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 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.
The 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”
You 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.
Aside 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.
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.
Lasting 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.”
Unfettered, 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.
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.
People learn billiards for many reasons: recreational enjoyment, social connections, love of competition, skills development. For expert marksman and underground private eye Ryo Saeba, the protagonist of the anime series City Hunter, the answer is simple: to score some ass.
Sure, in the 1988 episode “Mokkori Is the Best Medicine: A Pool Shot to a Pretty Hustler’s Heart” there’s the nobler underlying cause of helping Yuri protect her family’s pool bar, The Stardust, from being taken over by the gangster Ginji. But deep down, for Ryo, whose mind bugs out and eyes bulge out around beautiful women, it’s always about one thing: Mokkori!
Mokkori is a Japanese phrase akin to the English cartoonish noise “Boi-oing!” to describe an erection. For horndog Ryo, it can refer to boobs, butt, legs; if you can ogle it, it’s Mokkori time. Some crime fighters (Batman) are led by their vow for justice, others (Superman) by their moral compass. Ryo is led by the cue stick in his pants.
Even skeevier, it’s not just the case of a Peeping Ryo; this guy can’t help acting on his lecherous libido. He literally engineers situations where he can attempt to grope women, peer under their dresses, or stare at their cleavage.
If this all sounds a little WTFish, consider that City Hunter is no niche softcore, fly-by-night brainchild of some horny pervert who watched too much late-night Skinemax. To the contrary, City Hunter is the brainchild of writer and illustrator Tsukasa Hojo, who first introduced the famous Japanese detective in a manga magazine in 1985. The magazine has since sold more than 50 million copies, appealing to both men and women.
It also spawned the anime series that ran from 1987-1991, around the same time that Baywatch was globally swiveling heads and turning the wearers of red bathing suits into international eye candy as part of a cultural zeitgeist.
In fact, the CIty Hunter series was so popular that it was subsequently adapted in 1993 into a Hong Kong thriller with Jackie Chan, then remade into a 2018 French film, and just this year, released on Netflix as a Japanese action film.
All of which is to say analyzing the premise and popularity of City Hunter may leave the uninitiated scratching their heads. I’ve read online that it’s precisely because Ryo’s objectifying antics always fail, and he is further punished by his partner Kari, who clobbers him with her famous 100-ton hammer, that his appeal has endured. He operates in the world of over-the-top harmlessness.
Consider the “Mokkori Is the Best Medicine” episode, which opens with a booby-trapped billiards table maiming the Stardust Pool Bar owner after he attempts to make a difficult bank shot. Ryo initially refuses to take the case, claiming that pool halls lack “girls in high cut bathing suits” (perhaps confusing pool with a swimming pool), but quickly pivots when his partner convinces him some women will be topless by the pool.
While there are no topless women present, Ryo goes gaga when he spies the owner’s daughter Yuri, who is the “ultimate Mokkori hustler babe.” He accepts the case under the condition Yuri will teach him billiards, which is Ryu’s way of sneaking peeks while she demonstrates breaks, masse, and other assorted shots. Fortunately, Yuri is no tenderfoot, and she quickly neuters Ryo’s carnal instincts with some well placed cue jabs and ricochet shots.
Once Ryu’s game is officially rebuffed, “Mokkori Is the Best Medicine” turns into a more traditional billiards episode of the unassuming woman competing against the evil gangster to save her pool hall and her family’s reputation. Think of this as the anime version of Second Chance or Wandering Ginza Butterfly.
After the gangster’s scare tactics fail to intimidate Yuri into giving up the bar, he challenges her to a 20-rack match of 8-ball. Unbeknownst to Yuri, the table is electromagnetically rigged, which allows for the cue ball’s speed and direction to be remotely controlled by the gangster’s lackey. But, such cheating is no match for Ryo’s watchful eye, deductive prowess, and fists of fury. And, in a real twist ending, he not only foils the gangster’s plan, but motivates Yuri to make the high-pressure winning shot by squeezing her ass and promising her some post-match Mokkori.
I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
“Mokkori Is the Best Medicine” is available to rent on CrunchyRoll.
Go online and search for ‘grandmothers playing billiards (or snooker).’ Aside from an article about Grandma Fatma, Turkey’s oldest snooker fan, or a Maltese nonagenarian who likes Stephen Hendry, the pickings are slim. Yet, the concept has a certain hip factor, as evidenced by the variety of available merch emblazoned with slogans such as, “Some Grandmas Play Bingo; Real Grandmas Play Pool,” “Never Underestimate the Power of a Grandma Who Plays Pool,” and my favorite, “My Grandma Will Break Your Balls.”
In fact, the concept’s popular appeal can be traced back at least to May 1987, during the second season of the British children’s television show SuperGran. In the “Supergran Snookered” episode, our favorite superpowered grandmother, Granny Smith (Gudrun Ure) demonstrates that aside from being able to jump tremendous heights and hear distressed communications from a long distance, she also shoots a mean game of snooker.The episode is available to watch below.
For the unfamiliar, SuperGran, which was based on a series of children’s books by Forrest Wilson, is about an elderly grandma who accidentally acquires superpowers when she is hit by a magic ray. In the guise of Super Gran, she protects the residents of the fictional town of Chiselton from villains such as Roderick ‘Scunner’ Campbell (Iain Cuthbertson) and his gang, the Muscles.
In “Supergran Snookered,” Campbell fortuitously realizes that the local overweight Cat Burglar, initially dismissed and denigrated as a “myopic mass of multitudinous flab” or a “quivering colossal crumb” is a snooker prodigy. Armed with his new secret weapon, the ever-scheming Campbell becomes a snooker promoter. As the narrator shares, “By the end of that day, Scunner Campbell was walking on air. Yes you could keep your Joe Johnsons, your Hurricane Higgins and your Whirlwind Whites, the next snooker sensation just had to be Fat Cat Burglar.”
As snooker fever envelopes Chiseltown, Campbell sets up the Chiseltown Snooker Championship, which ultimately draws the attention of Mr. McBigg, a resident gangster, who wagers 50,000 pounds (approximately $135,000 USD today). The match is supposed to feature Cat Burglar against McBigg’s stakehorse, Hot Shot Houlihan. But, complications ensue, leading to McBigg playing SuperGran, a last-minute substitute for Cat Burglar. Though McBigg initially disparages her as “the Tartan twit that jumps through walls,” he quickly becomes mum, as SuperGran runs 147 points for a perfect break.
The light-hearted episode allows SuperGran to showcase a variety of her enhanced skills, including accelerated cartwheeling, bicycle stunt riding, and superhuman strength. But, of course, it’s her snooker that really shines.
While the actual filming of the snooker is terrible (i.e., all potted balls, no set-ups, no continuous shots), the scene’s saving grace is none other than the real Willie Thorne, who watches from the stands, patiently awaiting his “few pointers” from SuperGran.
At least since 1948, when Milton Berle first hosted Texaco Star Theater, television has aired sketch comedy shows. Over the years, and propelled by the success of sketch comedy titans such as Saturday Night Live and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, hundreds of shows have followed.
“Van Hammersly” – Mr. Show
While they’re concentrated in certain geographic markets, such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, sketch comedy shows are a global television genre. Early progenitors arose in the Netherlands (Van Kooten en De Bie) and Mexico (Los Supergenios de la Mesa Cuadrada); more recent incarnations are everywhere, including Malaysia (Senario), Philippines (Lokomoko), Brazil (Hermes & Renato), and Indonesia (Extravaganza).
Given the global popularity of sketch comedy, it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to explore its intersection with another global phenomenon: billiards, of course. The sampling below is hardly the genre’s best (e.g., “The Hustler of Money” or “Van Hammersly” from Mr. Show) or comprehensive (as I have intentionally omitted England, since I recently wrote about British sketch comedy during snooker’s golden era), but it does represent 25,000 miles of billiards sketch comedies from around the world. Chalk up and enjoy!
Key & Peele – “Pussy on the Chain Wax”(USA)
Circled around an in-home billiards table, four friends begin a game of pool with the opening break. As Jordan Peele’s character lines up to take his shot, Keegan-Michael Key’s character recounts a recent fight he got into. There’s some friendly disputing of the facts, to which Key clarifies that he put the “pussy on the chain wax.” Two of the friends echo their support with laughs, hand slaps, and shoulder bumps. But, Jordan’s character is more suspect – not of the fight details, but of the authenticity of his friend’s phrase. Is “pussy on the chain wax” even a “thing”?1
This 2013 segment from the series’ third season is pitch-perfect, gut-busting fun. In this case, the phrase is absurd. Peele’s linguistic challenge is logical; he even Googles the phrase to find no matches. But, as the background piano fades in, Key shares his true plight: “I lost my job. My girlfriend left me…I just wanted to have a little fund with my friends today” and can’t understand why the origin of the phrase matters. Caught off guard by the rawness of his friend’s emotions, Peele unwinds his crusade without skipping a beat and joins in the brotastic bonhomie. Cue the choir: it’s time to put the “pussy on the chain wax!” The sketch is available to watch here.
SCTV – “Melonville Snooker Championship” (Canada)
Second City Television, a Canadian sketch comedy series which ran from 1976 to 1984, featured an all-star cast of rising Canucks, including John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and Catherine O’hara. Many of the sketches were side-splittingly funny; unfortunately, the 1978 segment “Melonville Snooker Championship” was not one of them.
The sketch focuses on a snooker championship, pitting Lenny “Golden Arm” Bouchard (John Candy) against “The Greek Hustler” Alki Stereopolis (Joe Flaherty), at Dwayne & Tino’s Bowling and Billiards bar.2 Both players are a far cry from the formal, polished gentlemen of English snooker. But, the real grater is announcer Lou Jaffe (Eugene Levy), whose nasal, singsongy voice and random exclamations continue to interrupt the match and ultimately lead to fisticuffs between the two players.
Full Frontal – “Parko’s Good Sports: Snooker”(Australia)
On the positive, Full Frontal, the Australian sketch comedy series that ran from 1993 to 1997, introduced us to Eric Bana, who eventually stepped away from the funnyman role to headline Hollywood blockbusters, such as Troy, Hulk, and Munich.
But Full Frontal also included the the incredibly unhumorous segment “Parko’s Good Sports: Snooker,” which has our Good Sports host interviewing Milo Kerrigan, a punch-drunk ex-boxer (played by Shaun Micallef) about snooker, a “quiet game requiring a delicate touch and a lot of finesse.” The gag is that Milo is hardly delicate (or coherent). He garbles and babbles; he hits balls off the table and wears the rack on his head; he launches his cue stick into the wall – twice. The one thing he doesn’t do is act remotely funny, which makes me hard-pressed to understand why he was one of Full Frontal’s most popular characters.
Comedy Central Stand-Up, Asia! – “Mini Billiards”(Singapore)
With a big heart and a small billiards table, the “Mini Billiards” sketch from Comedy Central Stand-Up, Asia! has just enough humor and originality to keep viewers smiling and engaged. The sketch pits GB Labrador, a Pinoy stand-up comedian, against Eliot Chang, an NY-based comedian, in a game of billiards that is played on a desktop table less than a foot long.
Capitalizing on the popularity of billiards in the Philippines, Mr. Labrador embraces his nationality and declares, “Billiards is our game.” The two comedians then alternate taking shots, which seems much harder for Mr. Chang, who is “not used to small balls.”
The players’ quips are rather feeble (especially when Mr. Chang invokes Harry Potter), but the editors score humor points with some clever sound and visual effects. And, Mr. Labrador gets in a good laugh when he rebuffs Mr. Chang’s plea for mercy by telling him that he “already has a wealthy country.”
Chewin’ the Fat: “Ford and Greg on the Couch” (Scotland)
Chewin’ the Fat was a Scottish sketch comedy series that aired 30 episodes of guffaws between 1999 and 2002. In the season’s first episode, one of the segments takes us behind the scenes of the Snooker Semi-Finals at the Crucible to view some of the “lighter moments that have made this tournament so entertaining.”
Yet another sketch lampooning the formality of snooker, this wordless episode is a pastiche of boys behaving badly set to a ragtime soundtrack. The players drop their drawers, pick their wedgies, pick their noses, dance on tables, chalk their faces, give one another piggybacks, mock, jeer, cackle, and act like asses.
Perhaps the Scots had grown bored with snooker. Their national champion, Stephen Hendry, was so good he won seven world titles in the 1990s. But, otherwise I’m struggling to find the mirth in this puerile send-up. The sketch is available to watch here, starting at 20:18.
Top Lista Nadrealista – [name of segment unknown] (Yugoslavia)
Historians will recall that in 1991 Slovenia and Croatia became the first republics to declare independence from the former Yugoslavia. Around that same time, Top Lista Nadrealista, a Yugoslav sketch comedy show that ran from 1984 to 1991, aired a segment showing two Belgian members of the European Community Monitoring Mission in Bosnia trying to incite a Bosnian Muslim and a Serb, lifelong friends, to start fighting one another during a game of pool at a Sarajevo bar.
The episode is available to watch below, but only in Serbian without subtitles, so I can’t comment on the humor. But, as in Melonville, billiards begets bedlam.
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Teasing the question whether art imitates life, or life imitates art, “pussy on the chain wax” is now a real phrase in Urban Dictionary.
Largely wasted in this sketch, Mr. Candy returned to billiards in 1984, when he starred in one of the best billiards sketch comedies ever, “The Hustler” from the series The New Show.
“Face it, America. You only watch pool because of Jeanette Lee.”
While billiards has always had its share of colorful personalities, perhaps no other player – certainly, no other woman or American – has possessed such magnetism and star power as the Black Widow, aka Jeanette Lee. Combining unapologetic swagger with knockout looks, an eye-catching wardrobe, and exceptional, rapid-fire, pool-playing prowess, Jeanette Lee captured imaginations, provoked controversy, and generated admiration, all while propelling the popularity of billiards in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Whereas many of the sport’s global superstars have had their stories told on screen (e.g., Jimmy White the One and Only; The Strickland Story; Shane Van Boening – The South Dakota Kid; Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion), it took more than 30 years for a biopic of this BCA Hall of Famer to appear. Fortunately, Ursula Liang, director of the award-winning films 9-Man and Down a Dark Stairwell, has gifted us “Jeanette Lee Vs.,” a 50-minute film as part of ESPN’s sports documentary series 30 for 30.
With its jarring, in-your-face title, Jeanette Lee Vs. makes it clear this is no ordinary life history. This is the account of one woman who has been battling opponents – the kids of Crown Heights, the tight-knit players within the Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA), the hound-doggish media, and her biggest rival, a never-ending onslaught of health maladies – determined to undermine or destroy her. At her core, Ms. Lee is an undeterred, imperturbable fighter, which makes her story so compelling.
Jeanette Lee Vs.begins with Ms. Lee’s upbringing in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. As the only Korean-American girl in a predominantly African-American school, she was mocked with racist taunts, such as “Ching Chong” and “Cholly Wong.” Her father split when she was five; her mother was absent, working around the clock as a registered nurse. She was close with her older sister, Doris, but otherwise developed a chainmail exterior and a fiercely competitive mien. “I wanted to destroy the boys,” she recalls from an early age.
That tough childhood got tenfold worse when she was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 12. “They ripped apart my spine…it destroyed me. I was really tortured…I was in a very bad place,” Ms. Lee recounts.
Sadly, in what has now been well-documented, the scoliosis was just the beginning of a tortuous and agonizing medical journey. Now 51, Ms. Lee has had more than 10 neck and back surgeries. In a 2016 CNN profile, she shared, “I have developed multiple conditions including deteriorated discs, degenerative disc disease, carpal tunnel syndrome and severe sciatic pain. I have bursitis in both shoulders and both hips. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis.” And that was before she learned in 2021 that she had Stage 4 ovarian cancer, which even after six rounds of chemotherapy, has not and will not go into remission.
Jeanette Lee Vs. doesn’t skirt the fact that it is not clear how much longer Ms. Lee has to live. But, the documentary also doesn’t overly dwell on these chapters of her biography. Rather these diseases and their side effects are members of her rogue’s gallery, opponents that she must crush or die trying. Is it any wonder that Ms. Lee was once a spokesperson for Rocawear in their 2008 “I Will Not Lose” campaign?
Back to young Ms. Lee. The teen years were full of drugs, skipping school, and “punching holes in her ears.” It was only the opening of Chelsea Billiards, a 24/7, 15,000 square foot upscale pool palace, that fortuitously gave Ms. Lee a respite from her rebellion. One night, she witnessed straight-pool legend Johnny Ervolino playing, and she was mesmerized and hooked. She became a regular denizen and was fortunate to have billiards great Gene Nagy take her “under his wing.” Though she was “always in pain” and understood billiards was “the last thing she should be doing,” she threw herself into the sport. “Before pool, I wasn’t sure why I was here. I finally found something I loved. Everything changed. I could escape from all the things that made me unhappy.”
As Ms. Lee has often declared in interviews, she turned pro at 21 and became number one in the world 18 months later. It is during this chronicle of time when Jeanette Lee Vs. shines brightest. Her skills and sex appeal drew adulating fans and masturbatory manchilds (seriously – the footage from The Man Show with Adam Corolla putting cornstarch down his pants to ease the genital burn of watching the Black Widow is beyond the pale).
There is no denying Ms. Lee’s incredible billiards skills. She received more than 30 titles and awards between 1993 and 2005, including the WPBA U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship (1994), the 9-Ball Tournament of Champions (1999, 2003), and the gold medal at the World Games 9-Ball Singles in Akita, Japan (2001).
But, as the documentary makes clear, her meteoric rise was also fueled by the times. She discovered billiards right on the heels of The Color of Money, which created a national resurgence of interest in the sport (as well as led to the opening of the aforementioned Chelsea Billiards). ESPN2 had launched in 1993, hungry for programming that would appeal to younger audiences. Women’s billiards became a network staple, anchored by the allure of the Black Widow. For Koreans, who were attacked in the 1992 Los Angeles riots and longed for national icons in a country that now felt more foreign than ever, Ms. Lee personified a can’t stop-won’t stop grit and determination. And for the rest of America, which wasn’t used to seeing Asians on TV, Ms. Lee was a mystery, a modern-day domineering “dragon queen” (an unfortunate phrase that Ms. Lee said she heard more times than she can count). “I started to own the Black Widow,” says a glinting Ms. Lee.
That same persona, however, also provoked the anger and jealousy of her WPBA peers – some of whom are interviewed on-screen – who dismissed her talent and questioned her style and conduct. “I was thoroughly hated,” Ms. Lee shares. At one point, one of Ms. Lee’s opponents anonymously sent her a copy of Dr. Seuss’ Yertle the Turtle, accusing her of “stepping on everyone” to get to the top. Allison Fisher, her one-time “nemesis,” doesn’t mask her emotions when she decries the fame heaped upon Ms. Lee. Ms. Fisher matter-of-factly states she was the better player, yet no one seemed to know.
I can’t but wonder if, during the interview, Ms. Fisher was thinking about the proposed 2015 documentary The Fisher Queens (about Alison, Mandy, and Kelly Fisher, three unrelated snooker champions), which was never made due to the inability to raise more than $11,000. Apparently, there was a lack of interest in her billiards story.
Ms. Liang recognized the potential minefield she was walking in by asking Ms. Fisher, Loree Jon Jones, Kelly Fisher, and others to participate in the documentary. As Ms. Liang shared in an interview with The Moveable Feast:
[I made] a really specific point of asking each of these women in the interview what their reaction was to us doing a 30 for 30 on Jeanette, knowing that there has not been another 30 for 30 done on another female pool player and I think to a person, they each took a pause. Not that many female pool players are getting a documentary period, so I think they all have their opinions about where she falls in greatness in terms of physical skill and that everyone also puts an asterisk next to that, knowing that her career was derailed in some ways by her physical pain.
But they all [also] acknowledge that Jeanette is the most well-known player out there period and she came in at the right moment and she was not only incredibly visible, but incredibly charismatic and whatever she got for herself, she lifted all boats. They were all making more money because of what she was doing, so I think they understood how much she has given to the sport.
Jeanette Lee Vs. is a chronological account of The Black Widow; at the same time, her life and narrative is a complex web. Ms. Lee is the hero of this tale, which sometimes is almost hagiographic. But, she also was forced into the role of villain and otherized as an Asian-American stereotype. Her survival story is one of hope and incredible perseverance, but is also undergirded by loneliness. The story is rich and full of interesting chapters, but it’s also incomplete, at least according to Ms. Lee. Her final sentiments bring no closure, only more questions: “God, if you have a greater purpose for me, tell me. This is not all I was meant to do.”
Jeanette Lee Vs. is available to stream on ESPN. The episode aired in December, 2022.
Many celebrities are known to have picked up a cue stick offscreen.
A small subset (e.g, Dustin Hoffman, Peter Falk, Jackie Gleason, Buster Keaton) have earned praise, even among the billiards community, for their skills.
But, at the top of Mount Celebrity sits the true pantheon of pool players – i.e., those who might run 100 balls straight. This exclusive group includes Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and of course, Fred Astaire, who was known to practice 14:1 in his basement up to six hours a day and was friends with BCA Hall of Famers Dan DiLiberto and Ed Kelly, according to former Billiards Digest Contributing Editor George Fels.1
Mr. Astaire’s pool prowess is legendary, though largely unwitnessed by the general public. However, there is one exception. In 1965, in one of his few television roles, Mr. Astaire played Joe Quinlan, a warm-hearted pool shark, across four episodes of the medical drama television series Dr. Kildare.
Though Dr. Kildare is quaint, maudlin and dated by today’s standards, the four episodes – “Fathers and Daughters” (November 22, 1965), “A Gift of Love” (November 23), “The Tent Dwellers” (November 29), and “Going Home” (November 30) – offer a wonderful lens for watching and appreciating Mr. Astaire, and equally important, for treating billiards with a modicum of respect.
Dr. Kildare is an NBC medical drama series that ran from 1961 to 1966, for a total of 191 episodes over five seasons. Richard Chamberlain, a hitherto unknown actor, played the eponymous doctor and quickly became a star and heartthrob. The episodes occur at the fictional Blair General Hospital, where Dr. Kildare tries to learn his profession, deal with patients’ problems, and win the respect of the senior Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey).
In the episode “Fathers and Daughters,” Sister Laurie Benjamin (Laura Devon), a medical missionary nun, returns from her field work with an advanced state of acute stem cell leukemia. She checks into Blair Hospital and is visited by her father, Joe Quinlan (Astaire), an affable, nomadic pool shark, who is in town for the Invitational Tournament of Champions: World’s Foremost Pocket Billiards Stars, with its $4,000 pot (approximately $38,000 today). Sister Benjamin lauds her father as “an artist – the greatest pocket billiard player in the whole world…on some occasions.” Describing his profession to Dr. Kildare, Quinlan jocularly explains, “My working equipment: a two piece pool cue. The sight of it gives my sister a rash.”
Naturally, Sister Benjamin wishes to conceal the seriousness of her condition from her father; at the same time, her father wishes to downplay the severity of his shortness of breath and unusual chest palpitations, symptoms she soon learns are tied to his coronary heart disease.
In “A Gift for Love,” Quinlan fails to show up for his scheduled EKG. Seeking to locate the absent patient, Dr. Kildare goes to the local pool room and learns that in only a week it will become the setting for an “elite” matchup, including “Ulysses ‘The Burglar’ Jackson from Newark New Jersey, Phil Carmichael from Detroit, Deacon Otis Potts of Kansas City, and the great Joe Quinlan, 16 superstars in all.”
Quinlan is located and teases us with a couple of shots, but he is ultimately brought back to the hospital, where he befriends Francis Healy (Harry Morgan, who would later become famous as Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H). Healy tells Quinlan there is another patient, Mr. Gaffney, who has taken a lot of money off of Healy in some not-so-friendly games of pool. Healy asks for Quinlan’s help getting some of his money back. “Gaffney has two-thirds of the money in this state. He’s greedy and looking for blood. You could flub half a dozen shots and still beat this guy with a broomstick in your hand.” Sympathetic to Healy’s situation, Quinlan agrees to play, so long as he personally does have to bet any money.
In the penultimate “The Tent Dwellers” episode, we get to see Astaire, the master, at work. Quinlan plays Gaffney in a straight pool game to 50. His shots are effortless. There is a beautiful combination that prompts Gaffney to initially say, “You make it and I will eat it like an egg, swallowing the thing whole.” (He makes it, though no cue ball is consumed.) The episode largely serves to enforce both Quinlan’s billiards skills and, more important, his altruism.
While the medical staff chastise him for risking his health, Quinlan beseeches the doctors to give him a more honest assessment of his daughter’s health. Knowing her condition is worsening and concerned about her mounting hospital expenses, he says to no one, “Spare Laurie for those who need her most. Take a clown like me.”
Finally, in “Going Home,” Quinland disappears from the hospital once more. It’s no secret he has gone to compete in the tournament. Dr. Kildare and Healy follow. Naive to the sport, Dr. Kildare watches with awe as Healy explains the skill required to set up shots and run the table, and the economics behind the game, which often exist outside the main action. Healy surmises that Quinlan has “hocked everything but the sterling hair in his ears” to get in on action with big investors in order to ensure he has the means to pay for his daughter’s medical expenses.
SPOILER ALERT. The final match pits Quinlan against Ulysses Jackson (Harold ‘Red’Baker).2 The back-and-forth match gives both men a chance to demonstrate their skills. (Note: Mr. Astaire reportedly insisted on playing all his own pool on-camera – i.e., no cutaway hand shots – as a condition for appearing in the episodes.) Perspiring and periodically clutching at his chest, Quinlan ultimately wins the match, though he passes away shortly thereafter.
Sister Benjamin, whose leukemia has miraculously gone into remission, is able to leave the hospital. She retrieves her father’s cue and case as a keepsake of his memories, but not before dispensing some billiards advice to a practicing player. It’s a fitting coda; a hopeful suggestion that the spirit and power of billiards can transcend the individual and pass to the next generation.
The four episodes from the fifth season of Dr. Kildare are available to purchase on DVD. They are also streaming online at Stremio; however, if you live in either New York or Los Angeles, you can watch them, as I did, at the Paley Center for Media.
According to cuemaker Rick Geschrey, Red Baker was a top pocket billiards and three-cushion player. He “could beat top pros in money games on a regular basis. He competed with the likes [of] Greenleaf, Mosconi, Cochran and Hoppe and many others…Baker was on close terms with many in Hollywood and was often called in as a billiard consultant and stand-in. Close-ups of his hands have appeared in many television and movie sequences.”
Perhaps, my most prized physical possession is an eight-foot Olhausen Monarch pool table that I received as a gift when I turned 40. It’s an utter beauty, and it fulfilled a wish that started in college when I cut my first classes to play pool. As it happens, it also sparked my current avocation — blogging about billiards movies and television episodes.
With the holiday season upon us, now may be the time to give the gift of billiards and purchase a pool table – for the mancave, for the spouse-to-be, for the future Mosconi, for the family. The occasion does not matter; if it fits the house and the wallet, a pool table is a must-have.
Or so I thought until I culled through the annals of pool table presents in pop culture. Unfortunately, the writers and directors behind some of the most relevant gifts in billiards-themed media have a rather different impression.
The 1950s-1960s
The bad press began in 1956, but I cannot tell you why. The economy was strong, unemployment was down to 4.5%, and all that disposable income was fostering a love affair with consumerism.
Nonetheless, in the April 1956 “Bad Companions” episode of The Goldbergs, one of television’s first family sitcoms, Uncle David brings home a new pool table as a “fabulous gift for the whole family.” But, it becomes an instant headache, since neither family nor friends can, or are allowed, to play. David recruits some “professors” from the local pool hall to teach him, unaware they are hustlers. As David’s house becomes ground zero for horse gambling and other nefarious activities, he is ultimately ensnared in a raid and decried by the judge as “the dupe of unsavory characters.” That might put your future pool table munificence in check.
One month later, the “Opportunity Knocks But” episode of The Honeymooners aired. Ralph Kramden’s boss receives a new pool table as an anniversary gift from his wife. Not knowing how to play, he invites Ralph (and ultimately Norton) to come over to teach the finer points of the game. While Ralph seizes on the invitation as an opportunity for endless sycophancy, Norton shoehorns his way into the game so he can pitch business ideas that ultimately lead to Norton getting selected over Kramden for a coveted job. Now that is bad billiards mojo.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet rounded out the year with the “Pool Table” episode. After Ozzie buys a pool table from the local department store, his playing plans are continually thwarted as he realizes he does not have a location for it. The pool table’s peregrination goes from the dining room to the kitchen to the garage to the outside yard and even to a neighbor’s house. Ultimately, Ozzie jerry-rigs a pulley system to haul the table up to the attic, but the table’s weight causes it to crash through the floor into the kids’ bedroom, rendering it largely useless for anyone taller than three feet.
Apparently the 1960s were consumed by other notable hobbies and activities, such as playing with GI Joes (1964) and Easy Bake Ovens (1963), watching the first Super Bowl (1966), or contorting to Twister (1966), as I could find no billiards gift-giving exemplars during the decade.
1970s-1990s
But, by the 1970s, the billiards bestowal was back in cultural vogue, starting with the 1973 Sanford and Son episode “A House is Not a Poolroom,” which opens with Lamont getting his father Fred a pool table for his birthday. The present is so well-received that Lamont can neither get his father away from the table to attend to his family responsibilities, nor can he get any peace and privacy in the house, since his father’s gaggle of friends have now ‘moved in’ to use the table. Sadly, the magnetism of the table becomes such a problem that he must ultimately get rid of it.
The 1974 “The Hustler” episode of The Brady Bunch revealed Bobby Brady’s knack with a cue after his father brings home a pool table as a thank-you gift from his boss Mr. Matthews. Bobby trounces his brothers in 9-ball, thereby winning a month of free shoe-cleaning. But the real fun comes when Mr. Matthews visits the house and is subsequently thrashed by Bobby on the table, losing 256 packs of chewing gum in a wager. Unfortunately, for the squeaky-clean Brady clan, the home is no place for such games of sin, and the table is promptly returned.
After The Brady Bunch episode aired, a 30-year drought of billiards benevolence ensued. Pool hustling was all the rage in television and film, and nary a table appears to have been gifted.
2000s – present
That deficit was corrected in the mid-aughts, starting with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston swapping barbs and bile in the 2006 movie The Break-Up, with each partner trying to outmaneuver the other in a bid to keep their luxurious condo. In one seminal scene, Vaughn’s character declares, “My whole life I always wanted my own place with my own pool table. I finally got my own place, but you would not allow me to get my own pool table. I figured I’d rectify that today.” As expected, this self-gifting causes a maelstrom of subsequent damage, with Aniston’s character violently ejecting his possessions from the room.
Finally, there is the little-watched series Gary Unmarried. At the center of the 2008 episode, “Gary Gets His Stuff Back,” is a pool table, which Gary gave to his ex-wife Allison as a paper anniversary gift, and now he threatens to reveal racy photographs of her if she doesn’t return it to him. Though the table leads to blackmail and burglary, there is a silver lining, as both characters divulge that the true reason they want the table is because of all the good memories associated with it.
Maybe that’s the underlying lesson from almost 70 years of billiards largesse on the silver screen. Regardless of what agonies and horrors are associated with the gift, pool tables are the loci of wonderful experiences. Movies and television are make-believe, but pool tables as great gifts are most definitely very real.
At least since 1953, when Pathé News produced the 75-second film“Billiard Balls,” there have been documentaries, and later reality series, detailing the manufacturing and production of all the key components of billiards.
So, it’s hardly a surprise that with all the attention shined on billiards equipment, producers would turn their attention to the sport’s homemade arena: the game room (or the billiard room, as fans of Clue might call it). Two series currently streaming on Discovery+, Color Splash and Stone House Revival, assume all the billiards gear is present and functional; it’s the room you need to build and design to play the game!
Color Splash – “Game On!”
Color Splash is an American home improvement series that aired on HGTV for eight seasons, from 2007 through 2012. Hosted by the affable and ever-increasingly tattooed designer David Bromstad, Color Splash focuses on giving rooms unforgettable makeovers through the dramatic use of color.
In the July 2007 episode “Game On!,” Mr. Bromstad and his accomplice, color specialist and carpenter Danielle Hirsch, are tasked with transforming an uninspiring, outdated game room into modern “man’s room but also for the family.” The room already has a pool table and an upright Mario Bros. arcade game, but per the wife’s direction, it needs to not only be comfortable, but also “warm and inviting.”
Mr. Bromstad’s thesis is that a man’s space is “ literally a sectional couch, refrigerator, a TV, a pool table – awesome… everything else is just fluff so we need to make sure it’s not too fluffy.” He then goes deep into picking masculine greens and reds, creating customized valances, and building shelves to organize the electronics.
But, since the billiards table is still central to the room’s design, he also leaves them with a picture of an eightball that he painted for them. “Because [the owner] absolutely loves pool, I wanted to do something he really loves.”
Stone House Revival – “1760 Classic Colonial Parlor”
If you own a historic house around Bucks County, Pennsylvania, then the man you want to see is Jeff Devlin and the series you might appear on is Stone House Revival. Hosted by Mr. Devlin, Stone House Revival follows Jeff and his team of restoration experts who work with homeowners to help revive dilapidated structures into modern living spaces while preserving their historic integrity. The series ran from 2015 to 2021 on the DIY Network.
In the May 2016 episode “1760 Classic Colonial Parlor,” Mr. Devlin focuses on a Colonial home in Ivyland, Pennsylvania that was initially built in 1760 and then had a farmhouse added to it in 1810. Decrepit as it may be, the farmhouse has real entertainment potential. The homeowners wish to convert it into two unique, usable spaces: a parlor and a billiards room.
As we learn from the pop-up historical notes, “billiard tables were popular in colonial America, dating back to 1722.” Mr. Devlin then proceeds to “turn [this] unused space into a really fun, functional billiard room” by adding a one-of-a-kind custom light pendant atop the pool table, adding dentil crown molding around the ceiling as a “nod to the time period,” redoing the floor slats with random width pine to match the parlor room, and exposing the original stone of a cabinet’s interior. Oh yeah, he also wall mounts a billiard cue rack.
Unfortunately, the actual billiards table – an unidentified, black-felted wooden one – becomes a bit of an afterthought, assembled in the background and otherwise unaddressed.
Fat 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.)
The 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, 
You 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.
Aside 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.”
