You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: Please try to find out why Chris Matthews is not on MSNBC at night anymore.
A: The longtime political commentator retired from the network about two months ago in the wake of complaints about his making inappropriate comments to and about women. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive” podcast, Matthews conceded that a GQ article about the complaint just before his retirement was “highly justified” and his comment inappropriate. Vanity Fair noted that Matthews is now working on his memoirs and reading letters from fans. “People say they miss me, I miss them, too,” he says. “C’est la vie.”
Q: I used to watch a very cool show hosted by Anderson Cooper called “The Mole.” I really enjoyed the challenges and deceptions and trying to figure out for myself who the mole really was. Why did it not catch on and get renewed for a successful run like “The Amazing Race” or “Survivor”?
A: Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The series, which had contestants trying to figure out who among them was a mole bent on sabotaging the game, ran for four seasons from 2001 to 2004, two with Cooper hosting and two with Ahmad Rashad as host. The Rashad editions tried to up the excitement by being “Celebrity Mole.” And there was a revival of the series in 2008, with Jon Kelley as host. But it never became a big, enduring hit.
Oh, there were fans. Cooper told Andy Dehnart of the Reality Blurred website in 2015 that every crowd he ran into had a “Mole” fan but “if there were more of them, maybe there would still be a show. … (T)he fact that it’s only one is indicative of why it’s not on the air, I think.” Cooper said one problem was that it was complex, confusing show — that even he, the host, “was confused at times by it.”
Q: A number of years ago, I remember reading that a new “Thin Man” movie was being developed as a remake to the Thin Man movie series of the 1930s and ’40s that starred William Powell and Myrna Loy. Johnny Depp was rumored to be playing the William Powell character. What ever happened?
A: There were indeed plans about a decade ago for a new version of “The Thin Man,” originally a Dashiell Hammett crime novel about married couple Nick and Nora Charles; the book was inspired at least in part by Hammett’s relationship with writer Lillian Hellman. Powell and Loy played the couple in six movies; there was also a TV series in the ’50s. As early as 2010, Depp reportedly expressed interest in a new “Thin Man” film; director Rob Marshall came on board, too. But by 2012, there was still no Nora to go with Depp’s Nick, Marshall was eyeing a screen version of “Into the Woods” and, as Indiewire noted, Depp had recently had the box-office disappointment of “Dark Shadows.” So Deadline.com broke the news that the studio was “pumping the brakes” on “The Thin Man.” Since then, Marshall has directed “Into the Woods” and “Mary Poppins Returns,” Depp has been in many different productions — and “The Thin Man” is still in limbo.
Q: I am not sure how old you are or how far back you go; however there was a show called “Jackie” where the dad’s name was Stuart Erwin. I LOVED this show when I was a kid, back in the fifties. I have been able to see it on the computer but do not like to sit by a computer. Is there any way you can tell me how to see this old time 30-minute show on TV?
A: What you remember as “Jackie” was variously called “The Stu Erwin Show,” “The Trouble with Father,” “Life with the Erwins” and, after some changes, “The New Stu Erwin Show.” In its 1950-55 run on ABC, Erwin played a high school principal also named Stu Erwin, with his real-life wife June playing his TV wife, and actresses as their two daughters, Joyce and Jackie. Jackie was played by Sheila James, later memorable as Zelda Gilroy on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.” (Now politician Sheila Kuehl has interviews for the Archive of American Television, which you can find on YouTube, including one where she talks about working with James Dean on the Erwin show.) I have not so far found a television outlet carrying “Erwin” reruns now. If you can get Prime Video or YouTube through your TV, some episodes are available; the Prime episodes have a fee. There have also been DVD sets of “Trouble with Father,” though their quality has gotten mixed reviews on Amazon.com.
And I go back as far as my reference works and memory will let me.
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(Do you have a question or comment about entertainment past, present and future? Write to Rich Heldenfels, P.O. Box 417, Mogadore, OH 44260, or brenfels@gmail.com. Letters may be edited. Individual replies are not guaranteed.)
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