Benjamin, Norman, Karen, and Sandy

[captainsblog]

Not a supergroup, just things I've been thinking about the past couple of days.

I've been working through the most recent season of Star Trek: Discovery, with lots of throwbacks to The Original Series, but something in recent days reminded me of Deep Space Nine, the early 90s series that lasted for seven years.  First came word of what would have been a remarkable casting choice: future Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi was one of several Brits who auditioned for the part of the lead role of Station Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko. Capaldi was still a relative unknown then, although we remember him from an even earlier turn in the film Local Hero, and he was a full ten years younger than Avery Brooks, the actor who got the job and kept it for the series duration. That led to watching this documentary last night:



The blue-bearded man is Ira Steven Behr, showrunner for the series for most of its duration. It combined clips of older interviews with cast, writers and fans, some new footage of some of them, and an extended "writers room" depiction in which many of the original scribes of the show spent a day developing a pilot for a hypothetical eighth season of the series- shown in animated form- as if it would be done today with the same, older cast. (Several of them, sadly, have passed since the show went off air, including the performers of Odo and Nog who died not long after the documentary's release last year.)

Among other revelations was that the part of Sisko was originally envisioned as a younger man- making the then-34-year-old Capaldi right for the part in at least that respect. But when Avery Brooks auditioned and blew the doors off the part, they realized what they had and adapted the part to his uniquenesses.

The series was never the most popular among the Trek franchises, and the actors and writers read many pieces of hate mail from traditionalist Trekkies who didn't like its format or plot points- but its darkness, and occasional flashbacks to Earth of my lifetime, make it, in hindsight, perhaps the most spot-on of all of them.

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My brain has stayed pretty clear of what is known as the Mandela Effect. If you've not heard of it, this piece gives some of the more famous examples.  I am quite clear on how "Berenstain" and "Flintstones" are spelled; there was no genie movie starring Sinbad; and Mandela himself did not die in a South African prison.

But this week, I came up with one, which was driving me bonkers. Perhaps it was Carl Reiner's recent death that dredged it up. I recall, plain as day, that he, or Norman Lear, or maybe both of them, developed a short-lived television experiment in the 80s. In my mind, it was called "Sunday Dinner," and the premise was that it would bring the family back in front of the television set on Sunday nights the way we all did in the 60s with Ed Sullivan or the Wonderful World of Disney. It was a clip show featuring the best moments of other shows that had been on in the previous week- on just its network (CBS, in my mind) or all programs, I can't remember. If it existed, I didn't watch it more than once, and my recollection is it was canceled in short order because the ratings proved we couldn't go back to that kind of family viewing anymore.

So far, so bad. But here's the thing: there was a Norman Lear show called "Sunday Dinner" on CBS in 1991- but it was nothing of the thing I remember. It was just a conventional sitcom starring Robert Loggia and Teri Hatcher. I got the "short-lived" part right, too- it lasted just six weeks in what used to be called "summer replacement season." I also checked Lear and Reiner's filmographies, and see nothing of the "clip show" variety that is as real in my mind as Sinbad's genie movie is in others. So I wondered: was I mistaking this title and provenance for something else that WAS on? Or has my brain finally been Mandela'd?

Fortunately, an old East Meadow friend pointed me to a Comedians in Cars bit that Jerry Seinfeld did with Carl Reiner, where they talked about it.  I had the name wrong:  it was indeed Carl Reiner's show, only it was called Sunday Best, not Sunday Dinner, and it was on NBC, not CBS, for all of three episodes in 1991. In addition to Reiner, it had Harry Shearer, Linda Ellerbee and former Letterman head writer Merrill Markoe on board. That kind of talent should have lasted- but the clip-show content was limited to NBC offerings of the time, and even in those pre-on-demand days, people just didn't want to sit around watching things as a family anymore.  It also turns out I missed references to it when I looked up filmographies: IMDB listed it for Reiner under an appearance as "himself," not as an actor or writer; and while Wikipedia lists it on his page, the show itself doesn't even merit an entry of its own.

Still, I'm glad I figured that out. Because I've got a DS9 rerun I want to watch, and Peter Capaldi is SO good in those....

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I came home the other night to a report of a Karen sighting at Eleanor's store.  A customer bought a multi-pack of a beauty product and tried to use a dollar-off coupon on it. The coupon required purchase of multiple items, as is fairly common now. The rules are pretty clear that these already-discounted multi-packs cannot be used with a multiple-purchase coupon. Further proving her Karen-ness, the same customer had tried using the same coupon with Eleanor the week before, without success. This time, though, she argued about it, and of course Spoke To A Manager, who gave her a $1.00 store credit for it, meaning Wegmans is eating the dollar.

I wouldn't repeat this as particularly notable- she deals with idiots like this and worse every day- except I almost did the same thing myself earlier in the day in a different store. I had a two-pack of a beauty product (deodorant, which is about all you can do with me on the beauty side;) and the same type of coupon. Cashier rejected it for the exact same reason. But I smiled and said, "Okay!" Because essential workers take enough shit in their day and don't need to deal with that crap.  I'm off to the store soon with a $1.00 off coupon for two tubes of toothpaste, and I promised not to try using it on a multipack;)

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Finally, this day can't pass without remembering our oldest sister's birthday today. It's 81 years today since her birth, and going on 32 since her passing. Not a day goes by that I'm not reminded of something she said, did or loved. She wouldn't have still been working at her age in this pandemic, but she damn well would have had something to say to the idiots threatening their own lives and those of essential workers around them- most likely the words of hers I quote the most often:

Go play in traffic.