Football Fanatics: It’s Draft Day Thursday

You have to be a real football nerd (like I am) you’ll be parked in front of your TV, ESPN on the dial…watching the parade of college football players being picked by the pros.

Who will your favorite team pick?

I think the cool thing is all the speculation about players most of us have never heard of…and ESPN’s panel of experts talking about who might turn out to be good pros…and teams that had “bad” drafts.

I’m an Eagles fan, so I’ll hold my breath when it comes time for them to make their picks.

Anyway, it’s a fun evening for sports fans, but you really have to be into football to spend four, five hours glued to the set for this.

To me, this is the first step in the next season…so I say, bring it on.

And I wonder who the first pick will be? Even more fun are the lower round picks…and the surprise picks. I mean, after all, wasn’t Tom Brady a 6th round pick?

 

My Date with Elizabeth Perkins (not really)

Before I wax poetic about this comedy….which I think is a fairly amusing half hour, I have to tell you all about my meeting Elizabeth Perkins.She is, after all, the reason I started watching this show.

I met Elizabeth in New York City for a drink. No, it wasn’t a blind date. At the time, I wish it had been. [I'm happily married now.] But back then I was an editor of a major TV magazine and the interview with Elizabeth was set up for me.

So I slapped on a tie, a sports coat and jeans and… looking pretty cool, I took Amtrak from Philly, where I worked, to the big city, where I grew up.

She was on time and she was funny. We got to talking about movies we loved and when I asked her to recommend her current favorite movie, she shouted out EVIL DEAD 2.

Zounds! She said it was a hilarious gore fest. She loved the director, Sam Raimi (whom she had never met, but wanted to).

Evil Dead 2, of course is a classic cult movie.

That’s when I started following Elizabeth’s career.

I wrote the article. She liked it. We corresponded for a while.

Even now, years later, I still follow her career. Which brings me to tonights comedy.

Give it a shot.

For my old pal Liz.

How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)

ABC 9:31 PM ET

After Polly and Julian (Sarah Chalke, Jon Dore) break the news to Natalie (Rachel Eggleston) that they won’t be going camping together this year, the girl invents an imaginary bully as a way of coping with her parents’ split. Elaine (Elizabeth Perkins) coerces Max (Brad Garrett) into paying a visit to a dying relative in the new episode “How to Not Screw Up Your Kid.”

Get Thee to the Tube Tonight: A Classic and a Soon-to-be Classic Doc

 

Two great shows tonight probably would be worth your time.

First, on ESPN’s series of documentaries, something to coincide with Thursday’s college football draft.

 

The focus is on the year 1983, when the crop of quarterbacks joining the pro ranks was considered exceedingly rich, from John Elway to Dan Marino.9:30 p.m., ESPN

 

Ken Rodgers of NFL Films presents this look back at the class of ’83 – and 30 years later, when the 2013 draft is held later this week, the quarterback pickings look a lot slimmer.

 

Second up is for those cablers who have TMC. Remember when you were a kid and saw Treasure Island?This is the 1950 Disney version of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson story. Not the best of movies, or most polished, certainly – but if you saw it as a kid, wow, was it enthralling. Robert Newton steals the show, pirate-like, as Long John Silver.

 

Great movie. Arrrg.

 

Watergate Revisted Tonight on Discovery

If you get a chance tonight, and if you get the Discovery Channel, there is a pretty cool documentary on All the President’s Men, narrated by Robert Redford.

Redford, of course, was one of the stars of the movie. But even more interesting is a look back at the era in which this all played out.

If you’re young and Richard Nixon is just the name of a president in the late 60s who resigned…but didn’t actually live through it, you’ll find this doc fascinating from many angles.

It truly was a different time, but politics was just as vicious as it is now. Maybe more so.

I mean, a president resigned after the Watergate scandal.

Tonight, Thursday on Discovery.

Check your local listings.

New Show on SciFi, Defiance…and Dallas Ends its Seasonal Run on TNT

 

Here are my picks for Tonight’s best shows….keeping in mind the fact that I love SciFi and DALLAS

9 p.m., SYFY CHANNEL: Defiance — This new series is set in 2046, when Earth has been transformed and its landscape permanently altered by the arrival of seven alien races. Viewers follow an immersive character drama set in the boomtown of Defiance, which sits atop the ruins of St. Louis, while in a corresponding video game, players experience the frontier of the San Francisco Bay Area.

10 p.m., CBS: Hawaii Five-0 — As McGarrett and Catherine (Alex O’Loughlin and Michelle Borth) cross into North Korea to retrieve a fallen friend’s remains, he tells her about his last mission there in this new episode, a prequel to the show’s pilot.

10 p.m., TNT: Dallas — Season 2 wraps up with back-to-back episodes. After Bobby (Patrick Duffy) reveals more of J.R.’s master plan to John Ross and Pamela (Josh Henderson, Julie Gonzalo) and asks for their help, the family unites to execute the plan.

If you’re like me, you miss Larry Hagman…his J.R. was one of TV’s icons…. a great bad guy…

Happy viewing

Fringe Fan Alert: The Science Channel is Running a Complete Season 3 Marathon April 13-14

Have I told you before? I loved Fringe.

So it is with a great deal of excitement, I can report that the Science Channel is airing the entire Season 3 this weekend.

Season 3 begins with the Fringe team escaping from the parallel universe — except for Olivia (Anna Torv), who is trapped in the other world and replaced in ours by her double. It’s her double who turns Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Olivia’s tentative relationship into a love affair. When Olivia returns, the bonds of trust fray while ever more bizarre and terrifying phenomena occur, and secrets that stretch back to 1985 threaten to destroy our universe or the parallel universe.

A Shout Out for the ‘Huskers

I write this from Penn State country, but I’ve become a big fan of the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team.

Okay, I know this is a column about TV and not sports, but the reason I’ve become a fan of the Huskers has absolutely nothing to do with sports and everything to do with a video of the team I saw on You Tube.

Are you with me now?

I can be a cynical bastard sometimes, but the other day I was checking out some videos and what showed up but something that actually made me cry with joy.

Seems like a young kid with brain cancer (forgive me if I have the ailment wrong…but the point is, he’s very very sick) had this make a wish dream to play with his favorite team, the Cornhuskers.

The video was taken during their spring practice game. The offensive and defensive players rigged it so that after the ball is hiked, the kid gets the ball, sweeps right and runs for a 60 yard touchdown.

He does it and then is surrounded by all these hulking players who high five him, pick him up, cheer him on.

It is an absolutely beautiful, HUMAN moment and I instantly became a fan of the team. What a cool, cool thing to do.

Go to You Tube, type in Nebraska Cornhuskers help kid…or something like that … and watch a 1 minute video that will absolutely move you to tears.