Brian Forster Movies

That popular singing aggregation the Partridge Family -- mom Shirley (Shirley Jones), sons Keith (David Cassidy), Danny (Danny Bonaduce), and Chris (Brian Foster), and daughters Laurie (Susan Dey) and Tracy (Suzanne Crough) -- is back for more music and mirth in season three of The Partridge Family. Also on hand is the family's avaricious agent, Reuben Kinkaid (Dave Madden), who stills insists that he hates children, but isn't fooling anyone. This season opens with a typical "1970s" episode, in which gender roles are reversed, with the Partridge boys learning housekeeping and knitting skills and the girls taking up industrial arts and self-defense. Other classic episodes find Keith Partridge being set up for a fall when he is tapped to star in a movie, Danny Partridge winning a broken-down race horse in a raffle, and Laurie Partridge clearing herself of theft charges levied by her math teacher. Guest stars in season three include Edgar Buchanan as a crooked small-town judge who arrests Shirley after she runs through a speed trap; future Rockford Files regular Stuart Margolin as a lovelorn motorcycle hippie named Snake (a role played in the previous season by Rob Reiner); Bert Convy as a congressional candidate and potential suitor for the widowed Shirley; Arte Johnson as an impish escaped convict who holds the family hostage -- with a harmonica; Anthony Geary, several years removed from his tenure as Luke on General Hospital, as a minister for whom Laurie harbors a crush; Jodie Foster as an obsessed fan who won't leave Danny alone; and John Astin as a Hughes-like reclusive millionaire who adopts several disguises to attend a Partridge Family concert. Possibly the season's most talked-about episode is the one filmed on location at the King's Island amusement park in Cincinnati -- in which former Cincinnati Reds player Johnny Bench pops up unexpectedly in the role of a waiter! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loosely inspired by the career of the real-life family singing group the Cowsills, the ABC sitcom The Partridge Family starred Shirley Jones as Shirley Partridge, widowed mother of five musically inclined children. Almost by accident, Shirley began singing with her kids during an impromptu garage jam session, and thus was born the Partridge Family, a popular singing aggregation who traveled from one engagement to another in the family's battered, psychedelically decorated bus -- all the while trying to lead a "normal" life. The group's agent was Reuben Kinkaid (Dave Madden), who professed to hate kids but who admitted to loving money. As for the kids themselves, they included oldest son Keith Partridge, played by Shirley Jones' stepson David Cassidy, who attained teen-idol status by virtue of this series; oldest daughter Laurie, played by Susan Dey, who grew up to star on such drama series as L.A. Law and Love & War; middle son Danny Partridge, the group's self-appointed business manager, played by future radio talk host Danny Bonaduce; youngest son Chris, played by Jeremy Gelbwaks during season one and thereafter by Brian Foster; and youngest daughter Tracy, portrayed by Suzanne Crough. During the series' fourth and final season, Ricky Segall was seen as Ricky Stevens, a four-year-old neighbor kid who occasionally performed with the Partridges. Also added to the cast that season was Alan Bursky as Reuben Kinkaid's nephew Alan Kinkaid, a shy, neurotic youngster who at the Partridges' urging emerged from his shell to pursue a career as a comedian. The series' theme song went under the title "When We're Singin'" during season one; the following year, the lyrics were rewritten and the song was retitled "Come On, Get Happy." Originally networkcast from September 25, 1970, to August 31, 1974, The Partridge Family also yielded a Saturday-morning cartoon spin-off, 1974's Partridge Family, 2200 AD, and that same year, several of the series' kid actors supplied the voices of their Partridge characters for another animated series, Goober and the Ghost Chasers. Additionally, in 1999, the world was honored with a TV-movie "biography" of the series, Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The longest and (in retrospect) most significant of the sixth-season Doctor Who adventures, "The War Games" began its ten-week run on April 9, 1969. The TARDIS materializes on a planet that bears a remarkable resemblance to Earth. But there are a few differences: For one thing, the landscape seems to be festooned with battlefields; for another, the combatants are garbed in costumes from a vast and dizzying array of countries and centuries. But the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) hasn't the time to find this out in episode one: He's too busy trying to rescue himself and his companions Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury from their mysterious assailants. "The War Games" was written by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide