Our pal Herbie J scores again, albeit in an unusual fashion.
Review: Then Again with Herbie J Pilato
We finally got around to watching Then Again with Herbie J. Pilato, a half-hour classic TV-themed talk show that premiered last month. You can stream it free with ads on Shout Factory TV and Tubi, or ad-free if you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber.
We enjoyed the four episodes available so far, but they seemed…well, dated…and not in the way you might expect.
In episode one, for example, Barry Livingston (Ernie on My Three Sons) says he’ll be appearing on Trial and Error, to premiere in 2017! (That mockumentary legal sitcom did start running on NBC in March 2017, for two seasons, with Livingston playing “Juror # 1” in five episodes.)
On episode three, featuring three stars from the original Dark Shadows, Pilato tells Lara Parker that they’re taping on the 46th anniversary of her character Angelique’s passing (below). Some quick math after consulting Angelique’s Wikipedia pagerevealed that this episode of Then Again taped back on April 2, 2017.
And episode four, a tribute to legendary showrunner Garry Marshall, featuring folks from Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, feels like it was taped not too long after Marshall’s passing in July, 2016.
Then again, back in 2016, Then Again with Herbie J. Pilato was announced as being sold to the Decades channel. So we expect these four episodes may have waited a while for a home.
In any case, we were glad to welcome them into our home. The series, so casual you could believe it was taped in Pilato’s own living room, includes relaxed interviews interspersed with photos and rare clips.
Our favorite clips included the aforementioned Livingston and his older brother Stanley (Chip on My Three Sons) in an earlier joint acting appearance on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; Cindy Williams, the Shirley half of Laverne & Shirley, auditioning for the Princess Leia role in Star Wars; and Robin Williams as Mork in scenes with Laverne & Shirley’s Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Happy Days’Fonzie (Henry Winkler)….
Read it all – complete with one Acme Ton O’Videos – at the savvyscreener.com