Tag Archives: billiards television

My Three Sons – “Charley, the Pigeon”

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“Girls?,” says Steven Douglas, flabbergasted that his son Robbie lost the $50, which was intended to buy a set of golf clubs, to two female pool hustlers.  It’s a bit hard to imagine for the famous father of three sons in the “Charley, the Pigeon” episode of My Three Sons.

Charley, the PigeonBefore digging into Mr. Douglas’ disbelief, a little refresher for those not familiar with the long-running sitcom.  My Three Sons first aired on ABC in 1960, and then moved to CBS from 1965 to 1970. The wholesome comedy starred Fred MacMurray as widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas who must raise his three sons, Robbie, Chip and Ernie. He is initially helped by the boys’ grandfather, but by the sixth season, which includes “Charley, the Pigeon,” the character has been replaced by Charley (William Demarest), the boys’ great uncle.

In this billiards episode from January 1966, Robbie (Don Grady) gets fleeced by two high school girls who feign ignorance of the game. Asking Robbie to explain it, he replies, “It’s a game of geometric angles, it’s a matter of velocity and angle of carom,” to which one coyly relays to the other, “I told you we could never understand it.”  After questioning the use of the cue ball and then suggesting, “The white ball with the lavender stripes is so much cuter…couldn’t we use that one?,” the girls shark Robbie for his $50.

Fortunately, uncle Charley used to shoot stick when he was younger, so he impersonates a tycoon named Tex and goes down to the pool hall to give the girls a dose of their own medicine. Playing for $1 per ball, Charley promptly calls the 3 on the break, banks the 4, then does a nice masse shot that he “learned from Mr. Masse.”  He caps off the game with a shot in which he uses the crease of his ten-gallon hat to serve as a bridge and pocket the ball.  Beaten and dismayed, the girls fork over the $50 to Charlie, who gives it to Robbie to make things right once more. The full episode is available to watch here.

Now, back to Mr. Douglas’ exclamation of disbelief: “Girls?”  At its core, it’s the standard sexism one was accustomed to on television, even in our most wholesome shows. The idea that a woman could play pool was simply too much to believe.

It shouldn’t have been a total head-scratcher. Enough women were shooting billiards in the 1960s that the first national women’s billiards tournament occurred just one year later in 1967.  (Dorothy Wise won it that year, and the next five years, and ultimately became the first woman elected in the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame.)

Lori Shampo

Lori Shampo

But, a female pool hustler? Well, such a woman was considerably more uncommon (or just undiscussed) at that time.  In my research, I found scant evidence of women pool hustlers until Lori Shampo started sharking people in the 1970s.  (There were other famous pool playing women, such as Jean Balukas, but most experts seem to agree that while Ms. Balukas may have been the better player, Ms. Shampo was the true hustler.  As Freddie “The Beard” Bentivegna described her, “[She was the] highest rolling female pool player – probably the best for cash…. Lori was the best big-money playing woman of all time. She could play for $5,000 a set or $1,000 a game of 9-ball on the bar table….She shot good, best high, woofed good, and was fearless with a big heart…For the money and the intimidation, Lori Shampo was a female Cornbread Red, only much better-looking.[1])

Therefore, as predictable and pedestrian as the “Charley, the Pigeon” episode seems today, it was a bit groundbreaking to portray women pool hustlers in 1966.

So, the next time you watch “Pool Sharks Git Bit” (The Steve Harvey Show) or “Archie is Cursed” (All in the Family) or “Double of Nothing” (Red Shoe Diaries) or “Martin in the Corner Pocket” (Martin) or Turn the River or Virgin Pockets or Kiss Shot or a host of other shows with female hustlers, chalk your cue, ignore the cute lavender-striped ball, and tip your hat to the My Three Sons episode “Charley, the Pigeon.”

[1]       Bentigvena, Freddie “The Beard.” The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers. 2013.

How Are Billiards Tables Made?

Billiards has come a long way since King Louis XI of France introduced the first table in 1470 exclusively for use by the noble class.  Back then, the handles of maces were used to push balls made of wood, clay, or ivory into a single center hole. Fast forward, in the US alone, there are now more than 20 million players. Though in decline, the billiards tables market is a $200 million industry, with individual tables easily ranging from $500 to $15,000. And the revenue generated from the 340,000 coin-operated tables is close to $1.5 billion.[1]

Billiards tables can have varying dimensions and be considerably customized (e.g., choice of wood, color, cloth, etc); nonetheless, they follow a similar manufacturing process that, when done well, should last several decades. Not surprisingly, several educational reality television shows have attempted to address the question, “How are billiards tables made?”

The oldest of the three shows is How It’s Made, a documentary television series that premiered in early 2001 on the Discovery Channel in Canada and on Discovery’s Science Channel in the US. The low-budget, lo-res series relied on an off-screen narrator who described matter-of-factly in 5-7 minute segments how common items, ranging from guitars to bubble gum, are manufactured, while also injecting some tidbits of history.

The Season 6 episode “Ropes, billiard tables, sailboards, cymbals” from 2006 doesn’t help its cause by getting its history wrong in the first minute, incorrectly saying that “billiards [is] also known as pool” and that the game has “been around nearly 500 years.” The episode then proceeds to walk the viewer through the building process, from the initial table frame getting shaped to the rubber strips getting added to the rails to the workers pre-assembling the pieces and stamping them sequentially to ensure the table can be re-assembled later. Additional attention is given to the hot-gluing of the mother-of-pearl sights and the “real heavy lifting” of the three pieces of slate, each weighing up to 330 pounds, which comprise the table surface. The full episode is available to watch here, starting at 7:02.

Disappointingly, Discovery Communications repeated the How It’s Made formula 16 years later with the launch of their series Incredible Inventions, which first aired in March 2017 on their American Heroes Channel. Spread across 30-minute episodes, this documentary reality series aims to “explore the history and science behind different inventions.”

In the Season 2 episode “The Bow, Ferrofluid, The Billiard Table” from September 2017, the narrator, Matt Baker, delves into the table’s history, referencing its evolution from outdoor croquet and the role Neville Chamberlain played in popularizing the sport.

Then, focusing on Thurston, the oldest (1799) snooker table manufacturer in the world, Mr. Baker details how the company makes its tables: selecting the timber, cutting the wood, planing the wood to the appropriate thickness, drilling holes to enable assembly, creating the legs, leveling the table, spraying the wood, fitting the cushions with billiards cloth, adding the pocket leathers and nets, adding the table cloth, marking the cloth to regulation measurements and ironing it, and finally fitting the cushions.

Aside from highlighting the weight of the table slate, and the craftsmanship of the cloth fitters, the episode feels like a retread of its predecessor, maybe minimally better. The full episode is available to rent/buy and watch on Vudu, starting at 14:20.

In fact, one starts to wonder how this episode got made when Discovery Communications had already upped their game 18 months earlier with the “Pool Tables, Gas Fired Boilers and Shopping Carts” episode from Machines: How They Work, produced and aired by their subsidiary network The Science Channel. By far the most innovative of this how-to trio, this ten-part series combines photo-real CGI with real factory footage to show the hidden workings of appliances, objects, and machines.

Airing in March 2016, the “Pool Tables…” episode distinguishes itself by specifically tackling coin-operated tables, in which “500 parts work in unison” to enable a table to “rack up a half million games” in its 30-year lifetime.

Dissecting a table from Valley-Dynamo, the inventor of the 70-year-old coin-op table, the episode highlights the assembly of the dead rail, the mechanics of the coin recognition slot, and the interior “spider web of runways” that transport the balls.  The episode also tackles the classic question, “Why does the cue ball return but not the other balls?”  I anticipated the answer was attributable to the ball’s size, which is also accurate, but on this featured table it is because the cue’s white layer conceals a ball of iron that gets magnetized, pulling the cue out of the regular chute and channeling it back into play. The full episode is available to watch here, starting at 00:46.

If you’re seeking to understand how billiards tables are manufactured, these three shows should be sufficient.  And, if you’re curiosity wanders more toward the creation of billiards cues or balls, don’t worry. There are plenty of films (The Cuemaker), TV episodes (How It’s Made – “Air filters, billiard cues, ice sculptures, suits”) and video vignettes (Impossible Engineering – “How are billiards balls made?”) to keep you sated.

[1]         Recent data is hard to find. Most of the cited data is 3-5 years old: “…20 million players” (NGSA Sports Participation – Single Sport, 2013); “…a $200 million industry” (Global Billiards Table Market Professional Survey Report, 2017); “…revenue from coin-operated tables” (Statista, 2010; NHBR, 2010)

Magic Kaito 1412 – “Hustler vs Magician”

More than 30 years ago, Gosho Aoyama wrote and illustrated a Japanese manga series entitled Magic Kaito. The story was about a teenager, Kaito Kuroba, who learns that his father was The Kaito Kid, a famous international criminal who was mysteriously murdered over a jewel theft. Vowing to avenge his father, the adolescent becomes a master illusionist and assumes the identity of the Kaito Kid.

Magic Kaito 1412The story was turned into the 24-episode anime series Magic Kaito 1412 that aired from October 4, 2014 to March 28, 2015. In “Hustler vs Magician,” the third episode of the series, Kaito learns that his close family friend Jii, who owns the Blue Parrot Billiards Club, once lost the diamond and emerald-encrusted Legendary Cue (stick) to a local mob boss when he was beaten by the boss’ pool shark, Tsuujirou Hasura in a rigged match.  Now the same boss is threatening to close down the billiards club.

Though Kaito cannot shoot pool, he vows to win back the cue. Sneaking into the boss’ club, the American, he challenges Hasura to multiple matches of 9-ball for $10,000 per game. Losing them all, he wagers the Blue Parrot for the Legendary Cue.  At that point, he assumes the billiards stance of his late father and performs a spectacular trick shot, with multiple jumps, which wins him the cue stick.  It is only later revealed that the shot was an illusion. Hidden wires tautly stretched across the table allowed the cue to travel an otherwise impossible orbit that knocked in all his balls in one shot. The full episode is available to watch here.

Magic Kaito 1412 is the third anime series I’ve discovered with a billiards episode. Unfortunately, it’s the worst of the lot.  Lacking the metaphysical, WTF-ness of Death Billiards or the hyper-sexualized imagination of the “Moulin Rouge” episode of Fairy Tale, the “Hustler vs Magician” episode banally trudges along from its questionable setup to its nonsensical ending. Moreover, the episode feels overly familiar, recycling billiards tropes on its path to an obvious conclusion.

Let’s start with the troubled friend who is poised to lose his bar to the local mob boss. This same idea was the premise of the 1972 film Wandering Ginza Butterfly, which also resolved itself with a match between the main character and a yakuza henchman. Similarly, in the Italian film Il tocco – la sfida the lead character makes the decision to compete in a 5-pin tournament to save his friend’s pool hall. (In that example, the lead unwisely beats the local gangster’s hired pool shark, thereby sealing his friend’s fate.)

Magic Kaito 1412Then, there is the character of Hasura, an honorable pool shark, who is torn between his love of the game and his role as an employee of a ruthless gangster.  This situation is similar to that in the 1991 movie Legend of the Dragon, in which world snooker champion Jimmy “The Whirlwind” White plays the conflicted hustler.

Another trope is the child billiards prodigy underestimated by adults. Less common in movies, this idea formed the backbone of both “The Hustler” episode of The Brady Bunch, when Bobby Brady makes a killing in wagered bubble gum, and the “Minnesota Vicki” episode of Small Wonder, in which 10-year-old Vicki hustles her father’s boss out of the ownership of his company.

On a positive note, “Hustler vs Magician” introduce two ideas that I hadn’t yet encountered.  The first is a prized cue stick with its own moniker.  Sure, Uncle Phil wreaks havoc on his opponent when he unsheathes his cue stick Lucille in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode “Banks Shot.” But, otherwise, most billiards movie cue sticks remain nameless and are of relatively little value.

The second idea is the use of illusions to win a game.  Of course, billiards movies are replete with trick shots, and some are so fantastic that they appear to be magical. So, perhaps it’s a fine line separating magic and world-class pool-playing.  After all, is it any wonder that world billiards legend Efren Reyes goes by the nickname “The Magician”?

What’s My Line?

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Salvador Dalí. Walt Disney. Eleanor Roosevelt. Lucille Ball. Alfred Hitchcock. Walt Frazier. Althea Gibson. Dizzy Gillespie. Aretha Franklin. Groucho Marx. Jesse Owens. Vidal Sassoon. Barbara Walters. Orson Welles. Gore Vidal. Sean Connery. Along with hundreds of others, these celebrities all had one thing in common.  Care to guess?

What's My LineThey all appeared on the famous panel game show What’s My Line?  And to this pantheon of household names, we can also add two renowned billiards players, Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, who appeared on the show September 2, 1962 and January 17, 1965, respectively.

What’s My Line? aired in the United States on CBS initially from 1950 to 1967, making it the longest running U.S. primetime network game show. Moderated by John Daly, the game required four “celebrity” panelists to question a contestant in order to determine his or her occupation, with panelists occasionally having to identify a celebrity “mystery guest” by name. Though there were a number of panelists during the 17-year run, a majority of the episodes had a panel that included columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, actress Arlene Francis, and Random House Publishing founder Bennett Cerf.

Willie “Mr. Pocket Billiards” Mosconi, of course, was (and still is) considered one of the greatest pool players in history. He won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched 15 times, and he set the straight pool world record in 1954 for pocketing 526 consecutive balls in an exhibition match.

In the What’s My Line? episode featuring Mr. Mosconi as the mystery guest, the billiards legends signs in as Mr. X to avoid recognition. The panel tasked with identifying his profession (“world pocket-billiard champion”) consists of Ms. Francis, Ms. Kilgallen, Mr. Cerf, as well as the flamboyant composer and pianist Liberace. 

Knowing only that Mr. X is salaried, deals in a service, and hails from New Jersey, the panel establishes that Mr. X is an indoor entertainer for a profit-making organization who has appeared on television, but otherwise fails miserably to guess his vocation.  When the host ultimately reveals that Mr. X is Willie Mosconi, the panel erupts into a chorus of ohs, ahs, and “Yes, indeed.” He then closes his appearance by discussing his role as technical advisor on The Hustler, and then giving the audience a lexical lesson on the origin of the term “pool.” 

What's My LineThe episode featuring Minnesota Fats is also available to watch on YouTube here.  New York Fats, aka Rudolf Wanderone, was a pool player and hustler who assumed the name Minnesota Fats in 1961 after the release of The Hustler, starring Jackie Gleason as the fictional character Minnesota Fats. Though he appropriated the moniker and was only a decent player, Minnesota Fats quickly became one of the world’s most famous billiards players, appearing in movies (The Player), starring on game shows (Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats), authoring books (The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies), and headlining video games (Minnesota Fats – Sega Genius).

In this Season 16 episode of What’s My Line?, mystery guest Mr. Fats enters by signing in as Rudolf Wanderone. His profession, which the panelists must guess in 10 or less turns, is “professional pocket billiards player.” The panel, which includes Ms. Francis, Ms. Kilgallen, Mr. Cerf, as well as author and comedian Alan King, are not blindfolded, as they often are with celebrities who are visually recognizable to the general public. Though the panel determines he is an indoor performer who uses “props,” moves around a good deal, requires skill and dexterity, is an expert/champion in sports, and has been seen on television, they fail to guess his identity.

What's My LineWhen the host Mr. Daly finally reveals his identity, eliciting applauses, head shakes, and an “Oh Yes!” from Ms. Francis, Mr. Daly goes on to reinforce the myth that Mr. Fats “came to great fame” because he was portrayed by Jackie Gleason in The Hustler, which, of course, was entirely inaccurate. Mr. Daly goes on to cite other parts of Mr. Fats’ resume, including that he was also Vice President at billiard table manufacturer Rozel Industries in Lincolnwood, Illinois.[1] Ironically, the fast-talking Mr. Fats has little opportunity to speak in the episode, often over-ruled by Mr. Daly, but he does have a classic in-character retort to Mr. Cerf’s ignorant question about the famous poker novel later adapted into a movie:

Mr. Cerf: Are you in The Cincinnati Kid? Are you one of the characters?

Mr. Fats: I am one of the characters whenever pool is concerned.

For Mr. Mosconi, What’s My Line? was but one of three game show appearances he made.  He also showed up on To Tell the Truth in 1958 and I’ve Got a Secret in 1962. As noted above, Mr. Fats adored the limelight and parlayed his celebrity into a starring role on Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros in 1967 and then on Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats from 1968 to 1971.

[1]       Rozel, formed in 1963, sold pool tables and accessories under the name Minnesota Fats Billiard & Leisure Centers. In 1980, the five Minnesota Fats stores were converted to Video King outlets. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

 

SNL – “ESPN Classic: 1991 Ladies Billiards Tournament”

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In 1991, Robin Bell won the second ever World Pool-Billiard Association’s Women’s World Nine-ball Championship, defeating her opponent Jo Ann Mason, in Las Vegas. Many years later, Ms. Bell would be inducted into the Billiards Congress of America (BCA) Hall of Fame.

Tampax to the MaxThat same year, a very different billiards match also occurred in Las Vegas.  Televised by ESPN Classic, that matchup was the 1991 Tampax to the Max Ladies Billiards Tournament of Champions, featuring Greta Milwaukee versus “The Soft One” Nina Wilkes Booth.

Confused yet?  Not if you’re a fan of Saturday Night Live.

In 2009, SNL cast members Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte introduced their ESPN Classic sketch, which would recur for three seasons through May, 2012. The two comedians portray on-air commentators for various ESPN Classic airings of women’s sporting events in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sudeikis’ Pete Twinkle is an uber-bro host and kind of a douchebag.  His foil is Forte’s Greg Stink, a cheerful moron, completely uneducated about sports and incapable of even basic conversation. And though Twinkle’s attempt to engage Stink is sometimes humorous, the real heart of the sketch that earned the guffaws is the frequent references to the feminine or sexual product sponsoring the event, using rhyming jingles.

The first ESPN Classic sketch, which aired in October 2009 as part of the Saturday Night Live’s 35th season, is “1991 Ladies Billiard Tournament,” sponsored by Tampax. The full sketch is available to watch here.

Tampax to the MaxGreta Milwaukee (Kristen Wiig) and Nina Wilkes Booth (celebrity host Drew Barrymore) are introduced and subsequently engage in some over-the-top, physical comedy around chalking their cue sticks, breaking, and attempting to make shots in their game of 9-ball. Both women are pretty unmemorable, though Wiig’s billiards-themed ‘80s shirt is a real keeper.

More amusing is the repartee between Twinkle and Stink, such as:

“Where does the name billiards come from?”

“No idea.”

“Greg Stink – best color man in the business.”

But, of course, the real zing comes from Twinkle’s frequent shout-outs to the tournament’s sponsor Tampax. These jingles punctuate the commentary and get progressively more absurd as the sketch goes on, starting with the introductory slogan, “Tamp it to the max with Tampax,” and culminating with, “Helping you relax when Mother Nature attacks your slacks. Tampax.”[1]

The entire sketch is just over four minutes long, so it’s impressive the number of laughs it generates, even with its one-trick pony concept.  Saturday Night Live is also not alone in sketch-comedy shows that have leveraged billiards as source material.  It’s a future blog post to review and rank them all, but it’s worth checking out “The Hustler” (The New Show), “Van Hammersly” (Mr. Show), “Pussy on the Chain Wax” (Key & Peele), “The Hustler” (Mad TV), and “Spot Black” (The Benny Hill Show), among others.

[1]       Ironically, Tampax’s actual slogan at the time – “Outsmart Mother Nature” – also referenced Mother Nature.

Schoolhouse Rock! – “Naughty Number Nine”

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Since moving to Manhattan, I’ve enjoyed shooting pool after work at Fat Cat, a subterranean pool hall located on Christopher Street in the West Village of New York City. Sprinkled among the live music stage, the ping pong and shuffleboard tables, and the here-and-there chess and scrabble games, are 10 pool tables, beckoning the casual player.

Naughty Number NineI never thought much about the venue’s name, however, until I stumbled across the “Naughty Number Nine” episode of Schoolhouse Rock! There, staring out at me amidst a billowy puff of cigar smoke, was the original fat cat pool hustler, Number Nine, in all his anthropomorphic feline glory.

If you were a child in the 1970s like me, chances are you saw more than a few episodes of Schoolhouse Rock! Airing on ABC from 1973 to 1985, Schoolhouse Rock! was a wildly inventive, colorful, musical American interstitial programming series of animated educational short films that covered grammar, science, economics, history, civics, and mathematics.

What’s the deal with “and,” “but,” and “or”? Check out “Conjunction Junction.” Interested in understanding how laws get passed? Learn from “I’m Just a Bill.” He’s “sitting here on Capitol Hill.” Wondering why flicking a switch lights up the house? It’s easy with “Electricity, Electricity!”

One of the most enjoyable Schoolhouse Rock! series was the first season’s Multiplication Rock, which featured 11 episodes, each dedicated to teaching kids their times table for the numbers 0-12. (There was no episode for 1 and 10.)  A typical Multiplication Rock episode combined a mix of snappy music and lyrics and humorous streetwise animation that incorporated visual stimuli and urban elements. Though “Three is the Magic Number” is probably the most familiar episode in the series, famously sampled by De La Soul in the chorus of their 1990 song “The Magic Number,” no study of the 9s table would be complete without “Naughty Number Nine” with its portly pool hustling pussycat. The full episode is available to watch here.

Airing in March 1973, the four-minute song about the multiplication of 9 focuses on a villainous cat putting a mouse through absolute hell on the billiards table. The dandy-looking feline is puffing on a cigar to reinforce his sinister nature, though ABC’s Standards and Practices tried to press for the removal of the cigar. While the lyrics have nothing to do with billiards, the sport provides the perfect backdrop for torturing the mouse, whether by the cat tying him to the cue bull, rocketing him into a corner pocket, chalking his head, or getting him crunched in a 15 ball pileup on the break. Meanwhile the bluesy lyrics impart the significance of some of the famous multiplication tricks for the number 9:

If you don’t know some secret way you can check on

You’ll break your neck on

Naughty number nine…

 

Now the digit sum is always equal to nine

I mean, if you add two and seven, the digits

You get nine, the digit sum

That’s true of any product of nine

If they don’t add up, you’ve made a mistake.

 

“Naughty Number Nine was written Bob Dorough and sung by Grady Tate, both Schoolhouse Rock! veteran composers and performers.  Mr. Dorough wrote all the songs for Multiplication Rock, though he is also known for performing with Miles Davis and contributing vocals on the song “Nothing Like You” from Miles Davis’ Sorcerer (1967) album.  Mr. Tate, a hard bop and soul-jazz percussionist with a distinctive baritone voice, started his career playing drums for Quincy Jones and then was a member of the New York Jazz Quarter.

Wholly original, even as it borrows the idea of teaching math through billiards from Donald in Mathmagic Land and its murine torture sequences from the Tom & Jerry episode “Cue Ball Cat,” “Naughty Number Nine” puts a fresh spin on the accessibility and usability of billiards to tell a story, teach a subject, make some music, and create a wonderful memory.

Small Wonder – “Minnesota Vicki”

In February 1989, the American comedy sitcom Small Wonder aired an episode that had me wondering how this series lasted four seasons. Entitled “Minnesota Vicki,” the 91st episode (out of 96) focused on Ted Lawson (Richard Christie) inviting his boss over for dinner and billiards on a rented table, with the hope that some friendly pool would help him land a huge promotion at United Robotronics.  Ted doesn’t make much headway until, unbeknownst to him, Vicki (Tiffany Brissette), his robotic daughter (literally) plays his boss and ultimately wins ownership of the company in the process, due to the boss’ hubris and incredulity that a child could ever play pool so well.

For the uninitiated, Small Wonder chronicles the family of Ted Lawson, a robotics engineer, who creates a robot modeled after a 10-year-old girl, and then passes the robot off as his adopted daughter, Vicky (or V.I.C.I., an acronym for Voice Input Child Identicant).  Like many robots on TV, this one has unusual abilities, including a super-strong break and such geometric precision that she can seemingly make any shot on the table, including sinking all the balls on the break.

The episode is pretty humorless, portending the end of the series.  The jokes feel forced, the script is stale, the acting is thin, and – oh god, those ‘80s wardrobes. It’s no small wonder (!!) that none of the lead actors had much commercial success after the series ended. In fact, the only silver lining to “Minnesota Vicki” is the trick shots in pool, courtesy of technical consultant Lou Butera. Aside from the standard multi-pocket shots, there are some beautiful jumps and masses.  (Fans of “Machine Gun” Lou know that he not only appeared in The Fall Guy episode “Eight Ball,” but also played pool in movies such as Racing with the Moon and Police Academy 6: City Under Siege.)  The full “Minnesota Vicki” episode is available to watch here.

But, for such a lame episode, “Minnesota Vicki” does engender two interesting questions.  First, could a robot play pool so well?  And second, could a 10-year-old child play pool so well?

I tackled the first question about three years ago when I reviewed the My Living Doll episode “Pool Shark” so I won’t rehash it here, as not much has advanced.  Suffice to say, a lot of robots are being built to shoot pool, though none can currently play like V.I.C.I. or the My Living Doll android Rhoda Miller.

The second question, however, presents new terrain for my blog, as the billiards movie/television milieu has been lacking elementary school-aged prodigies. (I’m guessing Bobby Brady was at least a teenager when he showcased his pool prowess in The Brady Bunch episode “The Hustler.”)

Fortunately, it doesn’t require much online searching to affirmatively answer that it’s not science fiction for a young child to play amazeballs pool.  Take Keith O’Dell, who set the world record for youngest billiards player at the age of 25 months.  You can watch him dazzle in this video from when he was 5 years old.  Or, there is Wang Wuka, age 4 when this video was filmed, from Eastern China, who spends several hours a day on the snooker table.

Jean Balukas

Jean Balukas, age 6

In fact, as billiards buffs and historians know, a number of the sport’s greatest started at a very young age.  As we learned in the documentary The Strickland Story, Earl “The Pearl” Strickland started playing at age 8, when his dad snuck him into a North Carolina pool hall.  Billiards Congress of America Hall of Famer Loree Jon Hasson ran her first rack at age 5 and performed her first trick shots at age 6 at a Chicago men’s World Straight Pool tournament.[1] The great Jean Balukas gained such attention at age 6 from performing in a billiards exhibition at Grand Central Station that she subsequently appeared on the show I’ve Got a Secret.  By the time she was in 2nd grade, she was being billed as the “Little Princess of Pocket Billiards.”

And, of course, there is the legend Willie Mosconi, who first learned to play pool by practicing with small potatoes from his mother’s kitchen and a broomstick. At age 6, he participated in an exhibition match against the reigning world champion Ralph Greenleaf. Mosconi lost but the game cemented his reputation as a prodigy. By the time he was 11, he was the US juvenile straight pool champion, regularly holding trick shot exhibitions.[2]

So, if you’re thinking of betting your company in a game of pool against a fifth-grade android, remember: it’s not the robotic circuitry you need to worry about.  You’ve been warned.

[1]       “BILLIARDS; A Top Player Survives That Sinking Feeling,” New York Times, August 12, 1995.

[2]       “10 Extraordinary Child Prodigies,” April 6, 2009.

Living Single – “Another Saturday Night”

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Picture this television series: A group of six individuals in their 20s and 30s.  The men in the group share an apartment. So do the women. Both apartments are in the same building.  Among the individuals, there is romantic tension, sexual tension, and yes, even real relationships.  Jokes abound about living in New York City.

So, here’s my question: Were the people you pictured white or black? If they were black, chances are you may have been thinking about the Fox sitcom Living Single that aired for five seasons starting in 1993.  If they were white, then you were probably picturing Friends, the NBC sitcom that aired a year later and lasted a decade. These shows were more similar than many people wish to admit.

Living SingleBoth shows were popular, though Friends had a viewership (25-30 million) almost three times as large as Living Single.  Both shows were also pretty terrible, in my humble opinion.  But, more to the point of this blog, both shows managed to weave in some billiards, with Living Single making it far more the centerpiece of an episode than Friends.

In March 1995, Living Single aired “Another Saturday Night,” the 22nd episode in its second season.  The billiards plot is paper-thin.  Overton (John Henton) gets hustled out of $200 at the pool hall.  Khadijah (Queen Latifah) offers to help Overton get his money back. Along with Synclaire (Kim Coles), Overton’s girlfriend, the trio go to the pool hall and challenge the two flimflammers to a double-or-nothing game of mixed doubles against Overton and Khadijah.  Initially feigning ignorance about the game, Khadijah then turns on her skills and wins back the money with a one-hand shot.

Not satisfied to just win $200 with “the best streak of beginner’s luck [she’s] ever had,” she agrees to play again, upping the bet to $500, using her rent money.  Down five balls pretty quickly, Khadijah then slips, suffering a wrist injury that prevents her from finishing the match.  The opposing team has the option to pair Overton with another woman (or he forfeits).  They choose “Mary Tyler Poppins” (i.e., Synclaire), who, painting her nails, looks completely disinterested.  But, of course, they chose wrong, as Synclaire turns out to be the real shark, running the table and winning the game and the bet on a six-rail shot, no less.  The lesson to the hustlers: “Deceit and duplicity don’t pay…although in this case, they did pay for us,” says Synclaire.

To my knowledge, Friends never went full-tilt-billiards, but in October 1996, the episode “The One with the Flashback” (Season 3, Episode 6), did introduce some billiards humor, when Ross (David Schwimmer) and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) reminisced about their almost-hookup on the pool table.  The specific scene is here.

Ross and Phoebe attempt to take their passion to the baize, only to suffer multiple problems, including Ross hitting his head (twice) on the overhead light, Ross fumbling to get the balls off the table, Ross getting his foot stuck in a pocket, and Ross having trouble with the “stupid balls in the way,” which promptly kills the mood.

Get it?  As I said already, I never understood why people thought these shows were any good.

Furniture to Go – “Pool Table”

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In the 1990s, if one was asked about humorous repair shows on television, the press-the-buzzer answer for most Americans would have been Home Improvement, the ABC sitcom that starred Tim Allen as President of the Binford Tool Company and the host of the DIY home improvement show “Tool Time.”

Furniture to Go

Ed Feldman (left) and Joe L’Erario, hosts of Furniture to Go

But, for a small population of Philadelphians, humorous repair was synonymous with Joe L’Erario and Ed Feldman, stars of The Learning Channel series Furniture to Go, which aired from 1993 to 1997.  The two furniture repairmen from the City of Brotherly Love somehow carved out a niche and developed a loyal following in the crowded how-to television genre by intertwining their bonhomie and bad humor with cinematic references and an easygoing approach to their craft.

Over the course of four years, the pair channeled their restorative powers toward a panoply of furniture, from French Deco cocktail tables and walnut pews to poplar armoires, mahogany throne chairs, and Old World roll-top desks.  And, in 1996, for their 49th episode “Pool Table,” they tackled – you guessed it – the refurbishing of an old pool table.  The full episode is available to watch here.

Like most Furniture to Go episodes, “Pool Table” begins with a cinematic interstitial. Mr. Feldman plays Minnesota Fats, and Mr. L’Erario plays Bert Gordon, in a black-and-white parody of The Hustler, which also randomly weaves in a reference to “my friend Harvey” from The Honeymooners billiards episode “The Bensonhurst Bomber.” (Other episodes have lampooned films, such as Arsenic and Old Lace, A Clockwork Orange, and On the Waterfront.)

After the clip, Mr. Feldman and Mr. L’Erario take the viewer to Monarch Billiards in Crum Lynne, Pennsylvania, where they have been contracted by the owner to repair an ash pool table (as opposed to the nearby $56,000 table with ­the Carpathian Elm aprons and legs with hand-carved mahogany lions).

Furniture to GoWith table in hand, they return to their studio to begin the restoration, which includes three stages: (1) refinishing the wood; (2) repairing the leather pockets; and (3) refelting the table. Though each stage is intended to be straight-forward, there are a sufficient number of steps involved to make one admire the difficulty of the artistry from afar.

For example, in the first phase, when Mr. L’Erario seeks to replace the “ugliest color finish he’s ever seen,” he takes the viewer through the following steps: sanding, cleaning, tack ragging, masking off, mixing (clear lacquer, burnt sienna japan color, and red mahogany stain), straining the mix, adding fisheye destroyer, spraying, adding a second layer of color (pure golden oak), spraying again, and finally, spraying a semi-gloss lacquer.

All the while, the duo engage in a series of terrible jokes, many with a nod to movies and celebrities.  Describing the legs of the pool table, Mr. Feldman says, “These legs aren’t that attractive either…They’re kind of like my aunt’s leg.” To which Mr. L’Erario replies, “They’re kind of like Ernest Borgnine’s legs.” Referring to the flattening agent in the semi-gloss lacquer, Mr. Feldman asks, “Flattening agent? Is that what Kate Moss uses?”

By the end of “Pool Table,” after the pockets have been treated with mink oil and the rails have been refelted using a rawhide hammer to secure the fabric beneath the splines, the table is reassembled using just a ratchet wrench (“Use the Ratchet. Miss Ratchet. Nurse Ratchet.”), and becomes the setting for a friendly game of billiards.

Though Furniture to Go only lasted a few years, the repair pair have channeled their skills and zany charm through a variety of off-camera activities, including authoring The Furniture Guys Book in 1999 and teaching classes at the Art Institute of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as have appeared on numerous talk shows, such as Good Morning America, Regis and Cathy Lee, Maury Povich and The View.

However, for true zealots of the show, the great news may be the team’s return to television.  In March 2017, a pre-production announcement for their new show The Old Furniture Guys lit up YouTube. For everyone who can’t wait to watch and once again wish to see these guys “lay down some gorgeous Charlie Sheens,” your prayers may have been finally answered.

Mr. Show – “Van Hammersly”

American History. Science.  Mathematics. Taught by the wrong educator, these can be dry subjects. But, what if you could learn about these subjects in an exciting, entertaining format from a world-wide billiards champion using nothing more than a pool table, balls, and cues?

That would be genius!  Or, if not genius, than downright, gut-busting, absurd.

Van HammerslySuch was the premise of the 1996 “Van Hammersly” sketch from Season 2, Episode 4, of the Emmy-nominated HBO comedy series Mr. Show, starring and hosted by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross.

Across the 30 episodes that aired between November 1995 and December 1998, Mr. Show lampooned everything from traditionalism to capitalism to organized religion with hilarious sketches that earned the show the 3rd greatest sketch comedy TV show of all time, according to Rolling Stone.[1]

Today, most people associate Mr. Odenkirk with the dubious, silver-tongued lawyer Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and its spin-off Better Call Saul.  But, long before assuming the role of the smooth-talking attorney, Mr. Odenkirk portrayed a plethora of memorable characters on Mr. Show, including Van Hammersly, a cheeseball billiards champ hawking a line of educational video cassettes that are equivalent to earning your GED.  You can watch the full “Van Hammersly” sketch here.

The 150-second faux infomercial is must-see TV.  “Van Hammersly” begins with an introduction his first videocassette, “I Oughta Be in Pictures,” which “showcases his incredible talent and passion for the golden age of film.”  Featuring billiards balls named after Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart (“Judy, Judy, Judy”)[2] and the Three Stooges, Van Hammersly engages with, and then pockets, the balls as they interact at a 1952 Hollywood Awards show.

In the second video, we’re “off to the races as Van recounts the running of the 1974 Kentucky Derby the only way he knows how – with a pool table!”  Shooting each ball (horse) into a pocket, Van Hammersley details the race, rattling off with gusto a series of fictional equines:  Mr. Fasthorse, Papa’s Delicate Condition, Kystallnacht, Batman: The Horse, Nice ‘N’ Sticky, Stinkfinger, If Mandy Patinkin Was a Horse, and (“bringing up the rear”), Ol’ Felcher.[3]

Van HammerslyOther videos in Van’s series detail the history of mass transportation; science; mathematics; American history (“And that’s when Lincoln said [sinking the ball] don’t dis my homies.”); Renaissance painting, oceanography, corn futures, belly dancing; December 7th, 1941; billiards, rock lyrics, and many, many more!

Whether because of the memorable nut-job one-liners, the signature physical gestures, or the ludicrous concept, “Van Hammersly” often ranks among the most popular of the 157 Mr. Show sketches.[4]

And yet, ironically, the concept of teaching academic subjects through billiards is neither fictitious nor far-fetched.  Many probably remember watching in elementary school the 27-minute educational vignette Donald in Mathmagic Land that explains math angles to Donald Duck through a game of three-cushion billiards.  In a similar vein (though very poorly executed), the Australian Commonwealth Unit commissioned a series of educational “message films” in 1972. One such short film was “The Billiard Room” which lamely tried to teach the adult learning process through a game of snooker.

More recently, the National Film Board of Canada aired the “Let’s Play Long Billiards” episode of their Discover Science television series in which they explain the effects of colliding forces through a massive game of billiards. And in January 2015, the Science Channel’s wonderful series Outrageous Acts of Science featured billiards trick shot artist Florian “Venom” Kohler in an episode of “Fact or Faked” which asked real scientists to explain the science behind his improbable shots.

Maybe “Van Hammersly” is not so preposterous after all.  Anyone up for a billiards lesson on Zombies in Popular Media? Patternmaking for Dog Garments? Queer Musicology? Science from Superheroes?[5]

[1]        “40 Greatest Sketch-Comedy TV Shows of All Time,” Rolling Stone, March 27, 2015.

[2]    The best part is while the origin of the “Judy, Judy, Judy” line is murky, it is always attributed to Cary Grant, not Humphrey Bogart. http://www.carygrant.net/articles/judy.htm

[3]       Still don’t get the pun?  Look it up. #NSFW.

[4]      http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/every-mr-show-sketch-ranked.html

[5]       Yes, these really are the names of courses currently taught on college campuses. (http://socawlege.com/the-15-most-ridiculous-college-courses-you-wont-believe-are-being-taught/)