Alice in Wonderland, Part 1

Alice in Wonderland, Part 1
CBS
December 9, 1985
TV-Movie, Children's, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
D+


OK, let's just start with the mind-blowing cast:

• Sheila Allen (producer Irwin Allen's wife) as Alice's Mother
• Scott Baio as Pat the Pig
• Red Buttons as the White Rabbit
• Sid Caesar as the Gryphon
• Imogene Coca as the Cook
• Sammy Davis, Jr. as the Caterpillar (he played the Cheshire Cat in the 1966 TV version, which I haven't seen)
• Sherman Hemsley as the Mouse
• Arte Johnson as the Dormouse
• Roddy McDowall as the March Hare
• Jayne Meadows as the Queen of Hearts
• Robert Morley as the King of Hearts
• Anthony Newley as the Mad Hatter
• Donald O'Connor as the Lory Bird
• Martha Raye as the Duchess
• Telly Savalas as the Cheshire Cat
• Ringo Starr as the Mock Turtle
• Shelley Winters as the Dodo Bird

On the one hand, it's cool to see such an eclectic array, but on the other, I spent most of the time feeling sorry for them, especially (if I had to pick just one) Shelley Winters; here's an acclaimed actress and you dress her up as a bird and just have her screech and do a silly dance while George Jefferson sings?  (Her Match Game appearance is classy in comparison.)  As for ten-year-old Natalie Gregory (probably seven at the time of filming) as Alice, she's OK.  Her wig looks really fake, but that's not her fault.  She's very American, but then so is most of the cast.

The writer is Paul Zindel, who may know how to write a quirky Young Adult novel, but did also contribute the screenplay for 1974's Mame.  As for the director, Harry Harris, he didn't work on any of my other shows, and the closest he ever got to an intentional comedy was Eight is Enough.  The worst part though is that the songs are by Steve Allen and they're almost uniformly dreadful.  In fact, both Zindel and S. Allen make the mistake of substituting their own material too much for Carroll's and there are no "Very Merry Unbirthday" moments here.  The absolute nadir is the Tea Party, where I was wincing the whole time.  The scenes with the Queen of Hearts are second worst, mostly but not entirely due to Meadows.

I thought maybe D+ was too harsh, and I did consider a C-, but the other complaint I have is that not only don't Harris, Zindel, Allen, and Allen seem to understand Lewis Carroll, but the program isn't even consistent within itself.  The relatively nice character of the Cheshire Cat is given a depressing song, while the thoroughly unpleasant Mad Hatter is given a song about laughter.  And Alice is told that she needs to grow up, when as we all know, she's just about the maturest seven-year-old in literature.

Selma Archerd, who was the 2nd PTA Lady on The Brady Bunch, plays the Queen of Diamonds.  Douglas Maida, who was a Ball Player on Who's the Boss? a few weeks earlier, is a Courtier here, while Fish Footman Scotch Byerley would be Gary on WtB.  Frog Footman Robert Axelrod would contribute "various voices" for the American version of Noozles.  John Walter Davis, who's the Seven of Spades, would be Ted Graham on Roseanne.

My review of the book is here:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/02/alices-adventures-in-wonderland.html.  Part 1 ends on a cliffhanger with the Jabberwocky, and technically into the Looking-Glass portion of the saga, presumably to get the audience to tune in for Part 2 the next night.  I don't think I would've at 17, but I did tape the three-hour back-to-back version that aired on cable a few years later, and would sometimes watch it in a train-wreck kind of way.  (Part 2 is better though.)

Happy Days: Mork Returns

Happy Days: Mork Returns
ABC
March 6, 1979
Sitcom
DVD
B-

What a difference a year makes!  When Robin Williams returns, there's no question that he is one of the hottest new stars on TV.  It's not just in the reaction of the admittedly always hyped-up HD studio audience.  It's also in his looser, hipper, and naughtier portrayal of Mork.  (When Mork temporarily transfers some of his power to Fonzie and then Richie, the audience does not seem to get the "Was it good for you, too?"/ "It knocked my socks off" exchange between Williams and Winkler, who were friends in real life.  And then Mork says something like, "Twice in one night," when he repeats the act for Richie.)

This makes the fact that the episode is a clip show much more bearable, as does the part where Richie recalls the "amazing" things that the Fonz has done.  I wasn't quite sure where we were in the HD timeline, beyond Episode 142 and the 5th anniversary, but I said aloud, "Oh, do the shark-jump.  Do the shark-jump!"  And, sure enough, they showed Fonzie jumping the shark.  I couldn't help wishing that Robin Williams had known at the time how infamous and phrase-making that moment would become in retrospect, but it was fun to watch on my own (twice).

Lorrie Mahaffey, who was married to Anson Williams and played the recurring role of his girlfriend Jennifer, around this time played Ann on M & M.  Seen in archive footage are Ed Peck (as Officer Kirk, and he'd at this point not yet played a bigot on M & M) and Laurette Spang (who played Bosley's daughter in the first Love Boat TV-movie, as well as Inga on Three's Company)

Happy Days: My Favorite Orkan

Happy Days: My Favorite Orkan
ABC
February 28, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Mork, with a weirder voice and a less pacifist attitude than on his own show, arrives and decides to kidnap Richie, specifically because Richie is average and humdrum.  And in a way, that's a good metaphor for this episode.  As I've said elsewhere, I was a Happy Days viewer but I'm not a HD fan.  Watching this again, seeing how stilted and formulaic it was (yes, even compared to Laverne & Shirley or What's Happening!!), I felt the opposite of nostalgia, more of a comical disbelief.  And then Williams showed up and, while he didn't make everything OK, he did make it better.  He gave to the role, which was, remember, just supposed to be a one-time cameo, little whimsical touches, even if this is not the pop-culture freak that the '70s Mork would be.  (He does slip in an Opie joke, but it's too set-up to be ad-libbed.)  Note that the version on the DVD (packaged with M & M's fourth season) seems to be the original, rather than the later one where Mork has erased everyone's memories of him.

Jerry Paris, who it looks like directed just about every episode of Happy Days, definitely directed this one and "Mork Returns."  Note that this is the 110th episode of the series, from Season Five, when Richie was in college.