Jesse Singer articles

Barney Miller made a shabby police station and a terrible pot of coffee into some of the funniest television of the 70s. But the people making it saw a side of Danny Arnold viewers never did. And some of their stories make you wonder how they kept coming back.

Christina Applegate had spent years telling people what it was like to live with multiple sclerosis. Then a doctor told her she didn’t have it. People around her were happy. Applegate wasn’t.

They were on your television every week, getting laughs and sometimes stealing scenes from the people whose names appeared first in the credits. Do you remember their characters? How about their actual names? Can you get to 5?

Carol Wayne could get a laugh out of Johnny Carson before she’d even finished a sentence. Millions knew her face, her voice, and exactly what kind of trouble she brought to his sketches. Then came a trip to Mexico—and a final few days that people are still trying to piece together.

Some romantic comedies make you laugh and make you want to fall in love. Others seem to get the "com" part right but forget about the "rom". These 70s rom-coms had plenty of jokes, arguments, and awkward situations. But romance? Well, we aren't buying it. Are you?

For years, John Stamos was the guy who could make everything better with a little advice and a hug before the credits rolled. But long after Full House ended, when his own life reached a breaking point—it was a member of his TV family that saved his life and made things better.

There was a time when these women were everywhere. They headlined movies, appeared on magazine covers and received enough fan mail to fill entire rooms. Hollywood even promoted some of them as the next Marilyn Monroe (talk about big shoes to fill). Today, most people born after 2000 probably haven’t heard of any of them. So...how many do you remember?

Joan Crawford spent decades making sure Hollywood remembered her. But when she passed away in 1977, she left behind something her children would have a much harder time forgetting. It wasn’t a movie, an interview, or some unfortunate remark overheard at a party. This time, she had put it in writing.

For five seasons, millions of Americans watched Anissa Jones smile beneath blond pigtails and carry Mrs. Beasley everywhere she went. Buffy was sweet, innocent and impossible not to love. But away from the cameras, Anissa’s real childhood was becoming something very different.