VIDEO WEEKEND: THE BOARDWALK PENULTIMATE

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28
9:00 PM, EST
HBO

The penultimate episode of 'Boardwalk Empire' airs!

This has been a spectacular debut season, and it's nice to know it's already assured to return for another go next year.

So to whet your whistle, here are a few clips from this upcoming episode:

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VIDEO WEEKEND: BILKO KEEPS IN STEP

There's never a bad time for Bilko......

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VIDEO WEEKEND: McCARTHY v. WEST

It's not really a tribute to Kevin McCarthy, who was one of my favorite actors and who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. It's more like a chance to watch him try to beat up a girl.....

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VIDEO WEEKEND: RADCLIFFE NOTES

I don't care if it is a Saturday during a holiday weekend - School's in session!

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AS SEEN ON TV: BETTY ROLLIN (AND NOT QUITE ARTHUR HERZOG)

BETTY ROLLIN & "ARTHUR HEROZ"

AS SEEN IN:
"First You Cry"

AS PLAYED BY:
Betty Rollin - Mary Tyler Moore
"Arthur Heroz" - Anthony Perkins

Betty Rollin's own words:
I had a lump for a year. At least a year. It was a hard little thing -- about the size of a yellow grape -- and it resided, imperceptible except to the touch, on the far left side of my left breast, due west of the nipple. I knew it was there, my (ex-) husband knew it was there, and my (ex-) internist knew it was there, and my (ex-) mammographer knew it was there. Of the four, only one of us was worried about it. That was Arthur Herzog, the husband, who had found it on a spring evening in 1974 during a routine sexual feel.
What's that? he said. I don't know, I said. It's a lump, he said. Mmmm, I said, wanting to sleep. Will you get it looked at? he said. Sure, I said, and went to sleep.

From People magazine:
In 1972 Rollin married science fiction writer Arthur Herzog III. Three years later she discovered a lump in her left breast and within months found herself in New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center recovering from a modified radical mastectomy.

The cancer forced Rollin to rethink many things, including her relationship with Herzog, whom she divorced in 1975. "I felt, 'I'm in this marriage that isn't great, and I could die soon, and I don't have any time to waste,' " she explains.

In the TV Movie, Herzog is named Arthur Heroz. So the televersion of Betty Rollin's life is not the same as it for the real Betty Rollin in the Trueniverse.

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MUNSTER, GO HOME BOX OFFICE

On the season finale for 'Bored To Death', there was one visitor to the Brooklyn Comic-Con who was in a costume that wasn't based on comic books or movies. If I'm not mistaken, his white collar and black jacket marked him as a classic TV character from the 1960's, and this could have been the same age as that character today. So to avoid a Zonk, I'm going to suggest that he actually was the TV character, out for the night and enjoying himself at the comic book convention.

(He'd be visible right after this moment, when Ray collapses across the table.)

I haven't been able to track down a picture of him in this episode, and with my limited resources, I can't find a way to make my own screen capture. But if you still have a copy of the episode ("Super Ray Is Mortal!"), you'll find him in the Brooklyn Comic-Con scenes near the Super Ray autograph table - off to the upper left, after the attack on Ray. He's wearing a large, round white collar, dressed in black otherwise, and his hair slicked back.

I'm going to say it's Eddie Munster from 'The Munsters'. Not just a convention visitor dressed as Eddie, but the actual werewolf. (A grown-up Eddie Munster was seen once before - but over in Skitlandia, where he was played by Ben Stiller on 'Saturday Night Live'.)

You can't hit me with the argument that he should be in Mockingbird Heights. I'm about the same age as Eddie Munster, and I was in Connecticut back then. If I'm in NYC now, why can't Eddie be as well?

That he should be still dressing the same way as he did as a kid, well that's just sad. Not like me - I used to wear T-shirts, dungarees, sneakers and today I wear....

Oh dear.

So I'm sticking to that splainin - we're seeing the actual Eddie Munster out and about in Toobworld after forty years.

And as for the recasting, Toobworld Central always makes allowances for the aging process.

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AS SEEN ON TV: TWO ROYAL COUPLES

Since we celebrated a great American tradition yesterday,the "As Seen On TV" showcase veers off from that today and features two couples from Great Britain's Royal Family.........

PRINCE WILLIAM & KATE MIDDLETON
QUEEN ELIZABETH II & PRINCE PHILIP

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Prince William - Andy Samberg
Kate Middleton - Anne Hathaway
Queen Elizabeth - Fred Armisen
Prince Philip - Bill Hader
Britain's Prince William proposed to bride-to-be Kate Middleton in a secluded African lodge, but won't say if he got down on one knee to give her his mother's ring.

"We had a holiday in Africa, it was out there in a very quiet lodge and it was very romantic," Middleton said of the engagement.

"It was very romantic and it was very personal."

When pressed if he knelt down in front of his future wife, William quipped: "That's going to stay a secret."

The beaming couple, who are both 28, made their first appearance Tuesday hours after it was publicly announced they plan to wed next year.

Kate, who is now dropping her nickname and wants to be known as Catherine, said the thought of joining the royal family is "quite a daunting prospect."

"Hopefully I'll take it in my stride," she added. "William's a great teacher so he'll be able to help me along the way."
BY Aliyah Shahid and Christina Boyle
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

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AS SEEN ON TV: JOHN BOEHNER

I thought we should celebrate a great American tradition like Thanksgiving with an "ASOTV" showcase featuring a great American.....

But we're going with John Boehner instead.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE-ELECT
JOHN BOEHNER

AS SEEN IN:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Bill Hader

From Wikipedia:
John Andrew Boehner (born November 17, 1949) is the U.S. Representative from Ohio's 8th congressional district, serving since 1991, and the Republican House Minority Leader since 2007. The district includes several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton and a small portion of Dayton itself.

Following the 2010 midterm elections, with the Republicans becoming the majority party in the House of Representatives, Boehner [will be] Speaker of the House of Representatives once the 112th Congress takes office on January 3, 2011.

Well, at least he looks like he's nicely basted.....

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DEAD TOOTH AND NOTHING BUT DEAD TOOTH

'Raising Hope' and 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' both featured girls with a dead front tooth within the space of a few weeks. Greg Garcia, creator of 'Raising Hope' talked about the coincidence in this interview with "Culture Vulture":

Will we be seeing more of Shelley (Kate Micucci), the babysitter with a dead tooth and a crush on Jimmy?
Yes, she comes back quite often, but we took her dead tooth away. I watched the season premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I think is the funniest show on TV. And they had a woman with a dead tooth. And I was like, "Awww, shit! Ours hasn't even aired yet! How the fuck can you have two people with dead tooths?" So we shot an episode with her last week where we took her dead tooth away. I thought, What's the point? They did a dead tooth, I don't want to keep doing it.
How do you explain it?
Martha's character asks her, "What happened to your dead tooth?" And Shelley says, "Well, I thought it was unique and then I was watching a hilarious episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a girl had a dead tooth, so I decided to have it fixed." I just figured, we got all our dead-tooth jokes out. And their dead tooth looked better than ours. That just bummed me out. Their's was all cool and gray. Ours didn't look as good. But Shelley has more to offer than a dead tooth.

So he solved his problem, but created one for me at Toobworld Central. The Chance Family and the gang at Paddy's Bar should be existing in the same TV dimension. But Shelley supposedly watched an episode of 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia'.

So here's my splainin:

What Shelley saw was an episode of Dennis Reynolds' video podcast, his "vodcast".

What's that, you say? You didn't know Dennis had a vodcast? Well, it's something he must do outside the parameters of the sitcom's half hour. Or during the commercials.

So Dennis must have done an episode of his vodcast about his quickie marriage and divorce to Maureen Ponderosa. Pictures of Maureen with her dead tooth on that vodcast prompted Shelley to rethink having one herself.

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THAT CUBAN BEAT

If a Zonk happens on a TV show which I don't watch, do I still have to splain it away? I'm afraid if I found out about it, I'd have no choice. It's a compulsion by now....

I found this tele-quote listed in the Sound Bites of Entertainment Weekly:

"If I show up empty-handed,

Carlos will go all Ricky Ricardo on my ass."
Gabrielle Solis
'Desperate Housewives'

So long as the TV show 'I Love Lucy' isn't mentioned, a Ricky Ricardo reference is never a Zonk, since he becamse a major Hollywood star. (And even the mention of that title wouldn't be a deal-breaker; it could have been a title for the Ricardos' reality show a la 'Harry Loves Lisa'.)

But Gaby's comment adds a new dimension to what we know about that Cuban Pete.....

The way I would interpret it would be that Ricky Ricardo was another Ike Turner, subjecting his wife Lucy to domestic abuse.

(Uh-oh! Lucy's in for a beat-down!)

I'd hate to think this was the case, but even in black & white television there are shades of gray.......

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