Movie Time: Bloody Pit of Horror

We continue our desperate drive towards the dire dreaded date with destiny known as Halloween.

And hand in hand with that we continue our morbid march through movie monstrosities of questionable quality and taste.

Last week's movie was pretty damn bad.

This one may be worse, folks! 

It's... Movie Time!  

Mama Mia! Guardati dagli orrori d'Italia! 

Yes, beware the terrors of Italy as we journey down the corridor of time to 1965 to descend to the depths of unspeakable danger and death to be found in the....Bloody Pit of Horror!

The movie begins with an ending. A red garbed figure is led down into a dungeon in shackles. 

This is the vile fiend known as the Crimson Executioner and he is to be condemned to the same fate experienced by his victims.

His crime: having a private torture chamber. Torture is fine if you're doing it for the government or better yet, the church. But on your own time? That's frowned upon.

The Crimson Executioner is placed in an iron maiden and the door is slowly pushed closed as dozens of sharp spikes plunge into his flesh and he slowly and painfully bleeds out in his coffin of torture and death.

Centuries later....

The place: an ancient Gothic castle, a large and foreboding edifice located in the desolate Italian countryside.

The players:  

• writer Rick
• publisher Daniel Parks
• secretary Edith
• photographer Dermott 
• five young models who don't get names

The players have come to the place, presuming the castle to be deserted, to use it as a location to shoot pictures for a horror photo novel.

But the place is not deserted as it is occupied by one more player to our dread and diabolical scenario.  

The master of the castle, former actor Travis Anderson.  

Recognizing Edith as his former fiancée, Anderson reluctantly agreed to let the group stay in his castle with one very crucial condition: stay out of the dungeon.   

But there's some really cool scary shit down there, perfect for getting some great photos of scantily clad models reacting in terror to instruments of torture.

So the gang heads down there anyway.

Which pisses off Anderson something fierce.

He succumbs to madness as he does the mask of... The Crimson Executioner.  

Check out the unit on that guy! 

Look, it's not that I want to look at the Crimson Executioner's junk but it's right there.  

Anyway, the Crimson Executioner scampers around the castle cornering the hapless interlopers into various death trap torture devices.  

Like the dude chained to a bed while a rack of sharp nails slowly descends from above.

Or the woman who is tied up in a spider web to be consumed by a giant spider that is mostly assuredly not a giant rubber prop but a legitimate monster of death.  

Basically, Anderson traps everyone in various devices designed to inflict slow torturous death on his victims.

Much like the O.G. Crimson Executioner in the movie's prologue, Anderson will meet his end on a torture device known as the  "Lover-of-Death" which inflicts the victim with poison for a slow and agonizing death

Only Ricky and Edith survive this escapade of terror in this... Bloody Pit of Horror. 

The "Hey, Isn't He Related To...?"  Dept.

The role of Travis Anderson, the new model Crimson Executioner was played by Miklós Károly "Mickey" Hargitay, a Hungarian-American bodybuilder and alleged actor.  

Mickey and Jayne 

Mickey married actress Jayne Mansfield and became the adoptive step father of Jayne's daughter, Mariska Hargitay, the same person who plays Olivia Benson on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.   

Where she investigates sex crimes that frequently involve torture dungeons not unlike those used by the Crimson Executioner.

Plot twist: Mariska grew up thinking Mickey was her biological father, not discovering until her  twenties that her biological father is Nelson Sardelli, Brazilian-born singer, actor, and comedian of Italian descent

I know this is a lot for a side quest but I think this is more interesting than the movie subject of today's post.

Regarding his role in Bloody Pit Of Horror, Hargitay admitted he "wasn't any more of an accomplished actor than a taxi driver", but thought he still provided a good performance in the film.

Yeah, about that.

While torturing his victims, Hargitay has the Crimson Executioner jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. The way he runs around his dungeon, scurrying from victim to victim with unrestrained glee, it was hard to take him seriously.  

Yeah, he's a sadist who gets off on the pain of others but come on. For all the terror experienced by his victims, this Crimson Executioner is more camp than cruel.  He is less the master of this Bloody Pit of Horror and more it's court jester.  

Next week on Movie Time, the movies ain't getting any better.

We've got a sex crazed serial killer on the loose in a movie written by the co-creator of Doom Patrol and Guardians of the Galaxy.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Tomorrow, we're going Star Trekking as I continue to explore the 2nd season of Star Trek.

Your Friday Video Link: This (Non) Sporting Life Edition

Boy, there's a LOT of sports going on! 

NFL and college football is underway! 

College basketball and the NBA are starting up! 

Major league baseball is in it's post season, winding towards the the World's Series.

And the league that melds baseball with musical theater recently brought it's season to a close with the Banana Bowl! 

Members from every team in the Banana Ball League joined together for an original song called "Look What We Made".  

Do we counting dancing as a sport?

It's my blog, my rules and I say we do. And we dance! 

From Dancing With the Stars, it's Guillermo Rodriguez and pro Witney Carson performing a Salsa to “Tití Me Preguntó” by Bad Bunny.

Sadly, Guillermo and Whitney did not make the cut and were eliminated this week.

Guillermo was robbed! 

Whitney was robbed!!

AMERICA WAS ROBBED!!!

***********************************

Next up is a song suggested by son Dean and friend Jan so...

"Don't fuck it up! Don't fuck it up!"

Here's "Sports Anthem" by Mutant Ninja Sex Turtle!

Goddammit! "I FUCKED IT UP!"

That's Ninja Sex Party!

Finishing off our sports themed edition of Your Friday Video Link, here's Garfunkel and Oates with "Sports! Go Sports!"

Yay for sportsball! 

And that's quite enough of that.  

Tomorrow it's Movie Time and after that Star Trekking on Sunday! 

No sports!! 

Remember to be good to one another.

And may you sportsball team be victorious in sports! 

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: Justice League and Other Stuff

OK, I've got more of my most recent batch of new comics from Acme Comics.

I will admit I did not have Batman and Lex Luthor in a buddy cop adventure on my DC Comics bingo card.

But that's where we are with Justice League Knight Vision Special #1.

In the aftermath of the DC KO event, all the heroes and villains who fought in the tournament received prophetic visions of the future.

All except Batman and Lex Luthor.  Then at the end of Justice League Unlimited#21, the two received a shared vision that brings them to Slaughter Swamp outside Gotham City to confront weapons dealers.    

Not just any old guns but high tech alien weapons from the homeworld of Darkseid, Apokolips.

And the procurer of those weapons is not ordinary Mafia thug but long time Justice League enemy Prometheus.

Prometheus may be only be one man but thanks to his augmented helmet, he can download whatever he needs to know to defeats his enemies.  

His base of operations, the reality warping House of Secrets, provides a challenging battleground for Batman and Lex Luthor and their only hope of survival and escape is to work with each other. 

Which is tricky when dealing with two Type A alpha males who insist on being in charge.  

Over in Justice League Unlimited#22-#23, the fallout from DC KO and Absolute Power continue to cause problems.  

The amnesty program to bring in erstwhile super villains into the Justice League is causing friction within the team and out in the world.

The World Court, Interpol and half the United Nations are all in a tizzy of a snit that the already oversized and over powered Justice League Unlimited is recruiting villains to their ranks.

The aftermath of DC KO did not eradicate the threat of Darkseid but only delayed his ultimate quest for power and domination over all reality.

Batman insists the amnesty program is needed to meet the threat.

Others in the League are not so sure.  

Meanwhile out in space, a contingent of the League is dealing with the loss of the Justice League Power Bank.    

I can't believe I got so far into this story arc before I realized writer Mark Waid assembled the Justice Gang line up from the 2025 Superman movie: Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho and Mr. Terrific.  

The power bank contains all the powers of the Justice League previously absorbed by Amazo during the Absolute Power event.  

The power bank gets busted open on an alien planet where Mr. Terrific re-absorbed all the super powers into himself while he becomes like unto a god or something.

Back on Earth, building tensions finally snap.

A group of the villains working under the amnesty plan don't trust the heroes who have them on a short leash.

A group of heroes are also distrustful of the core group of Leaguers overseeing the amnesty program.  

And there's a 3rd group, Batman and the Leaguers who are committed to him and the plan.

Paranoia and anger are running rampant and threaten to jeopardize the Justice League and it's mission to fortify Earth against Darkseid's return. 

Rounding out today's post is a book called Next Level One Shot#1.   

Next Level is DC's new publishing initiative to set up new titles and new storylines throughout the DC Universe. 

I asked Jermaine why this was in my pull box at Acme Comics. He made his pitch that the book was really good and to trust him.

The man is running a comic book store, not a library. 

Fine, Jermaine, you made a sale.  

The issue focuses on Deadshot, erstwhile Batman villain and a cohort of the Suicide Squad and the Secret Six.  

It's been a long while since I last followed the exploits of Floyd Lawton and his nihilist perspective on life and death.

Deadshot is on a mission to get to whoever is behind a wave of mutated zombie clone dog soldiers who are part of some larger conspiracy that's working with and/or against the metahuman community. 

I'm not sure I followed everything that happened in this issue and I am not necessarily motivated to follow any of the various titles spinning out of this book.  Limited time and coin, my friends.

But it was good spending time with Deadshot again.  

Next week: DC is trying this ONE MORE DAMN TIME! 

Legion of Super Heroes#1

Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

 

A blog post I wrote back in July 2018, Kimberly Guilfoyle: Fall of a LEGend has had an inexplicably long life, frequently appearing among my Top 10 most viewed posts over the last EIGHT (?!?!) years.  

As of today, it's sitting at #1.

No doubt fueled by Kimberly Guilfoyle's notoriety surrounding the recently exposed alLEGed scandal and her subsequent resignation as the United States' Ambassador to Greece, no doubt tarnishing her LEGacy.

Well, never let it be said that I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Inc. doesn't know which side of the digital toast is getting buttered so here we are with....

Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

Here's a LEG up on what's going on with  Kimberly Guilfoyle.

In the run up to her being confirmed to be as Ambassador to Greece, Guilfoyle alLEGedly solicited bribes from a Trump donor named Eric Deters to pay off her $100,000 American Express bill.

Well, I says alLEGedly but the screen captures of her texts with Deters seem to be LEGitimate and pretty straight up about what she was trying to do.

In returns for such largesse, Guilfoyle promoted herself to Eric Deters as a LEGitimate point of access to all sorts of levers of power within Trump world.   

Now Donald Trump will put up with a lot but ilLEGally seeking personal profit from a position of government power and influence? Only Trump is allowed to do that.

So with a word from der Führer,   Kimberly Guilfoyle has resigned as Ambassador to Greece, a sad denouement to the LEGacy she began building during her LEGendary run on Fox News.  

Her LEGal team is trying to preserve her LEGacy by claiming Deters owed her money and she was trying to collect it but I'm not sure she has a LEG to stand on.

Eric Deters has his own thoughts about that which he expressed in an interview on CNN.  “Well, I’m going to be suing those lawyers, that law firm, and Kimberly Guilfoyle here in Kentucky. It’s gonna be fun.  I do not owe any money to Ambassador Guilfoyle, and that’s why I’m going to sue ’em for defamation.”

Is this the end of the LEGend of Kimberly Guilfoyle? Or is determined to prove herself too LEGit to quit and persevere and redeem her LEGacy?

If there are any developments in the ongoing tale of Kimberly Guilfoyle's LEGend, I will be sure to give you a LEG up on what will be I'm sure her LEGitimate efforts to save her LEGacy.

__________________________________

For all you perverts that come her for the Kimberly Guilfoyle posts, thanks for propping up my blog numbers but c'mon, this blog has so much else to give.  

Tomorrow: comic books! 

The day after that, Your Friday Video Link merges SPORTS with MUSIC! 

On Saturday, the weekly Movie Time post looks at an old Italian horror film where scantily clad woman are tortured in an ancient castle. You Guilfoyle pervs might like that one, maybe? 

But I don't want my LEGacy as a blogger to be known for Kimberly Guilfoyle LEG posts.  

The Envy Of the World

 One of the hot button issues for this year's mid term elections is the status of health care, our access to it and our ability to afford it.

You may hear Democrats propose Medicare for all or some form of single payer health insurance.

This causes Republican to get their knickers in a knot, defiantly opposing any such plan like they have in Great Britain or Canada or dozens of other civilized countries around the world.

Republicans will protest "American health care is the envy of the world and going to a system like Canada will result in crowded waiting rooms and long waits for service."

Last week I had occasion to be caught up in the machinery of "the enny of the world" and spent nearly a whole day in a crowded waiting room with a very long wait for service.

First of all, it was not for me. My father in law John had a medical emergency and had to go to the hospital. Mandy, my brother in law's wife, had taken him there at 10:00 AM.  She stayed with him as long as she could but had to attend to her husband who was having his own medical problems to deal with.  

So I took up the baton at 2:30 PM.  

John had two interruptions in his wait, one for an X-Ray and another for a CT scan.

Otherwise we wiled away the hours in the waiting room of the envy of the world. 

It felt like we were in some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

Sitting on one side of us was a wizened old woman, small and frail, hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for someone to help her. 

I'm sure she took some comfort in that she was receiving medical care from the envy of the world. Poor woman could be stuck in Canada where their health care system would leave her  hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for---oh, wait a minute.

On the other side of John and I was a young man, his breath coming in gagged gasps and gulps, pleading for help that wasn't coming.  

A male would be patient staggered into the men's room near where we were sitting. A moment later, another man went in and came back out to ask if anyone worked there could help, there was man lying on the bathroom floor.

A security person opened the men's room door and I heard him say, "Dude, you can't lay on the bathroom floor like that."

I'm gonna hazard a guess it wasn't exactly this guy's idea of a good time. 

A nurse happened by and told the security guy, "We need to help this man."  

The hapless patient was helped from the floor into a wheel chair and was brought out of the rest room to receive immediate medical attention a spot to wait in the crowded waiting room.

Surrounded by these huddle masses yearning to be able to breathe and be relieved of their afflictions, my father in law missed few opportunities to remind me of his displeasure with these circumstances.

If I had a nickel for everytime he said "This is ridiculous", well, I wouldn't be rich but damn, that would be a lot of nickels.

John has been to me a mostly affable individual but in this situation, he was hardly that at all.  It was like dealing with an irritable toddler.

Except the irritable toddler was not wrong.

Periodically to appease my father in law, I would get up and chat with somebody.

The people I spoke with were very kind and patient... and absolutely useless. God bless 'em but they were overwhelmed with whatever was going on beyond those waiting room doors. 

Such is the burden of working for a health care system that is the envy of the world.

Eventually, John got to meet with a doctor at 6:30 PM.  Yes, 8 and a half hours after his arrival, he was finally getting a consult with a doctor about the dang problem that brought him there to the envy of the world.  

After getting a handle on what might be wrong with him and what he needed to do next, John was discharged at around 8:00 PM.  

I had to get firm with him about trying to discharge himself before the hospital staff came around with the paperwork.  That was not fun.  

Our exit took us through the waiting room that 8:00 PM still looked like some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

The wizened old woman was still out there, sitting under a blanket. She may have been dead for all I knew.

Finally at rest in the embrace of the envy of the world.  

*****************************

There's more to the story of my father in law's medical emergency but that is a tale for another time.   

Tuesday TV Touchbase Too: Hudson & Rex

I've posted in this space about the fascination Andrea and I have for the Canadian TV series Hudson & Rex.

The series is a buddy cop police procedural about detective Charlie Hudson who rather not have to work with people and his partner who is not people.  

Charlie Hudson and Rex fight crime in the Canadian city of St. John's, Newfoundland.  

We came to this show for the dog. Rex may be a German shepherd but his breed is actually "100% Good Boy!"  

But we stayed because of John Reardon as Charlie Hudson with an curmudgeonly vibe coupled with a boyish charm and those deep piercing eyes.

No, I am NOT gay! Why do you keep asking that?

While we came to Hudson & Rex to gush over the dog, we became attached to the whole gang in the St. John's Police Dept. Major Crimes Unit: tech nerd Jesse Mills, tough but compassionate boss Joe Donovan, sexy smart forensics expert Sarah Troung.  And of course Charlie.

The audience (and Rex) were pulling for Charlie and Sarah to become a thing.  And they did! 

Then John Reardon got cancer and had to take time off at the start of season 7. He went through treatment and got better. He was cleared to return to work. 

But the show wrote out Charlie Hudson and replaced him with Mark (no relation) Hudson played by Luke Roberts.

We all do, Rocky! We all do.  

Then wonder of wonders, we got some glorious news.  As our son Dean put it, "You got your boy back!"  

John Reardon was coming back to Hudson & Rex as of season 9.   

Andrea and I were excited to hear the news.

We of course had questions.

• Where has Charlie been?
• What are the circumstances behind his return?
• How will Sarah react?
• How will Rex, having spent a year with a different partner in Mark Hudson....

...how will Rex react to having his old partner, Charlie Hudson, back once more?

We figured we would have to wait a year to find out before Hudson & Rex season 9 came to American television.

But I didn't want to wait!

The ninth season of Hudson & Rex premiered on the Canadian television network Citytv on October 5, 2026.  

The day after I was scrolling through You Tube hoping someone might post some clips or a review or something.

What I found was...   

Yes, I found something beautiful.

The full complete episode 1 of season 9 of Hudson & Rex.

Oh my God! 

Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! 

OH!

MY!

GOD!  

I told Andrea and I thought she might give some morality lecture that this may be illegally downloaded or some shit like that so we shouldn't watch it.  

Her reaction? 

"We gotta watch that QUICK before You Tube takes it down!"

So we did! 

Back story:

Charlie Hudson was written out of the rest of season, off on a mission to save his brother in South America. Or it may have been Mexico. 

Season 7 ends with news that Charlie was shot and he fell in a river.  His body was not recovered and was presumed dead.

Next, season 8.  With Mark Hudson instead of Charlie.  We didn't watch season 8.  Why?

You know why.

Now, season 9.

A man in a hoodie is skulking around St.John's. The mystery man has a meet up with Joe Donovan and Rex.  But someone tries to shoot Joe but Rex knocks him out of the path of the bullet (Yay!) into an oncoming car (whoops!) 

Joe's in the hospital and the Major Crimes gang is trying to suss out what happened.  Joe is keeping quiet on who he was supposed to meet. Joe has a secret but it's not his to reveal.  

The man in the hoodie shows up at the hospital and Rex senses, I don't know, a disturbance in the force or something?

Rex tracks the hooded man to a stairwell and the man pulls back his hood and...

OMG! It's Charlie!  

Rex is licking and sniffing at Charlie! 

OMG!  Rex remembers Charlie!! 

I'm not crying! You're crying! No, you shut up! 

Charlie is not ready to reveal himself to people and signals Rex to stay quiet and return to Mark and Sarah.

OK, there is a LOT going on so try to keep up. Or if you're satisfied with "A lot of shit is going on down", skip this next part.

• Charlie returns to a hotel room he's sharing with a woman and her son.  
• The woman is Maria, Jack's wife and the boy is their son, Hako.
• The woman was a bookkeeper for a drug kingpin in Belize and was looking to get out from under the mob. 
• Jack sent a USB chip in a picture frame to Charlie that contains evidence that will bust the kingpin and his cartel.  The picture (of Jack and Charlie as kids) should be in Sarah's house. (She has moved out of the place she and Charlie moved into at the start of season 7.) 
• Jack is the one who was shot and killed.  
• The corrupt authorities in league with the cartel switched identities and threw Charlie into prison where he stayed for a year before breaking out and sneaking Jack's wife and kid out of Belize and into Canada.
• The cartel have killers in pursuit and one of them has already taken a shot at Joe Donovan so Charlie is very keen NOT to involve the Major Crimes team, especially Sarah.

Working solo, Rex tracks Charlie to the hotel.  It's a circuitous route from the hospital that involves Rex taking the bus BY HIMSELF.

REX RIDES A BUS!!

And Mark Hudson has tracked Rex and now the two Hudsons meet up.

Charlie enlists Mark's help to get into Sarah's house without Sarah knowing to retrieve the picture frame.

Sarah is not easily fooled. She's too smart. Maybe smarter than Rex! 

Sarah is surprised to find Charlie is in her house and NOT dead.

There's a big damn hug with a swell of romantic music. It's a sweet moment.

Here! Watch it yourself! 

But the joy of seeing Charlie is NOT dead gives way to a little bit of anger.

How many people knew Charlie was alive BEFORE she did?

• Joe Donovan knew?
• And Mark? Well, that was just in the last hour.
• "And Rex? You knew?"  The dog avoids eye contact. 

Charlie insists he was only trying to keep Sarah safe.

Sarah counters, "Since when am I a wilting flower??!"

We have seen Sarah kick all sorts of ass so yeah! 

Oh boy! This is going on a bit. OK, long story made short:

Bad guy with the cartel abducts Maria and Hako and Charlie has to turn over the USB chip in exchange for their release.

Bad news: the bad guy gets the chip.

Good news: Major Crimes made a copy of it and Interpol is already on the case to bring down the kingpin and his cartel.

Mister "I gotta do this on my own" did need a little help from his friends after all.  

Maria and Hako are safe but will need to stay under witness protection elsewhere in Canada.

Charlie Hudson thinks his long nightmare is behind him and he can go back to being a detective with the SJPD.  The police chief says not so fast. There's a process to get Charlie up and running again to be a cop.  Officially, Charlie Hudson is dead.

Meanwhile, when given a choice to go with Charlie or Mark, Rex chooses....

Sarah.  Who is emotionally spent and not sure what to feel or think. And Rex knows when a human is going through some shit. 

And the credits roll.

WOW! That was a lot! 

Did it all make sense? No, I had a lot of questions about who knew what and when and the whole timeline for Charlie, Maria and Hako and it starts to unravel if you poke at it too much.

But I do not care! 

The season premiere of season 9 of Hudson & Rex does a lot of damage control and the emotional beats when Charlie first reunites with Rex and Sarah are powerful and just what we needed.

The ending is not tidy and the status quo is far from being re-set. Both Charlie and Sarah have been through their respective corners of hell for a year and it will take time to sort that all out.

And Rex has had a whole year with another partner, Mark.

OK, having spent an episode with Mark in it, I have to say Mark Hudson does not seem like a bad person. He's a good guy and he's a staunch defender and partner of Rex and...

Fine! Fine! We still hate Mark.

________________________________

That is that for this week's the Tuesday TV Touchbase Too:

Next week,we check in with our other crime fighting dog for the season 1 finale of Blue Skies.

Plus the return of Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.  

 

Ubu is glad Charlie Hudson is back! 

Don't ask Ubu to ride a bus by himself.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The ABC's Of TV Watching

 

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase is about TV shows that all happen to be on ABC. 

Scrubs

The 2nd season of the revived series is underway.

Dr. John "J.D." Dorian might be older now and the new Chief of Medicine at Sacred Heart Hospital but the weird fantasy sequences continue.  J.D. is trying to navigate how to mentor and guide the new batch of newbies.  New head resident Grant is kinda of weird so most in line with J.D.

Also taking up J.D.'s time is caring for his old mentor, Dr. Perry Cox who has a chronic and potentially life threatening condition.  J.D. has put his career as Chief of Medicine on the line to make sure Perry's treatment is covered by insurance.

Turk, Sacred Heart's Chief of Surgery, is still full of swagger but that may be belying an eroding confidence as aging chips away at him.  His relationship with his interns and with his wife Carla keep reminding him he's not as young as he used to be.

Elliot is kicking all sorts of ass as a doctor. In episode 3 of season 2, Elliott diagnoses the cause of a woman patient's chronic pain that had flummoxed all the woman's other doctors.  But is Elliott's success as a doctor coming at the expense of any kind of personal life?

OMG! I'm making this show seem like a soap opera. Yeah, there's some drama but the Scrubs is still a comedy and still LOL funny.

Abbott Elementary

And we're back for season 6 after the school narrowly avoided closure at the end of season 5.  

Gregory Eddie is now Vice Principal and while he can be effective (he scores new A.C. units from the district), he still has a lot to learn.  It's Principal Ava Coleman who has to school Gregory that he got suckered by a A.I. chat bot that Gregory hired to teach his old 2nd grade class.

Still trying too hard to be cool, Janine transforms her class into an ersatz Rainforest Cafe which yeah, the kids do love but it's set up that proves predicatably fragile under the stress of a class filled with too many students. 

I'm kind of bugged by the Flanderization of Jacob as being too earnest and too gullible. Anyone this stupid in Philadelphia should've been murdered by now.

Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune

Season 7 has started and damn it! Andrea and I just finished season 6.  

Celebrity Wheel still prompts the following questions:

• Who is that person?
• Wait! That person is still alive?
• Has this person ever actually seen Wheel of Fortune?  
• Seriously? Who is that person?

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Andrea and I are among the people helping destroy late night talk shows by not watching the shows but following the clips on You Tube.  And we make a practice of catching up on Jimmy Kimmel's monologues which are smart, insightful and very funny.

It's always fun to hear Jimmy's last nicknames for Donald Trump such as:  

• Teddy Doze-evelt 
• Blob the Builder
• Uncle Scam 
• Don Whoreleon 

Also Jimmy's been promoting his beloved sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez who has had a remarkable run on....

Dancing With the Stars

Again, not watching the show but we are keeping up with Guillermo Rodriguez who is partnered up with professional dancer Witney Carson.  

This dancing duo is nothing short of miraculous.  

1) Witney is 5 months pregnant

2) Guillermo can't dance.

But damn, son! The dude is trying. 

Judges scores persistently keep Guillermo and Witney at the bottom of the rankings but this unlikely duo has captured America's hearts and voting by the viewers keep Guillermo and Witney on the show.  

Could Guillermo and Witney actually win this thing? 

Guillermo has his haters but Jimmy Kimmel came to the defense of his li'l buddy.

Dancing! Schmanzing! Who cares? Guillermo and Witney are bringing us JOY and we have so damn little of that these days. 

Anyway, that is that for today's ABC themed Tuesday TV Touchbase.

But we're not done! 

Later today, it's the return of the Tuesday TV Touchbase Too!

A show that Andrea and I thought we would have to wait a year or more to see.

Lo, there came a miracle and we got to see it sooner.

(Could it be?)

Season 9

(Don't tease me like this!)

Episode 1

(OMG! OMG! OMG!  Is it..? Is it...? ) 

Hudson & Rex 

(IT IS!!!) 

The return of Charlie Hudson! 

More on that in today's second post.