Cesar Romero

In the 1989 movie Batman, Jack Nicholson brought his trademark sarcasm to the role of the Joker, perhaps Batman’s greatest foe.  Nearly 20 years later, Heath Ledger inhabited the role, giving a performance of a diabolical, insane, delusional villain....

A Mad Man from the Reagan Era

Advertising has provided great fodder for prime television, including the characters Larry Tate of Bewitched, Kip Wilson and Henry Desmond of Bosom Buddies, Jack McLaren of The Closer, Mason McGuire and Conner of Trust Me, Ann Romano of One Day at a Time, and Don...

The Day the Lone Ranger Lost His Mask

As dawn anticipated breaking over southern California on the morning of August 30, 1979, a man two weeks shy of his sixty-fifth birthday covered his thinning hair with a cowboy hat.  Besides the hairline, age was not a serious opponent.  He was still fit and trim with...

1960s Sex Symbols: Ginger or Mary Ann?

Ginger or Mary Ann?  It’s a question that’s puzzled baby boomers and Generation Xers that watched Gilligan’s Island, a show that lasted three years on CBS (1964-67) and enjoyed a thriving life in reruns in the 1970s and 1980s. Ginger Grant was a...

Mad Comedians and Mad Monsters

Baby boomers and Generation Xers most likely recall Rankin-Bass as the studio responsible for the stop-motion animation television specials Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town. Rankin-Bass also produced two specials that were quite...