Guns moke

(Too bad I can't edit the Subject line.)

I like watching series like "Gunsmoke" on TV. You can look at the TV guide to see what the episode is titled. Then you can google it and find out about all the cast members. An interesting thing about "Gunsmoke" as opposed to, say, "Bonanza" is the lack of production quality: In "Gunsmoke" when someone enters, say, a barn in the middle of the day you will see two or even three shadows. There should be only one.

Saw "The Mod Squad" the other day. Richard Dreyfus was a guest star, and his mother was played by Lee Grant.

Saw Marion Ross and David Cassidy in another "Mod Squad" made in 1970. "The Partridge family" started in 1970, but I think this "Mod Squad" was before that. Certainly Marion Ross was not a household name in 1970. Edit: The first episode of "The Partridge Family" aired one month before David Cassidy's "Mod Squad" episode. But who knows when it was in the can.

Saw a very young Margot Kidder on another "Mod Squad". Long before her breakout role as Lois Lane in Superman.

Some of those old film vaults somewhere must really have a few golden nuggets.

Struggling finances at the time meant the shows could not pay top actors and yet later some rose to prominence.

A few of those oaters introduced by The Old Ranger featured actors who later would be top stars. Also featured some actors who were so bad it was almost comical. Some 'extras' were such idiots they didn't know not to walk up to the star during a take but to wait for the word 'cut'. The Old Bill, a London cop series, featured a few actors who later gained prominence. One episode featured Alex Kingston as a hooker; she later did several films and several doctor shows on TV and of course she played in The Croupier. One actor was on the Old Bill for virtually his entire career playing a prat with no sex life that when he discovered he was being written out of the show he went berserk on the set and I always thought they should have started rolling the cameras live on his suicide threats and do an episode around him.

You mean The Bill.

Two actors had a bit of a fall after being written out... one died a week after being fired for continually being drunk, the other as you say tried to kill himself on set (he survived). With 24 years of weekly production, you expect a lot of drama... I think at one time, pretty much anyone who'd done a days professional acting in London had done one episode of the Bill.