I Am A TV Junkie

iFMagazine.com Has Norman Lear with Seth MacFarlane and Phil Rosenthal

Note to whoever invited iFMagazine to this event -- Hey, what about me? I was available. And I know Phil already (we have a mutual friend) so what's the deal?

Okay, this time you're off the hook but the next time Phil Rosenthal and Seth MacFarlane are saluting a boxset of first seasons of Norman Lear shows on DVD I'd better get a call, or else ...

... or else I won't place this link below on my blog for people to buy the thing.

Oops! I just did.

And another thing ... neither Seth nor Phil need a free copy of the collection, either, so either or both of you can send yours to me.

(With the extra one I'll have an online auction with the proceeds going to PFAW.)

From the article:

LEAR: The first battle I had was a whole show about Richard Nixon. You have to think about down stream and the future of the show and that no one would know who Richard Nixon was [in syndication], but with performances like that, it doesn’t matter what they’re talking about to a great extent.

MACFARLANE : Archie said “God damn it” and it had that much more impact and sounded more real. It was a simple thing. I always wondered if that was a fight.

LEAR: That was a fight.

MACFARLANE: Flawed characters are frowned upon. If somebody is not perfect in every way – [they ask] “are they going to be likable …”

ROSENTHAL: When they said that to me, I said “who in your family is likable?”

Click over there for more. Lear in an interview clip from the DVD extras on the late Bea Arthur after the jump.

There's also more on this event from Movieline, at this link.

WE tv on Cable Has Bea Arthur Golden Girls Tribute Tonight From 9:30pm - 1 am

That's almost right now for those of you on the East Coast.

And a dedicated forum for everyone to share their favorite Bea Arthur memories, at this link.

And thanks to them, after the jump, a best of Dorothy Zbornak video montage.

Thank you Katrina for the info and your pal Izzy for the handoff.

And, I suggest a cheesecake if you're inviting friends over.

Already Missing Bea Arthur, 1922 - 2009

What can you say? Bea Arthur has been Bea Arthur all my life.

Pioneer, progressive activist, comedy legend, star.

I remember my very Catholic Aunt Eileen having a fit when she found me at her house watching the episode of Maude when she decided to get the abortion.

Saturday nights in the 80s existed solely for The Golden Girls.

She won Emmys for both roles.

She played opposite Angela Lansbury on Broadway, winning her Tony Award, and opposite Lucille Ball on film in Mame as Vera Charles!

The former Bernice Frankel was born in New York in 1922, May 13 would have been her 87th brithday.

People have to go eventually, but this one just hurts a little more than the rest. She was a funny, fabulous woman and I'll miss seeing her.

NY Times' Frank DeCaro -- "Maude" is "smart television"

Frank DeCaro in the Times:

The first season’s 22 episodes, which Sony recently released as a three-DVD set (with no extras), dealt with topics like racism, infidelity, sexual equality, divorce, menstruation, malpractice and, most notoriously, abortion, when Maude found herself pregnant at 47.

That two-part episode, titled “Maude’s Dilemma,” came in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision. It was sensitively written by Susan Harris, who went on to create “The Golden Girls.” The subject was as controversial then as it would probably be now, but it shows how smart “Maude” and television could be.

I remember watching this ep when I was a kid and a also remember the next week not being able to watch Maude at my very Catholic aunt's house because Maude had the abortion the week before.

(Hey, remember how Frank DeCaro used to do very funny movie reviews for The Daily Show? What happened to that?)