Football and Comedy

Football, a brutal sport symbolizing man’s primal quest to conquer territory, offers humor as compelling as the viciousness of Dick Butkus, the grace of Lynn Swann, and the agility of Walter Payton. Necessary Roughness exemplifies the underdog theme, a common...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Pelham

Hollywood’s 2009 remake of the 1970s classic movie The Taking of Pelham 123 starred three actors who got their big breaks on the small screen. Denzel Washington played Walter Garber, a New York City civil servant suddenly elevated to be the liaison to hostage...

Letterman, Leno, and Late Night

Tonight, the first full week without David Letterman in late night television begins. Letterman, the informal successor to Johnny Carson as the ruler of the late night kingdom, began his television talk show hosting career with a morning show in 1980.  It won two Emmy...

The World of Howard Beale

In 1976, Americans were mad as hell.  And they didn’t want to take it anymore. The fury, of course, was depicted in an iconic scene from the movie Network.  Before FOX constituted a legitimate fourth television network in the 1980s, the triad of CBS, ABC, and...

Doctors in the Windy City

Chicago has been the setting for two television shows set in emergency rooms.  ER and E/R. Both had multi-racial casts, unique characters arriving for medical attention, and humor as a defense mechanism to guard against emotional pain of working in a trauma situation....