Vincent Price was many things: an art historian and curator, a philanthropist, a gourmet, and a celebrated stage, screen, and television actor. Of the 121 films he appeared in during his half-century-long career, only about 40 of them were horror movies.
Advertisement “The reason, I suppose, that I’ve got stuck with the label of ‘horror king’ is that I’m so good at playing that kind of role,” Price explained. But that’s not
quite it.
Vincent Price was not only good at playing that kind of role, he was good at parodying himself playing that kind of role on some of the campiest TV shows ever made
In
Special Guest Star, Gwen Ihnat takes a look at a standout turn by a performer in a TV series, noting what effect the appearance had on the actor, the series, and the TV landscape overall.
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“The Dinner Party,” season four, episode 10 (1973)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a landmark television series. It established the template for the workplace sitcom and featured a single woman whose life revolved around her friends not a man or her family fitting right into the women’s lib movement of the early ’70s. But if it had a single flaw, it was that its protagonist was almost
I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke Show marathons on Nick At Nite, I was not among those itching for
WandaVision to move past the spectacular channeling of classic TV. That said, I still pored over every weighted phrase and possible hint of what was to come. The world Wanda created was fascinating, and the fact that she had no idea how she did it made for riveting storytelling inside Westview, that is. I enjoy Josh Stamberg, but he was in a different show. Where the world of Westview’s sitcom imitations was exciting and new, Hayward’s mission felt like a stale rerun: setting the stage for Vision’s revival seemed somewhat unnecessary, and Monica Rambeau could’ve gotten her superhero origin story without a clichéd boss in the way. (I’d also add Monica’s long-touted mystery guest being a no-name agent to the manipulations list Sam started with Fake Pietro.)
(ABC, 8 p.m.): You could make an argument for any traditional episode of
The Bachelor being the strangest of a given season, but normally it would be pretty difficult to beat “Fantasy Suites Week,” better known as “the one where they maybe bone.” It’s always pretty nuts, but in this particular season? There’s only one episode that could be weirder: next week’s finale.
Enjoy what could be/should be/probably isn’t Chris Harrison’s last episode of
The Bachelor, and send good thoughts to Gwen Ihnat as she recaps this mess.
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