Episode 004: My Recent Vacation and "Highway to Heaven"

In this week's episode, Frank starts off by making two corrections from his review of Vega$ the previous week, including Priscilla's character's famous quote that he continues to flub up before eventually getting right.  He then briefly talks about his vacation to Naples, Florida and how he and his wife would like to move there.  However, financial and quality of life decisions must be considered and then he talks about the migration within the US to places with less taxation and more affordability.  He then talks about his concern that those new places could become like the old in terms of crowding and cost if we are not careful.

Next Frank gets in to his review of of Priscilla's appearance on the Michael Landon classic Highway to Heaven in 1989.  Playing a sexy but frustrated Hollywood starlet, she finds herself and true love when she becomes a counselor at a summer camp for blind kids.  

After detailing the story, Frank goes in to a brief (and what will be his only) mention of a believed-to-be ominous time in Priscilla's past, some more funny quotes and moments from the show, his favorable grades for both it and PB, and then finishes by discussing how TV and Hollywood in general are missing people like Michael Landon and the family-friendly, inspirational fare he was known for.

The theme song is called Retro Funk by SoulProdMusic and can be found at pixabay.com.

Highway to Heaven episodes like this one can be found on Freevee, Crackle, Peacock, Plex, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Tubi, UP Faith and Family, Cozi TV, or wherever finer TV shows are found.

--The best way to contact is:
Twitter: @frankwebertx
Web:  frankwebertx.com
Email:  frankoweber@hotmail.com

Transcript

Frank: 0:00

On this podcast today, I talked to you a little bit about my vacation to Naples, Florida, and. Getting to a little commentary about. Growth of. Communities and growth and other areas of life. And then we get into a big review about Priscilla Barnes appearance on highway to heaven. In 1989. Thank you really gonna enjoy it. So stay tuned. Welcome once again to Frank Weber's party. I'm your host, Frank Weber. I'm so glad that you're here with us today on the party, and I hope that you're hitting that subscribe button and telling your family and friends about us. please do that if you haven't done so already. Got a great show lined up for you today. I'm gonna tell you a little bit of a story I just got back from vacation, and then we'll do another Priscilla review before we, get into the story. I just had a couple of corrections to make from the last episode where we reviewed Priscilla's appearance on the Bob Uric Show Vegas back in 1980. apparently the James Khan show that I refer to is not called Vegas. It's actually called Las Vegas, and that was from the early and mid two thousands. And then Priscilla's, big quote, I misquoted that from that show last time. actually she said, I'm not cheating. I was working I believe that's correct now, and I just wanted to get that off my chest there. Because, if you're gonna check out these videos, you may see some discrepancies, and I'll try to keep those, of course, to a minimum. today I wanted to tell you about, I just got back from vacation in Naples, Florida. This episode may not drop for another two or three weeks, my wife and I went down there and we had a, really lovely time, really liked that area. it's beautiful. it's well laid out, designed clean. The people are really good. Lots of different kinds of people there. and it was just a great time to go down and relax, to be able to. take off my shirt and go to the beach or go to the pool. played a little golf while the wife went to the casino. That's one of her favorite things. got a massage. Enjoyed some great food. and it's a wonderful, wonderful place down there. Florida is top-notch and so are some other places, including the place where I live here in Canyon, Texas and some other places in the country. And my wife would really, well, both of us actually would really like to move down there. But then we have a little bit of a concern about doing that, or at least I do, cuz I think about these things a lot and whether it's a financial consideration or a quality of life consideration. And I, kind of struggled with whether I wanted to tell this to you or not today. I'm try to make it as comedic as I can, but it's Kind of an opinion or editorial a little bit. a lot of you know that I, I'm a big fan of Adam Corolla. I think he's a terrific, comedian and basically the king of podcasting. And if you never listen to his show, you should check it out. he's been doing it for 14 years and was in radio before that, and, He likes to go on rants or semi rants, and I'm gonna try not to make this into a rant, but I do like, another thing that he does is nuance, because there's a lot of situations in life that are not really black and white or cut and dried. they just are what they are. and you have to look at all the facts, maybe think your way through them. He's big on observation and life experience and and then you see things in the news and then you try to make your conclusions with that. And I'm, I try to do the same thing myself. So what we have going on here, and this is enough against certain localities, like I said, I love Naples, I love Texas, I love Tennessee, which I'm going to in another month or so. as a freedom loving citizen, I can't tell you not to move somewhere if it's gonna be better for you and your family. And that would be the same case for me, of course. I just wanted to tell you a little bit, we have this sort of migration. I don't know if it's really that massive, but we definitely have a migration. We have a migration going on within the borders of this country. Not just whatever is coming across the border, but like a lot of people are leaving California to go to places that have lower taxes and are more affordable, like Texas and Florida and Tennessee. And like I said, that's great if that's what you're called to do and that's gonna be best for you and your family. But when. Everybody moves into a certain place, they go down there and it tends to raise prices and make things more expensive, especially housing tends to make things more crowded. And so that's why I have a little bit of a hesitancy about maybe moving down there. It's already a little bit pricier actually. but it's something that I. My wife are definitely looking into and may be able to do in the next five years. in the past I would have these dreams and visions and about where I was gonna go in the future and what life might be like. My brother Tom and I, I know I mentioned Tom a lot on this show, probably should bring him on. We grew up in Austin, Texas, down back in the eighties, and back then it was a very, uh, it was still a medium-sized town. You could get around really good in it. As far as traveling around and commuting and had a lot of the services and goods that you needed. knowing that was in the eighties, and then we started noticing in the nineties, particularly by high school, which I entered in 92, and he would've entered in 94, that people were starting to move in there and I was becoming crowded. And it was becoming a little bit more polluted and maybe to some extent the personality of the town was changing a little bit and then we decided for ourselves that, hey, we're gonna move away from there. Try to avoid the place as much as we can. and we did that. You know, we felt before that, like it was great because Austin was not as big as places like Dallas and Houston and had its own personality and everything, but sometime in the nineties it started changing. And, then it wasn't the place that we thought it would be either. Like I said, we moved away. I lived in various places for college and school and all that, of course. we moved to these other places. You know, I'm out here in west Texas now in the panhandle. My mom never thought that this area would be very popular because of the wind and the dust and the weather and everything. But there's a lot of growth out here as well. And, So I'm just trying to make the point real quick. And I had this other story that I was going to tell, but I may save it, for next week. But we have to have some kind of, smart plan or balance or something for growth. I'm all for growth like in business as well as in certain locations but. it's crazy because if you move down someplace, like if I say a move to Naples and then it becomes even more expensive and more crowded, then later on down the line, I'm second guessing myself, if that makes sense. And I don't have a crystal ball, to look into the future and see how exactly it's going to go. But that was just one of the stories of my life that I. I find really interesting and, Adam would complain about there's just too many people in general, which segues into the other topic that I'm saving for next week, but, Anyway, like I said, can't stop you from moving. Can't stop you from going where it's gonna be best for you and your family. But somebody somewhere, whether it's politicians or people themselves, we have to have a smart, rational sort of growth plan. just to keep a good balance and good things going in life. as we mold that over a move to Naples perhaps in a few years, it's just something to keep in mind. I'm just really interested in quality of life issues and, it's ironic with our system here, which I'm all, obviously pro capitalism and everything that you. One person or two people or a family of four or whatever can move to a place and then it becomes a little more expensive, a little bit more crowded, and that's what you may have been getting away from, especially in places like California where obviously cities like LA and San Francisco are huge. They're crowded, but you go out into the country and it's crowded out there too, even like on the rural highways and such. And so that's my thought on that and I'm gonna save the rest of it for next week. I think it'll be another really interesting story. today we're gonna get into Priscilla's appearance on. Highway to heaven. another great eighties show that starred Michael Landon. And we'll do that after we take this quick break. Okay. I'm back. And before we get into the review, I misquoted Priscilla again and again on the Old Vegas quote. What she said is, I wasn't cheating. I was working as a bunch of tears streamed down her face. So that's what she said in the Vegas episode. So I messed it up again, but that should be correct. Now today's episode is Highway to Heaven, season five, episode 10 called Summer Camp. And I always thought this was a very nice episode. There's something very. Touching and albeit amusing about it. it was a very, I guess you could say a very typical Michael Landon show that aired from 1984, to 1989. there wound up being only about two or three episodes left after this one, which specifically aired July 14th, 1989, which incidentally was the same day that licensed to kill. The James Bond movie that Priscilla had a little role in, was released in the United States. So basically what it is, is Michael Landon plays Jonathan Smith, who's a probationary angel, and he's on a mission from who he calls the boss, which we presume is God. And he's given all these resources and everything, to go to earth and. Go into these people's lives who are having a lot of trouble, a lot of difficulty, try to make their lives better. And he's teamed up with this human named Mark Gordon, who's played by Victor French. and he's the guy who's always wearing the as cap, in this show. And I always thought that was interesting, the Oakland AEs getting a promotion every time this show was on. They were the two main stars. Michael Landon and Viktor French, known a lot for their westerns, particularly Viktor French. but then of course Michael Landon, was also known for Bonanza. And then of course, little House on the Prairie. Right after Little House on the Prairie ended, he started this show Highway to Heaven and This turned out to be the third and final series for Michael Landon. he was the one who primarily directed and created this show, produced it. Sometimes Viktor French would, direct some and of course they work together a lot, particularly on Little House on the Prairie. But then Victor French also. Had a couple of appearances on Bonanza. So they were really good friends and sadly, Viktor French died about a month before this episode aired. I think he had lung cancer, was age 54. And then Michael Landon, this being his last series, would die about two years later from pancreatic cancer, I believe it was. He was also 54 at the time of his death. And, This episode, just to let you know here, was delayed into the summer of 1989, which is unusual for, for any kind of, new shows being aired. But it was canceled earlier in 89. There had been a writer's strike in 1988. it looked like there was some debate as to whether this episode and some others were actually going to be on the air. And as far as, other people in the show, Obviously Landon and French were the two main stars, but we also have a guy in this show named Tom Sullivan, who plays a character named Frank Riley. Frank Riley is apparently a recurring character on this show, and this is presumably the last time he played the character. Tom Sullivan in real life was blind since infancy, but created quite a career for himself as a writer and. An author, a singer, that sort of thing. he was really big friends with Betty White and Allen Ludden and starred on an episode of MASH and W K R P apparently even sang the National Anthem at, super Bowl 10 and the Indy 500, just a few months later that year in 1976. So he had quite a resume. I don't know what he's doing now, but he is still alive. And like I said, I'm not sure where he's at. He's 76 now. Seems like a pretty good guy. Inspirational speaker. And so the plot of this movie or this show, I found it really intriguing here. So essentially it opens up, Priscilla plays a Hollywood starlet named Tawny Turner. She's, being driven to a cocktail party by her agent named Phil. Apparently, they've just lost out on a movie deal, but there's no hard feelings between Tawny and Phil, which is an interesting deal, I guess. Maybe it's a bit of a plot hole. But anyway, he, Phil is driving her car, her yellow Mercedes to this cocktail party. then she gets out. You get this sexy saxophone music, you know, this little starlet getting outta the car. She's wearing this tight black sleeveless dress, very sexy, long legs showing. cleavage, really kind of a classical eighties moment, I guess you could say. But she goes in there and like I said, I'll try not to give you too many plot points to not try to spoil it so that you will watch it here. But she goes in there with Phil and Alex, this guy named Alex Caulfield, who apparently has a. a Playboy like magazine wants her to pose nude and feels like he can resurrect her career somehow, and he insults her because she doesn't get the part, and then she slaps him and then she walks out the door and, takes off in her Mercedes without her agent, Phil. And, leaves him by himself, But that night she's asleep on her couch. Phil tries to call her, leaves a message on the answering machine, but she's smoking while on her couch and she falls asleep. Obviously a fire starts and then she goes to the hospital. And, Jonathan Smith, our probationary angel shows up there, calls her by her real name, which is Mary Anders. And, gives her a plate of spaghetti or whatever, and basically tells her, that she, can go to a place where she can heal. I actually got a little ahead of myself, but before anything happens, before Jonathan shows up, she checks her legs and they're burned on the upper thighs and she starts crying. Now, honestly, of course I would be crying too if it was Priscilla Barnes and her legs, but anyway, Jonathan shows up. He's, I guess you could say in Orderly, brings her some dinner of spaghetti and. And calls her by her real name, which is Mary Anders. And she says, how do you know my real name? and the odd thing is, that guy Caulfield shows up and tries to talk her into the centerfold again, because again, it can resurrect her career. And she, of course, is very upset, throws out, throws away his flowers, and he says, you need me. My dear, and you know, it and Jonathan invites her to the summer camp where it doesn't matter what she looks like and can obviously bring healing to her life. And so he takes her out there, this is up camp for blind kids, uh, to help rediscover herself. She drives herself and Jonathan out there in her Mercedes and she meets Frank Riley, who's of course a counselor. And then of course Mary becomes a counselor as well. she begins counseling at the camp and she and Frank began to. To know each other. Frank pulls her into the swimming pool and she's having a great time, but they both love being a counselor. They love being there. They love the quiet times as well. Then she goes horseback riding with him at the beach. then they really begin to fall in love. They obviously participate in other activities. Mary and John have a conversation on the beach. and obviously she knows that she's definitely falling in love with Frank because he really hasn't hit on her in the way people would hit on Tawny Turner as opposed to Mary Anders. So Mary helps Frank with the chores so they can go riding on the beach that afternoon. seemed like Frank was a little hesitant to fall in love as well with her for some reason. but they wind up going to the beach and doing a little bit of horseback riding and. And then she kisses Frank on the lips. It becomes kind of passionate. Then he calls her Tawny, and then her Tawny personality comes out. accuses Frank of being a user. And then Frank tells her to go away, and then she winds up going back to the camp counselor station and calling Phil to do that photo shoot. Then she tells Jonathan that Frank knew who I was all along. And he knew. He knew. And then of course, she drives off. And Jonathan goes out to Frank and tells her that Mary left the camp. And Frank tells Jonathan about how he wrote the book on pain and how Mary scars are more on the inside and that she had essentially found herself with Frank and they need to go and stop her, so that she doesn't become Tawny Turner again. And then Jonathan and Frank decide to show up to that photo shoot. there's like a security guy there, says, this is a private shoot. You have to leave. And Jonathan says, we'll leave when we're ready. And there's no other security or cops or anything that show up and it's a very sweet last scene. But Frank then talks to her, even though he can't see her, but he can hear her and feel her smile, especially, when she was a counselor working with the blind kids, she made him believe that love was possible. then he talks about his dreams. And actually at that point, Tawny or Mary says, dreams are for losers, which of course is not true. And then Frank Coldcocks Caulfield, then he says he wants to marry Mary because he sees her, better than anyone else. and that he loves her inside so much where it counts. then of course he calls her that she's the most beautiful woman in the world and wants to spend the life just loving her. and then she comes back as Mary and they have a passionate kiss. And then there's another quotable quote there that I'm gonna tell you about here in a little bit. So swell, that ends well on that story. I was having a little difficult time summarizing So before moving on to the conclusion here on this show, and actually some things that I wanted to go over real quick. There was a second plot in this episode that was between a blind boy named Jerry and a non blind boy named Eric, who was at, I believe, a neighboring camp. they're all about the same age, I would say 8, 9, 10 years old. Eric at first didn't really wanna make friends with Jerry. they both liked to do track and field, and eventually they became friends and they enjoyed their time with each other. They enjoyed working out and competing with each other. And essentially then came a point where, Eric, wanted to invite Jerry to his house when camp ended, and, Eric's dad wouldn't let him and said some bigoted things like, oh, well, Jerry should stay with his own kind and whatnot. And it was at that point that Jonathan Smith came over and talked to him about this and the father of course says, were you making me out to be a bigot? And. Jonathan says, no, you're doing a pretty good job of that yourself. and then Eric, of course, has listened to his dad again, and he and Jerry have gone through a lull in their friendship. And so they're not really speaking to each other. and then of course, Mark Gordon, who's Victor French's character comes over and says, you can either quit Or you can go ahead and bust your buns to show'em what you have. And of course, Jerry at that point says, I'm gonna bust buns. It was a really funny story. And then they have a race and, Jerry, loses to Eric, but apparently he gains Eric's respect and somehow or another, he also gets Eric's father's respect. And so they become good friends. And at the very end of the show, we see Jerry's, scrapbook and, the pictures and stuff that he's had from summer camp. So I just wanna go over a few more things here before we get into the synopsis, and one thing that I need to mention I thought it was interesting that Priscilla's character was going to pose nude, and I needed to address this before somebody asked me about this, but Priscilla has been in a number of movies where she had some nudity. But back in 1976, she also was, in March of 1976, she was a Penthouse pet for that month, and it was a situation where she was new to Hollywood and needed the money. I think that's the reason why she did it. I think she had gotten paid about$2,000 for it. But then a few years later, she gets onto three's, company becomes famous, and then Penthouse wanted to republish the pictures, and then it turned into a huge ordeal and a lawsuit that Priscilla eventually won. And I don't think she was real proud of the moment and the decision that she had to go and. Posed for penthouse and she doesn't really talk about it. I think it's kind of a sore spot with her. So I had to address that with you real quick. But it was ironic that that was part of the plot here. by the way, which was written by Tom Sullivan, who played Frank Riley on the show. and so I just needed to address that with you because someone's gonna bring it up and, I'll address it here as I did, but then I'm not gonna mention it again, just out of respect for her, because it seemed to be a huge ordeal for her there were some very interesting quotes in this show. I mentioned a couple of them already. Like Jerry's saying, let's bust buns. interesting to hear a little kid say that, but that was a lot of fun. There was a couple of others, in the hospital. Jonathan tells her. Or actually she says, first Tony Turner doesn't exist anymore. You know, she's very upset about being burned and A little upset with Jonathan coming in, but especially with Caulfield coming into the the hospital there, and she says, Tony Turner doesn't exist anymore. And then of course he says, but Mary Enders does because he's an angel and sent from God and knows all those things. So that was a big interesting quote. there was another one, the other, the non blind kid, Eric. actually before the bus bun scene, he, Eric and Jerry and Mark are conversing over the track and, Eric actually says, Hey, I gotta use the can, but I'll be back and we'll work out together and, work on our track skills and everything. I thought that was really funny. Usually didn't hear kids saying that back then, either. So I thought that was very amusing there. And, after Frank wins Mary back at the photo shoot, she looks at, Caulfield laying on the ground and says, cancel the shoot. Caulfield. My fiance doesn't approve. So I thought there was a lot of little quotable quotes in this film and just wanted to share those real quick with you. couple of other things, there. So basically, Caulfield the owner and publisher of this Playboy esque magazine. was assaulted twice in the show, and so first time was by Tawny at the cocktail party, and the second time was by Frank at the photo shoot. And I just always remembered back in those days, I guess you still see it nowadays, there was a lot more people punching each other and you'd hear a smack And they seemed to be largely okay, even if they were knocked cold like Caulfield on that second time. But, they did that a lot in shows, TV and movies back then, and it was always amusing. nobody ever got in trouble for it. you would definitely get in trouble for that today and probably a lot of other things that were not necessarily considered assault, back then, just a gentle touch on the arm or something, supposedly some people consider that assault now, but I hope to heaven that we're not, actually heading that direction. And then finally you had the, the beach scenes just reminded me of either the beach in Planet of the Apes or the parody in Space Balls where the head of the Statue of Liberty lands on the beach and the bad guys come out of her nose and, the apes ride up on their horses and one of'em says, what's that coming out of her nose? And, The guy, he goes space balls. And he goes oh shit, there goes the planet. So that was a real, that was reminiscent of that. I thought overall the episode was quite good. maybe it was a little corny at times, the quotes. maybe they were a little much, and, the way it wrapped up at the photo shoot, to be able to convince a woman that quickly to change her mind was something quite remarkable. I really liked all the characters, everybody was likable in this show. Frank, did an excellent job, played by Tom Sullivan, and of course the fact that he was named Frank was superb. overall, I give Priscilla an a and I give the show an a And, if I didn't mention this before in the podcast today, I should say, I really think that television and Hollywood are really missing something because. After Michael Landon died, things were not the same. Things were not as quite as family oriented. They weren't quite as inspirational. That doesn't mean that there wasn't shows that came along that tried to be, inspirational and family oriented, but he had kind of a special brand. And, this show is a perfect example of that. It really kind of makes you think about things, Mary Anders had an alter ego that allowed her to make a living, and after a time it wasn't working out anymore. She was miserable. She needed to get out of herself and serve other people, which is what Frank Riley was already doing at the camp. And, She found herself and she fell in love at the same time. And, that's just, a remarkable story. And, maybe it's a Hollywood ending, but it's definitely typical of something that, landed and company would do. you can add your feedback to it if you like. we welcome comments. Hopefully you'll. Check out the show and we'll tell you in the description where you might be able to find it. anyway, I think that's about it for today. this is actually one of my favorite kind of dramatic inspirational episodes that Priscilla has. we'll go ahead and wrap it up here and. continue to ask you to tell your family and friends about the podcast and, hit subscribe. we just got launched online like yesterday and as getting to be on most directories and we're really thankful for that. so we look forward to producing this content for you and. having a great time doing it. I was having a little trouble reading my notes and trying to remember everything that I wanted to say here, but, look forward to having you back again next week. And, until then, so long, take care and we'll see you then. The theme song is called retro funk. Bye soul prod music and can be found@pixabay.com.