television

A sock and a sock; a shoe and a shoe

I found out about Rob Reiner’s death on Twitter, which seems to be how I find out about many famous people’s deaths. It’s the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning.

The first thing I saw about it was the “Sock and a sock, a shoe and a shoe” routine, which I remember seeing so many years ago. I remember the first time seeing it on All in the Family with my mother. She loved it and for years after she would always bring up, “a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe.”

If you cannot see the video above, it’s at YouTube here.

I hadn’t seen it in all these years and there it was on Twitter. Rob and Carroll O’Connor were so good together, a comedy team, which you don’t usually think of them as being.

Rob once said, “When you make something, it’s for everybody else, but the making of it is what you have for yourself.” He also said, “I hope I didn’t take up space [in this life].

So many obits start off by giving Rob credit of the movies he was involved in, but so many of us remember him as “Meathead” on All in the Family, which was the number one tv show for so many years in the 1970s; it was a big part of the culture at the time. Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker, Gloria Bunker Stivic and Meathead (Michael Stivic).

My mother used to cut my hair at one point in time, I don’t know why, I think I just didn’t want to go to the barber. So she would cut my hair, and we would do an Archie Bunker routine then.

She would ask how I wanted my hair cut, and I would say, “Without blood, ma, without blood.” Which is what Archie said to Edith one time when she was cutting his hair.

Then I would tell mom to “go around the back, come back to the top and trim and for gawd sake, when you come to an ear, stop!” I would pronounce God like “gawd,” the way Archie said it.

When I would drone on and on with my long stories, my mother would cut me off by doing another Archie routine – she would pantomime loading a gun and shooting herself in the head or she would pantomime making a noose and hanging herself – just like Archie did when Edith told long, boring stories . Archie would also pantomime overdosing on pills and slitting his wrists.

Here are a few of the pantomimes above.

If you cannot see the video above, it’s here on Youtube.

My mom had a terrific sense of humor. So did my dad. So did Rob Reiner.

Till next time . . .

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Columbo solving crimes today

I was watching an old Columbo rerun the other night and this idea came to me. How would it be these days where Columbo had to solve a murder?

With security cameras all over, he wouldn’t have to do much. It would almost be a 30 second TikTok video.

I did a Columbo cartoon awhile back, where he is asking Siri for the answer to the crime. But now with ring cameras and security cameras in every business and in so many homes, that’s a big help for solving crimes.

There’s a tv show I like called, See No Evil. It’s one of those murder shows in the I.D. Channel. They solve murders by following the cameras.

What I mean is, they track the killer through his steps shown on security camers – seeing his car through a gas station security cameras, then from a motel camera, then across the road from a supermarket or bank camera, etc. We’re always on camera.

My mother used to always say that Columbo solved crimes through circumstantial evidence – never concrete proof. But he managed to do it week after week.

After seeing so many reruns, I can always tell that he knows the murder from the start. From his first question, he knows who it is. What’s interesting about the show is that you see the murderer commit the murder at the beginning of the show, then Columbo comes in and does his thing.

When I was a kid we watched all those shows including Murder She Wrote, McCloud, McMillan and Wife and of course Columbo which was always my favorite.

Here’s another Columbo cartoon; I’ve done a number of them. You can see all my cartoons, not just Columbo, but everything at TomFalco.com

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Our TV Channel Shake-Up

We may be switching tv channels again in Miami.

In the 1980s this happened twice, what I mean is that the affiliates – ABC, NBC, CBS changed channel numbers – twice.

Well, not, ABC, that always remained channel 10; but now it looks like Channel 10 will not be showing ABC and the weird thing is that Channel 7 will pick up ABC. The reason it is weird is because Channel 7 is now Fox. But it will remain Fox.

At one point, that song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” played incessantly on all tv channels to tell us about the channel changes and not worry about it.

Channel 7 will remain Fox and Channel 7.2 will become ABC. Crazy, right?

When I was a kid, Channel 4 was CBS, then it became NBC now is CBS again. Channel 6 was an independent channel that showed reruns like I Love Lucy and the Adams Family, then it became CBS and now is NBC. I remember watching Dallas on CBS 6 at the time.

Channel 7 started out as NBC and then became independent and then Fox.

Channel 10 was always ABC and now will be nothing, I guess.

Our PBS stations – 2 and 17, stayed like they were – stable. So far.

I’m in NY a lot and sometimes I’ll put on Channel 2 to watch PBS, but there it is Channel 13. I’ll realize it after a few minutes and then switch over.

The tv channel game.

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