Comments on: Variation on a Theme: Al Jarreau, “Moonlighting [Theme]” (1987)

By: Revival House: "Yippee-ki-yay, Motherf**ker!" | Popdose

Revival House: "Yippee-ki-yay, Motherf**ker!" | Popdose — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:24:23 +0000

[...] a little on the lame side (even though it turned out to be accurate), plus Bruce Willis was good on Moonlighting, but somehow it was difficult for me to picture him in a feature film as an action [...]

By: Bootleg City: Nilsson | Popdose

Bootleg City: Nilsson | Popdose — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:11:21 +0000

[...] minutiae is that Curtis Armstrong, the actor who played Herbert Viola for three seasons on Moonlighting and “Booger” in four Revenge of the Nerds movies, knows everything there is to know [...]

By: Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 45 | Popdose

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 45 | Popdose — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:31:01 +0000

[...] I could add any new facts to the Al Jarreau story that was told during Popdose’s Al Jarreau Week last year, which included one of my absolute favorite Popdose Guides. I will, however, say that I [...]

By: Sugar Water: Jarreau! | Popdose

Sugar Water: Jarreau! | Popdose — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:14:15 +0000

[...] both the original one-minute 1985 version and the revamped 1987 version, which was recorded as a three-minute single and became his last Top 40 hit. Jarreau’s syllable-snapping dexterity isn’t required in [...]

By: dslifton

dslifton — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:11:47 +0000

I only saw that episode once and loving it. I will have to check the YouTubes.

By: dslifton

dslifton — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:11:47 +0000

I only saw that episode once and loving it. I will have to check the YouTubes.

By: MatthewBolin

MatthewBolin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:14:47 +0000

I will say that I still crack up today even thinking about how in the beginning of the episode they refer to Taming of the Shrew as being written by William “Bud” Shakespeare.

By: rwcass

rwcass — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:10:15 +0000

But the show's tenth episode (barely four episodes into the second season) was “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice,” which did fall within the show's narrative more than “Atomic Shakespeare” but was still an elaborate, expensive, gorgeously produced homage to film noir.

We'll agree to disagree on this, because that sense of surprise and “what will they think of next?” was crucial to why I loved “Moonlighting” so much back when I was in grade school — it did things other shows wouldn't and showed me what good, creative TV was capable of. There were gimmicks, yes, but they were good gimmicks, and I thought “Atomic Shakespeare” had a lot of great jokes. I didn't think the show really had creative problems until the fourth season, but now that I'm older, that season's a lot more interesting than the fifth, which was a case of everyone watching the clock run out.

By: MatthewBolin

MatthewBolin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:47:57 +0000

And by “painful”, I thought certain aspects of the play flew over the show's writers' heads, I don't mean like “Oh, let me and my two higher degrees adjust my monocle, I am so shocked at the lack of reverence for the Bard I can barely finish my finger sandwich!”

By: MatthewBolin

MatthewBolin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:38:24 +0000

I didn't hate it. It had its moments, but (1) as a man with two degrees in English Lit., there was just a lot about it that was painful, and (2) They were only apx. 30 episodes into the show! Doing a “fantasy” episode outside the reality of the narrative is just an obvious cry of “we've got problems” and is only supposed to happen after at least five seasons or seventy-five episodes are in the books. The overused term “jumping the shark” was MADE for episodes like this.