Top 4: Daily Show Correspondents

I've had this list in mind for a while, but the #4 spot has been giving me headaches. But, as they say, without further gilding the lily and no more ado, here's the list:

#4. John Oliver (2006-present): Obviously, he's the new guy, so after only a year to put a guy ahead of many funny correspondents who've lasted much longer is tough. But he's very much become the go to guy. For a while, it seemed like he was on the show every night, and he was funny every time. They were actually running the risk of John Oliver burnout, but thankfully have backed off a little and he's usually not on more than twice in a week these days.

So far, I think he only has the one recurring segment: Wilmore-Oliver investigates, with "Senior Black Correspondent" Larry Wilmore. It's been quite good the few times they've trotted it out, but I get the feeling Oliver is kept so busy with his in-studio bits that he doesn't have too much opportunity for the field work. In any event, I'm sure that if he sticks around for a while, he'll be remembered as one of the best The Daily Show has ever had.


#3. Beth Littleford (1996-2000): Craig Kilborn pales in comparison to Jon Stewart, obviously, and the entire show improved when the switch was made. While Stewart's Daily Show is highly political, the Kilborn version felt more like a local news satire, with more emphasis on "wacky" stories, entertainment news, and more regular field reports from the correspondents. And Beth Littleford, as the best of the original cast, helped establish the faux-sincere tone that has become a staple of the show ever since.

#2. Steve Carell (1999-2004): A veteran of the Chicago improv scene and cast member of 1996's brilliant but quickly cancelled The Dana Carvey Show, Carell joined The Daily Show in 1999, and was an immediate hit, eventually launching the big TV and movie career he's enjoying today. He took a slightly different approach on The Daily Show, while most every other correspondent went with a satirical tone, mocking their subjects, Carell frequently turned the mockery on himself, playing an ignorant reporter trying desperately to hide his stupidity, and often unable to keep the struggles of his personal life out of his stories.

#1. Stephen Colbert (1997-2005): The obvious choice, and the only choice for #1, Colbert also came to the show from Chicago improv and had appeared with Steve Carell on The Dana Carvey Show. Upon his arrival in 1997, he was "the new guy," a title he would retain for Craig Kilborn's entire run on the show, but by the time Jon Stewart took over, Colbert was the go to guy, and remained the best contributor to the show until he moved on to the equally brilliant Colbert Report. Between This Week in God, Even Stephven (with Carell), his regular field reports, and his in studio bits with Stewart, Colbert was easily the best of the bunch.

Just for kicks, one of my favorite Even Stephvens, featuring #1 and #2:

Honorable Mention: Mo Rocca, Ed Helms, Rob Corddry.

Continued....

Top 4: Random Thoughts

I haven't written anything in a while, largely out of laziness. So here's the disorganized Top 4 things on my mind right now, with some rare music content.

#4. Teri Garr was totally hot in Young Frankenstein. Always lovely, and a genuinely funny actress (a rare combination), but I never think of her as actually sexy in any other role. Why this one, I'm not sure, but it's probably one of these things: she wears a lot of low cut tops, she's a lab assistant which plays right into my nerdy-hot tastes, or that German accent. But whatever it is, it's a wonderful thing. And Young Frankenstein's one of the funniest movies ever made, so it's lovely icing on a hilarious cake. Sadly, it's being turned into a Broadway musical, which kinda feels like Michael Jordan coming out of retirement to play for the Wizards.


#3. John from Cincinnati has the best theme music on TV.



The show itself is kind of a mess. Flashes of brilliance, but whiny characters and a general sense of "what the hell is the point of all this?" are dragging everything down. But "Johnny Appleseed" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros is a great song and a good fit for the series.

#2. The Avett Brothers rock.



Except they're not playing rock at all. My musical tastes are pretty broad, but I still never would've thought I'd be recommending a band that bears any resemblance to bluegrass, yet here I am. It's just three guys, a bass, a guitar, and a banjo, but their sound can be plenty powerful.

#1. All the best summer movies came out in a row. I haven't seen every major release or everything, but I've seen a bunch, and it had been a fairly disappointing summer for me. Then over the past two weeks, this summer redeemed itself. Live Free or Die Hard was a pleasant surprise. It was better than the second one, funny, exciting, and ridiculously over the top without being silly. Transformers wasn't perfect, but with Michael Bay at the helm I was afraid of Pearl Harbor or The Island. Instead, we didn't have an entirely bad plot to fill in the gaps between scenes of hot robot-on-robot action. And then Ratatouille really blew me away. It will probably end up being the best movie of the summer.


Brad Bird had previously written and directed Iron Giant and The Incredibles, two movies that appealed directly to my geeky nature with big robots and superheroes, but this time he went for rats and cooking, which is a harder sell. It's not a movie that's easily described, but it works on every level. The kids in the theatre seemed enthralled (except for two little brats who were screaming and kicking seats while their parents seemed to think it was no big deal), the adults had plenty of laughs and a nice story, and the animation, as always, was beautiful. After a pretty disappointing effort in Cars, Pixar is back on track.

Honorable Mention: Era Vulgaris, the new Queens of the Stone Age album, made a poor first impression on me at first, but it's growing on me in a big way. Flight of the Conchords is considerably funnier than Entourage these days (though last night's Entourage wasn't bad).

Continued....

Top 4: TV Comedies of the 80s

The 80s were a wonderful decade for comedy. TV censors became more and more relaxed, but political correctness hadn't arrived on the scene yet. Networks weren't competing with cable and the internet, and the more captive audience let them keep quality but low-rated shows around longer. And the theme song was still around! Plus, I was a kid, so I was an easier laugh back then. So what were the top four comedies of the 1980s? Two constraints: only half hour shows, so no Wonder Years (the line is blurred these days between comedy and drama, so I'd rather split it by length, something the Emmys should do), and only shows with the bulk of their run in the 80s, so no Simpsons.

#4. The Golden Girls - So why, as an eight year old boy, would I be watching a show about a group of old women? I have no idea. But I was, and you know what? They were really funny. And educational! I had no idea what menopause, Medicare, and lesbians (not to be confused with Lebanese) were before watching this show, so it was like hanging around with the cool kid who knew what all the swear words meant, only in this case the cool kid was a 70 year old woman.

But of course that's not what defines a good comedy. For me, it's mostly about character, casting, and jokes. Bea Arthur's Dorothy was the most important character of the show, both because for all the jokes at the expense of her looks I've heard, she's a truly gifted comedic actress, and becaus her relationships with her friends and her mother (and on occasion her ex-husband Stan) that kept everything moving. Add Estelle Getty and Betty White on top of that, and it's hard to go wrong (I can't say I was ever a Rue McClanahan fan, though). The jokes were frequent and funny, with a "Back in St. Olaf..." here, a "Picture it: Sicily, 1941..." there, and plenty of snide remarks from Dorothy to fill in the gaps. And since I mentioned theme songs up top, who can't still sing "Thank You for Being a Friend" by heart?


#3. The Cosby Show - He's become a target frequent parody and may be thought of more for his controversial political thoughts than anything else these days, but for much of the 1980s, he was the most beloved entertainer in the country, and as David Letterman once said, "Every time Bill Cosby sneezed, NBC made a million bucks." And is there any wonder why?

Who could forget the zrbtt, the Gordon Gartrelle, Cockroach, Bud (who was played by Deon Richmond and not Dule Hill), the family lip synching to Ray Charles' Night Time is the Right Time", or the time Cliff gave a horsey ride to Peter, Rudy's little fat friend? All great. The only reason the show slides this far down is that things turned ugly the longer it went on. The kids got older and less cute, so the brought in Raven Symone to Cousin Oliver-ify the show, the stories started to get weak, and I stopped watching entirely. But for a while, it didn't get much better than The Cosby Show.


#2. Family Ties - Following The Cosby Show, interestingly enough, is exactly what Family Ties did for many years, not only on NBC's schedule, but in the Nielsen ratings, where it was the second most watched show on television for several years. The Keatons, Stephen, Elyse, Alex P., Mallory, Jennifer, and later Andy, were the kind of family you wanted to be in, but they were more real than the Cleavers or other idyllic TV families of the past. And of course they got a lot of mileage out of the premise of hippie parents with a Reagan-worshipping son. And supporting characters added some nice touches. Skippy, Nick Moore, and Alex's various love interests (including a young, hot, Courteney Cox) all provided laughs as well as occasional serious moments.

Speaking of which, Family Ties specialized in the "very special episode" (sitcom episodes with a heavy-handed moral, usually about something like drugs, suicide, teen pregnancy, etc). It almost seems like every episode was a very special one. The time Alex tried to stay awake to cram for a test and got hooked on diet pills, when Skippy discovered he was adopted and tracked down his birth mother, or the time Alex acted out memories of his dead friend on a blacked out stage with a single spotlight, delivering angst-ridden monologues to a disembodied therapist voice in between scenes. But unlike some of the stupider VSE's (Saved by the Bell's diet pill addicted Jesse Spano and her "I"m so excited!" being perhaps the stupidest and unintentionally funniest ever), when Family Ties got serious, it wasn't campy or silly. From start to finish, it was a sweet, warm, and funny show. Sha la la la.

#1. Cheers - Growing up in Massachusetts, I was inclined to like a show where the main character was a former Red Sox pitcher. But it wasn't just the Boston connection. With a wide array of local stations available to me, I could technically watch Cheers at 4:00, 4:30, 5:30, 7:00, 7:30, 11:00 (which had a choice of two episodes), and 11:30 Monday through Friday from the late '80s to the mid-90s. Plus, on Thursdays, new episodes. And I never got tired of them. I didn't care if it was a Coach episode or one with Woody, Diane or Rebecca, they were all good.

The place where everybody knows your name evolved a lot over its eleven seasons. Early on, it was largely concerned with social issues, addressing class conflict by contrasting elitist snob Diane with the blue collar slobs at the bar, daringly doing an episode about homosexuality in 1983, and occasionally touching on alcoholism. Later, the series became more farcical. Physical comedy, bizarre situations, and Cliff's insanity taken to new levels (Hitler living in his apartment building is a personal favorite). But through it all, the show was hilarious.

Strangely, from 1984-1987, Cheers aired on NBC Thursday nights after both Family Ties and The Cosby Show (and followed by Night Court and Hill Street Blues/L.A. Law), so naturally I was glued to the TV on Thursdays in the mid-80s.

Honorable Mention: Night Court, Newhart, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Perfect Strangers.

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Ubiquitous Canadian Actresses

After previously discussing the Top Four Canadian actors who constantly pop up on TV series filmed in Canada, it only seems fair to cover the ladies. Incidentally, these are in order of how often they seem to appear when I watch shows filmed in Canada, not ranked by acting quality or attributes that a superficial man might consider important, though they are all both lovely and talented. Anyway, on with the list:


#4. Jewel Staite - Widely known to fans of quality television as the adorable Kaylee from Firefly and the subsequent Serenity movie (neither filmed in Canada), Jewel Staite has actually had a long career in television. As young as 12, she was making guest appearances in Canadian-filmed shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The X-Files, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, Da Vinci's Inquest, Dead Like Me, the pilot of Huff (I think after the pilot, the show moved to LA, but the pilot was definitely a Vancouver shoot), and Stargate: Atlantis.

She also had a great recurring role on Wonderfalls as the slutty nemesis of the main character in the last few episodes. Sadly, none of her episodes made it to air since the series was seemingly cancelled beffore the opening credits had finished on episode one, but her appearances made it to the DVD, which is worth at least a spot on your Netflix queue.


#3. Erica Cerra - She's kind of hard to miss these days on the SciFi channel, with a minor recurring role as Maya (who was given custody of Hera) on Battlestar Galactica, and costarring on Eureka as the tough, sexy, and heavily armed Deputy Jo.

According to her imdb bio, she had been a child actor but quit acting for a while, only returning when she was 22 in 2001, and quickly built up a lengthy resume. Since 2003, in addition to the above, she's logged guest appearances on Black Sash, Dead Like Me, Jake 2.0, The Dead Zone, the Huff pilot, The 4400, Smallville, and The L Word.

#2. Missy Peregrym - Lots of TV viewers will recognize her from her role as Candace on Heroes this year. Others from the gymnastics movie Stick It that she starred in last year. Others still will not care if they recognize her or what from, and just enjoy the picture. I'm pretty sure that if she hadn't suddenly become a (relative) star, she'd have ascended to #1 on this list. But in any case, prior to Stick It, she was a staple on Canadian-filmed TV.

I first noticed her on Black Sash, a short-lived (and lousy) WB series about a martial arts school where she played one of the students. At that point, she'd already appeared on Jake 2.0, The Chris Isaak Show, and Dark Angel. She followed Black Sash up with a few more guest spots (Smallville, Tru Calling, and Andromeda) before landing another lead in Life as We Know It. I was a fan of the latter series, which wasn't without its flaws, but it was an interesting take on a teen drama. Plus... she's hot.

#1. Keegan Connor Tracy - Admittedly, she first caught my attention from a somewhat racy Stuff Magazine spread, and like Missy Peregrym, she's a very fine looking woman, but she's here because I see her on TV all the time. Her most notable TV role was on Jake 2.0, as the nerdy-hot scientist who played Q to the protagonist's James Bond (or perhaps more accurately, Bonnie to his KITT), but before and since, she's been hard to miss on TV.

With appearances on First Wave, The Net, Millenium, Viper (a show that was a lot like Knight Rider, Street Hawk, or Airwolf, only this one was underwritten by Dodge), Night Man, Seven Days (that awful UPN time travelling show with Anthony LaPaglia's brother), Strange Frequency, Dark Angel, Da Vinci's Inquest, The 4400, Stargate: SG-1, Supernatural, Psych, and most recently at the end of the third season of Battlestar Galactica, in a role that seems like it might show up in season four as well. And she's still managed to find time to appear in movies like Duets, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and Final Destination 2.

Honorable Mention: Sarah Lind, Grace Park.

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Top 4: Animated Series Based on Comic Books

From Spiderman and His Amazing Friends to The Superfriends, my childhood was filled with cartoons based on popular comic book characters, but putting nostalgia aside, most of the series before about 1990 are painful to watch now. The animation is cheap, the voice actors over emote every line, the stories are repetitive, and the dialogue is written to ensure that even the slowest 5 year old doesn't miss a single plot point. But in the late 80s and early 90s, cartoons started to raise the bar by including actually interesting plots, non-campy dialogue, and skilled voice acting.

#4. X-Men: The Animated Series - In 1992, Fox added this faithful adaptation of Marvel's X-Men to their "Fox Kids" Saturday morning lineup, and it was quickly one of my favorites. It featured a mix of classic and newer X-Men team members, with Xavier, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee serving as the main team members for the run of the series. It drew not only on heroes and villains (Magneto, Juggernaut, Apocalypse, and Mr. Sinister, to name a few), but on classic X-Men storylines as well. The Phalanx Covenant, Legacy Virus, Days of Future Past, and Dark Phoenix Saga all inspired prominent arcs of the series.

Dark and dramatic, with much more adult themes than traditional Saturday morning cartoons (addressing divorce, religion, and intolerance), it became one of the top rated series in the Fox Kids lineup. After a few spectacular seasons, however, things started to fall apart. The plots started to become more and more far fetched, the Soap Opera Continuity started to become distracting, and, in the fifth and final season, production was moved to a new studio with a dramatic dropoff in the quality of the animation and voice acting. But for a few years, X-Men was as good as anything, introducing a new generation (including me) to the Marvel universe.


#3. The Tick - 17 year old Ben Edlund created the Tick in 1986 for a local comic book shop, and soon it was a hit underground comic book (the original 12 books can often still be found in print from New England Comics and they're very much worth the read). An astonishingly stupid and nigh-invulnerable big blue pile of muscles, leaping from building to building with his moth-suited accountant sidekick Arthur in the pursuit of evil-doers, it was an undeniably funny take on superheroes and the conventions of their world. In 1994, Fox brought the Tick to television, and Edlund oversaw production of the series, which, aside from dropping a few not-for-kids elements (like the Tick being an escaped mental patient), retained the look and feel of the comics, and was hilariously absurd.

Sadly, The Tick lasted only 36 episodes, but partly because of its short run, every episode was a classic. It's only recently starting to show up on DVD, with the second season due out later this summer. In 2001, there was a live action series on Fox starring Patrick Warburton (Putty from Seinfeld), also featuring the writing talents of Ben Edlund and several other of the animated series' writers, but unfortunately the copyright for several of the animated series' characters belonged to the production studio, so many of the live action characters had to be ripoffs of their own characters (Die Fledermaus and American Maid became Batmanuel and Captain Liberty, for example). The live action version lasted only one season (available on DVD), and Edlund would go on to co-write the movie Titan A.E. and work on a number of television series (Angel, Firefly, The Inside, Point Pleasant, (Tick writer Jackson Publick's creation) The Venture Bros., and Supernatural).

#2. Justice League/Justice League Unlimited - After a number of successful series based on DC Comics' properties, the creative team behind the DC Animated Universe (or "Timmverse", named after Bruce Timm, who's had his hands in all the series in this universe) decided to tackle the Justice League for the Cartoon Network, the team of superheroes combining forces to defend the earth from its greatest threats. In the first two seasons, which ran from 2001 to 2004, it featured Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl. It told a series of ambitious stories in two and three episode installments, but while it was a solid effort, it never really impressed me all that much. Apparently, it had the same affect on audiences, as the third season took the show in a while new direction.

Retitled Justice League Unlimited, the series not only incorporated dozens of other characters from the DC Universe (Green Arrow, the Atom, Captain Marvel, Zatanna, the Question, and Supergirl, among many, many others), but ditched the three parters for mostly self contained single episode stories that contributed to a season long arc (Buffy-style). Most episodes centered around a small group of heroes, sometimes major players (like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in the adaptation of my favorite Superman story, For the Man Who Has Everything), sometimes virtual unknowns (Shining Knight, Crimson Avenger, Vigilante, and Speedy in "Patriot Act"). Compared to the "limited" first two seasons, he storytelling was a lot more focused, sometimes darker, and all around a lot better. Justice League (which I don't especially recommend) and Justice League Unlimited (which I strongly endorse) are available on separately titled (and separately numbered) DVD sets.


#1. Batman: The Animated Series - In 1992, partly to capitalize on the then still-successful Batman movie franchise, Fox began Batman: The Animated Series on weekday afternoons. It was immediately apparent that this was something new, different, and special. Many of the backgrounds were painted on black paper, a highly unusual practice that helped make Gotham feel like an appropriate setting for the Dark Knight. The technology and style of everything had an odd retro-futuristic quality. Scientists built robots and the police had a fleet of blimps, but Gotham TV broadcast in black and white, mobsters used tommy guns, and everything had an art deco style to it. And it wasn't just the visuals, the series had an orchestral score (based in part on the Danny Elfman theme to the 1989 Batman movie) and brilliant voice casting (Mark Hamill as The Joker and Richard Moll (Bull from Night Court) as Harvey Dent are two performances I hope the people behind The Dark Knight are aware of).

With decades of comics to draw from, the stories took full advantage of Batman's massive rogue's gallery, including the major players (The Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, etc), the minor players (The Clock King, Killer Croc, etc), and a few new ones. The series was so well received, that some of the ideas from the animated series made their way into the comics, from Harley Quinn, the Joker's jester costumed girlfriend, to Mr. Freeze's more sympathetic backstory and abandonment of the campy demeanor that had been with him since his inception. And comic book geeks are normally first in line to trash any adaptation of their precious characters, so when they embrace a tv adaptation, you know it's pretty good.

The series was retitled and restylized several times, but I consider the first 85 episodes (plus the two movies, Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero) to be part of this series, and the New Batman Adventures that ran as part of the The New Batman/Superman Adventures to be separate. But in any case, DVDs of the series are available and definitely worth checking out.

Honorable Mention - Duckman (based on a Dark Horse comic, it's a series that's almost completely forgotten these days despite being pretty funny at times), Spider-Man (the 1994 one, which poorly mixed CGI and traditional animation, but was pretty faithful to the comics otherwise), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (seriously, go back and watch it, it doesn't hold up as well as the top 4, but it has some jokes that still work, the dialogue isn't dreadful like other cartoons of that era).

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Top 4: Ubiquitous Canadian Actors

Not actors born in Canada, cause that would just be boring. If you watch enough science fiction on TV, or even low budget television in general, you start to notice that the same people pop up again and again on a specific group of shows. The reason? Most TV production is done in the Los Angeles area, but it's expensive there, so some have fled north to Canada, usually in the Vancouver area. The stars of these shows are usually American, but it'd be expensive to cast the bit parts and guest stars in LA and fly them north, so they usually find actors for those roles locally. But the talent pool is thin. Not to say that there aren't good actors, there just aren't as many, so even with fewer available jobs in Canada than there are in the US, these guys are on TV a lot. And enough came to mind that I'll be making a separate top 4 for actresses (or am I supposed to say "female actors"? that just seems lame).


#4. Richard Kahan: A disturbing number of younger Canadian actors and actresses got their start on a show called Edgemont, which was made for Canadian television but eventually showed up on cable here and I watched for some reason. It was a high school drama that featured incredibly low production values, absolutely no one on screen over 25 (no teachers, no parents, and only a couple of characters out of high school), and some painfully bad acting. Among those who could hold their own (including Smallville's Kristin Kreuk and Battlestar Galactica's Grace Park, who played a lesbian, but not in the awesome way many of her fans would like it to be) was Richard Kahan. His character grew from a minor role to a fairly prominent one, I think largely based on how much better he was than some of his costars.

After Edgemont, he landed guest roles on several Vancouver productions: Da Vinci's Inquest, Reunion, Stargate: Atlantis, Masters of Horror, and Supernatural, but is probably best known to American audiences as Marco Pacella, the NTAC science nerd on The 4400.

#3. Neil Grayston - Another guy who I first saw on Edgemont, but I first recognized his brilliance on the short lived series Wonderfalls, where he had a recurring role as a moronic store clerk named Alec, generally referred to as "the mouth breather." Wonderfalls is one of the few shows among any of these guys which wasn't filmed in the Vancouver area. For obvious reasons (the main character worked in a gift shop at Niagara Falls), production stayed around Toronto.

Aside from Wonderfalls, Grayston has appeared in U.C.: Undercover, Da Vinci's Inquest, Jeremiah, Smallville, Dead Like Me, The Dead Zone, and Supernatural. Currently, he has a supporting role on SciFi's Eureka as Douglas Fargo, the amusingly nerdy lackey at Global Dynamics.

#2. Nicholas Lea - Lea's been around long enough to at least look familiar to a lot of people, but most who actually recognize him will know him as Alex Krycek, a recurring villain on The X-Files, the first Vancouver production that I was aware was Vancouverian (edit: apparently the word is "Vancouverite"). Lea's been a staple in Canadian-filmed TV for fifteen years, with guest roles on The Commish, Highlander: The Series, Sliders, The Outer Limits, Andromeda, Whistler, and more recently on Kyle XY and Men in Trees. And those are just the shows I've heard of. He's also headed down to LA for an occasional non-Canadian role, and been in quite a few movies, but none, as far as I can tell, worth mentioning.

#1. Martin Cummins - I think this guy knows someone in the office that grants permits to film in British Columbia, because it seems like you can't film a TV show there without at least having him on once. His first major role was in 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan, which was ironically filmed in Canada. From there, he began a long and impressive career as a TV actor, making him, in my opinion, the King of Vancouver television. Most recognizable either as Ames White, the main villain from Dark Angel's second season, or as Nick Boyle on Poltergeist - The Legacy. I also remember him fondly as the hockey coach from Life As We Know It, the short-lived ABC teen drama which mostly received press at the time for co-starring Kelly Osbourne (but don't let that scare you off, she's not that bad), but it was created by some of the writers of Freaks and Geeks (ones you've never heard of, not Judd Apatow), introduced Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars's Piz, and from the Grey's Anatomy spinoff), and featured other Canadian standout Missy Peregrym, who showed up on Heroes this year, and might end up on the Ubiquitous Canadian Actress list, if/when I get around to it.

But back to Martin Cummins. He's also made appearances on Vancouver series My Secret Identity (remember that one? A young (but no longer Stand By Me fat) Jerry O'Connell got blasted with radiation by the guy who played Andy Andy on Cheers and developed superpowers), 21 Jump Street (who would've thought Johnny Depp would end up more successful than Peter DeLuise? Oh, right... everyone), The Commish, Highlander, M.A.N.T.I.S. (Carl Lumbly, Dixon from Alias, in a sort of Iron Man ripoff), the 1990s version of The Outer Limits, Strange Frequency (a VH1 series that was supposed to be a "Rock 'N' Roll Twilight Zone", but it turned out to be more of a "crappy show"), Stargate SG-1, Black Sash (which starred the aforementioned Missy Peregrym), a recurring role on Smallville (once appearing alongside Missy Peregrym again), The Mountain, and Reunion. So, basically, everything. Almost all the roles I remember him in has him playing either a bad guy, some sort of government agent, or both, and he's actually pretty good in those parts.

Honorable Mention: Dominic Zamprogna (Jammer on Battlestar Galactica, and he was the lead character on Edgemont), Donnelly Rhodes (the Doctor from Battlestar Galactica has a huge number of Vancouver credits, but he's kinda cheating cause he was a successful actor for years and years before starting in on Canadian shows).

Continued....

Top 4: Celebrity Crushes of 1980-1985

This is easily my most random list to date, but I read an article that mentioned WKRP earlier, which lead immediately to the list forming in my mind. I was very young in this time period, not even 10, but I vividly remember finding these women appealing.


#4. Jan Smithers - Loni Anderson's Jennifer Marlowe got all the attention on WKRP in Cincinnati, but my eye was always on Bailey Quarters. I was never a huge fan of the show, and I only remember it on syndication, but I always lingered on an episode long enough to catch a glimpse or two of Ms. Smithers. My affinity for nerdy-hot types obviously developed at an early age, and I still love women in glasses, though generally not specs as big, goofy, and Sally-Jesse Raphael-like as hers. Not long after WKRP ended, she married James Brolin (I'd be jealous, but he's now stuck with Barbra Streisand) and dropped off the radar entirely, which is a shame, but she'll live on forever now that WKRP is out on DVD.

#3. Erin Gray - Now who fills out a ridiculous looking space suit better than Erin Gray? A model since her teens in the 60s (even appearing in the 1969 SI Swimsuit Issue), she moved into acting in the late 70s. She landed the part of Col. Wilma Deering on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1979, spending a full two years prancing around in the aforementioned silly costume before moving on to Silver Spoons, where she played the motherly Kate for 5 seasons. Since then, she's kept busy with acting, popping up now and then on various TV shows, and for a woman pushing 60, she's still looking pretty darn good.

#2 Carrie Fisher - Well she'd have to be on this list. When Jabba the Hutt dressed Princess Leia into the slave girl outfit in Return of the Jedi, geeks everywhere fell in love with Carrie Fisher (if they hadn't already). Or at least they fell in lust with her. Thank you, George Lucas. Since then, things haven't gone so well for Carrie Fisher, though. Even though she kept her acting career going and did some writing as well, she's had a number of personal issues to deal with: bipolar disorder, substance abuse problems, a divorce, and a long term relationship ending when her boyfriend (and father of her child) left her for a man... yikes. Today, she kinda looks like a woman who's had a rough life. But we'll always have those precious moments in Jabba's palace to remember her by.

#1. Lynda Carter - It takes a special kind of woman to pull off that costume (I've seen a few actresses wear it, but Rachel Bilson is the only other one who didn't look awful in it). Ok, so technically Wonder Woman ended its run in 1979, but it was still on in syndication, and she was active in various TV projects throughout the 80s. More recently, she popped up in the The Dukes of Hazzard movie, and a recent episode of Smallville as Chloe's mother. And at 55, she's still a fine looking woman.

The only real question here wass whether Carrie Fisher or Lynda Carter would be on top (ha!), and if I'd written this on another day, I might've reversed them. Not that you can really go wrong either way.

Honorable Mention: Pam Dawber (Mork & Mindy), Jaclyn Smith (Charlie's Angels), Catherine Bach (Dukes of Hazard), Kim Fields (Facts of Life, and who I almost put in my top 4 to make myself not feel racist, but I'd rather give my honest answers and blame my lack of diversity on TV and movie executives of the time).

Continued....