Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Your Name Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv Subject: Re: R.I.P. Linda Lavin (US sitcom "Alice", stage show, etc.) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 12:25:41 +1300 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 53 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2025 00:25:43 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="d8f0e65c406351d0252b28c135798445"; logging-data="142470"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+MCj/9urRwvnhHs7W/i7Q1s4yaGiqVsHg=" User-Agent: Unison/2.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:FkHThtwTxw+Gc5UNr8CVneZaK3c= Bytes: 3579 On 2025-01-03 21:50:39 +0000, Alan Smithee said: > On 2024-12-30 08:20 PM, Your Name wrote: >> On 2024-12-30 22:56:19 +0000, super70s said: >>> On 2024-12-30 20:46:38 +0000, Your Name said: >>>> On 2024-12-30 13:26:21 +0000, super70s said: >>>>> On 2024-12-30 06:54:35 +0000, Your Name said: >>>>>> >>>>>> Lavin established herself as a beloved character actor with her >>>>>> decade-long stint on "Alice," the CBS comedy series adapted from >>>>>> Martin Scorsese's 1974 film "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," >>>>>> with Ellen Burstyn in the title role. >>>>> >>>>> I was always curious why the series, unlike the movie, didn't get >>>>> into Alice's personal and home life, it seemed to center exclusively >>>>> on happenings at the diner. That must have tested better. >>>> >>>> A single set makes it much cheaper. >>> >>> Yeah that's what I was thinking after I made the post. But other >>> sitcoms filmed before a live audience like "All In The Family" seemed >>> to have a lot more varied locations. "Alice" must have been done on a >>> much smaller budget, not being one of Norman Lear's slam dunk series >>> which probably all had a blank check. >>> >>>> I only saw a few episodes (the usual loud and unfunny American >>>> "comedy"), but I seem to recall occasional scenes at her home. They >>>> certainly spent almost the entire time at the diner discussing and >>>> dealing with their personal life rather than actually serving customers. >>> >>> It's been so long since I've seen it the main thing that stuck with me >>> was the diner. I don't think it's been shown on channels like TVLand >>> or MeTV in ages (if it ever was), but it looks as though CBS ran >>> reruns in the morning from June 1980 until Sept. 1982. >> >> The series is currently playing here in New Zealand on the Sky TV >> channel "Jones!", which re-runs lots of old US and UK shows. They are >> playing in blocks of four episodes on Monday mornings. >> >> >> One of the episode blurbs says: >> "Alice takes her new boyfriend's four children trick-or-treating. >> However, the trick is on Alice when she discovers she's brought >> home the wrong masked child." >> >> Possibly that is one not set in the diner. > > "Facts of Life" ripped-off that joke. It was Blair's relative who was > left behind and a Latina kid who was brought back by mistake. That idea has probably been used on quite a few shows over the years. :-) Sometimes it is a kid in a mask / costume, other times it is simply a different baby in an identical-looking pram / buggy.