Category Archives: Billiards TV

The Billiards TV category is about television episodes that prominently feature billiards or have plots centered around billiards.

The Dangerous Life of Pool Hustling (Part II)

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about two of the many fictional accounts of the dangers of pool hustling, as portrayed in film and television. Now, while death from an exploding eightball (Shotgun Slade – “The Pool Shark”) or impalement by cue stick (Castle – “Clear and Present Danger”) is sensational and extremely rare, the risks with pool hustling, which can include death, are more common. Over the past 20 years, a number of true crime and documentary news series have focused on pool hustlers, memorializing their close calls or, regrettably, their unexpected passings. 

The First 48 – “Family Affair/ The Hustler”

The First 48 - pool hustling episodeTwenty-three seasons strong, The First 48 is an American documentary news television series that follows homicide investigations to their end, with a particular focus on the first 48 hours after the murder. In 2006, the “Family Affair/ The Hustler” episode aimed its spotlight on the death of Jonathan Ardrey, a 42 year-old pool hustler who was beaten to death in Memphis. Locals called him Ya-Ya. He was known to frequent Samples, a pool hall on Lamar Street (now known as The Rack), and he was allegedly a decent player, according to those who knew him on the AZ Billiards Message Forum. His wife said, “Ain’t nobody gonna want to hurt him…unless it’s through this pool thing.” 

Knowing the first 48 hours are crucial, Sgt. Mitch Oliver, who oversees the case, goes so far as to shoot some pool at Samples, hoping to lighten up the locals, build trust, and get someone talking. The $1000 reward is probably even more compelling than Oliver’s eightball game. 

[Spoiler Alert!] But, as it turns out, someone did want to hurt Ardrey, and it had nothing to do with his hustling. Elliot Fullilove and his girlfriend Serena knew Ardrey had some money on him from playing pool. Their attempt to steal the money and his ‘95 Mercury Cougar goes sideways, and they end up splattering his life all over the bedroom. A lucky tip on the location of the Cougar leads Oliver directly to them, and after a brief interrogation, they quickly fold. Fullilove was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. His girlfriend was sentenced to 25 years.

The episode is available to stream for free on Tubi. 

America’s Most Wanted – “Cyber Tracking” 

America's Most Wanted - pool hustling episodeThere are over 1100 America’s Most Wanted episodes so it’s disappointing, but perhaps not entirely surprising, that I cannot find the “Cyber Tracking” episode from Season 25. (Please help me locate it!) Airing in 2012, this episode focused on the November 2009 murder of Michael “Biloxi Mike” Surber, a nationally renowned pool player, who was stabbed to death in his home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It is believed that Surber was shooting billiards at Skeeter’s Pool Hall in Gulfport, MS, when he left with an unknown white male, with a receding hairline and ponytail. 

While the episode is unavailable, there is a trove of information about the murder, starting with Ocean Springs Police Lieutenant John Flowers’ effort in 2010 to encourage AMW to focus on the murder. “We didn’t want to jeopardize the integrity of the investigation,” Flowers said. “But as the leads grew cold, we decided to try to touch base with America’s Most Wanted to see if they would consider running the story.”

AMW eventually picked up the case, and the gravel-voiced, hard-hitting host John Walsh turned Surber’ murder mystery into a national hunt. Footage of the suspect is viewable online.  There is also a thread about the case on the online forum AMW Fans, with updates through 2020. The case remains unsolved today and is still listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted page. 

Though no evidence indicates Surber was killed for pool hustling, he was definitely familiar with that world. Speaking about the Derby City Classic in a 2009 interview, Surber said, “On one side is the legal stuff, on one side is illegal stuff — sometimes the pool room mixes right in between…Everybody is in there. The thieves and the gamblers all get together.”

Wicked Attraction – “Lesbians and the Little Man”

Wicked Attraction - pool hustling episodeWicked Attraction was an American true crime TV series that focused on how two seemingly ordinary people can come together to commit heinous crimes, thereby forming a “wicked attraction.” Spanning six seasons, the series arguably had one of the most click-baitable episodes, when it aired in 2011 the sensationally named “Lesbians and the Little Man” about the killing of 4’4” Donald Fish, a pool-hustling traveling photographer.

Fish was brutally murdered in the small town of Roseburg, Oregon in July 1990. As the viewer learns through a combination of reenactments (with actors) and interviews (with people involved in the investigation), Fish was shooting pool at Reston Reds and flashing a lot of money he had won. There, two women – “probably lesbians” – come onto Fish with the intent of at least robbing him. The two women are Tamara Upton and Tracey Poirier, both of whom have long-standing criminal histories of burglary, car theft, prostitution, and sexual abuse. They convince Fish they’re going to have a wild night, but it gruesomely ends with Fish getting stuffed into a car trunk, driven to the Umpqua River, stripped, beaten, stoned to death, and skullcrushed.

The duo is apprehended, and ultimately convicted of murder. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment. Incredibly, Poirier jailbreaks in 1998 after convincing a female prison guard to assist her. She was caught again one month later and is currently in an undisclosed prison without parole.  Upton died in prison in 2019.

“Lesbians and the Little Man” is available to stream for free on Tubi.

Snapped: Killer Couples – “Poirier/Upton”

Snapped - pool hustling episodeApparently, the story of Donald Fish’s murder was so lurid that the media executives at the Oxygen Network decided it needed to be reenacted and retold on their true crime television series Snapped: Killer Couples. This program details couples who commit crimes together, such as Tamara Upton and Tracey Poirier, who are the amorous duo featured in the 2014 third season episode “Poirier/Upton,” which is available to watch on Amazon. While the episode lacks the catchpenny title of its predecessor, the show otherwise overdelivers on the provocativeness with flashy graphics, high-energy music, hyperbolic voice-overs, and lots and lots of women kissing and groping.

In fact, Donald Fish, the “world class pool hustler” (according to his co-workers), doesn’t really come up until one-third into the episode, after it’s been established that the “slow simmering sexual tension [between the two women] had boiled over into a white-hot romance more passionate and steamy than anything either woman had ever experienced.”

But, aside from an Oregon police officer revealing that the women “were in a state of euphoria after they had killed [Fish] and licked the blood off of each other,” there is little new information in this retelling.

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks  – “$4.5 Million Gamble”

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks - pool hustling episodeIt’s a brilliant concept for a TV show. Ask high-stakes hustlers, gamblers, and crooks to tell their incredible stories first-hand. With those kinds of required credentials, it’s not surprising that pool hustlers have been featured multiple times on the series. All episodes are available to stream on AppleTV.

The premier episode, which aired in January 2024, features CJ Wiley, the “best money player of the 20th century,” talking about his PhD – i.e., his Pool Hustling Degree. He likens road players to a “secret society,” spouts philosophy (“It’s really a sales game… you’re selling the idea your opponent can beat you.”), and talks tactics for recalling where to play, who to play, and how much to wager.

But, the episode gets more interesting when Wiley takes us back to Pittsburgh 1986, when a $100 race to seven in nineball slowly transitions to $900 games of one-pocket, and Wiley ultimately hustling a local out of $18,000. That’s all dandy until the bartender realizes that Wiley’s play has gotten steadily better and he accuses him of hustling. Wiley manages to escape, but is subsequently robbed by a gunman, which then leads to a shootout. The events, which were first chronicled in the January 1998 issue of Texas Monthly, led Wiley to give up hustling at age 26 and turn pro, clinching the 1996 ESPN World Open and becoming the two-time Mosconi Cup captain.

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks – “Bet Everything on Red”

Scott “The Freezer” Frost is an accomplished professional pool player, a member of the One Pocket Hall of Fame, and a frequent pool podcaster. But, his early pool hustling career almost cost him his life, as he shares in “Bet Everything on Red,” the third episode of season one.

After a basketball coach booted him from the sport at age 17, Frost turned to pool. By age 20, he had made almost $140,000 hustling on the road. “You have to figure out who’s got the money and who’s willing to lose it…The toughest part of being on the road is the stress of carrying all the cash and always watching your back. You deal with some rough guys.”

Those “rough guys” turned up in Houston, when an itch to get a game with the deep-pocketed Mr. Johnson led Frost to abandon his own ‘rules of pool hustling’ and get into a car with a stranger, after flashing his billiards bankroll. While that stranger had promised Frost an intro to Mr. Johnson, his true intent was much more nefarious. The stranger led Frost to two local thugs, who promptly beat the shit out of Frost, first almost drowning him in a ravine, and then almost killing him. In fact, Frost would have been dead had the guy’s gun not jammed. Frost managed to escape and flag the police, who then determined Frost was the menace and put him in jail for 12 hours. Said Frost, “That evening ended up being the worst evening of my life.” He went pro shortly thereafter.

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The Aces

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theaces.1 Early in the first episode of The Aces, Muk (Chandra Satria) reminds his son Kieu (Kevin Ardilova), “On a billiard table, the white ball doesn’t know who is rich and who is poor.” This theme of classism in billiards is arguably the most interesting component of this Indonesian billiards series that debuted on Amazon Prime in 2023. Classism is a dynamic at the heart of the sport’s 500+ year history, yet it’s been curiously unexplored throughout most billiards film and television.

A compressed history lesson: Billiards originated in late 15th century France. It was played by royalty, such as King Louis XI and Mary, Queen of Scots, and it was often referred to as the “Noble Game.” For centuries, a billiards table was a symbol of opulence, and it belonged exclusively to the wealthy elite. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century, when billiards’ identity schism occurred, and tables started to show up in saloons and taverns, targeting a less reputable demographic. Eventually, it became culturally coded, affiliated with alcohol, gambling, and danger.

This was equally true in Indonesia. During the Dutch East Indies, billiards was an elite colonial pastime, played in venues not accessible to most Indonesians.  Popular places for playing billiards included the Harmony Society in Batavia (now Jakarta) and the Balai Pemuda, a Dutch elite social club that was affectionately known by the locals as “Roemah Kamar Bola” (or Billiard Room House). But after Indonesia’s independence, the sport shifted – or expanded – building popularity among middle- and lower-class populations, and engendering a seedier image, particularly associated with gambling and alcohol.

The Aces sits at this class and cultural intersection. The series focuses on two billiards players on opposite sides of Indonesia’s economic spectrum who are slowly brought together to compete against one another in the 2022 Jakarta Billiards Society. JBS is a once-in-a-lifetime 9-ball single elimination tournament, where up to 16 people from any demographic can compete. Players advance by winning their best-of-three matches. But the stakes are high: either you win the tournament or you are banned from ever competing in it again.

theaces.3On one side of the baize is Dharma (Emir Mahira), scion of the legendary Triasmana family, which seemingly runs Jakarta and has retained control of JBS for many years. The family is ruled by the fearful patriarch Faisal (Surya Saputra), who reminds his audience of financial backers that, “Billiards is meant for people like us, the chosen ones. Because if billiards were in the wrong class, the lower class, it would be associated with cheap beers, rural gambling, and low-class prostitution.”

On the other side is Kieu, a gimpy-legged, chainsmoking, reckless, billiards crackpot, who gambles to keep his family’s dilapidated Taurus Billiards afloat, though his father vehemently disapproves of Kieu’s money-earning tactics. There is barely enough money for food, never mind getting Kieu’s father cataract surgery. As Kiu says, “For us, billiards is survival.” 

Series creator Salman Aristo said, “The Aces tells the story of the generation gap between a father and his son, including their expectations and navigating the communication gap, and billiards provides a unique twist.” It also portrays the social class differences between the two main characters in a compelling way. All these story elements are meant to be conveyed as “one table, millions of destinies” on the billiards table. (1) 

theaces.2While The Aces gets high marks for exploring billiards history through classism, the series ultimately fails because the story lacks any real drama or tension. The eight episodes long overstay their welcome. Dharma’s path to JBS is both plagued with melodrama and boring to watch, especially as the actor Mr. Mahira portrays him as a one-dimensional, anxiety-ridden, petulant son. (Kieu’s character is at least a bit more nuanced.) Character arcs don’t make sense, and key plot points (such as the JBS gambling) are underdeveloped. There is also an annoying Mr. Miyagi-like mentor named Yundus Pendekar, the “insane billiards master,” who spends a disproportionate amount of time pounding vodka-and-wine potables, but does little else to move the story forward.

As for the billiards, the creators seemingly tried to inject some verisimilitude into the series. Emphasis is rightfully put on the very mundane practice of using a guided hole stroke trainer to aim a cue stick straight. And the series briefly explores the craftsmanship of cue making. But other details are completely botched. Some of the 9-ball play is inaccurate, with balls shot out-of-order. The lags for break are inconsistent with the characters’ skill levels. A ball-in-hand setup on the 8-ball is narrated to be highly tense, when it’s super straightforward. Most egregious, the JBS tournament, which doesn’t commence until episode 5, finally unfolds at a level of play nowhere near commensurate with the hype the series has painstakingly built. Collectively, these gaffes are unforgivable and lead to a disappointingly subpar viewing experience.

The Aces is streaming on Amazon Prime, though access may be restricted depending on one’s home country.

*****
1. https://www.tempo.co/teroka/the-aces-serial-duo-jenius-berbeda-kelas-sosial-beradu-di-turnamen-biliar–108158

The Dangerous Life of Pool Hustling (Part I)*

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As CJ Wiley, the billiards professional nicknamed the “Greatest Money Player of the 20th Century,” once said, “High-stakes pool hustling is a dangerous game.”

Certainly, the film and television industry thinks so.

Ever since “Fast Eddie” Felson had his thumbs broken in The Hustler, it’s been a dark day for on-screen pool hustlers.  Johnny Doyle had his hand broken in Poolhall Junkies. Tim Patterson almost lost his life in the Ironside episode “Side Pocket.”  Jim Dooley did lose his life, due to an exploding eightball, in the Shotgun Slade episode “The Pool Shark.”  Tenderloin Tony was shot down in Shooting Gallery, and the hustler Calvin Tate took a bullet to the head in the CSI “Dead Rails” episode.

To this growing list of murdered fictional pool hustlers, we can add Patrick “The Rifle” Lennox, the hustler at the center of the “November 22” episode of Cold Case.

Cold Case – “November 22”

Cold Case.2Cold Case was an American police procedural crime drama television series that ran for seven seasons on CBS in the aughts.  It’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production, which is why it feels similar to CSI. “November 22” is from the show’s sixth season and is streaming for free on Roku. The title comes from the day President Kennedy was killed, which is the same day our hustler The Rifle (Eion Bailey) was shot in the back in broad daylight but nobody noticed because their attention was on JFK.

As with each Cold Case episode, a piece of evidence appears that leads the Philadelphia Police Department to reopen a cold homicide investigation. In “November 22,” it’s a .32-caliber snub nose revolver with a spent cartridge, found inside the recently renovated Whitey’s Pool Hall, a venue once famous for “pool, gambling..and being the raid capital of Philly back in the day.” It’s a storied place, where pictures of Minnesota Fats and Wimpy Lassiter used to decorate the walls. 

Cold CaseIt’s also where Lennox may have first tangled with the wrong people. Through flashbacks, we learn that the Rifle would “shoot fast and never miss,” and that while he could beat “all the yutzes in Mayberry,” he really wanted to tangle with the infamous Baltimore Red. According to legend, Red would “run 15 racks in Hoboken and then do it again in Skokie. Nobody knew who he was or where he was from;” only that playing him required $2000 a rack.

For all the Rifle’s bluster, he’s a flawed player who “can’t see his third shot.” But that changes when a stakehorse takes an interest in him, saying the Rifle had “the mortal nuts, a stick with no fear.” 

Complementing this cast of characters is Blondie, the Rifle’s “road agent” who would help hook the patsies. She explains to the police, “We saw life as one big choke on all life’s chickens. Patrick was top dog at the table…[but] the life of the hustle catches up with everyone sooner or later.”

Unfortunately, while all the pieces are present, the billiards never really gels within the episode. Patrick seems more like a cornball than a hustler (maybe that’s because I kept thinking he looked like Steve Guttenberg in Police Academy). The billiards lingo feels a bit forced (“the hustler will think I’m some ham-and-egger”). There are a couple of good pool shot montages, but it’s unforgivable that for the final eightball match against Baltimore Red, the balls are racked incorrectly. At least there is a satisfying trick shot at the end in which the Cold Case Squad Commander hits the cue through two balls, pocketing each into a side pocket, and then in the same shot, the force of the cue hits two additional touching balls, slamming each into a corner pocket.

Castle – “Clear and Present Danger”

Another hustler that meets a nasty demise – specifically, the puncturing of his inferior vena cava with a cue stick – is William Ferwick, the long-haired, air guitaring, MIT-educated, pool wiz, who plays on a table emblazoned with a Circle-A anarchy symbol.  He’s the victim at the center of the 2014 “Clear and Present Danger” episode of Castle.

CastleA quick refresher: Castle was an American crime mystery comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC for eight seasons. It paired Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a best-selling mystery novelist, and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a homicide detective, as they solved unusual crimes in New York City.  “Clear and Present Danger” presents a particularly unusual murder, as it appears the killer is invisible or has paranormal powers. 

There is solid comedic and romantic chemistry between the two main characters, so the episode is enjoyable viewing, even if there’s very little billiards to watch. Aside from the opening scene, with Ferwick running the table as David Rolfe’s song “Payback” blares, billiards is only a backstory, as in “Will mostly hustled Wall Street tools for 10 bills a game,” or “The guy was a pool hustler who made a fortune every night at Chelsea Billiards.” 

But, what the episode lacks in billiards, it more than overcompensates with references to quantum cellular equations based on cephalopods, cloaking, underground gaming dens, Lord of the Rings, the camouflage of cuttlefish, and DARPA-like governmental think tanks. “Clear and Present Danger” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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* I have titled this blog post “Part I” to focus on the dangers of pool hustling as fictitiously portrayed on TV. In my next post, I’ll shift my attention to the more somber, non-fictitious examples of the dangers of pool, as captured in various reality shows.

Behind the Eight Ball

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To say billiards has its own language is not an exaggeration. While much of the lingo is known only by the sport’s true insiders, at least a few billiards words and phrases have become mainstream. Perhaps, the best example is the idiom “behind the eight ball,” which means to be in trouble or at a disadvantage. 

Behind the Eight Ball (Daily News, 1929)

Behind the Eight Ball (Daily News, 1929)

There is a misconception the phrase originated from the game of eight ball. But, as multiple historians have noted, the game “eight ball” was not described by that name until circa 1940, whereas the phrase “behind the eight ball” shows up as early as 1923 in a column published by the Buffalo Evening Times. More likely, the idiom derives from the game of kelly pool, which emerged at the turn of the 20th century. 

The phrase saw its peak use in the mid 1940s, though it still remains popular today. Scan the news headlines and you’ll see the phrase used in all sorts of contexts.  “Is Bradenton (FL) ‘behind the eight ball’ with utility rates?” (Bradenton Herald). “Rand Paul says GOP behind the eight ball in mid terms” (Washington Times) “As fentanyl crisis evolves, experts say US is still ‘behind the eight ball’” (Al Jazeera). “Liverpool baseball digs out from ‘behind the eight ball’ for first playoff win” (Syracuse.com).

Behind the 8 ball (1942)Given the idiom’s ubiquity, it’s not surprising that “behind the eight ball” eventually made its way onto movie and TV episode titles. The trend likely began with the Ritz Brothers’ 1942 film Behind the Eight Ball, which is not about billiards, and has continued ever since. There is Behind the Eight Ball (about a speakeasy boss who doesn’t play nicely);  “Behind the Eight Ball” (from the reality show Yukon Gold about a mining crew); “Behind the Eight Ball” (from the short-lived 1960s series Broadside); “Behind the Eight Ball” (from the equally short lived Australian series Willing & Abel); Behind the 8-Ball (about a coke addict whose life is crumbling) ; and on and on. I’ve opted to ignore such non-billiards titles and focus my review on only those Behind the Eight Ball films and shows in which billiards is relevant to the story.

“Behind the Eight Ball,” Top of the Heap (1991)

If you were playing Before They Were Stars Bingo, you might have scored well turning the channel to this “Behind the Eight Ball” episode. Joining Matt LeBlanc (in his pre-Friends role) is Joey Lauren Adams (pre-Dazed and Confused) and Pamela Anderson (pre-Baywatch). But, if you were looking for a decent billiards episode, Top of the Heap is truly bottom of the barrel. Complementing the robotic acting and cringeworthy jokes is a real heap of billiards gaffes, such as pocketed balls reappearing on the table or the game of 9-ball played incorrectly.  My advice: skip the view, read my review.

Behind the 8 Ball (2010)

Behind the 8 Ball (2010)The only full-length film on this list, Behind the 8 Ball is 102 minutes of soapy, saccharine, sentimental stupidity. Directed by Mike Graveline, this Canadian film, featuring a cast of unknown actors, tells the story of Sam Evans, a 35-year old coffee shop owner, who shortly after losing his mother learns that his estranged father, who he has not seen since he was four, wants to rejoin his life.

Interesting premise, but the film derails quickly as it takes Sam and Dad maybe one shared beer before they’re BFFing over a game of pool. Dad is a professional pool player – or at least, a road player – who refers to the pool table as his “church,” and lectures Sam that “pool is a game of precision and heart” and you need to “pick a cue like you pick a woman.” But, if Sam is a billiards beginner, it doesn’t take this tenderfoot more than a couple of days before he and Dad are competing together in a local pool tournament. 

Fast-forward a couple of weeks and Dad needs to take out a $25,000 loan to compete in the World Players Pool Championship, the “most exclusive tournament in North America” with 40 people competing for a $1 million prize. (We’ll ignore that it is held at a local barroom and is sponsored by Cue Ball Hair Design.) But, when Dad’s coronary artery disease acts up and he needs a coronary bypass, it’s Sam who seizes the cue and proceeds to beat the best players on the continent. 

Rounding out this film’s unwatchability is the poor cinematography of the actual billiards. Most shots are not filmed; only players’ reactions to making shots. The few shots that are filmed are both pathetically easy and recycled across multiple matches. An acclaimed two-table trick shot is made off-camera. And don’t get me started on how these world-class players clearly don’t know how to hold a cue or make a stroke. 

“Behind the Eight Ball,” Mystery Diners (2014)

Mystery DinersMystery Diners was one of many undercover reality shows that covertly monitors employees at work. In this 2014 episode, Kent Lewis, the owner of Uptown Billiard Club in Portland, Oregon, decides to go deep cover to evaluate the questionable tactics of his newly hired social media marketer. His covert reconnaissance also reveals that his bartender is hustling patrons. As I wrote in my review of “Behind the Eight Ball,” Mystery Diners always suffered from a lack of credibility, and for many reasons, this particular episode felt laughably staged. Less humorous is Mr. Lewis’ cloak-and-dagger operation apparently could not save his pool hall. In 2019, they closed after 24 years of operation.

“Behind the 8 Ball,” Timber Kings (2017)

Talk about a sweet deal. Richard, the owner of the Laughing Loon Pub in Williams Lake, British Columbia tells the team at Pioneer Log Homes that if they make him a customized cedar pool table, he’ll give them an extra pour of his signature craft beer. At least, that’s the setup for the “Behind the 8 Ball” episode of Timber Kings, a Canadian reality show about the team at Pioneer Log Homes, which makes some of the most exquisite, sought after log homes around the world. This fourth season episode is light on drama or tension, save for a temporary setback when the reinforced bed is a smidgeon too high for the bumpers, but it’s impossible not to respect the craftsmanship and innovation, including using magnum shells for the diamond inlays. The episode is available to stream on Tubi.

Behind the 8 Ball (2019)

Behind the 8 Ball (2019)In 2019, Behind the 8 Ball won the Award of Merit at the Southern Shorts Awards Festival. While I couldn’t find the film online, I tracked down the festival’s director, who connected me to the film’s director Alejo Perera. In 14 years of writing this blog, I’ve connected with many, many film directors, and every one of them – except one – was happy to share their film with me. But, Mr. Perera replied to my inquiry quite differently. “You do not have permission to publish or list the film in the 8 Ball on the Silver Screen webpage. Please stop making efforts to obtain it.” Was the film that bad? So, my search continues. If you know anything about the film’s whereabouts, let me know.

“Behind the 8 Ball,” Bar Rescue (2021)

Like many hospitality establishments that emerged from COVID to reopen their doors, Griff’s Bar and Billiards in Las Vegas financially struggled. It didn’t help that the owner, Mark Griffin, who had a double lung transplant, got sick and needed to rely heavily on his general manager, Gary. Mark suspected the issue was not his 26 pool tables spanning 10,500 square feet; the problem was food and alcohol. What’s an owner to do but “pull back the doors, bust open the books, and make a call for Bar Rescue.” 

Bar Rescue - Behind the Eight BallThat’s the premise of the 2021 “Behind the 8 Ball” episode. Unlike the “Empty Pockets” episode from 2013, this one doesn’t focus on revitalizing billiards. It’s all about food quality (and unit costs), operational efficiency, a signature cocktail menu, and a management shakeup.  (Host Jon Taffer’s prescription is a little surprising, since the pool tables always appear empty, but I guess that interfered with the story arc.) There is one innovative, billiards-themed drink introduced – the Pool Cue Punch – but looking at their drink menu today, that cocktail has since been replaced with other pool potables, including the South Dakota Kid, the Color of Money, and the Duchess of Doom. “Behind the 8 Ball” is available to stream on Paramount+.

Behind the 8-Ball (2021)

Aside from its mention on IMDB, there is no trace of Zaman Khan’s short film Behind the 8-Ball about a man (Vincent) who experiences some strange occurrences in his home during his pool game. If you know anything about the film’s whereabouts, let me know.

Behind the 8 Ball (2024)

Behind the 8 Ball (2024)Unfortunately, I’m not going to recoup the 11 minutes I spent watching the 2024 short film Behind the 8 Ball.  The premise is intriguing: a professional gambler schemes with a naive pool player, but they come into conflict with a secret society controlling the world with pool. Even if I gave a pass to the poor acting and writing, I’m retching  over the repeated use of the miniature, portable pool table. The only interesting moment is when the rack of the billiards balls is equated with other similar triangular symbols, such as the Great Seal of the United States with its floating Eye of Providence, the Freemason logo, and the Triquetra (or the Irish Trinity Knot). The movie is viewable from the director’s website. But, remember that the triangular shape also appears as the universal warning icon, as in, “Warning: Do Not Watch.” 

Mr Doom: Behind the 8 Ball (2025)

Mr Doom.v4In 2023, I interviewed Leif Johnson about his forthcoming movie Mr Doom. At that time, the film had no subtitle. Now, fast-forward to the film’s release in 2025, and the film’s marketing has appended the subtitle Behind the 8 Ball. It’s a baffling and ultimately pointless decision. For starters, the film can stand on its own. As I shared in my review, it’s an enjoyable homage to The Color of Money – a film that thankfully avoided any “behind the eight ball” addendums. Mr Doom is also a unique title within the billiards movie genre. Unless some poor sap mistook it for a 38th entry in the MCU, I’m pretty confident the film didn’t warrant a marketing tagline that screams, “I’m about billiards!”

Behind the 8 Ball (2026)

Behind the 8 Ball (2026)The most recent entrant to “Behind the Eight Ball” zeitgeist is the high school student film Behind the 8 Ball released this May. That’s not a typo. The film was made by Olio Road Productions, a film production company created and run by Jeremiah Follis, a teacher at Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers, Indiana. An extension of the school’s Film Studio program, Olio Road Productions assembles students from across the high school and tasks them with every component that goes into making a full-length movie. Casting, acting, set design, scriptwriting, costumes, makeup, music, artwork – it’s all done by high school students over the course of the school year.  This year’s film is about a financially troubled high school senior who bets her future on a pool tournament, only to discover the real game is deciding what kind of life she wants to live. While I have not yet connected with Mr. Follis to watch the film, a trailer is available on the company’s website.

By this point, I hope you no longer feel ‘behind the eight ball’ about your knowledge of movies and TV episodes spawned by the popular phrase. I also hope it’s many years before I’m telling you about the next Behind the Eight Ball film, but I suspect it will likely only be months (or weeks). As for me, I’m going to resist the temptation to now explore the etymology of the phrase “behind the nine ball,” especially if the atrocious billiards movie Behind the Nine is any indication of what lies ahead.

This Is Your Life

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In today’s fast-paced, digital mediaverse, with its fixation on celebrity scandal and gossip, social media over-sharing, soundbite relationships, 24/7 attention-fragmenting content streams, and shock value over substance, it’s hard to fathom that a television series like This Is Your Life ever existed, never mind that it ran for almost 50 years. 

This Is Your LifeYet, from 1955 to 2003, the British biographical series entertained audiences, with peak viewership of 20 million. Based on the much shorter-lived American series, This Is Your Life had a simple premise: the host (initially Eamonn Andrews, then Michael Aspel) surprises a special celebrity guest before taking them on a narrated 25-minute journey through their life, complete with on-stage guests, surprise guests, and the very distinct Big Red Book documenting the chronological voyage.

Over the half-century, an estimated 1,000 people were featured on the show, including celebrities such as Bob Hope, Christopher Lee, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Not surprisingly for a country that idolizes its snooker stars, This Is Your Life also featured at least 8 billiards professionals, starting with Ray Reardon in 1976 and concluding with John Virgo in 1996. 

Some of the full episodes are available to watch below; others exist only in isolated social media clips or have disappeared entirely. What is instantly apparent from watching and reading about these episodes, in full or in part, is how the snooker community celebrated its own heroes. Many of these champions appear in multiple episodes, exchanging embraces, platitudes, and respect for their peers. Whatever rivalry existed on the green baize disappears in front of the red book.  It’s heart-warming, jovial, sometimes cringy, often maudlin, but most important, a great reminder of a byegone era of sports and entertainment. 

Ray Reardon (January, 1976)

Ray Reardon - This Is Your LifeRay Reardon, aka “Dracula”, was a Welsh snooker professional who dominated the sport in the 1970s, winning the World Snooker Championship six times. In 1976, This Is Your Life host Eamonn Andrews surprised Reardon while he was recording a session for Thames Television’s Ladbroke International – an invitational snooker tournament – at the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn in London. In his autobiography Ray Reardon, he remarks, “Many times I have heard people discuss whether the ‘victim’ is really surprised when this happens, but I can assure you that I had no inkling of what was about to happen. I felt as surprised as I looked.”

Reardon’s guests included many of the snooker luminaries who would continue to appear on the show over the next 20 years: John Pulman, John Spencer, Cliff Thorburn, Alex Higgins, Joyce Gardner, Terry Griffiths. I presume that a highlight of the episode was bringing into the studio the team of miners that rescued Reardon, at age 24, when he was buried under a 12-foot girder and rockfall while developing a pit roadway. The near-death experience prompted him to leave the mining industry and eventually pivot into snooker. 

This episode is WANTED – please help me to find it!

Terry Griffiths (January, 1980)

Terry Griffiths - This Is Your LifeThe Welsh wunderkind Terry Griffiths won the 1979 World Snooker Championship, becoming world champion at the first attempt in only his second tournament as a professional. Just nine months later, as part of an elaborate charade, Griffiths was on his way to a Ford dealership to pursue a potential sponsorship opportunity, when a bus carrying residents from his hometown of Llanelli, Wales cut in front of him. Andrews, disguised as the conductor, emerged from the bus, toting the Big Red Book. 

Griffiths talked about his appearance on This Is Your Life in his autobiography Griff: “That night, in the theatre, for the first time in my life I was lost for words. Emotionally it was too much for me. The next thing I knew the show was over… and that was it. It all went past me like a dream…it was a great honour to be chosen for the programme, but at the time I really could not take it all in. People had said to me before that I would someday get on the show, but I had just laughed at them. I never thought it would happen.”

This episode is also WANTED – please help me to find it!

Alex Higgins (February, 1981)

Alex Higgins - This Is Your Life“The People’s Champion” Alex Higgins would become a regular guest of future snooker celebs on This Is Your Life, but his biographical journey was captured in a 1981 episode, shortly after winning the 1981 Masters.  Higgins’ life has been well-documented in film, so I won’t repeat his myriad accomplishments here. Suffice to say, for someone as colorful as “The Hurricane,” his guest list was appropriately eclectic. Not only did it include the usual snooker suspects (e.g., John Virgo, Steve Davis, John Spencer), but also featured at least one singer (Dickie Henderson), radio DJ (Dave Lee Travis), comedian (Duggie Brown), footballer (Emlyn Hughes), and rock musician (Suzi Quatro). 

This episode is also WANTED – please help me to find it! However, I did locate a 2-minute clip on Meta in which John Pulman, an eight-time world snooker champion from the ‘50s and ‘60s, enters the studio as a surprise guest and recounts to Andrews how he saw Higgins play as “a young boy with potential, great professional talent. And I advised him, and he subsequently took that advice and turned pro.” Higgins is visibly moved, for he has more than once referred to Pulman as “invincible” and his “childhood hero.”

Dennis Taylor (October, 1985)

Dennis Taylor, the Northern Irishman with the signature upside-down glasses, appeared on This is Your Life after Andrews surprised him while he was being photographed for Thames Sport in the foyer of Thames Television’s Euston Road Studios. His guest list included the standard snooker pro pantheon – Cliff Thorburn, Tony Knowles, John Virgo, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths, and Steve Davis – but I’m convinced a highlight from that episode was Irish singer Joe Dolan singing “Saturday Night at the Movies” to Taylor. Dolan initially appeared to be joining remotely, but then the curtain is pulled back and he is live in the studio. Taylor’s joy is incredible, perhaps only rivaled by his famous win over Steve Davis in the 1985 Snooker World Championship.

Aside from the Dolan appearance, this episode is WANTED – please help me to find it!

Joe Johnson (November, 1986)

A 150:1 outsider, Joe Johnson beat Steve Davis 18-12 in the 1986 World Snooker Championship, forever earning the sobriquet, “The Cinderella Man of Snooker.” He also earned a feature spot on This Is Your Life, which is available to watch in its entirety below.

To no surprise, Johnson is championed by a bevy of snooker champions, both joining remotely and in-person:  Tony Knowles, John Parrott, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths, Dennis Taylor, and Steve Davis. Arguably, the snooker bonhomie is the least interesting aspect of this show. Far more heartstring-pulling is the emergence of Johnson’s five children, all wearing his famous “jazzy” leather shoes. But, the true apex of this episode is when American singer-songwriter Gerard Kenney shows up on the piano and is joined by Johnson, who had a separate side hustle as the lead singer of the band Made in Japan, for a rendition of “I Made It Through the Rain,” a Kenney original that became a runaway hit after Barry Manilow recorded it in 1980.

Stephen Hendry (November, 1990)

Stephen Hendry said it best when Aspel surprised him with the Big Red Book: “I’m only 21.” The hilariously deadpan proclamation kicked off an otherwise insipid This Is Your Life episode, which you can view in its entirety below. 

Hendry was hardly a stranger to the spotlight; by the time he appeared on the show, he had six months earlier won the World Snooker Championship, making him the sport’s youngest world champion. But, at 21, there’s only so much raw material to mine, and the strain shows, as the producers introduce random childhood snooker friends, and then engage his aunt about helping Hendry pick out appropriate suits or get a professional haircut. The camera also seems to linger a bit too long on Hendry’s leggy girlfriend, Mandy Tart, who he married five years later (and then divorced much later). 

Fortunately, the episode’s final minutes over-deliver with very touching comments made by in-studio guests Alex Higgins and Jimmy White. Says Higgins, “[Stephen] can frighten you, he can entertain you, he’s the complete snooker player.” And White describes giving Hendry a note after their famous bout: “To the next Jimmy White. – Jimmy White”

Jimmy White (March, 1993)

Jimmy White - This Is Your LifeThree plus years later, “The Whirlwind” Jimmy White had his libro rojo moment, after Aspel surprised him when he was playing a fake exhibition match against John Virgo. Once more, snooker nobility lined the studio stage: John Pulman, Joe Johnson, Steve Davis, Tony Meo, Terry Griffiths, Willie Thorne, Stephen Hendry, and Alex Higgins, who poetically highlighted their competing meteorological monikers (“And suddenly, there was a Whirlwind, as well as a Hurricane, gracing snooker on a collision course.”)

If comedian Bobby Davro’s impersonation of Alex Higgins was the episode’s nadir, than the pinnacle was either Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood recounting the epic failure of White teaching Wood snooker, and Wood teaching White how to play guitar, or White’s father keeping it minimal by endearingly sharing, “He was worth every penny…what an unpredictable boy…he’s lovely.” 

The full episode is available to watch here.

John Virgo (January, 1996)

Having just lost John Virgo this past February at the age of 79, it was hard not to get a little bit misty watching the one available clip I could find from his 1996 appearance on This Is Your Life. Virgo is lauded by two former champions, Willie Thorne and Alex Higgins. It’s not inherently memorable, until one learns, as Virgo subsequently shared in his autobiography Say Goodnight, JV, that when Higgins walked on they had a big hug, but as he shook Virgo’s hand, he whispered into his ear, ‘You’re still a cunt.’

Apparently, Virgo’s episode had the highest viewing figures for the entire series. That’s because he was surprised by Aspel, with the help of comedian Jim Davidson, during a live recording of the BBC television game show The Generation Game.

Aside from the clip above on X, this episode is WANTED – please help me to find it!

A Tale of Two Pool Halls: Fat Albert and Good Times

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The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (or Fat Albert) and Good Times: Black Again (or Good Times) share a number of commonalities. They’re both animated series that explore Black urban life. They both use comedy to address social realism. They both engage in Black storytelling. 

And, unlike many other animated series about African-Americans (e.g., The Boondocks; The Proud Family; The PJs), they both include a billiard episode. Fat Albert aired the episode “Double or Nothing” in which Rudy learns a valuable lesson about winning big when he is tricked into gambling by a pool shark. Good Times premiered with the episode “Meet the Evans of New”, in which Reggie Evans gambles in billiards so he can win enough money to pay the heating bill in his apartment.

But, those similarities pale in comparison to how wildly different these two series are. Let’s just say Fat Albert’s Philadelphia and Reggie Evan’s Chicago may as well be a million miles apart.

“Double or Nothing”

Fat Albert.2Fat Albert  is an educational animated television series created, produced, and hosted (with live action interstitials and bookends) by comedian Bill Cosby. The series ran from 1972 to 1985, long before Cosby became synonymous with celebrity sexual assault. (He was convicted in 2018.) The show was inspired by Cosby’s remembrances of growing up in Philadelphia. It also reflected the intersection of both Cosby’s penchant for observational comedy, with recollections of his childhood, and his educational training. (Cosby received his Doctorate in Education in 1976 and did his dissertation on integrating the visual media of Fat Albert into Elementary School Curriculum.)

In the “Double or Nothing” episode from the series’ final season, Rudy Davis, the smooth talking, cocksure member of Cosby’s Junkyard Gang, is befriended by Arnie, who admires  Rudy’s billiards skills and wants help improving his game. Eager to impress, Rudy gives Arnie some lessons and then takes him for some money. But, Rudy is too blind and greedy to recognize that Arnie is a pool shark.  Rudy quickly loses back the money, and then loses the Cosby Kids’ money, too, when he tries to go ‘double or nothing.’  Still convinced it’s only a streak of bad luck, Rudy is even prepared to wager his special watch, but fortunately Fat Albert intervenes, reveals the ploy, and sends Arnie scrambling.

Fat Albert.1The billiards storyline is pretty standard fare. What makes “Double or Nothing” interesting are the mini homilies Cosby delivers throughout the episode. He declares, “Rudy is not a very good loser. Of course, if he wants to keep on gambling, he better be, because losing is what gambling is all about.” He adds, “That’s the way gambling is. There’s no way to be a winner,” dismisses it as “for dopes,” and concludes that it is “not smart” but “downright stupid….” He leaves no wiggle room about the moral turpitude of gambling. Fat Albert is similarly decisive, saying,
“Gambling is for losers, and I’m not going to help you [Rudy] lose any more.”

The  “Double or Nothing” episode is available to watch for free with ads on DailyMotion.

“Meet the Evans of New”

Good Times.2You may remember meeting the original Evans family – James, Florida, Michael, Willona, and J.J (Mr. “Dy-no-mite!”) – when Good Times aired in the 1970s or reran in syndication. The show tackled complex and challenging issues about growing up in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of inner city Chicago.

Well, in 2024, an executive production team that included Norman Lear (who produced the original Good Times), Seth McFarlane (of Family Guy fame), and NBA phenom Steph Curry launched the animated Good Times: Back Again on Netflix, and it was a spectacular failure. Canceled after one season, the series was condemned by critics, audiences and multiple civil rights organizations as a “racist cartoon” that trolled in negative, crass and obscene portrayals of African-Americans.

“Meet the Evans of New” opens with the Evans family learning their heat has been turned off. After failing to raise the extra cash through his taxi cab driving day job, Reggie explains to his son Junior that to “take care of his family in a respectable way,” they must gamble in billiards. Using his grandfather’s cue stick, Reggie quickly beats most of the patrons, boasting, “Pool is in my genes and once I sink this 8-ball all your cash will be too [in my jeans].” He quickly amasses a small fortune, further schooling his son that pool halls are for “shit-talking”…it’s a place where men can “talk by themselves and can’t get into trouble.” But, before Reggie can sink the final shot against Minnesota Matt, who deigned to call him “the c-word…COWARD!,” he has to forfeit the game to rescue his youngest son.

Good Times.1Aside from presenting gambling at pool in a more virtuous light, this scene probably doesn’t offer the starkest contrast between Good Times and Fat Albert. But, if you thought that pool scene marked the apex of crudeness, the remaining 20 minutes will disabuse you of that notion. They include: Junior waking from a possible wet dream on the couch; Reggie standing naked in front of his daughter; Junior wishing his “Dad’s sudsy bits can go back to normal [from the shrinkage]”; chicken buckets being used as lamp shades; babies dealing crack; a trio of babies (Baby, Lil’ Baby, and Baby Baby) shooting guns at other other babies; Beverly phoning “Not Whitey, but the True Almighty” Black Jesus for favors; Beverly visibly lactating; Beverly using her lactating breasts as a makeshift GPS to locate their kidnapped child; Dalvin doing a “key bump of formula”; a white woman wishing she had bought a Cambodian baby (instead of a black one) for adoption because “those babies are way more grateful”; Dalvin seeing a woman in a revealing top and requesting some milk; and a full-blown attack on spam, “a pink racist meat designed in a lab by a pink racist.”

All 10 episodes of Good Times are available to stream on Netflix.

Room 104 – “Shark”

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Room 104 - Shark episodeIn the 2018 second-season “Shark” episode of the HBO anthology series Room 104, there is a confrontation between two characters about their evolving relationship hustling pool. Ollie (James Earl), a skilled pool player, confronts his cousin and manager Franco (Mahershala Ali) about the value he brings to their partnership, especially as they consider pivoting from road hustling to legitimate tournaments. Questioning their 50/50 financial arrangement, Ollie asks, “I’m the one doing the playing, so what are you going to be doing?

Sensing his gig may be at risk, Franco delivers an acerbic diatribe in response:

I don’t think you realize how much f*cking hard work, skill, dedication, brain power goes into this operation I created for us here. Someone got to book the bus tickets, got to find the cheapest room to stay in town, got to find a pool hall that don’t know about us yet, got to sniff out the player in there that you can definitely beat to get things rolling, then I got to make sure I sniff out any other hustlers in there that got us beat, avoid them, set you up with just the right sucker whose got more money than skill, make the deal with him, or his motherf*cking, piece-of-sh*t ass manager, then distract said piece-of-sh*t manager with conversation while you’re playing, while still keeping my eye on the game so I know how much to bet the next round. And I do this sh*t over and over and over again, plus I got to keep this sh*t all positive because you up here questioning me all the time and acting all moody, like tonight. 

It’s a merciless moment, made all the more brilliant by Mr. Ali’s delivery. (It’s no wonder this gifted actor won back-to-back Oscars for Moonlight and Green Book. As one reviewer wrote, “Mahershala Ali could read the phone book and I would watch.”) 

But, it also feels slightly absurd, especially as a commentary on the historical relationship between pool players and their backers.

Room 104 - Shark episodeLet’s start with the most obvious problem. Except for the top players in the world, very few are going to have ‘business managers,’ especially someone who is going to collect 50% of the player’s earnings. Most pool players, even hustlers, are scraping by, and there’s not enough money to carry a manager.

Slightly more common is that a player will have a stakehorse, i.e., a backer who can put up the money to compete in tournaments or make sizable wagers that can have large payoffs. Conceptually, this is the dynamic in The Hustler between Eddie Felson and his stakehorse Bert Gordon. But, Franco is no Bert Gordon. Even after Ollie beats “that motherf*cker Larry dude…coming up in there with some dinosaur looking motherf*cking yellow ass crusty toenails poking through his sandals,” the duo only net $94 between them. 

Franco blames the paltry amount on the fact that they used to play in “ bigger cities in the bigger halls with the bigger idiots with the bigger wallets…But we played those places out already. So now we gotta hustle more, smaller venues, smaller paydays.” But whatever excuse one concocts, if they’re not clearing $100 in a night, Ollie needs a backer, not a manager.

A third arrangement is the partner model. Think back to the 1940s and 1950s, when players might work together playing private pool games for money. The famous road warriors  Don “The Cincinnati Kid” Willis and Luther “Wimpy” Lassiter epitomized this partnership. According to R.A. Dyer, author of Hustler Days:

Willis befriended Luther Lassiter in 1948 after beating Lassiter at nine-ball. Lassiter, who went on to become seven-time world champion, was perhaps America’s best nine-ball player; together, the two men formed “arguably the most formidable road team in American history”. As Willis said in 1977: “I broke Lassiter one night playing 9-ball in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He suggested that we become road partners …. We split everything we made—sometimes as much as $5000 or $10,000 over a period of several days.” When hustling with Lassiter, Willis often went first, playing the lemon to set up a victim for Lassiter, who would then finish the opponent.

Even if the arrangement is not a joint player partnership, there is at least a mutual respect and understanding of the game. (Think of the relationship between Eddie Felson and Vincent Lauria in The Color of Money.) But, that’s not the case with Franco and Ollie. Franco’s rant continues:

I’m not just your manager, I’m your f*cking shrink, too. You need me to do all the sh*t I do, and take care of you, and the only thing you gotta f*cking do is go out and play with some sticks and balls when I tell you to, and with who I tell you to play with…that’s your whole f*cking job. I got a f*cking halfwit who plays with sticks and balls as a partner, and he’s telling me I ain’t worth my wait in the 50/50? What the f*ck you talking about it? That sounds like a big ol’ f*ck you to me. 

Room 104 - Shark episodeEven Bert Gordon, who called Fast Eddie “a born loser” to try to break his self-destructive tendencies, would never disrespect the game to the point of referring to his partner – or his investment – as a “halfwit who plays with sticks and balls.” 

Want to inject a bit of reality back into this Room 104 episode?  How about this response from Ollie: “Yeah, it is a big ol’ f*ck you. BYE!!”

The “Shark” episode of Room 104 is available to watch on HBOMax.

The Naked Truth – “Born To Be Wilde”

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Steppenwolf’s 1968 counterculture anthem, “Born To Be Wild,” is about living life unafraid and on one’s own terms. It’s a fitting play on words for The Naked Truth episode, “Born To Be Wilde,” in which Nora Wilde decides to embrace her love of billiards and play the game her way.

Naked Truth - Born To Be WildeLasting only three seasons (1995-1998), the ABC-then-NBC sitcom The Naked Truth starred Téa Leoni, in her first lead role, as Pulitzer Prize nominated photographer Nora Wilde, who is forced to take a job at The Comet, a sleazy celebrity tabloid that requires her to work in demeaning situations. While the TV series opened with strong ratings, by the third season, it was in a downward spiral, and the last seven episodes were never aired. “Born To Be Wilde” is one of those episodes.

Whether the demise of The Naked Truth was warranted, I cannot say; I had never heard of the series, and I have no plans to watch any of the remaining 54 episodes. However, for 23 minutes, I was pretty entertained, largely because Ms. Leoni has solid comedic chops, and she throws herself into this episode’s original script.

In “Born To Be Wilde,” the tabloid team learns that the Shoot Billiards Not Bullets celebrity pool tournament is allegedly rigged to ensure the celebrities win. To break the story, Wilde’s partner, Jake, will compete in the tournament to where he can “get his ass whupped by some model who weighs less than a pool cue.”  Wilde’s role in the sting is less enjoyable. She is assigned the role of “chalk girl,” where she must “wander around the floor wearing a tight dress, a lovely smile, and chalk on a chain.”

Though Wilde pretends to know nothing about pool, and mocks Jake for naming his cue stick Old Mahogany Joe (“Why are men compelled to name anything that is longer than it is wide?”), it’s quickly revealed she has a passion for the sport. When Jake disappears to the restroom, she steps up to the pool table, longingly caresses the cue stick, and then threads a difficult shot through two balls.

At the tournament, dressed as Chalk Girl, Wilde is approached by her first celebrity, Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman (playing completely against type), who lecherously says, “Hey there sweet thing, how about a little chalk for the old stick?” But, after a coquettish rebuff, Wilde still has no more information on the tournament scandal.

However, when Jake accidentally gives himself a black eye trying to mimic Tom Cruises’ cue stick twirls in The Color of Money, Wilde then professes her love for pool and seizes the cue to compete as his substitute. She explains, “Back in college, I’d wake up in the morning after a feverish night at the pool hall with balled up twenties in my pocket, and I had no idea how they got there, whose stick I had used, how many games I had played. All I knew was that I had won and I didn’t care how.”

Naked Truth - Born To Be WildeUnfettered, Wilde proceeds to demolish her celebrity opponents, first Mr. Coleman and then (an off-camera) Angela Lansbury.  With each game, her confidence rises and her tongue gets sharper, as in, “Now, now I’ll let Ms Lansbury have at least one shot… oops., I lied… guess it’s Loser She Wrote.”

As the tournament unravels, its organizer finally reveals her true colors and tells Wilde to “take a dive,” which is captured on tape. Having nailed the scandal, but also having lost the support of the crowd, Wilde acquiesces to losing her final match against country music star Trisha Yearwood. But, Ms. Yearwood’s taunts, including a left-field dig comparing chest sizes, pushes Wilde back into beast mode, and the match ends with the ladies billiard-brawling on the pool table.

While I wish there were more on-screen billiards in this episode, “Born To Be Wilde” packs it in with sassy dialogue, a couple of well-placed celebrity cameos, and an original concept. (Aside from Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats, I’m pretty sure ‘celebrity billiards’ is unmined comedic territory.)

One of the final Naked Truth episodes that aired was “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” a reference to Margaret “Molly” Brown, the socialite who survived the sinking of the Titanic. While The Naked Truth ultimately sank like a struck battleship, Ms Leoni fortunately proved to be the series’ Molly Brown. She subsequently has had a successful career in film and television, with lead roles in major big budget movies (i.e., Deep Impact, Jurassic Park III), and then years later in the CBS drama Madame Secretary. Alas, her famous cue stick caress was never reprised.

Early Billiards Sketch Comedies

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Two years ago, I published a blog post entitled “British Sketch Comedy in the Golden Age of Snooker.”  The post began with a review of the uproarious 1973 “Pot Black” sketch from The Benny Hill Show. At the time of my publication, it was the only billiard sketch prior to 1980 that I had watched.

But, since then, my curation of billiard sketch comedies has expanded considerably and surfaced numerous jewels from 1930 to 1979. While some of the humor is now dated, these sketches and scenes represent a half-century of billiards inserting itself into mainstream culture and becoming a part of our popular vernacular. 

Brats (1930)

Any definitive list of early billiards sketches should kick off with the brilliance of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, a duo that paved the way with their childish nature, physical exaggerations, and perfect timing for everyone from Lou Costello and Jerry Lewis to Peter Sellers and Jim Carrey. Brats is a 1930 short film in which Stan and Ollie take a break from their children by playing a game of pool. A mixup involving marshmallows and pool cue chalk leads both players to have issues that then become heated arguments, leading to an armoire breaking and pool felt ripping. The full film is available to watch here. Enjoy, and then experience its influence on modern billiards comedy, such as this pool-playing scene between Kramer and Fran Costanza from “The Doll” episode of Seinfeld.

Harry Tate – “Billiards” (1934)

Along with “Fishing” and “Motoring,” “Billiards” was one of several sketches centered on fads and trends that made the British music hall performer Harry Tate famous. Each sketch presented him as a mustachioed, blustering incompetent whose good intentions only contribute to the surrounding chaos. In “Billiards,” a game played for 10 pounds becomes a magnet for absurdity and calamity, as some balls appear stuck together, a drunk temporarily takes over the table, a man in an apron steps on the table to take measurements, and a high break leads to the ceiling collapsing and the wager getting called off.  The full sketch is available to watch on YouTube, though we can thank British Pathé for their film preservation efforts.

I’ll Never Heil Again (1941)

Curly, Larry, and Moe – aka The Three Stooges – made 190 short films for Columbia Pictures, each with their trademark style of physical, farce, and slapstick comedy. In I’ll Never Heil Again, the Stooges are military commanders who have taken over the country of Moronica. In a scheme to usurp their power, Princess Gilda replaces the 13-ball on the billiards table with an explosive replica, hoping the next shot will lead to their detonative death. But, the plan backfires as the new ball causes all sorts of unintended consequences on the table, with the cue ball never able to find its mark. Not surprisingly, the extended scene’s humor lies less in the supernatural shot-making and more in the Stooges’ waggery and banter.  Favorite line from the scene is Moe accusing Curly of “using too much English,” and Curly replies, “Never speak that word in this house!.” The full episode is here, with the billiards starting at 7:20.

The Red Skelton Show – “Bums Rush” (1952)

The remainder of the 1940s proved barren for billiards, but in the early 1950s, billiards reemerged on the comedic circuit, first starting with “The Sultan” episode of The Red Skelton Show. The “Bums Rush” sketch (which starts at 17:48 here) features the inaugural appearance of Skelton’s hobo clown character, Freddie the Freeloader. There’s no pool played, as all the action is situated outside a nameless pool hall, after Freddie gets ejected by the owner for pickpocketing several billiards balls.  Most of the sketch involves sight gags (e.g., Skelton diving head first into a trash can) or zinging one-liners (e.g., “I was born very poor…I didn’t even have a father or a mother.”) that would induce Dad-joke groans today. The sketch ends with Freddie outwitting the owner and running back into the pool hall, only to exit again, this time drenched, having experienced first-hand that the “pool” refers to a swimming pool. Ba dum tss!

The Abbott and Costello Show – “Las Vegas” (1953)

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello cemented their comedic immortality in the early 1940s with their radio sketch, “Who’ On First?,” that displayed their trademark ratatat wordplay, misunderstandings, memorable catchphrases, and impeccable timing. A decade plus later, they pivoted from baseball to billiards in the “Las Vegas” television episode, where Lou Costello competes in a hotel pool game. His opponent, Julius Caesar, keeps suggesting spectacularly-sized wagers that cause Costello to – literally – lose his cue stick. It’s a sight gag that wouldn’t work today, but under the physical contortionism of Costello, it’s perfect. And, when the side-betting gets subsumed by a conversation about horse racing terminology, in which Costello mistakes a horse who can run well in the mud (a mudder) as ‘mother’ and the food that is fed to a horse (its fodder) as ‘father,’ well, now we’re in the Billiards Comedy Hall of Fame.  The scene, which starts at 18:30, is available here.

The Colgate Comedy Hour – “Pool Hall” with Martin and Lewis (1955)

While “Pool Hall” may be best remembered for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’ heartfelt rendition of the popular standard “Side by Side,” it also offers a very entertaining billiard sketch that is classic Martin and Lewis interplay and humor.  Inside a nameless pool hall, Dino is preparing to make his final shot, when a rain-drenched Jerry enters and unwittingly proceeds to make a mess of the game. Ever the innocent man-child, Jerry accidentally interferes with shots, pours water on the table, and gets chalk powder everywhere. Straight-man Dino can barely hold it together, subtly fuming (while in character) and almost cracking up (out of character, as entertained by Lewis as the audience is). The full episode is available to watch here. “Pool Hall” was among the last sketches from The Colgate Comedy Hour before the series changed its name to The Colgate Variety Hour to reflect a move away from pure comedy.

Take a Good Look (1960)

From 1959-1961, ABC aired the game show Take a Good Look created by and starring comedian Ernie Kovacs. An odd show in which a panel of celebrities attempt to guess a secret about a seemingly ordinary person brought onstage, the clever spark was the short comedy sketches that vaguely revealed hints to the guest’s identity.  Such is the case in this sketch where Frankenstein (Kovacs) and Dracula (Bobby Lauher) compete in a game of billiards. Dracula talks a big game and shows off his knowledge of spin to Vampiress, but it’s Frankenstein who turns out to be the real pool shark. He pockets 14 of 15 balls on the break. The last one bounces out of the overstuffed pocket only then to be crushed by a monster’s hand that emerges from the table.

A Shot in the Dark (1964)

It only took one year for Peter Sellers to follow his side-splitting performance in The Pink Panther with its sequel, A Shot in the Dark.  Reprising his role as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, Sellers doubles-down on the character’s ineptitude, pompous personality, and exaggerated French accent. This time, those traits are on glorious display as he competes in a game of three-cushion billiards against the millionaire Monsieur Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders). Sellers is a master of sight gags; nobody can quite make a mess of a billiards cue stick stand like he can, and his attempts to play with a curved cue stick remain brilliant 60 years later. But, it’s his genteel observation – “I appear to have grazed your billiard table” – after slashing the baize with his cue stick that makes this scene positively memorable.

Turn-On (1969)

Cancelled before the first episode aired on the West Coast, Turn-On was the ahead-of-its-time brainchild of George Schlatter, producer of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. The conceptual TV show was packed full of short clips, rapid movements, and controversial topics. But, after a horrified programmer at WEWS in Cleveland shut off the show on live television, stating the remainder of the program would “not be seen this evening…or ever,” the lights were permanently turned off for Turn-On.  Those banned episodes have since surfaced on YouTube, and scattered among the non-linear sketches, multimedia assaults, and nonsensical nonsequiturs, are random clips – just a few seconds each – of a well-endowed woman shooting pool and making the balls obediently march in all sorts of directions. (An example is at 0:46 in the first episode.) Variations of this sketch (?) appear throughout the short-lived series. Hey, it was 1969 – what better time in billiards history to Turn-On, tune in, drop out, and pocket a shot.

The Tommy Cooper Hour  – “Tommy Cooper’s Christmas” (1973)

Today, the 6’4” fez-wearing Welsh comedian and magician Tommy Cooper may be best remembered for suffering a fatal heart attack on live TV, but in the mid-1970s, he was one of the most recognized entertainers in the world, due to his popular TV shows. The Christmas episode of the short-lived The Tommy Cooper Hour features the “Make or Break” sketch, which is intended to pit two Scottish snooker players against one another. However, there is a mix-up, and Thomas Cooper, amateur golf champion, shows up, instead of Terrence Cooper, amateur snooker champion. The sketch mocks the formality of snooker and its peculiar lexicon and rituals, and then draws comparisons between snooker and golf. (“Snooker is a game with balls and a sort of stick.” “That’s golf,” replies Cooper.) Such jokes elicit a grimace, maybe a chuckle, and then a half-gasp after Cooper magically balances two billiard balls on the tip of a cue stick. But, the skit ends on a high note when the real retired world snooker champion Joe Davis shows up (in all his Tartan glory) and proceeds to play the sport as if it’s golf by standing on the baize and swinging at the balls. The full episode is here. The sketch starts at 24:16.

The Carol Burnett Show – “1908 World Championship Match” (1978)

With 70 Emmy nominations and 25 Emmy wins, The Carol Burnett Show helped cement Carol Burnett as a comedian supernova. Buried within the variety show’s 279 episodes is a brief billiards sketch that unfortunately does not feature the eponymous star. As the name suggests, “1908 World Championship Match” is a competition between two players, TCBS regular Ken Conway and special guest Ken Berry. With its sepia filter and vaudeville music, the sketch harkens to the silent film era and re-introduces the physical antics of earlier sketches referenced in this post. Conway and Berry never actually play pool; the attempt to determine who should shoot first (this was before lagging for break became a norm) goes awry as Conway keeps accusing Berry of cheating. Tempers flare, and soon the players are antagonizing one another with an escalating assortment of dirty tricks. The sketch is amusing, though the real prize is watching Berry’s effortless acrobatics as he somesalts off the billiards table or into a crowd of onlookers. The sketch is available to watch here.

Laugh-In (1978)

Unfortunately, the original Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a countercultural landmark in sketch comedy, does not feature any billiards; however, Laugh-In, the short-lived revival series from the late-’70s does, and it’s pretty unfunny. It seems the series’ producer, George Schlatter, opted to fish in the well of his cancelled show Turn-On and recycle the random billiards snippets. Throughout the February 1, 1978 episode are a running series of 5-second clips (i.e., 05:17, 19:29, 35:55, 42:45) with Ben Powers attempting to play pool, and the balls thwarting his efforts by splitting apart, popping out of pockets, and getting stuck on his cue stick. It’s just bad. There is nothing risque or amusing. The episode was at least somewhat saved by a young unknown cast member named Robin Williams (before he blew up on Mork & Mindy), the singing of Tina Turner, and special guest Jimmy Stewart.

As the 1970s faded into memory, the Me Decade would usher in a whole new set of billiard sketches, including The Muppet Show – “Cross Country Billiards” (1980), Not the Nine O’Clock News – “Smith and Jones: Snooker Tournament” (1981), and The Cannon & Ball Show – “Invisible Snooker” (1982), but that’s a topic for a different day’s blog post.

ChuckleVision – “Big Break”

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I’ll give the viscount credit. He’s got a lot of patience.

Consider: mud is tracked all over his Persian rug; his early Bronze Age sculpture gets broken; his Carrara marble cherub statue is stolen then damaged; the foundation of his mansion partially collapses; his Rembrandt painting is used as a serving tray; and he is deluded into thinking his pet fish was fried and served for lunch.

But, all of that pales into comparison to the real horror committed by Barry and Paul Chuckle, the two  brothers who have been contracted to install the viscount’s new snooker table .

That’s the premise of the “Big Break” episode of ChuckleVision, a British children’s comedy series that ran for 292 episodes from 1987 to 2009. It starred real-life brothers, Barry and Paul Elliott, as the Chuckle brothers, a pair of endearing half-wits who often get into laughable trouble due to Paul’s oversized confidence and Barry’s attempts to clean up his mess.  “Big Break,” presumably named after the popular Big Break snooker game show, aired in 2007.(1) The full episode is available to watch here.

For children watching this episode, there are some obvious lessons. Don’t serve food on a Rembrandt. Don’t serve food from Barney’s Chippy to “a bunch of posh people.” But, the snooker care lessons may be a little more obfuscated, so let’s dig in.

For starters, you really don’t need to worry about two dunderheads absconding with your snooker table. It’s just too heavy. Given the viscount’s social standing, he presumably ordered the installation of a full-size 12’x6’ snooker table. Even if the Chuckle brothers mistakenly built it on the patio rather than in the basement, they could never undo the mistake by moving it by themselves, as it weighs approximately 2,755 pounds. 

Now, admittedly, the table does look rather small, so perhaps the viscount cheaped out and bought a six- or seven-foot table. Even at that size, the table would weigh 375-450 pounds, much too much for Paul and his pipsqueak brother to carry.

Even if one could move a fully assembled snooker table,  never try to move it down stairs without taking it apart. Barry surfaces unharmed when the table he’s carrying down the stairs falls. But, in practice, even a small table would have a gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s² (assuming a 10-foot vertical drop), which would release 6000 joules of energy – the equivalent of a severe car accident or a significant blunt trauma event.

ChuckleVisionBut, somehow the Chuckle brothers do get the fully installed table into the basement, only to put it in a room with insufficient space around the table to properly set up shots. At a minimum, this table requires a 15’x12’ sized room; instead the table is stuck in a tight storage room. It’s no wonder Paul damages the walls attempting to pot a ball. 

The large hole in the wall introduces a new problem, which is compounded by the mansion’s collapsing foundation. The table is now exposed to outside temperatures.  But, indoor tables, made of hardwoods, felt, and other delicate materials that are prone to damage, require a controlled indoor environment with a constant temperature and low humidity levels. No one is playing world professional snooker on this table. It doesn’t require a 21 degree Celsius playing surface, but surely greater temperature control is necessary.

Finally, wherever you install your table, don’t put it directly under a fish tank. Water can cause stains, warping and, worse, mildew. Even our lamebrain contractors know that, as it’s only when the tank’s water starts pouring out of the ceiling onto the table does Barry suggest to the viscount an alternative to playing snooker: “How about some pool?”

*****

  1. “Big Break” was not the first ChuckleVision episode to reference snooker. As early as the season one (1987) “Sport” episode, the brothers were reporting on the sport.