). Joey is young, beautiful, smart, and very Caucasian. And, while she was on a vacation in Hawaii, she gets involved in a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice (Poitier), who is intelligent, skilled, idealistic, financially stable, and very African-American.



But Joey seems to believe that this won't matter to her parents. She was raised in a very liberal household by her parents Matt and Christina (Tracy and Hepburn). Matt is a newspaper publisher, and Christina runs a small art gallery in San Francisco, California, and Joey grew up in an upper class environment. Why, surely the colour of Dr. Prentice's skin wouldn't make a difference. He was young, successful, and a doctor! What parent wouldn't like that in a prospective son-in-law?

Well, apparently Matt and Christina don't.



Despite Joey's best intentions, and despite her arguments that John is the perfect man for her, Matt and Christina don't seem convinced. And, this is quite surprising when we discover that Joey was raised in an environment where she was encouraged to treat black people and people of other races as equals.

It basically comes across as this. They're fine with being kind and nice to people of a different race, but when the possibility of one of them getting engaged to their only daughter arises, they are suddenly opposed to it. Seems a slight bit hypocritical, doesn't it?

And, lest you think that Joey's parents are the only set of parents uncomfortable with the arrangement, there is another surprise. John's parents (Roy E. Glenn and Bea Richards) are also invited to dinner at the Drayton household, and they were going to San Francisco without any knowledge that Joey is white...and once they find out, they act no better than the Draytons! Only a friend of Matt's, Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway) acts as the voice of reason between the two feuding families.

So, will Johnny and Joey march down the aisle and become husband and wife or not? Well, that's not for me to answer. As I do with every Monday Matinee entry, I encourage all of you to watch the film for yourselves. It really is a fantastic film to watch. Very insightful and a perfect film to showcase this month for sure.

Now, here's the bits that happened behind the scenes that you didn't know.

01 – The screenplay for the film was written in just five weeks.

02 – When it came time to cast the actors for the film, it was reported that several of the actors committed to the project before seeing the script because they believed so strongly in the message that the film set out to give.



03 – Spencer Tracy was in very poor health while he was filming “Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?”...in fact, his health was so poor that insurance companies refused to cover him. The problem was solved by having both Tracy and Hepburn put their salaries into escrow. If Tracy passed away during filming, it could be completed with a different actor.

04 – Because of Tracy's health, he was unable to put in a full day of work. He only worked for two or three hours at a time before noon in order to give him time to rest in between work days. In some cases, stand-ins were brought in to substitute for Tracy when other characters had close-ups with him in the scene.

05 – Spencer Tracy completed his last scene on May 26, 1967. He passed away June 10, 1967. The film was released December 1967. Now you have a bit of understanding as to why Hepburn had a difficult time watching the whole movie in full.



06 – Sidney Poitier was so star-struck by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn that he had difficulty saying his lines. The problem was solved in a rather ingenious way. Poitier recited his lines in front of a couple of empty chairs, with producers reading out the lines spoken by Tracy and Hepburn to Poitier off-camera. The scenes were then spliced together in editing.

07 – In the scene where Sidney Poitier is on the telephone, a bust of Spencer Tracy sculpted by Katharine Hepburn is substituting for Tracy himself!

08 – It took twenty years for the film to be released on home video, finally coming out on VHS December 12, 1987.



09 – Does the maid in the movie look familiar? She should. She was played by Isabel Sanford...otherwise known as Weezie Jefferson from “The Jeffersons”.

10 – Stanley Kramer directed the made-for-television remake of this movie in 1975.

11 – The verdict for “Loving vs. Virginia” was made on June 12, 1967...two days after Spencer Tracy passed away. This decision also made a film line spoken by Roy Glenn to Sidney Poitier erroneous (the line about breaking the law in sixteen or seventeen states).

12 – Look closely at the glasses that Spencer Tracy wore in the movie. Notice that they have no glare? That's because the glasses did not have lenses.

13 – There was originally a reference to Martin Luther King Jr. included in the film when it was first released. After his 1968 assassination, cinemas all over the United States edited the line out of the film. It has since been restored in home video releases.

14 – Katharine Hepburn won an Academy Award for her performance in “Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?”, and Spencer Tracy received a posthumous nomination.

15 – When Spencer Tracy gives his memorable soliloquy in the film, look closely at Katharine Hepburn. Those tears she was crying were real.

16 – Though Katharine Houghton made her film debut in this movie, other people that were considered for the role of Joey were Mariette Hartley and Samantha Eggar.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814


This week on the Sunday Jukebox, I’m featuring an artist that not only is a perfect representative of “Black History Month”, but whose biggest selling album is also a perfect representation of “Black History Month” as well.

Yes, it’s time for another album spotlight.

If you are a regular reader of “A Pop Culture Addict’s Guide To Life”, you will know that I typically don’t do album spotlights on a frequent basis (usually every two to three months).  There are a couple of reasons why I will do an album spotlight instead of just one song.  The album will either have a lot of singles released, have a lot of number one hits, or on a purely superficial level, it happens to have an artist or band that I absolutely love.

Fortunately for this album, all three are true.  Seven singles were released commercially – all seven becoming Top 5 hits, four became number one hits, and I’ll be the first to admit that this album is my all-time favourite by today’s featured artist.

So, who is today’s blog topic about?  And, which album am I spotlighting?  Well, she happens to be the little sister of one of the biggest family groups in music history.  She acted in such television shows as “Good Times” and “Diff’rent Strokes”.  Her older brother happened to have one of the biggest selling albums of 1983 AND 1984, and she ended up being the one to coin the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” alongside Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl a few years ago.

Janet Damita Jackson, born May 16, 1966, is the featured artist of the day.  And, the album is her fourth solo record, released September 19, 1989.  It was a little record that had a rather unusual title, but it also boasted over an hour of songs that dealt with social commentary, standing up for what one believed in, and some of the most infectious dance tunes to hit the radio airwaves as the 1980s transitioned into the 1990s.

It was an album that kicked off Janet’s first world tour - a tour that cost almost two million dollars to produce.  A tour that sold out completely before its debut concert took place in March 1990.  A tour that sold out the Tokyo Dome in just a little over seven minutes!

And, as far as the album itself, in 2012, it placed on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” at #277.  It was the first album to have seven Top 5 Billboard hits, and it was the only album to have singles hitting the #1 position in three different years (one #1 hit in 1989, two in 1990, and one in 1991).


Is it any wonder why I wanted to do a spotlight on “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” this week?

Now, I suppose some of you were wondering what the 1814 at the end of the title meant.  I admit that when I first bought the album, I too was confused.  But the explanation actually has a double meaning.  The obvious meaning is easy if you look at the alphabet in a numerical manner.  The initials of Rhythm Nation are R.N., and if you numbered each letter in the alphabet from one to twenty-six, well, R=18 and N=14.

Get it?  1814?

There’s also another meaning to it that is a little more subtle...and I’ll bring it up when we get to the single that inspired the double entendre.

For now, we can’t really talk about an album without listening to some of the songs.  And, in this blog entry, I’ll be talking about all seven songs that charted within the Top 5 on the Billboard Charts.  We’ll talk about the story behind the songs, how well they did on the charts, if the video won any awards, and other facts of trivia that might be of interest.


To begin, we’ll go in chronological order...and just a month before “Rhythm Nation 1814” was available to the public, this single became the first release.


MISS YOU MUCH
DATE RELEASED:  August 22, 1989
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 4 weeks

To say that “Rhythm Nation” kicked off on a high note would be like saying that the sky is blue.  “Miss You Much” became Janet Jackson’s second #1 hit (after 1986’s “When I Think Of You” from her “Control” album), and the single alone sold over four million copies overall.  And, I can see why that is.  “Miss You Much” was one of the most powerful songs on the whole album.  In some ways, it could be a nice title to describe the fans reaction to Janet.  After all, it had been three years since her previous album release.  Why wouldn’t her fans miss her?

The song was written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (as a lot of the other songs on “Rhythm Nation 1814” were).  The song was also responsible for helping Janet Jackson add some more awards to her collection, including two American Music Awards, and a Soul Train Music Award.  A remixed version by Shep Pettibone also helped the song make its way to the top of the dance charts in late 1989.  But don’t think that this song was a one-trick pony.  It was only the beginning.


RHYTHM NATION
DATE RELEASED: October 24, 1989
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #2

This song just barely missed the top of the charts (it was held off by Phil Collins’ “Another Day In Paradise”), but I don’t think Janet minded all that much.  After all, the choreography in the music video helped Janet earn an MTV Video Music Award in 1990.

It is this single that actually inspired the second meaning behind the mysterious 1814 number.  Back when the recording and writing sessions for the album were taking place, Janet was kidding around about the song, telling the producers in the room that the song could have been considered the national anthem for the 1990s.  Well, this got Janet to wondering about the American national anthem “The Star Spangled Banner”, and she thought it would be cool to do some research on the exact date that Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics for the anthem.  The date was September 14, 1814!  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  But you have to admit that the more subtle meaning does have a cool back story.

Back to “Rhythm Nation”, this song could very well be the one that has the most social commentary within it.  The song encourages people to look at the world without colour lines, and how the people of the world today are looking for a better way of life.  It was a single that wanted to do its part in stopping social injustice and looking for racial unity and harmony.  Is it any wonder why I wanted to spotlight this album this February?

Plus, the video is one of the best music videos that I have ever seen.



ESCAPADE
DATE RELEASED:  January 18, 1990
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 3 weeks

This song was Janet Jackson’s first release of the 1990s, as well as the second of four #1 hits from the “Rhythm Nation” album.  And here’s a little bit of interesting trivia for you.  “Escapade” was a song that was sort of inspired by another song...a song that Janet almost covered and included within the album.

Do any of you remember a group known as “Martha and the Vandellas”?  Well, in 1965, they recorded a single called “Nowhere to Run” (if you click on the title, it will link you to the song).  If you listen to both, you might notice some minor similarities.  That’s because Janet was set to record her own version of the song for the album.  She was talked out of it by Jimmy Jam when he made the suggestion that she try to record a new song with a similar feel. 

Upon retrospect, I think she made a great choice...even if some of the imagery within the video seemed a little bit bizarre.


ALRIGHT
DATE RELEASED: March 4, 1990
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #4

Okay, so “Alright” was the worst performing single on the Billboard charts from the album.  If her worst performing single was at #4, that’s nothing to be ashamed about!  Besides, the song was Janet’s fourth consecutive #1 dance hit, which temporarily helped Jackson break a record previously set by Madonna.  The song earned a Grammy Award nomination in 1991.


This video is rather special as it contains one of the last on-screen appearances of legendary jazz singer Cab Calloway before his death in 1994.  The video also featured the Nicholas Brothers and Cyd Charisse.  The video is a bit lengthy (though not nearly as long as the full-length video for “Rhythm Nation” or some of the videos that Michael Jackson released in his heyday, but you have to watch it...it’s on a very special level of creativity and originality.  And it also has lots of bright colours and imagery...things that some of our current music videos are sadly lacking.


COME BACK TO ME
DATE RELEASED: June 18, 1990
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #2

For some reason, I couldn’t recall this song at all.  I thought that I had known what songs were released from “Rhythm Nation 1814”, but this one was drawing a blank.

That is until I watched the video, and I was like...oh yeah, I remember that song now!  I hear it at work all the time...but because the fans inside the walk-in-coolers are always emitting a loud whirring noise, I couldn’t make out the vocals.  I had always assumed that someone else had sung the song because I don’t usually associate Janet Jackson with ballads.  But with this single, it became clear that she could still have a hit whether she sped it up or slowed it down.

Here’s a couple of interesting facts about the video.  First, the video was directed by Domenic Sena (who previously directed the videos for “Miss You Much” and “Rhythm Nation”).  The video itself was entirely shot in a city long associated with love and romance – Paris, France.  The song itself is about Janet coming to terms with the fact that her lover has left her, and how she remembers the good times that they shared together. 


Ironically enough, the role of Janet’s “lover” in the video was assumed by a man named Rene Elizondo Jr.  Rene and Janet would marry each other in 1991, and the marriage would be one of the biggest kept secrets in the music industry, until it was revealed after the couple had split in the late 1990s!  And, here’s another bit of trivia.  You know that stunning cover of “Rolling Stone” where an unknown person has their hands over Janet’s breasts?  That was Elizondo.


BLACK CAT
DATE RELEASED: August 28, 1990
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week

I’ll admit that I was a bit shocked to learn that this song had become Janet’s third #1 hit from “Rhythm Nation”, but not overly surprised.  “Black Cat” was a song that got a person up on their feet with the guitar riffs and rock and roll beat.  It was also a song that was personally special for Janet, as she wrote the lyrics to the song completely solo.

The video for this song is also a departure from her heavily choreographed videos with stunning settings.  The video was actually filmed in April 1990 at a concert stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, directed by Wayne Isham.

And, well, that’s about all that I have to say about “Black Cat”.  It may have been a number one hit, but there was surprisingly little information on it.  The final single of “Rhythm Nation 1814” on the other hand...


LOVE WILL NEVER DO (WITHOUT YOU)
DATE RELEASED: October 2, 1990
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week

When this single hit the top of the Billboard charts the week of January 19, 1991, it helped Janet achieve a milestone.  She had #1 singles in three different calendar years from the same album.  I can’t think of another person who ever reached that same milestone (for some reason I think that Katy Perry achieved that goal in 2012, but I would have to look that up).  And considering that her seventh single was released fourteen months after the first single from “Rhythm Nation 1814” hit the charts, and still made the top of the charts?  That’s incredible.

If the video (which is the only one I can't seem to link to) sort of looks similar to an ad for Calvin Klein fashions, it’s because some of the people in the video were closely linked to the Calvin Klein brand.  Djimon Hounson and Antonio Sabato Jr were underwear models for Calvin Klein at the time they were both cast as the men who danced along with Janet Jackson in the video.  Personally speaking, while the song is fantastic, I wasn’t as wowed by the video as I’m sure millions of females were...gee...I can’t imagine why that would be the case.  J

The video itself was directed by famous fashion photographer, the late Herb Ritts, who had previously directed the videos for Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” and Madonna’s “Cherish”.  And, while most people have seen the black and white version of the video, a colourized version exists as well.  I believe that both are included in the video compilation “Design of a Decade 1986/1996”. 

Oh, and there is a reason why the first verse of the song is sung by Jackson in a low, low voice.  When the song was written for Jackson by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was intended as a DUET!  They toyed with the idea of getting a male vocalist to sing alongside Janet for the single, and some of the ideas that they had for singers included Prince, Johnny Gill, or Ralph Tresvant.  But for whatever reason, the plans never materialized.  The producers instructed Janet to “sing it low, like some guy would sing it” on the first verse, and when she did, they liked what they heard so much that they kept it.

One more piece of trivia.  The song was the last single to hit the Billboard charts, but was one of the first songs recorded for the album (background vocals were recorded in late 1988, main vocals recorded in early 1989).


And, those are the seven singles that helped catapult Janet Jackson to super stardom...Janet Jackson’s “Thriller”, if you will.  And, while certainly her other releases (1993’s janet, 1997’s “The Velvet Rope”, 2001’s “All For You”) had varying levels of success and more #1 songs to add to her discography, there’s no comparing the success that “Rhythm Nation 1814” brought to Janet Jackson.  It was an album that promoted social commentary, helped bridge the gap between races, and got people dancing all over the world.

It was the album that made Janet Jackson a household name. 

Saturday, February 09, 2013

The Proud Family


I know that this month has been designated for the special theme known as “Black History Month”, but I have to be honest with you.  For this week, we’re not exactly going back in time that many years.  We’re only going back to the time period known as September 2001 for this week’s look back on Saturday Mornings.

I probably already explained this last weekend, but when it came down to choosing topics of discussion for Black History Month, I found Saturdays to be the toughest day.  As I explained, there weren’t a whole lot of cartoons or Saturday morning programming for me to choose from that celebrated black history, so I had to get very creative when it came to selecting topics.

As you know, last week, I did a spotlight on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”, and in that spotlight, I briefly talked about how a live-action movie based on the cartoon series was released in 2004.  That live-action film starred Kenan Thompson in the title role of Fat Albert, and a young actress named Kyla Pratt. 

At the time, Kyla was just seventeen years old.  But what many people didn’t realize was that this movie was not her first experience with working in the film and television industry.  She got her first acting gig singing and dancing alongside that “lovable” purple dinosaur, Barney, when she was just eight years old.  From there, she made guest appearances in several television sitcoms including “Smart Guy”, “Sister, Sister”, “Family Matters”, “Moesha”, and “Lizzie McGuire”.

By 2001, when Pratt was in her early teens, she won two roles in two different television series.  The first one was on the television series “One on One”, which ran on now defunct UPN between 2001 and 2006.

And the second series is the subject of today’s blog...and in this series, Kyla took on the role of a precocious, “animated” girl.


The name of the role she played was Penny Proud, and the television series was the animated Disney show “The Proud Family”, a television series which aired simultaneously on The Disney Channel, and during ABC’s “One Saturday Morning” block between September 15, 2001 and September 1, 2005.


The reasons why I chose this show as the spotlight for today are as follows.  First of all, the majority of the characters in the cartoon are African-American.  Secondly, almost all of the main voice actors doing the voices for the cartoon are African-American.

TRIVIA:  And, for that matter, so are the artists who sing the theme song.  The song is performed by Solange Knowles...and her sister Beyonce did the background vocals along with her Destiny’s Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

And lastly, the creator of the series is African-American.  And his story is one that is worth telling before we get into the real story of “The Proud Family”.


“The Proud Family” was created by animator Bruce W. Smith, who studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating from the program in the early 1980s.  He got his first animation gig in 1984, when he became an assistant to Bill Melendez in the television special “Garfield Sleeps Rough”.  At the time, Smith was one of only a handful of black animators in the industry.  Four years after working on “Garfield Sleeps Rough”, Smith was brought onto the animation team behind 1988’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, and then four years after that, Smith worked on his very first animated feature film, “Bebe’s Kids”.

Throughout the 1990s, Bruce’s career continued to grow thanks to the various jobs he worked on.  He supervised the animation sequences in 1994’s “The Page Master”, designed the characters in “A Goofy Movie”, and co-directed the animation that was present in the movie “Space Jam”.

In 1998, Bruce W. Smith moved on to Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he served as supervising animator in such Disney animated features such as “Tarzan”, “The Emperor’s New Groove”, “Home on the Range”, and “The Princess and the Frog”.

During this time, Smith was putting the finishing touches on a new animated series that he was working on, entitled “The Proud Family”.  Interestingly enough, he was creating the show for the Nickelodeon network, hoping that the show was strong enough for airplay.  Unfortunately, Nickelodeon passed on the show.  Luckily for Smith, he had his foot in the door of Disney, and Disney picked up the show, placing it on their schedule for the 2001/2002 season.

At the time, “The Proud Family” was unique in that it was one of the first Disney animated television series that did NOT premiere on network television (the show started airing on ABC after it debuted on the Disney Channel), and that it was also the first animated Disney show that received the title of “Disney Channel Original”.

The show revolved around the life of teenager Penny Proud (voiced by Pratt).  In many ways, she is your typical teenager who loves hanging out with her friends, singing, and like most teenagers, gets embarrassed by their parents...especially her father.  Deep down inside, she loves her family with all of her heart...even if they drive her crazy a lot of the time.


And, believe me...if you had a family like Penny Proud, you’d probably understand her a lot more.



Let’s see...there’s Penny’s father, Oscar (Tommy Davidson), who is more or less an emotional basketcase when it comes to raising a teenage girl.  Overprotective, immature, and even a little bit juvenile, Oscar more often than not is the butt of all jokes.  Sure enough, on the series, he comes across as a bit of a lovable oaf.  His job title is that of snack food entrepreneur, but unfortunately, his ideas for snacks are bland and leave a bad taste in the mouths of consumers everywhere.  All that aside though, he may seem goofy, but he does have his moments of brilliance and his intentions are always well-meaning.  Then again, you know what they say about the road to good intentions...



Penny’s mother, Trudy (Paula Jai Parker) is a little bit more level-headed than her husband Oscar...no, scratch that.  Trudy is one hundred per cent more level-headed than Oscar.  She serves as the voice of reason within the family.  She has a good job working as a veterinarian, and she comes from a background of professionals...a stark contrast from Oscar’s life and times.  But, opposites tend to attract, right?



Penny isn’t the only child in the Proud Family household.  She also has two younger baby siblings.  They are twins BeBe and CeCe (both voiced by Tara Strong).  They are named after the gospel duo BeBe and CeCe Winans.  They’re only a year old, so neither one of them say very much in the way of words that are actual English, but we do know that they love their big sister very much...even if they are a little bit rough on her.

TRIVIA:  Tara Strong also voices Puff the Dog.

And, then there’s the colourful character known as “Sugar Mama Proud”, who is voiced by former “Family Matters” star, Jo Marie Payton.


Sugar Mama is a character that really needs her own description because she is a character in her own right.  Nobody really knows how old she is...not that it’s anybody’s business, as a real lady is never supposed to reveal her age, right?  And, although she is the mother of Oscar Proud, you’d never know it.  Sugar Mama often takes great pleasure in insulting, humiliating, and in some cases, even inflicting physical pain on her adult son!  Though, I don’t believe that she does it maliciously.  Deep down inside, I think that Sugar Mama loves her baby...she just has a really short fuse for stupidity and people who lack common sense, and well, Oscar seems to boast both of those qualities in spades.

But then in some cases, the apple doesn’t exactly fall far from the tree.  Although Sugar Mama developed a romantic relationship with Papi Boulevardez, she isn’t aware that because Papi can only speak Spanish, he’s actually disguising his insults as words of affection towards the Spanish-illiterate Sugar Mama. 


(Though, I’ll be the first to admit that Papi is probably one of the funniest characters on the whole cartoon because of that fact alone.)



And, of course, we can’t forget about Penny’s friends. (who conveniently ditch her whenever she gets into a jam...I suppose we should then call them fair-weather friends, huh?)

There is LaCienega Boulevarde (Alisa Reyes), which admittedly is a play on words in regards to a famous street in Los Angeles.  LaCienega is sometimes a friend to Penny, but sometimes an enemy.  I guess the word we would use to describe her is a frenemy.  She can turn on the charm like a light switch though, convincing adults and authority figures that she’s as sweet as cherry pie, but making her peers feel like they’re beneath her.  But, don’t let anyone know that she’s really a softy who respects Penny.  Her reputation’s at stake, you know.

There’s also Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), a nerdy girl who often feels insecure about everything, Dijonay (Karen Malina White), a caring, enthusiastic friend whose penchant for gossip has gotten Penny into hot water more than once.  And, there’s Sticky (Orlando Brown), the only boy in the group.  He can work wonders with technology, and can find a way to hack into every school system, but seems to be caught in the middle of a rather weird love triangle involving Penny and Dijonay.

There are also some minor characters which make appearances on the show, including Wizard Kelly (Aries Spears), Oscar’s brother Bobby (Cedric the Entertainer), and Peabo (Cree Summer), the Proud’s nine-year-old neighbour.

Oh, and don’t forget about the number of guest stars who have made an appearance either as themselves or a guest character.  The following celebrities who have been featured in “The Proud Family” are Mariah Carey, Al Roker, Samuel L. Jackson, Vivica A. Fox, Raven-Symone, Steve Harvey, Vanessa L. Williams,  Sheryl Lee Ralph, Shia LeBeouf, Robert Guillaume, Mos Def, Cicely Tyson, Anthony Anderson, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Ving Rhames, Lou Rawls, and Frank Welker.

So, to close off this look back on “The Proud Family”, why not watch an episode?  After all, it hasn’t aired on the Disney Channel since 2011...it may jog some of your memories!



Friday, February 08, 2013

Diff'rent Strokes


Black History Month” continues with a look back on a television program that was huge during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a show that spent the first seven seasons on NBC, and its final season on ABC. And, it's also a show that I briefly talked about in a previous Tuesday Timeline entry.

That entry was written on May 8, 2012, and it was about the passing of young starlet Dana Plato. It talked about her rise to stardom, her fall from grace, her police record, and her death from a drug overdose on May 8, 1999, at the age of 34. If you want to, you can read that piece by clicking HERE, but it's not necessary.



Anyway, in that entry, I spoke about the role that helped catapult Dana Plato to stardom. When she signed on to play the role of Kimberly Drummond for the pilot episode of a series called “Diff'rent Strokes”, I don't even think that she had any idea how big the show would get. Dana played the role of Kimberly throughout all eight seasons, though her appearances in the latter half of the series were sporadic due to a pregnancy as well as the constant media reports about her substance abuse.

But for this week, we're not going to talk about Dana Plato.

In this edition of the “TGIF” blog entry, we're going to talk about the show as a whole...we're going to talk about what made the show work, the guest stars who became superstars in their own right, and because we're doing a month-long feature on Black History Month, we're going to talk about just how groundbreaking this show was.

(And, in order to prove that point, I might have to talk about the “very special episodes” that Diff'rent Strokes became associated with. I hope you don't mind.)



Diff'rent Strokes” debuted on November 3, 1978 on NBC. Aside from Dana Plato, the series initially starred Conrad Bain as Philip Drummond, Todd Bridges as Willis Jackson, Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson, and Charlotte Rae as the Drummond family housekeeper, Edna Garrett.

But did you know that the show was initially planned to go under a different title?

It was originally to be called “45 Minutes From Harlem”, and was designed as a joint vehicle for Bain (who had previously had a role in the Bea Arthur series, “Maude”) and Coleman, who had attracted the attention of producers after seeing him appear in a series of commercials. Todd Bridges and Dana Plato were added to the cast shortly after that, and before the show debuted in 1978, the name of the show was changed to “Diff'rent Strokes”...which ended up being a better title to describe the plot of the series.

TRIVIA: What is hysterical is what the show was called in other countries! Just take a gander at some of the alternate titles that the show title was translated to.

Spain – ARNOLD
France – ARNOLD ET WILLY
Venezuela – ARNOLD THE MISCHIEVIOUS ONE
Mexico – WHITE AND BLACK
Italy – MY FRIEND ARNOLD
Japan – LITTLE BOY ARNOLD IS POPULAR
Israel – ABOUT TASTE AND SMELL (?!?)
Taiwan – LITTLE RASCAL
Germany – ANY MORE QUESTIONS, ARNOLD?
Thailand – THE FUNNY MIDGET (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?)

Can you tell who most of the countries believed was the star of the show? And, I'm still gobsmacked over the translations for Israel and Thailand!

When the pilot episode begins, we are automatically introduced to widower Philip Drummond and his teenage daughter, Kimberly. Philip is one of New York City's wealthiest citizens, living in a penthouse overlooking Manhattan, and he and Kimberly share their living space with their housekeeper, Edna.

But Edna was hardly the first housekeeper that the Drummond household had, and she was far from being the last. Before Edna came along, Mr. Drummond had hired Lucy Mae Jackson to serve as his housekeeper, and Lucy was the mother of two young boys, Willis and Arnold. Lucy lived with her boys in Harlem, New York, and the three of them were happy until Lucy got very sick. Before Lucy passed away, she talked with Philip on her deathbed and made him promise to look after her two boys in her place. Philip agreed, and approximately a few months after Lucy's death, Philip welcomed Arnold and Willis into his Park Avenue home.



But if you thought that the transition would be a smooth one...think again. When you combine two rich and privileged white Americans with a couple of tough African-American boys who grew up in Harlem, you know that there's going to some clashing.

And, sure enough, there is. Not so much with Arnold though. As long as he had his beloved pet fish, Abraham, along for the ride, he was content with wherever home was. Willis, on the other hand, was not excited about moving to Park Avenue at all, and he fully intended on moving back to Harlem the minute that he had the opportunity. Despite Philip and Kimberly's efforts to try and provide a happy home for Arnold and Willis (including planned family outings and trying to create a Family Fun Night), Willis is determined to go back to Harlem, and he plans on forcibly taking Arnold with him, which causes the normally calm Mr. Drummond to lash out at Willis, calling him selfish. This begins the bridge to communication between the Jackson boys and the Drummond family, and eventually Willis agrees to stay. The following year, Philip legally adopts Willis and Arnold as his own children (though they decide to keep the Jackson name).




The core cast would more or less remain the same over the next few years (aside from Plato's sporadic appearances in seasons seven and eight). Charlotte Rae left the series after the first season to star in the spin-off program “The Facts of Life”. She was replaced by Nedra Volz (who played Adelaide Brubaker), who in turn was replaced by Mary Jo Catlett (who played Pearl Gallagher). In addition, when Mr. Drummond fell in love with aerobics instructor, Maggie McKinley (Dixie Carter/Mary Ann Mobley), they tied the knot, and with that, Maggie and her son Sam (Danny Cooksey) joined the cast.

Now, the whole idea of doing a sitcom on a blended family was nothing new by the end of the 1970s. After all, “The Brady Bunch” started airing almost an entire decade before “Diff'rent Strokes” was even thought of. But what made “Diff'rent Strokes” different (and revolutionary) was the fact that the blended family involved people of two different races. And, here's the thing...there were no colour lines in the Drummond household. Philip loved Willis and Arnold just as much as he loved Kimberly (and later Sam). The family all had their share of great times, and they all experienced the problems that all families did. Of course, mind you, many of the problems that the Drummonds experienced were also quite unique.

In many cases, the Drummond/Jackson family unit had to deal with the subject of racism and prejudice, as a result of Willis and Arnold moving in with them...but what was interesting about the way that all of the situations were handled was the fact that each of the members of the family stood together for what was right, and the creative solutions that they came up with to fight against bigotry were to be applauded (even though the situations and characters were fictional).



Take the third episode of the first season, for example. The episode was called “Mother's Last Visit”, and originally aired in November 1978. Philip's mother drops by for a visit so that she can meet her new adopted grandsons. But her excitement soon fades when she realizes that Arnold and Willis are black. Initially, Philip tries his best to get his mother to look past that fact, but when her prejudices are made even more clear, he tells it as it is, and ends up gaining Willis and Arnold's respect in the process.



In September 1979, a two-part episode aired when Arnold is forced to get his appendix taken out, and Arnold ends up meeting a little girl named Alice, who is having her tonsils removed. The two kids become quick friends, and want to be put in the same hospital room together, but there's a problem with Alice's father. Alice happens to be Caucasian, and Alice's father (who is played by special guest star Dabney Coleman), is against the idea of his daughter sharing a hospital room with a boy who was black. So, Arnold and Alice take off from the hospital in protest, and it leaves both families to search for the kids before Arnold's appendix bursts. Don't worry though. Everything worked fine in the end. In fact, you can click HERE and HERE to watch the conclusion if you like. It's quite spectacular!



Perhaps one of my favourite Diff'rent Strokes episodes of all time was the one entitled “Skin Deep or True Blue”, which aired in February 1980. The episode featured a young Melora Hardin as the sister of Kimberly's new love interest, Roger. She happens to become interested in Willis, who teaches her some dance moves, and Willis decides to ask her out on a date. Now, she's all excited to be going to a dance with Willis...but Roger is against the idea. It turns out that Roger is prejudiced against black people...and he is especially against the idea of interracial dating (which admittedly was a huge hot-button issue in the 1980s). Of course, Arnold and Willis figured it out right away after Arnold records a conversation between Roger and his sister on his tape recorder...and when Kimberly discovers the truth, she decides that she needs to teach him a lesson. Just click HERE to see what I mean. It's something that you simply have to see.



And, of course, who could forget the December 1981 episode in which Mr. Drummond is given a very special honour at the health club that he has been a member of for many years? But Mr. Drummond is so blinded by the prestige and honour that he fails to notice that the very club he belongs to refuses to let African-American members inside, after Arnold and Willis are turned away at the door. This sets the stage for a confrontation at the banquet, where Willis' admission causes Philip to take a stand once and for all. Watch it HERE.

I should also note that the show has dealt with other serious issues during its eight year run, dealing with subjects such as bulimia, environmental issues, drugs and alcohol, epilepsy, kidnapping, and child molestation. In fact, I'd just like to single out the last two subjects in particular as being two of the most sobering episodes of Diff'rent Strokes ever. In the former, we see WKRP in Cincinnati star Gordon Jump as you've never seen him before, and in the latter, you see Sam being kidnapped by a grieving man who can't deal with the loss of his son. It's very gripping stuff, and very unlike the other episodes of the series, which were mainly light-hearted and fun.

That's why I think Diff'rent Strokes stood out from the other sitcoms. It wasn't afraid of hot button issues. Not only did the show showcase storylines that other sitcoms were afraid to, but they did it in such a way that we ended up cheering for the Drummond/Jackson family. It was brilliant the way that the episodes were written, and I can see why it was so popular.



Why, if then First Lady Nancy Reagan could appear on an episode of “Diff'rent Strokes”, then you know that the show was a hit, right?

The show also featured some actors who grew up to be humongous stars and starlets. Did you know that when Willis ended up getting a girlfriend on the show, she was played by future recording artist Janet Jackson?



(Though to be fair, Janet Jackson had been acting years prior to appearing on Diff'rent Strokes).

The show also featured guest appearances by Meadowlark Lemon, Elinor Donahue, Muhammad Ali, Greg Mullavey, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, Kim Fields, Molly Ringwald, Audrey Meadows, McLean Stevenson, Joey Lawrence, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Andrew Dice Clay, Dorothy Hamill, David Hasselhoff, John Astin, Ray Bolger, Hoyt Axton, Lance Parrish, Forest Whitaker, Clarence Clemons and Royce D. Applegate.

Sadly, the show was also the source of a supposed curse that affected most of the child actors...but we won't go into that any further.

What is shocking is that of all the cast members of Diff'rent Strokes, only half are still living today. Conrad Bain was the most recent star to pass away, dying at the age of 89 on January 14, 2013. Gary Coleman lost his life following a fall down a flight of stairs, resulting in a fatal head injury on May 28, 2010. He was just 42. You already know about Dana Plato's death on May 8, 1999. Dixie Carter, who played the first Maggie Drummond, passed away on April 10, 2010, at the age of 70. And, Nedra Volz lived to the ripe old age of 94 when she died on January 20, 2003.

They may be gone...but with reruns still airing in various parts of the world, and the first few seasons available on DVD, the show will never really be forgotten. Nor should it. It showed that it was possible to have a happy family life with strong bonds no matter what the colour of people's skin was. It really opened up doors within the prime time television industry, and I for one am happy to have gotten the chance to watch it.