THERE'S A STORY ABOUT A SHOW NAMED BRADY
****
THE GLORIOUS CORNER
Story By: G. H. HARDING
****
 |
| Barry Williams With Florence Henderson And Christopher Knight |
A BUNCH OF BRADYS --- It has been 40 years since the Brady Bunch filmed its last episode and 20 years since The Brady Bunch movie. How did Then and Now Events decide to celebrate these milestones you ask? By having a Brady Bunch Convention. On August 16 and 17 at the Hilton Meadowlands in New Jersey, TANE are doing everything Brady!
From the same two women, Jodi Blau Ritzen and Phyllis Paganucci who brought The Davy Jones/ Monkees Convention in 2013 and The Monkees Official Convention in 2014, The Brady Bunch seemed like the next best show to celebrate.
With fans from all over the world, the event will have cast members from the original series, guests from the show, cast members from specials and The Brady Bunch movie in attendance.
Regarding the recent passing of Ann B. Davis on June 1, Blau Ritzen said, “We were all stunned to learn of the passing of the beloved Ann B. Davis on June 1 after a sudden fall put the Brady Bunch star into a coma that she would never come out of.
The outpouring of emotions from the cast and fans came through social media remembering the feisty woman that Americans grew to love over the 4 decades of the Brady Bunch run.
The character Alice popped up in many of the spin offs and the movies. When I had reached out to Ann regarding attending this event, she had stated that she is retired and when I turn 87 years old, I am not going to want to work either.
"We were hoping that we could Skype with Ann at the convention from her home in Texas at the event for fans.
"The shock of her passing hit fans very hard so changing the schedule for the event was something that we needed to do."
Now, Jodi and Phyllis will have Friday August 15 as a Celebration of Ann's life with never heard before stories about the actress behind the scenes on the beloved TV show told by her TV family.
There will also be a huge Brady show starring Barry Williams where he will perform all of the hits from the series including; “Sunshine Day”, “Keep on Moving” and he will even turn into his alter ego Johnny Bravo.
"Barry attended the Davy Jones Memorial/ Monkees convention March of 2013 and performed 'Sunshine Day' for the sold out crowd teaching the audience the dance moves," says Jodi Blau Ritzen, "It was so much fun for everyone and so successful that we wanted Barry to do the entire show for fans this time around."
Cast members will sign autographs, take pictures with fans, do Q and A's and engage in a panel discussion with Lloyd and Hope Schwartz who's famous father Sherwood Schwartz fought to get the series picked up when it originally was not a ratings winner on TV.
Cast members announced so far are Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen, Robbie Rist, Geri Reischel, Debbi Storm, Karen Leigh Baldwin (Robert Reed’s daughter), Hope Schwartz, Jennifer Runyon, Caryn Richmond, Jerry Houser, and, from the movie, Paul Setera, Olivia Hack, Henriette Mantle, Jennifer Cox with more names being added each day.
Check out the site at: www.bradybunchconvention.com.
DAVID D --- David Duchovny, who recently said goodbye to his show Californication, will be making a foray into music when he releases his debut album next year. And even though he recently tweeted a since-deleted picture of himself playing guitar with Marilyn Manson, he says his music would be more beautiful than "Beautiful People." "I can only compare my music to artists that you know, so it's going to sound like I'm bragging," the actor told Rolling Stone. "But in my wildest dreams, I would sound like Wilco or R.E.M. I'd put it somewhere in there – if I'm lucky."
Over the past few years, the actor has been playing guitar – the first song he learned on the instrument was the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," which he called a "fun song" – and has amassed 12 demos that he is close to completing. "I've always written poetry for better or worse and once I started playing music, I started thinking, 'Gee, I should be able to write lyrics,'" he said. "And I just fell backwards into the whole thing. It's just been a real pleasure in my life, regardless of who buys it and what people think of it when it comes out. It's been a lifesaver just to be able to play music, write songs and think about singing songs to friends."
So what was up with the pic of Manson reaching around the actor's waist to play his Gibson? "That photo was from [the Californication] wrap party last year, for our finale," Duchovny said. "[Former Eagles guitarist] Don Felder came up and played 'Hotel California' and Manson sang it. I played it. I'm not sure I was plugged in, but I played it. And at one point Manson came and decided to play the guitar from behind me."
Music is not the only thing Duchovny has been writing lately. Next year, the actor – who holds two degrees in English literature and who wrote episodes of The X-Files and the movie House of D – also intends to release a book called Holy Cow. "It's a kids' book and an adult book," he said. "It's a fable, like Animal Farm or Charlotte's Web; an allegorical story using animals for people."
Moreover, Duchovny has begun thinking about his next book. "I have an idea but this one is a lot more complicated and it takes some research and I'm so loath to do any research, but I got to do it," he said.
Later this year, Duchovny will be playing a detective on the hunt for another Manson in the NBC crime drama Aquarius, set in the late Sixties. "My character is trying to find a missing girl, a daughter of a friend of his," the actor recently told Stone. "I play a straight-up Fifties man being introduced to the new world of the Sixties and [Charles] Manson, and the world is changing all around me and I'm not able to change with it."
It's a different role from Hank Moody, the Bukowskian author he played on Californication. When he looks back on the show after its finale ended, he said that he felt OK with putting it to rest. "It was hard to end, but it felt like a good, long run," he said. "It went longer than I ever thought we were going to get. And for people who didn't watch the show because of its sexual content, he said, "The T&A on the show seemed to be the thing people hung their hat on, but I went to work trying to do really good comedy. It's too bad [the nudity distracted viewers], because I think that people may have missed a really good show underneath that mountain of T&A.”
IS ROBIN THICKE? --- From the New York Observer: “Okay, so less than an hour ago I told you that the only part of the 4-hour BET Awards you needed to see was the pre-recorded Beyonce performance, but that was only because I had blocked the Robin Thicke portion out of my brain because of it was traumatically awkward. Seriously, it was so much cringe that my mind simply couldn’t process it. That’s PTSD, right? After a healthy dose of coffee, I was able to pull the memory from the recesses of my brain, and it’s just as bad as I recall.”
“Here’s the back story. Ever since his wife Paula Patton left him because he’s a walking STD, the Canadian singer has used pretty much every public appearance possible as an attempt to woo her back. He named his latest album after her. An album featuring the single “Get Her Back.” Which features the lyrics ‘And I’ll wait for forever for you to love me again.’ With moves like that, I have no idea why Mr. Thicke’s wife could even think of leaving in the first place.”
Last summer, around this time too, Thicke was riding high with “Blurred Lines.” What happened? Did he snap? In many ways, this story is as bizarre as the Shia LaBeouf one. Sad too! What a difference a year makes!
CLOSING NOTES --- Two music legends – Broadway/movie/TV songstress Lainie Kazan, and music and radio industry publisher/philanthropist Kal Rudman, were both frequent guests in previous decades on the Merv Griffin Show, but it took a visit to the RRazz Room in New Hope, P.A. last weekend, where Rudman came to see Kazan perform the first of two shows – to finally bring them together after all these years …
With the Time Warner Cable/Comcast stations still is disarray, I found myself watching the Chiller channel (127) and several episode of the now 20+-yeasr old X Files. To tell you the truth … I loved them all over again! They hold up amazingly well and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, despite looking like kids, were terrific. There was an interesting commercial during the show, that slyly alluded to the fact the without the X Files, there’s be no Blacklist or Fringe or Homeland … corny, but so true. Duchovny is finishing out a great 7-year run on Showtime's Californication, while Anderson is (blonde and beautiful) on NBC's Hannibal ... and, most excellent too. Plus ... they're dating!
Kudos to creator Chris Carter’s vision holding strong all these years later …
Monday’s 24, with Keifer Sutherland was again, terrific. With two more episodes left –hard to believe- this limited run of the venerable series was just awesome. The writing, acting, and production effects, just off the charts. Congrats all …
Comments