Richards Favorite Videos

Widower Anthony Morton “Tony” Micelli (Danza) is a former second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals who was forced to retire due to a shoulder injury and the up and coming career of Tommy Herr. He wanted to move out of Brooklyn to find a better environment for his daughter, Samantha (Alyssa Milano). He ended up taking a job in upscale Fairfield, Connecticut as a live-in housekeeper for divorced advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light). The Micellis moved into the Bower residence. Also starring were Danny Pintauro as Angela’s son Jonathan and Katherine Helmond as Mona Robinson, her feisty, man-hungry mother.

The title of the show referred to the clear role reversal of the two lead actors, where a woman was the breadwinner, while a man stayed at home and took care of the house, thus the question of who the “boss” really was. It challenged media stereotypes of Italian-Americans as wholly ignorant of life outside of urban working-class neighborhoods.

THEME:

The show’s theme song, “Brand New Life” had four full versions of this song, as well as two short versions used during the course of the series’ run. The first version, used in the first two seasons, was performed by Tony Danza himself. The second version, which was used from 1986-1990, was performed by country music singer Steve Wariner. The third version was used for the final two seasons (shown here).

The original version featured the opening verse, “There’s more to life than what you’re livin’”, which was changed to “There’s a time for love and a time for livin’” in the show’s third season. Below is the season three version with the lyric change, compared to the original above:

The season three version also had the opening instrumental elongated and a slightly mellower music. A modified version was used during the show’s seventh season and modified again for season eight. Various instrumental versions of this theme were used as a closing theme during the series.

The pilot episode’s opening sequence featured the van (which supposedly belongs to Tony) driving from New York to the Bowers’ house in Connecticut, with the cast and executive producer’s names credited over it (the footage of the van driving to Connecticut was truncated to the very beginning of the opening for the beginning with episode two, limited to the first five seconds for the first two seasons and extended to the first twelve seconds afterwards with the remainder replaced with episode clips). During the first season, Alyssa Milano and Danny Pintauro were credited together (they were credited separately from season two onward).

The original airing of the pilot episode featured a slightly different intro, compared to what was used in later airings.

“The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin” was a television series that ran from 1987-1988.
Teddy Ruxpin leaves his homeland in Rillonia with his friend Grubby in search of adventure. They meet up with an inventor named Newton Gimmick who accompanies them on their quest for the Treasure of Grundo. What the trio unexpectedly find are six crystals with different meanings and powers. These crystals, however, also can enable the Monsters and Villains Organization (MAVO) to have absolute power over the land, and their leader, Quellor, wants to make sure that an Illiop never possesses the crystals. Elsewhere, a less pronounced threat also routinely besieges the trio, the wannabe villain Jack W. Tweeg, a greedy troll/grunge who has his eyes on joining MAVO. The sixty five episode series unfolds gradually as the Trio meet interesting and often friendly creatures while visiting intriguing lands and going on wondrous, yet wholesome, adventures.

end credits:

I used to watch this on occasion and even then thought it was a little odd.
Every episode starts with the tale of how SuperTed came to life: He was a teddy bear found to be defective in the toy factory where he was made, and then disposed of into a storeroom in the basement. A Spotty man found him there and brought him to life with his “cosmic dust”. He was later taken to Mother Nature and given magical powers that enabled him to fight evil. This evil invariably takes the form of Texas Pete (An evil cowboy) and his gang; Bulk (an overweight, bumbling fool) and Skeleton (an undead cowardly skeleton with pink slippers). Texas Pete’s plots are generally aimed at advancing his own wealth, ruling the world and the power or the destruction of SuperTed, his nemesis.

SuperTed’s powers are activated by his “secret magic word”, which (as the name suggests) remains a secret. SuperTed whispers it every time he or someone else is in peril and he transforms into a Superman-like red suit with rockets built in to the boots. These allow him to fly. In one episode, Bulk overhears the secret magic word and also whispers it, briefly acquiring identical powers to SuperTed. However, he subsequently forgets the word.

The episodes take place all over the world (but quite often in Wales) and even in space (SuperTed is the owner of his own space station). He also has a tree house in an unspecified jungle.

SuperTed has many similarities to Captain Marvel. Like Captain Marvel, SuperTed gets his powers from saying a word. SuperTed’s costume is very similar to that of Captain Marvel. SuperTed was given his powers by a being known as Mother Nature, much like how Captain Marvel’s powers were given by the wizard Shazam.

Waynehead was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by American actor Damon Wayans and ran on Kids’ WB for the 1996-97 season. It is about a young child from a poor background with a clubfoot and was based on Wayans’ childhood in urban New York City. Actors cast in the show include Gary Coleman, Orlando Brown and Marlon Wayans. Waynehead lasted for only one season due to poor ratings. From 1997-2000, reruns aired on the Cartoon Network.

Hammerman is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by DiC Entertainment, which aired for one season (1991 - 1992) on ABC.

The program featured pop rapper MC Hammer as a youth center worker named Stanley Burrell (Hammer’s real name). Burell owns a pair of magical dancing shoes (which were alive and could speak), which when worn cause Burell to transform into the superhero Hammerman. He frequently gets advice from his “Gramps”, who was a former owner of the shoes and was known as Soulman. While in the guise of Hammerman, Burrell was dressed in MC Hammer’s signature purple parachute pants and myriad golden chains. The show was hosted by the real MC Hammer who also sang the show’s theme song, telling about the origin of Hammerman. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Gramps (real name unrevealed) was the superhero Soulman, but as he grew older, he grew weaker and was forced to retire. Gramps and his granddaughter Jodie traveled to find the next new superhero. Their search was over when they met Stanley and when he put on the shoes. Thirteen episodes of the program were produced.

Does this ever get less awesome? I think not.

End Credits:

Never one of my favorites. But I never missed an episode on Saturday morning in Kindergarden.

The opening theme song to Land of the Lost. Basically, it’s the start of a regular episode.
I watched it every Saturday