Podcast Tuesday: "Legend of the Black Widow"

Joanna Lee lines up a shot in The Other Sister.

When asked about his favorite episodes of Happy Days, producer Garry Marshall mentioned the show's so-called "very special episodes" that dealt with more serious situations. When Garry was a young writer on such lighthearted sitcoms as The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show in the 1960s, these topics might have been off-limits to him. But TV changed drastically in the 1970s, especially because of the popularity of Norman Lear's controversial sitcoms like All in the Family, Maude, and Good Times. Those shows were not afraid of tackling uncomfortable topics, and they got good ratings. So the major networks decided to discuss such previously-taboo subjects as disease and mental illness in their prime time comedies. Garry took full advantage, as he explained in a career-spanning archival interview:

With Happy Days, we could do all the pressure group stuff that we couldn't do in some of the other situations, that were not done in the Van Dyke/Lucy days. So it became, you know, philosophically, while you have the audience's attention, you might as well say something. So then we did all our series of pressure groups in a good sense. We did our diabetes show, we did our mentally challenged show, our hard-of-hearing show, whatever that was, the blind challenge. I don't know the politically correct things, but we did all the shows that pointed out to the audience that you could overcome a handicap. You could do all these things.

Did that philosophy carry over into Garry's movies? To an extent, sure. His characters dealt with serious, life-threatening illnesses in Nothing in Common (1986) and Beaches (1988). There was at least one terminally-ill child in Dear God (1996). That film was mostly a feel-good comedy, but it had a preachy side, too, with its message about helping the poor, lonely, and depressed even when you're poor, lonely, and depressed yourself.

However, with his 1999 romantic comedy The Other Sister, Garry really went for it. It's a "very special episode" in movie form, complete with a message about overcoming a handicap. Yet again, he lined up a very impressive cast, including Juliette Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi, Diane Keaton, and Tom Skerritt. This was obviously a project very close to Garry's heart, since he cowrote the screenplay himself with Happy Days scribe Bob Brunner. 

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that film and our reaction to it. We'd love for you to join us.

My Month of Bowie, day 16: 'Tonight' (1984)

Did David Bowie repeat the success of Let's Dance with Tonight?

The album: Tonight (EMI America, 1984)

Bowie prays for an Auntie Anne's pretzel.

My thoughts: What was it about white British rockers and reggae music? Between the 1960s and the 1980s, they all took a sacred pledge to try it at least once. Remember that it was Eric Clapton, not Bob Marley, who topped the charts with "I Shot the Sheriff." But they all dabbled, everyone from Elton John and Paul McCartney to The Police and The Clash. I guess that, in 1984, it was finally David Bowie's turn. I'd like to imagine that he got an ominous letter in the mail with a picture of a skull with dreadlocks on the envelope. On the inside, there was a note reading: "YOU'RE NEXT." So he dutifully went into the studio and recorded his album, Tonight.

Bowie's sixteenth studio LP does not have a great critical reputation, and before embarking on this project, I was largely unaware of it. At the time of its release, the album did what it needed to do: sell some copies and keep David Bowie in the public eye for another year. He retained a lot of the personnel from Let's Dance (1983) but not producer Nile Rodgers. The result was a collection of what I'd call shopping mall music. Most of Tonight sounds like what you'd hear while picking out a new blazer at Chess King. Each copy should have come with a coupon for Orange Julius or Sbarro. Some of the slower, more sensual tracks could work as background music in a Cinemax softcore porn movie. 

Bowie himself trudges through the nine songs like Eeyore on quaaludes. I'm not sure what Bowie's sobriety situation was in 1984, but maybe he needed to get back on coke. So what are the points of interest this time around? Well, we have a seven-minute opening epic called "Loving the Alien." And could there be a more perfect title for a David Bowie song? There was even a posthumously-released Bowie box set by that name in 2018, plus a 1998 Bowie biography by Christopher Sandford. The song itself is decent, but I wasn't wild about the very '80s arrangement and production. I wish David could have recorded this track with his '70s band.

What else do we have here? Tina Turner shows up on the title track. That's nice, even if the song is a little bland for my taste. David's rowdiest pal, Iggy Pop, swings by for the album-closing "Dancing with the Big Boys," which sounds like a prototype for Peter Gabriel's "Big Time." Elsewhere on the album, "Neighborhood Threat" sounds a lot like Danny Elfman's theme song for the sitcom Sledge Hammer! (1986-1988). They may even use the same drum machine, for all I know.

I suppose the song that caught my attention the most was David's mournful cover of "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys. I hadn't even glanced at the track listing for Tonight, so I didn't know the song was coming. Bowie slows the song way down and sings it as a dirge. Does it work? I can't really say, though it's more entertaining than most of Tonight. Again, I wish he'd done this same song maybe ten years earlier in his career.

I don't want to give the impression that Tonight is a catastrophe or an embarrassment. It's fine to have playing in the background at a party or something, even if "God Only Knows" might kill the vibe under such circumstances. What it lacks is urgency. "Blue Jean" isn't even his best "Jean" song. (That's "Jean Genie" on 1973's Aladdin Sane.) David was running dangerously low on inspiration when he cut this album, but EMI America must have needed something to fill a hole in their release schedule. Tonight is a take-it-or-leave-it album. I'm leaving it, personally, but I wouldn't blame you for taking it.

Next: Never Let Me Down (1987)

My Month of Bowie, day 15: 'Let's Dance' (1983)

In 1983, David Bowie wanted his MTV, and the feeling was mutual.

The album: Let's Dance (EMI America, 1983)

Bowie's gonna fly now.

My thoughts: You'd probably guess that legacy artists of the 1960s and 1970s had a tough time of it in the 1980s. In short order, the basic cable network MTV drastically changed the music industry, making instant superstars out of flashily-dressed young synth rockers with teased hair and heavy makeup. Suddenly, the music video was the format of choice, emphasizing style and image over substance. Surely, then, the decade would belong to the Adam Ants and Boy Georges of the world. The obsolete rock and pop acts who had dominated the charts in previous decades would be sidelined to make room for these brash upstarts.

And yet, look at what actually happened in the 1980s. Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, both well established by the time Reagan took office, reached unprecedented heights of popularity in the new decade. Pop tunesmiths like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Paul McCartney didn't disappear from the charts either. Potential '70s dinosaurs like Yes, Genesis, Chicago, and Heart overhauled their sound to better suit the times. Legacy acts like Steve Winwood, The Moody Blues, and especially Aerosmith staged impressive comebacks. Nostalgia-themed films like Back to the Future (1985), Stand by Me (1986), Dirty Dancing (1987), and La Bamba (1987) kept classic rock alive on radio and TV.

In short, the past didn't go away. It was everywhere!

So David Bowie, still only in his 30s, had a better-than-average shot at making it big in the 1980s. Reinvention was his thing. He was more than photogenic enough to be a music video star. And he'd been incorporating electronic elements into his music for years. The cover of his first MTV-era album, Let's Dance, showed the singer as a prizefighter. Clearly, this was a fight he'd been training for. And he had a new producer in his corner: Chic's Nile Rodgers, who drew inspiration from his own (plentiful) hit records, particularly "Good Times."

One curious thing about Let's Dance is that it contains three inescapable hits that I heard dozens of times in the '80s—"Modern Love," "China Girl," and "Let's Dance"—and those are the first three songs on the album. Back to back to back, baby! I heard these tracks so many times as a youth that it's difficult to "review" them now. It's like trying to review your old yearbooks or your family vacation photos. I suppose I still like all of them in 2025, though my feelings are all tied up with complicated mixed emotions about my childhood. 

My Month of Bowie, day 14: 'Scary Monsters' (1980)

Why did David Bowie never play a scary clown in a horror movie?

The album: Scary Monsters (RCA, 1980)

Send in the clowns?

My thoughts: I went into Scary Monsters knowing it was David Bowie's attempt to make a more commercial album after the artistic experimentation of Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), and Lodger (1979). So I braced myself for a more disciplined, less eccentric Bowie this time around. And what did I get when I pressed play? A Japanese woman yelling at me about god knows what.

That woman is Michi Hirota, Bowie's Japanese instructor at the time. What she's yelling is a translation of the lyrics of the opening track, "It's No Game." When David himself decides to join the song already in progress, his vocals are tense and strained, with a lot of little yips and yelps like David Byrne used to do. In fact, I'd say Scary Monsters is Bowie's second consecutive album, following Lodger, that sounds like an honorary Talking Heads record. I'm not sure if he was following their lead or they were following his. Looking at the timeline of various Bowie and Heads releases, I'd say they reached many of the same conclusions independently. Is it a mere coincidence that the 'Heads released an album called Little Creatures (1985) five years after Bowie released Scary Monsters?

This LP was supposed to be David's return to the pop mainstream. So is this album poppier and more radio-friendly than its predecessors? I guess so. David was a deeply weird guy drawing on many disparate musical influences, so this is about as "normal" as he was capable of being in 1980. Scary Monsters was never going to be another Off the Wall (1979), though I imagine David probably liked that album an awful lot. 

Which brings me to another point. About halfway through listening to Scary Monsters, a thought occurred to me: David Bowie skipped disco. I mean, he just completely sidestepped it. While John Travolta was getting down to "Stayin' Alive," Bowie was off in Berlin, listening to krautrock and trying to kick his drug habit. Certainly, other British rockers of Bowie's generation—Mick, Paul, Rod, Freddie, Elton—flirted with disco to some extent. But David's time was taken up by working with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno. By the time he recorded Scary Monsters, the disco era was already ending.

An album is only as strong as its songs, and Scary Monsters has another batch of good 'uns. I'd say the most memorable ones here are the quasi-fascistic "Fashion," the spooky title track, and the mournful "Ashes to Ashes," which acts as a sort of sequel to "Space Oddity" and gives us an update on poor old Major Tom. If you were wondering whether "Oddity" was about an astronaut or just some guy doing a lot of drugs, well, "Ashes" makes it clear: Major Tom's a junkie. Or maybe he became one after leaving the space program, I don't know.

When you listen to an artist's entire recorded repertoire in one month, you really don't have time to appreciate the subtle nuances of each individual album, let alone each individual song. When these albums were first released in the '70s and '80s, there were months or even years in between them. If you were a Bowie fanatic, you could live with an album like Scary Monsters for a good, long time and really familiarize yourself with its contents—not just the singles but the deep cuts, too—before the next one came out. 

I don't really have that luxury. I can only get a vague sense of the surroundings and move on. Based on that, I can't really say that Scary Monsters is an immediate favorite of mine. But maybe, if I spent more time with this album, the songs would burrow their way into my brain and take up residence there.

P.S. Since this was David Bowie's first album of the 1980s, I was going to write about how he had to reinvent himself, his music, and his image for the new decade. But that's not really applicable to Scary Monsters. The '80s hadn't quite become "THE EIGHTIES!" yet, at least not as we remember that decade. In particular, a certain American cable network hadn't started broadcasting. So we'll save that discussion for David's next album. Rest assured, a change is gonna come.

Next: Let's Dance (1983)

My Month of Bowie, day 13: 'Lodger' (1979)

Bowie gets smashed on Lodger.

The album: Lodger (RCA, 1979)

A flattened David Bowie.

My thoughts: I didn't grow up listening to the music of David Bowie—except for a few intense months when I was about 14—but I did grow up listening to the music of Talking Heads. Their albums were dear friends to me when I was an adolescent. David Bowie's Lodger might as well be a Talking Heads album. It has that same sound: herky-jerky like New Wave but with more of a groove to it so it doesn't sound sterile or robotic. God, I wish I'd been smart enough to listen to this album when it could have done me some good. There are cuts on it that sound like they could have come directly from Fear of Music (1979) or Remain in Light (1980).

Obviously, the biggest connection between the two Davids (Bowie and Byrne) is Brian Eno. Now that I think of it, I've never actually listened to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) all the way through. I'm gonna put that one on the to-do list. No time for it this month. I think I'll enjoy it.

By all rights, Lodger should sound like an ending. It's the third part of Bowie's Berlin trilogy and his last album of the 1970s. And yet, it doesn't sound like the end of anything. When it came out, Bowie was only a year away from divorcing Angie, his wife of ten years. But Lodger doesn't sound like a breakup album either. Well, on the opening track ("Fantastic Voyage"), Bowie does sing, "I don't want to live with somebody's depression." That doesn't sound like a man in a happy marriage. 

The aforementioned Mr. Eno is a big part of Lodger, cowriting six of the ten songs. But unlike Low (1977) and "Heroes" (1977), Lodger doesn't have any lengthy, spooky instrumental passages. It's more rock-forward and down-to-business than the other two. In that vein, "Boys Keep Swinging" shows that Bowie never stopped trying to make the ultimate pop record. He's as obsessed with that goal as Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, or any of the half-mad Captain Ahabs of the music world, always chasing that white whale.

Somehow, I had this (wrong) idea in my head that Bowie's Berlin trilogy would be drab and difficult, with the songs averaging 50 BPM. I guess the word "Berlin" threw me off. Maybe that's why I'd been avoiding these albums for so long. But even though Bowie's lyrics on Lodger are labyrinthine as always, hinting at some kind of internal struggle we're never totally privy to, the music packs a wallop. He's not in a mellow mood on Lodger. The music here is punchy and aggressive, the sound of a man who has survived the craziest decade of his life and is readying himself for the fight to come.

Now he's only 32. And all he wants to do is boogaloo.

Next: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

My Month of Bowie, day 12: "Heroes" (1977)

If David Bowie is a religion, then Heroes is the hymnal. 

The album: "Heroes" (RCA, 1977)

Bowie: Now you see him...

My thoughts: There was an animated GIF I used to see rather frequently on the internet depicting David Bowie as he appeared on the cover of "Heroes," the second album in his famed Berlin trilogy. In the GIF, Bowie would wave his hand in front of his pale, unsmiling face, and his eyes, nose, and mouth would instantly disappear, leaving nothing but a blank expanse. Then he'd wave his hand again, and his famous face would be restored. And the whole process would loop over and over again because that's how GIFs work.

Before I actually listened to "Heroes" all the way through, I thought the GIF was just a typical internet nonsense joke. But now, I think it's a pretty good representation of the album itself. This LP was released less than a year after Low (1977), and Bowie was presumably drawing on the same musical influences this time around, namely German experimental rock and the ambient musical stylings of English musician Brian Eno. 

Based on that description, you'd think the Berlin trilogy would be unlistenable and impenetrable, maybe even the musical equivalent of a migraine headache. But "Heroes" isn't like that at all. Instead, the album feels invigorating and alive—contemporary and forward-thinking without being overly trendy. The title track, in particular, sounds like you've met up with Lou Reed when he's in a particularly chipper mood... or as chipper as he gets. This is a Lou Reed who would help you carry groceries to your fifth-floor walkup.

When I reviewed Low, I said that Side 2 of that album contained some long instrumental passages that sounded like they belonged in a science-fiction movie. This, I suppose, was the influence of Brian Eno showing through. Well, "Heroes" doubles down on that material. Triples down. Quadruples down. It feels like most of the second half is taken up with the eerie Eno-phonic instrumentals. There's something pleasingly tranquil about these tracks. It's the kind of thing you'd want to listen to while watering your plants or tending to a rock garden. Maybe, after the craziness of his life in America, Bowie wanted to recalibrate. This music helped him do that.

There are times when "Heroes" barely sounds like a David Bowie album, at least not the Bowie we've come to know over the course of the last 11 albums. But then, in the album's closing track ("The Secret Life of Arabia"), he sounds like himself again. That's why I said the animated GIF was such a good representation of this record. Bowie's rock star persona has become a disguise he can put on or take off with a wave of his hand.

Next: Lodger (1979)

My Month of Bowie, day 11: 'Low' (1977)

David Bowie began his "Berlin trilogy" with Low.

The album: Low (RCA, 1977)

Was Low a new high for Bowie?

My thoughts: By 1976, the year he made Station to Station, David Bowie was such a paranoid, drugged-out mess that he moved from Los Angeles to Berlin with Iggy Pop to get clean. How chaotic does your life have to be that Iggy Pop is a crucial part of your sobriety plan? 

Still in all, this sounds to me like the perfect idea for a prime time sitcom. Imagine persnickety Tony Randall as Bowie, a constantly-shirtless Jack Klugman as Iggy, Don Knotts as Brian Eno, Suzanne Somers as Angela Bowie, and Don Rickles as Drugs. (To clarify: Rickles would be the human embodiment of drugs, and he'd move next door to Bowie to tempt him every week, like the devil sitting on Bowie's shoulder.) It's The Bowie Bunch, Thursdays at 8:00 on ABC!

If such a sitcom were ever made, the instrumental "Speed of Life" would make an ideal theme song. That's the track Bowie uses at the start of Low, the first album in his famed Berlin trilogy that found him collaborating with experimental musician Brian Eno and taking inspiration from German bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, and other ones I've probably never heard of. This is such a storied era in Bowie's career that it merits a documentary all its own.

I'd certainly heard of the Berlin trilogy—rock critics and historians have been overanalyzing it for years—but I can't say I'd ever actually listened to any of these albums all the way through until this project. So I really had no idea what to expect from Low. I probably thought it would sound bleak and sterile, perhaps even mechanical, but I didn't find the album to be any of those things. In fact, this album contains "Sound and Vision," one of those perfectly-realized '70s pop gems that Bowie was so eerily good at making. It's like a hot toddy on a cold night.

And then, there's "Be My Wife," which contains these very simple, straightforward lyrics: "Please be mine/Share my life/Stay with me/Be my wife." That's a message you'd expect to hear on a 1950s doo wop record. Take, for example, "Life is But a Dream" (1955) by The Harptones. That song famously starts with these stark lines: "Will you take part in my life, my love?/That is my dream." After making my way through ten albums with abstract, ambiguous lyrics, it was refreshing to hear David Bowie speak so plainly for a change. Or maybe he's been speaking plainly this whole time and I just haven't been paying close enough attention.

Supposedly, some of the tracks on Low are pieces that Bowie was workshopping for the soundtrack of Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Ultimately, Bowie starred in that downbeat science-fiction film but did not record the soundtrack for it. (That task fell to John Phillips.) On Side 2 of Low, there are indeed some tracks with longish instrumental passages that sound like they belong in a pessimistic '70s sci-fi movie. But even these I found eerily pretty and not merely depressing. I was especially fond of Low's closing track, "Subterraneans," with its choral refrain: "Share bride falling star..." It reminded me somewhat of the Missa Luba (1965), the famous Congolese interpretation of the Latin mass. 

I wonder, once I hear the second and third entries in the "Berlin Trilogy," will they somehow coalesce into something even greater? You know, like one of those combiner robots from a Japanese cartoon? One way to find out. And I'm just realizing now that "low" is the antonym of "high." Boy, what a dope I am sometimes.

Next: "Heroes" (1977)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 242: The House That Ed Built (2019)

Shane Schoeppner directs and stars in The House That Ed Built.

Ed Wood has long served as a patron saint to low-budget filmmakers everywhere. And why shouldn't he? Ed's movies, though the object of widespread ridicule for decades, are as personal and distinctive as those of any of cinema's great auteurs. Plato famously declared books to be "immortal sons defying their sires." Can't the same be said about movies? Eddie died nearly half a century ago, and we're still picking apart the cheap exploitation films he made between 1948 and 1978. Box office grosses, industry awards, and critical praise are nice perks (if you can get them), but I think being remembered tops them all. That is Ed Wood's ultimate vindication, his last laugh.

Making independent films can be a brutal, heartbreaking, frustrating, and even humiliating process. Ed Wood knew all about that. The hours are long, the risk is high, and the rewards can be nonexistent. And yet, if you're determined enough to make a movie of your very own, you'll accept all of that. What choice do you have? I'll recommend two great films to you: John Paizs' comedy Crime Wave (1985) and the documentary American Movie (1999). They're both stories about eccentric independent directors hellbent on making their own movies, perhaps past the point of reason. Neither of those films references Ed Wood, but I'm sure Eddie could have related to them both. His spirit dwells in them.

On the other hand, some low-budget indie directors have made features and shorts directly and unambiguously inspired by the life and career of Edward D. Wood, Jr. I have already covered several examples in this series: Jesse Berger's Glen or the Bride... (2014), Bart Aikens and Scott Allen Nollen's Ed and Bela (1986), and Andre Perkowski's Devil Girls (1999) and The Vampire's Tomb (2013). Some of these I've quite enjoyed, others have been tough to sit through. But, again, I feel Eddie would have appreciated each one of these.