I’m watching ALICE

I’m glad Tommy’s dead.

FASCINATING

Don't you be eyeing my Tawmey like that!

This is so good. A behind the scenes treat. Linda Lavin addressing the studio audience before taping the season 1 final episode. She and Philip McKeon sing a cute song .

When I was a kid, I thought Mel was fat. By today's standards, he's skinny.

Hirsute Syrian gruff daddy Vic Tayback is my dream fuck.

His sailor cap/white T look on Alice is cute, but his bohemian artist look on Columbo rules.

dear god, how much grief are you in??

I've been looking for the Alice clip of Lavin singing with Martha Raye but it seems to be gone.

It's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" and one of the biggest trainwrecks ever shown on network t.v..

I'll give Linda this: She's always awful but she is also deeply committed to any and all the material she is given.

That scene was traumatizing. R8, right down to those micro minis Lavin and Raye were wearing.

Boy that show really stunk.

Enter Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed also did a Scooby Doo episode.

It was better.

R5 He was fat

Debating whether Vic Tayback was just fat or fit fat is why I love DL! Never change, bitches!

r14 Even though no one said anything about fit fat.

Vera Louise Gorman for me.

Me too R16, I still laugh thinking about the post one DLer signed "The straw no one picked up"

How's your scat technique coming, OP?

Also, which you're watching S3 OP, please keep a sharp eye and ear out for what DL introduced me to... a rare version of the S3 end credits which one YouTube commenter describes as "She sounds like she's trying to take a dump, and it just won't come out." Just as R8 says, LL is totally committed.

same here, R6, Vic Tayback turned me gay

What are you grieving, OP?

I loved Alice when I was a little kid. Lord only knows why, but I was fascinated by Linda Lavin.

Now you have me wanting to see where it's streaming.

Here is the link in Facebook at 'Martha Raye Scrapbook".

Diane Ladd was SO good in the movie, better than ugly Polly Holliday ever was, but not good in the series.

Loved this as a kid.

Vic Tayback with his big fat Greek coleslaw-makin' fingers, my first crush.

R4, thanks for sharing that video. It was fun. Phillip McKeon was a really likeable kid.

Interesting that Linda says Francis Whitfield, McKeon’s on-set teacher, wrote the song they sang. I’m a big Brady Bunch fan and know she was those kids’ teacher as well.

That's it!

Thank you r20. It's as cringey as I had remembered. But give the devil his due, both Linda and Martha are totally committed. There's no way that they didn't know how ridiculous they looked.

Has Ryan Murphy been alerted?

R14, Vic had a Dad Bod, nightshift!

Is this the season when Mel starts finger banging Tommy?

Linda had nice legs in the R20 video.

HI LINDA!

And to think that the show co-starred a woman who brilliantly sang one of the most difficult Broadway songs ever.

Grief?

Kiss my grits.

Roseanne didn’t rip this off too much 😒

[quote]Linda had nice legs in the [R20] video.

Linda was known for having great legs, r28.

R32 Get in the back of the line, Alice

On Sunday nights we watched this and One Day At A Time. I was from a traditional two parent home but back then watching those shows being raised by a feisty single mother looked fun.

The actress who played Vera was married to Charles Kimbrough who played Jim Dial on Murphy Brown. She was also married to Michael J. Pollard, interesting taste in men.

I never really watched this show but caught a few episodes. Where did this Lavin woman come from? She couldn't sing for shit. Was she supposed to be a Broadway singer?

It was okay. Amazingly cheap production value and amateurish scripts. Just one or two sets which looked like plywood. It was buoyed-up totally by the veteran actors (though Phillip McKeown was painfully miscast).

[quote] Where did this Lavin woman come from? She couldn't sing for shit.

R36 is Polly Holliday

It seemed to be a step down for Diane Ladd

I agree about McKeon. He had none of the charm of Alfred Lutter. But Lutter had grown too tall for the part so he was out after the pilot.

Although Alfred Lutter did very well for himself later

The whole aspect of this show about how Alice wanted to be a singer was always odd to me. You want to pursue that career in Phoenix? Someplace adjacent to LA or NYC would make more sense. I get that her station wagon broke down but still...

If we’re going to discuss Alice, the TV show, then we’re going to have to address the fact that Linda Lavin is absolutely nothing like Ellen Burstyn who played the part in the movie. EB was absolutely fantastic in the role and won a deserved. Best Actress Oscar.

Linda Lavin, on the other hand, is terrible in the part. How she was cast is beyond me.

This was a good episode, IMO. It's Christmas-time. Mel somehow ends up driving an 18-wheeler type of truck in the snow. The ladies end up hitching a ride with Mel to go to various places.

Vera is transporting a gingerbread house. They get stuck in the snow, get hungry, and start eating the gingerbread fence then moving in towards ... the actual gingerbread house.

Vic Tayback in a cop uniform on Family Affair.

HAF

Vic was the hottest dad ever.

But I preferred Vera when she played Rachel on Another World.

IMO, Mel / Vic was overweight in Alice.

Mel's chili was supposed to be the one redeeming dish at the diner. However, I never believed that Mel's chili could be any good. I just pictured cigar ash being an ingredient.

I wouldn’t call Lutter charming. He was more like this little weasel who constantly ran his mouth, but he and Burstyn played well off of each other, and she has him to thank in part for winning her Oscar, since most of the scenes she had were with him. McKeon was ok. I could just never get over the fact he and Lavin didn’t look one bit alike.

I half remember an episode with "tommy" singing La Vie en Rose.

Did that really happen or was the LSD that good?

Wiki entry has lots of trivia. If Linda Lavin could sing, why did the writers drop her pursuit of a singing career? Without that it just became another diner sitcom.

R50 they didn’t. Alice was always doing singing gigs in the hopes it would lead to something more. At least in the Flo years. I’ve inconsistently watched the Jolene years since they’re not my favorite, and they might’ve slowed down a bit after Flo and Belle left, but that obviously was Alice’s goal and the series ended with her realizing her dream.

The Vic Tayback love is making me laugh. Only on DL.

Mel, kiss my clit!

I loved “Alice” from when it first aired in prime-time. I forget which CBS long-running show’s time block it took over, but it just seemed to be this sleeper of a new show that became a hit. Its corny comedy and quirky characters made for some dependable fun. I think it helped that it had the “I Love Lucy” writers scripting it and filling that kind of kitschy comedy writing style, too.

R52, I think DL is the only venue where I would discuss my love and lust for Vic Tayback.

As a gayling, I was transfixed by both him and John Amos from Good Times. Clearly a pattern was emerging. I’ve held true to it ever since.

She was a child prodigy on the borscht belt circuit. I heard she was the inspiration for Francis Houseman in “Dirty Dancing”