TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 21

ISLAND OF THE MISFIT TOYS
Which company sponsored the production of the Rankin/Bass special, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"?

A) Coca Cola
B) General Electric
C) Marlboro
D) Montgomery Ward
E) Texaco

Hail Brak!

A funny thing happened last week while flying home from the memorial to my friend John Higgins in New York ... I spent the night in Atlanta.

Thanks to AirTran Airlines — which in a stunning act of bravado plans to make a hostile bid for Midwest Airlines, which would be, I guess, like Mark Cuban buying a ballet company — I was unable to make a connecting flight home from LaGuardia.  So I called up my old email pal Tom Roche, whom I first corresponded with in 1994 not long after I raved about "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" in the old Late Show News. Tom was an editor on the series and sends me interesting reads all the time, we'd never met in person so why not?

Happily, Tom took me in and I got a decent night's rest, a tour of the Crawford post-production facility ("biggest in the Southeast"), and a cup of joe in Tom's "Hail Brak!" mug.

I plan to write about Higgins shortly.  Of course, I've been saying that for a while now. It's been very hard for me to boil down my thoughts about my friend and colleague.  I think about him every day, and somehow, that makes the writing harder.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 20

IF YOU WANNA BE HAPPY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
Before living "The Surreal Life," Tammy Faye Bakker/Messner appeared as a regular on what series?

A) "The Drew Carey Show"
B) "Life Goes On"
C) "Night Court"
D) "Seventh Heaven"
E) "The Single Guy"

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 19

IN THE AIR TONIGHT
"St. Vitus Dance," Sonny Crockett's boat on "Miami Vice," is also the name of ...

A) a movement disorder of the hands and feet
B) the last opera performed by Maria Callas
C) a fern-like houseplant
D) a song by Black Sabbath
E) an annual festival in Latvia

Best "Survivor" ever

Paul Harris and I talked on KMOX about the "Survivor" finale, the debut of "Identity," the cancellation of "Show Me The Money," and some last-minute TV-themed holiday gift ideas.

TV Series Finale.com ... brilliant!

Now why didn't I think of this?  A new website, started by a longtime TV Barn reader, gives you the last word — literally — on TV's roadkill. It just goes to show that there is still room for niche products like this and tvshowsondvd.com and epguides.com even as Wikipedia's TV reference tome grows fatter by the day.

Link: TV Series Finale :: The last episodes of your favorite tv shows.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 18

LEAH ME ALONE
Oddly enough, on "Caroline in the City," the character's last name was not City. What last name was on her paychecks?

A) Cross
B) Duffy
C) Guesswaite
D) North
E) Ray

What to watch this week

(Photo: Marc-André Grondin in "C.R.A.Z.Y.," on Sundance.)

More gifting ideas and some holiday-themed programs.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 15-17

THIS IS THE BIG ONE
What was Fred Sanford's favorite TV series on "Sanford and Son"?

A) "Days of Our Lives"
B) "The Jeffersons"
C) "Quincy"
D) "Rawhide"
E) "Saturday Night Live"

Busting out the last-minute DVD gift ideas

It's the week before Christmas and you just realized you forgot to shop for somebody. It could be a co-worker or a relative who's coming to town. Someone down the food chain, far enough that you don't want to waste a lot of time (or money) shopping for them, but not so far down that you don't fear retribution.

May I suggest giving the gift of Drebin.

Frank Drebin.

"Police Squad! The Complete Series" quietly rolled out on DVD last month, a lovingly slapped-together collection of six of the least appreciated, laugh-out-loudest half-hours of television ever made. It's one of a handful of DVDs I would give, without hesitation, to someone I loved, someone I liked, or frankly, anyone with a beating heart that I thought could use a pick-me-up.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 14

THE OFFICE
Albert Hague, the composer (with Dr. Seuss) of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," went on to ...

A) learn "The Facts of Life."
B) light up the sky like a flame, "Fame."
C) "Hope & Gloria."
D) "Profit" substantially.
E) "Show Me the Money."

The Golden Globes: Why?

A perennial question still awaiting a satisfactory answer.

The nominees for the 64th annual Golden Globe Awards will be announced at 7 a.m. Thursday (Central time). E! will carry the event live, and CNN probably will too, no doubt matching its breathless coverage of the recent release of the Iraq Study Group report, though some viewers might argue the stakes are much higher here.

The Globes: You can't stop them, you can only hope to contain them. I don't like the Globes. I find it tedious to watch inebriated celebs take awards and gift baskets from something called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. I put no faith in the Globes' vaunted ability to predict who will win Emmy or Oscar gold.

To me, the Golden Globes sit atop a steaming heap of made-for-TV awards shows, a class even more loathsome than bottom-feeding reality shows. I say “made-for-TV” because, unlike the Oscars, the Globes and all their spawn (AMAs, People's Choice, MTV etc.) rely on television for their survival.

But give NBC credit: The network took over the Globes in 1996, put it in a prime Sunday night time, amped up the star power and promoted the telecast as a boozy, star-studded preview of the Academy and Emmy awards rolled into one. The Golden Globes telecast consistently ranks as the third most-watched awards show of the year, just behind the Grammys, and dominates the entertainment-news cycle (another TV creation) from Thanksgiving to Martin Luther King Day.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 13

THE OFFICE
In which series are characters unfortunate enough to work for a boss named Dolores Herbig?

A) "Archie Bunker's Place"
B) "Are You Being Served?"
C) "Dead Like Me"
D) "Homicide: Life on the Street"
E) "M.A.N.T.I.S."

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 12

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PLOTLINES
Which of the following characters would you find if you opened the door marked IHP?

A) Jesse Conlon
B) Wesley Crusher
C) Ed Deline
D) Arvid Engen
E) Napoleon Solo

Is this some kind of bust?

Today on KMOX, I talked with Paul Harris about two new TV shows airing this week -- Peter Krause in "The Lost Room" and a documentary on Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye -- plus the Golden Globes and the "Police Squad" DVD.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 11

TO MEL IN A HANDBASKET
Alice Hyatt was "a new girl in town" when she and her son Tommy moved West from ... ?

A) Florida
B) Georgia
C) Illinois
D) New Jersey
E) Washington, D.C.

What to watch this week

Three cable miniseries to go with "One Punk Under God."  Fire up your DVRs!   

Son of a TV preacher man: Jay Bakker in "One Punk Under God"

For Jay Bakker, the son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker, loving God meant always having to say you were sorry.

  “I had this idea of an angry God, that everything I did was bad and wrong,” he says now about his childhood, which until the age of 13 was spent living, literally, in a theme park, Heritage USA, built by the millions of dollars the Bakkers raised through their Praise the Lord ministry.

  Despite his seemingly idyllic upbringing, Bakker says, “I thought I was losing my salvation.” Those feelings of guilt only intensified in 1987, when a sex and accounting-fraud scandal brought the PTL empire crashing down. Eventually his parents would divorce, Jim Bakker would go to prison and Jay would spend his teen years adrift in a haze of drugs and alcohol.

  Now rehabilitated and married, Jay Bakker, who turns 31 later this month, is a minister of the gospel himself. He's even on TV -- though only for a few weeks. “One Punk Under God,” a documentary about his life, airs for six weeks beginning 8 p.m. CT Wednesday on Sundance Channel (digital cable).

TV Barn's TV Picks for Dec. 8-10

THE DREAD PIRATE
Before loving "Raymond," Doris Roberts won her first Emmy award for appearing on what hit series?

A) "ALF"
B) "Hill Street Blues"
C) "Perfect Strangers"
D) "Remington Steele"
E) "St. Elsewhere"

Jay McShann, RIP

Well, we lost him. The last of the Blue Devils is no more. Jay McShann died today at the age of ... we're not entirely sure. Maybe 90. Let's say of him what Kup often said of legends: Jay was ageless.

There are many tributes already online to McShann, who arrived in Kansas City in 1937 as an ambitious young piano player and quickly created one of the most important sounds in the history of jazz music.

Let me share one memory, because it's pretty special.  Just about three years ago, I'm in my car and the phone rings. It's Mark Pender, Conan's trumpeter and a native of the area.

"Hey, man," he says, "I'm here at Soundtrek studios with Jay McShann and I thought you might want to bring your video camera by and shoot some of our session."

Would I!  So I did, and even though I had shot less than 10 hours of film and really didn't know what I was doing, I managed to gather enough tape to make for some interesting footage for Mark's next CD/DVD set.

And more to the moment, you will see my footage from that session -- one of the very last recording sessions, if not the last, McShann ever did -- on the video that our staff produced this week for this special Jay McShann tribute page on KansasCity.com.