Posts by Gino Sassani

Who would have believed that one of the world's most enduring if not exactly endearing comedians actually got his start in a serious drama? The film was Run Silent Run Deep, and the actor was Don Rickles. For a couple of years the former nightclub funny man would pursue the world of serious acting. That was until his friend Dean Martin made him a staple of his famous television roasts. Rickles became a standout, and his unusual brand of humor took off like a rocket to the stars. It's those very stars that helped make the man a household name that would bear the brunt of his fast and furious barrage of insults and put-downs. Most of them laughed in return, and soon it became a badge of honor to endure an attack from Rickles.

"These rebels, they have no fear, or they have so much they are numb to it. They feel as if they have nothing left to lose, and they hate us who do..."

It's all just a matter of perspective, isn't it? As a history teacher I have taught aspects of that event we all recognize as the American Revolutionary War. Did you know that in a British history book I have it is referred to as the Colonial Rebellion? You see, one man's revolution is another man's rebellion. Everybody is talking about who will be the next James Bond. It seems we’ve been fascinated by the spy genre since the early 1960’s. AMC has added a new wrinkle to the spy game with Turn: Washington’s Spies. When we say Washington, we’re not talking about the city.

"And then there's Maude."

In football, there's always a lot of talk about coaching trees. You know the idea. Some great mastermind who saw his assistants go on to have success of their own and who passed that lucky charm down to others for, perhaps, generations. All In The Family would be the television equivalent to a coach with a long tree. There were an incredible number of spinoffs that led to other spinoffs. Archie's neighbors The Jeffersons moved on up to the East Side and had their own several years of success.

Who would have believed that you could do a situation comedy based on Nazi Germany and a group of POW’s in World War II? It wasn’t an easy sell. When Albert S. Ruddy first came up with the idea, it was a contemporary story about a group of guys in a normal U.S. prison. There were a lot of problems, mostly with the idea of making your main characters criminals. Of course, that’s not so much the problem today. But this was the 1960’s, and those kinds of “heroes” were not quite as accepted. Eventually the concept developed to put the characters in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany during the World War II. Remember that we were only 20 years removed from the end of the war and the discovery of the concentration camps and all of the horrid images these things evoked in people.