Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part Four: It’s Always Sonny in California

By 1971, Theodore L. Zeigler’s career was at its zenith. And you could watch him on your Zenith every Sunday night by way of “The Sonny and Cher Show.” The Face that Launched a Thousand Quips quickly graduated from doing spot work on “The Andy Williams Show,” where he was caught committing acts against the laws of hibernation with Cookie Bear, to being a full-time regular on a top ten smash hit. And that’s where he met…

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part Three: Hollywood!

By the 1960s-killing-year of 1970, Ted had decided to seek fame and fortune in a place where a vast majority of people with that very same dream end up as drug addicts, prostitutes and off-ramp pre-loved churro vendors. But having streets paved with the shattered souls of generations of the young and hopeful did not make him any less amorous for the glamorous, so he loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverly.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part Two

           

It’s 1959, okay? Cold war across the U.S.A. Our future manager and the rest of the bewildered Zeigler clan had scurried off to Australia, far from the nuclear winter that would soon melt the rest of us into sticky shadows on the sidewalk. This alcoholic penal colony was infested with squads of fussy little men zipping hither and yon in search of houses with television aerials. Apparently, much like Britain, Aussieland had a TV tax and if you didn’t possess the required pricey license to watch “Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo” or “The Flying Doctor”, someone would come a-rappin’ upon your door and damn well demand you purchase one. It’s uncertain whether Theodore ever threw a shrimp onto a barbie during his time “down there” but he did almost lose a number of his domino-sized teeth one bright aft, by puttering out of his driveway and ramming into a car not driving on the “American” side of the road.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part One – The Mistake That Made Our Career

           

Pre-Preface:

            A massive Thank You! to Bob Zeigler and Shallyn Shilton for their incalculable help piecing together this epic tale of a timeless man.

            Preface:

            Andrew and I were done like the crossword on a Goodwill Partridge Family album. Finished like Pee Wee Herman in a porn theater. Completely Ka-Fucking-Put! With one asinine decision, we’d transformed ourselves into Mason Reese plus Donny Most with a soupcon of Randy Quaid thrown in for good measure. Who else but insane, loony dunderheads would quit “Thicke of the Night” with no prospects, almost no contacts and very little money to tide them over? And tide us over ‘til when? Who was going to hire a couple of career-destroying, anonymous Canadian fuckups who’d only been in town for ten minutes? Yes, Nicholls & Vickers were well and truly Fatty Arbuckled and it was their own damn fault. We were subsisting in a cockroach-infested apartment in a hostile foreign land and the concierge thought we were gay. Luckily (and this is luck bordering on divine intervention), a complete misunderstanding was about to land us a half-blind manager with a brain tumor. And that one mistake would eventually lead us to four Emmy nominations and becoming two of the most envied writers in Hollywood. 

George Carlin – Part Three: Simon Says

And the years passed quickly, much like that Kentucky Fried Chicken I found at the side of the highway.  

Although we occasionally admired the same stalks of corn in a field, it took nigh on a decade before Andrew and I had the honor of working for Mr. Carlin again. Ten years in television is equivalent to 17 lifetimes in any other profession. In that devilish and dastardly decennium, we had tragically transmogrified from a couple of talented, plucky kids to gnarly old men who had to chip the barnacles off their souls each morning before coming into work.

Pat Blythe – Will we ever learn? Kensington punks……and music

As I write this, today is the 21^st day of September in the year 2021…..twenty-one years into the 21^st century already! If we take a hard look back in the history books, has humankind really and truly changed? Are we more civilized, more intelligent, more advanced, more knowledgeable (or better at using the knowledge we have accumulated); more accepting, more just…..? I’m not so sure. Appearances can be deceiving!

Darrell Vickers – George Carlin: Part One – He Hired Who?

     In 1973, George Carlin was an absolute filthy sensation. “FM & AM”, “Class Clown” and “Occupation: Foole” had taken an easily scandalized world by storm. Who knew mentioning “cocksucker, motherfucker and tits” (which sounds like Jimmy Swaggart’s room service order at a Baptist convention) could be so uproarious? I can recall precisely where I was the first time I laid my tender ears upon “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” A shindig was being thrown for the young and swingin’ volunteers of the local, government-mandated Cable Access station. We, the young and unpaid, sat around that north Oshawa living room in stitches while Bill Ridell, the government-mandated station manager, mimed along with the shockingly brilliant piece.

Darrell Vickers – Oh, You’re Back

From California to Coventry

As Inquisitionally torturous as traversing the U.S. of A. by bus had been heading due west, at least our ultimate destination was the undisputed entertainment capital of the world. Andrew and I were now being forced to endure the very same 72 hour crucible, trapped inside an unhygienic, glaciated stink-pit, just to get back to Oshawa. Clearly, we were being subjected to unspeakably cruel and unrelenting retribution for the simple crime of intermittently enjoying ourselves.

Darrell Vickers – First Trip Part 2 – Making Up Reality

Andrew and I had been ensconced in the fire-hazard hills above the City of Angels for about a week and fortune had smiled down upon us like it thought we were somebody else. I’d shared a chat and a giggle with a half-naked woman, we’d eaten at The Sizzler and my apartment in Oshawa began to seem like a badly decorated, foul-smelling dream. By the time The Fifth Estate arrived, Nicholls & Vickers had become as Hollywood as a high colonic gift certificate.

Darrell Vickers – The First Visit: Part One – The Naked and the Red

Preface:

While I shall be highlighting some mildly unflattering aspects of Alan Thicke’s character in the peerlessly eloquent pages before you, I wish to take great pains to note that Alan recognized our talent more than any living soul in Canada. He thought enough of what Andrew and I had to offer to invite us down to L.A. and billet us in his guest house. Was he a tough boss to work for? PHEW! Read on. But he opened up vast new worlds for us and forever changed our lives and for that I will always be deeply grateful.