Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The Story of a Refrigerator, or How to Get Your Complaint Heard in a World That Doesn't Want to Hear You!

You might think this a slight and even possibly a boring story, but I promise you it is neither.  In fact, this is a cautionary tale that perhaps will save you from our fate.

Once upon a time, there was a couple of a certain age.  Rosy and Hubby were a happily married couple of 30+ years except for the occasional blog post that Rosy would write that would skewer Hubby from time to time.




Rosy and Hubby were both grandparents whose grandchildren lived a thousand miles south.

One day, Rosy decided she wanted to attend the 5th birthday of her oldest grandson.  She is happily retired but Hubby still has to work and will probably work until he drops dead because he doesn't have a pension.  Sorry, Hubby, but Rosy does, so off Rosy went on an adventure.  It was an adventure because she planned to not only visit her grandchildren but to travel a couple of hours from the airport to see a sick friend, stay overnight and then travel back another 100 miles or so to stay at an airbnb all by her little lonesome near where her son and his family live.  She would be gone for six days.



It was all a happy adventure...but darkness loomed.

One day into the adventure during a routine daily phone call to Hubby it was revealed that their refrigerator of 12 years had just abruptly stopped.  No mention of trouble.  No goodbyes.  Just poof.  Gone.

Now Hubby, who is advancing in years and known to check out from time to time (see blog post "Has Your Spouse Checked Out of Your Marriage?" ) and was also not known for checking in with Rosy on things, had some decisions to make because Rosy would not be home for another 5 days.

Decision #1 should have been to not do anything, but Hubby thought he should just go buy a refrigerator on his own without Rosy present.  When he called from Sears to say he had found a refrigerator and was about to buy it, you can just imagine what Rosy said about that.  Well, you can imagine and then just add 1000% to that little imagination.

So Hubby decided it was probably not a good idea to buy a refrigerator without Rosy being there so he went home.  But he had some other decisions to make.

Decision #2 - what to do with the food in the dead refrigerator?  Now Rosy is known to have lots of ingredients because she likes to cook.  In fact, she has every sauce and ingredient known to man just in case she might need it for a new recipe. She has also stockpiled stuff "just in case." One time when a friend was staying over housesitting, she asked Rosy if she and Hubby were Mormons because of all of the staples that were stockpiled in the house.

Anyway, let's just say the refrigerator was full.

Hubby decided that he should put all of the food in a large plastic laundry basket to take it out into the garage where there was a freezer.  That is understandable. He didn't want to make multiple trips. However, the next decision is the head scratcher.  He decided to put the entire plastic laundry basket of food directly into the freezer.  Yes, you heard me, laundry basket and all.

When Rosy got home there was some discussion about that considering that the laundry basket itself took up so much room that nothing else could go in there, such as, oh...ice for the coolers that were now needed to keep the non-frozen perishables cold and bottles of wine that needed to be cooled down because Rosy needed them ASAP because of the decisions Hubby had made while Rosy was gone.

So Rosy arrives home and it's been five days with no refrigerator. They thought it would be a quick fix.  They would go to a few places, pick out a refrigerator and choose one that had the fastest delivery.  In a few days, they would be back in business!

Let me add that there were some constrictions to the search.  They wanted a side-by-side, but the refrigerator had to fit into the built-in space in the kitchen, which would not accommodate a really big refrigerator.

Anyway, they went to two other stores before returning to Sears and turns out, Sears had the one they wanted. 



They settled on one that was a step up from the one that Hubby had originally planned to buy (without Rosy present).  There was no way Rosy was going to choose that one so that Hubby would say, "That was the one I was going to buy all along.  If you had let me buy it, we would have it by now!"  No way would Rosy let that happen.  But the one she chose was definitely nicer...wine rack, separate rack for soft drinks, ice maker in the door, stainless steel accents inside.



So they asked when it could be delivered...Friday.  That was three days hence.  Deal!  No other store they had been to could get it to them faster than that.

And now the story just begins!

The old refrigerator started to smell and I don't mean a smell that would make you wrinkle your nose a little.  No, I am talking about a smell that curls your lips, makes your eyes water, your hair stand on end and makes you shout, "EWWWWWW!!!!"  It was a particular problem when Rosy wanted to get a glass of wine. Her hand and arm were so conditioned to going to that refrigerator for a glass of wine that, force of habit, she would automatically go to the old refrigerator, open the door without thinking and be bombarded with the smell.

But they only had to wait two more days!

Until...Friday.

Ring, ring.  Robo call from Sears.  Their delivery date was postponed to Tuesday.  NOOOOOO!

Hubby called the salesman.

Their choices? They could cancel the order or choose another fridge.  Not options.

OK, they would wait three more days...until Tuesday.

Tuesday morning.

Ring, ring.  Robo call from Sears.  The delivery date was once again postponed, this time to Saturday!  NOOOOO!

They started to wonder if this refrigerator even existed.

Rosy said, "OK that does it!"

That's when Rosy wrote The Letter.

The salesman didn't help.  Customer service never answered, so what do you do?  You go to the top.  Why?  Here is why.  Let's back up a bit and Rosy will speak in her own voice.

"...I have been known to write a letter of complaint from time to time and discovered the power of the pen, or in today's terms, the power of typing a letter on your computer to the CEO of the company and actually putting that letter in an envelope, addressing it in cursive, putting a stamp on it and marking it 'personal.'  You could call that The Power of Making An Effort.

I have written many letters in my day, but the first time I really felt "the power" was when we had moved into our first house.  It was a lovely little house on a quiet street. 



Until Trader Joe's came to town!

Across the street and down a driveway facing onto the main street on the other side of the block was a liquor store that had gone out of business.  We didn't think anything of that when we bought the house, but we obviously hadn't done our homework because when we returned from a vacation, Trader Joe's had moved in across the street and semi-trucks were coming down our street and turning into the driveway in back of the store -- right in front of our house!  You see, it was the first Trader Joe's in our town and everyone wanted to go there.  Add to that a Blockbuster and an inadequate parking lot and it was a nightmare.  We and our neighbors managed to turn that driveway into a walkway so the semis went away, but Trader Joe's employees started parking on our street behind the store and walking in via that driveway.

Now I can't really explain my actions and what happened next other than being menopausal. 

For some reason, even though I knew it was a public street and a free country, those employees parking across the street from my lovely little house, coming and going, doors slamming and hello's and goodbye's at all hours of the day and night really, really bothered me.  So menopausal or not I didn't want Trader Joe's employees parking in front of my house and that's that.  So I wrote a letter to the CEO.  And guess what?  The employees stopped parking there.  I think it must have been my comment about what a bad neighbor I thought Trader Joe's was.  I don't think he liked being called a bad neighbor.  In fact, he said so in his conciliatory letter that he wrote back to me.

The second time I realized the power was not too long ago when we discovered that our Comcast On Demand wasn't working so I innocently called customer service and got "Jay."  It was after hours and "Jay," a very nice fellow but clearly not an English speaker and clearly reading from a script (I was pretty sure this was one of those call centers in Mumbai or someplace like that) did what he could, but you know that thing where you know just enough to know that the person trying to help you isn't going to be able to help you?  It was like that, so I couldn't wait to get off the phone.  I did what he recommended but it didn't work.  So the next morning, I called again and I SWEAR TO GOD, I got the same guy!  Do these guys work 24 hour shifts?  Anyway, more stuff that didn't work and now I WAS REALLY MAD.  So I found the name of the CEO and his address and dashed off a letter about Comcast's poor customer service.


Here is a taste of my letter:

Dear Mr. Roberts:

I just want to let you know that I have just spent two of the worst days of my life dealing with your company.  I now know why young people bypass cable and find their TV viewing using Roku, HBO To Go, Netflix and all of the other ways they get by without cable.


The reason is that your support is terrible.
[I shared the error message we were getting when we tried to access On Demand]

So I called my cable provider.  YOU.  And spoke with some kid in some foreign land who knew nothing.  He was pleasant enough but spent more time reading off a script and apologizing.


Blah, blah, blah...I gave him a piece of my mind.
Anyway, in the meantime I took it upon myself to book a service call.  Right after that, I received a phone call from one of Mr. Roberts' people - he had received my letter - and she was ready to bend over backwards for me. I told her I had a guy coming out, but she gave me her private number and said if that didn't work, to call her. The guy came, knew immediately what the problem was (turns out when they upgraded us outside, it screwed up our TIVO connection) - long story short it was fixed ON MY OWN INITIATIVE.  However, as promised, she called me back to be sure we were OK and she knocked $50 off our bill for our trouble.

So now I am back to the story of the refrigerator. 

What do you think I did? 

Why, I wrote a letter to the CEO, of course, and told him my whole tale of woe...how we were living out of coolers, I was getting fat from eating out at restaurants every night, we were going to have to spend the Easter weekend with no refrigerator (not that we had anything special going on, but he didn't need to know that).

In a flash, I received a phone call (I didn't include my email address on purpose) from Mary* (*not her real name) who now wanted to be my best friend.  She called to tell me she had been in touch with the manufacturer, the warehouse and everyone in between and delivery would definitely be Saturday.  She said she would call me on Monday to make sure everything went smoothly -- and it did...and she did.  We also received a $75 gift card and a mini-fridge to tide us over (that we could keep).

So this story has a happy ending. 

The bottom line is, yes, some things went wrong.  Yes, we were put out and unhappy.  But Sears made it right.  Has this letter writing always worked?  No. We went through two Bosch dishwashers in 7 years and they didn't seem to give a damn despite my damning letter about what a crappy product they had that would only last a couple of years.  But Sears did. So I salute them and wish them well.

So if you have a problem with a service or product, you should start with customer service (keeping in mind that a customer service rep doesn't really have the power to grant you what you may be after). 

But if you are not getting satisfaction there, I highly recommend going to the top and letting that person know how you feel.  Believe it or not, I think they want to know.  Don't send an email.  Write a good old-fashioned letter that clearly and concisely states your case. Use good English and correct spelling.  Be careful to not be too insulting but don't be afraid to use strong language either, such as you will tell all of your friends, and you have MANY, never to shop at that store again!  Put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it. 

Now you might say, "But I don't know who the CEO is or the address." 

Well, my dear readers, here is where the library comes in again. 

Your library most likely has a website.  Go there.  Find their list of databases or research page and click on the business resources.  There should be something like "A-Z Databases (that's what my library has)" or some sort of corporate database that has all of that information.  Too daunting?  Pick up the phone, call the library, ask for the reference librarian and ask him or her to look it up for you.  Voila!

So now we have the refrigerator, it's full, especially the wine rack, which is very important, and Rosy and Hubby and the new refrigerator lived happily ever after. 






Rosy had a little talk with the refrigerator about what her expectations were.

The End.



Postscript:

Hubby just called up from downstairs.  The water dispenser in the new refrigerator is not working!

GRRRRR!!!

Here we go again!

(Postscript:  All is well.  Rosy and the refrigerator are getting along just fine)!


Thanks for Reading!
See you Friday
for my review of the stunning new HBO documentary

"Nothing Left Unsaid:

Gloria Vanderbilt
and
Anderson Cooper"
and

 
The Week in Reviews
(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)

 and the latest on
"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before

 I Die Project."




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Friday, April 15, 2016

"The Boss" And the Week in Reviews

[I review the new Melissa McCarthy comedy "The Boss" and DVDs "Youth" and "Concussion." The Book of the Week is "X - Child Stars:  Where Are They Now?"  I also bring you up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project with the W.C. Fields comedy "It's a Gift."]




The Boss


Melissa McCarthy stars as Michelle Darnell, the 47th richest woman in America until she loses everything when she is imprisoned for insider trading.  When she comes out, she needs to rebuild her fortune.

Michelle is a cross between Suze Orman and Joel Osteen, part financial advisor and part televangelist. She treats her fans with big productions and big ideas. She started out as an orphan who, after being adopted, kept getting returned to the Catholic orphanage (as in several times).  That turned her into a tough cookie and she vowed she would get her revenge by becoming very successful.  Which she did.

Now she is one of the richest women in the world with a real, honest-to-goodness "Yes Man (Tito, played by Cedric Yarbrough)" and personal assistant, Claire (Kristen Bell). However, she made some enemies along the way, especially Renault, who is really Ronald from New Jersey (Peter Dinklage), who gets his revenge by reporting her for insider trading.  She is imprisoned and when she comes out four months later, she has nothing.  Claire has moved on to another job, but Michelle begs her to let her live with her and her daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson) until she gets back on her feet.  Claire cheers her up with one of her brownies from her mother's recipe that Michelle declares the best brownies she has ever tasted. The brownies will figure prominently in the film.  Stick with me. 

Rachel is a Dandelion (read: Girl Scout) and when Michelle takes Rachel to one of her Dandelion meetings where they discuss cookie sales, Michelle sees the money to be made selling cookies and decides her next fortune will be selling Claire's brownies, which Michelle thought were absolutely awesome (see?  I told you the brownies would figure prominently).  She dubs the brownies "Darnell's Darlings." Claire quits her dead-end demeaning job and joins forces with Michelle to start a business. Claire makes the brownies and Michelle markets them.  To do that, Michelle recruits some local girls to sell door-to-door and instructs them to use threats and intimidating tactics, if necessary, which results in a West Side Story-like rumble between the Dandelions and the "Darlings" when the "Darlings" try to sell door-to-door in Dandelion territory. It gets a little uncomfortable when the Moms get into it too and we see adult women beating up little girls.  Remember, it's just a movie!

The "Darlings" are enterprising.  Selling outside of marijuana stores is genius and something that the writers took from real life when some Girl Scouts used that same marketing strategy.  Should work!

All is running smoothly, but Renault is not done with our Michelle.  Now he wants her brownie business and Michelle signs a contract to give the brownie business over to Renault, thus selling Claire out.  Michelle didn't become the 47th richest woman in America by being nice, but when she realizes she has just screwed Claire and her daughter, the closest thing she has to a real family, she gets a twinge of guilt, has a change of heart and the movie turns into a heist film as Michelle and Claire try to break into Renault's office to steal back the contract.

There are some laughs to be had here if the audience I was sitting with was any indication, but I didn't find it particularly funny.  This film wasn't nearly as good as McCarthy's last film "Spy."

I am thinking that perhaps Melissa McCarthy ought to stop collaborating with her husband, Ben Falcone.  He wrote and directed "Tammy" which was bloody awful and now this, which is hit and miss at best when it comes to the comedy department, whereas "Spy," which was NOT directed or written by her husband was a charming, and might I add FUNNY, comedy.  Melissa has to shoulder some of this, too as she also co-wrote "Tammy" and this one.

But the thing about Melissa McCarthy movies is that you have to really like Melissa McCarthy.  And if you really like Melissa McCarthy, the stale jokes and pratfalls don't really matter because it's McCarthy doing her thing that you have come to see. I happen to like McCarthy. I can do without the physical humor and the fat jokes, which mercifully are not in abundance here, but her mugging and comic timing make me laugh, so this film had some funny moments, especially where she helps get Claire ready for a date by hoisting up her bra, but there were not enough laughs for me to tell you to go out and plunk down your hard-earned cash at the theatre.

And one more thing. McCarthy wears a very high turtleneck with every costume change in every scene and I kept waiting for that to be explained.  It never was and it irritated the hell out of me.

Kristen Bell is a warm, lovely presence and Ella Anderson is actually a kid actor I liked.  None of that overly precocious stuff that seems to be popular kid characterizations in films.  Peter Dinklage overacts which I think he meant to do here, and it's fun to see Kathy Bates again as Michelle's mentor who she also screwed over on the way to the top.

But despite a funny premise, McCarthy's schtick and an able supporting cast, the film doesn't really measure up to much despite my fondness for McCarthy.

I am waiting for the new all-girls "Ghostbusters" to redeem her.

Rosy the Reviewer says...You can wait for the DVD on this one or watch "Spy" instead.


 

***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***
(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!

Now Out On DVD




Youth (2015)


A retired symphony conductor (Michael Caine) and his best friend, a film director (Harvey Keitel) are on vacation in the Swiss Alps which gives them ample time to reflect about their lives. 

Michael Caine plays Fred Ballinger, a retired internationally known symphony conductor, who is on vacation at a Swiss spa resort. He is approached by an emissary of The Queen.  She wants to give him a knighthood but she also wants him to come out of retirement to conduct his famous "Simple Songs" in a Royal Command Performance. A famous soprano has been lined up to sing it. Fred refuses saying he only conducts that piece for his wife who is the only person who ever sang it and she can no longer sing.

Fred's best friend, Mick Boyle, a director trying to come up with a new script for his final film masterpiece, is also at the spa. The two are co-fathers-in-law.  Fred's daughter (Rachel Weicz) is married to Vic's son, Julian, and he has just deserted her for a pop star who is "good in bed." Fred and Mick meet every day to discuss their prostates and compare how much urine they had been able to produce that day...and they also talk about life and regrets.

Also at the spa is an assortment of other characters: Paul Dano is Jimmy Tree, a Johnny Depp-type actor who wants to be taken seriously.  He has acted in many films but everyone remembers him for "Mr. Q," where he played a robot and that rankles.  There is also a Buddhist who is rumored to levitate from time to time, an overweight soccer player, a couple who never speak at dinner but have wild noisy sex in the woods, and a homely young girl who appears to like to have sex with old guys.  Speaking of old guys, there are lots of naked old people in this film and I don't need to see that.  I see enough of that at home.

With all of the strange characters, this feels like a Wes Anderson film but not as good and not as funny and less accessible.  I didn't really get it.  Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, whose film "The Great Beauty (I didn't get that one either)" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014, the film is about aging, the disconnect between the young and old, the resentments our children feel toward us and getting one more chance at life, all topics that would be of interest to old folks.  But there is an irony here. This is aimed at people of a certain age, but its lack of accessibility will send them running and screaming to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2."  That's a shame because much of the dialogue and sentiments will ring true.

Michael says about his daughter that he did things for her so she would remember them but now he realizes she won't remember "a single thing."  He also says that raising children requires tremendous effort with a modest result.  That we will forget our parents.  And there is a great scene with a telescope where Mick says, "When you are young, everything looks very close.  That's the future.  When you are old, everything seems really far away.  That's the past."  It's a tale of regret even after a long life, even with a long life of success, that we are not immune from regrets. As you can see, the film is full of some really great quotes.  Unfortunately, they are not backed up with an understandable story.

I am a huge Michael Caine fan.  I will see anything he is in. I am glad to see that he  looks his age and has not gone the plastic surgery route.  Here we see him with his turkey neck and age spots.  However, Harvey Keitel is an actor I have never really warmed up to.  I think I have never gotten over him in that naked scene in "Bad Lietenant."  If you see it, you will know what I mean.  I have never been able to get that nude scene out of my mind and it's not a good memory.

Jane Fonda makes an appearance.  She looked old which is something she rarely allows to happen.  However, since she is old, if that wasn't makeup making her look old, then I applaud her for letting herself look like that.

Well acted, beautifully photographed with a lush score by David Lang, I wanted to like this film because I think old age should be celebrated (We've made it this far! Yay!), and I like seeing our older actors getting center stage.  I also like that it's an intelligent film about life and aging, but there are just too many strange characters and strange situations obfuscating the message.  It's too "arty" and that stands in the way of the impact this film should have.

Paul Dano and his angst about horror and playing Hitler is a distraction who doesn't need to be there. The Buddhist finally levitating. Huh?  And then Miss Universe and Jane Fonda show up. Another "huh?"  All of those scenes detract from the real story - getting old and our disconnection from youth, our own youth and the youth around us. Instead of letting the message sink in, I found myself spending too much time going "Huh?"  I would have preferred this to be presented more like "My Dinner With Andre," the two men talking about life over dinner or just walking around with the beautiful Swiss scenery as a backdrop.

Rosy the Reviewer says...I will watch anything with Michael Caine starring in it, but if you understood everything that was going on in this film, will you please let me know?  Thanks.




Concussion (2015)


Will Smith plays Bennet Omalu, the real life doctor who discovered that professional football players were incurring brain damage through the course of normal play.

The film starts in 2002 with a backstory.  An ex-football player is acting erratically.  He's Mike Webster (David Morse) of the Pittsburg Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs, a center who played in the NFL from 1974-1990, was in four winning Super Bowl games and was a member of the Football Hall of Fame.

Then we see Dr. Bennet Omalu testifying at a murder trial.  He is a forensic pathologist and he has a passion for his job, so much so that he has this little quirk of speaking to the dead bodies he is working on, asking them to help him discover what happened to them. He is also a Nigerian immigrant who is a clean-cut church-going guy.  He is such a good guy, in fact, that his minister asks him to house a young woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who has just arrived from Kenya.  And I think, whoa, what kind of a minister entrusts a single man with a single woman to stay in his apartment?  They eventually get married, so I guess that's OK. 

The film moves back and forth between Omalu's personal life and the deterioration of Mike Webster. Webster eventually kills himself. Why?  And why did it seem that so many other ex-football players were dying young?  When Omalu conducts an autopsy on Webster, he discovers the brain abnormalities that shed light on the whole concussion issue and the discovery of CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.  Dr. Julian Bailes (Alex Baldwin), the team physician, reveals to Omalu that the NFL knew all along about the concussion issue. Omalu fights to be heard so the truth can be known but the NFL tries to discredit him.  We can't have anyone saying bad stuff about our favorite Sunday pastime, can we, especially someone who isn't from here and doesn't even understand football?

The film shows an interesting counterpoint between Omalu believing that telling the truth about CTE is part of being a good American and those good Americans over at the NFL doing everything they can to stop him.  He finally gets heard by the NFL and they have a Concussion Summit where he gets to make his case with an impassioned speech because these whistleblower films always end with impassioned speeches. But this is still an issue that the NFL has not come to terms with.

Despite some melodrama - "Are you more afraid of what you will find or what you won't?" - and the second half of the film getting a bit preachy and earnest, this is a well-made film that showcases Will Smith's talents and brings into focus the threat that football poses to its players.

This movie, written and directed by Peter Landesman (based on "Game Brain" by Jeanne Maria Laskas, a 2009 article in GQ Magazine) is enough to make any parent not want his or her child to play football, especially when they see the part where Bennet shakes a brain around in a jar to show how it would bang against the head and helmet when hit by a 300 pound lineman.  Omalu says "God did not intend for us to play football," to which the NFL replies. "If just 10% of all mothers decide football is too dangerous for their sons, that's the end of football."

This is usually not my kind of movie as I am not much of a sports fan, but this one got me.

David Morse was particularly outstanding as Webster.  All of the other supporting cast - Albert Brooks (as Cyril Wecht, Bennet's real life mentor), Paul Reiser, and others were a believable part of the ensemble.

Of the brouhaha about black actors being shut out of the Oscar race, a case could certainly be made for why Will Smith should have been nominated.  He was very, very good here. His accent was believable and he totally inhabited his character.  I never once thought of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air or some of the other smart-ass characters he has played. 

Was he better than those who were nominated?  Eddie Redmayne for "The Danish Girl;" Michael Fassbender for "Steve Jobs;" Bryan Cranston for "Trumbo;" Matt Damon for "The Martian;" or Leo (who ultimately won) for "The Revenant?"  And if so, who of those nominees would he replace?  

See this film and let me know what you think.

Rosy the Reviewer says...This is a brave and important film that will make parents think twice about letting their kids play football.



 


***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***
 


252 to go!

Have You seen this classic film?



It's a Gift (1934)


Henpecked Harold Bissonette (W.C. Fields), a New Jersey grocer, inherits some money and, despite the protests of his overbearing wife, moves his family to California where he has bought an orange grove.

Fields made a career of playing the hen-pecked husband which in turn gave him fodder to do his schtick.

Harold's Uncle Bean is dying and his wife says if he inherits any money, he had better not buy an orange farm in California.  Well, guess what.  He does and he does.  Off they go from New Jersey to California in a car piled with their belongings a la "The Beverly Hillbillies."  Unfortunately, things don't turn out as planned.

In Fields' films, women are shown as shrill nags or dominating the household.  When the daughter walks into the bathroom while Harold is trying to shave and she takes over the mirror, Harold accepts his fate and goes through all kinds of gyrations and contortions to continue shaving.  Since he is using a straight razor, that gag is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat...I guess...all of which gives Fields ample opportunities to clown and mug for the camera. Pratfalls and precarious situations create almost a stressful viewing as Harold makes one bad decision after another.  At every moment he is one step from disaster so I suppose that is where the humor lies, though I don't get it.

The last name is Bisonette which everyone keeps pronouncing "Bissonet" and to which Fields keeps correcting them to say "Bisonay," because his wife is a social climber and insists on that pronunciation.  Very much reminded me of the British TV show "Keeping Up Appearances" where the lead character, Hyacinth Bucket, the quintessential social climber, insists on pronouncing her name, "Bouquet."  She answers the phone "The Bouquet residence. The lady of the house speaking."  One of my favorite shows that seems to pay homage to this film.

These early films are so politically incorrect, it is difficult to take them seriously. There is one whole scene making fun of a blind and deaf man.  And the nagging wife verges on offensive.

Fields' films don't have much plot. The thin plots are just vehicles for Fields to do his thing - make stupid decisions, react to noises when he is trying to sleep, be subjected to a nagging wife, fall into a garbage can and put his foot in the waste basket all without complaint.  You get the idea.

And you know that thing about obnoxious, precocious child stars?  It's got that too, though I liked Baby Leroy because he didn't talk.

I am not a fan of slapstick humor and never got on board with Fields.  The quotes attributed to him are far funnier than his films, in my opinion. 

Rosy the Reviewer says...I sat through most of it shaking my head and wondering why I had to see this one before I died.  It's shortened my life by 68 minutes.


 

***Book of the Week***





X Child Stars: Where Are They Now? by Kathy Garver and Fred Ascher (2016)


Ever wonder what happened to the child stars in your favorite TV shows from your childhood?  Well, look no further.  It's all here.

Child stars have a bad reputation for not adjusting to adulthood and getting involved with drugs and alcohol (Anissa Jones from "Family Affair" died young as did Dana Plato from "Diff'rent Strokes") but Kathy Garver, herself a child star (she was Cissy on "A Family Affair") wants you to know that most child stars have either achieved stardom in adulthood (Ron Howard, Christina Applegate) or at the very least found happiness in life. 

Garver and her co-author Fred Ascher have put together a chronological compendium of TV shows from the 1950's through the 1980's featuring the kids who starred and telling us how they are doing. Ever wonder what happened to Mouseketeer Bobby Burgess?  Well, he was a staple as a dancer on The Lawrence Welk Show, got married, has four kids and is still dancing.  And if you have been kept up at night worrying about what happened to Tony Dow who played The Beaver's brother on "Leave it to Beaver," well, don't, because he is now a recognized sculptor. 

It makes me sad to see Patty Duke, one of my favorites, on the cover of this book.  We know she grew up to be an acclaimed adult actress but sadly, her life was not a happy one and we just recently lost her too soon.

We Baby Boomers who grew up with these child stars will have fun looking up our favorite shows and reading about what happened to the kids who starred.  The book is very comprehensive and every kid from the Mouseketeers to the "Eight is Enough" kids to "Family Matters" and everyone in between are included.

My only criticism is that the writing is not good.  It has an immature quality to it that gets annoying after awhile, but since this is a book you probably wouldn't sit down and read cover to cover anyway, it's a minor concern.

I mean, my life would not have been the same if I hadn't found out that Leo DiCaprio had been on "Growing Pains" or that David Faustino ("Married With Children") had been arrested for marijuana possession "but now that he is a father, watches his intake."

Rosy the Reviewer says...a fun walk down TV's memory lane.

 

That's it for this week!


Thanks for reading!


See you Tuesday for



"The Story of a Refrigerator,

or

How to Get Your Complaint Heard in a World That Doesn't Want to Hear You"
 
 

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