The Ghosts-Gilded Age Connection

The cast of CBS' Ghosts

I love it when there is a connection between two of my favorite TV shows, or two of my favorite anything--comic books, movies, Broadway musicals or plays, whatever. Tonight I found one. A few weeks ago, I started watched CBS' Ghosts and got hooked. It looked rather silly when it first appeared on the air three years ago, but then I discovered there were several intriguing storylines including Isaac and Nigel, a pair of gay Revolutionary War era spirits who discover each other in the afterlife, and Hetty, the mistress of Woodstone Manor during the late 1880s. 

The show is pretty funny although there are some weird inconsistencies. The ghosts can't consume or taste food, but they can smell it. They need sleep and can have sex with each other. Why would they need sleep or sex if they have no corporal bodies?

The real Mamie Fish; and Ashlie Atkinson
as the Gilded Age version

Anyway, Hetty (played to a drily sarcastic turn by Rebecca Wisocky) is the connection to the HBO Gilded Age series since she was alive then. While watching all of the old episodes from Seasons 1 through 3 on Paramount Plus, I discovered an even stronger link. In a Season Two segment, the second part of the Christmas special I believe, Trevor, the pantless finance bro, mentions to Hetty (with whom he is having a clandestine ghostly affair) she threw a party to compete with a soiree held by Mamie Fish for her daughter. Mrs. Fish is a real person, but this means in the fictional universe, Hetty Woodstone and Mamie Fish (played by Ashlie Atkinson whom we love in the role) knew each other. So wouldn't it be cool if Rebecca guest-starred on Season Three of Gilded Age as her living Ghosts persona? But that would probably be too much.

B'way actors Phylicia Rashad, Jordan Donica,
Brian Stokes Mitchell and Victoria Clark
will join the cast for Season 3 of
The Gilded Age.
Credit: LUIS BARRIOS;
COREY VANDERPLOEG;
PARADIGM; SOPHIE ELGORT

In other Gilded Age news, more casting of Broadway actors has been announced for Season Three. These include Tony winners Phylicia Rashad (Raisin in the Sun, Skeleton Crew), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Kiss Me Kate), and Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza, Kimberly Akimbo) and Tony nominee Jordan Donica (Camelot). Rashad and Mitchell will play prominent members of New York's African-American community and Donica will be their son, a doctor. Clark is an old money New Yorker who supports a son and will face a difficult situation. Perhaps the son will show an interest in Marion who remains unattached after rejecting a proposal of marriage last season. Season Three just started filming in Troy, NY.

Let's start a write-in campaign to get
the live version of Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky)
on HBO's The Gilded Age.
Credit: CBS

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 43

It's been almost a year since we've visited the Carol Burnett Show. Except for one brief musical excerpt found on YouTube, I haven't found any missing material from the "lost" years of the first five seasons. However, I did came across DVD collections of episodes from Seasons 6 through 11. Carol's Favorites was found at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts while This Time Together was hiding at a Salvation Army store for $1. These episodes are available in their entirety. Some of the ones on these collections have been covered in previous blogs. Here are reviews of shows I have not already commented on.

(This Time Together) Season 6: Nov. 1, 1972
Guests: Peggy Lee, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara

The show starts with the the infamous Mary Worthless sketch where everything went wrong. Lines and props were dropped. Harvey tripped while jumping out of a window with a cake in his face. Carol's last line was "Don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep." She added, "Better yet, be surprised because I'm not doing this again."

Meara and Stiller as Lyle's uncouth parents

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were the premiere married comedy duo of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I think there was one other--Mitzi McCall and Charlie Brill, aka The Fun Couple. But Stiller and Meara made more high-profile appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Mike Douglas, etc. I saw them in Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Prisoner of Second Avenue at Philadelphia's Playhouse in the Park while they co-hosted the Mike Douglas Show during the day. Here they perform a sketch imagining the reactions of Mr. and Mrs. Chou En-Lai to Richard Nixon's famous visit to China. The scene is stuffed with Chinese stereotypes which wouldn't play today. ("These foreigners all look alike to me.") Would Stiller and Meara's ethnic humor (he's Jewish, she's Irish-Catholic) still work now? 

Lyle as Hugo Biceps, Carol and Anne Meara
in the Circus episode of
As the Stomach Turns

As the Stomach Turns finally gets out of Marian's living room and shifts to the circus with Anne as a bearded lady and owner of the big top which she suspects is being sabotaged from within. Lyle makes a heart-stopping appearance as Hugo Biceps, the strongman whom Marian salivates over. Lyle is practically barechested in a lionskin outfit which Carol as Marian does her best to remove. Of course, this scene and Lyle's gorgeous exposed muscles have stayed in my mind for 50 years. There was one joke I didn't get when I was 12. Marian is questioning Hugo as to his whereabouts the previous night, trying to ascertain if he is the saboteur. "I was in bed, alone," he answers. "And the night before that?" "Alone." "And the night before that?" "Alone." "You really are the strongest man in the world," Marian tremblingly observes. I didn't get the gag then and my mother failed to explain it adequately. Only now do I realize Marian meant Hugo was strong because he resisted the obvious temptation that everyone in Canuga Falls wanted to sleep with him.

Peggy Lee has a silky solo and duets with Carol on a silly ditty on women gossiping. The finale combines music and comedy as Harvey and Carol as Vicki's patrician parents clash with Jerry and Anne as Lyle's low-class dad and mom when the kids want to get married. The class distinctions provided chuckles and the wedding is conducted by Peggy singing "The Rhythm of Life" from Sweet Charity.

Biden Debate Debacle, Trump Immunity Decision

It is with great difficulty that I write about the current state of the presidential election. Last Thursday, I had no plans to watch the debate with Biden and Trump. I knew it was going to be unbearable no matter what happened. I couldn't stand to see Trump lying and I feared Biden would appear too old for the job. So I decided to see another form of political theater and attended N/A, Mario Correa's two-character play about Nancy Pelosi and my Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But the reality of the debate was a hundred times worse than my fears. The play was only 80 minutes and it was still light out when it finished at 8:30. By the time I got home, there was still 30 minutes left in the debate and Biden was wobbly, hesitant, appeared confused and spoke in a whisper. He was like a a doddering, tired old man who needed a nap. Trump continued to lie his ass off, but no one was paying attention to that since that's what he always does. 

I was heartened by Biden's speech the next day in Raleigh, NC where he was energetic and focused. But then I heard reports that he is on point only during the day and at night he tends to slow down. A shockingly bad poll followed with over 70 percent saying they didn't think Biden was mentally fit to for his office. Of course, they were not asked if they still vote for him or not given the alternative.

Cries for Biden to step aside started right away and have intensified. Today's Supreme Court ruling that Trump has some immunity in the Jan. 6 case further confounds the picture. Scotus did not say which of his acts are official and which are not, leaving that to the district court, further delaying the case. A delay is considered a win for Trump. It's obvious to me that scheming to put in fake electors and encouraging an insurrection are NOT official acts and he should be tried for them.

But Trump's sentencing in the hush money case is coming up next week. Hopefully, it will be severe, but I have a feeling there will be no jail time.

Things don't look good. Frankly, Biden should have dropped out a year ago so a viable Democratic candidate could emerge. If I were an average voter, paying more attention to prime-time Let's Make a Deal than to politics and having no convictions, I would say, "Look, I don't like Trump, but Biden is a tired old man. At least Trump is awake. I don't care that he slept with Stormy Daniels and paid her money to shut up about it. And so what if he kept some documents and stored them in the shower. What difference does it make. I'll hold my nose and vote for the convicted felon. Or I'll stay home and watch The Price Is Right." 

I have a bad feeling Biden is not going to drop out. Maybe it won't make a difference, but I tremble to think what happens if he goes through with another debate in September.

Book Review: A Mercy

(Taken out of the Jackson Heights Library) Read right after Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye which was written at the beginning of her career. A Mercy was one of her later efforts. In this short novel, the language is just as deep and the narrative is more complex. Set in the late 1690s in the Maryland and Virginia colonies where slavery has recently taken root, A Mercy follows how the evils of that practice twist and warp both the victims and the masters.  

After a confusing first chapter, it took a while to figure out what was going on. But I gradually pieced together the main plot. After the master has died of the pox and his wife is at death's door, the slave Florens has been sent to fetch the blacksmith, a free black man with medicinal knowledge to save the mistress. Tending her is Lena, a Native woman and main servant, and the girl Sorrow. Florens is in love with the blacksmith and may or may not return to her mistress's home. 

Like Faulkner's Sound and the Fury, different characters narrate each chapter in their particular distinctive voices as the story goes back and forth in time. We get all the women of the house, the master, two male indentured servants, and finally Florsens' mother each expressing their dreams and passions under the yoke of slavery.

Morrison examines how each character is effected by their harsh environment and the cruel slavery system. Like the heroine of Beloved, Florens is driven to violence by her oppression. The writing is a little dense, but very powerful and poetic.