spacelord

Near Myth: The Oskar Knight Story can be described as a mockumentary, similar in to such films as This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, but in many ways it is so much more. Near Myth: The Oskar Knight Story details the life and films of the legendary director of the title. And it is often so convincing that the viewer can easily forget that Oskar Knight never actually existed. This is helped immensely by the real-life Hollywood personalities who appear throughout the film to discuss Oskar Knight, including Margaret O'Brien, Noel Neil., Jon Provost, Rudolf Martin,Sir David Suchet, and many others. At its core, Near Myth: The Oskar Knight Story is a love letter to Old Hollywood. Through the life and films of Oskar Knight, it acts as a tribute to every director.director, actor, or other artist who never got their due.

I remember watching episodes of My Mother, the Car many years ago on Trio and I did not have high hopes for it after that. That having been said, two of the episodes actually did impress me. When I saw it was online, then, I started watching episodes of the show. While I won't say it was a great show, it definitely was not a bad show! The cast is very appealing. Jerry Van Dyke and Avery Schreiber are very funny. And many of the episodes were quite inventive. I'm not sure I would say it was a classic, but I would say it is better than about half the sitcoms on the air now and far better than any of the reality shows aired in the past ten years! I now have to wonder if Trio did not select the worst episodes of the show's run to air, for whatever reason.

If the show was not that bad, then, why did it get its reputation as the worst show of all time? I have read many of the reviews from 1965 and it seems to me that the critics just could not get past the idea of someone's mother reincarnated as a car. True, by that point there had been shows about ghosts (Topper), a talking horse (Mister Ed), a Martian (My Favourite Martian), a robot (My Living Doll), and a witch (Bewitched), but in most of the reviews I have read from 1965 it seems the critics just seized upon the show's premise as a sure sign it was a bad show, even if from today's standpoint it doesn't seem that bizarre for the era. After all, it was only a few days after the debut of My Mother, the Car that a show about a genie debuted (I Dream of Jeannie)! I think My Mother, the Car just fell victim to bad press. The critics hated it and called it the worst show of all time. The show only lasted one season so it was not rerun for literally decades. As a result the label of "worst show of all time" stuck. I think this is a bit unfair. Okay, as I said, it is not a great show. It is not on the same level as, say, Bewitched or even I Dream of Jeannie, but it is an entertaining show that is generally well done and funny. It really needs to be reassessed!

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales was one of the best cartoons of the early Sixties. It was not only funny, but it was educational, too. And it had some great vocal talent--Don Adams (who provided the voice for Tennessee the same year he played Byron Glick on the Bill Dana Show), Larry Storch (almost unrecognizable as Phineas J. Whoopee), and Kenny Delmar (who played Senator Claghorn on radio). The animation was nothing to write home about, but they made up for it with witty and charming stories. I do have to point one thing out. This was not a Jay Ward production. It was produced by Total Television, also known as TTV. They were the people who would later produce Underdog. They used the same animation studio as Ward (Gamma Productions in Mexico) and had a similar style, not to mention both were sponsored by General Mills in a time when sponsors had a lot more power than they do now.