David Garrison Movies

The trunk of an abandoned car yields the dead body of a schoolteacher. Detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) suspect that the killing was the result of a gone-bad romance between the teacher and one of her students. But the D.A.'s office ultimately issues warrants for the dead woman's husband (Richard Joseph Paul) and father-in-law (Jon Cypher) -- psychiatrists both. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a drunken driver kills three people in the same accident, Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) deliver the perpetrator to the D.A.'s office. Still grieving over the death of his former partner, Claire Kincaid, in a similar DUI accident, McCoy (Sam Waterston) intends to charge the driver with first-degree murder, a determination which results in conflict between McCoy and his current partner Ross (Carey Lowell). The ensuing trial degenerates into a media circus, helped not at all by the ruthless behavior of a politically ambitious judge. Cliff Gorman makes his first Law & Order appearance as Judge Gary Feldman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "FYI" studio is moved to a ground-floor office, the better to accommodate a new weekly feature called "Window on America." As it turns out, the show's first guest is a rat that has invaded the studio. Plucky Murphy (Candice Bergen) catches the rat in full view of a crowd of pedestrians--thereby incurring the wrath of several animal-activist groups!. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another Tom Clancy political thriller is put to film with this made-for-television movie. Harry Hamlin stars as Paul Hood, the new director of an obsolete government crisis management center. Hood is assigned to downsize the center, but during first day on the job some nuclear warheads are hijacked by terrorists. Hood has to rise to the occasion and prove himself as a leader in unfamiliar territory. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Murder and treachery invade the rarefied world of high fashion in Paris. It is Jessica (Angela Lansbury) who exposes the misery behind all the glamour when she learns of the grimy sweatshops that turn out the much of the expensive clothing worn by Parisian society. Complicating matters is a complex Jewel smuggling ring--and the inevitable corpse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this elaborate musical fantasy, Peg (Katey Sagal) dreams that she is Princess Scarlet, the captive of fierce pirate Captain Courage, who bears a striking resemblance to Peg's husband Al (Ed O'Neill). As things develop, Captain Courage emerges the hero of the piece by rescuing Scarlet from rival pirate Rubio the Cruel (played by the Bundys' ex-neighbor Steve Rhoades [David Garrison]), so named for his murderous renditions of popular show tunes. Also appearing in Peg's dream are her children Bud (David Faustino) as hunchbacked first mate Fluvio and Kelly (Christina Applegate) as a very confused navigator, not to mention Peg's neighbors Jefferson D'Arcy (Ted McGinley) as Prince Paco and Marcy Darcy (Amanda Bearse) as a cabin...uh...boy. This episode marks the final appearance of child actor Shane Sweet as Seven (and none too soon, according to the series' fans!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former series regular David Garrison) makes a return guest appearance as Steve Rhodes, the disgraced ex-husband of Marcy D'Arcy (Amanda Bearse). On the lam from the cops for stealing a rare hawk egg, Steve pauses in his flight long enough to try to win Marcy away from her current spouse Jefferson (Ted McGinley). Meanwhile, Al and Peg Bundy (Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal) weigh the option of turning in their old friend Steve for the reward money. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Single parent Victoria Principal is justifiably driven into a blind rage when her 11-year-old daughter (Danielle Harris) is molested. Thanks to legal loopholes, the girl's attacker is set free. Victoria swears vengeance, and intends to get it by any means possible, despite the level-headed remonstrations of cop Paul Sorvino. Also known as Nightmare, the made-for-TV Don't Touch My Daughter debuted April 7, 1991. Its director was John Pasquin, who later helmed the innocuous, family-oriented theatrical feature The Santa Clause. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single hour-long entry on the same evening as the debut of The Simpsons), Al (Ed O'Neill) wants to have "The Best Christmas Ever" for the Bundy family. Unfortunately, a few of the shoe-store customers insist upon hanging around after closing time--and as a result, Al arrives too late to withdraw the funds necessary to purchase presents. Meanwhile, Marcy (Amanda Bearse) gets drunk at an office party and leaves a strange "souvenir" at the copying machine. This episode is highlighted by a full-throated performance of "The Bundys' Five Days of Christmas" (no partridges or pear trees in THIS one!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Fox network's very first sitcom launches its very first season, as Married...With Children invades the sanctity of the American home. We waste no time introducing the Bundys of Chicago, headed by cloddish, chauvinistic shoe salesman Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and his lazy, oversexed wife Peg (Katey Sagal). And of course, there are the Bundy brats: Daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate), who has managed to garner the worst reputation in her school at the tender age of 15, and eleven-year-old son Bud (David Faustino), a J.D.-in-training. The Bundys spend most of the series' first season outraging and disgusting their wide-eyed newlywed neighbors, young accountants Steve and Marcy Rhoades (David Garrison, Amanda Bearse). Whatever illusions Steve and Marcy may have had about the sweetness of matrimony and family life are destroyed by the boorish Bundys and their repulsive children on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Highlights (or is it lowlights?) of the series' inaugural season include Peg's efforts to go on a diet, Al's accidental "execution" of the neighbors' dog, Al and Steve bonding over the matter of a '65 Mustang (and simultaneously alienating their wives all the more), the family's depletion of their already tenuous credit rating, a "second honeymoon" at a no-tell motel, Peg going to work in order to buy a VCR, and innocent Marcy's outrageous sexual fantasies. . .about Al. Closing the season as Fox's highest-rated program, Married...With Children also established the fledgling network's mandate: Shock 'em, gross 'em out, make 'em laugh, and count the change as the advertising revenue rolls in. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

According to legend, the working title for Married...With Children was "NOT the Cosby Show," and that said it all. This raunchy, ribald eleven-year saga of a boorish, dysfunctional family living in the outskirts of Chicago was about as far removed from The Cosby Show as Mercury is from Pluto -- which was just fine so far as its creators, Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye, were concerned. Harboring a lifelong hatred for the "typical, wholesome" American TV family, Leavitt and Moyes chose instead to develop a series which revelled -- nay, wallowed -- in questionable taste, endless insults, and juicy sexual badinage. The newly formed Fox network, anxious to offer programming that would immediately separate itself from the "norm" as dictated by the ABC, CBS, and NBC, was receptive to the concept, and on April 5, 1987, Married...With Children debuted as Fox's first-ever sitcom -- not to mention its first-ever prime-time series. The Bundy family might well have been described as "trailer trash," only they didn't live in a trailer but instead in a large, untidy suburban Chicago house. Patriarch Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) worked for minimum wages as a clerk at Gary's Shoe Store. Being an unregenerate male chauvinist pig, unkempt, and reeking of body odor, Al would sooner hang out at the local nudie bar with his fellow members of "NO MA'AM" (the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood) than come home to the wretched meals prepared by his lazy, viper-tongued wife, Peggy (Katey Sagal). Hating housework almost as much as cooking and forever dressed in tight, garish outfits that displayed her ripe figure to anyone who was interested (Al certainly wasn't), Peg was also distinguished by her layers of facial makeup and her towering teased hair. The Bundy's dimwitted, slatternly daughter, Kelly (Christina Applegate), was so proud of her reputation as the high school's "easiest" girl that she sometimes gave annotated lectures on the subject; in later episodes, Kelly worked at such intellectual pursuits as waitressing and as commercial spokesperson for an off-brand beer. Kelly's kid brother Bud (David Faustino), eleven years old when the series began, was a combination juvenile delinquent and con artist, who, once he reached maturity (?), held down jobs as a clerk at the Motor Vehicle Bureau and as a one-person talent agency (with Kelly as his sole client). The Bundy family was a great source of irritation and embarrassment for their strait-laced newlywed neighbors, Steve and Marcy Rhoades (David Garrison and Amanda Bearse), who were respectably employed as accountants. The bad influence of the Bundys eventually seeped over into the Rhoades household, with Steve losing his job, divorcing his wife, and ending up working as a forest ranger, and Marcy taking as her second husband the terminally lazy Jefferson D'Arcy (Ted McGinley), whom she met during a drunken binge at a banker's convention. During the series' seventh season, Shane Sweet became a regular as Seven Bundy, son of one of Peg's many cousins; but the character never caught on and was summarily dropped without explanation. Two other series regulars never appeared on camera. Kevin Curran provided the voice of the Bundys' unhousebroken, oversexed dog, Buck, and later voiced a cute cocker spaniel puppy named Lucky -- who turned out to possess the reincarnated soul of the late and very reluctant Buck. And during the series' tenth season, Kathleen Freeman was heard but not seen as Peg's harridan hillbilly mother, Mrs. Wanker, who moved into Bud's room after walking out on her husband (played in some episodes by Tim Conway).

Bearing absolutely no resemblance to real life and doggedly avoiding sentiment and "very special episodes," Married...With Children was not exactly everyone's cup of treacle; in fact, one Michigan housewife became so incensed by the series' outrages (which were grotesquely exaggerated for full satiric effect) that she organized a letter-writing campaign to force Fox to cancel the series. Though the woman did not succeed, one third-season episode of Married...With Children, in which the Bundys were unwittingly videotaped while having sex at a cheap motel, was never aired by Fox and in fact was not seen in the United States until 2002, some 14 years after it was produced! Though the series had more than its share of detractors, it also enjoyed a huge fan following with most viewers fully aware that Married was actually a spoof of late-'80s/early-'90s TV raunchiness and accepted it as such. The series' "nothing sacred" attitude enabled the writers to sidestep a particularly delicate situation during season six. To accommodate the real-life pregnancy of Katey Sagal, it was decided that Peg Bundy would also have a baby. Unfortunately, Sagal miscarried, leaving audiences to wonder how this personal tragedy would affect the series. As it turned out, the writers managed to transform pathos into hilarity by stating baldly that Peg's pregnancy was merely a bad dream, à la Dallas! (Later in the series, Sagal again became pregnant, fortunately carrying the baby to term; this time around, however, the writers felt it would be best not to say anything whatsoever about babies on the series). Ending its original network run in 1997, Married...With Children has continued to be successfully rebroadcast in syndication and as part of the FX cable network lineup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Physically, the gangling, long-necked Jeff Goldblum is all wrong for the role of fabled TV comedian Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962) but you tend to forget this as Goldblum expertly reenacts some of Kovacs' most famous comic bits. No Kovacs bio would be complete without such scenes as the mustachioed, cigar-chomping Ernie delivering a radio broadcast while lying on a railroad track with a train rapidly approaching, or Kovacs "celebrating" the cancellation of his TV series by smashing up the set in full view of the home audience. As the title indicates, much of the film takes place between the laughs, as Kovacs desperately struggles to reclaim his children, who have been kidnapped by his emotionally disturbed ex-wife (Madolyn Smith) in the midst of an acrimonious custody battle. Melody Anderson plays Kovacs' second wife, singer Edie Adams, while the real Edie appears in a cameo as Mae West. Cloris Leachman tears a passion to tatters in the role of Ernie's outrageous Hungarian mother. Our favorite bit: Jeff Goldblum and Melody Anderson recreating Ernie's lisping, perpetually soused poet Percy Dovetonsils. Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter was first telecast May 14, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide