Watch I've Got a Secret... beginning Monday April 17 at 11:30 PM following Match Game and find out!

When Julie first told me that the coach fired for appearing in gay porn (via Towleroad) was from Mater Dei High School, I freaked. That's were I WENT to high school. Turns out there's more than one Mater Dei High School in the county - this one's in Illinois (I blame my ego-centricity on my Catholic upbringing). Nevertheless, my high school has had its share of scandals. Read all about my de-frocked principal, the music teacher who got a student pregnant, along with the requisite cover-ups and denials. Oh, and in the spirit of fair play, if you'd like to make a contribution to the school, you can do that here!

In all fairness, who hasn't made a bonehead move like this in an inebriated moment? And I could just easily blog about my own similar embarrassments with headlines like "...When Gary Drunkenly Put His Wallet in the Oven for Safekeeping," or "...When Gary Drunkenly Tried to Fix a Cabinet and Glued Three of his Fingers Together" or "...When Gary Drunkenly Ordered a Pizza and Forgot About Until Two Days Later When He Found it Under the Bed." Yes, I could talk about all those things, but it's just so much more satisfying to laugh at Michael. Besides, I had to go to work without breakfast!

Julie is a bright, capable young woman. I think she's 24 or so. She has a big future in television production, but she doesn't know who Larry Hagman is, she has never watched an episode of Dallas in her life, and when you mention the phrase "Who Shot JR?" to her, she tilts her head like a baffled golden retriever. Thank God she met me, a grown man who longs for the day he meets Linda Gray, watches six epsiodes a week on SoapNet, and keeps Dallas trading cards in his top drawer at work. This was the biggest event in television history, and the audience it drew will never be duplicated. Yes, more people watched the final episode of that yawn of a Korean War comedy, but that was a two-and-a-half hour ego fest, an episode five times its normal size. "Who Shot JR" was its regular 44 minutes, four acts, no special guest stars, no weepy good-byes, no gallant speeches, no psycho wig-pulling and apartment-exploding, and no naked Teri Hatcher running down the street with a giant ficus. It was just good, fun storytelling brought to a sleek well-honed climax. There was no intention to capture the fascination of the entire world. No calculation ahead of time. The producers, writers and actors simply knew what they were doing.

Somewhow, Julie being completely oblivous to the insane amount of global press that swarmed the country over this has brought back in full force all the memories of how much fun it was to be a part of it. My entire family watched, everyone in my fifth grade class watched. I even remember having a tooth filled by Dr. Croal and him stopping mid-way through the procedure to ask "So Gary, who do you think did it?" knowing he didn't need to be more specific for anyone to know what he was talking about.

TV addiction will never be so much fun again. Now, we can each watch pretty much anything we want anytime we want. But I can still feel the labors of getting through the week leading up to that epsiode, hearing about it everywhere I went, the fun of getting a call from my sister in law's family in Ohio, who got the show two hours earlier and refused to give up the identity of the culprit, and finally having my curiosity sated. Watching the episode now, it comes off rather tame and underwhelming compared to what producers can get away with these days. The people who worked on Dallas had a much tighter box to work within, and pulled off far more fun than anything on the air now. Julie, like everyone her age, just plain missed out.

"Who Shot JR" Re-lived on Ultimate Dallas

Listen to NPR Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Episode

Overseas coverage from BBC

Good to know I'm not the only blogger out there who loves to re-live all this madness - 80's Actual

And for those not in the know (there are more of you out there than I realize), here's the guilty party

WOW! Do I want one of these TV sets. Michael Granberry, are you reading this? My birthday is OCTOBER 21!! Predicta Vintage TV Sets

Watch I've Got a Secret... beginning Monday April 17 at 11:30 PM following Match Game and find out!

Cat Falls 80 Feet, Lives to Tell, Gets Offered Reality Show -Local 6 News via Fark

Spell Your Name with Naked People! - Militant Platypus

MICHAEL GRANBERRY is an artist/filmmaker living in Hollywood, California. Having grown up on a steady diet of fantasy, sci-fi and horror, it was inevitable that his artistic bent would lead him towards subject matter that might be considered contrary to the mainstream.

Unfilmable has the first stills from Michael's latest film, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's From Beyond. You can also check out his work at his own site Red Hatchet Films.com, featuring stills from his delightfully diabolical film library, with site design by yours truly.

Wow! I watched all 6 episodes of this collapsing shack. Before the days of cannibalizing a successful show in order to make ten to twelve desperate spin-offs, Sherwood Schwartz actually had a good idea... well, it was at least an original idea... ok, maybe it wasn't that either, but it's stuck in my head for the last twenty-five years, so the man must know something. Anyway, I want to say that this show was actually an hour, but I can't imagine it would have been able to sustain my interest for that long... even at ten years old, I knew it sucked ass. So it must have been paired with another lousy NBC Friday sinking-ship sitcom,like Here's Boomer or Hello Larry! I'm already putting way too much thought and energy into this blog. Any tune that can work in a lyric like, "In the meantime along came Wally" pretty much sells itself. And don't make fun of my having a hairdresser. If you met Mister Barry, you'd know there's no other word for him.

June 2008 Updated - video deleted from YouTube for rights infringement

Love MG, Lucy and the Selfish Bitch!

Create Your Own Face! This is Like Police Sketching for the Bored at Work and Reminds Me a Little of the "Identograph" scene James Bond and Q had in For Your Eyes Only - Ultimate Flash Face

Olay. This is the LAST time I mention the Cleaning Hunk!

No really. I am totally over the Cleaning Hunk.

I certainly don't dream about the Cleaning Hunk in my sleep.

There's no reason why I would secretly be spending my days watching the Cleaning Hunk at my desk or trying to track down the tight-bodied model to see if he's making any upcoming trips to the west coast.

No, I can say with all the confidence in the world that I totally have the Cleaning Hunk out of my system.

But if Julie, the producer sitting at the next desk from me happens to have him on her computer all day, I certainly have no way of putting a halt to it.

Well, it looks like she was a good sport about it. And now at least she can afford a nice bell-bottom jump suit or some Dittos and maybe a nice corduroy purse.

New York, New York: the city that never sleeps, a melting pot of art, culture and commerce, a place that can overcome monumental adversity. But there's a new reason to love the city and that's the local commercial for the Cleaning Hunk. Airing only in the tri-state area and only during daytime TV, Cleaning Hunk advertises a new contest offering women "a one year vacation from cleaning." Nobody is really sure why they're advertising, what the catch is or whether male-stripper house cleaners even exist, but who cares. The ad is pure Chippendale's gold. - via Best Week Ever Blog

Brilliant Advertsing Move? I'd Say So...The Trouble Is I Can't Remember What the Hell the Product Is - The Cleaning Hunk via Towleroad

I'm never goofing off for long before Z creeps out and lays the eyes of guilt upon my soul.

Watch I've Got a Secret... beginning Monday April 17 at 11:30 PM following Match Game and find out!

The Ten Worst SNL Players of All Time - and no Jim Belushi in sight?? The Phat Phree via Fark

Watch I've Got a Secret... beginning Monday April 17 at 11:30 PM following Match Game and find out!

Claire's baby on Lost whines just like my cat. I've got the show on in the background and every time Aaron lets out a wail, I shout, "Prowler shut up!" before I realize my mistake. Poor kitty must be baffled.