So during these holidays, I’ve been watching season 1 of Alf. Whenever I rediscover a tv program I always fall into a Google rabbit hole.
I ran across several mentions of this one episode (”Try to Remember” from season one) where Alf got electrocuted in the bathtub and developed amnesia. NBC only let the episode air once before they asked the show to change the beginning of the episode because they were worried that kids loved Alf so much they would imitate him.
(original beginning from February of 1987 [archive.org backup] ) Note Alf holding the electric mixer, telling Lynn that he was going to get into the “whirling” hot tub.
(DVD/syndicated/rerun version) Alf says the same thing, but he’s just holding an old fashioned egg beater.
BUT, a few seconds later:
They didn’t reshoot that scene, you can see the electric mixer next to the phone. Also, Lynn’s hair is less curlier.
In the original, Alf gets out of the tub after getting electrocuted, and you can see he has the trope-y hair standing on end look:
His hair was flat ironed in the reshot scene, when Alf simply slipped and hit his head on the tub instead:
This week was Halloween, and this year I went as Jemima from Cats. Why did I decide on this costume? Well, seeing the trailer (and H3H3′s reaction to it) for the scary 2019 movie with those basic b’s Taylor and James made me want to see the original Cats, the good Cats.
You can watch most of the direct to VHS 1998 edition on YouTube in parts. So far, its the only musical that doesn’t bore me to tears, even if the scenes where they perform a play for Old Deuteronomy makes no sense.
You know what Cats sorta reminds me of, that old PBS show Zoobilee Zoo, especially Victoria the white cat, she reminds me of the pink kangaroo lady.
Cats came to New York City in October of 1982 after beginning a successful run in London. It was announced at the end of 1981 that the musical would be coming to New York:
Anticipation was so great that copies of T.S. Eliot’s original work was selling out:
(I’m mad I can’t find this commercial)
Tickets for the show were sold months in advance, with many bulk orders:
More than six months before opening night, the Fresh Air Fund had already bought 500 seats. The Arthritis Foundation purchased 300 tickets, the Archives of American Art bought 300, and the American Red Cross bought 500 seats. Then there was the Burden Center for Aging with 300, University Settlement with 200 and the Social Service Big Sister League with 500 seats. Those are just a handful among many, but by the time “Cats” opened on Broadway last week such orders added up to $6.2 million in advance ticket sales. Of that sum, $4.5 million had already been collected, with only $1.7 million in contracts still to be paid in full. This could be the largest advance sale in Broadway history, according to many theater analysts. Orders began to come in more than a year before “Cats” – a big hit in London – finally arrived in New York, and tickets are now being sold as far in advance as next May. 2
The musical debut was also supposed to be a cover story in Newsweek, but the Tylenol murders prevailed. 2
I somehow found the cover though. I wonder if this was for Canada? There are people on sketchy websites selling this as a print? The library bound Newsweek from archive.org has the Tylenol cover. I believe the woman on the bottom row, right is Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv the first on Fresh Prince. In Cats, she playedTantomile in the first Broadway cast.
It’s the one who sings “can you see in the dark?!”. I think its Demeter, and Marlene Danielle is playing her? Marlene was an originally an understudy in 1982 and eventually played Bombularina until the end of Cats’ run on Broadway in 2000.
In 1984, Rum Tum Tugger became the star of his own music video. 3 I don’t know how often MTV played this–maybe it played more overseas. I remember my choir teacher in high school, Ms. Forrest showing us a VHS once of music videos from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, and she said that they were popular in the UK and shown on MTV over there. All I remember is a Phantom of the Opera remix and Requiem sung by his ex-wife.
By 1987, Celine Dion (who was still a music star in Canada, but not yet America, and sung mostly in French) sang Memory on TV.
In this clip from the short lived America’s Talking channel (later to become MSNBC) a reporter asks the cats what they did on their snow day during the 1996 blizzard. I can’t confirm this, but he says that it was the first time the show had ever been canceled. This reporter is peak 1996 in mens clothes with his bomber jacket and tie.
By June of 1997, Cats broke the record previously held by A Chorus Line of longest running show on Broadway:
Along the way to its longevity record, which applies just to Broadway shows, “Cats” has piled up some big numbers. It has provided employment to 231 actors, two of whom, Marlene Danielle and Susan Powers, have been with the musical since it opened. (Nineteen cast members have died.) The magical tire that carries Grizabella heavenward has clocked more than 114 miles in its nightly voyage to the Heaviside Layer. “Memory,” the show-stopping song that ends the first act, has been recorded by more than 180 artists. The New York production has used more than 1.5 million pounds of dry ice and 2,706 pounds of yak hair for wigs. It has sold 390,000 T-shirts, 130,000 sweat shirts, 147,000 lapel pins and 1.14 million souvenir books. 1
Also, in 1997 an audience member because she thought Rum Tum Tugger was too aggressive with her.
PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) was an airline that operated from 1949-1988 until UsAir bought them. Operating mainly on the West Coast of the United States, PSA’s orange, maroon, and salmon colored airplanes had a smile painted on the nose of each aircraft. It looked like a lil’ smiling airplane with sunglasses:
“Boeing 727-51 (cn 18801/120) Seen taxiing for departure from SAN in January, 1979”
On December 7, 1987 the happy facade of PSA was damaged. David Burke, a recently fired employee of USAir, (PSA’s parent company at the time) bought a ticket for 1771 knowing that his former boss, Ray Thomson would be on the commuter flight to San Francisco. Burke still had his airline credentials and floated around airline security with a .44 Magnum handgun he borrowed from a friend.
Burke slipped a note to Thomson written on air sickness bag:
“Hi Ray, I think it’s sort of ironical that we end up like this. I asked for some leniency for my family. Remember? "Well, I got none and you’ll get none.”
Burke shot him. The cockpit heard the commotion, and a flight attendant came in and said that there was a problem. Burke is then heard saying, “I’m the problem.” Burke shot the pilots (and possibly the flight attendant) and the plane plunged into a mountainside near Paso Robles, California. The plane crashed with such velocity that body parts were scattered around the crash area – including David’s finger still holding the trigger.
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