Stumbled across this nice fan site for Cannell's series Hunter, and thought I'd share it:

http://www.hunterandmccall.com

Was digging through my various odd Cannell-related video footage, and remembered that during the week leading up to MediaWest*Con 1986, Stephen J. Cannell appeared on 5 episodes of the "new" Hollywood Squares. I had managed to record four of those five (don't ask me which I'm missing...the only one I'm certain about is that I've got the Friday ep, so the missing one is one of the others.

I clipped out the Cannell-related bits from these four episodes, and turned them into vids for YouTube. For some reason, I thought the time-length limit on YouTube was still 10 minutes, so even though the combined length of my clips was just under 15 minutes (which, it turns out, is the current maximum YouTube clip length), I ended up breaking up my footage into two different videos.

Both are embedded below. Of special note -- among the clips in the 2nd video are shots of Cannell with his son Cody and daughter Chelsea, when they were both little kids!

I am absolutely shocked and stunned to discover that my entertainment industry idol, Stephen J. Cannell has passed away last night (September 30th, 2010) after losing a battle to cancer (melanoma).

This just seems completely unreal to me. I have been a passionate fan of all things Cannell since I first became active in fandom in the early 1980s, and discovered that most of the TV series that I had a strong love for all featured episodes writen and/or produced by Cannell. My first great TV love was The Greatest American Hero, which was only the second series (after Tenspeed and Brown Shoe) that Cannell produced after leaving Universal to found his own production company. I edited and produced The Cannell Files, a letter-and-newszine for fellow fans of Cannell shows -- this lasted for 19 issues from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. I met and engaged with dozens of fellow Cannellphiles during that time, and have maintained friendships with many of you in the years since. One of my proudest moments was to hear from Cannell himself, that he kept the issues of The Cannell Files that I was sending him, on his coffee table in his office, proudly visible to anyone who was visiting him. I've got a signed postcard from him, thanking me for all my efforts with that fanzine.

My online persona is shaped around the fact that I "am" CANNELLFAN. That's my e-mail handle on three different e-mail services, not to mention here on LiveJournal, on Flickr, on LibraryThing, and pretty much anywhere else I have an online presence. I've been planning to get a personalized license plate, and my first choice was going to be CNLLFAN or CNNLFAN.

Because of my involvement with The Cannell Files, and the unofficial Stephen J. Cannell fanclub, I (and Becky) ended up getting flown out to L.A. by the Cannell Studios to thank me for my efforts to help publicize the release of Cannell's first two novels. This was supposed to have included a face-to-face meeting with Stephen J. Cannell himself, for which I had purchased a microcassette recorded and had prepared some interview questions. One of Cannell's assistants, Wayne, screwed the scheduling of that up, and Cannell ended up out on his yacht with his family on the weekend that I should have been able to meet with him. Still, we enjoyed touring his offices and seeing his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

My fascination for all things Cannell waned a bit since he left the television industry to become a full-time novelist, though I didn't begrudge him the opportunity to do what he'd always wanted to do...write novels. I just never quite got into his fiction as much as his television productions -- a little too "coarse" for my tastes. Still, he became a huge sensation all over again.

I finally had the chance to meet Cannell in person when he was on a signing tour for one of his books, and got as close as Kansas City, MO (a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive from here). Becky and I drove down to K.C. in the beginnings of a major snow storm. We attended his appearance, at a church that hosts public events, and I got to have him sign nearly all of my Cannell-written books (to that point). When I presented him with an issue of The Cannell Files to have him sign, and explained that I was the editor, he brightened up and told everybody around him how much he enjoyed that fanzine and my efforts 15-20 years earlier. I got Becky to take a photo of my with Cannell (see my icon above).

That's now all I'll ever have with me and Steve, 'cause he's gone. And even though our direct connection was minimal, I still feel like I've lost a member of my family. Hell, I was more interested in Stephen J. Cannell and his life and activities than I am in most members of my actual family.

Damn! This is just...damn. I'm still just stunned. I had no idea he was even ill. Damn.

Cannell.com
Wikipedia article on Cannell
Obituary article on yahoonews

It's an early birthday present for me, apparently!

The SciFi Channel (yeah, I'm one of those who refuse to call if SyFy) will be showing a 20-hour marathon of Greatest American Hero episodes on Independence Day, Sunday, July 4th (the day before my birthday on the 5th), starting at 8:00 a.m. (Central Time). Here's a list of the 20 1-hour episodes they'll be showing -- note that they're NOT showing either the 2-hour pilot or the "Greatest American Heroine" spinoff pilot:

(all times Central)
8:00 a.m. "The Hit Car"
9:00 a.m. "Here's Looking at You, Kid"
10:00 a.m. "Saturday Night on Sunset Boulevard"
11:00 a.m. "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys"
12:00 p.m. "Fire Man"
1:00 p.m. "The Best Desk Scenario"
2:00 p.m. "The 200-Mile-Per-Hour Fastball"
3:00 p.m. "Operation: Spoilsport"
4:00 p.m. "Don't Mess Around With Jim"
5:00 p.m. "The Beast in the Black"
6:00 p.m. "The Plague"
7:00 p.m. "Just Another Three Ring Circus"
8:00 p.m. "Dreams"
9:00 p.m. "Captain Bellybuster and the Speed Factory"
10:00 p.m. "Divorce Venusian Style"
11:00 p.m. "The Price is Right"
12:00 a.m. "This is the One the Suit Was Meant For"
1:00 a.m. "The Newlywed Game"
2:00 a.m. "Heaven is in Your Genes"
3:00 a.m. "Live at Eleven"


( Read more...Collapse )
All I know is that I've got 20 hours of Greatest American Hero in my near future and I couldn't be happier about it! I'll be watching as much of it "live" this weekend as I can, in memory of Robert Culp. And with thanks for the early birthday present!

I'm surprised by how much I actually like this A-Team movie trailer. Of course, my fannish moniker IS "CannellFan"...

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Site-News-Cannell-Mill-Creek-Distro-Deal/12817

Included shows are:
21 Jump Street
Hunter
Greatest American Hero
The Commish
Renegade
Silk Stalkings
Tenspeed and Brown Shoe
Wiseguy
Cobra

and obviously more...

Sounds like they'll be starting from scratch, even on those series that have previously been released by other manufacturers, like GAH, Wiseguy, Hunter, Silk Stalkings and 21JS. No word on whether they'll go back to original music on those series that had replacement music in the original releases.

Fun little interview bit (on YouTube) done for the official Cannell website.



Yeah, I would've loved to have seen SJC do a show with Robert Wagner...that would have been a blast!

Man...this one hit me like a ton of bricks. Although I'm always on the lookout for acting celebs who've passed on -- for my annual Tribute Video at MediaWest*Con -- I pay particular attention for veterans of Stephen J. Cannell's shows. Robert Ginty seemed to make guest appearances on nearly every show from the early-to-mid-1980s, but I'll always remember him specifically as T.J. Wiley on Cannell's early series for Universal -- Baa Baa Black Sheep (a.k.a. Black Sheep Squadron). I always enjoyed Ginty -- he had an affable "realness" to his performances. I don't think I'd ever classify him as a "great" actor, but he somehow connected with audiences and made them believe him as whichever character he was playing. I can't say that I've ever seen any of the feature films he's known for -- particularly the Exterminator movies -- but I've always appreciated his wide range of performances on everything from Simon & Simon to Hawaiian Heat. I'll miss him...

Robert Ginty dies at 60; action-film star also directed for TV, led Irish theater center

After a long and varied career in Hollywood, Robert Ginty became artistic director of the Irish Theatre Arts Center, staging music, film and theater projects on the Irish experience at venues around the world. (Los Angeles Times)

See the full story in his L.A. Times Obit article.

One of my favorite character actors of all time died today -- James Whitmore.

Article at Yahoo News

He was in dozens of television and movie productions from 1949 to his last filmed performance in a 2007 CSI episode -- as evidenced by his IMDb credits -- but the performance I'll always remember him for the most was as Ben Wilkensen in the RIPTIDE episode "Home for Christmas" in 1985. That was one of my favorite shows from that era, and that was one of the most powerful episodes that any Stephen J. Cannell series ever put on the screen...mainly for his emotional performance as an elderly father mourning the loss of a son and fighting against "the system" that was trying to hide the details of that son's death.

Thank you, Mr. Whitmore, for a lifetime of superb performances! I'm only sorry I never got to see you on stage, since you made it clear that was your preferred performance venue.

Was just checking my e-mail, and got a blurb from tvshowsondvd.com about how one of my old favorites, Tales of the Gold Monkey is apparently NOT coming out on DVD any time soon. That news was unfortunate enough, but buried in the article itself was mention that actor Jeff Mackay (who played Corky on TotGM and both Mac and Jim Bonig on Magnum, not to mention being a regular on both seasons of the Cannell series Baa Baa Black Sheep), died a week ago on August 22nd!

And, if that wasn't depressing enough, when I went digging for more information (he died of liver failure), I ended up on one of my favorite entertainment obituaries sites (einsiders.com) where on the same page that Mackay's listing appeared, so did an obituary for Julius Carry -- Lord Bowler of Brisco County Jr. fame! He died of pancreatic cancer on August 19th.

I can't tell you how bummed out I am right now. Carry was 56 and Mackay was 60. I looked forward to seeing them in many more television and/or movie productions. My earliest memory of Mackay is, indeed, his role on Black Sheep, although he seemed to pop up on nearly everything Cannell or Bellisario produced in the 1980s and 1990s. My first memory of Carry was as the co-star of Doctor, Doctor, which starred Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer, just a year or two before Brisco County appeared. I haven't seen as much of his work, but his performance as Lord Bowler was terrific.

Man...I haven't lost too many of my on-screen favorites since this year's MediaWest*Con, but these two really rank up there near the top. What a lousy week!