The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – FOX

Created by Elizabeth Meriwether

Theme song: “Hey Girl” written by Michael Andrews, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Meriwether, Dave Finkel, and Bret Baer. Performed by Zooey Deschanel. 

• Pilot – 9/20/2011
  • Bubbly schoolteacher Jessica “Jess” Day (Zooey Deschanel) discovers her boyfriend Spencer (Ian Wolterstorff) cheating on her with a girl named Rochelle (Ashton Swinford), so she immediately moves out, and answer an ad on Craigslist for an apartment with three female roommates. However upon arrival, she finds that the roommates are actually men: Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), a bartender who has just broken up with his girlfriend Caroline (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), a successful marketing associate and wannabe ladies man, and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.), Schmidt’s personal trainer. Jess loves the apartment and trusts the dynamic between the guys – who have started a ‘Douchbag Jar’ to call each other out when one acts like a jerk, and wants to move in. The decision is split amongst them, but they decide to allow her in, despite the warnings from Jess’s best friend, fashion model Cece Parikh (Hannah Simone). The guys nearly regret it when Jess spends all her days crying from her breakup and watching Dirty Dancing. The try to help get her back out in the dating world, and after Schmidt runs into two of his ‘frenemies’ Benjamin (David Neher) and Peter (Jack Yang), Jess secures a rebound date with Peter. While the guys finagle an invite through Caroline to a big party, they are taken aback when Peter shows up at the party, stating that Jess seemed too needy so they stood her up. Despite an offer from Caroline to get a drink, Nick and the others decides to abandon the party to meet up with Jess to cheer her up, showing that they can be true friends. Gillian Vigman is Schmidt’s boss Kim. Lauren Dair Owens in young Jess. Hayley Marie Norman is the hot hostess. Steve Bannos is the cab driver. 6/9/18

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TELEVISION SPECIALS

Peanuts theme music: “Linus and Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi

NOTE: The Peanuts television specials were based on the comic strip “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz that was published between 1950-2000, which had its origins in Schultz’s previous comic strip “Li’l Folks” between 1947-1950

• 001. A Charlie Brown Christmas – 12/9/1965
  • Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins) is feeling depressed around the holiday. Not getting Christmas cards, his sister Sally’s (Kathy Steinberg) greedy wish list for Santa, and Snoopy’s (Bill Melendez) entry into a decoration contest all contribute to his downtrodden feeling. Lucy Van Pelt (Tracy Stratford) offers him psychiatric advice and appoints him director of the school Christmas play. Charlie can’t get anyone to take the play seriously and takes a break to go pick out a Christmas tree, coming back with the most meager tree imaginable. He gets chastised for the tree and has a meltdown, demanding that someone tells him what Christmas is really all about. Lucy’s brother Linus (Christopher Shea) recites Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 8-14. Charlie leaves the auditorium to go decorate the tree, plucking an ornament from Snoopy’s doghouse – which has won first prize in the contest. The tree nearly collapses under the weight of one ornament and Charlie has another breakdown. The kids go behind him and fully decorate the tree from the doghouse lights, then wish Charlie Brown a Merry Christmas, and break into Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Ann Altieri is the voice of Frieda, Chris Doran as Schroeder and Shermy, Geoffrey Ornstein as Pigpen, Sally Dryer as Violet, and Karen Mendelson as Patty. 6/8/14

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SEASON 1 – Showtime

Created by Kirstie Alley and Brenda Hampton

Theme music by Eban Schletter

• 001. Big Butts – 3/7/2005
  • Actress Kirstie Alley (herself) is having breakdown in her own California home as she sees unwelcome results on her bathroom scale. Adding to her misery, the only job offer her agent Sam Rascal (Michael McDonald) has to offer her is to do a Jenny Craig promotion. After she hangs up on him, a call comes in from fellow actor John Travolta (himself), but he can catch through her crying is that “you’re killing me” and “I’m dying.” Consequently, he calls the police, and they send some officers to her house, while she is out getting a burger and screaming at Sam to get her a show on NBC. Sam tells her that he’ll get her a meeting at with NBC CEO Jeff Zucker (himself). John Travolta advises her to lose some weight, and he refers her to an ex-girlfriend weight-loss counselor named Quinn Taylor Scott (Kelly Preston), who gives nothing but bad advice like throwing up and eating cigarettes. Sam calls Zucker and tells him that Kirstie has lost weight and pleads for a meeting. He agrees to see her if Sam will promise to deal with Kirstie if he finds out she is too fat. Kirstie meets with her live-in hairdresser Kevyn Shecket (Rachael Harris) and her assistant Eddie Falcon (Bryan Callen), about her lack of sex life. Since Kirstie doesn’t think any men will want her, she should try a woman or a black guy since they typically like larger women. They all go to a soul food restaurant to try and meet a black guy for her. One female customer (Yvette Nicole Brown) is sick of fat white women trolling her men. She spots one black guy (Phil Harris) who seems to be making eyes at her, but when Eddie follows him into the bathroom, the man tells Eddie that he is a fan, but that Kirstie is too fat. Kirstie meets up with Zucker and another NBC exec named Chuck Manson (Tait Ruppert), as well as Max Cooper (Mark Curry), the new head of development. Max is black and immediately hits it off with Kirstie and makes a date with her. They have some strange sexual encounters, mostly involving food. When Eddie warns her that this could kill any potential TV series she might have had, she decides to have Sam use it to blackmail NBC into developing a show with her. She celebrates by eating in the bathroom, then briefly considers gagging herself with a piece of artificial foliage. Deren Leroy and Steve Maye are cops. Stacey Grenrock Woods is the NBC receptionist. 6/8/22

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SEASON 1 – FOX

Created by Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner, and Mark Brazill

Theme song: “In the Street” by Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, originally performed by Big Star, sang by Todd Griffin

• 001. That ’70s Pilot – 8/23/1998
  • In Point Place, Wisconsin, on May 17, 1976, high-schooler Eric Forman (Topher Grace) sits in his basement with his friend Michael Kelso (Ashton Kusher), Steven Hyde (Danny Masterson), a foreign exchanges student who goes by the nickname Fez (Wilder Valderrama), Michaels on-again/off-again girlfriend Jackie Burkhart (Mila Kunis), and his next-door neighbor and long-time crush Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon). They discuss ways to get beer from their parents’, Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp), party upstairs. Also attending the party are Donna’s parents Bob (Don Stark) and Midge (Tanya Roberts). After successfully getting the beer, the kids plan a trip to Milwaukee to see the Todd Rundgren concert, and hope that Red will hand over his old Vista Cruiser to Eric before the trip. The kids hang out at the local restaurant and smoke marijuana in the basement of Eric’s house. Eric has to deal with the effects of the drug when Red does in fact give him the car… but warns him not to take the car out of town. The kids do so anyway, but wind up with a dead battery so they have to bribe Randy (Wayne Pere) at the repair station with two tickets to the show, so they trade Kelso and Jackie’s tickets. Although Michael and Jackie were about to break up, Jackie convinces him that he needs her and they stay together while hanging back in the car. After the concert, Donna kisses Eric while they hang out on top of the car in the driveway… assuring him that they will try another kiss later. Paul Kreppel is Jackie’s father. 6/4/18

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SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Davis, Bob Schiller, Bob Weiskopf, and Lucille Ball.

The series is based on the book “Life Without George” by Irene Kampen. 

Theme music composed by Wilbur Hatch

• 001. Lucy Waits Up for Chris  – 10/1/1962
  • Widow Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) lives in Danfield, New York, with her two children Chris (Candy Moore) and Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), and her divorced friend Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) and Viv’s son Sherman (Ralph Hart). 14-year-old Chris is planning to go out on a date with an older boy named Alan Harper (Tom Lowell) who drives. Lucy is nervous about the arrangement and tries to get them to stay in and watch TV, but hey insist on going to the movies. As Lucy’s imagination runs wild, she pulls Chris in the house the minute they pull up… only to learn that Alan’s parents were in the back seat. Feeling bad at her faux pas, she arranges for Alan to take her out again, and also promises not to wait up for her. When the kids come home early, Lucy sneaks outside so that she isn’t caught breaking her promise. She ends up locked out while the kids make cocoa in kitchen. Using a trampoline, she bounces up to Viv’s second story window and gets her to unlock the front door. However the kids come out of the kitchen, so she returns to the trampoline and jumps into Viv’s window. Chris comes looking for her mom and Viv tells her that she went out for the evening. Lucy then has to exit the window back onto the trampoline… but spends so long chasing her dog Tiger, who has run off with Viv’s shoe, that she misses Chris who has already gone to bed. 6/5/18 

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