TOOBWORLD BEHIND THE SCENES

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Albert Freedman, a producer on the NBC program Twenty-One who became a central figure in the quiz show scandals that erupted in the late 1950s, has died. He was 95.

Freedman died April 11 in Marin County, Calif., his family announced.

In 1956, Freedman convinced Charles Van Doren, who was teaching at Columbia University, to come on as a contestant on 'Twenty-One'. The reigning champion, Herb Stempel, was winning week after week, but the ratings were suffering and Geritol, the sponsor, wanted him gone.

"I've thought about it, Charlie, and I've decided you should be the person to beat Stempel. And I’ll help you do it," Van Doran, writing in a first-person account that was published in The New Yorker in 2008, said Freedman told him.

"I swear to you, no one will ever know. It will be just between you and me. Jack Barry [the show's host] won't know and [producer] Dan Enright won't, either. Stempel won't know — I've got a way to handle that. The sponsors won't know — anyway, they'll be so happy they won't give a damn. And the audience will never know, because I won't tell them, and you won't, either."

In 1994,Robert Redford directed a movie about this quiz show scandal, which featured Ralph Fiennes as Van Doran, Paul Scofield as his father, John Turturro as Aaron Stempel, and Hank Azaria as Freedman.

Hank Azaria as Albert Freedman

with

David Paymer as Dan Enright

There is an alternate dimension of Toobworld in which we see what went on behind the scenes of various TV shows.  (As of yet I don't have a pithy name for that world, but if you think of one, send it along!)

These docu-dramas can't be allowed into the main Toobworld as they are massive Zonks.

And every so often a theatrical film on a similar subject will be pulled out of the Cineverse to be absorbed into that Toobworld dimension.  However, it has to be a movie about real TV shows to qualify.  And the same would be true for TV shows about the TV business.  This would include "Tootsie", "Soapdish", "My Favorite Year", and "Champagne For Caesar," and TV shows like "On The Air", "Goodnight Beantown", "All Is Forgiven", "Lateline", "The Larry Sanders Show", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would not be found there either.  But they'll always have a home in the main Toobworld.

Here are some of the movies that would be included in that TV dimension, both theatrical and made for TV:

• QUIZ SHOW
• THE ROAD TO CORONATION STREET
• SURVIVING GILLIGAN'S ISLAND: THE INCREDIBLY TRUE STORY OF THE LONGEST THREE HOUR TOUR IN HISTORY
• DYNASTY: THE MAKING OF A GUILTY PLEASURE
• BEHIND THE CAMERA: THE UNAUTHORIZED STORY OF 'THREE'S COMPANY'
  BEHIND THE CAMERA: THE UNAUTHORIZED STORY OF 'CHARLIE'S ANGELS'
• THE CURSE OF STEPTOE
• FRANKIE HOWERD: RATHER YOU THAN ME
• LUCY & DESI: BEFORE THE LAUGHTER
• BEHIND THE CAMERA: THE UNAUTHORIZED STORY OF 'MORK & MINDY'
• THE LATE SHIFT
• ERIC & ERNIE
• GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
• AN ADVENTURE IN TIME AND SPACE
• AMERICAN DREAMS

BCnU,,,,,