David Groh, 1939-2008

David Groh, the Chico Marx-looking actor best known as Rhoda's boyfriend/fiance/husband/ex on her eponymous sitcom, dead at the age of 68. Groh graduated from Brown Phi Beta Kappa, then studied in England on a Fulbright. (IMDB, by the way, has him born in 1941, which would have him entering Brown at 16. The New York Times obit birthdate of 1939 is much more plausible.)

Groh's Joe Gerard married Rhoda in the series' eighth episode, a ratings bonanza that featured much of the old Mary Tyler Moore Show cast as well as Rhoda taking the subway to her wedding in her wedding dress. Much was made of the fact that Joe Gerard was not Jewish, although Valerie Harper herself was not Jewish, so what's the big deal?

Rhoda and Joe separated in the first episode of Season Three, and divorced shortly thereafter, a result of - depending on whom you read - either slipping ratings or the desire on the part of the writers to construct more single-gal plots. If it was really the latter, it was a stupid idea, because Rhoda's ratings continued to slide, although the show limped on for two more years, Groh-less. David Groh went on to a career of guest shots on mediocre dramas and straight-to-cable movies.

His dying words were, "Lawrence Pressman lives on."

L'il Folks

Charles Schulz' only formal lessons in art came via a mail-order company called Art Instruction, Inc. Schulz' family paid the princely sum of $170 for Charles to get a full course, lasting something like 18 months, and Schulz evidently felt like he got his money's worth. After he returned from fighting in World War II, Schulz got a job at Art Instruction, which was based in Minneapolis, grading the work of budding artists who had successfully drawn the fairy on the back of the matchbook.

It was while he was working at Art Instruction that Schulz met a young woman named Frieda Rich. Frieda was what less-enlightened people would call a midget; I'm not sure what more-enlightened people would call her. Frieda's elbows were roughly desk-high, and she'd often stand with them propped up on someone's desk as she talked to them. With her oversized head and stubby legs, she was roughly the same proportions as, say, Frieda from Peanuts.

And she had naturally curly hair.

Forgotten but Not Gone

Two stories that caught my eye recently:

* Loathsome bassist Gene Simmons of Kiss says the band won't be making any more albums, because the music industry as we knew it is dead. "It'd be nice to have new Kiss songs," says Simmons, "but what's the business model?" So anyone hoping to get Kiss Alive V: Live from Shooter's Lodge at the Travelodge in Muskegon, Michigan is going to be sorely disappointed.

* It was revealed that Kid From Left Field star Gary Coleman secretly married his girlfriend, Shannon Price, who is of normal height, last August in Nevada. Who exactly this was being kept secret from has not been released. To quote Jon Langford by way of the Old 97s, the devil doesn't care if you're a fish or you're a stick.

In a related development, I have decided not to accept big, lucrative banner ads for this blog. They would look trashy.

Watch Me Unravel

Rivers Cuomo of Weezer told Rolling Stone a while back that he had cracked the pop code. He dissected and analyzed every song ever done by Nirvana, Green Day and Oasis and kept the results in a three-ring binder he called "The Encyclopedia of Pop." When exactly Rivers did this is not clear, but Cuomo's pop-song gifts were fully formed from the band's first single, 1994's "Undone - The Sweater Song," which was about as well-crafted as these things get. I'm not sure what Rivers could have possibly learned from Oasis, whose debut album also came out in 1994, other than a sense of how to pronounce "Champagne supernova."

You gotta love Rivers: He's a mess, but he's a mess like us, a low-class beat-down fool, not a mess like Marvin Gaye, where he's fascinating to read about but you wouldn't want to go anywhere near him. Plus he used to sing barbershop quartet in high school.

When the band went to make a video for "Undone," their one insistence was that it have nothing to do with sweaters. The then-unheralded Spike Jonze came along and suggested they shoot it on a blue stage with a pack of wild dogs passing through, and of course, who could resist that? The boys filmed it by playing along with a sped-up version of the song, so that they'd look like they were in slo-mo; the end video was a single take, which they shot over twenty times, for reasons unclear to me. Although this take allegedly comes from the late teens, the guys are clearly still having a good time, especially the drummer. I wonder what he's listening to on those headphones.

[Steve Martin later appeared on Late Night With David Letterman, displaying his supposed collection of priceless antique Chinese vases, when a pack of dogs ran through the pedestals. Perhaps this is where he got the idea.]

Here's where I'd post the video for "Undone," except that someone from Universal Music Group has requested that it not be embedded. No matter: This isn't the first time that "One Poor Correspondent" has been disrespected, and it surely won't be the last. In the meantime, you can go see "Undone" here. But as long as we're here and talking about Weezer, here's their wonderful video for "Beverly Hills," filmed, coincidentally, at my house. (That's me in the black bikini briefs visible behind Rivers at one point.) I love the part where Rivers starts talking; it reminds me of "Moulty."

Dash Riprock

When I was compiling the list of Number One hits that didn't contain the title phrase in the lyrics, the one that struck my copy editor's eye as the most unusual was George Harrison's "Give Me Love - (Give Me Peace on Earth)," which hit Number One in May of 1973. That's how it's listed on the Billboard charts, which means that if you drop the parenthetical, you're left with "Give Me Love -." Nobody would name a single like that, would they?

Well, sort of. I found that copy of the single sleeve, and as you can see, there's no hyphen in sight. But that's not the end of the story. I also found another copy of the single showing the inner label. It's awfully tiny, but as best as I can make it out, the label reads "Give Me Love - " on the top line, with "(Give Me Peace on Earth)" underneath. That would certainly give Billboard leeway in printing the title so awkwardly, but someone should have known better. You can't end a song title with a dash.

Roy Scheider, 1932-2008

Roy Scheider, busted-nosed leading man of the American cinematic renaissance of the 1970s, dead at the age of 75. Scheider was nearly 40 before he made any sort of impact on acting, but he became an archetype in the 1970s, appearing alongside other homely male stars like Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss and Dustin Hoffman in what was surely Hollywood's golden era of the ugly dude.

Scheider is probably best remembered as Chief Brody in Jaws, the man who pointed out the need for a bigger boat, but I was always partial to his performance in Marathon Man as Hoffman's secret-agent brother. They called each other Doc and Babe, for reasons I could never figure out. He was also great as Hackman's sidekick in The French Connection, the two of them looking as much like a pair of outer-borough detectives as was possible in 1971.

I guess Scheider was also pretty spectacular in All That Jazz - that earned him his only Best Actor Oscar nomination - but I didn't see it.

Keeping an Eye on the World Going by My Window

Is Bowie's "John, I'm Only Dancing" supposed to be an answer record to the Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping"?

Title Tracks

Near as I can tell, these are the Number One pop hits in America, beginning with the advent of the British Invasion and its first Number One hit, the Tornados' "Telstar," at the tail end of 1962, that did not include the title phrase in the song's lyrics (instrumentals not included) (I have also omitted songs where the title phrase is an abridgment of the song's lyrics, such as the Righteous Brothers' "[You're My] Soul and Inspiration," wherein they do actually sing "You're my soul and... inspiration") :

"Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto (went to Number One in June 1963): It's in Japanese, but I'm reasonably certain that Kyu never says "Sukiyaki," since that title was appended to the song by a Capitol label exec

"Fingertips (Part 2)" by Little Stevie Wonder (August 1963)

"The Ballad of the Green Berets" by SSgt. Barry Sadler (March 1966)

"Sunshine Superman" by Donovan (September 1966): Yes, he says "sunshine" and "superman" in the lyrics, but they're nowhere near each other in the song

"Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry (August 1967): Remind me to write sometime about what a great song this is

"The Letter" by the Box Tops (September 1967): A judgment call, since Chilton clearly sings "a letter" several times in the song, but I decided to include it since the title seems to refer to the overall theme rather than to serve as a quote from the lyric

"Indian Reservation" by the Raiders (July 1971)

"Theme From Shaft" by Isaac Hayes (November 1971)

"Brother Louie" by Stories (August 1973)

"The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band (January 1974): See "The Letter"

"TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" by MFSB featuring the Three Degrees (April 1974)

"Annie's Song" by John Denver (July 1974)

"Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" by Diana Ross (January 1976): Obviously, another judgment call. Do you know who directed Mahogany?

"Love Theme From A Star is Born (Evergreen)" by Barbra Streisand" (March 1977): See above

"Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" by Christopher Cross (October 1981): I'm glad "Nobody Does It Better" didn't stoop to this cheap trick

That brings us up to the Nineties, when I become unfamiliar with some of the Number One hits. I honestly don't know if Boyz II Men's "4 Seasons of Loneliness," from October 1997, included that phrase in the song's lyrics. I do know, however, that Berry Gordy directed Mahogany.

The Second Mrs. Klugman

Now that Brett Somers has passed on, her widower, Jack Klugman, finally has license to remarry. Klugman and Somers separated in 1974, but never officially divorced, even though Jack has spent the past 20 years with the new Mrs. Klguman, Peggy Crosby, the former daughter-in-law of Bing Crosby. Jack and Peggy were married last Saturday in Studio City, California, and OPC wishes those two kids all the best.

I certainly write about Jack Klugman too much, but at least I'm not as bad as the Church of Klugman. They actually haven't been filling that blog up too much lately, but I guess once you've deified the man, what else is there to say?

Birthday Boys

Vince Neil, the lead singer of Motley Crue, and Sammy Llanas, the (co-) lead singer of the BoDeans, were both born on this very day 47 years ago.

I went to high school with a boy who was born on the exact same day as I was. He didn't find that very interesting.