Debi Richter Movies

While postman Cliff (John Ratzenberger) is ill at home, Norm (George Wendt) helps out his pal by taking over Cliff's route. As a result, Norm is arrested for impersonating a postal employee. Cliff, of course, could clear up the problem in a minute -- but when a cop shows up at Cheers to get the facts, Cliff pretends that he's never heard of Norm. Meanwhile, dainty Diane (Shelley Long) is coerced into fixing a ventilation duct. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This low-brow, low-budget comedy walks a thin line between parody and earnestness which emphasizes its effective tweaking of the teen side of the fence. Up for target practice are punks, sexual adventures, flashy women, and the teen infatuation with cars: car racing, car maintenance, car ownership, whatever. None of the antics are exactly believable but the cast of young actors has enough enthusiasm and the script enough self-parody to carry most undemanding audiences through to the very end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Another of the many Arthur Hailey literary properties which were transformed into TV miniseries in the 1970s, the five-part, ten-hour Wheels took place in Detroit sometime in the late 1960s. Rock Hudson starred as Adam Trenton, executive in charge of project development at the fictional auto-manufacturing firm of National Motors. Ambitious and ruthless, Adam let nothing stand in the way of his development and production of a new, youth-marketed car known as the Hawk. Meanwhile, Adam's bored and neglected wife Erica (Lee Remick, who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance) drifted into an extramarital affair and a brief "career" as a shoplifter. Eventually, Adam himself acquired a mistress, who in turn fell in love with Adam's son Kirk (James Carrol Jordan). As if things couldn't get any seamier, Kirk's brother Greg (Howard McGillin) was plagued by a blackmailer, while crooked car dealer Smokey Stevenson (played by miniseries stalwart Anthony Franciosa) cooked up a sinister deal that threatened to destroy National Motors. Originally telecast from May 7 to 15, 1978 on NBC, Arthur Hailey's Wheels posted such disappointing ratings that, when it was later rebroadcast, the property was whittled down from ten hours to four -- with episodes three and four summarily dropped from the proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ostensibly a six-hour miniseries adaptation of Bert Hirschfield's novel Aspen, the program actually used only the title of the Hirschfield work; the plot proper was lifted from another novel by a different author, Bart Spicer's The Adversary. Set in the titular Colorado ski resort in the 1960s, the story line incorporated equal amounts of sex, greed, ambition, and murder, with the trial of accused rapist-killer Lee Bishop (Perry King) at the center of the storm, and the efforts by a gangster to grab up the local land, coupled with the amorous misadventures of a jet-setting glamour girl, taking up the slack whenever the plot threatened to lag. Despite a huge and varied cast, Sam Elliott emerged as the star of the proceedings in the role of straight-arrow attorney Tom Keating. Originally shown by the NBC network from November 5 to 7, 1977, Aspen was rebroadcast under the more lurid title The Innocent and the Damned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide