What happened to the Sonic commercial guys?
You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: I was wondering if you knew what happened to the two Sonic commercial guys. I never see them anymore.
A: The drive-in restaurant chain decided to introduce “a new marketing campaign that focuses on real customers and their experiences,” Forbes.com reported in February. “That means comedians Peter Grosz and T.J. Jagodowski are no longer promoting Sonic’s menu innovations via improvisational conversations.” The company had a good year in 2019, Forbes said, and the shift was aimed at building on that success.
Q: I’ve been watching “Cheers” on Netflix for a few months now. All of a sudden I couldn’t, so I called Netflix and they said their contract had run out! I cannot find it anywhere else. Any ideas?
A: At this writing, Hulu and CBS All Access still have “Cheers.” And Peacock, the new streaming service from NBCUniversal, has that classic sitcom among its offerings. The new service is available in free and paid versions (see peacocktv.com ) and just adds to the streamers vying for programs and customers — not only Hulu and CBS All Access, but Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Acorn TV, Prime Video and much more. One of the challenges for viewers these days is to figure out which channel or streamer has a show, forcing us all to look at even more places.
Q: I remember watching a teleplay (maybe on PBS) in the late ’70s that was about a group of female college friends. I think it had a young Meryl Streep, and maybe Cynthia Nixon and Tovah Feldshuh. But I can’t find it listed on IMDb. Do you remember this?
A: Yes. That was “Uncommon Women and Others,” the 1978 adaptation of the play by Wendy Wasserstein, about women from Mount Holyoke College reminiscing about college. The cast did indeed include Streep, along with Swoosie Kurtz, Jill Eikenberry and others, but not Nixon or Feldshuh. It originally aired on PBS’
“Great Performances.”
Q: Michael Buble has sung “You’ll Never Know” a cappella. In the late 1940s or ’50s the original was also sung without instrumental backing. But I can’t seem to remember who sang it, although Dick Haymes keeps coming to mind. Do you know?
A: Dick Haymes indeed had a hit in 1943 with a vocals-only version (he was backed by singers the Song Spinners). A musicians’ union strike at the time kept instrumentalists out of recording studios for the most part. That same year, Frank Sinatra also recorded “You’ll Never Know” with only vocal backing, by the Bobby Tucker Singers. But the song was first heard in the movie “Hello, Frisco, Hello,” (also 1943), where Alice Faye sang it. It won the Oscar for best song, beating some other great pop tunes including “That Old Black Magic” and “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”
Q: This could be a hard one and I don’t have a lot of info. I was very young and it was in the ’50s. It was about a cowboy in the Southwest or Mexico. Remembering my father saying it was based on a true story and he should have been listed with all the other heroes of the West. For some reason I think it was a Disney show, but might be wrong. What is it?
A: About half of the what-wasit questions I get go unanswered because there isn’t much information, or the plot sounds like a thousand other things, or I just can’t find it.
In other cases, like this, something clicks in my mental vault, from my own decades of viewing. And when I asked you if this was about a TV show based on reallife Western lawman Elfego Baca, it clicked for you. “The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca” was one of the live-action shows Disney tried out after the success of “Davy Crockett,” airing under the Disney banner, with Robert Loggia as the title character. Ten episodes were spread from 1958 to 1960; they were also edited into a feature film. And for those of us of a certain age, the theme song still echoes in our heads.