User talk:Skymasterson

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Welcome!

Hello, Skymasterson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  BD2412 T 22:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] NPOV

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. As a member of the Wikipedia community, I would like to remind you of Wikipedia's neutral-point-of-view policy for editors, which you appear to have violated at The Secret Six. In the meantime, please be bold and continue contributing to Wikipedia. Thank you! RandyWang (raves/rants) 22:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doc Holliday's Saloon

I've added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Doc Holliday's Saloon, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, or, if you disagree with the notice, discuss the issues at Talk:Doc Holliday's Saloon. You may remove the {{dated prod}} template, and the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. shotwell 02:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello, this is Skymasterson. I have no strong opinion one way or the other about the deletion of my little "Doc Holliday's Saloon" article.

[edit] AfD Nomination: Doc Holliday's Saloon

I've nominated the article Doc Holliday's Saloon for deletion under the Articles for deletion process. We appreciate your contributions, but in this particular case I do not feel that Doc Holliday's Saloon satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion. I have explained why in the nomination space (see What Wikipedia is not and Deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doc Holliday's Saloon. Don't forget to add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of each of your comments to sign them. You are free to edit the content of Doc Holliday's Saloon during the discussion, but please do not remove the "Articles for Deletion" template (the box at the top). Doing so will not end the discussion.

[edit] Erin O'Brien

Erin O'Brien has been proposed for deletion. An editor felt this person might not be notable enough for an article. Please review Wikipedia:Notability (people) for the relevant guidelines. If you can improve the article to address these concerns, please do so.

If no one objects to the deletion within five days by removing the "prod" template, the article may be deleted without further discussion. If you remove the prod template, the article will not be deleted, but if an editor is still not satisfied that it meets Wikipedia guidelines, it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. NickelShoe (Talk) 22:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] San Antonio (film)

A tag has been placed on San Antonio (film), requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Realkyhick 06:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Searchers

PLease note all the free images located in the commons at :

its a sin not to even use one image of the film ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you" Contribs 16:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Alaskans

Noting your concerns at Talk:The Alaskans, I've added a bit more to the article. Clearly, though, it needs to grow up. If you find yourself with spare time, perhaps you could return some day after having done a fresh search for new info. CzechOut 07:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for what you said of my work on The Alaskans. I've seen this assertion of "whole scripts with just the names and places changed to protect the guilty", but I've not so far run across any specific source that backs that up. That's why I'd trimmed the line as it stood to the more vague one of "borrowing script ideas".
The most Roger Moore says is that they were "tired" scripts and that they were "all running together in my mind". But this quote comes from an interview where he's explaining why he left Maverick. The implication is that the Maverick scripts were recycled from Alaskan ones (or, perhaps, that in his short run on Maverick he'd already come across the same script twice).
What we really need here is a clear source. If you can find one that actually says the scripts were reused wholesale, then the line should be left in. Otherwise, I'm not sure either your version or mine can fairly be left in. CzechOut 22:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Cool, I'm enjoying it, too. I've just made some significant changes to the article. The only hard source I've been able to find is the one from Moore, now quoted by the article. The implication of the quote, to me, is that he didn't want to take Maverick because he had seen how the scripts at Maverick were being recycled from Alaksans, Bronco and old Maverick scripts. However, it's just one view of the situation, and the article could surely use shoring up when you find other direct quotes on the matter. CzechOut 02:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, thank you, sir. :) I'm still puzzled by the directional arrow of these recycled scripts, though. Do you remember anything about the television interview you were talking about? Who was the interviewer? What show was it on? Anything might be helpful in tracking it down and adding more to the article. Beyond that, though, the thing that really worries me about the article is the fact that we don't have anything about the actual content. I mean, we could easily knock up an episode guide giving episode titles and broadcast dates. But as for information about what those episodes were about, well, information is very thin on the ground. Wish I'd seen this series, though—the concept is intriguing to me. CzechOut 02:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've found another quote which seems to confirm your view of the directional arrow. Wish I could find a solid quote from someone on the prodction side, but, hey, I guess it's good just to get anything this far away from the series' broadcast.CzechOut 03:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
This is the view of the Garner dispute from British source, Television Haven:
Before the end of its run 'Maverick' lost its star when Garner and Warner Brothers fell into dispute with each other. In January 1960 the Writers Guild of America went on strike and by March both Garner and Jack Kelly were suspended without pay by Warner Brothers who claimed there were no scripts available. Garner objected to his suspension claiming the studio was in no way hampered from continuing production and demanded payment of his salary. Warner Brothers refused to pay Garner who then sued him for breach of contract after he told them he considered his employment terminated. A legal battle ensued followed by a ruling by the Los Angeles Superior Court in favour of the star, leaving him free to walk out. His replacement was an English actor who would go on to become an international star: Roger Moore put on a holster and saddled up for the part of Cousin Beau who, displaying none of the usual family traits, had won a commendation in the Civil War before moving to England to get a "cultural education".
Dunno how accurate it is, cause it offers no sources, but it seems "substantive" in offering plausible legal positions for both sides. It also seems to indicate that Garner would've continued had WB just told the truth about their ability to continue production. On the other hand, this could merely represent Garner's legal position because he actually wanted to leave, given the sorry condition of the scripts. Either way, I'm taking your recommendation and removing the reference to Garner's problem with the originality of the scripts. His sworn testimony seems to be that he objected to not being paid, rather than not getting original scripts. CzechOut 05:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Dakotas

Sorry for not responding earlier. I was lost for a bit over at The Persuaders! and in trying to bring some connective thread to William T. Orr shows. Yeah, that Dakatoas cancellation is crazy. I really wonder if it's not unique for being axed, essentially, by viewers. I, at least, tend to think of the 60s as the dawn of "viewer activism" used to save shows. It's surprising to learn of a show where the polar opposite occurred. Can you, even anecdotally, think of another example of a show being killed by its viewers? CzechOut 04:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Orr

Regarding contemporary perceptions of Orr, yeah, I'd gathered Garner wasn't happy with him. When Garner took WB to court, he was, for all intents and purposes, taking Orr to court. But for some reason I kinda stopped writing the main body of the article before I hopped over to other things. Maybe you can find juicy bits from those interviews and start a new section over at the main Bill Orr article? CzechOut 04:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. You can tell that Orr stressed the "Executive" in "Executive Producer". There's no physical way he could've been deeply involved in so many shows at one time. People today claim that Russell T. Davies is getting overstretched by just having three, relatively short-seasoned shows at different times in the same year. But Orr had, at his height, nine full-season shows on simultaneously. His genius was in creating the framework that made the whole thing work. And you can't really argue with going from 0 shows in 1955 to the largest producer of American television shows just four years later. Sure, Huggins was the creative engine, but Orr laid the tracks—however twisted and unidirectional they may have been. To mix Doctor Who and early American television metaphors further, Huggins is the Russell T. Davies of his era; Orr was a meaner, less gentle version of Julie Gardner. [Sorry if the references mean nothin' to ya. Just trying to keep it all straight in my warped little mind.] The other thing to note is that his immediate replacement, Jack Webb was booted out of Warner Brothers after only a few months for the disasterous creative changes he ordered to 77 Sunset Strip. There's something to be said for knowing what one's job is, and just getting on with it, friends or not.
Now, what I'm really interested in are two things. One, why did he have such a disasterous relationship with most stars, considering that he had a considerable career as an actor himself? And two, why did he just walk away from the industry to have quite a long life in retirement? CzechOut 05:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the Roy Huggins interview at AAT. Gotta say, though, that I'm not getting quite the same vibe outta the discussion about Orr that you did. Now, granted, I'm only about halfway in, so maybe my impression will change. But here in part 5 he seems to have quite a friendly relationship with Orr, and seems sympathetic to the machinations at Warner as just "part of the business". Especially as regards his lack of creator credit on Maverick, he recognizes Orr's position as being a "difficult" one, and says that he "always liked Bill Orr". In fact, I'd say that Orr's insistence on Garner in the Conflict episode, "The Man from 1999"—over Huggins' objections—was a key creative decision to the development of Maverick. I'll let you know what my impressions are as the history progresses. I will say from the outset, though, that just these five parts indicate lines of research that could keep me going for six months on Wikipedia. Huggins statement that Leonard Goldenson was the "most important person in American television" is just jawdroppingly fascinating. CzechOut 12:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've made it to the end of this Huggins interview with AAT, and there's not one thing there that suggests Huggins believed Orr was a credit grabber with no creative input. In fact, in part 10, where the interview asks for little anecdotes about various personalities with whom Huggins worked, his affection for Orr is clear. He says he really liked Orr for his "insouciance". Since Huggins seemed to thrive on creative situations in which he wasn't being micromanaged from above, this would seem a positive influence on Huggins' creativity. Moreover, he cites Orr as his major source of knowledge about editing, the one creative discipline Huggins said made him nervous about producing. Orr seems, on balance, to have been a calming, practical influence on Huggins. CzechOut 20:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Garner on Later with Bob Costas and other things

By the way, I think you'll probably enjoy this little snippet from Later with Bob Costas. It appears to be all about Rockford, until he gets going. Then there's this whole thing about the court battles he's been in and why. Yeah, I know exactly nothing about Sunset except for the theme song and some production details. To be honest, I'm not really that crazy for the straight crime drama, except in small doses. I tend to find them very "samey" after a while. So, for that reason, I generally feel ya when you say "not much television overseen by Webb was ever worth watching"—except that I have a soft spot for Emergency!, which was actually a socially conscious show. And you can't really argue with fire-fighters, paramedics, and ER doctors as role models. Plus, how can a show starring a guy named RANDOLPH MANTOOTH really be bad?

As for the gulg between Orr and Warners at the end, it may have had something to do with his divorce from Joy Page. That happened in 1970, but one imagines the rumblings of discontent may have been present in the mid 60s. On the other hand, he could have gone what his son said and simply "walked away from the industry". It might've been the walking away which precipitated the breakup, not the other way around. However it went down, it's damned interesting that a guy who, from the studio's point of view, was doing a stellar job would've just disappeared. It's like Seinfeld or Andy Griffith just leaving when they were number 1. Or maybe it's that people like Roy Huggins were leaving Warners in the mid-60s and he just didn't want to rebuild the whole organization. CzechOut 07:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fame/Girl

Thanks for your comments on Girl! Don't think I'm with you on Girl as even technically a tele-movie, though: Talk:Girl on the Run. CzechOut 05:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Orr (again)

These are your edits to William T. Orr:

Alternatively, writer/director Roy Huggins and Maverick star James Garner dismiss Orr in interviews and in their respective Archive of American Television reminiscences as an ineffectual "son-in-law" of Jack Warner who contributed nothing creatively to any series with which he was involved.

Well, I've been back and forth in those interviews and I simply can't find anything to support this claim. Huggins, as I've said above, points with affection to Bill Orr. He gives several ways in which Orr was creatively useful. Garner clearly doesn't like Orr, but he doesn't say anything about Orr's creative contributions. In fact, he says, "I made it a career to stay away from the big brass", and generally indicates that he really wouldn't have been in a position to know anything about what was going on "at that level" of production. Though he tells a story about one instance in which Huggins' script changes were rejected on Rockford, he can't even definitively say whether Huggins had any creative input on Rockford—and Garner was producing the show!. In fact, Garner seems to be fairly fuzzy on a number of fairly basic details about his own career, which tends to weaken his credibility as a source for me. So, reluctantly, I'm gonna pull this revision from the Orr text. It might be accurate, but these citations can't be use to validate it. I'm intrigued by the phrase "in interviews and [ATA reminiscences]. . . ", though, because it seems to suggest you know of additional sources out there. Maybe if you can find those other interviews we might have something to work with. I completely agree that the article, without this passage, is way too one-sided for my tastes. I'd like to see the article eventually present a more balanced picture of the man. I agree there's no way it can be accurate to portray him in such a highly positive light. He was a studio exec. No studio execs are universally hailed as visionaries. Even Walt Disney has his detractors. CzechOut 06:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to mention again how very much I'm enjoying your companionship as I go through this era of TV that I didn't experience firsthand. You ought to consider hosting a podcast or something, because I'm sure there'd be others who'd be interested in having a record of a contemporary viewer, especially as some of these series seem destined never to make it to home release.
As much as I'd wish otherwise, though, anecdotal evidence isn't the same thing as referenced citation. And that's what we really need here. I think I'm going to have to eventually break down and buy some of these books of which you speak. In the meantime, a valuable and fairly easy contribution you could make to these articles is simply to add "Further reading" sections. If you don't have the time to go through the books and pick out useful quotes, it certainly would help those of us without your long association with the program to at least assemble reading lists.
On more specific matters, I think you're right to note that the final part of the fourth tape of the Garner AAT interview establishes Garner's dislike of Orr. There's no question but that the two didn't like each other. But there's a difference between generalized animosity and specific quotes that establish Orr's lack of creative utility.
You may have noticed that after tons of digging I did eventually find at least one contemporary article that cast Orr in an unflattering light. It's not much, so far, but it's at least moving the article in the direction of well-roundedness.
Oh, and I spent 2 hours last night trying to track down something on the Page/Orr breakup. I got exactly nothing. I still can only establish the fact of their divorce. So the jury's still very much out as to whether that had anything to do with his departure from Warner. I'm starting to believe, though, that it probably didn't. It just sorta feels like too much time had elapsed between his departure in 64/65 and his divorce in 70 for it to have been causal. CzechOut 05:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Temple Houston

Hey, know anything about this one? Sounds like it had a pretty fantastic cast. But, as always, information's really thin on the ground. CzechOut 08:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

'Commenting on your last notes first': Yeah, that opening quote at Houston is phrased quite carefully. The important words are "attorney in the formal sense". That is, Houston was a real, honest-to-God, passed-the-bar, practicing lawyer. Sugarfoot was, as the name implied, not really there yet. He was studying to be a lawyer through correspondence classes while having otherwise "standard" western adventures. It can be argued that Houston became a fairly standard western, but in concept and initial execution plots revolved around discovering the truth behind alleged crimes, showing full-on courtroom scenes, and even including a judge in the recurring cast. It was very much "Perry Mason on the range". Until it wasn't. Oh, and the seriousness, at least according to Hunter, wasn't Webb's fault, but the networks. He says the studio, and we must assume by that Webb as well, had intended the project as having a certain tongue-in-cheek-ness to it. Apparently, this was present in The Man from Galveston (where NBC's involvement was limited), but absent from the first episode. That's why, apparently, there was a major cast overhaul that between pilot and first episode. Judging from NBC's treatment of Hunter's other NBC pilot, Star Trek, I tend to believe that NBC execs would be "active" in this way.
So I don't think Webb's to blame for this one. Well, not directly at least. Indirectly, he probably didn't think it was "his" baby, since it had been on the drawing boards at Warner since the late 50s. I think if he'd really believed in the thing, he'd have been able to get away with telling NBC to go screw themselves. After all, at that point, Warner Bros. was the top producer of television entertainment and should've been trusted to just deliver the damn product. Had the show gone to ABC, I think the history of the program would've been very much different. It's a good concept, with a strong cast—and a (then) lousy network. CzechOut 04:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evil Twin

I deleted the bulleted lists because I needed to make a statement about the direction of that article. It features no references, and is composed almost entirely of triva and bulleted lists, neither bode well for the fate of that article. It could be merged or deleted at any time with that sort of layout. If you feel I'm in the wrong, then you are free to revert it. I reached the 3RR I believe, so I won't start an edit war. But if you had seen how crazy the supervillain article had got with all the bullets, you might start to see things my way. Johnnyfog 03:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You make a pursuasive argument, but it still wouldn't hold up to the magnifying glass of an overzealous admin. The trick is to bind the material in the appearance of a sterile, calculating encyclopedia by burying the content under an avalanche of references and fair use rationales.
Anyway, the main reason I blanked most of the page was because the evil superman pic is going to be deleted because it's not intergal to the article. Obviously, nothing on that page is. But if we had subtracted some of the feeble and clumsily-inserted information, it might not have come to that. Anyway, I don't know enough about the issue to debate about the policy anyway. I just want to clear my tracks so I don't get wikistalked again. I'm playing by the rules if I can help it. Johnnyfog 03:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The image is from Superman III, of course! And it is Reeves, looking awesome BTW, with a great scowl as he sees himself in a bar mirror and shatters it with his heat vision. A terrible movie, but a great performance. I did not originally upload the image. It was removed from the film article, and I adopted it, thinking no one would bother to challenge such a small, insignificant image (particularly a screencap). Oops.
Likewise, I also enjoyed chatting with you. Take care Johnnyfog 04:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Yikes. "Distilled hatred??" Yeah, Mrs. Reeves was always a little too chipper. Stress response, I guess. No surprise it caused her to kick it. She didn't even smoke.
I have that book myself. They made radical advances in physical therapy and stem cell research thanks to Reeves. Problem is, no results came out of it because of the blockade on stem cell research, and there will be a delay of uncertain length until thy can figure out how to harness non-embryonic cells. And then it won't matter anyway, because no one will be able to afford that treatment but the super rich. Yay for privatized health care! Sure is nice to be living in the future where everything is so inefficient that nothing ever gets cured. Johnnyfog 04:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Sad to hear about your friend's girlfriend. It's getting impossible to avoid contracting cancer these days, thanks to all the pollutants everywhere. And YEAH, the doctors will let you drop dead without insurance. Learned that lesson not long ago myself! I've never been hospitalized, thanks god. But my mom broke her ankle a while back, and a simple surgery turned into a fiasco. >_< It's not easy to fix health care after it's been dergulated and privatized. In fact, de-privatizing an organization has never been done as far as I can tell, since it's a fairly new thing. I could see the country turning into some weird feudal society with peasants who can't afford basic things and exist solely to serve corpoartions. Johnnyfog 14:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedias and Wendy and Me musings

Well, I certainly understand your frustrations with the need for "verifiable content", as the phrase goes. It does tend to turn articles into dry recitation of fact, rather than, as they could be, articles which include "verifiable viewpoints". What gets me is the "original research" ban, because that's such a subjective determination. The very definition of an "editor" is someone who chooses what's important and what's not. Indeed the requirement for notability seems in direct conflict with the ban on original research, because in determing "what's notable" you're doing research and offering an opinion. To me, the most notable thing about Temple Houston, for instance, was that it was the first of a new genre-crossing kind of show, and that it was Webb's major act of generating new revenue as a Warner exec. Other people could say that its importance is that was Hunter's first taste of NBC executive madness, a pre-cursor for his Star Trek experience. Still others have seen its notability in the fact that it was, apparently, the first time that an American actor who had previously played Jesus Christ got a starring role in serial television (Honest! there's a whole article about that at Jeffrey Hunter's website!)

So I dunno what to tell ya except to try to find those things that are interesting, verifiable and seem to you to be historically and/or globally relevant. And then ya just sorta let it go, and go on to the next thing. I've been looking at it like this lately: If there wasn't an article on a thing before, and I can find one thing about it that I know is incontrovertibly notable about it, then I'm happy having added that one bit of knowledge to the body of the Wiki. Whatever happens to it afterwards ain't really my problem.

Now as for your change to Wendy and Me, it's pretty sound. It could probably do without the NPOV-violating word "Bizarrely", and I'd like to find some kinda reference for it, but the basic concept of Burns breaking the fouth wall seems to have support on the various television sites. That was an article I was happy to find anything on and left it to come back to later. Frankly, I don't know how Burns did it. I mean, Gracie had just died and the man's out there schlecking away on (what sounds like) one of the worst sitcom ideas in history. If I'd loved my wife as much as he loved Gracie, and then she died right before an idiotic show was about to premiere, I'd have told 'em to take me to court cause I wasn't doin' it. CzechOut 04:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Girl on the Run

Well, I tell ya. I like your changes to the Marion Hargrove sentence; it's more economical than what I had written, and conveys the same general sense of things. So in it stays.

But that damned word "technically"—I took it out for three reasons.

One is that it's a weasel word, which, as you know, Wikipedia advises against. My rule of thumb on these things when I come down to a close edit like this is to ask myself, "If I could only choose one of two terms, which is it?"

Another reason is that it's a violation of NPOV. By using "technically" you're implying that you don't believe it actually was a film. That's biased, and contrary to the facts. In point of legal fact it is a film. Therefore I've substituted the compromise word, "legally". This, I think, achieves the point of your edit without the bias.

The third reason is that I don't believe that even if it had been aired initially on TV, it would be a made-for-TV movie. In a general sense, it's not a reasonable use of the term. Check out my rant at Talk:Television movie for more on that one. But in the specific case of Girl, it makes even less sense. The only reason why it's a movie-length work at all is because Jack Warner mysteriously ordered Huggins to add 30 minutes to it. Warner's intent, according to the AAT Huggins interview, was to make it long enough to be released as a film. So I've just removed the reference to "made-for-TV movies" altogether.

The whole sentence now reads: When it was thereafter aired on television, it was not legally the debut of a new series, but the television premiere of a theatrical film.

I should point out, as well, that I've removed your attempts to specify the length of release to "one day" an "one afternoon". That's, I believe, how the article originally read before I touched it. When I tried to source that, I came up with conflicting information. Some say a day and some say a week. (I believe Huggins goes with the latter figure in his AAT interview, but I could be wrong). I didn't particularly see it as all that important to define precisely how long it was released, cause it's not that germaine to the point. However, if you think it is, by all means, provide your sources. I imagine a sentence could go something like. "Sources conflict on the exact length of the release; some say a day (give source), others claim it was released for a week (give sources)." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CzechOut (talk • contribs) 21:50, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, I've thought about putting that into the article. The only problem is that I don't believe any such controversy exists, except on wikipedia. I've not once encountered the assertion anywhere but here on Wikipedia. I think it's original research. To give it coverage in the article would simply encourage it. i think what really needs to be done is for the article at television movie to be locked down to a narrower definition such that people don't make these silly errors in the first place. Girl is only the first television movie according to the definition given there. CzechOut 23:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I've spent a lot of time at the Museum of Television & Radio and if you ask anybody who works there (who is marginally knowledgeable, and not all of them are) what the first made-for-TV movie was, they'll usually respond with Girl on the Run, often with an allusion to Fame Is the Name of the Game as the runner-up. This is a long-standing issue that literally predates Wikipedia by a very wide margin, believe me. It's not an important issue, granted, but it has had a long healthy life completely apart from Wikipedia.
Yeah, well, yanno what I'm gonna say to that. Your favorite words: sources trump anecdotes. What we need is a good ol' academic fistfight. I'll look around for a controversy I can document, because, if it exists, it would allow for the article to have four nice lil sections.
CzechOut talk | work 01:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rambling on . . .

Weird, I don't remember deleting that comment about the difference between TH and Sugarfoot. Can't even think of why I would've done that, except in carelessness. Ahh, well, at least it made it to ya long enough for you to have read it. Nah, I'm not a lawyer. And I definitely don't work for Warner Bros. I was raised on a steady, and rather bizarre diet of Walt Dsney biographies, so Warner's very much "the enemy". It's a simple formula: Donald > Daffy.

While, okay, Warner's was the first studio to make wholly original work for television, and, okay, they were the largest provider of fictional content for TV in its infancy, I note with some pride that Disney made it to television first. And at least Disney, unlike Jack Warner, had the balls and charm to make it in front of the cameras. Plus, DIsney was too busy building a truly multimedia empire long before Warner would've even understood what the term meant. And there's always the point that Disney didn't need television because his films were still doin' okay.

I'll go even one more step in shocking you by announcing that I hate westerns. Imagine I were playing the part of Dabney Coleman in Nine to Five. The one sure way Dolly Parton could have tortured me would've been to have tied me in the chair and forced me to watch an endless amount of Bonanza. Days of Our Lives I could've handled. But Lorne Greene? I'd have done anything to have gotten outta that chair.

I tend to agree with Huggins when he says that the whole impetus for Maverick (TV series) was his disdain for the traditional, square-jawed American hero. Westerns are only interesting to me when they attempt to realistically approach the era. So Unforgiven worked for me. And the modern Loveless (comic book) is great because it looks at the West in a distinctly post-Civil War light. Speaking of comic books, I particularly hate westerns in that medium, becuae they stunted the growth of the form for the whole of the 1950s, as far as I'm concerned. Without the break they imposed upon the super-hero genre, the sixties might've had a totally different, and more mature, relationship with comics. Some of the great writers of the day might've seen comics as a valid medium for their attention had not westerns dumbed 'em down.

But still, I can't ignore westerns. Maybe that makes me a good person to write about them, because I'm certainly no fan of anything but their influence on the history of American television. Heh, I'll admit to ya right now that the most interesting thing about our old friend Temple Houston is that it starred Jeffrey Hunter. But that's cause I'm a Star Trek fan. CzechOut talk | work 03:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Women . . .

Not sure if I'm with you there on female stars of movies lately having traditionally male names. "Uma" Thurman? "Demi" Moore? "Michelle" Pfeiffer? "Kate" Blanchett? "Judi" Dench? I'm sure i could go on. Oh, wait, you're talking about characters. Hmmm. I dunno. I don't tend to remember character names in film unless I see 'em a lot. But "Hermione" Granger and "Sue" Storm don't sound particularly male to me. Those are cheating, though, cause of their literary base, perhaps. Lessee, there's Miriam and Eliza Naumann in Bee Season (film), but that's a literary base as well. Oh, I know. There was Carrie in Four Weddings and a Funeral. And there's Jamie Lee Curtis' titular Wanda of A Fish Called Wanda. There's Gina from Beauty Shop, along with most of the female characters in the film. I mean, I guess that there's a relatively higher percentage of female characters having male names than exists in the general population, but I tend to think that's due to one of two factors: a) it makes it easy to do the surprise gender revelation trick; and b) it quickly establishes some character trait. It might also serve to make the character slightly more memorable if they have an unexpected name. Not sure it's quite as widespread as you believe, nor perhaps (where younger characters are concerned) as unrealistic as it might once have been.

Speaking of women, there was an interview I came across while looking at Temple Houston, which spoke to Fess Parker. I wish I could remember who it was with, but all I know is that it barely had any connection to TH, so I promptly dismissed it. It was with some female guest star who was talkin about how Jack Elam was the guy to see if you wanted a quick nip of whiskey on set. Anyway, the lady then went on to talk aobut Fess Parker, and how she believed he wasn't really all that bothered by missed opportunities in Hollywood, cause acting wasn't really his thing. He was, she claimed, much happier in the world of business and vineyards. And indeed he has left behind some fairly impressive wines. So I wouldn't be that surprised if you didn't like Daniel Boone, cause he probably wasn't enjoying it as much as other actors might've.

And you've brought up something there with Lorne Greene as the voice of Death. I wanna say that I always knew he was Canadian, and that's, kinda stupidly, why I didn't buy him as a Western patriarch. He just didn't seem like he belonged there, especially as he made no attempt at a regional dialect. How come his boys sounded so unlike him? Where did he possibly attain the cultured accent he used? It just took me right out of the narrative.
CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 02:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

Nah, the term's really old. As old as your prized Britannica, in fact.

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words.” When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a “weasel word” after another there is nothing left of the other.[1]

—Teddy Roosevelt, 31 May 1916, criticizing Woodrow Wilson's use of the term "universal voluntary military training"

It's also the bane of the sales industry. Sales supervisors are always admonishing their employees to strike the words "might", "may", "could", "possibly" and the like from their vocabulary, for fear that it will allow clients to find an avenue out of the pitch. Problem on Wikipedia is that life isn't black and white, and the intent of the sales person is deception. I think the complete avoidance of weasel words is sometimes detrimental, just because there is interesting information that can be lost just because it can't be expressed without a weasel word.

So my approach is simple. I go over something three times. I'm happiest if that process yields a true statement out of it without a weasel word. If I can't, I think hard about whether it should stay in. Most of the time, if my writing on a subject is simply plagued by weasel words, I know I'm writing way too broadly about something. A good example of an article that's "dying by weasel words" is that damned television movie article. The narrower the focus, the more definitive the language can be. Some topics, though, simply defy hard definition. I've been working on evil twin throughout the day, and there are so many exceptions to the rule, I've decided the interesting thing about it is that there are no hard and fast rules. So that article's overflowing with weasel words, and that's just how it's going to be until someone else comes along.

On other occasions, though, you have to take the weasel, because that's how people actually talk. We all hedge, in natural speech or writing. So if that's what you can verify, that's what you say. Take a look at Hank (TV series). I personally believe it's only the second sitcom in history to have a series finale. I haven't said that, though, because I'm not absolutely sure. In choosing between an unverified statement that it is the second, or a verified statementt that ti's "one of the earliest", I'll choose the weasel every time. It gives notability, it's true, it's verifiable—and yet it's still interesting.

I alos think there's a sliding scale of weasel words. The worst are those that openly contradict each other, like the Woodrow Wilson example above. Or the word "technically", which we've discussed before. Anything that has the effect of rendering a point moot has to go. But below that, in terms of offense, are those words which are merely vague. "One of the", "sometimes", "frequently". These suggest trends and still maintain a meaning. By using these words, you're saying that a thing is leaning one way or the other, but you haven't done a close study of the matter. That's not prefereable to a hard stat, but in the humanities, it's par for the course. If nothing else, it's at least an acceptable placeholder until an actual number comes along.

Another way of looking at it: eschew the word that reduces a point. Keep that which adds something of value. And keep looking for the word that nails your point's colors to the mast. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 11:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Maverick Episodes

re: Saga of Waco Williams. You said guest star Wayde Preston was "immediately catapulted" by this episode into his own series. When this episode aired, Colt .45 starring Preston was in its second season. While cross-overs in Warner Brothers westerns were not uncommon, it was unusual for the star of another series to play a different role as guest star in another series. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelcarraher (talk • contribs) 15:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis

Hi, thanks for the interesting comments. I have a copy of Jerry's book, but have not read it yet. I have no doubt that the comments about Dean refusing to play a cop are in there and I am excited to read it to find out. Once I do I will add a citation. Thanks for understanding and helping to make the articles on here be accurate. Donaldd23 (talk) 17:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re:Roscoe Arbuckle Filmography

Thanks for the kind words - good to see that my hard work is appreicated! Yep, this place is addictive. I stumbled upon it about 18 months ago, found the category for black and white films and got sucked in! Have a happy new year. Lugnuts (talk) 08:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)