This day needs a name.
Yes, I know it’s Saturday.
Everybody’s a comedian.
I’m talking about a name to identify the day as an annual event.
Not that there’s anything in particular going on today, it’s just that the Saturday after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday has the misfortune of being a little bit like the shell of a lobster.
It serves a purpose, but most people simply treat it as something that has to be gotten through to get to the good stuff.
Just an in-between the days day.
And, despite what you might be already suspecting, I don’t really have a suggestion.
It was just a thought.
So, while you begin the process of pondering with friends and family what it is that the Saturday after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday should be called, I’ll just wander over here and get to work on the three or four projects that have piled up on my desk.
Let me know what you come up with.
Oh…and as a way of saying thanks for stopping by today and keeping the visit from being a total waste of time for you, I noticed something kind of fun on Mental Floss dot com this morning I thought would be interesting to share.
Five famous TV stars who didn’t really want to become famous in the manner they did.
Just a little useless trivia so as not to keep you too long from your plans, chores and activities preparing for tomorrow.
So, happy In Between Days Day, everybody.
Nah. Doesn’t work for me, either.
FIVE FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T WANT TO BECOME FAMOUS IN THE MANNER THEY DID…
Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed had been was a thorn in producer Sherwood Schwartz’s side since Day One. He always maintained that he’d only signed his Brady Bunch contract because the pilot was lame and it wouldn’t get picked up as a series. The show had also been described to him as a serious look at blended families. Instead, the serious dramatic actor who’d trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts found himself “trapped on Gilligan’s Island with kids.”
Gary Burghoff appeared as Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly in every episode of the first three seasons of M*A*S*H. By season four, he was disenchanted with the direction his character was taking. He’d started out as crafty and sneaky, and not adverse to helping himself to Colonel Blake’s brandy. But the writers eventually turned him into a naïve farm boy who never sipped anything stronger than a Grape Nehi. Burghoff only appeared in about half the episodes over the next three seasons, and the CBS brass convinced him to stay long enough to play the focus of a two-part send-off during sweeps week in season eight. M*A*S*H writer Ken Levine notes that Burghoff partially expressed his disenchantment during his last appearance by refusing to wear his “Radar hat” during those final episodes, making him look less like the twenty-something company clerk he was playing and more like the balding, middle-aged man he was.
Marcia Strassman landed a plum role as Mrs. Kotter on the hit sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, but she wasn’t happy about it. “Every day I pray for cancellation,” she moaned in several interviews at the time. While some of us would shrug and think “a paycheck is a paycheck,” Strassman made it clear that smiling indulgently while Gabe Kaplan droned on about his great-uncle Schlomo and saying “Then what happened?” didn’t satisfy her artistic needs. Ironically, series star and co-creator Kaplan left after the third season, making Strassman the de facto star of the show. Such was her drawing power that Kotter was canceled promptly after season four.
When Good Times premiered in 1974 (as a spin-off of Maude), it was the first sitcom to attempt to portray a realistic nuclear African-American family. Despite struggling financially, James and Florida Evans remained wise, loving parents who brought their children up with strong family values. John Amos portrayed the patriarch, a proud man who refused handouts and worked hard to support his family. But shortly after the series premiered, the producers noticed that Jimmie “J.J.” Walker received the biggest audience reaction and the most fan mail. The writers quickly took the focus off the elder Evans and made J.J. the star of the show, and the plots became more outrageous and unbelievable. Amos was unhappy with the new direction of the show, and described Walker’s pop-eyed, grinning character in the press as a “minstrel show.” Not surprisingly, Amos’ contract was not renewed, and his character was killed in an off-camera automobile accident
When Tina Louise signed on to play Ginger Grant on Gilligan’s Island, she was under the impression that the series was going to be about the trials and tribulations of an actress stranded on a desert island, and that the show would revolve around her character. (I suppose we could pick a nit and wonder if the show’s title didn’t somehow clue her in, but why split hairs?) Louise was known for being difficult on the set, and dismissive of her co-stars. After all, her name and scantily-clad bod had been a staple of society page gossip columns and magazine pictorials for the past 10 years. She was a star, dammit, not an ensemble player. Of all the castaways, Louise has remained the sole holdout in most reunion projects and promotional gigs related to the show.
Now you can dazzle your family and friends at your Easter gatherings with the kind of information you can only find here.
Well, here and Mental Floss dot com.
But I looked it up for you.
By the way, as a “holiday bonus”, I’m adding one more famous person to the list. Somebody who from all appearances also apparently didn’t want to become famous in the manner he did.
And no, it’s not Jesus, thank you.
The Bible does mention some last minute discussion with God about why He was chosen to become famous in the manner chosen, but that’s not who I’m talking about.
No, this guy is a little more contemporary, and my guess is that, at the beginning, he anticipated great acclaim, congratulations and praise for the work he was chosen to do.
And, as the show draws to a close, he isn’t close to receiving any of that.
I’m no expert. But I suspect we would have been a lot more willing to pay tribute were we not paying five dollars a gallon for gasoline, watching people lose their homes in record numbers, seeing financial institutions gobble each other up, being vilified in increasingly vicious terms by more and more countries around the world and, oh yes, watching our sons and daughters and husbands and wives and sisters and brothers being shipped, and more and more often reshipped, off to the other side of the world to fight a “war” that seems to be employing the Christopher Columbus method of seeking a resolution.
Just sailing around until he finds it.
Come January, we’ll see somebody new stepping into this role. And every poll on the planet indicates that nobody is going to be sorry to see a new Darren (or Samantha, as the case may be) take over for this Darren.
He sure did get famous, though, didn’t he?
Not what he had in mind, though, I’m thinking.
Now maybe he knows how we feel.
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