Join us as we look back at more of the great TV personalities we lost in 2023.
Join us as we look back at more of the great TV personalities we lost in 2023.
Welcome to Don’t Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. Did you grow up in the 70s and 80s? Did you rush home from school to watch reruns of the Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family? On each episode of Don't Touch That Dial, three guys who love TV will look back on those days and talk about the shows and stars that made watching television before streaming, DVRs, and even VCRs so special.
ANTHONY: Hello everybody. Welcome back to Don't Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. This is part two of our In Memoriam episode where we are paying tribute to those we lost in 2023. We are continuing with Nicolas Coster. He passed away on June 16. He was 89. He's one of these guys who showed up on everything. You would definitely know his face. Something that stands out for me, he was the guy on One Day At A Time who Anne asked out on a date and he thought it was a business meeting. Not sure if you guys remember that one or not. And he also played Blair’s father on Facts of Life and showed up on Little House on the Prairie, Charlie's Angels, Family, Dallas, and much much more.
KEITH: Best known for daytime viewers for Santa Barbara, playing Lionel Lockridge.
ANTHONY: There you go. All right, soap opera connection there. The great actor Alan Arkin died on June 29 at the age of 89. Definitely more of a movie guy, but he was on Sesame Street, on Larry and Phyllis, which was like a fake soap opera in the old days. I'm not sure if you guys remember that or not. It had the … it was probably the same music they used on The Muppet Show for veterinarian hospital, that organ-type music. He also hosted an episode of The Muppet Show, and later in his career, he did some TV, like St. Elsewhere, a great great show called 100 Centre Street, which Keith and I were huge fans of. He showed up on Will & Grace and most recently, I guess the last thing he did was The Kominsky Method on Netflix, another fan favorite show.
JODY: Yeah, fantastic show and he was really fantastic in the show really wasn't it, because he died during the time of the show, not as good without him.
KEITH: No, definitely not.
ANTHONY: I liked the last season a lot, but we can’t get into – we'll have our special Kominsky Method episode in a couple of seasons.
JODY: Stay tuned.
ANTHONY: Stu Silver passed away on July 18. He was 76. He was a writer. He wrote for shows like Soap, Webster, It's A Living, Bosom Buddies. We need to pay tribute to these writers. They wrote the stuff that we love so much so Stu Silver we pay tribute to him. Another writer, Jerome Coopersmith. He died on July 21, at the wonderful age of 97. He wrote for a lot of TV shows, but he wrote two very prominent Christmas specials, first The Night Before Christmas special – not a favorite of mine, to be honest – but most importantly he wrote an American Christmas Carol, a very good adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring Henry Winkler.
JODY: The Night Before Christmas special he wrote, was that the one up with the mice?
ANTHONY: I'm assuming.
JODY: Okay.
ANTHONY: But American – you guys heard about Christmas Carol, right?
JODY: Yeah, absolutely.
ANTHONY: Yeah, I love that and it holds up. It's very well done.
JODY: I liked The Night Before Christmas with the mice, just so you know.
ANTHONY: Eh, you're entitled. American Christmas Carol is on Peacock for anybody who wants to watch it. Inga Swenson passed away on July 23 at the age of 90. She was of course Gretchen in Benson, and this is confusing the heck out of me, she played Ingrid Swenson on Soap.
JODY: Yes and phenomenal on both. She was very funny on both shows. First place I ever saw her was on Soap, thought she's great. And then of course, the years on Benson, which I always love Benson.
KEITH: Very great singer as well. She was a Broadway actress.
ANTHONY: Yes.
KEITH: Very, very funny. Her and Robert Guillaume were just…
JODY: Great; they had a great chemistry together.
KEITH: Yep. Amazing.
ANTHONY: Yeah, I think the acting on that show is probably underrated.
JODY: The show in general was underrated, as a comedy and the acting, everything about it. It's it's very underrated show.
ANTHONY: Yeah, Paul Reubens died on July 30 at the age of 70. Pee-Wee's Playhouse, of course, but he also made 14 appearances on The Gong Show. I actually don't remember that. Did you guys remember that? Was he Pee-Wee Herman? Do you guys remember this? Was he on?
KEITH: No idea.
JODY: One of the ones I saw, he was in character as Pee-Wee Herman. I didn't see all of them. I didn't know it was that many. I've seen it, the funny thing is I've seen one of them like four or five times.
KEITH: The original, not the remake?It was the original Gong Show?
ANTHONY: Oh, I assumed it was the original.
JODY: The one I saw was the original.
ANTHONY: It makes sense that he would be on. It’s ;just weird. I have no memory of that. My first recollection of him is the HBO special that's the first time that I saw Pee-Wee.
JODY: Mine was, he was on a young comedian special on HBO but HBO used to do a young comedians and he was one of the comedians who came out and I'm almost – I couldn't swear this – I'm almost positive it was the same night I saw Sam Kinison for the first time.
ANTHONY: Wow.
JODY: I could be wrong. I could be getting the nights mixed up but I thought that was it.
ANTHONY: Paul Reubens, we should also point out, he showed up on some classic sitcoms like Mork & Mindy and Working Stiffs.
JODY: And Murphy Brown.
ANTHONY: Oh, yeah, that's right. Yes, yes. Yeah, that was a big deal. I was like the…
JODY: Yeah, he was really funny on it, too. It was a funny character he was playing, too
ANTHONY: Writer David Jacobs died on August 20. He was 84. He wrote for Family – another overlooked show, I think – Dallas, Knot's Landing and some others. Elizabeth Hoffman, she died on August 21 at 97. She was on episodes of Little House on the Prairie and Greatest American Hero. She played Eleanor Roosevelt in the miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.
KEITH: She was also a regular on Sisters, the TV show .
ANTHONY: Oh, there you go.
JODY: Yeah, she was on that.
ANTHONY: I should have written that down. Miniseries were a big deal but I didn't watch them. We should probably do an episode on miniseries one day.
JODY: That would be a two-parter as well.
ANTHONY: I don't know if you guys watched it. If you didn't watch them, how do we…
JODY: I watched, I watched a few of them.
ANTHONY: They were such a big deal back then.
KEITH: I watched a number of them as well.
JODY: Yeah, we could pull it off.
ANTHONY: Hersha Parady passed away on August 23 at the age of 78. She was Alice Garvey on Little House on the Prairie. She was the teacher. Spoiler alert! Her character died in a fire in a very famous episode. She also showed up on episodes of Mannix and The Waltons. Bob Barker died on August 26. He was 99; legendary host of The Price Is Right. He won 18 Emmys. I didn't know this. He also hosted Truth or Consequences. He showed up on an episode of Bonanza, he played a guy named Mort. He played himself on The Nanny and, of course, in Happy Gilmore. Does anyone want to share? Do you have, like, a favorite Price Is Right game?
KEITH: So was he an actor before going on Price Is Right if he was on Bonanza?
ANTHONY: Yeah, usually those guys, those talk show hosts were, yea, like Gene Rayburn…
JODY: They are either actors or comedians you know, I mean, Drew Carey hosted it now; they’re either stand-ups or actors.
KEITH: I've always wanted to spin that wheel.
ANTHONY: Oh, me too!
KEITH: Just to try to get a dollar.
ANTHONY: Plinko was a favorite of mine, of course, and the yodeler, that guy who would yodel as he climbed the mountain. That was awesome. Gayle Hunnicuttl died on August 30. I'm sorry, August 31. She was 80. She played a con woman on some episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies. And she was – legendary episode – she was the real estate agent who showed Louie his fancy apartment on Taxi. So we give a shout out to her. Dick Butkus, October 5 at the age of 80. He was a football legend of course, but did lots of TV including My Two Dads, The 6 Million Dollar Man, Taxi , Fantasy Island, Vegas. Keith, you wanted to say something about him.
KEITH: He was on a show called Up All Night with Bubba Smith.
JODY: That was…
ANTHONY: I don’t remember that.
KEITH: Whenever he and Bubba worked together, which they did a lot of commercials for light beer Miller together, they were a great comic team. And My Two Dads he was actually good too.
JODY: Yeah, he was good in My Two Dads and he, really, his acting career started while he was still playing. So he was, he was still, there was no lag. He went right from the NFL to acting.
KEITH: Much like Broadway Joe.
JODY: Yes.
KEITH: Although Butkus I knew was a football player.
JODY: I was gonna ask you, Keith, did you know he was a football player?
KEITH: I did, only just because of the commercials, the lite beer commercials.
ANTHONY: What was Up All Night? Was it a sitcom? Was it like…
KEITH: A sitcom of like a 7-Eleven type store that was open…
JODY: Was it called Open All Night or Up All Night?
KEITH: Oh, now my…
JODY: There was something called Open All Night.
KEITH: Yeah, Open All night.
JODY: Open All Night.
ANTHONY: Okay. Very cool. Burt Young died on October 8 at the age of 83. More famous for movies, especially as Paulie on Rocky, but he was on an episode of M*A*S*H. He played Lieutenant Willis. He also shut up on Baretta and The Rockford Files and some other things. Phyllis Coates died on October 11 at the age of 96. She was Lois Lane in the first season of The Adventures of Superman and then she played Lois’ mother on Lois & Clark. I didn't watch that so I don't know if that was like a multi-episode thing or…
KEITH: So The Adventures of Superman, like the original Superman?
ANTHONY: Yeah, she was the original Lois Lane and the first season of the George Reeves adventures.
KEITH: I didn't, I didn't realize they changed Lois Lane throughout that.
ANTHONY: Yeah, it's complicated. There was actually this other actress who played Lois Lane in a movie called Superman and the Mole Man. She didn't want to do the show, so Phyllis Coates did the first episode of the show. And then the other actress played Lois Lane for the other seasons.
KEITH: Wow.
ANTHONY: And then apparently Phyllis Coates also showed up as Lois’ mother in the Lois & Clark, the Teri Hatcher show. Laura Parker died on October 12 at the age of 84. She was most famous for her role on Dark Shadows, but there was lots of other stuff, including an episode of Alice, where everyone watches a sex education movie in Mel's diner.
KEITH: Oh, Batman was on that one.
ANTHONY: Exactly! Adam West was.
KEITH: Yes, I remember that one. I haven't seen that in 20 years.
ANTHONY: Only in the 70s, man.
JODY: We're just watching the sex film in a diner.
ANTHONY: And the sex ,if you watched the episode, apparently that movie was pretty graphic. It wasn't just people talking, like, I'm pretty sure they're watching that the deed get done.
KEITH: There was more than kissing grits going on.
JODY: They were kissing more than grits.
ANTHONY: Absolutely. A big name here: Suzanne Somers died on October 15 at the age of 76. Of course, she was Chrissy on Three's Company, She's the Sheriff, Step By Step, just one of the true legends of the 70s, buried in the same cemetery as my grandfather, I will say. Stephen Kandell died on October 21. He was 96. He was a writer with an endless list of credits, including the Harry Mudd episodes of Star Trek. he also wrote the False Face episode of Batman and some others; also wrote for Dynasty, The Love Boat, Vegas and others. Richard Moll died on October 26. He was 80. He was of course Bull on Night Court He is also on Welcome Back, Kotter. He was on M*A*S*H, the Fonzi's funeral episode. I think he was, he must have been one of the thugs that he guards or whatever.
KEITH: Happy Days, not M*A*S*H.
ANTHONY: Oh, I'm sorry. Happy Days.
JODY: Happy days.
ANTHONY: Yeah, of course.No, he was on the M*A*S*H with Fonzie (laughs).
JODY: We're gonna rewrite history here.
KEITH: The Fonzie funeral episode. I think we've mentioned this before I collect autographs. And one of my favorite autographs is a card signed by all the thugs and Henry Winkler. So Richard Moll helped me with that. So thank you, Richard
ANTHONY: Oh, I don't think I know about that. Wow, very cool.
JODY: Night Court alone was, you know, he was so great on that show, which was a very, very funny show.
ANTHONY: Yes. He was also on the Pyramid a lot.
JODY: Yes.
AS I think he wanted to show that he was smart because Bull was…
JODY: A little goofy.
ANTHONY: Bull was that dopey character, so he probably like going on Pyramid and showing how smart he was.
ANTHONY: You had to be a genius to be on Pyramid.
JODY: I was going to say because nothing says smart like winning at Pyramid.
ANTHONY: Very sad one. They're all sad, but this one's especially sad. Matthew Perry passed away on October 28. He was too young, 54, Friend Chandler on Friends, of course. He also had a recurring role on West Wing. He was on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which was a good show but only less than a season I think.
JODY: Good show, mishandled and mismanaged.
ANTHONY: Yeah, early in his career, he made appearances on Charles in Charge, Silver Spoon, Growing Pains.
JODY: Growing Pains was a memorable episode too.
KEITH: Yup.
ANTHONY: What happened there?
JODY: He was Carol's boyfriend and he died in a drunk driving accident.
ANTHONY: Oh my god. Wow.
JODY: Yeah. So that very, he's in the hospital after getting into the accident and he's, I guess has a drinking problem, and he was talking about turning his life around and being with Carol and then she goes home and then he dies off camera, you hear that he died.
ANTHONY: Wow. He was also on some shows before Friends that didn't make it. There was a show called Home Free with Diana Canova that he, I always wonder, like, how different, like what if that had been a hit? Yeah. He wouldn't have been on Friends.
JODY: Well, David Schwimmer was on that show with Henry Winkler that..
ANTHONY: Monty
JODY: Monty that didn't make it. And that was just before Friends.
ANTHONY: Yeah, exactly. Peter S. Fisher died on October 30. He was 88. He wrote for a lot of those old mystery shows like McMillan and Wife, Columbo, Baretta, Kojak.
KEITH: I feel like he died under mysterious circumstances and they were gonna have, kind of bring all these characters to figure out how he died.
ANTHONY: That would be great! Robert Butler: This is a name everyone should know and I'm not saying I did, but we all should know; we should all know Robert Butler. He died November 3 at the age of 95. He was a director whose career goes back to live television and Playhouse 90. He directed episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show. He directed the first episode of Batman, which means he directed Adam West saying, “I shouldn't wish to attract attention,” when he walks into the bar; just such a great episode. Adam West also says to Jill St. John in that, “You interested me, strangely.”
JODY: I'm picturing, “Cut! You nailed i!”
ANTHONY: Yeah, got it. Yeah.
JODY: “Nailed it, Adam.”
ANTHONY: Robert Butler also directed the original Star Trek pilot, The Cage.
KEITH: Oh, with(Christoper) Pike?
ANTHONY: Yes, exactly. Yes. Yep. And it goes on and on, including the Moonlighting pilot .
KEITH: Did he only do pilots?
ANTHONY: Well, probably what happened is they would get established directors to do pilots to kind of set the tone so maybe he was one of those guys; he might have done others also, but Playhouse 90 to Moonlighting.
JODY: Well, it was a pretty common practice to doing that, getting getting a more established guy to do the first one, get them over the hump and then have other people.
ANTHONY: Yeah, Marty Krofft passed away on November 25 at the age of 86. He and his brother Marty with the, I'm sorry, he and his brother Sid, were the masterminds behind H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost, so much more and …
KEITH: If you haven't listened to our podcast on the Kroffts, please do as we talk about all the great things that they did throughout their career.
ANTHONY: Yes, yeah. And if you haven't listened to it already, what's wrong with you?
JODY: Seriously, you're behind.
ANTHONY: Robert H. Precht passed away on November 26. He was 93. He was the producer of the Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles were on and he filmed the Beatles legendary concert at Shea Stadium.
JODY: Wow.
ANTHONY: Yeah
JODY: Big wow.
ANTHONY: And he was named in Jackie Mason's lawsuit. Jackie Mason – there’s an urban legend that Jackie Mason gave Ed Sullivan the finger on Today.
JODY: There's a lot of speculation as to what actually happened. But he did sue because he said that Ed Sullivan kept him off television.
ANTHONY: Sullivan fired, canceled his contract.
JODY: Canceled his contract, but apparently there was also, he had claimed that Ed Sullivan kept him off other shows.
ANTHONY: Yes, yeah. And Precht was named in that lawsuit. Frances Sternhagen died on November 27. She was 93, a longtime actress of stage and screen. Her TV career goes back to the live days, but most famous for us, she was Cliff's mother on seven episodes of Cheers. I was surprised to see it was only seven.
KEITH: Yeah, you would’ve thought…
JODY: I thought it was more as well, but she was very funny on the show.
KEITH: She was also on Sex and the City, she played funny.
ANTHONY: Wow. How old was she when she was on that?
JODY: She was like Charlotte's mother-in-law. Right?
KEITH: Right, right. Yeah.
JODY: The rich…
KEITH: Yeah, the mother of …
JODY: Of Kyle MacLachlan, right.
ANTHONY: So if she died at 93, she was only in her 50s on Cheers?
JODY: Yeah, I guess.
ANTHONY: Oh, wow. Cliff’s mother might be younger than we are.
JODY: Yeah.
ANTHONY: Holy cow. I just, I just kind of doing the math on that. Wow. Ryan O'Neal passed away on December 8. He was 82. Of course famous as a movie star, but before that, he was famous for playing Rodney Harrington on the primetime soap opera Peyton Place. He was also in episodes of My Three Sons and Leave It to Beaver and lots of others
JODY: And some TV movies. Very famously, he did a TV movie in the early 90s, which was like a return to TV for him. I think Katharine Hepburn was in it. Yeah. And he also had a TV series that didn't last very long, which I'd have to look up now. But he had a very, again in the early 90s was, they made a big deal of him coming back to television. I'm almost positive it was with Farrah, but I have to check that.
ANTHONY: I believe he was on a show with Alicia Silverstone like something about, she was like a matchmaker.
JODY: Yes, yes, absolutely. He was on that show, too.
ANTHONY: Yeah. And he shows up on …
JODY: It was like a legal drama.
ANTHONY: I don't know. I didn't watch it. I want to say it might have been called Miss Match.
JODY: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah
ANTHONY: And he was on Desperate Housewives too.
KEITH: Let me add a name we skipped was Richard Roundtree better known as Shaft.
ANTHONY: Yes! Wow! Absolutely!
KEITH: And, you know, Shaft, even though it was movies, they also did a lot of TV movies as well.
ANTHONY: Yeah, he must have done a lot of TV stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I missed him. Yeah, I just saw him. Oh! He's in a movie with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Of course, I forget what it's called. But he's in that movie. And he's, he plays Jane Fonda’s ex-husband and it's a pretty good movie and he's very good in it. He was a very good actor. Yeah, thank you. We're gonna wrap it up with Norman Lear.
JODY: Oh, can I go one, one real quick, back with Ryan O’Neal?
ANTHONY: Sure.
JODY: The show with Farrah Fawcett was, it was a sitcom about two sports anchors called Good Sports.
ANTHONY: I don't remember that at all.
JODY: It was in the early 90s. It was in ‘91.
KEITH: I remember that. Yeah.
JODY: They made a huge deal of him returning to television.
ANTHONY: And Farrah Fawcett was a regular on that, like they were co-stars?
JODY: Yeah, it was, they were all together. They were the two stars and they were both sports anchors.
KEITH: It was like those movies that were, remember the two movies that came out kind of at the same time about TV newscasters together?
ANTHONY: Yeah, yeah.
KEITH: Michael Keaton was in one of them, I think. yeah, just kind of like one of those types.
JODY: Yeah, he was a former football star and now doing sports and she was a former Miss America and they both, for whatever reason, they were now both sportscasters
ANTHONY: Wow, I don't remember that at all.
JODY: Yeah, well, it wasn't very long.
ANTHONY: All right. Anybody else we want to mention before we wrap it up? We have one name, one big name, this one big name.
JODY: Let's go.
KEITH: Let’s go to Norman
ANTHONY: On December 5 Norman Lear passed away at the age of 101. What a life, what a career. I don't know where to start, you guys.
JODY: I mean it starts with All in the Family just because I can't think of a more significant sitcom comedy than All in the Family and what it did for television. He created it and getting that on the air wasn't easy. Keeping it wasn't easy. Being able to do the things they did was not easy. And he was the guy who guided all that. And from it The Jeffersons, which was an incredibly funny show, spun off that; Maude, which was also a great show and all great characters too – Archie Bunker, Maude, George Jefferson -- these are all amazing characters and he was the guy at the helm of all of it.
ANTHONY: Yeah, you can go on and on: Good Times, One Day At A Time.
JODY: One Day At a Time, yup.
KEITH: Different Strokes, Facts of Life.
ANTHONY: Did he do those?
KEITH: Oh yea.
ANTHONY: He did Different Strokes and Facts of Life?
KEITH: Yea, remember because they did the Norman Lear kind of Jimmy Kimmel things where they recreated shows, his show.
ANTHONY: Oh I didn't know that. Sanford and Son, too.
KEITH: Silverspoons he did.
ANTHONY: Really?
KEITH: 227.
JODY: Well, his involvement in some of these shows wasn't as big as his involvement in others, but his production company did some of them and I think that's what it was. He had some involvement. His involvement on like Different Strokes wasn't the same as his involvement on like, you know, All in the Family.
ANTHONY: And working until the end. He was involved in the reboot of One Day at a Time that was on Netflix, which was very good actually.
JODY: Quite good.
ANTHONY: Yeah. Yeah. Tremendous. One of the biggest names ever on television by far. Anything else about Norman Lear or anyone else?
JODY: The other thing about it too, is one of the stories is that Different Strokes, Conrad Bain, the star of it, he had been in Maud which was a Norman Lear show and Norman Lear wanted to find another show for Conrad Bain to be in and was one of the reasons that he was on Different Strokes.
ANTHONY: Wow, very good.
KEITH: He also did Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
ANTHONY: That’s right.
KEITH: … which when I was a kid, that was like one of the first serials I would watch, like, late at night. I remember waiting to hear the music and I would run into my parents’ room and be like, “Oh, can I watch? Can I watch?” Even though it was on, like, 11 o'clock at night, they would let me so they're to blame for my TV addiction.
ANTHONY: Was that on like every night?
KEITH: I think so. I think it was kind of like one of those things that hit the TV. I say 11 o'clock. It could have been 10. But yeah, it was.
ANTHONY: Yeah, I mean, I didn't watch but I remember thinking it was weird that there was this new show that was on 11 o'clock at night. Again, I didn't watch it but I remember thinking that was very strange. I didn't really understand the concept.
JODY: Yeah, same with me. I remember not grasping, you know, new shows weren't on at that time.
ANTHONY: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
JODY: I actually thought this must be a show that was on before that I didn't know about or something…
ANTHONY: Yeah.
JODY: And now it was on reruns. The other thing too – I know I keeping on bringing up Different Strokes – but it's worth mentioning that Lear was also the one who really pushed him to put Gary Coleman in Different Strokes.
ANTHONY: Really? I had no idea.
JODY: Yeah, Lear. Lear saw Coleman first and thought this is someone who could carry a sitcom.
ANTHONY: I was about to say, Gary Coleman was on a Good Times episode.
JODY: : He was also on a Jefferson's episode.
ANTHONY: That I don’t remember . I remember him being on Good Times.
KEITH: Oh was the spoiled kid? I kind’ve remember that.
JODY: He was the son of, he was his nephew, so his brother's son, and he's being a real pain in the ass. It goes from there.
ANTHONY: Wow. Well, thank you, Norman Lear. He changed television, no doubt.
JODY: For decades, he changed — almost every decade he worked in television he did something to change television.
ANTHONY: Alright, well, that's…
JODY: Plus that hat!
ANTHONY: All right. Well, that's gonna wrap it up. We hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane and paying tribute to these tremendous people. They will be missed. And we hope everyone has a fantastic 2024 Thanks for listening, everyone.
JODY: : Happy new year, everybody.
KEITH: Happy new year.
Thanks for listening to Don't Touch That Dial a classic TV podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe. Please leave a review on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen. We'll be back soon with another journey back in time to the days of static left tracks and seven channels.