jlh | home watching tv on a thursday night

Okay, I think that any boyfriend I have has to appreciate these two things or it just isn't going to work

On the Fox Movie Channel tonight, Goodbye Charlie, a truly bizarre film starring Tony Curtis as George, a writer who has escaped the hustling rat race of Hollywood to write novels in Paris. His best friend Charlie is a hack still in there hustling and sleeping with every Hollywood wife within striking distance. Finally a crazy Hungarian producer (Walter Matthau) catches Charlie with his wife Rusty, and shoots Charlie, who falls over the railing of his house into the Pacific.

So George returns for the funeral, and goes to the house to find that Charlie has been almost instantly reincarnated—as Debbie Reynolds! Only George knows this, and it's apparently some sort of cosmic justice for being such a dog. Charlie wanders about acting like a guy, sitting like a guy, and still hustling, all while in beautiful clothes and looking like, well, Debbie Reynolds. The new Charlie needs an identity, so he/she is looking for someone to marry, and there's this moment when George is comforting Charlie and they nearly kiss, which freaks George out (but not Charlie). At the end George decides to marry Charlie himself, but before he can Rusty catches Charlie with Walter Matthau, jumps to conclusions, and kills Charlie again and again Charlie falls into the ocean.

So George is sad, until a crazy dog comes in through the oceanside door and jumps on him—yep, Charlie again—followed by, well, Debbie Reynolds. Who isn't Charlie anymore. And so George gets Debbie Reynolds in the end. But I can't help but wish that the movie had gone through with George marrying Charlie. Charlie as a womanizing hustler in a woman's body was sort of funny, and George was able to take his best friend love and convert it fairly easily. I mean, really, what's wrong with that?

This month on Trio they're doing a theme on flops. In a twist on their previous "Brilliant but Cancelled" they are running shows that were "Just Plain Cancelled". And tonight? Pink Lady and Jeff! I remember this show well. It was on over the summer when I was a kid, and I thought Jeff was cute. It starred Jeff Altman, a comedian, and Pink Lady, a singing group of two Japanese ladies who couldn't really speak English. Oh, my, how it bombed; six episodes. Yes I loved it, but I was ten.

But that isn't even the point. The guest on tonight's episode? Greg Evigan. In his BJ and the Bear period. And not only did he sing, he played the saxophone. And then he came out in really tight black trousers and a red shirt mostly unbuttoned and sang a medly of "Last Dance" and "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" with Pink Lady! Does it get worse better than this?

And now both