Seriously? OMG! WTF?

You heard @ImMegDonnelly and @MiloManheim! You won't want to miss the return of #AmericanHousewife! pic.twitter.com/FyNotiPLm5

— American Housewife (@AmericanWifeABC) February 4, 2019

American Housewife moves to its new night and time tonight at 8p on ABC, and it is an episode to sing about. It is not the only one because the sitcom is getting two more musical episodes this season. On March 19th, Taylor’s (Meg Donnelly) wants to audtion for American Idol, but her parents, Katie (Katy Mixon) and Greg (Diedrich Bader), do not want her to do it. How will they convince her not to fly out to LA. Then on May 21st, Katie decides to leave the family to fend for themselves. The season finale will feature four original songs written by Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman and Glenn Slater (Tangled, Galavant) as well as choreography from Ashley Wallen (La La Land, The Greatest Showman).

Those episodes are still a ways away, let’s talk about tonight. Katie likes to do things her way, and Greg likes to do taxes his way. When she goes to a tax guy to do their taxes, Greg seeks revenge on his wife. If you are new to the show, that is going to be a huge mistake for him. How will she prove to him how big of a mistake he made? Pray for Greg is all I will say.

Here is where the musical part comes in to play tonight. Taylor gets the lead in Little Shop of Horrors tonight and Pierce (Milo Manheim) is the Seymour to her Audrey. He has been doing everything he can to get her to be his including rigging how she got the lead. When her ex-boyfriend Trip (Peyton Meyer) tries to warn her what he has done, she doesn’t believe him. Will he be able to get through to her before it is too late?

I am happy that ABC has enough faith in American Housewife to have it lead off a night. It is a sweet show that more people should be watching. Therefore, watch it.

Then at 8:30p, The Kids Are Alright tackles something many parents went through from 1969-1972. They would tune into to see if their son was going to be drafted to go to Vietnam via the lottery.

The Clearys’ oldest son, Lawrence (Sam Straley) dropped out of the seminary and that means his deferment no longer works. He gets a letter telling him that he has been drafted and must report in two weeks. Just as he tells his family the news, Eddie’s (Caleb Foote) birthday comes up in the lottery. That means when he turns 18 in a few months, he will have to enlist.

Their parents act differently to the news. Their dad (Michael Cudlitz) is a WWII vet and he is proud his sons will be going to war and make them men. While their mom (Mary McCormack) will do everything in her power to make sure they never leave for Vietnam. Lawrence is ready to go to Canada to avoid going. However, Eddie wants to make his dad proud by serving.

Will they be going to Vietnam or will they get out of the draft? This is an emotional episode that should make every man born after 1972 be grateful, they never had to worry about being drafted. It is also important to watch before you tune into the State of the Union (don’t watch). It reminds us how far our government will go so boys in power can use people as their own personal GI Joes. This is a reminder that we should never get back to a point where people are forced to fight a war they don’t want to fight. Something two of our Presidents should know all too well because they did all they could to not go to Vietnam. They were sucessful, but many were not.

https://youtu.be/HJYci8MW8Tg
ABC announced today that they are picking up The Good Doctor, Shark Tank and the depressing A Million Little Things for another season. That is the good news.

The bad news in that they also picked up Modern Family for an 11th and finale season. That means we have to sit through another season of the sitcom that should have ended a few seasons ago. Hopefully, they will get back to how good they were the show first started which would be really nice to the loyal fans. Are you sad MF is adding? What will Sofia Vergara do?

When it comes to TGD, I am happy about the renewal after last night’s episode. It got back to where they were last season. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go downhill when the show’s Executive Producer joins the show as Chief of Surgery later this month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dyl0j3WU6Y
NBC announced yesterday that it was not moving forward with a live version of Hair on May 19th. This announcement comes a week after RENT bombed on Fox. But I think there were other contributing factors.

Back in May 2018, NBC announced that Hair would be its next live musical. Which, I thought, was very brave. Even though it is one of my favorite musicals, it is not really broadcast TV friendly.

Strike 1 – On August 20th, Craig Zadan, who co-produced the live musicals, passed away suddenly. Leaving his business partner, Neil Meron, alone for the first time to do a show on his own.

Strike 2 – Just over a month later, Bob Greenblatt resigned as the Head of Entertainment at NBC. Greenblatt loved live television and Broadway, and he was the one who brought musicals to life on the network. With his departure, even Jesus Christ Superstar’s Emmy wins were probably not enough to keep them going.

Strike 3 – HBO scheduled the series finale of Game of Thrones for that night. If that was not bad enough, ABC did the same with American Idol’s finale. Although, I think the latter will even make a blip in the ratings.

Strike 4 – RENT: Live, the ’90s version of Hair, aired on Fox to disastrous ratings.
All of sudden taking a risk on a risque show does not sound like a good idea,

Which means Hair is out of there.

Does that mean we have reached the sunset of the age of Aquarius of live musicals? NBC’s new heads of Entertainment, Paul Telegdy and George Cheeks, told Variety, “Live musicals are a part of this network’s DNA and we are committed to continuing that tradition with the right show at the right time.”

Which means they want something more family friendly. Since ABC probably gets first dibs on the Disney shows that does not leave a whole lot of options. They can do Annie, but do little girls still know it like we do. One of my favorites, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is great but it has not been done in a while. Which is still more current than Jennifer Lopez’s Bye Bye Birdie that one is indefinite hold at NBC. They can try to beat Steven Speilberg to the punch and do West Side Story. Even that one is not really kid friendly. Maybe they can switch it up and do Fiddler on the Roof for Chanukah. If I were a rich man…

In short, I think we have seen the last of live Broadway musical productions. I am grateful for the ones we had. Even the bad ones like Peter Pan. Sorry, I hated it on Broadway and hated it on NBC. But at least it is still better than Cats.

Are you sad that this tradition has come to an end? Maybe someday soon they will let the sun shine in again. Hopefully soon! Hopefully sooner than when Hamilton becomes eligible to be done by Hollywood.

I sort of show my pal from MASH how to subscribe to a podcast, and he sort of gets it. Meanwhile, my wife Arlene is the heroic cinematographer.https://t.co/CWok89GWiF https://t.co/4lbkE3gTqW pic.twitter.com/G2NZ8t0DsG

— Alan Alda (@alanalda) February 5, 2019

Back on the ’70s, Alan Alda and Mike Farrell knew everything about medicine on their show M*A*S*H. In the year 2019, the two of them have to figure out how to set up Alda’s Podcast, Clear+Vivid, on his buddy’s phone.

In a time when things seem so dark, here is something that is so full of light. I dare you not to smile through the whole lesson. Especially when Arlene Alda complains about having to hold the camera up for so long. Boys will be boys. Isn’t it so sweet to see that they are still such great friends after 40 years?

Oh and I hope no one tells Alda he spelled ApplePodcasts.com wrong. But we all do that when we have to type two long words together. Which makes that tweet even sweeter!

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