Tag Archives: billiards television

“Break!” – Mission: Impossible

Trick shots are de riguer for billiards movies, ranging from the incredible (The Color of Money) to the preposterous (Equals Against Devils).  But, I thought I was one-and-done with techno-gadget guided shots when I watched the lamentable 1990 Quantum Leap episode “Pool Hall Blues,” in which Dr. Beckett becomes an overnight billiards ace through the use of Al’s Handheld, a super-computer that can show the precise angle to hit every shot.  Little did I realize that episode could trace its origins to the 1972 Mission: Impossible episode “Break!”

Mission: Impossible - Break!Like the Tom Cruise blockbusters of the same name, Mission: Impossible followed the exploits of a small team of secret agents (Impossible Missions Force) assigned to thwart dictators, evil organizations, and eventually crime lords.  The series aired on CBS from 1966-1973.  “Break!” was the opening episode of the series’ final seventh season.

In “Break!,” Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) must infiltrate a gambling ring to recover incriminating microfilm hidden in the wristwatch of a dead agent before the microfilm deteriorates.  The plan requires Phelps to pose as a pool hustler, win the attention and confidence of Press Allen (Robert Conrad), the crime syndicate’s number two man, and then convince him to unwittingly turn against his own boss.   The episode takes place in New Orleans, a frequent setting for billiards movies (see The Baltimore Bullet; Shooting Gallery; and the unfinished Ride the 9).

The plot has more holes than Mission: Impossible III, but that’s hardly the point.  The real kicker is how Phelps can overnight develop pool shark prowess.  That’s what tech wiz Barney (Greg Morris) enables in the form of an “inertial guidance system” hidden within a cue ball.   As Barney explains, “[It’s] the same kind that’s used to keep missiles on course. Our missile: one cue ball. The other balls will be radioactively marked so they’ll show up on the control screen.”  Then, from behind the curtain, Barney will help ‘guide’ the balls into the pockets.  As he explains to Phelps, “The computer guidance could only give you a 5% edge.  And deduct 5% from your opponent.  Of course if you weren’t a pretty fair pool shooter yourself, we wouldn’t have a chance.”

So, in other words:  swap out the real cue ball with the machine-guided cue ball, spread some radioactive lacquer on the remaining balls, mount your handy-dandy self-adhesive circuit board beneath the pool table (better not pick the wrong table), and cue Lalo Schifrin’s immortal theme song because, abracadabra, you’re performing 14-1 straight pool magic.

Mission: Impossible - Break!There is a lot of on-screen straight pool played in Break!  But, as any experienced player knows, most those shots are neither the result of Graves’ expert ability nor of any ‘inertial guidance system.’ Rather, they are a series of two- and three-ball frozen carom shots that dazzle on screen, but are actually far harder to miss than to make, once a billiards technical advisor has done the initial off-camera set-up.

Break! is enjoyable largely because it’s absurd.  After all, it’s one thing for Tom Cruise to repel down the side of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s largest building in the world, in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.  But, it’s quite another to achieve off-the-chart Earl Strickland ability levels through a radio-controlled cue ball.  Now that is absurd!

Mission: Impossible – “Break!” is available to rent or buy online as part of the Season 7 collection.

“Pool Sharks Git Bit” – The Steve Harvey Show

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Pool Sharks Get Bit“Pool Sharks Git Bit,” an episode of The Steve Harvey Show that aired in December 1996 during the sitcom’s first season, is for the most part, pretty dreadful billiards TV.  The storyline is that Romeo and Bullethead, two students at Booker T. Washington High School where ex-funk legend Steve Hightower (Steve Harvey) is now the music teacher and vice principal, try to earn some extra cash for Motown field trip by hustling pool.

Bullethead, who is known inside the East Side Billiard Club as the “Goofy White Boy Who Got Game,” believes “it’s not gambling if you can’t lose, and you saw me, I can’t lose.”  And with that predictable set-up, he of course loses, not only the game, but also the school’s field trip money. Fortunately, Steve Hightower, along with his friend Cedric Robinson (Cedric the Entertainer) is able to get back the money by ‘hustling the hustlers.’  Yawn.

Now, obvious story aside, there are three aspects of “Pool Sharks Get Bit” that not only save the episode but also make it somewhat enjoyable, or at least, memorable.

The first is the hustlers who beat Bullethead.  Breaking with stereotype, the hustlers are women, specifically two ladies named Raven and Jody.  Lured by their looks and fooled by their miscues, Bullethead attempts to take all their money, saying “I do not discriminate against race, religion, or fineness,” and ends up losing everything, including his bus pass.  But, I must still celebrate the incorporation of female hustlers, as Raven and Jody join a select pantheon that today includes Kailey (Turn the River), Sara and Karen (Stickmen), Mary Beth Phillips (The Baron and the Kid), Kelly Bundy (“Cheese, Cues and Blood” – Married with Children) and, of course, Jordan ‘J.J.’ Jamison (Virgin Pockets).

The second aspect is the use of the “African pool scam.”  In order for Steve Hightower and Cedric to get the cash back, they must hustle the hustlers.  Thus, they don African clothing, come into the bar sounding like an extra from Coming to America, and pretend to be naïve Rwandan tribesman who are big fans of billiards and the new pool movie Cool Hand Luke. (Snicker, snicker.)   The scene is footnote worthy because I have otherwise yet to find a billiards movie or TV episode from any country in Africa.

The final aspect is the on-screen billiards shooting, which is terribly edited, but otherwise features some pretty amazing trick shots by Steve Hightower (but not really).  Though the full episode is below, make sure to watch the clip from 19:51-20:19.  You’ll see a series of billiards beauties, including a jump shot that pockets two balls cross-corner, a powerful backspin shot that knocks two balls into the opposing side pockets, a great masse shot, and a six-in-one shot.

I later learned that this six-in-one is called the “Pool Shark Git Bit” shot, according to Chef Anton, the behind-the-scenes billiards maven who is the real artist making the trick shots in this billiards TV episode.  In fact, Anton, whose distinguished career includes becoming the first two-time United States Trick Shot Champion of Pool, has been a regular technical consultant for television stations, such as NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox.

Well, at least we now know how the episode got its name.

Fear Factor – “Billiards for Gross Eats”

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Tomorrow, many of us will participate in the Thanksgiving Day holiday, filled with family, festivity, football, and of course, food.  Lots of food.  In fact, the average American will consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone, according to the Caloric Control Council.  Thus, in the spirit of gluttonous gorging, it seems only appropriate to focus my billiards TV review on the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment of NBC’s sports/stunt/dare reality show, Fear Factor.

Fear Factor - Billiards for Gross EatsTo the uninitiated or ill-informed, Fear Factor aired from 2001 to 2006 (and had a brief revival in 2011). The show pit contestants against each other in a series of three stunts for a grand prize, usually of $50,000.  The first stunt often tested the players physically. And the third stunt often resembled a scene from an action movie, such as traversing moving 18-wheelers or jumping a race car off a ramp.  But, it was the second stunt, which was meant to mentally challenge contestants, that became the stuff of television lore. For these stunts often involved ingesting vile animal parts (e.g., raw ostrich eggs, sheep eyeballs, horse rectum) or eating live animals (such as the favorite Madagascar hissing cockroach); interacting with animals (e.g., getting covered with snakes); or occasionally enduring physical pain (e.g., walking on broken glass, outlasting competitors in a tear gas chamber).

In the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment, which aired in April 2002 as part of the Season 2 episode, “Twins: Sky Surfing/Billiards for Gross Eats/Container Ship,” teams of twins were asked to “play pool Fear Factor style.”  As producer Rick Brown explained, “we set up a four-ball diamond formation at one end of the table. Each ball had one of four custom-made Fear Factor patterns: a chili pepper, a squid, an ant, and an egg. The contestants were given a cueball and five shots to sink the four balls into the pockets. Any balls left on the table would represent the food they would have to eat.”

In actuality, those four Fear Factor patterns depicted a far worse gastronomic fate. The “chili pepper” was a Habanero pepper, the hottest known pepper at the time.  The “squid” was shikoara, a very salty Japanese dish of fermented squid guts.  The “egg” was putrid duck eggs, or what is commonly known in some Asian communities as 100-year-old eggs.  And the “ant” was just that…a vial full of live ants.  Producer Rick Brown referred to this as the “Combo Meal from Hell.”

Though I was unable to find the full segment online, an excerpt of “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment is below.  But, I remember seeing the episode when it first aired and thinking to myself, ‘Five shots to make four balls?  That’s pretty damn easy.’  Let’s just say for these contestants, billiards is probably not their God-given talent.

But, if the contestants sucked at pool, one person on the show most assuredly did not:  Fear Factor host Joe Rogan.  For as many readers well know, Rogan is not only a martial artist, stand-up comedian, actor, and UFC commentator, but also a billiards enthusiast and crackerjack pool player.  (Check out Rogan running a 9-ball rack in this YouTube clip.)  Rogan’s appreciation of pool has been well-documented, and he has been lauded for appearing at and/or commenting on tournaments, whether it was the Efren Reyes IPT 8-Ball Challenge in April 2009 or, more recently, CSI’s “Swanee 17” where Jayson Shaw played Dennis Orcollo in the Hot Seat Match.

In fact, just a few months ago, Rogan created a mini-buzz on the AZ Billiards Forum by responding to an online thread, saying “I’ve entertained several billiards ideas for TV shows [including one like the Late Show with Johnny Carson adding a pool table to the set and guests gather around the table and talk pool.]  The problem with that idea, is that most celebrities SUCK at pool. The numbers that can get out at all are pretty small.  I think there may be 6 celebrities all told that are capable of breaking and running a rack of 9 ball.  My favorite idea was one involving me traveling around to pool halls playing local shortstops and local pros in a sort of impromptu game show type scenario where I just show up and play the best guy/girl in the house.”

Given how much personality, passion and humor Rogan brings to everything he does, let me add myself to the choir and say, “Joe, if you can make any of these billiards television or internet series happen, I’ll be watching from the front row.”

Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats

It’s been almost 18 years since his passing, and an incredible 45 years since his television show Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats first aired.  But, watching the three episodes just released last month on DVD by VCI Entertainment, one instantly recalls his larger-than-life presence, both in his physical girth (at times as much as 300 pounds) and in his verbal swagger and elocution, to say nothing of his pool-playing bravado.

Celebrity BilliardsRunning for four seasons, from 1967-1971, Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats was, quite literally, celebrities playing billiards (for charity) with Minnesota Fats.  Until VCI released the DVD, I had never seen a full episode, though partial clips existed online.  The low-budget set, even by late ‘60s standards, featured a single pool table surrounded by a horseshoe of audience members a few rows deep.  Each episode featured Minnesota Fats, the “world’s most accomplished billiards player” (or some variation of such hyperbole), playing a form of billiards against one of the popular comedians or actors of that era.  The celebrity was given an agreed-upon handicap, and if the celebrity won, s/he got $1000 (about $6700 in today’s dollars) toward the charity of her/his choice; if s/he lost, then $500. At the end of the game, which was shown in its entirety, “Mr. Fats” then demonstrated a series of trick shots, sometimes successfully, other times not. Most of these shots felt impromptu and intimate between him and his celebrity guest, and in all the episodes I watched, the credits rolled even as he was continuing to share shots.

Before delving into the three specific matches on the VCI DVD, it’s worth providing some context around this show, and its master impresario.  To start, in 1961, the movie The Hustler was released, which had two notable effects.  First, participation in billiards skyrocketed. “Sales of equipment soared. The number of pool halls doubled. Organized billiards boomed. Even television sports began to cover straight pool matches,” according to one Chicago Tribune article.

Bank Shot and Other Great RobberiesSecond, in introducing the world to the fictional Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason), it enabled Rudolf Wanderone Jr., a traveling pool hustler from New York City, to claim the name as his own, forever mixing fact and fiction.   And with the Minnesota Fats moniker, the former Wanderone, a decent but largely unknown billiards player, became a household name, parlaying his fame into every facet of media, from magazine articles (Sport Illustrated) to autobiographies (The Bank Shot, and Other Great Robberies) to instructional books (Minnesota Fats Plays Pool) to television (The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) and later, even to movies (The Player).

Also, it had been more than a decade since Ten-Twenty, the last billiards game show.  And with the popularity of bowling shows, such as Jackpot Bowling, on the air, it was the perfect time to try the billiards game show format again, this time with its own superstar, who used to pass out stamped autographed trading cards proclaiming himself “the greatest pool player ever.” Pairing the portly propagandist with celebrities equally made sense, given the success of game shows prominently featuring celebrities, like Hollywood Squares, which debuted in 1966. On top of it all, pool had emerged at this time as the “number one sport in Hollywood, according to some news media.

In the four seasons of Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats, a who’s-who of the era’s A-listers came on the show, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Bill Cosby, Mickey Rooney, and Phyllis Diller.  Apparently, in the show’s pilot episode, James “Maverick” Garner came on, allegedly a reputable pool hustler in his own right, and actually beat Fats, winning the $1000 charity prize.

The newly-released VCI DVD features three episodes from 1971.  In the first episode, Fats plays the comedian Groucho Mark (sans cigar) in 9-ball, giving him the break plus three subsequent shots.  Marx’s game is okay, but his one-liners, such as “It wouldn’t hurt you to practice once in a while,” are classic.  After Fats wins, he reveals to Marx a number of trick shots, though he misses a handful, prompting Marx to reply, “You want to apologize?”  Some of this episode is available to watch below on YouTube.

In the next episode, Fats plays the folk-singing comedians, the Smother Brothers, in a game of “Last Ball,” in which players take turns pocketing balls, but the winner is the one who sinks the last ball.  The Smother Brothers played as a team, effectively getting two turns for every one turn Fats got.  Though the games were presided over by commentator Tim Travers, it’s Fats who provides the real play-by-play, such as describing Dick Smothers’ narrow miss as a “good boy who got in some bad company.” Fats also showcases some beautiful trick shots, including a “kiss, bank, kiss three-cushion” shot.

In the final episode, Fats plays “Mr. Television” Milton Berle in a game of three-cushion billiards, in which Berle is given a three point head-start.  Berle admits to picking this lesser-known variation of billiards because he thought Fats lack of familiarity with the game would give Berle an advantage. This episode tends to lag, as both players struggle to earn points.  Though it is rather amusing when Fats attempts to explain the diamond system to Berle in what comes across as near-dizzying calculus.

The DVD with these three episodes is available to buy on Amazon.

“The Hustler” – The Brady Bunch

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In The Color of Money, “Fast” Eddie Felson, the original Hustler, says, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”  Well, for Bobby Brady, youngest son of the famously surnamed TV sextet, it wasn’t money he won with his billiards skills, but 256 packs of chewing gum, a sweet feat that proves one’s never too young to successfully start hustling.  Since this is The Brady Bunch, a series that ran from 1969 to 1974, we can expect a healthy dosage of well-mannered high jinks, inoffensive banter, and squeaky-clean resolutions.  “The Hustler,” one of the last episodes to air in the final season of The Brady Bunch, does not disappoint.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThis billiards television episode’s set-up is that Harry Matthews, the president of Mike Brady’s architectural firm, gives Mike an (unassembled!) pool table as a thank-you gift.  Bobby, who “always” plays pool at his friend’s house, demonstrates his prowess to his two older brothers, who dismiss his playing as dumb luck.  He later wagers he can beat them in nine-ball, with the loser having to shine the winner’s shoes for a whole month.  Of course, he wins, and soon he is playing all the time and retorting to his siblings, “Who cares about school?  I’m going to be the pool champ of the whole world.”

His constant play ultimately gets him into trouble with his dad, who gently reprimands him for staying up so late practicing when he has school work. But, he is redeemed when he is given a chance to play Mr. Matthews, who has come over for a dinner party.  Mr. Matthews, having beaten everyone else at the party and fancying himself a pool shark, agrees to play Bobby for a pack of chewing gum on every shot.  Bobby promptly thrashes Mr. Matthews, causing one of the other dinner guests to whisper to Mike, “If that was my son, I’d break his arm.”  Fortunately, this does not get Mike fired, but it (unfortunately) does somehow prove that the Brady household is no home for a pool table.  Well, at least Bobby won those 256 packs of chewing gum.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThough “The Hustler” episode lacks any iconic one-liners such as, “Mom always said don’t play ball in the house” or “Pork chops and apple sauce,” it does have one of the more memorable and billiards television worthy dream sequences (shown below).  Dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a “Champ” sash across his chest, Bobby enters a symphony hall  with a single billiards table on stage to a standing ovation.  Taking his cue and chalk from his sister Cindy and cousin Oliver, he proceeds to make a series of multi-ball trick shots, including the well-known, six-ball “Butterfly” shot, before finishing with a shot made while blindfolded.  (Of course, Mike Lookinland, the actor who played Bobby, did not make these shots, and there is disturbingly no mention of a billiards technical advisor in the credits.)

The dream concludes with dollar bills raining onto Bobby like roses being thrown onstage at an opera, and Bobby repeating the phrase, “I’m rich, I’m rich.”  Now there’s an ironic ending…what’s the real dream here?  The fact that Bobby could make all these trick shots or the fact that someone could, in fact, get “rich” playing pool?

“The Hustler” billiards television episode of The Brady Bunch is available to watch in entirety on Paramount+.

“Pool Sharks” – Monsters (billiards TV episode)

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It’s Halloween!  So, once the little ghouls and ghosts are safely tucked in, once the party is over and the Walking Dead costume is back on the hanger, once the jack-o-lantern candles are blown out and the sugar-high has faded, why not cap off the evening with some horror-themed billiards TV, specifically the “Pool Sharks” episode of the cable show Monsters?

Pool Sharks - Billiards TVMonsters was a three-season horror anthology show that ran from 1988-1991 on the Sci-Fi Channel.   Similar to Tales of the Crypt, each 30-minute Monsters episode focused on a monster, ranging from animated mannequins to weapon-wielding lab rats, and often included elements of black comedy, twist endings, and a variety of special effects, some more convincing than others.

[SPOILER ALERT] The aptly-named Monsters episode “Pool Sharks” aired in December 1988 as part of the show’s first season.  The full episode is available below to watch. The episode focuses on  two bar patrons, who face off in a pool game.  Both have secrets; the fact they are both pool hustlers is but the least of those secrets.  One of the patrons is Gabe, an everyman, who enters the bar with his pool cue case in tow and an eye on the vamp at the billiards table.  That vamp is the buxom, pale-skinned, black-clad Natasha, who clearly has a taste for men, as evidenced when she later sucks Gabe’s bleeding finger wound.

After some brief flirtations and a lot of hustler subtext, Natasha and Gabe agree to a game of 50-point straight pool, in which the bet is the winner gets to do whatever s/he wants to the other person’s body. Now, the secrets start getting exposed, as Natasha reveals (to the camera) her fangs, and Gabe starts to probe Natasha’s awareness of a man (Gabe’s brother) who disappeared, having last been seen with a beautiful woman in a pool hall.

Pool Sharks - Billiards TVThe game continues, as each person makes a series of successful (albeit, somewhat easy) trick shots (including a four-balls-in-one-shot beauty), while also gradually pulling back their veils and revealing their true intentions.  (Gabe’s is to avenge his brother.  Natasha’s is to feast on Gabe before the sun rises.)  When the game gets tied 49-49, Natasha appears to win on the next shot, but is thwarted by Gabe (and the usual holy cross vampire trope), who goes on to sink the winning shot and then impales Natasha with his special, hidden-blade cue stick.

While the stakes are totally different, it’s clear “Pool Sharks” is borrowing liberally from the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, “A Game of Pool.”  In that billiards TV show, a local pool player bets his life against a famous, dead pool hustler.  (“Life or death.  You beat me, you live; you lose, you die.”)  The two episodes are also similarly shot in a black-and-white, dimly-lit noir style, with single-table bars in empty pool rooms, mood jazz playing in the background.

By the way, if you really want to make it a billiards Halloween, then I suggest that after watching “Pool Sharks,” you turn to Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, a 1987 British vampire musical that revolves around a snooker showdown.  One billiards horror movie I would skip, however, is The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II.  This low-budget 1988 film is about a macho vampire named Baisez, who slowly seduces the cast and crew of Blood Lover, a movie about a vampire pool hustler, is painfully hard-to-watch.

For a full plot synopsis of “Pool Sharks,” check out: http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com/2009/07/monsters-pool-sharks-review-tv-episode.html

Community – “Physical Education”

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After having recently suffered through some pretty terrible billiards TV episodes, including “Pool Hall Blues” (Quantum Leap) and “Cheese, Cues, and Blood” (Married with Children), I promise you my excitement about billiards TV has not only been restored, but is now bubbling over, thanks to watching “Physical Education,” from the first season of Community on NBC.

Perhaps, I had been living under a rock, but I had never watched Community, prior to the “Physical Education” episode.  Based on a sample size of one, it’s genius. For the uninitiated, the series, which begins its fifth season in January, is about an idiosyncratic group of individuals of varying ages and backgrounds, who attend and comprise a study group at the fictitious Greendale Community College.

Community - Physical Education - Billiards TV“Physical Education,” which aired in March 2010, has two very loosely related, and equally hilarious, storylines. For this blog, the relevant storyline begins with Jeff Winger (played by Joel McHale), the narcissistic, self-anointed leader of the study group, dressed in leather jacket, skinny black jeans, and black boots, in an attempt to look cool for his first day of “The Art of Pool,” a billiards class taught through the Physical Education Department.

When he gets to class, he becomes first incredulous, and then disgusted, that he has to wear a uniform – specifically, (short) shorts – since this is a P.E. class.  Taunted by Coach Bogner (played by Blake Clark) for “dressing like a model instead of an athlete, sipping martinis and smoking instead of keeping your game on the table,” Jeff replies, “Nobody plays pool like that.  This class is the desecration of America’s coolest sport.”

The real belly-laughs come when Jeff has his epiphanic ‘moment of self-love’ and returns to class, in tight shorts and boots, to challenge the coach in a game of pool.  Dismissing the notion that he should be at Urban Outfitters, he retorts, “First, I have to hand someone their tightly swaddled polyester ass in pool…now do you want to talk about clothes like a girl or do you want use tapered stick to hit balls around a cushioned table like a man?”

Community - Billiards TVCue the music for the final showdown.  And not just any music, but in an awesomely absurd homage to The Color of Money, the music is Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” with Joel doing an over-the-top impersonation of Tom Cruise in his iconic scene when he unveils his Balabushka. Like Cruise’s Vincent Lauria, Joel slices, dices, and mock-rifle fires with his cue stick (as well as makes a few pretty nice shots).

To further prove the point the he is not just a shallow clothes-whore, Joel then goes three steps farther into crazyland, first removing his shorts and shirt, and then ultimately, his tighty-whities, to make the winning shot, bare-assed, perched on one leg, giving the audience of onlookers and oglers a bit too much to remember.  The scene ends with the Coach proudly accepting defeat, kissing Jeff, and telling him, “from now on, you play pool however you choose, you magnificent son of a bitch.”

Community - Billiards TVIn closing, this episode achieved several things at once.  First, it blazed up the Twittersphere with references to ‘shirtless Joel McHale.’  Second, it helped ensure Community’s second season, as most critics believed “Physical Education” was one of the show’s best.  But, third and most important, it made pool instantly accessible…while still proclaiming it the “coolest sport in America.”

The “Physical Education” episode is available on Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video.  For additional commentary on this episode, check out: