There's a hold-up from the Bronx, Jo and Blair broke out in fights...

Well, keeping up the depression that has led to me watching more movies and tv - it must be depression, why else would anyone do it? - I have added an episode of Car 54, Where Are You? to the list.

I assume I saw every episode many times back when Nick-At-Night existed but I don't remember any of them anymore.  So effectively it was a new episode.  It definitely wasn't filmed like more modern programs, there were some very obvious edits from one camera shot to the next.  A character was clearly looking different from the previous moment to the close-up.  I've never known much about film-making and have probably forgotten what I did know, but that used to be present in earlier works.

Anyway, I picked "The Loves of Sylvia Schnauser" because obviously Charlotte Rae has been on my mind of late.  Looking it up now, it was one of the very last episodes ever.  I'd picked it because I thought it as Sylvia's first and obviously it wasn't even close. [ba-dump bump]  The show only ran for two seasons but Wikipedia says she was in 11.  I guess I'll have to go see if the first one was available.

This one wasn't bad.  The story was ok, once in a while it was funny.  Charlotte Rae didn't stand out much but she was fine and occasionally fit in with the silliness of the story.  Gunther and Toody didn't have much of a role, it was mostly about Sylvia and her husband Leo.  I'm still surprised they never had Al Lewis guest-appear on Facts of Life, probably dressed as Grandpa Munster.

The show was just looney, that much I remember.  There wasn't much attempt for realism, just goofy characters doing goofy things and then restarted the next episode the same as before.  I'd say that is where my television interest peaked, Night Court and Married With Children still being my favorites, shows like NewsRadio not far behind.  They were entertaining wacky stories, essentially live-action cartoons, and that's what made them work.  Obviously that's not the only way to tell a story but as far as a reason to stare at a tv set goes, it's at or close-to the top.

The other episode, "The Courtship of Sylvia Schnauser" was along the same lines.  A little funnier, Charlotte Rae did a better job, otherwise it was basically the same.  It did show why marriage doesn't work and probably helped promote the next decade of feminism.

The show was actually filmed in the Bronx, back before Hollywood ruled everything, in what used to be DW Griffith's Biograph Studio.  Joe E. Ross was anything like Officer Gunther Toody, he was crude and eagerly offensive.  Al Lewis was a known-leftist and the episode included the first appearance of known b-star/unknown-gay Charles Nelson Reilly.  I am trying to ponder what conspiracies have been going on in Hollywood for all these decades.  Dunno why, it's not like I've ever paid a lot of attention to it and even less now, never-mind my memory loss.  I doubt even a major historian could really follow this through.