A mixture of biopic and musical, this vehicle stars Susan Hayward as Jane Froman, an incredibly popular singing star in the 40s who had to battle back from terrible wounds suffered in a plane crash after her first performance for American troops overseas during WWII. The film begins with Froman’s triumphant comeback, and flashes back to the events leading up to this. The pic is efficiently put together, and Hayward’s lip-synching (Froman dubbed in her own singing) is unusually convincing. But the crash itself is disappointingly undramatic.

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The show’s most basic premise remains intact. Melinda Gordon is a newlywed and owns the antique shop in a quaint New England town. From childhood she has had the “gift” of being able to see the ghosts of those restless departed souls unable to cross over into the great beyond. If this sounds familiar, it should. Remember little Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense? Like his character, Cole, Melinda takes the responsibility of helping these spirits accomplish some unfinished earthly business so that they can move into the light.

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“You wanna be where everybody knows your name”

And who wouldn’t want that? In its landmark 10^th year Cheers kept on delivering pretty much the same. It’s remarkable that this cast remained almost untouched since the first year a decade ago. Coach passed and Diane left, but the patrons just kept coming back week after week providing that friendly ambiance that Billy Joel likely understood when he wrote Piano Man. Cheers was a simple show with very little fluff.

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“Hey Hey Hey, It’s Fat Albert!”

That’s right, it’s Fat Albert. Bill Cosby invented the portly young Albert for his stand-up and album releases in the 1960’s. The character, like many of Cosby’s stories, is based on elements of his own youth. My parents were huge Cosby fans, so I had heard all about these Cosby Kids long before they hit television in 1972. Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids was an almost instant hit on the Saturday Morning cartoon menu.

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