Bobby Short Movies

Bill Gates guest stars on this, the 200th episode of Frasier. It so happens that this landmark event occurs on the same day as the 2000th radio broadcast of Frasier's radio call-in show. Having accumulated all but one of his broadcast tapes, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) must now negotiate with the overly obsessive fan (Adam Arkin) who owns the only surviving copy of the missing show. This episode orginally ran 35 minutes and was shown in tandem with a special comprised of clips from previous Frasier seasons. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Michael J. Fox stars as Doug Ireland in this romantic comedy about a brash concierge at a swanky New York hotel who always makes it a point to go out of his way for the hotel guests. But Doug doesn't want to be a concierge forever. What he would really like to do is build a swanky hotel of his own, and all he needs is $3 million to do it. When haughty and patronizing tycoon Christian Hanover (Anthony Higgins) comes to the hotel for a rendezvous with his mistress Andy Hart (Gabrielle Anwar), Doug sees the opportunity to convince Christian to invest the $3 million in his dream of a hotel. So, Doug willingly agrees to baby-sit Andy when Christian has to leave her to see his wife. But the more time he spends with Andy, the more affectionate he feels toward her, until finally he has fallen in love with her. Now Doug must make a choice concerning what he really wants -- his dream of a hotel or the love of Andy. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Fascinating documentary of artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, combining rare footage with interviews with his friends and colleagues, including Dennis Hopper, David Hockney, Taylor Mead, and Sylvia Miles. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi

Made for television and initially telecast February 9, 1980, Hardhat and Legs is a new-fashioned romance from the old-fashioned writing team of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. The "hardhat" is pugnacious construction worker Kevin Dobson. The "legs" is Sharon Gless, a high-class NY divorcee who responds to Dobson's wolf-whistle in a most unusual way. Once they get to know one another, Kevin and Sharon help to straighten out each other's problems: his battle with bookies, her custody bout with her ex-husband. Though the film's characters are neatly divided into "good" and "bad", the Hardhat and Legs is set in a user-friendly New York, the like of which hasn't been seen much since the films of the 1930s and 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The phenomenal success of the 1977 ABC miniseries Roots all but demanded a sequel to writer Alex Haley's epic story of his African and African-American forebears. Debuting February 18, 1979, Roots: The Next Generations picked up where its predecessor left off, with Haley's slave ancestors winning their freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even so, life for black Americans was wrought with hardship and oppression thanks to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the staunch refusal of the white power structure to pass anti-lynching laws, and the formation of the dreaded Jim Crow laws which legalized racial segregation in the South (and much of the North). Covering the period from 1882 to the mid-1970s, the miniseries first focuses on blacksmith Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown), great-grandson of Kunta Kinte (the protagonist of the original Roots), and his family. Meanwhile, reacting to the marriage of his son to a black woman, anal-retentive Southern colonel Warner (Henry Fonda) begins setting the legal wheels in motion to deny blacks like Tom the right to vote and to hold "white" jobs. A few decades later, Tom's son-in-law encourages his fellow blacks to stand firm against the KKK's reign of terror. His labors on behalf of his race are rewarded when his daughter Bertha (Irene Cara) becomes the first descendant of Kunta Kinte to receive a college education. It is Bertha Palmer who weds the equally ambitious Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood), who goes on to serve in WWI and to organize farmers and sharecroppers during the Depression. Simon's son Alex (played at various ages by Kristoff St. John, Damon Evans, and finally James Earl Jones) is just as determined to succeed in a white man's world as his father, and to that end becomes a professional writer after his own service stint in the Coast Guard during WWII. At the height of his professional success (largely due to his having ghost-written the autobiography of Muslim activist Malcolm X), Alex Haley pays a visit to his boyhood hometown -- where, almost by accident, he receives the first clue to his heritage, a clue that will lead him on an odyssey of self-discovery, arriving full circle at Kunta Kinte's birthplace in Africa. Although the miniseries' "money scene" was Haley's nervous interview with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell (Marlon Brando in a superb cameo turn), the climactic episode, in which Haley tearfully embraces the living African descendants of Kunta Kinte, is one of the most unforgettable moments in the history of network television. Running 12 episodes and 14 hours, Roots: The Next Generations concluded on February 25, 1979, playing to huge ratings all along the way and ultimately garnering several Emmy nominations (and one win). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi