TTH 8/3/26

Final Thoughts On Freaks and Geeks

This was my second complete rewatch of Freaks and Geeks and I have to say that it was even more enjoyable this time around; this show continues to age quite well. My admiration for the show grows the further I am away from the ages of the main characters. I can watch this with much wider perspective; I know full well what these people are going through and with the wisdom of time I can better appreciate what is and what is not important for these people.

It is still amazing how on point Judd Apatow and Paul Feig were when they cast this series. The young cast was almost entirely filled with complete unknowns at the time: and almost all of them have gone on to have massive success. Seth Rogen is practically a one-man mogul. Linda Cardellini and Jason Segel were each just nominated for Emmy awards last month. Martin Starr and Busy Phillips are both the sort of actors whose names you are happy to see in the opening credits; each has a specific character type which they often portray, but they have mastered those archetypes. You know exactly what you are going to get. As for James Franco, while it’s true that his toxicity has tarnished his reputation, it’s just as true that at his best he was a magnetic, charismatic performer.

There were only 2 main actors who fell short of stardom, and one of those comes with a slight asterisk. His years as a regular on Bones aside, John Francis Daley has largely focused on screenwriting and not on acting, but he has carved out a nifty career for himself there. Among his credits are the Horrible Bosses movies as well as Spider-Man: Homecoming. Not too shabby. That leaves Samm Levine. He has a pretty hefty IMDB page, but it’s mostly filled with supporting work, and even those were usually low profile projects. Inglorious Basterds was an outlier.

Like many of the best television series, Freaks and Geeks is one with a deep bench of great supporting characters. Of course, the actors and writers found further depth in the main characters with each successive episode, but so too did that apply to the secondary and tertiary characters. There were more dimensions to the likes of Millie and Harris than were initially seen, and one could easily imagine more fruitful exploration of these people had the show survived to a second season.

That goes double for the adult characters. One of the reasons I find it nearly impossible to enjoy most of the classic John Hughes movies is that the adults in his movies tended to be broadly drawn caricatures. Not so here. The Weir parents were just as richly portrayed as the kids were. Coach Fredricks started out as the prototypical tyrannical gym teacher, but the creative staff always took the time to show that he was much more than that. Even Mr. Rosso, who provided the comic relief, was much more than the aging hippie who went out of his way to appear “cool” to his students.

All things considered, was it better off being a one season wonder? As I repeated constantly during my recaps, the series told a perfectly constructed series of stories over 18 episodes. It’s possible Apatow and Feig would not have been able to maintain that same level of quality indefinitely. Keeping the show running might have necessitated making some compromises. The freaks were high school juniors, what would have been next? Nick was clearly military bound, Lindsay college bound, Daniel fated to be left behind in class for another year. It would have been a challenge to maintain those storylines with seasons 3, 4, etc. in mind. As for the geeks, would we really want to see Bill wind his way through adolescence? It helped a lot that Sam seemed a lot younger than he actually was; his delayed maturity could not last much longer.

All parties concerned went on to bigger and better things. Let’s not be greedy, Freaks and Geeks was near perfection. Let’s be happy with what we had. Everyone involved with the show should be proud.

What’s Next

With Freaks and Geeks completed, it is now time to find a new show to rewatch as the lead feature on Mondays. Something with the length of F&G was ideal, because as many great longer running series as there are, I don’t want to make too much of a commitment. I am already in the midst of a lengthy SNL project, after all. So as enticing as it would be to rewatch The Wire, or Breaking Bad, or The Sopranos, etc., I wanted to go with something which would only take me a few months to get through.

I have decided on the HBO miniseries about the Apollo program, From the Earth To the Moon. It originally ran in 1998 on the heels of the success of the Apollo 13 movie from a couple of years earlier, and this was produced by Tom Hanks, who also acted as the host in an Alastair Cook sort of way, introducing each episode. (He only acted in 1 of the 12 episodes.) This series was one of the high points of HBO’s pre “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO” era. High quality HBO programming did not start with The Sopranos; it had also been the home of such shows as The Larry Sanders Show and Oz. This was part of that tradition.

The miniseries had an interesting structure. Each episode more or less focused on one mission, and as such, there were few regular characters. The closest thing to a main character was Deke Slayton (Nick Searcy) the former Mercury 7 astronaut who acted as NASA’s Director of Flight Crew Operations. The cast consisted of a treasure trove of That Guys, several of whom graduated into Recognizable Actor status in the years since. One note - in my recaps I will refrain from using the phrase That Guy. Suffice it to say that if I drop an actor’s name whom you may not be familiar with, if you Google the name you will recognize him. And it is a litany of That Guys. The series wasn’t a complete sausage fest, but keep in mind that it is a historical representation of a point in time. All of the astronauts were men, as were the administrators and engineers. It was a macho atmosphere; not much room for women.

Each episode was written and directed by a different team, and the 12 episodes included a wide range of storytelling approaches or even genres. One episode was a buddy comedy set on a rocket ship. Another one starred the engineers who designed and built the lunar module. Another starred a geologist who taught the astronauts important observational skills. Yet another focused on the wives of the astronauts. During the promotional run, one of the producers stated that you can only show the slow motion shot of men in spacesuits walking towards the rocket so many times before it gets repetitive. This unique structure allowed them to work around that limitation quite well.

Even so, some recurring scenes remained effective. I never got tired of shots of the men in Mission Control sitting in nervous silence as they wait for communications from the crew. And so many episodes ended with a moment which almost made the audience want to break into rounds of applause. The only minor drawback to the program is that it was shot in standard def, but HBO up-res’d it when it was rereleased around the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and it looked great.

With the increase in interest surrounding the space program following the recent Artemis II mission, this feels like an ideal time to revisit From the Earth To the Moon. It is streaming on HBO Max, so I invite one and all to join me for this rewatch. It launches - see what I did there? - next week, with the premiere episode. It introduces the main players and summarizes the Gemini missions, which set things up for our ultimate journey to the moon. See you then.

Looking At Some Numbers

We are well into the portion of this segment where I must begin to ask myself if it’s worth seeing to completion. This isn’t even Remembering Some Guys territory, we are in Who Is This Guy? territory. But I made the commitment, and gosh darn it, I am going to continue. Here is the next set of greatest Mets to wear each uniform number.

64 - Part of me wants to give this to Anthony Kay, who was a high school classmate of at least one subscriber to this newsletter, but his Mets tenure was barely a cameo. Among the selection of uninspiring options, I will go with Elmer Dessens, who provided a couple of seasons of reliable mid-inning relief work at the end of his career.

65 - Mets fans of a certain age may well remember Doug Simons. He was a Rule 5 draftee who was kept on the roster for the entire 1991 season, even though he was far from major league ready. That wasted roster space conceivably cost them an NL East title. The best #65 was Robert Gsellman; he was instrumental in the Mets making it to the 2016 Wild Card game. He was both a starter and reliever, depending on the team’s needs at the time, and performed quite well in both roles.

66 - I was surprised to see that Josh Edgin was a Met for 5 seasons; I didn’t recall him lasting that long. He was a standard LOOGY type; his career totals were 177 games pitched, but only 129 innings. That could explain why I had forgotten that he pitched that long, he rarely stayed in a game long enough to make a lasting impression. Not every LOOGY can be as memorable as Pedro Feliciano.

67 - Only 2 Mets have ever worn #67, but thankfully this is not a coin flip selection. Much of what I said about Robert Gsellman applies just as easily to Seth Lugo. He was an exceptionally valuable pitcher for 7 seasons. Almost too valuable; he clearly wished to be a starting pitcher, but he was pitching so well out of the bullpen that the Mets were hesitant to move him out of that role. When the Royals finally gave him the chance to be a full-time starter he responded by finishing in 2nd place in the AL Cy Young race in 2024.

50 Years Ago - The Muppet Show

I have covered a lot of old TV series in this segment, and to be frank, most of them are not very good. American network TV played things very safely in this time period, taking care to appeal to the lowest common denominator while also ensuring that no one would be offended. It stands to reason, therefore, that the most fondly remembered show which premiered in 1976 wasn’t part of the standard American TV infrastructure. It was filmed in England. And it aired via syndication, not on a network. And it starred puppets.

The Muppet Show made its debut in 1976, introducing scores of much beloved characters in the process. It was further proof that Jim Henson, along with his team of puppeteers, was one of the premiere creative geniuses of the 20th century. He could easily adapt the Muppet concept to appeal to adults just as well as his Sesame Street characters appealed to a pre-school crowd.

The Muppet Show cast did not consist entirely of brand new creations. Kermit the Frog was a centerpiece Henson character even before Sesame Street began; Rowlf had been around for quite a while as well. Those were among the few exceptions; 1976 saw the introductions of a multitude of new characters whose popularity is just as strong now as it was then. Even better, many of them were recognizable show business prototypes, they just happened to be puppets. Kermit was the grounded bastion of sanity in the midst of chaos. Fozzie Bear could have fit in just as easily in vaudeville or in a Borscht Belt resort as he did here. And what was Miss Piggy, other than a classic example of an egotistical show biz diva?

The Muppet Show was technically a variety show, but it was also structured as a show within a show. The backstage segments were just as vital to the show as the sketches were. Each episode had a guest host, and just as was the case with Sesame Street, the show never had any difficulty in signing up A-listers to appear, even in some cases stars who rarely did TV. I did not remember this until I did the research - there were 120 episodes produced all told, and there was not a single duplicate host. 120 shows, 120 big name hosts.

Kudos to the hosts, but the show was all about the Muppets, almost all of whom were absolutely wonderful. Who was your favorite? The Swedish Chef? Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker? Sam the Eagle? Animal? Statler and Waldorf? There are no wrong answers. As for me, my answer is Gonzo. When I was a regular Sesame Street viewer, Grover was my favorite, and Grover and Gonzo do in fact share a similar vibe. Being that they never fully explained what exactly Gonzo was supposed to be - neither animal nor monster - consider them brothers from different mothers.

This set of characters would go on to star in a series of movies, and there have been multiple revivals over the years on both TV and on screen. Rightfully so; these characters are timeless and every generation falls in love with them upon introduction. I don’t see that ever changing; there will always be a time to play the music and to light the lights. May the Muppets remain sensational, inspirational, celebrational, and Muppetational for all time.

Closing Laughs

Hopefully there are no Statlers or Waldorfs among you and you have not spent the past several minutes heckling the contents of today’s newsletter. Thank you for not doing so. Have a great day everyone, and let’s make this a great week now, shall we? See you all again on Wednesday.