Posts by Gino Sassani

"You know, the smallest thing can change your life. In the blink of an eye, something happens by chance, when you least expect it, sets you on a course that you never planned into a future you never imagined. Where will it take you? That's the journey of our lives. Our search for the light... "

The same thing can be said for movies. They are a journey that we willingly take. Often they lead us to unexpected places. And if we're very lucky, if the film is very good, there'll be the slightest bit of change in ourselves because of the experience.

Wings was one of those unusual sitcoms that depended more on the characters than the situations they were in. While the setting was a small Nantucket airline owned by two brothers, most of the episodes had very little to do with flying. Rather, the writers populated this small airline with very distinctive personalities and let these interactions be fodder for the funny. The characters were played by more than competent actors, many of whom have proven themselves beyond this quaint sitcom. Timothy Daly played Joe Hackett, the older, more responsible brother who was often the show’s straight man. His rather adolescent sibling Brian was played by Steven Weber. I wouldn’t exactly say this was Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but their conflicts over maturity fueled the characters. The airline’s love interest was Helen Chappel, played by Crystal Bernard. She was an aspiring symphony cellist who worked the airport’s lunch counter. For much of the show’s run she had an on-again-off-again romance with Joe. By far the most animated character was mechanic Lowell Mather, played by Thomas Haden Church. It’s still amazing to me that this rather unintelligent character was played by the same guy who brought us Sandman in the latest Spider-Man film. Finally there was cabbie Antonio Scarpacci, played by the current Adrian Monk, Tony Shalhoub. Antonio is an Italian immigrant who has trouble understanding things most of the time, leading to some of the better moments in the series. Fay, played by Rebecca Shull, is the mothering member of the cast. And Roy Biggins (Schram) runs the rival airline and is often engaged in one underhanded scheme or another.

Tony Shalhoub would eventually find a resurgence in his career as the off-kilter detective Monk, and Tim Daly would go on in such shows as The Fugitive new series and finally Private Practice. Alas, most of the other characters and actors would not be heard of much over the next decade or so. Steven Weber would pop up from time to time as well. It’s always a bit of fun to revisit actors and characters after a few years have gone by.

"Everybody has a story to tell about their lives. My story begins the day I died."

It also seems that everybody has a tale of ancient fighters and heroes to tell. With the popularity of television shows like The Vikings and Game Of Thrones, there appears to be a considerable demand for this kind of film. Zack Snyder added his own graphic- novel style to 300, and it's been repeated to the point where the style itself has become a sub-genre of its own. The Spartacus series took that style, noted for the animated cartoonish blood in plentiful supply, and made it into a common event. The natural continuation of these elements is the low budget and direct to video film Vikingdom.

On October 9^th 1986 the network television landscape did something that hadn’t been done successfully in its 40-year history. A fourth network broke on the airwaves. It was called FOX and wasn’t even going to broadcast seven days a week. Most pundits in the television industry never gave it a chance. Most of the channels were in the double-digit UHF range. This had long been considered the independent station area, and a lot of televisions didn’t pick up this band as well as the established VHF band. And for a while it looked like the network was going to disappear almost as quickly as it appeared. But by 1987, the network suddenly had two big hits on its hands. The first was a silly cartoon, originally aired as a throwaway segment on a variety show. The cartoon featured the most unlikely of television families, The Simpsons. That show is still with us nearly 25 years later. The second hit was a live-action series, also based on a very unlikely and this time seemingly unlovable family, the Bundys. Right from the start there was criticism that the name itself was a death knell. At the time America was still dealing with the pending execution of a far more infamous Bundy. Married With Children, however, would become an almost instant breakout hit.

Al Bundy (O’Neill) was a working stiff. He had seen his high school glory years evaporate into the rearview mirror of his ancient Dodge when he married his childhood sweetheart (no, I did not misspell), Peggy (Segal). The red-headed woman would soon become his curse. She was lazy. Peggy wouldn’t know what a stove looked like if it fell on her. She was content to sit around all day while Al worked for minimum wage at a mall shoe store. Tying Al to his meager existence were two children. Bud (Faustino) was a frustrated teen who couldn’t seem to find his cool. Girls scorned him, and he appeared to be headed to the life of his father. Daughter Kelly (Applegate) was a teen slut. She slept around and used her looks to make her way in life, which was likely good, because she was dumber than rocks. Al was also plagued by neighbor Marcy (Bearse) who was a feminist and usually a thorn in Al’s behind. Most of the material involved Al’s suffering and the apathy of his family to his lowly station in life.