You have questions. I have some answers.
Has the TV show “Rush Hour” been canceled? It was one of our favorites.
The “Rush Hour” action comedies with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker took in big money around the world. But the TV version with Jon Foo and Justin Hires did not prove to be a draw for CBS and ended after a single season. It may have been that Foo and Hires simply did not have the onscreen connection that Chan and Tucker had. Or that the idea was worn out. (The third movie was a decade ago, and did not do as well financially as the previous ones.) Or just that, your admiration aside, it simply wasn’t a good show.
Did Ron Howard star in a TV drama between “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Happy Days”?
He did. In 1971, he was a supporting player on “The Smith Family,” a half-hour drama for ABC. Henry Fonda starred as Los Angeles police Detective Chad Smith; Howard played his son Bob. The cast also included Janet Blair and Darleen Carr. It went off the air in 1972. Howard went on to greater TV success in “Happy Days” in 1974, and of course to Oscar-winning work as a movie director and producer.
One of the best shows on TV, we think, is CBS’s “Sunday Morning.” We wonder why it is not on On Demand. We think a lot of people never see the show because they are in church. We only get to see 40 minutes of the show, then leave for church.
A CBS representative tells me that the long-running news program, now hosted by Jane Pauley, is not available in its entirety outside of its broadcast showings because of rights issues in some segments — specifically the use of music or movie clips. That said, individual segments where there are not rights problems do show up online — at cbsnews.com/sunday-morning.
My husband and I always looked forward to “The McLaughlin Group.” Will it be returning with a new name and moderator?
The syndicated political-talk show hosted by John McLaughlin beginning in 1982 officially ended after the host died of cancer in August 2016. Clarence Page, a regular on the program, said at the time that “political talk shows tended to be polite interrogations of politicians, authors and other newsmakers. McLaughlin changed that. He bypassed the newsmakers to let us commentators argue about the newsmakers.” And we have certainly seen plenty of shows operate the same way. Still, there has been talk about getting “McLaughlin Group” regulars Page, Eleanor Clift and Patrick Buchanan together for a new show. A November post on the show’s Facebook page said. “No guarantees, but we are hopeful of returning!” But I have not seen any news beyond that.
