Film actress Ann Sothern transitioned to television with Private Secretary, which ran for 5 seasons. Not too long after the series ended, Sothern soon returned with a self-titled sitcom, bringing along co-stars Don Porter (later of Gidget) and Jesse White.
The Ann Sothern Show ran for 3 seasons (1958-61), and until the final season was a part of CBS' formidable Monday night block. In season 3, the series moved to Thursdays opposite The Untouchables, a Desilu stablemate. Game over.
Following is the season 2 opener with special guest star Lucille Ball, reprising as Lucy Ricardo.
It's been a long time since this has aired on cable, as the above print suggests.
Today, millions of wanna-be handicappers are filling out brackets for the NCAA basketball tournaments, both men's & women's. There's always an upset lurking in the first weekend of play, but for mid-major colleges & universities, some of whom you've probably never heard of, first round games against teams from either the Big 10, Big 12, ACC, or SEC, might as well be queued with the theme from Mission: Impossible.
All 4 Power 4 conferences control the top seeds. That's a given, considering some schools, like, for example, Michigan or Duke, are ratings draws in their native areas.
Take, for example, Long Island University-Brooklyn, which is being fed to Arizona in the West Regional. Or Ivy League champion Pennsylvania, coached by former Siena & Iowa coach Fran McCaffery, a #14 seed in the South Regional vs. Illinois from the Big 10. At least it's a team McCaffery is familiar with. Or Siena, which is being sent on a suicide mission to play Duke. The suits in charge of the selection committee don't give a rat's butt about reality in terms of these matchups. The tournament has been bloated for years because the NCAA's media partners (currently CBS/Paramount+ and TNT and their sister channels, plus HBO Max) want to maximize the television ratings by putting the games on as many outlets as humanly possible. They throw bones to the mid-majors every year, but won't let them sit at the big boys' table. Ever.
After all the work that went into reforming college football's postseason, and it still needs a few tweaks, for what it's worth, the NCAA is not willing to change their business model for basketball. There's too much money involved to allow the Sienas and Penns of the world a fair opportunity. They have to make their own luck.
The bottom line is, the mid-majors get dissed every year. Which is why they should have a patron saint around this time of year. Like this guy.......
This is why the only college basketball I even bother to pay attention to is close to home, with Siena & UAlbany. Politics rules the college game, and has for several years. That needs to change, preferably yesterday.
The Mets welcomed back shortstop Francisco Lindor today, as he made his preseason debut vs. Toronto.
Lindor reached on an error, and scored in the midst of a 5 run 2nd inning, as the Mets thumped the AL champs, 8-1. The game was stopped after 6 innings due to rain.
There will be a new champion in the World Baseball Classic after Venezuela upended Japan Saturday night in Miami, 8-7.
Atlanta's Ronald Acuna, Jr. opened the game with a solo home run off the Dodgers' Yoshinobi Yamamoto. In the bottom half of the 1st, Shohei Ohtani answered for Japan to tie the game.
However, in the 6th, with Japan up, 5-2, going into the inning, Venezuela took back the lead, thanks to Boston's Wilyer Abreu, after trimming the lead to 5-4.
Venezuela will play Italy tomorrow night, while Team USA plays the Dominican Republic tonight, with the winners meeting on Tuesday to end the tournament.
An even worse downside for Japan was outfielder Seiya Suzuki going down with an injury after being thrown out trying to steal 2nd to end the 1st inning. That's the last thing the Cubs needed, but, if it's not serious, Suzuki should be ready for the Cubs' opener next week.
Chalk up another endorsement deal for Caitlin Clark.
The Indiana Fever star is appearing in a new Capital One ad with Charles Barkley & Samuel L. Jackson that will play from now until the end of the NCAA tournaments April 6-7. Barkley's also given the rub to the "Capital One Bank Guy", as has Jackson. Now, all we need is for the dude to be in an ad with Jennifer Garner......!
Most amusing ad of the week comes from WWE, which has LA Knight, Penta, & Stephanie Vaquer appearing in a commercial for TurboTax. Ms. Vaquer is from Chile, while Penta, of course, is from Mexico. I guess tax returns do come with work visas......!
With the NCAA's right around the corner, CBS' Ian Eagle & Bill Raftery are doing a spot for Spectrum Cable. Keep in mind, though, that this is a national ad, not a localized one.
We'll start with this installment of The Legal Breakdown with Brian Tyler Cohen & Glenn Kirschner.....
Until she was appointed as US attorney for DC, Jeannine Pirro, like Rudy Giuliani, had long been out of legal practice. She'd been a talking bobblehead on Fox No News. She should've known that Judge Boasberg wasn't accepting her sham of a prosecution. Pirro and the Department of Injustice have 0 evidence against Jerome Powell, just like they had 0 evidence against anyone else Donnie Diapers wanted prosecuted. Hence.....
"NO!! I want Powell to lower interest rates or he's gone!! WAAAAAHHHH!!"
Whatever Dumb Donald learned in school has long since been forgotten, lost in the splinters in the windmills of his tiny mind. Even though he has someone in the pipeline to take over as Federal Reserve Chairman in a couple of months, that's not enough for him.
On top of this, because of the war he started with Iran 2 weeks ago, Donnie Diapers wants the Iranian National Soccer team out of the World Cup this summer. That's not his call to make. If it wasn't for the fact that FIFA would gladly give him what he wants otherwise, it's not his decision. There's a better chance of the World Cup being in the US for the last time due to him.
Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) investigates a bizarre series of murders involving a shape-changing demon. Phil Silvers and Naomi Stevens are among the guest stars.
Family Fridays returns next week. Fantasy Fridays returns in October.
Very quietly, the El Dorado Restaurant & Bar on 4th Street, between Congress & State, reopened on Wednesday. All that's missing now is the familiar logo on the window. Said logo needs to be repainted after it was damaged following a fire last summer.
The timing, of course, is perfect, with St. Patrick's Day coming on Tuesday.
An era is ending in the 518.
Four years after reopening as part of a merger with St. Ambrose School in Latham, Catholic Central School is downsizing.
Per the Albany County Diocese, Catholic Central will now only have classes for grades K-8, beginning in September.
Photo courtesy Spectrum News 1.
Spectrum News 1 is reporting that the school has only 22 students between grades 8-11, meaning there are no seniors this season. The school paused its men's basketball & bowling programs, the latter for the 2nd consecutive season, and, beginning in September, high school courses will merge with Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons in Schenectady.
Until the merger, Catholic Central High was one of Troy's big 4 high schools, along with Troy, Lansingburgh, & Lasalle.
More on this over at Tri-City SportsBeat tomorrow.
After opening its first 518 restaurant at Albany International Airport, Chick-Fil-A is opening a location at Latham Farms, aiming to open sometime later this year.
Known for its cheeky, often cheesy, advertising campaigns ironically using cows as their mascots to encourage diners to eat chicken, Chick-Fil-A is looking to challenge KFC & Popeye's for supremacy among chicken-centric restaurants.
In 1993, Merrill Heatter tweaked the concept of his 1985 entry for ABC, All-Star Blitz, and tried selling Hollywood Teasers, which, with the six celebrity grid, also was a reboot of Battlestars, a twice cancelled series for NBC in the 80's. Robb Weller (Entertainment Tonight) was the host.
In the pilot, the panel includes Pamela Anderson (Baywatch), Mayim Bialik (Blossom), Don Rickles, Rita Rudner, Mark Curry (Hangin' With Mr. Cooper), and Ed O'Neill (Married....With Children). Heatter struck a deal with MCA to package the show.
Assuming this was aimed for syndication, it was destined to fail, since Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy! dominated the ratings.
