Close Enough For Comfort
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
I wouldn’t say it was my favorite show, but Too Close For Comfort was one of those very comforting classic sitcoms that I enjoyed watching with my family back in the first half of the 1980’s decade. Starring Ted Knight as the ever-exasperated Henry Rush, he was flanked by his wife and two daughters played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Jackie Rush) and Lydia Cornell (Sara Rush). Lydia was by far the hotter one. But when I actually got the chance to meet them, it was Deborah who saved the day. Read the rest of this entry »
The Simpsons have been as American as apple butter for the last two decades, garnering numerous awards and critical recognition. In 2005, I had the chance to meet Dan Castellaneta, who voices the patriarch of the Simpsons family, Homer Simpson. So I was excited when the opportunity presented itself to get to meet our local Kettering sensation Nancy Cartwright, who has provided the voice of the irrepressible Bart Simpson for some twenty years. 
I absolutely adore Peanuts. Not the salty snack food – although I am fond of those too – but the Charles Schultz series of comic strips and animated cartoons. So I was naturally excited to find out that Pamelyn Ferdin, who was the voice of Lucy Van Pelt in three of the Peanuts shows (two TV specials: It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown and Play It Again Charlie Brown – and one of my favorite movies A Boy Named Charlie Brown) was going to be appearing at the Chiller Theatre Show on April 18, 2009. 
I wasn’t a huge fan of Charlie’s Angels, so I don’t really recall when Tanya Roberts took over the third angel slot from Shelley Hack during the fifth and final season of the show. And not being a huge James Bond fan, I haven’t yet seen A View To a Kill in which Tanya Roberts portrayed Bond girl Stacey Sutton. But I do certainly recall that she was one of the biggest sex symbols of the 80’s (and corresponding Playboy cover pictorial) and my boyhood memories recall that great topless scene in HBO staple The Beastmaster. That and Kodo and Podo. 
Oliver Robins had only a brief film career, but did manage to star in one of the most popular and influential horror films of the 1980’s. In the scare-a-thon flick Poltergeist, Oliver held the role of Robbie Freling, older brother to Carol Ann (Heather O’Rourke) and younger brother of Dana (Dominique Dunne). Ironically, he is the only child actor from the film who survives today, having managed (so far) to escape the Poltergeist curse that supposedly took the lives of O’Rourke and Dunne.